Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter One
Thursday, September 1st
It took Kandice a minute to remember everything that happened the night before. Despite spending most of the night asking Lance questions, there were more that needed answers. What stuck in her mind the most was that Lance came from a family of people who perceived the Aether Walkers in their true form. There were no whispers in her family regarding this kind of genetic secret. But if there were relatives that could see them there had to be a way to know who shared the gift.
Last night her brother tried to ask questions about her whereabouts, but the information overload left her too exhausted to explain. She’d fallen asleep in her clothes.
It was already past ten; grateful there was no school, she rolled out of bed. Her brother was still asleep with his door open and his computer running as usual. There always seemed to be a faint blue glow from his room, regardless of the time of day.
The phone Lance had given her was still in her pocket. She hoped he would be up for the second round of interrogation.
She sent him a text before going downstairs.
Kandice: Hey. Can we meet again today? I still have questions, and I need to help you hunt down the Aether Walkers.
The mindless routine of preparing a pot of french pressed coffee and frying up eggs and hash browns was calming. A good plate of breakfast food helped ground her mind. It was true, the right breakfast set the tone for the day.
As she sat down to eat, Lance's reply came in.
Lance: Give me your address, and I'll be by soon. We still need to get you a new bike.
After sending her address, Lance told her it would take him about twenty minutes to be there. Since he would arrive sooner than expected, she shoveled a few bites in her mouth and ran upstairs to change. It would embarrass her for him to see her in the same clothes.
Lance showed up to her house driving a small, blue truck that looked as if a strong wind could blow it off the road. He had mentioned replacing the mustang, but didn't say with what. The little truck was a surprise. The SUV had been large, and the mustang had been fast, but this truck was not impressive or flashy. Kandice opened the door before he knocked or rang the doorbell.
"Hi. Come in, but be quiet. I don't want to wake my brother."
"Okay." He smiled.
Kandice had changed into casual school clothes, but Lance still looked her up and down as he walked inside. Her appearance was a mess compared to the night before. Since hunting involved the bars scene, it was important to dress the part, but still have the mobility to fight.
"Would you like coffee? I was just having breakfast. Are you hungry?"
"No, thank you."
Kandice led him to the living room where they sat on opposite ends of the sofa. A moment of silence stretched beyond a minute; there wasn’t a good place to start in with the flood of questions that filled her mind.
To her relief Lance spoke first. "We need to report your moped as stolen."
"What?! I can't do that, I need it!"
"Don't worry. We can get you a new one. We can even get you a car if you prefer."
"It's not that. If I report it as stolen, my aunt will flip."
Lance stood and paced around the living room. He stopped at the mantel and looked at the few photos that Aunt Jackie had up. "Why are there none of you?"
"My aunt and I don't get along. That's her in most of them."
"You said you need to fight the Aether Walkers. How do you expect to do that?"
"Well, I figured you’d teach me how to change."
Lance put the photo he was looking at back on the mantel and returned to the couch. He kept his gaze focused on the bookshelf, and not on Kandice. "That's not possible."
"Why not? Just teach me how to use the magic y'all were telling me about."
"If I did that…" he stared into Kandice’s eyes. Chills ran down her spine; his eyes were turning black at the edges. "You would never be the same. It's not something you can turn on and off. Once changed, you would be a different person."
"I can't go back to fighting them as I was. Not now, I've seen how they can kill. I didn't know they could be that large or vicious."
Lance sat, unmoving. Kandice watched him, waiting for him to speak, but he sat staring at her, unflinching.
"Even though they killed my mom, I thought I had over imagined their size," she paused, weighing out her next words. "I lost everything but my brother after that night. Vengeance is the only thing that keeps me going."
"You will never find the one who killed your mom. And if you did, you wouldn't know the difference. Could you go your whole life killing?"
Lance pulled a flask out of his jean pocket and took a large swig before offering some to Kandice. She shook her head no.
Lance took another swig. "Every time I kill one of them, I also kill a man, a woman, even a child. I know what I told you last night, but I don’t believe Slava about Them not being human. I think he taught me that to make it easier to kill, but I couldn’t force myself to lie to you about it. The truth is no one knows what they are."
Kandice sat speechless. Aether Walkers appeared human to others, but to discover they might be real humans was too much. How could they be Aether Walker and human at the same time? What if the human appearance wasn’t to draw in their prey, but who they were?
The shock must have shown on her face.
"Slava and I have worked many years to fight them. My mother died because we failed."
"I'm so sorry."
He stopped her speaking by raising his hand. His eyes turned black as he stood up and took another swig from his flask. His constant drinking made her uncomfortable. If he became drunk while in their house, it would be hard to explain to Blake or worse her aunt. After dealing with her father's constant drinking, there was no room for alcoholics in her life.
