Night Terrors (3 page)

The dark shards in Jinx’s back were gone now, as were those that had struck him in the front. His clothes were blood-stained and had vertical cuts in the fabric where the shards had hit, but his wounds were already in the process of healing. I have to admit that there are certain advantages to being a nightmare made flesh.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Jinx started running east down the sidewalk, his huge shoes beating a rapid
slap-slap-slap
cadence as he went. I cast a quick look back at the unlucky trio. Randy lay on the sidewalk, his skin ashen. If he was still alive – and that was a big if – I knew he wouldn’t be for much longer. Dale knelt next to his friend, both hands pressed to Randy’s throat wound now, not that it would do much good. Cubs-Cap – whose name I still didn’t know – lay flat on his belly, unaware that he didn’t have to worry about being hit by flying daggers anymore.

I wanted to say something, apologize for not capturing Quietus before he’d lodged one of his dark shards in Randy’s neck. But I knew nothing I could say would help, so I turned and ran after Jinx, once more grateful that I value function over fashion when it comes to footwear. Flats may not be stylish, but you try chasing down a homicidal nightmare in heels.

Quietus headed eastward toward the lake, moving as swiftly as the shadows he resembled. He wove between pedestrians without knocking them down – which is more than I can say for Jinx. If someone didn’t get out of his way fast enough, he’d shove them to the side, or jam an elbow in their ribs. Sometimes he’d leap over them, as if his legs were made of coiled springs. There was no way I could keep up with Jinx at his full speed, so I ran as hard as I could and tried to make sure I at least kept the two Incubi in my sight.

As I ran, I shouted, “Out of the way! Official Shadow Watch business!” in the hope that my warning might spare a few pedestrians bruises or cracked ribs. I’ve found that in the midst of chaos, people look for whatever guidance and reassurance they can get. So even if they’ve never heard of the Shadow Watch – and since we’re
way
beyond a secret organization, no one has – shouting in an authoritative voice and using the word
official
was enough to get most people’s attention and ensure their cooperation.

As we ran, my mind raced as fast as my feet. I still couldn’t figure out what was happening. Why would Quietus – up to now a thoroughly professional and, more importantly,
restrained
assassin – suddenly go batshit crazy and start throwing dark shards around like they were confetti? It didn’t make sense. Sure, we’d been on his trail, but we hadn’t been
that
close. As an Incubus, he was as capable of sensing others of his kind as Jinx was, and there was a good chance he would’ve caught wind of us in time to make a run for it. So why attack us? Quietus had to know his dark shards would have no lasting effect on Jinx. All he’d managed to do was alert us to his presence and kill an innocent bystander in the bargain.

Then it hit me. Not only was Quietus highly skilled at what he did, he was an Incubus, which meant he was
inhumanly
skilled. I’d assumed that Quietus had been trying to hit me or Jinx with his first dark shard but accidently hit Randy instead. But Quietus never missed, which meant that he had
wanted
to hit Randy. Randy had been his intended target all along. Jinx and I had stumbled across him by accident, forcing Quietus to act.

Anger and frustration welled inside me. Without knowing it, we’d located Quietus’ target, and instead of protecting him, we’d gotten into a fight with him and his friends, and ended up standing around like morons as Quietus took him out. Sanderson wouldn’t just be displeased. He’d be
furious
. But I didn’t care. There was no way our boss could be madder at me than I was at myself.

My calf muscles started to cramp. The pain was mild at first, and I was able to keep running without losing much speed. But the pain soon intensified and spread to my thighs. I gritted my teeth and tried to fight past the pain, but I began to slow down despite my efforts. Ideators like me don’t need to sleep, but our bodies still require rest, just like anyone else.

I wasn’t about to let a little thing like weary muscles keep me from doing my job, though. I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out an object that resembled an asthma inhaler. I jammed it in my mouth and sucked in a deep lungful of chemicals A wave of warmth rushed through my body and washed away the weariness. Not only did my legs no longer hurt, they felt ready to run a marathon.

Strong and refreshed, I started picking up speed again, and I tucked the inhaler back into my pocket. Thank the First Dreamer for rev. Sometimes I think I couldn’t survive my job without it.

