"Why me?" Andrea heard herself ask, furious at the warm trail of tears she felt finally spill out and trickle down her cheek.
"Awww, none of that now, darlin'. Listen, no hard feelings, promise. It's business, a man's gotta eat, not all of us are so clever as to get into some fancy school."
"If its money that you want, why can't you just use the fog to get it from some rich people?" she asked, ashamed of the fact that she was a few minutes away from begging for her life.
He laughed, "Can't, rules against all that."
That made her angry to hear, that this sicko was willing to follow rules but was amid kidnapping her to murder, "But what about kidnapping teenage girls to feed to your… whatever the fuck it's called."
"Can, no rules against all that." He laughed, looking at her through the rear-view mirror, "Not particularly encouraged 'round our circles, I won't lie. But it's a necessary evil, ya see. People who're touched by the source, out in the wild… they can be a lil dangerous to leave out there."
I'm…. touched?
She realized that her phone was still in hand, her message to her mother still unsent. Andrea repeatedly hit the delete button and typed in 'help, source-feeder took me.' behind her back, pressing send and hoping against hope that she'd be able to find her.
"Julian will find me…." She played her penultimate trump card, the one that did not make her look like a pathetic child operating way over her head. That did make him hesitate a moment before he finally just shrugged at her, "I'mma heavyweight, say so wit absolute confidence. But that fella! Damn me if he ain't just all together a different class. Still, even he ain't so heavy as to get all the way out here in time, gots me a man in Tennessee whose stallin' him."
He drove for a handful more minutes before he began to slow down, "This is a good enough place, I think."
He pulled the car over in some other neighborhood that Andrea knew to be Fairbanks, an upper-class residence that she drove by often, either with an uber or Kaala's dad dropping them off.
"Out." He said, giving her the time to type in Fairbanks before closing her phone and putting it in her pocket, getting out of the car and closing the door behind her. For a second, she was tempted to take her chances and run but thought better of it. He'd just freeze her in place again and kill her quicker; she needed to buy some time if a rescue was on its way.
"If money is what you want, then I can probably get you that cash." She offered, watching him take a seat on the sidewalk. He pulled out a cigarette and put the opposite of the bud end in his mouth before pulling it out, the end smoking. He took a drag and held it out to offer it to Andrea, who shook her head.
"Good call. I plan to get this done by the time I'm done this here cig, all you'd be doin' is quickenin' ya death."
"Could say the same about you and smoking." Andrea muttered, surprisingly calm, about her impending doom. That made him laugh, but not the kind of evil or maniacal laughter she was used to from him, it was a lot more real and genuine, more emphasis on the 'man' rather than the 'hooded' part.
He stood and wiped his hand on his camo-pants before stretching out his head, "I know it ain't conventional doin' things in this order but…. I'm Jeremiah Rigs."
She sighed and shook the hand, it was shockingly cold, "Andrea Bordeaux, but you already knew that."
He rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged, "Yeah well… part of the job. Ya got any questions 'fore we do this thing?"
She had a million, but resolved herself to just this one, "Can you just use some superpower of yours to keep me sleeping when you take me to this Source thing to be fed? I don't want to die…. Afraid, I guess."
He sighed and nodded his head, "Fair, fair. Ya know, this was a lot easier when you were just some preppy kid from a fancy school. That'away I could blame it on the Gods 'n some bad luck…."
She sat on the sidewalk and took the cigarette from his mouth, a part of her wanting to get this over and done with sooner. Andrea took her first pull of a cigarette and instantly regretted it, coughing up the smoke that her burned her, her mouth now tasting like she'd had an ashtray for dinner and was burping the taste back up. He clapped her back lightly to help her before she could finally take a deep inhale, "Hey, want to know something dumb?"
He took back the cigarette and smiled, "Sure."
"I was going to attack you, but like…. with Latin, or some shit like that."
He chuckled without malice, "Still can, if ya wanna give it a go?"
Andrea outstretched her palm towards him, "In infernis ardefet!"
That made him laugh even more, "You're a hoot, Andrea Bordeaux. But no, that wasn't gonna work on me none, sorry."
She sighed and shrugged, "I know, I know. A hail mary. I don't even know if I got superpowers like that."
"Magic."
"Huh?"
He took off his shades, and the green eyes that looked like a raging fire that threatened to burn everything around them the last time she saw them, looked like a cool pool of water now.
"It ain't superpowers, like in 'em marvelous movies. It's magic, energy we take from the source 'n use out here in the real world."
