“Give it here, Kal. I got a plan.”
He gravely placed the eye in the middle of my gloved right hand. Removing the glove from my left, I placed a finger on the pupil. It felt like a warm and slightly tacky grape.
“What the hell are you doing?” asked Ng.
I didn’t bother to look at him. “Shut it, man.”
He shut it. This was magic business. My business.
Trying to tell a Straight about magic is sorta like describing a rainbow to someone who’s been blind since birth. There’s no frame of reference. I mean, you can start by assigning temperatures to various colors, like red bein’ hot and blue cold, but it doesn’t work worth beans.
Various spell Shapes—strange geometries, patterns both elegant and brutal—rose behind my eyes as I considered every one. Each Shape was a spell ready to be cast, a swirlin’ design created for a specific purpose, but they all proved unequal to the task at hand and that riled my stomach. Because that left the only one I didn’t want to use. Grudgingly, I pulled up a Shape—a twisty, three-dimensional ball-of-snarled-yarn pattern that to a Straight would merely be an eye-waterin’ conglomeration of lines twistin’ back and around themselves. To me it was clear as words typed on plain paper.
I put my will into the Shape, forcin’ it to rise to the surface of my mind like a bubble risin’ through water, and a familiar pressure began to form behind my nose. Like a sinus infection, it pulsed and grew until the raw heat of it was almost too much to bear.
I popped the eyeball into my mouth.
Lotsa gaggin’ noises, and I think I heard Ng commence to puke all over the place, but I was in my own little world as the Shape broke free from my mind, impelled by the magic within me. The world shrank all around and I closed my eyes as the coppery blood taste filled my mouth.
Even though my eyes were wide open, I saw nothin’ but darkness as my mind spiraled down out of control into the well of the spell that grasped me firmly with black fingers of bone and magic. Deeper and deeper I dove into the depths, the magic draggin’ me with unrelentin’, inescapable force. I let it because this was my spell, my magic, and I knew what it would do: it would lead me to the knowledge I needed more than I needed the parted thighs of a beautiful woman. And it felt good.
Casting a spell feels better than sex, better than that sweet release when pleasure seemed to rip the top of your head off. It’s a feelin’ beyond description because only a Magician could know it, only a Magician has the frame of reference for that particular joy. Bein’ a Magician is better than bein’ a rock star or politician or any old billionaire who can buy all the tail he wants because being a Magician is like being in the most exclusive club in the universe.
There are times, however, when it’s worse then wakin’ up to an ugly woman you coulda swore was pretty as a peach the night before. Havin’ a dead man’s eyeball in your mouth while your brain tries to access the last thing it saw counts in all respects, ’specially when what’s left of the optic nerve is ticklin’ the back of your throat.
Out of the darkness and into the light and I stood there, tryin’ to grasp what I/it/Sixer saw in those last moments before the bullet tore through his frontal lobe.
Zombies. On all sides, all around, zombies. Pale, rotting flesh clothed in the remains of nice suits and dresses. The zombies stood there starin’ at me as if compelled by one common force. They opened their black-stained mouths wide, revealin’ rotting stumps of teeth and the slimy dark worms of their tongues.
I knew this was merely the last thing the eyeball in my mouth saw, but that didn’t stop it from scarin’ the bejesus outta me. Unlike in the movies, zombie bites didn’t turn you into a zombie; it was the zombie puke—the rotten, rank, liquid magic in their guts. Zombie puke can travel up to twenty-five feet, givin’ them a pretty darn good kill radius. If you’re unlucky enough to spot one and you don’t have a gun … run.
Those wide-open zombie mouths were all pointed my way, Sixer’s way, and at the edge of the vision, I glimpsed the barrel of an automatic rise up. My heart began to pound. The image was going to end soon and I had to see more.
As the zombies got ready to let loose their black bile, I swiveled my perspective and the gun rose slowly. Only a few seconds left to go before the bullet tore the eye from Sixer’s head and then everythin’ would go black, so I stopped lookin’ at the dozens of undead all around and looked past them. That’s when I saw somethin’ that shook me deep down.
