by Mark Teppo
The guy picked out by Nicols' light swung his right arm behind his back, and it stayed there. Nicols lowered the light to the man's waist, highlighting the fact that he had seen the motion. Nicols' other hand was on the butt of his pistol. He had seen the guy's motion, and rejected it as a casual gesture. The gold shield hanging over his heart flashed in the pale headlights, a wan star that seemed on the verge of going out.
None of the other men moved. Waiting for some signal, whether it came from the man caught in the flashlight beam or from one of the others. It was hard to tell. Nicols appeared to have more patience than any of them, which didn't help the tension of the standoff.
One of them moved finally. A guy in a long dark coat stepped closer to the spray of light from the sedan. His hair seemed like a cap of snow in the reflected light. "We're inspecting our property," he said. I couldn't see his eyes-sunglasses at night, that pointless affectation that did more to signal carelessness than menace-but some of the glow leaked around the edges of the frames as he summoned power. "What brings you out here, Detective?" he asked, referencing the gold shield hanging around Nicols' neck.
"Your barn isn't secure," Nicols said. The Chorus and I smiled at the audacious gambit of his conversation. "You should keep it locked. Vagrants and animals might get inside and disturb your. . things." From his pause, it was clear to everyone that Nicols knew what was inside.
The other man laughed. "Well, you are probably right, Detective." Three of the men inadvertently turned their heads toward their white-headed leader, an unconscious twitch toward a sound that no one heard but the three of them.
Whispering.
It was an arcane bit of magickal ventriloquism, used for centuries when adepts wanted to communicate to each other in situations where vocalization could be dangerous. Whispering was like a point-to-point radio transmission: only the sender and the receiver were party to the words. The tic displayed by the three guys showed their naivete.
Neophytes.
However, such inexperience with magick wasn't the immediate problem. Though Nicols and I didn't know what he had told them, the gist was clear. The man closest to us swung his arm around, revealing the black shape of a handgun.
I leaped forward, and grabbed the collar of Nicols' jacket. He dropped his flashlight as I hauled him out of the headlight glare. The gun coughed like an angry seal, and chips of wood split from the edge of the house.
"Son of a bitch," Nicols spat in disgust, as he got his back against the wall. His drew his own gun. "A semi-automatic. Whatever happened to cheap revolvers?"
"Couldn't get the job done, I guess." I kept my voice low. The Chorus flushed my surroundings, and generated an overlay of information. "One guy coming," I said to Nicols as I moved in front of him. "Mr. Semi-automatic." My fingers lightly brushed the cracked paint of the wall, the dead frame grounding me, giving me a point about which to swing my army of snakes. "He's got a friend. I can't sense the rest."
"Think they're going around?"
I nodded. "I would."
"Yeah," Nicols muttered. "So would I." He started to sidle toward the back of the house. I crept in the other direction.
The Chorus sibilated in my throat as I exhaled. I bound them in my hands, pushing them out through my knuckles as glittering spikes of force. As the man crept up on the corner of the house, I held my breath.
He led with the pistol, a quick dart of his arm and head to check our position. He didn't expect to find me just a few inches beyond the barrel of his gun, and he flinched instead of pulling the trigger. I shoved his gun hand through the wall, the wood splintering with a brittle groan as the magick in my fist gave the blow added impetus. He fired the gun once, a quick burst that made a dull spattering noise against the plaster of the inner wall, and then he stopped with the trigger action as I shattered his elbow with my other fist.
The Chorus chased red veins of pain up his arm. They lit his central cortex, amplifying the nerve impulses into an overwhelming rush. He passed out with just a tiny squeak of agony, the plaintive noise a mouse makes as an owl drops on it from a moonless sky and breaks its back.
One down.
The Chorus reacted to a pulse of magick, a night bloom of Will from the front yard. In the back of my mouth, I tasted the acrid hint of old fruit, and I quit trying to extricate the unconscious man's gun from the wall. Nicols was pressed against the house at the back, gun clasped in both hands as he considered a quick glance around the corner. I tried to reach him in time, tried to get my hand on his arm before the spell from the driveway collapsed on us.
