by JM Guillen
Once every wending aisle had been cloaked in darkness, everything around us loomed threateningly. Mannequins and dolls took on eerie, otherworldly forms and seemed to peer at us. Nooks and crannies that naturally occurred in the displays threatened to hold tiny, malicious creatures that could leap upon us at any moment. With every step we took, Abriel’s light cast haunted shadows across the walls.
“Simon. We are coming,” I breathed as I clutched at the earring. As before, the piece of jewelry unfurled with otherworldly cerulean light. In the glow of Abriel’s truth, a filament of invisible essence appeared to show us the way.
I had done this five times now—and didn’t dare tell my friends, especially Alicia, I’d begun to get tired.
There was no way to know how close we were. We simply continued on.
Several times we passed doors that had been set into one of the store’s walls. I noticed Rehl frown at a couple of them, and eventually he spoke up.
“This doesn’t make any sense.” Rehl traced his fingers along one of the wooden doors. “Walls don’t work this way.”
“What do you mean?” I walked in front of the party, a knife in each hand.
“Architecture.” He shook his head. “Not that I know much about it, but we’ve come across five or six of these doors as we wound through the aisles. Who puts walls out in the middle of things like this? Sometimes I think we must be about to turn and hit one of them—”
“But we don’t,” Baxter whispered. “I’ve noticed too. I’ve kept track every time we passed one.”
“A while ago we completely looped around a wall that adorned the middle of it.” Rehl shook his head. “No door on the other side though.”
We crept forward and peered into every shadow. I couldn’t help but feel as if this had gone almost too easily. I’d spent the past day fretting over every small thing, and in the end we’d scarcely had to face Mister Lorne at all.
It was possible the Ass-hats had taken care of everything for us.
Apparently, that thought seemed a little too optimistic for the-universe-at-large. No less than ten minutes later, a rumbling explosion crashed through the air. Far closer than the previous concussions, we felt the burst against our skin.
“Oh!” Alicia started. Several small items, a collection of papers atop an old writing desk, and a small statuette, slid to the floor.
“Good.” Rehl scowled. “I was just thinking things had gotten a little quiet.”
“Me too.” I took a couple of steps and peered past a section of shelving that formed a wall to our left. “I think something’s getting close.”
Without a word, Alicia doused Abriel’s light.
“Let’s not break rule one.” I felt Baxter put his hand on my elbow.
“Right. Definitely no splitting the party.” I nodded, even though none of them could see me.
“Grab onto each other,” Bax said. “Liz, you’re in front.”
“I know I’m in front,” I hissed. “Move slowly, I don’t want you all falling over me.”
We slipped forward at a snail’s pace.
Another fifteen steps or so of snaking around corners and trying not to knock over piles of dross and debris, we heard the sharp bark of a weapon. It fired once, and then again.
“Close,” Alicia muttered.
“Too close now,” I agreed. “We can’t slip along in the dark forever, either. We’ve already lost Simon’s thread.”
“They’re over there,” Rehl said, and then amended, “To our right. I saw the flash of the weapon.”
WHUF. While not exactly distant, the sound had seemed much larger when we had been outside. WHUF. WHUF.
“The Assets are close.” I turned toward the silhouette I thought probably belonged to Alicia. “I think I should try to use the earring again. If we can just get a direction, we can douse Abriel’s light right after.”
“Dangerous.” Alicia didn’t seem sure. If she had known how exhausted I felt, I thought she might have been angry with me.
“I don’t know that we have a choice,” Rehl said. “If we don’t do something, we won’t even know what direction to go.”
“I understand.” Alicia paused. “I suppose.”
I reached up to my right ear and touched the hoop earring that hung there. It only took a scant moment of relaxation to collapse into the ever singing Wind that flared in my heart.
“Soon, Simon. We’ll see you soon.” Empyrean sigils burst cobalt as I half whispered, half thought, and the words echoed around me.
“Um.” Baxter’s voice quavered. “Liz?”
