Out of the Black (40 page)

"Ok... just wanted to make sure." Without turning fully away from the visitors at the door, Anne raised her arm slowly to point at Hawthorne's sprawled body.

After a few seconds of pointing and confused silence, the doctor had a flash of inspiration and jumped to his feet. "Right! Stella!" He clapped the other surgeon on the shoulder and rushed to help the fallen woman. Two of the other three came to his side, leaving only poor damp Jeremy on the ground by the wall.

"Told you Dek was here." The little guy at the door said to the cop. He gestured to the carnage with a told-you-so look. He then put his hand on his head, like he was thinking hardiv hv height="0">

The cop nodded, then addressed Anne, "You seen a really fast guy with spiky hair and a wicked sword round these parts?"

Anne looked confused.

"Well, who..." The cop's eyes glanced around at the destruction.

"Oh!" The little guy startled the cop, his eyes widened with surprise, then settled on Anne.

"Oh... no... this is..." Chrome-top stammered.

Anne felt a familiar tingle across her skin, more satin sheets this time than caffeinated eels, but unmistakably the same thing. "Don't you even start with me you little pipsqueak!" she leveled her finger at him.

"Pipsqueak?" He looked confused, "...you felt that?"

Anne continued what she hoped was a menacing stare. She didn't think she could beat both the magic whammy the little guy was wielding and the cop's fletcher, so she was left with bravado.

"No. Wait!" The little guy shouted, sensing impending tragedy, "We're not here to hurt you. You don't... Ping! Get down here!"

Anne lowered in her stance, she'd forgotten about the guy above with the assault gun. This was about to get ugly. Sensing Anne's plans, the cop got more serious with her aim, her face hardened.

The little guy held up a hand. "Stop!" he pleaded, "Please, both of you." His glance flitted from Anne to the cop. "We're on your side... I think we are anyway. We can always duke it out later if we find out you're evil... you're not evil, right?"

Anne's laugh was perhaps one-third whimper. "That's the question, isn't it? I mean just look around!" Her three arms gestured to include the perhaps eight corpses. "Supergirl or Bride of Dracula?" She threw the severed arm to the ground with the rest of the carnage.

"Speaking of evil..." the Asian guy in the observation room called down, "The guys up here were bad guys, right?"

Anne sobbed.

"Right?" He repeated, a little more concerned.

"Sure... They gunned down a federal agent," she glanced over her shoulder to where the doctors worked on Hawthorne. "...tried to kill me too, but then everybody's been trying that lately."

The kid put a hand on the cop's weapon, pressed down slowly. The cop looked at him inquisitively, but allowed him to lower her weapon.

"That's Dek." The kid pointed to Anne.

***

"Right this way, gentlemen." Agent Vega said. He opened the door to the first-floor conference room and stepped aside. The six confused officers passed through for their debriefing. Rather than following them inside, the agent closed the door. He and his two companions waited in silence. All faces were hard, inscrutable.

From the other side of the door, they heard the sound of two doors opening into other rooms. Shouts, then screams erupted from the other side of the closed door. A burst of gunfire sounded as at least one of the officers had the presence of mind to draw his weapon. The screams were intense, punctuated by crashing violence and the sound of rending flesh. It was over in perhaps twenty seconds, except for the ripples of black laughter and the sound of feeding... these lasted significantlynger.

Do they really have time for that? Vega wondered mostly to distract his imagination from painting the picture of events as they unfolded on the other side of the door.

They were hard men. They were servants of an ancient and proud order, experienced soldiers and assassins. Yet they were still men- they were still afraid. Vega couldn't shake the feeling that the Savants he served had made a horrible mistake that would likely leave them as dead as many of the other clans.

This was supposed to be the turning point for Asado- their ascension to dominance, but Vega didn't think so. He feared that this... thing, and its ever-increasing horde of progressively more disturbing flesh puppets would be the bloody screaming end of everything, including Asado.

