The Magic Number

by Natalie Gibson

  The small man with the small voice scared the shit out of Montana and Brian, though neither would admit it. Fox was bloodthirsty, and not in a way that most men could understand. Montana certainly had kills on his record, but his were from when he was under direct orders. Brian killed. It even soothed him to do so, but he killed out of anger. Fox didn’t just kill, he butchered, and not out of anger or under orders. He liked it. He handled all of the “enhanced interrogations” the Texan Paion needed. He’d been assigned by the Paion hierarchy, and that fact—as much as his penchant for violence—made him untrustworthy.

  They had chosen a new moon night not because it afforded them extra darkness in the center of brightly lit Austin, but because the full moon gave strength to Nephilim. The moon called out the location of enemies to the Nephilim. The more of its surface reflecting the light of the sun, the more information it could share. No one knew why it worked. That it worked was good enough for them to plan their attack accordingly.

  Getting through the exterior wall was easy. Their insider had told them which area was under the least surveillance, and it was only a few passes with the grinder before they were through the metal rod fencing. The group moved forward at a steady, quick pace in loose formation. Fox led. He was the only one to see the girl with the shielding ability. He had to be the one to identify her.

  Fox salivated at the plans he had for the blond teenager. Brian wanted her brought in for questioning, but the Paion had given Fox special instructions and permissions to dig deeper. He was going to do a full dissection. She was different than other women with power, and they wanted to know why. She would answer his questions, and then when he had exhausted what she could tell them verbally, he’d get at the secrets her body and brain held.

  Fox held up a fist with his arm bent, signaling full stop. Half his men took a knee, guns at the ready, eyes searching the darkness. It was darker here inside the outer wall—the Daughters were conservationists at heart. There were no streetlights here. He issued the hand-signaled orders. The two men in back hid in the bushes, covering them all. Two split off to the right and two more to the left. Fox took Morgan with him to investigate.

  The stone wall was new—at least, it hadn’t been here when they last visited. The wall looked ancient, and if they hadn’t just spent a month scouting the place for their attack, Fox would have sworn it was at least five hundred years old. The stones were massive. They were ten feet long and stood four feet tall. The stones were worn, time and the elements having made them smooth, and were so well fitted together that the cracks between any two looked painted on. The places that would be shaded in daylight were covered in green moss.

  The wall was continuous, forming a seemingly circular shape. Fox looked at Morgan, who shrugged. It was impressive that the women could have erected such a thing in such a short time, but it was hardly a formidable obstacle. They wondered at its purpose. Morgan covered him while Fox hoisted himself up to sit on the wall’s edge. When he tried to swing his legs over to the other side, they met an invisible resistance. They bounced right off. He put his hand up and ran it along the invisible barrier. He snatched it away quickly; the thing had stung him. Fox shot it with his handgun. The silencer reduced the noise to a pfft, and the barrier absorbed the force. The bullet didn’t go through nor did it bounce back; it just stuck. He tested it with his knife, and when that just slid along, making no change, he used his scalpel. It cut through, but before he could put the opening to any use, the gap wove itself together. He tried again, but this time after making the incision, he slipped the barrel of his gun inside.

  The gap sealed around his gun. He fired off two quick shots, learning that they could harm those on the inside with their weapons but not without breaking the surface first. Then, without warning, the wall sucked the gun out of his hand and spit it out on the other side of the wall and onto the grass. It lay there out of reach. He jumped down.

  He and Morgan split up, Fox taking the east, Morgan the west. Everywhere they tried, they encountered the same resistance. They met back up and returned to the rendezvous point. This was hopeless. The Daughters had harnessed whatever defensive magic they had. The Paion could not attack here again.

  The clearing was empty.

  CHRISTY SAT up in bed. The sheet clung to her sweaty skin. The crisp night air made her shiver, but the cold wasn’t intense enough to cause the vibrating feeling she had awoken to. She pushed the alarm button she wore around her neck. It was an adapted medic-alert type thing, like the ones old ladies used to get help when they fell and couldn’t get up. She instantly regretted pushing it.

