Ghosts of Koa, The First Book of Ezekiel (31 page)

"POLICE! OPEN THE DOOR!"

Zeika's heart nearly burst out of her chest as she recognized the voice. "CALEB! It's locked from the inside! I can't--"
 

A scream tore from her mouth as a powerful grip clamped down on her hair and shoulders. She dropped Manja, struggling against the monsters as they dragged her off her feet.

"ZEEKY!"

"RUN, MANJA!"

In her fury and terror, somehow Zeika yanked free of one of them, wrenched around, and at point blank range, she pulled the trigger on her gun over and over, sound and metal pounding the atmosphere until the gun clicked dry. One of the monsters howled as its gut exploded in dark streams of ichor and entrails, and it fell back against the floor, writhing, shrieking, but still not dying.

"ZEEKY!" Manja screamed again.

Zeika felt herself get thrown into the door, felt the gun fall from her grasp. The monster grabbed the back of her head and
wham--
slammed it into the wood. Pain exploded in her skull, and as she fought off the darkness, she flailed and snarled, her will to survive almost as primal as her attacker's hunger.

The thing shrieked, an angry bloody howl that seared her hearing, and it dragged her back as she struggled. She cried out as it bit down.

When Caleb heard Zeika's terrified scream, he cocked his shotgun and aimed at the door jamb, in the same moment knowing that it wouldn't work--

"Jake!"

"We're on it!" Jake and a group of officers that were covering the door began to ram it.
 

Caleb slung his Remington, switching it for his rifle, and ran around to the side of the Guild. He picked the lowest window, tensed, and then sprang up the outer wall, the slime of the stones covering his fingers as he pulled himself up and onto the sill. Soot and smoke filmed the glass from the inside, obscuring his view. He didn't have to guess where the haze was coming from. The Ninkashi were feeding. Heavily.

He gritted his teeth and rammed the butt of his rifle into the glass, once, twice, until--
crack!--
the window blew in at its bottom right. Sweat rolled down his neck as he bludgeoned the rest of the pane out of his way. When the hole was big enough, he dove through, landed in a hard roll, and sprinted towards the front door of the Guild as worked the rod on his rifle.

He could hear the wails, distant and echoing. Dumb, it was dumb to not have cleared the room before barging in, but Zeika's cry for help--

Caleb slid to a stop, feeling his eyes widen at the scene at the front door. If he had time to not believe what he was seeing, he might have, but instead, he lifted his rifle, looked down the scope, and aimed.
 

Fangs ripped at the flesh in Zeika's shoulder, the pain new and magnificent. But even as Zeika's body began to go weak, even as the strange razing fire crawled from her chest, arm, and neck, out through the wound, she refused to die.
 

Screaming, as much to keep herself conscious as from the pain, she turned the right elbow of her sweater into solid steel, and threw it back into the monster's ribs. The blow was met with a dull wet crunch, as something beneath the animal's skin snapped. She was rewarded with a yelp, but it bit down harder, digging its teeth in. She threw her elbow back again, again, and again, putting all her strength into what she knew was the battle for her very life.

Diediedie--
please
DIE!

Her blows weakened as the tears ran down her face, and the monster still wouldn't let go. She her felt consciousness evaporating, and as she kept hitting, she forced herself to look one last time at Manja.

A loud splat erupted into Zeika's ear, and the hard crunch at her shoulder disappeared as the demon's face parted in a gush of blood and bone. The thing spasmed to a halt, and the headless corpse fell down. Dead.

She fell with it, twitching, and everything after that happened so fast-- Manja running over to her bawling, the police breaking the door down and spilling into the Guild, Caleb trading his rifle for her as he picked her up and cradled her in his arms, calling for a medic.

Manja was on her, pulling the collar of her sweater. Caleb was telling her to stay awake. But she couldn't, and without her permission, her mind slipped into darkness, all the while the pounding, the pain, and the howls creating a symphony of terror that lapped at the sides of her dreams.

Zeika couldn't breathe. Something heavy was weighing her down from the torso up, something that didn't move at all, not even as her eyes fluttered open. Fuzzy circles of color clung to the edge of her vision. Still. She couldn't breathe.

"Oh come on, Manja. Seriously?"
 

The little girl had crawled on top of her and had fallen asleep, her limbs sprawled over the bed. Her cheek was cemented to Zeika's chest by a solid pool of drool. Zeika scooted up her pillows, careful to not wake her, and finally, she allowed herself to feel relief. They were alive.
 

She shook her head, once, twice, straining to make sense of the kaleidoscope of blurs around her. Then it registered: a sharp pain, pulsing in her left shoulder. She tried to move her arm, but all she got was a buzz in her muscles. No movement. Her fingers didn't even curl.
 

"You're going to be fine. You just need to take it easy."
 

She blinked, and as the outlines at the door began to solidify, she finally understood that they were still in the Guild. In her and Manja's room.

She squinted. "Caleb?"

"Yeah." He walked in, and as he drew closer, her stomach tightened. His face and body were smattered with blood, bruises, and grunge, but beneath it all, his eyes were still pinched with concern.

"You okay?"

Caleb nodded, but she knew that was a lie. He looked far from okay, like he'd have to jog a mile just to get to "okay".
 

"We got them all," he said.

"Yeah."

"But we're going to have to move you out soon. The Guild's a crime scene now, so we've got to clear it until the investigation is over. We're waiting on word from Ken Taitt on the move."

Zeika didn't respond. She clutched Manja and stared down at the sheets. "They were...
eating
people. Human cannibals just-- chowing down."

"Not human. Ninkashi. Feeders on the bodies of men."

She looked up at him, haunted. "Strange. No Civilian public service announcement ever mentioned them." She sat up more, her fear steadily boiling into anger. She glared at him. "So these things must have come from Azures. Am I right? This is some Azure-borne bullshit."

