Endless

by S. B. Niccum

  Sam is being held in a beautifully furnished room in one of the few mansions that has remained intact. It must be one of the officer’s homes, or rather, a home that one of the officers took from a civilian. Samantha looks as if she’s finally gotten to shower, and has been given a beautiful gown to wear. As she stares in the mirror, shaking with fear, she can’t help but also admire her own reflection. It’s as if she’s seeing herself for the first time in her life, and for a few minutes she allows herself to be a little vain. Her long blond hair is brushed and it flows smoothly down her back, glinting under the bright lights of the room. But as I get closer to her, she stiffens. “You…” she whispers and turns suddenly. “You’re back.”

  I peer into her eyes, and wave one of my hands in front of her, trying to determine once more if by any chance she sees me. But she doesn’t even flinch. “Yes,” I finally answer her. “I’m sorry it took me so long to come back. I had some business to take care of,” I explain, knowing full well she doesn’t understand me.

  “Yes, it is you. I can feel you. You feel…familiar to me. I wonder why?” She sits on the foot of the bed and slumps her shoulders. “I don’t know what they want with me. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. The soldier who brought me here told me to shower and to pick a dress to wear for dinner, so I guess I’ll at least get to eat. I’m scared though,” she says, then cups her face with her hands and starts to cry. Right then Valerie glides through the door and looks in my direction with alarm.

  “Tess! Oh! You scared me.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, I heard her crying and I thought—well never mind, I’m glad it’s you.” Valerie looks grim and comes to my side. “How did it go? With Alex, I mean.”

  I shrug. What can I say? “I got him out.”

  Valerie nods knowingly. “But is he out?”

  “No,” I admit, then sigh. “He and I…” I shrug again. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m afraid that I’ve made things worse.”

  Valerie looks up at me, her eyes are sad and perceptive. “I was going to tell you that I had a feeling that—. Well, never mind about all that.”

  “I know,” I acknowledge. “I saw that look in your eyes before I left and I ignored it. I wanted to go so badly.”

  Valerie nods solemnly.

  “You know…you look different,” I comment. “You look…you look…”

  “At ease.”

  “Yes, at ease.”

  “It’s gone!” she says with a smile. “The cloud that hung over me my whole entire life is finally gone! I can’t tell you how wonderful that feels! I’m free! I’m free.” Valerie closes her eyes and looks as if she’s relishing the feeling. I smile. I’m so happy for her. She suffered from depression her whole life, now in death, she’s finally found reprieve.

  “Well, we have pressing problems to deal with,” she says as if snapping out of a trance. Then she glides over to Samantha and wraps her breezy arms around her. As a consequence, the girl shivers.

  “I wish—I wish I could see you both. I know you’re there, I know you’re trying to help but,” Samantha shakes her head. “What if none of this is real? What if I’m making this all up?”

  With the tip of my sword I reach for a shawl that is lying across a chair and gently lift it up. Samantha doesn’t notice it at first, then from the corner of her eye, she sees the sheer fabric floating up all on it’s own and she freezes. Her face turns pale and her lips turn white as chalk as her eyes fill with tears that she tries to blink away. Slowly, she stands up and walks toward the floating fabric and touches a corner of it with a shaking hand. “Wow…” she whispers reverently, as she stares at the shawl, suspended in mid air as if by magic.

  Chapter 16

  A knock at the door makes her jump, and I drop the shawl on her hand right as the door opens. Startled, she turns back and sees that the shawl is now draped across her forearm. “I was just—just—” she stammers.

