The Age of Embers (Book 5): The Age of Defiance

by Schow, Ryan

  Kalfu headed up the stairs, listening for the sounds of other people. There were men talking and smoking and sharing their “contraband,” a fifth of a bottle of Patron they found earlier that day. They seemed happy.

  Continuing upstairs, he remained alert, vigilant. It wasn’t until he reached the top floor that he heard the voices.

  Cracking open the door to the penthouse apartment, he saw that most of the roof was gone, a fire was going in a fire pit and people were sitting around talking.

  He worked the door open, slowly, patiently, assessing the situation as it related to shadows. Could he hide there? Listen? He could.

  Eventually he slipped through the door, folded himself in to the shadows.

  “It’s time to eat,” Maria announced.

  One of the men had been cooking the lamb over a spit, and it smelled delicious. So good in fact, Kalfu was afraid his growling stomach might give him away. It was a real fear. People sat up, ready to dig in to the feast.

  “If we’re going to rule the world,” Maria said, “we’re going to need our strength.”

  One of the guys snickered, a very thin guy, but she looked at him and he stopped. There was still smears of blood on her face from where she ate the lamb. Lowering her head, narrowing her eyes, she drilled him with her gaze. He seemed to get the point.

  Kalfu felt that ugliness of her on his soul. She was not human. He knew that now. There was something baleful about her. Something so frightening and opaque, he felt the chill of death crawl up his spine. Was he going to die? Was she going to kill him?

  “Is there something you find funny?” Maria asked.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You think this world is too ruined, too chaotic, too far gone?” she asked. No one answered her. “Well it isn’t. This is simply a level playing field now.”

  Kalfu did not agree with her consensus. Most of America had fallen, or so he’d heard. He even heard that other countries had fallen into economic decay as well. The world might not be gone, it might be salvageable, but not for this generation or the next. Maybe in a few hundred years, and maybe by a different people. A less technological people. Certainly not them.

  “Well I hate to break it to you,” the guy said, “but this ain’t no Sunday afternoon clean up.”

  “No kidding,” Maria said, sarcastic.

  “None of us have the years left in us to fix everything broken in this world,” he told her, stoking the fire.

  “Is that what you think, Einstein?” she asked, staring at him, not blinking for a full minute. It was time for Kalfu to go. He couldn’t be up there any longer, not with her.

  “I was just thinking out loud is all,” the guy said.

  “Back before this, all you people were clamoring for racial and gender equality, for the white man to step aside and let a woman of color rule.”

  This stopped Kalfu.

  “You’ve got color,” Ruby said. “But more important, you’ve got balls.”

  “Yes,” Maria hissed.

  “No offense,” one of the other guys said, “but I don’t think a woman can make her presence in this world known without TV, internet, or even some sort of printed press.”

  “How was Genghis Khan known?” she challenged. “Alexander the Great? Julius Caesar? Napoleon Bonaparte? They were known around the world because they were conquerors. They bathed entire countries with the blood of fallen armies, then they gathered unto themselves that which they were not afraid to take.”

  “Meaning what?” Carver dared to ask. “You’re going to conquer the world?”

  Is that what’s happening here? he wondered. Did this woman want to conquer the world? If she was anything like he’d seen in his visions, she might be able to make some headway toward that end. But what would that mean? Was that what the Loa were warning him about? Was that why he was tasked with this?

  “Inside of months, this nation of three hundred and thirty million will be reduced to a mere thirty million. A year after that, tens of millions less. By then we will be an army, and that army will either gather more soldiers, or take more heads. In the mean time, before we take the nation back from the dark ages, we need a city. This will be our city.”

  “You know this is Sacramento, right?” one of the guys said with humor in his voice.

  “I do,” she answered.

  “How do you expect it to stand out over any other city in this country?” Ruby asked, sitting up.

  “Because I’m going to turn the power back on,” she said.

  The thought of this chilled Kalfu to the bone. She was going to grab power, and whatever dark spirits resided in her would grant her the power she needed to rule the land.

  “Really?” One asked, enthused.

  “Really,” she said, perfectly certain.

  “I thought you said you wanted to go to Idaho,” a voice said.

  Kalfu was so intensely listening to Maria, so scared of what she was saying, what she wanted to do, that he didn’t hear the man slip through the door beside him.

  Then again, the man was so focused on Maria he missed Kalfu standing in the shadows not two head widths away from him.

  “Aaron,” Maria said. “Why don’t you let the others know food is ready.”

  “So are we taking Sacramento or are we going to Idaho?” he asked.

  “One facilitates the other,” she said. “In case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t a lot of people in the cities anymore. This one included.”

  “How long do you expect us to stay here, under these conditions, living hand to mouth with barely an idea of what we’re doing to fuel us?”

  “I expect you start by knowing your place,” she said as he crossed what was once a living room floor and sat down beside them.

  The second he sat down and Maria began to speak, Kalfu slipped through the shadows and into the hallway, quietly making his way downstairs. He heard voices echoing up through the stairway, though, causing him to turn around, head back up half a flight of stairs and tuck himself into a hallway. These must be the men from downstairs. Their voices were at his level, and then they continued to climb.

