19

THE TEMPERATURE OF THE prison cell dropped twelve degrees in a matter of seconds. Cold spit crept down his throat. The chill was there one moment, and then it wasn’t.

How this chill moved closer to him he wasn’t sure, but it did. It moved closer fast. Kevin wondered if anyone else had felt it before passing out.

“Wh-wh-o-who’s there?” he said in a shaky voice.

No reply. The guard had left his post. Kevin didn’t know when it was that he, and the several other violent bodies around him, had been left alone, but they had.

Suddenly, the wind passed under him, drifted across his face, his arms. “Whoa,” he muttered. Kevin’s skin wanted to crawl off. His imagination vividly formed new evils in the dark. What was it? A ghost? No, he had stopped believing in ghosts when his infatuation for trading cards and comics changed to dirty magazines and cigarettes.

“I know what you’re thinking,” echoed a voice.

Kevin turned full circle. But there was nothing to be seen that wasn’t always there.

“You want to know if this is real. If I am real.” It was a thin, sharp whisper. “But I’m here to assure you that I am real. We are very real.” The voice now had a face to breathe out of. It hadn’t been there a second earlier, but it formed lips and teeth in one blink. Soon, shoulders and a long torso took shape. The dust became man.

Kevin watched, confused and paralyzed. “This can’t be happening.”

“But it is,” the whisper returned. It belonged to a tall man with unkind eyes and a fearful grin. Black, messy hair lay back like surrender. And his teeth glowed like white fire.

Kevin kept waiting for his eyes to peel back. For reality to unfold and put this strangeness to bed. The steel bars had him surrounded. He wanted out.

“You’re terrified, little rat. But do not be afraid; I’m here to set you free.”

“H-ho-how-how did you do that? Who are you?”

“Not who. What.” The dark man came toward him and Kevin stepped back. “Just don’t scream. We’ll be out shortly.”

The man wore a golden crucifix. “Are you one of those priests or something?” Kevin asked.

The man gave no reply.

Kevin tiptoed between the bodies on the floor, the ones who had been the cause of his affliction just an hour earlier. Then he studied the figure’s outfit more keenly. It was a peculiar get-up. No one in these parts wore coats like he had on. But oddest of all were this man’s eyes—hollow yet full with what looked like faces trapped inside. Kevin was instantly consumed with dread. Each red lens seemed to search him inside and out.

Their eyes danced across the cell; the guard was still nowhere to be found. Kevin desperately longed for his brother to deliver him, especially since every one of his cellmates lay unconscious.

“They’re quiet for the time being,” the figure said. “But not asleep forever. Just wounded. Like you. I’ll bet a tired, hurt boy like you wished they were dead, though, for what they did to you.” The dark man handed him a blade.

Kevin took it with little hesitation and made a quick incision in one of his abuser’s wrists. Where he’d made his first incision years ago. Then he stopped himself. He wasn’t sure what it was that held him back, but he couldn’t go through with it, even though every fabric of his being urged him to get payback.

“Take it back,” he said, tossing the knife.

The man reached down and cleaned the edge of the blade, not issuing a sound. It was eerie the way he stroked the tip against his jeans. Like hunters anxious for a second kill.

“How did you know my name?” Kevin asked, wiping his mouth.

“I know more than you can imagine.”

“So what are you?”

“I am man and spirit…and death.” He grinned masterfully. “My human identity is one Morgan Cross.”

“My brother’s ex-partner?”

“Precisely. But the real me, the me who will set you free, is called Azrael.”

Kevin replied, “What is Az-rael?”

“Each culture has identified it as something else. Some call it a god, others an angel of death, some a demon. But he’s so much more.”

“Wh-wh-a-what do you want with me?” Kevin shuddered.

“Much,” came another whisper.

Suddenly, Morgan was no longer there; he’d disintegrated. Kevin listened for a disturbing creaking sound, and he realized the prison cell door was now unlocked and pushed open. The slow, tense creak of the metal scratching at the floor formed needles on his back.

He was mystified. But this all seemed too easy. It had to be something of a dream. Ghosts didn’t exist, did they? Demons and spirits didn’t exist. But how…?

Just then, footsteps approached the hallway. That up-and-down motion of a flashlight belonged to a guard. Kevin felt a pull toward the exit and the freedom he’d wanted since his brother abandoned him.

With little effort, he eased out, bypassed the fat guard and the cameras through a series of ducks and clever maneuvers. He was no novice at avoiding capture. He hugged the wall and counted every breath. Every footstep. Every heartbeat. It was as if he were eight years old again, playing cops and robbers with Jude. Hiding around corners, running from the enemy. But this game didn’t evoke the same kind of amusement.

Soon the sound of footsteps and metal jingling vanished as quickly as the stranger had. The unlocked door to the outside was so close now. All he had to do was walk through it. Walk through and never look back. He knew, though, that an alarm would be tripped in no time. He had to be swift because sirens would come for him.

Kevin pushed open the door, and finally, he was free. The outside air gloved him. Scanning the darkness, he searched for the rescue artist. But there was no one.

As he turned to race into the street, someone crept behind him and wrapped his face inside a cloth bag. His body jerked in efforts to get away, but a now familiar voice invaded his breathing space.

“Stay still, rat.”

“Let me go!” The thick fabric was tight around his cheeks. Raw. There was no chance to swing; he was already cuffed. The blankness of the cloth mask stripped all of his visibility from him.

“I’m no good. You don’t want me!” Kevin screamed. “Just let me go!”

“They’ll come for us if you keep acting stupid. And we don’t want that. No, we don’t want that.”

“Don’t touch me!”

Morgan dragged him toward a parked vehicle located less than a block away and threw Kevin into the trunk. He furiously banged against the car’s interior walls, kicking until his shins began to bleed.

With a jolt, the vehicle launched out of the lot and peeled down the narrow road. The car’s black steel frame blended well with the night.

After only a short while, they came to an abrupt halt. Kevin felt the car shake with new voices. A number of sirens echoed louder and louder. Fear wore him inside out. But it was not the fear of being dragged back to some nameless prison cell that quickened him.

His ears twitched at the sound of rolling beds stuttering across what he believed to be wet, cracked pavement. Short dialogues full of medical jargon made him all kinds of uncomfortable. He didn’t understand half of what they said, but it didn’t matter. Strangely enough, he wished that he were with those voices, those footsteps, or better, being carried off to safety.

The medical jargon, he realized, came from a number of EMTs and orderlies. It was then that it came to him fully. He knew where Morgan had stopped. For what purpose, he wasn’t certain. But Kevin was sure of one thing: In all of the world, there was nowhere he hated more.

It was St. Mary’s hospital, the place where his mother had died.