The Anti-Preternatural Specialist put his shoulder to it, but despite a great deal of creaking and groaning the opening held fast. “It seems to have been barricaded.” Hirasawa looked to Grey. “The strength of two?”
“Strength of two be damned.” Sergei growled before the Team Leader could respond. “Get out of the way.” He leveled his assault rifle at the door.
“Baka.” The Japanese specialist muttered, but stepped out from in front of it before the Russian emptied an entire clip into the door, sending splinters flying in all directions.
“Now we push.” With a snarl he launched himself forward leaving Grey and Hirasawa with no choice but to join in the effort. The door gave way under the force of the three men, sending several chairs and a table that had been piled up behind it crashing down in a clatter of wood that echoed throughout the room.
Grey was the first inside, pushing furniture out of the way to stand. He saw suddenly that there was a light shining behind the door and brought his weapon up without thinking. “Good lord almighty.” He breathed, taking in the light source and the room around it. “Lieutenant, get in here!”
“Sir? I-” Hirasawa came in behind him then stopped abruptly at the sight.
The room was sparse but comfortable, a separate mess for officers to eat apart from the ordinary crew. Bookcases lined most of the walls, their shelves packed with seventy year old books and magazines. In the center was a single round table at which sat the room’s only occupant- a dried and shriveled corpse in the uniform of an American Marine. On the table itself were a number of guns piled next to boxes of notably depleted ammunition and scratched into the table were the unmistakable letters "JS". The marine had apparently managed to balance a rifle between his legs and his jaws remained clamped over the end of the barrel. Suicide could hardly be doubted.
But the strangest part of the whole scene were the ships.
Lit by the eerie violet glow of St. Elmo’s fire that clung to their masts and rigging, a half-a-dozen miniature ships in bottles “sailed” upon flickering curtains of Aurora Borealis that flowed through the air. They seemed to move aimlessly with no direction or purpose in a swirling pattern that danced above the corpse.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” The Team Leader demanded. “What is it?” From behind he could hear as the rest of the team pushed their way past the remnants of the barricade.
“I suppose…” The Anti-Preternatural specialist studied the ships quizzically. “There is so much about the Preternatural that we just don’t know, and after what the ship’s been through this could be something completely new. It might not even be hostile- such things can exist.” It went utterly against PCRA doctrine to suggest that there might be harmless or friendly preternatural entities, which was why they had an Anti-Preternatural Specialist and not just a Preternatural Specialist. But Grey didn’t bother call him on the slip.
“Are we in danger?” He asked.
“Sir?” The Greenlander called out, but he had all his attention on the ships.
“I don’t know.” Hesitantly Hirasawa stepped forward and carefully snagged one of the ships in bottles with a single gloved hand. There was an involuntary sharp intake of breath from everyone watching, but the man seemed unharmed. He studied his catch for a few moments and then glanced with apparent surprise to the mummified corpse at the table, and from there back to the ship in a bottle. Finally he released it and watched as the object bobbed back up into the streams of light, apparently unharmed and unfazed by the experience.
“Sir?” Arra again, more urgently this time.
“I believe,” the Anti-Preternatural Specialist said slowly, “that this is a ghost. These ships- they have crews.” His voice was full of wonderment. “And each tiny sailor has the same face, the face of this man here.” He nodded to the corpse. “I’ll bet that there’s a second door to this room and it probably also has a Seal of Solomon on it, more than enough to keep the keep the man’s spirit trapped. If it truly didn’t want to stay then… then I still don’t know. No one’s ever tried to study the behavior of a soul confined by Thaumaturgy for any long period of time, especially in an uncontained environment that was familiar to it in life. If I had to guess I’d say that he built all these ships and after death somehow animated them…” Hirasawa shook his head. “All ghosts are mindless and insane.” It was a line right out of an official Agency report. “But I can’t truly say in this case.”
“Sir!” The commando practically shouted and Grey snapped back, annoyed at the interruption. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s this, sir.” He saw what she was pointing at and all though of ships in bottles vanished from his mind. Transfixed as he’d been by the tiny vessels he’d failed to notice a single large porthole on the other side of the room, something that had clearly not escaped Arra’s attention. The porthole itself was totally ordinary, a thick double-paned affair set in steel, but the scene outside of it was anything but. Instead of the humid landscape of Leyte Facility it showed a frigid sea of choppy waves under a grey, unhappy sky. In the distance a floating mountain of ice drifted against the horizon.
