by Mason Sabre
And he would. This was not the end.
The scars across his arm, shoulder and chest throbbed more at night. When the moon was full, they throbbed to the point of excruciating pain, until he shifted. But that was another thing that was strange. The pain was missing. He shoved his sleeve back, half expecting the scars to be missing, but they were brighter.
“What the …”
It wasn’t normal. Every scar usually throbbed. Every line, every cut the witch had carved into him always pulsed with combinations of heat and cold. He pushed his sleeve further and ran his fingers along the bumps under the tattoo he'd had done to cover the ugly marks. The deepest one ran from the underside of his ring finger, across his palm and then all the way up along his arm, across his shoulder and to his heart. That scar was the mother of them all. He closed his eyes and closed his fist. Memories were strange, odd. His brought about the feeling of a pain he'd never known before, and a pain he never wanted to experience ever again. Whatever that witch had flushed through him that night, had burnt a path all the way through his body. A path that meant was awake so many nights … saw so much of the stars and the moon and the dark.
If anyone ever looked close enough, they’d have seen the scar that ran around his neck and up to the back of his head. It was a slight ridge under his fingers that disappeared into his hair.
The gentle snores and breaths in the room were such a familiar sound to his existence, they almost comforted him, and reminded him very much like the place he had called home so long ago.
Helena was asleep in a chair next to his bed. She had her feet on a small stool. Every so often, one foot slipped, and she woke herself up with a jolt, but each time, she didn't let go of his hand. She held onto him like he might get up and run away. He'd not go anywhere, even if he could. Always, he promised her. Always by her side.
In the corner of the room, on a small cushion, and after much fruitless persuading from Eden, Aiden slept, curled up. He’d gone to sleep watching Stephen too, and he’d fought his eyes when they tried to close, but sleep had won.
Stephen left the room, needing a moment to give himself peace. Peace in his head, his heart, in the basic part of himself that threatened to rear up and smash through his body. He'd be good to no one if he lost it. He'd be no good to himself if he gave into that need, a want to sink entirely into the madness. "I'll be back."
He found Eden in the next room. She was sleeping on a mattress on a clean-swept floor. Xander lay with her. Yet, while he had the cover across his body and looked like a man who had taken himself to bed, Eden lay on the top of the sheets, fully dressed, even wearing her shoes. Xander had an arm draped across her, and their hands laced together.
Stephen crouched by them and allowed himself a moment to study her. "Thank you," he said. "For everything."
Her hair was tied back in a ratty ponytail. Her face, so bright usually, filled with life and wit and the ability to piss him off by opening her mouth, was pale and gaunt. Even in sleep, she clutched the edge of her pillow with a vice-like grip. "It's just another game. Another piece of this puzzle we've to figure out." He smiled, despite himself. "I can't be the next big thing, without a damn good fight, right?"
He stayed with her for a little while. Helena and Aiden were safe in the back room of the house. Not that he could do anything anyway, but Eden had set her room up so if anyone were to come in, they would find her and Xander before anyone else. She made him almost want to like witches … almost. He wasn’t pushing it.
On his fifth pacing tour of the house, Stephen stopped at the front door. The door was nothing special. Just a white, plastic door, but next to it, there was a window and a vase. The vase was empty, and there was a black rim inside it where flowers had probably died, but that wasn't what was jarring his brain. No. The vase was shaped like an olive and coloured in the same greens and browns. Around the outer edge, there was a pattern painted in gold. It spilt down onto the main swelling of the pot and hung like a painted necklace.
“Of course …”
Idiot.
“Fucking Freya.”
He'd not seen her in the two years he had been at Norton's place, but Eden had mentioned her. Something was warding the building to Norton Industries, and none of them had got in. Stephen suspected witches … it had to be witches. They were always at the centre of chaos. Always the ones to cross over to the Human side of the game and fuck things up.
“Freya …”
He slipped out of the house and onto the front porch. But he had no idea how to contact her. It wasn't like he could pick up a phone and demand she come over, but there had to be something, anything. "Freya?" he said, facing up into the night. "Can you hear me?"
He called her name over and over, even closed his eyes, hoping he could force his words to wherever she was. He waited.
Nothing.
“God damn it, Freya. Answer me. Just this once.” She owed him this. She owed him so much. It had been her who had taken him off the bus when he’d arrived in Exile all that time ago. It had been her with her weird ideas and stories and half answers, who had set him on this path. “The least you can do is come here and help me sort this shit out.”
He balled his hands into fists at his sides and waited.
“Fine. Fuck you too.”
If he could have slammed the door when he went back into the house, he would have slammed it hard enough to rattle the walls. Hell, he’d have even settled for stomping his feet, but as he walked hard and slammed his foot with each step, no sound reverberated back to please him.
"Freya …" He let out a harsh exhale. "I swear to God, if you can hear me and are ignoring me. We need help."
He went back to the room where his useless body lay. He stopped, Freya forgotten for a minute. Instead of the view of the moon through the window, the sun beamed in with warm rays that lit up the entire room. "I missed dawn?" He moved to the window. The sky was light blue now, with odd clouds dotted around. He could almost smell the heat from the sun as it touched the pane of glass. Had time passed, and he hadn't realised it?
