Burning Sky

by Weston Ochse

  “Who’s not a fucking terrorist,” she added.

  “Yes. Who will go out of her way to help a fellow human who’s not a fucking terrorist. But none of that is what Narco likes. He likes hot trashy women who aren’t smart enough to realize that they shouldn’t be dating him and won’t ask many questions. He doesn’t want a commitment. You would be a commitment. It very possibly could be that he isn’t ready for you.”

  All through his speech, Lore’s eyes had gotten narrower and narrower. “How can you be sure?”

  “McQueen?”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “You get Narco’s girlfriend’s name?” Starling asked, keeping his eyes on Lore.

  She stared right back.

  “Yes, boss.”

  “Well, can you share it with us?”

  “Her name is Charlene. But don’t call her that. She likes to go by Char, like what you’d do to a steak if it’s overcooked.”

  “And what does Charlene do?” Starling asked, pronouncing the hard CH in the name.

  “She told me that she’s an astrologer by trade but has to supplement her income by being a hairdresser.”

  “An astrologer?”

  “Yes, boss. Mercury in retrograde and that shit.”

  Starling crossed his arms and sat back, never once having looked away from Lore.

  “So?” he said, raising his eyebrows.

  After a moment, she laughed. “You guys practice that Vaudeville act or what?”

  “No, sis. This is all true,” McQueen said.

  “Just an educated guess,” Starling said.

  She cocked her head and thought about it.

  “Have I ever lied to you?” McQueen asked.

  “No,” she admitted.

  “Think I’d start now?”

  “Probably not,” she mumbled.

  “Probably not,” he repeated.

  “I mean, no,” she said. “So it’s true then.”

  “Absolutely. And just to prove it, you can meet her.”

  “We’re going to meet Charlene?” she asked also pronouncing it with the hard CH.

  “Absolutely. If we’re going to break Narco out of his Sheriff Arpaio chain gang, we’re going to need to talk to her and get some background.” Then he added, “Know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think once you meet Charlene that you two are going to be the best of friends.” To McQueen he asked, “What’s that saying that Bully makes?”

  “‘Closer than two rabbits screwing in a wool sock,’” McQueen said flatly.

  Starling adopted an exaggerated Southern accent and said, “Lore, I think once you meet Charlene that you two are going to be closer than two rabbits screwing in a wool sock.”

  She stared at him, then snorted. “I can’t wait.” Then she snorted again.

  Chapter Eleven

  Guadalupe, Arizona

  CHARLENE, AS IT turned out, lived in a two-bedroom whitewashed adobe in the Phoenix suburb of Guadalupe. Just south of the college suburb of Tempe and north of the bedroom community of Ahwatukee, Guadalupe came straight out of Hollywood central casting if you wanted to see a dusty poor Mexican town. Somehow, because of the great wall of I-10 to its west and the highland canal to its east, amidst all the glitz and palm trees Phoenix had to offer tourists visiting the more than five hundred hotels and forty resorts the metropolis had to offer, Guadalupe lived as the gritty throwback antithesis. There were no sidewalks. The streets were as dusty as the yards. Even a tumbleweed rolled languidly across their path, chasing after a coyote that eyed them suspiciously.

  An El Camino on blocks sat in the driveway of Charlene’s home. A rusty yellow Tonka dump truck and a Big Wheel were the only color in the dirt yard. A metal leash tied to the water spigot on the wall spoke of an uncertain tragedy with a disturbingly empty collar dangling at the end.

  McQueen parked the Tahoe on the street in front and they all climbed out.

  Three taps at the door and it opened, revealing Charlene in all of her glory. Her candy-apple red hair piled on top of her head like a 1960s sorority girl perfectly matched the hue of her lipstick. She was beautiful in the way women can be only when they spend five hours a day preparing themselves. She wore a silk house coat over shorts and a tank top that read I’m a Pisces, Let’s Save Time and Assume I’m Never Wrong. She held a TV remote in one hand and an iPhone in the other.

