Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams (37 page)

A tall man with
graying hair, leaned cautiously out of the cover of the hallway,
only a couple of feet from where Stanwick crouched. She closed her
eyes and focused her thoughts on the space where he stood, cloaking
herself in hell and dancing around him.

Wheatley felt the
weight of Clement’s body shift in her hand as his feet kicked out
against the tile floor. Suddenly his arms were thrashing, fingers
reaching out for something of substance, gloved hands slapping the
plastered wall to his left. Wheatley still couldn’t see what
Clements was reacting so violently to, but whatever it was had
roused him from a kind of catatonic trance into a series of savage
spasmodic gestural movements. He jerked free of Wheatley’s hand and
she watched in dismay as her little canary faltered, flapped and
staggered into the fray, falling towards, then attacking the other
agents.

Ducking low,
Wheatley exited cover and pushed hard left around the edge of the
wall. Her sight blurred immediately, but even as the daylight about
her was swallowed, her shoulder connected with something hard and
her hands tangled up in loose fabric. Collapsing on whoever had
been waiting there for her, she felt fingers pushing up under her
helmet, into her hair, grabbing tight; she wondered to what end
until she felt her head pulled back, the sharp warmth at her neck,
the cloying confusion raveling all that was left of her senses.
Wild, sea-green, splashes of foaming white, Danielle glimpsed the
eye of the storm that would be her ruination. Giving in a little,
breathing in a thrumming bubbling gasp, she stroked her right hand
slowly down the length of her body and un-holstered.

With two shots
fired, Wheatley couldn’t breathe, the air too thin. Her first
thought was that perhaps in her confusion she had shot herself -
punctured a lung or something. She felt her body lifted, the weight
of her head arching her neck, her right arm lolling towards the
floor as the gun slipped her grip, clattering away. Her helmet fell
away too, the strap tangling in her tattered hair. She opened her
eyes as best she could, watching the topsy-turvy room swaying to
and fro, and as her head tilted further she felt her airways
closing completely. A limp and useless rag-doll, she was tossed
amongst the other bodies in the middle of the room, her face barely
an inch from Carmichael’s. She opened her mouth, tried to breath
in, and failing that, tried to breath out. Carmichael’s upside-down
face, suddenly flecked with her blood, now stirred into motion, his
eyelids twitching and his lips twisting in disgust. He squinted,
getting a fix on the wreckage that had just landed in front of
him.

“It’s your
neck.”

Wheatley
frowned, listening to the footsteps circling them.

“There’s a hole
in your neck.” Carmichael grumbled, unsure of who could hear him.
Certain that he had armed Wheatley with enough information, he
rolled slowly onto his back, checking his peripheral vision. He
felt strong now, unburdened by whatever thrall had put him out of
action. With his hands flat to the floor, he stretched his legs,
arched his back off the ground and sprung forward. No sooner was he
on his feet than Stanwick’s foot caught him clean across the jaw
and he fell to one knee.

“Stay
down.”

Even spat in
disdain, her words were a balm. Carmichael looked up, knowing that
he would be unable to look away from her until she struck him down
harder.

“You found him
then?” he asked.

Her fiendish
smile was still too inviting. On the floor about him the others
were stirring now, Stanwick’s spell apparently ended. Carmichael
allowed himself to look into her eyes, “You’re outnumbered.” He
tried.

Her smile
softened by degrees, tinged at the edges with pity. He watched as
she stepped on McMahon’s wrist with one foot, her other foot
pressing his face to the floor.

“You remember
none of my words?”

There were
times when her words were all Carmichael could remember.

“Confidence in
numbers belies doubt in self.” She stepped off McMahon’s face,
kicking an arm out from beneath Philippa Myson’s struggling
body.

The frustration;
Myson’s mandible rocking side to side, molar’s grinding.
Frustration sufficient to bolster her resolve. She reached up,
grabbing Stanwick’s knee tightly, pulling herself forward. Head
cocked to one side, Phillipa opened her mouth as wide as she could
manage, jerking hard on Stanwick’s knee, buckling her leg so that
she could get a good mouth-hold. Stanwick tried to step backwards,
reviled by the sight of Myson, but she stumbled, loosing her
footing.

