Reality was disintegrating. People scarcely noticed such an event whenever it had happened before. Even the people whose hearts had opened to secrets of the cosmos.
Like in this very moment, with all manner of people, sitting in their cars, trailing down THE HIGHWAY, oblivious to the invisible fire that was devouring their world. Driving to where they needed to be, or wanted to be, or even just driving aimlessly. People always needed to be somewhere, or elsewhere, or… anywhere, really.
And whenever you took that apart, word for word, concept by concept, the cracks always started to show. Some magi had said it before, and they would say it again: perception was shaped by belief, therefore the world as we perceived it was subject to change by changing our beliefs.
Underneath the cracking surface of one egg, another reality was already on the rise, emerging from its own nested depths. It had been gestating in the dark void where all memories met, melting into a primordial soup where all ambitions went to die. If the people traveling THE HIGHWAY were like the land’s blood cells, then the first extremities were already on the verge of withering and rotting away. Blackened, with potholes forming in the asphalt, and nothing to stop the spreading decay.
Deep down, deeper down, beneath the dust and shadow, ancient fossils slept. Turned to oil and tar and stone. Drawn from the earth, transmuted with blood and sweat and dollars into plastic and steel, and combusting into the suffocating smoke of industry and corruption. Whole worlds had risen and crumbled into sand, over and over again.
Some more obvious in their transfiguration than others. Sometimes, someone’s dream was dying, and with it a previous world. Sometimes, another someone’s dream took its place, and changed the way reality worked.
And whenever any world ended, another would rise from its ashes.
Whatever would happen if that cycle was broken somehow? The phoenix—rather than being shot dead, and eaten by the hungry hunter, and shat out to return to the eternal circle of life and death—what if something were to remove it from the cosmos entirely?
Most people in those cars, drifting up and down THE HIGHWAY, paid no mind to such esoteric thoughts. Most of them had never noticed previous realities dying and replacing each other. Events as invisible to them as the sky over their heads, and as unfathomable as the seas and the millennia of eras past.
They had other things to worry about.
Such as Special Agent of the FBI, Derek Wells. Sliding doors opened for him before he exited the clothing store at a strip mall.
He had exchanged his damaged suit for a pair of denims and a bright yellow T-shirt emblazoned with a cartoonishly smiling bright sun. His shoes lay discarded in a trash can nearby, previously swapped out with a pair of cheap white sneakers. His service pistol and its concealed holster stayed hidden, wrapped up inside the fabric of his bureau-issued jacket, squeezed underneath one arm.
He ran his hand through his short hair, figuring it needed a new trim soon. Considering the bureau’s dress code and how he was now violating it with his new outfit, the thought of quitting the job crossed his mind.
Then the thought of winding up in prison eclipsed it.
Derek Wells sighed deeply, as if he was jettisoning debris from the surface of his soul, from which another was emerging, unbeknownst to him.
Aria Chambers was leaning against the side of her limousine, chattering on a chunky mobile phone. Wells sighed again, somewhat disappointed over the bureau never having issued him one of those devices. The pocketful of change he always used for payphones hung heavy in his balled up jacket.
Barry, Aria’s bodyguard, stood watch near the limousine. Wearing his shades again and looming in the background, Wells figured they’d be fine.
According to Aria, she had some things to talk about with another one of the Witches of the West Coast. Part of Wells had been burning with curiosity to listen in on that conversation, but another part of him was fed up with all the talk of magick, and ghosts, and necromancers, and the occult.
Mostly, he wondered if time in prison would be the equivalent of vacation he was long overdue for. A time out he desperately needed.
The thought of his breakup with Aleena returned to haunt him—just as someone else exited the store behind him, and its doors slid open again, the soft R’n’B of Chasing Waterfalls by TLC traveled from the retailer’s radio speakers, reaching him outside. It pained him how he still liked the track, but the sound of it now cut deep, forever intertwined with a broken relationship.
He clicked his tongue. The damned song would stay on the air all year. He knew it before he knew it.
Took a walk. Away from the clothing store. Away from the music.
Straight to the fast food joint near the next corner. It afforded him enough distance from the music, though its beat and melody and dulcet vocals still lingered as ghostly echoes in his ears.
