The First Male (12 page)

The serpent then turned its attention to Simon. With no delay, it crawled up the bed and over Simon's body. It stopped when its face was only inches from Simon's head. It opened it huge mouth and hissed.

Ssssss-simon. Ssssss-simon. Ssssss-simon
.

Simon woke up screaming, sweating. He heard a commotion in the other room, as if something heavy had dropped to the floor. Before he could will himself to move, Brooke burst into the room and flipped on the light. She was dressed in a pair of gray warm-ups and one of Simon's white undershirts, and her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

“Simon!” she screamed. “Baby, what's wrong?”

Simon couldn't speak; he was breathing too hard. Instinctively, he stared at the dark corner where the snake had been in his dream. Brooke ran over to him and shook him hard.

“Simon! What is it?”

“Huh? Brooke? I'm sorry. I think I had a bad dream.”

Brooke exhaled. “My God, I thought you were dying, the way you were screaming. Please don't ever scare me like that again,” she said with her hand tightly clenched against her chest.

“I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean to scare you.”

“It's okay. I'm glad you're okay. I was studying in the other room and you started screaming. I didn't know what was going on.” She pulled him to her body and hugged him tightly. He
could feel her rapid heartbeat against his chest. She released her grip and looked at his face. “Come here,” she said. He leaned in and she grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and wiped his lip.

“What are you doing?”

“You have something red on your lip. It may be blood. You probably bit your lip in your sleep.” She tossed the soiled tissue into the wastebasket on the side of the nightstand.

“Oh, okay. How was your study group?”

“It was fine, for the most part. I couldn't concentrate; that's why I left early and came here.”

“Were you here when I got back from Starry Nights?”

“Starry Nights? What are you talking about?”

“After I got off the phone with you earlier, I couldn't sleep,” he began, conveniently leaving out the details about the old woman. “I didn't want to be here by myself, so I went to hear some music. Can you believe I got into a fight with that asshole, Byron?”

Brooke looked at Simon as if he was speaking a foreign language.

“Simon, what are you talking about?”

“I got into a fight and I kicked his ass.” Pride puffed out Simon's chest.

Brooke took his hand and rubbed it in a comforting way. “Baby,” she said slowly, “you haven't been anywhere. When I got off the phone with you, I left the study group and came directly here from campus. I was here in twenty minutes and when I walked in, you were asleep. I've been in the other room studying for hours. I haven't left, and neither have you.”

Simon yanked his hand back from her. “What the hell are you talking about? I took the train over to Starry Nights and there was a big fight.”

“No, you didn't. You couldn't have. That's a forty-five-minute train ride and you were here when I got here.”

Simon studied her face to see if she was playing with him. She had a wicked sense of humor and loved practical jokes, but this time she was serious. When his eyes met hers, he knew that she really believed what she said to him.

Oh my God. He's losing his mind
.

“I'm not losing my mind,” Simon said defensively.

“I didn't say you were,” she said slowly.

“Yes, you did. I heard you.”

I wonder if Daddy knows a good psychiatrist
.

When the thought entered Simon's head, he was staring directly at her, but did not see her lips move. Suddenly, he wanted to panic when he realized he was reading her thoughts; this time he felt no tingling as a forewarning. He looked at the concern carved in her face and saw the tears building in her eyes. She was really worried about him. He needed to placate the situation.

“You know what, baby. I'm trippin'. I think it's the vodka I had.”

“You had vodka tonight?”

“Two shots.”

She smiled and looked relieved. “Simon, you're not supposed to drink when you're taking that medicine.”

“I know. I thought I'd be okay, but clearly I'm not. I'm hallucinating all kind of shit. You must think I'm crazy.”

She kissed him on the forehead, letting her lips linger for a few seconds. “I feel so much better now that I understand.” She stood up and straightened the comforter on the bed. “Why don't you lie back down and get some rest. You look tired.”

“I think I'll do that.”

Brooke exited the room and closed the door. When he heard the door shut, he exhaled loudly and rubbed his face with his hands.

Maybe she's right. Maybe I am losing my mind
. His emotions were scattered all over the place. He didn't know what to think or feel
or say or do. If insanity was the root cause of his troubles, he could deal with that, but in his heart he knew he wasn't crazy. What he was experiencing wasn't caused by some imbalance in his brain; what he felt was real and tangible, and its explanation defied logic.

Maybe the ghost was playing with his mind, making him see and imagine things that weren't there.

As he lay in bed, he recalled the events of the night. He looked at his hands; his fists still throbbed from punching Byron. He touched his eye and it was still tender where Byron punched him. His eye wasn't swollen or blackened, otherwise Brooke would have said something, but he knew emphatically that he had been punched. He could also smell the cheap liquor from the bar. He remembered the big-boned beauty on stage who belted out the blues against her drummer's pounding rhythm. He remembered the train ride over and the homeless people on the sidewalk. He remembered seeing the neon sign above the doorway to Starry Nights that illuminated the night sky. Then, he remembered the thugs outside. He remembered the thumping bass from the music that poured out of their aggressive-looking car. He remembered tossing a grown man across the street. He remembered everything. And, he remembered Debbie; her scent still filled his nostrils.

I remember
.

I remember
.

I remember
.

