Crimson

by Ben Wise

  It’s difficult to stop myself from looking towards the bodies as we walk towards the door. Did they blame me for their deaths? Were their last thoughts of hatred towards me? What have I done to cause this?

  “You cannot run forever, little one. We will find you,” the captive on the left yells at me, staring directly at me. He makes an attempt to stand up. The man standing over him reaches a hand out, palm forward. I feel as much as see the concussive force hit the captive in the chest. He falls backwards. With a foot planted firmly on his chest, the captor leans over the soldier and draws a gun. It fires, the sound echoing around the room. And he dies. Nothing dramatic. It’s over faster than my mind can comprehend.

  The other prisoner reacts instantly. Too quick for his own captor, the prisoner pushes past the team surrounding them. He’s almost at me before I realise he’s moved. They all react far too slowly. In other circumstances I might consider it comical how easily they let it happen. In other circumstances. With only a few metres between us, none of them will stop him reaching me.

  A stride away from me he stops. A rivulet of blood follows the knife as I pull it out of his neck. Moments before my mind was filled with images of blood flowing from him, abstract in their hyperrealism. With just that thought in my mind it was easy to work out what was going to happen next. I knew. Yet knowing what was going to happen I still felt powerless to deviate from the path fate laid out for me. I didn’t want this. Or did I? Correction; I shouldn’t want this. And yet consider those with throats slashed. Did they deserve their fate? This man surely deserves his. It’s easy to justify what I’ve done.

  Blood flows from the gaping wound I opened in his neck. He stands frozen before me, his face one of confusion. The room dims. Before I can stop myself, I’m burying the knife in him again. Again and again, I can’t stop myself. Arms reach under my armpits and pull me back. A firm hand holds my wrist. I fight the restraint; still I try to continue stabbing the man. At some point the knife is forced from me.

  “It’s enough. You did well,” Erik says.

  The faces around me turn from shock to celebratory smiles. That doesn’t seem right. What’s to celebrate?

  Erik shrugs. “We were hoping to get a bit more information from them before that, but…” I tune out of anything else he says, my thoughts lost to the chaotic violence. I have to get out of here. This room is stifling, walls crushing me, the light dims. I run outside and straight into Theo.

  “Hey, are you ok?” he asks.

  “What now?” I shake my head.

  “If Erik and his team are heading back to the safe house then you should probably go back with them, at least for now. Work out what you want to do from there where it’s safe. We’ll head back once everything is wrapped up inside.”

  That wasn’t the question I asked. I go and lean against the car and wait. Wait for Erik’s team to wrap up. Wait to face Cara. Wait for the world to stop spinning. Waiting isn’t such a fantastic idea, with hindsight.

  Ten long minutes it takes them to come out. Plenty of time to think about what I’ve done. It bothers me I couldn’t stop myself. It should bother me more than it does.

  Erik leads Cara from the building and over to me.

  “You don’t want to hang around for this next bit,” he says. “Oh and this belongs to you.”

  The Templar’s knife slides out of the sheath he hands me, its handle sitting familiar in my grip. Its blade mirror polished once again. I don’t want to know where it came from. The sheath fastens to my belt as if it belongs there.

  Theo takes Cara by the shoulders and guides her into the back of the car. I slide in beside her once she’s settled and sit there uncertain, torn between emotions, second guessing everything.

  My corvine watcher sits perched on the distant wall the only bird remaining. I guess their job is done. We watch each other, he on his seat and me on mine. Does he know what I’ve done? Does he sit there judging me? Hurry and play your part.

  The car starts and we drive away. My stalker recedes and with him the last memory of innocence.

  A Walk in the Park

  The drive back to the safehouse is sullen. There have been enough lessons for today. We’re the last to drive into the underground parking lot of the safe-house. One van is empty, the door into the building open. The rest are open as people unload. I open my car door and am half out the door when an explosion in the building rips through the silence. It’s followed by the sound of sporadic automatic gunfire. A member of Erik’s team comes running out of the building. She’s covered in blood. Smoke follows her out the door.

  “It’s a trap! It’s a bloody trap!” She screams.

  The squeal of tyres can be heard on the street above. Suddenly the car park explodes into activity, people running everywhere.

  Erik screams at our car, to Theo, “Get them the hell out of here. Go!”

  More automatic weapons start adding themselves to the cacophony. Cara grabs an arm and pulls me into the car. Theo punches the accelerator and I’m flung awkwardly over Cara. My feet touch the roof while my face is down between Cara’s knees, looking at the footwell. I’ve looked better. The sound of the car flooring it through the car park echoes hollow.

  “How did they find this place?” Theo asks. “Hell girl, what the fuck have you brought down on us?”

  Crunch. The car hits something hard, steel on steel. The impact hurls me violently against the forward seats. My shoulder hits something awkwardly, plastic and steel digging into me. It hurts. The pain doesn’t stop. I have no idea what’s going on outside.

