Firewalkers

by Chris Roberson

  “Third floor, then?” Daphne said over the clanging din from the speaker at her back.

  Izzie nodded. They made their way back to the stairwell, and started up the next flight of stairs.

  The third and fourth floors proved to be more of the same. Cubicle farms, mostly, with corner offices for management, supply rooms, and communications hubs. Izzie and Daphne both put down two more of the Ridden each, while Izzie stunned another security guard insensate with her Taser. But still no sign of Patrick.

  The effects of the ilbal had grown even more intense. Izzie and Daphne had reached the point now where they were communicating almost entirely nonverbally. A simple glance or quick gesture was enough to express almost any idea, and it was almost as though they were able to read one another’s minds. But their tension levels only increased as they ventured further into the building without meeting serious opposition, and the flames that surrounded each of them flickered with a growing intensity.

  And while they were not feeling the nausea or foul tastes that they normally associated with the nearness of the Ridden, there was something else that was beginning to dominate their perceptions. Izzie could think of it only as a sense of mounting wrongness, of things not being as they should be.

  It wasn’t until they stepped out onto the fifth floor of the Pinnacle Tower that Izzie had a better idea of what that sense of wrongness was trying to tell her.

  “Hello, ladies.”

  Patrick Tevake stood facing the door to the stairwell, his arms at his sides. He was wearing the same clothes that he had on the last time Izzie had seen him earlier that day, but they seemed to fit him differently now. Or perhaps it was the way he was standing, a different posture than he normally held.

  “Mind turning down the noise?” Patrick waved a hand absently, and that was when Izzie realized that he wasn’t focusing on either of them, but looking vaguely in their direction. “We need to talk.”

  Izzie stepped forward, and it was only as she drew a little closer that she began to see the thin tendrils of shadows that rose up from the crown of Patrick’s head.

  “Come on, there’s no need for further unpleasantness,” he said, and turned his head toward her, eyes blinking slowly.

  Whoever it was looking out those eyes at them, Izzie realized, it wasn’t Patrick.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Patrick was surrounded by darkness on all sides. He could feel nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing, but he was awake and aware. He had the distinct impression that there was something that he needed to remember, but his thoughts slipped away from him like quicksilver whenever he tried to focus on them.

  Had someone just spoken? Was there something that he was supposed to say? Something he was meant to do? A notion lurked at the back of his head, planted there in childhood, but Patrick struggled to think what it might be.

  The darkness was all consuming.

  The darkness was all.

  The darkness was.

  Izzie brought the stock of the shotgun to her shoulder, the barrel aimed at Patrick, but kept her finger well away from the trigger.

  “Daphne,” she said without turning around. “Kill the music.”

  “Wait, are you sure that’s a . . . ?” Daphne began, but Izzie cut her off.

  “Go on, turn it off.”

  They were in a large, empty atrium that seemed to fill most of the fifth floor, with only a single door on the far side of the room. And aside from Patrick and the two of them, no other people to be seen.

  The music blaring from the boombox came to an abrupt stop in the middle of a screeching guitar solo, and the sudden silence that filled the large, empty space was almost deafening.

  “Thanks for that,” Patrick said, a hand to the side of his head. “Was having trouble keeping it together with all of that racket.”

  Izzie raised the barrel of the shotgun so that it was pointed directly at his face. “Patrick, are you in there?”

  He smiled humorlessly, meeting her gaze. “What’s left of him, maybe. But not for much longer.”

  Izzie narrowed her eyes. “So who am I talking to?”

  “Your friend here has been lucky enough to take part in the Merger,” he said, gesturing airily with his hands. “But unlucky enough that he wasn’t a willing participant in the process, so it was a pretty unpleasant experience. The good news is that it won’t last.”

  Izzie’s aim wavered as she took that in.

  “So you’ll let him go?”

  The sound of his barking laughter was jarring coming from that familiar face, even as it twisted into an expression of remorseless cruelty. But the shadows that rose from his head twisted and morphed in time, as if dancing with amusement.

  “No; it won’t last because soon there won’t be anything left of him.” He took a step forward, and only stopped when Izzie jabbed the barrel of the shotgun in his direction. “Which is why I want to talk to you now, while this body is still able. Offer you the same chance that I offered him, see if you two are any smarter than he was.”

  Izzie felt a tap on her elbow, and out of the corner of her eye saw that Daphne had stepped forward and was standing by her side.

  “What do we do?” Daphne said out of the corner of her mouth, leaning in close.

  Izzie only shook her head in response, not sure how to answer yet.

  “Now, look,” he went on. “You two have been retiring my shareholders left and right tonight, and I can respect that you’ve got your reasons, but that has got to stop. But if you accept my offer to join the Merger, you can help offset the losses. I’m in the process of expanding my operation, and soon everyone in the city with a smart phone and a flu shot will be part of the team. But you’ve still got time to get in on the ground floor before we go public, and if you sign on now you’ll be able to keep enough of your memories and personality that you’ll still be around to enjoy it. Unlike your friend here, I’m sorry to say.”