While he counted coins to gauge if he could afford a burger and milkshake, rather than making a call to the bureau, he paused.
A figure in the window of the electronics store stared back at him. The ghosts of TV screens behind the glass flickered.
Electricity. Crackled.
That figure was neither his own reflection nor a person behind the glass. That figure was a person from… elsewhere, entirely.
Reality was disintegrating, and Derek Wells just didn’t know it yet.
The figure was a man with messy blond hair, dressed in an old black leather jacket.
Jericho Kane.
The suspect Wells and Parker had pursued across America on a wild goose chase, only to find out he was the symptom of something bigger, and not the cause.
And here he was—or wasn’t? Jericho Kane, the shadow, or the ghost, or the echo—banged his fists against the glass from another side, shouting at the top of his lungs, making no sound whatsoever. Inaudibly pleading with Wells to help him. Almost entirely translucent. Barely visible.
The clinkety-clinking of coins hitting sidewalk tore Wells out of the sinuous vision. When he looked back up, the image of a desperate Jericho Kane had vanished. Like a hallucination that had given up on haunting him.
Wells tilted his head one way, then the other, almost hoping he’d catch another glimpse of the bizarre apparition. A few weeks prior, and he would have been questioning his sanity over such a sight, but he knew better now than to dismiss such phenomena as anything but a sign of the presence of something unnatural.
Picking up the fallen coins, Wells rubbernecked and swiveled, hoping to catch a glimpse of the ghost again. Or something else that stood out.
Aria was still on the phone. Waving the hip flask in her other hand excitedly, taking a swig, and responding into the mobile receiver. The traffic of the nearby HIGHWAY drowned out whatever words she exchanged.
Other passersby gave Wells funny looks. One of them oozed with pity, like he was looking at a crazy man.
Wells averted his gaze, shook his head, and did the next-best thing after looking for a way to find the ghost.
He entered the fast food joint.
Slowly, surely, reality was disintegrating. He just couldn’t see it. Nobody really could.
Standing in line to get that burger and shake, Wells shot a glance at his wristwatch.
3:33 PM.
He found it funny at the time though had no concept as to why.
Mostly, he thought one thing: Agent Parker was late. Too late.
Something was wrong. It couldn’t have been taking her this long to interrogate the imprisoned serial killer, Freddy Fletcher, at the Kentucky supermax.
He sighed every time he remembered his previous conversation with her.
How she had insisted on going alone, in case they were apprehended for having gone dark on the bureau—it only made sense if only one of them was caught in such a case.
How she had insisted on going alone, because Fletcher’s profile told her he would be more talkative that way—and dismissing him on the “good cop, bad cop” tactic ever worked out for the better.
How she had insisted on going alone, because their enemies were spying on them somehow, and splitting their attention would make it more difficult for that shadowy cabal to stall them, to stop them from reaching the dark heart of this invisible world.
Wells sighed because he knew, deep down, she was right.
Wells sighed yet again, because he had developed a deep sense of loyalty towards his new partner and colleague over such a short amount of time, and was now growing worried about her well-being.
Worried that something was wrong, and Parker was in trouble.
Even with reality disintegrating as it was, and a whole cast of realistic doubts gnawing away at the tenuous equilibrium within himself, one more person stood in line in front of him. Ordering a cheeseburger and fries. A small and greasy reality check, grounding him in the reality he thought he knew.
He shot another glance over his shoulder.
Aria was still on the phone.
Then, Wells froze. Paralyzed with shock.
A familiar face filled out the entirety of his perception. His beliefs flip-flopped in that very moment, as he had seen too many coincidences for them to remain in the realm of coincidence. And with that very realization, and reality disintegrating as it was, and his beliefs tearing apart at the seams, and altering his perception, he saw—
Director Anthony Collins.
His superior. His mentor at the bureau.
His friend of several years.
That had been Wells’ perception and beliefs for a good long time now.
Now, he perceived an enemy.
Anthony was one of their enemies.
Instinct—instinct told Wells that Anthony was the leak in the bureau. The one who had sold them out to the Way King’s cabal.
