Three days ago, over two thousand miles west of Station bay, Massachusetts, within one of many valleys in central Utah, a hidden city far beneath the view of the public eye received a special message. 16000 feet below the ground, its array of well-lit halls were bustling with the daily operations of a clandestine paramilitary group. Men in black jumpsuits laden with tactical gear, faces hidden by high tech gas masks, lab-coated scientists carrying research papers or testing samples, scrubs-clad surgeons and doctors tending to their patients, all could be found within the depths of Black Sun Headquarters. Down a particularly finely-finished hall, with its walls paneled in rich dark red cherry wood and a floor of mirror-polished black marble, a single door stood sentinel, its 10 foot height and 4 foot width giving it commanding presence. A shining silver plaque to the right of the imposing slab of dark hammered steel read “Commander Edwin Brock” in a fine cursive print. Commander Brock was seated within, nestled behind a hulking desk carved from solid ebony, staring at the screen of his laptop. Across from him, a soldier stood, holding a cup of coffee that was getting cold.
“You mentioned we’ve received a signal, sir?” the soldier asked after what’d been a long silence. Brock’s aviators caught a reflection of his laptop’s screen for a moment, showering the lenses in a white glow briefly as he glanced up at the soldier from the open email he’d been reading.
“Indeed. It seems our mole in Red Lotus is doing good work. They intend to conduct a bombing, in a carnival of all things.” Brock said.
“Sick bastards. Where?” the soldier inquired, sipping his steamless coffee.
“Massachusetts. Big city called Station Bay. We’ve got zero network in Mass, I’m sure you’re aware. Closest base we’ve got is the old Chicago FOB, the rat hole.” Brock said.
The soldier nodded.
“How can I help, sir?” he asked. Brock rapped his knuckles on the desk for a moment, thinking.
“Get the Asgard fired up.” Brock said, tossing the soldier a set of keys.
“Aye sir.” the soldier replied, saluting before giddily stomping away, clearly excited to be given the honors.
Brock’s mighty office door opened and closed, and he sighed, opening one of the drawers on his desk, on the right nearest the floor. From it he withdrew a svelte antique handgun, a P08 Luger made in Germany, 1939. For its age, the gun was in good shape, though the wear on its finish showed it had seen many years of use. Brock stood from his office chair, tucking the old pistol into an equally dated leather holster that sat on his hip. He stepped towards the door, plucking a hefty brown trenchcoat from an adjacent rack and donning it.
The trip down to the hangar was one Brock enjoyed. With some of the vehicles it contained, the sound of the engine could be heard as soon as he stepped through his office door, and the Asgard was no exception. Between every step Brock took in his knee-high officer’s boots heading for the hangar, a low thrum could be heard, and more excitingly felt. A grin spread across Brock’s shaven face as he passed under the wide bay doors of the vaulted superstructure.
There it was, a sleek turbo jet whose matte black paint contained a high tech ceramic alloy that could conceal it from almost every form of conventional radar. A two way ticket to anywhere. Brock stepped up the boarding ramp, greeting the pilot as he rounded the bend to take his seat. The Asgard was as much a luxury plane as it was stealth reconnaissance, and nowhere was this more apparent than the window seat, where one could overlook the jet’s impressive missile armament from the comfort of a massage chair.
Brock settled in, his leather trenchcoat creaking against the supple vinyl of the seat. He reached for a headset contained beside some bottles of Cabernet in the seat’s ottoman, and slipped it over his ears, speaking into the attached mic. “Straight to the paper mill, Chicago.” Brock said.
“Of course. Should be an easy flight, good weather all the way down.” the pilot replied over the headset’s speakers.
“That’s what I like to hear.” Brock grinned, reclining in his seat and letting himself drift off to sleep. The Asgard began to taxi down, or rather, up the underground airstrip, whose gentle incline upward would end in another bay door, open wide for takeoff, would allow the plane to emerge from a concealed area deep in the scrub oak and sand of a dry mountainside. Those bay doors closed behind the plane as it made its exit at launch speed, themselves camouflaged perfectly with a layer of sand and utterly invisible once they sealed shut again.
The flight was calm, as promised, and Brock had the downtime midair to get some more intel gathered after his nap. From the pocket of his gray wool trousers, he produced a shiny stainless steel-cased smartphone of his own design and manufacture, a clandestine device purpose-built for being untraceable, and networked from a Black Sun satellite. With this device, he contacted the mole who’d gotten him the info on the bombing. The simple text chat opened, displaying blue lettering on a black background.
“Any signs of a motive?” Brock sent.
“Not clear yet. Lotus-actual is in contact with an unknown third party. Too much red tape to get much more on them without blowing cover, but they’ve been communicating more and more often lately. Likely a local, if I had to guess.” a reply came.
“What’s the ordnance?”
“C4. Bricks upon bricks of the stuff. At least 500 pounds. Lots of failsafe rigging too.”
“Dammit.” Brock muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Failsafes meant the explosives would be a bitch to disarm.
“Any lingo that might clue us in on who the third party is?” Brock typed.
“My cyphers keep picking up the word “Tribulations.” the mole replied. Brock stared at the pixels, humming.
“Copy all. Good work out there.” Brock sent, before shutting off the phone.
-
And now…
John Thratta's eyes widened as he took the helm. His ship and the sea were engulfed by eerie fog that laid low, crawling across still waters that seemed to permeate the air with a cold clamminess. It was much too thick to make heads or tails of where he was. He had seen low bands of mist skimming the waters before his sailboat plunged headlong into a sudden wall of the stuff, as if a mountain range of clouds had suddenly expelled itself from the ocean.
Something's wrong. Thratta thought.
