“I’m fine, really.” I didn’t want to talk about it. Him being all tender and sensitive like this was making me even more uncomfortable. I didn’t know why, but I was more at ease with his drill sergeant, toughen up persona, then this incredibly tough man sitting here being so sensitive. I didn’t know what to do with the emotions welling up in me.
“I saw the marks on you.” He ran his hand over a bruise on my wrist. “Nothing actually happened?”
“No, I’m fine.” I knew it wasn’t what I should feel, but I was embarrassed by what Carl and his man had done. How he had groped and touched me then left me there to be watched. It didn’t make sense that I felt embarrassed by their actions. I was a logical person by nature, and it was such an illogical reaction, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it or talk about it. I wanted to just push it off into the deep crevices of my mind and forget about it. Those deep dark crevices of my brain were starting to really fill up lately with the things I didn’t want to face. If I kept going at this rate, they’d be overflowing any day now. Then what would happened?
“What happened with my leg? Is that normal?” I asked looking to change the subject.
He laughed and shook his head. “No, that’s not normal. I’m really not sure what happened there. You probably had more control than you thought. You’re going to get spurts of strength. You were under a lot of stress and also drugged so you didn’t realize what you were doing.”
He was wrong. I’d had absolutely no control. I wasn’t going to argue the point. He didn’t know what had happened so there was no reason. I had to focus on Mike. He was gone and I wasn’t going to just sit here.
“Is Tamara upset?” She probably hated me as it was. Now she had a valid reason.
“She left the same afternoon they took you so she doesn’t even know.”
I was secretly happy about Tamara leaving but not enough to make me stop worrying about Mike. Nothing would fix that until I knew he was okay and he was back.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A couple of days had gone by and still no word or hint of Mike. I was ready to crawl up the walls. I had to do something but what? I punched the workout bag again trying to focus. I kept waiting for Mike to walk in and yell at me for punching like a girl. Then sparring with me and laughing as I tried to kick him but miss. His teasing had been annoying at times but now I missed it more than anything in the world.
I looked down at my arms and saw the bruises were almost gone. I’d started healing quicker, but I was still as weak as ever. No matter how hard I concentrated and how hard I tried to punch, nothing was happening, and it was getting more aggravating every moment. The change I had once dreaded I now found myself longing for. I needed to be strong if I was going to save Mike.
“Hello.”
I swung around and found Jack standing two feet behind me. He was dressed in a black silk shirt with the first few buttons undone and black pants. His hair flowing around him in gleaming waves.
“Jack.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine. How did you know?” I didn’t bother asking what he was referring to, just how he knew.
“Did you like that kick I gave him?” he asked laughing at his own thoughts.
“That was you?”
“Yes, I’ve never liked Carl.”
“I appreciate the help. I really do. But you couldn’t have taken me out of there while you were at it?”
“Why? I had neutralized the threat.”
“It would have been nice to have skipped what came next,” I said not wanting to put too much detail to the already bad memory.
“I didn’t realize that would bother you. He didn’t enter you,” he said so nonchalantly. I looked at him and it was clear he didn’t get why the rest of that night would be upsetting. “Your friend is missing I hear?”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No, but I could.”
“How? Are you with them?” I needed answers.
A look of disgust flashed across his face. “Can you not tell? Have your senses not sharpened at all yet? Or are you just refusing to use them?”
“How could I know whether you are with them?”
“Unlike Caden, I never slum it.”
“You know Caden?”
“I know everybody. I must say, you’re becoming a bit of a disappointment. I’d had high hopes, but you seem to be refusing to live up to your potential.”
“I’ve been killing myself here trying. And what is it to you? I don’t even know who or what you are?”
“Let’s just say I have a vested interest.” He waved his hand toward the exercise bag. “Punching that will do nothing.” He took a step toward me and reached out his hand. “Come with me.”
