Ghost Dance

by Rebecca Levene

  "What do you say?" Jimmy asked the Israeli. "Can we trust her?"

  "We can use her," Lahav said. "Maybe she opens a way through without fighting, but we must be ready to fight. We must allow Morgan to reach the shofar. Don't try to take it for yourself - leave it to him."

  "Me? Why?"

  Lahav's eyes bored through him. "The shofar protects itself. If you are too close when it's used, it drives your soul from your body. But you, Morgan... You have nothing to lose. For you alone the Shofar Hagadol is safe."

  Because I have no soul, Morgan thought. That's why Lahav needed him, and also why he let Lahav use him. How very convenient for the Israeli. "OK," he said. "Let's do it."

  Alex felt eyes on her as she walked from the ghost town into the desert. The sun was heading towards its zenith and it burned intolerably above her, scorching the vulnerable skin of her shoulders even through her blouse. Her face had already reddened. She could feel the tight glow in her cheeks.

  When she'd walked far enough away that the buildings' outlines were blurred by heat haze, the coyotes surrounded her, tongues lolling and too-human eyes fixed on her. They weren't quite hostile, but they weren't friendly either. She wondered how much they understood, how much of the people they used to be remained. In the spirit world their faces had always been animal, but that was metaphor, not reality. There had been a human intelligence shining from their eyes. Now the light behind them was wilder and more bestial. We're shaped by the bodies we inhabit, she thought, and they're being changed by theirs.

  She dropped to her knees and one of the creatures sloped forward to stand nose to nose with her. It was PD, but his face was altered too. His teeth were a little too long, his nose a little too sharp and his eyes seemed dazed. She understood that if she couldn't find the body he belonged in soon, he'd become the beast he now only resembled.

  "I don't know if you can understand me," she said. "But I think I can help you. I know something that can put you back in your body. I just have to find it - and your body. Jesus, this is the freakiest conversation I've ever had. Look, PD, I need you to follow me. You have to be close if we find the shofar. I don't think these guys are going to let me use it for long. Just... be ready, and stay safe."

  The coyote sat as she stood and she couldn't be sure he'd understood her. She had little expectation any of this would work. She didn't trust the people she found herself working with, and the Croatoans outnumbered them and must be expecting them - or her, at least. But she'd try, and that would be enough to ease her guilt. It would have to be.

  She turned away and didn't look back as she returned to the ghost town. The men were ready when she reached them. Morgan pressed a holstered gun into her hand. Her fingers fumbled to fasten the leather straps across her shoulder as she eased into the jeep beside him, and then the engine turned and caught and it was too late to wonder if she was doing the right thing.

  Jimmy drove them, arm hanging through the open window. Dust settled on his skin and blurred the black tattoos that crawled across it. Beside her, Morgan was still and silent as he gazed at the empty desert. His mouth was tight and she wondered if it was the coming combat he was afraid of.

  It scared the shit out of her, she knew that. She looked at her gun and fiddled with the safety, flicking it on and off. She wondered if she'd actually be able to fire it - if she could really point it at another human being.

  She looked back up to find Morgan staring at her. "You know how to use that?" he asked.

  "I've been taught."

  He nodded and looked back out of the window. She studied his face, his one face, and wondered what it meant that the spirit world could show her nothing about him. It didn't surprise her the British had an equivalent of the CIA's Bureau of Counter-Rational Warfare, this Hermetic Division. But the CIA had recruited her and PD for very specific reasons. What was it about Morgan that made him useful to MI6?

  They were still in empty desert when the jeeps halted. Morgan vaulted over the side, then walked round to open her door for her.

  "I can do that myself," she said. "I've got hands."

  "They're shaking," he told her.

  She was surprised to see it was true. Fine tremors shivered her skin.

  "Stay behind me," he said. "You're not here to fight. Just... do whatever it is you do."

  "Yeah. Whatever it is." She knew she could leave them behind here and walk through the world of spirit. But the CIA had found a way to see her even in that place, and she couldn't be sure the Croatoans didn't know it too. She needed these people and their guns to keep the cultists occupied.

  "I'm coming with you," Morgan said.

  She frowned at him. "Into the spirit world? You can't - I don't know how to take someone else through."

  "Then you'd better figure it out. You can't take the shofar without me."

  "Don't you trust me?"

  He shrugged. "Listen, the shofar's in the real world. So I'm guessing you'll need to come into the real world to get it. As soon as you do, someone can use it against you. You're not safe from it."

  She studied him. "And you are?"

  "Yeah. I am."

  They walked a little further over the sand and rocks, the fierce sunlight pushing down on their heads. After a while, Alex realised the other men had disappeared, faded into the desert like mirages.

  "They're circling," Morgan told her. "They'll create a diversion while you take me in."

  A few more paces and he dropped to his knees and then his stomach, his upper body supported on his forearms. He looked at her until she dropped to the ground beside him. Small stones pressed into her skin through her thin blouse and she felt the prickle of cacti. When Morgan began easing himself forward on his stomach, using his elbows for leverage, she sighed and did the same.

