“Agent Joe Tango, CIA.”
“CIA? What does the CIA need from me?”
Kat’s mind was flipping through images of the crime scene from downtown. She was remembering the firefight and the dead man from the alleyway. What was all this about? Why was he here? Kat began to back up, the whole time her weapon steady on Agent Joe Tango.
“I’ve been what we call disavowed.”
“You’ve been erased?”
“I screwed up and now they are trying to… to clean things,” Joe said.
“By ‘clean things’, you mean…”
“An assault team. Or cleaners, as we tend to call them.”
“They are trying to kill you? So you’re what this whole fucked up mess is all about?”
“Affirmative, Detective.”
Kat took a moment and let that sink in. She turned from him, dipped her gaze and spoke again.
“Then what is it you want from me?”
“I’m meeting a contact in a little bit who said he can help me, but I need a safe place to stay for a short while. A place where I can get my head straight. I’ve been on the run for some time. I simply have nowhere else I can go, Detective.”
“So you come to me? Why? I don’t even know you!”
“You were the detective at the scene. Your record suggests that you don’t always follow the rules and that just maybe you won’t turn me in. And… you were the one that turned that glass vial over to the Brain Finger Print Lab this morning.”
The words shocked Kat. She didn’t know what to say, and then the words came out.
“You’re him. The one at the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“Why? What brought you there?”
“I will tell you, but you need to be willing to hear what I have to say. For what I have to tell you will be very hard for you to hear. You might even think I’m crazy, but I assure you that I am quite sane.”
“I’m willing,” Kat said and took a seat on the chair across from him, still holding her gun in her hand.
Chapter 49
10:00 p.m., May 6
We drove to my house with the windshield wipers working hard as the relentless downpour thrummed on the roof. Traffic was thin because it was barely ten o’clock. The Seattle downtown skyline came into view slowly and by degrees in the watery fog. I thought of Merric again. I envisioned her carefully doing her makeup or talking on the phone to some boy, and the hairs on the back of my arm stood up as a chill crept over me. I was distracted in a way I could not define as it occurred to me for the first time that I was truly losing my little girl. She seemed to be growing up at an incredible rate and I could do nothing to stop it. I was losing her all too quickly.
Turning onto the 65 Street exit, I wound around Ballard with its wet brick walks and pubs that were coming to life with the night. I passed parking lots beginning to fill and turned onto the darkened streets of my neighborhood. As we got out of my truck in front of my two-story home, I could hear the night news blaring from a television inside my house.
“Did you leave your TV on?” Kenny asked me with a confused look on his face.
“No, I didn’t.”
And with that we unholstered our weapons. At that moment, my black lab Zakk—who was never let out of the house unsupervised—met me at the street. Right away I could tell that something was not copacetic. His black fur did not have its usual smooth shine and it seemed he had blood on him, but I could find no evidence of a cut.
“Is he okay?” Kenny asked with concern.
“It’s not his blood. Did you get a piece of someone, boy?”
I will never forget the scene that greeted me when I returned back home. When I opened the door to my house everything was in a state of disorder. Books were strewn about the floor, their pages crumbled and tattered, and the contents of drawers dumped. My art supplies were scattered about the room. My oldest book, a guide to the occult, had been ripped from the shelf and tossed to the floor along with the others. Fortunately the binding had not failed and was not damaged.
Kenny suddenly rushed through the door, his gun out in an over exaggerated burst of motion as he checked my home as if I needed him to. I, on the other hand, was not as concerned about the state of things as he seemed to be, but still my weapon was out and ready for any movement. Zakk was at my side.
Fabiana stood motionless in the doorway like some beautiful porcelain doll. She wore a stern expression as she reached out with her mind and scanned my home. After a moment she spoke soft words into my mind.
They are not here.
Something was happening though, I could feel it. Something was wrong and not just the disorder of my home. Fabiana was quickly weakening.
