by Platt, Sean
“No, it’s not.” John reached over and tickled her sides.
Abigail erupted into giggles, her raspy laugh even more infectious than Tiny’s deep booming guffaw. John hadn’t been around many children, but there was something about Abigail’s giggle that sounded like liquid joy.
“Stop it!” she said laughing and kicking his shins.
Then she stared at her blanket like she was trying to work up the nerve to make a request, or maybe tell him something. She was distracted, probably something that had happened at the house when she set the fire. John was about to ask her what it was when a knock at her door surprised them both.
“You two awake?” Larry called from behind the door.
“Yeah,” John said. “Come in.”
Larry opened the door, looking ripe with exciting news. “Cromwell’s in town. Tiny’s got some men with eyes on the place. They say he’s there, and alone.”
“Great! How far is it?”
“About 40 minutes. I say we get going now.”
“We?” John said.
“Hell yeah, I’m coming and don’t even try and talk me out of it because the place has security, and you need my help getting past it.”
“Where are you going?” Abigail asked.
John said, “I’m trying to find someone, and we found a man who might be able to help us.”
“Is it dangerous?” Abigail asked.
John didn’t want to lie. “It might be, but not too dangerous.”
“You just got back, I don’t want you to leave again!” Abigail whined, wrapping her arms around his torso. “Please, don’t leave. Let Larry and Tiny go. They can find the man, and you can stay here with me!”
John looked into Larry’s eyes, feeling bad that Abigail didn’t seem to mind if his best friend risked his life while being scared that John might. Larry shrugged, nodding to say he understood.
“I need to go, Abigail. But I’ll be fine. I pr … I swear.”
“What am I supposed to do while you guys are all away? What if something happens?” Abigail swallowed, suddenly looking twice as scared. “What if I do something in my sleep again?”
Larry took a step toward Abigail. “Katya said she’ll watch you. I’ll bring you to her place, and you two can have a sleepover until we get back. Does that sound fun?”
“What if I fall asleep and wake up killing her?” Abigail asked, eyes wide, terrified.
“You’re not going to hurt Katya,” Larry said. “Besides, we’re not going to be gone long enough for you to get tired and go to sleep.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “We’ll come and get you in a few hours.”
“Maybe you should both stay here,” John suggested.
“No,” Larry insisted. “You want to get past Cromwell’s security, right? You need my help, unless you plan on storming inside. A guy like that, I’m sure he has a safe room.”
“You sure you can get past his security?” John asked.
“I’m like freaking Rain Man when it comes to that shit, dude. Also, I’ve got just the thing to keep Abi awake if she’s worried about sleepwalking.”
“What is it?” Abigail asked.
“These special brownies. Not those kind of special brownies,” he added, winking at John. “These are energy brownies, a recipe I picked up from this Otherworlder chick a few years back. Could keep you up for three days without a yawn. But it’s perfectly safe for Abi.”
“Okay,” John said, then turned to Abigail. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
She smiled. “Well, I do want to see Katya.”
“We gonna go or what?” Tiny was standing in the doorway. “And did someone say something about special brownies?”
John followed Larry and Tiny into the living room to go over details, feeling like he was forgetting something he’d meant to ask Abigail.
Twenty-Eight
Jacob
Three of the five addresses on the Vessel List were within Washington State. The fourth was smack dab in the middle of Nevada. The fifth belonged to Hope, whose location was unknown. Two of Jacob’s Harbinger soldiers drove out to Nevada, aiming to retrieve the vessel and bring the crystal back. Another two agents were handling the other Washington vessels.
He saved the closest of the three in-state addresses for himself. His targeted vessel was a man named Albert Koenig, a 45-year-old operations consultant who lived in an apartment 20 minutes from Duncan Alderman’s mansion. It was still early when Jacob arrived with Mr. Dark, a devoted Otherworlder who provided clouds and sufficient shade on demand in addition to his job as Jacob’s right-hand man and driver.
