Archanum Manor

by Michael Pierce

  Eli tensed up, anticipating a confrontation.

  “We won’t concern ourselves with such insignificant people,” Kafka said, still following the two guys with his gaze.

  The one who threw the drink glanced back, still laughing, and tripped over some unseen obstacle, spilling like the contents of his cup all over the sidewalk, almost taking his friend down in the process.

  Kafka laughed loudly, his voice carrying over the din of the busy street.

  The guy scrambled to his feet, no longer laughing, and hurried to put distance between himself and his embarrassing misstep.

  Kafka started down the sidewalk in the direction that the limo was pointed.

  Men loitered in front of gated convenience stores. An obese old woman waddled by pushing a small grocery cart overflowing with contents that more appropriately belonged in a trashcan, and muttering nonsensical statements to herself and to those she passed. A man wearing two coats and a blanket pulled up to his chest was seated under the overhang of an abandoned storefront.

  “I see no progress over the past twenty four hours,” Kafka said.

  “You don’t sound surprised,” Eli said.

  “I had a feeling those losers couldn’t organize enough to take on a real task, even with their so-called leader’s life on the line. They assume my request was impossible.”

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  “Show them it’s not.”

  After a few blocks, Eli recognized the surroundings as being where he and Kafka stood the night before.

  Kafka stopped and looked around. “Our friends from yesterday seemed to have sought new refuge. Look around, Eli. What do you see?”

  “I see a slum,” Eli said.

  “Open your eyes wider. Look beyond the dilapidation around us. This place wasn’t built with its current state in mind. It was built with the possibility to be something great. And what was once great can always become great again. Can you see the soaring skyscrapers of Provex City?”

  Eli tried to remember what he had been taught and even thought back to his first vision of the new plane with the help of Oliver. His brain filtered out most of what his eyes actually saw, which created his current reality. But his current reality was changing—thanks to Oliver, thanks to Alexandria, and now thanks to Kafka.

  “Look past these people, past these old buildings, and see what really stands here,” Kafka said in a soothing voice.

  Eli looked above the storefront lights and into the void, trying to picture what he’d be seeing from this angle in the center of downtown Los Angeles, and then growing those buildings to the behemoths of Provex City.

  “What do you see?”

  “I—” The landscape was changing. Ghostly outlines of tall buildings were appearing and slowly becoming more defined. “I think I’m starting to see Provex City.”

  “Good,” Kafka replied. “Don’t go there, just observe. What do you see? What is standing directly in front of us?”

  It was harder to see the ghostly buildings straight ahead due to the bright lights of the busy South Los Angeles street. But when he focused harder, Eli saw the phantom buildings extending from the open air and into the currently occupied space—now supporting two separate realities. After a few more moments of laser-focused attention, blocking out all of the distractions coming from the sidewalk and adjacent street, the new reality became more dominant. A radiant blue building stood before him and at its base, a large stone arch for the main entrance. The building name was inscribed just above the arch.

  “Lorne Tower,” Eli said, reading the inscription.

  “Yes,” Kafka said. “Now you see the importance of this neighborhood and why its current condition is unacceptable.”

  Kafka proceeded into a nearby liquor store. Eli blinked heavily a few times to fully return back to the South Los Angeles sidewalk, just in time to see Kafka stepping over the threshold of the propped open door.

  Kafka approached the male clerk behind the counter. “Are you the owner of this establishment?”

  “No,” he said, looking up from the magazine he was reading. “I’m just the nightshift manager.”

  “Then please deliver this to your owner.”

  His general apathy turned to frustration. “What’s this concerning?”

  “I’m going to buy out his lease,” Kafka said and produced a letter envelope from an inside pocket in his overcoat. “My information is inside as well as what I’m prepared to pay. I’m sure he’ll find it quite generous. I have lawyers on-call to expedite the process since I am acquiring ownership of the building as we speak.” Kafka handed the envelope to the clerk, who proceeded to open it and read through the formal letter inside.

