AWOL

by Traci Harding

  ‘No! I see any dependence as a weakness,’ Khalid spat back as his trembling intensified. ‘It is pathetic to rely on others to sustain you.’

  ‘So it is,’ Zeven granted. ‘But someone truly evil would not recognise that.’

  ‘Stop trying to make me feel better!’ Khalid insisted, as glasses and bottles began to burst. ‘It’s agonising!’ He clenched his fists to endure his conflicting thoughts and emotions.

  ‘Psychotic episode,’ advised Telmo, who was telepathic. ‘We may have to abort.’

  ‘Is that him?’ Zeven pointed to the shattering glasses behind the bar.

  ‘No,’ Telmo warned, but Zeven felt they had come too far to abort.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Zeven placed his free hand on Khalid’s shoulder as the distressed man had backed up to sit on a stool. ‘I know being here is a cathartic experience —’

  ‘Is that what this is?’ Khalid held his chest, having never felt remorse. ‘It fucking hurts!’

  ‘I know it does,’ Zeven sympathised, ‘but if you just tell me what we need to do, I’ll get you out of here as fast as possible.’

  The disturbance in the room died down as tears began leaking from Khalid’s dark eyes, and he wiped them away, amazed and horrified at once. ‘I didn’t even think I had tear-ducts. What the fuck?’

  ‘Just breathe,’ Zeven encouraged, and Khalid was so freaked out that he actually complied, but he was sucking in air so deeply that he was starting to hyperventilate.

  ‘Command Chironjivi’s bones to rise from the ground,’ Khalid muttered through his stress.

  Zeven did as instructed, and a skeleton-worth of bones rose to float above all the others.

  ‘Now incinerate the bastard. And sweep his ashes into that coffer with his amulet.’

  At Zeven’s mental command the bones turned to ash, which he caught up with a whirl of wind and directed into the coffer. Once the last speck was inside, he locked the lid closed. ‘Done.’ Zeven looked to Khalid, to find he’d calmed a little.

  ‘Now for the rest of the crew.’ Khalid got to his feet to lead the way through the Insurrecto to the one evil treasure that the crew of AMIE had never managed to lay their hands on — the Soul Keep.

  As they moved down the corridors of the Insurrecto, Khalid seemed unnerved.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Telmo asked.

  ‘The crew are not usually this quiet,’ Khalid observed. ‘Especially not when strangers wander into this part of the ship.’ He picked up his pace as he spotted the door to the Soul Keep open. ‘It’s almost like —’ He entered the room with Zeven and Telmo hot on his heels, to witness the Soul Keep vanishing, along with two cloaked women ‘— they’re no longer here,’ Khalid finished. ‘Who the fuck? No one else knows about the Soul Keep.’

  ‘I didn’t get a good look at them.’ Zeven turned to Telmo.

  ‘One was brunette, one blonde.’ Telmo inspected the image he’d captured in his mind and noted their long hair protruding from their hoods. ‘Very tall — Phemorian most likely? Very powerful,’ Telmo added.

  ‘Because they have PK,’ Zeven assumed.

  ‘Because they have cast a shield in their wake,’ Telmo advised. ‘We can’t follow them. Try it.’

  Zeven did try, and did not move from where he stood. ‘Shit!’

  ‘Deep shit,’ Khalid concurred. ‘Those demons have no allegiance to anyone right now, they are open to a benefactor.’

  ‘Surely they would not align themselves with Phemorians?’ Telmo reasoned.

  ‘Never,’ Khalid agreed.

  ‘Unless?’ Zeven, who had started pacing, stopped still, thinking twice about assuming anything. ‘They already have an allegiance to a Phemorian. Someone’s had dealings at Dead Man Downs since before you were born. That person told Chironjivi about the royal breeding arrangement and snuck the rotting bastard into the Phemorian royal palace the night he possessed your father. This same person must have saved you as a baby and got you away from the Phemoray who would surely have demanded you be killed.’

  ‘That’s a pretty tall order,’ Telmo warranted. ‘Do we know of a Phemorian who is that brave and powerful?’

