Chris Holm - The Big Reap

Neither of us were in any shape to hike out in the dark. So instead, we called 911 on Topher’s sat phone, and left the line open until they pinpointed our location. Then we huddled together beside the cooling embers of the cabin and waited for our saviors and the morning light to arrive.

Zadie — Susan, I mean — spent most of the night crying. I held her wordlessly and let her weep. What could I have said? There were no words to make her better. And I wouldn’t have said them if there were, for what is mourning if not love’s darker aspect? Seems to me, it’s best never to quash love or push it away, regardless of its form, or of its cost. Sometimes, I think my last tattered shreds of love are all that keep me from becoming as monstrous as the Brethren themselves.

She loved Topher with all her heart, that much was clear. Enough to follow him on his insane quest for answers, for truth, for understanding. You ask me, we’re not built for any of the three. We’re wired for survival, nothing more. Topher’s ruined form, which Susan insisted we drag nearer to the waning firelight so he would not be picked over by animals, stood as a sad monument to the fact that survival and truth were two ends often at odds with one another.

Christ. Listen to me. Leave it to booze to make even a denizen of hell all maudlin and philosophical.

Anyways, by the time the rescue crew arrived — by ATV, not helicopter as I’d envisioned — the embers of the cabin fire were cold and dead, and the two Brethren corpses had withered to dust. That left only Topher to explain. Poor Susan was too despondent to answer the men’s inquiries, so I filled in the gaps where I could. Some kind of large animal. Hit too fast for us to see. Dragged Topher away from us so quickly, we gave chase without thinking, and wound up lost. By the time we caught up, this was all of him that was left. And this fire? Some kind of abandoned structure, we told them. Collapsed for decades, no doubt, before we ever stumbled across it. Without means to fell a tree, it was the only wood we had available to burn. And why not just pitch our tents? The body, I told them. She couldn’t bear to leave it. And so we sat together in the bitter cold beneath the stars, and watched the fire die as we mourned our friend.

The men made some noises about bears and mountain lions, but it was clear by the looks they shared when they thought I wasn’t looking that they had no idea what could have done this. But they didn’t seem to think Susan or Nicholas did, so that was something, at least. They did ask whether we’d captured any footage of the attack, but I told them the camera wasn’t rolling at the time, and anyway, it was damaged in the chase that ensued — beyond repair, as near as I could tell.

That last part was true enough. I spent twenty minutes bashing the camera with a rock before they found us on the off chance I’d inadvertently recorded anything.

I stuck with Susan until the hospital. Then I hopped a ride inside an orderly just before they put me under for hand-surgery. Felt the bile rise in his throat when I took over, but I sucked wind, and willed him not to puke. He didn’t, his body acquiescing to my commands more easily than I would have expected. It’d been that way of late. Guess I was developing the knack. I wondered if maybe that means I’m a little less human that I used to be. I wondered why I didn’t care much about that fact. Told myself it was because I had a job to do, but I didn’t fully believe it. If you ask me, I didn’t care much about my humanity slowly bleeding away because the part of me that would have was now in the minority.

Nicholas started ranting about monsters and possession just before I left the room in my new meat-suit. Freaked out and started thrashing on the gurney. They strapped him down — for his own safety, they kept telling him — and sedated him. His lids slammed shut like a set of blinds whose string’d been pulled, and the poor guy was finally, briefly, at peace. He’d probably start right back up with the freak-out when the drugs wore off. The scuttlebutt at the nurse’s station afterward was that he’d experienced a mental break on account of all he’d seen. For what it’s worth, they weren’t far from wrong. Except for the part where they thought the insane nonsense he was spouting wasn’t true.

Personally, I find that judicious application of alcohol helps stave off such mental breaks. Hell, some days it’s all that keeps me from being Thorazined into oblivion and left to drool inside my very own padded cell. No lie, today was one of those days. Which is why — for strictly therapeutic purposes, you understand — I walked straight out of the hospital in my new meat-suit, not even bothering to ditch the scrubs in favor of street clothes, and found myself a drink or six.

“So that makes what?” asked Lilith, mock-sweet as Splenda, “Four Brethren down? Just think, you’ve only five to go.”

“Yay,” I said. “Can’t hardly wait.”

“I can tell. The enthusiasm’s coming off of you in waves. No, wait,” she amended, “those are vodka fumes.”

“No worries. I’ll ditch this skin-suit before the hangover hits.”

“How lovely for him,” she replied drolly. “Perhaps I could be of assistance in identifying your next vessel.”

“I take that to mean you’ve got a new assignment for me?”

“That’s right.”

“Another feral Brethren?”

“Feral, no. Brethren, yes. Leads on the two remaining feral Brethren have been scant of late, I confess. For a time, I felt as though I might be closing in on one of them in rural Brazil. I’ve been following centuries of lore about a strange creature dragging villagers and livestock into the dark waters of the Amazon under cover of night. Rumors of new abductions came at a rate of one or two a week stretching as far back as there’ve been people there to spread them. But a few months back, they seem to have ceased.”

“You think whatever’s been, uh, eating all those people and chickens or whatever has gotten wise to what we’re doing?”

“I think it’s likelier than a sudden change in diet,” she replied. “And regardless, I think you’re unlikely to find the thing if it’s not hunting.”

I thought back to Jain’s words in the tunnels, to the nameless dog-beast’s in the forest just last night. “Ricou,” I said.

Lilith’s eyebrows shot up, and she flashed me a look of puzzled surprise. “Excuse me?”

“The thing you’ve been tracking,” I said. “I think its name is Ricou.”

“That’s all well and good, Collector, but as I said, this Ricou of yours seems to’ve pulled up stakes, or at the very least, stopped hunting, which is one of two reasons why I think it’s time to move on one of the three members of the Brethren who’re still on hell’s radar.”

“Do I get to pick from off the menu, or do you have a particular one in mind?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. His name is Grigori.”

“Okay,” I said. “Why him?”

“His behavior’s grown erratic of late. Ever since our ill-fated first attempt to eliminate he and his fellow Brethren, he’s been moving vast quantities of money around — liquidating assets, reshuffling the deck on his portfolio of shell corporations, offshore accounts, and corporate holdings. Some of that went to the other two we’d been monitoring — known to us as Drustanus and Yseult — who’ve since vanished. And I think he’s looking to do the same. The other two are far from feral, but they’re both vicious and impulsive, operating strictly hand-to-mouth and leaving a bloody trail of bodies in their wake; without Grigori’s aid, I’ve no doubt we could track them down in no time. But a man of his means, who’s spent fifty lifetimes learning to live beneath the radar, can no doubt hide a good long time. If we allow him to vanish, it may take centuries to find him.”