The Journeyman

by Michael Alan Peck

  “Did I mention you don’t have much time?” June said. “Do you know what another good thing to think about might be? What made you suddenly have the willpower to come in and confront me?”

  Her knee throbbed in answer. “Why wasn’t it okay for me to talk to Charlene?”

  “Do you think that maybe that wouldn’t be a bad start if we had longer to talk, but you should be wondering about why Charlene was revealed to you in the first place? Who showed her to you? Why?” June fidgeted in her chair and brushed something from her skirt, but Annie couldn’t see what it was. “This isn’t working very well, is it?”

  “Where’s Charlene?”

  “Did you know that lead-acid batteries were invented by a Frenchman? Have you ever seen one big enough to hold a person, or people, or entire worlds? Do you know how difficult it is to decide whether or not to sacrifice one person for the greater good of all, especially when it’s you? Or what it’s like to wonder if you’re just doing it to save yourself?”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Did you know I’m not revealing anything, that I’m just asking you questions?” June slid to one side of her chair, avoiding something. A thread of webbing stretched from her blazer to the desk. “After you asked if I ordered your meds cut, and I asked you if you felt sharper, did it occur to you that those things might be related?”

  At the edge of Annie’s vision, something scuttled across the floor and up June’s leg. June didn’t move, but it was clear she wouldn’t be able to maintain that level of discipline much longer. The sight roused a familiar dread for Annie—one she’d forgotten until now.

  “Do you think we’ve got time for one more question?” June said.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Do you know the quote, ‘Mercy triumphs over judgment’? Where it comes from?”

  Annie did not.

  “Never mind,” June said. “Where’s Zach?”

  “At home.”

  “Is he?”

  Annie used the bannister to haul herself up the apartment steps, letting her good knee do the lifting to quiet the pain. It didn’t work. She didn’t care.

  Her company smartphone vibrated. She had a text message. She didn’t care.

  She made it to the top of the stairs. Zach’s bedroom door was closed. In her New York dreams, she never allowed that. With that thought came the feeling yet again—stronger now—that those dreams were anything but.

  Another buzz, another text.

  Annie grabbed the doorknob and tried to turn it. It resisted, as if someone were holding it on the other side. “Zach?”

  Now it turned easily, and she pushed the door open. He was right where she’d last seen him—at the mirror, hand up, tape recorder on the floor beside him.

  “What are you up to, Zach?” She almost called him “buddy,” but that was a false nickname, and she couldn’t recall why she’d ever started using it. She never would again.

  He didn’t move when she sat on the floor and edged closer to look into the mirror with him. Maybe she’d see what he saw.

  The phone buzzed again. She took it out of her pocket and put it on the carpet next to her so that the vibration wouldn’t distract her. He gazed into the glass, arm aloft. She stared along with him. All she saw was her own reflection.

  Annie was about to lower his arm for him when the phone buzzed yet again, dancing in the carpet’s low pile. She glanced at the screen. All of the texts were from June Medill, and all bore the same subject line: “They’re coming. They’re coming. They’re coming.” A neat little stack of alarm.

  She unlocked the phone and replied. Who was coming? The answer was instantaneous: “Leave now. Not the door. The way he told you.”

  The way who told her? She followed Zach’s gaze into the mirror again and saw what she’d been looking at all along.

  Only her own reflection. His was missing.

  She reached out to touch him. Why hadn’t she done that until now? What was wrong with her? Her fingers found nothing. He disappeared altogether.

  Annie fought her way to her feet and went looking. He wasn’t in her room.

  Down the steps. Nor was he on the first floor.

  She hauled herself up to the second floor again, breath hard to come by, desperation speeding her along. “Zach!”

  Outside, cars pulled up fast and loud in the street. Doors slammed. She hadn’t locked the front door.

  She returned to Zach’s bedroom. Nothing but his tape recorder and her phone, which buzzed with another text. “The way he told you.”

