Night Terrors Read Free

of my slacks soak through with his blood, but I ignored it. His eyes were wide with confusion and disbelief, and I couldn’t blame him. First he got punched in the nose by a clown, and now he had a dagger sticking out of his throat. It definitely was not his night.
    His eyes shifted to look at me, and he opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a dribble of blood.
    “Shhh,” I said. I wanted to tell him that it was OK, that he was going to be all right. But I couldn’t lie to him, even if it would’ve given him a few moments of hope before he died.
    The dark blade had already started its work. Thin lines of black spiderwebbed out from the wound, running beneath the surface of Randy’s skin like a rapidly spreading infection, which I suppose in a way was what they were. He grimaced in pain, teeth gritted, neck muscles tensed, and I had to resist the urge to grab the dagger’s hilt and pull it out of him. If I so much as brushed my fingers against the blade, its taint would spread to me.
    I still had my trancer, and I switched the gun to its highest setting. Trancer fire concentrated Maelstrom energy, and since that’s what the dark blade had been made from, I hoped that a short burst would destroy the dagger, and – if Randy was lucky – nullify the effect of its poison. And once that miracle was accomplished, then I could see what I could do to stop Randy’s bleeding.
    It had only been a few seconds since Randy had been wounded, and his companions hadn’t had time to do more than stand and stare in shock. Now Cubs-Cap said, “No, he didn’t! No, he didn’t!” He kept repeating that phrase, but I wasn’t sure exactly what he was trying to say. Maybe he wasn’t trying to communicate anything in particular, just speaking nonsense out of sheer terror. Anarchy-Symbol was doing something similar, only instead of talking, he was shaking his head rapidly, as if by doing so he could alter reality and negate what had happened to his friend.
    I glanced at Jinx. He stood facing the street, gigantic shoes planted far apart, arms stretched wide. I couldn’t see his face, but I had no doubt he was grinning.
    “Come at me, bro!” he shouted.
    Relatively reassured that a shadow dagger wasn’t going to slam between my shoulder blades in the next several seconds, I turned my attention back to Randy. I could see the black threads covered his entire neck and were now moving down onto his chest and up onto his chin and cheeks. His breathing had become shallow and rapid, and I knew he didn’t have much time left.
    I placed the muzzle of my trancer a fraction of an inch away from the dagger’s ebon hilt and squeezed the trigger.
    There was a flash of multicolored light, and I felt a wave of vertigo wash over me as Maelstrom energy was released. The sensation passed quickly, leaving me feeling mildly nauseated – as it always does – but I was thrilled to see that the burst from my trancer had cancelled out the shadow dagger’s energy, just as I’d hoped it would. The blade was gone. Randy still had a seriously nasty hole in his throat, of course, but at least he no longer had a mystic dagger poisoning his system.
    But then I saw the black threads of dark energy were still spreading through his skin, and I knew that I’d been too late.
    I switched my trancer to its lowest setting and aimed it at Randy’s head.
    “I’m so sorry,” I said, and pulled the trigger.
    Randy’s eyes widened in surprise, but then a short burst of Maelstrom energy washed over him, and his eyes closed and he fell still.
    “What the fuck did you do?” Cubs-Cap demanded, an edge of hysteria in his voice.
    “He’s just sleeping. If you want him to wake up again, you better call an ambulance.”
    I knew there was nothing medical science could do for him now, but at least he’d be spared the agony of the dark energy negating his life force, in a very real sense eating him alive. Still, I pressed my free hand to Randy’s throat in