Demon Lights

by Michael M. Hughes

  Jeremy shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  Ray felt blood rushing to his face. “Jeremy, don’t fucking do this. I need to go with that team. The whole reason I’ve been going through all this Brotherhood shit is to go with them to find Ellen and William.”

  “The team is leaving as soon as the supplies arrive, and I’m afraid that will be before we can properly evaluate your vision and ascertain its veracity.”

  “You promised him,” Mantu said from his cell. “He’s been doing everything you asked.”

  Jeremy sighed. “Several members of the Council have questioned my judgment in allowing you to go on such an important mission. Not just Sister Malaika, but the majority. It is the most critical opportunity we’ve had—and perhaps our last chance—to cut off the head of our enemy. Everything we have worked for, everything our brothers throughout our order’s existence have fought and died for, is under threat. Our very existence hangs in the balance. We are facing possible extinction. Turning the mission into a rescue operation adds an enormous number of complications.”

  Ray glared. “You’re not going to help Ellen and William?”

  “Micah would never have pulled this shit,” Mantu said. “You know that, too.”

  Jeremy’s expression hardened. “Micah died in service to our order. He understood the sacrifice he needed to make.”

  “And he did it to help this man you’re talking to,” Mantu said. “He gave his life for Ray. Because he knew Ray was important to how all this is going down. Ray destroyed the whole operation in Blackwater. He met the thing that Crawford summoned, and stopped it from going feral. Who knows what it would have done, hopping from one person to another, if he hadn’t killed it? And now you’re denying him the chance to find his family? You’re going against everything this organization stands for.”

  “Says the brother who broke his obligation,” Jeremy said.

  “Fuck you,” Mantu hissed. “What is your obligation to, Jeremy? To the Brotherhood? Or to that fucking black rock buried in the jungle?”

  The only sound breaking the silence was the hum of the air system.

  “Please, Jeremy,” Ray said. “Please.”

  “I am sorry, Ray. Truly sorry. But I will make sure that the team does everything in their power to find Ellen and William and return them safely.” He lowered his head and turned. The tylers kept their eyes on Ray as Jeremy stepped to the door. “Tomorrow night we’ll bring you to be examined. I promise you that we will weigh everything you’ve said. Until then, I suggest you rest and try to remain calm.”

  Ray saw red at the periphery of his vision. Once again, every hope he had evaporated. “You lying motherfucker.”

  The door closed and the lock clicked.

  Vinod stared, expressionless. “I am sorry, Ray. I believe you. Brother Jeremy and Sister Malaika and the rest of the Council are sick. Very sick.”

  Ray pressed his face between the bars. “What do you mean?”

  Vinod started pacing. “I saw the artifact, up close. It is hiding its true self.”

  “What?” Mantu shouted. “Vinod, why didn’t you mention this before?”

  “You did not ask,” Vinod said.

  “I wish you weren’t so literal,” Mantu said. “How did you figure that out?”

  “I was with Sister Malaika. Just the two of us. We had lunch. Cheese and mango slices. And limeade. Then we went down to it and meditated in front of it. I told her it was lying to her, and the others. It wanted to be activated, and it needed people to do it, so it was telling her what she wanted to hear. And it was making them sick from its power. The Council. But they didn’t know it because it felt so good. She didn’t want to believe it, Brother Mantu, my man.”

  Ray heard Mantu throw something against the wall of his cell. “Jesus Christ, Vinod. Malaika knows this?”

  “She said she didn’t believe me. She told me to keep quiet, that my abilities were…” He struggled to recall the word. “Compromised.”

  “She’s the one who’s compromised.” Ray ran his fingers through his hair. It was starting to make sense. “Did you tell anyone else?”

  “No.” Vinod sat on his bed. “She is one of the Nine. No one would listen to me. They think I’m odd anyway. ‘On the spectrum,’ it says on my original assessment. ‘Gifted savant with limited communication abilities and emotional and social skills.’ ”

  “That’s why they stuck you here,” Mantu said. “Not because you were poking around in the network. Because you know what that thing is.”

