by Gareth Otton
The woman didn’t care, but she played along. “What puzzle?”
“I’ve been looking for a way to fight off death. I mean, we Proxies are masters of death, aren’t we? Surely if anyone can do it, it’s us.”
The expression on the woman’s face changed to one of disbelief. “You want to become immortal?”
King laughed. “Who doesn’t? However, my needs are more pressing than that. The only reason I’m still walking around is the healing power of my ghosts. But even with them there’s only so much they can do. I need a better solution. As with most things, more power is the answer.”
“And you think you’ll find that here. You killed my ghosts for this?” Some of her strength returned with her incredulity. Emily wanted to warn her. He was not a man to take lightly. Try to overestimate him and you would still fall short.
“Yes. I did.” King answered as though he didn’t recognise the mocking tone behind her question. Emily was in his head, she knew different.
“You won't find that kind of power here. I don’t know what you’ve been told but—”
Her words were cut off by his cold laugh. “It’s typical. You stumble across this place and have felt its strength, yet you still don’t know what you’re in the presence of.”
“A second ago you couldn’t even feel it. That’s how meagre the strength here is—”
“Not meagre. It’s massive.” He closed his eyes and extended his senses, feeling for the presence with his Proxy talent. “It’s a long way distant but… Yes. That’s the power I need.”
He looked down again and this time it was his turn to be mocking. “How can you have felt this before and not learned what it is? It is ultimate power.”
She shook her head. “I came here to deal with a ghost. That presence was stronger then because the ghost was here, and it gave me a boost in strength. But it didn’t last. As soon as the ghost was gone, the strength left with it. It’s just a freak occurrence. Nothing special.”
King shook his head. “No, it’s not a freak occurrence. This thing you connected with but failed to understand, is the source of our power. That presence is death itself.”
The woman didn’t know how to respond. Proxies had a way of knowing things instinctively, especially when it concerned death. He was telling the truth and she could sense that.
“I’d heard rumours about this type of place from other Proxies over the years. When I knew I didn’t have power enough to save me, I figured this was the only place I might find it. This is a point in the living world where the barriers between life and death are weakest. Right here, on this spot, the two worlds make the slightest contact.
“It has taken a lot of research, but I understand what Proxies are now. We’re somehow born of both worlds. Living creatures with power over death. The thing is, our power is only a fraction of what it could be because death doesn’t have much of a presence in this world. I plan to change that.”
“You’re mad,” the woman said. She was still afraid but she couldn’t stop the words coming out.
King sighed.
“Why must people always insist on seeing me that way? Just because you don’t understand my vision… Never mind. I’m getting bored with this. It’s time to get to work. Time waits for no man, not even me.”
“So I can go?”
King was shaking his head even as he took another step forward.
“Go? Of course not. You have a vital part to play in my plans, my dear. You’re going to help me open the doorway. At the moment the hole in the wall between our worlds is little more than a pinprick. However…”
He moved. It was so much faster than any human that she didn’t have chance to flinch before he was on top of her. With his bare hand he grabbed her by the throat and from there it was a simple matter of closing his fingers.
The poor woman’s eyes widened, and she pulled at his hand. Her nails cut deep into his skin, but so strong was the healing factor from his ghosts that the wound closed almost instantly.
Emily felt his frustration. Seeing his wounds close before his eyes made him wonder why his ghosts couldn’t heal his cancer. The answer was that some things couldn’t be healed. The ghosts could accelerate his body’s healing time, but they couldn’t heal something that the body couldn’t fix on its own if given enough time. They could only forestall the inevitable.
He pushed aside his frustration and continued talking as though he hadn’t stopped.
“We are the means to open that doorway. When a person dies the barriers between life and death come down for a fraction of a second to claim that soul. A Proxy does the same thing every time they touch their power. When a Proxy dies, their power combined with the energy of a person dying creates a hole in the barrier between worlds that is not only bigger than a normal soul, but also permanent.”
He motioned around himself at the room they were standing in. “That’s the reason this place exists. A Proxy died here once upon a time and he left this path between worlds behind.”
He’d long since let the woman fall to the floor in a heap. He was not paying attention to her motionless body, but instead looking at her ghost. She stood over her corpse, stunned. Evidently being a Proxy didn’t prepare you for your own death.
“It got me thinking,” King continued. “If one Proxy’s death makes this kind of hole in the barrier, what might a second Proxy’s death do.”
Emily could already feel that presence grow stronger. It was still a long way off, but it was twice what it was before. King was grinning.
“As in most things, I was right. It worked.”
“You’re mad,” the new ghost said one last time.
“Even dead you have no vision.”
Once again he moved with impossible speed. Once again the woman was not ready for it.
“What are you doing?” she gasped as she struggled with his fingers about her throat.
“Now this I am sorry for,” he said. He didn’t sound sorry. “I don’t need to do this for my plans to work, but I also can’t risk letting you free. All I need is you warning another Proxy about me and things could get… difficult.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
She realised what he was planning and was struggling twice as hard whilst begging at the same time. Emily had seen a lot over the last twenty-two years she would never forget. The look of horror on that woman’s face was right there near the top.
