Fractures

by Nicholas Olivo

  “I was stationed there for about four months. I helped broker a peace between the bukwus and some sasquatch.”

  Wow, you learn something new every day.

  “Precisely why you’re here,” Xavier said. “Is there anything we can say or use to encourage them to take up arms against the nirrin? I’d prefer to avoid contact with all paranormals during this excursion, but that’s unlikely. So if we do encounter them, I’d like to convince them that we have a common enemy.”

  “Well,” Megan said, “you could take me along.”

  “I’m sorry, Megan,” Galahad said. “You’re still on light duty. Trudging through a swamp infested with some of the most vile creatures on the planet goes a bit beyond that, I’m afraid. Please, just tell us what you can. It will be a tremendous help to the mission.”

  If anyone else had said that, Megan would have argued. But Megan trusted Galahad. And so instead of debating the matter with him, she just sighed. “Bukwus can’t be bought or bribed,” Megan said. “They’re very territorial, though. So if they think you’re invading their home, they’ll fight you tooth and claw. That’s probably your best bet—to try and convince them that the nirrin are invading their territory.” She chewed her lip. “Barring that, they enjoy eating people, so maybe if you convinced them that the nirrin were some sort of delicacy, they’d go after them. The nirrin are alligators, right? Don’t they taste like chicken?”

  Xavier looked at Megan flatly. “Do you have anything else to add, Agent Hayes?”

  Megan shook her head. “I don’t. I’m sorry. If I had time to develop a relationship with these bukwus, like I did in Washington, I could do more. As it is, though…” She looked crestfallen as she trailed off. I felt awful that we were putting her on the spot like this, using her, to feed bad intel to Treggen. The bastard had better bite on this.

  Galahad put a hand on her shoulder. “If we had more time, a plan like that might work quite well. I applaud your original thinking, Megan. Now, I’ve asked Gearstripper to begin work on the enhanced security footage of the vampire lair you requested. Why don’t you go speak with him, and provide him with any additional requirements you may have.”

  Megan brightened a bit. “I didn’t realize you’d approved that. Thank you, sir.”

  Galahad smiled and Megan stood and left the room. Once she was gone, Xavier hastily set out his anti-eavesdropping tiles and turned to Galahad. “That had better be worth the risk. If I were running this office, she’d already be in custody.”

  Galahad’s voice was calm. “I’m certain it will be worth it. Mrs. Rita’s divinations revealed that Megan is an unwitting host for Treggen, so imprisoning her would serve no purpose other than to take an agent away from her job. Megan Hayes is no traitor to the Caulborn.”

  “What will you do with her now?”

  “After your mission is complete, I will sit down with Megan and the members of my medical staff to discuss Megan’s situation with her, and determine what may be done to unbind Treggen from her.”

  Xavier frowned. “I’ll speak with the Care Taker about this. Releasing her into Inquisitor custody until this is cleared up will be prudent.”

  “We can speak with the Care Taker together, after your Omnicron mission is over,” Galahad said coolly. “Now, what is the real course of action?”

  “The real course of action is just what I said,” Xavier replied. “But just through a different part of the swamp.” The three areas that had been marked as hot zones and the red line vanished, replaced by a single hot zone and a red line entering the swamp from the opposite direction. “This path will take us through the bukwus’s territory, but our target is here.” He indicated the hot zone.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “It’s a mossy creation that looks kinda like a skull rising out of the swamp.”

  “How did you know that?” Croatoan asked.

  I jolted. Having him sit there acting like a projector, it was easy to forget he wasn’t just a hunk of office equipment. I quickly filled them on my impromptu meeting with Sakave.

  “We need to drill proper procedures into that thick head of yours, Corinthos,” Xavier said. “You should have reported that immediately.”

  “He did report it,” Galahad said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?” Xavier demanded.

  “Because you haven’t given me the opportunity to do anything but listen to you all morning, Inquisitor.”

