The Beholder

by Ivan Amberlake

  “Energy is ubiquitous. It is in your brain, it is in the middle of our planet, in a butterfly’s wing. It is the most vital thing in existence. Without Energy, fire wouldn’t burn, water wouldn’t flow, and a living being wouldn’t breathe.

  “Humans are a species who need Energy in abundant quantities. They are huge sources of Energy but are unable to control it, because they don’t know anything about it. Eventually it dissipates too quickly. To live, people need to replenish their Energy supplies pretty often, but if you are able to control it and hold it within, you might run a hundred miles without getting tired, you could feel full without eating for months, you might even fly.”

  Jason glanced around, observing the other passengers. They sat in their own world, oblivious of him and Emily and the unbelievable conversation they were having. It was impossible for Jason to envision this other reality of which she spoke, inconceivable to put himself in the center of a burning tornado and somehow control it. How could none of these people see this Energy of which she spoke? How could he believe Mankind was unseeing? How could there be another version of his world?

  “What about the defensive shield?” he asked.

  “It’s around you as well as around the places where we hide.”

  “Including the underground place where we were?”

  “Yes. The Hall of Refuge is a unique place, and yet its protection could have caved in if we’d stayed any longer. We couldn’t risk losing such a precious hideout, which is why the five of us had to leave.”

  “The five of us? Are Matt and Debbie involved in this as well?”

  Emily hesitated, then swallowed, looking reluctant. “They are, Jason. Even before all of this started, Matthew, Debbie, and you had become bound in an Energy Trinity.”

  “What?”

  She nodded. “You passed some of your Energy to them, and they did the same to you. You are gradually becoming the One Energy Unity, something which was destined long before you met. Now if any part of this bond is ruined, the other two are doomed.”

  That explained why Pariah had tried to kill Matt and Debbie. “I’ve heard stories about children and their mothers having a bond. When a child was in trouble, his or her mother sensed it even if she was far away. Do you mean to say there’s something like that between me, Matt, and Debbie?”

  “Yes, but I’d say yours is like the bond of twins rather than mother to child.”

  “Oh?”

  Emily’s face softened, her gaze filling with a deep sadness. “Sighted twins cannot live without their other halves, at least not for a very long time. If one dies, the other is doomed to follow. They form an indivisible unity. What you three have is exceptionally rare and is called Soulfusion. It’s actually stronger than a Twins’ Bond.”

  “This is unbelievable,” Jason muttered. Uncomfortable, he fidgeted with the latch of his table, still locked into the back of the chair in front of him. Then he raised an eyebrow. “Wait. You said Unsighted people can’t see Energy. But what about the fight between you and Pariah? Light was flashing out of both of your bodies. I could see it!”

  She nodded reluctantly. “Well, yeah. We had to resort to an exceptionally powerful Energy which is used very rarely. We turn to it only when there’s no chance the Unsighted can figure out the source of the light. When we have to use it, we disguise the Energy as lightning.”

  “I don’t know,” Jason said, doubtful. “That light was so bright I’m sure lots of people saw you. And it didn’t look like lightning to me.”

  She smiled. “Actually, no one did except you, because I made all people in the area leave.”

  Jason’s jaw dropped. “So that’s why … Wow. Now I get it! I saw them all going! So that was you? Incredible! I thought I was going insane.”

  “That’s why I was so exhausted,” she explained. “It’s difficult to control so many people and fight against the Evil One at the same time.”

  Jason shifted in his seat and puffed out a breath. “I think you’d better tell me more about the Energy that you and Pariah used. The more I find out, the more prepared I will be.”

  “All right. Well, first of all, there are different types: light and dark, positive and negative, live and dead. Sprouts of extremely concentrated Energy are what we call Énergie Morte, and they are very powerful. Their deadly rays of Energy would disintegrate an Unsighted person if only one tiny sprout touched them. They wouldn’t even leave even a handful of dust behind. It takes years of learning to create that kind of Energy, and even longer to learn how to defend against it.

