Authors: Nic Widhalm
Finally, a block from their sudden appearance, Karen turned into a darkened entrance and rapped on a stout metal door. A quiet moment passed where Hunter heard nothing more than the soft murmur of cars in the distance, then the door opened.
“Yes?” A man in stylish black glasses asked.
Karen swept back her thick hair, revealing the twisty arches of the glyph nestled under her left ear. The man’s eyes widened and he stepped back, ushering Karen and Hunter through the door. Passing through the entry, the man led them up a long flight of stairs, past two closed doors, and finally to a third at the end of the hall. Pulling a key from his pocket he unlatched the knob and said, “Take as much time as you need. I’ll call a car so…thirty minutes, maybe? Let me know if you need anything.” Karen nodded, and the man smiled with adoration. Backing down the small hallway, the man disappeared down the stairs, his eyes never leaving Karen. Hunter looked at Karen quizzically and followed her through the opened door and into a small, lavish room. It was compact, but opulent, complete with two love seats, an impressively slim TV, and a petite refrigerator nestled in the corner.
Karen sighed. “Looks like we have some time to kill.” Taking a seat, she opened the fridge and drew out a club soda and an energy drink. She tossed the club soda to Hunter and took a long swig from her drink. “So,” she said. “Tell me something interesting.”
“Uh….” Hunter lowered himself slowly into the love seat across from Karen. He wondered if he would ever get used to the nonchalance these people showed the supernatural. “Well…that was my first teleportation.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, pretty sure. That stuff has a way of sticking with you.”
Karen laughed. “You don’t say. My first time was right in the middle of a make-out session with Tommy Summersberg. One second I’m locking braces, the next—pow! Middle of a hayfield a mile from home.
Hunter blinked. “Jesus. How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
“How did Tommy take it?”
“Not bad, all things considered,” Karen laid her head back, a small smile on her lips. “He told his parents I wasn’t Jewish, and he was never allowed to see me again. Pretty clever for a kid that age, don’t you think?”
Hunter agreed, taking a sip from his club soda. His fingers spasmed as he lowered the drink, and he had to catch the can with both hands to keep from dropping it on the floor. “So, is that how it works, then?” He asked. “You just…wish for it?”
“Something like that.”
“Pretty handy. I could think of a few uses.”
Karen gave him a slow, seductive wink, then said brightly, “Like running from the cops?”
Hunter blushed. “Yeah. I guess. Thanks for that, by the way…the running part I mean.”
“Comes with the job.” Karen took another swallow from her energy drink. “Won’t work like that for you, though. The running. Powers have different gifts.”
“You mean strangling hospital attendants?” Hunter stared at his club soda, willing his hands to stop shaking.
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Not funny.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be.”
Hunter sighed, then changed the subject: “So, that guy who let us in…” He left the question unspoken, hoping Karen would take the hint. But she merely took another drink and continued to watch Hunter with those distracting eyes. Finally, she said, “So, fair’s fair. What about your first time?”
“Uh…?” Hunter frowned. “You mean with my—”
“Yeah.”
Hunter paused. In the silence memories came bubbling to the surface, and, for the first time in his life, Hunter found himself
wanting
to share them. He had never been able to talk with Adrianna about his childhood, and he hadn’t had any friends growing up to share secrets with. So now, confronted with the question he had been waiting over a decade for someone to ask him—which was something of a shock since Hunter hadn’t been aware that he was waiting for the question—he didn’t know where to start.
“Start at the beginning,” Karen said.
The beginning
, he thought.
Can I even remember that far?
Much of his childhood was obscured by the fog of time that affected everyone. But for Hunter it was considerably worse. The truth was, he didn’t remember the beginning
at all
. Not a bit. Everything before the age of seven was a complete blank in Hunter’s mind. He had never given it much thought; up until now he had just chalked it up to the idiosyncrasies of childhood.
The beginning
.
What he did remember was the family dog—Cabbage-breath. Many of Hunter’s memories revolved around that dog—who his father referred to as “one step away from the sausage factory,” though he used to sneak the dog treat’s when he thought Hunter wasn’t looking—and the adventures they had shared. Memories that were surely idealized by time. As a grown man he couldn’t give much credence to recollections of Cabbage pulling a small child out of a well, or fighting off a bear so Hunter could steal its honey.
But he did remember how she died, and that seemed as good a place to start as any.
He had been eight—
or maybe nine, or ten?—
on the morning of Cabbage’s death. They had been playing in the front yard, Hunter’s attention divided between the pleasure of throwing Cabbage’s ball, and looking anxiously down the road for the tell-tale signs of his dad’s blue Chevy. The moment he saw that plume of dust, Hunter would have to scramble back inside to avoid getting his tail tanned for being so close to the road. It was probably due to his inattention that Hunter threw the ball so far, and Cabbage flew across the yard and into the street to retrieve it.
“That’s where it started, I think,” Hunter said, reliving the tale for Karen. “I remember her running across the road and I’m screaming my little lungs out, just scared out of my mind, and then—I don’t know. I black out.”
“Just…black out?”
“Yeah,” Hunter said distractedly, knowing even as he said it that there was more to the story. Something he refused to see as a child, and was only now coming to terms with. A change in the sky, a strange noise in the distance—a clash of steel.
Deep in his gut, Hunter felt the sickening truth boiling up through years of repression. He saw with agonizing clarity his arm pulled back, the ball about to fly through his hands, and the sudden cacophony of alien sounds and screams springing out of nowhere. He let the ball fly, blinded by the noise, the stink of something charred reaching his nostrils, and then his vision cleared just in time to see Cabbage collide with the van racing down the road. His newly-awakened memory exploded with color, as Hunter witnessed his younger self scream an agonizing cry—
did it echo the alien keens?—
and fall to his knees against a red-tinged sky.
