Transmute: Henchmen, #3

By Eric Lahti

All he wants is a dinner date with his girlfriend, but there are jerks everywhere.
As if Steven doesn't already have enough problems dealing with the Dreaming Lands actively rebelling against his rule, the freshly minted God of Dreams has to learn how to be a god, deal with overzealous followers, and generally get his head in the game. To make things worse, a powerful enemy has set its sights on Steven and Jessica, and the entire world could be at stake.
New god. New powers. New problems. At least he's still got friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eric Lahti
• Release date: Mar 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386772699

Eric Lahti

Eric Lahti grew up looking for UFOs and buried treasure in northwest New Mexico. Unfortunately, he never found either of them. Or maybe he did and he's just not telling. He did find some good stories to tell at parties about lights in the skies and gold in the ground, though. When he's not writing, he's programming and practicing his Kenpo. He's also an active blogger, waxing philosophical about a range of topics from writing, to martial arts, to politics and religion. Frankly, he fancies himself something of a Renaissance geek about a wide variety of things.

Book preview

Transmute

Henchmen 3

by Eric Lahti

Transmute

© 2016 Eric Lahti

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without written permission from the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.  I love reviewers.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover Art: sababa66 | Vectorstock.com

Cover Design © 2016 Eric Lahti

Dedicated to some people.

They know who they are.

Contents

Heads In The Sand

Lente Currite Noctis Equi

The Gray Place

Welcoming Committee

Twitch

Crackle, Pop, Fizz

Pep Talk

But The Prophecy Says…

Ducks In A Row

Coffee Now

The Master Race

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

So Long, Suckers

Never Save Anyone

Knock Knock Bang Bang

Near Death Experience

Kára

Ahead Of The Game

Oh, That Guy

Easy Peasy

Transmute (verb): To change in form, nature, or substance.

Heads In The Sand

There's a girl screaming and begging at the bottom of the gully.  She's buried up to her neck in the sand and our parent star hasn't been kind to her.  By my estimation, and bear in mind I'm no expert at burying women in the sand, she's been there at least since yesterday.  Her face is red and her eyes are sunken.  Heat exhaustion is a hell of a way to go.  At least they didn't bury her in an anthill.

You'd think the guys milling around would at least give her a sip of water or cover her face from the sun, but they appear to be assholes.  One of the guys is pacing and gesticulating wildly.  For all his frenetic energy, he looks like the walking dead.  He's sinewy in ways rarely seen outside of Iggy Pop's shirtless beefcake shots and his complexion is gray and waxy.  Meth got its teeth into him and like the guy having amazing sex with a psycho, he just can't manage to get away.  He paces back and forth before finally walking in front of the girl and kicking sand in her face.

She coughs and chokes but keeps up a steady stream of weak cries and begging.  I can hear her clearly from up here; one of the quirks of sound in the desert. Pleasepleasepleaseplease, she cries, running the words together. Letmego.

A moment of clarity hits her, penetrating her sun-addled mind and she adds, I swear to God, I won't talk, just let me go.

You can swear to God when He gets here, the meth head snarls.  He's a mean Dream God and He's going to give us everything we want.

I guess they’re talking about me. Unless there’s another God of Dreams running around.

You're insane, the girl says, eyes going wide.  As if being buried up to her neck wasn't sign enough, I think it finally dawned on her that these guys aren't playing with a full deck.

Leave her alone, the other guy says.  He's calm, but still skeletal. He looks like someone wrapped wrought iron in old leather and left it in the sun for a few years.  Heroin would be my guess.  He won't come if she stops screaming.  He likes terror.  He needs her to be afraid before He'll show up.

I like terror?  News to me.

The first guy stares in wild-eyed wonder at his buddy and sways back and forth on his heels.  It's apparent who the brains of the operation are, so to speak.  I wonder which one of them decided to slaughter the sheep.  I've never cared for sheep, but I certainly don't hate them.  For that matter, I wonder which one of them figured out the exact set of things they'd need to do to get me to show up here.  From the carcasses down there - cats, dogs, sheep - my guess is they just started killing stuff and hoped something would work.

Bad news, guys.  It wasn't the sacrifices and it wasn't the girl that brought me here.  Right now, I'm not exactly certain what it was, but in my defense, I'm new to this whole being a god thing.  There should be a manual or something that tells you what to do and what to expect but - and don't let the other gods know I said this - we're just making this up as we go along, just like everyone else.

One second I'm enjoying a beer and burger with Jessica, the next second we're both here looking down on a couple freaks and a girl buried in the sand. I wish I could say something pithy like I hate it when this happens, but this has never happened before. I’ve been chased, shot at, imprisoned, fought a god, and saved the girl, but I’ve never been pulled from my dinner into the middle of nowhere.

