Ephemeral creatures, p.14
Ephemeral Creatures, page 14
A semi rumbled by on the highway, the first vehicle to pass in several minutes. Hrym glanced around but saw no approaching headlights. A thrill began to grow inside him at the sight of the sleeping kids totally unaware of the danger the night held.
The knife was in his hand before he fully considered what he was about to do. Its pale surface, polished bone, gleamed dully in the piss-hued light ensconcing the parked hatchback. He raised his eyepatch, and the pathways between worlds unfurled before him. The runes of Wolf’s Tooth emitted a sanguine glow in the Eye of Fenrir.
Hrym’s steel-toed work boot shattered the driver-side window like an eggshell. Chunks of glass rained onto the young man, who started awake with a cry. Hrym slashed the bone dagger across his throat, deep enough to nick the spine. The man made a wet wheezing sound as he bucked and squirmed, his lifeblood arcing across the windshield and dashboard in great spurts.
The young woman screamed. As Hrym started around the car, she struggled in panic to get the door open. After a moment, she got it unlocked and shoved it open on creaking hinges. Barefoot, she fled across the parking lot toward the freeway, shrieking all the way.
That growing thrill roared into an inferno—a predator’s primeval elation at the hunt. This was what his calling was all about. He reveled in it as his prey gained ground while he strode calmly in pursuit.
Focusing on the nearest pathway between worlds, he slipped through into the ashen desolation of the underworld. After half a dozen strides in that fell realm, he returned to the material plane.
The fleeing woman stumbled and fell, dumbfounded when Hrym appeared two strides in front of her. She scrambled frantically to regain her feet.
He seized her hair and yanked her roughly to the ground. She screamed and clawed at his arm, fighting all the way as he dragged her across the parking lot. Her nails carved bloody furrows in his forearm.
“Let me go, you fucking psycho!” The woman managed to get her feet under herself.
She tried to knee Hrym in the genitals, but he deftly evaded. He thrust Wolf’s Tooth into her ribs, and the fight went out of her. She whimpered and sagged, blood jetting from the wound when he removed the blade. He dragged her back to the car, where her boyfriend was about bled out.
Perfect. Hrym could sense the young man was on the cusp of death. He grabbed hold of the young man’s sodden shirt and pulled. The car’s form melted away and ceased to exist as Hrym dragged both victims into the underworld. He cast his prey down onto ground that looked to be covered in dirty snow but probably was actually ash. In either case, it was soft beneath his boots. He arranged the youths neatly side-by-side.
The woman still struggled, her form little more than a smudge, for the living were as spirits in the land of the dead, much as the reverse was true if the dead were to enter the land of the living. The weaker they grew, the less substantial they became. Hrym’s rune-covered flesh on his left arm glowed softly, protecting him from the same etiolation draining the woman’s lifeforce.
He knelt and went about his grisly task of removing the couple’s nails, the components he would eventually add to Naglfar. Wolf’s Tooth made that task simple, the blade preternaturally keen. With practiced strokes, he quickly removed their ungues and placed them in an oil-treated leather pouch hanging from his belt. Neither’s nails were especially noteworthy but would serve their purpose.
The restless dead milled around him, eager to feast on the living yet fearing Hrym and Wolf’s Tooth, with the dagger’s runes of power, which the ancient mystic had assured him could harm living and dead alike. The shades were nebulous shadows, occasionally shifting into some clarity. He glimpsed among them a skeletal woman with ragged hair and black hollows for eyes and a naked, obese glutton of a man. They broadcast raw hunger and hatred of the living.
He dropped the final nail into his pouch and cinched it shut. “With another life quenched, Ragnarok draws closer.”
Hrym stepped back through to the living world. As always, after spending any significant time in the underworld, he experienced an odd enervation as the force of the void took its toll, but only on the unprotected half of his body. Like Hel herself—the source of his inspiration—he was a creature of two worlds. The runes of power the mystic had imparted afforded him protection, but he was under no illusion that he could remain there for an extended time without consequence.