  A good-looking young man dressed in a tuxedo approaches her with a smug look on his face. “I would think that you’d be happy to be finally clean and dressed in a proper dress,” he says acidly. “I’d hoped that you would like my home and all the things I can offer you.” He brushes a few strands of hair away from her face, and wipes her tear-stained face with the back of his hand. Samantha flinches when he touches her, and he snorts with derision. “What? You don’t like me? In time, you will.” He looks unflinchingly into her eyes. His slate gray eyes make her even colder and she shivers. His glossy black hair, combed smoothly back, and his crisp suit give him an air of perfection that seems unnatural. “Come on,” he offers her his arm. “My parents are waiting for us downstairs.” Hesitantly, she places her hand on his arm, and lets herself be led out of the room, but before they exit, he stops abruptly. “Please don’t embarrass me,” he cautions acidly. “My father is the head of the ROWE division in this area, and we usually have other officers dine with us. I would hate for you to make a spectacle of yourself with poor table manners,” he warns. Samantha stares back at him with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights kind of look. Almost imperceptibly, she nods back at him, and satisfied, he resumes their stiff march toward the dining room.

  Like two Sentinels, Valerie and I stand guard right behind her, while dark spirits zoom above the dinner table like pesky flies. The conversation during dinner sickens us. All but Samantha chatter away all through their sumptuous dinner, talking about the ignorance of the people and their own exalted state and higher level of intelligence. They laugh about the misery of the people, and talk about them as if they were nothing but mere animals. Then the subject turns to rumors that an underground movement of rebels is forming, and they discuss whether it’s a real threat or not. Samantha, who’s been quietly eating, stiffens at the word underground, and this does not go unnoticed by her handsome captor, who keeps a shrewd eye on her at all times.

  “Samantha, what do you think about an underground rebellion?” he asks with both amusement and a warning in his voice.

  Sam holds her fork loosely in her hand, as she looks up, startled by being put on the spot. “An underground rebellion?” she asks tremulously.

  “Yes, what do you think about it?”

  Swallowing a lump in her throat, she looks back down at her plate. “I think it’s a fable,” she says. “A story,” she adds, “to share when the lights go out at the shelters.”

  Everyone around the dinner table stares at Samantha, each trying to form his or her own conjectures about her. Up until now, no one would have guessed that such a lovely creature would have an intimate knowledge of what went on in the shelters once the lights go out.

  “Well,” the head of the ROWE officials says as he clears his throat, wipes his mouth, and looks from his son, to Samantha, and then back again. “I certainly can’t imagine any group of civilians having the resources to arm themselves in any way, shape, or form.” He laughs, a low throaty laugh. “How are they going to defend themselves? Stones?” And everyone laughs, except for Samantha who merely smiles, and her captor, whose eyes are trained on her like a hunter ready for the kill.

  This whole time I’m holding the huge Cherub Flaming Sword that Dane took from Russell, like a bat, ready to strike at any moment. As soon as dinner ends, the men go into one room and the women into another. The soldier who brought Sam to the dinner grabs her arm by the crook of her elbow and holds her back tightly, while the other ladies, full of themselves, walk happily into the parlor. “Behave now,” he warns through gritted teeth in her ear, while still keeping a fake smile across his face. “We wouldn’t want to cause a scene now, would we?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam says flatly as she yanks her arm away from his grasp, then walks in after the ladies, leaving him standing stiffly all by himself.

  “Martin!” his father barks. “Come on, son, come with the men.” His face is hard, unsmiling. Once the rest of the men clear the dining room, he stops his son from crossing the threshold.
“I don’t understand what your fascination is with dirty, dim-witted, shelter girls, but if you bring them here and mix them with good company, you’d better teach them a thing or two about manners,” the old General growls in low tones.

  The young officer stares blankly back at his father, then pushes past him into the adjoining room. I almost let my sword fall on the creepy old officer, but Valerie holds my arm, stopping me. “Not now, Tess, not like this. We have to play our cards right or Samantha will be the worse for it.”

  “I’ll be fast. They’ll never know what happened.”

  “What, you intend to kill them all? Come on Tess, you’re Open, you’re supposed to feel more empathy for everyone, right?”

  I think about that for a while and my mind flashes to that scene by the lake, where I saw Him, the First One. I thought about His eyes, the pleading in them, and the promise I made to Him. Slowly I lower the sword like a deflated balloon. “We will have to use this to get her out. We’ll have to be willing to get our hands dirty to save her.”