  “Kafka Lorne? That you or the big shot you work for?”

  “I conduct my own business,” Kafka answered. “I am Kafka Lorne.”

  The clerk suddenly rose from his stool, his face turning red as his attention was stolen by a teenager standing by the refrigerators on the far side of the store.

  “Put the bottle back and get out of my store!” he yelled at the guy with a baggy jacket, beanie, and acne scars pock-marking his face.

  The guy looked over but didn’t respond.

  “I saw you stuff that forty in your pocket. That’s it, I’m calling the cops.”

  The clerk picked up the phone and started to dial, but the guy bolted toward him and had a small revolver aimed before the final button was pressed.

  “Hang up the phone,” the guy with the revolver demanded.

  The clerk hesitantly complied and raised his hands.

  Eli took a step away from the entrance as another guy, tall and lanky with greasy hair, strolled in and closed the glass door.

  “Keys!” the guy with the revolver ordered.

  The clerk placed his keys on the counter. Keeping his revolver carefully aimed, the guy swiped the keys from off the counter and tossed them to his greasy-haired friend, who proceeded to lock the door.

  “There’s a camera,” the greasy-haired guy said as he removed a handgun from the waistband of his jeans. “Over there.” He motioned with the barrel of his gun for Eli to stand closer to Kafka.

  The first guy located the camera fastened to the ceiling and took a wild shot in its general direction. The bullet left a hole in the wall a foot away from the camera.

  Kafka laughed heartily at the boy’s sloppy marksmanship.

  “You serious, pops?” he said, now pointing the revolver at Kafka.

  “From what I can tell, you only have five shots left,” Kafka said.

  The clerk was speechless.

  “Add a clip to that,” the greasy-haired guy said, now pointing his gun at Kafka, too. “More than enough to waste you.”

  Eli saw his chance to do something when the greasy-haired guy stepped aside to have a clear shot at Kafka, leaving Eli out of the way and momentarily forgotten. He pulled out his own firearm and aimed it at the back of the greasy-haired guy’s head.

  “Nope,” Eli said.

  “Just take the bottle and leave,” the clerk pleaded. “I don’t want bloodshed in my store.”

  “There won’t be any bloodshed,” Kafka said.

  Eli felt a rush of adrenaline joining the fight. He knew Kafka was in control of the situation, but it made him feel good to contribute. No Nicholae in his way this time. It made him feel good to see the shaken look on the greasy-haired guy’s face when he realized there was also a gun aimed at him.

  “You shoot my friend, I shoot yours,” the first gunman said, trying to sound menacing, but it wasn’t believable.

  “No, you won’t,” Kafka said, and as soon as the words left his mouth, the revolver pointed at him turned abruptly on its own.

  To the clerk and second gunman, it looked like the guy threatening Kafka was turning the gun on himself, now holding the barrel pointed at the side of his own head. But Eli knew better.

  “Now if you want to pull the trigger, I won’t object, but I’d prefer you do it outside,�
� Kafka said, stepping closer to the first gunman, invading his precious personal space. “All you had to do was put the bottle back and leave. How are you feeling about your decision now?”

  “What’s happening to me?” the first gunman cried.

  “What are you doing?” the second gunman yelled.

  “I’ll take that,” Eli said to the second gunman, confiscating someone’s handgun for the second time in one day. “All clear here.”

  “Nice work, Eli,” Kafka said. He reached into the guy’s jacket, pulled out the liquor bottle, and placed it on the counter.

  “Please, sir!”

  “Oh, now I’m a sir, am I?” Kafka grasped the revolver still pointed at the guy’s sweaty temple. “Let go.”

  The guy released his hand from the gun and his arm dropped like he’d been holding it over his head for hours.

  Kafka placed the revolver on the counter next to the bottle and the clerk snatched it immediately.

  Neither disarmed gunman moved.

  “You,” Kafka said to the greasy-haired guy. “Unlock the door, then hand me the keys.”

