Soul Thief (Blue Light Series) (36 page)

In a sterile, windowless room deep in an underground bunker beneath Langley, technicians were busy running programs on several sophisticated high-speed computers. The computers had taken the phrase, “live and work,” the words that had been overheard in Doug’s and Lucy’s conversation, and were running series after series of possibilities. So far nothing concrete had come up. The small, but powerful-looking man with the close-cropped sandy hair, pacing, watching the monitors carefully, was offering other possible pieces of the puzzle.

“
We
live and work,” he said, speaking with a slight southern drawl, measured, icy dangerous, and as soon as it was out of his mouth a technician would punch in the extra word.
“I
live and work.
We
live and work
at
. He said,
how,
didn’t he?”

“
Right you are, Boss Man,” one of the techs replied.

The man the technician had referred to as
Boss Man was Zach Spencer, AKA Spence, one of the Project’s main workhorses in the field of paranormal investigations. The ‘Project’ was an ultra-secret CIA splinter group, an X-Files type of organization whose main job was the investigation of anything outside the classification of ‘normal’. Spencer was not a scientist, however; far from it. He was a tough and ruthless ex-CIA operative who got the sorts of results his bosses demanded. The Project had actually been around since just after World War II when scientists in New Mexico working on ultra-secret government projects had been plagued by a variety of paranormal phenomena, some of which was believed to be alien.

Spencer’s
cover was FBI. Most people believed that’s what he was, and that’s what he wanted people to believe. But in a country overrun with government agencies, the Project was a non-entity that answered only to itself. The President didn’t even know it existed. Its mission, like the Brotherhood of the Order’s, was the investigation of anything to do with paranormal activity; aliens, ghosts, demons, strange entities, machines and craft, angels, demons, magical artifacts, unexplainable mass murders and religious cults, to name just a few. But unlike the Brotherhood of the Order, the Project was a pragmatic organization with a pragmatic mission: find a constructive way to use these paranormal phenomena—real or fantasy—for the greater good. In recent years the Project had zeroed in on a particular artifact that was in some way connected to the present mark in its sights.

Even though
Zach Spencer had seen some extremely peculiar things while working for the Project, he didn’t have any use for paranormal phenomena. Hell, he didn’t even believe most of it. Bunch of loonies and quacks, as far as he was concerned. Nevertheless, he worked for people who did believe, and truth was he’d seen some things in his time that made him wonder. One thing Spencer was, that was loyal. He took his job very seriously, and he was dedicated to the point of fanaticism. When he had a mark in his sites, such as he did now, rarely did he let go until the mark was in custody. Beneath him was a team of crack experts in a variety of investigative fields and technologies; computer geniuses, field agents, private contractors, assassins, all intensely loyal and sworn to the utmost in secrecy.

The two guys who’d
screwed up royally earlier tonight were both out. Just like that. Soon they’d be history if they weren’t already; two more casualties in a war that had no boundaries, a battle between the forces of good and evil. They’d failed on three counts: first they’d unnecessarily killed an innocent; second, McArthur had escaped; and third, they’d failed to find the object that Spencer’s superiors had so desperately wanted to possess. Spencer could give a shit about the object. He knew what it was, or what it was supposed to be, but he didn’t buy the bullshit about it. No matter. He was a good soldier and he would do his job.

Monitors glowed all around the room, technicians worked at over a dozen
consoles—all of it related to the tracking of the individual Spencer was trying to capture.

He leaned in toward
one of the monitors, and in a very deliberate and cadenced diction, he repeated Doug’s code words,
“‘You told me about your organization, how they lived and worked.’
How would an organization such as the Brotherhood of the Order live and work?” he asked rhetorically.

“Not very well any more,” one of the techs said with a humorless smirk. “Most of their leaders are
toast.”

“That’s beside the point,” Spencer snapped. “And don’t kid yourself; the organization is alive and well. They’ve been around for centuries. Just because a bunch of flatulent old priests
died in a fire doesn’t mean they’re done for. They’ve got professionals all over the world. Now focus!”

“Yes, sir.”

“They work in secret,” offered another of the techs.

