by Paul Neuhaus
Molly was confused. “I… guess. I mean not on purpose.” Unlike Henaghan, the brunette wasn’t at all a follower of geek culture. Still, she couldn’t help but pick up some of Quinn’s pop art obsession by osmosis. She dropped her arms and slid over to Henaghan. Despite being taller and fuller-figured, it was generally Blank who curled up in Quinn’s arms rather than the other way around. Quinn accepted her. The older woman sighed and the sound was tinged with the after effects of her cry. “I’m not asking you to give me an answer. I’m not even asking you to comment. I wanted you to know that I’m aware. I’m aware, and whatever you decide—whether I like it or not—will be the right decision for both of us. As long as you’re honest.”
Henaghan tightened her grip on Molly’s shoulders. “Jesus Christ,” she said.
“‘Jesus Christ’? What does that mean?”
“It means you could teach Mia a thing or two about Taoism. Not to mention empathy.” Quinn relaxed her upper body and surrendered herself to the war going on inside her head. The war between her old life and her new one.
She was at least healthy enough to know she was going to have to let the two sides fight it out.
Not long after their talk, Molly showered, dressed and ran off to do grocery shopping. Not because they needed groceries particularly but because she sensed Quinn could use a little alone time. Henaghan had to give it to her, whatever stresses and strains Blank represented, they were external to the woman herself. Oddly, whenever she thought about Future Quinn, she imagined that her husband would be kind of an asshole (after all, weren’t most husbands assholes?). Molly certainly wasn’t that. Apart from her lingering post-traumatic stress syndrome, the older woman was the most grounded and reasonable person Quinn knew. Quinn sometimes resented her for being so together (which was stupid, but it was a part of her own inherent unreasonableness). Theoretically, given her strange abilities, she could venture forward in time and check her own progress, but she knew it’d be a bullshit exercise. Darren Taft made it clear that, anything a Channeler might see in a vision or a glimpse of a different time should be taken with a whole salt mine. Every decision point in life caused a spiderweb of cracks in the fabric of reality. Which thing would a person choose in any given situation? The answer was simple: all of them—and each of those choices created a new space and time. If Quinn were to see herself somewhere in the future with her asshole husband and her bratty child, which Quinn would she be seeing? Not necessarily the Quinn she was. Taft’s advice was for her to put her head down and focus on the here and now. Your own reality is the only one that matters, at least in terms of living an authentic life.
Henaghan sat on her bed in an approximation of the lotus position, her hands on her knees. She closed her eyes and rose two feet above the mattress. In a moment, she was with him.
Darren Taft cried out. He was in his own home, scratching his balls through his sweatpants when Quinn appeared. He dropped his hand from his crotch and crossed his legs. “Georgia! What the fuck?”
“When is this?” Henaghan said.
“When is what? What’re you—?”
“You know I’m not really here, right?”
Taft grinned. “Of course I know you’re not really here. I mean I wish for pretty redheads all the time and one has yet to appear. Until now. And it’s a thought projection through space and time. Darren Taft loses again.”
“Give me an idea where I’m at,” Quinn said, looking around Darren’s filthy apartment for evidence of the date (and finding none).
“October…,” Taft said. “I wanna say the seventeenth.”
“What year?”
“2017.”
Henaghan did the math in her head. That would put her at a day before her last lesson with Taft. A couple of days before he died protecting her. It never occurred to her to try and warn him about his own impending demise. It wouldn’t matter given the fickle currents of the multiverse—and it sure as hell wouldn’t help his state of mind. Also, she had already decided not to mention Josie, Darren’s peculiar daughter.
“Where’re you coming from? The future? I mean you look a little older. Or tired. Shopworn to put it in my own vernacular.”
Quinn glared at him.
“I’m not good with women,” Darren said with a lopsided grin. “Could you tell?”
The girl nodded. “Calling a girl ‘shopworn’ is like slamming down a metal door in front of the pussy.”
Taft grinned. “I will accept that as an axiom.”