“Still nothing?” Xander said from behind him, making his heart jump.
“No,” Helena said, and she cast her eyes down as she sighed and lifted a hand to her face. Her shoulders shook.
“Hey …” Xander pulled her to his chest and rested his chin on the top of her head. “It’ll be okay.”
“Maybe. Maybe it won’t, and I’m just kidding myself or making him suffer by keeping him here.”
Xander snuck a hand to hers. She was gripping a chart, one she had drawn up herself to track his stats, any changes … something. He put it on Stephen’s legs and then let Helena take what she needed from him, comfort, reassurance. “He’s a stubborn bastard. You think he’s going to go down this easy? He’ll come around. He’s got this far … you got him this far. You know when he wakes, he’ll ask us what the hell took us so long or something like that?”
Helena half sniggered, half sobbed. She peered at Stephen’s body from under Xander’s arm. “I know.”
Eden came to the door and caught Xander’s gaze. She arched a brow, and he gave a gentle shake of his head and a frown in response. They let Helena stay there for a moment.
"I'm standing right beside you," Stephen said to her. "I'm right here. Always." He wanted to press his face against hers, to feel her, to hold her. His body ached with such need to make that physical contact between them. It was a fluttering bird in his chest that wouldn't cease. He stood close but left a gap between him and Xander. If he could just run his fingers through her hair one more time, nibble along her neck, slide his hands along her back and hold her the way he had done so many times. "Always."
Without warning a resounding thud boomed in Stephen's chest, and his heart beat with such force, he lurched backwards and collapsed through himself to land on the floor at Eden's feet. He clutched at his chest and wheezed out a cough, but he couldn't get a breath back in. When he tried, his lungs burnt, his entire throat swe
lled with fire and heat. "Oh, God." He twisted onto his front, heaving in air and spewing it back out almost immediately.
An alarm blared into the air, and the heart monitor went into screeching panic. Aiden slammed into Eden as he tried to get to Stephen and, at the same time, Helena pushed Xander back, her tear-stained words stopping on her lips as she grabbed the screen and flicked across the buttons with perfection and experience.
“What is it?” Eden asked, rushing to Stephen’s side.
“I don’t know.” She grabbed a pen torch from the counter and lifted one of Stephen’s eyelids.
“Shiiiiit,” Stephen slammed his head down, snapping his eyes shut as a blinding light lasered the back of his eyeball. His eye watered.
“Nick? Nick, can you hear me?”
Two things happened in the chaotic room, only one of which was seen. First, the Stephen on the floor pushed himself to his knees and arched his back, letting out a soundless roar from the depths of his tiger. He thrust out clawed hands that felt neither real nor solid. At the same time, the Stephen on the bed arched his back and gasped in a deep breath.
“Nick … Oh, god. Nick …”
Both versions of Stephen slumped. The one on the floor fell face down onto the unfeeling, cold wooden floor, and the one on the bed collapsed, his arm fell down the side, and he tilted his head to face Helena.
The line across the screen that tracked his heart blipped and went flat.
“No, no, no …” Helena said. “Pass me that box. Now.”
Eden did, grabbing what was a small cigar box off the counter. Helena fumbled to open it; her trembling fingers shook as she jabbed at the opening switch and she let out a frustrated sigh.
Stephen slid against the wall behind them. He'd crawled to it, desperate to reach onto something. "Not like this," he wheezed out, blinking hard. Darkness invaded the lines of his vision. Tiny black lines nibbled at everything. He swayed, his head went with a swimming feeling, and he leant against the wall …
He was leaning against the wall … against it. "Shit." With what energy he could muster, he turned and placed his hand palm flat against the cold solid plaster. It was hard, solid … there. He knocked against the flimsy board, and the sound echoed through.
He did it again, louder this time.
Aiden frowned in his direction.
“Aiden …” Xander pulled the boy out of the way, but Aiden’s gaze lingered on the spot where Stephen was. He’d heard … he’d fucking heard. “I’m here. Tell them, I’m here.”
"Come on, Nick. Breathe." Helena tilted his head back. She had a mask over his nose and mouth, and she was pumping the bag that forced oxygen into his lungs. She kept glancing up at the flatline across the screen. "Don't you dare."
Chapter 6
Pressing his palms to his eyes, Stephen rocked forward and let out a moan that was part man, part beast. If he could have reached inside his own chest to find the connection between himself and his body, he would have done it without a second thought.
They stared at his body and the screen as the blip in the line came back on. They held their breath; even Stephen did, sure it would go off in a minute.
"I'm right here," Stephen said from behind them. Of all the things that could be done to him, had been done to him, this ranked high on the ‘fuck you' list. He rocked so hard that he almost rocked himself into self-pity and a crumbling mess on the floor. He didn't do self-pity well. Not in his last life, and not in this one.
He pushed himself up, not using the wall this time. That had gone back to the unsolid mass it was before. "I'm not dying like this." His head ached, and there was a pressure behind his eyes. Staggering to the bed to stand with them in their circle of surveillance, he felt so much like the outsider.