I could see all that out of the corner of my eye. And then in sheer weakness, the lock inside me broke and all was released. I gathered up Fabiana’s supple limbs and I kissed her forehead. The hard, sweet skin of her forehead and then her soft, unresisting lips. I let her loose arms go, watching her slip into an empty chair in my dining room beside Kenny. I didn’t know it then, but Kenny had gotten dizzy and taken a seat. The room was silent.
I went to the other side of the table and sat next to Fabiana. I was bitterly full of desire. It was unspeakable to need someone in that way. I closed my eyes and listened to the night. Soaring, rocketing turbines of an engine magnificently hummed overhead and carried its cargo or passengers miles above the city. It played the soft whine of mechanical music to the sleeping metropolis, and the clatter of the roadside called unendingly into the night.
Across from me Kenny seemed preoccupied with this strange state of affairs and deeply hurt by things I couldn’t hope to learn from him. He didn’t mean to show it off, this new hurt. It simply became too great for him to conceal. And so his mind drifted, almost out of courtesy for Fabiana and me.
Fabiana was struggling not to cry. This place was my home. It bled everything that was me, hidden from those who didn’t really know me. But the vulnerability of the home was obviously worrying. Fabiana slipped her right hand into my left. Her left hand was cradling her head. She squeezed my hand, pressing reassurance into me over and over again.
As for my friend Kenny, he was severely discomforted and unsure of everything. He studied Fabiana and me doubtfully. Never had he seen me so happy with someone that, in truth, he did not like. He didn’t like my affection for Fabiana one bit. I could sense the conflict in his mind.
“I’m scared, Timothy,” Fabiana said. A sword went through me at these words. I glanced at her. She too was suffering. I flashed back on Fabiana taking on the Origin of Blood, on her climbing on the flaming body of Cognatus, taking him into the light. The spirit that had plagued Fabiana all her life had fled on that fateful night and had left only human pain behind. She went into the same soft rush of emotion as though nothing had changed in her, but truly it had.
“I love…” she started to say to me, her words flowering as if she couldn’t stop them. People who have never given birth to love, people who have never seen the power of the heart, people who have never lost love, people who have never hoped for the extraordinary in any form cannot know this truly overpowering feeling. Love, it helps all matters of human life. It embraces you and it’s real to you.
Real… It’s real to me. I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t ever retreat into nightmares or the scribbling of my pastel artwork in my house. The love was too real to pretend it was not there. I had brought every aspect of this giant organism to life. I couldn’t run from it. I couldn’t fail. I couldn’t be absent. I just couldn’t.
Fabiana broke down, her eyes closed, her right hand wiping away a stream of tears off of her soft cheek as she sat at the table. I was quiet. Even the room was hushed. The low roar of a car outside seemed as natural as a breeze stirring the trees. I was suspended in Fabiana’s sadness. Her eyes were moist and aglow in the shadows as she studied mine.
“Fabiana,” I said to her, pulling her reluctant eyes to mine. “I am totally and c
ompletely in love with you.”
And I no longer cared if Kenny was there. A grateful smile came across her face and for what felt like an abundant amount of time, I could not breathe.
“Oh, Timothy. My sweet Timothy. I love you as well.”
And that was the first time I had ever really enjoyed the sound of my own name. I looked at her as tenderly as I could, considering how kindhearted and pretty she was and how in love I was with her. Then I looked across the table at Kenny. He was not the man from a short while ago.
A slow, broad smile lit up Kenny’s face, extraordinary to behold. We looked at each other and I smiled back appreciatively.
I rose from the table. I bent to kiss Fabiana on the cheek. My hand found hers and held it tight for a small, heated moment. Her fingers caught mine and held them with all her strength.
I walked slowly into the den beyond them and would have picked up the phone to call Merric, but Fabiana’s piteous cry rang behind me.
“Timothy, don’t leave me!”
Across my house she came running, the blanket from my sofa billowing behind her.
