Shooting Eros - The Emuna Chronicles: Book 1: Hell-bent (Shooting Eros Series)

by Benjamin Laskin

  “Nah,” Volk said. “We’ll walk.”

  “Very funny. Suit yourselves.” He tapped the communicator again. “Flying solo.” Instantly, a whirling vortex opened up beside him. “See you losers at the wedding.”

  Sett snatched away Grace’s dossier from Captain Cyrus, and leaped into the vortex.

  “Hey…!” I lurched for the folder, but Volk yanked me back.

  Sett snickered and waved the folder as he dematerialized into the mini-maelstrom.

  “That’s a good way to lose your arm,” Volk scolded.

  Flower petals floated to the ground from where Sett had been hovering in his vortex. Cyrus grinned, unruffled.

  “He’s so predictable,” Volk said, then cavalierly pulled out Cyrus’s dossier and began to consult it.

  I looked at the captains in puzzlement, and laughed. “Cool. Are you going to teach me tricks like that?”

  “Child’s play, Kohai,” Cyrus said. “You have more important things to learn.”

  Volk said, “The targets aren’t far from here. Wanna have a look-see?”

  “What time is it, Kohai?” Cyrus asked.

  I lifted my wristwatch to check, but Volk clamped his hand around it. “If you continue to rely on gizmos,” he admonished, “you’ll never learn anything.”

  “Sorry. Habit.” I looked up at the sky, and then around at the shadows on the street and the reflections of the sun. I sniffed at the air and put a finger in the breeze. I did some fast calculating. “Five-thirty-seven?”

  “Good boy,” Cyrus said.

  I beamed.

  “We don’t have time today for any recon,” Cyrus said. “The cadets’ graduation exam is tomorrow and I have work to do.”

  Volk said, “There’s an old church a few blocks from here with good tetrahedral alignment. If we get there by sunclipse we should get a smooth ride for Kohai.”

  Cyrus nodded and the three of us began walking.

  “I wish I could attend the exam,” I muttered.

  “Too dangerous,” Cyrus said.

  “But I’d be with you guys, and I promise I won’t do anything. Just watch. What’s the harm in that? I’d surely learn something, and it would be a good motivator for me, don’t you think?”

  The captains looked at each other, again as if communicating telepathically.

  “Okay,” Cyrus said. “But you must mind everything we say. No ifs, ands, or especially, buts.”

  “Yes, Sirs!” I said, jubilant. “Thank you, Sirs!”

  The three of us came to a crosswalk where we waited for the light to change. “Why are we waiting?” I asked. I gestured at the cars whizzing by. “Those things can’t hurt us, can they?”

  “Avoid penetrating the material world whenever and wherever possible, Kohai,” Captain Cyrus warned. “It drains your energy, and if you get too low, you won’t have enough to whirl out. More importantly, you might collide with a human consciousness.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “If someone in a car should hit us, his consciousness could experience a blast of fourth dimensional energy, and there’s no telling what the effect might be.”

  “Would they blow up or something?”

  “Nah, nothing so dramatic,” Cyrus said. “It depends upon the person’s level of awareness. He could incur instantaneous sleep, drunken-like euphoria, panic, or occasionally, cosmic-consciousness, which wouldn’t be so bad except that his eye-batting astonishment would likely cause him to lose control of his vehicle, and wrap it around a telephone pole.”

  “Really? Wow.”

  “Worse still,” Cyrus said, “you might penetrate a human subconscious, and that would be bad for you.”

  “For me? How?”

  “It would be like stepping into a yetzer-infested bog. The human subconscious is one nasty piece of real estate.”

  He turned to Captain Volk, “So, who am I dealing with, V?”

  “Miss Ellen Veetal, twenty-eight,” Volk said, reading from the dossier. “Third year graduate student in psychology. Lives alone with a dog, Carl. Never married. She’s had an average of one boyfriend every 1.4 years since the age of fifteen. Staying rate average, 4.7 months per boyfriend.”

  “Sign-off?”

  “Hers. One-hundred percent of the time.”

