by Christopher Lee Simmons (Mage: The Ascension | Resources)
"I dare you," Miranda moaned in dirging mockery of Peter Murphy. She pirouetted around the table, knocking Malcolm's empty glass into his lap. Annette grabbed her wrist as Miranda spun past and pulled her into a chair. Glancing around, Annette pulled her close so she would hear over the music.
"Don't do that again," she growled behind a smile. Miranda giggled and grabbed her drink, then shrugged. Malcolm got up and headed for the bar, eliciting stares from other patrons as he swayed slightly across the room. Annette watched him for a bit, ignoring Miranda's and the others' lustful stares, then went back to doodling on a napkin, the Fly Trap’s logo already covered with a variety of esoteric symbols, here a Crowley-esque variant pentagram, there a stylistic swirl, the alchemic symbol for Sublimation.
"Trying to find a spell that'll give you courage, baby?" Miranda swirled the straw in her drink and licked her lips. Annette growled and kicked her chair, almost flipping the other girl onto the floor. "Jeez, Annette, lighten up for God's sake. Not like any of that magic bullshit works or anything. I swear you guys just sit around and stroke each other's egos... or do you stroke something else?" Miranda twirled her pigtails and played innocent, then licked her lips again .
"Screw off, Miranda."
"I'd rather sc-"
"I heard the Tower's cursed. They keep trying to build there, but people always die while they're working." Malcolm interrupted them before another fight started, absently playing with the onyx cross hanging around his neck with one hand while the other rubbed Annette's back. She sighed at his touch; stories about the tower were familiar territory, something they always talked about.
"The way I heard it, back when the thing was first built, it was only part of a fort, designed to watch for pirates. But one night, they missed Jose Gaspar and his men sneaking into the bay, and the pirates slaughtered all the Spanish soldiers manning the fort. It's their ghosts haunting it, defending it from invaders to this day." Malcolm's eyes twinkled as he sat back, satisfied with his latest invention. Annette groaned at the story, but hugged him tight.
Miranda chimed in. "I heard Jose Gaspar was the one who built it as a watchtower."
"Jose Gaspar never even existed, guys. It's too far from the ocean to be either of those things anyway, and why would a pirate care about Tampa? It's just a water tower with some psycho bums living around it." Cannibalistic bums were Annette's current favorite theory. To her, the idea of prostitutes and dope fiends as food for the homeless seemed to be poetic justice.
"Well then, we should go and see what's out there."
"Forget it, Miranda. We'll get arrested or something."
"You're just chicken. I'm not kidding, I dare you to go to the tower and see what's inside." Miranda grinned and threw back the rest of the drink, her fourth Long Island Iced Tea of the night. Annette rolled her eyes and slid her hand along Malcolm's leg, silently willing him to ignore the drunken girl. He leaned back and lit a new cigarette, then snapped his Zippo closed with a flourish. Standing, the lanky boy grinned lopsidedly at Miranda and Annette.
"Let's do it. I ain't scared of any ghost story."
"Why do you think they never put up the hotel?" She watched Malcolm slide sinuously out from behind the steering wheel and licked her lips. She didn't care if he was Annette's boyfriend; that hadn't stopped her before. She checked her hair to make sure it was still in place, then bounced toward him, as Annette slid up beside him, the fur on her coat collar brushing the bottom of her bobbed hair. Annette looked up at the anachronistic tower jutting out of this slum. Miranda stopped short and sneered.
"You two going to go in, or are you just gonna stare?" Malcolm flipped her off and pushed at the sagging chain-link fence. There, a few yards down, was a hole big enough for them to slip through. Annette was ignoring Malcolm and Miranda, swaying in the weeds a few feet away. She ignored the pair until Malcolm touched her, then jolted back to attention and looked around.
"I don't think we should be here. There's a lot of power in this place," she whispered reverently.
"Fuck that. Your mumbo-jumbo's not going to scare me, Annette." Miranda grabbed Malcolm's hand and pulled him toward the hole in the fence. "Let's go see what's inside!"
Malcolm led the two girls down to the hole and pulled himself through, then reached back for Annette.
"OW, SHIT!" He jerked his hand back from the fence and its bloody prongs, digging into the meat of hands like hungry teeth. Annette slipped and tore her dress on the spikes, but Malcolm caught the girl and pulled her through. Miranda stood outside the fence, mirth gleaming in her eyes as she watched the prima donna rip her dress.
Annette followed in awe as Malcolm moved toward the old building. Behind them, Miranda cursed as her own dress caught in the fence. The area was flushed with the static hum of power, and a darker, sibilant chorus of whispers underlying everything around her. She could feel it building inside her body, yearning for release. Looking around, she saw them.
Pressed against the fence like spectators, translucent and frightened children, hobos, surveyors and older, odder things watched her. Some tried to yell to her, but she couldn't understand their words. She was used to ghosts; she had seen them most of her life. The spirits around the fence bore a motley assortment of injuries, crushed arms, splintered ribs, and smoldering burns. The longer she watched them, the more emotional they became and the louder their voices tore at her.
The roar of it was so loud in her ears, like a heartbeat wildly unchained, that she almost missed the sounds of movement coming from all around her.
Suddenly frightened, she hurried to catch up to her boyfriend.
