Taker

by Patrick Wong

  Her thoughts moved to Drake. He was still unconscious on the floor, and blood from the gunshot wounds had seeped into his clothes. Amy got to her feet and hurried to him. She took a deep breath and began unbuttoning his shirt.

  There was nothing. No bullet holes — just dried blood.

  “Thank you, Nix,” Amy whispered, relieved, as she wiped away a tear. She thought about waking Drake, but decided it would be better to let him sleep it off. There would be time for reuniting later.

  Amy felt a wave of emotion rise up and take her as she searched for Ben. Fighting back tears, she moved over to him. He was curled up in a fetal position on the floor.

  “Ben?” She shook his arm. After a moment, he woke up, startled out of his bad dream.

  “Amy! What happened? The men?”

  “They took her. They took Nicole.”

  “No,” Ben whispered under his breath. Then he thought about what had happened, and he checked his body. True to form, the dried blood on his clothes was the only sign of what had transpired. Ben sighed with relief.

  “I know. It was the last thing she did. She saved us but couldn’t save herself,” Amy murmured.

  “The professor warned me about this. We should have been more prepared.”

  “I don’t know how we could have.”

  “We could have taken turns keeping watch? Armed ourselves?”

  “She’s the best weapon we had. We’re no match for guns and tear gas.”

  Ben sighed. “The worst thing is, how do we even go about finding her now?”

  “Maybe he’ll know a way?” She indicated toward Barnard, who was still slumped over the table. A line of blood was trickling from his ear.

  They had to find Nicole.

  Amy scrambled for her phone, but realized it was not in her pockets or the drawer. They must have searched the room and seized their equipment.

  Fists pounded on the front door.

  Barnard woke up, wiping the blood still oozing down his ear.

  “Professor?” Amy was almost overcome with emotion.

  “Heavens,” he whispered hoarsely at the terrible sight before him. “Who is it?”

  “FBI. Open up!”

  FBI? This confused Amy. Were they bringing Nicole back?

  Rage consumed Amy now, and she flung herself at the door. She heard Ben’s protests behind her, but she was overcome with anger. She opened the door wide and shoved the surprised-looking agent on the other side into the balcony ledge behind him.

  “What have you done? You have no right to do that!” she screamed.

  “No right to do what? Listen, young lady. Listen.” He repeated the word “listen” over and over, as Amy shook them both with her rage. The other agent held her arms, but Amy’s body was shuddering in flailing fury, and she wouldn’t hold still.

  “I will not! Who the hell do you people think you are? You come in here, you shoot us, and then you take Nicole?”

  The agent glanced at his partner, who returned a puzzled expression.

  “Amy Madigan? Look at me.” Amy felt the woman’s cool hands cup her face. “My name is Agent Elena Velasquez. This is Agent Bishop. We intercepted a call from the hotel manager an hour ago. This is the first time we’ve come to this room.”

  Amy saw in the clear brown eyes of the young woman that she was telling the truth. She whimpered, and, in that moment, all the fight left her.

  “What? I don’t understand. Then who was it that took her?”

  “I don’t know.” Agent Bishop’s eyes creased with concern. “But look at you. You look hurt.”

  Amy shook her head.

  Barnard appeared at the doorway, still stroking the graze on his ear.

  “You’re too late. They got here first. You’d better come in,” he said. He opened the door wider for the agents to enter.

  Amy stepped aside and allowed Barnard to support her inside. It was disturbing to return to this bloody room. Amy knew she had witnessed the attempted murder of the four of them, but seeing the physical evidence of it painted everywhere was nothing short of debilitating.

  “Professor Barnard?” Agent Velasquez removed her glove and presented her hand. “Agent Elena Velasquez. I’ve read all of your work.” Velasquez shook the professor’s unoffered hand.

  “Then you’ll know who was behind all this.”

  “We’ve been trying to trace Professor DuBois for some time,” Bishop cut in.

