Bad Jack ((Ascension: Book 1)) (25 page)

Chapter 66: Hideout

Daniel led them to the entrance of the well kept
house and let them in.

“For those who haven’t been here before, welcome to my home.” He made sure to make eye contact with Jack and Jessie as he said it. “Let me show you where you’ll be staying.”

Jack allowed Daniel to lead him to a nicely furnished bedroom on the first floor. He was in a daze. He dared not remember what they’d just done to get to this point or he might go insane.

Then he thought -
we escaped so now what? Now everything he believed in was about to be challenged. Now an evil demon was going to devour his soul. What kept one foot moving in front of the other was a belief that despite all the weird shit he’d seen lately, Lucifer was on a whole new level of bizarre and so he did what he always did when something seemed irrational, he chalked it up as bullshit.

He couldn’t deny the growing curiosity t
hough. Perhaps he’d been exposed and therefore numbed to too much madness this past week. Anything seemed possible now. But Lucifer? Really?

The bedroom had its own master bathroom.

Daniel said, “There’s a bathroom right through there if you want to get cleaned up.” It was only then that Jack noticed just how disheveled and grimy his body was. He had pancake sized sweat patches under his armpits and his hair was matted to his scalp. His eyelids and skin were sticky from sweat. There was the blood spatter too and it wasn’t just on his clothes.

Daniel
continued, “I didn’t know your exact size so I got a few different sizes of shirts and pants for you. They’re on the vanity in the bathroom. I hope some of them fit.”

Jack
half heartedly thanked him and Daniel left him alone.

He shrugged off his lab coat, careful to remove the
death ball from the pocket first. If the ball hadn’t already been red in color he was sure he’d see just how much blood and gore it was coated in.

He wrappe
d it up in a spare pillowcase that was stacked among others atop the lone dresser in the room. He brought the pillowcase with him into the bathroom and tied a knot on the end.

He couldn’t shake the image of Billy’s prone, lifeless body and he couldn’t shake the guilt associated with the mental image.
The ball in the pillowcase hadn’t killed Billy, Jack’s foolhardiness had. He refused to be responsible for the deaths of anymore innocent men or women.

He realized for the first time that he was now
technically a mass murderer, or was it a spree killer? He forgot the difference. He shook his head. He didn’t think he had the energy to feel the magnitude of guilt associated with that.

He put the pillowcase in the bowl
of the sink for safekeeping and removed his clothes.

He was mostly rinsed off
and the water was running off his body clear instead of pink when Melanie appeared, fully nude. She joined him in the shower. Neither of them made a move on the other; they were too emotionally drained. He washed her back and she turned and kissed him. He hadn’t realized it but he needed the embrace. They held each other for a full five minutes before finally getting out.

While they were drying off Jack asked, “So
, you know all those guys from Oliver’s little occult seminars?”

Melanie shook her head. “They came after I was already long gone. I spoke to Daniel, the black guy, on the phone that time I went for coffee
at your apartment but otherwise they’re strangers to me.”

“Do you trust them?”

“Oliver trusts them so I do too.”

He
let it go. It wasn’t worth arguing over. Personally, he thought they were all kinds of incompetent but what did that matter now?

“So what happens now?”

“I don’t know for sure but Oliver suspects it’ll happen soon.”

Jack said as seriously as he could, “What
should I do? Should I say yes?”

She
took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I spent three years learning about this stuff from Oliver but then I spent the next several years in the military, in a semi-normal environment with little talk of the occult or Lucifer. If it weren’t for all of the horrible things that happened to me as a child I probably wouldn’t be going through with this at all. I probably wouldn’t even believe it. I want there to be a counterpart to God and I want whatever it happens to be to overthrow the status quo. Should you go through with it? I don’t know really. Remember what I told you though, whatever decision you make, I’ll be right by your side.”

“But you’d like me to say yes to him, ultimately.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want. Stop looking to others for the answer. Only you can decide. But remember that your choice affects all of existence. No pressure though.” She laughed but Jack didn’t find it fucking funny at all.

Melanie cut her laugh short when she saw Jack’s
angry expression. More seriously she said, “Just remember that this is not the devil Jack. This is the greatest angel of them all; some say the most perfect creation God ever imagined. He’s been unjustly punished by his cruel father and the tortures will never end unless we intervene on his behalf.”

He
looked at her with raised brows and said, “What do I care? It’s not my fight.”

“It wasn’t your fight to help Jessie escape and you still did the right thing. I believe in you
even if you don’t.”

He
let the thread die. He tried on a pair of jeans and they were a perfect fit. He held all the shirts up and put on a large sized polo neck. Melanie wrapped her towel tightly around her perfect body and left to put on her own clothes, presumably bought by Daniel as well.

