That Which is Written
Prologue
The bray of hounds echoed off the darkened walls, reflecting and multiplying as they came closer. She leaped over a hedge of rose bushes, scraping her exposed legs as she went. The lights were on in every building, burning out into the damp heat of the night like watch fires. Women stood in the windows, their silhouettes searching the patches of darkness for the fugitive, for her. The men were already out in force, calling to each other or speaking into radios as they swept the grounds. It was a good thing there was no moon, the darkness the only reason she hadn't been caught already. She had to get out of here. This was the story of a lifetime, but only if she lived to publish it. There was no point going for the motor pool or trying any of the cars in the driveways. The former was guarded and the latter had their keys removed with the pedantic attention to detail these brethren paid to all their tasks. If it were not for the hounds, she might have considered hiding in the trunk of one of the cars, but there could be no hiding from the snuffling nostrils of those slavering beasts. No, her only hope was to reach the chain-link and go over. It was a hike of a mile and a half to the road, a mile and a half through thick scrub and then, with luck she could hitch a ride to some place safe. It was a desperate longshot, but it was her only option. Where in the world could be safe from these people? If ‘people’ was even the right term.
“Sweep west from Luke!” a voice called, harsh and grating ahead of the squelch of a radio. She pressed herself back against the wall of a potting shed a moment before the speaker, an indistinct shape with a big military flashlight rounded the corner. The walkie talkie in his hand squawked something that was too distorted for her to make out as he tramped through the flower bed. It seemed impossible he couldn’t hear her heart hammering in her chest, but he walked past without seeing her, the frosty white beam of the flashlight sweeping back and forth closer to the wire. Fuck, how was she going to get out of here? Fuck, fuck, fuck. Desperate she risked a look at her burner phone, cupping a hand tightly around the display to block any light. No bars. Fuck. The hounds were closer now. No time left. She edged along the wall of the potting shed, all her control employed to stop herself from shaking.
“All clear to the wire from Luke,” the patrolling man said into his walkie talkie. He was only six paces from her, his back turned, the flannel of his shirt black on gray in the gloom. She could smell the scent of bleach and woodsmoke on him. He sighed, playing the beam of his flashlight across the woods a hundred yards from the wire. Owls hooted in annoyance and there was a chitter from some other animal. Just a hundred yards. Now or never.
“Where is this bitch,” the man muttered to himself. In a movie she would have made some witty remark, but this was no fairy tale, at least not the kid friendly Disney kind. She jammed her taser into his back, right between his shoulder blades where the nerves sprayed out from his choroid plexus. His body spasmed and he dropped to the ground with a thump where he continued to thrash and spasm until the butt of his mag light cracked into the back of his skull, and he went slack.
“Right here,” she allowed herself, buoyed by her own success, but she wasted no time rifling his pockets and retrieving a small caliber handgun from his waistband and a leatherman multitool from his pocket. Boyscout assholes. The hounds howled again, close now, no further than the end of the street. She ran for the wire and began clipping the links with the cutter as quickly as she could. Click-click, click-click.
“There! STOP!” someone shouted, but there was no force on earth that could have stopped her now. She snipped one more link and shoved herself through the gap. The jagged edges of the short vertical incision raked cuts across her thighs and arms that burned like fire. A gunshot cracked out and something whined past her head but she was free now, running like the college athlete she had been, though the sophomore long distance championship’s had never motivated her like flight from this nightmare. Two more shots cracked behind her before she reached the treeline but she didn’t look back. She crashed into the undergrowth, the mag light held in front of her as hurdled over fallen trees and wove around stringy saplings. Branches scratched at her like skeletal hands, a vine caught her across the forehead stripping back skin as effectively as a burn. Her breath burned in her chest, her muscles screamed with lactic acid, behind her the bark of the dogs and the bloodthirsty shouts of their masters. The only thought in her head was flight, flight and escape from this horrible night. Any hurt, any pain, was worth it if it meant getting away from this place.
Run, weave between the trees, don’t slow down. Not for anything. Time lost its meaning. Every second took her further from the horror behind her. Just keep running.
