Children of the Storm

by Ken Lange

  The roof hatch is an option, but not a good one. First, I’d have to cross the intersection where they’re all hiding, make it the entire length of the hall, and pray they don’t cut me in half on my way out. Probably not the smartest move. There’s a slightly better route, but that involves going downstairs and finding a window to jump out of. Failing that, I’ll have to go to the first floor. It’s a lot more real estate to cover, but the bad guys should remain in sight…mostly.

  With my mind made up, I take a step toward the intersection, and a shadowy hand juts up from the floor to grab my ankle. Jerking my leg back, I fire a shot into its arm, which instantly crumbles to dust. From the lack of screeching, I’m going to guess it’s dead.

  Evidently, the loa are extremely susceptible to the irradiated rounds. I might make it out of this in one piece after all. I peek around the corner leading away from the stairs, but no one’s waiting for me. Bonus. There’s a chance they’ve decided I’m too much trouble and vacated the building.

  Of course, one glance at the floor below tells me that’s not true. There are dozens of them down there, but whether they’re on the second floor, or the first, or perhaps in the basement isn’t clear. There are also some oddities in the mix, as brighter signs of life appear to be standing on either side of the exit. They’re not going to wait on me all day, so I move to the top of the stairs, eject the mags, and reload the pistols with full clips.

  I’m not keen on wasting ammo but getting dead because I’m being cheap would be exceptionally stupid.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I ease the door open and slowly inch up to the corner to peek out into the hall. Nine heavily armed men are standing at either end of the corridor. Great, they’ve called in a bunch of mortals to do their dirty work. While they’re only armed with guns, they’re going to slow me down, which will allow the wraiths to make mincemeat out of me.

  A big man with dreadlocks hanging midway down his chest moves forward. He has a thick Haitian accent. “Step out where we can see you.”

  I chuckle. “If I do that, things are going to get really ugly.”

  He snorts. “For you, maybe. For us, not so much.”

  Someone didn’t get the memo. “I’m guessing the Baron didn’t tell you who I am.”

  Several of them laugh then the man speaks again. “It doesn’t matter who you are. Come out, or we’re coming to get you. Either way, you’re going to die.”

  I really hate going up against folks who don’t realize what they’re in for. “How about this? I’m going to tell you who I am so anyone who wants to leave can. Thirty seconds after that, anyone still here gets to die. Sound fair?”

  More laughter. “Sure—”

  Before he can finish, I say, “I’m Viktor Warden.” Hitting the timer on my watch, I wait. “Thirty seconds starting now.”

  This time, no one laughs. There’s some movement out there, but not nearly enough. I guess they’re more afraid of the Baron than they are of me. My watch beeps. Holstering my weapons, I move into the hall at a full sprint. Draupnir elongates into a nine-foot glaive just as I reach the big man. I raise the weapon and bring it down to cleave him completely in two.

  His friends take issue with this and open fire, which is less than useful against my shields. However, the three massive wraiths that just shot up from the floor are more of a problem. I wrap lightning around my shields as the first brings his clawed hand down. He pulls back a nub for his troubles. While he isn’t dead, he is exceptionally unhappy.

  I make short work of the other seven men, dart toward the stairs, and jump the last six steps to land on the marble floor of the main level. Draupnir returns to its place around my finger as I pull the pistols. Up until this moment, things were only looking mildly grim—more for them than me—but that’s changed.

  Right in front of the main entrance are a pair of Jörmungandr, and another set blocks the way behind me. Are you fucking kidding me right now?

  Thanks to Loki, I know that these rounds have no chance in hell of penetrating their armor. The only thing that might work against them is the LP-12, which is sitting on my desk. If that isn’t bad enough, these guys are several times larger than any I’ve seen before. Seriously, they’re huge. They could easily swallow me whole. Hell, I’m probably not even a choking hazard.

  Holding my hands out for calm, I say, “Is there any chance we can talk about this?”

