by Su Williams
Nick’s arms were wrapped around me before I could blink, and I could’ve sworn great, hot tears dropped from his eyes and trailed down my back. I held his head to my shoulder as violent tremors raged through his muscles. When the tremors faded away, he finally pulled out of my arms and stroked my cheeks with his thumbs.
“I thought…” but the words choked him. He tried again. “People always say how creepy it is when the ancient immortal falls in love with the modern seventeen year old girl. I agreed. Back then.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “I have searched for you for decades, trying to find the heart that made mine complete. Maybe I was born too early—or you were born too late. But somehow, we’ve managed to find each other.
“I’m so sorry for keeping the truth from you. I was just so afraid of losing you when you found out.” He lifted his eyes to mine. His eyes, so beautiful, the color of twilight sparkling with rain. He framed my face with his hands, his mouth hovering a breath away from mine.
“All right, kiddies! Play times over!” Sabre roared from the doorway. Nick and I jumped apart, like two kids caught by the shotgun wielding dad.
Nick growled. “Perfect timing. As always,” he groused. But he took my hand and hauled me to my feet, only to wrap me in his arms like he’d never let go. The warmth of his lips pressed to my forehead. It would have to do for now. Sabre had a plan.
Chapter 25 Gravemakers & Gunslingers
Sabre’s ‘plan’ was battle training. We warmed up on the heavy bag and reflex bag, then phased to Laser Quest downtown—once all the little human kiddies had had their fun. The Caphar proprietor and Sabre spoke in quiet rumbling voices while Nick and I waited. Then, Nick’s mentor led us to the war room upstairs.
“Full laser impact and full holos,” he informed us.
“Whoa! Wait a minute. She’s only been in here once before. And that was on moderate. You can’t really expect her to survive in full on mode,” Nick argued.
Sabre stepped into his face and glared down at him, but Nick didn’t budge. “You think Thomas is going to be ‘moderate’ on any of us? He’s going to kick our asses. It’s about time princess here stepped up to the challenge.”
Nick’s nostrils flared but I tugged him away. “It’s okay. I have to learn.”
Nick slammed Sabre’s shoulder with his as we descended the steps to the weapons chamber, and tugged me by the hand in his wake. I forced an apologetic smile at Sabre as I passed.
Suited up in the special Caphar-style sensor vests, we waited in the thick warm air for the ‘go.’
“I have a—strange feeling,” I confessed to the room in general.
Nick shouldered his rifle. “What do you mean? What kind of feeling?”
“I don’t know. Just…remember last time?” I don’t know why any of us asked ‘do you remember’ questions anymore. We all had eidetic memories. There was no forgetting. Just habit, I guess. Nick nodded and I continued. “Right before Thomas showed up—it was like—like I knew ahead of time he was coming. It’s kinda like that.”
Sabre scoffed, “Good. Maybe we can get this over with and go home.”
The buzzer sounded and the doors whooshed open into the black and neon maze that was our combat zone. Sabre gave silent orders and we split three ways. Nick hesitated at first.
Trust me. His gaze met mine. He nodded, then tromped away down a plywood and chain link corridor.
The laser hits were brutal, rattling me to the bone each time one hit my sensors. And they hit often. It wasn’t like regular laser tag play. Sabre and his cohorts had to add a level of sadism to the game. Each time a laser hit one of our four sensors—chest, shoulders and back—the vest not only vibrated and flashed, but gave off an electrical shock that rivaled putting your finger in a light socket.
I cast aside the thoughts of Thomas, just to keep my head in the game. Besides, my prescient abilities were still in training, so maybe I was overreacting. I climbed my way to the lookout nest Nick showed me on our last foray, and resigned myself to being pinned down there and acting as sniper for the team. But just like the last time, pyrotechnics exploded underneath me and sent me scurrying for better cover. Nick and Sabre’s commands bombarded my brain and I barely had time to think, just respond and do as I was told. As I cowered in a corner, recovering from yet another laser hit, the image of Thomas entering the play fray hit me again. I broadcast the image and sensations to the guys.