Jacob was surprised, if not slightly startled, to find Mr. Dark still waiting to serve him upon his return. Most of Jacob’s crew, at least among those who had survived the firefight at the compound, had fled to parts unknown. Mr. Dark held things in place, waiting for the day when his boss would come back.
Mr. Dark had done well the past year, continuing to recruit and pay new Harbinger members and soldiers, sewing seeds of dissent among Otherworlders as Omega initiated their campaign against aliens, half-breeds, and all known associates.
It didn’t take long to rally enough soldiers to take over Alderman’s place once Jacob returned. Soon, Harbinger would be legions strong, and Jacob’s people, the vampiric Valkoer, on Otherworld would finally find the freedom they had waited centuries for.
“Do you need me?” Mr. Dark rasped from the driver’s side, beneath a billowing umbrella of whirling shadows.
“No,” Jacob said, opening the door and setting his heel on the concrete. “That won’t be necessary. Wait here. I’ll be finished shortly.”
Jacob closed the car door, stepped out from the billowing shroud and into the night. He crossed the sweeping lawn circling the perimeter of Cooper Arms, the opulent apartment building where Koenig made his home. The doorman nodded at Jacob, looking slightly baffled but mostly dazed. Jacob nodded and walked past him.
Inside, a man wearing a well-fitted, hunter-green blazer with thin, gold stripes circling the cuff, nervously fondled the knot on his tie, swallowing as Jacob approached him. “May I help you?”
Jacob was inches away in a heartbeat, leaning over the counter and into the man’s face.
“Yes,” Jacob said. “I’ll be going up to the seventh floor to see Mr. Koenig. Would you be so kind as to make me a key?”
The man stared at Jacob, not knowing that his next few seconds would determine the rest of his life. If he was only a stupid animal, like most humans and exactly as Jacob expected, he would make the keycard for Jacob. By the time the elevator dinged and Jacob stepped inside, the man would be well on his way to forgetting what had happened and what he’d done, just as the doorman outside had forgotten Jacob already.
If the man was the rare fighter with courage, he would sense the danger and make it his death. A fight with Jacob would last only a second, and the aftermath would see Jacob that much stronger as he rode to the seventh floor to meet Koenig.
“Of course,” the man said like an automaton, averting Jacob’s eyes. He went to a drawer, pulled it open, grabbed a blank card, slipped it into the machine’s mouth, then tucked it into a keycard-sized envelope and handed it across the counter to Jacob.
Jacob smiled as he took the card. “Thank you, Mr. Wyatt,” he said, glancing at the man’s nameplate, finding his eyes despite Wyatt’s resistance, then holding them to stir confusion and lose the memory.
“Of course, sir,” Mr. Wyatt said without emotion.
Jacob turned from the counter, crossed the lobby, pushed a button, waited 30 seconds, then stepped into the elevator. Jacob held Mr. Wyatt’s thoughts until the doors shut, then felt them fray to nothing. As the elevator ascended Jacob could feel Mr. Wyatt swatting at the surface for truth, but by the time the doors opened to the seventh floor, Mr. Wyatt had drowned beneath it.
Jacob stepped out from the elevator, walked to the end of the hallway, and slipped the keycar
d inside the door.
Because it was late, Jacob expected to find Koenig sleeping in a back bedroom, but he wasn’t. The man was making filthy love to his woman instead. Their bloated bodies were naked, pressed into one another and turning the sofa into a sticky mess. Koenig’s eyes widened in horror as he turned in mid-thrust to see Jacob racing toward them.
Koenig screamed — even louder than his woman — as Jacob picked him up by the throat, dug his fingers deep into his flesh, then lifted him high and hurled him across the room.
Koenig landed with a loud snap across the living room, his back spattered against a thick square column at the apartment’s center. He smacked into the sharp corner, then fell to the hardwood floor gasping for air in a fetal ball.
