Dual Heritage: A FireWall Story

by Mark Johnson

  “I’m impressed, Father.”

  “One learns to spot patterns, after all I’ve seen.”

  What harsh wisdom would this man have come into, devoting his long life to a dying god? Tummil recalled Efale Morgenheth’s story of the man who’d sold her mother the pendant, and wondered if there were a connection. But she’d said an old peddler had sold the pendant to Mrs. Morgenheth. This fellow would have had a commission scarf twenty years earlier, and wouldn’t have been considered old. And wouldn’t have been a peddler.

  “How fares our first god, Father?”

  The priest’s contented gaze returned to Armer the Forgiving. “He ails. And unconscious, He dreams of His love for His children. He has little time remaining.”

  “Father?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m an Inspector. I think evil was done, and is still being done. But I can’t find it. Knowing something in your gut doesn’t lock people up or stand up in court.”

  “Tell me, son.”

  Technically, Tummil wasn’t supposed to tell a non-commissioned priest investigation details. But dead-ends and confusion were all Tummil had.

  At the conclusion of the tale, the priest nodded. “There is a story amidst the ruins of Ceneph. That the fatal blow that destroyed Ceneph was not a surviving demon from the Founder’s War, but an old evil awakened, and changed. That only in its new state, could it have slipped through His defenses to strike the fatal blow.”

  “Awakened?” repeated Tummil.

  “The story stubbornly survives that a demon was sought, awoken, aroused and subsequently strengthened and changed in some way.”

  Tummil cast back in his mind. Blood on the floor, flies on the wall, discarded electronics on the tables.

  “Father, is it possible to send signals, from wave transmitters, to wake up something evil?”

  “I did not train in such arts, son. But why simply a signal? Why not transmit evil energies, instead of words or music?”

  Tummil closed his eyes, traveling back in time, to the underground chamber. “Gods, Father! The underground chamber we found was running on dark energy, but we never found its battery, or generator!”

  A chill ran down Tummil’s spine. He opened his eyes. “Could… a battery of chaos energy be plugged into a wave transmitter, then distributed on the waves?”

  The priest’s lips twisted. “If someone distributed chaos energy on the waves, my son, Seekers would find that chaos energy in hours, or minutes. You’d have to somehow conceal the chaos energy if you were to distribute it by wavelength.”

  “Concealed chaos energy, distributed to hidden demons from the Founders’ War. But to wait five thousand years? Wait.” Tummil had the map he’d used to find the Lethrien residence in his pack. He unfolded it and pointed to the house the dead Sumadans had used, where Saarg had likely escaped the massacre. “If a wave device was transmitting from here… There were three strange events. A gallery owner being torn apart. A cadver getting pinned down and drained. A pack of suppression generators blowing up themselves and their addicts.” He tapped the map in each of the three locations.

  “All within range of a small, independent broadcast,” observed the priest.

  “They all happened in the same night.” The map fell from Tummil’s hands. “I was there that morning, Father. Hours after it happened, in the temple graveyard. After something exploded. Father, is there a five-thousand-year-old demon loose in Armer?”

  “It would seem there are three.”

  “Three! What do we do?”

  “Go right to a Seeker. Investigators take oaths to follow the letter of the law, whereas Seekers are instructed to follow the gut instincts bestowed upon them by their tattoos on their backs.”

  Tummil groaned. “We hate each other! Since the War, we’ve hated each other in every single land. Even if they believed me, they wouldn’t work with me!”

  “Then just give up.”

  “Dammit. Oh, sorry, Lord,” he muttered to Armer the Forgiving. “I need another lead than the Seekers. I need somewhere to start, the right angle. I can’t just front up tell them there are demons on the loose.”

  “Then earn acceptance with someone who can help. Find the one most likely to believe you.” The priest stood, placing a hand on Tummil’s shoulder in farewell.

  Tummil sighed, turning to farewell the priest. “The Seeker most likely to help me is on the other side—”

  The priest was gone. The grove was empty.

