A Broken Darkness

by Premee Mohamed

  “What kind of facility is this, anyway?” I said. “What, there’s no road?”

  “There is on the other side, for deliveries. But I didn’t really want him to know where we were going.”

  “Notice how you didn’t answer the first question.”

  “It’s a lab.”

  “Uh huh.”

  In the last of the twilight, the security shack emerged with surprising suddenness, just ahead of a tall chicken wire fence. Light, pebbly stone, nearly white, strangely-shaped, like the sugar packet houses Johnny would always build at restaurants while we waited for our food. The round window in its center looked unpleasantly like an eye. All pupil, like the dark eye of an animal.

  She hesitated some feet away, and I stopped next to her. Inside the shack, a light came on. “Can you smell that?” she whispered.

  I was trying not to. The smell of magic, what I had come to think of as magic being burned or consumed: sinister, rotten. The security shack flickered, its logo disappearing for a moment, returning, the roof creaking and flexing (or was it?), like wings. The wings of an insect, not bird or bat. Familiar. And behind that somewhere in the darkness, I thought, the safety of her lab, a big, no doubt fortified, building full of people.

  The white shack crept towards us over the thick turf, snapping thin saplings as it went, meandering and sending up a thick sweet smell of sap and earth that almost, but not quite, overwhelmed the stink of magic. Not a building at all. Something living, a monster disguised as something we would trust.

  “Is... is that you? Chambers? Is that you?”

  Johnny jumped. The door of the shack swung open, the light inside it going out, flickering up into the sky like fireflies, but segmented, hissing. The stars were coming out, blue and green, scratching across the sky leaving needle-thin contrails behind them.

  “It is you, isn’t it?” The voice was anxious, hoarse.

  I knew I was going to regret it, but lifted the light clipped to my jacket and shone it up into the man’s face.

  A white face. Not pale, actually white. Tearful blue eyes, the pupils huge, unmoving as the light passed over them. Army-green shirt, no coat. Soaked with blood. The throat torn open, something squirming within it, a hot blue glow just visible as he moved.

  “Bernier?” Johnny stepped back, and lifted her own light. “Oh, God...”

  “I’m sorry.” The dead man stumbled, caught himself awkwardly, moaned. “Did you feel it? Can you feel it moving?”

  “Feel what?” Her voice was faint; for all her flippancy, I didn’t think she’d ever talked to someone dead before. The thralls we had seen two years ago barely counted; they had not even been able to speak.

  “All that is coming,” Bernier said. “The new world. I saw it for a moment only.”

  “Who did this to you?” she said urgently. I pulled at her coat; she resisted with surprising strength. “Bernier. George! Please, we went to your apartment, we saw... who did it? You let them in.”

  “Yes.” The reply was distant, bubbly, wet. “Of course I did. My old friend...”

  “Who?”

  “Johnny,” I barked. “Move. Back to the road.”

  “I am sorry,” he said again, and Johnny said “For what?”

  And something closed around my throat from behind.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE PROBLEM WITH geniuses was that they were too easy to outwit.

  Or, well. Maybe I was being ungenerous. The problem with geniuses was that if you couldn’t outsmart them, you could just let them come to the obvious conclusions you needed them to come to, by feeding them a lot of information that wouldn’t set off their bullshit detector till it was too late.

  Our captors had pulled us backwards through the darkness, and we had fallen, clutched, struggling, into this dimly-lit, stinking place. It had been a long time before I had even been clear on who had grabbed us: Monster? Human? Both? Neither?

  These ones looked, I thought, like the Edgar-suits from Men in Black. Awkward, alternately floppy and stiff, troubled by internal skeletons. Less overtly monster. But they were strong, and whatever they had tied our hands with was even stronger, like snakes but segmented, and with a face at both ends, grinning with small, sharp teeth as the knots had been tied.

  Pushed into the back of a room, sitting uncomfortably on the uneven floor, Johnny and I had stared between the forest of their legs as other people passed, all bound, dragged, or stumbling. Their silhouettes looked human, or human-ish, against the headachey blue light seeping from the walls. It was infuriating to not be able to tell the difference any more, and for a long time I found myself panicking that I too had changed into a monster, been changed, infected, and hadn’t figured it out yet, still saw myself as human because of some terrible illusion or infection of Theirs.

