The One That Comes Before

by Livia Llewellyn

  Eventually, the motes of glowing dust that made up those three small words float apart, settle in the corners of the elevator like the bioluminescent afterglow of a low tide. The building shakes steadily, every now and then giving out an extra hard shudder that sends the elevator rocking back and forth. Alex closes her eyes. Her pinned arm and hand are numb, all the nerves long dead. At some point, she hears the clink of the bullets hitting the floor, one after the other, as her body finishes pushing them out. There’s a part of her that feels relief, but it’s a million miles beneath her surface, and quickly fades as the excruciating pain in her right wrist takes over in its place. Her aching body moves back and forth between tortured wakefulness and a deliciously languid landscape of fever dreams. The shimmering words become the high towers of a far-off city trapped in an endless night; and she lies at the edge of a great precipice, unable to travel to her final destination, unable to do anything except watch the city burn and glow with power and life while she can only cower at a great distance, alone and eternally separate. Her hand is stretched out to it, to the place she calls home, the quiet sun-drenched rooms, the soft carpets and couch, the jangle of the chimes brushing the edges of the open windows. She’s reaching out, but there’s so much pain—too much, it’s like her bones are breaking over and over again. Alex cries out, her tears mingle with the sweat drenching her face, and a fear-fueled thought sluggishly surfaces as she realizes what’s happening: her body is repairing itself once again. The clasp is moving through her wrist, the bones and tendons and muscles breaking down and pushing it through, centimeter by centimeter.

  A drowsy sensation of victory washes over her. Alex slides down the wall onto the floor, her entire body limp with relief. Ignoring her arm, now furiously alternating between unendurable pain and blood-drained numbness, she feels unconsciousness stealing over her, righteous and deep.

  And then, for a wonderful too-short while, there is nothing—no pain, no fear, not even the dark.

  She wakes on her back, cradling her left arm across her stomach. The still-trembling elevator is now pitch black: the phosphorous words have died out. All sense of time has left her—whether it is still afternoon or evening, she has no way of knowing. Tentatively, she runs her fingers over her wrist. The flesh is tender and swollen, and she can make out the deep furrows on both sides of the wrist where the metal was extruded. But her fingers detect the semi-soft beginnings of scabs starting to form over the pulpy wounds. She’s still drunk, but her body is healing in its own unfathomable way.

  After some rather heated inner debate, Alex rises shakily to her feet, feels her way to a corner of the elevator opposite the metal gate, and urinates. The act thoroughly disgusts her, but she doesn’t have a choice—the man left her no better off than a caged animal. You have nothing to be ashamed of, she tells herself as she struggles to pull up her underwear and smooth down the ruins of her skirt. When you’ve finished hollowing him out with the knife, you can shit on the remains of his face and see how much he complains.

  She makes her way to the gate, running her hands over the metal in search of a lock, then extends her search to the walls on either side of it. No lock, no panels or controls. She pushes her fingers through the grating, but the wooden door is out of reach. Remembering the small recess that the chain and tubing ran out of, Alex feels her way across the back of the elevator, but finds nothing. After several minutes, her hands detect the seams of the small door. How did the door close on its own—did the chain retract once the clasp left her hand? The elevator only worked for him, Alex remembers the man saying. More bullshit Obsidian magic. She makes her way to the corner opposite her puddle of urine, and slides down to the floor. How long? He said he would return. The rhythmic shaking of the building sends her back into a drowsy state, but beneath the daydreams and ghost-like thoughts of her semi-sleep, she feels her strength returning, she feels her cold desires blossoming. Normally it’s months before she feels the urge to explore again, but the world has been reduced to a set of mammoth circumstances beyond her control, that are squeezing and pushing against her like the Nazca Plate, continually crashing against the entire length of Obsidia. She has no choice but to push back.

  The doorknob turns. Alex bolts up and presses against the back of the elevator. Dim light slowly washes through the space as the wooden door opens. The man stands before the gate, jacket and tie gone, his formerly white shirt black with blood. A large gash runs down the side of his face.