Regroup! Lower level, south entrance, Sabre’s voice barked in my ears. I stumbled and dodged laser pulses, and made my way toward the rendezvous point. Something hit me in the chest and my body arced in pain. Thomas’ cruel chortle echoed in my brain. He stepped out of the shadows holding a projectile taser, the points imbedded in the front of my shirt, wires trailing away like strings on a puppet. With glee he mashed the trigger once more, forcing my legs to buckle beneath me. All my thoughts scrambled, I couldn’t even begin to project a weave to Nick and Sabre.
Thomas sashayed to my side, arrogant and vile. He squatted beside my prone body and pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes with his finger. “Such a shame,” he lied. “How forgiving you can be to those swine. I told you the truth and you hate me. They lie and you forgive. Where is the decency in that?”
“You’re indecent,” I spit through pain-clenched teeth. “You—killed—my parents.”
“Oh dear. Well, yes. I suppose I did. Is that why you can’t find forgiveness for me?”
“You’re insane.” Hadn’t I just had a conversation with Sabre about his own mental stability? The guy was obviously teetering on the edge of something.
“No, my dear,” he said with a squeeze of the trigger on the taser gun. He smiled down on my writhing body on the dusty floor. “My mental faculties have never been clearer.” He leaned closer to my ear and whispered, “Tell your boys I’m coming for them. I’m coming for you all. And when I have sated myself on your terror, I will take every ability that you possess as my own, and leave your rotting shells, void of memories, void of thoughts. Do tell the boys hello for me, won’t you?” He stood and smiled down at me, cocked an eyebrow and gave on final squeeze of the taser trigger.
I thrashed on the floor. My hold on my corporeal body foundered and my incorporeal guttered like a candle in a storm. Thomas chortled and phased from my side.
It was several minutes before my thoughts were cohesive enough to form a sentence, and several more as I tried to remember how to broadcast a weave. All the while, I could hear Nick and Sabre hollering my name, their heavy footfalls thundering through the maze.
“Emari!” Sabre found me first. “Nick, here!” He slid to his knees at my side and jerked the taser points still protruding from my chest. “Thomas?” he asked but the snarl on his mouth made it obvious he already knew. “How did he know we were here?”
Nick rounded the corner at full bore and skidded to his knees beside me as Sabre lifted me into a sitting position. Nick slid behind me and I let him take my weight. “What did he want?”
I flapped my hand at him. “Oh, you know. The usual drivel. ‘I’m gonna twist your memories and suck out your juices’ kind of shit.”
Nick chuckled against me, but Sabre’s face was ice cold marble. Sabre stood up abruptly and grumbled one word. A name. “Levi.” I looked askance at Nick who cringed at the glint of rage in his mentor’s eyes.
“Levi’s the guy who owns this place.” He turned to Sabre. “What are you thinking?”
“Doesn’t it seem odd to you that last time you two were here, Thomas showed up. And now he shows up again?”
Nick and I looked at each other. “Uh, we hadn’t thought of that,” he confessed.
“Levi’s tipping him off.”
As Nick helped me struggle to my feet, Sabre vanished in whorl of fury. The worry on Nick’s face slashed fear in my veins. He always said Sabre was teetering on the edge between Caphar and Rephaim, light and darkness. And lately, his mentor’s moods swung manically from one extreme to another. We had to find him fast. M
aybe he was the one in need of some Haldol. We phased from room to room around the old armory building until we finally found Sabre hovering over the other Caphar’s body, his hands pressed to the guy’s skull like he’d crush it like a wad of paper. Nick and I snatched at Sabre’s arms to drag him off, but when my hands contacted Sabre’s body, a torrent of vile images slugged me in the stomach.
Levi lays on a couch in a darkened room. Evening orange glows through the curtains. His eyes are shut, but his gaze darts from side to side as Sabre feeds him nightmares about the violent deaths of his children. The chimera sparks glaring brainwaves in the man. Hot, violent waves of energy that twist and tempt, luring in the unwary—or the unstable. Sabre’s eyes hood with ecstasy as the brainwaves he produces out of the man’s terror infuse into his mind.
“Oh god!” I gasped.
