The Thin Black Line Between Infernal and Divine

by Andrew Seiple

  He sighed. “Give it a while before we go that route.” And falling into a fighting stance again, he turned his back to Kingsley. But as they readied for one last go, he heard something. A voice, high and soft, echoing through the fog.

  “Feelings...”

  The song crooned on, and he couldn't help but pause, to listen to its soft melody.

  The absurdity of it struck him. just as he felt his muscles relax. The adrenaline started to leave him, and he sagged onto a tombstone. Well, that's not good, he had time to think as he studied the approaching mob of undead. Guess they'll tear us apart. But he just couldn't get worked up about it.

  As he watched, the undead slowed, and started to droop. One by one, they collapsed on the ground as the voice wound through the graveyard, crooning the gentle strains of Morris Albert's classic hit. He nodded his head in time, and Kingsley took a seat beside him, leaning into his shoulder. She was sweaty, and as he went to put an arm around her, she poked him with an elbow hard enough to knock him off the stone.

  “Asshole,” he rumbled, with no real heat behind it. And he blinked as the sun shone down upon his sunglasses again, the fog vanishing like the bad dream it was. The graveyard reconfigured itself, as the dream passed. Once again he was back in reality, feeling like he'd been through a marathon.

  Above him, the raw and bloodstained form of Grim descended, with the slender form of Whippoorwill in his arms. He deposited her on the grass, and she kept singing for all she was worth, the amplifier in her mask carrying her voice throughout the area. “So,” muttered Grim, as he approached. “Good news and bad. Good news is your boy was alive last I left him. Bad news was he probably didn't get away unscathed.”

  Kingsley drummed her fingers on the tombstone. “Bad news for you if he's not alive. Bureau cuts you guys slack because you follow the unwritten rules. But if he's dead it's on you, bony.”

  Grim shrugged. “No choice in the situation for any of us, and he went with the plan of his own free will. For what it's worth, I hope he survived. Gimme a sec, I'll go up and look for him.”

  “No need.” Moynahan called out, limping out from behind a crypt. His jacket was slick with blood, his scalp was bleeding profusely, and he was walking with a limp. “Sorry I'm late, I just had to find my way out of a creepy old house. But I think I need a doctor.”

  “I'll get him back to the car,” Coleman offered.

  Moynahan shook his head. “No. Look, I found someone. I think it's this Deadweight guy. The dreamer. Come on.”

  Grim went and braced Moynahan's shoulder, helped take the weight off of his bad leg as he led them back through a shady grove of trees, and into a clearing dominated by an above-ground sarcophagus. Inside it, a ragged-looking man slumbered, arms crossed mummy-style. A burlap sack with eyeholes cut into it obscured his face. “That's him, right?”

  “Yeah,” Kingsley said, tucking her hands into her pockets. “How'd you guess?”

  In lieu of replying, Moynahan bent, picked up a stick, and tossed it at the sarcophagus. A trio of long rotting arms shot up from around it, and caught it before it could strike the sleeper. Their job done, they retreated back to the dirt, burrowing away as fast as they'd come.

  “Okay, that's new,” Grim muttered. “How we gonna snap him out of this?”

  Kingsley shook her head. “I don't think we can.” She pulled her sunglasses off, revealing solid blue glowing eyes. “I can see a big old mark on his spirit. Something's hit him with a... I don't know what. A seal, maybe, or a curse.”

  “I'm no slouch at breaking those,” Coleman rumbled. “A little chaos, a little destruction in the right place, and down they go.”

  “Yeah, no.” Kingsley shook her head. “This one's pretty serious. Something at least as big as a demigod put it in place. This isn't hedge magic. This one's got oomph behind it, and it's tied with divinity. Not my flavor though, I don't recognize it.”

  “Can you describe it?” Moynahan asked. He was sitting down against a tree, saving his strength for the walk back. “I majored in mythology. Might be I know it.”

  “Sure,” Kingsley said, and picked up a stick. “Let's see... easier to draw it.” And slowly she sketched out lines and curves in the dirt.

  “Aw no,” Coleman swore. He felt anger as the lines in the dirt took shape. “Please tell me this isn't WEB.”

