Jebediah ejected his spent magazine and slapped a new one into his gun. His eyes never left the creature. It blinked slowly back at him. White air puffed out of its mouth with each pained breath, and brackish drool spilled from between its teeth. In a hollow voice filled with sorrow, it spoke a single word.
"Mother."
He chambered a round then placed the gun against the creature's head. He stared into its horribly aged face.
"Time to grow up," he whispered, then pulled the trigger until the gun locked open.
The silence after the battle was deafening.
A wind picked up and blew across the clearing. The cold air mixed with the vapor rising from Jebediah's smoking gun.
Jebediah stared at the note taped to the door of his apartment. Its red letters yelled "EVICTION WARNING." He tore it off, crumpled up the note and entered. The room's overhead lights flickered on and highlighted the bare white walls of his studio apartment. The room was sparse, almost Spartan: A single bed, a dark couch in front of an old TV, and a small kitchenette. It spoke of simple use—a place to eat and sleep only.
He glared at the crumpled eviction note in his hand. Along with back rent, he owed a few months of payments to the power company. He hurled the notice; it bounced against a wall and fell to the dingy carpeted floor.
He stripped off his soiled and torn clothes. He had a fighter's lean, hard body, built for speed and sudden movement. A large bruise on his abdomen had started to form. It joined an older scar across the width of his body—a souvenir from a knife-fight in a small Brazilian town. He winced when the knotted scar at his shoulder pulled against his skin, a reminder of a 9mm's entry and exit. It was unpleasant to look at.
He paused to stare at the bathroom mirror, scrubbing a hand through graying hair before gingerly touching a growing lump at the back of his head. The crow's feet surrounding his dark eyes echoed time's leeching of strength.
"When did I get old?" he wondered aloud. He shook his head and stepped into the shower.
He breathed a small sigh when the pounding water struck his face and body. He allowed himself the briefest moment of rest, closing his eyes while the water pounded down at him. It pummeled his face, hot enough to make him wince, then flowed down across his body. The scalding water caressed him like some demon lover. He stood silent, centering himself in the moment until his mind cleared.
He opened his eyes and wiped steam and water off the glass shower door to stare at a picture suspended on the nearby wall. A woman with brown eyes and tanned skin looked back at him through the glass. Her smile was like sun-warmed sand. She sat on a chair in a foreign beach under the shade of a tree with huge leaves.
He breathed steam deep into his lungs, and when he spoke his voice echoed low through the bathroom. "Wait a while longer. I'll be there soon."
He dried off and dressed quickly, then strode out, slamming the door shut as he left. Behind him, the apartment sat still and quiet, save for steam drifting over the woman's face and the sound of water dripping onto the shower floor.
Flint's feet struck the treadmill. It shook and rattled with each impact, so he pressed a button and increased both speed and incline. The machine smoothed out and a familiar ache crept up his calves and legs, intense at first, then deadening when endorphins flooded his system. Breathing that started as labored became smoother and he pushed himself to move faster. He stared from the tenth story apartment to the sweeping view of the dark waters in Spooner's Bay.
The swing of his arms became vague inside the runner's high that carved great distances between his sweating, straining body and focused mind. His eyes went, as they always did, to the shifting aurora of the Wall.
It slid back and forth across the water and around the island, rippling with prismatic crimson and white that mingled with other colors not named in any language. Electricity danced across its surface, and if you were close enough, you could smell ozone mixed with the sea air. During the day, it was rarely seen but could still be felt, like a wind blowing across the back of your mind—an invisible, ever present force. Like gravity.
But was it a force of nature? Or some otherworldly phenomenon?
Scientists, theologians, and world leaders had been arguing the point for years in frightened, hushed voices, like children debating the boogeyman.
Flint had no answers. He knew only that the darkness of night brought the Wall into stark view.
Even though the Wall circled the island some ten miles offshore, its colors were so vivid he felt he could reach out and almost touch it.
He'd actually done that once, shortly after he'd arrived on the island. He'd stood on the bow of a ship with his arms outstretched, his fingers scooping the air like a hand out the window of a car. The Wall had played across his skin like warm water mixed with needles, and when he breathed, it danced in, like fire in his lungs.
It'd taken him only a moment to pass through the magical sheen, and he immediately missed the sensation. That is, until he saw the island behind the Wall. The Hinge, where the rules of science were only a suggestion, and where justice wasn't something assumed, but bought or taken by force. A place where the blade and fist remained since guns couldn't stop demons.
His mind was drawn further within its own depths by the Wall's magical corona, into an almost hypnotic state. He thought of the moment he'd given a broken man a gift that both filled his dreams and tore him apart. He thought about the night he told Jebediah to cross the Wall and return to the Hinge.
A voice from the choir floated through the church that evening. It would start then stop, the aria testing the girl's talent and making her retry the chorus again and again.
Flint stood at the back of the pews, looking at the man sitting alone in the center of the church to his right.
The man's eyes were closed. His hands gripped the smooth wood of the pew in front of him with such force, his knuckles whitened. Two candles flickered beside him, and when Flint walked down the red-carpeted aisle, his movement made the flames wave as if to say hello. He stopped to stare at the man again.
