The Beholder (19 page)

Chapter 33

Jason awoke, and every cell of his body tingled. It was impossible to tell whether it was day or night, since any sunlight had been swallowed up by a massive black storm cloud.

They have killed again,
he thought, his brain working slowly through the throbbing pain in his temples.
Only one victim left.
The game, as Pariah had called it, had begun.

Jason untangled himself from the blanket and got up, feeling weak. He grabbed for Emily’s armchair to catch his balance, and noticed it was empty. He had to tell her what he’d seen. She’d know what to do. He stepped away, but the air in the room seemed to have been sucked out, and he couldn’t catch his breath.

“Emily!” he tried to scream, but only a hoarse whisper escaped his parched lips.

He staggered closer to the door, then stumbled across the room. Weak and dizzy, he tripped halfway across and ended up crawling to the chamber where he’d left Matt, Debbie, and William. He shoved the doors open, and saw to his horror that the chamber was empty.

“Emily?” he called. “Matt! Debbie! William! Emily!”

No one answered.

Then something exploded inside him and spread like wildfire through his body. That was the moment when he first saw fine silver lines floating in the air around him, appearing without anyone else’s influence. The strong silver light grew, filling the chamber, flooding the floor, the furniture, the ceiling … even traveling beyond.

It was the beginning. He closed his eyes and became aware of tiny bits of truth reaching out to him, flooding through channels unknown—or at least unknown by any ordinary person.

They could only be seen by a Sighted One.

Chapter 34

Jason opened his eyes when he heard the noise.

His neck was trapped in a cold vise, and someone held him firmly around the waist. Any movement hurt like hell. But the most disturbing thing of all was looking straight ahead and seeing
himself
standing there. It seemed to be a perfect image of what Jason wished he could be, though the image’s expression looked stunned, the eyes disbelieving.

The pain from the grip around his neck began to dull, allowing Jason to move his head slightly. The room looked familiar, but it was littered by scattered splinters of plastic and glass, making it unrecognizable.

He gasped when he saw Matt sprawled on the floor, and the grip on his neck doubled. Then he heard Emily’s voice, as if she were two steps away on the right. He wanted to reach for her, hold her, but couldn’t move.

Then she started to speak. Her voice was cold and hard. Lifeless. “Come forth, Pariah,” she said, making the hair stand up all over Jason’s body. “Finish what you began centuries ago. Come and wreak havoc over the world.”

At first Jason thought he was mistaken. It couldn’t be her. It was an outrageous mistake. When the vise loosened again he turned his head and saw her face.

It was Emily.

But this Emily was a stranger to him, a graven image of the merciless Dark Ones. Her complexion was of someone who had been dead for a long time, so different from the vital Emily he knew. But what if … No.

He was struck by a thought that he didn’t know the real Emily, and he never had. The Emily he had known had been a lie from the start.

And if that were true, then how could he possibly know who the Jason standing in front of him really was? It was surreal: being apart from his body, yet so close. Then again, it wasn’t all that different from the sensation he’d had before, when he’d been inside another person and seen himself standing at the side. But he had no time to dwell on that now. During this terrible hour, that was the least important matter.

Why? Why would the Dark Ones need Debbie? He remembered Damien glaring intently at her when he’d been trying to take one of their trio, after Emily and Tyler had killed one of the attackers. She meant something to him, but what?

The vise that held his neck tightened again, and Jason heard a low chuckle behind him. He suddenly knew it was Damien who held him there. The cold fingers slithered tighter and tighter around his neck, cutting off his air supply, and threatening to crack his spine.  Jason gave in to the pain and prayed for the dream to end.

His prayer was answered. Everything faded to black, and darkness enveloped him, but this time the darkness was made of cold water. He couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive, and toyed with the idea that perhaps he was somewhere in between. When he thought about it, he wasn’t all that afraid, only curious. It all seemed familiar for some reason. Not that he had seen it before, but … he had heard about it. Heard it from her.

He was going under, swirling through the darkness to a world where there was no pain.

