by Platt, Sean
“Came through?” John leaned forward.
“She doesn’t remember much. So we’re going to question her in the Seven truck. See what she can tell us.”
“Jesus.” John’s heartbeat gathered speed, the dread of something bad, like his brother Jacob, coming through. But there was also some excitement at the thought that his good brother, Caleb, also lost in the portal might have found his way home. “You think it’s Caleb?”
“I don’t know, but we’re gonna find out.”
Omega had people sitting watch on the first portal for a full year, waiting for anyone — or anything — to come through. They even sent three of their people in, though none returned. It was six months since anyone had attempted to cross through. John wondered if maybe one of their men had finally made it back, and if so, what they might have to report.
Mathews said, “Assuming the worst, Jacob’s mounting forces, and has sent someone through. If so, we’ve gotta find whoever crossed over — before shit gets bad.”
Mobile Command Unit Seven was Omega’s designated interview truck, a 30-foot vehicle outfitted the same as their other units, but with an interview room where they could question witnesses and hostile suspects out of sight from others.
John stood in the corner of the windowless interview room as Mathews pulled out a chair for the woman, Emilia Serraben, so she could sit at the table across from him.
“Can we get you anything?” Mathews was pleasant, almost saccharine. “A drink or something to eat?”
“No, thanks,” she said, blowing her red nose into a white tissue. “I just want to find my daughter Kayla.”
“That’s why you’re here,” Mathews smiled, continuing his calming, caring facade. “I’m going to ask you some questions which will help us get to the bottom of this.”
“What is that thing? Have you seen it before?” Emilia’s eyes brimmed with tears, desperate for solace, clearly hoping Mathews might offer a branch to grasp — anything to help the woman believe her daughter was safe.
“We have our best people on it,” Mathews lied. “We hope to have your daughter back as soon as possible.”
John swallowed his disgust, loathing Mathews’ manipulation of a scared and shaking mother, but also fully aware that they had to mine as much information as possible from her to help them find whoever stepped through the portal.
Emilia explained how she and her daughter were walking their dog when a storm appeared from out of the blue. Next thing she knew, her daughter was racing into a fog. It vanished, leaving behind a “hole in the world,” but no trace of the girl.
“Do you think it’s possible she didn’t go through? That she’s still out there somewhere, lost?”
“Anything is possible,” Mathews said. “And we have more than two dozen agents and officers out there combing the neighborhood to find out. We’ll find her, Mrs. Serraben, I promise you.”
His smile was pure comfort as he extended a hand to Emilia. She took it. Mathews squeezed, then lowered his voice, “You told one of our agents you saw someone come through the portal. Can you describe what you saw?”
She withdrew her hand to blow her nose, then shook her head. “It all happened so fast, everything is a blur. I didn’t get a good look who or what came through. One minute, I was standing, then the next, I was flat on the ground. I came to in the ambulance. That was when one of your agents asked me to speak with you.”
“You said ‘who or what’ came through. You saying it might not have been a person?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I think it was a person. It was tall like a person, and standing upright. But it was so fast. At least it seemed that way, but I don’t know if that’s because of the hole, and the person only seemed fast … ” Emilia’s voice cracked. “Or what.”
The woman sounded less certain by the word. Mathews continued encouraging her to recount the story, repeatedly, using different words each time, hoping to elicit some small nugget of information, but the man was getting nowhere. She was scared for her little girl and growing more restless by the moment, looking past Mathews and John, at the door, wanting to go search for her daughter.
“Can I please go now? Every minute I’m in here is a minute I’m not looking for Kayla.”
Mathews maintained his calm façade. “Certainly. Just give us one moment, please.” He smiled at Emilia and ushered John from the room. Door closed, Mathews met his eyes. “I need you to get the info from her.”
John swallowed, unsure he’d heard correctly. “What?”
“I need you to find out what she saw. Extract the memory.”
“I’m not killing her. Can’t we get Skinner in here? He can get her memories without burning her to death.”
“We don’t have time. Skinner’s in New York chasing a lead on something else. We have no idea what came through the portal. And we need to get on top of this now, John.”
“We’re not killing a civilian! She just lost her kid for Christ’s sake!”
Any pretense that John was close to Mathews’ equal faded as his boss’s face twisted into a display of impatient anger. “If we don’t find out what happened, many more civilians could die, and likely will. You know what we’re up against, John. You know what Jacob is capable of. We’re talking about the greater good here. Must we really have this conversation again?”
“There’s a difference between killing Harbingers and a civilian!” John tried to keep the growl from his voice. “I’ll be the company hitman, fine, but not if it means killing innocents.”
“I’m not asking, John. Get in there, now.”
The look in Mathews’ eyes was the only threat given, or needed. Omega held the trump card — Hope. They knew where she was. John didn’t. They’d already made it perfectly clear that they would do whatever they had to if it meant keeping John in line.
He glared at Mathews.
One slave, and one master. So long as Omega held Hope over John, the equation would never change.
He went back through the door, and looked back at Mathews as if to ask, Will you be joining me?
