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Souls of the Night – Vol 3.
67.
Lex and I were torn from this vision. We were suddenly standing in front of a large expanse of water, the houses of ... Jersey? on the other side of the river. I shivered and looked to the side. Younger Nathaniel, who was no longer quite so small, was standing with his bare feet in the water of the Hudson where Murshid was sitting on the boulders on the bank not even a yard away from him.
"Where are we?" Lex asked. I looked around and had to rummage through my dusty memories.
"This is... Pumphouse Park on the Hudson River. Before the urban renewal had a hand in it."
"Mhmm still pretty nice. You look older."
"So does Murshid," I said, irritated. "I thought he said he was immortal."
"Well... he's deceased - so I guess he's only very long-lived," Lexington said, looking down at my younger version with a warm smile.
"Do you like me younger and a little chunkier better?" I asked teasingly, nudging him so that he almost fell into the not-even-real water and crouched down on all fours to keep his balance.
He flashed a fang. "Your current version is my favorite. I think only the longer, slightly messy hair suits you better. You look healthy and happy."
"Well ... this was long before Jussuf. And Murshid was right - he was really good for me," I said, looking at my uncle, who was, as always, fully focused on the child (or the entities within him). I missed him more with every renewed memory. Many things made me wonder about the true nature of our relationship. But I wished I could hug him one more time, tell him how good he had made me feel, how cared for and wanted and valuable I had felt. Something I had only experienced again with the Manhattan Clan. But my uncle's look was also happy - even if he seemed older and grayer. Perhaps ... or so I wanted to imagine - my closeness had also done him good. Even though he had died a few years later - we had had each other before.
"Uncle Murshid, I've been standing here in the water an eternity! My feet are about to freeze off," the younger Nathaniel complained at that moment in a throaty voice that indicated his puberty vocal change. The adult laughed low but cheerfully.
"It's September, the water can't be that cold. Besides, you can keep heating it."
"It's half past eight in the morning. I've been heating it for an hour - I can't hold the heat for that long. If I'd known we were doing this again, I would have called in sick."
"Hahahah. I'm not someone to call in sick to, I want to practice with you every day of your summer vacation. Puberty is an important time in your development, Djinn."
"Breakfast would be an important time in my development! Let me come out now."
"All right, come out to me," said my teacher, rising with a groan and wandering to a grassy spot on the shore.
My teenage self crawled out of the water, grunting, over the boulders and dropped into the grass next to him. My uncle held a stalk out to him.
"Again?" the boy grumbled.
"I'm an old man, do me this favor."
"Uncle Murshid. It's not even on my energy spectrum."
"What's the first rule."
Young Nathaniel groaned in annoyance and rubbed his forehead before replying in agony.
"Energy is energy, you can accomplish anything if you just believe. Believing means achieving. Your supposed limits don't exist."
The boy took the stalk, placed it between his hands and closed his eyes before bringing them to his lips and slowly blowing air between them. When he opened his hands, the stem revealed a blossoming little blue thistle.
"Wow," Lex whispered beside me and I nodded, feeling the soft magic on my skin, smelling it in the air. Murshid sighed with a blissful smile and took the stem, twirling it between his fingers and reveling in its beauty.
"Have I already told you why the blue thistle is my favorite flower?"
"Only about a hundred times. Because it stands for courage, bravery and loyalty in the face of betrayal."
"Well remembered. And why else?"
"Because it's blue and blue is royalty and your favorite color."
"Mhmmm you know me so well. But also because the thistle has a soft flower candle on the inside but is protected by spiky leaves on the outside. And it not only nourishes many other creatures - it also offers them protection because other animals don't come near it." He put the stem behind Nathaniel's ear so that the blue flower candle stands out beautifully between his brown, tousled hair. The boy in front of us smiled and lowered his eyes bashfully.
"Uncle Murshid... I... I want to tell you something," he said, his cheeks flushed.
