Kirsten glanced upward as she walked, staring at the mass of grey fifty meters up. It extended in all directions, an infinite network of pipes and struts blending together with a repetitive pattern of dull metal. The taller buildings had been sheared off just below the underside of the plates. Down here, she found it hard to imagine another civilization above all of this―a city atop a city. This place could pass for an old suburban neighborhood if not for the enormous columns that came down from the steel sky, ignoring everything in their path on their way to the Earth. By all rights, none of these structures should still be standing, but the new city shielded its ancestor from the wind and the weather, creating a tomb of stagnant air.
She went along an old concrete sidewalk to the end of the street, trying to remember her way around. Rapid semi-human hissing from behind froze her in place.
A shrill squeaky voice. “Whazzat?”
An even higher pitched one chimed back. “Tasty bitsy.”
“Me wants!” That one sounded throaty and rough, accompanied by a dragging pipe.
A deep gurgle drew the words out longer than needed. “Too… same!”
“Eats us well!” The first one cried out with a squeal of delight, chain rattling.
The Discarded had found her.
Kirsten whirled to face the sounds, pulling her E90. A dozen figures emerged through a gap between two rotten houses. Clad in tattered grey rags, they held rods tipped with sharpened metal. One twirled a length of chain studded with weights and nails. She fired over the head of the closest one, hoping to scare them off.
The advancing spears did not flinch.
Dorian stepped in front of her, his body surrounded by a luminous outline as he forced his presence to manifest. Behind the Discarded, the under-city shimmered from whatever he did. Spears clanged to the ground; the dozen ruined men wailed like frightened boys, scattering into the distance without regard to what they had to smash through to get away. To Kirsten, he changed transparent, a sign he had become visible to anyone.
“I doubt they’ll be back.” When he turned, he looked normal to her.
Lowering her weapon, she resumed breathing. “Thanks.”
A building with dingy aluminum siding draped from old wooden walls sat at the corner where she expected it. Stained glass windows hid behind a crisscross of rotting planks and a deep sense of foreboding settled over the entire area. The darkness in the surrounding dirt lot and alleys contained shifting patches flitting about, hinting at a presence that moved just out of sight. Two glimmering flecks of light appeared on an unseen face, hanging for an instant and gazing into Kirsten’s soul.
It doesn’t like being seen. She averted her eyes, lest it remember her.
Dorian’s usual bravado faded to a normal sounding voice. “I’ll… uhm, wait right here.”
“What are you afraid of?” She blinked.
He offered a cheesy smile. “Let’s just say I’ve come to second guess some of my decisions in the field.”
She frowned. “Summaries?”
“They weren’t exactly official.” He fidgeted.
“I’m sure you had your reasons.” She looked at the figures in the windows, wondering what she would do if she walked in on a scene like the kitchen. “Okay, I’ll be back.”
The watched feeling intensified as she crossed the street to the lonesome old church. A shadow darted behind her and she spun. No sooner had she turned than it happened again, still behind her.
Why are they checking me out?
Shivering, she tried to ignore them and trotted up three stone steps to the door. Her shaking hands defied her as she fought to get the bronze latch to yield. Finally, it gave up and the door opened with a deep, creaking groan lifted from the pages of bad dreams. She raised her arm against the curtain of dust falling from the top as the ancient wood moved.
The ill presence did not enter the building, replaced by a somber sense of regret inside. Her echoing footfalls chased bats from the roof and rodents from the debris. Shattered pews lined the room, ages ago collapsed to the floor. Dead ivy adorned the walls of a building forgotten by the touch of living men for centuries.
Her voice pierced the silence with a tenuous warble. “Ri… Ritchie? A… Are you still here?”
The crunch of stepped-upon glass came from the right. Her hair whipped around as she turned and took a step back from a man that coalesced out of a mass of fog. Out from the darkness he strode at an alarming pace, his unblinking gaze through ragged hair locked upon her. A twinge of menace underlined with lust glinted in his eyes as he drew closer. Not until he came within arm’s reach did his head lift enough for her to see his face.
