The Calling Read online

  Also by Jeffrey Hancock

  The Odyssey of Nathan Embers

  The Forging

  Loose Ends And What Knots

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author third-party Web sites or their content.

  JEFFREY HANCOCK

  THE CALLING

  A NOVEL OF THE ODYSSEY OF NATHAN EMBERS

  Book 3

  Copyright © 2020

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Two hands grabbed me, threw me out of my bed, and I came crashing down onto my dresser. All the little doodads and figurines flew across the room. Stumbling, I tried to stand, but my tormentor gave me no time. He kicked me on my side, and my breath left me.

  “Oh, did you think I would give you time to recover? I think not!” the intruder exclaimed.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this invader preparing to kick me again. As his foot came in, I caught it and twisted his whole leg in the opposite direction. Losing his balance, he fell. His foot was still in my grasp, so I gave it another twist. Could that be the sound of his knee popping? I hoped so. I let go of his foot, so I regained my footing. Unfortunately, he regained his footing as well. As we stood there looking at each other, I thought his knee injury would have him favoring it, but no. I turned as if to run, but sidestepped instead. The intruder, caught off guard, fell as he awkwardly tried to grab me. I seized his flailing arm and twisted it, almost snapping his elbow. With my free arm, I came down hard on that elbow with mine. It sounded like a chicken wing being pulled apart. Honey barbecued chicken wings for dinner tomorrow night sounded good, I thought to myself while my assailant howled in pain. “Wow, score one for the good guys!” I cried.

  As he rose, this nameless attacker taunted me, “You scored nothing.” Protecting his injured arm, he took a few deep breaths before launching himself at me again. The attack he mounted pushed me back into the living room. I went tumbling over the sofa. My attacker came down on me, managed to put his arm around my neck, and began to crush my windpipe. I could not breathe. Reaching up I pried my fingers around his right thumb, and I pulled at it with all my strength. Slowly his thumb pulled back, but not fast enough. My lungs screamed for air. I jabbed him with my left elbow as hard and as quickly as I could in his gut hoping to score a hit in his solar plexus, but I missed. He grunted with each blow and squirmed to move out of the reach of my elbow. His movement gave me the opening I needed. Releasing his thumb, I swung my right hand down hard and caught his ‘nads. Squeezing harder and harder, I turned his nuts into butter. With every bit of the strength I poured into my grip, his strength ebbed. Finally, he ceased his crushing attack on my throat and attempted to remove my hand from his junk. His hands tried, but my steel grip would not yield.

  Without letting up on my hold, I slowly righted myself. My attacker mirrored my movements lest he let the object in my grasp twist off. As they say, “If you have them by the short hairs, their hearts and minds will soon follow.” I looked into his eyes, and the expression of both horror and pain brought me delight. Something changed in his eyes, so as fast as I could, I pushed up the heel of my left hand hard and fast up and into his nose. His body grew limp, and his eyes rolled. “Lights out!” I cheered, leaving him there on the floor, and watching him as he regained consciousness. A Napoleonic era uniform adorned him, I guessed. I never studied historical uniforms, so I don’t know his unit or rank.

  The man, or should I say ghost, with no name started regaining his consciousness. “So, how did I do this time?” I asked.

  The ghost slowly got up and gingerly took a seat on the couch. “I thought the dead weren’t supposed to feel pain.” He sat there a few more moments, “Yes, you did better, but you can’t let up. If you have the advantage, take him out. You hesitated a couple of times. Your opponents won’t show you mercy, so don’t offer it to them. If you do, it’s a short path to a shallow grave.”

  “No. I won’t ‘take him’ out as you say. It would make me no better than they are.”

  “Are you serious? That whole nonsense about ‘If I take up the ways of my enemy, then I am as evil’ is crap! Did you start the fight? Are you the one threatening the innocent or maybe your family? The streets are crazy. Thugs and worse roam freely, and they won’t hesitate to cut you down. You have to be as hard and as merciless.”

  “I hear you, and in a way, you are right, but I can’t be that way. I must hold on to me. Too much lately I have been slipping into someone else.”

  The ghost with no name gave me a hard look, “Slipping? Are you losing control of that thing in your head?” He said “Thing” with disgust in his voice.

  “No. It is quiet.” I interrupted this ghost before he said anything. “I know. I have to find a way to deal with it, and deal with it I will.”

  “Remember what is riding on killing that thing.”

  “I know what’s at stake,” I said with fervor in my voice. “The life of the woman we both love, and my daughter’s life as well hang in the balance.” I felt a wave of depression begin to overwhelm me as I remembered how I failed to kill that thing. I pushed the feeling away with rational thought. There was nothing more you could have done. It is a creature beyond your understanding. Be grateful you could contain it before it harmed anyone else. The thought worked. Mostly. I snapped my head up and announced, “We need to come up with a name for you. I can’t keep calling you the ghost with no name.” I pondered, “Why don’t I call you ‘Bob?’ Nah, no good. Its been done before. How about this? Have you heard of the poem ‘Horatius at the Bridge by Thomas Babington Macaulay’?”

