Dark of Night - Flesh and Fire

by Jonathan Maberry

  She raised her head. Fresh tears had sprung from her eyes and glistened in the dashboard lights.

  “You have to let me go. You can’t keep risking your life for me. You have something to live for. Me, all I know how to do is run, and no matter how far I go, how fast, he’ll find me. I can’t make you a part of this.”

  Each word hit Todd like a punch to the gut. None of them were meant to knock him out. They were crueler than that, even if she didn’t intend them to be. They pummeled him into submission, stretched his threshold for pain, but never delivered a knockout blow. Instead he was forced to remain lucid while he endured the sharpness of her words. They reminded him of a conversation they’d had after her third relapse. It was the time they decided to part ways for good. He hadn’t caught her in a lie or found her in her room plunging a needle into her arm.

  They'd been on their way to a gig at the Black Horse in the dead center of summer. His car windows had been down, letting the warm air inside. His guitar and her keyboard equipment had shared a space in the back seat with a folded up blanket, a pillow, a notebook, and a copy of Stephen King’s Night Shift, as well as empty coffee cups and crumpled packages that had once held food. He'd had The Cure playing on the stereo, filling the car with energetic gloom.

  As he'd driven, it had seemed like a perfect night, but for the fact that he'd been able to tell something had been bothering her. Her answers had come out in few words. She had hardly been able to look at him. Whenever he asked if she was okay, she had smiled and told him “yes,” but her eyes had betrayed a deep sadness. Though he'd known she was lying, he hadn't wanted to pry. They had to put on a show and he hadn’t wanted anything to stop them from doing what they did best.

  Nothing had. They played their set, one of the best sets during their run as the Black Horse’s house band. Their energy on the stage had spread throughout the bar and everyone had danced and clapped. As they played, he had even forgotten that something may have been wrong. For all he knew, it could’ve been his own anxiety.

  Outside the bar they had loaded the last of their equipment into his back seat. She put a hand on his arm and said his name. He had turned to her, seen moisture in her eyes and had known what she'd say before she said it.

  “It happened again. I’m sorry.”

  He'd leaned back against the car, stared up into the night sky and felt his energy from the show sucked out of him. He tried to compose himself. He'd known she was struggling with something he’d never understand, but that hadn’t stop him from feeling hurt and betrayed. He'd remembered the last two times it happened, and her promises that it wouldn’t happen again.

  “Chloe…”

  She'd tried to hold his hand, but he pulled away from her.

  “Todd, listen,” she’d said. “I’m really sorry, but I’m trying. I’m trying so goddamn hard, but it’s just not working. I’m… it’s like something’s after me… that nothing I do will stop it. It always catches up.”

  He'd wondered then what she meant by that, but now, in the present, he knew she’d always meant Samael.

  After her confession and subsequent plea for forgiveness, he’d ended it for good. He said he couldn’t keep doing this, and until she came back from the dead, he never spoken to her again. He’d left because he was scared he wouldn’t be able to help her, and it had felt better to abandon her.

  Now, after she asked him to do the same, he remembered the conversation well. He looked her up and down. She met his eyes. Her expression was hard, as if maybe she expected him to take her advice and she was bracing for the hit. Years had passed since that night and looking back, he felt like maybe he’d been scared the entire time.

  “Earlier today, I would’ve agreed with you in a heartbeat. I mean, I have you in the car with me, which should, by all accounts, be impossible. This is just… we just came from the town we grew up in. We used to drive those streets all the time. We used to take our instruments to get them fixed over at Lynd’s. I used to play shows at the Black Horse Pub and you’d get on stage and sing with me. I haven’t thought about any of this shit for years.”

  “Were you trying to forget?”

  “I guess I was. And today, today has felt like a dream and I can almost convince myself that it is, except you’re here. This is really fucking happening." He ran a nervous hand across his head. "I can’t forget. I can’t let go.”

  “But you must. It’s okay if you agree with me. It’s okay if you’re even sorry I came back.”

  “That’s the thing, Chloe. That’s what’s driving me nuts.” Another dry laugh. “I thought I had the life I wanted. I gave you up for this life and now it’s falling apart. Not a little, but a lot. I almost never see my wife; I’m pretty sure she’s having an affair. One of my kids won’t even talk to me and the youngest is stuck in the middle of all this.” He looked away, as if ashamed of all he was telling her. “In spite of the danger we’re in, in spite of the fact that I’ve almost died three fucking times today, I’m so glad to see you alive.”

  “Alive?” She smiled and he couldn’t believe that she was doing it. “I thought about you until the day I died. I tried to focus on you sometimes, in that other world, but the pain was usually too much for me to think about anything else.”

  He looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry, Chloe.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “But maybe if I’d stayed with you…”

  She put a finger to his lips. “None of that matters now. What matters is what we can do to make it better. That’s all.”

  “You’re right.” He kissed the tips of her fingers. “And now, I’ll do anything. I swear it. I won’t leave you”

  ~Chloe~

  His eyes had determination in them that reminded Chloe of the young man she’d fallen in love with so long ago. She touched his face and he flinched, but he relaxed the more she stroked his cheek. She loved the feel of his skin under her fingers. It reminded her of the old days. The skin was older, and he had changed so much, but the fact that he’d trusted her and taken her this far showed that he possessed at least some of the fire she’d admired in him. She leaned forward and kissed him.

