Eyes to See

by Joseph Nassise

  Isaiah 44 says that we know nothing and understand nothing. That our eyes are plastered over so we cannot see. That our minds are closed so we cannot understand. In those few seconds, I finally understood just what the writer of Isaiah was trying to say. The scales had been ripped from my eyes and suddenly I could see.

  Really, truly see.

  I’ve never been so frightened in my entire life.

  The world was not the safe place I had always believed it to be. I know that’s a strange statement coming from a man whose daughter was stolen right out from under his very nose. But I would venture to say that you are no different than I was at that time. Despite all the horrible things in the world—rapes and murders and child abductions, wars and bombs and terrorist acts, car accidents and crack babies, torture and teen pregnancies—despite all that, the vast majority of us go through life like sheep, thinking that it can’t happen to us.

  Go on, tell me I’m wrong.

  The funny thing is, nine times out of ten, we’re usually right.

  We live in these little plastic bubbles, content with our lives and our jobs and our families, and the evils of the world rarely touch us. We nod sagely at the television when some pretty-boy politician tells us we need to do something about it, but then we go right back to scarfing down our fast food dinners and our five-dollar cups of coffee, and nothing changes.

  I was that way, too. Even after Elizabeth was taken from me, even after Anne walked out, I still thought that the world was basically benign and that it was only man’s impact that was turning isolated parts of it sour.

  I can’t tell you how wrong I was.

  The world is a cesspit.

  A cesspit full of creatures you can’t possibly imagine, all waiting to literally devour your heart, your mind, and your soul.

  That night I had my first glimpse of them. What I saw scared me to the core.

  In the darkness beneath the hedge lining the edge of the street, shadows danced and moved, their yellow eyes gleaming as they realized that I could see them at last.

  The ghost of a young boy stared down at me from the limb of a nearby tree, the rope he’d used to hang himself still coiled about his neck. Just by looking at him I could tell that it wasn’t the suicide that he regretted, but the fact that he’d done it improperly and had hung there for an hour, slowly strangling to death, instead of dying swiftly from a broken neck.

  But the creatures that circled overhead, drawn by the power unleashed in the ritual I’d conducted, were the worst. They had wide leathery wings like those of a gargoyle, with claw-tipped hands and narrow heads complete with horns. Smooth, featureless faces that stared down at me, faces without eyes that could somehow see, faces without mouths that still let me sense the cruelty and hunger that radiated from them in waves.

  And just as I looked up to see them circling high above, they looked down and took notice of me as well.

  I had discovered the monsters in the world.

  But, in turn, they had discovered me.

  35

  NOW

  The Magister’s revelation had startled Denise and Hunt both, but it had also made a lot of sense in her view. The doppelganger had been crisscrossing the country because it had been hunting the Gifted as victims. It had taken time to track them down and identify them, which was what caused the erratic nature of its movements. The converse of that, of course, was the realization that five years ago something had happened to make the doppelganger’s job easier. Its selection process and travel movements had become much more refined, with far less repetition and waste.

  Hunt’s daughter had been taken five years ago.

  She said as much to the others, but none of them were able to come up with any reason for the two events to be linked, except for the fact that none of them believed all that much in coincidence.

  Eventually they ran out of ideas, and Denise decided they had learned all they could.

  Ever the gracious host, the Magister led them to the door.

  “It was good to see you again, my dear,” he said, giving her another hug, and Denise agreed. She’d had forgotten how pleasant it was to just be in his presence.

  “We’ll have to get together more often,” she replied, and meant it.

  The Magister smiled and then turned to Hunt.

  “You have an interesting destiny before you, Mr. Hunt. If I may, I’d like to offer you a small piece of advice.”

  Hunt shrugged, as much a sign of approval as he was likely to give.

  But rather than say it aloud, which was what Denise expected, the Magister bent over and said something in Hunt’s ear.

  Drawing back, the Magister extended his hand. “Another day, Mr. Hunt.”

  Hunt regarded the man’s hand as if it was a snake about to bite him, but after a moment he took it in his own and shook. Then, without another word, he descended the steps, walked over to her car, and climbed inside.

  “You’ve got your hands full with that one, my dear,” the Magister said and then stepped back inside his home and closed the door behind him before she could say a word in reply.

  Frowning, she stared at the door and then turned to gaze at the car where Hunt sat staring out the front windshield, an annoyed expression on his face.

  What the hell?

  She’d missed something important, that was clear. She just didn’t have any idea what.

  “What was that all about?” she asked.

  “Damned if I know,” he said and wouldn’t say anything else, no matter how often she asked about it.

  Eventually she stopped, and they were both silent for the rest of the way home, lost in their individual thoughts. Once back at Denise’s apartment, they separated to give themselves some time to think about what they had learned. Hunt headed straight for the sofa while Denise ended up in the kitchen.

