by Ramsey Isler
“You give me too much credit,” I said.
“You give yourself too little,” she said.
I laughed at that. “I’m not being modest. I’m being realistic. I don’t see how this idea is going to help. I have no idea how to even find Kellar.”
Dominique slowly walked over and took a seat next to me on the couch. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “You just had an encounter with more nightcrafters than we’ve ever seen in one place. There’s also been a worldwide spike in unexplained nighttime events. Something is up. The nightcrafters are getting bolder and more conspicuous. If we find enough of them, we’ll eventually make our way to Kellar.”
“And what do you plan to do with him if you get him?”
“We convince him,” Dominique said.
“Convince like . . . persuade? Or convince like torture the hell out of? Because I don’t think you’re going to have much luck either way. Why in the world would he destroy the thing that has given him so much power?”
“You just find him,” Dominique said. “Leave the convincing to me.”
I sighed and rubbed my forehead. I felt a headache coming on. “You know, Kellar isn’t the only powerful nightcrafter out there. There are thousands of others who would still be around to fight us even if we could get Kellar”
“They’re not a concern,” Dominique said. “All I care about is getting Kellar to help us close the Rift. Without the Rift, the nightcrafters have no power. They will no longer be a problem. We won’t need to know who they are, or where they are. It won’t matter. Without their magic, they won’t be a threat anymore.”
She had a point. I mulled it over silently for a few seconds, and made a decision. “Okay then. We’ll try it your way. We need to start small though. I suggest we work our way up to Kellar by taking out some junior nightcrafters first. Maybe we can get some info out of them. If we can harass or capture enough nightcrafters maybe we’ll even get Kellar’s attention and he’ll seek us out. That might end up being something we’ll regret, but it’ll certainly get things moving one way or another.”
“Agreed,” Dominique said.
“I need resources if you expect me to pull this off. Weapons, vehicles, manpower. We’ll have to go on raids to catch our first nightcrafters by surprise.”
Dominique nodded. “Tell me what you need and I’ll get it for you.”
“This won’t be easy,” I said.
“I never expected it to be.”
I took a deep breath, let it out, and said, “Give me a few days to think of a plan. I’ll send you a shopping list.”
CHAPTER 4
Dominique fulfilled her promise and gave me everything I asked for — security clearances, a mission budget, and a few Men with Guns.
Regardless, the first raid didn’t go well.
The Men with Guns were an eager, young bunch. The oldest guy was my age. Dominique explained that these were the boys NATO needed to train up a bit more, and they were the best she could recruit without divulging more information on the mission to the Powers That Be. I was fine with that, as exuberance was more important than experience for this task. No one in NATO had the experience required for this kind of work anyway.
So it worked out for both Dominique and I. I had the muscle I needed, and her raw recruits would get valuable field training . . . assuming they survived, of course. The most senior guy on the squad, Darius Allen, was a boulder-sized man with a Texas drawl and a baby face. Although he had the appearance of an overgrown teenager, he had hard eyes that looked like they had been transplanted from a Vietnam War vet who had seen some things you wouldn’t believe. The moment I introduced myself as team leader, he just looked at me with what I can best describe as a mix of disdain and disappointment, and after that he wore that sour face every time I saw him.
With Allen were Trent Brody, Garland Carr, and Duke Jackson. Carr and Jackson seemed to look up to Allen and they eagerly agreed with whatever he said. Brody, however, was a different sort. As the smallest of the four, he didn’t have much of a physical presence. But he was focused and sharp, and he listened attentively to every word I said during our quick briefing sessions. Allen and his buddies subtly berated me for my lack of knowledge of the finer points of military operations, but Brody was supportive and he filled in the gaps for me. He wasn’t exactly a warm person, but he was at least helpful.
My conscience nagged me during every stage of planning for the first raid. I wasn’t allowed to tell my new team all the info they would need to be truly effective. Only about a hundred government officials in the whole world had been given clearance to know about nightcrafters and the Rift. These boys would be going into the mission with only the most rudimentary instructions and my nightcrafting skills to guide them. To say it was a stressful situation would be an extreme understatement.
On top of all that, it was clear my Men with Guns didn’t quite respect my leadership position. They knew I wasn’t one of them. They were all country boys, raised in rural areas and taught how to shoot guns before they even hit puberty. I was a city kid, through and through. They were trained killers. I don’t even kill spiders.
But, despite their disappointment in me, they were still psyched for this super-secret, seemingly important mission. Too bad they didn’t know what they were in for.
* * *
The first raid — the one that didn’t go well — happened in a place called Long Branch. It’s a beachside area in New Jersey that is technically a city since it has about forty thousand people living there. But it feels like a town to me. New York is a city. This place didn’t compare in my book.
Long Branch is right on the Atlantic shore, and well within the border of the Rift’s spread zone. The reports of odd night activity here were consistent, and gradually becoming more common. The residents had been calling the local police and news crews about strange shadowy figures in the evenings, odd sounds, and missing pets. Telltale signs of visits from Rift-kind.
