DARK FAÏZ Book 3: Dawn never keeps its promises

by Sandra L. Kiss

  I lingered on a map of Los Angeles. I lifted it above me to better analyze it under the kitchen lights. The map revealed sensitive sites such as factories that synthesized and stored chemicals or oil wells. At the bottom of the page, a name had been clumsily scribbled: Masha. Tomorrow, I would contact David so we could find a time for all of us to get together. A bad feeling set in deep inside me. Elijah was right, something was rising from the shallows of the city, something that had been obviously brewing for quite some time.

  Julio greeted me on the doorstep of the villa. Every square inch of his skin seemed to be marked by time. He wasn't wearing his glasses as usual, which let me see his sparkling clear eyes, the same as his brother's who I missed so much.

  "Thank you for coming straight from work," says Julio with a warm hug, "Lily and Charles are in the living room."

  "On the phone, it sounded urgent," I hurried to answer, "Is everything all right?"

  "Yes, just something unexpected," Julio frowned, visibly worried.

  Without getting rid of my things, I headed straight to the living room.

  "Hello, Zoe!" Charles greeted me as he finished checking something on his phone before putting it back in his pocket, "Do you want something to drink?"

  "Wait," Lily interrupted him as she approached me, "at least let her get comfortable."

  "No... I can't stay. Georgia's going to finish school soon and I'd like to go to the cemetery first."

  The end of my sentence ended in an uncomfortable whisper to Julio, who was still standing next to me. Lily gave me a compassionate smile and then went to get a newspaper from the table. I understood at that moment what was going on.

  "That's it," Charles began in an embarrassed tone. "Your colleague is starting to be a little bit too curious."

  I sighed deeply and the hair on my arms spiked as I took the Los Angeles Times in my hands. I discovered the article, written by Jul, early this morning...

  "What the government is hiding from us," Charles recited. "And this Jul is?"

  "Pretty tough reporter. I don't know how he gets all this information," I confessed, my eyes still glued to the headline.

  "Can you do anything?" Julio asked as he left to sit in one of the armchairs.

  "I refused to work on this project with him a few days ago. Since then, he hasn't shared any information with me and works alone without telling me anything. I discovered this at the same time as you did. The authorization for this article came from above. My hands are tied."

  "Two days ago, the Los Angeles Times had the headline 'L.A. Needs Black Shadow Back.' The government won't let your colleague stick his nose in their business," Charles continued, now with a hoarse voice.

  I raised a hand in front of me with an ironic look on my face, "And? So it's not like he's gonna get shot in some creepy alley because of it, either."

  The three protagonists in front of me looked at me without batting an eyelid, their faces closed. At that moment, a wave of panic immediately destroyed my confidence. I put my hand to my forehead, realizing how much danger my friend was in.

  "OK, hold on. Lexy's got it," I said calmly.

  "Lexy?" Lily wondered.

  "Yes, Jul's Achilles' heel, that's her! He's crazy about that woman."

  Julio exchanged a brief glance with Mr. Mattew.

  "All right! We'll pass the information on to Barthey. We're counting on Lexy," concluded Charles.

  Silence settled. We were all now meditating on the worrying dark future of L.A. It seemed to have given up on sparing us.

  "I still have a lot of work to do, if you'll excuse me...," Charles looked kindly at me, "Zoe, we'll see you Saturday after Faïz leaves for New York. We can't wait to see Georgia."

  "I have to go too," intervened Julio, "I'll see you later."

  I tried to return his smile although I couldn’t help my worry, "Be careful."

  I watched them leave the room and then joined Lily on the terrace. Lily concentrated, staring up at the sky with her dark eyes. The sky was veiled by an impressive, thick black cloud.

  "Lily?" I called uncomfortable, "I've been trying to call Faïz for several days, but he never got back to me. I went to his apartment, but without success, too. I need to see him before he leaves on Saturday."

  Lily averted her eyes from the Dome to look at me. Did she see the anguish and guilt that had been eating away at me for days? Anyway, her soft, gentle gaze was meant to reassure me.

  "We haven't seen much of him either. There's a Trac-Word branch just outside of town. He's juggling his work and his FBI interviews. I swear, Zoe, he's not stopping for a second right now. I don't even know if he's finding time to get any sleep."

  Lily put her hands on my shoulders and added in a delicate, light voice, "If I were you, I'd write him a letter just in case I don't get to see him again."

  I nodded and bit my lip, concerned about what seemed to be the most plausible scenario.

  Before I left the villa, Lily asked me to wait a minute in the living room. She fetched a post-it pad from the dresser drawer and scribbled something on it before handing me the piece of paper.

  "This is Faïz's emergency number. I shouldn't give it to you, but I can't bear to see you like this. It's the only thing I can do."

  "Thank you," I said in a low voice as I took her in my arms, aware of everything I owed her for the past five years.

  On the way to the cemetery, I tried to hold back my impatience to press the call button of the Faïz number I had dialed. Perhaps I should take Lily's advice? To write him a simple letter? It was the simplest solution. Sending him an apology by writing a few words on paper would prevent me from seeing him one last time before he left. I hated it when my reason struggled with my feelings. Two Zoe's, who couldn't agree, were fighting a bitter battle in my head.

