Zero Sight

by B. Justin Shier

“Forget it, bud. Come on!” Dante urged.

  We rushed into the nearest room and closed the door. I could hear footsteps and voices coming down the hall. They were moving from room to room. We stood quietly in the corner until our own door flew open. A second gunman swept the room.

  My eyes met his, and I mouthed a “holy shit” to Dante.

  Seeing nothing, the gunman yelled, “Claro!” and slammed the door shut.

  “There are three of them left,” whispered Dante. “I got pinned between the gunman you took out and the rest of them. I was waiting for him to start walking down the stairs to give him a nudge when you did it for me. Nice dummy, by the way. I thought you didn’t have enough mana for that kind of spell.”

  “I don’t.” I pulled the spent round out of my pocket and placed it in his palm.

  Dante looked at me warily. “Bud, are you okay in the head?”

  “Um…mostly,” I said, fully aware of the past hour. I gestured to my new toy. “And now I’ve got a machine gun.”

  Dante shook his head.

  “Anyway, what the hell is going on?” I asked. “And where’s Dean Albright?”

  “Far room. It looks like the faculty managed to erect a barrier before they were overrun.”

  “Professor Simons is dead, Dante.”

  “Yea, Greggs and Conroy too.”

  “Wait, the ones that teach The Healing Arts and Advanced Hex Defense? Weren’t they Jules and Sadie’s advisors?”

  Dante nodded. “From the look of it, Greggs was surprised, but Conroy was able to buy the rest enough time to set up a barrier. A frameshift, most likely.” Frameshifting is a method of abstracting space. Once a frameshift is set in motion, anything within the range of the shift leaves the material world. Nothing can act on the shifted space, and vice versa. It’s an excellent method for containing extremely nasty things, but not so helpful as a defense. You have to shift back to normal space eventually, and then you’re at the mercy of whatever’s waiting for you.

  “How long will the shift last?” I asked.

  “No idea, bud. Shifts are extremely unpredictable. What matters is what happens when they do. The bad guys are setting up some sort of bomb.”

  “A welcome home present?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, so we need to move before then, but how do we do that without getting Swiss-cheesed?”

  “We need some backup. Let me—”

  A tapping came from the window. The invisible me swirled around, Kalashnikov at the ready. Dante snatched a flash bomb and made ready to toss it.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ,” I said with relief.

  “Hardly,” said a muffled female voice from outside. “However, I appreciate this new attempt at deference, my most vulgar junior.” Rei was staring at us through the window, holding onto—okay, so I wasn’t exactly sure what Rei was holding on to—the gutter, perhaps. She had ditched her Elliot robe in favor of the cap, tank, and army pants she seemed to prefer. Dangling by one hand she asked, “Can I come in?”

  “Whoa,” I whispered. “Seriously?” The oddest question popped into my head. Outhouses. Did outhouses count as part of the domicile or were they fair game for vampires?

  “No, my most contemptible walking swath of destruction, but I do not wish to bust in the window—bad guys with guns and all.”

  Dante looked at me in surprise. “Hold up,” he whispered. “She has a sense of humor?”

  “Debatable,” I replied, “but she is attempting to update her jargon with a journal on modern humor.”

  I walked out from under the shroud and unlatched the window. Rei landed like a feather and crouched low to the ground. She looked in the general direction of Dante’s shroud and smiled.

  “Good evening, lieutenant.”

  “Lady Bath—I mean, prin—I mean—”

  “Rei is fine, lieutenant. I am your charge.”

  “Right. Thanks. Um, okay then, Rei, um, if you don’t mind, how did you find us? I mean you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Just professional curiosity.”

  “Not at all, lieutenant.” Rei pointed to her nose. “You’re shroud is perfect, but you two still stink. Mind, it’s mostly Dieter who stinks.” She turned to me with a cheerful smile. “My most flammable compatriot, the smell of napalm suits you.”

  Strange, I thought, Rei was much more lighthearted than usual.

  “A-n-y-w-a-y,” I whispered. “We still have a bit of a problem here.”

  “Is Dean Albright in danger?” Rei asked. A flash of fury danced across her features.

  “Not right now. The surviving faculty frameshifted. But there’s a bomb waiting for them when they shift back.”

