Memories
He smashed through the window, flying up into the darkly cloudy sky on a wave of power, the screaming and terrified dowser in his arms. Shouts could be heard from the room he had just left. The woman in his grasp would be useful for what he needed – and she would be dead once he and his brother were done with her.
He broke through the clouds, finding a full moon in the star-filled sky and decided to get a better look at his new tool.
“Hmm. You’re better looking than I had expected. You just might live a bit longer if you don’t annoy me.”
She whimpered and he laughed.
“What the hell took you so long?” A calm voice asked from somewhere in the darkness of the room.
The woman couldn’t see a thing, but she knew her captor, who had introduced himself as Duau, had no such problem because he was, after all, not Human. Of course she was only making assumptions. The truth of the matter was that he couldn’t see a thing either. He could, however, sense his surroundings.
“Sorry. I had to get her to stop screaming. It took awhile.”
The woman in question gave a small jump and made a quiet sound of fear in her throat that sounded similar to a Human rendition of a squeeze toy, when a pair of eyes that seemed to glow with an internal light seemed to materialized out of the darkness. They swept up and down her form and she heard a grunt from the daemon the eyes belonged to. He was, she decided, either very short, or sitting down.
‘Knock that off!’ Duau demanded telepathically, ‘It’s creepy as hell!’
“She doesn’t look like much. Are you sure that she can find it?” The sitting daemon asked, ignoring the demand.
“Positive.” Duau grunted, still unnerved and now slightly irritated, “She may not be very powerful, but she can pull from elsewhere to boost herself.”
The woman already knew what it was that they wanted her to find; an emerald dagger being guarded by the zealous and xenophobic Order. What they needed it for she was certain would never be explained to her regardless of whether or not she was allowed to live. This was, she reflected ruefully, the first time in her life that she actually regretted learning how to be a dowser; a person with the ability to locate someone, or something using a pendulum of some kind. There was more involved of course and there were more ways than just the pendulum method, but that was the one she had learned.
“I hope you’re right…” The eyes glowing out of the darkness turned to face her before the hidden voice that went with them continued, “She’s rattled. We should have her do the scrying tomorrow.”
Duau regarded her for a moment in silence. She couldn’t actually see his eyes like the other one’s, but she could sense the intensity of his gaze before agreeing with the nameless individual somewhere in the room with them.
He started dragging her along behind him again.
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Three weeks. She had been scrying for three weeks and had managed to find the emerald dagger several times, but the Order had moved it before either of the brothers could find it. It was like they knew when they were coming.
She was currently trying to find it again.
In the time that they’d had her captive she had learned that Duau was the elder of the two by fifteen minutes and his brother was named Sef. If she hadn’t grown up on a reserve she would have thought by their dark skin, black eyes and black hair that they were First Nations, but it was obvious to anyone who knew the facial structure that they weren’t; it was mostly the color of their hair and eyes that threw one off. In fact she was fairly certain that they came from ancient Egyptian stock – the kind that were depicted on those ancient murals in the tombs and such – with a little Caucasoid mixed in. And they were very attractive. Duau, she new, had dark skin that did not come from a tan. Luckily he was aware of his strength and kept it in check enough that he didn’t hurt her – for no other reason, she well knew, than he didn’t want her distracted by pain from her scrying.
“Found it…” She breathed, her voice barely audible mostly because she had been focusing for a while now.
“Good.” Duau said, a smile in his voice that she matched.
And to her horror she realized that she found pleasing him gratifying. She kept her horror well hidden from both brothers, still hoping that she would be able to get away from Duau and Sef without dying.
—————————————————
Duau and Sef came back triumphant this time. The Order had been moving the dagger, but had run into some engine problems – which is where their little scryer had located them. Oddly, the Humans had started to move the dagger only after she had pinpointed it – something they had found out when Sef went digging through their minds. Duau would have to ask his pet if she had done anything different from last time.
“Did you get it this time?” Her voice called out in the gloom.
Duau smiled at her.
“Yeah,” He answered, walking over to her, “We were able to get it.”
He pulled her into a kiss – much to his younger brother’s disgust. Sef couldn’t, for the life of him, understand how Duau could ever bed a Human. It was, it was… Disgusting. Sef went in search of a book to distract himself as Duau took the woman towards the bedroom. He couldn’t understand how his brother could bed someone that he planned on killing, someone he considered no more than a tool. Then again he couldn’t understand how his brother could reduce a person to no more than an object.
———————————————
About halfway through a chapter Duau came out of the hallway leading towards the bedrooms covered in blood.
