Soul Thief (Blue Light Series)

by Mark Edward Hall

  “You’re life is going to be about protecting your child. You can trust me on that.”

  “What will happen to you?” Doug asked.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  There was something in her voice that betrayed her assurances and it made Doug uneasy. Sensing his thoughts she stood up and said, “You should get some rest. You need to be strong for what’s ahead.”

  Doug stood and put the envelope in his pocket. He picked up the handgun noticing that it was a compact little Beretta nine millimeter semi-automatic that fit snuggly in the palm of his hand. He was familiar with handguns and shooting. Over the years Rick Jennings had carefully tutored him in the fine art of marksmanship.

  Together they walked down the hallway to Doug’s bedroom where he placed the pistol and the extra clips on his bedside stand.

  “How do you feel, Doug?”

  He looked suspiciously at her. “Fine. Why?”

  She stared as tears coursed down her cheeks. “When you wake up you’ll know what to do.”

  “No . . .” Doug said as his voice trailed off. It was as if he’d lost the thought. In truth he hadn’t; he was just unable to speak any more of it. He knew then that she’d put something in his tea. His eyelids sagged. He tried to concentrate on the woman but saw three distinct copies of her. The room spun. “You bitch!” he said.

  “I did everything for you.”

  You’re about to be betrayed.

  Suddenly he felt like he was floating on a dark sea without a life raft. Doug tried to make sense of everything but it was no use; he could not connect his thoughts. He tried to speak but his tongue felt fat and he could not get the words around it. He was vaguely aware of the woman undressing him and leading him to the bed as the room spun around him.

  “I love you, Doug,” she whispered. “I always have and I always will.”

  She became just a form at the periphery of his vision. Then she was gone. The world grayed over and Doug went away into a dark place for what seemed a very long time. What happened next was beyond his ability to comprehend.

  He woke to a small sound in the room. He sat up, his rapidly beating heart pumping adrenalin through his bloodstream. Bone-white moonlight burned through the windows and in its glow he saw the Nadia of his youth standing before him naked, watching him with deep-set eyes that seemed rimmed with some inconceivable darkness. This is all wrong, his swimming mind told him. Her lips were exaggeratedly large and they were smeared with blood-red color. The room floated around him and he knew that he was still under the influence of whatever drug she’d dumped in his tea.

  Her body was beautiful, however. His eyes trailed down from her perfect breasts—the nipples erect with arousal—to the dark shadow at the triangle of her sex. She touched herself there as if in invitation. Then his eyes went back to an area just above her pubic mound. He remembered something from their high school days. The first time he’d seen Nadia naked at the private beach where they and their friends frequently gathered to swim and party he’d noticed a red crescent moon shaped birthmark just above her pubic mound. He had marveled at it on that day and every day thereafter of their teenage love affair. He remembered touching the mark tentatively at first, examining it thoroughly, totally fascinated, before going down and tracing his tongue lightly over the spot, kissing it. And he remembered how Nadia had laughed wickedly with delight.

  And now he could not take his eyes off it.

  “You remember, don’t you, Doug?” Nadia said thrusting her hips forward so that Doug could get a better look. “It’s there, right where it’s always been, the only part of me not damaged by the fire, as though it were somehow immune. You believe me now, don’t you? Would you like to touch it? Would you like to kiss it like you used to? Remember how it turned you on? Remember how it turned me on?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I just didn’t want you to have any doubts. I wanted you to know that everything I’ve done was out of love for you. When you save the world I want you to think of me and know that I will always be there with you.”

  She was talking nonsense and Doug had serious doubts that any of this was even real. He knew that certain drugs cause hallucinations. Suddenly he didn’t care. Lust flamed in his loins. Nothing mattered in that moment; not Annie, not his unborn child, not that Nadia had deceived him, not that he was probably dreaming this; not even that the fate of the world lay in his hands and that his unborn child was destined to be some sort of savior.

