by Kody Boye
“Yeah,” Aerick slurred. “Sounds good.”
Guy slung an arm around Aerick’s shoulder, attempted to lead him out of the room, then chose to simply sling him into his arms and carry him.
“You boys have something special,” Faith said as she finished bandaging up the wound. “It ain’t often two Kaldr and a warm flesh have such a strong bond.”
“I know,” I replied, nodding as she secured the wrap with a paperclip. “Thank you, Faith. I know this was hard for you.”
“No harder than it should be,” she said. “Just remember: what goes in eventually has to come out. Given the way it’s made, your body will start rejecting the device almost immediately. You’ll want to head to Austin as soon as you possibly can to get this taken care of.”
“I know.” I reached out and shook Faith’s hand. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Jason. Just do what you have to do and come back alive.”
2
“You know,” Guy said, contemplating Aerick’s sleeping form on the new but undressed mattress. “You could always go without him.”
“That’s something you would do,” I said, not bothering to contemplate whether or not the comment would sting.
Guy said nothing. Rather, he looked up at me with his shocking blue eyes and nodded when the reality of the situation began to set in. “Yeah,” he said. “That is something I would do.”
“I know he’s concerned about what’ll happen after I go with the Kaldr,” I said.
“If you go with the Kaldr,” Guy corrected.
“That’s entirely dependent on whether or not Scarlet can get a shot off when it shows up.”
“Still—you shouldn’t go willingly.”
“We’re going to be watched, Guy. Like rabbits.”
“By the hawks ready to swoop in,” he sighed. “Yeah. I know.”
“Which is why I don’t want you to put all your faith in Scarlet. Save a little for me, ok?”
“All right. I will.” He reached out to run a hand across my right arm and sighed as his thumb fingered the knot of scar tissue beneath it. “He ever ask you about this?”
“No,” I said.
“Texas gentleman, that one is.”
“Not many like him,” I replied, frowning as Aerick shivered, attempting to draw a blanket that was not there around him, then shifting into a fetal position. I stood and began to make my way toward the mattress. “I should get in with him,” I said. “Try and warm him up.”
“Don’t,” Guy said. “There’s a chance he might thrash about and hurt you. I’ll do it.”
“Are you—”
Guy shook his head. He reached down, grabbed a blanket off the ottoman, then stripped his shirt over his head before settling down beside Aerick, who instantly sunk back against Guy’s body. “Go relax,” he said as he threw the blanket over the two of them. “I’ll take care of him.”
With a nod, I turned and made my way out of the bedroom, but not before I saw Guy wrap his arms around Aerick’s ribcage and draw him against his body.
After settling down on the couch, I lay down, closed my eyes, and waited for sleep to take me.
It came swiftly.
3
“Hey,” a voice said. “Jason. You ok?”
I opened my eyes to find Aerick standing above me. Face alight with worry, lips curled into a frown, the young man sighed as he reached down to touch my face. “You’re awake,” he smiled.
“Yeah,” I said.
“How’re you feeling?”
“Sore, but… not really in much pain.”
“I’m happy to hear that. Want me to help you sit up?”
I accepted his help without question, grimacing as the strain in motion caused the flesh wound to flare in pain. In response, Aerick darted into the kitchen to grab me some painkillers and a glass of water.
“What time is it?” I asked, looking out at the nearby window, where darkness reigned supreme.
“Just after sunset,” Aerick replied, nodding as I downed the pills. “I just got back from dinner.”
“How’re you feeling?” I asked.
“Tired, but ok.” Aerick glanced toward the doorway. “Guy’s been worried. Pacing the halls.”
“He’s nervous,” I replied.
“That’s obvious,” Aerick said. “Aren’t you?”
I wasn’t sure what I was. I was anxious for sure, but nervous? If I was, I didn’t want to admit it—especially not to Aerick—but if I wasn’t, then, well… what did that mean? That I had already resigned myself to my fate? I wasn’t going to die. I was going to go in, lure the Kaldr out of hiding, and then, with Scarlet, Guy, Aerick and Shadow’s help, kill and remove any evidence of the crime. Wasn’t I?
You don’t know, that little devil on my shoulder kept wanting to say. You could go to Austin and die and wouldn’t even know it.
It could happen so fast. The Banshee had attacked me in the blink of an eye, in the middle of an underground compound. Above, out in the open—
I shook my head.
Aerick frowned and sat down on the couch next to me. “You know you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Aerick said. “We don’t need to go to Austin and lure the Kaldr out of hiding.”
“Yes we do, Aerick.”
“You know they’re going to attack anyway once we kill the Kaldr.”
“I know.”
“Then why go to Austin in the first place?”
“Because that monster is still killing innocent people,” I replied, turning my eyes up to face Aerick. “If it hadn’t’ve been for Guy, I’d be in the nuthouse—or worse: dead. And that’s only because I got lucky. Those other people… those other men…”
I didn’t want to think of them—frozen, bloated, gangrene in complexion and resembling something like mummified corpses pulled from the permafrost of the Russian arctic. The man Guy had killed had died so quickly—had, in but a moment, been completely frozen to death—so to think what powers a fully-fledged Kaldr could have against another person, let alone a human…
I sighed.