"Huh…." Was all she could say, still a little proud of herself for having figured it out, "And how come I can't do magic? Since I'm touched."
"No manifestation symbol." He said, taking his last pull before throwing the bud down and stepping on it, the smoke exhaled into the air, several feet high, "Partin' gift, so I'll show ya. Revelate…"
Andrea watched in awe as he snapped his fingers and a book appeared in that very same hand, a book of black that had a weird rune on its cover, the rune moved and flowed as if a stream of lava formed the shape, "I'mma show ya the big one. It's called Ingressum in anima, entry into the soul. Ain't nothin' in the arsenal that hit like this one, darlin', I tell ya what."
Andrea felt tears stinging her eyes again, the world of magic had been there the entire time, a whole new world that could have been one she knew and explored herself, but was teased and shown to her, kept at bay just enough to bring her in to fuel it.
This could've been me, she thought, staring at a now standing Jeremiah, brimming and glowing with a red and orange aura that had once been frightening and terrible to her, but was now the most beautiful thing that Andrea had ever seen.
"Would you allow me into yours?" she whispered, and he nodded his head, "A fair final request. If I'mma show ya somethin', might as well be fantastic. Fumus salutat eos qui caput ilico ubi draco dormit, ma animus!"
There was a sizzling sound, like if someone dropped some butter in a hot pan, before the world darkened and was reborn within the blink of an eye.
Andrea stood up, the heat from beneath her had her sweating, and the sidewalk that she had been sitting on was now a row of brimstone. Steam was everywhere, and the beautiful houses that had been behind them were replaced by hordes of gold and silver stacked into piles several times her height. She looked back at him and gasped, seeing a dragon standing behind him as tall as a house, its golden slit-eyes staring at her. His own eyes looked much the same, and his forked tongue, now as long as her forearm, flicked out of his mouth to taste the air.
"Welcome to my sssoul, Andrea Bordeaux." He hissed, the red dragon behind him speaking as one, "It'sss time to go to ssssleep now, darlin'."
She closed her eyes, the tears flowing again but this time they were accompanied by a smile on her face, the heat was not overwhelming, but rather soothing and warming to her spirit. Like a warm bath after a long and col day. If she had to go, Andrea could not imagine a better way than this.
"Judicium! Squamae nihil sciunt nisi fas et nefas, notre animus!"
Andrea opened her eyes, hearing a gavel come down three times, and the world turned and changed once more. She now stood in front of a crowd of people with no faces, silhouettes that moved and acted like people, dressed in clothes straight out of some movie set in the Antebellum south. In the background were sloping hills covered in fields of golden wheat and barley, some had the brown rows of soil specked green with cabbages and carrot tops and lettuce.
In the far-off distance were the silhouettes of small buildings. She turned her eyes to face where the crowd was pointed at, and Andrea gasped, watching Jeremiah strain to fight against the noose that a group of large shadows was maneuvering around his neck, "What in the hell?!" he shouted, his words struggling to come out of his mouth as the noose tightened round his own neck, his face quickly turning red as his veins popped out against his skin.
The crowd began to cheer as a boy and his father took up the other end of the rope and threw it over a tree branch, waiting for Jeremiah to be forced on a milk crate as they went about tying the other end of the rope around the base of the tree until Jeremiah was forced up onto his toes to stop the choking, the cheering becoming ever louder as Andrea felt a hand wrap around her shoulders. She looked up to see her grandmother, dressed in a beautiful dress of black, the same type of attire that the shadows in the crowd wore, "Granny…."
Her grandmother looked down at her, the opposite of what she had looked like the last time Andrea had seen her before her passing, three whole years ago. She was younger, more refreshed and…. Powerful. Andrea could feel it standing next to her, her knees began to shake, and she felt a queasiness come over her that almost made her hunch over.
"Be strong." Her grandmother told her, and Andrea nodded her head, straining to stand up straight. Were it not for her grandmother's words, Andrea would have passed out from seeing her mother stood up on top of a dais, dressed in a strange hybrid of 18th century wear and Africanized clothing. Her crowning black hair was furrowed into a tail so that the spread out around her head like a peacock's tail, and around her head sat a bronze circlet that shone brightly and coupled well with her complexion and eyes.
