Chapter 45

There was still no sign of Mykella, but Vince kept moving, hoping that on the next turn of another corner he would find her. He believed she was in this fortress, somewhere – that much of his belief didn’t change. What did change was his focus. He was trying to find Mykella, but he was also trying to find where that familiar smell was coming from and he wanted to know why it was so damned familiar.

He had smelled it several times in the past, only on certain occasions. It was a flowery scent – not overbearing, just faint enough to be picked up.

And as he turned the next corner, one word came to his mind and lips. “Mom,” he whispered. Could he be picking up his mother’s scent? He supposed it was possible. But then, where was she?

“Did you say something?”

Vince jumped and spun around and saw a man walking behind him. He thought he had told everyone to leave him. “Where’d you come from?” he asked, agitated by the man sneaking behind him.

“I,” the young man couldn’t find the words to convey what he felt. “I thought you might like some company,” he said.

Vince looked at him and realized that he was one of the many who looked like they had just awoken from some long sleep. “Where did you come from?”

“I’m not really sure,” he said while looking around in concentration. “I was captured a while ago and the next thing I know, I’m waking up with all these other people. We don’t know what’s going on.”

“The Network,” Vince replied and nodded sympathetically. “I’ve heard rumors of its existence.” He sighed and turned around. “Well, I don’t suppose you know where we’re going, do you?”

“Does crazy qualify?”

Vince chuckled at the remark and thought of Chris; that was the type of thing she would have said. He began to miss her suddenly. He had to force himself to think optimistically. “I think I’m going crazy, too,” he said and then looked back at the young man. “What’s your name, Son?”

“Steve. Steve Smith.”

“Well, Mister Smith, let’s move on, shall we?”

They walked forever it seemed before they heard the faint sound of nonverbal shouts mingled with screams of humans. Something was different about the shouts of the Dreamkillers and that made Vince and Steve stop in their tracks. Vince could not understand their language but there was something totally strange about the way they were shouting and screaming. It was like the Dreamkillers were shouting at each other.

“They’re not,” Vince began and paused as he found his train of thinking completely ludicrous. “They’re not fighting…each other…are they?”

“There must be an uprising,” said Steve from behind Vince. “Before they put us under, I was able to hear the way Orion talked to them. It’s no wonder they’re pissed off.” He tried to see over Vince’s shoulder. “To be honest, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner.”

“Are you saying,” said Vince as he turned around. “The Dreamkillers are revolting against Orion?” He still found this very hard to believe.

Steve nodded. “If you only heard the way he talks down to them.”

“They’re monsters, Steve. They have no feelings. They only take orders – that’s why they live; to serve Orion.”

Steve fell silent as he listened to the battle that was taking place in some area close to them. It wasn’t the Dreamkillers shouts he was listening to, it was his fellow humans. He remembered that sweet sound when he was in a small platoon a long time ago – it must have been right before he was captured. His platoon was able to defend their hidden headquarters by killing fifteen Dreamkillers. As he listened to the screams now, he smiled knowing that these were screams of victory.

“I don’t know how,” Steve began and grabbed Vince’s shoulder, “but we’re winning.”

There was no feeling that could come close to describing what Vince felt right now. He was numb, but it was good numbness. It was like that last moment of sleep when you know you’re about to wake up. He was ready to wake from this damned nightmare. He pulled Steve by the arm. “Come on, Son,” he exclaimed with a smile on his face. “There’s a war to be won.”

Together they ran as hard as they ever had in their lives. They followed the sounds of the battle and quickly fell back when something sharp came slicing through the air, narrowly missing Vince’s head, and stuck into the stone wall to their side.

Vince stood up and went to whatever it was that had nearly taken off his head and saw that it was a two-sided curved blade that looked like a lethal boomerang.

“I hope we’re right about our assumptions,” Vince glanced back at Steve and helped him to his feet.

Steve went over and pried the weapon from the wall and studied it for a moment. “Man, why couldn’t I’ve had this during my battles?”

Vince looked at him with a surprised expression on his face. “You were in battles?” He couldn’t believe someone as young as Steve had ever fought.

Steve grinned and handed the weapon over to Vince. “Quite a few of them, actually,” he said. “Ever hear of the Underground?”

Vince nodded and turned to watch as much of the fighting going on in the next room as he could – he was studying the Dreamkillers moves. “”Who hasn’t?” he replied. “But I thought it was destroyed.”

