Everyone in the cabin remained silent as Aaron approached with understated confidence and, when the timing was just right, dropped down onto decking. He punched several switches and the motor spluttered to sleep. For a few moments things just didn’t seem real. The cabin was cooled with the slightest of breezes and the only sound was the lapping of water against the yacht, soft enough that it seemed almost a caress. Looking back towards the city there was only the faint outline of land that seemed to glow orange beneath the late afternoon sun.
An older looking man with a salt and pepper beard came running up once the blades were no longer dangerous. Relief was written all over his weathered face, though it was soon replaced with curiosity as he looked over the passengers.
“You made it,” he said with a warm smile.
“Only just Francis,” Aaron mused, “only just.”
They exited the machine and soaked up the salt air as Aaron introduced the new arrivals. John held Candice close as tears of shock soaked her cheeks, while Vanessa stumbled to the railing and leaned over to watch the water, nerves finally easing down. When she had collected herself as best she could she turned and scoured the two story deck.
“Where is everyone?” she asked.
“I’m it,” Francis said.
“You mean you run this thing all on your own?”
“Only on special occasions.” He couldn’t help but scratch his head at the sight of Bobbie. “Can’t say I’ve ever had a cat on board.”
Aaron walked across to Vanessa and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “Let’s get you all inside. It shouldn’t take too long to get to where we’re going and there’ll be plenty of time to talk when we’re there.” He could see the exhaustion on their faces and began walking. “As for now, try to get some rest. Things probably won’t be much easier from here.”
Together they staggered down the stairs below deck and collapsed onto a white leather sofa that formed a half circle against sun drenched windows. Francis appeared with a blanket and placed it by John’s feet for Bobbie, who quickly curled up with face hidden beneath his paws.
The sound of the water slapping the hull was a strong tonic for their nerves, and although John’s mind was racing with questions the quiet of the surroundings kept his lips from moving. Candice leaned her head against his chest and waited for the beating of her heart to ease. With the sweat of violence still clinging to their clothes, together they closed their eyes and focussed on the gentle rocking of the boat.
Chapter 34
“Does it hurt?”
Samael twirled the wooden cane between his fingers and quietly waited for his answer. The geometric shapes on his hand stretched and contracted with each revolution as the stink of seeping bodily fluids permeated the air.
“It looks like it hurts,” he decided to continue, “but judging by the bodies stacked in the hall it could’ve been worse.”
Propped on the sofa, Special Agent Halls gritted her teeth in preparation for the pain of talking. Her skin was pale and her clothes drenched with blood thanks to impact wounds on her shoulder, her bicep and lower stomach. Her hands were beginning to tremble with shock as an uncomfortable cold crept along her bones.
“I need an ambulance,” she stammered, “I want my family.”
“I’m no fancy doctor but the way things look neither one of those will be of any help.”
Samael glanced around the hotel room, shaking his head with feigned disappointment at Devilian’s corpse as the remnants of the late afternoon sun peeked along the edges of the curtains. The fire alarm had been silenced, and the quiet of the room might have been perfect for a lazy beginning to a flame kissed evening if death wasn’t all around.
“I thought this would be an easy job for special agents,” he sighed. “Now I have to sit here without what is mine while watching you bleed.”
“We were ambushed,” Halls whispered.
“Clearly!” Samael replied with a tap of the cane.
“Please,” Halls stammered, “I did what I could. My partner’s dead and I will be too if I don’t get help real soon, what more do you want?”
“From you? Nothing.” He leaned forward and studied her as though she were little more than a painting on the wall. “It was getting warm out there and I figured there was no point wasting a perfectly good hotel room, so why not take a moment to rest the legs and cool down a little? Besides, it can be soothing to be surrounded by the dead. The smell, the silence, it’s… invigorating.”
Halls blinked away at the tears dripping from her bloodshot eyes. A primal fear clenched her throat tight as the last drops of adrenaline pushed her heart to keep going.
“I can still help you,” she barely managed as her eyes fixated on the fresh cuts across his already scarred face.
Samael smiled and opened the polished pine cone at the top of the cane with a flick of his thumb. He dipped a long fingernail inside the small chalice, balanced the wood against his leg and struck his arm out with a flash, an iron like grip now wrapped around her throat. It happened so quick Halls couldn’t have made a sound if she’d wanted to.
He tipped the droplets onto her tongue and then leaned into chair as her eyes rolled back and body began to shake. The visions were kicking in quickly, but then he knew they would when death was already close, and as the torment rushed across her synapses and invaded every stored memory he hummed softly while cleaning the specks of blood from his nail.
After a minute or so had passed, an eternity for Halls to be sure, he could see that her senses were returning. Her body was still and eyes wide and seeing, and her mouth was open with terror.
“It’s a trip isn’t it?” he laughed. “And that’s just a taste of your brain. Imagine the possibilities for your soul…”
He grabbed the top of her hair with one hand and punched her throat with the other to stifle her scream. Then, from the inside of his silver jacket, he pulled out the scalpel that had slipped through Rodney’s fingers and slowly tilted his head from side to side as though undecided about something. He squeezed her hair tighter and tighter, and with breath warming her cheeks began to slice open the flesh of her face in short, straight lines.