  The woman slipped between the sheets and pressed herself to him. The room spun and Doug drew in a breath. His cock felt enormous as he rolled on top of her and slipped effortlessly into the slick triangle of sex between her spread legs. He concentrated on his breathing as she eagerly met his thrusts, eyes closed, her breath coming in quick gasps. Her face burned white in the moonlight, eye sockets black wells in their lunar radiance. Like an x-ray image Doug saw the terrible scars beneath the façade of Nadia’s reconstructed face. He knew it was an illusion—had to be something his mind was conjuring, perhaps even a symptom of the drug in his system. But down deep he understood that it was Nadia’s way of proving her sincerity.

  The next few moments were a blur as the sex fed his body and the drug fed his mind. Images that could not possibly be real populated his psyche: two massive skyscrapers crashing down onto the streets of Manhattan, pushing a cloud of dust and smoke all the way up into the stratosphere; the Collector staring at them from the corner of the room, his posture rigid and unyielding, his single red eye burning like a ruby-colored rent in the very fabric of space and time.

  In Doug’s mind he was making love to a teenage Nadia Ziegler in the back seat of his car, her long legs locked snugly around his torso as she worked her vital young body in a rhythmic dance.

  I love you, Doug. I’ll always love you.

  In the ensuing moments Doug was consumed beyond all reason, and when their orgasm came in a simultaneous explosion of pure sensation it seemed that everything in his life was concentrated in that one singular moment of ecstasy.

  When it was over he let the drug have its way with him. His sleep was populated with images beyond his understanding, however. He saw the child—the golden haired messiah—young but growing—leading flocks of disheveled and defeated pilgrims into shafts of intense blue light that seemed to grow up out of the earth like exotic crystal spires. The pilgrims were stepping willingly into the light and thus being transported heavenward by some amazing and mysterious force, while high up above earth’s decimated atmosphere thousands of fiery blue plasma trails crisscrossed the blackness of space like needle scratches on some cosmic blackboard, each transporting its cargo of precious human DNA to some undetermined destination.

  What are these things? Doug asked his young daughter through his dream sleep. He had never felt such awe.

  Something wonderful, answered the child. They are part of me, I am part of them.

  Doug thought his heart would burst with love and pride as people with enraptured expressions on their soiled and scarred faces thanked the child before stepping into the shafts of sapphire blue light.

  But these were just drug dreams, Doug reasoned. None of this could be real. Man barely had the technology to get beyond the inner planets, let alone climb to the stars in hundreds, perhaps even thousands of mysterious interstellar transporters.

  From somewhere inside the dream Doug recognized a familiar presence. All you see will come to pass, the Collector said, although he did not speak in the conventional sense. It was more a melding of thoughts, his with Doug’s. But only if you follow the true path.

  What is the true path? Doug replied.

  Trust that you have already found it.

  How can I trust anything you say after the terrible things you’ve done?

  There was purpose to it all, replied the Collector.

  No, Doug said. You’re saying that the murders of my parents had purpose? You’re saying that Lance and Janet and Jimmy
Johnson all died for a reason?

  Your survival was paramount, the Collector replied. The survival of each and every one of these individuals—and many others—would have, in some way, jeopardized your continued existence, and therefore the future of your child would have been in jeopardy. I was sent here to make the selections. I was sent here to protect you.

  By terrorizing me? I don’t believe it. Why did you let me see all those terrible things?

  “Because you needed to see. You needed to understand. Here, I will show you.

  No, Doug said. I don’t want to see any more. But even before he’d formed the words, his mind was cluttered with images from across space and time. Some made sense, some were chaotic, but in the end he came to realize that one way or another, the survival of each and every person the collector had taken, including Doug’s own parents, would have, in some way, jeopardized his life or the life of his child. Finally, in resignation, Doug said: What about Tommy and Savannah?

