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  © 2014 Matthew Cox

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  ISBN 978-1-62007-602-6 (ebook)

  ISBN 978-1-62007-603-3 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-62007-604-0 (hardcover)

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  A Taste of Caller 107, by Matthew Cox

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  minous shadows hung in windows, squares of infinity amid flashing chaos. A vibrating nimbus of red and blue glowed upon the face of a freestanding house, perhaps white during the day. Two Division 1 patrol craft and a MedVan sat at the edge of a cul-de-sac, invading the lawn. Kirsten guided the hovercar to a landing just behind the blue-and-whites. The cobalt blue of her bar lights added to the veneer of color on the house, turning it purple in snap flashes. Cold air brought a creaking groan from the wheels as its mass settled in. Her breath frosted as she climbed out of the car, squinting at suburban houses offering a glimpse of the pre-war world.

  If not for the paranoia of the Badlands and what dwelled there, only the rich would live at the northeast edge of West City. As it were, bioengineered horrors and rogue cyborgs were expected; what had befallen this house, no one believed. This far into the northeastern edge of the sector map, her Division 0 blacks were far too thin for comfort. She glanced at her left armband display: thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit. The two innocuous digits made the wind on her thighs feel colder. Kirsten let go of the door, which sank closed behind her, taking a step as she surveyed the scene. Dorian coalesced at her side.

  This two-story dwelling built on actual ground lay far north of the line where the city plates stopped. At least with the ever-present danger of Badlands wanderers, there were no street gangs. Humanity’s need for violence channeled itself out in local militias, non-governmental groups who patrolled the border against whatever might wander in.

  “Funny how that works,” said Dorian. Kirsten lifted an eyebrow, lips parting as if to ask. “In Badlands towns; they man the walls with guns. We’re not as far removed as we think.”

  She exhaled into her hands, trying to feel her fingers. The house pulled her gaze away from the northeast. “Nice houses, though, except for that one.”

  Distant wails of a panicking child joined the trace of a howl in the air. The windows darkened as if something did not want her to see inside.

  The house stared at her

  One patrol officer at the end of a walkway leading to the front door assisted a disheveled woman in a plain white sleep suit. Amid the dusk, the fabric appeared to glow azure as it reflected the emergency lights. The effect left its wearer looking apparitional, the exposed dark skin below her elbows and knees faded into the night. Kirsten calmed, realizing she did not stare at a disembodied torso; it was a trick of the light. Little, bloody handprints walked among droplets soaked into her chest. A tiny square of light crept over her face, revealing jagged scratches on her cheek. The medtech at her side maneuvered a hand-held device over one such rip, repairing them one at a time.

  Kirsten approached, with one hand on her stunrod to keep it from tapping her thigh. The woman continued pleading in Spanish: with the police, with God, with nothing in particular, for an explanation of why her daughter went crazy. The patrol officer’s confidence shrank as soon as he saw Kirsten’s black uniform.

  “What’s the situation?” Kirsten switched to Spanish. “Calm down, ma’am. I am here to help.”

  “Got a juvenile female, age six, in the MedVan. The techs are checking her out now, looks like she flipped out and did a number on her mother’s face.”

  The woman gathered herself, answering in English. “Something’s gotten into my daughter, Maia. I don’t think the police can help us. Are you a priest?”

  Kirsten glanced at the house. “Priests can’t help anyone. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “We moved here a few weeks ago to get away from the city. Maia right away started fussing. Whenever we were inside the house, she was quiet, moody, and later, angry. Outside, she was happy like she normally is. The bad dreams started the first night. These past weeks, she has gotten worse every night. Tonight, she woke up screaming and ran out of the house.” The woman pointed in the direction of the road. “She went down the street; I found her in a neighbor’s yard. When I tried to take her inside, the crazy took her.”

