Brandt approached the door with relish and even an ounce of bravado. This was his element—brute force.
It became clear Brandt hadn't put any effort in trying to open the back door. This time, his gauntlets appeared, and the size of his arms increased within his suit. A single punch smashed the door off its hinges. Several more blows cleared furniture and other debris braced against the door.
With the way opened, Brandt dropped his fists and staggered back.
"Holy fuck, the smell is worse," Brandt said through dry gags. "Why did R and D make these helmets to allow smells? Wade's gonna puke his lungs out."
"Shut up, Brandt," Wade's sheepish voice filled the com.
"The more senses you have, the more information you can gather," Caelum quoted from some obscure manual no one currently cared about.
"Sir," Jackson said, "whoever is inside…Just had their fear go through the roof."
Njord nodded in response to Jackson. "Listen up everyone, we split into teams for a floor by floor sweep. Brandt, Jackson, you two monitor the front door and stairs to cover our backs. Fear can make people react unpredictably. Don't lose your cool and strike first, or we might have civilian casualties. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," their voices all responded.
"Oh, and Wade," Njord added, "try to keep yourself together."
There might have been a time when the building was attractive. The front door opened onto a foyer with marble flooring showing beneath the grime and refuse. From the foyer, a staircase led upstairs. Brandt hadn't been kidding about the smell, nor the lengths someone had gone to keeping the door closed. Besides the locks, nailed boards and furniture were used to brace against the door. The hall that ran from the foyer went straight to the rear door they had seen outside. In the dim light coming through the front door, Gwynn could make out a pile of furniture that had been braced against where the door used to have been.
"Someone went to a lot of trouble to keep something out," Gwynn said.
"I think something is the operative word." Jason nodded toward a door along the hall torn off its hinges. "Looks like some of the guests got a little rowdy."
"How long has this place been here?" Angie asked. "It looks like it's been here a long time."
"Not possible," Njord replied. "The evacuation of the twenty mile radius and our arrival took only a few hours. If Caelum was right, and this building appeared after the evacuation, it's only been here two hours, three tops."
"Well, wherever it's been," Caelum said, "it went a long time without running water or power."
"How do you know, genius?" Brandt asked.
"Simple. The smell. It seems they were still using the toilets even after they stopped flushing."
Wade made a gagging noise.
"Keep it together, Wade, or you're sitting the next couple missions out," Njord cautioned. "Now, Brandt, Jackson, you have the first floor and guard duty. Natalie, Wade, the two of you and I will head downstairs to see if we can figure something out about power. Jason, Marie, you take the second floor. Caelum, Gwynn and Angie, you three head up to the top floor. Remember people, there are probably survivors. They'll be scared and might even attack before they realize you're here to help them. Everyone be thorough and stick together. Now move."
The stairs turned out to be more of a challenge than any of their group had anticipated. Someone had gone to the trouble of blocking the top of each flight with furniture and other refuse.
"Watch out below," Jason said. The cracking sound of a whip, followed by the splintering of wood, and bits of armoire fell down the stairs.
"Do you think we'll even find someone alive?" Angie asked. "I mean, it looks like this has been barricaded a long time."
Caelum shrugged. "Doubtful, but still possible. However, if they are alive, I imagine they're in rough shape."
At the second floor, they parted with Jason and Marie and continued up the steps. Gwynn used Xanthe to chop his way through more barriers.
"Gwynn, what did you mean when you said this felt wrong?" Angie asked.
He couldn't see her face, it being hidden by her visor, but her voice didn't sound mocking. Some of the other guys in the group only saw Angie's looks and how her body armour…fit. Gwynn couldn't make himself feel attracted to her. He knew he should be able to leave Sophia in the past, move on. After all, it had been eight months, and they weren't even an item. But he couldn't shake the sense of wrongness about her being gone—couldn't help but feel allowing himself to fall for another girl was some sort of betrayal. Still, he had to admit Angie was attractive, but more importantly, she talked to him—seemed to want to talk to him. Except for Jason and Fuyuko, that made her unique in his current life.