  “Reasons?”

  “The usual modern complaints. Boredom, disappointment, unrealized expectations, selfishness, always thinking that there is someone better just around the bend…”

  “And the intended?”

  “One of her professors.”

  “Interesting,” Cyrus said.

  Volk continued reading from the dossier. “Chauncey Matterson, thirty-six. Ph.D. twice over, married at thirty-two, divorced at thirty-four. Irreconcilable differences. No children.”

  The light changed and we crossed the street and continued walking.

  I thought I’d offer my two bits. “Two emotionally-starved intellectuals who discover their passion in the noösphere. Pretty standard text book stuff, isn’t it?”

  “Every case is unique, Kohai,” Cyrus said. “Remember that.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  We turned a corner and came across a small, well-preserved late nineteenth century chapel. Churches were a rare sight in much of what used to be known as the United States, but as this was a historical landmark, it was allowed to remain as long as enough donations from sentimental benefactors came in to keep it from being confiscated by the government, converted into a mosque, or taken over by gangs and turned into a meth lab. We approached and entered.

  Candles and oil lamps dimly lighted the church. The pew was only five benches deep and separated by a narrow aisle. The dark wooden floor and pew benches were still the originals and surprisingly well maintained. An antique organ stood in one corner, and stained-glass windows decorated the walls. Behind the small pulpit hung a large crucifix. Three people sat in the pew: two sleeping homeless men and an old woman in prayer.

  We walked down the aisle and stood at the front near the pulpit.

  “How do you know this place will work?” I asked Captain Cyrus.

  “I’ve made a point of learning where all the portals are—something you’d better do too. But, should you forget, you could always look for the telltale signs. A gentleman named Father Marconi built this church in 1895. Ring a bell?”

  “He was a thirty-third degree Freemason, wasn’t he?” I answered.

  “Good boy. He used to hold secret meetings in the cellar. If you look closely you’ll see the signs. Notice the stained-glass windows? What’s the Zodiac doing there? Check out the crosses. All Templar. Odd, but not as odd as that over there.” He pointed.

  “An udjat,” I said. “The Egyptian Eye of Horus.”

  “Get the picture?”

  “Yes, but we didn’t come in through a church. We came in through a cemetery.”

  “Portals can be many things,” Cyrus said. “Churches, synagogues, cemeteries, certain groves and gardens, monuments, natural wonders, lots of places. What they all have in common is sacred geometry. If you were to measure certain aspects of this church, you’d see it built in.”

  “Those who built this place, they didn’t know it could be used as a portal, did they?”

  “No,” Cyrus said. “They were carrying on a very ancient but watered-down tradition. They felt that what they were doing was somehow important, but they didn’t really know why, or how.”

  “The Academy doesn’t know about any of this?”

  “Long forgotten. Unfortunately, in the Academy’s world—just like that of the humans’—history has been deemed irrelevant. What history that is being done these days is mostly the rewriting of it. Besides, nowadays, the Cupid Corps have machines to do everything. Their disgronifiers are faster and have pinpoint accuracy. A cupid soldier could literally be disgronified right into a basketball hoop. And if someone up there had a sense of humor, he would do it.”

  “So why don’t we use them? Why are we so old s
chool all the time?”

  “If you have to ask,” Volk scolded, “then you haven’t been listening to a word we’ve been telling you.”

  “I’m listening! I just don’t always understand, that’s all.”

  “Because you still lack emuna,” Cyrus said.

  “But aren’t we operating at a big handicap if we have to depend upon finding places like this and the Academy doesn’t?”

  Volk said, “The only reason we are here is because you haven’t earned your wings yet, so to speak. Portals are for beginners. Like training wheels. Once you master the art of whirling, you won’t need them anymore.”

  “When will that be?” I asked.

  “That depends on you,” Volk said. “You should get the knack of it after just a whirl or two. You will be able to land and take off from anywhere, just like us, and more.”

  “More?”

  “One flight at a time,” Volk said cryptically.