Mathews turned his back to John.
Pussy.
John returned to the room alone and met the weeping woman’s tormented eyes. The concern inside them had deepened, as if sensing his hesitancy.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
John approached the table and sat opposite Emilia. Her eyes found his gloved hands, and she looked back up. “Did you find her? Did you find Kayla?”
John shook his head then opened his mouth. His voice wore the slightest crack. “Is there anything else you can remember about who came through the portal?” He hoped she would remember something, anything, which might allow him to spare her life.
Emilia’s face flushed with frustrated anger. “I told you all everything I know. Please, can I leave now?”
John slipped off his gloves, and Emilia’s eyes fell to his hands, as if somehow sensing the danger in his empty palms.
He held out his hands, without saying a word, hoping she’d take them as she’d taken Mathews’.
She reached out, her fingers stretching to embrace his.
No!
He yanked his hands back, startling Emilia.
“What the—”
John ignored her, jumped out of his chair and stormed through the doorway, back into the hallway where Mathews stood, staring past John into the room.
Before Mathews could open his mouth, John shook his head. “I’m not doing it.”
Mathews gritted his teeth, then pushed past John and went back into the room. What is he doing? John turned just as Mathews retrieved his gun from inside his jacket and fired at Emilia, directly into her chest.
John screamed, then raced into the room, his hands ready to suck the life from Mathews.
Mathews’ gun fell to the floor as an onyx blade dropped from his sleeve and landed in his palm. He thrust the blade out between himself and John, a warning for John to keep his distance.
�
��You know what this will do to you. So I suggest you get to work. Draw her memories before she bleeds out.”
John swallowed his anger and fell to his knees beside Emilia, sprawled on the ground, looking up at John, confused and crying as her body emptied.
John whispered, “I’m so sorry” and set his hands on her head. He wished there was a way to do this that didn’t hurt the victims so badly. If only he could kill with a gentle touch, to offer a painless exit.
They bonded, his fire spreading through Emilia, sending her body into convulsions, her eyes into giant balls bulging from her head. Her mouth opened wide enough for a scream, but none escaped. Her body blistered. John felt Emilia’s memories surging through him in a tsunami of rolling emotions.
He closed his eyes, focused on the torrent, and tried to ignore the overwhelming fear and pain coursing through her and into him, searching for the memories required from the million inside.
He found them — reliving the woman’s final moments, experiencing her creeping unease as the weather changed, fear turned to terror as Kayla chased the dog, then her unflinching horror as the portal opened before her.
He watched as something appeared on the other side of the portal. Whatever it was moved fast. Large and dark, its form too blurry. John slowed the memory, watching as the blur grew to barely more than a shadow.
It was a man, but not a human: His brother, Jacob, back on Earth.
But why?
And where is Caleb?
John stared into the memory of his evil brother’s eyes, feeling as if he were staring at death incarnate.
Is Duncan right? Is whatever waiting on the portal’s other side gathering forces? And if so, why?
No one was safe until Jacob was found.
Two
Abigail
“Is that her?” Abigail stared through the binoculars at the woman standing outside the nightclub with a small huddle of partiers, laughing and smiling like she hadn’t murdered her 2-year-old son four years before. “She looks so different than she does on TV.”
“Yup,” Larry nodded, staring through his own binoculars beside her in the van, a block from the club. “That’s the Karen McKenna.”
Abigail zoomed in on the child killer. She didn’t look anything like the sad-faced mother in the orange jumpsuit Abigail had watched on the news footage she found online. Looking at the woman now, with her well-tended blonde tresses and pretty new dress, from the diamonds around her neck to the shiny shoes on her feet, you’d never know she was a monster. She looked so normal.
Abigail looked at the people with her, two men and a woman, all of them laughing and smiling like Karen. “Do you think the people with her know who she is?”
“Everyone knows who she is. She’s a fucking celebrity.”
“How can they stand to be with her? Do they think she’s innocent?”
“Well, she did get off. But I don’t think it matters much to people like that. She’s famous.”
“She’s famous for killing her child!” Abigail said, laying down her binoculars and looking at Larry. No matter how many bad people they’d killed, and no matter how many horrible things had happened to Abigail in her 12 years on the planet, she was still surprised by the dark depths of humanity.
“Fame is fame,” Larry said, still peering through his binoculars. “Ah, there he is.”
Abigail raised her binoculars and followed Larry’s line of sight until it ended at the muscular bald man standing behind Karen. He was wearing a dark suit and a Bluetooth ear piece, as if he were Secret Service, rather than Murder Mommy’s bodyguard.
“Think we can take him? Without killing him?”
Larry looked over, grinning. “I dunno, he’s got one of those douche bag Bluetooths, isn’t that an offense worthy of punishment?”
Abigail laughed, even though she was too hungry for Larry’s humor. “If that were the case, we’d never run out of people to feed on!”
“Yeah, you really need to relax the rules a little, Abi. I say we add ironic hipsters to our list. We could hit the Apple store, Starbucks and that vegan place that just opened up on Crouch Avenue and stock up for the year.”
