Blood Avatar

by Ilsa J. Bick

  “My glasses!” Troy said, his thin whisper a bright line of panic etched in darkness. “I lost my glasses!”

  “No time!” Noah wheezed. He pushed up on his thighs, sucked in air. His lungs were on fire. “We got to go. We got . . .” Something black rearing up next to his right elbow, and he spun around, terror jumpstarting his heart.

  It was Joey. “I can’t find the bikes!” Joey was panting, maybe crying. “I think we ran past them!”

  “Oh, no, oh no no no no,” Troy moaned. He crumpled into a tight ball, wrapping his arms over his head, tucking his chin into his chest. “Oh, no no no . . . !”

  “Shut up!” Noah hissed, fury overcoming his fear. “Get up, get up! We got to go back. We just got to do it!”

  “But we could hide,” Joey whispered. “We can just hide, can’t we?”

  Noah opened his mouth, but his voice died in his throat. There was a heavy, thrashing noise, the kind of sound a man made rushing through meadow grass. Not directly behind, but close and in the cold, the sounds were much crisper, sharper as if chipped out of ice.

  Jesus, he’s fast!

  Noah took one extra second to think. Open field, tall grass, but the trees, they were behind and right, and the bikes were on a straight line with the tree house. “Come on!” he whispered. He clutched Troy’s hand with his left hand; Joey flanked his right. “This way!”

  Troy balked. “You’re going back. He’ll get us, he’ll get us. . . .”

  “He’ll get us if we don’t, so just quit it, quit it, come on!” Noah said.

  They went. Later, Noah would remember that it was like some horrible nightmare, the kind where you ran in slow-motion even though the monster just kept coming and coming. His heart battered his ribs; his lungs burned and his throat was raw. Time slowed down. He knew they were close to their bikes, but the monster had topped the rise and if he caught them, he would kill them.

  Then, Noah’s right foot whopped something hard, and he nearly fell. The bikes! Noah dropped Troy’s hand and wrestled up his bike. Swinging his leg over the seat, his sneakers slipping off then finding the pedals, starting to pump. Joey, the faster and stronger of the three, was there and then gone, swallowed up in the darkness as he took off. “Come on, Troy, let’s go!” Noah whispered.

  “But I can’t see!” Troy said, panicked. “I can’t find my bike!”

  Noah didn’t even hesitate. Wheeling around, he leapt off his bike, let it fall, lunged for his friend. “Leave it, leave it, you can ride with me, we’ll run and then you can—!”

  He felt the bullet before he heard the shot: something humming a groove in the air just above his head followed by a boom! He ducked. Thought: Big gun, more speed! No time for the bikes, they had to run, go, go, go! Grabbing Troy’s hand, dragging him up, legs churning now, free hand clawing air, running, running, run, run, they had to—!

  The second shot missed. But the third one didn’t.

  2

  After the cartridge exploded and that orange fire erupted like a volcano, Gabriel felt the power. The power was an organic thing blooming in his chest, as if some kind of god had slipped into the shell of his skin. The power was in him, and he was the power: stronger, better, more alive than he’d ever felt before.

  And then, when things couldn’t get any better, they did. When he drew the gun and put the muzzle a bare centimeter from Limyanovich’s forehead and saw the look of naked terror in Limyanovich’s eyes, Gabriel’s pulse ramped up and his mouth tasted of the metallic edge of adrenalin.

  That’s right, look at it because I’m Death and your life is mine.

  The gun kicked in his hand. There was flame, and Limyanovich’s head twitched back. And then a ringing silence Gabriel wanted to fill with a howl but that, instead, someone else filled with a scream.

  Behind. Up the hill! He wheeled round, looked up, and there! A twinkle of light against glass . . . no, eyeglasses. Somebody there!

  Get him. His concentration focused to a point, laser bright. Kill him before it’s too late.

  Then he’d dropped the plinker, pulled out his 720 and pounded across the bowl of the graveyard, leaping for the hill. The hill was slick with leaves, and he slipped, coming down hard on the point of his left elbow and, suddenly, there was the barrel a centimeter from his left eye, so close he smelled steel and gun oil. Careful. Jesus Christ, be careful. Jamming the gun into the waistband of his old man’s pants, floundering for traction, and then he was pulling himself up the hill, bent nearly double, his breath knifing his throat. And then he was on level ground, scanning the gray gloom of a field of meadow grasses spreading away to his left and, ahead and right, the denser blackness of trees. Nearly full dark now, stars in the sky and no moon because Denebola didn’t have one.

