TITAN

Jim’s heart was ready to burst. If he ran another step, he believed he would die. At the academy, the cadets ran and did calisthenics and physical training, every morning at six o’clock. Jim could run for miles without rest.

But today was different. He had been running on adrenaline and his engines were tapped out. Sweating, panting, and clutching onto a blue Post Office collection box, Jim tried not to pass out. He had never run so hard in his life. He was only thankful to be free from his kidnappers. Yeah, he could call them that now; the fog had lifted from his mind. It scared him to dwell too much on what they ultimately wanted him for, but it all slipped from his mind when he fled. The primary objective was ESCAPE.

The Eisenhower Avenue sign confirmed what Jim suspected in the final leg of his suicidal sprint. Even though he was operating on flight instinct, intuitively he had changed streets a few times to make it harder to follow him. Frankly, now that he had a little time to think, Jim wasn’t sure how he had made it to Eisenhower Avenue. It ran parallel to Duke Street, which ran parallel to King Street for a time, but Eisenhower was a good distance away from Old Town proper. Jim guessed that he’d run about two miles.

Eisenhower split evenly between businesses and upscale homes. Jim was near businesses and warehouses, so he figured that he was close to Van Dorn Street, a major thoroughfare in the area. It was also close to where he lived, 1701 Cranberry Boulevard. But that would be the first place they looked. He couldn’t go home. Not yet.

The most important thing was to find a cop or a phone. Finding both would be perfect. Getting off the street was just as important. The soldiers couldn’t know where he had gone, but just being in the open made him feel vulnerable. He’d seen the Colonel’s helicopter and his men were military; they could fly around the D.C. area with impunity.

They were very secretive, though… maybe no one knows what they’re doing. Maybe they’re not military…

These thoughts had occurred to Jim before, but they didn’t seem likely. He’d been trying to rationalize everything that had happened: the injections, what they knew about him and Eric, his midnight flight, the shady hangar in the middle of nowhere… Jim had actually believed them. Eric was sick and they wanted to help. All the guns and hardware… well, that was just for security. It was all clearer now. If Eric was sick and very contagious, why wouldn’t they have more men? Jim’s flight hadn’t been full. He had seen maybe twenty five or thirty men and that included the commander, the Shadow Man.

Him…

The Shadow Man frightened Jim more than he cared to admit. He seemed to know everything. He was calm. But it was a façade. There was something underneath. Jim felt it. Jim caught glimpses throughout the days he’d been with the Colonel. Whatever it was, Jim didn’t want to see it. It felt evil. Of course, it was just a feeling and Jim was on edge. He still didn’t want to discover what was behind the man’s mask, though. Nope. No siree.

There was a shipping company on his right. Around back he saw package trucks and moving equipment. It was quiet now. It had to be close to eight o’clock now and the sun was under the horizon. Jim hesitated to break in, but he figured it would be an easy way to get police attention and find a phone. A rock beside the path leading up to the door provided a good way to do the deed. He hurled the rock through the front door’s window. The top half crashed inward. No alarm went off. It was probably silent.

Jim climbed in and took a moment to get oriented. The lights were off. Street lights and the moon’s glow provided the only illumination. It cast his shadow over the room like a hulking monster. He shuddered. Jim didn’t feel like himself. Everything felt surreal.

How can I be here?

Only a few days ago, Jim was taking classes, doing physical training, sorting laundry… and now? He was breaking into shipping stores with rocks, fleeing from secret soldiers, and trying to find his friend who may or may not have a terrible disease that will kill everyone. He would’ve pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, but he never sweated in his dreams. He couldn’t feel his heart pounding in his head in dreams. No, this was real. Every fantastic, horrible thing had been real.

He saw the phone behind the front desk. Jim picked it up and heard a dial tone. He punched in his home number, but before he finished the line beeped at him. He set the phone on the cradle again. After a moment’s thought, he remembered that when he used the phone in the office at school he had to dial “9” first. Jim did that and followed with his number. The call went through and it started to ring. When it picked up, Jim’s heart sank.

“Hello?” Not one of his parents’ voices. Not his little sister’s. Jim’s heart dropped through the bottom of his stomach.

The Shadow Man…

“Hello? McNulty residence. How may I help you?” Jim heard the bastard’s shit-eating grin.

“You sonofabitch! Where’s my family?!” Jim screamed. He disconnected from himself again. Is this really happening?

“Oh, is this Jim?” the voice asked with cheer, but there was no question in it. “Now, Jim, I’m here with your mom and dad and lil’ Beth… they were wonderin’ when you’re comin’ home.”

