by C Bilici
“Remember Rio?” Doug said with a sigh.
They’d actually gone on vacation rather than assignment at that time. The country being outside of their region, but that didn’t matter. Passports, money, maps, none of it mattered.
Anthony laughed again. “You always think of Rio when you’re getting melancholy. And you usually get melancholoy when you’re taking a shit in the bushes.”
Douglas was about to answer, when something drew his attention and held it.
“What I remember is—”
“Shh!” he hissed at the younger man, the sound of his trickling on dry leaves slowing even as the noise in the air grew.
“What’s that sound?” Anthony asked, doing up his pants and peering about.
Douglas scrambled for leaves to wipe himself so he could pull his pants back up. By then it was already too late.
Leaf and pants both were forgotten as he unleashed screams along with the last of his bowels as both his and Anthony’s cries were drowned out by screeches and the clapping of bat wings.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
SCREAMS IN THE distance filled the night as they raced through the dark toward the shed, blasting over their shoulder as they went. The creatures came in waves. One swooped Fenton, chattering as it came before flattening to fall on him like a ragged blanket and taking him down.
Another hit Stacey and she stumbled with a cry as a carpet of claws raked the arm covering her head. She blasted through the thing, what was left of its body fluttering away. She looked up to see Jasper and Charlie struggling with their own attackers, then saw Fenton and knew he had called on the creature within him.
Black spikes ripped through his shirt to swat the flying Umbra above him, his hands and eyes darkening as she watched. The grey crept from his elbows to fingertips as he pushed himself off the ground and sped to Charlie’s aid. The Umbra in the air fell to pieces as he slashed the air with the protrusions from his back, and his now clawed hands, black debris falling around them.
While he helped Charlie, Stacey made it to Jasper’s side and assisted her in removing a creature tangled in her hair, and screeching in her face. While Jasper pushed, Stacey pulled and fired point blank at the thing when it was far enough away from the girl’s head. She was certain she’d taken away a decent chunk of her beautiful hair, but she would live.
For now.
Both of them blasting the air, Stacey turned to see Charlie being led toward them, hunched over as she crab-walked beneath a protective umbrella of the lashing tendrils from Fenton’s flesh. From her limited vantage, she shoot down what vermin she could. There seemed to be no end to the things so she wasn’t without targets.
As Fenton and Charlie neared, Stacey pushed Jasper low and they joined Charlie. With the three of them covering him from all angles they made good progress and soon neared the metal clad building and rushed for it.
In a shower of sparks and screams, Fenton fell back as one of the dark cords from his back exploded, sending him to the ground.
Stacey, Jasper and Charlie froze.
The Umbra barrier was up.
“Go!” he yelled.
With a glance at the nearest totem, Stacey ran, her hand at Jasper’s back. They were still outside the protective dome. Stacey heard the clack, clack, clack of wings at her back, but didn’t dare look. She pushed herself and Jasper harder, and leant forward, hoping she presented less of a target.
With a sideways glance, they crossed the unseen threshold. A bloom of light reflected from the rusted walls with a sizzling explosion behind them.
Hitting the metal and taking several deep breaths, she turned to watch Fenton as he continued to fight off the creatures.
“Turn it off!” Stacey yelled at Charlie.
“They’ll get in!”
“Just switch it off long enough for him to get to us.”
Charlie seemed to contemplate it, then nodded. She looked to her belt, then up again. “It’s gone! I must have dropped it.”
Stacey cursed under her breath, and watched as a grouping of the flying creatures broke off with speed up, and swept up in a stream. They fell to the ground in a tight spiral, coalescing into a single mass that hit the ground in a whirlwind of activity. Before the dust and darkness within it settled, a pack of massive Doberman leapt at Fenton from within the flurry.
Fenton wheeled and swung whips from his arms, struggling to destroy the airborne creatures about him and keep the great loping beasts at bay, and they were gaining ground, driving him back into the protective barrier. Two of the dogs were bigger by far from the rest, almost the size of horses. These flanked him from opposite sides.
Stacey could tell these two were not mindless creatures and were leading the attack. They had to be men from the prison.
“Why doesn’t he just finish them like he did the worm? Or escape to the Nexus?” Jasper asked, her breath still ragged from the run.
“I don’t know,” Stacey said, confused.
He seemed to be struggling, angry and confused. As she stared, she thought she heard him curse. He swung a whip overarm at one of the larger dogs in an attempt to slice it apart, but it easily dodged the weapon, skipping aside despite its lumbering mass. He attempted with another of the things, but it proved to be as agile as its brother. He swung at one of the smaller of the things, which leapt aside, but he anticipated the move. A familiar dark spike shot from his free hand to split the dog, catching it in the middle of its head and exiting its thick body.
A fountain of dirt erupted on the ground behind it. The creature burst like a water balloon. He then dispatched several of the other smaller creatures in quick succession.
“He can’t use his powers,” Stacey mumbled to herself. Tilting her head back, her eyes darkened. She scanned the sky and saw the reason. “Shit! They’ve put up a shield.” With her Ward vision, she could also see Charlie’s barrier. She lurched forward, but Jasper caught her.
