Thief Of Souls

Holding hands to keep from losing each other, Mi­chael, Tory, and Drew squeezed forward between the slimy stone walls of the catacomb.

“I don’t know,” said Tory. “I can’t see my watch.”

Drew, who fearfully brought up the rear, said noth­ing. For hours they had poked around in absolute dark­ ness, following the squeals of rats that ran over their feet—only to find them disappearing into holes too small for humans to fit. Michael had begun to leave scratch-marks on the wall with his pocketknife. But as they pressed forward, going this way and that, sliding down spillways, and scratching their way up chimney­like shafts, they began to feel their fingertips coming across those same scratch-marks again. They were go­ing in circles.

“I’ll create a storm high above the dam,” Michael suggested, “so they’ll see it from the campsite, and they’ll know we’re here.”

He concentrated on shaping an angry cumulus into a pointing finger far above their heads. Soon they began to hear the rain, but it didn’t quite sound right . . . and then water began to rush past their ankles.

“Michael,” asked Tory, “what did you do?”

“I don’t like this,” complained Drew. “I don’t like this at all.”

The rats around them were swimming now. They could feel them clawing at their pantlegs for purchase.

“Make them stop,” said Drew. “Please make them stop!”

Michael pushed his stormy feelings out one more time. Now the water not only came from below, but from above—raining on them in the narrow corridors, spilling down the walls, and Michael realized exactly what had happened. His power wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the hundred yards of concrete above. His storm had nowhere to go but the narrow passageways around them, pulling moisture from the stone and con­densing into a drowning flood.

“Stop it, Michael!” shouted Tory. “It’s not working!”

Michael shut the storm down, but it was too late. He could hear the rush of water draining from passageways above. “Hold on!” Michael yelled, but there was noth­ing to hold on to. The flash flood surged past them, heading for lower ground, and the current pulled them off their feet. Coughing and sputtering, they were dragged down, deeper still, into the dam, until finally landing in a chamber where the water spilled from a dozen holes above their heads.

The three tried to find each other in the darkness.

“Where are we? What is this place!” cried Drew, as if someone would be able to answer him.

How stupid, thought Michael, to have all the power they had, and yet be unable to escape from a big block of concrete. Between himself and Tory, they could do little more than drown themselves and create tunnels full of disease-free rats.

“Do something!” screamed Drew.

But Michael was out of ideas. “I don’t know what to do!” The water, which only a moment ago was at their knees, was already rising past their waists. In the icy chill, Michael could feel his muscles threatening to cramp.

“I can’t drown in here!” wailed Drew. “I can’t die in a place like this!”

“Shut up!” screamed Tory impatiently.

They lost each other, each trying to find a spot where water wasn’t cascading down over their heads. The wa­ter reached their chins, and Michael felt his feet leave the floor. He kicked to stay afloat, but breathed in a mouthful of water, beginning to gag.

That’s when he heard the clanging of a machine as it roared to life.

In an instant the water level began to drop.

“It’s a pump!” shouted Tory.

Michael felt the floor beneath his feet again. “This room must be some sort of sump,” he said. “A place to catch the seepage from the dam! It probably pumps the water right out into the Colorado River . . . . If we can find the intake, we could get out that way . . .”

“And be dragged through the paddles of the tur­bines,” added Tory. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

They waded toward each other’s voices as the water was pumped out. Michael coughed, dislodging more fluid from his lungs. The water fell beneath their knees, then their ankles. A hissing suck heralded the last of it being drawn out through a grated hole in the floor, leaving the three of them waterlogged and despondent.

“This is your fault, Michael!” accused Drew. “You made me go after Okoya. We’re gonna die because of you!”

Michael could swear he heard Tory’s teeth grinding in anger. “It’s because of Michael that you still have a soul!” she chided, then added, “Dillon should have left you dead. We’d all be better off.”

Michael reached out and found her hand in the dark­ness. “It’s okay, Tory—it’s not him talking.”

“No?” grunted Tory. “Who is it, then?”

Michael considered that. Someone I don’t know. Re­constituted beef.

Thinking back, there were many mistakes Michael had made since setting off in search of Dillon, but there was one that stuck out in his mind. It was the first thing that had made him truly feel like a god. The one willful act that sold him into Okoya’s bondage. The changing of Drew’s nature.

How could Michael blame Drew for being less of a person than he had been, when the change was Mi­ chael’s doing? At the time, Michael had convinced himself it had been for Drew’s sake, but that wasn’t entirely true. He had done it for himself; to hurl Drew’s attentions away from him.

Although Michael couldn’t see Drew in the black­ness, he could hear his uneven breathing, and he slid across the grime of the sump floor until he bumped against Drew’s sopping jeans.

“Who’s that? What are you doing?”

“It’s just me, Drew.” He grabbed Drew’s arm.

“No! Stop that! Don’t touch me—just get back over there.” Drew struggled, but Michael held him firm.

“There’s something I have to give you,” said Mi­chael.

“Whatever it is, I don’t want it!”

“Maybe not. But you need it.” Michael pinned Drew into a corner.

“What’s going on over there?” asked Tory. She had no idea that Michael had denatured Drew. For Drew’s sake, he chose not to tell her now.

“Get off me!” screamed Drew. His voice echoed around the chamber. “Leave me alone, you freak!”

Michael put one hand against Drew’s face, and pressed the other heavily against his chest.

“I don’t want you to!” cried Drew. “I don’t want you to!”

“Shhh,” said Michael. The calm in his voice brought a slight warmth to the air around them. “Shhh. It will all be okay.”

In a moment, Drew stopped struggling, and Michael forced a surge of energy out through his palms until it flowed through Drew like a circuit.

“I’m afraid,” whispered Drew.

“That’s okay,” answered Michael.

Michael then reached his thoughts down, until he found Drew’s denatured self, and folded it in upon it­self, collapsing and re-forming it back to the way it had started: strong of character . . . responsible . . . trustwor­thy . . . and undeniably homosexual.

Suddenly Drew was holding Michael, rather than pushing him away, and Michael allowed it because he knew that this was not about sex. It was an embrace between brothers. An embrace between friends. And so he returned it.

Drew let Michael go first, and they both let their minds clear for a moment.

“Would it be appropriate,” asked Michael, “to wel­come you back?”

He heard Drew breathe heavily in the darkness, re­orienting himself to his inner landscape. “It might be.”

“Wild ride these past few weeks, huh?”

“Yeah, a regular spin cycle,” Drew said. “I wouldn’t recommend it for pregnant women, or people with back trouble.”

Michael grinned, and then quickly, before he had the chance to change his mind, he leaned forward and gave