by Dyrk Ashton
Panic threatens to seize Andreo’s mind and body, but his killer’s discipline keeps it at bay. Mostly. He snatches up the pistol, actions the slide, clicks off the safety. The man who entered the front door will be taking the stairs, so his preferred avenue of escape is blocked, but Andreo Ramos is always prepared.
As he grabs a coil of climbing rope with a grappling hook from the paramedic’s bag, the fur-coated man swings over the edge, glaring down at him with demonic red eyes.
Andreo flings the rope in the man’s face, throws himself into a backward roll, and comes up shooting.
Three tightly grouped shots take the man in the chest. The bullets drop mushroomed to the roof. The man’s eyes flash and he sneers, his mouth somehow morphing to reveal fangs above and below, long and sharp as knives.
Now Andreo panics. He spins to run, but Miss Zhang Li Jing is there, not five feet away. He doesn’t startle easily, but the words of his employer repeat in his mind, “Never, ever, look her in the eyes.” Andreo has met her gaze twice, first when she was in the alley looking up at him, and now he’s doing it again. Large, soft, black eyes, deeply intelligent but with a sense of innocence and wonder. She gracefully gesticulates with her hands and he can no longer move.
Andreo knows sign language. It’s one of the reasons he was hired for this contract. She signed the equivalent of “Be still” and now he’s paralyzed, frozen in place with one hand on the grip of his pistol, completely unable to raise it.
They stand there for what seems an eternity, staring at each other. Her robe ruffles in the breeze while she inspects him, like an inquisitive child studying an unknown but not altogether disgusting insect. The fur-coated man rounds Andreo and joins her. Behind them, the other man bursts out the rooftop door, splintering its remains onto the tarred roof.
She signs again, “May we speak?”
The signed words are clear, but the question makes no sense to Andreo. She’s mute and he can’t speak, or move to sign back. Still, he finds he’s capable of a slight nod.
His head floods with warmth, and words.
“You’re human,” they say in a soft female voice. “I’m not as sensitive to humans.” The words don’t come as sounds in his ears, but as thoughts. And somehow he knows they’re the woman’s, projected into his mind. Even more strange, Andreo speaks seven languages, but her voice seems to be in no particular tongue—it’s simply clear and perfectly understood.
He begins to panic again, but his curiosity and calculating mind take over. Telepathy. That’s how she communicates with the blind students. “Of course I’m human,” he says with his thoughts. “What else would I be?”
She answers in his head, “Any number of things.”
Andreo realizes he can move his eyes as they go wide and flit to the fur-coated man.
“He isn’t human,” he says.
“No,” she responds. She indicates the man in the suit, who now stands next to her. “And neither are we.”
“What are you?” he asks silently. He’s certain she’s “heard” him, but she just cocks her head.
“You tried to kill me,” she says without enmity.
A part of Andreo would like to control the “conversation,” to be the one asking the questions, to tell her to fuck off, to shoot her in the face, but he’s as incapable of lying to her or venting his rage as he is of lifting the pistol and pulling the trigger. He also has the feeling either of the other men could kill him before he fired a shot. There’s the possibility the gun might not work on her, too, since it had no effect on the big man. But even more, she has a calming presence that’s melting his anxiety and murderous intentions away. “Yes,” he answers.
“You’re an assassin.”
“Yes.”
“An old and once honorable profession,” she says, “but today...” Her eyes move to the table behind him, narrowing at the sight of the dark wooden bow with swirled carvings atop the folding table. “You possess Pinaka, the Bow of Shiva, and used the Pashupatastra arrow.”
“Is that what they are?”
“Unmistakably. Who gave them to you?”
“The man who hired me.”
“And who might that be?”
“He gave me no name.”
“What did he look like, to you?”
He doesn’t know what she means by “to you,” but he answers dutifully. “Five feet eight inches tall. Dark hair, slicked back. Long black leather coat with a high collar turned up, and clasps at the shoulders.”
She blinks in thought, then asks, “And his eyes?”
“Dark. Black. But not like yours.”
“How so?”
“Colder. Empty.”
Miss Zhang’s countenance changes to one of dawning recognition, then doubt, realization, and concern. She turns to the man in the suit. Their eyes meet and he nods.