Alicia said nothing, yet the light of Abriel ignited over her head, an ember of furious light that glinted on a slender filament which stretched away from the earring.
I turned toward Baxter, disliking the concern I heard in his voice.
Not four feet away, a slender being crouched half hidden behind a large display case.
It stalked us. The thought came unbidden, and I shuddered. I couldn’t help but imagine the creature as it followed us through the darkness, slipping between shadows.
Its white, reptilian skin looked unnatural; an inhuman, corpse-colored abomination. Naked, it glowered at us with huge, reptilian eyes that showed no pupil. Upon its head, a glyph shone and burned a filthy green.
It opened a wide mouth, revealed hundreds of needlelike teeth, and hissed, as its long tongue thrashed.
“Shit,” Rehl breathed and brought his pistol up to aim at the thing.
“Language,” Alicia responded automatically.
We backed away as a group—
The reptile leapt upon us.
It moved fast, rapid in a way I had not expected. It plunged toward Baxter, one arm raised and slashed it down, quicker than I could think. The claws of its hands curved wickedly.
“Ah!” Baxter wailed in sudden agony and fell, a splatter of scarlet across his chest. “Fuck! Oh, fuck me!”
“Shit!” Rehl yelled as he fired his typical double tap.
I knew he struck at least once, as the enemy spun wildly to its left, and a splash of black gore erupted from its shoulder.
“Liz!” The cry came from behind me, a ragged voice laced with terror. I turned to see Garret, three aisles over. Its eyes had gone wide, blood splashed liberally over its coat from a vicious wound, and its hair looked worse than ever.
“I thought you all died.” Its voice held a panicked edge. “It’s been days. How have you been in here all this time?”
“Garret!” Someone yelled in an Alabama drawl.
The pale fiend screamed again and lunged toward Alicia.
I whirled and frantically hurled my knife. What with the the distraction, I hadn’t called up the Seal of A’grimm, I simply hurled, as desperate panic and instinct burned in my limbs.
And yet, even without that Seal, the Wind responded. Perhaps a touch less focused, more ragged at the edges. Yet it burst forth from me, a tornado of force that flowed outward with my throw.
The knife shredded the creature’s neck and exploded out the back in a gout of blackened blood.
It screamed its rage and thrashed wildly. In its fury it lunged for us again, and Rehl fired one more time.
More blackened blood, this time from its chest.
The albino freak convulsed and released a spray of brownish liquid from somewhere in its nether regions. The smell of ammonia and rot washed over us as it fell to the ground.
“Baxter!” Alicia crouched next to him.
“Ow,” he grumbled. “That fucking hurts.”
“I bet.” I stalked over to him. Four separate claw marks had shorn through the front of his shirt, and torn the skin below.
“I don’t think it’s too bad.” Rehl prodded at one of the obviously ‘bad’ slices, and Baxter hissed.
“It’s not very fucking good.” Bax stared up at us, his eyes a bit wide.
“You probably won’t bleed out if we tie you up.” I frowned and wished I knew anything at all about first aid. “It looks
like the thing tore into your flesh, but I don’t see any ribs. No lungs.”
“Grab that blanket.” Alicia gestured at a folded quilt hung in a display case behind me.
I did, and we dabbed at Baxter’s wounds. I couldn’t help but curse inwardly. We’d gone through all the trouble to come on campaign, but didn’t even have the sense for any kind of first aid kit. We had no water, and the best we could do was tear up cloth for bandages.
Stupid. So stupid. It had only been a few hours, and we already found ourselves over our heads.
Had it only been a few hours?
“It’s been days. How have you been in here all this time?” I remembered Garret’s haunting words, and I turned back to where I’d just seen him.
The Asset was gone. Only stacks of dinnerware and old records lay there now.
“We keep the light on.” Rehl’s voice wound tightly around his words. “Maybe everyone can see us, but we can’t afford to get attacked in the dark again.”
“Agreed,” Baxter said weakly. “It’s difficult for me to tell you how much that sucked.”
