“Where did he go? There wasn’t even a flash of light, so it couldn’t be one of those portals.”
“Shh.” Garnet moved to Todd and put a firm hand on his shoulder. “No need to yell. Remember, we’re supposed to be sneaking in here.”
“I think we can forget about the sneaking-in part.” Echo crouched down, the fingertips of her right hand resting on the ground. “Somebody obviously knows we’re here. Wisdom, can you…”
Her voice disappeared a moment before she did. Todd felt his face going limp as Echo slipped away. It was sudden, quiet, like the image from a projector after the plug was pulled. He took a step back, distancing himself from the others. His head shook in small spasms of denial. He was halfway through his second step when the darkness came to him. And he was gone.
***
Jessica pulled at her ponytail, her hands moving erratically. Josh worried she would pull her hair out but he didn’t dare take a step toward her to stop her.
“Stay still,” Josh said as he squared his shoulders. “The last three people to move disappeared.
Elaine leaned towards Wisdom. “Is this Propates? Can he do this sort of thing?”
Wisdom shook his head. “No. This smells more like my father. He’s early. Earlier than expected, I mean. Josh, this settles it for me. Our friend with the gold ring is playing ‘I spy’. Expect him to show up any time now.”
“Do we stay on mission, Wisdom?” Elaine shifted her shotgun. Josh noticed for the first time that her forehead was glistening with sweat although the room was far from warm.
For a moment, Wisdom was silent. He took a deep breath and then the muscles in his jaw relaxed. “We don’t run. The more times I try, the more I try to manipulate, the more complicated this thing gets. One way or another, this ends today. Change of plans. Elaine, take the others through that door and head left at the third intersection. It’s a processing room, a place where the Council conducts their experiments. Don’t worry about my father snatching you away. I’ve just altered your auras slightly. It should be enough to shield you from his eyes, at least for a little while. Smash as much equipment as possible and kill anyone that looks like a scientist. Scratch that. Kill anyone that gets in your way. If you see any of the captured Anomalies, try not to kill them. Just remember they may not be themselves anymore. Also remember, do not engage Propates. You see him, you run. I’m going to look for our mysterious friend and then it’s off to deal with my father. Don’t go any further than the processing room until you hear my signal. After that, get heavy with the death and destruction. Start down here and make your way up to the apartment complex. Try to stick together. You’re stronger that way. If you get separated, stay with your teams.”
Elaine shook her head. “Wisdom, you can’t…”
Wisdom raised his left eyebrow.
“Oh, grow up,” she spat. “You know, despite your age, you still act like every other man I’ve ever known. Always about the ego. I saw what happened the last time you fought your father. We all did. He’s too powerful to take on alone. And remember, he’s got help now. This is no time for macho bull crap.”
Wisdom smiled. “You’re quite the woman, Elaine Radiq. The whole reason I’m going after that man with the gold ring is to make sure my father is alone for our final conversation. That, and I have about a billion questions that need answers. There’s something else going on here, something I know nothing about. I’m not comfortable with ignorance. Have a little faith in me. I’m not exactly walking into this blind.”
Elaine stared at Wisdom, her lips set in a firm frown. After a moment, she nodded.
“Fine,” she said. “What’s the signal?”
Wisdom’s face lit up, a shrewd smile spread across his face. “I think you’ll recognize it when you hear it.” Then, Wisdom opened a portal and was gone.
“Well, at least we’re off to a good start,” Josh said. He yelped a second later when Jessica punched him in his thigh. “Nice to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor, Jessica.”
“Excuse me for not laughing in the face of certain death.”
“Hey, it always works for Spider-man.” Josh ran his fingers through his blond hair. They came back damp. He shook the sweat free. “And since when do you lose faith in yourself? I thought you were supposed to be the baddest of the bad.”
Jessica crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. “You know, you are nearly as annoying as David. I think I liked you better when you were shivering and twitching over your screwed-up family.”
Josh smiled, nodding as she spoke. “Ah, there’s the little fighter we know and love. Maybe tomorrow we can go find a pet store and make fun of the puppies that can't get adopted.”
Jessica’s lips turned up slightly. “Yeah. Tomorrow. It helps to remember there just might be a tomorrow.”
Elaine opened the dark metal door and led the way forward. The tunnel, carved roughly out of earth, measured at least fifteen feet wide and nearly twice as tall. It seemed to go on forever. Glowing crystal orbs, nearly identical to the ones in Echo’s underground apartment, filled the space with a soft but pervasive light. The air smelled of fresh mud and earthworms even though the floor was covered in pristine tiles. The only sound was the soft click of their footsteps.
Josh felt his body tense, ready for a fight. Sweat dripped down his forehead, nearly blinding him as it slid into his eyes. By the time they reached the first intersection, he was panting.
Elaine held up a hand, signaling them all to stop.
Silence.
Josh strained his ears, listening for a sign of whatever Elaine had heard. There it was – the mumble of distant voices. Jessica bit the side of her left index finger to keep her teeth from chattering. Garnet looked down at her and smiled weakly. Jessica threw her hand forcefully to her side and squared her shoulders. Elaine knelt down, lifted her Mariner shotgun and braced for fire.