  When he heard them enter the penthouse and start talking, he stepped in to the stairwell once more, went down a level, found Maria’s room. He went inside to the bed she was sleeping in. He took a quick inventory of the surroundings.

  There was no advantage for him here.

  Dejected, he left the studio apartment, headed across the hall to an identical studio apartment. It was empty, the bed stripped bare. He sat down on the mattress, but smelled the heavy stench of urine. He moved off the bed, sat down in the shadows and waited.

  An hour passed before he heard them coming back down the stairs. Maria, Carver, the young girl. He listened to them settle in their room across the hallway. He waited a few more hours. When the rest of the men and the girl tromped downstairs, he felt his time coming.

  Just before he crept inside Maria’s apartment, he slipped on a pair of surgical gloves then removed the small fold of paper in a plastic baggie from his breast pocket.

  It was time. He drew a deep breath, let it out in a measured sigh, then opened the door and went inside. The darkness was thick and complete. He couldn’t see anything. He heard them, though. Their breathing. Maria was asleep and the girl was asleep, but Carver…he was sitting in the corner and he was not asleep. Startled, Kalfu held his breath, tried not to panic.

  The man got up, started toward the door, tip toeing. Kalfu panicked, froze. He heard the footsteps coming closer, but it was so dark, so unbelievably pitch black, that in his panic, he lost his feel for distances.

  He closed his eyes, prayed to the Loa.

  The footsteps made their way right for him. Then, when the man was not a foot from him, he stopped. Kalfu felt his breath on him, smelled the eaten meat smell of it.

  He drew his breath to the top of his chest, made it shallow, very thin.

  Kalfu heard the man twist his neck, almost like he was li
stening for the same sounds as Kalfu was listening for. When Maria’s breathing didn’t change, he quietly crept out of the room, unaware that the Haitian was mere inches away.

  When he was gone, Kalfu allowed himself a deep breath. He released it slowly, then moved to the side of the bed where Maria slept. He felt the edge of the bed, and then the nightstand. On the nightstand, he felt a water bottle. He slowly lifted it. It had some weight to it, like it was half full. Smiling in the dark, he slowly undid the cap. When it was off, he set it down on the wooden surface then pinched the paper together and emptied the contents into her water.

  She stirred slightly, her breathing changing. He paused, slowed his own breath, brought it high, thinned it out.

  “Is someone there?” she asked in a heavy sleep mumble.

  His eyes flared open, but then he snapped them shut and remained statue still. She shifted on the bed, tugging at the blankets.

  “Carver?” she asked.

  “He’s asleep,” the girl said. Still, Kalfu didn’t breathe. He didn’t breathe and he dared not move.

  “Sally?”

  “I’m asleep too, Miss Maria,” the girl said. Except she didn’t sound asleep. She sounded awake but pretending to have just been awoken.

  “Okay,” Maria mumbled.

  When her breathing resumed and Kalfu realized she was falling back to sleep, he slowly swirled the contents of the powder in with her water. But not all was as it seemed. He startled when she reached out, her hand tapping off the table. Drawing a deep breath, he realized she was going for the water, the water he was holding.

  He quickly set it within reach. Heart pounding, sweating, unable to swallow, he waited for her to freak out. When her fingers touched the edge of the bottle, however, she grabbed it and reached for the lid.

  The lid!

  It was still on the edge of the nightstand.

  “Did you drink my water?” she belted out. He wasn’t sure who she was talking to, but this was all going so very, very wrong.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Maria,” Sally said. “I was thirsty.”

  “Put the lid back on next time,” she said. Then he heard her drinking deeply from it. He started to move backwards, but then she stopped drinking and he stopped moving.

  He was so panicked at this point he wasn’t sure if he would stumble over something, or back into the wall. The next thing he knew, the water bottle whistled right by him and hit the wall.

  He jumped inside, but didn’t squeal.

  “Who are you?” Maria screamed. Now his eyes flashed open, but they didn’t see anything. There was only darkness.

  “There’s no one here, Miss Maria,” Sally said.

  “Yes there is,” Maria snapped.

  “Do you want me to check?” the young girl asked.

  “Have Carver check.”

  “I told you, Miss Maria, he’s asleep,” Sally said. Kalfu heard the girl getting off the couch. “I’ll look.”

  What is this little girl up to? he wondered.

  Kalfu heard her little feet padding across the floor, heading right toward him. It was over. He knew that now. At least the devil woman drank the water and ingested the powder. His job was done. When the girl got within inches of him, she reached out, took his hand and pulled him toward the door. His heart might have stopped beating. He went with it, not sure what was happening but not questioning it either.

  “I’m going to check outside the room,” the child said. She walked him though the door, then let go of his hand. “I don’t see anyone, Miss Maria.”

  He stood there, and she stood there. She reached a little hand out and gave him a push. He moved down the hallway toward the staircase in complete and utter disbelief. When he made his way downstairs, he wondered about Sally, and he wondered what happened to the man, Carver.

