Black_Tide

by Patrick Freivald

  * * *

  The skies darkened as they approached Atlanta. The radio crackled bursts of static amidst country music and commercials, the first indication of unseen lightning. Their black government SUV came complete with a dark-suited government chauffer, so that they could gather operational data en route.

  Matt sat in the very back, leaning over the seat to look at the computer on Sakura's lap. Jason Rees sat on her left, his black suit with a white priests' collar more in line with government dress code than Matt and Sakura's jeans and T-shirts.

  Caren Widner had sped all the way to Atlanta, and the bug Sakura had placed under her dashboard picked up her side of a conversation.

  * * *

  "Fuck, Jimmy, I thought you'd never pick up. Some 'roided-out asshole came poking around, looking for Mark, Jeff, and Shawn. Yeah. Yup. No, he didn't get shit. Tell the cappellani I'm on my way, yeah. Well if he shows then we kill the motherfucker. Three more? Good. Maybe we can get another through the breach, add a panel to the new cloak. 'Kay. See you then."

  * * *

  "Do I even want to know?" Jason asked.

  Matt exchanged looks with Sakura. She'd made it clear that she didn't welcome his presence and didn't appreciate Matt's gut feeling overriding her logical arguments.

  "Cappellani," Sakura said. "What does this mean?"

  Matt shrugged, so Jason answered.

  "Cloak bearers. It's Latin, the root of 'chapel' and 'chaplain.'" He turned to Matt and banged his fist on his knee. "Looks like your St. Martin hunch might not have been far off."

  Sakura switched tabs to a real-time video, visible spectrum overlaid with infrared, depicting a downtown scene in fading twilight under black, raining skies.

  Matt squinted at the screen, though it didn't make the drone's feed any clearer. "Are they touring the Coke Museum?"

  "Close," a disembodied female voice said in his ear. "Widner parked by Centennial Olympic Park, and headed on foot to Georgia State University. Go Panthers. Over."

  "Got it." Matt's two visits to Atlanta, both as a tourist, left far too much to be desired in the geography department. "Move tactical support into position, but keep them on standby. We have no idea how many perps we've got, or how well armed they are."

  "Roger."

  "Do we have eyes on?" Sakura asked.

  "Yes, ma'am. She's entered an academic building and joined a good dozen people on the third floor. Can't tell what they're doing, but it's one big heat blob, so they're well-condensed. There's some janitorial staff on the first floor, a campus security kiosk out front. Over."

  "Weapons?"

  "Not that we've seen, ma'am. Campus security isn't exactly the airport, though. This is downtown Atlanta. I wouldn't bet on anyone being unarmed. Over."

  "Thank you."

  "So what's the plan?" Jason asked.

  Matt looked at Sakura, then at the driver through the rear-view mirror. "Sakura and I go in stealthy, with snipers on rooftops and a couple squads behind us. You stay in the car and try not to get killed."

  "Then why am I—"

  Sakura put her finger square between his eyes and pressed. "You're here because Matt thought you might have something to add, which so far is a word we could look up online. You have no combat training, no tactics, no skills. So you stay in the car, in radio contact, and if you think like some action movie hero to sneak out and do something heroic, Mr. Paulson will knock you unconscious and put you in the trunk."

  The chauffer gave a curt nod without shifting his eyes from the road. Sakura removed her finger.

  "Sounds right," Matt said. "We'll give you a tactical helmet so you don't feel left—so you can talk to Sakura and I if something important comes up."

  He let Jason's "Dude, seriously?" look roll off of him.

  * * *

  Matt put on his helmet and took in the heads-up display as water sheeted off the hydrophobic visor. He disabled the Friend-or-Foe and Biometrics data; Atlanta SWAT weren't implanted, and the campus teemed with civilians, at least indoors. He pulled up the drone feed from an hour past, shaky and blurred in the driving winds and pouring rain.

  A dozen people milled around the roof in disorganized clumps, two painting a giant pentagram onto the gravel, bright green in the night vision. Huge candles a foot in diameter, unlit, squatted at each corner. A wooden chest the size of a couch sat off to the side between air-conditioning units and a small water reservoir. The drone lurched, buffeted by the rising winds, and veered off toward safety.

