The Crystal Call [The Talisman War]

IntroductionDakota The scent of wood, building materials, and raw flesh all set ablaze filled his nose as the ceremony descended into chaos. Terrell pulled him to the floor. He got only a brief glance of his daughter before she disappeared into the fray. He screamed her name at the top of his lungs, but he doubted that the sound traveled more than a few feet. How could he compete with gunshots and tables overturning? Desperate, he tried to crawl across the floor on his hands and knees in an attempt to find her. But Terrell held him back. He lassoed Dakota by the stomach and used the full strength of his left arm to keep him from trying to follow Kenna. “No!” he shouted over the chaos. “No. Not that way. It’s a death trap. We have to get out of here!” He struggled. His teeth chattered, and his whole body trembled. “I have to find her!” “We will. Come on.” He dragged Dakota to his feet, and they both hurried to the far end of the ballroom, in the direction of a back corridor most commonly used by government workers who did not wish to engage in conversation during their daily activities. Dakota didn’t even remember it was there. But Terrell did. The door was small, and the hall felt more like a tunnel. They kept low so as not be seen. As much as this other route could save a lot of lives, if the panicked people knew about it, they would certainly overwhelm the space, crowd into it. They would kill themselves trying to escape what wasn’t even attacking them yet. Sure, the ballroom had smoke coming in through the windows. Dakota strongly suspected that the edge of the building might be on fire. But the people were technically safe if they just took their damn time. Instead, those idiots slammed into each other and trampled the weak and small like frightened cattle. Most of them deserved their own demises, Dakota thought. Ken and the other members of his group being the obvious exceptions. He shuffled down a spiral staircase, his shoes clanging against black-painted metal. Terrell followed shortly behind. The two of them skipped the ground level for personal security purposes and kept going down. They burst through a heavy door together. It required their combined strength to get it open. No one went down to the basement this way. The hinges were rusted. But they were in luck, and the partition opened with a loud grinding noise. They fell to the dusty floor in unison. Cold. A natural coolness surrounded them. While the ceremony space had felt warm to the point of discomfort—even before the smoke and running—the storage room in which they now found themselves maintained a damp, stable temperature due to the soil around it. As Dakota lay there, studying the dark surroundings and waiting for his eyes to adjust, Terrell got up stiffly. He closed the door and locked it from the inside. Terrell pressed his back against the entryway. “We should be safe here,” he said between breaths. Closing his eyes, “But let me guess, you want to leave.” Surrounded by boxes of canned and non-perishable food, Dakota knew they could stay here for days if they had to. Nonetheless, Terrell knew him all too well. Dakota held no grand, selfless thoughts about rescuing the residents of this building or the city around it, but there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to protect, defend, and ensure the absolute safety of his daughter. He would kill for her. Or survive just to keep her in one piece. And destroy any other relationship he had, up to and including the tenuous but joyful rekindling of his feelings for Terrell. This, he understood. They didn’t have to talk about it. Dakota would always, always put Kenna first. Before everything and everyone. Terrell took Dakota’s affections in whatever way he could get them. After all the two had been through, it seemed he just wanted to be with him. Simple. And largely on Dakota’s terms. As such, he prepared himself for risking his life in search of the girl he once called a sister. “We have to do something,” Dakota said finally. “I need to find her. I need to know she’s okay.” He nodded but kept his head low. “We can go back up the way we came, but I really don’t recommend that. We’ll be targets for sure.” He wandered over to Dakota’s side. “Or, we could go out to the military wing, take the stairs up, and pray that we don’t get gunned down in the crossfire.” Not a great plan, if he had anything to say about it. Risking their lives on a hope for safety? “What about our rooms? There are more talismans. We can get them. And Ken would try and go there, looking for us and everyone else. Can we reach it without going up first?” “I dunno. I’ve never tried to get there from here. The suites are all part of a newer structure. If it has a basement, there’s no way to know if it’s connected to this one or not.” He sighed. The only reason Terrell knew about the secret staircases was because Varaz told them. He used the passageways to get to and from the kitchen and various other destinations without interacting with anyone, except the occasional assistant to someone else. It was a resource for the staff and a way for them to do their jobs without being constantly seen by others. Before Dakota could counter, the two of them heard a loud boom, followed by a terrible rumble and nearly half a minute of nonstop crashing. It came from above and eastward. His heart skipped a beat as he thought perhaps the roof above them might cave in. In the next moment, though, the room filled with quiet. He looked around, afraid to breathe. But Terrell broke the silence. He let out an almost chirp-like noise of joy acknowledging their continued survival. He grabbed Dakota with both hands and laid a big, deep kiss on his lips. “I thought we would be crushed,” he admitted after a long embrace. “You okay?” He made eye contact and held it. “We have to go.” “We will. We’ll go and see if we can make it to the rooms. But I just—tell me you’re okay, and we can go.” He ran his soft fingertips over Dakota’s cheeks. “Please talk to me, about you, for just a second.” Blinking, he didn’t know what to say at first. All he cared about was finding Ken. He didn’t stop to assess his own situation—how the smoke had burned his permanently damaged lungs, leaving them aching, or how he’d missed his normal dosing time for his meds because of the length of the ceremony. To confirm, Dakota lifted one of his own hands and saw that it shook. He bit into his lip and leaned against Terrell a little. “I’ve been better, to be honest.” He gave a nod. “Will you trust me to protect you? When we go upstairs, I mean. I need to know that you’ll trust me, that you’ll let me handle it for you.” “You don’t think I can do it?” “No, I know you can. But this is—just trust me, all right? I