  Her blouse tore after only a few yards and she couldn't tell if the liquid she could feel trickling into her belly button was blood or sweat. It was definitely sweat trickling into her eyes, the salt stinging them till she could barely see anything beyond the beige blur of the sand and Morgan's darker form ahead of her.

  "Should have paid attention to all those courses we sent you on, kid," she imagined PD saying. "Should have been ready."

  But she wasn't and she didn't know how long she could keep this up. She heaved herself forward and grabbed hold of Morgan's leg. It tensed against her with a strength she hadn't expected.

  "I can't do this," she told him. "I'll be dead before I get there."

  "I thought you were CIA."

  "There was a reason I left."

  He sighed. "It's not much further, and-" He lifted his head as the distant sound of gunfire floated through the clear desert air. "OK, once the guards have moved we make a run for it."

  "But what if they don't all go?"

  "They won't. That's why we've got guns."

  He wriggled back to her athletically. She could smell his sweat, clean and sharp unlike the stale odour of the other men. And she could see the hard muscles in his arms, but there was a softness in his eyes when he looked at her. "It's good to be afraid," he said. "Keeps you safe."

  "Running straight at an encampment of armed fanatics is safe?"

  His grin was unexpected and charming. "Well... safer."

  Then he was jerking her to her feet and forward before she'd had time to process that it had begun.

  The fence was closer than she'd realised, ten feet or more of steel mesh topped by razor wire. She could see no guards on it, only a startlingly green lawn surrounding a sprawling building a hundred feet behind. Her legs burned as she ran and the air grated against her lungs as she gasped for breath.

  Any minute now, she thought, they'll come back with their guns and we're right out in the open. Beside her, Morgan seemed barely winded. They'd be at the fence in five seconds, four, and he showed no signs of slowing and she had no idea if she could slip herself back into the spirit world, let alone whether she could take Morgan with her.

  Two seconds and she squinted her eyes
and grabbed for the spirit world with her mind and for Morgan's hand with hers. His skin was momentarily warm against hers and then he'd wrenched it loose and he was swarming over the fence with a speed and strength that made it look effortless. She could only run straight on, hoping she'd held onto at least one of the things she'd grasped for.

  For a terrible moment she felt the wire as it cut across her eyelids. But the searing pain was an illusion and it was gone when she broke through to the other side, running a few more paces until momentum and exhaustion tumbled her to her knees on the grass of the Croatoan compound.

  She looked over her shoulder to see Morgan clambering down the fence. He was moving a little more slowly as he dropped the last five feet and blood dripped down his face and arms from a collection of deep scratches.

  He paused a moment when he saw her, then held out a hand and hauled her to her feet. "You weren't kidding. Reckon you can take me with you next time?"

  She looked at his blunt fingernails resting against the pulse point in her wrist and then at his stubbornly singular face. "I don't know. I'll try."

  "OK. Odds are they've got cameras pointing out here even if the guards are gone. We need to get into the building before they send reinforcements."

  He released her hand as he jogged towards the building. She could hear the gunfire more clearly now and voices shouting. Screaming, too. "Do we know where this shofar thing is?" she gasped as she ran beside him.

  He shrugged.

  "Do we even know for sure it's here?"

  "Lahav seemed pretty certain."

  "And you trust him?" she asked.

  "You saw what he is, didn't you?"

  Angels and demons, Raven had said disparagingly, as if he didn't see very much difference between them. "That's not an answer," she said.

  "I have to trust him."

  Spurts of gunfire continued to sound as they reached the building but no Croatoans appeared. The place was modern; she doubted it had been built more than a decade ago. It was gossamer-thin in the spirit world, just a spiderweb of stucco. When she pressed her hand against the wall it moved through - but only a short way. There was... something blocking her, curlicues of air that seemed to have substance. And beneath them she could see wooden cross slats that were more than just supports for the stuccoed surface.

  Morgan raised an eyebrow when she looked at him. "Not happening?"

  "I can't break through. I think this place was built by someone who knew about people like me - and knew how to stop us."

  She glanced down in surprise when Morgan touched her hip, but he was just reaching for her holster. He eased the gun out and pressed it into her hand, curling her fingers around the grip. "Then we're gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way."

  The gun felt too loose in her hand, its textured grip slipping against her sweaty palm. "I, uh, can't really shoot straight."

  He gave her another of his quick smiles. "I guessed. I'll be using single aimed shots, you keep up suppressing fire if we need it. It keeps them from running towards us - doesn't need to be accurate. Got it?"

  "Yeah."

  "Just try not to shoot me in the back."

  He meant it as a joke and she managed a smile, but she thought of PD, whom she'd certainly stabbed in the back.

  "Lahav's intel says there's a side door to our left," he said. "We'll make for that. Once we're inside... I suppose we'll head for the path of most resistance."

  "Most resistance?"

  "The shofar's what this is all about. Stands to reason it'll be heavily guarded, right?"

  "Right," she croaked.

  He nodded, then put his back to the building and crab-walked left. Alex followed him, feeling the press against her own back of something that wasn't quite material. It prickled her shoulder blades and she had to fight to keep from stepping away.

