Bob's Greatest Mistake

by M. L. S. Weech

  “I never said I granted wishes.”

  “Wishes, requests: What’s the difference?”

  They watched the sunlight fade away. Moments after the warehouse went dark, they each turned on a set of lights. They only had the studio lights Patience always had in her car and a handful of flashlights. They set the flashlight beams in front of them, hoping Grimm would use that as his entrance.

  The waiting was enough to drive Bob crazy. He stared at every shadow until he was convinced they were moving. He felt Patience grab his hand for support. He hoped she was trying to support him, because he had none to offer her.

  Bob heard a low cry that could only be a Blacksoul. Drisc reacted immediately and shined his light in the direction of the noise. The instant the light hit the Blacksoul, it skittered away. Suddenly, they came in groups of two or three at a time. Bob put himself in front of Patience, pushing her under one of her soft studio lights. A pair of Blacksouls leapt at her. Bob was only just in time with his flashlight, blasting it out of their perimeter. The other moved warily back into the shadows before Bob could turn his light on it.

  Drisc showed up from behind him and swept a light of his own in an arc, splitting up another group of three. Bob noticed that each group reformed before splitting up to attack again. The plan wasn’t working like it should.

  Bob expected a wave of Blacksouls. He knew Grimm had to have at least fifty to work with, but Bob never saw more than ten, and they never attacked from more than one direction. He looked behind him in time to see Richard being surrounded by three Blacksouls.

  “Drisc!” Bob shouted as he shined his light at two of the black specters. Drisc recognized the warning in time to force the third Blacksoul away. Richard fell back to the group. They formed a circle around Patience, facing away from her. They listened as the Blacksouls hissed and fell back. A moment that seemed impossibly long passed before Bob heard the soft sound of footsteps.

  A man walked patiently from the entrance. Drisc and Richard shined their lights on him. Bob noticed shadows writhing and shifting behind the stranger.

  The man seemed to be in his mid-thirties and was fairly short. His pale face contrasted sharply with his dark eyes. He had a thin mustache and curly hair hidden under a bowler-style hat.

  A black coat billowed around a black vest and button-up shirt. His black slacks looked only a shade lighter than the Blacksouls shifting and skittering behind him. Somehow, the real face of Grimm was every bit as haunting as the cloak of Blacksouls he used to frighten mortals.

  “You really went through so much trouble,” he said with a British accent. “But the first flaw in your little production was something you all should have noticed: She’s not quite due yet.”

  Bob looked back at Patience. Indeed, his Death Sense told Bob she had hours to live. The only problem was that Grimm wasn’t supposed to know. Drisc looked every bit as baffled as Bob was. He and the other Senior Journeymen had blocked Grimm’s powers right after the bus tragedy. He could feel her fear growing. He put every ounce of his energy into trying to keep that fear at bay.

  “Oh, I’ve found my own way of learning whose time is when,” Grimm said, smiling. “Truth be told, I was grateful the Seniors jumped in. The old powers were a nuisance to my newer ones.” He took a few steps closer. Richard brought his weapon up against Grimm. A Blacksoul launched in front of the man before Richard could fire three rounds. The bullets oozed harmlessly from the Blacksoul, and it hissed as it faded away from its master.

  “Also, when we do this for real, you might want to be aware of the ceiling,” Grimm said, pointing up.

  Bob followed Grimm’s finger up into the rafters of the warehouse. He felt his blood grow cold in an instant. Hundreds of Blacksouls slithered and whined quietly along the rooftops. They reached down as if to claw the group. They combined and separated over and over.

  “I’ve been preparing for this for a long time,” Grimm said. “Did you really think those children were my first? Those were some of the final pieces to the plan. It all started with one, though. The first one is the one that sets everything in motion. It gives a man a clue to the overall plan.”

  “Look at you!” he said. “You’re fighting with all you’re worth just to keep me from Manipulating her fear to the point of wetting herself, but I remember now. I remembered when I found my first Blacksoul that I’ve always been able to get my ladies to cry for me.”

