by Nathan Parks
“CHAD, STOP!” Serenity’s voice screamed through the earpiece in Gideon’s ear.
His jaw set. “Serenity, what is going on?”
“Gideon, Chad just went in through one of the side doors!”
“CHAD, I told you not to move in!”
There was the sound of metal smashing against metal, and it sounded as if Chad was being tossed by a giant robot or had walked into a stack of serving trays.
“Boss, you better get in here now!”
Gideon slammed his fist down onto the console at which he was sitting. “Seriously?” He nodded to the rest of the waiting squad as each of them grabbed their “go gear” and began to pour out of the van.
“Chad, what is going on? Chad?” Gideon was seething. There better be one amazing explanation. “Serenity, do you have visual?”
“No. He saw something, then busted through a side door. I am inside the door now but can’t see anything.”
“Chad?”
“Boss,” Chad’s voice broke in, “I think we are about to be no longer in surveillance mode!”
“What . . .” Gideon couldn’t finish his question. He and his squad stopped yards from the front of the club as the doors opened and throngs of party goers began to pour out, screaming. Many had visible wounds as if they had been suddenly attacked by a large dog or animal; others were in complete shock.
“GIDEON! WE NEED HELP NOW!”
It was Serenity, and even though there was a strong focus in her voice, her squad leader could hear the change and urgency. “What are we walking into, Serenity?”
He could hear gunfire coming over their comms. He and his team started running past victims as they headed straight into the belly of the beast.
“Gideon . . . there is a reason it looks like a nest . . .” Her voice hit him hard in the chest as they came through the front doors but not as hard as the scene in front of him. “It is a nest!”
Familiars, Possessors, Imps, Demon Dogs . . . in a full frenzy! It was as if every member of the Fallen's family tree had just been knocked off all the branches into one big basket.
Gideon led his team forward. “Let’s roll!”
Chapter Six
He could feel the muscles in her back ripple as her body moved almost in sync with his. They were a good team. They turned in unison, keeping themselves back-to-back as their assailants attacked and then backed off.
“Serenity, we have got to make some kind of move here . . . and soon. They aren’t going to keep toying with us all night.”
He knew she was smiling that beautiful, knee-melting smile as she answered, “True, but Chad, why would you want to bring this little date of ours to an end so quickly?”
With one hand he racked the chamber to the shotgun he held, at the same time pulling the trigger of the semi-automatic pistol he held in his other. He felt the recoil reverberate back through his forearm, elbow, and into the core of his body.
“As charming as this evening could become, I am not that keen on getting my flesh peeled back by soul lusting, leather-wrapped, white-faced vampires!”
“Demons.”
“What?”
“They are demons . . . not vampires.”
“All the same to me.” He shoved away from her and leaped into the air as he dodged a firestorm of bullets that were aimed to take him out. “No matter, I love me more than they will love the taste of me.”
“So, where’s Gideon?”
“I don’t know. My earpiece is trashed just like yours. The last thing I had heard was that he and the rest of the team had entered through the front doors.”
“What made you run in here, anyway?” she yelled at him, as her right heel met the face of a Possessor. She took a lot of pleasure as she watched the separation of the human host and Possessor take place in front of her. She leveled her gun and pulled the trigger, sending the Possessor to his demise within the Abyss.
“You see what is in the next room?”
“Why don’t you just tell me?” She winced as she got hit by flying debris. The forces of darkness were determined to snuff out these two. The creatures of evil seemed to pour out of unseen shadows and hiding places. “I think we will be lucky to get out of this shipping bay, so just tell me about the next room,” she tossed to him.
“It’s a feeding room!” he yelled back to her.
She had to keep herself from stopping dead in her tracks. “Are you certain?”
He was breathing heavily and felt his body’s muscles screaming to rest. How much longer before he had no more energy? “If you don’t believe me, you can check it out yourself!”
Strands of Serenity’s dyed red hair with streaks of black were sticking to her forehead from the sweat that glistened there. Her eyes flashed with a hunger for victory as she kept both arms stretched out, sending a shower of lethal bullets at any who dared to approach her. She felt Chad push away from her and could hear him behind her.
She loved fights like this. She was born for this! Yes, she was mortal. She was one of the very few who really had no complaints about her life; but just like most, there came a point in her life where she had to make a choice. She had to choose when faced with reality to either stand for what she believed to be right or to stand against it. She realized then, that if she didn’t make a choice, in her indecision she was choosing.
She stepped through the ash of Fallen and the bodies of Familiars as she tried to make it to the door of the receiving bay. If she could open it, it might allow Chad and her to get outside.
