by JM Guillen
I had some experience with the matter.
I’m watching your systems. Rachel felt a bit distant. I don’t approve of attempting to use this situation as a tool. It is dangerous for you as an Asset, and it is dangerous for us as your cadre. I’m recording this as a notation in my logs.
I’m not trying to convince you that this is a good thing. I frowned just a bit. But let me try to deal with it. The creature has some investment in keeping me alive. It saved our asses in Ar’Ghosa, and I’m not in the habit of setting aside any tool, no matter how unlikely it may be.
Noted, Bishop. The link felt somewhat detached.
Apparently that was all Rachel had to say on the matter.
You got rid of the corpses? I turned toward Delacruz, who stood at the closed door and waited for me.
Well, yeah. She sniffed. Part of a good incursion is being able to clean up after yourself, Mike.
Guess I left a little blood on the wall, I linked sheepishly. Where are the bodies?
Rooftop. You remember I left a quarrel up there?
That’s a decent play, I nodded. I can’t imagine anyone will go up there anytime soon.
Right. I felt her crooked grin. With your permission, I hope to leave a pile of corpses up there. If I can catch them in the throat or chest, they’ll be dead before they can make the rooftop door.
Delacruz had thought this through a lot more than I had. I wondered how much of her time she spent considering corpse disposal.
Well, I suppose we have to figure out what’s going on behind this door.
Are you going to open it or am I?
You. I’ll have my kinetic disruptors ready.
Understood, Alpha.
Moments later, apparently moved by nothing at all, the metallic door slowly opened.
I stepped inside and took a sweep of the hallway.
2
Regardless of the presence of evil Zealator guardians, the passage beyond appeared much the same as any fancy-schmancy condominium. The carpets felt plush, crimson and thick. The walls had been appointed with seascapes, pictures of ships, and distant lands.
Yet…
Something. The hallway felt crooked to me. Not the curve it took as it went forward but as if everything appeared a bit fuzzy. As if I wore reading glasses I didn’t need and thus had developed a bit of a headache.
Look at this. Delacruz had stopped at one of the paintings and peered at it. What the hell do you think this is?
At first glance, the artwork didn’t seem like anything special. A savage coastline tore across the center of the picture, jagged and wild. The sky above boiled with bruise-colored thunderheads. The sea below ravaged the coast, malevolent and furious.
As I gazed at the seascape, I sickened slightly, nervous and nauseous. I couldn’t help but think that beneath those shadowed waters uncanny creatures lurked, things that had never seen the light of the sun. Something about the painting continually drew my eye back to the sea, as if it held the power to mesmerize.
Once I shook myself free, I linked, I don’t know. Don’t like it. Quit looking at it.
Fuck. Delacruz stepped away from the wall. Just looking at it made me want to scratch my skin off, you know?
This wasn’t the only painting, and they all seemed to be of a theme. No matter what they showed, they all contained a vision of ravaging water, an ocean wearing away at the world. Just a glance made me feel infinitesimally small, as if I were a brief thing, a tiny flash of insignificant light in comparison to the vast, midnight darkness hidden beneath those waters. Terrible secrets lurked there. Horrific lore, lost things that humans were never meant to grasp.
Bishop?
Surprised by Delacruz’s link, I started. I’d been staring into one of the compositions, marveling at the greenish water, water that appeared to shine.
Quit looking at it, right?
Right.
I shook my head. If Anya had been there, she would likely have warned us about the paintings before we’d put foot into the hallway.
But I’d left her behind.
So, Delacruz linked, probably trying to take her mind off the unnerving scenes. In that patch you sent?
Yeah? I paced down the hallway. It curved around tightly enough so that it was impossible to see too far ahead.
It didn’t talk about fish monsters. Didn’t even mention giant frog assholes.
I don’t get it either. I shook my head. When we were in the Yucatán, the Darkened Road didn’t seem to have an association with amphibians. Like, at all. They still had the mask motif, but they worshipped something the called ‘The Harvester in the Darkness.’
