It’s not getting any better either. The late night wanderings have yet to finish, on the contrary they are becoming more and more frequent. I am passed the first few stages of worry, its amazing how long it takes a man spending his nights looking for dreams to actually grow beyond casual feelings that something might be wrong. If nothing’s out there than I’ve gone mad. If something is out there it better damn well be worth it because I’m rapidly on my way to losing everything for it.
Old Sammy
“Look, you just get on the phone and you find this guy.” Jules McCleary slipped the antenna back down and the face shut on his cell phone. A slide sent it across the desk and into the pile of inventories and export sheets that being the West Coast VP is truly all about.
Both hands rose up to wring the sleep from the Siren’s eyes and one fell to next to his chin. Nathan Wilde. He’d approached him with some insane ideas before, wanting Sirens to pull out of this or that “lest mankind find out”. He struck Jules as a whole host of things: intelligent, straightforward, willing, and on his last phone call, desperate. Nathan had always seemed passionate to the point of seemingly foolishness, but never desperate. And then he fell off the face of the Earth.
Golem Prison Catacombs
Nathan Wilde’s Cell
Gasping for air Nathan Wilde flailed above the slime and sludge that composed his putrid prison. Work had been going well so far, the prison wasn’t flooding nearly as much as it had been. It was noticeable though; during the low cycles there was little more than ankle deep liquid and mounds of muck and mire. His overly long Golem fingers were raw and in some places bleeding, but they had done good. He was working at the grating, clearing away the refuse that had been building up there for a century or more. This next low cycle should be his time to act, to pry open that grate and flee into the freedom of the sewers.
His informants had been correct about Pruent and Morrison. But Nathan had been too late and he cursed himself for it now and nearly every moment of the past few months. Nathan slumped back against the wall and sank into the knee-deep mess. Time had lost meaning in here and left Nathan feeling simply desperate. If Pruent was going to act he would have to do it soon, but Nathan Wilde was without an exact date. The feeling of helplessness burned at him, he could feel it eating away and he could feel himself growing sicker and sicker. This place was Hell, a watery, cold, putrid Hell. Nathan slipped off into an angry sleep. He’d learned that sleep was both possible and necessary in a mess even as bad as this one.
* * *
The grate was nearly free, so close that he didn’t want to come back to the surface for the air that he knew he needed.
“I think we got a problem here.” The yell was from above, from the roof top grate that led into the rest of the catacombs. Nathan drew in air as quickly as possible and shot below the surface to the nearly free grate. There he sent already raw fingers to working at digging under the rusted metal and into the slimed covered rock that made up the walls and floor of his prison.
Behind him the first guard dropped down into the cell and pulled out an automatic pistol with a rather bright flashlight slung under the barrel.
“You see him?” It was a call from above, from a second Golem guard.
“No, I think he’s escaped,” his dreadlocks shook a bit as he turned those all white eyes up to the ceiling. “There’s barely any water down here.”
A bright beam of light cut through the mire behind Nathan as he frantically dug at the grating. A look over his shoulder at the white bar cutting a searching, knowing path through the sludge and Nathan doubled his already dangerously rapid attempts at escape. It’d only been ten seconds so far but his breath was already beginning to fail him, damn it, he needed to stay calm.
A second pair of legs dropped down into the mire and out came a pistol nearly identical to the first.
“So where’d he go?”
“Beats the hell outta me.”
Both probing streams of light danced a deliberate pattern in the water, scanning for any sight of…
“There!” The light landed on a foot that was hovering just below the surface and it was immediately followed by a gunshot.
The sudden shock was instantly identifiable as a small vortex was cut into the watery mess an inch or so next to the torso of Nathan Wilde. His hands pushed off the grate and he flung himself to the side moving away from those lights. He was panicked and out of air.
“Fuck, find him again!” Both Golems had pistols raised up to eye level and were sending those lights through the mess in dashing, rapid checks, trying to cover as much ground as possible. With his face just barely breaking the water a very desperate, very frightened Nathan Wilde took in a ragged breath and slipped back below the surface. Paranoia plagued him, telling him that they heard that, that his breath was too loud. And all it did was make him want to take another.
One sloshing footstep after another and the guards slowly parted, hoping to cover more ground apart. Nathan crept along the bottom of the cell and with as much of the mire above him as possible, hoping to get back to the grate, yank it up and flee to freedom. His shoulder met with a sudden bump of something solid and suddenly he wasn’t alone beneath the water.