"It's okay, son. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't be soft and defensive at the same time. The most powerful beings in all races combined those traits," the adult said. I sighed loudly and leaned my head on Lex's next to me, wanting to feel his closeness when I couldn't feel my uncle's. I was ashamed because I couldn't remember so many precious, wonderful, weird moments with my uncle. Maybe it was a good thing - it reduced the grief. But he had been such an infinitely important part - how could I have reduced him to "the strange but nice uncle"?
"Sometimes I wish we did normal things more often. Can't we do normal things? Have a normal uncle-nephew relationship. I have these abilities but I'm not a X-Men and you're not Dr. Xavier..."
"The X-Men would like to be like us, Nasser, and wasn't it normal that I took you to the movie you talked me into? You're simply not normal and I mean that in the best way. You are mortal but you are-"
"The vessel of gods. Ahead of everyone. Yeah, right." The boy plopped back into the grass.
"When you were younger, you took me more seriously."
"I still take you seriously. But ... I'm starting to wonder ... why. Not that I don't like your mysterious Jedi ways, but ... why?"
"Do you ask yourself why in school? In allgebra or English why?"
"To be honest, yes, but those are subjects that are compulsory by the state, sooooo -" said the young precocious boy with a grin. Our uncle ruffled his hair.
"Cheeky Djinn. I can't be angry with you. You're my little devils. And what would a normal uncle-nephew relationship be for you? A new approach to our relationship."
"I don't know... you're already making sure I don't know what normal is."
"HA! Well then, my mission has been successful."
"What are you trying to achieve with these strange exercises?"
"I don't know myself. I'll know when it happens."
"What happens."
"It."
"Boa, you're always so cryptic."
"Cryptic - where do you learn those words. Not at school in Brooklyn."
"'Nah- on the internet."
"Oh internet- that's right. You and your tech stuff."
"Says the man who runs a repair shop."
He ruffled the boy's hair, who ducked his head under the affectionately rough touch. "Computer nerd- "
"Flower fondler!"
The teenager grunted as the older man squeezed him in a hearty hug but both looked like they were playing with each other.
"Is that supposed to be an insult? Not to me it isn't. I'm man enough to admit that I like pretty things like flowers."
"You are so embarrassing Uncle Murshid," the child groaned suffering and the adult laughed.
"I am old! And thanks to you, I get to grow older every wonderful day and watch you mature."
"Is your gratitude big enough for me to get something to chew on?"
"Sure. Eggs, pancakes, cake, even bacon - we won't tell your parents or the tattlers at the mosque."
"Can I ride the motorcycle?"
"By Allah, no!"
"But you've already let me drive. I can drive."
"In the forest where no one else was. But not in the city ... unless ... unless you learn to jump first. Man, that would make me so happy I'd even build you a motorcycle and get you a driver's license." Lexington and I hurried after the two people walking away. I was about to ask Lex if he had any idea what Murshid meant by "jumping" when we were yanked away.
.
And ended up in mid-air. Lex let out a short cry, as did I. But only from surprise.
Instantly, my wings snapped open and Lex tumbled a yard lower before stretching out his arms and legs to let the air inflate his flying skins. Then we glided as was our nature as gargoyles. The elevated road below us sent rushing noise and air turbulence up to us, which we compensated for by instinct.
"Why are we gliding?" Lex shouted - then realized that he didn't need to shout because the wind and car noise were unnaturally muffled.
"That's why!" I replied excitedly, folded my wings and swooped lower, between the moving cars. And the glorious motorcycle from my memory, gleaming in the morning sun, gliding along.
I grabbed in flight at my horns, screaming with joy.
"Oh, by Allah! That's Uncle Murshid's Indian Chief!" Lex slid close to the two people on it. Uncle Murshid's face was barely visible behind the darkened visor, but the teenager clinging to his back had his visor open, squinting his eyes at the wind and sun but grinning broadly with rapturous pleasure.
"Ohhhh, what a bloody shame! I'm only just remembering now! How could I have forgotten? Such beauty!"
"Yes - you on a motorcycle," Lexington said, fascinated but also enthusiastically adoring my younger self. I swatted at him with my tail - not unintentionally but good-naturedly - as I glided from the left side of the bike to the right.