Aerick set a hand on my knee and drew closer. “I know you want to do this,” Aerick said. “And now I know for certain that there’s no way I’m going to be able to talk you out of it.”
“There’s not.”
“I just want you to promise me something before we go through with this.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“If you get captured,” Aerick said, “and you can’t get away…” He closed his eyes.
He didn’t need to finish.
I already knew what he was asking.
Were I to get captured, and were I to be unable to escape, I would kill myself in order to keep from being tortured. How was a matter up for debate, but regardless, I couldn’t question it.
I leaned forward, wrapped my arms around Aerick, and waited for the pang of hurt to dissipate.
It didn’t.
4
We waited until my wound had healed to begin preparations for our departure. Armed with cash, credit cards, fake IDs and alternate license plates, the five of us loaded into the motorized home with little more than goodbyes and began to make our way back to where my journey had all began.
Austin.
It would take a little more than an hour for us to pass into the city limits. Having been away for months, the idea was utterly terrifying, to the point where, within the first ten minutes, I began to have a panic attack. My heart raced, my blood pulsed in my ears. Heat spread throughout my chest and caused my breaths to come in hard and desperate beats. Their staccato was monstrous within the silent space, comparable to an elephant trampling through the vehicle and tearing everything apart, and in that moment I thought I would simply die, such was the pace of it.
When finally I was able to get myself under control, Scarlet, Aerick and Guy’s eyes were all set on me. Even Shadow—driving—briefly turned his head to examine me.
“Panic attack?” Scarlet asked.
&
nbsp; “Yeah,” I replied. “How’d you know?”
“I used to have them a while back. Back when… well…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“They were almost impossible to bring her down from,” Shadow said, keeping a steady pace on the interstate as we continued to speed along 290.
“I’d laugh, cry, think I was dying because of how hard my heart was beating. Then I’d get angry—because I realized that I wasn’t supposed to be having these sort of feelings. I was young, healthy—at least physically. So you know what I did with them? I used them. I turned that raw, hard energy into rage, and used it to kill anything evil that got in my way.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to kill the Kaldr on my own,” I admitted. “Especially if the Sanguine swoop in on us.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Aerick said. “To watch your back if anything happens.”
“Which something most assuredly will,” Scarlet said. She pulled one of her guns from their holster and ejected the cartridge to ensure that it was still loaded. “I won’t let anything happen to you if I can help it, but I won’t guarantee you’ll make it out of this alive.”
“I know.”
“So be prepared for anything. Sanguine, Kaldr, rogue Howlers. Hell—there may even be witches.”
“Witches?” I asked.
“If you can imagine it,” Guy replied, “or have read any folktale about it, it probably exists.”
“Santa Claus?” I asked.
“Not real,” Scarlet said. “I’d know because I asked.”
I snorted.
If anything, I would die knowing the truth.
5
We pulled off along Pleasant Valley Road that afternoon and began the long and perilous wait for nightfall. Concerned about the impending events, I watched as the waters as they lapped against the nearby shoreline and admired the handsome bodies that passed on their afternoon jogs. Sweat gleaming, bodies glistening, hair slicked against foreheads and muscles laid bare for the world to see—the men were exotic: something to be admired in a land where their existence was more than dangerous. They wouldn’t have been caught dead running this path during the night, as open and clear to the lakeside as it was. Even the graffiti covered block of stone nearby wouldn’t have shielded them from the eyes of something that could sweep in from above.
“And swallow them whole,” I whispered under my breath.
From my place beside the motor home’s window, I sighed and sauntered into the living area, where I collapsed upon the crescent-shape couch and leaned against the table before it. I desperately wanted to sleep—to block out the world and all its struggles—but I knew it wouldn’t happen. Even if I somehow managed to doze off on this table I knew I would simply wake from nightmares—of beautiful happenstance where I, Jason DePella, was running along the midnight shore, only to be attacked and killed by something I never even had the chance to see.
The camper door opened to reveal Aerick, shortly followed by Scarlet. “If we move the camper to the opposite side of the street,” she said, pointing to the nearby firefighting training tower, “I should be able to run reconnaissance easily enough.”
“How do you plan on killing the Kaldr from so far away?”
She leaned under a nearby seat and pulled from the shadows a long, rectangular crate. Once Aerick had closed the door behind them, she opened the weapons case to reveal a sniper rifle, black as night and with a deathly scope atop it.
“You know how to shoot that?” Guy asked as he looked at the substantial weapon.
“I don’t like to admit it,” Scarlet said, “but I’ve had to kill some humans in the past. This is the easiest way to do it.” She slapped the butt of the rifle before stroking its length from tail to muzzle-tipped head. “Fast, quiet, and to the point.”
“What happens if you miss?” Aerick asked.
“We’re fucked,” Scarlet said. “Or I get another shot off. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I won’t miss.”
“And if Sanguine or other monsters descend on us?” I asked.
“Or the cops,” Aerick added.
