“You are her only hope,” Reed had said. “I can’t stay close enough to help her. I need you to protect her until she can figure out how to use her developing skills to protect herself.”
Raze had scoffed at the idea. Him? Protect her? Reed had to be out of his mind. But he wouldn’t let it go.
“It isn’t too late for you, Raze,” he said. “You’ve chosen the wrong path. Somewhere in there, you know that. You can get on the right side of things. You can continue to sell your soul to the highest bidder, try to cling to your power, or you can do the right thing for a change.”
Such rhetoric was impotent. Raze wasn’t motivated by a concept of right or wrong. Morals never got him anywhere.
He turned to walk away, but Reed said something that stopped him in his tracks.
“That thing you know as Ichiban? Is my grandfather...Aislen’s great-grandfather.”
The information sent Raze’s mind reeling. He had figured out that Grant Parker and Troy Kellen were working together, but he hadn’t been able to figure out who Ichiban was or why he wanted Aislen so bad.
“Ichiban is really a man named Sigmund Lange,” Reed continued. “The founder of Infinium Incorporated. When it all began, he was Number 1, Ichiban, and he went about gathering eight of the most influential members of business and industry to help manifest his vision of controlling the workings of the world and all the people in it.
“But years ago, wanting more control for themselves, the others had him option-locked into a state of dementia so he couldn’t release their secrets or have them eliminated.”
Raze thought about the Sanctum Sanctorum at Infinium Incorporated and the one empty chair that sat midpoint between the other eight. The 8 must have left it there as a reminder to each other of what would happen if any of them fell out of line.
“How did he manage to break free of the option-lock?” Raze was interested now.
“My grandfather had created the option-lock himself; getting around that was the easy part for him. But it didn’t solve the need for a body. He’s imprisoned by age. So once he escaped the option-lock, he found your Blake and went to work, hijacking his mind and using his body.
“But Blake is just a temporary fix.
“Lange intends to exact his revenge on those who betrayed him and reestablish his presence at the table. To do that, he needs a body more capable than that of a twelve-year-old.”
“Aislen.” It was all coming together for Raze now.
Reed nodded. “Aislen is the one he wants. Because of their genetic link, Lange can overtake her cells with his consciousness and operate them nearly as well as his own.” Reed’s eyes hardened with intensity. “You need to protect her from him, Raziel.”
Raze laughed. “You actually think I give a shit about her? Ichiban—Lange—whoever he is...he can have her. It saves me from having to get rid of her myself. She means nothing to me.”
Reed was silent, but his silence spoke the truth–one that Raze didn’t want to admit.
“Well, if you won’t do it for the right reasons—and you won’t do it for Aislen—then you’d better do it for yourself.”
Raze was confused. “How can helping Aislen benefit me in any way?”
“Because if Sigmund Lange gets his way, not only is Aislen doomed but Infinium...The 8...and you.
“You can understand that, can’t you, Raziel?” Reed stopped and looked around at the burning destruction of Demesne, then looked back at Raze.
“You don’t want to help for the right reasons? Fine. Don’t. Do it for the wrong ones. I don’t care.” Then Reed stepped forward, reached his hand up, and pushed it hard against Raze’s chest. “But do it.”
It was more command than plea, and a surge of energy came rushing into Raze’s chest. The charge reached deep inside of him, honed in on the last bastions of energetic fortresses Raze was clinging to, and sent them crumbling.
Raze’s reaction was visceral. He snapped out of Theta with a single-minded focus: get to Aislen Walker. The repercussions of his actions didn’t cross his mind, not as he hot-wired the Mercedes, not as tracked her signature, not as he drove 100 miles per hour to the hospital to save her.
To kidnap her, he corrected himself, shaking himself out of the reverie. Get it straight!
If he were saving Aislen Walker, it would mean he was a traitor. It would mean he was really in this for her. And if Grant or Kellen or The 8 suspected that, Raze was a dead man. No question. Raze needed to keep that focus. He was doing this for himself. Not Reed. Not Infinium. Most definitely not Aislen Walker. This was his last chance to regain control of his own life.