  “You may be correct, Brother Mantu, my man.” Ray detected just a trace of emotion in Vinod’s monotone. Sadness, maybe. A man who had given up a long time ago.

  “We have to get out of here,” Ray said. “We have to warn the others. I got the feeling some of them didn’t buy Malaika’s bullshit. Especially Claire. And I need to get on that strike team plane.” He was shaking. The enormity of what was happening was rushing up on him like an unexpected ocean wave.

  “If you can figure out a way to cut through these carbon steel bars, I’m all ears,” Mantu said. “Vinod, you’re the certified genius here. Any ideas?”

  Vinod stared. “There is no way out,” he said quietly. “The tylers would stop us. Two at the door, two at the entrance to the complex. I know the codes for the cell locks, if they haven’t changed them—67834, 67835, and 44372. And the code for the main door to get into corridor B is 224.”

  “Well, that’s nice, and I’m glad you paid attention, but it still looks like we’re fucked,” Mantu said. “Unless you can teleport.”

  “That would be my assessment as well, Mantu.” Vinod reclined on his bed.

  Ray buried his face in his hands. The hum of the circulation system, and the throbbing of his heart in his ears, were the only sounds in the room.

  Chapter 4

  Ray felt like he had only been asleep for a few minutes when he awoke to a loud pop. The nighttime lights flickered and the entire room went dark. He’d been dreaming of Ellen—she’d been calling out to him from a dark tunnel, but the faster he ran the farther away she receded. Now he was confused, shaking off the dream and groping around in the blackness.

  The lights came on again, and a loud thud accompanied the return of the circulation system as it kicked into operation.

  “Mantu, you awake?”

  “Yeah. What the hell was that, Vinod?”

  Vinod was sitting cross-legged on his bed. “That was the emergency generator system. It turns on when the power grid is interrupted or inoperative.”

  The lights flickered again. “I’ve never seen that happen before,” Mantu said. “Any idea what’s going on?”

  Vinod stared blankly. “Might be the storm. There are a number of possibilities.”

  Ray rubbed his face. He was wide awake now. “Can we breathe if it goes out?”

  “Yes. Unless the generator stops working.”

  “Don’t tell me what happens then,” Mantu said.

  “Okay, Brother Mantu.”

  The outer door clicked and opened.

  Sister Claire stepped into the room with the tylers beside her. “Please give me a moment.” The tylers looked at each other, and for a second Ray thought they were just going to remain where they were. But both stepped out of the room and the door closed. “Listen. I’m not sure what’s going on. Malaika has pulled some sort of coup. She has Hikaru and the sisters and Kimlat. A majority. Jeremy is holed up in the Grove and the tylers won’t let me in. I don’t even know if he’s okay.”

  “Fucking Malaika,” Mantu said between gritted teeth.

  “The strike team is preparing to go. That’s why I’m here. I’m supposed to be on it, and I want to get you on that helicopter, too.”

  “Then do it,” Ray said. “Please.”

  “Vinod has the key codes,” Mantu said. “Give them to her.”

  Claire didn’t hesitate. She pressed the buttons on the keypad next to Ray’s cell as Vinod told her the numbers. A beep and then a c
lick and Ray shoved the door aside. “Thank you,” he said. He wanted to hug her but there was no time.

  “Vinod next,” Mantu said. “Hurry.”

  When Vinod’s cell opened he stood staring.

  “Get the fuck out of there, man,” Mantu hissed. “Grab your shoes.”

  As Claire stepped to Mantu’s cell, the main door slammed open. The tylers stepped inside, arms at angles and legs rooted in martial stances.

  “Aww shit,” Mantu whispered.

  Ray remained immobile.

  Claire turned. “Brother tylers, Brother Jeremy gave me explicit instructions to bring the three prisoners to him. That is why I came here.”

  Neither tyler moved.

  “Brother tylers, as a member of the Council, I insist you follow me with the three prisoners to the Grove, where Brother Jeremy is awaiting them.”

  One of the tylers, a short but wiry man, relaxed his martial pose. “Brother Jeremy is no longer the head of the Council.”

  “They speak!” Ray said.

  The lights flickered again.