And then I wrapped her in comforting phantasms and fantasy thoughts, roaming the winds of her mind for her own sake. The story of my wishes dissolved into her thoughts now and then in the poetry of my love. I transmitted images of places of divine safety foreordained beyond either one of us, where Fabiana and I could reside in peace. It was a pleasant fiction of a lifetime together and we both knew it, but it was ours to enjoy. And Fabiana was calmed, but that was about to change for me.
Suddenly as I looked upon Kenny I felt something was wrong. His eyes were fixed all of a sudden. Not fixed on anything in particular, but as if he was staring at something far away. Then he began to clench his fists and all at once his body fell to the floor in a lump of quivering fear. I ran to his side but I worried it would do no good. I knew what had happened. I didn’t want to say it at the time, but I knew. It was not over. As Kenny lay there in my arms, as fear overtook him, the blood dream reached out and took hold of his mind.
The sickness would take him soon if I didn’t do something. But what? What could I do? The ghost was dead, or so I thought. I just didn’t know enough about the supernatural forces that had a hold on him.
“Fabiana, do you know something that can help me?”
I was panicked and I knew she could see it in me.
With what seemed like unflappable reserve, I watched the anarchy that was breaking out in her mind. The war she was fighting between her will and Kenny’s. Kenny, who had been utterly consumed and perverted by the blood of Cognatus on that awful night he battled me and nearly ended my life. A night neither Fabiana nor I would ever forget. And yet I could still see the pain. The guilt behind her eyes when she looked at Kenny. If it had not been for my begging. If it had not been for my pleading, she would have destroyed him right then and there on that night. And every night since I feared her anger for him would not lesson.
“I know how you feel, but please… I need you to help him.”
“I can enter his mind. Maybe I can get a glimpse of what still has a hold of him,” She told me but refused to give me her eyes. “We need to get him off the floor. Can you lift him up?”
“I think so.”
“Good, then take him into the other room.”
The guest room in my house faced the water, and over past days I had fashioned a makeshift desk before the window. This required a small table, which I covered with a cloth so I would not scratch the satin finish, and for my ‘library’ I purloined an English leather swivel chair from my living room. My house was dark and still when I brought Kenny in there and Fabiana was thoughtful and turned the light on when she followed me in. There was a small bed next to a window and I hoped it would hold the heavy weight of my friend. The light in the hallway and the one in the kitchen glowed white near a glass tumbler and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Suddenly I was reminded of how Kenny no longer drank and I really wanted a shot or two.
A few minutes later the details of my prison-like fear began to materialize in the chill, darkening dusk of the night. Pain was shooting through my back and legs from the weight of carrying Kenny. I stiffly got to my feet and made room for Fabiana’s small frame. I watched as she slid down next to him and for a long moment she said nothing to him or me.
The moon was a pale light over my house, tree trunks black against the white of the lunar glow and Fabiana grasped Kenny’s head in her fingers. He showed no signs of coming out of his frightful state. His eyes were shut tight and his heavy limbs seemed to have almost no life to them as Fabiana reached out to him.
Slowly and softly her voice filled the small room.
“His thoughts are erratic. He’s scared and being driven emotionally. His heart rate and mind are together speeding up at a dangerous rate.”
Fabiana fell silent for a moment and I could feel something coming from her. I didn’t know what it was at first. Maybe fear, but it didn’t quite feel like fear. It was more like every nerve in her body was reacting to something, something she did not like. Then contact.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s the demon. He’s trying to push my mind back. He’s fighting me.”
I entered her thoughts and images assaulted me. It was almost more than I could bear. My stomach felt as if I could throw up at any moment and my chest felt heavy like a great weight had just been placed on top of me. Flashes of places came into view and then were gone just as fast. My mind was having trouble focusing on any detail. Then I saw it. I saw the tree. That ugly fucking tree. The one back in Toledo. My mind felt hot. I felt the intense heat of a blazing fire that wasn’t truly there. Then I saw those eyes. I saw the burning red glow of those demon eyes. Was he looking at me or was he looking at Fabiana? I could not tell.
