Tales of the Unquiet Gods (5 page)

"Sergeant, are you feeling okay?"

The cop started, his whole body spasming. For a moment, Mike thought Timmons would fall over, but he caught himself.

"Wha-? Yes, yes I'm-" His words cut off abruptly as a wet, tearing cough ripped through his chest. "I'm-" Another cough sounded as though Timmons's ribs had broken and were trying to shred their way out of his torso. The sergeant splayed his feet against the spasms shuddering through his body, and his free hand - the shaking right hand - dipped into a pocket. It emerged with a white handkerchief.

Timmons pressed the cloth to his mouth, stifling the sound - if not the violence - of his convulsions. Mike's scalp tightened on his skull as the detective bent over. The cop's shirt front writhed as he jerked from the deep, tearing coughs. Nobody else in the room could see: Mike had the best seat in the house. So to speak.

Timmons's tie dangled and twitched in time with his shuddering. As it bounced aside, Mike caught flashes of whatever it was on the cop's chest reflecting the shine of the club's lights.

Something black, shiny and twitching. Inky froth stained the white handkerchief and the sergeant's lips. Mike's stomach clenched so tight he fought the sudden urge to vomit.

Suddenly, the door to the back burst open with a bang. Mike cranked his head around. He saw a tall homeless man with skin nearly as dark as the leather of Mike's jacket. His face was seamed with scars, for all he wasn't that old. In one hand he gripped a length of metal as though it was some kind of sword. He scowled, and his eyes seemed to glow in his face, though with what emotion Mike couldn't tell. That fiery gaze roamed over the club, pausing briefly on Mike. An eyebrow quirked up, and then his attention snapped to Timmons. He raised his club and pointed it at the stricken cop.

"You!"

Without a word, Timmons spun on his heel and staggered toward the door. Crouched half over, cloth still pressed to his mouth, the cop straight-armed the club's heavy door. A muffled squawk sounded as he went through.

With a muttered curse, the bum made to follow. His first step into the club, however, his foot came down on an overlooked bottle. The bottle slid out from under his foot, and caromed off a succession of chairs before somehow coming to rest standing upright.

At the same time, the bum's foot went out from under him, sending him headlong to the floor. With a strangled grunt, he managed to get his hands under him on the way down. As he hit, a shiny bit of something flew out from under him.

It skipped off the floor and flew right at Mike's head. He whipped a hand up and felt something smack into his palm, just as the homeless guy lunged off the floor with an explosive grunt. Mike felt the man's glare as if it was a summer sunlight on his skin. He was astonished to see the man cock his head and then wink at him. Then the man moved so quickly he seemed to teleport through the front door.

Mike found himself on his feet, following Timmons and the nameless bum without a conscious decision. He vaulted an upturned chair, and ignored both the twinges from his ribs and Frank's angry yell from the stairs up to the offices. He was probably fired, anyway. And if he still had a job, he wouldn't lose it over that, so what did it matter? Mike slowed at the door, cracking it just enough to get outside. He was mindful of the cry he'd heard, and didn't want to duplicate it.

He needn't have bothered. Aside from scattered medical supplies, there wasn't anybody on the other side of the door except for a growing crowd of skimpily-dressed club-goers huddled together against the evening chill. He singled out one slimly androgynous form clad in black leather leggings and a shimmering pink top.

"Hey, the guy who just ran through here: where'd he go?"

A dozen voices babbled a dozen different responses, and Mike felt his face slide into what he thought of as his Don't Mess With Me Right Now mask. Amused grass-green eyes locked gazes with his own brown orbs.

Mike swept his arm across his body in a cutting gesture. Combined with the angry-face the chatter died, cut off cold.

"Not everybody," he pointed at his chosen source, "just you."

"Mikey, sweetheart, is Bella's open?" The voice of smokey honey combined with the distinctive eyes snapped Mike's growing ill-temper like the proverbial twig. Only one person besides his mother called him "Mikey."

