by J. L. Murray
"Esme?" said Dekker, looking from me to her and back again. And then Esme crumpled, falling to the floor silently, her body vibrating. Will was on the floor in a moment. He touched her face, but pulled his hand back like he'd been burned.
"Jesus, she's hot. She's burning up." He looked at his fingers where he'd touched her. Esme didn't say anything else, just closed her eyes, her face turning an even brighter red, smoke rising from her hair..
"Are you doing this?" Dekker said, watching Esme. "Frankie, are you doing this to her?"
"I don't know," I said, backing away.
"What's happening?" Will screamed at us. "Call a fucking ambulance! What's happening to my wife?"
Dekker looked at me and I couldn't breathe. My back hit the door and I reached around for the handle. I could feel the darkness moving inside me, but not like the other times I'd used the power, intentional or not. I couldn't say for sure it wasn't me and didn't want to take the chance. Esme had a family, a real life.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm really sorry." I met Dekker's eyes and he nodded, as if in agreement, and I turned and ran from the bar.
ELEVEN
The ravens were in a frenzy as I ran across the parking lot. They were screaming all around me, forming a funnel of feathers and claws, the rain instantly soaking my clothes. One of the ravens scratched my cheek as it screamed by. I felt the force inside me, pulsing and throbbing. I looked up and saw the source of the ravens' uneasiness. The biggest owl I'd ever seen was diving into the cloud of black feathers and ripping at whatever it could with its great clawed feet, then flapping its wings and disappearing.
I put my hands over my ears, unable to bear the screaming of the birds any longer. I opened my mouth and screamed right along with them. The black cyclone around me seemed to explode, the birds flying fast in every direction, a great owl alone in the sky, flapping its wings above me. It looked like the same owl Dekker had seen out my motel room window. The rain stopped suddenly.
I scanned the darkness. I could feel something nearby besides the owl. I stepped forward, water hitting me, and realized the rain hadn’t stopped. It was suspended in mid-air.
"Frankie Mourning, she is coming, coming, coming," said a wheezy, whispery voice in my ear and in my head. Without even looking I knew it was a wraith.
"Are you trying to save me?" I said, glaring into the darkness.
In my ear again came the reply, "We follow you now, now, now. You cannot win against her, not yet. Not even Abel, Abel, Abel can."
"Abel's a coward," I said. "He wouldn't even face me."
"Because you are stronger. Do not let it touch you."
"What?" I finally turned and flinched a little, the wraith closer than I had ever been to one. The nothing face in the cloak made of shadows.
"If it touches you, you may not come back, back, back."
"Then help me," I said. "Help me now if you're following me."
"We are messengers, we cannot fight."
"Then I have no use for you," I said, turning away. "Just take your cloak off and have a life. You're human under there, aren't you?"
"Only one of us has ever been human, human, human," said the wraith. "We are made of darkness, just like you. We are made of shadows."
I turned to look at the wraith, surprised, but it was gone. I looked up and the owl dropped a black lump from its talons and it fell, bouncing on the pavement at my feet, splashing through the suspended raindrops. I crouched down to look. It was a raven, its eyes already starting to go filmy, its neck clearly broken. There was a shock of white feathers between his eyes, and I knew it was the same raven who had been following me all this time. As I picked it up and cradled it in my hands, the darkness inside of me rumbled, seeming to rattle in my rib cage. I didn't understand why, but I was angry. So angry that bile rose in my throat and I feared I'd throw up again. A fire raged in my belly as I looked at that pitiful dead raven. It may have been just a bird, I realized, but it was my bird. It had been loyal to me. I glared up at the owl.
"You'd better show yourself right now or I'm going to turn your fucking owl into dust." And then she was there, shimmering in the dark, for a moment as bright as an angel. She appeared in front of me, the figure that spooked me in the mirror, the same figure I'd seen from afar in the parking lot. The longer I looked at her, though, the less she looked an angel and more like a horror.
