The Forsaken (24 page)

“I’m glad you’ve finally opened your eyes.” The old man looked changed somehow, like he’d aged ten years in the last few hours. Wrinkles like leather overlapped old rolls, and his skin cracked at every crease. A crooked jaw slacked low, nearly breaking as he spoke. “If you don’t stop squirming, you might slip.”

New pain exploded at the center of Jude’s chest. “What…have you done…to me?”

“I’m sure you know by now. You can feel it, can you not? The creature growing inside.”

Jude heard his bones crunch, his muscle and bones shifting and something moving underneath.

“I am not surprised you did not recognize me. You see, I’ve changed much since our last encounter. The use of Azrael’s power has made this body age much more quickly than we humans are used to.”

“Victor, you animal. Let me go…I’ll cut out your tongue and feed it to you! I’ll watch you choke to death.”

“Temper, temper. Is that any way to speak to an old friend?” The old man’s fingernails chewed into Jude’s naked ankle. With his tongue, he lapped up some of the blood.

“What did you do, Victor? I feel…”

“Different? Changed? Evolved? He’s very strong, you know. Or is it a she? Hell, I don’t really get all the fine print, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Fleshly identities are such cages.”

“You maniac!”

“Hardly. I once was lost, and now I’m found. Was blind but now I see. Azrael gave me his vision.” Victor dragged Jude’s squirming body closer toward him with no effort at all. Their eyes lingered in the sandy air and met. When this happened, Jude perceived images trying to reach out through the holes in Victor’s eyes, a dark red swamp filled with ghosts.

“This isn’t…happening. None of this is real!”

“Denial is an ugly thing. Do you remember that boy I told you about in the story? Well, he gave me more than I ever imagined. He let me become a part of the circle. A strand of three is not easily broken.”

“Three?”

“Yes,” Victor hissed. “Me. The boy. And Morgan Cross. He was your partner. Still, as powerful as the demon blood is, we can’t have its beauty spread too thinly, now, can we? Azrael can enter up to three vessels at one time. One, if the soul is pure enough.”

“I don’t believe in any of this.”

“Oh, but don’t you?” Victor’s mouth twisted with a shriek. “Do not test my patience! I am no liar with this.” It was clear that this was not Victor’s voice but something irregular, vile, bleeding through. “I am very real. Believe in me. Your life is rot. Your soul is void and without shape. You are
my
meat. You’ve been a part of my plans for some time now, sonny. You invited me in.” The last four words drifted in like a whisper, and Victor changed again. The exchange happened so suddenly, but though Jude was weak, he understood the transference.

“Why did you come here?” Victor snarled.

“I-I want-wanted answers. Argh!” The veins in his forehead bubbled. He imagined them exploding.

“I can’t believe it took you so long to find them. Practically had to give you my location for this, our final showdown. You knew we weren’t done with you, wretched fool. How many nights did you waste thinking it over. Hmm? Wondering where old Victor had gone. What I was doing. Why you couldn’t catch me. Well, here we are. Together again.”

“I’ll kill you!”

“Kill me? You have quite an insatiable appetite and an impossible imagination, don’t you? But in case you haven’t noticed, you’re the one hanging from a cliff. Not me.”

“What do you want?” Jude coughed, looking down once more at the fate he was almost certain he would soon meet. He pictured his skin draped over one of the jagged boulders, his blood painted on the rocks, his corpse rushing out into the sea.

“I wanted to be found. But this chase between you and me, I’m afraid, is at an end. You see, as long as you were out there, I realized I would never be free. Morgan owed me the world for his newfound abilities. He put all the pieces in order, led you right to my doorstep. By the way, are the two of you having fun?”

“Go to hell!” Jude yelled.

“I want him. Let him live!” something from within Victor roared. It was the dark voice Jude had heard moments earlier. The old witch doctor couldn’t control the voice, though, and a struggle to identify which sound was his own and which belonged to the creature inside him began.

