“To the Haze? Really? They wouldn't survive the transition. You know that.”
Jeremy looked away. Mantel was right.
Lyrna growled. “No hurt anyone!”
Mantel raised his finger. “Oh? Let me escalate this negotiation.” He pointed his finger at Lyrna and shot a jet of red-black fire at her. Jeremy cried out and ran to her, but was too late. A pile of black ashes had replaced Lyrna. Jeremy bent forward and raked at the ashes, his tears mixing with the dust. “Lyrna!” Jeremy moaned and the air in the room began pulsing in violent waves. A look of fear spread across the faces of Ms. Fritz and the IIU.
“Why would you destroy what is so innocent? Oh Lyrna, I'm so sorry!” Jeremy turned his back to a terrified Wantoro, Maren, Gillian, and Mateo, his rage building like a volcano, his nerves on fire. “YOU MONSTER!” he yelled, and his electric blue eyes flashed. The fringes of Jeremy's body sparked and his hair stood on end. The air in the room became thick with static. A globe of blue energy expanded explosively around Jeremy and then retracted. A thick blue beam burst from Jeremy's sternum and struck Mantel in the chest. Mantel flew back and hit the floor, his fetus-like legs rolling beneath him.
“There's a surprise,” said Mantel, rising back into the air. He opened his mouth wide and belched. A blackened soul spewed forth, covered in bile, and all the light in the room vanished. The soul slithered towards Wantoro and Jeremy's eyes flashed again. A lightening bolt burst from a glowing oval on Jeremy's forehead and struck the looming shadow, stunning it for a moment. But after the electricity subsided, the soul pressed forward. Mantel laughed again with the sound of a thousand voices, sending the echoes through his vast maze. “Do not resist our alliance! Do not be foolish!” Even Ms. Fritz turned a ghastly shade of white.
Mantel rose high in the air and hovered towards the party, his body acting as a vacuum for light and air. His black, menacing eyes fixed on Jeremy. Mantel belched forth another blackened soul.
Jeremy could feel the pressure on his temples building. This was it. His father was going to die, Maren and her parents were going to die. Lyrna was gone, soft, furry Lyrna, who only ever wanted to warm Jeremy's lap. Jeremy zapped in vain as Mantel closed in. He knew what he must do. If his father, Maren, and her parents were going to die, he'd rather it be by his hands. He'd rather they die in the Haze, where they could at least be sorted and not doomed to live in the maze or be eaten by Mantel. Jeremy leaned back against his father and Maren and enveloped them in his thoughts. He could feel the tension of Mantel's grip on his temples begin to fade and Jeremy began to vibrate. He slowed his breathing down. Concentrate. The vibrations built into an explosion. He felt the familiar tug on his sternum and opened his eyes. He had crossed over to the Haze. His father, Maren, and her parents floated beside him, unconscious.
Tears streamed down Jeremy's face as he pulled his father's hand towards purple swirls. He saw the shallow breaths rise and fall from his great chest and felt the pulse deaden in his fingertips. The Haze stretched on indefinitely and Jeremy swam forward. If he could just find somewhere to pull them out, they might live.
“Help!” Jeremy quickly swam to an elk. It carried the body of a little girl whose face was blue from frost. She cried as the elk led her forward. “Help! I have living souls with me! I need to get them out!” The elk shook its head and swam on.
They were now in the thick of the Haze. Jeremy spun himself around and forgot which way was up and which way was down. He didn't even know the direction he'd come from. Jeremy swam with his father's limp body tucked under his right arm, and Maren under his left. He decided to leave Gillian and Mateo behind. Any minute now, Jeremy suspected a spiritual creature would approach him to take his father and Maren to their afterlife. Would he be responsible for their deaths? Would this count as murder? Jeremy soon saw the outline of a creature approaching from the black. It drifted forward quietly and Jeremy closed his eyes. He did not want to witness death's departure. Here it comes. Goodbye father. Goodbye Maren. He held his breath. A cold sensation brushed against his cheek.
“Jeremy!”
Jeremy opened his eyes. Lyrna mewed.
“Lyrna!” Jeremy grabbed Lyrna and held her close to him. “I'm so sorry! Lyrna, I wanted to pet you one last time!”
“Ferry souls, me!”
“Oh, Lyrna! Have you come to take my father and Maren from me?” Jeremy held his father's limp body up. “Please be quick.”