But then it wasn't his job to think. It certainly wasn't his job to fear. He made sure his weapons were ready. His men anxiously followed suit. This thing had really poured on the effort to get its hands on this key. Amazingly enough, it had already suffered two defeats tonight from this woman: one in the ER, and most recently in one of the operating rooms. Asado had also taken the beat-down once upstairs in the doctors' lounge, then again at the OR, if the gunfire that terminated the last communication from the other team was any indication.

Their enemy was tough, but easy to underestimate. Vega had seen their quarry's picture during the briefing in the whispercraft on the way here. There had been a significant amount of laughter and even more disbelief. Yet here they were, regrouping while their all-powerful ally collected some firearms, and enjoyed a serendipitous snack, apparently.

It was getting pretty serious about its quarry. This was the first time it had ever asked for weapons. Until now, it had always been a hands-on kind of killer.

"Gruumen au korgst prada Asado!" The monophonic chorus of perhaps ten voices from the darkness behind the door shouted.

Vega was not impressed by its use of the old tongue. Its lack of four more weapons was not his problem. "Aruta kovan – noch plataanos." He called back.

Silence.

The three killers glanced at each other, then back to the door. There was a click, and the door swung slowly open. Muscles tensed, knuckles turned white around pistol grips.

Only one of the thing's Avatars appeared, resolving slowly from the darkness of the room beyond. It eased into the light like someone might ease into a very hot bath. Its mouth and hands were dark and glistening around curved teeth and claws.

Harms had always been disturbing enough, but as this thing got a better hold on their flesh, Vega had learned just how much headroom was left in disturbing.

"Asado plataan... bucha." The words slithered out of it slowly for emphasis. Maybe it was his problem after all.

"No!" He moved as fast as he could. The pistol was already in his hand, all he had to do was point it at the flesh puppet before him and pull the trigger. He never had a chance.

His pistol discharged, but the thing had already broken his wrist and pointed the gun toward Murphy's abdomen. Murphy went down amid a red aerosol induced by the three high velocity needles. He made no sound as he died, which was more than Vega could say for himself right now.

Behind h, Li fired, but Vega felt the shells tear through him as the puppet shoved him backwards. Li tried to shoulder him aside to get a shot at the thing, but it was already moving around him. Vega hit the floor before Li's shout ended in a gurgle. His last volley went into the ceiling, showering dust down on them all. Vega could only groan as the flesh puppet entered his narrowing field of vision slowly... almost playfully.

In its right hand was Li's pistol, in its left hand was Li's severed right hand. As the world seemed to darken a few shades, the puppet bit the three middle fingers from Li's hand. As it swallowed, the lock indicator on the gun went green.

"Gaff togg gruumen, Asado." It said, smiling as it bent over him. Vega's fondest hope was that it would use the gun on him, but there was no mercy in this creature.

It bent lower, the world darkened, its teeth tore into him.

***

"So, let me guess: you're Ping, and you're Alex, right?" Anne pointed to the cute little Asian guy first, and the slightly littler chrome-haired kid next.

They looked a bit surprised.

***

"But they're gone now, and if I ever see them again, it'll be in the next minute or two." The kid with the coke-bottle glasses said. "We don't have much time."

"Time for what?" Anne asked, as the rolling violence of the car crash continued around them.

"For anything really," the kid said with a thoughtful grin. "But you've got to get out of here right away. If you want to live... if you want anyone to live, you've got to get away before they get down here."

"Down here? Are we in the ocean?" Anne must have looked confused because the kid held up his hands for patience. "Now, whatever you do, don't freak out and run away from me again... wait till you wake up, then you can run like everyone's life depends on it, ok?"

Anne felt fuzzy, distracted. "You're a plucky little guy," she said, tussling the kid's hair. The way he'd said 'freak out' was just so cute.

"Now quit that!" He batted her hand away. "You really have some issues with focus, don't you?"

"My issue bin is large and unorganized... focus may be in there somewhere." They both laughed, but then the kid got assertive again.

"Now listen! I wasn't kidding when I said the fate of the world was at stake here..."

"You never said that."

"Ok, I just said it then... and I wasn't kidding."

"So precocious!" She tried to tussle his hair again, but he was way too quick this time. He grabbed her hand and didn't let go. "Hey!" she complained.

