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

by Benjamin Laskin

  [Note 4. A person possessed by an Idol Yetzer holds celebrity as the greatest possible accomplishment. For such persons, glomming onto another person’s celebrity is akin to a religious experience. His or her ambition in life is to achieve sixty seconds of fame, and it matters little whether the distinction is prestigious or notorious.]

  I looked up in horror at the creature’s ferocious, snarling face. The Idol Yetzer roared, reared back its head, and plunged its pitchfork-like fangs towards my chest to tear out my heart and devour it.

  Through wincing eyes, I saw the beast’s head spin from its shoulders, severed by a well-placed snap of Captain Volk’s lightning whip. I kicked away the carcass as a torrent of foul goo spouted into the air.

  Volk yanked me to my feet, and together we raced for the window, Cyrus right behind us. Having no parachutes, Volk grabbed me up in his powerful arms and bounded from the window. He carried me in a whirling retrograde thirty-three stories to the street below. I learned that whirling had more uses than just transporting between worlds.

  A band member turned off the ear-splitting noise as flabbergasted hotel employees congregated in front of the gaping maw that a minute earlier had been a window. Every piece of glass in the ballroom had been blown to smithereens. It was then when Chauncey Matterson reentered the wedding hall. He halted in his step, stunned by the tumult around him. He spotted Ellen and ran to her side. Her hands were still cupped over her ears.

  “Are you okay?” he said, gently removing her hands from her head.

  “I think so…”

  “The door was locked. I had to get a manager. What on earth happened?”

  “I’m asking myself the same question,” Ellen answered.

  “Well, I think this is our cue to leave. Let’s go somewhere quiet and have that talk, shall we?”

  “I like quiet,” she said, her ears still ringing. “Quiet is good.”

  On the sidewalk below, the remaining maimed and badly shaken cadets struggled out of their parachutes and tended to one another. To my great relief, I saw that my pal Virgil was among the survivors. He was trying to untangle himself from his parachute. I ran to his side.

  “Virgil, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, but man those things were strong. We didn’t stand a chance! They stank something fierce too.”

  I helped Virgil out of his parachute. “Can you make it okay?”

  “I’m good. How did you get out of your parachute so fast?”

  “Huh? Oh, Captain Volk helped me.” I didn’t like lying to Virgil, but whirling was a secret.

  “All right men,” Sett shouted. “Grab the wounded, we’re getting out of here.”

  A number of vortexes opened up and the cadets began to vanish one after another—pop, pop, pop.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Virgil asked.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Virgil stepped into a vortex, and a moment later was whisked away.

  Just then, Ellen Veetal and Chauncey Matterson exited the building.

  “V,” Cyrus said. “See that Kohai gets back okay. I have a match to make.”

  “Can’t I watch?” I asked. “I want to see how it’s done.”

  “You’ve had enough excitement for one day, Kohai,” Cyrus said. “There will be other chances.”

  He walked off and fell in behind Ellen and the professor. If only that couple knew how lucky they were to have someone like Captain Cyrus in charge of their coupling, I thought.

  “Let’s go, Kohai,” Volk said. “I’ve got a date with Grace waiting for me.”

  “Grace? Really? Who knew you were such a stud, Captain Volk.”

  “Strictly business, Kohai.”

  “Right, Sir. Business. Wink, wink.”

  “Wink this,” Volk said, delivering a smack to the back of my head. “Now come on, there’s a launcher about a mile’s walk from here. Hopefully, it will be the last time you require training wheels.”

  Rubbing the hurt from my noggin, I said, “A sacred site near here? All I see is a bunch of government buildings and offices.”

  Volk pointed towards the obelisk-shaped Washington Monument sticking up in the distance.

  “No kidding? Cool.”

  12

  Coffee Buzz

  Ellen Veetal and Chauncey Matterson stopped their stroll in front of a Starbucks coffeehouse. Ellen nodded her approval and they entered.

  Cyrus followed right behind them.

  As Ellen and Chance stood at the counter to place their orders, Cyrus took note of the other customers, most of whom were sitting alone with their laptops, tablets, phones, or other net devices, checking the myriad of social networks that they belonged to. He smirked at the irony.

  Cyrus strolled unseen from table to table to take inventory of the various yetzers in the room. He passed the palm of his right hand over each customer’s head, revealing his or her primary yetzer. As the humans were currently in states of passivity, their yetzers were, for the time being, dormant and dozing.

