A Life Transparent (12 page)

The white flesh dimmed, outlining the features of a robe. Aleister Dullington stepped out of the pale mass, walking atop their writhing bodies as if on water. His ashen robe draped from his shoulders to the mass of creatures below, and Donovan could not tell where one ended and the other began.

They’re a part of him
, Donovan realized.
And he’s a part of them. He sees what they see
. Suddenly everything he knew of the creatures made sense. They were Dullington’s sentinels, their language his own.

Aleister Dullington’s features were pale, sallow. The man had no eyelids, eyebrows, or any hair on his head. At a glance, Dullington looked like an adult with the oversized head of a newborn.

“My sincerest apologies, Mr. Candle. I did not instruct him to murder your cat. Perhaps I waited too long to give Mr. Guffin his opportunity; he was overzealous.”

Dullington approached him. Donovan discovered he was too frightened to move.

“I must say, you continue to surprise me, Mr. Candle. The way you handled him was most unexpected. You are proving to be quite entertaining. I am glad I chose you.” The creatures beneath his feet chortled together. Dullington looked down at them, listening. He smiled. His teeth were broken, jagged. “The Cretins say you have spirit. I am apt to agree.”

Donovan looked down at the army of creatures. They snickered in unison.

“Where’s my wife?” He hated how frail he sounded.

“In due time, Mr. Candle.”

“No,” Donovan said, raising his voice. “You fucking tell me where she is or I’ll blow your head off.”

He pointed the gun at Dullington’s bulbous head. The man made no expression. His empty, black eyes peered into Donovan.

“You cannot kill me, Mr. Candle. Your bullets mean nothing here, nor do your empty threats. Do not misunderstand your position.”

Donovan slowly lowered his weapon. “Guffin said you played him. How do I know you won’t do the same to me?”

“Mr. Guffin did not play by the rules I set.”

“What rules?”

“Simple rules, Mr. Candle. I gave him the opportunity—much like I am giving you an opportunity—to redeem himself by doing what I myself cannot. I told him to take your wife without doing harm. I did not tell him to take a life as well.”

“What was his reward?”

A corner of Dullington’s upper lip twitched. “Respite from this place.”

“Would you have let him go?” Donovan watched his enemy bow his head in thought. He realized the man looked like a demonic monk.

“I would. There will always be others.” A thin smile spread across his pallid face. “Always people like you.”

Chills crept down Donovan’s spine.
People like you
. His mouth was suddenly very dry.

“You are my puppet, Mr. Candle. Make no mistake of that. I am using you, just as I used Guffin, and just as I have used countless others.”

Donovan remembered their conversation earlier that day. “This person you want me to find, is he one of your puppets, too?”

Aleister Dullington frowned. For a moment Donovan feared he’d touched a nerve, but the hints of emotion on his adversary’s face were short-lived.

“I believe ‘puppet’ is too harsh a term.
Protégé
would be the correct nomenclature, but that is not for discussion at this time, Mr. Candle.” His face lightened. “Tonight was a test to see if you truly are the right man for the job. You performed well, and as a reward, I will allow you to speak with your wife.”

He reached into his robe and pulled out a small, black cell phone.

“Consider this a down payment in good faith.”

Speak with your wife.
The prospect made Donovan’s heart sing. Finally, to hear her voice! Dullington stepped forward, offering him the phone. It had no buttons, no antenna—instead it merely contained a speaker and mouthpiece. He reached for it, but Dullington snatched it away at the last moment.

“You will return to your reality when you are finished.”

Donovan eyed the phone, ravenous with the thought of hearing Donna’s voice.

“And then what?”

“And then you will await further instructions. My Cretins will not inhibit your progress, so do not fear speaking to your brother. He will see you.”

This startled Donovan. He didn’t want to show it, but when he looked into Dullington’s empty eyes, he realized there was nothing he could hide.

“Call your wife.”

Dullington held out the phone. Donovan hesitated a moment before taking it. He put it to his ear, recoiling from a sharp hiss of electronic interference. It was brief, fading into the low chirp of a soft ringing. A click followed.

