Harken (Harken Series)

by Kaleb Nation

  “Are you happy, mother?” the man said, trying to align his gun as my defender fell.

  “After you pull that trigger, Wyck. Then I will be,” she replied coldly.

  The girl slid from behind me with a shout, claws of her own now out and ready to fight. But it was already too late. For one second, the path between the man and me had been cleared.

  There was a shot. It only lasted a millisecond before the world that surrounded us was bludgeoned to death.

  My eyes flew open immediately, sitting up in bead, sweaty and breathing heavily. I was still in my bedroom.

  I checked the face of my alarm clock: 3:14 AM.

  So this is how it’s going to be.

  It was too early to turn my light on. I reached up to wipe my eyes and felt something wet touch the side of my face. Thinking I’d drooled on my hand in my sleep and had now transferred this to my cheek, I went to my desk and searched its mess for a rag or shirt or tissue or… anything? My hand didn’t come across a single cloth. So I reached to switch on my computer screen for light.

  I froze.

  I shoved my hand closer to the glow of the screen.

  Like a scene in horror movie, my entire hand was covered in blood, now staining my shirt and neck. I felt its warmth against my face from where I’d unknowingly pressed my hands to it.

  In horror I turned to grab something to stop the blood, only to find that beside me were the open sheets of my bed. Long streaks of red now stained the white like the grisly aftermath of a murder.

  I dashed to the bathroom on the balls of my feet so that I wouldn’t wake anyone up. I closed the door and punched the lock, diving to the sink. The bandage I’d put on the night before was still stuck to my right finger, sliding and unable to stop the gentle blood that had been coming from underneath it. I pulled it off sharply.

  A stab of fiery pain shot through my finger . I had to grind my teeth together to hold my voice in. The sting! Tears burst into my eyes as the sharp feeling coursed throughout me. To my horror, I saw that with the bandage, the adhesive had also pulled off a thin layer of my own skin.

  My breath came in sharp gasps, barely getting air out before I was drawing it back in again. With the fingers on my left hand splashing the flow of water from the faucet, I struggled to wash the gash. This only made me bite back another yell.

  “Stop, stop!” I hissed. The blood washed away and I saw the blackened skin of my birthmark again, now looking like it was singed and dead, like plastic wrap over a bone. The water continued to burn against the raw skin so I pulled my hand back out, fire shooting through every nerve.

  My birthmark was raised even higher than the day before, looking like it was about to pop, fresh blood emerging from the skin that had peeled from around it. Edges of more skin were lifted up beside it and itching, bits of the bandage’s adhesive still stuck.

  I carefully reached to pull it free. The layer of skin peeled further. Blood was coming from the open wound. I knew if I stopped now it might only close up again, so I pulled more, closing my eyes and gritting my teeth.

  Pain throbbed from the gash as air hit. To my horror, I saw that I had peeled away my own skin. Now between my two shaking fingers, I held a thick strip of black. It hung loose like a dead flower petal.

  But what terrified me most—and what burned throughout my mind even more intensely than the pain—was what had emerged from hiding beneath my now-absent birthmark.

  It was a silver ring on my finger.

  Silver And Red

  More blood, more gnashing my teeth to contain the torture. The water from the faucet fell clear from the spout but hit the sink as red.

  Something kicked in and my finger soon became numb, until the awful burning actually started to recede. It didn’t feel right for the pain to go away so quickly, but it wasn’t like I was going to complain about that. The blood began to slow as well, and within seconds all that was left was the clean, silver ring that had, by all appearances, come from nowhere.

  The metal was very smooth and polished to a shine as the water washed over it. It was strangely pure: thin with rounded edges, a gleam to its surface, three simple lines cut into its top. I never wore jewelry. But it looked expensive and I might have liked it, if it hadn’t come out from under my own skin.

  When I tried to pull it off though, the ring would not budge the slightest of an inch. Even though it didn’t feel tight or painful anymore, the ring felt like it was attached to bone.

  I wasn’t about to spiral down into questions, asking how any of this could have happened, because I was too far past asking things I knew had no answer. Seeing the ring made me remember Father Lonnie’s reaction when he’d noticed my birthmark: had he known? Of course he’d known. He’d been looking for the ring all along, even when it was still hidden.

  The bleeding had stopped entirely and the redness had receded. No need to wrap my finger in gauze anymore. So I scrambled back to my room in a daze, locking the door, pulling the bloodied sheets off of my bed and balling them up on the floor. Such a tedious thing to busy myself with in an attempt to forget the ring, though its weight on my finger refused to be ignored.

  I hid the sheets in my closet behind some old laundry. But now I had nothing to sleep on.

  I laughed. Sleep? Did I expect to ever sleep again?

  Is that enough concrete proof for you? I thought. Something supernatural? I could handle that now. A conspiracy? I might even believe that. They wanted me dead? I could deal with that too. As long as I got answers. I needed the truth.

  I was out of bed again as soon as the sun poked up, pulling the same church clothes from my closet, struggling to get them on. By then, my finger appeared entirely healed. Even bending it felt natural, though the band of the unusual metal felt like a weight. I shoved my hands into my pockets as I walked downstairs, my family still asleep.

