ASCENSION Page 4

  Jake checked the clock on his phone. It was time. He slipped on his shirt and overcoat, checking to see if anyone was watching. There wasn't a single soul. They were all still drinking and gambling. Even as Jake started up Shamus's rusty old pickup truck, he knew no one would be able to hear him. Then he slipped off into the night, bound for some diner in the city. That's where the man met his clients. He was Jake's last hope for freedom.

  “Hey, watch it!” Jake growled at some girl who bumped into him on his way into the diner. She had been in such a hurry she had practically run him over.

  “Sorry,” she said dismissively, and disappeared.

  Jake shook his head and sat down in the left hand corner, away from the windows, just like the man had asked.

  “Jake?” a voice hissed. It nearly made Jake jump out of his skin. The man who asked was sitting in the booth behind him.

  “Yeah nice t-”

  “Don't turn around!” the man hissed.

  “Oh, sorry,” Jake said.

  “Yeah, save it. Here's how it works, kid. You leave the envelope with the money under a cup of black coffee, and I leave you a napkin with an address scribbled on it. Understand?”

  “Well, that doesn't seem like a very good deal,” Jake mused aloud.

  “Nobody likes a wise guy, kid. I've got other offers, you know. My van's practically full as it is.”

  “Okay, okay!” Jake said. “Relax. I was just kidding. So, where exactly is the drop off point once we pass the border?”

  “Ever hear of a place called Toronto, kid?” Jake couldn't see the man, but he could hear the smile in his voice. “Hope you like the cold.”

  Chapter 3

  (Sophie)

  Sophie shivered as the arctic wind pierced her coat and slithered down her back. The land was blanketed in snow. Swirls of it were being kicked into the air by the wind, creating a frosty fog that nibbled at Sophie's nose, the only real skin left exposed by her massive parka.

  Sophie looked up. The snow-dusted tavern in front of her was called The Frozen Tusk. A strange name, but not an uncommon one for Canada. Sophie slipped inside, thankful for the warm air, even if it did carry the odor of scotch and cigars with it.

  Sophie let her hood down and grabbed a seat at the bar. The gruff bartender had salt and pepper stubble on his face. His eyes sagged and were bloodshot, weary, like an old dog. He watched Sophie warily. Somehow, she didn't think they got too many female customers here.

  “You need sumtin’?” the bartender asked. Sophie caught a glimpse of the calendar behind him. It was her birthday, she realized. A whole year had passed since she left the orphanage. She had spent all that time traveling from place to place, seeing the world. Just as she had always wanted. Living life one lottery ticket at a time. It was a hard life, harsh, and it was getting harder. The other day she had lost. She picked the wrong lottery ticket. Her visions were also getting fewer and farther between. They used to be so close to the surface, pulsating, yearning for freedom. Now it seemed as if scarcely any remained. As if it had withered and died inside of her.

  Night, however, was a different story. She kept having the same dream, a whispering window, warnings of darkness descending. Each time she would plead with herself not to go towards the window, not to get in reach of those flailing drapes. She would, though, every time, and every time, they would strangle her, and she would feel the pain of it. Sophie would be forced to watch, as if it were a world away. She hadn't had a good night’s sleep in days, and dreaded the darkness.

  “You hard on hearing? I said, do you need sumtin'?” the bartender growled.

  Sophie snapped out of her trance. “Just water, please,” she said, feigning a smile. The bartender grimaced but filled her glass. As she touched it, though, several visions bombarded her. The glass had changed over twenty hands in the past two days and had never once been cleaned. Then she got a vision of one man slobbering into it as he hunched over the bar in a drunken stupor. Sophie pushed it away, but her throat was so dry, and her lips so cracked. She pushed the vision out of her head and drank down the cool water greedily.

  “Where you coming from?” the bartender asked.

  Sophie finished the glass in one gulp, sighing in satisfaction. She shrugged. “All over.”

  The bartender took her glass and refilled it. “I hear that a lot around here. Do you have any idea where you are right now?”

  Sophie gave the bartender a curious look. “I'm at the Frozen Tush, a bar in Ontario,” she responded.

  The bartender cackled, revealing a row of broken and rotten teeth. “This taint just a bar, girlie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The bartender nodded towards a room in the back. “Why don't you go find out yourself?”

  Sophie looked warily at the bartender, then back at the room, where uproars kept rising and falling like a tide.

  “I'd hurry.” the bartender said with a sly smirk. “You're about to miss the main event.”

  A cold fear sat in the pit of Sophie's stomach. There was something foreboding about that room. It held a certain energy. What she had come to know as a fate flux. A fate flux was a point of causality that was uncertain, a junction of two timelines, where they directly intersect. That was why Sophie's powers were so limited. There was no way of knowing what timeline she was witnessing, what fragment of the space-time continuum her vision brought her. So it was her certainty of the future that made it uncertain, even for her. Just by seeing the future she could be altering it, or causing it. The thought made her dizzy so often she quit considering it.