"Not me, you love-struck doofus. The machine! Indian Chief from 1999! Those streamlines, that black paint job combined with the chrome! Air-cooled, four-stroke, 1442cc, V-Twin powerplant paired to a five-speed manual transmission! Can produce a claimed 75 horsepower at 5200 rpm. Oh even muffled - possibly caused by my helmet in my memory- it purrs like a tigress. Murshid added a rear seat especially for me."
"Wow, I didn't know you were into motorcycles," Lex said with that excited glint in his eye.
"Before I was in computers, Murshid got me into motorcycles. And my parents thought it was at least manly. I loved riding with him. You didn't expect that, did you? Oh- OH- no. No, you don't. Don't you dare buy me one, Mr. Wyvern," I threatened.
"Christmas is coming sooner or later, Mr. Sharif," Lex sang before screeching as he swooped lengthwise through a bus only to slide out the driver's window like a ghost.
I laughed and didn't see the need to avoid the truck I slid through next.
"It's even fun after a while!" I said and glided closer to my younger self and my beloved uncle on his righteous ride. I could see through the helmet how happy I looked. Eyes closed because the visor was open but visibly enjoying the wind around him. At that moment, the Manhattan skyline on our side, radiant in the morning sun, oblivious to his memory-traveling spectators, the younger Nathaniel slowly loosened his grip on our uncle's motorcycle jacket, lifted his arms and lay back in the drag. The feeling of wind tugging at my gargoyle avatar and the boy's gear as there was more resistance to the air was indescribable. I remembered the feeling that motorcycling with my uncle had given me. As if nothing before and nothing after mattered - just the moment, the warmth in my core, the vibration beneath me and the wind caressing me. It was the first experience of pure happiness and detachment that I had ever felt. And yet it had been buried in my memories. But here and now I had it back. In my memories of an unknown but distant year, I was happy, free of fear and released from all burden, in tune with my demons and so close to my powers that Fiery and Whisp were one with me. They were me and I was them and they were rejoicing in me. Their energy spilled out of me, wrapped around me and my uncle, dipped into new and yet ancient laws of physics and magic, and lifted the wheels of the motorcycle off the ground without it slowing or howling. I heard Murshid laugh loudly, almost barking, seized by my power, which was stripping metal, chrome and mortal bodies of gravity, if only a dozen inches.
Lexington's stunned cry when he realized this was more happiness than bewilderment, and even if the ghosts of the past couldn't hear us, I whooped and chirped in the highest joyous gargoyle tones simply because magic and joy were leaping out at me. Lexington's hand found mine and for a few seconds memories and avatars slid side by side. Until, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shadow of a giant bird race past and smack into one of the skyscrapers. Its death scream was that of a gigantic explosion, a ball of smoke streaked with flames that made the bright blue sky seem all the more intense. Lex and I landed on the railroad barrier as almost all the cars came to a halt and the Indian stopped on the shoulder. Shouting, honking horns were just a distant background murmur as all eyes turned to this hulking building.
I looked at my younger self who, like our uncle, had ripped his helmet off his head. He screamed and I remembered the words.
"My dad! My dad works in the other tower! We have to go there!"
Murshid looked over his shoulder at the boy who I knew he loved like his gods and his child at the same time. The man who would die today nodded wordlessly, put his helmet back on, as did Nathaniel, and revved up the engine before maneuvering it past the stationary cars to head back to Manhattan. I reached for them and my hands went through my uncle and the machine.
Lexington and I were the only ones who knew what was going on, the only ones who knew the future, which was in fact the past. New York, September 11, 2001, and since none of us had yet found the emergency exit door out of my head, we were carried along.
.
