A Mystery of Light

by Brian Fuller

  Finny rubbed his face. “Were there Ghostpackers everywhere, or was that part of the torching?”

  “They’re everywhere. Either of you seen Faramir or Andromeda?” Helo asked.

  “Passed Faramir. Unconscious on the green,” Sparks said. “I’ll go back for him.”

  “Melody,” Helo said, “go with him. I’ve got to find Andromeda and Shujaa.”

  For once, Melody didn’t complain about being separated from him, and she and Sparks darted back toward the concert, which was breaking up. How would that many Ghostpackers react to Ash Angels? Suddenly he didn’t feel so good about sending Melody back into the mob. He glanced in the direction she’d just gone, but she and Sparks had already disappeared into the rows of cars.

  He texted Andromeda asking where she was, and she called him back.

  “No, I haven’t found him,” she said. “I don’t think he’s anywhere in the crowd. I’m searching behind the amphitheater. You have to jump a couple of fences, but there are buildings back here, and the bus Avadan rode in on. If they grabbed him, they might be holding him back here somewhere.”

  “Okay. You don’t find him in two minutes, get back here as fast as you can.”

  “Got it,” Andromeda said.

  “Hey, boss,” Finny said. “There’s a heart in the back seat.”

  Helo yanked open the passenger side door, and sure enough, a heart lay on the middle seat on the last row. While he couldn’t recognize Shujaa’s heart on sight, an idea popped into his head. He went around the car and popped open the back. The entire container of C4 was gone, along with a sanctified sword they’d brought. Helo felt numb. Shujaa had gone after Avadan by himself.

  Helo slammed the back shut and went to Finny. “Tell the others to get back here and stay put. Get the engine running and ready. Call command and let them know what happened. I’ve got to find Shujaa.”

  “What’s up?” Finny asked.

  “I think he’s gone after Avadan.”

  Concertgoers—a mass of Ghostpackers the likes of which no one had ever seen—poured into the parking lot. There was no point in stealth now. Helo kicked on Speed, Strength jumped fences, and got behind the theater. A phone call later, he found Andromeda lying on the shingles behind the peak of a roof, peering down into a large parking area dominated by a long bus. A couple other cars, SUVs, and sedans were parked there as well, a few Possessed security guards lazily patrolling the grounds.

  “He’s got to be down there somewhere,” Helo said. He relayed to Andromeda what he had found in the SUV. She nodded gravely.

  He and Andromeda watched the parking lot for five minutes. Helo saw no sign of Shujaa, and Shujaa was easy to spot. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe Avadan or his goons had captured him and left his heart in the car as some kind of message.

  Andromeda elbowed him. “Looks like Billy and his groupies are coming out.”

  And there he was, strutting out of the door as big as life with two Possessed women on either arm. The Sheid band and a party of about twenty Possessed, mostly women, piled onto the bus. A pack of others walked out the same door and milled around, taking pictures and chatting like they’d been blessed by some heavenly being who had changed their lives forever. Helo shook his head. What would Billy Wickett do now?

  Screaming, of women mostly, rose from the bus.

  Then it exploded.

  Chapter 40

  Inside

  Helo winced as the shockwave took his straw cowboy hat for a ride. Shujaa had done it. He’d exploded the bus with Avadan on it, but he’d killed at least twenty possessed normals in the process. The onlookers were down, some squirming in agony, others probably dead. Arms and legs and bus seats littered the asphalt, one arm in particular sporting a glowing rune, the same rune all the Loremasters had. Had the explosion worked?

  Avadan stumbled out of the wreckage of the bus, wreathed in flame, evil spirit still attached. He was naked, and he looked like Avadan—a grimacing, exhausted Avadan missing an arm. The rune on his attached arm glowed like mad, Vexus from the desecration sucking back into him. Helo tensed. Was this his chance? Should he grab him?

  But then the four Shedim re-formed. Avadan swayed unsteadily for a moment, then firmed up. His visage changed to Billy Wickett again, and he grabbed the arm and reattached it. Then he perfected his morph, creating singed, shredded clothes, bleeding wounds on his chest and legs, and a sooty, disheveled look. His Sheid band joined him nearby, morphing their appearance to add blood and burns. With a dramatic flop, Avadan fell to the pavement seconds before people poured through the doorway.