  “Well it’s not just DuBois now. He has the whole of the NOR Corporation behind him. Nicole’s just the tip of the iceberg because she’s worth a lot to them.”

  “Now, slow down,” Bishop began, but just then, a bitter coughing started from somewhere behind them. It was Drake.

  “Amy?” Drake winced in pain.

  “What is it?” Amy ran to Drake’s side, sank to her knees and hugged him. He let out a pained cry as she squeezed him. “You’re OK. We’re all OK. Nicole took care of things.”

  Amy lifted Drake’s T-shirt and still found smooth skin beneath.

  “See. You’re OK. Look! You’re going to be OK!” Amy hugged him again, but he cried out, more fiercely this time. Then his breathing became hoarse with terror and a gurgling noise could be heard in his throat. She touched his stomach, and Drake let out an agonized scream.

  “Oh my God.” Amy prodded a little harder and felt the indentation of something small and hard underneath his skin. The bullets hadn’t come out. The bullets were still in Drake.

  Drake shook his head. “Something’s not right.”

  “Oh my God.” She glanced up. “Help him! Please!” she pleaded to Bishop and Velasquez.

  Bishop crouched down and grasped his radio close.

  “We need medical help up here immediately. Full gunshot crash kit.” Bishop held Drake by the shoulder. “Someone is coming for you, son. Hold on.”

  His throat dry, Drake looked up at Amy. He was drifting in and out of consciousness now, aware only of his pain — the worst kind of pain.

  In a brief moment of clarity, he touched Amy’s face. “Thank God you’re OK, Amy.”

  Tears dropped from Amy’s eyes as she gazed down at Drake. “Just hold on. You will be too!”

  He smiled up at her. That was false hope, and they both knew it.

  “Get to my father. He’ll protect you.”

  “I will.”

  “Amy? I … love you.”

  The prospect of great loss surged then, and a torrent of tears obscured Amy’s vision.

  “I love you too.”

  She leaned down to kiss him, but where his warm breath had once been, there was now nothing — just the silence of a stopped heart.

  “No!” she sobbed. She laid her head on his chest and held him as her body shuddered from her agonized tears.

  The medical team came into the room and paused for a moment at the sight of all the blood and destruction. It looked like there should have been many victims in the room to treat. Agent Bishop broke their confusion by pointing to Drake.

  Velasquez then gently but firmly moved Amy away from Drake to make room for the medics to begin working.

  Amy watched from several feet away, and she could see the confusion in the paramedics’ eyes and actions. It was clear from their expressions and questions that they didn’t know what to do or how to save him.

  “Is this a gunshot? What are we dealing with?”

  “Where is the entry wound?”

  “There is no entry would or exit wound.”

  “I’m feeling massive internal bleeding in the stomach, chest. His entire torso.”

  “Patient in cardiac arrest. I’ve got no pulse. Initiating CPR.”

  Everyone in the room watched, helpless.

  Time of Death

  PRESS had come to the hotel because of the freak animal deaths, which had triggered a special agency alert for possible paranormal activity. Now, Bishop and Velasquez were standing in a treehouse above what amounted to a slaughter field: zebras, giraffes, antelopes, gazelles and flami
ngos — all appearing to be sleeping when in fact they were all dead. If it weren’t for their past history with Nicole, the agents would have been worrying about all the suspicious animal activity. Instead, Nicole was their main concern.

  The discovery had led them to Barnard’s gory hotel room.

  Drake’s girlfriend, Amy Madigan, had to be dragged away from him as the paddles made their devastating impacts on his lifeless torso. Experience and years had not lessened that kind of pain for Bishop.

  Drake had died from massive internal hemorrhaging and general organ failure caused by a single bullet to the lower torso. The call had been made 20 minutes after the PRESS medical team had arrived.

  “Time of death: 0930 hours.”

  This declaration had brought with it a deluge of bitter cries from Amy. As the PRESS forensic team had moved in, Velasquez had commandeered the bedroom for the friends to use. She was now in the adjacent bathroom, with Amy, offering what comfort she could.