Lexington's POV:
Thrown into Nathaniel's memories, it was strange to see - on the glide to the disaster area - that as soon as we were higher, the view became dark as if it were night. Until I realized that Nathaniel only knew the views of the buildings, the flying perspective, from the night and his memory therefore had no other reference to fill in blank spots than night views including skyscrapers with illuminated windows. Skyscrapers that had fallen victim to demolition and reconstruction over the past 22 years merged with new structures to a distracting multiverse rip-off. The old World Trade Center, however, remained like a stoic god - mammon defying time, space and memory, a constant presence towards which we headed. A dying god. A dragon that constantly belched out black smoke. Why not - views of this day, these hours, these buildings from all perspectives had gone around the world. It was only logical that Nathaniel's memory - once revived - was particularly complete here. We landed in the plaza between the towers, debris scattered, glass, twisted metal but no comparison to what would follow.
I at least kept a good eye on the main entrances but Nathaniel - previously so relaxed and happy at the sight of his younger self on the bike - crouched down in a forlorn frog pose that was actually mine. I planted myself next to him, pressed against his side and rubbed my head against his shoulder in comforting gargoyle manner while hundreds of screaming, distraught, confused people came out of the buildings - those who had not heeded or believed the assurances of their overstrained and ill-informed superiors or the security staff of the buildings at the time that they were safe in the other tower or on the lower floors. Many had lacerations, broken wrists or forearms, were limping or had scrapes - presumably from falling or colliding with others - but none were seriously injured. Survivors.
Nathaniel was sobbing quietly, rubbing away tears, but I suspected he wouldn't be receptive to talking right now. I didn't feel like it myself. I wanted to reassure him how proud I was of him for putting up with this, but this wasn't a situation for that. Magic could be cruel - he didn't want to relive any of this, but magic didn't make that distinction between less and severely traumatizing memories. It didn't "think" in a way that mortals or even immortals did, who had at least a dim idea of empathy and mercy and sheltering the mind. We waited for Nathaniel's younger self to pick up his earliest trauma and his uncle to die here. What words would have done it justice? Where all ambient noise was muffled - perhaps an involuntary protective mechanism of Nate's brain - Murshid's and the younger Nathaniel's voices were clear as if we were standing next to them even as they came near us.
"We have to find my dad!"
"Surely he's already been evacuated. You said he works in the undamaged tower? What floor is his company on?"
"96. He took me to Bring Your Child Day last year."
Nathaniel and Murshid both scanned up and up the building, and where my friend's (who wasn't my friend at the time) expression was one of pure terror and doggedness, Murshid's was inscrutable. Then the boy turned and stormed off.
I wanted to get up but Nathaniel held me back, just shaking his head wordlessly. The younger Nathaniel, completely agitated, started asking people who came running out of the building, firemen rushing around, NYCEM employees who were at the scene of the attack so early (but no one but us knew it was an attack yet) if they had seen his father - Baz Sharif. People with more distance (or just gargantuan assholes) would have thought that it was not devoid of a certain irony. That a child of Muslim immigrants, of the Muslim ethnic group in New York was stumbling around here tearfully and pleading for support when Muslims were also responsible for all of this. The very thought repulsed me. Muslims and terrorists were not the same thing, just as gargoyles and "monsters" were not the same thing. There was no them and us at this point - no matter what political or private voices would claim in the weeks and months that followed. There was no payback and no divine justice.
The pigeonholing of people was so disgusting that I didn't even have words for it - just this fierce biting frustration inside me that if I wasn't careful would fester, grow, develop until it was hate. Lumps of hate soaked with twisted logic in my heart and brain that would turn me into something I never wanted to be - never allowed myself to be. Love. Focus on love, I admonished myself over and over again as my eyes followed the young Nathaniel rushing back and forth at the edge of the hastily erected barriers. He had his wallet out, showing a small card around, probably a photo of his dad, or more likely a small family photo that his mom made him carry with him for whatever. Most people ignored the desperate teenager, because there was no shortage of desperate people that day, at those hours. Which made me growl again. Love- love- not hate, not loathing.
I saw Nathaniel run out of our sight, presumably to a collection point for the people who had made it out of the buildings. Murshid followed, keeping close to the boy, but his calm was not that of a near immortal or a person who hoped everything would be okay and therefore kept a cool head. Murshid's calm had the quality of sepulchral stillness - terminal and therefore all the more disturbing than the boy's frantic semi-panic. My Nathaniel remained seated the whole time, looking down at his claws on the not-real ground, appearing in a state of stupor. Except for the tears rolling down his cheeks and the sniffling, he was silent and withdrawn into himself. And maybe he had to go into this mode to protect his psyche as best he could from this.