Jim saw red. He thought he was going blind, but he realized it was his rage boiling over. Desperate, blinding rage. More than that he felt hate. Jim wanted to kill the Shadow Man. He wanted to kill all of his men. It would make what he did to the upperclassmen look like a misunderstanding.

Jim’s lips peeled apart, barely containing the storm inside, “I will kill you.”

A pleasant chuckle, then the voice said, “Oh, Jim. Of course you won’t. What would happen to your dear ol’ family if you did that? I’m not sure, myself, but it wouldn’t be good. Very messy. Worst of all, everyone would wonder why you did it.

“You know we could do that, don’t you? We have your blood. I’m sure the police would find it sprinkled all over the house. On the murder weapons…

“On little Beth’s dolly…”

“YOU MOTHERFUCKING CUNT BASTARD!” Jim smashed the phone against the wall and it exploded. He roared at the Shadow Man even though he could no longer hear him.

He just hit everything in sight until his arms and hands were a mess of blood and the room was a shambles. But he didn’t care. The pain energized him. It let him feel something besides hate and revulsion. But it wasn’t enough. He needed to cause as much pain as he felt. He was going to find the Shadow Man and his men and tear their heads off. He’d rape their wives, stab their kids, and kick their dogs’ faces in—every terrible thing he could imagine. Anything to inflict on them what he felt burning inside his heart.

But after a few moments, it faded and Jim was left with himself again. Left with a broken phone, a destroyed room, and his family held hostage. His parents were pricks, sure, but they were his pricks… and Beth… little Beth Ann… warm brine flowed up into the back of his eyeballs and Jim cried. He sobbed and wished he could do something. Anything!

An answer was in front of him before he recognized it. Jim wanted to hit himself for not thinking of it before. The reason he was here: Eric! Jim ran into the back of the store for another phone.

Jim hadn’t the time to realize that he had been on the phone for about a minute with the Shadow Man. The call was traced. A black van was on its way to the warehouse already.

* * *

Nancy Steele was living a nightmare she had already lived. As Tim told Eric what happened to him when the ER doctors released him, Nancy could see everything Tim described as clearly as if she had been there. Beating the thugs’ faces, shooting at the helicopter, throwing a man into the blades of the helicopter… she saw it. All of it. The image of her husband clutching the bottom half of a flopping corpse, covered in blood, burned into her brain. She could see it because she’d seen something just like it a long time ago.

A bag beside Eric’s bed started to jingle. Eric motioned to it. “Mom, it’s my phone.”

Nancy unwrapped the bag with Eric’s clothes inside and found his phone. She didn’t recognize the number. Eric looked at it; he didn’t recognize it either. But it might have been Rose. Drew might have given her his number.

“Hello?”

“Eric!” a frantic voice on the other end. “Eric, is that you?”

“Yeah… who’s this?” Eric puzzled at his parents. Tim got to his feet.

“Jim! It’s Jim… you gotta listen. I was with these men, military men… they know a lot of shit about you. They wanted me to help get to you. They said you’re sick… you have a disease,” Jim panted. The words all rolled out at once.

Eric shook his head. “Guys, what guys? Jim, listen: where are you?”

“Off Eisenhower. I got away from them… they wanted me to meet you so they could talk to you. But they’ve got guns. I didn’t think…” There was a crash in the background. Breaking glass? Voices?

“They found me! Eric, I promise I didn’t mean it! My family! They’ve…” The line cut out. Eric called Jim’s name a few times, but he was gone.

“Jim’s home?” Tim asked.

Eric’s face went white. “These people, whoever they are, got Jim. He said they wanted to use him to get me. That’s why I was in Old Town this evening… I was going to meet Jim. It was for my birthday.”

“Where is he?” Tim’s hands gripped the foot of the bed. The cheap plastic cracked.

“He said Eisenhower Avenue. But they got him, Dad… I heard scuffling in the background… then the phone cut off. He said something about his family.”

Nancy’s eyes were wet again. “Why would Jim help them?”

“He said they told him I was sick or something.” Eric was numb.

“You think they gave him a choice? They lied or they forced him. Probably used his family to do it.” Tim headed for the door.

Nancy shot to her feet. “Where’re you going?”

Tim stopped, half out the door. “I’m going to Eisenhower Avenue with a stop by Jim’s house.”

“They’ll kill you!”

Tim shook his head. “They can try.” The door slammed shut behind him.

