LAST RESORT Part 29

After Henry and Oracle left the hospital, Lope was gone before dawn.

The bed was stripped bare, sheets tossed like a snake had shed its skin and slithered off through the window. A Hallmark card from a few days ago sat on the nightstand beside the half-eaten cup of green Jell-O. Get Well Soon! in big balloon letters with a cartoon penguin wearing a green scarf smiling at the reader. Inside was addressed to Kevin and Vivian. It read:

Goin' to find answers. Sorry. Stay safe.

Oracle tracked Lope through the parking lot cameras and all over town. He'd pried open a window from his room, climbed out onto the emergency stairwell, and walked right past the loading dock. Then, he went home, grabbed a few things, and went out the door for the last time. He then rented a car from a 24-hour rental dealer, used a fake name and a fake ID, and drove south. Toward Grants Pass. Toward California. Past the edge of my reach and beyond the hundred-mile tether that bound my influence. Kevin and Vivian found the card that morning and stared at it, confused. They knew he'd been visited, too, but where was he going? Where was he going to find answers?

Fortunately, [ Fractal Omniscience ] was up for another twenty-one hours. I gleaned his thoughts, and his goal was to drive to San Diego to talk to his father. Half of his family lived in the city. But what drew my curiosity was that he believed his father might have the answer to his questions. Then, he drove out of my reach before I could fully delve into his memories.

I was reminded that I needed to upgrade Oracle's [ All-Seeing (Digital) ] trait so I could reach further outside of my state. That would also mean I had to enlarge his nanite swarm so that he could cover more ground. It was tempting to have a couple of nanites following Lope, but I didn't want to risk it. Once he reached the state border to California, I told Oracle to call those nanites back home.

Before the sun even burned the fog off the treeline, the hospital was suddenly filled with noise. Sirens, shouts, the metallic rhythm of gurney wheels. Another ambulance had come in.

This time, it delivered Xavier Yates.

The boy was half-dead, pale as ice. The police found him downstream from where I ordered him to be before I extracted the curse from his body. My illusionary cover story had worked perfectly that he was flung from the crash, fallen into the ravine, and washed up by the river a few miles from the accident. He had been trying to survive out there for days in the cold. It became a big story right away, and of course, Vivian got wind of it that her brother was in the same hospital as her.

Promises kept, I thought.

Kevin and Vivian watched from the ICU window as the doctors treated him. They couldn't visit him until twenty-four hours has passed and the doctors had given the all-clear that it was safe for him to receive visitors. For a moment, I almost felt pity. Almost. The lycanthropy curse was now gone from his body, and while his essence slowly rebuild, he was placed under an induced coma by his doctors. Vivian couldn't ask what happened to him for the past week, but eventually, she decided not to ask him at all. His recovery was more important.

When the cops finally came to interview Kevin and Vivian about what happened during the accident, I expected them to crack. They didn't. Not even a whisper about the mountain, the monsters, the deaths of their friends. Kevin stuck to the script: car pile-up, bad luck, bad weather, that's all. Vivian nodded along.

Kevin mellowed after that. The fiery edge that he displayed against Henry dulled within him, maybe weighed down by all that wealth he inherited. He called the Swiss number on the back of the card and confirmed that the money was real, and was astonished to find that the people on the other line knew who he was by name, and claimed to have met him in-person once or twice. Kevin had no recollection of ever meeting them, and realized that the god (aka me) that dwelled in the mountain wielded an immense power that he could not comprehend.

And then his thoughts for the next few days was just a jumble of conspiracy theories that the mountain was actually game arena created by the one percent like The Hunger Games, and that their benefactors were lizard shapeshifting aliens who gave them super-advanced technologies. He dove into several conspiracies all over the internet just to find an answer. But then he couldn't describe the monsters and the magic he saw, and a part of his brain wanted to rationalize that it was some super high-tech special effects and experimented freaks from aliens. To be honest, The System was kind of an alien entity and half of the stuff he was spouting in head was correct, although incorrectly aligned to the real truth.

Maybe that's why he was hesitant to tell the cops everything. He realized he would sound crazy. He sounded crazy when I was listening to his thoughts. He thought that if the god in the mountain could even shift reality like that, then it could shift reality to make his life a living hell.

