Darkness Rising

by Mary Jennifer Payne

  “Why? Are you worried about leaving Cassandra alone with Jade?” I say, narrowing my eyes at her. “What the hell, Lily? I agree we need to find out what the story is, but she’s my twin, not a threat. Worry about demons and police and corrupt politicians. Not my sister.” I begin to walk toward the door.

  “You’re not supposed to just do that,” Lily replies softly. “And you’ll see why I feel that way when you get down there.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, stopping and turning back to her. The coldness is back, invading every cell in my body.

  “There’s something not right about her. I can’t tell you what exactly, because I can’t put my finger on it. Sort of like it’s Jade, but not Jade. It’s hard to explain.”

  I pause, trying to push down the defensiveness bubbling up in me like hot lava. “She’s been through a lot more than you, me, or any of the other Seers.” Except maybe Eva, I think. Seeing your sister raped, mutilated, and then murdered pretty much tops everything. She and Jade might be tied for trauma. “I mean, we don’t even know how Jade got here, or what’s happened to her and Amara since we got split up coming back from the Place-in-Between.”

  Lily throws her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. I get it. Just come down and judge for yourself before you start hating on me, all right?”

  Jade turns around before Lily and I even reach the bottom of the staircase, which is weird because our socked feet didn’t make a sound, not even the creak of a floorboard, as we were walking down. It’s like she sensed us before seeing us. I read once that cockroaches can do that: they can sense the smallest changes in the air around them.

  A wide smile spreads across Jade’s face as she leaps toward me, throwing her arms around my neck.

  “Jasmine!” she says, her breath hot against my neck. “Thank god you’re okay. I was so worried.”

  I nod into her hair as tears blur my vision. “Where were you?” I ask as soon as we release our hold on each other. “And where’s Amara? Do you know how Mom is? Mr. Khan?” I’m trembling with happiness, but also with anticipation, in case any of Jade’s answers are not good. The fact that I have to ask her these things at all, the fact that I can’t connect to her thoughts and feelings, doesn’t escape me.

  Jade shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t know where Amara is. We transitioned here so I could return the ring, but she didn’t transition with me. Something strange happened. I hit my head when we transitioned here — on the sidewalk, I think. When I came to, Amara was gone.” She pauses, looking thoughtful. “Maybe she took off.”

  “Amara wouldn’t do that,” Lily says, her voice quiet. “It’s a pretty serious thing to suggest, even. And first, you said she didn’t transition with you. Then you immediately contradicted yourself and said she did. Which is it?”

  Jade either doesn’t hear Lily or chooses to ignore her, because she just keeps on talking without even looking her way. “As for Mom and Mr. Khan, we spoke to Mr. Jakande while we were in Toronto. He said they were okay, but I don’t know if I believe him …”

  “My colleague wouldn’t tell a lie,” Clarence injects, his voice shaky with anger. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t just come in here and make these sorts of comments about your fellow Seers and one of my CCT family.”

  Jade turns to him. “I’m so sorry,” she says, her voice as sweet as honey. “That was just my feeling when I read his thoughts.”

  Behind the syrupy sweetness, there’s this weird flatness in her voice. And though I can’t read her thoughts, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize she’s not sorry. Not at all. Lily’s right, something is really off with Jade. It’s like she’s on automatic pilot or something. She’s talking like a bad actor reading a script. I mean, things were already weird before we left for the Place-in-Between to return the ring, but this is a whole new level of strange.

  Clarence continues to glare at Jade for a moment before his face softens. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I think we’re all on edge today. We’ve lost someone dear to us, and there are things happening in this city — and in yours — that put us in more danger than ever before.” He sighs heavily. “If that’s even possible.”

  “I’m worried about Amara,” Cassandra says from the couch. “If she was gone when you came to, maybe something happened to her during or right after transitioning. She might be hurt or in danger. Which I’d say is way more likely than her taking off on you, Jade. Lily’s right, Amara’s not like that. None of us are.”

