by Ren Hamilton
“Fuck, that makes sense,” Patrick said. “I guess humanity does do that. Didn’t think it was inherent though.”
“Zirub claims it is,” Wesley said, “much to his annoyance. Why do you think he designed a Shield? Protection for his messiah, his Sword, is of paramount importance.”
Patrick swallowed hard.
“This is why, instead of simply mentoring human messiahs from afar via messengers, he decided to head to the nether realms and do it himself. He would create his own, special, upgraded version of a messiah, imbued with divine gifts and incredible strengths. Oh, and to solve the issue of messiahs’ tendency to get murdered, he also created for them an unconditional protection system.” Wesley glanced at Patrick.
“A Shield.” Patrick wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. “The protection is my job now.”
Wesley nodded. “That’s why you weren’t given a choice. He’s doing things by force more than ever now. This time, he plans to gather all that energy focus onto himself and his hand-crafted messiah. Hold it hostage from The Light. He’s going to make people of this world dependent on his messiah for their livelihood, so he becomes the primary, controlling source of such energy.”
Litner bristled. “How?”
Shaking his head, Wesley looked sad. “I don’t know how he plans to achieve that, Agent Litner. We parted ways during the build-up stage of his plan. If I knew the finale, I would tell you. I promise.”
“There are only about sixty followers out at Shep’s little messiah camp right now though,” Patrick said. “Granted, they’re all googly eyed followers, but that’s hardly taking over the world energy.”
“I assure you,” Wesley said, “that’s only a control group. He’s probably just using them as test subjects. He’ll find a way to go big eventually.”
“So that was his reasoning for breaking the rules and coming here?” Robin said. “That he’s the only one who can do things right? Fucking egomaniac, I swear.”
“Well, he didn’t want break the rules at first,” Wesley said. “He intended to go through proper channels and ask permission. He initially presented this idea to his superiors, who begrudgingly brought it to The Light, or so they claimed.” Wesley looked around the room at each of them. “Shep’s superiors told him The Light thought his idea was stupid and risky, and ordered him to stay at his guard post and stop getting big ideas above his station. Leave the humanity planning to the higher ups. They told Zirub that The Light basically called him a moron. Naturally, he set out to prove them all wrong.”
Robin sighed. “Shep does always think he knows best. And he’s never liked being told no.”
“Or being condescended,” Patrick added. “He won’t tolerate it.”
“So there’s your answer, Agent Litner, to the best of my knowledge,” Wesley said. “Shep made the journey here to prove a point. That his plan could work. And that he wasn’t the idiot they claimed. That plan of course became twisted once he got locked away.”
“Yeah.” Patrick chuckled. “All he ended up proving was that he could get his ass thrown into the realm of darkness for over two thousand years. Get himself trapped.”
Wesley turned to Patrick. “Yes. But he’s out now. Isn’t he?”
Patrick’s smile dropped. “Right.”
“So his messiah was supposed to be you,” Robin said. “What went wrong?”
Wesley looked at the floor. “A lot of things went wrong.”
“Thank you for these insights, now I’ll ask you for one more,” Litner interrupted. “Do you think Shep is capable of mass murder?”
Wesley stilled. “Why do you ask this?”
Litner stood and paced the room. “Shep is growing some sort of crop. I’m concerned about its contents and potential distribution. So I’ll ask you again. Do you believe Shep is capable of mass murder?”
Wesley went quiet for a long moment.
Litner stared at him. “Well?”
Wesley met his eyes. “He is certainly capable of murder. Sadly, I know this firsthand. Murder without remorse.” He shivered. “But mass murder? I…” Wesley’s features twisted in a grimace. “I never witnessed anything to that degree.”
“You’ve known him the longest. I need you to be straight with me.” Litner crouched down before Wesley. “Is it possible, in your opinion, that Melvin Shepherd might create a catastrophic event, the outcome of which would significantly lower the current human population? Or, in your opinion, is that out of the question?”
Swallowing hard, Wesley shook his head. “No. I don’t believe that’s out of the question at all.”
