Almost immediately after knocking twice, the motel room door opened, revealing a man with an olive, perhaps Arabic complexion, jet black hair, in his late twenties or early thirties, and sporting a broad smile with a burning cigarette in it.
“Dylan Collins,” the man greeted, “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Jeremiah. Welcome to my,” he paused to examine his immediate surroundings, “current residence. It’s a little dingy, but it’s only very temporary.”
Tonya furrowed her eyebrows. “Mr. Felangelli, I didn’t know you were a smoker. You know, there are a number of pretty effective tools for quitting.”
Jeremiah chuckled. “I’m sure, and thank you for the insight. Please give my regards to your superiors back at the Maricopa County Youth Division.”
She looked confused. “Of course. If you don’t mind, there’s a conversation I’d like to have with you about Dylan. We should talk about likes and dislikes, his family, your history and his history, exchange phone numbers—that sort of thing.
He shook his head slowly and ashed his cigarette at her feet. “No. None of that’s going to happen. Instead, you’re going back to your office, where you’ll find that all of the necessary paperwork has been attended to; your bosses will all be very happy with the work you’ve done. I promise that Dylan will be just fine—better than fine. You have absolutely nothing to worry about. I’ll have him call you from time to time to check in. Sound good?”
She nodded blankly.
“Excellent. Have a wonderful day, Ms. Shony.”
“Wonderful day,” she repeated and turned to walk away.
“Wait…What?” Dylan asked.
Jeremiah rolled his eyes, and Dylan instantly felt some of the suave civility that the man had been exuding fall away. “Don’t concern yourself with her, Kid. She’s no longer consequential. If she’s smart, she’ll forget all about that exchange and go on living her life, taking consolation from your happiness and well-being.”
Dylan turned around. “Tonya, what’s going on?”
She didn’t answer, just kept walking toward her car.
“Tonya, wait!” the teen made to follow her.
“Stop,” Jeremiah commanded.
And, to Dylan’s complete surprise, he obeyed.
“Please, join me inside,” the man added, waving Dylan to him.
Compliance seemed the only reasonable solution, so Dylan shuffled toward the man a voice in the back of his head was screaming warnings against. Once, right before he got to the door, Dylan’s willpower returned, and he hesitated.
“Go on,” Jeremiah suggested.
Dylan broke, dropped his head, and walked in the room. It was drab, as he’d expected. After he took a few steps in, he heard the door shut behind him.
“Take a seat,” his new foster father said.
And, again, Dylan did as he was told, finding the nearest acceptable sitting location—it turned out that it was a metal folding chair next to the table. Jeremiah pulled out another chair and sat across the table from him.
“Before I release my control over you, there are some things I need you to understand. First, your life will never be the same, but, judging by the filthy streets and cells you’ve recently occupied, I’d say it will improve considerably.”
Dylan nodded.
“Second, after I release my control over you, you might be tempted to run or scream. I really wish you wouldn’t, and it isn’t because I care whether or not anyone hears you screaming. It’s because I don’t want to have to chase you or listen to you scream. Instead, I’ll just take your mind again. Maybe, if I get aggravated, I’ll make you start punching yourself in the face.” He laughed. “Oh, why not?”
Dylan balled up a fist and jabbed himself in the nose, which immediately started gushing blood. Jeremiah grinned and ground his cigarette out in an ashtray.
“Okay,” he said, “I hope that’s the only time we need to do that. We can chalk it up to saving time. Finally, until an undetermined time, I will be your lifeline, whether or not either of us likes the situation. You must do exactly what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it. Failure to comply could result in your untimely death. Do you understand?”
Dylan nodded again, slinging blood all over the place.
Jeremiah reached over the table, grabbed Dylan’s nose and yanked. The boy grunted, but didn’t cry out. A warm sensation crept across his face, and it almost felt as if his nose was setting itself right.
The haze over Dylan’s mind subsided, and he felt like himself again, though his face was throbbing.
