Darkness of the Soul (15 page)

But
all
of
that
is
ahead
of
him,
and
though
some
small
portion
of
his
mind,
the
last
remnant
at
that
moment
that
remains
sane
and
capable
of
understanding
what
he’s
doing,
tries
to
warn
him,
to
stop
him.
It
sees
what
is
coming
but
is
powerless
to
stop
the
coming
storm
of
energy.

His
fury
is
only
made
worse
as
what
he
had
hoped
for
doesn’t
happen.
The
corpse
on
the
table
remains
stubbornly
dead,
even
falling
rapidly
into
decay,
months
of
it
settling
in
all
at
once
until
nothing
rests
on
the
table
where
his
love
had
lain
except
for
dust
and
a
handful
of
gold
fillings.
The
spirit
he’s
tried
so
hard
to
catch
and
bring
back
flees
from
his
grasp—not
beyond
this
world,
he
can
tell
that
much,
but
no
longer
here,
either—and
the
blindness
falls
upon
him
again,
preventing
him
from
remembering
what
else
he
did
that
night,
what
other
black
magic
he
tried
to
work,
what
demons
he
called
upon,
and
what
curses
he
laid
on
the
heads
of
those
who
brought
him
to
this
point.

He
remembers
none
of
it,
not
now,
and
not
later,
but
when
he
at
last
opens
his
eyes
to
the
world
around
him,
opens
them
and
sees
and
thinks
about
what
he
is
seeing,
he
feels
a
sense
of
duty
and
purpose.
A
single
word—his
name,
his
title,
in
a
way,
he
somehow
knows—echoes
in
his
mind,
and
with
that
word
comes
a
sense
of
atonement,
a
chance
of
forgiveness
for
what
he’s
done.
Disciple
.

Disciple of what?
he
asks
himself—or
whatever
has
planted
that
word
in
his
mind—but
there
is
no
answer,
just
that
single
word
ringing
in
his
mind.

Chapter
11
 

1:00 am, December 14, 1999

Damien blew another streamer of smoke through his nose, caught it in his mouth, and gave it a double pump. Lying back against the leather sofa, he stared at the streamers of smoke drifting toward the ceiling, trying to see the patterns in them. It was an exercise he’d picked up when he first started smoking, long before he’d even considered that there really could be patterns in such things. He’d just done it, like children who watched the clouds for animals. He’d been awake for nearly three hours, doing nothing but staring at the smoke and trying to get some kind of fix on what the hell was wrong with things.

He knew enough to know it was going to happen soon, but not enough to pinpoint it or have any idea on how to stop it. He’d managed to forget about the mess for a little while. Whether he was being paranoid about Brokov or not, she’d been fantastic in the sack. One thing about sex was that if it was going right, it managed to push the rest of that shit out of his mind. But then he’d made the mistake of falling asleep, and the dream had come, like it always did when he was about to stray from the path, leaving him wakeful and contemplative. So he was sitting naked on an unfamiliar woman’s couch in the middle of the night, chain-smoking and waiting for inspiration.

So far, it hadn’t come. That was not unusual, even though he was supposed to be the great and mighty champion of something or other. But when he woke up, biting back the scream that wanted to come so he wouldn’t wake Brokov, he’d learned different. The voice that sometimes spoke to him at such times, telling him where to go and what to do, was back in his brain, but it wasn’t telling him what to do; it was just pointing out a little something that he should have known but had apparently forgotten to remember.

Drakanis
is
the
key;
his
blood
was
the
door,
his
blood
is
the
road,
and
his
blood
is
the
tithe.

He’d forgotten he wasn’t the hero of the piece, even though he’d known within days of parking his sorry self in this sorry town that Drakanis was different somehow, that he was what Woods was there for. He hadn’t heard that voice in a long time. The last time it had been obvious that it was speaking was when he got the job in the first place. But he’d stuck around, watching and waiting to see why he’d come there, in the meantime deluding himself into thinking that he had some world-shaking role to play there, that this time might pay for all and he’d be done with the whole mess.

