Something Always Remains

by M. L. S. Weech

  Drisc managed his most careless shrug. He’d be dammed if he’d let Richard think Driscoll Navin could be intimidated. The bastard was stronger than he looked, though. “Depends on what ye want,” Drisc said, as if it didn’t make a difference to him.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Richard let Drisc go.

  “Means what do ye want, lad? What’s important?”

  “I can’t let that monster run loose.”

  “So yer not worried about the wife, then?” Drisc was expecting the punch in his nose, so when a fist landed in his gut, it hurt all the more.

  “Don’t you bring her into this,” Richard said. The threat was clear in his voice.

  “So ye do mean to leave her out? It’s no different than last year.” Drisc managed to catch his breath in between sentences. “Ye got involved chasing after revenge. Ye left her for that, too, didn’t ye?”

  Richard made a pretty scary transition from angry to pissed off. In order to avoid getting in a fight, Drisc began to explain. “Do ye know the most important reason we don’t reveal ourselves?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Of course ye do,” Drisc said. Whatever Bob was doing to the Blacksoul, he must have been on some sort of break. The respite gave Drisc a chance to organize his thoughts more clearly. “Ye know death is a real thing now. Ye know there are people like me out there Collecting souls, and worse, ye know there are maniacs like Grimm. Most people don’t. They just focus on living their lives. Not you, though. You know.” Drisc watched Richard close his eyes. The detective slumped down into his chair.

  “I can’t stop it,” he said. “What does it mean for my child, if I can’t do this?”

  “That’s why we don’t talk about what we do,” Drisc said. He forced a small laugh as he stood and walked over to stand next to Richard’s chair. “Hell, you mortals could die going to the store, but you don’t think about it. Find out about us, though, and suddenly yer either clambering to kill us or hide from us. Meanwhile, you miss the point of life.”

  “It always comes back to that for me, doesn’t it?” Richard asked, laughing a little.

  Drisc gave him a light slap on the back of the head. It was only fair, after all. “Then get the damn hint, lad. Ye got a wife and a kid on the way. Ye ask me, if I were mortal, and I met me—the Journeyman me, not the mortal one—I’d spend every second I could living. Hell, I do that now.” Little good it does me.

  “I don’t want to think I could ever lose her,” Richard whispered. “To know I’m that powerless.”

  “Did ye think ye could stop death before meeting Bob?”

  Richard gave him a flat look. “You know what I mean.”

  “Doesn’t change the question. Only now that ye do know, you’re pushing her away; first to hunt Bob down, now to hunt Grimm. It’s the same mistake. Yer pissed at me because I’m right about it.”

  Somewhere downstairs, Bob must have started up with the Blacksoul again. Lynne seemed to be resisting something. Drisc tried to push his connection to the back of his mind.

  “I’m scared.”

  “What, ye don’t trust me?”

  Richard smiled. “Not in the least.”

  “That hurts, lad, after I saved yer life an’ everythin’.”

  Drisc’s knees nearly buckled. He felt his connection to his Blacksoul surge. It felt ... joy. It was a joy so great that Drisc nearly started weeping. As quickly as the feeling hit him, everything left. He couldn’t sense her.

  “You OK?” Richard asked. He looked like he was trying to decide between laughter and concern.

  “Something’s wrong.” As if to prove him right, Linda screamed. Richard was out of the recliner and down the hall before Drisc could blink. Drisc managed to catch up to Richard just as he reached the door to the basement.

  They scurried down the small set of stairs and found Linda over Bob, trying to revive him. Bob was unconscious. He looked clammy. He was breathing, but it was shallow and unsteady.

  “What happened?” Drisc asked. He rushed to check Bob’s pulse while Richard pulled Linda into his arms.

  “I came down to bring him something to eat and found him like that,” Linda answered. “He ... he was glowing.”

  “Bob!” Drisc said. Straight out of the medical handbook, that was, calling out a man’s name. It almost always never worked. Bob’s pulse was rapid but slowed with each long breath he took.

  Drisc tried to keep his friend’s head elevated as the unconscious man started to look less and less like death warmed over. “What did you mean, glowing?”

