B008M2IEII EBOK Read online

  We walked across to the sidewalk to where two county police officers were talking to one of the firemen still wearing his full gear.

  “It’s pretty damn weird if you ask me. It looks like a gas leak but we don’t see a single sign of fire. Killed the home owner dead but his dog was untouched. This is a really strange one,” the fireman was reading from a small pad of paper.

  “You sure it was a gas leak, is there a single sign of scorching, no fire?”

  “What the hell else would it be? It blew every damn window out of the house, even the glasses in the cupboards were shattered into dust. It must have been one hell of a pressure wave, ain’t ever heard of anything like it and I’ve been doing this for twenty-five years. If you guys have a better explanation, I would love to hear it. Near as I can figure is the over pressure was so high that it simply blew any flames out.”

  “So there was just the one occupant in the home? No other bodies? No sign of forced entry? Nothing suspicious at all?” the officer had a look of disbelief.

  “One body, older gentlemen named,” the fireman looked down at his notes, “Ben Johnson, neighbor identified him as the owner of the home. Said he lived alone, lost his wife some time ago to cancer and was never quite the same according to the neighbor. No one thought he was suicidal but may want to note the possibility.”

  He looked back through his notes then closed the small notepad, “No sign of foul play so we are just going to rule it an accident at this point. Pretty sure the chief will want to take a look at the site but I can’t see him coming to a different conclusion. He may go suicide but from what the neighbors say the guy wasn’t despondent in any way.”

  “Ok. I’ll note it in my report. You guys want it locked down as a crime scene until your people have a chance to take a look?”

  “Probably should. Just on the off chance he wants to investigate more. I’m guessing he will want to take a look just because it’s so freakishly bizarre.”

  “Sounds like a good idea to me, knowing my sergeant he will probably want to take a peek too, this is damn strange. We’ll catch up with you before we lock it down but I think we can mark the incident as over.”

  The two officers walked back to their patrol cars while the fireman walked back toward the front door of the house.

  Erica and I walked away from the group so we could talk without being overheard.

  “Did you really do all of this from our driveway?”

  “It didn’t feel like this much but I knew something happened. I can’t feel anything not living so as far as I was concerned it was just he and I duking it out. I really need to sit down to do this. I’m still exhausted and feel like I’m going to throw up.”

  I sat down on the curb and leaned on my knees as I began to concentrate. I pushed carefully as small waves of nausea began in my stomach. Slowly my Darkness spread out from my core. Several times I needed to pause in order to keep from throwing up or falling over. I pushed around the crowds of neighbors and first responders. I found two firefighters inside the house but nothing else living. Mr. Black had escaped and I had no idea where he went. I pulled back and closed my eyes to rest.

  “He’s gone. I wish I could go inside and see if his cell phone is still there although it is probably in the same shape as mine.”

  “What would you do with it?”

  I thought about it for a moment and realized there was nothing I could do with it. If anything, it would make this entire incident that much more complex and probably result in questions I couldn’t or wouldn’t answer.

  “Nothing I guess. He is still out there but I actually beat him that time.”

  “You may have beaten him but it damn near killed you doing it. You look like death warmed over.”

  “Well I’m guessing I feel every bit as badly as you say I look. I wish I could send you to your sister’s house but I think he could find you pretty much anywhere you went. He is able to read into people far better than I can. He can get actual facts, names and things like that. I can’t even come close to doing anything like that so you are probably safer somewhere near me.”

  She looked at me with concern, “What does he want with me? Why would he be concerned about what I do and say?”

  “He wants all three of us, the baby too, he was pretty clear about that one.”

  Silver flashes in her Darkness with sprites of blue silver and green.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t let it happen. I know I can fight him now and I think I know how I can beat him the next time we meet. I have a feeling what you see here is nothing compared to the damage we will do the next time we meet. I’m sorry Honey, but I think I’m going to be blowing stuff up, a lot of stuff.”

  ~5~

  “Adam, you are so far beyond anything the Elders ever talked about I’m not sure how I can help you anymore. The things you are telling me aren’t even hinted at in the stories and as far as asking you to look at yourself, I apologize for that one. I have given it some pretty extensive thought and I think I understand why it happened.”

  “I should charge you for all the glass in my bathroom,” I said with a smile, “Any idea why that happened?”

  “Well before you send that bill, remember, I said look ‘at’ yourself, not ‘in’ yourself. Anyway, I have a guess but that is all. I think it is something similar to a feedback loop. Like when you place a microphone in front of a speaker, it will continue to loop and build until the speaker blows out.”

  “So if I continued, I would blow up?”

  “Not in the action movie manner I don’t think. But it would most definitely not end well for you. I would venture a guess that it would be fatal and probably quite dramatic for those around you.”

  “Note to self, don’t ever use your Darkness to look at yourself, check. Do you have any idea why only glass seems to be affected?”

  “Not really but I would venture a guess that it has something to do with its crystalline structure.”

  I ran my hands over the patches of moss on the stone table. The small woods around us were quiet in the still morning air. William was calm but I could see there were concerns as the sprites flashed and drifted around in his Darkness.