The rumbling of tires drew his attention. Headlights bloomed in the darkness as an approaching vehicle exited the highway.
Hrym reentered the restroom, standing before the cracked mirror over the sink to check his appearance. The boy’s blood had spattered onto his hand, arm, and face. His own blood welled from gashes along his forearm and wrist. The lighting was too poor to see if more blood had gotten onto his dark shirt, not that it really mattered in the darkness outside. When dawn arrived, he would check again.
He washed up in the sink and stepped outside just in time to hear a startled shriek. An SUV with Michigan plates was parked in the handicapped spot directly before the restrooms. An elderly couple stood outside their vehicle, staring at the blood-spattered hatchback with concern.
“Oh, dear Lord. Irv, I’m going to call 911.” The woman fumbled in her purse as her husband glanced around warily.
The man spotted Hrym when he was a few strides away. “You have any idea what the hell happened here?” he asked, pointing with a trembling finger at the car.
Hrym smiled. “I do indeed.” He drew Wolf’s Tooth.
This must be my lucky day.
-17-
Tara sipped her martini and checked her most important Instagram stat: 997,882 followers. A little over two thousand to go. I’ll hit that one million by next month, hopefully. Gaining the last few thousand followers seemed to be taking forever, but she knew that was due to her anticipation.
She also had 32,238 new likes, 986 new comments, and 32 private messages. Since her birthday and panic attack, she’d taken a few days off from social media: no new postings, reading comments, or anything. At first, that had been difficult, and she hadn’t known what to do with herself. But after that first day, the blackout had felt kind of liberating even though her Instagram had never been far from her mind. Her main concern was the lack of engagement with her followers, which was important to stave off the chance of becoming a has-been.
“Time to get back on the horse,” she muttered as she scrolled through the comments, most regarding her two most recent photos: the infamous Then & Now, which she regretted ever having posted, and her unfiltered selfie from her shitty birthday.
The usual ego-boosters brought a smile to her face: “Nice camerawork ;)”; “Love the composition on that shot Tara.” And, of course, there were the less subtle ones: “Lookin’ hawt baby!!!! Total milf!!!”; “Damn I’d hit that in a heartbeat! Love a real woman with some junk in the trunk.”
She frowned at a few of the negative ones. “Fake ass ho—anyone wit personal trainer chef and $$$ can look that good!”; “@Cassfitbabe is way hotter! @TaraA-G ur too damn old”; “Those stretch marks I see? Lol.”
“Assholes.” Shaking her head, she took another drink of her martini.
She checked the time on her phone, but it was only eleven thirty—no more Oxys for another hour and a half. Elliot had shown either concern or cruelty in not upping her dosage. But he had given her a hundred-pill scrip with two refills. Depending on her usage, that might last her a month before she needed a refill.
One comment on her birthday pic drew her interest. “Happy Birthday Tara! Best pic by far. Keep your head up” was all it said, from user kbradley86.
Tara gasped and sat up straight in her chair. Is that Kevin?
She clicked on the user and saw a basic profile with a single picture, a grainy selfie. The face was a bit thinner and much older than she remembered, but it was unmistakably the same Kevin Bradley she’d gone to high school with. In that selfie was nothing of the happy-go-lucky guy she remembered. Instead, he seemed a man ground down by life over the past years since the accident.
“I take it you’re out of prison now?” she whispered.
His location was listed as Tucson, without much else to his profile. It was bare-bones, like an account created simply to leave that one comment. She felt a flutter of anxiety in her stomach when she reread Kevin’s comment and couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to become an online stalker—she’d had plenty of those before. Why did he write that?
The home phone rang in the background, disrupting her thoughts. Mallory answered on the second ring as she always did.
