The Star Eater

by Marco Antônio Loureiro

  Azzurra takes a corner of a big block downtown. Both hotel streets were taken by Boca do Lixo, an unofficial region of São Paulo filled with crack cocaine users. Plastic bags and garbage share space with the drug's victims. Rats, dogs and human beings turn go through gargabe cans looking for food. The smell of urine and filth is almost unbearable.

  The driver parks the armored Lexus at the access ramp to Azzurra's parking lot. Because of the strong rain and the amount of rubble, Nathan needs to open the garage gate with his own hands.

  The luxury car goes down the ramp towards the basement; the smell is unbearable here. It's because of a mist of diesel, sewage and chemicals. For years the hotel's lower floors have been used as a depoist of industrial materials. Manu drug dealers use these areas as drug labs. Thecar cruises through this dismal landscape. Underground and damp. Until it gets close to the elevators.

  Victors gets off the car as soon as his employee opens the door. He holds a white handkerchief over his nose, trying to avoid contamination; he is also wearing leather gloves. He definitely doesn't feel comfortable in this place.

  When he reaches the elevator door, he removes a garbage bag from his way with his cane, its handle the head of a silver dragon. Some garbage spills from the bag. Victor covers his hace with his hand.

  The elevator is old, with a sliding grid for a door, no light on the mechanical buttons. The sound of the engine room is frightening. It's raining so hard that Carlyle can hear it as he goes up to the twelth floor. The journey ends with an abtupt jolt.

  The grid slides open, showing a hallway full of old furniture covered by spider webs and dust. A lot of dust. The old Englishman works his way among the obstacles. At both sides, old abandoned hotel rooms, some without their numbers, others with cracks running along the century-old doors, revealing abandoned luxury rooms, thir furniture protected by sheets riddled with holes.

  The air is heavy. Still. It gives one the impression of being observed. Eache yard walked is a victory. So many years have gone by before my last meeting here, he thins.

  The hallway ends in a big dirty window, facing the street. Because of all the littering, the drains are clogged and the water level is rising. The last room to the right is the only one in good condition in this floor. Its door is varnished and the room number "1205" is painted in gold. Exactly as it was when the hotel was built.

  Victor Carlyle knocks on the door three times. He hears a long whisper. A feeling of cold runs through the Englishman's spine, his head and eyes assaulted by strong pain. The attack seems imminent, the gentleman feels a pressure between his shoulders, as if an invisible presence was pushing him downwards.

  "Who are you, old man?" Something whispers in ancient Greek close to Carlyle's ear. He can feel who - or what - is whispering, close to his face.

  "Calm down, guardian. My name is Victor Carlyle. But I have been known as Veritas Antonius, the Silver Eagle, last Commander of the Order of Silent Blades." The Englishman commands the invisible presence.

  "Show me your crest, Commander! " The entity is still whispering threateningly, while it moves away from its target.

  Victor takes a pendant from inside his shirt. It's shaped like a shield with an embossed silver eagle. The actual shield is split in two parts. The upper one cointains the letters S.P.Q.R, an acronym for the Latin phrase "Senatus Populusque Romanus", which means "the Senate and the Roman People", if translated to English, and the lower one has the colors blue and gold. Lord Carlyle presents the shield towards the whisper.

  "Forgive me, Commander.. May the Blade be ever sharp." The entity whispers, respectfully.

  "May the Blade light your way, lightless creature." Carlyle says, like a true knight of God.

  The door to room 1205 unlocks itself. A metallic sounds seems to come from outside the building. Victor Carlyle looks throught the big hallway window before going inside, looking for the titanic gears that seem to be turning.

  Heavy rain hits the city.

  After a few minutes, city lights go off. Screams of panic can be heard coming from several directions. Victor contemplates the mix of screams and darkness for a few minutes, trying to somehow find an explanation. The Hotel's generators start working and power returns to the Blade's headquarters.

  Chapter 8

  Back to the crash site.

  Joseph and the officer are on the road, their concentration so focused that they do not notice the metallic sound coming from the sky. After twenty minutes, they arrive at the first crash site.

  It's a terrible picture that would shock even the most cold-hearted onlooker. The disaster site has a radius of around ten yards and is lit only by the car's headlights.

  Around fifty cars are involved, randomly spread across the crash site, in the center two buses crashed head on and are totaled and the bodies of the passengers can be seen strewn across the road, most of them mutilated. The other vehicles crashed onto each other in the most diverse ways possivle, its survivors moaning inside the wreckage.

  Everything indicates that emergency services are inoperative, since no rescue car is around to help the few survivors that crawl among the bodies or are trapped inside the cars.

  Everything Joseph can see or hear are crying, blood, oil and rain.

  The doctor, an expert at practicing medicine in the darkest corner of the planet, mainly in countries riddled by wars and plagues, is stunned. He has never seen this much destruction in such a short sight. Rain at rush hour was never a reason for such a tragedy, he supposed at least a hundred people died in this crush.

