by Lucian Bane
“It’s a deal, mom.”
“Alright then.” Before Poe could say a word, she hooked her arm in his and led him out, none too slowly. When they were out of earshot, she whispered, “Did you hear that?”
“Yes, I did. Why is he calling you that?”
She gasped. “Don’t say it like I asked him to mister! He asked.”
“He asked?”
“Yes,” she nearly squealed in distress. “Just like this, ‘Miss Charlotte? Can I call you mom? I never had one and I always wanted one. It’s okay if you’re really not my mom, I just want to call you that because I like you and you’re just like a mom should be.’ Oh my God, Poe,” she gasped, “what was I supposed to say? No? I couldn’t tell that sweet boy no! I’m sorry.”
At hearing her concern for Kane, and that she was crying, Poe did what seemed normal. He hugged her. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I don’t know if it’s the right thing, but it feels right.”
She nodded in his chest. “To me too. I’m not a mom, Poe. I’m not.”
“Just be his friend, that’s all he needs. That’s what I do.”
Again she nodded in his chest then suddenly pushed out of his hold. “Fine. Okay,” it sounded like she was wiping her eyes. He suddenly wondered again what color her eyes were. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“I… needed to ask you some things about… being human.”
“Oh?” Like she’d not expected that. “What? I’ll do my best Are you having problems?”
“Not problems, just… I need to know how human needs… work. I’ve not experienced so many sensitivities at once. I sometimes feel like my insides are on my outside.”
“Ohhhh, right. Yes, I suspected as much.”
“You did?”
“When I touch you especially. You seem to have… problems, I’ll say.”
“Yes,” he said, glad she knew and didn’t seem to think wrong about it.
“Explain to me what you feel when that happens and I may be able to help you understand and curb that reaction.”
“Okay yes,” he gasped, relieved. “I just… my body responds to you in strange ways.”
“Does your heart speed up?”
“Yes. And my adrenalin levels spike. Almost like in an emergency, but there’s not one. I think my chemicals are thrown off or my neurons are misfiring.”
“Perhaps, yes. This could be due to the crossing realms.”
“Is there anything I can do, or you, to fix this?”
She gave a sigh. “It’s hard to say.” He imagined her thinking. “Just how badly is the reaction?”
“I… don’t have anything to gauge it to. Parts of my body act strangely.”
“Strangely? You’ll have to be specific.”
“I…” Poe suddenly didn’t want to say.
“Okay, listen,” she said firmly. “There is nothing to be ashamed of with me. I know every inch of your body and mind. Is your phallus affected in this reaction?”
At having her get it right, he felt relieved. “Yes. Is that normal?”
“Absolutely!”
He realized the answer didn’t make him feel an ounce better. “Well, I don’t like it.”
“You are a man, Poe. You’ve never been near a real woman.”
“Are you saying men have to endure this reaction when around women?”
“Not all women, just… some.”
“Do you suppose since you’re my Scribbler, the reaction is stronger?”
“Very plausible.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“What about me?”
“Is there anything you can do to lessen this effect on me? I don’t like it. It’s distracting and debilitating.”
“Oh, I mean yes. I… I can… try harder not to… touch you or do the things that produce those… problems.”
He sighed in utter relief. “Thank you. Very much.”
****
Charlotte excused herself and hurried upstairs where she could breathe away from that man. She was…. Ohhhh, she was in deep shit. Deep, deep, shit. There was no other term for it. She was inexcusably smitten with Jeramiah Poe and try, try, try, as she might, her body and mind refused anything but being a sponge to that man’s every little word, and move, and delicious nuance. And God help her wicked little soul for buying those mouthwatering clothes for him! She closed her eyes and banged her forehead against the door as dormant hormones roared to life with a near vengeful wrath, ready to make her pay for burying them for so, so loooong. Images of his immaculately cut body in those black divine briefs had her breathless and weak kneed. She was so far gone she couldn’t trust herself. She’d gotten him to confess his desire for her. For her! She did a little silent victory dance, squealing. But she had to know if that’s what was going on with him.