The wail of approaching sirens rises in the distance, and there is shouting in the street below, but none of them seem to care. Miss Zhang’s gaze turns back to Andreo, implacable, as if considering something important.
“Are you going to kill me?” he asks, trying not to let his inner voice reveal his fear.
“No,” she replies in a tone that suggests it’s the furthest thing from her mind. “I vowed long ago to never again intentionally take the life of another. But you—” She stops, as if suddenly remembering something.
But what’s actually happened is she’s been interrupted by another voice in her head, a voice unheard by Andreo. A male with a Scottish accent. “Akhu, lassie! I hope yer safe and well.” He sounds harried. “If you aren’t in dire straits yourself, I would very much appreciate—” Dead silence, like a dropped signal on a mobile phone, then, “Och! Ya mingin’ bastard!” Another pause, and his voice returns, louder and more strained, “Akhu! I'm sorry if you heard that, dearie. I didn’t intend to say it to ya. I’m just—” More silence, then, “—I hate to impose, sweet lass, but I could use a wee bit of help here at the gymnasium!”
Akhu “listens” intently. “Mac Gallus?” she asks telepathically. “Mac?” There’s no response. Then—
“No time to chat, lassie. Come quick if ya can!” And the voice is gone.
Andreo flinches inwardly as Miss Zhang rushes to him, but instead of striking him or hurling him from the rooftop, she takes the pistol from his hand, crushes it as if it’s sculpted of fresh clay, and drops it at his feet.
The sirens’ wails grows louder, emergency vehicles honk in warning, and tires screech in the street below.
Miss Zhang looks into Andreo’s eyes. “You will sleep now, and forget.” Her voice echoes in his head while her hands articulate gracefully, deliberately, with signs Andreo doesn’t recognize. “Sleep, long and deep.” He feels his limbs growing heavy, his eyelids drooping. “When you wake in the night, you will remember nothing of us or your most recent employer. You’ll have no memory of this episode of your life, or why you came to Chinatown.”
Andreo nods, face muscles sagging, jaw slack. “Entiendo,” he replies.
She presses an open palm toward him and he can move once again. He almost topples but keeps his feet. She appears to communicate with the man in the suit, then looks up at the fur-coated man and signs in more symbols Andreo doesn’t understand. For a moment the big man is motionless, then he nods.
Andreo can barely stand or keep his eyes open, but he turns as they walk around him, unstring the bow and place it in the case, then latch it shut. Miss Zhang straps it over her shoulder next to her pack and they back away from the edge. She takes the hand of the man in the suit then holds out the other to the fur-coated man. He takes it gently, as if it’s the most foreign act he’s ever performed.
The last thing Andreo sees before he collapses into slumber is the three of them sprint to the edge of the roof, launch themselves from the parapet wall to sail high over the street, strobed by light, red and blue, and vanish.
CHAPTER THREE
HIGHLANDS
“AHHHHHHHH!”
&nbs
p; Zeke’s totally out of control, tumbling through the wild blue yonder—which isn’t blue, but all dark clouds and mist, whipping by at tremendous speed. The icy wind tears at his clothes and hair, stinging his face and hands. And he’s screaming, but the wind’s so loud he only hears it in his head.
Then the clouds are gone. Indigo waves and whitecaps, rocky shoreline, sky on the horizon, cloud plateau, all spinning by as he flip-flops through the air. Not being able to see in the clouds was bad. This is worse. He considers what it might be like to somersault through his own puke.
A blue flash shoots from the clouds above, then Pratha is next to him, flipping head over heels. Except she’s not, it just looks that way because he is. She’s actually belly down, back arched, arms out and forward at the elbows, knees bent, appearing to float, her gown flapping in what seems to be slow motion in the wind.
“Help!” Zeke croaks.
She grabs him, arresting his spin, tugs his legs and arms out, holding his hands as she faces him. She lets go and puts herself back into position to show him how it’s done, then does a forward roll and bullet-dives away.
“Wait!” But there’s no waiting. He tries to hold the position she held in the air, and after an awkward struggle, wobbles into it and becomes relatively stable.
He shouts in triumph, but flinches as a ball of fire flashes in the distant clouds, then hears the sound of the detonation. Flaming bits of the plane fall from the sky.