  He kept his voice neutral, letting the microphone do the work.

  "Sakura and I access the roof up the south fire escape, no breach, nice and quiet. Daniels brings Alpha squad in behind us, Leftkowitz—"

  "Lefty, sir."

  "—Lefty brings Bravo in through the front door and sweeps upward to our position. Atlanta PD's got perimeter, plainclothes and uniforms, plus tactical support on the rooftops. Intel reports that all hostiles are on the roof, no weapons in evidence. All goes well, we hit them fast and take them in before anyone has a chance to resist. Any questions?"

  A woman in Bravo Squad raised her left hand. Matt appreciated how she kept her right hand ready, near but not on the REC-7 assault rifle that hung from her shoulder.

  "Go ahead," Matt said.

  "Branzen, sir. This seems like a shitload of hardware for a dozen unarmed civilians."

  "Acknowledged," Matt said as Sakura's sigh carried through the ear bud. "Last time I toyed with these guys they killed two CIA agents, just tore them apart with their bare hands. Best case scenario, none of you are necessary, and I get reprimanded for imprudent use of government resources. Worst case, we didn't bring enough ordnance, and you coordinate the retreat. Other questions?"

  The wind raged.

  * * *

  Knuckles white, Matt gripped the fire escape railing and tried not to pitch to the ground three stories below. The wind lifted him again, then slammed him down, the clatter almost inaudible over the oceanic roar. He gritted his teeth and shouldered the AA-12 assault shotgun, useless under these conditions except at point-blank range.

  He steadied himself, then took one last step, just enough to put his eyes over the roof's edge.

  Candles flickered at each corner of the pentagram, their flames tall and true in complete defiance of the swirling rain, illuminating the rooftop in a lackluster, yellow-orange glow. Three young girls knelt in the center, their white dresses soaked gray, clinging to their shivering, huddled bodies. Nylon rope bound their hands and feet. Fifteen people stood at regular intervals around them, lips moving in unison to a chant Matt couldn't hear. Their drenched street clothes, casual and American, stood in stark contrast to their actions.

  "What in God's name is that?" Jason asked in his ear.

  A man raised his hands. Caren Widner followed suit, along with the woman next to her. The move cascaded around the circle, an ominous, slow-motion wave. As it reached crescendo, the candle flames stretched upward and bent, intertwining over the girls’ heads, whirling higher, a twisted spear thrusting into the clouds above.

  "Oh, shit," Matt said. He hated the word "magic," and hated even more any instance where it fit the bill.

  The clouds spun faster and stretched down from the heavens as the fire collapsed inward on the girls. They shrieked, their voices one with the wind, a primal howl drowned and drowning in piteous agony.

  Matt bolted forward as the girls caught fire. The wind threw him sideways, feet skittering through the gravel in a desperate bid for purchase. A man screamed in his ear bud, a terrified wail cut short. Matt's shotgun strap slipped from his shoulder, the weapon carried away by the unrelenting force.

  He dropped to his hands and knees and scrambled as much sideways as forward. Rocks pinged off his helmet, thrown by the swirling vortex. His foot caught on a pipe protruding from the roof, and he launched himself into stillness.

  Rain fell, flames crackled, yet inside the wall of swirling wind the Latin chanting overpowered a gentle breeze.
He got his bearings and turned.

  A tornado raged across the rooftop, scattering gravel and SWAT with indiscriminate ferocity. Daniels flew from the building, thrown like a ragdoll to tumble out of sight. Sakura huddled, arms wrapped around the fire escape railing, and her grunts of exertion carried though the headset amidst the panicked screams of Alpha squad.

  The chanting stopped. He turned.

  The girls hovered ten feet from the ground, unburnt limbs slack, hair limned with fire and lighting, eyes jet black, the ropes that bound their limbs reduced to smoking cinders in the gravel beneath them. The cultists faced the girls, blood streaming from wide eyes, noses, and from between their lips. Stringy runnels of mucus-thick, red fluid lifted from them to snake up under the dresses, and spread like red cancer through the white cloth. Matt stepped forward. The girls turned as one.

