by Nyssa Renay
“Well,” Joseph said, letting out a long, frustrated breath before turning toward the men behind him. “My car isn’t here, so I’m guessing that he’s getting rid of it somewhere, which might give me a small window of opportunity to break in and see if Marcus or the girls are down there.” Joseph smiled. “Then again, I could be completely wrong, and I’m walking us right into a trap. Why don’t you two wait here and stay out of sight while I check it out, okay?”
“No, we’re coming with you,” one of the men replied firmly.
“Christoff told us to stay with you, no matter what,” the other man acknowledged.
“Well, then. Let’s see if I’m right,” Joseph said, adjusting his fedora and glasses as he made his way toward the delivery door at the back of the store.
When Joseph reached the door, he whispered a quick spell to melt the door knob, the lock, and part of the door away completely, allowing them to sneak into the building. Once inside, they stood in what looked like a small storage area filled with empty cardboard boxes, bags of packing peanuts, and other various shipping supplies. In the corner, opposite from where they were standing, there was a doorway that led down to the basement. Joseph motioned for the two men to follow him as he made his way toward the stairs.
Although he had managed to be extremely careful as they moved across the room, the moment Joseph placed his foot on the first step, the old wooden stairs let out a loud creek, causing him to wince through gritted teeth as he immediately froze, hoping that they hadn’t been heard.
“Hello?” Patience called out from the basement. “Is…is someone there?”
“Patience?” Joseph asked, a tone of hope in his voice. “Is that you?”
“Yes! Yes, it is!” she screamed. “Please help us before that guy comes back. He’s crazy!”
“Is Marcus there, too?”
“No, it’s just Allie and me.”
Joseph descended the stairs and rushed into the basement, followed by Christoff’s men, who immediately raised their guns to secure the room.
“Are you Joseph?” Patience asked happily.
“Yes,” he replied as he removed her bindings before moving over to examine Allie, who lay unconscious on a couch against the far wall. “What happened to her?”
“I…I don’t know,” Patience explained. “We were eating lunch, and there was a bright flash of light and a loud bang…everything went black…and then I woke up here.”
“Then why hasn’t Allie woken up yet?” Joseph argued and placed his hand on her forehead, muttering under his breath.
“What are you doing?” Patience asked.
“I’m trying to figure out why your sister is still unconscious, even though there’s no sign of any physical damage to her body from the blast.” Joseph could tell something wasn’t quite right with this whole situation. But as he held Allie’s wrist to check her pulse, Joseph noticed she was still wearing the ring her sister had given her.
“La niesta stirento,” he chanted, quietly casting the protection spell on Allie’s ring before standing up to face Patience.
“She’s been drugged,” Joseph explained before turning toward the two men. “I need one of you to guard the delivery door and keep a lookout while the other heads upstairs to get some cold water…or ice…anything we can use to get her temperature down.”
“There’s ice in the refrigerator in the office,” Patience offered as she watched the two men rush toward the door, only to see them both instantaneously vaporize into nothing more than charred, crumbling skeletons as they passed through the frame of the doorway.
Patience screamed in horror as Joseph ran over to examine the frame of the door. “It’s a one-way energy barrier! It lets you in safely but kills you if you try to leave…it’s like one of those nauseating electronic mousetraps,” he growled as he followed the cables that ran down the side of the door and across the floor. Joseph lifted one of the Persian rugs and noticed the trail of wires led to a small, upside-down cardboard box in the middle of the room. “What’s under there?” he asked Patience as he stood over the box.
“I don’t know,” Patience replied, slightly panicked, as she backed into the edge of a small workbench that sat next to the furnace in the corner of the basement. “I didn’t put it there.”
Joseph smiled, tilting his head slightly. “I think you did,” he said coldly. “In fact, I think you’re the one who drugged Allie, brought her here, and used her as bait to lure me here. After all, I’m guessing it was you who brought her lunch, am I right?”