“No, Wantoro alive.” Lyrna pushed her head up under his large hand. “Trouble breathing.”
“He'll die soon then,” said Jeremy sadly.
“Yes.” Lyrna paused. “But Lyrna know! Mom!”
“He'll join my mom.”
“No, mom here!”
“I know, I saw her when she died.”
“No, mom here and there, Watico. You see. Call her!”
Jeremy frowned and looked at Maren. “What about her, is Maren dead?”
“No! Call mom! Coma. Not dead, not alive. Connected to Watico. Follow voice and you leave Haze!”
Jeremy felt a song play on his ear. “What's that?”
“Yes, concentrate!” mewed Lyrna, bouncing from paw to paw.
It was his mother's song. Jeremy turned in the direction of the song. “Mom?” He looked at Lyrna, astonished. “Is that?”
“I get Mateo and Gillian! You call, go, I follow! Send many concentrations.”
Jeremy yanked his father and Maren forward. “Mom!” he called out. “Mom, please?”
His mother stopped singing. “Jeremy? Is that you? I sense you, are you here?”
“Mom! Where are you!” Jeremy drifted towards her voice.
“I don't know! Jer-Jer?”
“Mom!” Jeremy flew into a fold in space and the Haze opened up sideways. He saw a glowing blue chord attached to something beyond the Haze. A brown bear waited patiently at the end of the chord and licked its paws.
“Mom?”
The chord tugged and fell limp again. Jeremy followed the chord, still holding Maren and Wantoro in either arm. He saw a tear. “Lyrna, I think I found her!” he called back, before pushing through. “Mom!”
Raaychila lay stretched out on a hospital bed. Machines and tubes connected her to life. “Mom! It's me! Can you hear me?” Jeremy laid Wantoro and Maren on the floor and opened the hospital door. “Can somebody help! My father's not breathing!”
A doctor rushed into the room just as Jeremy disappeared back into the Haze.
In the Haze, Lyrna raced towards him pulling Mateo and Gillian by their chords. Jeremy reached out and grabbed Mateo. He extended his arm for Gillian.
“No,” said Lyrna. She tucked her ears back and gently tugged Gillian's chord.
Jeremy looked at the chord held firmly in Lyrna's jaw and knew Gillian had died. Lyrna motioned towards the rip in space. “Mateo need air, quick.”
Jeremy hesitated. “Thank you, Lyrna.” He pulled Mateo through.
Chapter 42
Alive
Jeremy lay at his father's bedside in the Watico Medical Center's Emergency Room. White linen and cream-colored walls accented with a pastel green offered a startling contrast to the black-gray stone lit by the harsh light of torches in Mantel's Maze. Wantoro slowly opened his eyes.
“Good morning, Father.” Jeremy smiled and squeezed his father's hand.
“Jeremy! Where am I? Are you okay?”
“We're back on Watico. I'm fine. The nurses brought this.” Jeremy wheeled a cart of food to Wantoro's side and lifted the lid revealing steamed lobster, mashed potatoes, and a citrus salad. “You should see the mobs outside. The press is unbelievable.”
“You've grown so much.” Wantoro squinted up at Jeremy. “I went to find you. The IIU –”
“Father, please.” Jeremy stood up and shook his head. “We have a visitor,” he said, pulling back the curtain.
A nurse wheeled Raaychila into the room.
“Is she –”
“She's still in a coma, but she's alive.”
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Wantoro looked from his son, now a handsome young man, to his lovely wife. He had traced the lines of her face in his mind's eye so many times these last three years.
###
Be sure to check out these other books in The Hazy Souls series!
Jeremy Chikalto and the Hazy Souls
(Book 1 of The Hazy Souls)
2011
Jeremy Chikalto and Leviathan Island
(Book 2 of The Hazy Souls)
2012
Jeremy Chikalto and the Demon Trace
(Book 3 of The Hazy Souls)
2013
Prologue to Jeremy Chikalto and Leviathan Island
Mark Johnson didn’t expect death to feel like a change in temperature. He set his briefcase down on the mahogany desk in his spacious office, took one final swig of his pumpkin-spice double latte, and opened up his executive-sized window. Mark was a senior partner at Johnson, Smith & Jones, L.L.P., and though he pulled in over $500,000 annually, he had pushed away his late wife, Linda. Long days at the office and longer nights at Gilt on Madison Ave. had put too much stress on their marriage. She’d left Mark for a chemistry professor named Arnold. For God's sake, the man didn't know a cufflink from a tie clip, and wore a tie with short sleeves.
