Three
A blade plunged into his heart. That was what Sam felt right now. “She did what?”
“It was the only reason it took you in the first place.” Thor’s mother replied, “leverage Sam. I’m so sorry...”
“No!” Sam kicked off the covers and lurched out of bed. He slammed into the wall, his legs still wobbly and uncooperative. “We are going to get her back before...”
“Sam it’s too late.” Thor’s low voice said. It had been a while since he had spoke. His sad eyes glued to the floorboards. “Star didn’t die, death would have been a blessing in comparison to what that thing wanted,” he uttered bitterly before finally looking at Sam. “Star’s servitude for you. She’s its now.”
“How do you mean?” Sam asked wanting to get all the details so he could figure out how to get Star out of this. “What does it need her for?”
“Whatever this thing is,” Thor’s mother answered, “it predates the written word. There’s absolutely nothing anywhere about it.”
“So we know nothing!” Sam snapped angrily. The woman smiled patiently at him. Sam’s respect for her grew. “I’m sorry...”
“Don’t be.” She answered quickly, “I know what its like to lose a loved one.” Sadness invaded her bright eyes and the woman looked away.
Thor cleared his throat, “hate to break up this touching moment,” he said giving his mother a curious glance as she passed him, “but we do know something about it. I’m not just here for my good looks you know.” He mused.
“How do you mean?” Sam inquired.
Thor up-righted a crate and sat down. “From what we’ve gleamed from our sources this thing is called a Guardian.”
“Guardian of what exactly?”
“That we don’t know.” Thor grimaced leaning in, “apparently there used to be a whole race of them, that was thousands of years ago and its been e-eons since one has shown up.”
“Okay, what does it want with my sister?” Sam asked suddenly feeling drained.
“The Guardian is after souls.” Thor’s mother piped in from beside the door. “To be more precise, the souls of the dead.”
“Ghosts feed this thing.” Thor clarified.
“And that’s where Star comes in.” Sam finished as a light bulb went on in his head, “but surely something as powerful as this thing can get it’s own souls?” Nothing about this made much sense to him. Thor’s answers left him with only more questions.
“That’s all we know.” Thor sighed leaning away.
Sam West looked at the boy in front of him who rubbed at his puffy eyes and a stab of sympathy ripped through him. The boy’s messy hair and pale complexion made him look ill. With a snarl of frustration Sam started to pace the room. “I need to see my sister. We need to stop beating around the bush and just ask her what’s going on.” The fact that she wasn’t there to greet her brother, after spending three months of doing whatever to get him back, irked Sam.
Thor briefly closed his eyes, “I don’t know where she is.”
“But she called me at the bar, and I assume Star is where you’ve been getting this info from?” Who else could know anything about what they were up against. Thor was holding a lot back, Sam knew that much, and didn’t like being left in the dark.
“Sam,” the kid breathed tiredly, “I haven’t seen her in weeks. She could be in flaming Malta for all I know.”
“Then how...?”
“Star called me, told me where you’d be. That’s all I know.”
Sam gritted his teeth in annoyance. Why would Star rather confide in this messed up kid she barely knew then her own brother? “Fine.” He barked, “give me your phone and I’ll call her.”
Without pause Thor retrieved the cell from his pocket and handed it to Sam. “You’ll have to go outside, there’s no reception inside.”
Sam took the phone and stormed out the room. Outside the cool evening breeze whipped at his cheeks. He scrolled through Thor’s contacts till he came to Star, which didn’t take very long, the only other name in the kid’s phone was his mother, and dialed. “Come on...pick up damn it!” He cursed as he was directed to her voice-mail for the seventh time.
“Not answering, huh?” Thor was hovering on the doorstep. “She does that a lot.”
Sam handed the phone back. “I’ve been a saint up till now but if you don’t spill what you’re holding back, I’ll paste your face all over this house.”
To his credit Thor didn’t try to deny it. “She’s different from the girl you remember Sam.” He finally admitted, “doing this, working for that...its changing her a piece at a time.”
“How old are you kid?” Sam countered, “how are you mixed up in all this?”
“Not old enough.” Thor replied bitterly, “you and Star aren’t the only ones with...gifts. At least that’s what my Mom calls it. I would say its more of a curse...”
“You can see the dead?” Sam demanded. He needed to trust these people but couldn’t unless he knew their agenda and just what the hell dragged them into his and Star’s fight.
“No.” Thor leaned against the porch, “my father had a unique ability. He could see the future.”
Sam regarded the kid a second before bringing his fist up, seconds before his knuckles collided with Thor’s face, the kid shifted right and Sam stumbled, hitting nothing but air.
“You think that proves anything?” Thor scoffed, “you telegraphed it, man. Even a blind man could have ducked that.”
“if you really can see the future, why would you need Star to tell you where I was?” Sam smiled slyly. He had come across his fair share of false clairvoyants, swindlers cashing in on people’s pain. They were the lowest form of scum in his opinion
“Because the future inst fixed in stone.” Thor explained, “it’s a living, flowing energy that constantly changes with every breath you take. I can see a few minutes ahead, that’s it.”
“And Star knows?”
Thor nodded. “We really did go to school together. In all my 24 years walking this earth, she’s the only person I’ve ever told.”
“How’d it happen?” Sam inquired still on the fence. If Thor and Star was close enough for him to reveal a secret of this magnitude how come Sam had never heard his sister mention him?
“I wasn’t in an accident like you and Star. I was born with it. Star turned to me when you disappeared because she thought I could help. She found me down in Ohio eight weeks ago,” a smile crossed his face, “I hadn’t seen her in years.”
Sam took a deep breath, trying to process all this and figure their next step. “Okay, the thing wants ghosts and Star hunts them down for it, we work cases eventually we’re bound to bump into her.”
Thor looked at him skeptically. “That could take months Sam, years even, but...” he trailed off, “I have an idea. The ghosts it’s sending her after, the last one was from the 1800’s or something...”
“So the older the better.” Sam finished picking up Thor’s train of thought, “it narrows the field. The longer the ghost’s been wandering around down here, the stronger it becomes. All that negative energy brewing, just waiting to explode...
“It’s time to get to work, kid.”