by Aaron Crash
Cali went from unnoticeable blonde waif to an eight-foot-tall lupine creature with fusion claws glowing. She threw back her gigantic head and howled. It left Blaze’s ears ringing.
The bluetroopers opened fire. Plasma bolts fried off her fur. Didn’t stop her a bit. She leapt at them, snarling, growling, showing fangs like daggers. Her fusion claws burned through the carpet and into the floor underneath. The smell of smoking wood reminded Blaze of shop class.
The troopers stumbled backward and out of the room. Denning stood there, mouth open, face going pale. Blaze had seen ghosts with more color.
Trina jumped in front of Cali before she could eviscerate the retreating troops. Ha, some elite unit. Scared off by a puppy and a woman with black veins and vampiric incisors, dark like smoked glass.
The vampire closed the door and locked it. Blaze closed and locked Cali’s bracelets. She went from wolf to woman and dropped to the ground, gasping.
Trina, though, whirled and jumped on Denning, knocking him to the floor. She took hold of his dark poindexter hair and jerked his head to the side, exposing his jugular. “We turn him, Blaze. Then those IPC fuckers will know. And they’ll have to help us. They’ll have to!”
Denning yelped in fear. Blaze checked Trina’s Onyx levels. Oops, the healing and the fighting had dropped them low.
Elle saw it too, and she dashed forward. She stabbed one of Granny’s silver syringes into Trina’s neck before the vampire could stop her.
Trina changed back to her red-haired, freckled wonderfulness, but then changed into her vampire form again. Back and forth she went. “Look closely, Denning. Vampire. IPC auditor. Vampire. Auditor. Vampire. Auditor.”
“Super cute IPC auditor,” Blaze added, standing back, arms crossed.
The elite troops were behind the doors, whispering. They could blast through the door, but he was betting they weren’t sure they could kill the monsters inside. They were right. They didn’t have the right weapons. They hadn’t come prepared for class.
“Former IPC auditor,” Denning said in a shaky voice. Then, with more determination, “Let me up. We can discuss this. But just because you might be a genetically enhanced mutant, or some sort of cybernetic creature, that won’t convince me that there is a hell, demons, and a mysterious evil energy coming out of an Onyx Gate.”
“How you gonna close that Onyx Gate, Ramon?” Arlo called out. “With yer good looks?”
“Fusion torpedoes,” Blaze said.
“Spells,” Elle said.
“My good looks,” Trina finished.
Arlo gruffed. “Glad you cockknockers have a plan. Ha.”
Cali got to her feet. She went to Denning. “Alvin, I’m a werewolf. I got bit by one, and now, nothing can hurt me, nothing can stop me, and all I want to do is destroy and devour. You have to believe us. The Onyx energy is real.”
“He knows,” Ambassador Randi said. “The upper echelons know, but they don’t care. They are raking in record profits from their various enterprises. Once they know how to monetize the fight against Onyx energy, they’ll step in. But they think they have time. We don’t, do we?”
Blaze shook his head. “In the past three weeks we’ve fought three major players. What they can do blows the mind. What’s coming, Panashoat, is going to be an evil that will—”
Everyone in the room except for Blaze, Ling, and Arlo erupted and said that word three times:
“Panashoat! Panashoat! Panashoat!”
Lizzie broke in across the speakers. “Panashoat! Panashoat! Panashoat! Hhhunger incarnate. Hhhe ate all the rest, and now hhhe’ll eat the best. Cookies and milk, donuts and coffee, time and space! The Onyx Gate must be closed. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Four of five will keep us alive. Five of five and we’ll all die!”
Ambassador Randi chuckled nervously. “That answers my question. The word ‘pan’ might come from the Greek for ‘all’ or ‘everything.’ And a shoat is a baby pig.”
“Hhhere, piggy, piggy, piggy,” Lizzie cackled.
“Who in the hell is that?” Denning spat.
Blaze winced. “My ship. It’s a demon guy…computer girl…kind of thing. Anyway, Denning, this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to let us go, we’ll take Arlo to the Lizzie Borden, and Magistrate Mack here is going to evacuate the entire space station. Werewolves are coming. Nauzea might be here, somewhere, along with two of my crew who’ve gone rogue.”