No matter what direction he turned the ship in, he couldn't help but feel like he was going in circles. He checked his compass and broke into a cold sweat.
"What the?" he blanched, a lump in his throat.
The compass needle was spinning damn near fast enough to break.
This sounds a lot like that ether fog shit in Mason's reports, but if it were, why aren't I losing my marbles right now?
Unless, perhaps he was and simply didn't realize it. He wasn't sure if that thought was horrific or a cold comfort.
Do crazy bastards know they're crazy? Perhaps if he had captured Keke, he could have asked him.
On the horizon, shrouded by cloaks of fog, great dark things stood like one stands in a bathtub, the water level coming up to their calves.
Thratta felt cold breath on the back of his neck, and his skin break out into goosebumps. He whirled, and saw black, skeletal hands gripping the iron railing of his boat. Spider, shadow-like things were climbing aboard, hauling themselves out of the freezing ocean. They smelled of decaying fish, seaweed, and mud. Their empty eye sockets were bottomless wells of foggy deadlight.
Thratta twitched, his breath turning to icy mist, and he tensed - only to see those black things fading in and out of existence, like incorporeal mirages.
I'm seeing things. Is that a symptom, or am I really being stalked?
"A bit of both." a dark voice said from on high.
Thratta whipped his head up and saw a stygian-cloaked figure with a concealing hood standing in the crow's nest. Beneath the ruffles of the cobalt cloak, the imprints of small, child-like hands pushed out against the fabric, and a white noise cascade of unintelligible whispers drifted through Thratta's mind.
"Who the hell are you?!" Thratta barked.
"I am Crocus, the arbiter of judgment. And you are as a fly in my web. A great web of fog, which will soon encircle the city, snaring it completely. The children of the Void trying to board your craft can taste the day of reckoning on the air, when the veil will be lifted and they will break fully into this tier of existence." the wraith said.
"You one of those ferals?" Thratta asked.
Crocus gave a mirthless chuckle. "You must be joking."
"What do you want with me?" Thratta demanded.
"I simply have some time to kill." Crocus said, lifting a bony finger.
A red dot appeared at its fingertip, and then burst forward. A thin, straight beam of crimson energy pierced straight through Thratta's shoulder. He shrieked in pain as the flesh and muscle burned, sizzling like a hot skillet.
It could have been worse. Crocus had been aiming for Thratta's chest, and the Seal's reflexes saved him from a fatal shot to the heart.
As steam rose from the entry and exit wounds in Thratta's shoulder, he shook, gritting his teeth. Shaking off the flaring agony, he buried his good arm in his jacket and whipped out his Navy-issued MP5, leveling it up the mast at the hooded freak. Fingers twitching, Thratta willed his pierced arm to fall in line, and he flipped the safety off, slamming a magazine into the weapon.
Without another word, Thratta pumped several successive blasts into the wraith, but was met with no reaction. Smoke rose from the muzzle of his gun as he stared in disbelief. Crocus was utterly untouched, his cloak not even ruffled.
Did he dodge it, somehow? Thratta's mind reeled.
"Dodge? No." Crocus said.
Thratta tugged at his hair. "Get out of my head!"
"No weapon made by the hands of human beings can touch me." Crocus said, gesturing a dismissive wave, the long sleeve of his cobalt cloak fluttering in the breeze.
Thratta tossed the empty submachine gun aside and whipped out his pistol, taking careful aim.
"No need to quickdraw, as you seem to have surmised. I'm not going anywhere." Crocus said.
Thratta licked his lips, one eye closing. He had the freak in his sights.
His finger squeezed the trigger, and another bang joined the phantoms of the rifle shots. With the same manual adrenaline-heightened sight that had allowed him to track the dragon kid's movements, he saw the bullet enter Crocus's hood - and utterly disappear.
"Huh?" Thratta blanched.
"Satisfied?" Crocus asked, folding his arms.
Thratta emptied the rest of the magazine. The bullets passed through Crocus's head and chest with not the slightest hint of physically touching him, as though the faceless man was merely a creepy hologram.
"I told you. You cannot touch me." Crocus said.
"Yeah?!" Thratta roared, throwing off his jacket and dropping anchor. Getting it over his back, he engorged his muscles, veins popping out and the holes of his shoulder wound spitting blood. Crocus saw a blurry white outline dance around the anchor.
Aura? Crocus wondered.
Thratta thrust up, and the anchor went flying. It clobbered into Crocus, splintering the crow's nest as it carried the wraith into the air.
Or so it could have.
-
Crocus had already observed this possibility.
As the Seal hefted the anchor on his back, preparing to swing and release it into the smug bastard, his eyes were blinded by a red glow at his feet.
"What the?!" he realized he was encircled by a glowing crimson sigil.
"Gravity Well." Crocus said.
The circle darkened, and suddenly the anchor on Thratta's back became far heavier, as did his own body. His knees buckled as he collapsed under his own weight, his shoulder dislocating and being crushed to a pulp as it was trapped in its contorted position. Thratta's face was forced into the deck along with the rest of his body, knocked flat, and he felt the weight on his back becoming greater and greater. He was pushed too hard into the deck, he couldn't expand his diaphragm and lungs. His bones were quaking. Grunting, feeling like he was under miles of ocean, he forced his left hand under him, straining, trying to push himself back up.
He got a knee under him too, raising his head against the gravity and trying to look up at Crocus.
"Oh?" the wraith hummed. "I see 'The World's Strongest Soldier' isn't mere hyperbole. Still, you are only human."
Feels like I'm going to shit out my spine! Thratta panicked, an animal caught in a trap.
Crocus pushed down with his palm, further intensifying the gravity.
