Wraith ; Semblance

by Riley Mason

  I look at him straight-faced, I can see even in the black spotted eyes that’s not the response that it wanted.

  “You killed a lot for him after the war. They say Gabriel was never quite human but he was never quite possessed either. He found a way to coexist with the spirit and the vessel, they operate as one and as one, it gave him power over you.”

  “And what power would that be?” I ask, my voice dry my curiosity on fire.

  “Anything he wanted, he just needed to ask. You never questioned him, you never once argued. Had you been instructed to kill that family instead of Jesse, you would never have broken down the way he did. You weren’t built for that.”

  “And what exactly was I built for Lucas?”

  I could see the smile beneath the reinforced Kevlar covering his face.

  Watched as the fabric moved and stretched along with his features. “To be what he wanted you to be. Do you know how many lives the hybrid made you take in your time with him, I was just the test, you were the main event, what all the practice was for.”

  “So, you spoke to the demon that’s in him?” I inquire.

  “I was the fucking demon in him, I left this vessel a long time ago with just enough of myself left behind to tell you that either you're going back to him or you’re going to fucking die, that brother of yours will die, your Chaser pride is going to die, all of them, every single one of them and you’re going to be the one that does it for him.”

  I hit the buzzer and the guard's come back into the room. The docile face is back in place. As they lift to move him and begin to roll him out, I hear his words. “I’ll see you soon Counselor.”

  Chapter 38

  I’m standing at the train station. The hours are beyond what the platforms had to see during the busy rush hour season. At this time, the train comes every hour or so, it already says the next one is delayed by about twenty minutes. I can just add that to the forty-five minutes that the next one was expected.

  It's dark but there’s no moon in the sky tonight. My mind keeps replaying Lucas Dodson and the things that he told me. I can understand how Gabriel told Lucas to take possession. With everything Jesse told me, it’s more than possible to believe Gabriel just needed to ask. Keeping the demon in control in there was different, control didn’t work on demons unless you had leverage. An agreement with a stronger demon or the demons bones in a fire pit.

  It’s times like this that I wish the Chaser population was as full as it used to be. Most of us created contingencies but those contingencies are long gone now that the war came to an end and the door was sealed. That door is never going to open again.

  I had a friend once, a woman by the name of Margery who told me over dinner, we discussed what had happened and what we thought was going to change it was one of those memories that I can still enjoy. At that point we were never entirely sure that we were going to make it out of the entire ordeal alive. We had allies back then. Had either of us known what was going to happen with us all, what was going to happen to me, I might’ve ended it before I became such a threat.

  “This war will end,” Margery had said, sitting over her third IPA and a double-bacon cheeseburger half way chewed. “And then when that happens we’ll all be out of a job and homeless.”

  “Even if the war ends, it’ll never be over,” I say in reply, back then I was naive but I had spunk to me, there was a fight that even if I never fully understand, I believed in the cause of it. It certainly hadn’t ended but it’s getting close. It turns out that there was enough of it left to start something up again.

  That was the last time that I had seen Margery alive. There were the body parts, she was killed less than a mile from my house. Three bullets went into her head and she was thrown off a building. They found her in the middle of 5th avenue, by the time I got there, police had already used the entire street as their parking lot. They wouldn't let me within fifty feet of her. That was one of the days I came the closest to crying.

  The sound of tires screeching took me out of the moment and I got up from the steel mesh bench and looked around. The lights over the platform had gone out leaving nothing in the distance to light the ground around me other than a moon that was only half interested in the sky.

  By the time I looked around, three men were already on the platform, there were three automatic guns on me and three men wearing night vision goggles over their heads as they walked to me. “Get the fuck down,” one of them said to me.

  “Go fuck yourself,” I replied.

  They went to bind my hands, I turned and drove a knee into one of them, turned and then threw four elbows before any of them could get a single hand on me. With all three of them on the ground I ran. I had no weapon on me.

  The sting in my shoulder stopped me and put me to the ground. I could feel the heat as the bullet that had ripped through my left shoulder tore skin and flesh and blew out of the front of my body.

  I didn't scream when I hit the ground but I hit the ground hard enough that I could taste blood and feel it spilling out of my forehead. Pain set in seconds after the adrenaline got moving.

  I could see feet walking towards me. I could see them bending. “Now you and I need to have a talk,” Gabriel said.

  Chapter 39

  I sat there tied to a chair, my wrists wrapped in heavy rope so thick that it was cutting into my wrists. That same knot moved up my back and held me to the chair and then wrapped around my throat, midsection, and feet. There wasn’t any moving, at least not unless I could get my hands out of the bindings.

  I was in a small room, barely lit and the parts that were lit looked like old stone, one single light showed in the corner, most of everything was dark in shadow.

  At the other end of the room was an oval door that opened when the wheel in the center of it spun. I watch as Gabriel and a man walk in with him that can only be a mercenary.

