David: Savakerrva, Book 1 Read online

  DAVID

  Savakerrva

  Book 1

  by

  L. Brown

  Copyright © 2015 L. Brown

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Stephan Martiniere

  Cover text by Dan Van Oss, www.covermint.design

  eBook conversion by booknook.biz

  To protect the privacy of certain individuals the names and identifying details have been changed. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Trials and Deeds

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  A Night in Upper Michigan

  Chapter 2

  Swerve

  Chapter 3

  Marked

  Chapter 4

  An Evening in the Savoy

  Chapter 5

  The Last Departure from Michigan Central Station

  Chapter 6

  Revelations

  Chapter 7

  Accelerations

  Chapter 8

  O Superman

  Chapter 9

  Ice

  Chapter 10

  Slag

  Chapter 11

  Eykehlah’Ahn

  Chapter 12

  Rage

  Chapter 13

  Sky of Ice

  Chapter 14

  Ink and Ash

  Chapter 15

  Retta Dahz

  Chapter 16

  Into the Mist

  Prologue

  Random, it seems, the people we meet.

  More random still?

  What happens next.

  But as for making sense of it, why we inadvertently meet this person or that, why you bumped the girl with the smile and not the guy with the knife? Well, if there was a higher purpose or plan, some divine calculus reserving our place in line or some seat on a plane, I’ve never seen any evidence, the proposition lacks proof.

  And the reason, I suppose, is simply our height. Tethered to the here and now, we lack perspective, the view from the hill to see why a thing happens and, more intriguing, what happens next. So deprived of insight, we simply default, assume we’re flung by the same blind forces ruling atoms and quarks. We bend to the same physics and math, the cold, sterile truth that fate’s not a player at our table of cards, so whatever happens and whoever we meet, we’re neither guided nor led, our lives play out with infinite throws of indifferent dice.

  And yet—

  Yet even given this, our wild human chaos of smiles and knives, sometimes a thing happens. Sometimes, down in the bog and deep in the mud, even the dimmest of toads perceives a faint light, some glimmer beyond the glade. And that’s the best I can do, my only attempt to explain why it wasn’t you running laps that cold winter night, but me.

  Though in truth, I wasn’t quite running, for after several laps, my stride had decayed into plod, some rhythmic persistence of wheeze. But maybe that’s what did it, maybe the only other soul at that high school track detected a kindred spirit, some agonized plodder worthy of trust.

  “Like to run?”

  The voice was steady, gave no alarm. But it did surprise, I thought I’d wheezed alone. So turning a bit, I strained the shadows for the source, and that’s when I saw him, a boy all alone. Garbed in the usual disaffected style, the purpose-torn jeans and Army surplus coat, he also wore something else: an unusual touch, it reminded of a mountain man’s vest, some ragged fur pelt unevenly cut and perhaps once white.

  A teenager, by his voice, and he looked fifteen. But though he’d broken the quiet with his question, he asked nothing more, so short of breath and with nothing to say, I just shot him a nod and kept slogging on. No point in conversing, I just wanted my laps, so rounding the turn, I left the boy to his shadows and thoughts.

  So that’s why it shocked when he jogged up behind. “Mind if I talk?” he asked.

  Jolted by it, by the kid in the pelt now matching my pace, I braced for battle, some violent assault. But then I discerned his limp, how he favored his right foot over his left. It wasn’t much, but as I slowed to a walk, I noticed once more those rips in his jeans, for unlike the usual fakery, denim shredded for manufactured cred, the skin under threads appeared scabbed and bruised, injured by forces beyond the mall.

  “It was real,” he said, now looking up. “Everything.”

  But following his stare, I saw only stars.

  An odd one, this boy.

  But I didn’t detect any lack of sincerity. In fact, his eyes seemed lit by a distant wonder, some inscrutable thrill. A thrill, by the sound of it, now warming his voice, and as words trickled out and his dammed-up quiet broke into speech, his torrents of words formed the rapids of a tale.

