Revelations: Book One of the Lalassu

by Lewis, Jennifer Carole

  “What’s going on?” Dani asked, hurrying up the ramp.

  “We can’t be sure. Gwen had an incident—”

  “You called me out here because of a tantrum? She has them every fucking day, Dad. She begs me to save people who died in the Civil War!” Dani stopped in her tracks.

  Michael blinked, not sure he’d heard correctly. Who’s Gwen?

  “This is different.” Walter’s quiet assertion allowed no possibility for argument. His dark eyes studied Michael carefully as they stepped into the house. Wheelchair or not, Michael knew Walter would take care of any potential threat personally.

  Dani’s irritation snapped loud and clear with each clicking footstep as she crossed the kitchen floor. Michael worried that one more stress would permanently break her.

  The sound of a soothing lullaby broken by whimpering caught his attention. It was close. He slid around Dani and her father, the two of them still arguing. A short dimly lit hall opened off the kitchen. The sounds were coming from there, from the dark room at the end.

  As his eyes adjusted, he could make out an older woman kneeling on a mound of quilts and blankets. Her long hair fell over her face in streaks of gray and black. She stroked something on her lap, something he couldn’t quite make out.

  At first he thought it must be a child, but then he took in the proportions of the long pasty limbs curled into themselves, the size of the close-shorn head.

  Disbelief struggled to quash the revelation. It was a young woman, in her late teens or early twenties. From the stale scent of sweat and the pallid gleam of her skin, one who lived entirely within this room. A room made of inexpertly mortared irregular stones, floor, walls, and ceiling. No window broke the craggy expanses. The only light came from a few scattered candles burning in empty soup tins. A heavy ceramic pot in the corner told him he wasn’t mistaken.

  “You keep her trapped in here?” Despite a lifetime of maintaining professional composure, anger sharpened his voice and narrowed his features.

  The woman raised her head and her milky eyes met Michael’s horrified gaze. “Not trapped. Protected.”

  “She needs to be protected from you.” Michael fumbled for his phone, plans of calling the police or protective services running through his mind. She would need a guardian. The state would provide one.

  Walter’s hand darted out, snagging his wrist, trapping the mobile in his pocket. Michael hadn’t heard him or Dani approach, but he absorbed the man’s exhaustion and long-held fear. He couldn’t help comparing it to Martha, Bernie’s mother. Neither of them felt hope for the future any longer, yet kept fighting anyway. But this family had fought a futile battle for much longer.

  “You did this to her,” he whispered, comprehending. Not trapped. Protected as well as they could.

  “We had to. She’s a medium. A powerful one. Probably the most powerful one in history.” Walter let him go. “They wouldn’t leave her alone.”

  “It’s why we moved to Perdition. We needed somewhere safe to build a solid structure to keep the dead out. Stone and salt are the only things that work and there can’t be any chinks or gaps for them to slip though.” Dani took up the narrative, gesturing to the thick line of white crystals around the door. “No electrical wiring to ride in. No plumbing. When we carried her in here, it was the first time she’d ever known silence.”

  “Until she broke the salt,” Dani’s mother snapped, still not ready to forgive the trespass and accusations.

  “She broke the salt?” Dani paled.

  Michael knelt by the doorway. Sure enough, there were a series of thin gaps in the crystals as though someone had clawed them.

  “She’s been agitated all evening. I was trying to calm her down but she ripped right through the salt line. Then she started screaming for you, Danielle.” Her mother transferred her blind glare to her other daughter.

  Gwen moaned. “Did they come? Tell her she has to come. Both of them.”

  “I’m here, Gwen.” Dani’s earlier irritation vanished completely. She knelt by her sister’s bed.

  Gwen groped blindly, her skeletal fingers clutching at Dani’s strong hands. “Did he come? Did you find him? The invisible man?”

  “I found him.” Dani glanced over her shoulder at Michael.

  Me? This was beyond anything he’d expected. He couldn’t quite begin to process it.

  “He should leave,” Dani’s mother insisted.

