Private individuals and corporations, as well as governments, provided resources and funds to the Wall. Safe houses needed to be kept up, individual cells provided with a stipend. Vehicles, weapons, computers, and other necessities were always seen to. Members had access to everything from law enforcement data to mystical grimoires. Whatever was needed.
The mission statement was simple – protect humanity from supernatural interference. Some cells interpreted this statement differently than others. Some cells openly employed the use of arcane warfare themselves, while others found any taint of the metaphysical to be deplorable. Hayden ran his cell like the latter.
Roma didn’t know what had brought Hayden to the Wall. His hatred of the supernatural was almost pathological. She didn’t know much about him at all, other than that he had a high close rate. She had been living in Virginia before joining him here.
Greer had been a cop once; that much she knew. Something had happened while he was on the force that had led him here. He didn’t say much, and Roma was okay with that. She got the impression that some of Hayden’s ideals didn’t sit too well with Greer either.
“Now we know why that took so long,” said Hayden, coming into the room.
“What’s up?” asked Roma.
“The Crimsonata isn’t at her home, she’s on a road trip with her half-brother, Elliot Byrnes. They’re in Mississippi. Last used his credit card at a motel.”
Roma frowned. “There’re at least twenty cells closer than us. Why are we doing this?”
“Because we were tasked with it.”
Roma didn’t like that answer. She remembered how Hayden had reacted to Faure’s story concerning the girl. She was innocent in all of this, but he viewed her as another monster.
“How sure are we about this intel?” asked Roma. “As I recall, you had a hard time swallowing it.”
“Faure and that Binici he mentioned are both in good standing with the Wall. They’re both just brains, but they’ve put in the years. I have to take their assessment as credible. You were the one who was inclined to believe, as I remember it.”
“I’m just asking questions, Hayden.”
He didn’t say anything and started packing up gear. She watched as he loaded two Uzis into a case and sighed silently to herself. She harbored misgivings about this cell assignment since the day she arrived. Greer was alright by himself, she could handle his attitude, but it was difficult when paired with Hayden. Hayden was always on, always militant. She wondered how things had worked in his last Cell but knew it would be pointless to ask – he would just blow off the question.
Roma hadn’t wanted to leave Virginia, but the cell was getting too large. As the seventh and newest member, she had to be transferred when an older member had returned from an extended European mission. She had been given a few choices and had picked Indianapolis at random. Even now, she could request a transfer out, the higher ups could see to that, but she didn’t want to rock the boat.
Hayden dropped three pairs of handcuffs into a bag and Roma shook her head. She didn’t feel good about this mission. It wasn’t even the whole supposed fate of the world mumbo-jumbo that Faure had told them, it was the logistics. Kidnapping some girl who was only a little bit younger than her wasn’t what the Wall did. And how were they supposed to make her do this magic act? Roma didn’t like to think about what Hayden had in store for Audrey Darrow if she refused him. The more she thought about the whole thing, the more it sickened her.
Greer came back into the house and threw the keys on the table. The SUV was gassed up. She still had to pack and get her gear ready. Leaving the other two, she went upstairs to the bathroom. It was mostly her stuff in there and she picked up her hair brush, deodorant, and a few other items. Carrying them to her room, she dropped them on her bed and pulled her long, thick, black hair back into a ponytail. Into a suitcase she quickly packed jeans, shorts, a few shirts, underwear, socks, bras, and her laptop.
Carrying it downstairs, she eyed her gear bag. It sat open, ready for guns, handcuffs, a Taser, a baton, knives, explosives, and various other tools of the trade. Sometimes it scared her how proficient she’d become in the use of all of these things.
But, she was a field operative for the Promethean Wall. This was the life she had chosen. She’d find Audrey Darrow and figure things out from there. She had already decided that she wouldn’t let Hayden hurt the girl unless things absolutely had to go down that way. She knew where her line was, and she wouldn’t be dragged across it by him.
Now she just had to remember where she put her extra ammo.
CHAPTER 17
Audrey sat at the picnic table and chain-smoked. They had checked out of the motel but not yet left, Elliot not ready to commit to the road. She knew he didn’t want to proceed until she was ready, and she didn’t know what she wanted to do. She hadn’t been this bad in years. Her anxiety was through the roof, paranoia clawing at her. He was ready to pull the plug on the whole trip just for her.
Audrey had never been agoraphobic, but she had never been this far from home before either. She wondered if that had sparked everything, no sense of being stationary. She didn’t think so, but she couldn’t be sure.
It was actually pretty here. The parking lot in front of the motel butted up against a small wooded area, a few picnic tables nestled in among the trees. The light played down between the leaves, rustling in a slight breeze that cooled the sweltering temperature a bit. Someone had been feeding the wildlife, a pile of seeds sat nearby beneath another worn table. Audrey was making a pile of cigarette butts.
Elliot had run down the street to get food. She hadn’t wanted to go with him, she just needed a moment to herself. Some silence and solitude. For a few brief moments she felt alright, at ease. The despair was scratching furiously at the doors, desperate to be let back in, but she lit another cigarette and stared off into the trees instead. She didn’t turn when her brother pulled up behind her.