“It was; according to Orion.” Now Vince turned back to listen to him. “We had a spy who told him that we were all dead. But somehow, our spy was discovered and killed. We were found and taken here.” He pulled up his ragged sleeve to show his identification number. He saw the look on Vince’s face and waved a hand. “Don’t be sorry. We knew there was no way we’d win the entire war; but we did manage to waste some Dreamkillers before we were caught.”

“Well then,” Vince said and looked at him with a grin. “Are you ready for one more fight?”

Steve glanced over his shoulder into the Great Hall, into the chaos that was, what he expected, the final battle – humankind’s last stand. What he saw was Dreamkillers attacking Dreamkillers and humans attacking Dreamkillers. He wasn’t sure who to fight. “Which ones are the bad guys?”

Vince studied the battle, looking into the faces of the creatures created out of human nightmares. He remembered when Orion wanted his father to become one of these monstrosities of terror (he had been told during the times when he was young and thought that everything his father told him was a lie). What would have happened had Rick Hopman became one of them?

“They’re all bad guys,” he finally said, not liking what he had said. He knew that some of them were fighting for redemption; but they were still Dreamkillers in his eyes, damnit. He would never get past the prejudices; even Beth made his stomach churn when she was fighting with them. “They must all die.”

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Steve closed his eyes and nodded. He was young and could probably get past their hideous appearances, but Vince was his commander now and what he said, he would follow.

“We don’t have any good weapons, though,” said Vince and looked around, maybe hoping to spy some sword or other weapon that may have slid in their path. He glanced down at the double-bladed boomerang and then out into the battle. He shook his head and pulled back his arm and waited.

Steve watched the scene and tried to figure out what Vince was waiting for; there were so many chances he could have taken, yet he remained motionless.

And then Vince saw his moment and he swung his arm in a small arc and watched as the blade sliced through both air and then three unaware Dreamkillers heads as they had lined up to kill their human opponents. He and Steve watched their headless bodies fall to the floor with a hard thud and it only took several seconds before other Dreamkillers saw where the weapon had come from (it had flown back to Vince, who caught it, barely cutting his palm as he did so).

He looked back at Steve. “I think we’re going to have company,” he said with a smile. He was hoping to bring some of the action to them without having to run out into the wide open area of so many weapons flying at anything they could hit.

Steve nodded his head and stepped to one side of the doorway while Vince took the other side. When the first Dreamkiller came through, Steve jumped onto its back, wrapped his arms around its surprised head, and spun its head completely around. They both fell to the floor where he rolled away from the dead body as quickly as he could.

Steve rolled quickly because when the next Dreamkiller came through, it was expecting something from Steve. It wasn’t expecting the blade to come slicing through its throat from the other side of the doorway. It looked at Vince once and then fell on top of the other dead Dreamkiller.

“I don’t know how much more we can do like this,” Vince shouted across to Steve, who nodded in agreement.

“We’re going to have to go into the Great Hall,” said Steve, not liking the sound of it any more than Vince, but he knew it was the only way to both get more weapons and to get a better idea of how many Dreamkillers were left.

Vince took a quick ten-second glance and saw that the coast was clear; no more Dreamkillers were coming their way at the moment. “Now’s our chance,” he called over the roar of the creatures.

Steve nodded and took one deep breath, held it for a moment and then went over to Vince. Together, they lined the doorway and just as they were about to run into the bloodshed,

“Vince, wait,”

He spun around and almost dropped to the floor. No, he had not found Mykella. But, by some higher power, Chris Fergenson was standing at the top of the stairs that they had climbed moments ago. He could see that she had limped her way up all those steps. He ran over to her tired body and took her in his arms. “How,”

“There weren’t any Dreamkillers so I figured I needed to go where I would be more useful,” she said with a fatigued smile. “It took me a lot longer to find you than I thought.”

“I’m very glad you’re here, Chris,”

She cut him off with one of her spiteful looks on her face. “You will not stop me from doing what I swore I’d do. I swore to fight for humanity and I swore to be Mykella’s Watcher. Since we don’t know where she is, then I must fight for humanity instead.”

“Do you have a weapon?”

Vince turned and glared at Steve. What was he thinking?

She smiled at Steve and reached out her arm. He took it and pulled her to them. “I have an old sword, but it should do its job.”

Vince wrapped his arm around her waist. “I can’t let you do this,” he said, almost pleadingly.

“I’m sorry, Vince,” she said, “but there’s nothing you can do or say that will change my mind. I’m going with you – til death.”

She brushed past him as she limped her way to the doorway. “So, what’s our situation look like?”

