They were suddenly standing on an empty two lane road that ran past Venice Beach. It was the middle of the night and the only audible sound came from the hissing surf. There were a few cars parked on the street and something about them seemed strange to Ann Marie. They appeared to be normal automobiles but they all were at least twenty-five years old. The whole area seemed emptier and generally less developed than she had remembered.
“Do you recognize where we are?” She asked Dade as his eyes scanned the area. “It looks like Venice Beach but something isn’t right. There are no homeless people around.”
“You’re right,” he said. “Something is off about the whole place.”
“Has this ever happened to you?” She asked.
“Sometimes the red formula will take you to alternate dimensions that look similar to ours.”
They stopped just across the street from the beach. Ann Marie noticed something very unsettling about their condition. “Dade,” she said in a hushed, trembling voice, “something is really wrong with me.”
She was staring at the palms of her hands. Right before her eyes, her fingers were vanishing and blending into one another like an optical illusion. As she concentrated on them, her hands started to turn transparent. The sight caused her to whimper.
“It’s OK,” Dade told her as he grabbed both of her hands. “It’s a side effect. Don’t concentrate on your body too much.” He looked her squarely in the eyes and it calmed her down. “Now,” he went on in a relaxed voice, “don’t try to control your body too much. Try to control your awareness.”
She put her hands into her pockets and took a deep breath to steady herself. A beach breeze suddenly came out of nowhere and blew a few palm leaves around the street. The wind also brought with it a section of newspaper. It nearly stuck to Ann Marie’s foot as it blew by. She picked it up and immediately looked at the date.
“It’s Christmas,” she said, before adding, “nineteen-eighty-three.”
She followed him down the road along the beach. The first sign of life anywhere was a car approaching. When the headlights got close, they could tell it was a black stretch limousine, Bernard’s limousine. They both stood, facing the approaching automobile.
“What’s happening?” Ann Marie asked.
“I don’t know,” said Dade.
As the car got closer, they seemed to be locked in its direct path. When Ann Marie tried to move, her legs were planted in place. Bernard’s limo got closer and they couldn’t get out of the way.
Just at the moment they should have smacked into the hood, they were both hit with an overwhelming bright flash that felt warm on their faces. When their eyes adjusted to the new environment, they realized that they were now sitting in the back of the limousine, sitting right across the luxurious cabin from Bernard Mengel.
The old man had no idea that the pair was sitting just a few feet away. Dade immediately leapt across the cabin like an attacking mountain lion. When he tried to grab Bernard, his hands went right through him like he was a ghost. Dade tried one last time to smack what seemed to be an illusion.
“He isn’t real, Dade.”
“I know but I had to try.” He said, before adding, “And I think we’re the ones that aren’t real.”
“Why did it take us to the past?”
“I have no idea,” he answered.
Bernard suddenly looked up from the old book he was reading and stared right in their direction. “Funny,” he said to himself. “I recognize that feeling.”
Something outside on the road got Bernard’s attention. “What the devil do we have here?” He asked, fixing his eyes on whatever it was. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen your kind,” he said.
Shadows, dark silhouettes created without any apparent substance, filled the Venice Beach street outside. The entire mob of thousands of black human outlines was fighting to get Bernard’s attention. Some were jumping up and down and pointing somewhere.
“I see you,” Bernard whispered to himself. “I see you, my shadow friends. Don’t worry. Now friends, what exactly are you trying to tell me?”
The shadow people were all pointing down the street and vaulting over one another in a mad fury. It was as though they were pleading for Bernard’s help. “OK, OK,” he said to them. “I’m following you. Don’t worry. Sheesh.” He told his limo driver that they were changing plans and to continue down the street.
Ann Marie saw them too and said to Dade, “Look. Look. I’ve seen these things before. She waved to the shadow people. A few seemed to notice her and waved back.
As the limo continued down the road along the beach, the shadow people grew more insistent that Bernard follow them. Then, out of nowhere, they commanded Bernard to stop. They held up their hands and jumped up and down. A few shadows even leaped in the path of the car. It seemed abundantly clear that they wanted Bernard to stop.
“Stop right here!” Bernard commanded his limo driver.
“Right here?” The man asked. “Are you sure, sir?”
When Bernard stepped outside, the mob of shadow people formed a circle around him, jumping up and down and pointing aggressively toward the ocean. The perfectly silent mob of two-dimensional creatures was nearly in a riot.
“OK, OK,” he told them. “I’m walking. I’ll follow you.” He told the driver to wait by the car.
Dade and Ann Marie were invisible to Bernard but strangely not to the shadow people. They directed them to follow Bernard. The two followed the old man as he walked across the sand. Ann Marie asked Dade where they were going. He seemed as confused as she was, saying, “We’re off any map that I know, kid.” His answer delivered her an electric pulse of fear.
They approached the sound of the surf. Perhaps a hundred yards away, an orange glow showed itself by the water. As they got closer, it became clear that they were seeing flames. Perhaps twenty people in black robes were holding hands around a bonfire.