  “Kid went ballistic, kicking and slapping. She scratched her mother’s face bloody to get away. She did not want to go back in that house.” The officer gestured with his head toward the MedVan. “The kid seems calm now; the medtechs were going to sedate her. Seems like she’s able to keep it together as long as no one tries to bring her close to the house. All the brain scans came back clean. Kid just keeps yelling ‘El diablo está ahí.’ That’s why we called you in.”

  The mother pointed at the last of the scratches, vanishing under the creeping light. When the last of it sealed, the medtech squeezed the handle of the toothbrush-sized wand and the glowing light at the narrow end went dark. He twirled it over his finger and clipped it to his belt, dabbed the woman’s cheek clean with a sterile cloth, and walked off toward the glittering white hover-van emblazoned with a red cross.

  “Officer, stay with her, don’t let anyone go inside. I’m going to see what the child remembers.”

  Kirsten jogged after the medtech, trying to get some heat back in her limbs. The rear doors of the flying ambulance hung open, the interior flooded with stark light from LED bulbs. Another Division 1 officer and a medtech flanked a thin girl. Streaks of blood, grass, and dirt stained her pink nightgown. One bare shoulder peeked out from where the garment ripped during her struggle to flee her mother’s grasp. She kicked her feet idly while a tech tended to her left hand. As Kirsten climbed in, the child looked at her, all innocence. Thick brown hair, long enough to touch the gurney, slipped off her shoulder. A small, rubberized thimble sat over one finger, connected by thin tubes to a device mounted in the wall.

  “Agent Wren, Division 0. Is she okay?”

  Maia looked down, leaned back, and sniffled. Her eyes reddened as a faint tremble manifested. Being stuck between a wall and three adults seemed to frighten her. The medtech, a short, stocky woman with a touch of grey in her hair, smiled as she continued to remove bits of skin and blood from under the child’s fingernails.

  “This lady will make the bad spirit go away. She’s a special kind of cop.” The tech spoke in soothing Spanish as she removed the finger shroud, appraising a shiny new nail.

  “Was she hurt?” Kirsten reached over and tugged the blanket tighter around the child.

  “She detached two fingernails and broke a toe. Nothing I can’t fix,” said the tech, winking.

  Dorian came through the wall behind Kirsten. “There is definitely something in that house. As soon as I went through the wall, I started getting pissed, wanted to kill someone.”

  She turned. “Think you can hold it together, or should I go in alone?”

  “Well, if it’s what I think it is, it turns inner darkness outward. I don’t think it will do a damn thing to you.” Dorian winked. “You’re packed full of fluffy white bunnies.”

  Kirsten rolled her eyes.

  “All you Zeroes t
alk to yourselves?” The Division 1 officer waved a hand over Kirsten’s face.

  “My partner’s right there.”

  The patrolman stumbled into the gurney; Maia grabbed the cushion to steady herself.

  Kirsten squatted in front of the girl and took her hand, mimicking the medic’s calming Spanish. “Hello, Maia. I’m Kirsten. I am going to get the bad thing out of your house. No one will make you go back inside until it’s gone. Can you tell me what you saw?”

  The child’s shoulder slipped out as she shrugged it up to the side of her head. Her caramel-hued face hid behind a waterfall of black hair. When she figured the kid was not in a mood to talk, Kirsten adjusted the blanket snug once more and peeked into her surface thoughts. Maia’s voice hid behind the dread of how angry her mother was going to be with her.

  “Honey, your mommy is worried about you. She is not angry.”

  Maia looked up, shivering, whimpering in English. “I don’t wanna ̓member it.”

  Kirsten saw it then, in the child’s mind. Vaporous blackness exuded from under the door of a pink bedroom, gliding up along the wall and collecting at the corner of the ceiling. Malice, pure and hateful, rained down out of the mass at a half-awake girl. All she wanted was to get away from it before it killed her.

  “Maia?” Kirsten patted her on the hand. “Do you see a man standing next to me, wearing the same black uniform?”

  The patrol officer looked at about where he estimated Dorian to be and crept backwards.

  The girl furrowed her eyebrows, wondering if this woman was crazy. Kirsten grinned at the face she made.