Simon's mouth suddenly filled with the taste of blood and he could smell its pungent odor in the air. A horrifying image flashed in his head and then he remembered. He remembered slowly licking the blood off the knife that was used to stab the driver. Simon grabbed his stomach, fighting the urge to regurgitate.
Blood
. He had tasted another man's blood in a vile display of
domination.
Blood
. He remembered the joyous manner in which he licked the knife, savoring the sweet taste of unadulterated power; it was unlike anything he had ever tasted. He remembered craving more of it; the taste of it was an aphrodisiac.

Simon choked back the disgust that filled his throat; the man that did that disgusting act wasn't him. It couldn't have been him, but the memory was crystal clear. Could everything else he remembered be true except that one thing? Simon readily accepted the truth of everything he remembered, but digesting blood was the one thing that he could not force himself to accept. If he accepted that, then he had to face the fact that he was becoming a fiend—a beast—something born out of nightmares. This wasn't a haunting; it was a transformation.

I'm losing my fucking mind
.

How could any of this be? Brooke may have spoken her truth and denied the events the way he told them, but her explanation didn't feel right in Simon's spirit—in spite of the fact that now he wanted to believe her. It would be so much easier to believe her simple truths. He'd been home all night. Sick. With fever. Medicated. But, he couldn't swallow that story. Her truths were lies. He had gone to Starry Nights and he had tasted blood. Something was wrong with him. Very wrong. He only wished he knew what it was.

His cell phone vibrated on the table. He picked up it and saw that it was a message from Debbie. Her simple text message confirmed what he knew was true.

Byron is at Tulane Medical Center. You betta lay low for a while
.

Simon gasped.

C
HAPTER
8

A
ddie knew that Eli was right: a storm was coming. She didn't need her full strength or power to feel it gathering somewhere in the distance. An ever-present shadow, creeping like mist over a calm ocean, occupied a corner in her mind; she simply couldn't shake it. The hairs on her forearm sometimes stood on end and she could feel the chaos in the air; it was an ominous sign of things to come. The storm would hit when the dam she erected to hold back his power finally broke. Over the years, the wall had endured much, and there were times she felt it would crumble; but she willed it to stand, sealing the ever-increasing cracks with the sheer power of her mind. She wouldn't be able to patch the wall much longer; she knew that. She had grown weary; her powers, stretched thin. And, he grew too strong as the date of the Ascension drew near.

She feared what would happen when her spell broke. Even more, she feared that darkness lurked in his heart.

If she could contact him before his twenty-first birthday, the date of the maturation of his powers, she could possibly influence him—sway him to stay in the light; but ultimately she knew that when he saw the proverbial fork in the road, he, and he alone, would decide his course and consequently, the course of the world. She prayed that the goodness she had planted in his heart at birth had taken root and blossomed. She prayed for the world.

As the day neared, her connection to him had grown stronger, strong enough now that she was able to isolate his energy in the spirit realm. Her powers were muted, tame in comparison to what they used to be, but she had been able to transmit sounds and images to him; but, she wasn't sure how her messages were perceived by him in the real world. They could have been anything: a faint whisper in the night; a faded image while he slept; an oddly shaped cloud during a thunderstorm; or some strange electrical flicker as he watched television. Anything. And, any day now, he'd grow strong enough that they all—including the shadows—would feel his powers; enough that they'd be able to locate him—the sum of all her fears.

Addie kept trying to find him, even through her present difficulties. She had enough power to uncloak him now, so that she could find him; but if she did, the shadows would instantly feel him as soon as the veil was lifted, and they would claim him while she was immobile. So, she kept him hidden—even from herself—because the cloaking spell was blinding to all, and she searched for other ways to find him.

For over twenty years now, Addie had suffered silently, entombed in a shell of a body, unable to move on her own or speak. She had been locked away ever since the night Simon had been born; that night, so many things went wrong. Her prison without walls kept her physically immobile, but her mind never stopped moving; never stopped thinking. Because he was still wrapped in her binding spell, and because they were connected by blood, she had always been able to detect his presence, even faintly. Over the years—as it was with his father—there were times she could feel what he felt, but the sensation was never as strong as it had been with Thomas. She felt his spirit, but could never see his face through the haze. Then, weeks—sometimes months—would pass
before she felt him again, leaving her with nothing more than a spiritual fragment of his existence. Recently, however, her body had begun twitching, and she knew it was due to his power and the weakening of her spells. The time was upon them—the Ascension. Once her spells crumbled, much of her power would return to her, but it still wouldn't be enough to beat back the dark; not if the dark owned his soul.

Addie sat alone in her room with the television turned on the nightly news and she concentrated. The nurse had just made her rounds and left the room. Now was the perfect time for her to try again to make contact. With all the force she could muster, she projected her thoughts to Simon. She hoped he was in an open mental state so that he could receive them. No doubt, by now, he had experienced extraordinary events, events she hoped would make him more amenable to her connection. If he was open to receiving, she'd have a better chance of making a meaningful contact.

She concentrated. She focused her mind and let it travel across mountains and valleys; she moved over rivers and lakes and jagged terrain. She was drawn to him, to his energy, but she was pulled in many directions, an effect of her cloaking spell. Today, for the first time, she saw a house. She saw a run-down house, located at a busy intersection, in some non-descript urban area, but she didn't know in which city the house was located. She struggled to see anything that might tell her more. Quickly, her eyes scanned the area—she knew she didn't have much time before her spirit moved on. Her mind's eye finally fixed upon a street sign partially hidden by the branches of a knotted old tree. Just before she was pulled into the house, she saw a sign tacked to the door of the house that read:
8707 Oakley
.