need to hear it.” Dakota acquiesced. It wasn’t that big of a commitment, to say he trusted the man with whom he’d been spending every night for the last four months. The request sounded desperate, like Terrell genuinely feared he wouldn’t say it. Probably because Dakota hadn’t brought up the subject of love in all this time. But that was a different story. He didn’t know how to approach it. And maybe he didn’t fully understand how he felt. But he knew this much: “I trust you. I trust you with my life.” Terrell looked as though he wanted to say something more, to coax the extra words out of him. But he merely accepted this small victory. “Good,” he said with more emotion than Dakota had grown accustomed to seeing. “Good. Let’s go.” Terrell pulled Dakota to the far door. He hesitated. Dakota took it upon himself to open the obstruction—extremely carefully. He did it only enough to peer through, into a sort of crossroads where corridors shot off in multiple directions. The basement was almost entirely storage, designed to keep the army and government workers in constant supply of whatever they needed to perform their jobs. Along with the stuff that made the higher-ups happy. Therefore, everything from arms and munitions, basic rations, and uniforms to office equipment, candy, and precious art could be found down here. As far as he was concerned, none of it held any value should Kenna die. Nor his life, for that matter. “If we make it through this alive,” Terrell breathed into his ear, “I’m getting you out of that ugly uniform as fast as possible, I swear to God.” When Dakota turned, he saw Terrell forcing a smile. He looked scared, by all accounts. But he wanted to provide levity in spite of the situation. He wanted to make Dakota feel better. s*x was probably far from his mind. But he knew that bringing it up would, at least, make him blush. If they did anything correctly over recent weeks, it was re-learning how best to treat each other in the bedroom. Dakota raised an eyebrow and began unbuttoning his own restrictive burgundy jacket. With unwieldy motor skills, it took a moment, but he eventually managed to remove the article of clothing. Feigning reckless disregard, he dropped the item on the ground and kicked it. “f**k, I hate wearing that bullshit, anyway. Don’t get any ideas.” Terrell laughed. He kissed the back of Dakota’s now-bare shoulder. He wore only a sleeveless shirt underneath the ugly garment. “This is a lot better.” Sobering up reluctantly, he shifted his attention to the real task. “It should be this way.” He pointed. “East.” “Yeah.” The two wandered slowly in that direction, checking each hall and open door as they went. The whole underground remained lit at all times with dull halogen lighting. But with no one around, it felt like a sterilized version of the dungeon in which he’d vacationed for a week of hell. Around each corner, he expected to find some kind of monster, growling or hissing. Thankfully, they reached the other end without seeing so much as a rat. Not-so-thankfully, the maze of organized surplus stopped much sooner than Dakota hoped. There was a flat wall where he imagined a passage to the living quarters could be. And though an old step ladder led upward to a hatch, it looked to be in disrepair. Inspecting the route’s integrity, Terrell puffed out his cheeks and placed one hand on his own collarbone, scratching a patch of dry skin. Eventually, “I don’t think this goes to the lobby or the offices,” he said what they were both thinking. “That looks like sunlight, coming in through the cracks. If we go up, we’re gonna be outside. We’re gonna be out in the open for sure.” “Maybe we should head back, try to find a quiet way up to the second floor.” But Terrell shot down the idea. “Too risky. And I think the way might be blocked. At least here, we could try and make a run for it, or head for the wall if we have to. I hate it, but I think this is our best chance at finding Kenna.” Then it was their only option. “You wanna go first or should I?” Terrell began climbing the wobbly steps without another word. He twisted the handle until white paint chips fell down around them. With a little more muscle applied, the submarine-like hatch opened, and a column of sunlight poured in around them both. They heard gunfire in rapid bursts, but it sounded distant. Terrell stuck his head out just enough to scan the area. When he didn’t see anything, he waved for Dakota to begin his ascent. Soon enough, they stood firmly on real soil, near the back of the main building. He grabbed Dakota’s hand and silently started toward their most recent home, which sat only about thirty meters away. Dakota saw it just as Terrell did: a blue-painted door that separated the ground level of the dorm from a small parking lot. Since everyone from New Somerset lived on the second level, they never really went that way. It should be unlocked, though, he thought. Or, at least, fairly easy to open. But they didn’t get that far. Out of nowhere, a figure—one of those f*****g things—strode into view. But it wasn’t like any of the early experiments Dakota had the misfortune of encountering in the dungeon or in his limited experience in Colorado. “All the devils are here,” Dakota quoted in the detached, sing-songy voice to which he defaulted whenever he thought his life might end soon. As though there might be someone here to survive and record his final words. As though he were important enough to become a part of history. Terrell licked his lips. “Stay behind me.” “What are you gonna do?” Fear crept back into his tone as he realized that not only his own survival was at stake. The creature, which looked like some sort of hybrid between a deep-sea fish or vicious lizard and a horrifying remnant of a man’s corpse, approached slowly. It seemed to be by itself, cut off from a larger group or perhaps sent in on a solo mission. It didn’t look frightened or nervous. Though, how could anyone tell? Its eyes were just glazed-over orbs. There wasn’t anything behind them, nothing recognizable as human. Regardless, it didn’t make any attempt to call for others or flee, and being outnumbered didn’t seem to register as a problem. If any emotion could be found, as the monster somehow further opened its grotesque mouth full of overcrowded fangs, maybe it seemed curious. About what, he had no idea. It certainly wasn’t their viability as a source of conversation. Dakota doubted it could speak, even if it had the proper mouth. Something about the way it moved was very animalistic. Reactive. Terrell took half a step forward, and it shied away. They backed up, and it advanced. “Remember you said you’d trust me,” he whispered. He let Dakota go and clenched his left hand into a fist. “I need you to trust me now.” “I do.”