Page 1 of Into Darkness (Night Prowler 6)
PART ONE
PROLOGUE
The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, October 16, 2013
STOCK MARKETS COLLAPSING AMID DOOMSDAY FEARS
International stock markets are reacting to yesterday’s unexplained fire in the sky over the Amazon rainforest in Brazil with massive sell-offs. In the worst single-day decline the Dow Jones industrial average has seen since the infamous Black Monday crash of October 19, 1987, the Dow dropped 4,504 points to finish at 10,664, a loss of 29.7 percent. The SEC has temporarily suspended trading, but top financial gurus warn that without adequate, immediate explanation of the causes of the phenomenon that left approximately one hundred square miles of the rainforest northeast of Manaus burning, the hysteria will only worsen.
Combined with a ground shock that registered 7.3 on the Richter scale, the intense pulse of light was visible as far away as Lima, Peru. One eyewitness described it as an “unearthly” explosion in the atmosphere, and many religious leaders are pointing to end-time biblical prophecies. Exacerbating the public’s panic are the uncorroborated reports that Brazil’s military launched a massive sortie from the Manaus air force base minutes before the enormous fireball was first seen.
In his speech from the White House yesterday evening, President Obama denied the possibility that a nuclear weapon may have been detonated, in spite of the incredibly powerful electromagnetic pulse that destroyed satellites, power-supply networks, computers and electrical equipment in Manaus and surrounding areas, an effect consistent with a nuclear explosion.
Information coming from Brazil is virtually nonexistent, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that the firestorms decimating the rainforest have the potential to create an ecological disaster on a global scale. One of the richest areas of the world in terms of animal and plant diversity, the Amazon, if deforested, could be ground zero for global extinction.
The president is asking for calm amid a growing outcry for answers, but for now the long-term damage to both the environment and global economies remains to be seen.
New Vienna, Austria
16 September, 2027
1:17am IFST
Diary Entry #36
In the dreams, I’m always deaf.
That’s what comes first, the velvet silence, the utter lack of sound. It settles over me like the softest of blankets, comforting and warm. When I awake in that silence my dream self—so bold and fearless, so different than I—knows what’s coming. She knows exactly what to expect. She welcomes the unnatural lack of noise, my dreaming better half, and she’s glad.
She’s glad because she’s evil.
At least, that’s what Father thinks. He’s afraid of my other side almost as much as I am. The whipping he gave me this morning is proof enough of that. I didn’t mean to set the bed on fire, but I was so tired from chores and lessons and the constant effort of not touching and not speaking and generally pretending to be invisible that I forgot to put my gloves back on after my bath, and, well . . .
Father is going to have to buy me a new bed.
Again.
If only I could be good. If only I could be like the Prefect’s daughter Annika, with her shiny curls and sunny smile, or the Inquisitor’s daughter Sophie, with her winning manners. But I’m not. I’m weird, and I’m awkward, and all the Annikas and Sophies of the world hate me, though they’d never say it out loud.
They’re afraid of me, too.
But we’re careful, Father and I. We never give any indication that I might be different. Or at least different in that way, the way that could get both of us killed. So far we’ve been successful in explaining away my gloves and my silence and all the tics of my strange personality as Asperger’s and OCD. Hence the need for homeschooling. Hence my obvious lack of social skills. Or friends.
I don’t need any friends in those silent, wonderful dreams, though. I don’t need anything.
I only need him.
Unlike me, the stranger in my dreams is beautiful, more so than anyone I’ve seen in real life. He’s patient, and he’s kind, though reeking of danger, and my dreaming self—somehow years older than my actual age of fifteen—is always so glad to see him she goes a little mad. Magnus, she greets him silently. With the same resounding silence he answers, Hope.
That’s a little awkward because Hope isn’t my name. But my dream self doesn’t care. She throws her arms around this Magnus and kisses him.
He seems to really like it.
I’ve not been kissed. Though inside I burn brighter than the sun emblem of the Imperial Federation, outside I may as well be Quasimodo for all the attention boys pay me.
But Magnus pays attention. He has eyes as dark as a swan’s, and a voice as rich as brown butter, and he looks at me as if I’m something he’s been hunting for a long, long time. Something for which he’s been waiting.
Magnus. What a name. To be fair, it’s not much weirder than my own, but Magnus? Sounds like a twentieth-century porn star. Well, whoever this dream stranger is, I know one thing for sure.
He’s Aberrant. Like me.
And he’s out there. Somewhere, he’s out there.
24 January, 2028
3:22am IFST
Diary Entry #154
Today I burned the credit market to the ground.
I didn’t mean to do it, but that wretch Annika and her clique of First Form shrews were staring at me and giggling over the BioVite display, and the rage I felt took me completely by surprise. I mean, I should be used to the sneers by now. I am used to them. Growing up not only Third Form but also a weird Third Form guaranteed that.
But today . . . today I snapped. Big-time.
It wouldn’t have happened if I’d kept my glove on to stroke the grocer’s cat, as I always do. But today for some reason I was gripped by a violent urge to feel something. For once. I needed to touch something other than my own skin when I bathed.
Cinder is a black cat, glossy and plump, with fur like mink. I can’t tell you what possessed me to do it, but possess is the right choice of verb because I was as helpless against it as if a demon had slipped inside my body and started pulling strings.
I saw Cinder sitting there between the stacked wooden crates of oranges and the cart of flowers. Inscrutable as the Sphinx, she blinked up at me with her bright-yellow eyes, and, as it always does, a strange recognition crackled between us. She prowled forward. I knelt down. I furtively removed my glove, and stretched out my hand.
And oh, what bliss. I closed my eyes and simply luxuriated in the feeling of cool, silken fur as Cinder arched beneath my fingertips, gliding against my hand with a satisfied purr.
Dogs whine and cower when I draw near. Birds shriek, horses whinny and stomp, even crickets fall silent when I pass. But cats are drawn to me and I to them, and Cinder is one of dozens of neighborhood cats I know by name. I love her the way one loves children, or a favorite song. Just her presence makes me happy.
Then I heard the laughter.
