Aislen looked around the room and found she wasn’t even in a room. It was a nowhere space, foggy and blank. There were no walls and it was empty except for the chair, the bed, and the two of them.
“First, a recap,” her father said. “You have been drinking tonight.”
Gee, who knew you were an Einstein? Aislen thought to herself.
Preston laughed. At what exactly, she didn’t know.
“Problem number one with that is, you aren’t a drinker, so your body is handling the alcohol content accordingly. You are still quite intoxicated right now.”
The “no duh” of the century.
He laughed again, which was really starting to irritate her. “I’m not here to lecture you about the things you already know—just about the things you don’t,” he continued. “You need to be careful about drinking. It inhibits your control. Which is why I am able to keep you immobilized on that bed. If you were sober, I would have to work a lot harder to make you sit still.”
What?
“It is very tempting to drink or use other pharmaceuticals. You might think it will suppress all this,” he waved his hand around the space, “that it will bury it all back down so that you can pretend that it doesn’t exist. But it won’t. It won’t cover it up. It won’t put it back in the box. It only makes you lose control. Are we clear on that?” He looked down at her in the bed, waiting for an answer.
Who do you think you are? You can’t tell me what to do! She yelled at him, but with a tongue still hijacked and hog-tied. She glared at him, hoping she still had control of her eyeballs and could get her point across.
“I’m not telling you what to do, Buttercup. Just trying to impart some extremely important advice, especially for you.”
She was shocked. Had he heard her?
Yes. It’s called telepathy. His lips didn’t move, but she heard it in her head as clear as day. Just like when she was in the dream. And when she was in the kitchen with her mom—
And I told you to ask her about the teacups, he finished her thought, again, without speaking.
That is very fucking annoying, she thought back to him.
He laughed out loud this time. “Yes. It can be. But it can also be very useful. But be grateful, you tune most of it out. Otherwise you’d be hearing everybody’s obnoxious chatter. Usually, only really capable people who have a strong emotional connection to you can get through.”
I don’t have a strong, emotional connection to you, she thought.
He didn’t say anything. After a moment he got up and started wandering about the space.
Aislen realized that he no longer looked like the deranged, homeless man from her earlier vision. He didn’t look like the man that came to the door when she was four, either. He looked middle aged, the age that he would be in real life. He was slim and fit. The sandy blond of his hair was flecked with a little gray. He was handsome, just as her mother had said, and there was a magnetism about him. A very calming force drew her in and held her in a feeling of safety and belonging that she didn’t want to leave, even though she hated his guts.
Aislen could understand how her mom had fell so hard for him and remained hopeful for so long. Thinking of her mother pining away for this man, who just up and left them to fend for themselves, rekindled her anger.
Preston stopped pacing, came to the side of the bed, and sat down beside her.
“I don’t know how to tell you all the things that I need to, Aislen. I hope that after what you experienced yesterday, you understand that I know what is going on with you and that I can help.”
This is crazy, she thought. I’m going fucking crazy. She started trying to fight again, her mind kicking and pushing against her body, yet it remained hopelessly motionless on the bed.
“Aislen...you are not crazy. And you are not going there. But that brings us to problem number two: what is happening to you. It would be easy just to label yourself as crazy and medicate it away. But that is not what is happening. The skills that have been laying dormant inside of you your whole life, they are starting to activate.”
What does that mean? Skills? That doesn’t make any sense!
“I know it doesn’t. That’s why I am here, to explain it and try to help you with it. You are in the process of, well, it’s kind of like waking up. Only you aren’t waking up from this world back into the world you call ‘real’. You are waking up from that world, into something—different...”
This is too much for me...I don’t want it! I want to be the way I was. I just want to be normal!
“I know and I am sorry. That isn’t possible. Your genetics are coded for this.”
So I am a freak? That’s what you’re saying? Great! Just. Fucking. Great!
“Well, you’re in good company.”
With who? You? That’s good company?
Preston didn’t respond. Aislen couldn’t read his mind, like he could read hers, but she could read the pain on his face well enough.
“No. Not just me,” he finally said. “There are others like you, like us in the world, Aislen. A few of them actually realize it and use it in a way that is beneficial. Some have experienced it, but suppress it. Like you would like to do. But you aren’t going to be able to. Your abilities are too strong. You need to understand it, learn how to control it, and you need to do that really fast. Because there are also those that understand it and utilize it to their advantage. And those people are very, very dangerous.”
Preston frowned slightly and shook his head. “I never wanted this for you. I wanted you to have a normal life. And safe—I wanted you safe. When you made it through childhood and adolescence and into adulthood, still dormant, I thought that it might be possible. But you are waking up, Aislen. There is no way around it.”
How do you know anything about my childhood or adolescence? You weren’t here for that!
Another shadow passed across his face and he looked away from her. She could tell he was trying to maintain his composure. When he looked at her again, the gold was alight in his eyes.