“He is powerful,” the slimy voice continued. “Stronger than you, Victor. He is the circle. Finally complete.”

“No!” Victor screamed back. Soon, the old man regained control of his speech. “You came here to find something, didn’t you? Something more than revenge. You came to know it. That something crawling around in your head. A darkness waiting to be unleashed.”

Haiti’s sandy, red wind carried the name
Azrael
like a chant.

“What is that?” Jude asked.

“It is that which much of this world has not yet seen. But it will. Oh, yes. I have heard that this is where Azrael fell before the age of man. Where the demon was born, you might say, when the earth was young. He was sent to open the eyes of the innocent. Because, you must understand, the eyes of men are mere doorways into the soul. And souls breed dark. You know what I speak of. Morgan’s eyes were opened, right here, in this very spot.”

Jude jerked, but he was unable to free himself.

“Can you feel the end coming?”

“I’ll kill you!”

“Shhh! I’m going to kill you first. You see, Azrael wants you for a new shell. But creatures like him never could make up their minds. If they could, their kind never would’ve fallen in the first place. You know what I mean? So I’m going to do what Azrael can’t do. I’m going to give you to the underworld.”

“What are you?”

“You’re a smart man, Jude Foster. I’ve already told you. I am one with Azrael. I am man. I am demon. And we are all complete…without you.”

Jude hung, motionless, paralyzed. Suddenly he was sailing through the air, thrown violently onto the stiff ground. The impact came with a crunch in his spine.

“I could’ve broken my back,” he gasped, finding out he could still rotate. Jude stood up, his throat strained from screaming.

This was a new nightmare, one he wasn’t anywhere near ready for. He gritted his teeth and felt something cold and wet. It began dripping down his face without warning. “Blood?” he said, touching the red tears.

His eyes grew hungry for answers. Where was Victor?

It was a quiet wind that stirred now. But suddenly, the quiet ended, and he was hit by a powerful strike. Unable to brace himself, Jude’s body absorbed the blows that came like a storm. His bones broke then re-shifted.

“Can you see it now?” It was the haunting influence of the demon. Victor was put away for the time being.

Victor dropped him to his back and stared. “Isn’t this what you’ve been looking for your whole life, Detective? Something that understands, something that is strong enough to give you what you need to survive? Well, you found it. But this answer comes with a price. Your soul is required.”

“Get away from me. You’re crazy!”

“As are you. The mirrors of men are filled with the most complex reflections. We are similar creatures.”

“I’m nothing like you!” Jude howled. His tone was morphing the more he spoke.

“Yes. This
is
who you are. Who you’ve kept buried from the world of men all of these long years. I want you.” Azrael’s slippery hiss choked him. Victor was mute behind a wall of blank flesh. “You are mine.”

Jude had been knocked off his feet, and he was now trapped beneath Victor’s god-like heel. “Yes, try to move, try to breathe, try to fight it. All will be useless.” The old witch doctor was warring for power.

“No,” Azrael invaded.

“He must die!” Victor shouted, crushing Jude’s throat with his bare foot. “Every man dies. Everything ends.”

Jude fought to open his hands, barely capable of seeing Victor’s shadow. He was thirsty. He was hungry. He needed to breathe, to see clearly, but the crimson glaze over his eyes forced him to blink until his vision corrected itself. But that wasn’t happening. The demon was alive inside of him, brutal and merciless.

Suddenly, a new wind started, becoming strong and moving with purpose. It thrust Victor to the ground. Whispers climbed both of their bodies.

Victor fought gravity and tried to stand, but the sands around him shifted, catching his feet within its grip. He couldn’t escape. He couldn’t fight this invisible force. A voice lulled ever so softly then. As Jude focused his vision, he noticed gray figments of fog escaping from Victor’s eyes, passing through him, ripping fractions of his flesh and soul apart. He witnessed then the old man’s veins bubble to a pop. Rotten teeth dropped out and helped to choke him. In mere seconds, Victor’s body had aged decades, skin tearing and bones like powder.

