by JM Guillen
Copy that, Alpha. I began to push myself upright, then stopped, caught in what I saw. Um, Gideon? I pushed myself backward and kept my gaze on the still moving remains. What the hell are they doing? They can’t see us, I know, but…
The gaunt Irrats had certainly stopped their attack. The moment I employed the Wraith, they backed away, their heads darting about.
Yet, they didn’t leave. Even though they’d watched us vanish, they didn’t wander off. Instead, they seemed to settle in where they stood, some swaying rhythmically in place.
I’m surprised they don’t just lope off, Gideon mused. They just watched us slaughter, what, twenty of their fellows? Even monkeys would run away.
It’s like they’re waiting for something. I watched as another one began to sway and tremble and twitch in place.
Gentlemen, Anya interjected, if you are no longer in immediate peril, I might remind you as to the situation at hand. Irrat 3302 is still at large.
Fuck. I’d almost forgotten Amir. I went ahead and pushed upright, limping as I placed weight on my leg.
If you can avoid a fight for three minutes, a lot of the knitting will be underway, Rachel tersely informed me. Until then, I can keep the pain down enough so you can move.
Copy that, Rachel. I whirled about, searching for Amir’s white outline.
He’s not too far, Gideon’s link felt as puzzled as I did. I show less than a hundred meters.
Affirmative, Alpha, Anya linked. He has remained there for the duration of your encounter. In the area around him, Rationality has shifted three degrees negative in the last two minutes.
I don’t like that. I tested my wounded leg and found Rachel’s handiwork had lessened the pain by quite a bit.
Me neither. Anya, will you overlay a token on Bishop and myself, while we’re beneath the Wraith?
Will comply. As she linked, a bright blue reticule appeared in my vision, presumably where Gideon stood.
These assholes were meant to buy him some time. Gideon stepped past some of the masked creatures as they swayed eerily in unison.
I did my best not to brush against any of them as I followed, just in case.
So he could set up some fresh bullshit. I toggled the focus on my disruptors back down. If Amir surprised us, I might shoot him dead before I realized what had happened.
Which would be a tragedy, of course.
I assume so. Gideon cleared his throat, a habit I found humorous since we linked the entire conversation. I don’t know what he’s doing, but I don’t like it. If you have a chance to take him, do it.
Will comply. I pushed my way past one of the eerie cultists, a young woman whose scraggly hair hung limply from beneath the copper mask. Her body odor was overwhelming, and I wondered idly how long it took the Darkened Road to reduce its followers to these inhuman things.
The masked figures became fewer as we pushed forward, there must have been more than seventy of them along the walkway, all waiting in place for us to pass.
All here for us, I mused to Gideon.
Yet he expected us to get past. Why else would he stop and prepare some other trap?
I—
Something in the distance broke my concentration. It began with a loud squeal, like rusty gears.
Water dripped slowly. Faster. Even faster, pouring into a torrent. The sound progressed from dribbling to thunderous in less than a minute.
Gideon heard it too. Rachel, how are we on mecha? Do we have enough geared to produce oxygen, if that were suddenly required?
Um, she paused. Bishop will have mecha in spades after his leg knits. Roughly three minutes. You, Alpha, could use another injectable.
Understood.
I peered over the edge into the dark water. Even in the dim light, the optics let me see enough to show exactly what was happening.
Alpha, this might be a problem. The water rose slowly.
Smells like low tide, he linked. These cisterns are gargantuan, Bishop. I don’t know how it would be possible to fill them with three meters of water.
Uh, let the entire ocean in? I quipped. Then I had a thought. Gideon, the cisterns are for drinking water. Why would it smell so much like brine?
Fuck if I know. Let’s pick up the pace. The sooner we take Amir, the sooner we can get out of these tunnels.
Will comply. I trotted along behind him, dodging the occasional masked, swaying horror.
The sooner we caught this asshole, the better.