“You can’t go out there, Stace!”
She was right.
Stacey lifted her hand.
“No!” Charlie’s hand fell on her wrist. “The barrier will redirect the energy back at us.”
“For fucks sake!” Stacey thrust her hand outside the barrier, and let off a volley of shots before bats honed in on her exposed flesh and she snatched it back.
With that moment of distraction, Fenton weaved through the creatures at full speed and leapt toward the shield. The creature in him withdrew with haste as he flew through the air. His body clearing the barrier, and as it did, one of the great hounds ears burst in flaming cinders, sending it back with a whimper and a growl.
Fenton scuttled toward Stacey and the others on his rear, away from the dog creature as quickly as he could.
It shook its massive head and gnashed its massive teeth at him, foam flying from its muzzle.
Fenton scrambled to his feet and into the shed, the others following.
They watched as the smaller dogs took to the air again, leaving only the two larger creatures to pace back and forth, the bats collecting to circle the building. One of the dogs lifted its snout to the air. At that, a handful of the flying things darted in a line to became exploding fireworks, except for two that hit the dirt, joining together to shuffle away as one before taking flight once more. The other dog followed suit, and the same show repeated before both of them moved further around the building in opposing directions.
“They’re marking the perimeter,” Stacey said.
“These are definitely no ordinary Umbra,” Fenton said, panting from his exertion.
“We have a bigger problem.” Fenton looked at Charlie. “We’re trapped in here with no access to the Nexus.”
“What?” Fenton barked.
“The barrier keeps them out, but it’s keeping us and our powers in as well,” Charlie said. “I have to recalibrate the settings to allow—”
“So, do it!”
“She dropped the remote control outside.” Stacey’s fist hit corrugated iron.<
br />
Fenton peered around the shed door to the left and right cursing. One of the large dogs lay in each direction still marking out the limits of the barrier, the bats following them in two groups.
“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking—” Stacey stopped as Fenton ran out of the shed toward the tree line. “Fuck!”
The dogs turned almost in unison and with growls took off after him.
They watched him as he bolted across the way, the long legged creatures gaining on him fast. Just as they were snapping at his heels, they all disappeared behind the line of trees, bats speeding overhead in a giant, undulating arrowhead stabbing toward the ground.
Several blasts filled the air before the thrashing of branches and what sounded like a crash of trees. There was a flurry of wings and a whimper. Then relative silence, only disturbed by the shifting of the trees.
Stacey looked on in hope.
Two dark loping forms emerge, returning with the black cloud above them.
They started in fear as a figure stumbled into them from behind only to find Fenton regaining his balance.
“Go on! Back to the Enclave,” he rasped, shoving the tablet into Charlie’s hands.
Charlie swiped and tapped at the display, then gave a nod and left without warning.
“You go,” Stacey said to Jasper, “I’ll catch up.
Jasper gave her a brief kiss, then jumped away, leaving Fenton and Stacey behind to watch the creatures.
The dogs stopped and stared at them where they stood.
“Godfrey’s not in the Nexus, is he?” she said finally. He didn’t answer, but she knew it was true. She’d seen it in her vision.
The bats above them dispersed after the dog creatures raised their snouts again. They knew they couldn’t gain entry and that their targets could leave at any time. With a last look, the Doberman burst into a mass of flying shapes and took wing to join the others.
The two of them stared into the sky long after they were gone.
“How can Godfrey be gone?” she asked him. None of it made any sense.
“I don’t know, I’ve never heard anything li—”
The building shook with several loud metallic booms from above.
Racing out the doorway, Stacey’s eye were drawn to the sky where a grouping of large, alien winged creatures that reminded her of dragons retreated. She turned, her face becoming a grimace at what she saw.
A body of one of the Ward guards lay broken and blood soaked on the ground where it had bounced from the roof, skin and clothes shredded to pieces, pants missing. If it had not been for the shredded remnants of its genitals, she might not have been able to identify that it had once been a man.
Following Fenton, they walked the building to find other bodies sprawled in unnatural poses, like broken ragdolls. Rivulets of blood slowly slickened the valleys of the waved, rusted sheets of the roof.
* * *
They sat back to back on the tree stump by the destroyed house in the rising sun, covered in dirt and blood, smoke billowing from them to catch the morning rays. They’d buried the fallen, each under a tree in the copse, and were in no rush to return to the Enclave.
Running her thumb along an axe mark in the wooden surface, Stacey hoped for some good news when they arrived at the Enclave to make these deaths at least partially worthwhile, but the way things were going, she didn’t hold out much hope for that. They hadn’t not even died in battle. It had been a slaughter, pure and simple. Just like the Enclave.
“The bastards are winning,” she muttered.
Fenton didn’t respond.
After a second smoke and washing herself as best she could, Stacey found Fenton still seated in the same spot. “You okay?”
His eyes shifted to meet hers, and he gave a solitary nod which seemed to take him far too long.