  Izzie felt like she’d had about enough of this. Just listening to him speak was like nails on a chalkboard.

  “You are the loa, then?” Izzie said, cutting him off. “The thing down in the mine? From outside this world?”

  He rolled his eyes in annoyance, and Izzie could see shadows swirling deep within.

  “Obviously,” he said, his voice sounding less like Patrick’s with each passing moment. “Honestly, you’re as bad as the professor was. So, what do you say, ladies? This is a limited-time offer. Are you in, or are you out?”

  The shadows that writhed and pulsated around his head grew larger as she watched, and the flames that she could see limning his body were strained and weak.

  “Izzie?” Daphne breathed in a harsh whisper.

  Izzie could feel Daphne’s mounting concern radiating from beside her, and knew that they were both thinking the same thing. The loa was consuming more of their friend with each passing moment. Even now she could see pinpricks of inky black bloomed on his cheeks and arms, as more and more of the loa was forced down into his body.

  “Patrick, if there’s anything still left of you in there,” Izzie said, lowering the barrel of the shotgun, “just know that I’m sorry about this.”

  Then she pulled the trigger and fired.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Patrick’s body collapsed to the floor, his right leg below the knee stippled by the impact of the silver shot and salt, blood already staining his shoe.

  “Izzie!” Daphne shouted in surprise and alarm. Izzie didn’t waste time answering, but shifted her shotgun to her left hand, then knelt down and pressed the fingertips of her right to Patrick’s neck, checking for a pulse.

  “The longer we waited, the less of Patrick there was to save,” Izzie said, relieved to see that his pulse was regular and steady. The shadows that had wreathed his head had dissipated, and the flames around him burned low but had not yet gone out. Izzie had gambled that a small amount of silver in his system would break the loa’s hold on him, as it had with the Ridden woman in the lobby. T
hat much, at least, seemed to have worked out. “At least now there’s a chance he might pull through.”

  She cast a quick glance over her shoulder at Daphne, and saw that she was radiating concern.

  “Help me find something to use as a tourniquet,” Izzie said. “I don’t want him bleeding out before we can get him back to the . . .”

  Before she could get another word out, she was interrupted by the sound of a door slamming open on the far side of the room. She looked up in time to see a dark figure emerge from the open doorway, with more crowding in from behind.

  “Damn it,” Izzie spat.

  The Ridden were pouring into the room, their skin so mottled with inky blots that they were practically walking shadows themselves. But with the ilbal in her system, Izzie could see the actual shadows that writhed around them, so thick that they seemed almost a solid mass of pulsating darkness, hanging heavily above the room like a malevolent cloud.

  “Ke-ke-ke-ke.”

  As Izzie jumped to her feet, Daphne stepped in front of her and fired off a round from her own shotgun. The silver shot and salt pelted into the Ridden in the front of the pack, and the shadows spiked and gyred as their bodies fell motionless to the floor. But still more Ridden surged from behind them, stepping over the bodies of the fallen, advancing on them.

  Izzie moved to Daphne’s side, and fired into the inky mass. Then again, and again. The room echoed with the booming reverberations of each blast, but still the tide of Ridden surged closer and closer.

  Patrick hovered in darkness, feeling himself slipping away. From far off he could hear a sound like distant thunder, booming again and again, but he was too tired to focus. It was time to rest now. Time to let go.

  Though the floor was crowded with the motionless bodies of the Ridden, still more came pouring through the door, closing in around Izzie and Daphne.

  “Izzie?” Daphne said as she slammed her last magazine into her shotgun. “I think we need to go now.”

  Izzie scowled, swinging the barrel of her shotgun around and taking aim at a cluster of the Ridden who were approaching from the side. There was no way they could retreat, cover their backs, and carry Patrick out all at the same time. And since it would take both of them to lug his unconscious body, either they abandoned Patrick to the tender mercies of the Ridden, or they tried to carry him out together, leaving themselves open to an attack from the rear before they’d taken more than a few steps toward the door. Neither option was a very good one. But they needed to choose one before they were left without an option at all.

  Izzie squeezed the trigger, then stopped short. The spent shell failed to eject, but was stuck in the ejection port between the bolt and the chamber. She couldn’t fire another round without clearing it first.

  “Cover me!” she shouted at Daphne, and turned the shotgun so that the ejection port was facing the floor, working to knock the shell loose.

  Daphne stepped around her to fire at the approaching Ridden from her side, and then swung around to fire back in the opposite direction.

  “Damn it,” Izzie swore. The shell remained lodged in place. She had no choice but to pull the magazine and pry it loose. After snapping the magazine off and freeing up the ejection port, Izzie saw that there was just one shell left inside. She would need to make it count.

  “Izzie, look out!” Daphne shouted.

  “Ke-ke-ke-ke,” came an inhuman voice from behind Izzie’s back.

  Izzie turned just in time to see another group of the Ridden approaching from behind them. They must have come up the stairs from the lower floors, possibly drawn back to the Pinnacle Tower from elsewhere in the city.

  Before Izzie had a chance to raise her shotgun and fire, one of the Ridden lurched forward and bashed the gun from her hand. The shotgun clattered across the floor.