“Yes, that’s probably what they have believed all these years, but we know better, don’t we?” A small, derisive smile touched Spencer’s thin-lipped mouth. “No matter, they’re scholars who take themselves very seriously and would probably use something that fit their own romantic image of themselves.”

“We live and work in
secret,”
he said. “Put a
‘the’
at the end of ‘
we live and work in,”
he instructed.

A tech immediately did as he’d been told and the computer began spitting out possibilities, thousands of them, starting alphabetically and finding every known word in the English language. There were
more than a million, of course. No matter, the computers were cutting through the list in nanoseconds and each time it would hit upon a logical possibility it would catalogue it and list it on a separate screen. The ones that were not logical were passed over. In less than a minute it had reached the
S’s
and a second later the word
shadow
appeared on the screen.

“Hold it,” Spencer said. “What about shadows.
We live and work in the shadows.
That makes sense. Do a run on local businesses, see if you can come up with something that has that name.”

“Shadows?” one of the techs replied. “Not necessary. I know the place. It’s a nightclub over on
Jackson Boulevard.”

Spencer picked the phone up and made the call.

Behind Shadows there was a small stand of woods, perhaps one hundred yards deep where beyond, Doug could see the lights of another boulevard. A litter-strewn path—probably made by children or bums or both—snaked its way through the woods between the boulevards. Doug walked that convoluted path now, deciding it would be better to wait for Lucy under cover. He tucked the gun he’d taken from Parsons into his belt, turned and waited, watching for car lights. He did not have long to wait. A vehicle pulled into the front lot and then swung around to the back of the nightclub. In the illumination of street lamps he could see that it was a dark-colored late-model Ford sedan. “Shit,” he said, chiding himself for not asking Lucy what she drove. He crouched in the shadows waiting for the door to open and the dome light to come on so that he could identify the driver. Beyond the club he could see down the boulevard as another car, nearly identical to the first one, pulled up to the curb.

He knew then that they’d been had. What was he to do? If Lucy showed up and did not spot the deception, then she’d be in as deep as he was. Several cars passed by out on the street but the distance was too great for Doug to identify the drivers.

Two men exited the car in the lot and carefully approached Parsons’ vehicle, guns drawn. Doug backed farther up the path into the woods and crouched like a wounded animal. It occurred to him that he was a wounded animal, alone and desperate. The gunmen, one on each side of the car, yanked open the driver and passenger side doors, guns pointed.

The pain in
Doug’s chest flamed suddenly, taking him to his knees. The entire chest-wound bandage was wet with new blood, and droplets of it were leaking from the soaked shirt and splashing to the ground. Given the amount of pain, the blood loss and his weakness, Doug was quite certain that he wouldn’t be able to last much longer. And now he was seeing double, and triple. He remained on his knees beside the path for a long moment, head bowed, breathing in shallow bursts, trying to quell his rapidly-beating heart.

Out on the boulevard several other cars were slowing down. He put his head up, hoping against hope that Lucy wasn’t foolish enough to just pull into the lot. He
’d lost sight of the two gunmen and wondered where they had gone. Doug could not think straight. He figured that it would be only a matter of minutes before they came along the path and found him. What would he do then? He decided he would kill them if he had to. He’d do almost anything to get out of this insane nightmare alive. He needed to heal so that he could go and find the wife and unborn child that he loved so desperately. He’d made a terrible error in leaving them behind in that other world that seemed oddly like a dream now. These thoughts were burning images in his mind, forcing him to focus, and spurring him into action. He heaved himself shakily to his feet and forced himself to move. He glanced back down path and saw no one approaching, so he turned in the opposite direction and began walking, taking one agonizing step at a time. He had taken just three steps, however, when a shadow loomed up in front of him. He raised the gun when a voice urgently whispered, “Doug, it’s me!”

Lucy had spotted the
fed vehicles and come in from the other side. Saying no more, she took him by the hand and began gingerly leading him out of the woods.

From somewhere not too far behind them an authoritative voice commanded, “Stop right there!” A spotlight came on, casting their shadows forward in monstrous over-exaggeration.

