The Creation: Axis Mundi (The Creation Series Book 1)

by The Behrg

  He tossed the gun back to Faye.

  “Consider your lives a gift,” Dugan said, slowly backing up. “To make up for the shitty father I’ve been. And even shittier human being. I would tell you to leave town but I’m not sure you’ll be able to. But I do appreciate you letting us borrow your helicopter.”

  He looked up at the third man hiding near the school’s entryway, the bright flash making it impossible to make out his details. “I’ll be needing that before we go. Rojo?”

  The light from the camera wavered as Rojo stepped off the skinny man they had taken at the house and started toward the school.

  “It was good to see you Faye. But next time, call first.”

  “I hate you,” she said staring back at him from the ground, water covering her waist. “I hate you!”

  Verse XX.

  Faye had never felt more like a child in all her life. Like a little girl that had fallen in a puddle, arms outstretched, waiting for her father to lift her to her feet and tell her everything would be okay.

  Though she would be waiting a long time.

  She had failed. Had found her father, confronted him, but ultimately failed. And she knew she wouldn’t be so lucky as to have another opportunity.

  The light from Kenny’s camera went dark, bathing the street once again in shadow. A strobe effect suddenly flashed, light going in and out several times before something exploded. Faye turned back in time to see Kenny drop the camera, catching just a glimpse of the ancillary flash from the spark.

  She shielded her eyes but too late, a white afterimage burning behind her eyelids. She could have sworn the bearded mercenary hadn’t yet reached Kenny. Then why had the camera failed?

  Several similar bursts sounded, electronics popping with some kind of surge. Donavon shouted, tossing something into the water. A wisp of smoke rose from where it had fallen.

  “My cell!” he said, rubbing at his leg where his phone had been.

  The Indian-looking Venezuelan with long hair twirled his long machete in his hand, glancing nervously around.

  “What is it, Oso?” her father said.

  The light above the porch of the police station blew out, followed by both of the Humvee’s headlights. Leaning against the vehicle, Sir William jumped at the sudden noise, almost ending back in the water. Faye reached out to Donavon, who helped her up.

  “Oso?”

  Another explosion sounded, the mercenary with the beard stripping off a handheld radio which looked like it had detonated. In the dark it was difficult to tell, but Faye thought his side where the radio had been clipped on was dark with blood. If so, the man seemed unperturbed.

  Faye caught a foul smell with the breeze, so strong it caused an instant gag reflex. It was the smell of something rotting. Something that used to be alive.

  “Oh, gawd,” Donavon said, putting one hand to his face.

  Her father splashed through the water, a black heavy pistol replacing the small gun he had taken from her. “What will it be this time?” he shouted to the darkness.

  Grey cowered as Dugan stepped past him.

  “I’m right here!” Dugan screamed.

  Donavon grabbed hold of Faye’s arm, pointing down the road.

  A strange green luminescence shone through the blurred sheets of rain, seeming to grow larger. The rain was the only noise around them, pattering in a steady chant. Everyone quietly waiting for whatever approached. Both of Dugan’s men had weapons out and ready, focused on the growing apparition.

  Faye blinked through the flash that still hovered over her eyes. Something was in the light, she just couldn’t make it out. A form, like a shadow – blurred or out of focus.

  And then, as if he were stepping through the light and into the darkness before it, a man appeared. The green light was gone, as if it had never been.

  The man walked slowly, taking quiet steps.

  Heavy stone necklaces hung from his long thin neck, sweeping back and forth against his bare chest as he moved. His flesh was wrinkled and leathery, marks on his chest Faye recognized as tattoos. His hair was grey, woven in long bands that hung from his head like the drooping fronds of a plant deprived of sunlight. Sunken eyes, a long bony chin and a piece of reed wood twining through the flesh of his bottom lip. He was frail and weathered; his only clothing a thin cloth flap, barely covering what most men kept concealed.

  He stretched out a frail hand. “Inktomi.”

