Prime, p.12
Prime, page 12
part #13 of Nathan K Series
“No,” Octavia said, stomping forward and forgetting all about Robin. “All this time, all these centuries, and you’ve been taking orders from him? He’s the one running the Larkin Group?”
The Cardinal lifted into the air. “Mmmmmm.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Cardinal said nothing as he descended between Nathan and Octavia, but glee tittered through his body. He made several guttural noises. They watched the Prime, waiting for further action, waiting for some sense of what he wanted, but they received no answer.
Octavia clutched Larkin’s shirt and ripped him from Nathan’s stunned grip. “How? How could you give up all you built to a man who cares nothing for the rest of the world? We’re the little worms, remember?” She threw him to the ground.
No longer under threat of death, Larkin puffed his chest and held his head back. “My dear, I have always done what was best for all Immortals. When I first met the Cardinal, when he first appeared on my balcony, he offered me only his smile and the promise to end all the fighting. He told me to create the Larkin Group. He told me the missions we needed to take on. Each step of the way, he guided us.”
“If that’s true —”
“It is.”
“If that’s true, then don’t hide behind this noble idea of creating a peaceful world for us. You did it for power and for your life. You fear the Cardinal.”
Bouncing on his feet, Larkin said, “Of course, I fear. Of course, I want. Those are two things I’ve never hidden from you or anybody. If doing so also brought about peace, all the better.”
She looked as if her life bled out before her. “That day — that day you told me to see if I could get through to the Cardinal, see if I could befriend him, if I could convince the Cardinal to join the Larkin Group or at least help it, help us, to end the fighting — that was all a lie? Or a game? Did he tell you to do that?”
Larkin cast his eyes toward the Prime before lowering his head. “I saw he wanted to meet you, to know you, but he didn’t want to cause fear. I offered to make the introduction.”
“You whored me out.”
“Don’t be vulgar. I never once thought he desired you in such a manner.”
“You would’ve done it anyway.”
“I am no pimp, and I still demand respect. Watch yourself.” He adjusted his tie and continued with a tone of put upon patience. “Years later, and only years later, I suspected he was grooming you for when he grew tired of me.”
Nathan shook his head. “I should never have feared you. The Cardinal is the real danger. You’re nothing but a coward. Power-hungry, ineffectual, little coward.”
Octavia scrutinized the rooftop, taking in one stunned person after another. “What now? Russo’s dead and the Larkin Group is a lie. How do we go forward?”
Jutting his chin toward the Cardinal, Nathan said, “That depends on him. On whether or not all of this was part of the plan.”
The Cardinal cocked his head toward Nathan and let his mouth open into a wide, unholy grin. “Mmmmmmmm.”
The Darkness swooped in like a flash flood of cold. It engulfed the rooftop, swirling and spreading, bellowing and blowing, filling and flattening like poured batter until everything around Nathan had been covered in dark nothingness.
“Come.” The Cardinal’s voice resonated in the air as if spoken in a cathedral. “Follow.”
He appeared out of the Darkness. With a soft foot, he lifted into the air. Hovering above, he rolled the fingers of one hand suggesting Nathan should rise as he had done.
A strange awareness electrified Nathan’s body. The weapon in his hand felt rough and coarse on his fingers. He could sense the scratch of clothing against his skin and even the tickle of a hair in his nose. Each thrum of his shaking heart reverberated through his bones. More than anything, he felt the rooftop beneath his feet. Through his socks and shoes, he felt both connected to and disassociated from the physical object he stood upon. It disoriented him. Like the world spinning while drunk mixed with the firmness of lying flat on the forest floor.
He peered over at Robin and Octavia. Neither moved. Nor blinked. Frozen in time. Safe. For now. Nathan turned back to the Cardinal.
“Mmmmmmm.” The Cardinal rolled his fingers again.
Nathan tried to mimic the Cardinal’s earlier motion — gently pushing off with one foot. He lifted into the air. Only a little before slowly settling back on the rooftop. A simple hop, but it felt lighter than it should have — not quite weightless, but certainly an otherworldly sensation.