He catches sight of the truck on its skid in the distance, floating toward the sea beneath three parachutes. Then a square white parasail below, corkscrewing down toward a rocky beach near high stone cliffs, and the dark specks of Baphomet and Dimmi swimming on the undulating surface of the water—now taking on increasingly defined features, magnified by the rapidly decreasing distance, whitecaps breaking with more and more frightening clarity. A tiny blue dot splashes white directly below—Pratha, diving headfirst into the waves—and Zeke gets a bigger eyeful of the fast approaching sea. “Oh fuck...”
If he wasn’t panicking before (which he was), he is now. His scream starts low and increases in intensity as the ocean looms closer, rushing up to smack him flat.
Closer.
Closer.
A shadow darkens around him and his fatal descent comes to an abrupt and painful halt as the shoulder straps of the backpack bite into his armpits, the waist belt squeezes the breath out of him, his insides hollow out and his genitalia tuck up tight, light and tingly.
In that instant he smells salt air, clean and briny, and it occurs to him maybe Edgar did rig his backpack with a parachute and it somehow opened on its own. But no sooner has his plummet been arrested than he’s soaring over the waves toward the beach.
With the wind in his ears reduced to a less deafening roar, he hears a deep rhythmic woosh from above. And someone giggling.
Zeke grips the shoulder straps and looks up at the underside of the bird-man he saw from the plane. White-feathered wings flapping with practiced ease, massive chest bulging beneath bronzed skin with each powerful beat, arms pressed to his sides. Zeke twists his head enough to see talons gripping his backpack.
And above, leaning over the bird-man’s back, his greasy white hair and beard twisting in the wind, is the little old man, Myrddin Wyllt, grinning and waving.
The sight is no more impossible or bizarre than pretty much everything he’s experienced since this whole crazy business started with Kleron’s attack on the hospital. Even so, the sound Zeke utters in reaction to it is pretty wimpy.
Myrddin gives him a keen thumbs up and leans out of sight. Zeke’s attention returns to the waves blurring by beneath his feet. He speeds to the stony beach, is jerked to a halt, feet swinging forward under him, and dropped flat on his back. His backpack protects him from the rocks, but the wind is knocked out of him. A shadow falls and in his wheezing daze he tilts his head back. From this angle the ethereal vision appears upside down.
Out of the windblown mist Fintán mac Bóchra descends, his great wings pumping, a bird of prey of the most terrifying and magnificent kind. Now Zeke knows what a rabbit must feel like as it glimpses the striking eagle—beating wings, piercing eyes, curved talons and razor-sharp beak—knowing it’s the last thing it will ever see.
The breeze from Fintán’s descent ruffles Zeke’s hair as Fintán alights on the beach.
Myrddin slides from Fintán’s back and hops over the rocks to give Zeke a hand. Zeke hesitates, then takes his hand and is pulled up with a strength Zeke wouldn’t have imagined from the little man, especially considering he’s lifting the fucking heavy pack as well.
Zeke pulls off the goggles, his body buzzing with excitation, shock and terror from the fall—and the sight of the beings that stand before him.
Fintán approaches, shaking his wings and settling them against his back, then tilts his head to study Zeke. His image shimmers and becomes that of a man. Broad shouldered and tall, nearly six and a half feet, with white hair tipped gold. Dull yellow khaki pants tucked into hiking boots where his taloned feet had been, with a windbreaker, white on the front, reddish-brown on the back and backs of the arms. Just a man, except he’s extremely handsome, and his eyes remain the color of citrine gems, piercing and bright.
Myrddin introduces himself, speaking with a Welsh accent. “My name is Myrddin Wyllt. Pleased to meet you.”
Zeke tries to say, “I’m Zeke,” but the words come out more like “I-neek.” He swallows and tries again, with marginally better results.
“Ay?” Myrddin responds.