Lance paced around the room again. Kandice's leg bounced as she watched.
"I know what it's like."
"No, you don't," he muttered. "You watched your mother die. Slava and I had to kill-"
He left the living room, headed to the front door. Damn it. This leaving her with more questions than answers each time they met had to stop.
She pleaded with him as he walked onto the porch. "Please, don't leave,"
"I can't help you. If you don't want to report your moped as stolen, fine. If the cops contact, just explain what you saw. You might get taken in, but they'll let you go. You were just a witness, they might not even know you were there."
"Lance, please. I need your help. I have to learn how to fight like you, whatever the cost."
"Goodbye, Kandice,"
The sound of finality in his voice, told her not to push it. Her mouth had gotten her in trouble again. She tried to speak, but no sound came out.
FUCK. She stood at the door overloaded with emotion as Lance got into his truck and drove off.
She’d blown it.
Kandice went back inside and sat on the couch. Thoughts of failue rushed through her mind like a tsunami. He was her only option to learn how to fight them. Instead of being the gracious host her mom raised her to be, she had pissed him off enough to leave. They shared a connection, the pain of their parent’s death. Sharing the pain should lessen it for each of them.
♦ ♦ ♦
After a hard deliberation, Kandice rolled out of bed and marched down the stairs. Blake st
ood in the kitchen drinking ice tea. The clock on the stove read just after 2:00 PM. It must have been about three hours since Lance left.
“What time did you go to bed?” Kandice walked behind him to the fridge.
“What were you doing last night?” He pointed an accusing finger at her.
“Don’t you know it’s rude to answer a question with a question?”
“I’m worried about you.” He put his empty glass into the dishwasher. “You’re gone at all hours of the night.”
“Just trust me.” She took a drink of her own glass of tea. The bitter lemon shocked her brain wide awake. “I’m not doing anything illegal, or dangerous. You wouldn’t understand if I told you.”
“I’m your brother.” Blake leaned against the counter close enough to her to hug. “When we moved here after dad died, you agreed that it was me and you against the world, and that no matter what, we would stick together.”
“It is me and you versus the world, but this is one thing you can’t help me with.”
“Try me. I know you think you need to protect me, since I don’t talk about mom, but I can handle it.”
Kandice sat down on a barstool and tried to work out the pros and cons of telling him. It was in her long-term plans to explain the Aether Walkers to him when he was ready to handle the shock. But after the last time he shut down a potential mom conversation, it confirmed that he wasn’t ready yet.
She took a deep breath to calm herself.
Here goes nothing.
“What do you believe about monsters?”
“What the fuck, sis. I was trying to be serious, and you ask me about monsters?”
“I'm serious Blake, I need to know what you already think about them.”
Blake sighed. “I guess you mean how all of mankind has a monster inside of them, that if not kept in check, would cause us becoming a barbarous race that killed for the pure pleasure of it. And how that’s why, when there is a major crisis, people loot and rape?”
“Random direction to take it, but sure.” Kandice looked at the counter between them, trying to find the words. No matter how she phrased it, it would sound crazy. “What if I told you that those monsters inside mankind were real?”
“What?”
He looked confused, but she pushed on. “I can see monsters. When you see a person, sometimes I see the monster that occupies the person, if there is one to see. I call them Aether Walkers.”
Blake stared at her with a blank expression.
He’s holding his breath.
The silent tension stretched on between them for more than a minute. With every second, Kandice grew more nervous.
“So, monsters?” Blake breathed out deep. “You’re telling me you see monsters everywhere?”
“Not everywhere. There are only a few of them compared to the number of people there are, but some people aren't as they appear. The Aether Walkers are able to look like a human to everyone else. I only see the monster, never the human shell, except in photos.”
“What the fuck, sis. That was a good one. You had me going, but tell me the fucking truth. I want to know where you go, not a crappy sci-fi story about monsters.”
“I call them Aether Walkers. And it’s not science fiction. What I’ve been working on sin-”
Kandice stopped talking; the truth about how their mom died had almost slipped out.
He wasn’t ready for that…
The conversation was treading a fine line, any miss step could have him back in the hospital. Her words didn’t save her earlier with Lance, they might not now.
Lance! That’s it!
Another person out there saw and fought them alongside her. Blake had to believe her if Lance confirmed her words.
“So.” Blake paused. “Monsters.”
Kandice came back to the conversation. “Yes. They’re real, and I can see them when they are trying to pretend to be human.”
“What does that mean? What did you mean when you said they can occupy humans?”
“Well. They look like normal humans to everyone else, but when I look at them, I see their true form. There are hundreds, or maybe even thousands of kinds. Not all of them are very dangerous. Most only feed on human life force a little, but some will kill.”
“And you see these everywhere?”
