Bleed Away the Sky Read online

  For the Ovessa. For the Ovessa. For the Ovessa.

  CHAPTER 19

  Audrey leaned against the car and smoked another cigarette. To say she had no idea what to do would be an understatement. Paralyzed with indecision, she just kept smoking.

  Part of her wanted to return home, take whatever was coming. Just face it, accept it. There was a certain relief in the idea of surrendering. But the more she thought about that, the more it pissed her off. She hadn’t asked for this, for a mother getting killed before passing down some bullshit arcane secrets to her. Her life hadn’t exactly been easy. She resented what was being asked of her.

  Did she believed everything Mr. Inanis had said? Maybe? Yes? She didn’t know. Not only did it fit with what little she remembered about her mom, it fit with the hole she felt in her life. Of course she was supernatural being with magical blood that saved the world – as if she didn’t have enough anxiety in her life. Always something wrong, always something to be paranoid about. This would explain why, she felt. In some ways it was liberating, this knowledge. Mostly it was terrifying. Maybe she was as crazy as her mother

  She had borrowed Elliot’s penknife and made a tiny cut along the tip of her middle finger. He’d been pissed, but she ignored him. Audrey had stared at the bit of blood that welled up, wondering what all the fuss was about. A normal reddish color, it certainly didn’t glow or display any super powers. She sucked on her finger, wondering about these other people who Mr. Inanis said were searching for her, those he said would force her to use her abilities. Good luck with that.

  “We can’t just sit here, Audrey.”

  She nodded, barely hearing her brother. What would it mean to use her powers? Would she go crazy as she remembered her mom, or was that just her mom? Would her whole life become dedicated to it? She knew her mom had a job, but she couldn’t recall what it was. Something menial. Audrey never wanted children, but would she be expected to carry on the line? Could she sentence a daughter to this life?

  According to Mr. Inanis, if she didn’t give in, the world could end. She found that somewhat hyperbolic, given that she was just a twenty-four-year-old web designer from northern California. Remarkably short, dry blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, nails bitten down, bags under her eyes – she was all too human. She drew a line in the gravel with her shoe and examined her tanned leg. She hadn’t even shaved in days.

  “Audrey, tell me what to do.”

  Two sides coming after her, one that wanted to kill her, the other that wanted to use her. God that pissed her off. It wasn’t that Audrey was against exploring these supposed powers, but she wanted it to be on her own terms. And she was pretty against the idea of anybody killing her. The whole situation made her want to scream and hide, but she knew she couldn’t do that. This wasn’t going away.

  Then there was Elliot. He wasn’t going to leave her side. She had to factor him into everything. What would be the best for them? Audrey lit up another cigarette and stared out into the trees.

  * * *

  Elliot paced back and forth on the other side of the car as Audrey chain-smoked and gazed off into the distance. He understood that she had to process everything that vanishing weirdo had told her, but they had to move. If even half of what he said was true, they weren’t safe staying here any longer. She really needed to process these thoughts on the road.

  He knew that he was just pissed because he didn’t know how to protect her from this. His sister was fragile, and he’d sworn to himself that he’d always be there for her, be there for her now because he’d hadn’t been able to be in the past. But this was all new, this was something entirely different. This was magic and monsters, and Elliot felt helpless. He couldn’t imagine how Audrey felt, caught in the middle of it.

  In his opinion, their best option was just to run. They still had a ton of money and they could make it last for quite a while. Learn all they could about what was going on and find a way around it. Elliot was an optimist and always thought there was a better way, another way out. He’d figure it out, save his sister.

  That Inanis guy had thrown him. Elliot may have loved his comic books and sci-fi movies, but he never expected to see a guy disappear like that after dropping tales about cosmic gods and magic bloodlines. Part of him was excited by it, and he hated that part of himself, knowing that Audrey was in danger because of it. He wished she would just talk to him, in the car and on the move, so he could calm down.

  At that thought, Audrey flicked her spent cigarette butt across the gravel and climbed into the car, Elliot scrambling into the driver’s side. He turned the engine as she found Alkaline Trio on the stereo and cranked it up. Peeling out of the motel parking lot, he turned to her, eyebrow raised.

  “We’re on a road trip,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I can either turn myself over to them easily back home or make it hard for them. All of them. And if I use these powers of mine, even if they are real, it’s going to be because I choose to use them, not because I was forced to.”

  “I support that.”

  “So fuck it, on to the next state.”

  Elliot said nothing for a minute, the sounds of the punk band roaring through the speakers.

  “I’ll stand beside you through all of it,” said Elliot. “I need you to know that.”

  “I know,” said Audrey, quietly. “Thank you.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Southard, Indiana was a small town that had fallen on hard times. Never a booming metropolis, once the dog food plant and the textile mill had closed, the economy had all but dried up. Nothing remained for the struggling few thousand residents, nothing but desperation and empty promises.

  For Sale signs marked houses like gravestones, a ghost town in the making. Most had an asking price that was ridiculously above market value in a town that offered nothing, people hoping to make enough to start again elsewhere. The few that had reasonable prices were in various states of disrepair or in undesirable locations. Even those who wanted to flee Southard found it hard to escape.