Thratta screamed as the deck groaned, creaked, and began to splinter under him. His fingers punched through the wood, and his palm and arm fell right through the deck. The surface beneath Thratta's body could no longer take the strain. His body slammed into the floor again, knocking him breathless and fracturing ribs.
He, and his treacherous anchor both, were put through the floor.
The crimson circle faded, and Crocus raised his arm. Fog swirled about, as if an orchestra conducted by the faceless man's walker, and coalesced into a dark cloud overhead. From the cloud, a gigantic skeletal arm the size of a marble column clutched a fist, flexed, and shot down like a piston. The construct's punch crushed into the center of the sailboat, splitting the craft down the middle and causing its mast to fall over like a toppled tree. Ocean spray engulfed the wrecked vessel in the wake of the demonic punch, and the ship soon after sank.
Thratta, weighed down by his anchor, looked up at the waterlogged debris that had once been his sailboat as they sank in tandem. The meager light above the ocean's surface faded, and a few bubbles trickled out of Thratta's mouth. It was freezing cold, and he felt the pressure rising. His eardrums ruptured, but compared to the weight of that magnified gravity, the pressure wasn't that bad.
Nothing sounded better right now than a long rest.
-
The audience gathered in the arena, Cuppy and Freyja among them. They took their front row seats, looking out over the banister to the darkened circus floor. There was the smell of zoo animal musk and shit, and the sounds of movement and whispers below as the players took their places. Chatter tinged with the taste of excitement and anticipation spread like a virus across the stands.
Then, a spotlight fell from on high, lighting up a circle within the arena. The man in the top hat from the show before gripped his microphone.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls of all ages! Welcome to Carnival Top! It is my pleasure to introduce you to the Valentine Family Circus!" he said.
The crowd exploded into excited cheers and whistles.
Freyja's ears folded, and she clutched them.
"Noisy." she complained.
Firework explosions of confetti erupted out of the ground, and then the arena was a swirling collage of neon lights and carnival music. Silver-suited acrobats capered about, twirling hula hoops and juggling bowling pins. A man on a bike performed wheelies atop high boxes, like those olympic medalists were judged upon, and jumped his bike higher and higher. A pair of clowns on unicycles fenced each other while fire-dancers spun and twirled double-sided torches. A sword swallower seemed to unhinge his jaw like a snake as he slid a keen scimitar down his gullet.
Freyja clutched her throat, unnerved. “Freaky.”
A cage was wheeled out into the center spotlight, and curtains dropped away from the bars, revealing Kinga Valentine within. Beside him was a white bengal tiger, throwing back its head and giving a frightful roar. Kinga pulled a raw steak out of nowhere and dangled it about.
“Shake!” he said to the tiger, which answered by standing on its front legs as though performing a handstand, and shaking its uplifted ass, tail, and hindlegs like a reed blowing in the wind.
Cuppy chuckled.
The bars fell away, and Kinga mimed shock and concern before his pet dropped onto the arena floor, and the other performers gave him a wide berth. The tiger sauntered up to the boxes, and the cyclist bailed.
“Up!” Kinga gestured to the box, and the tiger effortlessly surmounted the platform.
Kinga chucked the steak up high, and the tiger snapped it out of the air.
Above, the rest of the Valentine Family revealed themselves, swinging to and fro from the trapeze, tossing each other, catching them by their legs, contorting around each other, and performing other gravity-defying, terrifying stunts a hundred or more feet above uncushioned ground. Eleonora Valentine descended on a hoop large enough to sit in, grasped the ring with her legs, and hung upside down, her long blond hair trailing like a waterfall as the hoop spun. Above, Eryk Valentine dropped a pair of long poles, and stacked plates in sequential order. The Valentine sister caught the sticks, and the plates upon them, spinning them in synchronized balance even as the hoop she hung upside down from continued to rotate.
As the show went on, each of the Valentine pets were unveiled in turn - panthers and jaguars, a grizzly bear, and finally Sparta himself, Leon riding astride him proudly, flourishing a bouquet in one hand and his whip in the other.
Contortionists, clowns and grandstanders, ballerinas, stunt performers - the show cycled through fantastical act after fantastical act, drawing oohs, ahhs, and gasps.
Gunta was due to come on stage soon. Her signature act was a triple bullseye, darts thrown with her powerful and precise trunk.
Mysterious fog flooded into the arena, crawling up the walls of the circular stands and dispersing into wisps about the front row seats. Cuppy shivered in excitement, squeaking. Freyja smiled a bit, enjoying Cuppy’s reactions. The tension was broken with a clown botching a high dive into a shallow receptacle of water via painful belly-flop. The audience winced, then laughed as a parachute deployed after the fact.
Leon caught Freyja’s eye and waved, flashing his perfect grin. He tossed his bouquet into the stands, aiming for Freyja. Girls fell over themselves trying to catch the roses, trampling each other and ultimately dogpiling onto Freyja. Cuppy caught the bouquet and looked satisfied with himself.
Leon’s heart fell, but the show had to go on as always.
After our act with Dai Funka, Gunta’s up next. He reminded himself.
Kinga Valentine, looking like nothing so much as a broader, more muscular iteration of Leon, hefted a huge mallet overhead, grunting with effort, sweat beading on his forehead. As he gave a grunt, he thrust the mallet aloft, and a large print label on the side of its head read out 700 pounds. A few impressed whistles sounded out. For a demonstration, a 12-stack of cinder blocks were laid out. Planting his lead foot, Kinga slammed the dense mallet into the top block, shattering them all easily.
That wasn’t the impressive part.
