Time Walker: Episode 2 of The Walker Saga

by Shannan Sinclair

  You’ve been able to create signal lines before, right? The man spoke again, but this time she heard him in her head, not her ears.

  Aislen was startled by the telepathy and by the fact that he knew about signal lines. It was one of the things her father had shown her how to create. She stopped breathing and fell out of sync with him.

  “Focus,” he seethed out loud. His mouth was so close that his breath brushed across her face. She clenched her eyes under the blindfold.

  You cannot lose focus, he said back inside her head. You’ve got to be able to do this, or it’s over!

  Okay, Aislen thought. I’ll try.

  No trying! Get it right, or you’re done!

  Aislen did what he said, tuning out everything else going on around her like her life depended on it because, in fact, it did. She focused on the rhythm of it, the ins and outs, the sounds and the waves of it. She descended into the calm once more.

  Unexpectedly, swirls of color began to fill her head, if you could call it color—it was actually the lack of color that stood out to Aislen. Varying shades of gray were threaded with veins of the blackest obsidian. Flecks of gold sparked in and out, interrupting the play between shadow and night.

  You see that? the man asked.

  Yes.

  Good. Now, instead of creating a signal line with that energy, imagine it moving in around you. Let it overtake your space—wear it like a cloak. Once you are wrapped in it, hold it there and don’t let it go.

  I mean it. His mental voice took on an insistent edge. Do not lose hold of it for even a second. No matter what.

  Aislen didn’t quite understand what he was asking her to do, but she hadn’t understood her father’s instructions about creating signal lines either, and she had been able to do that.

  She concentrated on the kaleidoscope in her mind’s eye and imagined wrapping herself up in it. An intoxicating swoon set her spinning for a moment, but then she felt something snap into place, and she instantly became clear and alert.

  The man must have felt the shift, too, because he wrenched her off the wall, flipped her around and pulled her back up against the front of his body. He felt as rock-solid as the wall she’d just been up against, only warmer, and she found herself falling into distraction.

  Don’t. You. Dare! The man’s snarl stung her brain.

  Aislen gasped, mentally grasped the energetic cloak and pulled it closer. Sharp clarity snapped back in place.

  Good. Stay right there, the man said, and suddenly they were on the move. They didn’t have to go far this time, only a hundred feet, before they stopped again.

  Aislen heard the grinding of a motor, and somewhere deep inside she felt an inkling that she should be afraid, but swimming within the dark energy she felt completely calm. It was an amazing relief. Her normal reaction would have been to allow her fears to overwhelm her. This utter indifference was a sanctuary. So much so that she opened herself up even more to the inky mist, allowing it to invade her space until she became one with it.

  A montage of images began to flicker through her mind. Pictorial fragments juxtaposed and superimposed on each other in a speed-of-light composition. A small red tricycle sitting on a country road faded into an ocean where dolphins frolicked. A crashing wave dissolved into a messy bedroom and panned across a floor littered with dirty clothes and candy wrappers and walls pocked with holes. It was all so random and unfamiliar.

  The man carried her forward, and the motor started again. Aislen could feel the change from being outside to inside. They were in a garage.

  Steady now, the man telepathed. It’s do or die time.

  Aislen’s inner coward tried to rear her frightened head again, but the hyper-calm suffocated it.

  Another jumble of images appeared. This time, the faces of strangers, all men, approached and passed by her. One showed her that he had a rope twisted around his neck. Another pointed to his throat, slit open like a bloody smiley face. One had a knife embedded in his chest. One after another, they marched past—a thousand faces of death. At the end of the long morbid line, one last man approached. The rhythm of his gait and the features of his face seemed familiar to Aislen. As he drew near, Aislen saw a single bullet hole in the center of his forehead. She recognized him. It was the man from the first of her strange dreams—the man she watched getting shot by his own son, Blake Parrish.

  The havoc playing out in her mind should have stirred up dread and panic, but Aislen felt absolutely nothing: no fear, no sadness, only a placid apathy.