  He clamped his lips together, slowed his breathing so he could listen. Whoever was here couldn’t have gone far. Then he heard a dry rustling, like crinkly dry paper. His eyes jerked left. Someone there. He squinted, slid forward, stepping carefully, wincing at the crackle of dry grasses underfoot. His overcoat caught and dragged, slowing him down. Making too much noise. But he didn’t dare leave the coat behind. He might not find it again in the dark.

  So, instead, he stopped moving. Cocked his head, listened. His calves tensed, ready to spring. Thought: We’re at the same disadvantage, only I’ve got the gun.

  For a few seconds—they seemed to last an age—he heard nothing more except the wild thrumming of blood in his ears. His elation was gone. In its place was dread laced with an almost preternatural calm. The calculus was simple. If he didn’t catch whoever was here, the police would know where to look first. His plan depended on them looking elsewhere. Plus, he had to get rid of the body, the car. Worse, he had to make sure the police stayed away from the graveyard because . . .

  A flurry of sudden movement and sound, and he thought, fleetingly, of grouse, flushed out of hiding. Now, he can see something . . . no, no, someone, a washed-out ash gray blur smeared against the dark. No, not one. His chest seized. More than one, at least two people, maybe three, scurrying like rats trying to stay ahead of water flooding a sinking ship, only these two were moving in erratic spurts, stopping, bending, fumbling for something on the ground . . .

  Take them.

  Gabriel reared up, gun drawn. Banged out a shot. Heard the boom, felt his wrist jerk with the recoil. Banged another, then another—and heard a scream.

  Yes. He leapt forward, high-stepping, running . . . Got you, I got you . . .

  Suddenly, as his right foot came down, he registered that he’d stepped on something hard. Then he was hurtling forward, sprawling over something metallic that ripped his right leg. He went down, crashing awkwardly to the ground, twisting left to absorb the impact, but he wasn’t fast enough. His gun hand bammed against the ground, and the gun exploded next to his face, and he felt the hot gases dragged by a bullet whizzing past his left ear.

  He lay there a moment, stunned, the gun still clutched in his left hand. His ears were still ringing, and the muzzle flash so intense he was blinking away bright afterimages. Jesus, that was close. He smelled the musty odor of cold dirt and dry grass. Sharp blades stabbed his cheeks. His right foot was still mired in something, but he was afraid to move. What if he’d broken something? His leg, his leg . . . He let go of the gun. Then, cautiously, he inched up a bit at a time, propped himself on his forearms, held himself there a few seconds, then pushed up to an awkward sit. Supporting his weight with his left hand, he felt down his pant leg. Just below the knee, his trousers were damp. A few centimeters further on, the fabric was ripped, and he touched something wet, tacky. He brought his fingers to his nose, smelled wet rust. He was bleeding. How bad? And what the hell was he tangled in? He patted around, felt rough rubber and then the thin metallic spokes of a bicycle wheel.

  Using both hands, he eased his right foot free. His ankle hurt. Probably nothing more serious than a sprain, but the gash was bad. The large metal sprocket had chunked out flesh, but he couldn’t tell ho
w deep. Now that the first shock had passed, he could feel blood sludging down his shin.

  He couldn’t stay here. Had to get moving, get rid of the body. But what about the ones who’d seen him? He listened. Heard nothing.

  But I hit one. I heard him scream. He might be hiding. He might be dead.

  If not for his leg, he’d have searched until he was satisfied that whoever had been there was gone, or he found a body. But his leg . . . He couldn’t afford to screw around.

  There was one bright spot, though. Assuming that the one he hit hadn’t died, that someone would have to go to the hospital.

  And when he does, I’ll know—and then I can take care of him once and for all.

  * * *

  He used his belt as a tourniquet, and then, somehow, he made it down the hill. His leg was screaming by the end, and despite the belt, blood pooled in his shoe. He squelched when he walked.