Aislen startled in the seat next to him. A scream, stifled by the thick tape across her mouth, rattled in her throat. She thrashed against the restraints, gasping for air, her nostrils opening and closing like the gills on a guppy just pulled from a pond.
If Raze didn’t do something, she would suffocate. He downshifted his frequency, placed his palm on the center of her chest and projected the vibration into her body. A trick he learned from her father. A breath caught in her lungs. Her heartbeat immediately decelerated, and she slowly relaxed back into her seat.
Suddenly, Raze knew exactly how he was going to get her past the Qi readers and into his house. It was a long shot, but it might work. The Bay Bridge was just ahead, its steady stream of orbed white lights creating a portal across the dark waters into the city. He jammed down the accelerator and launched the car through the toll plaza.
“We’re almost there,” he said, trying to keep her calm for the last couple of miles, but beneath the drone of the engine and rush of the road, Raze heard Aislen whimper.
Four
Aislen swooned in and out of consciousness, vacillating between a hazy fog and complete darkness. She couldn’t pull in enough air, and her lungs were burning. She felt like she was drowning.
Beyond the darkness, Aislen felt a warm hand press against her chest. Her heart hammered hard against the unseen palm, but then it suddenly downshifted to a normal rhythm, and she felt her breath catch.
“We’re almost there,” a rough male voice said from beside her. She could still feel the warmth from his hand on her chest.
Almost where? she thought, but slowly it all came back to her and she went cold.
She was in a car…driving to who knows where…kidnapped by the man sitting beside her…the man who was probably going to kill her.
Aislen had awoken from one nightmare straight into another.
As the car accelerated, bits and pieces from the terrible dream floated around in her mind. She had been standing in a room heavy with steam. She almost didn’t see the man at first. His pale skin and light blonde hair nearly matched the porcelain he was lounging against. She would not have seen him at all if it weren’t for the piercing blue eyes focused directly on her.
She had tried to run but was held to the floor like iron to a magnet, forced to face the man lying naked in the empty bathtub.
Although he stared right at her, the man did not react. Instead, he turned his head away and leaned back again in the tub, completely oblivious to her presence. He closed his eyes and sighed.
Images raced through Aislen’s mind in high-speed time-lapse: women in particolored dresses dancing around a ballroom with what appeared to be Nazi soldiers, whimpering babies being suffocated in their cribs by a stern doctor, a nurse toweling him off after a bath. The visions carried the nostalgia of memories, though none of them were hers.
There were children. They were only about three and four years old, and their cries were blood-curdling as they were ripped away from their mothers by Nazi soldiers. Aislen watched as some of these children were marched into the dark and shot.
She gasped, and this time the force of her revulsion released the grip that held her to the floor. She tried to make a run for the door across the room.
Ah, ah, ah, no you don’t, the voice rasped against her ear, and an unseen force pinned her in place at the end of the bathtu
b, twisting her face back toward the naked man.
You will see! the voice rumbled, sending ripples deep into her brain. An icy hand wormed its way into her face, forcing her eyes open. You will be a witness, he growled in her head.
Another vision reached into her mind, a fat nurse toweling off a small towheaded boy as he was getting out of the bath. As the nurse dried him, the boy became obviously aroused, and to Aislen’s horror, so did the man lying in the tub before her. The man reached between his legs and began to fondle himself. Aislen closed her eyes, trying to block out both visions. However, the internal vision continued.
Aislen realized she was seeing this man’s thoughts—his memories. As they played out in his mind, they ran amok through hers as well. Not only did she see the disturbing images, but she could also feel his feelings—how he felt powerful and in control. She could feel his excitement peaking.