  “He ... ” Linda answered, looking at Drisc, then her husband. “He looked like an angel.”

  Bob suddenly bolted upright, gasping. Everyone in the room jumped at the sudden shock of Bob’s awakening. Drisc let the man take a few gulps of air before asking, “What happened?” He was worried about his friend, but feeling Lynne vanish felt like waking up realizing you were missing an arm. “Where is she?”

  Bob looked at him. He looked like he’d just seen something truly alien. A smile bloomed on his lips for a moment; then, oddly, it faded. “She’s gone,” Bob said.

  “Where?” Drisc shouted.

  “I Transported her, Drisc,” he said, still in awe of whatever he had done.

  “How? I mean ... how’d you do it?”

  Bob stared off at nothing, probably trying to remember exactly what he did. “I cleansed her.”

  “I know that much, ye daft fool,” Drisc said, trying very hard—very, very hard—to be patient. “How?”

  “I am how,” Bob whispered. “I’m not sure how, exactly, but she went through me. Somehow, she Transported through me.”

  18

  Shadows Through the Light

  April 16, 2008

  On April 16, 2008, the man who wrote these journals died. He was a great man. Someone should remember him for who he was as much as for what he did. I’ll never forget.

  - Driscoll Navin

  Bob felt as if he’d run half a marathon and had no choice but to run the other half. Exhaustion didn’t begin to cover it. He felt that tired before the six-hour drive to San Diego. Sleeping in a car for some reason made him more tired instead of less. The most humiliating part was when he realized he needed help getting out of the car.

  Drisc just stared at him, stuck in a car outside the Clockmaker’s shop. “It’s my thinking that if ye can’t get out of the car, ye should just stay out of the way.”

  “I have to do this.”

  “Why the fuck can’t I do it?”

  “Do you want to?”

  Drisc only looked away for an instant, but it was enough of an answer for Bob. “Can you even open yourself up?” Bob asked. Drisc had tried. He tried ten times before Bob was able to convince him to get in the car, and that was only to get to Archie before Grimm did.

  It was simple math that led them to think the Clockmaker would be the first stop on Grimm’s rampage. Grimm still thought he could take the Clockmaker’s ability, and for all Bob knew, the bastard could actually pull it off. That got Drisc in the car, but it didn’t convince the Senior Journeyman to admit that Bob had to be the one to do it.

  Archie and Pip stepped out of the shop after a few moments. Pip helped Bob to his feet. Drisc looked at Archie, waved at Bob with both hands, and asked, “Can ye talk sense into the lad?”

  “Why don’t we start by taking a look at him?” Archie asked.

  They helped Bob into Archie’s workshop. The rest of the Journeymen were there, led by Todd and Robin. Robin refused to look at him, but he’d expected as much. Todd gave him a grim smile. Pip helped him into a chair.

  “Please give us some privacy,” Archie said. The Journeymen herded out of the room. Robin walked over and stood by Drisc as Archie began looking over Bob as if he were some sort of doctor. “Do you feel some need to be here, Robin?” Archie asked.

  “I thought I should see,” Robin said. She sounded like a child who’d been caught stealing cookies.

&n
bsp; “That doesn’t exactly sound like a reason to be in my way,” Archie said calmly.

  “Drisc is here,” she said. She seemed to realize how she sounded an instant after saying it.

  Archie turned his head to look at her. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at her with those eyes that told a person exactly how stupid she was, especially compared to him. Bob tried to hold in his laughter, but Drisc stood behind Robin, making faces.

  “I’m surrounded by children,” Archie said. He resumed his examination as Robin stormed out of the room.

  Bob felt a bit foolish. Archie looked in his eyes, mouth, and ears. He listened to Bob’s heart and breathing. After about five minutes, Archie sat down across from Bob.

  “So what happened to me?” Bob asked.

  Archie looked at Bob. His eyes were serious, intense. “No clue.”

  “Dear Jesus,” Drisc groaned.

  “So what the hell was all that?” Bob asked, pointing to Archie’s small medical bag.