Abigail looked through the binoculars again and saw Karen’s bodyguard retrieving a Mercedes from the valet.
“Looks like it’s showtime.” Larry set his binoculars on the seat and keyed the engine. “You sure you’re up for this?”
Abigail turned to Larry, waiting for his eyes to meet hers. “Yes, I’m sure. Besides, I don’t know how much longer I can go.”
Larry looked Abigail up and down. Though he hid his reaction well, she could tell he was concerned. Her skin was almost gray, like it always got when she went too long between feedings. And while she wasn’t staring at the edge of death, as she had been once five months before, the hunger weakened her significantly. And it hurt — a pain that she somehow felt both in her head and her gut, though she wasn’t actually eating people, but rather their life force.
“Okay,” Larry said, putting the van into drive and drifting into the street to follow the notorious Karen McKenna from the club.
They were tailing the Mercedes for nearly 10 minutes when Abigail finally asked what she knew Larry was dreading to hear — a question he’d answered a dozen times before.
“What if she didn’t do it?”
“She did,” Larry said, holding his eyes to the road. “We’ve gone over this, Abi. Several times.”
“But the jury must’ve had some reason to let her go.”
“Juries fuck up. All the time. In this case, everyone fucked up. From police botching evidence, to prosecutors being too stupid to work around it to the judge. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if her daddy paid off half the jury!”
“Yeah,” Abigail sighed. “I guess.”
“Guess nothing. She did it. Goddamn, she practically did a Google search for ‘How can I, Karen Theresa McKenna, murder my child and get away with it?’”
Abigail chortled, this time a sincere, deep belly laugh.
“You’re right,” she said. “You know how I get.”
Larry’s sigh said far more than any words. Abigail looked down at her gloved hands, then back up at Larry, “I’m not gonna wimp out this time. I promise.”
“I don’t mind if you do. I know you don’t want to kill anyone who doesn’t deserve it. I get it. That’s what makes you so much better than all these fuckers, Abi, believe me. If it doesn’t happen tonight, I’ll find someone else.”
Abigail shook her head. “No, I don’t want to put you in danger again. We’ll kill her. Tonight, I swear.”
A promise followed by a swear. There was no way she could back out now.
They sat outside Karen’s house — one of many her father had scattered across the country — waiting for the bodyguard to return to his car after walking Karen inside and presumably checking the place out. She’d been free for more than two years, and out of the news for one, yet judging from her bodyguard’s actions, you’d think there were constant threats against her life. Maybe there were.
Abigail remembered the red anger burning from the sea of faces in the footage Larry had shown her from when the “innocent” verdict was read. The murder happened in Miami, and they were clear across the country in California, but the case drew international attention, mostly because of Karen’s father, Peter McKenna, billionaire owner of the globally recognized timeshare company, McKenna Resorts. Abigail figured some other people wanting to see justice had probably made threats on her life, though she doubted many would go to the lengths she and Larry would to dispense justice.
They’d spent months researching Karen’s case. Larry reached out to his network who knew people involved — always keeping enough of a distance to avoid an eventual link back to Karen’s murder, of course. He’d also done some black hat-type research, hacking into Karen McKenna’s cell and computer records, and finding several interesting tidbits that hadn’t even made the relentless press coverage, which made Larry all the mo
re suspect of Peter McKenna paying people off.
Larry said that there was zero doubt in his mind that Karen McKenna murdered her son. For Abigail, that would have to be enough. Tonight, she would feed. And tonight, Karen’s son, Kyle, would finally find justice — once they took care of the bodyguard.
Abigail approached the bodyguard, sitting in his car on the street outside Karen’s house. She was wearing black pants and a purple long-sleeved shirt to cover her ungloved hands. As she moved close enough for the guard to finally notice her, she pulled her long dark hair away from her face to display her tearstained cheeks.
“Please, help me, Mister,” Abigail cried out as she broke into a run toward the car.
The guard lowered his phone and looked up, startled, then immediately drew a gun on Abigail.
Oh crap, he knows.
No — he’s just scared. Back up.
Abigail stuck with her ruse, stopping about six feet from the front of the car, raising her hands to show she meant no harm. “Please,” she cried, meeting his eyes. The bodyguard was muscular, with a movie star’s jaw. The type of guy who likely never lost his cool. “There’s a man after me!”
“What?” The guard hopped from his car. He was tall.
Abigail stayed put. She could feel his suspicion as he looked her over, then up at the street behind her. “Who’s after you?”
Larry’s van surfaced from the black, high-brights blaring down on them.
“Oh, God! He found me!” Abigail started to run past the man, as if fleeing Larry.
“It’s okay,” he said, looking down at Abigail in reassurance. “You’re okay.”
The guard turned back to the approaching van, lifted his gun, and aimed. With the guard’s full attention on his target, Abigail delivered a blast of energy at the back of his head and sent him to the ground.
Larry killed the van lights as he rolled up, jumped out from the driver’s side door, and slipped plastic restraints around the guard’s wrists. The guard moaned as he tried to open his eyes.