Out of the Black - Lee Doty [168]
"For now," Kaspari nodded. "I've tried everything, but I can't break its hold on me... if Dek hadn't escaped, hadn't transferred his gift to you," Kaspari looked at Anne, "then my plan would have failed and it would have discovered my deception. It would have realized that it didn't need my cooperation and it would have taken me."
"You mean it would've killed you?" Anne asked.
"No," Issak said, looking tired, "not yet."
"Why not?" The newly sitting Hawthorne entered the conversation.
"If I'm dead, the tether won't hold. It's nettled into my soul, not my flesh."
"So if anyone offs you, this thing's history?" Elena Mendez said, helping her husband to unsteady feet.
Kaspari nodded. "Maybe."
"Maybe?" Alex said.
"I don't know how powerful this thing has become." Kaspari looked around, "Past some point, it will be so established in this reality that it won't need me. I've got to act fast."
"Act... fastsked.
Kaspari gave her a black look. Confirmation flowed between them. "When you met Dek- when he died, he was trying to save the world."
"So now you're going to do the same thing." Anne said.
Issak set his face. Hard. Finished. He looked at Anne. "I have something of yours." He brought something out of his pocket and walked to her. He held out his hand.
"Does this mean we're going steady?" she said, taking the ring from his hand.
"It was Dek's."
She tried three fingers before she finally found one that would allow the ring around it. She examined the shiny, featureless metal. She could sense the arcs of power that were forged into the ring... she could almost see the shimmering tracings that wound around the band. "What does it do?"
"It's a key." Kaspari held out his other hand. Anne took what she thought looked like a flashlight, or perhaps a stunner.
Anne touched the activating stud on the object with her thumb. The blade rang from the end of the collapsed sword. The blade shimmered with energy only she and the Savants could see. It was beautiful, like lightning stretched into smooth, even arcs. It seemed familiar in her hand, like she'd held it for years. Reluctantly, she looked from the shimmering blade to Kaspari's face. "King of England." She muttered, holding the sword before her.
Kaspari looked confused, but decided not to pursue the issue. "I'm pretty sure he wanted you to have that."
***
They both woke with a start. In his disoriented state, he clawed at the alarm clock. He'd pressed every button his clumsy fingers could find and slammed his fist into the top of the clock twice before he noticed the clock's display. 5:22am- too early.
By the time he realized his mistake, his wife was already out of bed and rushing toward the door. The shrieking that woke them was coming from Scott's room. Sleep vanished like morning mist in the blazing daylight of fear. It sounded like Scott was being eaten alive.
He fought his way out of the covers and rushed around the bed, slamming into a bookshelf, then a dresser in the near dark of the room. He entered the hallway at an uncoordinated sprint. His wife was already at Scott's door, banging on it with her fist and calling to him. He couldn't make out her words among their boy's shrieks.
While her right hand pounded, her left wrestled with the locked knob.
"Move!" he shouted, not slowing from his sprint down the hallway. His wife jumped right and he plowed into the door with his right shoulder.
The flimsy interior door crumpled where his shoulder struck it, but more importantly the lock plate flew off of the doorjamb, leaving a splintered crater. The door swung open into darkness and shifting colored light.
The room's light was off, so darkness largely prevailed, resisted only by a sense lamp Scott had bought when he started hanging out with the wrong kids earlier this year. The lamp had been on a dresser near Scott's bed, but it now lay on its side on the floor. It spilled its shifting patterns of psychedelic light across a wall covered in intricate posters, and part of the ceiling. Behind the lamp, Scott's bed was shrouded in