"Anne?" Anne Cavanaugh was one of the few people at the center where Mike trained who could keep up with him, big bruiser that he was. And big as he was, Anne was lightning chained in human form. She couldn't take him, but he had a hell of a time catching her at all. "Guy in a suit followed by a tall homeless guy with a club: which way?"

Mike watched the humor lurking in Anne's eyes fade as she caught the tension suffusing his frame. She jerked a thumb to one side, pointing to his left.

"Female EMT took off after 'em," Anne informed him. "Need backup?"

But Mike was already moving.

As soon as he heard Yasmin had followed the bizarre duo, Mike spun and ran. His long legs ate up the pavement as he dodged and juked around passersby. Fortunately, foot traffic was lighter this late at night. That and most people get out of the way of a big white bouncer moving at speed. Especially when he's wearing a "get out of my way" expression.

A couple walking arm in arm split to either side of Mike as he went through. To reveal an older woman bent over something on the sidewalk. Strangling a curse, Mike skidded to a stop, just short of bowling her over.

"I think that man is very ill," she told the world at large. Her voice quavered but Mike could see a glint of something undefinable in her bright eyes. She pointed at her feet, drawing Mike's gaze downward.

A wadded white handkerchief lay crumpled on the sidewalk. The cloth huddled forlorn in a shiny mess of viscous fluid. Some of which was the inky, oily black Mike expected to see once he recognized Timmons's rag. Some of the fluid was a milky pearlescent. For all it was one pool of yuck, the two colors didn't mix.

Mike looked into the old woman's curious gaze.

"Which way?" he asked.

They stood at the entrance to a shadowed alley. Mike couldn't tell how far it went, or even what it contained. The woman pointed down it with one crooked finger.

"I hope that girl can help him," the old woman said as Mike walked into the dark alley.

A feeling of strangeness - of some menacing other - drifted on the night air. As he stalked down the alleyway, Mike questioned his purpose. A weird - and creepy, and maybe dangerous - cop ran off. A weird - and scary, and very dangerous - homeless guy chased after him. Then Yasmin took off after them both. And she was a paramedic: young, female and not scary at all that he was aware of. And he still hadn't asked her out.

Mike took some heart from that as he crept through the dark. The other two could go hang, as far as Mike was concerned. Especially Sergeant Timmons, NYPD, he of the persistently accusatory questions.

The buildings around him walled out the noises of the city, weirdly distorting the sounds that meant normal to Mike. A siren in the distance became the cry of some great hunting beast. The rumble of vehicles, above and below the street both, morphed into the shuddering function of some monstrous digestion. And the ever-present chatter of humanity took on the ominous, skittering tones of the distant voices he'd tried not to hear earlier in the evening, while unconscious on the bar floor.

Mike shivered.

The bite of a fall night in the city crawled inside his jacket and raised goosebumps on his bare scalp, slick now with sweat. He rubbed his free hand over it and made a note to shave sometime soon. Assuming "soon" ever came.

Mike heard the quiet sounds of a struggle from somewhere ahead of him. A grunt, the scuff of feet, a muffled clang, and sounds he couldn't identify drifted to his ears. Mike picked up his pace, and saw dim light in front of him. Despite the risk, he broke into a run when he heard an anguished cry cut off by the dull thud of flesh hitting cement.

Mike came into an open loading area, dimly lit by a dull and faded security bulb. What he saw froze his marrow and locked his muscles tight. Mike skidded to a stop and went down on one knee very nearly right next to Timmons. Who barely looked human anymore.

Mike's stomach rebelled, but his throat was clamped too tightly shut to vomit – though he so desperately wanted to.

Timmons squatted on bandy legs, arms hanging limp at his sides. His head was thrown back, and the light of the dim bulb shone on his glasses. His shirt hung in tatters from his shoulders. Rising out of the ruin of his suit, clawing and writhing and grasping at the air rose the same sanity-shredding mass of tentacles and spines Mike had seen in his nightmares.

Infinitely worse than that, however, was the bulbous protuberance that forced the cop's jaws wide. An arm-thick column of muscle studded with spine-like hairs writhed more than two feet out of Timmons throat. Shiny with slime, the abomination culminated in an orifice that could only be called a maw. Fangs the green-brown of tobacco juice set in a shapeless, eyeless bag of naked muscle clashed together with a sound that froze Mike's guts.

