Closing the door behind her, she stood in the hall and took several long breaths before moving. The crude image of her leaving Aubree behind settled upon her like a weight on her chest. She closed her eyes and tried to purge the visual, but it lingered as an after-image on her retinas. Aubree is my whole being. It’s always been just the two of us against the world. How long has she felt this way? How did I not see it?
Sarah glanced back at the door. The long hours at the agency had always been about giving Aubree a better life than Sarah had growing up. She wanted her daughter to have the best advantages and want for nothing. But what if all she wants is her mother to be around?
Sarah moved toward her own bedroom. She felt the weight of that image in every step. Is anything I’ve done worth it if I lose her? Sarah sat on the end of her bed. A core resolve hardened within her. It’ll get better. I’ll make the next recital. And once I’m Director, I’ll be around more. I’ll make sure I’m around more. Aubree will see—this is all for her.
April 16
2035
The Reckoning
Three bullets struck his head and Blur staggered back. The noise echoed in his ears, adding to his shock. He fell to one knee and wrestled the cracked and broken helmet off his head.
Blur let the broken piece fall to his feet. His eyes sought out Nathan. He felt blood rushing in his veins as more bullets whizzed past. Everything slowed. He planted a foot in the dirt and was gone. Blur passed the California border fence before the sonic boom echoed behind him.
The world distorted around him, stretched into lines of indistinct light. His eyes adjusted to the speed and parsed every minute detail.
Blur stopped a foot short of the edge of a giant butte, his wake sending red rock pebbles cascading over the cliff. He breathed deep and collapsed to his knees. Something is not right. Blur placed his palms against his temples and shook. He blinked several times before his eyes refocused.
Silence blanketed the wilderness. Blur quivered. Noise had been his constant companion—always there, inside his head. A stark quiet now replaced the low buzz of a whispered voice.
With a clear mind, he remembered. The helmet. It changed me. It subjugated me.
Blur vibrated, lifting dust off the surrounding ground.
No one bends my knee. He rose to his feet and stomped his foot on the butte. The rock shook and cracks threatened to split it apart. He watched a massive thunderhead gather in the distance. Lightning scored the sky ahead of a low rumble.
“Crowley!” Blur screamed. The word echoed throughout the canyons.
He clenched his fists with such force, rivulets of blood dripped from his fingertips. “I will show you power.” Blur’s voice resonated with his increased vibration. “You will cower in fear before I end your miserable life. By my blood, I swear it.”
Thunder cracked and Blur vanished between the raindrops.
“Don’t do that,” Crowley admonished Nathan. “I’m no more the villain here, than you are the hero.”
Blur pulsated unseen in a shadowed corner of the room. He imagined inflicting unspeakable tortures upon Crowley, but his newfound clarity stayed his hand.
Crowley walked over to where long, narrow tapestries hung from the ceiling. Each one was black with a yellow embroidered crest. “You came here to seek vengeance, and judging by how you look, vengeance found you.”
Blur allowed himself a thin smile.
Crowley reached behind a tapestry and pushed against a stone block. Gears ground behind the wall, and a secret door yawned open. Crowley held the tapestry back and said, “This way, please.”
Blur watched Nathan gaze into the passageway before he scoffed, “Is this the part where you give me your super villain rationale for the things you’ve done?”
Crowley’s mouth tightened. “I told you, I’m not the villain here.”
“And I’m not listening.”
That makes two of us.
“Yes, you are,” Crowley said. “You’ve been lied to, Nathan. You’re not on the side of angels. Follow me, and I’ll show you the truth.”
Blur kept to the far side of the room as Nathan hobbled toward the passageway. Once they both descended the stone staircase, Blur set to work. He zoomed behind Crowley’s desk and powered up a HoloSphere. His fingers blurred in motion as he searched through files on the drive. Each file projected over the desk only long enough for his eyes to record every detail.