Filthy dark hair hung halfway down his back; it would have been light brown if clean. He looked aged before his time, the ravages of drugs and a hard life evident in wrinkled skin and yellowed teeth. He told her he had died at thirty-two, but he seemed closer to fifty. A green military jacket covered most of him save where tattered jeans peeked out. Sneakers held together by miracles clung to his feet, the sole of the left flopped open to reveal blackened toes. Wisps of fog swirled as the spectral chill of his breath rode down his voice onto her chest.
“You…” His voice scraped to a pause. “I know you.”
“Ritchie.” She stared at the thick yellow fingernail pointing. “It’s me, Kirsten.”
A grin wet with decay deepened the creases on his cheeks. “I dinnae recognize ya now ya got tits.” He made a dry chuckle. “Nice’uns too. Sorry fer what I was thinkin’ there at first, kiddo.”
Kirsten brushed it off. The last time she had seen him, as a ten-year-old, she had to work to see ghosts. “I had a feeling you’d still be here.”
“Oh, aye!” he wailed, nodding. “They’re out there, surroundin’ the place.” His arm waved at the wall, chased by the tatters of his sleeve. “They won’ come in here, no siree.” Hands on his hips, he rocked back with a chuckle.
“I need your help.” She tried to look like an innocent. “You saved me once.”
“Aye.” Hard wrinkles softened. “Helpin’s not me usual way, but ya had eyes what would melt the Devil’s own heart.” His voice drifted with the faintest trace of an Irish brogue.
Kirsten swallowed, remembering her dream self. “There’s a spirit out there that I need to catch. He’s hurting people and I have to stop him. I just don’t know how to find him.”
Ritchie shook his head with a hiss and waved his arms at the window. “Why don’ the damned blackies go after him an’ leave me to mine? If he’s da’ bad why don’t they?”
She sat on the edge of the only intact bench. “I can’t claim to understand them, but I think the more focused a spirit is, the less power they have over it. This one is furious, not to mention strong for his tenure as a ghost. It seems like they can’t just drag a determined spirit away unless they are weakened.”
“Why didn’t they grab him new? I had ta run like the devil.” He cackled with a manic stare at the wall.
“I don’t think he had a dark soul when he was alive. He’s turned. He’s been killing random people to make the corporation responsible for his death look bad.”
“Now what kind of cockamamie sense is that supposed to make, girl?” Ritchie ambled over and leaned in for a closer look.
“He’s pissed at a company, not a person. He wants to destroy them financially.”
Ritchie muttered a series of incoherencies, understanding but not agreeing. “So why ya bring yerself ta me?”
“I wanted to see how you were doing… and I hoped you could help.”
“Baww…” He waved her off. “No one wants ta see Ritchie, cept them blackies outside. They wanna see ol’ Ritchie pretty fuckin’ bad.” His hoarse laugh smelled like vodka and dust.
“That’s not true. You saved my life. It took me a long time to realize it, but if it wasn’t for you, she’d have killed me.”
She rendered her body tangible to ghosts and took his hand. He recoiled at the sudden sense of contact,
but relaxed as he saw the gratitude in her eyes. He managed a nervous smile; it had been a long time since he had felt the touch of another person, much less a woman. Ritchie’s eyes went right to her breasts, apples dangled before Adam. He looked away, complaining in an inaudible murmur and trying to picture the little girl he first saw.
She squeezed his hand. “You got her off me and gave me the courage to take a chance. The street was dangerous, but staying there was even worse. I don’t know what you were like when you lived, but I know what you did for me.”
Ritchie traded a weak smile for a grimace, and then stared at the wall with a mournful glance. “Wish them blackies thought tha’ way. Been trapped in here longer than I can remember.”
Kirsten looked up at the great stained glass windows at the far end of the church. This place had been abandoned for many times her lifespan, yet for some reason the Harbingers refused to enter it. A pang of guilt simmered through her as she pondered that fact. If religion represented the product of humanity’s need to control the weak-minded, why would the Harbingers care about sanctified ground?
“Well, they haven’t gotten you. It may not be too late. Whatever you did in life stained your soul, but there’s always repentance.” She hoped he did not see the look on her face. She felt like a hypocrite for saying it, sounding too religious for her liking. “An evil person would not have helped me ten years ago.”