The woman knew that he planned to do one of the worst things to her most people could think of. It was one thing to face your mortality with the fear that there was nothing after death, it was another thing to know it for a certainty.
She was fighting so hard because she was fighting oblivion.
“I can’t take that risk. At least you get the pleasure of going with the knowledge that your death helped to change the world.”
Emily had seen the sight before, but it had never quite bothered her as it did then. It was the foreknowledge that upset her. The fact that this woman was so aware of what was happening and was terrified of it.
The woman started to glow from within, her eyes going wide as King added enough power to her core that she started to overload and grow unstable. Once more she pleaded for mercy before her whole body stiffened and her mouth opened wide. Light was pouring from her mouth, her eyes, her ears, and soon from every pore.
Finally, the light exploded outward, and she was gone.
Emily knew it was a phantom feeling. She couldn’t actually feel sick to her stomach. Yet she did feel sick. She felt sick and desperate. And she wasn’t alone.
She shared her disgusting home with more than a hundred other souls who felt just as she did. Just like her, they were compelled to be his ghosts by threats against the people they loved most.
The only one who didn’t feel sick was King himself. He had already moved on from the ghastly deed. It had been a theory that he could lower the barriers between worlds and it turned out he was right. Now his mind was racing as he planned what he
would do next.
The barrier had opened wider, but not so wide that he could kill only a few Proxies and be done with it. He needed a lot of Proxies, more than he knew of. He needed help.
He was still thinking of it as he walked out of the office. He ignored the broken door and didn’t look back. It didn’t matter to him that the police would find the body. They would never get to him. Even if they did, Emily knew he was beyond them. Whether he did it through his many channels of influence or with his own supernatural powers, he would not spend a single day in prison for his crimes.
He walked away from that building with not a care in the world save one.
He needed Proxies. One way or another, he would get them.
29
Saturday, 29th November 2015
20:00
The pub they settled in grew busier as eight o’clock rolled around. Their privacy was disappearing.
They had walked back into town, finding an unobserved corner in a relatively quiet pub. Tad made sure the ghosts were visible so Stella could hear Emily’s tale, but there was a worry that someone might look at their table on CCTV and be confused that there were three less people than could be seen with their own eyes.
Tad’s worry was soon forgotten.
He was fascinated by Emily’s story and it only added to what he already knew of Joshua King from Dinah’s memories. If there was ever any doubt in his mind that he needed to fear Joshua King, it was long gone.
“One thing I don’t get,” he said when Emily finished. “Is what you’re doing here now.”
“I’m here for Gideon. Every now and again I slip away from Joshua to check on my family. I need to make sure he’s holding up his end of the bargain.”
“I’m surprised he lets you leave,” Stella noted.
Emily shook her head and not for the first time looked jumpy.
“He doesn’t. But he has so many ghosts he can’t keep track of them all the time. Now and then we slip out and hope to be back before he thinks to check on us.”
Once again Tad understood what she was saying but couldn’t picture it in his head. The idea of not knowing if one of his own ghosts was not with him was preposterous. He was so close to all of them that they were always missed if they weren’t around. But then he had nowhere near the number that Joshua King had. The thought made him shiver. It used to be hard enough keeping three ghosts in check when they were in his head.
“The last time I went back was the first time he caught me,” she continued. “He forgave me, told me I was family, so he didn’t mind. He just asked me to tell him before leaving next time.”
She laughed bitterly. “I should have known better. He’s not a reasonable man, and he’s not forgiving. There was never any chance he would let the matter drop. For the first time in years, he explored my memories.”
“And found out about Gideon,” Miriam guessed. “He found out how intelligent your great-grandson was and wanted that mind for himself.”
Emily nodded, and a tear rolled down her face. Even after thirty-three years she was not free of the human trapping of making tears when she was upset.
“It was the last straw,” she said. “I’ve spent so long watching all the terrible things he’s done because at least my family was safe. I can’t say that any longer. He’s crossed a line he said he would never cross, so I had to do something.”
“Better late than never,” Tony remarked bitterly. The comment was so uncharacteristically harsh that it drew all eyes at the table to him. “What?”
“It’s not her fault, Tony,” Miriam said. “She’s been stuck—”
Tony’s snort of disgust overrode her objections. “Really? I can understand wanting to protect a loved one, but I don’t know how many people I could watch die before I found another way. I don’t think it would have taken me thirty-three years.”
He had a point. No matter the reasons, Emily had stood by and let hundreds of people die to keep her family safe. Just as he had after seeing Dinah’s memories, Tad felt there must have been another route she could have taken. Of course, it was easy to say when he was looking at her situation from the outside.
“You don’t know King. He’s an absolute. There’s either his way or oblivion for you and your family. Trust me, you don’t get to walk away from him.”