You want her afraid? the meth head asks.  I can make that happen.

He stomps off toward a beat-up truck and grabs a bucket out of the back.  Methy holds it up and says, I can make her scream like she means it.

I've got a bad feeling about that bucket.

Methy's buddy smiles and nods.  Yeah, man, he slurs.  Make her scream.

The girl starts screaming of her own accord, but Methy keeps walking straight at her, muttering under his breath about power and gods and girls who don't know when to shut up and when to scream.  He stops in front of her and shows her the bucket.  I've got some new friends for you, he says and backs up.

She stops screaming and starts panting.  Stark, raving terror is creeping across her face, the kind of terror you only get when you are absolutely powerless to stop something.  Methy pulls the top off the bucket and grins a huge, decaying smile.  The few teeth he has left are black and rotting.  Scream for me, bitch, he says and dumps the bucket on the ground.

Dozens of scorpions hit the ground and start heading for the girl's face.  Her scream is a mixture of pure horror and desperation.  It echoes around the gully until it sounds like her scream is coming from the very ground itself.

If you're not going to do anything about this, Jessica says from behind me, I will.

I think she's still pissed that she got sucked into this mess along with me.  She had just popped the top off a beer and was about to take a sip when the world went all wonky and we left the Irish pub behind.  Having dinner in Durango one second, blink and - pop - we're here in the ass end of nowhere when our eyes open.  Jessica starts to walk down the gully but I put a hand on her shoulder.  Wait a second.  Time is of the essence.

A couple scorpions have almost made it to the girl's face and the look of abject terror in her eyes is making me nervous.  I close my eyes and reach out.  My vision changes until I'm seeing from my normal height and from ground level.  My regular eyes see the shadows crawl out of the brush like silent black blobs.  My shadow eyes see the scorpions getting closer.  The arachnids are creepy enough when you're almost six feet tall.  When you have to look up to see their bellies and claws and barbed tails they hit a whole new level of scary.

The first shadow hits a scorpion and I feel the arachnid's mind.  Food, shelter, scared, sting anything, sting everything.  I know the critter isn't evil, it's just doing what it was programmed to do and I feel bad about it, really, but I shut the thing's mind down and move onto the next.  I sent three shadows and they took care of all but two scorpions in almost no time at all.

The meth head is jumping for joy, pointing at my shadows and screaming He's here, he's here, we did it!  He's here!  The girl is still screaming, eyes squeezed shut, pretending if she can't see the scorpions they can't hurt her. Bad news, sweetie; they’ll push those big, barbed stingers straight through eyelids and not think a thing about it. Methy's buddy crawls out of his chair and stares.  Grins cross both their faces.  They think they just called down Santa Claus and he's going to deliver all kinds of presents.

To begin with, I'm not that kind of god.  I'm also pissed as hell that these two numb nuts ruined my dinner.  I've got presents for them, though, but I doubt they'll like them.

The shadows scurry back into the brush and the guys look around, wondering what just happened.  The girl is still screaming.  Methy leans down and slaps her, but she just screams louder.  He kicks her in the face, breaking her nose and probably knocking teeth loose.  He's so focused on beating her he doesn't feel a scorpion crawling up his leg.  Methy's just about to kick the girl again when I send a message to the scorpion.

His leg goes out from under him and he collapses on the ground screaming and cursing.  My other scorpion almost made it to the other guy but got squashed when the calm dude stood up and looked around.  I know you're here, he says, looking around.  We called you; you need to do our bidding.

I motion to Jessica and point to the guy on the ground.  She nods and closes her eyes.  I feel her mental fingers digging through my brain, dredging up horrors I've seen in other people's dreams.  When she finds something she likes, I can feel her grin.

Jessica can make things happen if someone can feed her blueprints.  I don't pretend to know exactly how it works.  She can make things she comes up with on her own, but for some reason they're always small and frail.  Maybe she needs my energy to make big things happen. Conversely, I can’t make shit without her. I saw the previous God of Dreams open the dream lands and basically swallow Washington D.C., but that was just allowing dreams into a city and he had a heck of a lot more practice and power than I do. I could maybe open the dreaming lands to a block in Portales, New Mexico if I tried really hard.

A shadow, a regular shadow, forms over Methy's legs seconds before a huge boulder falls out of the sky and crushes his limbs. That’s what Jessica can do: make the dreams real. Someone had a nightmare about being crushed under falling rocks and she found the memory and turned it into a giant rock.