  “I’m sorry, Adam, it was bad advice on my part. Is there any other way I could continue to be of service to you?”

  “You can help me by giving me advice on what to do, William. How would I find this guy? Where would I find this guy? He may have powers that most people don’t but he is still a human. He is so pathological that there is no doubt that he will come for me or Erica soon. Can you help me get inside his head? Understand the way he thinks?”

  “It sounds as if you wounded him not only physically but mentally as well. He had gotten complacent in his defenses over the years having never run into someone like you. He wrongly assumed you would simply roll over and die like every other talent he has encountered. You said he called you a Sear?”

  “Yes. I was thinking he meant something like sear a soul maybe? You know like burn it?”

  William thought for several moments, “A Sear is also part of a weapon. He could see you and others like you as potential weapons that could be used against him. He really has nothing else to fear. Even if the authorities knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was the killer, there is absolutely no evidence to convict let alone any force that could arrest and hold him. At the most he would be inconvenienced but even that would be a stretch. He quite easily took care of the one officer that got in his way and I would imagine an army of them would still not be enough.”

  “Why shoot him though? It doesn’t seem to fit his style at all. He is too well dressed, clean. Using a gun seems almost dirty for how clean cut he is.”

  “Actually, it fits quite well. It sounds like he had his killings already planned out. Remember, pathological killers like it organized and predictable. If he already had the next souls picked out, then the police officer was going to require him to alter his plans. Killing him with a gun wouldn’t upset his psych
otic applecart and he can continue as if the plan had not been interrupted.”

  “Any thoughts on why he saves a Sear for the last kill?”

  “I would guess it feeds his ego. A narcissistic psychopath is going to need his ego stroked. He doesn’t get the credit in the media like most serial killers crave. But he does get to see it in his last kill. I would imagine the people he chooses to kill last in the city have some brief idea of what is going on and that feeds him nicely enough. They can understand his power and that in turn feeds his desire for fame.”

  “What do you suggest I do?”

  “Prepare, practice, explore. I say the last one with caution though. I would hate to see another bathroom type incident. As far as this Mr. Black goes, he will rest for a while but he will be back and stronger. He will not make the same mistake twice. He fears you now to some extent although he may not be honest with himself about it. He will use different methods and not be so brazen with you next time. His own ego nearly got him killed at your neighbor’s house. Had you been any stronger you could have defeated him then and there and he knows it, regardless of how he couches it to himself. He isn’t going to let his guard down next time.”

  “So what you are telling me is to prepare for what I don’t expect to happen and that whatever he does he will be expecting the same from me.”

  “That about sums it up, Adam. I really wish I could say more but you are in new territory for me and I have nothing.”

  “This little ability of mine is really starting to feel like a curse again.”

  ~6~

  I continued to practice different methods of mastering the Darkness and exploring new ways to use it. Lake Washington had grown far too small for me to use for training and I had since moved on to the Puget Sound. Even that was beginning to prove too small for training anymore and I found myself trying to reach the top floors of buildings I could see in Seattle. One amusing training tool I used was to pick a person and random and see how far I could follow them. If I locked onto a person, it seemed that I could follow them indefinitely. I couldn’t tell distance very well but I could get an exact direction.

  Another trick I had learned was how to mask myself much like the people I had watched in the past. I could stand in the middle of the mall and person after person would run into me because they simply didn’t notice me. I wasn’t invisible to those that paid attention, but to people going about their day to day lives I didn’t even seem to exist. Mr. Black had to be doing something similar. I imagine I could carefully touch people and keep from being seen but I don’t think I could handle more than two or three at the most and it would feel like a huge invasion for me to do something of that nature.

  The one thing I was unable to do was to figure out how to react to a push. How the Darkness coming back on me might be prevented or deflected. I got much better at feeling the Darkness around me but absolutely nowhere on how to protect myself. When I was attacked before I had somehow allowed it to simply pass through me but I have no idea how I did it or if I would be able to do it again if I need to. It felt as if I was turning the Darkness but I couldn’t figure out how I did it.

  It had been nearly two weeks since Ben had been killed and I hadn’t seen or felt Mr. Black. I had replaced my cellphone but kept the same number but even so, not one single call from him. I could picture him seething with anger at what I had done to him. He would want to hurt me in the worst way before he actually stripped my soul away. He was out there waiting. I just didn’t know what for. I tried on numerous occasions to search out from the city but it would rapidly get overwhelming. Thousands or tens of thousands of swirling masses of black-mercury was simply too much for me to cope with. Too much information coming at me from all directions, like having a crowd all shout in your ears at once.

  It was completely up to him when and where we would meet next and I was simply not powerful enough to change that. I wanted to bring the fight to him on my terms but that wasn’t going to happen.

  ~7~

  “Good job on dinner tonight, Honey. The macaroni in the macaroni and cheese was perfect. I also love what you did with the French bread too, simply amazing.”

  “You mean bake it?” she looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “Oh, is that what you did? My yes! Baked, just like the finest macaroni and cheese restaurants of Paris! Tres magnifique! It reminds me of my younger days when I worked as a cobbler working the sidewalk cafes of Paris.”

