Harbinger

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Explain Konstantin summoning abyssals. Or that ghost-eating gem.” Dorian raised the Eyebrow of Checkmate.

  Kirsten drew in a breath to lash out, but held it, grabbing fistfuls of air. “I… don’t know. I do know that I will find this spirit and make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone again.”

  “Thank you.” Sienna bowed her head. “Really… thank you for listening to me and I hope you kill that son of a bitch before he attacks anyone else.”

  So do I. Kirsten’s smile felt forced. She didn’t trust herself to find him with the information she had. His mortal remains had been reduced to thin liquid spread over the walls of a…

  She blinked. The motel! His blood saturated the walls… and ceiling. If he has a home, it would be that room.

  Sienna sensed the increased confidence in her and sat up straighter. “Is there anything else I can help with?”

  “A few bits of info…” Kirsten took down her address, the route she took back and forth to work, and anywhere she had been ‘out and about’ over the past month where the ghost might have spotted her as a potential target.

  That done, Kirsten walked her out and helped her get a PubTran car home so she could try and sleep.

  On the way back into the squad room, Captain Eze waved her over from his door, his expression grim.

  Crap. This is going to be bad news.

  She went past her desk and into his office. “Captain?”

  “Wren…” He didn’t even go back to his chair—another bad sign. “There have been three more deaths that fit the same pattern as Modeus and Zack Rivera, that bounty hunter. Same black lines on the chest. One is Santiago Herrera, the number two man in the Angels.”

  “They’re not exactly angels,” grumbled Kirsten. “They’re not even particularly nice.”

  “As street gangs go, the Angels are on the tamer side… except for that territory stuff with the Fei Len. And their name is based on an old city name, not people with wings.”

  “They’re affiliated with forced prostitution,” said Kirsten.

  Captain Eze raised his hands in surrender. “I’m not saying they’re good people… just when compared to groups like the Diablos or the Dead Boyz, they aren’t as psychotic.”

  “The Diablos aren’t terribly intelligent. Maybe they’re only doing it to start a gang war?” asked Dorian. “They’re uninhibited nihilistic hedonists, heavy on the nihilism.”

  “Say that three times fast.” Kirsten sighed.

  “Pardon?” asked Captain Eze.

  “Dorian thinks the Diablos may be attempting to start a gang war, then called them ‘uninhibited nihilistic hedonists.’”

  “Ahh. An apt description. And he’s potentially right there. Modeus was a key player in the Grey Devils. Herrera basically ran the Angels. Both of those groups actively fight the Diablos.” Captain Eze rubbed his chin. “Your inquest notes imply that the Diablos somehow managed to summon an abyssal. Is your feeling that they are using it as a paranormal assassin solid or speculation?”

  “Speculation moving rapidly to certainty,” said Kirsten. “It’s too much of a coincidence for a bigwig with the Angels, a boss in the Grey Devils, and even a bounty hunter who made a name for himself specifically going into the black zones to rescue people from Diablos all to die of paranormal means so close together and so soon after…”

  “So soon after what?” The captain finally walked around his desk and fell heavily into his chair. Two of his African mask statuettes along the desk’s front edge fell over forward.

  Kirsten moved over and stood them up again. “Remember that P10 inquest I asked you about taking?”

  He nodded.

  She explained finding five murdered people in a pentagram formation around a black zone with a major presence of Diablos. “It’s looking more and more like they actually did summon something. Exactly what, I’m not sure yet.”

  “Herrera only turned up an hour ago. Maybe you can get something from the site?” Captain Eze laced his fingers, hands in his lap.

  “I’ll go check it out, but I’ll be shocked if there’s anything useful there.”

  He nodded. “Be careful.”

  She exchanged salutes, and hurried out.

  19

  The Gloomy Shadow

  Twenty-two minutes after leaving the PAC, Kirsten guided the patrol craft down from the hover lane toward a large mass of people in the street.