“Help me pull him off before he kills him!” Nick shouted at me. We each took one of Sabre’s arms and hauled him away from Levi’s body and collapsed in a heap on the floor. Yet the other Weaver’s body still convulsed, his eyes rolled back in his head, darting from nightmare to nightmare. Nick scrambled to his hands and knees, clasped Sabre’s arm and shook him. “Sabre! Stop! You’ll kill him!”
“Good!” Sabre sneered as he lurched to his knees.
I pushed Nick aside and brought my eyes even with Sabre’s, but he looked right through me. I shook him with no response. So I drew my hand back and did something I’d wanted to do for a very long time. I slapped him full force across the face. His head snapped to the side and he turned back to me with murder in his eyes. I squeaked and tried to scuttled away. But Sabre caught me by the arms and held me still, his glare blazed a hole in my soul. Nick clawed at Sabre’s hands, but Sabre was fully unfazed. Nothing Nick said or did loosened Sabre’s grip on my arms. I thought about phasing from his clutches, but I didn’t want him to turn on Nick in my absence. So I tried one last desperate attempt.
“Sabre?” I whispered and lovingly placed my hands on his chest. “Sabre. It’s me. Emari. Please don’t hurt me. Please let me go.”
He looked confused for a moment, then his eagle talons released my arms and he backed away into a dark corner of the control room. Slow and unstable, he peeled himself from the floor and staggered against the wall. Nick stepped toward him but Sabre’s feral growl froze him midstride.
“Sabre, what the hell is…” Nick began.
“Shut! Up!” Sabre snarled at him. “Clean up this mess and get home.” Then, the Caphar phased in a swirl of energy and disappeared.
The two of us huddled over Levi, delved into his mind to repair some of Sabre’s damage. As the last strands of memories congealed, Nick culled the truth of his duplicity. Thomas knew of the Caphar’s relationship with Levi. So he compelled him with threats of harm to his wife and children to rat out the Weavers whenever they scheduled a session at the facility. We left Levi propped in a chair in his office. Nick left a message firmly ingrained in his mind of their dismay of his choices, and that they would be in contact with him as soon as things settled down. Yeah. As soon as Thomas is dead and gone. It was hard to stay angry with someone who only acted under duress. But it didn’t redeem the sting of the betrayal.
“You ready?” Nick said as he took my hand and the armory door slammed shut behind us.
“Can we just walk for a while?” I asked. The cool night air evaporate the sweat and hazer smoke from my skin and freshened my spirit.
“Um. Sure.”
I smiled. Nick didn’t understand my fascination with downtown Spokane, but some of the twentieth century’s most renowned architects had built this city. Much of their work still stood, even after the Great Fire in 1889.
“Were you here when the Great Fire happened?” I asked on a whim.
Nick chuckled softly. “No. Just a twinkle in my daddy’s eye.”
“Oh.” I never claimed to be good with history. My mind drifted to the schoolwork that I’d found little time to complete. I can’t imagine what’s kept me away from my studies. It’s not like my parents died and an evil Rephaim has tortured my sleep. Oh yeah, and then, of course, I died too. The thought of taking my SAT’s in time to graduate on time with Ivy loomed over me. All testing had to be completed by the end of the month, only a few days away, in order to walk the ceremony. I sighed, knowing that until all this mess with Thomas was over, I had no hope of graduating. Mom and Dad would be so disappointed if they were here.
Nick squeezed my hand as we strolled deeper into the city center. “It’ll work out,” he assured me. “Even if I have to tutor you myself, you’ll walk that ceremony.” I nodded my thanks, but tears pressed behind my eyes. Let it turn. I forced back the grief.
“Did you know? That they were in danger when they left town that weekend?” I had to know.
“Not exactly.” He hesitated, but in the spirit of honesty he continued. “We knew Thomas had been giving your dad nightmares of—bad things happening to you and your mom.” Nick groaned a frustrated sigh. “Em, there’s so much more to this story than just that weekend.”
“Then tell me.”