I just stared at him hesitating. I still had no idea who he was, and he gave even less answers than Caden did. I’d be insane to go with him.
“Are you afraid?”
“Should I be?” I asked even though strangely enough, I realized I wasn’t.
“Yes, but come with me anyway.” He took a step closer, looking me squarely in the eyes. “There’s a defining point in life where you decide who you are going to be. Will you rise to the challenge or except mediocrity and fall in with the masses?”
He raised his hand to me once more, and I took it. I was tired of waiting for everyone else to fix my problems. I was sick of sitting in the bar watching them come and go, while I waited for some sort of magical inspiration that might never come. I wanted to take action, for better or for worse, I wanted to make a choice instead of having one forced upon me. I wasn’t sure if this was a good move or not, but it was my choice.
The moment my hand touched his, the connection fizzled and burned. I felt glued to him by some sort of electrical force. A feeling of weightlessness worked up my body, starting at my toes, and then creeping higher. He started to walk, and I followed behind him wondering how we didn’t drift off in to space. The gym disappeared, and we were walking through layer after layer of haze, almost like we were stepping across mountain tops on a foggy day. We went through a final layer and when we passed through everything was crystal clear. We had only walked a few steps, but we were standing in a street that didn’t look anything like what I knew to be NYC. This place was lined with historic looking buildings and old fashioned looking iron street lamps.
“Where are we?”
“New Orleans.”
I looked down, and I wasn’t in my sweats and tank top anymore. I was wearing a simple sleeveless short black dress and black heeled strappy sandals. I loved these shoes because I had great ankles.
“Hope you don’t mind. The sweats weren’t a good look.”
“No, I love it,” I said as I smoothed the dress down with my hands feeling the expensive fabric of a dress that I never would have been able to afford.
I didn’t have an opportunity to ask any more questions as he was already walking into the building in front of us. I followed behind hoping I had made the right choice. That maybe I hadn’t been better off sitting, and waiting, and doing nothing.
We walked into a darkly lit room done in deep burgundies and antique gold. It had velvet settees and crystal chandeliers. A huge gilded mirror hung upon a wall over a dark wood bar. A weird music, like nothing I’d ever heard played, in the background. It was purely instrumental and the strong bass beat drove through my body making me feel alive.
Everyone looked our way and a hush fell over the crowd. Whoever Jack was, he must be one bad dude, as these people didn’t look the type to intimidate easily, and they were giving us a wide berth as we walked.
There were all sorts of bodies there. I hesitate to say people because nothing seemed quite human about them. We walked through the main room and then down a hallway. Watching him walk in front of me, I realized he was quite tall. We entered another area with less people. There was a ravishing blonde woman, lounging near a fireplace, smoking a cigarette with one of those old-fashioned holders. Jack leaned down and kiss
ed her hello on both cheeks, and she smiled looking pleased to see him. Jack whispered in her ear, and she looked me up and down but not in a malicious way but more of a curiosity.
“This is Annette. Annette, Alexandria,” Jack said.
She smiled invitingly if not quite warmly.
There were a few more men at a table in the corner playing cards. It was an odd deck and resembled no cards I had ever seen.
“I raise you Vegas,” a dark Italian looking man said.
“You must have a real shit hand Fritz, nobody wants Vegas anymore. That place hasn’t been fun in at least the last fifty years. Too main stream. I’ll see your Vegas and raise you Dublin. Let’s see if you can hang with the big boys,” an extremely attractive dark skinned man said.
The man Fritz threw his cards in and folded as the dark skinned man turned toward the woman Annette. “Hey honey, you want Vegas?”
“Gerald, you know I wouldn’t be caught dead in Vegas. Why are you insulting me? I hope you don’t expect to get any tonight after that.”
“Jack, you sitting in?” the third man with blazing red hair asked.
“Not this time, just passing through.”
“You’re bringing her in?” the red haired man asked agape.
“Yes.”