* * *

Jim never had a chance. There were five of them each holding a taser. They shot him. All five shots stuck him and shocked him with separate charges. The strength went out of him and he hit the floor. His body jerked. He smelled burnt hair and the electricity stung him with pain.

That’s me…

The two men that had been with him in the Starbucks were there. One of them—Jim wasn’t initially sure which—kicked him balls. Oh, that one.

The Colonel’s men encircled Jim and picked him up. They banged his head off of the walls on their way out before they threw him into the back of a black panel van. Compared to the agony rising from his genitals, it felt great. The door closed. He was surrounded again. Something hard and metal crashed across his face.

Jim didn’t feel much after that.

* * *

Tim sped down Eisenhower in the dark. It had been a quiet ride, but not in his head. Up there it was loud and violent. These bastards had torn his family to pieces and threatened them still. Now they were after his son’s friends.

Vibrant red and blue lights flickered up the road. Tim knew it was where Jim had been. As he drove by, he saw that the front door was smashed in with glass everywhere. A pair of officers stood out front conferring and speaking to their radios. Tim was sure they wouldn’t find anything.

Tim didn’t want to draw attention to himself so he followed Eisenhower up until he could circle over to Telegraph Road. From there, he could come back around to Jim’s neighborhood: Crescent Peaks. The drive was dark and lonely. The roads were empty. This was rare for the area. Tim believed it was as if everyone else felt something bad happening and stayed inside.

Tim’s stomach turned sour as soon as he turned down Jim’s street. He saw the plume of silvery orange light from around the corner, but he didn’t put together what it was. Not until he saw the raging fireball devouring Jim’s home. Maybe he just hoped it wasn’t Jim’s house. Several neighbors were out on the sidewalk in their pajamas and robes. A dim cry of sirens was far off in the distance still minutes away.

There’s nothing alive in that house…

The fire burned expertly. Waves of flame surged over every entrance and window. Smoke curled up from the sides into a single tornado column over the middle of the roof. The flames sucked all of the oxygen up and into the tower of smoke. The fire would kill no matter what, either by burning or suffocation.

Tim had no doubts about what had happened there. The same people who deformed and, ultimately, murdered his daughter were expanding their attack now. They wanted Titan no matter what and their days of keeping to the shadows were over.

With bleary red eyes and a heart heavier than lead, Tim whirled the car around and sped back to the hospital. Eric wouldn’t be safe, not even in public. What was left of the McNultys proved that.

* * *

Jim McNulty was alone. He was in pain. His body felt like an open sore. He was wet and sticky with sweat and blood. He could hardly see. One of his eyes was swollen shut and the other one had a squinted, narrow view of the darkness enveloping him. The rage that had filled him so completely was gone. He hadn’t the strength for it.

Someone was watching him. He figured he knew who it was, but he didn’t care. He felt dead. The pain, thick air, and penetrating darkness didn’t reassure him otherwise. Furthermore, memories flashed in his mind’s eye, tormenting him because they were happy memories. Playing video games with Eric and Drew in Eric’s room. Playing hockey with Eric and Drew, and being out on the ice with both of them at the same time. The feeling of working up one wing of the ice with Eric right along on the other. Holding Beth on the front porch when she was a baby.

Jim even remembered a time when he loved his parents unquestioningly. When he was a young boy, they would swing him between them on an arm swing. Jim missed all of it. He hated feeling angry and alone all of the time. Those emotions seemed to be poisoning him from the inside out. They were pushing him… to where?

The darkness parted at the edge of Jim’s vision. A rectangle of light slid apart, striking him in a column of yellow light.

“Jim?”

The Shadow Man. There was something in his voice that hadn’t been there before. Compassion? Remorse? Is it real?

Jim didn’t want to speak. He didn’t want to fill up with anger anymore. But it was hard. He hated this man so completely. Jim didn’t even know his name, except to call him what he resembled most. Shadow. Darkness. A relatively slight pain tweaked him when he opened his lips—they had been closed wounds, pulling apart like a scab. “Go to Hell.” It sounded more like Gm tm himmm.

Somehow the Shadow Man knew. He knew everything. His near omniscience stirred the pool of waiting anger deep inside. Jim choked it down. But he still feltit, deep and warm, waiting to soothe him.

“Jim, don’t be angry with me.” The Shadow Man was literally a shadow with the wall of light at his back. He had no features. “You tried to escape when we were so close… I’m sorry the men beat you. They were angry. But this thing is more important than you or me.”