  “It couldn’t hurt to try,” Archie said, as if it were perfectly reasonable.

  Bob let his head fall into his hands. He took a few deep breaths. “So you don’t know why I can Transport souls through myself?”

  “I honestly don’t even have a clue as to why you’d try such a stupid idea,” Archie said. “You could have died.”

  “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” Bob asked. Archie could make a sixty-year-old Nobel Prize winner feel like a child justifying a B+ on a math test.

  “It appears so,” Archie replied. “I’m curious; how did your soul react to the process?”

  “You know something,” Bob said. The old fart always had this way of asking a question he already had the answer to.

  “I only have a theory,” Archie said.

  “Says the man who discovered relativity,” Drisc muttered.

  “Yes, only theories are usually tested. I just don’t expect Bob would be willing to try that again,” Archie explained.

  “Not before we find Grimm,” Bob said.

  “Not that again.” Drisc spat the phrase as if it were a curse.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Archie said.

  “Because I don’t remember much,” Bob replied. “It felt like ... it felt like the night Patience died.”

  Drisc muttered something under his breath before sitting on top of a worktable. Archie gave him that “you’re being a child” look, and Drisc slid off as if he’d meant to. “You’ll have to touch him, the real person,” Archie said, looking back at Bob.

  “So ye mean to let him?” Drisc said. “We’re gonna throw Bob to the wolves because he cleansed one Blacksoul. He doesn’t even remember how. What if all he does is get himself killed?”

  “This is my decision,” Bob said.

  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” Drisc growled.

  Bob took a deep breath and forced himself to his feet. He walked up to Drisc and looked into his eyes. “Do you mean to stop me?” Bob asked.

  A stiff breeze could have stopped him, but Bob tried to look determined. Drisc glared at him. For a moment, Bob was afraid his best friend would do something drastic. Just when Bob started to get ready to argue, Drisc dropped his head and shook it. Bob put a hand on Drisc’s shoulder, leaned over, and whispered, “Thank you.” He left before Drisc had the chance to change his mind.

  When Bob got to the main area of the shop, he saw that Todd had managed to round up about thirty Journeymen with some sort of combat skill. Including Robin, Drisc, and himself, that meant there were thirty-three people to take on some thousand Blacksouls. He found himself instinctively doing the math: thirty to one, against the good guys, at best. The cynical part of Bob knew those were pretty generous odds.

  “We need to find a place that’s big enough to fight in but out of the way of any mortals,” Bob said.

  Surprisingly, Robin was the one to reply. “There’s a golf course just over the Coronado Bridge. It’s closed after dark. We figure Grimm will wait until then. It’s big, and no one should be there.” The rest of the group seemed content to let Robin fill him in.

  Bob stared at her for a minute. “I didn’t imagine you’d be this helpful.”

  “Grimm is a rabid dog,” she said. Drisc had told Bob about how she was the one who’d taught Grimm the ropes. He kept the secret, understanding a bit more why Robin was such a stickler for the rules. “You’ve broken rules; you’ve violated tradition; but beside Grimm, you’re a choir boy.”

  “How are we going to get in without mortals getting in the way?” Bob asked, deciding not to have a heart-to-heart at that moment.

  “We managed to get one of us a job as night security there,” Robin answered. “He’ll let us in when it’s time.”

  The plan seemed simple enough to Bob: keep the most-skilled with Bob and Drisc, at the clubhouse to protect Archie. Bob didn’t like the idea of using Archie as bait, but apparently it was his idea, so arguing would only cost time. From there, the majority of Journeymen were just distractions.

  “I have to get to Grimm,” Bob said. “Whatever it is I do that hurts him only happens by contact.”

  “You’ll get your shot,” Robin said.

  “His Blacksouls can withstand light as long as they’re touching him. I’ll need you to take care of those.”

  Archie and Drisc came out of the back room. Pip brought everyone beverages while Bob explained what he meant to do. Robin looked like she was trying to swallow glass when Bob said he’d used random objects to open Transport Points without a soul to Transport. Thankfully enough, she didn’t delay the planning with any sort of sermon about tradition.

