After the Calling

<<Chapter 2: Madness In Sanity: Part X

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“And she said his name then? She said the name Jericho Lee?” Rowanne grabbed John’s arm, digging her nails through the fabric of his sweater into his skin.

“I was barely conscious,” John said, trying to will her into tranquility with his eyes. “I’m only telling you what I think I heard.”

“I killed him,” she said through bare teeth, her voice low and malicious. “I watched him die. I tasted his blood.”

John stared at her, barely recognizing the woman who was staring back at him. “Rowanne,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure what I heard.”

With a startling quickness Rowanne grabbed his collar and yanked him toward her. “DON’T FUCK WITH ME, JOHN! Where did she take you?! What did she do to you?!”

“Rowanne, I don’t know!” John yelled back. It took everything in him to keep from projecting his aura miles away from her.

It had been 24 hours since John Levin had stumbled into one of her underground rendezvous points, and was taken into custody by members of her team. With absolutely no recollection of where he had been for the past 5 months, she had ordered him transported to her immediately, but her interrogations were not yielding much information.

“If you’re lying to me, I will find out,” Rowanne said, suddenly changing her tone to a barely audible whisper. She leaned in closer, her mouth hovering next to his ear. “And if I find out, you’ll curse the very day your mother shat you out of her body.”

John twitched as he felt her breath move from his ear to the base of his neck. Her chest pressed against his as she let a sharpened fang graze his skin, sending a painful shiver down his shoulder.

It was clearly a warning, but he sensed a shift in Rowanne’s breathing rate as a line of blood formed at his collar line. Instead of backing away, she seemed to pressing forward. He felt a sudden need to get her away from him.

“Enough!” John said, and with a powerful sweeping motion, pushed Rowanne away from him. He tried to mask his anxiety with a frown, pretending to save face. “It’s been days of this. I don’t know anything.”

Rowanne glared at him for a few more moments before turning away and walking to sit on the overstuffed couch. “Garcia, sweep is aura again,” she huffed to the lackluster figure in the corner.

“That isn’t necessary!” John said loudly, frowning. “I’ve told you everything!”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart” Garcia said with a crooked grin. “I’ll be gentle.”

“Bite me,” John replied.

“Where is Nyxon?” Rowanne mumbled to herself, sitting down ungracefully. She seemed unable to focus her eyes. John looked on confused by Rowanne’s odd transition. Two seconds ago, Rowanne seemed a wrist’s flick away from cracking his skull open. Now she appeared weak and frail.

“Trust me, if I had an iota of information, you’d be the first person I’d give it to,” John implored her, although he was eyeing Garcia. “I’m sure you can imagine the discomfort my lapse in memory is bringing me. I want to know what happened just as much as you do, but I doubt that any more forceful intrusions on my psyche will help the situation.”

Rowanne sat quietly for a moment, staring off into space. But she didn’t seem to be considering his plea. In fact she didn’t appear to be paying attention to him at all.

“Rowanne?” He called to her with a hint of worry in his voice. He almost jumped when she suddenly spoke.

“John, you have been a faithful member of my inner circle since I squashed The Calling and its pathetic group of weaklings.” She closed her eyes. ”But you’ve also been missing for almost half a year, presumably in the presence, and if so most likely under the influence, of one Mercer Rye, the single most prominent threat to my establishment.”

“I understand–” John stopped at Rowanne’s harsh glare.

“You don’t understand anything!” she said angrily, her face contorted into a scowl. “She’s planning something. No. No, she isn’t planning anything. She’s doing something. She’s…she’s collecting them…all of them… and…” Rowanne’s gaze began to drift, not bothering to finish her sentence. She sat staring off into space for a long time.

John watched her nervously, not sure what she was talking about or what was wrong with her. He had come to understand that he had been gone for a period of time, but Rowanne seemed vastly changed since he had last saw her. The immensely powerful, calculating, bulldozer of a woman seemed now to be a twitchy, distracted mess.

“Rowanne?” John called to her and watched, unnerved, as her eyes jerked unnaturally in his direction.

