by James Hunter
The room had been mostly dark, and with only a trickle of light from my glowing construct, it had been easy to overlook the thousands of little critters crawling over nearly every surface—floor, walls, windows. Their bodies moved back and forth in a living tapestry, the scuffle of their legs and wings created a soft background buzz, the sound of a Brillo pad running across sheet metal.
Oh God. Not only did I feel sick, but now I wanted to run back to Greg’s Ford Focus, shrieking like a small girl. Yuck. Seriously. Cockroaches are gross, folks. Maybe this is my western, ethnocentric brain speaking here, but I have to imagine that cockroaches are hated universally by every people group on the planet.
Seeing one made me want to take a bath. Seeing ten thousand made me want to take a bath in a vat of acid. For a month.
So gross.
I was so distracted by roach-a- palooza that it took me a few seconds to notice the mutilated bodies—partially obscured by insect forms—lining the far wall. There were nine bodies, all told, stacked against the wall. Flesh distended and gray, stained with splashes of old, mud-brown blood. Many of the corpses were missing pieces: arms, legs, ears, chunks of abdomen. They were all, uniformly, missing their hearts. Rakshasa will eat anything—garbage, bloody-road kill, paint cans, you name it—they’re living garbage disposals, and human beings are right at the top of the menu.
It was obvious, from all of the missing body parts, that the corpses had been kept around for afternoon snacking. But why were all the hearts MIA you may be wondering, and rightfully so. Aside from being man-eaters, Rakshasa also have the unique and utterly unfortunate ability to shift into the last person they consumed—provided, of course, that they ate the heart while it was still beating. Just one more trick which made Rakshasa very good assassins.
Near the bottom of the stack, I spotted Detective Al. He was dead and far along in his decomposition, which meant the Detective Al that Greg had been consorting with was a doppelganger Rakshasa. The rest of the bodies probably belonged to a bunch of Al’s neighbors or friends, cover for the pack of Rakshasa that had moved into the area.
Finding Al’s body in the stack answered a few questions, specifically how my name had gotten thrown into the mix in the first place. When Greg had gone to the phony Al and informed him of my imminent involvement in the case, the hyena-faced, turd-monkey must have scampered off to Morse and Yraeta—probably hoping one of the gangs would get me something nice to wear. Like a toe-tag.
So these attacks had nothing to do with me at all. I was just another innocent—well sort of innocent—bystander who’d gotten pulled into the mix by a misplaced word to the wrong set of ears. I’d have to punch Greg in the nose when I got back to the car, it was only fair.
As I looked around at the bodies—trying to commit each face to memory in case I ran across that face again—I realized I had bigger problems than I’d thought. Not only did I have some maniacal mage, a minor Indian godling, and a Rakshasa to contend with—I had a whole friggin’ nest of Rakshasa on my hands. Craptastic. My life officially rules.
The smell finally got beneath my skin—I turned from the room, doubled over on the yellowing lawn, and let my breakfast fly: coffee and burrito chunks formed a small river, which splashed across the lawn.
I’d gotten vomit up my nose, which is about the worst thing in the world, usually. In this case it was actually a blessing. The vomited coffee and burrito bits smelled a helluva lot better than a stack of month old bodies.
As I sat there, trying to shake off my nausea, my blood started boiling. I was pissed. All those innocent people stacked up in there like a bunch of cordwood, waiting to feed the hungry fires of Rakshasa bellies. I didn’t know those people, but I sure as shit knew they didn’t deserve to have their hearts ripped out from their beating chests.
I knew it wasn’t okay to have their final remains piled in the back of small garage, afternoon snacks for bugs and baddies. There was no dignity in what I’d seen, no fairness, no value. Whoever was behind this whole shebang had racked up a tremendous butcher’s bill, and I was starting to cherish the idea of paying him back in kind.
“I do hope you are quite all right, Mr. Lazarus,” a man said from somewhere within the garage. His voice was a deep baritone and coated in the off-British accent so common among well-educated Indians and Pakistanis. It was the voice of the demon-conjuring ass-hat who was running this carnival show, I was sure. I bounded to my feet, placing my back against the outside of the garage wall, before peeking around the corner, hoping to get eyes on the enemy while maintaining at least a little cover.
