by Voss Foster
“It just kind of feels like I could be doing more.”
“If you want to do more, keep an eye on this computer.” I needed to be able to focus and she needed a little more purpose than just sitting there and fulfilling FBI safety standards. “If you see anything significant, tell me and put it over the comm.” For a moment, I flashed back to that attack with the sorcerer, out in front of the Rise and Shine. My first exposure to the OPA. My first exposure to any magic for that matter.
On the plus side, I wasn't having to do it, now. On the downside, I was that agent ordering someone else to do idle busywork. And I could actually see how important it was. "Sorry for making you take over the menial crap, Agent Whitehead."
A brief, heavy silence from her. When she did speak, it was even quieter than before. Soft, like little mouse footballs. “Not a problem, sir. Someone has to.”
I just nodded and kept my eyes down and forward. No one ever called me sir before. Not any other FBI agent anyway. It was...I liked it.
The same as most missions like this, there was a lot of hurry up and wait. We'd done the hurry up part, positioning everyone as soon as possible, changing out shifts with the agents who'd already been in our positions. Now? Now we just had to wait for something to happen. Personally, I was hoping some of our research would turn up a clue that would make this unnecessary. We would find Selenus, or some other terrorist, or something in the history or lore, and that would be that.
Better than resting the fate of the entire human species on the end of a couple gun barrels.
“Dash.” Swift’s voice crackled over my earpiece. “Anything?”
“Not a damn thing.” I glanced to my watch. “It's still just a little past eight though. If these guys are as smart as they've been pretending to be, then they'll wait for the last possible minute. Hell, depending on how far they're willing to push their luck, they might wait until tomorrow night. Try and exhaust us out of here.”
“Well, let's hope they're not quite that confident in themselves.”
“Or hope that our agents are better at tracking them down than they are at hiding.”
"Well, let's not count on that as a strategy, shall we?"
"Of course not. It's just my backup plan."
He went silent, but Agent Whitehead came in right after he was done. "Agent Rourke?"
“What's up, Whitehead?”
“I don't know if this is anything, but there's a couple of people coming our way."
Shit. "If there's anyone in Times Square right now, it's something." I tore my eyes away from the window to check the screen. Sure enough, there was a pair of black-clad figures coming in, heading away from the Flatiron Building.
I got back on the comm. "Swift? You seeing our friends down here?"
"We've got two NYPD officers approaching them."
"If these are practitioners, they could—"
"I told the officers to keep their distance. Gives them a chance to run."
Not much of one, but we couldn't very well go shooting innocent civilians just for entering a cordoned off zone.
"We have something." Gutt this time, low and oddly grumbly. "I'm reading magic increasing significantly."
I glanced back to the security feed, already trying to figure out if I could shoot reliably from here. But they weren't summoning up anything I could see. "I don't think it's our friends." The blue circle had turned green and pulsed erratically now. "But there's definitely something up."
I kept an eye on the green circle as it slowly transitioned into a very ugly, bright yellow. It continued to pulse oddly. And finally I saw something. More of the black-clad figures…stepping into sight from down below.
Whitehead's voice quaked just a little. "This is magic, then?"
"It's remote transport. Lets you get from place to place in a couple seconds." And very quickly, now, a metric fuck-ton of people all wearing the same clothes were popping into existence in Times Square because of it. The circle was bleeding its way orange. I tapped on my mic. "Everyone's seeing the same thing, right?"
"Yeah," said Swift. "I've told those officers to back off. It's not worth the risk."
I nodded, even though he obviously couldn't see that. Every time a new figure appeared on the security feeds, the circle of light—now creeping toward red—would flash bright. If every new pulse was someone else transporting in…then we were pretty much fucked. "Can we confirm if these are the terrorists we're looking for?"
"I'm working on that as we speak," said Gutt. And then there was horrid, awful silence. In reality, it was probably ten seconds, but it stretched for years as my heart thrummed in my ears and in my bones.
Gutt spoke three simple words. "We have terrorists."