  Men’s voices and running footsteps from the walk out front. She shut the bedroom door. That would gain her the same second it took to close it.

  “Why should I trust you?” she thumbed back.

  An instant reply. “Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

  Downstairs, the front door smacked against the foyer wall. “Miss Brucker?” A male voice, trying not to scare her. Failing.

  The way who told her? Zach? She tried to pick up the tape recorder, but it, too, disappeared. Obscenities ran laps around the inside of her head. He’d played the tape for her. She’d heard nothing.

  Another pinkie wall crumbled.

  No. She had heard. Part of her had, anyway. Because she did know the way. She’d known ever since he hit play; it had just been obscured—kept from her.

  Someone jiggled the bedroom doorknob from the other side. “Miss Brucker?” Again. “Here!” the man yelled.

  Annie knew the way.

  The bedroom door boomed with a kick. It shouldn’t have held. It did. But it wouldn’t for long.

  The way. She looked deep into the mirror, deep into her own eyes.

  Time slowed. Another kick and the crack of wood.

  A tunnel of pupils. Annie stepped into the glass, just as Zach had told her to. No resistance. The mirror-image bedroom door stood open, and she hurried to it.

  Two sounds in succession. The door in the bedroom behind her gave way with a bang, like a shot. Then the glass wall of the mirror she’d just entered shattered, closing her off in this backward version of her son’s room.

  There would be no return. Nor would there be one for Zach when she found him.

  And she would find him.

  19

  The Only Sound in the Room

  Mr. Brill summoned Truitt to his bedroom antechamber in the post-witching-hour darkness. Nothing good happened at that time of night, when daylight was merely a hope, not a promise.

  “How?” The big man, clad in a custom-made silk kimono, was at his secondary desk—a smaller, more personal affair—working his way through a series of floating-screen readouts. His face was impassive, which was worse than when he was visibly angry. He’d gone past the displeasure phase—had decided how he would proceed.

  Through the open double doors of the bedroom behind him, an unseen woman tried to muffle her weeping in the dark. Carol Laird.

  “Which circumstance are we discussing, sir?”

  There were two bad situations from which to choose. The corner of Mr. Brill’s mouth twitched. “Pick.”

  “The Envoy, Porter, has discovered new capabilities in the boy? Trained him in their use?”

  Mr. Brill shook his head, swept two screens aside, and drew another in. “He’s discovered something, all right. But so have we, goddammit. And he doesn’t know what he’s got there.”

  “Perhaps the boy has an instinct for it.”

  Mr. Brill dismissed a screen with a swipe of his hand. “I had a feeling about that bus.” He did the same with the second, which vanished. Now the room was lit only by a series of dim wall sconces. “Update on the Brucker woman and her son?”

  The big man had said the Brucker woman’s name aloud. That was a change. He was paying closer attention than he’d first let on.

  “We are following some leads,” Truitt said.

  “Leads as in, you don’t know anything? You’ve figured out how she got away? Where she’s gone? What?”


  “Leads, sir.”

  Truitt felt the weight of the predator stare settling on him in the near-darkness.

  In the bedroom, Carol Laird cried, unable to control herself. The anguish was almost too much for Truitt, who’d thought his empathy long gone. That revelation was unwelcome at the moment.

  “She doesn’t let men get close,” Mr. Brill said. “Something in her past. I wasn’t listening. But, oh, did I get close.”

  The stifled sobs were the only sound in the room. Truitt was reminded of the saying—he couldn’t remember whose it was—about how when one person begins to cry, someone else has stopped somewhere. He doubted that. There was always room for more tears.

  “Our rabbit surprised me,” the big man said. “It’s one thing to have a hunch about him, but quite another to lose an entire squad because he has a talent with Essence.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, I’m a man of surprises myself.”

  The statement emerged wetly, words shoved through fluid. Truitt knew what was under way. He was grateful for the low light, which would prevent him from seeing it in detail.

