by D K Girl
The only one who didn’t eyeball her as if she were the main act in a freak show was the reptile. Newt. Triceratops. Fucking whatever. Bradley jumped from his perch on Vail’s shoulder, disappearing into the car and squawking his miniature lungs out. As if he already knew what was going to happen next. Christ, this was a bad idea.
‘Get back in the car, Az.’
Tamas - 17
As he neared the level eleven chamber, the force of the Tier Waters rushed at him. Tamas stumbled. In danger of falling to his knees, he grabbed at the rough surface of the passageway walls, wincing as the stone jabbed the flesh of his palm. Reuben moved to assist, but Tamas waved him back.
‘I’m fine.’ He heard the rasp in his own voice but was grateful for Reuben’s discreet step back, a move so fast that no one might notice he’d tried to help at all. ‘Give me a moment.’
Either he’d grown weaker – possible – or the Waters sensed what was coming. Their energy already stirred, brutal against his raw nerves. Tamas had attempted to rest since the incident with Blake, but her screams blared through his skull, making deep sleep impossible. Over and over he saw the truth torn from her like jagged blades, the first time he’d witnessed the use of the Syranian serum. Her pain had weighed down the room. She’d been stripped to the core.
And it had dragged him to the ground.
Thinking of his collapse burned his cheeks even now. It was pathetic. He was Ereshkigal’s Messenger. In his veins ran the strength of demigods, the very last echoes of the blood of the Abgal: seven sages created by Enki, the god of knowledge. An extraordinary family legacy.
A legacy gifted to a stuttering, trembling mess of a human. The man who could barely stay on his feet as he went to do his goddess’s bidding. Who lay awake at night, so sick with worry that he would screw all this up. Not strong enough. His mother might as well have been lying with him some nights, her voice so clear in his head. If that serum were used on him, what might they see? He was not certain what he feared most: that they would see his weakness, his fear, or the hint of a monster. A monster who had allowed the torture of the single human he called friend, and who wasn’t sure that, for some time at least, he hadn’t enjoyed the power play.
Tamas straightened, adjusting the button-up shirt he’d chosen, and continued his walk down the hallway. The grand arching doors to the level eleven chamber were visible up ahead. He cleared his throat. ‘Any word on the location of the gallu?’
The back of his skull ached not just from the incident with Blake. A headache had plagued him since he’d advised Ereshkigal of Azrael’s disappearance. It was impossible to gauge the goddess’s emotion; it was a little like communicating with a voice-command system, but suffice to say, she was not pleased at the loss. He didn’t need another reason to despise Kira. The list was long. She was a bully, careless, irresponsible. Reckless with her freedom. Trivial. Coarse and irreverent.
All things he’d envied to begin with. Jealous of her utter nothingness.
‘No, sir. They are still en route to Melgrove,’ Nari informed him, keeping a discreet distance. ‘Another hour until touchdown.’
‘And you’ve still not been able to reach the accommodations?’
Reuben shook his head. ‘The number goes direct to voicemail.’
A goddess in his head, alien technology at hand, and Tamas could not find a way to reach the manager of a rundown holiday park. He sucked in a deep breath. Held it. Exhaled, giving his heart a chance to stop pounding.
Chances were Ereshkigal already saw his truth. Already knew the words that would bubble out of him. That he lusted for and feared, in equal measure, what lay ahead. He’d been promised that the full power of the Abgal would be reborn within him should he bring the soul of Dumuzi to her. That Enki himself would reward Tamas by restoring the bloodline of the sages to its full glory. Thoughts of that grand prize kept him awake at night.
Be careful what you wish for, so the saying went. And he’d never understood it so well.
Tamas gestured to the men standing guard at the heavy, imposing doors. No eye contact. As protocol dictated. But right now, as the interior door swung open and the blast of the Waters met him, Tamas had the oddest fleeting desire. He wished it was the janitor standing before him. Too inquisitive, too invasive of personal space, too eager to chat with the messed up boy who might be about to disappear altogether.