  The alarm sounded in Nathalia’s room, and Christy knew Nathalia wouldn’t ignore it. She hadn’t thought before triggering it. Maybe she’d just had a nightmare. They were more rare since coming to live here, but she still had them occasionally.

  Pain, sharply localized in her chest and dully affecting her whole body, smashed into her. She screamed. It was gone in the instant it took Nathalia and her Guardian to appear in her room. A split second later, Libby and Leonard burst through her door. Libby came to sit on the bed beside her, and Nathalia asked, Where?

  Christy pointed to her right. The pain had come from that direction. Someone or something was trying to get through the shield. The pain came again, but this time, she kept herself from screaming. The pain wasn’t as hard to tolerate the second time, since she knew how quickly it would end. This time, she recognized that it wasn’t actual pain. More like visions of pain, impressions that someone wanted to hurt her. She saw herself being tortured, cut, bled. Nathalia and the Guardian disappeared.

  THE CLEARING was empty.

  It shouldn’t have been. At least the two men left behind should be waiting on them, if not all three pairs. Having lost his gun, Fox drew his dart gun. It only worked on Nephilim, but no humans could take down six of his men, so the chances were good that the tranqs would be effective. Morgan slipped the safety off his rifle. Both of them swung toward a rustle just as four men stumbled out of the bushes.

  Two more came out to their left. That was everybody. Fox and Morgan ran past the men, taking the lead, and the six others followed. They weren’t being quiet. They were shuffling, stumbling, bumbling drunks. Fox was going to reprimand and punish every one of them for drinking while working. They knew better than that. Fox looked back in time to see Johnny catch up with Morgan.

  Johnny wasn’t right. His arms were missing. Missing. Now that they were close to the street, his face was lit by streetlights. It was pale. His eyes were completely white, like cataracts had completely taken over in a matter of minutes.

  Johnny crashed into Morgan. Because he had no arms, the take down wasn’t as effective as it should have been. Morgan tripped and fell. Johnny latched onto Morgan’s boot with his teeth. Morgan, looking down and then behind him, freaked. His buddies were zombies; that much was clear now. He pulled his foot, and when that didn’t work, he kicked Johnny with his free foot. Johnny was impervious to pain, it seemed, and retained his hold on Morgan’s boot. Morgan fired his M16 at point-blank range into Johnny’s head while pushing off with his trapped foot. He blew off the top of Johnny’s head and kicked him hard enough to break his jaw. Morgan pulled himself up only to be tackled by two other men.

  Fox watched the dog pile with a mixture of fascination and horror. Morgan screamed as they ate him alive. His gun went off a few more times, and then, after a horrible crunching noise, Morgan went silent. Fox should have been running while the zombies were feeding. Now it was too late. They finished, but instead of coming after Fox next, they turned and ambled back the way they’d come. Fox stared after them.

  Needing to get back to Brian, Fox turned and ran into a brick wall. A hairy, fleshy brick wall. Fox shot three tranq darts rapid-fire into the monster’s stomach. They had no effect. It laughed, the sound like a cheese grater to Fox’s skin. Each chuckle clawed at his consciousness. Fox took two steps back. He only had tranquilizers for Nephilim. They’d never thought
Akhkharu would wander this close to so many Guardians.

  Morgan was now making noise and moving behind him, but Fox had nowhere to go and no backup to help him. He looked up to the monster’s face. He’d never been this close to a betrayer; no one had and lived to tell about it. It was tall and hairy. Its complexion was ruddy, and its torso was bloated, probably the result of feasting on the blood of six men in the last half hour. Tattered, bat-like wings, at least twelve feet in wingspan, extended from behind its shoulders. Its face was distorted, jaw and lips elongated into a muzzle, teeth stained brown. Most disturbing was its eyeballs. They were totally red, lid to lid and corner to corner. No pupil or iris, they were completely alien with their slight glow.

