Authors: Tim Marquitz
“How much time?” The question roared out of
Longinus.
“Perhaps days,” Jo answered, only a slight
quaver in his voice. “Maybe less.”
“You cannot ask me to wait days to hear
news of my child.” He pressed forward against the counter, the wood creaking,
and snarled at the alien. “Tell me now!”
“I apologize, but I cannot tell you what I
do not know. As I had no reason to search for this being before your arrival, so
I must reach out to my contacts and find what they know. This will not happen
immediately no matter how much we might wish it so.”
All I could picture was the last alien who
didn’t immediately answer Longinus’ questions to his satisfaction. Images of
the puddle of Mihheer flashed into my brain and my stomach rumbled. I wasn’t
interested in seeing an encore performance of the ex-AC’s interrogation
techniques so I turned away before things got out of hand.
A flash of movement outside caught my eye.
There was a streak of black and orange across the street, a shadowy figure
visible for just an instant before it slipped behind a wall. I turned back like
I hadn’t seen it, and planted myself where the fringes of my peripheral vision
could still see outside but not give away that I was able to. A few moments
later the figure returned. It peeped out from behind the corner and hovered.
Given its static position, it could only be watching us.
Longinus and Jo continued to argue about
how long things would take, but neither was giving in to the other. Despite the
translator, it was like they were talking two different languages. I could hear
the anger in Longinus, the guttural bark of his words as he shouted, “Two
days?” The alien was pushing his last nerve and it wouldn’t be long before we
had another squished body to mop up.
“He’s right, Longinus. We need to be
patient,” I said, catching them both off guard as I rejoined them. The
ex-Anti-Christ spun on me and glared. I raised my eyebrows and rolled them ever
so slightly toward the door. “Let the man do what he needs to.
I’m sure
we can figure something out in
the meantime.” I stared outside, imploring him to understand why I was
interrupting him. His teeth clenched as he stared back, his gaze boring through
my skull. There was no telling what Jo might find out, but my gut was telling
me there were other answers to be found. Longinus exploding wasn’t gonna get us
anywhere. Besides, who was to say Jesus’ snitch knew anything at all? If he
did, we needed to let him find it. If he didn’t, we were wasting our time. No
one said we needed to rely on only this guy.
“I don’t know what—”
“Clearly,” I answered before I could put a
leash on my tongue and get it to heel. After a deep breath, I raised my
eyebrows again, slowly and almost comically—and all out of the line of sight of
Jo—to get Longinus to realize I needed him to pay attention. His own eyes
narrowed as if it finally sunk in, so I turned to the alien. “Find out what you
can, as quickly as you can, and we’ll be back. The quicker you can manage it,
the more profitable it’ll be for you.”
Without waiting for a response, I spun and
walked out of the shop. The quick flutter of movement at the corner told me our
watcher was still there. Longinus stomped out behind me, slamming the door
shut. The sound echoed through the quiet streets like a gunshot.
“There had better be a damn good reason
for—”
“We’re being followed,” I said just loud
enough to cut through his bluster. The fury on his face stilled. Without
another word, I turned and started off down the street. If the answers weren’t
gonna come to us, it was time to hunt them down.
Seven
Longinus snapped to attention after hearing
what I said. He stuck close while I drifted across the street and skirted the
devastated sidewalk as though I were out for a Sunday stroll. While Desboren
might be some alien city a jillion-quadrillion miles from home, it was as
trashy as they come…and I know trashy.
Even amongst the strangeness of the town,
Longinus and I stood out. This wasn’t El Paseo. We were obviously not from here
and all the natives seemed to be pretty small in stature compared to us. Well,
more so Longinus than me, but they were still runts. Just out of a war where
it’s clear their city got the stinky end of the stick, the general populace wouldn’t
have any interest in rattling the cage of the conquerors. There’s no future in
it. It’s best to keep your head down and see how things go before you get too
brave. Only the rebels, the people hiding something, the ones who know more of
what’s going on and who have a plan, skulk around and spy on the foreigners
traipsing through town. That’s what the figure around the corner was doing.
The rest of the people bailed the moment
they saw us, except for the few lingering outside of Jo’s shop. Even the
bravest of them turned and looked away; they wanted nothing to do with us. The
person behind the corner stuck around to see what we were doing. There had to
be a reason for that. And while that might not have anything to do with finding
Karra, Jesus’ go-to-guy was putting us on hold so it wouldn’t hurt to look a
little deeper on our own.
We turned the corner and moved down the
street on a ways, all casual and calm. A number of alleys were visible off to
both sides. Those to the right were a little further off and would have
required a full out sprint to get to them before we walked onto the street. If
our follower had given me the sense he was a pro, I’d have chosen the ones
further away, but this felt purely amateur so I stuck to the left side of the
street and loosened my jacket. I wanted free access to my guns in case I needed
them. My magic was roiling around inside, but I was still worn down from the
trip. If I needed to, I could pull some out, but it only took a muscle twitch
to pull a trigger.
