by R. L. King
“I’ve never even heard of anyone who can do it,” Lamar told him.
“Bloody hell, I’m an idiot,” Stone said, looking disgusted.
“Huh?” Jason turned back to him, confused. “Why?”
“That’s it. You told me about it before. It was all right there in front of me, and it went right over my head.”
“Told you about—”
“—about your sister’s encounter with the man in the basement. How she drove the spirit out of him by ‘pushing’ with her mind.”
“Yeah, and—?”
Stone sighed. “Don’t you see? From what you’ve said, all of these people—they have these abilities with regard to the Evil. They can hide from it, detect it, do useful things that help them stay one step ahead of it. But none of the Forgotten seem to be able to fight it. Until now.”
When Jason still looked confused, Stone fixed him with a withering stare. “Honestly, Jason, I’m the one who’s supposed to be operating at diminished capacity right now. Let me spell it out for you: your sister can fight them. She can destroy them. Therefore, she’s a threat.”
“But she can’t control it,” Jason protested.
“But she has the potential to be able to control it,” Stone reminded him. “And if she does ever get that ability under control, she actually represents several kinds of threats.”
“How so? I get that she can drive them out, but—”
Stone took a deep breath. “Look around you. Look at these people. No offense intended,” he added, glancing at Lamar and Marilee. “But they’re disaffected. They’re marginalized. Most of them have mental issues that make it difficult for them to deal with the general public. They have very little contact, by choice, with the authorities. I’m correct, aren’t I?” he asked Lamar.
The old man nodded. “You are, yes. We avoid the authorities. The police and other similar agencies are prime hunting grounds for the Evil. They prefer to possess people in authority when they can, because that lets them get away with causing more trouble without being caught.”
Stone nodded. “Exactly. So the fact that the Forgotten know about the Evil make them a threat, but not a large one. Certainly it sounds like they would like nothing better than to be rid of you, but they don’t consider you an imminent threat because you can’t tell anyone about them. No one would believe you. You’ve no way to prove it, and it sounds so farfetched that it comes out like the ravings of a deranged mind.”
“You’re right,” Marilee said, nodding sadly. “Every once in a while one of the younger or more idealistic Forgotten tries to tell someone about what’s happening, but it never works. We talk to each other—we know. Eventually we just stopped trying, and we concentrate on our own safety, and dealing with the Evil when we’re forced to.”
“Right,” Stone said. He struggled to a more upright position, and Jason stuffed a couple more tattered pillows under him. “But Verity—though she’s by all appearances one of the Forgotten, she’s not only lucid, but she’s got friends who will believe her about the Evil—and who have the capacity to do something about them. Jason here presumably still has contacts in the law enforcement community, and I, as they say, have quite a lot of experience with believing six impossible things before breakfast. So suddenly instead of a bunch of mentally unhinged homeless people, they’re dealing with a young girl who has the capacity to destroy them one at a time, her highly motivated brother, and a fully trained mage. That’s going to tip the odds in a direction they aren’t going to like one bit.” Exhausted from getting all that out, Stone sank back, going pale again.
Jason was finally catching on. “So—” he said, “That’s why they were after her—and after us! They didn’t want us all to meet up, because as long as they kept us separated—or better yet, made sure we were dead—then all they’d have to deal with would be the mage and the brother who were confused as hell about what was going on, and the girl who didn’t have any support system.”
“Gold star for the man in the leather jacket,” Stone said faintly, nodding.
“But the question is, how did they know all of this?” Jason asked.
“I have a theory about that,” Stone said. “It’s conjecture, but it fits.”
“Yeah?”
“Remember the story you said Verity told about driving the Evil out of the man in the basement?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think that one was destroyed. Lamar here said that the Forgotten think that the more powerful Evil can survive outside a host body for a longer time—perhaps even days. I think the man Verity found in the basement was not one of the minions, but one of the more powerful versions. If it was able to escape and find a new host body while retaining its knowledge of what went before, then it would have very good reason to want to track her down.”
“That makes sense,” Jason admitted. “It even fits—if it took it a while to find another body, then it couldn’t be tracking V. That would have given her time to get away, and by the time it found one, she’d disappeared and hooked up with the Forgotten, who could hide her.”
“Exactly,” Stone said, nodding.
“But—” Jason’s eyes widened. “That still leaves another question.”
“And what’s that?”
“Remember what Verity said she found the guy doing? Draining that kid for power like that ganger did the night Charles died. But I thought you said that was something mages did. Black mages. Not this—Evil thing.”
Stone just stared at Jason for several long silent seconds. “Bloody hell…” he whispered.
“What?”
Stone raised up on his elbow again, heedless of what the exertion was doing to him. “Jason—you’re right. You’re…right. And that changes everything.”
Jason didn’t even think Stone was aware that Lamar and Marilee were there any longer. “I—I don’t get it. Why?”
“Because,” Stone said as if talking to a slow toddler, “It means these things can co-exist with mages. It means they can possess us. Do you realize what kind of danger that could represent?” He turned his laserlike gaze on Lamar. “When the Evil possess people—does it submerge their personality?”