Halls bucked in the sofa but his grip on her head was too strong. She tried to scream but a muted gargle was all that came out as rusty warm blood trailed across her lips.
Samael’s breathing quickened with excitement. “When the third eye’s opened, there’s no need for these,” he said, stabbing the scalpel into her left eye until it popped with a gush of hot fluid. Halls thrashed and kicked as he flicked his wrist and dug out the right eye, leaving this one to dangle against the fresh open wounds on her cheek. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead as she groaned in pain that was beyond imagination.
He leaned back and sighed, watching her suffering with disappointed sense of amusement. Bored already, he reached for the gun resting on the sofa, placed it against her temple and pulled the trigger. Her body slumped and the curtains shimmered as the bullet raced through her skull and out through the balcony window. For Samael, the serenity of the room had just increased a little.
The hotel door floor open and a black uniformed figure appeared at the end of hall, with several more poised at the entrance like a pack wolves ready to charge.
“Anything we need to be concerned about?” the figure asked with a glance around the room.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Samael answered without turning around. “I just need a little quiet time.”
The figure in black made a swift retreat, ushering the wolves back into the hallway to leave Samael to his strange tranquillity as he casually traced his cane through the fresh source of blood on the floor. Even with no eyes and jagged slashes across her face, Halls still appeared to be looking back at him with soul crushing terror.
Faces of death didn’t bother him. As far as Samael was concerned, meat was meat whether a few sparks kept it moving or not. He himself was made of meat of course, but then his flesh and bone casin
g was merely a temporary shell for a brief moment in time. Truth be told he couldn’t wait to get rid of it, but for now it would have to do.
From beside the chair he lifted a solid steel briefcase and placed it upon the coffee table still wet with blood. He needed to go in, needed to dance a little to test the power of the girl. One way or the other he would lick the inside of her veins, until then though it would be wise to keep a measure of her reach. Perhaps… perhaps he would be lucky, after all there was always a chance of finding a way in.
He scanned his palm and flipped open the lid. The chrome device glistened orange in the final beams of sunlight sneaking through the curtains and was cool to the touch, and as he filled his lungs with the sweet scent of death he placed it upon his head, leaned back and closed his eyes. There was a slight familiar tingle as the pathways of his neurons were instantly drawn to an unseen piper, followed by a rushing bell sound at the base of his skull. Then he was in.
With a joyous moan he unfurled his enormous grey wings and swooped down along the canopy. The sky was neither day nor night but a dreamlike in between, with a myriad of red twinkling stars and glass like planets that reflected all that gave light. The forest was an ocean of trees far taller than anything on Earth, and as they swayed in time with a tidal breeze a river of gold winked back from deep below. Samael had seen the river before, and knew where it would lead.
His wings moved slow but pushed down with ferocious power. Up ahead a wall of mountains high enough to reach the stars beckoned, daring him to reach the peaks and find out what may lay on the other side, but the call of those mountains fell upon deaf ears. A climb to the stars didn’t interest him, for it was the castle that he wanted. Adorned with a thousand or more towers and built of gigantic seashells and diamonds infused with spiral galaxies, it was nestled in a cliff face high above the meeting of the forest and the mountains.
A cold wind began to blow, rushing down the cliff face and gusting straight towards him. And there was a voice in the wind, soft as feather breaking water and yet as loud as thunderclaps behind his eyes.
I told you I don’t like you. Those wings of yours, they don’t belong here.
The red stars swelled brighter.
Ah Talitha, Samael called back into the wind, always so very quick to judge but ever so slow to see. Your place on the throne is simply a mistake of biology, whilst I was born oh so long ago to take the seat. It’s time to step aside little girl. Step aside and I will let you keep your castle.
The wind grew even stronger and the forest below rustled and groaned. Samael adjusted his angle to cut through as best he could and was for the moment enjoying the sport.
You’re a bully, Talitha taunted from everywhere and nowhere, an angry boy who’s not allowed to play. Now go away, the Star People don’t want you.
Samael’s grey wings lifted him higher and higher. Then, with a malicious grin, he folded them close against his scarred and scaled form and aimed towards the castle like a missile locked onto a target. When he was close enough to count the stars embedded in the diamonds his wings shot out to leave him hovering in the winds.
Let me in Talitha. Let me in and there’ll be no need for pain and suffering. Don’t you see? It is I who called the Star People.
Down below the trees of the forest began to dance and bend as blobs of constantly changing colour began to rise. The cold winds disappeared and the canopy of stars turned black. Slowly the blobs began to fill the void between him and the castle, only they weren’t just blobs but jellyfish bigger than whales, with translucent skin that bristled with a kaleidoscope of colours and sparkling electricity that danced across long, graceful tentacles.
This castle is one of many, Talitha revealed. They are the waiting rooms for those who have been chosen. You were never chosen, and never will be.
