A.I.R. Shattered Soul

by Amanda Booloodian

  Logan, settling in to talk, looked a little lighter and livelier. I mentioned meditation and slipped away. When I entered the room set aside for such endeavors, I was surprised to see that Vincent was already there. He was quiet in his own meditative state, so I joined him.

  Feelings of agitation and depression welled up once more as I sat down, but I prodded them away. I found my center and emptied my thoughts. Once I concentrated on my energy, I started to pull it in, creating a bright ball in my mind. It was one of the many exercises I did to keep me aware of my own influence on the Path. I once again sent out a small rope-like tendril of energy to get a feel for the atmosphere surrounding me. Like home, the surrounding the area held a buzz, like static. I probed it a little, only to get pins and needles sensation.

  Something else was in the air, something that called to me without words. Tentatively, I moved a tendril of energy toward the whisper in the Path. When my energy met the echoing piece in the Path, it was a near mirror image of itself, but hooked elsewhere. The tendrils wrapped warmly around each other before pulling apart. I opened my eyes and stared at Vincent. I felt lighter.

  Vincent’s eyes were wide. “What was that?”

  “I think…” I stopped and tried to wrap my brain around the sensation. “I think I was able to sense the piece of me that you have inside.”

  “It felt…” Vincent shook his head and stood.

  “What?”

  “It felt familiar.” Vincent shifted and didn’t look me in the eye. “Like a part of me was anchored somewhere else.”

  I stood up. “I wonder if that means that I have a piece of your soul—”

  “No.”

  I jumped at the harshness in his voice.

  Vincent took a deep breath and his voice came out much softer. “Sorry, Cass. What I mean is that I wouldn’t— No, I think we’d know by now if you had some of my essence.”

  I wasn’t convinced, but I could tell he didn’t want to continue the discussion, so I let it drop for now. Vincent took my hand and gave me a small smile. At his touch, I relaxed.

  There was a lightening in the air, as if the pressure had changed in the room. We frowned and returned to the central office, letting go of each other on the way. Everything was quiet.

  “What the—?” the technician said. The large central screen in the room started to light up. Vincent and I hurried over. A soft, but persistent alarm began going off. The other staff in the room looked up at the screens and started to make their way over to us.

  The tech hit a few buttons and the large central screen winked out. It was soon replaced with a large satellite view of the surrounding area. Thick red lines started to overlap each other. Something in the air popped. The lightness was replaced by a feeling that the Path was being flattened. Pressure built up around us. I grabbed my head and staggered as the air popped again, pressure building faster.

  Red lines began crisscrossing the computer screen. Over and over again, the lines appeared, and then they started to get closer together.

  Vincent steadied me with concern filling his features. Apparently, I was the only one affected by the force being applied to the Path.

  “What's going on?” Logan asked. He had his eyes on me, and I waved his attention back to the screen. The angry red lines were coming closer and closer together until there were seven distinct areas marked on the map. Vincent took a few steps away and sank into a chair, keeping an eye on me.

  The technician drew a deep breath. “Portals,” he said softly. “Portals. I've never seen anything like this.” His voice grew louder as he frantically started hitting keys on his keyboard. The smaller screens began displaying closer satellite views of areas around us. “Seven portals opening across the sector.” A few more clicks of the keyboard and the alarm stopped.

  Everyone in the room started groping in their pockets as cell phones rang. I sat down hard in a chair and fumbled my phone out of my jacket pocket. I pressed the screen and a text message popped up.

  The screen read “911” in red letters. It was the office’s automatic response system. I was sitting in the middle of the emergency so I ignored the text. Agents ran to their desks and started pounding on their keyboards. Phones started ringing as staff called in. All of the daytime agents seemed to be calling at once.

  The technician never flinched away from the screens and continued to click the keys on his keyboard.

  “You knew,” he accused, without looking away. “What is this, Logan? Cassie?”

  “It was Margaret,” Logan said softly. “Margaret said to go to work, so we came.”

  “Sharp lady,” Hank said admiringly as he strode into the room. “So, what are we in for? Why didn't you call anyone? That woman should be on the payroll.” Hank sat down next to the tech and started pushing buttons. He looked in my direction and stopped his tapping on the keys. He glanced at Logan, then starting clicking away again.

  Maybe I wasn't the only one affected, I thought, looking at Vincent's face. His face was deathly white. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands were clenched tightly together and he shook. He was looking in our direction, but his eyes weren't focused.

  The pressure suddenly lifted. Everything felt light, almost too light. It was like a spring that had been pressed tightly together, and then stretched too far apart. It left me light headed. The screens were showing red-orange glows in seven locations. All were away from populated areas except one, which appeared in the nearest town. The portal had opened on a street in the middle of town.

  “These are not natural portals,” Hank said, as screens started to scroll through data that seemed meaningless to me. “These are portals, ripped open.”

  “Are they dropping off or picking up?” asked Logan in a hurry.

  “No way to tell,” Hank replied. “Portals usually go both ways.”

  “They're dropping off,” I said, as the spring of energy returned to its normal state. I had no idea how I knew it, but I knew it was true.

