by JL Terra
The golem stretched out its hand toward her.
Mei couldn’t back up any more. She kept going, almost done with her recitation now. She felt the cool of its hand over the skin of her neck. So close.
She finished.
He stilled.
Dropped its hand and looked up. Mei told it what she wanted it to do.
The golem turned and left the room.
Chapter 36
Virginia Beach, VA. Sunday, 22:03hrs EDT
Ben stood in the shadows and watched Ted Tiller stumble from the bar with a woman. Jeans and shined shoes, a button-down shirt that fit him well. Marred slightly by the brace over one knee, and the limp. His hair looked like he’d run his fingers through it—or someone else had. Every step was overexaggerated. He spoke in a volume slightly louder than pleasant conversation as he conversed with the woman hugged tight to his side.
Ben stepped from concealment and followed Ted down the sidewalk. The air had an edge to it. Ruffled the edges of his hood and tempted it to drop back to expose his face. Ben reached up and pulled it forward to obscure more of his face. His hands were curled into fists in the pockets of the zip-up hoodie.
The woman’s shoe clipped a break in the sidewalk and she stumbled. Giggled. Ted urged her on. His hand stroked the red material over her hip. A tattoo wrapped her right calf and up to disappear under the hem of her dress. Her curled dark hair hung down past the dip in the dress back.
Ted and the woman reached the curb. He didn’t lead her across. Ted pulled her left, into an alley. By the time Ben reached the corner, Ted had her up against the wall.
The woman squeaked a noise. “Be sweet, Teddy.”
Ted lifted his face from her neck and touched his nose to hers. “I’ll be whatever I want to be.”
Ben watched her stiffen. Unsure. Ted went back to getting what he wanted while Ben took a step into the alley. The woman’s head whipped around. “Ted.” She slapped at his shoulder. “Someone is here.”
“Let them watch.”
Ben uncurled his fingers, still inside his pockets, and made fists again. “That isn’t what I’m here for.”
Ted turned his head.
“This is the part where I say, ‘Unhand her.’” Ben paused. “Before you do something she’s going to regret.”
“And this is the part where I don’t care what you have to say.” Ted pulled a gun. His arm clipped the woman’s as he turned to face Ben. She squealed, as much at the action as the sight of a gun.
She raced around him, gave Ben a wide berth, and clacked away on her heels. As the sound of her retreated, Ben cocked his head. “Didn’t Elaine tell you? Guns aren’t going to work.”
Ted shifted the gun to glance at the length of the barrel then said, “I like holding it. I think I’ll keep it out. Just for peace of mind.” He refocused his aim on Ben. “What do you want?”
“Information on the ‘Teacher.’”
Ted burst out laughing. “That’s a good one. You think I’m just going to tell you everything? You’re farther gone than we thought. You’re plain cracked.”
“Be that as it may,” Ben said, “you’re still going to tell me who he is. And where I can find him.”
“Unlike you, I value my life.”
“Then tell me what I want to know.”
“Or what?”
Ben shrugged. “You’ll die for the Teacher?”
Ted said nothing.
“It cost Eric his life. And for what?” He pulled one hand from his pocket. Ted flinched. Ben opened his hand to reveal an empty palm. “For me?”
“This is bigger than you.”
“I know. There’s a golem walking around with my face. My mannerisms. My knowledge.” The idea solidified in his mind a second after he said it. Ben knew things only the golem knew. They shared memories now, because Elaine and her “medicine” had brought them out in him. Did that mean the golem knew things about Ben? If that was true, Mei might be in more danger than he thought. The golem would know he’d gone to see her. Led it right to her.
“You know about it?”
Ben nodded. “I don’t get your connection, though. It didn’t kill your parents.”
“It did.” Ted spat. “My father was a true believer. He knew what it could do. He worked for Roger for years, experimenting. Trying to find a way to render it inert.”
“It’s not a poisonous gas.”
