“Creatures?” Bryce echoed.
“Thousands,” Clemmins said grimly. “They poured from the tear two nights ago. We alerted Director Runyard. I believe he called you the first chance he got once we’d dealt with the first night’s situation.” He shook his head, his mouth set in a firm line. “That was the last time we got any rest. Last night was a little better, but the creatures exhausted our forces as we tried to beat them back. We fought them away from important infrastructure, especially the power systems.”
“And the fires?” Bryce asked. “How many types of monsters have you been dealing with?”
Bryce’s presence made me thankful. He’d maneuvered easily back into the swing of things and focused on the most salient questions. I was worried about the smoldering fires too. The tear’s presence had led to wildfires across the surrounding states in the last few months. As I understood from intel given immediately after the fallout of our takeover of the Bureau, immortal creatures had caused those fires. The old board had tried to blame gas leaks and redbills, but I wondered if these creatures were actually the ones responsible.
“Just the bugs, so far,” Clemmins responded. “They downed power lines, which caused most of the fires. Our team was stretched too thin, so unfortunately, we couldn’t salvage the power system. The creatures seem to crave the metal in the electric grid.” Clemmins glared at the dormant creature in the cooler. “The one thing we have learned about these creeps is that they have some kind of sensitivity to light. We spent the better part of today sourcing and setting up giant football stadium-style floodlights and generators to protect the remaining parts of town.”
Neo crouched and studied the stone up close, as if it would offer up secrets. Riven hovered behind him with her chin in her hand. Her studious gaze swept over the object.
“We can slow them down and dictate their path somewhat, but we don’t know how to destroy them,” Clemmins said. “Their stone armor deflects bullets. They can eat your gun and anything else you try to get them with. They don’t seem to be interested in consuming humans but will definitely bite you if you try to pick them up. They can take an arm off.”
From the look on his face, I assumed a soldier had found that out the hard way.
“Never seen something like this before,” Neo confessed. Dorian and Kane nodded in agreement.
Well, that wasn’t good. I worried Dorian might have misjudged and been overly confident. He’d based his ploy to get what he wanted from the Bureau on the assumption that he’d be able to help. A tense moment passed.
“No,” Torran remarked suddenly and stepped forward. “I recognize that creature well enough.”
Riven cleared her throat loudly. “If you’re all finished trying to do my job, this is why I spent ten hours on a plane to get here. The closest name for them in your language would be ‘the empty swarm.’ They’re like your locusts here in the Mortal Plane,” she explained and ran a nail across the hard surface of the creature. “They only swarm occasionally, but when they do, they prey on stone, metal, and wood. They seem to skip over leaves and flowers, usually attacking just the bark. Luckily, their appetite doesn’t include animals. They’re incredibly destructive to cities, as you might imagine. Their combined efforts and insatiable desire to feed can take out sophisticated structures in mere days.”
Clemmins twisted his mouth. “I’m afraid I’ve seen that for myself.”
Torran nodded. “Urban vampires won’t recognize them, because the cities had magic items that warded off the empty swarms,” he said. “Out in the rural areas, we had to hang special charms made from certain immortal stones, but we still saw them from time to time.”
“Magical items,” Clemmins muttered, his eyebrows raised as he glanced skeptically at Bryce. The officers hovering nearby stared doubtfully at Torran and Riven. This piece of information apparently went one step too far for them to believe. We’re standing next to literal vampires, people. They could see the storm around the tear as well as I could.
Dorian had mentioned the concept of magic to me once or twice before in passing, but he never went into detail about how it worked. I got the sense that even in the Immortal Plane, it wasn’t an everyday occurrence for vampires. I studied his face for any reaction, but his calm stare homed in on the empty swarm creature in the cooler. To him, this was just one more challenge to overcome. None of the vampires looked particularly concerned, which went a long way toward reassuring me.
“The good news is that, as you’ve already discovered, the creatures are sensitive to light of any kind,” Riven confirmed.