The white cloth covering her head looked like a burial shroud, with only a suggestion of a face behind it. Her white robes moved continually, tattered and black on the ends, and a crown sat upon her silken head, woven tatters of deepest black that fluttered in the wind. The tatters looked suspiciously like the tendrils of darkness that seeped out of my body when the power got too strong. It was seeping now, the darkness wrapping around my legs and arms and neck, creeping up through my hair. And something was happening to the air; there was a quickening inside of me, a thrill of energy that seemed to nudge at the darkness already twisting my insides. The owl was flapping in mid-air, among the raindrops. The air itself was still, so much so that it felt difficult to draw breath.
"It is not my owl," said the figure, sending a shiver down my spine, and when I looked up, the owl rose up and soared into the night.
"What's happening?" I said, looking back at the bar. Everything was silent. No cars, no sound of ocean waves, no birds or bats or barking dogs. Nothing.
"A trick," the figure said. Her voice was low and had a metallic quality, grating against itself. "I am not doing this, you are."
"I've stopped time?" I said.
"We come to speak to you, Frankie Mourning."
"We?"
"I have a friend," she said, waving her arms around her. I saw a bright white flash within the shroud, but it was gone in a moment. "I also have a master, but he would not come. Not yet. Now shall we speak of peace?"
"Peace? You've been killing people."
She stared at me from behind her shroud. "I have been looking for you. My master has a message."
"Master," I said. "You can't speak for yourself? Someone else has to tell you what to do?"
"I speak for myself," she said, "and for him. He is very powerful. You will learn."
"Fuck your master, and fuck you. This message, is it going to be more of that shitty poetry these people have been spouting right before they die? What the fuck does it even mean?"
"I am not worthy to interpret what my master says to you. He has seen you, what you are, what you will become. We have been waiting for you." The darkness was still pulsing inside of me, growing too big, the air too still to breathe, the dead raven in my hands suddenly seeming very heavy. I narrowed my eyes.
"Waiting for me? The fuck does that mean?"
"We have all been waiting for you. Our savior. Thousands of years, we have waited, and at last you have come."
"For me," I said. "I'm absolutely positive that I am not at all who you think I am."
"You are more," she said, inclining her head. As if her eyes were gleaming, a shining appeared behind the veil. "You are justice, you are balance. The Walker between Worlds. You are destroyer and creator. A ruiner of gods."
"You're crazy," I breathed. "And you've been fucking killing people. Why the hearts? The hearts were all missing, and Abby and Jerry both tried to take someone's heart."
"I can show you." She crossed her arms across her chest and looked toward the sky, in a terrifying corruption of the blessed virgin. Her white shroud began to glow. The black crown upon her head began moving, growing like vines down the length of her body, until they reached the bottom of her cloak, pulling it up to reveal what was underneath. As the shroud rose, I saw that the fabric wasn't glowing, she was.
Bones. Eerily glowing bones with rotting meat, dry and sinewy, still clinging in places. She was almost too bright to see, but I looked anyway. And when the darkness of her crown pulled her garment past her pelvis and started up her ribs, I could see ice, like frosting on her rib cage. And inside the rib cage were six hearts, froz
en like stones and rimmed in hoarfrost.
"I need them, but they are so cold," she said. "When they are warm, I will use them. When they thaw, their power will be mine. I am the Mother of Hearts, after all. There is so much to glean from the hearts of men. Passion, fear, love, terror. Many more will be needed before I am finished." The crown receded, dropping the shroud and it fell back to the ground, covering the glowing bones of this creature, this monster.
"Are you the one freezing them, too?" I said, setting the dead raven carefully on the ground at my feet, the power growing with my rage. "You're killing innocents!" I took out my knife, but immediately began reconsidering. This Mother of Hearts had no flesh and no way for me to hurt her with a blade. I sheathed the knife and looked at the palms of my hands, the power bubbling just under the skin.
