A Fistful of Dust

Daniel

11:40 AM

He crashed through the final ceiling and splashed into a pitch-black pool. The force of his fall dissipated in an explosion of dust, leaving him in pain but unharmed. Daniel sank like a block of dry ice—submerged but never wet for the billowing clouds of dust rolling off his skin—his body denser than water without an ounce of fat on his bones. He didn’t know how to swim and, besides, his hands weirdly sliced through the water without resistance.

The shock of impact and cold made him gasp. His spasming chest swallowed water that became intangible on his lips, prompting another cycle of fruitless gasps and coughs that neither drowned him nor replenished his breath. His lungs screamed for oxygen, louder each second. Daniel’s feet touched bottom.

He couldn’t feel or taste the water, nor did his clothes cling, nor did his hair get soaked. In hysteria he laughed at himself, I’m Tantalus in reverse! His punishment in hell was to stand in a pool of water that receded when he tried to slake his thirst. I’m drowning, but my body thinks air is just a breath away.

The irony grounded him, ending the panic. I’ve been dying of thirst since I can remember… so I suppose I’m Tantalus both ways. His mind bled away at the edges. He looked around with his second sight. Wendi lay mere feet away, unmoving. The others remained high above, out of reach, and him without one of those telepathy amulets.

A final productive thought came. If they filled this room with water, they must have some way to drain it! With that realization, he blasted the walls and floor in desperation. Bubbles of dust flew from his fists and vaporized chunks of concrete until he heard an unplugged drain.

Daniel almost blacked-out as water fled the chamber. In the last seconds of brain obliterating painful consciousness, Daniel’s face surfaced with a feeble gasp. He took shallow breaths on his hands and knees as the freezing water slipped away. Emergency lights flickered on as another alarm drilled into his weary head with its incessant whine.

At least, Daniel found as he rose to his feet, I can see Wendi now. His eyes fell on her skin, a bright and vibrant red. Untamable hair of a darker red framed a heart-shaped face with a button nose. Chains bound her form, the girl unconscious.

Her chest still.

Daniel rushed to her side with aching cold-numbed legs, everything he’d ever heard about CPR screaming in his head. He needed to check her pulse, he needed to give her mouth-to-mouth, he needed to touch her… and he couldn’t. His touch killed.

Frustration and fear mingled as he attended to her bindings, determined to do something. She reclined against the world’s largest anchor, hands bound to the arms of its cross, head lolled over a shoulder. The anchor’s chain looped around her legs, waist, and chest as many times as its massive bulk could fit her adolescent form. From each of her wrists hung a tremendous weight block that should have shorn through flesh and bone. Altogether, her restraints weighed more than most cars.

Sleep added to her beauty, expression untwisted by the indignities of her confinement… peaceful in oblivion. Please don’t be dead.

Daniel’s fingers tore through steel like dough, careful not to brush Wendi’s skin. As he freed the girl, he accepted a small recharge that took the edge off his drowning trauma. He watched over her while anxiously awaiting help.

She wore blue athletic shorts and a white top that came to her ribs. Over her heart gleamed the emblem in gold of a swirling loop trailing a sharp and pointed V. He recognized it as the symbol for Capricorn.

Two curled ram horns arched out of her hair and back over her shoulders, each blood-red and ribbed down their length. Thin, pointed ears on her head tapered off at six inches long. Her shapely smooth legs ended in dainty little cloven hooves, almost like high-heeled shoes. Wait, goat legs? No, they’re definitely girl’s legs… but not human.

As with the back legs of goats and other quadrupeds, what looked like a reversed knee was the ankle of an elongated foot. She’s a faun? Like from the myths? The lack of goat hair on her legs confused him. She wasn’t strictly half-girl/half-goat divided at the waist.

A hairless spade-tipped red tail snaked from her lower back. Horns, red skin, and the tail… She’s a devil?

However, Wendi’s most impressive feature by far was her hands. They were big. Impossibly big. Large enough for her fingers to touch around Daniel’s chest if she grabbed him, yet supple and soft with an undeniable air of strength. Why else would they bind her with enough metal to sink a small boat? He compared his forearm to one of her fingers and came up short. Her enormous hands gradually narrowed to normal-sized elbows. Each of her arms probably weighed as much as a whole other girl.

With a convulsing shudder, Wendi coughed and twisted her head to wretch water. As she filled her lungs, he blushed. Though not any older than the other three girls, Wendi’s chest and curves were more developed.

