by N. P. Martin
A soldier in a war? That’s what I am?
I could hardly comprehend such a wild notion, but on some level, it felt right, even though I didn’t want it to. It was depressing to think that I was potentially nothing more than a bunch of hardwired instincts, held together by the crazy glue known as grace.
My mother stared at the camera once more, and I hardly recognized the hard look in her eyes. It was the look of a battle hardened soldier, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I was going to end up looking the same way soon enough.
"So," she continued. "You’re probably wondering about all the stuff in this unit here, the weapons especially. As I said, Leia, we’re soldiers. We were created to banish evil, although you’ll learn soon enough that evil can never be completely banished. The best we can do is prevent the darker forces in this world from upsetting the balance too much, which believe me, they always try to do.
"We achieve that aim in different ways. Quite often it means hunting down these darker forces, and eliminating them altogether. This calling will make you a killer, Leia, make no mistake about it. At the end of the day, though, you’ll just be doing what needs to be done in order to protect the millions of innocent people out there who don’t even know about these dark forces that threaten their very existence every day. Without people like us, all those innocent people would eventually succumb in some way to the darkness, and the world will end up a very different place than it is now."
Staring hard at the screen, I shook my head slowly. If I hadn’t already seen and felt some of the things she was talking about, I would’ve said my mother was insane. The real insanity lay in the fact that she was right, though.
"This is fucking…" I trailed off, having no words.
"In the preternatural underground, we’re known as Watchers," she went on. "I’m sure you can figure out why we are called that. It’s more than a job; it’s a way of life that’s constituted by our calling." She stared at the camera a moment, then smiled. "You know why I’m making this video for you, Leia, and not Josh?"
I shook my head at the screen. "No."
"You’re stronger than your brother, that’s why. You always have been. You remind me so much of myself when I was your age, the age you are in my time, I mean. Josh is like your father, he’s weak, though he pretends to be strong. That’s why I know Josh will try to run from who he is, which will leave him open to darkness. You can try to prevent it, Leia, but don’t feel bad if you don’t succeed. People, and that includes the human side of us, are who they are. You can’t change that, no matter how hard you try. You’ll only make it worse, believe me."
She looked away from the camera again for a moment, then sighed. "All right, I’ll try to wrap this up. I’m sure your head is already imploding after everything I’ve said. That’s why you’re going to need guidance, Leia. You can’t do this alone, even though I know you’ll probably try, because you’re exactly like me. But trust me when I say, you can’t fight this war alone.
"So, in case your father isn’t around, I want you to find your uncle Frank. I’m not sure you remember him. He stopped coming around a few years ago, after he and your father had a falling out." She paused for a second as she looked quickly away from the camera, before looking back again. "Anyway, Frank is the best Watcher I know. You need to find him, even if your father is still with you. Frank knows the life. He’s the only one who can teach you what you need to know, trust me on that. His details are in my journal, written on the back of a photograph. When you see him, tell him…" She shook her head. "It doesn’t matter. Just find him, if he doesn’t find you first that is."
Uncle Frank. I had only heard his name mentioned a few times when I was young, usually in angry tones by my father. I don’t recall ever seeing Frank. There weren’t even any pictures of him around the house, in spite of him being my dad’s older brother. His name was also mentioned by the social workers handling our case, as a possible guardian. I vaguely remember being told that he was "unreachable", though I never knew what that meant.
The few times I had thought about Frank in the years since, I did so with a sense of bitterness and resentment. As far as I was concerned, Josh and I had an uncle who didn’t care enough about us to let us come and live with him. He was a man who allowed his niece and nephew to be taken into care, rather than accept the responsibility, as my father’s brother, and care for us himself. He hadn’t even so much as visited or checked on us one single time over the years. What kind of cold-hearted bastard does that to two innocent kids, especially when they know that the kids have no other blood relatives who were still living? And let’s not forget about the fact that good old Uncle Frank knows exactly what Josh and I were, and the dangers that could possibly lie ahead for us, and yet still didn’t make a fucking appearance, even just to warn us what was coming!
My attitude toward Uncle Frank could thus be summed up in two words: Fuck him!
After my mother looked at her watch, she said, "It’s getting late, and I have to go, my darling Leia." She surprised me when tears welled up in her eyes, and eventually spilled down over her sharp cheekbones. "Tonight, I will go home, and I will spend it with you, and with Josh and your father…probably for the last time before I have to leave you all."
Seemingly unable to help it, she broke down, and so did I. My mother bowed her head and cried for a full minute, before wiping her face with her hand and looking back into the camera with eyes that were filled with sadness, pain and regret. "Just know, Leia, that I had to leave. It’s the only way I can protect you. If I stay, you’ll be in danger…it’s all on me anyway…" Her eyes seemed to stare right into me for a moment, like she was more than talking to me; that she was addressing my very soul. "Just know that I’ve always been proud of you, Leia, and that I’ll never stop loving you, and never will, no matter what happens, or where I end up. You’re the purest thing in my life, and I’m sorry if I hurt you." She smiled at the camera one more time with tears in her eyes. "Goodbye, Leia."
