Blessed by Fire

by P W Hillard

  “I suppose. Doesn’t feel particularly fair though.” Aasif carried his own blanket under his arm, the thin material of his tracksuit drying quickly in the night breeze.

  “Fairness and justice aren’t always the same thing from my experience,” said Dale, striding ahead of Aasif, over to the ambulance where his colleagues waited.

  The van wobbled worryingly as it trundled down the streets. It listed to the side as it took the corner, sending the detectives stacked within toppling to one side. Aasif drove whilst Dale sat at the side, arm resting on the open window, cigarette ash trailing off into the night air. Between them Jess was squeezed, giving directions from the open laptop on her lap. In the back Mark had given up trying to balance and had sat in the corner by the door, arms outstretched to stop himself wobbling. Rajan was still defiant, standing up as straight as the vans low roof would let him. His arms braced against the ceiling he looked like a baby learning to walk, grabbing at the walls desperately as his legs failed him. The van hit a speed bump with a metallic clang, causing Rajan to knock his head against the roof.

  “Sorry!” came Aasif’s cry from the front seat.

  “I thought this was close?” shouted an annoyed Rajan back.

  “It is! I mean as the crow flies. The streets around here kind of wind around themselves,” replied Jess.

  “Another minute or two at most!” Aasif added.

  “Maybe warn us before the next speed bump!” Rajan stumbled around like a drunk as the van took another corner. Dale turned away from the open window.

  “You aren’t going to warn him, are you?” he whispered to Aasif.

  “Absolutely not,” Aasif whispered back.

  “Outstanding,” Dale said with a smirk.

  The smell of blood filled the room, an acrid tang of iron, wet and warm. In the dark moved a figure, a young woman on her knees, her arms moving in sweeping arcs. She muttered beneath her breath as she worked, dark guttural mutterings echoing around the room, which seemed to be growing. Reality flexed as she worked, the empty factory floor stretching, its small windows becoming great gothic arches, the disused oven becoming a mighty furnace. Seemingly pleased the woman stood up and walked towards the towering behemoth. She closed her eyes. She could feel them, her brothers and sisters, circling around her, formless fire, eager to burst forth into this world. She turned a wheel on the oven. Something within hissed, filling her nostrils with the smell of rotting eggs. The sulphurous cloud filled the oven the gas pouring out like a tide. Carefully and calmly Claire slide the metal grill up, revealing the heart of the beast. Rows of huge metal trays once lined with cakes and pastries lay empty in their racks. Claire gripped the first and slid it free, tossing it to the ground beside her. One by one she pulled each try free, each clattering into the growing pile as she worked. Satisfied, Claire smiled. Reaching up to her shoulder she slid the first strap of her dress free.

  “Brothers sisters, hear me,” she said calmly. “I have need of you.” She removed the other strap of her dress. It dropped to the ground and she stepped out of the long since ruined fabric. “I am sorry, but there is no time to find you vessels. Our enemies close in around us.” She could feel the spirits around her protesting angrily, denied a long-awaited dream. “I have…adapted the ritual. It’s time.” Claire walked forward, stepping carefully over the metal lip at the bottom of the oven, clambering inside. There she stood, disrobed, her skin wet with sweat and blood glistening from the pale moonlight. She took a deep breath, inhaling the gas deeply. She lifted her hand, snapped her fingers, and burned alive.

  There was nothing at first, the town of Pontypridd sleeping peacefully, a cluster of lights set against the blackness of the valley. People sat in their homes, returned from work shifts and went about their lives blissfully unaware of what had been unfolding in their town. Faintly at first but growing stronger with each passing moment a pounding in their heads bloomed. It drummed against their skulls, a few brief moments of excruciating pain.

  Aasif slammed on the brakes, the van juddering to a halt as the detectives within screamed in pain. An overwhelming agony, as though their minds were fighting to escape. Then nothing, the pain was gone, replaced with an overwhelming sense of relief, like a pressure valve had been released.

  Mark spoke first. “What the fuck was that?”

