The Wounded World, a story of Mantra, Chapter 8

By Aladdin 

Edited by Christopher Leeson

The Wounded World

Originally written 2006

Revised and posted Apr. 21, 2019 

Chapter 8

ALL ABOUT EVE
 
"Thy fear has made me tremble,
Thy terrors have surrounded me.
All love is lost. Terror succeeds,
And [there is] hatred instead of love." 
 
William Blake

Evie was glancing down at her knees, biting her lower lip.  I squeezed the little girl's hand and asked, "What did he do, Button? Can you talk about it?"

Taking a deep breath, she whispered, "Yeah, I can talk, Mommy. Gus grabbed Mr. Paws and tore his head off.  He shouldn'ta done that. I didn't say anything bad, and Mr. Paws didn't say anything either. We both felt sorry that Daddy wasn't gonna keep his promise. When Gus did that awful thing, I started to cry.  You got so mad that you slapped him an' told him to stay in his room until he 'pologized to me and Mr. Paws. He told us to go away, that he hated everybody.

"I was feeling just awful 'cuz Mr. Paws was dead. I couldn't stop crying. I asked if you could fix him an' you said maybe you could. That's when Lauren called."

"What did Lauren say, Honey?" 

"I didn't hear, but you said she could come right over. Then you and me talked some more about Gus. You felt bad about slapping him an' said you were gonna tell him how sorry you were.

"After that, you heated up some soup for Gus an' put it on a tray with some other things. I asked if I could take it in to him. You said okay and Mr. Paws an' me carried it into him.  I figgered that when Gus saw how hurt he was he might say he was sorry. But when me and Mr. Paws went in to see Gus we just couldn't believe it! There was fire and smoke all over, an' Gus was glowing green! He was floating up in the air, like those bad wizard guys do in the cartoons. I was scared an' asked him how he could do that. He said he could do anything. That's when he saw how sick Mr. Paws was and used his magic to fix him, just like – magic."

“Did I heat the soup in the kettle or in the microwave?” I asked.

The question took Evie by surprise and she blinked.  “In the microwave, Mommy.”

“Was it thundering outside?” I pressed.

Bemused, Evie shook her head, “No.”

From this, I reasoned that would take only a couple minutes to have opened a can of soup and heated it in the microwave. That meant that between the time that Mantra and Evie had left Gus's room and the time that Evie returned to it, only minutes could have passed. In that very short space of time, the energy from space must have struck.  The newspapers had said that it happened at about 7:12 P.M.  Evie had heard no atmospheric noise, so it had apparently struck with silence. But how was it that Mantra, who was sensitive to magical manifestations, had been taken unawares? All I could think was that if the energy had been a form of magic, it must have been a very strange form of magic.

Evie started talking again: "I was so afraid that I yelled for you to come, but when you got there, Gus made a big octopus monster come from nowhere an' grab you. Gus tied you up and put a gag on your mouth. A minute later, you turned into Mantra an' got loose, but then Gus made a couple big giants 'pear and they started punching at you. You cut off their hands with your sword and then shot some magic at Gus, but his magic stopped yours. Then he zapped you so hard that you fell down into a big pit full of monsters."

These unnatural entities had appeared at Gus's command!  Had he really taken out Mantra out with one “zap”? How could a novice magician have overwhelmed in Mantra who must have been in full battle mode?  The protective shield I habitually keep around myself during a fight could protect me from all but the most powerful forms of magical attack.  The local Mantra must have fought the same way I did, or else she would never have survived the battles she'd fought before then. Evie's description of Gus's attack mode would have been hard for even Boneyard to match.  But that wizard had studied death-magic for years.  How could Gus have done so much “right out of the cradle”?

"It was horrible!" Evie exclaimed. "Gus'd never acted so mean before. He wanted the monsters to eat you up! I begged him to stop hurting my mommy, but he yelled he had to kill you, udderwise you wouldn't let him use magic anymore. I said that if he took away your mask and other stuff you'd be weak an' couldn't tell him what to do. He said okay to that. Suddenly, he made you disappear an' all your armor fell down on the floor.”

Teleportation carried out upon a mere whim, and by a novice?  Unbelievable!

"I didn't know where you went an' I was afraid that he'd disinnerated you.  But then Gus went to the cracker box on the table an' talked into it. I  heard your squeaky little voice yelling at him.  You were inside the box, an' you were even smaller than Mr. Paws!"

I couldn't suppress a shudder. So far, Lauren's account seemed to be dead-on true.

