He shed the guise of Arthur Black with a simple sigh and retreated from the poisonous scent of earth below the Veil. He seated himself calmly in a sofa in a random room. Within the Veil’s fringe, he had but to wait for mankind to develop the tools necessary to find him out. In little time it wouldn’t matter either way what they chose to do about Dunesil’s message. Things were going to get ugly for them very swiftly.
* * *
After five days of general chaos, working with the police whilst occasionally questioning the detained, Christopher Crowe Stevens, for the alleged murder of Agent Carlos Fastez, it became apparent to Agent Connelly that the man was indeed innocent. It also became apparent in the sudden wake of silence that enveloped the greater Seattle area along with everywhere else in the world, that something greater than the scope of Ben Connelly’s limited imagination was truly going on. It was something so vast and impossibly rapid he was left struggling to come to grips with every new turn.
For the past few days, he’d been forced to use the stairs in the Westin Towers, for their backup, emergency generators had run dry quickly enough. His showers were cold, and today, he neglected to take one at all. He hadn’t shaved, due to a lack of electric light to help, and his temporary residence was always dark, no matter how wide he drew open his curtains. Things were deteriorating rapidly in a city that had once been utterly bustling nearly twenty-four hours a day.
People were scared, and he could feel it.
Connelly wasn’t exempt from that fear, but it was his duty to try to be strong for them. He could see similar reactions to what was unfolding in the faces of the Seattle P.D. officers with which he was working tirelessly to keep rioting from breaking out and order from spinning down the drain it was headed into. There wasn’t much they could do, as few as they were, to ensure petty crimes wouldn’t occur, but they had to try to keep it all in order.
He emerged from the dark lobby of the Westin Towers, finding few patrons and even fewer employees stationed. In fact, most had simply ceased coming to work. The only fellows he ever saw stationed after the fourth day were the night crew, a balding auditor and a pair of security guards. He’d spoken with them briefly on a few returns at night, and found they only continued to come because they liked to help. They were sturdier than the other daylight employees, and reasoned with him rather smartly.
If it was to be the end of the world soon enough, then it didn’t matter if they showed up or not. It wasn’t as if they were going to get paid for it, or that their pay would even matter after all that was said to come, actually came to pass. In wake of that realization, they came because it was their duty as pseudo-officers to try and maintain order and keep things on the right track. Though they did admit, if the seventh day brought misfortunate events to the city, they likely wouldn’t show up again.
Connelly admired their resolve, and had new respect for simple security guards. They were the type of person who could have become officers if they had the ambition to do so, but after talking with them, he discovered they simply had greater ambitions for other things in life. Though they respected officers for the jobs they had to do, because someone had to do it.
This early in the day as Connelly descended the stairwell and passed through the silence of the abandoned lobby, the trio was long gone. He passed out onto Westlake Avenue, and it was utterly silent. There wasn’t a soul to be seen, and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. It was entirely unnatural to see Seattle like this, and it crept into him, giving him the willies. He hunched his shoulders, pulling his trench coat closer, as if he was simply cold and its protection could keep him warmer. The feeling persisted as he strode across the empty street, glancing either way mostly out of habit, wary of not cars, but anything amiss.
He looked haggard, and his eyes were growing dangerous with brow continuously furrowed and mind running through all that was happening and how to fix it. But there would be no fixing it, he began to realize. It really was falling apart. Though, this didn’t stop him from trying. There had to be a way to decipher what was going on and bring it to a beneficial conclusion.
Even as he thought of this and set his foot on the far sidewalk, he caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye. Off to his right, a pair of dark smudges in the overcast early light jumped out to greet him. It was a fair distance off, but he froze, feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand on end all over again.
Slowly, he turned, and spotted the low figures. They were passing eastward from what was once a Bank, or still was, though it was entirely all but permanently shut down.
He squinted in disbelief, did a double take and remained frozen. There he spotted two wolves, trotting across the street. Big ones.
But, he soon realized they weren’t wolves. No. They were German Shepherds, but they were not police dogs belonging to the nearby precinct. No. They were larger, darker, and generally meaner looking. They were two very intimidating dogs he’d seen once before.
Confusion riddled his face, marring the recognition that shone upon him.
They were Walker and Padishar, the great dogs belonging to his prisoner, Christopher Stevens. Connelly, understandably, couldn’t believe his eyes.
“What?” He started to speak under his breath, being pulled towards the dogs. How on earth did they get here? Were they here seeking Stevens? And if they were, how in the hell did they find him? Connelly was markedly wondering, ponderously standing idly by as they disappeared beyond the corner of his block. They were passing east, not two blocks from the Seattle precinct. He found himself suddenly making to follow.
Rounding the corner, he spotted them, a block ahead of himself and a block closer to the precinct. They were headed right for it.
