Harbinger

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Fuck you,” roared the ghost.

  A few meaty slaps and grunts followed.

  After activating Darksight, Evan pushed the debris off himself and stood, but couldn’t reach the top of the container. He climbed up to stand on a slab of material that looked like a piece of kitchen countertop, grabbed the upper edge of the dumpster, and pulled himself up to peer over the metal wall.

  His mother hovered close to Dorian and the assassin ghost, arm cocked back for an attack with the lash, but she hesitated.

  “Watch your language. There’s a kid present.” Dorian flipped the assassin over and grabbed him in a headlock. “This guy hasn’t been a spirit that long.”

  Evan climbed over the container’s wall and jumped down to the road. As much as he wanted to run right over to his mother and grab on, he circled away from the fighting ghosts to a safe spot behind her.

  “Hold him… gonna call a friend to pick him up.” Kirsten closed her eyes.

  “Bitch!” roared the assassin.

  He melted out of Dorian’s grip and rushed at Kirsten.

  “Mom!” shouted Evan.

  She brought her arms up in a defensive maneuver, but the ghost ran straight through her—and plunged his hand into Evan’s chest. Icy fingers clamped around his heart. Evan stared down at the wrist sticking out of him.

  He’s trying to make my heart stop.

  Evan focused on the chill in his chest, commanding his heart to warm up and keep going. For the few seconds it took Kirsten to recover from the stun of having a ghost crash into her, he engaged in a battle with the spirit—accelerated healing fighting off a chilling touch.

  Kirsten whirled around, screaming in rage. A flash of white energy went by, swatting the assassin ghost to the side. Evan gasped, clutched his chest, and fell to his knees. Pain stabbed him like a giant icicle, but he concentrated too much on keeping his heart moving to cry. Somewhere off to the side, Kirsten shouted a whole mess of bad words along with the ethereal whisper of the lash going back and forth.

  Inky blackness rushed by from the left.

  Evan stared at the ground in front of his knees, trying to rub warmth into his chest. It felt like if he stopped channeling his self-healing, he’d pass clear out. Dorian said something. The assassin ghost screamed in terror. A strong sense of dread, the same sort of darkness he’d felt when the abyssal appeared in their old apartment, built to a peak, but he didn’t let it break his focus.

  The next thing he knew, his body shook back and forth.

  “Ev? Ev!” shouted Kirsten.

  He looked up, nearly nose to nose with her. She knelt in front of him, paler than usual.

  “I’m okay… just cold.” His stomach growled. “And, I’m really hungry.”

  Kirsten fussed at him, pulling his shirt up to examine his chest. “Ack! What’s all this grey dust?”

  “Ashes.” Evan coughed.

  Not seeing any obvious injuries, she tugged his shirt back down and pulled him into a tight hug. He lost himself in crying for a little while—better to let it out now before his friends would see. After a minute or two, he sniffled back the rest of his tears. Those could wait until they got home.

  “We have to get Shawn, Walter, and Maela out of there. The settlers have them locked in a room. They’re gonna assign them families and never let them leave.”

  Kirsten squeezed him. “Okay. Show me where.”

  Evan took her by the hand and led her toward the settlement. “Are you going to ask them or do you want to sneak in and break them out? The window has bars, but the E-90 would melt them.”

  “And go through half their city. It might hit someone I can’t see. Let’s try talking. If they won’t listen to reason, I’ll just have to ask nicely.”

  He brought her in the back way, straight to the yard behind the house with the barred windows. Two men in plastic tarp robes—one with an old steel colander for a hat—and a woman holding an enormous sword had evidently spotted two pairs of glowing eyes approaching and came to investigate.

  Evan couldn’t help himself and giggled at the woman for wearing metal bowls for a bikini top along with grimy plastic sheeting as a skirt.

  “The aliens have returned,” whispered the man with the colander on his head.

  “Every now and then,” said Dorian, “life presents us with a situation wherein it is nearly impossible not to laugh at the absurdity of it.”

  “I’m here to collect three lost children who don’t belong down here.” Kirsten took a step forward. “Please release them so I can bring them back to their homes.”

