Sofia glanced at the clothing on the ground. “Only heard that the first couple of people who came in here to check on him ran screaming into the night and still haven’t turned up. No one mentioned anything about naked women running away.”
“One was a guy.” Kirsten pointed at the two pairs of men’s underpants on the floor. “Assuming Herrera doesn’t make a habit of wearing two pairs at once.”
“Okay, rephrase. No one mentioned anything about naked people running away.”
Kirsten poked her earbud. “Ops, can you send in some D1 backup? Need a bunch of bodies to go door to door.”
“Copy that, Lieutenant,” said a woman.
She sighed and looked up at Sofia. “They might be in another apartment here. Keep your fingers crossed.”
The woman held up her hand and crossed her fingers.
“Damn, you’re tall.”
Sofia laughed and patted her on the head. “I’m only six-three. You’re tiny. You sure you don’t have any Girl Scout cookies in your trunk?”
Dorian snickered.
She let out a long sigh. “If I did, I’d be on my way out there to eat a whole box right about now. Oh, well. Might as well get on with it. I know it feels weird in here, but it’s safe. I’m going to start on this hallway. When Div 1 gets here, please have them go door to door in search of whoever these clothes belong to. They might’ve seen something I need to know about.”
Sofia nodded. “No problem.”
Kirsten headed out into the living room—the Harbinger following. She stopped and looked back at it. “Can I help you?”
It nodded once.
“What do you need?”
The Harbinger merely floated there in silence, its sparkling silver eyes twinkling.
“Ooo-kay. As soon as you figure out how to tell me what to do, I’ll help.” She regarded it for a moment, then kept walking.
It followed her out into the living room.
Dorian looked over as if he wanted to make a wiseass remark, but thought better of it.
Hah. Not smart to make fun of Harbingers when they can hear you. Kirsten whistled innocently to herself, trying not to laugh when the entire forensics crew froze like a pack of deer as she passed. For once, she didn’t feel like the Mind Blast pariah.
It hadn’t been her they reacted to.
20
Seriously Bad Vibes
Three hours later, having found no sign of the people she assumed had been with Herrera at the time of his attack, Kirsten trudged outside.
The Harbinger continued following her, as it had the whole time she went door-to-door. It flooded the entire back half of the car, becoming a cloud of darkness with eyes. She sighed to herself. On a few occasions, she’d communicated with them. The big one that had come to collect Albert Motte waited at her request and allowed her to talk to him for a moment. Another that had given Dorian the eye after the wraith tore him up may or may not have decided against claiming him because of her plea. She still hadn’t quite figured out if Dorian had been on their radar or if the Harbinger had merely been confused and not known what to make of him.
She couldn’t call her partner dark, but he had taken a strong sense of satisfaction for performing summary executions. Kirsten doubted he would have run around the city looking for anyone he could justifiably kill, but her opinion of what affected where a ghost wound up going didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. She didn’t make that decision.
Kirsten could only try and stay as true to herself as possible, as in not simply gunning down those Harris cultists for nearly burning a child at the stake. The thought of that made her want to rush to the PAC and grab Evan. He, too, had almost wound up suffering a similar fate… though the old man he described didn’t sound malicious. They hadn’t wanted to kill him, rather believed he’d already died.
Still, the thought of Evan laid out in a primitive crematory vessel got her crying.
“Frustrated, or random sad thought?” asked Dorian.
“Random sad thought.” She wiped her cheeks. “And yes, I’m frustrated. I still haven’t made the slightest bit of progress finding who killed Juan Miguel. I’ve got a twisted, sick son of a bitch running around the city doing unspeakable things to innocent women, and now there’s some kind of abyssal killing people under the control of the Diablos—and I have no damned idea where to go from here.”
He pursed his lips in thought. “What about the motel where they killed him?”
“Yeah. I need to check that out. And now I’ve got a Harbinger following me around. I’ve never seen one of them act like this. Two impossible cases and a beyond-bizarre situation. I’m almost at the point where I lock myself in a closet and try to forget the universe exists.”
