"Sea Star"
May. 27th, 2022 03:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"Sea Star"
I.
[5/12/2018]
"I called Jeremy at home. He's on his way," Sable said. She stepped out of her office into the wide front hall of the KDF headquarters building. The walls were mostly taken up by shelves packed with ancient books, with esoteric items interspersed among them including bronze statuettes, wavy-bladed daggers, one skull of an unidentifiable horned animal and a nicely framed oil portraut of a sour-faced Puritan dressed all in black. But, in a corner back toward the door to the kitchen, a sturdy wooden stand held a fish tank which bubbled as pumps circulated the salt water. Standing at chest level, the tank had unusually thick walls and a folding metal top which was kept locked into place.
For the first time, Demark Jin noticed strips made of a pale metal ran along the edges of the tank, and that a finely-crafted wheel of that same metal formed part of the lock which held the tank closed. Ensalir. Silver charged with protective gralic force by the immortal Eldarin themselves. Why would ensalir borders be necessary? The woman from Ulgor had an unfriendly expression on her face even when resting, but now the cloudy blue eyes were actively sullen and angry. At only five feet three, with short bristling white hair and a wide pug face, Jin was not what most people would consider attractive but her ferocious presence made her hard to ignore. Now, she swung around to face her captain.
"I wanted to ask about this earlier, Sable," she said. "Most of these creatures in the tank are indeed from Ulgor, as Jeremy always told visitors. The hermit crabs that build their castles from pebbles, the seahorse with fangs. Even that luminous squid with the transparent body. But I had never seen a sea star like this one. It seems dead. The eye is clouded over."
Coming up next to her partner, Lauren Sable Reilly peered into the tank. Jin knew that her captain had enhanced perception and could see and hear beyond what normal flesh and blood organs could achieve. Lying on its side in the gravel at the base of the tank was a orange creature with a central body large as a person's hand and five thick appendages. In the hub of the beast, a single red eye was glazed and unseeing.
"That thing always watched me when I came near the tank," Jin said as if deeply offended. "Its eye moved. At first, I thought it was amusing but the beast got on my nerves. It stared as if it was aching to get out of there and attack me. Sometimes I thought I should simply stab it with my bone knife and solve the problem."
"It's good you didn't. Finally dead. By natural causes, too." Sable stood and placed a hand on the Ulgoran's narrow shoulder. "There is a strange story behind that tiny animal, Jin. But then, this building houses many thousands of artifacts, each with a strange story of its own. It would take years to explain them all."
Demrak Jin shrugged and folded her arms across her chest. "I do not understand. Tell me more."
"I don't see why you can't learn about the case. It just has never come up before." Sable gave a final hard stare at the dead creature in the tank and then led her teammate toward the open office door across the hall. "Let's have a seat. It all began when the first KDF team was getting started, almost forty years ago..."
II.
[March 1, 1980]
Khang pressed with one gloved hand and the door slammed violently inward off its hinges with its lock snapped. Nothing of the giant silver man could be seen, bundled as he was in a long coat, trousers and heavy brogans, with his head concealed beneath a wool scarf and a wide-brimmed hat pulled low. A pair of wraparound goggles hid his eyes. When he swung his head back toward the Dire Wolf, an inexplicable gleam of light could be seen behind those dark-tinted lenses.
"Thanks, Khang," Jeremy Bane said as casually as if his teammate had simply pulled the door open. Wearing his usual all-black outfit of slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket, the Dire Wolf seemed even more lean and gaunt than he was. Only twenty-one, he carried himself with such intensity and conviction that people treated him as if he were much older. He strode in through the gap where the door had been and slowly turned around.
It was a meager, even dumpy little apartment above a garage. The couch sagged, the furniture overthrown on the bare wooden floor was mismatched and the curtains on the windows had started life hanging on a shower stall. Between the stale beer and cigarette odor, the mildew was hardly noticeable. An empty pizza box and several beer bottles on the floor next to the couch added to the decor.
"I hear something in the bedroom," said the Dire Wolf, standing in the most open area and bracing himself.
"Its lifeforce is muted," Khang replied in his unnatural booming voice that seemed to come from all directions. "There is no living Human in this apartment."
Even as the final word echoed, a ragged form lurched unsteadily out of the bedroom and rushed directly at them to be stopped short by a straight side kick that flung it back through the doorway faster than it had emerged. Bane lowered his leg, taking an easy stance from which he could move in any direction. Without taking his eyes off the bedroom door, he said, "Khang?"
"That man was no longer alive," the silver man answered. "My eyes are not as yours. I see he is a cadaver animated by some foul force."
"It's Midnight War stuff then. Stand by, buddy." Again, the ragged man came running at him. Bane gripped the man's wrist and elbow, pivotting to throw him down hard to the floor, then pinning him down with a boot between the shoulder blades. The Dire Wolf had retained his hold on the man's arm, pulling it up straight for further leverage. As the man wriggled weakly to break free, the Dire Wolf got a good look. Stained coveralls, worn-out sneakers. Wide hands with dirty broken fingernails, the back of a head with thinning brown hair that could use shampoo. Strangely, the man had not made a sound beyond a wheezy breathing.
"Paymer? Wally Paymer?" Bane asked without expecting a reply. "Can you hear me?"
"He is no longer there. His spirit has fled," rumbled his teammate. Looming up well over seven feet tall, Khang kept his head bent to avoid rubbing against the low ceiling. He peeled off one of the brown gloves to reveal a huge hand seemingly made of flexible burnished silver. Even in the dim light from the single lamp on an endtable, that skin gleamed. "I think you should step aside, my friend."
"Wait, wait," Bane said. He tilted his head and added, "No pulse. Skin feels like it's at room temperature. You're right, Khang, this poor guy is just a zombie being run by some critter inside him."
"Aye, it is so." White light crackled around the metallic hand, building in intensity, casting new shadows in that room. "I will destroy that body and leave not even dust."
Bane turned his pale grey eyes on his partner. Khang was by far the most powerful member of the new Kenneth Dred Foundation, as close to being invincible as any being on this world had ever been. Yet Khang was sworn to follow Bane as captain of their team of Tel Shai knights. So far, the silver giant had never defied a lawful order. "Wait," Bane told him again. "I think we need to have Len take a look. Maybe he can figure out what exactly we are dealing with. Maybe give us a way to fight these puppeteers. Okay?"
"Yes.. Perhaps I am still too quick to unleash my wrath. Very well. Let us return to our headquarters and let the Trom do his work." Again, unbearably bright white energy filled that apartment as Khang drew on the transcendental gralic force. This time, when that glare faded, all the room was empty. Bane, Khang, and the thing that had been Wally Paymer were gone.
III.
Leonard Slade did not jump as the emergency room at KDF headquarters was flooded with white light. He had been expecting it. He would likely have not given a start even if taken by surprise, his reactions were under such tight control. As a Trom, Slade was nearly emotionless and he formed his thoughts through logical process as much as any flesh and blood organism could. But neither he nor other Trom were absolutely cold. Despite literal Ages of breeding and culture training, some inevitable interference still appeared from hormones and metabolic effects. Slade seemed to be a tall, fit man about thirty with short dark hair and smooth olive skin. At the moment, he had tied a disposable smock over his street clothes and he pulled on blue latex gloves as the white light flashed.
The KDF emergency room had white tile floor and walls, bright overhead fluorescent panels and three regulation hospital beds. There were several wheeled cabinets containing standard supplies such as any ER might keep ready. But the diagnostic equipment on its extensible arms would be unfamiliar to any technician. Those readout screens were fed data from Trom sensors far more advanced than any X-Rays could match. CAT scans had only been in use a few years at that time and MRIs were still experimental, but the Race of geniuses who made up the Trom had long progressed past those devices.