The struggle ensued immediately with Nathan’s hands grabbing a hold of the Golem guard’s neck and the guard caught surprised and shocked, drowning on a mouthful of muck.
“What? Aw hell.” His partner’s disappearance was blatantly obvious, the great deal of splashing tipped him off. But who’s who was a different matter. The flashlight beam fell on the pair of struggling Golems.
Nathan managed to get a knee up and wedge it between himself and the guard and with some amazing reserve of energy he kicked up and sent the guard above the water.
“Get him!”
The flashlight landed on a choking Golem bent on his knees in the water. A pair of gunshots followed.
Below the surface a pair of feet retreated through a hole in the cell, next to which lay a grating.
His plane had touched down at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport two days ago and the one called Gabriel, or Gary McManneth to those at the North Dakota DMV, had then purchased a Grey Hound ticket to cover the one hundred and ninety two miles between Dallas and Austin Texas. Under the alias David Simms he had secured a room at a Motel 6 just outside of the city itself, paid in cash, no questions asked. Under the name Joseph Farline he had rented a 1995 Geo Metro, grey in colour, also paid for in cash, he did opt for the insurance package though.
With his transport and lodging taken care of, the man who had taken to calling himself Gabriel began to hunt. His bags were left in the hotel room, the suitcase containing the rifle and telescopic scope, the one containing the large amount of cash he was travelling with, and the clothes that were piled in the tops of each bag. From the driver’s seat of his car Gabriel began his mental checklist. He wasn’t able to bring his own ammunition, but with luck he wouldn’t have trouble finding a store that loads its own ammunition in the great
Old Sammy was feeling much older than his age. The stress of the situation he found himself in was finally getting to him. It was costing him everything and getting him nowhere that he wanted to be. He’d lost his job and his apartment would be next. He’d given up his car some time ago and left himself at the mercy of the national capital’s public transportation system. Not cabs though, he tried everything in his power to stay away from those.
His hair was greying. At nearly twenty-four years old, Samuel Banks found himself with gray hairs, enough where it was noticeable from a good fifteen feet away. With his collar hitched up on an old weather beaten trench coat Sammy found himself wandering about the streets of
A groan from below and a sloshing drew his eyes, drew his attention, and brought Old Sammy to his knees on the sewer grating. He was blocking his own light source, he couldn’t see what was down there, but he had heard it, it was large.
“Alligators?” No. No, probably a homeless person, this damn city had enough of those; ask anyone who’d ever been on the Mall. “Who’s there? Are you alright?” Sammy shifted back from hovering immediately over the grating, allowing a shaft of light from the street lamp to cleave a path through the darkness and cast a bit of illumination onto a hulking, slime-covered creature below. As the creature attempted to rise Sammy noted the humanoid form: the arch of the back under some sever strain, a pair of arms, some matted and filthy dreadlocks. “Hold on, I’ll be right down.” All doubt forgotten. Sammy nearly jumped to his feet and shot his eyes about looking this way and that for the nearest manhole cover and how to get to where that poor man had fallen. The nearest one lay just to the right of him, on the sidewalk next to the grating. With a bit of a strain Sammy had the cover off and was making his way down the wrought iron rungs and into the sewer below. A pair of battered old Florsheim shoes met with the small concrete maintenance walkway and then plunged into the cold, thick, slow moving muck that the man had fallen into.
Sammy reached out and wrapped both of his arms about the man, heaving him onto the walkway belly up. It was dark, really dark but he didn’t feel right to Sammy. It didn’t bother him at that moment though, Sammy wasn’t prone to holding men and so the relative height and generally thin figure of this one didn’t tip him off as odd. He couldn’t see the white eyes or just how long the fingers were or the small triangle teeth that filled the mouth of this Golem. Sammy didn’t know that what he was picking up out of the sludge of the
“Are you all right? Can you walk?” Sammy bombarded the “man” with questions as he hovered over the fallen figure, casting a shadow and further obscuring those features so clearly not human.
“My legs…so cold…please…” Old Sammy was in one tight spot. Heaving the man up by his armpits Sammy hooked his own belt under the man’s arms and threaded his coat through that. It took nearly all the strength that Sammy had to draw the “man” up through the manhole and onto the street through his makeshift belt/trench coat winch system and with him up and out of the muck the pair both lay there panting. Moments passed and Sammy finally gathered himself up and retrieved his belt (his pants were having a terrible time staying up without it) and put his coat over the “man”, gaining Sammy his first really good look at him.
