Machina Obscurum Read online

  The only other item on the altar, the only item Renae truly possessed amid the flotsam of trivia collected over the years, was an hourglass. No bigger than a bottle of wine, its sands held in stasis, time arrested as it waited for her to finish what she'd begun. She traced the fine woodcarvings cradling the glass in place with one fingertip, feeling the energy swirl through her blood. Calling to her. Wondering if the waiting had come to an end.

  She thought maybe it had. The cards would confirm it.

  Some would tell you there are no vampires. Don't listen to them. They're real. Maybe not the bloodsucking kind, but others do exist. There are worse things which move through the shadows. Through the light, as well. I'm living proof of that, although living might not be the best description.

  Renae picked up the Tarot deck and turned over a card, placing it on the altar in front of her. Yes, a foolish beginning.

  * * *

  The summer intern job at the UN was a dream come true for Renae. Fresh out of school, the offer of travel lured her away from the familiar and into an exotic landscape normally reserved for those with more experience in avoiding pitfalls. Intoxicated by it all, Renae soon blundered into the wrong situation, collapsing at a party with only vague memories of her time there. Even now, knowing what happened, she had a hard time recalling more than fragments.

  I remember the sting of venom coursing through my veins. The fire as it tracked through my belly, forcing me to the edge of death before allowing me to return again. The horror of awareness when I awoke, even without realizing what I'd become.

  The thirst dogging my every footstep, almost too strong for me to deny. Almost.

  She awakened in an elegant bedroom, the dark paneled walls displaying paintings of fair maidens ravished by mythological gods or some such nonsense. The images gave her the creeps, so Renae cast about for another distraction while her fogged brain cleared enough to figure out where she was and what had happened.

  Her body ached, head throbbed. No answers materialized, only an insatiable thirst irritating her throat, moisture-starved tissue begging for liquid.

  The door opened and Renae's breath caught. The man glowed in the light from the doorway, his red hair seeming to catch fire from the sun pouring through the windows behind him. He crossed the floor, coming to stand by the bed. Renae's blood quickened in her veins with each step he took. Suddenly, nothing mattered but him.

  “You're awake.” He smiled and took her hand in his. She hadn't remembered being so cold before but he exuded a delicious warmth and she didn't want him to let go. The burning in her throat eased as well.

  “I am called Fen. Do you remember what happened to you?”

  Renae shook her head, but images flashed through her mind like tiny explosions threatening to engulf her if she concentrated for too long. Images of this bright man, bathed in darkness. Drawing toward her. Cloaked shadows in the background writhing like cobras attuned to his every move. A woman's laugh echoed in her head.

  “It's all right. I'm here to help you.”

  The flashes left and Renae smiled at him, her stupor increasing into euphoria. His next words didn't mean much at the time. She would come to understand slowly, much later. Not that it mattered. It was already too late.

  “You've been reborn to serve me,” his voice crooned, clasping Renae in a sexual heat too powerful to resist. “I will teach you, nourish you, provide for you. In return, you will deny me nothing. To betray me means your death.”

  Fen held a hand to her cheek, stroking it as a lover. His energy fed her until Renae felt strong enough to sit up. As he broke contact and stepped away, the thirst crept back again. Renae felt the lust to drain another human of their energy, and stared into Fen's eyes, now lit from within as if a fire blazed there.

  “What's wrong with me?” Waves of heat crested within her chest, crashing against her lungs and robbing them of air. She struggled to breathe, the fire in her throat charring each effort.

  “It's a glorious day. Come.” He offered his hand to her. “I'll show you how to thrive.”

  I fed off the energy of others to survive, but never to the point of killing them. Never to the point of turning them, either. I like to think I have some semblance of humanity left within me. If that ever fails, all hope will be lost.

  And so began my descent into hell, accompanied by an unholy angel.

  * * *

  Her thoughts reaching outward again, Renae picked another card from the deck and turned it over, her eyes squeezing shut at the sight. True enough. He wove his decadent magic around my throat like a collar made of velvet, but as unbreakable as an iron clamp.