***

Jason opened his eyes to a new world. His eyes, his skin, his mind, his soul—all of it reached out to touch the pulsing new reality that had seemed so unreal to him before. It couldn’t be a dream. What he saw was a hundred times clearer than what he’d seen in his fusions with Emily.

It wasn’t madness, either—though what an appealing form of madness it would be! Thin threads of light blue, red, and yellow swirled around him, filling his world with Energy. He became aware of a pillar of bright light, far more intense than the colorful threads, and realized it was his own aura—the aura of the Beholder.

Jason didn’t move, though everything around him did. He was painfully aware he had no control over what was happening and was afraid any movement might cause something terrible to happen. The outlines of the chamber became more clear as his Sight grew, and though it was still unstable it expanded steadily until he could see much farther beyond the chamber. Energy vibrated wildly around him, as if adjusting to the disruption he had caused by finally turning into the Beholder. Curious, he concentrated his thoughts on a particular person and endeavored to harness his new power.

Tyler.

Using his Sight, Jason started scanning the world for signs of Tyler. When those signs appeared, the sensation felt as natural as if he’d seen his friend in the flesh. He was far north and speeding towards him. As he stared into the distance, Jason could see and feel Tyler’s lightning-like approach. Now he found he could slow down the vision of Tyler’s crossing the ocean in several seconds, and see him from this chamber.

Jason took a step closer to the exit, and the world started vibrating. Still nervous, he moved cautiously, smiling to himself.

Adjusting to this reality will take time,
he thought.

To make sure he still could, Jason let himself return to his normal reality, hoping to get a little breather from his wild adventure. But the world to which he returned was a withered black-and-white picture, as entering the Sight had been like entering a magical world.

A picture flickered before his eyes: Matt lying motionless, Emily saying words that chilled his soul … and he entered the Sight again, sending a clear message to Tyler so he understood where he needed to go. Tyler’s eyes widened, then he abruptly changed his route.

“Message delivered,” Jason said quietly, smiling at his achievement.

He needed to return to the place where his story had begun. Seconds counted, even though he now knew how to make time slow down.

“Just believe you can do it. Believe that it’s possible,”
she had said.

But even with everything I can do now, I might be too late.
The Prophecy returned, clear as the words she’d originally shared, her small hand quivering over a hungry flame.

Death’s scythe, hanging over him,

Will not forget to slash at the crack of dawn.

Everything would be finished before the crack of dawn.

Jason scanned the room, remembering that he and Emily had originally entered the chamber through a door that led to a mysterious blackness. The Sight now provided him with the answer to that mystery. The blackness behind the door became a circle of swirling silver threads.
That must be the entrance,
Jason thought, stepping cautiously towards the silver light. As he did, the threads started to move faster, as though they were aware of his presence.

When he held out one hand, his fingers trembled, and a thrill shot through him.
I understand this. I am a part of this. I am of this world.

“There are different kinds of Energy, live and dead.”
Emily’s voice filled his head.

Why had she even bothered to tell him all this?

Holding his breath for courage, he reached forward and stroked the threads tentatively, and they gave him their warmth, tickling the tips of his fingers. His hand edged farther in, and Energy Threads sprung alive at the Beholder’s touch, welcoming him. Swallowing back his fears, he dove through, and found himself back in the dusty old room with overloaded shelves piled high with boxes. Jason was walking along the wide aisle, studying the rows, when he noticed the distances between the rows becoming shorter. As he sped up his steps, the rows started screeching, sliding closer together.

“Damn!” Jason exclaimed, thinking hard.

Emily had touched one of the boxes to transport them to the castle. But there were thousands of them, all alike. How could he possibly tell the difference? He grabbed one of the boxes at random, then realized he was still in the same room, holding a dusty box in his hand. What did
that
mean?

The distance between the aisles continued to shrink, and Jason realized the only way out was through the velvet vestibule with the candlelit archways. Still pulsing with the Sight, he broke into a run, scanning the shelves as he went. The door loomed at the end of the room—an ominous red, nothing like the dancing silver threads in the chamber. When he saw the red and put the facts together, he realized it made sense that the shelves were toppling towards him. Someone had blocked the entrance, wanting Jason to stay trapped forever.