“I—I don’t think so,” he said. “Not entirely, anyway.”
“And why do you think that’s true?”
“Because we don’t know where these things came from, but they’re obviously alien. And we’ve seen that they prefer people in positions of power. They would never be able to perform the sorts of jobs that they do—we think some of the stronger ones have possessed high-level police administrators, politicians, businessmen—with nothing but their own knowledge.”
“So you’re saying,” Jason put in, “that they let these things possess them? That’s pretty farfetched.”
“I agree,” Lamar said. “I don’t think they allow it, exactly. But I do think, and others agree with me, that some people are more receptive to them than others are.”
“What kind of people?”
The old man shrugged. “Weak-minded people, or people who might be more willing to do the kinds of things that the Evil want them to do. I think they seek out those kinds of people.”
“So-called ‘evil’ people,” Stone said. “Or at the very least, people whose moral compasses are a bit more shaky than the average citizen’s.”
“So, you think black mages would be more receptive because they don’t mind causing pain?” Jason asked.
“Hard to say,” Stone said, finally allowing himself to sink back down again. “Mages in general have strong minds—we’re trained for it from the time we’re apprentices. It’s very difficult to compel us to do anything against our will. I’m not sure what this Evil could offer a mage that would make him or her willing to let it in. Mental possession—” he shivered “—to have one’s mind taken over by another being—that’s something I can’t imagine any mage would ever allow. So either it’s an isolated incident, and somehow they got through to an individual mage, or I’m inco
rrect and there’s more going on here than I’ve begun to understand.”
“Or some of them are powerful enough that they can force their way in without permission,” Jason suggested.
“Or that,” Stone agreed.
Jason could see that despite his best efforts to continue with the discussion, the mage’s strength was failing. “Listen,” he said, “You look like you could use a good night’s sleep. Why don’t we clear out of here and let you rest, and we can talk about this some more in the morning.”
His suspicions were confirmed when Stone nodded without protest. “I hate to admit it, but you’re right. You could probably do with a bit yourself.”
“Yeah, probably. I think I’ll go talk to V some more, and then find a place to catch a few hours at least.” He nodded to Lamar and Marilee as he got up.
The two of them got slowly to their feet as well. Marilee smiled down at the kitten, who was still snuggled up next to Stone. “She can stay with you if you like. I think she likes you more than she likes me.”
Stone didn’t answer; his eyes were already closed. Jason exited the tent and waited for the two old Forgotten to follow him. “He’s gonna be okay, right? I don’t need to take him to a hospital or anything?”
Lamar shook his head. “He should be fine. He’s just tired from the magical exertion and the blood loss.”
“What about my sister? She was saying that somebody here was keeping her from—having her crazy thing. If she leaves here, she’ll go back to the way she was, won’t she?”
“Probably, yes,” the old man told him. “As I told Dr. Stone, we have no idea what causes these symptoms. There just seem to be some people who are susceptible to them, and your sister seems to be one of them. Unless we can somehow cut off the source of the symptoms rather than simply blocking it, then moving away from the one who can do the blocking will have predictable results.”
Jason looked him up and down. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t take this wrong—you know I’m grateful for what you did for Al, and I’m sure he is too. But—you don’t seem like the rest of the people here.”
“What do you mean?”
“You look like them,” he said, taking in Lamar’s thin, stooped frame, ragged clothes, and unshaven face. “But you don’t act like them. What were you before you were—here?”
Lamar smiled gently. “I was a doctor, a long time ago.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded. “A good one, too. But I had some issues in my life that I wasn’t very wise at coping with.” He patted Jason on the arm. “I like it here, Mr. Thayer. I can take care of people, but the pressure that drove me away from my ‘good life’ doesn’t exist here.”
“Just having to wonder where your next meal is coming from, and being stalked by some weird disembodied alien bodysnatcher who wants to kill you because you know too much.”
Lamar chuckled. “True, there’s that. But we have each other, and we’ve adapted. The Forgotten are very resilient. We have to be—we’re all each other have. The rest of the world pretty much ignores us—hence the name we’ve chosen for ourselves.”
Jason nodded, realizing uncomfortably how much truth there was to the old man’s words. How many times had he himself walked right by homeless people without even noticing them? It was just too much trouble to stop and talk to them, to give them some change—to even recognize their humanity. “Why—do you stay out here? There are places you can go—shelters—”
“No, that’s not possible.” Lamar gave him the kind of look you give a beloved small child who had just made an amusing grammatical error. “Don’t forget—the Evil are hunting us. They want as many of us dead as they can manage. Wouldn’t you think homeless shelters would be the best place for them to hunt?”
“I—guess I didn’t think of that,” Jason mumbled.
Lamar smiled. “We do what we can to survive. It’s best to just avoid them, since none of us enjoy the alternative. Maybe if we can find more of us who have your sister’s gift, we’ll never have to kill anyone again.”
“You actually care about killing them?”
“Of course we do. Not the Evil, of course. If I could kill every last one of those things by saying the word, I’d do it in an instant. But the people they possess—they’re just people like you or me. Maybe they’ve made some bad choices in their lives, but that doesn’t give us the right to pass final judgment on them.”