“They didn’t have much. I got you a salad and mozzarella sticks.”
“That’s fine.”
The salad was little more than iceberg lettuce with a few chunks of tomato and cucumber, but at least it was fresh. The mozzarella sticks were a perfect golden brown and pulled molten cheese out of each bite. Elliot dove into his giant pulled pork sandwich, napkins everywhere for the barbeque sauce. They ate in silence for a while, Audrey refusing to be the first one to speak.
Finally Elliot swallowed and looked up at her. “We can head back whenever you want to.”
“I don’t want to head back.”
“You sure?”
“I don’t want to head back, but I also want this to be fun for you.”
“I am having fun,” said Elliot.
“Yeah, in those few minutes when you’re not worrying about me.”
“Well, of course I’m going to worry about you.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
Taking another bite of cucumber, Audrey considered her choices. Even if they went back now, it would take them days to get home, even if they drove with minimal stops. Then she’d be returning to her small, meaningless life, one where she’d spiral into depression because she ended the trip early. Or she could power through it, possibly ruining the rest of the trip for Elliot as she likely continued her decline while they drew farther and farther away from home. Neither option seemed terribly appealing.
Reaching for another mozzarella stick, she glanced back toward the woods. She froze, her mouth open and the food halfway to it. Walking toward her out of the trees was the man in the suit.
He looked exactly as he did every time she had seen him, exactly as he had in the bar. Handsome, with short-cropped greying hair and stubble, an immaculate black suit and tie, grey shirt, and a red rose in his lapel. He strolled out of the woods with a smile on his face like everything was normal, as if he belonged there. The ninety-degree weather didn’t seem to affect him in the slightest.
“Please tell me you see him,” whispere
d Audrey.
“Yes,” replied Elliot. “What the fuck?”
The man in the suit walked up to them and stopped, examining them at the picnic table with their meals. “This all looks quite pleasant.”
“Who are you?” Elliot asked.
Audrey merely gawked at him, a combination of awe and terror.
“You can call me Mr. Inanis. It’s a good enough name for this particular endeavor. By the looks on your faces, I’m guessing you both remember me.”
“I’ve seen you,” murmured Audrey.
“You were at the casino,” said Elliot. “I saw you when that crazy woman attacked us. You vanished.”
“I saved you from that, as you put it, crazy woman. I’ve been following you since then, in case they tried again.”
“In case who tried again? What are you taking about?” asked Elliot, getting angry.
“Sorry Elliot Byrnes, you’re irrelevant in all this. This is Audrey’s story.”
It felt like the gravity had shifted inside of Audrey, all the weight in her stomach dropping and her blood thinning out. Mr. Inanis caught her in his gaze and held it, the implications of his declaration pinning her to her seat.
“That was not just some crazy woman and you know it. It was a monstrosity, something once human, engineered into servitude to be the living extension of the will of something that this world has never seen. Using English terms, it’s called an ‘Invocated.’ It was one of many, soon an army’s worth.”
Still no words could come from Audrey, none that mattered. Elliot spoke for her. “Why would it come after Audrey?”
“Because of who she is. Because of who her mother was, her grandmother, her great grandmother, and stretching back millennia. You are the last in the line of the Crimsonata.”
“The what?” she managed to get out.
“The Crimsonata. A bloodline of women who possess unique abilities granted by remarkable blood. The Crimsonata engage in a ritual that allows them to flow. When the blood flows, as your kind has done for thousands of years, it feeds the Outer Gods and keeps them satiated. Satiated, they are satisfied to remain elsewhere, beyond this reality. Since you have not been seeing to your duties, they are restless.”
“This is insane,” said Elliot, getting up from the table.
Audrey held out her hand, gesturing for him to sit. “Tell me more.”
“As the Outer Gods stir, the barriers built will start to crumble. Unfortunately, the first of those barriers to fall are the lowest. The denizens of the gutter realms have already stared to break through. Primitive gods and their puppets, which have existed beneath this universe, seething in contempt at their place in the cosmic scheme. They would see this reality assimilated or obliterated. This would be accomplished by killing you, putting an end to the Crimsonata line once and for all, freeing them forever.”
“Audrey, you can’t believe any of this?”
But she remembered her mother’s words, remembered her mother locking herself away. She remembered piecing things together as a child, believing later that her mother was some kind of religious fanatic. She didn’t remember everything, but she remembered enough. Enough to know that it fit, that it made sense.
Maybe she just wanted it to make sense. Maybe she wanted her mother to be more than just crazy and her life to have some meaning. It was insane, it was some story she would read or watch, now staring her. There was no reality where the rantings of her dead mother equaled this. But…
But part of her still believed.
“My mom died when I was seven,” said Audrey. “I didn’t know. I didn’t… I don’t know how to do any of this. I don’t know if I even want to. What if I refuse?”
Mr. Inanis smiled. “Oh, well there are those who will try to force you to flow should you refuse. You should be aware of that. And the coming of the Outer Gods will most definitely annihilate this universe if it hasn’t already been completely destroyed by the wars between all the other realms converging first.”
