by Micah Thomas
This day had been long and frustrating. He wanted to close his eyes, rest. Thelonious would have to wait. A murder committed under the influence of another was a defense in the old law called “duress”. What had happened was as valid as a gun to the head. Eva’s crimes, too. She hadn’t been in control either. Hakim should be able to separate the entity from her, let her live a good life without being punished for things she hadn’t really done and was powerful to stop.
Then the call came in. Sanders’ com chirped to life and he saw Eva on the screen. He was wrong to have thought she was all grown up. She was still a kid. Her face wore a serious expression; brows furrowed, lips pressed tight, shadow and light playing tricks on her blue eyes—liquid black eyes.
Jesus, Sanders thought. Thank Jesus she reached me.
“How does this thing work?” she asked.
“Eva, I’m coming to you now. It’s working fine.”
The message came with geo coordinates and he started for his car while taking the call. She was still in Chicago.
“I’ll be there in 5 minutes.”
“I can’t believe you are here. Really here. Are you really here?” She was talking fast.
“I am here. I remembered you. Are you alone?”
“As alone as I can be. Something bad is happening.”
“I know. We’re going to get you help.”
“Hurry.” Her face showed the strain of held back emotions, so much worry in her eyes.
Sanders kept the video running while he directed the car to move at top speed. A screaming rocket over the city, he saw her as he descended. Old town. Rooftop of a multilevel parking lot structure. Sanders was surprised she’d found a Copper out here, but he was grateful. He sent an urgent message to Hakim before he landed: Please come quick. I can’t do this alone. I have her.
He got out of the car, but she kept her distance, shivering despite the warm night. “Eva, I am so glad to see you.”
“You shouldn’t be. I’m a monster.”
“No, honey. You’re sick. It’s not you. I know about the thing haunting you. I understand.”
“She’s here now, trying to take over again. I’m not strong enough to fight her. You’re not strong enough either. Not remotely.”
Eva was close to the edge of the roof. This made Sanders nervous. “You’re here to rescue me again. That’s nice.”
“That’s what I do.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not why I called you.”
“Why don’t you come over here, sit in my car out of the rain. We can talk it over.”
“No. I wanted to warn you.”
“Eva, I’m not afraid of you.”
“Not about me.”
The sound of cicadas—the sound of madness—told Sanders they were not alone. Hakim was standing equidistant from Sanders and Eva, creating a perfect triangle of three.
“What’s he doing here?”
“This is Hakim, Eva. He’s different.”
Hakim’s face was placid, emotionless. He looked like he’d woken up from a nap.
“No,” Eva argued. “They are all the same. Parasites. They eat people from the inside. Can’t you see there used to be a man inside that shell? He’s dead now. I can see where he used to be. This thing you call Hakim, it’s a monster. So am I.” Another face came forward, twisting Eva’s lips into a cruel smile. Her eyes took on a hard, unkind stare.
“I think not,” Hakim said. With the slightest grace of his hand, Eva belched and gagged. Black blood leaked from her eyes, trickled from her mouth, and oozed through her clothes at her armpits and crotch. It coalesced into an oily human shaped mass beside her—a foul liquid shadow. Dark tendrils twitched and refused to detach from Eva’s body. The girl was in agony and Sanders could hardly stand it.
“Can you get it all out?”
“No. Not without killing the host. The bond is too deep,” Hakim said evenly. “Where is the other one? This one is tainted. I do not want this one, but the other. As you can see, I can not use this one. Was I not clear?”
“Hakim, can you help her?”
“I don’t need his help.” Eva choked out the words. “He needs help. All of us do.” She paused to expel a long black slug of muck that crawled into the growing, living, squirming pile. “Ask him. He knows what’s coming.”
“Do what you need to do,” Hakim said. The oil slick raged towards him but was stopped midair, a mime pushing against the wind.
Eva backed away from them—away from Sanders, who pleaded with Hakim. She stepped away from the Coppers standing inert awaiting instruction, and away from her demon held in a suspended state by Hakim.
