Unrestricted Access: New and Classic Short Fiction Page 28

  So he waited for the night, enjoying his favorite meal from an Italian restaurant down the street, complementing it with a bottle of his finest pinot noir. He saw no reason to skimp. If this was to be his last meal, he might as well enjoy it. He ate it in his kitchen while watching the sky turn orange behind the Golden Gate Bridge.

  Finally, a knock sounded at his apartment door. Arthur crossed from his study and peeked through the peephole. A man dressed in a navy blue suit stood out in the hall. His face and shorn black hair were familiar from a grainy photograph passed to Arthur at a bar in Berlin. It was Simeon.

  Arthur opened the door.

  “Mr. Crane?” The man’s voice was low and hoarse, with a Slavic accent that Arthur couldn’t quite place. Maybe Czech.

  “Yes,” Arthur said, stepping aside. “You should come inside, quickly now. It might not be safe.”

  This earned a soft smile from the man, possibly amused by Arthur’s caution. But the man did not know about Christian or the orchid.

  As his guest entered, Arthur checked the hall outside and the stairs leading down to the old Victorian’s stoop. All clear.

  Still, a chill ran up Arthur’s back, a prickling of the fine hairs on the nape of his neck, a sense of immediate danger. He quickly followed Simeon inside and closed the door behind him, locking the dead bolt.

  Simeon waited in the foyer.

  “Let’s go to my study.” Arthur led the way.

  Simeon followed him and stepped to Arthur’s desk, staring around the room. His gaze settled upon the marked-up page showing The Raising of Lazarus. He motioned to that sheet.

  “So I see you already know of the bloody origins of the Sanguinists,” Simeon said. “That Lazarus was the first of them.”

  “I’ve heard fantastical rumors,” Arthur said. “Dark stories of monsters and creatures of the night. None of it to be believed, of course. I suspect the stories are there to scare people away from the truth.”

  Arthur stared expectantly at Simeon, hoping to hear that truth.

  Instead, Simeon touched Christ’s face on the page with one curiously long fingernail. “There is much about the Sanguinists that defies belief.”

  Arthur did not know what to say to that, so he kept quiet.

  Simeon scratched his nail down the notebook page. “Show me what you already know.”

  Arthur handed him a folder of the manuscript he was working on, with notes scribbled to indicate where documents and pictures should be inserted.

  The man riffled through the pages swiftly, too fast to truly read it. “You have passed this along to no one?”

  “Not yet.”

  Simeon met his eyes for the first time. His eyes were brown and fringed by thick lashes, handsome eyes, but what struck Arthur most about them was that they did not blink. The hair rose on his arms, and he took a step backward from the man, suddenly realizing the prickling danger he had sensed earlier had come from this man, not from some hidden threat beyond his apartment.

  “You are close to the truth,” Simeon said, no longer hiding the menace in his presence, looming taller. “Closer than you know. Too close for our comfort.”

  Arthur took another step back. “The Belial . . .”

  “The Sanguinists defy us at every step, but that war must be kept secret.” Simeon stepped after him. “Our darkness cannot thrive in the light.”

  The buzz of a motorcycle on the street distracted Arthur. He glanced toward the sound—and Simeon was upon him.

  Arthur crashed painfully to the floor. Simeon pinned him there. Arthur struggled against him, but Simeon had an implacable strength that Arthur had only experienced once in his life—on the day Christian nearly killed him.

  “You want the truth,” Simeon said. “Here it is.” The man’s lips split to reveal sharpened teeth, impossibly long.

  He flashed to that moment with Christian, suddenly remembering what he blanked out, what his mind would not allow him to fully see.

  Until now.

  There were monsters in the world.

  Arthur redoubled his struggles, but he knew he was at his end.

  Then a crash of shattered wood and glass rose from his bedroom. He pictured his window exploding. But he was on the third story.