  And screamed. Their mouths opened wide, wider than possible. Thick red tongues writhed between countless rows of needle-like teeth. The sound crackled through his mind, strangled and suffocated his thoughts. Darkness found him, smothered life and light and joy and love.

  Jason babbled in his ear, a golden thread of sanity weaving through shrieking madness. Matt's numb lips murmured the Latin words, his dead tongue spoke them, again and again, stronger with each repetition. The world flashed white and faded into reality.

  He screamed, a primal human sound in defiance of the noise that sought to pulp his mind.

  The girls—banshees—tore at him, black claws and needle teeth shredding his flesh right through his body armor. He grabbed one by the hair and wrested her mouth from his left shoulder. She came away with a wet tearing sound, chewing raw red meat through her demonic grin, lacerating her tongue with every shift of her jaw.

  He slammed her head down onto the girl at his thigh, tried to ignore the ropy pain slithering through his quadriceps. He clutched at her to pull her away with his left arm, but the muscles wouldn't respond. Hot red blood gushed from his wounds, and his heart thudded in his ear at a steady sixty beats per second.

  He whipped the first girl around by her hair, slamming her once, twice, three times into the gravel before spinning, using his momentum to throw her into the maelstrom. She disappeared in the debris-filled wind. He punched the banshee chewing on his thigh, cracking bone. He punched again and her skull caved, and still she chewed, a savage rending of skin and muscle. The third time, his fist exploded through her skull. He closed his fingers around a ropy, sinuous something and yanked.

  Her tongue tore out as her body fell away, and the sinuous mass in his thigh slithered deeper toward bone. The whispers chattered their nameless hate, old, unwelcome companions giving him a glimpse of a future drenched in sorrow and despair.

  He dove as teeth closed where his neck had been, and kicked. The third banshee spun out of reach, slashing his boot with her black claws. He grunted. The thick leather fell away in tatters, several toes with it.

  He stumbled back as the worming pain in his leg turned to fire. His opponent leapt forward and a black blur intercepted it, a whirling mass of body armor and steel. Sakura diced the creature to pieces faster than Matt could see, her combat knives carving air and flesh with equal ease. She whirled to find the next one, and at her feet the pieces of her first opponent coalesced.

  Jason yelled in his ear. "Matt, he's in the box! Open the chest!"

  He limped toward the large box as weapons chatter erupted around him. Bravo Squad had reached the roof access door and spread out, indiscriminate in their fire between cultists and banshees. Cultists twitched and fell, bodies shattered by the onslaught.

  Matt stumbled forward, and the third banshee shrieked, a hideous wail of despondent nihilism. Bravo Squad turned their weapons on each other and crumbled to the rooftop in sprays of bright red. Matt repeated the chant that Jason screamed in his ear, that golden thread insulating him from the worst of the inhuman scream.

  Sakura continued her slaughter, hacking away at her dismembered opponent, but she'd started to slow, and it hadn't. Larger pieces formed, misshapen, almost-human chunks of pale child's flesh twitching and straining to take her life.

  The last banshee fell from the sky in front of Matt, arms outstretched, hovering a foot from the ground. Its shriek wouldn't end, couldn't end, a never-ending canticle to the death of the soul, pulsing in time with every pump of his heart, every dribble of blood that fell from his wounds. The mass in his leg pulsed along with it. Matt lurched forward as Jason's golden thread frayed, his voice a panicked rasp in Matt's ear.

  Matt stumbled toward the box, and the creature leapt onto him. Claws pierced his back, razor-hot knives that stabbed through his armor into his abdomen. Still he stumbled, hot red blood streaming down his legs, his thigh a squirming agony beneath the skin. Two steps, three, more, until he dropped to his knees in front of the large wooden box. With a last breath of strength he pushed on the lid, and it fell open.

  A puff of wind hit him, and the banshee tore off his back with a sudden gasp. In the deafening silence, he looked down.

  A mummy cowered within, shriveled and pathetic, wrapped in chains stitched with eldritch runes. It shivered, with only shreds of faded crimson wool embroidered with goose feathers to cover its nakedness. The banshee circled them, staring daggers at Matt and the mummy but without approaching. She moaned as the thing in the box spoke without a tongue.

  Requiem da, Jesu Domine.

