by Platt, Sean
Wait, I don’t have a cousin; do I?
She turned from the window, her eyes drawn to a painting draped beneath a long piece of thick plastic. She reached out, peeled the plastic sheet away and letting it fall to the ground. It took forever to hit the floor, as if the fall were as endless as the night outside.
There was no canvas behind the sheet, only a man.
Hannah stumbled back, startled by the sight of the naked man with long dark hair and angel wings.
His eyes were closed as if he were sleeping. Or dead.
Like the room, and the paintings, he seemed so familiar.
Or more than that.
Without thinking, Hannah reached her hand out to touch him, as if to see if he were real, or alive.
A name bled through her lips without her thinking it.
“John?” she whispered.
No response.
Her fingers touched his chest.
He opened his eyes.
Hannah opened hers, and the dream was gone.
She woke disoriented in a brightly lit but unfamiliar room.
She squinted through fuzzy eyes, trying to focus on the blur slowly taking shape, a man sitting beside her.
Her eyes finally adjusted, and settled on a stranger — a man with short blond hair and a big smile.
“How are you feeling, Hannah?”
She looked at him, confused.
“Who is Hannah?” she spoke through a burning throat. “And where is John?”
Seven
John
It took Larry just six hours to find Shadow, a pleasant surprise that gave John hope he might manage to find Jacob and finally be done with Omega’s bidding.
According to Larry’s source, Shadow was holed up in Room 213 in the Channel Hotel, an expensive spread over by the Riverfront. John had driven by the hotel plenty of times, but never had reason to set foot inside.
Just before dawn, Mike Mathews sat with John in the back of an Agency van in the hotel’s parking garage, waiting for the agents to settle in place. Six plainclothes were waiting inside the hotel — one in the lobby, and the rest scattered across the hotel’s dozen floors. Another three Agency vans were on standby outside in case things turned ugly. John thought the number was overkill, especially since he hoped not a single one would be needed.
He wished he’d come to the hotel alone, but knew if he did, and Mathews found out, he’d be risking treason. Omega had a specific set of rules, and they expected John to play by them, just like everyone else. If not, he risked Hope’s life. So, John played ball and hoped he could talk with Shadow one-on-one without the need for the macho Mathews calling in his men.
Mathews’ eyes were eager, and did nothing to buoy John’s hope for a peaceful meeting.
“You’re going to give me time to talk to him, right? Before calling in the dogs?”
Mathews looked offended, “Of course. But you know as well as I do that Shadow is one slippery fuck, and the moment shit goes south, we’re going in.”
John nodded. “Just checking that we’re on the same page. I’m sure we can turn Shadow into an asset if we leave him on the streets. But you have to trust me on this one, Mike.”
Mathews nodded. “I get it, John. You do your job, I’ll do mine.”
John had a sick feeling that he knew exactly what Mathews meant — he’d get what he could get from Shadow, then the squad would move in and try taking him into custody. Maybe even kill him.
Shadow was one of the most well-respected Halfworlders — a son of an Otherworlder — someone who had got along well enough with both Guardians and Harbingers before Jacob activated the portal and brought civil war among the Guardians.
Shadow had run a magick shop in the underground, catering to Otherworlders, Halfworlders and the few humans who knew how to find him, specializing in artifacts and information for collectors willing to recognize, and pay, for their value. Omega started purging Otherworlders, and Shadow went deeper underground. John thought he would have fled the area, but for some reason stayed. He was either the smartest of Otherworlders, or the dumbest.
Mathews checked with the other teams on the radio, making sure everyone was in place, then looked at John, “You ready?”
“Yes,” John said, climbing from the van’s rear.
John was wearing his street clothes; jeans, a black shirt, black trench coast, boots and shades. He checked the tiny receiver pinned inside his coat’s collar and whispered, “You hear me?”
“Yes,” Mathews’ voice came across the ear piece hidden under John’s long dark hair. “You copy?”
