Soul Catchers
Page 22
“Dull, dull, dull. I get that one all the time. I only need one person to tell me, you know. Think of people’s prayers in the same way as email. How do you feel when you get the same email from multiple people.”
“Oh I delete them immediately.”
“Exactly.”
“Is that an Irish accent?”
“Might be,” said the voice, quickly changing subjects. “Tell me about the man you saw.”
“I didn’t catch his name, but he’s about six feet tall with dark, olive skin and long, black hair. I met him at Herb’s funeral.”
“His name is David Gonzalez.”
“Not John, then?”
“Someone’s name and who they are can be different. I believe David Gonzalez is a part of John Hewson returned to Earth. I knew some deep sensation of interest would attract him to John’s grave so I planted a clue.”
“What clue?”
“God protects the King.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means me. I am.”
“You am what, God or King?”
“Both.”
“Right, that’s confusing. But why would you plant a clue?”
“Because I needed to find him. He came to see me in Oxford but I wasn’t certain it was him.”
“I didn’t know God was from Oxford.”
“He’s not.”
“Bicester?”
“No. Focus on what’s important.”
“Right, of course.”
“The fact that you met him at Herb’s funeral tells me my hunch was correct. John is back and he must be stopped.”
“I don’t really believe that he’s John.”
“You really should.”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“But why is he here?”
“Ultimately because he’s in love with Faith.”
Baltazaar knew this to be a lie. Any longing or love that John had for Faith always stemmed from his own loneliness. If any part of John’s soul could still love, then it was almost certainly restricted to a dimension where the only recipients might be a plastic animal or a sexually confused demon. The only reason for Baltazaar’s lie was to help the bait sit on the hook.
“Double-crossing bastard,” said Nash.
“Indeed. You’re not going to stand for that, are you?”
“No, I’m not. What does he think he’s doing? Turns up with long hair, like I used to have, skinny like I used to be…oh, I see his game. He’s trying to be me.”
“If you say so. I need to know where he is.”
“He’s here with me.”
“I get that, but where is here? I can only speak to you, I don’t have a big map with people on it.”
“Oh I see. I’m new to this praying lark. What are you going to do?” said Nash.
“It’s time I paid him a visit. Get him to see the error of his ways and help you protect Faith.”
“He’s on Bryher, Isles of Scilly. How fast can you get here?”
“Already left.”
- CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE -
SCIENCE
The barn, buried in a maze of hawthorn bushes and cedar trees, overflowed with more contraptions than the inventory of the Science Museum. In every corner a gizmo or device lay in a permanent state of transition between unwanted scrap metal and the next big thing.
“I think it’s strange,” said Grace as she fiddled with a device with multiple gears and flanges.
“You always overanalyse everything, though,” replied Scrumpy.
“He just turned up out of nowhere. Don’t you think that’s peculiar?”
“No. He’s trying to help someone,” replied Scrumpy. Only his feet were visible. The rest of him was tinkering somewhere under the tractor.
“That’s what he claims,” replied Grace.
“I trust him. He swam out to a rock: what more proof do you need?”
“Swimming is hardly proof of reliability. The whole thing is suspicious. People don’t just turn up like that.”
“Pirates do,” came a muffled voice and the twang of a spanner colliding against a metal object.
“He’s not a pirate.”
“I know. I was just pointing out that pirates turn up when you least expect it.”
“These days pirates only turn up in Somalia and they don’t wear eyepatches and go ‘argh’,” she replied. “What are you doing under there anyway?”
“Fixing it.”
After the Unicorn this was his second favourite way of seeing the island. It was an old red tractor with a roofed cabin and a number of modifications, not all of them strictly legal. To check for any imposters that might be using walkie-talkies, it was equipped with a radio and a very special engine under its bonnet. Grace had been instrumental in this project. She did science like other people did breathing. There was no effort involved. It just happened. If a science problem needed solving, she just solved it. Rather than learning this knowledge at school, like others, she’d been born with it. A natural talent to solve problems, as long as they didn’t involve humans.
If you wanted to make a bridge out of bits of wood and nothing to fix them together, she could do it. If you wanted to work out a way of keeping asparagus underground for longer than nature intended, she could devise it. If you wanted to put an Audi engine in a tractor so that it could do doughnuts and travel at fifty miles an hour without falling apart, she could make it. Scrumpy just had to service it in the way that she’d taught him.
“You don’t need to fix it. It works beautifully,” she said.
“Well, I like tinkering. It makes me feel involved. You did all the work after all. Want to go for a spin?”
“Of course not. I’ve had all the excitement I needed making it. I’m not sure why you wanted it to go so fast.”
“It’s quicker when you have to reach danger, isn’t it? Saving lives is all about response times, you know.”
“If you say so.”
“I think next I’ll get you to put wings on it. See if we can’t make a flying tractor. That would be cool.”