Rowanne barely missed a beat, and resumed speaking as if she had never stopped. “You were assumed dead. And in your case, it probably would have been easier if you were.” She spoke softy, her words fragmented, and her speech choppy. “I am sure that you can imagine the discomfort that any possibility of an infiltration on Mercer’s part can bring me, precautions to which involve forceful intrusions on your psyche.”

“Rowanne, can you please try to –”

“There is always another option, John,” she continued, “if you are so keen on not cooperating.” Rowanne turned her head sharply toward him, raising her voice only slightly. “Sirian Sarke would probably agree that cooperation is most definitely the best option in this case.” She turned away. “At least he would if he were still alive.”

“I promise, I’ll be gentle,” Garcia said, from his corner. He had barely moved, outside of cracking a smile.

“Given your position, Levin, your best option is most likely compliance,” Nyxon said as he walked in the room.

John seemed to be the only one surprised by his unannounced entrance. John did a double take at Nyxon’s appearance. Although he knew he had not seen him for five months, he felt as if he had only seen him yesterday, and the physical change was intense. He seemed fairly thin, his clothing was uncharacteristically wrinkled, and his hair was much longer than he had ever been known to let it grow. Because of the mane, John almost missed the barely scabbed red dots that decorated the skin on Nyxon’s neck, right over his jugular vein.

“Welcome back, by the way,” Nyxon said quietly, making his way toward Rowanne.

 At the sight of him, there was a quick change in her expression and disposition, from annoyance to lust, from lethargy to unabashed verve. She leaped off the couch, pressing her face to his it what was almost unrecognizable as a passionate kiss. She tore at his tie, attempting to free his neck.

John averted his eyes, embarrassed to see such a blatant sexual energy in front of him. Rowanne had always been known to show affection to the males of her inner circle. He himself had been privy to more than a few visits from her lips… and her fangs. But it had always been private, hidden from plain view. To see her and Nyxon now, pawing at each other disgusted him.

John’s attention was brought back to the present when Garcia suddenly stood up and motioned for him to follow.

“Let’s go,” Garcia said, barely glancing at Nyxon and Rowanne.

John didn’t see much choice and moved to follow Garcia. Expecting to leave the building, he was confused to see that Garcia was leading him only a few rooms over.

“Why are we remaining so close?” John asked, suspiciously.

“Don’t worry, we won’t be disturbed.” Garcia said quietly.

“Is it not dangerous to be so close to other auras while performing a sweep?”

“We’re you not just lectured on the benefits of cooperation?” Garcia said and opened the door into a room which was bare save for a metal table and a pair of chairs. John had seen many rooms like this before. Interrogation rooms littered all of Rowanne’s hideouts. However, there were very rarely any actual interrogations. These rooms almost always saw little else but blood and suffering. From the broken furniture and stained floor, this room had also seen its fair share.

“Oh, what’s wrong Mr. Levin?” Garcia said condescendingly as he leaned against the door handle. “You look nervous? What? It doesn’t feel so nice being on the other side of playing field?”

“Shut up,” John said, putting his head down and walking into the room.

“No worries, Levin,” Garcia continued. “Your fate will probably not be comparable to Mr. Sarke’s.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have a seat.” Garcia grinned contemptuously. “Rowanne didn’t kill Sirian. She doesn’t know who killed Sirian. But his death was very high profile, and of course everyone thinks she killed him. It simply looks better for the establishment if she plays the role.”

“Rowanne doesn’t have to lie about such pettiness. No one would dare cross her.” John put as much bravado into his voice as he could, but he kept as much distance between himself and Garcia as he could as he cautiously sat down.

“Is that right?” Garcia replied casually as he closed and locked the door. He folded his arms and leaned against it. “Not even you?”

“I told you, just like I told her, I don’t remember anything. And I would never have –”

“John. John. John,” Garcia clucked his tongue. “I don’t giving a flying pig’s ass what you did during your vacation with Mercer. Whatever happened doesn’t matter. That’s the past. This is present. And the present makes the future. So just shut your face, because I’m sure you want to know what’s going on.”