  “Let’s go,” Helo said.

  He and Andromeda slipped down the roof and jumped to the ground. Helo’s belly bounced, and he immediately started to shrink it. He didn’t need it throwing him off balance, but if he shrank it too far, his pants would fall down. They hopped two fences and arrived at the parking lot, the mass of cars at a standstill. Without a lot of care for bumpers or hoods, they threaded their way through to the Tahoe, which hadn’t even left the stall. Finny and Sparks sat in front, Melody and Faramir in back. He and Andromeda jumped in the middle.

  “Let’s get out of here, Finny,” Helo said.

  “Shujaa?” Sparks said. “Was that the—”

  “Explosion?” Helo said. “Yeah. He went after Avadan solo. Killed a bunch of Possessed. Not good. He might be a Dread after this.”

  “Did it work?” Faramir asked, sounding a little shell shocked.

  “No,” Helo said. “But it hurt Avadan, that’s for sure. I think fire still weakens him. Sparks, you’re on to something.” Helo explained what he’d seen with the amputated arm and glowing runes. “I think if we could get both of Avadan’s arms off, he wouldn’t be able to use Vexus to fuel himself anymore. It might give us a shot.”

  “That won’t be easy,” Sparks said. “If we could just trap the ruddy bastard. He’s going to keep surrounding himself with normals, daring us to do what Shujaa did.”

  “The Possessed do anything when you were grabbing Faramir?” Helo asked.

  “We got looks,” Sparks said. “That’s about it. They’re all acting pretty normal. I don’t suppose Avadan wanted a parking-lot brawl with Ash Angels to ruin his perfect little coming-out party.”

  “Not so perfect anymore,” Finny said, wedging the front corner of the Tahoe between two sedans that didn’t seem willing to give up a spot.

  “No,” Melody said. “It’s even more perfect. Imagine all the free press, the tragic story. ‘Billy Wickett survives bus bombing.’ Anyone who doesn’t know his name will now. Shujaa did him a favor, trust me.”

  Helo spent the next thirty minutes on the phone with command, relaying the dire news, but once they sped onto I-70, it got worse.

  Faramir straightened in his seat. “You guys seeing this?”

  Helo nodded. It wasn’t just the concertgoers who’d somehow been unwillingly turned into Possessed. It was the entire city. Cars full of Ghostpackers streamed by in both directions. They stood in gas-station parking lots. Glared out of hotel windows. Ambled down sidewalks. Creepy eyes with pinpoints as red as the stop lights. The entire city!

  “How many people are in Saint Louis?” Sparks asked.

  Faramir leaned back and took off his knit hat. “The AAO estimated about four hundred thousand were inside the desecration zone Avadan created. Surely . . . surely it can’t be everyone.”

  Helo felt like someone had unplugged a drain in his heart. How could half so many be Exorcised? It would take years to undo! Evil spirits wanted to live the lives of humans, and some could even act fairly normal. But how long until their depraved natures turned Saint Louis into a city of horrors? Then a worse thought struck him. What if Avadan had done the same thing in Detroit and Kansas City?

  He called Archus Magdelene. The phone rang twice before a Jeep Wrangler whomped into the side of their Tahoe. Finny yanked the steering wheel one way, then the other, to keep the car on the road, but the Wrangler nailed them again and they s
ailed off the shoulder, launching through a wall of trees. Branches snapped, the Tahoe tilting and landing hard on the right wheel with a metallic thunk. Leaves and dirt and a section of chain-link fence flashed in the headlights before they slammed into the back of a weather-beaten detached garage. The wall gave way, and they crunched to a stop after hitting a truck as beat up as its enclosure. A dog inside the house barked, the sound muffled.

  “Everyone okay?” Helo asked.

  “That was some serious Dukes of Hazzard,” Faramir said.

  “Dukes of what?” Finny asked, voice irritated.

  “Never mind,” Faramir said.

  “Let’s get the gear and get out,” Helo said. “Melody and I will take turns Hallowing until we can get another car. Don’t forget Shujaa’s heart.”

  “Got it,” Faramir said.