****
“We have to go.” Agent Litner got up and walked to the front door.
“Wait!” Patrick said, following. “Not yet, Litner.”
“Did you hear what he said?” Litner spun around, pointing a finger in Patrick’s face. “You need to be on that ferry back to Forest Bluffs, and you need to get me that crop sample, now. We can’t afford to wait.”
“We can stay another half hour and still make the ferry. Litner, look at him!” Patrick said in a harsh whisper. “That guy is sixty-two and he looks twenty-two. I need to know what Shep did to him, so I can figure out what Shep did to me. That guy in there is a freak of nature. I’m not leaving without knowing how he got that way. And…and whether I’m a freak of nature now too.”
Litner’s brow furrowed. “I’m sure you’re fine.”
“No. You’re not sure of that. Neither am I. And I need to know.”
Wesley cleared his throat loudly in the other room. “Um, guys? While I take no offense at being called a freak of nature, you should know that I also have enhanced hearing.”
Litner’s blue eyes narrowed, then he sighed. In a rare show of humanity, he placed a hand gently on Patrick’s shoulder. “Thirty minutes. No more.”
“Thank you.”
When they returned to the living room, Wesley was pouring Robin a glass of wine. She looked up and smiled. “What? I’m not driving.”
Patrick walked over and gave her a soft kiss on the lips, needing to just feel something normal for a moment. Something real. She stroked his cheek. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“I almost believe that when you say it.” He turned to Wesley. “Well, you heard my concerns when I was talking to Agent Litner.”
Wesley nodded. “I understand. I believe my suspended aging is due to all the changes made to my body.” He moved to his chair and sat. “Shep started giving me his blood when I was fifteen.”
“To what end?” Litner asked.
“Zirub needed to put part of himself into me. To enhance me. To create his own messiah. Closely monitored, carefully controlled, and one hundred percent guaranteed.”
“Yeah.” Robin sat on the couch. “So glad Shep insisted on condoms.”
“What would giving you his blood do, exactly?” Patrick asked.
Wesley frowned. “Shep carried part of what he used to be into his mortal body when he crossed over. He is flesh and blood, but he’s not like us. His mind has power. His blood has power. His bodily fluids, when transferred into a human with the right rituals, can create the power to enchant.”
“Why didn’t he just become the messiah himself?” Robin asked.
“He can’t,” Wesley answered. “He has extraordinary abilities, but he doesn’t possess the power to enchant, not by himself. Only when his essence is mixed with a human’s will it be recognized by other humans. Only then will the enchantment be effective.”
“So he spent a lot of time and effort making you his messiah. But clearly something went very wrong.” Litner’s brows rose. “One of the brothers, Juris, claims Shep won’t even speak your name aloud.”
Wesley looked deeply hurt by the comment. “Juris said that?”
They all nodded.
“Still,” Wesley whispered. “He still won’t speak my name.”
Patrick frowned at Wesley. It was almost as if he still cared what Shep thought of him.
Wesley si
ghed. “Anyway, I drank his blood.”
Robin’s nose wrinkled. “Drank it?” Wesley nodded. Robin looked at Patrick. “You didn’t—”
“No,” Patrick said. “I didn’t drink Shep’s blood, we just rubbed together an open wound with Joey. Joey drank his blood, though, according to your Aunt Betsy. She caught them, years ago.”
“Yes,” Wesley said. “He would have been giving your friend Joey his blood for some time now, as he once did to me. By the time I was twenty years old, the power in me was already apparent. I could hold a room full of people captive for hours just by telling them about my trip to the dry cleaners. They would stare at me and compete for my attention. Everyone wanted to be near me. I’d been given the power to enchant. I must admit, at first, I liked it. I liked it a lot. And I liked him. Shep had been with me since I was ten years old, teaching me, molding me, caring for me. He was my family. I…loved him. I worshipped him. He was mine. Or so I thought. What I didn’t realize then was that he was not mine at all. I, in fact, was his.”