  “How many of the prey are left, lieutenant?”

  “Prey? Oh…Dieter got one of them, so that leaves three by my count. There aren’t any mages among them. Imperiti only.”

  “Then the task is simple enough. Lieutenant, can you provide me a shroud?”

  “Whoa,” I objected. “Simple enough? They’ve got some serious firepower, Rei. Are you nuts?”

  Rei smiled genially. “I do appreciate your concern, Dieter, however you suffer from some misperceptions.”

  I was about to object when an ice-cold aura pressed against my throat. In the same instant, Dante’s shroud melted like butter. He stood frozen, his face a mixture of confusion and terror. I could understand why. The mask of humanity had slid from Rei’s face. Her features had lost their color, and only a cold, dispassionate stillness was left behind. I had to look away. Her expression burned my eyes. It was like staring into a blast freezer. All the while, the space around me was compressing. I recognized the sensation. Rei was hitting me with her glamour—and she was hitting me hard.

  “Your error is understandable,” she explained in an emotionless hiss. “But, Dieter, you have vastly misgauged me. I am a Pure. What you witnessed in New York was merely a shade, a Nostophoros on her seventh day without food, awake well past her bedtime.”

  I gasped for air, but my diaphragm contracted against my will. What the hell was going on? Rei wasn’t just denying me my speech. She wasn’t just denying me air. She was cutting of my capacity to form cogent thoughts. This wasn’t even in the same ballpark as the last time. This was major league power, I realized with a shock. Frustrated by my miscalculation, I struggled against the intense urge to remain silent.

  Rei’s nose flared in response. She took one step forward, and my knees buckled, dropping me to the floor.

  “I apologize, Dieter, but under no circumstances will you cast magic with me nearby. Is your memory that short?” She looked down upon me with disapproval, and then turned her attention to Dante. “Now lieutenant, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Dante wasn’t under Rei’s compulsion, but he was so scared he was shaking. Fighting through the terror, he began prepping another shroud. My own body had locked into an uncontrollable spasm. It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t move a muscle, as I couldn’t stop them from moving. Every last strand burned in protest as they contracted far beyond their normal limits. This was beyond glamour. This was beyond anything I had read about. Rei wasn’t trying to pervert my will. She had circumvented it entirely.

  What the hell was had she done to me?

  Furious, I lifted my head off the floor. She was going to try and handle the crisis on her own. She was going to put herself between the danger and me again. My mind flashed back to that first heavy blow. That wet smack. How she had slid across the ground, her cheekbone crushed, her face a mess of red. I trembled in frustration. This was unacceptable. I would not be told like this. My father told. ‘She’s never coming back, Dieter.’ ‘You’ll never get into college, Dieter.’ ‘She never loved you, Dieter.’ ‘An invitation to a summer insti-what? A bunch of eggheads and not a dime in sight, forget it, Dieter’ No. Not again. Not again. What if Rei died? A flash of rage pulsed from my gut. Deep inside me, something tore. Things were breaking, maybe important things, but I didn’t give a flying fuck. I wouldn’t be
told. I wouldn’t stand aside. Not again. Not ever again. I forced the air out of my seizing lungs.

  “Rreeehh,” I growled.

  She turned to look at me. For a second, something flickered behind that icy mask. An ounce of Rei, the Rei I cared about, looked back at me. But it was gone in an instant. I Saw the blow before it came. I strained, demanding my muscles to release, but it was too late. Her elbow was already finished with my temple. My head exploded in a burst of stars. My useless body bounced onto then off of the bed. The blow shook my will, and in that moment of weakness, the spasms grappling my body strengthened ten-fold. I could do nothing but lie on my side and seize.

  “Continue, lieutenant,” Rei urged. “That ruckus will have alerted them.” I stared at her from the floor, my jaw clamped shut like a vice, but Rei wouldn’t match my gaze. My heart sank. It was totally humiliating. Dante finished the cast, and Rei’s form dissolved into nothingness. The door opened and closed and away she went. I looked down at the floor, the steady thud of railroad tracks beating in my ears…

  Indeed. Magic can strengthen bodies, harden resolve, and keen senses; however, such work is not easy. Humans are complex beings, Dieter. They have many moving parts. Toying with them can have…unanticipated consequences.