  ‘Maybe Jalila Lamus? Although by my reckoning she’s probably too young to have played a major role in these affairs. More snooping around on Phemoria is required,’ Zeven decided. ‘But our job here appears to be done.’

  ‘I will stay behind and perform the clearing rite,’ Telmo volunteered.

  The energy of this site gave Zeven the creeps. ‘You sure you want to do that on your own?’

  ‘There is nothing left here for me to fear, I assure you.’ Telmo waved the offer away. ‘Better that you get Khalid clear of this place once and for all.’

  ‘Right then.’ Zeven went to grab Khalid’s arm, but he stepped away.

  ‘I should clean up my own mess,’ he decided. ‘I brought these women here, I should help them leave.’

  ‘I said I have nothing left to fear here,’ Telmo clarified. ‘These souls harbour great resentment towards you. I can’t guarantee your safety.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to.’

  ‘They want you to feel their pain,’ Telmo accentuated.

  ‘I want that also,’ Khalid professed.

  ‘What you experienced in the lounge before was just a warning,’ Telmo cautioned, but Zeven could tell he was quietly impressed by Khalid’s stand.

  ‘Look, don’t you think you’ve had enough bad experiences in your lifetime?’ After five years trapped in a body with Chironjivi, Zeven didn’t think any more punishment was necessary.

  ‘But I didn’t feel any of it!’ Khalid became agitated. ‘And until I deal with this fucking thing you call a conscience, I’ll never be able to feel anything good.’

  ‘I believe you are right about that,’ Telmo awarded, appearing proud of their patient.

  ‘Well, it’s all part of the program, I suspect.’ Khalid was not going to be led blindly along by anyone. ‘So let’s get on with this gutting, before I lose my nerve.’

  ‘What if he has a psychotic break this time?’ Zeven asked.

  ‘He might,’ Telmo granted. ‘Everyone needs their dark night of the soul, Zeven, we’ve all had them. I understand you want to spare your friend the pain —’

  ‘Friend? Really?’ Khalid scoffed. ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since always,’ Zeven mumbled, having a flashback to his time in the universe parallel when Wu Geng had made the same query. ‘It’s your curse I have a problem with.’ Zeven smiled to himself, glad he knew their history.

  ‘I realise this,’ Khalid conceded. ‘But as I have no wish to go back to being possessed, or to go insane, I’m going to have to face my demons. And this lot are only the beginning.’

  ‘Then we shall face them together,’ Zeven resolved.

  ‘Help me and you shall be hated like I am,’ Khalid sneered. ‘And I might remind you that you are related to many of my misdeeds of horrors past. How is Mr Popular going to deal when team fabulous turns against him? Hmm?’

  Zeven looked a little shocked by Khalid’s knowledge.

  ‘Don’t think I don’t know you’ve banded together a bunch of psychics on board that AMIE craft of yours, and that you lot were responsible for putting me in jail in the first place,’ Khalid said.

  Zeven shrugged off his conclusion. ‘That only goes to show I owe you a few favours. Don’t waste your breath,’ Zeven shot down Khalid’s argument, and looked to Telmo. ‘Where do we start?’

  Sorting bones into skeletons was not so tedious for two men with PK, but finding somewhere to lay them all out separately had forced them to move the exercise outside onto the desert canyon floor. Telmo had conjured up a few torches and staked them in the ground, and the chill of the air seemed amplified by the nature of their labours.

  By the time all the skeletons lay in neat rows, the large orange Sermetic moon hovered directly overhead, adding an eerie red glow to the hellish scene.

  ‘What now?’ Zeven was eager to have
this gruesome business completed.

  ‘Now we remove Khalid’s restraint and leave him here alone for a couple of hours,’ Telmo instructed.

  ‘He could pop off —’ Zeven objected, knowing it would only take an hour for the effects of the restraint to wear off.

  ‘Where is the trust now, buddy? And where would I go?’ Khalid posed. ‘I am wanted by the USS, and there is nowhere you couldn’t find me anyway.’

  ‘Unless you know how to do the shielding trick?’ Zeven resisted the urge to trust him, even though Telmo obviously did.

  ‘Seriously, have you not figured that out yet? It’s so simple!’ Khalid teased.