  Renae felt Fen's presence now as he walked through the penthouse. Smelled the scent of another woman's perfume lingering about him like a wisp of fog trying to hide from the rays of the sun. Conjured a mental image of his red hair awash with golden light as he strode down the hallway toward his private rooms in the penthouse, the floor-to-ceiling windows casting a blazing trail in his honor.

  Everything seemed to be in his honor. The viper charmed the masses. They gave themselves over to Fen without question. He might soon hold the fate of the world in his hands.

  Adulation fed him well enough but a small number of spent bodies weren't uncommon, either. No one noticed the missing. Magic took care of the evidence, turned away the questions.

  A few, like her, he kept in servitude, turning them for his private entertainment. His private soldiers. His private worshippers.

  She'd even married him, a disgrace Renae would never be able to overcome, much less explain. He needed an image. She gave him her soul.

  Twisting and tumbling along the road of this insane odyssey with a man poised to inherit the political world, Renae happened upon a splinter of hope from an unlikely source, in a place where no hope had any right to exist. A turn of fortune presented itself during a chance encounter in New Orleans five months ago.

  The mirror mocked her now, daring her to draw the next card. Renae held her breath, her fingers tingling as they hovered over the backs of the Tarot cards. How many times had she gotten the wrong answer in the months since? She touched the deck and pleaded with any spirit listening. Let it be today.

  A whoosh of breath escaped her lips as she pulled the card. Yes. Renae felt the wheel spin as she dropped the card down on the altar in front of her.

  * * *

  The tiny shop sat back from the alley in a rundown section of town, a place where the voodoo is authentic and sane people don't venture into the shadows.

  No one's accused me of being sane lately. The very idea tickled Renae's long-forgotten sense of humor. A joke at her expense. The thought appealed to her.

  The shop door stood open, inviting Renae in along with the humidity of the summer day. An old woman appraised her from behind the back counter, a smile touching the corners of her mouth enough to give her a benign countenance. Renae didn't believe it for one moment. She felt the power rolling off this dangerous woman. The prospect excited her.

  “You be far from home, needing more help than you've a right to ask for.” The Cajun queen laughed, her voice sounding like textured silk rasping against sand. Eyes snapping with black fire burned their way into Renae's mind, leaving her feeling as if she had a gaping hole in her forehead. “You know who you be tied to? He rise from the ashes. Fortune don't play no role for him.”

  “Please. There must be some way. I know you can help me. I can feel it.” Renae knew she'd give this woman anything she had, plead for as long as it took.

  “Maybe. No telling how fate might twist the intent. Just so you know. I may have something to ease the pain.”

  A raucous sound rolled from the woman, more like gathering spirits to do her bidding than anything resembling a laugh. The air around the Cajun spun, her black hair whipping upwards in a funnel, snakelike, twisting into an emotion fraught with seduction and easy magic lying there for the taking.

  Renae blinked and the room around her settled into a shop once
more, the seething energies held back in an uneasy truce. Her spine crawled with unaccustomed trepidation, but she stood her ground, refusing to look away from the obsidian eyes staring her down, the mouth curved as if ready for trouble.

  The woman sauntered over to a shelf at the back of the shop, plucking an hourglass from it and spinning back to Renae in one quick movement. She tapped the hourglass three times in rapid succession. Something inside the sand repeated the beat like an echo, the color of the granules turning from a vibrant blue to that which was found on a stroll along the beach.

  Renae kept her unease to herself. After all, she had asked for help and only the strongest magic had any hope of succeeding. Still, the wrongness pounded a drumbeat of doom within her, the message intoxicating at the same time. The lure of the darkness ready to savage the unwary.

  The Cajun queen held the relic aloft, away from her body, and studied Renae for a few moments before speaking. “When the time arrives for you, the cycle will end. Your journey comes to a close and a new beginning spreads before you. Rebirth is possible if you do not waver. There's only one escape, one chance. You await the world. To move before the moment of clarity brings you nothing.”

