Fear started to take over his mind; this had to be a dream, but the pain, the voice, and the overall feeling of reality - though bent and askew - made him all too aware he was awake. He ran a probing thought through his mind, searching frantically for his spiritual personality aspect known as the Father. He made his mental way to the garden in his mind. It was a place of beauty and peace that he had made to keep his virtuous and good personalities comfortable. He had another place for the less desirable aspects which was nothing more than an old wooden box wrapped in chains and sealed with a lock.
He got to the garden in his mind and began to step forward, and slammed into something invisible. He felt it out with his mind; something had put a barrier around his garden. The good personalities were there on the other side, sitting by a trickling stream, laughing as they spoke to one another. He beat his fists against the barrier - or at least he imagined beating his fist against it. Out in the real world, or wherever he was, Cole looked like he was standing in place, staring off into nothing.
"That's not going to work. This place is the Theosis; it gives power to things that are normally weak back home." Cole turned his gaze from the garden to look at Joker as he spoke. "And how would you know this? You are a killer, my battle aspect. What would you know of this place!" Cole spat back at his aspect, anger and frustration seeping from his very skin. It made sense if the other aspects were bound that Joker would have more influence on his mind than normal. As far as he could tell, it was he and Joker alone.
"We all may be different and have different functions, but we share common information. How could I protect you from the world if I didn't have access to such things?" For the first time, Cole noticed that Joker was different. He still had the presence of wrath and rage flowing off of him, but his tone was cool, collected, and cultivated.
"Just what I needed: aspects changing in mid-crisis." Cole's thought floated through the air, and Joker's eyes widened in mirth. "We are in your head, dumb fuck. I can hear you. Now we have to stop wasting time; you have already been standing around like an idiot with a piece of string for a half hour. It's time to get to business. We are in the shop; shift over and let me drive for a bit. We need weapons, armor, and first aid if we can carry it." Joker's tone shifted from insult to command, yet again something that only happened in the most dangerous of times, usually when Cole's life was in mortal danger.
The shift, as Cole had come to call it, happened smoothly, like getting into a shower or slipping into a cool dark cave. He let go of his control on his mind and let Joker slip into his consciousness, stretching his control into his body. He was still Cole; he could take back control, but for now, he let Joker drive as he watched.
The world became a blur as his eyes swept over the room, looking for things he could use to defend himself. On a peg in the corner of the dimly lit room hung a welder's leather jacket; he moved with efficient grace as he grabbed the jacket and slung it over him. Most of the men that worked with him were of the large breed, and the jacket felt loose. The answer to this came from the fall arrest harness hanging next to where the jacket had been.
He slipped on the harness and tightened the straps as best he could, making the leather bunch up and stick out. He let a small laugh slip, realizing in his head that he must look like a can of busted biscuits.
"It's not the best, but it will have to do. Maybe we can find something better." Joker's voice broke through, splashing ideas on the walls of Cole's mind of what the ideal armor would look like. "Easy for you to say; right now, our balls are in our throat from the harness," came Cole's reply.
"Suck it up, buttercup. We have to make sure we don't get swallowed up by this leather jacket, and if we get lucky, we might find things to add to this harness." Cole had no answer for him. Joker was good at making weapons and armor out of nothing; it's what he spent his time doing in the box. But the harness cast doubts in Cole's heart; it wasn't armor. It was true it made the jacket snug, but the harness itself was just a set of straps like a mountain climber would wear, and the torturous jock strap in it made his balls feel like they were being squeezed in a vise. Images of monsters grabbing him and tossing him like a lawn dart exploded through his head.
"Quit wasting time with all that silly shit; we aren't going to be thrown!" Joker snapped. Their eyes hit the clock, and twenty minutes were left – only a short time to find a weapon. The brass hammer had fallen on the floor, left there in the confusion of what had happened.
He picked it up and swung it, testing its weight and balance. It was light, which meant he could swing it longer before becoming exhausted, but it was brass, and both of them knew the metal was soft. If they came up against something big or needed to bust through a wall, the hammer would become a nice little paperweight.
With a resounding clatter, Cole dropped the hammer onto the table, determination fueling his every step as he made his way toward the toolbox at the far end of the workbench. He could feel the form of the weapon they needed beginning to crystallize in his mind. It took a beat for him to locate the proper tools, but with the aid of a crowbar and a bit of raw strength, he managed to wrench open the stubborn lid of the toolbox and extract what he was seeking.