Just as the shelves were about to crash, Jason reached the end of the aisle and stopped in front of the door. The red threads started hissing venomously when he reached his hand towards them, and he took it as a test for the Beholder. It was a laughable attempt to stop him, considering the force he had become. With confidence, he pressed his hands against the door, and it started to decompose, the threads sizzling at Jason’s touch. When it had weakened, he wrenched at the enfeebled bundle of threads and smashed the door with his fist, turning the obstacle into tiny fragments of useless wood.

The threshold shimmered with the symbols he had seen before. But now the incomprehensible words from before were a clear legend stretching the length of the corridor.

Never re-enter me if your designs are ill.

Never use the samples if you want them to serve you.

If your thoughts are ill, they will destroy you.

Interesting, but hardly a compelling reason for Jason to stop. The corridor had been treacherous before, and he wasn’t sure how it would behave now, but he had no time to weigh his options.

In the Sight, the velvet corridor looked different, more hypnotizing. Thin trails blurred through the space, apparently having been left by him and the others several hours before. Their edges were visible but indistinct, like fog dispersing without a breeze. The corridor was not unfriendly, but he knew it was too dangerous to step behind the veils. He also knew there was no time to find out what was behind the archways. Darkness stirred its tendrils towards Jason, and the light flickered in a warm breeze.

The wind,
he surmised,
is created by my presence.

He took a deep breath, then bolted through the corridor, shooting past with lithe, calculated movements. With every step he concentrated on each separate arch, collecting the contents of the dark spaces with his hyperactive mind. As he gathered the Energy from the vials, huge amounts of new Energy were released, setting off explosions in his wake. Exalted, reveling in the power that coursed through him, Jason ran faster, becoming more invincible with every step.

Finally the partition he’d waited for appeared on his left. The reflection of Jason’s dead self approached, its clammy hand extended to grab him, but Jason roared past, smashing the apparition with his fist without even looking. The slimy reflection couldn’t stand up to the force and shattered like a fragile glass statue. With that fear destroyed, crumbled into a pile of ash and dust, Jason lunged towards the exit.

Having collected all the samples of Energy along the way, it took no effort at all for Jason to open the entrance door, then seal it so all the raging Energy still inside the corridor couldn’t break loose. The door closed just in time, and Jason found himself in the vestibule overlapping the kitchen of McAlester’s. Leaning towards the door, he spotted more symbols shining at him.

There is no pure good, and no pure evil.

You may find unexpected things in places where you would never expect.

Emily had read those lines, understood their meaning so well, then had moved on without a drop of remorse.
How could she do this to all of us?

At the end of the velvet room a tiny sphere of Energy revolved slowly in mid-air. When he approached, the lightning ball shook and hissed, and Jason followed the urge to ask the thing to return him to the place he had known as the ordinary world. The vestibule vanished, and the empty kitchen came in sight. He made way for the door, stepped out of the empty building, then set eyes on a New York he had never seen before.

That was when he actually understood what it meant to be a Sighted. Before the Sight had come to him, his mind had concerned itself with small objects. Now his attention was riveted on the whole city, like a blast wave after a nuclear explosion as it sprawled and covered everything. It was amazing, standing still and letting his Sight wander, penetrating all physical obstacles and seeing farther than he ever had before. His gaze traveled through skyscrapers and saw through the murkiest corners of the Big Apple.

A few people wandered the streets, leaving barely visible Energy Trails, and he sensed the frozen auras of the Unsighted. He also sensed the wicked charges of dark Energy, seething and sinister, creeping through the streets at will. For the first time in his life Jason realized evil wasn’t just a word, but matter, strong and repulsive.

Densely concentrated amounts of evil announced the presence of the Legates and Mindbroken.
That’s how they found me,
he thought.
I’m as repulsive to them as they are to me.
Now they awaited him, perched expectantly by the hundreds on the ground, on buildings, seemingly everywhere.

The motorcycle stood where Jason had left it, near Debbie’s parked car. With everything else going on, Jason had completely forgotten about the vehicles, but now Emily’s words came back to him through the haze.

Right now it’s safer to ride a bike than fly, and you’ll need it again pretty soon anyway.