“What the fuck?”
Jeremiah sighed. “Really? That’s how we’re going to start? How crass. I might blame the surroundings,” he motioned to the unclean room they were sitting in, “but I know for a fact that you’ve uttered that word no less than twenty-seven times already today, in a variety of situations. Now, though—after all that’s happened—your response is ‘What the fuck?’ I must say, I’m a little disappointed. Some might claim that the word is diverse; I think it’s lazy. In this case, it’s your way of requesting that I explain away everything that’s currently making your head spin. But it could be phrased so much better.”
Dylan’s hand gingerly went to his face. “I think my nose is broken.”
“It was,” Jeremiah amended, “to teach you a lesson. But I reset it. I didn’t stop the bleeding, though; that was all you.”
“What do you mean?” Dylan replied a little quickly, a little nervously.
Jeremiah glared. “Remember: I’m all about saving time. I will make you punch yourself again if I have to. Just assume I know everything about you, and let’s move on from there.”
***
After seeing to Lonny’s safety, Teacher whisked himself away—with an incorporeal jaunt through shadows—to the headquarters of the Society of Minds, hidden deep in the Alps, to speak with the General Assembly.
It was a trip he’d made countless times, having been a member of the General Assembly for fourteen ten-year terms during his long lifetime. Of those one hundred forty years, he’d been Chancellor of the Society of Minds for fifty before the Regents voted to retire him. They’d said his service had been stellar and that the Society asking any more of him in an official capacity would be an inexcusable imposition after such a storied tenure. And, as it turned out, they had an opening.
That had been twenty years ago. Now, he was called Regent. It was a title of honor and some authority. He and four other Regents voted annually to give the General Assembly and its Chancellor power for the year, as well as to appoint a Chancellor if one should ever need to be replaced (his own replacement being the most recent use of that power) and to appoint the Assembly’s six ministers after ten-year terms had reached expiration.
For all of the freedom that being a Regent offered him, he would have preferred being on the inside again, as Chancellor. His successor had been a great choice, the very man he would have chosen, but it definitely wasn’t the same as having the authority oneself.
“Byron,” he said, entering the room through a shadow and materializing just beyond it.
The room was full of stacks of old, dusty books. Some were piled high on a table, others on the floor. There were six bookshelves and four filing cabinets, all overflowing with papers, files, notebooks, and memos. In the middle of the office, on a very small island of order in the swirling chaos of the room, sat a man in an electric wheelchair, hunched over a desk with its own stacks of books, papers, and files.
He looked up and blinked sleep from his eyes. “Raul? I didn’t sense you come in.”
“I’m sorry to have intruded at this time of night, Chancellor.”
“Nonsense,” Byron answered, wheeling his chair around with a joystick on the right armrest. “I am always at the service of a Regent.” He smiled broadly.
“It’s good to see you, old friend,” Raul replied.
“And you,” Byron agreed. “How goes your mentoring of young Mr. Talbott?”<
br />
“His empathic projection is coming along nicely,” Raul admitted, “but he’s impetuous and cocksure. I need to focus his energies, and so far the most reliable outlet has been music.”
“That does stand to reason,” the Chancellor observed. “He’s always had a love for it, and he’s good at it. What’s the harm in honing his talents as a musician?”
Raul cocked his head. “And what should he do to practice his gift, Byron? Will he serenade pretty ladies or play for dollar bills on subway platforms? I don’t know anything about music, not anything that will help Lonny out. He wants to form a band. How do I do that?”
Byron laughed heartily. “Oh, Raul, it could be that you’re overthinking this one. Why aren’t these issues that Lonny can worry about? If you could just put him into a band, do you think he’d appreciate it as much? If he wants to make a band, let him. We can even do a search to find some people his age to help, others with abilities who have a love for music. At the very least, we should be able to find people who think like he does whom he can teach to be in a band. It should be fun. I can get behind this.”
