“Good luck … Aliyah. And God Bless You.”
“I didn’t sneeze,” she said, earning her another glare from the both of them. Then Cherise was gone.
“You really can be quite intolerably stubborn at times,” Jacob said.
“I was made this way. I didn’t choose it.”
He grabbed her suddenly, unexpectedly, and pulled her into his arms. “What happened to the Aliyah that used to be so full of heart and love?”
She stood there, rigid and physically unresponsive, whereas years ago she would have given anything to be in his arms. “She died,” she said coldly, then turned away to find her son sleeping peacefully in a box in the attic, as though completely oblivious to his kidnapping and his being held hostage to lure Mommy to her death. If not for Cherise -
No, Cherise had been sent here. By him. She’d gotten the message, as bitter as it tasted trying to swallow it. Had she been left completely alone, Jerome, or Dwayne in possession of Jerome, would have killed her, as originally planned. Aliyah felt satisfaction over the frustration Dwayne must be feeling that every time he thought he had her, someone else was always stepping up to the plate to ruin his plans. Why wouldn’t he just give up and leave her be?
She was soon to find out.
CHAPTER 29
“Aliyah, we need to talk,” the Light knight said, his voice pleading.
“And I would love to have the time to listen, Jacob, but that is not something I have, at the moment. I’ve got 12 minutes to try to figure out the innocent he plans on having tortured, as it’s guaranteed it’s going to be a child. He always preferred children,” she said bitterly.
“I know that you have a job to do, but so do I, and my job, at the moment, is to tell you about the Prophecy. There’s a good reason he wants you to have this information now, after all the years you’ve been protected from it.”
“Here it is. Ugh, just like him, the bastard. Always needed an audience to brag about his crimes.”
They were back at her apartment in the city, and she was rapidly flipping through news’ stations again, knowing he would leave a clue, knowing she would try to stop him.
“Aliyah.”
“No,” she cried. “He said only one, only one per hour. Not an entire elementary school. We’re down to ten minutes. There’s not enough time!” she wiped a desperate tear from her cheek.
Lydia turned up the volume to hear the reporter above Jacob’s incessant pleas to speak with her. “They are demanding the presence of an Aliyah, and if she doesn’t show, they are threatening to burn down the school with all the kids trapped inside. Aliyah is 5’6”, honey-golden blonde hair mid-back, blue eyes. She was formerly known as Lydia Smith. If anyone knows of this Aliyah, contact the number at the bottom of the screen. Aliyah, if you are listening, there are 223 kids from 5 to 10 years old trapped in the Queens Elementary School. Please show yourself. Don’t let all these kids die because of you,” the reporter said.
Just before the camera shot returned to the school, the newscaster’s eyes flickered. Possessed. How many? How many possessed? How many lost? God dammit, she couldn’t save them all. She grabbed for the phone.
“Aliyah, what are you doing?”
“Something.”
“You know it’s a trap.”
“I don’t care!” she yelled. “223 innocent children burning alive is not something I’m going to allow happen in my lifetime. This is Aliyah,” she said over the phone. “I’m the one he wants. I give in. He can have me and do what he wants with me. Tell him to let the children go.”
“Hello, Aliyah.” His voice. “So predictable. You’ve always so easily been broken when it came to protecting other children. Willing to sacrifice everything just to keep another child safe. Do you remember that?”
“Someone as evil as you should never have been born, Dwayne.”
“Born, dead, and now immortal. Isn’t it great? It’s like … I’m being rewarded. Rewarded for all the things I’ve done, whereas all you ever are is punished for the way you are. I’m in my glory and you’re still just suffering, as you’ve always been. Seems so unfair, doesn’t it?”
“Where do you want me to meet you?”
“All this public attention, I think a public execution would suit the situation nicely. Come here to the school, alone. You’ll know where I’ll be. I’ll be the one with all the cameras making me famous for all of time.”
