A Mystery of Light

by Brian Fuller

  Above the hills to the north, branches, leaves, and even entire trees circled in the wind only to get ejected. There were even auras spinning in the tornado-like cloud before getting spit out. Some Ash Angels crash-landed on the hill just up from the river. Relentless lightning gashed down from the cloud. Helo squeezed his BBSG. He had to get over there. They needed him now. He wasn’t going to hide in the basement.

  He tapped his comms. “This is Helo. How is the battle going?”

  “Under control,” Argyle said, words coming out fast and shaky. “It’s all under control. Grand Archus Mars knows what he’s doing. Hold position.”

  Helo paced for two minutes. The epicenter of the maelstrom spun back and forth behind the top of the northern hills, more auras sucked into the sky and then thrown down.

  Then he saw his first Dread clown emerging out of the forest by the riverside on the north, stained baggy pants, orange hair, and water-stained makeup done in the creepy clown style Finny was worried about. The Dread carried an Ash Angel soldier in its arms and dumped him in the river, body turning to Ash. It turned to go, but someone drilled it in the back with a sniper rifle, sending it face-first into the trees.

  “They’re coming. They’re coming,” Argyle said, voice fast and high.

  More and more Dreads popped out of the trees, all from the north, dumping Ash Angel bodies in the water. Then two emerged from the south side, tossing more victims into the river. Sicarius Nox was firing like mad, but more and more Dreads emerged and sped away to fetch new Ash Angels to cast into the river.

  This couldn’t go on. They had to get into the fight or there wouldn’t be anyone left to use the Foundry. Helo turned right off the porch and jogged toward the trees, where muzzle flashes lit up the shadowy darkness. Faramir spun as Helo approached, the tassels of his stupid hat whipping across his face—a face wide-eyed with terror. Argyle wasn’t much better. Finny, Shujaa, and Andromeda had set up their BBSRs on a rock and were blasting away.

  Argyle crouched behind a rock, eyes almost wild. “What are you doing here?” he yelled. “Your station is in the house. In the house! The Shedim could be here any minute.”

  “We’ve got to go!” Helo said. “They need us. They’re getting slaughtered!”

  Sparks came around from behind another set of rocks. “I agree. We’ve got to move.”

  Argyle stood, neck bulging. “You will do as you’re ordered. It’s under control! Under control. They won’t get us. They won’t!”

  “I’m going,” Helo said. “I’m not going to stand here and let this happen!”

  Argyle blew Helo’s leg off at the knee with a well-aimed shot from his BBR. Helo fell to the ground, and Argyle kicked his weapon out of his hands.

  “You will do as you are told for once!” Argyle spat.

  Andromeda, Finny, and Shujaa turned around.

  “We’ve got to help!” Helo said, scooting to a sitting position. “We’re Sicarius Nox. The Shedim are on the other side of these hills! We don’t go now, and this is over!”

  Argyle leveled his BBR at Helo’s face. “Shut up. We stay here where we’re safe.”

  Helo looked around at his squad. Indecision played across their faces. “Come on!” he said. “Can someone else be insubordinate for once?”

  “Okay,” Sparks said. Then he pulled his BBG like a cowboy from the Old West and double-tapped Argyle to the head. Their commander slumped to the ground. “Whoops! That was an accident, I swear. Heal Helo, Faramir.”

  Faramir backed up, hands in the air. “No, uh, I . . .”

  Sparks sped forward and put his BBG to Faramir’s head. “Do it, or my weapon might accidentally go off again.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  Helo grabbed his dismembered leg and pulled it back to his knee. Faramir healed him.

  “Andromeda, you’re in charge, now,” Sparks said. “What’s the plan?”

  “Uh—”

  Helo cut her off. “Shujaa stays here to pick at the Dreads. Sparks and I go north after Whirlwind. The rest of you go south. You too, Faramir. Bright and fight along the water’s edge to keep the Dreads from dumping more bodies, then take down the Shedim. Let’s go.”

  No one argued. Sparks reloaded, and Helo grabbed his BBSG.

  “Ready?” Helo asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Sparks said.

  “Let’s put on a little Speed,” Helo said.