Yet it was Lea his thoughts drifted back to… Daniel chastised himself for letting his thoughts wander from appropriate relief, “Are you alright, Wendi?”

“Where… am I?” Wendi’s voice came sweet and mild, weak from her ordeal.

He opened his mouth to tell her she was safe and among friends when lucidity came to the girl abruptly. Her eyes snapped to her freed arms. Flexing her fingers, she rose from the anchor and stood.

The ‘whites’ of Wendi’s crystal blue eyes were yellow. Her slit pupils shrank and dilated as her expression changed from confusion and curiosity to anger. Not at Daniel, her rage wasn’t focused on him. The girl’s eyes flickered across images recollected. Wendi snarled and curled her lips to bare her teeth, wrinkled her nose in disgust, furrowed her brows with the narrowing focus of her fury, and even flattened her ears in the way of a hissing cat.

Then her eyes changed. Crystal blue became red as a pomegranate, wild and sharp. Their reckless glare tore at him like a scream showing dark knowledge and maniacal fervor in equal measure. The mild peace and sweetness vanished from her, but the beauty remained—though twisted into something far more intimidating. Her expression, demeanor, and posture shifted as if possessed. An entirely different person stood before him.

Wendi’s red skin became vivid blue. Her body transformed in an instant Daniel perceived in slow motion. Her tail thickened and the spade became a sharklike V, broadening into a fin. Her hair deepened to midnight blue, growing longer and more tangled while her shorts turned bright red.

Her horns shortened to her scalp then grew out in a glossy blue—shooting straight up as twin prongs curved inward at the middle. The blue devil girl’s hands slimmed with the fingertips narrowing to deadly points. Her body shape became bladelike, hip bones jutting dangerously, elbows daggers sharp, everything about her quick and lethal.

The snarl thinned to a smile as she saw him for the first time. Then Wendi grinned wide, shark-toothed, and sinister. Her glee terrified him. With no further warning than the look in her eyes, she slashed her claws at him.

Daniel had come to rely on his automatic defense. His confidence left him more concerned with the cause of her transformation than self-preservation. That changed when he felt the blow.

The claws stopped a millimeter above his skin as they raked across his chest—four trails spurting dust as his ability activated. Even considering the weight of her massive hands, the sharpness of her claws, and the speed of her attack, the blow hit harder than it had any conceivable right to. Daniel realized too late she had an ability augmenting her attack.

One blow stripped Daniel of all his power in an instant, leaving him no better than a scared, scrawny teenage boy. He staggered, dizzy with the severity of his ensuing migraine. In the following moment of primal fear for his life, he might have called The Ruin to his aid and damned the consequences.

She didn’t give him the chance.

Wendi lowered her head to point her horns at him. Daniel stepped back. Wendi exploded forward with one cloven-hooved step—launching both of them into the far wall. Daniel’s head cracked against the concrete as if this had been a car accident instead of a tackle.

Daniel coughed up a warm, metallic-tasting liquid. He smelled blood. His blood, the first and last thing he’d ever taste.

Pain came next. Terrible, brain-scrambling pain. Daniel looked down and saw Wendi’s left horn impaling his chest, having pierced his right lung.

He felt the damaged organs, severed blood vessels, and torn skin give up. Daniel’s body wasn’t rushing to repair the damage. His immune system wasn’t inspecting the area for signs of potential infection. The platelets in his blood weren’t closing the wounds to keep him from bleeding out. He knew this as fact, like his own name.

It was as if his body accepted these wounds as the new status quo. As if it hadn’t noticed the damage or forgot what ‘healthy’ looked like. The injury felt permanent and, frankly, that certainty frightened him more than dying—that he would have to live with it if he survived.

Wendi pulled back and Daniel slouched to sit against the wall. He realized something else when he saw her. If his touch corroded, his blood ate through matter like turpentine dissolved an oil painting. Flecks of blood he’d coughed made deep pockmarks in the floor where concrete shriveled like wetted cotton candy. Wendi’s left horn melted to the stump and trickles of his blood gouged horrible divots into her blue skin.

She’s killed us both, he thought. After a second, he revised, No, just me.

In moments, her severe damage regenerated with no signs of scarring. Even her hair and horn raced to regrow. Either she didn’t feel the pain, or her insanity went beyond caring. Wendi sneered and raised a claw to his throat.

The pain made him unable to concentrate enough to bring out his power, but he had to think of something, “You need me to escape!” Daniel croaked and spat blood.