The creak of a door opening from the floor below pulled both the man and Aislen out of his reverie. Aislen felt a flash of aggravation as the man began thinking about the person who had caused the disruption. She could see her—the young woman of his thoughts—a petite thing no more than 17 or 18 years old. The girl’s hair hung in strings around her face as if she had not showered in days. Her pretty face was ashen with fear as she frantically worked in the kitchen.
With a peculiar omniscience, Aislen experienced the young woman’s thoughts, too. There were memories of harsh punishments for not being quiet or fast enough, the denial of food for days, humiliating whippings, and worse. The girl knew the man was just above her, and she knew what he was doing. The idea that he may call her up to help him made her shudder, and she dropped a fork against a plate on the table.
The girl froze.
Vater wird mich hören, Aislen heard her think, and even though she didn’t know the language, Aislen understood: Father will hear me!
Father? This man was that girl’s father? The idea repulsed Aislen, and she tried again to move toward the door, but she still had no control of her body.
The young woman, feeling sure her father had not heard her, began moving around the kitchen again, and the man became entranced with another train of thought.
Aislen was assaulted with images of an older Nazi soldier whipping a tow-headed boy. Emotions bombarded her: pain and shame intertwined with pleasure, gratitude, even admiration. The putrid stench of burnt flesh violated Aislen’s senses.
Aislen could hear the man’s stroking becoming more feverish as he was overcome by the thrill of his abhorrent memories, and disgust twisted in her belly. Finally overcome, Aislen screamed. The outburst set her free of the phantom chains, and she shoved herself back from the tub, turning away from the monster who lay within it.
She found herself facing a foggy mirror, yet where she expected to find a portrait of herself, there was nothing but the reflection of the steamy bathroom. It was as if she wasn’t there at all—as if she were a ghost. Aislen leaned closer to its surface, searching within it, desperate to find proof of her existence. The glass sizzled as if charged with electricity but revealed nothing. Suddenly, it cracked loudly, and the fine dew on the glass froze over into a thin sheet of ice.
The man stood up behind her, as shocked by the phenomenon as Aislen was. His pale silhouette stepped out of the tub and slowly moved toward her, closer and closer until he stood in the same space her ghost-presence occupied. Evil exuded from his soul the same way the heat of the bath radiated off his body, and Aislen’s heart froze over just like the mirror.
The man’s reflection appeared in the mirror where she did not. But instead of the youthful blonde she had seen in the tub, his reflection was aged; his hair white as ice, his eyes hazy with cataracts.
Aislen knew this man! It was old Mr. Lange—the man who had attacked her when she went to the hospital to find Troy. He had grabbed ahold of her and with a strength that belied his age pulled her into his lap, wrenched her face close to his and placed his forehead against hers. She remembered the scratching she felt at her skull like Mr. Lange was trying to crawl into her brain.
“You want to help your dear great-grandpappy, now don’t you?” he had whispered in her ear as she fought to get away.
His words echoed in the recesses of her brain and slowly coalesced into meaning.
Sehen sie jetzt, Poppet? his voice chortled. Verstehen sie, wer sie sind?
Do you see now, Poppet? Her mind translated the foreign tongue. Do you understand who you are?
Shock chilled her to the bone. She looked back into the mirror.
Yes. Yes, she did.
Aislen understood that the man in this room was a younger version of Sigmund Lange.
She understood that Sigmund Lange was her great-grandfather.
She understood that Sigmund Lange was inside of her head.
The car suddenly screeched to a halt, slamming Aislen forward against the restraints and knocking her fully into the present. The engine sizzled and spit, then went silent as the man sitting next to her shut off the ignition. A half second later there was a loud pop, and a rush of damp air flooded into the compartment. The man got out of the car, and the driver’s side door sealed shut again.
Aislen sat alone in the car for a long time, the car ticking and clicking as it cooled, like a countdown to doom. She wondered what the man was doing—and worse, what he was thinking about doing.
The possibility of being rescued was vanishingly small. Her kidnapper would make sure of that. In the brief moment they were face to face, Aislen could see pure calculation and hard clarity in his eyes.
