by A. J. Vrana
“Well?” she coaxed, arching an eyebrow as he paled again.
“Calls himself Abaddon,” Kai said after a pause. “No idea why.”
Ama’s eyes widened, her lips pursing. “Well, that’s dark, if not a tad poetic. I’m guessing you don’t know what Abaddon means.”
“Don’t really give a shit either.”
“Biblical angel, or demon.” She ignored his disinterest. “Depends on the version you’re reading, but the book of Revelation portrays him as a destroyer—the angel of the abyss, the king of plague. Some scholars consider him to be the antichrist. Others believe he’s the devil himself. A few, however, say he’s doing God’s work.”
Kai blinked at her, his brain unable to process her holy drivel. He was too exhausted to deal with information. He’d spent all night crawling back to the cabin. He'd just barely finished screaming, thrashing, and crying like a diva. Hell, he might have even shat his pants a little—and now, while he sat in a pool of his own sweat, she wanted to give him a bible lesson?
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the name,” Kai shot back, his patience wearing thin.
“Oh?” she feigned surprise. “You should. After all, he picked it for a reason.”
Kai shifted to a dry spot on the bed, stripping off his shirt and wiping his arms and chest with the sheets as he crossed his legs and settled back against the wall. He refused to look at her, the gesture thinly veiling his embarrassment for being caught in such a state.
“Whatever,” he grumbled. “How exactly do you lure out dickish spirits?”
She watched as he threw the soaked shirt to the floor. “I’ve got an all-access pass…to the then, the now, and the wherever.”
He gave her a withering look. “That doesn’t tell me shit.”
She wagged a finger at him in deliberate condescension. “Yes, you’re right. It’s not supposed to tell you anything.”
“Right,” Kai huffed. “And now that you’ve had your kicks, would you kindly fuck off and leave me alone?” If he hadn’t been half-broken, he would have torn her head off and whipped it at the damn raven. It could be just like bowling, he sneered to himself.
But she was undeterred by his threat. She rose from the bed and strolled over, her knees touching his as she peered directly into his eyes—a bold move. “Don’t you want to know what Abaddon is?”
Of course he did; he pined for an answer, but his response was flippant as he curled a lip at her, loathing her display of dominance. “Evil spirit. Angry douche-turd. Invisible dick dipped in cow shit.”
“That would make him quite flammable.”
Kai snorted, unable to help cracking a smile. “I wish.”
“I don’t think he’s just an evil spirit,” she told him more seriously, slowly circling the room. “He’s too self-aware. Giving himself a name—a biblical name at that—seems rather symbolic, don’t you think?”
Kai followed her movements, waiting for her to get to the point. He fought to keep himself sealed off, but her steadiness was calming. Slowly, his indignation melted away.
“I used to think I was crazy,” he confessed at last. “But even the shrink eventually realized something didn’t fit. Just never thought it’d be a ghost with a holy stick up his ass.”
“You spent enough time with humans to let them take you to a therapist?” she sounded surprised. “Let me guess—schizophrenia?”
“I was a kid when they found me. Didn’t have much choice.” Kai shook his head. “PTSD and conduct disorder. Said I was seeing and hearing things because of repressed trauma.”
“Oh? What happened?”
“You’ve gotten enough backstory,” Kai glowered. “Now how about you tell me what’s wrong with me?”
Ama drummed her fingernails against the wooden table. “The notion of linear time is a brilliant illusion, isn’t it? You’re born, you progress through life, and then you die. But your understanding of death depends on how you understand time. If you eliminate the construct of time from the equation, there’s no saying what death really is.”
“I don’t think about time or death,” he countered. “I’m too busy trying not to get fucked sideways every day.”
“I don’t think about it either.” She smiled. “We’re animals. Time has a different meaning to us because we’re constantly engaged in the immediacy of our instincts. Still, we are aware of human constructs. Maybe we’re even becoming human.”