Next, Dai Funka stepped into the arena, throwing off his flower-print robe, and laid himself atop a bed of nails, pulling a long and wide board over himself. Below the bed of nails were cinder blocks, and above the board were cinder blocks. Standing abreast a polka dot-patterned platform, Kinga swung the mallet once more. The audience hissed and screamed in shock and fright as the gigantic hammer shattered the top stack of cinder blocks, the shockwave continuing down through Dai Funka and breaking the cinder blocks below him as well.
Dai Funka, grunting, threw the board off of himself and stood, revealing no worse than a map of irritated red dots on his back for his troubles.
The audience erupted into cheers once more.
“Fucking ouch.” Freyja whined, ears laying back.
Cuppy clapped. “Fun!”
-
The off limits area of a circus was commonly - and appropriately enough - dubbed the backyard. Dress rooms, wardrobe and costume departments, performer rest areas, and animal pens were all hidden back here. In the case of the Carnival park area of Carnival Top, this backyard was accessed through a tunnel built into the underside of one of the arena walls, sloping gently downward. The animal pen section of the behind the curtains area was stocked with large cages padded with soft grass and other bedding materials, though the inhabitants were unsettled. Big cats hissed and growled, their hair standing on end, as they sensed a superior predator in their midst. Around this time, Sparta, on the performing floor, twitched his ears and whiskers, sensing something off. There was an ominous presence at his back.
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Gunta, waiting for her cue, hanging out with an elephant handler who had up till then been placating the pachyderm with watermelons, tilted his head as Gunta began to pace in place, trunk and tail swishing. She trumpeted, rearing back in terror and nearly stomping the handler, who dropped to his back and rolled out of the way with a panicked shout.
“Gunta! Gunta, what’s wrong?!” he shouted as he took to his feet again, scanning the pen area to see what might be setting her off.
A quartet of blades exploded out of the handler’s chest. He looked down in subdued shock, eyes going wide as his shirt was soaked in his own blood. He gurgled weakly as Luchesi lifted him overhead and slammed him head-first into the ground, breaking his neck. The jester vaulted onto Gunta’s face, straddling her by standing on her tusks, and petrified the elephant with a sinister leer that froze her blood in her veins. The behemoth trembled, a deer in the headlights as the jester pressed the knuckles of his other arm against her skull. With a click, the blades jutted out, piercing straight through Gunta’s skull.
The elephant dropped like a thunderous earthquake.
-
Freyja squeezed her way through the jam-packed stands, and out of the arena, clutching at her bladder. In the marble-tiled lobby, things seemed eerily empty and quiet. The columns cast shadows that seemed twisted in the light, forming a grid of shade.
Which way was the bathroom again?
As she walked, her steps loud and echoing in her ears, she felt turned around, something screwing with her senses. She shivered and her ears folded over. Her instincts were gnawing at her that something was wrong.
She passed through a door into a long carpeted hallway with buzzing fluorescent lights. A few cardboard boxes were crammed against one wall.
Freyja guessed that she had entered an employee-only area, perhaps a passageway for those who needed a shortcut between areas of the park without being seen. There could be employee break rooms, perhaps outfitted with snacks and coffee back here.
That hunch proved correct when she pushed through another door and found a cozy lounge area with a coffee table and a few chairs. A rack of bags of chips and packages of cookies sat on the counter, and an office water dispenser hummed in the corner. Most relevantly to Freyja, there was a bathroom.
She emptied herself, but couldn't shake the feeling of knitting anxiety in her stomach. Her hair was rigid, on the verge of standing on end. Usually, that signaled one of two things - she was near a dangerous creature and potential enemy… or she was in the presence of the black rain.
Following her sniffer, she came to a slanted metal door in the wall. It reminded her of those book return slots in public libraries. The smell was definitely coming from down there, as was the source of her dread. She opened the hatch and looked down a long, dark chute. The air seemed distorted, like wavy bands of darkness.
Is this how shades got into our room? Do they have a nest under the casinos? Freyja wondered.
She knew, as her gooseflesh intensified in answer, that the answer was yes. There were shades beneath this building without a doubt. She drew back, her first instinct to beat a strategic retreat and inform Richie and Cuppy. But then, Richie was at home base, and Cuppy was fixated on the circus show, now weren’t they? She was a hellhound, why did she need to wait for backup and inconvenience her friends with such a trivial task? She remembered what had seemed like just the night before, when Cuppy was tortured in the grip of a nightmare, that piece of shit shadow growing out of his body and soul like a twisted dead tree, sucking the life out of him. She remembered also how Cuppy had come back from his little survey with blood on his cloak, assuring them that it had merely been ketchup, even as his smile looked pained and forced.
Freyja whined, her ears folding. Cuppy had made it a point to not try to bother his friends with gory details if he didn’t have to, didn’t want them worrying for his sake. Remembering how helpless they had been when the shade dropped as a bisecting blade, and how she could only watch as the Institute creep murdered the bunyip, she felt incensed, affronted at being made to feel so powerless when she had so much power at her fingertips.
Potato.
Perhaps this time she could be the proactive one, and get something accomplished. Not for the praise she might get, but so that the others didn’t even have to worry about it, and would be none the wiser till long after she was finished. It was just a few of those posers trying to latch onto the darkness, nothing she couldn’t handle, not when she was the REAL matron of the night and all its beauty.
A fire lit in her belly, Freyja pulled the hatch back, shifted into her ebony-furred wolfen shape, and slid on her belly down the long, deep, dark, cold chute.