  Lightning could have struck the very ground. In an instant, everyone was moving – Dugan and his two men kicking up water as they circled around the native Indian, guns pointed toward him. They kept their distance, but it was apparent they had no intention of letting the man escape their reach.

  Sir William stepped forward with uncertain footing, his face ghostly pale. Grey finally rose from the water, looking to Faye as if for direction.

  For once, she didn’t have any.

  “Inktomi Fehener La’aione.”

  The man turned in a semi-circle following Dugan’s movements. Her father was the only person the native Indian seemed to notice.

  “Takushkansh’kan.” Dugan said the foreign word almost with reverence. “You underestimated me.”

  “No,” the old Indian said forcefully, his voice gravel scraping against stone.

  “Are you here to trade? Your life for your people?”

  “No.”

  Sir William stepped past Faye and Donavon, his head shaking. He was mumbling to himself. “Can it … Can it be …?”

  Dugan continued his dance around the man. “Then you’re here to give us what we need. Peacefully.”

  Faye caught only a glimpse of the Indian’s smile as he turned away from her, but that glimpse sent a shiver through her body.

  “No.”

  Faye followed after Sir William, moving closer toward the exchange. Something about the Indian was off, like an unfinished painting, one shade away from being complete. And then she realized what it was.

  Not a single drop of water fell on the man.

  Rain fell as thick as sleet, pelting them all like tiny needles, and yet the drops wound around the Indian. The rain bent as if there were a warp in the air, molecules of water never coming in contact with his person. He stood in the middle of a storm completely dry except for his feet, submerged in the stream that had been a road.

  “You must know you can’t win,” Dugan said, their circle tightening closer around the man. “No one else needs to be hurt.”

  “No!”

  “Wait!” Faye was shocked the interjection had come from her, but she continued, shooting past Sir William and stepping between the frail Indian and her father. “No more. This has to end.”

  Her father stepped to the side, not even looking at her, his gaze falling only on the native behind her. “Get rid of her,” he said, almost as an afterthought.

  The bearded mercenary was on her instantly. Faye felt herself drop, her head wrapped in the crook of his arms as he dragged her off to the side, the task like battling a kitten. She beat at the man, pummeling his back and arm with her fists, but knew it was pointless.

  “Stop!”

  The word spoken by the frail native wasn’t a word but a command. And it was obeyed. Dugan and the long-haired mercenary stopped their movements around him like a stalled clock. Faye felt herself released from the bearded man’s grasp.

  “Little time … Remain,” the native said, staring only at her father. “End is begun … Begin to end … All.”

  He raised his arms, motioning around him. “Is garden … Here … Now … Too far … Stop … You … Inktomi –”

  As if someone had paused a show on the television, the native stopped mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open. He suddenly jerked forward, his shoulders pressing in on themselves, back arching. It looked like something was trying to crawl out of him, as if he were about to split out of his skin like a reptile. He spread his thin arms out to either side, forming a cross.

  Faye could see the man’s cracked li
ps splitting, blood seeping from the open sores. The man continued, each word spilling out with force.

  “Fool … A god … Stop … Man … Begin.”

  The native was no longer staring at her father but through him. He shifted his eyes from Dugan to the other native mercenary with long black hair.

  “Ser’apa La’mielke.”

  The old Indian suddenly bent backward – his back curving to the point his hands could have touched the ground behind him if they hadn’t been raised skyward. Winds lashed about in conflicting directions, rain seeming to come at them from all sides.

  Faye held her arm in front of her face to keep from being blinded. The green light returned, split on either side of her shadowed arm.

  When she finally lowered her arm to look, the Indian before her, the one her father had called Takushkansh’kan, was levitating in the air.

  Verse XXI.

  Wind wrested Dugan, lashing out and carrying with it rain that felt as if it were penetrating skin rather than breaking on it. And yet, despite the hurricane-like storm, he couldn’t force himself to look away. The answer he had been searching for his entire life was within his grasp, embodied in the man before him.

  A man who was floating a foot above the water.