  Renae nodded her understanding.

  My chance at redemption.

  * * *

  One card to go. Then she'd know for sure. Trembling fingers slid along one card to the next before coming to rest on what Renae hoped was her redemption. A tear formed in her eye as she laid it above the others. This was her card, the answer to her question.

  The World.

  Renae picked up the hourglass, careful to keep it away from her body as the energy vibrated down her arm, restlessly seeking what the voodoo woman called “an awakening.” She walked past the windows in the hallway, the sunlight dimming now as storm clouds gathered outside. The soft carpet beneath her bare feet beckoned to Renae to lay down her burden and rest. Forget her plans. It would all work out if she kept quiet.

  Only the pull of the hourglass held in front of her kept Renae going, the energy contained within jumping with a frenzy of kinetic activity. The sand still didn't move between the two chambers but rather surged in place, as if experiencing a tidal pull inside the glass. The motion drew her eye and she quickened her steps. The sooner she got rid of this dark magic, the better.

  Fen lay on the wide bed asleep, his chest bare, his hair a tousle of flaming color against the pillow. Renae almost wept at the thought of destroying such beauty. Only the knowledge of his blackened depths drove her on.

  She placed the hourglass on Fen's chest, directly over his heart, hoping the Cajun queen's knowledge held true. The voodoo woman had said the object would hold him in stasis. If not, Renae had no doubt these would be the last moments of her life.

  Better to die trying than not to try at all.

  His body trembled but he didn't wake. Renae let go of the breath she held and watched in terror as fangs appeared in the sand for a brief moment before sinking back down again.

  Inside the hourglass, the sand turned red in a blaze of glowing fire, as if kissed by the sunset. Fen's body jerked several times in spasms, then stilled, his breath fading as his lungs ceased to function.

  There would be recriminations. Wars could start over his death as factions accused each other of conspiracy. Renae might be blamed as well—only fitting as it would be the truth—but standing aside and doing nothing to stop his intentions would have been a far greater evil. Even if she were the only one who could see it. The only one who knew him for what he truly was. The only one capable of stopping him before he destroyed free will.

  Her pulse gave a savage kick as Fen's body crumbled to dust, a desiccated wasteland lying on the mattress, the room eerily silent but for a gentle hissing sound emanating from the sand in the hourglass. Renae wondered for a moment what those fangs belonged to before deciding she didn't want to know. The sand itself started moving again, its new color causing each grain to seem like a tiny drop of blood dripping into a pool of the stuff. She tore her gaze away from the sight as her stomach did a slow flip, holding the offensive timepiece away from her body with a straight arm as she made her way back to the altar.

  Whatever happened, it was the end of the threat. The world could re-group, start anew. So could she, even if it was from inside a jail cell. At least she'd know she made the right decision.

  The candlelight sputtered and flared as she knelt in front of the altar and stared into the mirror once more. The flames briefly consumed her image before settling back down, as if something in the aether called out to the fire, giving it renewed life. The smell of cinnamon filled the room, turning sweet, cloying, combining with a burnt stench which assaulted Renae's nose.

  Something in her peripheral vision moved, a shadow sending chills to roll along her spine. She turned her head with reluctance, afraid of what she'd find.

  Nothing but empty space. I'm alone in the room. The realization surprised her.

  When she turned back, the mirror had iced over, its surface showing jagged cracks within the white. It caught Renae in a trance, the cold numbing all movement. Casting out all reason. Tightening the grip of fear.

  The moisture heated again to room temperature, melting in rivulets along the length of the mirror. It seemed to be crying fat tears, showing the tracks on Renae's reflected cheeks. Cheeks no longer under her control.

  The face in the mirror is still mine but belongs to Fen now. I'm floating somewhere behind him, off to his left, insubstantial and helpless. A wraith, nothing more.

