Since his reunion with Dolph Hauser, Harry was learning a great deal about the man. After repeated beatings, the beaten man, if he can keep his senses, will pick up subtle revealing details about the man beating him. Dolph was very controlled and focused. He offered Harry a degree of respect by using his own bare hands. Dolph wasn’t about to leave Harry’s first phase of punishment to one of his unrefined lackeys. The blows were vicious and accurate to maximize pain to the recipient and mitigate possible damage to the dealer. To Harry it seemed each punch was a question Dolph was asking, “If the roles were reversed, Harry, could you match my talent? Could you beat me as well as I’m beating you now?” Harry wasn’t sure he could answer in the affirmative. Harry knew he would have a difficult time holding back from going over the edge as he had many times before. It was a fine art to beat a man to near unconsciousness. After the drugs and intermittent beatings, Harry could sense the end drawing near. There was nothing to say—nothing to divulge. He had nothing to bargain with.
Harry was surprised when Dolph walked into the room not with action but with words.
“You must be wondering why you’re still alive. ‘Why doesn’t he just get on with it and kill me already?’ Honestly, Harry, if you were anyone else, you would be dead as we speak. It would be long and agonizing; of course, you would have to suffer. But eventually, you would be dead.”
“Shucks, Dolph. You really know how to make a guy feel special.”
“That’s just it, Harry. You are special. Of all the people in the world with the gift (and there aren’t that many), you had to be one of them. With your association and our history of quid pro quo aggressions, I have been neglecting one of the most important aspects about you. . . You’re a human being. Here I am, trying to coax out of you intelligence about your association, from which you are, quite obviously now, far removed, and some loose end was preventing me from extinguishing you. Of course I’ve known all along what that loose end is, but I honestly believed I could milk details from you about the organization to which you belong. You’re a tough nut to crack, Harry. I often asked myself, ‘Am I like all those clichéd super villains who define themselves by the existence of their nemeses?’ I’ve killed men for much less than what you took from me.”
Harry began to wonder if Dolph was trying a new interrogation technique. He wondered if he should remain quiet or start telling lies.
“Harry, you’re not my nemesis. You’re the winner of a lottery of sorts. And you’re just a tool to me now. I couldn’t spring this on you all at once. I had to try to break you before allowing you to fulfill your destiny. Indeed, we’ve had our time. Bringing you in was easy. Holding on to you was the hard part. But here we are with all the pieces of the puzzle in place. You’ve had me so flustered, Harry, that I can’t believe how close I’ve come to killing you and squandering your precious DNA.”
Harry’s bewilderment persisted.
“Yes, it’s one of the things we do here. We look for patterns in DNA. We study genealogy. And you, Harry, have a very rare pattern. It happens to be exactly what we’re looking for.”
As he spoke, the amusement on Dolph’s face began to shine. He shook his head.
“Look at me. I’m still laughing about it. I let my emotions get the best of me. Such poor form. Of all the people, Harry. You. Goddamn James Bond.”
“What does my DNA have to do with anything? Don’t tell me I have an increased risk for prostate cancer or something.”
“I believe what you’re about to go through will be worse than death.”
With those words two men wheeled an odd cocoon-shaped capsule into the room. Harry was beginning to understand what Dolph had been alluding to.
Lester noticed a marked change in Dave’s outlook and demeanor since uniting with Vros. Dave had shed the ennui of the past few days for the mantle of urgent determination. Now it was Lester’s turn to be the voice of caution.
“I understand we have to shut this operation down, but the two of us alone can’t just mosey up to them and say, ‘Uh, hey, we’re here to destroy your dimensional portal.’ From what Harry said about the Montana place, they have a little more than a security guard with a walkie-talkie. Give me a little time to muster up some reinforcements, at least.”
“Lester, we don’t have the time. Something has already happened. We need to stop them immediately. Your friend seemed to manage on his own.”
“Harry is a tough cookie, but he also caught ‘em off guard. I don’t think we’ll have that luxury.”
“We’ll pose as clients.”
“I’m 100% positive, we’ve been made already. Unless you’ve got some convincing disguises…”
“Vros is getting impatient with you. It’s time to move.”