She was bad. She was so bad! Taking advantage of his ignorance that way. Playing the good creator. The coy, sweet little Scribbler. If only he knew the things she once scribbled in other names. She clenched her eyes tight and bit her lower lip. If only he knew what kind of wretched woman she’d become after that moronic hominid as he’d called her ex. She’d quit when it consumed her, made her into a woman she didn’t like. And it had been years since she’d even thought of anything sexual. In fact, since she’d created him, she’d been freed of all that. He had been the creation that redeemed her as a writer, as a woman, and as a decent human being. Those dark secrets were well hidden and well-guarded and would remain that way.
****
Despite several attempts to talk Kane into any form of bath, it ended with a no go. A hell no go. They’d have to work on that later, Charlotte had a few tricks up her sleeve she was sure might help.
“This is it,” Charlotte whispered, putting the Rover in park across the street from the giant Catholic Church in rural Kentucky. “Are we sure this is it?”
“Kane is sure,” Poe said, looking in the direction of green light. “Is there a green light there?”
“Where?” Charlotte whispered.
“Right there.” Poe leaned forward and the sudden closeness stole her breath.
“I… don’t see it.” Not touching him had been like not breathing for her. But she’d managed. “Back up, Mr. Poe.”
“Sorry,” he said, leaning away.
He was still oblivious to her own sickness with him. That was good and bad. The idea that she needed and wanted something so badly and wouldn’t get it, or worse, shouldn’t get it—for many reasons—made her sick. It was like that two week summer camp love affair with the hottest guy of your dreams from another state. Only with Poe, it was another planet! You kept telling yourself don’t fall, you’ll just get hurt when they have to leave, all while falling to pieces all over the place and pretending not to.
“There’s something green there,” Poe said. “Kane, do you see it?”
“Nope sir, sure don’t. That’s a big house.”
“It’s called a church,” Charlotte said.
“Oh, I heard of one of them,” Kane said.
“Take me to that green thing.” Poe pointed.
Charlotte started the vehicle. “Tell me when I’m close enough.”
“That way.”
She followed his lead until she had to stop. “Any closer and we drive into the church.”
“Don’t think God would like that,” Kane said.
“No, I don’t guess he would,” Charlotte tossed him a smile. “You taking pictures? Don’t forget, I want a bunch for our album.”
“I promise. Chronicles of The Eighth Ark Of Octava.”
“The Scribbler’s Master,” Poe said, looking toward Kane. “As a subtitle.”
“Ahhh good one, Mr. Poe. Maybe we should trade places. You write and I muse ride.” Charlotte got out when Poe opened his door. “What are we doing?”
“I’m going to that green color.”
“Just going to it?”
“Yes. Can you lead me?”
“Yes, of course. What about Kane?”
Poe
looked at the vehicle. “Kane, stay put. We’ll be right back.” He looked in her direction. “Lock him in.”
At hearing his hard tone, she whispered over the top of the truck, “Is there a problem?”
“Not that I know of. I just feel… different.”
She locked the car and hurried to his side then paused. “I’m going to need to touch you, brace for it.”
He looked down at her as though momentarily confused. “Yes. Fine.” He looked ahead then and she led the way.
“How do you feel different?” she whispered, eying the extremely old building looming before them.
“An energy. Inside my body. Like a power surge of electricity is the best I can compare.”
“Good. I think.”
“That way,” he said.
“It’s a wall. We’ll have to go around to an entrance. Do you think it’s a priest?”
“I have no idea.”
Once they entered the nearest door, he pointed. “That way.” The smell of antiquity burned her nose in the intricately designed interior. “It’s coming. The light is coming toward us.” He paused, not moving.
“Can I help you?”
“It’s him,” Poe said.
“It’s a boy,” she whispered.
“He bears the symbol,” Poe pointed at him.