The man named Gerald eyed me questioningly. “Nah, I don’t think that’s a good idea Jack.”
“Jack, leave the little girl here with us,” Annette said from across the room as if I was a puppy for her to play with.
“Sorry Annette. Not with this one.” He turned toward me and took my hand. I was expecting foggy layers again, but we walked toward a plain old doorway tucked into the corner. When he opened it, I saw an old pair of wooden steps leading down to an old cellar. I was tired of being underground, and I hated cellars. Old cellars were worse than basements in the creepy category. I followed him down the stairs, but when we got about halfway down it wasn’t a cellar we were descending into anymore. It was hell. Or what I would have imagined hell to look like. There was a burning red sky and nothing but rocks beneath, with rivers of what might have been crisscrossing the terrain. The air scorched my throat when I took a breath, and it felt like the hottest summer day at noon in the middle of the Sahara.
We walked along for about a mile, and I wondered what our destination was going to be when we approached a dark set of black doors. They must have been forty feet tall by thirty feet wide.
“Where are we?”
“This is the home of the lost demons. It’s where they are exiled when they have lost their corporeal form and have become a problem. Demons don’t die or move on. They wander this plane for eternity. Some of them aren’t a problem but others need to be handled.”
“And we are going in there?” Oh my god, this guy was completely bat shit crazy. Of all the times I had to decide I was going to take a stand, and make my own decisions, and I had to put my money on Mr. Bat Shit Crazy?
“Yes, we are going to see what you are made of.”
“And you want to do this in there?”
“Yes.”
“What if I don’t have it? What if I’m just normal?”
“Then that would be unfortunate,” he said flatly.
“Unfortunate, like, that sucks? Or unfortunate, like I’m dead?”
“Unfortunate, like you’re dead.”
“I’m not ready for this!” He was speaking as calmly as ever and I was backing away from the gates as quickly as I could.
He watched my retreat. “There is only one way out and it’s through there,” he said as he pointed toward the ominous gates.
“And what happens if I stay here and don’t go in?”
“Death, just slower.”
Holy shit. I wasn’t sure if god listened to prayers from people like me, but I started doing a Hail Mary. I was sure I was butchering the words, as I only knew the prayer from hearing it in various movies. I’d never been religious in my life, but it’s amazing how quickly you can turn during a moment of crisis.
“I really wouldn’t bother. There’s no reception down here. To put it simply, it’s all you.”
“What’s going to happen in there?”
“Perhaps you’re better off just taking it as it comes.”
Oh no, that didn’t sound promising at all. I had two choices. Wait here and hope Caden found me and got me out of this mess somehow or take my chances and hope I had whatever it took to make it through. I looked around and did a mental debate on how long I could last. I probably wouldn’t make it more than a day or two in this heat and dryness. Maybe three tops.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do it.” It was time to sink or swim.
He uttered some strange noises that didn’t sound like words exactly, but I gathered that’s what they were, and the gates started to swing open. He stepped in first, waiting just inside the blackness. I forced my feet to move, just concentrating on one step at a time.
“Just keep moving forward,” he said.
It was getting darker and darker with each step. About ten steps in, I felt a cold chill brush past my arm. I took a few more steps in the darkness, not knowing where I was heading, and I felt another cold chill, this one felt like it was wrapping around my ankle. Don’t let it stop you. Keep walking. I couldn’t see Jack anymore, but I knew he was just a few feet ahead of me. The same electrical bond I had felt when I had held his hand seemed to exist again but like a back draft where the air was being sucked toward him.
Fuzzy images started to appear around me. Shadowy outlines of people. Their hands were reaching toward me. Walk, just keep walking. I felt their cool touch on the skin of my face, my arms, my legs. They were everywhere. I felt their cold touches starting to seep past my skin into my muscles. It felt like icicles piercing through me, and I started to shiver. The pull from Jack was losing force. I opened my mouth to scream his name, but as I did, the shadowy figures seeped into my lungs filling them with a coldness that made me gag. They quickly spread out through my veins into every part of my body. A wave of despair washed over me, and I fell to my knees.