Wesley paused and chuckled bitterly. “By the time I should have been old enough to come to my senses, it was too late. When I reached adulthood, we posed as friends, as we now appeared to be the same age. Finally, he could begin showing up at my Aunt Roberta’s house for visits. It was wonderful. It was like having an imaginary friend that had suddenly come to life and everyone else could see him too. I was…happy. But then one day, he told me that the time had come to get the brothers out.”
“He tried back then to get them out?” Patrick asked.
“Oh yes.” Wesley’s eyes darkened. “We went to the cave night after night. It was grueling. He struggled to re-create the circumstances that existed when he was brought through the Cripulet the day my parents were killed. We set charges in an attempt to simulate the tremor. Nothing happened. The Cripulet simply would not open.”
Looking up at all of them, his blue eyes rimmed with tears. “Then he discovered the horrible, wonderful truth. That it must have been the presence of blood that opened the Cripulet. We tried everything. We used my blood. We used his blood. We even stole blood from blood banks. He came up with special formulas and rituals, but nothing worked. He marked the spot where the Cripulet was with a circle of blood, so that he wouldn’t forget, but each time he tried to reproduce the effects of the accident that brought him through, he was met with defeat.”
Patrick shuddered, recalling his own visit to the cave.
Wesley glanced at Patrick. “It was this time that I met Dr. Lichtenstein. When Shep first came to this world, the doctor was all over the news for molesting his patients. Shep got hold of the incriminating evidence and paid a visit to the doctor. Shep promised he could make it go away in exchange for the doctor’s services and his silence. I can’t imagine what Dr. Lichtenstein’s first reaction to seeing a man with wings was. But he did perform the procedure on Shep, and was there every time with us in the cave, waiting with his saw in case one of the brothers made it through.”
“But they didn’t make it through,” Robin said.
“No. They did not. Much to Zirub’s considerable heartbreak. There was no living with him after one of those failed attempts. It was devastating.”
“What ultimately caused you to part ways with Shep?” Patrick asked.
“The parting of the ways,” Wesley said, and hung his head, fringy blond bangs covering his eyes. “It started with Rollie.”
“Who?”
“He was our…friend. One afternoon Rollie and I were hanging out and Shep came bursting in. He was off the wall! I’d never seen him so excited. He said he’d finally figured it all out.”
Robin rubbed her arms. “You mean how to open the Cripulet?”
Wesley nodded. “Shep sent Rollie out of the room so he could speak to me alone. So Shep tells me that the missing ingredient was what my parents had provided. The blood had to be from the newly departed. In other words, someone who had just died. Something about a transitioning soul imprinted on the blood is what opened the portal. He said we needed a human sacrifice. He told me he wanted to use my Aunt Roberta.”
Robin blew out a breath. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Wesley.”
“I told him no, of course. I said he’d gone too far, and that he could not kill my aunt, the woman who raised me. He got very angry. Told me I should be willing to make this sacrifice for the brothers, and that Roberta would be better off in the next world. I refused. We argued. We came to blows.” He hesitated again, looking uneasily at Patrick.
“He hit you?”
“We hit each other. Ultimately we calmed down and Shep insisted on performing another procedure on me. He called it calming the soul. It was supposed to put my soul to sleep, in effect, sedate my conscience. Without my conscience I wouldn’t care who he killed. It didn’t work. He would have had to perform the ritual before he made all of the changes in me. It was something he’d overlooked, apparently. He grew more frustrated. Then one day he called and asked me to meet him at the cave.”
Wesley hung his head and tears streamed down his face. Robin went to him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. Tell us what happened.”
“When I got to the cave, he’d already killed Aunt Roberta,” Wesley said between heartbreaking sobs. “She was dead in the corner.” He wiped his nose with his sleeve. “He’d cut her throat and filled jars full of her blood. Dr. Lichtenstein was waiting with the saw, looking horrified.”
“Jesus Christ,” Patrick said, his stomach churning.