  “Okay, Kohai,” Cyrus said. “Let’s go. You’re first. We’ll be right behind you making sure you don’t get lost. You know the coordinates, right?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Okay. Put your mind in the sky.”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated. I began to gyrate and heard Cyrus say, “Find the sun, and anchor yourself. You’re the earth. Start orbiting…”

  I spun faster, twirling in place like a whirling dervish.

  Volk said, “And try not to puke on yourself this time.”

  “Faster,” Cyrus said. “You’re flying now, Kohai. Sixty-six thousand six hundred miles per hour, side by side with the earth. Feel the gravity like a rope in your hand. See the stars—millions of them—blending into a thick, white blanket around you…”

  I whirled faster.

  “The light is coming closer and closer… Attaboy. Let it know where you’re going. Let go of the rope, and let it fling you into the light. That’s right, like a magic carpet ride, Kohai…”

  “Woohoo!” I exclaimed, my exaltation following me into space. I knew I had the hang of it now.

  Cyrus nodded to Volk, and the two of them whipped into translation behind me.

  The chapel’s candles flickered in our breeze. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. We vanished, leaving a roomful of snuffed out candles in our wake. Sitting in darkness, the old woman in the pew said nervously, “Hello?”

  10

  Wedding Crashers

  The cadets’ final exam was a matchmaking expedition at a large wedding party held on the thirty-third floor of a ritzy five-star hotel in Washington, D.C.

  The smartly dressed guests drank, mingled gaily, and danced to the music of a five-man band that played on a small stage in front of an immense window. The window ran the length of the ballroom overlooking the city below.

  The captains and I stood around a large, round table with a white tablecloth and a crowning five-layered wedding cake in the center. Dressed sharply in white tuxedos, I felt debonair, and wished that Celestial Grace had a kid sister.

  Ever vigilant, Captains Cyrus and Volk scanned the crowd. The band launched into a slow dance, and among the embracing couples I spotted the newlyweds. The bride, Jill Taylor, was nestling her head into her husband’s chest, a smile of deep contentment on her face.

  I said, “And to think that only three months ago they hated each other’s guts. Amazing.” I turned to Captain Cyrus. “I love weddings, don’t you, Sir?”

  “No, Kohai, they depress me.”

  “Huh? But, Sir, look what a happy couple they are. Surely you must get a great sense of satisfaction knowing—”

  “That their love will not last? Not at all, Kohai.”

  “But of course it’ll last,” I said, shocked. “Look at them. It was meant to be!”

  Cyrus and Volk exchanged smirks.

  “Yes, Kohai, it was meant to be,” Cyrus said, his voice thick with sarcasm. He had spotted Commander Sett across the room. The commander nodded coolly in acknowledgment. “That’s what they believe, and that’s all that matters.”

  “Sir?” I said, puzzled.

  “The affection you see was inspired by nothing other than arrows tipped by the Academy lab’s latest nostrum. When the drug wears off, so will their love.”

  “The potion wears off?”

  “The humans have built up a resistance. We make stronger and stronger potions, but humankind has grown so decadent, so taken in by pretense and appearances, that now every generation needs a stronger fix.”

  “The humans are passion junkies,” Volk clarified. “Few can even distinguish between lust and love anymore, nor do they care to.”

  A man and woman strolled up for a slice of wedding cake. The man looked dapper in his black suit, white shirt, and black bow tie. The lady wore a black silk China dress that cascaded down her slender-but-shapely body. The dress had an eye-catching slit up the side, revealing a pair of athletically trim legs. She was the prettiest woman in the room, and the man with her appeared very proud of that fact. The handsome couple was Ellen Veetal and Professor Chauncey Matterson.

  We stepped aside to make way for them. They took no notice of us, of course.

  Ellen cut two pieces of cake and handed one to Chauncey.

  Noting the crowd, the professor said, “We really ought to be able to come up with some kind of experiment for this situation. The mixture of neuroses and pheromones is almost palpable.”

  Ellen chuckled.