Raul shook his head at the thought. “Does the Society have other angst-ridden teens or young adults who have an affinity for a rock and roll instrument? And how would we get any Minister to agree to the Society sponsoring such flagrant publicity?”
A half-smile crossed Byron’s face as he predicted, “Oh, I think I can persuade those party-poopers to let Lonny have a little fun. I see a lot of potential in him. And we’re in an age of information now, Raul. It’s not like when you were Chancellor. I have an ever-expanding roster of incoming members. We may not have the reach that the prophets have, but more and more people are abandoning a notion that there must be a God for there to be good in the world. I have a contact on Abigail Martin’s staff who keeps an eye out for candidates who don’t mesh well with the prophets’ philosophies on a higher power or powers. Then, those names vanish from their records and end up in ours. Thanks to technology, the information is all very organized and easy to transfer. All it requires is a couple phone calls a month, and I can have precise details on dozens of prophet candidates who really aren’t interested in converting to theism.”
But Raul had gotten lost somewhere in the middle of Byron’s lecture about information and hyper-focused on the name the Chancellor had dropped. “Someone on Abbie’s staff?”
Byron cocked his head. “Now, this is interesting. Do you know Dr. Abigail Martin personally? I wasn’t aware.”
Snapping out of his daydream, Raul grunted. “A long time ago. She means nothing to me now. I’m just surprised that you would have a source so close to the chairwoman of the Elder Prophet Council—that’s all.”
The Chancellor smiled knowingly. “Means nothing to you now, but you’re keeping tabs on her,” he noted. “My source is just someone to trade information with, Raul, not an assassin. He doesn’t know to whom he speaks, but I have gone to great lengths to convince him that we’re on the same side. Abbie will never suspect.”
“Okay,” Raul accepted. “I would warn most people that they were playing with fire, but I trust that you’ll keep control of this situation.”
Byron gave a slight deferential nod. “Of course, and thank you for your faith. I’d like to believe it’s well-founded.”
Raul chided himself. He hadn’t come here to lecture his friend on how to do his job, a job that was undoubtedly more complicated and stressful than when Raul, himself, had occupied the position. Indeed, he’d come to get advice, not to give it.
“I’m sorry,” Raul rasped. “I believe that you’re doing a tremendous job. It isn’t my place to micromanage, and I should know better. In truth, I need your help.”
“Oh? I’m intrigued.”
“Earlier today, Lonny was attacked by two monsters.”
“Demons?”
Raul rolled his head to one side and then to the other before answering, “Yes.”
“That’s troubling.”
“And all the more reason I’m skeptical that the General Assembly will have anything to do with Lonny starting a band. We’re growing too rapidly. We’re getting out more, fraternizing with the public, when we should be staying hidden. And a Regent taking an apprentice in the first place is pretty unconventional. Aren’t there more qualified instructors for Lonny?”
“More qualified than the eldest member of our order?”
Raul huffed. “That’s not fair. Age alone does not an effective teacher make.”
“Don’t forget about experience.”
Raul removed his hood, revealing a face covered with burn scars and a head devoid of hair so Byron could see his frustrated, quizzical stare. There weren’t many people Raul felt comfortable sharing his deformed face with, but he’d always been close to Byron.
“What experience? I’ve never been a teacher, not officially.”
The Chancellor nodded, wheeled his chair over to a table with a coffee maker on it, poured himself a cup, and breathed in the aroma before responding, “Teacher or not, I suspect this conversation would’ve begun differently if the attack on Lonny had led to his death. You or he took care of these demons, I presume?”
“That is most definitely not the point. I have no problem serving as the muscle for this Assembly when called upon to do so. Whether we call them monsters or demons, I’ve killed more than my share of them, and I’ll be happy to oblige in the future as well. However, let’s call this what it is: You want me to act as Lonny’s bodyguard. If he were less reckless, he probably wouldn’t need one. And, if you weren’t pushing so hard for expansion, we probably wouldn’t have to rely on Regents to babysit.”