Another hammer, a small sledgehammer, its blackened head marred from use, the handle loose and slightly splintered. Placing it in a vice, he used another hammer and punched the wood out, leaving the head void of a shaft.
Minutes ticked by like wildfire, and Cole found himself wondering, "Do monsters keep on time, or are they early?" Forcing the thought from his head, he grabbed the items he would need from the shelves that held what maintenance men called "raw stock." It was really just metal of all shapes and sizes, cut in different lengths.
He found a piece of steel just long enough to make a good handle for the sledge. Wasting no time, he fired up the M.I.G. welder and secured the shaft to the head. A good-sized bolt lay in a bucket on the work table – the kind of bolt they used to anchor heavy machines into the concrete floors.
A nearby grinding wheel took the bolt tip to a point, and he quickly dropped the visor on the helmet used for welding and fused the bolt to one face of the hammer. "Good, good, we only need one more thing!" Joker's laugh danced in the air as he ran to get a length of chain and metal clamp from a nearby bin.
He didn't rest; Joker was on a mission to protect and kill. He welded the chain to the shaft of the hammer, then the other end to the clamp. It wasn't an impressive clamp, just a ring of metal with a screw in it to tighten it down. Slipping the clamp over his hand, he tightened it down to his wrist, swinging the weapon into his hand and dropping it again.
"Fun, fun, fun... We are going to kill again, Cole, man-o, ah freako!" The thrill of the fight began to rage through Joker. Cole could feel his body heat up as the surge of adrenaline hit him, telling his dark secret: he loved the rush.
"One question," Cole interrupted his insane companion. "With this harness and this hammer on our arm, again, I say, what do we do when someone plays yo-yo with our body?"
"Shut up, fucker, you are such a Boy Scout. You afraid of getting your knees skinned up? This is awesome, chain hammer for the win!"
The wall clock's relentless ticking echoed through the room, each second passing with unyielding certainty. Cole's gaze remained fixed on the minute hand, his heart caught in a frantic dance of terror and anticipation. Joker, once a cacophony in his mind, now fell eerily silent as the minute hand struck the twelve, signaling the end of the hour that had been granted to them.
He waited in the odd pregnant silence of the shop. He had expected a gong or bell to ring out, marking the start of the battle, but nothing came. Cole made his way to the window that overlooked the floor of machines that grew from the concrete of the factory. In the pale light, they looked twisted and wrong, their metal glowing faintly in the dim orange-hued light.
The details struck him, standing out like a junkyard; the whole place reeked of death, decay, and sulfur. From the corner of his eye, he caught a movement drawing his attention to the floor. A black mist had begun to roll out like a fog at a rock concert, snaking its way across the machinery, climbing it, and obscuring his view.
The mist picked up its intensity, billowing out like a storm rolling over the ocean, and Cole took a step back as it slammed into the glass, cracking it. He had little time to think before Joker was screaming at him, "MOVE, JACKASS!" They ran for the door as a window frame shattered with a crack, sending broken bits of glass and drywall into the room. He risked a glance back as the mist swirled around into dust devils, falling into themselves and becoming a mass of humanoid shapes.
"We gotta move; they have called the Djinn to track us." Joker's normally insane tone was focused and direct. Cole jerked open the door and threw himself out into the hallway, careless to notice if the Djinn mist had filled it. Luck seemed to be on his side for the moment as the hallway was empty of djinn fog. Risking a glance back into the window that let the bosses know people were in the shop, he caught a quick glimpse of the Djinn.
It looked human for the most part, if humans had skin the color of asphalt and cracked with glowing red lines. Tendrils of fog twisted their way off its body, blurring into the air like steam. The demon looked to be about his height and slender to a fault, but the thing that disturbed Cole the most was the Djinn's eyes – they were solid glowing red, like pools of lava hot hate.
"We have to go unless you're up for your first fight now. Run, hide, study, and plan," echoed Joker's advice in Cole's mind. The urgency in those words injected life into his legs. A howl emanated from the room he had just fled, a sound that seemed to defy reality. It was as if the wind had birthed a dust storm, stripping the flesh from a rage-filled dying animal. The mind-shattering howl urged Cole to curl up in a ball, make himself small, pull the covers over his head, and hope for the best.
