by Platt, Sean
Mathews pulled the phone from his pocket, mashed his thumb on the glass, waited a few seconds, then said, “How quickly can we get a surgeon here?”
Surgeon?
After a painfully long silence Mathews said, “Tomorrow’s too long. We’ll just cut her open.”
What? Cut me open? Why? What’s happening?
Hannah’s heart raced; a crashing plane between her ears, her mind desperate to find sense in her surroundings. But she couldn’t cut through the chaos, no matter how hard she tried. She wished her inner whisper would chime in and offer a clue, but it was inconveniently silent, leaving her alone and afraid yet again.
“What?” Greg said, clearly alarmed. “You can’t just cut her open. She’ll die.”
“Not my concern,” Mathews said. “She has what I want, and I’m not waiting until tomorrow. Who knows how long until … ”
A high pitched buzzing ripped through the room, and somewhere, Hannah heard what sounded like gunfire erupting.
What’s happening?
A voice crackled on Mathews’s phone. “Harbinger is here!”
Harbinger? Who?
Mathews pointed at the creepy German. “You, stay with her. Make sure no one comes in.” He handed the man a gun. “And make sure she doesn’t leave.”
Mathews grabbed Greg’s arm and they raced from the room. Greg looked back at Hannah as if it was the last time he’d see her.
Hannah was suddenly alone with the creepy man, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might explode.
Forty-Three
John
Jacob is here.
John thought it moments before the first rounds of gunfire cracked from somewhere in the building. He stared at the door, waiting for it to burst open and for Jacob, or worse, his henchmen or monsters, to come storming through to kill him once and for all.
More gunshots, followed by screaming.
John tried reaching out to feel what was happening, see how many enemies Jacob brought with him, but too much chaos made sense of nothing. The world on the other side of the door bubbled with fear, screams, and pain — the writhing anguish of many. To dip in without losing himself in the flood would be impossible in John’s current state, drugged and weakened, his body still slowly stitching from its earlier burning at Mathews’ hands.
John wondered how well he’d be able to fight when death came to claim him. Maybe he’d get lucky and the first to attack through the door would be caught unprotected and unaware. Then, John might be able to feed from their souls and use the power to finally kill Jacob.
A sudden horror struck him.
Perhaps he’s not here for me. Maybe Hope is already here.
That thought sent John into action. He ran at the door and slammed his body hard against it.
“Jacob! I’m here, you fucker. Come and get me!”
John closed his eyes and tried reaching his brother, finding him, somewhere on the bottom floor, killing agents with glee.
Jacob stopped for a moment, turning his thoughts to John.
“Well, hello there, brother, fancy meeting you here.”
“I’m on the 10th floor, you fucker, come and get me,” John said, knowing his words would travel to his brother alongside his thoughts.
“Perhaps, I’ll visit you later, John. Right now, I’m here to see someone else. Maybe you’ve heard of her. She shares her name with something of yours which will surely continue to dim by the second.”
Jacob laughed like a monster.
“You fucker. Stay away from her!”
“Aw, Johnny, you amuse me so with your bravado. Ta-ta, brother. Be seeing you soon. Is there any final message you’d like me to give her?”
Jacob killed the connection before John could respond.
“Jacob!” John screamed into the silence.
He paced his cell, determined to find a way out. “Mathews!” John looked up at the camera, screaming. “Let me out! Now, goddamn it!”
“Mathews!”
The screams outside seemed almost louder than the gunshots. John closed his eyes and tapped into streaming thoughts, searching for Hope in the din.
So much death. Despair. Horror.
John’s door suddenly clicked and began to slide open.
Here comes death.
He balled his fists, waiting to spring on anyone who entered, hoping he was up to the task and wouldn’t be staring down a squad of armed, suited men immune to his touch.
Skinner stepped into the room, carrying an unconscious Hope in his arms.
“What did you do to her?” John stepped closer, cautiously, hoping she was okay.
“She isn’t hurt,” Skinner said. “I took her away when hell came raining. I’ll help you escape into the service elevator and then to the roof. You can jump from there, yes?”
John nodded as Skinner set Hope lengthwise on the cot. “I’ll need some more clothes so I don’t touch her.”
“Take my coat,” Skinner said, removing his suit. It was long on John, but fine for the moment.
“Thank you,” said John, slipping his arms through the sleeves. He moved closer, desperately wanting to touch Hope, to open her eyes and say “Hello.”
It had been so long since he’d seen her. And despite Adam saying that he’d change her appearance, she looked just as he remembered her, and not a day older. So beautiful. So sweet. His heart melted, ached, and exploded. He wanted to pause the moment so it was only them in the world, and the ensuing violence outside could never permeate their bubble of forever.
But the continued gunshots killed John’s hope and sent urgency into his limbs.
He turned to Skinner. “Why are you helping us?”
“Because Mathews is drunk with power. Now that Jacob is here, you are the only one standing between him and the end of this world as we know it. Come, we must go. Are you strong enough to carry her?”
“Yes,” John said, unsure if he was, but knowing as he stared down at his love that he’d find a way no matter what.