I concentrated on the details of what was beyond the zombies and what rattled me so deeply, and then there was a bright white light. Then nothin’.
Reality slapped me hard in the face as I came back to myself and I stood there standin’ in my own stink as terror sweat rolled down my neck and into the collar of my NewTanium armor. The eyeball fell from my slack mouth, landing on the floor with a wet plop.
“[CENSORED],” I mumbled as a strong hand grasped my shoulder, keepin’ me from faceplantin’. My eyes traced that hand to a big arm to a big Kal. “Thanks, boss. Remind me to never do that again.”
Kal could’ve given Mount Rushmore lessons at bein’ stone-faced. “That was perhaps the sickest thing I’ve ever seen, Rat, and I’ve seen some doozies.”
Yeah, I could see that. “Only forensic spell I know—one of the older ones in the BSI grimoires.” Grimoires, what a hoot. More like three-ring binders and complex computer programs that simulated true spell Shapes. Still, having a “grimoire” to refer to was better than nothin’, even though some of those Shapes were beyond me. Bet you dollars to donuts that Alex or that hot little biscuit Kal married, Jeanie, had enough juice to cast every single one.
That startled the boss. “Didn’t know the BSI had grimoires,” he said.
“Special Branch calls them ‘Spell Records.’ ” The others were all givin’ me the creepy-eye. Even Billings looked uncomfortable, like his pants were too tight at the crotch or somethin’.
I’d had enough. I might not be the picture of propriety, but I was a damn good Magician for the Bureau. “Grab an eyeful, you mooks,” I snarled, “but I’m doin’ what needs done, so once you’re all full up, you can kindly stop starin’ and get back to work.”
No one was more surprised than me when Kal said, “You heard the man, team. Keep watch and let me talk to our Magician.”
Maybe he wasn’t such a hard-ass after all. Or maybe he knew what was right.
“What’s what, Rat?”
“Last thing Sixer saw before his eye took a hike was a whole gaggle of zombies.”
“Zombies?” This from Jacobs
“Shut it, Dove,” barked Kal. She closed her mouth with a snap and gave him a look like to make his blood boil out of his ears. The others kept their opinions to themselves. “Go on, Rat.”
“He was surrounded by the undead, but that’s not the weird thing. The weird thing is—” That’s as far as I got before the scream cut in.
Perhaps scream is the wrong word. Perhaps the shearin’ of metal with a chainsaw mixed with a diesel engine revved so far above the red line that it was ready to explode—that’s what cut through the lobby with such force that my damn eyeballs started to vibrate. It dropped all of us with our hands over our ears and our own shrieks cuttin’ the air.
Red-hot needles slowly plunged through my eardrums and everythin’ went all blurry as tears clouded my sight, but I caught enough to make me want to wet my pants.
A reddish gray orb of light the size of a beach ball floated above us. It seemed to be the source and it was caterwaulin’ up a storm. There was nothing we could do but keep our hands clapped over our ears. The orb erupted randomly with puffs of mist, which instead of dissipating, hung around like stubborn fog. Soon there was a grayish red bank of mist above our heads. An answerin’ shriek cut through our screams, shearin’ through the orb’s own hollerin’ because it was coming right through the DRAFTlite, a horrible static-y yell that spoke of pain and horror. It about drove me nuts.
Then things got really weird.
From the hangin’ fog overhead came a foul-smellin’ red lightnin’ that jittered around our bodies, crawlin’ over our NewTanium armor, leavin’ no scorch marks or other signs of passage. It seemed as harmless as sunlight, although those shudderin’ tendrils of power danced around our Bat Belts for a while before withdrawin’ into the fog.
The orb vanished, taking with it the ugly fog, leavin’ us writhin’ amid the abrupt silence of the lobby. The silence was so profound it almost popped the bones of our ears.
We gasped, we moaned, we retched. It took a good five minutes before we made it to our feet. Kal’s big paw gripped my upper arm and he hauled me upright with little effort. “You good, Rat?”
“If this is good,” I gasped, tastin’ bile at the back of my throat, “I don’t wanna see bad.”
“You and me both, brother.”