“How do you know?”
“I can see it.”
She looked up at Poe at the same moment he looked down at her. Charlotte’s breath froze in her throat when his eyes, brilliant as light, locked hard onto hers—seeing. Dearest Lord in heaven. She swallowed as he stared at her intently for many seconds. What on Earth was going through that fascinated mind of his?
“Bluer than I remembered.” Those eyes slowly roamed the rest of her face until her cheeks warmed with fear of what he thought, all at the same time of realizing the odd timing for such a perusal. But the furrow at his brows said everything else would wait while he satisfied whatever clearly needed satisfying.
When he finally freed her from his stare she was no closer to knowing a thing he thought of her. She only knew that it was brutal, one way or another. “Cado. I am Jeramiah Poe, sent by the one called Master, to find The Seven Arks of Octava. Where are the other six?”
The look on the boy’s face alarmed Charlotte. “Uh, Poe? He doesn’t look too… aware of what you mean by that.”
He was maybe a teenager and he moved in slow reverse, hands feeling behind him as he blindly went.
Poe angled his head and slowly stepped toward him. “You lost your memory?” Another step and, “You… can’t remember your past. You woke up here. Outside. The priest took you in.” Poe continued toward the now wide eyed and clearly terrified boy as Poe seemed to see right into his past. “You have a tattoo of a musical note for a stringed instrument on your right inner wrist and you don’t remember where it came from, but I know.” Poe stopped and held his hand out to him. “You are a Sound Ark. Do you know where the other six are?”
He shook his head and Charlotte waited with bated breath for his gaping mouth to produce more than silent syllables. “I-I-I don’t know… I don’t know of anything you’re saying. Nothing.” White showed around his wide brown eyes.
“Poe,” Charlotte carefully made her way to him. “Let me try.”
Poe turned his head as though listening. “Something is coming. Something not good.”
His narrowed gaze jerked to her. “We need to leave now.”
Poe reached out and grabbed the boy’s arm and dragged him with them. Charlotte wasn’t surprised he didn’t put up a fight, not with Poe; he was terrifying even dressed in normal clothes.
When they exited the church, they all froze in their tracks at finding four black trucks parked around the vehicle. “Kane,” Charlotte whispered, fear gripping her. Where was he?
“Run to the vehicle,” Poe said, even as he swung his right arm at his side, almost like he were loosening the shoulder.
As Charlotte grabbed the young boy’s hand and moved to obey, the vehicle doors opened, and men with weapons stepped out and took aim at them.
Charlotte froze in her tracks and she heard Poe merely whisper to the group, “Be still.” Green air it seemed, shot from his outstretched palm in a wave that engulfed the group even as Poe pushed her toward the vehicle. She ran and hopped in as he collapsed into the passenger seat. “Drive. Now.”
She tore out, not needing to be told twice. “What did you do? Why are they just standing there?”
“I’m making them!” The words growled as he braced both hands on the dash. “Drive quickly.”
Charlotte glanced at Poe. “Oh my God, you’re pale and sweating.”
His entire body trembled now. “Drive, drive, drive!”
“I am! I’m speeding even!”
Ten minutes later, Poe collapsed onto the seat next to her. “I can’t see again.”
Chapter Fourteen
“What!?”
“My trick,” he said, winded. “It blinded me.”
The frustration in the growled words alarmed her. “Maybe it won’t last as long. And I think we lost them. Thank you for that!” she said. “Who in the world was that and what did they want?”
“They just got there,” Kane said in a small, scared voice. “I hid on the floor.”
“Good job, son,” Poe said. “I’m sorry. I won’t leave you again.”
“I want to go back,” the new boy said. “You have the wrong person.”
Poe sat up and put a hand on the dashboard and turned to look at the boy. Was he seeing? Charlotte couldn’t help but stare at the corded muscles in his neck and extended arm. “For some reason, you’re not remembering who you are,” Poe turned his gaze to her next. “Do you think he forgets the same way you have?”