The garage was empty, save for the cockroaches and the corpses, and there wasn’t any room to hide. The space, while rather large, was open and otherwise unadorned.
“Over here,” the voice said, chuckling softly. There was a vague, man-shaped thing coalescing in the corner. Naturally—because my life absolutely cannot get any better or less weird—the man-shape was made of cockroaches, which continued to scuttle about in an ever-shifting blur of movement. “I suppose it is about time that we had a face to face Mr. Lazarus—”
“A face to face, really? I want to blast you in the ‘face’ with a can full of Raid, freak.”
“Let’s be adults about this.”
“Obviously you don’t know me very well,” I said. “Also, you’re made of cockroaches. Not something your typical adult does.”
“Are you quite done now, Mr. Lazarus?”
“No. Because you’ve killed like twenty innocent people in the past month which makes you both a sociopath and an asshole. Not a reasonable adult.”
“I am not the sociopath you have named me—though, perhaps, from your perspective it may appear so.”
I could feel my shoulders knotting. Was this guy actually trying to justify his acts of cruelty and murder? I’m not a big one for God, but I figured this guy deserved a good smiting. I guess I would have to settle for setting him on fire myself, which I was sure would be cathartic even if it didn’t bring justice.
“Let me save you the trouble of trying to explain why you aren’t such a bad guy. You, Roachzilla, killed women and kids. Ergo sociopath. Ergo it’s go time. End of story.”
“A sociopath feels no remorse over his actions, yet I deeply regret these deaths. I wish these souls hadn’t perished. Their deaths were not needless, however, they will serve a greater purpose and a greater good.”
“I’m sure that’ll be a tremendous comfort to the orphaned kids and the widowed spouses of all these people.” I pointed my pistol toward the bodies stacked against the wall. “Can we cut out the whole evil-villain banter thing, and get to the part where I set you on fire?”
“You lack vision,” he said.
“And you lack scruples and good hygiene, Arjun.” A telling silence hung heavy in the air. I’d thrown a friggin’ bull’s-eye.
“So you’ve figured it out have you.”
“It wasn’t hard,” I said. “There’s a nest of Rakshasa running around and a minor Indian dark god. You’re the only guy who fits the ticket, bub.” The truth was, of course, that I hadn’t actually figured it out—just an educated gamble, but sometimes a good bluff is your only play.
“Though it may not have been hard to piece together,” he replied, “no one else has done so. You are, surprisingly, smarter than you look—precisely the reason I wanted to avoid your involvement in the first place.”
“Oh, I’m smarter than I look huh? Ever heard the saying, ‘don’t cast stones in glass houses?’” I asked. “Maybe I should remind you that you’re made out of dumpster bugs—plus, you’re bat-shit, evil-villain, crazy. So, minus thirteen in the smarts department …”
“No vision, Yancy,” he said again. “Greatness always comes at a price, to pay it is not madness, but courage. Did the Allies weep for the death of the women and children who perished during the Bombing of Berlin? Did not the Nazi’s need to be stopped, even if the cost was terribly high?”
“Apples and oranges, bug-boy.�
��
“Not so, as it has been said, ‘kill one man and you are a murderer, kill millions you are a conqueror.’ I mourn for those who have passed, but I will do my duty for the greater good of all men. You of all people should understand—you participated in war and you routinely do violence in the service of good.”
“Shut up,” my voice barely a whisper, “don’t talk about what you don’t know. We’re nothing alike …” I could see Corporal Martin horsing around with Benson, could see the light envelope him and hurl him into the tree—his arms and legs flying apart at the seams. I hadn’t wanted to kill the VC, not until then. But they’d fucking killed Martin, he was the first. It was different.
“Like I said, no vision, Mr. Lazarus. But you do have a good heart. That much is plain—even if your smart mouth says otherwise.” Though the cockroach man had a face devoid of human features, the place where its lips should’ve been twitched slightly in mirth. The motion made my skin crawl.
“It would grieve me to see you killed unnecessarily. You are, in a sense, a man of duty and morals like myself.”
