by David Beers
"You hear that?" Glenn asked.
"No."
"Exactly. There's no alarm going off right now. I just broke into a locked up police station, and there's nothing alerting anyone to it."
Wren felt ice move into his stomach, where it came from he didn't know, but he did understand the only thing that had a fucking chance of melting it was the flask in his back pocket. His hand moved to it without his knowledge, and it wasn't until he felt the metal on his fingertips that he realized what they were up to. He held his hand there, not taking the flask out but not ready to give up on the idea. That cold in his stomach, that was fear, and rightfully there because something should have been happening right now. People with mace approaching Glenn and himself. People with guns. People ready to kill the two of them if need be.
"Come on," Glenn said, stepping through the broken door. Wren watched him walk a few feet before he took his hand from the flask and followed, his feet crunching over the glass.
"Where is everyone?" Glenn said as he walked up to the receptionist's desk. "HELLO!"
Wren walked around the side, trying to look into the back hallway where a door kept the inner workings of the station closed to public view.
"Do you think we should go back there?" Wren asked.
"At this point, we're in a good bit of trouble regardless of what we do."
Wren walked down the dim hallway, not bothering to turn on any of the lights. He reached the door and listened as Glenn's footsteps followed. "Maybe there's a reason for this. Maybe something's happened that we don't know about," Wren said, his hand on the door knob. He didn't want to go through the door. He didn't want to see what was back there, because there wasn't a single good reason that Wren could think of which would make this place feel like a crypt. Whatever reason kept the police from coming up here with guns drawn, it wasn't a good one, and wasn't one Wren wanted to see.
"Go on," Glenn said, his voice a whisper.
Wren twisted the knob and pushed the door open.
The hallway was empty, and as silent as the lobby. The two walked forward, the door closing behind them sounding like a God hitting a gong in this place.
Wren went to the first door on his right, it being closed just like everything else. He didn't look back at Glenn, didn't say anything, just twisted the knob and opened it.
Ten cops, male and female, lay scattered throughout the room. Blood coated the floor like paint on canvas, drying yet still smelling different than anything Wren had ever been around. He didn't move from the door, even as Glenn stepped by him and into the room. He stared with eyes wide and a slack jaw at the goddamn mess before him. Every one of the cops had holes in them, and the majority in their heads. Wren didn't know what a gun fight was supposed to look like, didn't know what he should have seen if these cops had tried to fight back.
He knew they were dead. Their eyes were open, and they were staring at floors and walls as if the answers to what happened were written on them. Except Wren could only see their blood on the floors and walls, no answers.
"Jesus Christ," Glenn said.
Wren said nothing. He didn't know how any of this was possible.
He swallowed, closing his mouth for the first time since opening the door.
"Let's get out of here," he said, again not realizing his hand still gripped the flask in his back pocket.
It was only later, as these things usually go, that Wren regretted not picking up one single weapon.
49
Present Day
Morena's two hosts stood shoulder to shoulder and she looked out both sets of eyes into the open woods before her. Both bodies were more still than they had ever been before, not moving a single muscle as Morena used all of her power to keep from making a single sound.
She had been beyond stupid to come out here. She hadn't thought, had been possessed with the idea that she had to get to this place, had to get to her ship, had to resurrect her body, had to bring her children out of this planet's core. She acted without thinking and it nearly cost her everything. Morena crossed back over from the Ether in the same places she had left, both of her host's houses. She moved in a blur, tying the parents up with rope and tape she found in the house, before leaving just minutes later. She brought the two hosts together and headed for the woods. She had been maybe a hundred more steps from ending up with a bullet in both of these bodies.
She saw them though, the people looking for her, thank The Makers. One was the man from The Government. The one that started all this trouble at Thera's house the night before (had it only been a night? Morena had no idea how time passed in the Ether, but it seemed to stretch on forever). There was a female too, though Morena had no idea who she was. The two of them stood in the middle of the ash circle Morena created when she landed. They were pointing up into different parts of the forest and talking, though Morena couldn't hear them.
Morena understood with an innate clarity that she had to get to that circle. That she had to stand almost exactly where the two of them now stood, and she had to do it soon. She had to prepare for her children's arrival. She couldn't do that from back here in these woods.
Yet, she couldn't resurrect herself from here, though she felt her body, felt the ship. When she rushed here she hadn't expected to see these two. She hadn't expected to see them planning, plotting to find her. She expected to walk into the cleared area and open the world from beneath.
"What are they doing?" she asked the two creatures inside her mind.
"I don't know," the female said. "I can't hear them."
"What do you think they're doing, then?"
"They're going to bring more people out here," Bryan said. "They're going to make sure if you come back, they'll be ready."
Morena said nothing back. All of her decisions had been wrong since she arrived on this planet—but it was almost comical now. She was maybe a hundred and fifty feet from her body, but unable to go to it. Her children were birthing a few miles below, calling to her, ready to do as she asked of them, and these two frail creatures standing in front of her wouldn't allow it to happen.
