Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis (26 page)

Her left hand pointed at Seneschal, focusing her power to hold him down. She cringed as his desperation mounted, every ounce of her strength tested. Seneschal struggled as if chained to the ground, growling at the force trapping him.

Dorian shouted, landing a lucky punch to Icarus’s chin that sent him staggering. The ambiance shifted. Seneschal’s eyes flared bright red. Shadows thickened and dozens of whispering voices filled the air. Forms welled up from puddles of darkness seeping in along the gaps in the floor tiles. Harbingers approached from every side.

Emboldened by their presence, Dorian pursued his advantage. He leapt at Icarus, baton aimed for the back of the head. The commando whirled, trapping Dorian’s arm and winding up kneeling behind him with a knife at his throat. Dorian groaned, trapped in the expert grip of a military-trained assassin.

“Send them away, or he dies,” rasped Seneschal.

Kirsten’s eyes shifted to her partner, the pang of worry weakened her focus long enough to let Seneschal stand. Feeling him move, she regained her concentration and pushed him into the wall.

“I can’t… I can only call them,” she said, forcing the words out.

Dorian elbowed Icarus in the gut without effect. “Finish it, I’m already dead.”

Seneschal stared into her eyes. “First, we will kill your partner.”

Icarus dragged Dorian backwards, shying away from the mass of approaching silver eyes. They seemed less interested in him; his strength had not diminished as much as Seneschal’s. Icarus sent a baleful glare at Kirsten, at the traces of white vapor simmering along her shoulders, the faint hint of luminosity in her blue eyes, and swallowed. Kirsten tilted her head, wondering why out of nowhere, he seemed terrified of her.

“Then we kill your little friend.” Seneschal’s lips curled into an evil smile, black fog leaking through his teeth. “Evan, is it?”

Fear, desperation, and anger burst through her. Her concentration faltered; Evan’s face filled her mind.

Icarus loosened his grip, retreating from her. Dorian squirmed loose, grabbed the wrist holding the knife at his throat, and jammed it up to the hilt through Icarus’s chest armor. Dreadlocks shifted as he looked down at the knife, regarding the wound as a triviality. A quick, but powerful, punch to Dorian’s throat knocked him flat.

Seneschal hissed at Icarus, a demonic rumble manifest in his voice. He leapt through Kirsten’s distracted effort, catching her across the cheek with a punch that put her headfirst into the ground. Growling, he stalked after her, but hesitated at the approaching curtain of Harbingers. They engulfed her, forcing him back, and he backed away. Icarus took off along the concourse, diving into the ground some distance away. Seneschal backpedaled, eyes darting around as they closed in. The whispering intensified, and he turned to flee at a full run.

Kirsten sat up, cradling her face, shivering as the mass of shadows swarmed through the corridor into a cyclone of darkness sliding down the bright mall corridor. The whispers distanced with the ring of black, until it vanished through the same point of floor where Seneschal had gone. Their presence receded, the area returned to normal, and she glanced at Dorian stumbling over.

“Almost got him.” She wiped a bloody nose.

“You okay?” He appraised the developing bruise on her cheek.

A stimpak hissed into her shoulder. “Yeah, I’ve had worse. Think they’ll get him?”

Dorian cast a worried look at the spot of floor. “That would be too easy.”

irsten was crying by the time she hung up the vid call. Not a loud, sobby sort of crying, just silent tears down her face. Evan was having a great day at school and had no idea that a creature out of the Abyss had threatened him. She warned Eze about it, but wanted to talk to Evan anyway. She could not get the joy in his eyes out of her mind, and it made the tears come harder.

“Dammit, Dorian. If he…”

The cool presence of his hand settled into her shoulder. “Abyssals are vicious, but they are single-minded. They will use anything they can to get to you. If Seneschal seriously means to harm Evan, he won’t do anything until after they get Vikram. He can’t help it.”

She looked up, gathering her composure as an army of police and techs invaded the mall.

“Thanks for the all-clear, Agent.” An older man in a blue Division 2 jumpsuit saluted her. “Frank Martinez, Tech Four. I’m in command of the CSI team.” He scratched his head, glancing around at the damage. “Word is I’m not gonna care for your explanation.”

“Heh.” She chuckled, surveying the damage. “What’s not to like? Just a pair of demons determined to destroy the ghost of the man who killed them.” She got up, surprised to find Martinez at eye level. “Was anyone hurt?”

He nodded. “Yes, about two dozen people if you factor in the incident in the street outside. Fortunately, no one died. So… demons?” He blessed himself. “Seriously?”

After the short-short version of events, Tech Four Martinez wandered back to his crew, shaking his head.

“Stopping paranormal entities and making alcoholics. I think your work here is done.” Dorian tried to pat her on the shoulder but just whiffed through.

“Maybe in another hundred years, people will stop looking at me like
that
.” She crossed her arms, watching the crime scene techs scurry about in search of forensic evidence for several minutes. “We can’t let them kill Vikram again. If they get him before I stop them, who knows what they’ll do. Right now, they have a common motivation; without him, they might go their separate ways.” Kirsten shivered at the thought.