  At first he pulled his head away and shut his lips, but she persisted until his mouth came to meet hers. She slipped her tongue inside. He seized handfuls of her hair and pulled her tighter against him. He smelled like a mix between coffee, Old Spice and frantic desperation. Their lips parted for a brief moment and he whispered her name. They kissed again. A sea of emotion flooded the moment, and she allowed herself to get lost in it, to fall beneath its intense and troubled waves. His mouth worked on her vigorously and her lips buzzed with electric pleasure.

  Dread sank in. This moment would end and that was worse than Samael’s pursuit and all the fires of Hell. They had to be closer than this.

  She broke the embrace, but only temporarily, unbuckled her seat belt and climbed over the center console. She settled her knees alongside each of his hips and brought her hands down to his belt buckle.

  “Chloe, don’t,” he said, but his hardness told her otherwise. She shut up his protests with another kiss.

  She worked him out of his pants and touched him. He was hot with desire and he responded to her touch with a soft whimper. As she lifted her dress, she held her sex above his. He tensed.

  “Relax,” she said, and buried her mouth into the soft flesh of his neck. "I just want to be as close to you as possible. I've missed you so much."

  She slid him inside her with ease and shut her eyes, feeling the intense connection, the familiarity of it. They’d made love like this many times before, pulled over to the side of the road, so taken with passion that they couldn’t wait until they got home. As he moved inside her, as she rolled her hips against him, it was as if they were young again. Her dark hair swung back and forth between them. He groped her hips as if needing the constant reminder that she was actually there.

  Her left knee knocked against the passenger side door. Being confined to
gether like this made it perfect. It was as if they were in a small room that belonged only to them and when they were in it, attached to each other this way, they were safe from everything. She wanted it to last forever, but knew it couldn’t.

  He squeezed her tightly and cried out as he came. She collapsed against him. The aroma of passion filled the car’s interior. As they held each other, she thought of how she never expected to make love again, or even feel love again. But she felt it now and it was as if the feeling had never gone away, that it had only been lying dormant all these years waiting to be awakened by contacting the one she loved once again. A crazy part of her wanted to stay. She didn’t care that she’d always be looking over her shoulder, so long as she could be here with Todd.

  “God, I’ve missed you,” she whispered into his neck.

  He nodded and she knew it meant he'd missed her too.

  “You still have to let me go.”

  “No. No fucking way.”

  Chloe flinched at his surge of emotion. They remained connected. He stopped softening.

  “You can’t just come back into my life and expect me to pretend you’re still dead.”

  “What about Anna?”

  He blinked and seemed to lose focus for a moment. He regained it just as quickly. “I can’t do anything until I know you’re safe.”

  She shook her head. “We’re all damned, Todd. I told you about Hell.”

  “You can't know for sure that's all there is. There has to be another way.”

  “Sure there is. I run forever, and I won’t put you through that.”

  “I couldn’t live with myself if I left you. I already let you die once.”

  “Todd, I…”

  “Why didn’t staying in your house work?”

  “I…” She bit her lip.

  “How did he find you there?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s like I said; it was never truly home for me. I always knew that I belonged somewhere else.”

  “Where have you ever felt at home?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?”

  “Right here. Right now." She kissed him and tightened her sex around his. "What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking… what if you went somewhere else that you’d been in your mortal life, somewhere you were happy. Do you think you could be safe there?”

  “I don’t know. It’s…”

  “Worth a shot, don’t you think?”

  She crawled off of him and nodded.

  “Any ideas?”

  The silence that hung between them was more than a pregnant pause; it was a pause in its third trimester, swollen so that it could burst at any given time and give birth to crying, bloody, but hopeful, possibilities. An idea came to her. She settled back into the driver's seat, put the car back in drive and made a U-turn.

  “I know just the place."

  ~Samael~

  Samael awoke. The jarring pain in his limbs and torso had been reduced to a series of dull throbs. Something wailed in the distance. Sirens, coming closer. He opened his eyes. Several people were standing around him.

  One of them, a middle-aged man wearing a bandana in his hair, gasped. “Holy shit, he’s fucking awake.”

  Some of the others grumbled amongst themselves. Samael glared at the man and started to sit up.

  “Hey, don’t move, Mister. You don’t know if anything’s broken.”

  Samael ignored him and got up to his knees. He locked eyes with the bandana man. “Everything in me is broken.”

  He got to his feet. Several of the onlookers gasped. One lady spat a string of obscenities. He started to walk away.

  “Come back here, you need a doctor,” someone said.

  Samael continued walking. He heard the sirens approaching, but as his mobility returned, his strength wasn’t far behind. He’d get to Farnsworth’s car before those vehicles arrived to take him away. The temptation to stay behind and wreak havoc on the people who’d been standing over him as he'd lain unconscious was strong, but the urge to pursue was much stronger. What little pain remained turned to rage. Every time she escaped him, every bit of punishment she inflicted on him would make it that much worse for her when he caught her.

