by David Wright
“And look at these,” she said, pointing to the purple bookcase beside her bed. “I have all my favorite books, and even found some new ones!” She started holding up kids’ books one by one — some he remembered her mentioning before, some he’d had memories of that he’d gotten from her when he saved her life, and still others he’d never heard of. As she went on about each of her books, Abigail’s face grew increasingly animated, her voice slightly squeaky and cheeks pink, an undeniable glimmer in her eyes.
In that moment, knowing how sad Larry said she was, and how happy she now seemed, John felt guilt crashing on him like a two-ton slab.
This is how she’d be all the time if I was here.
John tried not to think of what might have been. That was a pointless, painful exercise in futility. The only thing he could do was try and make things right. Find Hope, then take Abigail, and Larry if he wanted to join them, and run somewhere far from the madness.
As Abigail prattled on at a million words per minute, John wanted to hug her again and promise her things would get better. He was going to make things right.
I can’t make promises to her again — it’s unfair. I just have to do what I need to do, then come back and deliver. If I break another promise, it’ll break her heart.
It was hard not to promise, and harder still to shift their conversation to what Larry had told him downstairs, but eventually John steered their exchange to the fire, and to Abigail’s breakdown in the restaurant.
They sat beside one another on her bed as she told him everything that happened. After Abigail finished, she looked at him, her eyes going from happy and excited to sad and scared.
“Larry said we might have to move. Do you think we’ll have to?”
“Yes,” John said.
Abigail burst into tears. “But I was just starting to like it here. I’ve even made friends with this girl Katya.”
“I heard,” John said.
“Then why do we have to leave? Are the police going to find out it was me?”
“I don’t know if the police will trace it back to you, but there are bad people who will be looking for you once they hear about this.”
“I didn’t mean to do it,” Abigail said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, John.”
“I know,” he said, feeling naked next to her sorrow.
Abigail grabbed three tissues from the box on the top of her nightstand and blew her nose a few times before her eyes finally met his. “Am I broken?” she asked, clearly trying to stop her tears.
John tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help it. Abigail’s question, and the way she asked it, seemed so innocent, almost cute. It reminded him of just how much of a child she still was, despite all she’d been through, all they’d been through.
John pulled Abigail into another oversized hug. “No, Sweetie, you’re not broken. Not at all. Sometimes it’s hard to control the Darkness. I’ll help you work through it, though. I promise.”
Shit, I had to go and use the p-word!
“You will?” Abigail asked, her face still in his chest.
“Yes,” he said, stroking her hair until she finally fell asleep, a few minutes before he drifted and joined her in slumber.
**
John woke feeling watched.
He opened his eyes and saw Abigail’s big brown eyes staring back at him. She smiled. “Did you know you snore?” she asked.
“I do not,” he said.
“Yes, you do,” she nodded. “Like a big, giant bear.” She imitated a bear loudly snoring and said, “That’s you!”
“No, it’s not,” John said, reaching over and tickling her sides.
Abigail erupted into giggles, her raspy laugh even more infectious than Tiny’s deep booming guffaw. John hadn’t been around many children, but there was something about Abigail’s giggle that sounded like liquid happiness.
“Stop it!” she said laughing, and kicking his shins.
She then started staring at the blanket on the bed like she was trying to work up the nerve to ask him something, or tell him something. She was distracted by something, something he felt that had happened at the house when she set the fire. He was about to ask her what it was when a knock at her door surprised them both. Larry called from behind the door. “You two awake?”
“Yeah,” John said. “Come in.”
Larry opened the door, looking like he was about to explode with exciting news. “Cromwell is in town. Tiny’s got some men with eyes on the place. They say he’s there, and alone.”
“Great! How far away is it?”
“About 40 minutes. I say we get going now.”
“We?” John said.
“Hell yeah, I’m coming and don’t even try and talk me out of it because the place has security, and you need my help getting past it.”
“Where are you going?” Abigail asked.
John said, “I’m trying to find someone, and we found a man who might be able to help us.”
“Is it dangerous?” she asked.
