by Ren Hamilton
“Yes, you’re living and breathing, much to everyone’s surprise.” Litner pointed at Shep’s outfit. “Really?”
“It’s called style, something you wouldn’t understand.” Shep stood and set aside the banjo, nodding to Margol, who still stood behind Litner like a vampiric shadow. “You can go.”
Margol stepped forward, fondling the pistol. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
“Margol, don’t be rude,” Shep said, clasping his hands at his chest. “Agent Litner has come here on good faith. Haven’t you?”
“I’m unarmed. I just want to talk,” Litner said, marveling at Shep’s large, emerald eyes and butterfly fringe of lash. He wondered if he’d have found him so unusual if they’d met before he knew he wasn’t human. Now his discerning gaze absorbed all the subtle details: the way his lean, fit body shifted as he moved across the floor, the wooden beaded bracelets, the crooked tilt of his jaw as he smiled. It’s just a man, his senses tried to tell him. His knowledge argued. Just a man who once wore wings. And wants to take over the world.
“Call if you need me. I’ll be just outside.” Margol left them alone.
As soon as Margol closed the door, Shep grabbed Litner by the lapels, shoved him against a wall and punched him hard in the cheekbone.
Pain ignited in his face, specs of light dancing before his eyes as he dropped to the floor.
His body tensed to dive for Shep, his instincts taking over, but a strong foot stomped down on his chest, pinning him to the wall with impossible force. “Uh uh, Litner. I owed you that one.”
Panting, Litner glared up at him. “Are you finished?” he growled.
Shep stepped back, removing his foot. “We’ll see. Come over to the computer. I want to see this recording you have.” Litner scowled when Shep pulled the flash drive out of his own pocket, waving it. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he patted his pockets absentmindedly. They’d taken it off him while he was doped up.
Following Shep around a corner and into a room with a desk and laptop, Litner stumbled into a chair. “Do you have any water?” he croaked, his throat and tongue like cotton.
Shep tossed the drive to Litner. “Pop that in, I’ll be right back.” Litner watched his striped legs turn the corner, then dragged the chair over to the computer desk. He loaded the flash drive and brought up the file as Shep returned, handing him a bottle of pink lemonade.
Forgetting all else for the moment, he uncapped it and drank most of it down. Shep dragged another chair over, sitting beside him. “Hell of a hangover that stuff gives you,” he said. “How was your trip?”
Litner met his smirking gaze, then turned away, finishing the juice and setting the bottle on the desk. “May I show you the recording now?”
Shep swiveled his chair and frowned at him. “Joey briefed me on everything you told him. I have one question before you start. We’re all curious. Where did they get the blood of the newly departed? Because if the FBI has taken to human sacrifice, then I’ve been out of the loop for way too long.”
Litner huffed, almost a laugh but didn’t quite make it. “A volunteer. Terminally ill woman with no family.”
Shep shook his head.
“What are you looking so appalled for?” Litner said. “They didn’t slit her throat.”
“Well, I hope not,” Shep said. “That’s my trademark.” He turned to the computer and started the recording.
An image of the cave filled the screen, brightened with powerful standing lights set up around the perimeter of the rock wall. “Pearl Chasm,” Shep said softly.
“Yes.”
“I was born there.”
“I’m aware.”
They both leaned closer to the screen as a small group shuffled around, fussing with monitoring probes attached to the huge painted circle on the stone wall. Shep sighed, tracing the lines of the Cripulet on the screen with his index finger. “My cave,” he said wistfully. “I was there not so long ago myself. Dug up the old ashes from Allisto’s wings. It was all I had left of him.”
“Hmm,” was all Litner could manage.
The camera shot pulled back, revealing more of the cave around the Cripulet. Alongside the wall, a patient lay on a hospital cot, her black hair spread out on the pillow, surrounding a sallow, bony face. She appeared unconscious. A woman in a lab coat stood alongside her. A machine beeped loudly and she looked up, then scurried around the bed, waving to someone. “Agent Michaels! She’s gone.”