As soon as the light ebbed and left only afterimages in its wake, Slade reacted as smoothly as if he had rehearsed this situation hundreds of times. "Excuse me, captain," he said as he took Paymer from under Bane's foot and effortlessly lifted the limp body to place it face down on one of the beds. Slade fastened restraining straps around the man's ankles and wrists before stepping back.
Standing off to one side, the Dire Wolf was scowling, but then this was his normal expression. Cindy often said he had a 'bad case of ticked-off face.' As he watched the Trom, he said, "You were ready for us to bring him here, huh?"
"It seemed likely you would do so," Slade replied in a voice kept from being monotone by very slight inflection at appropriate places. This was something Slade had learned since joining the team. "You made the correct decision, Jeremy. We can not combat this threat without sufficient information."
"Glad you approve," muttered the Dire Wolf. "So, he's a sort of zombie?"
"Yes. Not in the usual supernatural sense, but this is a recently deceased corpse kept functioning by orders from a parasite within its body." Slade swung a diagnostic scanner to point down at Paymer, then waited as clicks and buzzes indicated that readings were being taken. "Interesting," the Trom said quietly, which for him was the equivalent of letting his jaw drop open and reeling back in shock.
On a monitor mounted over the bed, a black and white image came sharply into focus. It showed in excrutiating detail the rear view of a human skull but with something horrifying added. Attached to the occipital region just under the scalp was what looked like a starfish two inches across... a starfish with a single staring eye in the hub of its central body.
"This abomination shall not be permitted to exist," Khang thundered as the lenses of his goggles shone from within. "I will evaporate it now!"
Even though he knew Khang could brush him aside effortlessly, Bane put an arm across the silver man's chest to keep him back. "Hold on, big guy, give Len a chance to find out about this thing. We need to know what we're fighting."
"I am entering this data in our records and transmitting to the Links of all our members," Slade told them. "That is not a natural organism. It is not even a true Echinoderm, although it closely resembles a so-called starfish. The creature is charged with potent gralic energy."
After his teammate was silent for a few seconds, Bane prompted him, "Yeah? Go on?"
"Unfortunately, Trom knowledge falls short at understanding gralir. We admit it remains a mystery beyond our ability to test or quantify. All I can say is that this quasi-starfish has extruded filaments into the victim's brain and nervous system which give it control of the victim's movements."
"I knew it!" Bane said. "It's operating him. It's making him walk like a marionette."
Slade turned that somber face toward his captain and nodded. "A convenient analogy, Jeremy. I am not given to hyperbole, so you should take it seriously when I warn we are facing a greater menace than ever before..." He was interrupted by a loud beeping and flashing lights from the screen above the bed. Fast as they were, the three Tel Shai knights were not quick enough to intervene as the skin on the back of the late Wally Paymer's head split open and a five-limbed creature tore free. It scrabbled over to drop to the tile floor, scuttling toward the door with alarming speed.
Then it stopped motionless, pinned down by a black boot right over that red eye.
"You are quick as ever, Jeremy," Khang observed in his hollow echoing voice. "I could not follow your movement."
"Yeah, well, we all bring our talents to the team," said Bane. "I figured you wanted to take it alive, Len."
"This is just as well." The Trom opened a cabinet drawer and took out a clear plastic box and a pair of metal tongs. Seizing the animal firmly, he placed the starfish in the specimen box, which he closed and latched shut. As he straightened and peeled off the latex gloves to dispose of them, Slade kept a wary eye on the creature curling and straightening its limbs.
"I will perform an examination of this specimen, using proper precautions," Slade announced. "So far, we know almost nothing about these creatures."
Coming closer to get a better look at the wriggling creature, Bane said, "I've called a meeting for seven tonight. Everyone has responded. Len, do you think there are more of these starfish things out there?"
The Trom put slightly more emphasis in his normally calm tones. "Yes. My tentative theory is that this specimen is only a juvenile emissary of a much larger and more dangerous organism which has sent it out."
"Wait, what?" asked Bane. "Are you saying this is like a BABY monster? How big would the adult be?"
"I can't make a valid estimate until I examine this in the lab," Slade replied, heading for the door into the hall.
IV.
At nine that evening, all seven founding members of the Kenneth Dred Foundation took their seats around the long oak table in the conference room on the second floor. Jeremy Bane stood at the head of that table, gazing thoughtfully at his friends. All seven were Tel Shai knights, sworn to obey lawful orders from him, their captain. Often he wondered about this. Michael Hawk was a world-famous criminologist and manhunter with a forty-year career giving him experience. Leonard Slade was a literal genius from a Race of geniuses, with a mind that worked fast as any computer and the advanced technology of the Trom behind him. Khang wielded limitless gralic force, enough to obliterate cities or strike down any foe. Cindy Brunner's telepathy meant she could know what anyone was thinking, or put thoughts into their minds that they would think would their own. Even Ted Wright, with his Blue Guide powers of healing and Larry Taper with his Silver Skull armor were impressive in their ways. Yet the Teachers of Tel Shai had been unanimous in choosing Bane to be captain of this team.
Yet Bane felt no self-doubts or uncertainty. He was by nature both stubborn and single-minded, and he brought these varied knights together in an integrated team that none of them might have been able to do.
"I call this meeting to order," he said, sitting down as he did so. "Good to see the full team at one time, I think we might all be needed for this one. To make the situation clear, we're dealing with creatures which resemble starefish with an eye in their center. These monsters slide in under a person's scalp and send tendrils into the nervous system. The Human host dies but the starfish then can make the body move about as it wishes. For a while at least. So far, we've nailed three zombies run by these creatures and we saved the last one for Len to inspect. Len, you want to report?"
The Trom had not brought the the starfish-thing with him but had left it secured in his labs on the seventh floor. "My inspection has not been satisfactory. The subject is not a natural organism, but one which has been extensively modified by gralic force beyond Trom ability to explain. Its rudimentary nervous system is gathered at the base of each appendage where they cooperate in a semi-independent manner. In the central hub is a larger nexus of nerve cells which I associate with telepathic ability. A very tentative theory suggests that this organism is in constant communication with a more advanced organism from which it received instructions."
"Sounds dicey," Cindy put in. A petite blonde only an inch over five feet tall, she had the most gifted telepathic mind of her era. For this meeting, she had changed into one of the field suits. All black, its snug pants, boots and waist-length jacket were crammed with tiny weapons and gadgets. Cindy had from the first taken the chair directly to Bane's right and no one ever contested that. "Let me near that thing, I could found out a few things about it."
"You will have that opportunity," Slade told her without enthusiasm. "I would advise you to regard them as dangerous threats when meeting you a telepathic level. An unknown number of them are linked into a single powerful consciousness."
"Point taken," she said in a more subdued tone. "Thanks for thinking of me, Len."
Clearing his throat, Michael Hawk spoke up. His shaggy hair was more grey than brown now, and his wide face had deep vertical creases from both exposure to the elements and from what he had endured. "What we need to know is what's it all about? What do these starfish varmints want, why are they killing people and making their corpses walk around? What's their plan?"
Bane stood up again, leaning forward with his palms on the table. "It looks like we have to use the only source available to us, but I don't like it. Len, would you bring the starfish here? Cin, stay alert as it gets nearer. If you feel endangered, say something."
