Zero Sum: An Alexi Sokolsky Supernatural Thriller (Alexi Sokolsky: Hound of Eden Book 3)

by James Osiris Baldwin

  Ten or so guards swarmed and pinned me. I struggled, bit, spat, and cursed under their weight, shoving one away while another clamped a black glass collar around my neck. As soon as it touched my skin, my connection to Kutkha dulled and my subliminal awareness of Binah’s location dropped entirely. Guards hauled me up by my elbows and cuffed my wrists. I was pulled out of the elevator after they were on, and roughly wrenched back and forth into the small ocean of guns waiting in the corridor beyond.

  My escort half-dragged, half-marched me up a grimy stairwell, where we lost about half the troops, then pushed me out a door into a wide, clean-looking corridor that smelled like the bottom of a trash can. We cleared a checkpoint, where everything I was wearing except my underwear was cut off, and continued past it to a pair of heavy steel doors. They opened into a cavernous, cold, truck-delivery room milling with people in various states of organized alarm. Techs in lab scrubs surrounded a tanker truck like the one Glory had stolen. It sat beside a steel capsule-shaped hyperbaric chamber with a transparent glassy door. The chamber was overgrown with what looked like purplish vines studded with pieces of obsidian, alien tentacle-like things that originated from sucking fleshy holes in the sides of the tank, places where the steel had been cored out and replaced with Morphordian tissue.

  Joshua Keen was signing off on a clipboard behind the tanker truck, Tomas an expressionless pillar behind him with his hands folded over his belt. It was Tomas who noticed us first, staring placidly as security brought me over to them and shoved me down to my knees, a barrel pressed against the back of my head.

  “Ah, good. I was hoping we could rely on your profile,” Keen said, handing the pen and clipboard over to the waiting tech. “Really, though, I expected better out of you, Sokolsky. You fell for a stick-and-box trap, you realize?”

  My eyes narrowed as I watched the tech put a fist to their left breast and bow from the neck, then pull away. “I realize I’ve been busting your wards for years. You’re a Phitometrist, you hypocritical piece of shit.”

  “I am. I am also a Knight Vigilant of the Holy Order of Saint Peter, and not a criminal warlock,” Keen replied stiffly.

  “That machine sure looks like something a holy order would field.” I barked a short laugh. “All those pulsating black tentacles. Holy, sure.”

  Joshua rolled his eyes and looked over my shoulder at my escort. “Take him to the rubber room and double tap him twice, just to be certain. Charlie Team, fetch Otto and his thugs from the freight room. They should be almost done. We need to wrap up and get moving.”

  “You don’t want to kill me.” I cocked my chin as the soldiers saluted and pulled me up by my armpits.

  “You could not possibly be more wrong.” Keen wasn’t looking at me any longer, instead watching the techs as they pulled hoses out from the base of the truck. Clusters of small tentacles yearned from the holes in the sides of the hyperbaric chamber, reaching for the black glass-capped ends. My skin crawled.

  “You don’t!” I called out as I was pulled away. “Because I killed Lee, and now I’m the only one who knows where Eden is.”

  The thin Agent turned on me. “Wait. Halt.”

  The soldiers stopped dead.

  Keen caught up with us, a slow, wary stalk. “Come again?”

  “Eden,” I repeated. “You couldn’t make Lee talk, you do-gooder piece of shit. We sprung this place, and when she thought she was safe, I got her to tell me where to find the Garden.”

  “And then you killed her,” Keen finished flatly. “We found her body with the heart cut out.”

  The extent of the bullshit was almost funny. I shrugged. “Well, I had to eat something.”

  Keen suddenly looked very tired. He drew himself up like a statue, studying me down his nose. “What do you hope to gain with this gambit, Sokolsky? Clemency? You won’t find mercy here.”

  “Insurance.” I shrugged again, still hanging from the guards’ hands. “What else?”

  Keen’s mouth thinned as he regarded me in silence for several seconds. “Fine. Have it your way. Under Rutherford’s Law, you have been declared a non-person in perpetuity. Your citizenship is hereby revoked. Once we have extracted this information from you, which will at best take a couple of days, you will be subject to exorcism and summary execution. We will insure that your spiritual infection never graces the Earth again.”

