The Vigiles Urbani Chronicles- Year One

by Ken Lange

  Andrew rolled his eyes and let out an annoyed huff. “It’s true.” He gave me a dismissive wave. “If you need proof, look at all the times your questions have slipped your mind just at the right moment.” He folded his arms, and his expression soured. “It’s taken an extraordinary amount of effort to make that happen. And to make matters worse, you’ve been able to lie to me several times since you arrived.” He grumbled more to himself than to me, “That’s never happened before.”

  I laughed. “Please. People lie all the time…even to you.”

  Exasperated, he ran his hand over his face. “Actually, they don’t.” He suddenly looked tired. “You have no idea what a relief it would be if they could.” Shrugging, he sat back in his chair. “It’s more of a curse than a gift, but it is one of my abilities.” He paused and looked me in the eyes. “Everyone, except you, it seems, is compelled to tell me the truth. They literally can’t help themselves.”

  Right. Maybe he wasn’t completely nuts, but he was on the border of doddering-old-fool territory. Running my hand over my head, I sighed. Then again, he had a point about not looking his age, and it would sort of explain my impulses over the last few days. Add to that his display of power this morning, and it was enough to give me pause.

  Chewing on the words, I struggled to let it all sink in. “How do you know I’ve lied to you?”

  He poked a finger at the back of his head. “There’s an itch way back here when you do it. It’s absolutely infuriating!” He took another swig of scotch. “And really impressive.”

  I knew the itch he was describing…it happened every time the impulse to tell him something was upon me... Damn! “What does this mean? How does this make me one of the Stone Born?”

  He sized me up like a prizefighter considering how best to devastate his opponent. “That doesn’t make you a Stone Born. That was a birthright. It does mean you’re exceptionally special.”

  I held my hands close together. “Short school bus special.”

  Andrew sighed. “I’m trying to tell you something important.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not understanding any of this…”

  His gaze darted to his desk, and he pointed at the far end of the room. “Do you see the sapphire?”

  Confused, I followed his line of sight and nodded. “Yeah, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

  He didn’t answer; instead, he waved his hand. The stone suddenly glowed then sent deep blue shafts of light throughout the room. The small ring on his pinky finger shone brightly and pulsed in unison with its larger counterpart. A wispy tendril of cobalt shot across the room to be absorbed by the massive gem.

  The setting in the ring was now empty, and I spent the next several seconds attempting to piece together what I’d just seen. Then the shafts of light flickered before converging in a single spot a few feet in front of the desk. It took a moment, but it created an image of a woman.

  She opened her eyes and glanced around the room, confused, until she saw Andrew. Relief spread across her face, but when she tried to move toward him, her form pixelated, and she stumbled. Which was when her gaze fell on me. Her eyes narrowed as suspicion crept into them. “Who are you?”

  Andrew was on his feet in an instant, smiling at her before waving a hand in my direction. “Martha, I’d like to properly introduce you to Gavin.” He sounded like a proud parent showing off his prize child. “He’s all grown up.”

  Her form wavered, and she groaned in pain. “It’s too soon. I’ve got to rest…” She tried to say something more, but it was garbled, and she vanished, retreating to the sapphire on Andrew’s desk.

  Setting my glass on the table, I shook my head. “What the hell was that?”

  Andrew beamed. It was the first time I’d seen him looking whole, happy, and content. His mind was far away as he kept his eyes fixed on the sapphire. “That was Martha… Well, a part of her anyway.”

  My head hurt. No matter how I tried to process what had just occurred, I couldn’t. “I don’t understand.”

  Tearing his eyes away from the desk, he turned his attention back to me. “When someone like us is born, a gemstone is created. The parents look after the child and their stone until they’re old enough to be responsible for themselves. Your father kept mine until I was eighteen, and after he died, I was to care for yours until your eighteenth birthday, but you vanished, and I’ve been holding it for you ever since. Every gemstone is different. For instance, Martha’s was a sapphire. Mine is a jade and emerald combination. Your father’s was a half-ruby, half-emerald concoction, and yours is a golf-ball-sized diamond.”