  “Brother tyler,” Claire said, her voice rising, “you are beholden to members of the Council in the absence of the current Ipsissimus.” She glanced around the room. “The current Ipsissimus, even if the role has been taken by Sister Malaika, is not present. Am I correct?”

  The tylers stared.

  “She is correct,” Vinod said. He had stepped out of his cell and held his hands in a prayer position. “According to the Constitutions and Edicts, volume 28, section 17, paragraph 6.” He smiled that odd, fake smile.

  The short tyler spoke again. “My orders were just carried to me directly from Sister Malaika.” He pointed to his earpiece. “They are to keep the incarcerated guarded and to repel any attempts at escape with the utmost severity.”

  “Well, isn’t that nice,” Mantu muttered.

  “Please reenter your cells.” Both tylers assumed another position, their arms held at face-height, palms outward. “Sister Claire, please remove yourself from the premises.”

  Claire stood still. “Brother tylers—”

  “We will remove you physically if necessary.”

  Claire stared.

  “Back in your cells,” the short tyler said. “Now.” Both men took one step forward.

  Ray didn’t move. Neither did Vinod.

  “I will count to five,” the tyler said. “One…two…”

  Before he reached the count of three the short, wiry tyler was grasping at his throat and staggering.

  “Ray!” Mantu screamed. “Go!”

  Vinod was standing behind the tyler, whose face had gone completely red as he clutched at his throat, his eyes bulging. Whatever Vinod had done had been so fast no one had seen it. The tyler’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the floor.

  The other tyler, a much younger man, leapt toward Vinod. He launched a kick but the older man deftly twisted his body and delivered a quick blow to the tyler’s kidney.

  Claire punched in Mantu’s cell code.

  Vinod and the young tyler were engaged in a rapid-fire burst of kicks and blows. The old Indian man moved like someone half his age, but a sharp kick to his chest, followed by a blow to his head, sent him reeling backward into his cell.

  Mantu’s lock beeped, then clicked.

  Ray ran toward the tyler but the young man, freed from his sparring with Vinod, pivoted before he was even close and kicked Ray in the gut so hard his breath exploded from his mouth. He fell to the floor. He couldn’t breathe. His vision started to go white. No air. His lungs would not cooperate.

  Don’t fail now, he told himself.

  He rolled onto his back. Above him was a blur of fists and feet. Then Mantu fell next to him, his face slack. His teeth were covered in blood.

  Breathe. Breathe, dammit.

  Across the room, Vinod was struggling to stand up in his cell but kept falling back into his bed. Claire swung her fists, but the tyler ducked below her, lifted her up, and flung her against the bars of the open cell. He turned and looked down at Ray, his eyes wide with raging adrenaline. So these fuckers really were badasses after all. It only took one of them to bring them all down, like in an old Bruce Lee movie.

  The tyler knelt on Ray’s chest. No air came out of Ray’s lungs because there was no air left in them. The tyler’s face got closer. “Brother Ray Simon, under the order of the Grand Ipsissimus Sister Malaika Alakija, you are now—”

  His words cut out as something smacked against his head.

  “She is not my leader,” Claire said from above him. She was holding a metal folding chair.

  The tyler fell beside Ray.

  Ray gasped. His lungs were starting to work again, but it felt like he’d been beaten repeatedly in the stomach with a baseball bat.

  Claire knelt next to him. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

  —

  It took a few minutes to wake Mantu, but once everyone could stand up without support Claire took a survey. “Can you all follow me out of here?”

  Mantu was still wiping blood from his lips and teeth. “I think so.”

  Vinod nodded. “Yes, Sister Claire.” His smile was tinged with a grimace. His eyes looked wobbly.

  Ray couldn’t stand up straight, but he could walk. “Yeah. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “I’m not feeling so hot myself,” she said.

  The lights went out. The generator kicked on again, but then it, too, shut off. They were plunged into blackness.

  “Oh, that’s not good,” Mantu said.

  Again, the generator came to life. The emergency lights flickered on, tiny pools of yellow light in the darkness, but it was enough to see by.

  “Follow me,” Claire said. “Hurry.”

