Jak Koke - Clockwork asylum

After a long pause, Carla nodded her head. "No," she said. "I won't go along with it." She stood and walked to the door. "Quicksilver, if you want to proceed with this, I won't get in your way, but even by turning a blind eye, I'm sticking my neck out here. Don't frag with me. Okay?"

She was out the door before he had a chance to respond. Well, Ryan thought. That's better than nothing, I suppose.

Suddenly, Jane sat upright. "Quicksilver, gotta go too. Got some new feedback on our special project. Seems the… man you had them follow is on the move." Then she vanished.

Ryan turned to Nadja, who was already delving into the multitude of duties she had to accomplish before the luncheon. He went to her, putting his arms around her shoulders. He wanted to know that she was still on his side.

"Just a nano," she said, shaking him off. "Let me finish this."

She didn't mean anything by it, but it left him feeling cold. He released her and walked to the window and looked out at the azalea bushes in full flower.

"Don't brood," Nadja said a minute later, coming up behind him and sliding her arms around his waist.

He turned in her grasp, and seeing the smile on her face, he laughed. "I'm not brooding," he said. "Just unsure if I'm doing the right thing."

She kissed him. "Don't let Carla spook you. She's got a government position now and can't afford conspiracies. She's giving you all she can."

Ryan smiled. Nadja was right, of course.

Her tone became serious. "If Damien Knight did kill Dunkelzahn, then he's more dangerous than we ever thought…" She let the sentence hang, knowing she didn't need to finish it.

"He's always been dangerous," Ryan said. "He's the king snake, but I'm the mongoose."

Nadja smiled. "Just be more careful than you've ever been in your life. I almost lost you once, and it will slot me off something fierce if you were to get yourself geeked this time."

Ryan laughed. "You know I would do anything to avoid facing your anger."

The morning sun shone like an inferno down through the open shutters and into Lucero's small room. She was in the physical world, the teocalli in San Marcos. It seemed like ages since she'd been physical, and she trembled from weakness.

She knelt on the stone floor by the edge of her small cot, her naked, scarred body covered in sweat. She was emaciated and malnourished, only just starting to regain her strength after her long stay in the metaplanes.

"Senor Oscuro is ready for you now," said one of the temple attendants.

Two young acolytes helped her walk. She knew she had outlived her usefulness, that she had succumbed to the light. She had embraced the beauty of the song and was now being taken to be sacrificed to Quetzalcoatl.

Oscuro knows, she thought. He knows I've turned against him, and I'm going to be sacrificed.

Somewhere in that thought, Lucero found a certain comfort. At least, if she were dead, she could no longer help in the dark destruction of the light.

They took her through the sanctuary and outside, up the long stairs of the step-pyramid temple that was the teocalli devoted to the Great Feathered Serpent, Quetzalcoatl. Lucero took one long last look at the world around her as she ascended toward the Blood Mage Gestalt at the apex.

How many times had she been part of their ritual when she was a member of the Gestalt herself? How many times had an old and burned-out member been brought as sacrifice to power a ritual sending? Too many times to remember.

Now it is my turn. It would all have been so simple before she had been touched by the light. But now, all this seemed evil to her, a perversion of magic. To use life energy for such purposes, to destroy innocent lives in order to achieve power and domination.

The landscape around the temple had changed in the days she had spent at the metaplanar spike. Far below the temple and down the hill, a huge crowd of people had gathered around the lake where the Locus had been discovered. Drawn to its power.

Lucero found herself hypnotized by the allure of the huge black stone. Its glossy surface was cut perfectly flat, like the facet of an onyx diamond, and it seemed to absorb all light around it. Like a magical black hole, it was pulling people into its vortex.

The lake itself had been drained, the water channeled away by huge pipes, and security fences had been set up. And in the dry lake bed, Lucero could make out the foundations of a new teocalli. They were building it right on top of the Locus.

In the distance, Lucero saw many more people coming. Thousands and thousands of people migrating to be near the Locus. They camped in huge tent cities, chanting and celebrating the end of the Aztec Fifth Sun.

Which, she knew, meant the coming of tzitzimine- demons who would devour the world. A shiver passed through her. Had she seen those demons across the Chasm?

Senor Oscuro met her at the temple's apex. He looked her over closely and whispered in her ear. "There has been a change in you, my child."

For a moment, Lucero was close to fainting.

"Even as your flesh grew weak, something in your spirit grew stronger. You overused your gift and burned it out. Somehow, your time at the bridge seems to have healed you to a certain extent. Today, you will take your rightful place in a blood ceremony to help speed your healing."

At first, Lucero could barely comprehend the words Oscuro spoke, but as the truth gradually dawned on her, she wept for joy. In her deepest heart of hearts, she willed a silent prayer of thanks to the light for this gift.

She had dreamed of rejoining the Gestalt.

The ten of them stood and looked at her. They were all human, their skin a mosaic of tattoos and runic scars just like hers. There were thick needle-track marks on their necks and a dark emptiness in their eyes.

They wore crimson robes and were attended by the healers and technicians who connected their veins to the blood-circulating machines, then to each Gestalt member through heavy-gauge catheters in their necks.

Oscuro motioned for her to take her place among them, and she complied, allowing herself to become part of the blood circle. But as the ceremony began, something in her changed again. As the blood coursed through her, the dark spot on her soul turned foul and rank, blacker than it had ever been. Her lust for blood consumed her, and she began to thrash on the floor, breaking the connecting tube, and circumventing the pattern of blood flow.

The rest of the gathered Gestalt looked at her, a mixture of horror and anger vying for dominance on their faces. Only Oscuro showed no reaction. Moving as if nothing were happening, Oscuro took the first of the chosen victims, and moved the girl into the circle.

Instead of placing her on the altar, Oscuro made the girl kneel at Lucero's feet. As Lucero stood, panting, wild-eyed above the sacrifice, Oscuro had used the tip of his ornamental dagger to draw the finest cut over her jugular vein.

A thin spray of blood shot out, showering Lucero's chest and stomach.

The smell of it, oh, the smell, thought Lucero.

Even as a small part of her mind rebelled, trying to maintain control over her addiction, the rest of her spirit was consumed. In her frail condition, Lucero literally ripped the little girl apart.

Her fingers were like steel claws, her teeth mono-filament razors. She chewed her way through the girl's neck while her fingers ripped open the child's gut. Lucero was filled with the delicious scent of the young one's death, and she reveled in the orgy of sensations.

She lost control then, absorbing the sheer power of the girl's life energy, pulling it into herself like sweet nourishment. She came to a few minutes later to find herself rolling on the floor in a large circle of bone and blood and intestine.