Cole found himself in a position he could not have dreamt; the innate human fear coursed through his veins, eons of evolution awakening his lizard brain as fight or flight instincts clouded his and Joker's better judgment. He ran blindly across the open factory floor, zigzagging through the gaps between the towering machinery, the chilling sound of rushing wind at his heels, growing ever nearer. The mere thought of the Djinn's fog catching him fueled the fear and adrenaline surging through his legs. In a fleeting moment, his mind snatched control from the primal fear, allowing him just enough clarity to rein in his racing thoughts.
Random facts about djinn and demons struck through his head like lightning, "What kills a djinn or demon? Demons are immortal so the story goes, djinn are mortal, what stops a demon?" The thoughts raced through his head, banging together with a survival-born speed until finally, the answer exploded in his head.
"IRON!" And with that thought came a plan trailing in its wake. All he had to do was stay alive and run to the other side of the plant. It would be a full-out half-mile sprint, but there was a machine that the other technicians called the old grey mare. She was the oldest machine in the building and was equipped with deep-cutting lathes for turning drive shafts and, best of all, she was made of iron.
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The Djinn's fog was splashing its way toward him, touching the back of his heels, and Cole knew that if he stopped for even a moment, the beast would have him. His legs burned with exhaustion; he was not the young Marine he had once been. The weight of his body, steel-toed boots, and welder's jacket took its toll quickly on him, causing the air in his lungs to burn, but he learned long ago to shut off his body's screaming, pushing himself beyond his limits and paying the price later.
He pushed through, running as fast as his legs would take him in the dim orange light of the building. Ahead of him, his eyes caught movement; inside the eerie glow of the factory were people moving towards him in a slow, shambling motion. Joker took over, suppressing his fear as his eyes darted to the figures in front of him.
"We can't stop! We are going to have to bust our way through!" Joker's voice screamed over the random thoughts crowding their shared mind. He raised the hammer in their hands and readied it for a sweeping blow. "Wait! What if those are real people like us? They could be trapped here; we can..." Cole's voice broke into silence as the flat of the hammer struck a woman on the side of the head.
It was a solid hit, and he knew from the way her bones sounded like jello dropped on pavement, it had been a death blow. "We can't waste time on what-ifs here, Cole. We got a demon beast thingie on our heels and these fuckoffs in front of us. It's do or die, baby boy!" The hammer smashed into another body, clearing a path as Joker's laugh escaped from their mouth.
It was gruesome work, butcher's work soldiers called it, close in hand to hand, swing and pray. Joker was good at this kind of thing, always had been. It had been Joker that got Cole through the war in his youth, though he tried to bury those memories and the nickname he earned.
Joker forced them on, a swing from their hammer now and then to clear the way of people, beasts, or angry wooden pallets, all fell before them as they ran. The fog began to make its way around them, flanking them on either side, pushing forward faster than Cole could run. It was going to cut them off and trap them.
The light dimmed as the fog enveloped them whole, plunging them into darkness. He pulled his run to an abrupt stop, not being able to see where he was going in the darkness meant he could crush his head on a wall, fall into a hole, or trip breaking his leg. The fear and panic burned in his stomach, making him feel like he had swallowed lava-laced lightning. Closing his eyes in the darkness, he listened for what he knew he would find, the sound of footsteps crushing against concrete, and from the sound, they were coming closer.
"What now, genius? We are caught!" Cole snapped to Joker. "Well, maybe if you worked out more and laid off the taco truck, we could have outrun him, fatty. Instead, now we have to fight." Malice oozed through Joker's voice.
The shadows of fog parted like a theater curtain, letting light spill into the darkness. Cole had to cover his eyes from the shock of brightness, but through the pain of his pupils trying to close up to pinpoints, he could see a silhouette moving towards him. The tunnel behind the shape began to close, and he could move his hand from his eyes, taking the first good glimpse of his enemy. There was no question it was the Djinn; its skin, cracked and jagged, leaked red light illuminating the darkness.
"You are the one I was sent for," the djinn's voice sounded like a breeze over sand. "How frail you are, descendant of Adam. Not even an hour has passed, and you're trapped, facing oblivion. Your death may not bestow me honor, but your soul will nourish my fire for a while longer..."
The lungs in Cole's chest burned white hot from his run; he tried to push away the fear he felt. Instead, he felt resigned. "How am I supposed to fight this? I'm broken, spent, out of shape, and this is a demon."
"Fuck off, Cole, this is no demon, it's a Djinn. We have already smashed a demon's head in. Are you really going to give up without a fight? You going to lay down while this thing skull fucks you? Or are you going to fight?" Joker's tone was harsh, and it bit deep into his soul.
