Burning Sky

by Weston Ochse

  Jalāl nodded. “Many of them, but not all.”

  “But you did it to protect them, not to protect humanity.”

  “This is also true.”

  Suddenly the Sefid was rocked by a shriek so blood-curdling that Boy Scout felt himself blown into a million pieces.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  SOMETIMES CRAZY DOESN’T happen incrementally. Sometimes it’s full on whacked out all at once. Boy Scout was nowhere and everywhere. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t see anything except a kaleidoscope of spinning shades of white, dizzying, sickening. His essence had broken into so many parts that he couldn’t even form a sentence. Unintelligible jabberings filled his mind. Were these his own thoughts? Or was it from something else?

  The spinning was beginning to slow. His mind was coming back together. He could see pieces of himself forming as if he’d been a porcelain doll and his parts were flying back together of their own volition.

  A hand.

  A forearm

  A booted foot.

  The mating call of a monkey came from behind him.

  He spun, and in his dizziness, fell to the ground. Only there was no ground. He was now upside down in front of the nightmare creature running towards him. In the split second he took to take it in, he saw a giant spider with more than a hundred legs coming toward him. Instead of central eyes, it had a face that was constantly changing into everyone he’d ever known.

  Again came that sound, emanating from the lips of his mother’s best friend, Rebecca. Then from the mouth of his drill sergeant, Sergeant First Class Reddoor. Then from the mouth of a girl he’d dated three years ago, Connie. The same sound, but different faces.

  The monstrous entity was closing in.

  More pieces of him were coming together but he wouldn’t be whole by the time it arrived.

  Boy Scout willed himself to flee, then found himself moving backwards at impossible speed.

  Again the universe shrieked like the scream of the King of all Kings and he was once more blown apart.

  The dizzying kaleidoscope returned, and after a time of sickness, piece by piece he came together once more.

  The mating call of a monkey came once again but this time much softer. Then another and another. There seemed to be dozens of monkeys. Then he saw them. The spider creature had blown to bits as well, but instead of reforming into a whole, it was now hundreds of smaller spiders, all rushing toward him. He’d barely started to reform when three of them crawled up his essence. He batted at them, but he only had a single hand. He struck one and it flew off, shattering into even smaller spider monsters that came back at him. One got onto his back and he tried to reach for it. That was the moment when one skittered onto his face and climbed down his throat.

  He gagged, trying to rid himself of it. He could feel its greasy spider legs pulling itself deeper inside of him.

  Then another spider entered his mouth, following the first.

  He fell to his knees, back arching in dry heaves, trying to spew them from his system. But it was to no avail. They held to his insides, going deeper, clawing at his insides for purchase. Then everything switched. Gone was the pure white of Sefid. Boy Scout felt himself slow and his body become someone else’s… something else. Something ancient.

  Visions—no, memories—began to spin by.

  A family chased by a saber-toothed tiger on a flat brown plain. The tiger took down the girl child, ripping into her bowels.

  A man on horseback, firing an arrow directly into Boy Scout’s point of view, then disintegrating as a ray of white-hot energy was returned.

  Alexander the Great’s Macedonian phalanx—15,000 Macedonians with sarissas holding off the Persian swords and allowing the phalanx to mow through enemy units.

  The Sacred Band of Thebes—he recognized it right away from the point of view of a warrior battling through them.

  Sensual sex with an Indian woman of incredible beauty, her lips the color of brown sugar and tasting of mangoes.

  An up-close view of a knife fight with another man, his own hands a blur of razor-edged steel, then still as they stopped in his opponent’s chest.

  And fire in the sky, burning incredibly bright, but feeling joyous at the sight of it.

  Then he was ripped free into a moment of pure chaos, the cacophony deafening.

  Machine gun rounds echoed so loud he wanted to cover his ears, but without two hands, how was that possible? He felt roughness against his back. A figure knelt beside him, firing controlled, two round bursts. McQueen! And at that moment he knew he was out of the Sefid and back in real time.