He brought up a layout of the room and cast it over the center area. It didn’t show the passageway to his left. Blur manipulated commands within the file at a breakneck rate. Additional layers were superimposed over the projection, as it stripped away others until the passageway appeared. The image also revealed a compartment within the staircase pillar.
His eyes shifted to the opening. An instant later he stood at the top of the staircase and followed the instructions in the file to open the compartment. He pressed a section of pillar and rotated it thirty degrees to the right. A click and hiss sounded in the enclosed space before a hidden door in the pillar swung open.
Blur reached inside the square hold and lifted free a bronzed amulet. Sigils glowed within its design of two circles, a pentagram, and three heptagons. “Success,” he whispered with a sinister grin. Blur pocketed the amulet, closed the hidden compartment, and zoomed from the castle.
Blur watched the drive-thru of Bowl ‘N Burger in a suburb of Peoria, Illinois. He stood beneath an overhang of branches. His kinetic vibration kept him invisible to any wandering eyes. For the past twenty minutes, there had been none anyway.
He watched as a car rolled through the checkout lane and received a greasy bag of food from the window. Not hungry, Blur watched for a different reason. The woman working the window drew him in for a closer look.
He sped across the quiet street and through the near-empty parking lot. On his first pass, her hair caught in his wake, pulling it closer to the window. Her eyes widened at the sudden gust and looked around. He read the nametag pinned to her uniform above her left breast. A ridiculous logo showed a cow swinging a bowling ball next to the name Zoe.
Blur slowed and appeared as if from thin air outside her window. She jumped back. Her mouth formed an O and Blur smiled. He slowed his vibration and asked, “Aren’t you going to take my order?”
Zoe regained her composure. She gave him a sarcastic look and said, “You can’t use the drive-thru without a car.”
He stared at her. Her light brown skin looked terrible covered in polyester and bathed in fluorescent light. With a wink, he vanished and appeared behind her at the front counter. “How about now?”
Zoe started to scream, but Blur sprang into action. He vaulted the counter and raced around her in a tight circle. His motion created a vortex that ripped the air from her lungs. He stopped again on the far side of the counter and listened to her gag and cough as she bent at the waist.
Blur wagged a finger at her. “Uh-uh. Can’t have you screaming at me, Shriek. It wouldn’t be friendly—and I want us to be friends.”
Zoe coughed some more to work air back into her lungs. She fixed him with a cold stare. Her voice hardened when she spoke. “You can tell Crowley to forget it. I won’t join his circus of psychos.”
Blur laughed. The mirthless gesture reverberated off the empty walls. He blurred away and upended the condiment counter. Plastic cutlery mingled with sugar packets and smears of ketchup and mustard on the parquet floor. “Happy here, are you?”
“Happier here than there,” she said.
Blur appeared on her side of the counter. Zoe screamed. The glass windows around the room shattered and Blur stumbled. He covered his ears to no avail. Nothing could shut out the rising decibels that squeezed all other sound out of his ears.
He ran outside and collapsed on a lawn three blocks away. Blur touched a fingertip to his ear, and it came away bloody. He snarled and blurred back to the Bowl ‘N Burger. The dining room was empty, but he knew she couldn’t have gotten far. Keeping himself inv
isible, he entered the employees only area and found Zoe collecting her things.
Blur stood before her and raised his hands. “I don’t work for Crowley,” he said.
Zoe scoffed at him. “Do you think I don’t know who you are? Or what you’ve done, Blur? You and Siren have been busy for your master.”
Blur lowered his hands. He bristled with energy. His voice echoed as he said, “He’s not my master.”
Zoe said, “You answer to him like a dog on a leash.”
Blur moved to strike, but her cry tossed him back against the lockers. He crumpled to the floor and glared at her while his hearing returned. “You shouldn’t have come here,” Zoe said.
“Hear me out.” Blur regained his feet. “You know, you weren’t easy to find.”
“How did you find me?”