Cole was a lot of things, had committed his fair share of sins, but the one thing he was not was weak. Anger boiled through his veins like napalm. Fear fell off of him in waves, the adrenaline drove through him, steeling his resolve. Fear had fled, and in its place stood defiance, the kind of self-destruction that had led him down many a dark path.
"What the hell are you doing, just standing there gawking at me? I thought you'd be a disappointment, but it looks like you're gonna give me some fun after all. Good, I was getting pissed off at how easy this was." The Djinn's dry voice cackled, and Cole's mind snapped into focus on the mythical monster. The fog had them surrounded, taking away his option of running.
"Move over, it's time to get this started!" Joker commanded as he took over Cole's body. The Djinn's roar came out like a gale in a sandstorm as he rushed forward, his form melting from solid to mist and slamming into Cole. Cold sparked its way across his body, followed by a searing pain that spread through his veins, shocking his mind with pain. His mind went white, pure white and quiet.
He felt himself floating weightless in the void, everything he felt was outside the bubble of quiet. Thoughts, pain, love, and fear skittered their way outside of this calm. He could stay here, right here in this light, he no longer had to move or fight, no more nightmares or heartbreak. In this void of white, he could rest.
He began to let the peace fill him, felt the oblivion entering his soul, off in the distance he knew his physical body was dying. Closing his eyes, he prepared to surrender to the abyss. "You can't..." A voice floated into Cole's private heaven. "Wake up, Cole, you can't rest yet. You have work to do." Anxiety began to fill the void of his existence. He knew this voice, it sounded like home, but deeper. Images began to burst into his mind, the rolling hills of his childhood, the face of his great-grandmother, his time in the Marines, and the feeling of pride. He had grown up dirt poor, he had fought all his life, never given up, he had clawed, tooth and nail out of Hell to get what he had, he would not lay down now!
Anger flared in his chest as he opened his eyes. There in the middle of the blazing white void stood a man. It took Cole's eyes a moment to adjust, but he could make out the details of him. Blue jeans and a denim jacket over a dark green shirt, his hair long and black pulled back into a tight braid at the back of his head, and skin the color of a copper chestnut.
"Feel the rage, Cole, feed it, and go... This isn't your time to rest, little brother." The identity of the man and the impossibility of his existence risked breaking Cole's mind. That haunting voice echoed through Cole's being as the ghostly force of his older brother's fist slammed against his jawline.
"GO!!!" His brother's words followed the blow. The void burst like a soap bubble on grass, and Cole fell into the dark.
Confusion formed in the dark as he fell, his mind and body fighting to make sense of what was happening to him, and then pain, shocking searing pain ripping through him, tearing through his skin and scouring away the confusion, his awareness returned, Joker shouting in defiance of the black fog engulfing them.
"It's about time you came back to the fucking party, Cole, now be a good little shit and help me." Joker's words were a snarl through gritted teeth in an effort to keep the mist out of their body.
Clarity came in a short burst of images from Joker as they shared a mind and thoughts. Cole knew the djinn was trying to crush them. The tattoo on his chest and arms glowed with a fierce purple light, and somehow he knew that light was sustaining him, keeping the Djinn from crushing him. He felt the rage in him rise, he could feel it like a thread, burnt red and throbbing inside of him, connecting him to everything inside of him and to the Djinn...
He could see it through his shared eyes, the Djinn was an electric outline in the fog, he could feel an emptiness in the pit of his stomach. Hunger bloomed inside of Cole, a desperate starving need, he felt his skin burn with lustful need as he pushed out his emotions into the mist. He could hear Joker screaming at him, telling him what he needed to do to survive the fight, but Cole ignored him, all there was in him was hunger, he was gluttony.
He felt it, a small click in the back of his head at the base of his neck, a tingling sensation like a thousand hot needles were being pressed into his flesh. The hunger and rage pushed him, guided him, the needles moving to his mouth, forcing him to open it wide. Hunger, need, and bestial desire pushed him as his jaws strained open, he could feel the bone hinges cracking, but it felt so good. His lips began to burn, the emptiness inside of him pulled hard against the Djinn's mist. He felt the mist enter him, flood him, pooling into his belly and then racing across his skin, it was ecstasy.
Lightning streaked across his eyes as his vision turned to blood-red light, in the distance he could hear a scream, a blood-curdling scream coming from something in its death throes. He felt pressure against his face, hard, and furious, as the hunger pulled in the last of the mist...
