Chapter 36

The battle raged on as many battles do – humans and monsters falling to the once-green ground, dying. Every now and then Chris would turn and glance back at her husband’s headless body as it lay almost forgotten by everyone around it. If she made it out of this, she would have to give Karl a proper burial. That much he would want.

But no matter how their battle raged on, Vince never left his location from the tree where he shot arrow after arrow into the Dreamkillers’ anatomies. His aim was mostly accurate and they died immediately after being struck.

And still, it seemed, if one Dreamkiller dies, ten humans fall right after.

Vince ceased firing for a moment and felt an odd something creep its way down his spine. He glanced up and toward the horizon where he saw the strange darkness inching its way toward them. It wasn’t clouds that were making it dark; it was just an odd darkness. It was like an eclipse, but he hasn’t seen one since he was a kid. Deep down he knew that Mykella was in the heart of this darkness.

Orion knew that his faithful Dreamkillers were being confronted by the rebels and he half-enjoyed it. It was such a long time ago that he had the ecstasy of a good battle. Ever since the Grendel army had perished.

He could hear the war cries from both sides and he could sense the flesh being ripped from bodies as they fought. There would be no clanging of steel; he had trained his army to use only their bodies as weapons. Swords weighed you down, he had explained to them such a long time ago. Don’t give your opponent that chance. Strike hard. Strike first.

A soft voice began speaking to him from inside his wicked head. “Don’t you see what’s going to happen?”

He shook his head in pity. “You again?” he asked the voice of Beth. “Can’t you just die and go away forever?”

“Nothing is forever, Father. Time and Space – Nothing. Why should my death and afterlife be any different?”

“Get out of my damned head, Bitch!”

“I can’t. The Gates are locked. I seem to be trapped inside you.”

“You can’t get through the Gates because you are not worthy,” he chuckled. “Even I knew that.”

“No,” she corrected. “Not just to me. There’s a whole line of people – those your Dreamkillers have just killed – waiting to get in. They’re just standing there like lost and abandoned sheep.”

Orion sighed and closed his eyes. It seems that whenever he is having a good time, someone always screws it up. “You asked me if I could see what would happen. What did you mean?”

Although he could not see her, he could feel her satisfaction and she would have sat down if she could. Or maybe she did, somewhere inside his head. “What would happen if all the Dreamkillers die? If they eventually destroyed one another?”

“Then I would make a new army.”

“How?”

This was a different question – especially when it was addressed to Orion himself. “What do you mean how?”

“Precisely. How would you create more Dreamkillers when there are no more humans left on the face of the earth to make them from? You need humans to make Dreamkillers. Without humans, there are no Dreamkillers.”

“I have plenty of human specimens if you already don’t know…”

“No,” she said, cutting him off, “you don’t.”

Orion slammed his fist down on his desk. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? You know damned well I have thousands of humans hooked up to the Net and another thousand or so in my dungeon.”

Beth laughed in his head. “Okay, Big Guy, let’s sum this up, shall we? Your Host, Connor Barker is finally dead – I met him in line at the Gate. He told me that Mykella saved him. And the other Sleepers of the Net are beginning to stir in their sleep. It’s only a matter of an hour or so before they’re all awake.”

“This…this can’t be,” said Orion and he looked at the door. “Sanchez!” he called and heard Beth laugh again.

“I already killed him, Father.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry; he was a waste of space. He wanted me as his trophy bride. Naturally I tossed him out the window.”

“Fine,” he screamed. “I’ll have to check on it myself then.” He stormed toward the door. “And don’t let me catch you following me – stay out of my fucking head!” He opened the door and stamped his feet out of his chamber down the corridor and opened another door at the end.

He took the steps two or three at a time as he glided down the stone spiral steps. He knew the rebel brigade would not come up this way – this was a stairwell he had built for secrecy so long ago that he seldom used it at all. In fact, he created it out of memory of the secret stairwell that led to Barbus Whitaker’s room down to the dungeon. He had never heard that his father had ever built such a passageway, but when he caught Barbus down in the cellar, when he should have been up in his chamber, he began questioning his father about all the passages in the castle.

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He reached the dungeon level in almost no time, only stopping a moment to listen to the humans weeping in their cells. He smiled – there was no need to check on them, he knew they were all here. He found a chain-lined door lying in the floor and he hoisted it open where he found another flight of steps, these much more steep than the spiral ones he had just come from.

As he made his way down the stairs (these he rarely ever took because he had reports coming to him every twelve hours) he could smell the stench and he shook his head in disgust. It was human sweat that he smelled; like the sweat when one just wakes up.

There was no way Mykella could have been in here. I left her to her demise in my future. Surely she could not have survived my future self, he pondered. But still, there was that slim chance that she could have learned about the Net in the future. If that were the case, then she would have been in the future, dreaming of the Net. It would have been the future Connor she had killed, not the Now-Connor. What the hell is going on?

Space and Time mean nothing, he recalled. Evidently that must be true. There is no future; only what could happen. Did he wish Mykella into some bogus reality thinking it really was his future? Was she in a future at all or was she just in some holographic world created by his fantasies?