  Fox broke eye contact with the monster only when he felt a tug on his pant leg. He spun around to face the prostrate Morgan, who was trying to pull up to gnaw on Fox’s flesh. Morgan seemed completely unaware or at least unconcerned that his skull was cracked open and half his brain was missing. Fox stomped on the zombie’s hand, ignoring the sound of breaking bones, and fired his tranq gun at its destroyed face. Morgan’s eye exploded, but the violence didn’t stop him. Unfazed, Fox stomped on Morgan’s head and face until he no longer posed a threat.

  The painful laughter came again. Though in English, its words had an odd accent and cadence. It sounded more like a lion speaking through a roar. “Your heart is the blackest I’ve seen. Come. If you survive until Annu is full, I will give you eternal life and the strength to act out every evil desire you possess.”

  NANAE APPROACHED the strange scene at the edge of the shield, though he did not want to. He carried Camilla closer because that was what she wanted. She could feel, as could he, that the men on the other side of the shield were ill. She would never say so, but he knew she needed to see if she could help, and Nanae had gauged the risk low enough to allow it.

  That was what made him a good Dominant. It wasn’t about doing what he wanted all the time. It was about control. It was about being empathetic to what his submissive wanted and needed. It was about giving, without her having to ask. If she had to ask, he was failing.

  So, they moved to stand next to Nathalia and Kafziel. The danger could not get to them as long as they stayed inside the sphere. The young witch with the rare ability and intimate knowledge of Kiyahweh had seen to that. Nanae, like all the Nephilim, still had trouble believing that Ki had allowed herself to be joined to Yahweh. The former was their mother; the latter was their enemy, killer of humans.

  Morning. Nathalia greeted them with a nod. Or at least I hope it’s near morning. We will let the sun deal with the zambie. They must be children of darkness; no Nephilim would allow such abominations to remain.

  So that’s a zambie, Camilla thought. Thank goddess Izzy hadn’t turned out as Nanae feared. They were worse than she’d imagined. Their eyes were totally white, iris and pupil hidden. One of the men had no arms. Another had chewed off his own lips and cheeks from the inside out. No matter what their damage, they moved forward, coming against the invisible barrier. It caused them pain, and yet they subjected themselves again and again. Plainly, their brains weren’t working properly. They had no life of their own—only that which their creator had given them. They continued attacking the wall to no avail. Then Camilla realized that the Nephilim with her were not in their natural, uncamouflaged forms. “Where are your wings?” she asked.

  The zambie aren’t attacking us. Not really. They are just hungry and attracted to the nearest and biggest source of prana around. If a tiger got out of the zoo and came looking for a meal, it would be the same. The attack has to be intentional, intelligent, and directly aimed at Nephilim to force our natural forms from hiding. Zambie are too mindless to trigger our defense mechanisms.

  Camilla looked at the zambie through her ability. Maybe there was something she could do for these wretched creatures. Could she heal someone who was already dead? She’d never tried anything like it before, but it seemed within the realm of possibility. She’d worked all night with the Capacitors, so she wasn’t fully charged, but she certainly wasn’t drained either. Now that Izzy was Lilitu and needed sex to survive, Camilla was constantly charged, and she could always pull from the ambient power around her if there was any. She put out some feelers and found plenty. Evidently, Nathalia and Kafziel had an active and satisfying love life as well.

  “Can you heal the zambie?” she asked Nanae.

  He shook his head. “No one can, my beauty. Only Ud and Ki can give them peace.” He paused and turned to look at her. “At least no one before.” Nanae had been healing for over six thousand years, and never had he come across anyone with Camilla’s exact talent. It was more limited in some ways but more useful in others, like the way she undid the petrification of the Capacitors.

  It was unlike healing a living person. It could not just happen naturally because of proximity. Camilla concentrated. The zambie couldn’t have been killed and made very long ago. The animating Akhkharu blood was still localized in their stomachs. The easiest way to remove something from the body that resided in the stomach was puking.

  The zambie began to spew all at the same time. Dark, thick, red blood poured out of their mouths onto the ground. The grass and dirt singed wherever the tainted blood touched it. The sun would take care of the blood as soon as it rose over the horizon. The zambie didn’t notice their new affliction. They continued their attack on the wall.