Fintán tugs on the strips of cloth Myrddin has tied around his head to keep his stocking cap from flying off. Myrddin laughs. “Oh, yes, yes.” He pulls the cloth back, but also removes an earbud from each ear. He lifts an MP3 player from inside his robe, to which the earbuds are attached. “A gift from my friend here,” he says, indicating Fintán. “‘Audiobooks,’ he calls them. And ‘radio.’ Modern marvels, they are. Acquainting myself with the new languages.” He pokes at the player to turn it off and shoves it in his shoulder bag, another gift from Fintán. “This last bit is wonderful. About a young wizard named Potter—”
“Hoy!” Edgar’s voice shouts from the sky. He curves in the air, controlling the descent of the square ram-air canopy of his parafoil chute with a toggle in each hand. He lands and with a tug the chute collapses. He unclips it and drags it with him, bunching it in his arms as he strides to Zeke, ignoring Myrddin Wyllt. “How are you faring, lad?”
“All right sir, I think.” As traumatic as the fall may have been and the strangeness of the company on the beach, Zeke’s mind turns to a greater concern. “Where’s Fi? Did you see her? Is she okay?”
“She’s alive and kicking.” Edgar motions to where Mrs. Mirskaya trudges out of the sea onto the beach. She turns back to Peter, who’s chest deep in the waves, dragging Fi behind him while she sputters and gags, wiping water from her face. He swings her into his arms and carries her to the beach. She fights him the whole way, but he holds tight until they clear the water, where she succeeds in pushing him away and falls to the ground. She gets to her hands and knees and vomits water. Peter tries to help her up.
Fi shoves him away. “Let go of me!” She scrambles, gasping and tripping, further onto the shore.
Mrs. Mirskaya follows. “Fiona—”
Fi swats a hand in her direction. “No!”
She spies Edgar and Zeke. “Edgar!”
“Oh dear,” says Edgar as Fi stomps toward them, limping and wincing, holding her tender leg where Maskim Xul bit her.
Out in the water, the lithe figure of Pratha glides on the surface—slithers, more like—because she’s in Trueface. Slim, blue-scaled, with a short ridge down her back, red dot on her forehead, and a long lashing tail, she seems to be as at home in the ocean as on land. She submerges then shoots out of the water to somersault and slide back into the waves with barely a splash. As she steps onto the beach, back in human form, her sheer gown flows in the breeze as if it was never we
t at all.
Further out, the truck floats on an orange inflatable raft that deployed beneath the skid, the parachutes having broken away upon impact. Baphomet and Dimmi have climbed aboard, and Dimmi mans an outboard motor as they proceed toward shore. Mol looks on as if he’s captain of the ship.
Fi sputters up to Edgar and Zeke, peeling wet hair from her face. “Edgar, what the fuck?”
Edgar fumbles to answer, but she spins to Zeke. “Holy shit! Oh my God!”
“What happened? I mean, what was it like?” Zeke asks.
“What, falling from an airplane into the ocean with no parachute? Like ‘Aaaahhhh fuuuuck SPLASH!’ And cold as shit and we were under, like, forever!”
“That had to be scary.”
“Yeah!” She’s talking a mile a minute. “But I’m not hurt. I mean, my butt still hurts, but I’m okay!”
Myrddin grins at Fi’s babbling.
“And I swear to God,” Fi says, “I think I breathed under water. No, seriously. We were under for a long time. And there was a shark, big shark, but Peter growled or something and it swam away really fast. And, oh fuck I’m talking like a crazy person. But shit, maybe I am crazy,” she grabs his shoulders and shakes him, “because it was awesome!”
Zeke can’t help but laugh. She gives him an enthusiastic hug, then realizes she’s getting him soaking wet, lets go and says, “How did you get down?”
“Pratha pushed me out of the plane.”
“What?!”
“Yeah. I fell most of the way, but he caught me.” He points toward Fintán. “Where’d he go?”
Peter and Myrddin Wyllt peer skyward.
“Horus!” Peter shouts. Fi and Zeke look up as well, but see nothing in the clouds. Peter says to Edgar and Mrs. Mirskaya, “They’re circling back.” He indicates the boulders and cliffs that line the back of the beach. “Get them to cover.”
Zeke says, “Horus? The Horus? The Egyptian god?”
“Among other things,” Peter grumbles. “I just hope he doesn’t—”
A jet fighter comes pinwheeling out of the clouds, engines screaming and aflame, the canopy torn open, pieces flying off as it falls. It slams into the sea, sending up a geyser of water and steam. Then the body of the pilot comes tumbling out of the sky and smacks into the water as well.