After a moment of discussion too quiet to be overheard, Mallory called, “Tara?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s the school calling. Aiden got in a fight at recess, and he’s being sent home. Do you want to talk to them?”
“Damn it.” Tara thought for a moment. “No, I don’t want to talk to them. Would you mind picking him up for me, Mal? I’m feeling a little out of sorts right now.”
“Sure, Tara. Give me a couple minutes.” Mallory said something to appease the school before hanging up.
What am I going to do about that kid? Tara rubbed her eyes but then quickly jerked her hands away, remembering that caused wrinkles. Maybe I’ll have that Oxy a little early after all.
She went into her bathroom and downed one of the pink pills. Just the act of doing so made her feel a bit better. She remained in there until she heard the front door close. Mallory got into her Mini Cooper and took off.
Remembering she still had private messages she hadn’t looked at, Tara began sorting through them. They were the usual dick pics and requests to model something or to recommend someone’s product for this or that. The former she deleted, the rest she ignored for the time being. Then she saw a message titled “Hello” from kbradley86, and her heart rate increased:
Hi Tara, this is Kevin Bradley. Hope this message finds you well. First, I just wanted to say I’m glad to see you seem to be doing very well for yourself. I know this might sound weird, but I was hoping we could meet briefly. Something recently happened, and I’d like to discuss it with you. I’ll be approaching Chad too, as it concerns all of us. Hope to hear from you soon.
Her anxiety flared anew. “What the hell does he want?”
Tara reached for her martini but realized she must have left it in the living room. The Oxy bottle on the counter pleaded for her attention. She grabbed it but somehow stopped herself from unscrewing the cap again. A brief battle of will ensued as she struggled against the raw need to get high—right now. She shoved the bottle back in the vanity drawer and slammed it shut. Tara gave a cry of triumph, for she would take the small victories wherever she could.
Once she got back to the living room, she drained the rest of her martini. As for Kevin’s message, she deleted it and closed Instagram.
***
“Hello?” a woman on the other end of the phone said.
“Hi, Mrs. Coates. This is Kevin Bradley.”
A long moment of uncomfortable silence followed. Kevin grimaced.
“Yes?” Mrs. Coates finally said, sounding very subdued.
“I hate to trouble you, but I was hoping you might have a current phone number for Chad? I, uh… was trying to get a hold of him. The old number I had got reassigned.” Better leave it at that.
“I seriously doubt he wants to talk to you,” came the icy reply.
Shit. “Well… yeah, probably not. Ma’am, I want to apologize, first and foremost. To Chad and to you and your whole family for everything I put you through. I did something incredibly stupid, and others paid the price.”
“That’s right, you did.”
Kevin swallowed hard. This was a bad idea. He tried desperately to think of something else to say.
The silence stretched an uncomfortable few seconds until Mrs. Coates sighed. “The reason I doubt he wants to talk to you is because Chad doesn’t even want anything to do with his own family anymore. I don’t have a phone number for him.”
“Oh. I… I’m sorry to hear that. If there’s anything I can do—”
“I can give you an address.” The chill had left Mrs. Coates’s voice, replaced by what might have been quiet desperation, a mother worried about her son’s well-being. “If you go pay him a visit, will you pass on a message?”
“Sure, I’d be happy to.”
“Tell Chad to please give us a call sometime. We’re worried about him.”
“Of course.”
She gave him an address in Kingman, a city several hours’ drive from Tucson. “Remember to give him my message.”
“Yes, ma’am, I will. Thank you.”
She hung up.
Kevin let out a long breath. “That was awkward as hell.”
He punched the address into Google Maps, which told him the drive would be nearly five hours. Only then did he realize he should have asked for an email address and possibly saved himself the gas and long drive.
If Chad is having a tough time, he probably won’t bother replying to an email anyway. A face-to-face visit seemed like the right move. Trying to explain Lidia’s situation through email or over the phone wouldn’t begin to do it justice.
