Myke Cole - Shadow Ops - Control Point

“Better take point then,” Richards answered. “Spell casting is a rear-echelon occupation.”

The captain swore and motioned to his men, who advanced into the darkness, weapons at the ready. Richards lit the lichen as they passed, keeping them in a bubble of the sickly green light, darkness pressing at its edges. Downer motioned at the water. An elemental sprang from its rippling surface, a spined dog made of shimmering green liquid, loping alongside them.

“Nice,” whispered Truelove. “All I’ve got to work with is dead rats.”

“I can feel something,” Therese said, her voice trembling.

“Stay cool,” Rampart whispered. “Everybody keep it on lockdown until I get her magic Suppressed.”

Britton could sense it, too, a magical current, the eddying of it foreign beside the familiar touch of the rest of the Coven, distant but getting closer with each step they took. He glanced across the water. The sloping brick wall of the sewer tunnel was unbroken as far as he could see, the vaulted ceiling a pool of shadows. Long cracks ran through the old brick but nothing nearly big enough for a person to fit through.

Britton looked to Rampart, who shrugged. It was clear he could feel the current, too, but there was no one there.

“Captain, is there anywhere this Selfer could hide?” Britton asked.

The captain shook his head. “Not unless she can crawl through walls. She’s dead ahead.”

They advanced, the pulse of the foreign current getting stronger, until Britton felt it suffused him, so strong that it tickled his taste buds and buzzed in the back of his throat. There was nothing. The glowing lichen showed an empty corridor. They pushed on, and the current began to recede.

“Wait,” Truelove said, “we’ve gone past her.”

“That’s impossible,” the captain said. “The water’s not deep enough for anyone to hide in. She has to be up ahead.”

Rampart cursed. “No, he’s right.”

Britton shook his head. “She’s behind us.”

“How the hell can you know that?”

“We can feel her current, you moron!” Downer groused, her elemental scampering back the way they had come, nosing at the water’s edge.

The captain gave a hand signal, and three of the police officers crouched back down the catwalk, flicking their lights on despite Rampart’s complaints. The harsh white beams swept the dirty concrete and spoiled brick, scattering clusters of frightened roaches but revealing little else. One of them stood and adjusted his helmet. “Sir, there’s nothing here, it’s only…”

His voice ended in a choked gurgle, his head twisting backwards, the black balaclava suddenly dripping and ridiculously skewed. An instant latter, the cop next to him simply folded in half with a wet snap, the light going out of his eyes before he even had time to scream.

Human flesh poured out of the wall beside them in a wave, piling into a mass that stretched across the catwalk and spilled into the water, growing and growing.

It seemed the Selfer could crawl through walls after all.

She had lost all human form. The flesh was completely protean, an amorphous mass of pink skin, flexing and pulsing. It was dotted here and there with eyes, fingernails, knobs of bone and hair. A mouth opened in the mass and began to burble something before it was smothered over by the gathering folds of flesh.

Rampart jumped forward, extending his arms. Britton could feel his current race forward, interlacing with the Selfer’s flow…

…and shunted aside. Rampart stumbled backward, his own tide swamped by the Selfer’s magic, far too strong for him to roll back.

“Oh, shi—” he began, then the Rending magic grasped the top of his head and folded his skull in on itself, compressing his head down into the trunk of his body with a thick, slurping sound. Rampart, headless, swayed on his feet for a moment before collapsing to the tunnel floor.

Downer’s elemental leapt on the Selfer, tearing chunks from the growing mound. Two others sprang from the water to join it. The Selfer quivered under the blows, then simply flowed over them. The elementals vanished beneath the gathering mass, splashes of dirty water leaking out from between the folds.

Gunfire echoed in the tight space, making Britton’s ears ring. The Selfer’s mass nearly blocked the passageway behind them, impossible to miss. The NYPD officers knelt, pouring on the fire, bullets ripping through the mound of flesh, sinking into it with hissing thuds. The Selfer shook under the onslaught and slouched forward, rolling over herself, reaching out toward them.

And then, a brief and hideous silence broken by the sharp clicks of magazine releases as the cops reloaded. “Ohshitohshitohshit,” one whined.

A bone spur, long as a spear, shot from the mass, catching him through the throat. Another cop simply detonated, spraying them all with the gobbets of meat he had suddenly become. “Get the hell out of here!” the captain shouted, grabbing one of his men by the drag handle on his body armor and hauling him backward.

Downer stepped up, gesturing at the water again. “This isn’t going to do it! I need something more to work with!” Britton opened a gate and sent it sliding past the retreating cops. The blob didn’t even make an effort to dodge, the lurching flesh barreling directly into it. The gate sliced it neatly in half, the edges peeling back to reveal a stack of gristle and organs that followed no anatomical pattern that Britton knew of. It fountained blood, shaking as if in rage, halting.

And then the flesh simply flowed over itself, growing back together and moving forward. A curtain of biting insects swarmed over its surface, magicked along by Richards. Britton thought he glimpsed slithering shapes in the water biting at the Selfer, snakes or rats. It hardly slowed. Another two cops went down, bent into shapes that made Britton nauseous.

We’re outclassed, Britton thought. Time to get out of here.

But then Downer let out a wet shriek and collapsed, her pelvis and legs twisted into a bloody corkscrew. She twitched, screaming. Therese knelt at her side, eyes closed, magic pouring out over Downer’s mangled body, rolling back the damage.

“Some of it’s dead!” Truelove yelled, his own current reaching out. The Selfer froze, shivering. Deep within the recesses, flesh piled upon flesh, layers of it had turned gangrenous, necrotic strips marbling the lumbering whole. They spread, biting, squirming, the body attacking itself, dead and alive struggling to control the motion of the mass. “It won’t hold her forever, Keystone!” Truelove shouted. “Do something!”

Do what? Cutting and shooting the thing wasn’t going to help. The Selfer’s body had been so completely transformed, he wasn’t even sure if there were vital organs anymore. They’d have to burn it. Maybe that was why it was down where fire would never go? But he had no fire. Coven Four was without a Pyromancer.

The cops retreated past them, still futilely pouring bullets into the mound of flesh. The Selfer leisurely reached out with her magic, twisting them into screaming corpses, one by one.

Britton threw open a gate and barreled through into the SASS schoolhouse. He’d wagered right. Class was back in session, and he scattered desks and tables as he charged Pyre. “Jesus, Britton! What the hell do you think you’re…” Salamander began before taking in Britton’s battle dress and the scene beyond the shimmering gate and lapsing into silence. Britton grabbed the young Pyromancer’s lapels. “Fire! Through that gate! Right now!”

“What?” Pyre squeaked. “No! I can’t…”

Britton raised a hand and clipped him across the face. “Now, you fucker! Right fucking now! Downer!”