  Occasionally someone, or something, would come in, roughly shoving our guards aside, and stare at us for a moment; these visitors always laughed, low and unmistakeable.

  Very funny. Yes. Caught the world’s greatest genius. Ha ha. In the part of my mind that wasn’t screaming with fear I found myself baffled that it hadn’t happened before—almost a relief to have it happen now, when I had expected it for so long. Rutger’s careful maneuvering had long since ceased to keep her as invisible as she would have liked; and there was more surveillance, more paparazzi, just more eyes on her since the Anomaly. And not all of those eyes were human. She couldn’t just flit around with impunity any more. People knew she didn’t have much security on her, usually; I had expected her to be kidnapped for ransom a thousand times, growing up. That she hadn’t had been a mystery to me till I realized just how rarely she was alone when we were apart: always surrounded by people, at talks or lectures, at her labs and facilities, in airports, at train stations, at banquets and ceremonies and demonstrations. Only in her house might someone hope to grab her, but as that was so obvious, her house was more tooled-up than the Batcave.

  Anyway. This wasn’t that; this was magic and mayhem; this was a prize, somebody’s prize, and she would not be released for mere money. And me along as dead weight. For a few minutes, her breath had been so fast that I had worried she was about to pass out; and if she did, I knew she’d be dragged. They didn’t care, particularly, whether we arrived where we were arriving in good shape. Just one piece: alive. Alive enough to do whatever they were doing next. I debated telling her, Well, I’m finally convinced that you’re not in cahoots with them, if I’m using that word right, but kept my mouth shut.

  She whispered, “We should have made some kind of…”

  “Agreement.”

  “Agreement. Yeah. Pact. Like in zombie movies.”

  Should have. Didn’t. I said, “The pact wouldn’t have worked.”

  “I know. But I wish we had made one.”

  The guards parted again, one shoved so hard that it fell and lay moaning for a moment; the others disregarded it. Another visitor, a human: Johnny and I looked up reflexively, but, as always, in silhouette, nothing could be seen.

  “Yes,” the visitor said slowly, drawing it out: Essssssss. “I know them. I will confirm for the Manifestation. You will receive your recompense from him.” A wet giggle, deep and rumbling; it seemed to turn, and address something standing behind it, not human, not even humanoid: a lump giving off its own sinister light, things moving slightly above its surface on stalks like the eyes of a snail. The thing spoke too, a series of hissing clicks, and the visitor said, “I agree. No need.”

  It left, and two guards swooped in, moving more quickly than I had seen them move before; in a moment, Johnny was yanked up, crying out as they wrenched at her bound arms, and away from my side. I bit down a shout of my own. Wouldn’t do any good. Something warm against my arm: her bag, left behind. Might be the last I had of her.

  Think. Calm down. They said No need. No need for what? To keep us together? But then why kidnap us together?

  Or no need to keep me; they only wanted her, and had taken me because I was there and like
ly to interfere. She was being given to someone, I knew that much. The… the Manifestation. Whoever that was.

  But hang on. Hang on. They knew she could do magic. But me? Hard to say. Perhaps to them I was no concern, as magically inert as a bag of rice... I moved my hands experimentally, and winced as teeth sank into the base of my thumb. Okay, okay. Asshole.

  Blanked with panic, it took a long time to remember the spell for the watcher. Had it really been just a couple of days ago? Nothing else in my pathetic arsenal would have helped, and this probably wouldn’t either, but as a distraction maybe it would be enough. And if not, maybe it would goad them into beating me to death instead of sacrificing me. Hadn’t she said a sacrifice could reroute the flow of magic? Dark days, when that was the best outcome.

  Get out of this. Get out of this and go home.

  Forget the job. Forget the prodigy. Message from the gods: don’t want it, can’t give it back. Let the gods deal with it. One of their own.

  Stop it. Do one thing at a time. Even a stupid plan is better than no plan.

  And go get her. She’s the only weapon Earth has. They know that. And you know that’s why They took her: it’s like stealing a nuke for your own side. Even if you never use it, it means the other side can’t.