  Sector 3317, roughly eighty miles south and twenty-five east from the ‘pentacle’ on the Navcon map, teetered on the edge of grey. Depending on the version of software update in any given system, some maps showed it normal, some grey. The buildings didn’t appear too run down, though the occasional missing window and the general age of all the visible cars suggested this residential area held mostly poor people.

  She flew in thirty feet off the ground, passing over a crowd of several hundred people that plugged an intersection where a four-lane road crossed a six-lane road. At a quick glance, she figured the group roughly eighty percent male. All wore the red-and-white colors of the Angels.

  Four Division 6 A3Vs had been parked nose-to-tail, forming a barrier around the front of a residence tower covered in Angels graffiti up to the tenth story. Upward of thirty armored officers kept the gang members away, and by some miracle, violence hadn’t broken out yet.

  Stillness settled over the unruly crowd as she passed overhead and came in for a landing behind the giant armored personnel carriers. Angels often tangled with another gang, the Fei Len, who had numerous psionics (mostly kinetic adepts, people whose psionic abilities enhanced their bodies, making them stronger, faster, tougher, and so on.) When paired with extreme training in the fighting arts, encounters with them could verge quite far into the realm of the strange. Many rumors claimed the Fei Len also had ‘other’ more mystical abilities, though that part, she doubted. The Angels, however, didn’t doubt as much. Having seen paranormal happenings, if only the psionic adepts, they knew exactly what an all-black police hovercar meant.

  The whole crowd fell silent, watching.

  She landed on the plastisteel sidewalk in front of the building.

  Even before she opened the door, the pervasive sense of doom in the air made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

  “This is different.” Dorian looked around. “I think the abyssal may still be here.”

  All these people here… this could get ugly. “Hope not.”

  “Don’t you want to catch this thing?”

  She pushed the door up. “I do, but there’s like 250 people in the street. No one wants a two-ton tap-dancing flea to rampage into a crowd.”

  Dorian dissipated into a silvery mist, blurred out of the car, and appeared standing beside her. “Do you think they all look like that?”

  “Not sure. The one that took Konstantin’s body didn’t.” She glanced past the gaps between A3Vs at the crowd of Angels. A few surface thought skims told her they knew of Herrera’s death, wanted someone to pay for it, and didn’t trust the cops would bother investigating. Much to her surprise, they’d turned out to protest police indifference. “Well, that’s ironic.”

  “What is?” Dorian glanced at her.

  “Members of an organized criminal street gang demonstrating to demand the police pay attention to them.”

  He laughed.

  “Lieutenant?” asked a tall white-haired woman with a brush cut, clad in Division 6 armor except for a helmet, which she held under her left arm. A huge combat rifle hung on a strap across her shoulder. “Ahh, I was wondering why it got so quiet out here.”

  Kirsten started to raise her arm to salute, until she noticed the woman also wore 2LT rank insignia. She instead offered a handshake. “Oh, hi, lieutenant…”

  “Müller,” said the large woman. “Sofia.”

  “That name is far too delicate for her.” Dorian chuckled. “She looks like she came straight out of that Monwyn game… the Vakken or something? Ice barbarians?”

  She couldn’t even fa
thom how he could fire off a quip given the overwhelming dark energy in the air. Probably joking to keep himself sane. Yeah, she does kinda look like one of them. Damn, she’s gotta be six-two. Makes me feel like I’m ten years old again. “Kirsten… so what’s going on here? Have you seen anything weird?”

  “Oh, have I.” Sofia gestured at the building. “Neighbor heard a scream. Almost everyone who lives in this building is either part of the Angels or friendly to them. Kinda impossible not to be for this area. Anyway, the first two guys to go check on the dead dude ran off screaming. They still haven’t been seen. Someone finally called Div 1 in. They checked out the apartment and didn’t make it two steps in the door before they got a bad case of ‘fuck that.’”

  “They saw something?” asked Kirsten.

  “Not as far as I know.” Sofia nodded toward the building. “Come on, maybe you’ll have better luck. You’re tiny, but the little ones always have the biggest balls.”