  I stared back at him. “You let Otto Roth rape and murder a woman. You gunned down a mother of two in cold blood. The MahTree’s Ruined because you took her from her rightful guardian. What the hell makes you think you have the right to judge me?”

  Keen sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Take him to the containment circle. If he moves a muscle, shoot him. I’ll call Transport.

  “Sir.” The man on my left saluted, and off we went.

  The containment circle was an example of Keen’s best work—a six foot warded circle drawn in rendered Weeder Phi. The lines shimmered and crawled when I was thrown in, but didn’t smear as I scrambled for the edge. I felt like I’d run into a clear plexiglass barrier. It held mages the way that most magical circles held demons.

  The doors at the end of the room swung out, admitting a number of people walking alongside a forklift. It was carrying a stack of four small, heavy battery cages, three-by-three-foot cubes barely large enough to fold a person inside. From here, I made out Jenner, Zane, Talya, and Ron inside. Jenner was small enough that she could breathe and move her head a little. Talya was weeping; Ron was purple, struggling for air. Zane, the largest, was packed in so tightly that he was quite literally suffocating. His dark skin was ashen, and he wasn’t moving.

  Where the fuck are you!? I tried to reach out to Zarya again, struggling to stay still, composed, calm. Otto, Dogboy, and Gator were strutting alongside the forklift, shit-eating grins on their faces, and a horrible instinct gnawed at me. What if someone in ANSWER had sabotaged the operation? What if the Vigiles had found them before they’d arrived, alerted by my presence? They had telepaths and seers, surely... had someone foreseen what we were doing, and interrupted it?

  Jenner saw me across the room and blanched as the forklift swung around to a smooth stop near the hyperbaric chamber. I shook my head, eyeing the guards who still had their weapons trained on my face at opposite sides of the circle.

  “Okay, Agent. Time’s up!” Otto called to Keen as the processions met in front of the tanker truck. “Otto wants his money, and then we’re getting the hell out.”

  “Of course. Tomas?” Keen motioned to Tomas, who nodded. He left at a quick walk. Keen beckoned to Otto to join him at a small field table set up at an angle to the chamber. “Come here, and we’ll settle up.”

  The big Weeder was wary as he strolled over, Dogboy and Gator trailing him like bodyguards. “Tell you what. How about you keep ten K, and Otto takes the kitten girl?”

  My eyes narrowed, and I looked over at the stack of cages. Talya was wide-eyed and trembling, bound naked inside her box. She had dried blood on her face, but no injuries. Not ones visible to the eye, anyway.

  “Try it! I’ll rip your fucking dick off!” She shouted.

  Keen made a show of thinking about it. “Fifteen?”

  “Ten. No piece of tail is worth fifteen.” Otto squinted over at Tomas as he returned with a big silver carry-on suitcase.

  “What? Can’t handle me, Otto?” Jenner called out harshly from her cage. “Come on, boy. Take me outta here, and I’ll give you the ride of your fuckin’ life!”

  I was so enraged while listening to this bullshit that I almost didn’t notice the way that the collar had loosened around my neck until it was too late. It was drooping, sagging like cold lava dribbling into the ocean. My body was still flush with Zarya’s blood, and while my heart pumped her Phi through my veins, there were few locks that could hold me. Thank you, Zarya.

  The two guards had their heads turned. They were watching Keen and the trio of Nightbrothers with wary anticipation of trouble. Their guns were still pointin
g toward me, but the muzzles had dipped.

  Moving carefully, I reached up and slowly pulled the collar free, setit down, and looked down to study the magic circle.

  Tomas placed the suitcase on the table and opened it, revealing rows of neatly stacked Benjamins. Otto sniffed hard as he approached, pulling out a note and examining it against the lights above. “Huh. Brand new.”

  “Indeed.” Keen had moved aside, putting himself closest to Dogboy. “Compliments of the Federal Reserve for service to the community.”

  “Right. Well, so long and thanks for the fish. Time to go, right?” Dogboy was eyeing the steel tube nervously.

  “Last offer. Ten for the girl.” Otto slammed the case closed and jerked it off the table. His thick hand barely fit through the suitcase’s handle. “Otto’ll take her off your hands.”

  “I wish we could oblige, but the raw material she provides is worth more than what you’re offering. We need manpower more than anything, especially given what’s going on outside.” Keen pushed his glasses up his nose with a small, fleeting smile. “We will begin with the largest animal first. Gentlemen.”

