Three sharp whelps of a police siren sounded around the corner ahead of them. The cops! Cops couldn’t be trusted. Infinium had moles on police forces everywhere and used them for cover in situations like this, to contain the situation until Infinium’s Rapid Response Team arrived.
Raze yanked Aislen into the alcove of an apartment building and pushed her back up against the wall. “Think of your friend,” he barked. “The little blonde–Genesis! Use her signature.” Aislen closed her eyes, trying to conjure up her friend’s frequency, but couldn’t tamp down her own enough to hone in. The siren fired up full blast as it turned the corner. There wasn’t time.
Raze pulled Aislen off the wall into his arms and pressed her body against his, using his field as a shield. He reached his fingers up into her hair and pulled her head back, lifting her to his lips. He kissed her, pouring his energy in and around her as the patrol car sped past the building. He held her in his energetic embrace as a second, then a third unit sped past, code 3 toward his warehouse.
When the sirens finally faded around another corner, he released her. She slumped back against the wall, drunk on the influx of energy he had forced upon her, but he didn’t have time to apologize.
“Find her signature now, Aislen!” he snapped as he grabbed her hand and pulled her back into the street. He sprinted, leading them north, then west, then south, doubling back several times to muddy their energetic footprint. It took Aislen a while to wade through her own emotional turmoil, but the running helped. Raze started to feel enough of a bright taffy-pink energy from her that she wasn’t recognizable.
They made it into Union Square and merged with the confluence of shoppers. Every five seconds, grab a signature, and then drop it for another, he telepathed, rather than shouting over the din of the crowd and traffic.
Aislen had gathered enough of her senses back that she was able to do that, and they hopscotched frequencies down the street.
Raze spotted the top of a black van in the traffic ahead. Rather than wait to confirm whether it had an infinity logo on the side, he pulled Aislen into a department store. He dashed into an open and empty elevator, pulling her in and shutting the door before anyone could come in with them.
“Raziel–” she started.
No! He snapped. They weren’t in the clear yet, and he needed time to think. At the 8th floor, they got out, walked into another, and pushed the down button. The thick metal box riding vertically through a column of electricity would block their presence long enough to give them time to catch their breath. They switched elevators, riding them up and back down four more times until Aislen looked like she could handle a couple more miles at a fast pace.
Continue hopscotching signatures for a little while longer, he said, as they exited the elevator and headed out the back door of the building.
He kept them meandering and skipping energy through Chinatown, back toward The Embarcadero. They took cover only on the busiest of streets amidst the throngs of humanity until Raze was confident Infinium’s Search and Destroy Team wouldn’t be able to trace them.
That’s who they were running from now: Infinium and The 8. Fuck Sigmund Lange and Troy Kellen. Lange thought that this was his world now? Well, Lange was wrong. Without Aislen, Lange had nothing. Raze had Aislen…and would do anything to keep it that way.
And fuck Infinium Incorporated, too, for that matter. Once they were clear of the city, there wouldn’t be an operative remotely adequate enough to track Raze if he was vigilant. And despite her initial misstep, Aislen was ready; she was keeping up now. He would be able to guide her around the planet like this until they were safe enough to figure out a plan.
There were plenty of organizations around the world that would jump at the chance to have Raziel Tanis on their team. He could make a deal with the Russians, or the Chinese, or the Saudis. And they would get two for one. Raze could negotiate his and Aislen’s services for both a lucrative deal and protection. He was sure about that. They needed to go dark just long enough to decide where they would prefer to live.
Raze guided them toward the bay, crossed the Embarcadero and walked them along the water. Bounce your discarded signatures across the water. It will diffuse and reflect them, he said as he pulled her along behind him.
He continued along the waterfront until they were directly under the Bay Bridge. The static of the traffic and angry buzz of the commuters overhead was like a clogged energetic artery to and from the heart of the city, which provided enough of a cloak for them to catch their breath again.
He stopped and turned to Aislen. She was a mess. Her hair, wild and curly from the wind and running, was stuck to her damp cheeks. Sweat trickled down her face like tears. But there were no tears. She was shell-shocked, staring blankly across the water in a daze. The energetic residue of a thousand people clung to her, and her own turmoil had been so great that she had emotionally flatlined in order to function.
Raze lifted her chin to him, forcing her to look in his eyes, and brushed the wet tendrils from her face. “It’s going to be okay, Aislen. You did well. Any imminent threat is behind us. But we have to keep moving, all right?”
Aislen took a deep breath and sighed. She leaned her head back, trying to find the sun but only finding steel and bars above her. She stayed like that for a long moment, contemplating its dark underbelly, then followed it back across the water. It was the path that led her home; a home she would never see again.
When she finally made eye contact with him, her eyes were clear and alert, their bright, vibrant green flashing with gold and grit. Raze felt something catch in his chest. She was not the terrified girl he had been face to face with in Demesne less than four days ago: she was his equal. An overwhelming remorse that he was responsible for putting her into this terrible situation pounded in his chest, along with the compelling need to protect her from Infinium and Sigmund Lange. And another emotion gripped him as well, one that he dared not name in case he became lost to it, and to her, forever.
