TOUCHING GOD
They had to leave Stone Mountain that morning, not too long after arriving there, not too long after the peak was kissed by the morning mist, rising up from the lake as it's base. Not long after the pink left the sky and the golden rays of day had finally poured down the side of the mountain and across the land. No. They could not stay in any one place too long, not with the other Thirteen so close on their heels. Especially not now with the King in play.
They drove for hours, endlessly long miles of road passing under the tires of the cars, as the day progressed. It seemed like they weren't heading anywhere, but Leanna, in the lead car with Amon and Brett, she seemed to know the way.
She lay in the back seat of the car, seeming limp and lifeless. It hadn't taken Amon long to understand that the assassin was saving her strength. For what, he couldn't tell. Leanna seemed to refuse to tell anyone honestly exactly was was on the horizon waiting for them at the end of their journey. She just lay there, her eyes barely open, her lips slightly parted, occasionally lifting her head just long enough to point out a change in direction. Whenever the former hunter turned to check on the woman, she hadn't moved even a millimeter.
Brett didn't seem to care much. It didn't surprise Amon much. Brett, in his distrust of the assassin, had insisted, downright required Leanna to ride in his car if she were to continue on this trek with them. He had also requested that Amon share the car with them, to keep Leanna in line. She hadn't instilled nor earned any trust, and, so, it suited Brett just fine that the girl remain perfectly still.
It meant less worries of a knife mysteriously materializing in his back.
She led them to the west for a while, towards downtown Atlanta. The buildings drifted past the cars as the pseudo caravan made there was slowly through rush hour traffic. The morning commute was well underway by the time they peeled out onto Interstate 85, turning North. Not too far after that, Leanna raised her head just for the millisecond to direct Brett to drive North onto 400, a rather similarly stagnant and stopped traffic jam.
"We're going back to the house?" Amon queried.
Leanna nodded. "Yes. Something has arrived there late. Something we need."
Amon turned to ask another question, but the assassin returned to her half slumber, plopped across the back seat, prone and unresponsive. He let out a heavy sigh and set his gaze upon the road, on all the cars around them.
There came an uneasiness to the situation. This, all this, seemed so important to so many. All the cars and trucks around them, they were filled with people who thought that this, commuting, working, stressing about everything commercial and fake. It wasn't anything important, just trivial things. And, yet, suddenly, Amon felt a growing wave of sympathy and concern for such seemingly "trivial" things. The former hunter sudden saw a tremendous beauty in the simple things to the world, and the drastic impermanence of it all.
And, suddenly, Amon felt very sad and lonely.
xxxx
The sands swirled around her with a snapping, driving wind, cutting through her flesh, chilling her to the very bone. Those harsh grains scraped at her skin, tore away at her. Every inch of her felt raw.
She crouched down, into a ball, trying to stay out of the howling wind.
"What is it you want?" A voice bellowed in her ears.
"I want nothing!" she screamed back, over the wind.
The voice spoke again, loud and authoritative, as some fatherly figure speaking from the nothingness of the sand storm. "What is it you want, Leanna?"
It knew her name.
"I want..."
xxxx
The car ride was silent and awkward.
Nycole rubbed her arm dolefully, trying not to think about the intruder, the wolf in sheep's clothing in the back seat of the car behind her. There was something perverse, something dark and dangerous about this creature. It was a lie.
Kristo lied. She supposed that was the most important thing of all for her to note. Whoever, or whatever this thing was that sat beside her in that car, with Kristo and Geoff, it was so strange and demonic that the shadow walker felt the need to conceal it. Kristo played a dangerous game. This thing, posing as their King, it could have been anything. It could have been a monster, a ghost, a demon, a fabrication, a hallucination, or... Nycole didn't want to think about what else it could have been that was much worse than the other options around them.
The empath couldn't read this one. For however hard she tried, the girl could not lift the haze from over Oz's mind. But, that wasn't too odd. Sometimes, when it wasn't her place to see, telepathy and empathy did nothing to read a person. It was as if the powers that be were telling her it was not yet time to know, time to be certain and aware of particular things.
Nycole sighed, noting the change of direction. "We're going home."
Geoff nodded. 'Yup."
"Why?" the girl opened her mind. "There are people waiting to meet us."