“Well, Vros ain’t driving my ass now, is he.”
“Then stay out of our way.”
“What? Are you going to leave me in the middle of the lake?”
“We’ll drop you off at the shore.”
Dave began to steer the boat towards the shore. For the past hour, the two had been scouring the shoreline for signs of an entrance to the subterranean lair. Lester recalled Harry’s descriptions but didn’t know how similar the two locations would be. He had wagered his chances of survival if they found the place to be zero or very close to it.
“Okay, Dave. I want to get these motherfuckers just as much as you now.”
“Are you going to help us?”
“I can’t believe I’m about to do this. You guys better let me visit heaven or whatever it is. I don’t want to say I did this for nothing. Besides. We all know you can’t handle yourself in a violent situation, Dave. Somebody’s got to be there to take care of your ass.”
Dave cracked a smile as Vros’ muscle memory continued to meld with his own.
Pam and Hrel were much further along in the process of symbiosis. After witnessing firsthand the power of Hrel’s ingenuity, her respect for the angel was growing. The two thugs the trio was following, whose lives were forever changed by the uncapped aura of the caduceus, drove to a mooring in one of the northwestern fingers of Lake Cumberland. A sleek hydrofoil rested in the water. The three left the dazed two in their car and boarded.
“Pam, this thing is submersible. The GPS unit has key waypoints saved. What should we do with those two?” Anton nodded his head in the direction of the two thugs.
“Grab them. We’ll probably need them.”
Ivy had been curious about what Pam had done to the two back at the Bullock house. As Anton alighted the boat, Ivy questioned Pam.
“What exactly happened back there? What did you do to them to make them so docile?”
“I really didn’t do much. This little thing a friend of mine cooked up did most of the heavy lifting.” Pam waved the covered caduceus around.
“What the heck is it? Like a taser gun or something?”
“The way my friend explained it to me, it’s a concentrated ball of dark energy. It’s like a mini-black hole. It does some serious shit to your brain waves.”
“So it’s a weapon.”
“It could be. It could be a lot of things.”
“It sounds like something we shouldn’t be using on people.”
“Ivy, give me break. These guys are pawns. They’re going to live to crap another day.”
“They’re still people. I don’t think it’s right.”
“If you want to start calling the shots, be my guest.”
Ru and Hrel could not talk openly. Neither had control of its host, and by their generally loving nature, they refused to pursue the option. But internal dialogs were brewing. Hearing Pam’s description of the device through Ivy’s ears, Ru could tell a forbidden tool was being employed. Could Ru speak face-to-face with Hrel, the conversation would have been similar to the one Pam and Ivy just had. The caduceus was born out of a demonic instrument—an instrument once used to mark demon territory. That an angel had reverse-engineered and created its own was a debasement in Ru’s mind. To Hrel, it was necessary to fight fire with the proverbial fire.
Inside the cocoon, Harry found a not entirely uncomfortable place to rest. Great care was taken in designing a seat that evenly supported every square inch of the body it came in contact with. The sensation was as close to floating in liquid as a seat could achieve. This more than made up for the claustrophobia-inducing nature of the cocoon. Harry would be relaxed for whatever was to come. At least it was a welcome respite from Dolph’s fist.
The metallic cocoon was slowly lowered from a protruding bubble of a room into a pool of water to be grasped by a large robotic arm. The arm slowly moved the cocoon precisely into position amidst an intricate tangle of silicon fiber and advanced circuitry. The arm then released its grip and returned to its original position. Harry was nearly asleep by the end of the process. The lights in the bubble room dimmed, and nearly all energy for the submerged facility was focused to the portal. The coils began to heat up boiling the surrounding water away and drawing up the cooler water from below. Then the dream began for Harry. It seemed like a dream, but somehow it was much more. Harry could never remember being as lucid before as he was just then.
It was as if he himself were floating deep within the lake without drowning, surrounded by a dazzling aurora. A voice that sounded exactly like his own began to speak to him. Harry couldn’t be sure if it was himself or someone else talking. When it came to internal conversations, Harry had always controlled both sides. In this case, the origin of one side was uncertain.
