AM7: Durance, chapter 13 (Patreon)

Darren woke on the spirit plane. While his sex with Kavon had been highly enjoyable, he hadn't thought it would be enough to make him move planes of existence. And yet here he was.  The sun beat down on the gently swaying veldt grass, but the utter silence destroyed any illusion this was a normal trip to the spirit plane. Darren looked around to see if he could spot the little feathered busybody who was probably responsible for his unscheduled trip. Unfortunately, Bennu was nowhere in sight. Neither was Kavon.

“Hello?” 

Darren took a step back when part of the spirit plane waivered for a moment, and then the African veldt that he had grown so familiar with shimmered and then turned into the dry Southwest desert with mountains in the distance. The colorful Egyptian monuments that once rose out of the flat African plains now competed with majestic mountains and cactus.

“Okay, does someone plan to show up?” Darren used all of his FBI training at hand-to-hand combat to keep his body loose and ready for ambush, but he wasn't entirely sure that those techniques worked when the only body he possessed was a soul-fueled illusion.

“Agent Oberton?” 

Darren blinked as a tall figure walked towards him, the man’s form slowly growing more solid as he approached. It took Darren a second to recognize him. “Detective Johnson?” This was Pochi’s partner, which made sense in a weird way. While the detective and his shaman partner were in El Paso, his guide was fighting at Bennu’s side, so it made sense that the docent might want their partners together if they had found information on the durance. “What is this about?”

“Damned if I know. I assume Pochi brought me here, but I might be wrong. I'm wrong a lot, especially when it comes to the spirit plane stuff.” Johnson shrugged. “Art!” he then called into the air. The sound had a dull, deadened sound.

“Is this your privacy spell?” Darren asked. He couldn’t imagine any other spell that would quiet so much of the ambient noise of this world.

“Hell no. Privacy spells are a little above my pay grade.” Johnson had been looking around, but now he stopped and looked at Darren. “I know your guide gives you the big Talent upgrades, but my guide just likes to hang out during target practice. He’s not one for throwing magic around.”

Darren thought about Pochi’s violent fighting style. “I think he does a little more than that.”

Johnson frowned and studied Darren. “Does he? When I'm arresting human suspects for blackmail or even murder, he stays hands-off. He loves to chase suspects and show me which way to run, but he is more an observer than a fighter.”

Darren wasn’t sure how much Kavon had told the El Paso pair, but the time for secrets was over. The war had arrived. “Pochi has been in DC fighting the first of the evil ifrit—the first durance to come through.”

Johnson stared at Darren, his face twisted with horror. “Please tell me this is a poorly timed joke.”

Darren shook his head. “We were ambushed on the street. Pochi and Bennu together couldn’t take this monster down. It was as big as horse, and nearly as large as Kavon’s bull.”

“I thought size didn’t matter with guides,” Johnson blurted.

“This creature has size and power,” Darren said. “I nearly didn’t survive the first battle.”

Johnson collapsed like a puppet with its string cut. Darren lurched forward, terrified that something had attacked the detective, but he stopped when he realized Johnson was sitting cross-legged on the rocky ground, his hands braced on his knees. “Well, fuck,” he said softly.

“That’s about it,” Darren agreed.

Johnson looked up. “Pochi has been sending me some terrifying mental images lately. I haven't noticed any impending Armageddon on the news, so I thought he was remembering something. If I poke him with the right questions, sometimes he remembers the past with such vivid detail that I put these vague emotions into that same category.” Johnson climbed back to his feet. “Tell me, did this attacker have face armor that looked almost like a skull, like one of the stupid cow skulls people put in their houses and call Southwest décor?”

“You've seen it?” Darren fought down the urge to grab Johnson and shake information out of him.

“No, but Pochi has sent me the image. If I push him about what the enemy looks like, that is the first picture that pops out of him.

“The first? Does he send you other images?”