The filthy woman tried to run. Jacob left Koenig gasping as if he were a wad of trash to be tossed later, then raised his hand and hurled a blast of energy at her feet knocking the woman down. She fell, face first into the coffee table, blood gushing from her mouth as she reached up to feel for broken teeth. He looked down, and yelled, “Do you want to live?”
“Y ... yyy ... yyyessss,” she whimpered through a mouth of blood.
“Then have a seat on the couch,” Jacob hissed. “Otherwise you die while he watches.”
The woman climbed up to the couch, crying as Jacob turned toward Koenig and approached the column.
He looked down at Koenig with utter curiosity, wondering if such a simple ugly beast could possibly know anything about the power inside him. Did the man even know he wasn’t human?
“Do you have any idea what makes you special?” Jacob asked Koenig, who was still writhing on the floor and gasping for breath.
Though Jacob waited, Koenig couldn’t make words.
Finally, Jacob made him an offer. “I understand that it’s difficult to breathe, Mr. Koenig, but I don’t have all night. Do you have any idea why someone like you would be worth the time of someone like me? If you can’t answer in the next few minutes, you’ll have to watch your woman become my snack.”
The man gasped faster, seconds from spitting blood.
Jacob turned on his heel, then went to the couch and sat beside the woman, running his long gloved finger up and down the length of her pudgy naked leg, smiling, inhaling the room’s discomfort like the scent of a rose. He waited for wall clock to lose three minutes, then calmly said, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Koenig, but you’re all out of time.”
With no more preamble, Jacob feasted on the woman, driving pleasure into his body from two sources: the woman’s waning life force, and the petrified waves coming from the miserable man lying in agony on the floor, knowing he was next and still wondering why.
Jacob was normally a speedy feeder, but with Koenig going nowhere, and forced to watch the show, he took his sweet time, savoring seconds until the woman was cindered memory. Once done, he stood from the sofa and returned to the column.
“Hello there,” he smiled, kneeling beside Koenig.
Koenig said nothing.
“Are you certain you have no clue about the magick inside you?”
The man’s hollow and terrified eyes said he knew nothing.
“Oh, well then,” Jacob said before making Koenig his next feast.
The man was surprisingly tasty, with many dark secrets and evils, but disappointing, without any memories to point Jacob toward a freshly discovered truth.
Who was this man, and who determined that he was worthy of being a vessel?
Jacob shoved his fist into Koenig’s withered body and waited for the energy to find him. Once he felt the pulse warming his palm, Jacob withdrew his hand from the corpse and opened his palm. A rainbow of colors leaped from inside, sparking from the center of the bloodied crystal which looked just like Shadow’s, which Jacob now wore around his neck.
He stared at the gem for several seconds before wrapping his fist back tightly around it. He lowered his fist and closed his eyes, feeling a massive rush of power course through his body from both the crystal in his hand and the one around his neck, as if they were working in concert. The energy was different than the souls he fed on. This was pure power unlike anything he’d ever felt, undiluted with the tainted memories of taken souls. The energy was surely part of the wizard’s essence. And once he found the rest of the crystals, he’d be unstoppable.
Another four, and the world would bow to him.
Twenty-Nine
Hannah
“Who is this?” Hannah asked.
“This is Sergei,” the man said. “Who is this?”
“This is Hope.”
Hannah didn’t believe she was Hope, but needed to know more, and this man seemed to recognize her voice.
“Hope!” Sergei said, his voice ringing with excitement, like an old friend gone for decades. “It’s been so long! How are you? How have you been? Where are you at? Oh, my God, Stefan is going to die when he gets back.”
“I’m not good,” she said, honestly. “Listen, I need to ask you something.”
“What is it?” Sergei’s voice shifted from hyper to apprehensive.
“How do you know me?”
“What?”
“I had an accident, and don’t remember much. I need you to help me remember.”
“Oh God, are you okay?”
“I’m not hurt, but my memory is spotty. I can’t remember you. Your phone number just sorta came to me.”