“If you’da seen yourself. The way you looked, the Prince of Darkness himself would’a shed a tear.” Ritchie smiled, shaking, and threw edgy glances about the room. He half-shrugged and offered a weak grin. “Still, though, I don’t wanna risk it just yet, ya know. Walkin’ outside, that is.”
She wondered if Ritchie kept them out. He seemed to be a religious sort and Harbingers could not just grab strong spirits. If he had enough strength, his belief this old chapel protected him might just be how he focused his will into the world. She found it more appealing a thought than the machinations of deific influence, though a glance at a dour face in the imposing stained glass brought back her doubt.
He came here to find salvation… isn’t that what he gave me?
Kirsten sat quiet for a moment. “Ritchie, can you help? I need to find this guy before he kills again.”
His face warped with an internal argument. He pondered before nodding, taking a step, and hesitating again.
“What’s wrong?”
The innocence in her eyes chased a glower of distrust from his. “It’s makin’ me a bit nervous, what I gotta show ya ta do it.” Scrunching up his face, he relented. “Oh, fine. Follow me, lass.”
At the rear of the church, Ritchie pointed at a hole in the floorboards. “There be a bag in’er, gwon’ take it out.”
Kirsten squatted at the edge of the dark opening. Amid a staggering amount of dust and dirt, she made out the outline of something. After sifting through loose debris, she lifted a rough canvas sack out of the space below the floor. Trying not to inhale any of it, she rummaged at the package until she found the flap. Inside, among drug paraphernalia, burglar’s tools, and a rusting pistol so old it had no electronics, she found a human skull stained brown with dirt and age.
She held it up, turning it through her gaze. A cracked bullet hole broke through, just to the side of the right eye. Open cavity dominated most of the left posterior cranium. She glanced back and forth from it to Ritchie, noting the similarity in the teeth. Inside the brain pan, cigarette ash stained the bone.
“Took me head back to his boss.” His wrinkled lips curled into a grin. “Fucker snuck up on me. Damn cop.”
She gave him a sad look.
“Be careful with it, please.” The question emerged in a staccato whisper. His hands edged toward her as if he wanted to take it.
“Okay… did you want me to bring this somewhere?”
“No!” His outburst echoed through the room and made her jump. For an instant, his presence changed, growing dark and menacing. Shrinking, he flashed a contrite look. “No, please… I just wanted to show you what you asked. I’m just a wee bit protective of me skull.”
Kirsten thought about Dorian and the car. “Okay.”
“All spirits are bound to our mortal remains. It’s like our bed. We go back to rest and gather ourselves. If they’re gone, it be hard for us to recover from things, kin take years.”
Kirsten listened, clinging with care to the skull as she crouched over the hole in the floor.
“If you have some of the bugger’s remains, you can use ‘em to find him. Take me skull and think ‘bout me. Remember when you had to work ta see me? It be almost like that. Look for a trail.”
“A trail? What, like astral projecting?”
“Whatever that is.” He traced a corkscrew through the air. “There’ll be a faint wisp o’ smoke.”
Kirsten held the skull with both hands in front of her face. Her mind strained in an attempt to concentrate at it in the way Ritchie described. He kept talking as she focused; guiding her as best as he could explain the trick to a non-ghost.
After the better part of an hour of listening to him talk, her arms went slack and let the old bone fall in her lap. She turned to admit defeat, but then she saw it. Ethereal fog hung in the air, like the contrail of a tiny rocket that spun out of the eye socket and into Ritchie’s chest. Holding it aloft, she sidestepped and moved away from him. The wispy trail stretched out and followed; difficult to discern in this dark place, all but impossible in daylight.
She let the effect fade and tried to recall it. After several repetitions, she felt satisfied. Placing the skull with gentle care back into its bag, she reburied it as she had found it.
“Thank you.” She leapt to hug Ritchie.
She passed right through him, finding the armload of floor she hugged rather ambivalent to her outpouring of emotion. Pushing herself up, she rolled to sit and looked down at the dust coating her from head to toe. Ritchie’s rasping whistle of laughter echoed as if on a loudspeaker. Her embarrassment faded and she grinned despite herself.
