Darkest Hour

by Rob Cornell

  “No.”

  “What do you mean no?”

  “You could cowboy your way through when this was just about taking down some vamps in New Orleans. But the mission is bigger than both of us now, and you’ve proved you can’t stay objective. You’ve gotten reckless. So you’re done.”

  Lockman snorted. “You are not going to stop me from trying to save Jessie.”

  “That’s just it,” Teresa said. “We’re not out to save Jessie. We’ve got to clean up your mess and stop Gabriel.” She whistled sharply and waved over one of the supernaturals passing by. A tall thing with what looked like suction cups all over its face. He didn’t need the AK he carried to intimidate anyone. The saw blades in his mouth passing as teeth did the trick fine.

  The creature jogged up to them, nodded at Teresa.

  Teresa hooked a thumb at Lockman. “We need to detain Mr. Lockman. He’s to be held in the prison block until further notice.”

  The thing’s three yellow eyes widened to the size of golf balls. “Ma’am?”

  “You heard me.” She turned to Lockman, held out her hand. “Give me your firearm.”

  Lockman ground his teeth. “Go to hell.”

  “Don’t make this harder than it is, Craig. I let you roam free, you’ll go after Jessie on your own. You’ll keep undermining what we’ve built here, letting your emotions get in the way.”

  “What do you know about emotions?”

  Her mouth curled up on one side. “Ironic. Used to be I could have asked you that. No one in the biz had a cooler head than you.”

  “I found something outside the job.”

  “Well, I lost everything because of the job.” She tipped her head at the sucker-face thing.

  Sucker-Face leveled his AK at Lockman. “Hand the lady your weapon.”

  The breath flaring out of Lockman’s nose felt like dragon’s fire. He’d been wrong about the lines around Teresa’s eyes. They didn’t make her look older, they made her look mean. He tossed his gun at her, a part of him hoping she’d accidently shoot herself when she caught it. The idea that they had once been lovers seemed ridiculous now. He didn’t even know this woman.

  Teresa caught the weapon without so much as a flinch, let alone a misfire. “You might think I’m a cold bitch, but I’m just looking at the bigger picture. This isn’t about saving any one person. We have a whole world to save. At least I can see that.”

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

  Sucker-Face grabbed Lockman by the arm while digging the barrel of his AK into the small of Lockman’s back. Extra cautious for something that looked like it could take off Lockman’s head in one bite.

  Lockman and Teresa shared one last smoldering glare.

  Then Sucker-Face escorted Lockman to the prison block.

  Chapter Seventeen

  They took Kate to a circular room that looked like something out of a movie set. Having Romeo Kress in the room only added to that effect. For a moment, Kate could imagine herself about to act out a scene with Kress, in his famous bad guy mode, having his minions chain her to the massive pentagram engraved into the marble floor.

  Turned out, the plan didn’t stray much from her imagination.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to disrobe again,” Kress said from the edge of the circle room by the door they’d come in through. Wertz and Mica stood on either side of Kate in the room’s center, whether escorts or guards, Kate still hadn’t decided—though it was hard to feel at all intimidated by a three foot-tall man in a miniature Armani.

  Despite the marble floor and what looked like solid-gold walls, the room’s temperature matched that of a mild summer day in mid-Michigan without the humidity. Stripping down in front of a Hollywood star, however, gave her plenty of goose pimples.

  Mica carried Kate’s clothes out of the room without a word.

  Wertz had backed off some, giving Kate space, but he couldn’t help stealing frequent glances at her nakedness.

  “Please,” Kress said. “Lie on the floor, head facing the engraving of the sun on the wall.” His gaze never changed its style from when she’d been clothed till now, all professional, as if this were a part from one of his films.

  Kate searched out the engraving on the wall, lined herself up, and lay on her back. The marble felt shockingly warm. The bigger shock came from the ceiling. She gasped at the sight. A mural depicted a massive crack in the Earth that nearly split the planet in half. Flames and gouts of lava spewed from the canyon accompanied by swarms of black, winged demons. In the air above the crevice, winged angels armed with spears battled the demons. But it didn’t look like a fair fight. The demons kept coming while many of the angels fell from the sky.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Kress asked.

