Tae turned back to Zaha and saw what looked like the beginning of shock in her eyes. He was not surprised. She’d had a lot of surprises today, physically and then so many of her beliefs turned on their head.
“Come on, Zaha, let’s get out of here.”
“Yes please.”
She took his hand as they followed the others and he squeezed it in comfort.
ERIK
The trip out of the dungeon-like basement was surprisingly easy, if tedious. Daniel scouted ahead and came back to pass along the floor plan to Erik. Sometimes Elana scouted ahead as well and reported back for the others who did not trust the ghost they could not see.
The others looked at him oddly. Daya wore her suspicion plain as day on her face, but at least the fact that Zaha saw Daniel too made her theory less likely. Why would Byron do anything to her?
“I don’t understand why he looks like that.” It was Zaha’s voice; she was trying to be quiet but it was noticeable to everyone.
“What do you mean?” Tae asked.
“I always though ghosts could control what they looked like, at least that’s what the myths say.”
“It’s true.” Elana’s voice held quiet assurance.
Daniel simply stared ahead as if he had not heard the conversation at all.
He led them to a set of stone stairs while Erik did his best not to stare at the injury in a way that was obvious. If Elana was telling the truth, and he had no reason to believe the woman would lie, then it could only be one of two things.
Daniel could not change how he looked because he wasn’t a ghost but something else. Most likely a dangerous something else.
Or he was choosing to look like that to disturb Erik.
As they climbed, the walls around them and the stairs began to look more modern and less stone-age. They climbed as high as the stairs would allow and found themselves in what looked like a modern basement with a bank of regular square gray corporate elevators in the corner.
“This seems like a pretty shoddy operation,” Tae commented. “Not one guard to stop us?”
Matthias stayed silent but he was tense and Erik was as well. It didn’t make sense to go through all the trouble of capturing them and betraying the Organization so thoroughly but not protect your investment. Something else was going on.
Tae took the hint and went silent. They rode up to the lobby in silence.
The elevators released them in a small room with one door. As they stepped out the reason they’d met no other Suits in their journey became clear. The mainstream Hollywood heaven decoration had given way to a gross abattoir.
ELANA
Elana had seen and experienced a lot of things in her twenty-three years among the living and her two years among the dead, including of course her own death. She remembered every detail of the Angelic ripping into her body, which made the discovery of her body all the more curious. She remembered the pain, as the Angelic made it last; she remembered when the whiteness of the other side took her. The journey back was vague, a memory it was painful to prod, like a bruise. She did remember waking up floating and looking down at her corpse. A corpse that had no longer looked anything like her.
It had taken her no effort to become visible to other Blooded, but it took a few months to figure out how to become corporeal. It took a lot of concentration and energy and she was barely a wisp of white fog afterward. She usually only became semitangible for her nights with Daya.
None of her experience prepared her for the vision of the main lobby. She was suddenly happy she did not have to touch anything.
The floor was covered in gore. She tried to count the body parts at first, to count the number of Suits that had been ripped into all these tiny pieces, but she had no idea how to add them up, back into something human.
“What in Ophde’s name?” Tae had gone pale, leaning back against the door.
Zaha was bent over, vomiting.
Elliot was pale but had stepped out of the room and was looking around for the threat. Daya was doing the same, circling on the outside of their group.
“What did this?” Erik asked. He was looking about, gaze jumping from pile of former human to pile of former human.
“My first guess would be an Angelic. My second would be something they got from the Angelics and then cross-bred,” Matthias said, his voice only trembling a bit.
Elana passed over the carnage, taking in everything and searching for some hint of a survivor.
She didn’t know why she came back as a ghost when others did not. The Organization said it was some kind of random lottery, but now she wasn’t so sure. The new information about her body made her question everything. Was it the Angelics who had made her a ghost somehow? Were they using her even now?
Then there was Daniel, who threw into confusion all the things she’d believed for years. Were these newly dead around them? Invisible to everyone, and unable to be heard? Crying and screaming and staring down at the meat that used to be them?
She was caught up in her own horror, because she did not hear the crying until Erik took off in a sprint. They all took off after him, happy to have something to do rather than simply standing around waiting to see if they would die.
ERIK
Daniel floated ahead of him, staring at the devastation around him, but was as focused on the weeping as Erik was. They followed it through the garden, the grass now matted with blood. Trees were shattered and bodies littered the space. As they exited, Erik froze at the sight of the two Angelics—the bubble one and the two-faced blue beetle hovering over the corpse of something horrible. It looked a cricket grown to the size of a small pony and made of nothing but bone and sinew. Its legs were covered in odd metal boots that ended in wicked points. The double layer of mouth pincers, which he didn’t think actual crickets had, were also wearing sharp metal caps.