“Boss,” said Ng, all breathy and unsteady, “we have a problem.”
As if we weren’t drownin’ in the deep end of the pool already. Kal cursed and staggered over to where Ng stood beside the foyer doors. From the corner of my eye I caught Jacobs givin’ me the stink-eye from where she leaned against the reception desk. Dang it! What did I do to her? Maybe Alex wasn’t giving it to her good enough.
I heard a whole bunch of swearin’ comin’ from the boss and Buffalo. They stood in the foyer, lookin’ out through the glass doors at the scene outside. Seemed like there was some excitement—people runnin’ around and stuff with Marsha at the front doors yellin’ her head off—but I couldn’t hear anythin’. After a moment it hit me, and my knees went all wobbly.
The pile of rocks that held the doors open was gone and the doors were closed. A faint, brownish shimmer colored the glass and I knew right then that no matter what I tossed at those doors, the glass wouldn’t break. Bullets would bounce off and spells would be worse than useless. We were trapped. Just like Omicron. I couldn’t figure out what had happened to our impromptu doorstop.
Kal banged his fist against the door. It made a dull thud like a sledgehammer hitting a side of beef. “Marsha, can you read me?” he subvocaled.
She stood there, peerin’ in and could see us, but it didn’t seem like she heard him at all.
“Can you hear me?” Kal pointed to his ear.
She got the message and shook her head.
The boss said a word that would’ve earned the younger version of me a spankin’. He checked the cell function of the DRAFTlite and cussed again. Tappin’ another icon, he said, “Ghost, can you contact Marsha? Or anyone.”
Silence. A lot of it.
“Ghost!”
Crackle crackle. “Here, Kal.”
All of us sagged in relief. If anyone could figure out what the hell was goin’ on and contact the outside world, it was Ghost. We were all on pins and needles, listenin’ to what he had to say.
“This is difficult, Kal,” droned Ghost. His static-y speech was haltin’, broken, and it startled me no end. “I used the cell network to access the DRAFTlites, but something, some force, has pulled me rather painfully into your DRAFTlite system and cut us off from the outside world.”
“Which means …?” Kal asked slowly. I could tell by his face he knew dang well what it meant. He just needed to hear it from Ghost.
“It means, Kal, that all of me, my entire program, or essence, has been downloaded, forced, stuffed and pulled into your device. If it is destroyed, then I will be as well.”
The big muscles of Kal’s jaws bunched and I nearly took a step back as an almost physical sense of danger burst from his skin. He was madder than hell, but he kept it bottled up inside. That wasn’t healthy at all and could cause ulcers and constipation, but who was I to tell him any of that happy crap?
“Something pulled you into my glasses?” asked Kal.
“To be more specific, the amulet you are wearing, but yes. Using magic.”
“I’m assuming it was that orb.”
“You are most likely correct.”
“I was afraid of that.” Kal removed the glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose before replacin’ them. “Everyone,” he said quietly. “Network our DRAFTlites. If one is destroyed, then Ghost can access another.” A pause as we complied. “Will that work for you, Ghost?”
“Assuming the units retain power and are able to remain networked, then yes. Yet, DRAFTlite to DRAFTlite communication is limited if there is no Wi-Fi or satellite connection.”
“How long can the DRAFTlites remain on before losing power?”
“With normal usage, about twenty hours.”
“And after that?”
“When the units power down, so will I, except I believe I will not be returning.” The static of Ghost’s voice didn’t betray any of the worry he must’ve felt. Or perhaps he didn’t feel at all, considerin’ his complete lack of glands or hormones or a body for that matter.
A quick nod from our fearless leader and he placed the force of his attention on us. “Okay, folks, we have twenty hours to finish this op and drop this force field. Any questions?”
Of course I had to be the dope what asked, “Or what, boss? What if we can’t get outta here in twenty hours?”
Blue eyes dark with fury met mine and I tried not to shiver. “We will, or we’ll die trying.”
Sometimes I should keep my dang mouth shut.
