Crime Rave (36 page)

8:30 PM The Roswell Institute

D
ozens more casualties disappear into the toothed maw of the blob, but the lethal chemical cocktail works, especially in such close quarters, and the creature begins diminishing, its power to regenerate slowing and stopping entirely. The work to rebuild all the areas of The Institute it destroyed will be another herculean task.

To boot, Gustave II, Jason Mars, and the shark girl Tiburona commandeered the extraction team spaceship and have kept the craft in stealth mode. Ransom vows to deal with them later. First, he needs to get a new extraction team together to collect those bitches who’ve done nothing but make his life a misery since the first day he met them.

Before Ransom can begin the phone rings. That sickly purple light signifying The Founders. Terror fills Ransom’s belly like shit stew. This isn’t going to be pretty. Not one little bit.

He pushes the button, and picks up the receiver. The voice on the other end makes his nose bleed.

Randall “Ripper” Ransom loads his revolver and removes the safety.

He puts it in his mouth and bites down.

His itchy trigger finger makes one last pull, painting the walls with his own blood.

This isn’t the first time he’s tried to off himself after a fuck-up.

A screeching noise emits from the fallen telephone receiver and Colonel Ransom’s body begins to heal.

The Founders never let him get off that easy.

Kaleanathi, the Smog Goddess

T
he survivors, your final tribute, your next meal, are almost in the fold of the goddess of connections, Aranya, weaver of worlds. She and the other Elementals form your circle, drawing on the pain of souls in eternal anguish. It’s time.

You sense hesitation in your sister Elementals, but it only takes one threat to get them back in line. You are the future, after all.

Muuna, the moon goddess, and Oceanica, goddess of waters, lock lips as the murder goddess Fiero calls out the primeval words. The forbidden words. The words that will bring you to the pinnacle of your power.

Not even Mother, The Ancient One can stop you now. The end of her reign is here at long last. You have all the power that you need to rain down your fury and rein in these creatures whose spirits belong to you.

In the stone circle of the Elemental elders you lie on the altar and open yourself up to receive.

Your chant reaches fever pitch until it is time to reach down and take what is yours.

You let loose your tentacles down into the smog, into the fears, into the lost hopes and dreams of humanity.

You feel the sky cracking open as the spell comes into effect.

You hear the shouts of your sister Elementals as their power rips from their insides and into you.

You are the dragon of all time.

You are the bringer of death.

You are the eater of souls.

You are the all powerful, all wanting center of the universe.

You open your mouth to feed.

Come into me!, you scream.

You are mine!

ALL MINE.

8:40 PM West Hollywood PD

A
fter getting the survivors settled in one of the larger conference rooms Detective Red Feather keeps his promise and takes food orders after everyone’s had a chance to browse the cornucopia of take-away menus featuring every cuisine available.

Kimchi and bulgogi for Linda Kang, four different kinds of tacos and a breakfast burrito with extra hot sauce for Lola Calavera, several meat curries for Karma Devi, and half a dozen everything pizzas to satiate the non-discerning and just-as-hungry rest of the group. All save for Icarus Lazlo, who is this close to feeding on one of the humans thanks to the delicious aroma coming from the menstruating Cherie Beauxden’s three uteri, and Teresa Chalmers, who is stretched out and sleeping on America’s lumpiest sofa as if it’s a bed in the Four Seasons.

The bad feeling that began germinating during their walk to the police station has grown worms in Linda’s belly, and some of the less gastronomically experienced survivors have been complaining about the pungency of her kimchi.

“It’s this or I go all Chunderdome on your asses. I’m not even kidding.”

Tashi Lhamo snorts, getting the reference at once. Linda smiles and puts her hand up for a high five that’s gloriously met.

“What is a Chunderdome?” NRG asks, wondering if this is some new lingo they’ve not been privy to underground.

“Chunder’s the Australian word for pukefest. Thunderdome was a
Mad Max
movie,” Linda explains, burping.