“Arjun, you better believe I won’t feel even the slightest regret when I wipe your smarmy, psychotic, cockroach-wearing ass right off the planet. Scorched earth, dude. Scorched earth.” He smiled again, which didn’t improve my temper one iota.
“Even so, I would regret your loss, so be warned. My plan will go forward, despite any efforts on your part. If you interfere again I will have you killed, I will show no quarter. Give me your word, bound in an oath of power, not to interfere further and I will let you walk free from this place uncontested.” What Arjun was asking for was no simple sworn oath, he was asking me to make a pact, one imbued by a powerful construct of pure spirit, which would literally compel me to cease my involvement. Making a power bound oath in my circles is a big deal, it’s a nearly irrevocable contract.
And he could kiss my ass if he seriously thought I’d do such a thing.
“I think it’s about time we started the barbeque.” I conjured up a glowing orb of azure flame.
“As I suspected,” he said, slouching over, perhaps in resignation or indifference. “It has been a pleasure, though sadly this will be our final parting. My Rakshasa were only a few minutes away when you broke into their nest—finishing a little morning task for me—they should be converging on you shortly.” Arjun fell apart; the constituent bugs crawled away from the constructed form and back to their respective places along the walls, floor, and ceiling.
I heard the snappy rat-tat-tat of Greg’s compact M-4—things were already headed south and in a hurry.
EIGHTEEN:
Shoot Out in Burbank
I sprinted around the outside of the house, dropping to a crouch as I neared the front side of the building. The heroic thing would have been to jump headlong into this snake pit full of trouble, but as a general rule I try not to be a hero. Ever. Heroes don’t live long. Let’s be real here, it wouldn’t serve anyone for me to run out guns-a-blazin’ only to find myself pumped full of holes because I hadn’t taken the time to figure out the lay of the land. Remember, pragmatism before heroism is always the best policy in a gunfight.
I cautiously rounded the corner, keeping my back against the house. Greg was pinned down behind the far side of his vehicle, directly across the street from my position. He kept a low profile, rising just long enough to send a handful of well-placed shots toward the three assailants advancing on him from the neatly trimmed front lawn. The three looked mostly human, except for the fact that a multitude of bullet wounds littered their arms, torsos, and faces. No human could survive that. The 5.56 caliber, M-4, NATO rounds weren’t going to put these guys down for keeps—that much was clear—but they were giving them pause and putting a little hitch in their giddyup.
Fortunately, Greg and I had come prepared, Semper Paratus. Greg also adheres to the policy that pragmatism beats heroism any day of the week. Vis constructs are virtually worthless against Rakshasa—like ducks and water, my friends—but there are still things that pack a major wallop for their kind. There are few things in this world, and that includes the preternatural world, which are truly invulnerable. In my experience, every Superman has their kryptonite.
Rakshasa have their own version: either lots and lots of large-caliber bullets, or industrial grade insecticide. There’s not a pesticide I know of that will kill Rakshasa outright, but most serious pesticides will impair their cognitive functions, reaction time, and ability to heal rapidly—all the things that make them so irritatingly difficult to kill. Greg and I had coated our bullets in Fipronil, which is one of the active ingredients in most cockroach sprays and baits.
Firpronil is some foul stuff and is poisonous to just about everything under the sun, including people and, more importantly, Rakshasa. It disrupts their central nervous system, but it doesn’t work instantaneously. It has a delayed toxicity which—in the amounts we’d used—would kick in after a few minutes. These poor sons a bitches probably didn’t even realize anything was wrong yet. Maybe they were feeling an incy wincy bit slower than usual, but not anything to write home about. That would change in a hurry.
I brought up my revolver and lined up my shot on the baddy closest to Greg’s car. Just an average looking guy—maybe 5’10” with a slight paunch and wearing a pair of glasses, khaki pants, and a neat button up which had been scattered with bullet holes. He looked like your typical dad, maybe a sales manager or a high school English teacher, sans the bullet holes. I remembered seeing his bloated face in the stack of bodies in Detective Al’s garage.