“I have always been near you, Aislen. As near as your next breath. It hasn’t been in the way I have wanted, or in the way you have needed. It has been the most painful aspect of my life. You can never fathom how sorry I am for that. I am very, deeply sorry.”
The apology sat heavy between them. Finally, Preston spoke again. “Aislen, I need to help you. I am the only one who can. And if I don’t...if you don’t let me...your life...your mother’s life...and any other people who get in their way will be in grave danger.
He held her in his intense gaze and slid closer to her on the edge of the bed. “It’s going to be hard for you, but I need you to trust me.” He placed his hands together and closed his eyes, as if he was about to pray. A lambent flame began to radiate in the space between his palms. As he pulled his hands apart, the glow clung and flickered around his fingertips. He placed his hand on her head and gently ran both thumbs across her forehead.
Aislen immediately became alert. The agonizing pounding in her head and her queasiness vanished. The paralysis released its grip and she could tell she was free to move and speak again. She also knew she was in a dream—and that, if she wanted to, she could wake up and be away from her father and this madness.
She sat up in the bed and looked at her father’s face, directly, for the second time in her life. Only this time, she was the one who had the choice of whether to walk away or not.
His eyes didn’t waver from hers: verdant, alive, and pensive. A large part of her wanted to hurt him, to turn away from him, wake from this twisted vision and never think upon him again. But the fear that her mother could be harmed somehow was too disturbing.
“What do you mean by danger?” she finally asked him.
He let out what seemed to be a small sigh of relief. “It’s a very long story and probably beyond what you can understand right now...but the short version is—the people who have been looking for me for most of my life, if they figure out that you
are my daughter...they will look for you and they will not stop until you are dead.”
“What!?” A million questions riddled her mind at once. “But what did I do? What did you do? Why do they hate you so much they would kill me? Are you a criminal?”
“I am not.”
“But you have been running all this time, just like Mom said?”
“Yes, I have. I have spent most of my life running and hiding—because of who I am and what I can do. If they find out who you are...they will know what you are and what you are capable of. And if they can’t control you and use you for their own purposes, then they will eliminate you.”
“But what am I?”
“You’re a Walker.”
“Uh, yeah. But that’s Mom’s last name, not yours. She gave it to me when I was born.”
“No. I gave it to her. She needed an alias to break ties with her past. And I suggested it. She thought I just pulled it out of a hat, when really it was my alias. I never told her it was the last name I was using; I never told her my last name at all. She only knew me by Preston. See, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay for very long—no matter how much I wanted too. No matter how in love I was, I couldn’t stay with her or you, without bringing harm to you both. But I gave her the name that I used, so we could be connected that way. So I would always be able to find you.”
“So your name is Walker, too?” The idea of it was repugnant. She had always been proud that she had her mom’s name, that they were independent of the man who walked away from them. “I guess you lived up to your alias, didn’t you?” She meant it to be hurtful and was satisfied when she saw it had found its mark. But Preston pressed on with his explanation.
“Names carry a signature that can be tracked. My real name carries a signature that has been tracked since I escaped from my original life. I never speak the original name. It would be enough to send the hounds sniffing our way. But I needed a name to use as I traveled. I came up with Walker because it was the best way to describe what I had found myself to be.”
“A Walker? What the hell is that?”
“It’s really hard to explain in a way that won’t make you flip out the way you do. But, here it goes. Aislen. You have the ability to transmigrate dimensions.” He stopped and watched her.
She stared at him blankly.
“Everybody is capable of it, it is a natural aspect of being human. But when they do it, for the most part, they do it unconsciously and don’t remember. You, on the other hand, are able to walk your consciousness from the third dimension into other dimensions, at will.”
“Are you freaking kidding me? Do you even hear yourself? And you tell me I can’t use drugs? What are you on?”
“I know it is a foreign concept for you, but that’s the gist of it.” He shrugged his shoulders as if it was really no big deal, even though he was blowing her mind.
“There are other dimensions that exist just beyond your normal, sensory perceptions, Aislen. Your corporeal consciousness normally tunes them out—it kind of has to in order to function within the ‘rules’ of 3D. Your body is only capable of experiencing one, very thin slice of the spectrum of existence. But your consciousness, the essence of who you really are, isn’t limited to the confines of your brain. It transcends the physical altogether. Always has and always will. You are being forced to operate on a new level now, whether you like it or not.”
“Alright, enough! This is all sounding a little too ‘woo woo’ for me.
“Well, welcome to the ‘woo woo’ then. You’ve been living in the fiction long enough.”
She could only stare at him. It sounded completely outrageous, but was it really? When she applied it to what she had experienced the past twenty-four hours, what she was experiencing now, it kind of made sense.
“So these dreams I’ve had?”
“Were travels to another plane—the Fourth, actually. People call it different things: Mundus Imaginalis, Alam-i-Malakut, Olam-Hadamut, the Astral. The people who will be interested in you call it The Stratum.
“Your little journey last night, your dream as you say, took you to a place in their Stratum where you weren’t supposed to be and you saw something you shouldn’t have seen. They’ll be looking for you because of that.”