The bum leaned against the wall, just under the light. He favored his left side, and from his heavy breathing and the lines carved into his face, Mike knew he was in serious pain. He held his odd club out in front of him like a shield. The dim light set the edge of the metal bar on fire, and it seemed to glow with a clean, golden light of its own.

The thing that rose from Timmons open mouth ceased its gnashing and turned toward Mike. It gave off waves of malevolent curiosity that he did not like in the least. And then, in a voice that took Mike back to a sea of mind-rending utterances, it spoke.

"Tch-tch-tch, ah. Krkrkrtcha, come, meat and join us." The stridulating, sibilant   words were barely understandable, and at the same time horribly, horribly clear. "You shall make us a strong, new host." To Mike's horror, the muscular stalk stretched toward him, turning the once-human body with it.

Mike, still on one knee, cried out in disgust and fear as the hideous thing shambled toward him. In reflex, he thrust his hand out in front of him, and did something he hadn't done in his adult life.

Mike prayed.

Heat flashed through his hand, and a brilliant gold glare banished the night. The un-Timmons jerked away and screamed, a shrill, thin shriek that bounced off the walls around them and bored into Mike's head.

In that moment, the bum leaped away from the wall that supported him. With a shout, he took a long step and brought his club sweeping down. The bar left a trail of shimmering phosphorescence as it sped toward its target. Instead of bludgeoning the monstrosity, however, it cut cleanly - almost effortlessly - through that dark, fleshy column.

The thing's scream cut off as its maw fell. Mike saw the horrible mouth hit the pavement… and splash, going from solid flesh one second to inky, stinking fluid upon impact. Likewise, the column of its neck and the mass on Timmons's chest melted into gelatinous slime. Timmons himself fell to his knees, coughed and vomited that same odd mixture of inky slime and pale fluid. He sighed once and slumped over on his side, apparently unconscious.

Mike blinked, trying to make sense of what he'd just witnessed.

The bu- no, the fearsome street warrior walked over to Timmons, taking care not to step in the puddle of ichorous goo. He nudged the fallen cop with one foot. The effort proved too much, and he staggered several steps to fetch up against a dumpster.

Mike got to his feet and started over to him, but the warrior shook his head and pointed across the clearing. A boneless mound, clad in a paramedic's uniform, lay collapsed against the building, huddled just inside a door. Mike's heart rose into his throat.

"Take c-c-care of the g-girl first."

Yasmin lay in a heap against one wall. An arm-full of medical gear lay scattered about her. He dropped to his knees, unsure what to do. She was unconscious - to have lain unmoving through that episode, she'd have had to be - slumped on her side, in an almost fetal curl. A rising bruise - crowned with a split over her cheekbone - marred most of the exposed side of her face. Even as forceful as that blow must have been, it couldn't be what knocked her out. He knew he wasn't supposed to move someone with a possible head or neck injury, but he hadn't even seen what happened.

Mike's fingers itched. Absently, he scrubbed them on his jacket, and thought furiously. The itching grew to a fierce tingling, as though thousands of tiny bees buzzed just under his skin. Distantly he realized he held something in his other hand, something he'd thrust at the Timmons-monster. Something that resonated with the tingling in his fingers.

Mike glanced at his other hand, fingers clenched tight around- clenched around what? Whatever it was had both hands tingling now. He uncurled his fingers to reveal a small gold coin, shining in the palm of his hand. Dim light from the single security lamp hit the coin and flashed golden brilliance into his eyes.

The world blurred.

Everything but the coin: that was clear and crisp to his sight. Mike's pulse thundered in his ears, in the cavity between them. His pulse slowed, and boomed in the cavernous place he now seemed to inhabit. BOOM, the hollow sound rang, and a net of crazed red lines sprang up in his vision. BOOM, and they pulsed, now bright, now dim, against a darker red background. BOOM, and that same brilliant golden light flared in the middle of the net.