“Jesus!”
“So right now, there are two factions on the hunt for you, one that wants to kill you and the other that wants to control you. That’s exciting!”
Both Elliot and Audrey gaped at him, unable to process his enthusiasm.
“Which side are you on?” asked Elliot, sliding closer to his sister.
“Me? I’m an interested third party. You’ll see me around.”
The air shimmered like a wave of heat, but angular and flat. It rotated around Mr. Inanis, enveloping him. He disappeared before their eyes.
Elliot turned to Audrey. “So, um…”
Audrey began to cry.
CHAPTER 18
There is no singular answer, only fragments of a subjective truth. That truth, at its core, is what unifies humanity. That we exist, that we seek a place in this universe. It was the extraneous dressings that divided us and gave us the trappings of religion.
Perhaps an odd belief for a tenured professor of Comparative Religions, but Timothy Faure had always leaned more toward being an agnostic. He had studied so many of the world’s faiths, he felt that he could not honestly choose one over another. Raised a blank slate by parents who were proto-hippies, he hadn’t been burdened with any particular set of doctrines. His fascination with theology had come in college and it had been in an academic fashion.
It had stayed academic until several years ago when his studies led him to the Wall.
Faure was still unsettled by his meeting with the Wall. He worried about the success of the mission with someone like Hayden running the show. He would have reached out to someone else had he known that Dwight was dead, seeking council from someone directly in Washington, although his connection there was tenuous at best. The whole situation was delicate, and he hoped he hadn’t made a mistake.
While there was still a late afternoon class on early Judeo-Christianity for him to teach, Faure cancelled it and left for home. There was too much buzzing in his head, too much pulling at his attention. He pulled into his driveway and saw his wife’s car already parked. A sociology professor a few years older than him, they had an amicable if somewhat distant marriage of ten years. It worked for both of them.
Car parked in front of his ranch house, Faure grabbed his briefcase and went inside. Dorothy was at the small kitchen table that she used as desk, typing away, likely responding to emails. She smiled at his entrance.
“You’re home early.”
“I’m not feeling good. I think I’m going to the basement for a while.”
He chose not to notice her barely concealed eye roll.
“That’s fine dear.”
Leaving his briefcase on the counter, he opened the door and descended the steps. The basement was mostly unfinished, filled with boxes, unused exercise equipment, Christmas decorations, and some old furniture they hadn’t wanted to get rid of. A washer and dryer sat off to the side next to the water heater. In the far corner, a curtain had been hung to partition off a small section of the space. Faure undressed slowly, placing each item of clothing on a plastic chair, neatly folded. He breathed deeply as he continued the process, making it a ritual.
Stepping through the curtain, he entered the small shrine he had built years ago. Lighting incense, he examined all of the items he had assembled here. Tibetan prayer flags, Catholic crucifix, Norse rune stones, Taoist yin-yang, Wiccan pentacle, and a host other of religious iconography. While he did not believe in any of the items in and of themselves, he believed in the ideals they represented. The gestalt they could be. He had learned a greater truth thanks to the Wall. There was more, and he just had to be open to it.
Faure had devised his own ritual, one more in tune with psychology than with religion. The point was to realign his Super Ego, suspended on a Higher Plane. To further realize his archetype. Opening his mind to greater possibilities than this world, he attempted to calm his center.
Faure had no idea that something was waiting for him.
It wrapped around his mind
with liquid coils, burrowing in. The scent of incense became putrid and oily, stinging his nose. It clung to his skin as he realized he wasn’t in the basement anymore, he wasn’t anywhere. The darkness around him was opaque, only broken by a haze that wavered and curled like cobwebs in the wind. Sweat poured from him, the abyss humid and filled with stagnant air.
He tried to find words, tried to find thoughts, but nothing came. Then a light began to shine, dull and cold, the aperture soft around the edges. It struck him whole, and Faure felt the perversity, the sadism in its glare. This was beyond anything he had ever studied in his meager books, something real and ready to make itself known. An engine of entropy that had ran for eons and would extinguish worlds, now became the engineer who had chosen to rebuild him with its radiant glance.
Faure understood. Through oppression came freedom. Freedom from the burden of free will, freedom from the burden of identity, freedom from the burden of choice. He longed for it, longed for the embrace of his new god. For the Ovessa. But it was still held back, too far away. The light began to dim, and Faure cried out, denied the touch.
He found himself back in his basement, the incense still smoking away. What had transpired had only taken moments. Only moments, but it had changed Faure irrevocably. There was a truth out there, one he’d never even been aware of. Faure realized he would do anything to touch the light of the Ovessa again. Its will was all that mattered.
Walking back upstairs, Faure forgot his clothes. He stepped into the kitchen naked and looked around. His wife peered up at him and squinted.
“What are you doing? Why are you naked?”
Faure stared at her for a second before pulling open a drawer and grabbing a steak knife. He lunged across the room, silent, but in his head the same three words played over and over.
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