"T-This talk isn't too frightening for you, it is, Precious?" I stammered. What a hideous scene that must have been, a child throwing a temper tantrum while using godlike powers!

"No, Mommy. I'm just sorry that Gus hurt you. He was bad!  You were always nice to him, except when you'd catch him doing naughty things."

"So, what happened next?" I coaxed.

"Lauren knocked on the door. I ran to tell her to keep away, but she stepped inside an' then Gus jumped in the way to keep her from leaving.  Lauren was really surprised to see him floating up in the air. That's when he said he was glad to see her, that he'd always liked her. But when he told her that he wanted to be her boy friend, Lauren said was just a kid. That made Gus angry again an' made her float into the air.

"You started yelling at Gus, saying that you forbidded him to hurt Lauren. You said that he 'specially wasn't allowed to put her into Mantra's cloak.” She smiled. “You talked like it would somehow hurt her a lot. I think you wanted him to do just what you told him not to do."

According to both Evie and Lauren, the girl remained in the cloak for only a few minutes, before Gus brought her back into the Blake house. The little girl was surprised to see her babysitter materialize dressed in armor, looking like some sort of ultra.  Evie begged Gus not to harm her, but he seemed to hate everyone -- except, for some reason, his little sister.

A fight started. The first time that Lauren let her magic rip, it hit the boy much more solidly than Mantra's earlier attack had done. My double had probably pulled her punch that was aimed at a child, but Lauren would have been operating on pure instinct.  My first blast of magic had reduced a street thug to charred bones and flesh.  I had to learn how to hold back. Lauren might have defended herself automatically with a kill-mode.  Alternatively, Gus may have been getting tired from all astonishing feats of sorcery that he had already carried out.  

“Then,” Evie said, “you yelled for Gus to be nice an' to stop hurting people.  But 'stead of saying he was sorry, he zapped you again, super-hard. You fell out of the box an' I thought you were dead. I started yelling at Gus, telling him how I hated him. When he was looking at me, Lauren tried to sneak up behind him, but Gus was too quick.  He knocked her down into that monster pit."

“I begged him to stop hitting everybody for no reason, but he said that everybody'd been mean to him and he was gonna get even. He promised not to hurt me, but I knew he was going to hurt pretty soon.

"When he saw that Lauren had beat up on all his monsters, Gus went into the pit after her.  That's when I grabbed Mr. Paws, put you back into the cracker box. All three of us ran outside. We had to find some place to hide!”

No wonder that evil night had traumatized Evie!  I took her into my arms. What a miracle child she was, to have fought so bravely in the face of sheer terror to save her mother's life!  

"Where did you go, darling?" I asked with a gulp.

"For a while we hid in the flower bushes.  But I got worried that you'd be dead forever if I didn't find a grownup who knew how to make you better.  That's why I ran to Mrs. Walker's magic shop. I thought she could do some powerful magic to fix you."

I knew that shop.  It was all herbs, trinkets, tourist items, and New Age books. There was no real magic in the place.

"I banged on Mrs. Walker's door," said Evie. "'Cuz she lived upstairs she heard me. I showed her how badly you were an' asked her to use magic to make you well. She called me a 'poor baby' an' told me that she didn't know any magic big enough to do so much. Just then, Gus showed up, like a ghost or something. He told me that if I didn't stop trying to make you come alive again he'd hurt me, even though he'd just promised he wouldn't. He said he was gonna smash your little body an' be rid of you. Mrs. Walker was really, really afraid an' told me to do what he wanted, but told him I wouldn't.”

I turned away, wanting to conceal the tears that had started to flow. I felt Evie's arms around close about my neck.

“Don't cry, Mommy,” she said.

I also felt Pinnacle's hand squeezing mine. I didn't want people feeling sorry for me. I'd been brought up as a soldier, not a housewife.

"Gus doesn't really hate you, Mommy,” urged Evie.  “Mrs. Walker says no kid really hates his mom.  Gus just went crazy, like people do in the movies. He can get better, can't he?"

I gazed into her blue, hopeful eyes. "Of course he can, Evie. Everything'll be like it was last spring, when all of us were still happy. But -- but what happened next?"

Evie went on. "I told Gus I wouldn't stop trying to save you, no matter what. I said that he couldn't really want you to die 'cuz you were his mommy, too. He said he didn't care. 

"Just when it looked like he was gonna put the zap on me, you made some kinda ultra lightning come out of my eyes an' it really stung him! Gus got knocked out an' Mrs. Walker pushed me out the door, saying that we had to run away before he woke up.”