“Haven’t you always wanted to just take control of a situation and get people to do exactly what you need them to do for the situation to turn out just the way you want it to? I mean, you’ve done that kind of thing before, right?”
“What are you talking about? Why am I not thinking this up?”
“I’m asking the questions, Harry?”
“Yeah, but you’re me, right?”
“Come on. Haven’t you ever wanted to run the show? I mean the whole show.”
“I do what I have to in order to get the job done.”
“Yeah, but someone is telling you what to do. Don’t you want to make the decisions? Don’t you want to be the guy in charge sometimes?”
“I think my job allows me plenty of opportunities to create and improvise. Everyone has to answer to someone to certain degree or another.”
“Harry, this isn’t a job interview. I’m telling you I can make it happen for you.”
“You? You mean me?”
“I mean us, Harry. Wouldn’t you like to knock out Dolph, take over his operation, and turn it into something positive? We could really make a change. All those people that listen to really shitty pop music—we could outlaw it. We could kill off the bastards making those abominable sounds.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? I hate shitty music, but we can’t just start killing people for creating it.”
“Okay, bad example. Come on, Harry. Let’s change the world for the better. You just gotta let me in.”
“What do you have to bring to the table? How can you make any difference?”
“Well, I have power. Watch this.”
Harry felt a pain in his head like his skull was being compressed to a smaller volume. It was excruciating.
“Pretty awesome, huh. I can sit here all day doing this if you like.”
“Stop it now!” Harry screamed.
The pain left immediately.
“So we have a deal, eh? We’re a team, right, buddy?”
“I don’t know who you are, but I would never intentionally give myself a headache. You’re definitely not the kind of guy I want on my team.”
“Think about what you’re saying, Harry. Think about what I just did to you. You sure you don’t want to reconsider? I’m telling you, we could have a lot of fun. Don’t you want that kind of power?”
“You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m not a psychopath. I don’t deal with psychopaths. I eliminate them.”
“Good luck, buddy.”
The pain returned to a much greater extent. The pain reached to every extremity of Harry’s body. Harry wanted to die to end it all. He just couldn’t figure out how to off himself in his current state.
A scientist at a control panel in the bubble room looked back at Dolph with a helpless look.
“What? What’s going on?” Dolph was becoming impatient.
“I. I don’t know why it’s taking so long. The last one went by much faster. His vitals are tacking.”
“Keep him in there. It’s going to take, or he’s going to die in the process.”
“Sir, his value...”
“Just keep it going, goddamnit!”
“Yes, sir.”
The torture Harry was enduing now dwarfed the beatings he suffered from Dolph. And then the pain stopped. Harry felt vibrant and euphoric in comparison to the previous sensation.
“So, Harry, what do you think? Are we partners?”
“Fuck off!”
The pain kicked in again.
“I can make it stop, Harry. You just gotta let me.”
Suddenly, after what felt like being sucked through the mesh of the cocoon in all directions, Harry found himself staring directly into the face of a dark wraith of a figure. The figure seemed confused somehow, its attention diverted from Harry. Harry looked around to see a spectacular battle in progress between other wraith-like figures and beings of light. A ball of light rushed towards Harry and slammed into the dark figure before him. This light was different from the other lights. It was dimmer—more earthly. Harry felt genuine warmth from the glow of the light. The light moved closer to Harry, and he began to make out unquestionable yet ethereal distinguishing features from the glow.
“Oh, Harry, you shouldn’t be here,” the glow spoke.
It was his grandmother’s voice. Imogen Turquoise, a recent ascendant, had volunteered to take part in the assault. Her earthly connections were slowly fading, but Harry remained on her mind. She knew how important her grandson would be to the enemy, and she wanted to see personally to the dismantling of all possible portals accessible by the Kra’agnuk. Her outfit had stumbled upon a jump in progress.
“Nana, is that you? What’s going on?”
“Harry, go back. Try to escape from whatever device contains you. I will try to bar the entrance into your soul.”
“But Nana…”
“There’s no time to talk, Harry, please. Do what Nana tells you.”
