The Spirit in St. Louis

by Mark Everett Stone

Something in Billings’ back cracked with the sound of a gunshot and a fist-sized lump appeared on the skin of his chest. I swallowed my horror as his screams, shrill before, reached a whole new level of ungodly hollering, rising up into the soprano range before the lump on his chest moved toward his throat. Blood vomited from his mouth, the red liquid choking his screams and his flesh. His perfectly sculptured body flowed into those sucking mouths. The really sick part, the part that hit my stomach like a ten-ton weight, was that even though he was obviously dead, even though his bones continued to break and more lumps and bumps appeared on his torso moving with slow, deliberate purpose, he continued to scream.

  Some people say they can ignore such things, the sounds of pain and death, and carry on doing what needs to be done. I say that’s crap. You can’t ignore the sounds of finality like that because no matter who you are, what you do, the instinct to survive is hardwired into the human brain—fight or flight. The horror of such agony reaches deep down and hard, triggering adrenaline, punching all the right buttons.

  So while I couldn’t ignore the awful sucking of those crimson lips, or the whispery voices whose words almost carried meaning—if I knew what that meaning was it would tear my mind out at the roots—I did manage to put them at the edge of my awareness and clamber up the lip. Using my good arm as a lever, I managed to pull my torso over the edge and wriggle my body to safety. The ugly popping of bones behind me helped spur me on. It’s funny how such things can override even the most terrible of pain.

  The Angel’s voice rang out, “Kalevi Hakala, come witness the beginning of a new era!”

  Just freaking, goddamned awesome. I rolled over and looked down. The Angel stood proud and straight on the floor far below in front of the Engine, the translucent figure of Ghost at his feet curled into a fetal position. Ghost cowering in pain, fear, and defeat … that was new. It filled me with burning anger to see him lying there, spectral head in hands, despair emanating from his faded form.

  “Look, I have defeated your champion!” One long finger pointed at Ghost’s misery-wracked self. “And Mr. Billings’ death was the last necromantic component needed to open the Way to Between, the last death needed to attract those that lurk outside.” With his other hand, he gestured to the now motionless inner ring.

  Instead of the confusing nothingness that refused to register with the visual cortex, there was a circle of darkness so deep it threatened to suck me in, the abyss looking black. Black holes must look like that—pitiless, hungry voids without conscience or intent, they only were. They couldn’t be argued with or persuaded and that’s what gave them such terrifying aspects—not the fact that they were soul-sucking blacker than black. Their force was beyond any rational person’s control or ability to deny. That’s the kind of severe blackness that foamed and churned inside the center ring.

  “This is the gate, the way to and from the void between worlds, and now our life, our light draws the lurkers, the dark dwellers.” Terrible joy radiated from the Angel, whose strange, indistinct face held a wide, toothy smile. That I could see clearly. It’s what I imagined a piranha would look like if it grinned. “They will devastate this world before they are defeated and I will stride amidst the ashes like a colossus.”

  Ghost lifted his head and suddenly he was there, right next to the Angel. “You talk too much,” he grated with barely restrained anger.

  The Angel was flabbergasted. “But—”

  Ghost wasn’t stupid enough to run his mouth; he merely grabbed the Angel by the shoulders, lifted him from the ground, and streaked straight for the hard blackness of the inner ring. The Angel tried to morph into his orb form but Ghost clamped him firmly in his spectral hands and kept moving on toward the dark portal. At the last second he stopped, but the orb didn’t. With one last wail, it disappeared into the sucking maw of the inner ring without a splash or any transition I could see from my vantage point. It was simply gone.

  Quick as a wink, Ghost appeared before me, floating inches away from the cutoff. “Destroy one of the rings, Kal,” he droned in urgency. “I cannot do it; I am almost done.” Swooping toward me, he grew smaller and smaller until he became a tiny point of vague light that vanished beneath my armor. The computer amulet against my chest grew warm, then cooled rapidly.

  “What the ….” Never mind. No time for questions. I had a nefarious plot to defeat. Now, to kill a giant ring of magical blue flesh as long as a football field and thick as a beer keg, covered in disgusting lips that will suck your flesh in like linguini …. Easy.