  ‘But only if you have mastered how to shapeshift,’ Telmo theorised.

  ‘Which I haven’t,’ Khalid concluded his case.

  ‘I don’t know that.’ Zeven sidestepped to get back to the other matter. ‘So, what are you saying, if you change form as you teleport, that renders you untraceable?’

  ‘Well, when pursuing someone via teleportation you picture that person,’ Telmo expanded on his hypothesis. ‘But if they have altered their entire genetic structure, they are no longer the person you have pictured.’

  ‘But if I knew where they were going I could find them that way,’ Zeven reasoned, of the mind to track down the Soul Keep.

  ‘If you knew all their aliases, and could recognise them in a crowd,’ Telmo granted.

  Zeven considered he must make note of that in his mission log as Telmo continued, ‘But we have to start trusting Khalid sometime, and if we don’t remove his psychic restraining device then he’ll miss gaining all he could from this experience.’

  Zeven considered the request more seriously. ‘Two hours,’ he consented. ‘I’ll be watching from the canyon ridge.’ He vanished to begin his vigil, and Khalid’s restraint vanished with him.

  It felt liberating to have one ankle that wasn’t metal bound, and once he had his power back he could repair his busted ankle and lose the leg brace as well. Not that Khalid had any true healing capability that he was aware of, but he knew exactly how the ankle had felt and appeared before his little accident, and thus he could use his PK to restore it. Perhaps he’d been hanging out with the good vibe club a little too long, but with the psychic restraint removed, he felt its oppressive influence lift and vital energy flowing more easily through his being.

  ‘So, boy wonder.’ Khalid sought to waylay Telmo; his tone might have been sarcastic but for the first time in his life he felt a fearful emptiness in his gut. ‘Am I signing my own death warrant here, do you think?’

  ‘That depends on whether you can be baited,’ Telmo replied.

  ‘How do you mean?’ He’d been watching this kid, who seemed to have an answer for everything and never lost his cool; Khalid quietly respected that.

  ‘These souls will air their grievances to you, and as long as you remain humble, accepting and full of good will and remorse, you shall fare well,’ he counselled. ‘But turn angry or defensive … and the worst could happen.’

  ‘Good to know.’ He eyed the field of skeletons.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ Telmo empathised.

  Khalid looked back to his youthful advisor. ‘I think we both know that I do.’

  The kid appeared mournful. ‘If our agendas align this will prove expedient to our cause. I’ve taught you how to meditate and still your mind —’

  ‘You knew it would come to this.’ Khalid had mocked the practice at the time, unable to see what purpose there could possibly be in attempting stillness and oneness with all there is.

  ‘Some things are fated,’ Telmo replied, graciously, neither confirming nor denying the supposition. ‘I’ll be back in two hours to see how you fare.’

  He vanished, and Khalid was left alone for the first time since before his incarceration; this was a relief in itself — alone was his natural state of being. Yet as he wandered down the lines of dead women, he knew he was not really alone, and taking a seat in the middle of the graveyard, he suspected that soon his ghostly company would be making themselves all too apparent.

  For the longest time Khalid sat trying to empty his mind of thought, focus on his breath, and find a happy place. His rescue from his father was more of a relief than a heart warming experience, but there was one event that made him tear up every time it came to mind: meeting Thurraya. It was hard to believe a six-year-old girl had had such a profound impact on his psyche; she’d cracked open his heart of ice and he felt it thaw a little every time he recalled the child defending him with her life.

  ‘Deceiver!’ A cold wind whipped past his body, and stung him with its bite.

  ‘Coward!’ Another kicked up gravel and dirt to graze his skin.

  ‘How could you do this to us?’ whispered another.

  Then the sound of a baby screaming in terror chilled Khalid to the bone and his gut turned.

  ‘I understand now,’ he said out loud. All he had to do was imagine delivering Thurraya to Chironjivi for his pleasure, and Khalid keeled forwards and began to vomit.

  ‘You understand nothing!’

  This time the force of wind shot right into him, and Khalid began to relive each of his victims’ horrifying memories of being raped, tortured and torn apart by the curse he’d once considered family. ‘Forgive me,’ he repeated throughout, and when the suffering became too great and he felt he would rebel or flee, his will was stayed by the thought of young Thurraya telling him, ‘People change. And no matter what others decide about you, only you know what your heart’s intentions truly are.’