  “What do you mean, you remember?” Bob asked.

  Grimm laughed for a moment. “I remember the lie,” he said. “We’re not some random agents of some higher power. We’re just recycled spirits.”

  Bob caught a glance of Drisc. His friend looked horrified and resigned at the same time.

  “It’s funny,” Grimm said, pulling back into the shadows. His Blacksouls crawled onto him. “I’ve never had a real name. People today call me Grimm. They gave me that name because they didn’t know what else to call me. But in my mortal life, before I discovered the potential of understanding these powers given to me, they called me a different name. They gave me the name some over-zealous writer chose. I approve, nonetheless. My old name is only slightly overpowered by my new one, but scholars have studied my old name for more than a hundred years.”

  The Blacksouls flowed to him and around him, taking the shape of the cloak and cowl. They left his face plainly visible.

  “I tore my ladies apart to see how much I could break a person down. I wanted to understand what made them whole. For that, they called me The Ripper.”

  Bob felt his knees give. It took all he had to remain upright. Patience wrapped her arms around him, gripping him as if he were her tether to the real world.

  “You’re fucking nuts,” Richard spat.

  “That can’t be right,” Drisc said just after him.

  Gimm laughed at them both. “I was then. I was obsessed with learning the limits of a person’s biology. Then my mortal life ended, and this one began. I toiled uselessly for twenty years doing what all of you had done before. Then came my first Blacksoul.”

  Grimm held out his hand, and a single black creature flowed onto Grimm’s palm. Grimm smiled at it like a child looking at his favorite toy. “With each new Blacksoul, the blur between my new life and my old one vanished. All so I could realize that ripping a person’s flesh was pointless, especially when you could learn to rip a person’s soul apart. You could remember, and if you did, you’d realize how right I am. We take souls. Why shouldn’t we determine the when and how as well?”

  With each word Grimm spoke, Drisc looked more and more sickened. Bob wasn’t sure what he thought he was going to do, but he found himself charging Grimm before he knew he meant to.

  Two Blacksouls ran up his legs and around his throat, choking him. He can’t kill. None of us can. He can’t! He held frantically to the hope that something else had a higher power. Something had to stop Grimm, because Bob finally understood he couldn’t.

  Grimm stepped up to Bob in his fully cloaked form. “She’ll die, and I’ll be the one to take her life and her soul. It’ll make Mary Jane Kelly look like a virgin figuring out how to use his cock,” he said, looking at Patience. “You’ll be my first true discovery.”

  “Fuck you!” Bob gasped as the Blacksouls gripped his neck tighter. Richard and Drisc shined their lights on Bob, and the Blacksouls retreated to Grimm as he disappeared into the shadows.

  28

  Time Bomb

  Patience held Bob’s hand every bit as tightly as she had hours before when that monster had promised to kill her. A living nightmare gave his word that she would suffer, and he had the greatest reputation of any killer ever—oh, and superpowers. She gripped Bob’s hand tighter. He wrapped an arm around her. He made it a point not to look at her too long. She’d asked him at least three times how much longer she had. It broke his heart to know she was supposed to die, but she couldn’t stop wondering. She felt the desire to do something, but what would be the point? She was going to die.


  Grimm told her it would be worse than when the mortal Jack the Ripper killed Mary Jane Kelly. She’d seen the photographs. Could Grimm’s Blacksoul scythe cut a mortal that way? Would she be crushed by a falling rafter? Hit by a car? Maybe Grimm would want to kill her the way he’d killed prostitutes when he was mortal. Would people look at photos of her torn body a hundred years from now the way some students studied Mary Jane Kelly?

  Her frustration surged. Everyone knew she was going to die, and no one was doing anything about it. She let Bob’s hand go. “You don’t have to hover,” she said angrily. It was stupid to say, but Bob was there, and she could be angry with him, even if it didn’t make sense to be.

  “I’m sorry,” Bob said, as if he’d actually done something wrong. “Whatever Grimm uses, he can follow your trail. I can only tell how close it is if I can see you.”

  Great, she thought. Another advantage he doesn’t need.