It was the only way Wells could explain why on Earth he would encounter Director Anthony Collins in the middle of nowhere, an entire US state away from the West Virginia office, rooting around inside the back of a strange black van with a wizard painting airbrushed onto its side.
Though Wells lacked the words to describe this tingling and weird sensation, he sensed the inherent synchronicity, drenching the fabric of reality in that very moment. A dizzying sense of vertigo overcame him as he stared at Anthony. Their confluence here, brought together at this innocuous strip mall, against all odds, and against all logic.
Anthony was the traitor.
The enemy.
“Uh, excuse me, can I get your order, sir?”
The clerk behind the counter had addressed Wells. Snapped him right back out of the vertigo.
He was already seeing red and all faces except for Anthony’s had blurred into soupy, indecipherable masks.
“I’m sorry. Get the next customer, please. I’ll come back later,” Wells pressed out before clenching his jaw.
Staring daggers at Anthony all the while.
“Uh, o-okay?”
Someone took his place in line while Wells marched straight out of the fast food joint, nearly shoving some stranger out of the way in his stride.
Across the parking lot he stormed, on a direct path towards his former mentor. Following a straight line to the gravity well. The magnet to his metal.
“Anthony!” Wells yelled. A furious yell, transporting pure and unfiltered wrath.
Anthony Collins jolted up into standing straight. He had the air of someone caught in the act. Wells didn’t know what exactly he had caught Anthony doing just now, but he knew he was right about his instinct.
This chance encounter felt wrong.
All wrong.
Wells kept pace, one angry step after the other taking him to Anthony fast. Fury rippled through his body. He shook and burned with indignant rage until his sneakers slapped the ground with increasing speed.
Anthony’s eyes widened with shock. Rooted where he stood, like a deer caught in the headlights.
The fury flowed. Adrenaline pumped. Wells burst out into jogging towards Anthony.
“Anthony!”
Anthony sprang into action. Slammed the van’s side door shut, then bolted to the driver’s seat. Didn’t even close the door as he fired up the motor, and the vehicle’s engine roared.
Stray coins jingled where they hit the parking lot’s asphalt—Wells gritted his teeth, oblivious to such paltry losses, and yet—
“Shit!”
Wells’ jogging transformed into running. He chased after the van. Sparks sprayed where the vehicle bounced over the nearest curb—Anthony taking a desperate shortcut past people stuck in traffic by the parking lot exit—the van scraped over concrete and fender metal screeched as it violently twisted.
Anthony gained more speed until he escaped with the van, long before Wells could catch up on foot.
Because the windows on the back of van had been tinted, Wells couldn’t spot anything. Through the red haze clouding his perception, he hadn’t even caught the license plate number.
“Shit!” he swore again.
He bottled up more profanities before they could cascade from his throat.
A car horn honked, and Wells waved the driver to go around him as he returned to the curb.
Aria and Barry were looking his way. Aria threw her hands up into a theatrical shrug—still holding the hip flask in one hand and the phone in the other—still so far out of earshot that they couldn’t communicate verbally. Confused over whatever had just played out on the strip mall’s parking lot—
Wells jogged over to them.
Shouted before he arrived.
“Get that car goin’! Quick! We can’t let him get away!”
Doors slammed and to Wells’ relief, both Aria and Barry reacted as quickly as he needed them to. He caught some wheezing breaths as he slumped into the seat in the back of the limo. The driver stepped on the gas, just like Aria told him to.
“Follow that van,” she instructed, between hasty sips from her flask.
She eyed Wells closely.
“Darlin’, who the hell are we chasing?”
Wells unraveled the balled-up jacket in his hands. Withdrew the empty pistol from the holster in its bowels. He checked it thoroughly, just short of taking it apart to clean it—a way he used to decompress and “meditate”, back in his days with the Rangers.
The weapon in his palm weighed as much as it should, its magazine filled with new bullets.
It centered him now.
“Okay, darlin’, you are really scaring me,” Aria said, taking another swig from her flask. “What in the hell is going on? Who is that? Talk to me, please, we’re, like, on the same side here. Right?”
Wells emitted a shuddering sigh, partially owed to catching his breath. Partially owed to exasperation.