She had used that same tone she always used with Harry when she wanted him to take her seriously. Harry slowly felt himself reversing course moving away from the battle of shadow and light. He could see his nana standing her ground as wave after wave of shadows attempted to breach the wall she had created with her comrades. Then Harry saw the number of shadows increase as they began to envelope and eclipse her glorious light. Then Harry could see her light no more.
“NO!” he screamed with the pain of losing her all over again.
Harry tried to move back towards the battle when he felt a jarring and painful tug. He was back in the dark cocoon alone.
Harry was surprised when Dolph walked into the room not with action but with words.
“You must be wondering why you’re still alive. ‘Why doesn’t he just get on with it and kill me already?’ Honestly, Harry, if you were anyone else, you would be dead as we speak. It would be long and agonizing; of course, you would have to suffer. But eventually, you would be dead.”
“Shucks, Dolph. You really know how to make a guy feel special.”
“That’s just it, Harry. You are special. Of all the people in the world with the gift (and there aren’t that many), you had to be one of them. With your association and our history of quid pro quo aggressions, I have been neglecting one of the most important aspects about you. . . You’re a human being. Here I am, trying to coax out of you intelligence about your association, from which you are, quite obviously now, far removed, and some loose end was preventing me from extinguishing you. Of course I’ve known all along what that loose end is, but I honestly believed I could milk details from you about the organization to which you belong. You’re a tough nut to crack, Harry. I often asked myself, ‘Am I like all those clichéd super villains who define themselves by the existence of their nemeses?’ I’ve killed men for much less than what you took from me.”
Harry began to wonder if Dolph was trying a new interrogation technique. He wondered if he should remain quiet or start telling lies.
“Harry, you’re not my nemesis. You’re the winner of a lottery of sorts. And you’re just a tool to me now. I couldn’t spring this on you all at once. I had to try to break you before allowing you to fulfill your destiny. Indeed, we’ve had our time. Bringing you in was easy. Holding on to you was the hard part. But here we are with all the pieces of the puzzle in place. You’ve had me so flustered, Harry, that I can’t believe how close I’ve come to killing you and squandering your precious DNA.”
Harry’s bewilderment persisted.
“Yes, it’s one of the things we do here. We look for patterns in DNA. We study genealogy. And you, Harry, have a very rare pattern. It happens to be exactly what we’re looking for.”
As he spoke, the amusement on Dolph’s face began to shine. He shook his head.
“Look at me. I’m still laughing about it. I let my emotions get the best of me. Such poor form. Of all the people, Harry. You. Goddamn James Bond.”
“What does my DNA have to do with anything? Don’t tell me I have an increased risk for prostate cancer or something.”
“I believe what you’re about to go through will be worse than death.”
With those words two men wheeled an odd cocoon-shaped capsule into the room. Harry was beginning to understand what Dolph had been alluding to.
---
Lester noticed a marked change in Dave’s outlook and demeanor since uniting with Vros. Dave had shed the ennui of the past few days for the mantle of urgent determination. Now it was Lester’s turn to be the voice of caution.
“I understand we have to shut this operation down, but the two of us alone can’t just mosey up to them and say, ‘Uh, hey, we’re here to destroy your dimensional portal.’ From what Harry said about the Montana place, they have a little more than a security guard with a walkie-talkie. Give me a little time to muster up some reinforcements, at least.”
“Lester, we don’t have the time. Something has already happened. We need to stop them immediately. Your friend seemed to manage on his own.”
“Harry is a tough cookie, but he also caught ‘em off guard. I don’t think we’ll have that luxury.”
“We’ll pose as clients.”
“I’m 100% positive, we’ve been made already. Unless you’ve got some convincing disguises…”
“Vros is getting impatient with you. It’s time to move.”
“Well, Vros ain’t driving my ass now, is he.”
“Then stay out of our way.”
“What? Are you going to leave me in the middle of the lake?”
“We’ll drop you off at the shore.”
Dave began to steer the boat towards the shore. For the past hour, the two had been scouring the shoreline for signs of an entrance to the subterranean lair. Lester recalled Harry’s descriptions but didn’t know how similar the two locations would be. He had wagered his chances of survival if they found the place to be zero or very close to it.
