Nightmare Realm Summoner

“It’s a zombie!” Alyssa yelled. “A mind-reading zombie! Kill it!”

“It’s not a zombie,” Alex said. “It’s Derek.”

“Who’s this guy, and why does he know my name?” Derek asked, practically ignoring Alex as he looked to Claire, still impaled on the dry vines like some kind of human pincushion. “Did you dump Alex for another Anomaly? I liked him. That isn’t going to make things awkward between us, is it?”

“Really, man?” Alex reached up to the mask covering his face and pulled it off. Derek’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “I’m not sure if I should be impressed that my disguise is this good or depressed that your first thought was that Claire left me for some other guy that also just happened to be an Anomaly. What, do you think she’s just hunting Anomalies?”

“Alex!” Derek exclaimed. “When did you get here?”

Alyssa looked between them all, her large paintbrush slowly lowering as her brow furrowed in confusion. “Did… I get hit on the head? Do you all know each other? How?”

“This is Derek,” Alex said. He stared at the other Anomaly for a moment longer before speaking again. “A friend of ours. I wasn’t exactly expecting to see him here, though.”

“Just what I was thinking,” Derek said. He tried to move, but the roots pinning him in place didn’t leave much room for him to maneuver. His eyes narrowed in annoyance. Several loud cracks split the air and he rose to his feet, snapping the roots all around him apart.

He grabbed the pieces of dry, spear-like plant matter still lodged in his flesh and ripped them out like they were splinters, tossing them to the ground at his sides without so much as a second glance.

Alyssa stared at him in disbelief.

“How are you still alive?” she asked. “You have to have at least a dozen fatal wounds.”

“Huh?” Derek looked down at himself. His view of his chest was definitely at least partially obstructed by the sword planted just below his neck. “No. I don’t think I do. Seems fine to me. Thanks for the concern. Thanks for waking me up, though. How long have I been asleep?”

“How would we know that?” Alex asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he suppressed a laugh. “How did you get here, Derek? I thought you were traveling on your own! Did you throw in with a Great Family?”

“Well, I was hunting some Anomalies a little while ago. You know. The same old same old. But I got little lost,” Derek said. A pensive frown passed over his features. “Really lost. But then I ran into another Anomaly. Nice guy. Wess. We were going to have a fight, but then he got interrupted with a job offer. I didn’t want to mess his career up. The market’s real tough, you know?”

Alyssa stared at Derek for a long second. Then she glanced at Alex. “I got hit on the head, right? I think I’m hallucinating. There’s no way I’m hearing any of this right.”

“No. This is just Derek. You’re hearing it right,” Alex said. He glanced back to Derek. “I take it that this job had something to do with the Ancestry?”

“Yeah. Wess got invited to join the Crimson family as a fighter. He said we could split the payout if things went well. I didn’t want to mess his shot at getting hired up and it sounded fun enough… so I came with him. We were just going to fight after the Ancestry was done. That was the deal, at least.”

“Right,” Claire said. She glanced around the room. “Is he…”

“No. We got ambushed.” Derek nodded to the bodies strewn around the room. “These monsters showed up out of nowhere. They scurried out of the ground like cockroaches pouring out a cupboard. You know?”

“Not really,” Alex said.

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“Ah. Well, there was a lot of ‘em. It was bad.” Derek scratched the back of his head, avoiding a dagger lodged right in his skull. “Lots of people got themselves killed. Mostly the ones that weren’t part of the core group, but they ran off the moment the fight started. Wess got dragged off with them. They wanted him for the fight.”

“The core group ran?” Alyssa asked in disgust. “What’s the point of bringing extra people with you if you’re just going to abandon them the moment the smallest fight starts? That’s not just cruel. It’s a stupid waste of resources.”

“They were chasing the boss of the area,” Derek said with a shrug. “Sounded like there might have been another family after it as well. I didn’t really get a chance to hear much after the fight started. They were definitely in a rush, though.”

“How many people were here before the attack?” Claire asked. “Did you get a chance to see the boss or how strong it was?”

