by J M Guillen
Rivulets of flesh ran around the coppery edges, the mask permanently seared into the creature’s face.
I’d met these guys before.
The monstrosity whispered nonsense, strangeness that I couldn’t quite make out. It stumbled forward with a wicked blade, something like a curved sickle, in its hand.
Gideon! My disruptors were in my hands before I even thought, and I fired into the Irrat. Kinetic force like a wrecking ball smashed into the thing and hurled it off the edge of the walkway.
It never cried out but sailed off silently into the darkness, where it splashed into the midnight black waters.
At your six. Gideon pulled himself up the ladder and stepped quickly to press his back against mine. His Maverick barked a RAAAKK as he fired, and I smelled burnt flesh.
They were upon us, too many to count. I’d thought twelve, maybe fourteen, but no.
So many more.
Most wore rags and bore old, bent blades. A few surged toward us brandishing just their cracked and broken nails.
Shot after shot echoed in the deeps.
Their bodies stank of the cold depths and human waste. All bore coppery masks sealed upon their melted, ruined faces, and all gamboled toward us with an inhuman gait, more like gorillas than humans. Their brandished blades practically dripped tetanus. Whispered, broken murmurings befouled my mind as their senseless voices filled the air.
I fired and sent another over the edge into the cold depths. A second stepped aside so my shot clipped it.
The figure spun and fell to the ground.
RAAAKK. RAAAKK. RAAAKK. Gideon’s antimatter shot tore into the horrors. Not once did they cry out but simply fell, and then, in some cases, pushed themselves back up and came again.
Rationality… fluctuating. Confusion snagged in Anya’s link. It’s not a typical eddy, Alpha. The numbers shift rapidly and then shift back. It’s as if there’s no axiomatic obduracy near the creatures.
I could hear Katarina’s link, from all those years ago. Boiling. It almost felt as if she stood right next to me. It’s as if reality boils around them.
Copy that, Anya. Gideon felt harried through his link. He too remembered these shambling corpses. Trust me when I say we understand.
One of the shambling figures tackled me and hurled all his weight against my knee.
I swore at the sudden rush of pain and fell.
Claws raked at me as I dropped, leaving red-hot gouges in my flesh.
I rolled to one side, and the Adept gave me the grace I needed to not land underneath my rank foe.
Another leapt toward me, two blades held high.
I shot it in the midsection, which hurled the thing back. In the half-breath of time I had, color snagged at me. I glanced down.
I bled. My pulse raced at the sight, and I had to focus to avoid being swept into its sanguine sweetness.
Beautiful. The crimson song—
Bishop… Rachel’s link warned.
I’m sorry if I’m not Zen enough for you! I scrambled up and kicked the first inhuman thing in the face. A touch of dizziness capered at the edge of my mind. You’ll have to handle it, Rachel.
There’s more coming. Gideon grunted his link, something I didn’t know was really possible.
But, oh God, he was right.
Too many.
Another one, a female, swiped at me with ragged nails and connected with my arm.
I fired, then narrowed down the focus on both disruptors before I fired again and punched a hole through its mask.
We need to engage the Wraith. If we can push pas— Gideon cut off as one of the Irrats leapt past me, tackling him. Caught completely off guard, he grunted and flew away to land on the stark stone. His Maverick skittered away from him, slid across the floor…
And sailed over the edge, into the water below.
FUCK! Gideon linked as he backhanded the brute. His fist struck the metallic mask. Fucking Goddamn! He crab-scrambled backward as he kicked frantically at the creature. With it a breath away from him, the Wraith engaged, and he vanished from sight.
Get the Maverick, if you can, I told him. I stepped toward the knot of defilement who milled in confusion that he’d vanished. I’ll keep these guys busy.
Somehow. I gritted my teeth.
Copy that.
Rachel, I sure could use some of my mecha to pump up the Adept. Can we do that?
You’re not injecting more? Just hopeful I can magic you up some juju, huh? Maybe help you win the lottery?