  My Bat Belt had exited the universe to blow up the elevator, as had the belts of Rat, Dove, and Buffalo. Too bad Billings’ belt lay in the gut of that ugly thing, sucked down by those mouths.

  Sucked down by those mouths.

  Oh, I am a baaaaad, baaaaad and clever boy.

  Rat was still out cold, but it was a matter of a moment to empty his right boot heel of its precious cargo of boom juice. Fortunately radio detonators are part of the kit every Agent with boom leather carries. I held the thick, impact-resistant plastic vial of boom juice up to the fitful, flickering light of the overhead fluorescents and attached the detonator. Time for the windup.

  And the pitch. Instead of a fastball, I went for a soft lob, and the vial almost floated toward the fleshy ring spinning only a few feet away. My heart jumped into my throat as the vial bounced off the ring into the air but then dropped straight into one of the whispering mouths. Those perfect, crimson lips stretched impossibly wide and it fell in.

  I grinned. “Swish.”

  Awesome.

  It took a moment for the absurdity and futility of the situation to sink in—there was a miniscule chance that the idea would actually work—but that didn’t stop me from pressing the button on the transmitter gripped tightly in my fist.

  Nothing.

  Crap. “Oh well, let’s try for—”

  It wasn’t a bang, or even a boom. A section of ring bulged obscenely before bursting like a zit, bluish goo spurting into the air.

  “Gotcha!” I cried, fist raised in triumph. Sometimes the gods of luck and explosives smile on this Finnish boy.

  Instead of awful whispers, the red lips began to erupt in berserker screams—rending, high-pitched howls that tore at my ears like nails. Wails of agony combined with howls of the damned, all tossed into an infernal blender and set on ‘frappe.’ A goodly chunk of ring, about half its thickness and six feet long, simply ceased to exist. Nothing but a tattered remnant held the ring together.

  There were things dangling from inside the ring, unnamable, ugly organs of dark color whose purpose I couldn’t fathom. A tooth, white, pointed and sharp as a mother-in-law’s tongue landed a couple inches from my foot. Bluish blood coated one broken end.

  The outer ring wobbled, not ceasing its spinning, the broken flesh slowly stretching under the awful force of its pulling, pulling, pulling. Like saltwater taffy in the hot sun, it kept growing longer, stretching the ring out of shape until it crunched against the side of the enormous crater that was center of the Quint Building.

  It snapped—a wet, tearing sound like the ripping of an intestine.

  Ends suddenly freed, they whipped around with shocking violence, one colliding with the second ring. Those terrible mouths were attacking each other, gulping blue flesh in chunks. Within seconds the outer ring was completely stuck to the center ring, spinning and eating, until they both fell into pieces onto the unmoving inner ring. Red mouths from the pieces of both rings attacked that ring, sucking and biting. The blackness at the center, the portal to the places in between, began to hum—a low throb that sounded like anger, like hate given noise. Being close by would probably be detrimental to my longevity and the harm done not covered by my HMO.

  Before I could move, however, I felt something look at me, regard me with raw purpose and awful will. I felt a vast, yet alien, intelligence directed my way and I knew that if it had been on this side of the ring, I would have simply ceased to exist, blown apart by th
e force of that unknowable, alien gaze. As it was, it drove me to my knees. My hands gripped the side of my head as if I could deflect that regard with meager bone and flesh.

  Pain like I’d never known—a harsh, black knife sliding effortlessly across the nerves of my skull to lick deep into my brain—throbbing and hateful. It was that intelligence. It loathed me with every iota of its being. As alien and unknowable as it was, that I could understand. It hated me, it hated all life on this world, and it wanted to destroy me, destroy us all and consume our energy to supplement its own.

  “Leave me alone,” I growled through the pain. “Look at your own damn self.”

  And just like that it was gone—that hateful, wrong attention. Gone suddenly and completely. Its loss seemed more dire than its presence. Eyes streaming, I stood and wobbled off toward Rat. It was far past time to leave.

  The skinny Magician was out and it took a couple of good slaps to bring him around. “Whaddup?”