  Simeon turned as a dark shadow flew into the room, tackling the monster off Arthur. Gasping, Arthur crabbed on his hands and feet away from the fighting, backing into his study’s cold hearth.

  The war raged across the tight room, too fast to follow, a blur of shadows, accompanied by flashes of silver, like lightning in a thundercloud. The battle smashed across his desk and crashed into his bookshelf, scattering volumes across the floor.

  Then a feral scream, full of blood and fury.

  A moment later, a head bounced across his wooden floor, spilling black blood.

  Simeon.

  From beyond Arthur’s desk, a shadow rose and shed its darkness. The figure wore a black leather motorcycle jacket, open, revealing the Roman collar of the priesthood. He stepped around the desk, his pale face scratched, bleeding. He carried two short swords in his hands, shining like liquid silver, marred with the same black blood as seeped across the golden hardwood floor.

  Impossibly, the figure grinned at him, showing a familiar glint of rakish amusement in his green eyes as he sheathed the swords.

  “Christian . . . ?”

  Beyond fear now, Arthur gaped at his brother. Despite the passing of forty years, Christian was virtually unchanged, no more than a boy in appearance compared to Arthur’s lined and aged face.

  “How?” Arthur asked the mystery standing before him.

  But Christian only smiled more broadly, crossed over, and offered Arthur his hand.

  He took it, gripping his brother’s pale fingers, finding them cold and hard, like sculpted marble. As Arthur was pulled to his feet, he saw the old scar on his brother’s wrist, a match to his own. Despite the impossible, it was indeed Christian.

  “Are you hurt?” his brother asked him.

  How did one answer that when one’s life was unhinged in a single moment?

  Still, he managed to shake his head.

  Christian led him back to the kitchen, to the table where the remains of his last meal still sat. He settled Arthur to a seat, then picked up the empty bottle of pinot noir.

  “Nice vintage,” he said, taking a sniff at the bottle. “Good oak and tobacco notes.”

  Arthur found his voice again. “Wh . . . what are you?”

  Christian cocked an amused eyebrow—a look that ached with the memory of their shared past, as perfectly preserved as the rest of his features. “You know that already, Arthur. You just must let yourself accept it.”

  Christian reached to his leg and unhooked a leather flask. Branded into its surface were the crossed keys and crown of the papal seal. Christian took Arthur’s empty goblet, filled it from the flask, and pushed it back toward him.

  Arthur stared warily at the glass. “Wine?”

  “Consecrated wine,” Christian corrected. “Turned by the holy act of transubstantiation into the blood of Christ. It is what I’ve sworn to drink. It’s what sustains me and my brothers and sisters.”

  “The Sanguinist order.”

  “The blood of Christ allows us to walk in daylight, to do battle with those who haunt the shadowy corners of the world.”

  “Like the Belial.” Arthur remembered Simeon’s sharp teeth.

  “And others.”

  His brother found another goblet from the kitchen, filled it, and joined Arthur at the table.

  Arthur took a sip from his glass, tasting only wine, none of the supposed miracle it held. But for the moment, he accepted this truth.

  Christian lifted his own goblet, drank deeply, then raised his glass. “Seems we’re blood brothers yet again.”

  This earned a shy smile from Arthur.

  Christian reached over and clinked his glass against Arthur’s.

  “To you, my industrious and persistent brother. I told you
before that you would make an excellent journalist.”

  “You knew what I discovered.”

  “I’ve never stopped watching you. But your efforts stirred up a hornet’s nest. There are those—even in my own order—who need secrets.”

  Arthur remembered Simeon’s words about the Belial.

  Our darkness cannot thrive in the light.

  It seemed the Sanguinists needed those shadows, too.

  “For your safety,” Christian said, “I tried to warn you.”

  Arthur could still smell a slight scent of gardenias. “The orchid.”

  “I had to be subtle, using a means of communication that only you would understand. I had hoped you’d abandon this line of inquiry on your own, but I should have known better. When you didn’t, I couldn’t let anyone harm you.”