The ground suddenly gave way beneath her. Screaming she tumbled, the flashlight was smashed from her hand as it struck a rock with a crack that probably meant a fractured wrist. The night sky and the dark earth cartwheeled as she careened down the steep slope, long grass ripping at her like stinging nettle. She crashed violently into a ditch, the impact driving the air from her lungs. Gravel cuts covered her arms and blood was leaking from above her right eye, though scratched on something in the forest or in the fall she couldn’t tell. She was in the drainage culvert on the side of a paved road. Lights were approaching. She staggered to her feet ignoring the pain, waving her arms and shouting herself hoarse. The lights dimmed to low beams and began to slow. An old but well-maintained Buick rolled to a halt in front of her and she ran to the door, ripping it open frantically.
“Help you missy?” An older man with salt and pepper hair asked in concern, reaching up to squelch the harangue of talk radio pouring from its ancient sound system. He had a kindly face that was contorted in concern by the mask of blood and dirt worn by the woman before him.
“I need to get away from here, now!” she cried, finally pulling the passenger door open and hopping in, heedless of the small avalanche of trash and personal possessions she caused.
“I see,” the kindly old man replied. Something in his tone tipped her off and she glanced over at him and saw it. He gave her a hopeful smile. She pulled the pistol from her pocket, pressed it to his head and pulled the trigger in a single panicked motion. It was very loud. The gunshot blew out the driver’s side window as the round empties his brain case and sprayed the wooden door paneling with gore. The jet of ejecting brain matter lolled the driver's head towards her for a moment before his seat belt snapped him back in a motion curiously reminiscent of a crash test dummy in slow motion, flicking a lazy tail of blood and pulped synapse over her. The concussion of it shattered two more windows. Luckily the car was too old to have an airbag or a car alarm. Her ears rang tinnily, and the car stank of blood, cordite, and human waste voided when the body died. Her heart seemed to be trying to rip its way out of her chest. Thump-thump, thump-thump. The old man shuddered and then sat up, his face horribly disfigured by the gun shot that had punched through his head. Blood ran down into his face and his thin fringe of hair was on fire from the muzzle flash, his right eyebrow burned away entirely. Grains of burning powder flecked his face, glowing like the coals of damnation.
“Well, that’s just unfriendly,” the man wheezed, its voice hideously distorted by its gunshot opened nasal cavity. It’s hands grabbed for her, closing around her throat with a maniacal strength, fingers sinking into her neck like a wire noose. The gun rang out three more times before the darkness took her.
Part 1
July 5 2022
Outside New Orleans
“You hate that I’m going,” Eleanor Tregellan stated in a tone that clearly implied she hoped the answer was ‘no’. She buttoned the top button of the white dress shirt. It was a good match to her gray pencil skirt, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the custom shoulder holster of black polyester weave that she buckled on over it. Across from her Emmaline Von Morganstern, or Doctor Emma Stern as she styled herself, lounged on the bed in her Tulane t-shirt. Emmaline never failed to take Ellie’s breath away. She was blonde and high cheekbones with piercing blue green eyes that should have belonged to a fashion model or movie star. She was perhaps a little heavier than was the taste in the tabloids, but Ruben’s would have painted her as Venus. It made Ellie feel somewhat tawdry by comparison, with her dark red hair and pale gently freckled skin. There was nothing remarkable about her, just a fit looking thirty something whose youthful glamor was slowly fading. Emmaline sighed and stood up, treating Ellie to a long look at those amazing legs and a timely reminder that the shirt was the only thing her lover was wearing. Emmaline walked over and made a slight adjustment to the holster, settling it into place more comfortably. Emmaline had worked for the Sunday Group for eight years, a year longer than Eleanor. In some ways they had come up together, but Emmaline was retired now, two years retired after a case that had claimed the lives of three agents and put Eleanor in intensive care for a month. She still consulted, sometimes officially, more often in her role as Eleanor’s long suffering confidant, but her time as an active field agent was over. Eleanor had thought that boredom would drag her back into the field before too long, but dammit if she wasn’t born to be a domestic goddess, Juno and Venus both, the bitch.