The entire group turned out to be women. They were all young, college age and younger, except for one of them. She was considerably older. Her black and red robe contained splashes of gold on the sleeves and neck. The cold-eyed woman appeared to be the leader of the group.
This woman was standing over a small boy who was struggling to free himself. The boy looked around five or six. He had a mop of black hair and haunted-looking eyes too big for his face. The group had his arms and legs tied to metal stakes in the sand.
After looking at him for just a moment, Ann Marie was the first to figure out who the boy was. “It’s you. Dade Harkenrider,” she said. “As a little boy.”
“I guess it is,” said Dade.
The little boy was fighting as hard as he could to free himself. His limbs were anchored to the sand and he couldn’t get away. Little Dade’s face was taken over by confusion and panic. “Mom! Please, mom!” the little boy shouted at the leader, the one with the gold on her black robe.
At that moment, one of the other women came forward with a large golden dagger about as large as a machete. The boy saw it and immediately cried out so hard that it sounded like his throat was closing up.
Bernard approached the group without hesitation, walking like a man with a purpose. When he got within earshot, he shouted at them. “Hey!” he yelled like he was chastising a child. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Ann Marie asked Dade, “What’s happening? What are they doing to the boy, I mean you?”
“It’s an old ritual,” he told her. “Adults steal power from certain children. Since we’re not really here, there’s nothing we can do.”
The second in command of the coven handed Dade’s mother the golden dagger. She pointed it at the heart of the screaming little boy and plunged it into his chest.
Ann Marie fell back in fright and covered her eyes, shouting, “No! Please!”
Moments later, the coven just stared at the motionless boy bleeding out of his chest. They seemed to be waiting for some
thing special to happen.
Bernard Mengel was shouting, kicking up sand as he marched toward the women. “You disgusting savages!” he bellowed at them. “You contemptible brutes! And you,” he said, addressing the leader of the group. “I thought you and your friends understood the rules. This is your child,” he said looking at the boy. “You know this ritual is strictly forbidden.”
“Forbidden by whom?” said the older leader as she tossed back her black hood.
“Forbidden by a superior sorcerer,” said Bernard, smiling venomously at her.
“Mind your own business, Mengel!” shouted one of the college-aged underlings, a fiery eyed brunette. She told the rest of her group, “We can take this guy. We’re together. We’re a group. He’s all alone.”
“You and your silly groups, Elaine,” said Bernard to the leader. “There is no power in numbers against me. You’re all fools.”
“Bernard,” said the leader who definitely seemed acquainted with him, “please understand. This isn’t an ordinary boy.”
“I’ll say,” answered Bernard. “I’m pretty sure you hit his heart but he’s still alive and kicking.”
One of the coven members put her ear to the boy’s mouth and felt a weak breath. “That’s impossible,” she said, looking directly at the massive dagger in the boy’s chest. “We hit him in the right spot.” The girl looked over to the leader of the coven, saying, “We’ll pull it out and do it again. It’s bound to work this time.”
“I was thinking about scalping all of you,” Bernard told them. “I’m going to start with the next one of you that touches the boy. I haven’t scalped anyone in a long time and for some reason, I’ve been missing it lately.”
“Leave us alone, Mengel,” said the coven leader. “I have the right to do what I want with what I made. My son belongs to me.”
“With all the amazingly evil things we do, Elaine, there is just one place we aren’t supposed to go,” Bernard told her. “You don’t kill your own offspring. You don’t take his power from him before he can even defend himself. You bitches really should know better.”
“Let us be, Mengel!” Elaine shouted. “It’s none of your business.”
“Well, that may very well be true,” said Bernard as he started to circle them like a vulture. “But I’m making it my business. I let your little coven exist and I can always change my mind.”
“You and that corporation of yours won’t be able to push us around forever,” said Elaine.
Bernard laughed wildly before telling her, “I disagree.” He pointed at the women who were holding the boy, telling them, “Let the boy go or I turn this entire coven into a pile of sludge in the sand. For those who think I’m kidding...” Bernard said just as his body vanished in a snap.
He teleported, reappearing next to one of the women holding the boy. Before anyone realized what had happened, he had her by the hair and had ripped out a portion of her scalp. The young woman exploded in screams and cries.
Bernard scooped up the boy’s limp body with the dagger sticking out of his chest. “Hey there, buddy,” he said to the little boy who was still alive. “What’s your name?”
“Dade,” the boy whispered. “Please don’t hurt my mom.”
“This boy is mine now,” Bernard told the entire coven while looking the leader straight in the face. “You broke the only rule there is, the most important one in nature. Only a savage would destroy her own child to gain power. I should annihilate this entire group for what you’ve done. You all know I’m the most powerful sorcerer in this part of the world and there is nothing you could do about it. I don’t know how powerful killing this kid would have made you, but it wouldn’t be worth it. You’re all savages. He’s no longer your son. If I see you or anyone from this coven around the boy, I’m gonna kill all of you, all your families, everyone alive in your whole bloodline. Hell I might even kill every god damn witch I see.”
Then, while cradling the boy in his arms, Bernard started to walk back toward his limousine. He studied the little boy’s chest wound, noticing a green undulating glow, like a firefly in slow motion.