  “Apart from Énergie Morte, I use other kinds of Energy that help me influence people and make them do things they’d never consciously have done otherwise. For example, after that fight with Pariah, I made the publishers of the New York newspapers write about a short circuit that caused a fire in the building. That will explain the pieces of glass and plastic all over the place.” She gave him a weak smile. “It’s easy to disguise the truth.”

  Emily had barely answered one question when more popped up in Jason’s head. He peppered her with questions, needing to comprehend the system, though it seemed to him to be nothing but confusion and disorder. From what he could tell, he stood right in the middle of the chaos, and he needed to bring it to order if he was going to stay alive.

  “How can my Energy affect things?”

  “That’s a good question,” Emily said, then smiled up at the flight attendant when she stopped to offer them a drink. Both accepted a plastic cup of water and a bag of chips, then waited for the woman to move on down the aisle before continuing their conversation.

  “What you have to understand is that there is a perfect order in everything. Within a crowd of thousands of people in the streets of New York, there is a perfect order. Even the universe, with its billions of stars, has a perfect order. Energy on our planet seeks the Librium, so when an outburst violates it, all the other Energy tries to find ways to restore it. Your appearance may disturb the balance, and bring about chaos that even the Unsighted will feel, though they won’t have any idea why it’s happening.”

  “And this is all the result of my dreams?” he asked.

  “Dreams?” She shook her head and fixed her eyes on Jason. “They aren’t dreams. They’re ‘fusions.’ And now that you’ve mentioned them, can you tell me what you saw?”

  He’d been afraid she’d ask that. Of everything he’d experienced so far, the fusions were the worst part. The sense of being inside the victims’ minds and bodies as they were being torn to shreds was something he didn’t want to revisit. But she needed to know, so he took a sip of water, then told her.

  “At first I didn’t pay too much attention to them,” he admitted. “I thought they were just awful nightmares, and they sort of faded from my memory. But I was inside those people’s minds all the time, the same way I was inside yours. Pariah or his people tortured, then killed those people—and me.”

  Her eyes widened. “You were within the minds of the Doomed!” The news seemed to impress her, but it had lost its novelty with Jason.

  “Yeah, except I saw you in the ladies’ room, and you’re not the Doomed.”

  “I created that one on purpose. Your last fusion was supposed to be an exception,” Emily said. “I broke the defense of your mind so you would find me, then instilled the vision into your brain.”

  Jason grimaced. “That was quite painful, I must say, when you broke into my mind. Wait. You instilled a vision in my brain? Does that mean you blocked the others? I won’t have to have these fusions anymore?”

  He couldn’t survive more deaths. Just couldn’t. He’d hoped that with Emily close by, they might stop. But when he looked in her amber eyes they offered no hope. He felt suddenly drained.

  “There will be more fusions,” she told him. “And they may show you where Pariah is.”

  “So there will be more pain, new tortures.”

  Emily patted his hand lightly but could say nothing to soothe him.

  “
But the real question is,” Jason said, wanting to move away from those thoughts, “why I see these fusions in the first place. Out of every regular Joe in the world, why me?”

  “I have a few possible answers, but I’m not sure of any of them.”

  “Go ahead,” he said, but Emily hesitated before she explained.

  “The first version,” she said slowly, twisting her wrists as if she were plucking the right words from the air, “is that Pariah wants to intimidate you. Fear is the most dangerous emotion. It sucks positive Energy out of you and destroys you bit by bit.

  “My second idea is that you see these fusions because of the difference between you and your surroundings. The fusions are Bundles of Energy that swirl around you, trying to re-establish the Librium by absorbing some of your Energy, then spreading it out smoothly.” She shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe both these are true. I believe, though, that when your Energy becomes more or less stable, the Beholder will wake up in you. That’s when you’ll see the world as it really is.”