  Xavier waved a hand, irritation plain on his face. “We don’t have time for this. Yes, that structure is our target. Zoom in on it and enhance,” Xavier ordered.

  Croatoan obliged, and the map zoomed down, showing the Hall of Injustice I’d seen during my chat with Harliss.

  “This structure,” Croatoan began, “is laced with extradimensional energy. It is the locus that Sakave will use to break into this realm. My scans have detected a high concentration of necromantic energy as well. It will likely be fatal for anyone other than Sakave’s chosen to enter it.”

  “How close does the Infant need to be to reinforce reality, Jacob?” Xavier asked.

  Jake pressed his lips together in thought. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I nodded, understanding that he wanted me to interpret for him.

  About thirty yards or so. She should be able to do it from outside the structure.

  I relayed that to the group.

  “How is it you can communicate with him?” Xavier asked, his eyes narrowed.

  “You just have to know how to listen,” I said.

  Xavier looked at me expectantly, but I wasn’t going to say any more.

  “Inquisitor,” Galahad said. “Was your six-hour time window accurate, or was that part of the ruse as well?”

  “Accurate, unfortunately. Our timetable has been stepped up, gentlemen. We leave here in fifteen minutes. I have a transport to drive us to the swamp.”

  “We don’t have the time to waste on the road,” I said. “I know you said I can’t portal us directly into the swamp, but I can drop us off at its edge. Meet me in the alley behind HQ, and I’ll have us there in a flash.”

  A few minutes later, we were in the alley. Jake had Cynthia in a harness on his back, the Electrical Infant wearing a dark blue Patriots hoodie. The pair of them reminded me a bit of Luke and Yoda. Xavier joined us a moment later, Croatoan in the briefcase. “When you step through the portal, you may feel a bit disoriented,” I said. “And you may have a moment or two during which you don’t remember where we are. It’ll pass.”

  Croatoan’s images had given me enough of a visual on where to Open the portal, and it sizzled into being before us. I went through first, a telekinetic shield protecting the portal’s egress point. Once I was through, I waved the others on.

  Hockomock Swamp was filled with dead or dying trees, their bare branches looking like skeletal fingers in the fading sunlight. The ground wasn’t exactly frozen, it was more like walking across a field covered with mud-colored Slush Puppies. At its edges, the swamp looked like any other. Dead stalks of cattails and downed trees dotted the landscape. It was warmer here than it had been in the city. That’s a side effect of the triangle itself; something about the paranormal energies flowing through the region affects the area’s climate.

  Xavier opened a small hatch on the case, providing a tiny window for Croatoan to peer through. A narrow beam of green light streamed from the sentient bowling ball, and Xavier motioned for us to get moving. I telepathically connected to Jake.

  Have you ever been here before? I asked.

  Once, he said. A long time ago. There was a colony of thunderbirds that had taken to grabbing children from the nearby towns. The Caulborn and I came in here and dealt with most of them.

  Most?

  Jake shrugged. This swamp is a big place. The thunderbird flock was sizable, and it was im
practical to spend weeks combing the swamp for more nests. Even if we had, we couldn’t be certain we’d found all their eggs. There have been sightings of giant birds in the swamp more recently, but since they haven’t caused any trouble, Galahad didn’t feel the need for us to take action.

  Do you think they remember you?

  I hope not. If they did, they’d probably try to kill me on sight, and I don’t have Professor Japper’s electro-harpoon launcher anymore.

  What? Who?

  Jake’s mental laugh was a warm sound. He did Gearstripper’s job back in the 1890s. Rigged up this spear launcher that fired electrically charged harpoons. The thing was unwieldy and flamboyant, but it proved quite effective at downing the thunderbirds.

  I’ll bet.

  Jake just smiled at me and we continued on, following Croatoan’s sickly green light. I checked my watch. We’d only been walking for about five minutes, but it felt like we’d been in the swamp for hours. Was that because of the nature of the environment, or had my fracturing time resulted in my own perception of time becoming distorted? I put that thought away; it was only going to give me a headache.