  8

  Tummil leaned on Reeben’s desk. “Sir, I’ve been thinking.”

  “Again, Sergeant? That’s twice this week.”

  “It’s about Head Saarg, sir.”

  Reeben winced. “Go on.”

  “I think Saarg knew something about the four survivors that we don’t. And she might have had reason to believe they’ve actually gone overseas.”

  “You’ve applied for captain’s training, right, Tummil?”

  “Yessir.”

  “You want an Examiner’s desk like mine, one day?”

  “Yessir.”

  “What’s the difference between chasing dead leads and helping the living?”

  He’d heard this one before. “Only the dead benefit from dead leads, sir.”

  “So, with that in mind, what are you about to suggest?”

  Tummil mentally scrapped his prepared speech and moved into the pitch. “Terese Saarg is still alive, and we can help her. She wasn’t going to ever flip, because she couldn’t have fought her chapterhouse if she came over to our side.”

  “Tummil. Saarg was our keystone, upon whom—”

  “—we based our investigation, yes. But we barely touched on what she was investigating.”

  “Because she and her chapterhouse are bent, Sergeant!”

  “Are we more interested in helping her find what killed three hundred people, or in stringing up her and her chapterhouse, sir?”

  Reeben fixed Tummil with a withering, unblinking stare. “And how do we finish her investigation for her, Sergeant?”

  Tummil lifted a folder, took a solitary paper and placed it before Reeben.

  Reeben stared at the form for a long time, before lifting his head. “You’re mad, Tummil.”

  “We both know you’re going to sign that, sir. It’s just a matter of what I owe you.”

  Reeben picked up his pen. “Do it by the book, Sergeant. Down to the letter.”

  9

  “I’m very glad you agreed to meet with me,” Tummil said.

  “Why?” said the young girl sitting opposite him. The child welfare officer in the corner watched them without blinking, smiling, or moving.

  “Because I’d like to help your mother.”

  “You want me to tell on my mother,” snapped the girl.

  “No, I don’t. I want to help her finish a case she was working on.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you were trying to trick her before she left. You’re like the people in class who backstab their friends, then go tell the teacher their friends are being mean when those girls don’t want to be friends anymore.”

  Pelina Saarg hadn’t blinked once as she’d leveled her charge—remarkably astute, for a nine-year-old.

  Tummil raised his hands in acceptance. “Your mother was looking for bad people at her work, before she left. And for people outside the Seekers too. I think she saw something before she left Armer.”

  Pelina went deadly still. She hadn’t been moving much, but his last sentence had turned her to stone.

  He licked his lips. “I came here because I’m hoping she might have said something about her work to you. And I’m hoping if she did, that you could help me find what she was looking for.”

  “My mother told me about you, Mr. Tummil. She said all you were interested in was arresting Seekers and bragging about it to women at bars. And that you were wasting time looking for the four survivors because they’re not infec
ted. They’re the opposite of infected.”

  Tummil’s jaw dropped open. Head Saarg had said that when she’d accosted him, out at the town of Holdamaan. What sort of bizarre mother-daughter relationship had them sharing that much?

  He checked the child welfare officer in the corner. Saarg’s daughter had to look as though she felt safe, or the interview would be over. The welfare officer wasn’t close enough to hear every word, but she was close enough to tell if the child became agitated.

  “But I can’t help you,” Pelina said. “Even if you want to hurt Mamma, it’s too late.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the bad people have gone. She tried to stop them, and… she didn’t.”

  Coming to this school with a juvenile interview warrant had been a gamble. He’d been mostly certain he’d end up confusing some dim-witted kid, who barely understood what her mother did for a job. This was more than he’d dreamed she’d know.

  Was it possible to get good intel without upsetting her?

  He checked the impassive welfare officer. Her posture hadn’t changed.

  “I’m worried, Pelina. I think bad things will happen to innocent people, here in Armer, if I don’t finish your mother’s work.”

