Otherland (17 page)

“What?!” she yelled into the phone when it rang again.

“It’s Jerome. I found your son.”

“Jerome? How’s Mama?”

“Still waitin’ to be treated. It’s crazy at the hospital. They comin’ in in piles. I got Gerald watchin’ over Mama while I went in search fo’ yo’ boy.”

“Why?” she said cautiously. “You hate my guts right now, Jerome. Last thing you’d want to do is help me.”

“I ain’t doin’ this fo’ you,” he yelled. “Cherise’s mother even worse than Cherise. She down-right told me if I didn’t help you find yo’ son, she get Grandmother rights and take my kids from me. All she wants is fo’ me to carry out what she believes Cherise’s destiny was, and it has to do wit’ you. So I found him. You want him or not?”

“Where is he?” Lydia said, full of desperation for her child.

“A vacant apartment building on the west side. 723 Marcellus Ave. When can you get here? I got more pressin’ matters to attend to than yo’ child, like takin’ care a’ my own, for one.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. And Jerome?”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

For once, the police had more important things to do, so she sped the entire way there. It had been Jerome’s number and Jerome’s voice, and it was Jerome that met her at the door.

“Where is he?” And only then did it occur to her. “Jerome. Where
are
your children? You said you got Gerald to watch over Mama, but who’s – .”

The door slammed shut and was locked behind her. He smiled, his smile, Dwayne’s, not Jerome’s, like he’d one-upped her. The game he’d always played that she’d spent her life escaping from.

“Dwayne,” she said. “Leave Jerome’s body. He has nothing to do with this.”

“Oh, but he has everything to do with this. He wants nothing more than to see you dead so that you can’t cause any more chaos in his life. How do you think I came to be in possession of him so easily? He’s happy as can be that it worked, just like I promised him.”

“Then let him talk for himself if you believe that so much. Let him tell me himself.”

“Gladly.”

She watched the Dark soul leave Jerome’s body and find haven in the darkness of the vacant apartment. “Jerome?”

Jerome lifted his gun and pointed it at her forehead. “You the reason my wife is dead,” he said coldly. “Everythin’ that happen is cuz a’ you.”

“You’re wrong, Jerome,” she said calmly. “I didn’t kill Cherise, he did. Cherise was my friend, my best friend, my only friend. I didn’t involve her in any of this. He did. He showed up, trying to kill me, and she saw him, and fought against him. If you truly loved your wife, you would fight the one that involved her and killed her, not me. He wants you to believe I’m the reason she died, but it wasn’t my hands that killed her. It was his.

“And you’ve allowed the very person that killed her to possess your own body and set this whole thing up. I am to blame in one way, because Cherise wanted to protect me. That’s the way that she was. The greatest friend I’ve ever had, the truest heart, the purest soul. Don’t let her death be in vain by killing the very person she sacrificed her life for. Think of what Mama would say.”

“You tryin’ to manipulate me same way you manipulated her!” he yelled. “If she knew the truth ‘bout you, she would’na bothered. She the most beautiful, lovin’ person I ever met in my entire life. I was a nothin’, a nobody befo’ her. Runnin’ the streets like I was somethin’, while feelin’ nothin’ but emptiness inside. She showed me my life could be different. She made me somethin’ I never thought I could be. A husband. A father. A respectable person. Now she gone. I got nothin’. Nothin’ to keep me from bein’ the way I was befo’ her.” He said, his voice pure agony.

“You’ve got your children,” Lydia continued to try talking him down. “Cherise wouldn’t want you to give up on them. She’d keep wanting you to be that man, that father, that she helped you to be. There’s nothing that Cherise cared about more than you and your children. Her being gone doesn’t change that.”

“No,” he shouted. “There was somethin’ mo’ she cared about. You. If not fo’ you, she still be here. Puttin’ me in my place, takin’ care of the kids. Cuz a’ you, they ain’t got a mother. Cuz a’ you, I ain’t got nothin’ mo’ to live for, cuz you took from me the only person that ever mattered, that ever made me feel like I was betta’ than dis.”