  Gabriel ignored Limyanovich’s body. Instead, he picked up his walking stick—glad now that he had it to lean on—and limped to a blocky granite mausoleum twenty meters from the stone angel. Patting along stone, his fingers tapped a large metal panel. The panel hadn’t always been there, and legend had it that it had been used as a weapons cache during the Jihad. Gabriel hadn’t found weapons: just dirt and mummified baby mice in a nest of leaves so desiccated they crumbled to dust.

  Now he pried up the panel and withdrew a pryolene packet of powder, a glass vial containing a clear liquid, and then a separate egg-shaped blasting cap and a length of det cord. These he slid into a leather pouch and carefully placed in the right pocket of his overcoat. The hidden compartment was long enough to handle a laser rifle, and he slid in the murder weapon and his 720. He debated a long moment about the walking stick. With his bum leg, he could certainly put the stick to good use, but . . . Reluctantly he pushed in the stick to lie alongside his gun. Better not to be found with the stick. All someone had to do was look at the end to know something was wrong.

  Limyanovich stank of runny feces and sharp urine. If Gabriel hadn’t practiced on animals, he’d have been surprised, maybe a little disgusted. What did surprise him was how stiff Limyanovich was. Rigor mortis, already? That wasn’t right. Rigor mortis didn’t set in until hours after death. But Limyanovich’s arms were stiff as the frozen joints of an AgroMech, his right hand clamped tight around a needler. No matter how much Gabriel pried, the fingers wouldn’t budge. In the end, he had to break them to get at the needler.

  A thorough pat down turned up a wallet, a sat-link and earbud. In the glare of the car’s headlamps, Gabriel flipped open the wallet. A sheaf of bills. Identification. He stuffed the money into his back pocket but left the ID then pushed up and tossed the wallet and earbud onto the front seat, passenger’s side. The sat-link might be useful. Maybe there were numbers there, other contacts.

  But there was nothing else. No crystal on the body, and when he hobbled to the car and searched it, no crystal there either. He pulled up mats, stirred papers in the glove compartment, opened the trunk, felt along the wheel wells and undercarriage.

  Nothing, not here; where’s the crystal, where is it?

  He thought a minute, then two, aware of the seconds ticking away. Finally, leg complaining, he pulled the body around to the back passenger’s door on the right, grateful that Limyanovich had chosen a sedan. He opened the door then hooked his hands in the dead man’s armpits and hauled Limyanovich’s body along, humping it into the backseat like a rug. Gabriel left a nice wide blood smear from his leg on the vinyl backs of the front seats, but that wouldn’t matter when he was done. Limyanovich’s body was too long for the backseat, and Gabriel compromised, angling the dead man’s head down into the right passenger’s side foot well and wedging his feet into the upper left-hand corner of the rear windscreen.

  He drove due west, away from Emerald Lake and Farway. Limyanovich stank. Gabriel drove, window down, cold air slapping his face, his leg throbbing in time with his pulse. The night sky was milky with stars. The headlights punched bright holes in the darkness. The tires hummed, and his was the only car on the road.

  Emerald River ran northwest to southeast, and the route he took brought the river in on his right as it cut through a steep, high gorge a hundred and fifty meters below. He couldn’t see the water, but he could smell it: wet and a bit like iron.

  The landtrain trestle bridging the gorge appeared first as white lights seemingly suspended in midair. As he got closer, he could make out the dark angles of girders and beams. The tracks, marked by warning beacons, ran across the road. Gabriel eased the car to a gravel shoulder. There was no guardrail. Then he killed the engine. Sat for a moment listening to the muted roar of water gushing over rocks far below.

  Limyanovich was stiff as a titanium beam, and there was no graceful way to get the man into the driver’s seat. In the end, he settled for a variation of the same option: angling Limyanovich left to right, head and shoulders sticking out the driver’s side window.

  Then he pulled the leather pouch from his pocket and tweezed out the pryolene bag, glass vials, cap and cord from his pocket. Carefully, he shook the powder into a separate glass container, sealed the vial and container together, attached the blasting cap and det cord, then fixed the homemade explosive to the right passenger’s side in back, immediately in front of where he thought the fuel tank was. Then he gently shut the door, limped around front, reached past Limyanovich and released the emergency brake.