“Oh my god, what are you?” It probably wasn’t the most tact question but in the waves of shock that rolled over Sammy he was surprised that the question wasn’t at least mildly peppered with profanity.
“You…must…help m…” The creature, for Sammy had made up his mind rather quickly that it wasn’t a man, was soaked, with eyes pure white and barely open and when it spoke it betrayed chiselled features and short, sharp, shark-like teeth. One of its arms rose up grasping at air with long, very long, fingers that still maintained a rather high level of muck in places. It took some effort but Sammy shifted his coat from blanket to proper wear over the creature and brought him to his feet, an arm slung over Sammy’s shoulder and Sammy’s own arms about his waist.
“You’re going to have to walk with me, my apartment is only a few blocks from here but I can’t carry you by myself.” The faintest of nods was issued from his injured companion. The injured creature was lucky, this was one of those rare times when the streets of
* * *
Sammy locked the door and hit the lights as he went, bringing the slime covered creature into the living room, the only bit of floor large enough for Sammy to lay him down. There under the lights Sammy was almost as horrified as he was comforted, something deep inside ticked and he knew, he’d found his answer. Through the sludge and muck and slime, the sweat and blood, and the plastered dread locks and scraps of trash that covered this creature, Old Sammy believed he recognized him. He’d seen him those many months ago, in the Townsquare basement.
Sammy wasn’t a medic, he’d had little first aid training, but he was a man, and he had watched his share of Baywatch. He knew he had to be able to identify the problem before he could attempt to help this creature. Sammy set to stripping away the clothing, removing the trench coat and the collection of rags that were soaked in nearly every fluid imaginable and more than a healthy share of slime. And blood, there was a great deal of caked and dried blood located about the lower back. Sammy didn’t realize just how close that was to the creature’s spine, didn’t consider paralysis, rather he heaved the now naked and emaciated body into his arms and carried it to his bath tub where he immersed it the rapidly rising and slightly steaming water. Sammy cut the water off just below the level of the creatures face, and laid him down as best he could, he was a great deal longer than the tub, this creature must have measured a few inches over six and a half feet. With the water working away at the injured one Sammy slipped from the bathroom just long enough to fetch a portable phone and a number he hadn’t dialed in quite some time.
Working in the newspaper business teaches one how to meet people, how to forge contacts in places of importance like police stations…and hospitals. Nicole Kartin. Sammy had taken her out a few times. She was a RN at George Washington Hospital and she had the bad luck of getting stuck working the emergency room often enough to give her a pretty negative outlook of the city. Sammy hadn’t called her in a good while. Jesus, it’d been nearly a year, where the hell had he been? But he had no other choice or so it seemed. It was late too, he was taking one hell of a risk. She’s probably working right now…How the hell do I explain this to her? What do I say? I’ve got some sort of hairless “bigfoot” in my bathtub? But as for ideas on what to do otherwise Sammy was at a loss.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
“Hello?” The voice was distinctly feminine, and sounded very tired.
Sammy choked.
“Hello? Is this some sort of a joke? Don’t you kids every grow up?” Sammy had gotten enough prank phone calls to know that in a few seconds if he didn’t say something the phone was going to be hung up.
“Nicole? It’s Sammy, Sammy Banks.” There was silence on the other end of the line, had she hung up?
“Shit Sammy, do you know what time it is?”
“I’m sorry Nicole, I wouldn’t have called if this weren’t an emergency. I…” The shifting on the other end of the phone sounded a great deal like a woman sitting up in bed. “I’ve got something here, a gun shot wound it looks like.”
“Are you okay?” She was suddenly very awake.
“Yes, yes, it’s not me. I found a…bum, face down in the sewers, I think he was shot in the back.”
“Okay, okay hold on. Did you call the police?” The RN training kicked in and suddenly Nicole Kartin was in control of the situation.
“No. I think that would complicate issues. I don’t know what to do Nicky,” Sammy threw in his pet name for her; it’d been even longer since he’d called her that. The magic that is portable phones had allowed Sammy to drift back into the bathroom where he sat on the John and could keep vigil over the gun shot victim that inhabited his bathtub.
“Alright, we’ll play it your way Sammy. Is he still bleeding? How old is the wound and where exactly is it located?”