“Act like what?” asked Dorian.
She peered into the void in the back seat. “No offense, but… like a lost puppy.”
Dorian snickered. “That is a powerful agent of the abyss, part of the inner-workings of the cosmos intended to drag the darkest of dark souls to an eternal prison. It’s not a lost puppy.”
The Harbinger seemed to inflate and deflate as if sighing.
“I wish they could speak.”
“I’m quite sure he… or she does, too.” Dorian glanced into the back.
Its eyes continued to sparkle with no discernable emotion.
Whatever.
She powered up the patrol craft and accessed the terminal. “Gonna go see what I can scrape off the walls at that motel.”
“Literally or metaphorically.” Dorian smiled.
“Ugh. Let’s hope, metaphorically.”
The old inquest record contained information about the motel where he’d been atomized by 20mm explosive rounds. She dreaded what had been a grey zone back in 2308 would be a full on black zone by now… but it surprisingly went the other way. NaturaLife Pharmaceuticals, Gravion Interstellar, and Manticore Investments had invested in the area, building a corporate office complex surrounded by residential tower buildings. The ability to walk to work in ten minutes made rent steep, but they could only charge so much before the employees couldn’t afford it. People who didn’t work there wouldn’t pay a premium for the living space.
“Shit. The motel’s gone.”
“That’s… unfortunate.”
Frustrated, and having no better ideas, plotted a course back to the PAC.
The Harbinger floated out of the patrol craft and followed her across the parking garage.
Kirsten paid it little mind, no different from having another cop walking along behind her. Its presence cast a dark shadow all the way around the overly white hallways in the Division 0 wing. Everyone she came near froze in place, staring at her. A few fainted. Some screamed and ran the other way. At two guys she knew not to be astrals noticing the darkness creeping along the walls, she blinked in awe.
Damn… this guy’s potent.
Dozens of telepathic knocks hit her mind from people trying to understand why ‘she’ threw off such dread terror. Kirsten didn’t bother blocking any of them out. Her head soon filled with voices asking her why she ‘brought that thing’ here.
It’s following me. Not my idea.
She mentally repeated that phrase again and again until she reached her squad room. Dorian probably thought of a joke about getting in trouble for bringing a pet entity to work, but if he did, he kept it to himself.
Kurosawa and Montez froze at their desks, staring at her. Morelli sputtered coffee and wound up choking.
“Well,” muttered Kirsten. “Now I know how Ashford feels.”
“What?” Kurosawa looked past her at the dark patch of wall. “Are you doing that? What’s making that enormous shadow?”
She plodded to her desk, the Harbinger hovering nearby. “Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at me as soon as I walked in. That’s what happens to Commander Ashford.”
“To be fair, people don’t usually scream and run from him.” Dorian took a seat at his desk. “Don’t let it get t
o you. They’re not reacting to you.”
Morelli coughed. “Wren, you’re throwing off some seriously bad vibes today.”
“Relax. I’ve got a friend. He’s an exchange officer from another precinct that’s pretty far away.”
Captain Eze rushed out of his office, looking around warily.
“It’s all right, Captain.” Kirsten raised a hand. “I have a visitor. He’s not dangerous.”
“Not dangerous?” Eze blinked. “I can feel that dread and I’m nowhere near an astral. What the heck did you bring here?”
“He’s following me for some reason. Umm… a Harbinger.”
Everyone in the room skimmed her surface thoughts. Kirsten glanced at the Harbinger floating beside her so they all got a good look at him.
“Ooo! Shadow floof!” shouted Nicole, from the doorway. “He’s cute!”
Even the Harbinger blinked in shock.
Kirsten pinched the bridge of her nose. A manifestation of dread incarnate has been reduced to ‘shadow floof.’ Of course, she had to admit, her usual feeling that making one wrong move around a Harbinger would be fatal didn’t presently radiate from this one. The commanding epic-ness of its presence had vastly diminished.