“You will do what you will do Geliebte,” Emmaline said with a slightly sad smile, her slight Austrian accent thickening. “What do bold chevaliers do when there are no quests to pursue after all.”
“Lay in bed with their beautiful Maid Marions?” Eleanor asked, disarmed in spite of herself. Emmaline snickered.
“I was thinking, help their beautiful Maid Marions hang the drywall, but sure. There is life after you know. It can be something wonderful.” There was a gentle desperation in her words that made Eleanor’s heart throb.
“If I don’t go, who will?” she replied simply. Emmaline hugged her tightly with a sudden fierceness.
“I hate that you are going Eleanor Tregellan,” she breathed, “but I love that you are the kind of person who feels that you have to.”
To: PChastain@sg.org, FLaplace@sg.org, MRavenwood@sg.org, ABellamy@sg.org
CC: ETregellan@sg.org, EVM@sg.org
BCC: SPriest@phi.org
From: Operations@sg.org
Subject: Case 7.7.22 <urgent>
Please report to the scene of an MVA at 30°39'44.2"N 90°42'45.8"W ASAP.
Sunday Group Operations
<Security Under the Seventh Sign of Abrogation>
There was a faint heat shimmer over the bitumen as Eleanor arrived at the coordinates, a quiet country road a few minutes from a major artery. An SUV of new but not brand new make was crumpled against the bohle of a gnarled tree thirty feet from the road across a flat gravel turn about. Beyond the tree that had done for the SUV was a thick wall of scrub trees, luxuriant in the yellowing green of the July heat. It was easy to follow the SUV’s last few moments, skid marks in burned rubber transitioning to deep grooves in the crushed stone before meeting the tree. The front was folded up like a tuna can and pieces of windscreen and windows had been thrown in all directions like glittering confetti. For a miracle there were no rubberneckers, merely a single police cruiser with the shield of St Helena Parish on the door, its dome lights not even flashing. It was exciting in a way, they almost never got to work with a crime scene. Usually it was a call out to investigate some strange happening, or the body arrived post mortem after release to the family. Not today apparently.
The lexus had hardly crunched onto the gravel when the cruiser's occupant, a portly older officer, quickly losing the battle to donuts and diabetes, hopped out and half jogged across the intervening ground equipment belt rattling and cheeks blowing. Eleanor turned off the engine and the alt-rock she had been playing died abruptly. Warm summer air rushed in to greet her as she left the comfortable embrace of her air conditioning.
“Ma’am you can’t…” the cops voice stumbled in an instinctive reaction to a woman in a business suit. She could see it in his eyes, FBI? DEA? He had no idea. He didn’t need this shit. Just punching a clock. He had a BBQ tonight he didn’t want to be late for. Reaching into her pocket Eleanor produced a business card. It tingled slightly against her palm. To her the card simply read: Eleanor Tregellan - Sunday Group but there was a geas woven into it, carefully picked out in expertly laid, hair fine, gold wire. To a receptive mind it simply carried the imperative that the holder of the card was someone important and not to be troubled. The effectiveness of the geas varied from person to person, but the cop pulled up suddenly and came to something like a posture of attention. He was drooling slightly. To those whose world view centered on a chain of command the effect of the geas was potent but not subtle. Perhaps Primrose might be able to work up something a little more subtle. Primrose Chastain. That needed some thinking on. The cop made an inarticulate gurgle.
“What have we got?” Eleanor demanded in the brusque, straight to business tone of all self important federal agents. That jolted the poor policeman’s mind back into action.
“Ma’am, one white male between the ages of thirty and forty deceased, looks to be from impact with the steering column, EMS should be here within thirty minutes.” That was a slow reaction time, unreasonably so. No one was exactly certain how the higher echelons of the Sunday Group functioned, even long time operators like Eleanor, but it was obvious some kind of delay was being put in place to give the team a chance to take a look at this. The cop, CPL Stevens, by his name tag, stared at her in slack jawed expectation, awaiting instruction.
“Why don’t you go take a rest Stevens,” she told him, driving the geas home with the use of a partial name.