  “I know of the battle. I witnessed it. I fought in it behind the eyes of one who met his end there. Oh, you should have seen it. Three men stood as one and blocked the bridge. Disciplined, they fought. I cheered their heroism, and the body I inhabited died when a Gladius pierced his heart.” Sadness briefly touched his face, he continued, “I never heard of a poem about that battle though.”

  “It is long, but these are my favorite verses.” I began to recite from memory.

  Then out spake brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:

  “To every man upon this Earth death cometh soon or late:

  And how
can man die better than facing fearful odds,

  For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods,

  And for the tender mother who dandled him to rest,

  And for the wife who nurses his baby at her breast.

  And for the holy maidens who feed the eternal flame,

  To save them from false Sextus, that wrought the deed of shame.

  Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed you may!

  I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play.

  In yon strait path a thousand may well be stopped by three:

  Now, who will stand on either hand, and keep the bridge with me?”

  Then out spake Spurius Lartius; a Roman proud was he:

  “Lo, I will stand at thy right hand and keep the bridge with thee.”

  And out spake strong Herminius; Titian blood was he:

  “I will abide on thy left side, and keep the bridge with thee.”

  “Horatius,” quoth the Consul, “as thou sayest, so let it be.”

  And straight against that great array forth went the dauntless Three.

  For Romans in Rome’s quarrel spared neither land nor gold,

  Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, in the brave days of old.

  While I recited the poem, a look of understanding could be seen in the eyes of this ghost with no name. He spoke to me and the universe that cursed him, “My shame believing in war as I did. The sentiment of that poem is what I should have glorified. Men standing together to face what must be faced. You trusting I will watch your back and keep you from harm. And I trusting you will do the same for me. If you should fall, I will carry word to your home of how you faced the end, and give comfort to your family in telling of the story. I will tell them how you did not die in vain, for the death of any man who stood with his brothers is sacred.” He bent his head and started to fade.

  “Wait!” I said. He solidified and looked at me. “I have it. A name for you. How about Lartius? Lar for short.”

  “Why that name?”

  “You haunted the inside of my head since birth. We are tied together by some joke of Fate. Trust I will watch your back and I’ll trust you will watch mine.”

  “It is an honor to be named so and an honor to be at your right hand.” We clasped hands, a look came to his eyes for a split second before the battle renewed. I endured a most humiliating defeat at the hands of a man long dead. I woke with a start and groaned. These dream realm combat training sessions leave me as exhausted and sweaty as any workout in the waking world. I needed a shower in the worst way. I hope Char left me some hot water.

  Chapter One

  There comes a time during which each of us must face the woes of life. You may have to face a grave injustice, or your greatest fear, or even your own inner demon. I faced all three in but a short span of days. Losing my job to an anonymous caller who sought to hurt me; strike one. My greatest fear manifested when my wife was all but dead by a single gunshot from a monster; strike two. Destroying the husk this creature wore like a suit, but I could not kill it. Strike three, but not out. We did battle for control of my mind. It tried to supplant my will with its own. It is now my prisoner. My captive demon of the mind. It all happened a little over six months ago. I could tell you the exact number of days, hours, and minutes, but I’ve found, as Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation has, people become flustered with the flaunting of my perfect memory. My parlor trick is a curse in truth. It taunts me with reminisces of all my failures, rememberings of the times I dealt out rudeness or cruelty to innocent bystanders, and most of all it tortures me with a perfect recollection of that dreaded day. The day I wasn’t man enough to do what needed to be done. Even thinking of the memory has summoned a monster to the backdoor of my mind. Even though I can keep it at bay until the anniversary of the day; I will never be able to slay the monster until the dreadful memory has run its course and laughed at my sorrow.

  Prior to six months ago my life was perfect, at least as perfect as the average man receives in this life. I held a decent, but boring job. My wife and family love me, and I love them. My daughter would run into my arms and rejoice when I came home from work and be saddened each time I had to return to my job. My wife, what can I say about her? She saved my life. Ask her, and she’ll say I told you some foolishness. Hear my words and take them to heart. She saved my life in so many ways.

  Our average lives were shattered when I blew my testimony in court and let a mad creature go free. Believing he was but a man was everyone’s mistake. An evil entity grew inside Mark Galos. Only I know the terrible things the creature did were not of Mark’s doing. Mark was an innocent victim as well. He had died when the monster took total control over his body. If only I had known it was a monster and not a man, I could have done something. Maybe I could have warned the authorities. Maybe I could have helped Mark fight the entity inside. How could I know what I believed to be a man would unleash a torrent of death upon San Diego? The police ridiculed and blamed me for being the instrument of the monster’s freedom. They accused me of being in league with the man. Many fine cops died trying to protect me and mine from the vengeful creature, but this monster could not be stopped by normal men using normal means. Having the creature distracted by my dog, Blossom, gave me the opportunity to defeat the monster with a blade of my own forging. It learned a costly new lesson in the battle. A man is at his strongest when he fights for the lives of his family in his own home. A man can gather strength when he thinks he has none left to gather. A gentle man can become a monster bent on revenge when his family has been harmed. A man can rise.