Her nostrils stung with the smell of acidic flesh burning as Fallen were sent into oblivion. Ash fell like snow, and her skin on the back of her left shoulder burned as some of it landed on her bare flesh. She made a mental note to wear something with sleeves next time.
“Where in Jah’s name are all of them coming from?” she questioned out loud, more to herself than to anyone. “Who are they protecting?”
Just as she reached the locking mechanism that would allow her to open the large metal doors, it seemed that someone had turned off the supernatural faucet. Everything became quiet. The small number of Fallen that were present vanished into the shadows and were gone.
Silence. Stillness—nothing but two very worn-out fighters, a lot of ash and bodies, flickering lights . . . but nothing else.
“Ok, so does this mean we win?” Chad questioned, throwing up his hands in puzzlement. “What’s going on?”
She could feel her chest heaving up and down as she tried to catch her breath. She didn’t realize how much energy she had been exerting; she was drained. She leaned back against the concrete wall and just took a moment.
She listened, trying to see if she could pick up any other sounds coming from the rest of The Warehouse, but there wasn’t a noise. There was an eerie silence—just silence.
“I don’t know. I don’t like the silence. You would think you could hear something . . . maybe even the other team fighting, but I don’t hear anything.”
He nodded as he kicked the crate next to him with the toe of his shoe, trying to shake the sediment off. “Man, these were brand new boots, too; and now they look like something out of a mummy movie.”
Serenity scanned several of the bodies that lay around to see if she could see any Clan markings or evidence of who in the world they had been up against. She noticed nothing that was tell-tale.
“I don’t know, Chad. I still am not sure what is going on here. There are no markings on any of their wrists. I don’t see a single Clan insignia. Who do all these belong to? Ever heard of an unaligned Clan?” She motioned to the bodies of Familiars and the sediment of ash lying in piles. “I am telling you, this is not normal.”
He looked around and then shrugged. “So, hey, the way I look at it is this: there are still less of them out there now than us.”
“But we can’t just go around slaughtering people who are giving themselves up to the Clan.”
He looked at her with his eyebrow arched. “And why not? Hey,
you’re the one who said they have no Clan . . . so, who cares?”
She shook her head. “There is still free will. Do I agree with them? No, but it is their life!” She knelt, taking the wrist of one of the bodies and, turning it over, noticed it was also free of any markings . . . nothing. All the Familiars who had not run but stood to fight alongside their Fallen Possessors were in their teens or 20s, a young Clan. There were lucid signs of ritualistic activity and cutting paraphernalia but nothing else.
“You're right; they do have a choice,” he responded, mockingly acting tender and concerned. “I just chose to help make their choice final.”
She shook her head once again. She liked Chad and she loved to fight Fallen; but their views on things, most of the time, split right about there.
“Let’s go. We need to find Gideon and the rest of the team.”
He didn’t say anything else. As he turned to follow her, he noticed a medallion attached to a leather filament lying at his feet. He retrieved it and held it in his hand for a moment, looking at it. It was made of bronze and consisted of the Roman numeral XIV for 14 and a dragon with a sun in its mouth. Now was not the time to figure out its significance, but it was the closest thing he had seen tonight to any identifier. He followed Serenity out the door.
As the two moved through a doorway that led them further into the areas of The Warehouse and, hopefully, to the rest of the team, a shadow moved behind them. It was a blur of darkness, quiet and yet steady and unnoticed, overlooked by all except for a young lady trembling in the shadows. She noticed it, but as tears streamed down, smearing the black mascara, she didn’t want to be aware of anything; she only wanted to go home. She wanted to wake up. This wasn’t fun anymore.
Her knees were up to her chin; and she had wrapped her arms tightly around her legs, trying to keep every inch of her being in the shadows. Her lips were pressed taut, trying to hold in her breath that threatened to either implode her lungs or reveal her hiding place by exploding outwardly. Her skin was tingling in fear. It was as if she could feel every individual hair upon her body standing straight up. Her heart hurt . . . not the type of hurt when it was broken but the type of hurt that crushed through her chest and pounded so hard that she was sure she was going to die.
This had all been just an escape, a way to belong, and a way to get away from everything that had left her exhausted at home. She could feel herself getting ready to panic and lose it. She opened her eyes. Maybe the shadow would be just that: a shadow and nothing else. Maybe she could leave. She would go home and never return. “Just let me live!”
She slowly lifted her head and looked around. There were bodies and ash everywhere; the black she had worn was now an ashen grey, and she could taste the soot upon her tongue as she slowly opened her mouth to allow her breath to escape.
“Victoria,” the voice of a young girl called her name through the darkness. “Victoria, are you there?”
She shook her head. She must be in shock. How would a little girl be in here, and how would she know her name?
“Victoria, I am scared. Victoria?”
“Who are you?”