-
Brock entered the carnival’s big top tent, green eyes scanning the crowd and falling to the dirt arena floor. “Smells like a zoo in here.” He muttered. The agency commander reached up to the frame of his aviators, pressing a small button concealed on one of the temples. The lenses flickered, looking from the outside like they’d simply darkened, like those fancy auto-tinting shades, but in truth Brock could now see in the X-ray spectrum. Swiveling his gaze back and forth, he crept through the sea of onlooking circus goers, moving in a slow circle, trying to spot anyone that happened to be carrying a detonator or concealed brick of explosives on their person. Eventually, he’d made a full 360 sweep. “Nothing…” He muttered after some time, confident he’d scanned everyone in the arena. He did however pick up on the faintest trace of a strange hollow area, some ten feet below the center of the arena. An underground room, perhaps? The X-ray function having a rather limited range, Brock mused he’d need to either rouse suspicion by waltzing right into the middle of the arena to stare through the floor, or somehow find a way into the depths. Not having detected any explosives above ground was discomforting. Was his intel wrong? Were the explosives elsewhere entirely? With the size of the arena, Brock suspected that even with 500 lbs of C4, there wasn’t enough explosive radius to kill anyone in the room if he couldn't see any of it from the surface, to include the approximate ten feet of X-ray penetration his glasses allowed him to peek underground with.
Whatever the case was, Brock was uneasy. His intel hadn’t prepared him to walk into a seemingly safe arena of jovial onlookers and talented performers. This was a counter-terror mission, and that terror that was supposed to be there was invisible. Muttering a nervous curse under his breath, Brock briskly made his exit from the big top, emerging into the lobby area. With his X-ray lenses still active, Brock noticed an unexpected skeleton moving around. A large canid, too large to be a common dog, and with the skull anatomy he could only attribute to a wolf. “And where are you going?” Brock muttered to himself, observing the wolf’s movements for a few moments before it abruptly slid out of view, seemingly down a narrow, descending tunnel. Old memories of his former colleague’s work drifted to the forefront of his mind. “One of Mars’s, maybe… Develop a new model, old friend?” He said to himself. The thought was enough for Brock to follow the wolf’s path, reaching up to his glasses again and engaging a hybrid thermal lens that allowed him to follow the only trail of footsteps that were still fresh. To his initial confusion, they were sneaker prints, not paw prints. His suspicions all but confirmed, Brock grinned slightly. Maybe the old scientist had his back, even after all these years, and their goals were somehow aligned here and now.
Continuing to trace the trail, Brock came across a hefty metal door, more of a hatch really, and found it ajar where the shoeprints turned to pawprints. The six foot five Brock hunched his back as the door opened up into a smoothly descending chute, reminiscent of an angled dumbwaiter, and another click of his aviator frames engaged night vision. The slight smell of dog was in the air, Brock noted, and he glanced behind himself to see a pair of rough looking guys stepping into the hall. “There’s my cue.” He muttered, grunting as he hopped into the descending shaft, shutting the door behind himself.
-
Freyja padded down the long, dreary concrete cave, sides lined with huge piles of refuse behind rails, industrial fans overhead to divert the rotting trash fumes through square holes carved into the walls.
"This was a dumb idea, goddammit, I hate this place." Freyja held her nose, equal parts disgusted and unnerved. "Where am I, some kind of garbage dump under the casino? I guess that's one way to sweep litter under the rug. Yeah, I'm talking to myself, so what?"
She shivered. She had to keep herself some form of company or the bad vibes gnawing on her instincts to get the hell out were going to colonize her and start building cabins.
"Let's go get the bad guys, Freyja! Oh no, it's damp, dark and spooky, also Freyja!" Freyja hugged her shoulders, hair standing on end. She got startled, and realized it was only her own echoes.
"Huh. Nice acoustics. Hello~? Dumb Void-blobs? You down here?" she called out cautiously.
Maybe she was just imagining things, wouldn't that be nice?
"Oh well, I tried my best!" Freyja smiled happily, cheeks blushing.
She heard footsteps behind her farther down.
"WHO FUCKING GOES THERE?!?" she roared.
-
A few moments later, a huge crimson ball of hellfire entered Brock's field of view, barreling toward him with intent to fry. “Oh shit!” Brock exclaimed, grabbing the edge of his trenchcoat and draping it over his face like some noir detective Dracula. The flames enveloped the weathered-looking leather, creating a cloud of steam. Brock stepped out of the cloud, adjusting his shirt collar and loosening his tie, seemingly unscathed. The reddish-brown leather thankfully had been treated with military grade fire retardant.
“Jesus.” he muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead. His glasses were fogged by the steam, so he removed them to clear the lenses, eyes adjusting to the dark tunnel.
“I think we’re here for the same reason.” Brock called out. “I’m not out to hurt you.” he added.
Freyja snarled, her nose warped into the muzzle of a wolf, eyes burning orange. “How do I know that? Sounds like something a shade would say.”
She opened her right hand and generated another fireball, flickering with a sound like an angry rattlesnake.
“A shade?” Brock said, confused. He kept his hands visible, not making any sudden moves.
Freyja cautiously approached, circling and sniffing Brock, lingering longer on his ass than he would have liked, in proper dog fashion. She stepped in front of him again and tilted her head, distrust painted over her face.
“Ok, you don’t smell like a soulless spectral asshole, but if you aren’t a shade, and you don’t know what they are, why are you down here? You reek of gunpowder, you’re packing, right? What’s your business?” Freyja asked, doing her best Holly imitation.
“I’m trying to stop a terrorist attack.” Brock says. “I work with an agency called Black Sun. I have it on good authority there’s a planned mass casualty event that’s intended to take place right above our heads. Bombing. Supposed to be a hefty amount of explosives. C4, unfortunately. Your gunpowder sniffing skills won’t detect it, I don’t think.” Brock says.