  “Virginia—” Walter held up his hand.

  Gwen writhed as her body curled with pain. “Won’t leave me alone. Won’t take no for an answer. Screaming in blood, everything shimmers.” She continued muttering nonsense about blood and illusions while the rest of them exchanged helpless shrugs.

  “She was so insistent that we call. But then she ripped the phone out of my hand, screaming the shadows would trace it.” Virginia cradled her lost daughter. “Whatever has her is strong.”

  “What did she mean about the invisible man?” Michael asked, keeping his attention focused on Dani.

  “Something the dead showed her. I needed to find the invisible man who sees hidden truths, or else the stars would be blotted out one by one.” Dani pushed her hands through her hair.

  “That’s what you meant with Vapor. This person hunting lalassu, he’s capturing them but no one realized. But how on earth am I supposed to stop him blotting out the stars?” He looked around as if the answer might be written on the walls or floor around him.

  “Help me find him and stop him from taking anyone else,” Dani replied bluntly.

  “Who are you?” Walter’s steel-eyed scrutiny eloquently established his mistrust far better than any mere words could have managed.

  “My name is Michael Brooks. I’m a behavioral therapist.” Even as he said the words, he knew the answers were inadequate.

  “He’s a psychometrist,” Dani explained. “He gets impression through touch.”

  “I am aware what a psychometrist is.” Walter’s eyes never left Michael. “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “He’s not part of the community, but he is one of us.”

  A frantic scream from Gwen interrupted the interrogation.

  “Let me see if I can help her. Please.” Michael took a step toward, her but Walter blocked his path.

  Gwen screamed louder.

  Michael shoved his hair back with both hands, fighting a nearly physical compulsion to help. “Please. This is what I do.”

  “Let him, Dad. He won’t hurt her.”

  Walter wheeled back reluctantly, his chair teetering on the uneven surface.

  Michael ignored him, kneeling beside mother and daughter. Gwen clung tightly to Virginia, her eyes flickering over unseen things, just like Bernie’s did. He wanted to take the time to chase down the implications of that thought, but Gwen needed his help now.

  “She’s lost in the voices.” Virginia’s voice thickened with tears.

  “Then let me see if I can help her find her way home.” Michael took a deep breath and reached for Gwen’s hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The world snapped and fuzzed around him. The stone walls loomed large and shot into the distance in dizzying unpredictability. A low buzz, like a stadium crowd in the distance, filled the air. Michael stared in horror at the thick stone that suddenly seemed like a paper screen separating him from something horrible and determined. The noise grew louder, shattering into distinct voices.

  “—see me, know you can—”

  “—fight, fight every day—”

  “—never told her—”

  “—need to have it, just one more—”

  “—don’t like it here—”

  Michael tried to ignore the incessant chatter and the throbbing walls, focusing on the shivering girl. Mindful of the fragile bones beneath the clammy skin, he nonetheless kept a tight grip. “Gwen,” he called softly. His voice vanished into the din.

  “—scary, Mommy, please—”

  “—searching forever—”
r />   “—couldn’t hurt me again—”

  “—never let go—”

  “Gwen, don’t listen to them. Listen to me.” Michael spoke firmly.

  That’s what he says.

  The thought was so clear that he nearly dropped her hand as well as the link between them in surprise. Gwen’s blank stare tightened, flickering back to the present.

  “Gwen?”

  You have to follow me.

  “No, Gwen, you need to come back with me,” he urged, not wanting to be drawn deeper into her madness. The voices rose up, snatching at his attention.

  NO! The word hit him like hurricane-force winds, a denial negating and flattening everything in its path. Michael winced, his head throbbing from the psychic impact. The voices went silent for a moment, but then began to mutter again.

  Gwen stared at him with the shadowed eyes of someone who has been forced to see more than any sane human could ever imagine. You have to go or else they die.

  “Go where?” Michael choked out.

  Here. Gwen’s free hand shot out and clamped onto Michael’s cheek, the bony fingers digging into his skin. He gasped and stiffened against the assault, but it was too late.