Well, I understood his caution and his fear of me. I would be if I were in his shoes. There were a lot of options given to me by the System to make his life a literal hell.

Kevin stopped talking about revenge, about going back, about finding true justice for his girlfriend, Kate, Ray, Nina, Jared, and Daryl. He told Vivian they should head east and be as far away from Point Hope as possible. Maybe fly to another country. Start over, buy another house somewhere where they were free to live their lives now that they had money, and should enjoy their newfound wealth.

"We can bring Xavier," he said. "We can start fresh."

But Vivian wouldn't leave.

A quiet fire returned in her eyes. Vivian told him she couldn't abandon Grandma Margie like that. Couldn't leave her in Point Hope all alone even if she was pushing past seventy and she was already retired. Kevin laughed bitterly at that. He never did like his mother and was never close to her. Said she'd buried the wrong son, that Dave was always her golden boy and Kevin was just the one who got stuck mowing her lawn. Dave did have a nice house, a pretty wife, and two children in one of the richest neighborhoods in town.

In her eyes, Kevin was the fuck-up. Grandma Margie also blamed him for getting Vivian and Xavier into an accident, and that she would never forgive him. It ate him inside that he couldn't tell her the truth, but took the brunt of her words. She was in pain, he understood that, but he wouldn't take it any longer.

So, when Kevin left town the next week, all the bags packed, bank card burning a hole in his pocket, no one stopped him. Vivian watched from the porch as he drove away, tires crunching the gravel. He didn't look back.

Xavier came home soon after Kevin left.

He'd been discharged from the hospital just a few days after Vivian and Kevin were. Xavier hadn't spoken a single word since he woke up from his coma. He sat at the kitchen table most days, staring at nothing. Wouldn't talk even as Margie, Lauren, and Vivian coaxed him. Wouldn't eat unless forced to. He'd watch the TV for hours and hours in the same position, but it didn't look like he knew what was going on in the scene.

One afternoon, Vivian invited Carly Moore, who she knew Xavier had a big crush on, desperate for some kind of reaction from her brother. Besides Lauren, Carly was the only kind soul in Point Hope who was sympathetic to them. The massacre was still fresh in everyone's minds, and half the town thought they deserved what happened in that "car crash." If only they knew the truth.

But nothing.

Xavier wouldn't even look up when Carly entered the living room. She stayed for an hour, telling Xavier everything that happened in school while he and Vivian were in the hospital, and lied about a few things in how some of their classmates, even his old friends, missed him dearly. Vivian remained quiet, hoping that Xavier would respond.

Again, nothing.

"I'm really sorry about what happened, Viv," Carly said before she left. "I hope he feels better soon. It's very hard to see him that way. He's always been—"

"—Bright? Annoying? Always laughing? An ass, sometimes?"

Carly chuckled. "Yeah. That. He's always been a sweet boy. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. He'll get better, Carly," Vivian said like a prayer. "I know he will."

And Vivian never gave up.

She talked to him for hours, told him stories about when they were kids, how he used to steal Grandma Margie's cigarettes and blame it on Uncle Kevin sometimes. He wanted to be cool, but when he had that first puff of smoke, he coughed so hard he thought he was going to throw up his lungs. Vivian remembered it was the funniest thing. Nothing stirred him. His eyes stayed empty. Grandma Margie tried too, prayers muttered under a heavy breath of red wine and rosaries.

Until one night, Vivian couldn't take it anymore.

She ran to Madame Dallaire's house under the rain, and when Lauren answered the door, she broke down crying, cracked open like a soda can under pressure. She spilled it all: the delve, the mountain, the werewolves, the impossible things she witnessed that night. Every dark corner of her experience laid bare on a golden platter to the witch.

And the best part? Lauren believed every word, which must have been a comfort to Vivian. Didn't laugh, didn't flinch. Just nodded slow, the way a woman does when the world finally made sense in the worst possible way.

