by Philip Blood
I heard commotion in the room where I had just broken the glass, then the sound of a door opening and the woman’s terrified voice retreating down the hallway. Then I heard someone leap and land on the balcony; I could hear their feet crunching on the broken glass. My assailant must have bought my ruse because the footsteps went into the woman’s room.
I gave them enough time to get out of the room into the hall, where they hopefully would not hear me as I again tossed my bag and then jumped to the next balcony. I repeated this quickly until I was five balconies away, at which point I found a sliding glass door which was slightly ajar.
I opened the door quickly to the dark room and heard movement from the bed.
“I’m sorry! I’m Bernard, of Hotel security,” I said in Egyptian, “We are in pursuit of a prowler who jumped the balconies. Please close and lock your sliding glass door, we’ll alert you when the culprit has been found.” As I spoke I had quickly crossed the room to the hallway door and unlocked it.
“Are we in serious danger?” a man’s voice asked as his fumbling fingers finally turned on the light on the nightstand.
He was just too late to see me; I had already opened the door and was slipping out into the hall. “No, I’ll send a man to watch this hall immediately, now lock both your doors,” I finished, closing the door. A few feet further down the hall I slipped into the stairwell and made my way toward the lobby. It was only now that I wondered what happened to Pox. He had not followed me across the balconies.
I cracked the door open slightly so I could peer out into the lobby and get the lay of the land. A slightly balding guy in a bad suit, that had to be the hotel security man, dashed into an elevator. I waited until the doors closed and then started to open the stairway door. My heart leaped into my throat as I saw my buddy, Stewart Hentan, the tourist killer, exiting another elevator into the lobby.
He was not hard to pick out of a crowd. Not just because of his 6 foot, three-inch stocky frame or the long black coat which went from his burly neck nearly to the floor, he stood out due to his piercing eyes and the strange glyph on his cheek. Those dark eyes scanned the lobby for prey, seeming to see into every shadow and crevice. People instinctively stepped out of his way, mothers pulled children to their sides and men did not meet his glance.
My eyes narrowed as two men, who bore a striking facial resemblance to Stewart, suddenly faded out of the background and met him. I was not near enough to hear what they said, but the slight negative shake of their heads told the story. They had not seen me as they watched the lobby. Both of these men had the very same Glyph on their cheek as Stewart.
I closed the door and tried to think clearly. They knew I had escaped my room, and Stewart had lost me upstairs, they would leave one to watch the elevators, and send at least one to check the stairway! I looked at the closed door before me in horror, not daring to open it again to see if they were coming, and not knowing how close they were to opening it and discovering me.
I tiptoed swiftly to the stairs and started back up, running up two stairs at a time as quietly as I could. I reached the first floor and opened the door into the hallway, just as I heard the door below open. “Shit,” I subvocalized since this about summed it up. I tried to close the door both swiftly and silently, which is not easy. I managed it somehow.
Now alone in the hall I ran down toward the end, carrying my bag. I considered dumping it, but I had tossed the purse with all the credit cards and cash on top the clothes inside before sealing the suitcase. Besides, if I dumped it and one of them saw it they might put two and two together and know I had gone this way. I lugged it along.
I finally made it to the end and located a fire escape stairway. After opening the door slightly, I listened, but I did not hear any movement on the stairs. Quickly I made my way down two levels where I came to a door marked with an EXIT sign. In red letters, it proclaimed, "Only for emergencies, alarm will sound!" I figured this qualified. I kicked open the door and barreled out and up the short flight of stairs to street level, alarms ringing all over the place. I did not wait for the police, the fire department or the knife-wielding trio to arrive; I just got the hell out of Dodge.
At the airport, I booked and paid cash for a flight to London. During the wait, I picked an out of the way area where I could sit with my back to a wall and have a field of view which showed me anyone approaching for some distance. I watched people for thirty minutes, looking for Glyph tattoos before I finally relaxed slightly.
Eventually, I got up and went to one of the shops in the concourse, they sold various things, newspapers, books, magazines. I noticed one book with a boy on the cover, and he had some kind of mark on his forehead, kind of like the Glyphs I’d seen, but this was in a different place. It was marked as a best seller, so I picked it up and read the back. Turns out the boy in the story was some kind of wizard, hidden in the real world. I eventually put it down and I glanced at the front page of a newspaper. After a moment, the image on the front page registered on my recently abused gray matter, and with a rustle of paper, I snatched up the publication. On the front page, I saw a picture of the chamber in the Temple of Karnak where Stewart had gone on his murder spree. I read the article quickly. For the most part, I knew more than the writer, however, the article did mention a pentagram burned on the floor. The article went on to say the investigators were looking into the idea of a satanic cult being involved but were not ignoring terrorists or other possibilities for the bizarre killing spree. It also mentioned the bus driver being questioned in connection to a suspect. Next to the article, printed for all to see, I found myself staring at a poor likeness of my face as rendered by the police artist.
I looked around guiltily, but no one seemed to be noticing me.
