The Beholder (5 page)

Chapter 8

The three friends spent the rest of the day at Debbie’s place, trying to find an alternative version to their horrible assumptions, or at least some answers to their questions. But hard as they searched, they unearthed no more clues.

Debbie drew up a table containing the ‘Fear Me Jason’ message, with each letter marked as either ‘killed’ or ‘abducted,’ based on the newspaper reports. Opposite the last letter ‘N’ she added a question mark, which she outlined.

As evening fell, Jason gazed out the open window, enjoying the refreshing breeze as it fanned his face. So pleasant after the day’s intolerable heat. A few tiny stars twinkled in the twilight sky—calm, normal, at odds with everything that was going on in his life.

“How about we call it a day,” Matt suggested. “If I stay with you two pessimists another second, I’ll go crazy.”

Jason nodded. “Agreed.”

The men got to their feet, and Debbie jerked her head up. “Are you going?” She stopped embellishing the question mark with its multitude of tiny replicas, dropped her pen, and stood with them. “Please don’t leave. I’m scared to be alone.”

Matt chuckled. “You’re a big girl, Debbie,” he said, his voice soothing. “You’ll be all right. No one’s going to come here.” He offered her a hug for comfort, and she sank into his arms, eyes closed.

Slightly uncomfortable, Jason cleared his throat. “Um, to be honest, I don’t really feel like going home. I could spend the night here, if you want.”

Debbie stepped away from Matt, her face glowing with relief. “Thank you, Jason. Matt, please don’t leave. I have pizza, and we can watch a movie. I’ll get the two guest rooms ready.”

Matt raised his hands in surrender. “Okay. I give up.”

“I think I’ll go take a shower first, then join you two,” Jason said.

“Sure,” Debbie replied. “Towels are under the sink. Meanwhile I’ll get pizza and beer out.”

“I’ll help you,” Matt said, then winked at Jason, who gave him a wan smile in return before heading to the bathroom.

An unfriendly reflection in the mirror greeted Jason. Exhaustion had taken its toll; the dark circles under his eyes and the short growth of stubble made him look twice his age. He turned away and hurriedly undressed, then stepped into a steaming shower. In those brief moments under the water’s spray he slipped away into a reverie, enjoying the sensation of his tense muscles relaxing with the heat.

Returning to the real world, Jason toweled himself dry, and dressed. He opened the door and heard Matthew’s cheerful voice mingling with Debbie’s laughter. When he arrived downstairs in the living room, they were sitting beside each other on the couch, engrossed in a comedy.

At the sight of pizza and beer, Jason’s stomach produced a mutinous gurgling, which was thankfully drowned out by more laughter. He grabbed a piece—fully loaded, he noticed—took a bite and washed it down with cold beer. Soon his stomach was full and his body relaxed, sprawled in the armchair.

Night settled over the city while the trio sat in front of the TV, enjoying themselves. It was a brief escape, and they knew it. Part of Jason’s mind remained alert at all times, but he was glad he and Matt had stayed at Debbie’s. He didn’t want to be alone, either. And it was almost time for sleep—a time he had come to dread—but he was far too tired to fight it.

Before going to bed he kissed Debbie on the cheek and wished her sweet dreams. She smiled and did the same for him.

Matt clapped on Jason’s shoulder, trying to cheer him up. “Maybe you’ll dream of hot babes for a change.”

Jason grinned. “That’d be awesome.”

The trio headed to their separate rooms, and after Jason had closed the door, he exhaled deeply. No more pretending. Behind his mask of calm, panic and fear ruled. He was trapped within a whirling chaos of mysteries, and the farther he went along this path, the worse the situation became. And now his friends were involved, which meant they might also be at risk.

He undressed and collapsed onto the soft bed, trying to extinguish every thought in his head. Unfortunately, that only stirred up new thoughts.

His connection to the disappearances and killings repulsed him, yet he couldn’t doubt the evidence. Digging up further facts would be dangerous, but he thought of the letter which had somehow made its way into his apartment, and realized he had no choice. To someone his mind was an open book, and the idea of being someone’s puppet disgusted him.