Generally speaking, the things that live on the other side of the Rift stay there. They’re happy to stay in the infinite blackness of their own world. But nightcrafting pulls energy and matter directly from that mysterious place beyond the Rift, and sometimes some unwanted things get dragged along. That’s when people start hearing bumps in the night and whispers in the dark.
My team arrived early in the day and set up base in an empty warehouse near the beach. Along with my Men with Guns, Dominique sent a small crew of NATO doctors and nurses with Top Secret Clearance. They had also been trained to deal with unusual field injuries. Their orders were to stay in radio contact, wait at the base in case anything happened, and keep it all hush-hush. I chatted with them and they all seemed very knowledgeable and extremely professional, but I hoped I wouldn’t have to see their skills in action.
Once we had a field base set up, my Men with Guns were ready to go. We were set up with a custom blue van as our mission vehicle. It was armored and had plenty of specialized fittings for tactical operations. In our ears were specialized miniature radios that we could use to keep in contact at a distance. We were also dressed in utility worker gear. If any suspicious resident might have problems with strange men walking around the neighborhood with flashlights, we’d just say we were from the gas company and investigating a leak. Allen was elected to drive, and we set out just before nightfall.
“Can we finally know what it is we’re looking for?” Allen asked a few minutes after we left base.
“The details are still classified,” I told him. “Just stay on this road and I’ll let you know when to stop.”
I pulled out my mission laptop and looked through my notes. As prep for this raid, I’d spent some hours sifting through the records from the Long Branch police. The reports of strange activity that had attracted me here all followed a pattern that created a circle around a spot in the middle of a residential area. A quick GPS lookup gave me a list of addresses around that spot.
I gave Allen directions to the
target location, and in a few minutes we were slowly rolling past a quaint colonial home with a white picket fence and an American flag waving from a pole on the porch. This house seemed to be as good a starting point as any.
“The local police reports mentioned something about a prowler that showed up last night,” I told the team. “The family dog was outside at the time. He barked at the intruder, then abruptly stopped. They never found the prowler, or the dog.”
“So are we looking for the thug, or the dog?” Carr asked.
“Neither,” I said. “There’s something else going on here.”
Allen parked about three blocks from the place. We all got out of the vehicle and checked our gear. The Men with Guns were equipped with fully automatic pistols. They were powerful weapons, but easy to conceal under the reflective utility worker jackets we wore. Each gun had an attachment with a small, removable flashlight under the barrel. But these weren’t ordinary lights. Newton had designed them to emit powerful beams that would rip a Rift-kind apart with ease.
I signaled the team to gather around me. “Everything you’re going to see during this mission is classified,” I said. “You will not mention it to anyone outside this team unless directly ordered to do so. If you find anything, or anyone, that looks suspicious you will flash your lights on it. Let me repeat that. Use your lights. You do not fire unless you’re attacked first. Got that?”
“Yes, sir,” they said in unison. Their voices were solid. Their faces were serious. Despite their doubts about me, when the time came to do work they were all business.
“Search the perimeter of that house I pointed out,” I said, looking to Jackson, Brody, and Carr. “Allen, check under the deck in the backyard.”
“The deck?” Allen asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Don’t crawl under there or anything. Just use your light to scan anyplace someone might be hiding.”
Allen gave me that narrow-eyed glare of his, but he did as he was told like a good soldier. Rift-kind don’t usually hide around houses, so I felt he’d be okay. Still, I dipped into the Rift for a second to make sure he wouldn’t find anything that would try to eat his face off. The area was clear . . . for now.
Fifteen minutes later, we regrouped back at the mission vehicle. Carr, Brody, and Jackson seemed thoroughly bored, but Allen had a sour look on his face.
“Found the dog,” he said. “It’s dead. Pretty messy.”
“Think an animal did it?” I asked.
“Doubt it,” Allen said. “Rover was ripped to pieces, and that was a big dog. There ain’t no kind of animal around here that could do that.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I said. I was sorry for the poor pup, but its death had provided proof we were in the right spot. Now all I had to do was keep the civilians out of our way while we dug deeper.
The team stayed behind while I walked up to the front door of the house and rang the doorbell. I’d read the police report thoroughly so I knew what to expect. Anna Leeds lived here with her two teenage sons. She recently separated from her husband and they were going through a nasty divorce, which led her to initially believe that her ex may have stolen the family dog. The reality was much worse: her family was now caught in the wake of a nightcrafter.
A small, bushy-haired woman opened the door. She had dark circles forming under her eyes and creases in her forehead. Just one look at her left no doubt that her life was sad and stressful these days. “Hello, Mrs. Leeds,” I said. “You called in a report about some suspicious sounds?”
She nodded and eyed my uniform. “Our dog Bandit is missing too. Are you . . . from the gas company?”
“Uh . . . yes, actually. We were in the area looking for some possible leaks and the police let us know about your report so we could keep an eye out.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Leeds said. “So . . . ?”
“I’m afraid we’ve found your dog,” I said. “I’m sorry to say he’s . . . uh . . . passed away.”
She covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes watered. “Oh my god. How?”
“Uhm. A mountain lion got him.”