  “Whaddup …” I grunted as I manhandled Rat to his feet, my shoulder yelling up a storm, “is we got to beat feet, Magician. Things are going to get loud.” In the movies, like Lethal Weapon, the hero just pops his dislocated shoulder right back in by slamming it against a doorjamb. As much as I wanted a functional limb, I wasn’t about to go smashing it into place. That took more guts and foolishness than I was capable of. At least not right then.

  Next came Dove. Damn, her back looked like part of a Rob Zombie movie—more blood than I expected from such a small package. I mean, as muscular as she was, shoulders wide for one so small, she was still just a little bit of a thing. The puddle spreading out around her body looked like it came from three or four people.

  “Gimme a hand with her, will you?” I asked, grabbing Dove’s arm.

  Rat put his fingers on my shoulder. “Hang on a second, boss.” Heat radiated from his fingertips, sinking through armor and into my shoulder, which gave a curious little hitch and popped right back into place, a little spike of pain then a nice, warm throb that took all hurt away. I’d been healed magically before and I knew that was fast. Rat was a better Magician than I’d given him credit for.

  “Got my mojo back,” he said, but I didn’t care because with both arms working, I made short work of hoisting an unconscious and bloody Dove into a fireman’s carry and heading out.

  “Where to, boss?” Rat’s mouth sounded like it was full of oatmeal. Guess he hadn’t healed himself yet.

  “As far away from the—”

  BOOM.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Kal

  When You See a Chance

  “Thank you, Bill. As you see, it appears that an explosion has damaged the Quint Building, partially collapsing the roof. No one knows the fate of the two BSI teams inside or that of the famous Agent, Kalevi Hakala. All we know is that the crowds have been moved back two hundred yards and that all air traffic in the area has been rerouted. The BSI has refused to comment on the situation and Agent Hakala’s Receptionist, Marsha Yvgeny, has also refused to speak with us despite the fact that the strange force field that surrounded the Quint Building disappeared a few moments before the explosion.

  “Wait, wait a second! The doors are opening! People are emerging from the doors and I almost see, yes! It’s—”

  I cut the feed off. Television reporters were almost as bad as politicians. The DRAFTlite I’d retrieved from Buffalo went clear and I could see the screaming crowds of people a couple hundred yards away. A swarm of reporters broke through police barricades to head our way at a trot.

  The late afternoon sunlight failed to warm my chilled flesh and the cloth I held in both hands felt so heavy. It was one of the banners from the lobby, but the Chinese dragons on a field of gold were hidden by the corpse on a field of blood. Poor Buffalo. He looked so peaceful. Dove caught my eye. One corner of the banner was in her fist, the other in Rat’s. The body slung between us was heavy, but the burden on my heart was heavier. From the look on Dove’s face, she felt it, too.

  A reporter from NSC, blonde and pretty like a store mannequin is pretty, careened to a halt in front of me, kicking up a helluva divot in the sod with her size-seven sensibles. Right behind came a uniformed officer, gray of hair but lean of gut. He looked more than a little pissed. Behind him came a walloping huge crowd of Straights who had also decided that police barricades were for rubes.

  “Kalevi Hakala!” screamed the reporter, shoving a very phallic microphone into my face. “Can you tell us what happened?” Her eyes lit upon our makeshift stretcher. “Is that Agent Atkins? What happened? What about the other—?”

  “SILENCE!” My best parade ground shout knocked the reporter back a couple of feet and halted the crowd. An anticipatory hush fell over the area. “Listen up, you gaggle of lame halfwits, we will have some goddamned peace and quiet for our honored dead or I swear to Christ Almighty I will personally kick each of your asses from here to the state line!”

  “When you go for a sound bite, Kal, you sure don’t play around.”

  The coffee from GalaxyBeans tasted like chocolate and hazelnuts, although Marsha added too much sugar. “I was in no mood for reporters or fanboys, boss.”

  I sat in the back of the van while Rat and Dove were out getting some much-needed R&R. Five will get you ten, Rat was getting his ashes hauled at some bordello that you’d need a whole-body condom just to enter and Dove was giving Alex the goo-goo eyes through the DRAFTlite. I wished them well …. Actually, I wished Dove well. I wished Rat some penicillin.

