Killer Geezer

by T. Jackson King

  My mind surrounded Ríos as he sat and schemed in the back seat of the cruiser. His two deputies sat up front, not talking as they had learned their sheriff did not welcome small talk. Or the appearance of competence from other people. Competence threatened him. And at the age of 62 he worried about appearing to be a geezer unable to run his office. Or maintain an erection for any woman he desired. Well, there was a remedy for those worries.

  I shifted my mind view to a med text image of his body. The beating of his heart was clearly visible as he sat in the back. It was like a triple image. His black aura on the outside. His suit and clothing in the middle. And his physical body at the inner core, with its dark red life glow angrily dominant. Opening the fingers of my right hand, I imaged it closing over his heart. I shut my fingers slowly. The man’s heart thumped under my grip, then beat faster, than failed to expand and pump blood as I made the triangular organ collapse in on itself. Alarm raced through his mind.

  “What’s happening? My chest feels like a ton of concrete is on top of me. Wha, what? Why is my vision narrowing?”

  I finished closing my right fist. The man’s heart did not beat. Blood began draining from his brain as pressure was lost. Feeling a person die is never a good experience, especially when you are inside their mind. But I had done it all too often in the last six days. Tomorrow would be the first full week since Tuesday morning’s psychic power dump. Briefly I wished it had never happened. Then I focused on making the heart attack of an evil man become complete.

  Awareness of me fluttered in his mind. Somehow. “Jack Hansen!” he yelled aloud. “I’ll get—”

  My mind froze his vocal cords. But the deputies had heard his exclamation. The deputy in the right front seat now turned, saw the purple of the sheriff’s face as red blood turned anoxic, and yelled.

  “Jesus! The sheriff is having a heart attack! Get us to St. Vincent!”

  The other deputy stepped on the gas as they turned down Cathedral Place. “Help him!”

  The front deputy unlatched his seat belt and began climbing over the back of the front seat, aiming to do CPR on his boss. My mind made the cruiser jerk to one side, causing the deputy to fall back against the door on his side.

  Rios’ mind closed down. Awareness disappeared. His body began cooling as warm blood no longer circulated. I still clenched my right fist, wanting to make sure there would be no revival for this man.

  The black aura about the man began to fade. The red life core at the center had vanished. But the blackness still writhed about his dead body. Why?

  “Do-gooder!” came a mind voice from within the black tornado. “I will simply move to the mind of another. Our blackness will spread over your world!”

  I blinked. My body shook as shock hit me. The black tornado enveloping Rios was alive! It had awareness. And that awareness was utterly evil.

  “What are you?”

  A low, guttural chuckle came to my mind. “Your worst nightmare.”

  Then the tornado bunched up and moved away from the body of Ríos, aiming to occupy one of the deputies.

  No!

  I created an outer barrier field around the black tornado, then pulled it toward me.

  “You can’t!” it screamed, almost like a living person.

  I ignored its protests and pulled it closer.

  Somehow its loss of a human body had not led to its death. While clearly needing a body to possess, this black essence could exist on its own. For how long I had no idea.

  The black tornado came flying through the air toward me, its essence now visible as a black cloud the size of a person. My outer barrier field pulled it closer. Closer still. Until it enveloped me, held by my mind between my inner barrier field and the outer field I had created. What to do with it?

  My recollection of a space science lecture at Los Alamos, long years ago, gave me an idea. I sent my mind over the courtyard, wondering who was looking at me.

  No one. Yet. But a chihuahua dog was staring at me. In seconds it would start to yap. Thus drawing attention to me as it ran towards me. Only one answer.

  Thinking myself light as a feather, I rose up into the early evening sky of Santa Fe. While still light, the evening darkness was approaching. My mind put to sleep the security cameras at the entry to the cathedral basilica, on the plaza and on businesses around the plaza that had cameras looking in my direction. Hoping I had caught them all, and telling myself anyone looking up would see a small black cloud, not a human body, I added speed to my ascent. Like I had done with the gangbanger car, I pushed my body, and the barrier held blackness, up. Upward. Past the few white clouds present and into the upper air. Expanding my inner barrier field a bit, I allowed in more air. The black tornado writhed about me.