  And just like a real whitewater plunge, his story disoriented, whipsawed and turned as it swung between past and present, between launching toward a place far off the charts to returning this morning barely intact. He didn’t get specific, at least not yet, and the first thing I learned was his journey-just-over wasn’t quite done, he still had about two-thousand miles left. ‘Engine trouble,’ he said, his ship had to drop him nearby, an ocean beach about twenty miles south. But when I inquired after the vessel, if he’d come by cruise ship or small boat, well, to that, he only smiled. Then he added he was just waiting on a ride, on someone now driving those last two-thousand miles to take him home; Michigan, he said.

  An unaccompanied minor waiting days all alone, some kid in the dark?

  “Aren’t you scared?” I asked.

  Then he just laughed, just shook and teared as if mirth were air. Why, I wasn’t sure, I saw no punchline in fear, so unnerved a bit, I walked to my car and hoped he’d hang back. But though laughter faded, his footsteps caught up.

  “Sorry,” he began, coughing a bit. “I’d tell you more, but it’s pointless, you won’t believe.”

  So I shrugged again, smiled I agree. Then wishing him well, I opened my door.

  Yet then for some reason, that’s when it broke, when his last levee cracked and the tug of his tale swept me far out. Where it would lead or how it might end, he never let on, I only knew I was caught in the current, his verbal riptide.

  He returned to the track and I treaded beside, just tried to keep up with the eddies and whorls of his words. Why he so freely spoke, why he unburdened himself to some stranger on a quarter-mile track, I don’t really know, maybe such outsized stories just demand to be heard. But whatever the reason, as that night and two more passed in numbing astonishments and uncounted miles, I did nothing but listen, take it all in.

  And then he was gone. He never returned, had apparently caught his ride, yet though he left me with nothing, no evidence or proof, I did have his words. True, I’ve had to fill some gaps, assume this or that, but he weaved such mesmerizing threads of shock and dread that I knew he was honest in at least one thing he said, you won’t believe.

  So no, I don’t. I don’t believe because I trust what I see, in facts empirical and measurable and verifiably true, in a universal chaos where nothing is fated nor meant to be. I’m just the conduit, the purveyor of the tale told on the track. Yet just like the boy, I’m unable to hide his story, it demands a telling and therefore, this book. This and another, and if he someday returns, crosses my path? Who know what he’ll say, what he might bring back.

  But believe him now?

  I can’t.

  Yet deep in the night when his tale returns, when facts retire and imaginings run wild, I shiver a bit, tremble and marvel at the wondrous what if.

  Chapter 1

  A Night in Upper Michigan

  — December 23rd, 2001—

  Life
was good.

  Or at least good enough, so maybe normal was the better fit, a word for days that passed in predictable ways and nights that came without smoldering forebodings or visitors unannounced. But her visitors had left, hadn’t been there for months, so Ana relished evenings like this, moments also lacking flies and stench.

  Long hours in barns occupied her days, and since today had been no exception, this woman of thirty-one just sipped hot tea on her couch. An ale-stained couch, and though she could have cleaned the cushions, she left them as-is, because they mattered, those stains, they remained a visceral proof. Feeling them again, tracing their shapes, she no longer pondered Christmas, if an angel or star should top her tree. Instead, she drifted, as she usually did, back to that night, how life upended at that deep midnight knock.

  Though in truth, the noise that scared her awake eighteen months back was less a knock on her door and more a stomp on her porch, for banging a stranger’s ‘house-gate’ not only wasn’t their custom, it was also, she later learned, nearly an act of war. Which, in retrospect, quite fit her response, her glinting shotgun was the first thing they saw.

  But when Ana saw them?

  She smiled now, shook her head at the madness of those very first hours. Yet the fallout from that night, her decision to help the man who so literally dropped in not only still lingered, but slept in her house.

  Bothered by the usual concern, the urge to check the room and peek once more, she settled herself with a sip, then one more. Her child was safe, because that’s what he promised, had nearly guaranteed. But if true, she wondered once more, then why did he leave her with that?