"I don't know how to put it," he answered. "I don't think there's a tear here. I mean, obviously this building shouldn't be here, but it doesn't feel like a tear. It's almost as if, the building just slid into place here. Like it didn't used to be here, but now it belongs."
Caelum held up a hand bringing their conversation to a halt.
"Did you hear that?" he asked.
Gwynn and Angie shook their heads, no.
Caelum pointed toward a door down the hall, on the left. Gwynn stifled the urge to ask Caelum what he'd heard. Possibly of all the members of Ansuz, Caelum was the least to give into high stress situations. He approached all tasks with a calm, calculating manner. Odd, someone gifted with the ability to care for people could operate more on mind than on heart. Knowing the boy as he now did, Gwynn knew if Caelum told them he'd heard something, he was certain of it.
They inched their way toward the door. Without needing to communicate it, Gwynn and Caelum turned their attention to the door while Angie guarded their backs.
"Should we announce we're here to help before busting in?" Gwynn asked.
"Do you want to announce we're here if it's a Curse?" Caelum answered.
Gwynn shrugged.
Caelum tried the door, which proved to be locked. He held up three fingers. After training with the team, Gwynn knew instinctively what he meant—On three, we go.
When the last of his fingers went down, both boys pulled extra strength from the Veil and shoved their way through the door.
Gwynn turned left, Caelum right, and Angie backed in, keeping a watch on the hall at their backs.
The apartment appeared to be less filled with garbage than the rest of the building. The windows, while grimy, were at least clear of boards and allowed some sun inside. Seeing pure, cheerful light lessened the play on their nerves, but it turned the apartment into even more of a pressure cooker. Not to mention it had helped to intensify the smell. Gwynn was thankful Wade stayed downstairs.
"Clear left," Gwynn said.
"This way too," Caelum replied. "Search the rest together, or split?"
As if to answer Caelum's question, a sound of creaking wood came from a room down the left hand hall.
"We check that together, then split," Angie said.
Both boys nodded their agreement.
While none of them drew their weapons, the goosebumps on Gwynn's flesh indicated the others, like himself, had drawn extra strength from the Veil. Each step they took produced a painful creaking of the floor. No matter how slow or careful their steps, the building seemed intent on betraying their presence. Thankfully, that remained true for whatever lay behind the closed door at the end of the hall.
They slid into the same formation as they had before. Caelum checked the door, which turned out to be the first unlocked door since they'd entered the building. He held up his three fingers again. Three, Two, One…
They threw the door open and moved quickly into place, their limbs loose but held ready for a fight. Nothing moved inside the room.
Angie took a sharp intake of air. Gwynn panned the rest of the room, his eyes resting on the bed and the obvious reason for Angie's reaction. Someone, or something, lay on the bed, their form obscured by heavy dark sheets.
Caelum called forth his weapon from the Ve
il—a longbow. As each step brought Caelum closer to the bed, Gwynn's muscles tensed, every fibre preparing to spring into action. Caelum grabbed the bow by one end and extended the other out to lift the sheets.
He flipped the sheet aside.
Angie groaned and turned away. Gwynn stood, transfixed. On the bed, a body, female from what he could guess, lay in a state of decomposition. She'd been dead for some time. The thing Gwynn's eyes couldn't leave were the wisps of blonde hair framing the skeletal face. Blonde hair, someone else's, he reminded himself. Not Sophia. Still, another casualty of a universe gone mad. What had she endured in her final moments? What horrors forced her to lock herself in this apartment and stay here until death finally claimed her?
A scream tore the air around them.
"Knife," Angie yelled.
She slammed into Gwynn, smashing him to the floor. In the midst of him trying to free himself from tangled limbs, he caught a glimpse of Caelum moving—all fists and pushing forward against an attacker Gwynn couldn't twist enough to view.
Angie pulled herself free, stood, and dashed to Caelum with feline grace.