  My body was weak, and I couldn’t stop myself from trembling. His words rang true, but how was that even possible? “I… I have a stone? A diamond?”

  Andrew stood. “Yes.” He waved for me to follow him. “Come, it’s well past time that you were told the truth.”

  He trekked through the forbidden passage until we were about halfway, where he stopped and unlocked the door. Inside was a large room, and hundreds of stones lined the walls, shelves, and tables. He guided me through the maze to the exact center and pointed at a display case with a single flawless diamond hovering about three inches off the red velvet lining.

  He opened the case and waved me over. “This is yours. Normally, you would handle it for the first time at eighteen, but I’ve heard of people getting theirs when they’re older. Not this much older, but still.”

  I barely heard the words. A thrumming inside my brain came from the perfectly cut, rounded stone in front of me. It called to me. This was what had summoned me to New Orleans. This was why I’d come here. Everything Andrew had said was true. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t in control of myself as my body acted on its own, betraying me.

  I stepped forward and slowly wrapped my fingers around its polished surface. Power and heat surged into me as the diamond pulsated in my grasp. Its smooth surface erupted into thousands of tiny shards, slicing my fingers. Larger structures jutted out of its surface, through my palm, and out the back of my hand. I screamed as flesh and bone gave way, causing the world around me to shiver. Falling to my knees, I gripped my wrist.

  I didn’t know how or why, but it was important that my left hand stay over the case, even as blood ran freely from my hand down onto the red velvet. The stone stopped growing after the shard that penetrated my hand was about four inches long and had turned onyx. When I released the gem, it floated above the blood-soaked velvet, now oddly shaped, jagged, and weeping garnet-colored stones. My head swam, darkness came for me, and I fell back into its warm embrace.

  * * * *

  The rough stone floor was cool against my face. An ever-widening pool of dark blood spilled out all around me as someone grabbed the back of my neck, yanking me upward before slamming my face back into the floor. The thud was followed by a sickening crack as one of my bones broke.

  The man behind me whispered in my ear with a thick Arabic accent, “You will tell me what I want to know.”

  Thing was, I wouldn’t…couldn’t, because I simply didn’t know, and he wouldn’t believe me. “If I knew, I’d tell you.” I wheezed, coughing up blood.

  He kicked me hard in the ribs, and one snapped. “Liar!”

  I didn’t know how long we’d been at this today. For all I knew, it could’ve been minutes. Or hours. Or days. It felt like years. A part of me knew I wouldn’t be able to take much more of this kind of abuse…that I was dying. It wouldn’t be long now. I was drowning in my own blood. If that didn’t get me, dehydration or malnutrition was close behind. More likely, though, my death would come from one too many blows to the head or a rib puncturing my heart.

  When the man grew tired of beating on me, he’d call for the guards. They would drag me down a long corridor and out into the center of their old mud and stone fortress. There they’d toss me into one of the many stone-lined pits covered with ancient, thick iron grates. During the day, I’d bake in the sun then shiver through the cold of the nigh
t. The medieval padlock snapping shut was a nail being driven through steel. It was the tick of the clock bringing me one step closer to death.

  Reality crashed back to the forefront of my mind when my captor grew angry with my lack of cooperation and slammed his boot into my crotch. I coughed as dry heaves overtook me. Curling into the fetal position, I tucked my head between my knees as his leather boots smashed into me over and over again.

  After several minutes, he grew tired and knelt beside me, pulling me up by the hair so he could speak directly into my ear. “You will die here very slowly if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

  I was gasping for air. One of the broken ribs grated against my lung. Now, it was truly only a matter of time before it filled with blood, and I drowned in my own fluids. I couldn’t speak, and in his frustration, he hammered his fist into the side of my head, sending me hard to the stone floor.

