The Aberrant moved with strange deliberation. It held its bloodied hoof in the air as if unsure of where to step next. I stayed absolutely still, trying to keep my pained gasps quiet. I didn’t know if it could see me, smell me, or hear me. The black featureless torso shifted to the side slightly and I flinched. But the centaur-like Aberrant merely placed its hoof down on the pavement next to the two corpses.
I’d only ever seen horses as a child, on a daytrip to a farm, but my memory was eerily accurate for scale. It towered over me and I could see the taut muscles underneath the skin. The thing was huge, probably weighing a ton. The Aberrant bent its legs slowly, the four back legs bending backwards while the front four bent forwards.
It sprung upwards and I stumbled back as the thing soared far above the height I’d expected for something so huge. It alighted on the thin railing of an apartment suite balcony, three stories up. The railing didn’t bend. It balanced there, legs splayed all along the wall and balcony, finding purchase for its massive frame on window ledges and protruding wall details. It stayed perched for a motionless moment, like a spider, then it leaped again, vanishing over the top of the roof.
If not for the bloody mess of corpses it had left behind, the entire experience would have felt dreamily surreal. The Aberrant moved like it weighed next to nothing. Yet it had fallen on its victims with the crushing force of a hydraulic press. Could it alter its mass?
I kept my eyes on the rooftops as I moved forward, ready to throw myself to the side should I spot any movement from above. This proved to be a much more paranoia inducing task than I’d thought, as my vision was blurring and darkening at the edges. I needed to deal with the bullet wounds. My focus was a mess, constantly being distracted by waves of pain emanating from the two bullets that I was pretty sure were still embedded in my arm.
The tall concrete barriers of the Old Town were in sight. I was so close. The Tree pulsated and the street seemed to bend in its wake.
Arms wrapped around me from behind, dragging me backwards into a headlock. So focused on the rooftops, I didn’t notice. Stupid. Something smashed across my face, breaking open my helmet. Momentarily blinded, I tried to assimilate what was touching me but there was nothing for the fire to catch on to. I could feel the fabric of the sleeves on my chin. The headlock tightened. I reached up and wormed my fingers into the space between their sleeve and glove. There. The fire caught and I let it consume, giving me a life-saving flash of clarity. Another bludgeon hit my shoulder and I cried out in pain.
The angle of the headlock meant that I could still see the sky when it jumped. The Aberrant rose into view and plummeted, like a drop of blackest night forming in the sky before dropping. I ripped my hand free of the man’s sleeve, tearing a strip of flesh with it. The man released me and I dove away from him. A moment later and I heard the impact: whumpf. There was no time to see the aftermath. I charged forward, plowing into the other assailant who had been hitting me with a hammer. He didn’t see me coming, eyes bulging as he witnessed what had happened to his friend.
Pain flooded through my system as I knocked him onto his back. I wobbled and fell on top of him, seizing his exposed neck and pulling. He struggled, his hands rising to grab my wrists only to pull them away as flesh melted off them as well. Too late I realized that his frantic attempts to escape were twofold. He wasn’t even looking at me.
I rolled off of him and curled up to make myself as small as possible. The impact shook my bones and I bounced off the ground as black pillars slammed into the asphalt all around me. Blood spattered into my eyes and I scrambled away without really understanding where I was. I just needed to get away.
I’d only begun getting my bearings when I felt the Aberrant jump again. I abandoned trying to rub the blood away and instead kept my eyes wide open. Take. The blood began to sink into my eyes, assimilating. The Aberrant dropped and I barely saw it, throwing myself to the side.
Asphalt cracked under the crushing weight. Move, I ordered my body. In a horrifying revelation, I found that I couldn’t. I was stuck. My eyes trailed down to the source. My eyes went blurry with tears as I saw what was left of my foot, a mess of shattered bone and torn flesh, bent under a bone-white hoof. Somehow it didn’t even hurt, but I felt the void of sensation. I tried to pull myself free and the attempt caused sparks to dance across my vision.
A black pillar of a leg stood between my and the Old Town barrier. It had seemed so close before, yet now it could have been miles away. Frustration washed over me. I tried to pull free again and only got a sickening cold feeling that washed up my leg. Was it over? A sound I couldn’t hear tore itself out of my throat.
I twisted so that I could see the Aberrant standing over me. The torso didn’t bend to acknowledge me. The hoof that caught my leg lifted and moved over my head. On the bottom of the ivory hoof was a distorted face, compressed into the space inside the ring of teeth, complete with yellow eyes and a gaping mouth that chewed on a piece of me.
The Aberrant paused for a moment, in its strange act of deliberation, before the hoof dropped like a guillotine. I shut my eyes, expecting to never open them again.
But I did. The leg had halted its execution, stopped by two beefy arms that wrapped around it.
Another pair of arms grabbed me, pulling me out from underneath the Aberrant. As I was moved, I saw the strained face of Graham, muscles bulging, knees shaking as he used every ounce of his strength to keep the leg still. Zola ran up and dug his nails into the monster’s flesh. He dragged his fingers across its hide, gouging out long red lines.
The Aberrant reacted in pain, torso twisting backwards as the legs shook and stamped, forcing Graham to release it and retreat. Then it leapt, shooting upwards and landing awkwardly on the roof’s edge, legs moving up and down as it crawled out of sight.
Graham’s bearded face loomed over me, concern etched clearly across it. I smiled at him, half-delirious with blood loss. “You came,” I said.
“Of course,” he said, keen eyes examining my wounds. “I will always protect my students. That was my promise.” It was easy to read his lips when he was bent down so close to my face.
“Not in school,” I muttered.
“Certainly. Although the pursuit of knowledge and the roles that come with it were never constrained to specific buildings. I’ll have to reprimand you for your irresponsibility later, as is my role.”