“And when you wake up, best not to mention I was here. National security and all that.” Stevens nodded his head so vigorously the clacking of his teeth was audible. She hated using the thing on the man, the effects should be temporary, but they weren’t pleasant. The cop began to lay down, taking her instruction to rest with dogged compliance.
“I meant rest in your car,” Eleanor added quickly, “you will be more comfortable there.” The geas tendered towards the literal, intolerant of linguistic shorthand.
With the cop out of the way she approached the wrecked SUV. The smell of burned rubber and leaking oil pricked the back of her nose as she came alongside. She couldn’t see anything through the crazed windows, the safety glace having shattered the dark tint to opacity, and the scene was silent save for the distant rumble of traffic and the tick-tick-tick of cooling metal. The driver's side door hung open, crumpled and twisted, the glossy black finish ruined. The doorwas dented with the imprint of a boot, probably where Officer Stevens had kicked it to get the cab open. The image of the fat policeman frantically kicking the door open to free the driver made her feel even more of a shit. Flies buzzed as she reached the door, stepping carefully to avoid the broken window glass in the dirt. The driver hadn’t been dead long, but the corpse was already looking gray and waxy in the heat. Flies crawled over his eyes and lips and she had to clap her hands to make them disperse. He was an ordinary looking man, clean shaven, probably of Latin American extraction. He wore denim jeans, a brown t-shirt that looked about the right shade of olive to be army surplus, though the lower half was copiously stained with dark blood. Boots were steel capped and without laces. Initially she had wondered why Stevens hadn’t pulled the man out of the wreck. Little wonder. The steering column had been smashed back so far it crushed the drivers ribs, pinning him to the seat like an entomologist’s needle. Judging by the pooling of blood around his waistband, the impact had snapped ribs and shoved the fractured bone out through the flesh. Probably pulped the liver and spleen for the bargain. Massive internal hemorrhage, concurrent spinal injury. She glanced at his lips. There was a wash of dark blood across the right side of his face and both of his pupils were blown. Death instantaneous. COD: blunt force trauma to the lower abdomen. Crush injuries unusually low. Victim standing at time of impact? No seat belt, no airbag. Unusual for a car this new to not deploy airbags. Eleanor glanced at the tree the car had struck. Six feet thick at the base and monumentally unconcerned with the impact, some superficial damage to the bark. She turned back to the body, to the reason she had gotten a call rather than the cops just hauling the corpse down to the morgue.
Juan Doe’s body was covered in glyphs.
It looked to Eleanor like they had been applied with yellow paint, sloppy and uneven, more like finger paint than henna. The glyphs themselves were weird asymmetric things that made her thumbs prick to look at. She leaned closer and sniffed, detecting the acrid tang above the reek of crushed intestines and blood that was already beginning to rot. There was something else there also. At the lips and around the neck. She had taken it for blood at first but it wasn’t, something black and viscous, like bile or tar but not quite either. In places it was smeared over the glyphs, but with no organization that could be detected.
“Curious and curiouser,” she said to herself and reached into her pocket to produce her smartphone. It looked for all the world like a regular samsung galaxy, but it had considerable aftermarket upgrades, all of which would void the warranty and played merry hell on the battery life. She punched in one of her access codes. The phone had three sets of codes courtesy of Fynn Laplace. One code gave access to the true phone, one pulled up a fake profile that revealed nothing more than she spent too much time on candy crush, and one code would trigger the memory chips to fuse into blackened slag. It was nice work she had to grudgingly admit. The true code brought the phone to life and she opened a piece of very non standard software. The program was called Nachfragen, which was too long for the size of an icon on a phone. Eleanor had shortened it to Nacho, for ease of display and to poke fun at Emmaline’s grandiose nomenclature. She lifted the phone and pointed it at the glyphs, a video feed of the camera displayed on the screen. The moment she tapped the app to active the image began to glow slightly green, a string of numbers cascading down the right side denoting the number of thaums the glyphs were putting off. Detecting magic. There is an app for that. The glyphs were definitely juiced, not just some meth head having fun with spray paint.
“Well, well,” she said to the corpse as she switched to her camera and began taking photos, sending the pics out on the team discord, even though most of them should be here momentarily.
“I guess there is a mystery afterall.”
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