Hunter, eyes wide, shook his head. “That was it. I didn’t remember any of it.”
Karen, silent through his recollection, scooted across the couch and placed her hand on his. “It’s normal.”
“What’s happening to me?” Hunter asked, his voice small and hurt. The echo of a boy.
“You’re rising.”
Hunter looked at Karen, who was smiling in an easy, consoling manner. Something beneath her gaze, though, squirmed darkly. A tinge of black in the sea of green. “What happened next?” She asked.
“I…uh…” Hunter searched his memory, probing it carefully like a new tooth. “I guess when my dad came home I told him what happened. He tanned my ass and that was the end of it.”
Karen leaned close, her eyes boring into Hunter. “But the strength—your rage. You don’t remember feeling your gifts for the first time?”
Hunter shook his head, his eyes turned inward. “No,” he said distantly. “No, he just spanked me and said he’d be damned if he shelled out for another dog. He…I think he cried a little. But there were no
gifts
, just the weird sky and all that noise.”
Karen leaned back, her eye’s drawn. Hunter cleared his throat. “So, now what?”
Karen stood, straightening her skirt. “Our car’s here. Shall we?”
“What? Already?” Hunter tried to look at his watch, forgetting he didn’t have one. “That was quick.”
“Quicker than you think. It arrived five minutes after we got here.”
“But…”
Karen grinned, and for a moment Hunter saw that same darkness slip under her eyes. Then she blinked and there was nothing but the familiar, slightly condescending smile. “I know, I know, our host said a half-hour. I’ll admit, I wanted a little extra time to get to know you.” She batted her eyelashes flirtatiously. “Is that so bad?”
“Guess not.”
“Good. Now, should we get this formality done, or do you plan to talk all night?”
“Lead the way,” Hunter said, following Karen out the door and down the steps, wondering who he was talking with—the seductive woman he had met in the bar, or the angel with darkness in her eyes?
CHAPTER TWELVE
The sky had darkened to a deep, midnight blue by the time the car stopped. Hunter kept his eyes on the driver, trying to appear cool and collected as they finally reached their destination. They had driven for close to an hour, the hills lowering as they left the city until there was nothing but cold prairie land on every side. In the light of the winter moon the brittle fields were bathed an icy blue.
Their destination was anti-climactic after three days of anticipation—a field, much the same as the ones they had passed exiting Denver, empty but for a few scattered bushes. It hardly seemed a place for revelations.
“We’re here,” Karen said needlessly as the car ground to a halt.
Hunter was about to ask about the rest of the party, when his vision blurred and the field took on a hazy luster. He blinked, and four cars abruptly appeared, parked alongside the road. The beginnings of frost were icing their windows.
“I didn’t imagine that, did I?” Hunter asked.
Karen, silent, opened the door and stepped outside. Hunter stayed put, blinking his eyes over and over until Karen pulled open the door and grabbed his forearm. “Now.”
Grimacing, attempting to steady his racing nerves, Hunter complied. At once the cold hit him like a punch in the gut, the wind tearing at his hair, his breath turning to fog. “Should have brought a coat,” he muttered.
Karen rolled her eyes and headed for the field.
“Should I even ask where we’re going?” He asked, following closely.
“Be patient. You’ll find out soon enough.”
They entered the field silently, the car and road fading in the distance until they vanished from Hunter’s eyes. They were alone now, accompanied only by the sharp, biting cold.
“We need to pick it up,” Karen said, quickening her pace.
“Couldn’t you just…you know?” Hunter made a zooming motion with the flat of his hand.
“I wish,” she said. “Gifts are forbidden in the
agioi
.”
Hunter waited a few minutes, listening to the dry crunch of winter grass as they jogged toward their destination. Finally, seeing she wasn’t going to volunteer an answer, asked, “
Agioi?”
“One of the old places, where the firmament is thin. Where you can almost touch the beyond.”
“Sounds nice,” Hunter mumbled, a sense of foreboding beginning to churn deep in his stomach.
“It’s more than
nice,
” Karen snapped, stopping suddenly. “It’s sacred. And Hunter, if you embarrass me, if you discredit the
Adonai
in any way—
”
Hunter held up his hands. “I get it. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
Karen stared at him for another second, than continued jogging. “I know. Just be careful.”
“Careful of wha—” But Hunter’s question died on his lips as the field blurred again, and nausea roiled through his gut. The world rotated queasily in his eyes. Lowering his head, blinking tears from his eyes, he looked back up.
A barn stood before them.
Little House on the Prairie,
he thought for a brief, distracted moment, surveying the structure. It was obviously old; the siding had a sick, rotten look and the barn leaned alarmingly, seeming likely to collapse at any moment. Several stories high, it was crowned by a steeple roof with several missing boards and pock marks that had rotted over time. Karen entered without hesitation. Hunter balked, eying the decrepit building cautiously, then took a deep breath and followed.
The wide doors were already flung open, and as they neared the entrance Hunter’s sense of foreboding ripened. The dark, cracked frame of the doorway quenched the moonlight as they passed underneath. Hunter’s heart was beating so loud he thought he might go deaf. Beads of sweat burst from his pores despite the frigid weather. Karen, however, sauntered ahead, her same flowing stride unaffected by the gloomy building.
As they moved forward the light grew, resolving into a giant bonfire that roared and flickered in the middle of the large, drafty barn. Hunter would have sworn the light was only a candle a moment ago, and an impossibly far distance within the house (which now stretched so far in either direction he could no longer see the walls), but before he could frame a question his thoughts were interrupted by a soft voice.