  It was when he got to the fourth floor, that he heard talking. Kalfu moved to the closed door and heard his voice on the other side.

  He was talking to the girl.

  Ruby.

  “I know you think we should leave,” he was saying, “but I can’t do that.”

  “She scares me, Carver.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “She hit you,” Ruby reasoned. “You were out cold for a few minutes. When you woke up, when she told you that you’d been asleep for a few hours, she lied. She was lying.”

  “I know.”

  “I think I should go,” she said.

  “Selfishly, I want you to stay,” he responded. “But if you have to go, it’s okay. You should.”

  For a long time, there was silence, then he heard the bed springs creak, almost like someone was rolling over. Listening closer, he said, “Are you sure you want this?”

  “Definitely,” she said, her tone changing, softening. “After the shower, definitely.”

  Knowing what this was, not wanting to be a creeper, he made his way back down the stairs, past the sleeping guard in the front lobby and out the front door.

  He hoped that having done this for the Loa, he’d kept their anger at bay. And he hoped that he’d mixed the powders right, and that all the dark and dangerous souls stuck in that otherwise perfect body could now be free.

  He was not a half mile away when he both heard and sensed movement. Kalfu slipped in to a dark pool of shadows, waited. He knew there were people out at night. There was a certain safety in traveling through the blackness, one he knew firsthand.

  After ten minutes of him being perfectly still, he stood, stretched the stiffness from his knees and began to walk. Up ahead, however, in the darkness, he saw a shadow. Like him, but not like him.

  Was this Loa? Had they come to collect him? Had they come to reward him for his selfless deed?

  The shadow, however, moved. It moved so fast, he could not react. That’s when something smashed him in the face so hard, he lost consciousness. When he opened his eyes, he realized he was only seeing through one eye. The other eye ceased to be. Lifting a shaky hand to his face, he realized half of his head had been turned to ground beef.

  Looking up into the night sky, his brain processing everything slower, he could not have imagined how he’d angered the Loa to this extent, but alas, he had performed a sacred ritual alone. No matter his attempt to balance the debt, he had to pay the price. Right now the price was unprecedented levels of pain. Then the face appeared over him, and it was not the face of the Loa. Rather it was the face of the devil.

  “What did you do to me?” Maria asked, her throat raw sounding, hoarse. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. “I asked you a question?”

  “De-demon,” he managed to croak out, suddenly realizing half his teeth were broken, some sitting in his mouth, some sliding into his throat.

  The creature above him leaned over and picked up a rock twice the size of a softball and said, “This hit your face.”

  His eye looked over at it, but the large object was speckled red and blurry. He coughed up bits of his teeth, spit them out.

  “I did something to you because you did something to me,” she said. “What did you do to me?”

  “Released…you.”

  “You were there, weren’t you? That was you lurking in the shadows when I threw Cletus to the coyotes?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Didn’t recognize you without your hat, but the accent is a dead giveaway.” She was referring to his Haitian accent. Still sounding gravely, half coughing as she spoke, she said, “You’re a long ways from home.”

  “I am…almost home,” he said, spitting out another tooth.

  “If you’re thinking home is you being dead, I hate to break the news to you, but home is you being something’s meal, and nothing more than that.”

  “So you say,” he said with a broken lisp. Laying his head back down, he looked into the sky, asked the Loa for safe passage.

  “What did you do to me?” she asked again.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Not right,” she said. “Angry and not right
.”

  “I was simply exorcising the evil out of you,” he said. “But it seems that if you are still here, then you are worse than I imagined. It seems the whole of you is evil.”

  She coughed again, a horrible raspy sound, then said, “Do you really think I am evil?”

  “Without question.”

  “Well in your human way of thinking, I suppose that would be what your limited intellect would reach for. But you still haven’t answered my question.”

  “I have, demon. I answered your question just fine.”

  “Tell me!” she screamed, but the roar fell short, and she gave way to another hearty fit of hacking.

  “If I’m to be food for the animals, or the cannibals, then you will be at my side, serving as part of the feast.” And with that he forced a smile, a look that both startled and angered her.

  “Fine,” she growled. “Have it your way.”

  She lifted the rock high above her head. He closed his eye. The rock came down like a sledgehammer on his face, the sharp, splintering sound of his skull cracking. The first shot sent bright, starbursts of pain throughout his body, and he hoped to black out, but alas, the Loa would not let him. This was his penance for disobedience.

  The next shot broke open half his face and still, he remained aware, ensnared in the pain, forced to feel everything. The Loa were not to be trifled with, and before he traveled from this world in to the next, they needed him to know this.

  Well, he knew it.

  By the magnitude of the pain, by the visceral hatred being heaped on him from the devil woman and the Loa, he was learning his lesson, being made aware of his mistakes so as not to repeat them again should the Loa decide not to stamp out the very light of his soul. The next shot, however, brought him the peace of escape. He felt nothing in that moment.

  And then he was nothing.

  Chapter Nineteen

  She walked home sick, staggered inside, stumbled on the steps and landed wrong. One of her soldiers scurried into the lobby and tried to help her. She shrugged off his hand and said, “Let me be.”