by Tess Adair
“Charles?”
At first, she didn’t see him. He had one of the larger suites in the home, so there was more than one room to look through. She made her way into his living room, Jude following behind her, but he wasn’t in there. So she began to make her way over to the bedroom door before she noticed that the door onto his small back patio was ajar.
Of course, she thought to herself. Why not spend the day outside when it’s so nice and rainy?
“Wait here,” she said out loud to Jude, motioning at the door. “I’ll bring him back inside.”
With another sigh, she marched over to the outer door and went outside. There he was, sitting in a wicker rocking chair, wrapped in a giant quilt and staring out at the gray landscape behind the building.
“Hi, Charles.”
Slowly, he turned his head to look at her. His expression was vacant, and his eyes took several seconds to focus on her.
“Oh, it’s you. He told me you would come.”
For a moment, Logan paused. Something about his words sounded familiar—and wrong, somehow. She felt unsettled. Her body grew taut automatically, as if her subconscious had sensed a threat before she even noticed. Then she shook herself.
“Oh, yeah. You mean Knatt—uh, Hugh. Yes, Hugh called ahead to tell you I was coming. Well, I’m here now. Happy to see me?” He blinked at her but said nothing. “Okay, great. Well, it’s time to come inside, Charles. You’ll make yourself sick out here.”
Slowly he stood, and she steered him back into the living room and into an armchair. Jude was standing awkwardly on the other side of the room, so Logan pointed her into the other armchair. She made sure to close the sliding glass door before seating herself on the couch.
“So, Charles,” she said through gritted teeth, “how’s it going?”
In response, Charles shifted in his chair, adjusting the quilt as he did. He said nothing. Logan turned to Jude, who had reluctantly fallen into the other chair as Logan had indicated.
“Do you know how to play chess? Jude?”
Jude jumped like someone had yelled.
“Uh…yeah, I guess,” she stammered.
“There’s a set on the top shelf over there,” said Logan, pointing at the tall white case in the far corner. “If you’re up for it, he’d probably love to play. Might make him a little less…uh, well, I think he’d like it.”
With a jerky nod, Jude climbed out of her chair and walked over to where Logan had pointed her. As she did, Logan went to grab the small, high table that Charles had specifically for games, and she set it near him before pulling Jude’s chair over as well.
When Jude came back, she pulled out the board and began to set up. Logan settled back into the couch.
“Charles loves chess,” she said. Jude was now arranging the little pieces in their proper order. One side of the set was opaque white, the other clear. “We used to play for hours when I was a kid.”
Nodding to herself, Jude spun the board around, giving Charles the white side. “Chess club was one of my required extracurriculars,” she said. “Looks good on college applications and stuff. I guess I liked it okay.” She perched on the edge of her seat as she gazed down at the board. “You first, Mr. Logan.”
Logan watched her father’s expression as he perked up at his name, then finally noticed the chess board in front of him. For the first time since they’d arrived, he seemed interested in the room beyond his quilt. He leaned forward to take his own good look at the board, then he made his opening move.
Across from him, Jude nodded thoughtfully, her expression serious. She made her own next move, and he made another move after that. Logan watched them silently for several minutes, almost entranced by the way her father slowly allowed himself to be drawn out of his stupor as he played against a new opponent.
Suddenly she felt quite glad she’d brought Jude along. Logan couldn’t have forced herself to play if she’d come alone. That time in her life had passed, and she doubted it would ever return. But sitting on the sideline, passively watching her father unfold—for the moment, that was doable.
A few more minutes into their game, Jude made a tongue-clicking sound. “Charles, you sly dog,” she said, wagging her finger at him as he made his move.
Charles chuckled in return. Jude glanced up at the sound and smiled broadly at the look on his face. Then she made her move.
“Oho!” he exclaimed, sitting up a little straighter. The quilt came down several inches, and Logan could see that underneath it, he was wearing a full pajama set along with a terrycloth robe. “You think you’re clever, don’t you, girl?”
“Look who’s talking,” said Jude, folding her arms as she beamed across the table. Logan glanced at the board, but though she still understood the basic elements of the game, she had no idea what amused the two of them so much about it.
This is good, she thought. She’s got him talking. Talking is good.
“You got anything for that, Charles?” she asked, arching her eyebrow at him, like a challenge.
Charles harrumphed and waved his hand dismissively. “You can’t take down this old soldier so easy,” he said. With a calculated look, he made another move.
Logan recognized her chance. He was responsive, he was happy. Now, now that his brain was engaged, she could figure out how he was doing.
“So, how do they treat old soldiers around here, Charles?” she asked, keeping her voice light and conversational. More than once in the past, she’d tried to ask him how he was doing only to have him fly off the rails in response. She never knew what exactly might set him off.
Charles nodded amiably, his head bobbing on his shoulders like a buoy on the horizon. “We do okay here,” he said. “The ladies are nice—the nurses, I mean. Not as friendly as they could be, but they let me eat in my room if I want to. One of them brings me cake when there’s a birthday.” He scratched under his chin as he watched Jude make another move. “We get pizza on Friday.”