  The man jostled her roughly from behind, snapping her out of the strange theater. He pushed her forward a few more steps, stopped again and stood completely still. Aislen felt him holding his breath.

  There was a loud beep followed by a series of clicking sounds.

  “Alone,” the man commanded, and there was another sequence of beeps and clicks.

  He turned Aislen in a different direction and pushed her forward again. They moved quickly, turning this way and that as though navigating labyrinthine halls. The man’s footsteps rapped loudly on the floor and echoed off into the distance. Then he suddenly swept her off her feet and into his arms and began ascending what could only be a spiral staircase. They spun round and round, climbing higher and higher.

  The gyration swept her mind off into another foreign scenery, and Aislen was standing in a dark room. Her eyes traveled up its stone walls until her head leaned all the way back and she found herself staring at a domed skylight of faceted glass. Embedded in the center of the crystal ceiling was an infinity symbol of gold with two platinum capital Is superimposed over the top of it.

  She had seen that symbol before in the strange landscape of her first dream, in the alternate reality she’d come to learn was Demesne. An animation of the symbol had repeatedly looped on the arm patches adorning each of the soldiers’ arms—including the arm of the man who was carrying her now.

  She lowered her gaze and faced a seated line of men and women, eight of them, each sitting on a gold throne behind a massive table of glass illuminated by an eerie blue light. They glared down at her. The normal Aislen would have wet her pants being in front of such an intimidating group, but this Aislen felt composed and confident. It was nothing like her.

  Aislen realized that just like in her vision of Mr. Lange in the bathtub, she was experiencing the thoughts, memories, and feelings of the man holding her. He not only had her in his grip physically, but he also held her mentally. Or maybe it was her holding him. That was what the cloak of dark energy really was—his energy.

  The man stopped climbing and moved through a few more turns before stopping and holding still yet again. There was another beep and the sound of a door sliding open. Then they were going down a flight of stairs. With all the twisting and turning, ups and downs, and traveling in and out of visions, Aislen was thoroughly disoriented. Even if she could find the strength to fight the man and try to escape, there would be no way she could find her way out of the maze they had just gone through.

  There was one more sound of a door opening, and the man finally set her down.

  “Alpha 8,” he commanded.

  A soft glow of light pierced through the cracks in Aislen’s blindfold, and light jazz began to play.

  The man turned her around to face him, pulled apart the bindings on her wrists, then reached up and yanked the blindfold from her face.

  Aislen tried to open her eyes, but even though the lighting was low, it was still blinding. The man was only a black shadow moving away from her to the other side of the room. There was a large door beside him, open into a gaping yet inviting darkness.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he snarled over his shoulder as he began typing on a keyboard to a computer in front of him.

  He knew her thoughts too, apparently.

  As her eyes adjusted, she could see that they were in a small laboratory. It reminded Aislen of a dentist’s office, stark white and antiseptic, complete with a strange reclining chair in the m
iddle of it. The lounge was suspended in the air without strings or a pedestal to hold it in place, floating like a magician’s assistant. Besides the computer the man was working on, an enormous television screen hung on the wall. A pattern of gray, black and gold that matched the abstract image Aislen was seeing in her mind circulated on the screen.

  The television suddenly went blank.

  “Hopefully, this will buy us a little time,” the man said as he turned around to face her.

  Aislen choked on her next breath. It was the first time outside of her dreams that she had seen him.

  She’d have thought that her nightmare image of him would have been a gross exaggeration of reality, but no; in reality, he was downright supernatural. Dressed all in black, from the form-fitting long sleeved shirt to the slacks to the shoes that he wore, every ripple of his imposing physique cut through the monotone of his clothing. His attire was just a shade lighter than the jet-black of his hair, which framed a chiseled face. The arctic blue of his eyes stood out in surreal contrast to the rest of his cimmerian presence.

  His flawlessness was inhuman.

  A monster, Aislen thought.