  They were twenty feet from the corner when she heard the crunch of feet against gravel and Morgan dropped to one knee in front of her. She was still gawping stupidly at him as the guard appeared. His face, young and not too bright, was turned a little to their left. And then her ears rang with a single shot and there was a hole where his nose had been and a shower of red spray that fell to the ground seconds after his body.

  She looked at Morgan, hands rock-steady on the gun he'd just fired - and fired again as a second figure careened round the corner and straight into the path of his bullet.

  "Oh," she said. She wrapped an arm around her stomach and hoped she wasn't going to empty it onto the sand beside Morgan's feet.

  Morgan's attention remained focused ahead of them. He took one breath, another - and when no further figures appeared he rose fluidly to his feet and continued to ease himself forward, as if he hadn't just killed two men in a matter of seconds. As if their corpses weren't lying there in the blazing sun, flies already buzzing to settle in the pools of blood around them.

  "Keep an eye behind us," he said without looking at her.

  She nodded jerkily. There was no one there and she didn't know what she would have done if there had been. She didn't think she could fire her gun - not now she'd seen what would happen if she actually hit her target.

  She didn't realise Morgan had stopped until her shoulder jogged his and she felt his hand against her mouth, her breath humid beneath his palm. His breath tickled her ear as he whispered, "They'll be waiting." He nodded at the corner of the building, now only a pace away. "They know we're here. I'm gonna have to go for it, but I need you to keep them occupied."

  She felt a rush of fear so intense it made her light-headed. The corpses of the two men he'd killed were only feet away and she could smell the blood and something fouler. One of them must have soiled himself as he died, no dignity in it.

  Morgan studied her face. "Fire blind," he said. "Put your hand round the corner and pull the trigger. I don't need you to kill them, just distract them."

  "OK. I can do that."

  "Ready?"

  She nodded and he held up three fingers. He clenched one back into a fist, then a second - and then he launched himself forward into a long low roll.

  The first volley of gunfire shocked her into motion. Her hand shook so hard as she pushed it round the side of the building that she could barely squeeze the trigger. But she did and the gun recoiled brutally, almost snapping her wrist until she remembered to bring up her other hand to support it.

  There were screams mixed in with the gunfire and shouts of rage. The building was immovable against her side, but the spirit world was still there, one with the timeless desert. She could slip into it and away and she wouldn't have to kill or be killed.

  "Now!" Morgan shouted.

  She froze, looking towards the horizon. PD's body might be here, it might not. The shofar might be found, or it might be far away. She was risking so much for a very small chance of success.

  "Alex, move it!" Morgan roared.

  She kept squeezing the trigger as she threw herself round the corner, barely registering that it was clicking on empty. Her legs kicked something soft and she leapt over it instinctively before she realised it was a body. Not even a corpse. The man's pleading eyes met hers as his hands clasped over a stomach that had been ripped open, his guts coiling into the sand around him.

  "Got too close. I had to knife him," Morgan said.

  She lost it, doubling over to heave her lunch onto the sand.

  She felt Morgan's hand rubbing soothing circles against her back. She couldn't look at him. She looked around instead, at the bodies littering the ground. There were six of them, no seven. She wondered if any of the bullet holes she could see in chests and heads and legs had been put there by her.

  "OK," Morgan said. "We gotta move."

  She nodded, swallowing the burn of bile in her throat. The door a was third of the way along the wall. It hung half open, a body wedged into the gap between wood and frame. Morgan grabbed one of the limp arms then gestured at her to take the other. The flesh was still warm beneath her fingers and she had to l
ook away as the head flopped on the loose neck and she had a brief glimpse of a dark-skinned, round-cheeked face.

  As soon as they were inside, Morgan ran, zig-zagging through a seemingly endless network of corridors. She was glad to let him, happy to have him take charge, take responsibility.

  Without warning, he wrenched open a door and pulled her inside, leaving it open a crack so he could peer at the corridor behind. She could hear nothing but the harsh rasp of her breathing and the more controlled hush of his. "Where are we?" she asked.

  He shrugged and she felt the tension and fear of the last half hour transmute into a sudden, disproportionate rage. "Then why the fuck did we fight so hard to get here?"

  "Had to get away from the entrance. Scene of the crime, know what I mean?"

  The crime. Yeah, that's what it felt like. She swallowed and looked away, though she felt his eyes on her for a long moment. She turned her face away when he touched her cheek with a tentative finger.

  "You did all right," he said. "But if it's any consolation, you're the worst fucking shot I've ever seen. I killed those men, not you."

  "But you killed them for me."

  He shrugged again and this time she let it pass. She didn't know what she expected him to say, anyway. This was his job.

  "So what now?" she asked.

  "You came because you can walk through walls, right? But you can't do that here and you sure as hell can't shoot a gun. You're not gonna be much help to me. Why not stay here and let me go after the shofar?"

  "And let you destroy it without giving me a chance to use it?"

  "Fine," he snapped. "Just keep your head down."

  She sighed. "No. I'm sorry, you go ahead. Will you come back and find me when you're done?"

  He nodded, turned to the door, then turned back again. "I think you're right - Lahav doesn't want you to use the shofar. But it's me who's getting it and I will."