Checking
Wheatley, who’s neck had started to close over, Carmichael pushed
forwards again, eying Stanwick’s midriff and landing his thick
skull perfectly on target. He knew he’d knocked the wind out of
her, and she went down easily, dragging him and Myson with her as
she went. He landed a couple of good punches before her first knee
to his stomach. Then again, too quickly, her knee in his stomach
and her fingers in his face. That was enough; he wanted to get off
her, but he had invited her wrath, and Myson’s frenzied form
beneath him made things no easier. He only hoped that Myson was
managing to do some damage.

Stirred by one
of Stanwick’s stray limbs, Clements scrambled out of her way,
watching Phillipa Myson’s tortuous attempt at rodeoing the beast.
Clements’ hands found their way to a rifle; he fired a couple of
rounds, both of which landed in the side of Myson’s face from what
he could tell. Unable to land a clean shot, he gave up and laid
down suppressive fire. No sooner had he fired off a few short
bursts, than he felt strong hands gripping the front of his
jacket.

West lifted
Clements clean off the ground, tucking his left ankle behind
Clements legs, pitching him easily towards one of the large
windows. Myson had quickly let loose Stanwick’s leg, and recovered
Clement’s rifle, firing at the new assailant’s back. Bullets from
Myson’s rifle tore into the muscles of West’s leg and lower back as
Clements’ face hammered into the window. Grabbing the back of his
hair, West slammed his head into the glass a couple more times
until the window shattered. He was focused now. He spun Clements
about once more, his body becoming a convenient bullet sponge for
Myson’s itchy trigger finger, then with one last heave, West threw
him through the window, his limbs flailing as his body sailed out
of view.

As he surveyed the
damage that had been caused within the first few moments of the
other agents entering the apartment, Cobb felt nauseated and dizzy.
He wanted to survive. His breathing had become erratic and fear
stalked rampant through the corridors of his mind. How could he get
out of this place alive if he couldn’t breathe? He trained his
weapon on the woman, who seemed to be a more immediate threat to
the other agents. He squeezed the trigger with fast calm pulses of
his finger, his aim sure, his arm planted securely on the wooden
floor; when Stanwick failed to fall to the ground in the hail of
bullets, Cobb told himself that he must have missed. He squeezed
the trigger again, letting out a high pitched yell as he realized
that agent Myson had now thrown herself at the woman, her body
moving directly into his line of fire.

He couldn’t
have missed, he knew that now; the fine dust of shredded material
which plumed from the back of Myson’s vest confirmed it and the
blanket of self loathing came so quickly over Cobb that his vision
darkened under its weight. The thoughts flashed through his mind …
colleague … shot in the back … paperwork … tribunal … As the weapon
fell to the floor in front of him, he wasn’t even sure the thoughts
had come in that order, which made it all the worse. As he finally
caught up with the reality of what he was seeing, he gasped in
relief; Myson had pinned the woman and was now laying into her,
punching her repeatedly. Myson was fine; either that or she was
psychotic and battle crazed, working through the pain. Above all,
Cobb was starting to realize that the scene which was unfolding was
miraculous.

He crawled
forward, still hugging the wall, and now he could see that Agents
Carmichael and Middleton were both coming to Myson’s aid. He had
imagined that the three would now set about restraining the woman,
but instead, the two men both joined in Myson’s attack, kicking and
punching her. How she managed to keep fighting back, Cobb could
only wonder in horror, but fight she did, grabbing at Carmichael’s
leg with one hand, dragging him to the floor, swinging her other
elbow into Myson’s face as she struggled to pin her. Myson tried
several times to throw a leg around the woman’s neck, and on her
last attempt her flailing foot kicked one of the rifles within
Cobb’s reach. He stretched his hand out timidly, his furtive eyes
scanning for threats. He had the strap under his fingertip when his
eyes met with West’s. More to the point, he was aware that West’s
eyes had met with his own. Holding Agent McMahon’s neck in one
hand, West stooped to the floor to pick something up, then as he
stood, his arm went back and whatever it was he’d picked up, hit
Cobb clean between the eyes.

