The Dossiers of Asset 108 Collection

by J M Guillen

  “I am the answer to questions you’ve never even thought to ask, Asset.” He cleared his throat. “That is the true reason I’ve beckoned you here. Were we to meet, you’d never ask. You’re a blunt weapon.”

  I had to admit I didn’t have a comeback for that.

  “I have a bargain for you.”

  “No.”

  “Typical.” He shook his head. “I wish to offer you the end, Michael Bishop. The means by which to set all this aside.”

  “No.”

  He sighed, as a man might when he tried to explain something to a child.

  “Do you know where you stand?” Amir pushed himself up and stepped over to a large window. Outside, the vastness of the city loomed, arrayed in winding causeways and bent, curved structures.

  “It’s the temple city of M’elphodor.” I shrugged. “Although I can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.”

  “This place is ancient beyond human reckoning.” He glanced at me over one shoulder. “Before the dawn of Mesopotamia, M’elphador stood. Before Uruk and Lagash, this place loomed over a primordial world.”

  “I’m shocked I never heard about it in history class.”

  “History was crafted anew over ten thousand years ago, Asset. A new world, born from the ashes of the old.” He shrugged. “Pity you slaughtered the Wayward. He could have taught you much about your own nature.”

  “The Wayward?”

  “The one you abandoned in the Yucatán. The one we accepted.”

  “Designate Davis? You drove him mad.”

  “Not I.” He turned back toward the window. “That distinction belongs to a man named Ignacio, a noble man you will likely never meet.”

  “Davis told me what happened to him.”

  “Did he also tell you how it felt to be free of the Ordinal Stone?” Amir gazed at me, one eyebrow raised. “How it felt to not be the shattered remnants of another’s power?”

  I had nothing to say to that.

  “The Wayward could have shared many things with you, Asset. Like him, you are a pawn to a greater power, a power which wanes.” He waved one hand, as if we had strayed from the topic. “M’elphodor stood as the center of influence for the Phothu-nacyi, an ancient and noble race. We have no concept of how old they are.”

  “No concept?” I tried to keep him talking. I had no idea what Amir’s ploy was, but he loved to prattle on. This should be easy.

  “They swam the seas when the world was different, before the continents shifted. Their writings lay within Antarctic temples before that land grew cold.” He turned back to me. “Mankind is said to be three million years old. The Phothu-nacyi may be ten times older than that. Perhaps more.”

  As much as I hated this asshole, the idea boggled me. How could any species be that ancient? How could they have remained hidden from the Facility? Stone had pulled up records, but they’d been quite incomplete—only names, vagaries.

  “They were highly advanced.” He rolled his neck and walked back to his desk. “They had writing, had poetry. In their crypts beneath the Sargasso Sea, they left hieroglyphs that no mind can comprehend today.”

  “So, what happened?” I feigned interest.

  “The slumber of Throdlum.” Amir shook his head, as if irritated. “That isn’t the Unfathomable name, of course, but it shall do for now.”

  “The Designate told me this.” I hedged. “Some.”

  “The Unfathomable has slumbered for untold millennia. The Phothu-nacyi have grown dull and bestial. Most of their kind have not trod the sunlit world for a hundred generations.”

  “But now, all that will be different?” I struggled to remember what the rogue Designate had said before I cooked his toad-vessel alive. “As the moon crests the Shattered Gate, the dark passages of time…” I waved one hand. “…open or something.”

  “Yes!” Amir pointed at me and then leaned back on his desk, arms crossed. He smiled and rocked back and forth on his heels a little. “My, Michael, you do surprise a man.”

  “Ridiculous.” I affixed him with a scrutinous eye. “You can’t raise a city from the bottom of the sea. Can’t be done.”

  “That’s where I’m afraid you’re mistaken. We follow one who has such power.”

  “You’re afraid?” I teased.

  He gazed at me for a long moment, as if trying to gauge something. “Perhaps, Asset.” He gave me the smallest of nods. “Perhaps there is cause to fear.”

  “What?” I stood, flabbergasted. “What happened to ‘Fear does not plague those who wander the Unseen Road’?”

