Worlds War One

xviii [Callie]

The circumference of the Cathedral of the Key changed with each patrol around the perimeter. The second time around, Callie had assumed a miscalculation because she'd been distracted between keeping one eye on the big soldier trying to keep it together and the other eye on a woman struggling to hold herself together. One companion was losing his mind, and the other was losing her body. Callie saw a flash of panic spark in Drill's eye every few seconds, like lightning strikes in a dark sky in a spring storm. Autumn occasionally flickered, like her whole existence was entirely tenuous, physicality stuttering in and out like the moon appearing from behind passing thunderheads. In a world gone crazy, Callie was a lone sailor navigating a sea of nonsense.

She'd discounted the eerie feeling of shifting architecture on her second trip around the Cathedral, doubtful that the dimensions of the structure had switched. She'd focused on the amorphous effect as she went 'round again, and she'd felt certain on the third pass something was amiss. She couldn't ask Drill because he was already at the edge of going insane. She couldn't ask Autumn because the woman wasn't there now, Ghosted away.

They went around again. This time the building grew smaller again. Was the existence of this place in Callie's world only arbitrary? Or maybe it acted as a living lung, inhaling and exhaling, expanding and contracting like her chest if she breathed deeply. The structure's surface appeared more organic than architectural, so perhaps this place was more beast than building. How many times had she watched Pinocchio, the puppet swallowed by Monstro the whale? Maybe the others were in the belly of a great behemoth?

"Wai—," Autumn stuttered, speaking before winking out of existence. Two seconds later, she was back. "—ait."

The Ghost stood still, reaching out and grabbing a nearby bough with a fist, struggling for substantiality. Autumn was trying not to throw up. She held her form for long seconds. Callie waited for her to wink out at any moment, but the Ghost managed to maintain opacity. Autumn stared at Callie like she expected the soldier to rescue her if she started to fade again. Callie didn't know where to reach or what to hold on to if Autumn began to flicker away. No one else could help Autumn hold her form.

"I think I've got a hold on it," Autumn said weakly.

"It's probably like learning to walk," Callie said. "Baby steps."

"I don't like the feeling when I go away," Autumn whispered. "It's like being erased. And not being sure if anyone will draw you back in."

Drill wasn't listening—or pretended he wasn't listening. Like they were two women talking about tampons or panty lines instead of supernatural conundrums. He might as well have been rocking back on his heels and whistling innocently. Unfortunately, it was an act. Callie saw the truth in his eyes. Like walking across the icy surface of the pond in late spring, cracks were forming on his sanity, and it was a matter of time before he fell through.

Callie checked the device on her wrist. The other four soldiers appeared as minor blips on a three-dimensional image. The device colored the images green, which meant they had activated no alerts and life signs remained normal. The device indicated position based on GPS, and the four stood stationary. They must have found whatever Saanvi was looking for. Callie hoped they would hurry. She reluctantly resumed the patrol around the perimeter, wondering if the structure would be bigger or smaller this time around.

She would never find out.

The sun had started to set. Shadows stretched across the woods where the Cathedral stood. Halfway around the structure that seemed more oblong than round this time, Callie noticed something watching them from the deepening darkness in the trees around them. She glanced at Drill out of the corner of her eye, afraid he would break and run screaming in the other direction. Instead, the mountainous man appeared clear-eyed for a moment. Like Autumn, perhaps he had managed to "get a hold on it." At least for the moment. Drill nodded. There were enemies in their midst.

Callie's father had spoken oddly of his blindness on occasion, telling Callie that he was not "all the way blind." "Sometimes, I see things in the darkness. The whole world is endless black, but occasionally some things are blacker. Darker. Holes in the emptiness. And they shift and move, and my eyes try to chase them, but they are ever so fast." Now Callie stood at the edge of the woods, in the middle of a Wider World full of fantastic things, and there was something darker in the darkness.

They wore pinioned cloaks with hoods to conceal their faces, like wayward monks who had been tarred and feathered. Sartorial supplies were apparently limited to ravens, crows, and blackbirds as the figures moving in the shadows blended into the night. The sound of their rustling was like a thousand birds in the air, a fluttering murmur that drowned out the sound of Callie's steps and her breathing. Like fallen leaves fluttering in a funnel of wind.

Drill was the ranking officer, but Callie had already decided she wouldn't wait for his lead in matters of the Way Things Really Were. He froze. And she wouldn't end up dead because the sergeant couldn't process the impossible. Instead of taking the safety off the gun holstered at her hip, Callie drew the Bowie knife from the sheath strapped at her waist. The weapon's blade glowed green in the falling darkness of twilight, the blade made of unique stone iridescent as night neared.

"We are American soldiers on an elite mission to secure assets in our campaign against known enemies," Callie announced. "Stand down, or we will use deadly force."

"You are thieves," cawed one of the Flock. It sounded like the cluck of a chicken somehow making English syllables.

"The foe we face is an enemy to every breathing thing," Autumn said. "We are simply gathering resources in defense of the living world. We are allies."

"Allies ask," the Flock tweeted. "Enemies take."

"The enemies took the body of my sister for their own," Autumn snapped. "Possessed it. Perverted it."

"We don't have time to negotiate the terms of something that could save innocent lives," Callie concluded. "We need to be ready in case Johnny Rotten comes again."

"You will battle the master of rot by dispensing more death?" the Flock queried.

"Only if I have to," Callie answered, moving forward.

The best offense was a sharp and pointy defense.

"The Key is not ours to give," the Flock replied. "We are sworn to protect it."

And the Flock moved in, meeting Callie at the very edge of the woods. The battle lines. Where blade might meet bird. She'd been an avid hunter alongside her Aunt Amanda growing up, getting her limit every duck season when she was back home. When she'd joined the Army, she'd thought she had traded guns for sport with guns for national defense. She had shot her share of birds in her youth. But perhaps the days of hitting her limit were not yet over.