“So how do we find an undead deck jockey?” Dorian grinned. “Not as if he’s going to be logged into the GlobeNet. We can’t just ping him.”

Kirsten blinked. “Yes, we can. I just need some quiet.”

A hundred yards away, at the primary intersection of the mall’s two main passageways, she escaped the bustle of the investigation. Twenty abandoned merchant pushcarts surrounded an enormous round area packed with soil, flowers, and trees. Holographic birds danced among the disc of nature stuck smack dab in the center of the mall. A great skylight let the sun flood down all six floors, gleaming from the silvered sides of motorized stairs all around the perimeter of a vertical channel. Devoid of people, the courtyard possessed a degree of serenity quite out of place for West City.

“If you have an idea, better get on with it.” Dorian glanced over his shoulder. “They’re going to be letting people back in soon.”

She sat on a bench, closed her eyes, and concentrated on the name Vikram Medhi. Much the same way Darksight allowed her to see without light by opening her eyes to the Astral realm, she pushed mental energy out instead. A silent calling directed at him, beaconing for him in the dark. Dorian heard it right away, nodding with immediate understanding of what she did. Kirsten gave him a waypoint, a lantern in the dark to seek. It was up to him to follow it.

“Hello.”

Kirsten relaxed her mind, opening her eyes to find a nervous Indian man in front of her.

“What the devil did you do to them?” he asked, shifting about.

“Thank you for trusting me.” She stood. “I’m sorry; I almost got Seneschal but…”

Dorian grumbled. “You should have finished him off; don’t worry about me.”

Vikram looked between them. “I saw him running with those… things chasing him.”

“Yeah. They got away. You should be safe for a little while, at least while he is weakened.”

“Probably a few days,” added Dorian. “I’m not entirely sure how it works for them now, but abyssals don’t have remains or attachments to go to in order to recover their energy. It will quite likely take him some time to get back to strength.”

“I’d like you to stay with me, if you can.” Kirsten’s innocent smile seemed to ease Vikram’s fidgeting. “They’re bound after you for some reason. You are safest with me.”

He gnawed at his fingers, eyeing the atrium, jumping at any moving shadow. “They killed me once already. I had a feeling someone was coming, so I rigged a dead man switch. When my pulse stopped, the entire floor turned into a fireball.”

“Took them with you.” Dorian seemed annoyed. “I wonder if that counts as killing?”

Kirsten shrugged. “We don’t have time for philosophy class.”

“No, we don’t,” said Vikram. “They’re quite upset at me. That Seneschal had a reputation for being a perfectionist. I think he’s angrier he failed to anticipate the bomb than he is about being dead.”

“Do you know anything about what happened there after you died? Who made the silver circle?”

Vikram shrugged. “I am not certain, it just appeared one night. I did not see anyone draw it.”

Dorian squinted at him.

“Okay.” She sighed. “Will you stay close to me for a few days?”

Vikram cringed at a change in light. “You can protect me?”

“I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe. Of course, the best thing you can do to protect yourself is to move on.”

“Move on?” He tilted his head.

“Transcend to the next world, go through the silver light.” She waved her hand in a circle as if to emphasize the point. “Do you hear the voices of any of your family calling you?”

“No.”

“Do you know why you are lingering behind? It can’t be related to your murder; everyone responsible for it is already dead.”

Dorian moved his hand off his mouth long enough to speak. “Maybe he wants the whole company to go down, like Albert.”

“Oh, for”―she mumbled, almost dropping the G word―”‘s sake. What do you feel is keeping you here?”

Vikram thought for a moment, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He looked away, then down at the floor. “I had some evidence, on my Nishihama; data proving Lyris Corporation complicit in the deaths of several thousand people in the Middle East, Africa, and western China. I wanted to expose them to the world.”

“Why didn’t you just send it to the Newsnet? Why sit on it?” Dorian’s gaze hardened. “You were trying to make some money off it in the process, weren’t you?”

“I wanted to verify it.” Vikram looked up, eyes tracking an illusory bluebird through the branches. “If it proved to be spurious, it would have ruined my career.”

Dorian continued giving him a distrusting look.

“Were you ever able to verify it? Maybe we should look for the data?” Kirsten tapped away at her armband console, searching through the site reports for the blast.

“The deck is toast.” Vikram sighed. “My copy of the data is gone.”

“Well then.” Kirsten let her arm fall to her side; the holo-panel turned itself off. “I guess we can worry about it once he’s no longer being hunted.”

Dorian folded his arms. “So this is your plan? Dangle him as a lure and just wait?”

“Basically. We know they are going to come after him again.” She stared sympathy at Vikram for a moment before firing a pointed look at Dorian. “The best we can do is be there for him when they do. Unless you have a better idea.”

Dorian pursed his lips. “I got nothin’.”