"Don't forget I'm a Tel Shai knight and a KDF member, so it's my job to stick my neck out," she answered. The little blonde sat up straighter and gave Bane a faint smile. "Don't worry, though, I'm not out to prove how fearless I am, if that starfish seems like it's going to damage me, I'll say so."
When Slade returned a minute later, he was carrying a clear hard plastic box filled halfway with water. Inside, the creature moved its legs and seemed to be trying to get enough of a grip on the interior walls to reach the lid. Everyone shifted their attention back and forth to get a look at the animal and to see Cindy's reaction.
"It's okay," the telepath said but in a vague distant way. Her dark blue eyes went out of focus. "I'm getting a lot of information. This is not really conscious by itself, it's a sort of extension of a mind which thinks of itself as a Moridin. Yes. A starfish tall as a person, able to stand up unaided, but even the Moridin is not completely independent. I'm getting a name.. Draldros!"
"So Draldros is behind this? Talk about six miles of bad road with a flat tire," Hawk said in his flat Montana accent. "I swear, that boy makes the Devil envious when it comes to being no-good."
"The greatest enemy that Humans have ever known," added Khang. "He sits in Fandedral beyond our ability to reach, yet he is free to send his emissaries and servitors to attack us in the most vile ways. This may not be endured an hour later, Jeremy!"
The Dire Wolf looked down the table at his teammates, six of the greatest heroes ever known in the Midnight War. He focused on Cindy. "What do you say, Cin? Can you point us in the right direction?"
"Huh? Oh, you bet." The telepath shook herself and took a deep breath. "There's a mental web between this.. this thing and its master, and there are two others as well. Not too far away, either. I can send everyone toward the links in the network, but it won't be exact instructions. It'll be more, 'you're getting warmer' or 'you're getting colder,' you know?"
"We're going to act immediately," Bane said. "Hopefully, we can prevent these creatures from claiming any more victims. We'll set out in teams of two. Cin, you remain here and communicate with us through our Links, give us the directions."
"Stay here?" she repeated. "Jeremy, I mean, captain... I want to go out there, too. In a showdown with this Moridin, my powers might be the best weapon we have."
"You can't be in two places at the same time," Bane said. "I want you staying near that starfish and guiding us toward the others. Cin, this is not personal. If it meant having any other of us remaining here and for you to go into action, I'd order that instead."
"I know you would," she replied with obvious reluctance. "I realize you're not swayed by protectiveness."
V.
Larry Taper steered the big Buick Regal through the darkened lot where all but one building had been torn down. Piles of broken boards and shards of plaster marked where many other structures had stood not long earlier. "Strange to reminisce about this establishment," he said. "Even this close to Palisades Park, this once was a nexus for suburban families seeking amusement and mindless diversion, not to mention unnutritious food and grifters purloining their last penny. Merry-Land. More than once, I enticed a fair maid here when I was but a destitute college student with a major in an anthropology. To be guileless, we did enjoy the experience."
Riding next to him, Ted Wright smiled. The Blue Guide was a heavy-featured black man with very dark skin and the beginning of grey flecks in his beard and short-cropped hair even though he was not yet forty. He was wearing one of the KDF field suits under a tan topcoat but he did not have the ominous dangerous look in it that the outfit gave Bane or Hawk. "Larry," he said, "Maybe it was not this place that provided that joy but your age. To be that young and optimistic again...."
"Yes, that's true." Taper slowed to a stop near a solitary structure that stood long and low overlooking the Hudson River. Yellow tape stretched in X shapes across the entrances, reading CONDEMNED and KEEP OUT, and the windows had been blacked out. The Silver Skull tapped his hands on the steering wheel before saying, "That was a combined pizza and hot pretzel joint, if I remember right. They had miniscule circular tables and open wicker chairs outside, tacky but appropriate. It's mystifying how such an amusement park achieved bankruptcy? They seemed to be fleecing the public with alacrity."
"Time to focus on our mission, friend." Ted Wright reminded him. He spoke briefly into his Link and then clipped the device to his belt. "Cindy says the other teams have been successful. They're on their way here to provide backup. Evidently, they had no trouble destroying both the hosts and the parasites within."
Sliding out from behind the wheel, Larry Taper moved a few steps away from the car. He had not put on a field suit but remained in mundane brown slacks, tan polo shirt and a light windbreaker. "I feel my mystique would benefit from a dramatic slogan to yell when assuming my guise, oh well...." The night air shimmered around him. Taper abruptly was wearing a tight uniform of black leather pants, long-sleeved tunic and gloves over a steel breastplate and greaves molded to his shape. Strapped to his left arm was a round shield without insignia and sheathed at his left hip was the straight sword Chalcemar.
Taper's head was now concealed beneath a gleaming helmet crafted to resemble an unsmiling Silver Skull. Oddest of all, his eyes could not be seen. The two eye openings in the Skull helmet remained black and unsettling. "That's more like it!" Taper chuckled. "Time to become a scourge to the children of the night."
Stepping around to join him, Wright had taken a medical satchel from the back seat. He rarely let it be out of reach if he could help it. "Ah, Larry. That armor and helmet are thirty thousand years old. You are carrying on a tradition of courage and righteousness borne by many Silver Skulls before you. You should take it seriously."
The helmet reflected glints from the single lamppost in the deserted lot as he turned toward his partner. "Don't let my admittedly lighthearted banter mislead you, Ted. Our crusade remains the preeminent element in my life."
The Blue Guide said, "Good," and began walking toward the darkened structure.
"Say, Ted. Utilize your Blue Guide ability to enhance my own lifeforce. Charge up my metabolism so I'm stronger and more agile than normal for a mission. Isn't that a propitious thought?"
"You don't need the extra pep," Wright answered mildly. "Between the Tagra tea diet and your Kumundu training, you're as fit as you can reasonably be. I wouldn't tamper with your lifeforce if it's unnecessary. It would be like writing a prescription for a potent stimulant to give a healthy patient."
"I can tell you're a real doctor, with inconvenient ethics and so forth," the Silver Skull replied. "But I respect your judgement. Just an idea." He loosened the sword in its scabbard and adjusted the shield on his forearm. "Reassuring though it is to be advised by an MD that I'm in reasonably good shape."
As they drew near the silent building, Wright came to a halt and stood with his head cocked to one side as if listening. "We're facing something large and dangerous, Larry. An unfamiliar life force charged with gralic force. I also sense three of the unliving shells still being animated by those parasites. We've found the Moridin. Be careful."
"He is the individual who should experience trepidation," the Silver Skull retorted as he took three quick steps toward the building and swivelled sideways to smash out a kick which drove the door inward. From inside, two men in rags came staggering toward the now-open doorway. They lurched so badly that it seemed mere chance kept them upright. Their heads lolled loosely to one side. One of them was holding a short-handled axe.
"Go," came a wheezing voice from the closer man, words barely understandable as if formed by a throat and mouth unused to such purposes. "Run away. Run while you still can."
VI.
Behind the Silver Skull, Ted Wright said, "They are already dead, Larry. These are only their shells being misused by some alien creature. Do not hold back."
Taper's response was blindingly fast, his three-foot sword whipped left and then right, slicing cleanly through neckbones and sending two heads rolling away. That sword had been forged of fine Signarm steel mixed with numerous specks of Ensalir ages ago. Although the sword, like the helmet and the leather uniform, had been created by Humans, all had been ensorcelled by the immortal Eldarin. So it was that the entire regalia could be summoned to appear upon the body of the Silver Skull at will. There were other enchantments such as how the wearer of the helmet could hear advice and warnings from earlier Skulls. Chalcemar itself was an exceedingly sharp-edged and durable weapons whose blade was not notched no matter how much combat it saw, and the embedded ensalir chips gave it great potency against supernatural creatures.