  Arms guide me back onto the seat. I’m not sure I’m glad to finally be able to see out the window. Behind us soldiers stand around vehicles sub machine guns pointed in our direction. We haven’t travelled more than 50 metres down the road yet we’re facing the wrong direction. Smoke rises up from the bonnet. The rear windscreen shatters as the soldiers open fire. Theo swears.

  “Get ready to run for it. This car isn’t going to get us much further. Be ready,” he yells at us.

  We make the end of the street, no further. The car’s wheels lock up as one of the damaged engines grinds itself to a halt. It slides sideways into the intersection.

  Theo is out of the car instantly. He stands in the doorway and draws a small handgun I didn’t know he had, shooting back at the soldiers over the car roof. At this distance, there are no quivering barn-doors.

  “Run you fools. Get the hell out of here!” he yells back at us.

  We don’t need to be told twice. Here we are, running again. Any direction will do.

  “I know a place we can go,” Cara says as we run. “We need to work out what the hell is happening.”

  Cara leads me to a large fenced off block holding nothing but an overgrown forest. The sign at the entrance marks it as the city botanical gardens.

  “I used to come here all the time growing up,” she says. “I would to spend days in here. It’s been untended since the war so it’s a little overgrown but I think that might work to our advantage if we need somewhere to hide. At the very least there are so many hidden tracks through here that you could lose anybody if you needed to.”

  She walks me down a winding pathway, heavily shaded by the forest growing overhead. We settle underneath a large fig tree that looks over an overgrown grass field, the remains of a crumbling picnic hut distinguishable in front of us. There isn’t another person in sight.

  “How are you feeling?” I get the courage to ask her.

  “Hungry I guess,” she says, dodging the question.

  “How are you really feeling?” I push.

  She shuffles up next to me and lays her head into my neck. “Torn. Irreparable. I want to feel sad for them, but I can’t. I can’t accept it. And then there’s you, I wish we could have met under better circumstances. My world is crumbling around me and I want to help you but I’m not sure how long I can do this before I fall apart. You deserve better. I know you want to find your sister and I want to help you. But
I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up until I unravel.”

  “You’ve given me enough. I can’t ask for more. You don’t have to follow me. I only see it getting worse,” I say.

  At that moment, her resolve visibly hardens. She leans back from me, eyes red but alert. She sits there a moment, just looking at me.

  “I’m not sure what I can do to help, but I’m in. You stood by me and I’ll stand by you. I know what I’m getting into,” she says, “but I’m not sure where we start.”

  “And that’s where I come in,” a voice says, accented mildly Irish, out of nowhere despite us being alone. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for you to slow down?”

  “What the hell?” I exclaim, looking around for the source of the voice.

  I’m ready to bolt, before I see the cause of my alarm. On a branch above us sits half a metre of exceptionally black crow. My stalker. Up close it’s easy to see she’s far from your typical crow. Her feathers lack the iridescence hues of a normal crow; so pitch black that it’s impossible to make out individual vanes. Hell, she’s so black it’s difficult to focus on her at all. Then there are the faint red eyes, the only identifiable feature. Faint black vapor seeps from her. It makes her appear scorched.

  She takes notice of the confused look I give her. “I upset somebody once. It’s a long story.”

  “It talks…” Cara looks stunned.

  “She talks.”

  “You’re a construct?” I ask.

  “Err, no, not really,” she responds. “It would be closer to say I’m your construct, but the way you use the word ‘construct’ isn’t correct. It definitely doesn’t tell the whole story.”

  “Wait, hold up. I’m talking to a bird and it’s talking back.”

  “As if that’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you today,” she says. “You’ll have to imagining me shrugging here. Birds can’t really do that you know, even the talking ones.”

  “What are you then? Do you have a name?” I ask.

  “Again, picture me shrugging. What do you want to call me? I am an omen of death. Something you have a lot of experience with lately. You could say that you are the harbinger of death. Thus, I am you. Or yours, there isn’t any difference from my point of view, but I think it might help you if think of it that way. Hmmm, perhaps that’s a bit too dramatic.”

  “You are me?” I ask confused.

  “You, yours, yes. I’m not a construct though, I was never constructed. I am an intelligent being. I guess I look like a construct in your world though. One day you’ll wonder if there is a difference. No idea on that by the way. Still, we’re not here to discuss philosophy, no? I’ve been called a lot of things before, but if you’re looking for a name, call me Nem.”

  “Do you know where my sister is?” I ask.

  “No, but I can fill in some of the missing pieces you’re looking for.”

  “What missing pieces?”

  “I can tell you how they’re using her to find you. Because everything that has happened to you these past days is because of how easily they can find you. Because they’re not playing fair, so I’m here to balance the scale. Because you know how I called you a bringer of death? Frankly you’re not very good at it. Because there are some things you need to learn over the coming days and there are few people left who can teach you. Because you’re looking for one of those last few like yourself and to find her you’re going to need to take in what I teach you quickly.”

  “Ok, but what’s that got to do with my sister?” I ask.