Then the lights flickered. An invisible power hissed through the air and the glowing orbs dimmed. Darkness poured out over the floor, seeping like sewer water through the cracks in the wall. Shadows dripped from the ceiling, filling the air. Josh ignored it. His attention was focused on five tall figures ahead of them.
He bit into his lower lip as they turned a corner and walked slowly and deliberately toward the Anomalies.
As the shadows grew, the approaching figures spread their wings.
Chapter Thirty-Five
David was alone in a dark place. His sense of balance faltered. Tiny slithering things crawled over his skin, but he knew they were not really there.
‘Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it! Is this where the crazy people go?’ As the thought echoed in his mind, he found he was no longer alone. He opened his eyes and saw a young man in a light blue t-shirt and faded jeans. His hair was nearly the same shade of red as David’s, his eyes luminous yellow like candlelight from a jack-o’-lantern. All over his body, orange and blue flames danced without consuming flesh. Dane Houghton, his third murder.
“Still haven’t taken that shower, have you?” Dane had a smile on his pale face.
“Go away!” David screamed as loud as he could. The sound hit his ears muffled and distant, like someone else’s voice in a neighboring room.
“Or what? You’ll kill me? That only works once, even for a monster like you.”
David closed his eyes and covered his face with his forearms. “Not real! Not real!”
Even with his eyes closed, there was no escaping. David could feel the heat from the flames more than ever. Flames crackled and he listened to sizzling sounds like bacon on the grill.
“What’s the matter, David? Can’t deal with what you are? A monster. That’s what you are. Monster. Deny it all you want. Avoid it as long as you can. You can run away to Toronto, Hong Kong or Greece. It won’t change what you are.”
“No.”
“A loser.” The air grew hotter.
“Get away from me.”
“A murderer.”
David felt
pain on his arms and face. The crackling of the flames seemed very close to his head now, as if Dane was leaning down.
“I. Am. Not.” David shook his head. The smell of burning hair and fat hit his nostrils like a hammer. He knew it was human flesh.
“Of course you are. Three strikes, you’re out, bud. It’s time you just admit what you are. You, David Ross, are a cold-blooded murderer and a monster to boot. I mean, you set me on fire for saying you smelled bad. Over-reaction, much? Made you see a part of yourself you don’t want to deal with. Well, you are dirty, Mr. Ross, filthy dirty, and no amount of showers or running away is going to change that. It might best for everyone if you just stayed in this little corner of hell.”
“Hell?” David opened his eyes and let his hands fall down to his side. Only a few inches away from his face was a burning cadaver, raw flesh over off-white bone. The only thing human about it now was the way the eyes glistened with hatred. “You just took one step too far. You’re right about one thing, though. I have been a loser. All this time wasted feeling sorry for myself. No more. If I’m damned for what I am, so be it. You think this is hell? Let me show you what HELL REALLY IS!”
David backhanded the burning skull. As the corpse fell to its knees, David stretched his arms out above his head. Thin streams of white and blue flame cascaded from his palms, twisting in the air like whirlpools, and swam in curved lines toward Dane. Even though the body was already on fire, the wave of flame that came from David created a new level of consumption. Within seconds, the whole body had been consumed, little but pale ashes left in the shape of a skeleton.
Then the darkness returned.
David felt the grin that had settled on his face slip away. He lowered his arms and stared at his palms. For a moment he felt absolutely nothing. Then he remembered. He thought back on each of the lives he had taken and remembered how much he had enjoyed it. Murder and destruction came to him easily. It was the after-effects he had the difficulty with.
“I really am a monster, aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
David’s eyes went wide at the voice. It was grating and ephemeral, not in the least bit human. If ice and stone could speak, it would sound like this.
“Who are you?”
From out of the darkness came another figure.
***
Todd opened his eyes and found himself speechless. He was back in Alaska at the oil company work yard. Dozens of trucks, doors open, burned. Oily black smoke rose from orange flames. Charred bodies lay everywhere, still smoking.
He looked down at his hands.
They were covered in blood.
‘It wasn’t like this,’ he thought. ‘It wasn’t this bad.’
“Of course it was.”
Todd turned quickly at the voice. Even though he recognized it, he refused to admit what his eyes were seeing.
“Bethany,” he said. “You’re dead.”
“Not in this place.” Her slightly-wrinkled face broke open in a smile. She was dressed in a loose grey gown. Her hair flowed impossibly long behind her in a gentle wind that Todd could not feel.
“I have to get out of here, Beth. Wisdom needs me. Wisdom….”
“Wisdom can suck my arse.” Her hands slid slowly down her dress until they reached the hem. “Or even better, maybe you can.” With a deliberation that was uncomfortably seductive, Bethany pulled the gown up over her body until she was naked to the neck. Todd wanted to turn away from her grey pubic hair and wide hips but found himself stuck. He started to shake as she turned around and bent over.
Todd took a step forward.
“Come on, Toddy.” Bethany reached behind her and spread her butt cheeks. “I know you want this as much as I do.” Then something gushed out of her behind – a dark green liquid shot through with gold flecks. Todd screamed but found himself still walking forward. When he was next to Bethany, he knelt down. The green liquid splashed into his face. He opened his mouth to scream and it poured into him.
