by Platt, Sean
John followed.
Forty-Three
Caleb
“Walk,” Jacob commanded in Caleb’s head.
Caleb could only obey, stumbling naked and bloody through the soma den lobby, with Jacob right behind. He wasn’t sure which scared people away more, the sight of a naked man stabbed in the gut, or the knife he was still holding with a white-knuckle grip ready to strike again. As people took notice, whatever high or sexual bliss they were enjoying vanished, and sent them screaming in flight from the lobby.
He could feel Jacob’s perverse satisfaction, an opposite reaction to Caleb’s horror.
Caleb was usually the one to calm the frightened, to chase away whatever boogeyman might be threatening someone. Now he was their boogeyman. They were afraid of him. It was as if Jacob had reached deep inside his psyche and found one of few things that would hit him where it hurt most.
Caleb tried to resist Jacob’s instructions, but could no better oppose him now than earlier when his brother extracted everything Caleb knew about The Hand of the Seven Gods from his brain.
Jacob was rooted deep into his mind. Death was the only escape.
If Caleb could kill himself, he would have.
But he was stuck, being a sick marionette for the twisted fuck that shared his biology, and nothing more.
He prayed that he would bleed out and drop dead before Jacob could hurt anyone else.
But Caleb needed to stay alive, needed to find a way to warn Raina that he’d been compromised. But Jacob didn’t dare try to connect telepathically with Raina while Jacob was in his head. Jacob might use the connection to lay a trap for her.
He hoped just thinking about it didn’t raise the idea in Jacob’s mind.
They approached the exit, and Caleb wondered what they would do next. Continue this macabre parade through Under Harbor, scaring people, maybe until someone killed him?
Jacob, reading Caleb’s thoughts, responded.
“Don’t worry, Brother. I won’t let anyone kill you. We’re going to pay a visit to Jonah. I need to find a few people here, people that fucker’s been hiding from me. You have time, right? No pressing appointments? No? Good.”
Fuck you.
Jacob laughed out loud. “Someday you and I will look back on this moment with fond memories, as the beginning of the end. And you can say you were here when it all came down. And, yes, I did overhear that whole thing about Raina. That’s a pretty good idea, calling her. Maybe after we’re done with Jonah.”
No, please don’t!
Jacob didn’t respond.
They stepped through the doorway and into the hallway outside the soma den. Caleb looked around helplessly for something, anything, he could use to fight back against the puppeteer behind him.
There must be something.
And then he saw something in the narrow passageway whence he came. A girl. And not just any girl.
The little girl that John had been on the run with ages ago.
Abigail!
What are you doing here?
And as soon as he saw her, he felt Jacob’s excitement.
Shit. I tipped him off.
Caleb wanted to shout, Run! Run away!
But his mouth belonged to Jacob.
Jacob dropped Caleb to the ground like a sack of meat.
Then he went after Abigail.
Forty-Four
Abigail
Abigail screamed as the bloody naked man fell to the ground and Jacob locked eyes with her.
He was just as she remembered when he took her captive two years ago — tall, pale, bald, with dark evil eyes, and dressed in all black.
He was also smiling. Again.
Oh God, that smile.
She remembered how helpless he’d made her feel. How he probed inside her mind, and how she’d been unable to stop him.
How cold and sick she felt with him in there, sifting through her memories as if they were belongings and he an intruder. How scared she’d been that he would stay in her head forever, taking it over, taking her over and turning her into something else.
Every instinct screamed for her to run. Fast and far. Do NOT let him catch up.
She turned in the tight crevice to flee.
But Talani was blocking her way.
“Move!” Abigail shrieked, batting and shoving Talani with her hands. “He’s coming!”
“Who’s coming?” Talani said, looking up and over her.
Why won’t you move?
Abigail kept shoving her. “Go! Go! Go! Go!”
Talani turned, but Abigail could already hear the man in black’s footfalls drawing closer.
Her flight through the passageway, which might have been a hundred feet, suddenly stretched into a thousand, slogging to a crawl.
But Jacob’s time didn’t slow like Abigail’s.
The man seemed to move even faster.
Come on. GO!
She pushed herself, shoved at Talani’s back, urging her forward.
Despite the muscles in her scrawny legs feeling pushed to their limit, the world was a drip.
She kept her eyes on the other end of the passageway, the exit, not knowing what she’d do once she and Talani reached the other side. Jacob wasn’t fat enough to get stuck — she’d have to figure out a solution once there.
For now, she just had to focus on getting out.
Getting her and Talani to safety.
They were almost out of the passageway.
It was maybe twenty feet away.
Yes!
Yes!
Ye —
She fell.
No!
Jacob landed atop her.
Forty-Five
John
Gerald picked up his pace as they navigated the dimly lit cloistered warrens composing Under Harbor on the way to the soma den.
“What’s going on?” John asked. “What’s this Crow’s Nest thing?”
