by A L Hart
“So how do you explain what’s happening to me and that girl?” I wondered again, and yet again, Jera said, “You didn’t let me finish.”
I pinned her with a look of impatience, which only seemed to make her revel in the miniscule power.
But at last, she surrendered, “Cracks.”
“Cracks?”
“Tatters in the Rift. Holes in the cloth.”
“What’s the Rift?”
“The Rift is both a place and a gateway. It’s the plain that separates your world from ours. It’s made to both repel entrance and departure of anything. That includes dark energy. You see, immortals aren’t the only thing that harbors dark energy. Lia and I’s world is rife with it. Everything down to the air you breathe. Thus, if, say, an immortal were to break into, or out of, the Rift, it naturally follows that gaseous residue of dark energy would escape into your world behind them. Beyond that, for each entrance and exit that’s conducted, it weakens the gateway, breeds fissures in the foundation and ultimately causes leakage. That leakage is what’s altering the humans of this world.”
“Then dark energy is an airborne substance?”
She thought on that a moment, pausing the detangling of her locks. Then, slowly, she said, “In a way.” But she offered nothing after that.
“Then why doesn’t someone patch it up?” I asked, knowing how incredibly selfish it sounded. Everyone wanted to sit back on their throne and sentence faceless pawns to the fray, but in this case it made sense. It wasn’t as if I knew anything about this other world. I had negative interest, to be precise. I just wanted mine to go back to normal by whatever means was out there. And I wasn’t that means. Let my utter ignorance and inexperience be a grand testament as to why.
“There are thousands of these leakages, Peter, and like I said, entering and leaving is nowhere near as easy as it was breaking into this poorly protected shop. And the cracks can only be repaired from our world, not yours. As it stands, those in the immortal realm couldn’t care less what’s happening to Earth so they don’t repair the cracks, and no one in their right mind on Earth would be willing to pay the price to enter into the immortal world. Thus, you see the dilemma.”
I sighed with indignation. “How do I revert this transformation, then?”
“Impossible.”
My chest sank.
“For you. Your transformation can’t be reverted. If your abilities truly are a replica of the Maker’s, then you possess the power of controlling dark energy, altering the world around you, but you do not possess the capacity of altering yourself.”
Alter the world around me. From afar, the idea sounded grand, decorated in sparks of appeal, except for one fell flaw: I had no desire to inflict change on this world. I wasn’t one of those naive people who believed one person could drastically change something as large scale as the world. Earth was designed for animals, not the cruelty of man. Humans were but jagged pieces forced into a puzzle not made for our self-important, tyrannical habits. As such, we were destined to destroy ourselves, and this world was perfectly fine with handing us the blade.
Naturally, repeatedly, we were always dumb enough and blind enough to take it. Nuclear warfare. Inherent power trips. Debased debauchery.
One person wasn’t going to alter an age old design. Therefore, I didn’t want to waste my time trying.
But that little girl, she wasn’t the world. She was one facet of it. If it was possible for me to help her, I would. I wanted to. Not because I bought into this “alter the world” pitch, but because it was the right thing to do, and I understood what it was like for the mother to reach a point in life where you weren’t sure what tomorrow would look like because today was so dismal.
Still.
Deep down, there was a bitter part of me that resented the fact that I was capable of helping others but not myself. I mean, wasn’t the mantra supposed to be the other way around? You can’t change those around you, only yourself?
“Where do I start?” I asked, pushing down any signs of spite.
Jera, her hair tamed into curls so black they could have been purple or blue, eyes glowing as magnificently as the dark horns sprouting from her skull, came to her feet. “You start . . . on us.”
“You?”
“Us.”
At my back, Ophelia was bandaging the wounds with a questionable expertise. “The collar on my neck is what the hunters use on our kind,” she explained. “It subdues our ability, suppresses the dark energy inside of us and makes us as close to human as we can get.”
“By that logic,” Jera picked up. “You should be able to sense the dark energy inside of me but not Lia. Sensing the dark energy is the first step to controlling it, bending it to your will and using this control to remove the dark energy that’s changing the human girl.”
I made a face, backtracking. I’d thought on how to remove Ophelia’s collar all night when tossing and turning. The only solution I’d come up with was to take her to a hospital, which was off the table all together with gun-toting madmen on the loose, or to take her to a shady welder. Seeing as I wasn’t a drug dealer but a coffee-dealer, my connections weren’t all that impressive. It wasn’t like I could look on Craigslist for metal workers who wouldn’t accidentally chop the woman’s head off.
And so I’d come away with no solution. Again.
Just then, I realized what Jera had implied. “I can sense dark energy?” As of late, the only thing I could sense was a coming migraine and nausea.
She nodded then came to sit in front of me. I may have stared into her eyes too hard in an attempt to not stare at anything else pertaining to her.
Ophelia came and sat beside her, their legs crossed, knees touching, identical faces peering at me.
“First,” Jera said. “You’re going to close your eyes and take Lia’s hands.”