From this I knew that Mantra had intervened magically with both Lauren and Evie?  How had it been been possible for Mantra to use magic from the Soul Walk? And if she had magic then, why didn't she have it now?

Evie hurried on with her story.  “Mrs. Walker and me ran into the street. There was this big green car parked near the shop an' we saw a man in a red suit by it. He looked like an ultra, but Mrs. Walker asked him if he was a policeman. When he said he was there to help people, Mrs. Walker started telling him about Gus. Just then, Gus came out of the shop, looking really angry 'cuz I'd hit him. The policeman wasn't afraid, though.  He walked straight at Gus, like he was going give him a good scolding.

“Gus told the policeman that he looked like an action figure, an' that he liked to pull the heads off action figures. The policeman didn't let Gus to get close, but zapped him with a flash of light instead. Then the other policemen ran at Gus, squirting him with lots of smelly gas. They also had a funny kind of gun that shot out wires and made a crackly noise. The wires got all over Gus an' I could see that they were hurting him. That's when Lauren flew out of the sky.  I saw a big, ugly, mean-looking ultra chasing her." Evie leaned closer and whispered, "It was really Heather and her friends, after the bad magic turned them into a monster."

Evie's description of the fight coincided with Lauren's.  The scuffle was followed by Gus's capture and the return of Heather and her friends to normal. 

The little girl enfolded in my arms was looking so sad.  "I was scared that Gus'd be in bad trouble 'cuz all the police had seen him misbehaving. I asked the red policeman if he was gonna to punish my brother, but he said he wouldn't. He was just gonna make sure that Gus couldn't hurt more people. I figgered he meant he was gonna put Gus in jail.

"Oh, Mommy, Gus looked so beat-up! He was sleeping an' couldn't hear me, but I said goodbye anyway and told him how I hoped he got better soon. Then I put Mr. Paws on top of the box that Gus was shut in, so that when he woke up he would have Mr. Paws to keep him company. That was all right, wasn't it, Mommy?"

"Mr. Paws asked you to let him go with Gus, didn't he?"

"I think so. But that's when I saw Lauren talking to the red policeman, so I ran over to give her your little body. I didn't know how to save you, an' Mrs. Walker didn't know either, so I told Lauren that she had to do it, 'cuz she was an ultra.  Then I started to cry.  I couldn't understand why so many bad things were happening. But Lauren hugged me an' said that I'd been very good and brave."

I drew the tyke in closer. "Honey, Lauren was so right. Bad things do happen sometimes, like floods and earthquakes.  Or monster attacks.  But when those things happen, God helps good people like Lauren to save as many innocent people as possible. Look how she suddenly got ultra powers just when she needed them.  How could something like that happen unless God made it happen?"

She sniffed. "I guess so."

I dabbed her tears away with my handkerchief. "What did Lauren do next?"

Evie took a deep breath. "Lauren an' you flew away. The red policeman asked me who Lauren was an' I fibbed and said she was Mantra. After that, I stayed with Mrs. Walker. I couldn't sleep too much, so I prayed a lot. I prayed that Lauren'd find a way to make you well. An' in the morning, you and Lauren suddenly came in the door!"

She was overjoyed to see me, live and full-sized. Mrs. Walker must have gotten an eyeful, seeing Evie's mother wearing that strange black costume, but she promised Mrs. Blake not to spread stories about it.  Then the three of us thanked her and returned to the Blake home. Evie said that the place looked a mess, especially Gus's room. Fortunately, the monster pit was nowhere to be seen.

"What happened then?" I pressed.

"A message boy knocked on the door,” said Evie. “You went and let him in, but Lauren didn't want strangers to see her, so she flew off through the ceiling. You came back with a letter an' told me that Grandma would have come over to look after me. You had to go to Sanfrisco.  I asked if you knew where the policemen took Gus and you said you didn't, but the people in Sanfrisco might know."

"What did I find out?" I asked.

Evie's little mouth pursed. "You didn't come back till  it was dark on Sunday. You said then that somebody called 'Laddin' had put Gus in jail. I started crying 'cuz lots of people go to jail for years and years.  Gus couldn't come home from Sanfrisco, you said, but if we went an' lived there we could visit him lots and lots of times."

I squeezed her tightly. I was afraid for Gus's fate. It no longer mattered so much that he wasn't really my Gus.  Fate had cruelly victimized the boy and now Aladdin had him. As an ultra prisoner they would exploit him heartlessly. Ruthless people ran Aladdin back in my world, and their local counterparts were probably no better. Somehow, I had to get Evie's brother out of their custody, illegally if necessary.  I was pinning my hopes on Pinnacle, who had promised to fix his disfigurement and remove his dangerous powers.