  She laughed out loud then stopped abruptly.

  “Is there something wrong, Honey? I was just joking with you, I’m sorry if took it the wrong way.”

  “It’s not that at all. Adam, I think my water just broke,” she looked at me with concern, “It’s too early. I’m not due for another two weeks.” Tears began to form as she looked at me.

  “It’s OK. We have been practicing for this day. Doc said she was big and would probably be early. It’s absolutely nothing to be concerned about, OK? You head out to the car and make yourself comfortable and I will phone the doctor. I’ll get your bag and be out in a flash. We have practiced this and gone over it many times. It’s nothing new and nothing to be worried about, OK?”

  “OK,” she said sounding unconvinced.

  Ripples of blue with sprites of red. Curls of deep red roll out from the center.

  “Really Erica, everything is just fine. Do you want me to—,” she answered me before I could finish the question.

  “No!” She held her hands up as if she going to push me away, “Don’t you relax me. I’m fine, really. I’ll be out in the car,” she smiled at me then slowly walked out the front door.

  I pulled up the doctor’s home phone on my cell and he picked up on the third ring. I informed him of her water breaking and that we would be heading down to the hospital, “No Doc, she didn’t say she had any contractions yet so it’s still pretty early, I think we have lots of time.”

  The doctor agreed and said he would meet us at the hospital within the hour, “I’ll meet you there then and we can see about introducing you folks to your new baby girl.”

  The line went dead and I dropped my phone into my chest pocket. With her overnight bag and her jacket, I headed for the front door. I couldn’t believe how calm I was knowing that we would meet our baby girl in a few short hours.

  ~1~

  Erica had been in labor for nearly seven hours when Carol finally decided to make her appearance. I couldn’t see over the small screen they had set up but when they handed the newly swaddled baby over the top of it my jaw dropped. I had never seen a Darkness so new, so untouched and untainted. So clean. It was a smoky blue gray and positively glowed. I was speechless as they handed her to me. For the first time in my life I saw beauty in the Darkness, untouched by the evils of man, untainted by the greed in life. Simply stunning.

  The brilliant silver-ish blue-white Darkness rolled and flashed with sprites of blue and green. Golden lining rolled and pulses as she looked around the room. Tiny tendrils form and fade in random patterns.

  Her Darkness pulsed and ebbed with random flashes of color in the silver mercury. Tendrils flexed and folded as Carol let out her first cry. She continued to cry as she looked around the room. The lights were too bright and the sounds too sharp, the world too open and unconfined. When I spoke her face took on a look of surprise. Her icy blue eyes struggle to focus on the face with the familiar sounding voice. The Darkness flowing around her so new, free and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  Pure. That is the description I was looking for. Untouched, untainted by what the world has to throw at her. Nothing had tarnished the smoky life essence.

  She continued to cry until I pushed out to her ever so gently and calmed her Darkness. I pushed on the blues and greens and coaxed more of the silver and golds. She stills and stares into my eyes with a look of new wonder. Looking at the Darkness I can actually see the father-daughter bond as it is created. She is responding to my own Darkness.

  I laid her
down on Erica’s chest. They were completely exhausted after hours of labor. It took less than two minutes for both to fall into a deep and restful sleep. Several orderlies eased the brakes off of the bed and rolled the two of them back down the long corridor to her private room.

  With her bed locked in place in her room, I pulled the blinds closed and sat down on the chair next to her bed. The large recliner next to her bed doubled as a sleeping sofa and I leaned back comfortably as I started in on a new book. I was barely two pages in before I started feeling the heaviness of my eyelids.

  At some point I had drifted off to sleep myself and was awoken when the nurse came in to get the baby.

  She saw she had awoken me and spoke in a whisper, “Sorry to wake you, Mr. Carter. I’m just taking her down to the nursery for a few standard checks, nothing to be concerned about. Your wife will need her rest. I’ll bring her back in a few hours and we’ll see about mom’s first feeding.” She carefully placed our baby in a small Plexiglas topped cart and added another layer of blankets.

  I walked around the bed and whispered back, “Am I able to view her in there or is that something that isn’t done anymore?”

  “Of course you can,” she said with a smile. “You will want to go out the door here, follow the hallway to your left, take your second right and go down that hallway a short distance.”

  She smiled at me once again and wheeled baby Carol out of the room, the door silently closing behind her

  I read for another ten minutes but decided I wanted to watch Carol sleep. The long corridor was empty as I made my way down to the nursery viewing window. Being lunchtime, there were very few people around to be seen, the few I did see were eating at their desks and reading or catching up on email.

  I stood outside the nursery for about fifteen minutes before the same nurse pushed the small cart into the room. She waved and although her mouth was hidden by the blue paper mask her eyes showed her honest smile. I watched through the large glass window as she carefully placed Carol in the small heated basinet. She took extra care not to wake Carol and added several more blankets. The nurse smiled at me again and with a wave she walked out the door to the left side of the room, pulling it closed behind her.