Kai flopped back on the mattress with a sigh, then lifted his head to glare at her. If getting clocked by a bus didn’t kill him, Ama’s yapping would. “This doesn’t sound like it has jack shit to do with Abaddon.”
“It does,” she said, “because if you want to understand Abaddon, you’re going to have to move past the present moment. You’ll have to think about death.” She walked around the table, her finger tracing the edge until she’d drawn a large circle. “Humans are afraid of death because it’s so final. At least, based on their idea of time. We can say that time is an illusion, but death certainly isn’t. It’s very real, and yet the experience of death is more than just an end. Ironically, the end is endless.”
“Ama,” he said tightly as he rolled up, lip twitching. “I’m not a fucking poet. Get to the damn point or get the fuck out.”
He caught the edge of a smile. She was toying with him, shredding his brain with riddles.
“Blow me!” he snapped. “You don’t know anything except that he’s here to make me scream for my dead mommy!”
Ama shook her head. “Not today, I’m afraid.”
Kai stood up and began to pace, predatory and anxious all at once. “Why’s he stuck on me? What the hell did I ever do to him?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, “but obviously something binds you together. Seems he wants to punish you.”
He was trying to remember his dream—trying desperately to summon those grotesque visions, but the effort grew vainer by the second.
“Why can’t I remember?” he growled, reaching up and ruffling his hair. “It just keeps slipping away!” There was a drawn-out pause before he slumped his shoulders in defeat.
“That’s quite normal,” Ama reassured him, “to be left only with the feelings and none of the images.”
Kai seethed at her, squeezing his fist so hard his nails cut into the pads of his hand. He felt used, manipulated, one-upped, and powerless. “So your friend sent you here to get into my head and mess with me but didn’t tell you what that whimpering bitch is? Or why he hates me?”
Ama tilted her head and smiled. “Sounds like you and Abaddon bicker quite often. And no, my friend isn’t someone I can get hold of on a whim. He reveals only what he wants when he wants. And I was only told to come find you and keep an eye on things. I’m sure he’s already seen what he needed to.”
“Your friend sounds like some of his brains have been pecked out.”
“He’s not all there sometimes,” Ama admitted. “But I’m curious as well. What kind of spirit names itself? And why?” She lowered her gaze and chuckled, speaking to no one in particular. “You were counting on my curiosity, weren’t you?” She turned to the raven with slit eyes.
“You’re fucking insane.”
“Maybe,” she laughed, walking to the door. With her hand on the knob, she glanced over her shoulder and smiled coyly. “But what does that make you?”
Kai watched as she saw herself out without a single shit given for his response, her footsteps fading into the distance. What was the point of all that? She’d waltzed into his home, mind-fucked him, then waltzed right back out. And he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
He kicked the wall next to the doorframe and stalked back to his bed, tearing off the covers and chucking them in the corner. He couldn’t lie in her scent. He refused to. Throwing himself down, Kai closed his eyes and sighed as his body let go. Sleep was finally creeping up on him. Sleep—without any hope of rest.
15
Mason
Dawn was breaking, but Mason
hardly noticed the orange glow peeking from the horizon as he sat in the darkened hallway, eavesdropping on every sound that passed him. For most of the night, he’d been in the midst of a manhunt—a futile search for the John Doe. Security had turned the hospital upside-down, police reports had been filed, and the staff had been interviewed for clues.
He was a ghost.
Courtesy of the miraculous recovery tale spread by the EMS workers, everyone knew about this John Doe, but no one had the faintest idea of who he really was or where he might have disappeared to. While it left Mason’s head spinning, it also reassured him that he wasn’t crazy. If the people in the hospital were unable to draw a consensus on the story, then it couldn’t just be him.
Yet there was a powerful undercurrent of fear that permeated the walls and seeped into the cheap, white curtains. The hospital staff was superstitious and fearful, and anything that resembled the supernatural quickly became grounds for paranoia. What was remarkable to Mason was the amount of energy poured into conjuring ways in which John Doe may or may not have been tied to the Dreamwalker’s return. One would expect tragic events, not medical miracles, to serve as ill omens. Regardless, hospital staff was fixated on imbuing this particular miracle with insidious implication.
