Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis

by Matthew S. Cox

  “He won’t let us leave,” one of the executed men wailed, in Spanish.

  “Who won’t?” Kirsten went over to them, switching to Spanish as well.

  A few seemed shocked she could see them.

  “The Blood Saint, he thinks we ratted him,” said another man.

  “It was his daughter, Naida. He couldn’t believe it, so he killed all of us trying to find the traitor.”

  “Yeah.” Fowler wandered over, speaking English, though apparently able to understand them. “Local police got a tip from a little girl, said her daddy did bad things. We came in on a joint operation with them, found a few million worth of coke down here.”

  Dorian and Kirsten exchanged a look.

  “That’s a lot of soda.” Kirsten shook her head.

  Fowler blinked at her. “Guess it’s true what they say about blondes, eh?” He elbowed Dorian with a conspiratorial wink. “Cocaine.”

  “The hell is cocaine?” asked Kirsten.

  “It was a plant derivative narcotic; closest modern equivalent would be Zone4.” Dorian gestured at the executed men. “The wraith is drawing power from them. I can feel him trying to snare me, too.”

  Kirsten closed her eyes, calling out.

  Dorian nudged her. “You’re wasting your time. They can’t get in here. Gonsalves, or what’s left of him, is too strong. Why do you think these poor idiots are still stuck here? Cartel soldiers? The Harbingers would have been all over them within minutes of their death. Something’s keeping them out and this doesn’t strike me as holy ground.”

  “We drag them outside, then?”

  Dorian eyed the row of dead men. “Gonsalves is binding them here. I doubt we’d be able to get them out the door.”

  A sense of pervasive dread filtered through the wall. All the men stopped muttering. Fowler turned paler. All eyes went to a shadow creeping by the casement window.

  Dorian lost his joviality. “Guess they’re still listening to you.”

  She exhaled. “Yeah…”

  “What was that thing?” Fowler pointed at the window.

  “You were DEA?” Dorian chuckled. “Just someone who wants to have a word with you.”

  Fowler looked confused.

  Kirsten bit her lip. “Right, so, if we can’t drag them outside…” Damn, he’s gonna be strong.

  “You could always destroy them.” Dorian folded his arms. “It would weaken the wraith, but…”

  She went up the stairs.

  “I know you too well.” Dorian chuckled at her before he pointed at Fowler. “You stay here, don’t do anything. You’ve been exposed to him for too long, he could drain you to boost himself.”

  Fowler gulped.

  Billowy darkness shrouded the walls and ceiling in the upstairs corridor. Orange-pink light leaked in from an open door caddy-corner to the master bedroom. Kirsten advanced with caution, tuning out the residual manifestations of screams, gunshots, and explosions. The smoke clinging to the walls receded from her advance, as if afraid.

  “Sounds like a damn war is going on.”

  Dorian chuckled. “Imprints from the DEA raid, I bet.”

  Kirsten leaned against the wall, edging up to the first door. “What is DEA?”

  “Was. Special branch of law enforcement tasked with combatting illegal drugs.” Dorian took a position in front of the door, as if to rush through after she opened it.

  She scrunched her face. “Really? They actually cared enough about people getting high to have special cops for them? Old government had too much money, I guess.”

  “Well, we still go after Lace labs.”

  “Good point, but that stuff is more poison than recreation.”

  She nudged the bedroom door open. Maia’s bed lay open and abandoned, stuffed animals and datapads lay scattered about the floor. Dorian advanced to the outside window, squinting at the glare of bar lights. Kirsten went for the closet, remembering the child’s memory, but whirled at the sound of a waterfall behind her.

  Thick smoke surged forward, rushing in under the door and slamming it. Kirsten backpedaled, gaze locked on the cloud of darkness gathering in the upper corner of the room. Inky wisps of vapor built and rolled in on themselves, darkening into a thick mass from which extended a pair of phantasmal arms. Wisps of shadow burst from the ends, traced in the shape of claws. A flash of ice came over her, as if a frozen hand clutched her heart and squeezed. The closet door flew open; inside, her mother’s visage appeared. The apparitional woman screeched and flew at her, expanding, wailing. Kirsten tripped over a plush rabbit and landed seated on the bed. Dorian held his head, a dire stare shot in Kirsten’s direction.

