John Levitt - Unleashed

I moved around Eli to the other side. I needed to touch her again, to feel her, to make sure this wasn’t just a cruel illusion. Eli scooped her up in his massive arms and laid her gently on the couch, and Victor joined us at her side. We all just stood there, staring silently down at her.

“Ahem,” said the Wendigo, with a fake cough. “I hate to break up this touching reunion, but I believe you have something you want to give me.”

“Not until she comes to,” Victor said.

As if on cue, Sherwood opened her eyes, looked up with a puzzled expression, and then closed them again. Eli leaned over and looked at her closely.

“I think he’s right,” he said. “She’ll be fine. Give him what he wants.” He glanced over at the Wendigo. “And if she isn’t…”

Victor picked up the messenger bag, now half full of rune stones, and handed it over, a bit reluctantly. A quick look inside, and the Wendigo was satisfied.

“Nice doing business with you,” he said and headed toward the door, then stopped.

“By the way,” he said, “did you get a chance to look at this morning’s paper?”

“No,” Eli answered. “Why?”

“You might find it interesting.”

Victor picked up the paper from the desk and slipped it out of its orange plastic bag. He unfolded it with a snap of his wrist, and I could read the headline from across the room: “Another Hiker Dead!” The Wendigo smiled and turned back toward the door.

“Just a moment,” said Victor sharply. He read down a ways. “This says it happened right at dusk. In Marin County.”

The Wendigo stopped and stared back at him.

“I hope you’re not thinking of welshing on the deal,” the Wendigo said. “That would be a very bad idea, I guarantee you.”

“No, not at all,” said Eli, and I knew he meant it. He’d warned us often enough about the dangers of reneging on promises made to uncanny creatures. “But you knew about that headline. It couldn’t have been the fake Ifrit; it was stalking us at the time. It couldn’t have been you; you were trapped in the circle. So what was it, then?”

“That does seem to be the question.”

“You want to tell us what’s been going on?”

“Why should I?” he said. “I’m not real fond of any of you.” He pointed at me. “You tried to kill me, remember, the first time I saw you.” He pointed at Victor. “And then you trapped me in that cage. What would have happened to me if I hadn’t escaped?” He shook his head. “No, I’m not overly fond of any of you.”

“You and the Ifrit creature aren’t the only things that came out of the energy pool, were you?” I said, finally getting it.

“Brilliant,” he said. “Right on top of things, I see.”

“But you won’t tell us what it was? Can you at least tell us what it looks like? I did save your ass out on that moor, after all.”

“Yeah, and your own as well.” He laughed, suddenly, sounding very human indeed.

“How about a hint? Just to show there are no hard feelings.”

“But there are. Just stay close to home and I’m sure you’ll figure it out, anyway. Eventually. But of course by that time it will be too late.”

Without another word, he walked through the door and down the stairs, and this time Victor didn’t try to stop him. A moment later, the sound of the front door slamming shut echoed up to us.

Eli turned his attention back to Sherwood. He bent down close and took her hand.

“Sherwood?” She opened her eyes briefly.

“Grmff,” she said, and closed them again.

“She’s coming out of it,” Eli said.

Victor meanwhile was skimming through the rest of the article in the paper.

“Damn,” he said. “Another girl. They pinpointed the attack to eight in the evening-just about the time we were catching the Wendigo, and fighting off the fake Ifrit. So it really wasn’t the fake Ifrit and it wasn’t our Wendigo, either. Damn.”

Sherwood interrupted whatever else he was going to say by opening her eyes and sitting up suddenly and speaking.

“What happened?” she said in a clear and lucid voice. “Where’s Christoph? How did we get back to Victor’s?”

For a moment I thought she was asking about her return from the moors, but Eli nodded in comprehension and a second later I caught on as well.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked, still holding on to her hand. She shuddered.

“We were up at McClaren Park. Chistoph had hold of me. He’d taken over my mind, somehow-I was fighting all the time, but he was too strong. Then he let go and made a gesture in my direction. I felt a blast of energy, everything went white, and then suddenly I’m here with all of you staring down at me solemnly. Am I hurt?”

“Not exactly,” Eli said. “But there’s a lot to tell you. You had better get comfortable-this is going to be rather a long story. Victor, some tea perhaps?”

“I could use a cup of coffee,” I said. Victor ignored me, and Sherwood said tea would be nice.

It took all of an hour for Eli to explain what had happened during the last year while I’d thought she was dead. Sherwood took it all in, interrupting only a few times with questions. At the end of Eli’s tale, she only said, “What about my apartment?”

“Gone. You can stay here, though.”

“And my stuff?”

“Also gone. There didn’t seem any point in keeping it.” She was silent for a moment.

“Well, thank God my parents are dead. I never thought I’d say that, but it would have killed them.” Another moment of silence. “I should be thankful, I guess, but to me it’s like nothing happened. Except that I’ve lost a year of my life. What a total drag.”

“Not really,” Eli said. “We’ve all aged a year, but you haven’t. Think of it as if you had traveled into the future.”

“Exactly,” I added. “You’re looking at it the wrong way around. You haven’t lost a year-you’ve gained one. Like Eli said, it’s as if you were a time traveler. You’re only a few days older than you were that day up in McClaren Park, but Eli and Victor and me have aged since then. You’ve gained over a year on all of us-you’re in the future.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said.

We spent what was left of the day filling her in on the state of the world these days. One of the things she was most interested in was Timothy and how long Victor and he had been together. By afternoon, she was exhausted and crashed in one of Victor’s spare rooms. She may not have remembered anything about her yearlong sojourn into the netherworld, but it had affected her nonetheless. She kept losing her train of thought and asking us to repeat things. It was worrisome, but Eli thought she’d be fine in a few days.

By the time I got home, I was drained as well. But when I entered my flat, there was something waiting there for me. Not a ravenous ghoul or ghostly apparition, but something far worse. The goddamned message light on the phone was blinking again.

“MASON, THIS IS MORGAN,” THE MESSAGE RAN. “Sorry to bother you, but I had this weird dream…” Her voice trailed off and I heard a muffled curse as she put her hand over the phone. She took her hand off. “Okay, I didn’t realize how lame that was going to sound. But considering, I thought we could at least talk. Call me when you get a chance.”

Most of the messages I get aren’t anything I want to hear, but this wasn’t so bad. Not bad at all. I flopped down on the bed and picked up the phone.

“Morgan? Mason,” I said when she answered.

“Oh, God. I’m so embarrassed. A bad dream, for Christ’s sake, and I call you about it.”

“Hey, you’re a psychic, and a real one. Dreams are important.”