Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Yay. Naked time.” She made a flag-waving gesture with her left index finger. “Fine, let’s get it over with if it makes the pain stop.”

  The medtechs helped her stand and guided her onto a hovering stretcher, where they strapped her in for the ride. She rolled her head to the side to give Evan a reassuring smile. Around his spherical mop of hair, a ring of symbols seemed to hover like a halo. He blurred as her focus shifted to a half dozen religious icons for various faiths mounted in a circle on the far wall. Evan held her good hand, walking alongside the stretcher on the way to the door. Every few seconds, a twinge of ice ran down one of her legs.

  Kirsten searched the sagging, stained tiles of the drop ceiling for answers as the medics pushed her out into the cool night air, less certain than ever about anything.

  irsten sat on the edge of her comforgel pad, adoring the soft warmth of her pajamas. She idly grabbed at the carpet with her toes, fighting to stay conscious while she waited for Evan to finish getting ready for bed. Her hand ran up and down her arm, massaging the memory of the injury away. Evan stumbled out of the bathroom wearing a beard of toothpaste foam, and pajamas.

  “You forgot to wipe your face,” she said, offering a tired giggle.

  He stopped, blinked at her, then turned around and walked into the wall. “Ow,” he grumbled, then just wiped his face on his sleeve.

  “Close enough. You should have napped at the medical facility; you’re up too late.”

  Evan plodded over. She pulled him into a hug, patting him on the back. “Night, kiddo.”

  He muttered a few incoherent words and turned to face his sleeping bag.

  A pang of worry came out of nowhere. Kirsten stood, snagging him by the shirt and keeping him on his feet.

  “What?” he whined.

  “I want to teach you something.” The grip on his shirt became a hand on the back, and she whisked him over to the front door. “You remember the glass rooms?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to do something similar to our apartment.” She put her hand on the door. “If you focus your energy into the walls, you can make them solid enough to spirits so they can’t get through. Even if you sleep, if they try hard enough you will feel it.”

  Interest dispelled some of his fatigue and he put both hands on the metal door.

  “Think about wanting to pull a little bit of the astral world into this one. You should feel energy shifting, like a wall of jelly.”

  “What flavor?” He grinned.

  “Here, look in my head while I do it. It’s a lot easier if you just take in my surface thoughts―it’s hard to explain what it tast… uhh, feels like.”

  When she sensed his telepathic peek, she channeled a blockade into the walls. A sense of the apartment’s three-dimensional form spread through her thoughts as energy seeped around and drew the physical and astral realms close. It was more draining than just doing the bathroom, but she was on her way to bed so it did not matter. About three quarters of the way through it, the exertion lessened and the glowing seep picked up speed around the room. Evan was helping. Soon, the line of glowing light met up with its start point and the entire space glimmered in the sublime golden radiance.

  They stepped away from the wall, Evan’s eyes wide as he watched the phantasmal light shimmer across the surface and sink into the material.

  “That’s awesome.” He beamed up at her once the light had absorbed into the wall. “How long does it last?”

  “Until we break the integ… Umm, until we open a door or window, though it will falter after a few days, even if we don’t.”

  He nodded, and scampered around the comforgel pad to his sleeping bag. Soon, he was just a little face staring at her from a bundle of blue cloth.

  As soon as they approve permanent custody, I’ll get a bigger place. He needs a real bed.

  She crawled over the squishy, gelatinous mass, and as soon as her head hit the pillow, the ability to sleep grew distant. Kirsten whined to herself; how was it she was still wide-awake while being so worn out? Rolling onto her back, she stared at the ceiling tiles. Worry was high on the list of suspects, perhaps latent adrenaline from almost dying again.

  Rolling to her side, she tucked an arm under her head and curled fetal, staring at Evan. For a few minutes, the memory of his calling her mommy brought back a sense of placid calm; in the weeks he had been staying here, he had never quite gotten to that point. In fact, she could not remember him ever using any term to address her directly. He had always walked into view before speaking so he did not have to call her anything at all. Watching him sleep, she did not feel so alone anymore. Even though she did not bring him into the world in a physical sense, she had no doubt she would do anything for him.