  I slowed down at the sight of a road sign that indicated a deviation. There was a small and relatively thin man standing next to it.

  "Is there any work on the main road?" I asked after stopping next to him.

  The man just nodded. Although the hood of his raincoat covered most of his face, I managed to see his eyes. I then moved backward in front of the infinite darkness of his eyes. Something fierce emanated from him. Instinctively, I hurried to roll up my window and drove along the small path that extended my trip of several minutes.

  The road, lined with giant trees which leaves were flapping in the wind, was almost deserted. I tried as hard as I could to chase away the disturbing look of the man I'd just passed, concentrating on my driving and on the song that was currently playing on the radio. Then, as I looked in my rear-view mirror, I suddenly saw a huge black cloud seemingly chasing me. I quickly turned around to see that the field of vision in the distance suddenly darkened. It's nothing, it's just a meteorological phenomenon, that's all!

  While I was trying to convince myself, a rush of adrenaline pushed me to press the pedal of my sedan to accelerate. My pulse began to race when I realized that the big clouds, with their various shapes, were catching up to me. The deviation sign had been put there on purpose to force me to take this path. I had fallen into a trap! Just as my hand was fumbling around in my bag, looking for my phone, a dark fog banked up all around my car, accompanied by violent gusts of wind, preventing me from seeing the road.

  Georgia's face appeared to me at that moment, just before I lost control of my car and it flipped over. The deafening sound of the shock of the metal hitting the concrete echoed up to my chest. My head violently hit the steering wheel first and then the window. I felt an enormous pressure crushing my rib cage, taking my breath away instantly. After a few endless seconds, my car stopped rolling, flipped on its roof, on the edge of the road, on the other side of the lane.

  The ringing in my ears kept me from hearing anything. I had a hard time unbuckling my seat belt. When I finally succeeded, my aching body fell heavily to the ground. I wiped the blood from my face with the back of my hand, and then I concentrated on the sound of my heartbeat, which resona
ted within me, to restore my hearing. Once the ringing disappeared completely, the sound of my breathing filled the whole space. Suddenly a sound of footsteps with squeaky soles seemed to come over here. All my senses were alert and I started to look for a way out of here as quickly as possible, while the footsteps came closer to me.

  I stopped breathing when big metal boots began to circle the sedan. One thing was sure, it wasn't the help. In desperation, I looked down at my bag. It was overturned not far from me, but as I reached out my arm to try to grab it, a hand went through the window, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Large, sharp pieces of glass came and stuck into my flesh. Without really understanding what was happening, I was dragged several meters on the ground by my hair and then thrown like a common puppet on the side of the road. A scream of pain escaped from me, breaking the religious silence of this seemingly lifeless place. Lying on the concrete, I turned around, trembling, to face the person responsible for this chaos.

  My limbs froze in fear of the spectacle I was witnessing. A man, whose physique was so terrifying that he seemed unreal, slowly walked towards me. He was dressed only in large black cloth pants. His skin was barely visible. Indeed, his tattoos covered almost his entire torso, his arms, but also his face. Only his solid musculature could be seen underneath his abominable black ink drawings. When the man squatted next to me, it was death itself that smiled at me.

  "You've lost yours grandeur. How sad. Life embraces you one day and leaves you the next."

  The hoarse and demonic voice of this man paralyzed me with fear, I immediately recognized who was hiding behind. "Athanasius," I murmured with the rusty taste my blood left in my mouth, "I confess that your costume is well chosen."

  "Please, call me Pavel. It's the name of the human who gave me his soul."

  "I see you took a lot more than that!"

  "Don't worry about him, he'll get all the credit. His name will be remembered in the end."

  The man smiled like a hunter at his dying prey. The ink had soaked into the whites of his eyes, giving an even more terrifying expression to his cadaverous gaze.

  "I'm not going to beg you to kill me, if that's what you're waiting for!" I said breathlessly.

  "That would be too easy!" exclaimed the Maestro in a rough tone as he stood up. "Humans like to trust fate. Me, I'm skeptical, but I'm willing to try to see if it exists. Either you die here all alone, or, by some wonderful miracle, someone will come to save you."

  He began to look around him before adding, "Unfortunately for you, there's very little chance of someone driving by for several hours."

  Before I could say anything else, the man grabbed my arm. I was struggling, but he was much stronger than me. He took out a syringe filled with a clear liquid from his pocket and put it in his mouth to remove the cap, then he injected me with the product, which seemed to penetrate my skin and burn it. I screamed in pain and rage, realizing that nothing could save me now.

  "You see, Zoe? You're gonna be my guinea pig too. This modified virus I'm injecting you with is one of the six most dangerous viruses in the world. Soon, the entire planet will be hit by a massive epidemic that will decimate every country. The paralyzing effect you're about to feel is the first stage of the virus."

  My arm fell to the ground as my strength began to fail me. Pavel, or rather the Maestro, crouched down again and whispered in my ear in his special voice:

  "Let yourself go, you have to let go. The sun isn't eternal and always ends up setting. The night will always exist, with or without humanity."