Even so, to lop off human heads so neatly required a strong arm and a skilled hand. Larry Taper had earned his prowess through practice and hard work.
As the bodies slumped to the hardwood floor, the Silver Skull examined his blade and found it clean. "Conspicuous absence of blood, you may discern." Nevertheless, he took one of the small square rags he carried tucked in the back of his belt and wiped the sword before proceeding.
"Larry, quick!" Wright yelled. Instantly, acting on reflex, Taper lunged and drove the point of his sword into the floorboards, pinning one of the creatures down. Affected by the ensalir, the starfish shrivelled and blackened quickly. The Silver Skull placed one boot to hold the dead animal and yanked Chalcemar free, then immediately swiveled on one foot and drove the point of his blade into the other severed head. Under the lifeless scalp, something wriggled furiously and then was still.
"That stirred my adrenalin up!" Taper admitted. "So, when the host is killed, these monsters abandon ship. Well, we heard from Jeremy that happened in our emergency ward. They look as if they've been left on a barbeque grill too long."
"They are indeed destroyed," Wright agreed. "They move so quickly that I was surprised. I believe true starfish walk around at a slow pace, they use tiny tubercles on the underside of their appendages. But these are far from normal. They would have escaped and gone searching for someone sleeping outside or with a window open."
"And then we would have had another person killed and desecrated by these things," the Silver Skull said. He held up his sword and gestured with it at the opening where the door had been. "Shall we finish this mission?"
"Yes." Wright held up his right hand and blue radiance flickered around it, turning into a steady aura. He brightened the light until his hand served as a beacon in the late night gloom. "Best to get this over with."
They entered a vast high-ceilinged room with boarded-over windows, scraps of wood from torn-down counters and partitions piled in the corners, a long-discarded newspaper and crumpled cigarette butts littering the dusty floor. Swaying uncertainly before them was one of the unliving hosts. The body had been a middle-aged woman with short curly hair, a yellow sundress hanging in tatters to its feet. But horrifying as that puppeteered zombie was, the monstrosity behind it, revealed in the blue light from Wright's upraised hand, was worse.
The hub of the body reached six feet off the floor, high enough that the furious single red eye met Taper and Wright at face level. The starfish was a deep orange in color. It stood on two of its legs, with two at its sides waving gently and curling up to then open again. The top appendange probed forward questioningly at the two intruders.
From the zombie came a wheezing, barely audible from lungs that had been deliberately filled and then emptied to provide breath. "I was told of you Tel Shai fools," the voice gasped. "You will leave here carrying two more of my spawn."
"So... Moridin, is it? You were bred in Fanedral and sent here by the Dread One himself?" Wright asked.
"I see you will both serve me well. You are healthy, strong, in the prime of your short Human lives," the zombie managed to say before drawing in another deliberate chestful of air.
The Silver Skull gave a short barking laugh. "In your dreams! We are here to slay you!" He raised his sword again, and the ensalir specks in the blade glittered with their own light. Taper gripped the haft with both hands and moved toward the zombie which cringed back at the presence of ensalir.
"Wait, Larry!" Wright yelled. "Something... I sense more lifeforms within this monster. Smaller. Almost a dozen."
"Your friend is perceptive," the zombie gasped. "We Moridin are both male and female, as you Humans would say. At the base of each leg, I bear two of my young. If I die suddenly, by violence, they will be released. You cannot catch them all."
Taper hesitated. The helmeted head turned toward Wright. "Ted?"
After a long pause, the Blue Guide held up his other hand and the pure blue radiance shone from it as well. "What he says is true. But we do not need to slay him. I think there is another way." Wright stood with legs braced well apart and raised both hands up overhead. He lowered his head. Above the abomination, steaming hot air swirled upward as gralic force was drawn out to disippate and vanish.
The monster dwindled, became half its size. Then it was only two feet high. The power from Fanedral was being pulled out of its body. The undead woman lurched and nearly fell, its clawing hands reaching for Wright... then the sword Chalcemar wheeled in an arc that clove the head off entirely. Taper stepped closer, watching as the back of the severed head split open and he spitted the emerging starfish with the point of his sword. "Keep going, Ted!" he yelled.
By now, the Moridin had shrunk down until it was no more than a few inches across. The overwhelming feeling of doom that had oppressed them eased up. Wright sank to one knee and let the gralic light fade from his hands. His body was trembling from strain. "Whew. Give me a minute. That was more of a challenge than I had expected," he said.
Cleaning his blade and sheathing his sword, the Silver Skull flinched as the leather uniform and helmet vanished to leave him in his regular clothing again. "Well, there's a propitious sign," he said. "Any imminent danger must be passed for the nonce." He crouched by Wright and placed a reassuring hand on his partner's shoulder.
"I just need a moment to catch my breath," Wright said. "I don't know if it looks effortless, but gralic art like that takes intense concentration. Moridin was fighting me every inch of the way."
"It may be premature congratulations, but our adversary resembles a common trinket you might purchase at any seaside resort. Well, except for the added ocular organ."
"Moridin is still alive," the Blue Guide said as he got to his feet again. "We must keep him that way. Right now, he is powerless to do any telepathic harm or to release him spawn. He must be kept alive for his natural span."
"I'll get a specimen box from the car," said Taper. "Probably best to add some seawater to keep his gills wet, from what little I know of these creatures. We do collect the oddest nick-nacks...."
VII.
[5/18/2018]
Once he had been passed by the security scans in the foyer, Bane entered the front hall and went straight to where Sable and Demrak Jin were waiting back by the fish tank. The sprinkling of grey flecks had become heavier in his black hair and lines had deepened at the corners of his eyes but he still moved quickly and decisively. "Hi, you two. I came straight here from my house."
"It's good to see you, Jeremy," Sable said. "Ever since you officially retired, you have skipped a few of our Wednesday pizza nights."
"Some retirement," snorted the Dire Wolf. "It just means I never collect a fee for fighting monsters and maniacs. Hi, Jin."
"Captain. You look well." The young woman from Ulgor tapped a stubby finger against the side of the tank. "Your little friend here seems to have passed on."
Bane peered into the tank and one of his rare smiles touched the corners of his mouth. "Finally. I thought that damn pest would NEVER die. Sable, you remember reading about that case, don't you?"
"Absolutely. I was just filling our Jin in on it. You're sure that this Moridin is no threat at all?"
"Yep. Over the years, I had a few Midnight War experts take a look at him. Garrison Nebel, Dr Mage, Samuel Watesa. They all agreed that if he died of natural causes, his spawn would die with him. If they hadn't already been reabsorbed into his body. I guess you might describe him as a prisoner we kept locked up for a life sentence." Bane strode quickly to the emergency ward by the front door and returned with a pair of latex gloves he yanked on. "So many of our worst enemies are gone now. Karl Eldritch, John Grim, the Resurrector, and now this animal. It's funny but as I get older, I'm relieved to see the threats die off that you guys have to deal with, but I'm also a little sad for some reason."
Opening the lid of the tank, Bane reached in and drew up the small stiff body. It already had developed a pungent smell of ammonia. "I understand we're supposed to call them 'sea stars', not starfish. They aren't fish."
"Well, sea horses aren't horses for that matter. What are you going to do with it?" asked Sable, giving the remains a dubious gaze.
"Oh, nothing formal. We'll get rid of it the way everyone gets rid of pet goldfish. My hands are wet. Jin, would you mind opening the bathroom door for me?