“There’s not enough to be everywhere, but I see them when I’m in different areas around town.”
Before Blake could respond, she interrupted him. “I need to tell you something. I want you to listen before you react.”
“You know you can tell me anything.”
“Okay,” Kandice paused, trying to find the courage, and the right words. “Okay, so the night mom died.”
“Mhum,” Blake grunted, and looked down at his feet.
“Well, mom didn’t die the way you think she did.”
“What?”
“Mom didn’t die from a car crash.” When Kandice said those words, Blake’s eyes widened. He looked up from his feet, into her eyes. There had to be a way to get this out for him to understand without losing him again. His stare was defeating, the table was her only constant to get through the next sentence. “A fucking Aether Walker murdered Mom.”
Silence hung in the air. Kandice kept staring at the table, waiting for him to say something, anything. She looked up, and Blake stared out the window.
“Say something.” She pleaded.
He kept looking out the window. “I don’t know what to say. I mean… Why didn’t you ever tell me before? I spent a year in that hospital, and you never told me.”
“I didn’t want to make things worse. And you never wanted to talk about her.”
“No!” Blake looked back at her. He met Kandice’s eyes. “You don’t understand. I had dreams. Horrible, vivid dreams. I kept seeing something nonhuman attack Mom. The doctors told me it was PTSD, and that my mind was manifesting a monster because the trauma was too much to handle.”
“What? You never told me you saw an Aether Walker.”
“That’s the thing. I don’t remember that night, except from my dreams. You say you see these Aether Walkers everywhere. I didn’t see them until I got out of the hospital, but I’d rather die than go back, so I stayed silent.”
“What did you see in your dreams?”
“It’s hard to describe. It looked like a massive octopus, almost. The eyes. I can’t forget the eyes. They were purple and shaped like those of a fly. Instead of arms, it had large, green tentacles with claws, and that’s what it shoved into mom’s chest.”
Tears shimmered at the bottom of his eyes. Kandice moved from her chair and hugged him tight.
She kissed his forehead. “You’re not crazy. I saw it too.”
Blake looked up at her and pushed her back. “Why the fuck… Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I told you, I didn’t want to make things worse. For the longest time, I thought I was crazy. After that night, I saw them everywhere.”
“You should have told me!”
“You could have told me. Why didn’t you? Why wouldn’t you ever talk about that night with me?”
“They locked me up!” Blake paced around the kitchen. The intense heat radiated off him.
“The doctors told me I was losing my mind. It took so long to get out of that place, and I only did it by agreeing that it was only a dream. I thought about telling you the other day, but I'm too afraid of going back to that place.”
Kandice hugged him again. “I’m so sorry. It’s not your fault. I’m sorry.”
Blake stood up and hugged her back. They held each other for over a minute before Blake sat back down and wiped the tears from his eyes. Kandice sat down and took a large drink from her iced tea. Relief flooded over her.
“I need to see this guy named Lance again. Him and his grandfather might know why. They know a lot more than what they’ve shared with me.”
“Is he the boyfriend you keep sneaking out to see?”
“No! I’ve only met him a
few times. In fact, last night was the first time we spoke. He was here this morning, but I made him mad and he left.”
“When? While I was asleep? Not cool. How can you trust him already?”
“I can't explain it, I just do. He has the answers I need, and I will get them out of him. I promise I will find the fucker who killed our mom and kill him.”
“Promise me one thing.”
“Name it.”
Blake went still. “When you find him, I get to help kill him.”
Kandice’s whole body shivered. It wasn’t her brother before her, his eyes had never been so bright with determination. It scared her to think he was ready to kill someone. The joy in his voice at the prospect of killing, unnerved her. A flash of a documentary about serial killers flashed into her mind, which made her shiver even more.
Chapter Two
Friday, September 2nd
The next morning Kandice blew off school. Her group could present the history paper without her. There were more important things to worry about than college.
She pulled into her old driveway next to a small, silver Honda, more of a go-cart than a car. How often do they change out vehicles? When she knocked on the door, Slava opened it as if he had been waiting at the door.
“Hello, is Lance here?”
“No, please, come inside.”
Kandice went inside, and Slava closed the door behind her. His English surprised her.
“Would you like a drink?”
“No, thank you. It’s still early for me.”
He offered her a seat in the living room, and she sat on the sectional. Slava poured himself a drink from the bottle on the coffee table.
“To your health,” he said, as he finished the small glass in one drink. “I understand my grandson spoke with you yesterday.”
“Yes. He left upset, and I wanted to talk to him again.”
“Lance…" he paused, as if searching for the right words. "He has a temper. It runs in our family.”
“He was very insistent that I get a new bike, but I don’t see how that would solve anything. I think it would cause more problems if I report it stolen to the police.”
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