The Vapor

by Nathan Parks

  “Vampire?” he sputtered, coughing.

  “No, worse: Nephelium.”

  She sneered at him, flashing elongated canine teeth. “Every fear, every bit of panic, every turmoil, and every nightmare that you shoved into the minds of those who never had a chance . . . comes back to you tonight! No more! No more will you steal the innocence of those who have no one to protect them.”

  “Who . . . what?”

  “The ‘what’ I already told you, and the ‘who’ . . . well, just tell Lucifer that Eve sends her regards!” With that, a blade flashed as she sliced through his skin and into his fat-laden, oily body. She pulled back as bile, blood, and human filth gave way. “How fitting. Filth for filth,” she thought.

  Was it right to cheer and be enthralled when evil in the form of humanity met its demise? The boy wasn’t sure . . . but what he was sure of, as the greasy, sweaty bag of a man’s body was shredded and blood began a crimson wash down his carcass, was that there would be no more need of escaping. He didn’t know who the lady was that seemed to be moving in slow motion in front of him, but he did know one thing: she had saved him. That was all he desired to know.

  Chapter Five

  Eve could feel the young boy’s hand in hers. She let go for a minute and removed her left glove and then held her hand out again. He took it and looked up at her. There was still some innocence left inside of him, and for that she was grateful. Rarely did she find a reason to be grateful; but if she was able to rescue young innocence, even if it was just a sliver, then she was grateful.

  They walked out of the apartment, hand-in-hand. She stopped in the hallway and knelt down to his level. She could see the tear stains down his cheeks, and yet she could see the young warrior’s heart mustering all the strength he could to be strong as he looked at her. “Are you an Angel?” he stammered.

  “No, I am not an Angel,” she whispered as she touched his cheek. “I don’t want you to EVER allow anyone to make you a victim again! Do you understand?”

  “I didn’t want this.”

  “I know. This was not you. This was those animals. This was their filth of a soul attempting to destroy the strength and goodness within you.”

  “They said no one cared. They told me that if I ever told anyone, that . . .”

  She placed her finger up to her lips to instruct him to stop what he was saying. “It doesn’t matter now. They are gone. You are safe now. You must understand that you are stronger than you think you are, and if there EVER comes a time where you feel as if someone means you harm or attempts to make you believe that no one cares, you remember that those are all lies! Just because someone says it, doesn’t make it the truth.”

  The young boy nodded. “I am Timothy.”

  “Timothy, I am Eve, and now we need to get you home.”

  Eve once again took his hand and began to walk down the hallway toward the stairway that had led her to the floor and the apartment. She heard a noise behind her. With one swift motion she turned with a gun in her hand, pointing it directly at the head of an older man.

  His eyes were wide in surprise. “Hey now, Lady, I have no beef with you.”

  “Then you shouldn’t sneak up behind someone!” she said with a tone of distaste. She looked him up and down. His peppered hair was in a disheveled mess atop his head, his jeans were unzipped, and his belt was unfastened, allowing it to flop around. His white T-shirt was stained with last year’s spaghetti sauce, and he smelled as if he hadn’t showered in a few days.

  “Hey, listen, Woman, I wasn’t sneaking up on anyone. I was trying to find my daughter.”

  She kept the barrel of the gun pointed at his head. “Young teen girl, all dolled up and dressed in a cheap outfit of gothic or emo style?”

  “Yeah, you see the slut?”

  “Nope.”

  With that, she lowered the gun, gave the man a look that highly discouraged him from following, and she led Timothy into the stairwell. They exited the building, and she made her way toward a cab that was waiting across the street. Timothy felt as if the weight of the world had been almost taken off him. It would be sometime before he would be able to look at the scars left behind by the wounds, but tonight was the start of healing.

  Eve opened the back door and motioned for him to get in. She then bent down and looked in at the cabbie. “Hey, Mitch, make sure he gets home safely.”

  “You know I will, Eve; and if you need me anymore tonight, let me know,” the cabbie responded. “I don’t have much going on tonight. You know I always owe you.”

  “You owe me nothing, Mitch.”

  “Yeah, yeah . . . that is what you say, but I would never have my little girl back if it wasn’t for you.”

  She glared at him. He knew she hated it when he tried to thank her. He knew that she didn’t want to hear it, but it never stopped him.

  She looked in the back seat where the young hero sat. “You take care, and remember what I told you, ok?”

  “What do I tell my parents?”

  She sighed and took a moment before she spoke. “You tell them the truth, and tell them that you need them to love you.”

  She watched as the cab pulled off into the maze of the city. She unzipped her hoodie and flexed her neck back and forth. She needed a massage or a new tattoo; both would help relieve some stress.

  She looked up at the old apartment building, and memories flooded through her mind . . . memories of when she had been a little girl and no “savior” came out of the shadows to rescue her from hell.