Chapter Six
Kal
Same Old Situation
I set the countdown clock to twenty hours, and numbers appeared on the upper right-hand corner of the DRAFTlite: 20:00:00, 19:59:59, 19:59:58, etc., etc. Well, that was nothing to whistle “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” about; an op can last an hour or a week depending on the threat level of the Supernatural. Considering that an entire team was missing and presumed dead, this thing could drag on awhile and I couldn’t let that happen.
Jacobs put her two cents in, “We should split up. Give us a better chance to find the rest of Omicron. Assuming they’re alive, of course.”
Billings and I shook our heads. “You know how big this place is?” I replied while the big man simply stared. “It covers an entire city block and is thirty stories tall.” Tobias Quint didn’t know the definition of small. In fact, the whole place was almost as large as his billionaire ego.
“According to intel, the last five stories aren’t fully occupied,” she said defensively. Yep, she still carried that chip on her shoulder, and it was heavy enough to make her squirm. “So if we split up, we’ll find them faster, and if some are hurt, we can help them sooner.”
“And we can be picked off easier. No, we stick together.”
“But—”
Billings broke in, “No buts, Dove,” he rumbled from deep within his massive chest. His long chin whiskers barely moved. “You heard the boss and so did we,” he said. “No more arguments.”
The rest of the team nodded and she held up her hands shoulder-level to signal defeat.
“Where to, boss?’ This came from Rat, who still looked mighty pale from popping a dead man’s eyeball into his mouth. To be honest, that freaked me out more than the shrieking gray/red orb that about busted my eardrums. Got to give the man credit; he might be a pervert, but he had balls. No pun intended.
A recollection surfaced. “You were about to say something concerning what Sixer saw before he died.”
“Oh, yeah. Guess so. In all the commotion, I completely forgot.” Rat licked his lips and looked around as if suddenly nervous, which unsettled me a little. “Sixer wasn’t in the buildin’; he was in a swamp.” Rat held up his hands before I could interrupt. “Look, I know how crazy that sounds—a swamp and all in the middle of the Quint Building—but there were trees all around and water and Spanish moss hanging from branches. That’s what Sixer saw, or was made to see.”
Keeping Dove shut up turned out to be harder than I thought. “That’s crazy,” she blurted.
Rat got all defensive. “I saw what I saw. And that’s what Sixer saw. It was me with the eyeball in my mouth, Jacobs. You wanna give it a t
ry?”
Enough of that. “Settle down, kids. Form up on my six and—”
EEEHHKK!!!!
A knife through both ears and into my brain, fire along my nerves and needles in my eyes—pain like I haven’t felt since a crazed cop in San Francisco took a drill to my kneecaps. I hit the deck because my legs refused to respond. Distantly I heard rounds firing off and I hoped whoever it was hit the ugly orb that once again hung over us, flinging gouts of reddish mist that floated like cotton candy in the air. All I could think was not again.
The screaming grew louder and louder, and I added my own shrieks because this was worse than last time—worse than anything else. Before I passed out, all I saw was red and gray.
My eyes were open but only darkness met them. I blinked and realized that I felt fine, wide awake, and relatively rested. How long had I been out? I checked the DRAFTlite, which read 19:44:18. Ten minutes or so. Strange that there was no residual ache from the screaming orb. The fact that I felt fit as a fiddle added to my semi-truck-sized load of paranoia and my skin began to prickle with the first rush of adrenalin as I tried to take stock of my situation.
My gloves and my cheek were stuck to some sticky substance, but in the blackness, I couldn’t see a thing. Then I cursed myself for an idiot.
Tapping a virtual icon, I activated the voice controls for the DRAFTlite by clicking my tongue. “Engage nightvision.”
And there I was, in glorious black, white, and gray. What stuck to my cheek and gloves seemed to be resinous fibers about twice the thickness of a human hair. I tried to examine one, but it kept sticking to my gloves. I made an effort to sit up and the fibers pulled at my skin, stinging like the devil. After some scraping and hauling, I managed to sit criss-cross applesauce. “What the heck?” I needed help. “Ghost? You there?” The darkness swallowed my words, but I wasn’t going for distance.
The Spirit in St. Louis Page 6