Ghosts of Koa, The First Book of Ezekiel

by Colby R Rice

  Caleb sighed as he stepped onto the tracks and repositioned his rifle, breaking into a jog once more.

  Well, hallelujah.

  For the first time in months, all the pieces were in place. Ski mask over her head, gun at the hip, watch on the wrist, mini-cam in her side pouch. And the Sigma Express was sitting right there on the tracks, motionless and dead, just like Jarell's note had said. The rest of Porcine Park was silent as well, and nothing but the trees and leaves spoke, conversing with a gentle wind.

  Zeika had come up through back alleys, creeping and crawling through the shadows. She couldn't see any guards manning the park. In fact, there'd been no guards around at all, which was strange. Either they were on alternate duty or had been called away on purpose.

  The air felt cooler and moister than she expected for a summer night, and a mist had begun to rise. She looked into the distance, at the fat line of mud and filth floating on the horizon, creeping its way towards the Protecteds. The Canopy. It was moving again, and it would bring snow and sleet and ice with it. It'd be here in a day or two, but tonight's weather worked just fine for what she needed to do.

  A faint light popped on inside the train. She leaned forward, squinting. It wasn't a lamp, but a flame, and her gaze followed its float as it moved upward. It hovered, and then created another, smaller circle of light. Someone had just lit a cigarette on the train.

  Zeika glanced at the watch Franz'd given her. Only ten minutes to departure, and she didn't have time to scope out the entire park to avoid an ambush.

  She closed her eyes, letting her consciousness fill the space. She might not be able to see the guards, but if they were carrying guns or any other metal, she could definitely feel them out...

  Aces. The immediate courtyard was dead. All metal of concern, train and guns all, was on the tracks.

  She opened her eyes and darted forward, sprinting through and around the empty benches and garden patches. She could feel the presence of handcuffs, belt buckles, and guns, all scattered throughout the Sigma Express, moving as the guards moved. When she reached the caboose of the train, she gracefully swung herself up onto its platform and crouched low into its shadows.

  "I am the Civilian stone," she whispered, the mantra easing the quake in her body. And in the same moment, the train began to move.

  Xakiah heard the Sigma Express awaken with a monstrous snort. A second later, the great steel lout was lunging forward across the bumpy track. He smiled. He needed this night. It would be a welcome distraction from the Faustian gift he'd gotten only hours earlier. Vassal Moss had said nothing more about the gift, but it was clear that he'd been amused. Lovely for him, but Xakiah had found nothing tickling about the matter. He'd seen enough of the world to know that the differences between the flicker and the fire were time and tinder. The Faust creature was dangerous. He knew too much; he'd survived too much. Now, he was flaunting his power, making a mockery of the entire Order, and still, none of them had any clue how much time they had before the creature released his Second Hell...

  Relax. Vassal gave you an order. Do your part, and follow it.

  The logic of the thought soothed him. He'd trusted his Vassal for this long, for over a century, and he'd never been steered wrong. Devotion as a Proficient was integral to the Order's success, and his was being tested. His Vassal needed his loyalty now more than ever.

  Done with his angst, Xakiah pushed the train's control handle forward, and the Sigma picked up speed. Everything was on schedule, and no one on the train would suspect a thing. Too bad for them.

  He turned and walked out of the engine room, stepping over the body of the conductor as he walked deeper into the cabin. He sat down and leaned his head against the wood paneling of the plush carriage, crossing his ankles on the sagging cheek of a guard he'd killed on the way in. Not too far away, the bodies of the guard's comrades lain motionless, slumped in puppet-like positions against any of the four walls.

  A cake walk. He'd surveyed the train long before he'd struck. The caboose held what he was looking for: imported Ninkashi from the beyond. They were listless from starvation, fed on a meager supply of live chickens. Until they reached the Sixth Demesne, at least. Then the Ninkashi could find food on their own...

  Not a bad plan, if it didn't also put Azures in danger. Ninkashi were a poor sort of biological warfare, so there had to be another reason they were being smuggled in. He only wondered if Faust's supposed three names had anything to do with it. He'd find out very soon either way.