She leaned forward and turned off the camera, and a second later, the video file stopped playing.
Only a black screen remained.
8
After the video had ended, I sat in the car for quite a long time, just staring out the window as I thought about everything my mother had said. I was of course stunned by her revelations, but strangely not surprised by any of them. The normalcy of it all, and the absolute conviction in my mother’s voice and demeanor, made it almost impossible for me to think that any of it was untrue.
The photograph of Uncle Frank was tucked inside the journal as my mother said it would be. The photo was an old polaroid, dog-eared and yellowed, as if it had been carried around in someone’s wallet for years. Though I found it a little strange to think that my mother would carry around a photo of my dad’s brother. Maybe the photo had just been kicking around in her stuff, and she had fished it out just for me. Whatever the case, I didn’t really care at that moment, because I had just noticed what kind of car Frank was leaning against in the photo. A black ’69 Dodge Charger, the exact kind of car that had been following me earlier that day.
"Son of a bitch," I said, shaking my head at the photo. "It was you."
It had to have been. What were the chances the coincidence was so glaringly obvious? At least now I knew where Josh got his love of vintage muscle cars from. Obviously Uncle Frank had thought it high time that he check on his niece and nephew, now that we had come of age, as it were. At least I wouldn’t have to look hard to find him, if indeed I even wanted to find him. The son of a bitch had left Josh and I in the lurch for the last eleven years. Despite my mother saying I could trust him, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to meet anyone who could leave their own kin to rot in the foster system for over a decade. What the fuck was that, early training? Fucking callousness more like.
Frank looked to be in his late twenties in the picture. With his longish dark hair, his faded jeans and black Led Zeppelin T-shirt, he looked more like a roadie for a rock ba
nd than a soldier. It was only when I focused on his eyes that I saw the look of a man who had witnessed too much for his own good. His eyes had a haunted look to them, in the same way my mother’s did.
Is that how mine are going to look in a decade from now?
Sighing, I shook my head and put the photo of Frank back inside the journal.
By the time I started the engine of the Mustang, one thing was abundantly clear to me:
My life was never going to be the same again, and as scary as that was, I was also strangely okay with it.
It was fairly late, and full dark, when I arrived back in Fairfield. Josh would be super-pissed at me, no doubt, but considering what I had to tell him—and show him—I figured he would soon have bigger things to think about.
As I drove slowly down the street toward the house, I soon slammed on the brakes when I noticed the black Dodge Charger parked right outside the house.
"Fuck," I muttered. "This can’t be good."
If indeed it was Frank’s car, it meant he was inside the house, otherwise why would he be parked right outside, instead of watching from afar, as he had been doing earlier today? Was he actually in there talking to Josh and Diane and about fuck knows what? Scaring the shit out of them probably with his crazy talk about Nephilim and the great war or whatever. Well, shit, I thought, it looks like I get to meet Uncle Frank after all.
That’s if Josh hadn’t already beaten the shit out of him. It would only take Frank introducing himself for Josh to start in on him. Frank may be some damn soldier or other, but Josh fought tough guys in the gym every day. My money was on Josh. I fully expected to go inside the house to find Frank laid out on the floor.
As soon as I parked the Mustang behind the Dodge, I got out and immediately started walking toward the house, glancing up and down the street as I did, just to be sure there was no one else around, which there didn’t appear to be.
When I neared the front door, I stopped in front of it when I realized it was half open. That started alarm bells ringing in me, because Diane was a stickler for making sure all doors and windows remained shut. There was no way she would tolerate the front door lying open like that. Unless she wasn’t in there, but I knew she was. At least two of her favorite shows were on TV tonight, and she never missed them.
Something is wrong. I can feel it.
Not the most pleasant of thoughts, but I couldn’t dismiss it. Something was off, and I wasn’t sure what. I just knew that my newfound powers had proved themselves to be nothing if not reliable so far when it came to flaring up at signs of imminent danger.
Slowly pushing the front door open further, I called out, "Josh! Diane! It’s me."
I waited by the door for a second, but there was no answer.
Shit.
Walking into the hallway, I pushed the door closed behind me, and then stopped and listened. I heard nothing but silence, not even the sound of the TV from the living room. There was also a faint stench in the air, a stench that my gut reacted to before my mind did. It was a strange, unearthly smell, like rotten meat laced with sulfur, and it didn’t take me long to realize it was the same stench that had accompanied the demon that took my mother all those years ago. It was unmistakable, and smelled like nothing else.
"Oh Jesus…" I breathed.
I had to have been wrong. There was no way there were demons in the house.
"Josh! Diane! Answer me!"
Nothing in return.
Except for a creaking sound upstairs. Someone was up there, standing on the landing. My heart started to beat faster as I walked toward the stairs. "Who’s up there?" I demanded, my voice having more fear in it than I would’ve liked.