  “They’ve come to finish what they started!” yelled the woman, raising her giant sword.

  Kirsten sighed. “Stop.”

  All three froze.

  Maela, Shawn, and Walter appeared in the window, peering out between the bars.

  “If you honestly think we’re aliens that have the power to blow up the Earth, exactly what do you expect to do to me with swords?” Kirsten scratched her head. “Seriously?”

  “We can’t let you kill those children by taking them out into space for alien probes,” said Colander Man.

  Dorian whistled. “They really shouldn’t drink the water down here.”

  “Mom, there’s other kids living down here. If the water’s bad, we should help them all get to the surface.”

  “He’s being a smartass. But, I’ll talk to Eze and see if we can do something about relocating them at some point.” She pointed at the man without the colander. “Release the children.”

  The man walked off to the front of the house.

  “You two should go home.” Kirsten waved, shooing them.

  Both other settlers wandered away without much sense of urgency in their stride. A moment later, Walter, Maela, and Shawn backed away from the window. They soon came running down the passage between the house and the adjacent one, gathering around Evan.

  “It worked!” Shawn smiled at Kirsten. “Thanks for getting our asses out of there.”

  “They took our flashlights.” Maela gestured at the Beneath. “It’s too dark.”

  Kirsten appeared about to say something about him cursing, but didn’t bother. She reached toward Maela. “Everyone hold hands and follow me.”

  The kids formed a chain. As much as he wanted to hang onto his mother, Evan put himself at the end so he could watch for anything coming up behind them. Hand-in-hand, they followed her back to the same column.

  Much to Evan’s surprise, none of his friends wanted to use the capsule elevator.

  Evan jumped out of the autoshower tube, pulled on his pajama pants, and ran out to the living room. He curled up beside his mother and finished explaining everything that happened, including waking up in a burn pit.

  He’d been right.

  She got squeezy.

  16

  Grey Devils

  Kirsten dragged herself into the squad room under protest.

  She didn’t object so much to entering the squad room, more being awake. The evil alarm clock had vented its infernal wrath upon her far too early. For the first time in her life, she messaged Captain Eze that she would be late, not caring at all if he said no. She managed only one more hour of sleep before she couldn’t close her eyes again.

  Evan had spent the night in her bed, though she couldn’t tell if she comforted a frightened child or had been the frightened child clinging to her favorite bear. Perhaps reciprocity had occurred. She marveled at how easily he’d brushed off the whole ‘getting lost in the Beneath’ thing. Although, except for the ghost grabbing him by the heart, he really hadn’t been in all that much danger. The worst part of the ordeal had been how those primitive people reminded him of that horrible woman biology called his mother.

  She didn’t even bother going to her desk and proceeded right to Eze’s office, assuming he’d call her in to talk.

  “Good morning.” He smiled, his teeth perfect and blinding white. “So… what happened? Is this about the Stephens case?”

&n
bsp; “Somewhat. Mostly Evan.” She sank into the chair and explained about the kids winding up trapped in the Beneath. “I think someone should have a talk with Mr. Short. He should’ve been in the classroom supervising them while they worked on cit points, not three stories away in the Admin offices playing a damn video game while my son and his friends fell down an elevator shaft.”

  Captain Eze nodded. “I agree. So, this spirit… is it an ongoing problem?”

  “No. He’s… elsewhere now.”

  “The Harbingers claimed him,” said Dorian before appearing beside her. His voice also emanated from a speaker in the desk terminal.

  “That is… interesting.” Captain Eze glanced at the computer. “I’m glad to hear the kids are well.”

  “Little freaked out, but I think they’ll be okay.” Kirsten smoothed her hands down her legs, itching at the new fabric of her replacement uniform pants.

  “Regarding the Stephens case. I’m fully behind you on this one, though the Command Council has some concern regarding the appearance we may be executing the religious.”

  Kirsten held back the urge to roll her eyes. “Sir, look at my video feed from the event. First of all, only one of them died… and I fired after they shot at me. Second, those Harris cultists aren’t ‘religious.’ They’re insane. There’s nothing at all spiritual about them.”