There were voices of men and women in the background. He heard someone say “Speak.”

“D-Donna?”

Heavy breathing filled the line, inhaling and exhaling in quick gasps.

“Don? Donnie, is that you?’

“Honey, God, oh God, baby are you okay? Has he hurt you?”

“My head hurts, but I’m all right. Where are you, Don?”

The sound of suppressed sobs in her throat forced tears from his eyes. Words escaped him. Where
was
he?

“I-I’m in the city, near the park. Our place in the park. Listen, I can’t talk for long, honey. I’m coming for you. I promise, I—”

“I love you so much, Donovan, I lov—”

The line went dead, and Dullington plucked the phone from his ear. He was still forming the words to reciprocate his love when he met Aleister’s lidless gaze. He forced himself to stare deep into those glassy, black orbs with a newfound ferocity.

“That is enough for now, Mr. Candle. You will return to the Spectrum. Expect to hear from me on the morrow.”

Aleister Dullington offered Donovan a stoic nod. The Cretins chortled in their backward voices, providing a unified laugh track. Their laughter grew dim as the flickering overtook him, their bodies fading out of existence as the world came to life. Texture and color returned, as did the steady rainfall once again pelting his head.

Donovan found himself alone in the city park. He blinked a few times, trying to accommodate the onslaught of color and depth. Friday night sounds met his ears. Crowds of people huddled beneath umbrellas rushed by on the sidewalk ahead of him. Cars honked and came to a full stop as traffic lights changed.

His body tingled for a moment as the flickering swept over him, and then it was gone.

He took a deep breath. The cold air was refreshing, not stale like that of the Monochrome. What had Dullington called this side of reality? The Spectrum?
Fitting
, he thought, then remembered his original goal: he had to get to his brother’s house.

Donovan tucked Guffin’s pistol into the back of his pants. He turned, surveying the park to get his bearings. Another breeze swept over him, chilling him to his core. He zipped up his jacket, shoved his hands in his pockets, and began the walk back to his car. Along the way, he tried to work out the situation with Aleister Dullington and this mystery man he was supposed to find, but most of all it was Donna who dominated his thoughts. She was out there, somewhere, scared and waiting for him to come to her rescue.

He forged into the downpour, his wife at the forefront of his mind. It was her image that kept him warm in the cold night air.

I’m coming, honey. I’ll find you. I promise.

One moment her husband was there, a panicked voice out of the dark, and then he was gone again. Donna tried not to cry.

The haggard, young thing in the tattered clothes pulled the phone from Donna’s ear and frowned. She gave off a stench that curdled Donna’s stomach, as though she hadn’t bathed in months. Judging by what little she’d seen of the woman, Donna suspected this was not far from the truth.

The flames of a barrel burning just beyond the doorway licked the air, casting wicked shadows over the area. The heat stung her eyes, and she had to look away. The young woman sat beside her for a moment, staring at the floor.

“Alice? That’s your name, isn’t it?”

She looked down at Donna and slowly nodded. Even in the dim light, Donna could see the life in this woman’s eyes.

“Please talk to me.”

“I’m not supposed to.”

“Can you tell me where my husband is?”

Alice looked away. “He’s in the Monochrome.”

Donna opened her mouth to inquire, but stopped short when Alice produced a roll of duct tape. She tore off a small strip.

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to do that. I’ll be quiet if that’s what you need me to do.”

Alice paused. She stared hard at Donna, gauging whether or not she was serious.

“Not a word?”

“Not a word. Cross my heart.” Donna offered a smile, and she thought she saw the faint traces of one reciprocated on Alice’s face, but the light was too dim to know for sure. She shifted her weight and leaned down next to Donna’s ear.

“You’re a nice lady, and I want to see you through this. If anyone comes near you, you scream, okay? You scream, and I’ll come running. Not all of us are good. Some of us deserve to be here.”

Her words made Donna’s heart race, and she tried to ignore the stench of Alice’s breath.
You scream. Not all of us are good.