She thought about that. How did you explain that you were pretty sure nobody forgot anything and that all of it was just very impossible, always had been, always would be. She shook her head.
“Then why?”
“You can see?”
“You’re a shadow.” His tone was angry now as he faced forward. “Why would he not remember?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” She gripped the steering wheel, her eyes constantly roaming over the mirrors, waiting for more trouble to pop up out of nowhere. “It’s pretty standard to not know about Octava, Poe. I hate to say it, but nobody has ever known about it as long as history records Scribbler’s scribbling, nothing is ever said about Octava. Not long ago, not now, and I don’t think ever.”
“Well clearly that’s wrong!” he argued.
“Yes, yes. Clearly.” She hated the angry Poe. “Do you know who that was back there?”
“I have no idea. Somebody knows we’re here.”
“And where we’re going, it would seem,” she added.
“Yes.” He looked at her. “Who did you talk to earlier? Is there any way for them to follow you? Devices that do that?”
She stuttered through her thoughts and finally managed, “I suppose there is. They could but I have no clue who would possibly want to.”
“Who was it that you talked to last?”
“Umm. One of my agents. Gretchen.”
“Before that?”
“Tommy.”
“Right,” he said, his voice gruff. “And who is that exactly?”
“Just a friend really. A writing friend. Where am I going again?”
“I don’t know. I need to have Kane tell me.” He looked back at the boy like he remembered to worry about him.
“I have dreams, Mr. Poe. People chase us. Chase me.”
“When Kane?”
“Last night.”
“Divinities,” Poe muttered.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Poe. I was scared to say it.”
“It’s perfectly fine, Kane. You did nothing wrong. But if you have any more dreams or any strange thoughts, please tell me. It could help us. Can you do that for me?”
“Yep, I can,” he said, sounding happy to help.
“And use your camera, don’t forget,” Charlotte said.
“I don’t think he needs too many things to remember,” Poe muttered, facing forward.
Her own anger spiked. “I’m thinking of the mission, Mr. Poe. He may take pictures of clues we could use later. Trying to be helpful is all.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “My apologies, Scribbler.”
She wanted to cry now. Stupid female. “No apologies needed, Mr. Poe. I’m a grown woman, not a teenager.”
“Apology retracted, then.”
Her mouth dropped a bit. What was wrong with him? He’d been being… more short with her recently and she couldn’t think of anything she’d done to deserve it.
They drove for thirty minutes of silence and she finally suggested, “I can stop at a hotel? Restaurant? Gas station?” she offered.
“No, not yet.” Poe suddenly began to strip out of his clothes until he sat in only his jeans.
“Yes, strip out of your clothes,” she mumbled, her knuckles going white around the steering wheel. She fought to keep her eyes on the road and not on him. Impossible. Dear God, he was impossibly gorgeous! Ridiculous!
“Kane, I need you to tell me what’s going on with that tattoo. Can you do that for me?”
Charlotte’s anger melted at his sweet way with Kane. Ugh. Not helping. Her brain went back to hungrily comparing her imagined version of Poe to the half-naked man next to her. He was far, far, far more immaculate in person. She was pretty damn sure she’d not made him this immaculate, in fact.
Kane popped forward and moved Poe’s long hair. “It changed, Mr. Poe. It growed. It has another puzzle next to the first one. Another music sign with numbers.”
Kane called out the numbers and Poe looked at Charlotte, catching her gawking. “Can you translate that?”
“Sure can.” She typed in the coordinates onto her GPS and it read the location out, making her gasp. “The middle of Texas! That’s halfway across the country!”
“How long?” The texture of Poe’s voice seemed to match the coffee colored skin covering the endless solid muscle as he worked his t-shirt back on.
“Uhhhh.” How long, how long, focus. “Fifteen hours.”
“Fifteen!” Kane cried. “I can watch lots of movies. Yippee!”