  Camilla concentrated again on locating what didn’t belong inside them. She opened her eyes, a little shocked at her discovery. Life. Life was what didn’t belong within these dead humans. The blood was mostly gone, but the Akhkharu’s prana had leached into the area surrounding the stomachs. It was the prana that she had to remove. With no thought of her well-being, Camilla began immediately. Touching them would have made her work easier, but that was clearly out of the question. Zambie would love to get their hands—and jaws—on a pregnant woman.

  She was completely unprepared for the sensation of having Akhkharu prana inside her body and mind. Not unlike what the Akhkharu blood had done to the ground, the Akhkharu prana burned. Stars whited out her vision as the heat reached her head and eyes. She could feel the Hunger with a capital H like a living thing taking up residence within her. It was the beast she felt, and it was only a fraction of what Nanae must feel all the time. She wondered if this was what Izzy felt. She wanted. She was made of hunger. It was seductive, heavy even. Her body was no longer her own.

  The two Nephilim and one Sinnis stared in wonder as the zambie dropped one by one. It hadn’t taken Camilla more than a minute to reduce them to corpses. She had succeeded where none had before. Sure, they could kill zambie, allowing the sun or fire to rid the world of their bodies, but she could undo the change. Camilla Lovejoy was a blessing for humankind and Nephilim alike. Nathalia, the First, turned to say as much just as Camilla lunged for her.

  Camilla had given the zambie back their humanity and the release of death, but she had taken the corruption into herself. That was evident by her completely white eyes and her focus on Nathalia. She had Kafziel’s prana added to her own, and as a woman, she already had more than a man. To the zambie, and now Camilla, she was a delectable temptation.

  However miraculous Camilla’s achievement, she was still just human and moved at human speed. Nathalia jumped away easily with her Sinnis strength and speed. Focused solely on getting to the prana source, Camilla hadn’t planned her landing and fell through the empty space vacated by Nathalia. Nanae caught her, saving her from the impending impact with the ground. Camilla lashed out at him, closing her teeth around the fleshy part of his palm.

  Nathalia called out a warning just as he pulled the metal from his body and localized it in the skin under Camilla’s mostly flat, omnivorous teeth. She can’t taste your blood! Lilitu cannot give birth. Nathalia put up her hands in surrender and apology when Nanae showed her his solution to the problem.

  “I would never endanger her ability to procreate. It is my sol
e purpose in my remaining time: to allow her to carry as many as she desires. I must get her home now where I can feed her hunger until the corrupted prana passes.”

  Nathalia watched Nanae carry off the struggling, temporarily zambie-infected healer and wondered if Camilla could be the third sister. Nathalia was Ereshkigal, but she was also Atropos or Morta. She was the one to slice through the thread of life, ending whatever life the allotter decided. Baby Genevieve would grow to be the measurer, the sister to decide how long a person’s thread of life would be. The third sister was still a mystery. She would be the one to spin the thread of life, determining all births and survivals. She would embody the great mother. She would also be a Sinnis first, so it didn’t merit further thought since Nathalia was not only the First but still the only converted, and from what Nanae had said, Camilla wouldn’t be converted anytime soon.

  ISRAEL COULD feel that something was wrong even before Nanae and Camilla came in. They were both horny, but that wasn’t uncommon when they came in from work. But the desire was off, unnatural. They were hungry, and the hunger was not something the stir-fry he’d been planning for dinner would satisfy.

  He stepped into the hall just as they burst in the front door. Nanae carried Camilla in, her back pressed against his chest, her feet dangling. She struggled against him, kicking. One arm was just above her pregnant belly, pinning her arms to her sides. It forced her breasts up over the top of her dress much like a corset would. Izzy found his own arousal mounting at the sight until his eyes traveled up to Nanae’s other hand. The skin was shiny and metallic-looking, and it was clamped over her mouth, which would normally turn Izzy on too, but just over his thumb, Camilla’s eyes stared blankly back. The normally vibrant green irises with yellow flames around the pupil were doused in milky white.