  “The Phothu-nacyi will assuredly succeed,” he said simply. “In less than twenty-four hours, M’elphodor shall rise from the waters. Entire cities along the coasts of the Mediterranean shall flood. The Strait of Gibraltar shall be entirely landlocked.”

  “That’s just not physically possible.”

  He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Hundreds of the Phothu-nacyi shall rise from Athens, from the Isle of Cyprus, from Tripoli.” He fixed me with a steady gaze. “Barcelona. Monaco. Alexandria. Jerusalem. Istanbul.” He paused. “Those which are not flooded shall be overrun within weeks.”

  “In less than twenty-four hours.” I just couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t comprehend the enormity.

  “They have already begun to take humans and breed them. You saw as much. Soon, there shall be hundreds, thousands of people within those cities just like the person who wore the trinket I left for you.”

  “But…” My mind raced. “Even if that were possible…”

  “Why would I tell you?” He nodded. “And how can you trust any of this is true? Trust me, I’ve spent time considering the same.”

  “You assholes are behind all this!” I raved. “You can’t tell me now that this isn’t exactly what you want!”

  “I can, actually.” He sighed. “This circumstance, with the rising of the Unfathomable and the ascent of M’elphodor, is actually the last thing I could possibly desire.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  My mind spun. The Noctiis, Gideon, Facility Prime… It had all been too perfect, too orchestrated. This was exactly what this asshole wanted, what he’d worked to set into motion for years.

  “Hear me.” He raised one hand. “If we can’t come to an agreement, I understand.” He sighed. “But it won’t be because I didn’t try.” Suddenly, Amir looked tired, so very tired. For an instant, he wasn’t a mad cultist but just an old man.

  Yet I knew better. He was no hopeless, defeated grandfather. Amir Cadavas spun schemes that spanned continents in the making. Now that I understood more about the masks they wore, and the fact that they took different bodies, I realized he might have been about this work for generations.

  Fuck, they’d told me as much, every chance they got:

  Death is the destiny of the unfaithful.

  The thought chilled me. No matter what he said, I knew Amir to be a craftsman when it came to manipulation. Certainly, I and mine were already pieces on his board.

  That thought frightened me most of all.

  4

  “Tell me, Asset.” Amir sat back against the edge of his desk. “What do you know of the Road Unseen?”

  “You’re all batshit crazy, for one.” I leaned forward. “Insult intended.”

  “None taken.” His eyes glittered.

  “The Road Unseen or the Darkened Road or the Hidden Way…” I waved a hand in dismissal before continuing, “It’s a cabal of unknown size and age. They have considerable resources and base their mythos around star patterns and…”

  “You know we have allegiances to various powers, yes? The Names of Lamentation?”

  “I’ve never heard them called that, exactly.”

  “These are beings of such immense power as to be incomprehensible to mortal minds. They dwell in the worlds beyond this one, and we feel but a whisper of their art and power.”

  “They strengthen at different times, if the Facility understands properly.” This was by no means within my
packets on the cabal, simply something Gideon had suspected.

  “Indeed,” Amir confirmed. “In the Yucatán, we called to the Faceless Harvester. Most of that faith is long dead, yet its remnants remain among the Yucatec Maya.”

  “So…” I crossed my dreaming-arms and thought. “You aren’t exactly in league with these… names individually?”

  “That’s an interesting thought.” Amir gave me a crafty smile. “And one you should peruse.”

  “Why.” I did not phrase it as a question.

  “So you may understand. Although I am bound to follow the oaths of my order, I would prefer that the Unfathomable not rise.”

  “What?” I just couldn’t wrap my head around that.

  However, I remembered some things I’d previously thought useless—Isabella’s memories. Her vile plundering. The things the man Ignacio had said as he took her.

  “So do we create the world anew.” He bore down upon me, faster now, and I gasped and wailed from the fury of it. . “Through her power, you shall be the gateway. Through you shall the next Harbinger be born. They shall slice the world asunder. They shall Herald the Turning.”

  “Mriswil, the Scarlet Star.” The voices chanted around us, in perfect cadence.

