Shuttered Sky

Halfway there, the rain turned to sleet, pummeling the roof in a metallic clatter. “Yeah, this is a weird one,” the cabby went on. “Pat­tern of a hurricane, but it ain’t got no eye. Stretches all the way to San Antonio.”

That was almost two hundred miles. A year ago the radius of Mi­chael’s influence was only ten, maybe twenty miles at its peak. This knowledge only added to Dillon’s sense of foreboding.

“I don’t like it,” said the cabby. “Don’t like it at all.”

The address was a warehouse in a deserted industrial district. “Sure this is where you want to be?” the cabby asked, obviously nervous, yet not knowing why.

Dillon double-checked the address. It was right, and he could feel Winston and Michael close by. Having no money to speak of, Dillon told the cabby to wait, knowing he would not. Michael’s icy sphere of emotional influence would repel anyone from its epicenter—and sure enough, as soon as Dillon stepped out into the sleet-filled street, the cabby spun off, his back end fish-tailing until it found traction.

Dillon took in his surroundings. The place would have been dismal even in bright summer sunshine. Up ahead, a red Durango straddled the curb, as out of place in this bleak circumstance as he. The headlights of the Durango flashed on and off, and as Dillon approached, the driver’s-side window rolled down. Drew sat behind the wheel of the otherwise empty car.

“They’re inside,” Drew told him, pointing to the warehouse en­trance.

“How come you’re out here?”

Drew hesitated before responding. “Hey, ignorance is bliss, right? Some things I don’t want to know. Some company I’d rather not keep. Go on, they’re waiting for you.”

The window closed before Dillon could question him any further. Dillon went to the door of the warehouse, and pushed it open.

Inside, the warehouse had been plunged into a deep freeze. Ice coated the walls; it hung in massive icicles from the high ceiling, like stalactites. The few lights that worked flickered in and out, casting the ice cavern in shifting shadows. Dillon lost his footing on the slick floor, and fell to one knee.

“He’s here,” he heard Winston say.

Carefully rising to his feet, Dillon followed the direction of the voice to a far corner, where several chairs sat. Three were occupied, one awaited his arrival.

Three? Was Lourdes there, too? Was that Winston’s secret? But as Dillon approached, hopefulness gave way to apprehension, and then to despair. Even before he saw the mystery guest, he knew who it was.

“The prodigal son returns,” Okoya said. “So happy you could grace us with your presence.”

Dillon felt his feet threaten to slide out from under him again so he stood still, holding his distance. The sense of betrayal was more overwhelming than the cold.

“It’s not what you think,” Winston said.

“I’m not sure what I think.”

“Winston says we have to listen to him,” Michael said. “I don’t like it any more than you do.”

Every human instinct told Dillon to turn and run . . . but, like Mi­chael’s ice storm, Dillon knew it was a reaction of fear. He would let Okoya have his say. And when he was done, Dillon would leave. Alone, if he had to.

He took his place with Michael and Winston on either side, across from Okoya—who looked less emaciated than when Dillon had last seen him, but just as depraved. Speckles of frost dotted his long dark hair, and he wore heavy layers of old clothes like a vagrant, but the clothes were quickly renewing, their colors brightening, their tattered threads redarning.

“I want to talk to you about destruction,” Okoya told Dillon. “It’s important that you understand the level of devastation you’ve caused.”

“I already do understand.”

“No,” Okoya said. “It goes beyond anything you’ve witnessed— anything you’ve imagined. But within that destruction lies your sal­vation.”

If Okoya had bitterness and vengeful intents, they were no longer evident. In fact, Dillon sensed a hopefulness in the dark creature. And so he forced himself to suspend judgment, listening to everything Okoya had to say. He began by talking about home.

“As I’m sure you’ve surmised, the place I come from has a different reality than this universe, with its own natural laws.” Okoya said, “There is no physicality; all is spirit and energy. And in our dimension, my kind is supreme.” Dillon shifted, irritated by Okoya’s species’s arrogance. “The best way I can describe our existence to you is that of a single pod of interconnected spirit-beings—about three hundred thousand in all. We exist on a grid of three dimensions, moving in unison along simultaneous Vectors of depth, width and time, but these three vectors, like everything else in my universe, are alive. They are three powerful entities— the greatest of our kind. The Vectors deter­mine the course and momentum of the pod, as our species impels through the universe.”

Michael laughed nervously. “Great. Extra-dimensional off-roading. Why do we have to know this? Will we be tested on it?”

Dillon considered what Okoya had said. “I think I know why. These three ‘Vectors’—are they the spirits we’ve been sensing?”

Okoya nodded. “They are.”

Dillon felt his own vector of fury building within him, and it took all his control not to launch himself at Okoya. “Why did you bring the leaders of your soul-sucking species here?” Dillon hissed.

Okoya met his scorching gaze with ice enough to douse the flame. “It was your actions that brought them here, not mine.”

Dillon turned his gaze to Winston, who only looked away.

“This world of yours,” Okoya said. “This entire universe has al­ways been insignificant to us, but we do occasionally make ourselves known, angling for sport or amusement. In our natural form, we are, to human eyes, whatever those eyes wish to see. Glory and wonder; lost loves; sacred memories. Wherever your emptiness— wherever your need—that is how we appear. Call it the natural lure of a species of hunters. The problem is that humans are too weak to resist the lure, and so there’s no challenge to the hunt. Fortunately for you, the effort it takes to break through to your universe is rarely worth the reward.”

“Then why did you come?” Dillon asked.

“The lure of power can be irresistible as well,” Okoya admitted. “But trying to elevate myself in this world earned me immediate con­demnation by my own kind. I was therefore a pariah from the moment I first arrived here.”

“And the three Vectors, as you call them—are they lured by power as well?”

“They came here out of necessity.” Okoya tossed his long hair which had become caked with white rime, and the flakes fell from him like dandruff. He turned to Michael. “I’d wish you’d warm up to me, Michael; this frosty welcome gets tedious.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Michael said. “Maybe I should broil you instead.” But the temperature retained its deep freeze.

“You still haven’t explained why the Vectors are here,” Dillon said.

Okoya turned back to Dillon, pointing an accusing finger. “It all comes back to what you did last year. Your cunning ploy to get rid of me.

“It couldn’t have been too cunning if Okoya came back,” Michael said. “So what did you do, Dillon?”

“I . . . infested him,” Dillon explained. “Okoya had confronted me, and offered me a bargain. He offered me the chance to reclaim and revive Deanna . . . in return for my servitude. Then he punched a hole to the place where we left Deanna’s body.”

“The Unworld?” Michael said. “Okoya can get to the Unworld?”

Dillon nodded. “I agreed to his terms, but when I crossed into the Unworld, I never went after Deanna. Instead I went looking for our parasites—the two that were still left alive, but trapped in the Un­world.”

Dillon had tried to put it out of his mind, but now brought the vile memory back. He explained to Michael how, in order to defeat Okoya, Dillon was forced to invite those two unclean spirits into his soul. His own parasite had evolved into a winged gargoyle that still hungered for destruction, and Deanna’s was a vermiform serpent that thrived on fear. They were as complementary and co-dependent as he and Deanna had been—and far too powerful, for they had been nur­tured well. While the other Shards had faced and killed their parasites, these two had