And It Arose from the Deepest Black (John Black Book 2) (25 page)

3

As I walked alone through farmland many miles from home, I discovered something unexpected but awfully useful: Some of these fine people still used clotheslines.

I found a t-shirt roughly my size and swapped. Yes, I left my own shirt behind, so it wasn’t technically stealing, it was trading, a grey one for a red one. Besides, it was plausible that someone might put two and two together and realize my crappy old grey tee was actually the same shirt seen on the infamous Black Sword as he killed the Gorgol Sigma, so maybe they could get some money out of it. Plus, it probably had Gorgol-blood stains on it. I didn’t really check. Hell, there were probably blood stains on it from
Pip
…

Come to think of it, I hoped no one ever put two and two together.

Walking mask-free and with a new shirt — enough change that I felt I was probably anonymous — I entered a small town, a place most likely named Wayneston. I say that based on the First Bank of Wayneston and Wayneston Auto Repair Shop signs that cropped up as I emerged from the surrounding woods.

The hard part was actually entering town. How do you just walk into a town, without looking conspicuous? I’m not sure I did it right, but anyway, there I was. I was on the lookout for minds to push, to pave the way for my silent arrival, but if anyone was watching, they were indoors and not obvious to me. Catching myself eyeing darkened windows, I wondered if I should add paranoia to my growing set of bizarre attributes.

I paused at the intersection of Route 38 and Main Street — yes, their main street was really called Main Street — and that’s when my head exploded.

Imagine the rumbling bass tone of pushing a heavy crate along a wooden floor — bone-jarring and teeth-chattering — combined with the shrill, pseudo-human call of a young girl’s scream. Then take those two sounds and process them through an evil computer that wants you to die, using the ear-splitting sensibilities of your average bass-dropping DJ. That’s what it sounded like. Or felt like. Both.

The pain was a metal rod thrust through my head, connecting my ears. I felt like I’d had my brain pierced. 

Yet the world seemed still. Farther down the street, I saw a woman pumping gas like the only sounds she heard were the tweet of birds, the whoosh of fluid passing into her car’s tank, and the mechanical ticking of the old-time pump. Lucky her.

About to collapse from the pain and sheer unrelenting force of the sound in my head, I pushed back with my mind.

HOLLY! STOP!

My sister was trying to reach me.

Not surprisingly, there was no reply. Holly was nowhere in sight, not close enough for us to mentally converse. But she was clearly trying to get my attention.

No.

She was trying to guide me. To her.

Bring me home.

Despite the pain, the corner of my mouth turned up in a smile.
Good idea, sis.

I turned right on Main Street, following the blinding sound.

* * *

As I walked, I repeated in my mind the same phrase, beaming it outward.

Holly, please stop.

I could tell I was getting closer, but all that was doing was making the pain worse. I just kept repeating the same words.

And then they worked. The sound was gone.

Johnny? Where are you?

I looked up. I’d been walking with my head down, just making progress but otherwise ignoring the world around me.
Um. Somewhere on a small road.
I scanned left and right. Trees. Grass. A red house in the distance. More cornfields.

I don’t know where that is, Johnny
, she sai
d
.

Sorry, Hol. Why don’t you tell me where you are, and we can try to figure it out?

Sure. We’re in a driveway on the side of the road. In Mom’s car.

Much as my description didn’t help Holly, hers was useless to me. Then I had an idea.
Can you have Mom blow the horn?

I had no idea how Holly would manage that, with her limited vocabulary. It was weird with her. Sometimes she could make Mom understand the most complex things with just a tone or gesture, and sometimes no matter what she did or said, Mom was in the dark. This time, it must have worked. In the distance somewhere in front of me, a horn started blaring.

Good job, Hol. I’m coming!

* * *

Minutes later I was sitting in my mom’s van. And it was
awkward
. Without more than five words spoken, she started the engine and headed home.

We drove in silence for a while. In the back seat, I could tell Holly was bristling with energy. Why not? From her perspective, she’d accomplished something no one else could do — locate me and bring me home. But my mother had no doubt watched me on TV, killing Sigma, attacking Pip. The vibe I got from her was… complicated.

I don’t know what the stages of response are for the silent treatment, but I assume they go something like this.

First:
Oh crap, she knows something’s wrong.

Then:
What do I do? Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.

Next:
Maybe I can make it up to her.

Finally:
You know what? Hell with it! Who does she think she is, sitting there not saying anything? I’m sick and tired of this!

It didn’t take me long to work through the steps. We sat, three little islands in the car, one happy, one concerned, and one getting pissed off.

“Glad we found you,” Mom offered half-heartedly.

“Really?” I asked, far too snide. As soon as it came out, I felt bad. But it was out.

Mom just looked over at me, only for a second. “When we get home, I think you and I should talk.”

Oh crap.