  She raised her arm across her face, shuddering as the huge, vaporous head washed over her.

  A male voice rasped from the dark. “Hey, kiddo, you still hungry?”

  Heavy clouds of smoke exuded from the closet, lapping at the rug as if it was the edge of a portal to another world. A vagrant leaned out of the black, waving a dented octagonal can with a pull-strip opening like he was teasing a hungry dog.

  “Come on, sweetie. I know you want more. You can pay for it the same way you did the last.” He grinned, reaching into his pants.

  Kirsten clutched at her chest, struggling to overpower the touch trying to freeze her heart. She remembered his face, she remembered his stink, and she remembered him being much larger. He did not scare her. The sight of him brought only anger.

  Dorian fell to one knee, shaking his head and screaming as he clawed at the rug. He looked as if he could kill someone without a care. Shadow tendrils emerged from the floor and wall, seeping into his essence. He lurched to the right, incoherent rage boiling out of his mouth as he plunged his hands through the side of a wardrobe cabinet. He wrenched it about and hurled it at Kirsten. At the instant of release, a part of Dorian came back to the surface, hanging on and changing the trajectory just enough to miss. Kirsten rolled off the comforgel pad, skidding to the floor amid a rain of child’s clothing.

  With a tortured moan, Dorian fell into the wall, punching at it. “Get out of my head…”

  Hollow spots appeared at the top of the floating shadow where eyes should have been. Kirsten stood, pulling a tiny dress off her head and flinging it to the side. Scintillating white light formed around her hand and unfurled to its full length. The cloud surged left but was too slow. Around the room, shadows of objects stretched over the floor as the intense light source moved. The lash plunged through the center of the wraith, devoured by darkness. The tip dimmed, flickered, and then intensified.

  The holo-terminal on the desk exploded; ceiling lamps gave out. Flashing red and blue light filled the room.

  Dorian lurched up, free of its influence. The wraith melded through the wall, with Dorian diving after it. Kirsten scowled at the now-mundane closet before she went for the door, toward the sound of a fight in the adjacent bedroom.

  Police hand-to-hand combat techniques went only so far when employed against an amorphous mass of hatred. Each time Dorian tried to pin the wraith, it flowed and stretched through his grasp. Kirsten came through the door just as it twisted about, raking wispy claws through Dorian’s back. He groaned as dark claws pulled white ethereal vapor out of him.

  Her first attack feigned high on purpose, to spare Dorian the pain of poor aim. It came close enough to make the specter draw itself away from him. Kirsten leapt through Dorian, spinning into a real strike, snapping the astral whip down on top of the cloud. The thread of white light divided the mass, two smaller clouds hung in space for several seconds. As she drew her arm back for another swing, the creature recoiled, and flowed as a blur of black vapor towards the door.

  A flying tackle from Dorian slowed it into a rolling struggle. Clawing at the floor, the wraith tried in vain to reach the hallway as he hauled it back into the room. The mass shifted. One clawed hand shot out of it, spearing up through Dorian’s chest and grabbing his neck from behind.

  “Dorian, no!” she wailed.

  C
olor drained from his apparition as he diminished; his body shrank and faded, becoming indistinct. The wraith thickened and grew darker. Desperation surged through her arm as she coiled the lash around and spun it over her head.

  Blue-white radiance flickered on the walls as she struck out, screaming.

  “Dorian!”

  The luminous tendril snapped through the mass, dividing it in half once more.

  Dorian grimaced as if he felt the hit. He moaned; the sound came from somewhere far away. With a gasp, he fell limp to the floor on his chest. The wraith slid out from under him and gathered itself into an orb no larger than a skull. The sight of Dorian so weak brought tears of rage, and Kirsten aimed too high. It leapt under the whip, pouncing on her chest, raking and shredding. To a mortal, its claws felt like a rain of icicles.

