Like a ghost, I glided through the service corridors back to the loading dock. As I exited the employee door, I checked that my bellhop was still safely secured, (albeit wiggling and shouting through the sock I had stuffed in his mouth), then moved silently around the perimeter of the building.
I quickly located the cameras mounted along the exterior, evading or disabling them along the way until I found my desired spot concealed from passing traffic behind decorative shrubs. I lined myself up between room windows and eyeballed my path up the building.
Maybe it was hubris, a selfish desire to avenge the hit he landed on me in the junkyard, but I decided to check Chase’s room first. Room 1503, 16th floor.
I focused on the talisman, honing my emotions to my purpose. I didn't need to draw attention, so no loud flourishes this time. It needed to be quiet, efficient. I stepped up to the side of the building, reached up, and dug my Aether-reinforced fingers into the wall.
Again I extended my senses out into the environment, searching for watchful eyes. Once I was sure the coast was clear, I started to climb. Moving swiftly, I scaled the building, trying to make as little noise as possible while crunching stucco.
I found the southeast corner of the 16th floor and Jumped lightly up onto the terrace of Chase’s suite. Crouching behind wicker lawn furniture and a glass fire bowl, I edged up to the wall near the patio door and peered inside.
The drapes were pulled back, revealing a luxurious room done up in colors of deep gold and rich velvet. The main sitting room was comfortably furnished, and a large wooden writing desk sat to one end near the glass door.
I couldn’t sense anyone inside through the Aether, but given who my prey was, I knew I couldn’t rely on that. Pulling out an old folding knife from my boot, I wiggled the blade between the sliding glass door frame until the latch lifted and pushed it open.
I crept silently between the rooms of the large executive suite and began to clear the interior. Once I was sure it was empty, I relaxed slightly and took a more thorough look at the place.
It was a comfortable, impermanent setup, a place of temporary luxury that Chase was drawing out as long as possible. The Chief had said he couldn’t touch the Trio here, which meant they thought they were safe. So if they had anything to hide, this would be the place.
The bedroom was filled with the largest, softest-looking bed I had ever seen. The covers were clean and pressed marking housekeeping's recent presence, and Chase’s absence. The wardrobe was full, the volume of clothing conveying the length of his stay.
Moving back across the sitting room, I checked the small kitchen. Its counters stocked with the widest array of alcohol I’d ever seen outside of Jack’s bar. I took a quick peek in his fridge, noting the microwavable food and beer, plus the empty cans and bottles in his garbage. With an uncomfortable twinge, I recognized the parallel to my own recently lived experience.
I tore through Chase’s toiletries and suitcases and rummaged through his dresser and bathroom. I scoured every nook and cranny in the place but to no avail.
When I crossed over to the writing desk, I yanked on the top drawer and found It was locked, the first sign of concealment so far. Luckily, I had prepared for such an obstacle and pulled out the old lock pick set my uncle had given me as a kid.
Uncle Chuck believed fortune favored the prepared, so when I was young, he would make up games to teach me valuable life skills. In one such game, he gave me a chain of padlocks and told me to pick my way through them. If I managed to open them all, he would take me out for ice cream. The better I got, the longer and more complicated the chain got. I started playing this game when I was ten.
Chase’s desk didn't stand a chance.
In seconds the first lock was popped and I was in. The drawer was filled with folders, each labeled with a sequence of numbers. Picking up the first one and flipping through it, I found a picture of a young blond woman. The next page in the file contained her particulars, heritage, age, height, and weight, even her damn dental records. It was a profile. Rubber stamped on her details page were the words Accounts Payable.
The next file was the same, this time of a young boy, but marked, Pending Transfer. File after file, each one was a person. To anyone else, I’m sure it wouldn't have made sense, but under the circumstances, I knew what it meant... These were sales transactions.
I pulled out the entire stack and set them on the desk. After removing the documents, I glanced back down at the open drawer, noting a peculiarity. The drawer's bottom was uneven. I reached down and pressed on the drawer lining, feeling it wiggle, it was a false bottom. Intrigued, I lifted it, exposing a hidden compartment containing a single black moleskin diary. I pulled it out and turned to its first page.
“This is my declaration of authenticity. I, Chase Williams, do hereby swear the following to be an accurate and truthful account of my affairs...”
As I read on, my heart fluttered. I was holding Chase’s last resort, his insurance. A nuclear option implicating those involved in his dark dealings in case he ever needed a way out.
Excited, I set the diary to the side and continued to thumb through the profile folders. Yet as I did my elation turned sour and my stomach squirmed.