9/3/2019
I.
[5/12/2018]
"I called Jeremy at home. He's on his way," Sable said. She stepped out of her office into the wide front hall of the KDF headquarters building. The walls were mostly taken up by shelves packed with ancient books, with esoteric items interspersed among them including bronze statuettes, wavy-bladed daggers, one skull of an unidentifiable horned animal and a nicely framed oil portraut of a sour-faced Puritan dressed all in black. But, in a corner back toward the door to the kitchen, a sturdy wooden stand held a fish tank which bubbled as pumps circulated the salt water. Standing at chest level, the tank had unusually thick walls and a folding metal top which was kept locked into place.
For the first time, Demark Jin noticed strips made of a pale metal ran along the edges of the tank, and that a finely-crafted wheel of that same metal formed part of the lock which held the tank closed. Ensalir. Silver charged with protective gralic force by the immortal Eldarin themselves. Why would ensalir borders be necessary? The woman from Ulgor had an unfriendly expression on her face even when resting, but now the cloudy blue eyes were actively sullen and angry. At only five feet three, with short bristling white hair and a wide pug face, Jin was not what most people would consider attractive but her ferocious presence made her hard to ignore. Now, she swung around to face her captain.
"I wanted to ask about this earlier, Sable," she said. "Most of these creatures in the tank are indeed from Ulgor, as Jeremy always told visitors. The hermit crabs that build their castles from pebbles, the seahorse with fangs. Even that luminous squid with the transparent body. But I had never seen a sea star like this one. It seems dead. The eye is clouded over."
Coming up next to her partner, Lauren Sable Reilly peered into the tank. Jin knew that her captain had enhanced perception and could see and hear beyond what normal flesh and blood organs could achieve. Lying on its side in the gravel at the base of the tank was a orange creature with a central body large as a person's hand and five thick appendages. In the hub of the beast, a single red eye was glazed and unseeing.
"That thing always watched me when I came near the tank," Jin said as if deeply offended. "Its eye moved. At first, I thought it was amusing but the beast got on my nerves. It stared as if it was aching to get out of there and attack me. Sometimes I thought I should simply stab it with my bone knife and solve the problem."
"It's good you didn't. Finally dead. By natural causes, too." Sable stood and placed a hand on the Ulgoran's narrow shoulder. "There is a strange story behind that tiny animal, Jin. But then, this building houses many thousands of artifacts, each with a strange story of its own. It would take years to explain them all."
Demrak Jin shrugged and folded her arms across her chest. "I do not understand. Tell me more."
"I don't see why you can't learn about the case. It just has never come up before." Sable gave a final hard stare at the dead creature in the tank and then led her teammate toward the open office door across the hall. "Let's have a seat. It all began when the first KDF team was getting started, almost forty years ago..."
II.
[March 1, 1980]
Khang pressed with one gloved hand and the door slammed violently inward off its hinges with its lock snapped. Nothing of the giant silver man could be seen, bundled as he was in a long coat, trousers and heavy brogans, with his head concealed beneath a wool scarf and a wide-brimmed hat pulled low. A pair of wraparound goggles hid his eyes. When he swung his head back toward the Dire Wolf, an inexplicable gleam of light could be seen behind those dark-tinted lenses.
"Thanks, Khang," Jeremy Bane said as casually as if his teammate had simply pulled the door open. Wearing his usual all-black outfit of slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket, the Dire Wolf seemed even more lean and gaunt than he was. Only twenty-one, he carried himself with such intensity and conviction that people treated him as if he were much older. He strode in through the gap where the door had been and slowly turned around.
It was a meager, even dumpy little apartment above a garage. The couch sagged, the furniture overthrown on the bare wooden floor was mismatched and the curtains on the windows had started life hanging on a shower stall. Between the stale beer and cigarette odor, the mildew was hardly noticeable. An empty pizza box and several beer bottles on the floor next to the couch added to the decor.
"I hear something in the bedroom," said the Dire Wolf, standing in the most open area and bracing himself.
"Its lifeforce is muted," Khang replied in his unnatural booming voice that seemed to come from all directions. "There is no living Human in this apartment."
Even as the final word echoed, a ragged form lurched unsteadily out of the bedroom and rushed directly at them to be stopped short by a straight side kick that flung it back through the doorway faster than it had emerged. Bane lowered his leg, taking an easy stance from which he could move in any direction. Without taking his eyes off the bedroom door, he said, "Khang?"
"That man was no longer alive," the silver man answered. "My eyes are not as yours. I see he is a cadaver animated by some foul force."
"It's Midnight War stuff then. Stand by, buddy." Again, the ragged man came running at him. Bane gripped the man's wrist and elbow, pivotting to throw him down hard to the floor, then pinning him down with a boot between the shoulder blades. The Dire Wolf had retained his hold on the man's arm, pulling it up straight for further leverage. As the man wriggled weakly to break free, the Dire Wolf got a good look. Stained coveralls, worn-out sneakers. Wide hands with dirty broken fingernails, the back of a head with thinning brown hair that could use shampoo. Strangely, the man had not made a sound beyond a wheezy breathing.
"Paymer? Wally Paymer?" Bane asked without expecting a reply. "Can you hear me?"
"He is no longer there. His spirit has fled," rumbled his teammate. Looming up well over seven feet tall, Khang kept his head bent to avoid rubbing against the low ceiling. He peeled off one of the brown gloves to reveal a huge hand seemingly made of flexible burnished silver. Even in the dim light from the single lamp on an endtable, that skin gleamed. "I think you should step aside, my friend."
"Wait, wait," Bane said. He tilted his head and added, "No pulse. Skin feels like it's at room temperature. You're right, Khang, this poor guy is just a zombie being run by some critter inside him."
"Aye, it is so." White light crackled around the metallic hand, building in intensity, casting new shadows in that room. "I will destroy that body and leave not even dust."
Bane turned his pale grey eyes on his partner. Khang was by far the most powerful member of the new Kenneth Dred Foundation, as close to being invincible as any being on this world had ever been. Yet Khang was sworn to follow Bane as captain of their team of Tel Shai knights. So far, the silver giant had never defied a lawful order. "Wait," Bane told him again. "I think we need to have Len take a look. Maybe he can figure out what exactly we are dealing with. Maybe give us a way to fight these puppeteers. Okay?"
"Yes.. Perhaps I am still too quick to unleash my wrath. Very well. Let us return to our headquarters and let the Trom do his work." Again, unbearably bright white energy filled that apartment as Khang drew on the transcendental gralic force. This time, when that glare faded, all the room was empty. Bane, Khang, and the thing that had been Wally Paymer were gone.
III.
Leonard Slade did not jump as the emergency room at KDF headquarters was flooded with white light. He had been expecting it. He would likely have not given a start even if taken by surprise, his reactions were under such tight control. As a Trom, Slade was nearly emotionless and he formed his thoughts through logical process as much as any flesh and blood organism could. But neither he nor other Trom were absolutely cold. Despite literal Ages of breeding and culture training, some inevitable interference still appeared from hormones and metabolic effects. Slade seemed to be a tall, fit man about thirty with short dark hair and smooth olive skin. At the moment, he had tied a disposable smock over his street clothes and he pulled on blue latex gloves as the white light flashed.
The KDF emergency room had white tile floor and walls, bright overhead fluorescent panels and three regulation hospital beds. There were several wheeled cabinets containing standard supplies such as any ER might keep ready. But the diagnostic equipment on its extensible arms would be unfamiliar to any technician. Those readout screens were fed data from Trom sensors far more advanced than any X-Rays could match. CAT scans had only been in use a few years at that time and MRIs were still experimental, but the Race of geniuses who made up the Trom had long progressed past those devices.