  The Shaman’s bare feet dangled in the air, his levitating trick now at its maximum height. Despite his demonstration of power, Takushkansh’kan did not look like a man in control. He didn’t hover like a god, arms held steady at his side, staring down at the ants before him. Instead, he looked like a child’s doll being carried. His body was limp, head lolling side to side, his arms no longer held up but hanging down.

  One thing was certain: this was not a man Dugan need fear.

  A few men and women had congregated, locals who consumed gossip as quickly as cerveza. They were huddled together in small groupings on the outskirts of the road or hiding within doorways. Watching. Staring. Even a few of the General’s La Guardia were intermingled within the crowd, the soldiers equally agitated.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Dugan caught sight of Zephyr and Cy, both pushing past bodies and moving into the rain-filled street. Dugan was glad to see them. Just in case things got ugly.

  Something boomed from above the Shaman, a low rumble that shook Dugan to his core. The crowd uniformly cowered at the noise, men and women ducking in fright. Water now pelted the native hovering in the air as if he had become a magnet, rain sweeping toward him from every direction.

  Dugan held out a hand to Zephyr, the man sighting his tranq gun on the floating Shaman.

  Not yet.

  The Shaman opened his mouth. A green mist poured out from him like a frozen breath in winter. Then the world flashed white. It was like lightning had struck in front of Dugan’s face.

  Temporarily blinded, he fell to his knees in the rainwater, trying to blink through the shock.

  The earth rumbled with the Shaman’s words. Dugan steadied himself with one hand to keep from falling over.

  “K’lana Sa’taumn Lia’ona Shan’kaunum.”

  Gales of directionless wind swept upward to meet the Shaman. A sudden pressure in the air made Dugan feel like his ears were about to pop.

  His vision slowly returned. He stretched one hand out, feeling the droplets of water strike his palm. Raindrops that were falling upward from the ground. Defying the laws of gravity, the water rose from the stream toward the Shaman.

  Okay, maybe a little fear would be wise, Dugan thought.

  “Di’aonak Ka’lumnin Ka’logna.”

  The pressure in the air was building, like stepping sixty feet below water without a chance to acclimate first. Oso looked upward, his face a mask of pain. The black blade slipped from his fingers, splashing to the ground. Dugan found himself on his knees, the water lapping over his legs. When had he fallen?

  The Shaman’s entire body now glowed with a soft green haze.

  Dugan’s eardrums were about to burst, the pressure at its apex. He signaled Zephyr and screamed above the deep thrum ringing through his ears.

  “Now, Zephyr! Now!”

  The Shaman spun in the air, turning toward Zephyr. This was the hovering god the Shaman hadn’t been moments before.

  Zephyr’s gun arm shook violently, the muscles on his neck bulging. And then the gun slowly began to turn toward Dugan.

  “What the – Doog! I can’t –”

  Zephyr fired, a dart zipping out into the darkness, followed by a second, which struck someone in the crowd behind them. The Venezuelan dropped face first into the muddy stream, those beside him, reaching out to help.

  Zephyr’s gun was now aligned with Dugan, the barrel wavering.

  Dugan slapped his chest, rising back to his feet. “I am Inktomi, the Spider! And you are the hunted, not the hunter!”

  The Shaman spun back toward Dugan, and in that face, in those eyes, Dugan realized he had never before known fear.

  Not like this.

  He was a spec, a smudge, the whole of the universe bearing down on him, smothering him beneath the weight of something so vast, so infinite, so eternal, it had no end. Eons crushed against him, endless galaxies compressing upon him until he might as well not exist. If he was the Spider, it was because this creature could squash him like the insignificant bug he was. He was nothing. A blot. A blip. Unable to breathe. Unable to move. Unable to think. A strand of fiber that was being unraveled. Disintegrating. Into nothing. He was –

  A dart sunk deep into the Shaman’s chest.

  “Who’s the hunter now?” Zephyr shouted. He tossed his empty CO2 pistol into the water.