Dorian whistled.
The redhead hurried over to Kirsten’s desk. She trembled like a kid who’d just awoken from a nightmare, but smiled in a manic sort of way. “Oh, this is weird.”
“Just a bit,” said Kirsten. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I saw him in your head, but I’m all like ‘aww cute’ and I’m like totally terrified at the same time. It’s so bizarre.”
“Harbingers have—”
“Oh, the people who live downstairs from me are such idiots.”
“—that effect on people.” Kirsten smiled. “What did they—”
Nicole started crying while giggling. “Totally overreacted with noise complaints, and the guy got in my face last night. Oh, you want coffee?”
“Got in your face?”
“Crap. Why am I crying?” Nicole wiped her cheeks. “Wow, I’m like ready to piss myself I’m so scared. Look at me. My hands are shaking and I don’t know why.”
Kirsten glanced at the Harbinger, who continued to project glumness.
“You’re more sensitive than most, I think, and his presence is—”
“The guy thought he could intimidate me into ‘being quiet.’ Didn’t realize I was a cop.”
“And you—”
“Strawberry mocha again?” asked Nicole, sniffling.
“That woman would be an amazing investigator if she could hold a topic for more than four seconds,” said Dorian.
Kirsten bowed her head. “Yes on the strawberry mocha.”
“Attention all Division 0 personnel,” said the voice of Director Jane Carter via a PA system, “Whoever is radiating fear and guilt, you are to cease immediately.”
“Someone’s in trouble.” Dorian grinned.
“Coffee!” Nicole ran off with her NetMini in hand. “Anyone else?”
Morelli passed, but Kurosawa and Montez put in requests, as did Captain Eze.
Kirsten stared blankly at her desk’s holo-panels. None of them offered any useful information beyond still-churning searches. If anyone over the past hundred years had called in a report of molestation-by-ghost, it had either been laughed off or written up in such a way as to defy her search criteria. Anything prior to her activation probably would have wound up filed away in the ‘whatever’ column and ignored, a ghostly P10. Assuming, of course, it hadn’t been trashed as a prank call.
She glanced over at the Harbinger. “I don’t suppose you can help?”
It merely continued staring at her.
Oddly, Kirsten got the sense it liked being near her.
21
For the Taking
Strawberry-laced mocha coffee helped a little.
Since she didn’t want to drag a Harbinger to the secure dorms, she sent an email to the staff and asked that someone pass along a message to Rafael Esparza that she was still working on the case. She also explained that she wanted to visit him, but had a ‘dark manifestation’ presently attached to her that she couldn’t bring around troubled juvenile detainees—not that she’d want to bring it around any juvenile.
Another idea leaked into her consciousness.
Maybe the Harbinger is here to collect the abyssal that killed Herrera, and it can’t do it alone. At the initial moment of death, dark spirits had no defense against being taken. She didn’t know exactly how long it took for a new ghost to build up enough of a spectral presence that the Harbingers couldn’t simply grab them.
Every spirit she’d ever encountered that they’d been interested in only became vulnerable to a Harbinger’s claim after a few shots with Astral Lash weakened it. Maybe this one knew that and planned on following her around until she caught up to the thing the Diablos summoned. The theory seemed reasonable except for Harbingers’ ability to materialize at will when she cornered a spirit worthy of their interest. It didn’t make much sense for one to hang out with her and wait.
She leaned back in her chair pondering that, and other deep mysteries of the universe—like how boxes of herbal tea always seemed to contain an odd number of pouches. She always wound up having a single one left, which made it annoying for her using a giant mug and needing two sachets per cup.
Fate decided to be kind. It waited until she swallowed the last sip of her coffee.
No sooner had she set her cup down than an emergency dispatch appeared on her terminal, along with the face of a young woman in an Admin uniform.
“Lieutenant Wren, please proceed to Sector 5057, 204 City Road E99. 21-47 in progress.”
