by Chloe Garner
“Did she sign any papers or anything else?” Sam asked.
“No. Just shook hands with him, and then he laid his hands on her and started praying.”
“Did she recognize the language?”
“No.”
“And I bet you didn’t ask her to describe it.”
“Yeah, no.”
“Are you going to see her again?” Sam asked.
“Dinner tomorrow, just keeping her company,” Jason said.
“I think he should stay here and wait for her to get back, and we should get set in the morning to watch that church for when she gets there,” Sam said to Samantha. She nodded.
“If you can talk her out of it, do it,” she said.
“I don’t see that happening. The doctors told her to put her affairs in order. I’ll try,” Jason said. “Since when have you two been the dynamic duo?”
“Did you just make a comic book reference?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know. Did I?”
<><><>
Samantha was still up when Sam went to bed that night, but he found her asleep on the bed next to him when he woke up. Jason was awake and on the computer.
“Nothing new from Simon,” he whispered, then motioned to Samantha and winked.
“What?” Sam asked.
“Progress,” Jason answered.
“What? Never mind, don’t answer that.”
Jason grinned, then stood.
“You want breakfast?”
“Bring me something back.”
Jason handed the laptop off to Sam and left. Sam spent a few minutes going through the few relevant e-mails that had turned up since the night before, then shut down the computer and glanced over at Samantha. He had had strange dreams the night before, and he wondered if it had to do with her being asleep at the same time as him. Her mind was vacant, at that particular moment, and he mentally shrugged, going to take a shower.
Jason was back and Samantha was awake when he got out, and he looked over at her, shrugging into his jacket.
“You ready to head out?” he asked. She looked up from her computer and nodded, finishing off a slice of toast.
“Exciting day of stake-out,” Jason said, handing Sam a cup of coffee and a bagel. “I’ll be here watching television and eating room service.”
“They don’t have room service,” Samantha said.
“You get it. Neener neener, and all that.”
“He was teasing us?” Samantha asked. Sam laughed.
“It really isn’t going to be exciting,” he said. Samantha lowered her head and pointed her finger at Jason’s nose.
“You are going to be bored out of your mind in two and a half hours, with all of the guns in the back of the Cruiser,” she said. Jason frowned.
“No hitting on girls around the hotel. We need Allison to actually like you,” Sam said. “Have a great day.”
They left Jason sitting in front of a blank television with a stunned look on his face.
“We really are just going to be sitting behind some bushes all day, watching automatons go through their so-called lives,” Sam said. “If they were real people, maybe they’d be interesting, but I’m not holding out much hope.”
“Sure,” Samantha said. “I just couldn’t stand to see him that smug.”
“Well played,” Sam said, getting into the driver’s seat of the Cruiser and attempting, again, to slide it back another stop.
<><><>
“I hope Jason does better than us today,” Sam muttered, putting down the binoculars. It was like watching a television show of what the 50’s would have thought country life should look like. Women put sheets on lines to dry, men stood, upright, at their fences to have conversations, and old men lounged on benches in front of the convenience store and the gas station while the skinny guy at the auto repair shop washed windows. The girl with the black hair at the convenience store came out, at one point, and they thought that there might be some sign of life there - she had been reading a magazine, after all - but she just walked up the street to her car and drove away, up the hill.
The only real activity had been while Allison was there. About five minutes before her car had appeared over the hill to the west, the little town had picked up with genuine activity. Women laughed and chatted with each other, men walked down the sidewalk. A jogger showed up out of nowhere. The gas station started doing business, and someone drove up to the auto repair shop, where the mechanic spent the next twenty minutes working under the hood of the car while the owner lounged against the wall of the shop, smoking.
“It’s like it’s a real place, all of a sudden,” Sam had said.
As soon as Allison had driven back over the hill - and Samantha had started breathing regularly again - it quit. The action went back to wooden and false, and Sam had dropped the binoculars in disbelief.
“Maybe he’ll be able to get her to tell him more about what’s going on in there,” Samantha said. Her eyes had never left the little church. The pastor had been there when they got there that morning, his car parked out front, and he had come out to greet Allison, but that was all they had seen of him. They didn’t have much of an angle to even see shadows through the church’s stained-glass windows, and Sam had been able to sense Samantha’s constant struggle to remain hidden while Allison had been inside the building. By the end, he had been about ready to storm the place himself.
“Wait until he comes out, or head back?” Samantha asked.
“I’m game for waiting if you are,” Sam said. She nodded, settling back down on her elbows.
<><><>
Allison looked nervous as he walked up to the table in the hotel restaurant. He sat and she glanced at him, smiling with thin lips. He cocked his head to one side.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I told Pastor Rick about you,” she said. “He told me that you’re DEA, and that you’re trying to shut down the colony.”
Jason sighed. Well, that sucked. He sat back in his chair and crossed his legs.