  The bakery was silent, filled with the smell of burning flesh as Claire burned. There was a moment of true silence, a perfect second of unnatural quiet. The flames flicked with nary a crackle. Then a cacophony, a terrible agonising noise as reality itself screamed, ripped asunder, an invisible wound on the universe gashed into the centre of the bakery. The air shimmered, as though looking through the surface of a pool. The Jinn spirits circled, before diving in, the rift forming a torrent from the sinister otherworld they avoided to earth, a raging rapid of energies they could latch onto pulling themselves free of their formless prison. They dived in eagerly, pouring through the rift, bursting into reality with great gouts of fire. Too intoxicated with the chance of escape the Jinn didn’t realise something was wrong until too late. The sigils were wrong, the freshest wettest runes the wrong shape. Rather than flying free to seek their own hosts they were being pulled, drawn inextricably towards the oven. The Jinn fought, their massed forms creating a twisting furious inferno. Slowly, but inevitably they began to lose their fight, the flames drawn into the smouldering black mass that had once been Claire. Desperately holding onto each other, the pull became too strong, the broiling mass pulled into the oven with a snap.

  The bakery was quiet, the oven continuing to run with a low hum, its light illuminating the room. The air seemed to shimmer and ripple as a creature scuttled its way through. It was a huge thing, thousands of tiny segmented legs on a long thin body. Its head was a long wolf like snout, great fangs jutting from its jaw. Multifaceted eyes blinked from atop stalks which eagerly scanned the room. It has two sets of long gangly arms each ending in a series of scything blades which twitched like fingers. Its body was covered in thick chitinous plates, matted brown fur burst forth from between the gaps in the insect like armour. It hissed and began to scuttle around the chamber, its upper body writhing like a snake. More bizarre creatures followed. A massive hairless gorilla with tentacles in place of a head. A strange almost formless thing came next, a great blob like mass with huge feathered wings. Its pulsating pink form covered with horrid fanged mouth. It stretched itself like putty to move, the mouths stretching forth like an unborn baby kicking against its mother stomach. The horrid insectoid creature that had emerged first sniffed the air and began to scuttle towards the open doorway.

  Shauna knocked on the open door. Florence was sat at her desk, staring at the still undrunk glass of whisky. Florence didn’t look up, so Shauna knocked again. Florence looked up from her drink.

  “Oh, Sergeant, any news?” she asked.

  “Yes Ma’am. The operation was a success. All the Jinn were banished except for one. They are currently in pursuit.” Shauna smiled as she spoke. Florence closed her eyes, head titled back towards the ceiling.

  “Any casualties?”. Florence drummed her fingers on the table nervously. This was the worst part of her job. Every one of her officers knew the risks of their jobs, but it was still her asking them to put themselves in danger. It made her sick to her stomach, a nervous roiling pain.

  “Nothing major Ma’am, some like bruising with D.C Holden but,” Shauna looked down at the printed copy of the email, “nothing a bag of frozen peas won’t fix. D.C Curren’s words Ma’am.”

  “Oh, thank god,” Florence said, she picked up her glass and drank it in one. It tasted like wood smoke, of the smell from her father’s regular barbecues as a child. It burnt as it poured down her throat. She placed the glass down on the table with a slam. “What about the civilians?”

  “Everything seems good there. They will need to be checked over properly at the hospital. Possessing forces don’t really look after their hosts. Probably a few broken bones or torn ligamen
ts the Jinn were ignoring. Local forces and ambulance services have picked them up. We’re going with the standard chemical spill cover.” Shauna held out the paper, which Florence eagerly took.

  “Fifty-eight!” shouted Florence as she scanned the document. “Fifty-eight new cases. We are not a well-funded unit Sergeant. We have eight detectives total and a huge portion of our budget goes into protecting that bloody archive. You know how hard it is to convince people to fund your department when your department is a secret? Christ even the people that do know are always on me to tighten the purse strings. You have no idea how much this operation cost alone! You should see the bill for the materials the department had to buy.” She sighed, and leant back in her chair, which creaked as she did. “You know on telly a secret department is always flashy computer screens and dashing agents. It’s never having to change toilet paper suppliers because its three pence cheaper per roll.”