The former bartender shrugged his shoulders. "Great. What else could be waiting for us this time?"
"Friends."
xxxx
"What the...?"
Brett couldn't finish formulating the question as they turned down the road. That road had been their home for so long, their safe haven, long before Japan, before their trip to far away lands. He ached to see black smoke rising from somewhere in the back of the sub development. It billowed and rose up in choking, curling swirls, as a shadow over the land.
"Fire..." Amon trailed off.
"The fire will be gone by now."
The former hunter barely turned in his seat, giving just a glance behind him to the girl in the back seat who had uttered the comment. Amon had to trust the creature there, the Oracle with her power to see the future. For the first time in his life, his faith lay in something, someone, and he had to follow it. Amon had no other choice in this case.
"The house?" Amon inquired, now more business-like about things.
Leanna didn't even open her eyes. "Gone."
"The Other Thirteen are responsible?" The hunter asked.
"Yes." The assassin hardly flinched.
"Anything left?"
"Anyone." Leanna now opened her eyes, that eerie, almost vacant and peaceful gaze piercing at Amon's heart and soul, knowingly, pervasively.
Brett gave a tap on Amon's arm, drawing his attention forward. "Look..."
xxxx
"Oh, my God!"
As soon as Raven stopped the car before that smoldering pile of ashes and wreckage, Robin leapt from the old, red Nissan Sentra. She rushed up to the house, or, really, what was left of it, and into the rubble, her arms outstretched. Another set of arms caught her and hugged the girl almost lovingly.
"Oh, Robin, thank God you're alright."
The teenager stepped back, as if suddenly realizing the weight of the situation and the abruptness of her emotions. "Miss Karasuma, it is so good to see you again."
Miho gave a slight smirk. It was good to see them again. Robin looked tired, a bit aged, perhaps, but otherwise fine. And, as the others piled from the car, Karasuma saw that all of them seemed in good health, including Amon. Even Sakaki, much to Karasuma's delight, looked good. They bore the weight of warriors and soldiers, the weight of having seen death, but all seemed well.
All save Kathain. Where the once perky, bubbly Oracle had been, there was a mental and emotional void, a nothingness with feet. It was unnatural and ill-seeming. This bleak nothingness that comprised Kathain Bowen's body could not have been by any conscious work of the Oracle herself.
Robin sensed this. "Miss Karasuma, I'd like you to meet Leanna."
Doujima raised an eyebrow, but Miho ignored it. "It is an honor."
"We should be leaving here, soon," the assassin ignored this newcomer as if the hunter were of no consequence. "Give me back what is rightfully mine."
"If you're not Kathain anymore," Miho's voice dropped low. "Then, it's not yours."
"You cannot keep it," Leanna stated firmly; she crouched down, reaching for a blade in the real world and outstretching her mental wings. "Do not make me reclaim it by force."
"LEANNA!" Amon rushed to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "No."
"Relinquish what is mine," the Oracle again demanded.
Miho sighed heavily, pulling something from her pocket. "I'll give it back." She stopped, looking down at the bundle of cloth napkin and cord, all bound up safely and tightly. "But not to you." Karasuma looked to Amon. "To you." She felt the thought crop up in Leanna before the words could form. "You are no longer the person who wrote it. You have no emotional connection to these people. You cannot be trusted with these secrets."
"Karasuma..." Sakaki held out his hand to take hers.
"I have always been an Oracle, and I shall always be an Oracle, in every life," Leanna argued softly but authoritatively.
The empath shook her head. "You would betray them in a heartbeat."
"I would do what is necessary. It may not be helpful to them. It might even be helpful to the Other Thirteen, but I serve time and fate alone. I serve no man or woman." Leanna whirled around, giving a sharp look, perhaps even a directive glare at Nycole. "And you should do well to remember your role as such, as well."
Leanna stalked off, deeper into the pile of fallen, charred floor joists, like a rodent into a picked out carcass, looking for some last morsel. Miho should have felt pride at such an act, but, instead, all the woman felt was a deep regret and an almost shame, as if she'd done some blasphemous thing in shouting at the Oracle. Karasuma should have stuck out her chest and strutted about. Instead, she just deflated sadly and looked away.
