Mezolak stood outside the door and slowly pulled Zedekiah’s Scepter out of the cloth bag. It was a silent night, and Jack could almost make out the soft incantation the demon spoke under his breath. Electric arcs began to flicker across his body, but they were red in color, instead of white-blue, like they’d been for Pierce.
The rubies in Zedekiah’s Scepter began to bleed, and the oozing crimson liquid ran over Mezolak’s hand and the weapon’s bronze shaft. Mezolak let out a slow laugh, and he brought a hand to his mouth as the red electricity continued to dance across his chest and shoulders.
“I expected it to be harder to corrupt this artifact,” said Mezolak. “It’s almost as though this was its intended purpose.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Jack.
In way of answer, Mezolak went to the door of the storage facility and punched the keycode into the panel to unlock it. Jack hesitated for only a moment before following him inside. The smell still had that same deathly, freezer-burned quality, and the chill made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up straight.
Mezolak pulled one of the bodies down off a meat hook, grunting with exertion as he let the cold corpse fall to the floor. He looked over at Jack, making it clear that he wanted him to watch what he was about to do. Then he turned the scepter into a downward grip and stabbed the spiked tip into the heart of the dead body.
Red electricity crackled across the form of the refrigerated corpse. It was the corpse of a man, mid-thirties, African American, with the build of a linebacker. But that began to change almost immediately. The man’s skin grew lighter, and his facial features shifted drastically. He opened his mouth and let out a low, throaty groan, and then slowly, the reanimated monster stood to his feet. Jack recognized him.
It was Volandar, but it also wasn’t. The monster’s eyes were all white with no obvious pupils, and its mouth and tongue hung loose and open, like the jaw of a ghoul. But other than that, it looked like the former leader of the Jade Circle vampire clan to an unnerving extent.
“This is what I meant when I said the scepter held the imprints of those whose power it has stolen in the past,” said Mezolak. “Each of the incarnates I create with it will take on not just the appearance of their imprint, but all of their power. Each of them will be unquestioning and loyal to the wielder of the weapon that created them.”
Mezolak had a grin on his face wide enough to reveal all his teeth. He nodded to Reese, who started taking another body down, this one of a woman. Jack watched in horror, already feeling a horrible premonition of what, or rather who, would come out of the artifact next.
Mezolak slammed the tip of Zedekiah’s Scepter into the female corpse’s chest. There was another burst of red electricity and more shifting of physical features. Jack wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. He stared blankly at Mezolak’s newest monster, an incarnate with the face of a woman he loved.
The monster looked like Mira, except with her visage twisted into the stuff of nightmares. Her blonde hair partially fell across her face, and she made a ghoulish, snarling noise as her white eyes scanned her surroundings.
“It seems to be releasing the imprints in reverse order, judging from these two,” said Mezolak. “A pity. I suspect the strongest imprints lie far back, from the age when a weapon like Zedekiah’s Scepter served its purpose most effectively.”
“This is disgusting,” said Jack. He shook his head, unable to look away from the hideous Mira incarnate. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he felt the same level of despair he’d experienced when Reese had betrayed him.
“No,” said Mezolak. “This is beautiful, and it’s only the beginning.”
CHAPTER 11
Mezolak ran both the Volandar and Mira incarnates through a series of basic tests, culminating in a demonstration of their power outside the storage facility. Jack only had to see a few seconds of the way the Mira incarnate used her Spectral Hand tendrils and Shadow Form to understand that she was nearly as powerful as the real Mira had been at her peak.
The idea of Mezolak having an army of hundreds of supernatural incarnates, growing larger as he began to accumulate additional bodies, was enough to horrify him. He tried to keep his distress from showing in his expression as Mezolak brought the incarnates back into the storage facility and ordered them to remain there until he returned. They obeyed just as they had with his other commands, without the slightest appearance of hesitation or free thought.
“I’d like to do some more tinkering with the scepter before I create any more,” said Mezolak. “It may be possible for me to draw the strongest imprints out from the rest, which would be ideal for my purposes.”
Jack didn’t say anything. He felt sick to his stomach. He was the one who’d told Mezolak about Zedekiah’s Scepter. It wasn’t as though he could shrug off the responsibility he had for creating the situation just because he’d been intending it to go differently.
“Regardless, I will need you both to pursue our interests elsewhere,” said Mezolak. “The Order of Chaldea has requested a meeting with me. I’m sending the two of you in my place.”
The demon glanced back and forth between Jack and Reese. Jack did his best to keep his expression neutral. He could usually force himself to ignore the fact that Mezolak had possessed his father’s body, but whenever he was forced to confront the demon’s true evil ambition, it felt like it was being rubbed in his face.
“Our recent correspondence has grown fairly sour,” said Mezolak. “The Order uses fairly archaic methods to keep discreet communication lines open with non-members. The two of you will head to the Mountain View Train Station and wait by the pay phone on the west side of the loading platform.”
“Why send us?” asked Jack. “You seem fully capable of doing this, even if you are pressed for time. You know more about your own situation with the Order than either of us.”