John wasn’t sure if there was something different about Hope, or whether he was simply too weakened to properly handle her. She felt far heavier than she should have. Hope should have been a pillow in his arms, but John was limping heavily from his cell into the hallway, then every step after that as they crossed the long hallway, strides behind Skinner.
“We have to go faster,” Skinner urged, his eyes wide and panicked. “Are you sure you’re okay? I’d be happy to help you carry her.”
John could hear the kindness through Skinner’s thick accent, which surprised him considering how eager the German had seemed to help the bad guys a short while before.
“No, I’m fine.” John took a second to readjust Hope in his arms. It was awkward since he had to keep her body up past his forearms and away from the naked flesh of his hands in case they slipped from Skinner’s long sleeves. He tightened his grip and walked faster, quickly closing the distance between them and Skinner.
“That corner,” Skinner pointed toward the end of the hallway. “The elevators wait around it.”
Great. Let’s hope I can make it that long.
John felt the promise of growing strength as they neared the corner, and dared to hope for recovery. His eyes were on Skinner’s back as the German approached the corner.
Skinner screamed and stopped dead in his tracks.
John fell an involuntary step back, clutching Hope tighter against him, before rounding the corner and seeing the source of Skinner’s cry.
A monstrosity charged at them, a monster unlike any John had ever seen, though his humming déjà vu suggested otherwise. The monster wasn’t tall, though its hulking bulk gave that impression. It was 5 feet high, thick, like a giant tree with dark skin to match, tiny legs, and long arms ending in sharp, black pincers that looked like they could shear metal like grass.
In the center of its mass were what appeared to be dozens of eyes, some blinking and each ringed with a wet dark circle. The blinking eyes opened to a
softly glowing amber. Beneath them, a wide open maw filled with hundreds of teeth jutted in every direction like quills.
The monster paused its charge and seemed to study them, its hesitance saving their lives. John was weak, Hope still in his arms, and Skinner frozen, staring at the creature as if hypnotized.
John pulled strength from somewhere and set Hope down against the wall. Then he ran toward the monster and Skinner, not knowing what the hell he’d do until he got there.
Skinner drew his gun but the beast batted it from his fist with a blur — fast considering the creature’s mass.
The monster leaped toward Skinner, but John was faster, throwing himself between Skinner and the beast. John thrust his hand up at the creature’s face, expecting to pull the soul from inside it.
Nothing happened.
John felt the creature’s soul calling out, which meant it should have been his for the taking, but its bark-like body was a protective armor. Momentarily dazed, John stood rooted with a weakness in his body wanting to force him down to the floor.
It did, and the monster fell on top of him. Its dozen or so eyes were all open, staring at John as it opened its mouth, ready to feast.
Six deafening shots rang through the hallway, then the monster’s body grew suddenly still and heavier on John’s.
“Thanks.” John said, looking up at Skinner as he ran to them and pulled the monster off of John, and rolled it aside, black ooze pouring from its wounds.
Skinner nodded and reloaded his clip. He pointed to the elevators. “Let’s go.”
John scooped Hope up from the wall and into his arms. Twenty feet from the elevator, the wall exploded beside them and another of the tree-like creatures barreled into the hallway. It seemed the same size, but that was an illusion given that the beast was hunched over.
Standing it revealed itself to be at least 7 feet tall, and almost twice as wide as its fallen brother.
Shit.
Skinner fired two shots, then three before the monster swung, sending him flying back, almost into John. The creature shrieked, a loud, bird-like shrill, almost metallic in tone.
John set Hope on the ground, and looked up in time to see the monster running toward him.
One of the monster’s eyes seemed larger than the others, a deeper amber bleeding from behind its barely open lid. The larger eye made John think of something he should have thought of before.
He brought his fingers together in a point — a rough and ready shiv — then ran straight at the beast, shoving his hand into the monster’s barely open eye.
The creature shrieked, screaming with something that sounded like a train scraping off the side of the rail as everything it ever was or would be shot inside of John.
Its memories were raw, animalistic, a life of brutality and carnal lust, with nary an intelligible thought beyond its primal urges. But the power was immense, coursing through John, recharging him more than any human ever could. He released the beast and stared down at his hands, trembling with energy he longed to spend on Jacob’s destruction.
Hope stirred on the floor, softly moaning, looking like she was about to wake up. But when John went to gather her into his arms, she fell back into unconsciousness. With the monster’s strength, John could now carry her easily. With any luck, they would soon be far from the Building.
Skinner stood looking down at the beast and then back at John until a smile cracked through his lips. He walked over to the elevators, made the top button glow, then turned back to John and said, “Very impressive.”
“Eyes are windows to the soul,” John half-smiled. “I just had to break one.”
They stepped inside the elevator, Skinner first. John’s heart pounded on their way to the roof.
Come on, come on, come on.
He stared down at Hope, flashing back to their last kiss. The final nights they’d spent together before the world flickered and changed. A decade gone felt like a lifetime apart.
