Mariko evaded, still hissing. She scurried left in a circle, moving low to the ground in an inhuman creep. With the lion’s share of her worry in front of her, Kirsten advanced, swiping twice more at the ground as Mariko leapt flea-like into the air to avoid each one.
Dorian came sliding past her, startling her attention over to Seneschal’s rifle. She dropped focus on the lash and held both hands at him, fixing her mind onto the coalescence of his energy. His entire figure shuddered, forced down and to the left. The effect of her concentration settled over him in the form of immense weight on his gun arm, keeping his aim low. She pushed harder, desperate to prevent her tactical error from harming Evan.
Seneschal howled, dropping to one knee. Dorian leapt onto him with a stunrod across the face that knocked him flat. Mariko came out of nowhere; her sword cut a path of ice through Kirsten’s left calf. No blood, no wound, though pain commensurate with the loss of a limb paralyzed her mind.
Concentration shot, Kirsten fell forward. A hasty look to the rear found no trace of Mariko. Seneschal, enraged, drove his fist into Dorian’s gut with such force it threw him ten feet in the air. The rifle formed in his grip.
“Seneschal!” Kirsten screamed. Fear at losing track of Mariko reformed the scintillating lash. Her rage at his threatening Evan empowered it.
The attack blasted Seneschal’s body apart into a vee from the stomach upward, two halves scarcely connected at the crotch with a few traces of inky black threaded between them. Mariko leapt again out of the dark, landing on Kirsten’s back. In one smooth motion, she grabbed, twisted, and broke Kirsten’s right arm at the elbow. Shrieking, Kirsten rolled onto her back, projecting another lash up at the demonic ninja from her forehead.
“Oww, you bitch.” Kirsten winced. “I don’t need to aim it with my damn arm.”
Bending at an inhuman angle, Mariko leaned over backward as the strike went over her. Her face poked out between her knees with a cute toothy grin and a tilted head. Pointed teeth gleamed through a mouth twice as wide as it should be.
So damn creepy. Kirsten whimpered, crawling backwards.
Leaving the mangled Seneschal wavering about, Dorian charged. Mariko avoided him with the grace of a matador. Her breath in short gasps, Kirsten reached for her belt to grab a stimpak, losing control of herself and screaming ‘“shit” about a dozen times when she remembered her civilian clothes did not include a utility belt―or a panic button. Seneschal’s right half waved its arm about, trying to get a grip on the left side of his body. Mariko pounced at Kirsten, catching her too-slow roll to the side. The semisolid blade pierced her other thigh, sending a burning chill along the bone. Neither one of Kirsten’s legs wanted to obey, both dragged limp and useless as she clawed at the traction coating to drag herself to the car. Bits of rubber caked like coffee grinds under her nails as she scratched.
Mariko lurched forward, shot in the back by Dorian’s projection of a sidearm. She turned on him, throwing a transparent Nano-shuriken right through his face. Dorian smirked.
“That works better on live targets, hon.”
Screeching, Mariko flung herself to the ground, scampering on all fours, a human-headed shadow serpent. Dorian rotated, following her circuitous approach. Mariko closed in and sprang upward, arcing through the air behind her sword. Dorian just barely got his stun rod in the way of the first strike; however, the next four swiped through him before he could pull his arm back from the first block. Mariko’s body had split into four pairs of arms wielding four swords; Kirsten cringed away from the sound.
Dorian wheezed, staggering away. He sent a longing look at the car, but fixed her with a determined stare as he swooned to the ground.
Mariko grinned, her eyes flickering red. “You watch girl die now.”
A wave of flame spread over the ninja, tinting the air with a hint of sulphur as thick, dark smoke wafted from the edges of her silhouette. Mariko stepped through the boundary, manifesting herself solid into the world. The twisted, demonic smile shrank to a more human-sized mouth, somehow cute and sad at the same time. Mariko’s skin turned grey and lifeless as a line of gleam slid down the blade.
Now her sword would cut flesh.
Kirsten grabbed her thigh with her one working hand, trying to rub warmth into it, trying to get her dead limbs to respond. She pushed at the ground, sliding back a few inches. Mariko stalked her, taking her sweet time.