  Opening the door to Farnsworth’s car, he thought back to when he touched Todd. They’d shared something then, an intimacy greater than any lover could ever hope to achieve, greater than any killer could wrench out of his victim. Samael had felt this intimacy before, with many before Todd. With a touch, he could reach into someone’s deepest self, know their stories, hear their most hidden thoughts, and know the people who’ve meant the most to them.

  As Samael had touched Todd, he had seen a home in an unremarkable, but quaint neighborhood. Behind the door, a tall young woman with almond hair styled in bangs that fell to the side had stood in the foyer. She was beautiful in that young and energetic sort of way. From Todd’s thoughts, Samael had known that she was Todd’s daughter.

  Up the staircase and into a large bedroom, he had seen another woman. Her dirty blond hair fell across her shoulders in subtle waves. A deep sadness had haunted her blue eyes, like she’d spent much time staring into some black, unforgiving abyss. Like Todd, she was old enough to know, to really know, she was going to die and that she had more years behind her than she did ahead of her. Despite this, or maybe even because of this, Samael desired her. At another time, he would’ve maybe even fallen for her, back when he was alive, back when he was human.

  He mined the memories he’d gleaned from Todd to see how he could find this house and these two women. The most important thing he gained from reaching inside Todd was that the bastard was still very much attached to this world. Samael expected that if he hung the pieces of this world that meant the most to Todd in the balance…

  He grinned. The pain disappeared. His confidence returned.

  ~Katie~

  Katie was curled up on the sofa with Jake watching Ancient Aliens when she heard the front door open. The high from the marijuana had mostly worn off and now she just felt sleepy. With her hand locked with Jake’s and her head on his shoulder, neither of them spoke but said so much. It was her idea of contentment. She didn’t think about marriage much. Her studies consumed most of her time, but moments like this, where time seemed to stand blessedly still, when she and Jake could forgo all deadlines and agendas and just be, the idea of spending the rest of her life with someone, Jake specifically, seemed like the most wonderful thing in the world.

  She had her reservations, sure. Seeing how her parents’ marriage had spiraled into a relationship of non-communication and shameless dishonesty made her wonder if committing to someone was even worth it. Was it always bound to come undone? Had the era of true love gone by?

  The door closed and soft footsteps that she recognized as her mother’s reminded her that she had a conversation ahead of her. As a bag of luggage dropped to the floor, Katie sat up and looked behind her.

  Anna walked into the living room, her eyes red as if she’d been crying and her shoulders slumped in despair. The hair that had been so well-manicured earlier was now a tangled mess.

  “Mom?”

  “Hi, Katie… Jake. How are you guys?”

  Jake stood up, surprising Katie. “Good. I’m actually about to get going. I gotta get up early.”

  He leaned down and kissed Katie on the cheek. “Want to walk me out?”

  Katie looked from him to her mother. Anna forced a smile.

  She and Jake left the living room after exchanging goodbyes with Anna. At the door, Jake faced her.

  “I want to leave you guys alone. You’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  “What do I say?”

  “Just like we said.” He silenced her anxieties with a kiss and a hug that made her feel secure, but once he shut the door and she rejoined her mother in the living room her courage melted away. They stared at each other, the fallout of their earlier
confrontation still weighing heavily on them both.

  “Do you want a drink?” Anna asked.

  Katie opened her mouth to reply, then closed it and nodded. She couldn’t recall ever having a drink with her mother. Now the idea seemed to cement something for her. They were both adults now, about to have a truly grown-up conversation.

  Once the wine was poured, they sat across from each other at the kitchen island. Katie tried several times to start, but the words didn’t come. She forgot all the practicing she’d done with Jake and even felt regret for being so harsh with her mother earlier. She sank deeper into herself, practically seeing the mental and emotional walls that rose around her.

  “Katie.” Her mother’s voice came out scratchy and weak.

  “Yes, Mom?”

  “Where’s your father?”

  “I… dunno.”

  For a moment, Anna looked like she was going to cry again. “I have to tell you something.”

  Katie almost said, “me too,” but decided to let her mother talk.

  Anna finished half of the glass of merlot in one gulp. She wasn’t much of a drinker. Katie could count the amount of times her mother had had a drink in the past five years pretty easily. Most of them were on birthdays. Katie guessed the bottle was there to make things easier.

  “Oh, Katie, I’m so sorry.”

  “Mom…”

  “No, I am, I… your father and I…”

  Katie looked at the wear and tear on her mother’s face. She wondered how long her mother had been crying. From the looks of it, she’d been crying for hours. From the suitcase she’d dropped in the hallway, Katie figured that whatever trip she'd planned to go on with the other man had been cut short. Maybe her mother had broken it off with him. Maybe there was something left of their family.

  She took Anna’s hand and squeezed. “Look, whatever happened is over and done with. You’re my mother and I love you no matter what.” She gulped, finding it hard to speak. While her words were true, she was still deeply hurt and felt like not expressing that was letting her mother get off too easily. On the other hand, the woman before her, the woman that, for better or worse, had raised her into who she was today, looked now as if she needed nothing more than a friend.