“I’m on my way,” she hung up the phone.
“Aliyah, you can’t do this. It’s a death trap,” the Light knight urged.
“He wants me to come alone. I need you to stay here with Jasper and keep him safe.”
“My duty to you is not to provide childcare. It is to protect you and keep you alive and if you would just let me talk to you, you’d understand why it is so important that you stay alive. If you die, it will be all our undoing.”
“You’ll live. You’ll just be reassigned to play games with someone else’s heart, that’s all. The circle of life.”
“Then at least take some sort of weapon, a knife or something, to protect yourself.”
She grabbed her wallet. “Car needs gas,” she said, throwing open the hatch, and she took off down the stairs.
The baby began to mewl, so Jacob lifted him up and cradled him in his arms. “Jasper, your Mommy is the absolute most stubborn person I have ever met, and I’ve been around for almost a century. She just won’t listen! Do you know what it’s like to have the job of keeping a person alive when that person has a death wish? I got 14 months – 14 months of peace – that’s it, and that’s only because she didn’t remember who she was.
“I’ve spent my life chasing her. That’s all I do. You think she’d appreciate that? You think she’d appreciate me? Nope. Never a ‘Thank you, Light knight, for following me around everywhere like a little loyal doggie, and always having my back. Thank you, Light knight, for loving me the moment you first set eyes on me and never stopping loving me since.’” Jacob sighed. “Come on, Jasper. Time to play unappreciated loyal doggie again.”
He hailed a cab. “I need to get to the Queen’s Elementary School,” he told the driver.
“You got money?”
“There are 223 kids about to be burned alive in that school. I need to help make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Buddy, I feel you, but I still got a mortgage to pay and children to feed, so unless you can pay me - .”
The Light knight stared into his eyes. One – two –
“My God, you’re an angel, aren’t you?”
“I prefer to be called a Light knight,” Jacob smirked.
The driver left the cab, kneeling all the while before the Light knight.
“Thank you for your righteousness. It will not be forgotten, and the High master will reward you for your kindness.”
The Light knight started down the road, a big smile on his face. Okay, so his job came with a few pleasant perks. He couldn’t complain. While the cabdriver began yelling toward all the passer-byers. “I saw an angel. There are angels here. I saw him. It’s not the end after all. It’s not the end.” And people just kept right on walking.
CHAPTER 30
Aliyah heard him before she saw him. “I come from Otherland. There is no heaven, no eternal bliss that you’ve been promised your entire pathetic lives. All of those weak who continue to hold on to the lies of religion will die. Those who bow to me now will be spared. I am the Dark master. The only way you will live well and prosper is through me. Ah, my example to the world, right on time.” With a flick of his hand, he spread the huge crowd surrounding him, so that he and Aliyah were facing one another twenty feet away.
“Don’t be shy, sweetie. Your suffering now will be a mere moment in eternity, though your suffering there will be eternal. A destiny you could have never hoped to escape.” He pointed his arm toward her, and she instantly felt the pressure on her throat as he dragged her toward him without touching her.
“Aliyah here is good,” h
e said in disgust. “She wants to save all the little kiddies in the world. She believes in hope, happiness, and all she’s ever wanted in her life was love. Watch how easily I can crush all her hopes and dreams.”
“He’s wrong,” she choked. He released the pressure around her throat for a moment. “They are Dark spirits, unable to freely roam this world without a body to possess. By turning people dark, turning people bad, by making them afraid, making you bow,” she gestured toward the dozens of people on their knees, “They can come to possess your bodies, discard your souls, and do with you whatever they want. But the blood will be on your hands, on your conscience, once they’re through with you. You’ll have to remember all the horrible things you did, all the people you hurt. It will haunt you and eat you alive, until you can’t even look at yourself in the mirror anymore, until you can’t sleep, because every time you close your eyes, you’ll know what you did, what they made you do, but what you allowed them to do as well.
