Book 3, Chapter 6

“Eh,” I said with a shrug. “It’s a gift.”

Trix’s laughter echoed across the flat planes of North Dakota as the two other figures regarded me with far cooler reactions. Trix had shown up tonight as 1990s Salma Hayek, wearing a nice sundress that was plastered to her body by the rain. The being next to her looked like Vincent Price if Vincent spent his whole life chugging protein shakes and competing to be Mr. Universe. His irritated glare went from me, to Trix, back to me, never settling. He was wearing a leather outfit that looked like something a cast member of Game of Thrones would wear if Game of Thrones were also a cyberpunk show.

The third being looked just like me, but that’s normal. They’re the Mirror, and they appear as whomever (or whatever?) is observing them.

“Why did you summon us, ant?” Vincent demanded, his voice crowding out Trix’s laughter with a wave of power. Three years ago, it would have made my ears bleed and knocked me back. Now, it just made the prisoners behind me scream in pain and terror while making my trench coat flare out behind me all cool-like.

I gestured behind me at the prisoners. “Wanna make a deal,” I said.

“I don’t deal with vermin,” Vincent sneered and turned around, making to leave.

“Whelp, looks like I’ll be needing two signets from you, Trix,” I said casually.

I felt three perceptions slam down on me. Vincent didn’t even turn around—one second he was about to step away, the next he was at the edge of the circle I had summoned him in, as close to me as possible, and glaring. The weight of their full attention felt like extra gravity trying to mash me into the ground. I felt my feet sink a half-inch into the dirt.

“How do you know about them?” Vincent asked.

“Ask the Orphan next time you run into them,” I said with irritation. “Do you wanna hear my deal or are you going to fuck off?”

Vincent’s eyebrow arched at the mention of the orphan, and his expression became hate-filled at my casual address.

“Oh, come on #%###%##,” the name Trix uttered sounded like the clash of weapons over the screams of the dying. Summoning him had been a big pain in the ass because his name doesn’t translate into any human language. “It’s sure to be at least entertaining. Colm has yet to disappoint.”

“I admit to some interest,” the Mirror said in my voice, but with an accent that sounded like someone took a sander to English and buffed off all the edges.

Vincent didn’t immediately respond, so I began my pitch. “The three hundred and change behind me are payment to be split evenly between you three, in exchange for a one-use signet each. I will be using that signet to mark the Avatars of the Distiller that are currently running amok in my reality.”

“What would you want then?” Mirror asked.

I pointed at my noggin. “I gotta passenger that’s a copy of a me from an older universe,” I said. “Sometimes goes by the moniker Wake of Dead Stars? Ring any bells?”

Trix’s eyes widened, and Vincent drew back a step from me. Other Me started laughing hysterically in the back of my mind.

“Oh, so you’ve heard of him,” I said. “I want this thing out and returned to its original owner. It keeps leaking, and soon I’m going to either punch my ticket or stop being human. I want to be human. There’s a lady I wanna kiss.”

“What else?” Vincent asked, his posture no longer threatening.

“That’s it,” I said, making a cutting motion with my hand. “The real service you’d be providing is getting those pieces of the Distiller out of my universe, which will hopefully have some calming effect as those aspects of big D won’t be fucking with the makeup of creation anymore. Maybe then the authorities will be able to do their job, and I can go back to being a neurotic mess who obsesses over Diablo lore.”

The three began to speak in a language I didn’t understand. Other Me did, but I stopped him from sharing the info with me. The more I got from him, the harder it was to remain me.

The argument continued for several minutes, mostly Vincent and Trix shouting at each other, with the Mirror looking bored. There was another meaty “thwak” behind me as one of my boys stopped a runner. I theatrically looked at my wrist.

“Look,” Trix said in English. “You’re going to agree, otherwise I’ll be providing two signets and the potential power will be mine to claim, regardless of the risks.”

“You assume Mirror will be going along with this nonsense!” Vincent snapped back.

“Oh, I am,” Mirror said, making Vincent gape like a fish. “The opportunity to strike a meaningful blow against the Distiller? How could I pass it up?”

Hearing my voice sound so… flat was weird. It was like when AI got close to someone’s voice, but not close enough.

Trix shifted into a relaxed posture, a self-satisfied smile gracing her lips as she arched an eyebrow at Vincent. Vincent spat to the side in disgust (which hit the ground like a small cannon, a plume of mud and water geysering away from him) and growling out a “fine.”

“Yeah? We good?” I said, producing a stack of contracts from within my coat. It was as thick as my wrist, and each piece of paper contained five to ten signatures.

What followed was an hour of arguing between me and Roided Price, with Trix stepping in to mediate as we argued over the terms of the negotiations. During which, two of the prisoners died from shock and hypothermia as the storm grew worse, the temperature dropping as sleet mixed with the rain.

“Look, asshole, your payments are dying,” I said, holding myself back from jabbing a finger in his chest. “And I mean YOUR payments, as YOU are the one holding this up.”

Price snarled, a sound that made the ground ripple around his feet. “I will peel the skin from your flesh and roll you in a salt heap, you fucking insect!”

“I grow weary of this,” Mirror said before I could respond. “I find the terms acceptable. You’re just unwilling to concede without getting the better of the human. Either accept the terms or I will provide a second signet in your stead.”