He strode past the men and into the chamber. The air was heavy, clogging his airways. They were all there. All the Syranians to the right, standing to attention behind their captain. Cym included, and Eron. The most elegant, and by far the prettiest of all the Syranians. Something beautiful to look at in the drabness of the Facility. He’d filled more than a few of Tamas’s fantasies, until he’d slept with Kira.
Tamas gestured for his escort to stop.
‘Here will be fine.’ His entire body shook. Sweat beaded on his lip. The starched collar of his favourite dot-patterned shirt clung too tightly to his neck.
Nari looked as if she might say something. A ‘good luck’ or a ‘be careful’, perhaps. It would have made him sweat with the intimacy of it, but it would have been nice just the same. No one else in here was going to wish him anything but to get the job done. Nari gave him a deep nod and then walked away. Reuben went a little further, giving a very brief salute. Then he, too, was turning his back and walking away. Tamas searched for a sign of Blake, scanning the huge chamber. Sound echoed against the dark upper curves, playing around the stalactites that dotted the roof, hanging like enormous blades, ready to strike them all down.
Four smart-rig mini cranes were positioned around the perimeter of the Tier. They were yellow and red, the only splashes of bright colour amongst the stark-white rock and dull concrete flooring of level eleven. Each crane sat like a crab on four braced legs, a tractor tyre beneath the core hub. A thick curved steel arm held a completed carapace. Four lifeless human constructs dangled from thick wire rigging, each as different as humans were in actuality. Varying sexes – two female forms, two male – and skin shades. Blake stood by the male on the farthest side of the Tier, a laptop in her hand connected by wires to the monitoring unit at the head of the crane. The stark white of her skin seemed to glow with the reflection of the Waters. The body that hung before her dwarfed her small frame, like a football player before a child. It was the same for the three others. Azrael’s slender physique, the refined beauty of it, was missing in these designs. The Four were bulky and imposing. Like the bouncers at the clubs Tamas never went to.
A sudden pain at his crown almost doubled him over. It took every ounce of effort to keep it to nothing more than an odd-looking twitch. The goddess was impatient. Tamas turned to Captain Nex, who stood waiting a few paces away.
‘We are ready, Messenger.’ His white eyes fixed on Tamas’s face. Not a hint of trepidation. No doubt. Tamas envied the surly captain for the first time. ‘Shall I give the order?’
He nodded, the air evaporating from his lungs. ‘Yes,’ he said. Whispered.
Seder, Bel, Gren, and Parator moved in that silky way they had, one in behind each of the cranes. One to each of the Four. Ready to Bind. Connect the mea stones they bore in their arms with the sister stones worked into the carapaces. The aliens used the mea stones like extrasensory lassoes, not only to connect them to the gallu but also to control them. Keep each of the Four set on one task: find the demigod. They would search amongst hundreds of thousands of humans and find the single body that contained the eternal soul of Dumuzi. Ereshkigal’s gallu were the only beings capable of doing so, they were the ones who had bound him to human flesh to begin with. But they were wild animals and would fight their restraints every step of the way.
A drop of sweat ran down the side of his face. The Syranians all appeared utterly calm, portraying the perfect soldierly resolve. Not a bead of sweat or quickened breath.
Nothing like him.
‘Cym and the Technician are ready to commence?’ Tamas avoided the captain’s intense
gaze. As with all the Syranians, he held an imposing height and was lean and tightly wound. Tamas always felt the captain could swipe off your head before you realised he’d lifted a hand. The alien was yet another intimidating presence around him. Tamas seemed to draw such people to him. As though they fed on his vulnerability. Even his mother had enjoyed lording over him. She had been a Messenger of the goddess before all else, reminding him of that fact on every occasion possible. There was no room for crayon drawings on fridges in his childhood.
‘I believe so, Mr Cressly.’ Always a hint of condescension when the captain spoke his name. If Nex were a gambler, he would have put down a hefty sum against Tamas surviving this far. ‘Though I’ve made clear my opposition to including Blake in the Meld.’
‘You have indeed.’ He hid his shaking hands, bunching them up under his armpits. An unobtrusive move considering the chill of the chamber. He sought out Blake, willing her to look up from the tablet she cradled. Her eyes stayed steadfastly down. ‘And I’ve made clear the fact that her expertise is required. Cym agrees. He will be in the control room and needs someone out in the chamber. Believe me, Captain, Blake understands the consequences of any lack of cooperation. The Taser restraints I’ve had put on her bodyguard should go some way to clearing up any misunderstandings, should her memory fail her.’