A scraggly beard framed a lean, poet's face not yet lined with the six years of brutality to come. A worn, open throated black shirt that had seen better days covered shoulders that looked broad, even with his slumped posture. His dark jeans were too long, the hems worn and shredded from being dragged across the ground. The man breathed in deeply, and the candles moved again with his drawn air.
"You have it?" Jebediah asked without opening his eyes or turning around. His deep voice resonated oddly with the aria's soprano tones. Flint hesitated before answering.
"I need you to tell me about that last night," said Flint.
The other man's head turned then, and it took all of Flint's considerable nerve not to flinch. Jebediah's eyes had narrowed and his body tensed to launch. In that moment, he was a warrior again, not this broken thing hiding in a church.
Flint's hand went to his hair to brush back a lock. It was a signal to the men hiding in shadowed corners to stand ready. If his fingers tugged on his ear, they'd bring a hail of bullets into the church.
But the moment passed and cold despair seemed to shrivel Jebediah.
"For Christ's sake, Flint, why?" His voice cracked.
Flint's hand left his head and went to his pocket.
"Because if I give you this …"—he held up a yellow envelope—"… people will start to die, and they'll die screaming. So, before I write their death warrant, I want you to tell me what happened that last night. I need to know why you weren't there, why you left them alone. Or, I'll leave, and you and I are done."
The men glared at each other, and the moment hung pregnant and still. Then the choirgirl's voice started again. The music jarred Flint, and he sat down next to the other man. Jebediah leaned back in the pew and closed his eyes. When he began to speak in his deep, reverberating tones, he started with David. He always started with his son.
"He'd just gone to sleep. He had these army men that he stuck on his wi
ndowsill and they were glowing in the dark. He used to get really scared at night, so I guess Cassie got them. I didn't even know about them until I turned the lights off. They were bright—the room was almost lit up with this green glow. And there were a bunch of them, all lined up and facing out of his window." He shook his head and his voice grew bitter. "What kind of dad doesn't know about his kids favorite toy, the one that keeps his nightmares away?"
Flint didn't think he wanted an answer, so he stayed silent. "I kissed him and told him I'd see him in the morning. He said 'Yes, suh', with that lisp of his, and I walked out with that green glow over my boy."
"Cassandra was in our bedroom. She was lying down and couldn't see me. I didn't know what to do, so I just stood outside in the hallway."
"It's crazy the kind of things you remember, Flint. She had a new haircut, shorter, like when I first met her. She was the only woman I ever knew that could be dressed down for bed, no make-up or anything, and look like a damn movie star. She was exotic, a presence—all dark eyes, tanned skin, and full lips."
He smiled then, quick and fleeting, like the sun breaking briefly through the clouds.
"She had the hiccups. She always lay down too fast after drinking wine, so I stood there and listened to her. And when I couldn't wait anymore, I finally walked in."
"She didn't even look at me. She didn't look at me until I sat down on the bed and asked her why she didn't want me anymore. I told her I had nothing left to give her, that she had everything. I asked her what I was supposed to do, how was I supposed to be this close and not be completely owned by her. She told me I didn't have to worry about that because she was leaving, and she wouldn't be close to me anymore."
"She said she loved our boy, loved him much more than she loved me, and maybe that was part of the problem. She said I used to be the first thing she thought of when she woke up and last thing before she went to sleep, and now it was David and only him. She wanted to dream again, whatever the hell that meant, and find someone that was going to help her do that. I told her I wasn't ready to stop, that our family meant something to me and she meant a lot more. She said I had no control over this, no control over her—not anymore."
Jebediah paused for a moment and clenched his jaw.
"I hated her, Flint. I hated her because I wanted her so much more than she wanted me—because I needed her so much more than she needed me. So I scared her, because that's the kind of stupid, vindictive bastard I am. I stood up and knocked the bedroom door off the hinge and tossed it down the stairs, yelling and barking like some junkyard dog. And then David was standing there and staring up at me. He asked me why I was crying and said, 'Please don't hurt Mommy'. And he was holding one of those toy soldiers. It was glowing in the dark and he was holding it in front of him like a shield because he was scared. Because I had scared him."
Jebediah paused and covered his face in shame before continuing.
"I told him I was sorry and that I'd be back. I told him he was the only person in the world I loved now. He followed me down the steps and kept asking me why I was sad, but I couldn't answer. And then he tripped on that door I had thrown down the stairs. He started crying with that loud wailing he almost never does, not because he's hurt, but because he doesn't understand anything that's happening. And instead of picking him up and kissing him, I walked out the door. I left them alone. For eighty-three minutes, I left them alone. And when I got back, Cassie was dead, and David …"
The grief-stricken man wiped his eyes and tried to regain his composure. "They don't know if he'll wake up again. His head was hurt and they don't know what else to do except wait …"
"Is this what you wanted to hear?" he asked Flint.
"I loved Cassie," Flint replied. "And I loved …"—he stopped himself—"love David. And you left them alone."
"You think I wanted this? You think I'd want them hurt?" he asked. He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then his arm shot out and pinned Flint against the side of the pew. He brought his face close and spoke in a whisper, his voice scraping like sandpaper. "They were the only reason I didn't hurt people."