Jack picked up the pillowcase and went into the living ro
om to meet everyone officially.

Daniel stood and gave up his seat. He shook Jack’s hand as they pas
sed. “I’m glad to meet you under better circumstances.”

Jack thought that was a stupid thing to say. The last time they’d met was nuts but not selling-your-soul-to-the-devil nuts.
He noticed the side of Daniel’s face was still a little discolored from when Billy had soccer kicked him in the head back at his apartment

The white guy and girl were both
sandy brunettes and looked to be in their mid twenties. They stayed mostly in the background with Daniel and Oliver taking the lead. Jack shook their hands as a formality and they each mumbled their respective names but Jack couldn’t make either one out. The guy was either Jared or Garrick or Derek and the girl was maybe called Sandra but Jack wasn’t sure enough to repeat it.

Just to offset their timidity he barked his own name at them and shook their limp hands with
strength and vigor. He made a snap decision that he didn’t like them one bit.

Daniel seemed cool enough though so he directed his questions to him and to Oliver. “What now guys?”

They looked at one another and Daniel said, “Now we wait and see. There’s no way to know what comes next. All we know is that a very advanced ritual’s in full swing and we’re at the payoff end of it.”

Oliver joined in, “I’m going to guess that Jessie’s mother left him because even she didn’t know what to expect out of this. His abilities most likely shocked her out of her senses.”

Jack countered, “Maybe they shocked her back to reality. Maybe she realized the ritual actually worked and she freaked out.”

Oliver didn’t take up the
debate. He simply said, “There’s no way to know for sure.”

“So if she was able to abandon the ritual then I can too. I’m just the back-up plan. Who’s to stop me from walking away from all of this?” He said this menacingly, as a point blank threat.

He wasn’t fully aware of it until Oliver backed up, staring at Jack’s hands, but he was untying the pillowcase. He was trying to get the ball into his hand.

Oliver said as reassuringly as he could, “
Jack, we’re all friends here. We all want what’s best. If you want to leave, then so be it but remember young Jessie. Until this has run its course he’ll be forever haunted by his terrible gift. How will you raise a child like that?”

Jack consciously put the pillowca
se down beside him on the couch. “So if I play along Jessie gets to go back to normal?”

“We don’t know
,” said Daniel, “but we’re pretty sure.”

Oliver
added, “Just go through the motions, if you don’t like it, tell Lucifer no. He isn’t who you think he is. He will trouble you no more and neither will we. But give him a chance to convince you.”

Jack thought about that for a full minute before nodding his approval.
There was a part of him that thought he had to go through with this or else all the deaths at the facility were for nothing.

Melanie joined them. She had on a flimsy sun dress that accentuated all her curves and left just enough to the imagination. She was breathtaking.

She said, “Jessie’s
watching TV. I left him a snack but that boy needs to put on some weight. He’s skin and bones.”

Oliver said, “It took me five straight minutes of arguing to convince him to wear regular clothes instead of pajamas all
day. A lot of things out here might be overwhelming to him. The Doctor didn’t exactly have two shits to give for the boy’s welfare.”

Melanie
stood. “Well I’m going to make him a sandwich and make him eat it.”

“Good luck with that
.”

Jack didn’t react right away; it took a few seconds for the realization to hit him. Melanie, a stranger to Jessie, cared more about his welfare than his own father did.
He had to get used to this new dad role.

He joined Melanie in the kitchen. She spread mayo and dressing on the bread while he went in search of veggies and meats to fill the sandwich.

It was all so normal now. They’d spent the morning slaughtering strangers and here they were, making a sandwich together for a hungry kid like an average suburban couple. He snorted but when she asked him what he was thinking he didn’t respond. The absurdity of their situation was too much to articulate.

Daniel’s kitchen was well stocked and Jack had the funny feeling that was because
he knew he’d be having Lucifer over for dinner. It explained why the house was so immaculate too. He thought, I thought cleanliness was next to Godliness. Then he thought, then again Daniel thinks Lucifer will be the next God. Then he thought, shut up Jack, you’re losing it man.

He
let Melanie finish arranging the contents of the sandwich, he poured a glass of milk and they went to Jessie’s bedroom together.

Jessie was watching Dragon
ball-Z when they opened the door. He fumbled with the remote until he found the pause button. He said thank you for the meal and waited for them to leave. Melanie took a seat on a chair beside the bed and Jack just stood there with his arms folded.

“Take a bite Jessie, Melanie made it herself.”

Jessie picked the sandwich up and nibbled a tiny corner of crust off.

“Mmm, it’s good
,” he mumbled.