“Because it’s a trap,” said Mezolak. “Obviously. I need you to buy me a little more time by walking into it and revealing the breadth of the Order’s intentions. Their response will show me how much of a threat they currently think I am.”
Jack scowled and shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to take Mezolak’s side in a direct confrontation with the Order.
“I figured you’d show reluctance, mortal,” said Mezolak. “I don’t mind giving this as a command.” He cleared his throat, and stiffened his voice. “Represent my interests in good faith at the meeting. When the Order double-crosses you, kill as many people, innocent or otherwise, as you can. I might be able to get my hands on the corpses in the aftermath.”
The command hit Jack like a sudden, unwanted realization. He could already see himself fulfilling the conditions of the compulsion in his mind’s eye. Taking the car to the train station. Waiting next to the phone booth. Dead innocents at his feet.
“No,” muttered Jack. “Fuck you. Not this time.”
Mezolak sighed.
“You’ll do it, mortal,” he said. “I command you a second time.”
Even as used to the pain as Jack was slowly becoming, it still was enough to knock him off his feet. He gritted his teeth hard enough to make his jaw hurt, and tears welled in the corners of his eyes as snakes of acid slithered underneath his skin. It was so much pain that he couldn’t think, and maybe it was that very fact that let him hold so tightly to his obstinance.
“No!” shouted Jack, more as a sound than as a word.
Mezolak sighed and slowly shook his head back and forth.
“So be it.” He crouched next to Jack, who’d buckled to his knees. “I command you… a third time.”
The pain vanished, which would have been nothing short of a blessing if not for what took its place. Jack shuddered as he felt the third level of his compulsion for the first time. A deep sense of impossible wrongness reverberated through him, and he understood why Mezolak described it as a state of absolute fear.
He felt like he’d gotten stuck spelunking through his own mind, caught in
a tight, claustrophobic crevice of crushing horror from which he couldn’t escape. The more he struggled, the less room he had to move, and the staler the air became.
He felt like people were calling out to him. He was calling out to them, too. He could hear the fear and hopelessness that they were trying to hide in their voices. He couldn’t bother trying to hide it in his own. The fear was just too much, and it wasn’t okay. It didn’t matter how much effort he put into trying to be brave. In some ways, that bravery only made the terror cut even deeper.
It was a drug trip where the paranoia and monsters turned out to be real.
And then, there he was. Jack blinked in disbelief as he stared into his father’s face. Not Mezolak’s face, but that of his father. James Farmoore had one hand extended, and reassurance radiated from his furrowed brow and caring eyes.
“Jack,” said his father. “Jackie. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay. Just take my hand.”
Jack did it without thinking. He would have done anything to pull himself out of where he was. He took his father’s hand and felt the fear subside in an instant.
He was back outside the storage facility, shaking Mezolak’s hand. Except, it wasn’t. His father’s features were still there, for a couple of seconds. That smiling face, and those caring eyes. Jack watched as his father blinked once, twice, and then shivered. When Jack met his eyes again, Mezolak was back, and he pulled his hand away as though he’d accidentally picked up a cobra.
“Interesting…” said Mezolak. “What did you just see?”
Jack kept his mouth firmly shut, giving only a small shake of his head. He took a shaky breath. He could feel the compulsion pushing against his psyche, and he knew that in taking his father’s hand, he’d given in to the command.
But he also knew that separate from the effects of that sinister, all-consuming fear, there’d been something else there. Or rather, someone else, separate from Mezolak, with a face full of worry and concern.
He’d think about it later. He didn’t have time to worry about possibilities, not with the stakes as high as they were about to be.
“I thought you said the timeline had been moved up,” said Jack. “Why are we wasting time here?”
“Good point,” said Mezolak. “Reese? Do you mind driving? I plan on staying here for now and getting a sense of the strengths of the incarnates.”
“Of course,” said Reese. She gave Jack an odd, somewhat suspicious look before gesturing for him to follow her toward the SUV. She opened the back door and let her cats out, who immediately dispersed into the early morning dark.
“Do they have somewhere else to be?” asked Jack.
“There’s no reason to bring them to a place like a train station, other than to attract attention,” said Reese. “I’ll keep one or two of them nearby, out of sight, just in case.”
Jack shrugged and climbed into the passenger seat. Reese drove them through the city, which was just waking up. For once, he appreciated the fact that he’d be heading into a dangerous situation without his blood magic, assuming they stayed outside. The second part of Mezolak’s command had him feeling disgusted, and he hoped that if it did come to it, he wouldn’t be in a state where he was even capable of killing innocents.
The Mountain View Train Station was north of the city, off on its own. The parking lot was almost empty, which again, Jack took to be a good omen in light of the circumstances. He spotted the phone booth they’d been sent to wait by immediately, and it almost seemed like a metaphor for the train station itself. They were both old constructs, long since replaced in utility by more convenient options.
“Mezolak didn’t say when this phone would actually start ringing,” said Jack, as they came to a stop outside the booth. “Think we have time to go get food and come back?”