  Alex raises her left hand.

  “Ah. Of course. I should have known. You’re remarkable.”

  “Which of my coworker’s blood is on your shirt?”

  “Everyone’s. Well, almost everyone’s.” The man holds her mug up to the gate, working a straw through the holes. “My name is Diogenes, by the way. I have water, if you’d like. I’m sure you’re thirsty.”

  “Is it spiked?”

  Diogenes shakes his head. “I need your particular talents, and for that I need your head clear. Two of your coworkers have proven particularly adept at avoiding me, as well as extra-resistant to our chymical agents—you wouldn’t have noticed, because they’d have no effect on you at all, but the air here on the fortieth floor is currently full of all kinds of wonderful things, whispering in everyone’s ear, go to the elevator lobby, something extraordinary waits for you in the beautiful anchor room.”

  “You’re a fucking idiot. Doesn’t your branch of the Ministry know? Magic doesn’t work on us. That’s why we all work at the press, so we can duplicate the books and grimoires without accidentally or purposely making the spells work.”

  Diogenes sighs as if speaking to an annoying child. “Most magic doesn’t work on some of you. Magic attracts magic, which is why we didn’t need this level of supervision for the other thirty-nine floors. All of those employees have entered their anchor rooms—their elevator lobbies—willingly, many of them joyfully. However, the Ministry concocted something special, something a bit more complex yet subtle for the employees of the fortieth floor, to make everyone more compliant. It was a gamble—and it paid off, for the most part. There were, unfortunately, some side effects.” He grimaces and points to his shirt. “This was Bartram.”

  “You need my help finding them, don’t you. You need my help killing them. Why are you doing this if the entire district is about to be destroyed anyway?”

  “That’s actually not going to happen. You know more than anyone, transformation doesn’t always result in death.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Alex waits for him to elaborate, but the man remains stubbornly quiet. “Fine,” she finally says. “But what’s in it for me if, after I help you, you’re just going to toss me off the building like you said you would?”

  “I said I’d toss you off the building, I didn’t say that I’d kill you. And, I’ll return your knife to you—which I’ve deposited in a safe place, accessible only by me, by my actual living essence and not a body part, so don’t get any ideas—after you complete the kills. I need actual bodies, not rivers of mush running down the walls. So, no precious knife. You can use a regular knife, just like a regular psychopath. It’ll be a new experience for you, it might be fun.”

  Alex looks down at the floor. She doesn’t want to admit how she feels, how good it sounds, how strong and weak in the knees she’s getting at the thought of hunting down those annoying, whiny, lazy, disrespectful fucks. She doesn’t want to give in. And yet. And yet.

  “You know you want to.” Diogenes’ voice is a low, seductive whisper, curling around inside her brain. “You can feel that urge rising inside. Like an engine, coming to hot life, all those pistons pumping up and down, gathering purpose. If Becher is coming to an end as we know it, why not give in? What’s stopping you? Certainly not me. Do what you were born to do, one last time.”

  Alex moves to the gate, her fingers curling around the grating. “We meek little publishing bookworms aren’t as compliant a lot, aren’t as ‘docile’ as you thought.”

/>   “Oh, no, most of you were extremely compliant—the agent did exactly as we’d hoped, for the most part. Two of your coworkers, however, are actually natural adepts, which we didn’t realize until today. They’ve been passing themselves off as mundane-born with minimal thauma-ported augmentation, which means the chymicals are having almost no reaction on them. I’m not able to counter whatever protection they’re casting out. Ironic, isn’t it? Especially considering your circumstances. That’s some amazing handiwork, by the way.” Diogenes points to the fake thauma-port made of her own bones and skin, still clinging to her throat with tiny stitches made from a spider-thin thread woven out of her own hair and harvested veins, so that her body will never reject or push it off.

