The Light Sleeper

deduce something, starting to understand.

  “Sarah, let’s you and I go check out the Insomniac and then check in with Harry. If he hasn’t found anything and I pray to the Gods that we don’t either, we will call it a day and go home to collect our easy money. Sound like a plan?” I asked.

  “Sounds like a plan.” she said smartly and began marching towards the stasis chamber.

  Sarah and I approached the stasis tube. The Insomniac had his back to us as the tube slowly rotated on the dais. I glanced around for anything out of the ordinary as Sarah stared up at the slowly rotating form.

  “He’s big.” she said finally, stating more than the obvious. “I like them big.”

  “You would. Though, the Insomniac may be a little too big, even for you.” I shot back.

  She was right, he was big. He stood at least 8 feet tall and even with only his back facing us, you could see muscles piled upon muscles. He wasn’t just big, he was built like an animal, like a monster, an ideal of a man, cords on cords, veins standing out even when he was at rest. He slowly came to face us and Sarah gasped in shock.

  “Is he looking at me?” she said in a soft and frankly, scared sounding voice. “His eyes are open.”

  And all Hell broke loose. Klaxons began wailing, lights began flashing. The dais stopped turning with a final lurch and a sound like your coffin lid closing on top of you. The amber like substance enclosing the Insomniac suddenly webbed like safety glass and collapsed in a glittery cloud of particles. I took a couple of bounding steps and grabbed a very terrified looking Dr. Powell.

  “What is going on, dammit?” I yelled in his face.

  “He moved.”

  “I know that. His eyes opened.” I sneered.

  “No, his eyes were open already. That’s how he sleeps. Something else moved.” he stammered. “I was right. I knew it would all come crashing down. Why did they have to send you? Everybody knows how you handle problems, you make them worse.”

  “Don’t worry about me right now. Worry about him. Find out what moved, what woke him up while I try to contain this situation.” I said.

  “It always ends in tears when you are around.” he shot back but hustled over to his console and began typing furiously. I glanced around the room. Harry was standing in one corner, his hackles raised and a very suspicious, yellow, puddle at his feet. Sarah was standing in front of the Insomniac, her head tilted to look at him in the same odd way a bird looks at a worm. The Insomniac stood on his dais, his eyes staring straight ahead, unfocused, dead and then suddenly, they moved.

  He looked around the room and when his eyes passed over me, I suddenly knew how the mouse felt when the shadow of a hawk passed over its head, how the antelope felt when the wind changed and it smelled a lion right beside it, how the damned felt when they saw the Book of Judgment open.

  They were deep brown, almost black, all iris like a shark’s eyes but with less compassion and kindness. His teeth were blocky, like a plant eater but his incisors were pointed and looked razor sharp, like the first and greatest predator. His hands were massive and brutish and flexed as if hungry to rend and tear this feeble mortal world. A blood-red birthmark rested on his brow, marking him for eternity. He was the Insomniac, destruction in something-other-than-human-form, and we would all pay for waking him.

  The Insomniac roared and it seemed as if the very pillars of the earth shook. It also jolted me out of my stupor and I concentrated hard and fast, solid and sure, and the air around him turned into diamond. He stood there, frozen in time, rage and insanity etched upon his brutish face. Sarah and Harry rushed to my side as small noises began to sound and tiny cracks began to form in the clear mineral.

  “That won’t hold him for long. We won’t be able to stop him ourselves. We need a plan.” said Sarah. “I looked into his eyes. He is the real deal. He has a touch of the divine about him. I felt it and that mark on his forehead? I have seen it before. I don‘t know where or when but I have seen it.”

  “Okay, here is what we do. Harry, you keep him busy when he breaks out of that cage I believed up for him. Sarah, you hit him with everything you have, as often as you can, for as long as you can. Fire, brimstone, boring sermons, I don’t care what. Just throw everything you have at him.” I said as I started towards Dr. Powell’s workstation.

  “And what will you be doing?” Sarah yelled at my retreating form.

  ‘The same thing I am always doing, saving the day.” I yelled back.