  A half hour later she was still pacing back and forth across the kitchen floor, disturbed by what they had learned. If the killer was indeed a doppelganger, then their efforts to apprehend it would be even more difficult than she’d first expected. Their only hope would be to track the creature to its source and try to eliminate both it and its master.

  Problem was, they didn’t even have a place to start. All her efforts to track the creature had ended in naught. She depended on her magick, and to have it fail her like this was particularly troubling.

  As she pondered the problem, it occurred to her that Hunt had been present in the room when she’d tried to zero in on the killer. Perhaps his presence there had caused some kind of interruption in the process, had thrown it off track somehow. After all, he’d admitted that he really didn’t know exactly what that strange street preacher had done to him. Maybe lingering traces of whatever it was that had transformed him had interfered with her scrying?

  It was certainly worth another shot.

  This time, she would use something a bit more powerful than her mirror.

  She checked on Hunt and found him tossing a bit restlessly on her couch. Knowing he needed the rest, and not wanting him to get up and disturb her in the midst of the scrying, she cast a small spell over him that sent him off to sleep and was sure to keep him there for several hours. When she was finished, Denise headed straight for the bathroom.

  When she’d first moved in, the cast-iron tub that took up most of the already small room had seemed an extravagance, but over the years she’d managed to adapt it to her work and now she was grateful she’d decided to keep it.

  She filled the bathtub with water, then sprinkled rose petals, rosemary, and several other herbs onto the surface of the water. The plants’ natural properties would help focus the energy she was going to be directing at the water, potentially allowing her greater range and clarity for her scrying.

  When the tub was properly prepared, Denise took some time to steady her breathing and clear her mind of extraneous thoughts. It took her longer than expected, a testament to the stress of recent events, but at last she was ready.

  Taking a
deep breath, she passed her hands over the surface of the water, reaching deep within herself for the power needed to activate the working.

  As if moved by unseen hands, the flower petals and herbs were pushed to the sides of the tub and formed a circle around its edge, leaving the center clear. A breeze sprang up out of nowhere and blew across the water, making the water ripple outward from the center in a series of circles until an image began to form. It did so slowly at first, just a hint of color here and there, a snatch of the whole, and then with a bit more energy. A street scene flashed into focus, there and gone again, before resurfacing several moments later. The image wavered, failed, and then solidified.

  Denise found herself looking down the length of a city street at night, toward the front entrance of a nightclub a short distance away. It was an incredibly clear image, allowing her even to read the billboard above the club’s front door. “One night only—Raging Lovers, featuring Sean Williams,” it read. The club looked familiar, but she couldn’t place it off the top of her head.

  The image shimmered, began to drift apart, and so she poured more power into the working, doing what she could to maintain the connection, somehow knowing that what she was seeing was important.

  The image winked out.

  “No!” she cried, shoving as much power into the working as she dared. “Come back!”

  Much to her surprise, it did, though now her perspective had changed. She was crouched at the mouth of a concrete tube, the kind used to run culverts beneath city streets, and could see through it into some kind of cavern or room at the other end. A street artist stood there, his back to her. He was young, probably not long out of his teens, and was dressed in the baggy pants and formless sweatshirt favored by so many of that generation. He was using colored chalk to draw a picture on the cement wall in front of him, but she was too far away to see what he was working on.

  She knew without seeing it, however, that the image was important. It was what she had been brought here to see.

  She began to make her way toward the artist, intent on seeing what was drawn there on the wall in front of him, but she hadn’t gone half the distance before the scene before her began to grow hazy and indistinct. Recognizing that the scrying was in danger of failing, Denise drew upon the last of her reserves, pushing as much energy into the link as she was able to, but it was no use.

  Before she reached the other end of the tunnel, before she could see what the artist had been working on, the sending winked out like the flame on a candle.

  “Come on, come on,” she said, as she struggled for several minutes to bring the image back again, but it was no use.

  Exhausted from the effort, she let it go.

  “Shit!”

  She wanted to slam her fist into the side of the tub in frustration, but the truth was she was too tired to do even that. She settled for slapping the water, which only served to get her a bit wet and did nothing to calm her down.

  She’d been so close.

  She got up, furious with herself for losing the connection. There had been more that she’d been meant to see, she was certain of it. The sense of having missed something important, something vital, churned in her gut. Given the fickle nature of this branch of the Art, she might not ever have another chance.

  Unless …

  Denise rushed into the living room and over to the stack of newspapers in the corner. The club was real, the marquee outside the door familiar because she had seen it recently. She was certain of it. If she could find the club, she might be able to find the artist. If she could find the artist, she would find the paintings.

  And that would give her a chance to understand their importance.

  She dug out through the stack of discarded newspapers until she found the most recent weekend edition. Sitting down on the floor and spreading it out before her, she flipped through the pages until she found the arts section. From there it was just a matter of looking through all the ads to find the right one.

  There!

