Spirit Breaker (11 page)

The helmet’s ecto-spectral viewing system amplified the post-apocalyptic feel of his surroundings, and he struggled to shake the feeling that he was descending into the depths of Hades itself.
 

Within seconds, his combat boots touched down on the ground. Machine pistol out and ecto-rifle powered up, he was prepared to rapidly switch between the two weapons if the situation called for it.

The red darkness waited.

“All clear. Not picking up any signs of the—”

He broke off, having noticed something strange. The floor was covered with lumpy shapes. Almost as if someone had dumped military sandbags across the mall’s main plaza.

“What is it?” Casca voice crackled over the comm in his helmet.

Talon approached the first shape and went stock-still. He suddenly knew what he was looking at and his stomach lurched. What he’d initially mistaken for sandbags were the bodies of the cult members, features obscured by their hoodies even in death. A feeling of dread slashed through him. He was standing at the center of a mass graveyard.
 

He kneeled before the first dead cultist. A wide-eyed stare greeted him from beneath the hood as Talon turned him over, the dead man’s neck coated red. He had opened his own throat with the crimson-caked sickle that lay on the floor next to his body. Looking more carefully at the corpse’s arms, he noticed familiar tattoos. The same strange circle with triangles Casca had shown him earlier.

The mark of the necromancer.

The broken forms of the Lightwalker’s followers lined the plaza as far as he could see. The colossal loss of life, the inherent madness in the act—it all revolted him. But San Francisco had taught him that mass suicide could power occult ritual. So what purpose could this terrible sacrifice serve?
 

A shrill beeping broke him out of his thoughts, and he realized the EMF reader in his right glove was picking up some crazy readings.

“Talon, what the hell is going on?” Casca’s words were drowned out by sharp bursts of static that quickly built into a bone-chilling, keening shriek.

Something
was
out there in the dark.

Something that regarded him as an intruder.

“Talon!”

He didn’t respond, every fiber of his being focused on the shifting mass of shadows before him. His breath clouded before him as blurry shapes separated from the encroaching darkness and appeared in the visualization system of his helmet. There was swirl of rapid, staticky motion as, one after another, spectral silhouettes grew visible. They vibrated toward him, closing in from every direction, too many to count or keep track of.
 

He performed a 360-degree scan of the plaza—ghosts everywhere he looked. Pallid monsters, eyes like pits, now pouncing toward him at predatory speed, moving in staccato bursts. The incoming specters fazed in and out, a rapidly approaching swarm. The air charged, crackling with spectral static.
 

The Reaper wasn’t their only problem any longer. The bastard now commanded an army of the dead!

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

THE SCREENS INSIDE the Comm Center exploded with spectral activity. Ghosts were homing in on Talon’s position from every direction.
 

“If you guys have any helpful advice, now would be the time to share it.”

Talon’s voice filled the mobile command center, a trace of fear in his tone. The Delta Operator had stared death in the face on more than one occasion, but engaging a swarm of spirits clearly wasn’t something they’d covered at Fort Bragg.
 

Adira clutched the edge of the console. She’d never experienced anything like this before. Back at the Santa Ana crash site, one apparition had been enough to send shivers of terror up her spine. Talon now faced about twenty of them, all weaponized by the Lightwalker’s psychic power. The necro-armor and weaponry were designed to give Talon a fighting chance against the Reaper. With the help of Dr. Mason’s Spirit Breaker technology, he might be able to hold his own against one entity. No way in hell would he stand a chance against this army of wraiths. The entities were just too fast, too powerful for one man to successfully ward them off and not succumb to their overwhelming numbers.

“He needs our help,” Casca said. He turned toward her. “Tell your driver to bring us closer to the mall. I’m going in.”
 

“You’ll get yourself killed.”

“What about Talon? If we don’t help him, he’s done for.”

Adira nodded and palmed her mic. “Steve, pull up to the main entrance of that JC Penney.”

The next words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “I’m coming with you.”

Casca eyed her with surprise as the mobile command center burst into motion and shot toward the shopping center. Adira knew it was suicide, but if the billionaire was willing to risk his life, she couldn’t stay behind. There were no spare suits though fortunately they had a few extra rifles and helmets.
 

We’ll see them coming—and might be able to hit a few— but we’re going to be completely exposed
, she thought, her heart pounding. The spirits they failed to stop would just pass through them and kill them instantly upon contact. What they were about to do was completely insane. Was this billionaire just an egomaniac with a death wish? And why was she following along with his madness?
 

Chan jumped up from the comm center’s flashing screens, a disturbed expression etched into his face.
 

What was it now?

“We have another problem. The Ampton police scanners are going nuts. Sounds like the whole precinct is about to descend on this mall. All units are being rerouted.”

Almost as if to lend weight to Chan’s words, sirens filled the night. The first cops were closing in.
 

“What’s going on?”

Casca’s eyes glittered with dark realization. “This is what it’s all been about,” he said. “The copycat murders, going after Benson, gathering a new following. The Reaper is repeating the past.”

Casca was echoing her earlier words.
The Reaper was about to relive the confrontation that had cost him his life. But this time around, he’d have a horde of spooks at his disposal—and the outcome of the battle would be quite different.
 

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

THE ECTO-PULSE rifle hummed with power as Talon lined up one of the ghosts in its cross-hairs and squeezed the trigger.
 

Here we go!

No laser beam or projectile shot out of the weapon’s muzzle. Instead, an invisible magnetic wave warped and distorted the spirit’s shape before obliterating it into whirling tendrils of energy.
 

There was no time to marvel at the rifle’s power. More specters were zeroing in on his position, and Talon unleashed a firestorm of ecto-sonic destruction. He kept moving as he fired, desperate to break out of the tightening band of ghosts. For each spirit he destroyed, two new ones took its place. How to escape an enemy that wasn’t bound by space? An enemy that couldn’t be killed – because it was dead already. Even though the magnetic waves tore the spirits apart, they’d be able to reconstitute themselves seconds later.
 