  Jade nods in agreement, but her gaze lands on Cassandra as coolly as a winter breeze. “Oh, I’m certainly not saying she’d leave me on purpose. Maybe it was in self-defence. I just know she was really upset with me about Vivienne … and rightly so.” She fishes the ring out of her pocket. “But that’s why we were transitioning here. To reunite with all of you, but also for me to make things right by returning the ring.”

  Cassandra arches an eyebrow at her. “Where did the two of you land when you transitioned? And how did you know we’d be here, in this specific flat?”

  Good questions, and I feel like a fool for not thinking of them myself. I guess my joy at seeing Jade made me overlook things.

  “Mr. Jakande told me that you’d be here,” Jade says, flashing Clarence a wide smile. “I don’t know exactly where we landed. Near a park. It wasn’t far from here.”

  “Did you speak to him after transitioning?” Clarence asks. The question comes out of him in a deep rumble full of suspicion.

  “No, of course not,” Jade says, with a wave of her hand. “That would’ve put both of us at such risk. Mr. Jakande told me where you’d be today when I contacted him in Toronto, so I just used the GPS on my video watch to track my location and give me a route here. It took a couple of hours of walking, though, so I’m completely dehydrated. What’s the water situation like here in London?”

  “Better than in Toronto, thankfully,” Clarence says. “There are rolling stoppages, and bottled water is given out in priority areas, which means to the wealthy, mainly. But there’s still water for the masses, and it has, thus far, avoided contamination.” He dances around that word like it’s explosive, which makes me wonder if he has any doubts about our innocence. Or maybe, with everything that’s been happening, I’m becoming super paranoid.

  “We’ve got some in the fridge,” he adds.

  “I’ll get it for you,” I say to Jade.

  This time I’m staying attentive, and I won’t forget the way Jade detoured the conversation in order to avoid giving us a clear answer as to how she knew exactly where we’d be.

  With a heavy heart, I walk over to the fridge. The last person in the world I want to be suspicious of is my sister.

  JADE

  Water …

  So thirsty …

  Body no longer mine.

  I scream the words, but nothing comes out of my mouth.

  Jasmine walks over to the fridge, takes out a jug, and fills a clean glass with water. Sunlight glints off it as she holds it out to me. To us …

  I’m able to still read her thoughts, though they come to me now as if through a mist.

  She wants to believe me, but knows something’s wrong. The concern in her eyes is evident. My thoughts are not accessible to her. And that’s because my body is now shared. It’s not me who’s blocking her. I’m inhabiting only a small, dark corner of this body, of this mind — I’ve been colonized, and I fear that even this tiny space I still occupy will be consumed soon. When that happens, will I disappear completely from existence?

  JASMINE

  Clarence made us go back upstairs to try and nap for another few hours. He expects we’ll have to vacate this flat during the early hours of the morning, if not sooner. But there’s no way, even in this darkened bedroom, that I can close my eyes for more than a few seconds.

  I’m far too worried.

  Lily was right. Something is seriously wrong with Jade. I mean, it’s hard to know if she’s just really exhausted or is maybe suffe
ring some sort of PTSD from everything that’s happened in the last seven years or so, but even the way she speaks is different.

  I stare up at the ceiling, unable to see anything in the inky blackness. Down deep, I know it’s something more serious than any of that, though. More serious and a lot stranger. If I think about it, the strangeness started just before we headed back to the Place-in-Between. If it had started during or after our time there, I’d have said that returning there brought back Jade’s trauma from before. But things were off before that. And then there was that guy she seemed to know.

  Maybe he has absolutely nothing to do with any of this, but something tells me he does. The way he looked at Jade, and she at him. The fact that she pulled the stunt she did by taking the ring without even telling me. My face still gets hot with anger at the thought of that. And she was nowhere to be found when we needed everyone to help battle the demons and save Vivienne.