“Clear images of enemy, no. However, for the last several days he’s been vanishing for long periods of time, and when he shows up again, he blasts me with emotions. I’m getting a deep sense of regret and shame followed by an image that is almost like something being washed away. I keep feeling like something is horribly, horribly wrong. Any insights?”

“What’s getting washed away?” Darren asked. He knew the only piece of history that caused Bennu intense shame was the ifrit involvement in the purge that burned magic out of the world by burning the shamans and driving away the guides who might bring more to Earth. Darren hoped Pochi had a few more skeletons in his closet to feel guilty about. After all, Pochi was associated with a god that preferred human sacrifice. 

“I get an image of water washing away blood, but I’m also seeing fire burning, driving animals to flee to a huge wall. It’s on a loop, and I’m really starting to freak out. Please tell me Pochi isn’t starting to get obsessed with remembering the purge.”  

Darren wished he could say that, but it might be worse than Detective Johnson assumed. “When Pochi sends you these images, does it feel more like he's giving you a memory or if he's asking you a question?” Darren asked. “Or is he warning you about something that's going to come?”

“I have no idea how to tell what that hyperactive little bird is thinking,” Johnson said. “I would have assumed that his images were memories, but if that armored Anzu bird attacked you in DC, I'm starting to wonder if they’re predictions.”

“Wait. Anzu?” Darren pounced on the name. “Where did you get that?”

Detective Johnson gave Darren a weary look. “Once I saw the memory, it wasn’t hard to look up bird mythology. Pochi is remembering or predicting a fight with Anzu, the monster that stole the book of destiny and tried to make himself the king of the gods by controlling the book that allowed him to control all life.” 

Darren let out a slow breath. They were so screwed. However, information was power, and every bit they could find out opened new possibilities. If the stories had survived in mythology, maybe Salma had more helpful versions, something that told them how to fight the guide in this century.

“Agent, is this a prediction? Is Pochi trying to warn me that something is going to burn the world?”

Darren struggled to explain what he had learned when Bennu had seen Kavon time-walk. “The visions might be both. Ifrit don't understand the concept of time the same. For them, if something happened, then it always happening. I can’t explain it more than that.”

Johnson rubbed his hand over his face. “Well that's as clear as mud. But then I usually don't understand my guide, so I don't have much room to complain. I still don’t think burning the magic out of the world is a great plan. Not only do I disapprove of genocide in general, but the purge didn’t work. Talent returned.”

“They may see that as normal,” Darren said. “They might see it as a cycle. But,” he said when it looked like Johnson was going to interrupt, “Bennu has asked us for help, so hopefully they’re looking for another solution.”

“Hopefully they’ll listen to someone. If they really did kill all those with Talent that they could find, I’m going to suggest they’re all evil.”

Darren frowned. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do,” Johnson said. “Look, I understand they meant well, but coordinating a mass murder of all people with Talent is not a solution. A person can have the best intentions in the world and still do something truly unforgivable. And yeah, sometimes the jury gives that person a pass or the DA decides to not even file charges, but immoral is still immoral.”

“They don’t see it that way.” Darren found himself in the odd position of having to defend murder, but he wasn’t going to let anyone malign Bennu. “For them, death simply means moving to a neighboring plane. It’s not an end. At worst, they’re evicting us.”

Johnson crossed his arms. “I’m not okay with being evicted. And from the little I have gotten out of the Native shamans, there were Earth-guides around long before the ifrit found this planet. So I'm not sure how they thought they could burn out something that it always existed.” Overhead, gray clouds started to gather.

“I think they were trying to burn out their magic, the alien power they had brought to this world.”

“Again, I would call that a slight failure.” Johnson didn’t appear to bend on the issue. Darren understood his point of view. He wasn’t thrilled with Bennu’s questionable logic; however, he also understood the need to minimize harm, even if that required taking the least horrible of two horrific options. “And while we won’t survive a purge and don’t have to worry about it, history suggests another purge would trigger another millennia or three of discrimination and hatred. 