“Let go,” they whispered over and over to me. I felt a weight pressing down upon my shoulders, and I leaned my hands to the ground to stop from falling completely. I knelt there on my hands and knees, resisting their pressure with everything I had in me, and I didn’t think it would be enough. It felt as if my life’s energy was slowly leaking out of me. They were digging deeper into my brain with their despair, making me not care anymore if I did die.
And I would die here. No one would even know except for Jack who had abandoned me. I’d forever more be one of those missing persons. A victim, whose family grieves endlessly begging for closure. A closure that they would never have because no mortal person would ever find me here to tell them what had happened. Jack had led me to my death. I don’t know why I had thought he offered some sort of safety, but it was clear now I had been delusional. He’d healed a bruise and kicked someone he disliked. What would make me read into that, to think it had meant anything?
I saw Caden’s face as he had pounded into me that I had to be tougher. I had hated it. I had thought at the time he was being mean to me. That he hadn’t needed to be that tough, but he had been right.
No, I wouldn’t die here. Fuck Jack for bringing me here, and fuck Caden for thinking I was too weak. I wasn’t. I dug down deep for a strength I didn’t know if I had. I clung to whatever I had left, and I focused on forcing them from my mind first. Strange warmth was starting to build in my chest. I wasn’t sure if I was about to have a heart attack, or if it was something good. They were cold, so I decided it was better to go with the possible heart attack. I was probably dead anyway. I’ve never been able to meditate, but I closed my eyes and tried to visualize it, and I felt it growing stronger. Even with my eyes shut, I sensed a bright light coming from somewhere and when I opened my eyes, I realized it was me. I was glowing. The shock made me lose concentration, and I started to dim. I felt the coldness creeping closer a
gain, and I shut my eyes quickly and just focused. The weight that had been overbearing before was lifting, and I felt myself start to rise. The bright warmth was completely covering my entire body, and the creatures grew deathly quiet. I dared to open my eyes again, and this time I was able to maintain the glow. The shadowy figures that had clung to me, and would have stolen my life, were now putting a large distance between us.
The only thought I had was that I needed to get out of here immediately. I was using every ounce of strength and the moment I relaxed, I’d be dead within seconds. I walked as rapidly as I could in the last direction I had sensed Jack going, and just hoped I’d find my way out. It was pitch black as I parted the sea of shadowy figures. I wanted to know what they were, but I had to keep my concentration because I wanted to get out of there much more than any curiosity I had. As I walked further, I started to feel Jack’s path and followed. I looked as another group of figures parted, and he was standing just beyond them.
“Considering you weren’t ready that wasn’t bad.”
I stared at him in all his nonchalance, thinking he was being amusing, and all I wanted to do was punch him in the face. I wanted to jump on him and maul him.
He laughed at the anger showing on my face. “Don’t forget, you still need me to get out of here.”
I hated everything about him at that moment, but I let him take my hand knowing it was my only way back.
Instantly, I felt as if my insides had turned inside out, and my whole body compressed. There was no air, no light, nothing, and then we were in the back room again, with the card playing men and the pretty blond woman.
I fell to the ground, gasping to get air into my lungs, and with not a bit of energy left in my bones.
“You asshole,” I screamed at him the second I got a deep breath.
Jack, and everybody else in the room, stared at me with gapping jaws.
“I told you what you were in for. No one forced you.”
He was right. He had told me. Why did I do that? Project my own emotions and motivations onto those around me? He had told me exactly what I was in for. He had said that I should be worried. I was the one that had decided that he wouldn’t bring me into harm and then disregarded what he was telling me. And all because I couldn’t conceive of someone putting me in harm’s way simply because it was something I would never do to them.
Obsidian Souls (Soul Series) Page 15
