Old Wounds by Tim Rangnow

Author:Tim Rangnow [Rangnow, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vagabond Publishing
Published: 2023-07-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Alison seemed to wake from a stupor after an unknown amount of time. She was still standing in front of the Bean and touching its surface, but now her hand felt uncomfortably warm instead of frigidly cold.

“What the hell was that?” Benny asked breathlessly.

She shook her head mutely, pulling her hand away from the reflective surface and cradling it close to her chest. Alison stared at her reflection for long seconds, wondering why it looked so different.

“Where did all the people go?”

She turned at Benny’s question, gasping when she realized they were alone. Not only that, but night had fallen, and a sliver of moon floated high above them. “Benny, this doesn’t feel right.”

“It’s dark,” he said, visibly confused as he stared up at the sky. “My phone says we only lost a couple of minutes, so why is it dark?”

Alison fumbled to extract her phone from a pocket. She stared at the screen, which told her it was still midafternoon. She tried calling Tre but got a message about having no signal. She cursed loudly when she saw a red X where there should have been at least a couple of bars. “This isn’t right at all.”

“Welcome to the Cloud.”

She whirled to find a man approaching them, climbing the few stone steps to reach the area occupied by the sculpture. He was tall but sturdy, with a thick shock of black hair that framed a smooth-shaven face. His green eyes almost glowed in the unnatural darkness, and the lines around his mouth showed that he often wore the slightly smirking smile that sat on his face. “Who are you?” she demanded. “What did you do to us?”

“Cloud? What cloud?” Benny asked at the same time.

The man stopped several paces away. “Let me see if I can answer your questions and set your minds at ease. After all, we know how dangerous an enemy you can be, Watcher Pearson.”

Alison’s lips tightened, and she held back the words she knew he wanted to hear. A demand to know how he knew who she was.

The man gave a slight nod, as if acknowledging her thoughts. “First of all, I did nothing to you. My man on the other side merely guided you to the Bean, which did the rest of the job on its own.”

Alison glanced over her shoulder at the large sculpture. She frowned, realizing the faint vibrations were no longer in the air. “It’s a Relic,” she said with sudden understanding.

“Indeed it is,” the man said approvingly. “The largest one I’ve ever known to exist. You can imagine our surprise when we discovered it eight years ago.”

“This thing is a Relic?” Benny asked, turning to stare at the Bean with a stupefied gape. “I remember watching it under construction.”

“The constant crowds must have attracted the chaos energy,” Alison said. “Perhaps helped by the large number of Nox in the Chicago area.”

“Huh?” Benny asked, looking even more confused.

“I noticed it last night, on the pier. When I put on the spectacles, there were far more Nox than I would normally see gathered in one place.

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