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Journey of Shadows (553 hits)

Category: UberMadness! Entry
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Submitted by Scott James (View user info) at 2004-12-05 23:07:31 EST

This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.

It began when I was seven years old.

I was playing a game in a field of tall golden grass north of The Farm. It was an odd game to be sure, although it did not seem so odd to me at the time. I would stand a few yards outside the field with a tattered old tennis ball that I would throw long and high into the sky above the long grass and wait for it to land. Once I saw it drop out of sight I would scurry into the golden jungle and scamper around looking for my ball until I found it again. To the outside observer the game would look like the futile behaviour of an idiot child. It was the type of game that young boys would often invent at random and all of a sudden the rules would be self-apparent just as arbitrarily. It was just child's play. Except the difference was that I found the ball every time and on each occasion I retrieved it quicker than the last. Eventually, after spending an entire afternoon in the field, I could visualise a picture in my mind of the exact point where the ball would land when it disappeared from my line of sight. It did not strike me as odd or spooky. I did not know where it would lead me.

All I know is that is how it started.

<>

The funeral had been a typically dismal affair. The clouds gathered, the heavens opened and the rain fell. There were few mourners and even fewer people that I recognised. I would have liked to think that it was the blistering cold that had kept people from attending and paying their respects but the darkness that gripped my chest gave me reason to believe otherwise. My taciturn uncle saw no reason to express any grief. He remained stern and proud throughout the service. I had been lost in my own maze of thoughts until the pallbearers lowered the coffin into the ground. I felt a large hand gently squeeze my shoulder and I turned to see my uncle smile sombrely as he wiped a lone tear from his eye before we put our kinsman to rest.

<>

I never knew my father. What little I did know amounted to his name and the amount of grief he had bestowed on every unfortunate soul who had crossed his path. Jack Blackstone was universally despised by the world and he apparently had no great love or affection for it either. I grew up on The Farm and was raised by my grandparents, Betty and Gil Crawford. The issue of their son-in-law was rarely discussed in my presence. By the time I was old enough to leave home the only image of my father that I had was that of an insouciant, somewhat amoral trickster who had abandoned my mother shortly after I had been conceived. My mother's name was Annie and she was the Crawford's only child. I had no memory of her. So I had no recollection of the little time we had spent together in this world when she died shortly after giving birth to me in a rundown municipal hospital in The City. She died friendless and alone, not even able to hold her newly born son in her arms. I was told that she called out my father's name with her last dying breath. My grandfather claimed that she was merely cursing the scoundrel to her grave but I would sometimes wonder what if it was something else. I wanted to believe she was calling out to my father because he was the type of man who could make a difference. Either that or at the very least he would hold her hand as she died. It was the kind of thought that kept me warm each night as I lay in bed wondering about what could have been. It was on one of those lonely nights that I finally made the decision to find my father so I could decide once and for all what kind of man he was.

On the day following my eighteenth birthday I packed my bag and booked a ticket on the next flight out to The City. My decision was met with the kind of disdain and dismay which I had come to expect from my grandparents when regarding my father but nevertheless I was determined to seek him out. I was compelled, if not by the uncertainty of having never met my father, but by the birthday card that had arrived in the mailbox on the morning of my birthday. It was a simple card, nothing fancy. The manufacturer's message inscribed on the inside read simply "Happy Birthday" and the little note scribbled beneath it was only three words: "Love, Uncle Seth". For eighteen years I had been surrounded by my mother's small band of relatives. My grandmother was also an only child so she had no brothers or sisters, no nieces or nephews. My grandfather had only one brother who was co-owner of The Farm on which my grandparents and I had lived for my entire life. His name was Rufus. Not Seth. I had heard my grandfather refer to him by a whole host of other colourful nicknames, not all of them particularly flattering, but I had never once heard him call his brother "Seth". To admit that I was intrigued would be understating the point slightly. To acknowledge that my grandfather was determined to keep me on The Farm no matter what would have been a grave understatement indeed:

"You're not going and that's final." My grandfather sternly replied.