Jason closed his eyes, longing for a few hours of undisturbed sleep—blackness with no dreams. His eyelids felt as if they were weighed down with metal, and he didn’t resist the sweet feeling of drifting away.

Then something in his mind clicked, screaming at him that he was being deliberately dragged into sleep. Dread rushed through him as the blackness advanced on him from all sides, transforming the room into an almost unrecognizable mass of blurred patches. He tried to fight back, but it was all in vain.

God, no!
he pleaded. Splinters of previous nightmares flashed before his eyes, memories of infusing his mind into someone else’s, of the incredible tension that made him fear his head would explode. Then the pain receded, and reality disappeared.

***

He was running through a corridor. Doors. Offices. Another corridor. Dim streaks of light hid the truth of where he was, but each area was projected with the help of glinting lines, giving shape to everything.

No, he wasn’t running, he realized. He was
in
the runner.

The place felt familiar, but he couldn’t put a finger on where he was. The speed of motion heightened until he couldn’t manage to register any details, and he traveled with the runner, going upstairs, then downstairs, then back upstairs while the darkness altered between feeble light and none at all. The pattern repeated again and again.
They
bolted upstairs using the fire escape, launching a one-second ascent—apparently the elevator was too slow—then finally stopped.

A small plaque near the door said
Floor 24
. Suddenly Jason realized why his surroundings looked so familiar: he was inside the Evelyn & Laurens building, but everything felt different. He was used to the place being a busy, noisy anthill, not the creepy cemetery it became at night. The body carrying him entered Jason’s empty office and glided across the room without making a sound, approaching his workplace to rummage through the papers on his desk.

Jason felt indignant at the trespassing. Whoever this was, they had no right to go through his things, and they obviously had no respect for Jason’s belongings. After a minute or two, his papers had been scattered all over the office, the drawers turned upside down until the intruder found what he sought—Jason’s ID card. With a photo.

A whooshing sound whispered behind his back, and the door creaked.

Someone else was here.

The room turned briefly from dark to light as the person Jason inhabited scanned it. Then, willingly or unwillingly, the trespasser left the office and broke into a run, moving faster with every step. Jason reeled with motion sickness as he struggled in this unpredictable race against invisible danger. Again they ran down corridors and staircases, in darkness bordering on dimly lit passages. Though out of breath, he kept running, and Jason realized he wasn’t familiar with this part of the building. His host, however, was. Out of a number of unmarked doors, he opened one without even looking at it. A mirror on the wall gave an overall view of the room. It was a lavatory. A
ladies
restroom.

Unlike the rest of the building, this room was well lit. The person darted a cautious glance at the far end of the room, even checked under the stall doors to see if anyone else was there, but everything appeared to be empty and safe. They came to the middle of the room, turned to the mirror, and Jason saw a woman’s face.

It was the first time he’d seen a person’s face in his dreams—since he was looking in the mirror he knew it was technically
his
face, and yet it was the face of another person. A tsunami of fascination swept over him as the woman examined her own reflection. What stunned him most wasn’t that the body belonged to a woman, but the fact of how beautiful that woman was. The mirror, the reflection … it couldn’t be right.

She closed her eyes to regain her composure, and panic welled within Jason. He was suddenly terrified their connection might break, that he would never see her face again.

“Open your eyes!”
he begged silently.
“Please, open your eyes!”

The girl unknowingly complied with his desperate plea, and Jason, with no time to lose, examined her face more closely. She was truly beautiful, in a simple, natural way that captivated him. Her dark brown hair had been combed back and tied into a knot, and he watched with fascination as she untied it and let it roll down her shoulders, fringing her face like a lion’s mane. The color was several shades darker than her rich amber eyes, which were framed by long black lashes.

Strangely, Jason had trouble believing such a girl could have been drawn into a situation involving violence and death.

A thought came to him out of nowhere:
She knows why I see the dreams.

The girl heaved a sigh, looking sad, but at least she’d recovered her breath. In that instant, her peripheral vision caught a subtle movement in the back of the room. Her eyes widened, and the nostrils of her straight, short nose flared. She had barely turned her head when someone’s hand gripped her hair from behind and smashed her head against the mirror. Her body slid slowly down the cold wall to the tile floor since her weakened hands were unable to cling to the sink. Jason couldn’t see the assailant, but he sensed the somber, intangible presence in the room.