Her husband, still in the Ether, put there—basically—by Morena in their mad dash for safety.
"What weapons do you have?" she asked the two of them. All of her decisions had been errors, but she was still here, still only a few feet from her resurrection. She was still alive and her children still growing. Smarter, that's what she had to be.
"Weapons?" Thera asked, almost laughing. "Nothing. We don't have any guns."
"And you?" Morena said.
"Nothing," Bryan said.
Of course they would have no weapons. What could she do with these two bodies? She knew them fairly intimately already, and the answer was nothing. These creatures were little more than overgrown insects. The first serious threat to their structures, and they would fall apart.
"They won't leave?" she asked.
"Would you?" Thera asked.
Morena felt her temper rising with the comment. Those creatures out there, walking around on the burnt ground, they didn't know what they were doing, how they were endangering not a single child, but a civilization. So intent on killing her that they couldn't see how much bigger this was than anyone in these woods. They were like Chilras though, from Bynimian. No logic, no reasoning, would show them their error. They would continue coming for her, continue doing everything in their power to ensure that she didn't succeed, that her children died.
She understood the gravity, though, even if they didn't. And just like with Chilras, she had no time to teach them, no ways either—such was their mentality.
Morena grew silent, watching the two government creatures moving around in front of her, so close to her body but with absolutely no idea of its existence. She stood in perfect stillness, waiting and thinking, trying to figure out the best way to kill them.
* * *
Will was walking toward the edge of the black ring when he first felt it. He didn't stop walking, wouldn't have dar
ed do that, but kept moving as if nothing had changed. He reached the edge and looked out into the forest. He had been walking up here to turn around and look back down at Rigley, to get an idea of how far off the men they were planning on bringing in should stand. Rigley had been right about them needing someone out here and Will wasn't happy he had missed it. Now though, instead of turning around to look at Rigley, at the center of the bare landscape, he peered into the forest surrounding them.
The goddamn trees were too dense, even with light pouring down from the sun above. He couldn't see anything, but he knew it was out there. Will had gone to college for a semester, and the truest thing he learned in that fine institution happened at the cafeteria. He had been grabbing food and he saw a fly floating around the buffet. A worker showed up, an older man, with a fly swatter. He tried to kill the pest, but it moved away with ease, flying on to another spot of its feast.
The man shook his head and started walking down the line.
"Think it knows you're coming?" Will had asked, smiling.
"Oh yeah, it knows it's being hunted. It's instinctual."
When Will first heard that, he thought the old man was an idiot, spouting off some old wive's tale about a creature that couldn't remember something two seconds in the past. Will had been young and stupid back then, though. He knew better now. It was instinctual; all beings knew when they were being hunted, and Will had felt this before—something hunting him. He didn't try to rationalize it, didn't try to argue against it. It would be foolish and lead to death; instead, he accepted it the same way he imagined that fly had accepted such an instinct.
The infection was out here, looking at him. It saw both of them; they had been stupid to rush out here like this. He and Rigley were both lucky to be alive right now.
What was it watching for? What form had it taken? Were the two high school kids standing in these woods, or were they already dead? If he saw it, whatever form it was in, he would end its life immediately. Or at least try. Certainly, the two kids would die with their blood leaking out onto the dirt, and God, he just wanted the chance.
It was hunting him though, not the other way around. It saw him, and he had to deal with that reality. Which meant he needed to leave, at least for now. He needed to get away from its view. Telling Rigley, that was going to be the tough part, because she might flip out. Goddamn it, Will couldn't make any firm plans with her here, because he didn't know how she would react. If this thing was dangerous, and Rigley did something stupid, it would be his blood spilling on the ground.
Tell her, tell her quietly, and force her to leave with as little pressure as possible.
Will didn't pull his weapon, but looked a few more seconds into the crowded woods, and then turned around to Rigley.
"What do you think?" she asked.
"Looks good," he said and walked back to the center, moving as close as he could to Rigley without giving any signals to how different he felt right now. "It's here," he said, looking her directly in the eye.
"What?" Rigley's eyes flashed over his shoulder, breaking contact.
"Don't look. Don't do anything. Just talk to me and stand here. We're being watched. It's here somewhere."
"How do you know?" Rigley said.
"It doesn't matter, but it's here. We need to leave, and slowly, like nothing's wrong. We can't let it see that we know."
Rigley nodded, her body looking not quite relaxed, but not as bad as Will expected. She wasn't freaking out, wasn't losing her mind with fear. That was good. It was the Rigley from before, if only for a second.
"Are you ready?" he said.
"Yeah."
They both turned and started walking back the way they came, heading toward their car. Will kept his hand away from his weapon, but was extremely aware of where his fingers were at any time. His eyes flashed through the woods, scanning for any movement, for anything that didn't belong.