  We put Wesley Ng on a flight back to DC, after Rat gave him a clean bill of health, of course. Whatever those tendrils that invaded his body were, there was no sign of them now. His flesh seemed clean and monster free. Though his hand was still gone, his skin was no longer a patchwork, having been knitted magically back together.

  BB’s gray eyes sparkled with mirth. I mean, actually sparkled. Must have been some special effects ability in the DRAFTlite’s optics. “You made more fans with that outburst than all your appearances on late-night talk shows combined. It was the sound bite that broke the Internet. That clip has been retweeted more times than naked photos of Miley Cyrus. As of fifteen minutes ago, you have twenty-six million followers on Twitter alone. We had to hire a whole PR firm just to manage your Facebook page.” He smiled and I about had a coronary right there. “I am over the moon, Kal. Simply over the moon.”

  “You’re freaking me out, dude.”

  He leaned back in his chair and I could see the painting of POTUS behind his desk. “Do you know how much pressure I’m under to slash our budget?”

  “A lot?”

  “To say the very least. There are several members of Congress who are extremely jealous of the power the BSI wields and who think we need to be taken down a notch. Or three.” Gone was the sparkle, replaced by deep wrinkles in his forehead. It hit with an almost physical shock to realize that although BB was in his forties; he looked at least a decade older. The pressures of the job were telling. “The thing that keeps them in check is their voting base, and right now that base loves the way you told off that reporter in deference to a fallen comrade. You came out with dignity, looking like you just stepped out of a war zone, chomping on that cigar of yours with a look that could melt steel. Every veteran, every person who ever served in the military seems to think you’re the embodiment of a valiant soldier and they’re speaking out for the BSI. Now those morons in Congress who wanted to slash our budget further are backing up so quickly they’re leaving a contrail.”

  I gave that a good think for a long moment. I had no recollection of smoking my second cigar when I left the Quint Building. The only thing I could think about was Buffalo and the next Supernatural event that would happen soon.

  “Kal?”

  My head jerked up. BB had been talking, but I was too busy daydreaming to pay attention. “Sorry, boss.”

  Those gray eyes pierced me through. “I asked you what you had planned next.”

  I shook my head. “N
ot sure. I know what the next Supernatural occurrence will be, but I’m not a hundred percent sure how to handle it.” A thought hit me. “How’s Ghost?”

  “Still unavailable. Best guess is that he’s sleeping it off in your DRAFTlite amulet. At least you can recharge the unit. We’ve tried to call him forth, but he’s not responding.”

  It struck me as odd that a spirit would need to recover after a big dustup, but maybe it was his way of juicing up the ectoplasmic batteries. According to my HUD, the DRAFTlite had several days’ worth of charge, thanks to the toasty hot engine block of the idling van I rested my keister in. Still, not having Ghost around to give me grief and assistance was a little like missing a tooth. Not debilitating, but you sure want it back.

  “You think Alex can tease Ghost out?”

  “Wherever Ghost is, be it in the computer amulet or somewhere in the ’net, I doubt he can be ‘teased out.’ My guess is if we wanted his attention, we would have to perform an exorcism on the whole web.”

  Ding-ding-ding. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve struck oil! The idea that hammered me between the peepers offered slim hope in fulfillment of a promise, but I was a drowning man grasping at a life preserver made of cheese. It might not work all that great, but it was still a life preserver.

  “Benjamin Bauer, you crazy, wonderful genius!” I yelled, giving the air a big fist pump. Excitement burned through my veins like liquid metal. “Genius, genius, genius! God, I love you, boss!”

  An eyebrow rose to where his hair used to be. “And what did I do to deserve such an outpouring of positive emotion?”

  My grin hurt. “Because of you, boss, I have an idea.”

  “The good sweet Lord help us all.”

  Four hours later ….

  It’s surprisingly easy to blow smoke rings. A fine cigar, a little practice and voilà! A cloudy circle formed of a carcinogenic gas. How’s that for cool?