Reuben’s idea. So that not only did Kira’s well-being rely on Blake cooperating, but Rossiter’s did too. Considering they were clearly the only two people in the world Blake gave a damn about, bases were covered. A knife pierced through his cerebellum, the clawing grip of the goddess. Tamas flinched, gasping with the shock of the pain.
‘We must start,’ he said – or, chances were, his eyes would start to bleed. ‘I will give the Technician the go-ahead.’
There was absolutely no reason to walk the twenty paces it would take to reach Blake’s side. Raise one finger and he had people at his beck and call who would tell her to prepare. Besides, not a single soul in the chamber was unaware the Meld was about to commence. He saw the darted glances, the tension in the expressions around him. But Blake would not look up. And he needed her to look up. Look at him. See him. Before he disappeared.
Someone she’d given a shit about once. Someone who regretted tearing open her soul. And who despised himself for being grateful it had not been him.
‘We are ready to commence.’
Blake’s head jerked up, and he knew it had been a mistake to come this close. ‘I know.’
As if he were a steaming pile of shit.
‘All right, then.’ Tamas fought the urge to cradle his head in his hands, try to ease the headache pressing the backs of his eyes. Blake pulled the wires free of the monitoring unit, bundling them around the tablet, and raised her gaze to meet him. The delicate skin beneath her eyes was bruised and sunken. A vein bulged at her temple, easily visible through her pale skin.
His throat tightened.
She did not see a friend. Did not even see someone she could stand to be around. Though the chamber itself was noisy with the hum of voices and whir of machinery, a bubble of silence sat around them. As though they stood behind heavy curtains, blocked off from everyone else. And in the silence, Tamas waited. Blake’s hands shook. Just as his did.
‘Have you found them?’ Blake said. ‘Is Kira all right?’
Fuck. Fuck. Tamas gritted his teeth. Fury pressed down on his ribs, making it hard to breathe. Is that stupid bitch all right? Of all the questions. Inside, down in a space he couldn’t pinpoint, something broke. Tamas reached for Blake, grasping her blouse and jerking her forward. She cried out, the tablet slipping from her grasp and clattering to the floor.
‘I found them.’ The words hissed from him. ‘And if you put one finger out of line, I will tear her apart. I’d like to see her full of the serum. Killing your own father has got to pack one hell of a punch, right? I’ll fill her so full of her truth, she’ll die screaming.’ He pushed her away. The full force of his anger propelled her backwards, landing her flat on her back. He panted with the effort, the rage tearing through him. Bloating him. Building him into something so much grander than he was. Blake and her secrets could go to hell. The death at the casino was a flashing red light. Kira would be in his possession soon enough.
Blake pushed up onto her elbows but did not try to stand. The jolt had loosened strands of her dark hair, and the top button of her blouse had torn free. Her collarbones poked through thin skin, the curve of her ribs visible. He was not the only one disappearing.
‘Tamas, what are we doing?’ Blake whispered. ‘How many are going to be hurt?’
Tamas was conscious of the eyes on him, but he didn’t flinch. Didn’t blush. Didn’t give a shit. He kicked the tablet towards her. Its harsh scrape across the concrete surface was the only sound that reached him. The entire chamber silent. Even the headache had lifted. As though the goddess herself had backed off.
‘Oh come on, Blake, when has that mattered to you? Don’t expect me to believe you’ve grown a conscience now. Bullshit. Your designs bring in millions.’ He gestured to the grimalkin standing at the perimeter of the chamber. The military had paid a ridiculous amount of coin for similar designs. ‘This is just a different kind of war.’ He laughed, the sound rich with scorn. ‘That’s what the whole thing with Azrael is, right? You don’t want them to take your toys away from you. Good luck with hiding him. Believe me, this world isn’t big enough for that.’
He turned his back on her, ignoring her pleas to stop. To wait. Her assistant Weylen was the first to move, giving him a wide berth as she ran to Blake’s side.
