won't be as merciful as I would be.'
'You're nuts.'
He chuckled. It was a rough sound. 'Perhaps. But there's a war coming, a war that man cannot win. The only question remaining is how brutal will be our defeat. Your way, your struggle, it only ends in death, the eradication of all life on this world. My way, many will perish, so that many more will live. It will be a time of rebirth, renewal, where man will take his place as righteous servants of the great Old Ones.' I started to raise my gun again. 'Okay, okay. You're so bloody impatient. I'm making you an offer…'
'I won't join you.'
'Join me?' he said incredulously. 'Why would I do that? I'm asking you to surrender.' Right about then I found myself really wishing that this wasn't the dream world, and this wasn't a dream gun, filled with dream bullets, because I'd blow his brains all over the duck pond. 'Hear me out. The Dread Overlord has never been personally offended by a human before. He called you by name!' He said that like I should be proud. 'His fury is infinite. By sacrificing yourself, you will salve his anger. The longer it takes for me to bring you to him, the more the entire world will pay for your insolence.'
'That's one hell of an offer.'
'I'm a humanitarian. Think of your friends, your loved ones… You've personally spit in the eye of the deadliest being in the universe. He will get you. It's only a matter of time. But it's my job to make sure that your meddling doesn't endanger us all. I'm trying to protect the innocent. Your irresponsibility threatens my plan to save the world.'
He was telling the truth, but there was something more. I thought of what Susan said. 'There's something else… Something in it for you.'
'I have made a deal, yes. The great gods of the beyond do not give power easily. It must be earned. You will be traded for something that I, and my father before me, have yearned for. You are the key to achieving my life's work, the merciful domination of this world. '
'You're as deluded as Machado was. I've seen what those things want, and mercy isn't part of the equation,' I said.
'The Old Ones don't want to destroy this world. They're ambivalent masters. They only destroy that which they can't have.' He tossed more bread on the water. The ducks quacked and fought for the crumbs. 'There are many factions of Elder Things. They don't care about us. They only want to control as many worlds, as many souls, as they can, and deprive the others of their ownership.'
'Nice touch.' I pointed at the duck pond. 'So, are these like some sort of symbolic illusion of great warring interstellar beings and we're the bread?'
He looked at me like I was dense. 'No. They're just ducks.'
'Yeah, I'm not real good at this whole metaphysical dream thing. How about we hook up someplace out in meat-space so that I can shoot you with real bullets?'
'Owen, I'm begging you. Help me present this place to them. It's the only way to save us all. Fighting only makes them mad.' He gestured around the city. For the first time I noticed some sort of massive, alien tree amidst the skyline, as tall as the skyscrapers around it. The branches were segmented, twisted, unnatural and black. There were no leaves, rather strange membranes, shimmering like locust wings, stretched between the insectoid branches. It was wrong. It did not belong on this world.
'What is that?'
He was rather proud. 'The key to man's unity. The key to our survival. Under its boughs, there is only peace.'
The beautiful city had been built around the tree, for the tree. I shuddered.
'This is my world. My world will be a utopia. No more war. No more starvation, strife, or disease. I will banish death. But if we continue to struggle, their patience will wear thin, and their methods will turn from subterfuge to brute force…' As he said that, the sky darkened. The nearby leaves and grass turned brown, wilted, and died. The giant buildings twisted and collapsed in gushing clouds of dust, but the great tree remained unharmed, standing alone on the burning horizon. The sky turned blood red with smoke and fire. The sounds of laughter in the distance mutated into screams of pain and the wails of torture. 'And this will be the result…' The clean water of the pond turned to black pollution. The feathers burned off the ducks in a stench of acid and bile. Oily purple tentacles the size of spaghetti noodles encircled the frantic birds and sucked them down in a spew of harsh bubbles. 'My way is the only way. Help me stop this.'
Glancing around the terrible landscape, I knew he wasn't exaggerating. I had seen this before, different variations of this vision many times. The Old Ones were coming. This was the future…
No. This was a future. I strengthened my resolve and gave my final answer. 'I've already picked my side.'
'Your side?' he replied derisively. 'Oh, I'm quite familiar with them. Your side is made up of ghosts and fools. You ally yourself with the Hunters, yet Harbinger's a liar and a murderer. You think the government can protect you from my religion of truth, yet Myers is a traitor and a coward. The vampires Shackleford offer you an out, but my own sins pale before Susan's ambitions and Ray's pride. Your side is an alliance of flawed convenience, and it will shatter at its first test.'
He spoke like he knew them… 'Who are you, really?'
'I'm your friend. I'm the only one who'll tell you the truth.' His voice raised in volume and intensity. 'I am the Lord of Shadows, High Priest of the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition. I am the first Horseman of the Apocalypse, the herald of the burning sunset of one age and the dark dawn of a new.'
My grip tightened on my pistol. A hot wind blew through the destroyed park. I had had enough of this nonsense. 'No. You're just another pain-in-the-ass psycho screwing around with magic shit that shouldn't be screwed with. Listen real careful, you quisling fuck, I'm coming for you and your little church, and I'm going to end you.'
'I was afraid of that, but I had to offer. I'm not by nature a violent man,' the Englishman responded, but the steel in his voice indicated that was a lie.
'Well, I am,' I responded.
We were plunged into shadow as a huge shape blotted out the reddened sun. I glanced up, my brain unable to comprehend the massiveness of the creature swimming through the air above us, trailing streamers of flesh, thorns, and a thousand eyes for what had to have been a quarter mile. Part blimp, part squid, all gut-wrenching terror. I knew that there were hundreds more just over the horizon.
'You've made your choice,' the Englishman said, but when I turned my attention back to the park bench, the thin man was gone, and now it was a hulking shadow shape there, a formless mass with the consistency of oil-fired smoke. It tossed the rest of the loaf of bread into the bubbling tar, which disappeared with a hiss. The shape moved, flowing up from the bench, towering above me as it prepared to leave. 'When we meet again, expect no mercy.'
'Likewise.'???
By the time we rolled into the compound, the sky had reached that kind of muted, quiet gray that came just before dawn. Most of the occupants of our vehicle were asleep at this point. An exhausted Lee was still driving. Julie was out, somehow actually using the butt stock of her M14 to prop up her head, and snoring loudly, which she did quite a bit, though I would never let her know. Mosh had finally passed out, having called his PR firm, manager, agent, and band mates before the borrowed cell phone battery had croaked.
My muscles groaned in protest and my ankle burned painfully as I stepped onto the gravel outside the office building. I was still hurting from Mexico, let alone wrecking the tour bus and getting my ass kicked by gnomes. I had removed my stinky gas-soaked boots, and the little rocks jabbed painfully into my too-soft soles and still-bandaged heel. I didn't really think about the pain, which was nothing a handful of aspirin couldn't dull, but rather I was preoccupied about my meeting with the shadow man.
He had known Harbinger, Myers, and Julie's parents. There was just something about the way he had mentioned them that indicated some familiarity. I had a higher opinion of Earl than murdering liar, of course, but I couldn't really fault his assessment of the Fed or the vampires. If he knew them, then they might know him, and at this point, any intel was good intel. I intercepted Harbinger as he was stepping out of the passenger side of the other MHI vehicle. 'We need to talk. I just had a psychic meeting with the bad guy.'
It was a testament to the weirdness of our job that he didn't even bat an eye. 'No shit? Okay, conference