  “Drisc managed to find us at the skate park,” she said.

  “Drisc followed the Blacksouls.” He looked confused for a moment. “I’m not even really sure how he did that just yet. I was more concerned with you.”

  The comment hit her like a punch in the gut. She was so angry and felt so helpless. But how did Bob feel? He knew exactly when she would die. He’d have to watch her die, and she’d have to leave him when she’d only just gotten the chance to be with him. It wasn’t fair.

  The door to the warehouse opened. She jumped at the motion before she noticed Drisc walk in with a few bags of fast food. He looked at her a little too closely.

  “How long?” she asked. Her voice broke a bit. She felt like a fish in a bowl.

  “Long enough to figure someth’n out, lass,” he said.

  “Can you still follow the Blacksouls?” Bob asked.

  “I think they give off a strange version of the Death Sense,” Drisc answered. “It’s just for them, though. The’r own private, I do’know, Dark Sense. Only I wasn’t look’n at the Dark Sense, Patience.” He smiled at her as he said it. “It’s faded. I think it means he’s a ways away.”

  “Come eat,” Drisc called to Richard. He’d been working on the lights since Grimm left. He’d been moving and shifting everything about without so much as changing a thing.

  “I’m not hungry,” Richard called back.

  “He has to feel like he’s doing something,” Bob said. “He doesn’t know what to do, so doing anything is at least productive. Maybe I should help him.”

  “I think ye should eat,” Drisc said.

  Something clattered behind them. Patience ducked behind Bob, screaming. The source of the noise was a very sorrowful-looking Richard, who had pushed a light over just a little too much.

  “I can’t stand this!” Patience said. Some part of her tried to calm down, but she’d found her limit.

  “Honey,” Bob said softly.

  “Shut up!” she screamed. “All of you just shut up! There’s a super-powered immortal serial killer after me, and not one of you so-called Journeymen have a clue on how to stop it. The only one doing anything about it is some has-been cop who’s only here because he wanted revenge!”

  “Now, just a minute—” Richard began.

  “I said shut the hell up,” Patience shouted. “I’m tired.” Tears formed in her eyes despite her every attempt to keep them at bay. The worst part wasn’t dying. It was feeling helpless and watching Bob feel helpless. “I’m just so tired. I’m like some sort of bomb, and you all are just waiting for it to go off. I know you don’t want it to happen.” She wiped the tears from her face and started to rush into the back of the warehouse where the offices used to be.

  “I know you’re trying to help me and keep me safe, but it’s just driving me crazy. I can’t watch you all work knowing none of it’s going to matter.”

  She slammed one of the old office doors behind her, knowing how pointless the gesture was. Two of the walls were missing, and all the windows were gone. She huddled herself in the only remaining corner of the room and continued to cry.

  She felt Bob’s arms around her, although she hadn’t heard him enter. She chuckled at how ridiculous she must have looked. She wrapped her arms around him.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he said. She could hear his voice tremble. “I never knew. I was powerless then, and I’m just plain weak now. But I’m not going to let go,” he said, gripping her tighter. He was warm and comforting.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to keep you safe, but I’m going to.”

  Only that was the problem. He cared about her too much to admit it, and she loved him for it. He was an agent of death, regardless of the title he gave himself. He and Drisc knew protecting her was pointless, but Bob loved her so much that he ignored the simple fact that there was nothing he could do.

  She turned to him, kissing him more firmly with each passing moment. They lied down together as she began to unbutton his jeans. “Patience,” he whispered. She could hear and feel his desire.

  “Don’t you fucking over-think this,” she whispered, kissing him hard on the lips to keep him from arguing. “If there’s nothing else you can do, then be here with me. Be here for me.”

  And he was. He gave her every ounce of love and passion she could ever want. He whispered how much he loved her in her ear. Soon, it became all about feeling each other. They didn’t need to say anything for quite some time.