  “You never saw a ghost before?”

  Maia shook her head back and forth in an exaggerated gesture, tossing her long hair around. “No, just the one in my room. He’s mean.”

  Dorian waved a hand in front of the girl, eliciting no reaction. “The kid isn’t seeing me. Whatever’s in the house is visible to normal people.”

  Kirsten sighed. “Yeah, great. A damn wraith, perfect.”

  Clank. The patrol officer knocked something off a table. “What, you Zeroes have categories for this bullshit?”

  Sensing the look on Dorian’s face, Kirsten shook her head. “Don’t.” Her gaze switched to the man in blue armor. “Yeah, we do. Please tell me no one went inside?”

  “Martinez and Long did a walk-through about ten minutes before you got here; they didn’t find anything. Came out in the middle of a wicked argument about Gee-ball, thought they were gonna get into a fistfight.”

  Kirsten ruffled the girl’s hair; the kid’s flat affect did not change. “Aww, come on, Maia. That usually gets me a smile.”

  Maia looked down at her lap, shivering.

  “She’s terrified,” said Dorian. “If they try to take her back inside, she’ll flip out again. She knows it wants to kill her.”

  Kirsten stood, pointing about. “I don’t want anyone attempting to take this girl inside until we get rid of it. She can sense it; she will know when it’s gone. I’ll be the one to go back inside with her when it is safe.”

  Dorian flashed a crooked grin. “Wraiths often cause extreme terror in the minds of the innocent. Are you sure you want to go in there?”

  “Very funny.” She waved the mother over. “I already told you I’m not as innocent as I look.” Kirsten helped the woman into the MedVan. “Maia is worried you’re angry with her; please stay here with her while I handle this.”

  As the woman assured Maia she was not in trouble, Kirsten hopped out of the van and nudged the doors closed to keep it warm inside. By the time she had walked halfway up the path to the front door, the entire house seemed to be breathing, and felt as if it stared right through her soul. Kirsten frowned and held her armband terminal up. Shimmering holographic light formed a square panel in midair above it. Her finger swiped through police records. Over the past hundred years, this property was associated with a large number of domestic violence calls and noise complaints, but no major crimes. Kirsten switched to municipal records, finding the a real estate notice almost once every two years, well below market, and had gone long stints being empty.

  “Whoever it was is old. Possibly prewar.”

  Dorian rubbed a finger over his mouth. “Think it’s some old crotchety bastard with a problem with nonwhites?”

  Kirsten blinked. “A racist, seriously? That would make him over three hun”―she shivered―“I don’t want to think about it. Besides, according to what I’m reading here, the manifestation didn’t get along with anyone who lived here.”

  Dorian edged closer to the door. “It concerns me the mother didn’t notice.”

  Kirsten let her arm fall; the screen folded in on itself and vanished. “It wants her here, probably intended to get into her head and make her…”

  “You don’t have to say it.” Dorian simulated a deep breath.

  With the image of Maia’s delicate face and sad eyes fixed in her mind, Kirsten stomped over and shoved the door aside. The walls in the living room seethed with black flames, lapping at the ceiling and making the space feel many times colder. She glanced around; a powerful sense of evil soaked through the drywall, water after a flood. Whispers came from beneath the floor, dread from above.

  Dorian moved through a dining room area to the kitchen. Kirsten followed. Ethereal vapor spewed from spectral holes around the walls; she brushed her fingers over one, feeling smooth repair.

  She teased at the threads of vapor. “Bullets hit the wall here, after killing someone.”

  He pointed at a flimsy white door. “Sounds like they’re still down there.”

  Her hand clasped the icy, ancient doorknob. Kirsten cringed at the contact, twisting and pushing. Wooden stairs led into the basement, darkness wavering with ghostly light from an unseen source.

  “This house is old. Well, at least I know how the woman got it for only four hundred grand.”

  “Yeah.” Dorian touched the wall. “Everything else around here is about a million; the cost would be four times that if they extended the wall this far north.”