“That sounds like a pretty good life to me,” said Logan.
“Any life is good if you’ve got pizza,” said Jude, nodding enthusiastically.
For a moment, Charles’s face held onto the same unassuming smile, but then he seemed to falter, and his face fell.
“Charles?” asked Logan, concerned despite herself.
His gaze drifted off to the corner of the room. “There was…there was…someone here. Someone…”
“Who was here, Charles?”
“Saw…saw a shadow. Shadows coming off the walls. Spiders…spiders crawling…crawling out of mouths…out of eye…sockets…”
He shivered and fell silent. Logan almost felt unnerved, before immediately becoming annoyed at the idea that she’d nearly allowed Charles to unnerve her.
“Did you have a bad dream, Charles?”
Slowly, Charles turned his face back to her, and slowly his eyes came back into focus. His look was questioning.
“Is it you?” he asked. “Are you…him?”
Logan cleared her throat, frustration mounting. “Am I who, Charles?”
“My son.” Charles Logan’s unblinking black eyes bore into her. “That’s what they tell me.”
“I’m your daughter, Charles. Do you remember me?”
“Oh, I know you. I know you.” His focus went in and out, his gaze drifting. “Try to bribe me with your gifts, but I’m on to you. You say such…terrible things. Think I’ll forget, because sometimes I forget things now, but…not you. I remember you.”
“Charles. I’ve never brought you gifts.”
Logan’s voice and gaze were steady. She didn’t want to rile him.
“Well, not you, you. I’m not stupid. My son, you. I created him.” He gave a disjointed, disconcerting laugh. “I do my best creating when I’m not doing anything. It’s better if you don’t try too hard, you understand.”
Charles had long been prone to babbling. She did her best to steer him to a point.
“Who are you talking about, Charles? Who
told you that you have a son?”
Charles’s eyes widened, and when he spoke, his voice was low. “It was the devil, of course.”
She sighed internally.
Oh, that. Should have known.
“The devil has been coming to visit you?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded doubtful—almost mocking.
“Well, I—I told him not to come around anymore. I told him if he did, I’d tell the nurses on him, and then we wouldn’t get any more pudding.” He turned his attention back to the board, where his turn was waiting for him. He studied it a moment, then moved his knight. “I’m out of the game, you know. They try to bring me back in, but I know I’m out for good. If the horse can’t run, you have to put it out to pasture. It’s a bad game, anyway. Bad game. I learned my lesson there.”
Well, this has been a productive use of my time, Logan thought. The other two got back to their game as if there had been no interruption by her father’s sudden flight of fancy. After a moment, Logan stood, hoping to stretch her legs and get a little space from Charles.
“I’m gonna go hit up the vending machine,” she said. “You guys want anything?”
Suddenly Charles’s head snapped back in her direction, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
“You must not speak to him,” he commanded, his voice breaking. “The devil will come, but you must not speak. He’s a trickster.” He shook his head slowly as he went back to the board. “I should never have spoken. That would have saved me.”
“So, Snickers for you,” said Logan, nodding. She glanced at Jude. “Any preferences?”
Jude was staring over at Charles, transfixed and uncertain. She blinked and shook her head. “Uh, I’ll take a bag of chips or something. Not picky.”
“Cool. I’ll be back.”
With that, she hightailed it out of the room as fast as she could go. She knew exactly where the vending machines were, and she made a beeline for them. They sat in a large alcove between her father’s hall and the reception desk, with just enough cover to afford her a little privacy. Once she stepped past the partial wall that hid her from view, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
She didn’t want to say she pitied Charles, but seeing her once charming, magnetic father muttering nonsense from behind bloodshot eyes left her unmoored. She felt like she was lost at sea, and every wave and tumble threatened to pull her under.
Stop being so dramatic. It sounded like an order, even to herself. She squared her shoulders and took another breath to steady herself, then stepped forward to examine the vending machine options.
She had just pressed a button to order a bag of banana chips when the Choronzon Key decided to rip her open.
The girl was a good runner; she’d given him quite a chase. She couldn’t have been more than 17 or 18, and according to the instructions, that was best—to suit the tastes of the master.
The altar was almost complete. He took a step back to look at what he’d created, anticipation buzzing through his body. After so many successful hunts, he was finally ready.
There it was: his altar, anointed in blood and sacrifice. The necessary patterns swirled their way across the stone, laying the groundwork for the binding, made stronger by every mongrel he had given to their creation.
And an abundance set aside, for the master.
A moment of truth for every man.
Logan felt a change. Someone had anointed his arms and chest and now stood chanting over him. She felt his body tingling, burning, changing. Something was rising up in him—something new. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to it completely.
He couldn’t believe it was all coming true—everything promised, now made flesh.
An electric current took over him, and he screamed.