“I don’t care,” Jim spat. It sounded like Im dunmt crrr. Every word stung his mouth. His jaw might have been broken or fractured. But the taste of resistance—rebellion—was sweet. Jim didn’t care if his mouth fell off.

The black shape’s head drooped. Defeat? Jim didn’t think so. This man didn’t know the word. Jim’s fear of the Shadow Man was not gone, but it mixed with the well of anger in his heart. Mixing the two served him well. It gave him strength.

More light spilled over Jim’s face. It was piercing. Jim closed his remaining slit of an eye. The Shadow Man was sitting beside him. His hand was on Jim’s arm. Jim tried to move it away but his hands were bound to the table. Not with rope, but with thick metal bands. Metal? But the question drifted away as quickly as it had come. When the Shadow Man’s voice came, his mind seized the words and wrestled them for whatever bits of truth they carried.

“I should just come right to it then, Jim…” the Shadow Man said, his voice just barely above a whisper. Almost gentle. “Your parents are dead.”

The words hung there. Jim heard them. He processed them. Turned them over in his mind and looked through them. He sensed the truth in them. But Jim wouldn’t let them in. He couldn’t.

“No. (Nummmm)” Jim’s well of anger drained and became a well of despair. Absence of hope seized him. He was trapped on the table and within himself. Jim jerked against the restraints but gained no ground. “No. Lie.”

The Shadow Man’s hand tightened on Jim’s arm. “I wish it was, Jim. I really do. But Eric’s father found out what you know. He killed my men when they tried to help at the hospital.” He leaned over Jim, his face hidden by black. “Do you know what he did, Jim? He pushed one of my men into a helicopter’s blades… then… then he went your house, Jim.”

“NO!” Jim’s jaw burned sharply just beneath his lower lip. His chest was on fire. His heart pounded like a piston and threatened to explode. “He wouldn’t do that!” The words were clearer, sharpening Jim’s agony. He tasted blood.

“I lied to you, Jim. I threatened you. I threatened your family. I did. I would do anything to stop this monster we’re facing. But I didn’t think he would do it again. I lied to you about what Eric really is… what his father was. You wouldn’t have believed me. But now that all of this has happened… you need to know,” the Shadow Man said, sounding like he was pleading. Is that possible?

His tone had all of the characteristics of pleading except for sincerity. But behind Jim’s wall of sorrow and pain, he couldn’t hear that. He only heard the words. Each terrible thing sounding truer than what came before.

“Eric doesn’t have a disease. He has power, Jim. A weapon. A terrible weapon that his father used to hurt good people. His grandfather used it too. They killed a lot of people. Entire families like yours, Jim, and no one is safe. He killed his own daughter to keep his power.”

The Shadow Man loomed over Jim, blocking the bright light on the ceiling. He pulled Jim into the shadows that he inhabited. Jim was frozen with sadness and restrained by helplessness—he couldn’t escape the dark. And the Shadow Man went on.

“But like all despots who hoard power, Tim Steele lost his. Now Eric, who you thought was your friend, has the power. Did he ever tell you that, Jim? Any of this? Was he honest with you like a friend should be?” The Shadow Man’s fingers dug into Jim’s arm. The bone in Jim’s arm was probably fractured and the Shadow Man’s grasp was torment, but Jim didn’t flinch. He looked into the dark man’s empty eyes.

With every ounce of strength he had left, Jim lifted his head off the table and put his face right up to the Shadow Man’s face. Still, his features were cloaked in the dark. Jim rasped, “I don’t believe it. You killed my family.”

“Your family?! Eric’s father killed them and my men. To protect his secrets. To protect the power that he desperately wants back.” The Shadow Man reared back to his feet at full height and the ceiling lights wrapped his shape in absolute black. “But they aren’t all dead, Jim. We saved your sister, Beth.”

A spark of life ignited in Jim’s dying heart. He didn’t have time to consider that the Shadow Man was lying. A tiny voice called from the doorway, “Jimmy?”

Beth! Jim tried to turn his head but couldn’t. The table restraints held his head firmly. He yelled, “Beth!”

The Shadow Man patted Jim’s shoulder. It felt reassuring. The thought scalded him, but he let it settle and take root. Beth’s okay. Thank GOD!

“Let her come closer… please…” Jim said.

“And let her see her big brother like this after what she saw happen to her parents? No, Jim, you don’t really want that. We’ve got her. She’s safe as long as we’ve got her. Eric and his father can’t hurt her.”