She knew that no amount of pleading, crying or begging would move him. In fact, any play for sympathy would probably enrage him and only hasten her death. An uneasy shiver scampered through her stomach.
The door beside her suddenly popped open, and the man was immediately present. She could feel the heat of his breath on her face and the warmth of his hands as they moved quickly across her body, snapping loose the restraints. The tension that had been propping her up in the seat released and she slumped forward, falling against him, which felt like falling against granite. The man grabbed her hard by the shoulders and shoved her back up.
“Do you want to die tonight?” he growled in a low voice.
Each word stabbed her in the gut. “No,” she choked.
“Then you need to listen and do exactly as I say. Do you understand me?”
I’m going to die, her mind said even though she heard her mouth whisper, “Yes.”
The man coiled something around her wrists and cinched it tight. Then he reached an arm in around her waist and scooped her up out of the car. He carried her effortlessly, like a sack of potatoes, for several minutes before setting her feet first on the ground.
“Stand here. Don’t move. Don’t speak. Got it?”
Aislen nodded, then listened as the hard tap of his heels quickly walked away from her, leaving her alone. The terror coursing through her body was electrifying. All of her senses were on fire. A drizzle in the air kissed her skin, setting all her hairs on end. It was laced with trace scents of wet wood, salt, and rotten fish like she was near the ocean. But the ground she was standing on was hard, not pliant like grass or dirt, and the atmosphere around her hummed with the drone of traffic, not waves. In the distance, she could hear a siren wailing.
They were in a city! The man had brought her to a city! The thought gave her hope. She had thought for sure the man would have taken her someplace isolated to do whatever it was he had planned. The fact that he brought her into a city astounded her. There would be people around. She could scream! She could get someone’s attention! She had a chance! But before she had time to orient herself further, she heard his footsteps returning, and she shrank inside.
“Come with me,” the man said as he grabbed hold of her arm and yanked her toward him. His fingers dug painfully into her bicep as he pulled her along, but she dared not whimper. She stumbled unevenly beside him, trying to keep up as best she could. It must not
have been good enough because his arm slipped around her waist again, and she was lifted and carried along as if she weighed nothing. The man didn’t slow his stride in the slightest, practically running with her like that for what seemed like a mile.
Pressed up against him, Aislen could smell a faint tinge of clean skin mingled with the stronger scent of gasoline. The combination was strangely pleasant until she realized that she hadn’t smelled the gasoline earlier and the man had probably set fire to the car they were in. The scent quickly lost its appeal as another hope of being rescued was dashed.
The man stopped abruptly, flung her around, and set her back on the ground. Then he seized her by both shoulders and thrust her back against a wall.
“Pay attention,” the man barked. He was louder now, so Aislen knew they were somewhere more private. “If you don’t do exactly as I say—I mean, exactly—you will die. Understand?”
This is it, she thought to herself. This was where he is going to kill me.
Aislen nodded. She felt the heat of him move in closer to her, and she flinched in anticipation of a violent physical attack. But rather than touch her, she only heard him draw in a deep breath, then exhale it. A growl whispered through his throat.
He repeated this several times.
What was he waiting for? she thought.
“Match my breathing,” he ordered.
Was he serious? Match his breathing? What kind of pervert was he? Aislen decided that if she wanted to live a little longer, it would be a good idea to do what he said, even if it didn’t make sense. She began following his breathing pattern, inhaling when he did, holding it for a second, then breathing out long and slow. They repeated this over and again, the man never touching her.
“Close your lips,” he whispered slowly across a slow breath. “Exhale through your nose and match the sound that you hear in my throat.”
It was getting creepier, this synchronized breathing, but Aislen did as she was told, mimicking his breathing pattern for several more minutes until she found herself getting relaxed and slipping into a serene trance. This was surprising, given the predicament she found herself in.
Time Walker: Episode 2 of The Walker Saga Page 3