“It’s still a weapon. My father saw what it could do, but my mother didn’t believe him.” Ted sucked in a breath. “She told him he was crazy. Do you know what that did to him? It’s the golem’s fault he snapped.”
“He shot her and then killed himself, didn’t he?”
“Eric and I were made orphans because that thing destroys everything it comes into contact with.”
“Even me?” Ben thought about the black veins, their steady spread across his body. Was it overcoming him, pumping its nature into his blood?
“Especially you,” Ted spat.
“And now Eric is dead.”
“And I’m going to find it. Make it pay.”
“You can’t kill it.”
Ted huffed. “And if I chop it into pieces and throw it in the ocean, each part miles from the next? What’s it going to do to me then?”
“Okay, so you’ve thought this through.” Ben couldn’t let him do it. He didn’t know what would happen to him if Ted succeeded. “What about the Teacher? Does he want it cut up and disposed of?”
“Of course not, he calls it his birthright.”
Before Ted could realize he’d spilled when he hadn’t meant to, Ben said, “His birthright?”
Ted’s eyes flashed. “He thinks it belongs to him. His family has been searching for it for years.”
“That’s why he brought you in. And a bunch of malleable people with a personal interest in revenge. Clever.”
“You think I’m being played? This is all me. I’m the one who wants it taken out.”
Probably it was Ted who’d thought of this plan. However, this “Teacher” they all mentioned had brought them together with a common goal. The perfect army—people willing to do whatever it took to achieve their goal. All in the name of retribution.
“You all do. Enough to kidnap and experiment on me.”
Ted made a dismissive gesture. “That was information gathering.”
“And did you learn what you’d hoped to?”
“Before you killed three men, frightened the daylights out of Elaine, and ran off?” Ted huffed. “Do you know how many problems you’ve caused for us?”
“I’m sure I can bring myself to care if I try really… No, it didn’t work. Sorry.”
Ted’s lip curled.
“Who is he, this Teacher? What is his name?”
“I’d think you were smart enough to figure that out for yourself.”
Ben ignored that jab. “What does he want with it when he finally gets his hands on it?”
“Who cares? It belongs to him. Only he knows how to properly utilize its unique skillset.”
“So he’s going to bind it to someone else, maybe even himself if it’s possible, and use it to kill on his whim.” Ben let his words hang in the air, as cold as morning frost. “Which makes him no better than Roger, committing murder for his own gain.”
Roger had commanded the golem to kill people for years. Men and women related to everyone in the Teacher’s group. It would probably take Remy weeks to figure out the connection between them and Roger. And yet, Ted and Eric’s father had killed without the intervention of the golem. He’d committed murder/suicide.
It was capable of intense violence. It had to be, because Ben had torn those two men apart in some kind of fugue state. Was the golem capable of that kind of cognitive decision making, for whatever reason it deemed sufficient? The stories all said it was made of mud. Did it have life within it, or was it simply an empty shell?
Perhaps it had influenced Ted’s father with enough rage to end his wife’s life. It was pos
sible he had then realized what he’d done, and killed himself.
The golem likely had abilities Ben wasn’t even aware of. But he needed to know.
Ted shifted the gun. It was the only warning Ben had before the bullet exploded from the barrel and slammed into his shoulder.
He hissed out a breath and bent nearly double. “Your anger is misplaced. Much like your father’s. I guess it runs in the family.” He straightened. Done with this. “You said it was his birthright.”
The man who had created the golem had been a Rabbi. A teacher. Rabbi Loew was famous in Jewish folklore, at least according to what Remy had told him. In the sixteenth century he was said to have brought the creature to life, though no one knew how. Ben could recite the words even after all this time. Every syllable lived on his tongue.
His internet search had taken him another step. There was one other man created the same way: Adam, the first human ever created. And yet, God was the one who had breathed life into him. Divine life. If Rabbi Loew had breathed his own human life into the creature, or bestowed it upon him somehow, what did that mean for the golem?