I glanced over my shoulder to see Whitehead blanching ashen. I tightened my fingers around the grip of the rifle, taking care with the trigger.
Swift asked the question I needed the answer to. "How do we know, Gutt?"
"I enchanted a moth to fly down and investigate. They're carrying gas masks, and they have the same embroidery on their gear that we copied over."
"Then they're not planning suicide," said Swift.
"Not immediately." Gutt paused again. "But I'm sure it's still their backup plan."
That was all I needed to hear. I pulled on my own gas mask, turned to check that Agent Whitehead had hers on, then went back to my post, ready to fire at will. I didn't even need to check the security cam footage to see them. There were so many down there. But even with them, Times Square felt like a ghost town. They weren't appearing anymore, but they also weren't moving. Still, black monuments standing guard on an empty street.
As I watched, I heard a crystal clear voice cut through the air. Not on the earpiece. Not anyone I knew. It echoed from the walls of skyscrapers, boomed into the window, and hit me square in the chest.
"You have two options, Office of Preternatural Affairs." I scanned to try and find someone speaking, but saw nothing and no one. "You can sacrifice yourselves, or you can stand by and watch us spill our blood. Either way, this will come to pass."
King finally chimed in over the wireless. "What the hell do we do, here?"
If she didn't know, couldn't come up with anything? Well, maybe we were fucked.
Swift stayed cool, but I practically hear his fingers drumming with nerves. "Gutt, grab that moth again. I want to know who's speaking."
"It's remote, Swift. I know this magic well. It's used to deliver messages to the prison populations without breaking the seals. Whoever's talking could be a thousand miles away, or even in the Kingdoms."
The voice continued, slicing the air. "You have one minute, humans. Choose the nature of your demise."
The last syllable echoed icily through Times Square, and our meager seconds ticked down. I glanced to the still frozen Whitehead. I couldn’t blame her. We both knew where this was going, and no one could possibly like the answer that was about to come over the line.
It's not an order anyone would have given in NYPD.
It's not an order Carlson would have given.
But I was in OPA…and this was a matter of genocide.
Swift's voice crackled to life, quiet and, for once, tight and hard. "Fire at will."
The last bit of hope was crushed out of existence. Terrorists or not, something felt wrong about opening fire on unmoving targets. But I swallowed it down. We had confirmation that these were our bad guys, and we all knew what they were about to do.
I pointed to the M4 leaning against the wall. "Take it, Whitehead."
"Is this—"
"If you question it, it's not going to make it any easier." I focused down on the nearest black-clad figure, held my breath, counted my heartbeats…and squeezed the trigger.
A sniper rifle kicks, but there was more than that. There was even more than the magic sparking off the end of the barrel. That wasn't a bullet I ever wanted to fire. But it was in the air, and it was careening toward the nearest terrorist.
I'd
just fired a lethal shot at this poor motherfucker's head…and instead I got a crater six inches to his left…where the bullet touched down. My heart stopped completely, full of concrete out of nowhere. I fought for breath.
A few more bullets banged out of windows, and they all missed. Those shields weren't just good against our regular, Mundane bullets. These terrorists came prepared to fight magic with magic.
And they were better than us.
"Stop!" Swift was no longer even feigning cool and collected, now. He was pissed. "You're just destroying the fucking city of New York, so why don't you quit wasting bullets!"
Gutt came on next. "I can try—"
He was cut off by the mysterious, clear voice from outside again. "You intended to murder us? Did you think we would come unprepared? Did you not learn this lesson when you attempted to fire upon us in the past?" A bright laugh cut across, just in case this wasn't all fucking freaky enough. "But thank you for revealing your locations. We weren't looking forward to dying."
It took me two seconds longer than it should have to put that together, to whip around and see a broad-shouldered, black-clad figure wrapping tree-trunk limbs around Whitehead's chest. She shouted and kicked, she aimed for the groin, for the ribs, tried to scrabble a hand free to the nose. But her captor wasn't flinching.