“B-bombing?! Like, above our heads, above our heads? The circus? Well that’s not great, I left one of my friends up there.” Freyja frowned, eyes wide. “You work with an agency?” skepticism spread across her lycanthropic features, eyes clouded with prejudice. She’d seen enough agencies for one lifetime on Mason’s account alone, but, if need be, she would spit-roast this guy later. “I assume you can find the ordinance, then?” she asked.
“That’s the hope. There’s an odd void right beneath the center of the arena above us, I was able to pick it up with the X-ray function on my glasses. I suspect it might be the epicenter for wherever the explosives are planted. Only people that would kill are the performers though. Suppose that would do the job, causing terror and all that, but my intel suggested a mass casualty event, not a hit on exotic animals and their handlers.” Brock says. His previous assumption that the girl was one of Mars’s biological projects had just been shattered. The name of his agency clearly hadn’t rung a bell. “Interesting,” He thought. “What are you, then?”
“If you have friends up there, we’ve got a common goal. We need to get to the middle of this place before the bombs detonate.”
Freyja nodded solemnly. “Yeah, that sounds like a priority if ever there was one.” she scratched the back of her head, sighing. “Only supposed to target the circus floor itself? Why would… oh shitfuck.” her eyes went wide. It was probably no coincidence that she sensed shade activity in the same fetid catacombs where bombs were set to go off. Shades fed on fear and whatnot, didn’t they? That would be quite the masterpiece.
“It’s going to be a fucking feeding frenzy.” she realized. She fell to all fours, shifting into wolfen form in a cocoon of fire, boiling saliva falling off of her fangs in ropey rivulets. Her paws curled, claws raking the ground. Her shoulders shifted, her ridge-like back showing her twisted spinal column before it was coated over in black fur.
Her nose, and every ounce of animal instinct were both shaking together.
“That way.” she nodded her head up the tunnel, her keen ears catching the sound of rippling liquid deeper within the underground dump system. “Hop on and hold tight.” she growled.
Brock’s brow furrowed.
“Now, genius!” Freyja barked.
“I’m taller than I look. I think my boots would drag on the concrete. Besides, you’ll probably want the snappy reaction time natural to your kind, which I’d imagine is better without 190 pounds of tall old man on your back.” Brock chuckled.
Yeah, that would be nice, but I don’t know when these bombs are supposed to go off, and you’re shackled by human speed, you dope. Besides, carrying a decoy on my back buys a 1 in 2 shot that the shades aim for him instead. In any case, I don’t know how to defuse bombs. If anything, I’d blow shit up quicker.
Freyja rolled her eyes, grit her teeth, and flared up in another swell of fire as she concentrated on her legs, elongating her bones, ligaments, and muscle to bring her to around horse height. She’d burn through her energy supply quicker, but whatever. It made little difference if they blew up. She began boiling her blood within her veins, massively extending the supply and efficiency of oxygen pumping through her body. She’d need it for the sprint.
“Less bitchy more ridey.” Freyja growled.
“...Fair enough.” Brock said, eyes wide with equal parts awe and confusion as he saddled up. “Never really did any bareback riding in my equestrian days. Hope a fistful of fur isn’t too irksome. Gotta hold onto something.” Brock said.
“Not like I have time to be picky. Hold on tight.” she smirked, crouching low. Let’s see what my new max speed is… a thought crossed her mind. “Oh, by the way, do you have any easily-exploitable trauma and or phobias?”
“Not of this mortal coil.” Brock said, a somewhat grim tone coming over him. “These shades you mentioned, they play off of fear?”
“As far as I can tell, it’s their favorite food. Well, not counting soul food.” Freyja chuckled, then realized it wasn’t the time for it. “Anyway, I have a good guess that your C4 is in the same area their nest is, so strap in.”
She resumed crouching, made her own motorcycle sound effects - and then blasted off at 90 miles per hour. As she continued to accelerate, she eventually hit 200 miles per hour.
Hey, not bad, me. All that dumb exercise is good for something, at least. Freyja had a dumb little self-satisfied smirk on her face as the stinking wind blew her hair back. Another nice silver lining was that, at this speed, she couldn’t smell the lingering stink very well.
Brock was pretty shell shocked by the near instant zero to 90 acceleration, resisting whiplash only through the reinforced collar of his trenchcoat cradling his neck. Thankfully he’d been in fast-moving cars before, and it didn’t take long to adjust. His hand instinctively went for his luger, and he drew the svelte handgun from his holster, imagining himself in some classic Western movie astride a somewhat more demonic, canid mount than those in the films he watched as a kid. “Doubt we’re far off now!” He said, having to shout over the significant wind tunnel noise in his ears from the sheer speed of Freyja’s sprint.
“That’s for sure.” Freyja said. “I can feel malice pushing on me like ocean crevice-ass pressure. This is definitely the right -”
she saw a yawning chasm suddenly appear in the middle of the ‘road’, as the room opened to a wide, dome-like chamber.
“-way.”
She tried to slam on the breaks, sparks spurting from the ground as her claws dug in, but she had neglected to factor in the slick, slimy residue of garbage coating the floor when combined with her uncontrolled speed. The effect was that, rather than stop, let alone go with it and try to clear the jump, she slid, slid, slid - and shot about a quarter of the way across the gap, like a cat who had made a big show of trying to jump from the kitchen table to a high cabinet, only to go two inches and flop.
Beneath them was what appeared to be a two hundred foot drop into who knew what.
“Oh.” she said.