  “Let me loose! Let me loose!” it yelled into my mind.

  “What are you? Who are you?”

  A snarl like that of a tiger crossed with bear came to my mind. “I am Tosteen, Prince of Blackness! I am royalty. Release me!”

  The black creature’s mind command echoed off my inner barrier field as I rose upward faster than a jet. It failed to reach my inner mind, the core that glowed with the pure whiteness of psychic power. I realized then that the gift of psychic powers had a supernatural element to it. This blackness was not normal. Nor human. Just evil. And clearly supernatural.

  “Well, Prince Tosteen, let’s see how you like outer space!”

  My mind sent me and the blackness up past the topmost levels of the Earth’s air. I was now a hundred miles up. And moving very fast. My memory of that long-ago science lecture told me the lower Van Allen radiation belt began at 1,000 kilometers, or 600 miles above the Earth. The rad belt was a dangerous place of energetic protons with energies of up to 400 million electron volts, or 400 MeV. Cosmic rays often passed through both the outer and inner Van Allen belts, on their way to impact on Earth’s atmosphere. The Solar Wind was the source of all these energetic particles as it impacted on Earth’s magnetic field, creating a windsock effect that forced the wind around Earth and out as far as the Moon. While the wind filled all of the solar system in all directions, like helium filling up a balloon, its presence near Earth was concentrated by our world’s super strong magnetic fields. A fact I gave thanks I had remembered.

  “Human toad! Nothing can harm our Blackness! Nothing! No weapon, no fire, no curse, nothing can harm me!”

  “Oh, really? Well, we’ll see about that.”

  I smiled to myself as my mind’s persona field expanded. I sensed the base of the lower Van Allen belt. Just above me. My breathing was not yet labored from too much carbon dioxide thanks to my quick breathing, due to the energy needed to levitate me above the Earth. How fast I moved I did not know. I doubted I moved as fast as seven miles a second, the speed needed to escape the gravity of Earth. But I surely was moving very fast. Looking down I saw the glimmering yellow and white necklaces of city lights appear on the East Coast as full night swept over it. Then I saw similar lights for Dublin, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Lisbon and other cities of the Atlantic side of Europe. The lights against the vastness of Earth were beautiful.

  As the Van Allen belt enveloped me, I slowed my ascent. Clearly I was more than 600 miles above the Earth. And the power of the special rads around me surely had hit its upper level of 750 MeV. And all about me the Blackness of Prince Tosteen seethed, wanting freedom. Well, that could now happen. I released my outer barrier field.

  “Hey, prince! How do you like the rads out here?”

  The black cloud of Prince Tosteen floated away from me. My mind moved my body and my inner barrier field away from the cloud of evil. Due to null gravity, its form became a ball of seething cloud-like Blackness.

  “Aiyee! It hurts. It hurts! What is hurting me?!”

  I smiled, giving thanks to that old lecture. “Antiprotons are hurting you. Antimatter makes anything it touches disappear in a flare of elemental energies.”

  Already the outer edge of Tosteen’s black ball were sparkl
ing with yellow-white sparks. Its substance began to shrink.

  “Nooooo!”

  Tosteen became half its size. “Yes, Prince of Blackness. Very much yes.”

  The taste and tone of its mind, held within its Blackness, now began to fragment. To move beyond confusion and rage to amazement. Then fury.

  “I have sent mind word to the others! They will hunt you down!”

  So there were more mobile black tornadoes than just this Tosteen? Well, where there is one of any type of life, there are always more. This would require consultation with Ansgar. Or did he already know about these disembodied Blackness creatures?

  “Goodbye, evil one.”

  The cloud of Blackness finally vanished as its substance yielded to the antimatter assault. Gone it was.

  I felt the impact now of energetic protons. And cosmic rays. And intense ultraviolet rays of UVA and UVB type hit me. My barrier field allowed them in since I wished to be able to see my surroundings. And that required allowing in sunlight. And its components, which included the solar wind. I noticed my bare hands were becoming suntanned. Rather brown. Surely my face also.

  Acute hunger hit me.

  It felt like I had been hit by a freight train. Or 18-wheeler.