“Maybe he isn’t human,” one would say.
“What if he’s one of hers?” another would propose.
It irked him. According to Occam’s razor, the simplest explanation was often the most reliable. This was a small town. People were easygoing, meaning that protocol was often overlooked. No one would expect an injured patient to wander off, so the possibility of negligence was far more likely than some far-fetched gobbledygook. Witnesses from the EMS reports claimed that John Doe stumbled out onto the road for no apparent reason, just seconds before he was struck by the bus. He could’ve been mentally ill—dissociative or schizophrenic. Communities the size of Black Hollow had limited resources for such individuals. More often than not, they staggered through life without a lick of care. He probably woke up frightened, paranoid, delusional, or any combination of the three. It might have motivated him to be extra careful sneaking out; an elaborate escape plan wasn’t an unreasonable postulation if the young man suffered from psychosis. Still, that didn’t explain his miraculous recovery—a missing piece Mason’s theory couldn’t account for.
“Maybe he ran out on the street because he was possessed by one of her wolves!”
Mason fought the urge to roll his eyes, dismissing the nurse responsible for the comment as an old-world crone. She probably believed that sitting on a cold floor would make a woman’s ovaries freeze over and sterilize her for life. Sure, mythology was a fun distraction, but there was always a rational explanation for things, even if not immediately understood. Mason clung to this belief. He had to, especially after what happened to him in the library and in the woods.
He hoped Jazlyn would get back soon from her meeting, but the waiting seemed to drone on indefinitely. Mason stood up and paced. John Doe’s hospital room had been cleared out and the commotion taken elsewhere. Policemen were guarding the doors, and Mason had no desire to get involved with them given that he’d broken hospital protocol.
Kai Donovan.
Could that be his name? Why would someone have their own name written on a piece of paper in their wallet? Then again, it was a birthday wish. It might have been a keepsake. Pulling his phone out, Mason typed the name in a blank note while it was fresh in his mind. He knew it was unethical, but he wanted to know more. He was sick of hearing the frightened whisperings of staff. Like a proper empiricist, he would uncover the truth and purge their irrationality. For Elle Robinson, too, he would prove them wrong.
But that was only half of it. Mason couldn’t shake the memory of checking John Doe’s vitals while he was still comatose—of seeing, feeling, and hearing with his own faculties the impossibility of the young man’s recovery. Sure, he was banged up, but he was nowhere near death like the paramedics stated in their original report. Jazlyn confirmed they hadn’t reported it wrong, so what was it? Some kind of rare, undocumented healing ability? If so, John Doe’s blood would have the answers. The other nurse, Amy, had mentioned there being something off about it, but when the code yellow hit, everyone dispersed. Neither he nor Jazlyn got a chance to ask Amy what the deal was with John Doe’s blood.
He knew he was jumping ahead, but Doctor Mason Evans couldn’t stop himself from imagining the possibilities. If this was some kind of mutant healing ability, John Doe’s strange blood could hold the key to astounding medical breakthroughs. It could give terminal patients a better chance. It could give doctors a second chance.
So much for Occam’s razor.
As his imagination got away from him, Mason barely registered the sound of double-doors swinging open and the click-clack of shoes against the beige vinyl floor. The staff meeting was over, a sea of white coats and scrubs rushing the halls. Among them was Jazlyn, winding around her colleagues. She stopped in front of Mason. Her eyes were downcast as she chewed viciously on her lower lip, nose wrinkling intermittently and fists clenching at her sides.
“Well?” Mason broke the unbearable silence. She didn’t seem surprised that he was still at the hospital, her apparent stupor so intense she didn’t ask about his presence.
“I know why Amy was so freaked out,” she replied, finally looking up at him. “John Doe’s blood—it’s not human, Cap.”
Mason blinked furiously, batting away the confusion. “What do you mean his blood isn’t human?”