“You can even see the ship’s wake.” She didn’t quite touch the glass, but held her hands as if she wanted to. “And it isn't there right now, but I could swear I saw another warship out on the water a minute ago.”
Meanwhile Sergei Ivanovich had backed all the way up to the far wall and was pressing himself against it, trying to get as far away from the deep water as possible. His personal phobia, the Team Leader recalled.
“There’s no way that’s real.” Adolphus looked through the porthole and shook his head. “Time travel is impossible, and believe me there’ve been more than a few attempts. The laws of Thaumaturgy, not to mention the laws of physics, can't accept it.”
“Just an illusion.” Grey agreed. “Another aspect of the reality bending properties of the Rainbow Device. I’ll bet that if we checked we’d find this is a scene from some point in the Colorado’s past- we’re safe and dry at Leyte right now in the real world.” The Russian appeared unconvinced, he was sweating heavily inside his Hazardous Environment suit and his face looked flushed.
“Still I don’t want to find out what would happen if we blew a hole here.” Arra took a step back from the window. “For all we know there’d be a burst of energy that could fry us all.”
A thought occurred to the Team Leader. “Can anyone raise the base on radio?” There was a chorus of negatives from the team.
“I haven’t been able to since the door to the bridge closed.” Grey said grimly. “If we’re cut off for forty-eight hours then they’ll open a new tear in reality- and if whatever it is that is trying to get in couldn’t make it through the hole the first time then it sure as hell won’t be stopped a second time. We don’t just have to find the Rainbow device, we have to find a way out of here or none of it matters.”
There was silence as everyone digested both the possibility that they might not be able to find a way out as well as the possibility that thousands if not millions of lives would hinge on their being able to do so.
“Let’s find another door and get going.” The American said at last. “I’ll take point this time.”
They moved out.
Chapter 11
Chapter 11
As was quickly becoming his custom Heinrich held back as the rest of the team entered the next door, following last along with Adolphus. It wasn’t that he couldn’t fight, like everyone else the medic had combat training, but it wasn’t his specialty and as the only member of the team with medical training more advanced than first aid he had a value beyond that of what he could do with a gun. At the moment he was less worried about any dangers that they might encounter next than he was of the condition of the Bolshevik. It was difficult to distinguish between the early effects of some preternatural infections and the symptoms
of ordinary excitement and adrenaline, but he was afraid that the man would decide to ignore potentially dangerous symptoms out of pride. If he was in the process of being possessed or converted by something…
As the Nazi closed the door behind them he noticed a bright shape darting inside through the crack in the door. “Gentlemen, it appears that we’re being followed.” The small ship in a bottle that had evidently trailed them from the officers’ mess made no effort to avoid the muzzle of his pistol, bobbing unconcernedly on a small fragment of an aurora. “It could be a threat.”
“Dammit, these things are never friendly. Let’s get out of this hallway first then shoot it down.” The American commander played his flashlight over the walls and floor and Heinrich got a good look at their surroundings for the first time.
They were in the center of a corridor lined with doors, a short distance ahead was a barricade constructed out of furniture and odds and ends that was defended only by the dead. Signs of violence were everywhere, the floor was fairly black with dried blood and the walls were grafittied with runes and mad ramblings in the same substance. A ghost zipped through the air, keening distantly. A number of the skeletons clearly on the defensive side of the barricade had been bodily torn apart and several still wore the golden braid of bridge officers. Intertwined with them in death were the deformed bones of their former comrades, many with extra limbs and skeletal structures that looked as if they had been m elted and twisted like wax.
“There are beds in these rooms,” the commando reported. “it could be the officers’ quarters.”
“Probably not where they’d put the Rainbow device. What we want is the Engine Room or somewhere like that.” Grey nudged one of the skeletons at the bottom of the barricade with his foot. “I think this one is the captain, seems like he was holed up here while trying to reach the device and was then overrun.”
A flash of inspiration struck the medic and he momentarily forgot about the trailing ship in a bottle. “The Colorado’s decks are designated by letter, I believe this is correct?”
“Yes.” Good old Adolphus, you could always count on him to remember details everyone else had forgotten. “It’s an American custom, in the Reich and the Soviet Union they prefer numbers. The Imperial Japanese Navy on the other hand-”
“And the decks are also divided in half on the basis of being closer to the bow or the stern?” The team moved slowly down the corridor, the American in the lead starting to climb over the barricade with Hirasawa just behind him.
“That’s how it’s done.” The Swedish Finn confirmed. “Do have an idea, or is this just curiosity?”
