Burning Road

Past and Future- Part III

Khouri had barely enough time to wish he'd brought his gun before the doors to the hardware store and beauty supply store burst open simultaneously.  Khouri dove behind an old register, and took quick mental stock of what he had available.  Mallet, knife, rice, flashlight and change.  Nothing would help.  He could hear movement, boots crunching across the littered floor.  He counted three sets of footsteps.  Three distinct breathing patterns, four if he counted the frantic breaths of the Brownie in the net.  They slowly moved towards each other with measured steps, converging on his position.  Khouri was sure The Hoffmans weren't there to talk.  He made an effort to slow his breathing and calm his nerves.  The time for violence was drawing near.

He tried to fall back on Uncle Moses' teachings, but his mind kept returning to a passage he'd read the week before.  It was a journal entry written by a distant cousin:

"One breath in, two quick breaths out.  Listen not with your ears but with your entire body.  Reach out with your universe.  These are the words my mother's mother would tell us every night when our bodies were bone tired from working the master's fields.  We were exhausted wretched things, but there was no time to rest.  We had to work our minds lest they become atrophied.  She spoke of The Umbra, the light that fueled all things.  She spoke of seeing The Umbra with more than her eyes.  She spoke of the shadow light that was shared by those destined to hunt and the things that need to be hunted.

Only in perfect stillness could The Umbra be seen, and only through The Umbra could the truth of the worlds be revealed.  I know nothing of worlds, I know no truth outside of master's plantation.  What I do know is that my mother's mother spoke into the quiet night while we lay tired as tired could be, and for an elusive moment, before sweet sleep buoyed weary shoulders I believe I did see the light that wasn't light, the bright shadow, The Umbra."

Without thinking, Prince took in a breath followed by two quick expulsions of air.  A strange sensation hovered around him like unfamiliar hands caressing his shoulders.  It was an extension of Uncle Moses' breathing exercise.  Khouri was compelled to give himself over to the strangeness, and in doing so he was able to see for the first time.

The walls, and aisles of the strip mall became thin hollow apparitions.  His hearing intensified, simultaneously sounds became muted.  Their footfalls dimmed but their heartbeats grew thunderous.  Moving through the phantom landscape he observed The Hoffmans in a different aspect.  Yuri approached from the right.  He wore a vest of odd symbols and a horned mantle.  Sunny and Stewart closed from the left.  While Stewart was dressed as Yuri he lacked the mantle but instead wore bands of the strange symbols swirling around his arms.  Sunny was covered in a robe of similar symbols.  Each was a dim blue hue in a grayscale landscape.  They were like ghost floating in darkness.

It was surreal.  The Brownie was still in the net but its dirty clothes were replaced by a shining loincloth and sandals.  Its shades of blue were brighter, more pure.  Between the four there was a constantly moving stream of changing symbols that flowed in them, to them, and through them.  The same stream flowed through Khouri.

Through the stream he could feel the other's fear, and excitement, but there was more just beyond his understanding.  Yuri approached the captured monster, and the brownie's fear grew almost intolerable.  Then there was pain, and Prince was jolted out of his semi-trance.  He felt dizzy, disoriented.  The brownie cried out, and Khouri knew that Yuri had struck the monster a second time.  The hunter laughed and called out to his brothers.

"Looks like we caught ourselves a brown fairy."  He hit the fae again.

"Cute, but where's Prince?  He's who we're here for," called Stewart.  Confirming what Khouri already knew, they weren't there by coincidence.