“Suppose I am. Suppose I’m here because I’m afraid that he’s going to hurt you…”
“Jason. I’ve got days. In some ways, even if he did manage to take some of those away, maybe I’d be grateful.”
“Don’t say that,” he said.
“What? My will is in order, I’ve said my goodbyes. It hurts and it’s very sad, but I came here fully expecting to never go home again. Sitting around and waiting is the worst part.”
“I’m not DEA,” Jason said. She folded her hands and put them on the table.
“I’m sorry. I don’t believe you.”
“Nothing I could do to convince you?” he asked. She shook her head.
“Please leave,” she said. He pressed his lips and nodded.
“Only one problem with that,” he said. She raised her eyebrows. “You came here tonight,” he said. She looked down. “If you didn’t want to see me, you would have just stayed in your room.”
“You would have come looking for me,” she said to her lap.
“And you could have said what you had to say and closed the door. But you’re here. You told yourself that it’s because I would just come looking for you, but it’s really because you don’t want to be alone,” he said. “Worst case, you’ve only got a few days left to live, and what’s worse than sitting around and waiting is sitting around and waiting alone.”
She looked up at him, blinking quickly.
“I won’t tell you about him, or about anything that he does,” she said. Jason shook his head.
“That’s fine. Just don’t make me leave you sitting here by yourself. I can’t do that.”
She bit the inside of her lip and nodded.
“So what should we talk about instead?” she asked.
“How about you?” he asked. “Where are you from?”
“Seattle,” she said.
“You like it there?”
“It’s beautiful.”
“I thought it rained
a lot.”
She smiled, eyes watching something he couldn’t see.
“Yes. But it’s home.”
“But you came here to die, anyway?” he asked. She wrinkled her face and looked away.
“Please don’t. This is hard enough without you doing that. I’m fighting for my life. Please respect that.”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think that Pastor Rick is going to be good for you.” He paused and dipped his head. “But I promised not to talk about it. I’m sorry.” She glanced at him with the beginning of forgiveness. “How long have you known that you were going to die?”
The look on her face was strange. He knew he was taking a risk.
“Three months,” she said.
“What’s been the biggest surprise, in that time?” he asked. Her face softened, and she blinked quickly again.
“How much I’m going to miss it,” she said.
“What?”
“Everything. Waking up in the morning. Coffee. The first breath of air when you walk out the front door. For a while, every day was like that,” she said. “Then it was the fight. Everything was about the fight. Then, last week, they told me that the fight was over. I knew I was going to die. I just kind of knew it, but being told that...”
She blinked faster and looked away.
“And then you came here,” Jason said. She nodded.
“I’m just tired of grieving my own life. I figured I would take action, and if it worked, well… it worked. If it didn’t, this is it. This is all I’m going to do.”
“What about before?” Jason asked. She raised her eyebrows. “What was your life like, before?”
She leaned back in her chair, dropping her head back to one side, and stared off into the distance.
“I’ve almost forgotten, it’s been so long since I’ve thought about it.”
<><><>
Samantha was dozing when Jason got back, well after midnight. He walked over to the bed and sat on it heavily.
“I’m exhausted,” he said. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, crawling to the front edge of the bed so she could see him.
“What happened?” Sam asked.
“The dude told her we’re DEA. She completely clammed up about the colony,” Jason said. “So we talked about her. All night. She’s amazing. She had such big dreams, before.”
He frowned and looked hard at the floor.
“Why am I so tired?”
Samantha climbed across the beds and put her arms around him.
“You listened to her. You related. That is exhausting.”
For a moment he leaned against her, then he pulled away and stood.
“That isn’t what I do,” he said.
“Did you walk her back to her room?” Sam asked. Jason nodded. “Did you even consider trying to kiss her goodnight?”
Jason turned his head to the side, remembering, then frowned.
“Never.”
“You were her friend, tonight.”
“She hugged you, didn’t she?” Samantha asked. He sat back down and nodded.
“Like she didn’t want to let go,” he said. Samantha ran her finger along the hairline above his temple, smiling.
“That’s what an emotional connection feels like. Welcome to being human.”
He stared forward for a minute, then dropped his head onto her shoulder.
“I don’t like it,” he said. She smiled and pushed him away, returning to the other bed.
“Not only do you like it,” she taunted, “but you’re going to go back again tomorrow night for more.”
“Tomorrow night is night three,” Sam said. The three of them all froze, considering.
“Did you get anything useful?” Jason asked.
“No,” Sam said. “Absolutely nothing.”
“We go back tomorrow, all three of us,” Samantha said. “If worst comes to worst, we take her out by force.”
“We don’t know what we’re up against,” Sam said.
“But we have a pretty good idea, right?” Jason asked. Samantha paused.
“If the ceremony is solo, I can take the Sorcerer. If the town is there, though…” She hung her head, doing the calculations. “I can handle the Sorcerer, but the minions will tear me apart. I can handle the minions, but the only way to handle them is going to be to kill them. And that leaves you guys with a really powerful Sorcerer on your hands.”