The two now struggled with a third form. A male, perhaps thirty, though the emaciation of his body, uncontrolled facial growth, and haunted eyes, made a true guess at his age impossible.
"Let me go," the man screamed. "Leave her alone you monsters."
A knife lay at his feet—the knife Angie had seen and tackled Gwynn before it embedded in his skull.
Eight months of training, his first field mission, and he'd been careless enough to move in front of an armoire large enough to hold a grown man. He'd been so focused on the girl, so lost in the grief he couldn't let go. He'd thought he was ready for this, prove to be valuable. He'd been wrong. He was a danger to them.
"Sir," Angie said, "we're here to help you. We have medical help not far away. We'll get you outside, take care of you."
At this, the man thrashed even harder. Gwynn moved to help restrain him.
"No," the man wailed. "No. I know what you're going to do. No. I won't let you."
Even against their Veil infused strength, the three of them had a hard time holding him.
"Caelum," Angie said, "can't you do something about him?"
Caelum reached a hand up to the man's neck. A soft glow emanated from his fingers and the man went slack.
Gwynn hefted more of the man's now dead weight. "What did you do?"
Caelum shrugged. "Sometimes the best way to heal someone is to help them sleep."
Angie keyed the all-call on her com. "We've got a survivor on the top floor. We're leaving the top floor only half searched to bring him down now. He put up some resistance and Caelum's sedated him. Can someone call the ambulance on standby?"
"I've got the ambulance," Jason replied.
It took the three of them to carry the sleeping man, protecting him while they navigated the refuse and knocked aside barriers. Reaching the first floor, they made straight for the door.
"Hold on." Njord's voice came over the com. "Don't take him outside until I'm up there."
"Sorry, sir," Angie replied. "We're already outside."
Even with the stench still hanging nearby, being outside of the building felt fresh and cool in comparison.
"Gahhhhhh!"
The man flung away from them before they had a chance to react—his eyes wide and foam spattering from his mouth. He fell to the ground, writhing in painful convulsions.
"Where's the damn ambulance?" Angie yelled. "Caelum, can you do anything for him?"
"No," Njord yelled from the door. "Get away from him. Now."
Angie made to protest, but Gwynn had already scooped her up and made for the door. He'd seen this, eight months ago, and he knew precisely why Njord wanted them clear.
The man's skin bubbled, bones snapped and cracked, jutting out at impossible angles, and despite the horrors happening to his body, he rose to his feet.
"Weapons," Njord commanded.
Gwynn deposited Angie onto her feet. He turned, Xanthe answering his need before he'd called. He expected to see a hulking mass similar to what his high school principal had become, a Taint—a person from this world corrupted from exposure to the Veil's energies. This transformation was different. Though he realized, with sickening dread, he'd seen this as well. Once, in the Cameron House, he'd seen a phantom with Pridament, a man who was an echo from another world. When that man had been pulled entirely through the Veil into this world, he'd changed as well. Pridament called him something else.
"A Curse?" Angie said. "But that's impossible. How…?"
The monster's screams cut her off, shattering the air like glass. Xanthe flew outward, the blade dancing like a ribbon. Before the Curse could attack, Xanthe severed its head. The blade snapped back to its normal size before the body hit the ground.
He recalled a time when he'd killed something previously human and been filled with guilt and remorse. Even now, his stomach twinged at the guilt laden memory. But he felt no guilt for this thing in front of him. It had ceased to be human the moment they'd stepped outside. He'd given the poor man freedom. Perhaps he would find his lost love and again feel the softness of her blonde hair.
When did I start thinking that way?
A hand pressed down on Gwynn's shoulder. "You all right?" Njord asked.
Nothing but silence came from the others. Snapped from the moment, Gwynn realized he hadn't even willed Xanthe forth. The blade had come to his hand without his beckoning, and it had killed without him issuing an order. Had the events of his hometown and eight months of intensive training done this? Had it turned killing into nothing more than an instinct?