“Yes,” John said, making his way inside the lobby. He crossed the empty hallway, then stepped inside the elevator and took it to the second floor. The doors parted and John saw a man standing in front of a door halfway down the hall. John got out and started walking the hall, figuring Shadow’s room was roughly three doors down from where the man was standing.
What the hell is he doing?
John got closer and heard the man’s slurred speech, “Please, baby, let me in. I’m sorry.”
Great, a lovers’ quarrel.
The man turned, red-eyed, and glared at John, looking him up and down. “What the fuck you lookin’ at?”
John looked down, ignoring the man. The last thing he wanted to do was alert Shadow by getting into a fight with a drunken man down the hall. John kept walking, head down, stopping in front of Shadow’s room. He could feel the drunk’s eyes all over him, waiting to see what John would do, as if trying to decide between picking a fight and resuming his plea, begging “baby” to let him back inside.
Maybe he was waiting for John to leave before he finished humiliating himself.
John planned to take his time, see if he could sense whether Shadow was awake, but given the drunk in the hall, he had to keep moving, as if it were his room. He retrieved a key card from his coat pocket, one Omega created to open any door in the hotel, and slid it into the reader.
The door unlocked. John turned the knob and gently pushed.
The door caught immediately on a latch, which John half-expected. He stepped back and kicked the door hard above the knob.
The door burst open, snapping the lock as the drunk screamed, “Hey!”
John stormed into Shadow’s room, hands ready to deliver a deadly blast of energy, but Shadow’s bed was empty. So was the room.
John turned, about to check the closed bathroom door when the shape appeared in front of him — something barely there against the wall in the darkness, then fully formed — a skinny, young Asian man in a black robe.
John raised his hands at Shadow. “I just want to talk.”
Before John could send a blast to knock him out, Shadow’s hands dropped something to the ground and blinded John with a blast of smoke.
Shadow knocked him back with a kick to the chest. John tried calling for backup, but could only cough on his way to the carpet. To John’s horror, he couldn’t move his arms or legs.
Oh, God, he poisoned me.
Suddenly, they weren’t alone. The drunk was standing in the door, yelling, “What the fuck is going on in here?”
Shadow swung his arm up, sending a long wire flying from und his sleeves into a coil around the drunk’s neck. The drunk started screaming, but only screeched a syllable before Shadow pulled the wire and sliced the man’s head clean from his already-sagging shoulders. He dropped his end of the wire and looked down at John, eyes blazing orange.
“Why are you here?”
John tried to speak, but could barely suck air through his cough.
Shadow’s hand unfolded, drawing John’s eyes to a swirl of dark and light spiraling from the center of his palm, before filling the room with a brilliant blue radiance. The light spread into a perfect circle hovering in the air above them.
John stared, unable to believe the small portal appearing before him.
How is he doing this?
Shadow reached down, grabbed John, yanked his body up wi
th seemingly no effort, and slung him over his shoulder.
John tried screaming, but couldn’t even cough. The world was spinning around him as Shadow leaped up and into the portal with John.
John felt pulled from his body.
He was being moved but was too numb to truly feel it, as if it were happening through several layers or reality, too thick to reach him.
The world was darkness, but at least he was still alive.
Where am I?
John remembered Shadow creating the portal and carrying him through it, but he had no idea where the portal led.
Am I in Otherworld?
He closed his eyes, trying to forge a connection with either Larry or Abigail, but he felt nothing, especially them.
Then, he heard a woman’s voice as clear as if in the Darkness with him.
“John?”
“Hope?”
Eight
Duncan
Duncan Alderman sat, phone to his ear, wondering if he’d made the biggest mistake of his life by letting John live. He’d had the chance to kill John many times throughout the years. But John was Caleb’s brother, and Caleb was the closest thing to a son that Duncan would ever have. So, each time, he’d surrendered to his better angels, figuring that the Guardians could manage the situation before it got out of hand. Yet, each time he was proven wrong.