After a moment of concentration, she embraced him and weathered the presence of his smell. The acridness brought her last meal up into her throat, but she tried her best to ignore it. After all this time, he still smelled like a vagrant. Ritchie inhaled her scent deeply, savoring it with a euphoric face. She no longer smelled like a child; it had been such a long time since he had known a woman. He turned away before he touched her breast, ashamed of himself.
“You saved lives, Ritchie.”
He steeled himself, using the memory of the kid she used to be to calm down. “It’s not that much, what I showed you.” He grinned at a memory hiding somewhere in the ceiling. “Not as much fun as starting a rumor can be.”
“What?” She looked up at him. “What rumor?”
He offered a cheesy smile, shambling off. “Oh, nothin’ ye need pay any mind ta. What’s done be done.”
“I’m sure you’ll find your way out of the dark someday. If there’s anything I can ever do for you, please ask.”
He glanced at her chest, his eyes asking a question his mouth could not. He turned away and closed them. “Nae that. If’n I need ye, I’ll come find ye.”
he comforgel pad trapped her in a warm grasp, draining all the energy from her body. She spent a late night lingering in The Beneath and alleviating Ritchie’s loneliness for a time. Not a lot to do for a soul, but old men liked to talk and four-hundred-year-old men really liked to talk. The exhaustion from two late nights in a row filled her limbs with heaviness that kept her pinned to the bed. Thick plastic adhered to her from the sticky substance all over her body. The uncomfortable sensation of sticking everywhere reminded her she had slept naked, lacking the energy to even shower when she got home.
Kirsten propped herself up on her elbows and glanced at the holographic clock. The comforgel pad peeled away from her, feeling like it took skin with it, drawing forth a soundless scream. She wanted to cry out, but did not want the Division 6 men out in the hallway to
kick in the door. The thought of their eyes upon her did not bother her as much as she expected it would, but there was no need to suffer that without good reason.
Noting the time at almost nine-thirty, she hoped Captain Eze would not give her a hard time once she explained the reason for her lateness.
A call from her NetMini rang twice before she realized she had just picked it up and dialed with no clothes on. She dove into the sheets; falling with a gelatinous splat as she rolled into the covers, the bleary look in her eyes replaced with wide-eyed panic at a near miss.
Her expression caused immediate laughter. “Good morning.” Captain Eze’s voice carried a cheerful cadence. “I see we are awake.”
“Sorry, I was up till three last night, but I found a way to track the son of a bitch.”
He grinned. “Good. I trust the security team is not getting in your way?”
“Oh, no, they’re fine. I haven’t heard any explosions yet this morning… maybe Intera gave up.”
“That’s what I like to hear. Come in when you can, I am eager to hear about your progress.” His holographic head collapsed into a point and winked out.
Hoping she had not blushed too much, she peeled her body off the slab once more. One ill-placed step on her way back up from The Beneath had submerged her in a brackish puddle of awfulness with a smell somewhere between rotting corpse and fermented blackberries; a reek that still clung to her, and turned her hair into a solid mass. The uniform sat amid an indigo puddle by the door. Her feet stuck to the ground as she padded over and picked it up with two fingers, pulling the oozing cloth parts away from the accessories.
A droid tapped at the window two minutes after she fiddled with her NetMini, just as she finished pouring the goo out of the various cases on her belt into the toilet. Delivery laundry service could be a lifesaver sometimes, even if it did cost a lot. From the open window, a blast of frigid outdoor air paralyzed her for a second and made her teeth chatter. She stuffed the squishy, befouled uniform into a small compartment in the droid and closed the hatch. The bot shuddered all of a sudden; no doubt compensating for the wind, but it amused her to think of it being repulsed by whatever had soaked into the fabric. She could not close the window fast enough, and folded her arms over her chest in an attempt to reclaim some body heat. The coating of filth and sensation of her sticky arms chased away any want of breakfast while thoughts of what it might be made of almost brought back last night’s dinner. She wanted warmth and soap.
Division Zero Page 26
