by David Wright
In a flash, John saw that one of the monster’s eyes seemed larger than the others, with a deeper amber bleeding from behind its barely open lid. The larger eye made John think of something he should have thought of before.
He brought his fingers together in a point, as a makeshift shiv, and ran straight at the beast, shoving his hand into the monster’s barely open eye.
The creature shrieked, screaming with something that sounded like a train scraping off the side of the rail as everything it ever was or would be shot inside of John.
Its memories were raw, animalistic, a life of brutality and carnal lust, with nary an intelligible thought other than its primal urges. But its power was immense, coursing through John, recharging him more than any human ever could. He let go of the beast and stared down at his hands, shaking with energy he longed to spend on Jacob’s destruction.
Hope stirred on the floor, softly moaning as she looked like she was about to come to. However, when he went to pick her up, she fell back into unconsciousness. With the monster’s strength within him, John could now carry Hope easily. With any luck, they would soon be far from the Building.
Skinner stood looking down at the beast and then back at John until a smile cracked through his lips. He walked over to the elevators, made the top button glow, then turned back to John and said, “Very impressive.”
“Eyes are windows to the soul,” John half-smiled. “I just had to break one.”
They stepped inside the elevator, Skinner first. John’s heart practically pounded as the elevator rose to the roof.
Come on, come on, come on.
He stared down at Hope, flashing back to their last kiss. The final nights they’d spent in an embrace before the world flickered and changed forever. It had been more than a decade since then, but it felt like a lifetime apart.
Jacob was responsible, for every pain that John had ever felt — from the death of his true mother, to the chain of events that sent his brother, Caleb, to Otherworld, forced Hope to have her memory erased and to live apart from John for more than a decade, and turned a child into a vampire.
Jacob was a cancer that destroyed everything he touched.
There’s no way in hell I’ll let him do it again, John vowed as he stared at Hope.
The elevator door dinged open and John carried Hope onto the rooftop, watching her face the entire time, hoping, and fearing, she might wake. Wind whipped through her hair, and John longed to touch it, to run his fingers through it again.
Skinner followed closely behind, pointing ahead to the building’s southern edge which looked down on a smaller six-story bank building. He had to shout over the howling wind. “If you jump over to that roof, you should be able to escape unseen.”
“What about you?” John asked.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll stay here until the smoke clears. Nobody’s looking for me.”
“Thank you,” John said.
Skinner’s eyes suddenly widened at something behind John. The German opened his mouth but was launched through the air, thrown back 10 feet and slammed to the rooftop before he could utter a word.
John turned around and saw Jacob floating in midair, holding a glowing red sphere in his right hand, wielding it like a power stone. Jacob thrust the sphere hand forward, sending John and Hope both flying back hard to the ground. John tried holding onto Hope, but lost his grip, crying out as she flew four feet farther than John, tumbling across the rooftop.
He leapt to his feet, running to her, but hadn’t made it four inches before he was frozen in place, then lifted from the ground by Jacob and his powerful orb. John tried fighting it, to push back with his telekinesis, but Jacob’s power had grown too strong.
“Is that any way to greet your brother?” Jacob asked, grinning with a lunatic’s smile as he spun John around to face him.
John wanted to spit in Jacob’s face, to reach into his chest and pull out his heart, then shove it down his fucking throat. But he was impotent in the stone’s hold.
“You can’t fight me, John. I have the wizard’s power now. Well, nearly all of it. I’ve just one small piece still to get.”
“The hell you will,” John grunted, pushing with all his strength to raise his hands, trying to reach out so he could strangle his brother.
Jacob laughed as John’s hands fluttered helplessly at his sides. Jacob clucked his tongue. “We’re such a stereotypical family, always trying to murder each other. Why must we quarrel so?”
“Typical families don’t kill their mothers and try to murder their brothers.”
“OK,” Jacob laughed. “So, we’re a bit eccentric. But hey, we live and learn, right? Your brother, Caleb, finally came around, after all.”
“What are you talking about?” John asked.
“Oh, you didn’t hear?” Jacob raised his eyebrows in what looked like mock surprise. “Caleb finally saw the light, and realized the righteousness of our cause. He is now sitting at the throne beside Father.”
“Liar.”
“I’m many things,” Jacob said, “but a liar is none among them. Who do you think created the portal to bring me back here?”
John swallowed. “No. Bullshit.”
“Last chance, brother. And may I point out how overly generous I’ve been with my many offers for you to join me, and fight by my side? I’d say that makes me a damned nice, and forgiving, brother, wouldn’t you?”
John said nothing.
“Very well,” Jacob spun John around, just in time to see Hope rising from the ground, blinking as she stood, rubbing a bloody gash on her forehead.
She looked up, her eyes haunted. She stared as if she were looking at a ghost, ignoring the floating man behind him, and said, “John?”
She remembers!
The crystal in her chest began glowing with a red so bright it could be seen through her skin. Jacob’s cackle preceded the horrible.
Hope looked down, staring at the glowing in her skin, eyes wide in horror. She clutched at her chest, screaming in pain as the crystal moved beneath her flesh, pressing up and trying to rip right out of her body.