“You killed her?” Sef asked, mild surprise in his voice and on his face.
Oddly, the idea that she was dead was a relief.
“Quite.”
His brother shook his head and went back to his book.
Duau chuckled at his brother’s reaction in amusement.
“I considered keeping her alive a bit longer,” He went on, “But it seems she was able to tap my ability to predict without realizing it.”
Sef looked up in surprise. Duau shrugged, a gesture sensed, not seen.
“How?” He asked.
“Don’t know; that’s why I killed her.”
“Ah.” Sef turned back to his book, “Be careful that it doesn’t happen again.”
“Obviously.”
———————————————
Sandy. How she hated her nickname, but, unfortunately, she seemed to be forever stuck with it. Why couldn’t they just call her Sandria? She shoved that to the back of her mind as she was called in to the council room. She walked in and the door banged as it closed off her only exit from the vaulting room. Sandria walked over to the small dais on the floor illuminated by an over-bright spotlight and stepped up onto it. Around her sat the Order Council members, their faces hidden in the gloom. How the old bags loved their theatrics. She just wished that they would give it a rest once in a while and get on with things.
“You summoned me?” She asked, resisting the urge to look up for fear of blinding herself from the bright light and trying not to sound irritated. Amazingly she manged to keep her voice professional.
“Yes,” One of the anonymous voices somewhere above her head answered, “We have a top priority mission for you.”
“Type?”
Another voice answered, this time female.
“Search and destroy; Yesterday and Tomorrow.”
“Acknowledged.”
Sandria spun on her heel and left the dais without being dismissed. The doors didn’t open to let her out of the room. None of the Council members liked it when she tried to leave without being told that she could, but there was no need for her to stay in the room any longer; after all it was the information department that, well, gave her all of her the data she needs for a mission. Or, more accurately, it was Talos that gave out the information.
But the council loved to play their power games and remind their agents who’s the boss. This usually meant that they would make whoever they had called for wait an inordinate amount of time before allowing them to enter the Council Chamber and then make them wait again after giving them the mission before being dismissed.
Sandria saw this as a huge waist of time that she could be putting into completing her assignments. But they were still making her wait. Sometimes she really wished that she could just kick the doors down – or, better yet, take some dynamite to them. Unfortunately they were reinforced and tempered steel that happened to be six inches thick. Otherwise known as blast doors. So she waited and resisted the urge to shoot the lot of them and forever walk away from the Order. But that would get her nowhere since she had been raised since she was seven by the Order to do only one thing; complete her missions. They hadn’t educated her in anything that would let her survive without them and she knew it. A mission with an FBI agent had taught her that.
The doors groaned on their hinges, swinging open to let her leave.
Lord Almighty, how she hated them.
————————————————–
Talos held up a hand as he riffled through the files in the floor-to-ceiling cabinets. He could hear Sandria come to a stop behind him and started tapping her booted foot. He reflected that, considering where she had just come from, she was being remarkably patient and not yelling at him to hurry up. He let his hand come down to help with the riffling and found a moment later what he was looking for. Turning around, Talos smiled at the young woman in front of him and thanked her for her patience. Her only response was a nod. Their were times when she wondered how it was that he always knew who needed what information when they came down – not to mention why the Council even bothered giving their missions code names.
Sandria shoved that aside for later pondering.
He flipped open the folder and skimmed through the contents.
“Okay,” He started, “You are dealing with twins who are believed to be daemons, but that’s not actually known for certain…” He flipped to the first page and glanced at the top, “Their names are Sef and Duau. Their powers, abilities, skills, etc. are unknown. What we do know is that they’re rogues. The popular myth surrounding their origins is that their mother was a keres – one of those Greek female death spirits – by an unknown male.”
“Their names…” Sandria pointed out.
“Egyptian. I know. Maybe their father was from that region, or their mother just liked the sound of the words and decided to use them as names. Who knows? Anyways, moving on. For the last several weeks the two have been after an artifact that the Order has been protecting – don’t ask me what; I don’t know. About eight hours ago they finally managed to get the object and killed everyone guarding it. With ease. Your mission is as follows and, no, I don’t give a rat’s ass what the council told you,”
Sandria’s eyebrows shot up in surprise; this wasn’t like Talos.
“Find the object. Retrieve it. Do not engage the enemy and sure as hell don’t get seen by them.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You know something about the two.”
He shrugged.
