Daniel Abraham - Unclean Spirits

Coin’s lips were moving. I thought he said the words Midian and Heller. I waited for the signal, but Midian’s arms remained down, Chogyi Jake still standing. Coin paused, as if listening to some reply. The tattooed mouth twisted in derision. I saw Midian’s arms rise. I pulled the trigger.

Except I didn’t.

Two sharp cracks came from off to my right as Ex and Aubrey fired. I saw the blue-eyed woman at the apartment, Midian firing a round into the back of her head. My finger tensed, but I couldn’t pull it back. He’s not human, I told myself. He killed the only person who ever tried to take care of you. He’s evil. I heard myself grunt with effort. The rifle in my hands didn’t fire.

In the crosshairs, Randolph Coin looked up. I raised my head, taking in the scene without magnification. Chogyi Jake had stepped back toward the car, the blue robe fluttering in a wind I couldn’t feel. Midian was struggling to his feet.

Coin turned his head, looking down the street, then gestured with one hand like he was shooing away a fly. Two gray streaks left him, trails of smoke spiraling back along the paths of the bullets toward Ex and Aubrey. I must have shouted, because he looked toward me. When I put my eye to the scope again, his face was turned toward the little building that I was half hidden behind, his eyes shifting rapidly as he tried to find me. I centered the crosshairs on his forehead, but he lifted his palms. Eyes stared out from them-not tattoos but real, human eyes. I froze. He opened his mouth wider than I would have thought possible and shouted a single syllable.

I saw the wavefront come out from him in an expanding sphere of golden light. The concussion wasn’t physical, but it pushed me back all the same. I couldn’t breathe. The things pressing against me became visible for a moment, insectile and wild and nightmarish. I pulled the rifle back up, standing with it braced against my shoulder, but Coin had already stepped back through the gate. The fence was closed, and he was walking calmly back across the parking lot to the warehouse and his army. I fired now, three fast shots that did nothing but bruise my shoulder. Coin didn’t even look back. I dropped the rifle and ran.

Midian lay on his back on the sidewalk, his chest heaving as he sucked in breath. Chogyi Jake was in the street, his back against the front tires of Ex’s car and his eyes closed. I heard my own voice in a stream of words equal parts prayer and obscenity. I found myself kneeling in front of Chogyi Jake, his hand in mine. His skin felt cold, but his eyes opened and he smiled.

“Fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“What happened? What did he do?”

“Won,” Chogyi said.

Midian was on his belly, crawling toward the car. His legs were dead weight, and a slick of something too black to be blood stretched back to where he’d first fallen. I lifted and carried him the few steps to the car, sliding him into the passenger’s seat as Chogyi Jake half fell into the driver’s side. The sound of another engine roaring to life came from up the street, and I saw the windowless van swerving crazily toward us. It was Ex, his driving rough and erratic, coming in too late to save us. I stood up, waving him away. Get out. Get safe. Go.

The van slowed, stopped, turned, and then escaped. Aubrey’s minivan was still in sight. It hadn’t started up yet. There was no movement inside that I could see.

“Get in…with us,” Chogyi Jake said, but the sports car was too small. I would have had to sit on Midian’s lap. Chogyi Jake motioned to me, urging me to crawl into the car.

I didn’t answer. I just ran.

Aubrey sat in the second row of seats. The driver’s-side window was rolled down to let him fire through it toward the gate where Coin had been. The rifle lay between the front seats where he’d dropped it. I shouted his name, but he didn’t respond. I pulled open the door and climbed in. I was screaming now, but I didn’t know what I was saying.

Aubrey’s eyes were glassy and vacant, his hands limp as wilted leaves. He didn’t even know I was there. I crawled back, half convinced he was dead. He had a pulse, though. He was breathing.

I dug through his pockets for his keys. It felt like I was fumbling with the ignition for hours. When I finally got the engine started, I pulled the minivan out into the street, my hands shaking so bad I could barely steer. I sped through the first red light without knowing what I was doing. I had to get to the highway. I had to get out of here. I had to get Aubrey to someone who could help.

Something chimed, deep as a church bell but soundless. The writhing press of riders against my skin vanished. Whatever ceremonies and rituals the Invisible College had been doing to bring the other world close were over.

They were done.

I sat on a low plastic chair. Aubrey’s hand lay limp in mine. The sounds of the emergency room made a kind of white noise around us. Someone was coughing. A nurse was asking someone where a chart had gone. Somewhere not too far away, a child was screaming. It might as well have been silence.

Aubrey was on the bed in a cheap hospital gown, his clothes cut away. The monitor showed his heartbeat at a slow fifty beats per minute, solid and unvarying. He had enough oxygen in his blood. He wasn’t dying.

He just wasn’t here.

The curtain rattled and slid aside. A man in a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck stepped in. He was bald, wide, and he looked almost as tired as I felt.

“You’re Jayne?” he asked, pronouncing it Janey. I didn’t correct him.

“Yes,” I said.

“And you’re his fiancee?”

“Yes,” I said, repeating the lie.

“Okay,” the doctor said. “Could you tell me what happened?”

I went over the story. We’d been going out shooting. Aubrey had said he felt a little weak, so we’d pulled over. When he stopped talking to me, I’d brought him here. It was simple, easy to remember, and as close to the truth as I was going to get. The doctor asked me a few questions about Aubrey’s medical history, whether he was on any medications, if there was anything he was allergic to. I didn’t know anything. I started crying while the doctor went through all the same preliminary tests that the nurse had. He explained that they were going to take Aubrey away to do some imaging. Aubrey’s heart stayed at fifty beats per minute.

I’d given up hope that they’d find anything.

I let a nurse direct me to the hospital cafeteria, where I sat looking at a cup of coffee. My knee throbbed. My stitches complained where I’d pulled at the wound sometime during my flight from the warehouse. My shoulder hurt too.

“Hey. You’ve got a call.”

It was the fourth time my phone had rung since I’d pulled into the ambulance-only zone and screamed until a couple of paramedics helped me pull Aubrey out. As far as I knew, the minivan was still parked out there. Illegally. I tried to care.

“Hey,” Eric said. “You’ve got a call.”

I pulled the cell phone out and answered more to keep from hearing his voice again than because I wanted to talk to anyone.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?” Ex said.

“Hospital. Aubrey’s in a coma or something. I don’t know. He’s…I don’t know.”

“You have to get back to the house. You have to get someplace warded.”

“Okay,” I said. “They took him off to get a CAT scan or an MRI or something, and as soon as-”

“Jayne!” he shouted. “You have to come here right now. You’re in danger.”

“Yeah,” I said. “All right.”

I dropped the call and made my way back to the emergency room. It turned out someone had moved the minivan to a parking space not far away, left it unlocked, and put the keys in the visor. I didn’t know who’d done it, but I figured this wasn’t the first time someone had blocked up the entrance. I was vaguely grateful that they hadn’t just towed it away.