“A group of Valkoer attacked a small farming village called Crow’s Nest, left most of ’em dead. Rumor says it was someone from here, but I’m not buying it.”
“And who are Prophet Malachi and Sister Raina?”
“They’re from Golden Cove, capital of The Southern Realm. Prophet Malachi is the head and founder of The Hand of the Seven Gods, the big church here who all the other towns and kingdoms more or less pay off to protect them from, well, people like us.”
Gerald winked at John. “And they’ve got the biggest army in The South. So probably not people you’d want to be making enemies of.”
“You think they’re here to start something?”
“Or finish, as they likely see it. Only a matter of time before this was bound to happen, but hopefully it won’t come to that.”
“Through here,” he said, pointing at a passageway.
They stopped at the sight of a young black girl running out of the passageway screaming.
The girl turned, looked back, and saw that whatever she expected to see wasn’t behind her. She ran back into the passage, still screaming.
John raced forward to help.
Forty-Six
Judith
Judith sat across from Cassandra at her kitchen table, drinking a juice that was giving her a pleasant buzz while Cassandra filled her in on life in Under Harbor.
Though the city was underground, it actually held more citizens than the aboveground Town of Jonah. Under Harbor was like the proverbial small town where everybody knew everyone’s business, except here a lot of people’s business was criminal. Still, it wasn’t as bad as all that. Like any small town, you had a wide variety of people and political groups to navigate to avoid getting on the wrong people’s bad side. Screwing up here wasn’t like messing up in other places. Exiled from Under Harbor left most people with nowhere else to go. Other kingdoms didn’t allow magick users, witches, monsters, or the other deviants that called Under Harbor home, so the exiled were forced to become vagabonds, or settle in the Outlands — a place that wasn’t particular
ly hospitable to lone wolves, or small families, unless one was adept at fighting bandits.
“I think we’ll do fine here,” Judith said. “Thank you again for taking us in. You didn’t have to do this.”
“Of course I did. You made my brother happy, not an easy task. He loved you, and wanted the best for you. You must be something special.”
Judith took another drink, allowing her buzz to ease the pain of losing Solomon. “Nothing special, believe me. If you knew me before I met Talani, and before your brother found me, you’d have wanted me dead. I was a horrible person.”
“I know. He told me all about your past. About how Hugo controlled you.”
“I can’t blame other people for my choices. I just have to try and make enough right ones to correct the wrong. To try and make enough of a difference to enough people’s lives that it outweighs my many sins.”
“See,” Cassandra said, smiling, “a good person. Most people would allow their pasts to break them. But you refused to give up. You fought back. You saved that child. And it looks like you’ve found another.”
Judith smiled. “Abigail? She reminds me a lot of myself when I was her age. And she gives Talani a sister …”
“What is it?” Cassandra asked after Judith had stopped.
“It’s my fault that Talani and her sister were sold to Esmerelda. And she split the girls up. I’m guessing her sister is long past dead, but I suppose I owe it to Talani to try and find her. Do you know anyone who can help me? I’d like to do it before telling her — in case I’m unearthing a tragedy. I don’t want Talani to dig up old ghosts if they’re only going to hurt her.”
“I might be able to see. Would you give me your hand?”
“So you really are a seer?”
Cassandra arched her eyebrows. “Why would I claim so if not?”
“On Earth we had these so-called psychics who claimed to see things, but they were all frauds looking to take people’s money and exploit their hopes and fears.”
“All of them?” Cassandra said with a smile. “Surely some of them must’ve been real.”
“Perhaps. But none that I ever met.”
Judith was about to offer her hand then jerked it away. It had been so long since she’d been around anyone who wasn’t Valkoer that she’d nearly forgotten what her touch would do to anyone else.
“It’s okay,” Cassandra said. “I’m protected.”
“How’s that? Spell?”
“No,” she said, reaching into a box on the table and pulling out a black glove.
“So you don’t actually need to make contact with my skin to see things?”
“No,” Cassandra said, slipping on the glove. “Now, place your palm on the table.”
Judith did so cautiously.
It had been a long time since she’d let anyone into her head that wasn’t Talani or Solomon, and granting entrance to another made her anxious, even if it was Solomon’s sister.
Cassandra placed her gloved hand on top of Judith’s open palm, then closed her eyes.
“I want you to remember the moment when you took Talani and her sister. Can you remember?”
“Can I forget is the better question.”
Judith thought back to the night, as she’d done too many times to count, usually under the influences of guilt and alcohol.
She remembered Hugo instructing her to find the hiding sister. Remembered seeing Talani, so young, so scared, trembling under the bed. Remembered her sister, Raina, pleading not to take her.
A part of Judith had wanted to leave the girl undiscovered. But she wouldn’t have gotten away with it. Hugo had told her to find the girl, and wouldn’t let it go. If she hid the girl, and he discovered her disobedience, he would have probably killed her. When Judith was lying to herself, she liked to think she was protecting the girls. Her way of thinking was that Hugo would’ve found them anyway. And if Judith had betrayed him, he would’ve been so mad he would’ve killed both girls in front of her, just to teach her a lesson.