“No way.” He gasped disbelief, rushing to follow and catch up. The next street over, he didn’t even look both ways. There wasn’t going to be a car at any rate, so he rushed across, simply refusing to take his eyes off the hounds. He caught up reasonably as they hung a left and zeroed in on the station, and sure enough, it was unquestionably Walker and Padishar.
Again he ran through the inevitable questions of how and why they’d come all the way to Seattle. Had they done it of their own accord? Or had someone brought them here? They were clearly, and yet couldn’t possibly be searching for their master. Or could they? They ambled a general B-line towards the precinct station, and up the few steps they went almost casually. Connelly rushed to get on their heels, but they didn’t slow or stop.
The doors opened and the dogs went right on in as if right at home. Disbelief urged him onward once more, and he reached the doors. He pulled them open by hand, for they were not automatic doors.
Once inside, he found numerous officers all going about their duty, and yet they went nowhere. They were frozen. Connelly was forced to do a double take upon them, thinking it had to be an illusion, or he had to be dreaming in some way. But sure enough, the officers aplenty were motionless statues.
The hounds trotted their way among the men, passing undetected, unheeded, and once more ambling straight towards their imprisoned master. They made for a hall at the back of the office, which led way through a miraculously unlocked door to the temporary holding cells and interrogation rooms where Stevens had spent his past six days.
Agent Connelly was helpless to do anything more than draw his gun and move to follow, coming eventually to a long slow halt at the end of the hall before the bars and open door of Stevens’ cell. There he saw the old man, smiling where he sat on his bed, petting and patting his hounds with congratulatory tones.
“Good job Paddy. You’re a good boy.” He spoke highly of the dog, and turned to praising Walker as Padishar turned on Connelly with a low growl. Connelly didn’t really know which was which, and he didn’t care to find out either.
“That’s a good boy, Walker. You listen well to your brother.” Stevens hugged tight to the smaller of the two, talking on its ear. “And you brought him just as I asked.”
The low growl of Pa
dishar drew them both to see Connelly, standing at the cell door with gun ready but low.
“Oh, hello again, Agent Connelly.” Stevens spoke, as if he’d not seen Ben coming.
“Interesting names,” Connelly started, “Wherever did you get them?” He asked, playing at chit-chat.
“Oh, from an old book.” Christopher answered, straightening himself in his seat.
“You know what they say, interesting names for interesting people.” The old man smiled.
“Well, they’re certainly interesting enough to be extraordinary, Stevens.” Connelly commented warily, feigning at this game of chit-chat to find out what was really going on with the hounds.
“I’m amazed they were able to find you here.” He tried, attempting to answer the inevitable questions that rose up in regards to the dogs’ presences here in Seattle.
“Well, I’m amazed you saw them, even though I sent them to find you.” Stevens retorted with an appraising brow.
“It’s not as though they’re normal dogs.” He added, and his tone suggested something Connelly didn’t quite grasp.
Was Stevens implying they were more than they even appeared to be? What exactly did he mean by not normal? Did it have something to do with the frozen officers in the rest of the station? He was finally setting himself to asking these questions, but Stevens started up again, answering for him as if reading his thoughts.
“But, I’m sure you can tell that already, based upon the immobility of the officers here in the station.” Stevens said, and he smiled, almost deviously. And yet, his old face was kind like a grandfather playing a game with an unwise youth he loved as his own son. Connelly was at a moment’s loss. He didn’t know what to say.
So much had been occurring lately, this whole encounter only seemed a bit less unusual than it actually was. Come to think of it, Connelly realized, Stevens had accepted his unjust imprisonment with an unusual level of tolerance. Frankly, everything about the man was unusual. But all of it was somehow beneath the surface –there but not there. Everything about the unassuming old codger was indescribably unusual.
“How much do you know of fairy tales?” Stevens then asked, seeing as Connelly wasn’t going to say anything.
“Only enough to know that by asking that, I presume you know a great deal, and that you’re ready and willing to cooperate with us to find the men responsible for the attack that cost the life of my partner.” Connelly answered slowly, strategically, slowly catching up to the game that was being played. But Christopher Stevens laughed out loud, a bemused, but somewhat dangerous chuckle.
“Son, you don’t want to find the individual responsible for your partner’s death, let me tell you.” He was certain and yet smiling. It was a matter-of-fact statement, but Connelly was prompted to turn forward in the talk.
“Let me tell you, Mr. Stevens. There are some pretty unbelievable things happening out there beyond these walls right now, and I need you to…” He started to respond, pushing for the answers he desired.
“I know.” Stevens silenced him, cutting him short with the answers that he desired, which turned out to be the answers he couldn’t have expected. “I know all too well.”