  A few quiet tears of joy slipped from her eyes, tracing her nose and cheek into the pillow. The mood stalled as her mind returned to her other near-death experience this week. Almost shot dead by a seven-year-old. Kirsten sat up with a hand on her gut, trying to push the same kind of sleepless nausea out of her stomach that plagued her the night after the Saguaro Asylum.

  She bent forward, easing the nightstand door open to retrieve the bottle of Synvod. A delivery droid had brought it, at her request, the night she dealt with the Wharf Stalker. She put it away half-gone the next morning. Sleep after the soul collector from the asylum required another quarter bottle.

  Her right eye gazed back at her from a thin strip of reflection on the bottle. Her thumb flicked at the glass. I wonder how mother got started. Mother always had something on her breath whenever she screamed to Jesus about her Devil-touched daughter. Did she have to numb herself so she could do such things to her own child? Kirsten’s lip quivered. If she didn’t drink, would things have been different? Her gaze focused past the bottle to Evan. Did Mother ever tell herself it was only so she could sleep? Only say it was once or twice a year?

  Evan’s eyes popped open. The beginnings of a smile faded to a worried stare and he sat bolt upright.

  “What’s that?”

  The fearful look in his eyes hurt. Mick, his former stepfather, was drunk more than sober. Kirsten thought back to the wash of vodka breath on the back of her head when he tried to kill her.

  “Something I”―she stood, walking to the kitchenette―“wanted to get rid of.” She slipped the bottle into the disintegrator chute and hit the button. Yellow light flickered through the hatch seams as the mechanism disassembled the bottle’s molecules into inert matter.

  When she settled into bed, Evan climbed onto it. “Mick drinks, too.”

  “So did my mom.” Kirsten ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not going to have any more. I only had a little to help me sleep after a bad night, but I guess that’s how it starts.”

  Evan relaxed. “Can I sleep with you tonight, I’m…” He fidgeted.

  Kirsten held the blanket up so he could crawl in. “It’s okay, they can’t get through the blockade.”

  He cuddled up, back against her chest. “Mom? I don’t like the way he looked at me. Is he mad ̓cause I blew up his ninja?”

  She held him tight. “I…” Aww, he’s shivering. Don’t bullshit the kid. “Yeah, he’s probably mad. I’ll get him.”

  “He’s a weird ghost.”

  “He’s not quite a ghost anymore, hon.”

  He squirmed to look at her face. “What is he?”

  “A bad person that got put where bad souls go, but he got out somehow. I need to make sure he goes back where he belongs.”

  “Oh.” He snuggled into the pillow. “Why did you talk to him?”

  “I don’t think violence is ever the first or best answer to a problem. There are still pieces of who they were in there, and if I can reach one of those pieces… maybe I can help him, too.”

  “Mom? He’s a demon, right?”

  “That’s what some people call it.”

  He held on to the arm she put across his chest. “They’re lying. Don’t talk. Just smack them. They’re not people anymore.
”

  Kirsten clung to him like a teddy bear, wondering if he really was afraid ghosts would come after him in the night or if this was for her benefit. She lay for a few minutes, thinking about the sight of Mariko melting away.

  “Ev?”

  “Mmm?” He sounded as though he was fast on his way to sleep.

  “What did you do to Mariko?”

  Evan’s voice, slow with the onrush of sleep, whispered. “Ran it over.”

  old touched her face and leaked through the button gaps in her pajama top. Kirsten’s eyes fluttered open, feeling more tired now than when she had first tried to pass out. The blanket, folded away, exposed her to the chill of the room. She flicked it down, seeking warmth. He probably had to pee.

  “Mom!” A distant tiny yell echoed in the dark. “Mom, help!”

  She flew upright, gazing at the dark and empty bathroom. Her head whirled left; the front door hung ajar.

  “Mom…” The cry grew distant.

  Kirsten bolted from the bed, scrambling through a crawl as she disentangled herself from the blankets and ran out into the dark hallway. Frigid tiles met bare feet; cold air swam up inside her thigh-length shirt, making her teeth chatter. Rows of nonworking lights ran in either direction along the ceiling, lights that should always be on. Something drew the power out of the entire building. Worry rattled her to the point where even simple Darksight was a chore to activate. The hallway blurred into sight, a ghostly greyscale copy of it shimmering on top of the real world.