“Oh, I need you… but not in the way you think.” Her tone had transformed from sweetness to sleek menace, “I need power for my revenge. Monstrous power. The power to tear this prison, hell, this world asunder. Now it’s in my reach.” She caressed his face with the back of a claw, gentle. “To become a true Monster, to become my namesake, I must break a certain Taboo. It told me the secret.” She sounded so pleased with herself. “To get that power, I’m going to eat you alive.”

Daniel hadn’t known he could be so terrified until this very second.

“I doubt you’ll taste very good.” A claw traced the fading grooves his blood had carved in her flesh. “So that won’t be fun for me, but I imagine it’ll be quite painful for you… and I’ll enjoy that part.”

Two thoughts claimed the whole of Daniel’s mind. The first, She’s insane—legitimately insane. The second, I’m going to die.

Wendi reached to grab his robe and lift him to those carnivorous teeth but stopped an inch short. Her confusion cleared a second late.

Claws missed Daniel by a hair as Wendi slid back on her cloven hooves, pulled by a force greater than gravity. She did indeed fall, parallel to the floor, accelerating until her spine slammed against a black bowling ball. Momentum splayed her claws wide, and two other black orbs caught them.

Despite her struggling, Wendi’s cloven hooves lifted from their purchase on the ground. Her supernatural strength couldn’t budge those hands trapped against the magnet-like attraction of the hovering spheres. Lea floated into sight perched on an orb as if seated on a chair, legs crossed ladylike under her skirt. She paled to see Daniel, who met her gaze through eyes half-lidded in pain. “By the gods, Wendigo, if you’ve killed him, I swear I’ll Break you.”

“Nice timing, Lea,” Wendigo said, “Spoiled my fun, but too late to save the idiot.” Lea fumed in silence. When the blue devil didn’t hear anything in reply, Wendigo’s superior tone shifted to a frenzied scream of anger as she writhed and struggled, “I’ll kill you, Leanan! I’ll eat your pretty face!”

“Wendigo down!” Lea shouted as she stabbed at the floor with her finger. The black sphere on Wendigo’s back rotated itself and the devil ninety degrees, expanded to a wrecking ball and crushed the vicious girl into the ground. A second later, the black sphere shrank and joined the halo of marbles orbiting Lea’s head.

Rana landed in a crouch behind Lea, Cassandra riding piggyback, and surveyed the situation. Kenta followed, swinging in on his hair with Paul the candlestick. Shifting to human form, the waxen boy dropped to land on the floor. Kenta blanched and Paul covered his mouth when they saw Daniel. Rana kneeled to examine Wendi as her first course of action.

Cassie slipped off Rana to stand on leg-hands, edging closer to Daniel with a stricken expression, “Is Daniel hurt? Oh… he’s bleeding. Oh, gods, he’s bleeding.”

“We’ve… we’ve got to amputate and cauterize the wound,” Paul said, shaking at the sight of blood. He looked too scared to know what he was saying. “People survive these things…”

“It’s his chest! She got his lung, he’s going to drown in his blood,” Cassie shook Paul with her wings on his shoulders, “You can’t cauterize a lung!”

“Please, calm down,” Lea said with no time for hysterics, “With thoughtful action, we can salvage this state of affairs. First, we staunch the bleeding.”

Kenta’s hair rolled forward and, though reluctant and squeamish at the sight of blood, he attempted to wrap the wound. No argument, no conditions, no slights, no commentary. Daniel regretted judging him before. Kenta was downright civil, not even mentioning he’d been right about Wendi.

Daniel’s blood dissolved the hair. Nothing could stem the flow, and Kenta withdrew, defeated.

Lea bit her lip at the failure and asked, “Who among us possesses a healing coin?”

“I do.” Kenta opened his palm, and a curl of hair dropped a metal coin into his hand. The boy tossed it to Lea, who caught it in the gravitational field of a passing marble.

“It won’t work.” All eyes turned to Rana—the frog girl dead serious. “Raphael’s Token amplifies natural regeneration.” She didn’t need to mention the Wendigo’s ability wrecked his body’s normal healing.

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Kenta shouted back.

Daniel heard a familiar groan that brought white terror. Wendi sat up beside Rana, unharmed. Red as when they met, all traces of the blue devil were gone from her voice and posture, “I blacked out, what happened?”

She looked at the kids around her in confusion and followed their gazes to Daniel. Their eyes met and he saw fear in her—greater than his terror. She cried out in anguish, “What have I done?” Panic gave way to tears of self-pity as she stared at her hands. Then she crumpled into the fetal position, expressing pure denial as she whimpered.

