Black_Tide

by Patrick Freivald

  "I have, once. Now twice." She looked into his haunted, pale gray eyes. "And I never want to do it again."

  * * *

  Sakura panted because she could do nothing else. The van rolled to a stop and the back doors opened. Agent Keene looked down at her as they wheeled the gurney out the back, his face tinged green.

  "Holy shit, you didn't waste any time." He patted Sakura's hand on the way by, and she didn't have the energy to pull away, or the strength to crush his fingers.

  The blood-spattered woman ran a finger along Keene's jawline. "This is war, silly. We don't have any time to waste."

  He stepped forward as they wheeled her through a bay door into a blinding hallway. "Is she going to live?"

  "Not your problem," she said. The doors closed and she wiped sweat from Sakura's forehead. "For as long as we can keep you alive, I suppose, though I don't think you're going to enjoy it."

  Chapter 18

  Smothered in dog's blood, Janet sliced lines down her forearms, adding her life force to the ancient words spilling from her mouth. "Ereshkigal I invoke you, by the power of blood and the power of pain I beg you. It is for you alone to rule the underworld, in every age and form and name. Ereshkigal, Thoth, Bhaironji, by the power of blood and the power of pain I beseech you."

  The candles sputtered, and shadows of shadows danced on the walls.

  "Open Neti's gate, by the bond of blood and the womb we shared I call my brother to me. By the power of blood and the power of pain I implore you, return Meseket to the living lands, and carry upon it one soul. By the power of blood and the power of pain, my blood, my pain, and the pain of the conduit, may her spirit find mercy in your embrace, by this power and this blood I command you."

  Staked spread-eagled to the floor, Anita Yardley cried out through her gag as Janet knelt. Anita quivered at Janet's touch on her naked body, her fingertips brushing face to breasts to belly to between her legs, and then to the floor, where the bronze knife once wielded by Sargon of Akkad lay. Janet grabbed the hilt in her right hand, put her left on the perfect carnelian in the pommel, and gently, slowly, pressed it into Yardley's belly, leaning in where necessary to force the dull, ancient blade through the wall of muscle without damaging the viscera beneath.

  Anita thrashed. Janet sawed downward to her mons pubis, and then up to the base of her sternum, eyes closed, guiding the knife by touch against the quivering skin. Her hands wet and sticky, she ripped the knife left, then right, and peeled open the cavity to expose the organs below.

  "By the power of blood and the power of pain I command you. My will be done."

  As Anita shuddered and twitched in the throes of shock, Janet opened her eyes, and ate.

  * * *

  Lightheaded, Matt wiggled through a tiny opening into a larger hall that meandered for miles. The temperature rose, fell, then rose again. A deep throb shuddered through his severed arm. It hurt like hell and itched worse. He kept having to cut flesh away from the bone as it crawled out longer and longer from the point of injury. Matt left a drizzle of blood like breadcrumbs that popped in the infrared, and the first time he crossed his own trail he almost collapsed in despair.

  The narrow cavern forked, so he took another path, again and again. At long last he saw light ahead and imagined fresh air and birds singing and an end to endless dark passages. He stumbled faster, ravenous, so when he finally broke into the huge chamber he almost couldn't process what he saw.

  "Monica?"

  She held their baby asleep on her lap. Standing behind her, Jason Rees stood with a hunting rifle, the barrel pointed at the ground.

  "Told you he'd come," Jason said to her.

  "You did." She frowned at Matt, too calm. "What happened to your arm?"

  Matt looked from Jason to his wife and said the only thing that came to mind. "What are you doing here?"

  "Jason brought me, to get our son. We need to go now."

  He looked at Jason. "Did you drug her?"

  Jason shook his head. "It's not me. It's Adam. He has a calming effect."

  The cavern shuddered, and the lights swayed, casting shadows of shadows across the walls. It shuddered again.

  Monica's eyes widened to a desperate plea. "You can't kill him, baby. Promise me you won't kill him."

  He looked from her to the large doorway to the other exit. "Then run."

