Ann Marie's Asylum (Master and Apprentice Book 1) (11 page)

The prisoner continued to mindlessly hum to himself. Bernard drew a black smoking pipe with an odd golden embellishment out his pocket. The gold symbol looked like the iris and pupil of a human eye. The old man pulled out a shiny case to match the strange pipe. Out of that, he pulled a pinch of red tobacco, while the prisoner continued to hum the same monotonous tune.

“You’re going to have to help me with this next important part,” he whispered to Bander, who was staring back at the old man like a zombie.

Bernard brought out a small tape recorder. He set it on the interrogation table and started recording. Then, he brought out one last item, something wrapped in an embroidered cloth napkin.

He unwrapped an antique teaspoon. It was cast out of gold and carried the same eye insignia as his pipe. A big smile spread over Bernard’s face, except for his eyes, which never seemed to change their expression. The prisoner picked up the spoon and followed the orders that Bernard gave only with his eyes.

The young man was silent as he used the spoon the way Bernard commanded. While the prisoner performed his task, the old man reached into the pocket of his long black coat. He took out a retractable umbrella that hooked perfectly onto the back of his chair.

The prisoner continued to work with the golden teaspoon. The dull slaps of a slow drip were followed by what sounded like the squashing of a juicy tomato. The prisoner was perfectly silent as he performed exactly as the old man wished. When Bander was finished, he offered something bloody in his right hand across the table to Bernard.

Two dangling, broken-up eyeballs dripped from the prisoner’s hand. The operation to remove them had mashed one of them entirely. Bernard picked this one up with his bare fingers and squeezed until the thing had nearly drained completely on the table. Then, while the prisoner’s empty sockets stared back at him, he carefully folded what was left of the tissues and membranes into his pipe. He covered the bloody bits with the red tobacco.

Bernard lit the pipe with the long blue flame of a gold-plated torch lighter. A dense and nauseating smoke billowed out. He sucked hard on the pipe, bringing the contents to a white-hot fury. That sent the thick, poisonous smoke everywhere. He shut his eyes and reveled in the glorious closed-eye visuals that danced across his perception.

His visions showed him what he already knew. It was a familiar communion. The power of the smoke made it all much clearer though. He had to visit someone. Bernard could see her sleeping. His little brunette was all grown up. It had been so long since his last visit, just over twenty years. He could see the sleeping young woman with the pitch-black hair sleeping in her bed all alone.

Bernard sucked in another deep lungful of smoke and exhaled, “Ivy, I see you.”

The interrogation room was now nearly opaque with smoke that smelled like burning blood. Just before the sprinklers came on, Bernard opened his umbrella. Quite satisfied, he puffed on his pipe like a man at the end of a hard day of work. Then he said to the prisoner, “You may feel again.”

A primal scream vented from the prisoner. Bander held his hands over his empty eye sockets like he was being blinded by something as bright as the sun. Bernard began to laugh. The prisoner writhed and shouted, pulling on his chains like an animal in a bear trap. Bernard chuckled and puffed on his pipe under the umbrella.

The smoke hit the prisoner’s lungs and he coughed like a man choking. Then he vomited all over the mirrored floor.

“It’s an acquired taste,” said Bernard. He leaned back under the umbrella and enjoyed his smoke.

The sprinklers poured over the Bander’s head and bloody water started to fill up the room. The alarms in the laboratory blared and two guards came in. They both vomited and doubled over when they smelled the smoke. When one of the guards stopped throwing up, he asked what had happened.

“I couldn’t stop him,” Bernard said. “The man was mad and gouged his own eyes out. There was nothing I could do. I’m just an old man.” He drew a lung full from the pipe and said to himself, “Savages.”

Chapter 6

The Baby DeathStalkers

Ann Marie showed up to the lab the following morning to find a swarm of military vehicles and government-issued black SUVs. In the security booth, the Sheriff wasn’t there and one of the guards waved her through. When she got inside, she saw dozens of hazardous materials workers in white plastic suits and gas masks. She realized it was a cleanup crew of some sort.