“We do it,” Jason said. “Only as a last recourse, but we do it. I’m not going to let him take her.”
Samantha looked up.
“We aren’t going to abandon her. But you have to count the cost. We’re talking about thirty or more relatively innocent people who are in league with a Sorcerer out of desperation. Killing them leaves them with whatever soulburn they have from the dark magic, and dying with soulburn is a ticket to Hell.”
“What? We’re talking about afterlife now?” Jason asked.
“Common knowledge. It’s one of the reasons the dark magics are so dangerous. They damage you, and it takes time to repair that damage. If she’s being coerced, that many souls on my hands is worth it,” Samantha said. “If she knows what she’s doing and she does it anyway…”
“You would let her go through with it?” Jason asked.
“I can’t take life when it isn’t just,” Samantha said. She shook her head, the black-and-white of the situation clarifying as she worked it out. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t take out the rest of the town, if she’s participating in a dark ceremony willingly. I can’t do that.”
“Why?” Sam asked.
“They aren’t clearly guilty. They don’t deserve death for what they’re doing.”
Jason started to argue with her, but Sam put his hand up.
“What about Pastor Rick?” he asked.
“Dark magic, especially the kind he would have to invoke to cure her, it’s bad stuff. Really bad. I have no problem stopping his heart.” Sam looked startled at her conviction, but he nodded.
“So if we cover you from… whatever, the rest of the town. You would be willing to fight and kill him?”
She looked from Sam to Jason and nodded.
“We get her out,” Jason said. “Kicking and screaming against her will, we get her out.”
“Could just stop her from going in the first place,” Sam said. Samantha shook her head.
“Protect the innocent is the most important thing, but that means knowing what Rick is and freeing the rest of the town, just as much.” She looked at Jason. “We get her out, but we take the shot that we might be able to save the town, first. I need to know more, and she is the only one who is going to be willing and able to tell us what’s going on.”
Jason frowned hard, then nodded.
“We watch, we wait, we look for an opportunity to make a clean exit. If we don’t get one, we slaughter them all.”
“It’s a tall order,” Samantha said. “Odds are better that they overpower you and kill all three of us.”
“You want to take her and run?” Sam asked. She shook her head.
“Better to die trying. I just don’t want to overstate our odds.”
Jason shrugged.
“Those odds are our lives. You’re right. We let her go in, but we commit to getting her out. We take all the risk.”
<><><>
Samantha lay on her elbows in the dirt, watching the little church. The entire town was gathered in there, and Allison had arrived several hours earlier. They were working under the assumption that the ceremony would start at dusk. Dark magic preferred darkness. The day had dragged on painfully. Samantha was putting the math on their survival to full nightfall at less than thirty percent, but now she was pulling for time to move faster, as if her physical will could accelerate it. She had done what she could in limited time to power up, but the fact of the matter was that her magical and supernatural abilities weren’t going to be relevant in the face of thirty physically-enhanced Sorcerer’s minions. They quickly formed a chemica
l and psychological dependence on their Sorcerer and would fight, mindless of their own safety or pain, to protect him. The so-called goblins were one thing. Sam and Jason were going to be fighting thirty-three angry and quick-witted humans in a very confined space, trying to keep her clear to engage the Sorcerer. Thirty percent might have exposed her optimism.
She glanced over at Jason, who was leaning against a tree as he watched the church, then she turned her head and continued to watch, as well. She frowned and lowered the binoculars.
Something was wrong with Sam.
She rolled and sat up as his consciousness jumped away from his body and he nearly fell. Jason reached him first, and she pushed him to the side, finding the hollow of his chest where her hand went and forcing light into his mind. Sam’s body sagged and she struggled to get enough out of the way so that Jason could help her lower Sam to the ground, then they waited. It wasn’t more than a few seconds before Sam returned, gagging and rolling onto his hands and knees. He crawled to the other side of the tree and threw up. Jason looked at Samantha with panic in his face, but she held up a hand.
“He’s fine. That part’s normal.”
In fact, Sam had a headache and various body aches, but mentioning those would have been distracting. He returned, holding his head.
“They’re demons,” he said, sitting hard on the ground with his feet out and his elbows resting on his knees. He hung his head between his knees. “They’re all demons.”
“They’re people. We saw their pictures,” Samantha said.
“Possessed.”
She felt the color drain from her face.
“How does that work?” Jason asked.
“They turn off the systems they don’t need. The bodies will age, but as long as they can digest food, the demon can keep the body running,” Samantha said. She turned to look down at the little church, feeling sick, and not just because Sam did.
“He’s been lowering the barrier to make the possessions easier,” she said. “That’s what all of the rituals are for.” She looked over at them. “Guys, we aren’t prepped for this. It doesn’t matter if Rick is human or demon, fully manifest or otherwise. We can’t go in there and pull her out, it doesn’t matter what happens.”
“We’re going in there,” Jason said. “Now.”