In a drowse,
Cobb felt the liquid trickle down his face. His head throbbing, he
knew it must be blood. It tasted pleasant though. Much too pleasant
to be blood. As he drifted in and out of consciousness, snatches of
delirious dreams tugged at him and begged him to stay under, to
give in to the blackness. It felt as if the fight had been spilling
about him, undulating and ravaging the apartment around him for
hours. As best he could, he kept his eyes turned towards the middle
of the room, opening them only when the sounds of scraping,
snarling, biting and thumping forced his curiosity over the edge.
What he saw in those moments; none of it made sense.

He drifted into
black and saw a vast expanse of blood soaked fields, bodies strewn
all around him. Surely this was the reality he would face if he
allowed himself to surface? He saw the faces of every agent he had
ever worked with, smashed and bloodied, their limbs sprawled at
awkward and sickening angles. He woke, but kept his eyes closed as
the bile raised in his throat; two people, maybe more, right next
to him, trying to kill each other, he couldn’t afford to make a
sound as he swallowed the burning stomach acids back down.

His left eye
was closest to the ground and he chanced opening it to a tiny slit,
his eyelashes blurring his vision just enough to give a soft focus
to the terror; McMahon was there, only a couple of feet from his
face and he seemed to be trying to bite a chunk out of the woman’s
cheek. It couldn’t be real, he told himself. What would it mean if
that was real?

He allowed
himself to slip back into the darkness, his silent sobs giving way
to a pulsing light. In the light, in that bright space in the
darkness of his mind, a woman, blond and sleek, knelt on the sand
beside him. He felt a sharp pain in his arm, a jabbing sensation,
like the woman was prodding him with something.

“What the f…?”
Cobb began, but the woman cut him off, “shh, shh. Relax. It’s just
Occam’s Razor.”

Instantly, he
knew who his angelic guardian was. He understood that rationally,
he should know, if only because this was
his
adrenal black
out, but still, he was proud that he’d managed to get a mental fix
on something. He opened his eyes and looked up into the angelic
face of Jodie Foster, but of course he had known it would be her.
Occam’s Razor my ass he thought … He mouthed the words back at her
as she offered her words of wisdom, “All things being equal, the
simplest explanation tends to be the right one.”

He shook his
head, trying to brush her hand away, “That’s bullshit. No
explanation for the things I’ve seen.”

She prodded him
again, pushing the point of the blade in just enough to sting.
“Occam’s Razor …” her voice started to fade and Cobb felt himself
drifting away from her, “What if all things aren’t equal? Huh
Jodie? When are things ever equal in this life?”

As the half
light of the apartment filtered into his consciousness, he heard
her one more time, “The simplest … explanation…”

Then it was
Agent McMahon’s face that shifted into his field of view; eyes
closed, blood pouring from several open wounds on his forehead and
cheeks. Cobb wanted to close his eyes again and just wait for the
trauma unit to turn up. Something odd was happening though. There …
right there on the landscape of McMahon’s body, small movements;
not the blood rolling down his cheek, or the gentle raising and
lowering of his chest that would suggest life. Cobb wished that was
what he saw. He wished like he couldn’t remember wishing … no, like
six year old Brad, wishing for a
Cringer
action figure for
Christmas; Brad Cobb wished now that what he was seeing was a trick
of the light, clouds moving across the sun, neutrinos reflected
from a gas cloud bouncing back through the cosmos.

As he watched
the deep cut which ran from McMahon’s hair line down to his right
eyebrow, Cobb felt that same disappointment he’d felt as a child.
No, this was worse. Then, it had meant that Santa didn’t read too
well, or didn’t think he deserved a plastic tiger. Now, the rapidly
healing wounds on McMahon’s face meant something much more
sinister.

Occam’s Razor …
Cobb could almost see the good angel Jodie kneeling over McMahon,
pointing the gleaming blade at the bloodied face.

“He’s not dead.”

The sound of
the woman’s voice froze every function of Cobb’s brain and fixed
his limbs taut.

“Of course he’s
not. When was the last time you killed a Blood-Bastard with a few
punches?”

The woman
sighed, “This one.”

With the gentle
prod of Stanwick’s foot, Cobb started to shake violently, “Please,
I didn’t know, I …”