Before he gets rid of her forever he must ask her what it was she saw, she was the only one who had seen his future self after all. But first he had to check on his human catalog. Surely Beth was mistaken about the humans. So what if the sleepers are beginning to awaken? He’ll just find a new Host and be done with it – probably lay the old sleepers to death. But still, he needed to know.

He climbed down the steep, narrow steps and when he reached the sub-ground level, he had forgotten how cold it was down in this dark place of the castle. He remembered that he ordered this place to be cold – it slowed the blood flow, creating easier slumber.

All he had to do was think of the word light and the room lit up, giving a clear view of the tall arches that seemed out of place in such a morbid scene. Beyond the arches slept the thousand or so humans, all connected to the Host, Connor Barker. It would be genocide, he thought, if he saw the humans standing and walking toward the arches from the other side. He would kill them all with his mind just as easily as he created light.

As he drew closer he didn’t hear anything moving from the other side and he was about to curse his own easily manipulative mind – even in her own realm, Beth still had that way with him. There had always been a yearning for her that he knew would never be had.

When he reached the arches, he placed a hand on one and leaned against it and looked up into the twitching faces of those who slept. He scanned the faces and thought he even saw one or two (or was it a couple hundred) pairs of eyes open, staring down at him with contempt and anger in them.

No, that was all in his mind. No one was awake. Not yet anyway.

Now it was time to see if Connor was still alive. He almost dropped to his knees when he approached the empty slab that had doubled as a bed. The slab that was used for Connor Barker. Missing.

There was no sign of a death, but Connor was gone nonetheless. He looked down and saw that the tubes that had been connecting his brain and spine to the Network were lying on the floor.

But where was he?

Without the Host, there was no doubt that the Sleepers would awaken in a short time. This was something he never even thought about. Rebel Dreamkillers on one side and bloodthirsty humans on the other. Not to mention the human battle being waged right now in the meadow which took up four hundred of his Dreamkillers (just to show the might of God-King Orion).

Now that alien feeling crept into his soul. He hasn’t felt this feeling since the times when his father would beat his body with that special whip of his. It was a feeling of hopelessness. Despair. Confusion.

He knew that he had thousands of humans in the dungeon just waiting for their chance to become part of the Net, but that was the least of his concerns right now. In fact, he really didn’t care too much for the rebellious creatures storming his castle right now; he was most concerned with the lack of a host for the Net. Yes, he could take just about anyone he chose, but it would take time to connect that new human to the Net and time was something he had little of. And besides, Connor had been special to him.

Connor was the only human who had ever confronted him. Connor wouldn’t allow him to have his way with young Tracy Kingston. And when he placed Alexius inside Connor’s body to torment her, God that was fun! But then Connor’s mind fought back, driving the Dreamkiller out. And when that happened, Connor Barker began to live again, even though he was already six feet under the ground in a nice coffin.

When he created the Network, Orion knew who he wanted as Host, and so he went back to one day after his burial and dug his body up and brought him to Orion’s present time.

And now he is gone.

Orion lowered his head and sighed. It was the closest thing to showing any real feelings he could express.

The Net had to be brought back up, he knew, otherwise he and his race would die. But he knew that they could last a couple of days without their Host. Right now he had to deal with the rebels. He had to be in control of his own army. It was due time he acted the part of Commander of the Dreamkillers and not just creator and God-King Orion.

What had Ilias done to these unnatural creations? His Dreamkillers had a purpose – to serve Orion. But what about these rebellious things? Who do they serve? Ilias? If so, their master is dead. Beth? She’s dead, too. And yet they still come storming into his stronghold. Who the hell’s controlling them?

Have they been given some suicide mission?

Orion took a deep inhale and closed his eyes. He held it a moment and then exhaled and looked up at his Network and was positive that he saw a couple more sets of eyes begin to open. He shuddered and shook his head. Whatever happens, he thought, it has to be fast.

With his right hand he wrapped his cloak around his neck and climbed the steep stairs again and took a half-second glance down toward the dungeon cells. “You’ll be soon enough, my pretties. All of you.”

And then he climbed up the spiral staircase that he had taken. But instead of going up to his chamber, he stopped off at the main level and opened the door. It was as loud and violent as he had expected. Blood, all sorts of colors, sprayed everywhere as Dreamkiller fought Dreamkiller in frightening combat.

Most used their hands and claws to rip and tear at one another, but there were several of the rare beauties that spawned lethal weapons from their grayish-green bodies. Some were sword-like that came from the creatures’ midsections, and some others had quills that formed from the arms of the monstrosities.

Before he could ponder the idea that this was a spectacular battle, a severed head came flying at him. He ducked just as it smashed against the door with a wet thud and bounced down at his boots.

Truth be told, Orion wasn’t even sure who his own servants were. They all looked so damned familiar; he didn’t know who was on his side.

This could get messy, he thought and raised his hands. He hoped his instinctive abilities paid off because in the next second he was sending electric bolts flashing through the air at the Dreamkillers.