  Down the hallway a barrage of gunfire erupted. The firing sounded wild. Dante dove on top of me as bullets tore through the wall. He whispered a fortification as the bullets flew by. Then came a strange sound—a thwap—as though someone had struck a melon with a bat. A man’s scream followed, then the snap of a twig, a tearing sound, and fluids splattering on the hardwood.

  “One!” Rei announced from outside our door.

  Another set of heavy footsteps came from the other end of the hall and halted near our door. “Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos,” the man mumbled as he stepped backwards. “Santificado sea tu nombre, venga tu reino, sea hecha tu voluntad, como en el cielo así también en la tierra. El pan nuestro de cada Día, dánoslo hoy. Perdónanos nuestras deud—” The man’s feet vanished with a crunch. I listened in silence to the sound of air wheezing in and out through a broken straw.

  Rei finished the prayer. “Así como nosotros perdonamos a nuestros deudores, y no nos dejes caer en la tentación, mas líbranos del mal…” Another twig snapped. “Amén,” she cooed. There was another tearing sound, and it was suddenly raining in the hallway.

  “Dos!” she announced as the corpse thudded to the ground.

  “My God,” Dante whispered. “So it’s true. The born ones are on a different level than the Turned.” I ignored Dante. I could hear her breathing. It came fast and thready. It was almost like when I was watching…

  A magus can circumvent these challenges by binding themselves to another. This harmonizes the flows. In the European tradition, the other was traditionally a knight. The binding forms a conduit between them in which mana can flow safely.

  A metallic device bounced down the corridor. Rei picked it up. “An M-67?” she asked casually. “That won’t work at all. You’ll need at least an MON-200.” Her voice went cold. “Did daddy pack one of those with your lunch, little boy?”

  “A grenade?” Dante stammered. In a matter of instants, he stood, tore the mattress from the bed, fortified it, threw it against the door, and jumped back on top of me covering us both with his robe. I could only lay there, bound by the spasms, as the door to our room blew off its hinges. Debris cut my face and clouded my vision. My ears rang from the blast. My body dumped adrenalin like it was going out of style. The surge of energy broke the binding. My fatigued muscles sagged from exhaustion.

  “I’ll give you a minute to figure something out,” Rei called out to the gunman. Through the smoke and dust, Rei skipped into our room. She was covered head-to-toe in blood and plaster. Her clothing was torn. Her face was flushed. Hard nipples pressed out against her saturated tank top. “Pardon me, gentlemen,” she said, climbing over us and out the window. Her feet vanished as she flipped herself up onto the roof. I listened to the light pitter-patter of footfalls as she dashed across shingles.

  The last man standing screamed and fired blindly into the air…

  Our weft-link is of a temporary nature. It is incomplete, and as I have already told you twice, it will wear off with time and distance. The inconvenience will be over soon. You have nothing to worry about.

  Rei laughed as the bullets tore through the roof.

  I swallowed. It was there if I had wanted to see it. It was the same as in the office when she was interrogating the tall man. The glee, the giddiness…Rei didn’t care. It was fun. It was playtime. And when she was around—and only when she was around—I felt the same thrill. No wonder I had barely seen her since opening day. She had been avoiding me. The night we arrived, when she told me about her living arrangements, I’d gotten so mad that rage had overwhelmed my reason. She must have realized it then. I slammed my fist into the ground. I was such an idiot. That night, it wasn’t Rei’s pride that had been wounded. No, Rei had realized that I was at risk and acted decisively to stem the damage. My eyes welled up. Rei had extracted herself from my life like she was a tumor.

  Dante rolled off me. His forehead had been gashed in the blast. He lay on his back, dazed. Amidst the chaos, I crawled over to put pressure on the wound. A crashing noise tore through the roof, and the pitter-patter of her footsteps intensified. Rei was in the attic now. The gunman responded by screaming even louder. He switched clips and launched another volley. One clip. Two clips. Three clips. Four. He was still screaming when his gun clicked empty. The poor guy was out of ammo…but that wasn’t the point.