Tony didn’t look convinced and seemed like he was about to say as much. Tad recognised this could get out of hand and there was still a lot he needed to know, so he spoke first.
“This mission he set for himself, to open a gateway to death, is it working?”
Like the woman in Emily’s story, Tad knew what she said was the truth. As soon as she said he got his powers from that far off place, he knew it was right. He was born of both worlds and the knowledge of that second world was instinctual.
“What do you think? Surely your power has grown over the last few years. All of you.” She looked at each of the ghosts so that only Stella felt left out. A lot of this conversation had probably gone over her head. Tad was impressed she hadn’t interrupted to ask questions.
“We have been getting stronger,” Tad admitted.
“And you’ve been saying for ages that you thought it was a sign that something is wrong with the world,” Tony noted.
“Is it wrong though?” Miriam’s question took him by surprise and he didn’t know how to answer. “What I mean is, what’s so bad about getting stronger? If we keep getting stronger, just think of where that could leave us. We might not need a Proxy to stay sane. We might be able to let normal people see us… touch us—”
“Are you willing to sacrifice the lives of other people just so you can be with Kate again?” Tad asked. He tried to keep the accusation from his voice but she flinched anyway. There was moisture in her eyes and his heart broke yet again for her. It would have been kinder had she and Kate never seen each other after her death.
“No. I suppose not. It’s just… never mind.” She turned to Emily and asked, “How many more Proxies does he need?”
“Not many. Each death doubles the size of the gateway. If he’s close enough to send his hunter after my grandson, then I guess he thinks it will only take one more life.”
Tad shuddered. If he was that close to the end then he would be desperate to finish. He had been working on that barrier for over ten years. He wouldn’t let a little thing like Dinah being arrested stand between himself and victory.
Tad was suddenly eager to get home. He had been gone too long already.
“How do I stop him?” Tad asked, and the question drew the attention of everyone at the table.
“Tad. You aren’t doing anything,” Stella insisted. “This is a police matter. He’s been killing people. If anyone is going to stop him, it will be us.”
Emily was shaking her head yet again. “It’s not that simple. He’s beyond either of you. You go against him and he’ll destroy you. If you bring this to your bosses, Stella, then you’ll see just how far his reach goes.”
“I know people who can be trusted,” she insisted.
“Even then, how do you expect to get him? He is a single death away from having the kind of power you can’t comprehend. If you somehow make it past that bunker he calls a tower—”
“King Tower?” Tad asked. “I always knew I hated that place. I always got a weird feeling when I passed it.”
“You were right to. That place is a house of death. It's heavily fortified and guarded on the outside. On the inside it’s pretty much a gateway to death. What you need to do is run and take my grandson with you.”
Tad shook his head. “I can’t do that. If he’s going to be as powerful as you say, then he’ll find us anyway. We need to face this before he gets all his power.”
Emily looked at him in disgust, then stood up. “Then this was pointless. I came to you looking for help for my grandson. Instead you'll get yourself and your daughter killed. What part of him being beyond you don’t you understand?”
“I understand it,” Tad sa
id. “But it doesn’t matter. He’s going to come after us anyway and I don’t know enough about running to manage it. All he’d have to do is find someone like Dinah again and they’d find me for him. No, I need to end this before it’s too late.”
“We need to end it,” Stella insisted. “This man has killed hundreds of people. With Emily’s testimony and maybe some proof we’ll be able to—”
“I want nothing to do with this,” Emily said, making a gesture to show she was wiping her hands of them. “It was stupid to come here. I need to—”
“What other choice do you have?” Tony snapped. “Go back to him, watch him kill another hundred people. At what point is enough, enough?” He pointed to Tad. “We have a proxy. You can join with him, share your knowledge with him, and we can try to stop this before it’s too late.”
Emily was not the only one at the table surprised by his words. This was a much more focused and grown up Tony than Tad had seen before.
“Whatever happens, you can’t let him get away with this anymore. He needs to be stopped. The real question is, are you willing to do the right thing for a change?”
Emily still wasn’t convinced.
“Maybe you need to look at it this way,” Stella tried. “You know that no matter what happens, King will come after your grandson. Would you rather him run and be caught later anyway, or would you rather we stop this now before it’s too late?”
Emily sank back into her chair but she looked no less desperate.
“He’s too much for you.”
Tad was about to tell her she shouldn’t be so sure when he was interrupted by his phone ringing. He apologised and pulled it out of his pocket. It was Kate.
“Hey Kate. Look, can I call—”
“Tad. Listen to me. This is important.” She instantly had his attention. He’d heard that tone in Kate’s voice only rarely and it was never followed by anything good.
“What is it?”
“There’s been a major fuck up. We’ve had to turn Mark’s friends loose, there wasn’t enough to hold them. The trouble is, there’s been a proper balls up with the paperwork and they weren’t the only ones released.” Ted felt as though his heart stopped beating as he waited the rest. “Tad, they’ve also released Mark and the woman you brought in yesterday.”
