"As reports continue to blossom from across the continental United States, our neighbors in Central America and friends across the sea in Asia are sending out similar calls for aid. The disease, researchers are referring to as Aetheric Tissue Collapse, or ATC, appears to be spread through the water supply, though its direct source is yet unknown. We go now to our reporter in the field, Hector Santiago, for an exclusive with a survivor..."
Miami had been relatively flawless in execution. Maybe he'd almost blown the entire thing there at the end, but besides that? Perfection. Los Angeles, in comparison, was an absolute shitshow. The sheer number of people and the size of Greater LA made splitting up the only option. That in itself was not such an issue, but old Walt must have gotten word that vigilantes were thwarting his evil plot because Arcanex presence was thick in the streets.
Even with the glimmerfangs sniffing out the blightshrews and the magically enhanced speed, it took them three nights to find and cover all the affected areas. By the time they'd made it to the infamous Skid Row, the poor hounds were so confused by the smells they had to regroup for the night. In that time, Marcus alone counted two hundred thirty-seven dead. Two hundred thirty-seven people that wouldn't know a blightshrew from an average sewer rat. Two hundred thirty-seven people that he could have saved.
"You said a man and his dog burst into your home?"
"No, no. The dog teleported in. Huge, Massive thing. Black fur like a demon and glowing purple eyes, but he popped into my house with pink smoke!"
"Pink smoke? What about the man?"
"I almost shot him! He kicked down the door like some kinda ginger popo. Then started talking some nonsense about rats causing Mama's sickness. Mama's house is spotless. No shot there were any rats in there. Then his big ass dog comes out the back with three of those fuckers in his mouth."
"Three big rats? And the man said the rats were the cause of the sickness?"
"That's what he said. Said not to trust that magitech company either. The one that has the big shelters that are taking in the sick."
"Arcanex?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
By the time they made it to Seattle, the team was exhausted. It didn't help that every time they turned on the news, it seemed like the work they were doing was making no headway. Miami was still shut down with more deaths being reported every day, and besides the witness reports of them running the streets in Los Angeles, it may as well have been like they were never there.
They and the glimmerfangs must have killed thousands of the blightshrews between the three cities, but Arcanex seemed to be resupplying faster than they could take them out. Or maybe the water treatment facilities really had been infected, and they were all just fucked. Thinking like that wasn't going to get him anywhere, though.
The fatigue eventually led to a mistake.
The walkie talkie app on his phone went off with three beeps and then the spine chilling sound of his father screaming.
"Fuck! They've got us cornered!"
"A woman pounding on your door in the middle of the night with a big blue teleporting dog?"
"She knew what was happening before we even let her in. She got here right after we did. The in-laws said they weren't feelin' well so me and the wife brought them over some left overs and meds. Was way worse then they let on."
"And they're now recovering?"
"Yeah. I mean, haven't woken up yet, but the smell is gone. So are the black lines in their eyes."
Marcus slid to a stop on the asphalt, pulling the phone out of his pocket to check the GPS. The four of them were all tagged, none within five miles of his father.
"Kane!" he called out as he started running in the opposite direction.
The blood pumping through his ears all but deafened him, making the chatter on the radio just muffled voices. His father's panicked yells. Victoria trying to coordinate something. None of it got past the pounding of his feet, the rush of blood, and the ringing in his ears.
He couldn't lose his dad.
Not here.
Not to this.
Slate shingles flew off following the resonating boom of magic. The bright green runes flared at his chest and Kane vanished in a puff of soft pink smoke, appearing in the front yard of the house, then poofing again. As Marcus leapt the gate, he caught the sight of an Arcanex security team rounding the corner in full sprint.
Time was not on his side.
Marcus shot across the yard and threw the ajar door to the sounds of pained whines and Kane's snarls. The stillness shook him most. In the split second that he'd had to lay eyes on his father before the first blightshrew flew across the living room at him, he'd never seen the man so lifeless. Even in his sleep the constant snores kept his old man moving. Now, he was just lying there. Face down. Torso just barely rising and falling as one of the little vermin tore into his back.
Flying off the handle wasn't a state of being he was used to. Even in his most emotional moments, he took pride in being able to clear his mind and think clearly. His survival in his work, and in his life as a whole to this point, had relied on it. When he snatched the leaping blightshrew out of the air in one hand and used it to pummel the one attacking his father to death...it was not a shining moment of mental clarity.
"We're getting more and more reports that this might not be a water supply issue but something to do with a species of rodent. Is there any way that possible?"