  And:

  “The time is not yet,” the voices chanted in the shadows. “First shall come the Skittering Dark and then the Harvester. The Unfathomable shall follow.” They paused. “These three shall herald the Scarlet Star.”

  “Mriswul.” I said the name improperly and knew it. Yet it had the desired effect.

  Amir’s eyes widened for just a moment.

  “Mriswul.” I rolled the name around in my mouth, tasting it. “The Scarlet Star.”

  “It seems you know more than I believed, Asset.” Amir nodded. “I appreciate that.”

  “That’s what this is about? Isabella birthed some kind of fucking avatar.”

  “The Harbinger, yes.” He smiled. “The child Isabella birthed is only part of this. Like me, he shall do as he must now that the Concordance has arrived.”

  “You don’t want the Unfathomable to rise because you put all your chips on the Scarlet Star. If Throdlum rises…” I shook my head. “This is… this is the wrong apocalypse?”

  “I am bound to beckon the coming darkness, Asset. I will do as oathed.” A small, cunning smile touched the edge of his lips. “I shall stand with the Harbinger, who is birthed of Mriswul. We shall call the Formless, the Unfathomable. Once we do, the temple city of M’elphodor shall rise from the sea. A thousand thousand years of watery shadows shall descend upon our world, and your kind shall be no more.”

  “You’re fucking insane.” I’d known it, had known it for years. Yet the levels this madman went to, the powers he toyed with, manipulated…

  “I shall do this from within a sanctified place—The Dirge of Brine and Salt.” That smile again. “It appears as a darkened hand, reaching for the world above. Crimson light shines from each finger, and it sits in the southeast corner of the city.”

  “I’m… I’m not helping you.” I almost stammered, completely stunned.

  “You shall. You should hurry.” Amir affixed me with cold eyes. “The rituals have already begun.”

  “I’m not fucking up your cataclysm just so you can work on a different one!”

  “Then don’t.” Amir shrugged, and I saw the cruel light in his eyes. “You saw the woman above, little more than a brood sow for the Phothu-nacyi. That shall be the fate of all who dwell within Rome, Alexandria, Tripoli. Every man, every woman, every child.”

  “No.” I shook my head, horrified.

  “That is what your choice shall bring, Shade.” Amir’s words grew cold, sharp. “My honor and my order demand I fulfill my vows. The Phothu-nacyi will not fail, not with the Harbinger at their side.” He paused, his next words a sibilant blade. “M’elphodor shall rise.”

  “I… I don’t…”

  “I warned you once before.”

  “What?” I blinked and tried to remember.

  “A child cannot comprehend the work of a man.”

  He stood and stepped toward me. He hissed, low and hateful

  “If you don’t have the stones to make this choice, Shade, then someone was profoundly mistaken in sending you.”

  With that, Amir raised his left hand in front of my face. He sliced it with one swift stroke and chanted a rapid litany of short, staccato syllables. Those sounds burned, made my mind ache with despair.

  Burning moonlight wrapped around me. It shone silver, stark. It scorched my flesh, and I screamed.

  The world shattered around me.

  I heard Amir’s laughter, stark and sharp.

  The world around me poured into itself. I heard Delacruz, saw the empty eyes of the abominations.

  The moonlight fell away.

  5

  Bishop! Delacruz hissed through the link. What the hell, man? They heard that!

  I… For an interminable moment, I felt silver light, tasted moonflame. Amir whispered secrets to me. He spoke of unfathomable things, of names that bore lamentation. Yet the shadow of him vanished from my mind in an instant.

  I shook my head and gasped.

  I hadn’t been breathing.

  Wyatt! I called through my link. Sneaky-time is over, big guy!

  Thank God. I felt his gleeful grin. Let’s wreck some shit.

  Michael? I felt Anya’s concern. I thought we had decided on stealth?

  New plan, Preceptor, I linked as if I actually had a plan. I have new data and we need to move on it.

  New data… from when? Ten seconds ago? Rachel furrowed her brow.

  Rachel, I have frog monsters to fight, I sent as three of them turned toward us. Assemble a patch from my phaneric data, timestamped from three minutes ago. Send to the whole cadre, Stone included. Make sure he knows our situation’s hot, but we’ll chat soon.

