by T. Mikita
Asher and Jules hurried towards his car trying to ignore the man. After the day they had, one homeless man was not much of a threat, but he was annoying. Asher had just about enough of crazies today.
Asher frowned as the man continued to follow them. A feeling of unease started to shiver up the back of his neck, or perhaps it was just the cold.
“Leave us alone,” Jules growled fists clenched. Even after all that had happened Jules was still spoiling for a fight. Perhaps it was because she had lost the last one. They both had.
“This realm is the battleground between heaven and hell,” the homeless man said. “You must be prepared. You know now what you will face.”
“Are you telling us we were attacked by demons?” Jules asked incredulously.
Asher shook his head and turned away.
“You know it is so. You saw,” the man said, addressing Asher. His words struck Asher strangely. He still could not quite dismiss the sight of his attacker’s claws. He had imagined that, hadn’t he? A hallucination, the result of whatever was on the knife. Still Asher paused to listen. Jules stood at his side, her hands in her coat pockets. Asher had no such pockets and the hospital scrub shirt was meager protection from the cold.
The homeless man spoke as if he were an old-time prophet. “Earth is the necessary neutral ground. The battleground between heaven and hell. The opposing forces are not demonic, but they are two sides of the great cosmic coin. Forces of light and dark; good and evil.”
“Great, a religious freak.” Jules said with a harsh laugh. She always was so cynical.
“You mean Armageddon? Like in the Bible? Where good always wins?”
“No one wins, Asher Pendrick, especially not here. Not in this realm,” the man said solemnly.
Asher froze. How did the man know his name?
“How do you know us?” Jules demanded, voicing Asher’s worry.
“I do not know you,” the man said to Jules. He turned back to look at Asher.
“But all of the Guardians know of you, Pendrick. You are of Arthur’s line. The prophesied Pendragon King.”
“Oh, good grief,” Asher said rolling his eyes.
Jules snorted. “Someone is putting us on,” she surmised. “Was it Gavin?” she asked, suspecting her boyfriend. He was always jealous of her time spent with Asher. Even when he chose not to come.
The homeless man still completely ignored Jules, which Asher could tell, just pissed her off more. “Surely your father told you,” the homeless man continued. “The Guardians have defended mankind against incursion of the dark forces for centuries, even before Arthur created the Order. Gifts were given to those who risked their lives in the protection of the innocent. Abilities taken from the Otherworld and gifted to the Guardians.”
Asher turned away. It was too fucking cold to stand out here and listen to this shit. “I don’t know what people usually say to you when you tell this story, but even with the night I’ve had, I still don’t believe in demons. Sorry.” Asher said.
Jules laughed aloud. “Tell Gavin he’s wasted his money,” she said. “We’re not biting.”
“Not demons. Otherworlders. Unholy creatures and those who fight them.”
Asher paused. “What like superheroes? Fighting vampires, werewolves, and the like?” Shivering, he crossed his arms, annoyed with the man and winced when the movement pulled on his stitches. The man’s talk of King Arthur and otherworldly creatures was too close to the stories his father had told when Asher was little. The flash of claws on their attackers still bothered Asher. He must have been hallucinating, he told himself. The doctor had said the poison in his wounds had been a strange kind of snake venom. That had to be it. His father’s stories couldn’t be true. Nonetheless, Asher’s thoughts kept drifting back to the imagined claws. What he thought he saw didn’t make any sense.
The man nodded, as if he understood what Asher was thinking. ”You know,” he said firmly.
Asher shoved away the thought. The man was crazy. “I suppose you have seen dragons and unicorns flying around too?” He scoffed.
“Sounds like my mother,” Jules said. Asher exchanged a glance with her as she continued. “Sorry man, it’s just a drugged-up dream. Get some help, and tell Gavin he can piss off.”
“I am not drugged,” the man said, offended. “I speak the truth.” He continued explaining with all seriousness, “Unicorns do not fly and dragons are all but extinct. No one has seen one for a hundred years.”
