31. Ghost Story

31 – Ghost Story

The fiend was fast—faster than Hector’s new skin could properly react. He started to get his arms up, ready to knock aside the rending, hook-ended claws, but all he managed to do was keep the second hook from tearing his head off while the first one caught his shoulder and threw him like a discarded toy into the wall. As luck would have it, the apartment’s construction was typically flimsy, and he punched right through the layers of fiberboard composite paneling and into the next apartment.

He hit the tile flooring in a shower of insulating foam dust, sliding two meters on his back to crack his head against a kitchen counter. At some point during his passage through the wall, his breather had been yanked down around his neck; he knew this because a woman’s voice, rising in pitch with alarm, cried, “Paul?”

Hector turned to the voice and saw a woman whose resemblance to his new body was clear; she was standing near the door, a look of panic and disbelief on her face as she reached for a semi-automatic shotgun leaning against the jamb. Hector shook his head. “Run,” he wheezed, tuning out the pain in his body and springing to his feet.

Just then, the wall exploded some more—bits of fibrous composite filling the air in an insulation dust storm, and then the shadowy form of the aura fiend came into view. Hector angled toward the exterior wall, his back to the window, hoping to draw its attention away from the woman near the door, still gawping in his direction. The fiend screamed and dove at him, claws high.

Hector summoned his Aura Blade, squatting and spinning into a backhanded slash, aiming to take off the fiend’s right leg as it came into range. The blade flickered with crimson light, trailing wispy aura smoke, but the damn creature was just too fast. It saw what he was doing and yanked its leg back, landing instead on one clawed foot and then driving its spear-like tail forward.

Hector tilted his shoulder just in time to avoid being pierced through the heart, but the tail stabbed through the meat under his collarbone and slid all the way through, emerging above his shoulder blade. He was pinned, and the fiend’s claws were coming down, aiming to rip him to pieces—and then a tremendous boom rattled through the room and the creature lurched forward.

Hector didn’t hesitate to capitalize. His Aura Blade would be gone in a second or two, so he used it, hacking it up through the tail. Hot black blood sprayed his face, but Hector didn’t pause to wallow in disgust. He lunged to his feet and drew the blade up the length of the fiend’s torso, from groin to throat. Much more than blood poured out onto Hector after that. The creature’s alien guts covered his legs and feet—hot and slimy, and smelling of sulfur, iron, and decomposing vegetation.

It thrashed for a moment before its brain realized it was dead, but there was no strength in those hooked claws and they only cut him shallowly as they punched against his synth-leather coat. With the last flickering trace of his Aura Blade, Hector took its head off and watched as it fell to the ruined floor, steaming as its otherworldly innards were exposed to the air.

“What the fuck was that?” Paul’s sister cried, stepping toward him, shotgun shaking in her hands, but undeniably still aimed at Hector. “Paul? No…you can’t be.”

Hector shook his head. “I’m not. I’m sorry.” His body was trembling—adrenaline aftershocks—and he hated it. He hated that the brief battle had taken so much out of him. “We need to—”

“Get out of here!” She looked at the hole in her wall. “Those guys work for the magistrate!”

Hector nodded, reaching for his backpack strap. Had the jammer—

//It’s still working.//

“We have a little time.” Hector stooped to the fiend’s corpse and put his hand on its slick, warm flesh. He’d never drawn potentia from an aura fiend. Would it have any? In seconds, he felt the tingles, felt the rush, and he knew the answer.

“What are you doing? What was that thing?” When Hector, dazed by the flow of potentia, didn’t answer immediately, he heard the shotgun rattle as she lifted it more firmly into the pocket of her shoulder. “I should just kill you. I don’t know how you have Paul’s face, but…”

Hector held up a hand, grunting—the only sound he could articulate as Evie reported his gain:

//21 potentia gathered. Potentia available: 27.//

Hector gasped, shaking from the rush. That was the kind of pull he used to get, and his new skin wasn’t anywhere close to accustomed to it.

“Talk—to—me,” the woman growled, stepping closer.

As Hector nodded, someone pounded on her door and a muffled voice called out, “Britt? You good in there? I’m trying to call emergency, but—”

“I’m good, Leon! Just a minute!” She rattled the gun at Hector’s face, and he nodded.

He gathered his thoughts, trying to put together the words he’d rehearsed a thousand times during the train ride. “I didn’t kill Paul. The assholes sold his body, and I got put into it.” He tapped his head. “Ghost chip.” He figured, based on his conversations with Lemon, that slang terms were more likely to hit home.

Brittany’s lips twisted in disgust. “I should put you down.”

“You could, or you could let me kill the assholes who did this to him.” That got her attention—his Hail Mary. While she stared at him, he put his hand on the windowsill and pushed himself, shakily, into a standing position, though he had to lean heavily against the wall.

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“That was an aura attack, wasn’t it? When you cut that thing in half? For the last time. What is this damn thing?” She kicked the fiend’s steaming skull, and it rolled so that the ugly face was pointing toward them.

“Aura fiend. Uh, the technical name is Rift Symbiote.”

“Holy shit,” Brittany breathed, reaching up to pull her long black hair back behind an ear. She stared at the corpse. “They got it way wrong on Rift Runner Alpha.”

Hector grunted; she was probably talking about some kind of serial, and he didn’t have time to ask. “You got a go-bag or something?”

She looked at him sharply, but only hesitated for a moment before she lowered the gun’s barrel and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Meet me in there.” Hector pointed to the broken wall.

“You really killed them, huh?”

Hector tilted his head, then nodded. “Well, one. The fiend got the other.”

As she lowered the barrel of her gun, Hector walked through the debris and pushed his way through the broken wall. He didn’t waste time but quickly squatted beside the other dead merc, and tried to gather his aura potentia. Nothing was there. Had the fiend consumed it somehow? He wasn’t any sort of expert on the damn things, but he thought he’d heard that they did that kind of thing. He stood stiffly and looked around the room.

It was a mess, but Hector quickly organized his priorities. He gathered up the blood-covered crystal-glass tablet, but not before ensuring Evie could pair with it. Make sure it can’t be tracked.

//Disabling location features.//