Jacob’s abrupt presence did little with the gun pointed at her head, while Dwayne was loving every minute of it. She could have attacked Jerome during the distraction, but she didn’t have the heart. He was hurt. He was grieving. He didn’t know any better at the moment. Would he pull the trigger? She didn’t know, but she did feel like she deserved everything she was facing at the moment, because she, herself, couldn’t help but feel fault over Cherise’s death. She was more than willing to bow down and face the consequences.

But then Cherise showed up.

She played out the human version of smacking him upside the head, while her hand went right through it. “Fool, I shouda divorced you long ago if I knew you goin’ be like dis the moment I ain’t around. All those years standin’ by yo’ side, believin’ in the good in you, and you go and turn the moment I ain’t here no more. Go right back to the way you was befo’ me. If I could beat yo’ ass, I would.”

“Cherise,” he said in surprise, shock, and a bit of fear.

“What? You think I ain’t watchin’, don’t know nothin’, now that I dead? You go back to the way you was before you met me, I kill you myself, Jerome. Our kids need you, their father, more than anythin’ right now, and you actin’ like dis? Like you neva’ changed at all. Like killin’ people take care of all yo’ problems, anyone that gets in yo’ way. Just pop a cap on they ass and all yo’ problems disappear. How well did that work for you befo’? So why you go back to that now? I thought I taught you betta’ than that. 13 years I spent with yo’ stupid ass, how long I gotta keep babysittin’ you, keep you outta trouble?”

“Baby, I’m sorry.” He placed the gun on the floor.

“Don’t Baby-I’m-sorry me. You know what you done. Settin’ my girl up like this.”

“I was possessed.”

“Now you goin’ make excuses? If you thought it was ‘till death do us part’, you wrong. I be watchin’ you, Jerome.”

“Baby, I love you. I’m hurt. Ain’t you see that?”

“I love you too, Boo. Always will. You need to stop this shit, go be a Daddy to our kids. They hurtin’ too. They scared. And you goin’ leave them alone?”

“I didn’t leave them alone. They at my Ma’s.”

“Nigga’, you gone leave my kids alone at yo’ Mother’s?” The window shattered loudly around Lydia’s head.

“Chill, Cherise. I’m goin’, ok? I’m out.” Jerome threw his hands up in surrender. “Geez, the afterlife ain’t changed you one bit.”

“And it ain’t gonna, either, Jerome. Remember dat,” Cherise called at his back. “Dark soul, I summon thee!” she called out.

“You can’t summon me, Light,” Dwayne growled.

“Oh, I can do a lot mo’ than that.” She floated up into the attic and all you could hear were his screams of pain excruciating.

“Okay, okay, what do you want?”

“You and your black spiritual cronies need to return to Otherland where you belong, leave Lydia and all the otha’ innocents alone.”

He cackled crudely. “Yeah, okay. Let me just say my goodbyes and I’ll be right there,” he said sarcastically.

“You think dis a joke, beast?” and she burned him again with the globe of white light that surrounded her.

“A compromise. I’ll return when Aliyah is dead.”

“Fool, ain’t no compromisin’ wit’ the High master. You do as you told.”

“Very well, when the High master comes to get me himself, instead of sending one of his followers, I will go. Burn me all you want, Light. You cannot kill that which is already dead. Aliyah will die, and I and the others won’t stop until she is. You can’t always protect her. Even now I can feel you being summoned. You’re not free. I am. As for you, Aliyah. Every hour that you remain alive, an innocent will be tortured in your name. If they’re lucky, we’ll let them die.” And with a gush of spiraling wind, he was gone.

“Light knight?” Cherise beckoned to Jacob.

Jacob bowed in great respect, “Yes, Light Guardian?”

“It time she know and not be left in the darkness no mo’.”

“Um, hello, I’m right here, Cherise. You can stop talking about me like I’m not.”

“Girl, I know ‘dat. Jus’ doin’ my job, is all. You goin’ disrespect me like that?”