“The only way to resist them. The only way to be safe. Is to not give in. Don’t stop hoping, don’t stop believing, don’t stop loving, don’t stop being good. We were all given free will for a reason, so that we would never be left without choice. No matter how much they threaten, no matter what they do, no matter how afraid they make you, the ultimate choice of turning dark or staying light is yours and yours alone. Whatever you choose will be the consequences you will not only have to face throughout the duration of your human life, but in the eternal life as well.”
“Enough!” Dwayne bellowed, increasing the pressure on her throat once again, and this time lifting her off the ground. “I am the Dark master, and this is what happens to those that betray me.”
There were those in the crowd that shrieked, others gasped, and others broke down crying, as Aliyah’s body fell limp, lifeless, just like that.
“What the - ?” He dropped her, and felt the fury boil over inside him. Even in the end, she’d taken his satisfaction. He’d meant for her to have a slow, painful death where she’d have to watch herself dying, and she’d have to finally confront the realization that he’d won. That in the end, he’d won, not her.
Instead, she’d stolen from him the moment he’d been waiting for his entire life and his eternity, by dropping dead before he could first make her suffer.
“Ahhhhh!” he screamed. “Burn the - .” Suddenly he was slammed hard, the pressure pushing him back 50 feet, 100, 150, until his body was being crushed against the brick of the schoolhouse. All the windows shattered in the school to the sounds of screaming children.
The Light knight could only grin in fierce pride, “That’s my girl. That’s your Momma, Jasper. Something amazing. Always has been.”
The doors to the school went flying across the parking lot.
“Get the children,” Jacob said to the confused crowd of spectators. They became instantly alive with renewed purpose, and went running toward the school.
“Aliiiiyaaaaaah!” Dwayne yelled, helpless in the human body suspended in the air and unable to break free from her spirit’s hold. He looked all around, but couldn’t see her, and the body was disrupting his ability to sense her. The Light knight stayed positioned next to her body to ensure no harm would come of it. One man remained kneeled on the ground. The Light knight kneeled before him, and looked into his eyes.
“It’s okay. I know you’re afraid, but signing your soul over to evil will not protect you or keep your family safe, I promise you that.”
Dwayne continued yelling. “There’s one thing I’ve always told you, Aliyah, that you’ve always refused to listen to. You can’t … save … everyone!” In three seconds slow motion, Aliyah saw it all, as Dwayne left his possessed body, flung himself toward the man kneeling on the ground while screaming in scorching pain, entered the man’s body, grabbed the flip-blade from his pocket, and stabbed the Light knight in the chest.
“Noooo!” Aliyah cried, returning to her body. She kicked the possessed man so hard in the chin that he flew backwards, unconscious.
“I win,” she heard his whisper breeze across her ear, before his piercing scream evaporated into his imprisoned haven of darkness.
“Was not … expecting … that,” Jacob said lightly, but then he began to cough. Blood dribbled down his chin.
“Jacob, Jacob, no, Jacob. Did he pierce your heart or just a lung? If it’s a lung, we can fix that. I can save you. Gooooood!” she screamed in an agony so devastating that it broke the Light knight’s heart. She did love him still after all. That’s all he’d needed to know.
CHAPTER 31
“The prophecy - .” Jacob woke up abruptly. Lydia was standing over him. The moment he opened his eyes, she began crooning over him, kissing his face, her tears falling on him.
“Oh, Jacob. I thought you were going to go back there and not come back, and not fight for your body to live. It just missed you heart. Punctured your lung. They’ve had to do a few blood transfusions because they couldn’t stop the bleeding on the inside. They said you might live if you fight it. But you were gone, so your body wasn’t working to block the hole and stop the bleeding.
“Don’t you ever scare me again. Don’t you ever do that. You’re staying here, and you’re going to fight for your body to heal and live, and I refuse for you to go back there until your body is strong enough.” This was all said very rapidly, between tearful kisses everywhere on his face.