What the patterns in the smoke and the voice in his head were telling him didn’t necessarily prevent that from being so, but they
were
telling him that he was supposed to be in the background, giving Drakanis a little shove into his own destiny. There’d been other little signs along the way, trying to point it out to him, but he’d ignored them—probably deliberately, he figured in hindsight. His own ego and desire to be free had gotten in the way of this thinking, and when that happened, trouble always followed.

Now that his mind was a little clearer, he could admit this, if only to himself. Now the only question was what to do about it. He could tell by the looks on their faces yesterday that Parker and Drakanis were starting to go down the right path, but he had to figure out how to shove them down it, to make them commit 100 percent. On such subjects, the smoke and the inner voice were both silent, but he was beginning to get some ideas of his own. Now he just had to buck up and get to it, before the shit hit the fan.

Then there was the matter of the psychic static that was settling into his life, a blinding fog that made everything that much harder to get done. He was almost certain whoever was putting it out had at least something to do with the murders and beyond that, the
talu`shar
. Once or twice it had even occurred to him to wonder if it was possible that the killer himself could have been there, laughing alongside everyone else, filled to the brim with glee at what he’d done.

If
he
was
that
close,
you’d
have
noticed
him
before.
Maybe. It wouldn’t have been the first time that something so glaringly obvious had escaped him, while he deluded himself into thinking he was absolutely correct. Gods willing, it wouldn’t be the last either, but the smoke had also whispered other things to him, and he wasn’t so sure he was going to survive many more mistakes.

If
he
was
that
close,
why
hasn’t
he
tried
anything
before?
Damien knew the way his mind worked, which seemed more like a blessing as he watched other folks or pried into their minds, which he sometimes did without even realizing it. He knew that it might have just been self-rationalization, a defense mechanism kicking in to keep him from feeling too stupid and ignorant since he could fry his own logic. The
talu`shar
was close, and the things that dwelled in it weren’t stupid; they wouldn’t pick a servant who was impatient or idiotic.
In
a
way,
that’s
a
good
thing,
or
I
might
have
ended
up
in
their
camp,
he thought with a chagrined smile as he blew another series of smoke rings toward the ceiling.

One thing he did know, Warden of the
talu`shar
or just a grunt, the one certainty was that he was powerful; whatever else it had done to him and whatever else could be said about his natural talent, being elected the Disciple had made him one hell of a lot more potent. When he’d first started getting into it with Janus, so sure they were going to rule the world someday because they watched some bullshit movie and could speak some Latin, anything real had given him a headache, even just nudging a rearview mirror half an inch to the left. After waking up that night, he could yank a barbell across a room without even trying or crack open a person’s mind and find whatever he wanted with only a modicum of effort. Putting up something that could keep Woods out completely and also have lingering physical effects—like the vomit he’d left in Brokov’s bathroom when they’d ended up here, though the beer might also have had something to do with it—would probably kill him.

His train of thought was broken by the sound of a toilet flushing. Apparently, Brokov had woken up with a little midnight message to deliver. The sound was so mundane—just so goddamn
normal
—that for a minute he was actually able to forget all the weird shit that had gone on, to put aside what he was really there for, and just live in the moment.

Oh,
that’s
great,
dude.
Sitting
here
hoping
for
a
message
from
the
Great
Beyond
or
whatever,
and
some
girl
flushing
a
rubber
can
make
you
forget
about
the
potential
impending
apocalypse?
Yeah.
Your
brain’s
screwed
on
tight;
we
can
see
that.

Damien grunted, shaking his head. He really
wasn’t
thinking straight, but that didn’t have much to do with the train of his thoughts. He’d just been running in Psychoville for so long that sometimes he forgot about minor things that went on in real life—not that he could ever have one, especially not with Brokov. He still wasn’t sure if she was just another vessel for Sheila, the original Sheila, waiting to try to fuck him up again at the earliest opportunity.