He was sat behind the breakfast table with his arms folded in defiance. Every now and again he would fiddle with his false arm, scratching absently at the prosthetic limb with his one remaining good hand. Gil Crawford returned home from his third and last tour of duty when he was thirty-six. He had settled back into life in his home town without fanfare of any kind. His town was small and remote. Very few people were at all interested in a war being fought on the other side of the globe. They remained indifferent to my grandfather's contribution and I think that despite his protests to the contrary that bothered him a great deal. He began to isolate himself from those few people he still knew; even his wife and child. He took to hiking. He spent a lot of time clambering up and down the various crags and canyons that were scattered across the county and beyond. Sometimes he would be gone for days. He had been hiking alone in a remote desert canyon forty-seven miles east of The Farm when a boulder fell and pinned his right arm, leaving him seemingly helpless and alone. With no water and little hope of survival, my grandfather finally had to admit that was no escape. The War had driven him up into the mountains, away from everybody who mattered to him but he could no longer hide from who he was while he was trapped beneath that rock. He had to make peace with who he had become. For three days and nights my grandfather wept and raged as the elements showed him no mercy. Finally, on the morning of the fourth day, he made his peace with God. He used a pocket-knife to amputate his own arm and free himself from a boulder weighing ten times his own weight. He cut through his own arm below the elbow, applied a tourniquet and administered first aid before rigging anchors and fixing a rope to descend to the bottom of the canyon before hiking out to meet the rescue party. The War had made him a killer but The Mountain had made him a man again. He was tough, passionate and, as I knew all too well, as stubborn as a mule.

I had argued with the wily old curmudgeon for the best part of a day. A day that been meticulously planned in advanced by my grandmother only for her to see those carefully laid plans fall to pieces the moment I tore open the envelope and saw the message written on the card inside. I had not relented in harassing, nagging and downright begging my grandparents since the early hours of the morning. The card had been delivered with the sender's address printed on the reverse side of the envelope. It had come from The City; the place where I was born. I had not been there since. Despite his protests I knew my grandfather would not prevent me from leaving. It was not because he was physically incapable. It was a matter of principle. In all the years I spent on The Farm my grandfather had not once raised his hand against me. His own father had been a particularly brutal man who drank himself to death but not before beating his wife to a bloody pulp. After The War and the accident that cost him his arm, my grandfather vowed never to follow in his old man's footsteps. So when I trundled down the stair with my bag swung over my shoulder I found my grandfather waiting for me at the bottom with heartbreak etched all over his face.

"I'm going and you can't stop me." I said.

"I know," He sighed "I just wish that just this once you would listen to me. I know what I'm talking about. Once you go out that door, you won't be coming back."

"So you're giving me an ultimatum?" I asked incredulously.

"No, I'm not saying I won't take you back," He looked away for a moment,"I'm saying if you leave here now, you won't be able to come back, boy. You'll be lost to us." We stood there for a few aching moments, both of us unsure what to do next, then without warning he pulled me forward into his arms and gave me a hug. It took me completely by surprise because, like I mentioned before, my grandfather was hardly the physical type. As we parted he whispered his goodbye to me and tugged at me ear like he used to do when I was a boy. It would be the last time he recognised me as my mother's son.

<>

I arrived in The City in the early hours of Sunday morning. The sun was about to break over the urban horizon and already there were commuters and couriers barging into each other as they went about their business. It did not take me long to find my uncle's address. It was, of course, one of the benefits of my gift. Naturally though, Seth Blackstone would not have been my father's brother if he did not live in one of the sprawling metropolis's less reputable inner sanctums. Despite the fact that I had taken great pains to dress inconspicuously for my foray into the underbelly of the metropolitan dream I was still attracting suspicious glances and one or two sneers from the various loiterers, whores, pimps and pushers that littered the neighbourhood. Anxious that my presence had not gone unnoticed I quickened the pace of my journey until I had reached the address printed on the back of the envelope. By that time I was nearly short of breath and alone for half a mile in every direction. The building looked like it was waiting to be torn down. Most of the windows were either smashed in or boarded up. The wallpaper in the lobby was blistered and peeled away at the corners. The stairs were ready to collapse. The neighbours were mostly drug addicts, welfare scroungers or working girls or all three. It was the type of place that the forgotten came to die.

