Things on the train

"Oh, for chaos's sake," I thought. "Tonight, of all times?"

Things had been bizarre since the Vampire War - the old status quo was no more. The war had left a power vacuum, and ever since, things had been trying to fill it. The constant squabbling, the power-grabbing, all that had been bad enough. But what most people - even among the supernatural community - didn't realize is just how many nasty things the vampires were keeping a lid on. And now, with so many fewer vampires, those things were coming out to play. It was getting to where even the muggles - plain, non-magical humans - were starting to notice.

Oh, some others had taken up the fight - the Magoi of the North American Concilium, some of the werecats, even some of the Demon People (as the vampires of the Jade Court were often known), but it was hard to keep it all in check. Things happened. Things like this.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he whispered, icy fear edging into his voice. "I just know it won't hurt you if you're sleeping."

I quickly sat and closed my eyes, feigning sleep. The man spoke up again in a soft, quavering voice. "That family that vanished on Tuesday? Same thing. I heard it." He shuddered and fell silent.

The door slowly creaked open and a palpable chill slithered across me, greasy and cloying. I barely stopped myself from shuddering as I heard uneven footsteps come forward into the car, a heavy clomp followed by a squishy sucking sound. I held myself absolutely still, feigning sleep as the footsteps passed me. Behind me, I heard a phone clatter to the ground. The heavy clomp-squish sped up, a quick double-step, and then I heard the beginning of a scream, suddenly cut off.

"The hell with this," I thought fiercely, and I stood, reaching for my scepter, drawing in my will, and turning to face the thing, whatever it might be. "Not in this city, not without a fight."

I opened my eyes and beheld a hulking thing, head and shoulders taller than me and twice as wide, naked, its sickly pallid flesh sagging and flowing like half-melted wax. Its arm was outstretched, held inches from the face of a young man in a red shirt that bore a golden lion and the words "House Lannister". Strands of red something snaked between that dripping misshapen hand and his face, a face that was frozen into a wide-eyed expression of absolute horror.

The red strands pulsed rhythmically, flickering in and out of visibility. I could sense currents of energy moving up them, from the man into the monster. I pointed the scepter and pushed out my readied will through it, snarling "sorciere evanesco!"

A hair-thin beam of pure, condensed Prime surged out from the tip of the rod and touched one of the red strands. The strands blew apart into mist with a sound like shattering glass and the man slumped down in his seat, whimpering softly. The monster turned, slowly and deliberately, to face me.

"Oh, this is so much more fun!" it said with a wet, phlegmy chortle. "Spicy! Someone with a little spirit! Your fear will feed me well!"

It wanted to waste its time taunting me? Fine. One lesson some of these newer predators hadn't learned was that not everything that looked like a mundane was a mundane. I drew in my will again and shifted the aim of my scepter to a glowing yellow spot just below its ribcage - or where it would be on a human, at any rate. I couldn't use fire in a confined space like this - a blast strong enough to bring down a hulking Shadow-beast would roast the passengers like a Christmas goose. I couldn't use force, either: unless I missed my guess, a gloppy, waxy thing like that could get thrown off the Republic Plaza and walk it off. Electricity was probably not a safe bet inside a speeding aluminum train car, either. That left me with only one good option: wind.

"Kamaitachi!" I shouted, and released the spell. Instantly, a howling gale blew up, scattering papers and hats pell-mell around the car with a noise like an onrushing freight train. The gale didn't continue, though - it all whirled around and blasted straight into the thing in a nearly-solid blast about as big around as a barrel. Gobbets of gel-like flesh tore away, flying off in the blast wave, splattering against the far door in splats of clear, rapidly-evaporating ectoplasm.

The thing tried to advance but I held the blast on it, maintaining my focus as long as I could, letting the ferocious wind tear it to pieces. It couldn't possibly last much longer, could it?

After what felt like ten minutes - but really couldn't have been more than a few seconds - my focus faltered and the blast abated. The thing still stood before me, most of the waxy flesh torn away from bones that looked like they were made of congealed smoke. It was breathing heavily, hunched over, one arm aimed toward a window. Glowing.

Pulling, I realized. But pulling at what? I hurriedly glanced out the window, and saw the fallen streetlamp post just in the nick of time as it hurtled like a spear directly toward me. I barely had time to act, spinning to one side and crying out "aegis!" as the twenty-foot aluminum pole speared through the side of the car, narrowly missing the man who had warned me, caroming off the orange phase distortion of my shield and lancing out through the roof to crash into a parking lot. The train lurched hard, braking, and I fought to maintain my footing as the thing, gruesomely wounded though it was, stomped closer, looming over me.

And then suddenly there was a bright flash and a sound, so loud that it almost defied description, and my ears were ringing. The beast jerked and stumbled. I looked toward the flash to see a woman standing there, a surprisingly large pistol in her hands, taking aim at the thing. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to steel myself before she fired again.

Guns are loud. I know, everyone knows that, but until you've heard one firing in a confined space, it's difficult to understand just how loud they really are. And hers was louder than most. I tried to shake the disorientation off as I hauled myself back to my feet. Apparently I'd dropped the scepter in the chaos. I debated groping around for it, but decided that could wait. The beast couldn't.

Maybe the bullets could kill it, and maybe they were just loud, stinging bees. If that were the case, that woman was in a whole lot of danger. I reached out with my will, gathering the biting cold of the winter air that was streaming in through the rent in the car, and focused it into a single evocation, pointing my hand at the thing's pulsing, glowing gut and snarled, "glacias incarcera!"

Instantly the monster was covered in a rime of hoarfrost and the remaining flesh froze solid. The light in its gut guttered like a dying candle and went out. With another deafening bang, a bullet smashed into the frozen beast and it fell to chunks, splashing on the floor as so much ectoplasm.

The man that the thing had attacked was still breathing, even if he was covering his face in his hands and crying. I didn't want to imagine what kind of nightmares he'd have in the coming months, nor what the psychiatrist's bill would look like, but at least he was alive. I was alive. Everyone was alive. Good.

The train juddered fully to a halt, and on a nearby street I could see the flashing blue of police lights, drawing closer. I wasn't sure what they'd say - some of Denver PD knew the score, some didn't - but having to answer those questions, uncomfortable though they might be, was better than letting that thing feed on people, or drag them back into the Shadow to do with as it pleased. It might be a candle against the enveloping dark, but it's better to light a candle than curse the darkness.