by Tiger Gray
A new group had started up recently, calling themselves the Alienists, and Ashrinn would rather work with them. If the shadowmancer on his list didn't work out, he'd call them next. An investigator would be a welcome addition and that was what the Alienists wanted to be, counselors and detectives. Ashrinn tried not to squirm, though; the last thing he wanted was a therapist following him around all the time.
"I've put my trust in you," Randolph said. "Make certain you exercise it carefully in this instance."
"Of course, sir, But if the Cult is using them, we'd be fools not to counter that."
"Do what you must."
"Sir," Ashrinn said by way of acknowledgment. "Come on, Daniel. Let's go gather up the rest of us, hmm?"
The two of them made their way down the hill, and just as they reached the bottom Mal jogged up. His red hair was damp with sweat but he looked happy enough.
"Going hard on those trainees, I hope." Ashrinn said. "Spirit knows, if any of them are like I used to be, they need a first class ass kicking."
"Oh, most of them are eager to please. But that Brewer kid has a mouth on him sometimes. He does a damn good impersonation of you, you know." Mal's eyes glittered with humor. Training had a good effect on him, Ashrinn thought. Mal wasn't the kind of man to grow old in his armchair.
"That little pissant. Of course he does."
He bid goodbye to Mal.
As he and Daniel were walking to the car, Daniel said, "Commander, I've been thinking."
"There's a surprise."
Daniel made a face at him. "About what we should call ourselves."
"We need a name now?"
They crunched up the gravel path, leaving the training grounds and its protective ring of magic behind them. That ward grew more powerful and more vibrant as magicals started to take note of and join the Order.
"We're a team, right? Teams need names."
"All right, then." Ashrinn could hardly protest. He already knew these people weren't going to make a traditional Unit team, if there was even such a thing as a traditional Unit team. "So what's your idea?" He knew Daniel already had one.
"The Storm."
"What, like the Seattle Storm?" Ashrinn wondered why Daniel wanted to reference the name of an all-female basketball team. Yes, they were local, but tough it was not.
"We're all underdogs, right?" Daniel said, beaming at him as they came up to the battered Jeep Patriot the Order had bought for them.
Ashrinn huffed as he slid into the driver's seat. The team was good, but people weren't exactly lining up to put them in the paper. "Let's hope we win more often than they do."
* * *
"I'm just saying," Jericho said from the backseat, "Storm might be the best Marvel character. Okay, except for that shot in the Brood plot line where all you can see are her huge tits. Oh, and she's being held by another woman wearing skintight leather. Shut your mouth, Gerolt."
Gerolt, mouth already open for a ribald comment, shut it immediately. He knew what was good for him in that regard at least, Ashrinn thought. The tension with Daniel, however, hung heavy in the air. It seemed especially oppressive in the cab of the car. Ashrinn hadn't quite worked out what that was about, though he suspected Daniel hated Gerolt's surly demeanor and how he never seemed thankful for anything. He was glad he'd put Daniel in the passenger seat and Gerolt in the back.
"Comic books?" Lizbet said, over pronouncing it. She was crammed between Gerolt and Jericho, but she didn't seem to mind.
"Yeah, Liz," Jericho said, "I'll get you some."
"Look," Gerolt said. "Batman was the best super hero ever. I don't know how you can think any different."
"What do you know? You ever read a comic book?" Jericho never took Gerolt's shit.
"Shut up. Just because you have to like the badass lightning chick. I mean, if I could call lightning how many problems would I really have?"
"Storm started out buried in rubble next to her dead mother! That's how the bitch started. You think that's not a problem? What makes Batman better anyway?"
"He didn't have any powers. Didn't need them."
"Yeah," Daniel said, profile sharp with annoyance, "but he was a what? Bazillionaire? Hojillionaire? That's the same thing as having powers."