  Emily took Jason by the hand, sending a familiar warmth throughout his body. He closed his eyes, relaxing, letting his mind take a rest from all the new information. Before long, he drifted into a light slumber. A few hours later he woke to hear the airhostess announce they were about to land.

  When they got off the plane, then out of the airport, he breathed in the fresh air, feeling like a completely different man from the one who had boarded the plane a few hours before.

  Chapter 21

  The Minsk sky was a film of dull gray, and its cool wind chilled their faces. Pools of water shone on the pavement, evidence of a recent rain. Nondescript blocks of flats, identical to each other, surrounded them, and though Emily glanced at the houses from time to time, looking as if she were unsure of where to go, she kept her thoughts to herself. Jason asked no questions.

  The people they passed on the street seemed haggard and sullen. The farther they went into the city center, the surlier they seemed to become.

  Jason couldn’t help himself. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “Don’t pay any attention,” she said. “Slavic people never smile at each other on the street. They think it’s bad manners. The gloomier you look, the better they feel about you.”

  Jason smiled reflexively, then decided to copy Emily’s expression of knitted brows and pouting lips.

  “Where are we going?” he finally asked.

  “First to the subway—“

  “No,” Jason interrupted her. “I mean, why are we here?”

  “Oh.” Emily sighed. “We have to visit one of the places where a mark was found.”

  A gust of freezing wind tossed Jason’s hair, and goosebumps popped up all over his body, but he didn’t think they came from the temperature alone. “A mark? Does that mean a sign of where one of the Doomed was killed?”

  “Not killed, but abducted,” Emily corrected, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t want to talk about it here in the open. I’m actually a bit suspicious about who created the mark. Let me ask someone the way.”

  Emily approached a stranger, a skinny young man, and spoke to him. “Izvinitse, pozhalujsta. Kak nam dobratsya do ulitsy Karla Marxa?”

  The young man scratched his head, frowning, then pointed up the street.

  “Spasibo,” Emily thanked him with a smile.

  After the stranger had walked on, Jason raised his hands in amazement. “What now? You know every language?”

  “No,” Emily said emphatically, then gave Jason a wry smile. “Just French, English … and a little bit of the rest.”

  “Hmph,” Jason said, flicking one eyebrow. Where did these powers of hers end? He shook his head, dismissing the thought. “And where are we going now?”

  Emily pointed to an entrance that led to the Underground. “That way.”

  Jason didn’t like the cold outside, but the blackness of the Underground entrance made him cringe and hunch his shoulders. As they stepped inside, he accidentally bumped against Emily, jostled by nondescript, scowling people.

  “Do they ever smile?” he whispered to Emily as they boarded the train.

  “Yes, but not usually in public.”

  A few minutes later, a short announcement blasted through the overhead speakers, and Emily informed him that they were getting off at the next station.

  “Good,” he said, taking her hand and leading her to the door.

  The train stopped, and they got out, threading their way through the labyrinth of people. “Do you think,” Jason asked, turning back towards Emily, “that we might—”

  He froze, his eyes riveted to a spot just behind Emily. A swirling mass of blackness had swept in like a whirlwind from out of nowhere and now slid a little closer, prompting cold sweat to break out across Jason’s forehead. A shadow. It—No, he was getting closer. Jason found himself being swallowed up again, traveling to another mind, hunting—

  To kill Emily.

  Her body convulsed in agony, her delicate features distorted with the crushing pain, and Jason felt his mouth curve in a feral smile.

  In a panic, Jason wrenched away from Emily’s hand, then stood between the shadow and Emily, blocking her from danger. Blood roared through his veins as the shadow was getting closer and closer.

  That same second, a train on the other side of the tunnel clattered in. Jason’s eyes stung from the draft, and he blinked to clear them. When he opened them again, the shadow was gone.

  Emily walked around and looked up at him, frowning. “What’s up?”

  “The shadow.”

  Emily’s frown changed to one of disbelief. She shook her head, smiling slightly. “It’s impossible. I’d have felt a Sighted long before they entered the Subway.”