As soon as the light ebbed and left only afterimages in its wake, Slade reacted as smoothly as if he had rehearsed this situation hundreds of times. "Excuse me, captain," he said as he took Paymer from under Bane's foot and effortlessly lifted the limp body to place it face down on one of the beds. Slade fastened restraining straps around the man's ankles and wrists before stepping back.
Standing off to one side, the Dire Wolf was scowling, but then this was his normal expression. Cindy often said he had a 'bad case of ticked-off face.' As he watched the Trom, he said, "You were ready for us to bring him here, huh?"
"It seemed likely you would do so," Slade replied in a voice kept from being monotone by very slight inflection at appropriate places. This was something Slade had learned since joining the team. "You made the correct decision, Jeremy. We can not combat this threat without sufficient information."
"Glad you approve," muttered the Dire Wolf. "So, he's a sort of zombie?"
"Yes. Not in the usual supernatural sense, but this is a recently deceased corpse kept functioning by orders from a parasite within its body." Slade swung a diagnostic scanner to point down at Paymer, then waited as clicks and buzzes indicated that readings were being taken. "Interesting," the Trom said quietly, which for him was the equivalent of letting his jaw drop open and reeling back in shock.
On a monitor mounted over the bed, a black and white image came sharply into focus. It showed in excrutiating detail the rear view of a human skull but with something horrifying added. Attached to the occipital region just under the scalp was what looked like a starfish two inches across... a starfish with a single staring eye in the hub of its central body.
"This abomination shall not be permitted to exist," Khang thundered as the lenses of his goggles shone from within. "I will evaporate it now!"
Even though he knew Khang could brush him aside effortlessly, Bane put an arm across the silver man's chest to keep him back. "Hold on, big guy, give Len a chance to find out about this thing. We need to know what we're fighting."
"I am entering this data in our records and transmitting to the Links of all our members," Slade told them. "That is not a natural organism. It is not even a true Echinoderm, although it closely resembles a so-called starfish. The creature is charged with potent gralic energy."
After his teammate was silent for a few seconds, Bane prompted him, "Yeah? Go on?"
"Unfortunately, Trom knowledge falls short at understanding gralir. We admit it remains a mystery beyond our ability to test or quantify. All I can say is that this quasi-starfish has extruded filaments into the victim's brain and nervous system which give it control of the victim's movements."
"I knew it!" Bane said. "It's operating him. It's making him walk like a marionette."
Slade turned that somber face toward his captain and nodded. "A convenient analogy, Jeremy. I am not given to hyperbole, so you should take it seriously when I warn we are facing a greater menace than ever before..." He was interrupted by a loud beeping and flashing lights from the screen above the bed. Fast as they were, the three Tel Shai knights were not quick enough to intervene as the skin on the back of the late Wally Paymer's head split open and a five-limbed creature tore free. It scrabbled over to drop to the tile floor, scuttling toward the door with alarming speed.
Then it stopped motionless, pinned down by a black boot right over that red eye.
"You are quick as ever, Jeremy," Khang observed in his hollow echoing voice. "I could not follow your movement."
"Yeah, well, we all bring our talents to the team," said Bane. "I figured you wanted to take it alive, Len."
"This is just as well." The Trom opened a cabinet drawer and took out a clear plastic box and a pair of metal tongs. Seizing the animal firmly, he placed the starfish in the specimen box, which he closed and latched shut. As he straightened and peeled off the latex gloves to dispose of them, Slade kept a wary eye on the creature curling and straightening its limbs.
"I will perform an examination of this specimen, using proper precautions," Slade announced. "So far, we know almost nothing about these creatures."
Coming closer to get a better look at the wriggling creature, Bane said, "I've called a meeting for seven tonight. Everyone has responded. Len, do you think there are more of these starfish things out there?"
The Trom put slightly more emphasis in his normally calm tones. "Yes. My tentative theory is that this specimen is only a juvenile emissary of a much larger and more dangerous organism which has sent it out."
"Wait, what?" asked Bane. "Are you saying this is like a BABY monster? How big would the adult be?"
"I can't make a valid estimate until I examine this in the lab," Slade replied, heading for the door into the hall.
IV.
At nine that evening, all seven founding members of the Kenneth Dred Foundation took their seats around the long oak table in the conference room on the second floor. Jeremy Bane stood at the head of that table, gazing thoughtfully at his friends. All seven were Tel Shai knights, sworn to obey lawful orders from him, their captain. Often he wondered about this. Michael Hawk was a world-famous criminologist and manhunter with a forty-year career giving him experience. Leonard Slade was a literal genius from a Race of geniuses, with a mind that worked fast as any computer and the advanced technology of the Trom behind him. Khang wielded limitless gralic force, enough to obliterate cities or strike down any foe. Cindy Brunner's telepathy meant she could know what anyone was thinking, or put thoughts into their minds that they would think would their own. Even Ted Wright, with his Blue Guide powers of healing and Larry Taper with his Silver Skull armor were impressive in their ways. Yet the Teachers of Tel Shai had been unanimous in choosing Bane to be captain of this team.
Yet Bane felt no self-doubts or uncertainty. He was by nature both stubborn and single-minded, and he brought these varied knights together in an integrated team that none of them might have been able to do.
"I call this meeting to order," he said, sitting down as he did so. "Good to see the full team at one time, I think we might all be needed for this one. To make the situation clear, we're dealing with creatures which resemble starefish with an eye in their center. These monsters slide in under a person's scalp and send tendrils into the nervous system. The Human host dies but the starfish then can make the body move about as it wishes. For a while at least. So far, we've nailed three zombies run by these creatures and we saved the last one for Len to inspect. Len, you want to report?"
The Trom had not brought the the starfish-thing with him but had left it secured in his labs on the seventh floor. "My inspection has not been satisfactory. The subject is not a natural organism, but one which has been extensively modified by gralic force beyond Trom ability to explain. Its rudimentary nervous system is gathered at the base of each appendage where they cooperate in a semi-independent manner. In the central hub is a larger nexus of nerve cells which I associate with telepathic ability. A very tentative theory suggests that this organism is in constant communication with a more advanced organism from which it received instructions."
"Sounds dicey," Cindy put in. A petite blonde only an inch over five feet tall, she had the most gifted telepathic mind of her era. For this meeting, she had changed into one of the field suits. All black, its snug pants, boots and waist-length jacket were crammed with tiny weapons and gadgets. Cindy had from the first taken the chair directly to Bane's right and no one ever contested that. "Let me near that thing, I could found out a few things about it."
"You will have that opportunity," Slade told her without enthusiasm. "I would advise you to regard them as dangerous threats when meeting you a telepathic level. An unknown number of them are linked into a single powerful consciousness."
"Point taken," she said in a more subdued tone. "Thanks for thinking of me, Len."
Clearing his throat, Michael Hawk spoke up. His shaggy hair was more grey than brown now, and his wide face had deep vertical creases from both exposure to the elements and from what he had endured. "What we need to know is what's it all about? What do these starfish varmints want, why are they killing people and making their corpses walk around? What's their plan?"
Bane stood up again, leaning forward with his palms on the table. "It looks like we have to use the only source available to us, but I don't like it. Len, would you bring the starfish here? Cin, stay alert as it gets nearer. If you feel endangered, say something."
