“Where are you supposed to take me? Where do they want to do all this to me?”
Kenny walked a little closer to her and did his best to sound friendly and nice. He spoke in a softer voice that made him sound even more vile and frightening. “Oh, don’t worry; it’s not far from here. It’s an abandoned motel near Crescent city. It’s a nice little town. That’s where we’re all at.”
Lucy gripped the totem with one hand and was ready to reach into the hole she had created in order to grab her sword.
“What if I say no? What if I kill you and run?” Lucy stood ready to fight.
Kenny didn’t like her comment. “Why would you want to kill me, Lucy? Haven’t I been a good friend, a good boss?” His voice was getting louder. “Didn’t I always treat you right, Lucy?” She didn’t want to answer. She wanted to strike, but Kenny backed away and faced the other direction.
“Then, if you don’t want to volunteer …” he snapped his fingers and spun his hunched figure back toward her. From the darkened recesses of the office, Lucy saw as a dozen or so reapers exited into the main lobby area and two of them were dragging something—it was a person—by the arms. As the dark wavy hair came into the orange light that radiated in from the street lamps, she knew who it was. In a matter of seconds she felt hands all over her, dragging her into the familiar black realm of lifelessness. She couldn’t fight it. The process was so sudden and took so much out of her that she couldn’t retreat into her haven. In the moment before darkness, she regretted not telling Benjamin anything. She hoped that he would somehow find her and save her. But, because of her own stupidity, that wasn’t even a possibility. The last thing she saw before passing out was Kat’s limp body lying on the floor next to her.
Chapter 21
Lucy was surprised to be awake. She hadn’t yet opened her eyes because she felt absolutely exhausted. It was a familiar side effect of having her light drained from her. She wondered how she was still alive based on what had happened to her. She remembered Benjamin explaining it to her like giving blood. Lucy just assumed that light was a replenishing resource.
She assessed the state of her body. Her knees were bent, elbows the same. She slid her arms slowly up and down the scratchy surface on which she lay. It felt like a worn out mattress, and she remembered that Kenny had said something about an abandoned motel. As her hands finished an entire sweep of the general vicinity, she opened her eyes to a very dark room. As she rolled over, the hilt of the sword painfully lodged itself into her lower back, causing her to sit up. Reaching around her back to massage away the pain, she realized that she was still wearing her backpack. The only light came from somewhere outside. Cracks through a boarded up window glowed an incandescent orange. Looking around, she saw that the room seemed to have been occupied only by the passage of time for multiple decades. Large, round water stains covered the ceiling and long, brown streaks stained the walls.
Lucy looked over and saw Kat lying next to her, still unconscious. She rolled Kat over and brushed her thick black hair from her face. The worst thing she could think of was that Kat was dead from having her soul sucked from her. Putting her ear up to Kat’s mouth and watching her chest, Lucy determined that Kat was still breathing. A wave of relief swept over her. She shook her friend’s shoulders and whispered her name into her ear.
“Kat, wake up. Can you hear me? Kat.”
There was no immediate response. Lucy tried diverting some of her light into her friend. The flowing sensation filled Lucy’s fingers and flowed into Kat. There was a moment of unbearable silence, then Kat took a gasping breath and her eyes shot open.
“Oh my gosh, Kat!” Lucy hugged her friend as she lay breathing trying to regain control of her senses.
“Lucy!” Kat clung fast to Lucy’s upper body. “I was so scared. They came out of nowhere.”
“I know, just relax. We need to find a way out of here. Can you move?”
Kat pushed herself up on her elbows and sat up. Lucy took that as an affirmative.
Getting to her feet, Lucy stepped lightly to the window. It was covered with wooden boards that seemed to be rotting, so Lucy tried pulling on one of them. With a dull thud, it broke away then crumbled to damp sawdust in her hands. She looked over to the bed with hope and Kat’s eyes widened. Jumping quietly to her feet, Kat went to help her friend.
One by one they pulled the deteriorating boards from the window frame. Slowly, the freezing winter air blew in the window and the outside smelled of evergreens.
“Where are we?” Kat asked in a near silent whisper.
As she pried another board from the window, Lucy quietly answered, “Kenny said something about Crescent City. I think we’re in California.”
Kat twisted her head in curiosity, “Kenny, your boss Kenny?”
“Yeah, he’s a reaper,” Lucy replied casually. “Okay, let’s go.”
There was enough space for the two of them to get through one at a time. Kat swung her leg up and over the bottom of the sill that was more than three feet above the floor. The two girls froze as they heard footsteps and voices outside their door.
Lucy turned quickly to Kat. “You need to run as soon as you get out. Go into the forest and make a giant loop back toward this place. See if you can find a road. Go!”
Kat jumped down out of the window and set off into the dark forest.
Lucy pulled herself onto the sill. As she found her footing and was about to jump through the window and start sprinting, the door of her room flew open. Before she could even turn around she felt hands all over her throwing her to the bed, the sword handle driving into her lower back, and she rolled over with a grimace.
The light from the doorway was blocked by a giant silhouette. Sukabra looked down at her and slowly entered the room. He walked over to the window and stuck his head through it, seemingly admiring the girls’ handiwork.