"Listen!" He said, getting a bit testy. "Here's what you need to do: There's some people who will find you soon. There're some important things you need to tell them."

"How are they going to find me?"

"Long story, but there's something I have... like a harmless radio tracker kind of thing a friend tagged me with. I'm hoping that's being transferred to you along with most of my power..."

"I'm hungry. Can we go back to that donut shop?"

The kid was done being distracted from his point. "Thing one: Don't trust Kaspari... He's in bed with the bad guys."

Anne nodded. "Gotcha, Kaspari's got low love standards."

The kid shrugged that off, "Thing two: There are two types of bad guys, one is Asado... an ancient clan of Savants and killers. I hope Alex knows Asado... Anyway, the other is... well like... I don't really know. Sort of like a puppet master, except his puppets are somewhere between ninjas and zombies."

"Ninja zombies... yep that sounds serious." Anne wrinkled her forehead in mock concern. Her neck hurt. She rubbed it slowly, but the pain seemed only to intensify. "What to do... ninja zombies... Hmmm..."

"Believe me... it's scarier than it sounds... they don't wear those silly masks or tabby socks, for one thing..." he shook his head as if to clear the irrelevancy from the conversation, "Anyway, you see, about six months ago Kaspari actually cracked the Loom, and this...
thing
... it's trying to force its way into our world. For this, it needs me... now it will need you."

"You're saying I'm you now?" Anne held up a finger in inspiration, "Hey, are you my inner child?" Had she been drinking? She felt punchy.

"Saints preserve us! No, I'm not saying that you're me, but you're going to be a lot more like me when you wake up, I think."

"...because I'm sleeping now." She waved her finger of discovery about. Her neck was really starting to smart. Maybe she'd cut it in the minivan crash.

His face hardened. "Right now you're at the beginning of a transformation, and I am at the end of my life. Right now you're lying in rain and glass and our blood with my teeth buried in your neck and a channel of power flowing between us."

Anne's hand froze on her neck. She took a step back. She remembered now. She realized who this kid was. It was like someone had turned on all the lights, but her finger was still in one of the sockets.

The kid's face softened into sadness tinged with compassion. Resignation settled into his eyes. "If they don't find you, do your best to find them. The guy you really need to tell this to is a silly-looking kid named Alexander Ahmed, formerly of Rosemont College. The people traveling with him are Rae Jackson and Ping Bannon, both of the CPD. All nice folks. They'll probably end up just as dead as me... just as dead as you."

She was still thinking about that when she noticed that the kid seemed to be getting smaller. She looked a little harder, just to be sure. Not smaller, lower. He was sinking down through the dark waters in which they now floated. She had no idea when the car crash had ended, and no idea how they had gotten here, but he was leaving and soon she would be alone in these frightening depths.

"Don't go!" She shouted, grabbing his shirt at the shoulder and pulling him into an awkward bear hug.

"What are you doing, Anne?" he asked as if she were drinking mustard straight from the bottle at Denny's. But though there was mocking in his tone, his arms wrapped desperately around her waist.

"You're not getting away that easily, Junior!" She adjusted her grip and got an arm under one of his shoulders, "I'll take you seriously, okay? Besides, it looks mighty dark down there." Even in her panic and confusion, she had some compassion to spare for the little stranger who had shared her dream.

"Hey, at least I don't see any flaming pits or pitchforks," he said, craning his head to the side, "this was actually a fair-sized concern- I've been on a bit of a murdering spree lately..." He broke off as their grip slipped and he slid a few centimeters down. "You can't stop this, Anne. I'm done cheating death, now it's your turn for a while. Savor it."

"I'm not letting go! You just need to hold on a little longer and we'll find a way out of here!"

"You can still help, Anne." He said with resignation in his voice, "You just can't help me."

"...and then I woke up on top of him, and I ran away as fast as I could- which wasn't actually that fast." Anne concluded. It had taken less than two minutes recount her confusing story, including the rest of the dream that had just come back to her like an
epiphany.

The others were silent, staring at nothing in particular, lost in private thought. From time to time, the silence was broken by urgent instructions between the surgeons as they worked behind her.