  About an hour before departure, he'd cleaned out the first four cars of twenty, and had located the smuggler's secret meeting room in car eight. The meeting car hadn't been too hard to find. The foolish silken couches, the golden cups, the fine wines on the rack against the car wall, had given them away. They'd chosen a magnificent coffin, and they would lay in it together, after he squeezed what he needed out of them. And when the train finally detonated, the ornate sarcophagus and its damned would be hurled into the Hudson ravine, its jagged rocks the Sigma's headstone.

  All he needed now were the names.

  Zeika recoiled against the wall, not daring to move. All her fears and suspicions, the same ones she'd felt and then had suppressed at the Guild of Almaut... they had all been true.

  Ninkashi. Rows and rows of them, kenneled into small metal cages like dogs. Their lips and hands were littered with guts, blood, bones, and feathers. Chickens, and more of the unlucky fowl were penned into wooden boxes against another far wall. It seemed the monsters had just eaten, and yet they looked unsatisfied. When they saw her, their hungry eyes dilated in arousal. They began to push against their prisons, the arrhythmic rattling of their doors like a chorus of iron bells.

  The cage doors held firm, though. It was the one fact that kept Zeika's heart from falling out of her mouth as she held the camera up and filmed them. They looked starved and listless, barely able to reach for her as she crept along the back wall. They'd either lost a serious amount of energy or someone had drugged them.

  A wide eye bulged out of a Ninkashi skull that was trying to squeeze through the bars. Its browning, lacerated tongue licked the steel, trying to reach her. Drool slid down the metal, a bloody feather poked out from its broken teeth. Despite its decay, this one actually looked the most human of all. Its scraggly hair was all there at least, and its skin wasn't so badly desiccated or abscessed. Still, it stank, and its dark gums separated from its teeth like skin from a rotting fruit. Zeika swallowed down her sick, and she lifted the camera and flash to the monster's face, zooming in.

  The Ninkashi reached through the bars and spread its fingers, like a small child looking for reassurance. She might have laced her fingers with his. She wanted to... if not for the fact that he would have torn them off. Under her disgust and fear, she felt a pinch of sadness for the creatures. No matter how brutal their kills, none of them deserved to live like this. No living creature did.

  But why was someone trying to smuggle Ninkashi into the Protecteds in the first place? And who was benefitting from it?

  Whatever the reason, she wasn't going to find out by standing here. So she began. "This is Recruit 67, collecting data for Koan initiation, phase one," she murmured, panning the camera around the room. "Data point one: twenty-eight Ninkashi are being freighted on the 2:31 AM Sigma Express from Demesne Seven, Porcine Park, to Demesne Six, Co-op Marketplace. Ninkashi show a decreased rate of activity, with little to no effect on their desire for flesh and First Matter. Chickens are being used as live feed. Reporting from the caboose of the Sigma Express on Saturday, May 24, 2155. 2:37 AM."

  She turned off the camera and capped the lens. Still, she couldn't help but linger there and gaze at the poor creatures, even as she felt the dullest of pains in her shoulder, a remembrance of the battle between predator and prey.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'll set you free. One way or the other." She turned and walked to the door of the caboose, the one that would lead into the rest
of the train. Her fingers grazed the doorknob.

  "Wait..."

  Zeika froze, almost emptying her bladder into her pants. Did one of them... did she really hear...?

  She turned around and looked back, staring long and hard into the sea of creatures. All of them stared back at her as they reached through the bars, their faces twisted in various expressions of hunger or desire. None of them, though, seemed to be particularly interested in talking.

  Maybe it had been just a groan of hunger, distorted by the rumble of the train, or a rush of wind, created by the train's 50 mph dash. Whatever it had been, there was no point in puzzling it out. The Ninkashi were many things, but above all, they were mindless animals. Nothing more, nothing less.

  She turned and walked into the next car, letting the door to the Ninkashi caboose close behind her. The incessant growl of the animals dwindled, and she breathed out as she advanced through four more cars, her heartbeat beginning to return to normal in car 16-- and before her brain could even process what she was seeing, she stopped.