Patience only stood there silently, staring coldly at Joseph.
“Where’s Marcus?” Joseph snapped.
Patience smiled slyly. “He’s dead, just like your little friend over there will be soon enough. Then again, maybe I’ll just take her back with me instead. I’m sure I could find some use for her,” she said as she put her hand on a small red lever on the side of the workbench and began to push it down.
“Flui’veraaaa—” Joseph furiously bellowed, but he was instantly paralyzed by a massive energy field Patience had activated around him, sending hundreds of small bolts of electricity surging through his entire body.
As the energy continued to cripple his body, bringing him to his knees in agony, Joseph watched as Patience gave him a victorious, sadistic grin just moments before he finally passed out.
-24-
The noxious scent of burnt fabric hung ominously in the air, stirring Joseph back to consciousness. As he slowly opened his eyes and carefully glanced around, he saw he was surrounded by a wall of cascading green energy, and all the Persian rugs, which were once beneath his feet, were now completely burned away in a five-foot radius around his body.
“Well…that was a first,” Joseph muttered to himself as he struggled to his feet while quickly assessing the damage inflicted upon him. His hands, his face, and his clothing were all severely burned, including his fedora, which he reached down and picked up off the floor, then tossed it at the surging wall surrounding him. The hat dissolved as it passed through the barrier, leaving only a wafting cloud of dust and smoke behind.
While Allie was still unconscious on the couch, Patience stood in the corner of the basement, monitoring the small screen of a rather sophisticated-looking machine, resembling nothing Joseph had ever seen before. The sides of the machine had several strange tribal symbols etched into each of the six long, glossy black panels that held the hexagonal frame together. Every now and then, small snaps of static electricity popped between a dozen shiny twisted prongs that curved up and out of the top of the machine before pointing down into the very center of the apparatus.
“How long was I out?” he grumbled loudly, catching Patience’s attention.
“Only about five minutes,” she replied coldly.
“Good…not long enough for me to get really pissed off, but I suggest you let me out of whatever this thing is before I get there,” he warned, trying to restrain his anger.
“Sorry, Joseph, but I’m afraid that’s no longer possible,” she explained. “Once the barrier is activated, it automatically attunes itself to your specific biological make-up.” Patience smiled as she walked over and ran her hand through the edge of the barrier. The hem of her sleeve was singed, yet her hand was completely unscathed.
“So, you’re saying you’ve built a custom-made prison just for me. Interesting idea, but impossible,” Joseph scoffed.
“Fine. If you don’t believe me, go ahead. Attack me,” she replied calmly as she stood directly in front of him, holding her hands out to show that she was unarmed. “I promise, I won’t fight back.” She grinned slyly.
“Sure, why not.” Joseph returned the smile, slightly tilting his head. “No’yento braxistani,” he chanted as a chrome-colored metallic liquid seeped out of the palm of his right hand, engulfing it and his forearm as if he’d reached into a vat of molten silver. The liquid continued to ooze its way down toward the floor, eventually solidifying
into one long spear that was now fused with his hand and forearm, its razor-sharp point nearly touching the ground.
Joseph stood for a few moments to see how Patience would react to this immediate threat, but she didn’t move or even flinch at the sight of his weapon. He slowly pulled his arm back, readying to thrust the spear right through the barrier and into her chest, yet she still didn’t move. Joseph couldn’t tell if she was bluffing or not. He forcefully thrust his arm toward her chest, immediately regretting his decision.
As the tip of the spear hit the energy barrier, the spell was instantly countered; the conjured metal crumbling to dust as Joseph’s arm punched through the barrier. The flesh of his hand, his wrist, and his forearm were instantly burned away, leaving nothing more than a charred skeletal hand and forearm with several multicolored crystal shards protruding from his bones. Joseph howled in pain as he quickly retracted what was left of his arm, hearing the rings that formerly adorned his fingers clatter to the floor at Patience’s feet.