Lucy began to run, pulling Doug along; Doug staggered behind her, feeling like a dream-runner but feeling little else. Gunfire erupted and bullets whizzed past their heads. Lucy whirled and to Doug’s surprise, she held a gun. She snapped off three quick shots but kept moving. Doug heard the squealing of tires on pavement and the roar of several engines revving in the distance. It was all like a dream now. He was not sure how far he could run; stumble was more like it, for with each step he took he was surprised to still be standing. Was he standing? The feeling was nearly gone from his body and the consciousness from his mind.

“Come on,” Lucy prodded. “Just a few more steps and we’re there.”

Doug did not know how he’d done it, but suddenly they were out of the woods. Lucy was throwing the door of a dark colored SUV open and shoving him onto the back seat. He fell in prone, lying down on soft leather; he was quickly slipping beyond the realm of conscious thought. Lucy was now getting into the driver’s side. Doug heard more shooting but in his mind they were just cap guns being fired from some distant and dreamlike carnival gallery. He was dimly aware of bullets pinging on metal. Then the car was in frantic motion. Lucy maneuvered out of the lot and onto the street, bumping the curb and skidding sideways. Doug did not know whether or not they were being pursued, and he had passed the point of caring.

“Doug! Can you hear me?” Lucy screamed.

He could not answer her. The world was going away in slow radiating waves. Down a long dark tunnel it went in a spiral, and Doug supposed it was an okay place to go. There didn’t seem to be anyone shooting at him down there, and that was just fine by him. There wasn’t much he could do in this world anyway.

No damned use to anyone.

Better where I’m going.

And less painful.

“Doug, don’t do this to me!” Lucy cried, her voice desperate with fear. “Don’t you dare die on me!”

Doug heard the words but barely, and he was a little amused
by them.
Die
? What a laugh. He’d already died once, hadn’t he? Maybe twice. There had been something in his recent dreams about drowning long ago at Sandy Stream. Had he drowned? If so, then why was he alive? Did it have something to do with that intense spiral of blue light that he hadn’t remembered until recently? It didn’t matter now. Actually nothing mattered. He was tumbling down that tunnel much too fast to care. Everyone thought he was dead anyway, including Annie, and she was the only one that really mattered.

“Doug, please talk to me!” Lucy’s voice was as distant as the far end of that
long dark tunnel.

Pure instinct had been driving Annie
onward for nearly three days now. Her decision to resume her artistic endeavors had come from someplace inside her that she did not understand. The muse was an essential element of her existence that lived almost as a separate force from her normal self. And even though she’d finally come to her senses and realized, on that same elemental level, that she could not stay here at her father’s home, and that she would soon have to run, she could not curb the nearly overwhelming impulse to fill her remaining days here putting paint to canvas.

First she’d gone about the business of preparing the room,
much to Greta’s dismay, and then she had begun her masterpiece.

The picture she painted had come unwittingly, from
a place inside her that seemed separate from her conscious self, which was no surprise to Annie. Her paintings had always been instinctual. Nothing about her art had ever been contrived. She could no more visualize her next creation than could she visualize what the end of the world would look like. She’d simply begin to paint, and when instinct told her to stop, that was that, the work was complete, resulting in works that defied categorization, complex yet elemental, abstract yet detailed, all without a trace of self-consciousness.

So it came as a complete surprise when she realized that
dead center of her chaotic creation, she’d painted what looked to be an ordinary object. She stood back inspecting her handiwork, frowning and fretting, wondering what the hell was going on. After a few moments of careful consideration she finally came to the conclusion that there had been something at play here besides instinct. Geometric shapes were not a part of her mind spectrum. They never had been, and there was no reason to believe they ever would be. No, some external force had acted upon her during the creative process, causing her to paint an object that looked curiously like the point of an arrow, or perhaps a spear. She couldn’t be sure because she had no memory of painting it. Just the same, it was beyond realistic, every detail so crisp that it seemed to shimmer there on the canvas like a living thing.

W
ritten in black letters beneath the object, were the words:
House of Bones.
“What in the name of God?” House of Bones was a name she herself had given to an old deserted stone building with boarded up windows that sat against the woods at the back of her father’s property. Had she actually painted those words on the canvas? She didn’t think it was possible, because like the object above it, she had no memory of doing so.