Aislen thought of the dark soldier boring holes through her with eyes of ice and a bullet of lead and a shudder went through her.
“This is where it comes down to you,” Preston said. “I told you that you have a choice. You cannot change what is happening to you. Your abilities will continue to develop, whether you like it or not. And people are already looking for you. Trust me, if they find you, find out who you are and what you can really do, they will hurt, maim, or kill anything that gets in their way. Your mother. Your friends. They don’t care.
“You can choose to go this alone, like I did. Or you can choose to let me help you.”
Aislen didn’t know what to say. It seemed ludicrous to her that anyone would think she was that important or dangerous that they would go to such lengths as to kill anyone to get to her.
You are dreaming, she reminded herself as she looked up at Preston, her father. His eyes blazing at her with conviction. As much as she wanted to hurt him by cutting him off and denying him, she couldn’t. The words that rang from his lips, the emotions that played upon his face, were full of truth.
“What do I have to do to keep Mom safe?”
CHAPTER 17
Raze chillaxed in the chair, lingering on the cusp of Theta, enjoying the afterglow of his Aislen assignment. He had been spot on about the confluence of music, booze, and movement breaking down her walls and giving him the gap he needed to move in close enough to find her baseline.
It had left him feeling a little intoxicated himself. He was tempted to reopen the aperture and take another spin. But Raze recognized the hook and pulled himself away. The brain was a strange chunk of chuck; a few drops of dopamine ricocheting across a couple of strategically placed neurons and you were a goner—lost in the sauce of lust.
“Alpha 14.”
The Womb turned up its luminosity and cranked up the volume on the jazz.
“Metal,” he told the Womb. She started playing Pantera. “Ahh, you know me too well,” he said aloud, feeling gregarious.
He got out of the chair, went to the control console, and pulled up the programming app. With a few taps on the keyboard he initiated the homing device on the visors. He knew the GPS coordinates of the Parrish residence, but he did not know where the visors were inside the house. He wasn’t about to waste his valuable time playing hide and seek with a pair of inanimate objects, when he had a much more tantalizing game to play with Miss Aislen.
“North 37 degrees, 39 minutes, three point nine, eight, five, two seconds. West 120 degrees, 59 minutes, 46 point eight, one, two, six seconds,” he said to the Womb. Once the sequence was initiated, he laid back down in the chair.
“Theta 8.”
The Womb descended through the cycles. When Raze wound his brain waves down to Theta 8, she repeated slowly, “North 37 degrees, 39 minutes, three point nine, eight, five, two seconds. West 120 degrees, 59 minutes, 46 point eight, one, two, six seconds.”
As simple as e=mc², Raze acquired a signal line for the coordinate and stepped through the wrinkle in reality.
CHAPTER 18
Mathis pulled his truck onto a side street and walked around the corner to Magnolia, trying to appear officially casual, like he was supposed to be there. If anyone happened to be looking out a window at this hour, seeing a uniformed officer wouldn’t cause them to call the cops. But the sleepy, little neighborhood was just that, sleeping. All houses were dark and the streets were deserted.
He checked to make sure no new vehicles were parked in the driveway or garage, that Mom or Sister hadn’t made it home yet; then he sidled along the easement between the Parrish house and its neighbors, tracing the same path he took last night.
He went to the back patio door. They had broken
one of the multiple panes of glass in order to unlock the door. In a convenient case of incompetence, the broken pane had been covered in nothing but cling wrap and masking tape, rather than nailed over with plywood.
“Thank God I work with a barrel of monkeys,” Mathis said to himself. The last thing he wanted to attempt was hefting his fat ass through an unlocked window. He stuck his hand through the edge of the window, ripped the tape with his fingers, and placed his hand on the inside latch.
He took a moment to say a quick Hail Mary, of which he only knew the words “Hail Mary,” flipped the lever, and popped open the door. He paused at the threshold, listening for the timed beeping of an alarm system waiting for a proper pass code, before it set off a siren and called the cops. The house was silent except for the soft purr of the refrigerator.
Mathis stepped inside and quietly shut the door behind him. He wasn’t about to lollygag now. He needed to get the console and get the fuck out. He went directly to the den and immediately to the entertainment center, careful to walk around the still-damp bloodstains on the carpet where Mr. Parrish had laid just 24 hours earlier. He located the black cube on the bottom shelf and set about unplugging and untangling cords as quickly and methodically as possible.
What little he understood of video games, he at least knew he needed some kind of hand-held controller, so he started searching the shelves for one. He located a shelf littered with an array of tools: a plastic handgun, a long plastic sword, and a black mesh glove with segmented panels on each finger and the palm. He scooped up the lot of them and placed them next to the console.
It was then that he noticed a red light was strobing somewhere in the room, lighting up the walls in rose, then throwing them back into darkness. He scanned the room to find where it was originating from; and after a few flashes, he traced it to the far corner of the living room.
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