  Her lungs stopped reacting, her heart pounded in her head. She went over backwards; the weight of ten men crushed her into the floor. Ice gnawed at her breasts, face, and gut. For an instant, it paused to glance over its shoulder, raising one clawed hand at something she could not see.

  Dorian must be okay.

  With the brief distraction, Kirsten infused her body with astral energy, making it solid to ghosts. Threads of frigid ice became sharp blades; warm blood tricked over her ribs. She growled and wrapped her hands around the closest thing it had to a throat, and called the lash.

  It had nowhere to go.

  Black slime exploded over the entire room. The wraith had vanished, replaced by a drained-looking Hispanic man in his later thirties. She ignored the pain in her side and tackled the disoriented spirit to the ground. With one arm across his neck and a knee in his back, she held him down.

  “Don’t give me an excuse, pendejo.”

  In seconds, a familiar eerie feeling came over her from behind. She wrenched the spirit’s body around to face the Harbinger hanging in the room, one of the shadows circling the house since she first wanted them to appear. A billowing mass of blackness with piercing, silver eyes, it reached toward the Blood Saint, ignoring her. Six more drifted in through the floor and walls, coming together into a curtain of night that engulfed her. She knew why they were here, but fear came anyway. Cold unlike anything she had ever known washed over her. The dead man’s scream fell silent. When light returned, El Santo de Sangre was gone.

  Kirsten lay on her side, shivering. Compared to a swarm of Harbingers running me over, it feels like summer outside. Her chest burned; blood seeped through the undamaged black cloth and stained the rug. Wincing, she propped herself up to check on her partner. One remaining Harbinger hovered by Dorian’s inert form. He had not moved since he fell. She crawled toward him, gathering his motionless body into her lap.

  “Please, no.” Kirsten cried, staring up at sparkling silver eyes. “Please, not him.”

  irsten’s run loped to a stagger, and then to a halt. She leaned on the side of a building, gasping for breath. The composite plastic helmet enclosed her head in a claustrophobic cage. A dozen-block run left the visor barely transparent, and trickles of perspiration stung at her eyes, ran down her cheek, and tickled the back of her neck. Tactical armor was a new feeling, a new, heavy feeling; the extra weight on her back and lack of ventilation brought her to a standstill.

  Deserted, the street held a few abandoned cars as well as fragments of the crumbling buildings on either side. Up ahead, gunfire popped at random from alleys through distant sounds of rioting, sometimes followed by the shriek of a near miss or the howl of a hit. Paper trash skittered by in a faint breeze laced with the fragrance of chemicals and urban rot. Somewhere in the distance, a scream for help echoed; she could not tell if it was a man or woman.

  “Civil unrest in Sector 77. All Divisions be prepared to encounter armed aggressors.” The digital voice split through her ears; her entire helmet vibrated with it.

  Gathering a couple more breaths, she jogged ahead, E-90 in hand. The sound of fighting grew louder as she neared the alley from which the plea came. Tight against the wall, she paused to prepare herself before whirling around the corner. Four men, jackets emblazoned with gang markings―The Disowned―surrounded another man half a block down. Cowering in a ball, the object of the gangers’ amusement begged for his life, oblivious to Kirsten’s arrival.

  “Police, against the wall, now!” she yelled.

  The Disowned turned at the diminutive shout; outright laughter stalled at the sight of her laser pistol. Whimpering, the victim crawled away from the stilled onslaught. The four thugs raised their hands, but continued to grin as if they were up to something. Kirsten wagged her weapon to the left.

  “Over there, against the wall. Do it.” A flick of her eyes at the helmet visor opened a comm channel. “Dispatch, need a suspect transport. Sector 77, track my signal.”

  “Copy that, en route.” A brief static crunch preceded and followed the voice in her helmet.

  She eased closer, eyes shifting among the men. “Move, now.”

  Kirsten almost shrieked as a boarded up window to her right burst open, covering her with splinters and boards as hands grabbed her by the arm. The E-90 vanished as she went headfirst through the ply-board, landing on her helmet in a cheek slide along the floor of a derelict building. The disorientation of the maneuver left her motionless for an instant, mystified by the echoing clatter of wood in the cavernous empty space.