  “Looks like it, first place my mind went,” said Kingsley, “but no. See those shapes at the bottom? Those are feathers.”

  Moynahan rubbed his face, flicked blood from his sleeve. “It's a dreamcatcher.”

  Coleman scratched his back as he thought. “Oh. I think I heard of those. Native American talismans, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Moynahan's voice was softer, and Kingsley turned her eyes on him. They narrowed, and she moved forward, hauled him to his feet.

  “You can explain in the car. We're getting you to a hospital.”

  “I'm fine. They didn't hit anything vital. Or get too deep.”

  “Yeah, but those cuts are going to get infected if we don't get them treated soon. Come on. Coleman?”

  He slung the protesting rookie over his shoulder, and started jogging back to the car. Kingsley ran ahead, digging the keys out as she went.

  Coleman shook his head. “For what it's worth,” he reassured Moynahan, “You just earned a codename. Was what you went through pretty badass? 'Cause it looks that way from here.”

  “I almost got pecked to death by crows.”

  “Close enough.”

  “Cool. Uh... can I ask you a question?”

  “You just did.”

  “Why the hell are you wearing sunglasses and a blue speedo and nothing else?”

  “...”

  Ten minutes later, they were ushering him into the ER of Sara's Mercy general hospital, with his wounds bandaged as best as Coleman could manage with the car's first aid kit. He let Kingsley see Moynahan in as he dug out a spare suit and started dressing.

  Inside, Kingsley nodded as the EMT's applied antibiotic gel, and sutured the deeper wounds. Barely a minute after they were done, and pronounced him stable, she nodded.

  “Good enough for government work. So, you ready for round two?”

  Moynahan exhaled, and stared up at her. “I almost got pecked to death by crows, and you want me back in the field?”

  “No choice. Welcome to the MRB kid, this is Tuesday. You're the myth expert for this op, and now that you've stopped leaking, we could use your brain. We need to track down an answer before Whippoorwill's voice gives out again, or else the Cemetery will be back to zombie jamboree mode. So talk to me about dreamcatchers. Which god are they sacred to?”

  “Um, I don't think they have a patron god. They were an Ojibwe custom, but they kind of spread all over since then.”

  “Hm.” Kingsley took an arm, helped him up, walked him out to the car as she plumbed his knowledge of native american traditions. But it wasn't enough.

  Coleman slid into the passenger seat. “We need occult information, and we need it fast. Bastet?”

  “Still pissed at me for that incident with the tiger,” Kingsley griped. “Also, I don't have anything cat-related for an offering. You?”

  “Nothing I'd give up,” he said. “So... the Goblin Market?”

  “Mmmmmnnnope. The Market's got variety but it's not fast, and I am seriously not up for dealing with fae today. Besides, we'd have to figure out where they've set up this month.”

  “This dream zombie thing had to happen during the first week,” Coleman sighed. “Always takes the Bureau diviners at least two to get a fix... All right. How about the Historical Society?”

  “Huh, that's right. We can get ordinary people in on this too. Sure, let me give them a ring.”

  “I'll do it. You drive.”

  “Let the angels take the wheel!” Kingsley yelled, and threw the car into motion, while whipping out her phone and gleefully punching in a number. Coleman made a grab for it, and for a while they had a good game of keep away. Moynaha
n just sat in the back and covered his face.

  A few minutes into the drive, Kingsley pulled the phone back.

  “So, uh, they're not picking up.”

  “No? Huh, and it's definitely the museum's operating hours.” Coleman frowned.

  “Let me try a few extensions.”

  “Let me,” Coleman countered. “I have a hunch, and I want to browse a bit, to see if it checks out.”

  Serious now, she handed it over without argument. And as Coleman switched the phone over to Grid browsing mode and started searching, his face grew solemn.

  “Oh. Oh great.”

  “What?” Kingsley asked.

  “You'll never guess what the key exhibit at the museum is this month.”

  “Native American artifacts? Hazardous stuff that man was not meant to mess with? The world's biggest dreamcatcher?”