Looking more carefully at the picture on the front page I could make out black lines drawn on the floor: two circles one inside the other and a pentagram inside the inner circle; interesting. Could Stewart be some wacko Devil worshiper? He sure seemed evil enough to me. I found it strange that he had taken the time to go back to the murder chamber and draw something as intricate as this pentagram after he had chased me clear outside. Perhaps he was some religious zealot.
I looked at the artist’s conception of me again, and then realized something odd; they had not drawn the nautilus Glyph mark on my cheek. You would think my glyph mark would have stood out to the bus driver. Still, I purchased a baseball style hat and a pair of reading glasses. I went to a bathroom and used the mirror, the hat and glasses helped to change my appearance, but I could still plainly see the nautilus Glyph on my left cheek.
Unfortunately, reading glasses aren’t meant for distance viewing, and the blurred vision worsened my ever present headache. When I finally got on the plane I took off the damned glasses and rewarded my patience by carefully breaking them in half. The destruction felt good.
The Stewardess came around with magazines, so I took whatever she had on top and started paging through. There were articles on various tourist sites in the United Kingdom. I stopped on one which mentioned Salisbury England, but it wasn’t the town that caught my interest, it was a picture of a place nearby called Stonehenge. It showed a group of large stones arranged in circles. This particular photograph had been taken during a full solar eclipse giving the whole thing an eerie look. I was intrigued by the formation, though something felt wrong about it. Still, I knew I’d been there. It was a bit of memory which belonged to me, something I had very little of and so I treasured it like the finest gem.
Then I knew where I was going.
Salisbury was brisk, but not freezing this time of year. I bundled the wool coat closer to my body and followed the tour guide along the path toward the lonely stone sentinels standing in the English field. The tour stopped well short of the actual site, at a place where we could see, but not touch or damage, the ancient Megaliths.
I listened to the Tour Guide with half an ear; she was droning on about all the different people that had used or changed the s
ite since approximately 2800 BC. It had been used for various ceremonies and religious rites by many different cultures down through the ages. At various times different cultures made physical changes: the double circle of bluestone Menhirs in 2,100 BC and the five horseshoe shaped Sarsen Trilithons in 2,000 BC. All very interesting, but it did not get me what I wanted. Simply put, I had a strong urge, or call it a compulsion, if you will, to stand within the inner circle. It drew me like a puppy to his mother’s milk.
The tour moved on, and so did I, breaking away as soon as possible. As much as I wanted to go there now, I had to wait for dark to make my illegal foray into the center of the circle. I went back to the small hotel where I had checked in after arriving by bus from London and rested while waiting for dark.
I slipped over the fence handily and dropped to the ground on the other side, pausing to listen for sounds of discovery. The stillness of the night seemed undisturbed. By moonlight the Megaliths seemed silent sentries to time, guarding this place by their very strangeness. The length of time they survived the onslaught of human progress shows the measure of their success. Mountains leveled for housing tracks, the earth plundered for ore and minerals, rivers dammed, oceans and air polluted, yet here this circle stood, damaged, but surviving.
I reached what remained of the outer ring of Sarsen stones, with their uprights and top lintel stones, there I paused. I could feel a current of power emanating through my body; it was a heady sensation. I reached out a hand and touched the nearest of the massive stones, but felt no increase in the strange sensation. I took a step forward toward the center and the Sarsen Trilithons.
I then looked back at the outer ring; which used to extend all the way around. Nowadays, there was only a single grouping of three openings, with three other single arches.
I suddenly wondered what in the world I was doing out here in the cold night around some old boulders which some religious nut made his people drag across the countryside. I spoke aloud, “I should be going to see this Fiona Albus, not standing around freezing off my arse!”
At this point, I felt an unnaturally cold wind blow across me and the world seemed to wobble, though now that I think of it, perhaps it was my balance which wobbled.
Out of the dark night, a woman’s voice spoke, sounding soft and near. It did not sound as if it was coming from the outdoors it sounded as if we were within someone’s room. Her voice was right out of every adolescent’s dreams of the perfect woman.
“Nicholas, dear, where are you?” she asked.
My reply was both witty and succinct. “Wha...” I said, dumbfounded, spinning around to try and spot the girl with the sexy voice; she had to be close.
“Oh, I’m sorry to startle you; I know you’ve lost your memory. I grew worried when you didn’t arrive and wondered if something had happened. I thought it worth answering your summons.”
I still looked around the old stones for some sight of the woman who was speaking as if she was standing within five feet of me.
“Summons? Who are you?” I finally managed to say.
“Oh, I thought you knew. Pox called and left a message telling us you were coming to my place in England.”
I took a deep breath trying to regain my nerves. I must have sounded a little squeaky during my last attempt at questions.
“Then you are the friend he told me to visit?” I asked.
In a reassuring voice, she answered. “Indeed, where are you now?”
This is an interesting question for someone to ask when they sounded as if they were next to you.
“Don’t you know? Are you not here as well?”
“Of course not, I’m at my home,” she answered as if that was the most normal thing in the world.