  "What?" Blood dribbled from Matt's mouth. His shoulder itched, his back itched, but not enough. He leaned against the box as the world hazed out and back in.

  "He's asking the Lord Jesus for rest," Jason said.

  Vestementi. Pallium. Amiculum.

  "Clothe him. A cloak! Give him your jacket!"

  Matt groaned as he sloughed out of his shredded jacket, the slick nylon windbreaker drenched in blood. Two banshees screamed, but their piteous wails held none of their previous power. Sakura stumbled back, exhausted, pulling her knives out of the third creature, now whole. It rose from the ground to join its sisters in circling the box like starving, terrified predators wary of their prey.

  Matt tried to lift the jacket and couldn't. His strength had abandoned him.

  The banshees circled closer.

  Sakura appeared beside him, drenched in rain and sweat, her helmet missing, a bloody gash across her cheek. She took the bloody, tattered jacket from him and laid it over the mummy.

  The keening wail vanished with the wind, and the skeletal body crumbled, chains and all.

  Matt closed his eyes.

  Chapter 6

  Monica gave the eggs one last whip and upended the bowl into the pan. She hollered into the living room so Matt could hear her over the morning news. "You want bacon or sausage, baby?"

  Some talking head droned on about the upcoming election, upset at everyone for not violating the laws of nature and economics.

  "Baby?" She stepped back and cast a glance over her shoulder.

  Matt lay on the loveseat, legs draped over the side. Ted lay on his chest, head resting on Matt's thigh, both of them fast asleep. Monica frowned. It wasn't like him to sleep in, and since augmentation he never took naps anymore.

  "Baby!"

  Matt's eyes popped open and he recoiled from Ted's rear end. The dog slid off Matt, wedging between her husband's body and the back of the loveseat.

  "Hey, baby. Yeah, just resting my eyes."

  "Really?" She stepped back to the stove and stirred the eggs, just starting to cook under medium-low heat.

  "Yeah," he said from the other room. "Oof. Just a little sore. I'll be good in a minute."

  "Don't pull that macho crap on me. You don't get hurt, not for long, and you're never, ever sore, so if something's wrong you need to go to the doctor."

  His arms folded around her, enveloping her in his warmth and scent, gun oil and cheap coconut shampoo and a hint of yesterday's Old Spice. "I'll be all right."

  She leaned her head back against his chest. "You'd better be. You die on me, Momma wil
l kill you."

  They ate breakfast and chatted about house repairs and Christmas plans. Matt ate six eggs and four buttered biscuits, so his appetite hadn't changed, and despite his complaints he moved with the same fluid grace she'd come to expect.

  She opened her mouth and he cut her off.

  "Yeah, no problem."

  She froze and waited.

  He looked up from his plate. "What?"

  "I didn't ask yet."

  He looked from her to the plate and back to her. "Huh. Yeah, that's been happening more often lately."

  She leaned in to look in his eyes. "Is that okay? Is it safe?"

  "Yeah, of course." He answered too fast. "Just another Aug resurging, like the others. Janet knows. I'm in good hands."

  "What about 'No safe levels?' Gerstner?"

  He frowned. "I'm in this either way, but right now it looks like Gerstner's influence is totally gone. I shouldn't—You don't have anything to worry about."

  She smiled and put her hand over his. "You know I'm going to."

  He squeezed. "I know, babe. But you shouldn't have to."

  She kissed his nose. "It's my job."

  * * *

  Matt flipped stations on his way to the store, the scan transitioning every few seconds between country music, rock and roll, and drumbeat hysteria about the looming blizzard. A familiar voice took him back to a cramped shop in St. Augustine, before they knew the truth about Jade, ICAP, and fallen angels. The discordant blend of Florida-Georgia hick and high-falutin' diction belonged to the proprietor of the tiny store Rastogi had taken them to, tall and gaunt with rotting teeth and something dark slithering behind his eyes, hostile to Augs and stingy with information. He'd found an audience on NPR.

  "—aren't the cuddly cherubs of Valentine's Day cards. When God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, he sent his angels to do so. When the plague took the firstborn of Egypt, he sent his angel to do the reaping. They're not living creatures the way we think of them; they're embodied shards of divine will."