I remembered too well how we had arrived at the site that first night after the towers fell, received our briefings and then rushed into work as if mechanically. Even four years after our "outing" and despite the media campaign by Xanatos Media, we were still exotic, especially when we appeared as a flock and not just Goliath or Nashville alone. But nobody minded us. All that mattered was the work - the mission - to save as many people as possible. The cooperation with the people went remarkably well, but some of them – just like us - had already had experience with mixed rescue missions because of the events at "The Granary". Although you couldn't even begin to compare a pile of rubble through a four-storey brick building with the ghastly mountain of misery these two towers would be reduced to.
I raised my head and looked up between the buildings, my eyes protected by the shadows of the towers and the sun-darkening smoke from the north tower. I was always fascinated by the sky in daylight, but this blue - lighter than Nathaniel's skin - more like Demona's, made me feel nauseous and dreadful. How could this sky dare to look so beautifully rich on such a day - in the days to come? Deceptive. A sign that the universe didn't give a shit about all of us, about all suffering. I grumbled in old resentment at the wrongness that was only redirected grief for Hudson, for all these human fates, for Nathaniel's pain. Thoughts of an egocentric who was used to moving immaterial worlds with a few keystrokes and had once again felt like a plaything of fate. Nathaniel's traumas made my traumas rise to the surface and it didn't get any better when I flinched because just as I looked up from this position and so close, the second Boeing 767 crashed into the south side of the south tower.
Although I knew it was just memories, my instincts briefly got the better of me and I threw myself at Nathaniel, trying to get my once again inadequately expansive wings around as much of his body and head as possible and he too flapped his wings around me but not out of panic and protective reflex but just to ground ME now. How mercifully muffled the volume of the screams and the impact of the debris and building parts hurled this far was. Everything passed through us - we weren't real. Or everything around us wasn't real. Did it really matter? We stayed like that for a small eternity - or was there another small jump, because suddenly Nathaniel's and Murshid's voices were close again. My Nate and I both looked up. Murshid, who was running after a haunted, crying but very grim-looking Nathaniel. It irritated me that no one was stopping them - but honestly - with the stream of people still coming out of the buildings, being intercepted only sporadically by rescue workers and the general chaos, who cared about two people who obviously wanted to take the wrong way into the building instead of out.
"Nasser! No. You can't." Mursid grabbed the boy's arm but he ducked out of his grasp, glaring at him.
"WHAT? Uncle. Dad's in there. He's still in there! I'll get him, I can do it."
"I can't let you go in there. Be patient. Wait like the humans do. He'll come out, they're evacuating floor by floor."
"I sense we don't have that much time. I'll go in alone if I have to."
"The elevators aren't working or have been shut down for safety reasons. How are you going to make it to the 66th floor?"
"I'll jump."
Murshid stared at him and the boy held his gaze.
"I can do it. You told me - for years you tried to convince me that I just had to want to do it. That I just needed the right motivation, the right ... impetus. There's none better than to save my dad." He wanted to turn around again, but Murshid put him in a headlock and brought a jar of paste under the nose of the struggling boy.
"Nathaniel!" he barked grimly. "You are too important. You are indeed mortal. But your father is only human. The pain if he doesn't make it will pass. Compared to you, they are all-"
"SHUT UP!" the boy yelled, slapping the jar of ointment out of Murshid's hand and all the people, including Murshid, flinched as another explosion and fireball shook one of the towers. The prolonged scream, soft at first, then louder and louder, broke off with a cracking splash as a person - jumped out of mortal fear - came up not five yards away, sending the people around us scattering with new screams of sheer terror.
The younger Nathaniel and Murshid stared at the exploded mass of former human for a long moment, then looked at each other again as if they had not just seen a person choose suicide over burning to death in the most gruesome way.