  Most of Main Street found itself boarded up, the shops along the street closed down. No more butcher shop or pet store, no more coffee shop or office supply store. The beauty salon had cut back its hours next to the empty dollar store, the police no longer calling on half the bars whose doors were now permanently closed. Even the churches felt the sting, the good white Protestants no longer having the money to pay their tithe.

  Without the taxes, the city itself soon fell into disrepair. The roads were pock-marked with potholes, left unattended to crack and grow worse. Unplowed and unsalted in the winter, they were treacherous. In the summer, like now, they expanded and cracked even more. Weeds sprouted up among municipal sidewalks and litter was left scattered everywhere. This said nothing of the police and fire departments who were severely cut back to skeleton crews each shift, barely able to deal with the growing unrest that claimed the town.

  Southard was falling apart, falling in on itself. Those who could run already had, and those who couldn’t were furious at their fate. The decay of the town was evident everywhere you looked, in every ruined building and every vacant parking lot, in every mangy stray cat and every yellowed clump of weeds. In every seething face of its citizens.

  But this day, quietly, in the shadows inside the abandoned dollar store, things changed.

  A cold, dull light blossomed, a light that illuminated nothing. It opened wider, deeper, and a door split open. Two figures in black cloaks came striding through and surveyed the space. It was a big room, one that would accommodate. One of the figures gestured and others began stepping through.

  The room filled with beings that looked similar to each other. Their faces mutilated, their lips, noses, eyelids, ears, and hair hacked off, they all wore their wounds proudly. Fervently. Their bodies were adorned in white rags, covering flesh that was sweating with a sticky, moist substance. Parts of that flesh had been replaced with foreign matter, s
omething more akin to a fungus, something that now throbbed in unison with their original meat. Their fingertips had been whittled down to expose sharpened bone.

  Over one hundred of the Invocated swayed back and forth under the will of the Spittle and the Sigh.

  Southard thought it knew despair, believed it had hit rock bottom. The Reverend of the Methodist church preached from his pulpit about hope while drinking himself into oblivion most evenings. The mayor, who had only won by a slight margin, had only ran for office to further his own petty, political career and couldn’t wait until his term was up so that he could move on to better things. The only remaining member of what laughingly called itself the Chamber of Commerce took his rage out on his family every night. A teenage girl, who had been one of that year’s high school valedictorians, had discovered that she was pregnant and saw her life slipping away. A junkie owed his dealer over five hundred dollars from a bungled meth deal and assumed he’d be dead in a week. A father hasn’t had a job in three weeks and does not have the willpower to tell his family. An old woman lay dying of cancer and can’t wait for it to finally take her so that she can be with her husband. A nurse at a clinic has been stealing pain meds for her back, and knows she must stop before she’s caught, but she’s addicted.

  This is life, this is Southard.

  But not for much longer.

  The Spittle and the Sigh give the Invocated their orders, tell them to wait until nightfall. Tell them to be swift and to be silent. This is to be the first announcement, a declaration of intent. The Ovessa wills it so.

  This was a good town once. Once it prospered and was filled with people who had happiness. People who worked hard, were friendly to their neighbors, and looked forward to tomorrow. Average people, but people with love and family and dreams, none the less. That was taken from them by a greed that was far more powerful than them. But they still had their lives. They still, perhaps somewhere buried deep down, had a seed of hope.

  But the light of the Ovessa would see that seed burnt away under its might, Southard used for its glory. All will wither under its radiance, either culled or repurposed. But before that, some will become harbingers, heralds to the babbling meat of what is to come. Let them all be aware so that they will accept The Ovessa on their knees as proper supplicants, let them be in awe so that they will beg the Ovessa for its blessing as an Invocated.

  The Spittle and the Sigh have watched this world through the barrier with disgust for centuries, ever since the Ovessa created them for that very purpose. They revel in the thought of consuming it, of conforming it to the will of the Ovessa. In their own realm, only they are burdened with the hideousness of identity, of uniqueness. But they exist to serve their Most Holy. Through their actions, Its will is made manifest.

  Standing by the undulating dull light, the Spittle gestures to allow the Sigh entry back through the doorway first. She returns to the place they had first claimed in this world, and the Spittle glances around at the horde poised to strike later that night. A smile pulls at the cartilage and bone that makes up his face.

  “All in honor of the Ovessa.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Roma could tell that the motel manager’s whiney, dismissive voice was pissing off Hayden. The rotund man shuffled around behind his desk, wheezing and swatting at flies. He wasn’t being very cooperative. It was apparent that Hayden was ready to reach across the desk and bash the manager’s head off the fading, cracked countertop multiple times until he got the answer he wanted.

  Trying a different tactic, Roma unbuttoned the rest of her polo top and leaned over the counter. She tapped her nails slowly, getting the man’s attention. A few choice words about the heat drew his eyes straight to her cleavage.

  “I really wanted to see my friend Audrey, ya know. Like, meet up? My boyfriend and I were gonna meet her and her brother Elliot for some fun. I hope they haven’t left, mister. I was reaaally looking forward to it.”