  A thought crosses his mind; in a weird fashion, everything seems planned. What was capable of eviscerating that woman? Those inhuman marks stuck to his mind. And how will he find Andreas?

  "Doctor?! Can you help anyone?!" The traffic officer asks, desperately.

  The officer's scream draws Joseph from his shock, reminding him of his resposibility as a doctor. The doctor quickly plans a strategy to better help the injured people.

  "First step is a triage. Let's create three patient categories."

  The officer listens closely to the doctor's directives.

  "First!" Joseph gestures the number one with his finger. A technique used in war zones. 'Clear commands,' he remembers his instructor saying. "Slightly wounded! Those that have scrapes, but can still move. Just remember your first aid classes!"

  He is still paying attention.

  "Second! Seriously wounded. Those that have reasonable wounds to the limbs. We need to transport them to an area where I can perform the first procedures." Joseph screams pointing to one of a pickup truck. Determining that is the place for the seriously wounded.

  "What about the third?" The cop asks, ready for action.

  "What's your name, kid?" The doctor asks, touching his shoulders with both hands.

  "Corporal Marcelo, sir."

  "The third is those that are still alive, but are beyond help. We cannot waste time trying to save them, because we would be dooming those that still have chance. Do you follow?"

  "I follow, sir, but how can I tell?" The man asks, showing his lack of training for big accidents.

  — Your task is simple. Look amont the for those that can still walk. We are going to make them nurses so that we can help the biggest number of people we can." He commands.. Aware that the boy will not be able to accomplish his other task. Joseph's rational side takes over.

  As soon as he gets his orders, the corporal rushes towards the wounded. Already helping those who can stand up, Joseph rushed between the cars and finds some rubber mats, a school bag, a baby bag, tampons, two bottles of vodka and many cloth rags.

  He puts all of its objects into the trunk of the chosen vehicle. Clothes, diapers and tampons are going to be used as bandages. The mats can be used as padding for the trunk. From the school bag, he gets an improvised doctor set, separating ball pen chambers, two scissors and a stiletto. The vodka bottles will be used to sterilize wounds and items. In a matter of minutes he manages to setup a guerr
ila medicine unit.

  Joseph thinks back to the Guiné camp, when he had to treat ten possible ebola victims with only a first aid kit. Then, like today, his efforts were worth it.

  He cannot help his thoughts going back to Andreas one more time. He remembers that day when he told him they would be months apart because of Doctors Without Borders. There were days of talking and bargaining until the trip was accepted. Had Andreas known that it's in these moments that he missed him the most, they would not have fought so much over his medical career.

  After the setup, a beacon of hope; two police cars arrive at the site. Commandingly, the doctor gets one of the new officers to search for useful materials in the cars nearby. The other, more level-headed, stays to help with the triage.

  The officers tell Joseph they can't get in touch with headquarters; the doctor checks his cell phone and notices he has the same problem. It must be the rain, he thinks, and gets back to his makeshift medical camp.

  Aaron and Yura's bike darts fast through the car rows. He's been in São Paulo a few times and knows his way around the metropolis. But something is different.

  Aside from the darkness, pierced only by the headlights, they see several atypical situations, such as drivers brawling on the road, some acting like wild animals. They see groups of people roaming aimlessly, slowly, around the vehicles.

  Many cars are abandoned, no sign of their passengers. Some of their windshields and windows are broken, while others present weird blood stains.

  Minutes later, they see a huge accident. Inside the chaos a man with rolled up sleeves and covered in blood givers orders to some policemen, which catches Aaron's attention. He stops to observe.

  "What hapened?" Yura asks in his ear.

  "Do you see that man? There's something odd about him". The agent answers thoughtfully. Due to his psychic perception, his eyed have never deceived him.

  "Do you want to help him?" She whispers in his ear, almost touching hs skin.

  "Can you notice something different about him as well, Yura?"

  The Ukranian focuses her attention on the man who caught her partner's attention; not just on him, but on all the ruckus around him.

  "Yes, he seems to be a touched one, but his strength lays dormant still. She reasons, still watching him attentively.

  "Interting."

  She waits for a moment.

  "There is someone atop one of the cars." Aaron points out, watching carefully.

  "Friend or foe?" She asks looking in the same direction.

  A shade is atop one of the cars, watching the medical team working.

  Aaron closes his hand, leaving only his index finger and thumb stretched as he utters words of power. "Sah, Enu, Riaki, Ka!"

  His eyes start emitting a blue light that allows him to watch in total darkness. Different from Yura, Aaron traveled the word to understand his own mediumship, getting to know the most ancient and remote cultures in the planet and, in each of them, learning about how they worship the supernatural and practice magic, adding these ritual forms to his arsenal. Today, he is definitely one of the greatest living arcanists.