Seneschal’s fingers caught some hair, pulling the two halves closer.
Dorian roared, charging. The Japanese woman froze in place, smiling at Kirsten with the mournful look a little girl would give to a favored doll that had broken. When Dorian’s rush was two paces behind her, she thrust herself backwards. The now-solid Mariko passed through Dorian’s ghostly essence, leaving him staggering over Kirsten.
Kirsten flung a lash upward from her left hand as Mariko stabbed at Dorian’s back. The flinching blade nicked his side rather than impaled him, but he still fell over and melted into a cloud of fog.
Mariko stepped up on Kirsten, raising the blade with a look in her eye as if she was willing to walk into a hit from a lash just to get a clean kill shot. The tip pointed at Kirsten’s heart, Mariko leaned forward, palm on the end of the handle. Power formed in the back of Kirsten’s weary mind, an opposition of strength between the two women.
Growling, Mariko forced the sword down an inch at a time, lost an inch, gained two, lost three. Kirsten’s nose leaked hot blood, flooding her mouth with the taste of copper. Exertion beyond her limit taxed her body to the point of self-harm. If she slipped, even a little, a solid metal blade would be through her chest in an instant.
Kirsten searched for any last trace of extra power. Please… I can’t leave him helpless.
The dark shape hovering over her washed out with a sudden blinding light. Mariko crossed her arms over her face to shield her eyes, hissing. Kirsten blinked, having no idea what she just did.
Hot ionic downblast buffeted her as the patrol craft thundered overhead, two feet off the ground. Kirsten sat up as it passed, covered in crackling sparks and tasting ozone. She stared in disbelief as it crashed through the front wall of the Five Hundredth Street Sanctuary with Mariko wrapped over the front end. The armored hovercar slammed to a halt, flinging Mariko into the center of a bank of folding chairs by a pulpit.
The building filled with smoke and light, and a decaying roar sounding as if it came from a four hundred pound monstrosity rather than a four-foot-eleven Asian woman. All the electric lights in the place flickered, went dark, and then exploded.
Mariko shuddered and wailed. Patches of crimson radiance shone from cracks spreading over her augmented bodysuit. White smoke billowed off her, crackling with sparks. She lurched forward, trying to get to the door. Her leg collapsed, and what had once been Mariko Moriyama melted into a puddle of black ooze. Fingers clawed at the floor as she fought in vein not to sink out of sight. Her face receded into the liquid with a belabored final wail that faded off to silence.
The interior of the church went dark as the spectral glow from the disintegrating abyssal faded.
Fist pounding into her thigh did little good; Kirsten did not even feel it. Evan emerged from the patrol craft door, dragging her utility belt behind him. His face, red and tear-streaked, brightened when he saw her moving despite trickles of blood.
“Mommy!” He cried out as he ran to her.
Hearing that word come out of him for the first time brought tears to her eyes. Kirsten forgot about her numb leg and squeezed him. When the embrace relaxed enough to notice his fat lip and bloody nose, she almost panicked.
She fussed at his injury. “What happened?”
“Uhh. I just drove your car into a building.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his arm.
Kirsten took a stimpak from the belt and pressed it to his shoulder.
“You need it more,” he said, grabbing another and stabbing her in the thigh with it.
The return of sensation to the leg was less pleas
ant than numbness. Kirsten clutched him, because he was there, and howled from freezing agony. Evan flailed.
“I’m sorry.” He cried again. “I wanted to hel―”
“It’s fine.” She squeezed. “Gimme another one.”
He did, making a noise like a stepped-on goose as she held on to survive the wave of agony.
Kirsten fell flat to the ground, paralyzed by the absence of pain. “Oh, yeah. I’ll feel that in my dreams for a few months.” Kirsten lifted her head; the smile she wanted to give Evan fell away when she saw all the color absent from his face.
Twisting to look in the same direction as his glassy-eyed stare, Kirsten’s heart skipped two beats at the sight of an intact Seneschal seething at them as if their happiness offended him. He peered at Evan, looking into the depths of his soul. Kirsten wobbled to her feet, shoving the boy behind her. Her legs faltered and she landed on her ass. Evan stepped in front of her; her one usable hand grabbed at his shirt collar and tried to pull him back.