“Stop it!” John screamed, unable to move, unable to turn to face Jacob — unable to do anything but watch. He could feel Jacob sucking his life from him, weakening him the longer that he held him in his grasp. The more John tried to break free, the more energy Jacob withdrew from him.
The crystal ripped through her like a gunshot, the gem flying through the air leaving a bloody arc behind it as it went into Jacob’s orb. Hope stood momentarily, stunned, or in shock, before her eyes closed and she collapsed to the ground.
John screamed.
Jacob released his hold of John and allowed him to fall to the ground as the orb grew bright red, pulsating as wind swirled in a building tempest around them. John tried to stand, to go to Hope, but was immediately sent to the ground by a gust of wind that knocked his feet out from under him. Rolling thunder exploded, each boom louder than the last, as if the world itself was exploding around them.
John looked up to see a swirling darkness gathering above them, blotting out the stars. The darkness was then sliced by bolts of bright purple lightning crackling in an ever growing circle, starting small but quickly spreading, splitting the world behind Jacob into an ever wider aperture until another portal opened.
John managed to get up, scrambling to Hope’s side as she lay in a pool of blood spreading into a lake. “John?” she said, confused, and lips trembling.
Tears streamed down John’s face as he looked at Hope’s wound. She was losing too much blood. Too fast. She would die if he didn’t do something.
He thought of the healing spell he once taught Larry, but shook his head knowing Hope’s wound was too deep for a spell. He would need it, plus everything he had inside his own soul. If he had to drain himself to death to save her, he would.
And if he failed, he didn’t want to live, anyway.
John, ignoring Jacob, started reciting the spell, holding his han
ds high above Hope’s chest. Behind him, he heard Jacob say, “Goodbye, brother. Until we meet again.”
The portal closed and Jacob disappeared, taking the insane weather with him.
John continued reciting the spell, holding his hand over Hope’s chest, trying to summon the energy, but nothing came. He was too weak, drained by Jacob and the drugs before that.
“Please, God!” he screamed into the heavens above.
John tried healing Hope again, repeating his incantations which hit the charred and still slightly purple air as only words.
Suddenly, Skinner was standing beside him, staring down at Hope, his black ringed eyes filled with sorrow.
“Here,” he said, holding his hand out to John. “Take my soul.”
“What?”
“Take my soul. You are the only one who can save the world. I have family here. If Jacob returns, they’ll become either slaves or cattle. Please. You can’t allow that to happen. Take my soul, save her, then go slay the monster.”
John’s eyes met the man’s. “Thank you,” he said as he reached out to take Skinner’s hand. Skinner’s soul immediately followed.
* * * *
CHAPTER 7 — Larry
Larry paced the house, waiting for Abi.
He’d driven all over town looking for her. He’d even put out word to Tiny’s crew, after telling them that their boss was dead, a fact they were none too happy to hear about.
Larry didn’t know what to do. John and Abi were both gone, and he couldn’t take a chance that one or both might show up at the house in need of his help.
Still, he felt helpless.
Larry looked at his watch for the hundred-thousandth time, wanting to punch something hard, or kick something harder.
“FUCK!” he screamed to no one.
The sun would be up soon, and Abi might be dead when it was. She had no way of protecting herself out there, wherever she was. For that matter, John might be a dead man, too.
Larry shuddered.
“FUCK!!”
He imagined Abi injured, lying in a gutter as the sun came up. Or …
Then he realized with a disturbing certainty — perhaps she was chasing death. Maybe she was out there right now waiting for the sun to come and end her misery. Katya had been such a happy part of Abi’s life. It must’ve been an accident, just like the neighbors.
He remembered when he asked to join Johnny and Tiny on the trip to Cromwell’s. Abi had begged John not to go. Had said she was scared — what if she killed again?
That’s exactly what happened. She can’t control it.
Jesus, I’ve got to find her.
“Larry!” a voice suddenly in his head.
It was John.
“Larry, I need your help, now!”
* * * *
CHAPTER 8 — Hope
There was light and sound and some sort of memory, but all of them mingled together into a muddy, white sludge. The white light turned brighter, until it was almost painful. Then it softened to a kiss.
Hope saw something impossible — a monster who looked like a tree with way too many eyes — and the tall skinny German, then …
Nothing.
Then she saw John. Impossibly standing in front of her. They were on a roof, up high. She called out his name, confused. Then she saw the bald man in black robes, somehow floating behind John.
She remembered him, too.
She flashed back. He’d called himself a detective a long time ago, had come to her house, asking questions. He’d wanted to talk to John. And when she told John, he freaked out. That’s when he told her everything — what he was. And what he had to do to protect her.
She remembered.
Everything.
Suddenly, she felt a hot pain in her chest and looked down, and saw a red glowing in her skin.
What the hell?
Then unimaginable pain, worse than anything she’d ever felt. Her chest an explosion turning everything to black, until the white light finally came back, bringing with it her true name.
“Hope … ”
Again and again it repeated.