I rapped my knuckles on the door to apartment thirteen and waited with baited breath. My arrival had apparently caused a commotion of some kind. I heard a woman raise her voice from inside the apartment. There was a low rumbling that sent a shiver down my spine. I was listening to a voice that sounded like it had emanated from the centre of the earth. Finally when the door opened a young redheaded woman in high heels stormed out of the apartment with all the bluster of a tornado. She was ranting incomprehensible gibberish as she sauntered down the stairs all the while attempting to stop her considerably large breasts escaping from the tiny bra she was almost wearing. I turned back to see a large monster of a man come barrelling out of the door and lean over the banister.

"You left your money on the bedside cabinet, you crazy bitch!" He roared. Her only reply was that of a door slamming. The man waited a few moments and finally turned to look at me for the first time. His face was grizzled and scarred. I could tell he had a glass eye. He had a shock of white hair and silvery flowing beard that was not in keeping with the rest of his unkempt appearance. Within his glowering features shone a fierce intelligence. He stared at me for what seemed an age before what must have been a sign of recognition passed over his face as he cracked a huge toothless smile from ear to ear.

"Well, well, well," he said, "The prodigal son returns." He was positively beaming and it was kind of creepy since he was standing before me in nothing but a pair of crusty old boxer shorts and string vest.

"Welcome home, lad," He said finally and held out his hand. I took it without hesitation, "My name is Seth Blackstone," He said shaking my hand with unrestrained vigour, "I am the favourite uncle you never knew you had."

My uncle's apartment was not what I had expected. It was magnificent. Somehow he had managed to keep his house in order while the rest of the building fell to pieces around him. The carpet had been newly laid; I could tell by the smell. The kitchen was clean and tidy. It was just one more little to reconcile in my feeble little brain. He stood on the balcony looking out over the construction site. I put my coat on a nearby chair and went out to join him. Seth Blackstone was not a man who entertained many guests. He had been alone in his apartment for six years since his wife had passed on and aside from the redheaded bunny boiler who had left our company a few minutes earlier, I was the first person to visit him in quite sometime. He told me as much as we sat on the balcony sipping iced tea. When I asked him about the card his face darkened. He seemed embarrassed.

"Ah yes, it was your birthday, was it not," He began, "Well, after all this time I thought you had a right to know that your family is a lot a bigger than you have been led to believe it is."

"What do you mean?" I asked. His statement was not exactly intoned with mystery but I was inclined to believe that he was hinting at something else other than an extended bloodline.

"First, you have to understand something," Seth said as he leaned forward in his chair, "I did not know of you until very recently. Had I been aware of your existence from the beginning then I would have come and found you sooner." He was looking more composed than he had a few moments earlier. His expression was riddled with angst yet there was no mistaking the candour in his voice. "There is so much that you must want to know and so little I can tell you."

"What do you think I want to know?" I asked, knowing full well what he meant. I felt a slight tremble in my left hand as it rested on my knee. He studied me for a moment while running his fingers through his silvery beard.

"You want to know who you are." He said finally.

<>

It was a lot to take in all at once. I needed time alone on the balcony after Seth had finished telling me his story. It was hard to know what to believe. Actually, that was not strictly true. I knew what I believed and I was sure that what I had just heard was not only highly unlikely but profoundly absurd. Yet as I let it all sink in I could not escape the immutable truth - nobody can lie to me. I could detect an untruth within seconds of somebody opening their mouth. It was not quite like reading a person's mind but it was close. If a person lied to me then I would get a buzzing sensation in my ears. Sometimes it was a bit more intense. When I hit puberty I found myself crippled by the migraines brought on by the lies fed to me by the people I knew. Especially if it was a person I loved. It was part of my gift; a gift that I had apparently inherited from my father. Seth had also been "blessed" with the ability to tell truth from fiction. So when he told me about our unique family heritage, not to mention the grim history that accompanied it, I was dismayed by the fact that not once did I feel a tremble between my ears or the slightest hint of a headache. It was all true.