4
The further we ran, the louder the din of the water grew. Eventually we saw the source: great spouts stuck through the ceiling through which thousands of gallons poured into the cistern. The unyielding din of the water felt like thunder in my bones, like a prehistoric beast’s growl.
We found Amir as he knelt, praying.
Anya, I need telemetry on the target. We were still ten meters or so from the kneeling man, but the Huntsman showed him clearly.
He didn’t even glance up at us, completely engrossed.
Minor fluctuations. No more than R1 or R2 super-Rational, Alpha.
What about Axiomatic obduracy? I fidgeted as I watched the figure.
Obduracy coefficient is still abnormal, although not as pronounced as it was near the other Irrats.
We take him fast. The marker that showed Gideon shifted a bit in my field of vision. Just because he can pull his bullshit more readily doesn’t mean he can’t be taken down.
On your mark, Alpha. I tensed.
Then, we were go.
“[Father of the First Light, hear me. Grant me understanding so—]” His prayer abruptly cut off when Gideon struck him in the side of the head with his Maverick and sent the man sprawling.
“Knock it off. Game over, asshole,” Gideon growled.
From Amir’s perspective, this strike and voice simply came from nowhere—we remained beneath the Wraith. He stared around, his eyes wild, and then started to speak.
“No.” Gideon fired the Maverick a half-meter to the side of the man, blasting a hole in the stone floor. “Stand up. Show me your hands and keep your mouth shut.”
Slowly, Amir pushed himself to his feet and cast his gaze all about. His steady hands turned palms toward us.
Without a word from Amir, they burst into brilliant white fire.
“AH!” I spun to one side and shielded my eyes as the brilliance scalded my optics. I staggered a bit at the shock of it.
Again my Crown burned with pain.
Wraith disengaged! Rachel cried through the link. I don’t know how he’s doing it, Alpha!
Target is on the move! Anya reported. The other cultists are stirring behind you. A sharp Irrational dip, three points… now four.
Fuck me, Gideon swore. This is all going sideways.
We sprinted after Amir.
Not two steps later, the water on one side of the cistern began to roil. With all the excitement, I hadn’t noticed it had risen quite a bit, and now the waterline reached less than a meter below our walkway.
Bishop… Dire warning came through Gideon’s link. I didn’t have time to question before the smell hit me squarely in the face.
That wasn’t the brine of ocean water.
The moment it hit me, I realized what I’d smelled the entire time.
Oh. My pulse raced, and I actually took a step back. Oh, fuck me!
It reeked of sulphur and ammonia combined with the stench of long-rotten flesh. The scent had remained with me, all these years, lurking behind whispers of memories from the Yucatán.
We have a problem, Anya. Gideon backed away from the churning water.
When the shapeless amoeba-abomination oozed from the cistern, steam billowed from it. The air reeked of death and otherworldly rot.
We’d faced the same formless monstrosity in the cenote. It had no true visage nor solidity. Yet, I could make out the partially digested bodies that rested within its gelatinous body. Some of them still had their flesh, while others, within the horror longer, silently screamed from ey
eless, fleshless skulls.
It took Max. It took Katarina.
Motherfucker, Gideon swore as he turned his Maverick toward the amorphous mass and fired. RAAAKK. RAAAKK. RAAAKK. RAAAKK.
“Away from the water!” In my panic, I didn’t link.
After Amir. RAAAKK. RAAAKK. Kick the Adept up and let’s go.
I did exactly that. The kinetic force of my disruptors wouldn’t do much against the gelatinous dread anyway.
When I sprinted forward, I ran squarely into one of the copper-masked thralls, who swung a rusted hatchet at me.
Shit! The blade of the weapon bit into my left shoulder, cutting deeply.
Bishop! Rachel warned.
You behave as if he gets hit on purpose, Anya linked coolly.
Deal with it for me, Rachel. I swung around to aim at the creature, but my wounded arm refused to rise. I had to turn bodily to shoot.
Gideon fought against three masked Irrats.
I shot my opponent squarely, and the force hurled him into the water. Gideon?