I looked down at her sister’s hands, expecting to find the blood from my wounds there, but there was only the pale, naked skin. She held her palms out to me. After only a moment’s hesitation, I took them, blocking out the part of me arguing against the ridiculous nature of it all.
I closed my eyes.
“Now imagine a black space. Not an ounce of light.”
It was simple enough.
I pushed away the flash of images to bombard my mind and immediately my memories and thoughts slipped away in ribbons of colorful splotches, fading into a static white fuzz before condemning me to total black.
There was nothing but the sound of my breathing, the heater, and the feeling of Ophelia’s warm hand, her pulse rising and falling beneath the thin layer of skin.
“You can likely feel her blood rushing,” Jera murmured, a silken coax in the darkness. “Focus. Search.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Something intangible. Like yesterday, when I plucked that feather from your back, you didn’t feel the pain in your back, but in a place you’ve never felt before. The new bones you’re growing for your wings. Liken them to a phantom limb. Except this is a foreign growth that your mind and body wasn’t made to acknowledge or understand. I want you to search for something similar to that, Peter. Something your mind struggles to comprehend. Shouldn’t be too hard for you given there is already so little you comprehend.”
“Jera,” Ophelia chided.
“Apologies,” she said with no weight to it. “When you feel it, human, you’ll know.”
The insults to my intelligence was beginning to become a part of my morning routine.
If anything, I was as ignorant to all of this as I felt. It was confusing at best, impossible at worst. Which was why, ten minutes later, I came away with nothing. However, when I opened my eyes, neither woman looked disappointed. Instead, they looked satisfied. As if this was the exact outcome they’d been hoping for.
“You were supposed to sense little to no dark energy inside of me,” Ophelia explained, gesturing at the nuller.
“Now repeat the process on me,” Jera instructed, holding her han
ds out for mine.
I took a deep breath and looked at the clock on the nightstand. 6:43. Seventeen minutes before prep time.
“Don’t rush,” Jera ordered, following my gaze.
“We have to prep soon.”
“Yes, prepare you for the actual priorities here.”
“Yes, of course, Jera. I’ve not forgotten the men who want you dead. Which reminds me, why was it the men wanted you dead, but only wanted to capture Ophelia?”
By the closed look both women gave me, I understood then they were only willing to tell me what I absolutely had to know. In a way, it was similar to Anisah who’d guarded her words and told me the bare minimum. I suppose that was a natural product of living in fear for your life. You learned not to trust those around you. But there was something about the way Jera closed off from the very beginning. Almost as if it wasn’t that she didn’t trust others, but me specifically.
I didn’t pressure her. Instead, I closed my eyes and tried for the second time. Summoning the blank blackness in my mind. All too aware of Jera’s pulse. Unlike Ophelia, Jera’s body ran warmer, but I was sure that wasn’t the anomaly I was supposed to be searching for.
I pushed harder, which in this case meant I emptied myself out further. Not that it was much there to begin with. Exhume the tragedy and my daily work life and I was nothing more than a floating husk.
Even then, I sensed nothing.
Ten minutes later, when I opened my eyes, this time I did see disappointment. It was written into the lines of Jera’s face as she glared at my obvious failure, which could only mean this time she’d expected me to produce a different outcome.
Beside her, Ophelia gave me a sheepish look. “It’s alright, Peter. It takes practice. You’ll get it eventually.”
“We don’t have eventually,” Jera pointed out. “That woman and her child will be back here tomorrow and there’s no telling when the hunters will show up again.”
I frowned. The truth really did hurt, didn’t it? If I couldn’t cure the girl in time, if I couldn’t get them off of the hunter’s supernatural radar, who was to say when the hunters might find them again? And if they did to those females what they’d done to Anisah’s friend, would that be blood on my hands?
I didn’t like the responsibility. I didn’t ask for it.
The same way they hadn’t asked to become targets.
But that was life. No one ever gets what they ask for. Not unless there was a twist.
I returned Jera’s icy glare. “Get ready. We have work in five.”
*****
In the lounge, I found all was as we’d left it, the owl clock ticking softly, the honeyed sun spilling across oakwood floors, and a little boy outside wiping down my windows.
I did a double take.
It was that boy.
I balled my fists. “Wait here,” I told the twins, who were just learning how to operate the coffee machines beyond pouring the liquid into a cup—Jera was, anyway, seeing as Ophelia had at some point taught herself.
She nodded demurely then, her sister watching me like this was the most amusing thing to happen to her all morning.
Ignoring her, I stalked outside and rounded to the front of the establishment. “What. Do you think. You’re doing, kid?”
The kid was in khaki shorts, light blue t-shirt tucked neatly at the waist, baseball cap pulled over his head. He looked up and squinted through the morning sun, freckled, youthfully pudgy face scrunching from the glare. “Workin’, boss.”
“Excuse me?”
The light summer wind dusted through his bronze, too-long curls. “When do I get my first check?”
“Excuse me?”
“9 dollars an hour, right? Been out here for four. So that’s . . .” He began to count on his fingers. In his hand, he had a brandless spray bottle with blue liquid inside of it, and in the other which he counted on was a dirty, once-upon-a-time white rag that was . . . not microfiber.