Lauren lit candles in the back of her parlor, the air thick with lavender and incense as Vivian wept, and Lauren whispered something into the dark like a prayer to sooth the poor girl's worries. Gleaning her thoughts with [ Fractal Omniscience ], Madame Dallaire was terrified of what she had heard. Big, if true. Even when Vivian left her house, Lauren couldn't sleep a wink all night. Not the next day. Not the day after that. When reality crumbled around you, there was no point to get out of bed and do her normal routine. She cancelled all her meetings with her clients for the rest of the week.

Three days later, Lauren found the strength to get out of bed and miraculously make breakfast. A small thing, but it was a victory for her. Then Vivian knocked on her door again with an odd request.

"Teach me," she said, out of breath. She was still in her pajamas.

"Teach you what?" Lauren asked. "Come inside, girl, or you'll freeze to death."

"You said you had sisters up north? Like a coven? Teach me how. Do you have their number? Can I pay them a visit?" Vivian asked what sounded like a million questions at once.

"Slow down, Vivian. One question at a time. What are you talking about?" Lauren handed her a warm cup of tea she had been making before she arrived.

"Your way. I want to learn magic. I want to learn this—" she gestured around the room, "—whatever you can do."

"Bah! Half of it are tricks and old classic special effects, You already know most of it since you're behind the curtain," Lauren said dismissively.

"But half of it are real. I saw it and I know they're real. That couple you gave a reading to? I checked up on them a week later, and what you said about their engagement was true! They called it off! And from what I've seen in the lake, magic is real, Lauren. And I want to learn how. I need to learn. Please. Can you teach me?"

"Viv, what brought this on? You're shaking like a leaf!"

Vivian held back her tears. "If the doctors can't fix Xavier, and what happened to him is caused by magic, then maybe magic can fix all of it."

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The two women talked for hours and Lauren finally sighed and offered to walk Vivian to her house, never really giving her a concrete answer whether she would teach her. As a matter of fact, Lauren balked at the idea.

She knew what she was capable of since she was young, but the possibility that there was more to her power that she could find in this world, frightened her. She had spent many of those years believing that what she could do—a fractured glimpse into the future—was some fluke, maybe an auto-immune disorder or caused by a brain tumor, and she desperately wanted to be normal before she accepted who she was. Before she accepted that there were some things in this world humans weren't meant to understand. And the thought of talking to her coven, who she hadn't spoken to in a few years, was daunting. She did not leave them in good terms.

As they walked, the air outside was colder than it had any right to be, and the street was silent. The Yates house sat quiet and yellow-lit, and the sun was going down. From the outside, nothing looked amiss. But even I could feel it—the stillness before the violence, one I've felt too many times before a delver's encounter with an archetype in the dungeon. Lauren sensed it too. Her heart stuttered a beat but she said nothing as she didn't want to spook Vivian, who was already a nervous wreck. Humans were very good at lying to themselves when they're afraid.

They stepped through the door.

There was blood on the floor. A wide, wet smear stretching from the counter to the kitchen table. Grandma Margie lay half-conscious, a pool of red beneath her, one trembling hand pressed to her side. Her rosary beads had snapped, scattering across the linoleum like spilled seeds.

And there was Xavier.

Standing at the sink, his eyes pale and far away. Shirtless, bare feet sticky with blood. A kitchen knife in his hand. He looked up at his sister like she'd just interrupted a conversation.

"Oh, there you are," he said, calm as a man commenting on the weather. "Didn't think you'd be home yet. And you brought her. Guess this saves me the trip."

Vivian froze in the doorway. Lauren caught her breath but didn't move an inch, and said, "Vivian…get back to me right now, slowly…"

"Oh, this? This isn't what it looks like," Xavier said, voice thin and dreamlike. He laughed. "This is a complete misunderstanding. I didn't cut her that bad. It's not lethal. I need grandma alive, see? I was going to bring them both. To the mountain. He's calling me back, Viv. I know He is. Any day now, He'll want me back."

I narrowed my gaze at him, checking my tabs if I had a passive ability that I'm influencing him with, but there was none. This was not my doing. This wasn't even The System's doing. Whatever this was, was new.

