by Weston Ochse
The hole was four feet deep by six feet long. Just big enough to secure Criminal. Boy Scout set aside the shovel, then the both of them grabbed the ends of the blanket and gently deposited their friend in his final resting place. They bowed their heads and for a few moments the only sound was the night wind coming through the scrub. After a few reverential moments, Boy Scout grabbed the shovel and began to cover the body.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Boss, let me do that.”
Boy Scout looked up and saw Narco holding out his hand.
“I want to say a few words anyway.”
Boy Scout let the shovel go and headed back to the cistern.
From behind him, he heard, “Criminal, you son of a bitch. The lengths you will go to get out of paying me back a measly hundred bucks. Don’t think I’m not going to come after you.”
Boy Scout smiled slightly, then let the pair alone.
Inside the cistern, McQueen had laid out a blanket on which to put the weapons and ammunition.
Boy Scout watched him, noting again how thin and frail the man had become. The fugue had hit him the hardest. Why, he didn’t know. They’d all been under the same amount of time.
When McQueen was finished, he looked up, a little winded.
On the blanket was all they had left to fight the coming dervishes. Five HK416 long guns. Six Sig Saur P229 pistols. Five grenades. An RPG with one round. Two stacks of ammo, one stack for each kind of weapon. However much it was, it didn’t look like it was enough.
Lore came to him with Faood.
Boy Scout nodded. “Report.”
“SOP is for them to send three vehicles. Each one with four dervishes. Faood says they have a QRF that is Hezbollah trained, so these guys are going to know what they’re doing.”
“They have an actual quick reaction force?” Boy Scout shook his head. “What about weapons?”
“AKs. PM pistols. Regular old Soviet stuff.”
“So they outnumber us three to one but they have old equipment.” He glanced at the broken ceiling of the cistern, then let his gaze linger for a moment on the body of the dead daeva. It was decomposing at an alarming rate. The stench of rotting meat rolled off it in waves. “This place was defensible. Now, with the ceiling like it is, I don’t trust it. We’re going to have to set up an ambush.”
“These might help,” Bully said, carrying in a wood crate containing nine large bottles. Strips of cloth came out of the tops of each one. “Half lamp oil and half gasoline. I think they used to call this Greek fire.”
“Where’d that come from?” Lore asked.
“I used lamp oil and gasoline,” Bully said.
Narco’s eyes widened. “You made those?”
“I’m not just a pretty face,” Bully said.
Boy Scout nodded. “We’ll definitely use those. Good work, Bully.” He turned to Faood. “If we have any chance at this, you need to tell us your secret.”
Faood’s face darkened. “It’s our closest one.”
“What are you talking about, boss?” Lore asked.
“You tell them,” he said to Faood.
“We don’t have to fight. All we have to do is dance.”
“But I thought you needed a daeva,” Lore said. “We’re fresh out.”
“The daeva helps us establish the fugue. But there was always the dance. It hypnotizes. Once you’ve had it done before it can work almost instantaneously because your mind is prepared for it… has already been adapted for it.”
“So you dance a little jig and then what?” McQueen asked.
“Then nothing. It’s like you fall asleep.”
“Ahh,” Lore said, palming her head. “But there’s a way to defeat it.”
Faood nodded. “They would kill me if they knew I told you.”
“They’re going to kill you anyway,” Boy Scout said. “Now give.”
“It’s not good enough to look away. Once you see it, your mind recognizes it for what it is. Especially because you’ve been fuguing for seven months. But it does help a little.”
“Then what do we do?” Bully asked.
“Count backwards by multiples of three.”
“Like twelve, nine, six, three?” McQueen asked.
“Yes. It makes sense,” Lore said. “Counting isn’t enough because you can do that from memory. But by going backwards by multiples, it forces your brain to do something more complex, unfamiliar. But why three?”
“It can be any other number. Two is too simple. Five and ten are too simple as well. We just found out that three is the easiest and most effective.”
“Is that what you do?” Bully asked.
“It doesn’t affect us.” He said something in Persian, then repeated it in English. “A dervish can only move himself.”
“Lucky you,” Lore said.
“First one I see trying to dance gets shot,” Bully said.
Faood frowned, but nodded grudgingly. “A prudent strategy.”
“You going to fight with us?” Boy Scout asked.
“What you said earlier was disturbing. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I thought I was doing what Rumi would have done. Now I’m not sure.”
“I’ve been thinking about that myself. If it was really Rumi I was speaking to, and I think it was, I have a sense that all the time he’s spent in Sefid and in other people’s heads has served to dehumanize him. To what extent, I don’t know. From what little I’ve read about him, I found him to be a person concerned about the wellbeing of others. You can’t spend a day on Facebook without one of his platitudes coursing across your timeline. I just buried one of my men. I found three other bodies and I bet there are thousands. You and yours capture or trick people into doing this fugue because you have… or had… this big bad daeva. You keep them in a fugue until they die, then you take them out and bury them.”
“Three thousand, nine hundred and forty-two of them,” Faood said in a hushed tone.
“Shame on you. Fucking shame on you,” Lore said, scowling as she shook her head.