“You see?” Patience said mockingly as she bent down and picked up one of his rings, admiring its beautiful blue gemstone, putting it in her pocket. “I wasn’t lying.”
“But how?” Joseph asked through gritted teeth as he clutched what remained of his arm tightly against his body.
“My replication generator,” she said, motioning to the corner of the basement where the machine steadily pumped out and replaced the lethal green energy that coursed throughout the barrier. “Once the machine matched your physical composition with my sample, the initial energy I sent surging through your body was quickly converted and used to power the walls of your new prison.”
“What sample? There’s no way you could’ve gotten any part of my body without…” he trailed off, suddenly realizing where the sample from his body must had come from. “Marcus,” Joseph acknowledged grimly. “You killed Marcus to get the healing crystal I put in his body to keep him alive.”
“Exactly,” Patience said as she walked over to the generator, grabbing a small mirror off a nearby bench and holding it over the very top of the machine. She tilted it slightly, allowing Joseph to see the small green crystal shard—the very shard he’d given to Marcus over a century ago. It was wedged between the twisted prongs from the top and an organic, brain-like tissue deep inside the machine, like a specimen slide for a microscope.
A wave of sadness and anger washed over Joseph, knowing there was nothing he could do to save his friend now. Marcus was gone forever. “I don’t understand,” he groaned. “How could you have even known about that shard in the first place?”
“An old friend of yours told me all about you…about how you two worked on the defense system for the Network together. He even gave me the location of each one of the refugees hiding out on this planet,” she said coldly as her voice slowly changed to sound just like Byron’s. “Not with his words, but through his memories as I consumed his soul.”
Joseph watched in disgust as Patience’s body, clothing and all, slowly melted and reformed into an exact replica of Byron’s physical appearance. “You’re a soul reaper. I knew you couldn’t be the real Byron,” he said in anger, clutching his skeletal arm. “I thought all you assholes were killed off centuries ago.”
“There are a few of us left, but you have to admit, things are so much easier when no one knows you exist. Gives you that element of surprise, you know?” He laughed. “After all, you’re an assassin. I know you can appreciate having that kind of an advantage.”
“Of course.” Joseph nodded. “All you had to do was find someone who knew me well enough, kill them, and take their place until you found the right moment to catch me off guard.”
Byron laughed as his body slowly changed and shifted into a replica of Marcus, voice and all. “And it worked perfectly,” Marcus said as he walked over to a small bookshelf at the far end of the basement near where Allie lay unconscious. He leaned down and reached behind the bottom shelf, pulling out a thin metal sword that emanated a faint red glow of energy. “All I had to do was hide away in the back of your car when you sent Marcus to the hospital…alone…to pick up your precious new toy,” he taunted as he leaned over and slowly caressed Allie’s hair before turning his attention back to Joseph. “It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Once I ran this sword through the back of the seat and into Marcus, your old friend just crumbled to dust, giving me instant access to the crystal shard…not to mention all of his memories as I ate his soul.”
“But why kill Patience?” Joseph asked somberly. “You could have waited until we’d left the city and then killed me whenever you felt like it.”
“I didn’t want to risk waiting too long,” he admitted freely. “There’s just too much at stake, and you might have figured out that I wasn’t really Marcus before I could catch you off-guard. Let’s face it, Joseph…you’re a hard man to track down, let alone kill.” Marcus slowly morphed back into Patience’s form. “For all of this to work right, I needed to use someone you barely knew, yet still trusted enough to set the trap. Your little friend’s sister fit the role perfectly. Plus, this cellar was the perfect place to set up and hide all my equipment,” she explained as she knelt and pulled a small syringe out from under the couch and jabbed it into Allie’s arm, jolting her awake instantly.
Allie gasped heavily as her eyes darted around in a panic before vomiting on the floor in reaction to the two drugs battling in her system. When Allie had finished getting sick, Patience helped her up and led her over to a small chair, closer to Joseph. Once Allie was situated, Patience knelt and wrapped an iron manacle around Allie’s ankle before connecting its short chain to a metal loop embedded in the concrete below the chair.
