This is Episode 5-23 of a serial urban fantasy & paranormal story. This part contains scenes of violence that may not be suitable for all readers.

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Part 5-23: Terradyne

A living room is no place for ten thousand bees.

Luckily, their queens were still listening to me. Before I could see if the cave illusion was cracked and whether or not I could do a wifi burn, I got the bugs to safety.

The mass exodus did not do anything to soothe the remaining agents, who had just witnessed an impossible murder inside an impossible cave. They cursed and yelped as the little creatures flowed all around them, rushing out the front door or whatever other cracks they might find.

I kept an eye on Eden, who had appeared in the corner, bent over and very smoky, like it was made of dry ice and someone had poured a bucket of water on it. The ugly blob creature took up most of the space, but all it did was shiver and flail with its various horrible growths.

When more of the bees cleared, I could see that Eden had its hand raised off the ground and tilted toward the thing. Upon closer inspection, the glob was slowly sinking into the ground.

“Oh, you want your lock?” I said. I walked up to Eden, raised the polearm, and thrust it down at the base of its neck.

The demon spun and caught the blade in its shoulder area, then grabbed the handle. Ice raced up the weapon and locked my hands to it. More smoke raced off Eden.

“Very, good,” it said.

I tried to push the polearm deeper, and managed to succeed somewhat, shoving Eden closer to the ground.

“Formidable. Not as I, expected. Perhaps, he is right. Perhaps it is… you.”

“Would you just die already,” I grunted, shoving harder.

“We meet again,” gasped Eden, but instead of dissolving away, it seemed to be struggling harder. A quick glance over my shoulder revealed that the monster was almost entirely gone.

“Fuck it,” I said, and summoned the diamonds.

Bathing in pain, the Internet came back, and the ice melted from my hands. I gave it a ten count, and then dropped it again. Eden was gone. So was the monster. But I’d been too slow. Outside, I heard the healthy sound of the clock’s mechanics winding. It only did that when the hand moved.

“Something good just happened,” said Fergus. “I feel a warmth. I want to smile, and I don’t know why.”

“Something good?” I murmured, seeing that bloody stream dipping down the rock column. “The test. I think we passed.”

My bittersweet brooding was interrupted by movement near the door. Most of the bees had left, and the agents were getting their bearings. Well, three of them were. The fourth lay still.

“What the hell was that, what the hell happened?” asked one man. He looked at his hands, then pawed at his gun holster, probably confused as to how it seemed like it had gotten back in there without his help.

The woman uncoiled herself from the ground, and carefully surveyed the scene. She didn’t appear to notice me.

The other guy was checking on his pal. “Gone,” he whispered, then shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What happened?” demanded the first guy.

“You’ll be debriefed,” said Terradyne—that was her name.

“There was—there was that lady, her!” The frightened man pointed at the still form of Kari, who for all intents and purposes, appeared to be dozing in her chair.

“Yes. Check on her please,” said Terradyne.

The other man, who seemed a little more composed, went over and reported that she was alive.

“We have to call this in, what the fuck, what the fuck,” the shaken dude, who had still not gotten up off the floor, scrambled for a radio on his belt. Before he could pluck it up, Terradyne pulled a small pistol from her jacket and promptly shot him twice, and I nearly fell over in shock.

“Maintain radio silence,” she said, eyebrows raised at the other man, who watched with a neutral expression. He met her eyes and nodded. Terradyne shot the first guy once more in the head.

“Deluxe, um, I think you might’ve been right about these fucking spooks,” I said, heart racing as fast as it had when I was fighting Eden.

“Help me get her to the car,” said Terradyne.

They took Miss Sugimoto to their vehicle. I followed and told Persi to get the hell away from the place as fast as possible, then ditch the car. I hoped that they’d not made any note of Fergus’ vehicle parked on the road near the driveway, but I did not want to take that chance. Outside, I saw that my blob friends were still attached to most of the hives, save a few closest to the house, where I suspected the temporary wifi burst had scared them off. The skies were still speckled with my air force. The clock read two to midnight.

The agents went back in. I followed.

“What do we do with these two?” asked the remaining guy.

“In the cavern hallucination, you heard the Sugimoto woman speaking to someone, yes?” said Terradyne.

“Before the situation went south, yeah.”

“Strip their equipment. Did you hear the name she mentioned?”

The agent knelt and started unclipping stuff from the un-shot body. “It was something like Alana, or Alena.”

“Right,” said Terradyne, then she shot him in the back of the head. A spray of blood blasted onto the floor.

“Gah! Ah, ah—bitch!” I yelped. He twitched forward and slumped over his comrade. A chip of something triangular and white tinked and clattered off the TV set before bouncing near my feet. I backed away from it like it was a grenade.

Terradyne left again. I followed, keeping my distance, regardless if she could see me or not. She went into the trunk of the car, and came out with a gas can, plastic bags and a toolkit. She put on rubber gloves and went back to the house, where I watched in sick fascination as she methodically went about removing all her cronies’ teeth with a set of pliers. She put their guns, radios and other effects into the plastic bags along with her four spent shells, then went about dousing the room with fuel.

She left again, stood on the porch, and pulled out her radio.

“Central, I’ve three casualties. Scene’s wiped, with one c-black individual in custody. Move up the timetable on the Bisk and Prime girls by twenty four hours. Their involvement is confirmed.”

She lit a match, tossed it, and didn’t look back as the blaze engulfed the bungalow.

Before I snapped back to the condo, I took the time to give my queens one last instruction: abandon hives. The skies traded fuzzy specks for sooty ash as the bees departed.

I hoped they’d find good homes.

 

 

Continued in Part 5-24

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