Council of Peacocks (28 page)

Jared kicked the
demon in the head again. This time the skull flopped about on the
broken neck with a series of crackles.

“
Can you please
stop that?”

“
Come on! How often
am I going to get to play with a dead demon? This is sooo
cool.”

Josh was not sure
if he was going to throw up on or throw something at
Jared.
‘Have to be
careful,’
he thought.
‘
I might just kill him by
accident
.’

Jared smiled again,
this time not so brightly. “Don’t count on that,
mister.”

Josh blushed.
‘
Oh my god. I forgot he
could read minds. Which means he’s probably still reading my
mind.’

With a snicker,
Jared kicked the demon’s head once more and then walked over to
Josh.

“
I told you he was
a demon, didn’t I?”

“
Yeah. It’s just,
he doesn’t look like a demon, does he?”

“
He does on the
inside. You know, you have a lot of weird things in your head, too.
It’s like you put parts of yourself into little boxes in your mind
and thrown away the key. I could help you open those
boxes.”

“
Another
time.”

“
You can’t always
rely on what you see,” Jared said. “Maybe this demon can change his
appearance. Maybe he doesn’t really look like this at
all.”

“
That’s a lot of
maybes.”

“
Have you ever seen
a demon before?”

Josh shivered. ‘Who
or what exactly was that thing in my head?’

“
Oh yes,” Jared
said with a smile. “I guess you have.”

Josh turned away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“
Not yet. But you
will.”

Chapter Twenty

David looked over the secret city below. Tall
sand-colored spires rose on either side of dust-covered streets.
Deep-cut stairs followed the outer wall of the canyon heading to
the lower level. The stairs looked solid but the edges were cracked
and worn. As they came closer to the city, he made out landmarks
that made it more and more difficult to think of the Edimmu as
simple winged monsters. Several open city squares lay covered with
layers of dust. In one of them, seven forty-foot tall peacocks
encircled a dry fountain. Dozens of smaller statues dotted the
city: life-sized replicas of sleek humanoid figures with massive
wingspans.

“I’m starting to envy the Edimmu,” he said.
“I’d love their wings right about now. At this rate it’ll take
hours to reach the city.”

“You could always jump,” Jessica said. She
walked close to Elaine, but she was moving much more easily now.
The wounds were scabbing over, the bruises fading. The speed of her
healing unnerved David.

“Are you getting anything from Echo?” he
asked for the third time.

Jessica turned to him, put her hands on her
hips, and said nothing.

“I was just asking.” David focused his eyes
on his feet.

Below, mosaics of turquoise and onyx splayed
across several of the larger buildings. One showed a reptilian
face, forked tongue out to the side in what seemed to be a smile.
The series of white figures to the side of the face reminded him of
hieroglyphics. Another mosaic was troubling for another reason. It
showed two small reptilian creatures without wings riding the back
of what could only be a pterodactyl. Either the Edimmu had been
around since the dinosaurs or the mosaic was an advertisement for a
children’s fantasy book. He wasn’t sure which idea was more
unsettling.

“Can we rest for a sec?” Todd sat down on the
edge of step. He put a hand to his ribcage.

Elaine set her guns aside and sat
cross-legged with her back to the outer wall. “Once we’re down, we
need to find shelter. There should be running water in some of the
buildings. Echo told me the aqueducts are still sound.”

“I’m hungry,” Jessica paced back and forth
along the steps. “What are we going to do for food?”

“Echo stored supplies down here last week,
just in case. See that square with the dry fountain? There’s a
wooden crate near one of the peacocks. It’s filled with dried goods
and bottled water. She said there would be enough for 50 people to
survive a few weeks. I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that. Echo’s
still around somewhere. Even if she’s not, Wisdom knows we’re here.
Someone will come for us.”

‘What if no one comes?’ David thought. He
looked over at Todd. He saw the same fear he felt echoed in the
other man’s eyes.

David cleared his throat. “How you holding
up? I’m surprised you can even move after what they did to
you.”

“It’s one of my EFHBs. PK. Psychokinesis. I
can move things with my mind. I’m not as strong as Jessica, but
it’s enough to keep a kind of mental splinter around parts of my
body. I’ve got three broken ribs, a shattered ankle, and a
fractured shin. Plus, I think my arm is toast.” He looked over at
Jessica. “I feel bad for her. Her PK is different. It’s better for
heavy lifting but hard to manage for small jobs.”

“I don’t need your sympathy.” Her voice was
weak. She coughed and brushed away a loose strand of hair. The hair
she pushed away fell stubbornly back into place. She brushed it
away again, her eyes wet with tears. “I’ll be fine.”

***

An hour later they stepped off the last stair
and entered the city. Walking through block after block of
abandoned buildings unnerved David. The shadows, like the light,
were dim and ill-defined but numerous. Each window was a square of
darkness, each doorway a portal away from the light.

Though the buildings were made of stone,
there was an organic quality he found disturbingly familiar.
Several blocks into the city, he realized what they reminded him
of: honeycombs. The buildings reminded him of the inner workings of
a beehive. Everything felt connected. He could not even distinguish
where the floor of the large cavern ended and the buildings began.
Entire blocks of buildings seemed to have been carved out of the
rock at the same time. The interconnectedness made the city feel
like the skeleton of a giant.

“This place is massive,” he said. “It’s at
least as large as Halifax back home. How is this possible?”

Todd stared up at the tall vacant buildings.
“I don’t know. There’s enough housing here for hundreds of
thousands of people. What I don’t get is how they lived
underground. What did they do for food?”

“I don’t think people lived here,” David
said. “It was Edimmu. Can you imagine those things living in a
place like this? I mean, look over there. Either I’m nuts or
there’s more of those glowing spheres, the same ones up in Echo’s
apartment. That means those things were advanced enough thousands
of years ago to have electricity.”