My eyes widened at this, just before I snatched the cloth out of his hand. “You wiped my windows with cotton?”
Confused, he blinked. “No sir, that there is a towel.”
“Made of cotton!” I looked back to the windows, peering closer, where I spied the dried streaks left behind from one side to the other.
“My mom told me cotton is nature’s Charmin.”
Trembling, trying to contain the spike of anger before someone noticed, I pushed the cloth back at him and said in a low voice, “Well, your mom must’ve never wiped glass in her life.”
Something in his eyes flickered, and for a moment I was fully prepared for the boy to kick me in the shin for disrespecting his maker. Instead, he only snatched the rag up and demanded, “Give me a better one, then, mister!”
“Get away from my shop before I call the police.”
“Ah, come on, sir. I’ll make those windows shine! Gimme a chance. And my 36 dollars.”
“Maybe if you had your mothers permission and a consent form.”
“Permission?! This is America, I’d free to do what I want!”
“Beat it, kid.”
Only when the boy reluctantly stalked off did I go back inside, where Ophelia was tinkering with one of the machines and Jera was perched at the bar area, snacking on a pastry and watching me with watts of amusement in her eyes.
“Not a word,” I grated.
The woman only pressed her lips closed in a smirk that said all the words she needed.
With that, the day passed slower than yesterday’s. Though the little brat didn’t show up again, remaining vigilant of the shop’s operation while pretending tumors weren’t stabbing their way from my back was a feat in and of itself. That it was Sunday and most places closed earlier than my own certainly didn’t help.
And of course Kevin had decided to call in sick . . .
Which was what I should have done, I decided at closing time as I sank into one of the booths. For once, I had the closing crew stay behind and actually close rather than let them off early.
They ambled in the background while Jera finished up on dishes. Ophelia, having completed her task earlier than everyone, sat with me.
“If you’re not feeling too well, perhaps you should rest instead of going out,” she said. “Honestly, I’m fine with the attire you’ve provided.”
Yeah, well, I definitely wasn’t. Their work clothes were fine. Their lounge clothes couldn’t have made me feel any more uncomfortable than my back wounds did.
“You haven’t slept at all,” she noted.
“I’m fine.” And it was true, strangely enough. Aside from the back pain, I didn’t feel as exhausted as someone who’d gone thirty hours without sleep should have felt. There was no fatigue, only irritability and an unnatural energy pulsing around my back pain.
Ophelia didn’t press, which I suppose was just one more glaring difference between her and her sister. The woman was subtle and kind, a team player that the rest of the staff simply melted into, while they shrank away from Jera as if she was Satan incarnate. Understandable, the woman slung threats the moment someone so much as breathed in her direction.
Which was why she was the only one on dishes; everyone else was too afraid to offer help and I was too . . . cripple, I supposed.
Sometime later, as I dismissed the closing crew, Jera finally emerged, that same miserable look on her face that she’d worn yesterday. Just as well, her script hadn’t changed much either. “Food . . .”
“You practically ate half the kitchen earlier,” I said disbelievingly. When she should have been washing plates and mugs, she’d instead gotten into the bread cabinet and devoured half the supply.
“That was then, this is now.” She sank into the seat beside her sister and dramatically slumped over onto the woman. “I’m a beautiful young woman with a figure to maintain. As such, I need nutrients, I need food.”
Deep inhale, patient exhale. I rolled my shoulders. “Fine, we’ll stop to get something to eat after we get you two some new cloth
es.”
The woman was on her feet in a heartbeat. “Very well then. Time’s a wastin’.”
“I call shotgun!” Ophelia chirped.
I shook my head. “Do you even know what that is?”
“A human expression applied when one is preparing to ride in a vehicle with two other people?”
I sighed, but found myself smiling anyway. Close enough.
*****
I hadn’t been to the Wamego Outlet Mall in years, so much so that I spent ten minutes driving around trying to locate the entrance to the parking lot. The glowing red neon sign was still going strong atop the building when I pulled in, announcing the food court, which practically sealed our fate: we would be eating before shopping if Jera’s lovestruck gaze was any indicator.
I’d barely thrown the SUV into park before she was fumbling with the handle and launching herself from the car and rushing us.
Not that I could rush. Getting out of the driver’s side made me wish I still had Dad’s handicapped sticker.
No sooner than the thought surfaced did I shove it back down, pushing the door closed and following the sound of Jera’s complaining for us to walk faster and Ophelia’s laughter as she hurried after.
“Look out for cars,” I cautioned. I thought it went without my saying, as these were grown women, but that wasn’t entirely the case. These were grown succubi. Demons from another world, where cars were likely nonexistent.
Naturally, Jera disposed of my warning, dragging her sister towards the smell of corndogs and sugar cookies and loads of promising heart attacks. I let them stay ahead for a bit, taking out my wallet to count the bills. I may have upgraded the shop to a semblance of modern attraction, but I myself did retain some of Dad’s old-fashioned ways, one of them being the preference of cash to cards. I would mourn the day cash lost its value. Assuming I was still alive.