  The visions of him, though, had come so often, so intensely. She was certain this was the timeline her mystery man was in. She could feel the weight of the fates. The god of time was kick-starting something into motion, turning the cogs of bigger machinery. She had felt it for months now. Something massive was coming, slowly but surely, like a meteorite sailing towards Earth. But there was no way of knowing if it was good or bad. Sophie only was certain that things were soon to change, and drastically. At the epicenter of it all, there her mystery man was, holding together the strands of fate. They were pulling him in all directions.

  Then a thought struck Sophie. He was here at this very moment. She was sure of it now. Though, she had felt that feeling once before, in a diner in Michigan. She had been wrong then. Too many visions of him had obscured the timeline, making it harder to follow. The more she saw, the less she knew.

  Finally, Sophie let out a big sigh. There was only one way to truly know what awaited her.

  “Good luck,” the bartender said with a toothless grin.

  As Sophie passed the threshold, the air itself got heavier. With it came the stench of sweat, and something coppery, like blood. A smell that comes from too many bodies in too small of a room. There was shouting, too, from a cluster of men in the center of the room, chanting and yammering.

  Sophie stepped on top of a chair by the wall so she could see over the crowd. A burly, bearded man with a barrel chest and a beer belly was heaving, a trickle of blood running from his lip to his matted beard. A jolt of electricity ran through Sophie as she recognized the face. It was the murderer, the man who buries the stranger.

  Across from the bearded man, a younger one with dark hair and a square jaw was kneeling, his lean, muscular body coated in sweat, glistening under the flickering Kerosene lanterns. That's when Sophie realized what the crowd was chanting.

  “Kill! Kill! Kill!” the crowd roared as the bearded man approached, his eyes bulging and his fists curled.

  The younger man was still kneeling, clutching his ribs, which Sophie realized were black and blue. Panic fluttered in her gut. Then, unprovoked, the young man looked directly at her, his ice blue eyes freezing her solid. There was no mistaking those eyes. It was him, the man from her visions. All that searching had finally led her to him, and now he was going to die, right in front of her eyes. She was too late.

  The bearded man buried his boot in the boy's ribs. There
was a sickening crunch, and Sophie's mystery man collapsed and the crowd roared. “Stop!” Sophie screamed, trying to push past the wall of shirtless men, the mountain of mass. “Stop!” she screamed again when she finally broke free from the crowd into the makeshift arena.

  “Get out of the way, girl,” the bearded man growled.

  Sophie felt the warmth of tears streaming down her cheeks. “No, you'll kill him.”

  “You too!” the man said, shoving Sophie aside with remarkable strength. Sophie crashed into the thrashing crowd, being swallowed up by the angry masses...

  ***

  (Jake)

  Sweet surrender. It was so close now. The savage, cold, and cruel world was fading in front of him. The beast of a man over him was breathing heavily, hammering into the back of his head. Jake could hardly feel the blows anymore, only a narcotic warmth creeping from his stomach to his chest. There was no rage this time, no compulsion for retribution. The beast inside had abandoned him. It was finally over. Finally.

  Then he heard it, just as he was about to rest. It was crisp, so audible all the other noises were muted by it. It was a cry, a woman's cry. The sound carried a purity to it he had never felt before. It stirred something inside of him. The pinching pain of his cracked ribs ceased, and suddenly, he felt strong again, like hammered steel. Then, the sounds of the world came rushing back. The pain, though, the pain was gone. Jake opened his eyes, and jumped to his feet.

  “Stay down, boy,” the bearded man grumbled. “No shame in losing. I've given bigger men less of a beating and they didn't get to walk away from it either. Count your blessings.”

  Jake pointed to the crowd. “I just want the girl. You can keep your winnings.” Jake started to walk out of the ring towards the outcry. A large man stepped in front of him, folding his arms.

  “Get out of my way,” Jake warned. He felt the fire inside him gurgle. The man did not budge.

  “The fight's not over!” a skinny man said, waving a wad of money. “I've got two weeks’ wages riding on this, boy! You know the rules, Ben: it ain't over ‘til one of ‘em gives up or can't get up.”

  Jake heard the girl scream once more. Two liquor-sodden men were pulling at her clothing, cackling all the way.

  “Give us a little look, just a peek,” one said.

  “Girls like that don't just give looks. They like for you to take them,” the other man said, his eyes glimmering greedily.

  Jake could feel the ill intentions of the men around her. It ate at him like an acid. He was running out of time.

  Jake pushed past the man in front of him, then felt a fist crash into his chin, splitting open his lip. The copper twang of blood rushed into his mouth. Jake tensed up, waiting for the inner animal to come unshackled, but it did not. Instead, Jake struck out with his own fist, not the monster's. Perhaps it had been his imagination, but Jake had sworn the fist he threw was glowing. The strike was solid, landing perfectly centered on the side of the tall man's head. The man collapsed into a heap. The crowd fell into a hushed awe. “Move!” Ezekiel barked, and the crowd obeyed, parting wordlessly.

  “Get off of me!” the girl cried as Jake approached. The man tugging at her shirt only laughed. As Jake went to grab him, however, the girl picked up a bottle off of a nearby table and cracked the man across the face with it. The man cursed and staggered backwards.

  “She broke my nose!” he choked out through tears. “She smashed it all to hell!”