I got this. The link was tight. Go. Get. Him.
Will comply.
I holstered the second weapon and sprinted ahead. Amir hadn’t made it far; the white outline claimed less than fifteen meters.
His silhouette rustled through the small pack at his side and pulled something forth. Something small and flat.
The Liber Noctiis.
Rationality undulating, Michael. The second signature is live.
Understood, Anya. I paused. Thank you. I kept running.
Within seconds, I was upon him. For the merest moment, I registered shock in his eyes.
“Set the fucking book down.” I held one disruptor steadily upon his face as my other arm dangled at my side. Got him, I linked Gideon.
Alive, he responded. I felt how weary, how harried that link was. Take him alive, Bishop.
Understood.
Good. Make me proud.
5
“[What makes you think my setting the book aside would change anything,] Michael Bishop?” Amir’s words sounded hollow behind the silver mask. “[Why do you assume you understand what is happening?]”
“You will stop running.” I kept the weapon on his face. “You will surrender, or I swear I’ll slaughter you here.” I shrugged. “I’ll kill you harder this time.”
“[So arrogant.]” Amir didn’t move, still held the book. “[So certain he understands what is happening.]”
“What’s happening here is I’m going to paste your skull against the floor unless you do as I say.” I gestured with the disruptor. “Drop. The. Book.”
“[It is because of your kind.]” Amir’s soft words cut at me. “[You will repent, manling. You will know lamentation.]”
“What?” My eyes widened as I recognized the words. “What the fuck did you just say?”
Yet I’d heard him all too well. I’d heard the same words years ago, words I had never quite understood:
I could see eyes, furious eyes that burned with a feral hatred as the wisps of darkness coursed along on the wind.
For a moment, they looked squarely at me. I could hear the whispers more clearly then, words of hatred and sharpness. I reeled backward from the force of it, dropping one of my guns.
“The EquATiOn is NoT cOmPlEtE.” The venomous words made my ears bleed. I almost stumbled from the weight of them, crushing me. “It is BeCauSE of yOur kINd. YoU wiLl rEPeNt, ManLInG. YoU wIlL kNow LAmEnTATiOn.”
Then, the abomination that had been Bill Iverson swarmed around me, and the entire world was hollow darkness and fanged mist. Every place it touched my skin was a cold, empty twilight, and the wailings of ten thousand madmen sliced at my mind.
Then, he was gone.
“How do you know about that?” I stepped closer, fury in my heart. “What do you know about that?”
“I know we remembered you, Michael Bishop,” he responded in perfect English. “I know we planned a very long time to find you again.”
Gideon roared in my mind, a thunderous cry of rage, of wordless fury. His agony burned, a molten sharpness along the left side of his face.
My heart leapt into my throat. I froze in place, panic like razored ice in my veins.
The stark horror of it felt like nothing I’d ever experienced.
Gideon? I spun, as if facing him would help me see. My heart pounded. Where are you?
No response. Instead, I felt unyielding pain through that link, as if my skin were being burnt away.
It went on and on.
Gideon!
He cried out again, a sound of anguish and terror.
Frantically, I turned back to Amir, trying to decide how I should handle him while going back for Gideon. Maybe if I wounded him, then he wouldn’t be able—
And then the white outline, the one granted by Gideon’s Huntsman, faded into nothingness.
The pain stopped.
Gideon? The link felt as if I threw it into the deepness of space. Please check-in, Alpha.
“[You look like a man who sees his father’s ghost.]” Amir spoke even as I linked.
“Fuck you.” I spun my disruptor and aimed at his unprotected head. “I’ll be seeing yours here in a moment.”
“I am the answer to questions you aren’t wise enough to ask, Michael Bishop.” The smile he gave me held barbs. “Do you always kill that which would bring you wisdom?”
“I’m tired of your bullshit.” I flipped the disruptor, tightened its radius, and shot the man’s right hand, the Adept making the motion smooth as satin.