  Mr. Brill opened his mouth. Too wide. His face went slack. Black, oily tears sprouted from his eyes. Within moments, a stream of greasy ink was running down his cheeks.

  It flowed from his nose as well, and when he opened his mouth wider still, like a hinge failing, it came pouring from that. Sable mercury, it pooled in his lap and ran over his thighs, leaving no trace or stain on the silk.

  He leaned forward to vomit, a purging from deep in his gut. A puddle grew beneath him.

  The noise became a collective moan of dread. A gathering of victims.

  Free of its host, the pool rushed across the floor at Truitt. He prepared himself, but it split and went around him on either side. Then it rejoined behind him and made several circuits around his feet before sliding into the space between him and Mr. Brill.

  A shadow form rose up from the oily liquid and became corporeal. It squatted there, toad-like, monstrous, pulling air into new lungs. Its breath was phlegm and trespass.

  “Surprise,” said Mr. Brill, his voice clear again.

  With the speed of the hunter, the creature rushed the bedroom, where Carol Laird had quieted down. Maybe instinct had stopped her tears. Maybe she’d recognized that something even more savage than Mr. Brill was among them and hoped to remain beneath notice.

  “A Shade, sir?” Truitt tried to keep his tone level.

  “The boy has my attention.”

  An intake of breath from the bedroom. Carol Laird’s gasp became a shriek. Then suffering. Grief.

  The Shade’s breathing grew in its intensity, bubbling. A series of inhalations sounded almost like laughter, enjoyment of what was being done to the woman.

  Mr. Brill watched Truitt for a reaction. Truitt gave his all to barring any emotion from his face.

  “Do you know that I never had any intention of helping her brother?” Mr. Brill said. He expected no answer.

  Carol’s scream died. Truitt would have been relieved, but the whimper that followed was far worse.

  It was cut short by a final inhalation.

  “I never even asked her his name.” Mr. Brill crossed the room to the bedroom’s entrance and peered into the darkness. “Look at the bright side, Truitt. You don’t have to clean up.”

  He went in and shut the door.

  Truitt didn’t allow himself to leave until he felt reasonably certain nothing was coming back out again—coming after him.

  For this night, at least.

  In the warehouse, Truitt made his way down the rows of the inverted charges from the bus. All were completely encased in off-white chrysalises, the work here complete.

  The weavers remained all around the space. His footsteps sent them scuttling off under the carpet of webbing.

  At the end of the last row, they were still working on the most recent arrival. Truitt recognized her still, though her eyes and lips were threaded closed.

  He wanted to tell her that what happened to Carol Laird was at least partly her fault, but she was beyond hearing. “Such is your mercy?” he said anyway.

  Truitt stayed until June Medill’s face could no longer be seen.

  20

  The Stories You Tell

  They walked until nightfall, silent for stretches, sometimes breaking up into clusters strung out in a line. Small conversations moved their feet.

  Rain walked ahead with Ken. While Porter was Paul's guide, the mummy had assigned himself the task of watching over her.

  The same fatigue bearing down on Paul weighed on Rain, too, but it was difficult to spot. Paul had known hard street girls; Rain operated on another level entirely.

  At one point, Porter dropped back so far that Paul grew concerned and stopped to wait for him. Po motioned Paul onward.

  Paul wanted to know what Porter was up to. In the fading light, he thought he’d seen a faint glow emanating from the gray man’s hands. But by the time the Envoy was with them again, Paul was too wiped out to bother with it.

  Once it was dark, they got lucky and found the remains of a hunting cabin that had collapsed in on itself years before. Next to it was a bonfire pit, complete with a stack of old firewood. Many of the logs were rotten, but the ones on top were still fit for burning.

  Paul thought it risky to let everyone and everything in the night know they were there. But as the campfire warmed its way into him, he didn’t care about that, either.

  Ken’s trench coat, hat, and glasses lay on the ground beside him. In the firelight, the battle holes in his wrappings mended themselves.

  “Where do we hide?” Paul said.