He didn’t feel like explaining.
But she was right. They never had the luxury of picking their allies. He’d take whoever he got, and hope they had his back when it came down to serious business.
“That,” he breathed, “That was Director Anthony Collins of the FBI. Don’t ask me how I know, but I know—I know it’s him. Gotta be him. He’s the guy who ratted us out, at the bureau.”
Aria nodded.
He set his jaw and looked up. Aria and Barry both eyed him suspiciously—like friends would, these two strangers now strangely concerned with his well-being.
Wells spoke again, “How does your…”
He didn’t want to say it out loud.
He had grown to hate that word. Almost as much as he hated the memory of Aleena breaking up with him.
Aria cocked her head and asked, “How does what?”
“How does your magick work?” Wells finally asked Aria.
Barry averted his gaze, still uncomfortable himself over the subject. Probably because he had seen his former colleague, Mac, get possessed by a demon, then get his brains blown out by Aria because exorcisms apparently didn’t work quite as they did in movies.
“What? You want a crash course now?”
Wells shrugged. His grip around the pistol tightened to the point of his knuckles whitening.
The engine growled. Tires screeched. Her limo driver was doing his best.
Through tinted windows, Wells perceived the wizard van on the horizon. The two vehicles swerved and swooped, weaving through drifting traffic, all blood cells accelerating and evading and surviving, while adrenaline pumped through the body in sudden surges.
Several cars ahead of them on THE HIGHWAY.
Blood rushed in Wells’ ears. The gloomy sky outside continuously darkened.
Ever so slightly.
And reality? Well, reality was still disintegrating. The ghostly image of Jericho Kane once more banged his fists against a window between worlds, invisible to the people inside the limo. Helpless to communicate with them, unable to bridge the void, and incapable of reaching them in any way.
“Darlin’, I trust you’re as sharp as you look,” Aria said, “But there’s no way I can teach you how to—”
“I don’t want to learn how you do it,” Wells replied. “I’m just curious how it works. Like a crash course in astrophysics, or something. See, I know how this gun works. Combustion. Black powder. I know how to use it safely, and I know how to take a mean motherfucker down with it if I need to. So—how does your weapon work?”
Aria scoffed. Took another swig.
She raised the flask and clicked her long and perfectly-manicured black fingernails against its shiny silvery surface.
“Okay, Mister America. These,” she said, clicking the flask again, “are my potions.”
“It’s not just booze?”
“Oh, it’s booze alright. But booze is my potions, see? Booze is a lubricant which allows me to see the world differently than other people—hell, different even from how I see it when I’m sober, and believe you me, I try to keep that a distant memory.”
“You’re drunk all the time?”
She ignored the question. ”And when that changes—when I change—so does the world around me. I’ve hurled beer bottles with my mind, like some Jedi shit. You saw me drink that Gravedigger spirit asshole, well, because spirits and spirits are intrinsically connected when I’m transcendent like that, and it makes sense when I’m blasted. Shit, man, I’ve been in car crashes under the influence and climbed out of wrecks that would have killed an elephant—and I walked away without a scratch, like a newborn baby.”
Barry arched a brow, still trying to blend into their environment despite being the biggest person in the car.
Wells ran a hand through his hair.
This was helping. She was helping.
His blood still rushed. His body still burned. He still yearned to grab Anthony, and throttle him till all the answers came tumbling out of his rat mouth.
But Wells also knew he’d never get all the puzzle pieces from one single place.
And their chase was taking them in the direction of the Kentucky State Penitentiary.
To Parker.
He refrained from swearing and cracked a lopsided smile.
“Y’know, that’s the first thing I’ve heard about the occult that has made any lick o’ sense.”
Aria beamed. If she was toasted—and she likely was, given her drinking habits—then she was good at hiding it. Or so inured to the influence of it that it was her normal state of being.
He continued to grapple with her explanation, shaping it into something he could comprehend. “So you’re telling me… you get shitfaced, then the world bends to your drunk logic?”
She shrugged, still smiling. “Best I’ve ever heard it put into words.”
“Alcoholomancy? Alcoholemy?”