  They tore out of the forest, crossed the road, and Strength jumped over the river. Mid arc, Helo let go his first blast of Glorious Presence, stunning two Dreads dragging Ash Angels to the water. Once on the other side, he ran down the trail, which was now littered with branches and leaves from the thrashing trees. The storm howled ahead of them and to their left.

  They found the two stunned Dreads on their knees at the water’s edge, clown costumes ripped, makeup smeared.

  “We don’t burn them we’ll be fighting them again in ten minutes,” Sparks said. Helo Angel Fired them both, bodies collapsing into dust.

  More clowns angled down the hill ahead of them, and they pulled back behind a tree. Helo counted at least seven Dreads scouring the hillside for felled Ash Angels. The sight of a clown horde pushing through a dim forest was a nightmare come true.

  “I’ll blast them with Glorious Presence as we run,” Helo said. “Disable them for now. We’ve got to clear the hill and get to the Sheid.”

  Sparks nodded and they broke cover. Up the hill they sprinted, powering through debris. Everywhere they saw Dreads, Helo let loose a strobe of Glorious Presence, hoping his Virtus would last. He needed enough to confront Whirlwind. Sparks followed behind, his BBR popping the confused Dreads with deadly accuracy. But if they didn’t get back and burn them . . .

  A Ghostpacker—a snarling, plump clown with a normal pistol—popped out from behind a tree. The first bullet peeled off Helo’s uniform at the shoulder, the second hit his body armor and did nothing. He belted the clown right in its bright-red nose, and it dropped with a thud.

  The higher they trudged, the more Ash Angel bodies they found, some shot, but most mangled and broken. Then a Thrall stumbled at a jog down the hill at them, blasting away with one of the new Dread rifles. Bullets tore up tree trunks and leaves around them. Sparks blasted at it, hitting it in the legs, but in the shadowy woods, they re-formed almost immediately. The Thrall would just keep re-forming without any light to stop it. It tumbled, got up, and jogged at them again, clown face painted red, black diamonds for eyes. And creepy yellow teeth.

  Angel Fire.

  It poured out of his hands and burned the Thrall from the head down. Sparks Hallowed the ground, keeping it from re-forming, and in seconds it was dust.

  “I want that Bestowal,” Sparks reminded him.

  They turned back toward the hill, the storm impossibly loud. There were gunshots going off on the other side, so the resistance wasn’t defeated yet. An entire tree sailed overhead, crashing into the canopy in time with an enormous boom of thunder. The rain came down hard now, mixed with hail. With every step up the hill, the ground got sloppier and slipperier. Helo stepped on a branch and stumbled, nearly falling over the body of a felled Ash Angel. It took him a moment to realize it was Melody. She lay facedown, back and neck bent at wild angles.

  He rolled her over, and her eyes widened. “Helo!”

  With a burst of Healing, her body popped into line. He extended his hand and pulled her up. Her pack was on, but whatever weapons she had were gone save for the sanctified katana still in its sheath at her hip. Helo handed her his shotgun.

  He took stock. Behind them more clowns—Dreads and Ghostpackers—crested the hill, looking for Ash Angels to toss in the river. The howling storm was centered on the other side of the hill, probably fifty yards away. He wasn’t going to leave Melody out here by herself, and he couldn’t take the time to go back across the hill to take care of the next batch of Dreads.

  “Sparks,” he said, “head back across the hill. Burn who you can with Stingers but keep them fr
om dumping Ash Angels in the river. Melody, you’re with me.”

  “We got six minutes till dusk,” Sparks said. “Be quick.” He ignited Speed and was off, guns blazing.

  “This sucks,” Melody said. Her face and buzzed hair were streaked with dirt, her face looking more like the night when nightmares had tormented her dreams.

  “It’s about to get worse,” Helo said. “Stay close to me.”

  “Always.”

  The last few yards to the top of the hill had them on all fours, mucking through the mud and hail and leaves. Hail the size of quarters beat relentlessly on them, shredding the canopy and clumping on the forest floor. To get to the top, they had to scramble over a tangle of broken trees, the full force of the wind slapping their faces. The carnage shook him. Colorado was nothing compared to this. All over the slope, the twitching, writhing bodies of Ash Angels and Dreads lay in broken heaps. Trees had been uprooted or snapped in half and thrown everywhere, splintered matchstick trunks jutting up from the ground.