  “We won’t get them dirty if we use this sword for its intended purpose.”

  “And what is its intended purpose?”

  “Justice.”

  I nod and follow in after the men, while Valerie goes in the opposite direction and stays with Samantha. “Justice,” I repeat to myself, “What is justice anyway, when there’s nothing just about this whole situation.”

  “It all depends on what your idea of justice is,” someone says from behind. I turn in a whirl and see one of the escaped Prison spirits floating carelessly in mid-air, as if he were daintily lounging on a settee. He looks familiar, but I can’t quite place him. “You don’t remember me, Tess? Oh…I’m hurt.” His face is disfigured beyond recognition, but there’s still something familiar about him. “Let me freshen your memory, love.” He swings his legs over the invisible sofa and hops down to the ground, landing right in front of me. “YOU KILLED ME!” he screams in my face. Even the mortal men, who were talking amongst themselves stop and look around the room with knitted brows. They mumble something about hearing something, and wait for another sound. When nothing else happens, they resume their conversation. The only one who isn’t convinced is Sam’s captor, Martin, who keeps himself on alert and starts moving around the room, as if he can smell something in the air.

  “Oh, I think I remember you now,” I say, recognizing the British accent. “You’re that washed up rock star, Marcel, wasn’t it?”

  Marcel stretches a forced smile across his scarred face and looks at Martin. “I’ve taken him on, you know. He’s my own little puppet. Thanks to you and Agatha, I’ve got my freedom and I’m investing my time into making anyone who is remotely associated with you as miserable as possible.”

  “Tess?” Valerie, who had popped her head through the dividing wall at the sound of Marcel’s scream, says from behind him. “Remember our last conversation?”

  “Yes.”

  “I believe this would be considered just,” she says calmly, and before I even think about it twice, I lift my sword and swing it as fast as possible, missing him by fractions.

  “Missed me!” he taunts as he darts away from me to the far side of the room. In the blink of an eye, I zoom to the spot where he is and take another swing. “Missed me again!” His singsong voice is annoying me. “Over here,” he calls to me from behind his mortal, Martin. “You can finish us both,” he sneers.

  “You coward! Come and face me, so I can kill you—again,” I say savagely.

  Valerie, whose head looks like it’s been mounted on the wallpapered wall like taxidermy, looks at me as if she’s seeing a side of me she’s never seen before. But I don’t care, I’m sick of all this crap. My past has a way of cropping up and hurting the ones I love, while I seem to escape unharmed. My parents, Dorian, Alex, now Samantha…enough! I’m catching this ghost and I’m sending him back to oblivion, then I’m going after Agatha and putting an end to this.

  “Tess?” Valerie warns. “Don’t swing that sword in anger.”

  Marcel whispers something into his mortal’s ear, and he obeys unquestioningly. “Martin? Martin!” his father calls, but Martin ignores his father completely and listens only to his little devil.

  “Valerie, get Sam,” I shout. And with that, Valerie’s head disappears through the wall.

  I’m floating between the old General and his son, with my sword still pointed toward the little minion who is hiding behind his living puppet. “Come on Marcel, it’s me you want,” I call him out, but Marcel simply smiles and drones malicious ideas into Martin’s ear. Obeying whatever his little devil says, Martin pulls out a gun he had hidden under his suit coat and walks out of the room where all the men are and into the parlor, pointing the barrel right at the women. As he does this, he frowns and looks temporarily puzzled. The women in the room scream, all but Samantha who’s petrified, standing at the opposite end of the room. Valerie is behind her, quietly whispering in her ear, hopefully telling her how to escape.

  “Martin!” his father’s booming voice startles the young officer, and he swings around to face the sound, involuntarily pulling the trigger. The escaped bullet hits his father square in the chest, and the man collapses to his knees with a look of astonishment in his eyes. More women scream, filling the room with a high-pitched ringing sound. Martin’s eyes widen and his minion floats back away from him cursing. Without hesitation, I take advantage of this temporary distraction, and let my flaming blade fall straight down on the minion. Marcel’s form splits in two and each side of him hangs there, like a mirror image, inert and torpid.