“Don’t ask me about them.” He told her in a tone that did not allow for argument, “Just do as I say. Both of them are ruthless, coldly passionate, unforgiving and terrifying adversaries. Unless there is some kind of divine intervention you and your partner will, in all likelihood, die if you try to fight them. So don’t.”
Sandria swallowed down a sudden gout of fear and nodded.
“Yessir.” She answered.
——————————————–
Smith wasn’t really doing much of anything except drinking his coffee in the cafeteria when Sandria came in and told him in clipped tones and sentences that they had a mission. She briefed him as they headed for the car. Once in the vehicle she relayed her encounter with Talos and Smith felt his blood start to go cold. When it came to anything the Order might encounter Talos was the one with the information – and the experience. Hearing what the man had said to Sandria, one of the Order’s best agents, was more than a little unnerving.
——————————————-
After several hours of fruitless searching they managed to track down Sef and Duau, mostly on blind luck, (though Sandria and Smith weren’t about to complain) and when they did they found them in an empty, wooded park.
The partners tailed the two for some time before they turned around and extended their arms out in Sandria and Smith’s direction. One of them was smiling a predatory smile that sent chills down the agents’ spines and the other just looked irritated. Before either Human could do more than blink and register this they were suddenly sailing through the air toward Sef and Duau. She fired her gun at the daemon trying to get her partner, breaking his concentration.
Now she had to deal with her own captor’s hand being around her throat. Sandria turned her gaze away from the shocked daemon’s face as it contorted with anger to look at the one holding her. Cold, searing eyes met her own and consumed her.
——————————————–
Sandria woke with a sudden start and found herself not in the park, but laying on a bed in a nondescript wooden-walled room. Uncaring of where she was the young woman wrapped her arms around herself and shook. Something had happened to her and had changed her; she could feel it. But she didn’t know what.
The door to the room opened, spilling in too-bright light. She squinted against it, turning her head away in a vain attempt to ward off the stabbing pain the sudden illumination caused her eyes.
“Ah. Good. You’re awake.”
“Talos…?” She croaked, her throat feeling like someone had taken sandpaper to it, “What…?”
“To be honest,” He started, “I would have expected you to be asleep for a lot longer. Though the fact that you’ve woken up so quickly is a good sign. As for what happened to you… One of the brothers entered your mind –“
“Sef.”
There was a moment of silence. Then he closed the door quietly and walked over to her, kneeling down beside the bed. She shifted so that she was looking at him, but kept her head resting against the cool wall.
“What makes you so certain that it was him?” He asked just as quietly as he had closed the door.
She almost couldn’t hear him.
Sandria shrugged.
“Just do. I know that they used a scryer to find the emerald dagger. I know that Duau took her for a lover until they found what they were looking for and then killed her.”
“Yes,” He sighed, “That sounds like him.”
“I know that it disgusted Sef. I know that he hates Humans and looks down on us.”
“How?” Talos asked.
“I’m… not sure. When he was in here,” She tapped her temple, “He seemed to find something that shocked him and… His guard went down. I don’t know how, but I manged to pull a lot of information out of him – yes it was deliberate – before he realized what I was doing and left. By the way… Whats the matter with my voice?”
“You’ve been screaming a lot.”
“Oh.”
————————————————-
It was a couple of days before she gave up trying to organize everything she had pulled from Sef’s mind and just decided to write it down as it came to her. Sandria had decided not to try going after the twins again before she had archived everything that she had learned. The Council had gotten on her case about the delay, but Smith and Talos had shut them up somehow. Sandria didn’t particularly care what methods they had used, she was just glad to have them off her back.
As the Sandria wrote, she realized that she had gotten a lot more information than she had initially thought. When she was done she told no one and rewrote it all out – this time in code and chronological order, then burnt the originals. Sandria told only Talos what she had done and he thanked her for it.
That was the last time he ever saw or talked to her.
———————————————
Smith sat in the passenger seat, a strange foreboding creeping into his gut. Without realizing it he had been stealing glances at her much to her annoyance. After several miles of this she finally asked him, in clipped tones, what the matter was. He admitted that he didn’t know, then asked her for the fifth time how if she was really alright. She lapsed into silence on the weak excuse of keeping her attention on the empty nighttime road.
Though annoyed and concerned Smith decided to let it go.
————————————————–
A couple of hours later they pulled to a stop in a half full mall parking lot.
“C’mon. We’re getting out here.” Sandria announced as she undid her seatbelt and opened the car door.
Smith followed suit, figuring that she didn’t want Sef to recognize the car. The doors banged shut and Sandria turned on the car alarm.