"Of course, it's possible. Myself and my fellow Arcanex researchers don't believe that to be the case, however. We've examined, experimented on, and tested it enough that we're confident our cure works, but the exact source, in my opinion, must be a mutation of a previously defunct disease."
"But there is the possibility?"
"There is always a possibility. That's the way science works. Rarely is anything 100%. I would say this is as close as it gets."
"Do we have an update on when the cure will be available in the U.S."
"Not to my knowledge. The last update we got was it was waiting on FDA fast tracking, I'm sure as soon as we find out everyone else will know."
"Thank you for your time, Doctor."
Blightshrew blood was everywhere. His eyes stung. Cuts ran up and down his arms from the tiny claws, and numerous bites poked holes in his clothes. None of it mattered. Marcus knelt down beside his father, his hand on his back feeling the ragged rise and fall of his lungs. Kane nudged the lump of fur laying beside him with a sad whine.
The voices coming from his phone now mingled with the voices rushing toward him from outside the house. Yelling to put his hands up. Threatening to shoot. Marcus didn't move. Not until they started flooding into the house. Not until they threatened Kane.
"These are the idiots with the dogs! Hands up and control your mutt, or we put it down!"
Kane snarled and started creeping toward them. When the nearest spell carbine shifted from him to the glimmerfang, Marcus shot up and grabbed the barrel in viscous red covered hands. Thrusting it into the air, he drove his shoulders forward. One guard pushed into the next and into the next until streaks of multicolored light were firing through the air and bodies were landing on the floor.
"That was Rose Gentry in the field. Thank you Rose. Clark, I understand you've got the latest on the Arcanex fatalities just down the road from our studio here in beautiful Seattle?"
"I do, Maria. Just a couple of miles north of where I parked my car this morning the bodies of five Arcanex security personnel were found inside an abandoned home by Kirkland PD. Sheriff Livingston has not made a formal statement yet, but we're being told that wounds on two of the three security officers were from a large canine."
"Wolves in downtown Seattle?"
"I have my doubts, but we live in strange times."
Marcus ripped the spell carbine from the guard's grip as Kane appeared several feet above their heads, all five hundred pounds of him landing on top of the already toppling guards. It had been years since Marcus had fired anything more powerful than a tranquilizer. He didn't even like using those.
When the buttstock hit his shoulder, his mind flashed to hunting trips with his dad. To the single time he'd had to tranq dart a heran basalisk. To Victoria's story about the medic who refused to carry a gun. How he'd defended his town with a hunting rifle beside his father.
Marcus' eyes flicked up to Kane as powerful jaws clamped down on the helmeted head of a man, then back down at the guard he stood over. The visor obscured their face. Maybe if he could have seen through the reflective black surface. Found some humanity in the eyes. Maybe he wouldn't have done it.
Five quick motions.
Five trigger squeezes.
Marcus dropped the gun.
As it clattered to his feet, his eyes remained fixed on the lifeless, reflective surface of the helmet in front of him. His fingers tingled, even as Kane whined and clambered over bodies to nuzzle him. He'd have loved nothing more than to embrace the dog, but his body refused to move.
"He was like an angel. He came in with his big doggy Kane and fixed my daddy."
"Kane was the dog's name? Did you get the angel's name?"
"Yeah, his name was..."
"The name isn't important. What's important is he's helping people. The more I see, the more I listen, it feels like there are forces trying to stop him from doing that. We won't be helping them do that. My son being alive is what matters. The lives of the peoples he's saved matter."
"That's the Ramirez family from Jackson Memorial Hospital. Back to you in the office."
Blood seeped from tiny wounds on his arms, chest, neck, and face. His father was going to be okay. The same could not be said for Kane's pack mate. As Marcus kneeled beside his father, the unbearable weight of more lives he'd taken threatening his shoulders, he watched the glimmerfang move around him and slump beside his lifeless brother. The seconds passed by in hellishly languid beats as the sorrow radiated from his four-legged friend. Suddenly, any remorse he may have felt vanished.
Marcus forced his mind beyond the scent of blood of different species mingling in a metallic flurry and scooped up his father. Stepping over the bodies, Michael breathing shallow in his arms, he looked up stone faced as Victoria, James, and the three other dogs filed into the small front yard.
"They killed the glimmerfang." Marcus spoke, voice devoid of emotion. "I'm getting my dad back to the plane. We should get him back, too. He deserves a proper burial. It's time to go home."
From within the house, a howl of grief filled the air, quickly echoed by four more.