  “Valerie, now!” I yell, and Valerie rushes to the disabled Marcel. She grasps both sides of him with her fingertips, and makes a face, as if she was touching some disgusting thing. “Take him back before he pulls himself together,” I order, amidst the disorder of the room. Valerie obeys at once and disappears through the ceiling.

  With that done, I focus my attention back onto the mortal scene before me. Martin is still standing there, still pointing the gun at his father, who’s on his knees, bleeding, staring at his son with astonishment. All the women are still screaming, except for Samantha who is still frozen with shock. The men are rushing to the scene assessing the situation. “Come on, Sam,” I murmur in her ear. “Time for us to leave,” I say, then try to grab her arm, but can’t. My touch, however, makes her shiver and this brings her to herself.

  With the tip of the sword, I manage to move the heavy drapes aside, and frantically try to undo the latch of the window. Sam sees the curtains part all on their own, and stares at the miracle with a mixture of awe and astonishment. “Come on, there’s no time!” I tell her, still trying to undo the latch. Finally, I give up and with the hilt of the sword, I smash the glass of the window.

  Samantha jumps at the sight of the window suddenly bursting and shivers as she sees the small jagged fragments that are still attached to the frame falling on their own to the ground. “Come on!” I yell again. “It’s now or never!” I try pulling at her hand and she clenches her fists, suppressing a violent shiver that seems to travel all the way up her arm and down her torso.

  Turning around once to see what is going on in the room, she swings one leg over the window ledge, with difficulty, because of the dress she’s wearing. None of the women see her or hear the breaking glass; the noise seems to melt into the general upheaval and the hysteria. None of the other officers notice this either. Only Martin seems to hear it above the commotion, and slowly turns on his heels, with his hand still on the trigger. He and Sam exchange numb looks as she freezes temporarily with half her body hanging out the window.

  Somehow, Martin knows that whatever just happened is her fault, and he blames her for it. His cold, hard stare conveys all this brewing hatred to her. He had intended to transform her from a shelter scum to an officer’s wife. He had meant for them to have a big house of their own and to live in comfort, but she had ruined all of this. She had made him pull that trigger, she had force
d his hand in some way and now....

  Raising both his hands at the same time, he aims toward Sam. “No!” I scream. “Go Sam, go! Jump!”

  A wicked smile spreads across Martin’s face, and his finger starts pulling the trigger. One of the women, his mother, who had temporarily fainted at the sight of her husband being shot, presently stands up, blocking his view of Samantha, and screams. “Martin what have you done?” Her strangled voice sounds more like a croak.

  One of the officers present looks up at the sound of the woman and sees that Martin is now pointing the gun toward his own mother. He stands up and pushes Martin’s arms up toward the chandelier. The bullet leaves the barrel. At the same time Sam loses her footing and falls, landing on a poky shrub. More screams are heard inside the house. There’s a scuffle, men shout orders, and someone hits the ground with a thud—passed out or dead—I don’t know, I don’t care. Samantha is safe from that maniac.

  I tell her to run, but I don’t know where I’m going, so mostly I follow her. She seems to possess the sense of direction that I never procured. She stops, catches her breath, making a white puff of air come out of her mouth due to the bitter cold. She’s wearing a sleeveless dress, but she doesn’t look cold yet since she’s running high on adrenaline. One of her legs is bleeding; a shard of glass that I missed must have cut her. It doesn’t look too deep though, and for now the crimson of her blood blends in with the crimson of her dress. She takes her shoes off, and holds them up eye level to look at them and pouts. “I bet that you, of all people can relate with me,” she says as she gasps for air. “You—you liked nice things. You made nice dresses like this one.” She looks down at her dress, now in tatters thanks to the window, the bush, and the run. With a sigh, she chucks the shoes behind her and starts running again.