Standing a few feet away was a young man in a torn suit. He was the one crying while he held a large gun in front of him, aimed at the Angelics. He bled from various wounds, and dark bruises forming on the left side of his face and across pale skin were a testament that he’d been tossed around a bit. His dark hair looked sticky with blood. The gun didn’t look standard issue and Erik thought about the guns the Organization had. He had to wonder what the Agency must have, with their access to government funds.
No wonder the Angelics weren’t moving or striking him dead on the spot. They probably had no idea what the gun might do. The man was crying big ugly tears that made him squint. His body moved with his gasps and made his aim disturbingly shaky.
“Hey, buddy.” The gun swung toward his voice and Erik held his hands up to show that he was no threat.
“What the hell are you doing?” Daniel hissed at him but Erik ignored him and spoke to the Suit.
“What are you doing?”
The gun swung back toward the Angelics. “It’s their fault! They killed everyone!”
Erik heard the others come up behind him, stopping as they took in the tableau. The soap bubble spoke but the voice was softer than before, the pops not nearly so loud. “We had nothing to do with this. The one called Byron released one of the creations from the lab.”
“That you gave us! It was all a trick, wasn’t it?”
“It was not.” The beetle thing sounded calm. “Crikes are used for transportation in our land. They are sometimes aggressive but not murderous in such a way. This thing was heavily altered.”
Erik looked down at the metal sheaths that the creature was wearing. He believed it. He turned back to the Suit.
“Look, buddy, you’re pretty traumatized. You just saw a lot of people you know die.”
The crying turned to weeping and his body shook a bit.
“But you’re alive and you want to stay that way, don’t you?”
The man nodded.
“And here’s the thing. You can’t take down both of them. No matter how powerful that gun is, or how fast you are. Chances are you’re only gonna get to take down one of t
hem before the other one takes you out.”
The man was lowering his gun, the glint of recklessness gone from his eyes, the willingness to die gone from his stance. Erik quickly strode forward and took the gun from the man’s suddenly nerveless fingers. Once the gun was gone, the man’s eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed into a heap on the floor. Erik hurriedly knelt and checked for the pulse. It was strong and steady.
“We owe you a debt.”
Erik rose back to his feet and faced the two Angelics. He held the gun loosely in his hand.
“Well, not exactly. I may have killed your friend.”
“We know. We felt Amirand die. We were bound for our trip. If you managed to kill Amirand, then it was weak enough to be killed. The supporters in Zebub will not be happy, but you shall handle it with aplomb, I am sure.”
“Why would you think I would go anywhere with you after all this?” Erik gestured to those around him and the dead bodies.
“The kidnapping was not our idea. Byron did this independently.”
“But you went along with it. Helped him.” Matthias stepped up to Erik’s side.
“After the plan was already in action, what would have been the point of denying it, if it proved effective?”
“Still, there’s not much you can offer me to come to your world.”
“But now we have something to trade. You help with the dark that has invaded our land, and we help you to discover all the perversions done by your government with the things we provided.”
Erik hesitated. He looked at the devastation all around him, the pieces of things, and imagined Robert being cornered by one of these things, and almost smiled until Robert changed to his mom and then Matthias. It was too late to save Daniel or any of these Suits, but could he walk away if it would potentially save a bunch of people from suffering the same fate?
He sighed and looked back at Matthias, who nodded. Erik agreed, but Daniel was angrily arguing against.
“You can’t go to their world. Look at what they went along with! They have no morals. You don’t know what they will do to you once you are on their turf.”
Daniel’s worry wasn’t misplaced, but he was wrong that they didn’t have any morals. It was only that their morals were completely outside of the Blooded understanding. Erik had already recognized one aspect of their code, though. They respected strength. He looked at the thing that had ripped its way through this office and had killed so many people, enemies or not. How many facilities did the Agency have? How many of these things were waiting to escape?
“I want your word that myself and any people who accompany me will be allowed to leave at any time. That we will be treated with respect and not harmed by your allies.”
“We can agree to those terms. We will meet in seven days in this place so you may accompany us back to Zebub.”
They did not wait for Erik’s response before they were gone from sight as quick as a thought. He didn’t know if giving their word would mean anything, but it was the only protection that he believed he could offer.
“None of you have to come with me,” he said as he turned to face them. Daniel had his back turned to him, his stance daring Erik to speak to him.
Matthias and Tae immediately answered him.
“Bullshit.”
“We’re going.”
Elliot and Daya agreed much more reluctantly, and Erik felt they only did so because Tae had.
“Well, let’s get out of here before more bullshit happens.” They limped out of the building to be greeted by an old and patched Caddy waiting outside with a couple Blooded Elliot and Daya recognized inside. Erik crawled in the back after Matthias.
DAYIDA
She knew her son’s new life would be dangerous. She had not wanted children at all, but Robert had and she had liked him so much at the time. She had foolishly hoped that Robert’s normal human vitality would swamp whatever gift might come with her blood. It did not work out that way, but still Erik seemed happy, and after finding out his skills she at least didn’t worry about him being harmed as much. Still, when Erik came home covered in blood and something that smelled like dead things that had been left in the sewer for weeks, she was understandably worried.