  “The rounds aren’t doing any good!” Bully yelled.

  “Then why is it bleeding in two places?” Criminal asked, punctuating his words with firepower.

  “Careful not to hit Lore!” McQueen commanded.

  Boy Scout struggled to sit up.

  Narco was still in the water, but now the daeva’s right hand was around his friend’s neck.

  Faood lay halfway out of the water.

  Boy Scout couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead.

  The daeva was awake. Gold light showed from its eyes. Its other hand jerked on the chain that held it, causing pieces of the roof to fall. Already rays of sunlight shot into the cistern, piercing the water, hitting the sand of the bank. No longer did the daeva have a dark blue aura. Its skin was now a deep blue, the color of space between the stars. Its mouth remained closed, which Boy Scout appreciated. He could not imagine what fangs or forked tongues could emanate from such a demonic opening and was eager not to discover them.

  Then he saw Lore. She had a six-foot metal rod in her arms and was bringing it down, over and over, on the daeva’s wrist that held Narco by the neck, but to no avail. The creature was still strangling him.

  Boy Scout immediately knew what to do. It was as if his time in the Sefid had given him a clarity he hadn’t had before. He surged to his feet, falling in the water once before he managed it, then called for a cease-fire.

  McQueen stood beside him, but Bully and Criminal continued to fire in controlled bursts. It was obvious that the rounds weren’t doing any damage. What was also obvious was that the demon had somehow become wounded.

  “Cease fire! You’re just wasting ammunition.”

  Bully and Criminal finally lowered their rifles, but it was clear from their reactions that it was with the utmost reluctance.

  “Lore, stop!”

  “I… can’t… stop… because… it’s… choking… Narco!” she said, hitting it after every word.

  “Lore, it’s not working! Remember what you told me about the light. Remember what you said.” He took a deep breath. “You are the girl with the goat. You were meant to save us all along!”

  She paused in mid swing and gazed at Boy Scout, her head half cocked.

  “What’s that?” Criminal asked, pointing to the daeva.

  Its throat was glowing the same gold color as its eyes. The glow was gaining in intensity, until it seemed as if the creature’s neck would burn away. Then it opened its mouth, releasing a bolt of energy that shot across the cistern and hit Criminal squarely in the chest. His entire thorax burned away, dripping flesh and fire, leaving nothing but smoking sinew and bone to hold his arms to his shoulders. For a bright shining moment, his face was alit with wonder, his eyes wide, then he fell hard to the ground in pieces.

  “Lore, listen and remember—The wound is the place where the light enters you. Do you remember?”

  He could tell she remembered but she didn’t understand.

  “Oh my God,” Bully cried. “It’s going to do it again.”

  Another bolt of energy was building in its throat.

  “Lore, the light. The reflection!”

  “What about it?” she screamed.

  “Stab the reflection!”

  Then all at once her eyes widened. She adjusted her grip, stared into the water, and thrust her rod into where the light from the broken roof met the reflection of the daeva.r />
  The daeva’s mouth shot open to release a scream and a half-formed bolt of energy surged through the roof, collapsing a section, pieces of solid and molten rock splashing into the water.

  Bully dove out of the way, barely missing being crushed by a huge block of stone that hit the sandy bank and tumbled into the water.

  For one brief instant, Boy Scout saw the end of the metal rod coming out of the creature’s chest, then it was gone... replaced by another one as Lore stabbed the water again.

  The daeva roared and roared.

  But with each strike it got a little weaker, until finally it could cry no more.

  The light went out of its eyes.

  Its body sagged, including the hand that was still around Narco’s throat, pushing him under the water to drown.

  Boy Scout and McQueen dove in. They helped Narco out of the water and pried the dead hand of the demon away from his neck.

  Narco coughed, water spilling from his lips.

  Boy Scout dragged him onto shore and lightly smacked Narco’s cheeks. Would Narco come back as himself or would he still in the grip of the entity?