They started walking.
————————————————
It took them nearly an hour and a half to reach the twins’ two-story house and when they did Smith was surprised to see a flourishing garden in the front yard. He turned to his partner and raised an eyebrow. She shrugged and said, “Sef likes plants, so he gardens. Duau isn’t allowed to touch them though since he tends to kill them.”
“Ah.”
With that reminder of her encounter with Sef and the hours she spent screaming afterwards, he almost asked her again if she was alright, but then remembered the psychologist’s – the one the Council had her see – diagnosis and managed to keep his mouth shut and his worry to himself. Sandria signaled for him to follow her. Since she had Sef’s memories and therefore knew the layout of the place he did as beckoned. They snuck around to the side and had to immediately duck behind some cover when they heard near-silent footsteps heading from the backyard to the front.
The only reason that they did hear him was because they were one, well trained and two, on high alert.
They watched him go by. Smith didn’t know which of the two it was, but Sandria was certain that it was Sef since she would have recognized the gait from Sef’s memories if it had been Duau.
Sandria debated for a moment before deciding to go against Talos’ orders. She knew that somewhere inside was Duau and that they would be sensed the moment either of them stepped inside the house; the twins didn’t pay as much attention to the yards because they didn’t want to sense every little critter that scuttled through.
She aimed her gun.
He sensed the danger and turned to face them.
She fired.
——————————————-
Duau dropped what he was doing when he heard the crack of gunfire and rushed outside to see what was going on. Several more shots sounded before he got there – to see Sef fighting that Human woman from the Order, the one that had done something to him. Duau spared a single moment to be impressed with her as she closed to hand-to-hand fighting with his brother while a Human male watched from somewhere in the shadows, before he noticed Sef’s behavior. He wasn’t fighting back.
Dammit! He knew something like this was going to happen!
Duau launched himself forward, grabbed his brother and, from the perspective of the Order members, disappeared. In reality he had just jumped up onto the roof.
——————————————————
Sandria searched around for the two brothers and told herself, Think! They didn’t actually disappear! They just moved!
But where had they gone? Then she realized and looked up at the roof. Smith followed her gaze and wondered what she was thinking. Sandria looked around and spotted the tree beside the house and judged the distance between it and the wall. It was close enough. She ran up to it, jumped up, planted her booted foot on it’s bark, pushed herself up and off to launch herself from the wall the same way and then the tree again and then onto the roof. She aimed her gun even as she landed on the flat top, and –
BANG!
——————————————————–
When Sef had gone into the Human woman’s mind something had happened to him, but try as Duau might he couldn’t get his twin to tell him what that something was. If he had to guess by his brother’s overall behavior and his reactions to when the woman was brought up in conversation he would say that Sef had fallen in love with her, but was in denial about it.
If Duau didn’t get him to realize – or accept – his feelings for the woman she was going to kill him.
‘What the hell happened when you went into her mind?!’ Duau demanded of his brother, ‘You won’t even fight back against her. You! Of all people. For heaven’s sake! You’ve taken out entire armies . You’ve killed – without a second thought – anyone who thought to challenge you! You’ve brought entire nations to their knees! AND NOW YOU WON’T FIGHT BACK AGAINST SOMEONE WHO’S TRYING TO KILL YOU! What. The hell. Happened?’
Sef hesitated and just as he was about to answer his brother he saw over Duau’s shoulder Sandria leap from the old Ash tree beside the house onto the roof. He saw her aim and heard the loud cracking-bang of the gun firing.
Duau grunted, surprise written on his face, as the bullet went in through the back of his shoulder. Sef yanked him out of the way, pulling his folding knife out of his pocket and flicking it open and threw it at Sandria. All out of reflex. He realized what he had done just as the knife pierced her eye and sank all the way in.
He watched in horror as it burst and she stumbled back, falling off the roof. He sensed no surprise from her, just the general feel of, Ah shi- and then her thoughts were cut off as her soul left it’s body.
It felt like his heart had been ripped out and crushed.
————————————————-
Sef went down the stone steps leading to the basement of the Order’s local branch, his heartbeat feeling loud in his chest. It had never failed to amuse him before that his own father – who had helped him and his brother on numerous occasions – worked for one of the most xenophobic groups on the planet. But this time it slipped past him. All he wanted in that moment was for the pain and confusion to go away, but he didn’t want to die. He could only think of two ways to achieve that; either shut off his emotions or forget. He had tried for nearly a month to stop feeling, but it didn’t work, so now he was going to try and forget.