Roid Rage Price looked like he was going to fucking explode before he calmed down through visible effort. “Fine,” he said. “I accept the terms.”

The three extradimensional beings gestured, their signatures appearing on the contracts I had been editing in real time with telekinesis. Copies appeared in each of their hands as over three hundred prisoners behind me began to scream in pain and horror as their souls were ripped from them. Normally, the soul exchange would happen once they died, but signets are special and need to be buoyed by power from both this side of reality and theirs.

Mirror nodded and raised his hand, the gesture simple yet still like nothing I’d do. Silver power gathered around his fingers, pulsing gently before four strands of silver force shot into the sky, only to shoot back down and stab into my index finger. Pain rocked through me, originating from the finger, a unique and strange pain unlike anything I’d experienced. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever felt, but it was decidedly strange, feeling like the end of my soul was being pinched and twisted like the tail of a balloon animal.

I grasped my wrist with my other hand, falling to my knees as the power slammed into my finger, dragging it and me to the muddy ground. It wasn’t until mud soaked my pants that I realized I was screaming through clenched teeth.

The spell ended, trailing off like the final wisps of smoke in a burnt-out campfire. On my finger was a ring, reflective and silver, its single ornamentation a small representation of an old mirror, like you’d see in a Victorian manor.

“’Til we meet again,” Mirror said, disappearing in the middle of a lightning strike.

Without giving me time to recover, Schwarzenegger's Stand-in, Price, thrust his hand forward, shooting a red beam from his finger that hit me in the chest. I began to scream again as the power traveled through the puncture in my sternum to my other index finger. I wanted to thrash, to avoid the pain, but something about the spell Price was using kept me locked in place. Amidst my failed thrashing, I could see the smirk on his face at getting to put the “ant” in his place.

A too long of a time later, another ring appeared on my other index finger as I flopped forward into the mud. Whatever had been holding me up had ceased along with the spell. I shuddered and gasped, coughing as a bit of mud made it down my airway. I slowly pushed myself to my knees, holding up my new ring. It was hard to tell what color it was with only the occasional lightning to see by (I could still see thanks to my upgrades, but color starts to wash out with less light), but I knew it was a vibrant, blood red. Its ornamentation was an engraving of a Rondel dagger with a triangular blade. By the time I looked up to where Price was, he was gone.

I looked over at Trix, who was giving me a sad smile. “Are you sure you can handle a third?”

I sat back on my heels and shrugged. “No,” I said honestly. “But I got three assholes to get rid of, and this is the only way I’ll be sure.”

Trix nodded and, without further ado, raised her hand and blew me a kiss. Where Mirror’s power had been invasive and Price’s power had been torturous and strong, Trix’s just felt heavy. Like “moving a piano upstairs,” heavy. I’d expected it to come from her direction, but it fell upon me from all around, smothering, suffocating. It was a different form of pain, but no less traumatic. Instead of focusing on my index finger, however, it centered on my ring finger. On my left hand.

And then it was over. I found myself on my back, having sunk several inches into the mud from the force of Trix’s power. I groaned, my throat raw, and lifted my hand in front of my face to examine my new signet. The ring was gold, struck through with black marbling. Its sole ornamentation was a pair of stylized lips. On a hunch, I looked away and back, and it had changed to be a delicate-looking hand clenched in a fist. I looked away again and back, and it was a heart with a knife in it.

“Are you alive?” Trix asked, concern in her voice.

She could plainly see me moving, but she probably wanted to make sure this night hadn’t affected me too severely. “Yeah,” I said, the end of the word changing into a groan as I rolled out of the muddy depression I had made. “I’ll be alright after some rest.” I said, leaving the additional “I hope” unsaid.

“You know,” she began once I was back on my feet and rolling my neck back and forth. “You could have negotiated for a lot more. Using our signets on Avatars of the Distiller would be very beneficial to us.”

“Yup,” I said. “I know. And I’m counting on it.”

Trix frowned in thought. Then grimaced in anger. “You’re planning on dying.”

“Hopefully not,” I said with a shrug. “But I didn’t want any ties to you folks that’d mess with the next leg of the trip. My Roommate has let some things slip that lead me to believe that you aren’t actually taking these guys' souls,” I said, jerking my thumb to the hundreds of corpses behind me. “But I still don’t want anyone tripping me on the way to whatever’s next.”

Trix was furious. “Colm, you need to fight to win. You can’t be going into a fight with the wrong mindset.”

I laughed hollowly. I pulled on some of Other Me’s knowledge and snapped my fingers, a sudden wave of power booming from my hand and washing the storm away, leaving a clear, sparkling night sky for miles around in a perfect circle centered on me. My skin began to bubble, my muscles bulged, and bones began to twist and grow as the use of power beyond my reality pulled me away from humanity. I kept myself here through sheer willpower, glaring at Trix the entire time until my power and body became my own again.

“I’m not afraid of dying, Trix,” I said, barely above a whisper. “I’m afraid of becoming like you.”

I turned and began walking toward the buses, collecting my humonculi along the way, pretending I hadn’t seen the mixture of concern and hurt on Trix’s face as I walked away.