“A mountain lion?” Mrs. Leeds said in a low voice. “There are mountain lions in New Jersey?”
“Well . . . no, ma’am. We believe it might be a . . . an escaped pet or something like that. Some rich guy probably illegally ordered one to impress his friends.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Leeds said.
“Mrs. Leeds, I’m going to have to ask you and your family to stay in your home while we try to track the mountain lion down until animal control arrives. It’s very important that you stay inside tonight. Also, lock all your doors and keep all the lights on. That should keep the animal away from the house.”
Mrs. Leeds looked terrified. I was sure I’d just given her reason for even more sleepless nights. But her fear would keep her wary, and hopefully help keep her family safe.
Once Mrs. Leeds had shut and locked the door, I walked back to my Men with Guns. Brody looked at me with a smirk. “So, we’re hunting a cougar now?”
“No,” I said.
“Then what are we hunting?” Carr said.
“A different kind of creature,” I said.
“Huh?” Allen said. “A description would be helpful.”
“You’ll know it when you see it,” I said.
The last bit of sun sank below the horizon, and dusk turned into night. I muttered a simple spell to myself to prep for what was to come. The words themselves didn’t have any power, but the repetition brought a change in my mental state that allowed me to access the Rift more easily. The odd little mantra was one of Kellar’s creations, and every time I repeated it I couldn’t help but recall bittersweet memories. Those memories quickly faded as the spell focused my mind on the dark. The Rift was strong here. We were close to the Atlantic Ocean, where the Rift had spread the most over the past few centuries, and the power of the darkness enveloped me.
Dominique and Newton have asked me what the Rift feels like. It’s always hard to explain, but the best I’ve been able to come up with is that it’s like swimming in a lake of ink. The matter that oozes out of the Rift surrounds you, clings to your skin, and blots out your features. You feel like you’re floating. You can also feel ripples and waves from others playing in this ebony pond. As I slipped into nightcrafting mode, I felt some of those waves washing over me in rapid succession. Someone was drawing a lot of power from the Rift, and they were close.
I turned towards the source of the waves and ran forward. I didn’t spare a look behind me, but I guessed that my teammates were silently following close behind. I scrambled between trees and through bushes, letting the Rift guide me to the source of the waves while making sure my own wake in the dark pond was nothing more than tiny ripples.
I stopped. I felt another presence in the Rift. Not a wave, nor a ripple, but something entirely different. It instantly reminded me of an incident from years ago. When I went for a swim in the Florida Keys as a child, a docile nurse shark brushed up against my leg. The unexpected sensation of its rough skin and the taut muscles beneath sent an indescribable shock through my system. That’s what this was like, but worse. There was something else out there and, unlike that shark I met on that day, this was no docile creature.
“Guys, look out for trouble,” I whispered. The Men with Guns, following me diligently as I had expected, immediately scrambled for cover and brought up their weapons.
“I got visual on a target,” Brody said. I looked up to where he was staring, and found an ephemeral creature with tentacles hanging in the air a few feet ahead of him. I knew what it was immediately: an inkwell.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Inkwells aren’t predators (they don’t even have teeth). This one was barely noticeable in the dark, but it was definitely there. I was impressed that Brody was able to pick it out. But, just as I was about to praise him for his find, the creature made a lunge towards him and he did something tragically stupid.
I can’t really blame him. His whol
e military career was spent training to do one thing: shoot stuff. He was hardwired with a trigger finger, and my short tutorial on Rift-kind extermination was hardly enough to change that. So, instead of turning on his flashlight, he squeezed his trigger finger and let off a few rounds. Then everything went to hell in the proverbial handbasket.
Brody’s partners instantly reacted to the sound of gunfire. They crouched low, and scanned the area for a target. Of course they weren’t expecting a floating monster made of shadow, so they searched ground level for enemies. Meanwhile, Brody’s new friend with the tentacles wasn’t too happy about all the attention. The inkwell did the one thing it’s known for — squirting out a stream of concentrated Rift material to cover its escape. It lashed out at Brody and covered his face in a cloud of darkness.
That’s when Carr finally saw the creature. His eyes grew as big as eggs when he realized he was staring at a six-foot-long ephemeral horror with more tentacles than he could count. He froze up for just a second, which was a good thing because we didn’t need more bullets in the air. I pulled out my own flashlight and shone it on the creature, but the inkwell was quick. I was only able to disintegrate a few tentacles before the damn thing darted behind a group of trees.
“W-what the hell was . . . that?” Carr said. He started trembling.
“Stay cool,” I said. “It’s gone.”
“Man down!”
That was Allen’s voice. His usual icy demeanor had been replaced with pure terror. I looked to where he was kneeling, and Brody was lying on the ground next to him.
“What’s wrong with him?” Jackson said as he watched Brody thrash violently on the ground.
I ran over to Brody and immediately knew what the problem was. “He’s dying.”
Like an octopus shooting ink to defend itself, the creature had spurted out material from the Rift straight into Brody’s face. When he inhaled, the stuff saturated his lungs. Now it was suffocating him from within.
“He can’t breathe,” Carr, said. “Maybe something’s stuck in his windpipe.”