Walking In the Midst of Fire

“How could we not be with them now that we know they’re alive?” Natalia asked.

“What kind of mothers would we be?” asked Morgan.

It all sounded perfectly reasonable to Remy. He simply nodded as Malatesta reopened the passage to Gunkanjima.

* * *

The microwave beeped, announcing that Mulvehill’s Hungry-Man Salisbury steak dinner was done. He went to the oven on the counter and pulled open the door, reaching in to withdraw his meal.

“Shit!” he swore, as he burned his fingers on the hot packaging.

He dropped the dinner on the counter, and blew on his fingertips as he went to the fridge for a bottle of water. He’d already had a glass of Irish whiskey to relax after a particularly insane day, and would probably have a second before calling it a night, but he preferred some water with his meal.

Twisting the cap off the water, Mulvehill took a long drink, then returned to his dinner on the counter. Cautiously, he peeled back the plastic covering, careful not to get too close to the cloud of steam that billowed out from underneath. He tossed the damp, plastic covering in the trash, then placed the still-hot plate on a dish towel for easy carrying. Retrieving his water, he took his meal toward the living room, hoping there would be something worthwhile to watch on television.

As he left the kitchen on his way to the living room, Mulvehill happened to glance down the hallway and saw that his door was partially open, moving ever so slightly in the phantom breezes that passed through the old Somerville apartment building.

I could’a sworn I locked that, he thought. He placed his dinner atop the towel on the coffee table, then went back to the door. He pulled it open first, looking up and down the corridor outside the apartment, before closing it firmly, and sliding the bolt in place.

His mother referred to this feeling as somebody walking over your grave, that strangely electric sensation that ran down one’s spine for no apparent reason. Mulvehill could never understand how somebody could be walking on his grave when he wasn’t dead yet, but he still thought of his mother every time he had that feeling.

Steven Mulvehill was thinking of her now.

He wasn’t sure why he moved when he did. Perhaps it was that strange, grave-walking chill that caused him to suddenly twitch, convulsing to one side, or maybe it was that sixth sense that cops often develop after so many years on the street, that sense that tells them that something is about to happen.

Whatever it was, Mulvehill moved, just before he heard the noise—like somebody blowing air through a hollow tube—and the wood to the right of the doorframe exploded into splinters.

Pure instinct kicked in then as he dove back into the kitchen where he knew he’d left his gun on the kitchen table along with his car keys. He heard that noise twice more, followed by breaking glass and the sound of something punching through the metal body of the stove, before he was able to retrieve the Glock from its holster.

Mulvehill crouched near the wall of the kitchen, flicking off the safety on his weapon. He was just about to peer around the corner into the living room, when everything went dark.

Son of a bitch. His mind raced as he tried to calculate his next step. His eyes went to the phone cradle hanging on the wall beside the fridge, and he saw that there was no phone there. Most likely it was in the living room, where he’d used it last. His cell phone was in the bedroom, charging. He remembered how proud he had been for actually remembering to charge his phone. Normally he would have left it on the kitchen table with his gun and keys, almost dead.

But at least then he could have made a call. He cursed his unusual efficiency and pledged never to charge his phone again until it was completely dead, and he clutched his gun, tilted his head toward the living room, and listened. Something was moving in the darkness, waiting for him.

Panic started to set in and he was immediately transported back to the day when he was first made painfully aware that the world in which he lived wasn’t at all what it had seemed, and that his best friend, Remy Chandler, was the one who had left the door open for all the weirdness to come inside.

And that was what this was. He was certain of it. Sure, it could have been a run-of-the-mill break-in—there wasn’t a shortage of junkies in the area—but something told him otherwise. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, a sensation like no other.

He guessed it was a variation on that cop’s sixth sense that he had; it had become more finely attuned of late, almost as if it were picking up a brand-new channel. It was the weird shit channel, and alarm bells were going off inside his head now.

His body had become drenched with a cold sweat, and he could smell the aroma of his Hungry-Man dinner cooling in the living room on the coffee table. He’d been really hungry when he set that meal down.

Like he didn’t have enough to be pissed off about.

Mulvehill had faced things in the dark before and had survived. In fact, he was starting to become really good at it. With each new exposure he gained a certain amount of knowledge that he could apply to the next time that something from Stephen King’s closet tried to kill him.

He slowly stood, zeroing in on a sound like that of rustling fabric, and he fired the gun once.

Yeah, weird shit, he thought, charging into the darkness of the living room to confront who knew what.

You can fucking keep it.

* * *

It had stopped raining on Gunkanjima Island.

Remy stood off to the side, watching as the children gathered up their meager belongings to take with them to their new home. A pile of things that would have been discarded as trash by most had formed in the center court area of the mining settlement.

“I doubt they’ll be able to take all that with them,” Malatesta said, coming from the building where Prosper had kept his office. The Vatican sorcerer was carrying two steaming mugs of coffee.

“Well, I’ll be,” Remy said, taking the offered cup. “All the comforts of home.”

The two drank their coffee silently, watching the children interacting with the women from Prosper’s charnel house. There was no precise way for them to know which child was theirs, but somehow, they seemed to know. And they also seemed to be taking to their new role as mothers quite easily, jumping right in to help the children gather up their things.

“Any idea where they’re going?” Remy asked Malatesta.

“The Keepers have many places of learning around the world,” Malatesta said. “I’m sure one of them will be the perfect fit.”

Remy still had mixed feelings about handing the children over to the Keepers, but he had very few options. He just couldn’t imagine them out there on their own.

“I’ll be keeping close tabs on them,” Remy said, eyes still staring at the scene before him.

“I’m sure you will,” Malatesta responded.

“Do you think your bosses are aware of that?”

“I think it foolish to say that they wouldn’t be.”

“And your problem?” Remy said. He looked to the sorcerer. “How’s that?”

Malatesta took a drink from his mug before replying. “The child’s touch helped me to regain control, but it doesn’t mean the Larva spirit isn’t still there, struggling to take it away. It got a taste of freedom, and liked it. It won’t take much for it to be free again.”

Remy felt bad for his part in all of that, but again, there hadn’t been a hell of a lot of choices.

He caught sight of Gareth then, standing alone near his quarters, watching his brothers and sisters. There was a certain look in the teen’s eyes that Remy understood only too well. He was questioning his own actions, wondering whether he had done the right thing.

Remy approached the boy cautiously, not wanting to rile him. The level of power in this teen was quite awesome, if not a little frightening.

“I think they’ll be all right,” he said to the young man.

“I hope you’re right,” Gareth said. “My father talked about a war and the part we would play.” The young man grew quiet, continuing to stare ahead at the children who looked to him as leader.