  Kirsten shut her eyes, concentrating. When she opened them, they glowed white. Color had drained out of the world, replaced by a shifting greyscale environment where spectral copies of surfaces and objects wavered and flowed over reality. Division 0 called it Darksight, the power of astral seeing. By opening her perception to the spirit realm, she illuminated the real world with its ethereal shadow. The strongest sense of energy came from the back. She went toward it, following boot prints of blood that existed only on the other side. The trail led into the kitchen.

  Dorian pointed at a small doorway in the corner by the pantry. “Basement.”

  In the astral, blood and handprints smeared the bare cinderblock walls along the stairway. Kirsten descended into the damp, musty confines of a frozen basement. The unpainted concrete at the bottom rippled with a massive pool of blood. A man in a black windbreaker, emblazoned with DEA in large yellow letters, stood at the bottom with his back to her. The center of the E had a golf-ball-sized hole in it. Beyond him, a dozen Hispanic men writhed on the ground by the far wall. Hands bound behind their backs with plastic zip-ties, each had a bullet wound in the head.

  In various degrees of coherence, they protested in Spanish about how they were not informants.

  “Well, I can take a guess what our wraith did for a living.” Dorian chuckled.

  Kirsten muttered, “Okay, so it’s not a racist old bastard, just a four-hundred-year-old criminal.”

  The DEA man turned, giving Kirsten a view of the entry wound responsible for the hole in his back. Blood, long ago gushed from his nose, blackened his mouth and chin. When Kirsten made eye contact, he jumped back.

  “I’m sorry.” She held a hand up.

  “I’m DEA Agent Fowler.” He shook her hand. “Got these dozen Mexicans rounded up, not sure where Gonsalves got off to. Slippery son of a bitch. Stupid bastards think we’re focusing on Mexico so much they can truck the junk in through Canada.” He looked
her up and down, raising an eyebrow at her clingy uniform. “Little early for the guys to send me a stripper; they could have waited for the after-party. The cop costume is cute, though.” He winked, making a clicking noise.

  Dorian turned, covering his face to hide his laughter.

  “I’m not a stripper.”

  Agent Fowler appraised her again, brown caterpillar eyebrows creeping together. “Except for the boots, that getup of yours looks painted on. I don’t recognize your insignia, and the blinking thing on your hip looks like a prop from Star Trek.”

  “I hate to break it to you, Agent Fowler, but you’re not in command of this operation any more. You’re dead.” She pointed at his wound.

  Dorian’s eye appeared through it from behind. “That guy had some heavy artillery, maybe a .50-cal.”

  “Dead?” DEA Agent Fowler stuck a finger into his chest. “I can’t be dead, I’m still here.”

  “Trust me, pal. You’re as dead as I am,” said Dorian, wandering around front. “Fowler, was this Gonsalves guy known to use a large weapon?”

  “Yeah, the tool had a Desert Eagle. He loves his action movies. He’s got it all nickeled up with mother-of-pearl grips, too, real pimp.”

  Dorian chuckled. “If memory serves, that’s a .50-caliber. They don’t even manufacture those types of weapons anymore.”

  “You’ve been dead probably two or three hundred years.” Kirsten waved her arm through him. “See?”

  Fowler stumbled to the side, falling seated on the steps with a look of utter disappointment. He remained quiet for a minute or two, then deflated. “I guess that’s why backup hasn’t shown up. It did kind of feel like they were taking their sweet damn time.”

  “What happened here?” Dorian paced the line of executed men.

  “We got a tip this house was being used as a relay point for the cartels to ship product into the States. Eduardo Gonsalves, a real piece of work. He went by the street name of El Santo de Sangre. We’d been giving them a big headache down south so they tried to do an end run on moose back.”

  Kirsten glanced at the walls. “Guess he lived up to his name. Fowler, you don’t have to stay here. I was wrong about the time; if you remember the US, then you’ve been dead about four hundred years. There’s nothing else you can do.”