"I'm fine," Gwynn replied. Though he doubted very much he was.
§
Five miles from the farm, a figure wrapped in a black cloak, stood atop a barn roof, watching events unfold. He needed no binoculars, the Veil amplified his vision. A few members of Ansuz had just pulled a man from the building. Stupid fools. They should've guessed what would happen. The man began the horrible transformation from human to Curse. A Full Incursive. A being from one world dragged in their entirety into this world. He wasn't so much transforming as he was being crushed and remolded. Before he could see how events would play out, a figure stepped in front of him. Her pale face remained framed by the familiar two black ponytails that hung down below her breasts. The jade eyes regarding him lacked that same familiarity, perhaps because he liked to remember when they held love. Those days had died long ago.
"Adrastia," he murmured. "If you still go by that name."
"Sometimes. It's the name I had when we first met, so I'm fine if you use it." She reached up toward his face, but hesitated within an inch of it. "What should I call you now? Nidhogg, Abzu, or maybe your true name?"
He stepped around her, looking back to the field. The Curse lay dead. In the moment Adrastia had him distracted, he'd heard it. Only a few notes, not enough to be certain, but it was very close.
What should she call him? Not his true name, he'd abandoned it long ago, even before he began wearing the mask to conceal his face. No, something more appropriate to who he had become, and how he saw that life.
"You can call me Cain. I was always partial to it," he answered.
"Because you enjoy being associated with that first act of murder?"
He shook his head no, and regarded the markings circling his right arm. "No, because of this." He shoved his right arm toward her. "The mark of Cain. The mark inflicted by God upon the one cursed to wander forever as an outcast."
He saw pity in her eyes—pity she didn't want him to see, as she turned her head quickly away from him.
"Why are you here?" Adrastia asked, forcing a haughty anger into her voice. "Shouldn't you be crushing worlds, or finding others to join in your fall from grace?"
He surveyed the end of the battle. Someone among their ranks had beheaded the Curse. Njord, perhaps? It was possible. But those notes, reverberating through the Veil… left
him doubting.
He looked back to the girl. How many years had their paths intersected? "Does it matter why I'm here?" His eyebrow raised as he studied her face. "Could it be you've found a world you wish to defend? Is the detached watcher going to finally get her hands dirty?"
"Do you really care? If I said I found value in this world, would you, for the sake of our relationship, leave it in peace?"
He shook his head. "No world will find peace. Look there." He nodded toward the fallen Curse. "That place alone should demonstrate my point."
"You may wish to be called Cain, but I should call you Loki."
He allowed himself to smile. The mask, with its monstrous visage, would keep it hidden.
"Is that the role you want to cast me in?"
"The dragon has left the roots of Yggdrasil, Hodur has murdered Paltar, even Fenrir readies to move." Her expression filled with sorrow. "From where I stand, only one role has yet to be filled."
"The Loki of legend is the father of Fenrir and supplied the spear to Hodur. Fenrir is not my creation, nor did I deliver the spear."
Anger flared in her eyes. "You are the father of all this." She swept her arm toward the building and Ansuz. "Even if the spear didn't pass from your hand, it came to rest in Hodur's through your machinations. We can stand here and argue technicalities of prophecy all day, it doesn't excuse you from your sins."
Cain stepped forward, his right hand balled into a fist. "What of your sins? What of your abandonment of me when I needed you most?"
"You made it very clear you didn't want me any longer."
"Made it clear?" A tremor passed through his voice. "What part of my praying to you to return every night made it clear I no longer wanted you? When I erected temples in your various names, falling to my knees, pleading for you to return, was that the moment when I no longer wanted you?"
"You made it clear when you decided to shed the blood of billions."
Cain straightened, his fist relaxing. Could he blame her for hating him? He'd become everything she'd tried to teach him not to be. Despite all her powers, she couldn't see his heart, so he couldn't blame her for her ignorance.
Suture (The Bleeding Worlds) Page 2