If this teacher that Ted followed really considered the golem to be his birthright, it meant the man could well be a descendent of this Rabbi Loew.
Ben said, “Does he know how to control it?” If the Teacher could call it to him, the man would have done it already. He wouldn’t have needed Ben in order to gather more information.
Ted shrugged. “Kill whoever he wants and blame it on you? I’m under no illusions about that man. Not like the rest of those sheep.”
“And your brother.”
“He did what he thought was right. What does that matter to me?”
Remy had told Ben they’d been close as children. Time had evidently laid distance between them.
“I’m done being a victim, letting anyone dictate to me where I’m going and what I should do.”
An idea began to coalesce in Ben’s mind. Even as he said, “So you’ve quit the team?”
Ted shrugged. “I do what I want.”
Which meant the Teacher had an opening. Ben had killed three of his people, and Eric was dead. He would be in need of personnel if he wanted to take on any more operations. It seemed like he was the kind of leader who employed others to achieve his aim. There were a lot of reasons he might just lock Ben up if he showed up. Especially demanding a position.
But the argument he’d use was that Ben was as much of a victim of this thing, and of Roger Stilson, as the rest of them. Maybe even more so. He hadn’t asked for the golem to resemble him. Perhaps there was even a way Ben could call it to himself, command it to stand down. He hadn’t tried everything.
Maybe Ben was the only one strong enough to capture it. If the plan was solid, and the golem didn’t see it all coming.
“So you’re done with him?” Ben asked. “You’re going to destroy the golem and walk away. Live your life.” He was kind of annoyed by that, if he was honest with himself. Which he tried to be. “Must be nice for you, having an out. If I was you, I’d just go now.”
“You don’t think I can do it, do you?” Ted sneered. “You think I can’t capture it and cut it up? You know nothing about me.”
“That’s actually not true.”
“Then it’s all you know.”
“Tell me.”
Ted roared and ran toward him. His head hit the wound in Ben’s shoulder that hadn’t finished closing up yet. The rush of pain stalled Ben’s movement, and his back hit the ground.
A cell phone clattered on the ground.
Ted slammed the gun into Ben’s forehead. He blinked away the blur and punched Ted in the cheek. His head whipped left so far it nearly snapped his neck.
Ben reached up and squeezed Ted’s throat. “Tell me.”
That latent fire in him flared to life. It spread to his fingertips before he could even track the movement from his chest. An inferno. Ben could hardly breathe, it felt like trying to suck in air when the room was on fire. Nothing but flames all around him.
Ted began to choke. “Okay.” His gaze flicked around, then lit on Ben’s face. He squeaked out a noise. “Red.” He gasped. “Eyes.”
Ben’s fingers tightened. Involuntary. He was…
“No!”
Ted’s scream was the last thing he heard.
Ben fought the black. Fought the tightness in his fingers. “Tell me.”
He couldn’t let go. All he could do was lift his leg and kick Ted from on top of him. Ted’s body flung to the side, but his neck was still in Ben’s grasp. He grunted and strained against the steel in his fingers. A grip that refused to let go. Refused to allow this man to live.
“He wants an army.” Ted coughed. “Not one golem. A whole army of them.”
A red haze washed over his vision as he fought the golem for control of his own body. He couldn’t trust himself. Couldn’t trust anything he did or said, not when it could be the creature directing him. No one he met would be safe.
He could kill Mei.
One moment, a simple conversation shared. The next he might wrap her neck with his fingers, just like Ted, and choke the life out of her.
He sucked in cool air. Tried to fill his lungs with it, but the oxygen turned to smoke as it hit his throat. He heaved and gagged. Spat on the concrete. All the while, Ted’s gasping grew quieter and quieter. He was dying.
Ben was killing him.
“Let. Him. Go.” The words were barely audible, but he said them anyway. He didn’t want to be this thing. This evil. He wasn’t going to let it overtake him. Ben would fight for every inch of control he could gain over it.