I stood on the balcony and absently ran my fingers over the knuckles of my right hand again and again. I looked out over the construction site and towards the towering giants that dominated The City skyline and suddenly wished that I was back on The Farm. Seth hovered in the doorway, watching me intently. Eventually he came out to join me and offered me a glass of bourbon. I took it down in one gulp and handed him back the empty tumbler.

"I figured you might have needed a drink after hearing all that," He said, "A real man's drink, I mean. Hell, your father needed about ten the first time he heard the story."

"What about you?" I asked, "How did you take it?"

"Me?" He said, "I was never much of a drinker back then. I was into other things." He stretched out his left arm and with the two fingers of his right hand he tapped the inside of his left elbow. Then he winked. "I was into some heavy shit in those days, my boy." He put the empty tumbler down on the patio table. "But let me tell you something: there is not one in this world more dangerous than a wizard who let's his vices get the better of him." He said.

"Is that what we are?" I asked, "Magicians?"

Seth scoffed slightly and soon the sly smile was back and working overtime. "In truth, boy, I could not tell you what the hell we are. Of all the shit I just told you, I only know a third of it to be true. The rest is either what has been handed down through the generations or mere hearsay and rumour. All I know is that we are a rare breed indeed, my young friend" He stretched his arms in the air and arced his back before slumping himself down in his recliner. I pulled up a chair and sat beside him.

"Are there others?" I asked.

"Sure, but I have only met a few and that was a long time ago. It was when your father and I were on the road with your grandmother. We were never in one place for too long on account of all the people who were looking for us. But now and again we would find a sanctuary in a house in the woods or some motel that was not marked on the map. Places like those were run by people who were sympathetic to our plight. We were fugitives, boy. You have to remember that. We did not always have time to stop and exchange phone numbers and family histories. We were on the run from the day we were born. Most of us still are."

He paused and shook his head. He looked forlorn but I did not want him to lose his momentum.

"What I mean is: are there other people like us?" I asked, although I was not sure what I was getting at myself. Luckily, Seth had more than an incline to what I was driving at. Sometimes our gift came in handy.

"People like us?" He said, "You mean: are there things that go bump in the night?" He arched his eyebrow and cracked a smile.

My mind cleared and I nodded.

"I don't know, lad. What do you want to hear? That I have seen a werewolf? Fought with a 2,000 year old mummy?" He snorted cheerfully and rested his hand on my shoulder, "For all I know those myths and fairytales are just a pile of steaming cow dung. Maybe our ancestors were abducted by aliens and modified. Hell, maybe we are aliens and we don't even know it."

"Or maybe," I said, "It's just us and them."

He stared at me long and hard for a moment and nodded, "Exactly."

<>

I spent that night on my uncle's couch. My head was still spinning with the possibilities that had been opened up to me by Seth's revelations. I had gone to The City to find myself and gain a clear perspective of who I was. But in doing so I had merely opened up my mind even further, leaving it both vulnerable and eager to whatever more truths awaited me. It would have been very naive of me to simply dismiss my trip as a fool's errand. It was true that I was only a fraction of a step closer to finding out who I was but at least I knew one thing for certain: I was sure of I was not. I was not just one of the guys anymore. I had always felt a little bit different. As I lay on the couch I finally knew why.