Annie
drew in a quick breath as the object above the words morphed into a small crimson pinpoint and began to grow, chilling her bones to the marrow. She backed away in fear, for now the object looked like an eye, and out of the eye, a dark object materialized and took wing, growing, flailing as it went, like a black bed sheet gone awry from a clothesline in a windstorm. Instinctively she ducked, for the object flew straight at her. She screamed and dived to the floor as it missed her by a hair’s breadth. The object circumnavigated the large room several times before disintegrating into what looked like fragments of black confetti which floated slowly downward onto the canvas-covered floor. The fragments settled all around Annie and lay static. When she reached out and tentatively touched one of them with the tip of her finger, it crumbled to ash.

Annie remained on the floor for a long moment, breath
ing in harsh rasps, her heart pounding wildly. She waited, wondering what the hell had just happened here. She pinched herself, thinking she might have fallen asleep and was in the midst of a dream. “Ouch!” she said, realizing that this was absolutely not a dream.

I
t took Annie only a few more moments to suspect the truth of the matter. In her youth, a magical thing that seemed to change shapes at will had visited her time and again. It took on many forms, sometimes the semblance of a man, sometimes a bird or a bat, sometimes fragments of dark matter that flailed like little winged monsters, their purpose never clear. She remembered the secret whisperings, the tattered remnants of dreams, and long twilight sleeps between fever and exhaustion. Her years with Doug had brought a measure of sanity to her life because life with him was so normal, because
he
was so normal. But she’d always known she wasn’t normal. If only Doug had known.

But he did know, Annie. You think he was stupid?
This little voice inside her said.

That’s why Annie needs constant love and
reassurance,
Doug had told her father on that terrible day that seemed such a very long time ago now.
You’ve allowed that thing to steal her soul.
Doug’s accusations had enraged Annie to the point of violence not because he’d spoken the words, but because he’d known all along and had never said anything about it. That was the real heart of the matter, wasn’t it?

And in place of
Annie’s soul something had been substituted, a weight, a burden, that grew inside her like a tumor.

“Who are you?”
she asked in a trembling voice, unaware until now that she was sobbing. “What do you want? Why can’t you just leave me the hell alone?”

You know
that I cannot leave you alone, love,
the Collector replied.
You were chosen. I was sent here to watch over you.

“W
atch over me? What a joke. You’ve terrorized me.”

I meant you no harm.

“Oh, really? That’s certainly not what it felt like.”

You are merely frightened of something you do not understand.

“So why did you ‘choose’ to watch over
me?”

Because you are destined to be the mother of the most important person in human history.

“No!” Annie said,
heaving herself up off the floor and trying to pinpoint the exact location of her antagonist. A rage was building in her even as her belly began clenching with cramps. “That is a
lie!”

Is it, love?

“Why don’t you show yourself, you lousy coward! Let me see you for what you really are. Let me see what sort of monster terrorizes little girls!”

In a
n instant, the Collector was there, standing in the center of the room like a stationary hologram, its black fleshy cloak shimmering, the single red eye piercing Annie’s psyche like a lance.

My identity is no secret
, love. You have just refused to see me for who I am.

Annie stood stark still as abject terror seized her.
“Who the hell
are
you?”

I am Lost, Forsaken, Forgotten, I am your mother and your father, your breath and your life, your birth and your death.

“I’m sick and tired of riddles,” Annie spat.

I
was sent here long ago to facilitate the birth of your child. Now your father is trying to betray me. I cannot allow him to do so.

“Betray you?” Annie said. “How? Why?
What does he have to do with this? How does he even
know
you?” Her belly was really clenching now, she was bent over clutching it, spasms wracking her.

Would you like the pain to stop?

“Yes, make it stop.”

First you must listen to what I have to say.

“I’m listening.”

I
t has been a very long road from where your father and my paths first crossed.

“What does
he
have to do with you?”

Everything, love. You see, l
ong ago your father and I struck a bargain.

“
A bargain? What sort of bargain?”

If you will allow me I will show you.

“Show me? How?”

Inside your head.

“You stay out of my head.”

This won’t hurt, I promise.