  But what were his intentions?

  Before meeting Ray he’d been determined to escape this rehabilitation program at all costs and return to scheming political espionage. But this truth-seeking business was becoming even more fascinating and addictive than world domination — albeit painful and shocking — this was self domination, the one thing Khalid never dreamt possible. He’d been under the illusion that he drew all his power from the amulet in his hand and that he must remain bound to the curse or lose his supernatural gifts, hence there was no possibility of ever truly being independent. He had his captors to thank for waking him up to the truth of that matter, which was probably the single greatest gift anyone could have given him. It hurt to think he nearly killed the man who was now doing him this great service. It felt uncomfortable to be beholden, but as much as he hated to admit it, he couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather be indebted to. These musings filled him with sentiment. He felt a void erupting in his chest where his heart was supposed to be and his throat ached like he’d swallowed a stone that had wedged in his gullet.

  With each horrendous memory the ghosts shared with him, Khalid felt their anger lessen and his guilt ease accordingly. This was forgiveness — he was aware of the premise, but had never really experienced it first-hand. It was rather amazing that the ordeal was making him feel lighter, stronger, euphoric and very determined to ensure that the demon crew from Dead Man Downs never set up shop again.

  ‘Calling all souls who would quit this place,’ Telmo’s voice rang through the night. ‘A portal has opened to enable your escape.’

  The assault on Khalid’s senses abruptly ceased, as thankfully the ghosts were apparently more interested in liberation than revenge.

  ‘Leave grievance and sorrow with your bones on the ground, for these will not serve, where you are bound.’

  Khalid became conscious of being flat on his back, and in his delirium he saw what looked like blue fireflies ascending from the canyon into a vortex of light beyond.

  ‘Forgive your trespasses, and leave love in your wake,’ Telmo encouraged the souls who were straggling. ‘And may that wisdom guide you always, compassion for goodness sake.’

  The phenomenon was resonating the most harmonious sound that filled all Khalid’s senses with a calm high, transcending even the monkey’s bite. His heart had ceased to ache, but his head was throbbing and felt lead-weighted. Thus Khalid stayed watching the celestial
event diminishing above until his self appointed saviour came to stand over him and block the view.

  ‘So what’s the verdict?’ Zeven posed. ‘Do I get another date?’

  ‘If this is what love feels like …’ A grin sucked the last modicum of energy Khalid had left him. ‘I think it’s over … ra—’ His eyes and mind gave up trying to focus and he blacked out.

  She had to be a little bit clever about this; her timing needed to be just right. If Ray got caught sneaking off again she was fairly sure she’d be getting kicked off the AMIE vessel, or at the very least confined to her room for the rest of her childhood.

  During her debrief, Captain Gervaise had specifically told Thurraya that she was not to pop off and visit Daddy under any circumstances. Strictly speaking, it was not her father she was aiming to pop off and visit in this instance, but after being sworn to keep Khalid a secret — even from her own mother — being six years old did have its advantages when it came to claiming a lack of comprehension.

  With her father away, Ray had been sleeping in with her mother, and last night she’d had a lucid vision that her father’s secret friend was being viciously attacked by evil spirits. Normally Ray would have dismissed it as a nightmare, but as her mother’s talent was remote viewing and the vision had been so vivid, Ray suspected that she’d witnessed an event that had really taken place overnight. What if nobody else knew and Khalid was in trouble?

  The captain had told her not to speak of the man again. He warned her that Khalid had done many bad things to people, including her grandmother — which did explain why the Princess Satomi had threatened him with a knife. He was not to be trusted. Ray was also forbidden to speak to anyone else about the man, thus she felt she had no choice but to investigate herself; what if his life depended on her?

  She waited just inside her door for her grandfather to pass her by on his way to breakfast; he had his head down, and was not looking in the best of moods.

  ‘I’m so sorry I made Grandma mad at you, Grandpa.’ She grabbed his attention with the remark, and then burst into tears. ‘It’s all my fault you’re not happy any more!’