At that moment, the Penny dropped her glance. She must have been reading my thoughts, and the urgency of my desperate hopes must have embarrassed her.

#

The session questioning continued a long while, until the Evie's voice settled into a sleepy murmur.

I looked toward Penny, saying, “She needs to rest.”

"Evie," Pinnacle said to her, "when I clap my hands you'll fall asleep.  When you next wake up, you won't feel sad and you won't be afraid. You'll mostly remember how nice it always is to talk things over with your mommy whenever you're feeling unhappy. Won't you remember do that from now on?"

"Yeah, I will," the little girl affirmed with a weary nod.
 
Clap!
 Evie dozed off at once and I arranged her comfortably on the love seat.  After that, I stood up and stretched. It was lunchtime already.

My hostess and I snacked while Evie slept, talking over the details that we had learned. Penny, as always, was a fountain of original suggestions.  Then, when my daughter opened her eyes and yawned, we took her out to the car and drove back to the motel.  Mrs. Freeman was out, unfortunately.  I gave her a call and she said she could be back in a half hour.  So we passed a little time at the nearby Jack-in-the-Box, letting the tyke feast on burgers and fries. 

It didn't seem too long before I spotted my car turning into the motel driveway. Once Evie was under her grandma's care, Penny and I went back to the apartment.  Pinnacle had already discussed the necessity of conducting a deep probe of my subconscious mind. She wanted to be absolutely certain that my memories regarding a life lived on an entirely different plane of existence were true ones. While I could understand her need to cover all the bases, I didn't care for the idea that she still doubted my memory of things.

But, to be fair, I had some reservations vis-a-vis her as well.  These misgivings were still nagging at me when we reentered Penny's apartment. Just inside her door, I was taken aback by a slap in the face!

"Hey, what's that for?" I snapped, touching my stung cheek. The smack hadn't been injurious and my hostess didn't look angry.  It surprised me, though, that Pinnacle could lapse into horseplay at a moment when things had grown so serious.

"That was for thinking I might use my mind-probe to make you fall passionately in love with me," she explained with a grin.

I frowned. "So what if it crossed my mind? I don't need romance right now.  What I need is a friend."

"I can read minds, Lu, but I still can't figure you out!  You don't seem to be hot for the girls -- at least not for me -- but you don't seem to have the hots for the boys, either. I keep wondering how you see yourself after two years of womanhood.  Sexually I mean."

I relied testily. "Sex has nothing to do with our problems. And do you have to be asking such personal questions?"

"Am I your psychiatrist or aren't I? If I am, it gives me a license to be rude and prying. Anyway, your sexual anxieties we're hard to find; they seemed to be at the top of your mind."

"Maybe you heard what you wanted to.  I was mostly worrying about how to keep from breaking a little girl's heart and how I'm supposed to bring her brother back from all the horrible things that have happened to him."

"Yes, I picked up on that train of thought, too. But how does a hard-headed commando and barroom brawler like Lukasz Theodoricson turn out to have so much compassion and tenderness? The life you've lived should have shriveled your heart to leather by now.”

"It's simple. Thanks to Archimage, I wrecked those kids' happy home, and so I owe them.  Now, can we get on with that testing of yours?”

She nudged me toward a soft chair. "All right, we'll get at it.  I'm going to put you under, just like I did Evie, only we need to take you much deeper. It can get rough, but you're a tough guy.  You probably won't remember much, but while your out you won't be worrying about me seducing you."

"Are you still on that?  It's your own fault for always teasing me about hooking up.”

"Hush.

The next thing I knew, she was on the other side of the room.

"What happened?" I asked sleepily.  “Did you start yet?”

"It was wonderful.  You're as gentle as a lamb around kids, but you're a real tiger with me!”
  
"Quit clowning, Pin. Is it over? What did you find out?"

"You almost made me believe that you really could be from another would.”

"What did I say?"

"A lot. We talked for more than an hour."

"You say 'almost believe.' Are you saying you don't believe it?"

Dr. Lammars shook her head. "No, I'm not saying that. I'm convinced that you've been telling me what you believe to be true. At certain points, though, it did seem like you were remembering details that only the Mantra of this world should have known.”

“What things?”

“Like about the Night of Terror, as you call it.  Those memories are very deep ones. They came across like personal experiences, not something you'd merely heard about."

"Do you suppose that I might be picking up stored memories from this Mantra's physical brain?"

"Possibly. Or maybe it's something else."