  Jade said she wants to try to return the ring tomorrow. Clarence told us that it would be virtually impossible to get to Spitalfields and the right place at the Roman wall without putting ourselves in a lot of danger — too much danger. Apparently, we’re on the other side of London from there. That means we’d have to take public transport, which is incredibly risky in terms of being identified. We’d be taking a huge chance. But then, Clarence also reiterated what we’ve heard so many times before: if we are to have any protection, the ring needs to be in its rightful place before the Final Battle begins.

  The door slides open, sending a large sliver of light into the room. Dani stands in the opening. She looks angelic with the light framing her curls.

  “Clarence wants everyone downstairs. He’s got the news on. The live stream of the execution is about to start,” she says, turning on her heel to go. The flatness in her voice tells me she’s trying to normalize this, or maybe she already has. It’s really the only way any of us can still function, the only way we can keep moving forward.

  Susie, Sara, and Lily are in the room with me. We all get up and silently make our way downstairs. A heavy blanket of dread and anticipation hangs around us. It was hard to convince Lily to leave Cassandra for even an hour in Clarence’s very capable hands and take a nap, but seconds after hitting the bed, she was sleeping like a rock. Jade opted to stay downstairs and rest on the sofa across from Cassandra. I suspect Clarence was watching her like a hawk. At least, I hope he was.

  We get downstairs to find the holographic newscast already streaming from a three-dimensional screen at the end of the room.

  “This is crazy,” Cassandra says. She’s propped up on pillows to a near-sitting position, and though she looks surprisingly better, her face still pinches with pain when she moves.

  Lily sits cross-legged on the floor in front of her sister. The rest of us gather on the sofas, ottomans, and floor.

  Jade comes over, perches beside me on the sofa, grabs my hand, and squeezes it. I look over at her and smile, though I’m sure it must look as fake as cardboard. Hand-holding is something Jade and I have never done, and it feels completely unnatural.

  I turn my attention to the news.

  A group of three or four journalists are sitting at a large round table. “We’re here at the BBC newsroom, reporting live about the CCT executions taking place tonight in Toronto,” says a young, very thin male reporter with hair so blond that it’s practically translucent. A silver ring with a single bead on it glints from his septum. “Whilst raids of suspected CCT strongholds took place today across the capital, in Toronto, Mayor Sandra Smith is assuring citizens of her city that their safety and survival are her top priorities by coming down hard on CCT terrorists and sympathizers. We take you to Toronto, Canada, right now.”

  The scene cuts to an image of Beaconsfield surrounded by police tape, officers, and military vehicles. Several heavily armed officers flank a nervous-looking, middle-aged reporter.

  “This is what Toronto’s deputy police chief, Nigmendra Pratap, had to say when we spoke to him earlier today,” the reporter says.

  One of the officers steps forward. His dark eyes are deeply serious.

  “After days of high-level surveillance, we’ve taken the necessary steps to secure and lock down the suspected CCT training camp you see behind me. According to our sources, terrorists were using this secondary school as a front to conduct training exercises — often radicalizing young female students with the aim of turning them into foot soldiers and suicide bombers.”

  I stare at the image of the reporter in disbelief. “What the hell?” I shout. “Is he serious? Where’s Mr. Khan? Ms. Samson? What have they done with everybody? How can they lie like this?” Panic surges through my body.

  “You know the answer to that better than almost anyone in this room, Jasmine,” Clarence replies quietly. “You know precisely how these lies are constructed.”

  Of course he’s right. I saw Smith’s propaganda machine first-hand. Corrupt governments, especially hers, will do anything to protect their power. Anything. Even if it means sticking innocent children in dilapidated camps and bleeding them to feed the demons. That much and more I witnessed with my own eyes.

  “We now go live to downtown Toronto, where the executions are scheduled to begin at half seven, our time,” one of the female reporters states.

  The scene changes again. This time, Toronto City Hall, with its two tall, curving buildings, springs into three-dimensional being. Sandra Smith is standing on a stage set up in front and to the side of the buildings, in Nathan Phillips Square. The camera pans 360 degrees, showing us another stage, this one much higher, set up just behind the multicoloured letters of the TORONTO sign.