“What do you mean they have John?” Duncan asked Bob Cromwell. “Who has him?”
“We’re not sure. Harbinger, or maybe Outsiders.”
“Outsiders?” Duncan tapped his pen against the glossy surface of his large desk.
“Aliens, freaks, and the humans who mingle among them. Our operations have made us some new enemies. More than expected. People who might not have been a threat before are starting to organize against us. They’re calling themselves Outsiders.”
“Great,” Duncan said. “So we have no idea who took John?”
“No. John went to meet a Halfworlder called Shadow at the Channel Hotel. He’s an Outsider and information broker. We believe he has a lead on Jacob. John insisted on going in solo, though we had teams in place waiting to move. Something happened inside, we’re not sure what. Both John and Shadow vanished.”
“Vanished? How the hell did they disappear if you had teams working this?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Duncan closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and trying to keep calm. Cromwell was paid too much for ignorance. This was pathetic. He wanted to cut the man to nothing with his tongue, but could sense the remorse in his voice. Besides, Cromwell was so fueled by his need for approval, Duncan’s silence was already a sentence served.
Duncan remained quiet, gazing at the long rows of books lining the many shelves inside his private library. He noticed, with some annoyance, that one of his leather-bound first- edition encyclopedias along the top shelf, 15 feet from the ground, had a slightly jutting spine, as if someone had recently drawn the volume and hadn’t pushed it all the way back into its slot.
Who’s been in my library?
Duncan wondered if one of the housekeepers had been dusting and left the book out of line, then made a mental note to talk with Helga, head of housekeeping.
“I’ve my best men on this now,” Cromwell said. “We’ll keep you apprised of the situation.”
Duncan said, “I expect you will.”
“Yes, sir.”
A pause, then, “You will find John. You will get him back. Right, Bob?”
“Yes, sir. I promise. We will find John.”
Duncan hung up and found his eyes drifting back to the errant volume.
He glanced at the time on his laptop, 7:12 p.m., and wondered if Helga had left for the evening. He clicked on his computer’s intercom program, then on Helga’s name, and waited for an answer.
No response.
He looked up and down the list of his other house help, most likely gone for the day. Security would be the only staff left. One could come fix the book.
He clicked on “Otis” his head of security and awaited a response.
He heard nothing but silence, even after a minute.
That’s odd. If Otis is unavailable, the system should patch me through to someone else.
Duncan clicked on his name again, waiting.
An uneasy creep stirred inside him, staring at the unresponsive screen, waiting for some sort of answer. The feeling was familiar, but because he’d not felt it in a reasonable forever and it took a moment before recognition hit him.
Something was wrong.
Duncan yanked open his desk drawer, reached inside, pulled a loaded pistol out from inside and wrapped it tight in his palm, a half second before the door burst open to the last person in the world he wanted to see. The gun stayed in his hand, but fell beneath the desk.
“Well, hello, Mr. Alderman!” Jacob stepped inside Duncan’s office with the giddy voice of a carnival barker and a salesman’s faux smile. He was dressed in an ink-black robe, like a fairytale’s evil magician, hands buried in the folds. Behind him stood a pair of tall, spindly wraiths he’d either created here or brought from the In Between. The dark, naked creatures were mostly legs and arms, with oversized hands and feet ending in blunt nubs, curled into sharp talons. Clawed hands were caked in blood and flesh, likely from Duncan’s security team. The wraiths’ emaciated faces and hollowed sockets stared out at Duncan, likely seeing him through Jacob’s sight, since he was surely connected to and controlling the hellish creatures.
“What are you doing here?” Duncan shouted, keeping his gun hidden, wondering if his weapon was any good against Jacob and his swiftly-moving wraiths.
Jacob pulled something from his robe, tossed it to the ground, then smiled while it rolled to the edge of the bookcase on Duncan’s right, stopping three feet from his ankles.