  The guy did as he was told and stood by, seemingly waiting for more instructions.

  “Now go, leave the store and the neighborhood. Don’t come back. If I see you again, then you’ll leave me no choice but to kill you. Do we understand each other?”

  Both guys ran out the door so fast it seemed like they’d keep running straight into traffic.

  “You just let them leave? They need to be turned over to the police,” the clerk said, back to being frustrated with Kafka’s presence in his store.

  “They are no longer your concern. I am your current concern. Make sure your owner gets my letter and contacts me first thing tomorrow morning. Never mind them; you don’t want me coming back.”

  Kafka and Eli left the store and headed to the next open business, at which Kafka delivered an identical letter. Many of the building spaces were closed or vacant, fenced or boarded up. After making a round of several square blocks, all other visits comparably uneventful to the first, they headed back to the limo.

  “I was thinking,” Eli said. “What about the video camera in the first place?”

  “What about it?” Kafka replied with an innocent smile. “Our friend shot it, which killed the feed.” He shrugged. “Lucky for us.”

  As they approached the limousine, Eli could still see streaks on the hood and windshield left by the thrown soda. But other than the front of the car needing to be hosed down, it hadn’t been vandalized any further.

  Kafka opened the back door, crouched down to enter, and then abruptly stopped and growled, “NO!”

  A few passing pedestrians glanced over at the miserable sound as Kafka climbed inside.

  Eli slid in behind him and immediately saw what had caused the gut-wrenching reaction.

  Abram the wolf lay on its side, sprawled out along the seat. Kafka knelt beside his beloved companion with a hand on its still body.

  “NO, NO, NO!” Kafka laid his head in the dead animal’s fur and closed his eyes.

  Oliver’s mother had also been taken from him. Only Jesus remained, still frozen, yet perfectly alert and concerned as his eyes shifted erratically in his stationary head.

  Eli was afraid to speak, afraid to approach Kafka, and afraid to exit the vehicle. He sat motionless on the back bench, looking anywhere but at Kafka or the wolf. He felt like he’d reverted back to being five years old in the presence of a precarious parent—his weeping mother after a particularly awful fight with his father, or his belligerent father after all twelve empty bottles were lined up across the coffee table ready to be knocked down. There was no appropriate action or escape. Eli sat quietly with his hands clasped together in his lap, hoping, praying that Kafka wouldn’t take out any of his rage on him.

  After a small slice of forever, Kafka lifted his head, his jaw tightly clenched. His eyes were fiery, like lasers looking for a target—and they landed on the petrified gang leader. Kafka pulled back one side of his overcoat and removed the double-edged dagger from its sheath on his belt. As soon as Kafka’s hand reached the guy’s neck, he seemed to suddenly come to life—a life he was desperate to protect. Kafka wrestled him to the floor of the limo amidst a hail of kicking and punching, clawing and grabbing, and multi-lingual profanity. With one hand on Jesus’s neck, holding him down, and the other clutching the dagger, Kafka weathered the frantic onslaught like an adult defending against an attack from a small child. Many of the swings landed, but didn’t seem to inflict any damage—or even elicit much of a reaction.

  Kafka removed the hand from his prisoner’s neck for the briefest of instants and then slammed it back down over his face, muffling the verbal assault, leaving his neck free to be cut open. Blood sprayed from the gasping gash, soaking Kafka, reaching Eli, and leaving much of the leather interior speckled with red. The guy’s strength and fight faded fast until he was once again as still as he’d been when they entered the limo, eyes still open, but no longer with fear behind them.

  Kafka wiped the blade on the dead man’s undershirt and put it away. He glanced at Eli with blood dripping down his face with an intensity Eli had never seen on another human being—not even from his father during the worst of the worst episodes—and he was afraid.

  Without a word, Kafka maneuvered past Eli to open the door of the limo, dragged the corpse by the collar, and shoved it out of the car to spill onto the sidewalk like more roadside trash. Kafka rapped on the roof three times before taking a seat next to his wolf. He sat back, legs splayed out, and stared straight ahead like one of his own bloody statues.