Kirsten jumped up, ‘grabbed’ the woman’s face out of the holo-panel and dragged it to her forearm guard. A plum-sized holographic head floated over her arm. She swiped her terminal locked and ran off down the corridor, Dorian and the Harbinger close behind.
“On the way. What am I walking into?”
The woman lowered her voice to a near whisper. “Caller indicated an unseen force touching them inappropriately.”
Kirsten jumped into the elevator. “Why are you whispering?”
“There’s a training class here today. Got a bunch of twelve-year-olds shadowing calls.”
“Ahh.” She glanced at the Harbinger’s wispy, vaporous form packed into the corner of the elevator cab. “I’m being shadowed, too.”
Dorian groaned. “That was horrible.”
“I have to make myself laugh about something or I’m just going to give up.”
“It’s not in you to give up, K.” Dorian patted her shoulder.
Kirsten sprinted down the hall to the garage, ignoring the stares, screams, and odd noises coming from other people. She jumped into her patrol craft, driving before the door finished closing. The instant she shot out from under the roof of the motor pool garage, she hit the lights and emergency transponder while simultaneously switching to hover mode. In a blur of brown and black, the holographic head leapt from floating above her arm to the middle of the car’s console.
The Navcon picked up the address from the dispatch on its own, so she rammed the left stick forward, pinning herself against the seat with acceleration. A moment later, she leveled off at 600 feet doing 340 MPH.
Arms rigid, she held the sticks, staring out past an array of glowing lines and indicators on the windscreen. “Talk to me, dispatch. Who am I looking for?”
“Citizen’s name is ‘Freya.’ No family name.” A file image appeared in a small box on the windscreen, containing a youngish pale face with sky blue hair in a bob, glowing blue eyes, and a luminous pink raccoon band cybertattoo. Dark red painted lips managed a pouty sneer that tried to radiate ‘don’t mess with me’ and ‘why hello there’ at the same time.
“Dammit… is that girl a minor?” asked Kirsten.
“Doesn’t fit his MO.” Dorian stuck his hand into the dashboard and another screen opened with the same
portrait attached to a bunch of text. “She’s like you… looks younger than she is. According to this, she’s twenty-one. Has a bit of a record. She’s no sweet innocent girl. Though it’s a bunch of simple assault cases. She’s augged.”
“How much?”
“Umm…” Dorian read for a few seconds. “Both eyes, forearm blades, bunch of headware, and some low-grade speedware.”
Kirsten cringed at the thought. Having wires implanted all throughout her body ranked right up there with jumping headfirst into that awful black gunk in the Beneath. “How does someone that age afford that shit?”
“Either a sponsor, or she’s stealing credits. She’s in a gang, Warp Spiders.”
“Big? Dangerous?”
“Not really. Looks like a cyber-gang though, attracts people addicted to augmentation. Most of their criminal activity is in the GlobeNet. Poor girl’s going to be mostly metal by the time she’s forty.”
“That’s sad.”
“Oh, they don’t usually chop off healthy parts just to replace them… though some do. But, when one of your hobbies is dancing with vibro blades, shit happens.” Dorian cringed.
Kirsten squeezed the control sticks. “Hate vibro claws.”
The Harbinger, filling the back seat as a cloud of blackness, said nothing.
Two minutes and eighteen seconds after leaving the PAC, Kirsten set down on the roof of a low-end apartment building that reminded her of where she used to live. The roof had no spot for a hovercar—especially an oversized police model—to land properly. But, she’d had plenty of practice wedging that patrol craft on roofs where it didn’t fit.
After balancing it on an air handler and a pipe loop, she jumped out and ran to the roof access door, which opened in response to her police override code. The air in the stairwell made her gag on a mixture of roasting chicken, urine, and sweaty foot. Ignoring the stink, she ran down from the 50th floor roof to the 34th floor, following the navigation aid to Freya’s apartment.
Harbinger Page 22