  In total disarray, I wasn't able to say a word. My sight began to blur as a tingling swarmed through the extremities of all my limbs. The creaking of the boots was moving away from me, leaving me alone on this winding and deserted road, my eyes turned to the sky. Only the wind disturbed the soft, peaceful silence. I felt nothing. My body seemed to be fighting the pain, but the paralysis caused by the virus prevented me from feeling it. It was surely better this way, I could leave without really suffering. My eyelids were heavy and I let myself go.

  "Open your eyes, you have to fight!"

  "I... I can't, it's impossible," I replied to William's whisper, "I don't feel anything anymore. The poison is too strong."

  Suddenly, a small noise caught my attention: a shrill sound I knew well. I slowly turned my head. Despite my tear-filled eyes, I could make out the bumblebee that had landed not far from me.

  "Nothing is impossible," I whispered as I watched the insect.

  Any mother was capable of doing anything to save the child she loved, except that I had nothing ordinary.

  I closed my eyelids to focus on every part of my body.

  "Come on! Move," I commanded my legs. "Move, move, move, move..."

  How long was I stationed there? Begging my muscles to move? I didn't know. My eyes suddenly opened as my feet responded to my requests. Encouraged by this small victory, I began to redouble my efforts. After many more minutes, I finally managed to regain some of my strength and was able to turn over on my stomach. The pain woke up when I started crawling slowly towards my car. My ribs were in excruciating pain and my forehead was dripping with sweat, probably due to the fever caused by the virus. "You're almost there, just a little more," I cheered until I finally reached my sedan. I rushed inside, crushing the bits of glass in my way, and finally grabbed my bag in one last effort. Once I had my phone in hand, I dialed the last number that was recorded in my call log.

  "Yes, I'm listening?" answered my interlocutor almost immediately.

  "Faïz," I collapsed in tears, "Help me!"

  "I really thought I could see this too. I guess I just pack now. Leave it..." For the umpteenth time, I hummed Kimberose's song in an ever-weaker voice as time passed. It had stopped as I dropped my phone to the ground, exhausted. My limbs were no longer responding, everything in me was gradually leaving me. The fever, accompanied by strong hallucinations, was distorting reality. William, my mother, but also Victoria, seemed to be watching over me. They didn't speak, but their eyes seemed to beg me to stay awake. Now I could barely articulate every word of the song "I'm sorry.” I was losing the thread, I was losing my life.

  The sound of a gleaming engine arriving at full speed prevented me from closing my eyelids. I turned my head in its direction. The sight still blurred, I could only see the headlights of the car that stopped about ten meters away from me. Lily's silhouette spurted out from the passenger side, but it was his hand that I felt slipping under my neck to bring my face a few centimeters closer to his.

  "Who did this to you?" Faïz grunted in a painful voice, the eyes darkened by a rising fury.

  "Pavel," I whispered, "The virus... it infected me..."

  "Hurry! We have to take her to the hospital," he cried in panic.

  Although my state was at its worst, Faïz seemed to be suffering a thousand deaths at that moment.

  "No, wait... wait. Georgia... we have to go get her before..."

  Lily whimpered before she begged:

  "Faïz, you have to go save her. I'll take care of Zoe."

  "I'll call Barthey on the way," he replied annoyed, "He'll put someone from the team on the job to get that person back. For now, the priority is Zoe!"

  "No, no, you don't understand!" I declared as I gathered my last strength, "I must tell you something very important."

  Lost, his eyes full of questions, Faïz brought his ear close to my lips to hear what I was about to reveal to him.

  "When you left five years ago, you left me and... your daughter. I gave birth to your child a few months after you left. Faïz, that night on Eros with you, I got pregnant."

  When Faïz moved his face away from mine to finally meet my gaze, a real emotional tsunami overwhelmed him. Petrified, he closed his eyelids and tried to stay calm. I knew the pain he was going through at that moment. The one where every breath was an effort to stay alive. Each one was harder and more painful than the last.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered before going into total darkn
ess.

  5-FAÏZ

  Driving his Sport Mercedes-Benz SS class, Faïz drove at full speed, occasionally taking a quick look at the GPS. The school, Las Flores, wasn't far away. The pain he had felt in recent years was nothing compared to the pain burning his chest at that moment. He realized that the pain so far had finally barely grazed him.

  "I heard wrong, it's not possible," he repeated over and over again.

  Victoria's transformed bedroom came back to his memory and the photograph of this little girl jumped out at him. Faïz shook his head to put his ideas in order, but it wasn't enough. The distant, strange behavior of his mother over the past five years had, however, repeatedly alerted him. Zoe has other priorities now. This sentence, in the mouths of those he spoke to, now made sense. Karl, Ray, his parents... he realized everyone knew. Mad with rage, he refrained from hitting with his fist the leather-wrapped steering wheel or the dashboard in front of him, so as not to demolish the car he was driving. The icy perspectives of his perfect face expressed nothing but rage and bitterness.