  She leaned forward. “Are you afraid of monsters, Mr. Tummil? I don’t mean bad people, but real monsters?”

  Children had a way of knowing they were being lied to. He couldn’t give a trite answer to that question. But more than that, this girl… knew something. It was in her eyes; she’d seen something. It wasn’t the gaze of a damaged, abused child, but one who had a secret.

  “I’m scared of monsters,” he admitted.

  The welfare officer leaned forward. “Monsters, or cadvers, are under the jurisdiction of the Seekers and are not to be discussed with children!”

  For the love of the Gods, Pelina had asked him about monsters! Not the other way around.

  Pelina frowned at the officer and took a long, slow breath. “You need to find the old man. The wanderer. The Cenephan man.”

  No, he thought. Surely not.

  “How do I find him?”

  “He’s like the Royals. He finds you. He’s from Ceneph, and he’s going to Sumad to help the four survivors.”

  Find the one most likely to believe you.

  “I saw him, Pelina. He told me to see you.”

  She nodded as though that made perfect sense. Gods Above, what had Saarg told this girl? Unless…

  The day Saarg had caught him tailing her, she’d mentioned Pelina had prophetic dreaming. Had Pelina dreamed what she knew?

  “You’ll need to find the Royals who aren’t in charge of Mamma’s chapterhouse,” she declared. “Because the Royals are fighting. They don’t show it to us, but they fight and argue and play playground games.”

  “We call it the game of houses,” Tummil agreed. “We mortals play it too, but I’d imagine the Royals play it harder and longer.”

  The welfare officer cleared her throat self-importantly. “The Royalty are beyond the scope of a child’s knowledge. Stay within the bounds, or I shall terminate this interview!”

  Gods, that wasn’t even a rule. He resisted the urge to scowl at the woman.

  “Pelina, your mum told me you have the dreaming.” He spoke softly. “Don’t worry, I’ve not told anyone. And I won’t. But… what have you seen?”

  The girl closed her eyes. When she opened them, they shimmered at the corners. “I’ve seen my mother tied up like a criminal in an old stone room that’s falling apart, and four men asking her questions.”

  Did she mean those four men?

  “I’ve seen her in a building as tall as a Royal skyscraper. I’ve seen her underground, as the walls crumble, as cadvers scream. I… I’ve seen her fall in love.” She frowned.

  He couldn’t imagine what seeing that would be like for a daughter.

  “She speaks to the Gods, and They respond. She destroys a spider bigger than her as she calls my name. I’ve seen her kneeling in the oldest of all places, holding hands with a man on fire. I don’t know when all these things happen.”

  Tummil shivered. The dreaming was considered a gift—but to the people, not the dreamer themselves. “Have you seen what happens here, in Armer?”

  A tear streaked down her cheek. “What happened, Mr. Tummil? Something’s escaped and started growing. What was it?”

  The child welfare officer stood. “This interview will come to a close. You have distressed the child!”

  Tummil ignored her and spoke quickly. “Demons from the old War, Pelina. Changed from what they were into something worse. I’m going to need help to kill them.”

  Pelina took a deep breath. “Mr. Tummil, when you find them, keep the green piece on you.”

  The officer strode between them, waving her arms and shushing, as though that would keep Pelina quiet.

  “The one you were given, Mr. Tummil!” Pelina shouted. “That showed the old wanderer where you were. You need it, but I don’t know why.”

  What didn’t this girl know?

  “Come, now!” boomed the woman, pulling Pelina up under the arm. “There’s a good girl. You’ll be fine, just come—”

  Pelina lunged forward, grabbing Tummil’s lapel and whispering in his ear. He took care not to hold to her. “And I’ve seen something else. The Gods, Mr. Tummil. Some of the Gods are going to die, and when they do, more than half of us will die with them.” Her jaw trembled.

  “You’ll be fine, just come with me!” shouted the welfare officer, pulling Pelina’s hands away.

  “I believe you,” he said as she was bustled toward the door.

