J. Geissinger - Edge of Oblivion

Then to his great horror, Mateo spotted a human female in the far corner of the club crouched beneath a cocktail table, holding something out in her trembling hand. His first thought was that it was a gun. He focused, then almost wished it was.

A small metal object, a glowing blue screen.

A phone.

A camera.

The entire thing was being filmed.

“Why do you suppose it is,” said Bartleby to Xander as they sat on the back lawn of the safe house in two folding chairs, “that you have kept me in your employ all these years?”

Xander sighed, feeling a lecture coming on. He stared up at the glimmering Milky Way peeking through rifts in the rolling, velvet dark clouds above. The cool tang of moisture in the air and the tingle of electricity that lifted the little hairs on his arms told him it was going to rain, and soon.

He said, “Because of your charm and good looks, obviously.”

But that wasn’t it. The truth of Xander’s loyalty to the doctor lay somewhere far darker.

Bartleby had been Karyo’s personal physician. In desperation—his mind unable to grasp that Esperanza was gone, really gone —Xander had called him on that terrible day so long ago, had watched through his tears as the doctor examined her, met Xander’s gaze, shook his head in wordless confirmation of the horrible truth.

He’d been kind that day, the only kind older male Xander had ever known, human or otherwise.

Since then the Syndicate had kept Bartleby as their own physician. He was trusted and respected and had saved their lives on more than one occasion.

Because he knew the doctor so well, Xander didn’t even have to look over to feel the sour look his old friend shot him.

“Wrong. Because I’m the only person who’s ever honest with you,” the doctor declared.

That definitely sounded like a pending lecture. Xander watched the neighbor’s beagle stare at him through a small hole in the back fence, fifty yards away. The dog was growling and trembling, and Xander had half a mind to get up from his chair and really give the dumb beast something to tremble about. “Don’t want to hear it, Doc.”

“I know you don’t want to hear it, Alexander, but the truth might do you a bit of good.”

Bartleby stood from the chair, stretched his arms overhead, rolled his neck back and forth.

Then he turned and stared down at Xander, his balding head crowned by a corona of stars.

“But first, a question.”

Xander braced himself.

“Are you in love with Morgan?”

He drained the last of the bottle of very fine scotch he’d been drinking for the last hour as they sat looking at the gathering storm and swallowed around the searing lump in his throat. “You’ve been watching too many soap operas.”

“Well,” Bartleby persisted after a moment when Xander said nothing more, “ are you?”

“You’re a pushy bastard, you know that?” Xander grumbled and climbed to his feet. He tossed the empty scotch bottle at the back fence and was gratified to hear the beagle go yelping off into the night when it shattered against the wood.

“And you’re avoiding the question.” The doctor peered up at him through his spectacles and adjusted his bow tie. “Not that I blame you, mind you, but I think if you get some clarity on this issue it will make things easier for everyone involved.”

“Clarity,” he repeated disdainfully, drawing the three syllables out. “Now I know you’ve been watching too many soap operas.”

“My point is,” continued Bartleby, undeterred by Xander’s sarcasm, “that you can’t decide what you’re going to do until you are clear on what exactly it is you feel for this female of yours.”

“Mark,” Xander corrected, hard. “Job. Pigeon.”

“Mmmhmmm,” said the doctor.

“And there is no decision regarding what I’m going to do . I’m going to...”

What? He was going to what?

Bartleby raised his eyebrows, waiting. Xander made a cutting motion across his throat with a hand.

“Please,” scoffed the doctor. “You’re not going to hurt a hair on her head.”

“I don’t even want to hear your theory on why that might be.”

“Because you’re in love with her! Even your Blood knows you’re in love with her! Why don’t you just admit it!”

Xander sighed and massaged his temples. “You’re fired.”

“Again?”

It was a running joke between them. Xander had fired Bartleby at least three dozen times over the last twenty years. It never stuck. The old man had grown on him like a barnacle.

In what he hoped would be the final period in the sentence of this unwanted conversation, Xander turned and made his way back toward the house. A breeze rustled through the trees along the fence, a rumble of thunder rattled the windows. Just as he lifted his hand to open the back door, Bartleby said, “She asked me not to give her any more drugs.”

Xander spun around, shocked. “What? I thought you said it helped her. I thought you said she was in pain—”

“She is. And will be for the next two days.” He tipped his head back and looked at Xander through his bifocals. “But she said she didn’t want you to have any more excuses.”

Xander’s chest tightened. His lungs refused to expand or contract. His voice came low and wary. “Excuses for what?”

The doctor smiled. “For not finishing what you started earlier.”

Dear, sweet lord in heaven. He stood there, staggered, while Bartleby gazed at him, serene as Buddha, moonlight shining soft off his spectacles. A low rumble of thunder broke the silence, and somewhere off in the distance, a dog began to howl.

“Go on, then.” The doctor waved him away and sat back down in his chair. He stretched his legs out over the grass and tipped his head up to the sky just in time to watch the moon slip behind a thundercloud. “Go find clarity, my friend, and maybe with it you’ll find some peace of mind. After all these years, you deserve it.”

For not finishing what you started.

It repeated in Xander’s head like a broken record as he slowly made his way through the dark house, down two sets of stairs, to the bedroom level where he’d woken up early this morning. He paused at the landing, staring down the long corridor to the door at the end where he’d left Morgan—

fled her—his heart pounding so hard he’d thought it might break through his ribs and explode, killing him.

She was delirious. She was joking. She was just trying to get a rise out of him so she could torment him later about his stupidity.

Right?

Her scent teased the air, wound up inside his nose, luring, tugging him forward. The energy of her Fever throbbed in exquisite, crackling pulses over his skin. Knowing exactly what waited for him behind that door, he wondered if this was God’s way of punishing him for everything bad he’d done in his life. It definitely felt like punishment.

A little moan from behind her closed door, and again he thought he would die. Desire flamed in him, hot as the sun, consuming. A noise like tremendous static roared in his ears.

His feet moved him down the hall.

He placed his open palms on the closed door and stood there with his arms braced against it for seconds, minutes, what seemed like hours, fighting against every raging instinct in his body.

You will not do this. You will maintain control. There’s no going back from something like this, there’s no good that can come of it —

The low moan came again, and his will began to fracture. He put his hand on the knob and slowly turned it.

The scent that slipped from the open door was so heady and overwhelming he was rocked back on his heels as it hit him in wave after wave of perfumed beauty. Ferocious, the animal inside him hissed and writhed to be free.