The Plane’s Children – Chapter Fourteen – Emersli1

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8 Minutes

Mick kept his eyes open as long as he could, but it wasn’t a battle he could win.

Sliding into sleep, all he could do was believe that when he woke, Riley would be right beside him, tucked under his arm.

Eager, for their part, readied themselves for a fight.

When the darkness came, in the formless space, the sounds of something moving around them were taunting.  Eager stayed still, crouched where they were, waiting for whatever might happen.

Tony fell asleep determined to find a way to join his spiritmate in the dreamspace where Spaulding hunted.  If he could follow Alone through the Void to the Upper Plane, he could follow them anywhere.  He just had to hold on to the link.

Alone was watchful.  No other child of the Plane was going to unbecome in their arms … torn to pieces by a monster in the dark.  No other person was going to grieve themselves to the point of unbecoming with the horrible loss of the child they had sheltered.  Alone was the Eldest Child.  The Morningstar.  And they would not allow this.

The monster had no idea what was waiting for him.

Eager didn’t know how long they’d waited, there in the dark.

“I told her I could be everything she’d need.”

A dim light illuminated the formless space.  A man walked into it.  Just a normal, human man.  

Eager got ready to pounce.

Frank Spaulding looked at the golden retriever in front of him.  “I told her I could become a sentinel for her.  That it wasn’t right.”

He looked at Eager intently.  “It isn’t right, you know.  That some are born with the potential and others aren’t.  It should be something you can earn if you’re willing to work hard enough.  Bear enough pain.  Take enough risks.”

“But that’s not how it is.”  The voice came out of the dark, and suddenly Tony was standing beside them.  Eager didn’t know how that had happened, or how they were going to protect Tony.

“We are all what the One created us to be.  Sentinel.  Guide.  Mundane.  Spiritmate.  And the One sees no difference between us.  We are all Their Children.”  Tony continued speaking confidently.

“It’s not good enough!  That some of us were born to be lesser … it’s not fair!  No just, loving God would create such a system.  I reject that system.”

Spaulding looked harder at the creature in front of him.  “I was right, you know.  It took time, and a lot of trials and experiments.  Most of them failed.  But I succeeded in the end.  I showed her.  My little hummingbird.  And now I’m going to show you.”

Eager held their ground, waited for their moment … and then watched in horror as the man in front of them …changed.  Warped.  Twisted.

It didn’t look like anything natural.  And it didn’t feel like a spiritmate.  It was huge.  It looked as though a large monitor lizard had been in a spinning wheel with a bear and a shark.  Four legs and a forked tongue.  A furry humped back with a single dorsal fin.  Four-inch claws and teeth that a Great White would have been proud of  … and overall, the heavy smell of sulfur.

Despite their best efforts, Eager broke and ran.  The creature gave chase, sometimes running alongside them, sometimes nipping at their heels.  Making it obvious that they could overtake Eager at any time.  They didn’t know where Tony had gone, but they hoped he had escaped.  The chase went faster and faster as Eager grew more and more desperate.

Suddenly, out in the darkness was a sound Eager had never heard before.  But something inside them whispered ‘safety’ so they ran towards it.  As the light brightened ahead, they were horrified to see Alone … standing there in their native form.  A tall, slender being with ancient eyes.

Eager tried to turn around, to lead the monster away from their beloved sibling.  But it was no use.  Whichever way they turned, Alone was always there before them.  Finally giving up, Eager turned to make a stand.  They didn’t expect to actually defeat the monster, but maybe Alone could escape while it was busy with them.

Eager panted, watching the monster now approaching them confidently, sure of his conquest.

When from behind came a sound that had Eager spinning to see …

And Alone found their otherself at last.

Watching their beloved younger sibling turn to face the monster they couldn’t lead away left Alone feeling awed and humbled.  But only for a moment.

Because more than that, more than anything, Alone was feeling a burning, righteous wrath.  For Flicker.  For Hidden.  For Shadow and Fidget.  For Steadfast and Seeker.  For Jason Ramsey and Matthew Caulfield.  For Velma Travers and Amalda Vernon.

That wrath seemed to grow and grow, and swallow them up as their form was overtaken by another.

They stood over four feet tall at the shoulder, and were over six feet long.  They must have weighed over eight hundred pounds.  And their large, heavy head sported a very distinctive pair of incisors, almost a foot long.

The monstrous creature froze at the sight of the ancient, enraged cat … and that was all the time Alone needed.

With a tremendous leap, Alone landed on the monster’s back, biting down at the base of the malformed skull.  Their bite severed the spinal cord and left the creature flailing uncontrollably.  Alone held on, and the struggles beneath them grew more and more feeble.