  Get her back for that reason and that reason alone.

  I twisted my wrists and let one of the heads bite down again, grunting with pain. But its mouth was full, and I kept wriggling till I felt the other head lift, then, with a great sense of satisfaction, flicked it suddenly under my rear and sat down, hard, making sure my overstuffed wallet landed on it. There was a small crunch, felt rather than heard, and the knots tightened agonizingly for a second, then slackened, perhaps with surprise. I quickly pulled one wrist loose, feeling it chew angrily on the other hand, then grabbed it and pulled its mouth free. Ass. Hole.

  The bites hurt beyond belief, but I didn’t think they were deep, and I could still use all my fingers; still, I felt a little light-headed as I replaced my hands behind my back and glanced back at my guards again in the darkness. Bit by a non-zero number of toddlers back in the day. Had to get tetanus shots. This was nothing. Were they staring at me? Had they seen the whole thing? No one moved. Who uses living handcuffs anyway? Sickos.

  Stay cool. Gotten out of worse than this before.

  No I haven’t. No I have not. When was that?

  I massaged my bitten hand, collecting a small slow palmful of blood. No one moving? No one coming to kick me? I couldn’t even tell which way the guards were facing. But they hadn’t moved yet.

  Carefully I brought both hands to my front, and dipped a finger into my makeshift paint. As I drew, the wound in my left hand, which had dulled to a cold, sullen throb, flared back into wakefulness, so painful that for a moment I couldn’t even remember the rest of the sigil. Memory whited out.

  Stop. Wait. Finish. Just finish.

  I whispered the words of power, and held my breath again, not moving, as the small circle began to glow. Darkness, you were supposed to fear darkness, and welcome light, but darkness also concealed, and—in the form of the blobs now rising from the little sigil—it knew things that it could not tell those of us more used to moving through the light.

  Don’t move. It’ll come after you. Hand growing cold, but not pain, mere sensation: like curiosity. A communication maybe. I can’t talk to you! Be quiet!

  Silence, and then a thickly gratifying rumble of pain. Something glittering and rapid as a wasp buzzed furiously around the guard’s slack face, just visible in the low light. The other guard edged away from the corridor wall, finally realizing something was happening.

  The first guard’s face had begun to bubble as if he had been burned with boiling water, and his sounds became a whine of confused agony as he batted at the watcher, which even I couldn’t see, only the minimal corona of its defensive spikes. For a moment I could only watch, not knowing where the other watchers had gone, in their newborn fear and anger. Remembered the terrible invisible explosion of pain when I had touched the one that had hurt my hand.

  But they had left an opening, and I threw Johnny’s bag over my head and ducked low through the confusion of their legs, running down the corridor at a fast, cramped limp—lotta stairs over the last couple days. And more than that, I noticed how bad the flooring was, cracked and uneven, like busted tiles. Shouts of pursuit behind me: nothing new. Bright aura of panic around everything I could see, bringing its own light.

  It was like a nightmare, the ones you never outgrow, where you are pursued by something snarling and slavering and absolutely unknown, where you run with hopeless steps, because you are in a place they know and you don’t.

  How had we come in? Left, right, right, left. A labyrinth, tripping and falling, scraping knees and hands. The shouts falling behind. They like mazes, don’t They? They like puzzles, traps. We thought They were animals. They thought we were animals. If They thought of us at all… you could make rats run in a maze. But you couldn’t teach them they were going to die.

  Maze, labyrinth. Like the tangle of the ordinary proteins Johnny had showed me. All about the shape. Not about what it is, but what it’s shaped like. Bad configuration.

  I stopped at last to catch my breath, panting hard into my elbow to muffle the noise. Stealth would be no good here; as my eyes had adjusted, I could see there was no true darkness from the lit walls, only corners where the tiles met and folded, shadowing the light a little. And yet…

  No, not tiles. Scales. Thick, chitinous-looking scales of dozens of long, serpentine bodies lying motionless around me. Under my boots they repeated and repeated, like flattened insects, each the size of my palm. Walking on them, surrounded by them, even the ceiling. A place made of monsters. What had it been before, I wondered. Or was this somewhere else again? Another remnant, a pocket, like Huxley’s archive?