I didn't even think, didn't check anything, just whipped the HTR around and smashed the butt into his knuckles. "Let go of her!" She wasn't getting poisoned to death on my watch. I bashed into the terrorist son of a bitch again and again until finally, he loosened his grip enough for her to get out of the way.
That's when the white gas streamed up from around his feet. He removed his mask to reveal a grinning troll that made even Gutt's tusked smile look warm and inviting.
I rushed in again, ready to keep hammering, but I hit a barrier. A barrier surrounding him and Whitehead, trapping the gas in there as it crept up around both of their feet. It didn't block the shrieking as Whitehead's flesh ripped away.
She was loud, now. So loud.
I hopped onto the mic. "Gutt! We need help here now!"
No response. No portal. No nothing.
"Fuck this." The gas was a third of the way up their bodies, and her protective gear just wasn't holding up. Maybe it slowed it, maybe it didn't. I couldn't tell. But this wasn't the poison from the suicide capsules. This was under the control of this troll, and he was purposefully making me see it, making we watch it creep up Whitehead's body.
I pressed the muzzle of the HTR as close as I could to the barrier without it knocking me back, made sure I was clear of Whitehead's side, and squeezed the trigger. It blew me straight back on my ass, skidding on the hardwood. My teeth rattled, my vision quivered, and my head throbbed, ringing.
But if it worked…
I forced myself to focus on the terrorist…but there wasn't one. Not anymore. He'd left, and Whitehead laid on the floor, chest heaving, skin burning away as the poison continued to swirl around her.
She locked eyes with me and tried speaking…but her tongue was red and black.
Back on the comm. "Agent down! We need medical, now!" I didn't expect a response. This was happening in half a dozen places around Times Square as we spoke.
There was nothing I could do but shoot her in the head and try to end her misery, try to keep her from being a sacrifice. I reached for the M4, stomach churning. But in the interim, she stopped looking at me. Whitehead stopped looking at anything. Her body stopped shaking, and the poison dissipated, leaving just me and her corpse.
I'd hesitated too long. She was part of the one-hundred-three.
I stared for a long time. Maybe an hour. Maybe a week. Just a few seconds ago, she'd been calling me sir, asking how bad the situation was. She wasn't OPA. She didn't sign up for this shit.
None of the victims signed up for this shit, in fact. Not a single god damn one. Yet King and I, the ones who were supposed to run in and get exposed to the poison gas, were alive, and they were all dead.
Even in death, the poison ravaged Whitehead's body. The protective gear was intact, but I finally saw what happened: the bastard had slit up her back to expose her skin. It was all over from there. And he'd exposed himself to it, too, removed his own gas mask along with hers. Two more dead. Two of the twenty-eight needed to move on with the unsealing.
"Dash!" Gutt finally appeared, just on the edge of my vision. Just as the red and black ate away at Whitehead's cheek and jaw.
Gutt rested his hand on my shoulder. "We need to get out."
I forced my eyes shut and turned. "One confirmed dead, second most likely dead, too."
And I left her. I left Agent Whitehead to burn alone in that building, because we couldn't save her. We passed through the colors of the Kingdoms and came out on a rooftop. A rooftop that gave us a perfect view of the creeping white gas filling the streets and sidewalks of Times Square.
"N'Gutta." We both whipped around to see Vellius step into existence on the rooftop behind us. She closed the portal and marched up. "I found you, thank the gods."
"We're too late." He pointed down to the see of deadly fog. "There had to be enough deaths to allow the unsealing."
"I…I tried, N'Gutta. My apologies." She said it quietly, as though she knew apologies weren't enough. Weren't anything. "I'd been monitoring Jörmungandr closely since your visit, and I noticed a spike in activity. Still within parameters, but so close…I had to come tell you." She brought her arms together, then rapidly shoved them apart, blasting wind past us and down into the street. The poison gas cleared, leaving nothing but corpses and screaming.