“What the hell, Matthias?” she called to the man behind him.
“He did good, Yida.” The way he looked at her son told her there was something else. Something he was worried about.
“I’m going to take a shower and sleep.”
“I’ll be up to talk to you in a minute.” She did not expect Erik to respond, but she would not let him rest without a word or two in his ear.
She turned back to Matthias and said, “Tell me.” As she heard the shower start upstairs, he started to tell her everything. He hesitated at points and she wondered if she was getting all the details. She stopped him in the midst of talking about the their battle at the mall when the shower stopped.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
She took the stairs two at a time, catching her son’s bedroom door closing. She knocked once before she opened the door. Erik was splayed on the bed, his towel covering his backside.
“Erik.”
He turned his head toward her so it was no longer buried in the comforter and grunted.
“Are you okay?”
He shook his head, rubbing his eyes against the fabric.
She sat on the bed and he stopped moving. She put her hand on his back and rubbed back and forth.
“I can’t talk about it anymore tonight. I just need to sleep.”
She waited before rising and heading for the door. “I love you, Erik.”
His quiet “Love you too, Mama” nearly broke her heart. She returned downstairs and found Matthias watching her. She sat across from him.
“The time is coming when you won’t be able to hide anymore, Yida. Robert has helped you control it all these years, but you’re awakened. You can’t keep denying it.”
“Why not? I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole.”
“Something dark is coming, Yida. I don’t know what, but there have been too many signs for even me to ignore.”
Dayida looked away. She had seen some of the signs as well. The surprise meteor shower the other day. The ring around Venus. The rediscovery of certain species thought extinct, like the thylacine. The world was preparing for something.
“I want you to survive what is coming.”
“I will, no matter what. But I will think about what you say.”
“That’s all I can ask.” Matthias nodded, reclined on the couch and finished recounting what had happened.
The stab of guilt as he revealed Daniel’s fate hit her right in the chest.
“My god. How is Erik dealing?” She looked at the stairs, thinking about going back up and waking Erik up just to hug him again.
Matthias hesitated and she looked back at him.
“What is it, Matthias?”
“He sees Daniel and he’s not going mad.” He hurried on before she could jump to the obvious conclusion. “Someone else saw and confirmed, but he’s not visible to the rest of us.”
“You’re worried about something.” She leaned forward.
“There’s just something wrong, Yida. I can’t see what it is yet, but I’ll keep watching.”
She nodded.
“In the meantime.” He curled into the couch and looked at her in question. She rolled her eyes and nodded and he was asleep practically before she stood.
The house phone rang. She started, confused because they barely used the house phone any longer. They all had cells.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is Erik available?”
“Who may I ask is calling?”
“This is Patrah Boothe.”
“Patrah? It’s Yida!”
“Yida, it’s so good to hear your voice. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine. Still painting.”
“I know. I’ve been meaning to come to your shows but something keeps
coming up. Now that I’m gonna be in the Bay for a while training, though, I hope we can meet up.”
“I’d like that.” Yida was nervous. The more she let Blooded back into her life, the less likely she felt that she could keep control. But she had been lonely these last few years. First they’d moved down to Los Angeles, then to North Carolina for the filming, and it had just been easier to let all the bonds that weren’t family fall by the wayside.
“Quiet, I’ll ask,” Patrah said, but it was muffled and clearly not intended for her. “Yida, I’m sorry, but my aspirant is freaking out. Everyone else just got back to the safe house and they look pretty worse for the wear. Elliot pulled the idiotic move of saying Erik took the brunt of it and now she won’t stop pestering me until she has proof he’s fine.”
The exasperation in Patrah’s voice made Yida chuckle.
“I wish I could help you out, but he’s fallen asleep. Who knows when he’ll be up. He’s been running pretty hot using his powers lately.”
“Yeah.”
“Here, let me talk to her.”
“Erik?” The voice was young and unsure.
“No, this is Erik’s mom. I’m sorry, but Erik is asleep right now, he was really tired when he came in.”
“He’s not answering my texts.”
“He probably has the phone on silent so he can sleep. I’ll tell him to call you as soon as he wakes up. I promise.”
“Okay.” There was a lot of hesitation in the voice as if she didn’t trust Yida at all.
“Thanks, Yida, she was driving me out of my mind.”
“No problem. I’ll have him call when he wakes up . . . and let’s get together soon.”
“Yeah.”
They hung up and Dayida looked all around her. She thought about what Matthias had said about the darkness coming. She headed to her studio. As soon as she stepped inside she felt a sense of peace. It was painted in a dark, vibrant maroon, different from the constant blues and greens she grew up around. Her mother had said those colors were calming, conducive to clear thought and healing.
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