“Again,” the Cardinal said.
Nathan pushed off the rooftop once more, this time with greater power. Not too much, though. He worried he might launch far into the sky.
Indeed, he blasted straight up. Faster than intended. But the Cardinal’s hand snapped out to grab Nathan by the shoulder. It was an icy touch. A familiar touch. As cold as the Darkness. As menacing as a cocked revolver.
The last remnants of the roof disappeared beneath as they left the mortal world. They floated. Adrift in the Darkness. The Cardinal, the Darkness, and Nathan moved in a three-party dance. Whenever he shifted, the currents of the Darkness shifted with him. The Cardinal hovering in front as the empty void surrounded them.
Time and direction ceased to exist. If not for the Cardinal’s looming presence, Nathan would have thought he had finally lost control and slipped too far into the empty. But with the Cardinal’s bone-cold hand on the shoulder, Nathan felt the security of traveling an unknown and dangerous land with a well-seasoned guide. He had to hope and trust this guide would take him back to the real world at some point. Hope and trust — two words he never imagined attributing to this Prime.
“You’ve been changing,” the Cardinal said, his voice rumbling in the stillness around them. “Growing. Finally.”
“Is this a game? Playing with the little worms?” Nathan had not intended to be rude, but as his head grappled with the lack of sensory information, he lost focus on controlling his mouth.
“All worms have a purpose. All life has a meaning. Too few live long enough to see it.”
“Are you saying you’ve discovered the meaning of life?”
“That would be delightful. But no, that answer still eludes.”
Though Nathan could not see the Cardinal’s eyes behind those eerie, reflective lenses, he knew the Cardinal watched him. They said nothing for a long time. Too long. Perhaps it would have gone on, but Nathan’s pounding heart pushed him — anger and fear flowing out. “This is ridiculous. What is it you want from me? Why am I here?”
“Fate, perhaps.”
“Bullshit. If Larkin is telling the truth, then you’re the one pulling all the strings. You’re the one who has decided each step, each mission. You’re the one who has come after me directly and indirectly for years. Why? Even now, if you wanted, you could kill me. Permanently. I have no doubt. Yet you toy with me and then tell me you’re not playing games. You didn’t stop me when I permanently killed others. Isabella in the Yukon. Russo in Korea. And after all these years, when I finally hunt down Larkin, you clearly ordered him to make a deal with me. Why? Why have me agree to that weird deal of taking out criminals when the moment I go to accomplish that first target, you jump in and stop me? You mess with my head and bring me here and then let Dr. Kempo torture me. I don’t understand any of it. Crap, I’m starting to think you don’t either.” Nathan wanted to turn away, but the Cardinal’s grip kept him still. “Maybe you’re as insane as I’ve always suspected.”
“If only the little worms ate the truth.”
“Like that. That’s exactly it. What you just said means nothing. If you’ve got something to tell me, then tell me.”
The Cardinal reacted to the silent nothing as if he had heard a key noise in the distance. His robes flowed in the placid void as he listened. Nathan knew the Darkness could communicate — it had done so with him before — but he never heard a voice. Or any sound. It spoke to him through images, thoughts, and sensations. Watching the Cardinal behave as if the sound had been muted left Nathan revolted at the thought that there were far greater depths to be discovered with the Darkness. A second thought hit him — a horrible, stomach-roiling thought. Part of him wanted to experience those depths.
“Mmmmmm.” The Cardinal stared back, his mouth trembling. “Good luck, worm.”
As Nathan opened his mouth to crack about being upgraded from little worm to just worm, the Cardinal released his grip on the shoulder. Nathan plummeted through the Darkness. Deeper and deeper.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
He fell through the non-air, dropping faster with each second. The Cardinal watched, becoming a shrinking dot. Nathan’s insides slipped upward in his chest as his limbs flailed about. But there was nothing to grasp, nothing to bump, nothing but nothing. Soon, he didn’t even have the Cardinal to see. Only the bitter chill pressing against his back and the weightlessness within his body. Only that told him he was falling. But soon, that ceased, too.