“Never seen anything like this,” Bernard whispered to himself. He told the half-conscious little boy, “How about that. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen something new.” With little Dade Harkenrider in his arms, he looked back at the coven of witches behind them. He went on, talking to himself and the little boy at the same time. “What exactly were those hags into back there? Don’t worry my boy,” he told young Dade. “I am going to take care of you. What happened back there was an abomination. I’m going to make sure that nothing like that ever happens to you again.”
Suddenly, something seemed to strike at Bernard’s intuition. He quickly spun around as though he intended to find someone following in his footsteps. Spawned from the coven’s firelight, two strange shadows formed for a moment before disappearing.
“What do we have here?” The old man asked as he looked around the beach for them. “These aren’t the normal shadow people. Someone on the other side has taken an interest in us,” Bernard told the boy who was barely conscious.
Hidden in the shadow realm, Ann Marie and Dade were following close behind. Ann Marie was shaken up by the violence she had seen.
“I can’t believe what I just saw,” she said as they invisibly followed Bernard down the beach. “Your mother murdered you.” She added, “or she tried to. I don’t understand.”
“I’ve never understood,” Dade said.
“Can Bernard see us?”
“Not exactly,” he explained. “He might see our shadows if he catches the light right, but there’s nothing he can do to us.”
“Why did your mother do that to you?”
“Ritual,” he answered plainly. “It’s an old legend.”
“What do you mean by legend?”
“Sorcerers believe that there is a special power in some children. They want to take it from us.”
The two of them listened while they followed Bernard and the bleeding little Dade across the stretch of beach. The old man seemed to be trying to comfort the boy.
“Sorry this had to happen to you,” Bernard whispered to him. “This isn’t the way your life was supposed to go. This wasn’t in the design.”
The little boy, Dade, looked dreamily down to the strange antique dagger in his chest and touched it with his hand. “What happened to me?” he asked. “Why did my mom do this?”
“Don’t talk,” Bernard told him. “I’m going to take you back to my laboratory.” The old man jutted his chin up and to the left, toward the big beehive building up the beach. “Up there,” he said. “That’s mine. That’s my Asylum. Me and my friend, you can call him The Sheriff, we’re going to get you all fixed up. We’re gonna get that pesky dagger out of your heart. That must be terribly uncomfortable, after all.”
“Am I dying?” Asked the little boy.
“I’m afraid not,” said Bernard. “It seems as though something quite extraordinary has happened.”
While she followed behind, Ann Marie started to feel dizzy and the moonlight began to get dimmer. She grabbed for adult Dade’s arm and held on as tightly as she could. The overwhelming blackness around her began to shift, then swirl. She gasped for breath and experienced the sensation of drowning. She felt herself choking down what tasted like tank fluid. The entire world spun faster around her. She held on to Dade’s hand as though her life depended on it.
She woke up inside the tank and could see The Sheriff on the other side of the acrylic wall. He was looking at her in total horror.
It looked like her body had fused with Dade’s. Her arms, which had been wrapped around his shoulders, had somehow become part of him. Her legs had become part of his lower body. It was like they were two water droplets just making contact.
Her condition didn’t alarm Ann Marie for some reason. Instead, she was consumed by a soothing sensation that she had never experienced before.
It was a feeling of totally letting go, a feeling of pleasurable abandon. At that moment, she wanted it to never end.
Dade started to wake up and their bodies began to divide like two amoebas. The separation felt like the end of the greatest comfort Ann Marie had ever known. While the Sheriff helped them both out of the tank, she fought back the urge to weep because the feeling of loss was overpowering.
Dade was still shaky but he carried her over to the cot.
“I’m so sorry,” he told her. “I should have never let this happen to you. I should have protected you.”
“I did it,” she whispered back. “It was my choice. You didn’t do this to me.”
The Sheriff was still in a state of shock from sight of their melded bodies. “What in the name of the good lord in heaven is going on here, boss?”
“You never call me boss anymore,” Dade told him.
“When the shit gets weird,” The Sheriff explained, “weird like it’s been, we all know who the boss is.”
“What happened to us?” Ann Marie interrupted them. She tried to sit up. “Bernard saved you,” she said. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand either.”
Chapter 17
Abandon
The Cliffside Maternity Clinic was just down the hill from the Asylum Laboratory. It was nestled between a boutique dress shop and a designer bathing suit store. The most exclusive and expensive place of its kind in the area, the place had become a hit with wealthy expectant mothers in Palos Verdes. Eastern chanting mixed with pan flute trickled out of speakers hidden in fake trees and rocks in the lobby. There was even a special package with a salt water pool available for those willing to pay to have their child born with two dolphins. The facility had been featured in The Classy Baby Magazine.
On Friday afternoon, a pregnant woman was in the middle of getting her blood drawn in one of the exquisitely decorated “mommy rooms.” The expectant mother was in her early thirties and seemed to radiate good health. She had a big diamond and platinum engagement ring on her finger. Her clothes seemed to be picked with taste and the absence of a budget.
Ann Marie's Asylum (Master and Apprentice Book 1) Page 25