“In that case…” NRG exaggerates moving as far away from Linda as possible, “I’ll just be over here.” Linda throws a balled up napkin at her and everyone not stuffing their face laughs, too.

Connie Jones, the console cowgirl, is nose-deep in the station’s only laptop computer, navigating her usual online forums and haunts, her silver eyes speed-reading page after page, so relieved to be plugged back in to the information matrix. She’s looking for news on what happened to them, as well as any hints about the gypsy girl from her vision who was murdered in Prague. Their story is about to break the Internet. The gypsy’s story, not a peep.

“I think we’re gonna start some kind of religious war, you guys,” Connie reads aloud an article about new riots breaking out between different faiths convinced it was their god responsible for the impossible survivors.

“Well, shit,” Karma Devi says, piling another mouthful of lamb vindaloo into her mouth. “Leave it to the fundies to ruin our survival party.”

Lola Calavera snorts and a piece of her chorizo breakfast burrito flies out her nose.

“Two for flinching!” Karma winks and fist bumps her friend, who laughs outright and makes an even bigger mess as food sputters from her mouth.

But not everyone is in a reveling mood: The sense of camaraderie Chamelia felt before has been replaced with an apothecary of negative emotions as she paces in human form, back and forth, back and forth—her hatred of small spaces returned in full force—and snaps into lizard form when one of her new friends politely asks her to stop.

“You think Chunderdome would be bad? I’ll fucking snap your neck if you ever tell me what to do again,” Chamelia snarls at Cherie, who nearly chokes on shock.

“Jesus, Chamelia, chill out, girl.” Secrete emits the special calming scent for Chamelia alone. Even that doesn’t work.

“Something’s coming. You feel it?” Chamelia’s eyes dart around the room so fast Lola Calavera gets dizzy and defaults into invisible mode.

“I sure do,” Connie Jones says, her silver eyes flashing.

Red Feather walks back in to the conference room, towering behind him Lily the Cyclops.

“Look who I found wandering the hallway.”

Lily grabs the detective’s hand and squeezes it. He pats her arm, smiling, and leaves her to reunite with her friends.

Chamelia breaks out of her panic spell. “Lily, what the hell! Where have you been?”

Secrete rushes their friend with a tackle hug, virtually jumping into her arms. Lily has no problem catching her in a bear hug. “Oh you know, kicking ass, turning people to stone, no biggie.” If she could wink, she would have.

NRG and Chamelia both take turns embracing Lily and introducing her to the group. The few who remember her from the rave also get up to give her hugs and she wishes she could remember that night. These women look cool as hell, and she secretly thinks the werewolf is her new favorite.
Sorry, Chamelia.
Lily ignores the vampire skulking in the corner. She’s had enough of men for one day. Except, of course for Detective Red Feather. But he’s special.

“So really, where were you?” Chamelia asks again.

“Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it right now. What about you all?” Lily feels both exhausted and hyperaware, and loves the feeling of sisterhood in this room. She can take care of herself, she knows that now, but still it’s amazing to have these powerful women on her side.

Chamelia frowns, not taking rejection well and not wanting Lily to change the subject. She needs to know where to unleash her next can of whoop-ass. Before Chamelia has a chance to start pressuring Lily to spill the beans the lights in the room flicker, a brownout on steroids.

Hair stands on end, and everyone puckers with goosebumps.

Connie’s eyes begin emitting a strangely fluorescent glow. “It’s here,” she says in a voice nothing like her own.

Teresa sits straight up from her sleep and begins to quietly scream, covering her ears with her hands and rocking back and forth.

Lola Calavera flips back and forth between visible and invisible, her nose bleeding.
“Qué chingona está pasando! No lo puedo controlar!”
What fresh hell is this? I can’t control it.
“Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!” She begins bleeding from her nose, a huge gush that coats her mouth and chin.