Asher was done. They had almost reached the car. He held up his hand. “Goodbye, old man.”
“You know this is true. You are stronger than most, but then so are the Otherworlders.”
Asher fished out his keys. He could hardly wait to get inside and crank up the heater.
“Haven’t you noticed how rarely you get sick? How you heal faster than most?” the man continued.
Well, not right now, Asher thought, his hand going to the wound in his side. Strangely, his stitches were feeling markedly better even though he was shivering in the cold.
“That’s nothing supernatural,” Asher said. “Just good food, and a good immune system. Perhaps a bit of luck.”
“No. The Guardians have dwindled over the centuries. People have lost their belief in such things. There are few of us left. You are one.”
Bullshit.
“A Guardian who can fully access the power of the Otherworld is rare. Most of us are relegated to watching and warning, as best we can.”
“So that is what you are? A guy who watches stuff?” Jules asked with a snort of laughter.
“Yes. I am a watcher, a Sentinel. A Guardian of this realm.”
Asher scoffed and shook his head. They had reached the car. Asher hit the unlock so Jules could get in. He opened his wallet and pulled out several crumpled bills. He extended the money towards the man.
“You should get help,” he said as he pushed the bills into the man’s hands. “Get something to eat, and then get help.”
The man held up his hands and backed away.
“Do not go home,” he said ominously. “The attack on you today was a distraction. The true enemies lie in wait for you. Your Aunt Evelyn will shelter you at Whitehall.”
Asher felt a wave of dread fill him. Aunt Evelyn and his dad didn’t exactly see eye to eye, but Asher knew his Dad still cared about his sister. Asher’s step-mother, Sharon, professed his aunt was a loon. It was creepy that this man knew not only Asher’s name, but his estranged aunt’s as well, and the name of the fancy private school where she was the principal, or headmistress, as she liked to call herself.
“Let’s go, Jules,” he said closing the car door and putting the car in drive. They left the strange man standing looking after them. Asher prayed for the heat to kick in soon. He could not stop shivering, and he was no longer sure if it was from fear or just the cold.
“Do you mind if we go straight to my house?” Asher asked Jules, as he exited the parking garage and pulled out onto the street. At one in the morning there was very little traffic, even downtown. Asher stepped on the gas. He suddenly felt that the man had been telling the truth. Anxiety rose in him. He had to get home. The feeling of danger crawled up his neck and he couldn’t still his rapidly beating heart.
“You don’t seriously believe that nutcase, do you?” she asked.
“No, but…” Asher broke off. The truth was, some part of him did.
Jules shook her head. “It’s fine,” she said leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes. “You know your family is my family.”
That was true, Asher thought. Without him, Jules’ definition of family sucked. Her father was permanently AWOL and her mother was generally drunk. Jules’ mother would tell anyone who would listen to her that her husband was a government secret agent and then that he was abducted by aliens while on one of his secret missions. Good way to get yourself committed, Asher thought, but now…after what he had just seen, perhaps, he should have cut Jules’ mom some slack.
&
nbsp; The amount of alcohol Jules’ mother consumed, whether to hide the things she saw or to come to terms with it or to give others an excuse that she was normal… he did not know. But he did know that Jules’ missing dad supposedly knew Asher’s parents from a long time ago. Not Sharon, but Asher’s Dad and his birth mom, Vanessa. Asher didn’t remember his mom. She had died when he was a baby, and his dad remarried when he was still young. Sharon was his mom. His dad rarely even talked about Vanessa. Like Jules didn’t talk about her dad.
But Asher had to say something about the things he saw today. The stories his father told were just too weird to be true. Maybe he was going crazy. Or maybe he wasn’t. Asher took a deep breath, gripping the steering wheel for support. This was Jules. He could tell her anything. She was the only person who might believe him, especially now. Sure, they could joke about their parents being from middle-earth, or outer space, but the truth was perhaps even more strange.