Some of the files were rubber-stamped, Defective or Expired. There were maybe a few hundred files here. A few hundred souls reduced to someone else's profit or pleasure, used and discarded as quickly as a paper cup. I felt sick.
Trying to stay focused, I reached into my coat and pulled out my phone. Laying out each file, I started taking pictures for the Chief.
As I worked my way through the stack, I came upon one file with a stalker-style photo of a little girl swinging in a schoolyard.
It was Annabell.
Frantically I scanned through the pages, but there was nothing to tell me her location. It was rubber-stamped though, Accounts Payable.
That’s why they staged her death. She was bought and paid for. They needed the case resolved to shut up her mom and silence the news.
Was I too late? had she been shipped off somewhere? maybe out of the country? Oh god...
I slumped down in the desk chair, the file dangling loosely from one hand while I buried my face in the other. This was my fault. Had I been better, moved quicker I could have saved her. Now she was lost to me, damned to a life of torment at the hands of her captors.
Defeat sapped every ounce of my strength. This was too hard, I couldn't keep this up. Pulling the mask off my face, I glanced over to the kitchen where the varied bottles of spirits sat on the counter. The gleaming colorful glass containers were a welcome distraction from this morbid work. They reminded me of bygone times enjoyed at the bar with friends. Better days.
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Slapping Annabell’s file on the desk, I got up and crossed to the makeshift bar. A bottle of scotch grabbed my attention and I picked it up.
God, I was thirsty.
I opened the bottle and smelled it, letting the aroma wash over me. I was so parched and relief was so near. If I could have just one small drink, just enough to take the edge off, maybe I could manage this stress better.
I looked down the bottleneck at the sweet caramel-colored liquid when it hit me... There were no Negasites...
A surge of pure desire coursed through me. Hurriedly I lifted the bottle to my lips and drank deeply. I had never tasted anything so good. It burned pleasurably on the way down as I expectantly waited for the coming calm that drink always promised. I stumbled back and slumped in the desk chair again as I drank, the dull throb of shame held at bay only by my desire for more.
I was chugging so fast It would have made a frat-boy blush. It didn’t matter though, I only seemed to get thirstier. After a while, I had to pull away to take a breath. Lifting the bottle for another pull, I looked down and caught sight of Annabell’s picture on the desk and froze.
What was I doing?
I looked between the bottle and her file as disgust welled inside me. I threw the bottle across the room and wiped my face with my sleeve.
I had been so ready to give up? To call it quits because things were getting hard? What the hell was wrong with me?
I picked up the girl's photo, trying to rally my senses.
“Shouldn’t have wasted the bottle,” said a man at my back.
I jumped and spun around, but far too slow. Someone hit me over the head so hard I flew across the room and crashed into the wall by the bedroom door.
Chase stepped around the desk, glancing over the files strewn about with passing interest.
“I don't know how you found me, but you're about to wish you hadn’t.”
Clumsily I got back to my feet, sliding the mask over my nose. The excess whiskey and head trauma made me wobble precariously. Still, I pulled out the nightstick and took up my stance.
“Where’s the girl,” I said gruffly.
Chase stood, relaxed with his hands in his pockets as he laughed, “Tell you what, once you're dead, I’ll whisper it in your ear.”
Without warning, his posture shifted so fast I couldn’t track him. One second he was standing still, the next he had crossed the room and his fist was an inch from my face.
In the whirl of chaos, two things happened simultaneously. First, the talisman lit up and its energy coursed through me again, giving me speed enough to dodge Chase in the nick of time. Second, a veil was lifted from my eyes and Chase's luxurious suite transformed into a slimy green hellscape.
The entire room looked drenched in ghostly green Aether, like a cabin in a sunken pirate ship. Large green tentacles sprouted out of every crevice, and the bottles of alcohol on the counter took on a radioactive neon glow.
Chase himself looked bloated and deathly, like a drowned corpse. Liquid spilled out of his eyes, ears, and nose, and he gave off the strong smell of urine and stale alcohol. Imposed over his face was a translucent, bulbous monstrosity. It was the Watcher, Bal-Zabul.
I stumbled away from him and tried to regain my footing, while Watcher-possessed Chase relaxed again as though nothing had happened.
“Harbinger,” he gurgled as though from underwater. “Why do you fight me? Why do you insist on suffering?”
I could see a spectral mouth move over Chase’s still lips. I was speaking to the Watcher directly.
“I want the people you've taken,” I said, my voice cracking and weak.
He laughed a bubbling distance laugh. “No, you don't! You are one of mine, You cannot hide your thirst from me... I know what you truly want.”
