Thief Of Souls

Drew wasn’t sure what he was witnessing—but he did know that he must have hit the jackpot. Whatever this was, it was information for Michael—and that meant Michael had to make good on his promise.

Okoya moved on to a third camper.

All it would take to clinch this would be a video! The light created by Okoya’s strange encounters would create enough of an image to see. Drew quietly raised the video-cam to his eyes, slid his thumb over the red button and pressed it.

The machine beeped twice as it went from standby to record . . . And in the silence, those two tones might as well have been the chimes of Big Ben. The glow died suddenly, and Okoya’s head turned as smoothly as an owl’s, directly to Drew.

Drew suddenly felt like a small rodent caught in Okoya’s owlish gaze, and he bolted. Tripping over campers, barreling into tents, he tried to make it to where the Shards slept.

“Michael,” he called. “Michael, help me!” But he realized that he had lost his sense of direction in the large circle of buses, and didn’t know where he was. Whichever way he turned, Okoya was behind him. There was a narrow space between two buses, and Drew raced for it. Regardless of what had changed in his heart, head, and character, he still had the body of a runner, and flight was now the only defense he had.

He burst through the circle of buses, escaping into the open desert beyond—his legs churning as he fixed on glowing lights just over the jagged hills . . .

***

Michael, Tory, Lourdes, and Winston slept beneath a large canopy set against their bus. The ground was covered with tapestries torn from the walls of San Sim­eon, and they slept on beds taken from the castle as well.

As the night scraped along, Tory lay awake, plagued by Winston’s words.

“Big deal. Dillon would have brought me back.”

Did that make it acceptable, then, to take his life? Did murder suddenly have no meaning? No conse­ quence?

“Big deal.”

She thought back to that first moment she and Win­ston had found Okoya sitting beside them in the coffee shop. That wasn’t a chance meeting, was it? Somehow Okoya had known who they were—and now she real­ized that Okoya was using them . . . but toward what end? She sat up in bed, throwing off the covers, and let the frosty night chill her bones, because comfort was now an enemy. It had kept her complacent for far too long.

Michael slept in another bed a few feet away, wrapped in several dense quilts, yet she could hear his teeth chattering. Tory realized that it was his own cold that filled the night air.

“Michael?”

She went over to him and peeled the covers away from his face. He was awake, and looked awful, as if the life had been drained out of him.

“Michael, what’s wrong? Are you sick?” And then it occurred to her that he couldn’t be sick. None of them could.

“Hungry,” Michael rasped out.

“I’ll get you something to eat.”

But he grabbed her arm before she could leave. “No,” he said. “Not that kind of hunger.”

She met his eyes, and she knew what he meant. Al­though there was a loud part of her mind that was screaming denial, she forced herself to listen to a qui­eter voice within herself, that told her what she had been afraid to hear. “This is about Okoya, isn’t it?”

Michael gritted his teeth to keep them from chatter­ing. “Listen to me Tory: A year ago, when we killed our parasites, we thought we came away unhurt—but we were wrong. Those things left holes in us that we didn’t know how to fill. So we invited Okoya into our lives to fill them for us, plugging up those holes.”

“With what?”

“I don’t know . . . but it’s in the music and perfumes. It’s in the words Winston reads, and the food Lourdes eats.”

He’s delirious, Tory thought. He has to be . . . . But her voice of denial was losing its bite in the face of what Michael said. How many mornings had she woken up to luxuriate in a hot bath scented with oils Okoya had supplied? It would whet her appetite for every indulgence the day had to offer. And when she was hungry, it was no longer food she desired, but the charged aroma of purity Okoya was more than happy to provide. Tory had heard of holy men who never ate, and who were said to draw their sustenance from the air itself. Was this transcendental appetite part of the Shards’ curious physiology? And if so, what had they been dining on?

“You did the right thing when you left the bus this afternoon,” Tory told Michael. “Okoya is... I don’t know what Okoya is—but she’s not our friend. It’s not our friend.”

Michael rolled over in bed then, and Tory caught sight of his face—pale and wan—just as it was a year before when his soul had harbored the blue-flamed beast.

Okoya is like that beast, thought Tory, but different. Not a parasite, but a predator—which was far more dangerous.

She took his hands into hers and tried to warm them but it did no good. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Sing to me, Tory,” he whispered. “Something bright. Something warm.”

And so she slipped beneath the covers with him, holding him to share her warmth, and with her lips to his ear she began to gently sing an old Genesis tune she remembered. “I will follow you, will you follow me . . .’” Michael laughed at her choice of song, for there had been way too much following lately. '‘ . . . all the days and nights that we know will be . . .’ ' She sang to him until she could feel the slightest warmth begin to return to his fingers, and the sting of chill begin to leave the night air. Perhaps it lacked the feeding emotional flood of Okoya’s music, but it was something.

“We have to find Dillon and warn him about Okoya,” Tory told him.

Just then came the clattering sound of tent stakes flying and the tearing of nylon.

“Michael! Michael, help me!” yelled a far-off voice.

There was a commotion way across the campsite—the shouts of people suddenly woken as someone crashed over them.

“Oh no!” said Michael. “It’s Drew!”

He heaved himself out of bed, finding the strength to walk. Tory led the way, pulling Michael along with her.

“I told him to watch Okoya—to find out what he was up to.”

They crashed over the debris of overturned tents, un­til they came out of the circle of buses. About twenty yards out, was a red blinking light. They ran toward it, to find Drew’s video camera lying in the sand.

In the distance, two figures sprinted across the desert, one in pursuit of the other.

“We’ll never catch them,” said Michael, but even so, he threw his legs out before him, running as best he could.

“Let me help you,” Tory put her arm around his waist and threw her weight into his stride. Together they forged toward the lights of Hoover Dam.

***

Okoya’s will was more powerful than anyone’s on Earth—but there were limitations to his stolen human body. Although he drove that body to pursue Drew Camden, Drew was a fast runner, and Okoya could not overtake him—but he did not lose sight of him, either. He pursued Drew past the jagged hills—where Dillon slept alone that night, dreaming of greatness—until he reached the two-lane highway that rode along the ridge of Hoover Dam. Drew was already at the dam, in a panic. Under the bright spotlights, he tried to flag down help, but traffic was sparse this time of night—and what few cars came his way, had no intention of stop­ping for a lunatic waving his arms in the middle of the road.

Okoya ran onto the dam’s paved rim at full speed, as Drew hurried to a metal doorway and pounded on it— but it would not give. However, a guard farther away had seen him, and crossed the road toward Drew. Okoya picked up his speed to intercept.

“What’s all this about?” said the guard, obviously thinking he could get this situation under control.

“He’s trying to kill me!” screamed Drew.