Logan felt another change, and now he was somewhere new. Somewhere dark. She couldn’t make out her surroundings. He ducked and tumbled, moving out of someone else’s reach. Then he surged, took his opponent by surprise—he anticipated the kill before him, imagined the easy snap of his opponent’s neck beneath his fingers—
He knew he had yet to exhaust the limits of his new power, and he knew his opponent thought he was only human. The monster waiting within him rose to the surface, ready to strike. His hands reached forward and closed around an unprotected throat—
For just a moment, the light shined on the other combatant’s face, and Logan knew exactly who he was fighting. She’d seen that face before. She knew it well.
It was Alexei Marin.
And he was about to lose.
With a gasp, Logan came back to reality. She’d sunk down to her knees, her hands sliding down the glass of the vending machine as though she’d tried to hold onto it to stop her fall. As she came back to consciousness, she shifted her body from left to right, testing herself to see if she was hurt. Nothing in particular jumped out at her, so she stood back up.
On her feet once more, she opened her eyes, and nearly jumped out of her skin. An old man stood in front of her, watching her with intensity. He was white and white-haired, slightly stooped over his cane, and much older than her father, as far as she could tell. She brushed herself off and decided to pretend she hadn’t just picked herself up off the floor.
“Hello, there.” Her voice sounded pleasant, and it didn’t shake at all.
“Lady troubles, eh?”
“Yes,” she said. Without missing a beat, she pointed to the vending machine and continued. “It didn’t have the chocolate bar I wanted, so I sank to my knees and let out a howl of rage.”
He shook his head at her.
“My wife was just the same.”
For a long beat, he held her face with deadpan passivity etched onto his own. Then he broke into a grin and leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner.
“I won’t tell ’em you fell if you don’t tell ’em I pissed the bed, okay?”
“It’s a deal.”
He cackled somewhat madly at her, gripped his cane, and tottered off toward the front end of the building. She waited until she was sure he was gone before leaning back against the vending machine, doing her best to slow her heart and calm her breathing.
Alexei, she thought, as soon as the appearance of the old man started to recede in her mind. Alexei’s in trouble. Her chest constricted, panic threatening to rise. Stop that. Calm down. She let her hands ball into fists as she took in a deep breath, counting to ten as she did so.
There you go. Her shoulders relaxed as her breath released, a temporary calm cooling her nerves.
Think. If Alexei was in trouble, then at least she knew exactly where she needed to go. He lived in San Francisco and usually took on local work, so odds were, he was there. And if she could get to where he was, then she could protect him.
And if he’s dead? No, stop.
She reached up and back, like she always did, to touch the edges of the Choronzon Key. It still blazed like white-hot metal, though her pain slowly receded. A part of her wished it would stay. It helped keep her steady. As her hand came back down, she closed her eyes and dove back into the vision, looking for more clues, more direction.
She was too late to help whoever the girl had been. She didn’t know why her visions came the way they did—why the Key gave her enough time to help some but not others. The rules seemed vague and inconsistent. Sometimes she got an extra flash of the future, sometimes she didn’t.
So was Alexei still alive? She pulled out her phone and scrolled down for the last message she had from him—it was nearly a week old.
That’s helpful. Glad I keep in such close touch with my friends.
After a moment’s hesitation, she clicked on him and called. The phone rang a few times before disconnecting, not even leaving her the option of a voicemail.
He never sets up the damn voicemail. She put the phone back in her pocket. What other options did she have? She could call him until she ran down her battery, or she could use the traveling room, show up at his apartment, and see if he was there.
She grabbed her bag of banana chips and made the rest of her purchases. Her body seemed to operate more on autopilot than direct command as it led her back down the hall.
He’s not dead. You’d know it if he was dead. She searched the vision again. Somehow, he didn’t feel dead to her. But he did feel…in peril. He wasn’t safe. A future where he would die was close at hand, though she couldn’t say how close, nor could she even say how she knew. But she did know.
Stay calm. Stay normal.
She pushed her way back into her father’s room.
In her pocket, her phone seemed to burn, just like the Choronzon Key at her back. If she’d ever seen the point of praying, she would have prayed that it would ring, and soon.
Another hour passed, and finally Charles seemed to be winding back down. A nurse came by to check on him and bring him his dinner, and she let Logan know that he probably shouldn’t entertain visitors for too much longer. Logan kept her immense relief to herself.
“We’ll come back and see you soon, Charles,” she said as she helped clear away the game. In the end, Charles had won it, but Jude assured her it was by the skin of his teeth.
“Yeah,” said Jude, nodding happily. “I gotta come back to beat you, Mr. Logan.”
“You know, you’re a lovely girl,” he said mildly, gazing at her with approval. “Too clever by half, but lovely anyway.” He crooked a finger at Logan. “You keep her safe, now. You have a job to do.”
“Don’t I know it,” answered Logan, trying for congenial but ending up with bland. She took a step closer to him, thinking now might be the appropriate time for a hug. At the last minute, she chickened out and went to pat him on the back instead. “Be nice to the nurses, okay?”
“Sure, sure,” he said. He already seemed to be losing interest in the two of them, preferring to gaze down at his new food instead. “I’m always good to the nurses. They’re such lovely ladies. They keep me safe. Wolves at the gate and all that.”