  Rummaging through one of the sundry trunks was another ghost of war.

  Xakiah's Echo laid in a shadow eavesdropping on his behalf. The four traitors clinked glasses and chuckled and talked of typical Azure tomfoolery. Investments, wives, mistresses, vacation homes... nothing even remotely related to the train, its destination, or its contents. They were just average, old-fashioned smugglers. Even more frustrating was that none of them matched Faust's three names.

  Xakiah had thought that the Faust creature might have been in league with the men, to get his "children" within the borders of the Protecteds. Or that maybe Georin had been doing some sort of double dealing. It became clear, however, that both of Xakiah's notions were foolish and raw. Faust had shown his power; clearly he didn't need rich Azure fools to cause the mayhem he desired. And Georin must have been scared into desperation, especially since Madam Cua was on the decline. The good doctor must have put out all the feelers he had in order to get information on the Ninkashi. This was the best he could do, apparently.

  Xakiah had thought all roads would end here: the three names, the Ninkashi mystery, Faust. But instead, he found nothing but more twists, more dead ends in the rat maze. His investigations were supposed to have wrapped up nicely here...

  Right. And maybe you were supposed to find the King of Koa here too, waiting for you with his thumb up his ass.

  He smiled at his own wry thought, realizing how overconfident his years of success had made him. He was used to winning, used to being the best. That things were going awry didn't mean he was losing his edge; it simply meant that Fate was putting him to a challenge. The Faust creature, the smugglers, the traitorous Beige, these small inconveniences were a good thing. They'd test his skill, force him to grow, challenge him to defend his title as the reigning champion he'd always been. Kaelen Knežević, KX Cotch, master of death in the then and in the now, the bead on weak men's rosaries. He just needed to prove once more that his skill was unrivaled. That he deserved to win.

  Smiling at the thought, he stepped through his Echo's shadow into the car of rich fools. An entire clip from his M-16 made short work of the smugglers as they scrambled to the doors and windows, all too late. A quick search of the bloodied bodies revealed their IDs, credit cards, family photos. It was all more than enough to start an investigation on.

  He'd squeeze every single person that was close to the traitors until they squealed, whether they'd been involved or not. He'd get back to Mikhail Beige, holed up in his mountain mansion with the other half of the Echo, and he'd make him squeal too. Then he'd stand at his Vassal's side and cut down the Faustian creature who'd dared to threaten their great Order with demons and fire.

  When they were done, when he was done, their enemies would turn to ash at the sound of his name... and even the devil himself would know what it was to be at the mercy of an immortal.

  Zeika tensed, shifting her weight to the balls of her feet. If the ghost was surprised, he didn't show it. He slowly straightened up, turning towards her. He wore a ski-mask like her, the gaze above it, cold. Zeika never took her eyes off him, but she could still see the two guards that laid at his feet, cooling in the midst of tar-like pools. And still, this dude was as cool as an ice cube.

  "I'm not here for you," the specter whispered in a voice too thin to be human.

  "Ditto, pal."

  "Pity." The ghost lifted its hand. "You should have struck while you had the chance."

  Zeika's muscles wrung tight around her bones, like harp strings stretched too thin on the frame. She spasmed and slammed down on her knees, and the camera in her hand clattered away into a corner. Her breath rasped out her mouth as the invisible grip grabbed and twisted her diaphragm, stopping her breathing. Her lungs began to burn as she desperately tried to take a breath in and couldn't. The grip was too strong, too much like Sal's--

  The ghost's footfalls were soft against the carpet as he walked towards her. It was the only thing she could sense aside from the wracking pain in her body and the fire in her lungs.

  Her cheek on the floor, Zeika could feel saliva pool out her open mouth and wet the ski mask over her face. She couldn't move, not even to close her jaw and die looking half-way decent, because that was definitely going to happen. She was going to die here. Three minutes without air was all it would take.

  The ghost, however, seemed to lack patience. Zeika could see him reaching into his robes. He drew his hand out slowly, sliding the long, glinting blade out of its sheath.