  Kirsten looked down at herself, little in the way of her shape hidden by the tight uniform. She almost made a joke about rather obviously lacking that particular body part, but the gloom in the air kept it from leaving her mouth. I’m getting as bad as Dorian. “The weird stuff doesn’t bother me that much. So… Santiago Herrera is still in there?”

  “Yep.” Sofia shoved the door out of the way and headed to the elevator past two more Division 6 troops standing sentry in the lobby. “The forensics team is still on the roof. Refused to come down until a Zero cleared the scene. Oh, there’s something even better.”

  “Better?” Kirsten followed her into an elevator.

  “Witnesses reported every live dog and cat in the building went crazy all at the same time. A few even hurled themselves at windows, in a frenzy to leave the building.”

  She gasped in horror.

  “None of them fell… but a few people had the shit clawed out of them trying to bring the animals outside safely.”

  The eeriness increased as the elevator climbed, far stronger than any previous site.

  “It’s still here,” whispered Kirsten.

  Sofia fidgeted. “Any idea what ‘it’ is?”

  “A paranormal entity that’s probably about as close to a demon as reality can get.”

  “Oh, so nothing major.” Sofia let out a laugh that vibrated the air in Kirsten’s lungs.

  “Is there anyone in the apartment now?”

  “Nope. Just a couple guys at the door.”

  Kirsten exhaled in relief. “Would you mind doing me a small favor?”

  “As long as it doesn’t involve jumper cables and wet sponges.”

  She blinked up at the big woman.

  Sofia chuckled. “Wow, that look on your face. I was making a joke about military interrogation… not where you went with that. Guess you’re not as innocent as you look.”

  “Umm.” Kirsten blushed hard. “My other case is really twisted. I wish I’d never read that inquest.”

  “Oh, yeah, bad one?” Sofia stepped out into a hallway practically filled with gloom. “Whoa. Is it my eyes or is this hallway actually darker than it should be?”

  “Seems dim, yeah. Like the lights are at half power.” Kirsten slipped past her and walked toward a pair of Division 6 troopers flanking a door. Both of the large men trembled, but attempted to act as if they weren’t scared shitless. “The favor I was going to ask is actually waiting outside. Last time I ran into an entity like this, it took control of several cops and tried to kill me with them.”

  Sofia whistled. “Crap. Yeah, no problem. I’ll hang back if you want. EOD hasn’t cleared the place yet, so there could be traps. Be careful.”

  “If she was the sort of person inclined to be careful, she wouldn’t be walking into a place giving off energy like this.” Dorian edged to the side, also seeming hesitant about entering the apartment.

  “Lieutenant.” One of the men, a sergeant, saluted them.

  Sofia and Kirsten returned it.

  “Zero’s here.” Sofia patted her on the back. “We wait outside unless she calls us in.”

  “No arguments here, LT.” The other guy moved to the right, away from the door.

  Kirsten went in, finding an apartment quite a bit more ‘normal’ than she’d expected for someone high up in a gang as big as the Angels. Other than it clearly being the home of a bachelor, it lacked the tacky display of wealth and power that always seemed to happen whenever a street thug had money.

  The sense of darkness drew her across the living room to an alcove. Normality ended in the dining room, which appeared to serve as a mixture of chem lab and accounting office. Two cafeteria style tables held small machines she figured to be related to drug manufacture, at least on a small scale. Probably where they worked on ‘improving’ chems or making new ones before sending the formula elsewhere for large scale manufacture.

  Santiago Herrera’s bare foot stuck out from a doorway at the end of an impressively long hall for a century tower apartment. Forest green carpeting down its length appeared new, and a discoloration on the wall suggested the point where a wall formerly divided the space into two dwellings.

  Constant, soft whispering emanated from the back bedroom, like a gathering of ghosts bickering in an indecipherable language.

  “Sounds like a rather… spirited debate.”

  Kirsten stopped, turned, and glared at Dorian.

  He gave her an innocent look of ‘what?’

  With a soft sigh, she faced the room again and concentrated on the Astral Lash. Her hand tingled from the energy tendril stretching out and gathering around her feet. Step by step, she crept toward the door, reaching out with her left hand. Long shadows stretched across the wall from the bright strand hovering around her.

