The branch shuddered as we landed on it and Nell yelped as her grip around my shoulders slipped. I caught her arm and steadied her enough that she could stand while I scanned the darkness for Damascus. The ever-moving branches around us made it easy to jump at shadows.
“Nick, we need to talk.”
“Is now really the best time? There’s a bogeyman made of living metal coming after us.”
“I’ve been thinking about what comes after.”
I pushed down on Nell’s head as I spotted a glint of metal from a branch below us.
Damascus climbed up onto the end of a branch where a chunk of the manor’s foundation was being raised. He extended a hand to pull his Witch up behind him. They approached where a pale pink body lay amidst the rubble of the foundation, weirdly featureless beneath blood and bruises.
She spoke to it, “You can get up. Your act can’t fool me.”
Instead of rising, the body simply grew another body out of the back of the first, this one straightening to eye the Witch warily. I recognized it as the worm-like Shaper who had spoken to me inside the manor while I was in the throes of my hallucinations. Luckily it seemed I was holding them at bay for now. I thanked Nell’s reassuring presence for that.
“Do you know me?” She addressed the Worm.
It opened its slit of a mouth, “I know enough. I surrender myself. Let me live and I will do your bidding.”
The Witch examined him clinically. “Hmm. You seem to be breathing just fine under my influence.”
“I was designed to stay underground for long periods of time. I can control my breathing better than most.”
“Good. I won’t be dampening my powers while my enemies are everywhere. I will be using your body. It appears quite malleable.”
The Worm doubled over, clutching itself as its flesh began to writhe.
“Resist all you want, it won’t do you any good without your Witch present.”
The Worm’s body stretched out, its torso elongating until it was tall enough to reach the next branch upwards. After it had secured its grip, the body grew ridges, straightening into hard edges and surfaces, like a set of stairs.
I tore my eyes away from the grotesque scene to look at Damascus. How was I going to break through his armour? Right now I was surviving and evading at best, with no clear path to victory.
Nell pointed up to another section of the manor. I took her and leaped stealthily away. Once we landed on a branch, I looked for an entrance and found one as the section of the manor rotated, revealing a door with a bunch of laboratory warning signs plastered across it.
I sprung and caught the frame, trying the doorknob only for it to come off into my hand, a green shoot spewing from the hole, pushing out the locking mechanism.
I helped Nell inside and then looked around the room. White sterile surfaces, computers, and fume hoods.
Nell began to pick over the materials left here, so I went to check out the storage closet.
“So? What do we need to talk about?” I asked over the groaning of the building protesting its violent ascension.
Nell’s voice was strained as she shifted something to the side, “You tend to only think about the present. I admire that about you. I get stuck in things that happened that I can’t change, and fear for outcomes that haven’t come to pass. But I’ve been thinking about where I started and how far I’ve come from that girl who was too scared to trust anyone with my feelings…”
She trailed off. Some metal canisters rolled across the floor and I saw the warning labels written on them. An idea formed, one that I wasn’t really keen on, but I needed to try something. I began searching for the other tool I would need.
“And?”
“And now it seems I’ll regret it either way.”
I pondered what that meant for a second and then my hand closed around a small plastic case. Pocketing it, I went over the canisters of gas, testing the valves and then kicking the canisters across the floor.
Nell eyed the canisters and arched her eyebrow. “Are you really listening?”
“Forgive me for thinking in the present,” I said with an apologetic grin. “I’m having trouble thinking of ways to beat Damascus, let alone her.”
Nell looked uncomfortable at that.
“What?”
She sighed. “I’m having trouble finding the words for this feeling. Forget it. What do you need me to do?”
“You and I have gotten much better with the minute control of our Shapes. Care to do this together?”
She nodded.
I set to work, extending out tendrils of crackling bone from the tips of my fingers, focusing hard on Shaping a simple mechanism before the antler set into a rigid form. Yes, this could work.
I retracted that bone and stretched my other palm out towards the entrance, sending a branch of ivory to the outside.
Nell saw what I was doing and started to fill in the cracks of the room, sealing it up with sticky sap and roots. She then stepped towards the only other exit, a metal shuttered door, stuck halfway open.
Earlier than I expected, something broke the branches I’d projected outside. Damascus stepped into view, breaking aside the bone without a moment of hindrance. He lunged for me, arms Shaped into gigantic butcher knives.
I danced backwards, stepping over the rolling canisters that hissed with escaping gas. I shed my armour, buying myself another second as Damascus stabbed through it and then dashed it to pieces against the wall. Then I grabbed Nell and jumped outside.
Twisting in midair, I shot a carefully crafted branch back towards the lab. The simple mechanism clicked, pulling the trigger on the plastic lighter I’d attached to the tip of the branch.
WHOOMF.
Hot air hit us like a tidal wave, flinging us away before a massive fireball erupted from the room, tearing the metal door off its hinges. I wrapped my arms around Nell as we careened into a tangle of green vines. I lay still for a moment as my ears rang and the world swayed.
Nell reached up and patted out a piece of flaming debris on my shoulder.
The swaying didn’t stop and I realized it was just the movement of Nell’s tree. It appeared that the growth was slowing down, the branches moving sluggishly. The highest point was in sight, cradling what looked like a room made of pure steel. Inside would be the Crawling Skin.