  The void in my gut screamed out for nourishment.

  Clearly levitating myself up past Earth’s air and out to the lower Van Allen Belt had greatly depleted the energy reserves I used to do psychic stuff. And my breathing was getting shallower. Thanks to accumulated CO₂.

  I imaged my living room. I imaged the spot next to Pancho’s terrarium. There was a big rug there. Lying on it would be relaxing.

  With a surge of mind force I teleported there.

  Landing was hard. Hard enough to jostle me to brief awareness.

  “Ansgar!”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Drink!” came a mind voice.

  The tangy taste of orange juice touched my tongue. I swallowed. Liquid flowed down my throat. Pressure against my lips caused me to swallow again. And again. In whatever time it took, I managed to swallow a lot of orange juice. The void in my gut felt less empty. Energy began to return to my body. And my mind.

  “Ansgar?”

  “Yes,” came his warm, supportive and deeply worried mind voice. “Jack, open your eyes. I’ve got a sandwich for you to eat. Your body needs food!”

  I blinked. Then opened my eyes. I was half-lying on the rug beside Pancho’s terrarium shelf. My upper body rested against the warm, incredibly energetic and powerful chest of the man who had answered my mind call. His inner core glowed with whiteness, a glow as brilliant as the Sun. Looking to one side I noticed he held a ham and cheese sandwich. Clearly he’d raided my fridge. I weakly grabbed the sandwich, brought it to my mouth and took a bite. Around the tasty food I mumbled.

  “Ansgar, how did you get inside my barrier field? Into my place?”

  He grunted. “Your unconscious mind recognized me when I teleported to just outside your place. Unlocking your gate and door locks took but a thought.”

  Oh. Well, that was good. I swallowed the food chunk, drank from the glass he held to my lips, and slowly felt a little better. Not a lot, but a little. I noticed the sunburned brownness of my right hand was getting a little lighter in tone. Inside, I felt my Healing energies spread throughout my body, touching damaged cells here and there, Healing them, and bringing me strength. I took two more bites of the sandwich, chewed hurriedly, swallowed and felt my mind clearing enough to match my vision. It was dark night outside, based on what I could see through the window behind my couch. Slowly I became aware of other people auras beyond my place. The woman across the street. The elderly couple three houses down on my side of Calle Corvo. The young couple with their baby who lived next door to the Webster’s house. No darkness showed in their auras. Thank the Goddess!

  “Jack, what happened to you? I’ve never seen another Transcendent so depleted of life energy.”

  His voice was warm and supportive. But my gut hungered for food. Taking another bite I mind spoke to him.

  “Scan my recent surface memory. Go as deep as you need. What I just did will be evident.” I swallowed, took the juice glass with my left hand, sat up and swallowed the last of the juice. “I took care of one Tosteen, Prince of the Realm of Blackness.”

  He gasped. Then entered my mind quickly and fully. He saw my arrival at the mayor’s gala, my perception of Sheriff Adan Ríos, the man’s thoughts about getting a donation from me or putting me in jail, the man’s corrupt financial plans, his more corrupt behavior toward his accountant, his thoughts of rape during the drive away from the hotel, and finally the mind thoughts of the black tornado who called itself Prince Tosteen.

  “Amazing,” he murmured in my mind. “None of us have ever been so far above the Earth.”

  Clarity now filled my mind. My Healing energy level was back to normal. My gut felt better. My skin felt electric as the last of the intense solar radiation burns vanished. And the surface of my Tom Ford Oil-Pattern Silk Dinner Jacket shimmered under the light of the lamp next to the couch. My crocodile necktie was rumpled a bit. Slowly I stood up and walked over to the couch. I gestured him to my recliner.

  “Ansgar, have you ever encountered a being like this Tosteen?”

  He winced. Then sat in my recliner after giving a wave to Pancho, who was quite focused on my visitor. My mentor was dressed in his silky black evening gown with a red ribbon about his waist, his feet encased in brocaded slippers, his curly black hair, beard and mustache looking as high-class as ever. Obviously he was dressed for Melody. Or another female friend. His hazel eyes fixed on me. His aura’s whiteness stayed white, with no sign of lying. Or intended lying.