“Okay, Dave. I want to get these motherfuckers just as much as you now.”
“Are you going to help us?”
“I can’t believe I’m about to do this. You guys better let me visit heaven or whatever it is. I don’t want to say I did this for nothing. Besides. We all know you can’t handle yourself in a violent situation, Dave. Somebody’s got to be there to take care of your ass.”
Dave cracked a smile as Vros’ muscle memory continued to meld with his own.
---
Pam and Hrel were much further along in the process of symbiosis. After witnessing firsthand the power of Hrel’s ingenuity, her respect for the angel was growing. The two thugs the trio was following, whose lives were forever changed by the uncapped aura of the caduceus, drove to a mooring in one of the northwestern fingers of Lake Cumberland. A sleek hydrofoil rested in the water. The three left the dazed two in their car and boarded.
“Pam, this thing is submersible. The GPS unit has key waypoints saved. What should we do with those two?” Anton nodded his head in the direction of the two thugs.
“Grab them. We’ll probably need them.”
Ivy had been curious about what Pam had done to the two back at the Bullock house. As Anton alighted the boat, Ivy questioned Pam.
“What exactly happened back there? What did you do to them to make them so docile?”
“I really didn’t do much. This little thing a friend of mine cooked up did most of the heavy lifting.” Pam waved the covered caduceus around.
“What the heck is it? Like a taser gun or something?”
“The way my friend explained it to me, it’s a concentrated ball of dark energy. It’s like a mini-black hole. It does some serious shit to your brain waves.”
“So it’s a weapon.”
“It could be. It could be a lot of things.”
“It sounds like something we shouldn’t be using on people.”
“Ivy, give me break. These guys are pawns. They’re going to live to crap another day.”
“They’re still people. I don’t think it’s right.”
“If you want to start calling the shots, be my guest.”
Ru and Hrel could not talk openly. Neither had control of its host, and by their generally loving nature, they refused to pursue the option. But internal dialogs were brewing. Hearing Pam’s description of the device through Ivy’s ears, Ru could tell a forbidden tool was being employed. Could Ru speak face-to-face with Hrel, the conversation would have been similar to the one Pam and Ivy just had. The caduceus was born out of a demonic instrument—an instrument once used to mark demon territory. That an angel had reverse-engineered and created its own was a debasement in Ru’s mind. To Hrel, it was necessary to fight fire with the proverbial fire.
---
Inside the cocoon, Harry found a not entirely uncomfortable place to rest. Great care was taken in designing a seat that evenly supported every square inch of the body it came in contact with. The sensation was as close to floating in liquid as a seat could achieve. This more than made up for the claustrophobia-inducing nature of the cocoon. Harry would be relaxed for whatever was to come. At least it was a welcome respite from Dolph’s fist.
The metallic cocoon was slowly lowered from a protruding bubble of a room into a pool of water to be grasped by a large robotic arm. The arm slowly moved the cocoon precisely into position amidst an intricate tangle of silicon fiber and advanced circuitry. The arm then released its grip and returned to its original position. Harry was nearly asleep by the end of the process. The lights in the bubble room dimmed, and nearly all energy for the submerged facility was focused to the portal. The coils began to heat up boiling the surrounding water away and drawing up the cooler water from below. Then the dream began for Harry. It seemed like a dream, but somehow it was much more. Harry could never remember being as lucid before as he was just then.
It was as if he himself were floating deep within the lake without drowning, surrounded by a dazzling aurora. A voice that sounded exactly like his own began to speak to him. Harry couldn’t be sure if it was himself or someone else talking. When it came to internal conversations, Harry had always controlled both sides. In this case, the origin of one side was uncertain.
“Haven’t you always wanted to just take control of a situation and get people to do exactly what you need them to do for the situation to turn out just the way you want it to? I mean, you’ve done that kind of thing before, right?”
“What are you talking about? Why am I not thinking this up?”
“I’m asking the questions, Harry?”
“Yeah, but you’re me, right?”
“Come on. Haven’t you ever wanted to run the show? I mean the whole show.”
“I do what I have to in order to get the job done.”