“Anyway,” Quinn went on. “ I’m not gonna say where I’m coming from. That feels like a complication neither of us needs.”
Her mentor nodded, still curious but sure she was right. “You realize that means you’re only gonna be able to ask broad questions. If you can’t tell me what you’ve done since I saw you last (or since whatever happened to me happened to me), I can’t help you with specifics.”
Henaghan winced. She should’ve realized that coming to Taft in the past would tip him off that something had happened to him in her own timeline. She shrugged off the concern when she realized it didn’t matter. She had no way of knowing whether she’d even come to the exact reality where Taft had died. Before a migraine could set in, she pressed on. “I’ve kind of come into my own,” she said.
“That’s good,” he said, not pressing her on what coming into her own truly meant. “I figured it was either that or you’d screwed the pooch. I was kind of thinking it’d be the latter, otherwise why come to me?”
“No, there hasn’t been any pooch screwing. At least not yet. What there is is a whole lotta quiet.”
Darren leaned forward on his couch and ran a hand through his thatch of yellow hair. “That’s good, isn’t it? Who wants a bunch of unnecessary noise?”
Quinn hung there, unsure how to frame her thought. “I guess. I mean of course you’re right. I guess it didn’t occur to me that I’d gain these abilities and then sit on my hands. Maybe what I want now is a purpose.”
Taft threw back his head and laughed loud and long. He laughed long enough that Henaghan became self-conscious.
Finally, the redhead, feeling picked on, said. “What’s so funny?”
Darren regained some of his composure. “Have you learned nothing, young padawan? I thought I made it clear how much the universe doesn’t give a shit about the lowly critters that call it home. It’s not even a universe; it’s a multiverse. Endless overlapping pathways of wouldas, couldas, shouldas and dids. What makes you think purpose enters into any of it? Purpose implies a bestower and, given what I’ve seen, I ain’t buying such a thingy is out there. God moves in such mysterious ways he’s argued himself out of existence. But I digress. Even if somebody has a Purpose—with a capital P, it’s usually self-inflicted and available only in hindsight. You get the multiverse concept, right?”
Quinn nodded.
Taft leaned in again. “What if you’re one of the Quinns that doesn’t have a purpose?” He seemed to take some pleasure in the thought.
As Quinn moved back toward her own head in her own time and place, she was hijacked. A force yanked her sideways and suddenly she was on a bench in a small park surrounded by trees. In front of her were several children either riding on or pushing a manual carousel. The air was crisp and a slight breeze blew brown leaves across the pavement. She turned to the man on her left. The man who had hijacked her. He smiled.
It was David Bowie, his hair still spiky but no longer orange. He wore a long, very normal-looking overcoat. The Brit looked altogether more relaxed and healthy than he had the last time Quinn had seen him. Based on Bowie’s appearance and the cars on the street, Henaghan knew they were in the early nineteen seventies. London, probably. “Hello, Quinn,” he said. “May I call you Quinn?”
Sudden warmth filled the girl. “Of course you may call me Quinn. Hello, David. This is a pleasant surprise.” She was being completely honest. Not only was she glad to see him, for a second, she thought someone with evil intent had shanghaied her. Th
is was definitely preferable.
“Good,” Bowie said. “I hoped you’d enjoy a visit.” He pointed toward one of the laughing children. “That’s my boy,” he said. The kid was about three years old and bursting with life. He was beautiful.
“He’s beautiful,” Quinn said.
“I know,” Bowie replied.
The two of them sat watching the children play for a long while. They spoke at length. The pop star was very interested in learning more about her, and she was able to shrug off the feeling of Ohmygod, I’m talking to David Bowie! long enough to enjoy learning more about him.
Quinn dropped back into her physical body and her physical body dropped to the bed. When her vision cleared, she saw that Molly was there, writing in her journal. Molly regularly wrote in her journal—sometimes she would stop a conversation dead because she needed to jot a thought down before she lost it. The little scribe in her head was always there, waiting. “You’re back,” the older woman said, looking up from her notebook. “Did you know, when you do that, your eyes roll up into your head? It’s fucking creepy.”