“What happened?” Eden asked.
Helena hit the button on the machine hooked to a sleeve for blood pressure. It came to life and a minute later threw out the stats. “I don’t know.”
"Could it be the silver?" It was Xander. At some point, he had picked Aiden up and had the boy sitting on his hip. "You said there is silver in his bloodstream."
“No,” said Stephen. “Silver wouldn’t do this. My body would expel it.” He rubbed at the wound where the needle had gone in. It wasn’t there on this version of him, but it was unhealed on his body. The silver was working at least. It slowed down his ability to heal fast, but his body would fight it.
There is no soul ball. That was what kept going through Stephen’s mind. There was none for him, or the Humans. When he reaped souls, they went into the ball, and he had to pass them on. Freya had told him if he didn't pass the soul on, they would latch onto him and drain him. Perhaps that was what it was.
“I’m going back to the crash site,” he said to them. Even though they couldn’t hear him, some part of him needed to speak and tell them. “Keep me alive while I’m gone. I’ll be back. I promise.”
Leaving Helena felt like a fucking lance through his heart, but he had to go. He had to make sure he wasn't just sitting between this world and that one because he'd missed the balls. How idiotic would that be?
He physically flinched when he walked out of the house and onto the street. There was no way of knowing where the house was, or how to get to the bus. Maybe if he was in tiger form, he could use the enhanced senses to get there, but his tiger was missing too. He knew without even trying he wouldn’t be able to shift.
It was hard to say how long they had been at the house since the crash. Already, time had become a slippery thing. The sun was out and judging by the lay of the shadows across the tarmac; it had to be sometime in the morning. But what morning? That was another thing entirely.
Where Eden and Xander had set up home was a gated area much like the one Helena had been in when he had met her. Only this one wasn’t lived in the same. The houses were broken and abandoned. Even the gatehouse at the main gate to get in the place was damaged through time and the elements. One gate was clean off its hinges but had been rested in place to create enough of a warning barrier for anyone wanting to come through. Perhaps if he had been in solid form, he would have been able to detect wards. Eden was a good witch, a strong one. She’d have made sure the place was protected, or at least had some kind of warning system in place.
He stepped through the gate, not feeling the rusted metal prongs go through his body. Mostly, when he passed through anything, it was like a whoosh of air against his skin on the inside, but that was for things that held more substance, people, solid walls. He'd not tested it on many things, nor did he care.
The main lane, leading to the town where Eden and Xander had set up home, was almost invisible. It was there, if one looked enough, a difference in the path, a slight shading, but nature had taken over. Weeds and fallen leaves covered the path with a layer of green dust. The lane went left and right, and the sign at the junction was missing the arrow. Not that he thought it would be useful, unless someone had come along and put a sign up, ‘Bus and dead Humans, this way.’
“Which way?” Something in him said left. Maybe it was intuition, gut instinct, or just plain old insanity beckoning at his door. Whatever it was, at least it was a choice, and he went that way.
By the time he arrived at the bridge with the bus, he couldn’t say which way he had gone, or how he had got there. He had taken a few steps along the lane and then ... what? Nothing? He didn’t know. It was like he had somehow blinked himself to where he needed to be. He also hadn’t realised there had been a pounding in his head until he got to a place where it stopped and left him with silence.
The bridge was long. He came in at the other end, and the bus was off in the distance, and ... it was dark again. It made him stop when he realised. “Either I have some kind of power, or I’ve gone mad.” Close to the bus, headlights shone through the darkness. He almost walked back the way he had come just to see if it would get light again; perhaps he had walked through some sheet of light that came down. Anything was possible at this point.
Even though he was walking across old wooden slats, his feet made no sound. There was an odd silence, and not just because he couldn't hear his steps, but because he couldn't hear many things. There were headlights, yes. Someone was tending to the crash scene, but that was it. No cavalry coming to save the day, no alarms, no sirens or anything that would signify a disaster had happened. He was also sure at least an entire day had gone by too. Unless he'd walked back in time and it was just after the crash.
Slowing his pace as he got closer, not that he needed to—he could have stripped off, paraded naked and sung shower tunes to them, and they’d be none the wiser, but he slowed for him, to take it all in. There was an unmarked car parked to the side of the road. “Figures.” Norton wouldn’t call any authorities, would they? Doing so would bring scandal and questions into what they were doing.
It was a shame he couldn't figure out how to cross the veil of the worlds. Invisible claws ... that was an excellent idea. He could almost visualise the headlines as he toyed with the fantasy. Slaughter on the M3 bypass between Nvaan and Kells.
Fighting the rush of anger as he saw Lee, Stephen stopped. Two years he owed Stephen and Helena. Two very long years, but it would never be enough. Nothing would be enough.
Out here, Norton didn’t have his men. He didn’t have cages and cattle prods and electrical wires. Out here, he was vulnerable. “I will take everything from you.”
Deep red symmetrical scars marred Lee’s face, and they moved with his expression. Scars Stephen had given to him on purpose. He had carved his tiger into him and given him a gift he did not understand.
“Soon.”