Sakaki put an arm around her. "You've missed a lot."
Miho looked into his eyes for a moment. "I've missed you." Haruto drew in a breath, but the hunter looked to Amon and Robin swiftly. "All of you."
Marcus called from the back of the pack. "I hate to be saying anything, but we need to be on our way."
"Without you," Sakaki breathed in Karasuma's ear.
Nycole almost gasped.
Miho looked at him with curious, worried eyes, but Sakaki went on. "Without me."
The Oracle, the empath, Nycole, felt her heart melt away, for some strange reason. She didn't know or understand why. But, something felt like tearing away at her. The girl wanted to run, to throw her arms around Sakaki and beg him to stay, but she was frozen in place.
'It is not your choice.' Leanna's thoughts stood taller, spoke louder than any other's. 'He never was yours and never can be. Only time, only the present can be yours.'
"Shut up."
'I know you do not wish to hear these words, but we are drawing so very near to our destiny, to the final destiny of the Thirteen. We cannot afford to take any more chances.'
"Shut up."
'I would say I am sorry, but apologies are meaningless now.'
"Shut up!"
"Nycole?" Sakaki put his arms around her, engulfing her, enfolding her in his warm embrace. "I'm so sorry, Nycole."
"Why?"
The young man gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. "I have to get Miss Karasuma and Miss Doujima safe, away from this all." He moved away from her, placing a finger under her chin and making him look directly into his eyes. "I can't keep you safe. I can't keep anyone safe. I'm just slowing you guys down." Nycole went to argue, but Sakaki just shook his head slowly. "No. I'm putting you into worse danger than I could ever try to keep you out of, protect you from."
"No..." it was a pitiful, meek mew.
"I have to." And, with that simple statement, Sakaki withdrew from Nycole, taking his warmth away from the empath. He stopped just once to squeeze her hand reassuringly. "Be careful."
Amon turned to Robin as he pocketed the book. "Go with them."
"No."
The dark man cocked his head to one side slightly, but repeated the order. "Robin, go with them."
"I won't."
Nycole blinked.
Amon walked to the girl, taking her hand. At any other time, Robin would have been utterly shocked at the former hunter placing a hand upon her in any tender sense, but this was so gentle, so soft and so utterly natural. It felt so right, so utterly real and completely true. And, yet, the teenage Craft user would have none of it.
"You have to, Robin. I can't keep this up." Amon looked away. "I can't keep bringing you into danger. Brushes with Solomon and the Other Thirteen. Things are getting too dangerous for me to allow you to stay."
"No."
"We risk letting the Arcanum falling into the hands of both Solomon and the Other Thirteen," the big man pointed out knowingly.
Again, Robin stood her ground. "No."
Amon closed his eyes. "Please."
"No."
Nycole smiled to herself that Robin refused to give up on her position.
"You must," Amon sounded like he was pleading, if the man even knew the word. "I'll make you."
"You can't."
He nodded. "I didn't think so."
"I'm coming with you. We've been together since the Factory; we can't split up now." Robin gave a small bow of her head before flashing a teasing smile. "Besides, who will be there to keep Nycole sane if I leave?"
"Then, it's settled," Brett noted.
Nycole closed her eyes. "Good-bye, Sakaki."
xxxx
"Things are coming to an end, my child. You are performing exceptionally well." The voice sounded pleased with the girl. "Name it. Anything you desire."
"I desire nothing."
The winds whistled menacingly for a moment before dying for the voice. "Nothing? You must want something. Just name it."
Leanna shook her head. "I desire nothing..." She breathed. "However, it would be of great assistance to know what the Thirteen must do. It would aid their arrival at their destiny if I had the answers."
"You already have them."
xxxx
Sakaki and Karasuma were saying their goodbyes to Robin. Amon took that as his chance to break away from them. No doubt the empath had already poured over the little bundle, scouring it for all the secrets it could possibly hold. She might have even scryed it once or twice. However, now the former hunter needed to know for himself exactly what that parcel contained.