He could tell Jules what he saw tonight. He knew he could, but still he hesitated. It was one thing when they were children. He could share his father’s crazy stories with her and they would laugh. They were only stories. Make-believe. Something told to entertain a child. Only, what if they weren’t. If children said such things, people brushed them off. But now, they were adults. Saying crazy things got you put in the psych ward. Asher knew this. Jules knew it too. She had her own mother as an example.
Asher glanced at Jules from the corner of his eye and then looked back at the empty road. He concentrated on driving. Jules was inordinately silent. She was never this quiet. He was on the verge of telling her when she blew out her breath.
“Ash,” she said softly. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
Asher had just started to warm up with the heater blasting, but now a chill ran up his arm. “What is it?” He asked.
“When that guy attacked you…It wasn’t a knife. I saw claws.”
Asher hit the brakes and looked at Jules, studying her face. She shifted uncomfortably under his golden hawk gaze. He sat at the intersection just gazing at her, as the yellow light in front of them turned red and then green.
“The police didn’t find a knife, did they?” he asked, finally.
She shook her head. “No. Because that person… that thing…he didn’t cut you with a knife. He cut you with claws.”
“We must both be going crazy then,” Asher said as he stepped on the gas, his attention back on the road.
“You saw them too,” Jules said.
Asher nodded. “Yeah. I saw them too,” he agreed.
“What a pair we are,” she sighed.
Asher resumed driving and picked up the pace. “If the claws were real…” He let the words hang ominously in the car, and Jules understood. If the claws were real, then perhaps what the homeless man said was not so crazy. Jules had spent her life running from crazy, but if Asher’s family was in danger, how could they run?
”Go,” she said softly.
Asher ran the next red light.
4
Blood
Asher pulled into the driveway of his own home and didn’t bother waiting for the garage door to rise. He sprinted toward the house, Jules on his heels. As soon as he opened the door, he smelled the blood. He was not sure how he knew it was blood; only that it was.
The front door was slightly ajar. The coffee table was knocked over, the television cracked and lying on the floor. Sharon’s favorite chair was on its side with a long rent in the back of it reminiscent of his leather coat and his own flesh. Stuffing popped out through the jolly floral pattern. Asher called for his dad and then for Sharon, already knowing he would not get an answer. He hoped he was wrong. Maybe they had heard the intruders. Maybe they hid somewhere. Maybe they got out. Asher knew in his gut that it was a vain hope. Dad would never hide, but maybe Sharon would. Maybe his dad would have hidden Sharon, to protect her?
Asher was never very religious but he found himself praying. It was a one-word prayer, but a prayer nonetheless. Please. Please. Please.
“Holy shit,” Jules whispered, as they stared at the chaos in the living room.
Together, they headed towards the master bedroom. Asher paused looking into the master bath. It was untouched and immaculately clean, demonstrating Sharon’s obsession with neatness. The chrome fixtures were mirror bright; the soap dishes were polished, filled with pink soap shaped like roses. The matching towels were hung just so: white with pink roses, the hand towels next and a washcloth positioned triangularly over top. Asher found himself staring, unable to move. Afraid to continue, somehow knowing what he would find.
Jules reached the bedroom first and turned, nearly running into Asher in her rush back for the bathroom. She had a hand over her mouth. She flopped down in front of the toilet and lost whatever she had eaten today, half on the immaculately clean floor and half into the bowl.
Asher knew he shouldn’t look at the bedroom. Jules had done it for the both of them. He knew what he would find. He didn’t want to look, but he had to do it. Some perverse need forced him to look into that room. Asher knew they were dead. He could feel it. Smell it. Yet, he could not just walk away and call the police. Asher stepped into the bedroom.
The first thing he noticed was that his foot squelched in the carpet. Looking down Asher saw the puddles of red and thicker things drying in uneven shades of brown and black. He looked at the floor and then the wall, refusing to see.
At first, he couldn’t place things. It didn’t look like his parents. It looked like some mad child had been finger-painting with red. It spattered on the walls, and the floor; thus, the wet carpet beneath his feet. Blood formed a thin spray across the white lampshade on Sharon’s side of the bed giving a pink glow to the light.