  “Horrifying. Does it have some significant meaning?”

  Kress tilted his head back to take in the mural himself. “It’s what’s to come if we cannot bring about The Return.”

  “Angels and demons? Really?”

  He shrugged. “This room was built thousands of years ago. The painting is a representation of what mortals thought they knew at the time. We’ve grown more sophisticated about the details of the supernatural, but the message remains the same. One final battle for the sake of our world, and our side clearly losing.”

  “So this supernatural overpopulation thing’s been a worry for a while, huh?”

  Kress smiled, showing teeth. “Since the first mortal met with a being not of this plane.”

  The mural looked like it could swallow Kate. The longer she stared the more this feeling of her rising up toward it came over her. She closed her eyes. That’s when she noticed the smell. Rubbing alcohol.

  Something soft and wet slid across her wrist.

  She opened her eyes to find Mica had returned and now crouched beside her. She was smearing rubbing alcohol up and down the inside of Kate’s arm with a cotton ball.

  “What’s that for?” Kate asked.

  “Avoid infection.” The straight razor appeared in Mica’s hand as if from nowhere. She had it flipped open and against Kate’s wrist before Kate had any chance to react. With a quick jerk, Mica sliced the blade up the length of Kate’s arm and opened the skin at least four inches.

  Kate shrieked, though any pain hadn’t hit her yet, the cut was so quick and clean.

  Mica lifted Kate’s bleeding arm and set it down with the wound positioned against the groove of the pentagram. “Hold it there, love. The blood’ll know what to do.”

  Sure enough, the blood did. As if drawn by invisible force, it rolled into the groove and ran through it like a small, red river.

  Kate grew light headed, and the cut began to sting terribly. How much blood did they need? They couldn’t mean to fill the whole pentagram? She would never survive.

  A whiff of cologne drew Kate’s attention upward. She found Wertz standing over her by the crown of her head. He bent over and patted her check. “Try to relax. We know what we’re doing.”

  “The blood will help me find Jessie?”

  “Can’t have real magic these days without some blood.”

  Didn’t feel like some, though. It kept gushing and gushing out of her arm. The lines of the pentagram around her turned red with it. Meanwhile, the edges of her vision closed in. Any second now, she would pass out. Then her life was in the hands of a movie star, a gnome, and a pixie with a skunk stripe in her hair. Though, who was she kidding? Her life had been in their hands from the moment Mica had kicked in her door.

  “What...do I...need to do?”

  “No worries. It’s real simple.” He patted her cheek again. “Just lay there and die.”

  The prison block consisted of six cells made of reinforced concrete with bulletproof Plexiglas doors, all walls and doors laced with silver and treated with mojo that supposedly counteracted other mojo. Fighting flames with a tank of gas in Lockman’s opinion, but like several elements of this large operation, he was not consulted on the matter. Sitting on the slab o
f concrete acting as the only surface to sit or lay upon, Lockman realized how much this had grown beyond him. He’d liked things better when it was just him, Kate, and Jessie living out in the woods.

  They had installed the prison underground, under one of the Quonsets, and it smelled like a basement, dank and earthy. No one had bothered installing temperature control on the level. The blood soaking Lockman’s shirt had gone ice cold and he couldn’t stand the feel of it against his skin any longer, so he had whipped the shirt off and tossed it into the corner of the cell. Now he fought the urge to shiver. Sucker-Face stood guard on the other side of the door and Lockman would be damned to show the slightest weakness.

  A check of his watch put the time at four thirty, which meant he’d only been held captive for about thirty minutes. Felt more like hours to Lockman. He didn’t have the patience for captivity. It went against his nature to sit and do nothing for any length of time, unless he was sleeping.

  From the corner of his eye, Lockman noticed a change in Sucker-Face’s stance. Lockman looked up from his watch and saw Adam step up, say something to Sucker-Face, then Sucker-Face nodded and left.