  He said something in Arabic I couldn’t understand, and the guards grabbed my arms and dragged me back to the hole I called home. They tossed me in, the ancient lock clicked above me, and my mind drifted.

  The moon was high in the night sky, and it was unusually cold. Shadows swirled in the darkness as my mind played tricks on me. For a moment, it sounded as if there were someone else down here with me. My instinct told me to move, forced me to investigate. My vigilance was rewarded with mind-numbing pain as every inch of my body ached in a way only the near-dead could.

  When I reached the far side, there was nothing there but an inky blackness that reminded me of my childhood. My grandfather had stuck me in a hole similar to this in the dead of winter. He’d sat above, telling me a story I couldn’t recall. At some point, the darkness had wrapped itself around me, and I was standing next to him. From that day forward, he’d been afraid of me and made me pay for that fear at every opportunity.

  The memory faded, and my body gave out. I was too weak to move, and my heart slowed as a calmness fell over my mind. This must be what death felt like.

  Then a low voice whispered in my ear, “You’re not going to die like this, are you?”

  I coughed, and blood dribbled out of my mouth. “I’ve got to hold out long enough for my people to come get me.”

  Its bitter laughter echoed in my head. “You don’t believe that any more than I do. We both know they’re never coming.”

  I wanted to argue, but there was no point. “It doesn’t matter. I’m done…it won’t be much longer, and you can have me.”

  Something stroked my cheek. “Who do you think I am, child?”

  I croaked, “Death…”

  It wrapped around me in a cold embrace. “I’m not death, boy.”

  “Then who?”

  It whispered, “I was the first, but you will be the last of us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  It pulled me in tight. “I’ve always been with you… In fact, I’ve waited an eternity for your arrival.”

  “If you’re not here to take me, then why?”

  It continued to wrap around me, and I screamed in agony as my rib moved back into place. “To give you a chance to save yourself. What you do with that chance is up to you.”

  The beat of my heart ticked up ever so slowly, my broken bones mended themselves, and my will to live returned, along with the ability to do something about it.

  Later, I found out that my interment had lasted one hundred and thirteen days, and the only thing left of the place was a massive crater where the fortress had once stood. The Kurds got the blame for destroying it and killing all those within, but there were enough people who knew different to earn me my nickname: the Grim Reaper.

  Chapter 6

  Friday May 29th

  Fear overtook me. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want to find out it had all been a dream, and I was still in that pit. Finally, I forced them open slowly. Andrew was cradling me, looking scared to death. He kept mumbling something I couldn’t understand.

  My hand ached as the memory of the black shard ripping through my flesh surfaced. I prepared myself for the worst—a ruined hand that would have to be lopped off to save the arm—but when I looked down, it was healed. Heavily scarred, caked in blood, but functional.

  With a little help from Andrew, I got to my knees. “What was that?”

  Andrew pulled me close, hugging me before allowing a tentative smile to cross his face. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything like that. Are you all right?”

  Shifting my weight, I let Andrew help me to my feet. “I don’t know.”

  Andrew’s eyes flashed over at the display case, which was filled with pear-shaped, blood-red garnets…the tears I’d seen just before I passed out. The once-perfect, spherical diamond was now a jagged mess of a dozen different colored shafts, the most prominent of them a four-inch black diamond covered in my blood.

  Andrew’s voice was hoarse, his hands shook, and he looked genuinely frightened. But he kept a steady arm under my shoulders, ensuring I stayed upright. “I’m not sure what happened. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. I’ve never even heard of something like this occurring.” He looked down at me and shook his head. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  My stomach was tying itself in knots and my intestines churned as the old memory danced through my head. I’d spent years trying to forget it had ever occurred, and now it was as if it had happened yesterday. “Got anymore scotch, and maybe a washcloth?”