  Gabriel comes closer to me; the mercenary closes the door behind them.

  I can taste blood on my lip, most of what fell out of my body has dried to my face and I can feel the pain in my shoulder remind me that it’s there. The angle that they have my arm tied seems to tease the wound and make it hurt worse.

  “You didn’t need to get shot,” he says to me. “I wanted to talk.”

  “With three mercenaries you must think that I’m stupid.”

  His face got stuck in the light of the room, one of his eyes was white not the green that she recalled it being. There was no expression of amusement on his face. “What we needed to speak about concerns you being well not with a bullet in you.”

  “What the fuck do you want Gabriel?” I ask, I have no patience and most of me is certain that I’m going to die here and now. I'm terrified to be this close to him but my anger is keeping that part of my body in balance right now.

  “I wanted you out of my business but you insisted on staying involved. I used you to create the wraith and now you're fishing around ATAP and my holdings company. You’re a smart girl, it didn't take you long to find the connection, I need to know who you told about that.”

  “Who the hell would believe a story like that?” I ask him, anger stains my voice.

  “Who knows.”

  “That you're using a board as a farm for what you're trying to do? No one fucking knows,” I scream.

  “You're not a dumb girl Arinna, you protect yourself well.”

  Right now, I wish I had more time to figure out what he wanted. I had nothing and I doubted that he was going to believe that for one second.

  “The wraith is here you know,” he says. “It’s not in clear physical form. It needs to get stronger. It’s started to feed on your friend Eric.”

  “So you want it to kill me?” I ask, my face is red, I can feel the heat rising throughout my cheeks.

  “It can’t, that's one of the questions that I need an answer too.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask out of genuine curiosity.

  “It can’t take you, it can’t have you, i
t’s fed but it can’t feed on you.”

  Gabriel gets close to me, I can see his eyes are mismatched now clearer than ever. “I want to know what secrets you're keeping from me.”

  “Fuck off,” I say and spit at him but the command doesn’t draw anything out of me. There’s is no compulsion to finish the task that he’s given me. I don’t know what it means just yet.

  I see him stand back, that anger that I know so well shows all over him. “Tell me what I want to know you fucking bitch.”

  “Eat shit,” I say back.

  “It’s a shame what’s you’ve become,” he says to me after a minute. I can see that he knows it too, there’s something wrong. There has to be some reason that my body isn’t responding to his words. “We had something so pure and so powerful and you’ve changed it to be some whore on the street wiping out all those insignificant creatures that the other side shits out. We were great at one time, I want to know why you felt the need to leave me.”

  I’m not sure what to say. I have no memories and what little I do are so blurred and tainted that I’ll never be able to really articulate them. I know that I’m scared, my heart is racing and despite the deposits of anger that are still inside of me, that fear is starting to get some legroom in. I want him dead but I have no idea how to do it and now I’m surer than ever that he’s going to kill me no matter what answer I give him.

  I look up at him, the green and the blue eye looking back at me, there’s hope in there, in the asshole that he is, there is a glimmer of hope and illusion that all this surrounding us means nothing. “I’d rather die than have you close to me again, to be your slave and have everything I am ripped away from me, I’d rather be fucking dead.”

  The gun was out now, aimed at my face. “Tell me Ariana. Tell me what I need to hear.”

  “I’m not telling you shit.”

  Gabriel looks to the mercenary. “Cut her,” he instructs him and the man comes around behind me and drives a blade into my shoulder where the bullet had pierced. I scream and I can hear it move around the room like it’s trying to suffocate me.

  “Arinna, please.”

  “Fuck you fucking piece of shit,” I say, spit and blood are trailing down my lower lip, there’s sweat in my face and the pain forced tears down my eyes. I don’t know what he wants, what he wants to hear.

  “Fine,” he says. I hear three shots go off and I feel three sizzling hot bullets punch into my chest and stomach.

  Chapter 40

  I don’t die right away despite the pain. My body has me in this state somewhere in between consciousness and sleep. I don't like it but I know my head doesn’t really want to listen to me.

  They cut me free of the chair. They’re talking but I can't make out any of it anymore.

  As I’m pulled free I can hear the chair fall and I can hear the door open. Four more men come into the room. Two of them grab me, one grabs my arms, the other grabs my legs.

  I can feel the steps they’re pulling me up, the salted air touching my nose as we go above deck on something that is quite obviously a ship at sea. I don't know where we are, with Gabriel we could be anywhere by now and heading in any direction in the world.

  I supposed I know it could come to this, that being a Chaser could have a dangerous ending. We play with ghosts and demons for a living and sometimes they know how to win more than we know how to fight them.

  In the end there is no other threat like flesh and blood.

  I’m nothing more than Lucas Dodson, a loose cannon that Gabriel used to get himself to a position better than he was in before me.

  “Wait,” I hear Gabriel order and I’m dangling in the strength of four men and eight hands. “Put her down,” he tells them. They do.

