Awakenings (11 page)

Lelani was right. With her, there was shelter, more snippets about his past, and the possibility that in a weak moment she might sleep with him. This limbo of aiding her was better than what awaited without her. For the moment.

They approached Mayflower Avenue and turned the corner toward Cal’s home.

“What are we going to tell this guy’s wife?” Seth asked.

“I don’t know. She complicates matters.”

“You have to tell her something. You said yourself all this will cause problems for his family. You should warn her about the circus freaks.”

“I didn’t mean it complicated things for her. I was talking about his family in Aandor.”

“He’s got two wives?”

“Not quite. Captain MacDonnell comes from a very respected family of low noble stock. The higher nobility traditionally seek unions with MacDonnell’s family for children not destined to inherit their fathers’ titles. One such union was arranged with Lord Godwynn’s child. I think her name is Chryslantha. This is a very important match for Cal. She is Godwynn’s firstborn daughter; her dowry is huge and it includes property adjacent to the MacDonnells’ ancestral lands. The union would elevate the MacDonnells in the aristocracy. But his marriage here constitutes a breach of contract between the families. This will cause problems for his father. At the very least, it sullies their excellent reputation. He will have to repudiate his American wife.”

“What if he doesn’t want to repudiate her? Hell, what if he doesn’t want to go back to your ‘Magic Kingdom’?”

Lelani turned sullen. She struck Seth as the type who liked to have every angle covered, and maybe she hadn’t considered this possibility.

“Callum is captain of the Guard for Archduke Athelstan, High Regent of Aandor,” she said. “He’s here in service to his lord. Once he remembers who he truly is, he’ll perform his duty and I will follow his orders.”

Seth got the impression she was trying to convince herself.

“What if he’s like me and can’t remember?” he asked.

“There’s a spell I can use to help him remember.”

“Aha! You can’t keep track of the big gaping holes in your own story. Why haven’t you used this spell on me if I’m your guy?”

“There’s an aura around you. You’re inoculated from magic. It’s an extremely elaborate enchantment. Captain MacDonnell does not have this barrier.”

“An aura, huh? It’s a little convenient for you that I can’t remember all this crap because I put some whammy on myself.”

“You did not ‘whammy’ yourself, Seth. The spell protecting you is beyond either of our abilities. I wouldn’t know where to begin removing it. I’m not even sure I should. Right now, it serves you better than your memory would. Soon, I’ll have the captain back, and the burden of leading this mission will be off my shoulders.”

“You’d better hope his loyalty to this lord is as strong as you think it is.”

“It has to be. The fate of my people is tied to House Athelstan. As it falls, so does my race. Others, too. Cal’s family would have no place in a world ruled by Farrenheil. The enemy wishes to control every aspect of their subjects’ lives. Dissidents and scholars disappear and are never heard from again. They use magic to torture and kill. Nations like this exist everywhere, even here. Aandor, for all its flaws, stands in opposition to this type of regime.”

They heard a police call again and checked Cal’s radio, which was still off. They followed the chatter to the police car up ahead in front of the three-story brick building the MacDonnells resided in. A uniformed cop in the driver’s seat was unconscious, as was a detective on the ground by the rear tire.

The front door to the building was smashed in. Broken glass littered the walk, which they realized came from the window above the fire escape.

Lelani’s terrified face said it all—she had miscalculated the enemy’s intentions.

Gunshots thundered above.

Lelani bolted up the stairs with Cal mysteriously clinging to her back. Although unhindered, Seth could not keep pace with the redhead, even as he wondered whether following her was a smart choice.

When Seth reached the second floor, he cautiously peered into the apartment. There was a living room on the left where Cal had been unceremoniously dumped on the couch. Some vanilla candles were lit in the kitchen on the far right. Vociferous noises, high winds, and a special effects light show emanated from a room down a short hallway in the back of the apartment. Seth sat on the couch back above the unconscious cop; after all, someone had to stay out front and guard him. He noticed the gun in Cal’s holster and drew it.