  Adam turned to the cell door and peered in at Lockman.

  Lockman shot off the cement slab and crossed to the door. “Let me out of here, Adam. She’s gone nuts.”

  Adam raised his auburn eyebrows. His large mouth curled down at the corners. “Teresa has gone nuts?” His voice sounded tinny coming through the grate built into the door. “What about the man who tried to use a priest to exorcise a mortal soul?”

  “Truman said it would work.”

  “Dr. Truman knows...knew...no more about Jessie’s unique condition than a third grade school teacher. Who knows what you might have caused?”

  Lockman’s hackles rose. “Don’t you start. Gabriel was already influencing her. I had to try something.”

  Adam’s frown deepened. His green complexion seemed to darken. His gaze drifted to one side. Lockman could practically see the steam pumping out the ogre’s ears. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “You’re talking about your prophecy?”

  Adam’s eyes turned back to Lockman. “Now is not a good time to mock me.”

  Lockman put one hand on his heart and the other up in the air as if swearing an oath. “Not mocking, big guy. Gabriel had a lot to say about that prophecy. He’s a believer. He just has a slightly different take on the whole deal.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me out of this cell.”

  “That isn’t my call to make.”

  “What are you talking about? Who put Teresa in charge of this outfit? Last time I checked, we had split the load between the three of us. We were a team.”

  Adam crossed his tree-trunk arms. “A funny remark coming from the guy who conducted a ritual on the Chosen One without consulting his team.”

  “What do you want? An apology? Forget it. I am not sorry for trying to save my daughter.”

  “You could have come to us, explained your intentions, handled it with care instead of selfish recklessness.”

  “Teresa would have never gone for it. She would have—”

  “Then you could have come to me,” Adam shouted. Red patches speckled his green cheeks. His dime-sized nostrils flared. He took a calming breath and spoke in an even tone. “I would have helped Jessie in any way I could. I would have backed you up. Haven’t I always?”

  Damn. Lockman felt deflated. He shuffled away from the cell door, head hung. The ogre was right. He had stood up for Jessie’s place among them as much as Lockman. Never treated her like a freak or a burden.

  “You have a hard time making friends, Lockman.”

  Lockman laughed. “Never been a strength.”

  “But you have always commanded respect.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to let me out of here?”

  Adam stepped a little closer to the door. His breath fogged the Plexiglas. “I’m trying to make a point.”

  Lockman kept his mouth shut and let Adam finish.

  “We need you, Lockman. We need your strength, your leadership, your cunning. I know you’re used to going it alone. I know that’s part of who you are. But times have changed, my friend. You helped bring together this growing army. You are now accountable to it. This is no longer a rogue operation.”

  Even with his shirt off, Lockman could still feel the stickiness of the priest’s blood smeared across his skin. The feel brought back the image of Jessie tearing the man’s head off. He would never scrub that from his mind.

  “All I’ve ever done in life is take orders or make up my own. I’m not a leader, Adam.”

  “Hate to break it to you, but we’ve got a compound full of supernaturals you helped recruit that feel otherwise. And having to lock you up for jeopardizing our operation does not play well with morale.”

  “What do you want then? A promise to be good?”

  “I want a decision,” Adam said. “Right now. Are you with us? Or are you on your own?”

  Lockman threw up his hands in exasperation. “Of course I’m with you.”

  Adam shook his head. “Not good enough.”

  “You want a blood sacrifice to make it official? This is ridiculous. I don’t belong in this cell. I belong out there trying to fix my mistake.” Adam opened his mouth to speak, but Lockman held up a hand to stop him. “Yeah, I fucked up. I admit it. I’m not operating the same way I used to. I’d love to go back to the cold bastard that could make every choice about the greater good. But my greater good has changed.”

  “No one is looking for a cold bastard. Emotions give strength. Ogres know this better than most. Emotion is what powers magic.”

  “Blood powers magic,” Lockman corrected.