So this is the end,
Jason thought miserably. The girl was going to die. Just like the others.

A hoarse voice cut the echoing silence like a knife. “I’ve been waiting for you for quite a while, Emily. You’re playing a dangerous game, meddling in things that are beyond you. Tell me. Why are you doing this?”

Emily lay facedown on the floor, still bleeding heavily from her brow. Jason couldn’t see the man, but knew he was lurking somewhere at the back of the restroom.

Her hands shook, and she clutched at them to suppress the nervous tremor. When she answered, her voice was strong, confident. As if she hadn’t just been slammed against a wall.

“The Prophecy says I’ll find him,” she said. “And not even you will hinder me.”

The pain both he and Emily were feeling suddenly dispersed and seeped through the floor, then was replaced by a flood of warmth and a blanketing sense of security. With effort, she got up, but when she turned to face her attacker, Jason couldn’t see who it was. An aura of thick blackness settled around the unknown danger like smoke without a breeze, concealing his face.

“The
Prophecy
?” A note of mockery stained the word. “I do not give credit to that. It’s not even important if there’s one word of truth in it. You still hope he’ll come and save you all? From me?” The voice was calm and confident, framed by a jeering edge.

“You’re not afraid? Then why do you hide your face?” she demanded.

The shadow laughed, a low, forbidding sound that bounced around the tile walls. “I do not hide.” He took a step closer, and Emily dutifully retreated. “It’s a game I’m going to win, Emily. The rules are simple. Your part is to watch me kill your savior. And now, since I know he is watching and listening while you and I have this heart-to-heart talk, he knows, too. Why are you doing this? You know it’s a dead end.”

“I proclaimed the Prophecy, Pariah. I’m not afraid of you. You won’t be able to kill me because the Beholder will come, and the Darksighted will have to hide from him.”

She wrenched at her inner pocket, reaching for something, then bolted aside when a deafening roar blasted the room. The remaining sections of the mirror and chunks of wall tile broke off in a shower of razor-edged splinters, and though Jason tried to readjust his vision and mind, everything happened too fast. The storm of sound rolled over him so quickly that he understood what was happening only after several pieces had ripped into the girl’s flesh. Pain blurred her sight, and everything was smashed by the thunderous lash of the creature’s whip.

The girl startled Jason with her swiftness. Everything moved fast forward—very, very fast. The evil lashes struck everywhere, yet the girl managed to dodge them. Hope swelled in Jason’s chest, hope that she would escape this assassin. She couldn’t die—not yet. The girl was Jason’s only hope of finding out the truth. She was going to make it. She was—

The lash whistled past her left ear with a painful swish—

Jason awoke with a jerk, hand pressed against the ear that should have hurt. But it didn’t. The dream was over, and the pain nonexistent.

At least … to him.

Chapter 9

At first, Jason didn’t recognize the room. His eyes flicked from place to place, unsuccessfully searching for an anchor, something familiar to which he could relate. A bead of perspiration trickled down his forehead in an irregular line, and he wrapped his arms around his stomach, afraid he was about to be sick.

This is insane!
was all he could think. He’d seen this girl before, in a dream. She’d been in the tunnel, fleeing for her life—
had she been running from him?
—then he’d seen her lying on the ground, convulsing in pain. Now she’d reappeared, very much alive, and this time he’d seen her face. It was the same girl. Jason was sure.

What was going on? How was any of this possible?

Could he be seeing the future as Matt had said?

Matt.
The thought of his friend brought him back to the present, and the lines of Debbie’s guest room slid back into place. Slowly the rolling waves of nausea ebbed away, enabling Jason to shift his position. But the slight action made him realize that if he moved any further, pizza and beer would be out in no time.

She’s there right now.

There was absolutely no reason for it, no evidence at all to support his decision to leave, but deep in his soul Jason knew the girl was still there, fighting for her life in the restroom at Evelyn & Laurens. Fighting nausea, he swung his legs to the side of the bed and scrambled into his clothes, then paused at the front door, considering his friends. They would want to know what was going on, but he didn’t want to get them into trouble. On impulse he scooped his car keys off the coffee table and tiptoed out of the house. He needed to get to Evelyn & Laurens as soon as possible.