“Yeah, but someone is telling you what to do. Don’t you want to make the decisions? Don’t you want to be the guy in charge sometimes?”
“I think my job allows me plenty of opportunities to create and improvise. Everyone has to answer to someone to certain degree or another.”
“Harry, this isn’t a job interview. I’m telling you I can make it happen for you.”
“You? You mean me?”
“I mean us, Harry. Wouldn’t you like to knock out Dolph, take over his operation, and turn it into something positive? We could really make a change. All those people that listen to really shitty pop music—we could outlaw it. We could kill off the bastards making those abominable sounds.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? I hate shitty music, but we can’t just start killing people for creating it.”
“Okay, bad example. Come on, Harry. Let’s change the world for the better. You just gotta let me in.”
“What do you have to bring to the table? How can you make any difference?”
“Well, I have power. Watch this.”
Harry felt a pain in his head like his skull was being compressed to a smaller volume. It was excruciating.
“Pretty awesome, huh. I can sit here all day doing this if you like.”
“Stop it now!” Harry screamed.
The pain left immediately.
“So we have a deal, eh? We’re a team, right, buddy?”
“I don’t know who you are, but I would never intentionally give myself a headache. You’re definitely not the kind of guy I want on my team.”
“Think about what you’re saying, Harry. Think about what I just did to you. You sure you don’t want to reconsider? I’m telling you, we could have a lot of fun. Don’t you want that kind of power?”
“You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m not a psychopath. I don’t deal with psychopaths. I eliminate them.”
“Good luck, buddy.”
The pain returned to a much greater extent. The pain reached to every extremity of Harry’s body. Harry wanted to die to end it all. He just couldn’t figure out how to off himself in his current state.
A scientist at a control panel in the bubble room looked back at Dolph with a helpless look.
“What? What’s going on?” Dolph was becoming impatient.
“I. I don’t know why it’s taking so long. The last one went by much faster. His vitals are tacking.”
“Keep him in there. It’s going to take, or he’s going to die in the process.”
“Sir, his value...”
“Just keep it going, goddamnit!”
“Yes, sir.”
The torture Harry was enduing now dwarfed the beatings he suffered from Dolph. And then the pain stopped. Harry felt vibrant and euphoric in comparison to the previous sensation.
“So, Harry, what do you think? Are we partners?”
“Fuck off!”
The pain kicked in again.
“I can make it stop, Harry. You just gotta let me.”
Suddenly, after what felt like being sucked through the mesh of the cocoon in all directions, Harry found himself staring directly into the face of a dark wraith of a figure. The figure seemed confused somehow, its attention diverted from Harry. Harry looked around to see a spectacular battle in progress between other wraith-like figures and beings of light. A ball of light rushed towards Harry and slammed into the dark figure before him. This light was different from the other lights. It was dimmer—more earthly. Harry felt genuine warmth from the glow of the light. The light moved closer to Harry, and he began to make out unquestionable yet ethereal distinguishing features from the glow.
“Oh, Harry, you shouldn’t be here,” the glow spoke.
It was his grandmother’s voice. Imogen Turquoise, a recent ascendant, had volunteered to take part in the assault. Her earthly connections were slowly fading, but Harry remained on her mind. She knew how important her grandson would be to the enemy, and she wanted to see personally to the dismantling of all possible portals accessible by the Kra’agnuk. Her outfit had stumbled upon a jump in progress.
“Nana, is that you? What’s going on?”
“Harry, go back. Try to escape from whatever device contains you. I will try to bar the entrance into your soul.”
“But Nana…”
“There’s no time to talk, Harry, please. Do what Nana tells you.”
She had used that same tone she always used with Harry when she wanted him to take her seriously. Harry slowly felt himself reversing course moving away from the battle of shadow and light. He could see his nana standing her ground as wave after wave of shadows attempted to breach the wall she had created with her comrades. Then Harry saw the number of shadows increase as they began to envelope and eclipse her glorious light. Then Harry could see her light no more.
“NO!” he screamed with the pain of losing her all over again.
Harry tried to move back towards the battle when he felt a jarring and painful tug. He was back in the dark cocoon alone.
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