A tortured cry exploded from the belly of what remained of a hollow frame. It was the soul of a man dragged back into the earth he had served so much. Upon Jude’s next blink, Victor’s remains were swallowed up by the ground.

Jude dared not move. Panic had climbed into the driver’s seat.

“So many millennia I have endured, for you, sonny.” He knew the voice that hummed around him. Azrael. “What a world we’ll make.”

His hands turned to steel, bleached and numb. No eyes were there to spy. No light. The clouds hovered above and blocked out the sun. A long and crippling shadow stretched its powerful presence out over the village.

Jude’s jaw stretched and broke. Azrael was making a home within his shell. Red tears bloomed inside his eyes, a mixture of fear and torment. And ultimately, acceptance.

A sudden lust drew him deep into the village. He started running, grunting, moaning. Jude’s run quickly transformed into a beastly gallop, and he lunged with intense speed on all fours. Faster, effortless. A hunger born from the temples of the desperate and the damned was pulling him.

It was not blood he craved, but human souls.

33

THE STITCHED BLACK MATERIAL
swallowing his face made it hard to breathe. But it didn’t stop Kevin from yelling as loudly as he could. He wanted to know why he was being kept around like a sick pet, and why he was tied up.

His voice echoed. “I haven’t eaten anything in over twenty-four hours.”

What time of day was it, or was it even day at all?

And then his head began to swim. No, drown. The scene where Morgan separated his soul from his body, turning all supernatural at Chubb’s nightclub, rushed him all at once. Nothing that twisted was possible, he reasoned. But reason had been kicked out of the conversation hours ago, hadn’t it? All that remained were splinters of doubt and unease. He’d never even heard of The Pearl before last night, and that’s probably how the fat cats liked it. Now he’d never forget it as long as he lived.

His thoughts painted pictures across his subconscious. He prayed to God they’d go away, and soon. There was no room in his head for such nightmares. The
why
of his arrival notwithstanding, Kevin quickly arranged and rearranged the events leading up to the
how
. And it came rapidly, to his surprise. Morgan, whatever monster he was, had punched him good, knocking him out however many hours ago. Yeah, that was it. They hadn’t been in the white Mercedes three minutes before Morgan put him to sleep. Like a bad dog. And
voila
, he awoke with a colossal migraine.

“Let me out of this thing! Why am I here!” he screamed. He took a strong whiff. The place smelled like a basement.

Anxiety had already sunk in, along with rage, confusion, fear. Then the craving hit him like a ten-pound brick. He tried reaching in his pocket for it, but the bag of powder wasn’t there to calm him down. For all he knew, Morgan could’ve beaten him and done God knew what else in the time it took for his brain to turn back on. He wouldn’t even know.

Kevin reached into his memories, to fight it. In there, he searched for the words to the Hail Mary prayer. Praying didn’t magically wash the images out, though; didn’t even give his heart a chance to catch a breather. But his lips didn’t quit uttering the things his mother had taught him growing up. He repeated every line and verse.

“What is this place? What are you going to do with me!” Kevin shouted, his vocal cords worn down.

Seconds later, Kevin’s bagged face was basking in the smell of…he didn’t know what it was. But from the taste and the awful smell of cheap booze…

“You leaked yourself.” The wretched voice was Morgan Cross. “Got all jittery and dripped all over the floor.”

“Let me outta this thing. My brother’s a cop, chump! When he finds out where I am, you better pray.”

A long pause. “Is this the part where I hightail it out of here? I was a cop too, once upon a time. Now, for the love of God, shut your trap. We wouldn’t want the neighbors to hear. Don’t want their blood staining your conscience, do you, buddy?”

“I’m not your buddy.”

“Now, now, Kevin. Yes, you are. Doesn’t matter what the other kids say. We’re still friends. At least, we will be so long as you cooperate.” Morgan removed the glove suffocating him and got up close. He kissed Kevin’s cheek. The exchange was a delicate discomfort.