“An idea.” Heinrich picked his way through the bodies and detritus that was scattered about haphazardly. “JS- what if that’s a reference to Deck J, stern section? I confess no expertise about Second World War naval vessels, but it seems to me that that would make a good location for the engine room. And as Herr Grey just suggested the engine room is a likely location for the Rainbow device.”
“Which would mean that the transmission we heard was a warning about the device itself, possibly broadcast decades ago by a half-insane crewman, the meaning either non-existent or impossible to discern.” Adolphus rubbed his chin as if stroking a non-existent beard underneath his suit. “But the musical notes, how to address them? And-” He broke off staring. “What is that?” The Technician pointed a finger and he turned, remembering suddenly that he had neglected to press the issue of the ship in a bottle.
“It seems to have followed us from the officers’ mess.” The medic said. “Herr Grey wants to wait until we decide to destroy it, I’m not sure why.”
“It is certainly a fascinating subject for study.” Adolphus fished around in his pack. “I have a containment box in here somewhere, if we could catch it then we’d have a sample to bring back of what might be a new ghost manifestation or even an entirely new preternatural creature…”
“Best wait until we’re out of here before you contain it.” Muffled curses came from up ahead as part of the barricade gave way and the Team Leader dropped several feet, banging his knee. It didn’t look from a distance like he’d torn his suit, but it was worth offering assistance at least, and Heinrich picked up his pace to get closer to the other man. “If it follows us out then it could pose a serious problem, we don’t want to take chances.”
Meanwhile Grey appeared to have finally staggered clear of the barricade- what was wrong with the man? He should be allowing the more heavily armed Japanese officer to go first, there was no requirement that he had to lead from the front. Hirasawa was beginning to follow and the Medic waited at the foot of the barricade, hoping to get a hand up.
“We have-” he began, but then the Team Leader shouted in pain and surprise, and everything went to hell.
Chapter 12
Chapter 12
Just on the other side of the barricade was a mound of randomly piled bones, all badly malformed and twisted around each other in a mess of yellow, white, and black corruption. Grey edged around to give it as wide a berth as possible when he noticed the black ichor oozing from within the pile. He worried incomprehending for a moment and then barely had time to shout as the bones surged forward like a single entity to attack- shredding through his Hazardous Environment Suit and ripping into his skin.
He fired his pistol, again and again, taking some small comfort in the recoil and the way the bullets shattered the bones into chips that flew away. But then the gun was empty and he couldn’t seem to find another clip, and oh christ it hurt, it hurt so badly, he was screaming, screaming at the top of his lungs…
Something, a cloud of amorphous light with shifting features was extruding from the mound into the Team Leader’s own blood that ran from where the bones pierced him in a dozen different places. He tried to run, but his legs wouldn’t move, he tried to fight but the daemon just pushed in, and then it was in his mind, and all he could do was scream, until suddenly he couldn’t scream anymore, he couldn’t feel or speak. He was alone with nothing but darkness, and terror.
And pain.
Chapter 13
Chapter 13
Hirasawa watched the American go down and immediately opened fire, not holding back from catching the other man with the stream of charged plasma. There was no helping Grey anymore, even if his possession could be treated his injuries were likely too severe for him to survive without the kind of medical help that they didn’t have available. And besides he needed to think for the team first, he was second in command after all. Bones and ichor blackened and cracked underhis fire, then shattered in the face of more conventional bullets from the rest of the team who immediately poured firepower into the possessed mound of human remains. The Anti-Preternatural Specialist found an incendiary grenade and tossed it over the barricade, jumping down on the near side before it went off.
There was a wave of heat and flame and shrapnel from the barricade pierced his suit, scoring his side with blood, but that could be dealt with later. The bones, the physical objects that had been possessed and warped by the presence of daemons inside of them were destroyed more or less, but the creatures themselves would be unharmed by the blast. Hirasawa switched to his Thaumaturgic Energy Disruptor, plasma was of little use against creatures of pure energy, and bullets were of no use at all. If he could get them before they attacked the team…
Five…six…seven brilliant shapes rose through the smoke. These were not summons, they had no defined appearance, but that made them more deadly not less. He fired the TED gun, snapping off barely aimed shots as he retreated. There were too many, they would have to retreat and hope that the daemons couldn’t follow.
“Withdraw!” He shouted then tripped over something and before he knew it he was on his back and a daemon was passing through the tears in his suit. Chiak Hirasawa had just enough time to shout one last banzai before his mind and body were no longer his own.
C
hapter 14
Abyssus Abyssum Invocat Page 5
