The Last of the Twenty: Broken Pawns

Chapter 16

Once the police officer had finished his questions Mark left the house in a hurry, ignoring Alex's questions as he took off without an explanation. Alex didn't hear what the cop said to get Mark into such a fit, but the agitation he showed as he threw his boots on and slammed the door on his way out told Alex something may be seriously wrong. Alex offered to go with him but Mark refused, muttering about something he had to do on his own.

It wasn't very long after Mark left that Alex's irritation transformed into gratitude. One minute Alex was sitting on the couch fuming over Mark's attitude, the next he was nearly doubled over with stomach pains, hungrier than he had ever been in his life. Mark had warned him there would be side effects as the binding wore off fully, but the sudden bout of hunger was more of a surprise than he was anticipating. It felt like his insides were trying to tear themselves apart.

He crawled into the kitchen and nearly tore the door off the refrigerator trying in his eagerness to get it open. The first thing his hand touched was a jar of pickles. Alex had never really liked pickles, yet he found himself ripping the top off and eating them by the handful, juice pouring off his hands and pooling up on the floor. When those were gone he finished off two packages of sandwich meat and an entire slab of cooked ham. Soon after the fridge was empty and Alex was still hungry.

No longer in pain but still famished and very thirsty, he stood up and washed his hands and face off, drinking down at least a gallon of water straight from the tap. Feeling a little better Alex looked around the kitchen for more food without any luck, catching a glimpse of a flyer on the counter. He picked it up, it was a coupon for pizza. "Sounds good." He said to himself.

Alex grabbed his keys off the counter, heading out the door until he remembered he had the slight problem of no longer possessing a car. When the main chunk of the binding spell broke it had destroyed his car, blowing it apart to the point that it had taken Mark and him the rest of the night to find all the pieces and throw them into the lake. The rumbling in his stomach became louder and the pain was starting to return, not helped by the sight of pizza pictured on the flyer. Frustrated, Alex started pacing around the kitchen.

"The hell with it, I'll just run there." He muttered to himself, throwing the keys.

Turing to leave the house, Alex felt electricity building in the air, a crackling that seemed to grow from nothing and engulf him like a surge of power throughout his body. The kitchen faded away, everything turning cold and dark. Alex found himself taking a step forward into a kind of nothingness. Everything around him was black, with no distinguishable ground or sky. It was a liquid blackness, solid and nonexistent, visible and invisible at the same time. Alex felt the weightlessness of the place press against him from all sides like a blanket of lead, threatening to crush him. Everything seemed close and distant at once, as if he was both everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Alex saw a flash of movement and light out of the corner of his eye, catching his attention and bringing him to a stop. He turned his head to see the glow of his own wings shining out in the dark, no longer invisible or spectral, they stood out as real and solid as the limbs on his body. Alex tried to fold them away, but they wouldn't vanish. They remained real and visible, glowing an almost brilliant white against the black of the world. Alex moved them, stretching them out and pulling them back in. The light glowing from each feather dragged across the darkness like a paintbrush, leaving a streak of light that faded slowly away like smoke in their wake. He pumped them in an attempt to take flight, but there was no air, no wind in the world that would carry him.

"What is this place?" Alex mused. His voice, although soft, sounded like thunder in the nothingness. It traveled away from where he stood strangely, as if the very words he spoke were crushed together in a ball and thrown. To Alex it was like listening to a train as it steamed its way off into the distance.

His voice was met with instant response, sudden and terrifying. As if in response to a challenge, Alex was met with a horrific ballad of screams, all melting together as one to form a horrific, wolf-like howl. The sounds came at him like balled lightning, traveling towards and through him like a shock of electricity before continuing off into the vast nothingness behind him. Three tiny and distinct specks of light were coming his way, each terrible sound they made coming at and punching through Alex like a physical force. Alex could hear them snapping at each other as they ran at him, growling with hungry anticipation. He could feel their anger, their hatred, emanating from the creatures as powerfully as the heat from the flames of their bodies. One emotion, one single desire stood out from the rest, coming from the creatures, burning through Alex like bullets from a gun. A desire to kill.

There was no way to tell how fast they were moving in the strange liquid blackness, or from how far, but Alex knew he had to get out of there. Forgotten instincts kicked in, warning Alex of the danger, that if they caught him in this place, they would kill him. Within that single moment of recognition the hounds had closed the gap considerably. Alex could now see the outlines of their hellish bodies, their howls now loud enough to make the feathers of his wings vibrate and his ears ring as the sound passed through him.

In a movement of desperation Alex reached out and grasped his gun, in this place it hung solidly by its sling on his side, not needing to materialize. He swung it up and pointed it at the hounds, the barrel glowing with the same white light as his eyes as energy transferred down his arm like water and flowed into the weapon. He fired, the concussion of the blast almost knocking him over as the glowing bullet burst towards the hounds like lightning, leaving a streak of light in the darkness like the tail of a comet.

Alex watched the bullet travel, tracking it with his own glowing eyes. It flew through the darkness streaking with deadly energy, the distance between it and its target closing quickly. At the last instant the lead hound veered off its course, dodging the bullet easily before adjusting its course once more to intercept Alex. He felt the blood drain from his face, in this place, the hounds held the advantage.

Alex folded his wings in as much as he could, turning to run but finding his movements painfully slower than the hounds, as if he was caught in a nightmare. The nothingness of the place pushing against his body like water, restricting his movements. There was a moment of panic as Alex attempted escape, the feelings of terror suddenly fading as another feeling of electric shock hit engulfed him once more, the blackness fading away like a dream. The sounds of the demon hounds disappeared as solid pavement formed under his feet and bright sunshine filled his vision. The nightmare world was gone, replaced by the solid reality of physical objects and familiar surroundings.

Blinking with the effects of the sudden sunshine and confusion, Alex took in his surroundings. The hunger was back in force once again, replacing the fear he had felt moments before. The gun and his wings were again invisible, faded away into whatever nonexistence hid them until called upon. Anyone looking would think he was just a regular guy standing in a parking lot. With the warmth of the sun helping to calm his nerves Alex was able to get his bearings. It didn't take him long to realize where he was.

He was miles away from home, standing in theparking lot behind the pizza parlor.