  The ogre’s shoulders sagged. His sigh sounded like a jet taking off. “You mortals have twisted magic so horribly on this plane.”

  “Look, Adam, I appreciate that mojo might have a better rep in your homeland, but around here it’s dark, bloody, and always a bad thing. Forgetting that’s what led me to helping Gabriel take over Jess.”

  The expression on Adam’s face looked as if he stood beside a relative’s gave. “I feel sorry for your world.”

  “It’s your world, too, now.”

  “Yes. I’m very sorry about that, as well.”

  “Nothing’s going to change that. That’s why you’re here, trying to save this pathetic planet from vampire domination, right?”

  A second passed, Adam’s gaze downcast. When he looked up, Lockman thought he saw a wet shine in the ogre’s eyes. “I told you it was not my call in letting you out.”

  “Whose is it, then? Teresa’s?”

  Adam tapped a finger against the Plexi. “Yours.”

  Freakin’ ogres and their cryptic talk. Made Lockman miss Marty’s foul mouth, though he had gotten heavy into the mumbo-jumbo toward the end there. Thinking of Marty made him think of all their loses—Vera, Marty, Creed, Rodriguez, and Jessie’s mortality. Maybe even Jessie’s soul if they couldn’t get her back and finally do something about Gabriel.

  And Kate.

  He hadn’t exactly lost her. No. He had sent her away. The look in her eyes when he told her she could never see her daughter again found its way into almost every dream Lockman had, the very definition of a haunting memory. Whenever he thought of her, wondered where she was, what she was up to, it felt like his heart sprung a leak and poured blood into his belly. He tried to banish thoughts of her altogether. So far without any luck.

  He raised his chin, stood straight, and looked Adam in the eyes. “I’m with you. Let me out of here.”

  Adam took time staring back at Lockman as if he could see into Lockman’s mind. He must have found what he was looking for. He grunted softly and poked at a keypad by the door. A second later there came a metallic snap. Adam pulled the door open and stepped aside.

  Lockman stepped into the hall leading between the cells, gave his cell one last glance over his shoulder, then faced
Adam. “What’s next?”

  “We have to bring Teresa down from the edge. She’s talking about a full-scale assault and we don’t even have a target to strike.”

  Lockman’s muscles tensed. Full-scale assault meant taking Jessie out. He knew that’s what Teresa intended. “Even if we knew where to find her, we can’t just head out and obliterate Jessie.”

  “We have to convince Teresa that Jessie is still important to the war.”

  “Good luck with that. You all never had me fully convinced about this Chosen One stuff.”

  “You doubt she is special?”

  “I make it a habit to doubt everything,” Lockman said with a smirk. “But Jessie’s special to me, and that’s good enough. Winning over Teresa, who wanted to stake Jess from the beginning? Totally different story.”

  Adam stroked his chin like a giant, green Confucius. “I may know of a way to change her mind.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Kate woke up in the mural.

  She floated above the massive canyon splitting the earth, angels and demons swarming around her, clashing with swords and spears, claws and teeth. The air smelled of sulfur and blood. The sound of clanging metal and tearing flesh underscored the countless variations in pitch to the screams all around.

  Kate didn’t know what kept her suspended in the air. After a second of thrashing her arms and kicking her legs, she found some control over her trajectory. The large, swinging limbs motions as if trying to swim, kept her floating in place. If she made subtle moves, though—a tilt to her arms, a cant in her feet—she could turn and sail like a kite. Not exactly flying, but able to dodge the combatants and change her view of the battle.

  No one seemed to notice her. Demons would flap by without turning a glance her way. Angels soared toward her as if she didn’t exist and they would have collided if Kate hadn’t learned to get out of the way. Then, one time, she didn’t move fast enough, and a pair locked in combat whisked straight through Kate as if Kate were a ghost.

  I’m not really here, she thought.

  But this wasn’t a dream, either. The heat from the gorge below felt too real. All the smells and the ashen taste in her mouth too vivid. This was something more than a dream.