“Liz, can you cut some strips?” Rehl held up the quilt. “We need to get moving as quickly as possible.”
I did just that, using the knives to create bandages. Alicia did her best to bind Baxter up, but it was slow going. More than once, as soon as she got one bandage tied, another had bled through.
Bax… didn’t look good. As I watched her tender ministrations I noticed that Rehl obviously limped on his bad leg as he walked around us to watch the darkness.
This isn’t going to work. I frowned to myself. I had expected we would charge into Fallen Leaves only to face the Gaunt Man almost immediately. We had geared for that, for an assault.
Yet obviously the Gaunt Man didn’t need to stand against us himself. All he had to do was allow us to wander ourselves to death. Even if he didn’t release his servitor creatures against us, I had undoubtedly released dozens of them.
Some of them might not be grateful. Some of them might be hungry.
“Maybe… maybe I step ahead,” I rambled. “I don’t have Abriel’s light, but I can use the Empyrean sigils to see by.”
“You can’t constantly use your power, Liz.” Alicia gave me a tired look. “It’ll exhaust you, just like before.”
“I don’t know that we can lose you just now,” Rehl said.
“I just saw Garret. The Assets are close.” I paused. “They gave me medical aid, before I came down the alleyway. Maybe they’ll do the same for Baxter.”
“Unlikely.” Alicia snorted. “Abriel thinks that if they helped you, it’s because they want something from you.”
“Well, yeah.” I didn’t grasp how they didn’t see this. “They want me to help them with the little problem I discussed with you before. And I want them to help me now.”
“They aren’t people, Liz.” Alicia’s eyes had gone almost entirely white. “You cannot trust them to honor simple bargains.”
The discussion came to an end at the sound of an unearthly wail, a cry that sounded like screaming fury from a hundred mouths.
“Oh, fuck.” Rehl stared off into the darkness, his eyes wide.
“Yeah, that’s our cue.”
Alicia and I helped steady Baxter, while Rehl watched all around us, looking for trouble. We got Bax to a stable standing position and Alicia helped him walk while we crept forward.
That sound came again, high pitched and keening.
It set my teeth on edge, just the wailing of it.
Abruptly, silence.
“I really don’t like that.” Baxter breathed. “Can we be further away from that?”
“Agreed.” I peered into the darkness, but I only saw rows upon rows of displays with bookshelves, a large hourglass, five globes, a stack of magazines…
The labyrinth just never stopped.
“We need to at least find a place where we can be somewhat secure.” Rehl gestured at a particularly large armoire. “We have the means to create a defendable area, if we have to.”
“What we need to do is find Simon and get out.” I bit my lip, irritated.
Off in the dark, many people yelled.
Garret? I thought maybe so, but it was so hard to tell. That huge space yawned about us and loomed like a shifting, malevolent force of nature.
“Something.” Rehl peered into the shadows to our left, his gun at the ready. He held himself taut, like every muscle had been sculpted of spring steel.
Footsteps headed our way in the gloom.
“Liz,” Alicia whispered. “Should we go dark?”
I didn’t answer. Instead I simply stared into the shadows, knives in hand, Wind at the ready.
“No!” A feminine voice tore at the darkness, ragged with exhaustion and fear.
Those steps came from an aisle over, and grew closer.
Wailing followed.
“What’s our play, Miss Lawson?” Rehl kicked a table aside then leaned into a large bookshelf. He set his back against it and pushed it back a few feet.
“Something’s chasing her,” I whispered and leaned further out of our aisle, toward the next.
“Who is it?” Alicia’s voice, typically quiet, practically vanished in the shadows.
“It’s the wit—” I paused. “One of the Assets. I saw her outside.”
“You aren’t saving her, right?” Baxter coughed, and the sheer wetness of that sound alarmed me. “Liz, five hours ago you were worried about a black bag. Now you want to bring them to the party?”
“Anything we can do against the Gaunt Man might be a win.” I turned and stared at him.
Baxter tried to shrug, winced, and fell quiet.