“But I don’t know . . . if I . . . want to,” Annie said, her resolve weakening even as her contractions began to subside. She remembered things in her head from years past, things she never wanted to relive, and she was suddenly wary, certain somehow that this would be just another of those terrible nightmares.

Of course you do, love. It
is easy. Just open your mind and let it flow.

“No!” she said
, but the Collector was a stealthy bugger and his will was inside her before she could utter another protest.

Spread
out before her was the image of a muddy battlefield with two huge clashing armies. These men fought like titans, their weapons spears, arrows and swords, and they wore uniforms of some long ago campaign. The image zoomed to an area near the battle’s eastern flank on the bank of a silt-filled river. Here a wounded soldier struggled to lift himself to his feet. Blood covered his face, and his armor was pieced in several places. From these wounds more blood oozed. There was something familiar about the soldier that made Annie uneasy. She tried to make out his features but there was too much mud and blood to see him clearly. In his struggle to lift his body from the muck, the soldier’s hand sank beneath the silted surface. When he pulled it back it contained an object. Seeming confused as to what the object was, the soldier washed it in the river’s muddy currents and brought it up close to his face. Recognizing it for what it was the soldier drew his arm back as if to fling it far out into the channel.

Just then, a
figure approached from behind, not walking exactly, but gliding just above the blood-soaked battlefield. He seemed impossibly tall, but other than his extraordinary height he could have been a simple monk from some ancient religious order. Annie could not see the face but there was no doubt that she was looking at the same creature that now stood at the center of the room holding sway over her thoughts.

Sensing the close presence of another individual, perhaps an enemy who wanted to finish him, the soldier
lowered the hand that held the object and twisted around for his sword.

I
n that instant Annie recognized the soldier.

“Daddy?” she said, unaware until the word was out
of her mouth that she’d spoken it aloud.

Yes, child,
said the Collector.
Only he cannot hear you. I am allowing you to witness an event from very long ago. You are seeing across space and time to another reality.

“I don’t understand any of this,” Annie said.

You see, child, I had been searching for the object since the day I was exiled to this earth, with little success, and here, a soldier of seemingly little importance on a battlefield forgotten by time, plucked it from the silt of a river. I knew then that the soldier was the man I had come here to find, so I struck a bargain with him. In exchange for the object the soldier would survive the war and go on to found a great family dynasty. He would enjoy wealth and luxury and a very long life. But there would be one condition.

“What condition?” Annie asked.

When the time was right he would produce an heir who would produce an heir. The time is right now, love . . .
The Collector stopped talking, allowing his words to sink in.

Annie’s eyes flew wide open
in surprise. “Get away from me!” she said curling her body forward, hugging the roundness of her belly, protectively shielding it from the creature’s scrutinizing eye. “You are not touching my baby.”

I do not intend to touch your baby, l
ove. On the contrary, I was sent here to facilitate its coming.

“
Yes, you said that, but tell me why. Tell me why the time is right now? Why not five-hundred years ago? Why not two-hundred years into the future? Why does it have to be now? Why does it have to be my child?”

Simple,
love, the father of the child had to be just the right one, and Douglas McArthur was not born until thirty-five years ago.

“So th
is is what mine and Doug’s lives have been about?” Annie moaned. “We were born to serve your twisted purpose?”

Ah, love, I am afraid you are
once again mistaken, for it is not
my
purpose that you serve but something far greater.

“Such as?”

“
Perhaps the very salvation of your species
.”

“That is just plain crap!” Annie spat.
“You stay away from me and my baby! Do you understand me?”

I intend you no harm
, love. The child needs a mother. Someone to raise it and love it, someone to teach it manners, grace and respect, see that it is properly educated so that it can become what it is meant to become. You are the only one who can do that. Tell me that you will, Annie.”

The Collectors reasoning was sound, and despite
Annie’s defiance, she knew that he was right. When the time came she would birth her baby, raise it and do well by it. This was an incontestable fact. There would be time to steer it away from the Collector’s dark persuasions. Of this she was nearly certain.

With
renewed assurances of Annie’s acquiescence, the Collector ceased to be in her presence. Annie felt its departing like a cool breeze on a warm day.