None of the fatigue Andrea had noted earlier on was present, and she was in fact the opposite, strong and powerful, that face now had a crescent moon made from white and black dots that formed a semi-circle in the middle of her forehead. From her ears dangled earrings with small tusks carved out of bone tied to the end, and around her neck was another bronze band that did not quite close and meet. From the neck down was a black dress that looked the same 1700's style as her grandmother's, except that it was patterned like the webs of a spider, meeting in the middle of her chest where a brochure of the fleur-de-lis was outlined. But for as strange as it was to see her mother like that, the man sat upon the wooden throne was far and away the creepiest thing that Andrea had ever seen. He was dressed in nothing but a piece of cloth held down around his waist by some hemp rope. His long abdomen had ribs poking through skin that was flaky and dry and dirty, and his long arms, all four of them, seemed able to reach out anywhere and grab anything he so desired. He had as many legs as he did arms, and his neck was just as queerly long, resulting in a round head that had a hideous face upon it, his beard was scruffy and his oily hair was a mess of knots and curls that had feathers and leaves sticking out of it. But none of it, not the eight limbs or hideous face or Cheshire cat smile that was filled with rotting teeth, was as upsetting as the many eyes that dotted his face, black empty orbs that had a gleam in them, and even though there were no irises in sight, Andrea could not shake the feeling that he was looking right at her.
To the man's left was a another, a tall and big man who had a torn shirt and pants scuffed by dirt, his one shoe in a terrible state, and the other not being there at all. His face was beaten and bloody, his lips swollen and his nose bent in three different ways, and one of his eyes was beaten shut and as swollen as a baseball.
In the one eye that was visible to her, Andrea saw hatred of the purest kind, for the man seated, for her mother, for anything that lived and breathed. Her mother stepped forward and began to behave as if she was in court, this time speaking in French so complex that Andrea could only ever make out the third or fourth word of each sentence.
Andrea was too terrified to focus on the dais and instead looked around as all the silhouettes were beginning to morph into people. Some were white, a handful was Native American, and there was even a Latin man present. But it was the person next to her grandmother who made Andrea's heart skip a beat, "Uncle Armand?"
Her uncle, his hair trimmed short on the top and even shorter on the sides, did not react, his focus still entirely on the man orating in a language she thought that she had known but did not understand now. But eventually, he turned to look at her, his expression one of pain, "You shouldn't be here, Andrea."
"Hush now, Armand." Her grandmother said back, "This is her birth right. Now ya get to be a Bordeaux in earnest, baby. Ya momma and her selfishness be damned!"
Andrea focused forward as she seemed to be nearing the end of her prosecution, unsure of why some in the crowd were shedding tears, and even more confused as to why she was too.
"Le jugement…." Her mother turned towards the man seated upon the throne and he grinned, his long legs pulling him up to stand as he prepared to give his verdict, "Guilty!"
All eyes turned and looked up at Jeremiah, who was screaming now, fire erupting from his eyes, but it might as well have been sparks from an outlet plug for all the good that it had done.
The man to the dirty creature's left, for the first time since Andrea had been there, showed anything other than anger as he smiled, "Que dieu ait pitie de votre ame…."
The little shadow, now a little black boy with neat curly hair, wide nose and pair of brown eyes, ran forward to joyfully kick the milk crate from out under Jeremiah, his already red face began to turn purple as his legs kicked about violently, his hands bound behind his back by invisible rope as tears rushed from out his green eyes. Spittle and foam began to pour out from his mouth as his eyes got wider and wider until one popped outside of his head and hung out in front of his face like an Angelfish's light. All around him the crowd was chanting and cheering, and one member even threw something that sounded like glass breaking and ignited the tree, and the crowds cheer grew loud enough to the point that everything around them was beginning to shake, and the cheers were soon being drowned out by laughter from something that she could only imagine as being the purest form of evil. And just as Andrea felt like the world was falling apart, she stood next to her mother, dressed in her navy-blue denim jeans and green work blouse, her hair just as frazzled as this morning, and the bags around her eyes even worse. A stream of blood rushed down her mother's one nostril as she slammed shut the book in her hand. It was royal blue in color, with the fleur-de-lis on a black eight-legged spider upon it in its center, black as night but outlined in gold. Andrea looked a few feet towards where Jeremiah should have been standing, but all that remained was his spellbook, burning away quickly before its remnants were blown far away by some mysterious wind, all that remained of him now was the cigarette bud and the car.
Her mother smiled at her, her eyes glossy and her lips pale, "Andy Baby…. Are you okay?"
"Momma!" Andrea screamed as she moved to catch her, the weight bringing her to her knees, but she had done enough to cushion her mother's head in her lap during the fall. She pulled out her phone and called 9-1-1.