  “Go away for a moment,” he orders them and they all step aside and I can feel him come to me. I can feel his presence as he bends down, his hand moving across the wetness of my face. “Why would you put me in this position. I never wanted to hurt you, I only wanted to keep you. Your too strong, I should’ve known better to know that you would never really stay mine forever.”

  He stops but a pair of lips reach down and touch my forehead and I can feel him slide his face against mine until his lips are right next to my ear. “If you had stayed alive, I would’ve ruined every facet of that life of yours that you cherish. I would have made you kill and torture what people you still care for. You would’ve been mine Arinna, you would’ve done anything I’ve asked and I would’ve asked things that would have mutilated the person you thought you were. I hope you rot down there with the demons that you sent back.”

  That’s it, he was done I could feel him looking at me but he didn’t say anything else. The pain was still there but it was almost like my mind was detached from the body that was experiencing it. “Throw her fucking overboard,” Gabriel instructs them again and again hands are attached to my limbs.

  They hang me off the ledge and I can hear the engines in the rear of the ship churning up the water that’s driving the boat further. The splash of water as the massive ship chugs through placid water with speed and authority.

  They do it and my body falls through the air until I go into the water. That state that I’m in doesn’t let me swim, it doesn’t let me commend my body to move. I’m stuck there to either float or drown depending on the how my body reacts to the water.

  Book 2

  The Aftermath

  Chapter 41

  Amy King sat there in front of her vanity. Tonight, was the first blind date that she was ever going to go on. She didn’t want to but it was one of those office politics that she had to agree to because she liked her work and the person that recommended the date was just a little bit too high above her pay grade for her to outright refuse.

  She hadn’t gotten a lot information about the who and the what, but she did get the where and a few of his physical details. She wasn’t interested in the least but she had to and she knew it.

  There was a bottle of wine that was three glasses down, she had to make sure that her personality was well lubricated before she had to do this. The whole concept of dinner was old and outdated. It wasn’t for the modern woman and she hated that she had to subject herself to it.

  Her hair was dried, a long and black, her skin was fair, she used some makeup to add some more color to it. Crisp green eyes looked back at herself as she studied the black dress that she wore for the night.

  She had just gotten off the phone with her sister, a cop in the NYPD explaining that she was going through with the blind date despite her sister's objections and jokes. Her sister and her couldn't be more different but at times they couldn't be more alike. She heard herself in all those arguments that her sister threw at her. “Are you crazy,” was followed by, “I hope he tells you that there’s something about you and that he’s in love with you.”

  When she stood to collect herself, the lights in the house went out. “Shit,” she said as she looked around, walking to one of the outlets and touching the switch to see if maybe it just shorted. After three times she realized that it didn't.

  Using her cell phone camera, she illuminated the flashlight on it and used the light to cross the room to the door. She wanted to see if the lights were still on in the hallway or if the entire building had lost the same power. It wouldn't be the first time, it was in the middle of summer and more than enough people were in the middle of abusing their air conditioning units.

  When the door opened she saw her neighbor standing out there too. An old woman named Mrs. Helen, at least that’s what she wanted everyone to call her. “Power out too Mrs. Helen?” she asked.

  “Always in this god-damn building,” she said closing the door in a fit back into the darkness that Amy could see behind the door.

  When she turned she saw something, something else entirely, standing there in the dark, a black hooded figure with a meat cleaver in his hand.

  Chapter 42

  Amy went to scream but a fitly hand is over her mouth before
she has a chance to do that. The cleaver came down on her and pressed into her shoulder. The pain explodes inside of her but it wasn’t enough to pass the hand holding it back.

  The figure pushes her into the house and closes the door behind him.

  She feels the blade ripped out of her and her body flung to the ground, before she has a chance to crawl the cleaver has gone in and out of her four more times.

  The pain exploded through her. She tried to turn over, with her hands there was a chance that she could stop the blade from injecting into her body again. What she realized was the at pain and fear was holding her still. Her eyes worked through and she realized that she couldn't’ see the figure in the dark, under the hood there was nothing but a flat almost pale blackness that was there. There were no eyes, there was no nose or features of any kind looking back at her.

  She went to scream again but the hand clamped back on her mouth.

  “Please,” she tried but nothing came out.

  As the figure bent down to her the figure showed her the blade and she decided to stop. That to antagonize might keep her alive just a little bit longer. When she saw her own blood staining the blade it made her heart beat so fast that she was sure that it was coming to march out of her own chest.

  That was when the cleaver punctured her chest, she could feel bones break even before she felt the rip in flesh at her chest. Then the sawing came.

  The figure was cutting a rough circle, riding her bone with the edge of the blade in a circular motion around her chest.

  With his hand over her mouth, blood was leaking up her throat and out of her mouth and was staining the palm of his hand but no matter what he never once moved it. It was getting harder to breathe, the air she was pulling in wasn’t holding itself in her chest.