He checked his email again and saw five messages had come in over the past few hours. Two were for unsolicited job offers. One position was a short-order cook on the graveyard shift at a Waffle House off the interstate. The other was for a janitorial service that had contracts cleaning a number of local office buildings. Neither had he applied for directly. He supposed that since he’d posted his resume to several internet job boards, the employers had found him.
I know beggars can’t be choosers, but no thanks. In prison, he’d pulled enough janitorial and mess hall duty to last him a lifetime. He would’ve much preferred to take Scott up on his offer but had held off on pulling the trigger due to everything going on with Lidia. Though he knew the need to find justice for her was becoming an obsession, he didn’t care. Having a purpose again felt good, in fact—damn good.
He deleted a couple of spam messages then found one from someone named Mallory Reyes:
Hello, Kevin. My name is Mallory Reyes, personal assistant for Tara Ashton-Gegewicz. Please provide a cell phone number at which we can contact you in regard to your meeting request. Thank you.
“Personal assistant, huh? And here I thought she wouldn’t reply.”
Kevin had left the message on Tara’s Instagram two days earlier. He typed up a quick reply with his cell phone number then closed the laptop.
“Time to go get some grub.”
His phone rang before he made it to the door. He looked at the screen, expecting it to be his mom, one of only two contacts he had, besides his brother, but the unknown number had a Phoenix area code.
“Hello?”
“Kevin Bradley?” a perky female voice said.
“Speaking.”
“Hi, this is Mallory Reyes, Tara’s personal assistant.”
“Oh, hi. Wow, you’re fast.”
“Thanks. The reason I’m calling is because Tara saw your message and would like to meet with you briefly. How about meeting her at Thanks a Latte at ten a.m. Thursday?”
Let me check my busy schedule, he thought sarcastically. “Sure, that should be fine. Um, where is that place, exactly?”
“Paradise Valley. I’ll send you the address and inform Tara you’ll be there.”
“Okay. Sounds good. Thanks.”
“Thank you.” Mallory hung up.
He stared at the phone for a long while, suddenly nervous about the prospect of meeting Tara again after all these years.
A telltale cold draft washed over him, announcing Lidia’s presence.
“It’ll be fine, Kev,” she said, hovering over his shoulder. “You’re doing the right thing.”
“Hope you’re right, Liddy.”
He looked at the calendar and saw he had two days before the meeting with Tara. Paradise Valley is a bit of a drive too. Might as well combine trips. Head up to see Chad first, stay the night somewhere, then meet Tara on the way back. He figured if Chad gave him the cold shoulder, he could head back and stay at a Motel 6 overnight in the Phoenix area. The trip would require funds he desperately needed to conserve, but this was of paramount importance.
Lidia vanished as abruptly as she’d appeared. Even with his doubts about the upcoming meetings, Kevin felt he was making progress, which was heartening.
-18-
Lidia spent much of her time, if such a concept could even be applied to the Between Space, thinking about her friends, Kevin, Chad, and Tara—mostly about Kevin, whom she was closest to. Focusing on them was better than dwelling on her own messed-up situation. She felt fairly sure that whatever power was preventing her from passing on somehow involved them, although the how and why of it eluded her. The accident had bound the four of them together with fetters that transcended the grave.
Her gaze landed on the big red light on her control panel, relieved that it was currently unlit. All well for the time being. Kevin seemed a bit better off lately, but she worried he was becoming obsessed with the Nazgul.
The more her thoughts dwelled on her friends, the more conflicted she grew. By spending time with Kevin, as wonderful as hanging out with him again was, she felt increasingly like herself again—a living, breathing person. And therein lay the danger. She had to remind herself she was dead and had no future. But her friends did, and she wanted them to be happy, Kevin especially. Yet rekindling these attachments only promised heartache. Already, that hollow space in her chest was slowly filling with emotions both good and bad. The more involved she got, the more painful the inevitable parting would be. For both of them.