  “Close, but no. It's Australian aboriginal artifacts.” Coleman sighed.

  “So?”

  “The title of it is the Dreamtime Traveling Exhibit.”

  “Shit.”

  Coleman nodded. “Yeah, I'm thinking that whatever's going on, the museum's either at the center of it, or has been turned into another nightmare realm-thingy.”

  Kingsley shrugged. “Hm. Want to make a stop before we hit the museum?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Child endangerment, violation of the work-labor laws, and bribery of a minor.”

  “Oh. That's all?” Coleman's sarcasm was not veiled in the slightest.

  Kingsley grinned. “Well, the day is young. But I think that'll do for a start, and we could use some backup.”

  “Oh? Oh, I think I see where you're going with this. Sure, I think we can make a stop in the Brownstones before we hit the museum...”

  CHAPTER 6

  It took a hell of a lot of reassurances before his mother pulled Jamie Steuben out of school, and let them haul the kid away. Coleman wasn't comfortable with the lies, so he let Kingsley talk.

  “Technically, they're not lies,” she said, pulling a hard right through traffic. Jamie cheered from his seat next to Moynahan as they missed a city bus by two whole feet.

  “How are they not lies?”

  “Well, we really are going to take him in for power testing and evaluation. And give him a tour of MRB headquarters. We're just taking a side-trip first. That's all. A peaceful day at the museum.”

  “I'm thinking the wrong one of us got the angel,” Coleman grumbled, and Kingsley laughed as she tilted the car up on two wheels to avoid crunching a semi-truck. Jamie laughed more, and clapped his hands. Coleman palmed his face. Moynahan just lay back, saving his strength and watching the world go by through the window.

  But they arrived at the museum without incident. The parking lot was about a third full, not far off from the standard crowd near opening hours on a weekday. The building, a classical style marble and concrete structure three stories tall, sprawled with four large wings jutting out in crooked directions. The place had never been properly remodeled, it had just gotten new additions over the years.

  The agents, with Jamie in tow, moved up the wide stone steps with care. They passed between the ornamental stone owls flanking the place without trouble, and the door opened when Coleman pulled on it. But he stopped at the threshold and didn't go in.

  The lobby inside was dark, darker than the high windows above would suggest.

  “Hey, cool,” Jamie said. “Watch this!” He waved a hand in through the door, and it distorted the space around it, sent ripples through the air like he was moving it through running water.

  “Cute trick,” Coleman patted his back. “You see anything in there?”

  Jamie poked his head in, pulled it back. “Whoa. Yeah. There's something stinky over to the right. And there's this 'Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr' noise.”

  Coleman reached into his holster, before remembering that his bullets were a melted puddle in Emberlane Cemetary. Still, he wasn't helpless. “All right. Let me lead the way, and stay next to Kingsley, please.”

  “Aw man, I got this! I can do hero stuff! It's easy!” Jamie tried to push past Coleman. He stopped when Kingsley laid a hand on his shoulder, and squatted down to look him in the face.

  “Hey. He's not trying to protect you, he wants you to protect me.”

  “Oh! Uh. O-okay ma'am.”

  She grinned, and held out a hand, which he took with all the care of a knight accepting a lady's favor.

  Coleman just shook his head and stepped into the lobby.

  This time, he was ready for it. Even so, his head swam for a second. He blinked several times, and looked around. The lobby was full of people, muttering to each other in some sing-song language. It didn't seem like words, and though the people moved around, they never seemed to exit the room, or accomplish much beyond pacing about. A glance at the signs showed the gibberish that the agents had noticed before, in the first dream-affected area. And he heard that sound, that low wavering hum that the kid had heard. It danced and sighed back and forth, never stopping. Music? Something like that, but he'd never heard the instrument before.

  And then there was an easing of pressure behind him, and Kingsley slipped in with the kid in tow. The kid who was now wearing a leather jacket, a fedora hat, and carrying a whip in his free hand.

  “Nice.” He couldn't help but grin. Much as he hated bringing a kid along into possible danger, the boy's powers couldn't be denied. For once, they had the heavy artillery. Moynahan slipped in behind them, gun out and ready.