  And there in the center of it all was the Sheid invisible inside its swirling cloak of leaves, trees, and hail. How was he going to do this? He could use his Speed and try to break through the outer wall of the wind funnel, but he wasn’t sure he could make it without joining the other bodies—Ash Angel and Dreads—whose auras spun toward the sky. But what could he use to get it to come to him?

  He tugged Melody back behind a thick tree. “You see all those Dreads? In about six minutes they’re all going to get back up.”

  “I know,” she said, yelling over the wind.

  “That happens, I want you to get out of this valley. Find camp.”

  She didn’t say anything, and he shrugged off his pack. “You got any C4?”

  “No.”

  He dug his out. He was going to need help to pull this off. He handed the C4 to her. “Hold this. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He slipped out from cover. Gunfire erupted farther down the valley, and Whirlwind moved toward it. Helo slogged through the quagmire, healing the first three Ash Angels he came to. Everywhere gunfire rang out, the Sheid followed, hunting out pockets of resistance. Dreads and Possessed ranged all over, scattered loosely around the woods.

  He led the three soldiers—two men and a woman—back to where Melody hunkered down with the C4.

  One of the soldiers, a man built like an NBA power forward, stepped forward. “Are you Helo?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m Samson. This is Mirror and Rust. It’s half of my squad. If you could heal—”

  “No time. Look, if any of you have C4, get it out.”

  “They tried that,” Samson said, unshouldering his pack. “They can’t get close enough for it to do any good.”

  “Right,” Helo said. “Get them primed and give me the detonators. We’ve got about four minutes before all these Dreads pop back up.”

  His comms crackled. He could barely hear it, but it was Sparks. “They’re coming over the hill in force close to the house. We need Spade and Martha’s teams.”

  They weren’t out yet? Was Mars waiting on something? Maybe he was down. Helo had no idea how to contact Spade or Martha. Maybe Andromeda did.

  “Andromeda, sitrep!”

  Nothing.

  “Three minutes till sundown,” Samson reported.

  That’s what they were waiting for. Keep the reserves in until after the Dreads got back up.

  C4 in hand, Helo led his ad-hoc team over the hill through the accursed wind and hail. He had to find a good spot, defensible but escapable. He found a grouping of low boulders covered in downed trees, three Dread clowns, blasted and twitching nearby, blown apart by what looked like BBSGs.

  “Melody,” Helo said. “You know how to use Stingers?”

  “Duh, Helo.”

  “Get them out and burn these three,” he said. “The rest of you, plant that C4 in front of this boulder. Bury it under the lip so it doesn’t get sucked up in the wind. I want the explosion to blow outward. Be quick.”

  He needed to get the Sheid to come their way. He stood on the rock and let off a couple pulses of Glorious Presence. It worked, Whirlwind’s destructive tornado reversing course right for them. Samson’s team finished planting the C4, returning and wiping their muddy hands on their pants.

  “Samson,” he said. “I need you to be bait. Fire into the maelstrom. If you’ve got Glorious Presence or Hallow, use it to draw its attention. Give me the detonators. Melody, you’re with me.”

  “Yes, sir,” Samson said.

  Now came the hard part. When the C4 went off, he had to be far enough away not to get blown to pieces but close enough to Hallow the ground and strike before the Sheid re-formed.

  And it was on its way. The wind lashed them. The hail clobbered them. The howling in his ears was deafening. He found a shallow depression partially covered by a fallen tree. He pushed Melody into the slushy hail at the bottom and followed her in, tracking the progress of the Sheid. Samson and his team unloaded everything they had, Glorious Presence breaking through with throbs of light. Then the outer edge of the swirling funnel engulfed Samson and his team, trees ripped away and flung into the air along with the three Ash Angel auras.

  He tripped the detonators.

  The ground rippled and rocked, the explosion booming. Melody shrieked. The tree over the depression sailed away, dirt and rock dumping down on them. Time to go.

  “Melody, stay here.”