  It was no accident that you knew them. It was no accident that Tommy hit you in the face. They were special in ways that you will someday understand. Their combined spirits live on inside you and in turn will live on inside your child. Their heart and their intellect are vital to your child’s development.

  What about Ariel? Who is she?

  She is God’s lion.

  But I don’t believe in God.

  God believes in you. The object you wear around your neck is proof of that. You will keep it and covet it. When the time comes you will pass it to your child.

  What is it? Where did it come from? I mean really. No more lies. No more crap. Why is it so important?

  It is one of the keys that will unlock the salvation of your race.

  One?

  There are three others and you must find them all. Together they will unlock the future.

  I don’t understand any of this.

  You do not have to understand now. Trust that you will when it is time. Now I must bid you farewell. I have accomplished what I was sent here to accomplish. My time on this earth is over. For such a very long time I have been lost, forsaken and forgotten. Now it is time for me to go home.

  Who are you? Where did you come from?

  Impossible to explain. Even more impossible for you to understand. The seeds I have sewn here on earth will help your child do what it was meant to do. But be warned, no future is assured. Your enemies are ruthless and they will do everything in their power to prevent your child from succeeding. These spoilers know about the future. They are dark and terrible souls who only wish to see harm come to your kind. They wish the object for their own greedy ends. They will not rest until the child is dead and the object is theirs. You must come awake and fight, for agents of these spoilers are now at your doorstep.

  Please, tell me about the blue light. What is it?

  There is no time.

  I need to know.

  It is a complex life form, a sort of transport system, brought here long before humans arrived.

  A transport system?

  Correct, but it is so much more than a simple transport system. There is no time to explain.

  Why is it here?

  A terrible plague will besiege your species. It will provide hope for some.

  You knew this was coming?

  For longer than you can imagine.

  I’m dreaming this, Doug thought.

  You must move quickly.

  Chapter 66

  Doug woke with a start, his body bathed in sweat. He reached out to Nadia but she was gone. Had it all been a dream? “Nadia?” he whispered. He was answered by the sound of distant and rapid automatic weapons fire. He sat straight up in bed. “Nadia?” he said again, this time louder. His answer came in the form of several sets of hurried footfalls out in the corridor. Doug rolled from the bed grabbing the Beretta off the night stand as he did so. He crouched next to the bed, using it for cover. Three dark shapes rushed into the bedroom. Rapid flashes pierced the darkness, the staccato rhythm of automatic weapons’ fire assaulting his senses. The flashes illuminated the impact of countless rounds as they tore into the bed sheets, pillow feathers flying, mattress stuffing erupting. A sheet of paper swept up by the eruptions drifted down along with feathers and mattress stuffing and came to rest on the floor in front of Doug.

  Before the gunmen had a chance to realize their mistake, Doug fired from his position on the floor, squeezing the trigger spasmodically. Two of the gunmen lurched and fell. A third man scrambled from the bedroom. Doug shot at him and missed, the bullet shattering a door jamb beside him as the man disappeared into the corridor.

  Doug leapt to his feet and ran for the bathroom, got inside and closed the door. From a distance came more of the staccato rhythm of automatic weapons fire. His ears were ringing painfully but not so much that he did not know what the sounds were.

  He couldn’t tell how seriously he had injured the two men he shot. Would they still be capable of firing at him if he tried to leave the bathroom? And what about Nadia? Dear God, was she outside somewhere battling more gunmen? Had she already been killed?

  Doug’s mind was cluttered with the previous night’s events, Nadia and the things she’d told him. Good lord, the things they had done together. A deep sense of shame assaulted Doug’s senses. He shook it off. He didn’t have time for shame. And Doug had talked to the Collector about some terrible future, but it wasn’t a future totally devoid of hope. A complex life form. A sort of transport system. A terrible plague will besiege your species. It will provide hope for some.

  Could he trust anything the Collector had said? Did he have a choice? One thing was certain: his unborn child needed to be protected. But he couldn’t think about any of that now. His first priority was survival.