  “Yes, Jack, I have. Exactly 120 years, 43 days, six hours and seven minutes before our present time I met another Prince of Blackness.” The man’s mind still overlay my own mind. I cared not. Let him see how I knew about the Van Allen belt and its dangerous rads. “The being Wakeen occupied one of the Robber Barons who so commanded the late 1800s in this nation. Because I had claimed New York City as the center of my domain, the other Transcendents left his disposal to me. Like you I killed his host, then captured him using an outer barrier field. Levitating eastward, I took him to high above the Atlantic Ocean and released him. He cursed at me but fled away. I assume he eventually found other humans and possessed one of them. But he was gone from New York.”

  That was a lot. “Why didn’t you tell me these creatures existed?”

  He sighed, then folded his black-haired, strong hands on his lap. “I did not mention the Blackness creatures because they are very rare. It was probable you would not encounter one in your Southwest.”

  I frowned. “So. You did not warn me about Armand de Bathélemy of Paris. And his nasty way of inflicting mind pain. Nor did you tell me there are truly supernatural beings of Blackness. Why not, Ansgar?”

  His eyes scanned over me even as his mind pulled away from the surface of my mind. “Jack, from my encounter with you at the Railyard I knew you would be able to defeat Armand. On the supernatural side, I did not mention it because I wanted you to be open minded about the issue of how much our powers are due to science and how much to supernatural forces.”

  Which reminded me of my time with Claudia. My persona mind went to my bedroom, found the three CDs in my white linen jacket, mind lifted them out and brought them floating to me. I grasped them as Ansgar looked on, unsurprised. Well, if I could lift a cash register at Stella’s place or lift myself up above Earth’s atmosphere, mind lifting the miniscule weight of three CDs was clearly not a big deal. Anyway, the man was more focused on me. On my inner emotions. That much I could tell from what radiated from his surface mind.

  I handed a disk to him. “This is a copy of the mind and body scans done to me by Professor Claudia F. Robinson of the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque. Her DNA and blood analysis results are also on the CD.” I gave him a friendly look. “Her analysis of me is available on t
he surface of my mind.”

  “Thank you,” Ansgar said. “I had noticed the presence of your encounter with this Robinson as I reviewed the Ríos encounter. But I wished for your permission to acquire it.”

  In a flash he scanned my memory of the morning, what I had learned, how I had used his chauffeur Fernando to get to UNM and the quality of the fancy restaurant I took her to lunch at. He chuckled.

  “Nice to see you spending money on quality food, Jack.”

  I felt much better. And my gut was beginning to feel less full as I digested the sandwich and juice. Clearly all parts of me worked faster now than in a normal human. Turning food into body energy was a quick process for me.

  “Thank you. So, you have explained why you did not mention these two dangerous persons. What else do I need to know? About us? About Transcendents? About what really is present in our world?”

  Ansgar looked down at the CD disk, then put it inside a robe pocket. He leaned forward, his eyes peering into mine, his manner informal but intense. “Well, you might like to know you are the first Transcendent to actually kill a Prince of Blackness. The rest of us just did what I described I did, 120 years ago.”

  That shocked me. And surprised me. The white aura glow of Ansgar was humongous. It literally overflowed to cover the entire expanse of the Santa Fe city limits. As did my own aura, I realized. With that realization came the mind awareness of the massive white auras of TikQui Tok in Alaska, Alicia in Costa Rica, Dominique in Brazil and Alejandro in Argentina. I blinked. This was a new mind experience.

  “Wow.”

  Ansgar smiled broadly. “Yes indeed, wow fits. Your growth in psychic powers of the mind has been increasing day by day. Which is why you now can see Transcendent auras anywhere in the world.” He paused. “And today you found a way to permanently rid creation of true evil, a denizen of the Blackness realm.” His expression turned grim. “While each of us removes normal humans who have become quite evil, none of us have been able to remove the underlying core that feeds the natural greed, anger and envy felt by all humans. The core of Blackness is the promoter of the black streaks, or black tornados as you call them. Humans can choose evil over goodness, death over life. But to be really evil requires encouragement from outside. From the Realm of Blackness. Congratulations on making a difference in our world.”