“...Yeah.” Brock sighed, feeling the rush of air begin to lift him off of Freyja’s back. “Hope we’re deep enough for this to do anything!” He shouted, reaching under his collar and yanking a ripcord. A drab brown parachute burst out from under Brock’s coat, beginning to rapidly decelerate their fall. He heaved himself back onto Freyja, squeezing with his legs in an effort to keep the two attached. The chute strained under their combined weight, but at the very least it would turn a fatal fall into one resulting in minor fractures. Intuitively realizing this, Freyja regressed into her human teenager form, and clung to Brock like a cat trying to stay out of a bath, her body blocking off his sight as she tried to secure finger holds in his scalp.
Their surprise impromptu free jump would come to an end on an island of junk at the bottom of the yawning chasm, set in a great lake of foul black liquid that gave the impression of impending doom even to a standard human. It was a small mercy that Freyja had reverted, or the sudden plunge headlong into the heart of darkness might have overloaded her senses. Still, she tried to play it off at the bottom, her hair frizzed up and body shaking, telling herself to manually unhook her claws and climb down.
“Well, that was fun, let’s go again, woo.” she blatantly lied, PTSD forming in her eyes. She sniffed, and looked around. “Oh. Good.”
The situation only got worse the longer she looked. She - and Brock for that matter - heard sickening crunching and slurping noises. On the other mounds of trash and large chunks of concrete rubble scattered around the black rain pool, human bodies were laid out on their backs, straddled by inky black… things that at first seemed to be crunching into their skulls and torsos with unhinged, predatory jaws. Upon closer look, however, they were merely pressing their bony fingers into their victims’ foreheads, deadlight eyes boring into the unseeing, uncomprehending gaze of stammering, drooling things that were once men. Mafia, casino workers, players, fighters - it made no difference. There was no segregation among the shade larder.
“They’re still alive…” Freyja squeaked, horrified.
A body spasmed, taking ragged breaths as if briefly escaping an eternal coma, but was swiftly and firmly stilled, the shade grasping the man’s face in its vice-like grip and forcefully slamming his head back down, hissing before it continued to rot his mindscape alive.
“Ok, you’re up.” Freyja gave Brock a thumb’s up. Brock was scanning the surroundings, face stern, the lenses of his glasses having turned a striking cobalt blue as he’d activated a dicyanin dye filter. Such a dye was part of a forgotten occult study into auric energies, and was said to allow one to see into otherwise invisible spectrums, and from Brock’s R&D, it was all found to be true. “This place is emanating incredible amounts of negative energy.” He said, a tone of fascination in his hesitant voice. “This must be the target of the bombing. If all of this were released, or…god forbid aerosolized, it could spread for dozens of miles.” He added, deactivating the lenses and beginning to look for a footpath. “Don’t let those things grab you. Think uh…Happy thoughts.” He chuckled nervously.
“Well I’ll try, but it’s going to be difficult if that timer is accurate.” Freyja pointed to a block of C4 which had a whole two minutes left to its name.
The shades turned and looked at the both of them, dozens upon dozens of stygian heads whirling around on their shoulders, some making neck-cracking noises, and white lights fixating on the two new morsels they hadn’t initially noticed.
“See?” Freyja told Brock.
“Uh-huh.” Brock nodded, rubbing his chin as he regarded all the prying eyes. “We’d have to wade through this shit to get to any of the explosives themselves, and we’d need garden shears on poles to cut the wires without also taking the plunge. Doubt this stuff is good for the skin.” He mused, gazing into the abyssal black ooze. “Best bet might be to try and evacuate the area above us. Then again, the damn aerosolized fog is gonna wash over the whole city anyway if we don’t at least get rid of the bombs.” Brock said, mostly to himself. “You seem…well-adjusted to darkness. Dare to dip a finger in the drink, see what we’re working with?”
"As if!" Freyja barked. "Everything this shit touches gets all warped and emo-y. What do you think distilled despair is gonna do?" she shuddered.
Brock put his hands up defensively. “Alright alright, you’ve got a point.” The tall man paced, thinking. “You can breathe fire, yes?”
“Well, I can spit and or throw it at people, yes. Technically, breathing fire is something of a misnomer. I mean, I haven’t tried it, but I could, I guess. Inhale a candle flame or something. I can’t really get burnt, but it doesn’t sound too comfortable, regardless. You know, I think I might be something of an anxious talker. It’s just that I’m slightly absolutely terrified.” she said with a blank face that mismatched her trembling body.
Brock nods along. “I see. C4 doesn’t explode when it burns, lucky for us. Seeing as these are all on electric fuses, theoretically if you melted the whole package, the detonators would detach and sink to the depths of this reeking shit, where their tiny firecracker pop would be just a fart in the wind. Clock’s ticking, but if you have any other ideas, lemme hear ‘em.”
Freyja’s head tilted, and she felt dumb. “Oh. Well, that changes the game, then.”
She cracked out her knuckles and flared a fireball into each palm. In that same moment though, a trio of shades were upon her. She felt the heat drawn out of her body, dousing the balls, as the insectile shadows clung to her in a vice-like grip, making ribs groan. “Shit!” she fell onto her knees, feeling her strength fade as a craptastic childhood of neglect and abuse played on rerun after rerun in her head, years of trauma condensed into a handful of 1-second loops.
The shades, sapient or not, soulless or not, were… was intelligent the right word? It didn’t seem an appropriate designation for something that wasn’t even really a lifeform. But, if it walked like a duck. They had a primordial cunning and understanding of mechanics, some basal common sense. That, or whatever was pulling their strings did. In any case, they weren’t intent on letting these interlopers pull the plug on the firework show. Perhaps they were looking forward to the ensuing buffet the chaos would usher in.
Brock would see the color and definition drain out of Freyja’s body rapidly, her very outline becoming fuzzy. Proximity to the Voidlings would make him briefly weak in the knees as well, wafting waves of despair and utter fear trying to pass through soldier-like stoicism as radioactive particles penetrate walls.