Denning gulped in a breath. “None of that is going to happen. My men will handle any security threat GaMeSpa might face.”
“Like how they handled me?” Cali asked. “Five more wolves are coming. Five of what I was. No one is going to be able to do a thing against them. I’ve seen what a pack can do. I watched my”—her lips trembled—“family go through cities and leave no one and nothing alive. It will be like that, here.”
Magistrate Mack started talking into his tablet in a long, slow series of singsong tones and extended syllables.
Ling nodded. “He’s ordering the evacuation. Our show of evil has convinced him. But the Humans are going to be a problem. Both the Clicker and the Meelah designed their sections of GaMeSpa to come apart in case they had to leave the city. The Humans welded everything together. Something about liberty, and you can’t make me run, or these colors don’t run, or something about freedom and running.”
“Fuck your building permits and fuck your goddamn socialism!” Arlo belched and sipped from his bottle. “Live free or die.”
“Live together and…live,” Ling said quietly.
“Ian and the werewolves are here for me,” Blaze said. “And Nauzea is as well. If we leave, they’ll follow. So, we’re going, now.”
The whole space station rocked and a howl of pain rose into the air, from outside, the shrieks and screams and ululations of Meelah, Clickers, and Humans being frightened and tortured. The lights flickered inside the conference room.
Arlo hit his bottle and whispered, “Out of time, Ramon.”
A wave of dizziness and nausea swept through Blaze. He felt an evil presence infiltrate his mind, into the deepest parts of his psyche.
He felt the McCook humiliation all over again.
He felt the betrayal of his closest Astral Corps friends.
Fear for his sister stifled him—fear for what she could become, for what could happen to her. She’d said she would die on the space station. She’d said it as prophecy.
Hatred for Arlo choked him.
And then, Nauzea whispered into him: Life is suffering. Rejoice in the agony. First the mind, then the body. First the mind, then the body. First the mind, then the body.
Everyone in the room dropped except for Ling, the other Meelah, Blaze, and Arlo.
Tears coursed down Arlo’s face. In handcuffed hands, he lifted the bottle. “Last call for me, dammit,” the old man wept. “For what I’ve done. And for what I’ve failed to do. Blaze, I’m sorry. You can’t know…what it’s like…to be a god and then to be forgotten. To be a father, and then to be thrown away. Wasn’t supposed to be a dad to you, boy. I was supposed to be your teacher, a monster, a hammer to hammer away your weakness while your real father loved the parts of you that needed to be soft.”
Blaze could only take so much in, the pain eclipsed most everything else, and he took a step forward.
Ling gripped his hand, but the Shaolin sloth was also weaving, his pointed face twisted up in agony. Then Ling laughed. “These demons, always trying to trick us into suffering. What they lack in imagination, they make up for in persistence. But I am Meelah.” His face softened. “I am a child of the universe.”
Magistrate Mack came over and took Ling’s hand. “We are the children of now, my friend. We will keep the embassy safe. We will evacuate. Even so, many will get to explore death today. A journey, both as wonderful and strange as life is itself.”
Blaze fell but the Meelah caught him and eased him onto the carpet.
What felt like a second later, he blinked his eyes. It was cold, dark, and hard
to see, but the dusty smell of the carpet and the lingering scent of wood polish and melted floor made it clear he was still in the conference room. He got to his feet. The Humans and Clickers in the room were still knocked out, even Arlo, who, even though unconscious, gripped his bottle to his chest like a three-year-old with their woobie.
Ling and the other Meelah were gone.
Blaze hit his implants, touching the space behind his ears, though he didn’t necessarily need to do that. He could trigger the implants with his mind, automatically, but he’d gotten used to the gesture during his years fighting in the Bug War. His combat display showed the current time. He’d been unconscious for three hours.
“Lizzie, you online?” he asked.
“Comms are out,” Elle whispered. She was at the far end of the room, where Arlo had been, sitting in his seat. But she wasn’t facing the table. She was turned around, looking up through the window at three big moons filling the sky above. Stars twinkled in the infinite blackness of space. “Nauzea slaughtered everyone on the Promenade. The Clickers and Meelah got away, but the Humans are still trying to escape. For now, the IPC shocktroopers we fought are keeping the Konobi at bay.”