  Helo got out first and Hallowed the ground so the rest of the team could work without fighting the desecration’s torch. Sparks opened the hatch and passed out the few weapons they had, including four sanctified knives and one sanctified tactical tomahawk—someone being creative.

  The back porch light clicked on, and an African American Possessed in a white tank top and light-blue sleeping shorts stepped out with a shotgun and fired. Helo took the buckshot in the leg and hip, his jeans tearing along with his flesh. The gun cocked again, but Sparks pulsed Glorious Presence, and the Possessed shrank away. Andromeda Sped over and grabbed the gun, breaking it in half. The Possessed retreated inside.

  “Helo,” Melody said, tugging his arm and pointing back through the trees. They had caromed off an embankment. About five cars were parked along the side of the road near where they had cleared a path through the underbrush and the fence. Seven Ghostpackers charged down the embankment toward them. And it wasn’t a “We’re here to see if you are okay” kind of charge. It reminded Helo of zombie movies, the fast-moving horde coming to eat their brains or suck their blood.

  “We gotta run!” Helo said. They had to hide, steal a car, and get out of Saint Louis. It would be really hard not to kill any Possessed if they started throwing themselves at them like maniacs.

  Helo led them out to the street at the front of the house. It was an older neighborhood with small lots, the houses packed together under huge trees. Helo turned left, heading south. The crazed Possessed trailed behind them. Others—probably those who had heard the accident—rushed out of their houses, some in pajamas and bare feet, and came after them. Helo and his team hadn’t gone two hundred feet before a mob of about twenty had joined in the chase.

  But the Possessed weren’t Dreads. And they weren’t cross-country runners, either. Some barely made it a hundred feet before dropping out. Very few lasted a quarter mile. By the time they had run a full mile, the streets were empty behind them. But Helo knew he couldn’t keep up the hallow forever. They quickly located a red Dodge Durango in someone’s driveway, and Finny hot-wired it.

  Finny backed out into the street. “Where to, boss?”

  “Faramir,” Helo said. “What’s the closest edge of the desecration? If we get out of the desecration, I think there won’t be as many Possessed.”

  Faramir pulled out his phone. “Due west,” he said. “It’s only about seven miles or so, but we’ll have to get on State Highway 364 to do it. It’s got, like, five lanes of traffic, though.”

  “Can you do it, Finny?” Helo asked. He didn’t want another trip that featured flying off the highway.

  “I got it,” Finny answered. “Now that I know the Possessed will go all crash-up derby on us, I can be prepared. Might be good if we can hideout till it’s late, like two in the morning. See if most of these Ghostpackers will go to bed.”

  “Any ideas, Faramir?” Helo asked.

  Faramir swiped and tapped on his phone. Looks like there’s a Creve Coeur picnic area. We could go hide in the trees for a while, hope there aren’t any Ghostpackers making out or something.”

  “Let’s try it.”

  Helo spun a twig in his fingers, his back against a tree trunk. Melody leaned her head on his shoulder, humming softly to herself. The rest of Sicarius Nox loitered in the darkness. Finny and Sparks were playing their ridiculous “Would You Rather” game, currently debating whether it would be better to live the rest of your life eating pizza or hamburgers. Faramir listened in and messed around on his phone. Andromeda wandered around through the trees. As a Blank, she was harder to spot in the total darkness.

  Here, hunkered down in the woods, was the first time Helo really understood how low Avadan had knocked the Ash Angels. The evil Loremaster was on a roll. The AAO hadn’t even slowed him down. Now he had an army of Possessed at his command and a horror-movie imagination.

  The good news: Helo had received an update from the Foundry. Detroit and Kansas City had not suffered the same mass creation of Ghostpackers they had witnessed in Saint Louis. The bad news: the reports of the bombing of Billy Wickett’s bus. Eighteen normals killed, at least four in critical condition. And as bad as that was, Melody had nailed it on the head with her predictions. Billy Wickett had to be drowning in all the free press coverage. Rave reviews for his concert flooded in, along with massive support for the victims of the bombing. Helo knew he’d have to avoid television for a few days. If he caught any coverage of Billy or the bombing, he would send his fist through the screen.