Blur held up a glowing amulet for her to see. “With this.”
Zoe wrinkled her brow. “What is that?”
“A modified Sigillum Dei,” Blur answered. “Did you know each augmentation creates a unique signature? One that can be tracked with this here device. You program the dial with the signature and the glowing sigils lead the way. I relieved Crowley of this device.”
Zoe asked, “How did you know he had it?”
Blur shifted within the room. He shrugged at her and said, “I didn’t. But somehow Grim found me for him, and I needed to know how. Now that I do, I intend to use it against him.” A sadistic grin split his face. “Things have changed. I’m not here to take you to him—I’m here with an offer.”
Zoe asked, “What offer?” She looked around and said, “Thanks to you, I might be in need of work.”
“I’m putting together a team,” Blur answered. “We’re going after Crowley.”
Zoe shook her head. “You’re as crazy as advertised. Crowley can’t be hurt.”
Blur sneered at her comment. “He’d like us to think so, but it’s not true. I know a way to hurt him.” He watched her eyes light up. “I know a way to kill him. After he’s suffered at our hands, of course.”
“How?” Zoe asked.
“Join me.” Blur watched her consider his proposal. He moved behind her and lowered his voice. “Did he ask for permission before making you, Shriek? He ruined your life and then cast you aside because he saw no value in you. Prove him wrong. I imagine you had grander ambitions in life than . . .” he looked around, “. . . this. Join me, and together we can make him suffer for what he’s done.”
Zoe tilted her head to glance behind herself, but Blur was gone. He appeared again in front of her and she said, “I’m in. But don’t even think about pulling that vortex trick on me again.”
Blur grinned. “We’re friends, Shriek. I’ll have no need to.”
Zoe asked, “What now?”
Blur shifted to the doorway in the blink of an eye. His voice ricocheted in the small room. “Now we recruit the other members of this team.”
Zoe shivered beside him. Blur didn’t feel the cold. His kinetic movements created enough warmth in most any climate. Snow swirled around them, whipped up by a North wind. Zoe turned her face away from the squall.
The paltry lights of Nome, Alaska shone through the burgeoning blizzard. To the west, over the Bering Sea, the sun almost set on another long day. It would rise again on this town in only four hours, and Blur wanted to be gone by then.
Zoe patted her arms for warmth. Her breath condensed in the air. “What are we doing here, besides freezing my ass off?”
Blur glanced at her, then returned his attention to Nome in the distance. “Our next ally will be found in The Pump on Front Street.”
She stared at him and blew on her fingers. “How do you know?”
He gave her a pitying look. “Shall we?”
She took his hand. “Anything to get out of—” He blurred them to the southern edge of town, outside The Pump. “—the cold.” Zoe spun and vomited in a snowbank next to the ramshackle building.
“Pull yourself together,” Blur admonished. “It’s show time.”
The boards of the porch creaked under his feet as Blur entered the dimly lit interior. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. When they did, he noted all eyes on him and his companion.
“What are they looking at?” Zoe asked.
Blur said, “Could be they don’t see many black people in these parts.” He turned and winked at her, “Or, could be they don’t see many women.”
Zoe sneered at the roving eyes upon her. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Wait by the bar,” Blur ordered. “If he needs further encouragement, I’ll call.”
Chairs scraped across the wooden slat floor, and mugs clinked against each other as Blur zoomed to the back corner of the dank room. Music played from an antique jukebox, a gold rush number crackling over worn speakers. Blur appeared on the rickety chair across the table from his target, vibrating and rattling the uneven table.
His target wore a rebreather over his mouth that obscured the lower half of his face. He seemed shrouded in perpetual shadow and ignored Blur. He removed his rebreather and lifted a mug to his lips without taking a breath.
Blur leaned back on the wobbly chair and said, “Evening, Void.”
Void stared across at him. His eyes were black as obsidian—as lifeless as the grave. After he replaced his rebreather, he spoke with a metallic echo. “I don’t answer to that name.”