There was no response.
“Sis?”
Scrumpy slid out from under the tractor on a wheeled tea tray. She’d gone. She did that.
*****
The peace and quiet of the countryside were shattered by the sound of an engine growling in the distance. The noise increased quickly until it was so loud David was forced to fill his ears with digits. A red blur flew down the bumpy track between, and in some places through, the hedgerows, skidding to an ungraceful stop in front of the house. Scrumpy was holding on tightly as if the beast’s only intention had been to remove him. His hair was ruffled and very few parts of his body had avoided the sudden shower of grease.
David had been relaxing after a hard day’s labour. He’d just sat down on the rickety wooden bench outside his new accommodation, the workshop in front of the house, with a glass of milk and a Hobnob biscuit. A folder lay closed on his lap.
“Hey, David!” shouted Scrumpy over the continuing noise of the engine. Guests in the nearby hotel twitched at their curtains to see what monstrosity had broken their peace. “What do you think?”
“I was thinking about reading,” replied David.
“What? I can’t hear you?”
David motioned for him to come closer. Eventually he obliged.
“What do you think about the wheels?” said Scrumpy, rephrasing his original question.
“Dangerous is the first word that springs to mind.”
“I’m an excellent driver.”
“Tell that to the hedge.”
“Took me and Grace ages to convert. She’s got an old Audi engine in her so she goes really fast.”
“How fast?” asked David.
“I haven’t got her quite up to top speed, but I’ve managed over forty miles an hour.”
“That seems an inappropriate speed on an island less than a mile wide. Did you say Grace helped you?”
“Sounds like I could use her help. Why haven’t I seen her yet?”
“She doesn’t like mixing with people, apart from me, of course. She finds them confusing. Doesn’t understand all the weeping and arguing stuff.”
Scrumpy attempted to wipe grease from his face but instead made the situation worse. He now looked like he was about to go on commando training.
“I know how she feels,” replied David.
“So do you like it,” said Scrumpy pointing to the still steaming vehicle in the distance.
“Yes, very interesting.”
“I thought it might come in handy on the mission. Have you made any progress?”
David had made none. In truth he’d been so absorbed in the basic thought-process of cutting the heads of asparagus tips that he’d almost completely forgotten about his list. Until this evening, that was. The folder caught his eye as it lay forgotten on the wine crate that doubled up as his bedside table. To-do lists seemed to go on forever, particularly when you completely ignored them.
“No progress,” he replied.
“What’s that?” said Scrumpy, picking up the folder before waiting for the answer. “Who are these people?”
“They’re the people who might try to harm Faith.”
“But Faith is on the list. How can Faith harm Faith?” said Scrumpy a little confused.
“She can’t. It’s a to-do list. Faith is on there because I need to protect her.”
“From the other people,” suggested Scrumpy.
“Indeed.”
“Who’s John Hewson?”
“Well. It’s hard to explain?”
“Why? Is he bad?”
“That’s a matter of perspective, I suppose. Some parts of him are.”
“Which parts?”
“The bad ones.”
“Which ones are those?”
“The angry ones.”
“Oh.” Scrumpy scratched his head and deposited a chunk of engine oil into his scalp. “And what does he look like?”
“I don’t think anyone knows.”
“Wears a disguise, does he?”
“Frequently. It’s hard to know which is a disguise and which isn’t,” replied David.
“So how do we spot him if he comes on the island?”
“We can’t. No one can. We just have to look out for anyone acting suspiciously.”
“Pirates always look suspicious.”
“I doubt if he will look like a pirate. What do pirates look like anyway?”
“They wear velvet. Bright colours, usually red. They have tattoos and sometimes they have bald heads. And they’re skinny. You never get fat pirates.”
“Why not?”
“All the scurvy.”
“You know that scurvy isn’t just the opposite of curvy, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said a little too quickly.
“I tell you what, if you see anyone looking like that, you have my complete blessing to fight them off, whether it’s John or not.”
“Got it. So you coming for a ride?”
“No. I’m ok,” replied David.
“Where’s your inner child…? Mam says there’s one in all adults.”
“We all just have to work with what we’re given,” replied David.
*****
If God had a petulant side its name was Baltazaar. The world was built with perfection in mind, and perfection had gone walkabout. Humans weren’t meant to think for themselves, they were meant to obey. To pray, occasionally sacrifice a goat or two, and kick back on the Sabbath to consume newspapers. That’s how it used to be. It was simple. People had faith in God, or sometimes gods if they were really sitting on the fence.
Things were different now. Human’s didn’t deserve God. They’d gone down their own path and Baltazaar had decided, in his divine wisdom, to plant lots of nasty obstacles in the way. Emorfed may not have gone precisely to plan, but there had been some useful spin-offs. Some of the shadows had got to Hell and, although he could not see it or influence it directly, they were probably having a big, malevolent street party.