“I’m going to head to the Enclave and check on Jasper and Charlie. You coming?”
“In a little while.”
Stacey jumped to the Enclave, leaving Fenton behind to clean up, or whatever he was going to do.
And wished she’d come sooner.
Injured and dead lay everywhere.
* * *
The attacks had been swift and violent, losses high, and those that had fallen had to be left behind while survivors retreated to the refuge of the Enclave, which itself was no longer the trusted safe haven it once was. But the creed of the Wards was to protect the world at large, even indirectly by not exposing them to infection where possible. It was all they knew.
So said Despina to Stacey after she had arrived and offered whatever assistance she could.
Kneeling beside a body with her hand raised to indicate that the person she watched was still alive and needed immediate care, Stacey scanned the area nervously. Amid all that death and pain, she saw Fenton, standing in shock much the way she had when she’d arrived to the scene.
He looked from body to body, walking in a daze amongst the injured until someone spun him about roughly.
Despina pushed him into a crouch beside a body and gave him instructions, presumably the same ones she’d given Stacey, before she rushed away to mark the urgently injured with any free person in the same way.
Those that were lucid sat on their own, looking forlorn at the carnage.
Fenton’s eyes met Stacey’s, and she gave him a nod.
He nodded back. Then his hand jerked as the woman he was beside went into a spasm. He felt about her head and throat in a panic, presumably looking for a pulse but unable to find I. His hands flew from to wrist. Stacey could tell, even from her distance, that the woman hadn’t made it.
“She’s gone,” Stacey heard Despina say to him, giving him a sad nod before moving away.
Closing the woman’s eyes gently, Fenton stood to roll her over as he’d been told, and awaited further instruction.
The temple doors crashed open to emit a contingent of Wards from the other realms, rushing out with varied equipment in hand. He moved out of their path as the three dozen or so medics stormed through and went to work.
Stacey had wondered more than once what changes would be made to those more alien races on coming to Earth, but they appeared the same, at least outwardly. She guessed that could be due to the emergency nature of their visit.
A Mhyrr medic relieved Stacey from her charge, scanning the patient before clipping an electronic tag to their clothing, the other medics following suit as they fanned out, replacing able bodies with the devices. People slowly filtered outward to watch or leave the area.
Stacey stumbled over to Fenton’s side in a daze and he put his arm about her, she thought much for his own comfort as hers.
“Has it always been like this?” she asked him.
He didn’t answer her.
She’d read some tales of times gone when Umbra would attack en masse, but they were purported to be centuries ago, leading to the birth of many still extant myths and superstitions. She’d assumed that that was exactly what they were, nothing more than stories and myth. Now living through it, she wasn’t so sure.
“Come on,” he said finally, leading her away. “Let’s let them work.”
There was an explosion of activity and screaming behind them. They turned to find one of the dead sprouting black masses, taking one of the insectoid medics heads clean off and impaling one of the red skinned.
With a spray of blood and meatier bits, a person beside Stacey erupted, far from dead.
Screaming and gurgling in agony, the woman’s body split open, a black mass pushing its way out of her cracking ribs, tearing through her flesh and flimsy clothing. Her body spread, breasts lolling as her chest fell to either side. A dark stream of blood cascaded to the stone from a nipple. The woman’s head draped backwards and her blood stained lips parted. Gore darkened her flowing hair, strands plastered below her vacant eyes. Her arms jerked as black roots worked down them, jutting out through her skin in patches.
As the dead woman’s head tore free to raise
up on a length of writhing worms, Fenton pushed Stacey behind him and let loose in an attempt to dispatch the creature. The blasts tore through it, but shuffled toward them even as he loosed further blows.
Pushing him aside in turn, Stacey thrust her hand out and opened her fingers to issue a jet of flame that engulfed the thing.
Blasts sounded around him as other creatures emerged, others using their personal arsenals to dispose of the things.
“Scan every single last person here thoroughly before you treat them!” Despina shouted angrily.
“Did your friends teach you that?” Fenton asked.
With a shake of he heard, she said, “I guess I learnt a few things from you after all.”
Despina approached them at a brisk walk, grunted at them to follow her as she passed and made her way to the temple.
Stacey sighed. “Is this ever going to end?”
“One way or another,” Despina said ahead of them, her voice grim. She crashed through the temple doors to commotion within and pushed her way to the Cardinals table.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
SURVEYING HIS WORK, which was now near completion, The Shadow Man grinned in satisfaction. The giant undead knight had struggled almost the whole time, but it had the whole of the Void against it, and in the end its thrashing had proven to be as useless as the many meek humans that had been held here before it, the avatars master among them.
He’d been almost disappointed.
Now, though, the creature was prone, obedient, and transformed from knight to nightmare.
He smiled at his own pun and how much more easier such things seemed to come to him over time. He revelled in that feeling.
When first he’d seen the avatar, it had entered the void along with its Ward and had undergone a drastic transformation, giving him the inspiration for his new work. But, being plucked as it had been from its home in the Nexus, it had come unchanged, a far cry from this, the black draped creation before him now.