“Rambling.” My eyes were starting to feel too heavy to keep open.
“Times like this tend to bring that out in me. Stay with us, Nick… Nick? Ni…”
—
I lurched awake with a potent smell of blood invading my nostrils. A single lightbulb splashed light across a dingy carpet and a bloodstained couch that sagged with the weight of Graham’s large frame. He was slouched and breathing heavily, dripping blood from a cut on his wrist. The couch was so dirty that it hardly mattered that it was getting stained. Zola came up with a clean bandage and started to dress the wound. He said something about not having a first aid… kit? Training? I wasn’t sure.
Terry stood by the window, peering out through a slit in the blinds. His scarf hung loosely around his shoulders, his second mouth nearly visible.
I raised my head up from the bed I was laying on and AJ sprung up from where he was sitting on the floor and wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug. I winced and patted the top of his red hood. It was only then that I noticed the fire licking dangerously close to the surface. I jerked my hand away from AJ, noticing the blood drops that lingered on my arm. I started to feel nauseous. The blood disappeared under my skin and I tried to push myself up.
Zola noticed and motioned me to lay back down.
“What did I do?” I asked, horrified.
Zola spoke agonizingly slowly. He must have been informed that I couldn’t hear. “Nothing. You passed out. Your skin was super pale and you were shaking and sweating. We were not sure if you were gonna … But we noticed that you were still… melting things? So Graham donated some blood. It healed you up decently.”
Graham raised his head and gestured dismissively. “This … handle much worse, Nick. They … me the moniker Dullahan Graham for nothing. Don’t worry … much more important that we got you back in shape. We’ll need you to … alive.” His beard made it hard to tell what he was saying from across the room.
Terry said something and AJ ran over to the window. At a turtle’s pace, Terry cracked the window open. Enough for AJ to extend his Shape outside.
Unfortunately my hearing still hadn’t been healed. It was frustrating to not be able to tell exactly what was going on and what was being said. It was like only being able to see half the room at all times.
Zola spoke up, his knee bouncing up and down even as he clasped his hands down around it. “Richard got us up to speed. This … Tree, it is in the Old Town. We are just inside the barrier right now. But the Rings…” Zola paused and flinched, hearing something I couldn’t. “The Rings are warring just outside. We cannot get through, not without casualties.”
I nodded. The team looked worse for wear. They each sported an assortment of cuts and bruises. They’d fought their way to me. It filled me with warm relief to see their faces. Zola nervous kindness. Graham’s steadfast and calm demeanour. AJ’s energy and bravery. Even Terry’s presence was reassuring. But the Tree continued to push out wave after wave and I was scared they would follow me to places they couldn’t survive. Not like I have a leg to stand on. If they hadn’t arrived when they did… I needed to change my way of thinking.
“We can’t get through them,” I agreed. “Not without separating and that’s basically just sacrificing one of us for the rest.
Terry tilted his head back to look at me with a wry grin. “So we danced with death for nothing. Splendid.”
Zola glared at him and said something I didn’t catch.
Terry shrugged. “It was a matter of practicality. I’m not fit for a battlefield. My Shape didn’t even work on the Aberrant.”
“Coward,” AJ said, surprising everyone in the room.
Terry tousled his head and AJ batted him away. “That’s what fools call the wise.”
“Only a fool would call himself wise, Terry,” Graham said with a hint of amusement. Terry flashed him a smile and Zola covered up his grin with a hand.
I shook my head in disbelief. “How are you all in such high spirits?”
“What do you mean?” Graham asked, slowing down so I could understand him. “We’re relieved to find you alive after … such a dangerous monster. A little … has the tendency to simplify needs. Besides, I believe that I had become stagnant. I wanted to do good, to right the wrongs of my past. But I had made so little progress. Perhaps this upheaval has a silver lining in that it made me reassess if I should be holding on to past burdens when they distract me from the value of the people I have around me today. I’m uncertain… but at least I’m moving.”
Zola nodded. “Moving feels good. And I did not have much attachment to the city in the first place. The loss of life is terrible, but the city itself? I do not care.”
Richard burst through the door and kicked it shut behind himself. He was breathing heavily and there was a nasty purple mark on his temple. The bruises were swelling his eye shut and blood trickled down his jaw. “They’re coming this way,” he said grimly, unloading the magazine from his gun.
“Who?”
“Those military bastards in black.”
“H.E.S.P.,” I said.
“You know about them?”
“Yeah. It was the last time a Tree showed up. Some sort of specialized armed team with knowledge of Shaping. The government knows about all of this. But for some reason they haven’t made it public knowledge. H.E.S.P. is just there to clean up messes before they get too noticeable.”
Terry laughed at that.
“Do they know you?” Graham asked. “Could you tell them not to shoot at us?”
“Already tried that once. They wanted to detain me. I think. I was already deaf at that point.”
AJ opened his eyes from where he was concentrating by the window. “They’re a few blocks away.”
Richard swore. “Rings in front, H.E.S.P. behind. What do we do?”
“Move laterally,” Graham answered. I agreed with him. The sooner the better our chances of getting out of the squeeze.
“Let’s move then,” Richard said, hand on the door handle. “Graham and me in the front. AJ and Terry in the middle. Zola and Nick take the back.”
Graham examined me and asked a question. Something about my health.
I stood up, ignoring the aches and pains. “I feel a lot better thanks to you. Let’s go.”
Richard reloaded his gun and swung the door open, striding quickly out into the night. Graham followed, his shoulders brushing the door frame. Terry took AJ’s hand and moved after them. Zola patted me gently on the shoulder, his white nails standing out starkly in the darkness.
That Aberrant was still out there, I reminded myself. There was no time to rest. I had this terrible feeling that the moment I forgot about it, that’s when it would strike.