Nathaniel's eyes in his round face glowed with inhuman fire as he looked at his mentor again.
"Why don't I break down - now - at the sight of this? Why don't I feel anything for all these humans? Maybe I don't want to become what you want me to be. Maybe I don't want to be what I've already become."
"It's your destiny."
"You said I make the rules. That I'm above all the rules. So why should I obey you? Why should I bow to my destiny instead of making my own? "
Murshid smiled - pure pride and oddly enough serenity in his eyes.
"Thus speaks a true god."
Nathaniel's younger self scoffed. "Thus speaks one who stirs up wars… We'll talk about the future later. Right now, let's save my dad. I know you want to protect me, but I will not be put to sleep like an infant."
Murshid shook his head slowly, tears in his eyes. He and the child had taken off their motorcycle outfits, left their helmets somewhere or thrown them away. They were sweaty and already dirty - filthy and scratched from falling ash, dust and small debris, they looked so human. And yet anything but human. It was surreal - again, everything here was surreal - that these two people were talking so calmly to each other in the heart and underneath the worst disaster site ever seen in America. Proof that they were both so much more than mere men.
"I can't lose you Nathaniel. Not just because of them in you. But because of you."
"... Uncle, I love you. I love you, you're my family more than my dad or mom is. But Jasmine ... she needs her mom and dad. I am what I am and maybe someday I will become what you want me to be. But I don't want to forget where I came from. I don't just want to see humans as-" again his gaze wandered to the clothes with burst bones sticking out of the shreds. "I don't want to see humans as just THAT. Not just as short-lived insects. I want to feel compassion and mercy. With great power comes great responsibility."
Murshid huffed, frustrated but also somehow amused.
"And here some Americans say comic books and superhero movies won't corrupt our youth. I can't believe you're quoting Spider-Man in this situation!"
Nathaniel flashed a bitter smile, more snarl than anything else.
"Stay out here, mudarris*. See you in a bit."
With that, he turned and walked into the building.
Murshid came after him.
"You don't think I'm going to leave you alone, do you? Cheeky cocksure megalomaniac Djinn."
Nathaniel stood up slowly, a sluggishness in all his movements that not even the oldest Gargoyles I'd ever known had displayed. He shuffled, my hand in his behind his memories, not flinching as more jumpers screamed and burst on the ground behind us with wet and cracking sounds simultaneously as we passed through the doors of the south tower. Even the numerous people running through us didn't affect him on an emotional level. He stood like a mourning ghost behind Nathaniel and Murshid from September 9, 2001, condemned to relive that day, those experiences, albeit from the outside. In one of the stairwells where the memories of the two non-humans stopped, only the emergency lighting was on. A large black 1 for first floor was emblazoned on the wall.
"Nathaniel ... let's, let's stay down here," I said. "Please. We've seen enough. We- "
He leaned over and kissed me softly. How could his tears taste salty, his smell so tinged with despair, when we weren't even here? "I have to go on," he whispered.
I wanted to ask why. His brain wouldn't break if he didn't go through this. We might be in a white space until the vision was over - a world between the painted pages of our world. But then we would wake up in the real world. Before I could explain, he let go of me and stepped over to his younger self and his uncle.
"You can stay here, Lex, or you can go out. You're not obligated to anything here."
I plastered myself back at his side.
"You think the magic doesn't take my presence into account? I need to be where you are and I need to see what you see. I want it. We're in this together, I'm not leaving you alone."
Nathaniel smiled mildly.
"I love you," he whispered.
"I love you, too."
"Okay, we've practiced this a hundred times. Now it comes down to this. For the first time, you have a really meaningful target. And here in the stairwell, it's easy. Just higher - as high as you can and again and again." Murshid murmured to Nathaniel, both of whom pressed themselves against the wall in the narrow stairwell so that the fleeing employees and visitors wouldn't trample them.
"What are they going to do?" I asked uncertainly as Nate stood so close to himself that he almost melted into him.
The teenager from twenty years ago shuddered as he took several deep breaths - as if he could almost feel this presence, but that could hardly be the case.