  They made it five steps before Yardley burst into the room with a deafening roar. He charged, and Matt whirled to meet him head-on, ducking between his claws to impact him square in the torso. Metal crunched and Matt's shoulder exploded in pain. As he fell to the floor he leapt, rolling to his feet behind the monstrosity.

  The open chest next to him contained a pile of junk, including an aluminum baseball bat and a crowbar. He picked up the crowbar and rolled left as Yardley's foot came down, obliterating the locker and its contents. He ran for the panel box on the far wall.

  * * *

  Monica shoved Adam into Jason's hands, exchanging him for the .308. "You hide in that fucking cave and you don't come out until it's dead or we are, you understand me?"

  "I can't let you do this."

  She stepped forward and threw her shoulder into his, turning him. He reeled, so she put her foot on his ass and shoved, sending him stumbling into the crevice, Adam still in his arms. "I didn't ask your permission. You protect my son."

  She wheeled and took aim with the .308, trying to ignore that her target wasn't circles on paper, wasn't a rabid raccoon. The twelve-foot killing machine didn't look to have much in the way of weak spots, save the naked head she couldn't quite see over the massive metal shoulders. She aimed for a space between the plates on his back, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger.

  Yardley slapped his back and stumbled. She ejected the round and shoved in another as the lights went out.

  * * *

  Matt tore the cables off of the wall with the crowbar, plunging the room into darkness, yanked a few more feet free, and turned. Emergency lights kicked on, bathing the room in yellow sodium vapor.

  Yardley had stumbled, one massive claw reaching behind to clutch at his back, the other catching him before he pitched on his face.

  Matt stepped forward with the ground wire protruding a foot from where he'd tucked it in his armpit, the hot cable in his other—his only—hand. He contacted either side of the elbow of the arm supporting Yardley.

  Sparks flew. Metal blackened. The air filled with the nauseating, appetizing smell of cooking flesh.

  Yardley swiped Matt away with his free arm, but Matt anticipated the blow and rolled with it. The impact slammed him into a trunk twenty feet away, shattering it and spilling MREs all over the floor, but he leapt to his feet without serious injury.

  Yardley stood and turned, sneering at Monica as she took aim for another shot. "Always need a woman's help, don't you, Rowley?"

  Yardley flinched to the side as Monica fired and the shot pinged off his armor. Then he charged her, good arm raised, and Matt ran after him.

  Monica ejected the round, grabbed another, and ran out of time. She bolted for the small entrance where Jason huddled with her son. Yardley hit the doorway the moment after she dove through it, shaking the earth and pulverizing stone.

  Matt leapt and brought the crowbar down as hard as he could, but Yardley twisted and it deflected off of his shoulder. As the giant spun, Matt kept behind his cooked arm, charred and smoking and locked at the elbow. He jammed the bar under a panel on the frozen elbow and wrenched upward. It popped loose with the sound of shearing bolts.

  Yardley lashed out with his foot. Matt danced back, but a talon hooked his calf and sent him crashing to the floor, the crowbar flying from his hand. Yardley turned and stomped, shaking the room again and again as Matt rolled out of the way.

  A bullet pinged off Yardley's back, and another, but if he noticed he paid them no mind. Matt hit the wall and, with nowhere else to go, flipped up to his feet to jump out of the way.

  A giant claw smashed Matt into the
stone, crushing bone and jellying organs right through his body armor. Blood erupted from his mouth and his limbs went numb.

  Monica screamed and ran for him. He tried to tell her to get back, tried to tell her to run. Instead he closed his eyes.

  * * *

  Through a haze of glory born of hatred and revenge and the thrill of carnage, Murdock Yardley heard his mother call him, her voice faint under a gale of wind.

  "Murdy, it's time to come home."

  He shook his head, confused. "Mama?"

  "It's time to come home, Murdy. Your mama needs you."

  His mother never needed anything. This voice belonged to someone else, pretending. He shook off the thought with a snarl.