Faood stared at her with liquid eyes. “It is our shame.”
“Let’s pretend Rumi had never left for Sefid. What would he say if he came upon you and your dervishes? What would he say about what you’ve done?” Boy Scout gestured towards the entrance to the complex. “What would he say about the three thousand, nine hundred and forty-two bodies?”
A tear leaked from Faood’s left eye, but he remained unmoving.
“Do it for the Rumi who was, instead of the Rumi who is,” Boy Scout said.
Everyone was silent for almost a full minute, then Faood roughly wiped his face. “Now look who’s talking like a fortune cookie,” he said.
Suddenly Narco ran into the cistern, winded, worry lining his face. “I see lights.”
“In the sky?” Faood asked.
“Yes, and on the ground as well.”
Everyone stared at each other for a moment, then dove for the weapons.
Chapter Thirty-Six
"WHERE WERE THE lights? Were they together?” asked Boy Scout now that he wore his body armor, had the 9mm pistol in a chest rig, and held his rifle. The others were similarly frocked, just as they had been in the fugue, when they thought they were chasing Narco. This time it was real. Or at least Boy Scout thought as much.
“The lights on the ground were coming from the east from the road.”
“And in the sky?”
“Two lights coming from the north.”
Boy Scout turned to Faood. “What do you think?”
“It could be aircraft. When the daeva are flying their vimana they’re usually stealthy.”
“Usually?”
“When they want to get somewhere quick, they have the ability to, say, turn on the ‘afterburners.’ Is that how you say it?”
“What’ll the dervishes be doing now?”
“Waiting for us to die.”
“Shit. Faood, you and I are going to hide in the vestibule. The rest of you, disperse inside the
cisterns. And remember the rule: the wound is where the light enters you.”
The others took off, going deeper into the cistern complex.
Faood and Boy Scout pulled themselves into the vestibule—a small, cramped space a man’s width and ten feet deep near the entrance. The opening to the vestibule was hidden from initial sight. One had to be inside the cistern itself in order to see into it.
They were set, when Boy Scout had an idea. He left his rifle and pushed himself free of the space.
“What are you doing?” hissed Faood.
Boy Scout ran to the case of Greek fire, lifted it up, then ran it over to the edge of the cistern. He had an idea and if—
A bright, blinding ball of light filled the entrance—silent and eerie. It didn’t take a genius to see that the vimanas were landing.
Fucking hell.
Boy Scout hurried with the crate, bottles clinking to the point he thought they might break. When he got to the edge of the water, he set them down. He made to return to the vestibule, but saw a shadow on the interior wall of the cistern as a figure entered. He had no choice but to turn and dive into the putrid depths. He managed to close his mouth, a lucky thing given the generations of body waste in the water, turning the liquid into a plague soup. The body armor pulled him right down to the bottom, allowing his movements to go largely undetected.
Reaching out with his hands, he grabbed the bases of the stones they’d sat upon, propelling himself toward the back of the cistern. He was angling for an immense block of stone that had fallen from the roof. If he could just get behind it, he might be able to hide from the daeva. The problem was that as soon as he’d hit the water he lost vector, plus he was taking too much time. He could already feel the strain on his lungs. He kept his eyes closed because of the murkiness of the water, but forced them open before he lost his air. There, in front and to the left, was a large square shadow. He pulled himself to that, then grabbed the edge and yanked himself around to the other side.
There was about three feet of space between the stone and the back wall of the cistern. He fought to ascend slowly when all his body wanted to do was to surge out of the water and gulp air. He managed to breach the water, lips first, sucking in air in a slow, controlled manner. He rose to his feet, keeping his knees bent so he couldn’t be seen. The water came up to the lower half of his chest. He pushed his back to the stone, then carefully, silently, drew the 9mm pistol from his chest rig. Water dripped from it, but he wasn’t worried about the functionality. It would fire just fine.
He heard movement on the other side of the stone from the direction where the dead daeva lay. He started to ease himself around the corner when his left foot went out from under him, slipping on the slick surface of the bottom. His arms shot out to regain his balance and a split second later he was no longer falling. He brought his arms back in, silently cursing himself. He held his pistol to his chest, ready to use it.
The interior of the cistern was eerily silent. Had it been two soldiers recovering the body of a comrade, there’d be muffled curses, small talk, commands. Anything. These creatures didn’t speak at all, which lent credence to the idea that they could communicate telepathically.
Boy Scout made sure his footing was solid, then once again leaned to his right so he could peer around the corner.
Two ten-foot-tall narrow beings stared at the emaciated and rotting dead body of one of their kind. Chains still held one of the dead daeva’s wrists, keeping it from falling completely in the water. The two living daevas’ eyes glowed an impossibly bright gold, as if they were giving off hundreds of lumens. A duller glow swirled at their throats and Boy Scout knew what that meant.
A sound came from deep inside the complex—metal on stone.
Both elongated daeva heads swiveled toward the sound.
Boy Scout cursed. One of his people—rookie move.
Then his foot went out from under him completely. With a splash, he went under.
A bolt of golden energy struck the water where he’d been, causing it to sizzle and boil.
