“How the hell should I know?”
“Ms. Ryerson did put you in charge. Any clue?” Todd took a step toward the helicopter.
Jessica stomped her foot and her face became a mixture of wrinkles and tense expressions.
“They’re coming up the elevator shaft.” Bethany stared into the heart of the building. “They know we’re here. We can’t stay. We have to get down.”
Jessica stared at the helicopters and the other Anomalies. “Todd, can you stop the elevators from working?”
“They’re not taking the elevators,” Bethany said. “They’re flying up the elevator shafts.”
“What do you mean, flying?” David asked.
“She means they’re flying,” Todd said. “Keep up. They’re in the main elevator shafts, right? Good. They don’t connect with the roof. We’re safe for now.”
“Safe isn’t exactly the word I would use.”
The five of them spun around as soon as they heard the new voice. A short woman in a white jacket with matching pants walked out of from the black smoke. The smoke did not seem to touch her. If anything, it moved out of her way.
David felt fire spring to his fingertips. His head buzzed so loudly he could almost see the noise. Beside him, Jessica suddenly seemed a few inches taller and her hair blew backwards in a wind that had not been there a moment ago.
“Relax, children.” The woman kept walking toward them. “It’s not me you need to fear. I’m a friend. Promise.”
“If you’re a friend, why did you blow up our helicopters?” Amy hid behind Jessica but spoke with confidence.
“Not what you would call a bright girl, are you?” The woman was only a few feet before them now. “I didn’t. That was our dear friends below. The thing you have to ask yourselves is why creatures who can fly, who flew up here to destroy the helicopters before going all Matrix-like on the lobby, didn’t just fly up to the 13th floor in the first place.”
“Good question. Why?” Bethany chewed on her nails and studied the woman with surprising calm.
“Because they want to make a statement.” David walked past Jessica to stand in front of the woman in white. “Is that it? They want to destroy the building one floor at a time as a show of strength or something?”
“Close,” the woman in white said. “But not as close as I expected. Maybe Wisdom is expecting too much of you lot. Actually, shouldn’t there be two more of you? Where are Jared and Garnet?”
It was in that moment they realized Jared was no longer amongst them.
“Damn it!” Jessica pushed her way past David and stood immediately in front of the woman. “Where did he go? Did anyone see him in the elevator? And who are you? Did Mr. Wisdom send you here?”
The woman laughed. “Of course Wisdom sent me. Call me Echo. Most people do. Wisdom and I go way back. But we really do not have time for this right now. You’re not safe here and Wisdom is not going to be able to protect you.”
“And you can?” David asked.
The woman looked down into the building. “Doubtful. Not if we stay here. Hence the need for speedy retreat.”
“What about Wisdom? Is he going to be okay?”
The woman looked at David closely. “Wisdom can take care of himself, but not if he has to watch out for you guys as well. I am supposed to take the 48 of you somewhere the Edimmu won’t be looking. We can all hide out for a few days, throw these losers off our trail and then my babysitting chores are over. It’s just a shame the other two aren’t here.”
David looked behind Echo. “And how are you going to get out us out of here? Do you have a spare helicopter handy?”
Echo shook her head. “That’s a little too primitive for me. Wisdom may like all this blending-in crap but I prefer a much more direct approach.” She pressed her left arm out and flexed her wrist. Ten feet away the air sliced open and a multi-colored oval appeared out of the air. It was at least nine feet tall and three feet wide. “Do close your mouths, children. Although I’m sure Wisdom has not been completely forthcoming about the true nature of things, you all realize there are people out there able to do things other people can’t. This is one of the things I can do. Now go on, step through there. It will take you to the safe house before you can say ‘Beam me up, Scotty.’”
***
Wisdom felt a hole open in the space-time fabric nearby. He took a deep breath and smiled.
“Echo. Right on time.”
He stood in front of the elevator shafts on the top floor and took off his jacket and tie. He was nervous the first time he lived these events. Just a little. You never really know when you step into a fight if you will win or not. Even when you are stronger and faster than your opponent, there is always the element of chance. This time there was no trepidation. He knew he would win because he had already done it.
The elevator door opened, slowly at first as fingers fought steel, then, with a sudden final violence, the shaft was completely visible. Wisdom smirked and spread his arms, palms out and parallel at waist level. Then he called forth the power of Hellfire and Brimstone.
***
“Can you believe this crap?” Sammy Laymon took a bite of his Polish sausage and spoke to his sister who was putting sauerkraut on her own. “First she’s all about ‘You don’t show me enough affection’ and ‘I want more of a commitment,’ then she starts with this whole handcuff-bondage and 'wanting to be with a woman' type stuff. She’s just so confusing. I’m not sure if I want to institutionalize her or marry her.”
“I told you she was a psycho.” Catherine gave the hot dog vendor a $20 and waited for the change. “Can you see what’s happening over there?”
Sammy shook his head. “They’ve got the whole thing blocked off. I haven’t seen this many police since the Pope came for that Catholic youth thing a few years back.”
“You’re comparing explosions and tragedy to the Catholics? When was the last time you were in church? Do you want to head over to see if we can see anything?”