‘Not like this, not like this, not like this.’ Something inside him started to gurgle, then things blurred and the darkness returned.
***
Echo looked down at herself.
“What the hell?” She found herself in a frilly hoop skirt, her torso choked by a corset. Her hair was done up in an impossible mockery of the style of the Southern states during the War of Independence. She was in a ballroom, immaculately decorated in rococo gaudiness. Dozens of crystal chandeliers shone candlelight down on a ghostly orchestra and delicate phantom women. Transparent shades of men in British uniforms drifted between marble pillars that went on as far as she could see.
“Wisdom, is this your idea of a joke?”
The sky darkened. “Wisdom isn’t here, little Andromeda. Or should I call you Echo?”
She looked around and saw nothing but ghosts. Even though she had never met the owner of that voice, she knew who it was.
“Oh my. I…”
“Silence.”
Echo licked her lips and looked around for some sign of help.
“Like I said, little Echo, my son is not here. This little conversation is just between the two of us.”
“What do you want with me?”
The sky darkened even more.
“It’s unnatural. You. Wisdom. The others. You shouldn’t exist. I’ve allowed you to go on for a time because it amused me. But I’ve been told that I can’t allow you to exist any longer.”
“Told by whom? I thought you were like….”
“The end of the chain?” The temperature dropped and everywhere she looked, Echo saw the world taking on more shades of blue. It was as if the air itself was freezing. “Is that what Wisdom told you or did you just think of that one by yourself? I’m still accountable to my superiors. Nothing of the Djinn can be on Earth much longer. It is too dangerous. Tell me, child, what is it about you that makes you so special? Why is Wisdom going to all this trouble just to...?”
The voice stopped.
“To do what?” Echo stared up at the sky, not sure she wanted the answer.
“Of all the nerve,” the voice answered. “The boy has gone crazy.”
“The boy?” Echo swallowed. “Wisdom? What is he…?”
“Leave me. I’ll deal with you later.”
Everything around Echo whirled and melted together like a fresh oil painting submerged in boiling water. Before she could react, the sensations stopped. She was back in the storage room.
“What the hell?”
Echo turned at the voice. Todd, his face and chest covered in green goo, stood next to David. The others were gone. She looked down at herself and saw she was back in her pantsuit.
“I think Wisdom just bought us some time,” she said. “Let’s put it to good use.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark, but Wisdom knew immediately he was in the right place. He was back in the forest where the stranger had transported Josh and his cousin to another world.
The air smelled different now. Without the influence of his father to cover up the natural scents, Wisdom sensed within seconds what had never occurred to him before.
“There’s a doorway here.” With an exertion of will, he altered his perception. Not only could he see perfectly well in the dark now, he could also make out lines of energy and force beyond human sight. Many of the lines were magnetic in nature. Like veins of the planet, they pulsed and flowed with life. But there was another system here too, a subtle network of power he had seen in few places on Earth. “That’s why the stranger chose this place. The walls between worlds are thin here.”
There are many ways you can spend your life, especially if you are immortal. Wisdom had spent his life amassing every kind of power. In a civilized world, the greatest source of power is information. Aside from military strategies and the secret world of finance, over his long life Wisdom had learned quite a bit about the nature of things. He had learned most of it only after coming back
to Earth. Whatever knowledge the Djinn had, he never bothered teaching it to Wisdom.
Parts he had gathered from the Akashic Records; others by talking with mystics and scholars around the world. He knew that, for the most part, solidity was an illusion. True reality was made up of energy. Thought patterns and the collective consciousness of all living things maintained the illusion of reality.
Like pressure points in a human body, certain locations were naturally weak. A small exertion of pressure in the right spot could split open the whole thing. Others, like Stonehenge or the Vulture Antechamber, were manufactured weak points: piercings like a badly healed break.
Wisdom followed the lines of energy through the woods. To his eyes they looked like interchanging webs of mauve and navy blue lights. The scent of the stranger was strongest where the light of the web was brightest.
He walked further into the woods through knee-high grass. The trees, lush and green, filled the sky above with healthy leaves and branches. The air was warm and humid but a cool breeze blew shadows under the trees.
He saw the opening long before he reached it. The mauve and blue streams of lights converged on one spot. “It’s like my portals,” he whispered to himself. “It’s a rupture in time and space, but it spreads out nearly a kilometer in all directions. And it’s permanent. Lines of force anchored it like the roots of a tree. Judging by the thickness of the lines, this doorway’s not new. It must be centuries old.”
He approached the center of the door and ran his fingers along the surface. Nothing happened, which confirmed his knowledge of this type of portal. Mere contact was not enough to travel through it. It would require an exertion of will.
“Here goes,” he said. He channeled his willpower down through his arms and out through his fingertips. The portal and its roots responded immediately. They swirled. Wisdom stood back to watch the change. The colors intensified and the air under the trees became slightly cooler. Wisdom touched the surface again and his hand disappeared. He quickly withdrew it and centered himself. “Here’s hoping he’s nearby. I’d hate to have to search the entire planet.”
The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels Page 115