Duncan looked down, swallowing bile as the dead eyes from Otis’ severed head stared back up at him from their glassy hell.
“I’ve come for the vessels’ names,” Jacob said, stepping from the threshold into Duncan’s office, glancing up and down the walls of books as if admiring the collection, or perhaps searching for the hidden room behind.
“What vessels?” Duncan tried not to look at the bloody remains of his head of security, but was unable to keep his eyes from the frayed skin at what was once Otis’s neck, like fabric sheared with dull scissors.
Are they all dead? If they got Otis, they probably got everyone.
Jacob smiled, “Tisk, tisk, Mr. Alderman. Do you think I’d return home and not hear of the vessels? All this time I’d been wondering what had happened to the wizard after he helped my mother come here. All this time we thought him dead.” He hissed through his smile. “But you knew better, didn’t you?”
Duncan shook his head. He had no idea what the vessels were, but anything on Jacob’s wish list was certainly bad for Earth.
“Oh, my, you don’t know, do you?” Jacob smiled, like an evil child chewing a secret.
Duncan said nothing, his hand wrapped tightly around the grip and his finger on the trigger, holding his weapon under the desk, ready to fire. If he could kill Jacob fast enough, the wraiths would be blinded, if not incapacitated entirely. It had been many years since he’d seen a dark magick user controlling such creatures, but he was reasonably certain with the master dead the monsters would fall or return to the In Between.
Jacob paused five feet in front of Duncan’s desk, finally meeting his eyes. “Tell me, Mr. Alderman, how many Pioneers are left?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
Jacob smiled, “Because I’m going to give them a choice. A choice to be on history’s right side. The same choice I’m about to give you.”
Duncan’s finger tightened on the trigger. Jacob took a step closer.
“What choice is that?”
“I’m going to find the vessels, Mr. Alderman, and you will definitely not want to be in my way once I do.” He smiled, then looked from left to right, grazing his eyes against the two
wraiths and teasing the rest of his insanity. “There are only two sides in a war, Mr. Alderman. You must decide, right now in this room, are you with us or against us?”
“That depends on what exactly you have planned.”
“I think you know what we have planned,” Jacob smiled, as if Duncan were silly. “We’re going to finish the job you and your Pioneers were sent here to do. We’re going to take this world.”
Duncan narrowed his eyes. “And what gives you the right?”
“Right?” Jacob snapped. “What gives me the right? Nobody gives me the right, Mr. Alderman! I take it! I should be asking what gives you and your kind the right? The right to imprison and murder ours? To force us into ghettos? To keep an entire race banished to one sector of a world like caged animals? Oh, yes, I’ve seen what your kind has done to mine in Otherworld. You’re no different from the humans here — a few controlling the many; strong devouring weak. Well, Mr. Alderman, you can’t fight evolution. Our species will shatter your shackles. We will take this world as we should, then do to you and yours what you’ve done to us for millennia.”
Jacob finally moved, almost drifting from the doorway to Duncan’s desk, whispering death and promises on his way.
“I’m giving you a chance, Mr. Alderman, an opportunity to find yourself on the winning side. A chance to be one of us.”
“Never!” Duncan raised his pistol, aimed it at Jacob, and pulled the trigger.
Duncan was too late.
One of the wraiths jumped between the men, took the bullet in its blackened chest, and screeched like a cat torn in half as it stained the carpet.
Before Duncan could fire again, Jacob was in front of him, a hand at his throat, bony gloved fingers squeezing tight, while the other wrested the gun from his twisted digits and sent it to the floor.
“Wrong choice.” Jacob yanked Duncan up from behind his desk in his curled fist and shoved him to the ground.
Pain flared through Duncan’s body. Jacob hopped atop and straddled him. His weight, combined with his powerful grip on Duncan’s neck, rendered the old man into a helpless glob of jelly.