  About twenty feet down the underground hallway Ray had to pause to rest. He’d had appendicitis as a kid, and the ache in his abdomen was nearly as bad. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m trying.”

  “It’s okay, Brother Ray, my man.” Vinod’s eyes still looked like they were disconnected. Maybe the blow to his head had given him a concussion. His half-baked smile was frozen on his face.

  Ray grunted. “Where did you learn to fight like that, Vinod?” he asked.

  “I studied to be a tyler. But they said I talked too much,” Vinod said.

  Mantu laughed. “My boy is full of surprises.”

  The emergency lights flickered.

  “I think I smell smoke,” Claire said. “Come on, Ray.”

  They hurried down the hall, Ray nearly doubled over and grunting with every step.

  —

  They expected trouble at the stairs to the surface of Complex E. But no tylers guarded the doorway. When the doors banged open they all stopped cold.

  Eleusis was on fire.

  “Oh my God,” Claire whispered.

  Several of the buildings were in flames, black smoke billowing and collecting above the compound. Two tylers ran past them to the entrance of the Grove. People were milling about, some running, some holding their heads in their hands or staring in mute disbelief. A woman ran through the gardens screaming for someone.

  “Jesus,” Mantu said. He grabbed a woman stumbling past. “What’s happening?”

  She stared, her mouth open in horror. “Drones. Drones. Everywhere.”

  Just then Vinod pointed to the sky.

  A V-shaped drone hummed in the sky high above them. It came to a quick stop and hovered over the building that housed the Grove, then a string of bright streaks fired out of it. The tylers who had been trying to get inside were suddenly nothing more than a cloud of pink vapor.

  “No,” Claire whispered, her hand at her mouth. “There are children in there.”

  “Where’s the copter?” Ray yelled.

  “Out past the gardens,” Claire said. Her face was ashen white.

  “Go, dammit,” Mantu shouted.

  They all ran.

  The Telesterion exploded, raining chunks of marble onto the grass below
. The sky was full of delta-winged drones, buzzing like a swarm of enraged insects. Three tylers with automatic weapons crouched behind a statue, firing bursts into the sky. As Ray ran through a cluster of flowering bushes he saw someone floating facedown in the pool surrounded by a spreading cloud of blood. His gut still ached but the ordnance raining down around him helped him forget the pain.

  “There,” Claire shouted.

  In the distance the helicopter sat in a field. It was enormous—far bigger than the commercial bird he’d flown in with Jeremy. The trees nearby were on fire, and a man lying next to the steps leading into the craft wasn’t moving. The blades were beginning to spin. Ray ran ahead. The man lying nearby was missing his head, which had been sprayed in a gruesome arc several feet wide. Ray gagged. The roar of the engine was deafening and the pressure of the wind from the rotors was like a heavy weight pushing him down.

  Claire stopped and stared at the helicopter, her face ashen and frozen in horror.

  Sister Malaika emerged from the helicopter’s darkened exterior. She pointed a handgun at them. “This mission has been aborted,” she shouted. A wry smile spread across her face. Ray jumped as something exploded behind him and he felt tiny rocks pelting his back.

  A tyler stood behind her in the doorway. He, too, had a gun pointed at them—a military rifle with an enormous clip.

  Claire stepped forward and shouted above the noise. “Get out of our way, sister.”

  Another boom, this one closer. Everyone flinched except for Malaika. “You’re not going anywhere, my dear sister.”

  “You’re sick,” Mantu yelled. “Look around you; it’s all falling apart.”

  “She’s gone,” Claire said. “She’s someone else now. It’s working through her. Look at her eyes.”

  Malaika’s pupils were enormous. And growing larger, like ink spreading across milk. “It’s all over,” she said. “There is no more Eleusis. Soon there will be nothing but ashes.” The whine of the engine rose in pitch. “My work here is done, and I am needed elsewhere.” She turned and disappeared into the shadows.

  Ray started to move but Claire held him back. “Don’t,” she said, nodding at the barrel of the tyler’s gun, which had turned to aim directly at his chest. “It’s over. We need to get somewhere safe.”