  Understood, Alpha.

  As Rachel assembled and patched my memories of Amir, I felt her presence. I marked the timeframes in my Crown, along with everything he’d said. I made certain, at the end, to include the combat we were about to begin, so that Stone would know we were engaged.

  After selecting everything I’d marked, Rachel patched.

  Holy fucking shit, Hoss!

  This is… something which transforms the situation.

  We’ll all talk later. I threw a down glowing reticule in my cadre’s visual, right where the winding thoroughfare met the plaza. Wyatt, I need you right fucking there, spiking the shit out of these assholes. Delacruz, you don’t let any of them get closer than this. I used a second token and traced a line about two meters in front of Wyatt.

  Copy that, Alpha, she acknowledged.

  The second Kermit the Motherfucker goes down, I continued, I want his ass jaunted all the way back to that hallway in the Barbarous condo. We’re avoiding parasites. I paused. Do you still have that marker in your Temporal Corona?

  Bitch-op, please. She linked. Of course I do.

  What’s your play, Alpha? Wyatt asked. I heard the low whine of Rosie as he got closer.

  I’m a goddamn artist, I linked back. Give me my space.

  “Gorak! Gor-gor-gor…” One of the Phothu-nacyi hopped closer to the charred corpse of the woman I’d injected, its wide eyes confused. It opened its maw, seemingly to taste at the air…

  And turned toward Delacruz as it detected her scent.

  Not today, toad. The gatekeeper crossbow sang, and a quarrel caught the Phothu-nacyi squarely in its stomach. The thing vanished with a hissing POP.

  That’s one down. Delacruz reported. Seven to go. This will be cake.

  “GOR!” One of the creatures leapt behind the fountain, the lower pouch of its mouth expanding into horrific proportions. “GOR! GOR! GOR! Gorrrrroak!”

  That cry echoed far, perhaps for blocks.

  Fuck me! I linked as I stepped sideways, an invisible reaper. I bet that’s not good.

  That thing could swallow me whole! I felt
Delacruz shudder. I’d fit right in that throat pouch.

  We are rendezvousing with you, Alpha. Anya wasn’t asking. Asset Gardener and I are not as combat equipped as the rest of you, but there is no cause to be separated.

  Copy that, Preceptor.

  I slunk toward one of the Phothu-nacyi. As Wyatt strode into the courtyard, it whipped its head toward him and hissed.

  Over here, Gatekeeper. I raised my disruptor to the thing’s head and painted the white wall behind it with fatty, snot-colored brains.

  On it. The bow sang, and with one shot, the corpse vanished.

  Christ. You two don’t need me at all. Wyatt appeared completely ridiculous as he stepped into the fray. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he said his overalls had become short shorts.

  To be honest, I felt somewhat surprised that they held all of… him.

  WHUF! WHUF! Two silvery spikes burst from the end of the Tangler and embedded themselves in the chiseled stone floor of the courtyard. Simultaneously, they burst with a sky-blue light, flashing for just a moment. I felt waves of cold wash out from the spikes, icy fingers that burned my lungs like flame.

  For a moment, I could see my breath. I stumbled away from that biting cold instinctively.

  “Gro?” one of the toads whimpered.

  If I thought I disliked the spikes’ cold, the Phothu-nacyi absolutely hated it. Three of them squealed and leaped away from the spikes as if they’d been scalded.

  Good call, Guthrie. I nodded in approval. If it had been up to me, I might have come up with fire, but I’d have been hard pressed to remember these amphibians would loathe the cold. Remind me to chat with you later. This gives me an idea.

  I’m all about being a mammal. He fired another spike squarely into the nearest of the Phothu-nacyi fleeing the cold. He caught the hissing thing squarely in the throat.

  Instantly, frost formed on its skin. It groaked wildly as blood and froth formed on its mouth and froze. Then it fell backward, rooooaking and gurgling its dismay.

  Sofia removed the creature from play with a single quarrel.

  This is so much easier than sneaking, Wyatt opined as he fired another spike. It doesn’t matter if there’s a few thousand of them, as long as we can fight them a few at a time.