The banging in the back room rattled the building. Seth imagined the rest of the building coming awake and a slew of noisy neighbors to contend with. A sound ripped through the air that could only be described as Chewbacca getting his leg amputated. Each footstep shook the floor; the china clanged, porcelain cracked, furniture hopped and crashed back to earth with loud thuds as the giant tread heavily from the bedroom toward Seth.

The gun shook in Seth’s hand as he aimed at the running behemoth. He squeezed the trigger, but the safety was on. Seth shut his eyes expecting an impact, only to hear Hesz run past him as he bolted from the apartment. The hallway stairs splintered as Hesz blundered down them. Seth could hear his heart beat in his ears. He was shocked to be alive. It took him a few moments to spot the trail of blood leading from the bedroom and out the front door.

Seth stood, shaking. His first thought was to leave. It occurred to him that hulk could be on the sidewalk waiting to come back. He looked around the small apartment for a place to lay low. A rustling in the bedroom caught his attention.
Lelani,
he thought. Slowly he walked toward the back, past what looked like a child’s room. A dog lay on the floor, its head at a sick angle. He played with the gun’s latches until he was sure he had released the trigger. The master bedroom was at an angle to the hall, so he couldn’t see inside unless he stepped through it.

“Lelani?”

He poked his head around the corner. The room looked like it had been put through a Cuisinart. A hasty exit was set in the wall where a window used to be. The cop’s wife was helping a dazed Lelani stand. Then she spotted Seth, grabbed her gun off the floor, and aimed at him.

“I’m the good guy,” Seth said, holding his hands up. He forgot he had the pistol.

“Drop it,” the wife said.

“No, really. Your husband’s on the couch.”

“He’s with me,” Lelani said.

The woman kept her gun focused on Seth.

“If you’re her friend, where were you when she was fighting those creeps?”

Lelani looked at Seth. She expected an answer, too. He was afraid. They both knew it and the truth lodged in his throat waiting for a lie to supplant it.

“He covered the front in case there were reinforcements,” Lelani said. She let him off the hook. Seth gazed at the floor, unable to meet her eyes.

They heard crying.

“Bree!” The mother looked about frantic, the gun now abandoned.

The little girl pulled herself out from under the bed, the single-digit generation’s refuge of choice.

“Are the bad men gone?” the girl asked. Mother wrapped daughter in her arms.

“Yes,” she said.

“For now,” Lelani added.

CHAPTER 7

DEAD ON HIS FEET

The scene was almost pastoral. A worn-down country road bordered by dirt, weeds, and gravel. Across the street an old wood-slatted New England–style church, steeple halfway to heaven, persevered like a white sentinel over the souls in the adjacent cemetery. Down the road the only gas station in town still washed your windshield and checked your oil. Across from it was the pastel blue-and-pink brick post office. Built in 1977, it was an enduring reminder of an era hell-bent on destroying traditional aesthetics. One lonely traffic light marked the center of town. It rehearsed unceasingly, waiting to reproach the next vehicle. The buildings were far enough apart, and the town high enough in elevation, that Colby could see the pines, birches, and rolling hills and fields of Dutchess County in the distance—a long way from the steel and glass canyons outside his office in New York City.

He watched the sunrise from the diner window as he ground the remainder of his cigarette into the ashtray. It was still long, mostly unused. He lit the damn things out of habit now, not because of the nicotine plea that had become his intimate companion for the past two decades.

He did everything out of habit at this point, like sitting in a country diner to avoid a chill, even though cold did not affect him anymore. Coffee packed no punch, food sat flavorless and undigested in his gut, and every nick and scrape he collected stayed with him unhealed. There was a tourniquet on his pinky where a paper cut had left him a quart low of A positive. His hair and nails continued to grow, but he didn’t dare shave. Back in the city, Colby snorted cocaine for the first time in a decade in an attempt to jump-start his humanity. Nothing affected him.

Clammy described the overall sensation best. Like a humid, sealed attic on a hundred-degree day, except that the staleness was packed under his skin. Nothing moved internally, nothing vented. Gas occasionally emanated from a twist or a bend, the foulest smell imaginable. As the days wore on, the last vestiges of his humanity dwindled like the final swirl of water circling the drain. He looked at the old cemetery, and even the trepidation of realizing he belonged there was as absent as his heart.