  Helo extricated himself from the dirt and burst from the depression. The hail and wind had stopped, the sky starting to clear. Vexus swirled around the crater, the Sheid re-forming fast—too fast. He poured on the Speed, leaping fallen trees, branches slapping his legs. When he arrived at the crater’s edge, the Sheid had nearly re-formed into a wicked-looking clown with a blood-red face.

  Helo Hallowed. The field encompassed the Sheid, black mist steaming off it, keeping it from solidifying. All he had to do was spear it with his hand. He had taken two steps into the crater when a bullet nailed him square in the chest. His armored vest split open, and he went down hard on his back, chest mushy. His hallow evaporated for a moment. He ignited it again, but it was too late. The storm was picking up again. The Sheid had re-formed, and it leapt into the air and out of the hallow, soaring high, a Vexus sword forming in its hands. Helo extinguished the hallow and lifted a hand, but his arm wasn’t working right.

  Down the Sheid clown came, sword pointed right at Helo’s head. His Angel Fire skewed left. This was it.

  Melody jumped from the edge of the crater, sanctified katana arcing through the air. The Sheid noticed her a half second too late. The blade bisected it cleanly, and the Sheid exploded, sword absorbing the Vexus and the sanctified glow winking out. Melody landed and rolled to standing, sheathing the sword. She had done it. The wind, rain, and hail dissipated.

  Melody crawled over to him and helped him sit. “Helo!”

  “I’m good.”

  He wasn’t completely broken, but his limbs were sluggish, especially on his right side. Dusk had to be upon them, and he had to get Melody out of here.

  His comms buzzed. “Helo!” It was Sparks. “Is it down?”

  “It’s down. How long till dusk?”

  “Forty-five seconds. It’s going bad down here.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Melody. Help me to the edge,” he said. “Stay down. Now listen. You need to run to get help at the farmhouse. The commander is Spade. Got it? The entrance to the facility is in the freezer in the basement. Go now.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Melody. Go. As fast as you can. This is the job! There’s a sniper out there, so don’t run straight.”

  She didn’t like it, her face twisted with indecision.

  “Go!”

  She broke out of the crater, working her way to the top of the hill through the tangled mess of trees and fallen bodies. He scooted up farther. She was going too slow!

  As the sun fell below the horizon of the clearing s
ky, Helo’s heart sank with it. In moments, a veritable horde of fully healed Dread clowns had picked themselves up out of the mud—a red-aura resurrection with Melody right in the middle of it.

  Chapter 19

  The Best Line

  Helo could only watch as a Dread torched Melody, the red wave engulfing her. She fell twitching to the ground. He clawed his way out of the crater, kneeling at its edge. The Dread kicked Melody over onto her back, blasted her three times to the chest with a BBG, and picked her up. Other newly healed Dreads scooped up Ash Angel bodies from the ground after blasting or stabbing them in the heart. Almost as one, the muddy clown Dreads turned toward the hill leading down to the river.

  Helo pulled his BBG out and fired it into the air to get the Dreads’ attention. He didn’t know how many he could get, but he let loose with the biggest blast of Glorious Presence he could muster. The light flooded the clearing, but his Virtus was running low.

  He extinguished it. Stunned Dreads stumbled around and fell into the mud. The Dread carrying Melody had gone face-first into a rock, Melody’s body sliding to the ground. If he could get to her, he might be able to use Inspire to get her back up and out of the kill zone. He rose unsteadily to his feet, right side balking like he’d had a stroke. He fell as much as stumbled as he forced his way through the wrack.

  “They’re coming out!” Sparks said excitedly into his comms. “Spade and Martha are in the field. Where are you?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Helo said. “Clear the river so they can’t kill more Ash Angels.”

  “Copy that,” Sparks said.

  Melody was fifty feet away. He wrestled his way through the fallen branches of a tree as the darkness deepened. A mucky patch sent his right foot out from under him, and he fell hard to the ground. A nearby trunk, broken at the base, gave him the leverage he needed to get upright, but then a bullet drilled him high in the back. He couldn’t move anything anymore. He slid off the tree trunk and ended up with his eyes skyward, the first stars of evening staring down at him.