Or what remained of it, I thought wryly. The Zodiac chart had twelve signs, but our Pisces star sign had been murdered last year after our troop had been infiltrated by a mole working for the Shadows. Our Libra, I thought, with guilt, had died only last month. Their star signs had yet to be filled.
“Movement, Felix?” Warren asked, falling in beside him.
Felix jerked his head in the opposite direction of our approach. “I saw the Shadows’ Gemini. She was headed to the top of the crane.”
“Sure it was her?”
“Only Dawn can wear a leather corset and still manage to look that sweet.”
“Yes, she’s so sweet,” Vanessa said acerbically. Her hair was pulled back in a haphazard knot, soft curls escaping to frame her honeyed face, and she’d thrown on a mask similar to mine in style, because her reporter’s profile might be high enough to get her noticed by the Shadows. “I almost never want to put a foot through her chest cavity.”
“Violent,” commented Felix, brow quirked.
“Only when I see her.”
“You mean smell her,” said Riddick, wrinkling his nose as he sorted through his set of oversized carvers and picks, deciding at last on a palm-length bar with double-sided hooks. Hunter had designed the set especially for him, as he did all our weapons. Fitting for a dentist, I thought. His was the only weaponry that gave me the heebie-jeebies.
“Did she see you, Felix?” asked Warren, steering us back on track.
Felix shook his head, and his hair fell over his forehead. He was older than me by a few years, but had the look of a college freshman, and his smile attracted coeds like bees to honey. He enjoyed his cover more than any of us. “Don’t think so. But they’ve gotta know we’re coming.”
We always came when mortal lives were threatened.
“All right, here’s the plan.”
As Warren outlined our attack formation, I glanced at Hunter and waited. Feeling my gaze on him, he shook his head imperceptibly, so I returned my attention to the grouping of our combat positions. I’d asked if we should tell Warren about Regan’s reaction to the initial blast, and that the Shadows hadn’t been responsible for the plague of explosions upsetting the vibrational matter of this reality prior to now. He was telling me to wait; this particular event was the work of the Shadows, and it was all we needed to occupy our minds now.
I agreed. Though new to the troop, I was no longer the least experienced star sign. Jewell and Riddick had joined the ranks after me, and though they’d been raised in the troop’s sanctuary, trial by fire inspired martial proficiency in a way a textbook couldn’t.
Plus Jewell hadn’t initially been tagged for the Gemini sign. Her sister too had died last year, and she’d unexpectedly inherited the post, like Riddick. A teacher by day, she turned into the quintessential Vegas party girl at night. The Shadows, we thought, wouldn’t look too closely at the girl walking around with stamps marring the back of her hand. As for Riddick…he was exceedingly fond of those dental tools. I shuddered again.
Warren finished explaining our groupings: three tight triangular formations staggered and designed to interlock if we had to fall back to defend. Warren would go first, leading point, and his voice was clipped and strong as he told us to “fucking focus,” before disappearing.
We palmed, primed, and honed our weapons in silence until Felix said, “I can fuck and focus at the same time.”
Jewell laughed as she disappeared to back Hunter and Riddick, but Vanessa and I traded eye rolls. From somewhere in the haze to our right came Tekla’s caustic reply.
“We’re all well aware of your sexual prowess, Felix. And that you wake every dawn in a different bed.”
“Hey, I’m like a good breakfast cereal,” he called back to our Seer, causing Micah and Gregor to shush him. He whispered, “I help the ladies get going in the morning.”
“Snap, crackle, flop.”
I snorted as we headed out. “Speaking from personal experience, Vanessa?”
“Not in this reality,” she scoffed, and when she saw me glance her way, quickly added, “Or any other.”
Hunter’s voice bloomed to the left of me. “Hey noob, keep that tooth hook away from me.”
“Sorry,” came Riddick’s reply. “The gas in the air is disorienting.”
“Just another day at the office,” said Felix, but even he sounded muted. I suddenly noticed they’d all fallen back. Realizing I was leading a flanged assault with no backup, I immediately backpedaled.
“That’s not cool, you guys. You didn’t-”
I was going to say they hadn’t given me a warning to pull back, but that’s when I realized they were all moving in slow motion, their limbs wheeling forward as if swimming in Jell-O, straining with the effort. Hunter was trying to motion them back, but it was taking too long. I did it for him, then dragged Vanessa backward until I felt a second gravity field release around her body. A coincidence that the gaseous sheets lessened upon retreat? I think not.
I’d managed to pull Riddick from the smoky quagmire before the other teams reached our rendezvous point.
“The air’s too heavy. It’s like breathing in foam,” Micah said, gasping. At nearly seven feet tall, he was by far the largest member of our troop, and seemed to be having the most difficult time breathing, though everyone was panting hard. Everyone, that was, but me.
“I can see well enough,” Tekla said, bending over so her thin frame was almost hidden in her soft gray salwar-kamiz. “But I can only go so far before it feels like I’m being smothered.”
I looked at the others, and they each nodded. So we huddled in silence until Warren popped up next to Tekla, his footsteps muffled in the heavy air.
“The air repel you too?” Gregor asked him, as Hunter and Micah swiveled to guard our perimeter, close enough to hear our words. Warren nodded, rubbing at red-rimmed eyes, and I realized that was exactly the smoke’s purpose. We weren’t meant to reach the center, our beard, or the detonation’s origin.
Back against mine, Micah broke into a hacking cough. Alarmed, I put my hand on his great shoulder, and he spat on the ground at our feet. It was black. “Shit. This stuff is toxic.”
Warren straightened. “Let’s try it again together. I think it’s just a wall, and not one thick enough to be sustained for any depth.”
I glanced back up at the tight black nucleus sitting atop the fractured building and bit my lip.
“One large phalanx might breach it, especially if we focus our energies on a sole entry point. So on my count. Go.”
We marched like Spartans…for a few feet. Then the others slowed, molasses-limbed, eyes bulging along with their lungs. Despite the foreign environment, I was breathing easily. So while the smothered coughs and gasps continued to vibrate feebly at my back, I faced the heart of the smothering sheets and drew in a deep breath. Blackness sank past the porous barrier of my skin, filling my muscles, replacing the water hydrating them with a density that made me feel like an outcropping from the earth itself. I was granite, with petrified veins and a solid heart that didn’t need oxygen because it didn’t need to beat. The air coated my tongue like wet ash, lining my throat until my not-breathing allowed it to harden and bake in my marrow. The others-still filmy, floating, fleshy beings-fell behind.
I caught Warren’s gaze, his eyes large and white above the coat sleeve covering his mouth. He motioned me back with his head, an achingly slow movement, and one I could see pained him. We fell back, and I waited until they all recovered. This time it took minutes.
“We have to pull out,” Warren said, sucking in great mouthfuls of breath. “Get masks and breathing apparatuses of some sort.”
Masks would crumble like wadded paper under the weight of this concrete matter, I thought, rubbing an arm that felt like marble beneath my touch. I told Warren this, and what the air felt like inside me as best I could, adding, “The Shadows will make it impossible to clean up if we wait much longer.”