"I remember. I ... I remember," my Nathaniel said, gripping my hand tighter and wrapping one of his wings around me. "Just stay with them. Close to them. They'll pull us with them."
I still didn't understand what he meant, but young Nate's eyes snapped open. They sprayed fire and sparks and we were swept away in a burning round sphere. Only to land in exactly the same place not a second later. NO! It was not the same spot. There was an 8 on the wall of the stairwell. The boy - no, Nathaniel had somehow - fuck, he had teleported us.
"Eighth floor. Very good, Nasser. Go on," Murshid directed excited, his hands on the youth's chubby shoulders, and this one took another breath, and again the sphere jerked onwards.
14th floor. Then the 19th. Another three-second pause, the people running down the stairs, flinching away from the emerging and immediately extinguishing ball of flame or ignoring it in blind panic. The boy Nathaniel didn't care what others saw, my own older one didn't care anyway. The boy "jumped" in ever faster intervals. I couldn't believe that he could teleport - or that he was doing it here successfully for the first time - and many times in a row. But it put a great strain on his body. On the 65th floor, he collapsed, falling to his knees with a cry of pain. Murshid rubbed the back of his neck. Small flames flickered from his fingers to the child. As if he was pouring some of his energy into him. I didn't know if my Nathaniel noticed, because he looked down at the ground, unblinking. A protective mechanism. He knew what was going to happen, he remembered. But even if I wasn't the owner of those memories - I knew we didn't have much time before the tower collapsed.
"Slow down Nathaniel. You have to-"
I don't have time for slow!" the child shouted, looking up. I gasped because his nose was bleeding profusely and even his ice-blue eyes were bleeding. He looked at the number on the wall. 65-
"We'll be there soon! I can do it. They can do it," the child insisted before coughing due to the thickening smoke in the stairwell.
"My destination is my dad! I wanna see my dad!" he then shouted shrilly, squinting his eyes again and jumping once more with Murshid and us in his magical wake accompanied by a strained cry. Only to land not in the stairwell but in an open-plan office full of smoke. The ceiling had collapsed. If it hadn't been for the smoke, it would probably have been possible to see several floors up. Flames flickered from shattered furnishings, fragments of the broken ceiling paneling and metal parts that might have belonged to the Boing. Water sprinklers were running sporadically, but the heat - the memory of the heat - caused the water to evaporate almost immediately. There was just too much fire, too much destruction and too much of the sprinkler system was wrecked and shredded.
"Where - are we!" cried Murshid, coughing and holding his scarf over the moaning, bleeding child's mouth and nose.
"Help! Help, we're here!" a woman's voice called chokingly.
Murshid literally dragged his exhausted protégé through the open area, walking slalom through the debris field. More than half a dozen people huddled near the extensively destroyed window front where the smoke could escape over their heads and they could at least get a breath of uncontaminated air. But fresh air also fed the flames. The desperate but almost hopeful faces of the people dropped as Murshid and Nathaniel approached, clearly not rescue workers or firefighters.
"Have you seen evacuation teams?" an older man asked, coughing.
"When are they coming to help us get out?"
"Did they clear the stairs?" another wanted to know, clutching what must have been his broken arm.
"We're here alone," Murshid grumbled as he scanned the people.
"Shit!" said a woman whose once skillfully styled blonde hair was now crusted with blood. Strangely, her cracked glasses still sat straight on her nose. In her lap - the pencil skirt long since torn - lay the head of a man. Probably in his late thirties, slicked back hair and perfectly shaven, in a suit that wasn't tailored but wasn't cheap either, he looked like any rising junior department head at Morgan Stanley at the time. His clothes were filthy but apart from a bump he looked unharmed, but only at first glance.
"Dad!" The child threw himself at his father, his smile eerie because bloody tears were running down his cheeks. With a pale face but a shit-eatin grin a la I told you so, he turned to his uncle. "I've found my dad! I knew it."
Then, turning back to the younger Baz, he saw his leg. Or the lack of it.