“Hope, Hope, Hope … ”
Hope opened her eyes to John’s hazy face staring down at her.
“It’s you,” she whispered, remembering both her past decade as Hannah, and her life before, when she lived in Florida with John.
She remembered their parting, and what he told her — that he was a vampire, and that she would have to have her memory erased.
She sat up, her head spinning and in pain. “You? You did this to me?”
He looked wounded or confused, she wasn’t sure which. Then he spoke, “Oh, God, I’ve missed you so much, Hope.”
She swallowed, tears welling in her eyes. She missed him, too, even if she hadn’t realized it, or her life before this, until now. She reached out to John, to touch his face, but he pulled back as if horrified.
“If we touch, you’ll die,” he said.
“What?”
John explained that he fed through his touch, without any control. Hope recalled something, vague from before, but the memory made it no easier to believe.
“What happened here?” she asked, sitting up and looking down at the ashen corpse on the ground.
“It’ll have to wait,” he said. “Right now, we need to get out of here.”
“Hannah!”
Hope turned and saw Greg slowly approaching, his pistol out but not aimed. Beside him was the man who had wanted to cut her open, Mike Mathews. Behind them, three more men, all dressed in black gear with weapons drawn.
“Get away from her!” Greg screamed at John.
* * * *
CHAPTER 9 — John
John stood, placing himself between Greg, Mathews, and Hope.
“You’re too late,” John shouted over the screaming wind. “Jacob got the crystal and he’s gone back to Otherworld.”
“Bullshit,” Greg said, firing a shot.
The shot ripped into John’s chest. Hope screamed, “Stop!” running to put herself in front of John.
In John’s mind he saw Greg fire his second shot, then watched the bullet sing through the night in slow motion, sailing past its intended target and finding Hope instead. Another wound so soon was a risk he could not allow.
No fucking way.
John reached inside himself, gathered every bit of his Darkness, then screamed, unleashed it in a giant blast of energy directed at the small huddle of men, sending them all stumbling like trees ripped from the ground in a hurricane.
Two of the men in black sailed right over the roof as John raced towards the remaining three men, quickly disarming the final man in black, reaching into his visor and sucking his life in a quick spurt.
John turned to the last two men alive on the rooftop, Greg, still doubled over in pain, and Mike Mathews, aiming his gun at John as rage boiled his face into an ugly shade of red.
Mathews fired three rounds, one which hit John in the jaw, blasting part of his cheekbone off.
The other two bullets sank into John’s chest and shoulder, but he was too amped on adrenaline and raw energy to feel anything other than anger, hate, and thirst for vengeance.
John flashed back on Mathews shooting the poor woman, Emilia, who had lost her daughter. He felt her memories, the pain of losing Kayla, and the betrayal of a man who had sworn to protect the nation. John locked his eyes on Mathews. He wanted no part of the man’s vile recall — wanted no part of his destructive past. He only wanted him dead.
John grabbed the gun from Mike’s hands, breaking free before his touch could kill the man, then turned the gun back on Mathews, pointed it straight between his eyes and pulled the trigger twice, blowing Mathews’ face and brain to bits.
“Fucker,” John said as he dropped the gun in disgust.
He turned to the last man alive, Greg, the liar who had been sleeping with Hope. And he had brought her here to do what? Turn her over to Mathews and his corrupt regime?
; Greg dropped his gun, sliding it past John, and immediately began to plead for his life. “Please, please,” he begged holding his hands up, palms out in front of him.
Greg turned to Hope and cried, “Please, Hannah, I love you.”
John looked back at Hope, having almost forgotten she was there in his moment of rage. He felt like a kid caught killing a bird. Her eyes were wide, scared, and filled with tears, many falling freely down her face.
John could only imagine what she was thinking about him right now, wondering what sort of monster she had been stupid enough to once love. He wondered if she would beg him to spare Greg.
He didn’t want to. John wanted to sap the man’s life to nothing, wanted to pluck the memories from his head, memories of a life stolen with Hope, so he could live through those lost years, even if only vicariously.
Greg cried, “Please, Hannah, I love you. I’d never let them hurt you.”
Hope approached them, her eyes locked on John as if trying to reconcile the man she loved with the monster he was, staring as if seeing straight inside him, to the Darkness, the part of himself he had for so long buried.
She’d never seen this side of him — the monster unleashed, the feeding frenzy, the destruction, the horror. Yet, here he was, raw and exposed as the monster he was. John felt more vulnerable than he’d ever felt in his life, as if a single word from Hope could destroy him more assuredly than a supernova.
“Please,” Greg begged again.
John, having heard enough of Greg’s whining, turned to the man and yelled, “Would you shut up?”
A gunshot punctured the pre-dawn.
John turned to see Hannah holding the pistol Greg had dropped to the ground. John turned from Hannah and back to Greg, just in time to see the bloody hole in his face as he fell to the ground.
“My name’s not Hannah,” Hope said, then fell to her knees, staring at what she’d done, stunned and silent.
John stood still, uncertain, wanting to comfort his love, but not knowing if she was disgusted by him, or maybe by what she’d done.