  The spell enhances his sight, allowing him to distinguish the shade; it is a man squatting atop one of the cars, his clothes ragged as if he was attacked by an animal, holding a shard of rusty metal.

  This man, who looks on the verge of a mental breakdown, scrapes the shard against the car's roof obsessively. His eyes are bloodshot, but it's his somehow feral movement that causes greater discomfort. These movements are reminiscent of the way Yura moves.

  Suddenly, like an animal pouncing towards its prey, the man advances through the darkness towards the medical team. The agents have little time to react.

  Aaron jumps off the bike and draws his sword. "Quick, Yura!"

  The Ukranian dismounts along with her partner and disappears in the darkness, her speed is impressive. The agent knows he could not keep up with her, therefore he rushed towards the medical team. He recites another spell.

  "Niah! Sah!" And the blue glow that burned in his eyes now courses through his blade.

  Chapter 9

  Time to get the show on the road

  Angiolina wakes up on her bed the next day. Aside from her vision of Melissa in captivity, her dreams were full of bizarre places. To reach the young scientist she had to travel through several dream dimensions.

  Until she woke up, her conscience flew through these dimensions. The Argasha Oracle of Blood, second of his name, a man full of wisdom, drew the same dimensions and several alien landscapes in a collection called Ephemerae. Angiolina did not know that, but they were the same places.

  In her astral travel she saw titanic mountains in planets unknown by science, dark hills hidden in the universe's darkest corners, huge caves inhabited by single-cell organisms as big as houses.

  She drifted through gray deserts, filled with ruins that, from a human point of view, had non-Cartesian format, through swampy tropical forests, filled with beats evolved in a completely alien amnner, being with tentacle appendaes, arthropods with human face and hair, forgotten races similar to jellyfish floating in the dark. Some worlds suffered and burned in chaos, humanoids could be seen suffering in the claws of sinister creatures. The trip through the planes felt like an eternity.

  When she regains her senses, all the restaurant's employees are around. Her cousin Giovanna is by her side on the ground, her make up smudged from crying. Lorenzo, the delivey boy, is stand by the door, concerned. Her other cousin, Giulia, an exceptional chef, is cooking meat both on the stove.

  Famiglia Siciliana has two other employees, her cousin Alessandra and her husband, working as waitress and waiter. Lucky Luciano is also there, looking at her anxiously, a cigarette in his hands, waiting for her to tell what she saw in her dreams.

  "What time is it?" Angiolina asks as she tries to stand up.

  "It's seven pm and you need to rest." Cousin Giulia blurts, taking a plate of broth to her patient. "Try to be still."

  Of all Angiolina's cousins, Giulia might be the one who loves her the most. Always attentive, always kind.

  "My God, I need to get up. What about the restaurant? Is the generator on?" Angiolina asks, already taking her broth.

  "There is a city-wide blackout because of the rain, auntie." Lorenzo answers.

  Little by little, the family members in the room excuse themselves and leave. They were shooed away by Giulia, who took over Angio's caretaking. The only one who stays is her "guardian angel" Lucky, still smoking a cigarette and eyeing her with a smile.

  “Why do mobsters eye us smilingly when we are fragile?" Luciano, who seems to have heard her relative's question, starts laughing.

  "Stupido." Mumbles Angio.

  "What?" Guilia answers. "Did you call me?"

  "No, not you!" Angio fires back, gettingup.

  "Then who?" She asks, outraged, looking around for the target of her offenses.

  "No, Giulia. Forget about it." "Angiolina had forgotten about her cousin and stars laughing along with Lucky.

  Giulia is clueless. She shrugs and goes back to house chores. She thinks her cousin must have hit her head hard when she fell.

  After a shower, Angiolina is ready to get her mind back to the scientist girl. While she gets dressed, she starts planning what to do. While she is idle, she turns on the radio looking for news, since TV is not working.

  All FM radios are off, so she is forced to try AM frequencies.

  "Traffic agency estimates that eighty percent of the city is in emergency state due to heavy rain and traffic." The host says, sternly. "The defense office advises citizens to remain in their houses. Repeating, remain in your houses."

  Angiolina approaches the radio and turns up the volume. Listening attentively.

  "It's a record number of deadly accidents in the city. I'm here with our dear friend Jairo Mancini, who is not only my friend but also a greta political analist." The host says excitedly. "Hello, Jairo!

  "Well, for starter
s, it's a great pleasure being here, my dear Lima. Unfortunately, the news aren't good. The city is on the brink of chaos." The guest starts. "There is also a new dengue fever outbreak. Which further complicates the situation. Hospitals are packed."

  Angio pours coffee into her cup and keeps listening.

  "So, Lima, I believe this ticking time bomb has gone off! And only because out current governors are woefully unprepared!" He says emphatically.