  The man’s eyes narrowed at her, and a flash of anger passed across his face.

  Aislen felt something inside her body rip away from her. The cloak of calm evaporated, and she was completely immersed once more in her familiar terror.

  He took a step toward her and Aislen jumped backward, losing her balance and falling into the chair behind her. Something slipped from the front pocket of her jeans and clanged loudly on the floor. She listened to the musical ting as it rolled across concrete toward the man. Aislen watched helplessly as he bent down and picked up the labyrinth amulet.

  She had forgotten all about the pendant. How could she? It was a gift from her father at their last meeting. Earlier it had been screaming at her non-stop, first insisting that she go to the hospital to find Troy but then trying to stop her. Its mixed messages had confused her, and finally, in frustration, she had ripped it from her neck and placed it in her pocket. Still, it harangued her. It stung her legs and held her back, keeping her from getting to Troy—to safety.

  Yet once this man had her imprisoned in his car, it had gone silent, and she had not felt it stinging or vibrating since. Had she broken it? Why had it stopped talking to her?

  “Where did you get this?” the man asked, examining it. He ran his thumb around the outer ring of it, then looked up at her, waiting for her answer.

  Aislen didn’t want to say. It was her only connection to her father, and he had told her not to talk about him to anyone—that he could be tracked down if she did. Even though she had failed to keep herself out of harm’s way, the least she could do was protect him.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, hoping she sounded convincing. “Just a family heirloom. It’s worthless.”

  His eyes leveled at hers.

  He already knows, she thought. He’s going to kill me.

  The man narrowed his eyes again, looking downright hateful. He marched across the room toward her, and Aislen cowered back into the chair.

  The man leaned down and got into her face. “You’re a liar.”

  The accusation stung. She had never been called a liar before. But she’d never really been a liar before. He stood back up, towering over her.

  Aislen’s heart stopped. This is it. This is really it now. She recoiled deeper into the recliner, curling her knees up against her chest as a final bastion of protection.

  As the man watched her trying to protect herself, Aislen could see the muscles in his jaw clench and his fists balling up. She waited for him to attack. But he didn’t. He just looked at her. Something other than murderous rage passed over his face. Something resigned, even sad. But it evaporated in an instant.

  “I have shit to do,” he snapped. He slipped the amulet into his jacket pocket, turned his back on her and walked toward the door.

  “Theta 4,” he commanded into the air, and the lights went out in response. The room was filled with a low hum and the sound of static.

  As his dark silhouette stepped through the darker passageway of the door, a question bubbled up involuntarily.

  “Who are you?”

  The man stopped cold. Aislen sucked in her breath, expecting him to come back and really do her in.

  “My name is Raziel,” he growled as the door slid shut between them.

  Five

  Bweeeep! Bweeeep! Bweeeep! Bweeeep!

  The high-pitched bleating griped on and off incessantly in his left ear. It had been going on for hours, and it was driving him nuts.

  At first he thought it was his alarm clock…until he remembered that he didn’t own an alarm clock. Never had. Being raised on a ranch and having to wake up before the sun for chores had developed an inner body clock that automatically woke him up exactly when he needed to for the rest of his life. Which was kind of annoying now that he thought about it—he never could sleep in for shit.

  Bweeeep! Bweeeep! Bweeeep! Bweeeep!

  Maybe it was Tuesday, and the garbage man was picking up the trash in his alley.

  But that would only make sense if the goddamn truck was stuck in perpetual reverse!

  Bweeeep! Bweeeep! Bweeeep! Bweeeep!

  Mathis tried to open his eyes so he could locate the aural torture device, but a thick layer of eye-gunk had thoroughly superglued his eyelids together.

  Bweeeep! Bweeeep! Bweeeep! Bweeeep!

  He tried to reach for the service revolver he kept on the nightstand next to his bed so he could shoot the fucking thing. But not only was his arm too heavy to lift, it was tied to something. No, something was literally buried into his flesh, and every time he attempted to move there was a painful tugging in the crook of his elbow.