  * * *

  As Yardley hesitated, Monica swept up the crowbar and jammed it into Yardley's exposed elbow. Hooking a hydraulic line, she yanked and twisted until hot orange fluid erupted from the mechanical artery.

  The arm sagged as she stumbled back, and Matt slid down the wall to a sitting position, head lolled to the side, eyes closed. Monica waited, out of arms' reach, crowbar hefted like a baseball bat that wouldn't do her a damned bit of good. As the hydraulics failed Yardley sagged, then slumped, then fell over, the weight of the machine far too much for the former Aug's atrophied limbs.

  She ran to Matt, lifted his head, kissed his bloody lips. "C'mon baby, don't you dare die on me. You got a baby to raise and a wife to love and so goddamned much to live for."

  His eyes fluttered. One opened, the white orb red with broken blood vessels.

  "I'm here." He mouthed it, but she understood.

  Yardley's voice boomed behind her. "I told those men to rape you."

  She stood, and turned, one hand on the pistol still in her holster.

  "I told them to rape you to death in front of your son, and leave your body for your husband to find. And do you know what I say to that? Close enough."

  Yardley's arm wiggled, his fingers straining for a red switch under a safety interlock.

  "I'm getting real sick of your shit." She choked up the pistol as Yardley flipped up the switch guard.

  "MONICA! NO!" Jason ran for her, arm outstretched.

  She pulled the trigger.

  * * *

  Janet screamed as the power of her spell tore through her, a black flood that ripped her from reality and threw her into a sea of screaming, desperate hunger. Hunger for warmth, for life, for light, a never-ending maelstrom of souls begging for the peace of oblivion.

  She held onto the pulsing thread that tied her to life, and dove for the abyss. Gray claws dripping with the remains of souls scraped at her, desperate for even the slightest hint of human warmth no matter what it cost the living. The pentagram held, and the abjurations borne of blood and pain. She dove farther.

  "Brother." She had no voice, but her thoughts rang everywhere and nowhere, swept up in the gale of souls and scattered to the winds. Yet each tattered shred grew, bound with the power she had called, reeking of blood and purpose. "Brother, come to me."

  A cherub broke off from the maelstrom and flitted over to stare at her with wide, black eyes. It smiled, revealing rows of serrated teeth, and between its legs it grew hard in a mockery of human love. Black drool spilling from its mouth, it lunged, and hit a wall of nothing inches from her breast. Shrieking in frustration it wheeled away, behind her and out of sight.

  "Brother. Come to me."

  Other creatures came. Skeletal bats, skinned angels, dragons, and dark mist with cunning eyes, every fear, every cruelty, every evil thought given form. They lunged, bit, scratched, but always turned away at the last moment. They broke off.

  Unending beauty came to her next, gorgeous men and beautiful women and almost-human creatures of both sexes and none, in every combination, their heady musk reeking of unimaginable pleasure if only she would let go.

  She ignored them all.

  Her brother approached, hale and strong, and reached out his hand. She looked past the too-perfect form and it burst into a cloud of angry hornets, each with her brother's face twisted in never-ending rage. They swirled around her, an angry droning cloud, and disappeared.

  "Brother. Come to me."

  A pale shadow drifted to her, almost shy, a tattered, ephemeral thing, pathetic and desperate and so, so hungry, and she knew him, and smiled. "Take my hand. It's time to come home."

  * * *

  Monica watched the blood leaking from the hole in Yardley's temple, then looked up to Jason. "You can't tell me he didn't deserve it."

  A great black maw opened in her mind, and she fell. A single silver thread connected her to herself, but as she grasped for it, it whipped out of reach.

  * * *

  Monica woke on a plain of hypodermic needles, a barren wasteland stretching to infinity under the blazing sun. Her body ached, and she had no idea how long since she'd last had a hit. Too long, too long. She knelt and dug through the broken glass, looking for any leftovers, a brown resin or white crystal, something, anything to take the edge off.

  Metal pricked her fingers, glass shredded her hands, and she cried out but didn't stop her search. In all this there had to be something, anything, a taste or a touch, something to take the edge off. She needed it, more than life or love or oxygen.