  “I’ll talk to you later, Maizy. They’re here. No, they don’t look dangerous. Just some fat guy, a big gay hipster, and woman with tattoos on her neck.”

  At the comment, Lore raised a hand to one of the sigils that had stubbornly resisted her attempts at removal.

  Starling couldn’t help frowning at his description.

  McQueen remained McQueen and did nothing.

  “They’re Dakota’s friends,” she continued. “No, not that kind of friend. Real friends. I think they were deployed together.” She grinned and waved them inside as she rolled her eyes and shook her head, holding up the phone. She mouthed the word Sorry. “Yes, Afghanistan. Or at least I think it was Afghanistan.”

  Starling nodded.

  “The fat guy said yes. Afghanistan.”

  She waved them in and they complied.

  Once inside, she closed the door with her foot.

  “I’m sure it’s nowhere we want to go. All the dust and dirt and roadside bombs. I think they make the women wear sheets or something.”

  “Burkas,” Lore said.

  “Gesundheit,” said Charlene. “Listen, Maizy, I really do have to be going. I have company and you know how I like to be polite.” She paused, then opened her mouth in surprise. “He did not. Are you serious? Did you call the police? And you say he took your feathers too?” She shook her head and stormed down the hall, slamming the door behind her.

  After a moment, McQueen said without batting an eye, “Either she’s batshit crazy or she’s talking to her parakeet on a cell phone.”

  Starling was still wincing at being called fat.

  The living room was well appointed in that rent-a-furniture sort of way. Everything was new and matched, but it was cheap. The most expensive thing was the seventy-inch high definition television on the wall across from the couch. The picture was so clear they could see the sweat on Jerry Springer’s upper lip as he watched two immense black woman re-enacting a past sumo wrestling championship.

  The opposite wall had pictures of a young boy in varying stages of growth, the oldest being around ten.

  The couch was framed by two matching easy chairs facing inward toward a low-slung coffee table.

  The kitchen table was covered with boxes of hair products, as if Charlene had just shop-lifted the entire inventory of a hair salon.

  Starling detected the faint smell of cinnamon.

  He turned to Lore and McQueen, who were still standing where they’d been when Charlene had left them. Starling shrugged, then caught movement from the television. He turned to it and watched as a fist-fight faded to a commercial. It began in a desert somewhere with a single white spot in the middle of nowhere. The camera panned in from a forty-five degree God’s view. Closer and closer. A pit opened in his stomach and he felt a wave of sickness surge into the space. It was the girl. The girl with the long hair, shoeless, wearing a simple Sunday dress. The girl from his dreams. She stood, holding a thin rope that was attached to a white goat. She and the goat were looking the other way. He followed their gaze and saw that the sky was now on fire, burning with a brightness that made him bring his hand up to shield his eyes.

  What was the commercial? What were they advertising?

  “I see it too,” said a voice beside him.

  “What is it you see?”

  “It’s a girl. She has stringy hair and wears a robin’s egg blue dress. She’s holding a rope attached to a white goat.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Don’t you already know?”

  “Hey, boss? What’s going on?” McQueen asked, breaking the spell.<
br />
  Starling blinked. The commercial evaporated and was replaced by a man selling RVs wearing a gorilla suit.

  “Didn’t you guys see that?” he said as he turned, noting that Charlene was right beside him.

  “Did you see the goat?” Lore asked.

  Starling looked from one to the other. “Are you telling me you didn’t see anything? Lore? McQueen?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “Then who said…” It dawned on him that it had been Charlene who’d seen it. “How?” he asked.

  She offered a thin smile. “It’s what I do. Dakota saw the same thing. It was driving him crazy.”

  “Did you really see it?” Lore challenged. “Or are you just relaying what Dak told you?”

  Charlene turned to Lore and appraised her, like she’d probably appraised every woman she saw as a challenge. “I saw.”