Quinn looked around, wanting something to drink. She smacked her dry lips and unfolded her legs from underneath herself. “And by ‘creepy’ you mean sexy as fuck.”
“I do not,” Blank said.
Henaghan got up and went to the kitchen. When she opened the fridge, she saw not only the box of Capris Suns she’d already dug into but two more unopened ones. Fresh from the grocery. If you wanted a caretaker, you couldn’t do any better than Molly Blank. Quinn smiled to herself. Really, she thought. What the fuck is wrong with me? Here I am with this silly war going on in my head when Molly—like Mary Poppins before her—is practically perfect in every way. Henaghan took a foil packet of beverage and went to the living room. Journaling complete, Molly was there too, folding underpants over a brown plastic laundry basket. “Were you—?” the younger woman began.
A loud pounding on the door interrupted Quinn. The knock startled both women. So much so that Molly dropped her panties. For both of them, the knock had a preternatural ominousness. An implicit doom a simple knock wouldn’t ordinarily have. The rapping came again and the redhead moved to answer the door.
“Don’t answer it,” Blank said.
“Don’t be silly.” She said it in part to calm Molly, but also to calm herself. After all, what could possibly be on the other side of that door? Angry wizards and demons rarely had the patience to knock. Still, as soon as Quinn opened the door, she regretted it.
A man spilled into their foyer. He was breathing heavily, bleeding from his chest and clutching a thick bundle. Both Molly and Quinn knelt beside the fellow. Quinn took the bundle away to get a better look at the guy’s injuries while Molly covered her mouth with both hands.
“Is he—?” Blank said.
“No. Not yet,” Henaghan replied, laying the bundle behind her and placing her other hand on the guy’s sweaty forehead. He was cold to the touch and his skin was pallid. His breathing was shallow. “Those are bullet wounds.”
The man stiffened under Quinn’s hand as his back went rigid. His eyes popped open and, when he saw the redheaded girl, his expression became one of relief. “Aja,” he said, his sudden smile one less of joy and more of relief. Not to mention religious ecstasy “Aja,” he said.
“Shhh,” Quinn said. Then she turned to Molly. “Call an ambulance.”
Molly was up like a shot. The older woman ran into the bedroom to get her cell. Phone in hand, she was back a moment later, dialing.
The wounded man’s eyes became empty. He was looking at nothing (or he was looking at something that Quinn couldn’t see). He said “Aja” one more time then the last of his breath rattled out of him. His head slumped to the tiles. “Never mind,” Henaghan said to Blank. Looking down on the dead man, pity replaced her confusion.
“What?” Molly said, placing the phone to her ear.
“I said never mind.”
Blank hit the red button on her cell to disconnect the call. Tears were streaking down her cheeks. “Should we… should we pull him inside?” The dead man was half in and half out of their still-open front door.
“No, don’t touch him,” Quinn said, spinning on her feet and turning her attention to the bundle behind her. It was newspaper around cloth around… something. Twine held the whole thing together. Henaghan pulled first at the twine and then at the newspaper.
“Should you be doing that? Isn’t that evidence?”
“It’s for me,” Quinn replied, and, for the moment, Molly accepted that as a plausible answer. When Henaghan got past the newspaper, there was a layer of wool fabric. The object was wrapped in a blanket. Peeling back the blanket, the girl saw what was inside. She re-covered it and stood, dashing into their bedroom. She stashed the bundle underneath a pile of jackets on the floor. She came back into the living room, brushing her hands on her skirt.
Molly had watched the entire transaction. “Should you be doing that? That’s evidence…” she repeated.
“It’s for me I said. Forget the ambulance. Call the police.”
The brunette raised her cellphone again to dial 911 when a voice cut her off. “Don’t bother,” the voice said. “They’re already here.” Molly and Quinn turned to see a new man in their doorway. He was standing over the recently deceased. He was also drop-dead gorgeous. He wore a suit and an overcoat and he was holding out his badge and his I.D. for the women to see. “I’m Detective Abrigo. Matt Abrigo. I was following this man. All the way from Long Beach.”