  He glanced at his phone: 2:30 a.m. They’d agreed to leave at three for the drive back to the Foundry. Mars, who always seemed so in control, had sounded frustrated and even a little lost on the phone. Helo couldn’t blame him. They just couldn’t get any traction, and Avadan kept pulling out more surprises when they hadn’t figured out how to counter the ones they already knew about.

  “Let’s meditate,” Melody said. “Just for a while.”

  “Sounds good.” Helo set an alarm on his phone and grabbed Melody’s hand. The meditative sequence was second nature to them now. They could go from spinning orbs to standing naked together inside the strange room of fiery light almost instantaneously. The blinding white flames writhed all around them, like they were walking on the surface of some holy sun. While the view was unvaried, the peace and joy of being together in this strange place couldn’t be beat.

  “This is so different from the White Room,” Melody said.

  Helo stopped. He hadn’t thought much about the difference. She was right. The White Room was just that: white. It was bright. It was divine in its own way. But it was utterly featureless. Wherever they were now had a bit more character to it, an immortal burning that radiated power, a sort of heat, but not the kind that burned. It coalesced all around them, and they moved through it, passing from one fiery veil to another.

  Then it hit him. “This is another mystery.” They thought they had solved them all and that this was their reward, but that wasn’t right. Their meditative journey hadn’t ended.

  Melody locked eyes with his. Their natural green color seemed so alive in this place. “You’re right!”

  “And I figured it out first, so . . .”

  “Oh, right,” she said. “Like that makes your totally slow performance on the last couple of mysteries okay.”

  With the other mysteries, it had felt wrong to share them. But now there was no barrier. “The light here has power and shape,” he said. Then the floodgates opened. Micah. Parity plus one. “Remember Micah’s book? It bugged him that Shedim could shape the darkness of their creation to form weapons. Ash Angels have never been able to do that.”

  “True,” Melody said. “Shedim are created from darkness. Ash Angels aren’t creations of light, at least not completely, just like Dreads aren’t completely creations of the dark. There’s enough flesh to us that it won’t work. Perhaps it’s the purity of the darkness that makes it possible.”

  Helo looked around. Looked at Melody’s flawless body. Studied his own hand for a moment. “True, but what are we in this place? Not flesh. We have the form, but here . . .” He thought for a moment, reached out to the light and fire arou
nd him, and envisioned a rose. It appeared in his hand exactly as he envisioned it, open and the deepest red.

  He smiled and held it out to Melody, her eyes wide with wonder. “What do you think?”

  She took it and spun it around. “It’s perfect.” She tapped her lips with its petals for a second, and a dazzling golden dress appeared over her body.

  “Tada!” she said. “Now my outfit is on point.”

  “I liked the no-outfit thing better,” he said. He concentrated again. At the speed of thought, he could create any weapon he wanted to in his hand, just like the Shedim did. He could change his outfit and even his appearance.

  Melody watched, amused. “You’re thinking too small.”

  She closed her eyes, and the entire scene changed. There was the cirque lake at the base of the mountain. There were the boulders along the shore. Towering pine trees enveloped a bright canvas tent, a lantern within setting it aglow. The Milky Way spanned the dark sky, a vibrant river of jewels twinkling down at them.

  “Nice,” Helo said.

  Melody put her hands on her hips, a self-satisfied grin on her face. “Turns out we don’t have to go somewhere for the perfect honeymoon. We can be anywhere. Be anyone. Do anything. This. Is. Amazing.”

  It was the coolest thing Helo could imagine. With a thought, he added fish to the lake, birds singing in the trees, a slight breeze. This was something Shedim could never do. And it cost nothing to do it. The power here wasn’t limited by the frames of their bodies. It was a never-ending fount of possibility.

  “One more mystery,” he said. “Can we use this outside of the meditation somehow?”

  Melody stared up at the branch of the Milky Way that she had created, face thoughtful. “You ever thought about that evil spirit clinging to Avadan’s back?”

  He’d thought about it. It was, perhaps, the weirdest part of Avadan’s transformation. Even stranger, Avadan was still Avadan, not controlled by the evil spirit like a Possessed should be. He had a suspicion about what or who it was. “You’re wondering if it’s King. I’ve thought the same thing.”