  They followed the kid's directions, and passed through the archway into the next room. It was a long hall filled with taxidermied animals that now moved in their exhibits like they were alive again. But the air overhead was smoky, and across the hall he could see a figure crouched over some sort of cooking pot on a flickering fire. A large figure, perhaps about twelve feet tall. And sweet hell, the smell... It was as if the primal essence of the odor of cooked meat had met and meshed with the ur-smell of rotting meat, and had an illegitimate child out of the union. It was a smell that didn't assault the senses, but just flat out murdered them, and pled guilty in court. This smell should not be. Not even in a dream.

  And then the figure turned, and he shuddered at the sight. A hag, with withered breasts, a hunched back, and a protruding, bloated belly that he took at first glance for pregnancy. Frankly he didn't know and he didn't want to know, for he was too busy staring at the face. It was a mass of wrinkles, a beak of a nose that curved like a twisted tree branch, and two milky gray eyes that oozed slime continuously as the smoke of the cooking fire abraded them. Her mouth opened with a sucking noise, revealing two yellowed things that might have once been teeth, and a worm-like tongue that slid out, tasting the air like a serpent would.

  “What the heck is that?” He whispered.

  “Oh shit.” Moynahan said. “Pot Tilter. Get to cover!”

  “Talaa macheem...” The hag drooled as she spoke. “Dushii?” She peered into the pot.

  Coleman was already diving, and shouting as he went. “What does it do? Tell me!”

  “DUSHII!” The giant cried, and took hold of the pot. With corded wiry muscles standing out on her frame, she tilted the immense clay pot, aiming the mouth of it toward him. He had about a second to note that the water defied gravity, boiling and roiling but staying within the pot, not pouring out. He had another second to note that the scraps floating on the surface of the pot were the remnants of faces, arms, legs, and other bits of human flesh.

  “It does that! And then it cooks and eats you!” Moynahan shouted.

  There was a great roaring sound that overrode even the great droning 'Brrrrrrr' that echoed throughout the museum, and a huge rush of air grabbed Coleman, and tugged him toward the pot at full speed. He flailed for balance, tried to find a foothold, and failed.

  As his sunglasses were ripped from his face he shot a look back, to see Kingsley holding her own in place, being pulled by the immense suction but held up by a whip
wrapped around her leg. At the other end of it, Jamie was holding on for dear life to an exhibit plaque. Moynahan was out of sight, probably behind cover.

  And then he hit the pot. He grabbed the sides, feeling his skin sizzle from the heat before the little bit he had melted away. But the demon skin beneath didn't care about the heat, and he hung on for grim life, jamming his feet over the lip of it and staring down into the grisly stew of boiling water and gore now inches from his face.

  For a few seconds he thought he was fine. But then the smell hit him. No longer shielded by the distance of the hall, it made his stomach churn and his muscles weaken.

  “Talaa, talaa macheem...” The hag crooned behind him, and he felt something hit his back, and push. He turned his head to see that she'd picked up a stirring-stick of sorts, and was using it to try to jam him in.

  The boiling water got nearer, and he gritted his teeth, held back his rising gorge. This next part was going to suck...

  He waited until she hauled the stick back again, and brought it down towards his back. And he let go with one hand, willingly letting his face and part of his side dip into the water, in order to grab the stick. Even as the boiling water blinded him and scalded the skin from his face, he felt his fingers close upon the gnarled wood. And as it pushed him down, he let go with his remaining hand and pulled.

  And before the hag could let go, the suction of her own pot pulled her in too.

  A screech, a horrible wailing, an immense weight on top of him, and Coleman focused all his energy on holding his breath. The boiling water couldn't kill him, even though it hurt. Drowning, though? Well, that was a different story.

  Then an immense cracking noise, and water roared away on all sides as he tumbled free. He had air again... and with air, the stink returned. He gave in to his body's needs, and vomited, bringing up everything he'd eaten over the last day. His sight returned, though everything was tinted red.

  From under Coleman, a gray serpent the size of his arm wormed out and considered him with white eyes. It raised a feathery crest, as it nodded, with something of a solemn air.