Then Litner’s own image came into view, and he watched himself bound toward the bed, looking down at the patient. A large black man with a bald head stepped up alongside him. “It’s time,” Agent Michaels said. “Start it up.”
“You can’t!” the Litner on the screen shouted, his white hair glowing silver in the bright lights. “Do not do this, Michaels, I’m begging you. This is not ethical!”
Shep snickered and paused the recording. “What are you looking so appalled for?” he said with mock concern. “They didn’t slit her throat, Litner.”
“I was trying to stop it,” Litner said through gritted teeth. “By any means necessary.”
“Using ethics as an excuse,” Shep said. “But you were actually just scared.”
“With good reason. Just watch.” Litner started the recording again. “It’s coming up.”
“What’s not ethical is you withholding this information for so long, Litner!” Even filtered through the computer speakers, Agent Michaels’ angry voice made him stiffen.
There was more arguing, until two of Michaels’ soldiers gently pulled Litner back away from the bed. Then they turned on the pump, and blood from the patient’s arm snaked through a tube, filling it until it was red, then sprayed out the end where it was tacked to the wall, directly above the Cripulet. The circle on the stone was dark and rusty looking, old blood dried and charred. But now its center splashed with crimson as the tube spritzed it with fresh fuel.
“I can’t fucking believe they did this,” Shep said. “I just can’t.”
“I know.”
Letting out a shivering sigh, Shep muttered, “Least you tried to stop it. I know what it’s like when your superiors won’t listen, even though you know better.”
Agent Litner had a surreal moment, realizing Shep’s presence was vaguely soothing to him. He’d come in here ready to fight monsters, and yes, he’d gotten a punch in the face. But this shaggy blond beside him, with his pretty face and golden skin, his odd neon shirt and the way he chewed his thumbnail as he watched the screen—Litner saw a bit of the friend Patrick once had. He understood finally how Patrick could have been duped by Shep. Because he was real. Whatever he once was, whatever unearthly powers he still had, he was a person at his core, currently a very nervous looking one.
“I’ll forward it ahead a bit,” Litner said, tapping the computer keys. “There’s a long period of waiting before it happens.”
“You know it’s funny,” Shep said, tucking a leg under himself and swiveling his chair. His gaze flicked over Litner.
“What’s funny?”
“You were there. When my brother Allisto was taken from me. When he went nuts and ran into that thing.” Shep let out a breath, his eyes becoming glassy with tears. “Remember?”
Litner glanced at him. He had expected a lot of things, sacrificing himself into the belly of the beast for the cause, but he hadn’t prepared for this. He’d been ready for anger, perhaps torture. But not emotion. “I’m very sorry about what happened to your brother.”
Shep waved him off. “I’m not looking for pity. It’s just weird. You being here. You represent everything bad that’s happened to me recently. Yet...” He tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “That you were there when we lost Allisto...that you saw what happened. It’s almost comforting.”
Litner searched for sarcasm or trickery in Shep’s eyes, but saw only pain. “Do you want to see the rest?”
Shep shifted in his seat, then waved impatiently at the screen. “Let’s get this
over with. I was having a bad day anyway.”
Litner hit play, swallowing the discomfort creeping up his throat. The scene now showed two men fluttering around the Cripulet, taking readings. The circled off section on the wall was painted red in the dead patient’s blood, but it was still just a wall. Nothing had happened. The Cripulet hadn’t opened.
Tyler Palumbo, a young, well-built soldier from the group that was helping Agent Michaels, turned toward the camera, a monitoring device in his hand. The bright lights shone through his pale brown buzz cut. “This thing ain’t giving us shit, we haven’t had so much as a spike all night. The thing is dead, sir.”
“The wall started to soften for twenty-eight seconds, then hardened again,” the one called Coombs told Michaels. “It’s solid rock now, nothing more.”
Michaels turned away from the wall, heading toward the camera, his brown skin sleek with sweat. “Give it another half hour, then we—”
The force of whatever ignited the blast tossed Agent Michaels into the air, his large body flying past the camera. There was the image of stones tumbling as something burst through the Cripulet, then rock dust clouded the view, men shouting.