Longinus followed me down the street in brooding
silence, trusting I knew what I was doing. We’d both find out soon enough. The
first of the alleys came up quickly, and I just kept walking. A furtive, sideways
glance told me I’d been right. An orange-
ish
shape
crouched low, just a few yards into the alley, mostly hidden behind a pile of
rubble. If this world hadn’t been so dull in comparison to its people, I might
have missed the freak, but it’s hard to not notice a Halloween mask amidst the
somber gray of wreckage. I kept going, making him think he was safe. As soon as
we cleared the corner and were out of sight, I tapped Longinus on the arm and
darted back into the alley at full speed. The ex-AC thundered behind me.
There was a gasp as the alien realized we’d
caught him, and he scrambled to get out of the debris. He tripped and went down
face first with a grunt. I was on him a split second later with my gun pressed
into the back of his skull. A quick flip rolled him over to face me, and I was
struck once more by my questionable ability to distinguish gender as a pair of small
boobs appeared to stand out under her shirt. He was a she, and a scrawny she at
that. Had I been fishing, I would have to throw her back.
Her face was longer than the other aliens
I’d seen, the striping less apparent, subtler amidst the soft orange. There was
a delicate, almost mousey look to her features. She couldn’t have weighed more
than eighty pounds, skin and bone layered in loose, nondescript clothing. The
alien caught her breath and glared first at the barrel of the gun, and then her
dark eyes shifted to me. She had a spine, this one.
“Who are you and why are you following us?”
“Are you here for the alien?” she countered,
her voice nasally and proper through the translator.
That got my attention. “You’re all aliens.”
“Only to you.”
“Tell us who you’re talking about, girl,”
Longinus barked at her. Spittle peppered my shoulder and I did my best to
ignore it.
“Let me up first.”
I eased back but didn’t lower my gun,
letting her move to a seated position. She wasn’t going anywhere. “Tell us.”
She nodded, the snarl on her face going
from full burn to simmer. “The stranger: the one draining Desboren of its
magic. Is that who you seek?”
That sounded as likely a candidate for
Gorath as any. “Yes, he’s who we’re after.” Longinus grunted an affirmative beside
me.
The girl crawled to her feet, dusting her
knees. A delicate smile graced her lips. “Then I have someone you must meet.”
She took a half step backward and pointed at my gun. “Now, if you don’t mind.”
I shrugged and slipped the pistol back in
its holster. The girl had stubby little legs compared to the out of proportion length
of her arms and torso. She might swing like Tarzan, but with no trees around she
damn well wasn’t gonna be outrunning anyone. “Lead the way, young lady.”
She
snorked
and
walked off down the alley.
“She is most likely leading us into an
ambush,” Longinus whispered as he came alongside me.
“Probably, but seeing what you were looking
to do to
Jojo
back there, do you really mind?”
The traces of a grin brightened his face,
and he started off after the girl without answering. I shook my head and
followed, wiping at my sleeve. As lousy as it was, we were stuck waiting on
Jesus’ boy to get the official line on where Karra had gotten to, but if we hit
the streets hard enough, we might well scare up something sooner. It was worth
a shot, and there was no arguing the fact that both of us were spoiling for a
fight. Violence is a great distraction. There’s something soothing about
punching someone in the face.
I really didn’t want to think about what
Gorath intended to do with Karra. If he was using her to draw me out in order to
lure Lucifer to him, I felt reasonably confident she would be safe for a little
while…at least until he achieved his goal, but the longer we waited, the more
likely it became that something bad would happen. And with Karra, that could be
every second she was conscious and breathing. There was no way she would sit
there and let Gorath use her, even against Lucifer; too much of a scrapper for
that. She would fight and all hell would break loose. A sigh slipped out, and I
hoped she was all right. I couldn’t handle thinking otherwise.
I still didn’t know how Gorath had captured
her, how he’d managed to corral and knock her out without getting his ugly ass
kicked. If he hurt her…
My face warmed as I imagined the worst and
shook the images from my skull before they could latch on. If Gorath
had
hurt her, what Longinus did to
Mihheer was only a sample of what I’d do to the motherfucker when I caught him.
“This way,” the girl said, pulling me from
my murderous thoughts.
She slipped through yet another alley, not
more than a couple blocks from where we’d cornered her, and into a valley
created by the three and four story buildings that surrounded it. No lights flickered
in any of the windows, deep crevices of darkness devouring the lower halves of
the buildings at the back. A flat field of cleared rubble sat in between the
towering wrecks with absolutely nothing to block the view from the apartments
that looked down on us from every direction. It was the perfect spot for an
ambush, and she strode right into the center of it all and waved us on. Common
sense said to stay put at the far edge, but neither of us listened.