Icarus Lazlo jumps onto the conference table in front of Lola, scattering Indian and Korean takeaway containers, crushing pizza boxes underfoot. He doesn’t know why the bloodlust is too strong, he can’t begin to rein it in.

Karma Devi pulls Lola back, and brandishes a scalpel she stole from Spruce-Musa. “One step closer fangboy, and I’ll slit your fucking throat.”

Icarus snarls, readying himself to launch.
Now it’s my turn to eat.

Knives flow out of NRG like water, accidentally pegging Chamelia and she manages to turn in time to lay them into Icarus, who growls in pain and skulks to the other end of the table as the metal shards force their way out of his skin and it heals.

The entire building begins to quake, rocking back and forth like a child wiggling a tooth that’s not quite ready to fall out.

Out in the hallway the kinetic air that fills the station reminds Red Feather of the vision he had just this morning of the beings chanting in a celestial stone structure, a blue so effervescent he hoped heaven was so beautiful. All this as he stood in the observation deck of an operating theater and watched these survivors before him come back to life from assorted body parts.

An electrical storm raging outside shoots lightning beams through the glass windows and doors, zigzagging into the station and cracking down around the conference room housing the survivors, several of whom have taken cover under the table.

A bolt of lightning sweeps in and strikes the bird girl Asha Kinsella. She’s thrown across the room and lands in a heap, all singed hair and smoking.

The walls begin to crack from the violent shaking and the floor buckles under the weight of force pressing down.

“Is it The Institute?” Secrete screams, holding on to Chamelia and NRG, who is depleted of knives, the first time in her decades of living that’s ever happened.

Connie Jones begins levitating, her eyes glowing a dangerous fluorescence as the disembodied voice emerges once again from her mouth. “I am the goddess Kaleanathi! Come to me! Give in to me!” Connie raises her arms in front of her, palms up.

The humans begin bleeding from their ears as the barometric pressure drops like free falling from an airplane, tossed from above the clouds.

“What the fuck is she gibbering about?” Trip screams. “Who’s doing this?”

The ceiling begins to cave in, cement and dust raining down, filling the air in a toxic asbestos fog.

Connie’s mouth opens again, a channel for the goddess, whose words vibrate through the entire building. “FEED ME.” Connie’s arms lift above her head and a blast of thermonuclearesque energy smashes forth with such force the others can actually see the air moving.

The survivors feel their bodies being split open, nuclear fission from the inside, centripetal force to tear them into their basest atoms and sucked upwards into the mouth of something horrible.

Their souls scream in unison, centuries of pain in a split second, the eternity of agony in just one moment, the fragility of their existence exposed to raw nerves and the plea for more time.

And just as fast as it started, it stops.

Connie falls from her levitation stance, cracking her head on the edge of the table as she lands unconscious.

The lightning zings into non-existence. A zap and it’s like it was never there. The building stops swaying and groaning from under the weight of the presence that threatened to level the entire structure and all those in it. The silence is as heavy as the noise preceding it.

The survivors gasp for breath and wipe blood from their faces.

Icarus is knocked out from a fallen beam.

Asha Kinsella’s body is blistered from the lightning bolt and her blond hair is burned black.

NRG’s skin bubbles as her knives begin growing again inside her bones.

Trip begins an unscheduled transformation from werewolf back into human form, her bones breaking as she howls in pain, convulsing her way into a female body, her burned werewolf pelt retracting along with her claws and snout.

The smell of ozone in the air is so chemical rich mixing with the myriad strains of takeout food Linda feels her gorge rise. She can’t control it and projectile vomits into the corner of the room, the acid eating its way through an already unstable floor.

Cherie Beauxden is in the middle of the worst cramps she’s ever had and she’s burning up. Tashi sees she’s bleeding through her clothing in thick rivets of clotted menstrual blood.

Tashi’s skin is split all over from her full-body spasm, like invisible fairies attacked her with tiny knives leaving wounds reminiscent of paper-cuts over the entirety of her body. She can’t help but think about being raped and that same splitting wide feeling left behind.