  At the softly spoken trigger word, every guard in the room opened fire on Otto Roth.

  Chapter 45

  Otto dropped the briefcase, roaring as explosive rounds tore his chest and gut apart. By the time his knees hit the ground, Gator was dead, the shaman’s magical shields shattered under multiple impacts. Keen lunged forward fearlessly, and pulled his sword out in a blindingly fast, sweeping arc. Dogboy had the best reflexes of the three of them, and he ducked the blade... but he didn’t get back up. The vampire’s already-pale face drained of all color, and he reached up to pluck at his head as the top third of his skull separated and fell to the floor beside him. There was little blood: just an orange goo, like decaying pumpkin flesh, that jiggled, then splattered as he collapsed to his face and went still.

  “Filth, the lot of you.” Joshua Keen spun the sword, flicking Feeder goop from the edge, then pulled a tissue from his jacket pocket and ran it along the blade. “Alright. Proceed.”

  Security converged around Otto, who was struggling to keep his internal organs inside as he forced himself to his feet. When they lay hands on him, he bellowed wordlessly and began to shift—but not in time. The giant centipede erupted from his skin just as he was shoved into the hyperbaric chamber, twisting and lunging at the door that slammed in its face. Six men held it shut while two more turned the vault lock. The centipede thrashed inside, squealing as the machine came to life.

  A horrible, discordant feeling passed through my limbs, sucking the strength out of them: a magical pressure drop that was followed by a revolting alkaline smell. It gnawed at my sinuses like a burst abscess. The tubes leading to the chamber surged, vomiting liquid into the tank and engulfing Otto in fluid that burned whatever it touched, peeling the giant insect in fine, fine layers, like translucent glass ash. He screamed. Relentless, shrill, agonized wails pierced the steel capsule and filled the room. Otto lashed from side to side, desperately seeking escape and finding none as his soul was torn apart and dissolved into scintillating white liquid.

  “... in salt and get him ready for transport.” Keen’s voice broke through the hellish noise, cold and calm. “Take the spook and prep him for the flight. The works: sedation, enema, saline, nutrients. The director will want him interrogated straight away. Tomas, which one of these creatures turned into the lion?”

  “It was either the fat man or the girl.”

  “Put the male through next. Make sure we pack as much into that tanker as possible. You’re in charge while I update Delta-1 on the new intake.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “You fucking monsters!” Jenner howled out through the bars of her cage. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

  My vision cleared as Otto’s anguished cries became weaker and less frequent, then they ended entirely as the digestion reached the point of no return. The creeper-vine tentacles that encircled the chamber had swollen with an unholy dark light, channeling and pumping energy into the tubes connected to the truck. Keen glided away from the chamber to make his call, and I resumed my frantic study of the ward.

  This circle did have a power sink built into it—a reserve of Phi that was replenished by my presence inside of the design. It was impossible to defuse the ward from within the circle while it slowly leeched the Phi from me. Oddly, I didn’t feel depleted by it. Zarya’s Phi, possibly... or perhaps the MahTree’s Rhizomes.

  I felt back for the collar. While the guards watched Ron being pulled out of his cage, I carefully and quietly patted at the invisible barrier between me and the rest of the room, then experimentally slid the open collar outside of the edge of the circle. It penetrated the ward as if it weren’t there, able to be moved back and forth over the edge of the circle.

  Ron shifted as soon as he was free, and the Men in Black suddenly had a pony-sized African Lion on their hands. They were unfortunately well-prepared. Even as Ron reared and plunged, roaring, he was taken out with high-powered tasers that sizzled in the air as they snapped and cracked. It took six or seven of them all at once, but they put him down and dragged him to the chamber as Jenner and Talya screamed for them to stop.

  Focus. I had to focus. There was only one chance to get this right. Now that I knew the collar could extend beyond the circle, I cautiously kindled a tiny sliver of compressed matter at the end of one of my fingers, watching Keen and the guards. Neither reacted: Keen was on the phone, and security was busy keeping an eye on their comrades as they shoved Ron into the digestion chamber.

  The spike of matter also extended beyond the circle when pushed over the line, though it kept my finger trapped behind. I swallowed and sat back on my ass, hands on the floor. One of the guards, alerted by the movement, glanced down at me. He didn’t seem to notice the missing collar from overhead.