Jim heard the words and knew how wrong they sounded. Eric and Mr. Steele hurting Jim’s family was an oxymoron. Like “up is down” or “water is dry.” But in his elation to know that Beth was alright, Jim let the words in. Their meaning sunk in. He didn’t realize it.

“We still need your help, Jim.” The Shadow Man’s voice was firm. “Eric’s power has been realized. He is Titan. He’s more dangerous now than ever. But I think you can stop him.”

“What about Beth? She…”

“As long as you help us, she’ll be fine, Jim. Eric can’t hurt her.” The threat was plain, but Jim didn’t hear it. He only heard that his baby sister would be okay. Whatever he had to do, it would be worth it—for Beth.

Jim was almost crying with despair of a different type. How could I help? “What can I do? I’m… I can’t even move.”

The Shadow Man smiled. Jim couldn’t see it in the dark, but he felt it. It touched him as coldly as it always had, but he didn’t care. He had a way out. Do what they say and Beth is okay…

“Do you remember the injections we gave you, Jim?”

All Jim could do was blink his eye in agreement. He had almost come close to forgetting all about the injections. They seemed so unimportant now.

“We were preparing you. Your bones, in particular… a long time ago, we took some of the power Eric has. We gave it to you, Jim. Just in case Eric doesn’t want to give himself up… you can make him. You will be stronger than he is.”

Jim blinked his eye again. His instincts were screaming at him. They told him the truth: everything the Shadow Man said was a lie. But Jim ignored it. He lied to himself; his instincts were wrong. Jim was going to save his sister. And himself.

“Do it.” The Shadow Man’s order snapped in the air. Footsteps and moving equipment reverberated around Jim.

The Shadow Man’s smile cracked the darkness. What Jim saw in it was ugly.

He didn’t care.

* * *

Before Tim returned to the hospital, he went home for two things: First, check to see if the house was being watched. Tim didn’t find anyone lurking around, but he reasoned that they could be watching through other means—cameras, drive-bys, using neighbors’ houses, or some combination of all three. Fortunately, no one was sneaking around his house. That would have to do for the time being. The second thing Tim did was get proof. Tim had hoped Eric would have believed him when he told Eric the truth. But Tim understood how it sounded. Everything Eric thought he knew was either a lie or a carefully constructed version of the truth. And the stuff about Titan… well, Eric loved superhero movies, but he wasn’t foolish enough to believe he was in one. Not without something concrete to prove it, anyway. Luckily, Tim had just the thing.

The house was dark and ominous. Maybe Tim thought this because of everything that had happened, but it didn’t make the feeling any less real. He was a stubborn bastard, but he was man enough to admit his fears. That was how he conquered them. You can’t fight what isn’t there. If you deny your fears, it’s like saying they’re not there—not real. Well, they were real and Tim shuddered when he passed through the foyer. A shudder of dread and anger sidled up his spine. I don’t feel safe in my own home… Tim wished all at once that he could find where these coward shits were hiding. He’d kill them all. They were playing dirty. Trying to kidnap Eric was one thing, but kidnapping Jim and killing his family? These people had been careful before, but they were now exposing themselves.

They were coming at Tim sideways. Art had told him that these kinds of men, whoever they were, followed in Hitler and Himmler’s footsteps. Not just because they sought out the supernatural, but also because they believed in it. The military wouldn’t let men like that live in the light. They would be underground, always watching, waiting… but not now. No, now they were burning houses, kidnapping people in broad daylight, and inserting themselves in the lives of those closest to Eric.

Tim’s desk lamp was still on at his workspace in the corner of the bedroom. Tim knelt down and produced his key ring. A small key hid beneath bigger, more prominent keys. He slid the small key into the lock along the side of the bottom drawer, turned the key, and pulled the drawer open. It was a file drawer with thick, dark green file holders stuffed with aging paper. His work papers were in there along with some tax files. Tim slipped his hand in front of the folders and dug his fingers between the drawer front and the wood bottom, only it wasn’t the bottom. It was a false plate hiding a three inch deep space underneath the folders. Tim made it himself. He pulled up the bottom and lifted it so he could see inside. There was one thing: the large, old book with a thick, embossed “T” ornately carved into the cover.