He glared up at the former corporate solider. “Leave my mommy alone.”
Kirsten hooked her fingers through his belt and pulled him back. Another trickle of blood left her nose as she forced a lash into existence. With a final promising glare at the child, Seneschal dissipated into a mass of black fog and sank into the ground.
“No…” She turned, resting her chin over his shoulder. “I won’t let him hurt you.”
“Mom?”
Kirsten’s eyes leaked. She adored hearing him call her that. “Yes, Evan?”
He pointed at a foggy mass clinging to the ground. “Do stimpaks work on Dorian?”
van clung to her side, helping Kirsten stumble across the parking lot to the door of the Five Hundredth Street Sanctuary. The place reeked of bad eggs and wood smoke. Glass, scattered about from the crash, crunched under their feet. None of the local destitutes were in sight; hazy, dust-filled air was all that remained inside. Tilted nose-down, the patrol craft had lurched to a stop with its rear end propped up on the windowsill and the nose on the floor. Fog leaked through the armored doors over the still-retracted wheels, forming a cloud beneath the hissing vehicle. Not knowing which arm he could touch without pain, Evan guided her along by the belt, heading for a row of still-intact chairs. Both of them whirled at a sudden noise; Kirsten’s instinct to raise her E-90 resulted in a twitch of the arm, and a gasp as she clamped her good hand over the broken limb.
N0ra crawled out from beneath a pile of crumbled drywall. Kirsten let all the air out of her lungs, creating whorls in the aerosolized dust. The scarlet-haired teen dragged herself free of the collapse and leaned into the wall, proceeding to gnaw her anxiety out of her fingernails.
“What the fuck just happened?” asked N0ra, abandoning her nail biting due to the flavor they had acquired.
Kirsten let gravity plant her in the seat and pulled Evan into her lap. “My best guess is Vikram has been following me and overheard your confession. I bet what happened at the wharf was him trying to take revenge on you. I bet the ones I just ran into here showed up trying to kill him, and their distraction let you slip away.”
N0ra shivered, sliding down until she sat on the floor. “That shit is real?” She trembled hard enough to alter the sound of her voice. “B… But it’s not fair. He was doing evil shit and I just turned him in. I didn’t do anything bad.” For a few seconds, N0ra seemed about to sob, but then went placid.
Oh, shit. That’s not a good sign; she’s not handling it well. “It doesn’t always work this way. Vikram should not have gotten out of where he wound up.”
“He’s going to keep coming after me, isn’t he?”
Evan looked at N0ra, lifting his face out of Kirsten’s shirt. “My mommy will get him.”
Kirsten kissed him on top of the head. Despite logic saying she should be worried sick, all she felt was proud and loved. Father Carlos Villera emerged from a rear hallway, waving his arms through lingering smoke and trying to clear his throat. Kirsten could not tell from the look on his face if he was more stunned by the patrol craft in the main room or by the utter lack of vagrants waiting for food.
Noticing the blood on Kirsten, Evan, and N0ra’s faces, he ran over. “God save us, are you all right?”
“I’ve had better days, but I think so.” Kirsten coughed from the dust.
Evan gave her a thumbs-up.
N0ra just stared into space.
“Father, would you please grab the bag in the back seat of the car?” Kirsten winced. “I don’t really feel up to standing right now.”
He nodded.
Dorian stumbled through the wall, looking transparent.
“What the…” The priest froze, aghast at the ground in front of the car.
The alarm in his voice caused Kirsten to struggle in an effort to stand. Evan squirmed off her lap and pulled her up by the unbroken arm. He held on, a living crutch supporting her as she ambled over to the crash scene. There, on the ground in front of the car, a black scorch mark stained the cheap orange and white tiles. Fragments of glowing embers remained, having settled to the ground in a pattern resembling some form of writing. From the center of the spot, a dark green wisp of sulfur-scented smoke wavered.
Despite the ominous appearance, Kirsten sensed no lingering presence. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now. At least this one didn’t scratch me.”
Father Villera shifted toward her muttering something in Latin before asking in English, “Scratches?”