  The Vigiles slammed the chamber door shut, muffling Ron’s roars as they became all-too-human screams of pain.

  “Ron! RON, NO!” Talya was hoarse with terror and fury, her voice ripping through the air. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you all, you motherfuckers!”

  Focus. I knew what was happening to Ron, and I couldn’t stop it. I closed my eyes, letting my senses play out through the air, and called to the dust on the floor.

  Fresh Kills was filthy, and so was this building. With the swamp, the city, and cubic miles of trash, everything had a fine film of dirt, exhaust, lead, rust, and grime. I had to work slowly, carefully, pulling in slithering streams of particle earth across the ground in such a way that no one noticed. The raw shouts of the women were drowned out by Ron’s nightmarish cries as he died, his soul peeled away in layers like onion skin. Across the room, Keen stepped away from the phone.

  “Do the girl next.” Tomas spoke to the mass of eight MiB who had caught Ron.

  The tanker hummed as it hungrily sucked Ron’s Phitonic mass from the chamber. Talya was red with fury, rattling the bars of her cage as she wrestled and struggled inside. They ripped her out, kicking and spitting, and carried her toward the chamber door.

  Focus. The timing had to be perfect.

  “I’ll kill you all!” Talya shrieked, kicking one man off, ignoring the second as he tasered her. She shrugged off the electricity with a snarl that deepened and grew in volume as the shift took hold of her. Other guards—HuMans and Men in Black—swarmed her as the gigantic American Lion erupted out of the thick of them, throwing a soldier across the room before the others could jump on her. Talya’s shifted form was half again as big as Ron’s. It was too late for him, but not for her, Jenner, and Zane.

  “AYSH!” I yelled the command word, short and sharp, and slapped my hands on the ground. The jarring spike of pain through my palms manifested in reality: a pair of seven-foot shards of razor-sharp detritus erupted from the ground and impaled the guards outside my circle. In through the pelvis, out through the chest. They gurgled around mouths full of blood: the smaller man bled red, the ot
her white.

  The ward flared brightly as I stood, calling the white blood to my hand. It was weaker, thicker Phi than Zarya’s, polluted and homogenized, but it was a substance that was still more vital than my own. It ran down the spear of matter and into the circle, which flared as it switched from me to the stronger source of energy, feeding on it greedily.

  “Get that thing in the digester! Open fire!” Keen shouted over the top of the sudden ruckus, and drew his sword. Tomas began casting, even as Talya snarled and clamped her massive jaws down on the head of a HuMan soldier, tearing it from his shoulders.

  I drew the energy and blood of the dual sacrifice back toward me. Instead of a Phitonic shield, I built a shield of matter around the edge of the circle. It cracked and splintered as bullets struck it. They blew through the Phitonic matrix, but were caught up in the physical mass of iron, lead, water, and dirt, blowing parts of it into glass spikes that extruded back toward me. That was when the endorphins hit, and with them came wisdom, the ability to see the air and shape it.

  There was a massive roar that cut to a squeal as Talya was brought down. She lurched up to her paws, still under fire, and sunk down to her chest again as men encircled her with tasers and rifles. Keen rushed me, a blur of motion through the foul ice-like barricade I’d formed. I held it, held it... and then shouted a second word of command that shattered the wall into a million fine shards that hung in the air. I slashed my hands down, and the shards congealed into long whips of razor-sharp, dirty crystal bound by Phi the texture and color of craft glue.

  Keen tried to dodge, but there were too many moving parts to avoid. He took a faceful of needles as he rolled to the side and came up on his feet, bleeding heavily. “Start the pumps! Start the goddamn pump!”

  Behind him, the Men in Black shoved Talya, mortally wounded, into the digester. Instead of finishing off Keen, I swept the crystalline cords around, meshed them together into a single, flexible razor-edged whip, and smashed it over the hoses connecting the tanker to the digester. It shredded them, spraying gray fluid into the air and then across the ground. When it splashed ordinary humans, nothing happened. Whenever it touched a Man in Black, they collapsed like sand at the first wetting of their clothes. The ones closest to the mess didn’t even have time to open their mouths before their empty uniforms and rifles fell. Others had a chance to back away a step or two before they were spattered. One lived long enough to claw at his faceplate and spin down to his knees before he turned to slime and slumped formlessly like the rest.