The divorce was decreed. Even his kids divorced themselves from his surname, as if the whole corporation had dissolved.
Tonight Mark meant to dissolve too. Both his parents had expired long ago in Floridan opulence, after all, and he had no educations of nieces or nephews to fund, no siblings to rival. His children and ex-wife wouldn’t touch his assets, and he hadn’t a need for them, really. What an emptiness I have accumulated, thought Mark as he climbed up on his window’s ledge.
Mark wanted to think wild thoughts and have some profound connection to his time and place of death. He’d chosen 11pm sharp, but he had no real reason for doing so. He’d chosen his office window and the city sidewalk below for his body’s final breath. Why? He didn’t know. It was sad, he thought, that there was no poetry in his life.
As Mark Johnson leaned into the wind, trying to elongate the cusp of his life, he glimpsed his destination, and was disgusted. How had he missed this detail? Below, a wooden awning stretched out across several storefronts. Large, striped pedestrian crosswalk signs directed foot traffic through the narrow tunnel. His place of death was a construction site. Mark tried to back out of the deal, but had no leverage, and fell. His adrenal gland surged, and he was horribly excited. The Earth rushing towards him was magnificent, and nothing had ever felt as real as the air he now penetrated. Tenth floor, ninth floor, eighth floor, he was almost one with the ground. Fourth floor, third floor, second floor, and he merged with the plywood of the construction site, shards of wood impaling him as he liquefied on impact.
Mark felt a temperature change. He knew from the ski trips he used to take with his family that a frigid January sometimes felt like a sweltering July. It was all very confusing, especially the fact that Mark was still thinking. He opened his eyes.
Mark had entered the Haze. A buzzing bright white light was soon replaced with humming purple rays. Mark looked down at his blob of a body from an impossible angle, and shrieked when he realized that his head wasn’t attached. It bobbed up and down in space. He floated aimlessly for a time, watching the shadows and lights shift in the distance, and then a strange suction pulled him along. There was a glowing thread emanating from his solar plexus, and a cat-like creature was tugging on it. His head, though severed from his body, followed the cat as though it were bonded to his flesh. Mark cried out and jiggled his arm, which was still attached to his body. The cat turned around, meowed, and pointed a paw above her.
Mark looked up and felt some part of his being rise and separate from the bulk of his consciousness. The part that had risen felt light and whimsical, like the first flurries of the season. He remembered holding his newborn boys, crying and laughing at once. The bottom part, though, was dark and heavy, slush trampled by too many shoes. He was in a back room, screwing an escort, stomach acid and rum sloshing up in his mouth. The cat was pulling him down, down. And then there was an explosion of noise—the hiss of a cat, the shriek of a wild boar, and then a two-toned voice, saying, “Jeremy Chikalto! Apollyon’s animus!”
Mark Johnson swiveled his mushy head and saw the cat hissing and backing away, whipping its gray and white tail. The nearby shadows began to morph, and a large black shape loomed towards him, polluting the Haze above it with swirls of oil. Mark remembered all the times he had been afraid, and the memories coalesced into a feeling of the deepest dread. His glowing cord was drawn into the creature's terrible gravity, and Mark was being reeled in. Mark howled as he entered the demon’s mouth, and was incinerated in its throat. Everything was charred black. This time, there was no mistaking the temperature.
Chapter 1
Apollyon
Jeremy Chikalto smiled and watched the ballroom rotate in a gentle circle, a sea of golden light glinting off of a thousand reflective surfaces on the walls. His dance partner, five-year-old cousin Lilac Vendere, beamed back at him as they twirled. Now she looked like a china doll draped in purple hues, with a moon face and elaborate hairdo. A giggle escaped her lips. The guests lining the perimeter of the dance floor clapped and cooed as the pair waltzed nimbly under the soft lights.
Jeremy remembered this room from his childhood―the high ceilings, antique chandeliers, his mother's elegant gown, his father's impossibly crisp military uniform. When they danced, their regal energy seemed to expand and fill the whole room, the opposite but complementary colors of their clothing echoing in a room of mirrors. His parents' dueling and dancing personalities formed the matrix of his young universe―art and science, the primal lovers, and him the lovechild.