  It was small and unobtrusive, a simple black-and-white announcement. “One night only—Raging Lovers, featuring Sean Williams.” The same wording she’d seen on the marquee during the working. She knew that the Raging Lovers was a local band that had made it big; she remembered seeing them several years ago before they had really hit their stride. They’d come back to Boston for a single night’s show at the club where they had started out, Dante’s Heaven, which wasn’t all that far from Lansdowne Street and Kenmore Square.

  All she had to do was go to the club and then begin scouring the streets in the club’s vicinity, looking for the culvert she had seen.

  Shouldn’t be all that tough, she thought. Still, it might do to have some company.

  Returning to the living room, she crossed to where Hunt was sprawled across her couch, and tried to counteract her own spell, but it was no use. He was out for the duration it seemed.

  She picked up the phone and called Dmitri, but got his answering machine instead. Nor did he answer his cell phone. And the sleeping spell she’d put on Hunt wouldn’t wear off for a few more hours yet.

  She couldn’t wait. She needed to check things out now, before it was too late. She didn’t know where the conviction came from, but trusted it just the same. That was how her life worked sometimes.

  She’d have to go alone. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to take precautions.

  She walked into the bedroom. On a shelf in the closet sat a large steel case. She took a minute to punch in the four-digit combination to unlock it. Opening the lid, she removed the handgun inside. It was the same one she’d held on Hunt the other night, a Sig Sauer P226. It had been a gift from her friend and occasional ally, Cade Williams, after a particularly grueling encounter with an infernal creature on Long Island a few years before. More than anything, that incident had shown her that sometimes her magick wasn’t enough to protect her. Sometimes the task at hand required a more conventional defense.

  It was a hard lesson to learn, but one she’d taken to heart.

  She stared down at the weapon, then ran the fingertips of one hand over the Templar Cross etched into the grips. Once, long ago, that particular symbol had been a symbol of honor, fidelity, and martial prowess. Now most of the world considered it and the organization it represented nothing but relics of the past.

  She knew differently, and that knowledge made her smile.

  It had taken a while, but just recently she’d returned the favor Cade had done her. Her karmic debt was paid in full, the wheel back in balance. That, too, was a good feeling.

  She put the gun down on the shelf in front of her and withdrew the shoulder holster from the lower portion of the safe. She strapped it on and adjusted it to be comfortable. After loading her weapon, she made sure the safety was engaged and then slid it into the holster. From there it was simply a matter of throwing a few supplies into a shoulder bag, selecting a coat that would hide the telltale bulge of the firearm, and she was ready to go.

  Since she couldn’t leave a note for Hunt, she decided to call Dmitri again and leave a message on his answering machine. She felt better having someone know where she had gone.

  Thanks to the hour, traffic was light, and it didn’t take her long to get to Kenmore Square. She used the valet parking in front of Dante’s and then, when no one was looking, wandered away down the street. Only a few short minutes later she was standing across from a large construction site, staring at the dark opening of the culvert she had seen in the vision.

  The light from the streetlamps didn’t penetrate down here, so she stopped for a moment and took out the high-powered flashlight she’d brought along. She also drew her firearm. Armed and able to see, she moved ahead confidently.

  She paused at the opening of the culvert and listened.

  Nothing.

  She thought about calling out, then quickly abandoned the notion, not wanting to give anyone who might be inside advance warning that she was coming.

  All r
ight, Denise, she said to herself, let’s do this.

  She walked, ducking, through the narrow tunnel and stood up in the wide stone chamber on the other side. Her flashlight picked out images drawn on the walls, some large, some small, but the narrow beam of light didn’t let her get a good look at them.

  Thankfully, she could do something about that.

  Putting the flashlight inside her shoulder bag, she removed a large crystal from it instead. She held the crystal in her left hand and passed her right hand over it several times in a complicated pattern while saying a few words in ancient Etruscan, the language of the Greek forebearers who had begun the worship of Gaia, her patron deity. A spark flared in the depths of the crystal and then grew until it shone with the brilliance of a spotlight. Holding the crystal up above her head, Denise took a look around.

  The entire space was covered with drawings, just as she’d seen in her vision, and the artwork wasn’t just amazing, it was spectacular. It had all been drawn with colored chalk on the flat surface of the walls and floor, but drawn in such a way as to make it look like three dimensions, to give a feeling of life to that which was essentially lifeless. The pictures were incredibly varied in subject matter and detail.

  This guy could make a fortune, she thought as she looked at the images. Three men in suits falling into a bottomless well. A Tyrannosaurus rex coming right out of the brickwork, its mouth open wide to consume her. A waterfall cascading into a swimming hole that looked so real she was almost ready to dive in. A winter wonderland complete with falling snow and a jolly snowman. There were movie stars coming down the red carpet, rock stars performing on stage, even an image of a Mickey Mouse face that seemed to wink at you as you went past.

  There was a break in the images, a long blank space before they started again, as if the artist wanted to keep the second set of images away from the first.

  There were six pictures in all in the second set, and from the moment she laid eyes on the first one she knew that this was what she had been meant to see.

  Denise was staring at an image of her own face.