“And where the hell is all this light coming
from?” Todd looked at the ceiling. “Those spheres are nowhere
bright enough to light up the whole city.”

“How is it we know nothing about them? How
can a society just get erased from the history books?”

“You have heard about them,” Elaine said.
“They built these cities a long time ago, back when they were in
control. There was a time when the people around here called them
gods. The lizards taught them things – how to farm, write, forge
steel. Stuff like that. They’re all over the Bible. Of course, most
of the stuff about them was taken out once the Canon was set.”

Jessica squinted her eyes. “Are you talking
about angels?”

When he didn’t hear an answer, David looked
over at Elaine. She was nodding. Then she stopped. “If you have
questions, ask Wisdom. There are things I’m not at liberty to
discuss with you Anomalies.”

“Why do you talk to me like that? The way you
call me an Anomaly makes it sound like I’m not even human. I told
you, I’m not a monster. I am just as human as you are. I can just
do stuff.”

Elaine sniffed and shook her head. “Whatever
gets you through the night.”

“Goddamn it! Why do you all think I’m not
human? I’m not the spawn of Satan! I have a mother and a father,
you know.”

Again, Elaine shook her head. When she
finally spoke again, it was the last thing he expected to hear.
“When Wisdom gets back, ask him about your parents. You don’t know
as much as you think.”

Chapter Twenty-One

After they found the supplies, they settled
into one of the abandoned houses. A cursory look at the provisions
confirmed there was enough food and water to keep the four of them
alive for months.

David found a corner and ate a quick meal of
dried fruit and canned beans. The silence and the sore muscles
began to work on him. Despite the dirt floors and the stale air in
the ancient underground city, he felt exhausted. He leaned his head
back. The second he touched the wall, his mind went somewhere
else.

***

Once again he stood on the rooftop. He
watched the Edimmu city burn, smoke rising to the stone ceiling.
Inhuman screams rang out in all directions. A guttural whisper,
both intangible and irresistible, filled the air. Something was in
the shadows, swarming the city and killing Edimmu.

With a jerky abruptness, the vision changed.
The flames died out, revealing a different horror. Lines of Edimmu,
shackled and yoked together, marched in tight formation through the
streets toward turbulent ovals of darkness. The ovals swirled like
black holes; stripes of bright blue light clearly defined eddies
and ridges within them. The Edimmu walked, heads lowered, into the
black portal. They didn’t reappear on the other side. They were
simply gone. Soon the last of the Edimmu disappeared into the
darkness.

And the streets of the city were empty.

David heard the whimper of the abandoned
metropolis. It screamed for vengeance.

Then he was flying. His mind pulled off the
roof and into the darkness. He stood before a mirror, seeing not
himself but the body of an Edimmu. Then he flew into the mirror,
through it to the other side.

He floated above cages and enclosed pens
filled with Edimmu. All around the cages, vaguely-humanoid shapes
moved. Many were masses of viscous pus, abscessed flesh and
bleeding sores that bore no similarity at all to humans. Some had
tentacles that flapped in the air. Others were hideously misshapen
dwarves. At least one, in the distance appeared to be a mutated
Tyrannosaurus Rex with vestigial wings. There were several
thousands of them, hundreds of thousands stretching in every
direction.

And at the middle of the place, just on the
horizon, was a large body of black water. A Black Sea.

“
It is called the Axeinus,” a voice nearby
said. David whirled to see who was talking to him. He nearly
screamed, but was stunned into silence when he saw the source. An
Edimmu. Age sat heavy upon the reptoid who, although hairless, gave
the impression of being gray. He was dressed in flowing red robes
that hid most of his body.

“
This is where they held us,” the Edimmu
said. “After the fall of Atlantis, they were gone from the world
for a time. When they returned, they sought a new work force. They
found us. We remained their slaves for three hundred years. Then
Propates found us. He rescued us. He’s our savior. He could be your
savior, too. If you stop fighting, we can teach you many things. If
you continue to fight, you and the Anomalies will end up just as we
did. Slaves to a dark power.”

“
I will not be a slave,” David
said.

The Edimmu reached out and touched David’s
face. “Child, you already are one.”

***

David woke, leaping away from the wall.

‘Was that real?’ He stood, moving silently to
not wake the others. Jessica and Todd had nodded off nearby. ‘It
felt stronger than last time. Clearer. If what I saw was real,
maybe the Edimmu aren’t the real enemy. Maybe what we need to be
worried about are the creatures on the other side of the mirror.
The things that live in the Axeinus.’

Elaine stood in the hallway looking out
through a large open window. She scanned the empty streets, hands
on the submachine gun. She didn’t turn around as he approached, but
when she spoke it was apparent she knew exactly where he was.

“You should still be sleeping. Your injuries
are just as bad as the others'.”

“I feel okay,” David stopped beside her and
looked out the window. “Looks like I heal fast, too. Besides, I
don’t sleep much. Never have. Too many bad dreams. Not the kind you
talk about.”

“Makes sense. Wisdom thinks one of your EFHBs
is psychometry. It means you can feel things by touching them. This
place must be wreaking havoc on you. Bad things happened here. What
did you see?”

David shifted on his feet. “Edimmu. They were
taken away, enslaved by shadowy monsters. It felt so real.”

Elaine looked at him briefly out of the
corner of her eye. She let her eyes drop down the front of his body
until they reached his abdomen. She smiled.

David’s face turned completely red. Suddenly,
it was very hard for him to breathe. In the dim light, he found her
suddenly beautiful. Involuntarily, he took a step closer to
her.

Elaine went deathly pale. “Oh God.” She
turned away from David quickly, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“Goddamn you, Wisdom. Please tell me I didn’t...”