  The manager stumbled and blurted something out about the Byrnes kid checking out with a hot blonde hours ago. That was his sister? Poor bastard.

  They were out the door before he could ask them if they wanted a room.

  Re-buttoning her shirt, Roma glanced around and spied Greer beside the parking lot, near a picnic table. She headed toward him, Hayden following. She was worried about their cell leader, he hadn’t been this edgy since they took down that Rathook cult in Wisconsin.

  That had been bad. A group of PTA soccer moms had discovered a forgotten Chthonic goddess that offered them eternal youth and endless power in return for virginal sacrifices. It was like something out of a bad television show, except young girls were actually going missing in the small town. The FBI had initially thought a sexual predator or a serial killer was on the loose, but a Promethean Wall ally had contacted them, feeling it could be something worse.

  It had taken three weeks to track them down in the basement of a white, Tudor-style home. Six women, who should have been between the ages of forty-nine and thirty-seven, all who looked barely thirty now. Women who had kidnapped another fourteen-year-old girl, while the Wall had been in town and helpless to save her, her body never recovered. They had found the women with yet another fifteen-year-old in the basement, their latest acquisition, naked and bound to the floor. Something slithered and oozed in the corners of the room, lit only by candles. It squealed when the Wall put bullets into the heads of all six women and retreated back into whatever shadowy depth it had crawled out of.

  They had untied the girl, made sure she was alright, turned on the lights, and left. The police had connected the dots as they saw fit with the gun dropped beside one of the bodies. It was all covered up neatly. No one wanted to know the truth.

  Roma wasn’t sure she wanted the truth now. She had a feeling it would be way too complicated.

  “They were here,” said Greer, looking toward the table. “For a while, too. There in the parking lot as well. Intel says this is the brand she smokes. The bits of tobacco stuck near the filter are still dry in the grass, no dust on the butts in the lot. We just missed them.”

  Roma nodded. “Jives with what the manager said.”

  “We need to be in front of them,” said Hayden, pulling out his phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  Hayden didn’t answer and instead turned away from her. With a sigh, Roma wondered about their options. In an emergency case, they could call in favors and get an APB called out on someone, but that was usually on someone they could just kill and then blame on circumstances. They still didn’t know where they were supposed to take this chick once they kidnapped her, or even how to get her away from her brother. Roma worried that Hayden already had ideas about that.

  “Damn it,” said Hayden, hanging up.

  “What?”

  “Tried calling Faure, but no answer.”

  “Try calling that Binici professor.”

  “I don’t know her. I only will if I have to.”

  Greer shrugged. “We stay in the car like the time we were tracking that Changeling Killer in Iowa.”

  Hayden raised an eyebrow at him and Roma groaned.

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  It had. The Changeling kept killing people every two or three days, men and women. It ate a portion of their bodies and then used that genetic material to transform into them. Wearing their clothes, using their car and whatever possessions they had on them, it would then live as it saw fit for a few days until it found a new victim. The Wall kept racing behind it, fumbling over bodies. It took them a while to realize it was always using its newest victim’s credit cards. Using the Wall’s resources, they waited until another body dropped and then sought out any activity on that victim’s cards. They had found the dead man’s lookalike drinking champagne in a strip club in downtown Des Moines.

  “Why go east when they may have gone north, let’s just wait,” said Roma.

  “You’re in charge of the laptop, keep it open and ready,” Hayden said to her.<
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  “Fine, but I get the backseat then.”

  “Whatever.”

  Roma paused. “Have you thought about what you plan on doing about the brother?”

  “Nothing, as long as he doesn’t get in our way.”

  “It’s her brother, Alec.”

  “Then I’ll probably have to put him down.”

  She didn’t say anything as she walked back. It was her own fault for asking. She didn’t want to know the truth, but now she did.

  CHAPTER 22

  The blood was everywhere. Dripping off the table, smeared on the walls, pooling on the floor. There was a time when this would have bothered Timothy Faure, but not now. Now it was simply red against white, an effect of his actions.

  The microwave beeped, and he opened the door. A few chunks of his wife lay steaming inside. A few pieces of leg, a lower lip, some random organ he had pulled out. He decided he wanted to know what she tasted like cooked. Reaching in, he pulled out the mangled piece of lip, curled and greyed, and popped it in his mouth. It had lost much of its flavor, drying out too much. The piece of leg was much better.

  Strolling across the kitchen, he kicked his butchered wife’s corpse out of the way and sat down at the table, chewing on her flesh. Decisions had to be made. He’d seen the face of the divine had now had to act accordingly. The Ovessa must be freed.

  Information had been given to him, seared into his mind. He could feel the Most Holy trying to reach through the barrier from where it sat. That he would run to the Ovessa was a given, but other matters had to be dealt with first. Stopping the Promethean Wall was of the utmost importance. They couldn’t be allowed to get their hands on the Crimsonata, not when she held the ability to deny the Ovessa its right to this world.

  Faure went to his briefcase and got out his phone, pacing a call to Binici. She didn’t pick up and he didn’t leave a voice mail. He left the phone on the counter and went upstairs to shower the blood from himself.