Unseen Things

7 Vail

"I never got my guitar back," Matt complained as Torie smeared one of Miranda's concoctions over his hand and wrapped it. Vail said nothing. The guitar was a legitimate loss, even by his reckoning, if only because he feared it would dim Matt's hope, and that was something their new team couldn't afford.

He had other worries at the moment, though. Like the fact that the Taken seemed to be actively hunting them. And they'd only been back in the city for a day.

"So do we go to the help center like we were planning, or back home?" Torie interrupted his thoughts.

"Help center," he said. The others looked at him skeptically. "We need answers," he reminded them. "It's not like they're going to stop hunting us any time soon, and what's to stop those Taken dogs from tracking our scent?"

Matt groaned. "So the fewer trips the better then. Ever feel like you're an ant fighting an elephant? These guys have everything and we have..."

"We have Light," Vail cut in, unwilling to let him get the rest of his discouragement into words. "It only takes a candle flame to light a room. That's what we are."

Matt winced as Torie moved on to care for the burn on his arm. She smoothed Miranda's salve over it and pulled his sleeve back down. "What I'm wondering is how that statement is gonna look when we put feet to it." Matt flexed his bandaged hand as Torie finished. "Sure, a candle can light a room, but all it takes is a good sneeze, and the flame's gone."

Vail suppressed an exasperated sigh. The guy definitely needed his guitar back.

"I have no idea what you two are talking about," Torie grumbled as they started toward the help center. 

Vail turned his attention to the center as they rounded the final corner, and couldn't stop a shudder. For a moment he thought his vision had gone funny.

"Whoa. Hold on." He reached out and grabbed the other two by the shoulder, halting them on the sidewalk. He blinked again, forcing himself to see the normalcy, the small crowd of people waiting in line outside the chipping brick walls.

"What's wrong?" Torie's eyes jumped from him to their destination and back.

"It's like a throat. This big, black void. We can't..." The door opened, letting someone out and drawing his gaze. "No...no, no, no!"

"What?!" Torie squeaked.

He steered them back around the corner out of sight. "People are going in there and coming back out in Darkness. They're giving them that drug in there. The place is alive with Unseen. But why? Why would people do it?" he paced in tight little circles on the sidewalk, which did nothing to burn off his frustration.

"They're selling it as a cure for fear," Torie reminded him. "That you'll never have to live in fear again. And everyone's afraid." She'd gone white.

"We have to get in there," Matt said. He gripped Vail's shoulder, halting his pacing, and glared at him. "Every time someone comes out Taken, that's a soul. We can't walk away."

Vail shrugged out of his grasp. "Lemme think." He started pacing again, peering around the corner at the building, and coming back to their little group, but paused a moment later. He pulled Miranda's syringe and one of her little vials of antidote from his pocket and handed it to Matt. "Go grab that guy before he gets too far."

Matt paused long enough to scowl and roll his eyes before he took off in the direction of the man they'd seen exit the help center. Vail resumed pacing, and in a few moments Matt came back. He slapped the syringe and empty vial back into Vail's hand. "Well?"