  Against my will, my heart rate was speeding up. The room was too bright; my eyes had dilated. I tried to focus on Dante’s wound, but we heard the rifle drop to the ground and shivered. We heard him drop to his knees. We felt the beat of his fists against the floorboards. Again and again he beat at the splintering wood. He knew we were coming. He knew it was over. He cried out a horrid lament. He surrendered his will to our own. That was the point. We trembled in excitement. Such a vibrant display of despair.

  “My God, Dieter,” Dante said as he stared up at the ceiling. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

  There was a moment of silence before the screams began.

  “I don’t know, Dante,” I said, my body shivering from the thrill. “They’re hitting students and they’re hitting faculty. You don’t do that to make a point. You do that to cripple an organization long-term. I don’t know the games you guys are playing, but it smells like a war to me.”

  “Bud, pray you are wrong. They didn’t call them the Dark Ages for nothing.”

  A dull thud reached our ears. Rei let out a hiccup.

  “Well, at least she’s on our side,” I said.

  Dante turned to me, confused.

  “Sure, she is, but Rei’s the only one.”

  I helped Dante sit up.

  “What do you mean, the only one?”

  “Her kind, man. The prin—sorry—Rei is the only one of her kind to ever join up with the Department. The rest of the drainers are rogue, bud. We’re just edibles to them. I should know. I come from a border state.”

  “Oh,” I said swallowing. Not good. “Seriously, I need to enroll in History of Magic and Bestiary next semester. I can’t tell ass from mouth, Dante. This is getting ridiculous.”

  “Hey man, ignorance is bliss. Don’t even get me started on dragons.”

  “Dragons? They’re real too?”

  “You poor grub,” Dante said, smirking. “Naw, dragons aren’t real.” Dante didn’t smirk much. Heck, Dante didn’t joke much. Maybe his change in humor had to do with the huge gash on his forehead.

  Rei frolicked down the hallway and into our room. Her hair was tangled, and her clothes were in tatters. A huge blood smear covered most of her face. She looked like she had survived some sort of bloody baking disaster, and her fingers were playing over a bundle of brown candle sticks connected to a bunch of wires. “Heya, lieutenant. Watc
ha want me ta do with this?” she asked, tossing the explosive charge from one hand to the other.

  Dante just sat there with a neutral expression on his face.

  “You know what, lieutenant? ‘Do’ is a funny word. Dooo. Daaaaa. Deeeee. Dooooo. Daaaa…”

  Rei sniffed the air and went rigid. Her dilated pupils latched onto Dante forehead.

  “Ohhh!!! Lieutenant! You’re bleeding! Do you mind? I mean it’s cool if not, but I could totally go for a little Southern right now. It has to have been like five years. Sister tricked me, and he was soooo hot, and oh-my-God, he must have tasted like ice cream, or chocolate, or what else do beater chicks like? Caramel? No, that’s not right. I have observed that they do not enjoy caramel as much as chocolate but—”

  “Um, yea,” Dante blurted, “I would be totally cool with that except I ate like a bucket load of garlic for lunch so it’s probably not the greatest idea.”

  Rei crinkled her nose. “Gross, lieutenant.”

  “Hey, Rei?” I said, watching the bundle of explosives exchange hands once again.

  “Garlic is gross,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Hey!” I screamed, waving my hands in front of her. “Focus, Count Chocula, focus!”

  Rei suppressed a hiccup.

  “Ohhh! Because I am a vampire it is funny. Good one, Dieter!”

  She jumped into the air and applauded.

  It occurred to me that to applaud—my Sight imploded in an avalanche of color. I dove toward the bundle of death. Dante dove out the second-story window. (At least one of us had some sense.) Rolling onto my back, I slid to a stop under Rei’s legs and caught the bomb with my gut. Thankfully, my washboard abs were still a work in progress. The bomb continued to tick-tock pleasantly.

  “Oh! Dieter! Naughty,” Rei said looking down at me. “No peeking unless I say so—then you can peek. Okay, I say so! Wait, now I say not so!”

  “Women,” I grumbled.

  Rei covered her mouth and started giggling. She seemed capable of amusing herself, so I made busy examining the bomb. Their number thirty appeared on the display—now twenty-nine—now twenty-eight.