  I got onto my bike and started toward the church. Even the way the ring pressed against the handlebar was jarring.

  I pedaled quickly even though being late for mass wouldn’t have hurt, since I was only interested in grabbing the priest after he finished. I guess some part of me hoped that if I went fast and down streets that no one frequented, I could avoid the attention of any of those people the priest had said were watching for me—Guardians.

  Anytime I heard a car door open or brakes squealing, I had to glance over just to make sure no one was taking aim at me as I rode. Would there even be enough time for all my questions before the next mass? I had so many now. My anticipation only grew as I turned the corner for the church’s street.

  From afar, I could see a crowd gathered outside the church, people again dressed up in their best shirts and dresses. Was church already finished? I knew I’d checked the schedule so I couldn’t possibly be that late. But everyone was outside, walking away from the church instead of toward it, covering their mouths, pulling their children by the arm frantically.

  Finally I was close enough to see panic-filled faces and tears dripping from their eyes, to hear confused weeping as they stumbled in the direction opposite me. I glanced over the flashing lights that were further down the street, and saw police cars and ambulances, yellow tape around the front of the church blocking the parishioners from going inside. Traffic on the street was lined up as an officer tried to manage the chaos of people standing around, looking toward the sky, and pointing in disbelief. I skidded my bike to a stop and looked up, all the way up past the church door and then the circular stained glass window, to the pointed steeple above the bell tower.

  I squinted because the sun was behind it, nearly blinding me. But in the outline, far at the top, I could see something that should not have been there. All in an instant, I realized what they were looking at.

  Father Lonnie.

  The morning rays of the sun streamed around his silhouette, his body bent backwards with arms extended, legs the opposite way, mouth and eyes open as if in a scream. The spire poked out of his chest, his corpse spiked through the middle l
ike a nail through paper. He looked at us upside down, his body facing the sky but his eyes facing us with their lids open: skin white, a line of blood already dried from running down the steeple and onto the roof of his church.

  My bike dropped from under me and crashed to the sidewalk. Every ounce of energy inside me felt like it was sucked away by a vacuum, I couldn’t even stand, falling onto my knees in the grass as I stared up, unable to tear my eyes from the horrible sight. I could hear the sounds: the crying of the people, the frenzied questions, the police officers ordering everyone to leave. A fire truck with a long ladder had finally arrived and they were extending the arm out, doing their best to reach Father Lonnie and at least take the ghastly site down as more people began to gather. I could only go on kneeling, staring up at the man I’d spoken to not many hours before: the man who’d told me he’d die if I lived.

  The bloodstained roof of the church was a message to me.

  “Please go home,” I could hear the police say over a megaphone. “Please let us do our jobs. Take your children and go home.”

  I managed to get to my feet, forcing myself to walk closer. Even when I looked away I was unable to get the horrible image out of my head, seeing the outline of the priest in the corner of my eye, feeling like I would vomit if my own body had enough strength to. The crying got louder as I came closer, the grass trampled flat from high-heels and dress shoes, car horns honking as they tried to avoid pedestrians hurrying back to their vehicles.

  “It’s horrible…” I heard an old woman say.

  “God have mercy,” another whispered.

  “This was by the gangs. He tried to help them but God knows they’d kill a man this way.”

  Others hugged in circles, supporting each other just enough so they could walk away. The police and paramedics weren’t rushing though. They knew they were far too late now.

  I’d never felt so truly lost. What was I supposed to do now? Where was I supposed to go? I fumbled to take my cell phone out of my pocket, thinking that I’d call Spud and ask him to come get me, but realized I had forgotten my phone back on my dresser.

  I didn’t know if I needed to hide or if whoever had done this was still in the crowd, watching and waiting for me to pop up. I was almost certain that they’d found the priest by following me. Or was it the other way? Had they come to him demanding to know where I was, and he had refused to tell? So they killed him?

  I drowned in the unanswered questions. Because of this I ran right into a police officer. He shoved me away and back into my senses.

  “Look, kid, you need to go home,” he ordered me, pointing away. “I’m not gonna tell you again.”

  I almost protested that I’d just seen Father Lonnie the night before, and that I knew who’d killed him. But all at once I remembered what the priest had told me: I couldn’t even trust the police.

  I couldn’t trust anyone at all.

  I mumbled an apology, turning to leave as quickly as I could. The loud engines of the fire truck rumbled, the ladder clicking as it extended high into the air toward the corpse. I reached the concrete and started back for my bike.

  “Michael!” I heard someone hiss, making me jump. Over my shoulder, I saw someone else was now walking beside me. It was the monk, Brother James.

  “Don’t look at me, look straight ahead,” he whispered, so I obeyed. Gray, unshaven stubble covered his chin and his eyes were bloodshot and terrified. His hands were folded in front of him, the long sleeves of his brown robe swishing against his shoes.

  “Walk with me,” he said. “Around the side and to the back. Don’t look at anyone, all right? Just look ahead. Stay close to me.”

  Maybe it was my fright that caused me to do what he said without question, or the urgency in his voice. I stayed at the same pace as him, stepping into the damp grass and crossing the lawn beside the church.