He stepped back, clearly a path from me to the row of bottles in the kitchen. The glowing glass changed, shining brightly now as though reflected in the sun. The longer I looked at them, the more appealing they became, and the disturbing Aether images around them started to wane. My throat dried again and the need for a drink intensified. I felt a magnetic pull, compelling me to take a sluggish step toward the bar.
Just one more drink, then I’ll be ok, said a voice in my head as I took another step. If I fight I could lose, I’ll get hurt. I just want to rest... I choked on my dry tongue as I advanced closer and closer.
Chase stepped up alongside me, his human face swimming into view, healthy and normal. “We don't need to fight,” he said calmly, “let me get you a drink and we can forget all about this.”
I reached the counter and slumped against its surface, my parched throat like sandpaper. I felt like I was going to die without a drink.
He was right, why was I fighting this so hard? What was the point?
Once more those putrid Negasite tentacles slithered over the counter surface between the rows of bottles, only this time I didn’t care. They wrapped themselves around my wrists pulling my hands toward the drink like a Kraken come to drag me down into the depths.
In my heart, I was near surrender when the talisman warmed on my chest. With it came the dull throb of memory.
I recalled the woman in the alley, doomed to torment at Jebs hands before I had intervened. I saw the boy hiding from his father’s furry as I crashed into his room to save him. And I saw Annabell, scared and cold in a storage container waiting... waiting for me.
Get to work John.
My hand stopped short of the bottle.
I had already done this dance. The overwhelming despair and pain never got better in the bottle, it only got heavier. And while I let myself drown, others would suffer needlessly because I was too selfish to endure.
My muscles spasmed beneath the weight of the slick wet grip of Bal-Zabul. This was not who I was, some pathetic lost soul. I was a Lawman, born to protect the innocent, like my father, I wasn’t made to perish in pity.
Fuck the booze.
I screamed, straining against my dry throat as I pulled back away from the Negasties' grasp.
Chase’s face became sunken and sickly as Bal-Zabul’s mask slipped over him once more. He backed away in shock, and I saw fear in the monster's eyes.
In one mighty pull, I broke free of the tentacles, turning from the bar to face Chase head-on. The sapphire on my chest nearly exploded in azure fire as the nightstick in my hand lit like a blow torch.
The puce Aether nightmare covering the room recoiled in my presence and the effects of the whiskey were quelled, replaced with a fury the likes of which I had never felt before. I leveled burning blue eyes on Chase as Bal-Zabul gnashed his teeth fretfully,
“The girl,” I rasped, “Now.”
Chase’s face warped angrily, “Die harbinger!” Bal-Zabul bellowed.
His body ballooned, and his arms contorted, splitting open and transforming into countless tentacles. The grotesque limbs lashed out wildly as he tried to strike me down.
In a flash the fight was on. I ducked, and dodged, parrying his blows with the flaming brand. Each time he made contact with the baton he was burned, recoiling and howling in pain, but the Watcher did not banish like the others had... Instead, the flames only served to infuriate him more.
I could see through the ghost mask that the fight was exacting a heavy toll on Chase's body. His human face was in agony, yet still, the Watcher pushed him.
I wove through the sea of Aether appendages, jumping and rolling until I closed the distance. Once I was near enough, I jumped onto Chase’s distended belly and brought the baton crashing down on his head. He screamed and thrashed about, as one of his tentacles grabbed hold of my left arm and yanked hard.
I yelled in pain as my shoulder popped and gave way, the arm flopping uselessly to my side. I fell off him, landing on the polished floor with a thud, and scooted away from him on my backside.
Thankfully Chase was preoccupied, clawing at his charred face, affording me a moment to regroup. Things had taken a bad turn, and I wasn’t sure I could keep up the fight like this. It was time to go.
Through bleary eyes, I looked up and located the files and diary lying on the desk. The pain was so intense, it was hard to move, but I forced myself to my feet and ran for the desk.
A storm of tentacles tore through the air to intercept me. My arm flapped painfully as I hurtled over the Watcher's limbs, barely managing to evade his grasp. I slid over the top of the desk and threw the nightstick out the open door as I scooped up the diary in my one good arm. The momentum carried me over the surface, and I hit the floor at a sprint. Dodging another volley from Bal-Zabul, I jumped out onto the patio and over the terrace railing to the street below.
Clutching the diary for dear life, I fell through the night sky like a meteor, landing on my back with a loud boom, and cratering the earth on impact. Painfully I crawled out of the busted asphalt as quickly as my broken body would allow, then ran off into the dark brush with the nightstick trailing in my wake. Miraculously that wretched nightmare didn’t follow.
See? Just like I said. Piece of cake...