by John Corwin
Lucas slumped against the theatre. A tear trickled down his cheek. "What about my sister?"
Tollee edged toward him. "I don't know what happened. I ran away. Martin said he terminated the insane Scion once he was able to take control again. It wasn't until later when Martin was trying to figure out what went wrong that he realized you'd survived. He'd activated the Scion part of you just before the attack and that's the only reason you survived."
Lucas shook, though whether it was rage, grief or sheer exhaustion, Dara couldn't tell. He held up his thumb, displaying a silver ring worked with the Ad Infinitum symbol. "He left this behind."
Jason pushed forward and looked closely at the ring without touching it or Lucas. "That's not a ring just anyone would be wearing except—"
Alexia pushed Jason and the others back. "I think that's enough. Let him rest." She held out her hand to Lucas. "Let's go."
He looked at Alexia with red-rimmed eyes and nodded. He took her hand. His eyes possessed such gentleness when he looked at Alexia that Dara didn't need to be a mind reader to know his feelings. Lucas and Alexia vanished inside the Transcendist compound.
Chapter 49
The factions lay in shambles. Many Scions had died. Many more had vanished, escaped from the carnage.
Lucinda stared at the wreckage of what she had thought was a superior society. One that would solve the world's problems. Instead, Scions had shown themselves to be as bad as their chum counterparts. Perhaps worse in many regards.
Her people had worked quickly and efficiently over the past week to clean up the carnage. Bodies were moved into the Blight for the time being. Blood and bits of flesh were washed away.
Seekers were questioning the local chum to determine how much had been seen. Thankfully, most locals thought there had been a gang fight. Many of the locals also did a lot of drugs, namely hallucinogens. One witness thought she'd been tripping on acid. It appeared their secrets had not been critically breached.
Finding a new starting point, however, would be difficult. The tattered remnants of the Statists had joined ranks with the Transcendists. Mikhail resigned his position as grand arbiter and retreated to the Statist Atlanta compound. The remaining members of the council had voted Lucinda into the now sole position of grand arbiter. She hadn't asked for it. The responsibility felt like a crushing weight in her chest.
A thorough search of the Transcendist compound revealed more horrors than anyone had thought possible. A natural cave underneath the prison block was filled with human remains. Some had been there so long, they were mere skeletons.
Martin Augustus's body was discovered. Alexia also identified the body of Victor, an investigator she'd worked with. Andre had promised the poor man answers about the Scions. Instead, he'd experimented on him with lethal results.
It was obvious Andre had been doing that sort of thing for decades and not one of his closest advisors had suspected. Marissa, Thomas, and the other Andre loyalists were allowed to remain free and help with the cleanup. Lucinda wasn't sure if that was the smartest move on her part, but she didn't have the resources to keep them locked away. She refused to use Andre's prison facility.
An even larger problem loomed. The battle had whittled the number of active Scions down into the hundreds. Where once there had been two factions spanning the globe, only a paltry number remained. They now hovered on the brink of extinction.
* * * * *
Mikhail felt relief such as he'd never known. He was free. No burden of command. No Scions looking to him for advice. Now there was only one that mattered to him.
Anne-Marie waited at the door, a suitcase by her side. He set his own next to hers. No need to take anything more. They had plenty of money. They knew where they wanted to go.
"I still can't believe you're doing this," Anne-Marie said. "I never thought you would give up your responsibilities."
"Times have changed. Old dogs like me are no longer needed." He sighed. "Like after Founders War, everything is starting again."
"For the better I hope."
He smiled. A facial expression he'd not used much in recent memory. He brushed Anne-Marie's soft cheek and explored her hazel eyes. Then he did something he'd wanted to do for years. He kissed her. Nothing compared to this. All the power he'd dreamed of seemed like dust. He loved her. He always had but had never been able to say it or act on it. His definition of responsibility had not allowed it. From the first day he'd attached her they had both known there was something more.
"It is already better," he said.
Swain walked down the stairs. His eyes were red, his jaw tight. "I wish you two the best."