An effluvium of dead citrus soured my mouth, and the Chorus flexed in response. I pushed them out, raising a mystical shield against the invisible assault.
The spell actualized with a pop of dead air, and I felt it through my protective ring, felt a tightening in my neck and at the base of my skull as the mystic attack squeezed my lizard brain. I got close to Nicols, but not close enough. The fear spell pulsed over us in the space between two heartbeats, racing through our bodies like an erupting solar flare.
He went stiff, unprotected from such attacks, and panic made his eyes and nostrils widen. The spell wasn't much different than what I had done to the gunman-a psychic assault on the central core of the primeval mind, a blast of inchoate energy targeted for the reptile brain. Even through the protective noise of the Chorus, I felt the wash of bright panic caused by the spell. A threat of fire. Every creature feared fire.
Nicols bolted, a perpendicular course away from the house, straight across the empty field and into the wilderness of the night. His lizard mind had triggered his flight response. He wasn't even aware of why he was running. He just had to get away from the house. He sprinted through the solitary beam of his discarded flashlight, a blur of pant leg and shoe leather, and then he was gone.
I pressed my thumbs into the soft flesh under my jaw, digging toward the bone. The Chorus sparked through my thumbnails. Colligate. Hic. Nunc. The invasive strands of panic shattered.
Spark. The Chorus reminded me of the approaching gunman, marking him on my spectral map. The others were beyond the Chorus' touch; at best guess, still circling around the far side of the house. A pincer of gunmen, front and side, closing in on the corner where I stood.
I swallowed a briny mouthful of spit, and made a mad dash across the back yard. I avoided the obvious error of hiding in the barn, and circled around to the far side of the building-the southern side looking at the spindly trees and the distant trickle of headlights.
The Chorus couldn't find Nicols. His trail pointed off across the empty scrub of the surrounding acreage. He hadn't let go of his gun. Even whacked out on phantasmal terror. If I couldn't find him, odds were neither could they. They'd focus on me.
Two, on the left. Glittering stars in my peripheral vision as light-rich bodies came around the eastern edge of the farmhouse. You like those odds, don't you? The Chorus slithered through my spine.
As the Chorus tasted the two approaching-adrenaline spikes, elevated heart rates-I did a quick recount in my head. Five, originally, now four: this pair, the guy backing up the one I downed already, and the Whisperer. Where was he? Where's the magus?
He could be a real problem. Unmolested, he could be building a spell, something more lethal than the fear bomb he had dropped previously. I didn't have a fix on him.
I moved along the length of the southern wall. The Chorus updated my spectral map, fixing the two glowing dots along the eastern wall of the house. I peeked around the end of the barn, some visual data to flesh out the Chorus' phantasmal map. Chorus-sight made their skin translucent.
The two men cleared the edge of the farmhouse, and carefully picked their way along the back of the house. They were heading for the open door of the barn. I slid out of sight and waited, letting the Chorus keep track of their location while I considered my next move.
The two gunmen were going to check the barn while the third man, the one who had forced me away from the house, kept their
rear safe. That was the smart play. Unless I wanted to sneak off behind the trees and hide in the scattered brush, I needed a way to get past these guys.
Nicols was right. Single shot pistols were always easier to deal with. Three guys with semi-automatics was problematic. It would be easier to isolate them, deal with them individually. Pick them off, one by one. But the situation was complicated by the magus. Based on the insistence of his fear spell and the mental acuity it took to Whisper multiple targets, he wasn't a chump. Staying alert for him was going to split my focus.
I crept along the wall of the barn toward the corner nearest the barn door. The Chorus told me all three were in the yard, close to the western face of the barn. As I got close to the end of the wall, they split. A pair of lights getting brighter, one fading.
I faltered, holding my breath. Why the retreat? What did they know?
As the two reached the barn, the Chorus recoiled, flaring into a protective halo. One of the two was a kaleidoscopic flicker. Layered. He went into the barn while the other man approached the corner. I didn't have time to figure out what the first man was doing; the second man was going to walk right into me.
