Chapter 4

Bed and Breakfast
South Dakota

"Pete," Abigail said, knocking on his bedroom door.

There was no answer. She knocked again. "Pete?"

Still, no answer.

She opened the door and stared at the empty room. She turned and ran to Myka's door. Tired and still under the influence of Vicodin for the pain from the burns, Myka fell asleep with her clothes still on and holding the strap of her carryon bag. Abigale shook her shoulder.

"Myka. Myka wake up," Abigail said

Groggily Myka obeyed.

"Do you know where Pete is? Did he tell you?" Abigail asked.

Myka was awake instantly. She leapt out of bed and ran into his room. She stared at the empty bed that was still made – Pete hadn't gone to bed the previous night.

"Damnit Pete! Do not tell me you did this alone!" Myka growled. She ran back to her room and grabbed her cell phone. Abigail trailed behind her, watching with worry. "Artie! Pete's gone. No, I don't know— He—" She hesitated. "He what?" Myka slapped away a tear as she listened. She hung up, staring at nothing.

"What did he say?" Abigail asked.

"Pete was there this morning. Artie said he told him good-bye and that he was going to look for answers."

"That's good, Myka."

"You don't know how he gets when he gets tunnel vision. He stops listening to his gut, he won't listen to any reason. Sometimes Pete needs saved from himself!" Myka turned and trotted down the stairs

Ancient Streets
Rome, Italy

The tourist side of Rome was miles from Pete. He was in an old part of the city following, a hand drawn map. He had confronted Mister Ramey at the U.S. Consulate to try to persuade him into helping him find The Circle. Just when it looked like Pete wasn't going to get the help he needed, the man received a phone call on a cell phone. After a few minutes of listening but no talking, he hung up and drew Pete a map. Followed by a terse order to leave and not come back.

Pete looked at the signs on the buildings, searching for one in particular. He stopped, staring at a poster that half hid an old sign. He pulled it down to reveal the sign. He compared it to his map – the name of the alley it pointed to was on his map. He turned into it, watching the doorways as he approached and passed them. He pulled his phone from his pocket when it started buzzing. Myka's picture appeared. He ended the call and his phone revealed he had 42 missed calls, twice that in text messages, and 31 voicemails.

Pete came around a bend in the alley and found a young Japanese woman standing in the center of the alley. He stopped. She didn't appear threatening. She didn't wear or hold anything that made him suspicious of her. The two stared at each other for minutes. She smiled.

"Pete Lattimer."

It wasn't a question, but he answered anyway. "Yeah."

She waved him toward her and then walked away. She looked back over her shoulder, motioning him to follow her. Pete was a little leery about following her, but he did.

His phone started ringing again. The woman led him in and out of streets and alleys until she stopped at a gate and unlocked it. She motioned for him to go down the stairs. Pete stopped at the gate, looking down the stairs beyond it. The steps reached a landing and turned to disappear under a building. He looked back at her.

His phone started ringing.

"Where do the stairs go?" Pete asked.

In English thick with a Japanese accent she told him, "To the answers you've come for."

That wasn't a reassuring answer. "What answers?" he asked.

She only motioned him down the stairs. His phone started ringing again. Pete started down the stairs. He glanced back when he heard the gate shut. The Japanese woman was gone and he was certain the gate locked behind him. He kept walking down stairs.

Pete stopped on the landing. The light difference between the daylight and the darkness beyond made the stairs disappear out of sight.

His phone started ringing again. Pete pulled it out, staring at Myka's picture. He let it go to voicemail. Pete pulled up a text message and told her: When I have answers, I'll come home. See you soon. He sent it and started down the stairs.

At the bottom of the steps, he found a man sitting on the second to last step. The man didn't stand as Pete walked past and stopped at the bottom of the steps. A tunnel continued. It looked ancient and the lights along the side were strung with an old power cable. The tunnel ran straight and then down a slope.

Pete looked back at the man. The man had light brown hair, cut short and neat, brilliant blue eyes, an afternoon shadow across his chin and cheeks, looked about Pete's age, and was thin as a rail. As he stood, his muscles flexed. Pete noticed his hands were calloused. This man was familiar to hard work and probably much stronger than he appeared. He wore a faded red T-shirt, jeans, and worn sneakers.

"Pete Lattimer." He had a German accent.

Again, it wasn't a question, but Pete nodded anyway.

"You cause problems, know that?"

Pete didn't reply.

"Come on. We've been expecting you."

Being honest with himself, Pete was having doubts. He hesitated, looking back up the stairs. Pete jumped when a hand clamped down on his shoulder and turned. The German was standing behind him. He smiled.

"You didn't come all this way to run off, did you?" he asked.

Pete didn't answer. He wasn't sure if he had or hadn't.

"Is it because of the warnings? Because we turned your partner and friend into genies?"

"That has something to do with it."

He smiled, clapping Pete's shoulder. Pete guessed he wasn't very aware of his own strength because each clap stung a little.

"I'm one of the Elders in The Circle, but I don't look it, right?"

Pete shook his head.

The German leaned in, shaking a finger at Pete's face. "You were doing a good thing, Pete. We had no problem with that. But something else was going on. Somehow the bad that's left behind was getting out, and that we had to stop before it was too late. You understand, don't you?"

Pete was shaking his head before he answered. "I don't understand a damned thing."

