The Gamer’s wheezing laughter cut short and he turned to look at him, “W-what?”
Feeling that their business was over, Xander grabbed the original set and closed the case, thumbing the latches shut. Certain they were secure before tucking this under his arm, he grabbed the extra, magical ammunition and turned to head for the stairs.
Stan frowned, “Xander, I don’t think he meant to—”
The Gamer snorted, “Not even a ‘thank-you’?”
Xander stopped halfway up the stairs and shot the fat man a glare, “A ‘thank you’?” he turned and took a step down. “Alright. Thanks for fixing what wasn’t broken in the first place and putting your own personal greasy spin on an already perfect pair,” he held up the original case. The heat of his anger was already wrapping around his spine as his fangs extended from his gums and he had to fight the urge to use them then and there.
Where was this outburst coming from?
Was he really that enraged by the new guns?
When he felt that he had his rage and impulses under control, he sneered and began up the stairs again, “Keep your knockoffs!” he spat behind him, “The originals and I have business to take care of!” As he stomped the rest of the way up the stairs, he could hear Stan and The Gamer exchange their farewells before the echo of feet started up behind him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Hard goodbyes
It was the night before he was supposed to go on his self-assigned mission and Xander was practicing his aim.
He knew he didn’t need to; since his father’s abilities had awakened within him he had been able to, as Stan put it, “Take a fly off a fencepost from a hundred yards away.” And it wasn’t a lie, his skills had grown in an exponential way since the awakening ceremony, and he found himself capable of things he never before thought possible.
Stan had gone off somewhere for a few hours, leaving Tiger-Trepis to lie down on the back porch as Xander shot again and again at a series of targets set up at the end of the backyard. He had gotten off about three shots before Stan stopped him and enshrouded the backyard in a silencing spell, asking that he not bring the cops around such a nice neighborhood. Putting a few more rounds into the center of the targets he’d set up against the trees that lined the backyard, he finally put the revolvers down and sat with a sigh next to the tiger and rubbed its head.
“You think I got what it takes, buddy?”
The animal looked up at him and bobbed his head. Xander wasn’t sure if it was the motion of an overly exhausted big cat or of an overly intelligent one.
He hoped for the latter.
“Yea, that’s what they’re all telling me.”
He sighed again, seeing no reason to rest when the moment of truth was so close to becoming the present. The tiger watched without much enthusiasm as he pushed himself off the porch with his aura, reclining in midair for a moment as Sophie had so many times before her death. Still hovering in midair, he pushed off, performing a flip before catching himself again and lowering his feet to the grass.
“A thing of beauty!”
Xander jumped; startled. He’d never heard Stan come back.
He turned and nodded to his friend, “I learned from the best.”
Stan shook his head, showing a wide smile as he looked up at the clear night sky. “It was like watching your father practice,” he said as he waved his hand, removing the spell, and turned back; his smile beginning to fade, “I have to tell you something.”
Xander bit his lip and sat back down on the porch, “What is it?”
Stan moved to sit on a deck chair and sighed as he lowered himself into it, “I won’t be here when you get back.”
Xander frowned, “What? But why?”
Stan looked down and several seconds passed in silence, “The Devil’s paid his dues, I suppose.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Xander asked.
“It means there’s little more I can do for you here and now. You’ve become what you were meant to be and I need to gracefully exit the picture.”
Xander glared, “And where will you go?”
“Not sure,” Stan said with a shrug. If he’d picked up on Xander’s rage, he wasn’t acknowledging it.
“You’re not sure? Then why are you leaving?” Xander yelled, rocketing to his feet.
Stan shrugged again, his calmness remaining, “That, Xander, will come up when we meet again.”
“And how do you know we’ll meet again?” he growled, starting to storm back-and-forth on the porch, “Since when are you so damn sure of the future?”
Stan continued to ignore the hostility and smiled. “It’s just the way it is. Besides, you have things to do. When you get back you need to pay Estella a visit. You did promise, after all,” he chided.
Xander turned his back to his old friend, “You’ve been in my head again?”
Stan chuckled and nodded, “It is such a fascinating place to visit.”
Xander scoffed, feeling it was his last defense against the river of tears that threatened to break through.
“It’s time for you to go now,” Stan said, patting him on the shoulder.
Shaking his head, Xander turned back to face his friend, “C’mon, Stan! Give me another day. We can practice—y’know, spar some more! I’m not golden yet.”
Stan lifted himself from the chair, locking his eyes on Xander’s, and suddenly the young vampire was looking at his father once again.
“Son,” the specter whispered, “you’re beyond golden. And, moreover, you’re a Stryker! Now stop stalling and go get that son of a bitch!”
The image wavered and faded then and Stan was standing before him again.
Xander’s jaw trembled and he turned away to hide it and nodded. He knew Stan had nothing to do with the vision—his own mind was pushing him forward. He sighed to himself, “Go get me a ride, Stan. I need to prepare.”
There was no answer, and when he turned around he realized that his friend was already gone.