Well played, I tell Jessica.

She's smiling again so maybe she's not too pissed about dinner.  I thought about cutting them off but this seemed like it would hurt more, she says.

From the sound of Methy's cries, Jessica was right. A ten-foot-wide boulder on your legs has to hurt. I’m sure his legs are pulp. No amount of physical therapy is going to help you when your bones are turned to powder.

The other guy, calm as a cucumber, pulls a pistol out of his waistband and stalks toward the now quiet girl buried in the sand.  Come on out, he says with a little slur.  I called you out here.  Now it's time to do my bidding.

Where do these guys get these ideas, and how did he know how to get you out here? Jessica asks.

I shrug.  I'd kind of been wondering that myself.  Internet maybe, I say.  I think they just got lucky, though.

Get out here! the guy screams.  I'll blow her fucking head off right fucking now.

He doesn't seem so calm anymore.  The heroin must be wearing off. I’d love to let the withdrawals hit him full force just to laugh in his pinched little face, but my better half has other ideas.

Jessica starts to go down and I walk after her.  If the guy won't back off, she’ll go ape shit on him and he'll wish for the sweet release of death before she's done.  She's got quite the temper on her, this girl of mine.  Together we walk down into the gully like the bad asses of the apocalypse.  I pull my own gun out of my waistband and cock the little Detonics.

The guy swings his gun toward Jessica and glares.  We stop dead in our tracks.  I may be bullet-proof, emphasis on may, Jessica probably isn't.  What kind of god carries a gun? he asks.

Thor had his hammer, I say, I've got mine.

Put the gun on the ground, the guy says.

Eat a dick, I reply.

I'll kill both of these bitches, he says, drawing a bead on Jessica's forehead.

I have this quick flash of terror from him.  Some kind of monster is always on his mind, a creature with a blank face and huge talons for hands.  The vision is complete down to the minute details of fluid pumping through hoses on the creature.  I can taste the guy's mind and he tastes like mescaline.  That must be how he called me here.  He managed to hit the dream world without leaving this one.

Silly me, I thought he’d been riding the horse. Well, he won't have to dream much longer.

Put the gun on the ground, the guy says again.

I gently place my .45 on the ground and stand back up again.  What do you want? I ask, figuring if we're here I might as well learn a bit.

The guy nods frantically.  Power, he says.  I want power.

Sorry, I say, I don't own a power plant.

His face scrunches tight.  I WANT YOUR POWER! he yells.

Can't have it, I say.

He makes a show of cocking the gun.  A bullet flies out the ejection port when he pulls the slide back.  Either he didn't realize it was already cocked or he was just going for effect.  Either way, I'm unimpressed. People spend too much time romanticizing guns. They’re just guns; point, shoot, done.

I don’t know if a gun can hurt me – at least not the one he’s holding – but I don’t feel like testing the waters right now. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him know that, though. I stand still, doing my best to look bored while I chew on his dreams.

Give it to me! he shrieks.

Come take it, I say.

He cocks the gun again. The brass that flies out catches the light as it tumbles down.

I’ll kill her, he says. I swear, I’ll kill her.

I don’t know which ‘her’ he’s talking about. Jessica’s behind me somewhere. She feels bored and slightly irritated. The girl in the ground is completely out of it.

Go ahead, I tell him.

He cocks the gun again, like I somehow missed it the first two times and I’ll be scared this time. Drugs, am I right?

You know what? Fuck this. I dig deeper into his mescaline-addled brain and pull out an image of the thing he’s so terrified of; the faceless demon with the claws fills my mind. Where the hell did he dream this thing up from?

No matter. I focus on the image, force it to be real, and thrust it back into his mind. His eyes go wide and a faint wail tumbles from his lips. I dart forward and my claws dig into him, sliding easily into the warm flesh of his stomach. The gun in his hand goes off, loud as thunder. I grin and lift him off his feet.

This feels so good, so amazing. As the light in his eyes fades his dreams erupt. I lap them up and lick my lips. All the pain of his life, all the desires, all the dreams of a better life pour into me. Every little failure and every grand hope. This guy never did a thing with his life but wish for a better one and now he’s going to die in the ass end of nowhere, impaled on my claws.

Wait a minute. Since when do I have claws?

I yank my arm back and stare in disbelief at what used to be my hand. The claw is covered in blood. My arm looks exactly like the claws on this guy’s demon. He’s lying on the ground in a heap, his life slowly leaking into the sand.

What happened to my hand? I ask him.

He stares at me in horror.

WHAT HAPPENED TO MY HAND? I yell.

