Chapter Eight: Fetal Whispers
Hess was truly having a difficult time locating Anja. His boasting was not without merit, but Jericho had become a grain of sand lost in the wind.
Hess had traces of breadcrumbs.
His ego prevented him from realizing that Bane had changed over the years, evolved, he didn't realize that the minnow he thought he had on the line was actually a fanged Leviathan.
Hess strung Bane along, feeding him small bits of intel, keeping his phone calls encrypted to the hackers that Bane employed.
Hess was composed of moonbeams, yet he'd somehow eclipsed Bane's life.
The sound of the satellite phone ringing caused Bane's guts to turn into a hot coil every time it sounded. The disappointment when there was nothing helpful on the other line was decimating.
Doctor Cain Adamson found it difficult to watch the silent suffering.
Madeline poured every part of herself into caring for the children and keeping their lives as normal as possible. She kept them entertained throughout the day, a lot of baking in the kitchen of some of Anja's favorite pastries to bring comfort to their hearts and fill their bellies with sustenance as they refused to eat any other time of the day and would lapse into slumped sadness when they were left to their own thoughts.
Across the world, Jericho was right to assume that Bane was going to come to him, but he was also very confident in his location amongst the world's geography. He knew how hidden he was amongst the desert landscape that he called home. The sharp cliffs and hot air made him invisible.
He always been a simple farmer who only wanted to raise his family on the land of his father's father, his father before him, to raise his children in his rich traditions.
But, Talia had changed the trajectory of his life, and he was compelled to react, his hand was forced to move upon his rod and staff.
Jericho considered the acquisition of Anja, the literal severing of what he felt was owed to him and the fruition of making him whole. He had no plan to cause Anja discomfort or harm. He was going to ensure she safely delivered the new life into the world before he claimed the child as his own.
He knew the child would be strong, it would be a male since his son was so savagely taken from him.
Jericho sought restoration, to have what was taken to be returned.
A wife for his heart and body.
A mother for his daughter.
A son.
Inside Anja's womb, the fetus continued to develop, ear lobes formed, their delicate curves kept warm amidst the amniotic fluid.
Its small heart steadily beat, faster than that of Anja's, its skin began to lose its translucent appearance.
Anja, a woman of science first, knew the importance and crucial role of adaptation that was necessary. Her thoughts couldn't help but remind her of how she'd adopted penitence when Bane had been thrust into her life.
She forced herself to acquiesce to what Jericho wanted to see.
Her capitulation was rewarded with the removal of her bindings, allowing her to rise, leave the tent and venture within the strict confines set forth by Jericho.
Levi kept her under constant watch, his single eye twitched at times but he always knew exactly where her footfalls were upon the sand.
Babagorl was a constant next to Anja, her fierce belief in her father and her father's God, bolstered her view of Anja as her mother, that her slowly distending belly held her sibling.
As Anja feigned penitence, acceptance and immersed herself in the dictated role for the sake of the baby growing inside of her, in his various mobile locations, Hess found whisper-thin traces of Anja.
He discovered a trail composed of gossamer threads, lit by the light from the very stars.
Hess fed morsels to Bane over heavily encrypted calls, provided him meaty bits to chomp onto, directed him around like a pawn on a chess board.
He decided to play with Bane, treat him as though he was a whiskered, squeaking mouse being painfully played with by a cat until its eventual death.
The suffering Bane endured now was just the start of the recompense that Hess felt he was owed.
Hess fed Bane morsels of information, incomplete coordinates, referenced flight manifests that didn't exist, cargo ships with unlabeled contents.
He sent Bane jet setting to-and-fro, a passport stamp on each page from the Nine Circles.
As Hess taunted.
Bane's anger grew.
He began to revert to violence in order to cope, each destination he arrived at and didn't find Anja, made his furious misdirection turn bloodier with each breath towards the lives that were at these dead ends.
Doctor Cain Adamson had to suppress intervening when Bane took to punching the bodies of those that were not Anja, his fists caving in chest cavities and craniums, grey matter making his scarred, thick fingers slick.
Wet with death.
Cain accompanied Bane everywhere, bandaging his damaged knuckles when the bloodshed settled.
Time passed.
The torture continued for Bane.
Cain remained, at times, a forced spectator, the rest an active participant.
Across the world, Anja's belly continued to expand with the life within her.
Jericho's sleep began to become bothered, disrupted by glimpses of violence and loss from the past, the future was fragmented behind his closed eyelids, everything was bathed in red.
He moaned in his sleep, grunting as he was forced to watch the day his life irrevocably altered.
Jericho's sleeping mouth fell open, small sounds emerging, unable to shout out as behind his closed eyes, he watched his heavily pregnant wife be shot in the heart by one of Talia's mercenary marauders.
He could feel his heart thundering in his chest as he approached the carnage Maribel's body had become, her clothing drenched with the spilled hibiscus blossom tea, ginger beer and blood.
Jericho was paralyzed by sleep as he was forced to watch himself slice into the taut flesh of Maribel's swollen belly. The layers of fat and muscle parting under his serrated blade.
He was strapped to a theater seat, the screen replaying him pulling his dead son from the decimated uterus, the fetal corpse dripping with the blood of his mother and amniotic fluid.
Both warm in their wetness.
Jericho couldn't tear his eyes away as he bore witness to the attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation of a fetal corpse.
He licked his lips; the metallic tang of his dead son's blood gave him a sour expression.
In his tent, trapped deeply in the stranglehold of sleep, Jericho shouted out hoarsely as behind his eyelids, his dead son opened his eyes.
They weren't the dark brown of Maribel's.
They weren't the inky black shade of his own, nor the combination that graced Babagorl's irises.
His dead son's eyes were red, blood red, bright and roiling with fire and brimstone as the fetal lips parted and began to whisper.
"Father, I yearn to have lived to have known you."
"Someone is looking for you, someone is hunting you," the fetal corpse whispered, its tone one of that eons older than its own biology.
"You must leave this place Father, you must travel, remain mobile."
In his sleep, Jericho's heart stilled for just a moment as his dead son raised a hand and gripped his forefinger, squeezing gently as he added.
"Keep the vessel safe Father, allow me to return to you."
Jericho awoke with a shout, bolting upright on the tangled linen.
He frantically wiped his face, his fingers wet with shed tears.
In the poor light, his fingers looked like they were slick with blood.
Jericho struggled to his feet, his hip pain excruciating from the constant tossing and turning, urging his feet to move faster as he crossed the uneven landscape to where Anja was sleeping soundly, Babagorl curled nearby on the bedding.
Jericho crashed to his knees in front of Anja's sleeping form, his scrabbling hands on her clothing startled her from her deep sleep.
She began screaming, thinking he was intent on violating her body.
Anja froze when Jericho bared her swollen belly, his hands shaking as they hovered over her stretched skin, new life just under the surface.
She inhaled sharply when Jericho laid his hands on her belly, his palms hot against her bare flesh as he lowly murmured.
"You will live again my Son, you will live again," Jericho added as he lowered his face and pressed his trembling lips against her skin.