Byron paused as he was bringing the cup to his mouth for the first sip, set it down on a makeshift lap table that ran between the ends of his armrests, and arched an eyebrow at his predecessor. “So, that’s what this is about? Maybe you feel that I’m wasting your talent.”
“It isn’t that either, and you know it. Why Lonny? Do you know of a reason why two demons would come after him in broad daylight? Is that really the reason I’m with him, to provide protection? If so, why not just say that? I saved him once from a demonic attack when we met. And now, six months later, I have to do it again? That seems like more than coincidence. Is there something you aren’t telling me?”
Byron shrugged. “Not as such, but I do sense something about him. He has the potential to go far, and he could take all of us with him.”
“Ah,” Raul returned. “Now, I see what this is all about for you.”
***
“You don’t know anything about me,” Dylan defied.
It was a good line, one he’d heard used, and used himself, so many times when dealing with the privileged. The desired effect was typically a guilt-laden introspection, followed by an attempt to empathize with everything. Not this time. Jeremiah chuckled.
“You were born in St. Mary’s over thirteen years ago, to a mother far too young. She’d never planned to keep you, but I’ve heard that she briefly had a change of heart as she held you. What can I say? Everything about the human experience—compassion included—is fleeting. She died a couple of years later from an overdose.”
“And this makes you some expert on me?”
“You had a smooth first few years,” Jeremiah continued, lighting another cigarette. “A nice, white family fostered you. But you hit five, and you decided that you liked blood.”
Dylan felt his heart start pumping frantically, and his face got hot. Jeremiah smiled wryly and nodded.
“It’s fun, isn’t it?” he inquired. “Touching it, smearing it between your fingers. Do you feel the heat of life in it?” Jeremiah’s eyes widened excitedly. “Did you ever drink it?”
Horrified, Dylan shook his head vehemently.
Jeremiah looked a little disappointed, and he shrugged. “It’s an acquired taste. Anyway, you went back into the system. You made a few uneventful stops. No one put up with the blood thing for very long; you had a coup
le abusive homes, a stint in a juvenile correctional facility for robbing a convenience store--”
“That wasn’t me,” the boy objected adamantly.
“You learned early on that your fascination with blood comes from a control over it. I want you to teach me about that control, so that I can show you how to enhance it.”
“That’s not…” Dylan stammered, unsure of whether he should deny what he was hearing. “I didn’t think anybody knew,” he confessed finally.
“Well, you know,” Jeremiah observed, “and that’s the important thing. It makes my job much easier. And you’ve already accepted it to some extent. You’re doing well, Kid, better than most. I’d say that punch in the face was effective. I’ll have to remember that for future first encounters.
“You have the gift of controlling blood, Dylan. There are people around the world commonly referred to as prophets. God has given them supernatural abilities to spread hope, faith, and goodness anywhere they go. They are humanity’s guides, its protectors. You, Dylan, are a prophet. I’ll show you how to use your gift to help yourself and others.”
“Use blood to help people?”
“Maybe you’ll be a great healer one day. Maybe blood is merely the first of many liquids you’ll be able to control. The thing about prophets is that you are only limited by your faith, or lack thereof. I can also see potential in your abilities being used for offensive purposes. We just have to think big.”
Dylan, now intrigued, asked, “You can teach me how to do those things?”
“Some or all of them,” Jeremiah agreed, adding, “in time. You’re young, and we need to work on the fundamentals first.”
“So, you’re a prophet?”
“No,” Jeremiah answered with a toothy smile, exhaling smoke from his nose as he spoke, “I’m a demon.”
“You don’t look like a demon,” Dylan replied skeptically.
The self-proclaimed demon blew a ring of smoke into the air above Dylan’s head. “Of course not. I wouldn’t make for very good company if I went around looking like something from a fantasy movie, would I? I know you’re young, so I’m going to give you some slack.”
Beyond the Shadows (To Absolve the Fallen Book 0) Page 2