“Before you shoot,” Michael says. “I need to know how long you've had me under surveillance.”
“Why does that even matter?” Stiles asks.
“I just want to know whether certain people I care about are safe,” Michael replies.
“I don't know anything about any other people. But we don't bring you out of here tonight and God only knows what lengths my employers will go to to rein you in.”
“Okay,” Michael says. “I suppose I ought to give you some information now.”
“Amuse me.”
Michael looks down. “There's a snake slithering across your boot.”
Stiles laughs. “Is that the best you've got?”
Michael takes a step back. “Don't say I didn't warn you.”
Stiles waves his rifle at Michael. “Hey, stay where you are.”
Michael continues to retreat. “Sorry, but I don't want tranquilized anywhere near a snake. It's agony waiting for the venom to pass.”
Stiles can't help himself. He looks down at his boot. There's a red and black snake slithering across it. “Jesus!” He kicks it off.
Even though experience has told Michael the snake doesn't exist outside of his head, he finds himself having to resist the urge to react negatively to its presence.
The snake recoils then springs for Stiles.
Stiles opens fire. Bullets tear through the serpent, sending it twisting across the floor.
Michael seizes the moment and rushes the man in front of him.
Stiles fires the tranquilizer gun at Michael. The shot goes slightly wide. He quickly realigns his aim, but Michael has gotten too close, and knocks his arm to the side. The gun clatters to the floor.
Michael pushes Stiles back against the end door and seizes him by the throat. “You want to know why they're after me?”
Stiles tries to bring the rifle into play, but Michael tears it from his hand and casts it aside.
“They're after me because I eat people like you.”
“I know what you are,” Stiles says. “But before you do this, know that you're leaving my son without a father.”
Michael can see Stiles is telling the truth; can smell it in his fear.
Do it, Michael
.
Michael's eyes turn red. He bares his teeth.
Trying hard to keep composed, Stiles says: “My son's name is Shaun. He's only seven years old and I'm all he's got. You could shoot me with a tranquilizer. I wouldn't be an issue any more.”
Michael looks over at the tranquilizer gun.
“From what I know about you, Michael, you're not a killer unless you have to be.”
Do it, Michael
.
Michael increases his grip on Stiles' throat, piercing skin and drawing blood. The fear radiating from the man is intoxicating. “You don't know anything about me.”
Stiles gasps for air. “I've read the files. You're not a bad person.”
“And yet you're hunting me,” Michael says
“Yes, but not to kill you. They want something. You're valuable to them.”
“It's because I killed the girl,” Michael says. “They want revenge. They've been after me for centuries.”
Stiles shakes his head. “Killed the girl? What girl?”
Do it, Michael. Now
!
Michael strikes before Stiles has a chance to say anything else. He sinks his teeth deep into his victim's neck and punctures the Carotid artery. Warm blood spurts into his mouth and glides down his throat. He feels an immediate adrenalin rush and a heightening of his senses.
It's been too long
.
Stiles yields to Michael's attack. There's no use fighting this man. It's over. In his mind's eye, he holds the image of his greatest achievement in life - Shaun - and keeps it there until everything blackens over.
Michael feels Stiles buckle at the knees. He releases him to the floor, revealing a disheveled looking woman in a pink top standing directly behind the door of the neighboring car.
Her sudden appearance startles Michael.
The woman raises her left hand. “Hello, Daniel.” She's holding something: a key chain with a small teddy bear dangling on the end. “Mister Bear has missed you so much.”
*
Laura helps Amber onto a seat and flops down next to her. She cradles her wounded stomach. Both women look like they've been savaged by a pack of wild dogs.
Amber pushes herself up the seat. She winces. She's taken two bullets in the chest and one in the side. Her dress is ruined. She looks at the other woman. “Launa ...”
“It's Laura.”
“Sorry,” Amber says, “... but you did call me Amara, before.”
“What if I did,” Laura replies, "I think I'm allowed a simple mistake where you're concerned.”
Amber looks away. “You're right. It was stupid of me to compare.”
“You think you get kudos for saying that? I
hate
you.”
The two women say nothing for some moments, creating an atmosphere that is as awkward as it is filled with tension.
Amber eventually breaks the silence. Staring ahead, almost as if in a daze, she says: “I did try to kill myself.”
Laura says nothing.
Amber goes on: “I was useless even at that. Tried cutting myself several times – really deep ones - but the wounds would heal too fast. Then I tried hanging myself by the neck from a rarely used footbridge. What a joke that was. My neck snapped but I didn't die. I hung there for ages, helpless, too weak to free myself from the noose.
“Eventually, I was rescued by what appeared to be a young teenage boy. Soon after, I found out he wasn't a boy at all, but like
us, and that he'd been alive for a very long time - even longer than me. Eventually, we went our separate ways, only to stumble across one another many years later in Paris. So depressed he was to be trapped in the body of a boy. He looked haunted by it. It hurt me to see him like that. I know he loved me - and in
that
way - but I could never ...
he looked like a boy
." Amber looks at her lap. “It must have added significantly to his pain, that I was unwilling to respond to him, to give him what he needed.
“After those nights in Paris together, I never saw him again. I miss him so much, often wonder if he's still alive. Maybe I should've tried harder to keep him close, to understand him more. I don't think there's many of us now.”