A tentacle whipped out and struck the inside of one of Samael’s wings. A jolt zapped his senses and for a split second the sky that was neither day nor night shimmered as though about to dissolve. He recoiled slightly and saw that the technicolour jellyfish were beginning to surround him, tentacles swaying and taunting as their skins glowed bright with constant change.
With a cosmic howl he opened his mouth wide and released a blue fluid bolt of lightning that quickly forked to strike at several of the strange beasts, but like water on a mirror the charge simply spread to make the colours brighter.
In retaliation and entire swarm of tentacles lashed out and wrapped around his form, stifling his wings and crushing his arms against his chest. The jolt was horrific this time, and he should have fallen down into the forest were it not for the fact that the tentacles were holding him firmly in place.
Expect the unexpected, he thought as pain became his very being.
The electric veins pulled even tighter, forcing another bolt of lightning from his mouth that shot off towards the mountains like a giant blue firefly. The stars turned blood red. Blinding white cracks began to appear across the sky. The colours of the jellyfish pulsed so bright the world became a mirage of pain and colour. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction but it was beyond his control now, and so he screamed the kind of scream that could only come from the greatest depths of pleasure and pain.
With a jolt Samael ripped the device from his head and threw it to the ground as the electric shocks began to subside. His scalp burned and it took a few moments before the features of the hotel room came back into focus. If he hadn’t been before, he was sure now. Even if they had to trawl from one end of the earth to the other, the girl had to be found and her body turned inside out. There would be no meeting the Star People.
First he picked up the scalpel and added three fresh lines across his forehead to reset his mood, then grabbed the comms link from the briefcase and placed it on the table facing the curtains. With a quick swipe of his tattooed finger a small lens warmed to life and projected the image of a snake entwined staff against the darkening curtains.
He leaned back and waited as blood trailed down his face. Eventually the staff dissolved, and the curtains became a portal to a long wooden desk occupied by three serious faced men in matching military dress.
“It seems our rabbit has scurried down a hole,” Samael said by way of introduction.
“We know.” The gruff voice came from the man on the left. His face was like stone and betrayed nothing. “First Hendrix, then the girl, and now the doctor. It’s not a hole we need to find, it’s a warren.”
“That may be,” the man in the middle joined in, “but our window just got smaller. Something, or someone, has infected our deep space vision and now they’re effectively useless. The last piece of data we received was patchy, but it confirmed changes in the mapping sphere. These sources of light, they’re on the way.”
Samael brought the cane across his legs and gently rolled it back and forth. “To be honest I don’t really feel like digging in the dirt. Isolation is the key. It’s time to shut down the entire network and listen for digital whispers.”
The man on the right ran a well manicured finger across his leathered face. “We assured the Chinese government and European Union there would be adequate notice.”
“Then the notice is revoked. Their concerns are no longer our concerns and besides, when the planet has groaned under the weight of the awakening those left standing will know only one leadership.”
“If we shut down the network this soon,” the man continued somewhat nervously, “the chaos will only make our job more difficult. Now don’t get me wrong, the girl is a problem and will have to be eliminated one way or the other, but as things stand our launches are the priority. There are still quite a few pieces we need to put into place.”
“It’s time to fuel the jets then,” Samael responded, “and shut as much of the city down as we can. If we want a calm before the storm we’ll have to create it.”
“Jesus Christ,” the gruff voice on the left barked, “that was a contingency plan to combat mass population push back, and here you are
talking about creating the god damn problem by shutting down the network to justify the solution.”
Samael slammed his cane onto the floor with a crack. “The solution has always been justified only you’ve kept your eyes closed to the truth of what the lights bring, and you best be opening them nice and wide before I pluck them out.”
The man in the middle raised a hand to silent the feud. “The chemicals will take time to load,” he said firmly, “but we’ll have the process started straight away, as we will the shutdown of the network.” He paused to stare long and hard into the camera. “It probably doesn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it anyway. We can stack the bodies up to the heavens but it won’t mean a dam thing if we don’t make the rendezvous, so while I appreciate you’re a man that enjoys the sight of blood more than most, don’t forget that failure will mean the possibility of a rock bound eternity.”
“It’s you who shouldn’t forget,” Samael hissed. “I am the one who talks with the hushed murmurs of those that came before us. I am the one built for the new dawn of biology.” He stood and pointed at the projection bouncing across the curtains. “And let me tell you something about blood. Every drop in every living creature is designed to eventually soak back into the earth. The blood in my veins, I can assure you, is not.”
With a flash of rage he lashed out with his cane and smashed the comms unit to the floor, terminating the transmission instantly. The edges of the curtains no longer glowed with the remnants of the dipping sun, and so the room fell under the embrace of dark shadows thrown by a single burning light in the corner.
The quickening had begun. It was time for the Gods to hold their cosmic breath and watch as what was once fallen begin to rise again with black wings ready to reclaim the stars. Excitement now building, Samael peered through the darkness at the bodies on the floor and the glistening gore. Of course he liked the sight of blood, after all the warm red liquid was the one vessel that had held so strong in the dark cold corner of space. It had taken a few billion years, but the time was nigh to return.
The Hallucigenia Project Page 64