  “We keep moving,” said Porter. “Brill won’t risk a repeat of our little skirmish without a fresh strategy. Not after what you did.”

  “What did I do?”

  Porter stared into the fire along with the others.

  No one was in a hurry to hazard a guess, so Paul answered his own question. “I killed them.”

  Po signed. Ken nodded. “Not in the manner you think,” the mummy said. “That is not the way of it.”

  “I yelled. They died.”

  Po’s fingers were a blur. “There’s a line of thought you’ll find in many belief systems that no one ever truly dies. Your Essence shifts from one reality to another. Does it remain intact? Are you a single entity, or do you scatter, with elements of you going into other lives? It is not known.”

  Ken shook his head at something else Po signed. The monk continued, and the mummy nodded again. Porter watched them both, content to let someone else do the explaining.

  Rain grabbed one of the smaller logs from the wood pile and fed the fire. The flames jumped, as did the shadows in Ken's eyes.

  "In this view, there is no death. It is all one Journey,” he said. “The truth of that is a matter of debate, but there is no doubt that Brill found a way to arrest the Essence here—the flow from the world of the living to whatever lies beyond.”

  Po watched Paul for a reaction. When the monk seemed satisfied that he was keeping up, he continued.

  “One theory holds that Brill is only able to do this because the Nistarim have abandoned us.” Ken paused. “That is Po’s theory,” he said, speaking for himself. “I don't subscribe to that."

  "Nor do I," said Porter.

  "What are Nistarim?"

  Po looked to Porter.

  "The Tzadikim Nistarim are the righteous ones—the hidden,” the Envoy said. "They're also called the Lamed Vav. The oldest religious reference that you would know comes from Jewish mysticism, but there are other, more ancient religions that hold the same belief: thirty-six individuals who cradle the existence of humankind in their hands. Their goodness is said to justify the existence of man to God."

  "They are holy, and no one knows who they are," Ken said. “They themselves don't know. If they were to know, then they would not be one of the Thirty-Six. I do not pretend to make sense of this. I’ve never bee
n able to convince myself that any of the story could be true." The blur of Po’s fingers widened into a fan. "Po and I do not agree here.”

  "Either way," said Porter, "whether Brill's come to power because the force meant to stop him is asleep on the job or not, he's done it."

  “How did he get so powerful?” Paul said.

  “It’s too long a tale for tonight, but he exploited the trust of the system. He has his own innate power, and no one’s sure where that comes from, but he also gained the trust of the souls coming through here to get him started. His kind cannot gain power without the consent of his victims. To maintain that power, he must keep those victims under control. One theory holds that even though Brill has prevented Journeys from occurring, one’s actions here contribute to his or her judgment and fate all the same—Brill’s as well—which is why it’s so important to him to stay in power and thus delay the process for himself.”

  “Where do the Ravagers come from?”

  “Many of the Ravagers served in their past lives as soldiers or upholders of the law. Once Brill had enough Essence and influence, he was able to bend their sense of duty to his will. Like any group of warriors, the Ravagers include some who haven’t a bit of noble spirit in them. But most have had their best intentions used against them.”

  “So I didn’t kill them?”

  “You cannot kill them,” Ken said. “You’ve merely sent them beyond Brill’s reach. They may have gone on to the next step in their fate. Or Brill’s influence may hold their Essence here, committed to nothing, until his influence is no more. Regardless, you’ve liberated them from his service and, I believe, helped by preventing them from entering it again.”

  “But if you can make that help hurt a little, I won’t cry,” Rain said, tossing a stick into the fire. “I have my history.” They waited for her to elaborate, but she merely continued to deliver more wood to its fiery end.

  “The Essence doesn’t want to feed Brill’s power, as I’ve told you,” Porter said, watching Rain. “It desires its own way, as water seeks the sea. Brill has mastered it, but when you sent the Essence of the Ravagers into that seed and made it a tree, you tapped into it, too.”