When Tim held the book in his hands, it was warm to the touch and that old feeling spread through his body again. His anxiety and fear diminished. Tim’s bones, long cold, stirred with forgotten heat. All at once, he felt a twinge of regret and loss. He wasn’t Titan anymore. Holding the book was like looking at an old pair of jeans that didn’t fit anymore, but more intimate than that. Like an ex-lover… you can still remember her touch, but it’s just a memory… an echo…

Tim climbed to his feet and put the book under his arm. He kicked the drawer closed and left. His sense of loss turned to hope. He may not be Titan, but Eric is. He’s like me: stubborn. He won’t give up—ever. But first Eric needed to understand. He had to believe. When Eric touched the book, he would.

* * *

Eric refused to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes that dream or whatever it was—evil coming from the throat of the thing that was his sister—slithered in his brain. It was real like a memory. Not a hazy vague recollection of a dream, no, this was as vivid as the room he was in. The details were always there for him to pluck out and see. Again and again! His eyes jerked open and he shook his head. He had been slipping. It didn’t help that his mom was asleep in her chair beside the bed. Sleep might be okay for her because the real Sarah waited in her dreams.

Nancy Steele had quit her job when Sarah was very young. Sarah had been getting worse for years and needed constant care. Nancy didn’t trust anyone else to do it. Sarah was her first born, her baby girl. Eric sometimes longed for the connection they had shared. But he knew that it could never be. Theirs was a bond that was more than just that between mother and daughter; Sarah depended on Nancy for everything in her life. They spent every waking minute together. Nancy was even hesitant about leaving her with Tim.

When Tim watched Sarah, comedy usually ensued. Sarah had long, brown, beautiful hair. Nancy brushed it every morning to get the knots out. Once when Nancy went to Buffalo to visit her mother, Tim stayed behind with Sarah and Eric. He did the best he could, but Sarah, despite her handicap, was very strong. Her legs, though incapable of walking, were very muscular. Her kicks had sent baby Eric flying many times. Even Tim, who had been gifted with supernatural strength had difficulty wrangling her. Sarah would flail and buck like a bull. Some people wrote Sarah off as unaware, but she was more “there” than few outside of her family realized. Like a class with a substitute teacher, Sarah knew when someone less experienced was in charge. She knew how to take advantage of a situation. Despite the stress and difficulty of caring for someone as demanding as Sarah was, Eric remembered those times with fondness. It was why the terrible image of Sarah’s form possessed by that terrible creature was so upsetting.

Even worse, it had replaced the last picture his mind had allowed of Sarah on the day she died. For some reason, school got out very early that day. Eric could never remember why. He did remember that Sarah had been sicker than normal for a while and only getting worse. She was sleeping more and didn’t smile as often. In fact, Eric hadn’t seen her smile at all for about a month before that day.

Except for that morning…

Sarah woke up when Nancy did. That was part of their bond; it was as though they knew when the other one was awake. When Eric got ready for school, Sarah was lying on the couch where she usually was. He sat next to Sarah and just looked at her. He didn’t usually do that. But he felt like he should, but didn’t know why. Sarah’s eyes found him. Sarah’s eyes… the one part of her that was always alive. They had been groggy slits before, but now they were open and looking at him. Sarah’s face brightened and she smiled at him. It was very simple and warm. Her eyes looked into him and knew him. Sarah knew Eric like all sisters know their brothers.

For that instant, they were like any other brother and sister. Her smile stayed with him that day and for every day since. Even now, tarnished by the vision of Sarah corrupted by Hell, her smile was there, beaming through the darkness.

Only now, lying in his bed, did Eric think that somehow Sarah knew. She knew what was coming for her. Release. She wanted to leave him with something special. Something only they knew. He had tried to forget it, to keep it beneath his shell, but now… it was important to remember. He found that Sarah’s smile washed away the dark stain his vision had left. It was still there—gnawing at him, seeping black ichor—but it didn’t matter. Sarah had made it better, just like she had all those times his parents had yelled at him when he was just a boy and he would run into her stiff, strong arms for a hug. His parents didn’t dare yell at him when Sarah held him. She protected him like big sisters do. Her smile protected him still.

Later that awful day, when the teachers gave Eric pitying looks as he walked to meet his dad at the school office, he kept Sarah’s smile with him. Tim was so big to him then. Tall, strong, and brave—like all fathers are to their kids, especially their sons. Eric didn’t even notice that his dad’s eyes were red. He didn’t notice the slight in his dad’s normally bold, powerful shoulders. And he didn’t notice the tight grasp on his own shoulders until he and his dad were outside. Eric remembered that later—how firm his dad’s grip had been on his shoulders. Like a soft, yet unyielding vice. Tim knelt in front of Eric, his voice nearly a whisper. Eric tried to move, he didn’t know why, but couldn’t; Tim held him in place.