“I mean the son of a bitch doesn’t have a blood type!” she exclaimed. “Lab techs couldn’t identify it! But we don’t have the technology here to figure out what it could be.”
Mason questioned the Universe; was it truly possible that John Doe’s blood had no sign of ABO antigens? He wondered if this was a bizarre mistake or an elaborate prank orchestrated by...by whom? Who would joke about such a thing?
“Y-You need to take it to a university lab,” he stammered. “Get a more powerful microscope.”
Was this the first case of an unknown, fifth blood type? A new antigen? Was that the secret to John Doe’s superhuman healing? It certainly seemed more believable to Mason than some ridiculous theory about being possessed by wolves.
Jazlyn frowned. “What? Why? The hospital doesn’t have that kind of time. His blood will be trashed in the biohazard bin with the rest of the samples at the end of the week.”
Mason’s mouth popped open; he meant to protest but stopped short. Composing himself, he tried again. “Jaz,” he said evenly, “don’t you think that’s kind of a waste? I mean, aren’t you curious about what this might be?”
“Well, sure...” she trailed off. “I’m curious, but what can we really do if the doctors here don’t care to pursue it?”
“Salvage the blood sample,” Mason urged. “If it’s getting thrown out anyway, let’s swipe it and take it to a better lab.”
The mystery of John Doe was growing more and more enticing by the second. With evidence of a scientific anomaly at his fingertips, Mason knew he wouldn’t be able to step away. But there was only so much he could do alone, and the matter of DNA was out of his field of expertise. To take this further, he’d need the help of a geneticist.
“You want me to swipe the vial?” Jazlyn looked aghast, and with good reason. This was the kind of thing that got people fired, or worse…arrested.
“I’ll do it,” Mason offered with a casual shrug. “I know where the lab here is. I can do it.”
“Mason—that’s stealing. You can’t just steal hospital property!”
“I...I know it’s against the rules. This isn’t something I’d normally do.” He ruffled his curls and looked at her, eyes pleading. “The sample’s getting tossed. It’ll be gone, and I’ll wonder forever what this was about. I’ll take the risk if it means finding the answers, Jaz.”
“It’s still crazy,” she argued. “What about the cameras?”
“Useless deter
rent,” he scoffed. “They get overwritten every forty-eight hours, and the footage is too grainy to actually catch anyone. Besides, they’re only checked if an incident is reported, and I’m sure police have already confiscated the tapes from today to check for John Doe. I won’t be in them.”
She seemed annoyed that he actually remembered his hospital security training, shifting her weight and grumbling under her breath. “Fine,” she conceded after a long pause. “But I won’t help you. I just...won’t report it.”
“Thanks, Jaz.” He exhaled, dangling his arms to his knees. Some part of him wondered if he was being unfair, or if he was endangering her career just by telling her his plans—but the thought was fleeting. This mystery was bigger than the both of them. “You have no idea how much it means to have your support.”
“Oh, I’m not supporting you,” she corrected. “I’m just tolerating your bullshit until you get your head screwed back on. But if you get arrested, I’m not backing your ass up.”
“Still,” he smiled, “thank you.”
Shoving her hands in her pockets, she glanced around the halls. “You’re nuts,” she hissed then turned back to him. “What exactly are you going to do once you figure this out? It’s not like you can find John Doe.”
Mason pulled out his phone and showed her the note he’d typed. “I’m going to check public records for a Kai Donovan. Found it written on a scrap of paper in John Doe’s wallet.”
She crinkled her nose at him, pushing the phone away. “Seriously, dude, that’s pretty damn stalkerish.”
“Hey, you asked!”
“And I’m regretting it!”
“But just imagine the possibilities if he’s—I don’t know—special!” Mason beamed at her, his eyes lighting up as his dirty blonde curls seemed to bounce around his head.
Jazlyn didn’t respond, shooting him a cutting look instead. Seeing she was unimpressed, Mason gave her a quick squeeze. He thanked her again, then zipped away before she could try to change his mind. The lab was waiting for him.