I triggered [ Fractal Omniscience ] and dove into Xavier's head. I could feel the tremor in his thoughts. Broken synapses trying to reconnect to something divine that wasn't listening anymore. A believer cut off from his god. He wasn't mine anymore, not fully. Just the echo of what I'd made and he was longing to be reunited with it. Obsessing over it.

And he wouldn't stop until that happened.

Vivian took a step forward. Careful. Her hands out, palms open, the way you might calm a rabid dog.

"Xav…put the knife down, okay?" she said softly. "We'll talk about this. You're scaring me and Grandma Margie is hurt."

He frowned. Confused. "Why are you scared? Don't be. It's my job to extract these people's essence. That's all I'm doing. That's all. It's very simple. But I don't know why I can't turn into a wolf anymore. I think He's mad at me. He no longer talks to me. What's wrong with me, Viv?"

"Nothing's wrong with you."

"Then why can't I go back?!" He slammed his fist against the counter. "I want to go back!"

"Xavier, you don't belong there."

And that was the biggest mistake Vivian had said to him.

Xavier glared at her, spat drool as he shouted, "Don't say that! Don't you ever fucking say that! I belong just like anyone, Viv. I belong! I've seen Him. I've seen. I'm ascended."

"Xavier, please…give me the knife."

"You've seen it too. Felt its power and it is divine, Viv. I offered it to you, I OFFERED it to you so we can bathe under His light together, and you fucking threw it away like a silly brat. Mom and Dad has been searching for this and I, alone, touched it. And it was amazing to behold all His wonders. To serve Him is life. Don't you understand that?"

"There's evil here," Lauren muttered under her breath as the hairs at the nape of her neck rose. "Vivian, I need you to listen to me. Help me with Marge. We are going to slowly get out of here."

"Don't you fucking move! The mountain—He—He showed us. We're meant for more than this." His voice cracked into something brittle. "You took me away from them. From Him."

But Vivian kept walking away, much to Lauren's frustration. Each step a coin flip between life and death.

"Your family's here, Xavier," Vivian whispered. "Me. Grandma. We're still here. We still love you."

"She's weak," he said, glancing at the old woman on the floor. "She doesn't understand. But when she's up there, when she delve, she will see. She will know. She will be strong. Your friend can, too. Many people in this town will."

His knuckles whitened around the handle as he gestured lazily to Lauren, flinching under his gaze.

"Please," Vivian said, eyes fixed on the blade. "Let me help you."

He tilted his head, a boy caught between doubt and reverence. The knife lowered an inch.

Good, good, I thought. Lower the fucking knife all the way down, Xavier, before you hurt yourself. I wanted to jump into the room to grab it myself, but I was miles away. And even if he used to be an archetype within my domain, I couldn't talk or connect to him any longer.

Vivian reached out, hand trembling, and touched his wrist. The muscles twitched under her fingers. She spoke to him as if speaking to someone teetering on the edge of a building, trying to pull him back through the window—to safety.

"I believe you," she lied. "I believe you, okay? Just…give me the knife so we can go together. So I can see the light."

He blinked. His lips moved, as though arguing with something only he could hear.

And then—slowly—he let it go. The knife clattered on the counter.

Lauren darted forward, kicking it away.

Vivian lunged and hugged her brother. "It's okay. You're gonna be okay."

And Xavier wept on her shoulder. "I don't know why they don't want me anymore. Why don't they want me anymore, Viv? Why? What did I do wrong?"

"I'll fix it, Xavier. I'll fix it. Don't worry."

"How?"

"Don't worry," she repeated. "I'll fix it."

Ten minutes later, the house was filled with flashing red and blue, the night thick with sirens and voices. A crowd had gathered around the perimeter, curious on what's happening in their neighborhood. Paramedics wheeled Grandma Margie out on a stretcher, a line running into her arm, her face pale, but alive. Vivian stood in the doorway, bare feet on the cold porch wood, watching them lifted her into the back of the ambulance. Lauren was beside her, wrapping a thin blanket around her shoulders.

"Are you okay?" Lauren asked.

Vivian couldn't find the right words to say. Everything inside her was just numb to everything.

Lauren rubbed her hands on her back. "I'll be here. If you want me to drive you to the hospital, I'll do it."