Tendrils of energy stroked him, caressed him far more gently than when he’d entered the chamber. Luring him towards the Tier. Ereshkigal flowed into his mind, with far less of a hammer blow than before. A pressure not altogether comfortable, but not about to level him, either. Tamas nodded to the captain, who waited at the crude low brick wall around the Tier.
Captain Nex called out readying orders to his god-soldiers. Eron remained a step behind his captain. His silver hair was pulled tight off his face, accentuating the sharp lines of his features. His lips parted, the fullness of them glistening against the shimmering Waters. It would have been quite breathtaking if not for the drift of his pale white eyes. He could barely pull his gaze from where Blake was being helped to her feet by Weylen.
Even though Tamas stood a pace away, his body alight with the power of the goddess, Eron could not gift him with so much as a glance. To hell with them all.
‘Let it begin.’
Fully clothed, Tamas stepped into the Waters. And no one offered him a single word. He stood, calf-deep, on the narrow concrete platform that ran around the inner rim of the Tier. The atmosphere in the chamber grew weighty, pressing in on him like a wet blanket. He would not bend to it today. He was upright, rigid. Outwardly unafraid. The four carapaces dangled over the Waters, the cranes emitting a low hum as they slowly lowered the bodies closer to the surface of the liquid. He moved down a few more steps, reaching the jutting platform that would allow him to walk to the centre of the Tier. The Tier was not overly large, half the size of an average swimming pool. The bodies hung above him, crowding in on him, adding to the oppressive dankness of the air.
The Waters began to swirl, and with each rotation they grew more viscous. Heat poured through his body as the Waters rose up his legs, covering his torso. Tamas glanced up but caught sight of no one. Only the empty shells hanging lifeless around him. He was alone – save for the deity in his brain. His body swelled, any wrinkles he may have had were stretched clear. The Waters covered his eyes. Drenching him. Drowning him. Calling to his blood.
His blood called back, pulsing as thick as the Waters in his veins. The spasms began soon after. Tamas clenched his teeth, fingernails cutting into his swollen, curled fists. Azrael’s Meld was a toothache compared to this. Tamas knew from the tightness in his throat and the wideness of his open mouth that he was screaming, but he heard nothing. It was complete and
utter silence, the most frightening thing of all. His connection to the world had been deadened into nothingness. Vision was gone, lost beneath a blur of emerald. Taste, smell, the sense of the Water against his skin, all gone. He was nothing. He was no one and nowhere. A consciousness masquerading as light. It, he, guided them, pulled them in, dragged them forward. A beacon to lead them.
And they were everything and everywhere.
The Four.
At the eye of their storm Tamas struggled to exist. Losing himself in the maddened rush of ascendancy, eroding. Brilliance moved around him, achingly bright. Buffeting him in the storm of arrival.
All at once the crashing wave dumped him. He choked on the Waters pouring down his throat, gagging so hard that bile filled his mouth. His ears screamed with the pitch of tinnitus, and the concrete steps rushed up to meet him. Slammed against him.
The Tier was done with him. The goddess was done with him. And he cried into the wetness.
Blake - 18
A light mist drifted off the mass of moving water, dampening everyone, and everything, in the chamber. The droplets ran down Blake’s heated cheeks, mingling with her own sweat. Her heart thumped in time with the resonating hum coming from the Tier. Not as manic as it had been back at her apartment, but uncomfortable just the same. Leaving her a little breathless. Her body seemed determined to rattle itself apart.
‘Blake, step back. Please.’ Weylen stood several metres behind her, waving at her frantically. But Blake shook her head. She couldn’t move, even if she wanted to. The water pulled at her, caused the hairs on her arms to stand to attention. As though it wished to drag the liquid in her body back into its fold.
The great funnel of water rose up, like a brilliant emerald twister, and within seconds Tamas became just a faint shadow at the heart of it. Then the carapaces vanished. Everything was hidden behind a churning veil of liquid. The water didn’t exceed the circumference of the Tier, but it soared towards the curved roof of the chamber. Far higher than it had done with Azrael’s arrival. Blake pressed her earpiece harder against her ear.