  His leg ached and he couldn’t put a lot of weight on his foot. Gritting his teeth, he heaved, pushing the car along a half meter, a meter—and then as the car picked up speed, he hopped back as the car bounced over the edge. He heard a window break, the squall of metal against rock—and then he thumbed the remote detonator.

  The car went up with a hollow whump! The explosion was much bigger than he expected: a ball of orange-yellow flame pillowed into the night, and the ground shimmied under his feet. There were decrescendo whistles and then a series of pops and pings as shrapnel sprayed like the streamers from a fireworks display. In a few seconds, the car was burning hot and furious.

  Time to go. Limping up the road a few dozen meters, he crossed to the left side, away from the gorge. Stands of Hanson’s woody briars grew thick and wild, and in a few moments, he’d uncovered a turbocycle he’d hidden earlier in the day. A crank of his left hand, and the turbo roared to life. Without thinking, he reached for the headlights then stopped himself. Smiled. Almost screwed up. But he hadn’t.

  He took one last look at the fire. He’d done well. Not finding the crystal was a problem. But there was nothing to tie him to this fire, and certainly no evidence remained to connect him with Limyanovich.

  But he had been seen. Maybe he should go back to the graveyard and search for another body.

  No. Follow the plan. Get home. Report in. Then decide. There’s nothing to tie you to the graveyard, nothing. Even if someone finds a body, they still won’t know it’s you.

  Turning east, Gabriel left the still-roaring fire and sped away in a spray of gravel and briars. In five seconds, the darkness closed around and then he was gone.

  3

  New Bonn, Denebola

  Saturday, 14 April 3136

  0430 hours

  Phil Pearl hadn’t been this happy in five months. A squat, blocky man, Pearl was built like a first-generation Mackie, with a wide, fleshy face pocked with acne scars, a steely bristle-brush mustache, and a shiny bald pate that sweated whenever he was pissed off. That was pretty often. Pearl had been with the Denebola militia, chewing up recruits for breakfast and picking his teeth with their bones at lunch. As a police captain, he still scared the crap out of most people except Jack Ramsey. They were friends, only Ramsey exasperated the hell out of him, so Ramsey figured they were even.

  This time, Pearl was downright euphoric, showing all his teeth, square as pegs, in a broad, satisfied grin. “What the hell you waiting for? This is exactly what the doctor ordered.”

  “Yeah, but fo
r who?” After a long workout and three pickup matches, Ramsey had finally managed sleep at one-thirty, only for the shrill of his link to claw him awake at three. He’d stood in the shower for ten minutes, dragged a razor over his face (wincing at the fresh purple-blue bruise along his left cheekbone), washed his teeth and then stumbled into Pearl’s office downtown. He still felt like crap. His head pounded so hard his brain seemed to leak out of his ears, his eyes were gritty with sleep, and his mouth tasted like a Hel swamprat had crawled in, peed and died.

  He said, “I’m supposed to be on admin leave pending the outcome of the review board. Remember?”

  “Well, the mayor and the chief and the deputy chief are unadministrating you,” Pearl said.

  “I’ll bet it was your idea.”

  “Of course. Bad enough we got to look at you in the papers and holos every morning. What, you got something better to do?”

  “Not really. But what if the Internal Affairs guys want . . . ?”

  “Screw IA. You know we’re behind you. There isn’t one cop in this city doesn’t feel you did the right thing.” When Ramsey gave an irritable shrug, Pearl paused, then asked, “You taken a good look at yourself lately, Jack?”

  “Only when I can’t avoid it. Why?”

  “Because I notice you got a few new trophies there. That thing under your left eye looks like a piece of liver, and you look like crap, like you got hoverjacked. You been drinking?”

  Ramsey shook his head. “Booze makes you stupid then kills you.”

  “Fighting?”

  “A little,” Ramsey lied. The truth was, most days he put in twelve, fourteen punishing hours at the gym: shadow-boxing, beating the crap out of the bag, jumping rope, sparring. Then an hour in the steam room, trying to sweat himself into exhaustion. He’d dropped kilos, a combination of the hard work and no appetite, forcing down food only because he knew he needed to. He was in the best shape he’d been since the military and about ten times more depressed. “Mostly pickup stuff. I didn’t move fast enough, that’s all.”