His hand reaches out and tugs my pants. How did you bring me here? I ask him. How am I here?

My hand is still a claw, a serrated, black masterpiece. I want to stick it in his head and dig around for answers. I thought being a god would be different, I thought I’d be on top of everything. Yet here I am, a claw where my hand should be and a guy I’ve never met bleeding into the sand.

A gasp pulls me back to what passes for reality in these parts. Jessica is staring at my hand.

I don’t know, I say. I didn’t … I don’t know.

It’s okay, she whispers. It’s okay.

IT’S NOT OKAY, I thunder. I have a claw for a hand.

Jessica recoils slightly, but slowly puts her hand on my shoulder. Shhh, she whispers. Shhh.

I blink and look around. She’s been there when I stumbled across a bad place in my nightly commutes around the dreamtime. My rock. It’s her hand in the middle of the night that pulls me back down. Sure, I can jump through dreams, I can even control them, but some of the things people dream terrify even me.

What’s happening to me? I ask.

I don’t know, she says.

My claw slowly flows back into my body. It looks like it should hurt. Why doesn’t it hurt? My arm is warping; it should at least have the common decency to hurt. Soon there’s no claw, just my normal hand.

People like to call this part of the world stark and desolate, but there’s life all around us. It’s small and tenacious life, but it’s life. Small trees that can stand the furnace heat of the summer and the ice box of the winter dot the landscape. This is the land of scorpions and road runners and coyotes. There’s life everywhere out here, except in this small killing ground. I stare around the clearing at the dead sheep and cats and dogs and people. They just slaughtered the animals and left their corpses to bleed out into the dirt. One of the dogs, a basset hound, looks an awful lot like one I had growing up.

The dreams in this place have turned to nightmares. They have a sickly metallic taste and feel like putting a nine-volt battery on my tongue. I’d love to say it was all madness and drugs but there’s something at the edge of my reasoning that tells me these guys had at least an inkling of what they were doing.

What the hell is going on? I ask.

Jessica’s arms wrap around me. I don’t know, she says, but we’ll be fine.

She’s my sanity and my humanity. It’s hard to believe I met this amazing woman over a year ago when she was strapped to a table with sushi all over her naked body. I’ve killed for her and she’s killed for me. Together we’ve left a trail of bodies all over New Mexico.

I know I’m no saint, and neither is Jessica, but we’ve never done anything like these guys did. Sacrificing animals was never something that even popped up on my radar. I’m not going to say I love all the animals, but I usually like dogs more than most people.

Who does something like this? she asks.

I don’t have words. All I can do is shrug and wonder. The meth head with the boulder on his legs is out of it or I’d go ask him. At least I can be reasonably sure he’s not going anywhere.

Assholes, I finally say. That’s all I can come up with. Assholes. I’m the freshly minted God of Dreams. I can jump in and out of dreams. I can taste their fears and they’re delicious. Apparently, I can change my body, too. And these idiots thought they could just call me here and … what? Expect me to grant them power.

I stalk over to the guy trapped under the boulder. This close he’s a wheezing scene out of a horror movie. I’ve seen a lot of things, but a guy crushed by a boulder isn’t one of them. He’s got that death pallor that people get when they’re deep in shock. His skin is gray and patchy and he looks like he’s made of wax.

Hey, asshole, I say and nudge his head with the tip of my shoe. Wakey, wakey.

What are you doing? Jessica asks.

Asking questions, I reply.

Can I help?

That’s my girl. She may be my rock, but she’s got some violence in her. Jessica may seem calm – and to be fair she’s worked pretty hard at what she calls her anger issues – but she’s not someone to be trifled with. I nearly had to pull her off a guy that threatened to rape her.

In retrospect, I should have just let her slit the guy’s throat. It would have been a fitting end to the punk.

She kneels next to him, pulls a stray lock of raven hair out of her eyes and gently slaps the meth-head’s cheek. Wake up, she says.

Methy’s eye flutter. He looks like death warmed over, but he locks eyes with her. His eyes go wide and he whispers something to her that I can’t quite make out.

I know they’re nice, sweetie, she says quietly, looking for all the world like an innocent fawn lost in the wilderness and not at all like the girl that just manifested a rock to crush him. Tell me what I want to know and I’ll take away all your pain.

I drop down next to the guy and grab his chin. Take your eyes off her, I say, or I’ll cut them out.

Jessica smiles at me. She’s got this smile that I’d do almost anything for. She jerks his head back to her and strokes his cheek. How did you get us here? she asks quietly.

The guy gurgles. Internal hemorrhaging is a wonderful, terrible thing. Told us, he mumbles. Power.

I jerk