He reversed down the drive and shifted gears, anticipation making his palms slick with sweat. This would be his first real opportunity to find out exactly what was going on. Jason slammed his foot on the accelerator and sped through the night towards the blazing lights of New York City.

The girl’s face hovered stubbornly in his mind.
Ten or fifteen minutes max,
he thought. Then I’ll be there with her.
But what if that isn’t fast enough?

He had no idea what he was getting himself into. Not really. What if her image was bait and the Shadows were tricking him into coming to his death?

No.
The pain was real. She needed him.

Jason pushed the car to its limit, reaching the city in record time. Once he arrived, he found that because of the late hour, traffic was unusually quiet. The E&L building was straight ahead. Not too long now.

He drew closer to the building, but he was forced to brake hard as several cars in front made a sudden U-turn. He glanced in his rearview mirror when screeching sounds came from behind, and he saw the cars behind him were turning as well. In fact, every vehicle but his was headed in the opposite direction to the one in which he was going.

Jason squeezed his steering wheel hard, as if it could help him grasp what was going on. He stopped at a red light and rolled down his window so he could watch the passersby. From what he could see, it seemed everyone had decided to launch an exodus from New York. In an eerie, synchronized motion, people trudged silently along the sidewalk, their expressions smoothed into apathy, their eyes lackluster.

The way was suddenly clear of traffic, the empty streets silent, colored only by the blink of changing traffic lights. The entire situation gave Jason the creeps. Before long the imposing E&L building loomed over him, and he braked sharply, leaving a smeared line of rubber behind. When he turned the key and shut down the engine, the silence around him was terrifying. A pressure all on its own. Jason climbed out of the car and looked around, confused. The slam of his car door was sharp as a gunshot. In front of him, the black windows of Evelyn & Laurens stared like blind eyes. Not a single light shone in the whole place. Not a single sound, other than his own footfalls.

It is too still. Too silent.

As Jason was about to take another step, he reconsidered, one leg in mid-air. A humming noise had started in the distance, conspicuous against the rest of the silence, and it grew steadily, reminding Jason of a supersonic train getting closer and closer. And it was coming in his direction.

Within seconds the humming reached its peak, working its way to a painful screech, and Jason braced himself. It was a sound that could only end with something big. When the explosion went off, illuminating the E&L building, there was nothing he could do. A violent blast wave whisked him away like a moth in the wind, and he dropped to the ground with a grunt. Cowering in a fetal position, Jason stared up at the inferno, incredulous. White blue flames enveloped the middle section of the skyscraper, and while he stared in disbelief, the fire sliced the structure in half.

Though he’d been blown safely away from the building, he still needed some kind of shelter. He struggled to his feet and raced to his car, battling dizziness from his recent flight. It seemed the whole world was on fire, raging with flames.

Despite the ravenous heat reaching for him, a cold certainty gripped Jason, making goosebumps rise along his arms.
The dream was true. The girl was there, in the flames.

The searing light burned his vision, but Jason stared up at the blazing building, wondering what to do. Fire reflected in his eyes as the blood-red tongues licked the iron framework of Evelyn & Laurens.

His gaze was drawn ever upwards, following the flames as they rose, then the iridescent cloud of glass and plastic dust swirling leisurely downwards. And Jason saw two figures hovering in the air, descending smoothly towards the ground.

Even at such a distance it was possible to tell one from the other. The girl looked tiny and fragile beside the ominous, smoke-wrapped shadow of Pariah. The two landed on the ground twenty feet away, and froze in place. Jason didn’t move. He didn’t even blink—though his eyes watered from the smoke and tension— but it became increasingly hard to stay still as his body began to itch all over. He put all his effort into suppressing the violent urge to scratch.

The girl was the first to move, lunging forward so fast that her silhouette blurred. She thrust her hand forward, and a flash of blinding white light shot in the enemy’s direction. The shadow dodged the ray, and in that motion his black frame turned to light so intense that Jason’s eyes hurt. In the next second the girl was wrapped in liquid light, and both figures soared into the sky. Flashes illuminated the clouds, and whenever the two blazing dots came too close to each other, they were surrounded by opalescent spheres.