  Lore met the other woman’s gaze, then shook her head. “It’s not something you can prove, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”

  “It’s not something you can disprove either.” Charlene pointed the remote at the television and it snapped off. She dropped the remote on the coffee table and found one of the easy chairs. “Come on. Sit down.”

  Starling took the other chair facing Charlene.

  Lore and McQueen sat on the sofa.

  “What you are seeing is a psychopomp,” Charlene said.

  “What’s a psychopump?” Starling asked.

  Charlene opened her mouth to answer, but Lore beat her to it.

  “Pomp. Psychopomp. It comes from the Greek psychopompos, which means the guider of souls. Notably Charon, who guides the souls of the dead across the River Styx, is a psychopomp. A modern cultural assimilation of the psychopomp would be the grim reaper.” She gave Charlene a hard look and added, “Masters in religious studies. UCLA.” Then she looked back at Starling and smiled like a darling.

  “The death’s head with the scythe? That grim reaper?” Starling asked.

  Lore nodded.

  “Does that mean we’re dead?” Starling looked from Lore to Charlene.

  “Not necessarily,” Charlene said. “In fact, I doubt you are actually dead. What I do know is that you have a shared psychopomp. I saw it because you saw it. Dakota’s seen it. You know, Jungian psychology addressed the idea of a psychopomp and treats it as a mediator between the conscious and the unconscious.” Then she gave Lore a hard look. “Nine hours at Maricopa Community College.”

  Lore exhaled heavily and pursed her lips.

  “I still don’t understand,” Starling said.

  “What I can’t figure out is the girl,” Charlene said. She turned to examine Lore. “Could it be you?”

  “I’m certainly not the goat,” Lore said.

  “What do you mean?” Starling asked. “Isn’t she the psychopomp?”

  “Oh, no. The goat is the psychopomp. The girl is holding it at bay.”

  Lore thumped her chest. “That’s me, holding back the goat.”

  “But the goat’s not trying to get away,” he said.

  Charlene shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. The leash or rope or whatever,” she flicked her hand, “is what controls it. The leash is not a leash just as the goat is not a goat. It’s metaphor.”

  “What would happen if the goat got free?” Starling asked.

  “I’ve only seen a psychopomp once before,” Charlene said. “It was a golden retriever that had died and then showed up in an old man’s bedroom.”

  “What happened?”

  “The man came to see me and I knew right away he was going to die.”

  “Did you tell him?” McQueen asked, speaking up for the first time.

  “I did. The golden rule of psychics is to always tell the truth. And he died that night. The purpose of the presence of the animal’s spirit can’t be entirely known, but I suppose it was to guide the spirit of its master into the afterlife.”

  Starling rethought his initial impression of Charlene. On the outside she was the model of trailer trash iconography, but on the inside she was an intellectual psychic with an acute understanding of the afterlife… or at least that’s how she appeared. Dak was definitely out of his league if he thought she was his type. In fact, he probably did because Charlene knew how to act the part around him.

  “How do we know you’re a psychic?” Lore challenged.

  Charlene smiled and cocked her head. “How does it feel to wear tinfoil? I’d imagine that it chafes,” she paused, “especially in the more tender places.”

  Lore’s mouth fell open. She looked from McQueen to Starling and back.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Starling said.

  “Neither did I,” McQueen said carefully.

  Charlene continued. “I hear loud music and see you dancing. You were trying to get rid of something… something that was stuck in your head. I can hear the words, but I don’t understand them.”

  “It’s Persian,” Lore said slowly.

  “Ah, that’s why,” Charlene said. “Whatever it is, it’s as important as the presence of the girl. Pay attention to them. Listen to the words. Watch the girl. When the girl disappears, then you know that something terrible is going to happen.”

  “What about the sky on fire?” Lore asked, apparently no longer trying to outdo Charlene. “What about the burning sky?”