He slowed to a halt. Remained floating in the emptiness. He listened. Perhaps the voice would speak to him, too. His heart hammered in his chest. The dreadful anxiety at hearing such a thing blended with the peculiar desire to experience it.
Nothing happened.
Nothing but floating in nothing.
Dark thoughts flowered from deep within. He had been here before. Years ago. When he had originally died on the grit-covered floor of a New York deli. He had met the Darkness for the first time then and almost lost to it.
But he returned — a second soul to this body. Back then, he fought — took over the body when the chance arrived. Back then, he started a journey of never dying, never spending eternity here, never floating in nothing, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. This was a frozen existence. A damnation of cold. A hellscape he had fought and killed to avoid. More than killed. He had murdered.
He threw up and watched his vomit recede into the distance. It couldn’t end this way. After all he had endured, for the Cardinal to simply decide that it’s over — how could that be acceptable? How could that be just?
“It doesn’t have to be,” the Cardinal’s deep voice said as he lowered into view.
Nathan’s chest shuddered as the pounding anxiety pressed away — not completely, but into the distance a little. His mind had not cleared, and before he could assess the situation, he said, “Are you reading my thoughts?”
“In here, we are connected.”
“I don’t feel anything. It’s only emptiness around me. I certainly don’t feel a connection to you or anybody else.”
“There is nobody else.”
While they spoke, Nathan’s nerves settled even as he grew far more alert. If the Cardinal continued talking, then Nathan had not permanently died, not been exiled down here. Not yet. “I thought all the souls of the dead went here.”
“They do. For a time. But they pass through. We are the rare few who remain.”
“There are others?”
“The worm does not hear well.”
“Sorry. You said that there was nobody else. But then you also said the rare few. That’s why I thought —”
“A moth flew by me once. I pinched it by the wing. It fluttered until it died. Again. Then it was no more in here. All comes and goes. Only I remain for I have taken hold, accepted what has been offered, filled the nothingness with myself.”
With that, the Cardinal lifted higher into the Darkness until no longer visible. Nathan wanted to clutch onto the man’s robes, to be lifted too, but he remained still. The strange conversation echoed within, and he figured something in there had to have been important. Otherwise, why would the Cardinal have wasted the time to say any of it?
Alone again, the fear did not flood back in. That much was good. Lacking panic, Nathan could think straight — or if not straight, at least in the direction of sanity — and the only part of the Cardinal’s words that stood out were that he had accepted what was offered.
At first, Nathan considered that meant becoming an Immortal. But the Cardinal had once shared his story of discovering he was an Immortal. It was not offered to him. He simply was born that way. He did take time to accept things, time to learn about the Immortals, but that didn’t seem to fit with the idea that the Cardinal tried to convey.
Perhaps he had referred to becoming a Prime. Except that, too, was simply a matter of being born an Immortal and having never lost control of his first soul.
While Nathan pondered one possibility after another, he kept his eyes open and searching. Not easy to do in pure dark. At some point, though, the Cardinal would return. He had to. Otherwise, why do any of this? If Nathan had been returned to the Darkness as a sacrifice, then why wait so long to do it? The Cardinal could have taken Nathan years ago. And no matter how wild-minded the Cardinal appeared, Nathan knew there was purpose to these actions.
Or maybe I’ll be trapped in here for eternity.
He wondered how long he would wait before deciding that unwelcome possibility became reality.
Before his thoughts could take those morbid, first steps toward depression, the Darkness reached out. Not like in the past. Not an offer to walk alongside, to strengthen in power, to be with the Darkness and with the mortal world simultaneously. No. That would have been simple. Familiar. This icy wash that overcame Nathan held more to it. A threat, perhaps? Or was this the end? Was this how the Darkness behaved once it had taken a soul forever?
Seeing the Darkness against all of the Darkness was impossible. Everything around him had no shape or color or anything. Yet within that void, it was easy to sense the Darkness. That chilled wave of energy snaked around Nathan, taking his cold bones down several degrees more. Aches of icy pain encircled him. He opened his mouth to scream and swore the Darkness flowed down his throat.