“I know everything that’s happening beyond these walls.” He cleared the air, prompting uncertain doubt within the agent.
“Oh yeah?” Connelly asked. “And just how is that?”
“Because, my friends told me.” Stevens answered simply, smiling and gesturing to his hounds as he patted the larger of the two on the head, but it refused to take its eyes off of Connelly.
“Your dogs?” Connelly was extremely doubtful.
“They’re not ordinary hounds.”
“You mean to try to tell me they can speak?” Connelly bit off the words.
“Of course. But, I didn’t need them to tell me to know what’s going on out there, Ben. For I am not what I seem to be either.” He again cleared more air out of this mystery.
“Why are you telling me this now?” Connelly eventually asked, not knowing what else to say. He decided he had better get whatever he could out of Stevens while he was willing to share. And if the codger played further games, he could just lift his gun and prompt answers at the point of a threat. He’d had just about enough of the world’s hell-bound state to resort to threats.
“Because, Ben, now it doesn’t matter what I tell you.” Stevens sighed and smiled sadly. “Our time is over.”
“What do you mean?” Connelly asked, lowering his gun a bit rather than raising it.
“Our parts in this story are over, Ben.” He said it sadly once more. “The end is coming, so whatever I could say to you, really won’t matter.” He sighed again, pausing meaningfully.
“When I told you during my initial arrest that no one could have made that shot on your Fastez other than me, I was lying. The person you don’t want to find. The one who I suspect took that shot. The person you cannot find, and all of his kin could make that shot a great deal more easily than I.” He leveled with the agent.
“Tell me who it is then, if it doesn’t matter anymore.” Connelly tried, still fixed on being an agent, living his life, doing his job. He was still mired in finding the culprit and exacting revenge for Fastez.
“The one you seek, you will never, ever find, Ben. There is no exacting revenge, even if you could find him. He is beyond mankind. He is beyond even me.” Stevens spoke clearly, lowering his eyes to the smaller of his hounds -Walker.
“Beyond you?” Connelly looked at the aging man, doubtful. What made him so special, aside from his obvious skills as an Olympic medal-winning archer?
“No offense, Mr. Stevens, but that doesn’t seem too far off from possible.”
“No, not as I am before you it doesn’t, but as I am in truth, it is a tremendous statement.” He said, standing up, and shedding a lightweight hooded sweatshirt.
In wake of the clothing’s fall, Connelly was nearly blinded by brilliant illumination. It flared whitely but faded swiftly to a faint emerald haze as a pair of glittering wings unfurled, rising up at his back like those of a dragonfly.
In a slow shift, Stevens stepped forward beneath Connelly’s sudden gasp. In a hazy blur of his visage, Christopher Crow Stevens became an even more gnarled, even older figure. He was all of whiteness with brilliantly luminous green eyes, wispy white hair and bearing exceptionally lengthy pointed ears. He was garbed in white robes that left him looking tiny, stick thin and frail. In his hands was a gnarled pale walking stick, upon which he leaned quite heavily.
Connelly just gaped at him. He was understandably shocked, but now it was clear as to why Stevens’ implications about the difference between himself and the one Connelly hunted was a monumental statement.
“I am known as Habben Yudajer.” The ancient creature spoke before him, and Connelly dropped his gun, awestruck in wake of the creature’s voice. His mouth hung slack and gaping.
“Once again, I ask you, human. How much you know of fairy tales?” But, of course, Ben Connelly was too stunned to do anything more than stare, and shake his head, slow to react. He clearly didn’t know much.
“They are real.” Habben informed. “The person you seek, the person who freed Shannon Hunter from your clutches, and who is responsible for your Fastez’ death is one of Them.” And silence enveloped the cell, for the stun was great, forcing Connelly’s thoughts to grind to a halt along with his ability to use his tongue.
“Who is he, and who are They?” He eventually managed.
“His name is Deh Leccend. He is a terrible power, like all of his kin.” The creature before him answered.
“What are they?” Connelly asked. “What are you?” He added a new gasp for the ancient figure who laughed delightfully at his question.
“They are born of the Elvine, the most powerful branch of the Addl’laen, the great tree of life, human. They Are Elves.” Habben answered.
“Elves?!” Connelly couldn’t believe it, but confronted with Habben Yudajer, an obviously Faeri
creature, he couldn’t bring himself to doubt it in more than voice.
“Yes, boy. They created something called the Veil of the Leaf’s Edge, ages and ages ago, and took away the tree from your kind -to protect it. They also took away themselves, and monitor the passage of things on the earth as it is, whilst living in it as it once was. They neglected to take any of their other kin along for the ride, due to our compassions and affinities for mankind.” The answer was something Ben Connelly couldn’t hope to grasp entirely just yet.
E.L.F. - White Leaves Page 22