  Lifting her gaze, she eyed the tree, the six-foot fir decorated and trimmed. But of all the ornaments, the Santa’s and sleighs, she focused on the strangest, on a small glass cylinder reminding of an old vacuum tube, some analog antique. Interior wires reflected some glint, so that’s why it hung there, ornamented her tree. Yet regardless of appearance, not only did its purpose serve no Yuletide point, but if the tree symbolized Peace on Earth, that odd glass tube implied much worse. Recalling once more her visitor’s farewell, how the one she loved squeezed it into her hand, Ana again heard his whisper, the last thing he said.

  If it lights, you run.

  It was, she assumed, some kind of alarm. But an alarm for what, she’d never asked, because by his stories, ale-oiled tales she scarcely grasped and hoped were just that, she already knew.

  And yet, she reminded herself, her visitors had left last June. But since this was December, since life had passed in such marvelous monotony for a full six months, well, if something bad were going to happen, if that horror far off had somehow learned what now lived under her roof, wouldn’t it already have come? Not the most rigorous logic, but when you have little, you hold what’s left.

  Yawning wide, too tired to think and tied up with thoughts, Ana sought solace in tea.

  Which was cool now, had lost its heat. The sip of cold exhuming her pain, she knew the man she loved had made his choice, he’d returned to the stars and abandoned them both. But tomorrow, perhaps? Would he someday come back to fill up their lives, maybe also her cup?

  Maybe, but not tonight. So she stood, rose off the couch and dabbed her eyes with her shirt; the same thick flannel he so often wore, then told herself it would all work out, that someday, he really would return. Life would leap from normal to good, she knew it was meant to be; but that’s when it happened, when she knew it never would.

  It could have been pleasing, that soft azure glow. But to Ana Redhawk, to the pretty brunette with the sleepy brown eyes now going wide, the light on her tree lit only fear, a sickening upwelling in synch with the surge from the ornament that wasn’t, the little glass tube now humming and pulsing and quaking its branch.

  “Not happening,” Ana mouthed. Not here and now, not in her quaint country home safe from big cities and crime. This was just — a malfunction, some alarming mistake. But when screeching stabbed the house, when every smoke alarm wailed and house lamps stuttered on-off and the odd little tube flared yellow-orange, the mistake, Ana realized, was ignoring the truth, the awful realization the horror from afar wasn’t just coming, it had come for her son.

  Bounding through the flash and wail, her tranquil home rocked to its old oak bones, Ana hurtled down the hall to the only room that mattered, the nearly closed door now banging in as she slid to the crib. Perfect, he was, and though her baby somehow still slept, Ana never noticed, she just scooped him up and charged back out, then pivoted hard for the locked front door. A few seconds more and she’d yanked on her boots, but as she grabbed the deadbolt, she stopped to look back.

  The landline phone hung on the wall, her cell with no signal charged near the sink — but who would she call and what would she say, should she just make something up? Then how long till help arrived, ten minutes or more?

  Convulsed by the mayhem, by lights and alarms seemingly possessed, Ana glanced back at the tree, at the small glass tube now surging bright red. It burst with a shatter, blew into shards, and that sprung her, drove her out of the house with a yank of the bolt and a fling of the door.

  Ana grimaced from the howl, a sub-freezing gust. Yet when she leaned farther out, she met nothing more, nothing awaited but a dusting of snow and low, scudding clouds. Detecting no threat, she also discerned no help, her house stood alone among the fields and trees.

  Ana raced to her car. Quite a trick, cradling a baby and opening a door with fear rushing hot and everything cold, but she did it, and with a jangle of keys, she found the ignition and twisted her wrist. But though the starter chattered, the engine stayed mute. It wasn’t that cold, was it? Or was this merely a dream, the bite of bad tea; was she just asleep on her couch?

  The answer hurt the ears, that raucous melody of a smoke-alarm’d house and the whine of a Ford refusing to start. But if she hated the noise, the conclusion was worse, he must be close.