  In response, the Jörmungandr nearest the front door screech before speeding toward me. Time to choose my poison. I move to intercept the one on my right but wait until it opens its mouth before firing. I squeeze off three rounds, which all find their mark in the roof of its mouth.

  In the time it takes me to do that, the other swings its massive tail around to catch me in the chest. It slams me into the floor, shattering the marble beneath me, then rears its head and dives at me, mouth open. Oh hell. If I’m going out, might as well make it worthwhile. I squeeze off two more rounds before its open maw cuts a hole through the floor all around me. We plummet into the basement below. All the way down, I’m just waiting for this guy to finish me so it can enjoy its Viktor snack, but it doesn’t.

  In fact, a second later, it pulls back and darts toward the far wall. It rips a massive hole in the brick and vanishes from sight as dirt quickly fills in its escape route.

  Following that guy isn’t an option.

  Even so, I get up and take off at a run for the back of the place. My best chance is to get through the embalming room and out the rear hatch. Since they already know I’m here, their high-tech alarm system isn’t really a concern.

  I blow through the metal doors at the end of the room and nearly trip over the body on the floor. I’m guessing the ruckus upstairs knocked the guy off the metal table in the center of the room. Even worse, they were somewhere in the process of pumping him full of formaldehyde and other chemicals, which are now all over the tile.

  As I pass the dead man, I glance down. “Sorry, dude.”

  I crash into the security door at top speed, removing it and most of the frame as I go. Thick droplets of rain hit me as I pound up the stairs, and sirens blare into the night. A half second later, the alarm is cut off. Not that I care one way or another.

  I hop over the fence and sprint down the block to my car, which is completely intact. A few seconds later, I’m on the road, only slightly worse for wear.

  All in all, that didn’t go as poorly as it could’ve. From now on, though, I’ll be bringing the LP-12 with me wherever I go until this shit is over.

  Chapter 19

  I’m a goddamn mess. In addition to being drenched, I’m covered in dust from being put through a floor, and my boots are gooey. That last bit probably has something to do with running through a dead guy. Just saying. I take them off and toss them into a plastic bag to be cleaned later. My office still has the new building smell to it, so I’m not about to track corpse through the halls.

  Thirty minutes later, I’m clean, changed, and in my office. The LP-12 is still sitting on my desk. Something about it being there gives me comfort. Maybe I’m paranoid, but I did practically get eaten by a Jörmungandr a few hours ago…so maybe not.

  About half past ten, Mir appears in the chair across from me. “You doing okay?”

  Leaning back, I spread my hands out. “What do you think?”

  He snorts. “To be honest, I’m not sure. I’m just impressed you didn’t shit yourself.”

  “Was that a compliment?”

  He chuckles. “Take it however you want. I’ll be honest, when that thing dove at you with its mouth open like that…I thought we were all goners.”

  A nervous laugh comes out of my mouth. “Me too. Thankfully, Loki’s advice paid off. If I had to guess, it’s because of them we weren’t torn to shreds.”

  Mir nods. “Yeah, that’s my thought as well. Plus, I’ve been going over the data from the new eye. After you shot them, their auras instantly lost the black misty cloak just beneath their shells, allowing their natur
al brilliant gold one to shine through.”

  I’m glad Hlidskjalf is sharing information with Mir. This type of cooperation will make things easier on me in the long run. “Anything else?”

  He shakes his head. “Unfortunately not. Everything happened so quickly that I was lucky to get what I did.”

  “Figures.” Pointing at the drive attached to the computer, I ask, “Were you able to extract anything useful?”

  He frowns. “Depends on your definition of useful.”

  I gesture for him to continue. “Don’t get technical with me. What did you find?”

  We’re inside the Nexus so fast it makes my head spin. As it turns out, the hard drive Nigel brought me has a ton of interesting information on it, starting with how Leonard became a thing. Over the centuries, Ethan had a number of children, most of which were stillborn. The exception to that rule was those born to sorcerers. Even those, however, only made it to their first birthday. Until our boy Leonard.