“Konobi?” Blaze asked. He walked over to her, pulled around a chair, and sat down to join her in stargazing.
“Nauzea’s perverted, tortured, insane acolytes. She tortures them until all they want to do is follow her will, which is to torture, kill, and destroy. The archduchess of agony, the sister of suffering, the mother of pain.”
“What are you doing sitting there, Elle?” Blaze asked. “We have to go. We have to get off this space station, try and rescue Fernando and Bill, if we can. We have Arlo. He’ll eventually tell us when the Onyx Gate will appear next.”
At his name, Arlo stirred, but stayed asleep.
Elle smiled at him, her face soft. “I’ll be dead within the hour.” Tears filled her eyes, but her smile was so wide, none of them dropped. “I wanted to sit and be alive for a minute, without fighting and without pain. Life isn’t suffering. Life can be hard, but life itself is quiet. God is quiet. That’s why it’s easy to think God doesn’t exist.”
“I think it’s funny you and I can believe in God when we’ve seen so much evil,” Blaze said.
“We’re Terran Catholics,” Elle said. “It’s not so much belief as it is habit. A bad habit maybe.” She grinned. “No, the evil is loud and showy and at times garishly stupid. The God stuff is simple and quiet and easy to ignore, but magical and wonderful and strange.”
This all caught Blaze by surprise. “What about your evil persona? Kill ’em all, nothing matters, fuck it, fuck her…where’d that go?”
Elle sighed herself into a laugh. “I do have a certain moral flexibility. But I have regrets. And it’s natural for people to think about the whole God thing before they die.”
“You’re not going to die, Elle.” Blaze touched her shoulder. “I won’t let that happen.”
“If I don’t die, I’ll become what you must destroy.” She turned. Her tears were gone. Her face had never been more serious. “Promise me you won’t hesitate. We’re demon hunters, we know the score. Get bit by a vampire, you lose your head. Infected by a zombie, you lose your brain. Turn evil, and you lose your right to live.”
“I’ll do what needs to be done,” Blaze said.
His sister shook her head, smiling sadly. “You didn’t before with Cali. You didn’t with Trina. You won’t with me. And that’s why I have to die.”
“You’re talking suicide,” the gunny murmured. “Talk about a mortal sin.”
“You and I left behind the idea of sin a long time ago. We use our imperfections to fight evil. Hell, we use Cali and Trina, and they are the epitome of sin.”
Elle paused, looked into his eyes a long time, and then dropped her gaze.
The gunny stood. “First the mind, then the body.”
“Nauzea said that,” Elle said.
“That’s right. She’s beyond simple physical torture, though she doesn’t mind that. What she really likes is to dick with our heads. Well, I’m not going to give her the pinche satisfaction. Come on, Hermana, and think happy thoughts.” He walked by Arlo and yanked back his chair.
The old man spilled out onto his back, but goddamn alcoholic that he was, he didn’t spill a drop of his hooch. Caught the bottle perfectly.
“Okay, people, wake the shit up,” Blaze boomed.
Ambassador Randi blinked open her eyes. Charles clicked and clacked back into consciousness. The men, women, and aliens struggled to fight off the effects of Nauzea’s invasion into their minds. Denning tried to struggle to his feet, but he kept collapsing, muttering something about his 401K and a Ponzi scheme.
Cali roused, checked to make sure her bracelets were closed, and sighed with relief when they were.
Trina rose to her feet, freckled and pretty, though her jaws were clenched. What kind of horrors had Nauzea shown her?
“Okay, people,” Blaze said. “We’re getting out of here, but we’re going to have to go through hell first.”
Trina chuckled and vamped out. “I’ve been dating you, Blaze. Hell will be a piece of cake compared to that.”
The gunny laughed. Damn, but Trina was one tough Irish bitch.
TWENTY-ONE_
╠═╦╬╧╪
Twelve people left the conference room and started down the stairs. Emergency lights glowed orange and made everyone jaundiced. An eerie silence filled the place, even though the front part of the embassy was packed with Meelah.
Ling, Magistrate Mack, and twenty-five Meelah officials, policeman, and administrative staff all had barricaded the door with every piece of furniture they could find. The windows facing the Promenade had been boarded up. A weak blue light filtered in between the slats of wood.