  The life force remained after I destroyed its vessel. But it wouldn’t die so easily. It tried to usurp my body; it tried to push me out of my own mind. The entity believed it had the strongest will. It was wrong. I trapped it within the confines of my mind. Wrapped in the synapses of my thoughts, it exists. It beats at the barriers and tries to escape. Every day is a struggle to keep this monster at bay, for it has a mighty will. My will has been greater, but how long can I keep the creature locked up? Luck has been my ally since I have not had to deal with any migraines since. Those attacks on my consciousness leave me all but helpless. The pain those bouts inflict is like white-hot nails being pounded into my skull. If I have a migraine and lose control, even for a moment, the monster will take over my life. Since I could not kill it, I must find some permanent way of trapping this entity. But how? Until I find the knowledge, I must fight, struggle, and endure.

  I looked at the prisoner in my mind through the two-way mirror in my imagination. Pacing back and forth in the interrogation room I had created for him, the prisoner waited. It resembled the room the San Diego Police questioned me in. The cops believed I was in league with a two-bit criminal to steal drugs. They were wrong on both counts. I was not in league with him, and he was anything but two-bit. That thug had threatened my family, endangered innocent school children, and nearly killed my wife. And even though I gave it the good old college try, I couldn’t manage to kill it. How could I have known it wouldn’t, it couldn’t die? Trapping him here in my mind was the next best outcome I could manage. No one else has died because of the entity. It is a stalemate in the battle for my mind. It can’t take control, and I won’t let it leave. The war continues. The war must be won, and like in any war, the lack of intel can kill you. If I am to win the day and keep my own life, I must learn more about it.

  I decided to question it here in my thoughts. The room I created is smallish at about 100 square feet. Painted in a color of faded olive green, it is filled with the same crappy set of chairs and old metal table as was in the interrogation room at the San Diego Police Station. Why reinvent the wheel when I can pull up the memory of one? In one upper corner of the room, I put the memory of a video camera with a little glowing red light. The room I gave it the ammonia odor of used cat-litter, stale skunk musk, and a hint of cigarette smoke. The odors, I believe, give a nice touch of realism to the construct.

/>   My thought puppet took form before me, looking as I do in life. He does all the dirty work in my mind. He retrieves my memories. He plays the role of me in all my fantasies. It is like watching a three-dimensional movie without the crappy glasses, experiencing everything first-hand: pain, pleasure, and all such things. In my youth I had precious few friends growing up, and he became my friend. My mental minion needed to be dressed in the proper costume for the play. From the infinite choices of my mental closet, he picked black slacks, a thin black tie, and a standard long sleeve white shirt. I loosened the tie, and I left the collar open. The sleeves were rolled up in a fashion suggesting eagerness to get to work. I added to his choice of costume by giving him a clipboard in his left hand. Clipboards always make people nervous. The minion had no stubble. His face was BBS, baby bottom smooth, and the memory of the best haircut I had ever received from Charlene adorned his head. The style, a classic Princeton or Ivy League. Standing there looking at my thought puppet, I need to make him a bit more impressive. Gone is the grey from my hair, in fact, I made my hair the jet black of my youth. I brought the hairline forward a smidgen. My visage grew about an inch and a half, which made its height six-foot one-inch. All is ready. My conscious assumed command of my mental minion. For all intents and purposes, this puppet was me. Entering the interrogation room with the clipboard in hand, I projected confidence and a can-do attitude.

  “Please have a seat,” I offered as I sat down in one chair. My mental guest did not move. “Please,” I motioned to the other chair with my right hand.

  The life-force trapped here in my mind had the look of a man. His appearance was his own creation. I had not imagined one for him. A glaring hateful loathing burned hot behind his eyes. Unmoving like a pillar of stone he stood there ignoring my invitation to sit. Me thinks he is not happy. Deep dark brown, almost black, were his eyes. His hair is colored the same but peppered with grey. Combed straight back and slicked down, his hair had no part. With strong arms and shoulders his physique is well developed. His chest is broad and tapered down to his waist. By all appearances, a man just past his prime, but who had not let his body go to seed. He stood dressed in what looked to be a military uniform. Based on all the shiny bits and pieces, he must have been of high rank. His pants are black with an even darker black stripe running down the sides. The stripe on the left leg was interrupted by three platinum bars diagonally at a forty-five-degree angle. The coat was black also and well-tailored. Its length fell to mid-thigh level. There were a dozen brass buttons running from below the left shoulder in a straight line down to the right hip. The left sleeve had three platinum stripes near the cuff, also at a forty-five-degree angle. Above his right breast were what I assume are medals. They looked nothing like any I have seen before. A half cape slung over his right shoulder. It covered his upper right arm to the elbow. The black leather belt at his waist had a brass buckle.