  “I find reality rarely lines up with entertainment Ma’am,” Shauna said. She chuckled at the thought.

  Martin stared up at the roof of the ambulance. He lay on a trolley, a thin silver emergency blanket wrapped around him like leftover meat. He felt awful, as though all the energy had been drained from his body. His muscles ached, his head pounded, and his teeth felt oddly numb. He wondered how he got there. The last thing Martin could remember was taking a strange phone call. The voice knew him somehow. The police were saying that there was a chemical spill of some kind, the fumes causing people to hallucinate. Deep down Martin knew that wasn’t true, but he accepted it; a convenient lie being preferable to accepting whatever terrible truth lay behind finding himself in a crowd of other people, laying wet in an empty office building, tiny burn marks covering his skin.

  “You doing ok there champ?” asked a Paramedic as he climbed into the back of the ambulance. His head was bald but his face with covered with an uneven beard, its rough hair striking out at odd angles. A faint splatter of dried blood was smeared on his aged wrinkled face. His uniform sat oddly on him, tight in all the wrong places, as though it were meant for a man much smaller.

  “Yeah, I think so. Really tired,” Martin said, struggling to find the energy to speak. The paramedic leant forward holding on to the top of the ambulance’s door frame. He gripped the door with one hand and pulled it shut. He gave a thumbs up to another man in the driver’s seat, his back to Martin. The driver returned the gesture. “Am I going to be ok?” Martin asked.

  “Oh yes,” said the paramedic. He reached inside his jacket and slid out a large dagger. It shone brightly even under the tiny ambulance light overhead. It glistened like no knife Martin had seen before. The blade itself was basic, solid unremarkable craftsmanship, function over form. The handle was something different. It made of two separate strands of metal, each twirling around the other but never touching until they reached the end of the handle. The tip was what appeared to be a coin. The coin was rough, not a perfect circle. Upon its centre was a man’s head in profile, a laurel wreath resting atop his hair. Martin had seen similar coins before, many years ago during a school trip to a local Roman museum. “Everything is going to be fine,” said the bearded man, before plunging the dagger into Martins chest.

  Chapter 22

  The van’s door slid shut with a low roar, a cry of squealing metal followed by a clunk. The five of them stood around it, checking pockets and readying themselves. They had arrived at where Jess’ phone supposedly was. It was a small building, red brick and faded green tin roof. Small windows ran across the top half of the building revealing nothing of what was within. They had parked in a large concrete forecourt, beneath a faded sign declaring the place to be “Vale Bakery”. The letters were worn and partly covered by bright pink graffiti, a burst of colour in an otherwise drab place. One side of the courtyard sloped downwards to a set of metal shutters, a loading bay for happier days. From here they could still see the office building they had used for their trap, flashing ambulance lights blinking away from the valleys side. Its hallways once again empty, if sodden, the remnants of the spell hastily removed.

  Mark opened the rear door of the van, leaning in an opening the trunk inside with a satisfying creak. He had to admit Aasif had been right to get a van, it made carrying the heavy box much easier, though Mark wished he hadn’t picked this van. The thing had smelt faintly of cigarette smoke and sweat, and the smell somehow only gotten more noticeable the longer they used the thing. He unzipped a black cloth tool bag revealing the array of batons within. Held in by black elastic, two loops already empty, was a selection of custom batons. Jess in her fastidiousness had labelled them, silver and iron. Mark slipped out the remaining two iron batons.

  “Raj, Dale,” he said handing each man a baton. Rajan flicked his wrist, the baton extending out to full size. “Jess, give yours to Aasif, remember you agreed to stay in the van!”

  “Yeah I remember!” said Jess. She held out her own baton towards Aasif, stopped for a moment, and then begrudgingly placed it into his open palm. “Keys,” she demanded, the fingers on her hand flexing in anticipation. Aasif placed the keys into her eager hands.

  “Keep the engine running, just in case,” said Dale, testing the weight of his own baton in hand.

  “That’s real upbeat,” chastised Rajan.

  “Just being realistic.”

  “There’s a first for everything I guess.” Rajan punched Dale lightly on the shoulder. “Right game faces on then. We ready to go end all this?”