Then she broke her link with Kenny.
“It’s a tree. The demon is linked to some tree. Do you know of this tree?” she asked me.
“Yes, but how can such a thing be possible? I thought you said that the demon is here. On Earth, right?”
“The demon may be physically here, but the power of his mind is great. He may have found a demon tree and used it for his own purposes.”
“What is a demon tree?”
“One of the first writings of early civilization refers to a demon named Lilith or Lilit from the Jewish mythology, found earliest in the Babylonian Talmud. She is generally thought to be related to a class of female demons, which I had first read of in a Mesopotamian text. Very little information have I come across referring to the true origins of this demon, and what I have found is certainly not definitive. Two sources of information I previously read that define Lilith are both suspect. The two problematic sources are the Gilgamesh appendix and the Arslan Tash amulets.
“It is said that the Jews regarded Lilith as evil. According to a Jewish scroll, Lilith was forced by three angels to swear she would not harm mothers and children that wore amulets having the names of those three angels. It is also written in Jewish folklore that Lilith becomes Adam's first wife. It is said that she was created at the same time and from the same earth as Adam. It is also fabled that Lilith reached up from hell into the roots of a tree, completely taking it over. The tree, or demon tree, was her connection to this earthly plane. Using the tree, she could draw our world closer to hers and gain power.”
“So you think this tree is how the demon is reaching Kenny?”
“Yes.”
“Can we destroy it?”
“Yes. With fire and flame,” she said. “Burn the tree just like any other wooden thing. Down to the roots.”
“I can’t leave Kenny like this.”
“I know,” Fabiana said quietly. “I’ll go. I move much faster alone.”
Chapter 50
10:15 p.m., May 6
It was just after ten o’clock. Joe sat before a fire, relaxing in the hand-carved rocker that was the only hint of artistic flare in Kat’s house. She had set her chairs at
deliberate angles so she could look at him, but Joe didn’t think it was a sign of disbelief at what he was telling her. He had only told her a little but it was enough to make anyone think that he was crazy. After all, who would believe such a tale? Who would believe that he had been sent here to take the blood of an ex-vampire? Even when the words passed his lips they seemed to get caught in the air between truth and lies.
“So, Agent Tango, let me see if I’m getting things right. You work for the CIA but not the CIA. You came to Seattle with express orders to obtain a sample of a woman’s blood. A woman who you now tell me is an ex-vampire and one of the most mentally powerful people in the world. Do I have it right so far, Agent?”
Kat sounded more than a little exasperated.
“Affirmative.”
Joe knew how it sounded. It sounded completely nuts. What had happened to him? Why did he take the job? He knew then he should not have, but when the man in the black suit approached him and offered him so much money, he had to accept.
“Let’s start with you not working with the CIA anymore. If you no longer work for the government, then who do you work for?”
“They call themselves the Overseers.”
“The Overseers,” Kat repeated his last statement. “What can you tell me about the Overseers then?” She tried to sound not so condescending, but it did not work.
“Not much. I was kept in the dark for most of my time with them. Orders arrived via email and funds were transferred into my account after a job had been completed.”
“Really? Exactly what kind of work would they have you do?”
“If you don’t mind, Detective, I don’t really feel comfortable saying. But it was work that had to be done outside the laws of our country.”
“Fine, Agent… So why the blood then?”
Joe had been glancing out a window across from where he sat. A veil of smoke drifted out a chimney on a house across the street and streamed almost diagonally with the wind. Through a window Joe could see winking Christmas lights that had yet to be taken down. He could feel her eyes on him as Kat waited for him to tell her the meat of his tale. Should he really tell her? Or should he change things to protect her? No, to protect himself.
The Blood Born Tales (Book 2): Blood Dream Page 24