Boy Scout felt the heat of it on the side of his face, but the bolt had missed him.
He pulled himself behind the stone and rose from the water, again putting his back to the rock. To his left, the stone met the back wall of the cistern. The only way out was for him to go to the right or over the top. If they’d been looking for someone to take their anger out on, he’d given himself to them on a silver platter.
He had an idea that could get him out of here, but it depended on a lot of luck—too much luck for him to try unless he was completely desperate, which was less than a minute away.
Chancing losing his footing again, he jerked his head back around the corner and spied one on the other side of the cistern. The other daeva had already entered the water and was creeping towards him.
The one not in the water opened its mouth and released a golden bolt.
Boy Scout peeled back behind the stone and watched as the bolt struck the side of the cistern, shards of rock and mortar exploding in all directions.
Then without thinking, he lowered himself into the water and headed away from his hiding spot, keeping the cistern wall within touch. He pulled himself madly, his pistol still in his right hand. When he felt as if he’d gone far enough, he turned in the direction where he thought the crate of bottles was, got his feet under him, and surged upwards. He shoved the pistol out in front of him and unloaded a magazine into the box. By the time he’d hit it with five shots, the sixth sparked and lit the liquid, which flared, then exploded.
The daeva were between where he stood and the bottles on shore. He watched as each of the daeva were covered in flaming liquid. But as dangerous as it appeared, where it touched them, there was no effect. Still, they screamed because the water was on fire, and where their refection met the fire, it burned them.
The wound is the place where the light enters you, motherfucker.
Boy Scout climbed onto one of the underwater seats they’d sat on during the fugue and fired into the reflection of the one nearest him. Impacts appeared on the daeva’s chest just as if he’d fired directly at the creature.
It reared his head back and a bolt of golden energy shot towards the ceiling.
An immense piece of stone tore free and fell directly onto the daeva, driving it to the bottom of the cistern.
Boy Scout dove to his right, calculating the other daeva’s intentions out of the corner of his eye.
The daeva fired, barely missing him, catching the edge of his pants leg on fire. The flame went out as soon as he hit the water. Now underwater, he pulled himself several body lengths away before he rose again. When he did, he saw the remaining daeva leap away from the water and run deeper into the cistern, as if it realized its reflection was its worst enemy.
Boy Scout glanced at the giant stone resting atop the other daeva, then fought his way free of the pool.
Faood met him when he reached the shore.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Just as I planned,” Boy Scout said. Then he rushed into the other room, searching for the creature before it got to his team.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
A SCREAM WAS followed by Lore’s voice ringing out, “Come on and get me, you son-of-a-bitch!”
Despite himself, Boy Scout grinned. This was what it was all about. No more of the fugue or the Sefid or dealing with the crazy philosophies of the dervishes. They were back to G vs E—good versus evil—full-on combat mode, ready to shoot, blow up, or flat out destroy anything that came their way. And to hear Lore shouting at an advancing superbeing with all the flippancy of road rage at a bad driver was the perfect antidote to the malaise that had found a home inside him since he’d been so combat inactive.
He passed the entrance to their room, then through the cistern they used to clean up, which was the largest of them all. There were eight cisterns in total, each linked together with a single exit—the one he was entering from.
Lore’s s
cream of “Is that the best you can do?” was followed by the sound of an energy bolt scoring stone.
He ran into the fifth cistern and then slowed, seeing McQueen leaning against a doorway, his rifle ready to fire.
Boy Scout ran up behind McQueen.
“What’s going on?” Boy Scout whispered. Then he saw it all.
Like all the cisterns, the fifth cistern was lit by oil lamps fixed to the walls. The fifth cistern was set lower than the others. It was also deeper. Yet as deep as it was, Lore stood in the very center on a raised stone circle, appearing like she was standing on water, the Jesus her father never saw repeating his New Testament romp across the Sea of Galilee. Her face was like a fury, her hands balled into fists at her sides.
The daeva stumbled towards her on stiff legs, its ten-foot frame somehow taller as it loomed above her. Its deep blue skin was charred black in the places where the reflected fire had consumed it. Boy Scout’s gaze went to the creature’s head, where his team had managed to cinch a bag over it. The daeva clawed at the cloth and never saw the lip of the water. It staggered, falling to a knee into water illuminated by Narco and Bully who stood to either side shining tactical mag lights onto it.
“Just a little closer, you bastard,” Lore called, seething at every word.
Boy Scout held his breath.
One more step forward.
Two more steps.
Lore shouted, “Now!”
McQueen opened fire. Tight three round bursts found the one-time god’s reflection in the water, stitching it first on the left, then on the right, then in the back. Wherever the rounds sizzled into the water, impact wounds opened in the daeva’s golden-hued skin. It fell to its other knee, and still McQueen fired.
Lore climbed off her perch and slid into the water, which came up to her waist. She stepped to the side, firing her 9mm into the reflections before her.
Then it fell face first into the center stone.
Narco and Bully exchanged raised fists in victory from opposite sides of the room.
McQueen dropped his empty mag and inserted a full one with all the skill of a man who’d done it ten thousand times before.