  Of course, while no one argued, Bob couldn’t help but notice that when he said he could open himself as a Transport Point, about half the Journeymen in the room stopped listening to attempt to do it themselves.

  “It nearly killed me,” Bob said. And that bit of information put any experiments to a dead halt. “I don’t think anyone without a soul can do it, but best not to try it.”

  “It’s important that I tell you this,” Archie broke in. “I don’t think Grimm can kill indiscriminately.”

  The room was about as quiet as Bob had ever heard it. Even the ticking clocks seemed to tone down their noise. “The death he caused, I think, occurred because the mortal chose to remain to help his friend instead of fleeing. He was destined to die; Grimm was only the instrument of that fated death.”

  “That doesn’t mean you all should act as if yer immortal,” Drisc interjected. “Even if—and I mean if—he can’t kill, those Blacksouls hurt like hell.”

  They hammered out the details. It reminded Bob of one of his favorite books. The heroes planned the assault on the evil emperor. Of course, in stories, the hero lives and marries the girl, or he dies and becomes a religious icon for generations. Bob didn’t imagine he’d be deified. And the woman he would’ve married had died months ago. Had it really only been a few months? It feels like it’s been years.

  They continued to talk. The conversation shifted oddly to memorable Transports. Bob told them about Buddy Holly and Tolstoy. Drisc talked about Lennon and the real William Wallace. They shared stories of joy, hope, pain, and comic embarrassment—all leading up to what would be the most-remembered Transport in the history of Journeymen. Bob didn’t dwell on his role in the process. In the end, he was still a cog in a machine he knew precious little about. He didn’t know how much he’d improved the machine in the few years he’d been trying. In the end, he didn’t know if he’d made any sort of difference.

  Bob was quiet inside one of the vans Drisc had rented as it turned off the Coronado Bridge and onto the Coronado Municipal Golf Course. A soft breeze carried the Pacific Ocean’s chill. Bob thought it a bit odd that the weather should be so nice on a night a battle for the souls of humanity would occur.

  He’d been on more battlefields than he cared to notice, but he was always on the edge of the fight. In this case, not only was he on the front line — he was the fr
ont line. He felt less numb and more impatient than he had in his entire life.

  A Journeyman dressed in a rent-a-cop uniform opened the gate for them. Drisc drove the lead van to the clubhouse. Five vans pulled into a circle, where Bob’s fellow Journeymen began to pile up. Todd hopped out of the second van. He walked over to Bob and planted a heavy hand on his shoulder.

  “Don’t worry; we’ll be OK,” Todd said.

  Bob gave him a smile of appreciation, if not trust. The rent-a-cop Journeyman opened the doors and flipped a switch, turning on the lights. The group didn’t hesitate to start shoving shelves and display tables to the corners. They wanted to make sure they had room to work, and since they’d all likely die horrible deaths, there wasn’t a concern about paying for damages.

  Bob tried to shake the feeling of impending death, but it was fairly difficult to do when every Journeyman around him kept glancing at him like he was some sort of deformed beggar on the street. Drisc noticed one of the random glances. He rushed up to the man and grabbed his shoulder.

  “Is der somethin’ over dare ye think ye need to stare at?” Drisc asked in a voice that sounded both cheerful and threatening.

  “It’s just—” the man stammered.

  “I fuckin’ asked ye a question. Is that the first Death Sense ye ever saw?”

  “It’s OK,” Bob said. “Drisc, he’s here to help.”

  Drisc pushed the man away and called him an asshole.

  “I’m sorry,” the man said.

  “Try not to hold it against Drisc,” Bob said. “He doesn’t like it when people make fun of his friends.”

  The man swiveled his gaze from Bob to Drisc. “You’re ... well ... you know,” the man said. Drisc made a move to stalk over again, but Bob stopped him. The man stepped back, but he didn’t stop talking. “You’re worried I’m gonna be mad at a Senior Journeyman?”

  Bob shrugged. “He’s my friend. He’s just standing up for me. I don’t want you to take it personally.”

  “That’s just it,” the man said. “Don’t you have ... other stuff ... to worry about?”