“Not sure. Maybe thirty or so? And it was strong,” Derek replied. “I heard someone yelling about it before the fight got too intense. Didn’t actually have a chance to see it. I’m sure it’ll die if we hit it hard enough.”

Derek didn’t sound incredibly bothered by the fact that more than several dozen people had died. Then again, he’d always been ridiculously laid back about just about everything. Nobody in their right mind went around challenging people to fights for the death just as easily as asking them on dates.

Claire crouched beside one of the dead men and examined the body intently for a second, then swiped a finger across one of the wounds and gave it a sniff. “This blood isn’t too old. It’s only been exposed to the air for a short while. The fight was recent. It can’t have been more than twenty minutes ago. Probably less, honestly. You weren’t asleep for long at all.”

“That soon? Damn,” Derek said. “I always get grumpy if I don’t get my sleep. This is totally going to bite me in the ass later.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Alyssa asked in disbelief. “Seriously?”

“Trust me,” Alex said, sending a glance in her direction. He hadn’t forgotten what happened when Derek got pushed to the limits. It wasn’t pretty. “We don’t want Derek angry. That doesn’t end well.”

“I see,” Alyssa said slowly. “Does that happen often?”

“No,” Derek said. “I am a very composed man. My mom always said that it was important to watch my temper. A real man doesn’t get mad easy. It’s important to save your anger for those that deserve it.”

Alyssa squinted at him for a second. “Very…wise?”

“Thank you,” Derek said. He pulled a dagger out from his bicep and scratched at his teeth with it. “Anyway. I’m awake now. Can’t help that. I should probably go find Wess. I’d hate to be late. If Crimson ends up fighting that other Great Family — or if they get wiped out by the boss they were after — it would really suck.”

“You’re really worried about him, huh?” Alyssa asked. “Not many people would care that much about someone they met recently. It’s pretty nice of you to—”

“Of course I’m worried,” Derek said with an incredulous shake of his head. “How wouldn’t I be? What if somebody kills him before me?”

The rest of Alyssa’s sentence died on her lips. “Ah. Right.”

Derek nodded sagely. Then he tapped his nose. “So I’ll be off. I can still sniff ‘em out, so they haven’t gone far. Thanks for waking me up, guys. I’ll be seeing you around soon. Unless you were also hunting the Anomalies here, Alex? Are we racing to get the kill first?”

“Not really,” Alex said. He tilted his head to the side in thought, then put his mask back in place. “I’m not in the business of it at the moment. But you know, I think we might be able to help each other out. It’s probably going to be hard for you to get back to Wess with all the other monsters in the dungeon, not to mention the chance of running into another family. We could join up. We’re only after the other rewards in the Ancestry.”

“Huh. You’re sure?” Derek asked. “So you’re not here to hunt Anomalies?”

“No,” Claire said with a shake of her head. “We aren’t. Not that we won’t fight back if we need to, but it isn’t at the top of our priority list.”

“Oh. Well, okay then,” Derek said. “That works for me. What is it that you are after, then? I would hate to take advantage of your offer if you aren’t going to get anything out of this. That just isn’t how I like to handle myself.”

“That definitely wouldn’t happen,” Alex promised. A smile crept across his features. “You said something about two of the families both chasing after the same monster, right? Something tells me they haven’t managed to finish it off quite yet, especially if they both found it.”

“You think they’re fighting each other?” Alyssa asked.

“Almost certainly,” Claire said. “Giving up the chance to get the kill on the monster would be a huge mistake. If both were present, neither would be willing to give up the kill easily.”

“I wouldn’t mind giving them a good kick in the nose. Bastards abandoned me during the fight. That’s no way to handle things. A fight isn’t over till everyone’s dead or asleep. Common knowledge really. But Crimson don’t seem like the type to share,” Derek added. “They’re stingy.”

“Which means they’ll be distracted if another family is there,” Alex said. “I think I’d like to pay them a visit. After all… you never know what you can sneak out from under somebody’s nose when they aren’t paying attention.”