Heaven had been closed for business years ago. There were plenty of souls up there already, prancing around virtuously in nice, clean vessols with wings on them. Most had been there an eternity. The old souls knew how to behave. Praise God and receive his love. Simple. Then things changed. Souls started arriving with questions. Not simple ones like ‘Where do we go for Communion?’ or ‘How do the wings work?’ These were questions more suitable to a seven-year-old child, and they almost always started with the word ‘why’.
‘God, why do you allow so much death?’ and ‘God, why do we have to eat small discs of bread which, if I’m honest, taste more like a poor quality paper than bread?’ The most irritating question was also the most common. ‘If you made all this, who made you?’ Curiosity, as the old saying goes, killed the cat. There were many creatures and demons in Hell who were devastated that the saying had little meaning there.
As any parent will tell you, if you keep getting the same question over and over and over and over and over again, a small part of your brain explodes and you go just a little bit crazy. When it happened to God, Baltazaar was the result. Apparently it was all to do with hypostasis. If a specimen undergoes some accidental change they inherit essential properties. In this case, an irrational response to stupid questions. Much had been done to stop them arriving. Only one move still had to be made to stop them completely. One last journey and Baltazaar didn’t need a ferry to reach Bryher, just a decent gust of wind.
*****
Nash’s curiosity had got the better of him. Last time he checked he wasn’t a cat and didn’t own one. Whether with divine intervention or not he needed to confront this unexpected foreigner. Just because the voices in his head had told him so, he wasn’t convinced this young, handsome Latino really was John. He’d decided to dress up his curiosity in the disguise of an unplanned visit to see Faith.
As he approached the house, he passed, as he always did, the shabby workshop between the house and gardens, that until recently only housed a rather dilapidated tandem bike and countless rats. At the opened entrance, David was thumbing through his folder, contemplating whether he’d ever have the chance to complete any more of his tasks.
“Good evening,” said Nash sarcastically.
David looked up. In the absence of panic and fear, algorithms did some strategic repositioning.
“Ah,” was the only reply he could muster. Algorithms didn’t work well when they lacked the information to complete them.
“Ah. Is that all you can say? Explain yourself.”
A series of algorithms disintegrated with a ‘fizzing’ sound.
“I can’t,” he said.
“What?” said Nash. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not, I can’t lie in fact. It’s rather complicated. I’m not sure I can explain it to myself.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
“That might be a very long time ago.”
“Just tell me why you are here!” shouted Nash angrily.
“I’ve come for Faith,” he said reluctantly.
There was an awkward silence. David’s thick, size eleven leather boots vibrated up and down on the floor.
“I knew it!” replied Nash. “But how do you even know who she is?”
“Because…I think I was once…you.”
Nash’s heart stopped for a few seconds and he wasn’t entirely sure if it had the guts to start up again. “But…he’s…gone.”
“Part of him came back. I think you may have been an important part in enabling that process.”
“I definitely wasn’t,” said Nash sternly. He sat down on the hull of the upturned dinghy that lay in the grass in front of the workshop.
“I think when John was exorcised a part of his soul attached to
you. When he released me it drew your part to him.”
“What do you mean ‘when you were released’? You sound like someone’s love child.”
“I’m what’s left of John’s soul. A neutral part that returned to Earth and housed in an unborn Chilean baby.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re clearly insane.”
David closed his eyes and forced what was left of his soul to extract something he could use to back up his wild claims. He found one.
“Whatever you say…Barbara.”
Nash fell backwards over the boat and crashed to the floor, retaining his consciousness for once. It always hurt too much when he didn’t. He tried to bury his head into the dirt, hoping that he might instantly regenerate into an ostrich. David helped him back onto his feet.
“What do we do now?” said David.
“Give me a moment,” he replied hyperventilating. “Why can’t you ever leave me alone?”
“I think you found me, didn’t you?”
“That’s not the point. Why are you here?”
“I told you, to find Faith.”
“But why?”
“Because I have some tasks to complete and Faith is an important part of that.”
“He was right, you do love her, don’t you?” said Nash returning to his feet and approaching David with aggressive intent.
“No. I don’t even know how.”
“You don’t know how to love?” replied Nash grabbing David by the scruff of his neck.
“No, I’m completely neutral. I can think but not feel.”
“But he told me you did,” replied Nash releasing David from his grasp. Nash was not typically a violent person but sometimes love can do funny things to you.
“Who did?”
“Um…God.”
“God?”
“Well, he said he was a god and a King.”
David paused and opened his folder to a page that contained a beautifully handwritten quote he’d first seen on John’s gravestone, “Did he say this?”
“Yes,” replied Nash.
“His name is Baltazaar. He’s on my list,” said David, opening the page and showing Nash his list of targets.
“He’s on his way,” said Nash nervously.