Wendi sat up beside Rana, skin red, and asked, “I blacked out, what happened?” This time, when her eyes found him, he saw nothing but concern, “Daniel!” She turned to the others, “He’s hurt, what do we do?”

She forgot, he realized. Just like I did. Rather than endure a nightmarish wheel of fear, regret, and self-pity, she escaped by choosing to forget. She’s insane. Am I as well?

Cold sank into him as heat and blood trickled away, numbing him to the anger in his heart. Anger at what did this to her. Anger at the others for not warning him. Anger at everything because he couldn’t imagine a way to fix all the things gone wrong. He couldn’t solve this puzzle.

In his anger, he glimpsed how someone could wish the world to destruction—to wipe away its ugliness. Purify it. If he would die here, why shouldn’t the world die with him…? Speak one name to call forth Ruin…

No. Mary lived. That was reason enough for the world to continue without him. And hadn’t he made a promise?

“There has to be something we can do for him,” Kenta said, countenance dimmed by Wendi’s painful scene.

“Risk mortality

Need a heal make a deal fast

Add vitality”

Eyes turned to Rana, who’d spoken the weird poem in a contemplative cadence.

“What’s that?” Cassie said.

“A mnemonic for situations like these,” Rana replied and nodded to herself, “We support Daniel’s body so it fights off Wendi’s wounding magic.”

Paul got an idea, “Someone could share their vitality by donating blood!”

“Not just anyone can extract vitality from blood like me, Paul,” Cassie said, “And Daniel can’t drink, to begin with.”

Paul tried again, “What about pure life-force? Can’t people share—”

“Wouldn’t be cheap,” Rana interrupted, “Shorten your lifespan by years.”

“Undoubtedly worth it,” Lea said without hesitation.

Kenta agreed, “We wouldn’t have gotten this far without him. It would dishonor the Kaminoke to let him die without repaying my debt.”

Again, Rana doused their enthusiasm, “How are you going to move that much life-force?”

Lea spoke with a thoughtful frown, “Intimate contact.”

“A kiss?” Wendi guessed.

“Lip-locking is part of it,” Rana continued, “But the key is in the emotional connection.”

Six adolescent kids gave each other sidelong, doubtful glances.

I’m doomed.

“It wouldn’t have to be real love, though, right?” Cassie covered her mouth with a wing.

“That depends on what you mean by real,” Lea replied, “It does not have to be lip to lip, romantic love. However, it has to be a strong bond: a mother kissing her child’s forehead, siblings or close friends kissing cheeks. This is primal life magic we speak of. It cannot be cheated or fooled.”

Rana sighed. “Doesn’t matter. Life-force flows both ways. Anybody who tries it gets a lethal dose of Daniel’s magic. The stuff that keeps him alive destroys everything else. You’d become a pillar of salt.”

At least I won’t have to go through that kissing awkwardness, Daniel thought to himself.

Paul slumped to his seat, defeated, “So he’s really going to die?”

“Not unless one of us has healing magic they neglected to mention?” Lea said it as a question left to dangle above Daniel’s head like the blade of a hair-trigger guillotine.

The others studied their feet. Paul dismayed by misfortune, Kenta ashamed of his inadequacy, Lea frustrated with herself, Wendi confused and anxious, and Cassie torn between tears and fear—ready to lash out at the first available target. Rana stood by, arms folded, head lowered. Daniel could hardly catch a breath, drowning in his blood.

“Fine,” Rana said and stepped forward.

“You had healing magic all these years and never said anything?” said Kenta, incredulous.

“Shut up and turn around,” Rana told him, but her eyes swept everyone. They blinked at her without seeming to get it at first.

Kenta grumbled. “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you might actually explain things.”

“Turn around,” she said. “On your honor.”

“Unbelievable. Keep your secrets.”

Rana waited until everyone showed their backs. A chime sounded in Daniel’s mind. Then she sent him a private message as his strength faded to nothing, :Can I trust you?:

:To do what?:

:To not tell anyone about this.:

:I’m literally dying.:

:Can I trust you?

:Yes.:

She held her hands over his face and covered him in a layer of slime. The viscous green liquid boiled sluggishly on his skin like frying egg white. :Don’t freak out, I’ll talk you through this.: Daniel did an admirable job remaining composed despite flashbacks to his recent near-drowning.

:This is supposed to help me?:

:This is to protect my hands.: She grabbed his head, puckered his lips, and kissed him.

He freaked out.

Daniel couldn’t remember being touched skin to skin. Dr. Adelaide wore a radiation suit when she hugged him. This was definitely his first kiss—CPR counted, at least to him.