  A string of shots followed his cry, Rojo and Cy unleashing their own tranq darts. Three more stuck from the Shaman’s torso, neck and arm.

  The pressure in Dugan’s ears popped, the sounds of rainfall swelling anew, and then the Shaman’s body fell to the ground. Water cascaded over him, before leveling back out.

  Rain continued to fall.

  Downward.

  As it was meant to.

  The Shaman lifted his head from the water, reaching one bony arm toward Dugan as if for help. Then Faye was beside him, raising his head above the water and heaving him upward. Frederick, the old Englishman, leapt past Rojo, Faye’s boyfriend now at her side.

  “Bring him! Quick!” Frederick yelled.

  Faye’s boyfriend lifted the Shaman like a bag of potatoes, despite his slung arm, and then they were racing through the street, tearing through the water as they went.

  More movement as the crowd began to disperse, panicked chaos ensuing. A man with long hair ducked out from the school’s awning – the cameraman, his hands now empty and raised. After coming to the conclusion he wasn’t going to get shot, he started running after his friends.

  Dugan began to laugh.

  He stared up into the sky, arms outstretched, rain falling around him, pelting him. He was dripping wet and he had never felt so alive. Reduced to nothing, he had survived.

  To find the Shaman is death. Or Death finds the Shaman.

  Looked like it was the latter of the two. And Dugan was Death.

  He brought out his pack of cigarettes, damp but not soaked, and placed one between his lips. When he brought his lighter up he realized the cap had exploded. He laughed even harder.

  Verse XXII.

  The front door of the church slammed inward, striking someone on the other side. While the rain had cleared out the crowd petitioning outside, it had done little to remove those already within.

  “We need help!” Faye shouted. “Ayudanos!”

  Men, women, and children upon children, were huddled together in small camps on the tiled floor. Most of their reactions made her realize they would be more likely to string her up on a cross than offer a hand. Even in a church.

  Remmy, the priest, entered from the adjoining sick room, his face weary. “I thought I told you –”

  Donavon trudged through the doorway, the Shaman’s limp body hanging over him like a drape. Sir William was right behind him, s
houting at someone else outside.

  “Who …” Remmy began, Faye cutting him off.

  “They’re coming to take him! Please, we need your help!”

  For a moment the man in robes appeared to wither, his face appearing even older, then he motioned them back. “Come. Hurry!”

  He snatched a book from a small case, handing it to the boy Faye had met earlier, the one with the mark on his face. Josue. The child immediately shouted for everyone to make way in Spanish. Parents gathered their children in an attempt to create a path.

  Faye and her group walked through, stepping carefully to avoid little fingers or toes. God, why did none of the children even have shoes?

  Kenny joined them as they moved beneath the cloth hanging in front of the short hallway. “They’re coming!”

  “Your room?” Faye asked.

  “Filled with three families,” Remmy said. “We ran out of space in the chapel. Come!”

  At the end of the hall, he raised one of the tapestries that clung to the wall, revealing a crude doorway behind it. They ducked through into a room with only a partial roof. Beams and steel cables extended overhead, the ground hardened cement, not tile. Water covered the floor in a thin film as slippery as it was filthy. In the far corner, bricks had collapsed outward, opening up to the darkened sky. A light rain spilled through the gap.

  “We never had the funds to finish,” Remmy said.

  He pulled a rolled up rug from a table, pushing boxes and crates out of the way. A few of them Faye recognized as supply boxes they had brought. Others had markings that looked like medical supplies, though they hadn’t come from her efforts.

  Remmy laid the rug on the ground, its cloth quickly absorbing the water beneath, like a sponge. Donavon knelt, grimacing in pain as Sir William helped him lay the Shaman down.

  “Will they find us here?” Faye asked.

  “The police? They don’t know this room exists.”

  “Not the police. Dugan.”

  Shumway’s face fell. “You couldn’t listen to me, could you?”

  Sir William held the Shaman’s wrist in his hand, checking for a pulse.