  “You didn’t have to wait for them to shoot first, K.” Dorian tried to squeeze her shoulder. “Not in that situation you walked into.”

  “And”—Kirsten held her arms out to each side—“release my video feed. Show the world these assholes trying to burn a damned nine-year-old child to death on a f—freakin’ metal cross. If that kid wasn’t a pyrokinetic…” She choked up.

  Captain Eze stifled a chuckle. “Fortunate if a bit ironic.”

  “Not really. They apparently burn all psionics to death. When I brought Ashley Harris in, she told me she’d been terrified they’d do the same to her. At the time, I thought she might’ve been exaggerating but… I think she witnessed them do it once. And they murdered Willow’s father basically right in front of her.”

  “She saw it?” Captain Eze raised both eyebrows.

  “No. They had her tied up in another room while they dragged her father around behind a boiler and executed him. She didn’t see the body, but once we got her settled in at the dorm, I spent two hours with her last night so she could talk to his ghost. I really don’t understand why Command is so worried about offending these morons. They’re an active danger to people.”

  Dorian folded his arms. “Guarantee they’re going to keep this entire incident classified. No NewsNet bots caught any of it on camera, so no one needs to know about a Division 0 officer taking the life of an anti-psionic zealot, no matter how justified it was.”

  She sighed.

  “Oh, something new is on your plate.” Captain Eze swiped at a holo-panel over his desk. “Please tell me it isn’t related to you investigating those dead gang members.”

  “Umm… I sure hope not. I’m not aware of anything new.” She tensed up, expecting horrible news. “What’s up?”

  “It just came in, late last night. A fairly high-ranking member of an organized street gang known as the Grey Devils was found dead of unexplained causes.”

  “Probably an overdose of something experimental they don’t know how to screen for,” said Dorian.

  Kirsten checked her armband terminal and, sure enough, a new inquest had popped up in her list of active cases. “Chems?”

  “Doubtful. You’ll understand why this one came to us when you see the body.”

  “Oh, boy.” She leaned back in the chair and sighed. “This sounds bad.”

  The instant Kirsten stepped into the storage room at the morgue, strong abyssal energy crashed over her.

  Three walls each had sixteen body coolers in a four-by-four grid, bluish plastisteel squares with rounded corners aglow with status displays wherever a space held some poor unfortunate person. Only murder victims wound up in this wing, kept on ice for as long as it took to extract all possible data about their deaths.

  The morgue attendant, a woman in her younger twenties with dark brown skin, long straight black hair, and a pleasant smile, crossed to the wall opposite the door. She reached up to the third door of the topmost row and pushed a glowing white square on the hatch.

  A soft hiss broke the silence. The panel opened upward, a body tray sliding out into view then lowering to the level of a standard operating table. Lights around the edges of the clean, white platform projected the shadow of a man’s form on the plastic covering him. The radiant energy coming from the body almost certainly came from an abyssal, though of an intensity she hadn’t yet encountered: stronger than Seneschal and his team of returned mercenaries, but not as potent as Charazu.

  This is either a really nasty abyssal or a minor demon.

  Kirsten stood there in silence, somewhat dreading what she might see when the woman pulled back the covering. She looked across the body at the woman in a long white lab coat, Bhanu Anand according to the ID badge dangling from the breast pocket. A yellow line below the name identified her as a grad-student intern, still in university.

  “The doctor was unable to explain the nature of the injuries,” said Bhanu.

  “How bad is it?”

  Bhanu clasped her hands in front of herself. “It is unusual. I’ve never encountered anything like it before. And yes, I’m aware I’m only twenty-four and my career isn’t exactly epic.” She smiled. “I would call it ‘odd,’ not ghastly.”

  “What killed him?”

  “I can answer you in terms of the literal reason he died, but we cannot explain how such an injury was inflicted. The deceased suffered five internal lacerations without damage to the epidermis or lining of the thoracic cavity. The heart and all its major blood vessels were completely divided in three slices. Both lungs suffered damage as well, though the laceration across the right lung had a more horizontal orientation.” She raised her voice. “Terminal, activate.”