“You didn’t get to the best part, it’s in the middle.”

Jessie looked as though he’d like to throw the sandwich at his face but instead he caved in and ate half of it before they decided that was victory enough and left him to his cartoons.

Chapter 67:
Hidden Danger

When they returned to the living room everyone there was staring at the same point in space. Something was off. Daniel was backing up and Oliver was wild eyed.

Jack saw his pillowcase jittering about on the sofa and realized the ball within was reacting to something. He felt its fear and anger and confusion
but he didn’t understand its intent. The pillowcase floated a foot off the sofa and the ball burned through the pillowcase like a cigarette through newspaper.

It
flitted about the room under its own control. This scared Jack more than anything. The ball had its own agenda and he had no control over it.

Then
he noticed that the white folks in their mid twenties with the indecipherable names were acting odd. The man was smiling but it was a cruel smile full of murder. The woman had her fists clenched in preparation for an attack. They both seemed keyed up. Oliver sensed it too.

He
started to say, “Everyone calm down and take cover,” but the white guy shot him a crazed look that shut him down. The woman ran at the whizzing death ball. She had what looked like an old fashioned key in her hand, or maybe it was a small knife with a really crooked blade.

I
t evaded her attempts to stab at it. Jack wanted to tell them not to touch it but he thought better of it. From the way they were acting, they seemed to know more about it than he did.

The guy turned his attention to Jack and sneered as he approached. The look
on his face was unquestionably murderous.

As Jack reflexively retreated a step he saw out of the corner of his eye, the woman walking towards Jessie’s room
, apparently she’d given up on going after the ball and found a better, less evasive target

Everything became
crystal clear at that point. These people were enemies and there was about to be a fight to the death.

Jack
suddenly felt the tether of the death ball and he forced it under his control. It zipped through the air into his outstretched hand.

He lobbed it at the maniac coming at him but somehow the guy was too fast and dodged it. His movements were not quite human.

Jack panicked and sent the death ball zooming about like an angry hornet. The guy was fast but not fast enough for such a frenzied attack.

As soon as the ball hit him in the temple he fell over dead.

Then he lit up like a flare. It was almost, but not quite like the creatures did when they died. When the blinding light was gone so too was the man.

Shit, thought Jack, as he ran to Jessie’s bedroom. The woman hadn’t gotten her hands on the boy yet. Jessie’s eyes were wide with terror as she came at him.

Jack sent the ball crashing into the back of her skull which sent her head first into the boy’s bed. She erupted into bright light and vanished.

Jack was breathless
and confused. Daniel came rushing into the room and Jack got ready to deal with him too but Daniel said, “I’m ok. Don’t kill me.”

He
lowered his hand for the time being.

Jessie started to sob which brought Jack right back to the here and now. He
jammed the death ball into his jeans pocket where it barely fit, scooped the child up and carried him to the living room. Melanie smoothed Jessie’s hair as Jack told him everything was ok now.

Oliver was pacing frantically but
he held his tongue until Jessie could be calmed. After a few minutes Jessie started to relax so Jack gently placed him back in bed and tucked him in. He left the bedroom door open just in case something else crazy happened.

Oliver was revved up.

“You have to believe that I didn’t know they were going to do anything like that.”

Jack asked, “What were they?
The guy was like a blur of motion. They weren’t real people.”

Oliver said, “They died like Jessie’s dream creatures died, with the light taking them. Maybe he created them from a dream before we discovered him last year and they’ve been biding their time.”

“No way. The light was different and his creatures and objects have all helped. They were something different.”

Oliver mulled this over.

“You’re right. Jessie’s creatures are of single minded purpose. Those two were thinking rational human beings, at least until now. Plus I’ve known them for
about three years and I never suspected anything unusual.” 

It was Melanie who confronted the elephant in the room, “Maybe they were sent by God to stop us.”

Oliver shook his head defiantly. There was a hint of disgust in his tone, “God doesn’t interfere no matter what. He didn’t stop Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot. He crosses his arms and turns his back when there are tsunamis and volcanic eruptions that take life by the millions. He truly doesn’t give a shit. This was not his doing, that’s giving him too much credit.”

Melanie shrugged. Jack thought she might be right but Oliver was livid at the thought that God would try and stop them so
they all let the conversation fizzle out.

Daniel was visibly shaken, “They were my friends. I never suspected
they’d…”

His dialogue was interrupted by a vibration in the air all around them. It was accompanied by an audible hum that seemed to come from
inside each of their skulls.

Jack only then noticed that he was holding the death ball in his hand. He didn’t remember taking it from his pocket. It was warm to the touch which was odd. The heat increased until Jack had to let it go for fear of burning himself.