“And what do you suggest I do? Huh, boss? I called you because this is over my head. This girl didn’t do anything. You know it’s true. Help her,” Sanders said.
“In all the time you’ve known me, have I ever extinguished a life? Is that my nature? I’ve given you justice. Dispense.”
“Don’t worry about me. You should worry about yourselves—all of you,” Eva said before she slipped off the roof without making a sound. Sanders ran to the ledge, barely noticing that the black shadow dissipated into nothing but a wisp of dying smoke.
Sanders commanded the Coppers to descend and pick up Eva. She was dead on impact. He’d failed.
“Why didn’t you stop her? You could have stopped her,” he accused Hakim.
“Do not pretend this could have happened any other way.”
“This could have been handled a million other ways. We didn’t even talk to her. Didn’t even get a chance to try to solve this. With your powers, you could have—”
“What is the saying? ‘Not my circus, not my monkeys’.”
Sanders couldn’t breathe. “You bastard.”
“This problem is solved. You have duties. Carry them out.” Hakim disappeared without a flash. The conversation was over.
Sanders could hardly bear the pain of looking at Eva’s broken body cradled in the arms of the Copper that retrieved her. “Oh, kiddo. I’m so sorry.”
***
Dan was still up when Sanders got home. He heard the door open and waited for his husband to come in. They hadn’t had late nights like this in a long time. When Sanders came into the living room, Dan almost didn’t recognize him. His normally stoic face, this handsome stern man, was holding so much sadness.
Dan opened his arms to accept him. “Come here.” Sanders let himself be held on the couch.
“You had a bad day?”
“Yes.” Sanders’ voice was rough. Had he been crying?
Dan stroked his brow. “Is this about the boy you sent to prison?”
He shook his head. “No. I did something. A terrible something.”
“What, love?” In their years together, Dan had not seen his husband cry. Not even at the funeral for his own father, where he’d stoically carried the role of pallbearer.
A sob wracked Sanders’ chest. “I solved the case. The boy who killed the woman at the party was under the influence of an entity. Another one from the old days. A Black Star experiment.”
“My god!”
“It had been living inside a young woman, using her as a host. It hurt her.”
“Where are they now?”
“Gone. Both gone.”
“Did you…?”
“No. I did nothing to stop it either.”
“Was it Hakim? Did he intervene?”
“She killed herself so she wouldn’t have to live that way. I couldn’t help her.” Sanders couldn’t talk any more. His sadness stole is voice and tears streamed from his eyes.
While Dan did his best to comfort his husband, an alert popped up on Sanders’ com device.
“It’s 3 a.m. What more do they want from you?” Dan asked protectively.
“That’s all right. I set an alarm today. Yesterday. Whenever. There was a record of another unplanned entry into Eden. I’d forgotten about it when all this happened. Bad news comes in threes, right?”
“Can you tu
rn it off?” Dan laughed through his own tears.
“Yeah, just let me…” Sanders looked at the alert. “No, no, no.”
“What now?” Dan said, still trying to keep the hard-won cheer going.
“They are all coming back.”
“Who, love? Who is coming back?”
“My failures. My ghosts.”
Dan looked at the image hovering between them: a Latina woman with black hair in a pony tail. A severe frown painted her face. She looked pissed. Determined and pissed. It took a moment for him to recognize her from the before times. This was Cassie Lima. This woman had been in Vegas when the world ended. Her face had once been on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, but Dan knew how connected she was to their life.
“Everything started with her,” Sanders said.
Dan knew how much this particular memory hurt his love. A loose string of fires before things went nuts. It began with an explosion at a Circle K in Phoenix, Arizona. Sanders had taken statements from witnesses. There was a nurse named Cassandra, and a man with her named Henry. Their relationship was unclear, though they said they were strangers. Sanders saw Cassandra and Henry separately once more after that. Then there were more fires. From what Dan and Sanders could piece together, Henry had been another one. Another impossible, strange thing. He’d been no arsonist, but he was capable of pyrokinesis. A good kid with a bad demon. They’d been the public blame for the death of the President and the entire population of Vegas.