Most of the Meelah sported wounds, were bandaged, or leaned on their concussion staves completely exhausted. Blaze could tell by their glow that those staves weren’t at full power. Why were the Meelah using nonlethal weapons?
A lot had changed in the three hours he’d been unconscious. Undoubtedly, Ian and the Astral Corps werewolves were on the space station. The gunny wondered why they hadn’t attacked yet. Time would reveal the truth soon enough.
The unconscious Human IPC elite blue troopers had been pulled back and were lying in tangles near the staircase and against the walls. The troopers were only now gaining consciousness. There were about thirty, which was good news. Blaze could do a lot with the thirty highly trained soldiers.
Blaze did a quick count of the people. His crew and Arlo, that was six including himself and Ling. Ambassador Randi and three Human officials. Charles and another Clicker. That made an even dozen. The odds were against him keeping all the civilians alive. Dammit.
Those Meelah better learn how to kill, and learn fast, or they all might die. Blaze didn’t know what was on the other side of that barricade, but he knew it wouldn’t be good. He’d seen Nauzea’s handiwork before. Throw in a demon generator, thanks to Bill and Fernando, and who knew what they might be fighting?
Ian and the werewolves would be out there as well. They’d had three hours to get themselves in place for an ambush.
Blaze had over fifty fighters and a few civilians. Even if he had a hundred times that, it wouldn’t be enough. They didn’t have any Terran silver. Cali had killed hundreds of dragons by herself. The bluetroopers would be nothing more than finger food for the five werewolves. Like pinche chicken taquitos, deep fried.
Blaze charged down the steps and up to Ling, who had a gash across his face. “Ling, why are your buddies using their concussion staves at half power?”
“Unlike me, they are pacifists.” Ling touched the nunchakus in their holsters on his hips. “I’ve been killing, however, and it’s a wearying thing. Because”—the Meelah paused—“we are murdering people.”
“What have you been fighting?” Blaze asked.
From above, glass shattered, and big heavy footsteps thundered on
the second floor, shaking the chandelier in the lobby. The crystals danced and jingled. Then the whispering started, the chattering, the tortured screams, the weeping.
“We’re being flanked,” Ling said. “We can’t get pinned down.”
“Right,” Blaze agreed. “We go out, get through the Promenade, get these people into the Lizzie. It’ll be tight in the cargo bay, but we can hold them all.”
The gunny triggered his ax and cut through a desk easily enough. The wood sizzled and flamed and slid apart. Damn, but he loved star power. Elle came forward with her katanas, and she helped clear the doorway.
A dozen Clickers appeared on the staircase, coming down. Every one of them had been tortured, limbs chopped off, metal shoved into their bodies, eyes removed, mandibles hammered away. But they were alive. In various states of agony, those Phasmida civilians were alive, but they’d been driven insane.
They weren’t people anymore. They were the Konobi of Nauzea. The Clickers started up a storm of clicks and their translators echoed through the lobby. “For her. For the queen of evil. For her, the mother of agony, the source of all sorrow, the one goddess eternal! For her. Pain for all, love for all, rejoice in the agony!”
Blaze realized what Ling had said. They weren’t killing demons, or dispatching zombies, or busting ghosts. They were ending the lives of people who had been milling about on the Promenade when Nauzea found them and tortured them into serving her.
The Clickers flew off the staircase. A dozen sets of translucent wings whirred. All had rusted spikes shoved into their palms, which they could use to stab and rend like spiked clubs. They descended.
Trina scooped up a fallen IPC shocktrooper’s plasma rifle. She took three down, one after another. Ambassador Randi and her people huddled together, which was not what Blaze wanted to see. But they’d not been trained.
Neither had Trina, but Trina was a different sort of woman altogether.
Charles and his Clicker buddy, Linus, bent and picked up rifles as well. They returned fire.
Ling flung a nunchaku, and it cut through a wing. As the Konobi Clicker fell, Ling slid over and used his other nunchaku to behead the poor guy. But it was a mercy killing. Without Nauzea’s magic to keep them alive, the tortured Phasmida would’ve died from their wounds anyway.