She laughed from the depth of her belly, snorting by the end. “Great names. I, well, I just call it witchcraft. But I’ll take those into consideration when I next engage in discourse with my coven.”
His grip around the pistol eased. Wells chewed on his lip and shot another glance to their target. The van couldn’t outrun the limo, nor could the limo catch up to the van.
The lamest chase he had ever been involved in.
“If they ever turn this into some fucked-up kind of movie, I want credit for that,” he mumbled.
Her slender hand rested on his forearm. Cold skin. Electric to the touch.
A soothing energy flowed from body to body. It caused his other hand to release all tension, unfurling from the fist he had formed in his lap, splaying his fingers before gripping the gun more lightly.
“She’ll be fine,” Aria said. “I feel it too. It’s all coming together now. We… we are all coming together now. All mysteries unravel when you pull on the right thread, and sometimes, the right thread just presents itself.”
She extended the hip flask for him to take.
And Wells took it. Stared at the sleek metal container, systematically shedding all inhibitions. He normally would have never had a drink on the job, but he no longer was on the job anymore, was he?
Thus, he took a long sip from the flask.
Its liquid burned in the back of his throat. Strong bourbon. Given how Aria dressed and behaved, he assumed it was expensive stuff. It didn’t matter to Wells in that moment, it only tasted like fire.
Fitting right in with his state of being.
Reality continued disintegrate all around them, unbeknownst to them.
“Do you feel it, too?” Aria asked.
“That we’re going to get answers soon?” Wells shot back.
“Something strange in the air, Agent Wells. Something…”
“Call me Derek,” he said. “And I feel it, yeah. ”
“Providence,” she added. “It tastes like providence.”
“Tastes like bourbon to me,” he replied, handing the flask back to her with another lopsided smile. “Thanks. And thanks for payrolling the ammo and clothing.”
She just nodded.
He couldn’t help it and tightened his grip around the pistol again. The lamest car chase was taking them off THE HIGHWAY, onto roads winding through a wooded area. The limo never really gained on the van. The van never outran the limo.
Anthony ran a red light, resulting in screeching tires at a lazy crossing, and more honking horns. Aria’s driver powered through, provoking more angry honks from other people in traffic.
“What are we doing when we catch up to him?” Aria asked. “I’d normally volunteer to be more proactive, but according to you, we’re dealing with the director of the Federal fuckin’ Bureau of Investigation, so I think I’m going to play my cards safe and follow your lead on this. I have only so many get-out-of-jail-free cards, Derek.”
His nostrils flared as he struggled to formulate a response.
He wasn’t sure himself what would happen next.
Blown away were all bureau protocol, all discipline from military days, and every iota of personal routine. He shook his head when he only came up with raw instinct, because raw instinct was gripping his stomach.
“We talk,” he finally reasoned out loud. “I will point this gun at Anthony, and we will talk until I’m satisfied with whatever he says.”
“That’s,” Aria whispered. “That’s not much of a plan. Listen, Derek. You tell me what to do, and we’ll do it, Barry and me both.”
Barry met her gaze and nodded slowly in recognition.
Wells rolled his jaw and figured her remaining bodyguard was worth every penny she paid him.
The things he must have seen.
After the final curve of the road ahead of them, the forest opened up, granting clear sight to long fields, leading up to the facility colloquially known as the Castle on the Cumberland.
The tall Gothic structure honored its name, looming over the nearby river like a foreboding fortress. The water tower jutting out from its rooftops lent it an almost alien appearance, like a UFO was about to land there any time now.
Aria’s attention became glued to the sky. Barry rubbernecked to follow her gaze.
Derek Wells squinted once it hit him.
Reality was disintegrating, and the sky was slowly transforming to match.
Clouds swirled with surreal shape and direction, forming a spiraling vortex in the sky. Like a misty black hole forming… right above the supermax prison.
All gloomy daylight gradually darkened, like a painter slathering on layers upon layers of black.
The horizon shifted in tone until a deep crimson saturated it, seeping upwards, like the earth itself bleeding, dripping upside-down into the heavens.
All distances melted—the fields to the tree lines grew as if they were driving away from them until a shadowy mist had swallowed them entirely.