And he would not. Give. Up.
Ever.
His fingers slacked a minuscule amount. It was enough.
Ben let go. He snatched up the phone and left Ted lying in the alley, unconscious, not knowing if the man was dead or alive.
Then he ran.
Chapter 37
Undisclosed location. Sunday, 01:23hrs EDT
The highway hummed under truck tires. Sweat rolled down Taya’s temple and soaked into the fabric blindfold they’d put on her. She ducked her head to the side and lifted her shoulder to scratch the irritation. Her chains clinked together.
Jeff sat across from her. She heard him shift, hands securing the blindfold.
Taya grasped for him.
His chuckle started beside her and moved back. Out of reach. “Nice try.”
She pressed her lips together. They were transporting her for debrief. Which meant, “Interrogation.” CIA or not, it was pretty obvious what was going to happen. Taya sighed. Ben was free, that was what counted. All she could do from here was pray, which she’d been doing for hours now. Hours on the road to wherever they were taking her.
Hopefully she would get to meet the men behind this. Finally put a face to the second gunman on the grassy knoll.
Taya was bored of sitting here. “Are we there yet?”
Jeff snorted. “Half an hour.”
“Where is, ‘there’?”
“You think I’m going to just tell you?”
“Okay, maybe not.” She pouted. Good thing he couldn’t see her eyes. Though, maybe some of her attitude had leaked into her voice. She was only human.
Jeff had become her handler only recently. She figured he’d maneuvered himself into the position for a reason: using Taya to get to Ben. She’d played right into their hands, and they’d used Ben to find her.
“So…” she drew out the word. “How long have you worked for the Teacher?”
“You think you’re such a clever girl.”
“That where we’re going? To him?” She shook her head. “Like I’m going to help him.”
“We can force you.”
She snorted. “You think I can’t withstand enhanced interrogation?”
“I know exactly what you’ve been taught. I’ve read your file, Taya. It’s impressive. However, there was a lot missing. Don’t you agree? For example, there was nothi
ng in there about your daughter, Mei.”
Taya stilled. “You touch one hair—”
“I’m talking now.”
She closed her mouth.
“The Teacher will instruct you. This will be obeyed. If peace is to be achieved, the golem must be contained. Its care given to those born to command it.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Ben Mason.”
Apparently all of his answers involved Ben as well.
They were going to use her to get to him? Taya bit down on her molars. If they’d overlooked Mei and chosen her instead, did it mean they considered her the weak link? Or the one Ben would be more motivated to come for?
Her heart swelled at the idea he would give himself up to save her. She had done the same for him, many times. He’d walked away when she asked him to. Just once, she wished he would walk to her instead of away. Their lives had been nothing but separation and longing.
Would she get to live her dream of being together with him?
Taya dipped her head, done with the conversation.
“I don’t get it.” Jeff wasn’t done. “What is it with you and Ben Mason?”
Ben was the man she had loved since before she ever knew what love was. She’d watched him suffer more than anyone and yet stand through it all. Taya wasn’t going to be the reason he was brought low. She only wanted him to live. To be free of this. She just hoped they wouldn’t come to the end, both intent on saving the other. It was a delicate balance between choosing death, and being certain that it would grant the other person salvation.
“Nothing to say?”
In any other life, Ben would have been her husband. But how did she explain that to this man when she barely understood it herself? Only her brother got how she felt about Ben. Because Eli had endured those dark days when she’d screamed at him for being gay, all the while puffed up with her own goodness. Like she was anything special. Eli had worn her down until she stopped spewing her pain at him and instead started speaking truth. Start learning how to love.
Ben had destroyed her, and he hadn’t remembered it.
When she’d been old enough to realize it wasn’t him, it was too late. They’d met up, and he’d acted like nothing was wrong. Taya buried her pain. Then rediscovered the way she’d felt.