“There isn't,” Laura says quietly. She then asks: “What was his name?”
Amber pauses to recall. “In France, he went by the name Jealot. But I can't remember his original name.” She turns to Laura. “I'm so tired, Launa. I can't seem to do anything right.”
Laura looks into Amber's eyes. And now she sees it: the weight of every wrong decision this woman has ever made, and the burden of centuries of loss. It's all there, begging to be put out of its misery. All at once, Laura finds herself fighting to keep a swell of emotions subdued, and decides not to correct Amber for defaulting to her original name yet again.
Amber wipes her eyes and sniffs. “Why are they after Michael?”
Seconds pass before Laura grants Amber a response, and even then she's back to avoiding eye contact. “He has something they want.”
“Did he take something from them?”
“I don't know. They only recruited me about a month ago, said I was just what they'd been looking for. I was to hire Michael to do some work in a remote part of Southwest Colorado, and they'd be waiting for him when he turned up. I changed all those plans when I saw you, and no doubt they're pissed at me. Anyway, this is how I know there isn't many of us left. They were apparently searching for one of our kind for years. But there's another with them - one that's at least as old as us. I never got to see him. He's too far up the chain.”
“Who are these people?” Amber asks.
Laura thinks of how best to respond to that question, then, looking straight at Amber, tells her: “They're everything.”
*
Amanda enters the car. She clips the teddy bear key chain onto a belt loop on her jeans, then steps over the body of Stiles.
Michael can't believe what he's seeing; is transfixed by the sudden appearance of Amanda from London, all grown up and looking worse for wear. She walks straight up to him and slings an arm around his neck - “
I’m so happy you recognize me, Daniel. I’ve missed you so much” - then flicks her tongue across his bloody lips.
Michael pulls away from her. He wipes his mouth with the back of a hand.
“What's wrong?” she asks. “I'm not a little girl anymore.”
Michael is well aware of the fact, and tries not to look at her exposed bra clad breast.
Amanda slides her arms around Michael's waist and motions to kiss him.
“No,” he says, “this isn't right.”
“What isn't right?”
“You. It did something to you. I can't believe I'm even seeing you.”
“Who did something to me?”
“That
thing
- the demon - or whatever the hell it is.”
“Well, it's
your
fault, Daniel. You let it take me away.”
“That isn't true,” Michael says. “Stop trying to mess with my head.”
“Do you know what it did to me? After it dragged me away to the dark place?”
Michael averts Amanda's gaze. “I don't want to hear this.”
“It did
everything
to me ... tore out my soul and replaced it with something else.”
And there it was: confirmation this was not the same Amanda snatched from Michael on the streets of London several decades ago.
“Get away from me,” he says, and frees himself from her embrace.
Unexpectedly, Amanda's eyes roll back in their sockets and she crumples to the floor, landing on her back.
Michael prods the body with the tip of his shoe.
The fingers on Amanda's right hand twitch and her eyelids flip open. Her eyes are now bright yellow with black elliptical slits.
Startled, Michael steps away from the body.
Amanda erects herself before Michael. “Hello, Levagnion.”
Michael's flesh prickles. It's the entity; the one from London; the same entity that was in the body of the person Stan had called Jeff. Its voice is unmistakable, even though it's been affected by the vessel it's inhabiting.
“Ask me my name,” the entity says.
Michael doesn’t like its tone. It sounds like it’s concealing something. “Okay, I'll play along. What's your name?”
“My name is Verestanias. What else would you like to know?”
“Everything,” Michael replies. “I want to know everything.”
Verestanias's gaze narrows. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. My name is Verestanias ... and
you
released me.”
Michael's stomach muscles knot.
Verestanias continues: “You released me the night you fled through the petrified forest. In Kovolosia. I was contained within the parameters of the forest and grounds surrounding the house. Held in a vibrational prison.”
“I don't understand any of this. What are you telling me?”
“The girl was special," Verestanias explains. "
The first one
.”
“You know what,” Michael says. “I've changed my mind. I don't want to hear anymore of this.”
“But you requested to know everything.”
Michael opens his mouth to protest, then falls silent; something Verestanias takes as an invitation to proceed: “The girl, Anae ... she was to be used in a ceremony. A ceremony whereby I was to be bound to a specific adult host against my choosing. A child has a very special energy, you must understand, and this energy can be used like a key, under certain strict conditions, to open portals to other dimensions. You merely have to treat the child a certain way in order to perform the unlocking.”
Michael can barely comprehend what he's hearing. “This is disgusting.”
“Your actions on the twelfth night - the night before the ceremony - prematurely opened a portal. The spilling of the girl's blood, mixed with that brief moment she expressed a heightened state of fear, was fundamental to accomplishing this.”
“I never opened any portal,” Michael retorts.
“Oh, but you did,” Verestanias replies. “Your unnatural craving bridged
the gap necessary to achieve this ahead of the scheduled time. You ingested the girl's blood signature and now I am bound to you.”
“No,” Michael says. “You did this. You used me to kill the girl. I could hear you, inside my head.”
“I encouraged you, yes, but the choice was ultimately your own.”
Michael's anger begins to grow. “And is this what you did to Amanda? Treat her a certain way? Replace her with something else? That
was
something else inside of her before, right?”