Talon was no stranger to overwhelming odds. There had been many a close call back in Afghanistan when it appeared the Taliban would overrun his team. Superior firepower and training counted for a lot, but being outnumbered by an endless stream of enemies would break the strongest fighting force in time. But at least the terrorists had been flesh and blood. Facing the dead was fraught with existential terror that easily invited despair.

The air rippled, and a phantom materialized to his right. The entity tore into Talon, but unlike the attack by the Reaper the other night, it wasn’t able to pass through his body. His necro-armor lit up with sizzling energy as the apparition made contact. The ghost reared back, its howl reverberating over the helmet’s speakers. The shrieking voices of the dead cultists cried out in unison, a dirge of the damned. Talon wished he could just kill the audio and shut out the unnerving sounds. Seeing these lost souls was bad enough; having to listen to their unearthly cries was unbearable.

He retreated, blasting away, more machine than man as he carved a path through the ghostly horde. Two spirits burst from the floor and attacked. The armor repelled them, but the impact sent him flying. He banged into the ground, his helmet cracking against the stone surface.
 

Reality frizzed out for a second as the para-spectral visualization system went offline. For one blissful moment, his view-screen turned dark—the ghosts vanishing from view, the keening cries dying down. The spirits were still present but invisible to his senses, a welcome illusion of being alone in the now eerily quiet plaza.
 

The respite from the ghostly onslaught didn’t last as the system came back online and a phalanx of fast approaching specters invaded his reality. They may have succeeded in hurtling him to the ground, but the necro-armor was holding its own. He remembered all too well how the Reaper had dragged Benson’s frame across the ceiling. These ghosts could pass through matter—enter his body, stop his heart, or toss him around like a ragdoll. This suit was saving his ass. Imagine an entire strike force outfitted in Spirit Breaker technology. A group like that would demolish any supernatural threat they encountered. Then again, maybe that was Casca’s plan all along when he’d invested in the Spirit Breaker technology.

As much as he marveled at the new battle tech, Talon was an old-fashioned soldier at heart. He went to check his trusty machine pistol and realized that it must have been lost in the fray. No time to dwell on it as another specter surged into his body armor and violently reared back in a flash of sizzling energy.
 

Talon cut a hasty retreat into the food court’s maze of bolted down tables and chairs. The spirit shimmered after him, passing through solid objects as if they weren’t there, unaffected by the material world.

Within seconds the entity was upon him, bony hands reaching.

Talon’s gloved fist snapped out in a punch. Instead of slipping through the immaterial assailant, it made contact with the ghost. A shock wave of white-hot energy erupted on impact.

Talon stumbled backward. Sensed movement above him. He looked up and saw a specter suspended in mid-air. A pallid, cadaverous monster, its features blurred. The vague impression features: a mouth like raw a wound, eyes like black marbles.

He brought up the ecto-rifle.
 

Fired.

A burst from the weapon seemed to decapitate the entity in mid-descent, the ghostly body crumpling.
 

One thing was for certain—the specters were noticeably slower than the Reaper. If the ghosts drew power from the Lightwalker, perhaps powering so many of these entities was taking its toll on him. If the psychic’s energy was now dispersed among too many ghosts, it offered a glimmer of hope. Maybe, if he could hold them back long enough, this army of the dead might exhaust the cult leader.

Of course, that gave rise to another important question:
Where the hell was the psychic?

The sound of creaking metal suddenly cut through the food court, and a series of violent tremors rattled the bolted-down furniture. Steel screamed and an invisible force ripped a table from its anchoring, the spirits combining their energy to manipulate physical reality.

With an ear-splitting screech, the table shot toward Talon. His necro-armor could deflect spirits, but was useless against material objects. The bastards had already adjusted their tactics.
 

The table rammed into Talon and sent him flying. A nearby gated-up storefront filled his field of vision, followed by the inevitable teeth-chattering impact. Metal creaked as he crumpled to the ground, and he exhaled sharply. The armor had cushioned the fall somewhat, but he sensed this was merely the beginning of his opponents’ new strategy. Who knows what else these ghosts might throw at him?
 

Firing non-stop, he scrambled back to his feet. As he looked up, Talon saw the Reaper looming right in front of him. The unholy master of the spectral horde had arrived.
 

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

CASCA SHOVED THE door open and burst into the foggy night. The driver had as instructed pulled the mobile command center right up to the JC Penney’s main entrance. The billionaire had activated both his necro-helmet and ecto-rifle, and his body was burning up with adrenaline.
 

Strange to feel so alive when he was about to face the dead.
 

Adira appeared on his side, the vibration of her own weapon cutting the silence of the night. He’d read up on the parapsychologist soon after his meeting with Dr. Mason and had found her backstory fascinating. Here was a woman who had survived a haunting that destroyed her entire family. But instead of letting her experiences crush her spirit, she’d risen above past trauma and remade herself. From the easy way she handled the rifle, Casca guessed she hadn’t spent the last few years exclusively with her head buried in books.
 

He barreled toward the entrance, Adira trailing him. Rifles leading the way, they barged into the mall and navigated the deserted department store. They made sure to stay close to each other and cover each other’s backs. Every successive step brought them closer to the moment when they’d confront the Lightwalker’s army of spirits.
 

As they advanced, Casca’s mind kept turning to that day in the library when the cult leader took his sister’s life. He’d caught a glimpse of a dark shape among the aisles of books. A shifting silhouette of pure blackness, almost as if someone had carved a hole into the very fabric of reality. That defining incident had been his first and only tangible experience of the supernatural.