  Finally, Narco reached up and grabbed Boy Scout’s wrist. He opened his eyes and said, “Will you please stop hitting me?”

  At that moment, Boy Scout knew that his friend was back.

  Faood was just getting to his feet. He came over a knelt beside them. His eyes were glazed from just coming out of the fugue. “You killed it,” he said, with more than a little awe.

  Boy Scout snorted. “You think that’s awesome. Guess what? I saw Rumi.” Then seeing the confusion on Faood’s face, he added, “And he says to fuck off.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The Cistern

  "LISTEN, I DON’T have time for your lies,” Boy Scout said. “One of my men is dead and I’m trying to help the other one you used as fucking bait for some ancient entity.”

  “You’re going to have to make time. The death of the daeva caused reverberations in the Sefid. The others are going to know. They’re going to come investigate.”

  “I thought all of the daeva were locked up in a valley.”

  “Not all of them.”

  Boy Scout remembered Rumi saying the same thing. He lurched to his feet. He grabbed Faood’s collar and was about to scream at him when he realized he was flying through the air. He hit the ground hard. Sand and grit scraped against his bare skin, but he ignored it as he used the momentum of the throw to roll back to his feet.

  Boy Scout managed to balance before falling over. He held his fists out in front of him and moved his fingers for Faood to approach. “Oh, you want to play a little Dervish Fu.”

  Faood stood unmoving, hands at his sides. “I do not want to fight you.”

  But Boy Scout wanted nothing more than to fight. His man, the man he was supposed to have protected, was dead. He died because Boy Scout had believed a grand lie, letting his worship of responsibility govern his common sense. To think that if he’d just dismissed the dervish’s assertions in the beginning that his man would still be alive and they wouldn’t have spent the last seven months sitting in their own filth in a Third World cistern.

  He swung a left hook and Faood leaped easily out of the way.

  Boy Scout pressed, rushing forward, he feinted a punch, then lashed out a kick that caught Faood on the side of his knee.

  The dervish went down, grabbing at the joint.

  “Boy Scout!” McQueen shouted.

  Boy Scout wanted nothing more than to get into an old-fashioned knuckle-busting fight. He needed some easy Ranger Revenge and his target was right in front of him. His hair-triggered fury only needed a nudge to go nuclear, but when he saw McQueen and Lore in his peripheral vision, their eyes wide, their mouths open, he knew he wasn’t in the right. Now wasn’t the time to get angry. They needed to prepare. They needed to deal with Narco. They needed to bury a friend. There was just too much to be done to get into a proper fight.

  He let his fists fall to his side. Chest heaving with exertion and the emotion of the moment, he said, “I’m just so damned sick and tired of all the lies.” He glanced to where Criminal lay. “I don’t want to fight either. It’s just… Criminal… fuck.”

  His eyes burned with tears.

  McQueen put his arms around him and Boy Scout sobbed into his neck. For a single moment he was a child again and the world was completely out of hand, then he manned up. He pushed away from his friend, then savagely wiped at his eyes. He noted that the others had been crying as well.

  Faood still lay on the ground.

  “I’m sorry,” Boy Scout said, and reaching down, he helped the dervish to his feet. “You’ve already shown you’re willing to help us. You apologized. It was just the knowledge that even your glorious leader didn’t mind the others using us for their own gains. He called me a leaf or something that wanted to be a new tree.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lore asked, wiping away tears.

  “Rumi. I met him. Nice fella, if you can get past the fact that he has no problem using us as bait for arcane pre-Zoroastrian entities.”

  Lore’s jaw about dropped to the floor. “You met Rumi?”