I was more determined than ever to catch Quietus and bring him to justice. And if he happened to get killed while trying to evade capture… well, I wouldn’t shed any tears over his loss, and I doubted anyone at the Rookery would either, Sanderson included.

I figured Quietus’ main objective at this point would be to find a Door. Their number and location change every night, which makes locating them a real pain in the ass. Shadow Watch officers get a little help in this department, though. Our wispers – communication devices that resemble wide silver bracelets – can locate Doors, provided we’re close enough to them. Only Incubi can open Doors, however, so if I don’t have Jinx with me, it doesn’t matter how many Doors I find; I’m not going through. Incubi can sense Doors without any technological help, but it’s hard for them to do on the fly. As long as we kept Quietus running, he wouldn’t have the opportunity to stop and search for a Door, which was exactly what we wanted. Catching him would be a hell of lot easier if he remained on this side. If he found a Door and passed through to Nod, tracking him down would be a lot harder.

After leading us down various streets and alleys, Quietus brought us to Millennium Park. Specifically, to the AT&T Plaza, where the sculpture called
Cloud Gate
is located – although because of its shape, locals refer to it simply as the Bean. If you’ve never been to Chicago, you’ve probably seen pictures of it or watched a movie in which it was featured. As numerous Internet sites will tell you, it’s made from almost two hundred stainless steel plates welded together and highly polished so there are no visible seams. It’s thirty-three by sixty-six by forty-two feet, and weighs one hundred tons. Its surface reflects and distorts the city’s skyline, kind of like a gigantic three-dimensional funhouse mirror, and it’s a favorite stop for tourists.

I wasn’t sure what Quietus was thinking, leading us to so much open space. At this time of night, the plaza was empty, and the lack of bystanders – coupled with the scarcity of cover – meant that I could get off any number of clean shots at Quietus. Of course, that would work both ways, and with Jinx having outdistanced me by a dozen yards or more, I no longer had my psychotic clown partner to intercept Quietus’ dark shards for me.

The instant the thought occurred to me, I dodged to the side, just as Quietus spun around, flicked out a hand, and sent a dark shard hurtling toward me. If I hadn’t changed course, the shard would’ve pierced my heart, but as it was, it flew past, missing me by less than a foot. A bit too close for comfort, but a miss was a miss, and I’d take it.

Quietus had barely paused to throw his dark shard, but in the split second it had taken him to complete the maneuver Jinx found the chance he needed. He gave another of his great leaps and closed the distance between himself and Quietus. The assassin had already spun back around and resumed running, and so he didn’t see Jinx coming.

Jinx landed on Quietus’ back like a ton of bricks covered in clown-white makeup, and the two of them went down in a rolling heap of living nightmare. They were both on their feet in an instant. A pair of dark shards appeared in Quietus’ hands – actually, it looked as if they
were
his hands – while Jinx reached into his inner jacket pocket and withdrew an impossibly long sledgehammer.

Jinx had an advantage over the assassin. While Quietus created weapons out of his own substance, Jinx used his Incubus abilities to store weapons on his person. Jinx swung his hammer, struck Quietus a blow on his left shoulder, and the shadowy assassin went flying.

“Fore!” Jinx yelled.

Quietus flew toward the Bean and slammed into its side hard enough to leave a good-sized dent before bouncing off and falling to the ground.
Crap,
I thought. Now Sanderson would have to send M-gineers to fix the Bean. I sighed. There went my holiday bonus.

Quietus lay on the ground, stunned. Jinx had hit him hard enough to kill a human, but Incubi are made of tougher stuff. Quietus wouldn’t lie there long, so we had to work fast.

Jinx ran toward Quietus, sledgehammer lifted high over his head. Subtlety isn’t one of my partner’s prime attributes.

“Stay clear!” I told him. I stopped running, aimed my trancer, and flicked the selector switch to the highest setting. Since Incubi are made of Maelstrom energy, they tend to be immune to it – at low levels. But higher levels create an energy overload within their system, wounding and in some cases killing them.

Using my trancer at the highest setting would quickly deplete the remaining charge, but I knew it was the best chance we had at taking Quietus down, so I fired. A blazing beam of swirling multicolored light shot toward Quietus, so bright that Jinx averted his eyes. I squinted mine and kept my gaze trained on Quietus as best I could.