Rachel—! I cut myself off and whirled to catch four of the shambling corpses as they loped up behind me. Now that my disruptors’ focuses were narrow, each shot tore through them with the force of a freight train condensed into the size of a pinprick. Thin, scarlet blood splattered all around me, and I twirled in place, slaughtering the horde.
Electric fury, like tiny exploding stars, burst in my Crown. Pop Rocks and Coke screamed in my brain, and then the Adept burst with warm, furious energy.
Three minutes, Rachel linked dryly. Make it count.
Yes, ma’am. I grinned as I felt the Adept sing through me.
I moved with scarcely a thought, almost as if my weapons sought their targets before I fully knew they were there. I leapt like a dancer and glided among the shambling shapes, splattering their blood where they fell.
Occasionally, some wandering part of my mind would note the pattern the blood made, sigils of forgotten lore, written in the stone…
Yet no more than that. Simply an odd, academic knowledge. No animalistic fury, no sharp urges for the hunt.
Simply death, all around me.
Bishop! I got the Maverick; I’m coming back up.
Copy that. Two of the masked assholes caught me from behind, almost the moment I linked. One hit my legs, the other my torso, and they bore me down.
“Fuck!” I squirmed and shot one in the shoulder, spraying the other with its gore.
Like the ones before, it never cried out, just whispered in horrifying, soft susurrus.
Its friend writhed up my body and buried a serrated blade in my thigh.
“FUCK!” I swore even louder and brought both weapons to bear. I shot the malefactor in the face. Twice.
As the force hurled the thing backward, it still clung to the knife and dragged the blade down my leg a full ten centimeters before it finally let go.
My wordless screams were quite manly.
More closed in.
RAAAKK. RAAAKK. RAAAKK.
Three of the copper-faced assholes fell away, scythed through like ripe wheat. I smelled the burned skin from the antimatter rounds, but in that moment, I couldn’t focus on anything save the thorns of agony in my leg.
—the Wraith! Gideon yelled in my mind, and he wasn’t the only one. I realized that for the last two minutes or so, Rachel had been spouting a litany of fury into my mind.
Just stupid, she seethed. You can’t tell me you didn’t have the juice to out-move those assholes, Bishop! I know exactly what the Adept can do!
FINE! I engaged the Wraith and rolled away from the pile of inhuman forms. Give me a second, Rachel, and I’ll see what injectables I have.
I rummaged in my pockets, hopeful I had at least a few syringes left. My urge to whimper like a complete bitch remained heroically contained.
Even though the Wraith hampered sound, it wasn’t perfect.
RAAAKK. RAAAKK. Gideon, not concerned about maintaining his Wrath’s stealth, slaughtered two more of the creatures.
There. I plunged two injectables against my other leg and relished the coolness. Now, can you do something about my pain process?
It’s that or watch you die, Rachel grumbled. And some days…
As soon as you can stand, Michael. Gideon’s link held snippets of concern. There may only be a few of them left, but they are still a danger.
Copy that, Alpha. I began to push myself upright, then stopped, caught in what I saw. Um, Gideon? I pushed myself backward and kept my gaze on the still movi
ng remains. What the hell are they doing? They can’t see us, I know, but…
The gaunt Irrats had certainly stopped their attack. The moment I employed the Wraith, they backed away, their heads darting about.
Yet, they didn’t leave. Even though they’d watched us vanish, they didn’t wander off. Instead, they seemed to settle in where they stood, some swaying rhythmically in place.
I’m surprised they don’t just lope off, Gideon mused. They just watched us slaughter, what, twenty of their fellows? Even monkeys would run away.
It’s like they’re waiting for something. I watched as another one began to sway and tremble and twitch in place.
Gentlemen, Anya interjected, if you are no longer in immediate peril, I might remind you as to the situation at hand. Irrat 3302 is still at large.
Fuck. I’d almost forgotten Amir. I went ahead and pushed upright, limping as I placed weight on my leg.