Jason sprang aside just in time as one of the rays shot in his direction and hit his car. A deafening explosion followed, hurling him several meters away. Jason staggered back to his feet and surveyed his ruined vehicle, then stared back up at the spectacle in the sky. The figures spun in a horrific, yet beautiful
danse macabre
, the swirling lights spinning as if choreographed to music.

Then everything stopped. The skyscrapers, the pavement, and the sky flared white, turning chalky and unusually perfect for several moments. The perfection was followed by an ear-splitting crash of breaking glass as every window in range shattered. Darkness fell like a heavy curtain, broken only by a bright sphere as it descended from the sky and burned directly towards Jason at an alarming rate. Jason stood rooted to the spot, stupefied by the impending collision. He clenched his fists as the rumbling and whistling of the approaching ultrafast sphere grew louder, but just when Jason assumed the impact was inevitable, the noise stopped. The sphere dissolved before his eyes, sending sprouts of light underground as if they were liquid leaking through a sieve.

Then she appeared, and Jason felt as if a wave of warmth had washed over him. Pale and exhausted, her clothes torn to rags, the girl stumbled towards him, oblivious to the blood spilling down her forehead.
Emily,
the creature had called her.

Jason stared, speechless, as the person whose mind he had shared came towards him in the real, physical world. Her eyes gleamed with amusement when she saw how he squirmed.

“We need to get away before he regains his power,” she said at last, her voice breathless. She pointed at a motorcycle standing by the curb—behind the pile of scrap metal which had been his car minutes earlier. “We’ll take my bike.”

He climbed up behind her on the electric blue Honda and took a last glance at E&L’s neighboring skyscraper as Emily peeled off into the street. Near the top of the building he saw a black circle scorched by the other sphere, then saw a tiny figure when it appeared in front of the circle. The Shadow was no longer hidden within a blanket of black smoke, but he was still too far for Jason to discern his face. The enemy cast two deadly lashes upwards so that they clung to the walls of the building, then he climbed onto the roof of the skyscraper and vanished into the night.

***

From the moment she’d let loose and destroyed the walls of the restroom until this moment, when the Evil One had frozen in mid-air, only one question flashed in her mind:
Will he come?

Soaring around the peaks of buildings, she could feel Jason’s ungovernable, raging energy pulsing into the sky. There was no doubt in her mind that the pillar of blinding light below belonged to the Beholder.
He is here.

Pariah sensed his presence as well, and his ravenous eyes shifted between Emily and Jason. When the Beholder was in such a volatile state, he was the most vulnerable, so easy to destroy, so she’d have to do everything she could to protect him. But Pariah was a skilled fighter. Their battle weakened her, and his charges scratched and stung relentlessly, but she couldn’t give up. If even one strike broke through her shield, she would be dead.

She had one chance to survive. She would have to use the power of which the enemy knew nothing: love.

Jason’s image swam into her mind, and the knowledge of what she must do empowered her, producing a dazzling wave, her most spectacular punch ever. It struck Pariah in his chest and threw him like a mote of dust, but it also took much of her energy with it. Without losing a precious moment, she darted downwards, streaking towards the ground, diving towards Jason.

She landed without effort, transforming instantly into her regular human form. In that moment the pain rushed in, and she stumbled towards Jason. The luminous veil lifted as she returned to the ordinary world, and she saw his silhouette looming in the dark. She was so close. Just a few more steps and she would see what was hidden beyond his light. Then she froze, forgetting her pain. His sky-blue eyes looked expectantly at her, waiting for some kind of answer. Though she was about to collapse, though her heart pounded, she managed to maintain a calm countenance.

I’ve found you,
she thought, and smiled weakly. For a heartbeat she forgot about the Evil One, still lurking and still dangerous, spying on them from above. Then her instincts returned.

“We need to get away before he regains his power,” she told Jason, her voice shaking a bit.

She was afraid. She’d been afraid of so many things for so long, but this was the most paralyzing fear of all. The possibility that she might lose the person she had sought for so long terrified her to the marrow of her bones.