Wedging the phone between ear and shoulder Sammy reached down and turned the creature so that his back was in view. The wound was in his back, entering from just above his left hand kidney and lacking an exit wound. The entry hole was swollen and ragged but the water had done wonders cleaning out the caked blood and filth and left a sickly white hole staring up at the ex-intern for the Washington Post. Sammy flexed his reporter skills and informed Nicole of the situation down to the smallest detail.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Grab a toe nail, push down on it so that it’s white and then see how long it takes to turn back to normal.” Sammy did as instructed and pushed down on the overly long toe, watching as he withdrew pressure it go from white to…it didn’t go back to the reddish pink with any sense of speed, the blood flowed back in after a hand full of seemingly long seconds.
“I was afraid of that.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“You’re gun shot victim probably has spinal damage that has paralysed him from the waist down, maybe a bit higher. Has he had any leg movement, kicked his feet or flexed his knees?”
“When I was carrying him back he would help with his feet every so often but not much. Why?”
“I can’t say for sure Sammy…” She trailed off.
“But?”
“But that bullet is probably still settled next to his spine and it pinching the nerve there. He needs to get to a hospital. Now.”
“Nicky that really really isn’t an option. If you knew what I knew you’d understand.”
“Well goddamn Sammy, it’s
“Thanks for your help Nicky.” The click was so much louder than it seemed it should have been.
November 6, 2000
Washington, D.C.
Samuel Bank’s Apartment
Shock was probably the first thing to register on Nathan Wilde’s face when he woke up amazingly clean and wrapped in a thick layer of blanket atop a couch in a rather strange place, a rather human place. The shock was caused by both waking up in strange surroundings and that when he kicked his legs over the couch and onto the floor they didn’t move. Just attempting to sit up shot pain through him. His nostrils tingled, alerting him to the presence of food. It’d been some time since Nathan had eaten, escaping in the sewer’s he’d quickly lost even the strength to catch and eat a rat.
“So you’ve come to.” The voice came from somewhere that Nathan couldn’t see, just out of sight, but the footsteps informed him that someone was indeed coming closer. Nathan steadied himself within, trying to bring upon himself all that diplomatic composure that he knew he had hidden away somewhere within. “I took it upon myself to fix you a little something to eat. I hope you don’t mind scrambled eggs to terribly much. I’m not the best cook and I’m not working with the greatest supplies here.”
A human male with hair peppered dark and grey squatted down in front of where the Golem was laying. He wasn’t afraid. Nathan was.
“Can you sit up?”
“I…no…” The human reached out and very gently raised the Golem to a sitting position; the wing of the couch compensating for the support his legs wouldn’t give him.
“How about your arms? Do they still work?” Both did, as Nathan demonstrated. The plate was placed on his lap then, with a rather large spoon, the kind used to serve salads. The eggs, scrambled and still a bit runny, were nearly pounced upon by Nathan, who discovered that residing in a state of delirium for days at a time does leave someone rather hungry.
The human pulled up a chair and sat and watched. But neither seemed content with the uncomfortable silence and so the human spoke.
“My name’s Samuel, but most people just call me Old Sammy. I…I found you last night and brought you to my apartment. You’re safe here from who ever was chasing you.” His comment made Nathan stop in mid bite, from which he calmly swallowed and replied.
“What makes you think I was being chased?”
“You’ve a bullet lodged in your back, up against your spine that’s paralyzing you from the lower back down. You were running when you were shot. That seems to hint at being chased.” His reply was actually amazingly calm, especially for a human. Nathan decided to attempt to take control of the situation; he continued to eat. As he finished the plate, wiping up all the leftover bits with a piece of white bread he sat the plate down onto the coffee table arranged in front of the couch.
“How did you know I’d speak English?” Nathan popped the question out to the human, to Old Sammy.
“You were speaking in your delirium.” The matter-of-fact nature with which this human treated the situation was unsettling to Nathan. The man should want to know, should be afraid or angry or something. He wasn’t acting human; he was acting civilized and rational.
“My name is Nathan Wilde, I’m what is called a Golem and a great deal of what I’m about to tell you will be difficult to believe but I promise you it is all true.”
November 7, 2000
Location Undisclosed
It was the big day, Election Day, and tomorrow George W. Bush would be given the title of the most powerful elected official in the world. Joanna knew this too, she could feel it in the air, her too perfect ears could hear it, and her too perfect nose could smell it. Her skin, powdered to hide the glimmer, powdered to look human, could feel it dancing across like electricity. With George Bush in office things would be much better for Siren-kind thanks to Ken Morrison. Golems everywhere beware.