"Don't make me turn this car around," Ashrinn growled before he realized he was using his parent voice. Daniel and Gerolt could and would find the smallest things to argue about. "You're supposed to be operators, not a bunch of kids."
A murmured chorus of sheepish apologies mollified him somewhat.
"Review what we have that's actionable," he said. He'd heard it before since Daniel had gone into detail while they were gathering the rest of their team members, but the team needed to hear it too. It was a long drive to Kennewick, even if he intended for them to take the astral part of the way, where time was less of a fixed concept. They needed something to fill the silence. Preferably something that didn't make his guys sound like a bunch of primary school students.
"Sir," Daniel said, "the major tributary of the Columbia River is called the Snake River. It's got a number of Type B water systems around it. Wells and so on. The area where the Order last ran into infected folk is in Kennewick. People like to fish for salmon there, so it's no surprise that we're seeing infections. Don't know if a person has to ingest the water or if it can be absorbed through the skin too, but either way it's bad news. There's some cabins and a house or two where we're going that use well water, and probably those people also fish. Figure it's a good idea to look."
"If this starts killing the salmon, it will be a disaster." Ashrinn hadn't lived in the Pacific Northwest long, but he knew how valued the fish was, and for a number of serious reasons. "Let's hope these Cultists are literal minded enough to take the name Snake River as a sign."
A trip through the astral later --- Ashrinn pulling those who couldn't cross on their own yet past the barrier between worlds --- and they'd arrived. It was a shame they'd come for such an ugly task since the river banks were so lovely, covered in green-gold trees. The dissonance between the quintessential Pacific Northwest nature scene and what they suspected pulsed beneath the surface made his heart heavy.
They all fit their communicators in their ears in unison. Since Daniel had joined he'd helped them in a number of ways, but these communicators were probably his greatest contribution. From here on in there would be no talking unless it absolutely couldn't be avoided, though the communicators were so good they barely had to speak aloud to be heard by one another. Daniel's meta math rippled through the air, affording them some protection. Ashrinn wouldn't let him do much more than that. There was no telling what was in the area, and magery had a way of making magicals take notice.
Gerolt checked his guns as he faded into the trees. He might be an asshole sometimes, but he could spot a cloaked magical quicker than anyone. Lizbet manifested, taking on the shades of the plant life around her. No better camouflage; Ashrinn could barely see her outline. Jericho, standing next to him, gave him a look. He knew what she was asking. Already he'd gotten her measure well enough to communicate with her like this. The feeling of cool confidence he'd often felt when on a mission settled over him, and somewhere in the back of his mind he leapt and spun with joy that he could still call on that. He showed none of that on his face, however, and nodded at her.
Daniel's magic rippled over her changing form as she took the shape of a wolf. It was a calculated trade off, making the magery more obvious in order to cloak everyone else's signatures. Wolf was perhaps a generous descriptor when the creature now slipping through the underbrush was clearly more monster than natural animal.
Jericho had to weigh at least three hundred pounds, three times as much as the average timber wolf. Her fur had an unnatural oil slick quality, and twisting symbols writhed along her form. She had a shaggy mane and a distorted form, spine too knobby, legs too quick to propel her into a leap. He'd seen her wolfman form once or twice, a towering column of rippling muscle and f
ur, fangs dripping acidic ichor. Thank all that was good that she was on their side.
Jericho bounded into the woods. She couldn't speak to him when shifted, of course, but he could hear her breathing through the communicator. He went into the trees to follow along, and he knew even without the tech telling him so that the others had fallen into position. Good. They could do this, and once they had their shadowmancer it would be even more seamless with that person's mind to direct theirs.
He didn't let himself think about the potential downsides to that set up.
"I can sense it," Lizbet's whisper came through. "Corruption." A pause. He assumed she was using one of her communicator's many functions to pinpoint Jericho's location. Daniel was damn proud of those communicators, and as far as Ashrinn was concerned he had every right to be. "Ahead until you smell humans, then to your right. You will find the well there, I think."
