KYLE WONDERED IF THESE things could just keep doing this: splitting and multiplying. If so, then what? They had now instantly gone from an even match to being outnumbered two to one. This might only get worse if they didn’t find a way to kill them.
Widen your blasts! The Gray Man commanded. He stepped back and brought both his hands forwards in front of his face and quickly swept them down and out to his sides. Two white crescent-shaped lines cut free of his hands and carved through the air towards the two demons nearest him. One missed by a large margin but the second, in mid-air and evidently still under The Gray Man’s control, suddenly spun sideways, catching the demon it was intended for just below both knees, severing its legs completely. It let loose a silent scream and toppled forwards, face first, into the dirt, its claws clutching at the ground in pain.
Meanwhile, the demons nearest Kyle had closed in. He almost panicked before realizing that maybe this was a good thing, because the closer they got the easier they would be to hit. They charged in hard, zigzagging back and forth, and before long they were within twenty feet. Kyle’s first blast incinerated the taller of the two and he puffed out of existence in a spray of orange and red ash. But the second demon, seeing what was coming, stuttered in the air again, a good half dozen times, moving through the dark creases one by one, like a child weaving in and out of the clothes racks in a department store, until he was close enough to reach out and grab Kyle.
Instinctively, Kyle brought both his hands up to his chest to defend himself, his left hand blocking one of the claws while the blue shot out of his right hand at a downwards angle, disemboweling the creature with a round blue hole about eight inches in diameter.
Two down, one dead, one still…
Kyle looked up to see that The Gray Man and the final demon were grappling with each other, the demon stepping back at times to unleash a flurry of blows to The Gray Man’s head, the punches landing clean and hard. The Gray Man would try to back away and get some distance before the creature would charge and grab him again. Kyle was just beginning to wonder what The Gray Man’s strategy was when it became apparent: by retreating and keeping the demon on the attack, he was keeping the creature from splitting itself again.
Kyle moved to help but was grabbed around the waist by the demon he’d felled. Its claws dug into his sides, the death grip of a dying creature, knocking Kyle to one knee. It died just as it tried pulling itself up to Kyle’s face, its fangs gnashing with wet, bloody spittle.
Immediately Kyle felt the evil in it trying to pierce through his wounds, to infect him with the germs the creature had carried with it all the way from hell. Reaching down, Kyle ripped the creature’s hands free, screaming as the claws tore at his skin. He was bleeding, badly, which surprised him because the wounds didn’t seem to be that severe. Taking a deep breath and putting one hand over each wound, Kyle cauterized them with the blue, again aware that he was doing things that no one had taught him.
Looking up, Kyle noticed that the demon The Gray Man had taken out at the knees was beginning to reach up to tear itself apart again. Wasting no time, Kyle blasted it in the chest, just below the throat, and it toppled over with a wide-eyed death stare.
Meanwhile, the final demon was in the last seconds of its life as well. The Gray Man’s white force pulsed down his wrists and into the forearms of the creature that was gripping him. Kyle watched in awe as the white spread throughout the creature in fine woven lines, like a spider’s web, cutting into and bursting it from the inside out, its limbs exploding in four different directions as its head melted into its chest cavity.
Kyle ran and half-stumbled his way to The Gray Man, who seemed completely spent by the battle.
Are you okay? Kyle thought the question.
Leaning over, The Gray Man nodded but said nothing.
What now?
The Gray Man held up a hand, as if asking Kyle to wait, then after a moment he replied, We’ve got to get out of here. The enemy dominates this place to such an extent that we might as well be in hell again. It’s almost worse, I think.
Worse?
Yes, the creatures here, there are more of them, various species. I can feel their thoughts. They’re all on their own. There’s no order here, no control. It’s just a plane of madness that’s infected everything.
Well, what do we do next then? It’s not like I can get us out of here, said Kyle.
You’re going to have to.
Kyle was shocked. How?
You have to learn to traverse.
What?
You remember, when we first met. We talked about it.
We did?
Yes. The drawing you made in class, the one Victoria noticed. You titled it ‘Traversing the fields,’ remember? You drew it on your note book. It’s a concept that’s been within you from the beginning, Kyle. You knew it. Felt it. What it was. You just didn’t know how to use it.
Okay. I remember.
Reach to that moment within you. Pull on it.
I don’t understand.
That’s the problem. Quit trying to apply your reason to things. Have faith and apply that, nothing more. Just do it.
Kyle was about to argue, but instead he slowed his thoughts and took a deep breath. He needed to get this right. The Gray Man needed him this time. It wasn’t the other way around for once and Kyle didn’t want to fail him.
So Kyle let go again, let himself be seventeen again… in Econ class with his wobbly desk and the prettiest girl in the world sitting right next to him. He’d drawn a road disappearing off into the distance, to a flat line horizon with shadowy edges and…
Something inside him shifted and brushed against his soul, like an instinct that had been hiding in the shadows, and the blue came alive again, emanating from him in a soft circle, first only around his own body before he willed it to reach out towards The Gray Man. Kyle began to wonder how it all worked, what would happen next, and then noticed that the very act of breaking his concentration made the circle retract, inches at first, then a few feet, so he forced himself to refocus and let the process unfold.
The Gray Man was leaning on one elbow, nodding encouragingly, and yet there was a look on his face of near surprise, as if he’d expected this process to take longer. Kyle surmised that, once again, he was proving to be quite the gifted student.
The circle expanded, enveloping The Gray Man, and then held static before it began to hum, softly at first, then louder. Kyle had the distinct impression that he’d grabbed a bull by the horns as the ground began to shake and everything around them, things seen and unseen, from the canyons on the meteor’s surface to the molecules in the air next to his face, began to vibrate rapidly. Gray? he said, his voice trembling.
Now. Think of where you want to go.
What?
Where is it that you want to go, Kyle?
Shit. Earth I guess.
No. Not specific enough. We could end up anywhere if you think that, from a ranch in Wyoming to a buoy in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Focus.
Okay. Tamara. I want to go where Tamara is.
The Gray Man nodded again, but then began coughing. Kyle realized that he was wounded somehow, and this idea broke his concentration again. The humming began to fade and the glow of the circle pulsed high and low, like a light bulb just before it goes out.
Kyle!
I know. I know. I’m focusing again.
Where Tamara is, her exact location, is being blocked from us, remember?
Kyle nodded. Yeah. Right. Okay. Then I want to go where she… was.
Was… last.
Got it. Was… last. I want to go where my wife was last. Where my wife… and just thinking about Tamara wrenched at his heart, again breaking his concentration, as he worried where she was now, and if she was okay, and if the man that had her was hurting her.
The circle began to recede again.
Kyle lowered his head. This was all his fault. All her pain and suffering, what had almost happened to the kids. His heart sank in his chest as guilt and sorrow rode through him like twin trains, rattling the rails of his convictions.
Somewhere far off in the distance he heard The Gray Man screaming. Kyle! Snap out of it! Kyle!
Kyle wanted to ignore him, but there was something new to The Gray Man’s voice. Something different: a tone of desperation.
Kyle lifted his head and opened his eyes just in time to see it cresting over a ridge far off in the distance: a massive black centipede-like creature with red eyes, cruising along the meteor’s surface as if it were swimming towards them, its venomous claws snapping.
And it was closing fast.
If he thought hard, if he focused quickly, maybe they could—
Kyle blinked. It was too late. The circle around them disappeared with a pop, and the look on The Gray Man’s face now was one that Kyle never imagined he would ever see: terror.