Blur came forward and rested his elbows on the rough surface of the table. “You should. It’s who you are.”
“Who are you?” Void asked. “And what do you want?”
“I want to give you payback for what he did to you.” He grinned. “You can call me Blur.”
Void said nothing. Blur vibrated with energy and set the table to dancing. “Do you enjoy wearing that device?”
Void said, “You wouldn’t want to be near me without it.”
“Oh, but I would.” Blur shifted beside Void, then back to his chair in the space of a second. The pull of his wake tugged at Void’s filthy jacket. “I know what you can do—what Crowley made you into.”
Void’s dark eyes flashed on his name. Blur said, “Remove the rebreather, Void.” Blur shifted between the empty chairs around the table. “Take. A. Breath.”
Back in his chair, Blur continued, “You see what I can do. Let’s see what you can do.”
Void removed his rebreather. He held it in his hand as Blur smiled maniacally at him. His lips parted, and he took in a breath.
Blur felt the air leave his lungs—pulled by the force of Void’s inhalation. A crash across the room reached his ears as he struggled to take in air. His lungs were on fire. He fell sideways from his perch and landed hard on the floor. Darkness crept over his eyes and another crash reached him from what seemed far away.
Void replaced his rebreather and Blur felt air flood back into his lungs. He coughed and blurred back to his chair. A smile crossed his lips. “Incredible.”
Angry shouts rose from across the room. Fingers pointed toward Void. Blur nodded at Zoe and she stepped in front of the growing mob. “Go back about your business,” she said.
A large man in a plaid shirt, with suspenders holding his pants up, laughed. “Step aside, girlie. ‘Less you want to get hurt.”
“Back off,” Zoe warned.
The man shoved her. Roars of approval rose from his entourage. Blur turned to Void and said, “Cover your ears.”
Zoe screamed. The force of her cry knocked the man backward through the air. He crashed through the wooden wall and landed on the porch. She followed up with another deafening scream that scattered the mob and sent them running.
Blur nudged Void. “She’s something, ain’t she?”
Broken planks clattered on the floor amidst the exodus of patrons. Zoe approached their table with her hands spread apart. “We going?”
Blur looked at Void. “You can see you’re not alone, Void. You’re not the only one Crowley violated. Together, we can make him suffer for his crimes.
”
“He can’t be hurt,” Void said.
Blur tossed the table aside and invited him to stand. “Leave that to me. Are you in?”
Void nodded and Blur led them outside. A smattering of sirens wailed from behind a wall of snow. Blur turned to them and said, “You two grab the next flight out of this frozen wasteland. Go to Cambridge and await further instruction.”
“What about you?” Zoe asked.
“I need to complete our ensemble.”
Zoe held the collar of her coat tight around her neck. “Don’t you want us with?”
Blur crackled with built up energy. “I need to gather this one alone.”
Fog hung in the crown of the trees. A chill wind blew through the conifer forest on the island of Flakstadøya, in the Norwegian Sea.
Blur reached a small clearing deep within the woods where he came to a stop. He checked the Sigillum Dei and noted the sigils were not glowing. “Hmmm,” he murmured.
A breeze rattled the branches overhead. Hollow knocking drew his attention to the trees. Hanging from several branches, he found the bones of tiny animals strung together. Another gust set off the macabre wind chimes.
Blur stared past the white bones into a wall of green surrounding him. He felt the air on his skin and thought he heard words whispered from beyond the clearing. The susurration unnerved him.
“Griffin.” The hairs stood on the back of his neck. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
Blur turned around, but couldn’t locate the familiar voice. “Is that any way to welcome an old friend, Rose?”
She stepped out from behind a thick tree. Matted hair hung in a curtain across her eyes. “We were never friends.”
Blur placed a hand over his heart. “How you wound me, Doctor.”
Dawn Page 10