Jacob was responsible, for every pain that John had ever felt — from the death of his true mother, to the chain of events that sent his brother to Otherworld, forced Hope to have her memory erased and to live apart from John, and turned an innocent child into a vampire.
Jacob was a cancer that destroyed everything he touched.
There’s no way in hell I’ll let him do it again. John stared at Hope and vowed.
The elevator dinged open and John carried Hope onto the rooftop, watching her face the entire time, hoping, and fearing, she might wake. Wind whipped through her hair, and John longed to touch it, to run his fingers through it again.
Skinner followed closely behind, pointing ahead to the building’s southern edge which looked down on a smaller six-story bank building. He had to shout over the howling wind. “If you jump over to that roof, you should be able to escape unseen.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll stay here until the smoke clears. Nobody’s looking for me.”
“Thank you,” John said.
Skinner’s eyes suddenly widened at something behind John. The German opened his mouth but was launched through the air, thrown back 10 feet and slammed to the rooftop before he could utter a word.
John turned and saw Jacob floating in midair, holding a glowing red sphere in his right hand, wielding it like a power stone. Jacob thrust the sphere hand forward, sending John and Hope both flying back to the ground. John tried holding onto Hope, but lost his grip, crying out as she flew four feet farther than John, tumbling across the rooftop.
He scrambled to his feet and ran to Hope, but didn’t make it four inches before he was frozen in place, then lifted from the ground by Jacob and his powerful orb. John tried fighting, to push back with his telekinesis, but Jacob’s power had grown too strong.
“Is that any way to greet your brother?” Jacob grinned a lunatic’s smile and spun John to face him.
John wanted to spit in Jacob’s face, to reach into his chest and pull out his heart, then shove it down his fucking throat. But he was impotent in the stone’s hold.
“You can’t fight me, John. I have the wizard’s power now. Well, nearly all of it. I’ve just one small piece to get.”
“The hell you will,” John grunted, pushing with all his strength to raise his hands, trying to reach out and strangle his brother.
Jacob laughed at John’s hands fluttering helplessly at his sides. Jacob clucked his tongue. “We’re such a stereotypical family, always trying to murder each other. Why must we quarrel so?”
“Typical families don’t kill their mothers and try to murder their brothers.”
“Okay,” Jacob laughed. “So, we’re a bit eccentric. But hey, we live and learn, right? Your brother finally came around after all.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, you didn’t hear?” Jacob raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Caleb finally saw the light, and realized the righteousness of our cause. He is now sitting at the throne beside Father.”
“Liar.”
“I’m many things, but a liar is none among them. Who do you think created the portal to bring me back here?”
John swallowed. “No. Bullshit.”
“Last chance, brother. And may I point out how overly generous I’ve been with my many offers for you to join me, and fight by my side? I’d say that makes me a damned nice, and forgiving, brother, wouldn’t you?”
John said nothing.
“Very well,” Jacob spun John around, just in time to see Hope rising from the ground, blinking as she stood, rubbing a bloody gash on her forehead.
She looked up with haunted eyes, staring as if at a ghost, ignoring the floating man behind him.
“John?”
She remembers!
The crystal in her chest glowed with a bright enough red to see through her skin.
Jacob cackled.
Hope looked down, staring at her glowing skin, eyes wide in horror. She clutched at her chest, screaming in pain as
the crystal moved under her flesh, pressing up, trying to rip free of her body.
“Stop it!” John screamed, unable to move, or turn to face Jacob — helpless to do anything but watch. He could feel Jacob sucking his life from him, weakening him the longer he held him in his grasp. The more John tried to break free, the more energy Jacob withdrew.
The crystal ripped through Hope like a gunshot, the gem flying through the air and leaving a bloody arc behind it on its way into Jacob’s orb. Hope stood momentarily, stunned, or in shock, before her eyes closed and she collapsed to the ground.
John screamed.
Jacob released his hold of John and allowed him to fall to the ground as the orb turned crimson, pulsating as wind swirled in a growing tempest around them. John tried to stand, to reach Hope, but was sent to the ground by a gust of wind that knocked his feet out from under him. Rolling thunder exploded, each boom louder than the last, as if the world itself was exploding.
John looked up to see a swirling darkness gathering above and blotting out the stars, sliced by bolts of bright purple lightning crackling in an ever growing circle, starting small but quickly spreading, splitting the world behind Jacob into an ever wider aperture. Another portal opened.
John managed to get up, scrabbling to Hope’s side as she lay in a spreading pool of blood.
“John?” she said, confused, and lips trembling.
Tears streamed down John’s face as he looked at Hope’s wound. She was losing too much blood. And too fast. She’d die if he didn’t do something.
He thought of the healing spell he once taught Larry, but shook his head knowing Hope’s wound was too deep for a spell. He would need it, plus everything he had inside his own soul. If he had to drain himself to death to save her, he would.
And if he failed, he didn’t want to live, anyway.
John, ignoring Jacob, recited the spell, holding his hands high above her chest. Behind him, he heard Jacob say, “Goodbye, brother. Until we meet again.”