“Eric, before we go home I want to prepare you for what you’re gonna see,” his father had said.

“C’mon, Dad…” Eric began. He didn’t recall what would have followed that had his father not interrupted him. A strange thought occurred to him then. As he got older, Eric remembered it as a sign of youthful gullibility. I bet they cured Sarah! Not even close.

“Eric.” His dad’s voice was grave. It froze him. Sometimes when he was thinking of nothing at all, Eric would relive that moment in his mind. Never forgotten.

“Sarah died this morning.”

Tim had barely gotten “morning” out of his mouth before Eric tried to twist away. He couldn’t. His dad’s trembling hands still held him still and instantly he was in his dad’s arms, crying. The worst possible sorrow seized him all at once. Eric didn’t have time to fight it. He was racked with sadness beyond anything he had ever known. Eric wasn’t like some of his friends or others in his school; he knew what death was. His dad’s parents were both gone and his mom’s parents were gone too. Eric had been to all of their funerals, except for his dad’s dad. Living with Sarah, Eric had an unconscious awareness that death was very real, that life was imperfect. He didn’t understand it or know that he had it, but there was no surprise. Eric knew what “Sarah died” meant. She wouldn’t be around anymore. No more smiles. No more perceptive eyes. No more protection.

In his dad’s arms, sobbing, Eric thought of Sarah’s smile that morning. “Can I see her?”

Tim pulled away and his eyes were red and wet and sad like Eric had never seen. He nodded. “She’s at home. You can say good-bye.”

The ride home seemed to take forever. Eric’s crying had abated about halfway there. Tim told him that he was a good son and he was thankful to have him. Eric knew his dad meant it. If he had said that any other time, Eric would’ve dismissed it as just something parents say. But for some reason, when people die, what everyone says has meaning. Tim shook his head at one point and said, “I can’t believe I’m thirty-five and burying my daughter. I pray that you never have to do that, Son. I pray for that.”

When they pulled up to the house, Eric thought it was very quiet and it was dazzling outside, too. But nothing else mattered except for getting inside. He wouldn’t let himself run, though. If he did that, more tears would come. He couldn’t allow that; it might upset his mom. The screen door opened with a long screech. The lights were off inside and the sun shone in through the curtains and blinds with a queer glow Eric didn’t like. The house felt wrong—it had never looked that way or been that quiet. It never was again.

Nancy had stood in the living room with a neighbor from down the street, Carrie. Eric played with Carrie’s kids, and she and Nancy had become fast friends. Carrie loved Sarah and said when she met her: “She is just about the prettiest girl I ever saw.” Carrie had two boys, so Eric assumed she was envious of Nancy’s daughter, even broken as she was. It seemed to him that all moms wanted little girls. Nancy and Carrie watched Eric enter. He felt like he was creeping into some place he wasn’t supposed to be. Nancy wasn’t crying and it looked like she hadn’t been crying at all. That came later. And it would last a long time. She motioned to the couch and said, almost pleased, “She’s sleeping.”

In the days, weeks, and months that followed, it became obvious to Eric that his mom had snapped when Sarah died. Not “murder-spree” snapped, but a fundamental break between rational sense and the mind. A part of Nancy Steele died with Sarah and never came back. What replaced the part that died was bitter and angry. It worsened by stories in the news about parents killing their children or stories Eric told her about kids in school. Nancy’s often said, “My daughter’s dead, but they get to keep their kids so they can kill them and abuse them.” Eric hated when she talked like that, but he agreed. It wasn’t fair.

Nancy stood behind Eric after he approached the couch. He felt as though he was approaching an altar or walking on hallowed ground. Sarah lay on the couch, at rest. Her eyes were closed as though they could reopen at any moment. Eric took her hand, feeling the weight of her arm, limp in his grasp. He had never touched a dead body before, at least not one that hadn’t yet been treated by a funeral home. Sarah was warm. It surprised him though he wasn’t sure why. There was disconnect; he knew Sarah was dead, but she felt alive like she did in the morning. Eric kissed her check, not really understanding why but thinking that he should. Then he hugged her tight. Her warmth both scared and relieved him. As he hugged her, he felt warmer too like she was sharing one last thing with him.

Sarah’s smile… like she knew what was going to happen…

…sharing one last thing…

Pain seared in his bones, expanding outward. Cruel warmth seized his body…

What did she share with me?