4

The kitchen table is a multipurpose space. Sure, on the surface (get it?), it’s where you set your food while you eat. But in a family setting, it’s so much more. The place where you plan vacations, play games, read, maybe watch TV, joke, relax, whatever. Though it’s not all fun and games. The kitchen table is also where talks happen. Not just any talks, but
talk
s
.

My mom and I were having a
tal
k
.

Well, technically. I mean, technically we weren’t. Because she wasn’t talking.

It was maddening.

But I knew what she’d say. What any mom would say. That I’d gone too far, had to reel myself back in. I was ready for her scorn, her disapproval of what I’d done, and the way that I’d done it.

“John…,” she started.

Here we go
, I thought. I crossed my arms and pushed my chair back a couple of inches from the table. If you want to see how I looked, there’s a picture in the dictionary under “someone who’s not listening to you.”

“Don’t bother,” I said, briefly waving one palm at her. In retrospect, I’m lucky to be alive. Have you ever told a parent to “talk to the hand?” It’s a bad idea.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when my mother echoed my pose, pushing back and crossing her arms. She cocked an eye at me, but didn’t say a word.

What now?
I thought. She’d spoken, I’d spoken, we both crossed our arms… was that the end of the conversation?

Finally, Mom cleared her throat. “Are you ready to talk about the killing now?” she said.

The words were simple and yet profound. And yet my reaction was complicated. At once, I found my crossed arms tightening defensively. “Killing” was precisely what I didn’t want to talk about. But I was also disarmed, the way only a quiet word from a mother can do.

I didn’t know what to say. I was responsible for too many deaths. My mother was innocent, kind. How could she possibly understand? “Have you ever thought about killing someone?” I asked.

“Yes.” Her face was unreadable.

“Really?” I loosened the vice of my arms, letting them fall to my lap. Mom nodded. “Who?” I figured it was probably someone I didn’t know, maybe some childhood archrival.

“Walter Ivory,” she said, her eyes locked on mine. Did she know the truth? We’d never discussed it. The surprise must have shown on my face. “You remember him.”

It wasn’t a question. Then it was my turn to nod. “But, why?”

Mom leaned toward me, elbows on the table. “It’s irrational, and there’s no proof, but he was there. The day Holly had her first seizure. Do you remember that?” I nodded again. “Walter Ivory was looking for trouble with your dad, trying to start a fight. Walter was always looking for trouble. But that one time, trouble found us instead. Holly…” Mom didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t need to. I’d been there, that day, and every day since. Every day of Holly’s changed life. “But it’s irrational. I blame Walter Ivory in my heart, but in my mind, I know it could have happened any time. Holly and I could have been reading a book or at the grocery store…”

“But you weren’t.”

“No, we weren’t.”

“And so…?”

“And so, I’ve wished many times that I could kill Walter Ivory.”

How could I respond? Would she think that what I had to say was good news? Or ghastly? No other way to find out than just telling her.

“I killed Walter Ivory,” I said.

Again, she nodded. “Good.”

That was too easy. “Wait… You believe me?”

Mom’s expression was wry. “John, you can control minds, bend and twist your body like you’re made of water, and you’ve killed two giant monsters on live TV. You think I don’t believe you killed that son of a bitch?” See? Everyone thought Walter Ivory was a son of a bitch. I wasn’t kidding.

“Don’t you want to know how it happened?”

Mom gave a little one-sided shrug. “Well, I know how he died already — heard that he was killed in a fall over at the self-storage place. Now I know you were responsible.”

Responsible. It was the kind of word you don’t hold in the palm of your hand, you have to throw it over your back and hunker down to carry. Still, why was Mom so
calm
about the whole thing? “You… you’re not upset?”

“At what? The fact that you were probably in danger, and never told me? Sure, a bit. But angry about Walter? Not at all. Good riddance.” She made an offhand gesture, like throwing away a piece of trash.

I didn’t know what to think. My mom wasn’t callous. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body. “But, why?”

“Because you’re my son. No one — I mean,
no one
— better mess with my family. I can take a lot of crap about a lot of things, but not that. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Or Holly.” Her eyes fell to the table. “Or your dad.”

Dad. Suddenly the story of Walter Ivory was forgotten. Anything I’d done to Walter just pushed him further into the insanity where he already existed. But Dad? That was all me, and Mom didn’t know. “Mom, I…”

“John, I know you’ve had to do some terrible things. Like Sol. I know why you killed him — to save your sister. And, I’m sorry to say if this sounds terrible, but I’m glad you did. There are terrible people in the world, and I’m willing to let them be if they let me be. But if they don’t…”

“I haven’t only killed terrible people, Mom.” My palms were flat on the table and starting to sweat. There was no turning back.

“What are you talking about?”

I swallowed hard. “I killed Dad.”

In that instant, my mother aged a decade. The color drained from her face. “
No
.”

“Yes, I did.”