“How are the polls looking Jo?” She hated the pet name he had for her, but turning in a wash of brunette locks Joanna turned to face the Republican Party official immediately above her in the party chain of command.
“It’s close Roger, but our man is still on top.”
“On top, just how I like it.”
“Roger…what’s that supposed to mean?” She gave him a seductive grin and he just smiled at her and walked off, a hand stylishly resting in his pocket. No one would ever be able to say that Joanna didn’t know how to play the game. The quite attractive woman with the thick, lush brown hair went back to work.
November 7, 2000
Austin, Texas
The man who’d taken to calling himself Gabriel had a firm grip on the situation in the capital of the Lone Star State. He’d secured himself a box of 20 hand loaded 30.06 rifle rounds and even gone to a rifle range to check the zero on his scope. He was dead on for five hundred meters, which was the approximate distance from the roof of the John H. Regan building to where the grandstands were being erected at the state Capital building.
He’d secured a position from where he could fire. A spot from the Regan building where the massive and majestic looking granite capital building with it’s dome that stretched to over three hundred feet tall splayed out before him. He’d checked with a portable laser the exact range and had everything ready to go. One shot and no more Ken Morrison. The man who called himself Gabriel chuckled as he walked around the capital green, and it’s a good thing that Bush was a Republican or there might be a second shot tomorrow.
The door to his gray 1995 Geo Metro clicking shut behind him and turning back on to Colorado Street the man who called himself Gabriel retreated to his Motel 6 for some much needed sleep.
November 7, 2000
Washington, DC
Nathan Wilde hung up the telephone and looked over at the human named Old Sammy who had been kind enough to let him make a cross country call, not to mention save his life.
“I’ve informed my Siren contact of my current state and of my former partner’s intentions for tomorrow. I guess now we’re left to sit and wait.”
“Bah, I’m unbelievably hungry.”
“I know what you mean. I could certainly go for a good steak.” The Golem’s wish got Sammy to cock an eyebrow in surprise.
“Steak?”
“Oh yes. You don’t think that is a taste limited only to humans do you?”
“No, no. I didn’t really give much thought to what Golems eat, or Sirens for that matter.”
“Remember Ol’ Sammy, we’re not animals, we’re sentient beings just like you.” Sammy just nodded.
“I’m going to run down to the corner deli and bring us back some food, try and keep the fort while I’m gone.”
“Not a problem.”
November 7, 2000
Los Angeles, California
Jules McCleary had a weary look on his face as he once again found himself closing his cell phone and setting it down on his desktop. He’d gotten wind of one Ken Morrison some time ago; he’d had his ear and part of his body in a scheme that was in place to put Mr. Morrison into a place of power. For Jules it wasn’t that he particularly wanted a human with either anti-Golem or pro-Siren views in power, but for him it was a small investment. It didn’t have a terrible chance of blowing up in his face and he did have a shot of it panning out rather nicely. For Jules McCleary seeing Ken Morrison into power had been a chance investment, nothing more, nothing less.
He’d been approached sometime ago and introduced into a small group that was tracking the political movers and shakers of the next election. The group was very secretive, very cloak and dagger. No one knew who was who but they did know that there were others and they did know that someone was pulling the strings behind all of this.
And then the rumours of “Joanna” had begun. A traitor amongst the group, and a Siren that no one had ever heard of. But tonight Jules’s web of contacts and informants had paid off. “Joanna” was a Siren in cahoots with George Pruent, and that was bad. Pruent was an old school Golem, or so Jules had gathered. He wanted the Siren’s gone, removed and he would take some rather extreme positions to do so. And for the world at this point that was bad. George Pruent had hired an assassin and planned to have Ken Morrison killed tomorrow.
Damn it! Jules slammed a fist down and managed to bounce his phone off the desk’s surface nearly an inch. That wasn’t enough time. Saving Ken Morrison’s life would take a miracle.
November 8, 2000
Austin, Texas
“It’s the morning after Election Day and America is left without a President Elect. The state of
The man who called himself Gabriel cursed as he watched the television in his Motel 6 room. Recounts, recounts, recounts. All they kept talking about was recounts. He didn’t have time for this, he had a man to kill.
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