Following behind him were half a dozen more reapers whose impatient stances made them appear as though their appetites for Lucy’s light were being held at bay only by the orders of their master. The only one that didn’t move in anticipation of a fix was Kenny. Lucy saw him standing in the shadows of a far corner, just waiting.
Sukabra looked to the reaper closest to him and jerked his head toward the window. The reaper, who appeared to be Sukabra’s number one, started to leave the room through the door and motioned to the others to follow. One particularly nasty looking reaper that stood nearest to Lucy looked at her, licked his pale lips, and sneered.
“Simon!” Sukabra addressed the leader. “Alive.”
Simon answered with a nod and the band of reapers headed out into the cold. Kenny looked coolly at Lucy as he walked out last.
Alone in the motel room, Lucy looked up at Sukabra, who had grabbed a nearby chair and sat down in it. She sat up and pushed herself to the head of the bed until she felt the hilt of the sword press into her back.
There was silence as the two of them stared at each other. Lucy could make out the room much better now that the window was less obstructed. She could see the bright green carpet turned brown with age. The mattress she sat on was bare and cracking.
Sukabra sat in his chair. He was a giant of a man whose head, when sitting down, reached more than halfway up the wall. He was completely bald and the right side of his scalp was covered with a black tattoo that looked almost like vines extending over his head and curling just behind his eye. His rich, dark skin seemed to accent the bright whites of his eyes and gleaming teeth.
Lucy looked to the window, thinking about Kat. She wondered just how far she had gone, if she had made it to the road.
Sukabra glanced toward the window as well and then back at Lucy. “Don’t worry about your friend. My reapers will find her.”
His voice was deep, but every word was articulated by a refined accent that Lucy couldn’t place. Peter was right; he wasn’t just a reaper goon. He was powerful. A small grin was evident in the corner of his mouth.
Lucy’s body tensed. She wanted to reach
into her backpack, pull out her sword, and kill Sukabra. She tried to calculate how quickly she could clear the bed and plunge the sword into his heart. No matter how she figured it, she wouldn’t be quick enough.
“Lucy Higgins, I need you to listen to me if you want your friend out there,” Sukabra gestured to the window, “and your friends up there,” he gestured to what Lucy assumed was North, referring to the Ravens, “to live another day.”
Lucy was afraid, but she felt she had nothing to lose at that moment so her confidence was building. “I know what you want.”
“Yes, but do you know why?”
Lucy didn’t answer because she didn’t understand what that had to do with anything.
“You see, I ask you that because I don’t believe in taking the life of anyone without them knowing why I am taking it.”
Lucy sneered at him, “Isn’t that considerate of you.”
Her sarcasm amused Sukabra, but she didn’t care. She was entering a place in her psyche that gave her strength. It was the place she imagined soldiers in battle would find when they considered themselves already dead, having such a slim chance of surviving that being scared was a useless emotion.
“Did you bore my parents to death, too, before killing them?”
Sukabra looked at her curiously. “I did not kill your parents, Lucy Higgins. I would not have wasted my time.”
Lucy could feel her rage building as she realized that Sukabra was not the one who stole her mother’s light. Her mother was the victim of a reaper attack, and her father was in that hospital bed because of the animalistic cravings of a reaper.
Sukabra could see that she was unsettled as her mouth contorted and quivered while she looked at him in the darkness.
“I tell you this so that you will know that you’re not going to be wasted like your parents and so many others that my reapers dispose of like table scraps. You’re special, Lucy Higgins.”
Fury boiled inside her as she thought of reapers attacking her mother. “So, I guess my mother wasn’t special enough for you.” Her tone was acrid.
“I try to teach these animals how to use discretion, but when they get hungry, well …” he shrugged his shoulders as if to dismiss the killing of her mother as boys being boys.
Lucy sat up straighter and fought the urge to reach for the sword.
“Lucy Higgins, I don’t want to upset you right now. I merely want to talk.”
“Why don’t you spare me the monologue and just get on with it,” Lucy almost growled at him. She wanted him to come closer; she wanted him to put himself in position so she could strike.
“Because, Lucy Higgins, I have a policy, and that policy doesn’t get broken.”
“What about the first time you had me? You started the process then without explaining anything to me.”
Sukabra’s eyes widened a little bit. “That was not an extraction. That was simply to get you to stop fighting. I was just trying to get you unconscious.”
Lucy’s heart sank as she remembered the absolute despair that her last encounter with Sukabra had given her.
“An extraction, Lucy Higgins, is far worse than simply taking your light. An extraction takes you, but rather than keeping you trapped inside the foul recesses of a reaper, it’s more like torture, and then you die.”
Lucy swallowed hard.
“When I extract you, I am able to control you and communicate with you, and if you won’t give me the information I want from you, I can make it hurt. The only problem is that your feeble flesh might make it difficult to keep you alive long enough to extract what I need. However, if you survive and I manage to get what I want, your body will be so drained of any substance that you’ll live the rest of your life as a useless, lifeless husk of a person.”
The prospect of extraction frightened her. She wasn’t afraid to die, she was afraid of the pain. She wondered if she would be able to go into her haven to lessen the blow. Sukabra seemed to read her mind.