Clemmins stroked the stubble on his chin. He obviously hadn’t had the chance to shave today.
“But artificial light only frightens them. It won’t wound them.” Riven looked to Torran for confirmation, and he nodded. “I believe sunlight could be more effective. The creatures have never felt the sun in the Mortal Plane. It would probably burn them up if we could find a way to get through their tough outer shells.” She paused, looking somewhat bashful. “I must admit, I’ve never actually faced these creatures before. The empty swarm is a rare thing in the Immortal Plane, and the city I’m from was far from the areas they usually frequented.”
“So, you’re not entirely certain how to defeat these things, and you don’t know more than we’ve already discovered ourselves,” Clemmins summarized stonily, obviously not impressed by the lack of certainty.
Bryce and I exchanged a concerned look. How could we beat a creature with impenetrable skin?
“I can only offer the advice that I’ve read,” Riven replied, a touch defensive.
“You need to understand,” Laini said. “Many of the threats you’re facing from the Immortal Plane are little more than myths, even to us. Our world is dangerous, yes, but the creatures you have fought with us, like the soul-scourger or the shrieking decay or the empty swarm, are rarely sighted. They mostly live deep in the earth or in the wild wastes far from our cities. We’ll tell you what we can.”
There was a loaded silence in the tent for a moment or two before Clemmins spoke again.
“Well, I guess we should just be thankful we’re not fighting a shrieking decay, whatever that is. It sounds horrific.”
“It is,” Roxy and I said simultaneously, sharing a look as we remembered our desperate struggle to bring down the monstrous, acid-breathing flying lizard.
“What about corrosive substances?” Gina suggested. “Does the Bureau have anything heavy-duty on hand, or something you could bring in before everything goes to hell again this evening?”
“Battery acid might do it,” Zach said. He tapped his foot on the ground in thought.
“How could we shoot it at the empty swarm?” Neo glanced at the weapons strapped to the soldiers’ chests. “Do we have weapons that shoot acid?”
“No, that’s illegal,” Clemmins said firmly. “But we’re used to being resourceful for the sake of our nation’s safety. We can figure something out.” Despite his confident tone, it sounded as though he were trying to convince himself.
Neo had a point. Even if we had acid powerful enough to cause damage, how would we strike the creatures en masse? I stared at the screen and the angry red splotches of destruction on the map. I was finally on the front lines again, but I had no idea how I could help.
Dorian cleared his throat. “I would like to gather some redbills to survey the area from the air. There are likely some hanging around near the Canyonlands. We can get a better idea of what’s going on more quickly and safely than drones or scouts in helicopters. Especially if the empty swarm eats metal.” The assembled vampires nodded, looking more somber than when they’d walked in. This would be more difficult than we’d hoped.
Clemmins nodded his assent, but his grave face said everything. He was nervous, and understandably so. They’d brought in the vampires as a last resort.
I exchanged a look with Zach.
Where did that leave the human volunteers?
* * *
Th
e next several hours were filled with finding where we would be most useful. Our human team helped any way we could, which primarily involved rounding up the few civilians left in town and helping construct the line of defense. The vampires had gone searching for redbills, returning around noon mounted on several they’d procured from a flock hiding in the nearby Canyonlands. By mid-afternoon, we humans were feeling the effects of the jetlag and piled into a dusty, hot tent to grab some fitful rest in preparation for the coming attack. We squeezed in beside groups of tired soldiers weary from their long night.
By the time sunset came, the scene in Moab looked more like a post-apocalyptic hellscape than Earth. It was as if the Canyonlands had a nightmarish sister dimension. Gathered with the humans from my team and a group of Bureau soldiers near the Moab Visitors Center, I stared at the scorched sky, marveling at the thick smoke still staining the air. The sun, a burning dark red ball, sank toward the hazy orange horizon. And over it all hung the sizzling, snapping tear. The lightning pulsed in psychedelic shades. An even stronger acid smell burned my sinuses, drifting in from somewhere in the town. Something strange, a scent I couldn’t place… something not of this world. I shivered despite the heat. Utterly alien was the only way to describe it.