“No, John. Your father died in an accident.” But I could hear the shift in tone already. She doubted what she was saying, was worried that what I said was true.

“I caused that accident,” I said, like air rushing from a balloon, something that needed to get out.

“Why?”

I could only shrug.

Mom started to shake her head, slightly at first, then gaining momentum. I had a vision of her shaking and shaking until her head flew off, like a broken doll. “Why, John? What did you have against your father?”

“Nothing!” I shouted the answer, and reached for my mother’s hands, but she pulled back, unsure. “I loved Dad — I
love
him. It was an accident. But I did it. I didn’t mean for him to be involved.”

“You need to tell me exactly what happened,” she said, her eyes cementing the urgency. So I told her everything. Bobby and the gun, in the warehouse. Me leaving and running into Roger Steele and his friends. The way they humiliated me, especially Lawrence Blatnik, and how I’d lashed out. How I tried to get them in trouble with that passing police officer, only to end up with their car stopped in the middle of the road. Then Dad came along in his car, and before there was time for him to do anything — for
me
to do anything — it was too late. The accident happened, and he died. And I realized, my anger, my reaction… even back then, it must have been the bloodlust. The thorns were already changing me.

I told my mother all of it. The thorns. The changes. How I didn’t know what I would do myself, at any moment.

She listened, intently, analyzing.

Everyone has bad memories, some worse than others. This particular memory, the memory of my father’s death — something that I’d witnessed directly, and that Mom had no doubt recreated in her mind countless times based on what she’d heard — was the worst we had, both of us. Separately and together, we had shed countless tears over this memory, and now it was all out. I was guilty, and Mom finally knew it.

“It’s not your fault,” she said quietly.

I had heard the same thing from Bobby, even tried convince myself. But it didn’t change the fact that it
was
my fault. “You’re wrong—”

“No, son,
you
are wrong.” Mom reached forward and took both of my hands in hers. “What you just told me is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard in my life, and as much as I don’t know exactly how to process it, how to live with it, I see one thing clearly. My pain over what happened must be nothing compared to yours.” The empathy in her eyes turned me into a blubbering mess, instantly. As if the tears had been behind a dam, and my mother had just torn it down. This was forgiveness. Besides life itself, this was the greatest gift my mother could ever give me. “Every day, you’ve been telling yourself you killed your father, but you
didn’t
. It was an
accident
. An accident. It really was. It’s not some manufactured bloodlust or anything else. It was just you, and an accident. That’s all. And I can’t imagine how hard it’s been on you, John. But I want you to know that I’m here. Don’t hide these things from me, because when you do, I can’t help. This was a terrible burden you didn’t need to carry. You’ve told me that you never asked for your powers, not the good things or the bad things that come with them. Let go of this one.” She squeezed my hands. “Please.”

Through blurry vision, I tried to smile at her. Tried to make her see how much her words meant to me, how much she meant to me. We sat that way for several minutes until she finally spoke.

“John?”

“Uh huh?”

“What do the Gorgols want?”

Just by mentioning the name, I realized how arrogant I’d been only minutes before, how I thought she would scold me about the Gorgols, I would argue, and then we’d go our separate ways. How wrong I’d been. “I’m not totally sure,” I said.

“But you have an idea?” she asked.

I nodded. “I think they want Holly. Well, I think Alpha wants Holly. But Jake —
Ranger
— wants revenge for the Earth or something weird like that, and Alpha’s mostly under his control.”

She let out a breath that told me she’d already anticipated the answer. “Why does Alpha want Holly, John?”

“Because she brought them here. I don’t know where they were before, but when we were in the desert, Holly opened a window to…
somewhere
. And they came here through that window. Now I think Alpha wants Holly to make another window. To go home. But I don’t think she can. And if they come to her and she can’t do what they want, I think they mean to kill her.”

“Then we need to do two things, son.”

“What’s that, Mom?” I could see the churning of her brain, ideas forming into plans.

“I need to take Holly away. Keep her safe.”

“Alpha will just keep following.”

“I understand, but I have to try. That’s where you come in.” Mom tightened her grip on my hands.

“Okay, what do I do, Mom?”

Unwavering, she spoke in a voice full of pent-up anxiety. Every word rang with maternal instinct, with rage, and bitterness. Mom had lived so many years with her anger at Walter Ivory, with the loss of my father. Now she held nothing back. All the words she seemed to have wanted to say for so long came tumbling out at once. “You need to
kill
Gorgol Alpha. Protect your sister again, John. Kill that monster.”

I hesitated. Killing a Gorgol was at least something I was familiar with. But what about Jake? He was a wild card. “What about him — Ranger? To be honest, Mom, I worry that I’ve just been lucky so far. I really have no idea how to fight.”

She thought, and I could almost see the light bulb go off in her mind. “Do you remember Marcos? He always comes to the family reunions.”