That is when she saw it: it began across the room, turned, and then rushed at her like the wind from a hurricane. If all the fear that an immortal could conjure could be put into the deepest shadow and that shadow have the chance to express itself in a form, it would look like this! Tori screamed! Her flesh became so hot, it seemed cold. She then saw horror at its worst as it penetrated the only living thing left in which it could find refuge. The last thing she remembered in that split second was the inky, vile voice rushing around through her skull, “We are you and you are us, and we soon will be him!”
“You ok, Sir?”
Zarius opened his eyes, and looked at the officer who was standing a few feet away with a bright light pointed right into his face. “I was until you shined that blasted light in my eyes.”
“You can’t just lie out here, Sir.” The officer lowered the light. “There is a rest area a few miles down the road, but you can’t sleep out on the side of the highway like this.”
Zarius sat up and brushed himself off. “It’s ok. I will get on my way.”
“Like I said, you can check out the rest area.”
“I’m not really all about rest areas, Man. Too many dirtbags hang out there, and I just wanted to catch a few minutes anyway.”
The officer laughed. “Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t want to really hang around one, either. You have a safe ride for the rest of your trip, Sir.”
Zarius shook the officer’s hand and watched as he got back into his patrol car and left. He pulled out his phone and looked down at the picture of his wife and then looked at the time. She would probably kill him, but he had to see her. He leaned against his bike as he touched the video call button, waiting as it rang. It only took one ring before she accepted, and her face filled the screen. He smiled because he clearly saw that she was not in bed or even getting ready for bed. Instead, she was surrounded by papers and books, and he realized she was fully engrossed in some research.
“Hey, Sweetheart! How is the ride? Are you there yet?”
“No, I still have a few hours left, but I just needed to see your face.”
She smiled. “Well, I’m glad.”
“You look busy.”
“Well, after you left, I started looking at some things that Gerault sent me . . .”
“And I dare say that you haven’t stopped since that moment.”
She looked at him with a mock-offended expression. “How dare you? You don’t know me!”
He grinned; he loved her so much. She couldn’t be further from the truth, even in her mocked expression. He knew her through and through; and he knew that whatever it was that had her going, she wouldn’t stop until she got to the bottom of it. “So whatcha got?”
He felt a switch flip in his being as her face and tone changed. She became serious and very subdued, yet her words began to flow quickly. “Zee, I am not sure . . . I mean, I . . . I don’t want to say too much because it is all preliminary, but . . . well, I have to say . . . Gerault was correct when he stated this could be earth-shattering.”
“Ok. Can you tell me anything?”
She paused for a moment and then looked at him with a deepness that reached through the screen and held him. “Zee, how much do you know about your history?”
“What do you mean . . . my history? I don’t understand.”
“What if everything that we believe as truth is truth only because it was what was kept? What if the truth we hold to now is the truth because over time the truth has been forgotten for what those in power at the time wanted to be the truth?”
He didn’t understand her. He felt a little bit dizzy, and yet there was a place deep in the pit of his stomach that felt as if a gaping hole was just ripped into it. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Yeah, I know . . .” She paused. “It doesn’t make sense to me, either. If I needed to do some digging into your history, where would I start?”
“Why would you do that?” He stood up and felt his body tense. “What is it that you are looking for?”
“The truth, Zee.”
“What? Do you not think that I have been honest with you?” He was getting heated now. They had never argued . . . well, ok, there had been a few times, but rarely. She had struck a nerve within him, though, and he wasn’t even ready for the reaction he was feeling. “I have told you things about me that you never would have known!”
She let him blow and then put her hand up. “Stop, Zee. It has nothing to do with not trusting you. I believe that you may not even know the real history." There was a pause, and then she continued, “You know, forget it for now. Zarius, you focus on what you have to do. I will be leaving later today for Austria.”
“I’m sorry.” He felt his body loosen. “I didn’t mean to blow up. I just don’t understand what you are asking from me.”
“It was my fault. I am not accusi
ng you of anything, yet I can’t really talk anymore about any of this. It is only pieces of a puzzle, and I can’t seem to see the whole picture. The picture I am seeing . . . well, there is something big. I will talk to you once I am in Austria. Be safe.”
“I will, and you, also.”
He placed the phone back in his pocket, and in a few minutes he was back on the road. His mind was full, and she was right: he needed to focus on his mission and what lay before him, but now he couldn’t get her words out of his mind. What did she mean? What was she getting at?
The roar of his tires against the road, the tunnel of the night’s darkness, and the stars in the sky blended together into a scene of trance and absorption; it took him deep within himself and brought focus. His wife, at this moment, was behind him, and Eden lay ahead. He took a deep breath and opened up the throttle.