  Alex frowns. “Never mind my circumstances. Let me guess: Vecula is one of the two remaining, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. Southern Ocean born, a hybrid child of the sunken city. Her mother was a descendent of one of the original human child sacrifices to Mother Hydra, and on her father’s side—well, the phrase ‘it’s turtles all the way down’ applies, if you catch my drift. She thinks she’s a mundane, but her magical abilities are actually of a different magnitude and nature altogether, which is why the agent isn’t working on her. Amazingly stupid girl, though. I mean, it’s really quite shocking how idiotic she is.”

  “Well, she’s managed to avoid you so far, so clearly she’s smarter than you. Who’s the other?”

  If the man is insulted, he doesn’t show it. “Felix Pitts.”

  A great, orgasmic burst of joy rocks her entire body.

  “Can I cut out his heart?”

  Diogenes cocks his head. “Um, well, you aren’t going to eat it or do something weird with it, are you?”

  “Don’t be disgusting. No. I just want to hold it in my hands.”

  Diogenes slides open the gate and holds out her mug. Alex takes it.

  5:08 pm

  Alex moves down the familiar halls in silence, almost in reverence. She’s spent her entire adult life working here—she was hired before graduating first in her class from the small trade school in northern Obsidia, in a district so overflowing with all the colossal detritus and abandoned machinery of the continent, that it was simply known as Midden, its original name long forgotten. She remembers the first time she walked these halls, the bookshelves still empty and gleaming with polish, the floors unstained and bright, all the windows dust-free and positively brilliant with the light of a younger sun. Everyone was so excited to be there. Bartram was young and thin and had all his hair, Quartus was a charming and rather sexy silver fox of a mere fifty years—that was thirty years ago. The three of them, they were the first. She’s fifty now, and the only one left.

  Spatters of blood crisscross the ceiling as they round the corner, and continues all down the long hall, drying in wide swaths on the walls and congealing in thick puddles on the floor. “A woman named Marie,” Diogenes says.

  “Our copy editor. What did you do to her? That’s enough blood up there for a couple of people.”

  “Some heavy-grade casting. It wasn’t pretty. She had a terrible reaction to the chymicals. Her body started growing, and then she began to—I guess ‘ingest’ is the best word, or maybe ‘absorb,’ small machinery. I found her merging with a fax machine.”

  “Don’t you still have your gun?”

  “No.” He sounds sheepish. “The gun was for you, not them. The bullets just deflected off whatever magic everyone was emitting. And then I ran out of bullets, so I threw it at her. She just ate it.”

  Alex covers her mouth to hide her sudden urge to laugh. “I thought the Ministry did a better job of training its assassins than this.”

  “I’m not an assassin, I’m a thaumaturgical engineer in the Ministry of Obstetrics. Chymical warfare and hand-to-hand-or-whatever combat is not my strong suit, obviously.”

  “Obviously. Please don’t tell me what happened to anyone else, especially Bartram. He was already looking terrible when I last saw him this morning. I don’t even want to imagine what happened to him by the time you got to him.”

  “For someone who loves to kill people the way you do, you draw an odd line in the sand.”

  “We all have our limits. We don’t get to choose them.”

  “You really thought I was an assassin? That’s quite a compliment, I’m very flattered.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  They continue in silence, Diogenes directing her through the labyrinth of rooms with complete ease. Magic attracts magic, he had said; and he assured her, as she sucked down the water back in the hidden office, that he would be able to find Felix and Vecula easily, that navigating the fickle and changing layout would be as simple as breathing.

  “Why can everyone do magic except me?” she blurts out, expecting no answer in return. “Every fucking creature in Obsidia except me. What’s wrong with me?”

  Diogenes stops walking, and puts a finger to his lips. They’re standing just outside the warren of rooms that make up Bartram’s small kingdom within a kingdom—Editorial and Copyediting. Alex points to the large set of double wooden doors. Diogenes touches her arm, leads her just around the corner, and bends down. They’re both inside, he barely breathes into her ear. Felix is in the largest room, straight ahead of us, Vecula is somewhere off to his left. Don’t try to lead them out or draw them into some long conversation, just kill them, then come get me. I’ve got an eighteen-hundred-hour deadline I have to keep.