If you can avoid a fight for three minutes, a lot of the knitting will be underway, Rachel tersely informed me. Until then, I can keep the pain down enough so you can move.
Copy that, Rachel. I whirled about, searching for Amir’s white outline.
He’s not too far, Gideon’s link felt as puzzled as I did. I show less than a hundred meters.
Affirmative, Alpha, Anya linked. He has remained there for the duration of your encounter. In the area around him, Rationality has shifted three degrees negative in the last two minutes.
I don’t like that. I tested my wounded leg and found Rachel’s handiwork had lessened the pain by quite a bit.
Me neither. Anya, will you overlay a token on Bishop and myself, while we’re beneath the Wraith?
Will comply. As she linked, a bright blue reticule appeared in my vision, presumably where Gideon stood.
These assholes were meant to buy him some time. Gideon stepped past some of the masked creatures as they swayed eerily in unison.
I did my best not to brush against any of them as I followed, just in case.
So he could set up some fresh bullshit. I toggled the focus on my disruptors back down. If Amir surprised us, I might shoot him dead before I realized what had happened.
Which would be a tragedy, of course.
I assume so. Gideon cleared his throat, a habit I found humorous since we linked the entire conversation. I don’t know what he’s doing, but I don’t like it. If you have a chance to take him, do it.
Will comply. I pushed my way past one of the eerie cultists, a young woman whose scraggly hair hung limply from beneath the copper mask. Her body odor was overwhelming, and I wondered idly how long it took the Darkened Road to reduce its followers to these inhuman things.
The masked figures became fewer as we pushed forward, there must have been more than seventy of them along the walkway, all waiting in place for us to pass.
All here for us, I mused to Gideon.
Yet he expected us to get past. Why else would he stop and prepare some other trap?
I—
Something in the distance broke my concentration. It began with a loud squeal, like rusty gears.
Water dripped slowly. Faster. Even faster, pouring into a torrent. The sound progressed from dribbling to thunderous in less than a minute.
Gideon heard it too. Rachel, how are we on mecha? Do we have enough geared to produce oxygen, if that were suddenly required?
Um, she paused. Bishop will have mecha in spades after his leg knits. Roughly three minutes. You, Alpha, could use another injectable.
Understood.
I peered over the edge into the dark water. Even in the dim light, I could see enough to show exactly what was happening.
Alpha, this might be a problem. The water rose slowly.
Smells like low tide, he linked. These cisterns are gargantuan, Bishop. I don’t know how it would be possible to fill them with three meters of water.
Uh, let the entire ocean in? I quipped. Then I had a thought. Gideon, the cisterns are for drinking water. Why would it smell so much like brine?
Fuck if I know. Let’s pick up the pace. The sooner we take Amir, the sooner we can get out of these tunnels.
Will comply. I trotted along behind him, dodging the occasional masked, swaying horror.
The sooner we caught this asshole, the better.
4
The further we ran, the louder the din of the water grew. Eventually we saw the source: great spouts stuck through the ceiling through which thousands of gallons poured into the cistern. The unyielding din of the water felt like thunder in my bones, like a prehistoric beast’s growl.
We found Amir as he knelt, praying.
Anya, I need telemetry on the target. We were still ten meters or so from the kneeling man, but the Huntsman showed him clearly.
He didn’t even glance up at us, completely engrossed.
Minor fluctuations. No more than R1 or R2 super-Rational, Alpha.
What about Axiomatic obduracy? I fidgeted as I watched the figure.
Obduracy coefficient is still abnormal, although not as pronounced as it was near the other Irrats.
We take him fast. The marker that showed Gideon shifted a bit in my field of vision. Just because he can pull his bullshit more readily doesn’t mean he can’t be taken down.
On your mark, Alpha. I tensed.
Then, we were go.
“[Father of the First Light, hear me. Grant me understanding so—]” His prayer abruptly cut off when Gideon struck him in the side of the head with his Maverick and sent the man sprawling.
“Knock it off. Game over, asshole,” Gideon growled.