I sighed mentally; I just hated not knowing what in Hades these people were talking about. “Then, if you aren’t here, and you don’t even know where I am, how in the hell are you talking to me?” The last part came out a bit stressed, all right, more than a bit.
She answered in a soothing tone, “I answered your summons and created the bridge between us; if we keep it short it is unlikely a Hunter will detect the connection. Don’t worry, just come to my home, the one Pox told you about, and we will see about getting you straightened out. When did you last see Pox?”
Her sudden shift of subject threw me off for a moment and I mentally scrambled to find an answer. “Back at my hotel in Luxor, where some guy was after me; he wants to mount my head on his wall as a trophy!”
Her next words gave me the distinct impression she was shaking her head in disapproval. “A Hentan; sometimes you just wish there had only been nine Firsts. Anyway, you say ‘back in Luxor? Where are you now?”
This is the second time she has asked about my whereabouts, I wonder if I should tell her, yet I didn’t really know who she was or for whom she worked. Some disembodied voice out of the night, melodic or not, wants to know how to find me; perhaps it is time I started being more cautious.
“I’m in England; my plane landed in London. Before I agree to come out to your place, what can you say to reassure me that you aren’t working for Stewart Hentan?”
“Stewart is the one after you? Be careful! He’s a Second you know; he has both power and skill. It is imperative for you to reach me soon, and don’t say your name! He can track you if your name is spoken aloud, given time. As far as reassurances, let me tell you this, you know where I live and can come at the time of your choosing. If I was after you I wouldn’t put so many cards in your hand. Nicholas, I am your friend and have been for a long time. Somewhere in you, there has to be some memory left of that friendship. Search for it, they can’t have taken all of your emotions as well as your memories. Now it is best if we stop talking this way, the use of a spirit bridge over this distance is too much of a signal. Stewart could zero in on you. Come to your friends, Nick, you will not regret it.”
I felt her presence depart. Somehow I knew it without having to call out to check, it was like a door had closed somewhere and the chill breeze had stopped.
I considered her words for a moment; perhaps there was some truth to what she said. There were emotions I had been feeling all along, but they were unattached to memories so I had not really connected them. I had been worried when I first saw Stewart in the group of tourists, and then I had felt disgusted when I heard his name. Now when I thought of Fiona, I felt... love? I'm not sure, infatuation might be closer. In fact, the thought of love caused something painful and ugly to twist in my gut. However, my negative emotion did not apply to Fiona. At the thought of her voice, I felt a warm sensation, a desire to see her; I guess you would call it a feeling of trust, and perhaps a little lust, if I was being honest.
I had just reached the conclusion to go and see her as planned originally when there was a flash of blue light from behind me. I spun around, nearly falling to the grass, and found myself looking at the three outer ring openings and the image of a human in the left-most opening. Not a person, just the outline of a body done in faint glowing blue which seemed almost mist like. Inside the outline was just the blackness of night.
His body suddenly replaced the blackness, and the blue glow outlining him quickly diminished and was soon gone completely.
The moon lit man took two steps forward, toward one of the Trilithons, but then he must have seen me. I saw, from the quick change in his posture as he went from standing to a crouch that he went on the defensive.
“Who are you?” a male voice asked warily.
Fiona’s voice came back in my memory. 'Stewart could zero in on you.'
However, this man was not Stewart, he did not have the height, but he could be one of Stewart’s friends. Then he moved and the moonlight hit his face, and I noticed he had a glyph on his left cheek. It was not the same one as on Stewart, nor the nautilus I had on mine; his was the image of a circle, with four arrows pointing out, one each at the top, bottom, and sides, with small hash marks between. Then I knew it, a kind of a simple compass, without the Nor
th, south, east and west letters.
“I could ask the same of you,” was my witty reply.
“Hydan Friare, Third,” he answered immediately.
At his instant and seemingly open response, I felt obliged to answer with my name as well, but Fiona had told me not to say my name aloud, so I just remained silent.
“I see by your Glyph you are a Sivaeral, what Tier?” he asked, curiously.
I noted caution in Hydan’s tone, but also a measure of friendliness. Against my better judgment, I found myself relaxing somewhat. After all, so far he had not pulled out an UZI from under his coat.
“You aren’t planning on trying to murder me, are you?” I suddenly asked.
He actually laughed, “No, that wasn’t my first thought.”
His warm laugh was reassuring; it was obviously real and from the heart. I relaxed a little and considered what I should tell him. I needed someone to answer some questions dearly, and there was something, well, just trustworthy about his open emotions.
I decided to take a chance and said, “You know, I’m just tired of all this shit.”
He looked puzzled, “You seem angry.”
“Bub, you have never seen me angry. The thing is I don’t even know what you mean by ‘tier’; let alone which one I’m in. Hell, I don’t know what you mean by my ‘House’. I’m new to all this. I don’t know why certain people, like you, have this mark on their cheek, or why I have one. Most of all I don’t know why some asshole I had never met wants to kill me!” I left out the part about having no memory of ANY past.