Lizbet was referring to one of the clusters of cabins in the area, where both whites and natives sometimes gathered to sleep in between trips to the river for fish. The places were primitive enough, but they did have potable water. Or they had, until now.
"Looks clear of people, at least in the immediate area," Gerolt's voice came through. "Though damn, the place is crawling with some kind of nasty shit."
"Lizbet," Ashrinn said, "meet up with Jericho and see if you can get a better idea." They'd have to come up with call signs once they were doing missions where being overheard was a real danger, but out here there was no shortage of the eerie feeling that they were the only people for miles. He thought he heard Gerolt snort, but he let it slide. If he couldn't see that the dryad would have a better shot at it than him, tough.
"The earth is poisoned. It smells of death," Lizbet showed no trace of her usual cheerfulness. "The water runs black."
"Can you cleanse it?"
"Maybe, if we find the source of what has done this thing."
"All clear, Jericho?" She barked in response, and he could hear it in the trees as well as through the communicator. She wouldn't have done it if she thought there was anyone to hear her. "Let's go, boys."
Daniel and Gerolt walked into sight, and he went out to meet them. It didn't take them long to meet up with the two women, standing at the well. The ramshackle cabins nearby stood silent and empty. The smell hit him in the face like an angry rugby fan after a team loss, and he staggered just as if the blow had been real.
Once a person smelled a rotting corpse, there was no forgetting the stench. He said something in his native tongue, and even he wasn't sure if it was a warding prayer or a curse. He saw Daniel's face, pale with horror, and Gerolt's stoic look that didn't quite reach his troubled eyes. Lizbet pressed her hands to her mouth in shock, but he couldn't comfort her.
"Get used to it," Ashrinn said, approaching the well. It was easy for people new to this kind of thing to forget it was often about death, not just playing with weapons and doing endless field exercises.
There were no animal sounds here, he realized, and the earth had a crumbly, bare look to it. He didn't have to look to know what he would find, but he still peered down into the water. He wanted to see the bundle of body parts for himself.
Daniel peered in along with him. "Necromancy. And something else."
"Something else?" Ashrinn said. "It isn't bad enough already?"
"I can't make it out, but it's not good."
"Thanks a lot, Sherlock." Gerolt grumbled, and it was a measure of how shaken Daniel was that he didn't even reply.
"Can you cleanse it, Liz?" Ashrinn wasn't a dryad, but he was unsettled by seeing the earth corrupted this way, too..
"Commander... I don't know if this will ever be right again." She knelt to lay her hand on the ground. "But I can try." A dryad could create an energy source, the same way an egg included a nutrient pouch for an unborn chick to feed on. Maybe it would be enough, in time.
Jericho took her human form again.
"We might as well --- " He started.
A rustling noise from behind the cabins interrupted him and made all of them except Liz, still crouched down, draw their side arms.
"What the fuck," Gerolt breathed. A humanoid shape jerked into view. No weapons. Ashrinn could make out that much so he held his fire, and the team did the same. He swiftly reconsidered when the thing stepped out of the shadows.
Bloated like a corpse left too long in the sun and babbling incoherently, it was hard to tell if the thing had been male or female. He could tell it had been human once, though only from its milky eyes and twisted limbs. Those eyes had sunk deep into a puffy face, and virulent green energy crawled over its gray skin. It moaned and gibbered at them, and its stench was the same as the parts in the well.
That was enough for Ashrinn. He put a bullet between the thing's eyes, praying that would kill it. He couldn't be sure anymore. Gerolt and Jericho followed suit, until it dropped, twitched, and fell still.
"What the fuck," Gerolt whispered. "What the fuck."
Ashrinn went over to it even though there were a hundred things he'd rather do, including being locked in the basement for a solid week with Kir as his only company. The rest of them clustered around them.
"Jesus," Daniel said, "does it have scales?"