“Now I'm not suggesting that without the Great Purge humanity would be one big happy family sitting down to have dinner together, because I'm sure that without Talent to hate, people would just amp up the racism or the sexism or some other dumb ass reason for hating someone. I know it. However, we both have college degrees, so we know that accusations of witchcraft got turned against any number of groups. Women were excluded from power on the assumption they were more vulnerable to magic, and the Roma were nearly wiped out, even before Hitler tried to finish the job. And don’t even talk to me about that irony since the man was fucking obsessed with creating a royal Talent caste. If the ifrit guides go down the path of another purge, that’s the future we have in front of us.” With each sentence, Johnson’s voice rose and his anger grew more evident. By the time he brought up Hitler, thunder cracked through the air and the sky was almost black.

“Try to tell Pochi all that,” Darren said as soon as he could get a word in.

Johnson frowned. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then finally asked, “Are you being sarcastic and snippy?”

“No, I mean that literally. Every time Pochi sends you that image, reject it as an option. Shove every consequence in his fuzzy little face.”

When Johnson sighed, the energy seemed to drain from him. “Don't you think I'm doing that already? I am marrying a shaman in a few months. I would like us to survive at least until the honeymoon. Is that why you brought me here? To tell me my guide is considering genocide?”

“I didn't bring you here. I woke up here,” Darren said, alarm growing in his chest.

Instead of picking up on Darren’s concern, Johnson turned toward a vivid green tree. “Did you want me to understand this stupid plan of yours?” 

Darren couldn’t see anything, but after a second, some of the fern-like tiny leaves began to shiver, and Pochi appeared in a gap, hovering mid-air. 

“It’s an idiotic plan, and if you even think of trying to evict me from this plane, I’m going to sic Art’s cat on you,” Johnson threatened. Pochi darted straight up and vanished into the tree branches. Johnson sighed. “I have no idea why anyone would associate him with a god of war. He’s more the god of avoidance.” 

Darren had seen Pochi rip into a guide hundreds of times larger than him and use size and maneuverability to avoid massive claws and teeth. Pochi made one hell of an impressive war god in Darren’s book.

“What does Angel say about all of this?” Detective Johnson asked. 

The change of topic surprised Darren so much that it took a second for him to respond. “Angel?”

“Yes, Angel.” Johnson gave him an odd look. “Angel Zamora, the guy you had us hook up with Native shamans.”

“We called Angel, but he didn't come to the meeting where we discussed the problem.” Darren wished he had. Bennu had liked Angel, and that made Darren trust him.

“That doesn’t sound like Angel.”

“I don't think he's a big fan of working for the FBI,” Darren said. “It worked out well for him last time, but there were a few close calls.”

“Yes, but this is not working for the FBI as much as it is avoiding Armageddon. I'm fairly sure that most people are in favor of stopping Armageddon, and as much as Angel talks about covering his own ass, his passion for learning every defensive trick in the book suggests that he plans to be center stage for any war.”

“He does?”

“Did you point out that you were fighting Armageddon?” Johnson asked.

“I'm not the one who called. Kavon did,” Darren said. “Kavon wouldn’t have told him much over an open phone line. He is more than a little paranoid about someone catching wind of any potential world ending.”

Johnson nodded. “It’s going to cause a panic if there’s not a lot of reassurance put in place before the shit and fan have their meeting. But get to Angel.”

Darren opened his mouth to assure Johnson that he would personally call Angel, but between one blink and the next, he was opening his eyes in the hospital bed. He was alone in the bed, but someone had brought one of his work suits and hung it from the hook on the bathroom door. Bennu sat on the TV and watched Darren.

“Your brother needs to give us time to fix this,” Darren said firmly. Bennu tilted his head and then vanished. Darren sighed. “That is not reassuring.” Darren swung his legs out of bed and braced himself for another rollercoaster day. At least Kavon had managed a full healing. Darren’s ribs didn’t even ache as he got dressed.