“You got promoted to angel, already, Cherise?

“That’s where it at. I’m jus’ dat good. Did you ever doubt it?”

“I told you she would be strongly rewarded for her self-sacrifice,” Jacob said.

“I’m proud of you, Cherise,” Lydia said genuinely.

“I do have a direct message fo’ you, Lydia.”

“As opposed to talking about me when I’m right here? Don’t I feel special.”

“You neva’ alone.”

Aliyah waited for her to continue. “Wait, that’s it? That’s all I get?”

“Girl, you so damn frustratin’ some time. That message come directly from the High master. You should feel privileged.”

“I can also go to a Chinese restaurant and open a fortune cookie and get the same message. I mean, come on, how cliché’ is that? Aliyah, I am your Father. You’re never alone,” she mocked in a bad version of Dark Vader’s voice. Cherise and Jacob both glared at her. “What?” she laughed. “You don’t find it a teeniest bit funny? Not one bit?”

“You the one askin’ for a lightnin’ bolt come strike you between yo’ eyeballs, make a mockery of the High master.”

“If I can’t laugh about it, I’ll cry about it instead. You just think coming from him, he’d have something more meaningful and brilliant to say than ‘You’re not alone’.”

“Cuz he know how stupid and bull-headed you is. You won’t be makin’ a joke about it when you finally learn the truth about yo’self. Why you got the job is beyond my understandin’ at the moment. You ain’t even believe.”

“Well, I’d love to sit around all day and chat with my former best friend-now-angel and my Light knight who drives me insane, but you heard Dwayne, and Dwayne is not one for empty threats. I can’t have anyone else’s death on my conscience.”

“You betta’ not be thinkin’ of givin’ yo’self in. If we lose you, all will be lost.”

“Give in? Hell no. I’ve got to find a way to kill what’s already dead, save two worlds, all while carrying a baby at my hip.”

“Good luck … Aliyah. And God Bless You.”

“I didn’t sneeze,” she said, earning her another glare from the both of them. Then Cherise was gone.

“You really can be quite intolerably stubborn at times,” Jacob said.

“I was made this way. I didn’t choose it.”

He grabbed her suddenly, unexpectedly, and pulled her into his arms. “What happened to the Aliyah that used to be so full of heart and love?”

She stood there, rigid and physically unresponsive, whereas years ago she would have given anything to be in his arms. “She died,” she said coldly, then turned away to find her son sleeping peacefully in a box in the attic, as though completely oblivious to his kidnapping and his being held hostage to lure Mommy to her death. If not for Cherise -

No, Cherise had been sent here. By
him
. She’d gotten the message, as bitter as it tasted trying to swallow it. Had she been left completely alone, Jerome, or Dwayne in possession of Jerome, would have killed her, as originally planned. Aliyah felt satisfaction over the frustration Dwayne must be feeling that every time he thought he had her, someone else was always stepping up to the plate to ruin his plans. Why wouldn’t he just give up and leave her be?

She was soon to find out.

CHAPTER 29

“Aliyah, we need to talk,” the Light knight said, his voice pleading.

“And I would love to have the time to listen, Jacob, but that is not something I have, at the moment. I’ve got 12 minutes to try to figure out the innocent he plans on having tortured, as it’s guaranteed it’s going to be a child. He always preferred children,” she said bitterly.

“I know that you have a job to do, but so do I, and my job, at the moment, is to tell you about the Prophecy. There’s a good reason he wants you to have this information now, after all the years you’ve been protected from it.”

“Here it is. Ugh, just like him, the bastard. Always needed an audience to brag about his crimes.”

They were back at her apartment in the city, and she was rapidly flipping through news’ stations again, knowing he would leave a clue, knowing she would try to stop him.

“Aliyah.”

“No,” she cried. “He said only one, only one per hour. Not an entire elementary school. We’re down to ten minutes. There’s not enough time!” she wiped a desperate tear from her cheek.