“We have to go dark now,” he said carefully, concerned about how she was going to take it. “You know what that means?”
Aislen cocked her head sideways like she didn’t understand, even though they’d discussed it. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a watch. He set the timer on it, then put it on Aislen’s wrist.
“We need to shift our energy every five minutes until we are a safe distance away from the city, then every fifteen minutes after that.”
Aislen nodded, looking down at the watch.
“And we need to decide where we should go first.”
Aislen stopped breathing and slowly looked back up at him, brows pressed together. “What do you mean, where we need to go first?”
Raze was taken aback by the question. “You think we should split up? Do you think you are ready to do this on your own?” Twenty-four hours ago, Raze would have been absolutely fine with this idea. But now, not so much.
Aislen shook her head, looking at him in disbelief. “No! I mean it is obvious where we are going.”
Now Raze didn’t follow.
“We are going to save my mom!”
Raze lost it. “Are you fucking nuts! We are absolutely not going to save your mom!”
“We absolutely are!” Aislen snapped back, prying her arm away from him. “Are you kidding me? She’s my mother, Raziel. I am not a cold, callous monster like the rest of you! I am not leaving her to Troy and my great-grandfather! They will kill her!”
“First of all, you don’t even know if they really have your mother. They could be bluffing. Second, once they have you, they will kill her anyway. And me… And eventually YOU!”
Aislen stepped back, exhaling sharply. “You’re right, they don’t have her now,” she said. “But they will. And Sigmund will kill her if I don’t stop him.” Her gaze was unwavering, her eyes determined and certain.
“How the fuck do you know this?” Raze asked.
“Sigmund told me…telepathically.” A tormented shadow
passed across her face, and she reached her arms around herself, unconsciously rubbing her hands down her arms, like she was trying to protect herself or brush something away. Her body language told him it had been more than a simple telepathic conversation.
Raze caught her arms again and leaned down to search her face. “What do you mean, Aislen? Tell me.”
She avoided his eyes, looking back out at the water. “He told me if I’m not there in a week, he’s going to kill her. And that it will be worse, more painful, than how he killed Thomas and Astrid.” She looked back at Raze. Now tears were flowing down her cheeks. “He’ll do it, Raziel. It’s not just what he says…it’s how he feels when he says it.”
“What do you mean, how he feels?” Raziel felt a growing sense of dread.
“He’s in here when he talks to me,” she said, pressing her fingertips into her temples. “He doesn’t just speak to me like you; he pushes himself in. I’ve been able to fight him a little, push him away sometimes. But just now in your room, I couldn’t. You were holding my energy down and I could feel him in my whole head, blooming like an infection.” Aislen shuddered, her face awash in a mixture of shame and revulsion.
“Is he there now?” Raze asked, fearing his worst-case scenario had come true.
Aislen shook her head. “No. I used your energy to push him back out.”
Raze exhaled sharply. “Okay, good.” He was trying to sound reassuring. But inside he was devastated. In his attempt to keep them safe, he had actually left her vulnerable, and Sigmund had taken advantage. For wanting to protect her so much, Raze had effectively fed her to the wolf. She had come up with a way to fight him off for now, but Lange had already established a line in. Raze knew all too well that that was the hardest part, and once you were in, you always had an unlocked door.
And there was only one way to close that door for good.
“Did he tell you where they’re going?” Raziel asked.
“No,” she said, holding up the map. “But he said you would know.”
Raze nodded. Of course.
He looked at the map and back up into her eyes; fire in a sea of green.
He couldn’t believe what he was willing to do for her. If he thought it was incredible that he was willing to run away with her, he was astonished that he was willing to die for her.
“You’ll need a passport,” he said.
“I have one.”
Thirty-Three
Mathis was bored…bored to near-death. He understood that now…that he was dying.
He floated in a sea of static for what seemed like an eternity with only the never-ending bweeping for company. Without Sabine by his side, without her voice reaching through the ethers, without her hand holding his as a tangible reminder of reality, there was nothing to tether him. He was lost to the world he once knew and was pretty certain that he wasn’t going to be able to find his way back.
But why would he want to anyway? A world without Sabine? A world without his job? All he had to look forward to now were LaZBoys and bar flies. How many years could he stand that?
“Fine, you win!” he hollered out to any gods that may be listening, though he was convinced now there were no gods of any kind, by any name. There were no angels. There were no harps. No Denise was showing up to help him cross over into some heavenly afterlife. If so, she would have been here by now. There was only the static and the fucking bweeping.
“You want me? Come get me!” he screamed into the static.
The static responded to his command and began moving and twisting. Infinite bits of dark matter swooshed together and pulled apart, shapes shifting and swirling around him like a starling murmuration against a slate sky.
Mathis felt something shift. The atmosphere grew thick and the swarm coalesced, gathering itself into a pitch-black hole before bursting into a dazzling portal of light. Finally! The tunnel of light Mathis had been waiting for.
He was ready now.
Mathis moved into the mesmerizing vortex, a psychedelic display of color and images zooming by. A movie played out to the left: his grandfather tilling soil on the farm, reaching down and patting little Mathis on the head, telling him he did a good job and was a hard worker.