The skies of different places clashed like different liquids admixing in a bartender’s glass.
Aria’s hand on Derek’s forearm centered him again. He stopped squeezing the grip of his pistol.
Reality was disintegrating.
Even the crimson died until a pitch-black darkness swallowed their environment. It swallowed the wizard-van and Anthony. It swallowed the prison, the river, and the woods, and the sky itself, until nothing but darkness remained.
The whole world outside the limo turned dark. And then even the dying light inside dimmed.
The driver slowed the car down.
“Stop,” Wells said. “Stop the car.”
Aria nodded.
The driver braked until the limo came to a gentle halt.
Wells got out.
The world had fallen as silent as it had turned entirely dark.
Unnatural in that silence.
He only heard his own breathing, a bit too shallow and fast for comfort, fueled by his heart, pounding with fear. He hardly saw his own white sneakers through the endless, let alone the sharp outlines of the vehicle he was standing beside.
Then the howling started.
Howling winds.
Those wind carried dust and desert heat, yet smelled like the final snow of a dying winter.
He’d remember thinking: It’s about time, because this is the end of May. What is summer waiting for?
Streetlights from another state flared up, one by one—a chain of light cast down a long, paved path; illuminating the lonesome road before them.
THE HIGHWAY.
Farther down the road, Anthony stood outside the wizard-van, gazing to the horizon ahead of them.
And farther yet down the road, Jericho Kane’s rusty Buick stood, and beside it, Agent Parker, and a man in a black duster.
“Anthony!” Wells yelled again.
Anthony Collins cocked his head back to stare at Wells, and the gun in his hand, and—
The distance melted.
Shortened.
Perception and belief both molted. Eggs bursting from eggs.
Reality disintegrated even faster than before.
The hundreds of yards between limo, van, and Buick had shrunken into dozens.
The man in the black duster raised a hand in greeting.
He smiled at Wells.
The small red-headed woman by his side—Parker—looked pale, disheveled, and distressed. She met Wells’ gaze and shook her head.
Barry and Aria emerged from the other side of the limo. The bodyguard was tense, every muscle in the beefcake’s body turned as taut as steel wire.
The man in black shouted down THE HIGHWAY to them, with the melody of song in his tone.
“Hello! You must be Agent Wells. I’m so happy to meet you. I think it’s high time we all met the Way King. Together!”
Aria muttered under her breath so only Barry and Wells could catch it.
“It’s him. I know that voice. The Oracle of New York.”
Parker shouted down the road.
“Put the gun away, Agent Wells. We’re about to learn the truth, and I would hate to see it bleeding out from gunshot wounds.”
Something about what she said matched poorly with how she said it. Parker crossed her arms, staring at the cracked road between them.
Distance melted yet again as reality continued to disintegrate. Warmth arrived on another gust of wind. Wells swallowed and tasted more desert sand.
His changes in perception lagged behind the sluggish adaptation of his beliefs.
When he next cast a glance around to take in the unreal surroundings, the sky solidified again. Distance shrank anew—transporting them farther down THE HIGHWAY even while they stood still.
Nobody looked as perturbed as Wells felt by this unnatural experience. The only thing he could read on Aria’s expression was one of distrust towards Michael. Fear, even.
Anthony appeared to be more nervous over the confrontation with Parker and Wells. Standing in between them, his gaze bounced back and forth, like someone observing a tennis match from the immediate sidelines.
Michael no longer needed to shout. The vehicles were all only one car’s length away from one another.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen. What say you we all take our trip down the yellow-lined Tarmac? It’ll only be a short way to the Way King now. He’ll be thrilled to meet you, I assure you.”
Awkwardly, everybody shuffled back into their respective vehicles.
Wells remained standing last, his burning ire locked onto Anthony Collins with a burning gaze. The FBI director broke eye contact, shrinking under the heat of that unbridled fury until he disappeared into the wizard-van.
Wells slammed the door shut behind himself.
It was high time to meet the man behind the curtain.
All darkness flaked away from the world, dissipating and scattering like dust in the wind.
The fiery sun shone yellow against the bright blue sky over desert.
#the odyssey
#art
#ao3
#star wars