  “Aigh!” she erupted, slamming the dash, and grabbing her son, she scrambled on out. Turning a moment, peering each way, Ana groped at guesses, at which way he’d come and where she should go. But this was Upper Michigan, a peninsula thick with forest and thin of life, a least the human kind, and her nearest neighbor was either a five-minute jog or a three-minute sprint. But so be it, and redoubling her grip on the babe in her arms, she prepared to run.

  Then she just stood there, just absorbed a new interruption of creaking wood and panicky stomp. Thoughts coming fast, an idea assembled, nearly made sense, but here and now, that was enough.

  Focused and nimble, every movement quick, Ana yanked a backpack from the car, then sprinted toward the creak and stomp of her barn.

  Hooves blurring, heaving flanks slick, a black horse split a snowfield and threw up a wake, a visual churn of unbridled fear.

  “Haigh!” shouted Ana.

  Riding without a saddle or coat and gripping the mane with ungloved hands, she steered the mare toward a hillside woods. And though the wind bit, daggered her skin, she felt only the pack on her back, the jostled life cushioned within.

  Her goal was the forest. Not a sanctuary, no guarantees, but if she could dodge and hide, wait out the night till the wide-open dawn, then whatever had come would perhaps have gone. But maybe it had already given up, maybe her empty house left it confused. Had that ornamental alarm saved her, let her escape?

  Grasping at hope, she instead nearly fell from her mount’s sudden lunge. But it wasn’t the near-fall that hackled Ana’s neck, it was the ears, how the mare’s pointed tips went panicky-flat from the unearthly moan now rising behind.

  It was him, Ana surmised, the horror had followed, was running her down. No time to look, she’d make the forest in just a few seconds more — but she couldn’t help it, she had to know.

  Ana looked back. But despite the moan, she saw only darkness and drifts and heavy gray clouds. Yet she sensed something more, so scrying the sky for anything odd, she then glimpsed a haze, some dark skein of cirrus that didn�
�t just drift, but followed her tracks.

  The first branch hit hard, snapped with a crack, then came the gauntlet, a great battering more. Assaulted by boughs and gouged by needles, Ana plunged into the hillside woods.

  Losing her grip, her balance as well, she grabbed the mane and stopped her fall. “Go-go-go!” she yelled, and so her horse went. But barreling straight for a low branch, the mare jousted Ana right off its back, and for a breathless gasp, the sensation of falling just stopped. Flashed with a memory, with waking once more to the noise on her porch, Ana again opened her door.

  Pale, he was, the pallor of frost. And though his companions eyed her shotgun with concern, the man only smiled; and then just collapsed. So, she had to help him, how could she not? But as she cooled his fever and did what she could, as days grew to weeks and matured into months, a deep affection grew. No longer sure who mended who, Ana Redhawk discovered, utterly unplanned, her life might have purpose, something more than work. But when the man she saved finally told her the truth, who he actually was? Then she just pondered, wondered what it meant, because of all the men who might have fallen from the stars, why him? Could he not have been some other-worldly butcher or baker, did God really just send her a King?

  Ana crashed into a shallow drift. Revived by the snow, its crunchy, cold slap, she quickly, anxiously felt her pack. A soft cry answered, the usual complaint when awoken too soon, but the reply was perfect, she needed nothing more. Then her mind caught up, why she now sprawled in the woods in a damp flannel shirt.

  Ana rocked upright and spun for her horse, that loyal black mare she’d once midwifed to life. But by the look of it, gratitude among horses was likely short-lived, for despite all shout and cajole, it answered her plea with the flash of its tail in a runaway fright.

  Ana now sensed the fright as well, the shake in the air that panicked her mare, so she shifted her stare from ahead to behind. Hard to see through the needles and boughs, but then she saw it, the contrast and motion first seizing her gaze, and then, her breath.

  Running, he was. Someone in a long, dark coat raced through the snowfield hard on her track, and his pace dumbfounded, it could match her horse. The superhuman pursuit unsettled to the extreme, but that still didn’t explain the vibration, the agitated air now sinking in, so tilting back, she peered overhead.