  Barnard had been able to provide the agents with the most detail about the events — they would have to wait to go through it all with the teens after a little time had passed. Amy, as it was, was inconsolable and in no shape to answer questions.

  Bishop paused, strong black coffee at his side. He would never admit to feeling helpless, but that was the closest emotion right then.

  Ben was sitting at the coffee table, poring over the manuscripts, looking as though he needed to focus on something — anything — rather than face what was going on in the room right then.

  Bishop sat down next to him.

  “If you’re government, then how come you didn’t know?” Ben asked without looking up.

  “It’s hard to tell. There’s so many layers of crap that goes on, sometimes I want to come to work with a shovel and snow boots.” He thought this blunt stream of truth would surprise Ben, but the slight boy only nodded.

  “I’m usually invisible to guys like Drake. That’s kind of how I liked it, too. That way I could tell myself it was them, not me. I could say Drake was different, but he wasn’t. He’s still Mr. Popular. Or was. But he talked to me. We were becoming friends.” Ben took a deep breath. “Are you going to be able to get Nicole back?” He turned and looked at Bishop. His eyes were bloodshot with uncried tears. He was trying to be brave.

  “I’m working on that. We’ll do our best to track her down.”

  Ben clung to this small shred of hope and excused himself to head into the bathroom to check on Amy.

  Barnard came over to the table to organize some of the material Ben had been studying. Bishop glanced down at the strange photo of the three figures. “This from your research?” He asked Barnard.

  “It is.”

  “They who Take, They who Balance, and They who Give,” Bishop read slowly. “So you think there are others?”

  “If the myth is to be believed, yes. There are three.”

  Bishop nodded and stood up, a grave expression palling his face. “I have a phone call I have to make. Senator Jennings needs to know what happened to his son.”

  Amy was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. Agent Velasquez was on the floor by her side, trying her best to provide some female companionship. Amy had been silent for some time, having exhausted herself from crying. All she wanted was for Drake to be there, his arms around her, telling her it would be OK.

  There was a timid knock at the bathroom door.

  Velasquez met Amy’s eye. Amy nodded.

  “Come in,” the agent called.

  Ben blushed. “I came to check on Amy.”

  “Amy, why don’t the pair of you go on outside?” The agent stood up and helped Amy to her feet.

  Amy felt the slow ache of despair crushing her bones. She followed Ben into the bedroom, shaky and numb, and sat down on the farthest side of the queen bed. Hours before, in the room next-door, Drake had been fast asleep next to her.

  “I’m sorry. About Drake.”

  Amy nodded.

  “We’ll get Nicole back. I believe Bishop when he says they’ll do their best to track her down.”

  “I don’t care,” Amy uttered with a venomous hiss.

  “What?” Ben was confused. Amy, however, felt decisive anger beginning to course through her veins.

  “You heard me.”

  Ben paused and let Amy’s words sink in for a moment to make sure he’d heard what he thought he’d heard. “She saved us, Amy.”

  “Not all of us. Not Drake.”

  “She would have tried her best.”

  “But why was he last on the list? What was so good about Barnard? He’s old, and Drake was … he was young.”

  “Maybe she thought of us all, and there wasn’t enough energy to go around.”

  “No, that’s not how she does it. She has to think of people in turn and then transfer the life that way. She thought of him last.”

  “Maybe …”

  “It’s not fair! And I know she saved me, and I will forever be grateful. She could have just given me this one thing. But no. She … was jealous.”

  “Amy …”

  “She was! I saw it written all over her face. Just because I’m spending less time with her now, she couldn’t bear it. So, sure, she may have tried, but he was last. To her, he was the least important of all of us. But he was the most important person to me.”

  Articulating those words tapped into a new stream of anguish, and Amy collapsed into tears once again. After hesitating for a moment, Ben put his arm around her shoulders. She nestled her head into his neck. He could feel her shuddering as the sobs kept on coming.