“Father?” He called upon reaching the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m over here.”
Sef followed the sound of his father’s voice until he found him working on something at a sturdy, wooden table.
“Father…“
“I already know why you’re here son. I’m almost finished.”
“Oh.”
Sef found a seat, sat down and waited. Minutes passed into hours and Sef continued to wait quietly. At some point he heard footsteps coming down the stairs that stopped on the last step and never continued one way or the other. He had to wonder, if only briefly, whether or not the person knew him. Sef couldn’t summon up enough motivation to check verbally or telepathically; he normally would have sensed if he was recognized or not, but the person kept their mind closely guarded.
“Done.” His father announced, setting his tools aside and picking up what looked distinctly like… A silver cylinder with a chain going through a loop that one could only assume was on the top, “This,” Sef assumed he was talking about the cylinder, “Will lock away your memories and alter your appearance for obvious reasons.”
Those obvious reasons being the number of enemies he still had at large in the world.
Sef got up off his seat and walked over. Delicately, he took the proffered object from his father. Why he was being so careful… Well neither Sef, nor his father really knew. He just was. Upon inspection Sef realized that the bottom was partially open.
“Put it on.” His father instructed and Sef obeyed, “When I close the bottom – no let me do it – your memories will be sealed away. Are you prepared for that? Everything will be gone. You will have no recollection of me your brother or anyone, nor anything that has come into your life from the moment you were born onward. Can you live with not knowing who you are, or where you came from?”
Sef grabbed the silver cylinder and brought it up enough for him to inspect. After a moment’s consideration he returned his gaze to his father and said, “Yes.”
“Alright.”
The older man reached over, took the cylinder from him and closed it.
—————————————————–
Smith watched the entire scene between Talos and Sef play out in silent shock and wonder. He debated interrogating the archiver, but decided that the less he knew in this situation the safer Talos was; Smith had already lost one friend, he didn’t want to loose another.
In the meantime he needed to drop the now unconscious Sef somewhere since the Order may be able to identify him by DNA. After thinking about it for several minutes he thought of the perfect place. Smith stepped off the last step of the staircase and went over to Sef. He was going to have to get the forty-something year old man to help him.
——————————————————
Smith pulled up in front of the homeless shelter and turned off the car. He turned in his seat to look at the man laying on the floor of his car, in front of the backseat. It was strange to see, but he looked like an adolescent – maybe it was just because he was asleep. Smith really didn’t know and really didn’t care. But he did find himself wondering what would become of the man even as he hoped that he would find some peace.
Smith had seen his partner falling off the roof and he had seen Sef catch her. He had watched as the man grieved over her limp body for several hours. It was strange, but the sound of Sef’s crying had hit him harder than the sight of the knife embedded up to the handle in Sandria’s eye. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t bothered trying to take her body away from him until he had cried himself out. Surprisingly, Sef’s brother Duau had helped him move her to the car to be taken back to the Order. There had been some kind of silent agreement between the two of them. What it was, Smith wasn’t sure, but it had been there.
He turned back around to consider the homeless shelter, then sighed, reached for the keys in the ignition, turned them and started the car again. Somehow it now seemed wrong to just drop him off at the shelter. Talos had said that Sef would be out for six hours, so he still had time to get to his sister’s place. She and her husband would look after him better than the shelter.
Smith started driving again.
———————————————————
She considered Sef as he lay, unconscious, on her couch. Her husband was leaning on the back of the aforementioned piece of furniture also regarding the young man. Smith was standing within arm’s reach of her looking somewhat nervous; they hadn’t seen each other in years – not since he had joined the Order in fact – and she knew that he was worried she would say no.
“What do you think honey?” Her husband asked, looking up at her.
“I’m fine with it; Smith said that he’d take care of the legal stuff, so I don’t see any reason why we can’t help this guy.”
She was silent for a time before answering.
“Alright.” She turned to her brother, “Does our amnesiac have a name?”
“You’ll have to ask him when he wakes up.”
“In other words you don’t know.”
Smith shrugged, making his brother-in-law suspicious. Thankfully, though, the man stayed silent. He really didn’t want to lie to either of them, but he didn’t know whether or not Sef would remember his name, and if he didn’t then it might be better if he had a new one – if only for everyone’s safety.
Smith gave Sef one last, long look before leaving. The man’s life had just been wiped away, leaving him with a new start and new potential to be something — or someone — different from what he had been before. Only time would tell what he would make of himself.
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The story Memories and all of it’s content is copyright of A.K.Berry, 2008.