  “Evan?” she yelled, her voice echoing into silence. “Dorian?”

  Door slam.

  She heard him call once more by the bank of elevators and ran to the sound. A large fake plant, out of its usual place, did not appear in her astral vision. She took the corner fast, yelping as she smashed her toes into the metal pot and fell through plastic leaves to thin carpeting in her floor’s lobby. Just past the elevators, the stairwell door flickered in a vaporous glow wafting from the knob, recent contact from a spirit or demon. She got back up to a limping run and burst through the door, shoving it with both hands as she pivoted to follow the railing.

  “Evan?” she cried.

  “Mom!” he sounded louder now, as if only a few stories down.

  Kirsten barely noticed her toes going numb from the cold concrete steps as she moved just short of a speed where she would lose balance. “I’m coming!”

  His cries led her through the shifting blur of the stairwell; Darksight made the walls weave and dip in a nauseating undulation, two superimposed images wobbling in a futile effort to align. Faces came out of the dark every so often, curious when they saw her bright white eyes go past. She knew one or two nice, elderly spirits who died here, resident haunts of the building.

  “He’s going for the basement,” a feeble old man voice called out behind her.

  Landing after landing passed as she chased the sound of a pleading boy down sixty stories until she hit the litter-covered basement level. Two steps onto the landing, she screamed and fell into the wall―broken glass in her foot.

  Shivering, she looked at her bloody foot, and then at the debris all over the ground. Shattered autoinjectors, bottles, and anything else some idiot dropped down the stairway from who-knows-how high. The heavy basement door shimmered, paranormal energy fluttering from the knob. Kirsten plucked a sliver of brown glass from her sole, and gently eased her toes into the trash. When she heard him wail in fright, she forgot her care and ran.

  “Evan!” she sobbed, gasping each time she failed to find glass-free footing.

  It hurt so much her body wanted to collapse. Kirsten forced her shaking body onward, hand-over-hand along the grey cinderblocks to keep her balance. She took faltering steps, screaming, and forced herself to the door on trembling legs.

  Locked.

  The code panel on the wall defied her with its dead display. Police override codes did not do much good without electricity. Evan screamed on the other side, shrieking as if stabbed. In her mind, Seneschal’s claws raked down his belly. She flung herself at the door, pounding on it, screaming.

  Begging.

  More glass underfoot. So much of it remained embedded in her feet that even clear floor felt as though she walked on needles. She sobbed, no longer caring about the pain, no longer feeling crystalline shards grind with each step. She thrashed at the unmoving knob, a hundred pound willow attempting to tear down an armored door.

  “Evan! No!”

  Shadows moved, visible through a three-inch wide vertical strip of window. Small legs kicked in the air and something large surrounded him. He screeched, calling out for his mommy between sobs.

  Kirsten broke her hand against the glass, alternating between shouted threats and wailed pleas. Something clattered to the ground in the boiler room as the shadow of a small leg kicked a tool cart.

  The echo slapped her like an open hand. Her gaze shot to the right at a ventilation duct. Not even bothering to tiptoe through the junk, she rushed over and climbed a shelf. Hanging from a rack of dusty tools, she grabbed an old wrench and bashed at the grating until it failed. Rats scurried out of her way as she crawled her shirt black through a metal tunnel untouched for decades.

  Six meters in, the screaming and pleading ceased; replaced only with the sound of a man’s sinister chuckle. Kirsten, eyes blurred with tears, let out a yell as the ductwork gave out under her weight and sent her sliding into the air. She bounced off the top of a boiler, nailed her knee on a pipe, and hit the ground hard on her chest. The windblast from her landing lofted a cloud of soot from the floor. Her subsequent involuntary breath sucked a good portion of it into her lungs.

  Gagging and coughing, she grabbed the frame of a giant heating unit. Her grip faltered as the pain of shattered fingers overruled her desire to hold on. Seneschal grinned as she crawled into view, trailing blood from both feet.

  “Valiant hero you are.”

  Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the floor. Evan squirmed, held aloft by a fistful of his shirt, his hands and feet bound with wire. He looked beyond terrified. Seneschal curled a hand, caressing the boy’s face. He cringed away. Black fingernails lengthened into claws, teasing at the tender skin of Evan’s neck.

  “No… Please…” Kirsten struggled to stand. An unconscious moan of pain slipped out as her weight drove glass deeper into her soles. “Don’t hurt him…”

  “I promised him I’d let you watch.” Seneschal’s arm tensed.

  “No!” Kirsten screamed; fear and worry rolled into wrath.

  The lash unfurled. It only hurt the dead; Evan would not be a human shield. The tendril of energy wrapped over Seneschal’s face, stalling like a wet noodle. Kirsten’s broken hand throbbed as if she punched a brick wall. The lash slipped off him, limp to the ground.

  Seneschal leaned back with a great bellowing laugh, claws poised but drawing no blood. Evan wriggled in a futile struggle against the wire.

  “You can’t hurt me here, bitch. I cursed the whole basement. After I bleed this little lamb out, I’m going to make you want your mommy back. She was an amateur, but if you beg for her enough, I’ll set up a reunion.”

  “Let him go!” Kirsten lashed out; again, shock reverberated through her hand as though she had struck stone.

  She staggered closer; bloody feet peeled away from the ground with an audible sucking, interspersed with scratching glass. Two more strikes left her hand bleeding as well, as if every bone inside splintered to mush. Everything she tried, Seneschal laughed off. The lash was useless.

  “No…” Kirsten sagged to her knees, unable to look away from the claws at Evan’s throat as she felt the imminence of loss.

  Unable to stop it.

  A lone droplet of blood appeared at the tip of Seneschal’s middle finger claw, tracing a pure red line that pooled in the hollow at the base of his neck; the only item of color in the black and white world. Wavering walls closed in, grief mounted atop claustrophobia.

  Evan stopped moving, stopped fighting the
cords binding him. The fear faded from his face. He knows he’s about to die. Kirsten’s arm refused to rise for another lash. Nothing mattered anymore. She could not save him. The room blurred as she cried; battered, broken, she fell to her knees.

  Evan locked eyes with her. “Mom, stop. You’re hurting yourself.”

  A droplet of blood from the index claw joined the pool. Kirsten convulsed, shoulders shaking, unable to stop.

  “I’m going to take away the only thing you love.” Seneschal grinned as the ring finger claw birthed another droplet.

  The pool at the base of his neck overflowed down the center of his chest.

  Convulsions increased as she tried to lash again.

  “Mom. Stop! You are hurting yourself.”

  Kirsten wheezed, a leaden weight settled into her chest, making it impossible to breathe.

  “I’m taking him away from you.”

  The voice started as Seneschal, but turned into that of an older woman in a tweed business suit. Normal in appearance save for glowing red eyes. The abyssal changed forms. The black cord binding Evan turned into red tape. Serpentine heads hissed as it unraveled from his wrists and ankles, spreading and mummifying his entire body except for his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Agent Wren, you can’t keep him.” Danita Reed, her caseworker, laughed with demonic glee as the mass of red seemed to be coming right out of her body; drawing Evan into her.

  “Mom!”

  The convulsions turned into thrashing.

  “Mom, mom, mom.” Evan’s voice grew desperate.

  Astral walls spun into a vortex. She wanted to throw up.

  “…determination that you are unfit to act as guardian…” Danita’s voice faded into the same swirl consuming the basement.

  “Mom.” He was so close his breath touched her face.

  Eyes opened.

  Evan knelt on her chest, shaking her by a two-fisted grip of her shirt. Her right hand throbbed, bleeding from a tiny cut. The warm softness of the comforgel pad beneath was gone, replaced by carpeted floor. As soon as he realized she was awake, he collapsed on top of her. She sat up, clinging to the hard-breathing child clamped about her, and rubbed her hand up and down his back. Her feet, glowing pale in a slanted rectangle of moonlight upon the rug, were unhurt. The nightstand was knocked over sideways, its contents scattered on the floor, and a little blood on the side where she had punched it in her sleep.