  “Maybe not. Because it was there, following us,” Jason persisted.

  Emily’s smile vanished, and she looked around. The crowds were dwindling, and Jason felt uneasy.

  She took his hand again and squeezed it. “Let’s get out of here. We have to get to that place as soon as possible, then leave.”

  Her hand soothed, but didn’t relieve the nagging sensation of being followed. The suspicion and the tight space unnerved him. “Where is it?”

  “It’s not far,” Emily said, tugging him to the escalator. They ascended the stairs, taking two steps at a time, and soon disappeared in the throngs of people. For a change, Jason felt safe in the crowd.

  He followed Emily under the arch of an old brick building, then into the yard beyond. The façade of the house was well kept and painted a pale ochre, but the rear seemed to have been left unattended for years, even decades. Bleached and graying from the rain, the building seemed to gape at Jason and Emily with despair.

  “It’s on the third floor,” Emily told him.

  The ancient door crumbled at its edges, then groaned with effort when Jason wrenched at the handle. Emily paused on the threshold as if unsure whether or not she should enter.

  “A fifteen-year-old boy named Alexei is missing.”

  Jason’s palms were suddenly slick at Emily’s words. A fifteen-year old boy was gone because of him.

  “Let’s go,” Emily said.

  They climbed the disintegrating stairway carefully, led by what scant light the cobwebbed windows allowed. The gray walls were splintered in places, as if it had barely survived a bombardment, and most of the tiles were missing from under Jason’s feet, turning the floor into an unfinished puzzle. Nice setting for a horror movie.

  They reached the third floor, then faced the cracked face of an old door. Emily pressed the button by the frame, and a muffled bell rang on the other side. Jason listened intently for any sound, but heard only silence. Emily pressed the button once more.

  “Idu! Idu!” The voice sounded exasperated, but also alarmed.

  “She’s coming,” Emily translated, then the door opened a crack, and a gaunt, colorless face appeared.

  “Zdravstvujte,” Emily said in greeting, then spoke more in the woman’s langua
ge.

  The woman pursed her lips but listened. Jason could understand nothing of what Emily was saying to the woman, but he saw suspicion and despair quickly replace her initial spark of hope. Casting a distrustful look at Jason, she finally nodded and removed the safety chain to let them in. An intense stink of cabbage and fried potatoes hovered in the stale air, and Jason felt closed in on all sides. Not even one window was open, and all the curtains had been lowered to shut out the light.

  The woman raised a hand, inviting them into a tiny kitchen, then pointed to two rickety chairs. Tears glistened in her eyes. “Prisazhivajtses,” she said, then shuffled out of the room. “Ya sejchas.”

  Jason glanced at Emily. “Well?”

  “She said to sit down and that she’ll be back soon. I’ll fix it so you’ll understand her Russian, and she’ll understand your English.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “I made her think she needed to get her handkerchief.”

  The woman’s footsteps grew louder, and soon she reappeared. “I’m sorry,” she said in Russian, though Jason understood her perfectly. “You see, it’s my son. I have no idea where he has gone,” she muttered, putting a kettle on the stove and lighting a match. “I thought maybe you …” She turned to stare at Emily. “Do you think he’s alive?”

  “Yes, I’m sure he is,” Emily lied, leaning closer and reaching for the woman’s hand. “Can you show us the mark that appeared after his disappearance?”

  The woman cringed at Emily’s touch, unused to such gestures of sympathy. “It is still in Alexei’s room. I don’t go there often.” She stood up. “Follow me, please.”

  They went down the narrow corridor, and the woman gestured for them to step into a small room. The place was what Jason would call the epitome of chaos, but only the amount of chaos one would expect from a fifteen-year-old boy. Clothes, books, and CDs were strewn around, the single bed was unmade, and a bookshelf hung aslant on the opposite wall. The curtains were torn and neglected, paled over time by sunlight. And there, on a massive wooden wardrobe, shone a mark.