Silence. Caleb was working something out behind his eyes, but when he looked back at her, he forced a smile. The kind of smile that meant he was about to lie.

"Try not to worry about it, kid. The point is that they're gone."

"One just took a huge bite out of my neck, are you serious? What the hell are your people doing over there, Caleb? What's out there beyond the borders of the Protecteds?!"

"Keep your voice down, all right? You'll wake the kid." Caleb got up and brushed his hands on his pants. Zeika felt the ball of rage spinning in the pit of her stomach. This asshole was really going to ignore her?

"You're on antibiotics for your shoulder so that it doesn't get infected," he announced. "As for the rest of your arm, it'll be fine, but you won't get movement back into it for a few more hours. We put you on an intravenous restorative to repair the damage done to your veins and muscles."

"But what's wrong with it? Why can't I move? Will you at least answer
that
?"

"It's drained of its First Matter."

Zeika scowled. "Can you answer that in
English
?"

"First Matter. Azure-borne bullshit." He cut her a sarcastic look. "Just think of it as 'energy'. Like the ATP found in cellular mitochondria. I'm not sure if you're familiar--"

"Yeah, I know what it is. ATP. Adenosine triphosphate."

He paused, surprise buzzing in his face. Seeming impressed, he smiled. "Where'd you learn that?"

Zeika vengefully refused to respond.

"Right. When the bonds in ATP break, they release energy--
 
First Matter-- or at least a form of it. That's what that thing was trying to get from you. To feed, they have to break ATP bonds at a phenomenal rate while draining the released energy from the host. The speed of breakage can damage muscular function, thin your veins. It's why you can't move your hand."

She looked at her hand again, cringed at the blue in her fingertips. The ATP thing, crazy as it sounded, made some scientific sense. It was plausible, at least. But Ninkashi, First Matter... none of these things had been mentioned in any biology or organic chemistry book she'd ever read. All she knew was that the dead were supposed to stay that way, and they definitely weren't supposed to be running around draining energy out of people.
 

And I killed one.

Zeika felt it all rise up in her chest, the emotions she'd been holding back for days. She didn't understand what was happening in this world, why, and what it was forcing her to do. She had killed a living thing. The Ninkashi wasn't human as far as Caleb was concerned, but it had looked human enough to give her pause, even though it had been bearing down on her sister, ready to devour her. In her moment of panic she had made a choice, one that she would be living with for the rest of her life.

I should have just used my powers. I should have just--
anything
but this.

She felt Caleb's hand on her shoulder. She looked up, and somehow, her frustration with him dissipated. His gaze was calming somehow, anchoring her. He moved to say something--
 

"Anon? Zeika Anon?" A young social worker stepped into the room without knocking, eyeing the scene with interest.
 

The woman had the face of an apple, and long silky brown curls were clipped behind her ears, the ones that were so famous for picking up local gossip. Zeika could actually feel her eyes glaze with annoyance as she recognized her: Phoebe Schmitz. Mood-killer and hater-extraordinaire. Today, she was dressed classy-- silk blue mandarin collar dress, silver closed-toe stilettos, and bangles to match-- looking more put together than her meager salary allowed. Generally, Phoebe dealt with the elderly members of the Guild-- the ones who'd managed to hold onto a little of their money before the Guild had gone into the hole. She thought she was high-class and sass because of it, so she dressed the part. For whatever reason, though, she hadn't been in today. Lucky, and strange, that she had missed the massacre.

Phoebe's gaze moved to Caleb's hand, and he dropped it. She smirked, raising her snotty unibrow. Apparently, she'd found her new gossip headline.
 

Zeika sighed. "Can we help you, Phoebs?"

"Yes, you can. Pack up. You need to be ready when your placement gets here."

"I'm sorry?" Zeika looked at her, then at Caleb. "I thought we were going home."
 

Caleb turned to Phoebe. "She'll be in rehab for a little while yet. What's this about? I thought Taitt was supposed to call us on this."

Phoebe eyed him with amusement. She smiled as her eyes rolled down his body. "Are you her guardian? Or are you just an AP looking for something to guard?"

Caleb wasn't moved. "I'm an officer asking you a question."

Phoebe pouted, her delight turning to genuine annoyance as she looked back and forth between them. "No one told you?"

"Obviously not," Zeika said impatiently.

"Guildmaster Taitt is currently unavailable, so the guild hands are handling the guild affairs. We're relocating as many of our members as possible until we can re-secure the Guild. A foster parent on our list has volunteered to take you in until the Guild is safe. I'm required to board you with him until further notice."

Zeika pursed her lips. Life was just one thing after another, wasn't it? "Okay, well, who's the foster parent?"

"Lemme see." Phoebe thumbed through her paperwork and searched down the list. "Oh my!" She cried out. She looked up, her face bright. "How lucky! I almost wish I were you! Well-- sort of. I wish I were you, just better dressed-- oh, you know what I mean!"

Zeika's heart sped up, too pumped to be pissed off by Phoebe's prattling. "Baba? Did my father come back?"

"No, but you've got someone even better!"
 
Phoebe tittered, smiling ear to ear. "Apparently, he would have gotten you earlier, but he was out of town on business--"

"
Who
, Phoebe?"

"Lord Salvatore Morgan! What an honor!"

Zeika's lips parted, but no sound came out. All she could do was look down at her covers, completely frozen. She could feel Caleb staring at her. From the corner of her eye, she could see that he looked equally surprised, but she couldn't even look at him.
 

Phoebe plotzed. "Well, ugh! Hello? Did you not hear what I just said?! You're going to be living with Salvatore Mega-hunkster Morgan! Aren't you just
crazed
?"

Zeika looked up, still speechless. Crestfallen. This-- this wasn't happening.