On her way to the elevator to see Dade, she passed the row of interrogation rooms. The entire hallway was lined in clear plastic while the hazardous materials crew disinfected and mopped up all the blood. It stunk like something horrible and unfamiliar. She asked one of the workers what was happening and the man ignored her. Then she showed him her Asylum corporate badge, telling him, “I’m second in command at this facility and I demand to know what’s going on here.”

“Blood,” the man in the plastic suit said, “blood everywhere. Now can I get back to work?”

When Ann Marie found Dade upstairs, the Sheriff was there as well. He had apparently just shared the news about the death of the prisoner. Dade was still recovering from the interrogation the day earlier. He was barely able to pull himself up to his feet.

“I’m gonna kill that bastard,” he said, sounding groggy. “Right this second.”

The Sheriff stopped him, saying, “I don’t think you’re doing much killing in the shape you’re in.”

“I’ll kill that old man with one finger.”

“You’re being crazy, Dade,” argued the Sheriff. “This is Bernard Mengel.”

“What the hell happened?” Ann Marie finally asked.

“Honey,” said the Sheriff as he seemed to choose his words carefully. “Something bad happened here last night.” At that moment, he got a call. After he hung up, he told Dade, “He wants to talk. He’s waiting in the cafeteria.”

The Sheriff and Ann Marie followed Dade as he rushed to the cafeteria. Bernard was waiting for them, standing in perfect attention with his hands primed behind his back. A dozen corporate security officers in black helmets and kevlar armor formed a protective ring around the old man. When the soldiers saw Dade, they let their stun weapons flash in a show that was meant to keep any conflict from developing.

“Hello my son and my Dr. Bandini,” greeted Bernard like a man spotting a familiar face at a party.

Dade Harkenrider cocked his chin close to his chest and angled his eyes until they took over his stare. He went toward Bernard and, just as he was getting close to striking distance, he shifted his feet to the right and started slowly circling the old man.

Ann Marie kept her distance as two of the soldiers got in front of Dade and sparked their stun weapons.

“Please keep back, sir,” one of the men in black armor told him.

“Fine,” said Dade. “Bernard gets to enjoy a few more minutes of his awful life.” With the soldiers focused on him, he continued to slowly circle the old man.

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere, my boy!” Bernard said in a way that sounded distinctly like a taunt.

“You’re going to pay for what you did to that man.”

“You mean that common insurgent?” asked Bernard. “Of course, I’m not saying that I harmed him in any way. It’s a tragedy what he did to himself.”

“Did to himself?”

“The man wasn’t civilized. Obviously! A common thug. It’s just like you to get upset over someone who doesn’t matter.” Bernard then addressed Ann Marie directly, saying, “That master of yours can be quite sensitive. Don’t let the tough guy act fool you. He is as soft and tender as a little toddler.”

“I’m nobody’s master,” said Dade. “And I’m not too tender to squash your diseased brain in my bare hands.”

From behind his armored face shield, one of Bernard’s guards let out a timid-sounding warning for Dade to stay back. Harkenrider complied, relaxing his stance and resuming his predatory orbit.

Ann Marie did her best to stay back.

Bernard addressed her again, saying, “It’s a pity what’s happened to dear Dade, what he’s become. I did my best to mentor him, but we are who we are, in the end. After all, Ann Marie, your mentor is only human.”

“Shut your trap, you geriatric!” shouted Dade as though he had been severely offended by being called human.

“You see, Ann Marie,” Bernard went on, “Dade absolutely hates being called human.”

The two of them continued circling one another until something very strange happened. There was a loud snap like the crack of a whip. Suddenly Dade was standing right behind Bernard. He was about to grab the old man by the throat. There was another snap. Bernard had moved to where Dade was standing. The two of them had traded places in a flash.

The feat made the soldiers recoil in panic. “What in God’s green Earth just happened?” one of them asked. His commanding officer told him, “You were instructed that this would be weird. Now stay on mission!”

“Did you see that, Dr. Bandini?” Bernard asked Ann Marie like he was bragging out a magic trick. “Pretty impressive. Isn’t it?”