"It was necessary," she said. "Inadvertent, but I cannot stop it. It is irrelevant, however, I am here for you. I knew you would come, my master foretold it. I sent you the signs and you came. Only death could bring you to my side. Only fear can drive you to action.“
"You're fucking insane," I hissed. I raised my hands and felt the power, agitated and twisting, clawing at my insides. All I had to do was let go. But I paused. The wraith had said I might not come back if I died now. Was Abel bringing me back to life? Ome had found the idea laughable, but was he even real?
"You are upset. I can feel your power. It could destroy me if you knew how to use it."
"You might be surprised at all the things I can do," I said, stepping over the dead raven. "You've killed a lot of people. Innocent people. Do you know what I usually do to killers?"
"You think you're making a difference," said the Mother. "Fixing the world. But we are coming, little one. If you are not at our side, we may have to destroy you. I know you've seen it: A sea of fire, consuming the world, purging the earth of these powerless gods. Justice."
"Justice?" I said.
"The gods have wronged us. They will try to destroy us, with your help. They are banding together, even now, and planning our destruction. War is coming, little god. A war that you cannot win. Everyone you've ever met will die, every child, every man, every woman. Even your favorite pet, the man with the mark of Cain. He'll die first, did you know? Before the war even comes to pass, your lover will be dead and you will be alone. And you will beg my master to help you on your hands and knees."
I let go. The Mother of Hearts seemed to retreat for a moment, the grating metallic sound of her voice rising in a cry. She raised her skeletal hands, the crown on her head moving once more. The bones of her fingers began to glow, and then her shroud lit up from within, growing so bright that I cried out, closing my eyes. But I could feel the power from within myself, rushing like a river out of my eyes and chest and fingers. I could feel it wrapping around me protectively, knitting my scarred and broken flesh back together, healing my bones and bruises. Then it shot out, grappling through the air with the tendrils coming from the crown, trying to get to the Mother to crush her bones, to destroy her. But as the light grew so bright that I could feel it burning my face, I felt it, too, grasping my darkness like a rope and twisting cruelly in an impossible grip. I screamed as the Mother pulled, pulling me by my dark power, the heels of my boots scraping on the asphalt as I tried to stand my ground.
“Your heart, little one,” she rasped. “It’s so beautiful.”
My entire body was being pulled and ripped and scratched from the inside. The light behind my eyes dimmed and I blinked, the Mother's face but a centimeter from my own, the smell of rot and decomposition rich and overwhelming. I fought the urge to retch. I looked down to see my power, still outside of my body and gripped in the Mother's hands. My feet were no longer touching the ground.
"I could have it, your fierce magic,” she said, her breath fetid and rotten. I could feel the chill of the frozen hearts against my stomach. "You are so young, Frankie Mourning. I could take it from you. I could pull and all of your power would come spilling out. Then I could have your heart. Oh, what glories it must hide! I would consume it slowly, and savor the taste of you."
"Go ahead," I said, with barely enough breath to speak. "Kill me."
She seemed to be pondering just that, but suddenly she let go and I fell hard to the ground, waves of pain washing over me, the darkness receding, seeking refuge inside me, the tendrils pulling back so quickly it felt like I was being impaled where they disappeared. I groaned and fell back onto the pavement.
"My master would be angry. We are to work together, you and I."
"I'm not working on anything with you," I gasped, trying to sit up, falling back again. It felt as though she had hurt me when she grasped my darkness, I could feel it throbbing inside me now, I could feel the pain as if it were my own. Perhaps it was.
"But you must. Abel is here." She was standing further away now, even though I hadn't seen her move.
"What?"
She watched me for a moment, studying me. "Abel is here and I have made a promise." I managed to sit up on my second try and waited for the dizziness to pass, slowly taking in her words.
"Abel," I rasped. "He's here? In Westport?"
"We are on the same side," said the Mother. "With your help, Cain and Abel will die. I have made a promise."