Someone started to clap.
Nell struggled to her feet and put herself between me and her. The Witch stood, supported between two branches by a platform of flesh. Portions of the Worm’s face emerged at different parts of the platform, looking intensely uncomfortable.
The Witch clapped once more before her hands dropped to her sides. “This is the most grand display of Shaping I have ever personally witnessed. I can’t help but think of what could have been if you had devoted yourself wholeheartedly to our work. The progress we could have achieved.”
Something inside my body started to shift and I shook my head, feeling lightheaded. Was it the Witch? No, it wasn’t the same power that had made me lose control of my balance and breathing, all automatic processes of my body. This was Nell. But she was making me weaker, I was losing muscle mass. Why? Even my bones began to feel weak, brittle.
“That would have never happened,” Nell said, resolute with her tangled hair moving in the wind. “I wasn’t growing at Organ. I was dying like a plant in a dark room. Nick helped me become something so much stronger than you.”
She tilted up her chin. “Foolish daughter of mine. I thought I taught you better than to let your emotions get the best of you.”
Nell launched an attack. Branches whipped around the Witch like snakes but they couldn’t reach her. The branches crumbled into pieces before they got close.
She folded her arms. “Contain yourself, you silly child. You know that won’t work. Use your Wolf. They are the ultimate tool.”
As much as I hated to admit it, I agreed with her.
“I hate you,” Nell whispered, tears in her eyes.
“I don’t care.”
I looked down through the vines we were suspended from and my heart sank.
Damascus plunged bladed arms into the main trunk of the tree, climbing towards us. Each limb sizzled as it sank into the wood, glowing hot from the lingering heat of the explosion. His armour was entirely intact. He moved like it hadn’t hurt in the slightest.
Nell took my hand, pulling me forward, bringing me to a large open platform, woven together with small branches. The footing looked treacherous, with plenty of gaps in the weave.
“Do you trust me?” she whispered, looking into my eyes.
“Always,” I replied.
“And I trust you.” She left me there, stepping back onto safer ground.
All I could hear was the rumbling of the tree and Damascus’ steady approach.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
The Witch of Organ seemed content to observe for the moment. “Is this the man that corrupted Nell’s path? I’m disappointed, Nell. You could have made him so much more. I think I am just about done entertaining this experiment.”
Even without the strength I’d grown reliant on, the fire in my bones still burned bright. I would make her pay.
Thunk. Thunk.
Nell exhaled, closing her eyes. “It’s Nick’s choice. I can help provide an environment, but I have no expectations of what he’ll become.” Her eyes flew open, full of light. “Whatever happens. I’m looking forward to it.”
Thunk.
There was a pause before a massive hook curled over the edge, digging in.
Thunk.
Damascus rose to face me. An unstoppable machine, the explosion only turning his armour to the colour of a burning ember that was slowly cooling.
“You don’t care about Nell?” I asked, spitting the words with anger. “You need to. I thought you were scholar and yet she is undeserving of your attention? You need to gain an ounce of understanding. Nothing less will be acceptable. I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
Damascus stepped out into the arena of crisscrossing branches.
I turned on him, all to aware of the difference in our size. “And you. Are you just a tool, like she says? A thoughtless zombie? I’m gonna make you feel something.”
The steel titan flung his arm out and the metal elongated into a slicing whip. I ducked, feeling lighter than ever on my feet. The whip bit into a branch behind me and he pulled himself forward as he jumped high, forming a thick hammer to bring down on my head. I danced to the side and he came crashing down, the hammer smashing straight through our footing.
Damascus slipped, one foot dropping through a hole he hadn’t accounted for.
I placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled as hard as I could for the brief opening the mistake had given me. Despite all the hunger that raged within me, the metal barely budged.
Damascus used fresh protrusions as limbs to carry him back to his feet. He swiped at me, the blades a blur with the might he carried behind each swing. I would be cleaved in half if I was so much as grazed by one. But my feet found solid footing as I moved fluidly around him. My vision felt like it had expanded to see everything. Like the whole tree was before me and I could even step on the sky without fear.
We danced, me and my unwilling partner. I saw how he struggled to find proper steps in our routine. I had the opportunity to truly observe Damascus. What made him tick? What would be his final wish?
Nell had led me to this moment. Our conclusions needed to align.
I stepped into his embrace, not striking out, but getting close, wrapping my arms around him gently. The liquid metal didn’t harden to the soft embrace. I sank through, even as arcing scythes descended down on my head.
My fingers touched warm flesh.
Instead of biting in and taking, I gave.
Damascus went rigid, his muscles all tensed at once.
Then he crumbled. His legs gave out and the metal began to pool into a puddle around him. He shuddered and withered, tearing at his own face with half-formed appendages, pulling strands of metal away from it. He gasped as his mouth found air, hyperventilating.
I observed my work. “Oh, I see.”
Damascus’ eyes came through the melting mask, wide and afraid.
I leaned in.
“You hadn’t felt something in a long time, huh? You forgot what it was like. Don’t worry though, that was only a taste. I’m saving the rest for her.”