  Seen this before. What movie. Not the first one. Second. Aliens. The whole hallway looks like it’s made of their stuff... exudate or whatever. Hardened saliva. But it’s not. The wall comes alive. The walls come alive. Breathe, breathe. That smell: the snake house in the zoo. Animals. Real. And the opening, the measurements, just large enough to admit one. A worm sliding along a tunnel made of its own kind.

  The guards would not get lost in this maze. And how the hell would I find where they had taken Johnny? A noise ahead echoing down to me, like the repeating crash of the sea. I thought of the monster-inhabited ocean we’d seen in that other world, and shivered. That terrible, gargantuan back breaking through the hideous water. But it wasn’t quite like waves. Almost like... well no, not a crowd, because it wasn’t voices. Just noises.

  A spectacle, an attraction. Maybe for something new they had acquired.

  Something small and new. With green eyes.

  At any rate, it was something to follow. I clung to the walls, the sides of the sluggish creatures, turning my head from side to side, listening over the roar of my heart. Sometimes footsteps passed, near me but unseen, forcing me to stop, freeze in place, stare around myself: here? Now? No. Prisoners were here though, sometimes pleading and sobbing in a handful of languages, sometimes silent, sticky bundles bumping softly along the floor. The guards occasionally replied, and it struck me after a half-dozen of these paralyzed sessions that I could understand them. Me, who only spoke English, and a little French, from school. How? Why?

  Johnny would know.

  Stop it. She doesn’t know everything.

  That thing in my hand… a poison cyst, an egg. Something else. But remember that magic is Theirs, and everything that is magic is…

  Stop it.

  I shouldn’t have touched it. I shouldn’t have touched it. The pain was one thing. This… this is another.

  A huge space opened out without warning, and here the last trace of normality, if you could call it that, vanished: the sharply-angled ceiling was creature too, paved with scales, and these were moving a little, shifting against each other, producing a soft sinister neverending
hiss in the darkness as they blocked one another’s light. It was a cathedral made of bodies, all the pews, all the columns, the impossible pipe organ at the back, a thousand throats of pallid, mushroomy flesh all silent, ending in closed eyes, open jaws. It was cold here, a deep and sickly wet cold, like the depths of winter. They had built this place of themselves, and the warmth they needed was within them; there was no need to heat what passed for air here.

  I began to shiver, or my body did, all over; my knees felt ready to buckle. There were so many of them. And there were two of us. And this was where They had wanted to take us, this place of monsters... not monsters. No. Wait. Dragons. Dragons. Like the one that had sought us out in Huxley’s remnant, supposedly proof against such things…

  I hardly wanted to breathe; it felt too loud, too obtrusive. Each dragon was a different size and slightly different in appearance, some hundreds or maybe thousands of feet long, if it were the same one; some barely bigger than a zoo anaconda. Many had wings folded flat against their spiked backs, just visible, more like a flame than a structure.

  Dad telling stories when we were kids. The kamoodies back home, eating chickens, goats, people’s kids. British disbelieving it: They don’t eat humans! We never saw it happen! Old sport, I’d append in my head. Patronizing. If it doesn’t happen to white people, it doesn’t really happen. Does it.

  In the center of the mass was an opening, containing a circular black pool, a round white pedestal in its center, dished, oddly familiar. Why?

  A bone, a backbone. Saw it in the museum when we were kids: a whale vertebra. A flanged cup. The pedestal their own self, from the spine of a dead worm.

  Once you knew Them, once you’d seen the things They had forced people to build in the cities They had occupied here on Earth, you knew a sacrificial altar when you saw one. It might have been as big as a stadium, but it was still an altar, and still meant to catch blood.

  Breathe, breathe. The stink of oils and pheromones and solvent-laden breath. Their killing ground, generating torrents of magic, human victims brought in by those turned, or by the Society, or both. Like a massive influx of… of cash into a local economy. More magic than They had had for thousands of years, more than enough magic to keep spreading the spores of our destruction, of their remaking, restructuring, turning our world into something They liked. Flying through here, maybe the pool its doorway, flying…