  “Dropping off downtown?” an agent asked from behind us.

  “Barry's on line four,” someone called out.

  Hank pressed line four on the nearby phone putting Barry on speaker. He wasted no time filling the boss in on the details.

  Barry's orders were concise. “Send in the local cops to quarantine a four block radius downtown. Use code 593. Send whoever is closest downtown. Send another team north and another team east to the portals that had opened in those directions. We'll start there. Constant radio communication. Let's see what we are dealing with.”

  Barry paused as Hank gave the local police Code 593 quarantine activation instructions. Hank pointed to Logan and mouthed “downtown,” then started talking to the police over the phone. We were out the door before the conversation ended.

  Chapter 21

  Having a full scale anomaly was a rare occasion, but our training had prepared us for many contingencies. Fairies and butterflies were fighting in my stomach as we neared downtown. We drove up to a cop car that blocked the entry to Broadway. An officer used a flashlight to direct the light amount of traffic away from the area. I flashed my badge in his direction and he waved us through. Logan angled past the police cruiser and headed downtown.

  After putting in my coms earpiece and turning on the receiver, I heard other teams fanning out across five counties. Another team was headed in our direction, but there was no time to wait for them. Everyone was being pulled in. Part-time agents like Morgan were being pulled into the field, and new agents like Rider, were being pulled into the office to assist. Even Barry was leading a team.

  Logan parked the truck and we all switched our coms over to a private channel. We didn't have time to think of other teams. We had a job to do.

  “Cassie, you move straight down this side of the street. Vincent, stick with her. Assume there are civilians in the area.”

  We nodded and split apart. When we came to an intersection, we looked around the corners, Logan looking down my side
of the street, Vincent and I checking his side. We watched for a while, and then moved on when nothing was spotted. On the other side of the street, we watched again in case we missed anything in our blind spots. Once again, it was still, so we crept forward. For two blocks, we continued like this. Then we heard scuffling and a squelching sound.

  Up ahead sat a split-level building, with part of the building being below street level. We motioned to Logan, who quietly moved across the street to join us. He was stealthier than I would ever be as he skidded across the street. He ended up ahead of us, on the other side of the opening to a lower level of the building.

  The noise left me unsettled. Almost like a rustling, but more fluid like a mixture of dead leaves and gentle running water. This area was lit by the store displays. It wasn't until we moved forward to check the blind spots under the stairs that we located the source of the noise.

  Logan flashed a light at the hidden creature. My stomach instantly clenched and I fought to avoid retching. Under the stairs stood a pale gray creature, with no hair and large pointed ears. It was humanoid. When it turned toward me, I saw that the mouth extended beyond the face. The mouth was full of sharp teeth. The eyes were almost luminescent red. Blood and strips of meat clung to the creature. Some things my mind refused to make sense of. The strips of cloth and the stain of red on the ground were background noise compared the terrible being that lay below us.

  We surprised the creature, but it was quickly on guard. Logan was radioing back to Hank what we were seeing.

  “Vampire,” Logan said quietly, “proceed with extreme caution.”

  I fixed my gaze on the beast below. I had never seen a vampire, but I had read enough office material to know they are not creatures soulfully lost, living forever amongst us mortals. In reality, they were horrible, savage beasts that rarely entered our world. Some are intelligent, and others are so blood crazed that, if they were smart once, it was long lost in their lust for blood. This creature was no different. It was a predator with a one-track mind.

  The creature made eye contact with me and let out a screeching cry. Pulling my gun out, I saw that Logan and Vincent already had guns in their hands. Vincent was the first to pull the trigger. The vampire staggered back as the force of the bullet bit into his flesh. Then the vampire jumped. From a full floor below, it sprang up, landing close to Vincent and me. Logan called out, but didn’t fire. Vincent landed another round, but the creature braced for it this time. It let out a shrill scream, and then lunged forward, reaching its long white arms out to try to snag me away. Vincent shoved me out of the way and I landed hard on the ground. My gun went flying.

  Too fast. It happened too fast. Logan ran, the creature moved forward again. It moved within reaching distance of Vincent. It braced itself to receive another round while stretching its abnormally long clawed fingers. He was ready to attack Vincent. Ready to attack my partner that had already saved me from its grasp once.

  I called on the Path to put in motion the same thing I performed yesterday on the bomb. Calling to that thought, I gripped the air around the creature and made a solid wall between it and Vincent. The creature's deadly strike bounced against the wall. Unfortunately, so did Vincent's bullet, which ricocheted away into a glass window. Concentrating as hard as I could, I ignored the breaking glass and moved the wall to wrap it around the beast, turning it into a cage. By the time the cage was around the vampire, I started to tremble. It took too much energy. It was far too draining to hold anything this way.

  Logan and Vincent tried to maneuver around the creature.

  “Whatever you're doing, you'd better think fast,” I whispered, not sure if they were aware that I was holding the vampire.

  With one hand out, I gripped the cage as the creature bashed around inside. It slammed itself repeatedly against the barrier. The energy it exerted only fed the cage, which was good, because my grip was already starting to fail. Barely noticing, I fell to my knees. This wasn't like yesterday. The Path fought my control over the vampire.