  That sort of freaked him out, and he would have hollered like a little bitch, but his tongue was stuck to his soft palate with a spit-paste that tasted like butthole.

  Bweeeep! Bweeeep! Bweeeep! Bweeeep!

  God, what he wouldn’t do for a brewski right now, the ice-cold nectar of heaven. The thought of it sounded so good Mathis heard himself moan.

  “Robert?”

  What? Who’s there? He had assumed he was alone. Had he gotten lucky last night and not freakin’ remembered?

  “Robert, are you awake?” The woman’s voice was sweet and melodic, like heaven just on the other side of the infernal bweeeeping.

  “Robert, can you hear me?” The voice was next to him now, tinged with worry. Familiar. He felt soft fingers brush lightly down his forearm and embrace his hand.

  Sabine! The name registered, and he caught the flash of a memory of her beautiful face.

  Mathis wanted to open his eyes to see her there, to ask her where he was and what was going on, but his head was swimming. This was the worst hangover ever! He couldn’t even manage to articulate another grunt from his throat. He tried to squeeze her hand, to acknowledge and reassure her, but he couldn’t get the message to his fingertips.

  “Hello, Ms. Walker.” A male voice interrupted his attempt at hand-to-hand communication with Sabine. This voice also sounded familiar—too familiar.

  This voice made his stomach turn.

  This voice needed to fucking die.

  “Hello,” Sabine said. It was obvious that she recognized the man, too. She sounded warm, almost relieved. “It’s Troy, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am. That’s right.”

  Troy? Who’s Troy? Mathis scoured through mush trying to put a face to the name, trying to understand why he wanted to kill this motherfucker.

  Mathis listened as slow footsteps moved closer to them. He tried to shout out a warning—to tell Sabine to get the hell outta there—but he was paralyzed.

  “How is he doing?” The man was right beside Sabine now. “Has he woken up at all? Has he said anything?”

  None of your goddamn business! Mathis yelled impotently through his forehead.

  Sabine sighed. “No. Not yet, unfortunately.”
<
br />   “Yeah? That’s too bad,” this Troy said, but Mathis had the distinct feeling that Troy really was perfectly fine with the fact that Mathis hadn’t woken up yet.

  “I’m just so relieved that he’s going to be okay,” Sabine continued. “The officer said that if he hadn’t been able to call me, and if I hadn’t called 911 when I did, he might not have made it.”

  What? He had called her? He might not have made it? What the hell was goin’ on?

  “That is very fortunate for him.”

  Nope. This guy was only trying to sound supportive. His voice was dripping with kindness, but Mathis could tell it was affected; something sinister lurked beneath the words.

  Mathis tried again with all his might to figure out where he knew this man from—where Sabine would know him from—but his memory was too cloudy.

  “Yes, very fortunate,” Sabine said, squeezing Mathis’s hand again. There was a moment of silence between Sabine and this Troy, punctuated by the agonizing bweeeeping sound.

  “Here, let me take care of that for you,” the man said. A spark of recognition peeked through the brain stew and a memory burst into his mind: “Here, let me take care of that for you,” followed by an automatic weapon spraying electric blue bullets into two soldiers.

  The bweeeeping stopped.

  “Works for me. Does that work for you?” Troy asked.

  Another recollection overcame Mathis.

  “Works for me. Does that work for you?” A voice, that voice, had said those exact words to Mathis after the two soldiers exploded into a gory spray of blood and guts. Mathis turned around in this mind’s eye to confront the voice and came face to face with a nubby, green troll whose eyes bulged out from his skull.

  Dookie! It was Dookie! From the Demesne!

  It all came back to him. He had gone back into that stupid game. He’d had to. Not only was he determined to solve the Parrish murder, he also needed to find out why a player named Ichiban was looking for Sabine’s daughter, Aislen.

  He should have just left it alone, but this Ichiban had promised to take Mathis to a secret level of the game where he would find the answers to all his questions.