His brain told him to think of this as a medical procedure. The rest of him panicked. Unable to deal with the suddenness, the intimacy, he tried to escape and squirm away.

:Calm down. Watch the lights.:

He stopped struggling. As if flipping the switch on a circuit board, a mass of interconnected lights flickered ‘On’ in his awareness. It’s her body, he realized.

Within the outline of Rana’s aura, Daniel sensed a constellation of points and lines like veins that carried energy instead of blood. :Those are the chakras and nāḍi, the network of connections magic flows through.:

Panning over the scene, he noticed the luminous core near her heart. Then tiny channels around the core filled with a liquid bright as burning magnesium.

:That’s my life-force. A day’s worth.:

:You said this wouldn’t work,: Daniel argued, though he knew she’d technically said anyone who tried this with him would die.

:Correct. Watch.:

The liquid light spread through the channels of her body until reaching their lips and flowed into his body. Daniel felt it as a strong, balmy warmth. His mind’s eye saw the branching channels within himself illuminated by its passage, revealing the horribly damaged nāḍi around his wound. When the light reached those torn nāḍi his body stirred, coaxed into healing itself.

Then the light reached his heart core. It entered his heart through one side, pushing an equal amount of his life-force out the other into circulation. Daniel’s life-force entered Rana, triggering immediate destruction.

Her nāḍi withered and her flesh died where the poison of his alien life-force passed. She twisted against incredible pain radiating from inside her body but refused to break their connection.

:Stop!:

:Watch.: He finally noticed three lights the size of marbles in her stomach. Not as bright as her life-force by any stretch, but dense and solid. If two were full-size, the third sat at a meager fraction. This third one dissolved and entered her blood through the lining of her stomach, power spreading to the areas devastated by Daniel’s life-force. Swift regeneration followed, and Rana survived another moment.

Meanwhile, Daniel’s recovery came slow. He doubted she’d survive the ordeal with those few marbles. He’d prepared himself to tell her to give up on him when she sent, :Get ready, we’re going to cheat.:

Daniel had a feeling he’d come to fear her warnings.

One of the two stones in her stomach squeezed up her throat into her mouth. She spat the slimy thing through their lips to click against his teeth. Hard as a rock and too large to swallow.

:Eat it or die. Make up your mind,: she added.

Unlike anything else he’d put in his mouth, food or fork, this stone didn’t turn to dust. If he weren’t already dying, he’d worry more about choking. He swallowed.

It stalled halfway.

Her lips hardened on his, :You’re not dying. I didn’t subject myself to this for nothing.: More life-force cycled between them and the last stone in her belly dissolved to keep her alive. :I will force it down your throat if I have to, and you won’t like it.:

He gulped in fear and the stone plopped into his stomach. An incredibly fast-working wave of vitality flowed through him. If the power of Ruin felt like adrenaline, this felt like an inside-out hug. The high didn’t crest such a lofty peak, but this feeling gave lasting satisfaction with no crash. Warmth coursed through all parts of his being, erasing weariness, and repairing damage. It even quenched the eternal hunger and thirst that plagued his waking hours, if but temporarily.

His wound and surrounding nāḍi were better than normal. The pain vanished. He could breathe again. Fear faded, and his tension-knotted muscles relaxed.

Her lips softened, :You did well.: Was she apologizing for scaring the medicine down? Hard to tell with her. Rana broke the connection and the visions of living constellations flickered off as they lost contact. :By the way, you owe me one.:

“He’s alright now,” Rana said from a few feet off. She’d put the distance between them fast, he noted.

Wendi turned and exclaimed in celebration, “You’re alive!”

The others had more measured responses as they approached, “You okay, Daniel?”

“Of course he’s not okay Paul, he almost died!”

“I’m feeling much better,” Daniel found himself saying. No, he felt fantastic. He pinched his middle through the robes and grinned. He must have put on as many as ten pounds of wonderful, glorious bodyfat! How does that even work? It didn’t matter right this second—he might be able to pass as merely anorexic now!

He found himself too tired to stand, no matter how great he felt.

Kenta sent a private message to him. :Did she turn you into a prince?:

:What?:

:Didn’t think so.:

Daniel blinked in confusion as his thoughts struggled to keep up with both the verbal chatter and mental arrows.

“Thank the gods,” Paul said.

“Indeed, it is excellent to see you have rec—”

Cassandra interrupted in the voice of a soldier like a living radio, “Activating Contingency D in ten seconds… Ten…”