“We’ll kill the former,” Scarlet replied.
“And wipe the latter,” Shadow finished.
“Shadow can wipe from distances. So even if a body is recovered—which I’ll try to make sure there isn’t—he’ll be able to erase any memory anyone happens to have of us being in the area.”
“And the people who have been passing the camper as they’ve run or driven past?”
“Remember that?” Shadow asked.
“Remember what?” I frowned.
The Wiper smiled. “Exactly,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to discern what he’d just done, then came to the conclusion that he’d erased a part of my memory so well I thought it inconsequential. Rather than question him further, I nodded my approval and turned to look out the nearby window.
A woman—who’d stopped to look upon the nearby camper—blinked, then turned and continued her jog without a second glance back.
“It’s like we’re not even here,” Aerick said with awe in his voice.
“That’s the point,” Shadow said, setting a hand on the shorter man’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. By the time we’re finished, no one will even remember we were here.”
Except, I wanted to add, the Sanguine.
6
Night fell and with it rose the brief glimmer of the moon. Shining upon Lady Bird Lake like an opalescent gem within the sky, its bone-white countenance lit the waters in a somber manner—much, I imagined, like the floodlights would when looking for bodies along the lake.
“Well,” Aerick said. “Here goes nothing.”
He stretched his arms out in his tight-fitting tank and adjusted his low-riding shorts at the waist before stepping out of the motor home and into the night. I—dressed much the same, except shirtless—stepped out behind him, shortly followed by Guy: who, resembling a Greek God, would immediately attract attention.
“You ready for this?” he asked, setting a hand on my upper back.
“Yeah,” I said, grimacing at the chill that radiated beneath his touch. “I am.”
It’d been decided, long before it had ever grown dark, that Aerick would be the first to lead the rush. Being the smallest and therefore the fastest, he would provide the best cover for anything that should happen to try to intercept us. I, meanwhile, would follow shortly behind, while Guy would keep a fair distance behind to us from the back. Scarlet would cover us from the top of the vehicle and Shadow would ensure that any who happened to be out so late at night would forget who we were.
All in all, it seemed like the perfect plan.
Seemed, I had to keep reminding myself.
Anything could go wrong. Anything.
With that thought in mind, I beckoned Aerick forward.
The young man looked once, then twice before taking off across the street.
I followed.
Memories flooded my conscience the moment my feet touched down on the hard brown earth that lined the shoreline, the crunch of gravel beneath my feet the sound of a past whose remnants were quickly beginning to fade away. I remembered running here in the evenings—when, after dusk, I would strip my shirt from my body and jog to the sounds of the Billboard Top 100 and electronica.
The cool night breeze swept along my sweaty body, instantly inspiring a sense of calm that I knew was unnecessary, and the smell of moisture and pollen in the air was enough to immediately sour my sinuses. I stopped momentarily—sneezed—then lifted my eyes to feel a pair of eyes upon me.
Aerick—who’d jogged much further ahead of me—turned to look at me. “Hey!” he cried, still jogging in place. “Are you coming or not?”
“Yeah,” I said, unable to shake the feeling that consumed my being. “I am.”
By this time, Guy had reached me. He paused—stretching his hands over his head to cool his undeniably-sweaty underarms—before placing a hand on my
shoulder. “Hey,” he said.
“Do you feel that?” I asked.
“That feeling of being watched?”
“Yeah.”
“Aerick!” I cried, raising my voice so the younger man could hear. “Come back here a sec!”
“Why?” he asked. “What’s wr—”
Something tackled him to the ground.
It happened so fast I could barely comprehend it. The figure—dark as night and twice Aerick’s size—was gargantuan in comparison to the man who currently dwelled beneath it: kicking, scratching and screaming as it attempted to assault him.
I took off into a run, slicking a dagger along the sweat on my arm and freezing it above my hand. I had almost reached him when something sunk its claws into my shoulders and lifted me into the air.
“Jason!” I heard Guy cry. “Jason!”
I struggled, thrashing about as its talons sunk deeper. Its wicked screech as it swayed toward the lake was cut off only by the sound of someone screaming.
“Help Aerick!” I cried, reaching up to take hold of the gnarled, chicken-like feet holding me.
“Wretch!” a shrill feminine voice screeched.
I stabbed at the right foot with my dagger, desperate to maintain hold so my shoulders wouldn’t be ripped open.
I stabbed.
The creature screeched.
She barreled toward the lake as my dagger sunk into the five-fingered foot ripe with claws.
I felt something in my left shoulder give way and screamed.
The creature laughed.
Its hold on me loosened.
Soon I was falling—dozens of feet within the air—toward the lake below me.
I didn’t want to look down.
I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t react.
I hit the water with enough force that I almost blacked out.
Swim! my conscience demanded.
I struggled to tread water as the pain encompassing the wounds on both shoulders began to overwhelm me. Frigid cold in the night and unable to get my bearings in the trembling tide, I grappled—like a dumb child unable to swim—for nothing. I took a deep breath when I was submerged beneath the water and grappled for the surface.