  She snapped out of it in time to notice a man about to drive a heavy armored boot into her side. A quick roll got her out of the way and she scrambled to her feet. He kicked hard enough to lose his footing when he missed. Another Disowned, and huge, he recovered his balance and turned to face her, snarling. Faux-denim vest, white shirt, dark skin, muscular, long black hair. She stared at his green eyes. A punch to the helmet snapped her out of it.

  This isn’t fair.

  She ducked a telegraphed kick, avoiding it in just the way he expected her to―right into his waiting hands. He hauled her into the air, throwing her chest-first into drywall. She bounced away, and he grabbed her from behind.

  Without thinking, she smashed the top of her helmet into his face. His grip weakened; she dropped back to her feet and elbowed him in the gut before spinning into a kick. Her boot caught him across the face. He tottered back, but the hit made him smile.

  “Nice form, but you kick like a ten-year-old girl.”

  Kirsten growled, pulling the stunrod off her belt and lunging into a wild overhead swing. He caught her wrist and flipped her over. Pain, sharp and brief, foiled her grip on the weapon before she even felt it shooting up her arm as her back hit the ground.

  Windless, she fogged the visor of her helmet.

  “Dead once,” he taunted.

  She rolled upright and backed off, favoring the arm. The urge to knock a few of his teeth out grew strong, but they were so perfect. His face entranced her again.

  The cute ones are always so shallow. Plus, he is trying to kill me.

  Adrenaline welled up as he came in with a series of rapid jabs. She blocked each in turn, backpedaling to make him advance. The gleam of a knife at his belt took her eyes off his perfect teeth.

  The kick caught her blind, in the ribs. She staggered, spraying spittle onto her visor.

  “You get angry too easy. Don’t fixate on the weapon; watch my entire body. Watch my eyes. You can’t read where your opponent goes if you fixate. If you give in to rage, you lose your edge.”

  I am…

  He faked another stab; this time, she blocked the kick. The knife came around the other way, but she got a forearm across his wrist. Her body jerked from the impact of the block, but she kept her grip and torqued him around by it. Stumbling after his trapped limb, he lost the knife and fell to one knee.

  “Not bad, but a little more twist on the hand would have incapacitated me.”

  Letting his weight take him down, he pulled her into a stumble and kicked her legs out. They rolled away from each other and both stood at the same time. He shook his almost-sprained wrist out as she tried to c
radle her left breast through the armor; remembering the wraith claws. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the stunrod a few feet away and went for it.

  He leapt at her, distracting her from the weapon. No longer enamored by his looks, she ducked and spun under his arm, wrapping herself around it and flipping him over with a hip thrust. When he hit the ground on his back, she curled her legs around the limb, heel over his throat. If she did it right, she could break his neck.

  She chickened out.

  The man howled through her attempt at a pain submission hold. She twisted a little harder and he stopped fighting.

  Stalemate.

  “You’re getting better,” he croaked. “About time to call it for today, I think.”

  Tingles spread through her body, riding the forefront of a wave of numbness. Paralysis settled in and she went limp on the concrete. Brightness intensified, washing out the details of the ceiling until all that remained of it was flat white light and grey blobs.

  “Simulation: End,” chimed a pleasant, omnidirectional female voice.

  The oppressive glow condensed into strong fluorescent bulbs; the concrete softened into a padded chair. Sweat trickled past her ears and cold metal spanned her forehead. Wires jerked her back into the seat by her head when she tried to sit up too fast. Wonderful cool air lifted the sweat out of her thin white bodysuit.

  “Ow.” She grasped the senshelmet and pulled it off. “Why am I so damn sore?”

  “It’s your brain. Takes it a few minutes to figure out it was all fake.”

  The same man, with much shorter hair, came around the side of a console full of blinking lights, gang clothing replaced with a plain, blue-grey Division 2 jumpsuit. Kirsten’s eyes went right to where the lowered zipper exposed some of his chest, just left of the name “Silva” on a tag. She whispered it in her mind, unable to suppress the wry grin at the realization he had embellished his physique in VR.