I wrapped myself with tight, sharp bursts of Wind. I saw the female Asset as she ran toward us, only malevolent shadows behind.
But she looked over her shoulder. Something chased her. Something that clearly frightened the living shit out of an Asset of the Facility.
A swirl of movement marked the air behind her and I squinted to make it out.
They flew like bloated horseflies, drunk and glutted on blood. Their bodies were gibbous things, blobs of loathsome flesh with many insectine legs. Their multitude of buzzing wings cried with a low, whining drone.
As horrific as their bodies were, it was their heads that truly revolted me. A knot of pink and black feelers bunched around the front of the creatures, writhing tendrils that grasped and wriggled.
One of the swarm, the one closest to the Asset, reached outward with those squirming little appendages. It opened a mouth hidden behind the clump of disgusting, worm-like phalanges.
And screamed.
As if in answer, the other bloated insects screamed also, a wailing, keening cry that made my teeth ache.
“Holy fuck.” Rehl peered into the next aisle too. His brown eyes widened with horror.
“When the Asset passes, I can hurl wind their way.” I bit my lip. “Throw them back.”
“If they stop chasing her…” he left the obvious implications unsaid. If they stop chasing her, will they then come for us?
“It’ll have to be a lot of wind.” I nodded. “I can do it though.”
WHUF! came from the opposite direction, and perhaps a little further away. Somewhere in the distance I heard male voices shout.
“No!” The witch ran even faster, and the swarm buzzed forward, eager tendrils writhing.
Alicia doused Abriel’s light.
Without that shine, the store fell shrouded into darkness. I understood the reason—just the sight of those horrors made my skin crawl. The idea that her light might act as a beacon for them, shining in the night, inspired panic on an elemental, primal level.
Yet now I couldn’t see either.
With a tiny act of will, as if I forced my muscles to relax into a chair, I released my mind into the Wind. Although I didn’t strictly require the Empyrean sigils Simon had taught me, except as a focus, I called the Seal of Oeriim. I kept every intricately scrawled line cryst
al clear in my mind.
When the power of the Wind touched that mental construct, it exploded into brilliant, turquoise radiance. The savage shine of it burned around me and cast wicked shadows all about.
I could see the witch again. She saw me as well, eyes wide with panic and animal terror.
“Run!” I yelled and prepared the Wind. If it got closer, I could hurl a wall between us and the bloated grotesques, but I needed the Asset to be just a bit—
Gunfire. Panicked screams.
“What the fuck?” Rehl peered far off to our left. “Did they get split u—?”
He hadn’t finished speaking before one of the Assets, the gigantic, hairy one, kicked over a large wardrobe, and stepped into that aisle from one beyond it. The large man-shaped creature had a ragged, weary look to its face. Its eyes were tight with savage fury.
Garret stepped into the aisle behind him.
“Liz?” The Asset blinked, dazed in the cerulean light. “You were just back there!” It threw a thumb over its shoulder.
I looked at Garret, confused. “No. You were just behind us, the other way.”
The third Asset, the witch with the long hair, screeched in panic.
“Motherfucker,” the large Asset spat, a southern sweetness in the curse. It turned and that rivet gun keened a high pitched whine.
WHUF. WHUF. WHUF.
Three silver, slightly glowing hemispheres blossomed behind the fleeing Asset. They engulfed several of the fluttering miscreations and trapped them. Several more flew squarely into those shining globules and smashed into them as if stopped by something solidly physical.
For all of the pyrotechnics, the woman remained in danger. More of the droning creatures swarmed from the darkness, far more than the Asset could shoot with his bizarre weapon.
“This is about to get stupid.” I turned to Rehl.
“Don’t be stupid,” he whispered.
I stepped forward and held one hand out. Around me, the wind teased at my hair. The brilliant blue sigils and Seals burned in the darkness.
A wall. I focused on the Seal of Oeriim, and it blossomed brighter. I might have been exhausted, but I had to do something. Even at this distance—
She screamed, a wet gurgling cry of elemental terror.