  “I’m getting there, I’m getting there. It would be too ironic to talk about how impatient you are. To understand who has your sister, you need a history lesson. It’s going to be a long story so get comfortable. We need to go back to what started the veil war, since your generation seems to have lost all knowledge on what really happened. Here’s what you need to know.

  “The veil, as you call it, isn’t just these realms of free flowing energy, as most of you humans seem to think. Roaming those energy planes are entities, some sentient, some not so. Some are simple; all they do is feed off of stray energy and each other. Like me, there are others far more intelligent. And they have various intentions behind their existence.

  “In histories past, when they’ve decided to interact with humans, humans have called them many things: gods, demons, angels, spirits, familiars. The list goes on. None of those definitions captures their essence, but humans….”

  “Gee thanks.” I roll my eyes at her.

  Nem ignores me and continues talking. “Before the veil war, the government was run by a circle of talented who, by the very exceptional nature of their abilities, were able to keep control of the population, as governments are wont to do. Those you call Nons, like your parents, were a separate faction, constantly persecuted by that government. I guess it was just for being different. There was a lot of fear about their potential.

  “The Nons fought a losing battle. They were divided. A splinter sect was formed by those that were willing to go to any length to bring down the government. And of course, it only takes a few bad apples to ruin things for everyone. Those with malicious intent don’t go looking for angels now do they?

  “The government discovered this sect’s plan and panicked, naturally. It turned from run of the mill persecution into a policy of outright elimination. And they saw no difference between Nons, believing any could be corrupted.

  “For a long while, the Nons held out, despite the immense pressure upon them from the government. Your parents had a lot to do with that. Things were heading towards a stalemate. People were tiring of the war.

  “To break the stalemate, the talented government of the time devised an ingenious plan to empower the non-psychic proletariat in an attempt to bring overwhelming numbers into the war. They developed a fanatical religious military force to hunt Nons. They patterned it on a bastardised memory of an army long forgotten, the Knights Templar. Of course, given the rather broad fanaticism that had been honed in their training, when the government let their dogs off their leash it didn’t take long for them to turn on their masters. The hunters became the hunted.

  “Those in the circle running the government quickly lost their heads, but the Templars were non-discriminant. If you were talented you were fair game. They established their own puppet government and set to work eliminating anybody with even the smallest amount of talent. The Nons, given their greater potential, were particularly targeted. The Templars were relentless to such an extent that there are few talented humans left to tell the true history of the war. The loss of lives and the large scale destruction during the second phase of the war was the greatest devastation humans have ever witnessed. Your generation doesn’t have the remotest idea of what humanity lost to that destruction.

  “Nobody ever talks about what the war was about,” I say.

  “Maybe they’re ashamed? Who knows? Maybe you’ll be able to find somebody to ask one day.”

  “So why are they suddenly targeting me? And how are they using my sister to do it?” I ask.

  “As vicious as the Templar are, they’ve always been fairly one-tracked. Shoot first, ask questions later, you know? But now it’s clear somebody else is pulling the strings. And that somebody has been trying to reach out to some of the most malicious of entities from across the veil. That’s where you and your sister come into it. As Nons you have the unique ability to cross the veil. For years they’ve held her, looking for a way to use her as a conduit through the veil. Unwilling to push her too hard in case they damaged her, they’ve had little success. But these are the kinds of entities who have centuries of practice being patient.

  “And then they captured you. With you, they now had somebody to experiment with, to push, to learn the best methods to twist your sister against her very nature.”

  “So me getting captured made things worse for my sister?” I ask.

  “Very much so,” Nem says. “As for how they’re finding you, you
and your sister share a bond, a permanent link between you. Most people who spend time together form some sort of bond. For your sister to have hidden it this long is impressive. She did well. But knowing the bond exists between you the government could easily tap it and trace that link to locate you.

  “You have a choice to make and considering how long you’ve been sitting here, you need to make it quickly. Then you need to get the hell away from here.”

  I interrupt, “What choice?”

  “Your choice is this,” Nem continues. “We cut the link. Without it, whoever is watching you won’t be able to use it as an anchor to find you. Once it’s cut though it’s cut for good. You’ll lose that bond with your sister. The other option is to take a page from their book and trace the link in the other direction, to the location of your sister. Of course, without breaking the link, they’re going to know exactly where you are, all the time. You’ll be constantly on the run. How long do you think you can keep that up?”

  “That’s not a choice,” I say frustrated. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. And how are we going to do it anyway? How are they doing it?” I ask.

  Cara stares at Nem. “Did you bring us together on purpose?”

  She turns back to me and begins explaining, “Remote viewing. It’s an ability that, to some extent, allows you to ‘see’ a place remotely. It’s similar to my precognitive ability. But while my talent moves through time to show images, a viewer’s ability lets them move spatially. They normally need an anchor though, something to locate themselves in space else it’s hit and miss at best. Your link with your sister is perfect for that. While there are other talents that can be used for tracking someone, RV works the most consistently. As for knowing somebody able to do it, I know one.” Cara pauses. “Though, she’s going to be difficult to convince.”