  The limousine pulled away from the curb as screams arose from outside.

  7

  No More

  “Don’t believe her, Desiree,” I pleaded. I couldn’t lose her, too. “I know you’re in there somewhere. Fight—fight whatever she’s done to you.”

  “Don’t do anything to scare the poor girl,” Alexandria said. “She’s been through enough of an ordeal.”

  “Shut up, Alex,” Matilda barked. “Give her to us and we’ll leave peacefully.”

  “Let’s go, back to your rooms.” Approaching us and leaving Desiree in the background, Alexandria pulled a phone from her black lab coat pocket. After a swipe and a few thumb jabs to the touch screen, the blaring alarm turned off. “The young girl needs her rest.”

  The door to the hallway suddenly opened as Logan, Mr. Gordon, and the three patients they’d freed burst into the room. Mr. Gordon and Logan abruptly stopped at the sight of our confrontation with Alexandria, and then they noticed Desiree seated a few yards away. From the mixed emotions on their faces, I could tell they didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned. The other three, now dressed like the doctors who’d been working on them, stood uncertainly in the doorway.

  “What did we miss?” Logan asked.

  “Well, well—what do we have here?” Alexandria looked Logan over and produced a predatory smile. “Quite the reunion, I reckon. Welcome back, Logan. Did you miss me? Miss your treatments? Allow me to show you back to your room—I believe it’s recently become available. Come, everyone. Miss Desiree needs her rest.” She took a few more steps forward, lifting her arms in a manner to herd us toward the door.

  “No!” I yelled and pushed her arm away. “I’m not leaving without my girlfriend.”

  “You’re delusional,” Desiree spat. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

  “Like I said, he’s sick,” Alexandria said over her shoulder.

  “Whoa...” Logan said. “What’s happening?”

  I reached under my jacket and pulled the handgun from its holster, pointing the barrel at Alexandria’s chest to force her back a few steps, back to a more comfortable distance.

  Desiree screamed and slunk behind the chair, which due to the central cylindrical leg, offered little cover.

  “I am not delusional and I am not sick!” I shouted. “Fix her, NOW!”

  “You’re not
helping your case,” Alexandria sighed. “I know you’re upset with me, but you’re going about this all wrong—all hot-headed and guns blazing. She doesn’t remember you from before and you want her to remember you like this? Not the approach I would choose.”

  “She’ll understand as soon as you restore her memory,” I said, seething. “Now do it, or else—”

  “Or else what?” Alexandria said, stepping into the barrel. “You’ll shoot me again? How did that work out for you last time? You should have some basic understanding of the Lornes by now.”

  “Oliver, put the gun away,” Mr. Gordon said. “It’s not helping.”

  “Where’s her daediem?” Matilda asked. “Did you kill it? Is she one of you now?”

  “Does she seem like one of us now?” Alexandria asked contemptuously, batting the barrel of my gun away and taking a step back. “No, it’s safe—and well hidden.”

  I slowly approached Desiree who was still crouched behind the chair.

  “No, don’t come any closer,” she cried.

  I stopped.

  “Look, I’m putting it away,” I said, holstering my weapon and raising my hands in a gesture of peace. “I know you don’t remember me right now. But somewhere in there, you do. I would never hurt you. Please, believe me on that.”

  I took a step closer to test her resistance and she stopped me again.

  “Please leave me alone. Leave us alone. She’s just trying to help you like she helped me—to help you get better.”

  A scream came from the door.

  The teenage girl and older woman were both snatched by orderlies in the black scrubs and quickly dragged from the doorway. The blonde haired twenties-something guy fought to get the women released and was overpowered by two more orderlies.

  During the commotion, Alexandria advanced on a distracted Logan and stabbed him in the side of the neck with a syringe retrieved from her lab-coat pocket. I yelled for someone to do something as she depressed the plunger, pumping the drugs into his system.