<>

Seth had tried to outline our family legacy with concise historical observations about our role in the two thousand years of civilisation that were on record. After that inspired, albeit brief analysis he plunged headlong into the myths and legends that were connected with our kind, no matter how vague and inclusive they may have been. It seemed that sometime in the fifth century "astrals", such as myself, were flourishing all over the known world. They kept mostly to themselves and remained inconspicuous to the common eye by posing as travellers. Very few ordinary people were privy to the astrals' secret. Religious practises only came under threat when Christianity began to spread across Western Europe. In the beginning the astrals took no notice of what they probably considered to be a passing phase. After all, what difference could one more religion make in a continent that was home to dozens of contrasting theologies and religious beliefs? The astrals believed that they could all co-exist without incident. By the time of the European Reformation of the 1500s, astrals had all but fled the region for fear of being tortured and put to death. A clandestine brotherhood of celestial monks known simply as "The Hand" had systematically hunted down and murdered each and every astral they could find. All hope seemed lost because The Hand was willing to send agents as far as the end of the world in order to eliminate an astral. The Hand believed that extra sensory perception was an abomination because only God had the power to see what men could not. But with the discovery of the New World in 1492, the astrals seized their opportunity for salvation and fled mainland Europe in the hopes of finding sanctuary across the ocean. After that Seth's knowledge of events became a little hazy. He knew that at least one ship carrying three hundred and sixty astrals safely made it to shore in Newfoundland in 1513. After that they divided and scattered themselves across the continent. Some even went as far as what is now known as Argentina. There were no genuine records of family bloodlines or any ancient texts because they were all destroyed by The Hand during the great purge of Western Europe. Since that time The Hand had dedicated itself to tracking down all astrals and eliminating them in the name of God. As Seth told me the story of our people, I suddenly began to realise why my father had abandoned us before I was even born. He could not bear the risk of settling down to start a family when there were still people looking for him. He certainly did not want to raise a family of fugitives who did not know whether the next knock on the door was going to be the pizza delivery boy or a gang of celestial assassins. So he chose to leave me in the care of my mother, an ordinary woman with no ancestral links to the astrals who would be able to give me a normal life. Except it had not worked out the way he planned. My mother died in childbirth and her parents were left holding the baby. I finally understood their hatred of my father especially since they never knew who he really was. To them he was just another man who was gutless and shirking his adult responsibilities. Since they did know that I was any different, my grandparents undoubtedly thought that I was doomed to follow a similar path.

<>

"So where is he?" I asked.

Seth's eyes flickered into life yet he continued to snore. I poked him in the arm again for good measure and waited. I had barely slept yet I was still filled with boundless energy. Seth looked as groggy as hell. It was just after sunrise and it quickly occurred to me that my uncle was definitely not a morning person. His eyes were filled with the petty contempt of man who honestly believed that an extra hour in bed made all the difference. I had woken him up with a cup of coffee and two slices of toast. I had been careful to pick the mould off beforehand. He stumbled into the dining area, half dressed in a pair of dark slacks and white shirt, as he bravely attempted to knot his tie without any assistance. He slumped himself down in front of the breakfast table and let out an outrageous belch.

"Listen, kid," he yawned, "You can't be making a habit out of this. I sleep with a baton beneath my pillow. I might have thought you were one of them."

"Where is he, Seth?" I asked.

"I mean it's bad enough that I can't stay in one place for long but can't I at least get to feel like I actually live somewhere once in a while and have a lie-in?" He said, stifling another yawn.

"Seth!" I said, getting more than a little impatient.

"Okay, okay," my uncle said soothingly, "I have to admit that was kind of the reason I got you out here."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, I knew a simple request out of the blue was not going to be very convincing." He stuffed his face with toast and continued talking through mouthfuls, "Part of the reason I sent the card was to get your attention. It gets a little trickier from here."

I waited for the other shoe to drop.

"Your old man is in trouble, kid. They caught up with him when he was on his way to see me."

"Who is 'they'?" I asked, "The Hand?" My pulse quickened.

"No, but they will get to him soon. There's no price they aren't willing to pay."

"A price? You mean..." The other shoe dropped with a resounding metaphorical thud.

"Yup, that's right," My uncle said, polishing off his breakfast, "Bounty Hunters."