Brock hesitated all of three seconds to fire on the shades, aiming for the areas of their misty, gelatinous forms that didn’t have any Freyja behind them, in case of his bullets overpenetrating. The monsters squealed and shattered apart into flecks of black, which in turn dispersed into mist. Freyja was woozy a moment, before finding her way to her feet again and shaking off the fatigue.
“Fuckin’ reverse depression leeches.” she growled, hackles raised. “Ok, I think Ima need you to cover me.”
“You got it.” Brock nodded, slapping a fresh mag into his pistol and kicking on his night vision in one lens, and the dicyanin dye filter in the other, turning his vision into a vivid aquamarine that allowed him to see the shapes and shadows of the shimmerless shades.
I guess even if they’re just abstractions of the Void in the rough outline of living things, they still have physical bodies right now, so you can put them down with enough firepower just like anything else. That’s valuable information.
Freyja flexed a powerful bicep as she generated another ball of hellfire and took aim at the first C4 pack, lobbing it like an overhand baseball pitch. The projectile soared across the fetid surface of the black rain, splitting a wake in its path, and whistled toward the explosive. It seemed to grow smaller and smaller as it went though, diminishing the farther it went from Freyja, until it anticlimatically pooted itself out a few feet from its target.
“Oh for Christ crackers, god, son of a,” Freyja stumbled for words.
Those pieces of shit were stealing the heat even as the ball flew, weren’t they? In that case, the only recourse was to simply turn up the heat. Unfortunately, that meant assuming hellhound form, and magnifying her senses full-bore, taking in all the sensory overload that entailed.
I’d better get a treat for this. Freyja thought as she morphed.
Her body felt like she had plunged into a lake of freezing hydrofluoric acid as she shifted, the wails of countless condemned spirits penetrating every cell of her being and playing hopscotch on her kidney. She had maybe three blasts, so she’d have to go spreadshot-style.
Rearing back on her hindlegs, chest swelling and shoulders broadening like some kind of hellish canid bear, she launched a huge ball of crimson flame from her snout. Even with Freyja in front of Brock and facing away from him, the heat of the flame, in that instance, would be almost unbearable even through his fire-retardant cloak. Then, it split into three smaller fireballs, each of which curved toward the different walls and pillars where the bombs were affixed. They struck home this time, and incinerated the loads to ash. Still, Freyja’s sensitive ears picked up minute ticking.
“There’s four or five more down here.” she said in a resounding demonic growl that sounded like a layered voice effect, and was almost as inherently unsettling as this godforsaken cesspool itself.
Shades swarmed, trying to overtake them, bodies spinning unnaturally and zigzagging through the air in blatant defiance of the understood rules of motion and momentum.
Brock’s precise gunfire downed many of the unpredictable targets, and he found himself grinning at the challenge they provided. “Keep blasting at ‘em, and hey, thanks for the free suntan!” He joked through the pain of a baked face, a theory forming in his head that keeping things light hearted might be a significant tactical advantage in this place. Eventually the shades were moving a little too wildly for his single gun to track effectively, and he brought one of his knees to his chest in a crane stance for a moment while he withdrew a backup gun from a secondary holster on his ankle. Dual wielding, he was able to plink the doom balloons with independently-aimed shots. “Be quick, they’re starting to swarm!” He advised, noticing the shades were moving more desperately, their erratic, off-putting movements and spider-like chitters growing frantic.
“Right.” Freyja leaped across the mounds with her enhanced strength and reach, bounding powerfully and firing two more successive spreadfire shots as she came within range of the remaining bombs. Then, there was a single block of C4 left, flanked on either side by shades. She heard the whiz of bullets and the shrieks of the rest of the swarm around her, and tried to tune it out, hoping that the guy in the jacket could hold his own while she finished the last leg of the race. Blood was pounding in her eardrums and she felt like she was on the verge of passing out, her very energy being sucked out of her. But, she lit a fire in her belly, figuratively and literally, and surged with renewed purpose and resolve. All that raw power under her hood, and she was the glorified labor mule, partially of her own volition. That had to change if she meant to stand on equal ground with her friends. Cuppy made her see that, made her understand that Richie needed them as much as they needed him, and each other. She realized she wasn’t sure when she started thinking of them as one pack.
This happy thought inoculated her for an instant, and her last burst of flame was true, soaring toward the munition and splitting off, one of the breakaway fireballs incinerating a shade. But, the other missed. Or rather, the shade dodged. In that same movement, its arm stretched like a shadow and grabbed the C4, plucking it from the wall as the rest of its body snapped to, rejoining its limb and taking the literal heat in lieu of the bomb. This, it threw upward, into the claws of another shade hanging upside down from the ceiling - the underside of the circus floor. This shade pressed the block to the ceiling and covered it with its own body, flattening into a tarp of darkness covering and holding the bomb in place. As for the shade who had taken the hit to make this touchdown happen, it jittered in place, seemingly laughing at Freyja and Brock before it broke apart and ceased to exist.
“That timer’s gotta be damn close!” Brock growled, staring up at the brick of yellow explosive and its red illuminated display.
It is. Freyja realized, cringing. Two seconds!
Before either of them could see the moment of truth, however, the black rain, which had been rippling, unnoticed, at their feet, surged, and a wall of liquid like a tsunami divided the room down the middle, cutting Freyja and Brock off from each other. Freyja whirled around, ears folding, freezing in place, as the wave curled over and engulfed her.
-
Above, Luchesi, dressed as a Venetian festival jester, hidden in plain sight amongst the clowns capering about, felt the tremors in his feet and smiled.
The time had come.