  “Okay, give me a moment and let me see. What I need you to do is to imagine the burning sky. All of you. The more you can concentrate, the better I’m able to focus.” Charlene closed her eyes. She inhaled and exhaled heavily through her nose. “Burning sky. I’m looking for burning sky. Imagine it. Bring it to me. Yes. There. I can see it. The sky’s on fire. Oh my, but isn’t that bright. It’s almost blinding.” She brought her hand to her eyes even though they were closed. “I can see why you keep seeing it. There’s something there. This is different. This is very different. I can’t see through it but there’s something on the other side… something—”

  Her head jerked back and both hands grabbed the arms of her chair, nails biting in so hard that two of them snapped off. The veins in her arms popped as her elbows locked. The corners of her mouth peeled back as the skin on her face tightened. A high-pitched whine started in her throat and leaked from her mouth like air hissing from a tire.

  Starling, Lore, and McQueen shot to their feet.

  Starling swept the coffee table out of the way and reached out to touch her but the moment his fingers wrapped around her forearm he felt a searing heat transfer from her into him. He gritted his teeth and bit back a scream. The pain was so intense that he was certain his skin was melting. His vision went white… no, not white, he was seeing white. He screamed at the same time Charlene did, and for one split second he thought he saw darkness on the other side of the burning sky… darkness in the shape of a figure.

  Then it was as if a light switch flipped and everything went black.

  Starling’s hand released and he fell backward, stumbling. He felt hands support him and found his balance. His vision returned. He quickly checked his hand, sure that it would be ruined, but it was free of any wound and as normal as it had been earlier in the day. Relief washed over him.

  Charlene tried to stand but fell back in her chair.

  “Wa-water,” she said. “Fridge. Water.”

  Lore stepped quickly into the kitchen and slung open the refrigerator, retrieved two bottles of water, and returned to the living room. She unscrewed one and placed it in the shaking hands of Charlene. Then she unscrewed the other and did the same for Starling.

  Both Charlene and Starling sucked down half of their bottles before they came up for air.

  “What was that?” Starling asked, glancing momentarily at his hand before running it over his head. “Felt like I was on fire.”

  “You were. We were,” Char said. She drank the rest of the bottle and let the empty fall in her lap. “As to what that is? I’ve never encountered anything like it before.”

  “Are you okay?” Lore ask
ed Starling. “What did you see?”

  “Something on the other side of the light. I think it was a figure.”

  Charlene nodded. “It felt like a presence. It was more than just a figure, it was…” She hesitated, then said breathlessly, “I don’t know what it was.”

  But Lore wouldn’t let her off the hook so easily. “Come on. You know something you’re not telling.”

  Charlene shook her head. “I’m just not sure. I can’t really say.”

  “I’m dropping the bullshit flag in the end zone on that one. You know. I can tell you know. I’m a professional interrogator, among other things, and your tells are giving you away.”

  Charlene’s eyes narrowed. “I have tells?”

  Lore shoved her hands on her hips. “You have tells.”

  “What are they?” Charlene asked.

  Lore seemed about to answer, then grinned and shook her head slowly. She brought a hand up and waggled a finger. “Oh no you don’t. You’re not changing the subject. What exactly was it that you saw on the other side of the burning?”

  Starling interjected. “Lore. That’s enough.”

  Lore stared at him with a wounded gaze. “But Starling, she knows something.”

  Starling was about to reply, then noticed Charlene shaking her head slowly. “I understand your frustration. I really do. But I think it’s important that I don’t speculate. I don’t want to confuse you on your own journey of discovery.”

  “I thought you said that psychics had to be honest,” Lore protested.

  Charlene considered the comment, then smiled. “Anyone want some water? It’s cold.”

  “Oh, this is so much bullshit,” Lore said, turning and throwing herself into a seat on the couch.

  Starling knew that they’d eventually find the answer. If Charlene didn’t want to tell them, it was probably for a good reason. He had a good feeling about her and knew that if something bad was going to happen that she’d let them know. Whatever it was, the answer wasn’t here. The answer was somewhere in Afghanistan. The problem was getting there, which was their current problem. But first they had to find a way to free Narco.