That was another thing that would raise some serious power. Violent death, and lots of it. Many people had died in this spot and what was left of them was cradled deep in the earth beneath us. It had happened long ago by human standards, but it had poisoned this place so thoroughly that it was still tainted hundreds of years later. Here it had waited… waited for us, waited for just this moment. Kismet, huh? Brought a tear to the eye, it did.
It could have been Native Americans massacring the wannabes or it could've been vice versa. It may even have been before a white man ever touched this soil. Whatever it had been, it was human on human. It was peculiar how humans would kill at the drop of a hat—but they always had a justification… a reason. Defense, rebellion, justice, revenge, insanity—there were always excuses. The few that admitted the truth, that they did it just for the fun of it, those they locked up. Or they killed them, for the good of society… ironic, eh?
Heard the phrase "fuck up a wet dream"? That was humans all over. They could take a concept like killing, something so pure and pristine, and wrap it up in a mess of psychobabble, denial, and chains of ridiculous ritual. They did their best to ruin the simple joy, the magnificent beauty of it. And yet they managed to accomplish it on a grander scale than we ever had. I had to admire that.
I patted the concrete and felt the rage, the hatred, and the horror of life abruptly snuffed out. It tickled my palm like the silky hair of a mink. Sweet. "Hang in there," I said soothingly. "Won't be long." No, not long at all before we sucked them dry. There would be no more uneasy death echoing through the years, no more unheard screams for vengeance. There would be only nonexistence. Okay, it wasn't heaven, but neither was it hell. They should be counting their blessings. They were going to be luckier than most whose paths I crossed. I gave one last pat and stood. "You can thank me later."
As for that grand murderous scale humans laid claim to… we were about to give them a run for their money. Unmaking isn't the same as destroying, not at all, but the end result was. Since our planned result was the literal undoing of the vast majority of the human race, I had to think that end was plenty good enough. The Auphe had truly been inspired to come up with this scheme, I didn't mind admitting. Since the dawn of time the Auphe had been near the top of the food chain. I wouldn't give them the very top rung, but there was no denying that they thought they occupied it. But then the humans came. They weren't much of a threat. Hell, on the contrary, they provided entertainment. Fun to play with, cunning in their own brutish way, and they didn't break too easily. There's nothing worse than a flimsy toy.
The downside was, our toys bred. In one breath there were thousands, in the next millions. And even a million grunting, dirty pigs could take out one single farmer, no matter how clever he was. Yeah, one moment the Auphe were swimming along, happy as clams; the next a tidal wave of humanity swept them out to sea. Swept over us all. They were too many and we were too few, and that's just the way it was.
Now.
So, the Auphe reasoned, why not open a gate to then? And that's why they had needed me. No Auphe could open a gate to the past. The energy needed for that was phenomenal; they simply didn't have it. And channeling energy was not a talent the Auphe possessed. It was, however, one I did. I had quite a bit of natural energy of my own, and when I channeled a huge power source in addition to that, the end result was little short of a nuclear explosion. In a perfect world I could've inhabited an Auphe, channeled, and opened the gate. It would have been a piece of cake, theoretically. But naturally, it wasn't. We tried that before the breeding program began. Our best effort had resulted in several exploded Auphe. Turns out Auphe and I weren't a compatible merging. So, several experiments later, the Auphe settled on a human as the most likely option. I could possess one of those, we discovered, and with some tinkering a human's genetics could be manipulated enough to crossbreed. The finished product would be human enough for me to take over and Auphe enough to open a gate. It was easier said than done, but eventually it'd been accomplished—"eventually" being the key word here.
We'd thought we had the whole thing wrapped up with the half-breed. But Caliban had thrown a kink in it and good, the little shit. I grinned and patted my own chest with affection. My little shit now. He'd proved stubborn, both mentally and physically. Cooperation wasn't top on his list when he was still sane; it didn't shoot up any higher when he hopped aboard the loony-mobile. Not that that would've stopped the Auphe. But where that wouldn't, his physical failings did. He couldn't open a gate. His nervous system, inner battery… what-the-hell-ever… it just couldn't flip that switch. It was not mature enough, not sufficiently developed, to make that jump. The Auphe's only option was to wait, and wait they did… right up to the moment baby Cal opened his first real gate and took off. Now that… that had been hilarious. Too bad he didn't remember any of it. Killing his father and escaping under the nose of the Auphe, good times. Good times.
But it was four years later and Cal's run was over. Now it was simply a matter of opening that gate to the past. It was too late now for the Auphe to prevail against the bubbling mass of mankind, but before, when humans were few and far between, they'd be fish in a barrel. The in-the-know future Auphe would join the blissfully clueless past Auphe and that would be all she wrote for Harry Human. The Auphe wouldn't have to wipe them all out—95 percent would probably be enough. They were damn good playthings. No reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater, right?
Then life for the rest of us would become as it had been in the beginning. The humans would be huddled in huts or caves. Once again they would dread every rattle at their door, knowing that it could be the wind or… it could be us. Heady stuff, fear. It was the appetite teaser that sharpened the taste of violence and blood.
I would kiss the electric blankets good-bye, sad to say, but sometimes you had to suck it up and take the bad with the good. It was going to be a piece of cake. Smooth sailing.
Yeah, smooth sailing. Was I wrong to think they probably had that embossed on the Titanic's cocktail napkins?
Turned out that, as usual, I was not wrong. When things go well, you should be suspicious. When things go exceptionally well, start sniffing for the dog crap on the bottom of your shoe. Or in this case the dog crap at your front door.
I'd given the fur balls my hotel address for a report on Little Red Riding Hood and the next morning I was eagerly awaiting word. That is, if "eagerly" could be defined as laid up in the Jacuzzi, drinking wine and smoking the richest tobacco that room service had to offer. Hearing the less-than-discreet scratch of claws at the door, I blew a plume of cigar smoke at the arched ceiling and called out, "Come on in. The water's fine." I heard the measured tread of two feet slowly approach the bathroom. Seconds later Wolfgang was in the doorway, blood and bruises barely hidden by a long, ratty coat. When he winced and spat red phlegm on the floor, I could see several teeth shattered to splinters. Fang was conspicuously absent. This was not good.