Alice stood up and backed out of the room. She put a finger to her lips as she closed the door. Darkness filled the enclosure, punctuated by a sliver of flickering light that seeped through a crack beneath the door. Voices came from beyond her prison, but she couldn’t make them out. As before, she was alone with nothing but her own thoughts.

She winced as she forced herself onto her side, wiggling her fingers and toes to keep the blood flowing. Her head still ached from the blow. She feared she might have a concussion, but tried to keep her mind off the pain. It wasn’t easy.

Donna thought of her husband, trying to picture his face and wondering where he was at the moment. He’d said he was at their place in the park. It made little sense as to why he was there, but given all that had happened, not much else made sense, either. There was someone else with him, though she did not hear his voice. She’d heard the others outside her cell mention a name—Dullington—and the fear in their voices told her one thing: he was the one behind all this. They feared him, and it was so great a fear that they did whatever he told them to.

Who he was, and why he was doing all of this, was beyond her. She could think of nothing she and Donovan had done to offend anyone. They weren’t rich, so that left out ransom as a motive. What, then? Donna sighed, thinking back to the phone call. Donovan seemed rushed, distracted by something else. And he sounded so far away.

She tried not to think about that. Hearing his voice in this murky place was dream-like. It was the last thing she expected would happen, but when she saw the phone in Alice’s hand, her heart leapt up with the hope that it would be her love on the other side. There was something in his voice, though. It was something that had been there for the past week, something she couldn’t put her finger on.

“Distant” came to mind, and she realized that was a perfect way to describe his behavior. There were times when she felt he wasn’t there at all, as if he was just a ghost haunting their home as she went about her day. Sometimes she’d hear him speak, only to look up and find she was alone in the room. And the headaches—God, the headaches were unbearable.

It was stress. Had to be. Donovan’s stress became her stress, and that gave her the migraines. And his stress was that job. Always,
that job
. She knew it wasn’t good for him. He was meant for something more than that, but—

His voice spoke up in her head before she could finish the thought:
But we needed the money
. That disturbed her. Fresh out of college, they had their share of debts. He’d graduated a year ahead of her; she, in the midst of finding her way, opted to take a year away from collegiate life in order to figure out what she wanted to do. “The real world” stepped in, and chose for her.

With the economy in piss-poor shape, Donovan had few opportunities for steady employment. It was either fast food or Identinel. There weren’t many jobs available for a liberal arts major. He’d applied to Identinel under the pretense that it would be a stepping stone to something better. She’d taken various part-time jobs, but in the end, responsibility fell to her husband to bring home the bread.

Things got better over the years—they were certainly better off now—and she found that she loved and respected him even more with each passing day. But there was still that job.

Donna twiddled her fingers to keep the blood flowing. Ghostly pins prickled her fingertips.

Identinel turned out to be just as she’d feared. It was fine those first few years, but as they started to pile on more responsibilities, Donovan grew more and more detached. He allowed them to mold him into what they wanted him to be: a company man.

She dry-swallowed and listened to her throat click. Identinel consumed him. They led him along with a carrot on a string, promising more and more, but in the end it never amounted to as much as they took away. He was stuck there, she realized, and the company knew it.

Donna realized she had to pee. She wanted to call out, tell them she had to go to the bathroom, but remembered her promise to Alice. The thought of duct tape wrapped around her mouth didn’t seem pleasant.

She squeezed her thighs together to hold back the sudden ache in her bladder.

He’ll come
, she thought.
He’ll get us out of this mess
. And when he did, she’d embrace him, shower him with kisses, make love to him until exhaustion overtook them both. She wanted so badly to apologize for their argument Monday night. She feared that, somehow, it was the start of all this. Everything seemed fine before then.

That’s not true
, spoke her conscience.
It was just the last straw. Things weren’t fine. You weren’t happy.

It was true. She was unhappy—not with him, but with the way his job had ruined his life. She saw him slaving over his writing, watched him put it off to work overtime at the office. In college, he lived for his writing. He had big dreams. He wanted to be the next Raymond Chandler. Observing him slowly walk away from that dream, when it had defined him for years beforehand, depressed her. She wanted the best for her husband, and she wanted him to be happy.