  She stretched back toward him, shouting. “Remember! You don’t approach the Royals. They find you!”

  10

  Tummil shouldered his unwieldy bag and carried it up the steps to Reeta’s apartment. Their apartment. The previous day, he’d helped Reeta’s best friend move out.

  The most annoying thing about moving in with someone was the pretending. Pretending he’d moved back home with his parents like a student, and having to pick up all his mail from their place. Pretending that he wasn’t living with Reeta, but just staying overnight. Every night.

  That way, the building manager didn’t mind. The only problem would be if either of their grandmothers found out; even if both Tummil and Reeta’s mothers had both moved in with their fathers at their age.

  Why was it worse when children repeated their parents’ harmless actions? Gods Above, both their mothers had loudly disapproved when they’d announced their intention to move in together.

  ‘But you’re an Inspector!’ Tummil’s mother had hissed, the night before Reeta’s mother had slapped the table and shrieked ‘But you’re a teacher!’ Both their fathers had sat back and chuckled.

  He walked through the door. “You’d think our parents would like each other more,” he said for at least the hundredth time as he lowered the bag to their living room floor. “Not blame each other for their children trampling all over Ceneph’s grave.”

  “It’d probably be worse if they ever saw this,” Reeta muttered, holding the flat, rectangular object at arm’s length.

  “I just realized I needed… a machete,” Tummil said.

  “No one needs a machete. An expensive, metal machete.”

  “I’ll let you take it to work if you need it. Keep the kids in line, and all.”

  Reeta rolled her eyes.

  “And when we have kids, we can use it on them.”

  Reeta turned her head away as she smiled. “Come have lunch, grave-trampler.” She knew why he’d bought it. Worst of all, she seemed to approve, despite her protests.

  He looked up from his sandwich. “How do you get Royals to approach you? If I go through the public petition system, there’s every chance I’d run into the same bent Royals who are running the Seeker chapterhouses. And then we’d be in trouble.”

  Reeta finished her mouthful and took a sip of water. “If you’re investigating what Saarg wa
s chasing, go to the places she went that the Royals know about. If the Royals are playing politics with each other, the side we’re trying to contact who didn’t get involved with the underground chamber will be looking for clues.”

  “You reckon they’re still watching?”

  “If rogue Royals performed abductions, mind-wipes and built that underground strangeness, you can bet the ones we’re trying to find will be watching where all this stuff happened.”

  Tummil took another bite. “Then it looks like I’m going to have some late nights, sweetie.”

  “You’ll still have to do the dishes, darling.”

  11

  Tummil and Reeta chose the least-occupied diner for lunch. Having space to themselves in their apartment was nice, but there was just something wonderful about leaving an apartment and coming back to it, knowing it was all theirs. Just the two of them.

  After pushing away their empty plates, Tummil looked to see if anyone was listening. A few nearby tables were occupied, but no one would hear. Reeta scooted her chair a little nearer.

  He leaned closer. “The ‘For Sale’ sign is still up on the house where the massacre happened, but no one’s biting, even though the place has been scrubbed over with every cleaning agent known to the Gods. I asked that neighbor I spoke to, and too many people know what’s happened there. The city inherited the property since they can’t trace the owner. But they’d be better off just renting it out for a few years.

  “Anyhow, they still haven’t changed the locks. So this morning I did what I always do when I get into that house. I checked every single room. Every single closet and cupboard. And in the upstairs room where the bloody footprints went back and forth from, a closet door was open.”

  Reeta’s eyes widened. “Of all rooms to have been checked. That one?”

  “Exactly. There wasn’t anything in the closet. I went around the rest of the house. Nothing. So I did what I always do, and sat down in the empty lounge, closed my eyes and thought.

  “Reeta, I wasn’t alone in the house. I know it.” He looked around again, then tapped the green pendant around his neck, hidden beneath his shirt. “I know I’m starting to sound like a Seeker, but someone was there. At the same time, I was the only one in that house.” He shrugged. “Someone’s noticed me.”