"Shiva!!..." The words cut through the distance to Cole's ears, loud and frightened, the sound brought him back into an eerie silence. Not even the hum of the machines broke it.
"May the gods have mercy on you, Cole, it has finally begun..." Joker's voice was the first sound to break the quiet, but the tone took Cole by surprise. There Joker stood in the realm of his mind, back straight and his arms crossed, looking down at him as he knelt on the floor. His hunger had not left but had receded into a small throb at the bottom of his belly.
"What just happened?" Cole's broken thought came through heavy gasps of air. "Dude, you ate a fucking genie, swallowed him whole just like those sharks on shark week, did you see his fucking face when you did, priceless." Joker's reply ended in a maniacal laugh chilling Cole to the bone.
"What does that even mean, Joker?" His mind raced like he had popped a whole bottle of caffeine pills and then snorted a line of cocaine. "It means you ate a djinn and now its power is inside of you, at least it looks like it's inside of you."
His eyes focused on the stark reality of what Joker had said; his flesh was glowing, more specifically the veins in his exposed flesh burned with a brilliant red light, just as the djinn's had. Shock wore away to calm, his body felt lighter and whole, overall he felt as though he had slept for a week and could run 10 miles, even though he had exhausted his body in the hours since he had landed in Theosis.
"Need to get a move on, boy, the djinn will not be the last of the wicked things sent after us." Joker barked the order through his mind. "But what happened, I have questions and you seem to know, how do you know, you can't know anything that I don't know, you are just a figment of my..."
"MOVE, BOY!!" Joker screamed through the caverns of Cole's mind, taking control of their shared body and making them break into a full run.
Cole took a back seat in their mind as they ran back over the bodies of the people they had slain in their mad dash to escape the djinn, but as they ran past, Cole noticed he could make out the features on the fallen faces; the room had brightened like someone had flipped on floodlights.
"It's brighter in here now." He thought, "No, Cole, it isn't. You consumed a djinn, and now the game is different. Some things will be natural, like the vision and the strength we have now; other things you are going to have to figure out on your own, but remember everything has its price, now shut the fuck up, we need to get to the center of the building."
Cole watched from his place in the back of his mind, the distance to the center of the building was not that far, but they had been running full out for fifteen minutes or so now, and his body did not seem to be tiring under the strain.
"Freaking Theosis, I hate this place, a mile can be a step and a step can be a mile here, or we could be in a loop trap, fucking Alice in Wonderland bullshit." Joker's frustrated reply fell from their lips as he pulled to a dead stop.
"How do you know so much about this place, Joker, matter of fact, how are you taking over when we aren't in a fight, and why has your appearance changed?" Cole's anger and frustration had overpowered his common sense; usually, this landed him in hot water, and this time was no different. "Jesus flipping Christ, Cole, I can't hold your hand through all of this and keep you alive. We are in a fight, a fight for our lives, and I don't know how I know; I just do, and I look however you want me to look, that's how it works, this is your mind!"
"I'm not playing around here, fucker; I want to know what you know right now, or I swear by all that is holy, I will sit down right here and wait for a hobbit to come eat us." Cole shot back, the resonance of his anger flowed through their body, and he could feel heat seeping off his skin like sweat in the wind.
Joker knew this feeling; Cole was being stubborn, and there would be no budging him once he dug in. "Fine, but at least let's go into a room or something where we can space out and have a girl's night." Joker replied.
They walked for a moment, looking for a room to hide away in. Cole took the time to adjust to his new sight. Everything around him was more detailed and vibrant but had a strange red tint to it. A thought struck him, and he placed his hand on the wall, holding it there until he felt the cement block heat up. He pulled his hand away, and to his small surprise, he found his handprint glowing on the wall.
"Holy shit, I have heat vision!" He exclaimed out loud. "Dude, you ate a goddamn djinn; they are born of smokeless flame. What else did you not expect? Hey, did you know the sky is blue, and water is wet?" Joker's sarcastic laugh punched the message home.
They walked between the factory's wall and the open space where the machines sat, humming in their low tone of standby power. Cole was caught off guard as they stepped up to a door at the end of the wall.
"Where did that even come from? We were at least a hundred yards from the end of the walkway," Cole pondered. "You don't listen well, fucker; I told you a mile is a step and a step is a mile. Pay attention!" Joker shot back.