From Amir’s perspective, this strike and voice simply came from nowhere—we remained beneath the Wraith. He stared around, his eyes wild, and then started to speak.
“No.” Gideon fired the Maverick a half-meter to the side of the man, blasting a hole in the stone floor. “Stand up. Show me your hands and keep your mouth shut.”
Slowly, Amir pushed himself to his feet and cast his gaze all about. His steady hands turned palms toward us.
Without a word from Amir, they burst into brilliant white fire.
“AH!” I spun to one side and shielded my eyes as the brilliance scalded my optics. I staggered a bit at the shock of it.
Again my Crown burned with pain.
Wraith disengaged! Rachel cried through the link. I don’t know how he’s doing it, Alpha!
Target is on the move! Anya reported. The other cultists are stirring behind you. A sharp Irrational dip, three points… now four.
Fuck me, Gideon swore. This is all going sideways.
We sprinted after Amir.
Not two steps later, the water on one side of the cistern began to roil. With all the excitement, I hadn’t noticed it had risen quite a bit, and now the waterline reached less than a meter below our walkway.
Bishop… Dire warning came through Gideon’s link. I didn’t have time to question before the smell hit me squarely in the face.
That wasn’t the brine of ocean water.
The moment it hit me, I realized what I’d smelled the entire time.
Oh. My pulse raced, and I actually took a step back. Oh, fuck me!
It reeked of sulfur and ammonia combined with the stench of long-rotten flesh. The scent had remained with me, all these years, lurking behind whispers of memories from the Yucatán.
We have a problem, Anya. Gideon backed away from the churning water.
When the shapeless amoeba-abomination oozed from the cistern, steam billowed from it. The air reeked of death and otherworldly rot.
We’d faced the same formless monstrosity in the cenote. It had no true visage nor solidity. Yet, I could make out the partially digested bodies that rested within its gelatinous body. Some of them still had their flesh, while others, within the horror longer, silently screamed from eyeless, fleshless skulls.
It took Max. It took Katarina.
Motherfucker, Gideon swore as he turned his Maverick toward the amorphous mass and fired. RAAA
KK. RAAAKK. RAAAKK. RAAAKK.
“Away from the water!” In my panic, I didn’t link.
After Amir. RAAAKK. RAAAKK. Kick the Adept up and let’s go.
I did exactly that. The kinetic force of my disruptors wouldn’t do much against the gelatinous dread anyway.
When I sprinted forward, I ran squarely into one of the copper-masked thralls, who swung a rusted hatchet at me.
Shit! The blade of the weapon bit into my left shoulder, cutting deeply.
Bishop! Rachel warned.
You behave as if he gets hit on purpose, Anya linked coolly.
Deal with it for me, Rachel. I swung around to aim at the creature, but my wounded arm refused to rise. I had to turn bodily to shoot.
Gideon fought against three masked Irrats.
I shot my opponent squarely, and the force hurled him into the water. Gideon?
I got this. The link was tight. Go. Get. Him.
Will comply.
I holstered the second weapon and sprinted ahead. Amir hadn’t made it far; the white outline claimed less than fifteen meters.
His silhouette rustled through the small pack at his side and pulled something forth. Something small and flat.
The Liber Noctiis.
Rationality undulating, Michael. The second signature is live.
Understood, Anya. I paused. Thank you. I kept running.
Within seconds, I was upon him. For the merest moment, I registered shock in his eyes.
“Set the fucking book down.” I held one disruptor steadily upon his face as my other arm dangled at my side. Got him, I linked Gideon.
Alive, he responded. I felt how weary, how harried that link was. Take him alive, Bishop.
Understood.
Good. Make me proud.
5
“[What makes you think my setting the book aside would change anything,] Michael Bishop?” Amir’s words sounded hollow behind the silver mask. “[Why do you assume you understand what is happening?]”
“You will stop running.” I kept the weapon on his face. “You will surrender, or I swear I’ll slaughter you here.” I shrugged. “I’ll kill you harder this time.”