Another reel appeared on the right. It was him and his teenaged buddies driving down a dirt road in O Susanna, his white ’57 Chevy pickup. They had ditched school that day, stolen some beer from the Bait and Tackle and hung out on the levee of the reservoir pretending to fish. God, he loved that truck!
Sadly, it faded away, and another reel played in front of him. Denise. She was looking up at him in adoration, dressed in white like an angel, golden blonde hair glinting in the sun. Tears filled her eyes as she said, “I do.” Their wedding day…so long ago now. His best friend, and he missed her so much.
The image dissipated as he walked deeper into the white light. A montage of snapshots flashed all around him. Mathis getting his badge and being sworn in. Mathis sitting in the squad room listening to his first Watch Commander bark expectations at the new recruits. Mathis in his first pursuit. Mathis barking his watch expectations to his first team of officers.
Damn, he was going to miss that job.
A brilliant explosion of stars spun around him, and he was standing on a stage. He was singing his favorite song, and he sounded fantastic! So much better than he ever had at Sammy’s Sushi Boat. The disco light sent out a thousand tiny stars in every direction on the horizon as the mosaic of his life ended, fading into the gauzy clouds he had also been expecting.
A doorway appeared. It was your run-of-the-mill doorway, not the gilded gate Mathis had hoped for. There was no Archangel Peter by the doorway either. Just a shitty, brown door.
“Ah, hell,” he thought to himself, pun totally intended. He didn’t think he’d been that bad of a person. Really? He’d given his whole life to loving a woman and serving his community. And this is what he got?
Well, it was too late to turn back now, so he reached down and opened the door. When the light cleared away, Mathis was back in the recurring nightmare of the empty room: just him and the black box. Indeed Hell, and there was no escape. The door had disappeared.
The box came to life, igniting into a rich purple glow. Not so menacing if you didn’t know the places that it took you. It throbbed and pulsed, singing a siren song that Mathis could feel in his chest but not hear.
There was no pain. In fact, the undulations the box caressed him with were soothing, sweet, like a cat purring on his chest. He moved closer to the cube, each step taking the pain away, making him feel better.
He knew where this was going. And really? Mathis didn't care anymore. All the good things in his life were behind him now: Denise, his job, his family. All in the past. All lost. There was no need to resist, no need to fight.
With each step he took, the heartbeat of the box grew stronger and larger. By the time he reached its threshold, it was as large as Mathis, a black coffin, and a perfect fit.
Mathis took one last deep breath and stepped into the box.
“Game over,” the box stated flatly as Mathis embraced the darkness.
REQUIEM
Into The Black ~ Chromatics
Thirty-Four
The motherbweeping bweep was still bweeping– and louder than ever!
What the hell! Shouldn’t there be some damn peace and quiet when you die?
And the blackness he was craving was now light gray and blinding. Mathis felt itchy, uncomfortable and restless. He wanted to get up and move, stretch, take a run, which was odd for him, and definitely unusual for a dead man. He opened his eyes.
A woman was standing beside him messing with the bweeping machine and turned it off.
The silence was bliss! Thank God! Angels did exist! Strange she was dressed in blue scrubs with pink puffy clouds on them, though.
A man in a white lab coat stood beside her, writing on an iPad. Was he the gatekeeper to heaven? They used computers to manage the nice or naughty list?
“Well, hello Mr. Mathis! Happy you could join us.” The angel smiled down at him.
The doc looked up from the tablet he was writing on. “Yes, indeed! Perfect timing!”
“Am I dead? Is this heaven?” Mathis was really fucking confused.
The doctor laughed. “No, sir, you’re alive. You’ve just been asleep for a good twenty-four hours. Partly because we serve some good meds and partly because you were apparently pretty exhausted.”
“I’m alive?” Mathis looked down at himself; tubes and wires were plugged into his arms, sticky patches attached to his chest. “Do I have to have open heart surgery?”
“No, no, not at all. It’s not that bad.”
Mathis thought of the pain in his chest that had been so excruciating but was surprised to find his chest and heart felt perfectly fine now. “Was it a heart attack?”
“That’s what we thought at first. There were some pretty strange readings on the electrocardiogram when you were brought in. But all your other tests came back normal, and there were no blockages. You had what we call stress-induced cardiomyopathy. It’s usually brought on by emotional or physical trauma, or maybe a stressful life event. You have any of those lately?”
Mathis thought about the murder and mayhem, his spiral into criminal activity and the video game experience that wasn’t really a game at all. “Yeah…I guess you could say that,” he admitted.
“Yeah, well, it got the best of you, I’m afraid. It’s your body’s way of saying enough is enough. What you need is some serious rest and relaxation. And you could probably stand to eat better and lose a little weight.”
“So I’ve heard,” Mathis said, thinking of his coworkers’ assessment.
“The nurse is going to get you some food. I’d like you to stay through the night just so you can get a little more rest. We’ll get you more meds to help with that, and I’ll sign your release papers in the morning. Eat and get some sleep.” The doc and nurse left the room before Mathis had time to protest.
Time Walker: Episode 2 of The Walker Saga Page 23