The German nodded once with a smile. "And that's why you're here, so swallow your fear. Markus wants to meet with you. He has questions for you, you have questions for him; it works out in the end for everyone. Come on then."

The German turned and walked down the hall.

Pete drew a slow breath. He fell in behind the German.

Warehouse 13
South Dakota

It took one text to send everyone scrambling to get back to the Warehouse office: 'Who wants to know why I disappeared? –Pete.'

As they converged in the office they found him sharing a ham and cheese sandwich with Trailer.

"Where the hell did you disappear to?" Myka demanded.

"You can't just take off and not tell anyone, Pete," Artie told him.

"Do you have any idea how worried we were?" Steve said.

Pete didn't react to the onslaught of scolding and relief from his foster family. He just smiled and listened, feeding bites of his sandwich to Trailer until it was all gone. Then he looked up and continued listening with a smile.

Eventually the talking faded away.

"Why?" Artie asked "Why did you disappear?"

"I had to find out what was happening to me. I told you, Artie, you have to let us grow up eventually. I needed answers and I guessed right that the only way to get them was to go alone. I don't think the Circle would have let me in if anyone had gone with me." Pete sat back on the couch and Trailer jumped up, curling up next to his best friend at the moment. Pete gave him a pat. "The answers turned out to be some good, some bad." Pete waved his hand at them. "Make a space." He added sarcastically. "You're gonna love this."

The parted a space. Pete held his hand still, a finger pointing at a pile of papers. Electricity leapt from his finger and exploded the papers, catching a couple on fire. Steve was quick to run over and stomp the fires out, but once they were, even he turned to stare at Pete. He sighed, resting his hand on his leg.

"So there's that," Pete told them. "In that asylum, when I saw Evil Myka hurting Myka, before I grabbed her electricity came out of my hands and literally blew her away. I thought I was imagining that. I wasn't."

Myka sat down on Pete's other side, staring at the hand. They all had to find seats and wrap their heads around the information.

Myka asked him, "Where did it come from? Is it an artifact?"

"It came from when I released Genna. A lot more happened than me just turning into an artifact."

Artie leaned forward on his legs. "But how? How did this happen?"

"There's something not human that makes genies, although The Circle doesn't know what it is, just how to evoke it. But when a human releases a genie without a tawiz amulet this thing rewards them, but it has to turn them into an artifact to do it. Then they are given longevity and a psychic ability that fits them. They didn't know how that was decided or why I ended up with electricity."

"Longevity?" Claudia asked. "Does that mean you can or can't die?"

"I can die, yeah, but not from common things like disease, poison, infections. I'd need to be fatally shot or stabbed, beheaded, bleed out, things like that. And that's the end of the good news."

Pete paused to yawn and rub his eyes. He let out a long sigh before he continued. "When a human is changed into a genie the soul can't be changed into a genie, but both the genie and the soul have to be placed in the vessel. So the light the genies are seeing are the good part of their soul, that's why some describe the light smaller than others - they weren't so good when they went in. While the dark, is the bad part of their soul, and it wants to get out and cause hell. When a genie is released, the soul must go back to them. The light and those shades of light and dark go too, but that darkest evil stays behind; like sand in water. But it doesn't want to stay there and it will call the human that released the genie to release it too."

"Evil Pete is that evil but from where?" Artie asked. "You were never a genie."

"I asked that too. They told me that sometimes someone who lets a genie go is unique and they attract these evil souls like a lighthouse. Usually, though, not enough genies are released to causes too much trouble and the Circle can help the person. But… I released twenty-seven of them." Pete let his head droop and his eyes almost closed.

"We can talk more in the morning," Artie offered. "You can barely stay awake, Pete."

Pete shook his head. "I gotta tell you everything. I came straight home to tell you everything."

"So what does this Evil Pete want with you?" Myka asked.

"These things can possess humans like demons. They start by wearing the person down to make them vulnerable, like a disease, and then… They think he wants to destroy humanity and use me to do that. Remember that whole unique human comes along part? Well… there's that. They said I'd be like a miniature planet bomb if he gets a hold of me." With a slight shake of his head, Pete quietly added. "They also can't help me – the most they've ever stopped was five or six, not twenty-seven."

"Are you saying…" Steve leaned in, staring at Pete. "We're on our own to figure out how to stop these things? They had no advise, no weapons, nothing?"

Pete lifted his tired eyes, staring at Steve. Slowly he nodded. Steve looked at everyone – he wanted to say something but he didn't even know what to say.

"Go home and get some sleep, Pete," Artie told him. "He's not coming for you tonight. He's still looking for someone for some reason and he hasn't found that person."

Pete closed his eyes. "I am so sorry."

"For what?"

"Genna was just a little girl and I… I'm sorry for starting this."

Myka slid her arms around him, hugging him.

"This wasn't your fault, Pete," Artie told him. "There are a lot of things none of us knew would happen. But now we fix it. We fix it like we always do."

Pete looked at him. That's when Artie saw it. Pete wasn't just exhausted, he was hopeless.

Artie found himself worrying that Pete, who was always the most optimistic of the group, had lost hope. It left a cold stone in Artie's stomach to think Pete may be teetering on the edge of his personal rock bottom because Artie knew that the last time that had happened. His agent fell into a bottle, came close to dying before he found his way back out, and nearly destroyed his career. Artie made Pete a silent promise in that moment. He would keep his agent safe from his evil doppelgänger, and himself, no matter what it took.

The End