Mikhail opened his arms wide and hugged his faithful executor. Anne-Marie did the same. They were all attached. A family of sorts. This would be extremely hard on Swain. Like a true soldier, he had not asked to join them. He would be alone. Mikhail had told him where they were going. He could visit any time. But this departure had a feeling of finality to it. He wondered if his eyes would ever see Swain again.
"Goodbye my friend."
Mikhail and Anne-Marie picked up their suitcases and joined hands. They left the former Statist compound and everything they'd known behind.
Chapter 50
Lucas jerked awake. Sweat stained his shirt. He felt weak despite having eaten recently. He pushed himself up and staggered down the hall, outside, and onto the balcony. Mikhail had given him a room at what used to be the Statist compound. Now it was simply fancy lodging for Scions.
A knot in his stomach told him Hurt and Agony were nearby. After close proximity over several days, the usual nauseating twists in his gut had muted to an uncomfortable ache.
Agony stepped onto the balcony. "We are leaving."
"When you find her, what will you do?"
"Try to help her. Strike must not be allowed to continue our failed attempts."
"I agree. Let me know if I can help."
Agony placed a hand on Lucas's shoulder. "We will." He took a deep breath and gazed over the balcony. "Death was commonplace in my first life. I killed so many and saw so many killed. Now it haunts me. It agonizes me to know how many innocents I sent into the afterlife."
Lucas marveled at how far Agony and Hurt had come in the past week. Lucinda had assigned arbiters to help recover their lost memories and patch the scrambled synapses that attempted to drag the ghouls into insanity. Calling them ghouls hardly seemed appropriate any more.
"Were you a soldier, Agony?"
"I think so. I remember bodies. I remember killing. I remember their faces." He looked at Lucas with a pained expression. "One day we must learn how to restore this body to the true owner. Hurt has agreed as well."
"I hope that one day we can understand how to change things in the afterlife," Lucas said.
"One day." Agony gave Lucas's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Until the next time, Lucas."
Lucas choked on emotion. Took a deep breath. "Until the next time."
He watched as the two ghouls walked down the long driveway from the compound and disappeared from view.
"They should probably change their names," Alexia said from the doorway. "I think Bob and Fred would work."
Lucas chuckled hollowly. "I guess they wear their emotions on their name tags."
She joined him at the balcony. "What now?"
Lucas turned to her. "I don't know."
"Lucinda wants me to stay on as her general counsel for a while. I suspect it has to do with that future-prediction ability of mine."
He smiled. "I suppose that could be handy. Figured out how to summon it at will?"
"Are you kidding? I guess it's similar to your ability to summon different scars except nothing I've tried makes it work. Maybe I don't know how to look for the proper quantum streams or whatever the heck some of the science folks told me to try. Those nerds couldn't teach a kid how to tie his shoe without tossing in words like 'quantum' or 'algorithmic aberrations'."
"You made that last one up, didn't you
?"
She laughed and squeezed his hand. "I have to protect my ignorance somehow."
Lucas looked back outside and his smile faded. He stared at the expansive green lawn. "Truth be told, I feel lost and ignorant right now. I don't know what to do with myself. Some people still stare at me like I'm a devil. Like I'll start killing again."
"Some people regard you as a savior. A hero."
"It's killing me from the inside out. I don't want to be a monster. I don't want to be a hero. I just did what I had to do. Nothing more."
"What do you want?"
"I want my parents back. Thinking of that hellhole they're trapped in is killing me. I can't stand it. I don't even know if my sister is alive."
"We'll find the answers."
"My parents will be insane by the time we do."
"Look at Hurt and Agony. They came around."
"I want to talk to my parents. I want them to know I'm trying."
Alexia hugged him and pressed her cheek to his chest. "Please be patient. I promise we'll figure this out."
He kissed the top of her head. She took his cheeks in her hands and pulled his mouth to hers.
"Lucas, I stink with it comes to this kind of stuff. I don't know how else to say this, so I'll just say it. I'm falling in love with you. I know there's no reason to it—we only just met."