“Oh, wow. I saw this on a TV movie of the week once.” After a short pause where Sergei seemed to be thinking, he rattled off a life story fast enough to make Hannah wonder if he’d drawn a breath between sentences.
“Um, OK, you were the waitress at an Italian restaurant in St. Augustine where Stefan and I used to go to all the time back in the mid-‘90s. The restaurant was called Umberto’s. You were a painter, but had never sold anything. You were sweet, but super shy. Stefan and I were opening an art gallery, and helped you sell your first paintings. Then you met this man, John, and the two of you were sooooo in love! You moved in together — this cozy little place in the historic district — and then one day you both took off, just vanished. Rumor was you flew to Italy and decided to get married. Then you stayed there. I tried calling, but your phone was disconnected. I tried to find someone who knew how to get a hold of you, but nothing. At first, I was mad you didn’t tell us, but Stefan reminded me that young love is impetuous, and I ought not be so selfish. We still have that painting you did for us, and cash from a few of your paintings that sold after you disappeared. By the way, vanishing was a great way to increase the price of your work!”
Hannah sat on the toilet, floored. She couldn’t remember a single one of Sergei’s stories. Yet, each wore a skin of familiarity. Like a story once told by a stranger.
After Hannah was silent too long, Sergei said, “Are you there, Hope?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry. Just trying to remember.”
“Any of that ring a bell?”
“Maybe a little, I don’t know.”
“Where are you now? Are you okay? Are you still with John? Are you still painting?”
“No,” Hannah said. “None of it.”
Greg’s voice was at the door, a jackhammer to her nerves. “Hannah? You alright in there?”
“I’m fine, just a bit sick to my stomach, I’ll be out in a minute,” she said trying to squelch her rising panic. “I’ll meet you at the car.”
“Um, okay.”
Hannah spoke to Sergei in a hurried whisper. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go in a minute. But I need you to do me a favor.”
“Of course. Anything.”
“Do you know John’s last name? Have you seen him?”
“No, I don’t think we ever knew his last name. But he did work at another restaurant, and … oh, never mind, that place closed down a few years ago. I’m sorry, I don’t know. Are you okay?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. Listen, I’ve got to go. Can I call you back if I need to?”
“Yes, anytime, Hope. And if you n
eed anything, anything at all, don’t be afraid to call, at any hour.”
“Thank you.”
Sergei seemed as if he didn’t want to let her go; worried enough to keep her on the line. “Are you okay?” he asked for the third time.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you in danger?”
Hannah forced herself to laugh. “Of course not, and I’ll be fine,” she lied. Hannah realized she should leave Sergei with something, after being gone for so long with nothing at all. “I’ll call you tomorrow. And thank you.”
Hannah killed the call and stared at her phone, wrestling confusion, and the thought of some alternate version of herself that she couldn’t remember. She tried to pull memories from her past, but everything was sand through her fingers. She tried again to remember her college friends, but her memory was soup.
“That’s because they’re not real, Hope. None of it is.”
Stop calling me Hope.
She kept staring at the phone, wondering who else she could call. Her coworker and only friend Jenny?
And say what? I think I’m someone else and Greg is trying to do something, but I don’t know what? Yeah, they’ll put me in the loony bin, for sure. She could hear the doctor now: “Sorry, that bump on your head in the accident was a bit worse than we thought. Turns out you’re nuts.”
But nuts didn’t explain Sergei knowing her voice, or the dreams and flashes of John. Nuts ignored all of Greg’s mysterious phone calls. Something was happening, and Hannah couldn’t afford to be timid.
She had to do something.
But what?
She thought of Greg sitting out in the car, waiting.
There’s no way I’m getting in that car.
“Then don’t. Go. Run.”
Hannah rose from the toilet, washed her hands, and approached the restroom door hoping Greg wasn’t being sweet, and waiting patiently for his “sick” girlfriend. She opened the door, saw Greg standing there waiting, and tried to retrieve her racing heart from the floor.