John didn’t want to lie to her. “It might be, but not too dangerous.”
“You just got back, I don’t want you to leave again!” Abigail whined, wrapping her arms around John’s torso. “Please, don’t go. Let Larry and Tiny go. They can find the man, and you can stay here with me!”
John looked into Larry’s eyes, feeling bad that Abigail didn’t seem to mind if his best friend risked his life while being scared that John might. Larry shrugged, nodding to say he understood.
“I need to go, Abigail. But I’ll be fine. I prom … er, I swear.”
“What am I supposed to do while you guys are all away?” Abigail asked. “What if something happens?” She swallowed, suddenly looking twice as scared. “What if I do something in my sleep again?”
Larry said, “Katya said she’ll watch you. I’ll bring you to her place, and you two can have a sleepover until we get back. Does that sound fun?”
“What if I fall asleep and wake up killing Katya?” Abigail asked, eyes wide, terrified.
“You’re not going to hurt her,” Larry said. “Besides, we’re not going to be gone long enough for you to get tired and go to sleep.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “We’ll come and get you in a few hours.”
“Maybe you should both stay here,” John suggested.
“No,” Larry said. “You want to get past Cromwell’s security, right? You need my help, unless you plan on storming inside. A guy like that, I’m sure he has a safe room.”
“You sure you can get past his security?” John asked.
“I’m like freaking Rain Man when it comes to that shit, dude.” Larry said. “Also, I’ve got just the thing to keep Abigail awake if she’s worried about sleepwalking.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“These special brownies,” he said smiling. “Not those kind of special brownies,” he added, winking at John. “These are energy brownies, a recipe I picked up from this Otherworlder chick a few years back. “Could keep you up for three days without a yawn. But it’s perfectly safe for Abi.”
“OK,” John said, then turned to Abigail. “Everything will be OK.”
She smiled. “Well, I do want to see Katya.”
“We gonna go or what?” Tiny was standing in Abigail’s doorway. “And did someone say something about special brownies?”
John followed Larry and Tiny into the living room to go over details, feeling like he was forgetting something he’d wanted to ask Abigail.
* * * *
CHAPTER 6 — Jacob
Three of the five addresses on the vessel list were within Washington State. The fourth was smack dab in the middle of Nevada. The fifth belonged to Hope, whose location was unknown. Two of Jacob’s Harbinger soldiers drove out to Nevada to retrieve the vessel and bring the crystal back. Two other agents were handling the other Washington vessels.
He saved the closest of the three in-state addresses for himse
lf. His targeted vessel was a man named Albert Koenig, a 45-year-old operations consultant who lived in an apartment 20 minutes from Duncan Alderman’s mansion. It was still early when Jacob arrived with Mr. Dark, a devoted Otherworlder who provided clouds and sufficient shade on demand in addition to his job as Jacob’s right-hand man and driver.
Jacob was surprised, if not slightly startled, to find Mr. Dark still waiting to serve him after he returned. Most of Jacob’s crew, at least among those who had survived the firefight at the compound, had fled to parts unknown. Mr. Dark held things in place, waiting for the day when his boss would return.
Mr. Dark had done well the past year, continuing to recruit and pay new Harbinger members and soldiers, while sewing a thousand seeds of dissent among Otherworlders as Omega initiated their campaign against aliens, half-breeds, and all known associates.
It didn’t take long to rally enough soldiers to take over Alderman’s place once Jacob returned. Soon, Harbinger would be legions strong, and Jacob’s people, the vampiric Valkoer, on Otherworld would finally find the freedom they had waited centuries for.
“Do you need me?” Mr. Dark rasped from the driver’s side, beneath a billowing umbrella of whirling shadows.
“No,” Jacob said, opening the door and setting his heel on the concrete. “That won’t be necessary. Wait here. I’ll be finished shortly.”
Jacob closed the car door, stepped out from the billowing shroud and into the night. He crossed the sweeping lawn that circled the perimeter of Cooper Arms, the opulent apartment building where Koenig made his home. The doorman nodded at Jacob, looking slightly baffled but mostly dazed. Jacob nodded as he walked past him.