Kirsten sighed. “Yeah, three lines down my back. Hurt more than it should.”
He put a hand on her shoulder, closed his eyes, and muttered Latin again for a moment. “That is the sign of a dark creature. Why it has marked you, I cannot say. Perhaps it watches, perhaps it weakens you against itself… I shall pray for you.”
Yeah, go ahead and do that. She softened the bile in her stare. “Thanks…” S’pose I’ll take any help at this point.
Father Villera helped her back to the seat and retrieved her bag, then fetched some stew for N0ra. She remained sitting on the floor against the front wall, staring at the steaming bowl as though she had no idea what it was. Evan fished out her armguard, which she used to call for backup.
Dorian limped over to the stain on the ground, and the matching smear on the hood. “Well, you were wondering if the choice of location did anything for Ritchie. If this is any indication, I’d say it did.”
Kirsten surveyed the room, sighing in her mind at the religious proverb posters, paintings of Jesus, and crosses. She frowned at Dorian. “I think Evan did it.”
Evan looked at her, then at Dorian, then back at Kirsten. “What?”
“Sent Mariko back where she belongs.”
“Ninjas are bad,” he said, one nod as a period.
Father Villera wandered out of sight into the hallway, returning in a moment with a broom.
Dorian glided closer and sat in the next chair. “You’ve got a rating in mind blast, and astral, and somehow found a way to mix them into the lash. They say you’re one of the strongest sensates known, and you’ve never been able to make a ghost spontaneously explode. Never mind an abyssal.”
Distant sirens grew louder.
“Maybe it’s how a mother can lift a car off their kid in a moment of extreme emotional distress.” Her face reddened. “She was kicking my ass.”
“Well… The NSK trained her how to kill since she was probably younger than him.” Dorian nudged Evan’s hair. “I bet her sanity was a matter of debate even before she died.”
The front windows glimmered with arriving patrol cars, and a MedVan.
N0ra ran and hid behind Kirsten. “I hate cops. They always give me a hard time.”
“You stick your virtual nose in places it shouldn’t go?” She cringed; pain shot through her broken limb.
“Sometimes.” N0ra sank into a chair in a row behind her, sniffing at the food.
“Well, stop doing that and they won’t give you a hard time.” Kirsten shot a pleading look at the
two women in white coming through the door. “I don’t know if these things got to Vikram before they came after me. Considering they wanted to use you as bait, I think he’s still out there. I’m going to take you into protective custody for a little while until this gets sorted out.”
“What? No…” N0ra recoiled. “That’s like being arrested just without any charges.”
“I’m not standard police.” Kirsten winked, waving at one of the Zero Tactical officers. “This girl here is being targeted by a paranormal entity. Please take her into protective custody, use one of the glass rooms.”
The officer saluted. “Yes, Agent.”
Kirsten frowned at her broken right arm and twitching legs. Evan reached around her head and saluted for her.
“They have ghost-proof rooms.” He rubbed his nose. “Magic-body-proof, too.”
N0ra gave Evan a confused smirk. “Umm. Okay.”
“Go with them, the creatures coming after you can’t get through the walls of a special room where you can stay. If you want to talk to a psych, just ask.”
N0ra got up and let the officer walk her out, staring around at the room as though she had forgotten who she was.
“Poor kid.” Dorian sighed. “She’s going to need a lot of therapy; she saw too much too fast.”
“Oh, like I didn’t. I saw”―Kirsten winced as the medtechs peeled the shirt off her arm―“ouch, ow, dammit, frack.”
Evan made an unimpressed face, and then leaned to peer at her twisted and bruised arm. “That’s worth at least a fuck or two, maybe even a moth―”
She covered his mouth with her left hand. “At least wait till you’re old enough to shave.”
He pulled her arm down. “Mom, it’s 2418, it’s not like―”
“I don’t care. You’re nine, and too cute to use those words.”
The medtechs smiled at him.
Evan blushed.
Beep, chirp, twitter.
Kirsten stared at the silver box in the tech’s hand as it glided up and down over her arm.
“Agent, your arm is broken in three places and there are bone fragments invading some of the ligaments. We’ll need to―”
Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis Page 30