  I glanced at Cynthia, riding calmly on Jake’s back, her eyes darting this way and that.

  Cynthia seems more alert, I sent to Jake.

  She has improved significantly since you gave her that bit of celestial metal.

  Seriously? That was such a tiny sliver.

  Jake considered what I’d said. Vincent, do you remember the old light bulbs, the ones with the tungsten filament in them?

  Sure.

  That filament was perhaps half an inch long, and maybe the thickness of a few strands of human hair, and yet without it, the bulb would not light. It is the same for Cynthia. That tiny bit of metal went right into her brain and helped bridge a mental pathway that has been broken for decades. She still isn’t as fully developed as she should be, but it’s a start.

  Something big moved in the trees above us. Jake had his shotgun trained on the spot, and I readied a pulse of telekinetic force. A bird with a twelve-foot wingspan launched itself from a nearby pine tree and soared off away from us, silent as the grave.

  “Thunderbird,” Xavier whispered. “We’re lucky it didn’t spot us.”

  I’m not sure it didn’t, Jake sent to me. Thunderbirds have keen vision. It might be off to tell the rest of its clutch about us.

  Are they that intelligent? I asked.

  You know how they say crows are smarter than dogs and cats? Put thunderbirds in that category, too; not as smart as people, but smarter than your average avian.

  I told Xavier about Jake’s concerns and he nodded. We continued on in silence for a few minutes, the swamp gradually going from warm to hot and the ground becoming like what you’d expect in a muddy spring season. The mud sucked at my Reeboks, and Xavier struggled to keep his balance as he hauled Croatoan’s briefcase. Only Jake seemed unfazed by the terrain. His eyes swept the trees and the land ahead of us, as if he were planning for an attack to come at any moment.

  We had just reached a much wetter spot, where dead stumps pushed up through the marshy landscape, when three figures stepped out of the shadows. Each was nearly eight feet tall and covered in coarse, shaggy salt-and-pepper hair. Their yellow eyes had red pupils, and their faces weren’t exactly human, but weren’t exactly ape-like, either.

  There have long been stories about Bigfoot sightings in Hockomock Swamp. Every now and then, someone exploring the swamp catches a glimpse of an eight-foot-tall hair-covered biped, and hey, who can blame them for thinking Bigfoot? But there haven’t been any sasquatch in this part of New England for decades. What those people are seeing are bukwus.

  The main difference between a bukwus and a sasquatch? Bukwus are undead.

  When a person dies violently in a swamp like this, and such deaths are common given its inhabitants, the person’s spirit may come back as a bukwus. The one at the front held a bloody hunk of meat; it looked like he’d caught a deer and torn off one of its legs. He held the meat out to me, as if offering me a bite.

  “Don’t take it,” Xavier hissed at me.

  “Not on my list of things to do,” I replied. Bukwus enjoy drowning people and eating people, or drowning and eating whatever else they can get their grubby mitts on. But their other way of trapping people is by offering them food and drink. If you accept either from a bukwus, you’re essentially saying “Why, yes, I would like to join your undead ranks.” And then they kill you, only partially eat you, and then you get to spend eternity as a deranged creature that enjoys drowning and eating others. They’re incredibly strong and can turn invisible, hence why we didn’t see these three until they were nearly on top of us.

  “Okay,” I said to Xavier over my shoulder. “So what do we do?”

  “I will handle this,” Croatoan said, his voice clear despite being tucked in the case. Three beams of crimson light shot forth from the sentient bowling ball and struck each bukwus in the chest. The creatures stumbled, then gave themselves a shake and walked away from us.

  I’d seen Croatoan create and command wights before, but I hadn’t realized he could control other undead.

  “They’ll be disoriented for a few minutes,” Croatoan said. “Let’s move on before they come back.”

  “Can’t you control them again?” I asked.