  The reflected image dissolved, re-emerged as Fen. Like the Phoenix, he had emerged from the ashes to start anew. The perfect ruler. Feared as the antichrist by some, adored by many more. Free to steal their will, their power, their lives.

  And I helped him do it.

  He smiles as if he can sense me drifting over his shoulder. Perhaps he can.

  The sound of a Cajun queen's laughter fills my mind as fear of this new existence extinguishes all hope.

  Welcome to eternity.

  The Jupiter Event

  An excerpt from the Novella ‘A Door Never Dreamed Of’

  J Edward Neill

  N ine hundred years ago, humanity believed it had attained perfection.

  The ugly wars of the Twenty-Second Century had ground to an end. New systems of farming and weather-control had eliminated hunger. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, even Alzheimer’s…cured by a single scientist’s genetic research. Coal, oil, and gas, long the mainstays of ‘dirty’ energy, were eliminated, replaced by nuclear-powered machines which operated like miniature stars, and which were built to last not for hundreds of years, but for millions.

  It seemed humanity had climbed a mountain for many centuries dreamed of.

  And yet, if it was true, if humanity had finally transcended, it had little to do with the decline of poverty, hunger, conflict, and war. For even with all obstacles removed, people still sought to undermine, to steal, to envy, and to seek power even when unnecessary.

  Ultimately, what brought us so near to utopia was the ultimate weapon for suppressing human instinct and emotion:

  Entertainment.

  In the year 2116, a technology firm known as pENT (Permanent Entertainment) ended their focus on creating video games. The art had long been in decline. Even with the most immersive games available, and even with entire city blocks dedicated to round-the-clock gaming experiences, the world’s youth craved more. No one needed to work, after all. No soldiers were required to wage war, and no labor force was required. Leisure time had become all the time. To exist, the world’s youth needed only to rise from sleep, claim a meal at any of a billion free-of-charge food dispensers, and breathe. Nothing else was mandatory. All sectors of labor had become fully mechanized, controlled by robotic automatons, who, even when in need of maintenance, were simply repaired by other automatons.

  Life had become easy. Too easy.

  And so Permanent Entertainment decided to live up to its name.
r />   And in a matter of months, pENT released a beta version of In.

  In, or Imaginary Nature, was at first meant as a life simulator. Early users would plug in for days, even weeks at a time. While jacked into In, users could create every tiny detail of an alternate existence, and then live that existence as though it were their own. Some In testers used it to escape their utter boredom. Others, most especially young men, used it to simulate every imaginable sexual adventure. Women created fantastical lands, many of which lacked men, and nearly all of which gave them the chance to be the most beautiful, most fashionable, and most influential person alive. The elderly used In to be young again. Artists created other worlds to inhabit, some alien, some mechanical, and many that were terrifying. The earliest beta users became so adept at using In’s interface they created empires over which they ruled and galactic civilizations designed to worship them. Some even used In to recreate themselves as gods, suzerains of everyone and everything.

  It was all fantasy, of course.

  And yet, ten months after In’s beta ended, In was almost in.

  Having anticipated In’s success, pENT tried to make certain its release-day preparations were perfect. In cities around the world, their techs purchased vast volumes of server space. Rows upon rows of buildings were dedicated to housing computers capable of processing users’ imaginations. Elsewhere, workers constructed apartments designed solely for users to live in while jacked into In. The apartments had tiny rooms. Most were barely big enough to fit a single chair, a few strands of body-sensory jacks, and a feed/waste tube to keep users from needing to un-jack several times every day. ‘Sardine houses,’ an elder pENT executive named them. ‘Fit for sleeping fish.’

  Given their preparations, Permanent Entertainment assumed its success. Their webs of wifi sats and Blacktooth, light-speed data-ejectors blanketed almost every metropolitan area in North America, Western Europe, China, and the unified, Middle-Eastern goliath Iranabia. They hired thousands of consultants to deal with technical problems, retrofit older connections, and to train users to remember to un-jack.