I quickly sketched a sigil on my left palm, my finger leaving a faint track on my flesh. I curled my fingers inward, protecting the glowing symbol as the Chorus bled into the inscription, imbuing it with meaning.
The gunman approached the corner cautiously, and before he could take a peek, I stepped out and surprised him. I shoved my left hand toward his face, the fingers of my other hand locked around that wrist. I squeezed my arm, flushing the Chorus down into my palm; he jerked back as the sigil blotted itself over his eyes.
The sigil would only last as long as the retinal afterburn. A few seconds. Time enough. I dropped my hands, knocking the barrel of his gun down, and cracked him in the nose with the hard part of my forehead. I felt cartilage snap. The Chorus took advantage of the flesh-to-flesh contact and touched him hard, lighting up the outer edge of his soul. His hands twitched, fingers loosening about the grip of his pistol, and I took the gun from him.
He staggered, blood flowing from his nose. I hit him in the temple with the butt of the gun, and he collapsed like all of his joints had come undone.
The Chorus felt power bloom from within the barn. They whined in my head, their hunger flexing against my Will, as I went to the door of the barn. There was a near palpable hum in the air.
The other gunman floated over the stone pedestal, his body covered with a thin film of violet light. His feet dangled several inches off the stone surface. The edge of the platform was bright with runes, the protection spell activated but not triggered. The man faced the door, waiting for me. When I saw his eyes, I understood the layering the Chorus had registered. There was more than one soul in there.
"Salve." Guttural bark, each word punctuated with a wisp of black smoke. The air was heavy with the stench of burning meat. "Your. Attention. Is. Unwelcome."
"It's not you that I'm interested in finding," I said.
A rictus grin stretched his mouth out of shape. "Yes. We. Know." He jerked once, a spasm running the length of his body. His mouth and eyes opened wide as if some internal pressure was forcing itself out. A glittering spiral of light erupted from the holes in his skull, a rising cascade of soul fire. The Chorus, ravenous and violent with need, lunged for the soul as it departed the gunman's body.
I tried to pull them back, realizing what was about to happen. By suddenly withdrawing from the body, the possessor-the magus! — had relinquished control. The spell holding him up died as well. The gunman fell on the platform. His skin was still polished with a purple light-the film of magick that had held him aloft.
The protection ward ignited. The white letters split the darkness of the barn, and the Chorus shrieked as the erupting light seared the air. I tried to shape them into something resembling a coherent defense as the ceremonial platform exploded.
The concussion shattered the flimsy walls of the barn. The shock wave tossed me across the yard with the rest of the shattered wood.
The glittering spike of the magus' soul shot up into the night sky like a rocket launch. As I fell, my eyes followed the course of the soul as if it were an angel returning to the bosom of Heaven.
VIII
THE SECOND WORK
"Men, weary of the light, took refuge in the shadow of bodily substance; the dream of that void which is filled by God seemed in their eyes to be greater than God Himself, and thus hell was created."
— Eliphas Levi, Transcendental Magic
I woke face-down on a leather couch. The retinal image of the barn explosion and the soul rising into the sky were slowly replaced with the cracked microcosm of a piece of dyed leather. My ears still rang, a tintinnabulation that reminded me of Tibetan prayer bells. All the aches in my lower body rose to a bottleneck at the base of my skull, a sickening knot that felt like a bag of needles being squeezed when I moved. I reluctantly peeled my face off the sofa, and examined my surroundings.
An oil painting of boats at a fishing terminal hung over a gas fireplace, and the tall windows were covered by floor-length jacquard blinds. A pair of torchiere lamps flanked the leather sofa. One of the lamps was dialed up slightly, and its gentle illumination was the only light in the room. Spartan. No TV, no magazines, no newspaper; no one spent much time in this room.