  And that was thanks to Carcinus genetically modifying the embryo shortly after conception. This caused a few unforeseen problems, though, such as the pregnancy lasting nine years instead of nine months. You’d think that with such a long incubation period Leonard would’ve been fat, overgrown, and healthy, but he wasn’t. In fact, he was the size of a preemie, weighing in at around three and a half pounds.

  Guess that didn’t last.

  The birth killed the mother, which infuriated Ethan. Not out of some sort of emotional attachment to her, but over the death of the surrogate. Once Leonard turned one, though, he deemed it an acceptable loss.

  While his physical and mental development was slow—big surprise—his body matured much like any other human child’s. The first of many disappointments for Ethan was that his son didn’t appear to have any of his or his mother’s abilities…until I tossed Leonard out on his ass. That’s when the toddler in him came out—he threw a fit when he got home, lost control of his emotions, and poof, instant wraith.

  Ethan was alerted by his second, Robert Boudreaux, and came to calm him. Over the course of the next several months, Ethan was able to walk Leonard through the steps of changing from one form to another.

  Frankly, I’m a little dumbfounded Leonard was capable of following directions of any type, especially when it came to something as complicated as transmogrifying himself.

  While I desperately want to say that this is where this little horror story ends, it’s not. Not even close. You see, Ethan figured Leonard would disappoint him—that was inevitable—and made arrangements to have plenty of spares lying around.

  The moment Leonard turned one, Ethan set out to have as many children as possible using the process Carcinus perfected. There isn’t a count, but even one would be too many. On the upside, though, we have Leonard’s notes to work from. He’s been quietly trying to track them down in order to eliminate the competition. But in true Leonard style, he’s yet to find a single one of them.

  In the meantime, he’s been able to make himself useful by giving his blood to Ethan and the Baron. They’ve been using it to create the quick and dirty version of the wraiths. For the process to work, they’ve got to find a host and break their mind with torture. Then they’re fed a concoction Carcinus cooked up a few months before his death. This elixir, whose main ingredient is Leonard’s blood, changes them physically and mentally. The main drawback is that their ability to communicate with other wraiths is limited to the basics, i.e. they’re dumb as rocks. Imagine that.

  While we’re on the subject of Leonard, he has provided me with some valuable insight.

  One of the reasons he was stuck in wraith form so long was due to the massive information dump he received upon transforming. He was hooked into the limited hive mind shared by Ethan and his lieutenants—likely by accident. That’s where he learned about the civil war amongst the loa. He dove into the history in the hopes of finding a way to make himself indispensable.

  A lot of what was there I’d already learned from Sylvia’s notes. But there were a few useful nuggets.

  Heidr had come to the loa promising power beyond imagination for their assistance against the Svartálfar. This interested Bakulu and his supporters, so they were quick to jump on that bandwagon. The other loa were too busy trying to build the second great consciousness to pay any attention to Bakulu’s insanity, but as the war became more desperate, a plague swept through Niflheim, converting more of the loa to Bakulu’s side. Eventually, things came to a head as the war reached its gruesome stalemate.

  This led to the Álfheimr and Svartálfar banishing a number of their enemies to a primitive realm known as Midgard. These castoffs included several dragon lords—their leader Kur and a host of others—and the Idunn. They were, or I should say are, some of the most powerful beings in all of reality. But, weirdly, they suddenly stopped fighting, surrendered, and allowed themselves to be banished.

  Unfortunately for Bakulu, the loa who hadn’t come around to his way of thinking took a page out of the Álfheimr and Svartálfar’s book and exiled him and his followers to Midgard as well. They’ve been trapped in this universe ever since, looking for a way to escape—or at the very least build a collective that’d work to house their consciousness. They believed they’d developed that with Carcinus’s help in the form of the Collective and the Loki. But with his death and the defeat of their foot soldiers within the Collective, that particular dream crumbled.

  There’s a ton more information packed in there, but for now, I’m done. My head hurts, and I need to take some time to figure out what the Idunn are up to.