Flint waited for the sound of gunfire. His people wouldn't need a signal from him if he were threatened. They'd consume the church.
But nothing happened. The church stayed silent except for the singing choirgirl. Jebediah released him and backed away with his hands up.
"Please. Just please, help me do this."
Flint hesitated, then nodded and reached into his coat pocket. He brought out a manila envelope and handed it over. The bounty hunter accepted it without a word. It contained five names, men of violence and murder, monsters guilty of destroying innocence and killing sanity. Jebediah stood and walked to the center aisle and towards the front door. He paused and looked back at Flint. "I was already here when your men showed up. When they wake, tell them stealth isn't their strength."
"There were six of them," Flint thought aloud.
"Hurting things around me … it's just never been that hard."
Jebediah went to the front of the church, pushed through the double doors, and strode into the twilight evening.
An alarm, timed to mark the last two miles of his run, brought Flint back to the present. He accelerated the treadmill and his legs pounded up and down. His breathing became ragged and sweat dripped from his head to tickle his face and obscure his vision. He gritted his teeth and continued to push until he was finally out of breath. He jumped off the machine, put his hands on his knees and let his head hang while he gulped great breaths of air.
After a moment, he straightened and pulled a towel from a nearby rack to wipe his face. He took a look out of the bay window then exited his apartment.
A few minutes later, he opened a door on the top floor of the apartment building and walked out onto the roof. The wind was pleasantly cold against his still sweating body. He breathed the fresh air in deep, held and then released it in a long, slow exhale.
To his left were skyscrapers mixed with the manicured yards of the Caliber. The wealthy commercial center of the Hinge was a huge and sprawling metropolitan area. Five great buildings jutted up toward the sky. Each one stood for one of the major Families acting as the Caliber's de-facto rulers.
Smaller, but richly appointed, structures filled in the areas between the great buildings. These belonged to smaller families spread throughout the city. Most of them paid homage to the larger families. In the Caliber, everyone had more than they could use. So long as you played by the rules, you knew you were safe. If you were one of the elites living there you owned the world, provided you kept paying the right people.
He followed the city's skyline down to the South to the area bordering the Caliber. The people who lived there named it the Warren. They could just as easily have called it the Wild West.
The crack of automatic gunfire and occasional flash of magics sparked across its rambling landscape of shorter and tightly packed homes lined against narrow, oftentimes, unpaved streets.
Besides its system of bounty hunters, the Warren was a largely lawless land, filled with people who couldn't afford to live in the Caliber. During the previous week a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher had shot down a helicopter flying tourists to gawk at the Warren’s inhabitants. No one could do anything about it. In the Warren, justice was something you took for yourself, or paid someone else to get for you.
Flint closed his eyes then faced up toward the heavens. His feet slowly rose from the roof until he hung several feet up in the air. Above him, constellations shifted and re-aligned to form two great faces made of stars. The first face possessed a stern and cold countenance. The second held a manic smile with disturbing humor. They both looked down at Flint. The first face spoke in a voice like ice.
The first has been found. The second is needed. Both sides of the coin must be represented. The yin to his yang.
The extra crispy to his traditional recipe, the second face added in a voice of terrible glee.
"And when t
hey're both in place?" Flint asked.
He will die, both faces spoke simultaneously.
Flint cursed and glared at the two faces. They peered back at him with placid expressions. Flint sighed.
"Who is this second, this other side to the coin?" he asked.
Find the Ghostblade. Find Raja.
Chapter 2
Raja Rakash kicked loose gravel away from his feet and shook his legs to loosen the muscles. His hands dropped to the two knives jutting from hip holsters on either side of his waist. Everyone saw his palms tighten against their rough leather handles. But he did not draw them yet.
It triggered the soldiers around him to take up their weapons; the rattle of sword and spears and the crack of whips rippled down the length of the nearly one hundred strong fighting force from House Rakash. The gates of their enemy, House Mancini, remained closed and bolted, but noise from inside told Raja they'd be open soon. They would have to. Raja's family destroyed the incoming water lines days ago and there had been no rain.
A silent wind blew a comfortable breeze across Raja. It tugged at his long, dark ponytail. The evening was cool but not cold, the kind that was perfect for keeping someone comfortable while they worked hard outside.
This is a good night to kill things, he thought.
A voice boomed from above and behind him.
"Report!" His father spoke from a platform raised high and surrounded by barricaded walls. He bellowed down to Raja and the assembled mass of soldiers in front of him.
Voices from multiple groups yelled back.
"Water remains inoperative."
"Power distribution will stay down for another three days. We can get more time if we need it."
"Even with tight rationing their food should've run out four days ago."
Dipak took the information with a furrowed brow and his hands clenched against the railing in front of him. Raja knew his father was comparing what he'd heard with his own calculations: the bribe given to electrical providers, the location of water sources, the number of people within the house versus the likely amount of food found at any given time. Trust in minds greater than yours was his mantra.
Jebediah's Crime: A Heroic Supernatural Thriller (The Hinge Series Book 1) Page 2