  “He sought me out. Wanted to chat. McQueen, do an inventory on all our weapons and lay them out here. Bully? Good. I see you’re helping Narco. Continue to do so. Lore, talk with Faood. Find out what we’ll be facing so we can make up a plan.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  He turned to stare at her and those who remained. He still felt the urge to fight, but not with his own people. He knew it was just displaced rage. He swallowed back an initial response, then finally said, “I’m going to bury Criminal.” Then he went to his bunk, put his clothes back on, grabbed a blanket from his bed, and rolled Criminal in it.

  Narco came to his side. “Here, let me help.”

  Boy Scout eyed the man. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Felt like I was rode hard and put away wet. Physically I’m fine.” He tapped his head. “Brain’s a little spongy, though.”

  Outside the day was beginning to wane. The sun was low in the sky and already the heat was fleeing, leaving in its wake a bone-chilling cold. Boy Scout retrieved a shovel from the back of one of the Land Cruisers. He found a clearing a hundred feet away, then began to dig. The soil was rocky, but loose.

  “How are you really, Narco?”

  After a moment, “Angry.”

  Boy Scout thought about this as he kept digging.

  “Ever been in jail, Boy Scout?” Narco asked.

  “Got locked up once in Tijuana for trying to steal a mule,” he answered. “But they let us out the next morning after we paid a fine.”

  “You’re going to have to tell me that story later,” Narco said. “How did it feel to be locked up?”

  “Don’t really know. We were too drunk to care. Passed out on the floor.”

  “You’re definitely going to have to tell me the story. Promise?”

  “Sure.”

  Boy Scout struck something with the edge of the shovel. He pushed enough sand away to see that it was a femur. He worked his blade in some more and scraped it against ribs. Someone else had been buried here.

  He shoveled the earth back into the hole, moved over a few feet, then dug again.

  “I’ve been locked up a bunch of times, as you know.” Narco shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the ground. “Being locked up has its own freedoms. You don’t have to make your own decisions. You don’t have any real responsibilities. You know where all your meals are coming from. It’s nice, really, if you don’t discount that you can’t just up and leave. I mean, unless you’re talking about a SuperMax, life in our prisons is better than life in about half the world.” He shook his head. “That’s saying something, I’m sure, but I don’t know what.”

  Boy Scout cursed when he found another body. He refilled this hole, then moved until he found more tightly packed earth.

  “Makes you wo
nder how many are out here,” Narco said.

  “Figure they’ve been doing this for hundreds of years,” Boy Scout said. “I figure it takes about a year to die, eating their gruel, living in a constant fugue state. You can do the math if you want to.”

  Neither man spoke for the next few minutes. Boy Scout concentrated on digging. When he got down three feet, the going became easier. He was just waiting to discover yet another body.

  “Jail is one thing,” resumed Narco, “but the prison I was in was something else. I knew everything that was happening. I strangled that old man. I walked up to him, punched him in the face, climbed onto his chest, strangled the life out of him, then sucked down his soul.”

  “He was seven hundred years old.”

  “He… what? Seven hundred? Ah. He had one of those things in him.”

  “What’d it feel like?”

  “I didn’t leave the fugue right away. I was in a place of pure light. Like the sky was burning all around and I couldn’t see.”

  “Faood called it Sefid. It means white in Persian.”

  “Yeah, white like it invented white. Then came the spiders.”

  Boy Scout paused in mid-shovel. “What was that you said?”

  “Spiders. I couldn’t run from them. One went down my throat. Then I awoke from the fugue.”

  Narco kept talking, but Boy Scout wasn’t listening. He shoveled faster as he remembered his own encounter with the Sefid spiders, only he didn’t just have one enter him. He’d had many. Was he possessed? Was there something in there waiting for the chance to take over? By God, he didn’t want to end up like Narco.

  “… it was like I was a bystander to my own life. I saw and felt everything but had no control. I think it would have taken me if Faood hadn’t stopped the process so soon by getting me back into a fugue.”

  “The process?”

  “It begins with a whisper.”

  A whisper. Boy Scout listened to his own mind, but heard nothing except excerpts from a dozen memories and his own voice blaming himself for being in this situation.