  “Touch me again and I'll break more than that!” the girl spat. Her ferocity impressed Jake. She was a fighter too, but of a different caliber. Her skin was glowing like the full moon. Staring at her, Jake had almost forgotten what he was doing.

  “Someone ought to teach you some manners!” the other drunk said, striking at her with the back of his hand. Jake stepped in and caught the man's hand mid-air. The moment their skin made contact, Jake nearly doubled over. He could feel the blackness inside the man. It was sticky and thick, like tar. The darkness clung to his soul, made Jake want to vomit. It sapped him of strength.

  “Y-you are filled with sin.” Jake said, recoiling from the man's touch.

  The two drunks looked at each other strangely, then back to Jake. “What are you, mah preacher?” Jake ignored the man.

  “Just leave the girl be, and we have no qualm.” Jake beckoned to the girl, who came running to his side. He looked into her mahogany eyes, finding a warmth he had never known before. It felt peaceful, as if the forces inside of him had balanced out, if only briefly.

  “What is your name?” he asked dimly.

  “Sophie.” she said.

  Her voice was melodic and melancholy, like a violin. Her smile was sweet and simple, genuine. It was mesmerizing, so much so that it would have been impossible to see the knife being plunged into his stomach. He felt it though, the point, and the warmth of his own blood. Then he heard a distant scream before everything faded to black.

  Chapter 4

  (Jake)

  Jake awoke. He was coated in sweat, which caused the thin sheets to cling to his bare chest. “Sophie!” he said, lurching forward.

  “I'm right here,” the angel said. Jake felt instant relief when he saw her. Her dark hair and pale skin, and her eyes. They soothed him, like balm over a wound. Then he remembered the knife. Jake ran his hand over his stomach, but found it blemish-free. There was no wound, no blood, not even a scar. Had he dreamed the whole thing?

  Sophie must have seen the confusion on his face because she began to explain. “It was a miracle,” she said. “The man I hit with the bottle, he sneaked up behind you with a blade. When I saw the wound, I thought...” she paused. “But the bearded man you were fighting scared the drunks off. He brought us here, said his friend was a doctor. He didn't murder you, he helped you,” she said.

  “Where's here?” Jake croaked. His throat was parched.

  “Ben's house. That's the bearded man's name. He's a really nice man. He gave me some of his wife's old clothes, said we could stay here as long as we needed. But nobody expected you to get better so soon, or at all, really.”

  Jake jumped out of bed and looked out the window. “Where is he now?” he asked suspiciously.

  Sophie shrugged, taking a sip of something warm in her mug. “Hot chocolate?” she offered.

  Jake shook his head. “No, I need to leave, now!” He made a beeline for the door.

  “Leave?” Sophie asked, shocked. “Why? You're safe now. What's the rush? Ben doesn't mind, really. It's just him and his two kids here. Zack and Mary. They're both adorable.”

  “There are children here!” Jake said in outrage. This was a nightmare. “What was he thinking?”

  Sophie frowned. “He was helping us. He even said he wouldn't tell anyone about the...”

  “The what?” Jake urged.

  “Miracle.”

  “Stop saying that word,” Jake barked. It was annoying him.

  “It really was, though. This wasn't some drop of holy water and weird dancing, no magic trick. It was a real miracle. We both saw it. Your skin mended itself, with a white light, made you whole again. It was amazing.”

  Jake's stomach turned. Every time someone saw his secret, something bad would happen. They would find him. Track the rumors to the source. Nothing would stop them. And if the children were here when they found him... Jake became dizzy. “Where is Ben now?” Jake asked.

  Sophie frowned. “His wife's grave. He thinks his wife healed you, her spirit.”

  Jake closed the blinds and sighed. “Has anyone else been here? A mailman, a gardener? Anyone?”

  Sophie shook her head. “No, just me, Ben, and the doctor, of course.”

  “The doctor! We have to go. The faster we leave, the less danger this man and his family will be in,” Jake said.

  “Danger? What are you talking about?” Sophie asked. She looked scared, confused.

  Jake found a shirt, a thick wool one. It was going to be a cold, long walk. “Gather your things and dress warm. We're leav
ing.

  “W-what? No,” Sophie stammered. “I'm not going anywhere, not until you tell me what's going on.”

  Jake sighed, exasperated. “They will find out we are here, if they don't already know, and when they do, nothing will stand in their way. NOTHING.”

  “Who?”

  “I'll explain later. Right now we need to stay as far away from here as possible, and pray our trace dissipates before they arrive. That's the only chance Ben's family has now.”

  “Trace? Are you a crazy person?” Sophie yelled.

  “Come on.” Jake grabbed Sophie by the collar.

  “Stop! I'm not leaving,” Sophie insisted.

  Jake let her go. “Fine, stay. Just know that when they come, what they do is your fault. I hope you can live with that, because I couldn't.”

  “Why do I have to go? No one is looking for me,” Sophie said.

  “You carry the mana's mark, too. I can feel it. It's the curse of the gods. They can sense it, too. And so long as you possess your power, whatever it may be, they will be able to hunt you. So we have to go now, they are coming. Do you understand?” Jake urged her to get up, extending a hand.