  He opened the bathroom door a crack, waiting anxiously for his night vision to return. His nude body was bathed in cold sweat. He concentrated on his breathing, trying to get it under control. Moonlight washed in through the bedroom windows illuminating the sheet of white paper on the floor like a beacon. Where had it come from? Was there a message from Nadia written on it? Wondering about Nadia’s fate was making him crazy.

  The moon’s illumination gave him a view of two dark forms lying still on the floor. As he aimed towards the corridor beyond his open bedroom door he shivered from stress.

  He knew he had to keep his attention directed toward the bedroom door, prepared to react if someone attacked through it. The thought had no sooner entered his mind when an automatic weapon roared from the bedroom’s entrance, the muzzle flashes brilliant, bullets tearing up each side of the bathroom’s doorjamb, strafing the open space between them, slamming into the wall and plumbing fixtures beyond, shattering porcelain and filling the room with smoke and white dust. Using the muzzle flashes as a target, Doug fired off three shots in quick succession. As suddenly as it began, the din ceased, the only sound the ringing in his ears. The combined stench of cordite and porcelain dust filled the room.

  He carefully watched the entrance to the bedroom wishing he could hear if the gunman was moving around out there, but his ears were ringing too loudly.

  He waited a few more minutes before deciding to leave the bathroom, getting down and carefully crawling across the bedroom floor on hands and knees. He came upon the bodies of two gunmen wearing masks and dressed in black, and just outside the bedroom door, a third. He checked their pockets for ID but found none. He doubted these were government guys. But if not, then who were they? De Roché’s henchmen seemed more likely, or perhaps rogue agents of the Order, which according to Nadia was the same thing. They were all carrying MAC-10 machine pistols. Doug tore the masks off the gunmen but he did not recognize any of them. How the hell had they found out where he was? No time to think about that now. He had to move. He had to find Nadia.

  Carefully Doug crawled back to his bedside stand and retrieved the small flashlight there. He shined it on the sheet of paper that had flown off the bed amidst the hail of gunfire. He’d bee
n right. It was a note from Nadia.

  Doug,

  When you wake I’ll be gone. Sorry it had to end this way but I have decided to go back to the Order and face the consequences. When I explain why I had to do what I did, I believe they will understand. The Order may not be the safest haven right now but it is my life and there is plenty more work to be done.

  You know what’s at stake now and I trust that you will find a way to protect your wife and child.

  “My SUV is parked in the woods a quarter mile up the east trail. It is untraceable and all legal. The keys are in the ignition and the proper paperwork is in the glove box, which includes two driver’s licenses, passports and social security cards, one each for you and Annie. You now have new identities.

  The next part is very important and there isn’t time to explain how I know this but please trust that it is so. The Collector is gone and with his passing De Roché has once again become mortal. But please, do not act upon this information in any way. You must run for your life. It is important that you go quickly, find Annie and disappear.

  Love and Godspeed,

  Nadia

  P.S. make sure you destroy this note.

  Doug stood in a state of shock trying to absorb the words on the page.

  De Roché has once again become mortal.

  The implications of that statement were astounding.

  One thing was certain; he now understood why Nadia had drugged him. She needed to make a clean break and she did not want him standing in her way. But according to the gunshots he’d heard moments ago, she too had encountered resistance. His heart ached. He would never stop wondering if she had made it out alive.

  The ringing in his ears was diminishing so he strained to hear any other sounds. He felt the mutterings of the drug still in his system but now, at least, he was capable of rational thought. He replaced the pistol’s nearly spent clip with a fresh one. Then he dressed hastily, watching the entrance to the hallway as he did so. He put the envelope of money and the extra ammo clips in his pockets and began a slow and careful search of the house. He found no other gunmen. He burned Nadia’s note on the bathroom floor scattering the ashes with the sole of his shoe. Next he snuck back into the kitchen, opened the oven door and turned on the gas.