Jason nodded. He supposed that was right. He’d never been a religious man, but his instincts were to protect people, not to kill them. Even homicidal gang members deserved trials, or society would degenerate even further than it already had.
Again, Lamar patted his arm. “Go find your sister, Jason. Get some sleep.”
“Yeah, I should do that. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Lamar moved off back toward the fire, and Jason went in search of Verity. By now most of the Forgotten were asleep, huddled around the two fires or wrapped in heavy old blankets. He thought he spotted Frank the Scribbler a distance away, but he didn’t head over to check.
“Hey, Jason—over here.” He looked up and saw Verity still sitting leaned against the same tree where he’d left her. Hurrying over, he sat down across from her. “Is your friend okay?”
“Yeah. He’ll be fine. I’m just glad you guys had somebody who could help him.”
Verity nodded. “Lamar hasn’t been here long, but everybody respects him. He’s kind of the leader of our little group, and sometimes he helps out settling disputes when other groups get together. These guys squabble a lot when everybody gets their different kind of crazy going at once. You ever watch somebody with germophobic OCD trying to deal with somebody who never takes a bath, even when they get the chance?”
In spite of himself, Jason chuckled.
“I feel bad for some of them. There’s this one little boy about nine who never says a word—he just sits and rocks and goes along wherever somebody leads him. He mutters to himself in some kind of weird, gibberish language, and seems to get really agitated when the Evil’s nearby. They use him kind of like a canary in a coal mine, but up until a day or two ago nobody could talk to him. Then this other guy showed up and seemed to hit it off with the kid right away. He couldn’t figure out why nobody else could understand what he was saying.”
“Wow,” Jason said, shaking his head. “This is all just so—overwhelming. A few days ago I was back home playing poker and getting in bar fights, and now look at me. My crazy sister’s a magic bum, my new friend is a mage who moonlights as a college professor and travels by teleport gateway, I’ve seen more people get killed than I have during the whole rest of my life, and I’ve found out some weird spirit things from Dimension X are out to take us all over and make us miserable so they can get their jollies.” He shrugged, flashing her a lopsided grin. “What’s next? Talking cats? We’re all just living in somebody’s fishbowl? I wake up to find out this was all the world’s most elaborate dream?”
Verity chuckled. “Don’t call us ‘magic bums,’ Jason. That’s not cool.”
“Sorry. Just—realizing how freaked out I really am, and how much I’ve had to keep hold of it so I don’t just start running around like I’m as crazy as some of these folks are.”
“Think of how I feel,” she reminded him. “Meeting Susanna—having her be able to block whatever it is that was causing me to have problems—it was like coming up from being underwater. I know you don’t know it or realize it, but there were lots of times during the last few years when I was perfectly okay. It was weird—it was like waking up from a dream, having no idea where I was or what I was doing, and knowing that there was nothing I could do to prevent it happening again. You know how hard that is? It got better toward the end—I’m glad, or I never would have gotten out of that place alive. I hope you’re not mad at me for all those times I yelled and screamed. I hope Dad wasn’t.”
“You know…Dad’s gone, righ
t?” Jason asked gently.
She nodded, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “Yeah, I know. They told me once, during one of my lucid periods.” She looked up at him. “Jason, what will you do now?”
The question startled him. “What do you mean?”
“Well, tomorrow you’re gonna wake up, and your friend’s gonna wake up, and there’s no reason at all why you need to stay here. You have lives, jobs, things to do. You’re not crazy—and you won’t go crazy if you get away from the people keeping you sane. So what will you do?”
For a long time he didn’t answer. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I don’t know what I can do. I don’t want to leave you here, but it sounds like you don’t want to go.”
“I can’t go,” she said. “I want to go home with you—or maybe just get a place around here and start having a normal life. But until we figure out why I’m like I am, I can’t do it.” She sighed. “I like these people a lot, but—I can’t help feeling like I’ve given up one prison for another one, you know?”
Jason nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. I’ll think about it—see if I can come up with anything. Or maybe Al can. He’s good with that kind of thing. I’ll ask him tomorrow.”
“How did you meet him, anyway?” she asked. “You two don’t exactly seem like you run in the same circles.”
He wondered if he should tell her, or if it would just make things more complicated. But as usual, he knew the answer. “V…he…he knew Mom.”
“What?” Her eyes went wide. “How could he—”
“Long story. I’ll tell you the whole thing later. Short version is that he was investigating some of these weird disappearances, and he recognized your name as one of ’em. We ended up at the same place, and he got me out of a jam. That’s why he agreed to help me. To help us,” he added, nodding toward her.
“This I gotta hear,” she agreed. “But you’re right—tomorrow, unless you’re planning on leaving right away. You really should get some sleep. You look tired.”
“We’re not going anywhere for a while. Too much we still need to talk about with these guys. They seem to have the other piece of the puzzle we’ve been trying to solve, which means I won’t be able to pry Al away with a crowbar. Maybe between us all we can come up with something.” He dragged himself to his feet. “Where do you sleep, anyway?”