  “Hold it a little longer,” Logan yelled.

  There was no way for me to answer, tied as I was to the creature in front of me. There was only the vampire, the noise of the outside world, and me.

  Logan yelled, “Now, Cassie.” It startled me so completely that I gasped. The cage gripped tight around the vampire before disappearing completely. Looking weakly up at the creature, I knew we were screwed. It staggered a bit from the pressure of the cage, but not for long. Vincent slammed into the vampire, and both were gone.

  Chapter 22

  Pain seared through my chest. In a flash, the agony was gone.

  “Vincent?” No answer. I pressed my hand against the remembered pain. “Vincent!” I yelled, trying to struggle to my feet. It was no use. I was too weak to walk.

  “Cassie, Cassie, sit still!” I didn't listen. I couldn't stand so I crawled over to where Vincent disappeared.

  “Vincent!” I cried out again. I turned and sat back on the ground facing Logan. “What happened? Where is he? Where is…it?” I asked.

  “You did good, Cassie, but we weren't prepared for this.” Logan looked at the spot where Vincent had disappeared and lowered his voice. “Vincent took care of it. He took the thing between the worlds.”

  “What?” I cried. “Is he coming back? Is he with that thing alone?”

  “I'm sorry, Cassie, I didn't get the details.” Logan flinched when I glared at him. “From what I understand about the area between the worlds, Vincent will be fine. He knows how to navigate the place. That vampire won’t last long there.” I mulled this over thinking Logan wouldn't lie to me. Keep things from me, yes, but I didn't think he was lying.

  After scooting over to the rail surrounding the stairs, I leaned back into it.

  “I need to do a sweep of the area,” Logan said. “Make sure that was the only thing that came over. Wait here.”

  “Like hell,” I said, already using the railing to pull myself up.

  “Cassie--”

  “Stay in sight, Logan. I'll watch you from out front.” Logan fetched my gun and did a quick survey of the downstairs area. There wasn’t much left of the man below. Logan hit the street.

  I dragged myself outside and leaned against the building. Logan searched the street and stores, staying in sight the whole time.

  Vincent was gone. He left this world with a monster. A monster we couldn't contain here with three of us. How was Vincent going to face that alone? I scrubbed my face, trying to push back tears before they fell. We could have killed it. Working together, we could have taken it down. Couldn't we? If the vampire wouldn't last long in the between world, how was Vincent going to survive there with a vampire full of blood lust?

  I listened through my earpiece as the first reports came in from another team. Gremlins. East of town gets stinking gremlins while we were stuck in the middle of town with a bloodsucker. Gremlins would wreak havoc, especially close to the interstate, but they could bring them in.

  Reluctantly, I left the spot where Vincent disappeared. I managed to walk back to the truck under my own steam, but I constantly scanned the area. Vincent was gone, giving no hint on when, or if, he would come back. Maybe he would be back right away? He'd only been around for a short time, but I had come to expect him to be there. I wanted him there. I wanted to sense him at home, down the hall from me. I wanted to feel his warm hand wrap itself around my own.

  “We're a man down.” Logan said. “We need to head back to the office.”

  Hank had already radioed ahead, so the police cruiser moved aside as we drove out. Logan waved and we were on our way. We passed another AIR truck as we headed toward the highway. The cleanup crew didn't waste any time.

  I sat in numb silence. At the office, Logan jumped out of the truck as soon as he parked. Had he hesitated, it would have made it harder for me to go in.

  “We're going to need to fill out reports right away,” Logan said. “Make sure you get all the details you remember down o
n paper.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said.

  Logan lowered his voice. “Except for your part in holding the creature. Make it sound as though the creature paused, confused as to who to go after.”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to talk any further.

  We made our way to the main control room where there was chaos everywhere with Kyrian was in charge. Barry, having been a field agent in the past, worked with a makeshift team thrown together at the last minute to check out a portal. They even called Morgan in to be muscle for the group. Their team had met a new centaur.

  Hank looked up and nodded somberly to us the moment we walked in, but he went straight back to work. We received a few other glances, but with so many teams in the field, everyone's hands were full.

  I told myself that it was better this way and that it was easier on me, not to face the stares, but Vincent was gone, and no one was mourning his passing.

  Logan handed me some paperwork. I sat and stared at it while listening to the other teams making contact.

  The gremlins were captured and on their way back to the office. Logan paused and started talking into his headset, giving language to use with the centaur. Since when did my partner become the linguist?

  He relayed a few instructions and a few phrases. Markus, from the office, came over the line and started supplying other phrases.

  “Where did Markus learn to speak centaur?” I asked with only a wisp of interest.

  “Markus dated a mermaid for a while when he worked in the south.” My confusion must have been evident because Logan continued. “Mermish is an offshoot of the centaur language. Or vice-versa, depending on who you're talking to. They live in the same world.”

  “I didn't know that,” I confessed.

  “I spent a few years there with the centaurs. They're interesting.”

  I nodded and stared at the paperwork once more. Logan made his way over to Hank. When I couldn't stand staring at the paper anymore, I got up and walked out.