“Attention, soldiers,” a pleasant but firm voice called. “Listen up.” A man stepped to the front of our cluster. He had brown hair and a thin, patchy mustache clinging to his upper lip. He had a slightly anxious air, and his smile came off as more twitchy than reassuring. I guessed him to be a year or so older than Zach. Clemmins had briefly introduced him earlier as First Lieutenant Paulson. Although we were technically suspended from our roles in the Occult Bureau, we’d been told to hover nearby, ready to coordinate with his unit.
“We are the main body of tonight’s defensive line. I want you to protect this power system with everything you’ve got,” Paulson said, surveying every soldier’s face, his hooded eyes narrowing slightly as he passed over me and my group. “These lights could be the only thing that keeps this town alive tonight.”
How could we forget? Everyone had pitched in at some point today, helping set up the line of giant floodlights to surround the downtown area. Our aim was to protect as much of the town as possible. If I craned my head, I could see the line of lights receding into the distance.
Circling above on the redbills, the vampires worked on aerial surveillance. Once night fell and all hell broke loose, they would report news of where the empty swarm was heading via their comms. Clemmins had mentioned something about possibly procuring lights for the vampires to carry on the redbills to shine from above, but I didn’t know if anything had come of that idea.
I stared at the currently unlit bulbs of the floodlights nearest to me. Nothing in my time at the Bureau could have prepared me to screw in industrial lightbulbs to help defeat an army of stone bugs. Life continued to be full of surprises.
Some things never changed, though. The first thing Clemmins did was institute a structure for us. After Roxy’s quip, he probably felt the need to whip us back into shape. Zach and I would supervise our team but answer to First Lieutenant Paulson. Roxy grumbled quietly about how we’d just returned to the status quo, but we followed orders. Paulson and Clemmins provided us with comms that were patched in to command. They also provided us with weapons… sort of.
In the parking lot of the Visitors Center were the piles of makeshift weapons, many of which were desperate improvisations to compensate for the fact that regular weapons were off the table. The first pile offered small explosives, flare guns, and a curious number of firecrackers and sparklers. I wondered if they’d raided a teenager’s illicit collection of fireworks.
The second pile was more promising but rose to sillier proportions in some of its offerings. A few grenades, a limited stock of the shock patches we’d once used on redbills, some crowbars, sledgehammers, a gas-powered hedge trimmer, a few golf clubs, and several baseball bats. It looked like a very threatening garage sale. I debated over my weapon. The hedge trimmer looked fun, but growing up in a high-rise in Chicago, I’d never used one before. It might be best to leave that for someone else. I pictured myself squinty-eyed, swinging a crowbar like a video game character, but realistically a sledgehammer could deliver more force. On the other hand, the shine of the golf club wedge beckoned to me the way grenades beckoned Zach.
I’ve gone insane during my time in Scotland. I tested the weight of the club in my hand as Paulson cleared his throat. When we first met, the slight sense of discomfort he gave off at being pushed into this intense leadership role reminded me of myself only a short time ago. Remembering myself that way felt so alien now. Perhaps because I was the face of a vampire refugee movement, had been suspended from my job, and currently clutched a golf club, while he wore an official Bureau uniform and his voice wavered just the slightest bit when addressing the troops.
“If you try to hit the bugs with explosives, aim only for the mouth,” Paulson announced. “If you use metal for your weapon, I advise you to aim for anything but the mouth, since they snack on metal. And might take your hand along with it if you don’t move fast enough.” He shifted his weapon, a battered-looking flamethrower, in his hands.
Roxy gave a low whistle—too quiet for the first lieutenant to hear, thus avoiding any complaints about insubordination—before continuing to dig through the piles of tools. She clearly wanted the flamethrower. Maybe I did, too. Just a little. It did look really cool.