“You should sleep. Deal with this tomorrow.”
Sanders shook his head. “Computer, search Henry Dolan. Is Henry in Eden?” His voice was steady again. The computer beeped in error and failed to return any results. Sanders got up and straightened his shirt.
“You’re not going back out tonight, are you?”
“Yes, while I have an address on Cassandra. As an unregistered person, if she slips off the map, I don’t think I’ll find her again.”
“Are you going to bring her to Hakim?” Dan asked. “After what you went through?”
“I need to talk to her.”
“I’m coming with you.”
***
Cassie was dreaming she was back in Phoenix, working her old job. She made her rounds, checking the clipboard for people she’d known in her adventures as they lay in beds. She brought her mother a paper cup filled with water. She brought Don a ukulele, which he strummed. In the next room, Henry was on a bed. She wanted to go to him, see if she could make him more comfortable. The sound of the uke took on a repetitive tone, higher pitched now; no longer musical. Cassie wanted to tell Don to stop, then she woke up. Something was buzzing in her hotel room. Was her phone going off? She searched the blankets before remembering she didn’t have one.
The hotel automated concierge voice piped in: “Mz. Cassie, you have visitors at your door.”
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she pulled on a robe. Cassie was certain she had put on a “do not disturb” sign. The hotel was free and nicer than any place she had ever been in the old world. She was surprised the lobby let someone up in the middle of the night. Cassie had no idea who or what this could be about, but she tapped the monitor on the door to see who was ringing. Shock didn’t adequately cover her feeling when she saw a face from her past standing in the hallway. He was wearing sweat pants and a hoodie and not a uniform as when she’d first met him, but otherwise, he looked the same. She opened the door and said, “Officer Sanders? What are you doing here?”
Sanders cleared his throat with a cough. “Cassandra Lima, this is my husband, Dan. May we come in?”
He wasn’t alone. The other man also had a cop face, but they both wore a look of urgency and concern. Cassie stepped aside to let them through. Inside, she saw Sanders looked like shit. The whites of his eyes were red, like he’d been crying and he needed a shave. He’d clearly had a late, rough night. “Of course. Come in. Can I make you some coffee? I can’t even believe it’s you.”
Cassie sat across from them. This moment triggered a memory: Sanders had sat on her couch in Phoenix—he’d been looking for Henry. Perhaps, Cassie thought, her dream was a premonition. “Shit. Full circle.”
Sanders rested his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward, a look of utmost seriousness on his face. “Cassie, what are you doing here?”
“Introduce us first?” Dan asked.
“Of course, Cassie, this is my husband, Dan. Dan, this is Cassandra Lima, also formerly of Phoenix, Arizona.”
Cassie said, “Nice to meet you. I didn’t know…”
“We’ve been married for a long time. I wish this were a social visit, but I need to know why you are here,” Sanders said.
She nodded. “I should be asking you that. How did you find me? And why? And why now? It’s what, 3 or 4 a.m.?”
“Please. You first.”
“Okay. I just got here,” she said and gestured to say, not just the hotel but to the city.
“I know,” Sanders said and let her continue.
“Black Star—or whatever they call themselves now. I don’t know if you have any idea what it’s like out there, by the way.”
“We don’t,” Dan said quietly. “Hey, I’ll get the coffee going and let you talk.” He gave Sanders a glance, but he and Cassie were lost in their conversation.
“Ever read 1984? It’s pretty much 1984. I was being hunted. We were being hunted.”
“Henry?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he now?” Sanders asked, practically on the edge of his seat.
Cassie paused and clenched her jaw. Don’t say it. If you don’t say it, it’s not true. “I don’t know.” Then she said it. “He might be dead.”