  Returning to the real world, I rub my temples. “Have the Idunn reached out?”

  Mir sighs. “Nope. And since they’re part of the Nexus, they know about the drive and its contents.”

  Goddamn it. You’d think they’d want to start talking to me right about now. “I suppose trying to contact them myself is an option.”

  He shifts in his seat. “We could, but if they get pissed, it could be problematic.”

  I cock my head to the side. “The fact that we’re in the middle of some long-forgotten war is a bit more serious than them throwing a temper tantrum.”

  Mir opens his mouth but closes it again when someone knocks at the door.

  Not taking my eyes off Mir, I say, “Come in.”

  Nora’s voice cuts through the silence. “Am I interrupting something?”

  I glance over at her and shake my head. “Not really, we were just having a disagreement about speaking to management.”

  She arches her eyebrow. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean…” She flaps a hand at us. “It doesn’t matter. Kira seems to be out of danger. We’re no longer using machines to keep her alive, but she isn’t awake yet. It’s almost as if she’s sleeping.”

  I frown. “Okay, but don’t we have a shot for that or something?”

  Nora gives me a sad smile. “We’ve tried a few things, but nothing’s worked. For now, all we can do is wait. But the danger has passed.”

  I really want to believe her, but my gut tells me she’s wrong. Maybe it’s the darkness Kira’s been infected with or the fact that the Idunn have gone dormant inside her. There are lots of reasons to believe that even if she’s physically okay, everything else—right down to her soul—may be injured beyond repair.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Nora nods. “Me too.” She thumbs over her shoulder. “I’m going downstairs to get some rest. I just thought you should know.”

  I get up and give her a hug. “Thanks. Sleep well.”

  She turns and leaves.

  Mir gives me a curious look. “What’s on your mind?”

  I shrug. “Can’t shake the feeling that Kira’s still in danger. The worst part is, I know there’s nothing I can do for her. Whatever battle she’s fighting is between her and whatever’s going on inside her.”

  Mir sighs. “You’re the only man I know who can turn good news into bad.”

  “Tell me I’m
wrong, and I’ll believe you.”

  His gaze hits the floor. “I can’t because I feel the same way.”

  Gesturing at the door, I say, “Let’s go check on her.”

  Chapter 20

  June 6th

  Nora’s right; physically, Kira’s doing spectacularly well. It’s everything else I’m worried about. The energy flowing through her now is a strange amber with streaks of black and bursts of red, giving me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. The alien nanites that have invaded my daughter are doing one hell of a number on her, and I’m powerless to stop them.

  All I can do is watch as they slowly overtake her system. For now, it’s a matter of waiting for her to wake up to find out if she’ll be okay… Hell, if she’ll even be herself anymore. Will they rewrite who she is?

  Shaking free of my thoughts, I do my best to focus on the things that can be controlled. Mir tore through several encryptions on Leonard’s hard drive last night and found something that needs to be looked into—a plot of land out in the spillway that belongs to the Baron. If Leonard’s notes are anywhere near accurate, I’ll need a hand to secure the area and not get dead. According to him, the Baron likes to keep at least nine of the loa-possessed Jörmungandr there at all times. If that’s the case, I’m sure he’ll have more than a few Geist, mutant wraiths, and regular wraiths along for the ride, because, you know, why the hell not?

  I’ve sent a text to the only man I know who’s got enough firepower to even the odds, but he hasn’t responded yet.

  In the kitchen, I grab a bottle of whiskey and pour myself a glass. Before I can pick it up, my phone beeps, alerting me to a message.

  Audubon Park. Pavilion. Twenty minutes.

  Reluctantly, I leave my drink where it is, pick up the LP-12, and walk out the door.

  While I’d like to say this is going to turn out well for me, I don’t think it will. He’s already given me an answer and while I’ve succeeded in returning some of his lost brethren, I really don’t think he’ll change his mind. But what’s it hurt to ask? Seriously, the worst he can do is kill me. Anything less than that, and I’m in the exact same boat I’m in now.