Quinn fought off a tingling in her lady bits. Detective Abrigo, with his height and his blond hair and his chiseled face, was a seriously handsome man. But there was also a dead guy on their floor. Priorities, she told her body. “Are you the one that shot him?” she said to the detective.
The cop tucked away his identification. Quinn saw no gun beneath his coat. “No, I’m not, but would it be a problem if I were?” He looked back and forth between the two women. “Did you guys not get the part about me being police?”
Quinn reached out with her enhanced senses and scanned Abrigo. Either he was very good at hiding it or he had no magical abilities whatsoever.
“What about the body?” Molly said.
“I called somebody on the way up the stairs. Why did he come here?” Abrigo said, turning his soulful blue eyes back to Henaghan.
“Search me,” Quinn said, pokerfaced.
“Is that an invitation?” the man said. “It’d save me a lot of trouble getting a warrant.”
“It’s not an invitation.”
“Too bad.” Abrigo stepped over the body and into the foyer. “When this man left the port, he had a package. In fact he was holding onto it for dear life. Based on the straight line he drew from where he started and here, I’d say this apartment was his deliberate goal. Was he carrying a package when he died?”
Henaghan flicked the barest of glances at Blank. “No package. He must’ve dropped it.”
The detective scrunched his face. “I’m not so sure about your police work there, Miss—?”
“Henaghan.”
“If he was making a beeline here and he was, I dunno, maybe looking to deliver that package to one of you two, why would he keep coming if he dropped what he was delivering?”
Quinn sighed, folding her arms in front of her chest. “Put yourself in our shoes, detective. I’m having a lovely beverage. My friend’s folding her panties…” Abrigo’s eyes flicked to Molly and Molly blushed. “…there’s a knock at our door and a guy drops dead in our foyer. Then another guy shows up and he wants the package the first guy was carrying only the first guy wasn’t carrying a package. Do you see how this might all be a little confusing to the girl drinking the beverage and the other girl folding panties?”
“I guess I do.”
“There’s a flood control channel that way,” Quinn said, pointing. “Maybe he dropped his package in there. On purpose. So you wouldn’t find it. Anyway, you could start looking there.�
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The detective’s shoulders slumped. “You’re really gonna make me get a warrant?”
Henaghan cocked her head. “I’m really gonna make you get a warrant,” she replied.
Abrigo thought for a moment and nodded. “Do me a favor: Have a seat on the couch for a while. Like I say, someone’s coming to collect the body. Hang tight and stay out of the way. After that, you can get on about your… folding and drinking.” With that, he stepped out onto the porch to make a phone call.
Quinn and Molly sat down on the nearest of the two couches. Molly was shaking her head. “First I’m almost cut up by a psychopath in a basement and then a dead man walking shows up on my doorstep. I may never sleep again.”
“No,” Henaghan said grumpily. “I may never sleep again.”
Blank brushed past the reference to her PTSD. “Why did you do all that? Why didn’t you cooperate?”
Quinn looked the older woman in the eye. “Because that bundle was meant for me, and Matt Abrigo isn’t a cop.”
The brunette looked back and forth between the open front door and the younger girl. “Come on… How do you even know that?”
“I don’t like his read.”
“You don’t like his read? What does that even mean?”
Henaghan scrunched her forehead. “I’m the Sorcerer Supreme of Los Angeles. I don’t have to explain myself.”
The two of them sat quietly for a moment until Molly said. “Anyway, did you get a look at that guy? He looks like a fucking movie star.”
“Hmm,” Quinn said. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Annabelle tweeted.
After the body was cleared and Matt Abrigo had gone, Quinn returned to the bedroom and retrieved the bundle from the closet. Henaghan dug beneath the coats, Molly entered and sat down on the bed. Over her shoulder, the redhead said, “Okay, what was odd about that?”
“Odd about what?”