She didn’t answer him. What she had just seen had put her in a mild state of shock. Dade’s leap from the top of the building could have been cables or some sort of parachute that she somehow missed. However, seeing the two men trade places was more than her brain could explain away. She pushed her way out of the cafeteria doors, ran to her car and drove home to her mother.

...

Lori Bandini was talking on the phone when her daughter flew through the door of the apartment. Ann Marie was in a rush to tell her mom what had happened and just started talking. “Mom, you wouldn’t believe what I just saw. I think I just saw magic. Like real magic!”

“Hang on a second, baby. It’s Scotty back in Philly on the phone. He’s telling me the craziest story about the new bartender. Apparently the guy wears lacy lingerie under his work clothes. Weird, right?”

“What I saw is much crazier. I think I saw people teleport!”

“Yeah,” her mom said, cupping her hand over the phone. “These cellular phones are incredible nowadays.”

“No, mom! I mean teleport! Like instantaneously appearing somewhere else.”

Lori looked annoyed for a moment. “Sorry, Scotty,” she said to the man on the phone, “my lovely daughter was just telling me about something at work. I missed the last thing you said.”

“Oh forget it,” said Ann Marie. “Just tell Scotty hello for me. I’ll be in my room.”

She spent that night as an insomniac, tossing and turning and replaying the images of the day in her head. Had she hallucinated? Was she losing her mind the way so many young geniuses did? Had she really seen the impossible?

...

Late the following afternoon, just as the sky above Los Angeles was turning a fiery orange, Ann Marie found Dade looking out from the Asylum’s top deck. For once, he wasn’t tinkering with anything in the lab. He was just staring off at the city below. For once, she thought, he was doing something that a normal human being might. He didn’t need to turn around to know that she was there.

“You OK?” he asked her.

The sight of his teleportation had left her feeling like she had been struck by lightning. Before she could come up with a response, she just sort of shrugged her shoulders. “I guess so,” she said. “I can’t even imagine going to sleep ever again though.”

“You will eventually,” Dade said as he looked her over in a manner that seemed like he was worried.

“What I saw yesterday,” she started to ask, “that was magic, right?”

“What do you mean by magic?”

“Your jump from the top of the building was one thing,” she said, shaking her head. “But I know what I saw in the cafeteria.”

“What did you see?”

“I saw you and Bernard teleport. I know what I saw. I was up all night, replaying it all in my head. I know what I saw.”

Dade just looked back at her.

“I don’t hear you denying it,” she told him.

“Because I’m not going to lie to you, Ann Marie.”

It had been the first time she could remember that he used her first name. Something about the sound of it gave her some relief.

“Will you tell me how you did it?”

“The explanation won’t make any sense at this point. I’ll just say that it’s something that you can pick up after a while. It’s something about the experiments in the tank.”

She had many more questions. “How far can you go? Can you teleport all the way to Japan? Can you teleport through the earth?”

Dade stopped her, saying, “For some reason teleporting through things other than air is tricky. I’ve never figured it out and I don’t think Bernard has either. It requires something, a depth that we haven’t been able to get to. To teleport, you need to perfectly envision where you’re going. So, short distances are simple. The easiest method is to form mirror images the way Bernard and I did in the cafeteria. It’s pretty hard to make happen the first time. Then again, that’s always the case with impossible things.”

She asked him how he jumped off the roof of the laboratory in his attack and how they had both walked away uninjured.

“Bernard and I are in a rather exclusive group with special knowledge, so to speak.”

“Then how did you fall so far without hurting yourself?”

“Seeing,” said Harkenrider. “I didn’t exercise any special power. I just use what I can see.” Ann Marie clearly didn’t understand, so Dade explained further. “I didn’t jump or fall. I climbed.”

“Climbed what?”

“
The tendrils
,” explained Dade. “
The luminous filaments
as they’re described by some shaman. They connect all life and all materials. They defy space. Thats why they’re hard to see. It’s the invisible fabric of everything. Only it’s not invisible if you look hard enough, if you can teach yourself to see.”

“How can I teach myself?”

The burden of the question showed up in Harkenrider’s face. It looked as though he was worried for her. After considering what to say for a moment, he turned his head and looked back toward the isolation tank in the laboratory. “The more time you spend on the other side, the clearer you can see them.”