“Stay here. I’ll bring him out.” The girl
darted off into the shadows of the building ahead, her orange figure fading
away into nothingness.
Longinus glanced back at me over his
shoulder, a grim smile on his face. “Still think this is a good idea?” His gaze
strafed the hundreds of windows looming above. They made it impossible to know
which way an attack might come from.
“Never thought it was a great idea to begin
with, we just didn’t have any other options that didn’t end in us killing the
one alien who’s supposed to know something.”
“It worked out well enough with Mihheer.”
I had to admit he had me there. I just
shrugged and kept my eyes on our surroundings. As much as I wanted to blow off
a little steam, I’d been shot in the head by a sniper once and wasn’t looking
for an encore. That shit hurt.
The minutes dragged on, and I was starting
to feel like a lobster in a restaurant tank waiting to be plucked. Longinus
drifted forward with slow steps, putting some space between us. Every second
that passed found me hunching just a little lower. My hands twitched inside my
jacket as I fondled the grips of my guns. Just when I thought we were both
gonna lose all self-control and start breaking something, the girl returned.
An old man clung to her arm. As they
slipped from the darkness and into the gloomy light, I spied the obvious. The
man was blind. His eyes were a milky white, no apparent pupils squirming in
their depths. The pair scuffed along the roughened asphalt—or whatever it
was—and came straight toward us. The old man was hunched and wore nothing but a
simple brown robe made airy by numerous holes. He’d worn the things out. My
gaze snapped upward at seeing his coin purse bouncing free beneath the holey
clothing.
Longinus kept vigil while I stared—at the
guy’s face, not is package. The girl brought him to a halt before us.
“These are the aliens you foresaw, master,”
she said, motioning to us with a wave as if the old
cooter
could see the gesture.
“Thank you, Rala. Bring me closer.”
Longinus stared down at the aliens,
splitting his attention between them and the buildings. He shifted to put me in
front as the two shuffled a step nearer. The old man sniffed the air right
before me.
“There is darkness inside your heart,
stranger. What do they call you?”
Tell
me something I don’t know, grandpa.
Longinus chuckled and
shook his head to let me know he thought we were wasting our time. I was
beginning to agree.
“Yeah, I cheated on my taxes once,” I told
him. “The name’s Frank. Now tell me who you are.”
“I am Vol—”
“Is your last name
Vo
?”
His eyes narrowed, the hairy brows slumping
down like caterpillars.
“Never mind.” It’s hard to be me sometimes.
“Why is your pet following us?”
“Rala? She searched for you at my behest.”
Longinus sighed, the sound like glass
shards tumbling through a sifter. “Why did you bring us here, creature?”
The old man’s blind eyes snapped toward
Longinus. “You have come to destroy the other alien, the one who preys upon the
magic of our world, have you not?”
“We have,” I cut in quick. “What can you
tell us about him?”
“You must beware the pieces of the puzzle
buried within the puzzle. There can be no trust. A dagger glistens in the
darkness…”
My head involuntarily shifted sideways on
my neck as the alien droned on.
I can
haz
crazy?
“The Eidolon have come to devour us all.
They lurk in the shadows, the dark phoenix arisen from the ashes of what once
was,” he went on. “The enemies of friends are enemies no more, the circle
coming about to encircle…”
I raised my hand to wave him off and
realized I was doing the same dumb shit the girl had. “Whoa there, gramps,
you’re losing me.” Longinus huffed and turned away, clearly not amused. I
tapped the spot where the translator worm had crawled into my arm, thinking it
had gone haywire. “Maybe stream of consciousness is a valid form of
communication here on your planet, but I don’t have the slightest idea as to what
you’re rambling on about. I’ve had acid trips that were more coherent.”
“He warns of the beings who claim to war
for the sake of the universe but whose true desires are far more dangerous,
whose machinations are disastrous for the whole of existence.”
“Couldn’t he have just said
that
?” I sighed, looking at Vol. “Do you
mean God?”
“Who is this…God you speak of?”
I glanced at Longinus and shrugged, turning
back to the old man. “You know, the big guy in the sky who created this world
and all the rest of the ones floating around in space, the leader of the army
that has come to free Feluris?”
Vol shook his head. “I know of no such
being. There is only the darkness in the light, the assassin in the--”
I groaned, cutting off his tangent. “Since
we’re not talking about the same thing, do you have names, buddy? Addresses of
the Eidolon bad guys, maybe?” Having dealt with Chatterbox, I was fairly used
to incoherent rambling. The zombie head only had a couple of interests—porn and
sex—so we had enough in common we could understand each other. This talking
head, however, was on a whole other level of out there. If he’d have tossed
some tits into the mix, I might have something to latch onto, but no such luck.