I sat up slowly, and the knot in my neck loosened. I felt like I was filled with a thin layer of mercury and, as I changed my position, the heavy metal shifted. It rolled down, adding weight to my chest, to my torso, pooling in my hips until they ached even more; then it descended to the bowl of my testicles where it settled like the weight of an anvil on my groin. Nothing like a concussive blast to tenderize the whole body like the heavy bag at a boxing gym.
My coat lay on the floor in a heap. Someone must have thrown it across me like a blanket, and I had knocked it off as I crawled back to consciousness. I bent over to pick the garment up, and winced as my bruised kidneys complained.
The leather of the coat was blistered across the shoulders and back, and it reeked of smoke. The zipper's teeth were melted in several places, and flakes of ash floated off as I inspected the coat. It wasn't much of a coat anymore, and barely qualified as a blanket either.
I left its remains on the couch, and attempted to stand. The mercury sensation rolled down my legs, inflaming my right knee. My feet ballooned as the liquid sensation drained into my heels. I took a few steps, staggering like a drunk clown on stilts, and steadied myself on the mantel. I looked at the brushwork on the oil painting for a while, long enough for my legs to finally admit they would move without drifting.
I went looking for a bathroom, and some clue as to where I was.
In the foyer of the house, a black coat clothed the naked skeleton of a hall tree. I knew that coat. Coupled with the pair of shoes casually discarded on the floor nearby, I figured out whose house this was.
I found the bathroom and, while trying to ignore the stain of blood in my urine, I gave some thought to how I had wound up in Nicols' house. My reflection in the unglamorous mirror looked like a bruised piece of meat.
The front edge of my hair had been singed off, giving me that heroin chic punk-rocker look. Blood on my forehead and cheek lent texture to the layer of soot and dirt caking my face. The only thing still pristine was the cord of braided hair about my throat.
No matter what I did, the cord remained unblemished, unmarked. Reija's perpetual reminder. What you do is who you are, but your actions are not your prison.
Finishing at the toilet, I washed off some of the grit, and looked over my clothes. My evening with Father Lenbier had been casual; I hadn't planned on a run in the woods or tussling with the local magi. Levi's, evidently, could withstand a concussion wave and a fireball. My shirt, while a decent cotton blend, hadn't faired as well. Scorched and riddled with holes, it belonged in the same dumpster as my coat. SPD would mistake me for one of Seattle's ubiquitous homeless if I wandered
through downtown wearing it.
Having dirtied the only towel in the bathroom and, opting to ditch the shirt, I went searching for a replacement. I found Nicols, also face-down, on the large bed in the master bedroom, which, like the living room, was minimalist to the point of being uninhabited. Most of the clothes I had seen him in were thrown in a pile near the door. Judging by the acrid odor coming off the pile, Nicols had lost control of his bladder during his flight from the farmhouse.
No shame there. At least he had come back. Most never stop running.
A haphazard jumble of men's clothing barely filled a quarter of the walk-in closet. A few dresses, shoved in a corner, huddled awkwardly on wooden hangers as if they had been left by a previous occupant. I pawed through his clothes for a shirt and settled on a hunter-green polo. It was a little long on me, but I shoved it into my pants and called it good.
Nicols' breathing was shallow and quick-on the upswing from some deep REM sleep. I had been quiet while ransacking his closet, and it may have simply been my presence which had disturbed him, but he was starting to wake up. I left the room, and went looking for the kitchen.
Maslow's hierarchy: food, shelter, security. The essentials. Start at the bottom, work on up.
The kitchen was surprisingly upscale: maple cabinets, stainless steel appliances, marble countertops, central island with a vegetable sink. The pale green paint on the walls helped offset the austerity of the cabinets and appliances.
There wasn't much in the refrigerator and pantry. Bagels and cream cheese, if I wanted something moderately close to fresh. Coffee, though, local beans. I puttered around for all the necessary appliances, and got everything toasting and brewing.
While I waited, I read the ferry schedule attached to the fridge with a magnetized advert for gutter cleaning. The digital clock on the microwave read 12:23 a.m. According to the schedule-Bainbridge Island to Seattle-there was one more run tonight. After that, nothing until the early morning.