  Kirsten stopped the instant her fingertips touched the door. The dread in the air changed, becoming familiar in a way it hadn’t before. Abyssal-tainted, yes, but thick with a sense of guilt that made it altogether weird. She peered down at the remains of a naked Hispanic man in his later thirties, his face permanently stuck in an expression of abject terror. A patch of snow white skin about the size of a serving platter on his chest surrounded the same jagged black ‘claw’ marks as she’d found on Modeus and Zack Rivera.

  The door emitted a soft creak as she pushed it open.

  A standing column of black vapor in the back corner grabbed her attention before she took in much of anything other than the sense of the area being a big bedroom. Two sparkling silver points near the ceiling shifted to stare at her.

  “Oh…” Kirsten relaxed. “Just a Harbinger.”

  “Just, she says,” muttered Dorian.

  “Well, it’s not an abyssal.”

  He raised a finger. “Technically…”

  “Technicalities.” She smirked. “Calling Harbingers ‘abyssals’ is like calling corrections officers prisoners.”

  “Corrections officers aren’t generally made out of the literal fabric of suffering and pain.” Dorian paused a second. “Unless you’re talking about asteroid mines.”

  Kirsten stepped over the dead man and looked around. The bed had been turned down and ruffled up. A table lay askew, beer bottles littered on the floor. One set of women’s clothes and two sets of men’s clothes also decorated the carpet.

  No one had mentioned anything about seeing a woman or second man leave the place. Damn. I bet they saw what happened.

  The Harbinger, a hulking vaguely-human shaped apparition of shadows, slouched as if sad or disappointed. That, she’d never seen before.

  Kirsten walked over to it, unable to fully hold back her trepidation. Something about these creatures unnerved her. Then again, many honest citizens became nervous around police. “Guess you missed him? Did you come here to collect this guy?”

  It regarded her with as mournful a look as such a creature could manage, its sparkling silver eyes like tiny starbursts embedded in void. Despite lacking any semblance of human facial features, the Harbinger still somehow conveyed sorrow. As she neared, it ti
lted its head in evident confusion.

  “Guess you guys don’t talk much.” She set her hands on her hips and looked back at the body. After sighing, she put a finger to her earbud. “Müller? This is Wren, are you on the channel.”

  “Yep,” said Sofia.

  “It’s safe to come in. There is an entity in here, but it’s no threat to the living. This particular type of being gives off fear, but they’re not bad, just misunderstood.”

  Dorian shook his head.

  “What?” Kirsten smirked at him. “They are. All big and scary and full of abyssal energy, but they’re really only doing what needs to be done.”

  “Why is it hanging around? There’s clearly no spirit here, other than me.” Dorian glanced at the Harbinger. “If it got him, it wouldn’t be here.”

  She took a knee beside Herrera’s remains and rested a hand on his shoulder. Why do I keep doing this? I’m no clairvoyant. His body did give off paranormal residue, but offered no new information. Sofia tromped in the front door leading a reluctant pack of forensic techs.

  “Hmm.” Kirsten stood and approached the Harbinger. “Is something wrong?”

  It fixated on her, staring for a few seconds before gliding closer. The slouched, despondent quality to its posture faded somewhat, though it didn’t give off the usual foreboding ominousness she’d come to know. Having one hover so close still unsettled her, but it didn’t give off any sense of malice beyond the substance of its existence.

  “Still can’t talk?”

  The Harbinger stared down at her, seeming simultaneously terrifying and as lost as an orphan puppy.

  Okay, this is beyond strange. I’ve never seen one of these guys act like this. Usually swoop in, grab soul, drag it down through the floor.

  “Are you trying to tell me something? What should I be doing?”

  “Kirsten?” asked Sofia, while stepping over Herrera. “Who are you talking to? Is there a ghost here?”

  “Not exactly.” She held up a ‘wait a sec’ finger to the Harbinger, then turned to face the tall woman. “Looks like this guy was in the middle of having sexy time when whatever happened, happened. Did anyone see where his guests went?”