****
While Stan was out, Xander went into the guest room that had been Marcus’. He was eager to get the red leather jacket on. Though he wasn’t sure why Marcus hadn’t come back for his things yet; what he did know was that the coat was too damn sweet to let rot in Stan’s closet.
He pulled the jacket on over his black turtleneck, once again marveling at the fit and admiring his reflection in the full-length mirror beside the closet. A grin tugged at the corner of his lip as he remembered Marcus’ “Crimson Shadow” taunts. With this in mind, he ran his palms against the leather of his new jacket and went to work making sure Yin and Yang were loaded.
****
Stan showed up around midnight with the car that would take Xander to Maine: a blood-red Firebird with a pair of black racing stripes!
Though Xander wasn’t sure of the year, he was quite aware that it was expensive and shuddered at the thought of how it had been obtained.
Stan smiled at him from behind the wheel as he watched his awe-filled approach, “I figured the Crimson Shadow needed a sweet ride to begin his legacy in!”
Xander shook his head, faking a scowl, “I’m really beginning to hate that nickname!”
Stan shrugged as he climbed out of the still-running car and laughed, “That just means it will stick with you even longer!”
Xander rolled his eyes, “Great…”
Stan smiled and nodded, “Oh, and I put a tarp in the trunk for you to keep from tanning when you stop it to rest.”
Xander nodded his thanks and the two embraced. Despite still feeling bitter, he wished his friend well with his new life of travel—wherever it might take him. Stan thanked him, smiling before his gaze moved downward and Xander frowned as he watched this, hoping he was just choked up about their parting…
But he knew better.
“There’s something you should know,” Stan confessed.
Xander sighed, wishing he’d been wrong, but gave a nod for Stan to continue.
“
Kyle knows that you’re coming.”
Xander scowled and tensed but gave a slow nod, “I figured the motherfucker would pick up on my intentions.”
Stan forced a smiled, but the gesture soon melted away into a calculated stare, “Listen, aurics often rely on distance to fight, and I doubt this Kyle is going to be any different. He’s going to throw anything he can at you to keep you from getting too close.”
“Like what?” Xander asked, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.
Stan leaned against the car and looked up at the sky, “More than likely, he’ll use humans.”
Xander stood for a moment, considering his words. As the reality of what it meant settled in, he pinched the bridge of his nose, “Fuck!”
Stan nodded, dragging his gaze from the stars and locking them on him, “What are you prepared to do?”
Xander thought about the question, tapping his thigh with the case containing his guns. For a long moment he was afraid to say his answer out loud, scared of what it meant, but, finally, he cleared his throat and responded: “Anything.” He nodded, fighting through the wave of guilt, “I’ll do anything to get to him!”
Stan smiled, satisfied with the answer.
Xander’s guts tied into a knot and he shook the bangs from his vision, “But…”
“But you don’t want to kill all those innocent people,” Stan finished for him.
Xander nodded.
Stan smirked, “How ironic that you’d find your humanity after losing it.”
“It’s not on purpose, I can tell you that much,” Xander laughed.
“No,” Stan said, grinning back, “I suppose it wouldn’t be.”
A long silence followed and the two looked back up at the sky, each pondering what was to come.
“I can only hope that your sympathies don’t get you killed,” Stan finally said.
Xander bit his lip and nodded, not looking back down from the sky, “Me too.”
“In this situation, however, you may be in luck.” Xander looked up as Stan’s eyes lit up with realization, “An auric very often will need to empty out a mind in order to control it completely. If this is what Kyle has planned than those people are going to die anyway!”
“So they’re dead one way or the other?” Xander sneered at the idea of someone being controlled by Kyle, “I’d be putting them out of their misery!”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Stan said with a nod.
Xander shook his head, “It’s the only way of looking at it in this case!”
****
With directions programmed into the GPS Stan had included with the car and everything he’d need packed up Xander hopped into the Firebird and gunned the engine, throwing it into gear and driving off.
A Doors album—left in the player—was blaring “Riders on the Storm” from the stereo as the knowledge that he was about to fulfill his life’s mission drove him towards Maine and the completion of his life’s mission.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
A Nightmare’s Nightmare
He was a master of torment and a self-proclaimed artist of misery. He had shaped and been the source of so many horrid nightmares that just thinking of all the dreamers and their screams made his mind ache with gluttonous pride.
But that night, his were the most horrible nightmares in the house:
No matter what he threw at it, it kept coming at him.
He tried several times to manifest weapons, knowing full well that in his dreams such things were possible, but they turned to scorpions and snakes in his hands.
He yelled out, but there were no ears to hear him; there was only the one gleaming red eye and a mouth that gaped like an ivory gate, swinging open to reveal hungry, gleaming fangs.
Laughter!
Insane, tormenting laughter all around him!
And he was too weak to fight it. There was nobody to feed from! No torment to make him strong enough to face the approaching threat! For the first time, he tasted his own fear.
Then, suddenly: a mind!
An aura!
A precious source to drain!
He dove into it, looking for sustenance to give him strength, but all he got was fire.