I haven’t heard anything about that.
No. I frowned. This time it was ‘Throdlum, who bears the Many Young.’
Right, and something about a ‘Bringer of the Delving Deep.’
You don’t often see a crazed cult that changes up the weirdos they worship, I noted.
I got the sense that Delacruz had something else to say. Not because she linked but because her token raised one hand, as if to make a point.
Unfortunately, we were rudely interrupted.
Hello, cadre! The cheery link slid smoothly into my Crown, like naked skin against silk sheets. I thought I might be able to lend you a hand.
Demetrius? Anya’s link sounded surprised and felt warm. What are you doing?
Ever notice, Wyatt linked to me alone, that Stone is the only other cat Anya calls by their first name?
I chose to ignore him.
Not quite Demetrius, not now. I could feel that smile, see his white teeth. I’m currently pulling duty as Valent Calleja, council member for St. Julians, here in Malta. He chuckled. You really made me work for this one, Bishop.
I did? I didn’t remember asking Stone for anything.
No, I’m joking. It was actually pretty easy. Prepare for incoming patch.
And just like that, Demetrius Stone ported a patch straight to memory. It wasn’t huge, and I had plenty of room, but that wasn’t exactly the point.
It felt as if someone put something mysterious in your pocket. You’re not certain exactly what it was, and you don’t know if you want it there.
You have no choice.
This is a map? Anya linked.
Those condominiums are only a few years old, Stone explained. I was able to use Lattice connections to pull up the blueprints. Liaisons have to do this kind of thing all the time, with some of our more delicate work.
Demetrius, I felt Anya’s widened eyes and the tiny smile that, for her, spoke volumes. This is most impressive.
I know, he linked. A Facility Liaison has all manner of access that most Assets will never possess.
This… I perused the blueprints. These maps are remarkably complete.
There isn’t a lot I can do onsite, Alpha. I actually felt Stone’s discomfort. But this? Providing you with blueprints? Not a problem.
That’s an express elevator. I felt Sofia wrinkle her nose. Or a freight elevator. Something.
It is just like Tokyo! Wyatt crowed in my Crown.
Correct, Stone replied. However, official blueprints show it only stops at a few levels. I might expect some levels of the condo are for the Darkened Road only.
We haven’t really seen many people here. I paused. Which worries me.
Well, Alpha, that elevator will take you past several floors. It sinks down to a basement level, could be a parking garage.
No, Anya responded, certain. The Variance rests far deeper than a typical basement. A hundred meters or more.
I’m certain that is true, Anya, Stone responded. Yet the Maltese surveyor’s office would say that the bay here is only twenty-five meters deep. It drops off quickly, but… he let the link trail off.
But the Variance is far below that elevation. Anya linked and furrowed her brow. I would guess closer to two hundred meters below sea level.
I’m afraid I can’t help with that, Stone apologized. But if you truly need to get below the buil
ding, then I’d say that elevator is your most efficient transport.
Thank you, Stone. I truly meant it. This gives us direction, and that’s invaluable.
No problem, Alpha. If I find anything else, I’ll get it to you. Abruptly, he disconnected.
That’s good intel, I linked my cadre. Delacruz and I should make the elevator in about fifty meters.
I’ve been poking into this place too, Wyatt linked. Did you know Malta is home to some of the oldest ruins on the planet?
Yeah? I crept forward, tracking the location of the elevator as Wyatt linked. The map showed it at the end of this hallway.
Was that why this level had been guarded? Elevator access?
Thirty-some free-standing temples, things that make the pyramids and Stonehenge look new.
Ancient ruins. Rachel sighed through the link. Irrat cultists love ancient ruins.
It may have been part of a land bridge, like, twenty thousand years ago. Many different species of animals, including elephants and hippopotamus, which can no longer be found in Malta, were found mummified within some of the ruins.