  “You saved my life.”

  Christian grew momentarily pensive. “It was only fitting after you saved my soul.”

  Arthur frowned at this.

  Christian explained. “It was your love, our bond as brothers that finally broke me down enough to seek out the Sanguinists and what they offered, a path to service and redemption for my sins.”

  Arthur flashed to the burning church, to the priest in the doorway.

  Christian brightened again, straightening his spine. “So I saved your life, and you saved my soul . . . let’s call it a wash.”

  Arthur asked other questions, got some answers, but others were denied him.

  He slowly accepted this and the need for such secrets.

  Finally, Christian stood. “I must go. You should check into a hotel for a couple of days. I’ll send someone over—someone I trust—to fix your window, to clean up the place.”

  In other words, to get rid of the body.

  Arthur followed him to the door. “Will I see you again?”

  “It’s forbidden,” Christian said, his eyes a mix of sadness and regret. “I’m not even supposed to be here right now.”

  Arthur felt a pang that threatened to break his already old heart.

  Christian hugged him, gently but firmly. “I’ll always be with you, my brother.” He broke the embrace, placing his palm over Arthur’s heart. “Right here.”

  Arthur saw that Christian held something under that palm, pressed to his chest. As his brother removed his hand, a square of stiff paper fell and fluttered toward the floor. Arthur scrambled to catch it, nabbing it with his fingertips.

  As he straightened, he found the door open and Christian gone.

  Arthur stepped into the hallway, but there was no sign of his brother.

  He stared down at what he’d caught, a parting gift from Christian.

  It was a black-and-white photo, slightly yellowed, crinkled at the corners. In the background was a rainy pane of glass, and in the foreground two grieving boys gazed into the camera together. Christian held the camera high, and Arthur leaned against him for support, two brothers, blood bonded never to part.

  Christian must have carried the old photo all these years.

  Now, it was Arthur’s.

  To keep now and forever.

  Back to My Roots

  It’s a poorly kept secret that early in my career I wrote a series of fantasy novels (under the pen name “James Clemens”). So when I was approached to craft a young-adult fantasy story for an anthology edited by the illustrious master of the genre, R. L. Stine, how could I refuse?

  Years prior, while in San Francisco, I had grown enamored of the street art that decorates many of the city’s walls and alleyways. I would look at work that was oftentimes as stunning as it was mysterious. It made me wonder about the artist, about his or her motivation, about the meaning behind that splash of spray paint in the night.

  In my head, I build this entire world of secret defenders of the city, who used their art to fend off dark forces. But I never had a place to tell such a story—until that request by R. L. Stine.

  The result became the next short story, “Tagger.”

  Tagger

  James Rollins

  With a practiced flip of her wrist, Soo-ling Choi shook the spray can and applied the final trail of red paint against the cement wall of the dark alley. Finished, she took a step back to examine her handiwork, careful not to get any paint on her black silk dress.

  She wasn’t entirely happy with the result. She’d done better. It was the Chinese symbol known as fu, her signature mark. Only sixteen, she continued to be highly critical of herself. She knew she was talented. She’d even been accepted for early enrollment at the L.A. Academy of Design. But this was more important than any scholarship.

  She checked her watch. Auntie Loo would already be at the theater. She scowled at the mark.

  It’ll have to do.

  Reaching out, she touched the center of the Chinese glyph. As usual, she felt the familiar tingling that made her joints burn. The warmth spread up her arm and enveloped her in a dizzying wash. The glyph glowed for a breath, pushing back the dark shadows of the alley.

  Done.

  Before she could break contact with the symbol, an icy cold pain tore at her wrist like talons. It seared deep, down to the bone. With a gasp, she ripped her arm away and stumbled back.

  Ow . . . what the heck was that?

  She examined her wrist. It was unmarked, but an echo of that cold touch remained. She rubbed her arm, trying to melt the ice away, and studied her work with narrowed eyes.