“If you’re thinking of going into a haven of some sort, I’ll tell you now that it will be brief. It will take some time to bond. But, as I reach in to extract what I want, the first thing I will take is your ability to control your own mind, and then the anguish starts.”
She decided with certainty that extraction was not an option, so she renewed her plans to somehow get him close enough to strike at with her sword.
“The reason we need you, Lucy Higgins, is because you have knowledge deep inside you that you don’t even know you have.”
His words were clear, but Lucy was obviously distracted.
“Lucy Higgins, I’m trying to tell you something that your boyfriend and the other immortal weaklings won’t tell you. They’re afraid of you knowing the truth.”
It only took that moment for Lucy to divert all of her attention back to Sukabra. “They’ve told me everything. I don’t think you know everything.”
He chuckled. “Lucy Higgins, there is so much you do not know about who you are that it would scare you to know what kind of power you have.”
Lucy glared at him. “Then why don’t you enlighten me?”
“I am on a quest for my master to find the prophesied Queen of Zharem. Have your friends even told you of the prophecy?”
Lucy looked stone-faced at him.
“Well, the prophecy says that the queen will be brought to this earth by the hands of the gods, and only she will have power to bring back the city, Zharem, so that she can rule it with her king and take control of the realm of Zharem.”
“I know all of this, but what does it have to do with me? I’m just the guardian, a bodyguard.”
“Oh, is that what you think you are? I’m not entirely surprised Peter never told you.”
“Told me what?” Lucy looked directly into the black irises of Sukabra’s eyes.
“The prophecy is conditional. It says that the queen will not come and rule unless all evil that seeks to take control of the city from its people is destroyed.”
Lucy stared uncomprehendingly.
“That’s where you come in. A guardian will be provided by the gods, a guardian whose powers will be unknown to her,” he stopped for emphasis. “Yes, your friends believe that is you, and my master is counting on it.”
The words stopped Lucy from breathing.
“You are the guardian that will destroy all evil; you, singlehandedly.” He paused just to look at her and laugh in his chest at his own words. His brief convulsion was short lived as he went on. “But, the most important piece of the puzzle is that deep inside you, you know exactly who the queen will be.”
Lucy shook her head. “I have no idea who she is.”
“See, that’s the beauty of it; you have it written inside you. It’s a link you have that will become more evident as the arrival of the queen grows closer. She could be a baby right now or not even born yet, but someday you will know her.” There was another pause as he started to chuckle introspectively.
“What’s so funny?” Lucy asked angrily.
“The foil to this whole prophecy is that I have a power that will extract from you the identity of the new queen even though you don’t even know it yourself. My master can bypass the part of the prophecy about the guardian if we can simply go get the queen and use her to bring back the city and take it for ourselves.”
Lucy thought about what he was proposing. She realized that they could make her completely irrelevant, which meant she had very little time to think of a way out.
“What happens if I die before you can get what you want? What if I just let myself go?”
“Well, if something as unlikely as that were to occur, the process would simply start over. You see, the gods are funny about making things work in their favor. But, my master is more powerful than the gods, and he will find the queen, regardless. Do you think you are the first guardian we’ve tried to extract?”
Lucy’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Oh, yes; you are the third, Lucy Higgins. The only difference w
ith you is that the immortals never knew about the first two. My master is much more of a visionary than Peter Raven will ever be. It was a coincidence that the little one found you first.”
He smiled a sadistic grin.
“That’s where I have the advantage this time. If you were to resist or for some reason kill yourself, we would simply kill your friends hiding on their mountain. But first, I will let my reapers absorb your pretty friend. Every ounce of her life will be squeezed from her like blood being forced from the body by a vice.” He paused and sneered at her. “And if all of that isn’t enough, we’ll finish what we started with your father.”
Lucy was suddenly more alert. She hadn’t even thought about her father lying helplessly in his hospital bed. He was there because of her. He had no future because of Lucy’s actions and she had to protect him to give him a fighting chance at life, even if that meant she had to die.
Lucy suddenly heard Kat’s voice from outside. She was screaming. The door of the room swung open and two reapers dragged her through as she kicked and demanded they let her go. She was fighting them and though it was hopeless, it gave Lucy some courage. In that moment she decided she had to protect the two people she could: her father and her friend.
She then realized that the sword she held in secret wait on her back was no longer necessary. She felt sad knowing that she would never again see her father or Benjamin again, but she knew it was the right thing to do.
“I want you to promise me that if I give up, you will let Kat go. You will give her a car and let her drive away. Then you will leave her, my father, and all of my friends alone forever.”
Sukabra burst into laughter. “I really do like your tenacity.” He looked around the room and laughed toward his henchmen. “Maybe I should keep you around. Would you like to be my number one?”
He laughed heartily as Lucy glanced at the reaper called Simon, who glared at Sukabra and then looked menacingly at Lucy.
At once, Sukabra’s laughter ceased and he looked directly at Lucy.
“I promise, Lucy Higgins.”
His words came as a shock and Lucy inhaled quickly through her nose. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it wasn’t that.
Immortal Light: Wide Awake Page 31