"Well, I am the real Mantra -- or at least one of the real Mantras. There's probably a lot of us, all on different alternate worlds. Remember, I even know a version of you where I come from. But there's one very important difference between you two.”

“What's that?”

“She's never really opened up to me about how much hurt she's been carrying around -- not the way you have."

“Well, I'm glad my counterpart has as good friend as you.  The idea of there being a multiverse is fascinating.  It's been a long-lived theory in TV shows and scientific circles, but now I'm thinking that it could be a fact.  I wish I had time to research it,” Pinnacle said.

“Here's a question that's been bothering me,” I offered.  “Why did Mantra have magical abilities while on the Soul Walk, but lost them as soon as her spirit returned o the material plane?”

Pinnacle rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Like I've said, magic is Greek to me.  I hope you're only experiencing a psychosomatic blockage. If you are, I think I could help you overcome it. Otherwise, there could be many other possibilities, and they might more difficult to pull off.   Like, maybe Mantra over-strained herself, trying to do magic while out of her body. On the other hand -- 

“Oh, forget it! When it comes to hocus pocus, I don't know what I'm talking about."

"Well, I hope you figure out the basics pretty soon.  If I'm not back up to form very quickly, I'll have to go into hiding.  Necromantra would only come to Canoga Park if she intended to murder me and capture Evie. She's addicted to magic and thirsts for it like a vampire. You already know what she tried to do to Eden and Evie. She would have drained them dry, and probably would have ended up killing them both."

Penny did remember and her face grew sober.  In the rescue attempt, Eden actually did die. Then my somber friend suddenly perked up. "There could be a short-term fix that would help you defend yourself.  There are companies specializing ultra-creation technology.  You already know about that. Of course, they all seem to be pretty sleazy.  Even so,  the science is real and it's moving ahead very quickly. As I understand it, your friend Wrath was once an ordinary man who was experimented upon by Aladdin."

I shook my head. "I need magic.  NuWare enhanced you, but as great as your psionic powers are, you couldn't hold Necromantra off alone. But there's another thing; Archimage lived for centuries, but he never aged past fifty.  And I think he could have looked even younger, had he wanted to.  But he predicted to me that I'd continue in the role of the 'Golden Sorceress' for centuries to come.  I wasn't too keen on receiving that kind of news.  But, male or female, I want those miraculous powers back, along with the ability to fend off Father Time."

Just then, my cell phone ran. The screen info told me it was Dr. Sarn. I very much wanted to know what she had to say, even though I knew that with her the needs of “the company” always outweighed the needs of its employees -- or even of her own family and friends.

"Blake," said Sarn, "I just got word that your boy is awake again. He's.... Well, he's crying. His child psychologist can't get him to settle down. I think that a visit from his mother would be the best possible therapy right now. We need you here immediately."

She informed me where to connect with the necessary transportation.

"I'm on my way!" I said.

I turned to Pinnacle.  “I got a call from the office.”

“I  heard it all.”

“Is this going to cause any problem -- for our plan of action, I mean?”

“Not really.  I' need some time on my own to get things lined up.  If you're gone longer than a couple days, I have other projects to fall back on.  One of them is finding some solid information about last week's power-surge from outer space.”

“Yeah, that.  Maybe Aladdin's found out something, too.  Whatever I learn, I'll pass on to you.”

“It's great to have a spy on the inside,” she said.

“Just be careful.  If they find out that you know too much, they'll have to kill you,” I reminded her, only half jokingly.

“Life is tough.”

“Say, could you give me a lift over the airfield where Sarn has a helicopter waiting for me?”

“No problem,” Pinnacle answered, “but I don't want to get too close to those bastards.  You yourself have told me that Aladdin makes mind-controlled slaves out of the ultras they capture. I've already been a mind-controlled slave, and I'd rather be dead than end up that way again.”

Penny went to get ready and I gathered up my things, too.  Just before we left the apartment, I called my “mom,” to let her know that I couldn't get back to the motel too soon because of a call from work. Barbara Freeman only sighed and said, “Okay.”  After two years of seeing me erratically disappear and reappear, she knew the futility of asking a “CIA employee” about scheduling.

To tell the truth, I would have been better off if I actually worked for the CIA. As bad as everyone knew that outfit to be, Aladdin was so much worse. It was a guilty secret that most people, even those in government, were kept ignorant about.  Those select few who did know, pretended that they'd never heard of it.
 
At least they couldn't find out that I was Mantra, since I wasn't anymore.


TO BE CONTINUED in Chapter 9