<>

Cyrus Blaine was no doubt the meanest dog in the junkyard. As Seth drove us out of the City he filled me in on the biographical details of my father's captor. From what he knew (which was very little) Cyrus had captured forty-seven astrals over twenty years and sold each of them to The Hand for a substantial fee. He lived for the hunt and thrived on the high of being able to outwit a prey who was supposed to able to predict the future. But the hunt was not enough; Cyrus ran a freight train through these peoples' lives, destroying their homes, killing their friends and torturing their families. It was partly down to Cyrus that there were fewer and fewer sanctuaries for astrals for fear of incurring the madman's wrath. But my father had proved to be more of a challenge than Cyrus expected. Their first encounter was one of chance. My old man was hiding away in a refuge in the woods when another astral by the name of Jackson Willis stumbled in through the door one evening, bloodied, battered and begging for help. Jackson thought he had done enough to give Cyrus and his crew the slip. They had been trailing him for three days and had pursued him for five hundred miles on road and on foot. The sanctuary housed eight people; the couple who owned it and six runaways who had stopped over for the evening. One of them was my father. The others were a family of five named The Jones who had been forced to move home when neighbours became suspicious of their youngest son's behaviour. He had the unfortunate habit of predicting people's deaths. I can only imagine what was going though that young boy's mind when Jackson Willis burst through the door that night. The attack had been swift and brutal. My father had did what he been taught to do. He ran. The Jones had been killed in seconds as Cyrus's henchmen booted in the front door as others came crashing through the windows, spraying bullets left and right. The owner tried to get his wife to flee but she would not abandon him. They both perished in the fire that was started in the maelstrom. Jackson was taken alive. There was quite a bounty on his head as he had evaded capture several times before. But my father was Jack Blackstone. He was not about to be taken down like a dog. He fought his way past two of Cyrus's goons, killing both of them in the process, and commandeered one of their jeeps before fleeing the scene. Cyrus had never lost a man on one of his excursions before then. That night he lost two. The mere idea enraged him. The fact that he was no match for my father's finely honed evasion skills made his blood boil even more. So began one of the longest cat-and-mouse chases never to appear in a newspaper or feature on a television broadcast. Cyrus pursued my father for eighteen years. The first year was the one in which I was born. I sat back in the passenger seat as Seth finished regaling me with his version of our nation's secret history. When he was done my mind boggled with the possibilities this information entailed and I felt my chest go numb as my mind raced to the inescapable conclusion that threatened to make my head explode.

I wanted to throw up.

<>

We had driven about fifty miles out of The City and had arrived at church built on a large plateau that opened up among a wide and towering forest. Seth had not exactly explained his plan to me and I had no idea how I was in anyway vital to said plan but I was determined to be part of it no matter what. We parked behind the church and made our way around to the front. Creeping quietly among the bushes, I felt a strange burning sensation in my ears. I stopped suddenly and fell behind as Seth ducked and weaved beneath the stained glass windows and shrubbery. He looked back at me and expressed his concern. "What the hell is the matter with you?" He hissed.

"Nothing," I lied, "I just feel a bit funny. It's nothing. I'll be okay."

He shook his head as I padded over to join him. He slapped me on the back of the head gently and chuckled. "What's the matter, boy," he said, "Getting nervous?"

I hoped the darkness would be enough to disguise my embarrassment. "Okay," I said, "What's the plan?"

He looked at me for a moment and said, "I'll sneak inside and take a look. I'll holler if it is safe for you to come inside." The last part of his sentence was being drowned out by a burning sensation in my ears. I shook it off just in time to express my incomprehension of the plan.

"That's it?!" I asked.

"That's it for now." He said and he disappeared into the church. After a few moments I heard him whispering, beckoning me to join him.

I ducked down out of what little daylight remained and slipped inside the doorway. The inside of the church had been carefully lit with candles all around the room. The layout was quite majestic and very tasteful. It would be a fine place to be married. I turned my gaze left to find my uncle. I was met with the tip of double-barrelled shotgun pointed squarely between my eyes. My jaw dropped as my mind once again attempted to jumble around the information in my brain so it would at least make some kind of sense. It failed. I then only had one question I felt was worth answering:

Why the hell was my uncle pointing a gun at me?

<>

"Surprised?" said the man pretending to be Seth Blackstone.

"Cyrus?" I said incredulously. His smile grew even wider.

"It's not possible," I said, "Nobody can lie to me. It can't be done."

"Except, maybe another astral," Said Cyrus gleefully, "I do this for a living, boy. You don't think I wouldn't know how to deal with an insignificant insect like you, do you? I've had more practice at this than you have, boy" He snorted laughter and shoved me up the aisle at gunpoint. We arrived at the pulpit and he barged me on to the ground. I surveyed my surroundings and realised that the two of us were alone.