Lydia turned up the volume to hear the reporter above Jacob’s incessant pleas to speak with her. “They are demanding the presence of an Aliyah, and if she doesn’t show, they are threatening to burn down the school with all the kids trapped inside. Aliyah is 5’6”, honey-golden blonde hair mid-back, blue eyes. She was formerly known as Lydia Smith. If anyone knows of this Aliyah, contact the number at the bottom of the screen. Aliyah, if you are listening, there are 223 kids from 5 to 10 years old trapped in the Queens Elementary School. Please show yourself. Don’t let all these kids die because of you,” the reporter said.

Just before the camera shot returned to the school, the newscaster’s eyes flickered. Possessed. How many? How many possessed? How many lost? God dammit, she couldn’t save them all. She grabbed for the phone.

“Aliyah, what are you doing?”

“Something.”

“You know it’s a trap.”

“I don’t care!” she yelled. “223 innocent children burning alive is not something I’m going to allow happen in my lifetime. This is Aliyah,” she said over the phone. “I’m the one he wants. I give in. He can have me and do what he wants with me. Tell him to let the children go.”

“Hello, Aliyah.” His voice. “So predictable. You’ve always so easily been broken when it came to protecting other children. Willing to sacrifice everything just to keep another child safe. Do you remember that?”

“Someone as evil as you should never have been born, Dwayne.”

“Born, dead, and now immortal. Isn’t it great? It’s like … I’m being rewarded. Rewarded for all the things I’ve done, whereas all you ever are is punished for the way you are. I’m in my glory and you’re still just suffering, as you’ve always been. Seems so unfair, doesn’t it?”

“Where do you want me to meet you?”

“All this public attention, I think a public execution would suit the situation nicely. Come here to the school, alone. You’ll know where I’ll be. I’ll be the one with all the cameras making me famous for all of time.”

“I’m on my way,” she hung up the phone.

“Aliyah, you can’t do this. It’s a death trap,” the Light knight urged.

“He wants me to come alone. I need you to stay here with Jasper and keep him safe.”

“My duty to you is
not
to provide childcare. It is to protect you and keep you alive and if you would just let me talk to you, you’d understand why it is so important that you
stay
alive. If you die, it will be all our undoing.”

“You’ll live. You’ll just be reassigned to play games with someone else’s heart, that’s all. The circle of life.”

“Then at least take some sort of weapon, a knife or something, to protect yourself.”

She grabbed her wallet. “Car needs gas,” she said, throwing open the hatch, and she took off down the stairs.

The baby began to mewl, so Jacob lifted him up and cradled him in his arms. “Jasper, your Mommy is the absolute most stubborn person I have ever met, and I’ve been around for almost a century. She just won’t
listen
! Do you know what it’s like to have the job of keeping a person alive when that person has a death wish? I got 14 months – 14 months of peace – that’s it, and that’s only because she didn’t remember who she was.

“I’ve spent my life chasing her. That’s all I do. You think she’d appreciate that? You think she’d appreciate me? Nope. Never a ‘Thank you, Light knight, for following me around everywhere like a little loyal doggie, and always having my back. Thank you, Light knight, for loving me the moment you first set eyes on me and never stopping loving me since.’” Jacob sighed. “Come on, Jasper. Time to play unappreciated loyal doggie again.”

He hailed a cab. “I need to get to the Queen’s Elementary School,” he told the driver.

“You got money?”

“There are 223 kids about to be burned alive in that school. I need to help make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Buddy, I feel you, but I still got a mortgage to pay and children to feed, so unless you can pay me - .”

The Light knight stared into his eyes. One – two –

“My God, you’re an angel, aren’t you?”

“I prefer to be called a Light knight,” Jacob smirked.

The driver left the cab, kneeling all the while before the Light knight.

“Thank you for your righteousness. It will not be forgotten, and the High master will reward you for your kindness.”

The Light knight started down the road, a big smile on his face. Okay, so his job came with a few pleasant perks. He couldn’t complain. While the cabdriver began yelling toward all the passer-byers. “I saw an angel. There are angels here. I saw him. It’s not the end after all. It’s not the end.” And people just kept right on walking.