Wesley sniffled and left the room briefly. They heard him blowing his nose, then he returned. “I was beyond upset,” he said. “I started thrashing Zirub with my fists, but I couldn’t hurt him, he was too strong. He told me I was a disappointment, and that I would just have to learn to deal with unpleasantness if I wanted to be his messiah. I sat by sobbing as he rubbed Aunt Roberta’s blood in a circle along the rim of the Cripulet.”
Patrick shook his head. “He obviously didn’t get any of the brothers out back then, because you were so surprised to hear about them today. Did something go wrong?”
“Yes,” he rasped, his hand shaking as he picked up his wine glass. “Something went wrong.”
“Please,” Litner said. “Go on.”
Wesley’s face was twisted in pain. “I looked at the wall and the Cripulet was…smoking. I stopped crying and walked over because I was so amazed. It was finally happening. The Cripulet was opening. As much as I hated Shep at that moment, I couldn’t help but marvel. Shep stood before the smoking circle, elated, as the very stone began to melt and soften before my eyes. Shep must have taken my presence there as cooperation, because he turned to me and said, ‘Be ready to help me when I say.’ He placed his hands on the center of the Cripulet, and the most amazing thing happened. His hands sank into the stone wall. When he was nearly up to his elbows, he yelled out, ‘I have something! Grab on to me and pull!’”
Patrick and Robin exchanged a glance, recalling what they witnessed the night of Klee’s birth.
“Grab on to me and pull,” Wesley repeated softly. “I got behind Shep and grabbed onto his shoulders. Instead of pulling him back as he’d asked me to do, I pushed. I pushed him forward. I pushed him as hard as I could. I tried to push him right through the wall, right back where he came from. His body started to slip into the wall.”
Robin gasped.
Wesley looked around the room. “This is why Shep will not speak my name. I did the worst thing imaginable. I tried to push him back into the void.”
Patrick and Robin exchanged a stunned stare. Agent Litner was blank faced. With his pen tapping his temple, he said, “I take it you did not succeed.”
“Clearly.” Wesley huffed. “I’ve never seen such a look of horror as the one on Shep’s face in that moment, when he realized what I was trying to do. But he was stronger than I was. He broke his contact with the Cripulet. He pulled himself out, and the circle stopped smoking. The stone hardened almost immediatel
y. He turned on me then, and I’ll never forget his expression. It was beyond anger. It was beyond hatred. It was beyond pain. He wept, and he kept screaming, ‘How could you? How could you?’ And in that moment, even with my aunt’s corpse lying a few yards away, I was sorry. I was sorry for having hurt him so deeply. And I repeated those words to myself. How could I? How could I?” Wesley wiped tears from his eyes.
They sat silently, taking in the emotional weight of the story. So Wesley had tried to send Shep back into the realm of darkness. Yes, Patrick thought, that would explain why Shep was significantly pissed off at his original golden boy.
Litner stood. He started to tap his pen on his head, then stopped, as if realizing. He looked at the pen and put it in his pocket. He paced the room, stopping in front of Wesley. “How did you ultimately get away from him?”
Wesley looked embarrassed. “I begged for his forgiveness. Can you believe that? He beat me to a bloody pulp. I didn’t even fight back. Dr. Lichtenstein tried to stop him, to no avail. All the while he was beating me, I kept telling him that I was sorry. I must have been truly pathetic in my apologies, because by the end of the day he’d forgiven me. But the truce did not last. The last straw for me came the next day. You heard me speak about Rollie before.” He looked at Patrick. “Rollie was my Shield.”
Patrick blinked slowly. “Like me.”
“Yes. Rollie was the Shield to me, just as you are the Shield to this Joey person.”
Patrick shook his head. “And the years of grooming me? Why can’t he just hire a bunch of bodyguards to protect Joey?”
“It is beyond human capability to sacrifice one’s own life for another, Shep said. The survival instinct is too strong. And if Shep’s new improved messiah was hurt or killed, it would defeat his whole purpose. So he made sure that was never going to happen. He created a human shield. A man bonded by blood to protect the chosen one at all times, at all costs. That was Rollie. And now, Patrick, that is you.”
