Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(16)

Michael nodded. Most humans passed on to wherever it was they went after death, but a few who were especially passionate were able to turn away from that journey.

The ghost lifted his hand in good-bye, already fading as he turned to walk away.

Semper fidelis. Always faithful. Nicholas had loved his country and his President, and his continued devotion would help, but it wouldn’t be enough.

Which was why Nicholas had been killed, of course.

* * *

MICHAEL CLIMBED UP to the lookout point and sat on a short bluff above the western shore of Lake Michigan. The lake sparkled silver and blue, while green pines dotted the broken rocks of the coast. The bluff was north of Racine, Wisconsin, south of Milwaukee, and right in the middle of nowhere.

Even though the sun shone, the weather was unseasonably cold for late May. In some parts of the Midwest, rivers were flooding and people had been forced to evacuate their homes. This close to the Lake, especially with the fading of daylight, the wind felt as though it could peel flesh from the bone.

He didn’t notice. He was deep in meditation.

He had soaked up all the teaching Astra had to offer him with the ravenous appetite of the starving. Somehow he had managed to keep alive during the process, although looking back he knew he had been close to death several times. Most importantly, he had discovered the history and reason for his rage. He had grown into the kind of man who controlled himself with complete discipline and who used his anger as sustenance and weapon.

Now and always, he hunted.

Eyes closed, breathing deep, he had entered into the mental state the Buddhists refer to as utter mindfulness. He was quite aware of his surroundings but unaffected by them. With the hard-won patience he had learned over years, he called in all his messengers and companions. He asked each of them the same questions. He did this as a process of elimination, always aware that the enemy searched with as much eagerness and relentlessness, and with much more cruelty than he.

Voices sounded behind him. Teenagers scrambled up the path to the bluff, their raucous laughter and off-color jokes whooping through the quiet, windswept area. He ignored them, letting their voices flow through him like sand flowing through a glass.

One of them, a female, said, “Mm-mm, will you look at that.”

A boy laughed. “What, a freaking weirdo on a freaking park bench? Dime a dozen, babe.”

“You got no imagination. That there’s a juicy piece of USDA prime beef. Look at them muscles. I could love me some of that. Think his organs have been injected with growth hormones?”

“Girl, you a ho.”

Another called out in a high voice, “You guys. Look at the sky.”

Various exclamations followed. “That’s like something from a horror flick. Hitchcock, right? Or was it Scorsese?”

“How do they get the birds to do that? Are we on TV?”

“What kind of birds are they?” the girl asked.

“Hawks, I think. Hundreds of them. Maybe a thousand? I’ve never seen so many circling around.”

“They look like a tornado. That’s not right. It’s not natural.”

Michael continued to speak to his people. Brothers, we keep hunting south.

Still along the Lake? one of them asked, tilting in his flight so the sun shone on proud red-tail feathers.

Always along the Lake, he answered. He and his old teacher had narrowed the search down to the shores of Lake Michigan. That was still a massive amount of territory to cover, and they were fast running out of time.

Then:

i need help!

The cry ripped across the psychic realm. Unprepared, wide open, Michael reeled from the shock. He heard the babble of teenagers as though through the roar of rushing water. Hands hooked under his arms to help him to his feet. He shook them off, focusing all the considerable force of his attention on that internal, ephemeral place.

There she was.

She was coming awake. She had ripped through the veil herself, and energy blazed from her like she was a psychic version of Chernobyl. Anyone with the capacity to see the psychic realm could see her. She was completely unprotected, and he was too far away.

His heart kicked.

He twisted, lunged down the path to his car, roared at the sky.

A whirling tower of a thousand hawks screamed in reply and hurtled southeast.

Chapter Seven

MARY NEVER REMEMBERED how she got from the Grotto back to her car. She simply became aware again of her surroundings when she was sitting behind the wheel, her head lying back on the rest. The sun had angled lower on the western horizon. The reflection of it caught in her rearview mirror, a great orange-red blaze that blinded her so that she had to squint and turn her face away.

She was covered in sweat as though she had raced the entire distance back. For all she knew, she had done just that. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she pulled the sleeve of her sweater over one fist and scrubbed at her face. Then she rolled down all four windows to let in the cold fresh air.

She shied away from thinking about what had just happened. It was too much. She couldn’t wrap her brain around it. All she knew was that she felt different. She felt eerie, light and hollow like a bird’s bone. The horrific pressure that had been building up inside of her, as though someone had been piling rocks one by one on her chest, had disappeared as if it had never been.

The world looked different as well. Everything around her seemed in constant motion, rippling as if a transparent Van Gogh painting had been draped across reality. She didn’t know how to interpret what she was seeing, but the trees along the line of horizon seemed to have a glow about them, a shimmer like a desert mirage. She sensed whispers again around the edges of her mind.