Authors: John Urbancik
He didn’t stay to watch. He managed to get to the office door without falling, and clung to the wall in the hallway. He found the elevator. Briefly, he wondered if it was safe; but he was too high up, and too weak, to risk the stairs. He punched the button and waited. Wind rushed through the shattered window and raced down the hall, bringing a spray of mist.
With a soft, high-pitched ding, the elevator doors opened. Jack fell in, not caring if someone was already inside. He found the Lobby button at the bottom of the controls and pushed it—and kept pushing it until the doors finally closed and he started to descend.
4.
On the street, Nick saw the window shatter. And it was there, that office building, that the wind pummeled—and the rain—as if the storm focused all its fury on one spot: the watcher. Jack Harlow.
He was still more than a block away when the vampire leapt from the building. They were thirty, maybe forty stories up. She cleared the street, landing on another tall building.
A moment of decision: get Jack, probably still in that building, or chase the vampire. If Jack still lived, something stronger than the vampire must have tossed her out that window.
Nick crossed the street as he ran, drew his gun as he pumped his legs harder. He didn’t care who saw. There was no way in Hell he would fail both of them.
1.
The doors slid open and
Jack spilled into the lobby. There’d been no stops on the way down, and no one waited at the bottom. He staggering, but remained upright without assistance.
The tiles were white, the walls white, all with black trim. The elevator doors were white, split down the middle by ebony. It felt very futuristic, in the way they used to imagine the future: sterile, high in contrast, disorienting.
He didn’t have much time. The elemental was still out there—as well as
Jia
Li—not to mention the dozen or so things he might or might not have seen and whatever else had remained beyond his field of vision.
Immediately beyond the elevators, facing two sets of double glass doors (out to the street), was a security desk. The guard, in a blue uniform with a black and white patch, looked up from his panels. “You’re wet,” he said.
“Window broke,” Jack said, not stopping. No time to actually lie or make up a story; he was too weak for that.
“Where?”
“Upstairs,” Jack said. He pushed out the door. The rain wasn’t going to get him wetter. A set of concrete steps led down to the street. A railing bisected the stairs; Jack held it as he descended. He glanced upwards, to the shattered window where he’d been held.
“Wait,” the security guard said, coming out behind him. Jack almost stumbled. “I don’t know you.”
“Just visiting,” Jack said.
“Then you didn’t sign in,” the guard said.
“I don’t have time for this.”
“I’ll have to ask you to make time,” the guard said.
“Or?”
“Or . . .” The guard hesitated, glancing down the street. He was being pummeled by the rain, but it was the appearance of someone—or something—else that had diverted his attention.
Jack looked, too, as Nick bounded up the stairs, gun pointed at the guard.
“Don’t,” Jack said, holding out his hands as if that might actually stop the hunter.
The guard had no weapon; he was probably an hourly employee, minimally trained, unaware of the office suite
Jia
Li kept, even if he knew her by sight. Whoever the guard was, he was not part of the night.
“Get back inside,” Nick said, pausing on the steps. “Pretend this never happened.”
The guard lifted his hands in surrender. “Right. Yeah. Of course. This never happened. I . . .
er
. . . should I call someone to fix that window?”
Jack glanced upwards again. The rain now fell straight down. “Tomorrow,” he said.
The guard hesitated, then ran back inside.
“We better get out of here,” Nick said, coming to Jack’s side. “You look like shit.”
“Feel it, too,” Jack said.
Nick propped Jack with an arm around his waist and helped him down the steps. They walked as fast as Jack could, turning down the first alley before the police showed up. They had minutes, at best, to get out of sight.
“Have to get you out of the rain,” Nick said. “Someplace safe.”
Jack shook his head. “There is no such place.” They emerged from the alley on a two-lane side street, still well in sight of the office building. “Lisa’s apartment,” Jack suggested.
Nick shook his head. “I saw a church just down the block. We’ll go there.”
“Church?” Jack asked.
“Isn’t it some sort of sanctuary?” Nick asked.
“You’ve watched too many movies.”
“It’s warm and dry,” Nick said, “and close. That’s most important right now.”
2.
Nick Hunter broke the lock on one of the doors to get into the church. It was huge, shrouded in darkness, Catholic by appearance. After an outer hallway, another set of equally large doors led into the nave. Holy water fonts flanked the inside of the doors. Rows and rows of cherry wood or mahogany pews were divided by a wide aisle. The altar was bare except for a brilliant white Bible. Huge organ pipes rose on either side of the altar; statues of Jesus and Mary stood in front of them. Stained glass windows depicted the stations of the cross. Rain echoed on the ceiling, simultaneously booming and distant.
“So,” Nick said, letting Jack sit at the last pew, “there’s no knowledgeable priest to suddenly come to our aid?”
Jack shook his head.
Nick sighed, tucking the gun back under his belt. “What happened up there?”
Jack laid back, closing his eyes. “You don’t want to know.”
“Of course not,” Nick said. “Is she dead?”
“
Jia
Li?”
Nick paused. “The vampire has a
name
?”
“I don’t know if she’s dead.”
Nick didn’t think Jack was lying. He wanted to press for answers, get the whole story out of the watcher—mainly because he didn’t want to admit he’d lost Lisa. “I saw her go out the window.”
“She wasn’t alone.”
“And we won’t be for long, will we?” Nick asked. “The sun’s low enough, with the storm, that it may as well be night out there.”
Their voices carried in the church, but there was no one to listen. A few candles burned in the front and rear corners, though most were unlit. The lighting was low, as only a few runners, alongside the pews and lining the walls, glowed dimly.
