Free Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis by Matthew S. Cox Page A

with your partner if you’re on field work. Leads to mistakes.”
    “And what? Get him killed?” Kirsten cringed. “Sorry, that sounded bitchier than I meant it.”
    “Is it cool having a ghost for a partner? He can do all sorts of ghosty stuff the perps never expect?”
    Dorian rolled his eyes.
    “I think he’d rather be alive still, and no, he’s not
that
old. He can’t do too much to living people at all.”
    Nicole squealed.
    “Except the old icy hand down the back bit,” mumbled Kirsten.
    The redhead seemed intrigued and freaked all at once.
    “Whoa.” Kirsten went rigid as her boot touched the thirteenth floor landing. “Damn.”
    A grey door drifted open and closed, creeping inches each way as the wind shifted. Nicole slid past her and pulled it to the side, looking back with an uneasy lift to her eyebrows.
    “K… I feel something weird, too.”
    Kirsten’s knuckles went white on the handle of the laser. “That’s not a good sign.”
    “How bad is it?” Nicole pulled out her E-86. Green light ran up and down the barrel.
    “I don’t know. Any psionic can sense the presence of an entity powerful enough to affect the living, even if they can’t see them.”
    Nicole’s alarm lessened. “I don’t feel funny in the car.”
    Maybe bringing her along was a good idea. She’s keeping me calm.
“Dorian’s not old enough, or mean enough, to raise those hackles.”
    “Thanks.” Dorian went first, looking around at the destruction. He stopped to check on a few scorch marks. “Whatever did this was conventional. There were several detonation points, some of this scarring fits the signature of detcord. Main charges near the center; shaped, probably. Bluish discoloration makes me think NE4. The blast shoved everything out the windows.”
    “K?” Nicole’s spotlights swiveled.
    “Yeah?”
    “Did you just hear something? I heard whispering over there.”
    Dorian shouted Nicole’s name. She looked toward him.
    “You’re hearing Dorian. I don’t understand how. This area is…”
    “Wrong.” Nicole finished her sentence. “I want to go home and hug my dad, hide under a blanket.”
    “Latent fear.” Kirsten squatted, touching the dusty concrete. “Something happened here that burned fear into the fabric of the building. You’re not really scared; you’re picking it up from the environment.”
    “Does a giant friggin’ bomb count?” Nicole pushed her way through hanging plastic. She trembled, but advanced anyway.
    “I don’t think the people who died in this had time to even mess their pants,” said Kirsten.
    They fanned out, drifting among cracked concrete support posts, hanging wires, and exposed pipes. Boots scuffed, the wind howled, and soon none of them noticed the sour awfulness of the all-too-close black zone to the north. Ten minutes into the search, Nicole raised her voice, so close to the timbre of a frightened child, Kirsten got worried.
    “Kiki… I don’t like this.”
    Kirsten ran toward the sound, her haste causing her to stumble over the debris of a few chairs and a desk. Past a still-standing section of wall, she rounded a corner and skidded to a halt with her mouth hanging open. An area eighteen feet across glimmered with metallic silver paint. A circle was traced on the ground, laced with intricate symbols resembling runes and pictographs. Half-molten candles had been arranged at seven points around the exterior, lining up with the geometric arrangement of shapes within. Three white, three black, and one gold.
    Lines divided the interior of the circle into sections, each filled with drawings. They had a crude sophistication, not childlike, not primitive, but simple. Kirsten squatted, hesitant to touch it. Fingertips hovering a hand’s width away, she noted some of the lines were etched into the concrete. The energy at this spot grew overwhelming, forcing Nicole to back away, arms folded and shaking.
    “Someone engraved this here; it was meant to last