Our Mother the Mountain

43. Hammer Fall

"Donna!" the child's shrill voice sounded in the hallway, which had only been deathly quiet for a minute. Maybe two. Right after the name was called, running footsteps sounded from the dark, still hallway. Donna emerged from the large suite, a lantern in her hand, and she ushered the children into the suite, locking the door after they ran inside. Eveline had been pulling Rosemary along with one hand; the toddler yawned as if this were the most boring night of her life.

For now, the hallucinations were gone. Donna supposed Miranda could no longer concentrate on her handiwork. Or else, she had been moved and the group was safely out of range, perhaps. It didn't matter, they had other things to worry about. Donna could not even fathom a world where Miranda didn't exist, so she didn't try.

Ethan's mother's wound had mostly stopped bleeding, but she had lost a lot of blood before Joe got the kit. They would need to move her safely, and who knew when it would be safe? Miranda notwithstanding, they were snowed in. Ethan, Karl, and Eva were still gone. Donna felt they would stay gone a long while.

But after Eveline skidded into the room with urgency in her voice, tugging on Donna's sweater. Donna paused, turning fully to face and listen to the child.

"I saw everything through Eva's eyes-Karl needs help!"

Her reply was instant, but calm. "What does he need?"

—------------

The coils had sung to Karl, as had all the energized steel. They had minutes, at most. If the electrical field, which depended on the substation, collapsed, the moving energy would likely get absorbed by the goddamn thing. It had already crushed his regulator into the ground, and he didn't have enough of his own power left to hope he could stop the inevitable. History would repeat itself in this valley if he couldn't destroy this thing.

Thanks to his knowledge of their precarious situation, he had a feeling of great urgency to get inside the dome and crush the goddamn thing before it crushed them-he wasn't sure quite how he'd do that without his hammer or some other large, elaborate current-inducing object of momentum, but he trusted Ethan and his primordial passenger. Karl's sense of urgency was completely removed, however, when Ethan's impish smirk fell after Karl named his request. The traces of black began to fade from Ethan's face.

There were the undereye veins, thin like spiderwebs, that disappeared first, and then the sclera, which lightened. The dark grey lips faded to Ethan's signature peach color, and the strange, sharp contortions around the blond's facial bones were the last to morph. When Ethan blinked, confused, Karl saw his chance and pressed his lips to the other man's. Ethan might have thought to interrupt him, ask what the hell he was doing, but Karl felt both of their heart rates nearly double, abruptly. He yanked one of his leather gloves off so that he could cradle Ethan's jaw in his palm. The blond's tongue licked past his scarred lip and Karl shivered. He savored every brush of the lips, every time Ethan's sighs escaped, before Karl was kissing him again.

He wasn't sure quite how long they kissed before something felt–different. He could feel it approaching, like the overwhelming light and engine of a train, barreling down atop him. Karl could hear a loud ringing in his ears, and his last thought before his vision went black, was how odd it was that he could be a host when he was not infected the same way Ethan or Miranda had been.

—---

Karl pulled away from the kiss, and when he did, he was smiling strangely at Ethan. It almost didn't look like Karl. Ethan raised a brow-he couldn't remember why, or what happened before, they kissed. Dammit, he'd blacked out, hadn't he? What happened? Why did his head hurt so badly? Ethan tried to look past the dark, round glasses into Karl's eyes, but they were not visible. In fact, not much was as visible as it had been. Ethan turned, letting Karl's hand slip away from his own, and he stared blankly at Chris first, then Eva.