“How’d you find me?” Jack asked.
“Followed the wind.”
“Ah.” A moment of silence. “What took so long?”
Nick didn’t answer. He walked toward the rear doors of the church and the silver dishes of holy water besides them. “Quiet in here,” he said. “Are you sure we’re not safe?”
“Have you ever seen a vampire in a church?” Jack asked.
Nick thought about it. He’d seen them in graveyards outside of churches, but never inside. Of course, this was the first time he’d been inside one in over a decade. “No.”
“Neither have I,” Jack said. “But does that mean the stories are true?”
Nick didn’t ask about God. Didn’t dare, out of fear of being struck down. There was enough lightning already. The church housed a different shade of shadows. He felt uncomfortable. “Maybe we should keep moving.”
“Does it matter?” Jack asked. “They’ll keep coming, won’t they? I mean, they’re following me, and not by any means we know.”
“Not just you,” Nick said, and instantly regretted it.
“No?”
Nick looked at his watch. “Dawn is a long ways away.”
“Dawn,” Jack said, “won’t protect me.”
“And you think I can?”
“I’m not asking you to try,” Jack said, sitting up. “In fact, I’m really not sure why you stuck around. You said you wanted the information on my computer, right?” Nick didn’t answer. “You could’ve taken that already, gotten five hundred miles away by now. But you’re still here, and you were looking for me.”
“I wanted the vampire,” Nick said.
“Then go get her,” Jack said. “I doubt that fall killed her.”
“I’m involved now,” Nick said. “I can’t just leave the two of you to your fates.”
“Where’s Lisa?” Jack asked.
“Anyway,” Nick said, skipping the question, “if the vampire’s still alive, she’ll come looking for you.”
“Where’s Lisa?” Jack asked again.
Nick had no real answer.
“She’s not at her apartment, is she?” Jack asked, standing and walking; Nick kept his gaze on the doors, away from Jack. The sudden anxiety was exhausting. “Is she dead?”
“She’s not dead,” Nick said, bowing his head. “At least, not when I last saw her.”
Jack grabbed his shoulder. “Tell me.”
Reluctantly, Nick did.
3.
“Look at them run,” the demon said to Lisa Sparrow, referring to the scampering creatures all around them. Every turn of his head sent another slew of malformed beasts running frantically for cover, crawling over each other, pushing others back so they could get further away. “They’re pathetic,” the demon said. “So why do you not run?”
Lisa waited for the demon to continue, but realized he actually expected an answer. “No point,” she said.
“No?”
“If you want me,” Lisa said, “it doesn’t really matter how far or fast I run, here, does it?”
The demon laughed. “No. No, it doesn’t at all. Quite perceptive. Yet these fractured minds around me, they tremble with fear. Fight to hide behind their brothers. Does that seem, to you, an honorable thing to do?”
Lisa tried to avert her eyes. The demon was a solid mass of muscle, blister red, twice her height and almost as broad, but she couldn’t force herself to look at the souls in the molten river, or the deformed mega-insects clinging to the backs of the wretched beasts cowering behind every available rock. Again, the demon was waiting for an answer. “No,” she finally said.
“No,” the demon agreed. “There is a distinct lack of honor around us, wouldn’t you say?”
“Sure.”
“And fear,” the demon said. “Everyone here, big or small, is frightened. Of me. Even you, isn’t that right?”
Lisa nodded. Once.
“Yet I have done nothing to you,” the demon said. “I have laid no hand on you, nor issued any threat. It is you, in fact, who have done wrong by me, and yet you tremble. Can you explain that logic?”
After a moment’s thought, Lisa could. “You took me. Kidnapped me.”
The demon laughed. “I’ve done nothing of the sort. Indeed, it’s you who are trespassing, without invitation, via a portal you opened by rather illicit methods.” He paused, raising a hand as if to stop her from speaking. “Yes, I know, I left something behind, a mistake in the heat of a very unusual moment, I agree.” He shook his head. “You do not even realize what you’ve done, do you? This is new to you.”
Again, Lisa nodded. It was easier than talking.
“Well, allow me to enlighten you regarding the full breadth of your actions and all their implications. You unlocked a door that should not have been opened, a door to my world. My prison. There are five hundred million creatures here. Great and small, human and beast, hybrids the likes of which you are simply incapable of comprehending. It’s a very big prison, but not the biggest.”
“I saw you on the street,” Lisa said. “You were already out of your prison.”
The demon laughed again. “My prison, yes,” the demon said. “Look around you. Every soul you see, every beast, they are tortured and disfigured, crying in agony and fear, screaming. Do I scream or cry? Am I . . . altered?”
Hesitantly, Lisa said, “No.”
“No,” the demon repeated. “Exactly. I am no prisoner here; I am warden. These things around you, they are my charges. And you, regardless of your intentions, have released one.”
“I didn’t . . .”
“Ah, but you did,” the demon said. “It’s not a question of what you meant or wished for, but what are we going to do about it?”
“W-w-we?” Lisa stammered.
“We,” the demon said.
“But you attacked us.”
“I was deceived,” the demon said. “I see it now, but there, in his presence—that no longer matters.”
“It matters to me.”
“My attack was unsuccessful,” the demon said.
“Your vampire girl . . .”
“
My vamp
. . .” The demon laughed again. “I think not. Yes, I fashioned the golem, and I
influenced
of a few nearby weak-willed and easily manipulated creatures. But the vampire was not under my direction.”
“So why did you attack us?” Lisa asked. “What were you led to believe, that was so wrong?”
The demon shook his head. “There are more important matters at hand. One of my charges has
escaped
. To your earth. He must be brought back.”