The flesh-mask wearing Rakshasa was gaining ground on Greg’s position, but the poison was obviously taking hold in a big way. The creature’s steps were the disjointed, lurching movements of a boxer too long in the ring.
I squeezed off two rounds, letting the gun settle back into place for a second after each pull, making sure the shots fired true. The gun’s report was so subtle it was nearly nonexistent—especially with the angry buzz from Greg’s semi-automatic firing in the background. The effects, however, where immediate, devastating, and anything but subtle. Both of the creature’s legs flew apart at the knees: great bloodied chunks of gray flesh somersaulted through the air with a lazy grace, as its calves flopped to the pavement. So much dead meat.
Mr. High School Teacher tumbled to the ground with a gasp and a wail, its human flesh-mask melting away, replaced by the flabby, gray-skinned thing beneath. Its head rolled about, its eyes reeled frantically, trying to make sense of this new world of hurt, trying to understand how such a thing could have happened. It lay on the pavement mewling—the feline sound of a dying lion—and for a split moment I felt kinda bad. I almost wanted to waste a perfectly good round and put the damn thing out of its misery, even though it was no longer a threat and each bullet was precious.
Nobody ever said I was smart.
I steeled myself, envisioning those bodies stacked up high in the garage. Human beings murdered mercilessly and nibbled at like finger food by this monster and its ilk. I could see the face of the man this creature had hid behind: eyes glazed over in death, body rigid and black with rigor. He probably had a family—a wife and kids, parents and in-laws, siblings, coworkers, friends—they would all miss him. His corpse would never be found, the Rakshasa would ensure that much, and those people would mourn him and remember him. But they would also wonder about him. There would always be those lingering questions.
There would be no closure.
Had he run off to escape bad credit? Maybe he’d taken on a mistress, abandoning his wife and kids … no, not a good, upstanding guy like Mr. High School Teacher. But then who could really say, he had disappeared hadn’t he? Maybe he’d driven off to the woods and offed himself—a little Saturday night special to the temple because he couldn’t take it. Maybe he’d gotten sick. No one would ever know.
Death is a terrible thing. Not knowing is worse, in its way. My ex-wife and kids got asked those questions a lot after I fell off the f
ace of the map.
Now, the family of the poor schlub in the garage—who’d done nothing except be in the wrong damn place—would have to undergo that same trauma. Would have to grapple with the uncertainty and all those uncomfortable questions. I let those thoughts feed me and sustain me whenever the cry of my bleeding heart bubbled to the surface. Screw this legless shithead. Let it suffer.
I shifted my stance and took aim at the second beast—disguised as a petite, mid-thirties, brunette in a black pencil skirt. It too was stumbling toward Greg and hadn’t noticed its buddy had dropped out of the game. Clearly, its reaction speed was declining. She looked like a drunk sorority girl after a wicked bar crawl, which was all to the good for me. When I pulled the trigger a bright spray of black and gray filled the air—half of her midsection just disappeared. Incredulous eyes turned on me, but I didn’t have time to gloat in my victory.
The last Rakshasa—disguised as Al himself—knew something was off and darted behind a tree on the adjacent lawn, no longer in my line of sight. Well, the element of surprise could only reasonably take me so far. And hey, two for three isn’t too bad. I moved left, leaving behind the safety of my firing position, advancing on the California ash the Rakshasa had disappeared behind on the connecting lawn. Rakshasa are not small creatures and though the tree was good sized, it seemed unlikely that the creature could have disappeared so thoroughly, even in its human flesh-mask.
I crept forward, gaining ground. The hell? Something was wrong here … I felt the slight tingle of a Vis construct. My stomach sank, the Titanic had hit the iceberg and things were about to get messy. The construct was a rough thing—lacking the refined quality of a genuine mage’s working—but it was a bon-e-fide construct nonetheless. An illusion. I’d missed it because I hadn’t even thought for a second to look for something like this. Rakshasa don’t use the Vis—not to say it’s impossible, mind you, but rather to say I’ve never heard of such a thing. Shit, it was even possible that the thing was some sort of charm, made up by Arjun and handed down to his flunkies. Yeah, that kind of fit.