He walked the ruins of the house, trying desperately to ignore the others and be ignored by them. Amon always had been good at that. At the STN-J, at Solomon, he could blend in, and be forgotten. At Harry's, a woman might try to catch his eye every now and then, but, with a quick and subtle change, a slight look, Amon could turn her away. It wasn't hard to keep the others from him, to block them out. It only took a turn away and a casual, but sullen walk, with his head hung low, to send off even the most curious Nycole.
Carefully, reverently, Amon took the bundle from his pocket and unwrapped the silk cloth, feeling the cool material slip between his fingers. The leather bound book had a simple cord tied around it; the wrap gave way under Amon's prying hands.
He paused for a moment beyond that, drawing in a deep breath. 'Do I really want to know these things that Kathain saw? Do I really want to know my own future?'
"I have to..."
xxxx
A day of great reckoning is coming. The end shall become the beginning, and the beginning the end. And the Thirteen shall break through into a new world, into a new dawn and a brand new day.
A new era will begin with them.
They must go to the desert, to the pyramid buried beneath the sands. The all seeing eye must be opened. The world must be opened again. They shall walk the maze again and find the doorway, become the doorway.
The eye sees all.
xxxx
There, in the book, someone had taped a dollar bill. On that green, tattered scrap of paper, there had been printed a pyramid. Amon had seen it so many times before in his travels that the man had never really thought about the seal on the back of the dollar. Yet there, it was.
Long before the seal was a symbol of America, it was the seal of Solomon.
Amon slammed the book shut. He'd seen far too much already.
xxxx
Kristo found Leanna easily. The house had never been that big, just a two story colonial. The designer also hadn't been that smart about dividing the space. And, now that the entire place had been flattened by the Other Thirteen's cleansing fire, razed from the earth, there weren't too many places that Leanna could have been amidst the still smoking ashes.
Even still, Kristo didn't have to search; he knew where she would be.
In the older days, before Marcus's intervention, before his... interference, they had been a peaceful and fairly calm group. It was after Marcus had set everything into motion that things became crazy. However, even in all that turmoil, there had still been one place that always seemed to remain sacred to Kathain. Long ago, when a water main broke, they were too poor to replace the tile that had been ripped up to fix the pipe, and, so, Kathain and Nycole, being the artists of the bunch, made a concrete piece with a spiraling labyrinth on it to cover the spot.
And, sure, enough, there she was, Leanna, crouched over that spot. Her fingertips rubbed the carved grooves, feeling the pattern beneath. She drew upon the power of the energy that had been put into the labyrinth over the years.
"Getting lost or losing yourself?" Kristo asked of the air its self.
However, it was Leanna who responded. "It is a waste of time to ponder such things. We must be off."
"I was wrong about you," the man breathed rather nonchalantly, giving a slight kick at a bit of rubble; the charred remnant of the house gave way under even the gentlest of nudges.
"It matters not." Leanna dusted off her hands. "You are wasting your time."
She rose, but Kristo stepped in your path. "You're not touching God."
"What?"
"You're not touching God," Kristo replied. "When you fight, when you act, I thought you were touching God. I thought you would loosen yourself of all those emotional distractions and excess thought that makes a warrior weak." Leanna just gazed into his eyes. "But you don't. You never had any to begin with. You can only touch God if you're giving all that up."
"But what if I have already given all that up long ago?" Leanna played along for a moment, trying to study, to learn Kristo's game.
The shadow walker gave a shrug. "You're not human without emotions."
"If I never had any, would that make me dead, or would that make me God?" Leanna baited him, cautiously gaging Kristo's responses in a quest to understand the information that this man demanded of her and to know the motives of what could potentially be her enemy again.
Kristo turned to walk away, but stopped suddenly. "You had better watch yourself."
"And you," Leanna warned. "I know what you are traveling with. I know what this King of yours really is. And I know what he will do to the others if you let him."
The man wheeled around. "What?"
Leanna strode up, drawing close to him. "Your King is not what he seems."
"What do you know?" Kristo leaned down to her ear.
"Your King, as you call him, is not what he seems."
The shadow walker just nodded his head with long, slow dips. "I know." Kristo smoothed a stray lock of his ebony hair. "I've been trying to keep that on the low. I want to... see what this interloper has planned."
"You will get the others killed if you do not play this game right."
Kristo shook his head. "I wouldn't allow it."
"Then just exercise good caution."
xxxx
CAUTION!