He cried out in surprise and pain. The book, loosely bound to begin with, exploded from the force and cast pages all around.
In a second motion, I widened the field and shot Amir squarely in the thigh, throwing him back and against the stone floor. “How ’bout you stay right there?” I spat just before I turned and sprinted back toward Gideon. Check in, Alpha!
I have no response from his system. Rachel’s link felt ragged with worry. Nothing from his latent signal.
No. I shook my head, trembling.
Two of the lifeless warriors advanced toward me, but I had no time to play fuck around. I shot each with the disruptor, hurling one over the edge and into the depths of the black water. The other dropped where he’d stood.
The formless abomination, stretching three meters over my head, reared up from the water to smash against the stone in front of me. It eagerly sluiced toward me. Within, the corpses of others it had consumed jiggled with its motion.
No Crown function. Anya’s link contained a sterile dread. Asset is presumed lost.
Bull-fucking-shit, I growled. I actually growled as I sent the link, a bestial sound. As I snarled, I fired at the ooze. My shots tore into it but didn’t seem to do much to the oozing aberration.
I dialed the field higher and shot again. The shot tore into it.
It jerked back from the walkway.
Gideon! I threw every bit of will and emotion I had into the link as I ran, then forced the Adept to slide through the slime the horror had just slurped along my path.
I didn’t want to gaze within the gelatinous mass for my Alpha, but I couldn’t help it. I had to peer into the creature as I glided past but didn’t see anything that looked like my pack mat—
Like Gideon. Anything that looked like Gideon.
Bishop, Rachel’s voice warned.
Anya, I need a location on Gideon. Make that Locale One, I directed.
Michael, Gideon DuMarque is presumed lost. I have no reading.
Not fucking acceptable! I jerked my head around wildly. My pack mate is here! I need you to find him! I seethed as I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
Pack mate? Anya’s link dripped with confusion and worry.
Wolf-boy, you’ve gotta reel this in.
How about fucking no? How about that, Rachel?
No response came.
Maybe he’s underwater. You said telemetry was being weird… I stepped to the edge. Gideon had f
allen; I was certain of it. He was just tech adrift…
Another of my copper-masked pursuers bore down on me, running from the far side of the walkway. This had been a young woman once, her rags not enough to cover her emaciated breasts. Her short, dark hair bristled beneath that gruesome mask.
I shot her without truly looking, still scanning the waters, searching for my Alpha.
“No,” I mouthed and hated the terrible way it rambled from my mouth. “God, no. Please.” My heart pounded, my muscles trembled with primal fury.
My skin itched. A dull red haze drifted at the edge of my vision.
Asset is presumed lost. Anya’s link felt soft, timid. You are now designated the lone Asset onsite.
“No.” I simply refused to believe. I searched the unyielding blackness of that water, willing Gideon (the Grizzled One) to burst gasping from the darkness.
He did not. (MypackMypackMypack…)
My heart pounded in my throat.
To my right, the undulating horror of the amoeba-like aberration gyrated toward me, acidic sludge oozing from the surface of its body.
Was that it? Gideon’s last link had been filled with burning agony. Had it taken him just as it took Max? I could still remember the broken link full of Katarina’s screams as it digested her…
“Fuck.” I wiped my eyes, trembling. I felt the growl in my voice, a deep, unreasonable rage. I paced along the edge of the water, away from the noxious, thrashing slime. The anger built higher, a frantic, red wrath.
I have Designate clearance to put your biochemistry on a leash, Bishop. Rachel’s link sounded as if it came from the other side of the world.
No, I snarled. I get to feel this. You don’t get to take this away from me.
I whirled toward the immense tower of sludge, scarlet fury burning in my breast. I breathed rage, sweated fury.
“Hey there, fucko.” I glanced behind me to make certain no masked creeps were getting ready to tackle me as I faced off against the sludge. “Is that what happened? You took another of my friends?”
Of course there was no answer. The creature sluiced toward me, pseudopods of slime reaching out, as if it detected my warmth.