And that might have even been true.
But there was also a part of Judith — and this was always the hardest part to face — that had wanted to find the girl, had wanted to give the girl to Hugo, had wanted to please him. Because then, maybe he’d love her a little bit more. Maybe he’d stop treating her like property. There had been times when he’d been tender. Times he seemed to actually care for her. She had wanted more of those times, even if it meant doing horrible things like stealing children from others.
She hated that sad stupid part of herself with a bitterness that even the sweetest of tastes could never fully blot out. So many times Judith wished she could go back and change what she did.
The world was full of magick, but there was no way to change the past.
“The older sister’s name is Raina?”
“Yes.”
“Can you focus more on her face in your memories? I want you to really see her as she was that night.”
“Do I have to?” Judith sighed, already feeling her eyes well up with tears, her throat constricting.
“Please, just once more. Focus.”
Judith did.
“It’s her.”
“Huh?”
“It’s Sister Raina of The Covenant of the Hand of the Seven Gods.”
“She’s alive?”
“Oh yes.”
A scream ripped through Judith’s mind.
She yanked her hand back from Cassandra’s and sat up straight, her senses suddenly hyper-aware.
“What’s wrong?” Cassandra asked.
“Talani’s in trouble!”
Judith leaped from her chair and ran out the door.
Forty-Seven
Abigail
Abigail cried out as Jacob pounced on her. He was on top of her, hands on her shoulders and pinning her down.
She flashed back to the last man to hold her down like that, and panic spread through her like fire, through every muscle, washing over her mind and rendering every thought but one to ashes.
Fight!
She kicked, flailed, clawed, and twisted, trying to bite the man’s arms.
“Get off of me!” she growled.
She must have hurt him: his eyes bulged, and his mouth twisted into a grimace of rage.
“Stop it!” He pulled her up by the shoulders, then slammed her back repeatedly, sending Abigail’s head into the ground, over and over.
Fear turned to pain, clouding the edges of her vision as her body went limp, limbs refusing to heed her commands.
In her peripheral vision, she saw Talani running toward Jacob, screaming.
She tried to warn her away — Jacob was too powerful. She needed to get help.
But Abigail couldn’t warn her, couldn’t even focus to string together a coherent telepathic message.
She was already slipping into the darkness.
No, I have to hang on. Got to get up. Help her.
Jacob saw Talani coming at him, and stood up to intercept her attack.
He would kill Talani. Abigail had to stop him.
Abigail struggled to move her arms, to push herself up from the ground, to find a way to get between he and Talani.
Every attempt was slow, and shaky. It hurt just to lift her head.
Then she saw something else, behind Talani.
Not something, someone.
Not just someone …
John!
Then she fell back.
Forty-Eight
Talani
Talani screamed, racing toward the man hurting her Abigail.
He looked up, and instead of running away, barreled straight for her.
Talani had meant to leap on the man, grab his head, then suck his life out before he could defend himself.
But she missed as he sidestepped her at the perfect moment.
As Talani started to sail past him, her momentum halted as he grabbed her by her hair and yanked her to the ground.
She fell hard on her back, gas
ping for air.
Then he was on top of her.
His evil dark eyes met hers. His hands throttled her throat.
Why isn’t he dying?
Then she realized. He was Valkoer, too.
He smiled. “And who might you be?”
“Fuck you,” she growled.
He squeezed tighter. “Wrong answer.”
He let go with one hand, reached down to his belt, drew a black blade, and waved it in front of her, delighting in Talani’s terrified eyes.
“Ah, so you do know what this does,” he said, smiling. “Good. I wanted to see the fear in your —”
Suddenly he went flying off of her as a blast of hot, bright white light erupted above, temporarily blinding her.
Running footsteps behind her.
She clenched her fists, and focused on the sound, bracing for attack.
She leaped to her feet and, as her eyes adjusted to the blast’s blinding effect, turned to see another man in all black, with long dark hair, run past her, then drop down beside Abigail.
Talani remembered the man from Abigail’s memories. The “angel” who saved Abigail from Randy Webster, then had saved her again by turning her into a vampire.
John!
“What happened?” he asked, cradling Abigail’s motionless body, blood pooling around her skull.
Forty-Nine
John
“He was shaking her, slamming her against the ground!” the young teen said, eyes wide, helplessly staring at Abigail.
So much blood seeping from her head.
John looked up to see Jacob standing, shaking off the energy blast.
Their eyes met.
Jacob gave him a sinister smile then nodded.
What that meant, John didn’t know.
He looked down at Abigail, limp in his hands, barely clinging to life, then up at Jacob who stood there as if saying, Your choice, Brother. Save the girl, or come get me.