It wasn't long before the screaming quieted, and Times Square really was a ghost town. I swallowed back vomit and turned away from the sights. "We'll get a body count. Thanks for trying, Vellius."
"If there is anything I can do—"
"Can you raise the dead?" I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't get Whitehead out of my skull. She was there and quiet and meek and respectful, and then she was fucking dead. "Can you undo this? Can you get through their barriers? Or how about finding Selenus? Maybe kill him? Can you do any of that? Because if not, then I don't think there's anything you can do for us, okay?"
Vellius stared wide-eyed at me. "I…" After a few seconds, Vellius nodded and turned her attention to Gutt. "What barrier magic is being used?"
"I'm not sure. It's strong. Enchanted ammunition was deflected. Even from high-powered rifles."
"Well there's still hope, even with that. Jörmungandr needs a large area to manifest. These buildings won't do. It won't just rise from its prison. It's incorporeal. When it manifests, it will have to solidify, and if they tried to do it here, a building could skewer its brain or internal organs. Even with the ground soaked in blood like this, they'll need ample space in this Manhattan, free of major obstructions."
My brain snapped into gear and I locked eyes with Gutt. Suddenly, I had a chance to avenge Whitehead. "Central Park. Get me there now, then tell the others." I had to go on them being alive right now. I had to assume that they'd be coming, because otherwise I'd be down for the count. If everyone died, if I was the only OPA agent left standing…nothing could kill King. Certainly not a little poison gas. "It's the only big open space in Manhattan. Everything else is buildings."
Gutt shook his head. "You can't clear it by yourself."
People would be there. More people would die, whether I showed up or not. "Someone has to go. Meet me there. Gutt, please!"
His brows knitted together, but he handed me his rifle and opened the portal. "Don't engage them unless you have to, Dash."
"Or what? You'll kill me?" I forced the best semblance of a smile onto my face that I could. "That's already coming down the pipe, so you'll have to come up with a better threat."
Gutt didn't smile back, just solemnly stepped aside. "If you turned left, you'd end up in the Kingdoms."
Which came with a lot unspoken. One human could hide out in the Kingdoms long enough to avoid the poison
gas. Or maybe I was putting that on it myself. Maybe part of me wanted to survive, even if everyone else was dying.
Every other human being…gone.
I walked straight through the colors…because by choice or otherwise, I was an agent of the Office of Preternatural Affairs. And this was my job.
Chapter Sixteen
Central Park was…normal. No bands of tension filled the air, no iron heaviness. Just people at the park, enjoying themselves, laughing, seemingly not at all aware yet that thirty people just died from poisoning in the middle of Times Square. Their phones hadn't buzzed that information into their brains.
Hundreds of people on the site where the giant, world-ending serpent was getting dragged out of its den. Hundreds of people potentially caught in whatever magical crossfire was about to go down, and I was a single, lonely OPA agent. I couldn't clear them all out by myself.
"Agent Rourke." A tight, slightly hollow voice came from behind me. I turned to see Vellius marching out of a portal. She absentmindedly waved it closed behind her. "I realize I'm not official, and I realize you are...understandably upset with me, but I thought you could use some extra firepower."
She was right on every count. "Any way you can clear everyone out of Central Park fast?" They would die to the poison, but no reason for them to fall down if the poisonous snake never rose up in the first place. "Really fast."
"I believe I could tackle that." She handed me the bundle of glowing papers and stepped back, hands clasped together. "I've never used magic of this caliber in the Mundane, but it should behave similarly." She released her grip and a gust of wind blew my face back like a leaf blower. Once I got my bearings again, I noticed the circle surrounding the two of us, sparkling like sunlight on snow.
She locked those yellow eyes on me and nodded. "Try not to fall over. This is a lot of magic."
Then the sparkling turned to sparking, which turned to bright white arcs of lightning, which eventually fused into a solid wall of blinding white, stretching into the sky ten feet and encompassing us. I watched Vellius dance her hands through the air, not able to make any sense of the motions. But my nose burned with the smell of ozone, and all the hair on my body stood on end.