There was a heavy thud against the door, and the spell was broken. The two guards leaning against the wall jumped up and drew their pistols. Lilac's eyebrows knitted together and her bottom lip quivered in fear. Another thud, and the sound of wood splintering. Just then, a mass of yellow burst through the locked door like a battering ram, and bowled over the unprepared guards with two meaty outstretched arms. Not again, thought Jeremy.
As Lilac scurried into the corner, a large woman in a bright yellow jumpsuit charged Jeremy, a crazed look in her eyes. Jeremy pathetically held out his palms to stop the onslaught, but was knocked on his backside and was soon being mauled by the adoring fan. The woman panted and whispered "Jeremy" as she smooched his neck and cheeks, her chubby fingers combing through his hair, completely messing it up. After an unreasonable delay, the guards got to their feet and more had descended the long, spiral staircases on either side of the dance floor. They yanked the woman up.
"How'd she get in!" demanded Ronny, the Chief Security Officer. The guards began bickering amongst themselves. Someone, clearly, had screwed up, since the ballroom was supposed to have been well guarded for the evening's festivities. It was Lilac's birthday celebration.
Lilac walked back over to Jeremy, who was slumped on the dance floor. She looked down at him, her mouth agape.
"It's okay, Lilac. I'm fine." Jeremy smiled up at her, determined to level his breathing. The large, adoring fan had knocked the wind out of him.
On seeing his smile, Lilac laughed and ran in circles, her arms outstretched pretending to chase Jeremy with the intention of giving him a kiss. "I love you! I love yoouuuu!"
"I know, all right. Let's settle down." Jeremy got to his feet and caught hold of Lilac. He squeezed her in his arms. She squealed and bucked until at last he set her down.
The moans from the large woman faded as the doors to the ballroom closed shut. Then Vor Wantoro Chikalto barreled in and scolded the guards. Jeremy was next in line for a tongue lashing. It was unfair how those closest to him faulted him for attracting women, like he had some active role in the seduction of complete strangers.
Wantoro approached Jeremy. "Jeremy," he said gruffly, squaring his massive shoulders.
&nbs
p; "Yes?" Jeremy hissed the "s" sound because he knew his father disliked it.
"How about you go to your quarters until the close."
Jeremy crinkled his brow. "Why?"
"I'm sorry, I just can't allow this evening to be about you." Wantoro frowned slightly, but Jeremy detected a twinkle in his eye.
"What does that even mean? It's not like I―"
"Ssh! Image control, Jeremy. Image control."
Jeremy sighed. His father was right. He waved at Lilac, who was staring from behind Wantoro. "Don't forget me. Send someone up for the final dance."
"Forget you," Wantoro shook his head in bemusement.
Jeremy stepped back from his father, bowed, and then jogged off to the door, leaving a gaggle of girls giggling in his wake.
The walk to Jeremy's wing of the castle was quiet, almost too quiet. A row of plants to his right, set in a stone garden that traveled the length of the hallway adjacent to the wall, rustled quietly in the breeze.
Breeze? Jeremy halted and suspiciously eyed the jumjee, with its blood-red blossoms and prickly stems. No, there was no breeze in this corridor. Jeremy had imagined it. He ran his fingers through his golden brown hair. Strands of blonde usually framed his face, but these now flipped up, the natural waves in his hair pattern having been ruffled by the large woman. Demon? Jeremy spun around, and on seeing he was alone, began to vibrate. Some invisible part of him tugged him through and in a flash, he had entered the Haze. Purple shafts of light swallowed him sideways. It was unusually dark here. Jeremy swished his hand about in an effort to dissipate the dark clouds, though he knew it didn't quite work this way. "Lyrna!" he shouted.
Jeremy felt a nip on his ankle. "Out! Too dark." Fur brushed against his leg as he passed through a pink cloud that swallowed him whole. Now, in a light wisp of Haze, Jeremy saw Lyrna. She licked her fur down while occasionally glancing at Jeremy. "Yes?" she purred.
"Did you hear anything else?"
"Mew?"
"Demons. You know, anything?" Jeremy shuddered and bit his nails.
"Just that once. I tell. Demon pass through, say 'Jeremy Chikalto,' no more."