He put a finger to her lips then brushed them lightly with his. "I love you too. After all that's happened, I won't even try to figure this gift out. From the first minute I saw you, I felt drawn to you. I want to be with you."
She smiled and kissed him harder. A tear trickled down her cheek. "I'm glad you feel that way, hot stuff." She glanced outside, wiping vigorously at her wet cheek and sighed. "I'm supposed to meet with Lucinda in a few minutes. Why don't we go on a proper date tonight? Maybe catch dinner and a movie in Buckhead?"
He laughed. "That sounds way too normal, but perfect. I'll see you later, then."
She kissed him again and left the room. The smile faded from Lucas's face and joy drained from his heart with every step she took away from him. He couldn't stop thinking of his parents. He couldn't stop thinking of the torture and agony every second in that place brought them. How every moment there was a notch closer to insanity.
He formed an image in his mind and hopped. He emerged from the Blight across the street from a house. His parent's house. Lucas opened a scar and focused on it until the color changed to crimson. Forever. He entered. For a moment, it was deathly quiet in the afterlife. Then the cries of lost souls echoed through the streets. Familiar voices carried across the street. He looked over. Saw his parents calling for each other. Heard them calling in vain for him and his sister.
High in the sky, a black cloud circled. A black mote detached from it, fluttering down and landing on his shoulder. The black myna said nothing. It stared with Lucas at the lost souls.
Lucas dropped to his knees and cried.
# # #
Read an excerpt from John Corwin's new paranormal romance
The Next Thing I Knew - Available now:
Life pulled the plug on humans at two on a Sunday afternoon.
The last thing I remembered before the end (besides a particularly juicy day dream involving me, Chris Rogers, and the Halleluiah Chorus) was a blinding headache of the brain freeze variety. Everything blurred for a second and then I was on an endless grassy plain, hands pressed to my head. Other people stood nearby with headache-contorted expressions twisting their faces.
My head didn't hurt anymore but I still said "Ouch" to make things official. Others echoed the sentiment. I looked around and got my bearings. People dotted the gently undulating terrain like lost sheep. Even though the place looked like Kansas, I didn't need to tell Toto that my Facebook Places status wasn't anywhere on the planet Earth, much less Kansas. The sun looked pale, white, and totally alien.
The first person I recognized was Ms. Tate, the neighborhood Bible thumper, who, unfortunately for my sanity, was naked and sagging like rotten fruit in places I didn't think could sag. I jerked my head away before I contributed the contents of my stomach to her wardrobe.
Ms. Tate wasn't the only fashion victim in the vicinity. A scrawny wrinkled dude showed his stuff in tight cutoff jean shorts, a pot-bellied guy terrified nearby children in his red banana hammock, and a middle-aged woman sauntered past in nothing but a pink fishnet unitard. I glanced down, half afraid I'd be strutting my birthday suit or wearing something atrocious like a striped sweater skirt, but I wasn't. I wore a yellow summer dress like the ones I'd loved to wear when I was little. Thankfully, this one wasn't kiddy-sized.
Kyle, my best friend, ran over. He wore jogging shorts, black tennis shoes, and a t-shirt with a Linux penguin on it. That was pretty much what he wore all the time, attire that stuck its tongue out at the mainstream while maintaining the ability to escape enraged mobs. He glanced at Ms. Tate and just as quickly looked away. His eyes looked like they wanted to jump out of his head and run away screaming. "Lucy, what the hell is going on?"
"I'd use Google to find out, but I seem to have misplaced my house along with my laptop."
"It's like everyone in the neighborhood got teleported right out of their homes."
I reached out a hand and touched his arm. He felt solid, warm. The hairs on his arm pricked up at my touch. He stared at my finger as it traced his skin. Then he reached over and pinched me on the rib.
"Ouch!" I pinched him back.
He jumped away and laughed.
"What are you two laughing about? This is no joke." Ms. Tate's face twisted into a scowl and her hands latched onto her hips. A frumpy checkered dress with a choke collar now covered her droopy bits.
"Sorry, Ms. Tate," I said. "Just making sure we're not dreaming."