Just one glance. Just one, and I'll end all of our worries right now.
He saw nothing their whole walk back, though that didn't matter. It was instinctual, after all.
* * *
The two were out of Morena's eyesight, but she didn't dare turn to follow them. She had been brash enough this entire time, and now a bit of caution needed to be used. If just for a little longer. Soon she would return and her powers would multiply, then she could afford to be brash again. Not now. Now she needed to be careful.
She listened as hard as she could, trying to hear where they were heading, but after a few minutes, there was nothing but the sounds of the forest filling her ears.
Morena didn't move, though she knew what must be done now.
She had to reach the center of that black circle; nothing else mattered. From the center she could return. From the center she could make contact with her children. From the center she had a chance. There was no other way.
She stood in the forest's silence, not moving, not listening to the thoughts of those inside her. She would wait here until she was sure she could move, and when she moved, it would be decisively, and then anyone who tried to stand before her would fall.
* * *
Thera listened to Morena's thoughts. Always listening. Always trying to understand more and more, looking for some kind of opening, for something that might release them.
She was getting better at understanding Morena's emotions. They were complicated, not like anything Thera had ever experienced. Human emotions clouded logic, they took people out of reality, they tricked humans to stay inside their head. It didn't work like that with Morena. There were emotions inside her, but only in the most stretched definition of the word.
She was never inside this consciousness. Her mind focused on reality, on what was before her, and the emotions that ran underneath that focus supplemented it instead of detracting. Her emotions heightened her awareness and brought clarity to that around her.
Thera thought it truly spectacular to view. Morena need not fight her emotions, need not try to push them down, because they seemed at one with reality. They fed off it, and backed the rational logic that ruled her mind. A virtuous circle, emotion feeding logic, logic dictating reality, and reality determining emotion.
It would have been spectacular, if the result wasn't going to be so goddamn deadly.
Thera didn't know the end result; no one on Earth could listen to Morena and possibly understand exactly where she was going to move, but Thera did understand that the people she just watched walking around in the ash would die. She understood that she and Bryan would die too. Those emotions were very clear inside Morena, that whatever the end goal was, everyone in her way would fall. Thera and Bryan weren't in the way, but they were beyond disposable.
Except Morena hadn't left their parents back in that place of gray.
She brought them back to reality along with Thera and Bryan.
Was there something in that, something that Thera could use? The word love; that had mattered to Morena. That held her, kept her from just leaving their parents. She understood love, an emotion that went beyond humanity.
Listen, that's what Thera had to continue doing. Listening and cataloguing and waiting for the moment that she could act, either with love or something else—because Morena would be acting soon, and as of now, love didn't play into it.
50
A Long Time Ago, in Another Place
Veral paced across the room. It held no windows, and only one entrance. He paced as his yellow aura ran over his body, reflecting the emotions running through him. Moving much faster than it would have normally, than it might have ever before.
This room was safe. No one would find him here. No one even knew about it.
Does the Var know, Veral? How do you know what she knows, at all? She might know every single room on this entire planet.
It was possible, but unlikely. Those were just his nerves talking, scaring him, because he understood what the end result would be. Not just for him, but also for Chilras.
Veral almost c
ouldn't believe it, that something so terrible had happened, that the Var had done it. The word hadn't stretched out to the planet yet, of course not, because such a thing would incite panic. No one would know how to react; no one had ever thought something like this even possible.
He had to do something, though he didn't know what.
Are you going to stand against the Var? Is that what your plan is? You? The Hindran's Assistant?
It sounded like madness as his nerves spoke back his thoughts to him. But that's what was happening right now, madness. Chilras and the rest of The Council had been taken—except that wasn't really the right word. They had been imprisoned. Captives.
What was wrong with her? Makers, had Morena lost her mind completely? Or was this something deeper, something not as innocent as simple insanity—was she trying to take over in a way that no other Var had done before?
Veral heard this morning, from another Assistant also going into hiding. The Assistant hadn't known why, only that at Court this morning, the Var sent her soldiers to capture The Council. The Assistant hadn't needed to tell Veral what would happen to the two of them if they were caught. They probably wouldn't even be given the opportunity of capture, rather murdered at first sight. Veral was tied to Chilras, and for life. Assistants…Veral took a vow when he began his service, took a vow to stand by the Hindran no matter what, to die for her if the need arose.
If the Var felt it necessary to imprison The Council, then certainly she would feel killing an Assistant appropriate.
He couldn't hide in this room forever. Even now, the Var was probably hunting for him, hunting for all six of The Council's Assistants. She might not know about this place right now, but in a week's time? Yes.
More than that, though, Veral had an obligation in this. He could hide for right now, to regain his composure, to try and plan, but the choice of hiding forever, of trying to escape perhaps to another world didn't apply to him. He had taken his vow and he had served admirably up until now. He wouldn't sacrifice that vow, his own eternal soul, to escape death.