  His consciousness flowed out of his body like water. He saw himself fall onto the floor. Gwen’s hand lay trapped beneath his head, and for a moment he worried the weight of his skull might break her fingers.

  “Don’t. I’ll be all right.”

  He looked up, but the Gwen standing in front of him was not the same one lying in the stone-walled room. She was younger, her short dark hair in a pixie-cut and neatly combed. She moved like any other girl, and her eyes were clear and lucid.

  Except he could also see her pale and battered body lying beside him, and his own body next to her. “How…?” He couldn’t quite get the words past his amazement.

  She smiled. “It’s a combination of the two of us. I couldn’t explain it, but they were sure it would work.”

  He watched as Dani’s mother cradled her daughter while her father stood guard at the door. Dani knelt beside Michael, biting her lip, her hand hovering as if she wanted to touch him, but she didn’t want to risk overloading him. Except that he couldn’t sense her at all, as if she were an image on television. The realization unsettled him. But he had to focus on Gwen right now. “Who are ‘they’?”

  “Ghosts. Spirits. Messengers.” Gwen shrugged as if the details were unimportant. “They sent a lot of them because it was hard for me to hear the message. You know, because of the crazy.”

  “You’re not crazy. You’re a medium. The voices are real.” Michael turned back to Gwen, determined to understand what had happened. The walls were still throbbing, but the voices were muted.

  “That only makes it worse.” Gwen rubbed her toe against the floor. “Chuck should be here.”

  “Chuck?” Michael tried to keep his concern out of his voice. Surely she didn’t mean Bernie’s invisible instigator?

  “I had to open the door so he could come in. But don’t worry. He’s not upset that you didn’t think he was real.”

  “Speak for yourself, doll,” a boy’s voice drawled with a harsh Brooklyn accent. Spinning, Michael saw a small boy around ten years old standing beside them, as solid as Dani, her parents, or either of the Gwens. The boy wore dull gray trousers and suspenders. His white shirt had the sleeves rolled up and a gray cap perched uncertainly on his head.

  “Chuck?” Michael tried to collect his professional dignity and closed his mouth.

  “Yeah. That’s me.”

  “Bernie’s Chuck?”

  “What, you want ID?” The toughened child had no patience for mental processing. “Musta left it in my other pants. You know, when I died.”

  “What are you doing here?” Michael asked, eager to regain some illusion of control and normality.

  “Bernie needs you.”

  “I know.” Guilt weighed him down.

  “You was supposed to rescue her! She’s scared!” Chuck’s pint-sized fury exploded.

  “I know.” Had life ever been so simple when he was a child? Even then, he’d seen into the secrets people didn’t want to share. He’d wanted it to be simple, and that urge had drawn him to comics. Heroes help, villains hurt and in the end, the right side wins.

  “I tried to help her. Tried to show her what was wrong.” Chuck glared at him.

  He remembered Bernie’s words. Chuck says it’s scary. “You were right.”

  “You mugs never listen to me!” Chuck shouted.

  “It’s hard for people to listen to me, too,” Gwen told him, plucking at her hair.

  “Chuck, I’m listening now. But you need to promise something, too.” Michael knelt beside the boy, putting them on the same level.

  “Or what? You won’t help?” the boy sneered.

  “I’ve been helping Bernie a long time, and I’m going to get her out of that place.” Irritated at the suggestion of abandonment, his voice firmed. He took a breath, reminding himself that Chuck was still a child, no matter how long he had been dead. “But it would help if you would stop telling her to hurt other people or destroy things.”

  Chuck stared at his feet. “I don’t always mean it. I just get mad sometimes.”

  “I know. But Bernie gets confused. You need to be a good friend to her and help her. One way is to help her know she’s not alone. Her mom is fighting real hard to get her back home. And I’m fighting hard, too.” He reached out to touch Chuck’s arm, uncertain if his hand would pass right through, but instead his fingers settled on warm flesh.

  Without any information. It surprised him. He’d never touched someone without picking up flashes of memories or emotional states. It felt strangely empty.