Steve looked over at Vince and they smiled at one another in a way best friends would smile before the punch line of a good joke is told to someone else.

“I think we’re winning,” said Vince.

She wasn’t expecting to hear that. What she did expect to hear was that they three were the last of the human race. She quickened her hobble, using her sword as a walking stick and peered into the Great Hall. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped open when she lost count of all the humans that were fighting (the last time she left them, there were maybe ten left alive, now there were more than – well, she lost count a little over a hundred).

“Where’d they all come from?” she asked when she turned back around.

“You should ask Steve here,” Vince said. “Steve, this is Chris Fergenson.”

Steve took her hand again and shook it with a smile and she glanced at Vince. “It’s Chris Ramses, Vince. Remember? I got married less than five hours ago.”

They almost glared at each other and Steve found himself trapped as she had not let his hand free.

“You two got something going on?” He knew that that was the wrong question and he felt her grip become iron.

She didn’t mean to squeeze his hand so hard, she wanted to squeeze Vince’s head instead. “No,” she said. “Not for twenty years anyway.”

Vince sighed and lowered his head. “I’m sorry about Karl.”

She let go of Steve’s hand, who began rubbing it immediately afterwards, at Karl’s name and looked away. “We all knew it would happen. I was just hoping for a little more time – that’s all.”

“I know,” said Vince and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “And I’m sorry for being jealous. I should never have let you go.”

She shoved him off with shock. “That’s not the right answer. You loved Samantha long before me.”

“That’s not fair, Chris.”

Steve broke in by clearing his throat. “D’ya guys think you could discuss this after we’ve won this war?”

Vince and Chris stared at one another for a minute before they agreed. They knew it was childish to go on acting the way they were, especially when they were about to kill some monsters, and so they all nodded in agreement. There were no smiles from Chris and Vince then realized that he had done the right thing so many years ago when he broke up with her. He knew now that they would really never see eye to eye on anything outside the war.

It was his jealousy and need of a companion that fuelled his love for her – nothing more. Maybe he really doesn’t love her as much as he once thought – was it an hour ago? A day? He just realized that he couldn’t calculate time in this damned fortress; if there was such a thing as Time here.

“Do you think this fortress is some kind of vortex in Time?” He didn’t know why he asked this, because even if it was a vortex, he knew they were inside it with at least a couple hundred Dreamkillers.

“What’s a vortex?” asked Steve as he made his way back to the doorway that led into the Great Hall.

Vince shook his head. “Never mind,” he said when he realized how irrelevant his question was anyway. He looked around for something neither Chris nor Steve could figure out.

She asked him what he was looking for and he told her a weapon.

“You’ve got your sword and I’ve got this bladed boomerang thing, but Steve’s defenseless.”

“I won’t be for long,” said Steve, turning back to Vince. “There’s plenty of weapons from the dead soldiers. I’ll just use one of theirs – they won’t need them any time soon.”

“Good idea,” replied Chris. “We’ll cover you long enough for you to get yourself armed. Then we’re on our own.”

“Until the end,” said Vince.

“Until the end,” agreed Steve.

“Well, then,” said Chris as she raised her sword. “Are we ready?”

“Wait,”

They turned and looked at Vince who had a worried look on his face.

“What about Mykella? I was looking for her before we met up with these guys,” Vince explained while gesturing to the battle.

“Vince, this battle is the same as it was in the meadow – only a different location,” said Chris. “We’re to make sure her war with Orion takes place without interference from Dreamkillers. Nothing more.”

He knew deep down that she was right. He had been spiritually planning this day for twenty years. There really was nothing he could do to help her. Even the strange nuns of the Sisterhood of the Tainted Angel had been planning this day – however far back they went. And even Nanaac had been planning before them.

He began to wonder, when the thought of the Queen entered his mind, if she thought back then that the final prophecy was about her. All Nanaac knew was that the savior was a young woman. Wasn’t she a young woman when she died?

Vince looked at Chris and he didn’t see the thirty-nine year old woman standing before him. What he saw was the nineteen year old girl who had accepted her mission as Mykella’s Watcher. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was for that burden but he knew she knew how he felt.

“All right, Chris,” he finally said. “Let’s end this war.” But as he took his first step forward, “I can’t promise that if I do see Mykella, that I’d stay where I was.”

She smiled warmly at him. “I wouldn’t ask you to.”

Before they walked into the Great Hall, into the last stand in the Great War, Steve glanced over at them both. “You sure you still don't have a thing for each other?” he asked with a grin.