  “One more saved; but thousands more tonight will have the light of their innocence forever snuffed out, and yet your precious Alliance is nowhere to be found. I looked up and down the street—even on the rooftops—and there is not even one in sight!”

  She didn’t even turn. She didn’t have to. His voice was still rich like the first time he had spoken to her that night at the café. “Just when I thought I could enjoy my evening . . . I take trash out, and trash comes back.”

  She turned and looked at Kadar with no glimpse of kindness or a twinkle of friendship. Her eyes were cold as her hand slowly moved toward her waist.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t even try to reach for any sort of weapon you may have taken from Gideon and Ki’s armory, Dear. Do you think I would really come to see you without my own protection?” He motioned around him in a sweeping gesture. “The night. We both love it for the same reasons: the darkness holds so many secrets. Trust me, about a half dozen of your family currently have you in their sights.”

  “If they were my family, they would have nothing to worry about. The very reason that they are afraid and hiding in the shadows, Kadar, is because they know they are not even close to being my family. They and you have every reason to be scared.”

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk, Eve. I am crushed,” he mocked her as he placed his hand over his heart. “It has been a while since we talked, let alone seen each other, and you hurl insults.”

  “That is the smallest thing I would like to hurl right now. What do you want, Kadar? Oh, and don’t ever think I will be your ‘Dear’ . . . ever!”

  She walked up to him and received some satisfaction as he backed up a bit out of reflex. He caught himself and stood his ground. “You may not believe me; but in a way, we are on the same team.”

  “You are right. I don’t believe you.”

  “Are you worried about law enforcement coming after all the racket you just caused?”

  “In this neighborhood? Really? Pretty sure no one even woke up from their sleep . . . that is, if they were sleeping.”

  ◆◆◆

  She leaned against a boarded-up window of an abandoned storefront that had been decorated with graffiti. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She cursed as she realized she only had one left. She pulled it out and discarded the pack onto the trash that littered the sidewalk already. She placed the end of the cigarette between her lips and looked at the other Nephelium.

  “How about that ligh
ter you have in your pocket?”

  “What lighter?”

  “Come on, Kadar. If you are going to waste my time and threaten me with your lackeys, then the least you could do is give a gal a light.”

  He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a flip top, chrome lighter and threw it to her. She caught it and held it for a minute, looking at it. She shook her head and looked up at him. “Really? Are you serious? A skull?”

  “What?” he shrugged. “It was at the cash register at one of those gas stations.”

  “I’m sure.” She lit the cigarette and threw the lighter back to him. “So, what do you want, Kadar?”

  “Just in case you haven’t noticed, there is a Clan War taking place ever since you and your Alliance friends exposed all that stuff going on at The Vortex, and . . .”

  “They are far from my friends! Get to the point. We all know the Clans are shattered. We all know they don’t trust each other. We all know they are fighting . . . and even some of them are fighting amongst themselves. What do I care?” She blew smoke up into the air and watched it vanish into the night sky. “Here for a moment . . . and then gone.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Get to your point.”

  “We could really use you, Eve.” He held up his hand before she could say anything. “I know. I know. I am the last person you want to team up with. I just want you to consider something.”

  She didn’t respond. She just continued to watch the sky above her. She loved the clear winter nights. In all honesty, she just simply loved winter.

  “Eve, listen to me. The Clan War has depleted the Clans. We have started hunting them. You know that we never were considered anything but half-breeds, a violation of everything that the Clans and Alliance believe in. They have kept us down. They have attempted to destroy us, use us, and keep us from each other. What is the one thing that neither side wants?”

  “I don’t know, Kadar. Enlighten me.”

  “They don’t want to see a unified Clan of Nephelium.”

  She stood up straight, took another long drag, dropped the rest of the cigarette on the ground, and ground it into the cement of the sidewalk with the toe of her boot. She took a deep breath and looked up at him.

  “Listen to me now, Kadar. I have given you way too much of my time this evening; and since I listened, you listen now! I am NO LONGER the weak tattoo artist you first met. I am no longer a victim or some sweet, innocent lady. Am I Nephelium? Yes, and I can’t change that. However, I can tell you that even though I still may not know everything I’m capable of, that I may not fully know where I have come from—my parents or even my history—and that my world may have turned upside down in more chaos than I could imagine,” she spoke as she got really close to him, “it is MY CHAOS. This war, these Clans, all of this,” she stated, motioning outward into the night, “you all can have it! I have my own war, and I want nothing—NOTHING—to do with you, the Alliance, the Clan Wars . . . whatever you all come up with! Do you understand?”

  She shoved passed him as she finished, not waiting for an answer. He bore his fangs at her, and a growling sound rumbled somewhere deep within him. “You better never shove past me like that again, Eve. You run. You haven’t changed in that sense. When things are out of your control, you run from it instead of facing it.”