“What the fuck was that?” Shep leaned closer to the screen. “I can’t see shit in there. What happened?”
“Give it a minute. Just watch, then we’ll talk about it.”
Shep glanced at him, then focused his eyes back on the screen. “Can’t see shit,” he mumbled, still with his thumbnail in his mouth.
Bodies passed by the camera, commands shouted. Then someone took it off the tripod, backing up, the shaky shot showing more of the cavern. Near the exploded wall, a light glowed. But it wasn’t one of the standing lights, more amber and golden. As the haze thinned, the image became clearer, a large, muscular body surrounded by a golden hue, a hairless head. When the camera zoomed in on the being, Shep made a soft sound, a small groan, then, “Shit.”
The body the light emanated from was only a torso, one arm and a head sticking out of the circle in the wall. It looked stuck there, wedged between one world and the other.
To the right of the Cripulet, the stone shattered, and alarmed voices raised as another arm punched through, throbbing with amber light. The head tilted back, thick neck straining, and small rocks flew into the cave as the thing broke loose, stepping into the cavern on long, muscular legs. Shouts rang out as the thing’s head turned this way and that, looking around the cave, strong facial features visible as it regarded the crowd. Arms curved at its sides, the maw of its glowing mouth opened, and a growl echoed through the cave, like a tiger’s cry backed by screeching bird calls.
“Shoot it,” Michaels’ voice rang out. “Put the damn thing down!”
Gunfire made the audio go fuzzy, and haze clouded the image again as bullets disrupted the stone wall. The cameraman stumbled, and there was nothing but gray. Then the shot wobbled again and refocused from a wider angle as the camera pulled back several feet, zooming in on the raging entity. As the apparition stepped further into the cave, tossing slabs of rubble aside, its image clarified: a tall being, humanoid in shape, luminescent muscles bulging in arms and legs, facial features muted with light. The bald creature howled, making that awful sound again.
Gunfire rang out, but the being didn’t flinch, bullets passing through it. The thing took another step toward the crowd.
“Coombs, give me fire, now!”
After a moment, a solid looking Coombs approached the thing, fearlessly pointing a flame thrower at it. Litner felt a stab of pain as he regarded Coombs, standing there bravely, not a tremble in his arms as he lined himself up for the blast.
From the pulsating arm of the creature, an orange, glowing blade extended from its fist, lengthening two feet, forming a pointed end. Then it shoved that pointed light straight through Coombs’ chest like a fiery sword, the beam sticking menacingly out his back. Coombs dropped the flame thrower. The creature withdrew the beam from Coombs’ body, deadly light shrinking back down, disappearing into its fist. Coombs dropped onto the cave floor.
Litner shut off the recording. He and Shep both stared at the blank screen, silent. A soft clack sounded as Shep bit off the end of his thumbnail.
“It took off after that,” Litner said. “Just shot out of the cave like a burst of fire.”
Shep nodded, his eyes still locked on the blank screen. “Soldier dead?”
“Yes. The penetration you saw from that light beam didn’t even break the skin, but Coombs died of heart failure. It was two days later that Carlos, your former follower from Forest Bluffs, died in his bed. Also from a mysterious heart attack. As I said to Joey, there have been more deaths since. All the same. Heart attack while in their beds.”
Shep nodded again. Litner stared at him, waiting for commentary, but Shep remained silent. “You reacted when it busted through,” Litner said. “You recognized it.”
“Yeah. I did.”
Litner scowled. “This is bad. Isn’t it?”
“It’s not good,” Shep answered. He cracked his knuckles and looked to the side, shaking his head. “It is not good.”
“Can you kill it?” Litner asked.
Taking him by surprise, Shep grabbed Litner, dragging him out of the chair and knocking him onto his back. Litner held his hands up as Shep leaned over him, jaw tight, eyes blazing with unnatural light. “You spent months destroying everything I worked for, rained your judgment down upon me with fire and death. You dare come to me now and ask me to spill blood for you?”