The woman who had Baz's head in her lap looked at Nathaniel as if he were a ghost, and where I had a peculiar idea, it seemed more developed in my Nathaniel, who for the first time showed any emotion other than apathy or despair. He rumbled a deep guttural gargoyle growl, his eyes fixed on the woman with sheer hatred.
Which of course none of the memories cared about, because like I said- no one changed their ways for us.
"Baz is your daddy?" the woman whispered softly, humiliation, wounded pride and sorrow over something that had nothing to do with this day flitting across her distraught features before she caught herself. "I'm- I'm so sorry. I am Ester. I work with him. He- he needs to go to hospital."
"We've put a tourniquet on him but he's still bleeding," one of the men - presumably a colleague - said gravely. Nathaniel didn't pay any attention to them.
With the eyes of a frightened deer yet an ancient magical glow in his eyes, he tore off his unconscious father's bandage and pressed his hands to the blood-spitting wound. The memory of the smell of burnt flesh together with the sizzling made me nauseous and the people in the memory shrank back screaming or muttering curses while the child cauterized the wound with red-hot glowing hands and stopped the bleeding. He didn't care about the humans. He was trembling, distraught and exhausted but at the same time unaffected by the antics of the mortals here. Cold as ice in its single-mindedness, I realized - as before, when the human had burst on the asphalt just a few feet from them - that deeply human behaviors and emotions were simply masked by something that didn't give a rat's ass about normal mortals. Something old, cold and yet burning with an uninhibited fire of ancestral pent-up wrath.
Only when the stump had stopped bleeding did the child take his hands away. Charred skin and goo on his hands, the boy sank back into Murshid's arms with a sigh. Not unconscious, but not far from it.
"That was all too much for you," grumbled his mentor and follower discontentedly.
The people previously distracted from the more acute threat by Nathaniel wailed and cried out as the shrill groaning of suffering metal and the crushing sound of concrete erupted around us. The ground beneath them seemed to shake.
The boy looked up with the dazed awe of a child.
"The tower is moaning."
"It's not moaning. It's collapsing. Can you walk? We have to get out of here."
The child nodded groggily but managed to get back on his feet where Murshid took Baz in his arms with a strength that did not match his age (certainly not his true age).
"We need a big, long jump now," Murshid said as they left the other humans behind and he led the child to the front of the window where the boy directed the smoke away from them with a flick of his hand.
"Over there?" the younger Nathaniel asked, staring at the other tower with a concentrated expression. "I can't see where to jump, the windows are mirrored. And this tower was hit earlier, what if it collapses faster?" the teenager argued.
"We can't know that - you're nowhere near that far. We can only hope. The magic won't let us crash into anything. It wants you intact. I know you're tired. Concentrate. Make a sphere! Only 30 yards to the side. Concentrate only on the sphere. It will protect and preserve."
Nathaniel - the memory - licked his dust-encrusted lips and closed his eyes. Mursid, also closing his eyes, a deep crease of concentration between his brows, held Baz in one arm, placing his free hand on the back of Nathaniel's neck. I felt the energy wash over us even in memory. The round sphere lit up, flickering erratically - visibly weakened by Nathaniel's overexerted strength.
And something flowed out of Murshid. A free energy that must have had the same wavelength as Nathaniel's because it flowed into the child and made the sphere more stable. Another explosion shook the surroundings, causing the whole building to sway. My gaze flew to a clock hanging on a wall, defying all odds. It was 9.59 am. When had the south tower collapsed? When had the north tower? I couldn't remember, and even if I had known - me and my Nathaniel weren't really here. Nothing would change anything. It had happened as it had to happen. The rumbling that went through the building was treacherously alarming. The people suddenly shrieked.
"The ceiling!" shouted one.
The sphere stabilized, a second away from the jump.
At that moment, the blonde woman threw herself onto Murshid's back.
"Take me with you!" she shrieked in panic and dug her manicured fingernails into Murshid's torso. He screamed and lost his grip on Nathaniel, who opened his eyes in astonishment before toppling to the side. Then we were all swept away by the sphere.
*mudarris = teacher
Thanks for reading, Q.T.