  She spun around, her body tense, her anger boiling. “You know nothing about me! Nothing!”

  “Eve, we could be gods! United, we could become the gods that mortal man has longed for, made up, written about, worshipped in every culture! If not, we lose!”

  “I lost five years ago, Kadar. I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.”

  “One day you will see.”

  She walked out into the darkness, lifting the middle finger to him and to all those within the shadows. “Well, not today. I don’t want to see you anytime soon, Kadar. ‘Anytime’ means never again. Next time, I will cut those canine teeth from that hideous grin of yours.”

  ◆◆◆

  “Wait up, Jason,” Victoria yelled out as she closed the door to his car. She shook her head in frustration as he kept walking ahead of her. “Hey! Wait up!”

  “Catch up, Vickie. I don’t want to miss any of the music!”

  She caught up with him just as he made it to the door of the club. “You know I hate it when you call me ‘Vickie’!” she seethed.

  Jason rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Tori.”

  Two bouncers were standing outside the large old warehouse that had been changed into a club last year. It had stood empty for years; and then out of the blue, last year, a company in Europe had purchased it for the asking price. It made the papers; and everyone wondered if the company had plans to raze the building and build housing, office buildings, or something grand.

  Soon everyone began to question why a company would purchase it and turn it into a large, multi-level club ironically called “The Warehouse.” It seemed to make no sense, but the teens and party goers of the area flocked to it.

  It sat in the industrial area of the city and brought a new beat to the redundant club scene. The outside had not been changed much. There were things that had been redone to bring it up to building code and a few lights added, but it really looked the same.

  The inside played to the rustic industrial look. There was a large stage that sat in the middle of the club. This allowed a great view of whatever band was playing from anywhere on the bottom floor, and the other levels had areas to look down onto the stage.

  Jason gave the two bouncers at the door a big, “how-are-you” hug and indicated that Victoria was with him. They opened the large metal doors and allowed them to walk in.

  “You know one of these days they will check my I.D.”

  “Nah, not as long as you are with me.”

  “How do you know them, again?” she asked as they walked in and the sounds began to bounce around in her head.

  “From here and there. You know, I am all over and know a lot of people. Does it matter?”

  She shook her head as she crossed her right arm across her midsection and held it with her left hand encasing her torso in a self-hug. She was excited to be here tonight; but every time she walked into the place, she had a moment of gut-wrenching uneasiness. Jason always told her it was just her social anxiety. She always thought it was the white contacts that the bouncers wore, which made them look possessed.

  ◆◆◆

  “Gideon, can you hear me?” She waited. “Gideon?”

  Her earpiece squelched a bit, and then she could hear her team leader’s voice. “Go ahead, Serenity. What do you have?”

  “I have the normal two Possessors at the door, but I am seeing a lot more Soul Slayer activity than we have before.”

  “Hey, you all, I don’t have a good feeling about tonight. I am seeing a lot more activity. I know we call these places nests; but I would say that from what I am seeing, there is so much Fallen activity here tonight that it actually looks like an ant nest getting spun up,” Chad cut in as he looked through his set of UV-SAGs.

  Ki and Troy had gone into hyper-speed mode with the production of gear that could be used to give them a better advantage of the last five years over the Fallens. Not much different than a pair of shades, these glasses filtered out much of the atmosphere’s interference. They were able to pick up the space within matter, where the elements of the Fallen were visible, when it was not able to be seen by mortal eyes.

  This had given the Alliance a great advantage by allowing their mortal members to see what the Eternals already could. Through the prototype work, they had stumbled across a way to bypass Troy’s destroyed vision and tap into the sensory nerves of his brain. He now was able to view the mortal world once again, as well as the immortal world.

  “Serenity, I want you to meet Chad around the north side of the building.”

  “Copy that, Gideon. Near the old receiving doors?”

  “Yes. Don’t either of you do anything until I give you orde
rs. You know that we are supposed to only be on a scouting mission.”

  “Pah,” Chad scoffed, “because that seems all we do anymore! Screw the Arch Council.”

  “Shut it, Chad! DO NOT do anything unless you hear from me. You understand?”

  “Roger, Sir. I’m tracking.”

  Gideon was currently located in the back of a surveillance van in an adjacent lot with the rest of his squad. He understood Chad’s frustration. The whole team had the same frustrations.

  The Arch Council, for whatever reason known only to them, had pulled back what they were allowing Leah’s team to do. Many believed that it was a direct indictment on Leah; but the Arch Council denied that, stating that now that the Clans were warring amongst themselves, the Alliance mission was supposed to be more fact-gathering and scouting. The only thing that made it sit a bit easier for Gideon was that they were not the only Alliance team sitting in the shadows now, just observing. Teams globally were all stating they were being asked to do the same.