Mark of the Harbinger (Book 1)

25 - A Warehouse and a Revenant

It was a relief to fall into my sheets that night, though my dreams were anything but relaxing. 

I'd always been a vivid dreamer, possibly because of what I was and my ability to pull so many emotions into myself. I often woke with the taste of my nightly visions on the tip of my tongue as if I'd been kissed into wakefulness by the scenes filling my head. That night, I dreamt of Havik and his hawk-like eyes, of Xerex Darhan and his conniving smirk. It seemed I couldn't escape either of them even when they were nowhere nearby.

I also dreamt of Theda, the small, perky woman who dressed in modern clothes and took casual pictures with her cadre. I didn't know what her voice sounded like but I imagined it in my head, and she was screaming somewhere in the dark, imprisoned by chains and the threat of sunlight. Her voice was growing weaker, so much weaker, and the roiling, bubbling nothingness below the lounge on Eighth and Primavera was reaching up through the obstruction of the earth to smother my breath. 

I woke up with that taste in my mouth, a gag of something unliving befouling my tongue. I had barely blinked my eyes open before rushing to the bathroom to wash out my mouth.

Something clicked in my head as I scrubbed my teeth and the toothpaste lathered my lips. The word I had used in passing to give the strange magic I'd sampled a moniker was a perfect description. Unliving.

The misnomer of vampires being called the undead came about because of the nature of their magic and how it waned and waxed simulated the effects of death. This magic I'd taken into myself at the lounge, the stuff that animated Lorro, simulated the effects of life. The magic itself was dead—void—but it held energy, the very substance of life. That was why it felt so wrong.

"What does it mean?" I groaned, leaning on the sink. The porcelain under my fingers was cool, soothing. In the mirror, my scars still reflected an ember of their cyan light, though my skin was less inflamed than it had been the night before. I hurt everywhere as if covered in an unforgiving sunburn, my muscles and skin tender and warm to the touch.

Minutes later, as I sat down to my polished table and began muddling through a half-hearted breakfast, I found a new message from Havik waiting on my phone. The timestamp was just before dawn. 

"Didn't find tunnel exit. Will continue search at nightfall."

Damn. Before falling asleep, I'd hoped Havik would manage to find where the tunnel led and, maybe, find Theda. I should have known such a resolution would be too convenient.

I read the message again, frowning as I bit into my toast and set the phone aside. Shrugging my shoulders, I rose to get ready. It was one more task for me to do today. 

By three in the afternoon, I was already tired but finally able to return to Bob's Bowl-a-Rama. I'd spent much of my morning at the impound lot, attempting to haggle with a hatchet-faced employee who'd dragged his feet when retrieving my rusty junker. The afternoon was spent at the university, where I gave two rushed lectures and spent far too little time writing my next assignment.

As I drove from the college, willing my speedometer to rise higher than thirty, the sun continued to coast toward the western horizon. Night was swiftly approaching. 

I parked outside Bob's Bowl-a-rama and eyed the empty streets and the blank windows bordering the bustling bowling alley's lot. No one noticed me slip away and venture into the bland wasteland of warehouses beyond. 

The fact that no one at all—not a single curious ten-year-old, vigilant mom, seasoned veteran in a fuchsia bowling shirt, or moody teenager—glanced in my direction as I left the obvious safety of the parking lot made me think there might be a witch ward over this side of the block, and it was camouflaging the lounge from casual observation.