The cops moved through the yard like they'd done it a dozen times before. They put Xavier in the back of a cruiser with two cops keeping a close eye on him. He didn't fight. Didn't speak. Just stared out through the window, eyes fixed on some far-off point, maybe to the mountain, maybe nothing at all.

Two detectives arrived just as the ambulance pulled away. Detective Sarah McCoy moved like she had somewhere better to be, a half empty cup of coffee in her hand, her red curls pulled back in a frizzed halo and her expression tight with exhaustion. Her young partner, Detective Troy Gregory, stood beside her—clean-shaven, neat black hair, and quite handsome. He didn't look like a cop at all but belonged to a fashion runway than the dregs of police work.

The two detectives interviewed Vivian and Lauren for several minutes, asking questions about what occurred in the house. Lauren was mostly doing the talking since Vivian was too shocked to speak.

"What's gonna happen to him?" Vivian asked finally once they were done with the questions.

Sarah McCoy looked at her, then at the house, then back again. There was a softness in her eyes, but only just. "He'll be taken to the station," she said. "They'll book him—fingerprints, mugshot, background checks, pretty standard procedure. After that, he'll be held overnight until the arraignment judge sets bail, assuming your grandma pulls through and we're not talking attempted homicide."

Vivian flinched. "He didn't mean to—"

McCoy held up a hand. "That's for the lawyers, honey. Our job's to paint the full picture of what happened here." Then she scribbled something in her notebook and gave Vivian a look that was almost sympathetic. "If you need to see him, the earliest'll be after the intake's done. You'll get a call." Then, she walked away.

Vivian nodded, though she didn't really hear her. Her eyes were fixed on the cruiser, on her brother behind the glass, staring out into the dark.

Troy Gregory stayed for a few seconds longer. "I'm sorry. Good news though: the paramedics said she'll be okay. Do you need a drive to the hospital?"

"There's no need. I'll take her there, detective," Lauren said.

Detective Gregory went after his partner, and both of them entered the house to examine the crime scene.

Lauren touched her shoulder gently. "If you were serious about what you asked earlier, I'll call my coven."

Vivian turned toward her. "I meant it."

Lauren nodded, eyes reflecting the faint pulse of red and blue lights. "Okay. If this is what you want, then okay. Know that I'll be right with you every step of the way. Do you need me to call your uncle?"

Vivian shook her head. "Ever since he left, he hasn't been answering my calls. I don't think he'll ever come back."

Kevin Yates boarded the plane like a man who thought he'd finally beaten the devil. First class, of course. Window seat, three fingers wrapped around a glass of rum before the safety demo even began. He looked good, better than when I'd last seen him half-dead on an operating table. Hair slicked back, new clothes, new phone, and off to his new life.

He was flying from Portland to Denver, and then to Miami, his final destination. A bright new horizon for the former landscaper of Point Hope. Sand, seas, and sunshine instead of pine needles, eight months of rain, and grave dirt of good ol' Oregon.

Oracle shadowed him through the lenses built into the cabin: the ceiling domes, the galley feed, the gate cameras that blinked one by one as the jet pushed back from the terminal. I saw him from every angle: laughing politely at the flight attendant's small talk, adjusting his real Rolex, stretching his legs as he enjoyed the extra room on the plane.

He'd done his part, I'll give him that. New identity, new number, fresh accounts in a Portland bank under an alias clever enough to fool anyone without access to my divine algorithms. He'd left a gift behind too: five million dollars frozen for one year for Vivian and Xavier, a quarter of it meant for both their college education once they sent their applications. He wanted Vivian to save her own reward for her future, and use it for whatever she fancied. She might become the next Bill Gates. That was the least he could do since he was technically abandoning them, and part of him hoped this would alleviate that guilt.

He looked out the window as the engines roared, the city shrinking beneath a veil of clouds. Maybe he imagined palm trees already—beach houses, beautiful tanned women, business schemes that would turn new money into newer money. The plane climbed, tearing through the gray afternoon.