That’s not creepy, I linked.
Interesting data, Artisan. Anya’s link sounded a bit distant, as if she were focused elsewhere.
It gets… weird. Some people think Malta might have been part… Wyatt paused, as if hesitant. Part of an ancient civilization, which suffered a tectonic event and sank into the Mediterranean.
Hold up, Bubba. Delacruz actually stopped in place. You’re talking about Atlantis. Straight up Plato and his dialogues.
I smiled. I’d nearly forgotten, but Delacruz knew her way around ancient history. She’d been quite the student at UCAM.
Now, I could almost see Wyatt hold up a hand to placate her. Not just Plato. The story is also engraved on a wall in the temple of Neith at Sais, in Egypt. It refers to an area in the Western Ocean, which no longer exists. Guess what it’s called now?
No? I winced. I don’t wanna?
The Mediterranean Sea, Hoss.
We aren’t doing this. I ground my teeth. The last time we started debating your wild theories, one of us got hurt.
I’m sure it’s not related, he assured me. After all, we’re simply pursuing cultists who have allied with water-breathing aberrations that live beneath the sea. He paused. I’m certain the Bringer of the Delving Deep is completely unconnected.
This is a topic for another time. I took the last few steps toward the elevator. It’s interesting, Wyatt. It might even come into play. But for now, we need to get our game faces on.
As with the rest of the hallway, the posh elevator positively reeked of money. Golden doors with brushed silver trim had scrollwork around each side. The button itself was exquisite and appeared as if it might have been crafted from ivory, which seemed quite extravagant and surreal. The entire contraption had been bordered with dark mahogany wood.
We made the elevator, I linked to my cadre. Delacruz and I will take this thing as far down as we can. Perhaps once we’re at the basement level, it would be a good time to create the aperture. Anya may be able to tell us more if she is onsite. I pushed the button.
Immediately, the door opened with a ding. Before I had more than a moment to even consider the oddity of the elevator already at our floor, I heard a harrowing scream.
The haunting cry echoed from the elevator, forlorn and sorrowful. The sound of it reached squarely into the middle of my chest. An aching loneliness overwhelmed me.
At once, every light within the hallway shattered, creating bursts of cascading glass and sparks of electricity that fell to the carpet. The hallway went dark.
The elevator chimed open.
“Go then,” a woman’s voice urged with wicked glee. “He is the one I told you about. Sate yourself, child.”
Two eyes, burning blue with brilliant desire, gazed upon me from within the shadows of the elevator. It seemed odd, unnatural that I should be able to see them there in the darkness, yet I could.
The creature screamed again and came for me.
The only thing that existed was her softness.
3
I toggled my optics as quickly as I could, though I felt as if I fumbled around in my own mind. Something about the cerulean shine of those eyes made me stumble, weak in the knees. My heart beat like a savage drum.
Optical systems offline. Error 61a.
Alpha? Delacruz sounded an eternity away, as if she called from down a long and angular corridor.
Delacruz. I turned to her but saw only darkness. In the distance, sparks fell from the ceiling.
Darkness engulfed me.
“Hello, sweet.” The whisper tickled at me, and I felt soft nibbles nip their way along my earlobe.
The sensation delighted me, and a narcotic buzz rippled through my skin. “Um,” I muttered. I felt as if I fell, as if I tumbled into sable, silken darkness. The world spun, pleasantly drunken. I didn’t think I’d be driving home tonight.
Alpha? Bishop, what’s happening?
I could hear Rachel, yet it almost felt like a memory, as if I’d encountered Rachel years before. I squinted and tried to summon the Herculean will it would take to communicate with her.
I’d call her when I got back to my flat.
“Now,” a feminine voice teased. “You’re busy. Don’t you think your friends can wait?” Soft arms wrapped around me. Lips kissed my neck, and pleasure shivered through me.
“Well, um…” My friends had all gone home, hadn’t they? I gasped and turned my head away from the sensation.
