C.L. Stegall

I thought I would share the pro­logue of the sec­ond novel in my Prog­eny series today. It still needs a lit­tle work, but I feel it is evoca­tive enough to deal with any commentary. :)

PROLOGUE

Car­los called no par­tic­u­lar place home yet this loca­tion came as close as any. The day had waned and twi­light was creep­ing in on the dilap­i­dated ruins of the West Park Asy­lum in Sur­rey. Car­los, young and mocha-shinned, lin­gered here, in the silence of ruins, among the bro­ken ovens and rusted frames of one of the long-unused stain­less steel kitchens which sat in situ beneath the rows of sky­light win­dows over­head. The baby blue of the atmos­phere miles above shifted to a darker, navy blue as dusk closed in. Car­los knew Samuel would be here soon. He had seen it. What he had not seen, and could not for some rea­son, was what hap­pened next. This fact, against his abil­ity to fore­see the future, wor­ried him to no end. Such a blank spot in his own future had hap­pened only once before, and that inci­dent he chose not to dwell upon.

He shuf­fled closer to the cen­ter of the room, away from the deep­en­ing shad­ows which crept down from the walls and edged nearer to his posi­tion. The smell of the stag­nant water that lay pud­dled beneath a leak in one of the sky­lights min­gled with the rusty aroma of the chipped and crum­bling red brick walls encas­ing the expan­sive space. Car­los noted the smells, once famil­iar and safe, now held a sense of fore­bod­ing that sent a chill trac­ing the length of his spine.

He felt the unnat­ural alter­ing of the room’s tem­per­a­ture and wrapped his arms around him­self in a less than com­fort­ing hug. The shad­ows mutated by the tall swing­ing doors through which the staff once entered and exited the kitchen. The dark­ness elon­gated, flowed against the nat­ural shift of the fail­ing light, and stretched out­ward toward Car­los. He watched as the pecu­liar tide of shadow then rejoined with the main body and deep­ened, form­ing an ink spot against the lighter tones of shadow.

The ink spot con­gealed and formed into a sil­hou­ette, which then sculpted itself into a tall, dark man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties. He had a scruff of days-old beard, the out­line of a goa­tee thicker and darker than the rest, and not a hair on his head. Whether the bald­ness was by choice or genet­ics, Car­los could not tell. The man stepped from the shad­ows and closed on Car­los, who backed away, main­tain­ing his dis­tance from the man.

“You do me an injus­tice, Ora­cle,” the man said to Car­los, feign­ing offense and call­ing the boy by his dis­liked nick­name. “I mean you no harm.”

“You lie,” Car­los replied, con­tin­u­ing the dance to keep his dis­tance from the man.

“Do I?” Samuel stopped and stared. “Do you know who I am?” Car­los nod­ded. Samuel pursed his lips and nod­ded once in return. “I see. So, you have some idea of what I want?” Another nod. “Excel­lent. Then we should get down to busi­ness.” In the blink of an eye, Samuel melted into the shad­ows that sur­rounded them and faded from sight.

Car­los twirled in cir­cles search­ing for any sign of Samuel’s reap­pear­ance. He darted for the swing­ing doors only to have the fore­bod­ing demigod emerge from the shad­ows, block­ing his path.

“This is an inter­est­ing place,” Samuel stated, his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a dark blue jean jacket that fell open in front to reveal his black t-shirt. The jacket matched his jeans and, as he walked about the room, his engi­neer boots clomped on the cold con­crete floor. “Did you know that this hos­pi­tal could house upwards of two thou­sand patients at the height of its capac­ity? It even had its own rail­way for a period of time. But, that was removed by 1950. Can’t really tell it was even here any longer. Time decays all.” The man opened his arms in a sign of inno­cence, con­tin­u­ing to stroll in a cir­cle around Car­los, his heavy boots always touch­ing the shad­ows stretch­ing out from the walls. “I told you, Ora­cle. I’m not here to harm you. How­ever, if you test my patience again by attempt­ing to leave before giv­ing me what I want, my objec­tives may shift accord­ingly. Do we under­stand each other?”

Car­los watched Samuel’s eyes, dark and unblink­ing. He nod­ded in sur­ren­der and moved back to the cen­ter of the room and sat cross-legged on the cold con­crete floor. What­ever his fate may now be, he was fly­ing blind. Just like every­one else who was not the child of Apollo.

“Fine,” he said to the man. “I think I know what you want, but—“

“Allow me to enlighten you,” Samuel said, return­ing his hands to clasp behind his back. “I want to know about the Tome. The Red Tome. How do I find it?”

“I don’t know,” Car­los replied.

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true. I have no idea where it is.”

“Ah,” said Samuel, a smile creep­ing across his scruffy face, “but, I did not ask you where it was. No. I asked you how I find it. I know all of your lit­tle for­tuneteller tricks. You can see so much.” Samuel paused in his move­ment and faced Car­los. “Try for me, Ora­cle. Try and do not fail.”

 Car­los real­ized what Samuel really wanted. The fear of what the request could mean drove cold chills down Car­los’ spine. He wasn’t even cer­tain he could do what the man was ask­ing. Even if he did, he was almost pos­i­tive that it would be his last look into the future. He watched as Samuel tilted his head toward him, the man’s thoughts turn­ing dark over what would be his next steps should Car­los refuse. Tak­ing a deep breath, the son of Apollo nod­ded at Samuel and closed his eyes. He con­cen­trated on slow­ing his breath­ing, dif­fi­cult with such threat star­ing down at him. Nev­er­the­less, he attempted to relax, to open his mind, to focus his thoughts.

Car­los’ head lolled down, chin to chest, as he swayed side-to-side seated upon the cold con­crete. A hum emanated from him as he began to sing-song words as they came to him from some dis­tant pos­si­bil­ity, some future that may or may not occur. “Retrieve the Tome from noth­ing­ness and see,” he sang, “that what was the future shall never be.” The words echoed through the dis­used kitchen. Car­los’ eyes flut­tered as he began to return from his pre­c­og­nizant trance.

“Hmnh,” Samuel mur­mured, his lips once again pursed in thought. “Interesting.”

Car­los opened and closed his eyes, clear­ing his head of the fuzzi­ness which came as part and par­cel of his visions. He noticed Samuel was pac­ing around the edge of the room once again, his eyes never leav­ing Car­los for more than a sec­ond or two. Car­los stood in order to face him, just as the man stopped and peered with pur­pose at him.

“You know who I am, so you have a clue as to what I am capa­ble of. Cor­rect?” Car­los nod­ded in response, afraid to say any­thing. Samuel returned the nod. “I ask you to be fully aware that my goal in com­ing here was not to do you any harm. I stated as much ear­lier. I will move on about on my jour­ney, leav­ing you to your piti­ful, soli­tary life here. How­ever,” he con­tin­ued, “should you find it nec­es­sary to inform any other per­son, liv­ing or dead, about our lit­tle visit, I will shift my pri­or­i­ties. At that point, make no mis­take, my goal will be to do as much harm to you as I pos­si­bly can prior to releas­ing you from your so-called life. Do I make myself per­fectly clear?”

Car­los nod­ded with enthu­si­asm as Samuel stepped back into the shad­ows and melted away into dark­ness, leav­ing the ora­cle to slump his shoul­ders in relief and appre­hen­sion. Samuel was on the same path as Alexis. Car­los knew that Alexis was not your aver­age demigod. Still, she was young and inex­pe­ri­enced. He hoped that the daugh­ter of night would sur­vive the com­ing con­fronta­tion with Samuel. Not many did when cross­ing the son of Hades.