"Don't worry, sweetheart, I'll protect you from the bums,." Malcolm grinned and pulled her close, putting his arm around her waist. "We're too thin for them anyway. Maybe we should have brought Adam with us to use as bait?"
"Malcolm! That's so rude, I can't believe you just said that." Annette punched him in the shoulder playfully. He pulled her to him and kissed her, his slender arms sliding around her back, his fingers curling in her hair, "I'm sorry, baby."
Miranda finally untangled herself from the fence and followed the other two in a drunken wobble, giggling as she stumbled in the tall weeds. Slipping, she fell on the hard ground and let out a strangled cry. Malcolm and Annette turned around yelling for her to keep up. Malcolm came back and reached out for her just before the ground around them erupted.
Earth flew up in huge chunks around Malcolm's head, dirt and effluvia getting in his eyes. He heard screaming, but couldn't tell if it was Annette or Miranda.
Then he saw it.
Crouching over Miranda, it’s black skin stretched and shiny over distorted, spidery bones, the creature hissed into her face. He watched the smooth, intricate play of its muscles as the thing touched her leg in a violent caricature of caress. Malcolm stared as its claws sliced through her calf and exposed bone and muscle, then it turned to him, its face a mass of teeth and blinking sickly yellow eyes. For a moment, everything stood still. Annette was frozen in shock, her mouth and eyes wide. Malcolm watched the drunken girl scrabble and crawl away from the thing, toward the fence, in slow motion. He watched the creature circle him intently. Miranda's blood gleamed dully in the moonlight, dripping viscously off of the thing's talons as it stared at him.
Malcolm waited until he was between the creature and the girls, then lunged at it. "RUN!" he screamed, tearing Annette out of her terror, putting her body on autopilot, toward the fence. Malcolm punched and grabbed at the creature, his fists thudding wetly against its slick hide. The ebony thing caught his fist and Malcolm felt a churning, hot pain melt through his abdomen. Standing, the creature let the lanky, dying body slide off of its claws.
Annette ran for the van irrationally, imagining that it was "base" and that if she could only reach it, she wouldn't be tagged. Diving through the hole in the fence, the prongs scrabbled at her greedily, then she hit the pavement and tasted blood as her mouth slammed shut. Dazed, she stood to pull the struggling, drunken girl through and saw the creature, loping toward the fence, Malcolm's shuddering form dying on the ground behind it.
She stared into its eyes as it grabbed at Miranda and started to pull her back through, its talons rending her back as they sought for purchase. Annette watched ivory, gore-spattered bones reveal themselves and heard Miranda's sobs.
"Please..."
Annette felt a break, a snap in the back of her mind. Looking up, new determination in her eyes, she reached for the creature's hand. She felt the power of the place welling up inside her, reaching a boiling point, using her as vessel and crucible. She grabbed its wrist and focused all of her hatred for the thing with her will, pushing the image of the monster writhing and burning in a Hell of her own design. With a sound oddly like flapping wings, smoke began to rise under her hand, from the creature's arm. The flesh of its forearm began to peel back, revealing charred ash and bone. The young girl heard a keening whine emitted from the creature as it jerked its arm free and backed away from the fence. She pulled Miranda the rest of the way through and shoved her back from the fence towards the van and stopped to look at the thing in the grass. Cradling its ruined arm, the creature hissed at her, then slid back down into the earth from which it had risen.
Annette rolled Miranda over to examine her back. A section of flesh was laid open like a filleted fish. Miranda felt her gorge rising and turned away, taking in great gulping breaths, barely fighting off the nausea that threatened to overtake her. She dragged the injured, bleeding girl into the van and laid her across the back seat. Throwing the van in gear, it jerked to a start and tore down Florida Avenue. Streetlights flashed on Miranda's back through the van's windows, displaying the creature's gruesome handiwork in the rearview mirror.
"Annette?” Miranda’s quavering voice weakly floated up to her.
"Shh. We're going to the hospital, you rest."
"Where's Malcolm?"
"Just rest." Tears streamed down Annette's face, and she imagined the broken form of her lover lying in the grass again.
"Oh, shit. We can't just leave him..." A pothole jarred the van and Miranda screamed, then mercifully slipped from consciousness, leaving Annette to drive the rest of the way in silence. Tears wracked Annette's thin frame, streaming black eyeliner down her pale face.
Annette sat staring dully at the wall of the waiting room at University Community Hospital, waiting for word on Miranda's condition and trying to think of a feasible explanation for the police. Nearby, she could hear others crying and laughing, dealing with their own losses and joys, but she kept thinking back to the creature's burning arm. She had tasted the power in that place and knew that part of it was inside her now. She had always been talented, but now she could see other possibilities beyond merely talking to dead things. She saw trails of energy flowing off of things. If she looked hard enough, she could see the patterns of life and chance ebbing and flowing off of the patients and their loved ones.But what price this power? She had lost Malcolm, might still lose Miranda. Tears slid down her face, but the grief turned into a cocktail of anger and fear as quickly as it came. She thought back to White Tower. The creature there had been tangible, solid. It could be hurt, and thus, killed. She could destroy the creature at White Tower, avenge her lover's death. But she knew the thing would come for her if it could. She had hurt it, and the creature would want revenge. It was just a matter of when.
She knew she wouldn't be sleeping tonight.