Teresa Chalmers is the flesh fallout from the world’s worst migraine: every piece of her hurts, down to her teeth and eyelashes. She can hear her own scream vibrating in her head.

Chamelia shudders through a number of different forms before settling on her own. “Gods, I feel like that Frida Kahlo painting
The Broken Column.
You know, the one where her spine is exposed as a cracked pillar?”

“You know Friducha?” Lola asks, still unable to stop fading in and out of invisibility, trying to hold the panic at bay.

“She’s my favorite,” Chamelia says.

“Me too.” And with that both women fix on their forms. Lola back to full visibility, Chamelia in her lizard shape.

Lily’s the only one who feels fine. Not a scratch on her, not an ache anywhere to be found. She doesn’t know she has celestial blood. Kaleanathi’s powers won’t work on her like other humans.

Icarus Lazlo wakes up, his fangs retracted and an apologetic look on his face. “I don’t know what came over me. Please accept my apologies.” His nondescript European accent reminds Lily of Barnabus Collins from the
Dark Shadows
reruns
.

Karma Devi’s long black braid is in complete disarray and her face shines with a layer of perspiration. “Apology accepted, fangface. But fuck with any of us again and I’ll happily feed on
you
.
Capisce
?” She’s never tasted vampire testicles before and wonders how they stack up against human ones.

“Understood.” Icarus knows in his gut she’s not speaking in metaphors. He eyes the prostrate Cherie and will wait for everyone to leave the room before hoovering her copious leakage with his mouth. He’s starving.

Secrete finds her body has grown actual vines that bind her to the table leg and even though there’s no water anywhere nearby her legs have fused into her mermaid tail. Pulling at the vines hurts her, so she untangles them one by one. Her human legs return, but not before Chamelia sees her tail and gives her a sideways glace.
We’re talking about this later.

Una gives painful birth to a sickly looking blob that turns black and melts into a viscous puddle.

Connie comes to, feeling like twice baked shit, rubbing the side of her head that hit the table, her hand coming off sticky with blood, her eyes back to their usual silver instead of the surreal blue glow. “What the hell was I saying?”

“You said your name was the goddess Kaleanathi and were to come feed you,” Tashi Lhamo says. “None of you got that?”

Teresa Chalmers helps Connie up. “Nope, sounded like Greek to me. You speak Greek?” Teresa uses the corner of her hospital gown to wipe some of the blood from Connie’s face, ignoring the mess of her own. Crises put her in mom mode.

“Apparently as of today I understand all the languages,” Tashi shrugs. “Any of you ever heard of a goddess Kaleanathi?”

Mumbled negatives from the group. Icarus Lazlo says nothing and continues licking his wounds—physical and emotional—even though he’s heard whispers of a new goddess who lurks in the smog above Los Angeles.

Detective Red Feather props himself up against the conference room’s doorframe, hand to his head and bleeding through his fingers from where a chunk of ceiling landed on him. Had he been an inch to the left the pipe embedded in the concrete would have just pierced his heart. “Everyone alive?”
Günn is never going to believe any of this.

Assorted grunts and moans as he does a quick headcount. “Let’s get you all somewhere safe.”

“Was there ever there such a place?” Tashi asks.

“No philosophy, Tash, everything hurts too much right now,” Cherie moans. Do these and it’s all good to go.

“Could someone get me some clothes?” Trip says, fully human and fully naked.

“Storage room down the hall.” Red Feather gives Tashi the code and she returns with a black shirt and sweatpants embossed with LAPD, standard police physical training gear.

“Guess I’m going commando,” Trip says, a wry smile on her red and patchy post-transformation face.

Still shaking from the side-effects of the massive energy pull, the group staggers from the wrecked conference room, wading through the backflow of a dozen exploded toilets, wondering who—or what—will come after them next.