  He could let her carry on like this, but Ben felt he had to clarify something. “Amy?”

  She emitted a low hum.

  “Barnard was shot, but it wasn’t a critical wound. The bullet only grazed him. So she only healed you and me before she got around to Drake.”

  “He was in so much pain!”

  “I know, and I’m so sorry. But in those last few seconds, you know she would have tried her best. It doesn’t take away the fact that she didn’t have enough time to heal Drake. But you have to know that she tried to save him.”

  Though his words were only skimming over Amy’s consciousness, they were beginning to make some sense. The anger was still there, though. It wouldn’t go away.

  “She needs us, Amy. Whoever these people are, they want her for her special abilities. We have to find her.”

  Amy wiped her eyes and nodded.

  Then suddenly, from the bathroom, came the jarring sound of a lion’s roar.

  Velasquez came running out.

  “What in God’s name possessed people to have the toilet sound like a damn lion?”

  Ben suppressed a narrow smile.

  There would be a time, Amy knew, when she would be able to laugh again. But it seemed so far away.

  My Sincerest Condolences

  The news that had greeted the senator as his sedan was traveling around the Capital Beltway had devastated and numbed him to the core. Jennings’ schedule was clear for the rest of the day, and this stop was his first priority. He had something to take care of before going home and breaking the news to his wife in person.

  He pulled up to the nondescript office complex in Tysons Corner and flashed his badge to the guard, who examined Jennings’ credentials and then lowered the hydraulic vehicle barrier ramps so the senator could proceed into the parking garage.

  Rather than spending any time searching for a parking spot, Jennings pulled into the first handicapped spot inside the garage and stormed out of the vehicle and into the office building.

  He rushed through the metal detectors and showed his credentials once again at the front desk, where the guards gave him a temporary green badge. It would give him access to the non-classified areas of the NOR Corporation offices. Jennings knew he would need a higher-level badge.

  “What color do I need to get to the executive floors?” Jennings demanded.

  “That would be a black badge, sir.
” The nervous security guard held up a black badge. “But our guest system indicates you are only to be provided with a green badge.”

  “Give me that,” Jennings hissed, reaching over the desk and snatching the black badge out of the guard’s hands. Jennings threw the green badge against the wall before proceeding toward the elevators.

  He could hear the commotion behind him, but he ignored what was happening. Several guards were now surrounding him in the elevator lobby and requesting backup through their walkie-talkies.

  When the elevator doors opened, Jennings walked in, tapped his badge on the security panel, and pushed the button for the upper restricted executive floor.

  One of the guards had the courage to step into the elevator and stand toe to toe with the senator. “Sir, you are not authorized to wear the black badge, and you are not authorized to go to the executive floor without an escort. I’m going to have to ask you to return that, please.”

  “I don’t have time for this crap now,” Jennings said, and he kicked the guard, which knocked him out of the elevator. The guards were reaching for their guns, but Jennings didn’t move. “I paid for this place! I pay your salaries! You all work for me. Didn’t you know that?”

  Jennings punched the button to close the elevator door and began the ride up to the executive floor. Away from the disorder below, he took several deep, shaken breaths to try to compose himself. He was a drawn and defeated man, his gray face tensed. His usually convivial and open body language had shut down. His hands were rammed in his coat pockets.

  This was a day like no other.

  The pleasant elevator music provided an ironic juxtaposition to the crushing information.

  Your son is dead.

  There could be no words to convey the great, hollowing-out feeling that was ripping apart his bones. The dreadful range of emotions would come later.

  The elevator door dinged open. The staff in the private reception area knew of Jennings’ pending arrival, and they leapt into action.

  “I’m sorry, sir, you just can’t barge in here …”

  “I am a senator for the United States of America, and this company would not even exist without me. Stop me and I’ll get you fired. I’ll even have you arrested. So if you want to keep your job and stay out of prison, step out of my way.” Nobody expected such a direct confrontation, and the staff meekly did as Jennings requested.