“If we can get through the crowds. Do you even know where the whatever-it-is is at?”
She shook her head. Traffic was stopped all around them. The roads had been closed off and pockets of people, like stones in a stream, pointed fingers all the way up to Yonge St. Sammy saw smoke fill the air, heard the roar of fire and police sirens, but he could not see what everyone was pointing at.
At first.
Then they saw black smoke pouring out of a window at the top of a nearby building.
“Must be quite the fire,” Catherine said as she saw it, too. “Take my advice, dump her. Do you really want someone like that raising your children?”
“Well…”
He never finished the sentence.
At that moment the top of the building exploded. Red and orange light mixed with bright yellow flames, shattering the windows. It started to rain glass and burning shrapnel down on the crowds.
Then the screaming started.
And the running.
***
Wisdom walked through the flames as the ceiling fell around him. He stepped on the skull of the first Edimmu he had killed. It crumpled beneath his foot.
As soon as the Hellfire started burning their flesh, the three monsters dropped their human disguises and took on their natural reptilian form. They stood over eight feet tall, grey-green lizards in man-made suits. Their wings, oily black like wet vultures, twitched and spasmed as the fire spread. Wisdom reached into the flames and turned flicking fire into a solid steel spear. He used it to pin the second Edimmu to the wall. It still screamed that inhuman wail unique to these creatures long after the others fell silent.
The last of the three crawled away from him, five-fingered talons pulling it desperately over rubble and ash. In one hand it held a portion of a wing Wisdom had torn off its back. The rest of it lay somewhere in the flames.
“Tsk, tsk, not too far, lizard.” Wisdom bent down, grabbed the thing that had once looked very much like a man by the head and lifted i
t off the ground. “First I’m going to give you a message to deliver to Propates and his arrogant cult. Then I am going to throw you out the window. It should be a new experience for you, flying without your bloody wings. Then you will hit the ground and be in a great deal of pain. Fortunately for me, it won’t kill you. It is only twenty stories and you’re a whole lot less human than I am. Then you will run back to your master as fast as you can. Understand?”
The creature tried to nod its head but it could barely move. Most of its scales had melted off the flesh.
“Good. The message is this. Tell him I know what he has planned. Tell him I know he’s in bed with my father. Then tell them I will accept the loss of this building because I am a patient man. But if he comes at me again I will forget how patient I am. Do you think you can remember that?”
The Edimmu tried to nod again.
“Good.” Wisdom kept his grip on the creature’s head and dragged it through gaps in the flame to the space where a wall of glass had once stood. The Edimmu tried to struggle, kicking its legs and flapping the joints where wings had once attached to body. It refused to let go of the portion of its wing it held in hand. Wisdom did not wait until he was at the edge. When he was five feet away, he bent down and, with his other hand, grabbed the creature by the groin, raised it over his head and threw the Edimmu. Then he walked to the lip of the building to watch it fall. After the Edimmu bounced off a fire truck and hit the ground, Wisdom crossed his arms and waited. A group of firefighters and police officers rushed to form a semi-circle around the twisted body. Only when it got up and ran – causing police and firefighters to run away as well – did Wisdom back away from the window.
As he teleported away, he said, “Let’s see how it goes this time.”
***
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
Sammy looked over at his sister and shook his head. “You’ve got to be kidding. Can’t it wait?”
Catherine glared at him. “If it could wait, I wouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s head to that falafel joint over there.” Without waiting for a response, she started the slow process of pushing through the crowds.
Downtown Toronto was thick with crowds of onlookers, all gaggling at the destruction of the building on Bay Street. The air filled with a strange oily smoke that made it hard to breathe, but people flooded the streets. Reporters and police were everywhere. After two minutes of it, his sister Catherine was ready to go home. Ten minutes later they were still pushing their way through the crowds trying to get back to the subway.
They stepped through the door and found the restaurant empty. The guy behind the counter smiled, a perfunctory action, and then started the questioning. “What happened out there? Did you see it?”
Catherine pushed Sammy forward, forcing him to answer the question while she headed to the back of the restaurant to use the bathroom. “Yeah, we saw it,” Sammy answered. “Whole building blew up. Fire everywhere. From what I heard, they’re wondering if the whole building is going to come down.”
“Like our own 9/11,” the counter attendant said, slowly nodding his head.
Sammy shook his head and winced. “Not even close. It’s probably just a gas leak.” He looked toward the back of the restaurant and willed his sister to pee faster.
“So what will you guys have?” The guy behind the counter washed his hands as he spoke.
Sammy looked over the menu. “How about two beef shawarma plates? I might as well sit in here while the crowd disperses.” The counter guy nodded and started to slice the meat for the orders as Sammy went to sit at the nearest booth. He focused on the crowds outside, most of them still pointing up at the darkened sky. He was so caught up in crowd watching that he forgot about his sister until the counter guy brought the food over to the table. Sammy smiled up at him, said thanks and then turned to the back of the restaurant again.
“Where the hell is she?”
He stood up and walked toward the bathrooms. A chill went down his spine. In that instant he knew without a doubt that something had gone inexplicably and horribly wrong. Each step he took made his body feel heavier, as if time was slowing down and gravity increasing. Invisible hands seemed to push him back, telling him to turn around and run. But he could not leave his sister.