  Cutting it a bit close, aren’t you? What happens at six?

  That rumbling throughout the building? That’s the machines, in the basements below the sub-basements. They run the entire length of the spur, in all four spurs. They’re just idling now. At six, they all turn on. Get in there, go. I’ll be waiting here.

  I don’t have a weapon.

  Half the crap on this floor can be used as a weapon. I know, I’ve seen your work. Be creative—surprise yourself.

  He pushes her back around the corner. Alex walks over to the doors and places her hands on the worn brass handles. Bartram never liked people from other departments just dropping into Editorial unannounced. You always had to make an appointment through Felix, as though you were a stranger, a visitor to LBA Press, there to formally present your progress, pitch your idea, gain permission to use the library, or register your complaint. She pushes down on the long handle, and it makes a loud, clean click. The door swings open effortlessly. If they were using magic to keep it closed, well, now they already know who’s entering—Lenkiewicz Belanger Apostolicum’s legendarily mundane and apparently always-drunk receptionist. The harmless court jester, that’s who.

  “Hello?” Alex calls out. “It’s Alex. Anybody here?” She doesn’t need to make sure she’s putting just the right amount of tentative fear into her voice. This is all so natural to her, there’s no thought to it at all. She closes the door behind her, making sure she locks it shut. She’s in a smaller version of reception, an octagonal room where Felix’s desk holds court, with various doors leading to offices, printing and art rooms, and the jewel in the crown, the official LBA library, where thousands of rare and obscure research books and materials sit behind locked bookcase doors. Alex walks quietly over to Felix’s desk and swipes the heavy letter opener from the pencil cup. He loves that letter opener; it’s an antique with a carved ivory handle covered in little flowers and skulls that he picked up years ago during a vacation to the remains of the Panama Canal. She’s always loved it, too. Tucking the opener into the back of her skirt, she also picks up a sharp No. 2 pencil, heads for the library door, opens it, and peers inside, every inch of her trembling as if expecting a sudden blow. The lights are on, illuminating long wooden tables and chairs. The shelves are bare: every single bookcase is open, the lead-lined glass doors glinting under the soft lights. Not even a stray Post-It in sight.

  “Alex?”

  She turns, pressing her back flat against the wall as she raises the pencil in the air like a weapon.

  �
��Alex.” The door to Bartram’s office swings open a crack, and Felix’s face peers out from the dark interior. “Holy fuck, I thought you were dead, too.”

  “Felix, is that you?” Alex takes a single step forward, but doesn’t lower her arm. “Are you okay? What the fuck happened, where is everyone?”

  “Come in, come in, quick!” He opens the door and motions for her to come inside. She runs around the desk and sidles past him, her back against the door, and then against the wall of Bartram’s office. All the lights are off, and it’s as dark outside as if it were midnight, with only a faint glow indicating the presence of Obsidia surrounding the now completely dark district. All those people, Alex realizes as she walks over to the windows, all those homes and businesses surrounding the outer edges of Becher River. They have no idea what’s coming. Millions of people right outside the district are also going to die tonight, an ouroboros of carnage rising in their place.

  “What the fuck happened to you?” Felix asks as he locks the door behind them. He places a hand over his mouth, as if horrified. Alex realizes what she must look like to him, clothes coated in drying gore, hair matted with blood, open wounds and bruises all across her body like ripe plums.

  “Are you alone? Is anyone else alive?”

  “Vecula—she’s in Bartram’s bathroom. She’s been in there ever since this started, I can’t get her to come out. Right after the editorial meeting, everyone started getting really sick—just, terrible magic, it was horrifying.”

  “But you’re okay?”

  “Me and Vecula, we’re fine. I tried to get help, but none of the phones work, the entire elevator lobby is infected with this green lava-like fire, and no one could find the emergency exits. They just fucking disappeared!”

  “What green fire?”

  “I don’t know!” Felix shouts. “Who cares, it’s just like, it’s—and then this man, he appeared out of nowhere, he just started killing everyone, for no reason!”

  “Mother Hydra help us.”