  We passed through the shadow of the steeple and were out of view of most of the bystanders. The church had a side door with steps leading up to it and at first I thought that was where Brother James was leading me. But he passed it, going around the church. Behind the large building were some storage sheds and beyond that was a waist-high white fence surrounding a small, one-story house—the rectory, where the priest had lived.

  He pushed the gate open. The walkway was made of large and carefully placed stones lined by yellow and white flowers. In the tiny yard there was a corner garden and a giant, ancient satellite dish the size of a car, now rusted and filled with rainwater like a dish. Bees darted in and out of the flowers and grass, unaware of the nightmare that’d happened nearby.

  “Lonnie told me this would happen,” Brother James said under his breath, closing the gate behind me. “I knew when you showed up that there’d be trouble. And I tried to warn him but…”

  “You saw who did it?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied. “But I know who. I don’t have a single doubt it was Guardians.” He sighed, rubbing his arms. “How’d you get a man all the way up to the steeple, eh? How’d you spear a man atop his own church? You’d got to fly him there.”

  He pushed ahead of me toward the house. So he knew. I followed him quicker than before.

  He pulled the screen open so I could pass through, then locked both doors behind us. The inside of the house was yet another piece of Arleta trying to prove we’d never left the 1980s: old orange carpeting, wood panel walls, pictures in old frames and wooden clocks covering almost every inch. It stank of air fresheners and cologne, rocking chairs and small tables and old upholstered couches stuffing the living room from the far wall to the linoleum-covered kitchen on the end.

  The monk moved to the windows, glancing outside before he let the metal blinds fall. He darkened the room one window at a time.

  “Am I safe?” I asked. It was odd for me to wonder it, when all other times I’d never been fearful of such things.

  “Not anymore,” the monk said shakily. “But I don’t think anyone noticed you outside. Not anyone who’d be able to describe you, not with all the shock they’re in. Go close the blinds in the kitchen.”

  In seconds there was nothing left but dim light peeking through the slits.

  “This way,” he said, voice still low. He passed the kitchen, down the narrow hall and around the corner into a bedroom.

  I knew immediately that this was where the attacker had found Father Lonnie. The furniture was in a knocked-over mess, wooden dresser with drawers and clothes spilling out, a smashed chair in the center of the room as the only remainder from a short-lived struggle. The bed frame itself was sliced up and down like the claws of some attacking beast… or the knife-like edges of claws I’d seen before.

  But no blood. No sign of the dead man here besides the fight. That must have happened outside.

  “It’s just…I knew this would happen. But I can’t believe it,” Brother James said painfully. “I just can’t. I thought Lonnie would never get caught, but then he was.”

  He was coming close to sobbing but his hands continued to move, pulling open the closet door and shoving the clothes to the side. Beyond the clothes was a hidden, undersized door with two locks. He sniffled as he pulled keys from his pockets, undoing both and pushing inside. I had to bend over to step through the low doorway.

  The room was musty, smelling of wood and dust like an old shed. It was long and thin, no windows or any other doors, a single air vent poking through the wall. Scattered around were desks, two giant safes in the corner, lamps and magnifying glasses and computers all around. There was a couch in the center with many of its buttons ripped out and some rugs covering the ugly concrete, the wooden support frames of the walls exposed with wires running in and out. A rickety, metal furnace sat in the corner with an exhaust pipe poking up to the ceiling, a fire going inside it though the room was much too warm already.

  “What’s all this in here?” I asked. I heard Brother James lock both deadbolts behind us and the keys rattle back into his pocket.

  “This is th
e home of the blog,” he told me. “Or at least it was. There won’t be any more of it now, I guess.”

  Curiosity got the best of me, so I approached one of the desks. The computer was running a procedure, a green progress bar at 79% completion and files being listed below as they were erased one-by-one. All of the computers were doing the same thing. The desk was covered in papers and printouts, though I could see by following a trail of dropped notes that most of them had already been thrown into the furnace. Three empty document boxes sat beside the fire.

  “I can’t believe I’m burning all of this,” Brother James said beside me. “This was Lonnie’s life. This was all he did: this and the Church. But it’s too dangerous to keep them now.”

  “What is all of it?” I asked. He shrugged.

  “Everything you could imagine,” he said. “Government emails. Memos between businesses. CIA, FBI, royal families, foreign officials. Leaks to online databases full of this stuff that no one’s even dreamed of being true.”

  He breathed out despondently. “It’s all from Anon. Lots of truth no one gets to see.”

  He sounded close to sobbing again. He obviously wasn’t going to stop me, so I grabbed some of the papers from the mess. The topmost one was written in what appeared to be Russian, but there were notes scribbled in the sides: a sharp handwriting that said to “POST THIS” with an arrow to a circled paragraph, and “REDACT” next to a part that was scratched out with black marker. There were pages of that report stapled together, with diagrams of an airplane and arrows denoting specific seats.

  I pushed it off and found more beneath that. There were memos bound by paper clips, messages exchanged in a circle of email addresses that were jumbled letters and numbers. The message chain was long but the newest post was circled by a highlighter pen, which only read:

  TO: 100-964

  FROM: 1094-57