“Thank god,” Sanders said and let out a heavy sigh.
“Thank god? Thank god? You don’t know what you are talking about. You have no idea what I’ve been through.” Cassie couldn’t control the edge in her voice. Her hands closed in fists on her knees.
Sanders saw this and frowned. “No. No. I’m sorry. I meant that because it means you are safe. That Henry is out of harm’s way already. Not that…Hakim rules this place. I can’t know what would have happened if Henry was here.”
Her anger still close to the surface reduced to a simmer. “Oh. It’s not so clear. Henry was…” Cassie steadied her breathing and relaxed her fists. “After Vegas, Henry’s spirit was living inside of me. Literally. Something went wrong and he went away.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Dan said and handed warm cups of coffee to Cassie and Sanders.
Sanders no sooner took it, then dropped it as he fell back on the couch in a sudden, violent seizure.
“Baby!” Dan shrieked. “What is happening?”
Cassie’s EMT training kicked in and she pulled back the coffee table. “Lay him on the floor. Now!”
Sanders’ teeth chattered but he spoke. “He’s calling me. He’s calling me. He says…bring. Her. To. Me. Bring. Her. To. Me.”
“What is this?” Cassie asked.
“It’s Hakim,” Dan explained. “He contacts Sanders telepathically. Never like this. If he refuses, he could die.”
Cassie checked his airways, and said to Dan, “But I explained Henry is gone. What does Hakim want?”
Dan, frantic and panicked, said, “I don’t know what this is about. I’m sorry, but you have to go to him. Now!”
Cassie ran into her bedroom and pulled on jeans and a t-shirt. When she came back in, Sanders was sitting up. The fit was o.
“Cassandra,” he said, “you don’t have to do this.”
“It’s okay. I’m ready to go.” If she was in Oz, it was time to meet the wizard. She wondered whether she would as for brains or courage.
***
Cassie watched as Sanders kissed Dan goodbye. They agreed he’d wait in the car for this part to be over. Sanders then escorted Cassie into the grand palace in the clouds. There was something ridiculously majestic to the setup, like a Christian vision of Christ on a throne of heaven. They didn’t ta
lk as they walked through the long halls, vaulted austere ceilings above, deified murals on the walls.
When they reached the throne room Cassie laughed at the sight of Hakim. He sat atop an ornate throne. Though he was dressed simply in cream colored linens, he wore a purple cloak, lined with, shit, line with what Cassie though was gold foil. All he was missing was a crown and scepter. “Putting it on a bit thick, don’t you think?”
Sanders coughed and gently elbowed Cassie.
Hakim smiled. “Irreverent. Refreshing.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you think about me. What is that noise? Are you trying to get in my head, because I’d rather you didn’t.”
Hakim rolled his eyes. “Of course. You were the one who tried and failed to extinguish me. Tsk tsk. I see you carry the elemental yet.”
The fuck! Cassie didn’t believe him. More mind games. These fucking demons always played mind games. She gave Sanders a side eye that could wilt flowers.
“Can you not feel the energies churning within your little egg?” Hakim asked. “The dog wants out so very badly. Were it not for your man inside holding it back, I think it’d like to burn everything in existence. Even you.”
Maybe he was telling the truth. “Henry is…alive?”
“Child, your Henry hears everything we are saying, but the effort of will, my goodness, is taking every measure of himself to contain the forces threatening to overflow you both. Why, I think he’s trying to protect you.”
Cassie sent messages to Henry, intentionally now; if he could hear her, it mattered. Henry, it’s okay if you want to burn this creep. This might be our only chance. I love you. I’m so sorry.
“To show I harbor no ill will towards you, despite your deicidal tendencies,” Hakim continued, “even now conspiring against me, I have a solution to save both of your lives.”
“Bullshit!” Cassie lunged towards Hakim, and Sanders held her back. She wanted to melt his smirking face.
“I’ll give you time to think it over. One week.”