  Glass cut her knees, a sharp nothing compared to the craving. She crawled for unending days, searching. Sometimes a small part of her thought it strange that she'd be naked in a place like this, but then she'd see a sparkle, and dive, clutching in blind panic for the tiny rock. In her clumsiness it would scatter and fall from sight. She'd grovel forward, sweeping through the shards with bare arms, smearing the ground with ever more of her endless blood.

  Tears blurred her vision as she scrambled through the glass, each desperate grasp another cut, another stab, another wail of frustration. I just need something . . . something to take the edge off. Days stretched to months, and months to years.

  And one day, starving, bleeding, desperate, she stopped, froze in place, confused.

  This isn't me. I don't belong here.

  She looked up at the sun that wasn't a sun, a blazing maelstrom of endless night that cast the world in black light, a billion billion nightmares silently screaming for the void.

  I know this place.

  She'd dreamed of it—not the plain of glass and needles but the maelstrom—dreamed of it in the rectory, where she'd almost had a miscarriage, before Adam's birth.

  Adam.

  She looked down at the needles, at the cuts and track marks marring every inch of her body, and shuddered.

  I don't want this. I don't need this. I need him. I need my son and my husband and life and warmth and love.

  "Do you want to go home?"

  She turned to find the most majestic woman she'd ever seen, a dark beauty with jade eyes, radiant in her power, great emerald wings of shimmering jade spread out behind her, refracting and intensifying and blotting out the sun that wasn't a sun. Her crown glinted in the black light, a simple circlet of wrought black iron.

  "I asked you a question, child."

  Yes, I want to go home.

  "There is a price."

  What is the price?

  "You have to die."

  She bowed her head. Won't death bring me back here?

  The angel lifted her chin with a finger. "Don't be silly, child. This isn't your fate, it belongs to another."

  What . . . what is my fate?

  "None can say, yet. You've not been judged." She smiled, and the radiance dazzled Monica, made her head swim, her whole body weak with awe. The angel spread her arms. "Now come, child, come into my arms, and I will take you home."

  Monica hesitated. You do not love me. Why would you help?

  "Because the other whose fate this is deserves it." Her jade eyes blazed with wrath. "He belongs here, and I want him back."

  So to get what you want I have to die.

  "I cannot reverse the spell without power. All power requires sacrifice. Even mine."
>
  Monica stepped into her embrace—

  * * *

  —and opened her eyes, and lowered the pistol. Blood spurted from Yardley's forehead, and his fingers sagged away from the switch.

  She dropped the gun and ran for Adam, who'd wandered into the room after Jason had let him go. She cradled his head and turned him around, away from his broken father, away from the ruined body of Murdock Yardley.

  Over his head she watched her husband. Matt's fingers flexed, his legs twitched. He blinked, first one eye, then two.

  Jason approached, cautious. "What just happened?" His voice carried a note of gravity, heaviness, of more than the question asked.

  Behind Monica's eyes a plain of shattered needles stretched forever. "He was reaching for a self-destruct or something, so I shot him. It was self-defense."

  Jason frowned. "No, I mean what happened after you shot him?"

  Adam put his head on her shoulder, and the plane of glass retreated to lurk in a dark corner of her mind, where it gibbered and gnawed at her sanity.

  She closed her eyes and pushed it deeper. "I went somewhere, somewhere very bad, and I came back."

  "Adam brought you back."

  She shook her head. "No, not Adam. The place wasn't meant for me. Someone else belonged there, so I came back."

  He watched her with his gray confessor's eyes, then turned to approach her shattered husband.

  After a few minutes, Matt took some water, and twenty minutes after that ate six MREs, one after another, licking the containers clean, going so far as to suck down the hot sauce in the tiny bottles.

  An hour later they returned to Jason's beat-up Camry.

  * * *

  Matt sagged into the car, reached forward and plucked Jason's phone out of the cup holder. He dialed Janet's private cell. She picked up on the third ring.