“What do you mean, what’s going on?”

“What I mean is that I’m sure you want to know how we’re going to bring Rowanne’s reign to an end.”

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“It may take a few hours, but he’s coming out of it. He’ll be a little disoriented, but it should pass.”

“Dad, I’m worried.”

“Understandably… but, I’m confident that he’s okay. He has you to help him through whatever obstacles he may encounter.”

Hadrian cracked his eyes, unable to recognize the voices that surrounded him. His hair clung angrily to his eyelashes, blurring his vision, as if willing his eyes to shut. He found that the effort to move his arm to brush the strands from his eyes was too great to muster.

“When can the kids see him?”

“When he’s strong enough. Let him recover, Gari.”

Hadrian let his eyes open wider, letting them focus on the unfamiliar faces that stood above him. The woman on his left was wearing an expression of extreme worry, whiles the man to his right wore an expression of comforting reassurance.

“And you, Gari, should try to refrain from too much worry,” the man said. “You are much too far along to allow yourself to stress out.”

Hadrian realized that the woman was heavily pregnant. What the hell is going on? He thought to himself. He attempted to sit up, and found the exertion to be overwhelming. His head had barely risen off the pillow before he was falling back into blackness, hearing only woman’s fading voice.

“Hadrian, just relax. You need your rest, love…”

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Hadrian opened his eyes slowly and waited for the ceiling above him to stop spinning. He groaned, and sat up slowly, examining his surrounding. Although it was dark, the little light that invaded his retinas caused him to squint in discomfort. When his eyes adjusted, he could see that he was in someone’s bedroom, the walls heavily windowed. He stared outside, amazed at the forestation, and wondered where he was.

He tossed his legs over the edge of the bed and waiting while his body adjusted. He felt weak and exhausted, as if he had just run a marathon. He rubbed his temple, trying to convince the beginnings of a migraine to find another victim before he stood up groggily.

Examining his surroundings more thoroughly, he found nothing familiar. Walking slowly, he made his way around a corner and found himself in a small kitchen. An empty baby bottle lay in the sink, and a half eaten cheese sandwich sat abandoned on the counter.

He continued walking, and found himself in a dining room, a pet’s bed sitting empty against a wall.  There was a half full bowl of pet food adjacent to it. Everything about the home looked inhabited, lived in, but he felt as though he was in a void.

Tripping over a toy horse, he continued, noticing a bedroom adjacent to the dining room. Moving slowly, he peeked into what was clearly a little boy’s room, space ships and toy cars littering the floor, and a bed decorated with the sort of mammals that young children found appealing.

What was odd was that instead of a young child, the bed was occupied by the sleeping body of elderly gentleman. Hadrian craned his neck to try to see the man from the doorway, not wanting to enter the room and risk waking him.

Where the hell… Hadrian thought to himself, leaning back and glancing around at the dense foliage that seemed inescapable.

“He’s upstairs,” a voice spoke up from behind him. Hadrian jumped in alarm and nearly fell over. He spun around to see the pregnant woman standing almost directly behind him.  “Sorry,” she said laughing.

The laugh dropped off into a broad smile as she beamed at Hadrian. “It seemed best to keep you in Dad’s room to recover. So Dad’s been in there, and Ash has been sleeping with me. He misses you. They both do,” she said warmly. “I’ve been missing you, too.”

Hadrian only managed to stare at the woman incredulously. She was looking at him as if she’d known him his whole life, and yet he had never seen her before.

“My goodness, you need a haircut. And a shave,” the woman giggled, reaching up to affectionately stroke Hadrian’s face. Instinctively, he jerked away and grabbed her wrist before she could touch him.

The look of hurt and distress that clouded her face after he did so made him wish he had just held still. Her eyes were so deep, he felt he’d drown in them if she didn’t look away.

“Hadrian?” the woman asked, confused, her voice full of the possibility of tears. “Are you okay?”

Hadrian took a step back from her. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice not much louder than a whisper. “But I don’t know who you are.”

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Secret: Part II>>