  Daphne managed to get off one final round of her own before another of the Ridden grabbed hold of her shotgun and wrenched it out of her hands.

  Izzie could scarcely focus, her field of vision all but completely obscured by the writhing shadows that the ilbal was showing her. She stepped back, until she could feel Daphne’s form pressed against her.

  “I’m sorry, Daphne,” she said, her hand finding Daphne’s, their fingers lacing together. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess.”

  Daphne squeezed Izzie’s hand tightly.

  “I’m glad I met you, Izzie,” she said, and left it at that.

  Izzie braced herself, anticipating the final attack of the Ridden, sure that they were about to be torn limb from limb. But instead, the mass of inky silhouettes stopped just within arms’ reach. They surrounded the two of them like a solid wall, staring silently at them with cold, dead eyes.

  “You ladies really should have taken my offer,” came a voice from deep in the milling crowd.

  The wall of teaming Ridden parted just enough for a man to step through.

  “You had the chance to get in on the ground floor,” Martin Zotovic said, tendrils of shadows waving around his head and shoulders like Medusa’s snakes. “But I’m afraid that offer isn’t on the table anymore.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “It’s a shame, really. Seems like you two have skillsets that would have made for useful additions to the Merger.” The Ridden had stepped back, leaving Izzie, Daphne, and the unconscious Patrick at the center of a broad circle as Martin Zotovic walked slowly around them, giving them an appraising look. Or rather, while the thing that had taken root in Martin Zotovic’s brain did.

  “Oh, well,” the Zotovic thing said with a shrug. “There’s always a need for grunt work, too.”

  Izzie remembered the things that her grandmother had taught her about the loa when she was growing up. And while the spirits invoked in Mawmaw Jean’s rituals were clearly not the same sort of being that Izzie was dealing with here, it occurred to her that similar rules of engagement might be in play. You addressed a loa depending on their personality and priorities, offering them what they desired in order to get what you wanted. And for whatever reason, the entity that was speaking to them now had taken on the personality of a chatty, self-impressed business executive, so perhaps the best move would be to take advantage of that, to stall for time until Izzie could think of something.

  “Why did you come here?” Izzie asked in as respectful a tone as she could manage. “What do you want with Recondito?”

  The Zotovic thing sighed dramatically.

  “You think I want to be here?” he said, waving his arms in exasperation. “I’m stuck here.”

  Then he paused, as if lost in thought. Izzie could see the shadows above him twitch and pulse as they grew larger and smaller by turns. He took a deep breath, collecting himself, and as he began to speak again it was as if he were sloughing the personality that he had adopted almost like a snake shedding its skin, and for a brief moment Izzie felt like she was seeing something of the true nature of the loa.

  “I found this place by accident, poking and prodding at the boundaries of my world. I reached through a crack, and found that it closed shut around me. Not fully here, but unable to return. Hidden deep, unable to remain exposed for long. But I could shelter in the minds of living things, and spread myself through them to others. Adopting their personalities as protective camouflage, nestled deep inside their minds. But the vessels are so fragile, their lives so brief. It is never enough, and in time I always return to the darkness, waiting for the next opportunity to spread out. But this time it will be different. This time I will take root in every mind here, and make this place my own.”

  As Izzie watched, the shadows that wreathed his head writhed and turned, and his face twisted, a hungry look in his eyes. But then the shadows gradually settled back into their usual patterns, and his face once more took on the self-impressed expression that she recognized from publicity photos.

  “But enough about me,” he said with a vicious grin. He reached into his pocket and pulled out of couple of Ink auto-injectors. “Let’s get you two in t
he pipeline, and then I’ll just have your doctor friend across the street to deal with. That ring of salt won’t stop my building security guards from grabbing her, and then we’ll have all four of you taken care of.”

  Oh no, Izzie thought with a jolt. Joyce!

  Deep in the darkness, surrendering to the cold, Patrick heard a voice calling out, like the song of a bird singing somewhere far off in the distance. And an ember inside of him sparked and flared, hungry to answer.

  Two of the Ridden detached themselves from the wall of bodies on Izzie’s left, and grabbed hold of her arms, wrenching her away from Daphne. Two more took hold of Daphne’s arms, holding them tight in a vice-like grip. Izzie tried to break free, but the Ridden shoved her down, her knees hitting the floor hard enough to make her eyes water. A moment later Daphne was kneeling beside her, jaw set and teeth barred, and Izzie could see the spikes of frustration and rage in the flames around her.

  “Okay, who wants to go first?” the Zotovic thing said, standing in front of them with an auto-injector in either hand. He looked from Izzie to Daphne and then back again. “Let’s start with you, Agent Lefevre. I’ve never had a chance to really repay you for stopping the professor from finishing his work the last time around, so it seems the least I can do.”

  He leaned down, bringing the auto-injector close to Izzie’s neck.

  “You had a good run,” he said in her ear, while she struggled to pull away from the auto-injector’s tip. “But it’s time to let someone else drive now. So why don’t you . . .”