Carla sat across from him. She was clearly more traumatized by what had happened to them and subsisted in a perpetual fazed state. Her hair was a mess and the buttons on her blouse misaligned. She had that “freshly fucked” look cosmopolitan women strived to imitate at great expense, except that Carla strove for nothing these days. She had lost her head the night of the attack and insisted they call the police. Colby convinced her otherwise. They would have been quarantined, subjected to study—two walking, talking, seemingly breathing beings without hearts. There was no guarantee the police could even handle Dorn and his crew. And then there was the matter of the million-dollar payoff, which would be jeopardized if they brought in the authorities.

Soon after, Carla had gone catatonic—unable to accept the reality of their plight. She had become incontinent until their bodies purged the last elements in their systems. Colby had dressed and bathed her at first, until he ran out of patience. She hadn’t said a word in days. She followed Colby when he prompted her, like a puppy tracking snacks.

Colby’s “friends” and acquaintances had disassociated themselves from him long ago. There was nothing like a government indictment for extortion to separate the faithful from the frivolous. There was an older sister living in a trailer park in the Carolinas, but they had not spoken in fifteen years, and this was not a situation that would aid any reconciliation. Even with Carla sharing the same nightmare, Colby felt forlorn. Even when he shamelessly fondled Carla in the bath in another vain attempt to reclaim his humanity and maybe help her snap out of her stupor, he was unable to attain an erection. Colby caught his reflection in the glass; his skin had become almost translucent. Purple veins and the bags under his eyes were darker, probably from the congealed blood. He stopped worrying about going to hell. He was already there.

The diner hadn’t been redecorated since a great man sat in the White House; sparkling stars on glittery aqua-blue tabletops banded with corrugated tarnished steel. Holes dotted the hard plastic top where cigarettes lingered—small brown burns like sculpted phlegm. A graveyard of bug husks withered on the window ledge, held together by dust. The checkered linoleum was decades thick with grit and gristle, mopped around nightly in a futile effort to meet the health code. A fat, greasy-haired waitress in her forties who smelled like yesterday and cheap perfume walked up to the table with a pot of steaming coffee.

“Jeez mister, don’t you get any sun down in the city? You look white as a ghost.”

Colby just pointed at his cup. The waitress poured, glanced at Carla who just stared blankly, then shuffled off.

Colby drank the coffee straight. Milk would only cool it. Flavor and texture had become meaningless to him, but heat was a different story. It was his new addiction, the only sensation that registered. As the black liquid flowed down his gullet, he absorbed the energy from each excited molecule. It would be three to four minutes before the fluid in his stomach cooled to room temperature, and at least an hour before it ran through him, coming out coffee, exactly as it went in.

A yellow cab pulled up in front of the diner. Dorn and two new associates got out. No effort was made to compensate the driver. Colby wondered about the fare from New York City to Dutchess County. Dorn entered alone and sat next to Carla.

“Colby, my good man. Looking quite provincial,” he said, with a rub at his jaw. “Any progress?”

Carla stirred for the first time. She backed as far into the booth as possible. Her arms floundered to get her even farther from Dorn, but the window prevented further regress. Dorn was oblivious. He exuded cold perfection. Chiseled jaw with azure, almost violet, eyes. A Scandinavian god from the scenes of an Abercrombie & Fitch polo game, who’d just as soon cut your heart out as say hello. His cell phone rang and he answered in one swift motion.

“Yes?” Dorn’s mood darkened as the buzzing in his ear continued. He rubbed his temples with the thumb and middle finger of his other hand. “No,” he said, cutting short the buzzing on the other end. The next thing he said was in a language Colby had never heard. Dorn’s tone betrayed all was not well. “I’ll deal with them when I get back,” Dorn said, slipping back to English.

Seeing his powerful employer upset gave Colby some vague sense of hope. Someone out there had disturbed his designs, which meant they were playing at his level—someone who could cross swords with a bona fide heart-stealing sorcerer.

Dorn cut the connection in the middle of the other person’s sentence and then turned off the phone. “Mr. Colby, what have you discovered?” he asked again, in a mocked attempt at formality. He looked like he had a major migraine.