Reese looked at him like he’d just suggested they run naked through the terminal. Jack grinned at her. For the first time in a long time, he felt good. Confident, even. The fear that Mezolak had forced onto him had backfired. He might still be under the demon’s thumb, but he’d seen something that he hadn’t been supposed to. His father was still in there, somewhere.
Which was a scary thought in its own right. For a while, Jack had been trying to build up the nerve to commit to killing Mezolak, if he got the chance.
It would have been so much easier if he’d never gotten a glimpse of his father, if he’d found a way to convince himself that the man had died, in spirit, and it was just the shell of his body left, inhabited by evil. But that wasn’t the case, and though it made the situation infinitely more complicated, it made Jack feel a deep sense of relief. Hope, even.
“Pay attention,” said Reese. “We could be under surveillance, even now. We should—”
The pay phone let out a shrill ring. Jack raised an eyebrow at Reese, then answered it.
CHAPTER 12
“Hello?” said Jack.
“We instructed James to come in person. This is not what was agreed to.”
The voice on the other end of the line sounded vaguely feminine, but it had clearly been put through a noise scrambler of some sort. Jack scowled, briefly considering what the easiest thing to say to sabotage the situation would be. No sooner did the thought enter his mind than he felt the compulsion weighing down on his psyche, forcing him to act in Mezolak’s best interests as he’d been commanded.
“We’re here to speak with you on his behalf,” said Jack. “We’ll carry any messages back to him, if so needed.”
“Buy a ticket for the train that leaves in fifteen minutes,” said the voice. “Sit in the private cabin in the furthest car back, on the left.”
“Hold on,” said Jack. “What’s this all about?”
The dial tone sounded, letting him know that the person on the other end had hung up. Jack scowled and replaced the phone on its hook.
“What did they say?” asked Reese.
“It looks like we’re going for a ride,” said Jack. “They want us to get on the train that’s about to leave.”
Reese frowned slightly but gave a slow nod after a couple of seconds.
“It’s what Mezolak would have wanted,” she said. “We’ll play along. For now.”
They made their way over to the ticket booth and bought two tickets, which were more expensive than Jack had been anticipating. The train was already loading passengers, though there were few in the station to speak of. After showing theirs to the attendant, Jack and Reese were both allowed on.
The interior of the train was dated, but in an elegant, preserved kind of way. It felt a little like stepping backward through time as Jack made his way down the aisle of the coach car. There were only a handful of passengers in it, and most of them looked as though they were riding for recreation rather than for practical reasons.
The dining car was next in line, with a dozen small, two-person tables outfitted with fine white tablecloths. Jack assumed that the kitchen car must have been in front of the coach car, as he saw no sign of any food as they headed past it and into the first of the cars containing private cabins.
As instructed, he and Reese found the last cabin on the left in the furthermost car. It was a small room with a single window and two bench beds. The window had a blinder, which Jack pulled down to block out the sunlight just in case he needed his blood magic on short notice.
“I guess now we wait,” said Jack. “I’m not sure I like this.”
A loud horn sounded from the front of the train, and the locomotive lurched into motion. Jack took a seat on one of the benches and leaned back. Reese sat down across from him, though she seemed lost in her own thoughts.
It was hard for Jack to keep from wondering about her circumstances as he looked at her. She seemed comfortable serving Mezolak, but he didn’t sense a deep, ideological devotion to the demon in the way she acted. There had to be a reason, and he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it was similar to his own.
“Did you swear loyalty to Mezolak?” asked Jack. “In the same
way I did?”
Reese didn’t say anything, but that was an answer in its own right.
“Did you ever refuse one of his commands more than twice?” asked Jack.
Reese scowled at him, but there was something in her expression that told Jack that she didn’t mind him asking the question as much as it might seem. She gave a small nod.
“So you’ve felt it before?” he said. “That horrible, overwhelming fear.”
“Yeah,” said Reese.
“What was it like for you?”
Reese let her eyes linger on his, and there was a distant quality about them.
“I couldn’t put it into words if I wanted to,” said Reese. “Which I don’t. Would you tell me about what it was like for you, if I asked?”
Jack almost said yes, until he stopped to really think about it. There was still an echo of that fear inside of him, and the idea of resisting one of Mezolak’s commands to the point where it was forced upon him again was rather disconcerting.
“No, I guess I wouldn’t,” he said. “Not unless you really wanted to know.”
“I don’t,” said Reese. “I try not to think about it. I do what I’m told, and because of that, Mezolak does not abuse his power over me.”
“Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome before?” asked Jack.
“What?”
“Never mind,” he said.
The conversation died, and time began to trickle by at a slow pace. First minutes, then an hour, then two hours. Jack stretched out on the bench, letting himself rest while he had the chance. He was getting good at sleeping while traveling, and the train’s ambient rumbling was only a little more distracting then the plane had been.
It was nearing lunchtime when a knock finally came at the cabin door. Jack jerked and sat upright, glancing over at Reese, who’d also been resting. She gave him a small nod, and he took the lead, standing up and resting a hand on the cabin’s door.
“Who is it?” he asked.
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