"Where's my father?" I asked

"Can't you see?" He said, tapping his finger at his the side of his head, "Oh no, that's right. I've kept you out of that little party, haven't I? Well, take a look with your own eyes."

I gestured toward a curtain to the left of me. After a few moments it parted slightly and five men carrying guns shepherded out two men whose hands were bound at the wrists and blindfolded. Finally, I laid eyes on my uncle and father for the first time. The goons untied the blindfolds on both men and I saw my own reflection in both of them. Seth looked like I would if I aged forty years and spent my entire life as Rolling Stone. He had a shock of white hair and a scar beneath his right eye. The goons had worked him over pretty good. My father was a few years younger than I expected. He was tall and wiry. He had a thick black moustache and a mop of unruly black hair. His eye socket had swelled up to the size of an orange. He looked at me and smiled sadly. "Hello son." He croaked meekly.

I felt my heart drop. None of it made any sense. I looked back at Cyrus and stared at him for a moment before asking the question which I knew I was going to regret.

"What is this all about?"

Cyrus then proceeded to explain his calculated ruse with the relish of a man who had finally reached his destination after a long arduous struggle up a mountain. Apparently the history which he fed me was all perfectly true. What he left out was his role in the events leading up to that moment. Cyrus was indeed an astral himself, except he was in the service of The Hand. As unlikely as it seemed, The Hand was not above indoctrinating astrals into their order if they were willing to help hunt down and capture other men and women like themselves in exchange for sanctuary. There were never any bounty hunters. No ransoms. It was all God's work. The incident involving Jackson Willis did indeed take place, but he was not a target, he was a spy. He had apparently heard of the hiding spot in which my father and others were staying and he led Cyrus and The Hand straight to it. It had been the Jones family's little boy who sounded the alarm when he predicted that Jackson would betray everybody to their deaths. My father killed Jackson on the spot but he was unable to save anybody else. Cyrus had finally caught up with my old man when he tried to visit Seth a few days before my eighteenth birthday; the plan being to find me and explain the family heritage. Upon capturing both the brothers thanks to the aid of a redheaded woman who frequently visited Seth for certain services that left little to the imagination, Cyrus learnt of my existence and thus hatched a plot to reel me in - Three for the price of one.

The Hand would probably make him a saint.

I held my head in my hands as Cyrus finished his story with a flourish, much to the approval of his goons. I felt sick for the second time in the space of an hour.

"Well," he said," I guess all good things must come to an end." He raised his shotgun and pointed it between my eyes again. The other goons cocked their weapons and aimed them at my uncle and father. I could not bear to look either of them in the eye. I felt a rush of tears try and break the damn which I was trying desperately to hold. I could not believe it was going to end like this. I rose to my feet and stared him down. If he was going to kill me then he was going to do it when I was standing. My father and uncle took my cue and did the same. This moment of solidarity amused Cyrus and his goons immensely as they guffawed at our foolhardy display of bravado

"Say goodbye, boys." Cyrus chuckled.

And then the church doors swung open and all the lights went out.

<>

There was a blinding blue flash and Cyrus was thrown across the room in the blink of an eye. He crashed through the pulpit and landed with a sickening crunch. I fell onto my hands and knees, gasping for air. There was smoke all around me and my eyes were watering from the blinding heat of the explosion. I had no idea what had happened and I did not care one bit as my lungs heaved themselves back into action. I looked across the floor and saw my uncle. The building was ablaze in moments. Bits of the ceiling were coming down as I staggered over to him and untied his bonds. He looked up at me and smiled gratefully then passed out I bit my lip hard as I fought back the tears. My father was still down but alive. I could hear his thoughts vying for space in my head alongside my own. My ears were ringing like I had been told a thousand lies at once. Cyrus's goons and been scattered all over the church. I knew at least two of them were dead. As the smoke began to clear I ran my eyes over the debris looking for the source of the bright blue explosion that had saved my life. Eventually my eyes fixed on the doorway to the church. Beneath the marble archway stood a man in a grey suit and long black overcoat; that was about as much as I could distinguish through the haze of dust and smoke. But there was one other thing that allowed me to recognise him. Even beneath the arm of the jacket I could see it clearly, shining in the dark where a hand should have been.