In the time it had taken me to stop and fire, the assassin had started to rise, and he was already halfway to his feet when the trancer’s beam streaked toward him. His reflexes were inhumanly fast, though, and he managed to leap out of the beam’s path. The beam struck the Bean – making an even larger dent this time, damn it! – and ricocheted, this time angling upward toward the sky. The beam dissipated as it should have, but then a small sphere of Maelstrom energy appeared in midair above the Bean. Golf ball-sized at first, it rapidly increased until it was as large as a car.

I ran over to Jinx, who had lowered the sledgehammer to his side and was gazing up at the expanding sphere of multicolored energy.

“What the hell is happening?” I asked. “Is that… an Incursion?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. You want me to throw the sledge at it?”

To show how desperate I was, I actually considered it. But before I could say anything, the sphere shuddered and then exploded in a burst of light so intense that I had to shield my eyes. Afterimages danced on my retinas, and I knew that Jinx’s vision was similarly obscured, which meant we were vulnerable to attack.

“Back to back!” I told Jinx, and given our proximity – not to mention how long we’d worked together – we had no trouble sensing where the other was and pressing our backs together. This position wouldn’t keep me safe from a hurled dark shard, but it was better than nothing. I had no idea if the burst of light had temporarily blinded Quietus – remember, he had no visible eyes – but I hoped it would momentarily distract him if nothing else.

And that’s when I heard the sound.

A strained groaning, loud and deep. It made me think of a sleeping giant starting to come awake and stretch his gargantuan limbs. My vision hadn’t cleared yet, and at first I didn’t believe what I was seeing. Steel legs – thin and jointed like an insect’s – emerged from each side of the Bean, six in all. They braced against the ground, pushed, and one hundred tons of tourist attraction slowly rose into the air.

Jinx started laughing. The worse things get, the more he likes it, and when six stainless steel tentacles protruded from the top of the Bean and began writhing in the air like giant serpents, his laughter grew until I thought he might literally bust a gut. I hate it when that happens. He’s useless for hours afterward, and the mess is
horrendous
, not to mention the smell.

As Beanzilla lumbered forward, steel tentacles lashing the air, I could only stand and stare. If we’d been in Nod, I’d have had no trouble accepting Beanzilla’s existence. The rules are different over there –
very
different. But as far as I knew, this sort of reality distortion wasn’t possible on Earth, but there it was, big as life and twice as ugly.

At first I thought Quietus had done something to animate the sculpture, although I had no idea how he might’ve accomplished such a feat. But he appeared as surprised as we were. For a moment, he stood and watched as the monstrous living artwork advanced, but then he began hurling dark shards at it with both hands, throwing them so fast that it was almost as if he were firing an automatic weapon at the creature. The shards struck Beanzilla only to bounce off, without doing more than leaving behind dings and scratches.

More work for the M-gineers,
I thought. Of course, the M-gineers wouldn’t be able to do squat unless we could figure out A) what had brought Beanzilla to life and B) reverse the process.

Quietus’ barrage of blades had one other effect: it drew Beanzilla’s attention. The creature swung toward Quietus and although – just like the assassin – it had no identifiable facial features, I could feel it scrutinizing him with a primitive intelligence. Quietus, perhaps out of desperation, continued firing dark shards at Beanzilla as if they were fléchettes, but to no better effect than before. One of the creature’s tentacles whipped toward Quietus and wrapped around him, pinning his arms to his side. Then it lifted the assassin into the air and waved him around as if eager to show the world its new toy.

Jinx stopped laughing. “No fair! He’s ours!”

He let forth a battle cry that sounded like a cross between a dyspeptic Viking heading into battle and a deranged lion that had overdosed on PCP. He ran toward Beanzilla, sledgehammer gripped in both hands.

Beanzilla turned to meet his advance, and as Jinx leaped into the air, ready to do his best John Henry impression on the monster, two of its tentacles streaked toward him. One caught him in midair and coiled around his midsection, while the other tore the sledgehammer from his grip. The tentacle squeezed, and the sledge’s wooden handle splintered. The tentacle then relaxed its hold, and the pieces of Jinx’s hammer tumbled to the ground.