Inside, a man wearing a well-fitted, hunter-green blazer with thin, gold stripes circling the cuff, nervously fondled the knot on his tie, swallowing as Jacob approached him. “May I help you?” he asked.
Within a heartbeat, Jacob was inches away, leaning over the counter and into the man’s face as he swallowed again, then again, looking as if his throat had a golf ball riding the geyser from a broken faucet.
“Yes,” Jacob said. “I’ll be going up to the seventh floor to see Mr. Koenig. “Would you be so kind as to make me a key?”
The man stared at Jacob without any idea that his next few seconds determined the rest of his life. If he was only a stupid animal, like most humans and exactly as Jacob expected, he would make the keycard for Jacob. By the time the elevator dinged and Jacob stepped inside, the man would be well on his way to forgetting what had happened and what he’d done, just as the doorman outside had already forgotten Jacob.
If the man was the rare fighter with courage, he would sense the danger and make it his death. A fight with Jacob would last only a second, and the aftermath would see Jacob that much stronger as he rode to the seventh floor and met Koenig.
“Of course,” the man said like an automaton, averting Jacob’s eyes. He went to a drawer, pulled it open, grabbed a blank card, slipped it into the machine’s mouth, then tucked it into a keycard-sized envelope and handed it across the counter to Jacob.
Jacob smiled as he took the card from the man. “Thank you, Mr. Wyatt,” he said, glancing at the man’s nameplate, finding his eyes despite Wyatt’s resistance, then holding them to stir confusion enough to know all memory would surely be lost.
“Of course, sir,” Mr. Wyatt said, his voice emotionless.
Jacob turned from the counter, crossed the lobby, pushed a button and waited 30 seconds, then stepped into the elevator. Jacob held Mr. Wyatt’s thoughts until the elevator doors shut and then he felt them fray to nothing. As Jacob’s elevator ascended he could feel Mr. Wyatt swatting at the surface for truth, but by the time the doors opened to the seventh floor, Mr. Wyatt had already drowned beneath it.
Jacob stepped out from the elevator, walked to the end of the hallway, and slipped the keycard inside the door.
Because it was late, Jacob expected to find Koenig sleeping in a back bedroom, but he wasn’t. He was making filthy love to his woman instead. Their bloated bodies were naked, pressed into one another and turning the sofa into a sticky mess. Koenig’s eyes widened in horror as he turned in mid-thrust to see Jacob racing toward them.
Koenig screamed — even louder than his woman — as Jacob picked him up by the throat, dug his fingers deep into his flesh for a second, then lifted him high and threw him across the living room.
Koenig landed with a loud snap across the room as his back spattered against a thick square column at the apartment’s center. He smacked into the sharp corner, then fell to the hardwood floor gasping for air in a fetal ball.
The filthy woman tried to run. Jacob left Koenig gasping as if he were a wad of trash to be tossed later, then raised his hand and hurled a blast of energy at her feet knocking her to the ground. She fell, face first into the coffee table, blood gushing from her mouth as she reached up to feel for broken teeth. He looked down, and yelled, “Do you want to live?”
“Y ... yyy ... yyyessss,” the woman whimpered through a mouth of blood.
“Then have a seat on the couch,” Jacob hissed. “Otherwise you die while he watches.”
The woman climbed up to the couch, crying as Jacob turned toward Koenig and approached the column.
He looked down at Koenig with utter curiosity, wondering if such a simple ugly man could possibly know anything about the power inside him. Was he even aware he wasn’t human? No, it did not seem so.
“Do you have any idea what makes you special?” Jacob asked Koenig, who was still writhing on the floor and gasping for breath.
Though Jacob waited, Koenig couldn’t make words.
Finally, Jacob made him an offer. “I understand that it’s difficult to breathe, Mr. Koenig, but I don’t have all night. Do you have any idea why someone like you would be worth the time of someone like me? If you can’t answer in the next few minutes, you’re going to have to watch your woman become my snack.”