  “It’s cause I ain’t got no body, genius.” Chuck shook his head in the universal juvenile disgust at the obtuseness of adults everywhere.

  “Can you read my thoughts?” Michael asked.

  “Naw. But I know what you can do. And it ain’t hard to figure out what you’re thinking.” He paused, studying Michael. “You really gonna ride in and save Bernie?”

  “Maybe not ride in, but I’m going to get her out of there. I won’t stop until she’s out.” As much as it went against his instincts, Dani was right about the futility of a forward assault. This wasn’t a comic where everything would work out. They needed a better plan than hoping for the best.

  “You have to stay away!” a new voice shrieked.

  The wavering figure standing in the corner couldn’t seem to decide if it was a skinny man with matted hair or a powerful one bristling with science-fiction weapons. “There’s no time!” he shouted. “They’re coming!”

  “Who are you?” Michael demanded, stepping between the strange apparition and Gwen and Chuck.

  “Can’t tell you my name. Always want to know my name. That’s how they find you, track you down, snatch you while you sleep. Can’t give the name. No, no. Not going to get me again.” He solidified briefly into the skinny, unkempt version of himself, wearing a T-shirt with a Superman logo. “Have to give the message, get back out there. Need me to fight the war. Can’t leave my post.”

  “He’s been shouting so loud, even the stone didn’t keep him away.” Gwen curled her bony fingers around Michael’s arm, crouching in his shadow. “He came right after Chuck.”

  “Keeps yammering about the message. But the stupid mook won’t tell us what it is.” Chuck threw his hands in the air in frustration.

  “Who told you to give the message?” Michael’s training steadied him. No matter how weird the setting and circumstances, this was still a mentally disturbed individual who needed his help.

  “Big guy. Told me then killed me. Didn’t want to. But they had him. Knew his name.”

  “What did he say?” Michael kept his voice calm and undemanding.

  “Said to find Gwen. Needed to give her the message.”

  “I’m Gwen.” She stepped around Michael.

  The skinny man scrubbed his hands
through his matted hair. “You are?”

  She nodded, her fingers knotting and twisting together.

  “What about them? They might be with, you know, them.”

  “I trust them. Please, tell me.” Gwen whispered, her weight poised lightly on her feet as if she were prepared to flee at the slightest sign of danger.

  “I’m tired. So tired. Running all the time. Trying to keep ahead.” He sank down on the ground.

  “They can’t hurt you anymore. You’re safe now,” Michael reassured him.

  “He said to tell them André is looking for them. He wants power. Tell them to run.”

  Sharp coppery blood on her tongue warned Dani before her compulsive lip-biting could sever a substantial portion of flesh. Her thighs ached with the effort of supporting herself on her haunches on the uneven floor.

  Michael’s skin had gone horribly pale against the dark stone floor. He hadn’t moved since Gwen grabbed him and they’d fallen together. The clock might only say a few minutes had passed but it felt like hours to Dani. Gwen curled up as if she were simply asleep but Michael’s chest barely shifted with each shallow breath. She strained to hear the muted thump of his slowed heart, desperate for any sign of improvement. Only his eyes flickering behind half-closed lids betrayed any sign of life. Even his smell was muted, a pale faded memory of apples and vanilla instead of a mouth-watering inspiration.

  Like when he’d vanished at Vapor’s. The hacker might not have understood her panic, but it had unnerved her to see everything that made Michael himself vanish out of his body, leaving nothing behind but slack meat. She’d seen enough dead bodies in her lifetime to recognize the difference between the living and the dead, breathing notwithstanding. Her lip slipped between her teeth again as she watched her mother in trance.

  “I can’t find them.” Virginia roused herself, shaking her head sadly. “They’ve gone somewhere I can’t follow.” She cradled Gwen’s limp body, stroking her arms.

  Dani growled at her mother before she could stop herself, her irises burning.

  Virginia straightened in surprise, her hands tightening protectively on Gwen. “They’re both still alive with spirits intact. For now.”