Another creak, as if the person upstairs had just shifted their weight.
I decided just to say it.
"Frank?"
There was no sound for another minute, and I started to panic somewhat that I had misread the whole situation. Maybe it wasn’t Frank up there. Maybe it was a demon.
Whoever it was walked across the landing, and then appeared at the top of the stairs. It was a man dressed in jeans and a dark jacket, and he had a massive gun in his hand. As he stood staring down at me, I realized it was him. It was Frank. He appeared to be bigger than he seemed in the photo, and also much more intimidating in person. My previous estimation of him was clearly off. I was also struck by how much he looked like my dad, which I hadn’t noticed as much in the photo.
Frank looked almost shocked to see me, as if he was seeing a ghost or something. He just stared down at me and said nothing, holding his gun as casually as someone who had been holding one their whole life. There was no doubt the man had a presence, and I wagered he was probably feared by the supernatural beings he hunted, or policed, or whatever it was he did to them exactly. No doubt killed as well.
"Where’s my brother?" I asked him, finally breaking the tense silence. "And my foster mother?"
Frank’s frown deepened as he sighed somewhat, then he came down the stairs, stopping halfway. "We need to leave here. It’s not safe."
I frowned and shook my head. "What? What do you mean it’s not safe?"
Instead of waiting on an answer, I rushed up the stairs, calling Josh’s name again, until Frank blocked me halfway that is. "You don’t want to go up there," he said. "Trust me, we need to leave. Now."
A sudden rush of anger made me go to push past him, but he thrust his arm out to stop me.
"Get the fuck out of my way!" I shouted, glaring right at him, making it clear that he held no authority over me whatsoever. "I mean it. Move."
He stared at me for another few seconds, then pulled his arm back with a slight shake of his head. "Don’t say I didn’t warn you."
Warn me about what? What the fuck was he talking about?
"Josh! Josh…please answer, Josh…" I all but whispered that last part like it was a fervent prayer, mainly because I could feel something was badly wrong. Due to our bond as twins, I always knew instinctively when Josh was in some kind of trouble, and this was one of those times.
Upstairs, the demon smell was worse. It tainted the air so badly, I nearly gagged. Covering my mouth and nose with one hand, I went to go down the hallway to Josh’s room, but stopped dead next to the bathroom when I saw a flash of crimson in my peripheral vision. Slowly, I turned my head to look into the bathroom through the open doorway.
The hand covering my mouth smothered the scream that erupted from me. I could only stand there as I struggled to take in what I was seeing. Which was Diane lying dead on the floor, her naked body covered in cuts and bruises, her head twisted around at an impossible angle. Next to her the bathtub was half full, the water turned ruby red with blood.
No, no, no…
"She was tortured before she was killed," Frank said from behind me in a gravelly voice. He said it like he was debriefing me, his voice almost devoid of any emotion.
I snapped my head around to stare at him, and in that moment, it occurred to me that Frank may have killed Diane himself. It was a chilling thought that made me subconsciously back away from him. I didn’t know Frank from Adam when all was said and done. Who’s to say he wasn’t some murdering psychopath, and that this whole thing was just a part of some sick, elaborate game he was playing?
When he noticed me backing away, he shook his head and put his gun into a holster under his jacket. "Hey," he said, coming across as a little more human this time, though even that could’ve been a ruse for all I knew. "This has nothing to do with me. I was driving past earlier when I noticed the front door was open. You know who I am, right? We’re family."
Under other circumstances, I would’ve corrected him on that last part, but I had just remembered Josh, and I turned and rushed down the hall to his room, saying his name as I went inside. The room was empty however, and I felt myself slump with despair for a moment. Then I went back out to the landing to confront Frank once more. "Where the fuck is my brother?" I said slowly and deliberately, as much to keep my voice fro
m wavering as anything else.
Frank didn’t seem fazed by the question. "I don’t know. He wasn’t here when I arrived. Just your foster mother. I’ve checked the whole house."
"Fuck." I pulled out my phone and called Josh’s number, almost dropping the phone when I heard a ringtone go off in his bedroom. A sickening feeling came over me as I entered the room again, soon locating Josh’s phone lying there on the bed next to a game controller. I quit the call on my phone and stood there staring at Josh’s. He never left the house without his phone. I’d seen him drive back five miles just to get it once he realized he’d left it at home.
"You want my opinion?" Frank said from the doorway. "Your brother has been taken."
"Taken?" I said turning around. "By whom?"
"By demons."
I made a snorting sound and shook my head. "Demons…Jesus."
"My guess is, if you had’ve been here, they’d have taken you too. Lucky you weren’t."
I could only stand there, my head spinning, my stomach churning. I had no idea of what to do next.
But Frank did.
"Look," he said, obviously trying to bring some sort of warmth to his voice and demeanor, and not succeeding very well if you ask me. "I realize you hardly know me—"
"I don’t know you at all."