"Don't forget I'm a Tel Shai knight and a KDF member, so it's my job to stick my neck out," she answered. The little blonde sat up straighter and gave Bane a faint smile. "Don't worry, though, I'm not out to prove how fearless I am, if that starfish seems like it's going to damage me, I'll say so."
When Slade returned a minute later, he was carrying a clear hard plastic box filled halfway with water. Inside, the creature moved its legs and seemed to be trying to get enough of a grip on the interior walls to reach the lid. Everyone shifted their attention back and forth to get a look at the animal and to see Cindy's reaction.
"It's okay," the telepath said but in a vague distant way. Her dark blue eyes went out of focus. "I'm getting a lot of information. This is not really conscious by itself, it's a sort of extension of a mind which thinks of itself as a Moridin. Yes. A starfish tall as a person, able to stand up unaided, but even the Moridin is not completely independent. I'm getting a name.. Draldros!"
"So Draldros is behind this? Talk about six miles of bad road with a flat tire," Hawk said in his flat Montana accent. "I swear, that boy makes the Devil envious when it comes to being no-good."
"The greatest enemy that Humans have ever known," added Khang. "He sits in Fandedral beyond our ability to reach, yet he is free to send his emissaries and servitors to attack us in the most vile ways. This may not be endured an hour later, Jeremy!"
The Dire Wolf looked down the table at his teammates, six of the greatest heroes ever known in the Midnight War. He focused on Cindy. "What do you say, Cin? Can you point us in the right direction?"
"Huh? Oh, you bet." The telepath shook herself and took a deep breath. "There's a mental web between this.. this thing and its master, and there are two others as well. Not too far away, either. I can send everyone toward the links in the network, but it won't be exact instructions. It'll be more, 'you're getting warmer' or 'you're getting colder,' you know?"
"We're going to act immediately," Bane said. "Hopefully, we can prevent these creatures from claiming any more victims. We'll set out in teams of two. Cin, you remain here and communicate with us through our Links, give us the directions."
"Stay here?" she repeated. "Jeremy, I mean, captain... I want to go out there, too. In a showdown with this Moridin, my powers might be the best weapon we have."
"You can't be in two places at the same time," Bane said. "I want you staying near that starfish and guiding us toward the others. Cin, this is not personal. If it meant having any other of us remaining here and for you to go into action, I'd order that instead."
"I know you would," she replied with obvious reluctance. "I realize you're not swayed by protectiveness."
V.
Larry Taper steered the big Buick Regal through the darkened lot where all but one building had been torn down. Piles of broken boards and shards of plaster marked where many other structures had stood not long earlier. "Strange to reminisce about this establishment," he said. "Even this close to Palisades Park, this once was a nexus for suburban families seeking amusement and mindless diversion, not to mention unnutritious food and grifters purloining their last penny. Merry-Land. More than once, I enticed a fair maid here when I was but a destitute college student with a major in an anthropology. To be guileless, we did enjoy the experience."
Riding next to him, Ted Wright smiled. The Blue Guide was a heavy-featured black man with very dark skin and the beginning of grey flecks in his beard and short-cropped hair even though he was not yet forty. He was wearing one of the KDF field suits under a tan topcoat but he did not have the ominous dangerous look in it that the outfit gave Bane or Hawk. "Larry," he said, "Maybe it was not this place that provided that joy but your age. To be that young and optimistic again...."
"Yes, that's true." Taper slowed to a stop near a solitary structure that stood long and low overlooking the Hudson River. Yellow tape stretched in X shapes across the entrances, reading CONDEMNED and KEEP OUT, and the windows had been blacked out. The Silver Skull tapped his hands on the steering wheel before saying, "That was a combined pizza and hot pretzel joint, if I remember right. They had miniscule circular tables and open wicker chairs outside, tacky but appropriate. It's mystifying how such an amusement park achieved bankruptcy? They seemed to be fleecing the public with alacrity."
"Time to focus on our mission, friend." Ted Wright reminded him. He spoke briefly into his Link and then clipped the device to his belt. "Cindy says the other teams have been successful. They're on their way here to provide backup. Evidently, they had no trouble destroying both the hosts and the parasites within."
Sliding out from behind the wheel, Larry Taper moved a few steps away from the car. He had not put on a field suit but remained in mundane brown slacks, tan polo shirt and a light windbreaker. "I feel my mystique would benefit from a dramatic slogan to yell when assuming my guise, oh well...." The night air shimmered around him. Taper abruptly was wearing a tight uniform of black leather pants, long-sleeved tunic and gloves over a steel breastplate and greaves molded to his shape. Strapped to his left arm was a round shield without insignia and sheathed at his left hip was the straight sword Chalcemar.
Taper's head was now concealed beneath a gleaming helmet crafted to resemble an unsmiling Silver Skull. Oddest of all, his eyes could not be seen. The two eye openings in the Skull helmet remained black and unsettling. "That's more like it!" Taper chuckled. "Time to become a scourge to the children of the night."
Stepping around to join him, Wright had taken a medical satchel from the back seat. He rarely let it be out of reach if he could help it. "Ah, Larry. That armor and helmet are thirty thousand years old. You are carrying on a tradition of courage and righteousness borne by many Silver Skulls before you. You should take it seriously."
The helmet reflected glints from the single lamppost in the deserted lot as he turned toward his partner. "Don't let my admittedly lighthearted banter mislead you, Ted. Our crusade remains the preeminent element in my life."
The Blue Guide said, "Good," and began walking toward the darkened structure.
"Say, Ted. Utilize your Blue Guide ability to enhance my own lifeforce. Charge up my metabolism so I'm stronger and more agile than normal for a mission. Isn't that a propitious thought?"
"You don't need the extra pep," Wright answered mildly. "Between the Tagra tea diet and your Kumundu training, you're as fit as you can reasonably be. I wouldn't tamper with your lifeforce if it's unnecessary. It would be like writing a prescription for a potent stimulant to give a healthy patient."
"I can tell you're a real doctor, with inconvenient ethics and so forth," the Silver Skull replied. "But I respect your judgement. Just an idea." He loosened the sword in its scabbard and adjusted the shield on his forearm. "Reassuring though it is to be advised by an MD that I'm in reasonably good shape."
As they drew near the silent building, Wright came to a halt and stood with his head cocked to one side as if listening. "We're facing something large and dangerous, Larry. An unfamiliar life force charged with gralic force. I also sense three of the unliving shells still being animated by those parasites. We've found the Moridin. Be careful."
"He is the individual who should experience trepidation," the Silver Skull retorted as he took three quick steps toward the building and swivelled sideways to smash out a kick which drove the door inward. From inside, two men in rags came staggering toward the now-open doorway. They lurched so badly that it seemed mere chance kept them upright. Their heads lolled loosely to one side. One of them was holding a short-handled axe.
"Go," came a wheezing voice from the closer man, words barely understandable as if formed by a throat and mouth unused to such purposes. "Run away. Run while you still can."
VI.
Behind the Silver Skull, Ted Wright said, "They are already dead, Larry. These are only their shells being misused by some alien creature. Do not hold back."
Taper's response was blindingly fast, his three-foot sword whipped left and then right, slicing cleanly through neckbones and sending two heads rolling away. That sword had been forged of fine Signarm steel mixed with numerous specks of Ensalir ages ago. Although the sword, like the helmet and the leather uniform, had been created by Humans, all had been ensorcelled by the immortal Eldarin. So it was that the entire regalia could be summoned to appear upon the body of the Silver Skull at will. There were other enchantments such as how the wearer of the helmet could hear advice and warnings from earlier Skulls. Chalcemar itself was an exceedingly sharp-edged and durable weapons whose blade was not notched no matter how much combat it saw, and the embedded ensalir chips gave it great potency against supernatural creatures.