The bustle of the lunch crowd, the clatter of dishes, the rumble of New York City — the deli? No confusion this time, though. Despite the warm afternoon sun, the icy touch of the Darkness prickled his skin. This wasn’t real.
Nathan observed things closely as if watching a mystery show and hoping to solve it before the detective revealed the answer. Except he doubted a detective would appear on scene to fill in the blanks. The Darkness had conjured this from his memory — Nathan had figured that much — which suggested the Darkness wanted him to see something.
He sat back at the tall, tiny table and simply observed. The haggard woman holding a briefcase overflowing with papers, a stain on her blouse, and a cellphone on the table. The lone man in the corner sitting ramrod straight in front of an open laptop and a half-eaten sandwich. A woman and her daughter at the counter ordering food. A slender but athletic man heading for the restrooms.
All the same as the last time he stood in this memory.
“You ready yet?” Jennie’s familiar voice said.
She sat across from him, sunlight haloing her gorgeous head, and her face blazed with all the love he wanted to see. Even as part of his brain told him that she never looked so angelic, so perfect, the rest of him wallowed in the moment. His delusion, after all.
Except this wasn’t entirely his. The Darkness had conjured this moment into his mind and filled the air around him.
“Come on, sweetie,” she said. “You were going to propose, remember? Well, here I am.”
She placed her open hand on the table and waited with eager eyes. Nathan lifted his own hand. Even knowing none of this was real, he still wanted to touch her — even if it would be the last time. Because maybe the Darkness was being kind. Maybe all of this was the Darkness giving Nathan one last moment before plunging him into eternal emptiness.
“You don’t have to make it complicated.” She inched closer. “You know how I feel. You know what my answer will be.”
Nathan stared at her hand and his own. His mouth dried. If he took that hand, he would feel her, but would that be the end? Would the Darkness snatch her away and leave him alone, let him spiral into madness?
He lifted his gaze to her face. At least, he would have one last image to remember. But the sunlight no longer brightened the edges of her hair. Instead, thick lines outlined her as if she had been poorly pasted into this moment.
Her mouth widened, salivating, and her eyes deadened. The Darkness consumed the deli, every person, every brick, every table, every bit of sunlight. Only this facsimile of Jennie remained, hand still out, face locked in that gruesome smile. Then she slipped away, too.
He should have been horrified. While the old bubbling concoction of fear and the inevitable roiled as it had done when he first entered the Darkness years ago, a calm surprise rose to the surface. The Darkness had not banished him. He couldn’t prove that, but he sensed it. The same way he could sense the Darkness reaching out to him all those times before. Closing his eyes, Nathan could feel its presence in full. Like a blanket of ice wrapping around him. He sensed need, too.
Nathan’s eyes snapped open. He saw it now. Not in his eyes but in his soul. All of this was the Darkness and the Cardinal proposing. A marriage of unique beings. An understanding between each other that nobody else could partake in. The Darkness and the Cardinal had no others. They needed Nathan. They wanted him.
“Mmmmmmm.”
Nathan spun around. Or maybe he flipped. Or he could have remained still and it was the Cardinal that moved into view. This place was the worst funhouse ever created.
“We’ve waited for you,” the Cardinal said. “Year after decade after century. I doubted. But not the Void, not the Forever, not the Darkness. It always knew that you would arrive. It is smarter that way.”
Nathan struggled to digest the idea that the Cardinal and the Darkness had been working together for so long. Heck, Nathan struggled on the different names for the Darkness.
The Cardinal snickered. “I have not lived long enough to erase my own doubt and sometimes my own confusion. But that day will come. For both of us, if you join.” He paused. Met only with Nathan’s gaping mouth, he continued. “There is plenty of room. There would be no need to play with little worms anymore. We could create a masterpiece in here, fill it, change it, become greater than our pieces.” He paused again. Nathan’s brow pulled down. The Cardinal went on, “The little worms and bugs you want to watch, you can watch. You do not have to give them up. The old world is ours to decide. Together, we will rule Fate.”