At thirty thousand feet, we started losing signal. My [ Fractal Omniscience ] began to fragment, static crawling like mold over the feed. I could feel the edges of my reach thinning out, my presence dissolving mile by mile. Then, just before we crossed the boundary, before Kevin Yates left my domain for good, the man sitting next to him turned his head.

He's the kind of guy you wouldn't notice at first glance. Ordinary in the most basic way possible. He looked like anyone's husband. Late forties, maybe early fifties. A suburban dad who drove a mid-size SUV with his three kids, who grilled ribs on Sundays and wore the same beige chinos until the seat wore thin. Hallmark would have loved him. There was a wedding ring too, simple gold, polished smooth by years of good behavior.

"Long trip ahead," the man said politely. Midwest polite, a kind of middle-management warmth that made you want to trust him. He sported one of those soft, careful smiles that said I'm safe.

Kevin smiled back, that defensive half-grin men give when they didn't know if they're supposed to talk or ignore each other in a second. He gave a short nod, polite but not eager. "Yeah. I've got a connecting flight through Denver. Headed to Miami after that."

The man smiled like he'd been waiting to hear that. "Oy, Miami?" he said, as if it were a secret password. "Oh, yeah, me too! I've got a little beach house there. Coconut Grove. You ever been?"

Kevin shook his head. "No, first time. I'm moving there."

"Well, you're in for a treat, my man," the stranger said, leaning back, adjusting his seatbelt like he was settling into a story. "It's got this vibrance to it, that city. All those people pretending they're on vacation even when they've lived there for ten years. Salt in the air, all that vitamin D, liquor in the blood. You can't stay mad at life for long living down there."

Kevin gave a small, automatic laugh. "Yeah, I could use some of that right now."

"Very expensive to live there though."

Kevin shifted uncomfortably. "I recently got an inheritance. Using it to start a new life."

"Ahh. Well, since you're going there, you should check out this place called, The Candlelight Sandbar. Fancy name, but it's not pretentious. Right on South Beach, just past the boardwalk. They've got this blackened grouper with this creamy shallot sauce, tastes magnificent. You'll thank me later."

He said it so casually, so warmly, like a local showing off his favorite haunt. But something about his tone pressed under Kevin's skin. "Thanks. I'll keep that mind. It sounds…great."

"Oh, it is," the man said, eyes narrowing to a private smile. "Maybe I'll see you there sometime. I might show you around."

A silence hung between them for what felt like hours. Kevin fumbled for the little screen on the back of the seat in front of him, scrolling through the graveyard of in-flight movies, none of which he actually wanted to watch. It was busywork for his hands. His mind just wanted out.

But in the edge of his vision, he caught the man's stare again—steady, unblinking. Kevin shifted in his seat, pretending not to feel the weight of it. Finally, he turned to him.

"Hey, man," Kevin said, his tone halfway between annoyance and politeness. "Can I help you or something?"

The man's smile never faded. "Sorry, I just want to ask. I've always been curious about it," the man said, "what does it feel like to delve into that dungeon?"

Kevin froze. The words hit him like a slap, not because of what was said but because of what they implied—he shouldn't have known anything about that.

"Relax," he said, his voice low but even. "I'm not one of the Dungeon Lord's cronies. He has become quite powerful, murdering, what, seventy people now?"

Kevin blinked. "The who?"

"You heard me." The man's tone was almost teasing, though his eyes didn't move from Kevin's face. "I'm a friend, Mr. Yates. Have you ever heard of the Havashar Society?" he asked.

Kevin frowned. "No."

"Well, your brother worked for us before he died. The Hodges did, too."

Kevin felt his chest tighten. His brother's name wasn't something people just dropped into conversation. The man went on, voice calm, almost soothing. "My bosses are very interested in what you have to say about the dungeon in North Cedar Lake."

"You mean…the cult?"

"Yep. That's us, alright. Tell me, have you ever heard of our lord and savior, Astaroth? I'm guessing not."

Kevin looked around frantically, thinking this was some kind of test from the dungeon.

"I said, you can relax, friend. We're coming to the point where He can no longer hear or see us. Any second now. Took a while and an expensive amount of attunements to determine His borders, but we'll be safe to talk more about it in three…two…one…"

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