I got to my feet and gawped in awe as my grandfather, Gil Crawford, stepped out of the shadows and into the fire.

<>

I really had gone beyond caring at that point. The humongous question of what my grandfather was doing there really had little consequence in light of the fact that he had just saved all three of us from The Hand. He walked steadily into the room, studied the consequences of his little outburst without care of the inferno that raged around him. After a moment he looked across to me as I tried to help my father off the floor.

"Here," my grandfather said, "Let me help." He bounded over the debris and ducked passed the flames with a grace that belied his years and crouched down beside me to untie my father's bonds. He lifted my father over his shoulder and gestured to my uncle. "Get Seth,"

"Gramps?" I said finally in a pique of shock.

"Not now, boy," he scolded, "I'll explain everything later. We need to get you all out of here." He was right too. Cyrus and his remaining men were beginning to stir and the building was becoming unsafe. I leapt over the flames and lifted Seth up off the floor, dragging him back down the aisle as made my way out of the church. My grandfather was right behind me. He had my father standing upright and was pushing him towards me. But my grandfather stayed put. I dragged Seth out onto the grass and left him there as I ran back inside the church. My father stumbled sideways out of the building with a ragged piece of cloth over his mouth. He caught me as tried in both arms as I tried to get passed him. I screamed at him to let me go, but he dragged me back outside. It took all the energy he had left as we toppled over and landed beside Seth. The last thing I saw was my grandfather's face as he smiled at me from inside the church just before the roof collapsed.

<>

My father had been too weak to be a pallbearer at the funeral. His arm was in a sling and he was still suffering the effects of a severe concussion. I hardly said a word to him after the church fire, even though we were being held at the same hospital. After the funeral I spent an hour by myself sitting on a park bench across the road from the cemetery, doing nothing but watching the cars go by. My grandmother had said very little to me after I delivered the news to her that her husband was dead. Everybody was too numb to talk about it. The one person I did manage to get more than two words out of was my uncle - my real uncle - Seth Blackstone. He was a far graver man than his impostor although I could hardly blame him for that fact. He was, however, very glad to meet me in the flesh. He was left with the lion's share of explaining to do though. So my grandfather had been an astral all along. I began to wonder whether there were any ordinary people left in the world. But Gil Crawford had not just been any old astral. He was one of the best. It was why The Hand never found him. His powers were so great that he had been able to hide his tracks to the point most senior members of The Hand believed him to be a myth. His brother was one too, albeit, not so powerful. My mother, however, was not. Gil was determined to lead an ordinary life and it seemed he would be granted one until my father came along. I guess these things happen. Nobody means to fall in love. My old man certainly did not want to wreck their little dream. But he had made them vulnerable. Gil was terrified that my old man would lead The Hand right to his doorstep. That's why he had to leave.

I tried to take it all in without my head exploding. I sat on that bench for the entire afternoon and until somebody eventually came and found me. It turns out that it was my grandmother. She did not say anything when she sat down beside me. She simply watched the cars go by. Eventually, she took my hand in hers.

"So," she said, "What do you think of my new dress?"

She was wearing a black widow's outfit that she had no doubt simply picked off the peg without much thought on account of her grief.

I thought for a moment and said, "Gramps would have liked it."

"That's what your father said." She replied.

I paused again and tried to find the words. "He was right, you know?" I said finally.

"About what?" She knew I was not talking about my father.

"The day I left the farm: He said I wouldn't be coming back," I said, "He was right."

She stood up from the bench with my hand in tow, smiling sweetly at me. "You don't need to come back. The only way is forward, boy. He knew that. It's why he let you leave."

I felt a tear trickle down my face. I did not wipe it away.

"Come see what I mean," she said, "I have a lovely gentleman down the road who would simply love to make your acquaintance."
I smiled. We both knew she was only talking about one person.

"Sure, I'd like that."

And that was how it started.

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Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2005-01-16 11:28:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2

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