The burning scorched his brain, shooting down his spine and seizing his entire body. It boiled his skin and melted his insides and he felt himself fall into an empty, dark place with nothing but himself and his newfound torment…
And the gleaming red eye.
He woke up with a gasp and scanned the room with both his eyes and his aura for any possible threat that might have gotten in. When nothing presented itself, he relaxed, looking down at his wife—his prey—and giving her rear a hard pinch.
He smiled at the pained whimper that escaped her lips as her dormant aura shifted and he greedily took in her pain. The meal was tarnished by the memories of the nightmare, however. He knew what was on its way to get him. Knew from the moment it had awakened.
He refused to let himself worry, however. He had seen the effect of his powers on the minds of those he had tormented in the past, and he was sure that this would give him the edge he needed.
He remembered the approaching threat as the boy that the other vampires had wanted dead.
Later on, after the horrendous failure and the resulting execution of his crew as a penalty, he’d found out that the boy was the son of an auric prodigy!
In retrospect, the boy’s ties to their kind made sense, explaining how the twerp had been able to conceal himself that night.
He shook his head and peeked out the window at the calm winter scenery and imagined what it would be like when he finally arrived. He reached out to try and pinpoint it, but as soon as he felt a pattern and tried to lock on it snapped at him and chased him away.
“Bastard!”
The kid had skill.
A frown plagued his face for the first time in a long while and he turned away from the window and walked down the hall, reaching ahead with his aura and unlocking the latch to the therion’s door so that it was accessible by the time he reached it. His stepson snored, a leg hanging from the bed and an arm bent at an awkward angle over his face.
He’d lied when he’d told him that he’d let his mother live. After all, it was his right to do what he wanted with his wife! As for the boy…
Well, he made a decent puppet.
WAKE UP! Kyle roared in his head.
Tyler shot up with a growl; his lips pulled back and his human teeth exposed. When he saw his stepfather standing over him, however, he stopped in mid-growl and drew back.
“W-what is it?” he asked, his voice a blended tone of hatred and fear.
“It’s coming!” Kyle answered as he shut the door behind him, “It’ll be arriving soon, and when it does it intends to destroy me.” He watched as the boy grinned at the thought and glared down at him, “And if it succeeds I will bring you and Kelly down with me!” he grinned as he reached out and consumed a wave of resulting grief.
He probed for a moment, letting out a small chuckle as he tweaked his stepson’s thoughts just enough to serve his purpose and a satisfied smile swept over his face as he finished his work and the young therion’s eyes shone with the hungry gleam of a ravenous animal. Stepping back, he watched as the boy’s body shook with the beginning of the transformation.
He was pleased to have such a weak-minded stepson.
He would be the first line of defense.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“No more pain”
Xander’s rage was boundless, and his aura was active. Though he’d only meant to target one particular mind as it dreamed, some of that rage was picked up by others elsewhere. While he was camped out about an hour-or-so away from his target, the dream that would signal the beginning of the end of Elizabeth Aphrodite was making for a restless night on the other side of the country. Though he’d had it in him to make it the whole way, he knew that what he needed—like it or not—was rest. In the course of the night he’d already tra
veled several hundred miles, the speedometer stopping at one-twenty after he’d grown tired of the engine’s limits and taken the car off the road.
Literally!
It might’ve have been a strange sight to see a car flying an inch off the ground doing more than three-hundred miles-per-hour, but after Xander swept the surrounding drivers’ minds they had no recollection of ever having seen a Firebird that night.
Every time a cop had decided to flash their lights at him, Xander just reached behind him with his aura and tweaked their minds until they were convinced that they were chasing nothing but a phantom. Then he would chuckle as the flashing lights shut off and their car slowed and took its place again at the side of the road.
The GPS predicted that the trip would take him almost an entire day’s worth of driving to get to Maine, but he had turned a twenty-two hour trip into an eight hour one.
About an hour before sunrise he lowered the Firebird onto the side of the road, being sure to park deep onto the shoulder and in the back-roads to avoid some nosy passer-by from poking around during the day and turning him into a skin cancer victim. He hunted for the rest of the night, feeding from whatever he caught and using his aura to consume from whatever he didn’t. Though the panic and fear “tasted” horrible, it was energy and it was what he needed.
As the sun began to peak over the trees and shine off the layer of snow, he pulled the tarp from the trunk and draped it over the car before sitting behind the wheel, reclining the seat, and forcing himself to sleep.
****
Xander was awake and on the road again before the sun had even set; leaving as soon as he felt that it was safe to do so. Though the sunlight was still a risk, he was willing to deal with the anger and irritability that came with less-than an hour’s exposure.
If nothing else it would certainly drive him that much faster.
Flooring the accelerator, he ignored the strained whine from the car’s engine and let loose the full potential that lay under the hood. When the sun was finally down and no longer a drain on his energy, he once again wrapped the car in his aura and lifted it off the ground to hasten the trip.
Noir: A Crimson Shadow Novel Page 29