“You missed a spot,” he lazily smiled.
“Where?”
“My left temple.”
She kissed him there. “Anywhere else?”
“Well, I do have more than a face. I’ve got an entire body, as yet unkissed.”
She smacked his arm. “You think this is funny?”
“Actually, this is probably the best moment of my life, right here, right now, with you. If it takes me nearly dying to get your attentions and your affections, then that’s a chance I’m willing to take on a daily basis. I now understand this death-wish thing.”
Lydia rolled her eyes, “You’re heavily medicated right now. I’m not going to believe a thing you say while you’re on a morphine-high. Besides, you could have had my affections and my attentions long ago had you made different choices. We could have married and had a family and grown old together in the natural order of things, but you always had higher priorities than something as mundane as that.”
“I would have liked that very much,” he said, closing his heavy eyes. Pain shot up through his arm from her pinch, and his eyes opened wide again.
“Open your mouth.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
She poured a five-hour energy drink down his gagging throat, then covered his mouth to keep him from spitting it back out. “Are you … trying … to kill … me?” he coughed, every cough sending spasms of pain throughout his chest.
“No, I’m trying to save you. You can’t go back to sleep. You and I both know where we go when we sleep deeply, and I can’t keep going in there trying to rescue you, leaving Jasper vulnerable to being kidnapped again. Enjoy the morphine now, because it’s all you’re getting. Then you’re going to have to deal with the pain, because I can’t risk you falling asleep in a drug-induced state.”
“Well your tactics aren’t compassionate … to say the least. But I now know you love me.”
“Stop it. I’m just once again responsible for saving your life.”
“You looove me. You looove me,” he sang.
“I’ll walk out this door right now. There are people dying right now, because of me, and I’m sitting here by your side, instead of saving them, while you act like you’re dying just to get some attention.”
“Where’s Jasper?”
“Sleeping. It’s all he ever does. It concerns me. I picked up a book that said babies his age are supposed to want to eat like every two hours, yet he sleeps for six, and then just lies there and waits for me to feed him instead of crying like normal babies.”
“Do you think he r
emembers?” Jacob asked.
“I don’t know. I’m more concerned that he’s going back there when he’s sleeping, and he’ll wind up captured and won’t wake up. I’ve bitten every single one of my nails off, see? Right down to the skin, just staring at him and urging him to wake up to let me know he’s still here.” She showed him her nails.
“Welcome to parenthood. That’s more normal than you actually think.”
“It’s normal to fear that your baby is travelling to Otherland while he’s sleeping, risking being captured by the Lost ones, imprisoned by the Dark souls, or falling into the Nothingness?”
“Well …” Jacob laughed.
“You went back there, didn’t you?” she gave him the look, the tilted eye that said whatever answer he provided he was going to get in trouble anyway.
“I came back, didn’t I? I have to tell you about the prophecy.”
“Oh, so you didn’t come back for me. You came back to fulfill your duty in telling me about this stupid prophecy you keep trying to talk about.”
“Aliyah, it’s not like that.”
“It is like that, Jacob; has always been. I can never trust what you’re doing of your own free will or what you’re doing out of duty. Had you already told me what you’ve been instructed to tell me, would you have come back?”
“Of course,” he said, but he’d hesitated. “Aliyah,” he called at her back as she was walking out the door with the sleeping Jasper.
“You’re not the only one with a job to do, Jacob. I’m just the one doing it because I want to, and not because I’ve been told to.”
“Where are you going now?”
“I remembered a way to kill them. It’s from my childhood. I need to find the person who has it and retrieve it.”
“Then sit down, hold my hand, talk to me. You’ve never been able to just talk to me.”
“No, Jacob, I refuse to hear the prophecy. If your duty is the only thing keeping you alive right now, then I’m not giving you any other choice but to live, because I’m not hearing it until you’re fully recovered, so don’t even waste your breath.”
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