  The camera swivels around to capture the audience. It’s hard to tell from the brief glimpse, but I estimate there are at least ten thousand people there, maybe more, on the streets and sidewalks adjacent to the square. Many of them are chanting, “Hang the terrorists! Hang the terrorists!” More than a few violently punch at the air with their fists on each word. People are waving flags — mainly of Toronto and Canada — and more than a few hold signs showing support for Smith and calling for the torture and eradication of the CCT.

  At least two dozen drones are flitting around in the sky above the audience and around the entrances to City Hall. Security is at an all-time high for this event.

  “Tell me this isn’t really happening,” Lily says, closing her eyes and leaning her head back for a moment. “My mom told me that Toronto was once the most progressive city in the world. Now look at it.”

  “She was right,” Clarence says, resting his chin on his folded hands. He looks like he might start to pray. “Bloody barbaric, this is. Just shows how fast things can change with the wrong people in power.”

  Sandra Smith’s back. Her spiky hair is a greyish silver with a slight blue tinge at the tips. She raises a fist gloved in black leather into the air. It’s at least thirty degrees in Toronto, but that doesn’t matter — everything has been carefully contrived by Smith and her cronies for maximum drama and perceived strength. And the image of leather covering fragile human skin achieves this aim quite well.

  A thunderous round of applause, with more shouts of “Hang them now!” punctuates the air.

  Smith allows the noise to continue unabated for about a minute as she surveys the crowd. Her face is a mask of solemnity, but there’s an undeniable glint in her eye that tells me she’s loving every second of this adulation.

  Arching an eyebrow, she brings an index finger to her lips like some sort of deranged primary school teacher. It takes a minute or so, but the crowd eventually falls silent.

  “This afternoon, the world is watching. Watching our city, Toronto, stand as a model for the rest of the world. We are showing them that we’re putting our citizens first and that we will stop at nothing to ensure the security of our city and the rest of the province. In a moment, two CCT terrorists will be brought out to face their fellow Torontonians … and to face justice.” The word justice comes out like the hiss
of an angry cat. The crowd erupts with screams and shouts of approval once more.

  Loud, thumping drums and bass music fill the air. People throw their hands in the air. The whole vibe is suddenly more like a club dance floor than an old-school execution.

  The camera pans over to the stage set up behind the glowing TORONTO sign. Two silver posts shaped like upside-down L’s emerge from the stage, springing toward the sky like stainless steel stems.

  Except these stems will not bring life. They’ll bring death, and that fact is quickly reinforced as nooses drop from the arms of the posts as soon as they’ve reached their full height of about ten feet.

  “What the bloody hell? They’re actually hanging them?” Susie says, breaking the silence in the room. “And I thought you Canadians were supposed to be the peacekeepers of the world or something like that. This is positively medieval.”

  The camera pans back to Sandra Smith, who holds her hand up for quiet. The crowd falls silent like obedient dogs.

  “The CCT is a scourge on modern society. Not only are we and all the remaining countries and city states trying to survive climate change and find ways to mitigate the suffering of our citizens as we do so, we now also have to spend money, time, and resources fighting terrorists bent on destroying humanity. The last bombing on the TTC, perpetrated by Taylor Moore, killed thirty-eight people and left several others maimed. Eva Gonzales, a young woman who illegally entered our country from Cuba and was detained, continued her criminal activity by escaping from custody, then aided and abetted the CCT in pulling off the most heinous mass murder in Canadian history … the poisoning of the water supplies being given out to Toronto’s most vulnerable. Toronto was only weeks away from running out of water, but I managed to secure hundreds of millions of bottles for us. Enough to see us through until Ottawa can sort out a plan for our city.” She pauses, shaking her head, as a collective rumble of anger, replete with snake-like hissing, ripples through the crowd. As one, they surge forward toward the stage where the executions are set to happen.