The man started gasping faster. He looked seconds from spitting blood.
Jacob turned on his heel, then went to the couch and sat beside the woman on the sofa, running his long gloved finger up and down the length of her pudgy naked leg, smiling as he did so, inhaling the room’s discomfort like the scent of a rose. He waited for the clock on the wall to lose three minutes, then, quite calmly, said, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Koenig, but you’re all out of time.”
With no more preamble than that, Jacob feasted on the woman, driving pleasure into his body from two sources — one from the woman’s waning life force, the other coming in petrified waves from the miserable man lying in agony on the floor, knowing he was next and wondering why.
Jacob was normally a speedy feeder, but with Koenig going nowhere, and forced to watch the show, he took his sweet time, savoring the seconds until the woman was cindered memory. Once done, he stood from the sofa and returned to the column.
“Hello there,” he smiled, kneeling beside Koenig.
Koenig said nothing.
“Are you certain you have no clue about the magick inside you?”
The man’s hollow and terrified eyes said he knew nothing.
“Oh, well then,” Jacob said before making Koenig his next feast.
The man was surprisingly tasty, with many dark secrets and evils, but disappointing, without any memories that might point Jacob to a new and freshly discovered truth.
Who was this man, and who determined he was worthy of being a vessel?
Jacob shoved his fist into Koenig’s withered body, then waited for the energy to find him. Once he felt the pulse of energy warming his palm, Jacob pulled his hand from the corpse. He opened his palm and a rainbow of colors leapt from inside, sparking from the center of the bloodied crystal which looked just like Shadow’s, which he now wore around his neck.
Jacob stared at the gem for several seconds before wrapping his fist back tightly around it. He lowered his fist and closed his eyes, feeling a massive rush of power run through his body from both the crysta
l in his hand and the one around his neck, as if they were working in concert. The energy was different than the souls he fed on. This was pure power unlike anything he’d ever felt, undiluted with the tainted memories of the souls he took. The energy was part of the wizard’s essence, he realized. And once he found the rest of the crystals, he would be unstoppable.
Four more, and the world would bow to him.
* * * *
CHAPTER 7 — Hannah
“Who is this?” Hannah asked.
“This is Sergei,” the man said. “Who is this?”
“This is Hope,” she answered, not that she believed she was Hope, but she needed to know more, and this man seemed to recognize her voice.
“Hope!” Sergei said, his voice ringing with excitement as if he were an old friend not seen in decades. “It’s been so long! How are you? How have you been? Where are you at? Oh, my God, Stefan is going to die when he gets back.”
“I’m not good,” she said, honestly. “Listen, I need to ask you something.”
“What is it?” Sergei said, voice shifting from hyper to apprehensive.
“How do you know me?”
“What?”
“I had an accident, and don’t remember much. I need you to help me remember.”
“Oh God, are you okay?”
“I’m not hurt, but my memory is spotty. I can’t remember you. Your phone number just sorta came to me.”
“Oh, wow. I saw this on a TV movie of the week once,” Sergei said. After a short pause where he seemed to be thinking, he rattled off a life story fast enough to make Hannah wonder if he’d even drawn a breath between sentences.
“Um, OK, you were the waitress at an Italian restaurant in St. Augustine where Stefan and I used to go to all the time back in the mid-‘90s. The restaurant was called Umberto’s. You were a painter, but had never sold anything. You were sweet, but super shy. Stefan and I were opening an art gallery, and helped you sell your first paintings. Then you met this man, John, and you were sooooo in love! You moved in together, in this cozy little place in the historic district, and then one day you both took off, just vanished. Rumor was you both flew to Italy and decided to marry and live there. I tried calling you, but your phone was disconnected. I tried to find someone who knew how to get a hold of you, but nothing. At first, I was mad you didn’t tell us, but Stefan reminded me that young love is impetuous, and I ought not be so selfish. We still have that painting you did for us, and cash from a few of your paintings which sold after you disappeared. By the way, vanishing was a great way to increase the price of your work!”