  A thunderous crash sounded and I didn’t have to look back to know that the Insomniac was free and I didn’t have to hear the thunderous roar that sounded to know that he was pissed off. I heard a rumbling growl and the fast ticking of claws on concrete and I knew that Harry was charging at the Insomniac, throwing himself at the Abyss, fighting madness with madness. I heard a low chanting of Words that were painful to hear, like red hot pokers in your ear, like a voice whispering insane and terrible truths in your mind. Enochian, the language of the angels, Words old before man was cast out of the Garden, and I knew that Sarah was bringing her terrifying arts to bear. I didn’t worry about them, couldn’t worry. They were powerful, and deadly, and professional. They would do their jobs and I needed to do mine.

  I grabbed Dr. Powell and he spun to face me, fear etching his face, making it into something ugly and horrifying. His eyes moved wildly in their sockets, trying and failing to desperately focus on something, on anything. His was the hollow look of a man who suddenly had the rug pulled out from under him, of a man who always had the answers before but now was mystified. He had the look of defeat.

  “What is it?” I demanded. “What do you know?”

  “It can’t be. It doesn’t make any sense.” he said softly.

  “What doesn’t make any sense?”

  “I found out what moved. It wasn’t his eyes like I said. It was his… thing.” he said.

  “His thing? Oh! His thing!” I said, realization dawning on me. “Thanks Doc! You may have just saved us all.”

  I turned back to the battle in time to see a massive brown form go hurtling past me to slam into the wall with the smack of bruised meat and the crunch of bone. I looked and saw the Insomniac still standing on his dais. Faint red marks glistened on his chest through tears in his pink bunny suit before swiftly fading away, claw marks from Harry. At that moment, Sarah unleashed Hellfire and bright orange flames that reeked of brimstone flared up around the Insomniac’s massive form. Sarah, at least, was holding her own.

  I turned back to where Harry struck the wall and he was painfully rising to his feet. I could hear the snap of bone as his broken frame repaired itself, I could see pain and madness in his eyes but I could also see something else. Fear. Harry van Helsing, the Wolf-Who-Walks-the-Night was frightened and that was something you didn’t see every day.

  I gestured to him and he gave me as reassuring a look as an Alpha werewolf could. With what could have almost passed for a grin, he bounded back towards the Insomniac, who had now started to slowly advance his way through Sarah’s blistering Hellflames. With a sigh, they winked out, no longer able to rage against the Insomniac’s invulnerable flesh, no longer able to burn brightly against his madness. He seemed to hesitate as he felt a sudden lack of opposition then he started to reach towards Sarah’s hovering form. At that moment, Harry leapt upon his back, howling and slashing and his unexpected attack staggered the Insomniac slightly.

  I called out to Sarah and over the sound of combat she heard me. In the space of a heart beat she was hovering next to me and I leaned over to whisper in her ear. She pulled away at what I had to say and looked at me disbelievingly.

  “I’m completely serious.” I said.

  “Oh, I know you are. I am just surprised and with good reason.” she said.

  “Are you okay with this?” I asked, my mental fingers crossed.

  “Sure. Why not? It might even be fun.” She said as turned to look at the Insomniac‘s muscular form. “For both of us.”

  As we finish
ed speaking, the Insomniac finally tired of Harry riding his back and he leapt high in the air, slamming Harry against the ceiling. Harry’s body went limp as the blow forced all the air out of his lungs and released his opponent and that was all the opening the Insomniac needed. He spun in midair, grabbed Harry, and hit him a dozen times on the way down hard enough to level a building. By the time the two of them slammed into the concrete floor, Harry was long past unconscious and the Insomniac had no intention of stopping. He would tear Harry apart and in his unconscious state, Harry would revert back to human form within seconds.

  I had to Do Something. I preferred to not Do Something. I preferred to use my power sparingly, preferred to let my reputation do the fighting but there was no choice, no other recourse. Sometimes, when the Devil was nipping at your heels, you had no choice but to look back, whether he was gaining or not.

  I concentrated hard and fast and dirty, reaching deep within myself, finding my depths of power. There, far below my conscious mind, I found the wellspring of my power, and with glee and fear in my heart I plunged my mind into them. My power blazed