“Catherine?”
He knocked on the door to the women’s washroom.
No response.
“Cathy?”
He put his ear to the door and listened. At first he heard nothing. Then, softly, he heard a whimper. And heavy breathing. Images of rapists and mass murders flew quickly through his head. He slammed his shoulder into the door. It caved so easily that it took him a second to recover. When his eyes caught up with his brain, he started to scream.
It happened so fast the scream never left his throat.
He saw his sister, hair tousled, talking to a black hole that swirled in the mirror over the sink. She turned toward him. From the look in her eyes, he knew she was no longer herself. When he tried to scream, something shot out of the black hole in the mirror and lodged itself in his body. It all happened so fast, he never knew what happened.
From inside the body of Catherine Laymon, a voice like static and the hum of electricity spoke.
“Well, that was convenient.”
In response, a voice came from inside Sammy’s body. It was similar in cadence but with a quirky yet masculine quality to it. “Dear poppet, nothing is convenient for us nowadays. I tell you, it is destiny.”
“Humph. Well ‘destiny’ could have given me a prettier host. How can I possibly have any fun with this thing?”
“We’re not here for ‘fun,’ Carla,” the thing inside Sammy said. “No fun until after this whole thing is over, if you ask me. At least now we can move around in the world.”
“Fine,” Carla answered. “But, nothing’s worth doing unless it’s fun, if you ask me. I suppose we should just move quickly and track down that Edimmu before it reaches Propates. We have to make sure it delivers the right message and not the one Wisdom told him to deliver.”
“Absolutely. Do you think we have time to get a bite to eat?” Sanchez looked down the hallway, his eyes searching for the guy who had been working the counter. He saw nothing.
“Eat later. If I can’t have fun, you definitely can’t eat. Come on. Call him.”
Sanchez manipulated Sammy’s body and completed a complicated series of motions while chanting in an ancient language. More shadows flew out of the black hole in the mirror and coalesced into a pool of night between the two possessed beings. The pool shimmered and twirled and the restaurant filled with the sounds of thunder. Then the pool of darkness disappeared in a flash and, in its place, stood a wingless Edimmu. It was the same one Wisdom had thrown to the ground.
“Masters,” the Edimmu said. It knelt on one knee, the action obviously putting it off balance without the extra weight of its wings. It did not look them in the eyes. Instead, it trembled in place.
“Tell me what happened,” Carla said. “Don’t forget anything, either. Tell it all.”
The Edimmu bowed its head. A quiver ran through its body.
“Yes, master. I will tell you.”
Chapter Eleven
August 3rd
David stepped through the portal and found himself in a very different place. If Toronto had felt like a different country to him, this was another planet. As people streamed out behind him, he looked around at what he first assumed to be an enormous, natural cavern. Then his eyes adjusted to the dim light.
“Whoa,” he said. The 46 Anomalies gathered in a circular foyer the size of a basketball stadium. Fist-sized crystal spheres placed on pillars emitted a soft, steady light. What he first assumed were stalagmites and stalactites were actually thick granite columns. They rose from a tiled floor to a smooth ceiling fifty feet above his head. Numerous passages branched out on either side, many blocked by twelve-foot-diameter stone wheels, their edges cracked with age. A spiral staircase carved from
stone rose to a second floor.
“Look at that,” Todd said. He pointed at one of the walls covered in an immense mosaic of a peacock crafted from blue, green and black tiles.
“That’s bloody creepy,” Bethany said as she wrapped her arms around herself. “Gives me the chills.”
“What is this place?” David felt a dry breeze blow along the back of his neck. “How far underground are we? The air actually smells fresh.”
“This is Turkey,” Echo said as she brushed dirt off her suit. “This is what I get for wearing white. Well, actually Kurdistan, but Turkish officials don’t like to acknowledge that. We’re currently about 500 feet below the surface.”
“Did you build this place?” Todd asked.
“Hardly,” Echo turned to the portal and closed it with the flick of her wrist. “These caves were built around 9500 B.C. There are hundreds of these underground cities in this part of the world. Best thing about this one is that you can’t get to it from the surface. The old entrances are still caved in. Odds are this place won’t be discovered for at least another hundred years. Only way in or out is the way we took.”
“How many others can make those things?” Jessica asked. “Those circles of light.”
Echo raised her hands and shrugged. “A few. You should be less interested in the portals and more in Wisdom’s little vendetta.”
“What vendetta?” Jessica cocked her head to one side and grabbed Amy’s hand. “Wisdom never said anything about a vendetta.”
“Right. Because Wisdom is always so good about explaining himself. We’ll be here for a few days until Wisdom comes.” Echo walked away from them and headed up the spiral staircase.
Jessica stormed after her. “How are we supposed to stay here for a few hours, let alone a few days? It is just a dirty cave. There’s nowhere to sit and there’s…. whoa.”
Jessica stopped talking when she reached the top of the stairs. David pushed his way through the crowd to where she stood. Before he reached the top, he saw what made her speechless.
The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels Page 92