“I guess this will do,” Roxy muttered with a grunt. She held a sledgehammer in one hand and a collection of sparklers in the other, a crowbar hanging from her belt. “Maybe I can stab their insides with a sparkler if the sledgehammer breaks the outer shell.”
“One can only hope,” I whispered dryly and pulled down my Bureau strike team visor. Right now it helped reduce the glare from the setting sun, but when night fell it would shift to dark vision. Thank goodness they had extras for us. Fighting an army of all-consuming stone bugs in the dark sounded objectively terrible. A few of Paulson’s soldiers nodded to us. Although a few still carried normal weapons, they didn’t seem too confident even with their guns. They’d seen things these past two nights that had deeply unsettled them.
“The coolest thing about this fight is that we get to use the latest night goggle technology,” my brother said as he selected a hefty wooden baseball bat from the pile and tried a swing.
Gina counted the number of fireworks and explosives among the inventory. She frowned worriedly. Would there be enough for us to hold through the night?
Over the next few hours, shadows gathered in pockets of the town, growing until the floodlights above us turned on. I squinted under their bright light, the intensity burning my eyes. No wonder the bugs hated it. The generator roared to life. Paulson nodded in approval as he surveyed the area.
I stood beside Roxy, my club raised. Nothing happened. She cocked her eyebrow and glanced at me expectantly. Where are the bugs?
“What’s the chance hundreds of Bureau soldiers lost their minds in the desert heat and hallucinated these things?” she asked in a low voice.
I shook my head. “We saw the rock in the cooler. Riven and Torran said they recognized the creatures.”
Roxy grumbled something about how she’d just been making a joke and fell silent.
Five more minutes passed. Roxy checked her watch and twirled the sparklers in her hand. She tapped her foot. Another minute passed. She sighed. I used to call this background noise the Roxy soundtrack when we went on missions together. She hated to wait. As she opened her mouth to complain of boredom, our comms crackled to life.
“Scout reporting in,” Neo said, tension humming through his voice. “We’ve got eyes on the swarm. They’re uncurling and heading toward town. All teams should be on high alert. It’s about to begin.”
Chapter Nine
I waited with bated breath for the empty swarm. A hum of uneasy silence surrounded us. I gripped the golf club handle until my knuckles whi
tened, grinding the wedge head against the asphalt. The nearby soldiers muttered under their breath to one another and held their guns tightly.
Roxy scanned the sky with a scowl, swinging the sledgehammer impatiently, pendulum style.
After weeks away as a civilian, I couldn’t deny that I was happy to be back in the fray. Here, I could do something to help, unlike back in Scotland. My years of finely tuned combat and strategy skills were of little value if I didn’t get to use them. I bounced on my feet and strained to listen for the approaching swarm. Nothing.
The communication line sprang to life with a sudden buzz.
“I just flew over the main quadrant to see if we had any bugs over there,” Bravi relayed gruffly. “No bugs yet, but there’s a person lying in the middle of a street, not moving. Are you sure all the residents were accounted for?”
Paulson pressed his comm against his ear. “A person?” He scowled and stared out into the darkness past the lights, as if to glare at the oncoming swarm. “We need someone to check that out.” He dragged a hand down his face and anxiously stroked his sparse mustache.
I nudged Roxy gently. “Do you want to go?” I asked and stepped up to Paulson. His appraising gaze swept over us, and I could see his internal struggle on his face. Send his own soldiers or the recruits? Zach and Gina talked quietly to Bryce as I dragged Roxy up to Paulson.
“We’ll do it, sir,” I said. Roxy nodded. I prayed she wouldn’t add a smart comment about how she would do anything to break her boredom. Paulson had already pegged us as troublesome.
I wanted to be useful. This person might be dead, but they could also be injured or drunk. And the trip would also be an opportunity to scout for the first signs of bugs. Although the vampires were watching from above, they couldn’t see everything on the ground. If Roxy and I caught the bugs earlier than the defense line, we might stop more of the empty swarm. Technically, we would still be within the safety perimeter of Paulson’s operation.
Darklight 3: Darkworld Page 10