Even so, to lop off human heads so neatly required a strong arm and a skilled hand. Larry Taper had earned his prowess through practice and hard work.
As the bodies slumped to the hardwood floor, the Silver Skull examined his blade and found it clean. "Conspicuous absence of blood, you may discern." Nevertheless, he took one of the small square rags he carried tucked in the back of his belt and wiped the sword before proceeding.
"Larry, quick!" Wright yelled. Instantly, acting on reflex, Taper lunged and drove the point of his sword into the floorboards, pinning one of the creatures down. Affected by the ensalir, the starfish shrivelled and blackened quickly. The Silver Skull placed one boot to hold the dead animal and yanked Chalcemar free, then immediately swiveled on one foot and drove the point of his blade into the other severed head. Under the lifeless scalp, something wriggled furiously and then was still.
"That stirred my adrenalin up!" Taper admitted. "So, when the host is killed, these monsters abandon ship. Well, we heard from Jeremy that happened in our emergency ward. They look as if they've been left on a barbeque grill too long."
"They are indeed destroyed," Wright agreed. "They move so quickly that I was surprised. I believe true starfish walk around at a slow pace, they use tiny tubercles on the underside of their appendages. But these are far from normal. They would have escaped and gone searching for someone sleeping outside or with a window open."
"And then we would have had another person killed and desecrated by these things," the Silver Skull said. He held up his sword and gestured with it at the opening where the door had been. "Shall we finish this mission?"
"Yes." Wright held up his right hand and blue radiance flickered around it, turning into a steady aura. He brightened the light until his hand served as a beacon in the late night gloom. "Best to get this over with."
They entered a vast high-ceilinged room with boarded-over windows, scraps of wood from torn-down counters and partitions piled in the corners, a long-discarded newspaper and crumpled cigarette butts littering the dusty floor. Swaying uncertainly before them was one of the unliving hosts. The body had been a middle-aged woman with short curly hair, a yellow sundress hanging in tatters to its feet. But horrifying as that puppeteered zombie was, the monstrosity behind it, revealed in the blue light from Wright's upraised hand, was worse.
The hub of the body reached six feet off the floor, high enough that the furious single red eye met Taper and Wright at face level. The starfish was a deep orange in color. It stood on two of its legs, with two at its sides waving gently and curling up to then open again. The top appendange probed forward questioningly at the two intruders.
From the zombie came a wheezing, barely audible from lungs that had been deliberately filled and then emptied to provide breath. "I was told of you Tel Shai fools," the voice gasped. "You will leave here carrying two more of my spawn."
"So... Moridin, is it? You were bred in Fanedral and sent here by the Dread One himself?" Wright asked.
"I see you will both serve me well. You are healthy, strong, in the prime of your short Human lives," the zombie managed to say before drawing in another deliberate chestful of air.
The Silver Skull gave a short barking laugh. "In your dreams! We are here to slay you!" He raised his sword again, and the ensalir specks in the blade glittered with their own light. Taper gripped the haft with both hands and moved toward the zombie which cringed back at the presence of ensalir.
"Wait, Larry!" Wright yelled. "Something... I sense more lifeforms within this monster. Smaller. Almost a dozen."
"Your friend is perceptive," the zombie gasped. "We Moridin are both male and female, as you Humans would say. At the base of each leg, I bear two of my young. If I die suddenly, by violence, they will be released. You cannot catch them all."
Taper hesitated. The helmeted head turned toward Wright. "Ted?"
After a long pause, the Blue Guide held up his other hand and the pure blue radiance shone from it as well. "What he says is true. But we do not need to slay him. I think there is another way." Wright stood with legs braced well apart and raised both hands up overhead. He lowered his head. Above the abomination, steaming hot air swirled upward as gralic force was drawn out to disippate and vanish.
The monster dwindled, became half its size. Then it was only two feet high. The power from Fanedral was being pulled out of its body. The undead woman lurched and nearly fell, its clawing hands reaching for Wright... then the sword Chalcemar wheeled in an arc that clove the head off entirely. Taper stepped closer, watching as the back of the severed head split open and he spitted the emerging starfish with the point of his sword. "Keep going, Ted!" he yelled.
By now, the Moridin had shrunk down until it was no more than a few inches across. The overwhelming feeling of doom that had oppressed them eased up. Wright sank to one knee and let the gralic light fade from his hands. His body was trembling from strain. "Whew. Give me a minute. That was more of a challenge than I had expected," he said.
Cleaning his blade and sheathing his sword, the Silver Skull flinched as the leather uniform and helmet vanished to leave him in his regular clothing again. "Well, there's a propitious sign," he said. "Any imminent danger must be passed for the nonce." He crouched by Wright and placed a reassuring hand on his partner's shoulder.
"I just need a moment to catch my breath," Wright said. "I don't know if it looks effortless, but gralic art like that takes intense concentration. Moridin was fighting me every inch of the way."
"It may be premature congratulations, but our adversary resembles a common trinket you might purchase at any seaside resort. Well, except for the added ocular organ."
"Moridin is still alive," the Blue Guide said as he got to his feet again. "We must keep him that way. Right now, he is powerless to do any telepathic harm or to release him spawn. He must be kept alive for his natural span."
"I'll get a specimen box from the car," said Taper. "Probably best to add some seawater to keep his gills wet, from what little I know of these creatures. We do collect the oddest nick-nacks...."
VII.
[5/18/2018]
Once he had been passed by the security scans in the foyer, Bane entered the front hall and went straight to where Sable and Demrak Jin were waiting back by the fish tank. The sprinkling of grey flecks had become heavier in his black hair and lines had deepened at the corners of his eyes but he still moved quickly and decisively. "Hi, you two. I came straight here from my house."
"It's good to see you, Jeremy," Sable said. "Ever since you officially retired, you have skipped a few of our Wednesday pizza nights."
"Some retirement," snorted the Dire Wolf. "It just means I never collect a fee for fighting monsters and maniacs. Hi, Jin."
"Captain. You look well." The young woman from Ulgor tapped a stubby finger against the side of the tank. "Your little friend here seems to have passed on."
Bane peered into the tank and one of his rare smiles touched the corners of his mouth. "Finally. I thought that damn pest would NEVER die. Sable, you remember reading about that case, don't you?"
"Absolutely. I was just filling our Jin in on it. You're sure that this Moridin is no threat at all?"
"Yep. Over the years, I had a few Midnight War experts take a look at him. Garrison Nebel, Dr Mage, Samuel Watesa. They all agreed that if he died of natural causes, his spawn would die with him. If they hadn't already been reabsorbed into his body. I guess you might describe him as a prisoner we kept locked up for a life sentence." Bane strode quickly to the emergency ward by the front door and returned with a pair of latex gloves he yanked on. "So many of our worst enemies are gone now. Karl Eldritch, John Grim, the Resurrector, and now this animal. It's funny but as I get older, I'm relieved to see the threats die off that you guys have to deal with, but I'm also a little sad for some reason."
Opening the lid of the tank, Bane reached in and drew up the small stiff body. It already had developed a pungent smell of ammonia. "I understand we're supposed to call them 'sea stars', not starfish. They aren't fish."
"Well, sea horses aren't horses for that matter. What are you going to do with it?" asked Sable, giving the remains a dubious gaze.
"Oh, nothing formal. We'll get rid of it the way everyone gets rid of pet goldfish. My hands are wet. Jin, would you mind opening the bathroom door for me?
9/3/2019
Tags:
