Crimson (7 page)

The drive back to the safehouse is sullen. There have been enough lessons for today. We’re the last to drive into the underground parking lot of the safe-house. One van is empty, the door into the building open. The rest are open as people unload. I open my car door and am half out the door when an explosion in the building rips through the silence. It’s followed by the sound of sporadic automatic gunfire. A member of Erik’s team comes running out of the building. She’s covered in blood. Smoke follows her out the door.

“It’s a trap! It’s a bloody trap!” She screams.

The squeal of tyres can be heard on the street above. Suddenly the car park explodes into activity, people running everywhere.

Erik screams at our car, to Theo, “Get them the hell out of here. Go!”

More automatic weapons start adding themselves to the cacophony. Cara grabs an arm and pulls me into the car. Theo punches the accelerator and I’m flung awkwardly over Cara. My feet touch the roof while my face is down between Cara’s knees, looking at the footwell. I’ve looked better. The sound of the car flooring it through the car park echoes hollow.

“How did they find this place?” Theo asks. “Hell girl, what the fuck have you brought down on us?”

Crunch. The car hits something hard, steel on steel. The impact hurls me violently against the forward seats. My shoulder hits something awkwardly, plastic and steel digging into me. It hurts. The pain doesn’t stop. I have no idea what’s going on outside.

Arms guide me back onto the seat. I’m not sure I’m glad to finally be able to see out the window. Behind us soldiers stand around vehicles sub machine guns pointed in our direction. We haven’t travelled more than 50 metres down the road yet we’re facing the wrong direction. Smoke rises up from the bonnet. The rear windscreen shatters as the soldiers open fire. Theo swears.

“Get ready to run for it. This car isn’t going to get us much further. Be ready,” he yells at us.

We make the end of the street, no further. The car’s wheels lock up as one of the damaged engines grinds itself to a halt. It slides sideways into the intersection.

Theo is out of the car instantly. He stands in the doorway and draws a small handgun I didn’t know he had, shooting back at the soldiers over the car roof. At this distance, there are no quivering barn-doors.

“Run you fools. Get the hell out of here!” he yells back at us.

We don’t need to be told twice. Here we are, running again. Any direction will do.

“I know a place we can go,” Cara says as we run. “We need to work out what the hell is happening.”

Cara leads me to a large fenced off block holding nothing but an overgrown forest. The sign at the entrance marks it as the city botanical gardens.

“I used to come here all the time growing up,” she says. “I would to spend days in here. It’s been untended since the war so it’s a little overgrown but I think that might work to our advantage if we need somewhere to hide. At the very least there are so many hidden tracks through here that you could lose anybody if you needed to.”

She walks me down a winding pathway, heavily shaded by the forest growing overhead. We settle underneath a large fig tree that looks over an overgrown grass field, the remains of a crumbling picnic hut distinguishable in front of us. There isn’t another person in sight.

“How are you feeling?” I get the courage to ask her.

“Hungry I guess,” she says, dodging the question.

“How are you really feeling?” I push.

She shuffles up next to me and lays her head into my neck. “Torn. Irreparable. I want to feel sad for them, but I can’t. I can’t accept it. And then there’s you, I wish we could have met under better circumstances. My world is crumbling around me and I want to help you but I’m not sure how long I can do this before I fall apart. You deserve better. I know you want to find your sister and I want to help you. But I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up until I unravel.”

“You’ve given me enough. I can’t ask for more. You don’t have to follow me. I only see it getting worse,” I say.

At that moment, her resolve visibly hardens. She leans back from me, eyes red but alert. She sits there a moment, just looking at me.

“I’m not sure what I can do to help, but I’m in. You stood by me and I’ll stand by you. I know what I’m getting into,” she says, “but I’m not sure where we start.”

“And that’s where I come in,” a voice says, accented mildly Irish, out of nowhere despite us being alone. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for you to slow down?”

“What the hell?” I exclaim, looking around for the source of the voice.

I’m ready to bolt, before I see the cause of my alarm. On a branch above us sits half a metre of exceptionally black crow. My stalker. Up close it’s easy to see she’s far from your typical crow. Her feathers lack the iridescence hues of a normal crow; so pitch black that it’s impossible to make out individual vanes. Hell, she’s so black it’s difficult to focus on her at all. Then there are the faint red eyes, the only identifiable feature. Faint black vapor seeps from her. It makes her appear scorched.

She takes notice of the confused look I give her. “I upset somebody once. It’s a long story.”

“It talks…” Cara looks stunned.

“
She
talks.”

“You’re a construct?” I ask.

“Err, no, not really,” she responds. “It would be closer to say I’m
your
construct, but the way you use the word ‘construct’ isn’t correct. It definitely doesn’t tell the whole story.”

“Wait, hold up. I’m talking to a bird and it’s talking back.”

“As if that’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you today,” she says. “You’ll have to imagining me shrugging here. Birds can’t really do that you know, even the talking ones.”

“What are you then? Do you have a name?” I ask.

“Again, picture me shrugging. What do you want to call me? I am an omen of death. Something you have a lot of experience with lately. You could say that you are the harbinger of death. Thus, I am you. Or yours, there isn’t any difference from my point of view, but I think it might help you if think of it that way. Hmmm, perhaps that’s a bit too dramatic.”

“You are me?” I ask confused.

“You, yours, yes. I’m not a construct though, I was never constructed. I am an intelligent being. I guess I look like a construct in your world though. One day you’ll wonder if there is a difference. No idea on that by the way. Still, we’re not here to discuss philosophy, no? I’ve been called a lot of things before, but if you’re looking for a name, call me Nem.”

“Do you know where my sister is?” I ask.

“No, but I can fill in some of the missing pieces you’re looking for.”

“What missing pieces?”

“I can tell you how they’re using her to find you. Because everything that has happened to you these past days is because of how easily they can find you. Because they’re not playing fair, so I’m here to balance the scale. Because you know how I called you a bringer of death? Frankly you’re not very good at it. Because there are some things you need to learn over the coming days and there are few people left who can teach you. Because you’re looking for one of those last few like yourself and to find her you’re going to need to take in what I teach you quickly.”

“Ok, but what’s that got to do with my sister?” I ask.

“I’m getting there, I’m getting there. It would be too ironic to talk about how impatient you are. To understand who has your sister, you need a history lesson. It’s going to be a long story so get comfortable. We need to go back to what started the veil war, since your generation seems to have lost all knowledge on what really happened. Here’s what you need to know.

“The veil, as you call it, isn’t just these realms of free flowing energy, as most of you humans seem to think. Roaming those energy planes are entities, some sentient, some not so. Some are simple; all they do is feed off of stray energy and each other. Like me, there are others far more intelligent. And they have various intentions behind their existence.

“In histories past, when they’ve decided to interact with humans, humans have called them many things: gods, demons, angels, spirits, familiars. The list goes on. None of those definitions captures their essence, but humans….”

“Gee thanks.” I roll my eyes at her.

Nem ignores me and continues talking. “Before the veil war, the government was run by a circle of talented who, by the very exceptional nature of their abilities, were able to keep control of the population, as governments are wont to do. Those you call Nons, like your parents, were a separate faction, constantly persecuted by that government. I guess it was just for being different. There was a lot of fear about their potential.

“The Nons fought a losing battle. They were divided. A splinter sect was formed by those that were willing to go to any length to bring down the government. And of course, it only takes a few bad apples to ruin things for everyone. Those with malicious intent don’t go looking for angels now do they?

“The government discovered this sect’s plan and panicked, naturally. It turned from run of the mill persecution into a policy of outright elimination. And they saw no difference between Nons, believing any could be corrupted.

“For a long while, the Nons held out, despite the immense pressure upon them from the government. Your parents had a lot to do with that. Things were heading towards a stalemate. People were tiring of the war.

“To break the stalemate, the talented government of the time devised an ingenious plan to empower the non-psychic proletariat in an attempt to bring overwhelming numbers into the war. They developed a fanatical religious military force to hunt Nons. They patterned it on a bastardised memory of an army long forgotten, the Knights Templar. Of course, given the rather broad fanaticism that had been honed in their training, when the government let their dogs off their leash it didn’t take long for them to turn on their masters. The hunters became the hunted.

“Those in the circle running the government quickly lost their heads, but the Templars were non-discriminant. If you were talented you were fair game.  They established their own puppet government and set to work eliminating anybody with even the smallest amount of talent. The Nons, given their greater potential, were particularly targeted. The Templars were relentless to such an extent that there are few talented humans left to tell the true history of the war. The loss of lives and the large scale destruction during the second phase of the war was the greatest devastation humans have ever witnessed. Your generation doesn’t have the remotest idea of what humanity lost to that destruction.

“Nobody ever talks about what the war was about,” I say.

“Maybe they’re ashamed? Who knows? Maybe you’ll be able to find somebody to ask one day.”

“So why are they suddenly targeting me? And how are they using my sister to do it?” I ask.

“As vicious as the Templar are, they’ve always been fairly one-tracked. Shoot first, ask questions later, you know? But now it’s clear somebody else is pulling the strings. And that somebody has been trying to reach out to some of the most malicious of entities from across the veil. That’s where you and your sister come into it. As Nons you have the unique ability to cross the veil. For years they’ve held her, looking for a way to use her as a conduit through the veil. Unwilling to push her too hard in case they damaged her, they’ve had little success. But these are the kinds of entities who have centuries of practice being patient.

“And then they captured you. With you, they now had somebody to experiment with, to push, to learn the best methods to twist your sister against her very nature.”

“So me getting captured made things worse for my sister?” I ask.

“Very much so,” Nem says. “As for how they’re finding you, you and your sister share a bond, a permanent link between you. Most people who spend time together form some sort of bond. For your sister to have hidden it this long is impressive. She did well. But knowing the bond exists between you the government could easily tap it and trace that link to locate you.

“You have a choice to make and considering how long you’ve been sitting here, you need to make it quickly. Then you need to get the hell away from here.”

I interrupt, “What choice?”

“Your choice is this,” Nem continues. “We cut the link. Without it, whoever is watching you won’t be able to use it as an anchor to find you. Once it’s cut though it’s cut for good. You’ll lose that bond with your sister. The other option is to take a page from their book and trace the link in the other direction, to the location of your sister. Of course, without breaking the link, they’re going to know exactly where you are, all the time. You’ll be constantly on the run. How long do you think you can keep that up?”

“That’s not a choice,” I say frustrated. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. And how are we going to do it anyway? How are they doing it?” I ask.

Cara stares at Nem. “Did you bring us together on purpose?”

She turns back to me and begins explaining, “Remote viewing. It’s an ability that, to some extent, allows you to ‘see’ a place remotely. It’s similar to my precognitive ability. But while my talent moves through time to show images, a viewer’s ability lets them move spatially. They normally need an anchor though, something to locate themselves in space else it’s hit and miss at best. Your link with your sister is perfect for that. While there are other talents that can be used for tracking someone, RV works the most consistently. As for knowing somebody able to do it, I know one.” Cara pauses. “Though, she’s going to be difficult to convince.”

“Why, who is it?”

“Yeah…” She drags out the word, trying to avoid it, “I didn’t say it was going to be easy to convince them to help though.”

“It’s her sister,” Nem says.

“You have a sister?” I ask.

“Yeah, I have a sister. We don’t really see eye to eye all that often.” Cara says.

“Where is she?” I ask.

“We don’t speak much. But I know where she’ll be, assuming she’s not out on a job: The Sedition Bar; a talent safehouse slash club on the south side of the city. The name is a play on the Resistance Bar. But it’s, well…. While the Resistance Bar is – was – neutral ground and tended to attract those actually interested in helping the resistance the Sedition Bar on the other hand, while still considered neutral territory tends to attract the more extreme less legal elements of our society. Less welcoming. It’s quite a long walk from where we are and I’m not sure how my sister will take seeing me again.”

 “Right at this moment you have more pressing concerns,” Nem says. “I suggest you work that out somewhere else? If you don’t move now you’re going to have company.”

“Again?” I exclaim.

“Yes well, you did make the choice not to break the link and it’s not going to make life easy for you. You know you could always stay and fight?” she says.

I shake my head. “I think enough I’ve seen enough fighting for a while.”

Nem just lets out a cackling laugh. “You haven’t even started yet girl.”

“Too late!” Cara yells. “Run!”

Across the field I can see soldiers with their telltale white armbands heading towards us. As they get close enough to recognise us, they suddenly pick up the pace, switching from a stalking pace to a flat out run towards us. I snap out of my reverie. Cara edges me to start running. I guess I shouldn’t be told twice. Nem flies off my shoulder and into the sky. How helpful.

We bolt toward the trees, aiming for the nearest walking path. We hit it running. I hope Cara knows where she’s going, though I have some serious doubts. It takes only a few strides along the path for the warm sun to disappear. And while the path is cold and damp, it’s not unpleasant. The vegetation is thick and heavy, almost rainforest-like. In a better time I would have enjoyed coming here.