  On the wall, her bright crimson mark had gone black, darker than the shadows of the alley.

  She continued to massage her wrist, bending it one way, then the other, struggling to figure out what had happened. The symbolic glyph—her “tag” for the past three years—was exactly like the hundreds she had plastered throughout the greater Los Angeles area.

  Did I do something wrong? Did I draw it too fast, too sloppily, make some dreadful mistake?

  Worry grew to an ache in her chest. She considered redrawing it, but she had no more time. The curtain for the ballet would be rising in less than five minutes. Auntie Loo would already be in the family’s private box. With little patience for frivolity, her aunt would be furious if Soo-ling were late again.

  As the pain subsided in her arm, the shadows seemed to drain out of the paint. The crimson richness of the fu symbol returned, as if nothing had happened.

  Whatever the problem had been, it seemed to be gone now. She shoved the spray can into her messenger bag and hurried down the alley toward the waiting limousine.

  She shot one last glance over her shoulder as she reached for the door handle. The symbolic character still shone on the wall like a splash of blood. To most Chinese, it was merely a blessing of good fortune associated with celebrations of the New Year. It represented two hands placing a jar of rice wine on an altar as an offering.

  But for Soo-ling, the painted character of fu was power, a ward of protection wherever she painted it. There would be no robbery at this location tonight; the proprietor of this 7-Eleven would be safe.

  Or so she allowed herself to imagine. It was a small way she honored her dead mother and her ancient superstitions. A way to stay connected to her, to a past that both mother and daughter shared that went back centuries, to villages nestled amid rice paddies, to mornings fragrant with cherry blossoms.

  She cast up a silent prayer to her mother and climbed into the back of the limo. A gust of sea breeze from nearby Huntington Beach wafted inside, tinged with just a hint of salt—and an underlying trace of rot. A shiver shook through her.

  Just fish and algae, she assured herself.

  Behind the wheel, Charles nodded to her. They didn’t need words. He had been with her family for as long as she could remember.

  Wanting a moment of privacy, she raised the glass partition between them and tried to compose herself. Her reflection hovered in the window before her. Her long black hair had been coiled into a precarious pile atop her head, the cascade held at bay by a pair of emerald-capped hairpins. Her eyes matched the pins in color
and shine.

  Like a ghost of Mother.

  Over the past few years, Soo-ling could not help but notice that she was slowly growing into her mother’s image, one generation becoming another. An ache of loneliness and loss hollowed her out.

  She went back to that final bedside visit with her mother before the malignant lymphoma stole her away. The hospital room had smelled of bleach and rubbing alcohol, no place for her fragile mother who believed in herbal tea remedies, the healing power of statues and symbols, and ancient superstitions.

  “This is passed to you, si low chai, my child,” her mother had whispered, sliding a sheet of hospital stationery toward her. “It is our family’s heritage, passed from mothers to daughters for thirteen generations. You are of the thirteenth generation, and this is the thirteenth year of your birth. This number has power.”

  “Mother, rest please. The chemotherapy is very taxing. You need your sleep.”

  Soo-ling had taken the sheet of paper from her mother and turned it over. In a beautiful cursive script, her mother had drawn the Chinese character for good fortune.

  Fu.

  “My little rose, you are now the guardian of the City of Angels,” she said with a mix of pride and sorrow, struggling to breathe each word. “I wish I could have explained earlier. These mysteries can only be revealed after the first blood of womanhood.”

  “Mother, please . . . rest . . .”

  Her mother continued, her eyes glazed by both memory and drugs. She told stories of prophetic dreams and the power to block curses with the proper stroke of paint on a wall or door. Soo-ling had obediently listened, but she also noted the bleat of the heart monitor, the drip of the IV line, the whisper of a television down the hall.

  What place did all these ancient stories full of ghosts and gods have in the modern world of electrocardiograms, needle biopsies, and insurance forms?