  A large holo-panel appeared in midair next to her. She poked at it for a moment until a scan image appeared of the body, showing four slashes in the center of the chest with another one offset on the left at a flatter angle.

  “That looks like claws,” said Kirsten. She held her hand up to the screen, mimicking a five-fingered clawing motion. “The thumb clipped the right lung.”

  “Wraith?” asked Dorian.

  Bhanu raised an eyebrow. “Do claws typically cause damage commensurate with frostbite? Tissue to a depth of a quarter inch around each laceration showed signs of having been frozen and thawed.”

  “Depends on what kind of claws we’re talking about. A wraith could, yes.”

  The tech’s confidence faltered. She stared wide-eyed at Kirsten for a few seconds. “Er… now that you mention it, I do get a strange feeling around this body. Sometimes, when I’m alone in this place, it feels like I’m being watched. But… with this decedent, I’m getting that feeling even now, with you here.”

  Kirsten faced the platform and pulled the covering back. “There’s some serious bad energy on this guy.”

  Jagged black marks on the dead man’s pallid white skin appeared to match the scan image of the internal lacerations. Of course, the body’s internal organs had already been removed during the autopsy and likely sat in gel canisters somewhere else as evidence. It didn’t seem too likely a wraith would go to trial, but she didn’t yet feel completely comfortable telling the morgue they could incinerate the remains.

  Kirsten gingerly rested her hand on the man’s shoulder. The dark taint of the presence clarified—definitely abyssal in nature. Bhanu’s description of the lacerations being flash frozen reminded her of how it felt when Mariko’s sword pierced her leg. Despite a historical association between ‘demons’ and fire, it seemed they rather favored cold. Then again, much like this woman’s nascent career, Kirsten couldn’t exactly claim to have ‘seen it all’ either.

&nbs
p; “I don’t think a wraith did this.” She pulled the sheet back over the man’s face and grumbled, “Demons again.”

  “Seriously?” asked Bhanu, leaning back.

  “Keeping my fingers crossed it isn’t an actual demon, but a dark ghost.” Kirsten accessed her armband terminal and pulled up the inquest.

  “That stuff is real? Are you teasing me?”

  Dorian chuckled.

  “There’s something after the world you think of as real. I don’t really believe there’s any such thing as gods looking down on us, but I’ve seen entities of light and entities of darkness, and ghosts go in one direction or the other depending on what they did in life. The ones who are too dark for the silvery doorway but not so far gone they’re drawn to the other place linger around as haunts. Someone once told me the concept of Purgatory isn’t so much a separate plane as merely ghosts stuck here in the normal world trying to figure out which way to go.”

  “That’s… interesting.” Bhanu looked around at the other coolers. “Are there any ghosts in here?”

  “Just my partner.”

  The woman blinked. “Your partner is a ghost?”

  Dorian wandered about, smiling.

  “He’s not officially in the system as an active-duty officer anymore since he’s dead, but… for all intents and purposes, yes. He is my partner. People weren’t exactly racing to pair up with the creepy astral sensitive. And honestly, unless they’re an astral as well, they really wouldn’t help all that much with what I deal with.”

  “What you’re supposed to deal with.” Dorian winked. “You seem to keep winding up in dangerous situations.”

  She sighed at him. “As long as this case doesn’t end with me having to take on another creature so big I’m eye-level to its balls, I’ll call it a win.”

  Dorian cringed.

  “I’m not sure I want to know what that means.” Bhanu offered a nervous smile.

  “You’ll be happier not to.” Kirsten sighed and resumed reading over the notes.

  The deceased went by the singular name Modeus. Division 1 had a record on him going back twelve years. They listed him as twenty-nine, but the corpse appeared ten years older, though that might’ve been an aftereffect of death by abyssal. He’d been the fourth in command of a large street gang, the Grey Devils, which operated primarily out of grey zones. A crosslink to the Division 1 notes on the gang showed a network of distribution channels for various street chems, protection schemes, prostitution, even contract killings or mercenary work.