  Andrew half-carried me back to the living room before nearly filling my glass. He disappeared into the nearest bathroom and returned with a wet cloth and a towel. After I cleaned my hand, he quickly disposed of them.

  He poured himself a double, and refilled mine. “That was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I downed my drink and held my glass out for another. “It would seem I attract weird shit.” Frowning, I asked, “How was that supposed to happen?”

  Andrew filled my glass. “A person picks up their stone, and normally a ring is created to cement the union between the two.” He gestured at me. “It’s usually a peaceful and even uplifting experience. Nothing like that.”

  Grimacing, I said, “I’m a violent man, and I deserve a lot worse than I got.”

  Andrew shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. Your mind is supposed to awaken, not do whatever the fuck that was.”

  He was right. I’d awoken a ton of bad memories. Even so, there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. We talked for a bit longer, but I was worn out, and he helped me to my room.

  Chapter 7

  Saturday May 30th

  Jerking awake, I turned to the side. The clock read 6:15 a.m. As I rolled out of bed, my head felt heavy, sluggish, and to top it off, I had cotton mouth. If I’d been a hopeful kind of man, I would’ve thought the large quantities of scotch I’d consumed last night were responsible for my fatigue. I wasn’t, however, and I knew it was the nightmares and the ghosts of the dead that haunted me.

  Even now, I heard their cries in the deep recesses of my mind. Clenching my jaw, I stood, stretched, and forced them to be quiet. They may’ve ruled my dreams, but here and now, in this world, I was in control. They would remain silent, at least until they could escape their cages to haunt me again.

  When I brought my arms down, I caught sight of my mangled hand. The scarred bits of my palm and the fleshy parts of my fingers looked like melted wax. I’d seen soldiers much worse off than this, though. I’d at least gotten to keep the use of my hand, no matter how messed up it looked.

  And…it was physical proof that I was in New Orleans, twenty years removed from my time as a guest of the Iraqi government. A little voice often taunted me in my darkest hours, whispering that I’d never left the pit, that I was still a prisoner, that all of this was a figment of my sunstroked mind.

  I grabbed the last set of clean clothes out of my bag before stepping into the bath for a shower. The unfortunate reality of having to do my own laundry was upon me. But that could wait till I got so
mething in my stomach. After dressing, I trudged down the hall and through the kitchen door. Andrew was at the stove making breakfast. He glanced back, giving me an appraising look, then returned his attention to the stove.

  “Breakfast will be ready in a minute,” he said over his shoulder.

  Placing my elbows on the table, I dropped my face into my hands and rubbed. “Thanks.” I massaged my forehead and eyes, trying to give myself a little relief. Whatever Andrew was making filled the air with the aromas of sizzling, salted butter, pepper, and a hint of seafood. The smell alone was enough to make me feel better.

  It wasn’t long before a plate gently clinked against the hardwood of the table top and slid in front of me. Slowly lifting my head out of my hands, I blinked several times to clear my vision. A few seconds later, the world fell into focus, revealing crab cakes topped with perfectly poached eggs smothered in a thick, golden hollandaise sauce.

  Glancing over at my uncle, I shook my head in amazement. “Wow.”

  Andrew chuckled and gestured at my plate. “I assure you, it tastes far better than it looks.”

  I picked up the fork and tore into it with fervor. When I sliced through the egg, the golden yolk gently cascaded over the crab cake below. Taking a bite, I let the flavors mix in my mouth, and my eyes rolled back in ecstasy. The rich sauce danced across my tongue with all its buttery flavor, highlighting the more delicate hint of lemon and cayenne pepper.

  I chewed slowly, savoring every morsel of food before finally swallowing and going in for my second bite. I’d finished my first cake when I realized my toes were curled unnaturally inside my boots. Forcing myself to relax, I glanced over at my uncle. “Damn. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything quite so delicious.” A fleeting memory of a dinner in Tokyo flitted through my mind. “There was one meal with real Kobe steaks, but this may match that.”