  “Perhaps here you can find a subject for your dissertation, though…” He gestured with his fork towards the dance floor where a couple was in a clinging embrace, groping and humping one another to the music. “…by the look of these mating rituals, the anthropology department might accuse you of encroaching on their turf.”

  “About my dissertation,” Ellen said. “I’m hoping you’ll agree to be my advisor, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t—”

  “I’d be honored.”

  “…Approve. What I’m interested in is…controversial.”

  “I myself caused quite a ruckus with my own dissertation, I’ll have you know.”

  “Yes, but I mean very controversial.”

  “Really, Ellen, I can’t think of anything in this world that would shock me, so what is it?”

  “I want to study the paranormal.”

  The three of us perked up our ears and tuned in.

  Professor Matterson’s grin waned. “Debunking it, of course, but that’s hardly worthy of a person with your considerable talents and intellect.”

  “An objective analysis,” she clarified.

  “Oh, well, looky there, you did catch me a little off guard…”

  Ellen frowned. “You see, I was afraid—”

  “No, no, it’s just that I think we need to sit down and talk at length about your ideas, and here isn’t the place.”

  “So you’ll hear what I have in mind?”

  “If I didn’t, I’d be guilty of the same midget-minded orthodoxy I accused my own professors of when I was a grad student.”

  “Thank you,” Ellen said effusively.

  “Now enough shop talk,” Matterson said. “Would you like to dance?”

  “I’d love to.”

  Chauncey Matterson took Ellen by the hand and led her to the dance floor.

  Captain Cyrus watched them walk off.

  I said, “Isn’t that—?”

  “My next match, yes,” Cyrus answered.

  “Some coincidence them being here today,” I said.

  “There are no coincidences,” Volk said.

  “You’ve got a clear target, Captain Cyrus. What are you waiting for?”

  “Further observation,” the captain replied coolly. “Something’s not kosher.”

  “But Eros never makes a mistake,” I said, not understanding the captain’s hesitancy.

  Cyrus and Volk exchanged meaningful glances, but they said nothing.

  Then Cyrus said, “Eros doesn’t make matches, despite what you have been told.”

  “He doesn’t?”
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  “All matches come from an Academy algorithm.”

  “A computer?”

  Cyrus nodded. “The match is handed to the judges, given a short debate, and then passed on to cupids to carry out.”

  “Really? Who created the algorithm? Eros?”

  “A team of know-nothing Academy psychologists,” Volk said. “Bureaucrats.”

  “Wow,” I remarked. “What a disappointment…”

  Volk grinned. “Get used to it, Kohai. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.”

  The music stopped and applause erupted. Carried away in the moment, I clapped along with everyone else for the couple of the hour. My applause, of course, was inaudible to the humans. The captains did nothing but remain vigilant.

  The bride and groom took a grand bow, waved to their guests, and kissed each other, earning them another ovation.

  The band’s leader and vocalist cut in, saying, “We are Boomerang, and we’ll be back in twenty to rock you for another hour. Eat, drink, and stay merry!”

  Ellen and Chauncey clapped along with the rest. As the applause subsided, Chauncey leaned in and said to her, “I suppose now might be a good time. Would you be interested in going somewhere quiet to have that talk?”

  Ellen smiled. “I don’t think we’ll be missed.”

  “Great. I just have to make a quick phone call. I’m supposed to meet Professor Tariq later, but I’m going to postpone it for another day.” He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Strange. We seem to be in a blind spot.” He moved closer to the window, but he still couldn’t get a signal. He shrugged and returned to Ellen’s side. “I just changed carriers too. Oh well, excuse me a minute. I’ll be right back.”

  “No hurry.” She pointed to the wedding cake. “It’s a big cake.”

  He walked off and Ellen returned to the cake table. She stood a couple of feet from us, and we watched her cut a slice of cake and eat it as she surveyed the party, oblivious to our observations.

  Chauncey glanced back at Ellen. She smiled at him and coquettishly licked the icing from her fork. Matterson’s eyes widened and he hurried out the door. It closed behind him and, eerily, locked itself.