It was his turn to nod. I gazed up at the architecture above us—great concrete lions, bricked arches, crenulated roofs—and he began:
“After we were discharged from service, after the war, we came home. Sabre was furious that I’d spilled to Zeke about what we are, but after talking to your dad, he got the same impressions that I did—that your dad might be Caphar. So Sabre did some blood test. Nothing fancy. DNA coding wasn’t nearly as advanced in the 1970’s as it is today. But he was able to get equipment and knowledge that wasn’t available to the general public, or even most doctors. Anyway, he isolated the genetic abnormality in your dad’s blood, but couldn’t explain why Zeke didn’t show full Caphar abilities. He snuck us a sample of Jane’s blood as well. She did not carry the abnormality in her genes. Eventually, as we continued our relationship with Zeke, we grew closer with your Uncle Adrian.” I sneered at the mention of Adrian’s name. Something was amiss with the good doctor, lately. “Sabre picked up some—vibes—from him and asked to test his blood. He didn’t actually find out about us until you were about thirteen.”
“So just a couple of years before Emma’s accident at the cabin?”
“Yes.” He was quiet so long I went back to studying the brick and mortar backdrop around us. His voice was velvety soft when he continued. “Thomas has a tendency to drop out of the picture for long stretches of time. Guess you can only take so much of the same two guys kicking your ass over and over again.” He gave a morose chuckle. “We hadn’t seen him in over fifteen years when he returned to wreak havoc again. When he did, he discovered your dad…and you. And he found no greater joy than tormenting your father’s mind. Sabre and I did all we could think of to protect your father’s family, but Thomas would lash out and then run away, and we wouldn’t see him for months at a time. He’d sneak in after a long absence and bombard your dad with night terrors, and then just disappear again. We still don’t really know why he focused on Zeke. Probably just because he was close to us and showed pre-Caphar abilities. But your dad was over thirty by then, and all Caphar manifest fully by age twenty-five. Of course, at the time, we had no idea that the death of the mortal body was the catalyst to immortality.” He gave another melancholy laugh. “Thomas terrorized your dad the night before he and Jane left for Winterhaven. Zeke called us before he left and told us. It was the first time I ever really heard your dad really frightened, except for that day in Nam.”
“My mom once told me ‘I’ve been many different people in my life’ but I don’t understand now what that means. I thought she was saying she was Caphar, and she’d lived a lot of different lives under a lot of different names. But, if she’s…if she wasn’t Caphar, it doesn’t make sense now.”
“I think what she meant is that, as people, we change according to the people in our lives, the situations we face, the challenges we overcome. Even you aren’t the same girl you were a year ago.”
He smirked at my unspoken retaliation of ‘duh, I’m an immortal now.’ “It’s not just that, honey. You’ve grown by leaps and bounds as a person. You’re wiser, stronger, tougher.”
“Aren’t those the same thing? Stronger and tougher?”
“I don’t believe so. You’re physically stronger and emotionally tougher.”
I scowled, “Yeah, maybe not so much ‘mature’ though. Nick, I’m…”
But he held up his hand to stay my apology. “It’s done,” he said with finality.
My eyebrows pinched together in thought and I mulled over the memory of the attack on Dad’s barracks, when Nick revealed his immortality and Dad discovered what Nick was. We strolled past the red brick tower of the local newspaper building. I hadn’t realized we’d been walking that long. Nick was quiet again as we strolled another two city blocks.
“We had no reason to believe that Thomas would attack your parents that way,” he said quietly, as though his heartache compressed his lungs. He stopped and stepped in front of me. “Emi, we didn’t know.” The plea for forgiveness wrung out his voice. “I’d do anything to change that day for you.”
I couldn’t stand the ache in his chest and the agony on his face. My arms wrapped around him in hopes of alleviating both our pain—just a little. “I wish you could,” I said into his chest. “I wish I really did wake up in the hospital and find them still alive, and all of this was just a dream.”
His voice darkened. “Even me?” he murmured into my hair.
“Of course not. Can’t a girl have the best of both worlds?” I teased.
Nick released me as he chuckled, and continued to walk. His hand trembled in mine. “Zecharias asked me, when you were fifteen, to watch out for you if anything ever happened to him. But he made me swear to never reveal the Caphar to you—unless you manifested.”
“So, you knew I could potentially be Caphar. And Thomas knew. Were my nightmares after the crash just part of grief or did Thomas manipulate those too?” I asked.