Fingers teased and toyed, and nails raked gently along the surface of my skin.
I wondered, for the briefest of moments, how she could touch me beneath my clothing.
The sweetness of her washed over me, and I wondered no more. I growled, primal hungers rearing their heads deep inside me.
Thunder rumbled, shaking the hallway.
I heard laughter, though scratchy and worn as if from an old soundtrack.
“I’ve been waiting a long time to see you.” The voice teased, coquettish. “I hope you remember how much you miss me.”
Her small hand grasped me somewhere that, by all logic, no one should have been able to reach.
In that moment however, I couldn’t care. Her touch was all that mattered in the world.
She squeezed softly.
I growled as fiery pleasure trickled along my nerves.
[Damnit.] The word, enunciated with a softly curling Spanish accent, intruded upon my mind. Bishop, I don’t know what—
Another explosion rumbled, this one far closer. I felt the heat of it crash against me, the sound cacophonous.
I didn’t care.
Her lips were sweet. I explored her secret places and trailed my fingers along delightful curves.
She pressed herself against me, and I felt her softness, how she trembled eagerly.
I moaned and she bit me.
It wasn’t with her mouth, not exactly. She had a second mouth, one I hadn’t seen. It snaked out of her, sinuous, hypnotic. When it attached itself to me, I felt the curling tongue of the thing trail across my skin, cutting. It lapped at my scarlet warmth.
I kissed her.
As she bit me with her secret mouth, she whimpered in mine. Those blue eyes melted away into warm wetness, and I saw the secrets she held within those gaping holes.
Michael Bishop, I need you to respond! Rachel sounded angry, which confused me. The last time I’d seen her she’d been dancing with Anya and those other girls. They’d been all over me; hell, they’d been all over each other. It’d seemed like everybody had been happy.
Had something happened?
Delacruz screamed.
She screamed with fire and fury, pain wound through her voice. I’d never heard her sound so… small in all the time I knew her.
She sounded legitimately afraid.
Something growled in the darkness, and I felt my chest rumble.
“Wait,” she whispered to me again, and I
felt her fingers in my chest hair. She straddled me, rocked herself against me. “I haven’t finished yet.”
Blood. I smelled blood.
Delacruz screamed again, and that sound with the scent of my blood combined in my mind, fused by secret alchemy. I shook my head and—
My pack. One of them was frightened.
The Fierce One.
What are you doing, asshole? The Large One spoke in my mind, but his words meant nothing.
The world came into sharpened focus then.
The creature straddling me was a mockery of humanity with pale, sallow skin and empty ruts where its eyes should have been. It had pushed its proboscis into the side of my neck, where it greedily drank off me.
I roared.
Rational thought and humanity fled as crimson fury burst in my mind like an explosion of bestial wrath. Every sensation, every moment burned around me. The song of the hunt screamed in my blood.
I rose, a shadow of primal, savage poetry.
Bishop! I heard the Sharp One in my mind, even as I lunged at the foe that drank of me.
It reared away, and I fell to the ground.
I’m modulating your mecha!
I understood exactly what this creature had done.
I grasped for its neck, bore down on it, and pressed my fingers mercilessly into the softness of its throat.
The thing squealed and writhed. It attempted to strike me again with its insectine proboscis, but I squeezed harder. It flailed at me and attempted to strike with sallow arms, but I slammed its head against the floor.
“Bishop!” the Fierce One called from somewhere behind me.
At her cry, I felt the anger within me fan into a furious flame, and I pulled the creature up once more.
I smashed its head against the floor and broke the horrific thing.
You should feel it, but the aberration doesn’t completely have you yet. She paused. Breathe, Bishop. Come back.
Copy that, I thought, for no particular reason. As I rose, I peered into the shadows around me.
The Fierce One stood fifteen steps down the passage. Her hair had been mussed wildly, and she bled from one leg. In front of her lay a burning, singing fire, one that took up much of the hallway.