  Within the darkness of the bakery something chittered to itself, a horrid high-pitched trilling noise. The thing writhed as it slunk about. Its lupine snout sniffed the air, something new was nearby. It slithered carefully, keeping its distance from the still burning oven. The bizarre tentacle creature let out a braying howl though it lacked a visible mouth. The winged sack had taken up residence in the rafters of the building. There was a horrid wet sucking noise as it feasted on a pigeon that had been too slow. Around their many feet scuttled innumerable smaller creatures. A swarm of tiny crab like creatures, miniature human like hands in place of claws. The faint shimmer in the air rippled as a small flying creature halfway between bird and fish burst forth. It let itself glide for a moment before flapping its wings and circling the building in a wide arc. The creature with the wolfs snout stabbed downwards with one of its blades skewering one of the smaller creatures. It hungrily swallowed it, the still whole wriggling creature disappearing down its gullet.

  On the side of the bakery, around the corner from the metal shutters was a set of large double doors, off white metal set into the bare read brick. Four men stood before it nervously, shoulders hunched in misplaced bravado.

  “On three?” asked Aasif, stepping forward and place his hand on the handle of the left side door.

  “On three,” agreed Dale, taking the opposite position.

  “Three,” began Aasif.

  “Two,” followed Dale.

  “One,” they said in unison, pulling the doors open.

  The swarm burst forth as one, drawn eagerly through the now open door. The flying mouth horror was first, knocking Mark off his feet as it barged through the doorway, taking off into the night air. A tide of smaller creatures washed over him. Mark waved his arms furiously, trying to bat the creatures away from himself. The hairless ape was next, bounding through the door way and leaping over the high outer wall in a single leap.

  “Jesus fuck,” complained Mark as the swarm dispersed. He grabbed Rajan’s outstretched arm and pulled himself to his feet. “What the fuck were those?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” mused Rajan. “Evolutions rejects maybe? I’ve seen some weird shit in my time.”

  “Just another thing to add to the shit pile,” said Dale. “Let’s get this done first and then worry about fucking squid gorillas and flying ball sacks.”

  “He’s right you know,” agreed Aasif. “Our element of surprise is gone, so let’s get a fucking move on.”

  They advanced through the doorway i
nto the inside of the bakery. It was dark, the faint moonlight having vanished behind the omnipresent clouds. At the far side was an old industrial over, it burned, the light from the flamer flicking across the otherwise empty room. The smell of death and blood filled the air, the floor and walls were covered with dark crimson runes. The firelight danced over scattered sheep corpses, their guts spilled out across the floor. There was a faint shimmer in the air, a layer of gossamer laid across reality. The room itself felt unnaturally thin, almost intangible.

  “What the hell?” whispered Dale. “Somethings really wrong here, I can…feel it I guess.”

  “I know what you mean, it’s like there’s less…resistance? I’m not sure how to describe it,” came Marks whispered reply. “Anyone got eyes on the Jinn?”

  “Hard to see anything in here,” admitted Aasif. He was stood slightly behind the detectives, advancing slowly forward, baton in hand. “Hang on, can anyone hear- “. Aasif’s words failed as he burst into a roar of agony. He clutched at his elbow, blood pouring from between his fingers. His forearm, still clutching the baton bounced across the ground. Behind him a creature loomed. Its thin arms ended in thin blades, its right set glistening with Aasif’s blood. Multifaceted eyes stared at the men, its thin furred snout sniffed deeply, spittle forming at the corner of its fanged maw. Its bladed fingers twitched hungrily. Aasif collapsed to his knees, still screaming in pain. Mark ran, leaping into a dive. He struck Aasif in the chest, the two men rolling across the dust floor. There was a clink as the blades of the creature dug deep into the concrete behind them.

  The beast hissed angrily, scuttled about on its many legs, forming a circle around the men with its hairy segmented body.

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” muttered Aasif, his screaming had stopped, replaced by horrified denial. He was getting pale, the blood pouring free from his wound.

  “I got you man, hey, hey, look at me!” shouted Mark cradling the panicking Aasif. Mark began to unbuckle his belt.