Litner felt the breath leave him. He’d heard about Shep’s voice and eyes changing when he was enraged, but had never seen it up close, and despite his tendency toward bravery, his heart thudded with cold fear. “Shepherd, we have no time to dwell on the past. Surely you can see how urgent this is.”
“Yeah. Now that it’s convenient for you, I’m your pet monster? This isn’t my doing!”
“But it is a threat to you! To all of us! We need to work together. There’s no choice.”
A knock sounded on the door and Shep shoved Litner roughly aside. “Come in!”
Margol entered the room, glanced curiously at Litner struggling to regain his footing, then stood at attention before Shep. “I wanted to let you know another of the followers is dead. Devin Powell.”
“Fuck!” Shep shouted, then kicked a standing vase over.
“Are you sure?” Litner asked Margol.
Margol glanced at Litner but said nothing. Shep turned away, hands on his head. “Shit,” he muttered, and Litner was relieved to hear his voice back to normal volume. “Devin now?”
“Yes. We’ve been keeping tabs on the former followers since he returned with the chosen one,” Margol told Shep. “What happened to your face?” he asked Litner, smiling. “You should get some ice on that.”
Litner rubbed his cheekbone and cast a dark glare at Shep, who paced the room, hands on his hips. “Shepherd, we need to talk about this,” he said. “This proves we can’t waste time, that thing is cutting them down fast.”
Shep continued to pace, saying nothing. Margol watched him calmly.
“Shepherd,” Litner said again. “Zirub!”
Shep whirled around, green eyes narrowed. “You are not my family, you do not call me by that name. It is offensive coming from you. How dare you? Who do you think you are?”
Litner took a step toward him. “We need to focus on what’s important here.”
“I am thinking,” he growled.
“Do you know what that thing is?” Litner asked.
“Yeah,” Shep said. “It’s irony.” He walked out of the room. “Keep him here!” Shep shouted back at Margol. “And don’t let him touch anything.” He left, slamming the suite door.
Margol looked at Litner. “You should not have called him by his given name. You upset him.”
Litner rubbed the back of his head. “Yes, thank you, that much was obvious.”
“I don’t like seeing my brother upset. He’s suffered enough becaus
e of you.”
“I’ve lost people too!” Litner glared at him, then turned away and sat at the desk, the shadow of Margol standing watch. “And we’re both going to lose more if your illustrious leader doesn’t do something to help.”
“You should apologize to him.”
Litner swiveled around and winced at Margol. “What?”
“You just deeply offended a being that can melt your face with his mind. You might want to buy him a chocolate muffin or something.”
Litner turned his back to him. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll buy him a muffin. That’ll solve everything.”
Chapter Three
Robin put on her pajamas, tied her long blond hair back into a ponytail, then set herself up on the couch with a bowl of ice cream. Grabbing the remote, she turned on the big screen. Scanning through the list of streaming movies, she sighed. Another exciting Saturday night approached. Some of her work colleagues had invited her to join them at a nightclub later, but she’d made up an excuse not to go. A flicker of regret almost made her pick up the phone to call them. Her eyes lingered for a moment on her cell where it sat on the coffee table, but instead she went back to searching for a flick to watch. Comedy, romance, thrillers, nothing seemed to appeal.
I should go out, she thought. She was young, single, and had someplace to go if she wanted. She reminded herself of her recent vow to secure a new group of friends, to take a chance on people that were not from her past. It would help her move on. Forget the past year, the fears and heartaches. Forget Shep. Forget Patrick. Forget them all. Her heart stung with guilt as she thought of Patrick. Sweet, loyal Patrick.
No. Forget. She couldn’t face Patrick. She had to forget him. And forget what she’d done up in Vermont. Her finger paused on the remote, shoulders stiffening as memories tried to invade. It wasn’t my fault. I was half mad when it happened. Half mad. Her therapist suggested that relationships formed in the midst of trauma were usually doomed to failure once the event passed. And there was certainly plenty of trauma going on when she and Patrick got together. It was natural to want to be close to someone in the midst of chaos, like clinging to a life raft in a storm. Once the storm was over, you were left wondering why you were still carrying it around.