  She understood now. That's how he'd killed the guards so quietly. He must have done the same thing to them and then cut them down while they were immobilized. And he was going to do the same to her. She was going to die, mid-mission, and Manja's chance at new life would die with her.

  To hell with that-- GET UP!

  She managed to think it just as the ghost lifted the blade high, clearly aiming for a straight jab into her neck. As he brought the blade down, Zeika squeezed her eyes shut, forcing her power up and out. Like chiffon, the ghost's blade crinkled up against her cheek and fell around her ears as its metal transformed.

  "What the--" the ghost gasped.

  Surprise cut into the ghost's power, and Zeika's muscles were released from the invisible grip. She rolled into a crouch and slammed her leg into the ghost's ankles in a sweeping roundhouse. The ghost hit the carpet, and in the same moment, Zeika willed his robes into bronze. She sat on his chest, aiming her gun between his eyes.

  The ghost actually chuckled. "Oh, bravo. I'm impressed."

  Zeika breathed hard, oxygen cooling the inferno in her chest. Her aim was steady as could be. "Yeah, I'm about to make an impression on you too, asshole," she snarled. "Nine by nineteen millimeter caliber."

  "I tried to go easy on you, but if you think this bronze can stop me, you've got another think coming. I can still tear your muscles apart."

  Zeika narrowed her eyes at both the threat and the feminine lilt in the ghost's voice. But chick or no, that fact wouldn't stop Zeika from blasting her into the train floor if need be. "Yeah," she agreed. "You could. And with just a thought, I can turn any part of this train into dinner napkins and send your metallized body falling right through the floor. Sounds like we're crossing a bridge right now, doesn't it? Would you like to take a dive into the Hudson? You'd sink like a rock."

  The threat clear, the ghost's eyes softened. "Fine," she relented. "I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me. Deal? I wasn't here for you anyway... and I assume you weren't here for me, either."

  Zeika pursed her lips as she searched the cold blue gaze. The ghost was clearly a Civic Alchemist, and a dangerous one, just like her. She hadn't quite earned the boy scout trust badge, but then again, Zeika had gotten the drop on her. Had their roles been reversed, she probably would have reacted the same way. Zeika went with her gut and got off the ghost's chest, de-metallizing the robes as she did. She didn't holster her gun, but she reached down to he
lp the ghost up and was mildly surprised when the ghost actually took her hand.

  Zeika pulled her up, but before the ghost could regroup, she stepped forward and snatched off the ghost's balaclava. Her breath caught in her throat.

  "No way," she whispered. "Jules?"

  The former sweet teen was now hard-eyed, glaring at her. She was still pretty, but she looked like hell, and angrier and tougher than Zeika had ever seen her.

  "And who the hell are you?"

  Zeika pulled off her own mask. For a moment, only the deep rumble and sway of the train filled the space. Then they both leapt, embracing each other. Zeika's throat tightened, real tears threatening to spill onto her cheeks. Until now, she hadn't realized how long it had been since she'd seen a friendly face.

  "The fire." Julie's voice trembled. "I thought you were dead."

  "You too." Zeika smiled weakly. "I didn't think there were any of us left."

  "There aren't. In my crew it's just me and a few others. The rest of us have fled or been captured."

  "The Vigils?"

  Julie nodded somberly. "That bastard Morgan won't stop until he's hunted us all down. He's even recruited Councilman Pihonak from the Sixth to spread the Vigils there too."

  "What about the Seventh?"

  "Burke the Besieger told him to kiss his ass."

  Zeika blinked, shocked.

  "Yeah, right?" Julie said. "I never thought I'd say this, but Demesne Seven is the only place that's relatively safe. It's packed with blue bastards, but it's safe." She paused, and then looked at her, sadness in her eyes. "Civilians really don't have anything left, do we? This really is the last of the Protecteds. It's the last of us."

  Zeika stepped forward and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's going to be okay. As long as we keep moving, we'll be fine. It's how we beat them. By surviving, no matter what they do to us."