The lump of flesh lay in a pool of bile and what had once been blood. Its stomach had exploded. Ashrinn studied it as close as he dared. At first he didn't see what Daniel was talking about, but then he caught a glitter near what had once been the thing's face. Scales. Green-gold scales, like a snake.
The water wasn't meant to kill people. It was meant to alter them.
"What is that phrase you like, Jericho?" He asked, and his voice sounded unnaturally calm in his own ears.
"Shit just got real?"
"That's the one."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"How long have these nightmares been going on?"
How Liu kept finding herself in Sarah's office when she didn't want to go, she wasn't sure. After every session it felt like Sarah really did understand her, but she always managed to talk herself out of that between appointments. Sarah was so successful, and while she didn't dress as fancy as Mother, she always looked like she knew how to make herself look nice. Liu always felt very aware of how her own clothes looked like they were trying to swallow her.
Liu took a while to answer. She remembered Coren holding her the night before, how he always knew to pull her into his arms and squeeze her tight to calm her down. He'd started sneaking into her room a lot lately, her smuggling him in so her mother wouldn't find him, though it had been a close call a couple of times. Coren had told her, as she babbled about whatever had been in her dream --- she couldn't remember now --- that she couldn't possibly be crazy enough to drive him away. That no one was crazier than his mom.
She had to believe him on that last point, at least.
The sex hadn't been bad. That had been before the nightmare. At least, she didn't think it had been bad. She wondered if she should have felt something different, something more. She'd wanted to do it but she had the faint notion that it was supposed to do more than feel uncomfortable. Coren had told her he'd figured out their dads hadn't been living in a movie while they'd been away. Well, sex wasn't like the movies either.
She had liked the feel of his body against hers, though, and the way he'd stroked her hair afterward until she drifted off. Maybe that was good enough.
"About a month."
"Do you remember them?" Liu knew that she'd taken too long to answer. Sarah didn't act like she'd noticed, anyway. "What are they about?"
Sometimes Liu heard a hint of a drawl in Sarah's voice, just like Grandma had. Or maybe she heard it. The dreams had addled her so badly she didn't know if she could trust her senses anymore.
They weren't great in the first place.
Liu let the wheels on the toy car she held pull her in, soothe her as she spun them. She thought maybe Rosi was having nightmares, too. More than once her little sister had crawled into bed
with her, touching her with those tiny hands as if worried she might disappear, whispering about how everyone was missing their eyes.
Liu could never hold on to whatever happened in her sleeping mind, though. Only the anxiety still with her.
"Have you told anyone?"
"No. I don't want to upset Mother. Rosi is doing so much better now, but still. I'm not the sick one."
"No?" Sarah had her hair pulled back, Liu noticed. It made her look fragile, showing her thin neck. Liu thought maybe she could see a scar at Sarah's hair line, near her temple. "You don't look so good."
Liu had to admit Sarah was right. Coren had mentioned it, how she'd felt feverish, teased her about being allergic to him. She knew him well enough now that she hadn't taken it seriously. She'd thought she might smother under all her blankets, she'd been so hot then, though usually she needed them all to get comfortable enough to sleep. Maybe it was the Fae blood; she had always been so very thin and as a consequence, almost always cold. Delicate as a songbird, her Grandma always said. Sometimes Liu felt like she really did have hollow bones, like a good breeze might knock her over.
"It's just a little bit of a fever." Mother always made her go to school when she complained about being sick, so she hadn't bothered mentioning it. In her house it didn't count unless you had to go to the hospital for it.
"Well, if it gets worse, let me know. You hear?"
It was so like something her Dad would have said that she agreed automatically. "You're not going to send me to the doctor, are you?" Could counselors do that?
"No, nothing like that." Sarah's pale lips curved reassuringly, and Liu let it gentle her.
"Well. Okay."
"No reason to upset your mother with it."
"Mother has enough problems," Liu agreed, ignoring her unease.