  “Yes, but I’d rather conserve my energy in case something bigger comes up, say, needing to stop an extradimensional warlord from forcing his way into this realm.”

  “Touché.”

  “Cut the chatter, you two,” Xavier hissed at us. “We still have a lot of ground to cover, and we don’t want to attract attention to ourselves.”

  Man, he is pissy, I sent to Jake.

  He is right, though. Jake sent back. We can’t afford to be careless in here. Time is not on our side.

  Is it ever? I asked. Forget it. That was a rhetorical question.

  With the deception we arranged, Jake sent, and a bit of luck, we should be able to infiltrate the swamp without incide—

  Jake’s mental voice cut off as a thunderbird sailed down from the sky, latched onto Cynthia with its talons and ripped the Electrical Infant from her harness.

  Chapter 11

  An orb of darkness shall be broken, releasing its filth upon the world. The chains will break, the pillars fall, the twelve shall be freed. Twelve will come.

  —From the Dodici Prophecy, as translated by Stranger Wolfram

  “NO!” Jake’s scream literally tore trees up from the ground, and a great sonic wave shredded the tall grasses in front of us. The blast hit the thunderbird in the back, and it exploded in a cloud of feathers and blood. Another thunderbird was already diving down, catching Cynthia in mid-air. Two more thunderbirds swooped down and took swipes at Jake with their talons. The big man spun, blocked the attacks of one, and got a single shot off before one of the thunderbirds wrenched the shotgun free from his grip.

  Time seemed to slow for me. I turned my attention to the thunderbird that had grabbed Cynthia. It was flapping away from us, Cynthia struggling weakly in its grip. I reached out with telekinesis and grabbed onto the bird, pinning its wings against its body and holding it in midair. I pulled, hauling the thunderbird back to the earth and closer to me.

  I was dimly aware of gunshots nearby. Jake must’ve gotten his shotgun back. There was the shrill keening of a dying bird, and a handful of feathers drifted through my vision. I ignored it all, focusing all my power on the bird holding Cynthia. Soon, the avian was hovering just a few feet away. I forcibly opened the bird’s talons, its bones snapping as I did so, and caught Cynthia as she fell from its grasp. She was so light and felt so fragile, I was afraid I’d hurt her just by holding her. She leaned into me and rested her head on my shoulder.

  “Thank you, Vincent Corinthos,�
� she said.

  Time came back to its normal speed. Jake stepped up to me. His jacket was shredded and his cap was gone. His shirt and face were splattered with blood.

  “Jesus, Jake,” I said. “Are you all right?”

  Yes. It’s not my blood, Jake responded. I glanced over and saw the pair of dead thunderbirds on the ground, each of them perforated by nearly a dozen bullets. Xavier was calmly reloading a pair of 9mm pistols. Blood splattered his jacket, as well, and part of Croatoan’s case.

  “We need to move,” Xavier said, putting three rounds into the thunderbird I had telekinetically captured. The bird squawked once before it died.

  “Something’s wrong,” Croatoan said as Xavier picked him up. “Reality is fracturing faster. It’s like someone just hit the very fabric of this dimension with a hammer.”

  I looked down at the thunderbird, and then at Cynthia. Wheatson’s words came back to me. You now have powers you’re not supposed to have. Time is going to have to adapt to that.

  A scenario unfolded in my mind. One in which the thunderbird snatched Cynthia from Jake’s shoulders and flew off deeper into the swamp. The group of us pursued, thrashing our way through the muck and thickets until we came to a copse of trees. Cynthia was there, surrounded by a flock of thunderbirds, and we had to fight our way through them to get her back. During the fighting, Xavier lost an eye and Jake’s left shoulder was dislocated. Croatoan’s briefcase was ripped open, and the sentient bowling ball was snatched up and carried away. I managed to burn the thunderbirds with kobold fire, enough to scatter them, and we found Cynthia. She was mostly unharmed, celestial metal being as tough as it was, but it cost us precious time and we’d lost Croatoan.