Eric lurched up in his hospital bed. His mom was asleep beside him. He gasped and looked at his hands. They looked normal, albeit a little red. But there was something else. Inside. Eric could feel something inside his hands. In his bones. They tingled and buzzed—they were warm. He held his mom’s hand.

The door to the room swung open and Tim stood in the doorway holding a book. It looked familiar to Eric, yet he didn’t think he’d ever seen it before. That feeling in his bones grew sharp upon seeing the book, they tingled with warmth and it felt good. Eric squinted to see the cover. It was a letter “T” in an old English-type font, very big.

Tim approached and handed him the book. Eric accepted it without question. It felt like a warm, spring afternoon. He marveled at the feeling and tried to open it. The book wouldn’t open. It wasn’t a book at all. When Eric’s fingers brushed the “T,” small tendrils of what looked like liquid aluminum foil stabbed from his pores and into the surface melting into it. Tendrils of the same material from the book reached back. In that moment, Eric became aware of many things. Flashes of people and places flooded his mind. There was no order to them; it was a lightning-fast jumble of information, of memories. He knew that it was something old and connected. It was a record-keeper. It was made from the same material that now apparently lived inside his bones.

The flashes in Eric’s head were so fast and so jumbled that he could not make sense of them. Not yet. But he saw figures throughout the glimpses adorned in silver armor etched with “T’s.” He saw them and he knew them. Titan. Others. Many others.

Waves of heat washed over Eric. He was in a temperature-controlled hospital room and yet, heat erupted around him. He flinched. Eric’s vision cracked. He blinked once and saw his parents before him. He blinked again and there was gray sky, helmets, rain, and thunder. Another blink and Eric’s parents grew dimmer. Eric could feel his heartbeat: fast, anxious, and quickening. But now he was also aware of another heartbeat. He wanted to keep from blinking but couldn’t stop himself. His eyes stung like they did during hockey games sometimes when the sweat would curl down the bridge of his nose and slip into the corner of his eyes. When he opened his eyes again, Eric knew that another blink wouldn’t matter. He knew this because he didn’t just see the gray sky and the raging ocean around him; he felt the pitch and yaw of the boat deck beneath his booted feet. He smelled the musk of scared and brave men around him, standing shoulder to shoulder in little more than a motorized bathtub.

Eric knew that blinking wouldn’t matter when a distant popping sound resolved into a series of loud, ripping zippers through the air that punched through the front of the boat. The men in the front row didn’t have an opportunity to scream; they shriveled into limp, pulpy stumps. The men behind them, though… oh, they did scream. The gray air was now wet with rain mixed with blood and gunpowder. All of this happened in the matter of a moment before the man in front of Eric shrank in front of him, literally dropped straight down like someone let the air out of him. Another one of those stinging zippers tore through the front of the boat and blasted Eric square in the chest.

It hurt like hell. He staggered, feeling the impact of the bullet that hit him dead on and the flailing bodies of the men behind him. But Eric’s chest was stung, that’s all. Come to think of it, he recalled something like the sound of metal striking metal as the round hit him. He looked down and saw the bullet drop away from his chest, flattened. Somehow amidst the screaming, the gunfire, and the gnashing ocean, Eric heard that bullet hit the deck with alarming clarity. He looked at it for a moment until his eye caught something else. There was a mirror hanging out of the man’s pack that had fallen ahead of him. It was a small shaving mirror, square and none too clean. Almost as if he were removed from the action, Eric knelt down and looked into the mirror. Despite the fact that men were being shot around him, that he was on a boat, and that he was no longer laying in a hospital bed as he had been only moments before, Eric only now came to grips with what was happening as he looked into that mirror and saw not his own face, but that of his grandfather, Arthur Steele.

Eric may have denied the truth that his dad tried to impart before, but now he knew. He believed. He just didn’t know what it meant or how he was going to get back.

* * *

Right about the time Eric touched the Tome of Titan and realized its power, a team of military surgeons surrounded a long, wide table with Jim McNulty lying unconscious on it. They went about their work without hesitation, without question, and not without a bit of pride. First, they mended his wounds that were suffered in punishment for trying to escape. Then, they got about the task of creating, of making anew.

Behind them on a narrow table on wheels, encased in a sealed medical briefcase, eight syringes waited. The doctors didn’t need them yet, but they would soon. They were filled with a silver, soupy concoction. Although the doctors didn’t know where the material came from, the man in the shadows behind them knew that all eight syringes had been filled with fluids drained from a newborn infant in Anchorage named Sarah Steele.