Tony appeared next to Eager, putting his hand out to the youngster.  Eager, for their part shamelessly huddled next to their sibling’s spiritmate, watching the spreading pool of essence floating out into the Void.

“Morningstar, it is time to end it.”  Tony called to his spiritmate.

The prehistoric cat lifted its head, and seemed to rise up above the downed monster, who was shrinking back into the form of the man, Frank Spaulding.

Landing lightly beside the body of the dying man, Alone let go of their otherself and found themself taking a form they hadn’t worn in many, many millennia.

Tall, with long, unbound silver hair.  Glowing turquoise eyes.  And from their shoulders a huge, graceful pair of wings.

A sword appeared in their hand, and they approached the figure lying on the ground before them.  This person had done great evil, not just against the children of the upper and lower planes but against the One themself.

“You were a beloved child of the Creator, once.  And yet, you have rebelled against our Creator.  You have proven yourself unworthy of the life you have been given.  I am the Morningstar, and with the authority given to me I now separate you from the gift you have defiled.  May the One have mercy on you, for I cannot.”

With that, Alone brought the shining silver sword down in a clean strike and removed the head of the dying man.

The body slowly disappeared, and Alone stood for a moment, lined in a gentle, pulsing light.  

And Tony, looking at them, tumbled over the edge of the realization he had almost had while talking with the Upper Plane.  “‘And God created Man just a little lower than the Angels.’  All this time, humans tried to make it symbolic.  But it was literal.  The Upper Plane and the Lower Plane.  Our spiritmates really are our guardian angels.”

They reached the area where Frank Spaulding’s phone had been recorded repeatedly pinging, and began searching in circles moving out.  Near dawn they found an abandoned mill.

As the sun was rising, the team breached the door, only to find an addition to the scene they didn’t expect.

They expected the two small rooms.  And the welded shut door.

They did not expect the dead body between them.

“It’s definitely Spaulding.”  Ellison approached the body cautiously.  “And he’s definitely dead.”  

Blair edged closer, with Parker and Jackson right behind him.  Dr. Saxon brought up the rear, and on hearing Jim’s pronouncement immediately shouldered her way to the front.  

“Move over.  If you’ll give me a little room, I’ll try to get a TOD on the bastard.”  She started reaching into her pack, only to stop when Parker made another observation.

“He’s still warm.  I mean, his body is still warm.”

“Yes.”  Dr. Saxon agreed.  “TOD within the past thirty minutes.  No more than an hour.  And I’m going to go out on a limb, and say that our people managed to somehow turn the tables on him.”

The body had a look of terrified anger, and Blair privately thought it couldn’t have happened to a nicer monster.  Being killed the way he had killed others satisfied Blair’s need for karmic justice in a very fulfilling way.

“Alright, let’s see about getting our people out of these rooms.  Jackson, you got the blowtorch?”  Ellison headed for the door to the guide’s room to see if it would open to more conventional means while Emmet gleefully fired up his blowtorch and got to work on the door to Tony’s room.

Finding the door locked with a simple deadbolt, Jim broke it open only to fall back in terrified surprise at the sight inside.

An enormous saber-toothed-tiger stood protectively in front of Mick Brandon and his spiritmate.  The huge beast was sandwiched between the narrow walls and looked about half a step from going on a ‘roid rage.

“Hey guys.  It’s ok.  Alone found their otherself.  I guess when you’re thousands of years old your age kinda shows.”  The huge head looked back at Brandon with an amused chuff.

Slowly, the form seemed to shrink and Alone was left standing and swaying in the room.

Blair and Jim automatically tried to reach out to steady their friend, but they seemed to find their balance.  “Where is Tony?  Have you gotten him out yet?”  The tired question turned their attention to the other side of the building where Jackson had gotten most of the door cleared.

The sentinels moved quickly to force the door open, and Tony limped out as though someone had just opened the door for him at the Ritz.  Well, except for the blood stained trousers and slightly haggard expression.

Dr. Saxon moved forward immediately to render aid.  “Brandon, you need to call for medevac …”  She trailed off as she realized that Brandon was actually one of the victims this time around … and certainly didn’t have his sat radio on him.

Looking toward Ellison, she redirected.  “Sentinel Ellison, if you could…”

Jim pulled his phone out of his pocket.  “Um.  No bars.  Anybody else?  We had to hike a long ways from the closest tower to find this place.  I guess Spaulding had a better data plan than we do.”

So that’s how Tony came to be carried out of an isolated rural part of northern Virginia like a princess in Jim Ellison’s arms.

But we don’t talk about that.