“Patience?” Allie asked through a dizzy haze. “What…what are you doing?”
“I’m sorry, Allie, but that isn’t your sister.” Joseph sighed. “Patience is dead.”
“I don’t understand,” Allie replied, looking directly at her sister. “Patience? What’s going on? What does he mean…you’re dead? You’re right here. I can see you.”
“Just let her go!” Joseph growled at Patience. “You’ve got me. You don’t need to do this, please! Look…if you let her go, I promise I’ll go with you willingly.”
Patience turned and stared at Joseph, laughing maniacally. “Like you have a choice.”
“Go with her where?” Allie cried out in confusion. “Joseph, what’s she talking about?”
“That’s not your sister. It’s a bounty hunter, just like the others. Only this one can change its appearance to look like…” Joseph trailed off before lowering his gaze toward the ground in shame. “…to look like the people it’s killed. I’m sorry, Allie. It’s all my fault, but the real Patience is gone.”
Allie’s eyes welled with tears. “I-I don’t believe you.”
“Oh, it’s true,” Patience admitted in a mocking tone. “But her soul will live on in me, and I mean that literally.” She smiled arrogantly at Allie.
“Stop it!” Joseph snapped. “It’s bad enough you killed her sister. You don’t have to torment her like that!”
“Joseph?” Allie asked with tears slowly trickling down her face. “What does she mean about Patience’s soul?”
Joseph grimaced. “Allie—”
“Just tell me!” Allie screamed at him. Her voice strained with pure anguish and frustration, culminating after everything he’d put her through over the past few weeks.
He stared at her for a few painful moments before hesitantly giving in. “This thing…is a soul reaper. It doesn’t just look like the people it’s killed, it absorbs a person’s soul and can physically embody that person, including having access to every memory they’ve ever had.”
“That’s just cruel,” Allie muttered in shock, barely able to breathe.
“I agree,” Joseph said solemnly. “I’m sorry…I didn’t see this coming.”
“And Marcus?” Allie asked, already assuming the worst.
Patience slowly changed into Marcus, grinning at Allie’s horrified reaction. “I believe you sat on what was left of him in the car when I picked you up at the hospital.” He let out a small laugh as he tauntingly waved the reddish-glowing sword in front of her face. “Don’t worry, it was quick. This sword cut right through the seat and into his chest like it was nothing.”
Allie looked apologetically at Joseph, knowing he must be feeling the same sense of loss that she was, but was quickly taken aback when she noticed his charred skeletal forearm and hand. “Oh my God, your arm!” she gasped.
“Yes. Magnificent, isn’t it?” Marcus reveled. “Just think, each and every one of those crystal shards is worth a fortune on the dark market. And the best part…is that they’re grafted throughout his entire body.”
“Are those like the one you said you gave to Marcus?” Allie asked Joseph, trying to ignore Marcus’s callous taunting.
“Yes,” Joseph admitted as he raised his charred skeletal forearm, displaying the crystal shards fused into his bones. “It’s why almost every bounty hunter has hunted me.”
“But what makes them so valuable, other than just making you live longer?” she asked him, confused and terrified.
“Well, besides the rarity of being the only shards like them in your universe, it’s where all of my abilities come from,” Joseph explained. “The piece I gave to Marcus was just a small one. In fact, you could fuel a fleet of starships for decades with a big enough red crystal, terraform an entire planet with a yellow one, even gain access to the realm of the dead with a purple one if you wanted to. My people practically worshiped these things, but I’m sure his boss already has buyers lined up for every crystal in my body, doesn’t he?”
“Oh, he does,” Marcus said to Joseph with a greedy smile. “Once I’m done here, I’ll signal him to come collect you. With the Network dismantled, he shouldn’t have any problems getting here undetected.”