Lying on the floor under that soft light was a macabre shape. It was almost human-shaped but its skin was wrong. It was a gray color. It seemed to be missing a part of its head, as if it were partially scalped. Blood obscured its face. Whatever it was, it was dead now.
Dad was on the floor beside it. Asher looked. Stared. One of his father’s antique swords was lying next to him; something from his collection. His father’s fingers just touched the hilt. The blade was bloodied. At first glance it seemed like Dad was only lying face down on the floor, Then Asher took in the odd angle of his neck. His head had been nearly severed, but the drying blood mixed with his dark hair seemed to fit it back together. Asher realized it was his dad’s blood he was standing in. He jumped back as soon as he realized and nearly fell. He caught the door jamb and felt blood sticky beneath his fingers.
Asher sucked in a breath that sounded suspiciously like a sob and could not seem to draw another. The air was hot and thick. He gasped, but it gave him no actual feeling of air in his lungs, and then he turned to the bed. The room spun. Asher didn’t know why he didn’t see her before. Sharon was splayed on the bed. Strange symbols were carved into her flesh. Asher did not recognize them. Perhaps he just did not want to see. There was less blood. He wondered if that meant Sharon was already dead when the symbols were carved. He shook his head disbelievingly.
“Fuck!” He whispered to himself. Why did he even think that? “I don’t want to know.” He said to himself. “I don’t want to know.” If she was alive when it happened, he didn’t want it confirmed. He tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter. She was dead now. And yet, nothing seemed real. It couldn’t be real.
He heard Jules running water in the bathroom. He imagined she was washing her face and rinsing her mouth.
Like a sleepwalker, Asher turned to the bathroom door. “Jules,” he said softly. “You okay?” It was a stupid thing to say. Sharon was like a mother to Jules too. She was the only mother Asher remembered. Now she was gone. They were both gone.
Jules had turned away from the sink. She was on her knees using some toilet paper to mop up the mess she made. “Sharon always kept the house so neat,” she said inanely. Tears were streaming down her face as she threw the toilet paper in the bo
wl and turned to Asher, a sob caught in her throat.
Asher held out his hands in an almost robotic move and she stepped towards him, burying her face in his borrowed shirt.
“Should we call the police? Or your aunt?” Jules whispered.
Asher had wondered if he should have called Aunt Evelyn earlier. He remembered the claws on the men who had attacked him and Jules, and the homeless man’s strange warnings. This was all right up Aunt Evelyn’s crazy alley.
“I mean, you should tell your aunt her brother is…” Jules broke off unable to say the words.
“Yeah,” Asher said. “In a minute.” Dead, he thought. They were both dead. An anger burned within him, so strong he could barely see straight. He could think of nothing but finding and killing the bastards who did this. He was teaming with a hot rage like nothing he had ever felt before, and he didn’t know how to stop it. His body shook with it. He took a slow breath through his nose trying to blot out the scent of blood, and yet he needed that scent. What? That made no sense. His beleaguered brain was on over-drive. No, he thought again. Not the scent of his parent’s blood. The scent of something else…Something acrid and wrong. What the fuck?
Asher knew something else was in that room. But what? To find out… Asher would have to go back into the room. He would have to see them again.
“I can’t do it,” he muttered.
“Do what?” Jules asked softly.
Dad’s lessons and stories rolled uselessly through Asher’s mind. My father is… was a fucking history professor, he told himself. He was a history professor who collected antique weapons, not some super hero avenger. It couldn’t be real. All the Arthur legends; all the stories of demons and druid gates. It was all nonsense. A mixture of myth and fiction made up to entertain him and Jules when they were kids. It couldn’t be real, could it?
The stitches in his side and the horror in the bedroom begged to differ. His parents’ murder was real, and a part of him didn’t think the killer was human. Whatever lay on the floor next to his father was not human. With a small cry, Asher slid down the wall and buried his face in his hands. A sob caught in his throat.