"A promise to who?" Another figure was moving behind her now, a child, by its size, though the odd way it moved was unsettling. Then the figure came into the light and I saw that it was a small man wearing an old-fashioned suit. I couldn't see his face and the Mother didn't seem to notice him. He looked towards me, eyes flashing in the shadows like a cat, but his face stayed in the shadow of the Mother’s dirty shroud.
"Lilith. So many deals with Lilith. You would think she would learn, but she never knows what she wants."
"You're working for Lilith?" I said, forcing myself to my feet. The power inside of me moved feebly, no more than a whisper. My rib cage felt strangely better, and I knew the darkness in me had somehow knitted my bones back together, healed my wounds. But the damage to my darkness made me feel like I'd been put through a meat grinder, and I staggered, barely keeping my footing. "Of course you fucking are."
The smaller figure was crouched behind her, peering around at me, still and soundless. Somehow this made me more uncomfortable than the figure looming above. "I do not work for Lilith," the Mother said. "She made a trade that is in all of our best interests. The world is unbalanced without the dark, it lacks weight. We will be the balance, all of us. We will destroy what the gods have debased and build our world again. You, me, my master...and my small friend."
"What the fuck is that?" I said softly. “One of Lilith's?" I again got the unsettled feeling when I looked at the small man in the suit. But the Mother ignored my question, and looked to the sky once more.
"You do not yet know what you are, Frankie Mourning." The image of my dream the night before flashed in my mind. An old woman's voice: She doesn't know what she is. "They are coming to you already, are they not?"
"What?" I said, weak, confused, dizzy. The little man made a noise like the chittering of a rodent, and I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to focus. I was still upright, but the pain was everywhere. There was a familiar feeling of wrongness when I looked at the small creature in the shadows. I had the same sensation once before, at the bottom of Mirror Lake, right before I'd killed a monster.
"What the hell is he?" I said, forcing myself to be loud, almost a shout that ended in a wheeze. The Mother looked at me then, through her shroud. I wondered if she could smile, and if she was smiling now.
"Nothing to worry about," she said. "A pet, you might call it. Like your own lover. An amusement. I’ve grown rather attached to his antics."
"It's not right. It shouldn't be here."
"Neither should any of us. We are here to help you. I can feel him, inside that building, your enemy." She raised a white-clad arm and pointed at the bar with a bony finger. "Abel is here."
"Abel from the Holy Bible is in that shitty bar," I s
aid, cynicism dripping from my voice.
"Yes," she said, her voice like fingernails on a chalkboard. "I feel his power."
"How could you possibly know what Abel's power feels like?"
"Because, I am the one who gave it to him." I stared at the shrouded skeleton in front of me.
"And why exactly would you give Abel his powers? " She moved her arm, raising her skeletal hands, palms up, in front of her in a gesture of benevolence.
"We made a deal with his brother," she said. "It seemed only fair to do the same for him. We are not responsible for their games, for the atrocities they've committed. We only made a trade. But Lilith has offered us more, so we are here to satisfy her. The brothers must die." She clenched her hands into fists, the bones grinding together as they retreated back into her cowled robe.
"Jesus fucking Christ," I said. "You just go for the highest bidder? You're worse than they are."
She lowered her arms. "We are honorable. We are justice, like you, Frankie. Is it not justice to kill the brothers that have caused you such despair?"
"There are four people in that building," I said. "One is dead because of you. Another one is the chief of police and another is her husband. The last one is my...Dekker."
"He is a woman now," they said, "he has given her his power. Our power. No, not Abel, but a vessel he chose. She must die before Abel's power gets out into the world. She must be sacrificed before it kills her and turns the world to fire. If she is allowed to live, her fire will consume everything."
"Esme?" I said, forgetting my anger for a split second. "She doesn't have Abel's power."
"Let us take her," she said. "If we kill her now, the events of the next few days will not need to come to pass." Her voice seemed oddly earnest, almost pleading. She held out her arms again in the odd, Christ-like gesture, reaching toward me, the shroud covering the glowing bones of her hand.. I stepped back and didn't stagger this time.