Kyle snapped his fingers. "I'll bet that's it. Drugs in the water or something. We're having a mass delusion."
"Terrorists," Ms. Tate said. "Heavens to Betsy, we're under attack."
Seeing Ms. Tate nude definitely qualified as terrorism but I couldn't count on Homeland Security to lock her away. "I think Betsy is already in Heaven." I groaned. "I just want to go home."
So I did. Just like that, I was home. But home wasn't a warm safe place full of life, noise, and activity anymore. Mom and Dad were there. I was there. If I checked the backyard my little brother was probably there too. Mom rested in a heap on the kitchen floor, a thin stream of drool leaking from her mouth. Dad lay face down on the floor in front of the TV. Dead news anchors stared blankly from the TV.
My forehead rested on the edge of the kitchen table, masked by my dark brown hair. One arm hung limp at my side. The other arm was propped on the table, a pen in hand. Correction: my body was doing that. My ghost stared at the scene and started screaming.
I rushed out of the backdoor and saw a small body half-hanging out of the tree house my dad had built for Robby. I screamed some more and waved my arms like I was fending off a swarm of bees. Tears burned my eyes and I collapsed into a ball. I bawled for a good while until the illogic of a crying ghost hit me. Ghosts shouldn't be able to feel or cry or laugh. If I was dead, I should either be burning with demons or singing with angels. Somehow I was doing neither.
I couldn't just leave our bodies lying around to rot. I turned Mom's cooling body over and left it to rest against the cabinets. Food had stained her blue sari. I turned Dad over, trying to ignore how death had robbed the sparkle from his blue eyes, and dragged him to the couch. I had no desire to lug our bodies across town to the graveyard but we deserved a proper burial, maybe next to Licks, our last dog, in the backyard.
Dad's body blipped like a skipped frame in a movie and reappeared facedown on the floor again. Mom returned to her original position. It was just like I'd never moved either of them. I probably should have been surprised, but at that point emotional overload tripped a breaker in my brain. I whimpered. I walked to my body and took the pen from my dead fingers, dropped it on the floor. About ten seconds later, the pen reapp
eared back in the clutch of my ashen hand. I squatted and looked into my unseeing eyes, their usual sharp hazel color now dulled and fogged. I'd always liked my eyes. They'd been my best feature. I figured they weren't my eyes anymore. My old body seemed like a dear friend that I'd never see again. I brushed the hair from its eyes, slapped its cheeks. Why was I dead? A stripe of blood had crusted under my nose. I'd noticed blood on my dad's ear. I checked my mom and saw a streak of red under her nose. What the hell killed us, simultaneous aneurysms?
Another flood of tears hit me. I rushed into the front yard and gulped a few deep breaths, trying to fight back hysterical hiccups. Outside, a cool wind blew. My summer dress billowed in the breeze. My hair danced in the wind. I felt alive. In fact, I felt better than I'd ever felt before. Well, aside from the nauseating depression hammering in my chest. Movement down the road caught my eye. I ran over and spotted Kyle pacing in the front yard of his house.
"Please tell me this is a dream," I said.
He stared at me, eyes haunted. "Everyone. It's everyone."
"Everyone?"
He grabbed my hand and marched down the street. His grip was tight, manic.
"You're hurting me."
"Impossible. You only think I am."
"Kyle, stop it. You're squeezing my hand too hard."
He stopped and spun to face me. "You can't hurt ghosts, Lucy." He grabbed a landscaping brick from the side of a driveway and pressed it into my hand. "Hit me."
"Are you crazy?" The brick vanished from my hand and reappeared on the ground.
He rolled his eyes and grabbed my hand again. We walked the streets of our Candler Park neighborhood, a quaint area just east of downtown Atlanta. Bodies inhabited the houses. Crashed cars littered the roads, the drivers and passengers dead. Dead clerks manned the registers in stores, and dead shoppers lay in the aisles. Dead joggers lay on sidewalks. Dead construction workers slumped over power tools. Dead, dead, dead. Everyone.
Life had jerked the carpet out from underneath us and left a shattered mess.