  Afterward, they held each other until he thought she’d fallen asleep. She waited for his breathing to sound regular and steady before she got dressed as quietly as she could. He looked peaceful. He’d be angry with her. He’d be even more upset with himself, but that’s the part she couldn’t face. It wasn’t his fault. It was stupid. It was all pointless and irrelevant, but none of that was his fault, no matter how responsible he felt for it. She leaned next to him and kissed his cheek softly one last time. Then she climbed an old ladder up to a window and out of the garage to face her fate. If she was a bomb, she wasn’t going to go off anywhere people she cared about would be hurt.

  29

  A Dark Sense

  ... and I can’t do it, can I? I just can’t do it.

  Bob woke up smiling. He stretched, expecting to wrap an arm around Patience. He ignored the panic rising in his stomach when he realized she wasn’t with him. He made himself dress and called for her. His composure faded with each moment. By the time he got out of the small office, he was already certain she was gone.

  “Patience,” he called out. She didn’t leave. She just stepped out for a moment.

  Bob’s shout woke Richard and Drisc. Richard was the first on his feet. “What happened?” he asked.

  “I can’t find Patience,” Bob said.

  “How’d you lose her?” Drisc asked.

  “I didn’t lose her!” Bob shouted. The comment felt like a lie to him. He’d had her in his arms; then she was gone.

  “The real issue is finding her,” Richard broke in patiently. Bob could see the former detective resorting to his training.

  “I can’t track her Death Sense,” Bob said.

  “What about looking for the Blacksouls, that Dark Sense?” Richard said. They looked at Drisc. Drisc shifted and fiddled with something in his pocket.

  “It’s not that easy,” Bob said. “I don’t know the trick of it, and I don’t have time to figure it out.”

  “You don’t need to,” Richard said, pointing at Drisc. “He’s got that part figured out.”

  “It’s not something I’ve mastered,” Drisc said nervously.

  “It’s what we have,” Richard said.

  “How do you track them?” Bob asked.

  “I can’t,” Drisc said slowly.

  “You did it before,” Bob argued. “Just tell me how.”

  “It’s not like that,” Drisc replied.

  “Then what is it like, Drisc?” Bob shouted, losing control. “I don’t understand why you’re so secretive. If you can do it, any Journeyman should be able to.”

  “No,�
� Drisc said, sounding ashamed of himself. “Grimm can, and I can.”

  Richard and Bob just stared at Drisc. “What’s that mean?” Bob asked.

  Drisc didn’t answer. He just kept fiddling around with whatever was in his pocket.

  “I asked you a question!” Bob yelled again.

  Drisc pulled a black piece of cloth out of his pocket. Bob stared at it dumbly.

  “Is that—” Richard started to ask.

  “It can’t be,” Bob whispered. “He’d never hide something like that. Not from me.”

  “I swear I didn’t know what they could do until this mess started,” Drisc said. He concentrated on the black piece of cloth with such a look of sadness in his eyes. It rippled slowly and woke up screaming. It wasn’t a piece of cloth any longer. It came to life with that same piercing cry that haunted Bob to his core.

  “You’ve had it the whole time?” Bob asked quietly. A pool of bile tried to jump out of his stomach.

  Drisc didn’t say anything. The man who’d always had some half-assed, smart remark was speechless, which only made Bob angrier. He stalked over to Drisc and punched him as hard as he could. Drisc hit the pavement and looked ready to retaliate, but Richard stepped between them.

  “You two want to fight and get Patience killed?” he barked. “Do you really have that much time on your hands?”

  Bob looked at the man he’d called a friend since he started out as a Journeyman and couldn’t recognize him. “When?” Bob asked.

  Drisc found his feet, but he couldn’t find an answer.

  “How long have you had it?”

  Drisc looked like he was about to explain, but Bob realized he didn’t care. He didn’t want to understand. He didn’t want to have a reason to forgive Drisc.

  “If your damn secrets cause her to become one of those ... things,” Bob said, pointing at the Blacksoul that had coiled around Drisc’s sleeve. “We’re done. If she dies because you couldn’t trust me ... ” Bob let the comment hang in the air. I was supposed to be your best friend. You were supposed to help me save her.