  “Well, hello there odious, slime-covered Poser Yetzer,” Cyrus said amiably. “Greetings frog-faced, needle-toothed Victim Yetzer, as popular as ever aren’t you? … Resentment Yetzer! How’s it hanging, you bat-winged, fly-eyed, turd-monger? … Chip-on-the-Shoulder Yetzer, you’re as ugly asleep as you are awake … What’s up, acid-tongued Spleen Yetzer? Who do you hate today? … Oh, and looky here, our obnoxious, nihilistic friend, the one-eyed, whiny Nothing-but Yetzer…”

  Ellen and Chance located an empty table and sat down with their drinks; a Frappuccino for him and a double latte for her. Cyrus pulled a chair’s Platonic form from under a nearby customer and sat with them at their table.

  Chance said, “Are you sure you want to talk work on such a lovely afternoon?”

  “A simple yes,” Ellen replied, “and we needn’t bother.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you’ll do it?” she said excitedly. “You’ll okay my project and be my advisor?”

  Cyrus reached over his shoulders with both hands and withdrew two dove-feathered, gold-tipped arrows from his quiver. He held them out across the table ready to simultaneously stab Chance and Ellen in the heart.

  “Yes, I’d be happy to advise you, Ellen. And my first bit of advice is to choose another subject matter.”

  Cyrus hesitated.

  “I admire your enthusiasm,” Matterson continued, “but honestly, the paranormal is not something any credible institution would or should take seriously.”

  “That didn’t stop the likes of William James or Carl Jung from their interest in such things,” Ellen rejoined.

  Intrigued, Cyrus stashed his arrows back into their quiver and made himself comfortable.

  “Neither of whom, may I remind you, any sober academic reads anymore.”

  “Perhaps that says more about academia today than it does their work?” Ellen countered. “Besides, that doesn’t make their studies and observations any less relevant.”

  “Ellen, our field is so vast, and there is so much serious work that needs to be done, surely—”

  “There’s room for my research?”

  “Ellen, look around this café. If we could peer inside the minds of these people we’d see neuroses and psychoses, and nothing more. Neurotic and psychotic people who need our help. There’s nothing ‘para’ normal about any of these people. Some are chemically unbalanced. Some are the victims of their childhoods. Others are victims of society—”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “Telepathy?”

  “No.”

  “Psychokinesis?”

  Chance shook his head, no.

  “OBE?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Out of body experiences.”

  Matterson snorted. “I wish, because I could sure use one right about now.”

  “NDE?”

  “Huh?”

  “Near death experiences.”

 
; Matterson grinned. “I think I feel one coming on…”

  “Clairvoyance?”

  “Ellen, stop already. I had no idea you were so…”

  “So what?”

  He smiled adoringly. “…Intriguing. Really, you fascinate me, Ellen.”

  “I do?”

  Cyrus stroked his chin, perplexed by the couple’s peculiar game of hot and cold, on and off. He put his hand to Matterson’s forehead and then took the professor’s pulse.

  “Hmm…” Cyrus looked around as if expecting to see another cupid, but it was only he and a roomful of napping yetzers.

  He leaned over to a nearby table and placed his hand over the head of a customer, revealing within the man a snoozing Procrastination Yetzer. With his other hand he plucked a couple of hairs from the beast’s shaggy pelt. The demon grunted, but otherwise paid no heed.

  Cyrus dropped one of the hairs onto the professor’s arm. The hair flamed and vanished. He repeated the test on Ellen to the same result. He held his hand over the professor, but it revealed nothing. He did the same for Ellen, but again, no demon presented itself.

  Confused, Cyrus again looked around expecting to see another cupid, but he was alone. “Odd,” he said.

  Ellen pushed aside her double latte. “I should have ordered decaf.” She began to fan herself. “Isn’t it a little hot in here?”

  “You too?” Matterson said. “I thought it was the raw oysters they served at the wedding buffet.”

  “How many did you have?” she asked.

  “Oh, just one,” he lied. “You?”

  “About twenty.”

  Chauncey Matterson’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened and closed like a guppy’s. He cleared his throat. “Yes, well,” he croaked, “shall we go?”

  “Where to?”

  He stood and offered Ellen his hand. “Let’s just see where we end up.”

  Ellen smiled and took his hand. She rose, and together they headed for the door, Chauncey’s arm around her waist.

  To Cyrus’s dismay, the yetzers had awoken and were now encircling him. They snarled menacingly, and then pounced.

  A howling, red, humpbacked Guilt Yetzer swiped at Cyrus with one of its claws. Cyrus locked up its birdlike arm and dragged its talons across the gelatinous face of an oncoming Commitment Yetzer. The Commitment Yetzer screeched as yellow pus poured from its jowls.

  The demons swarmed him, but Cyrus fought with the skill of a kung fu master, and the desperation of a cornered tiger. Creating a little space between himself and the yetzers, he managed to keep the beasts at bay by chucking at them the Platonic forms of chairs, computer laptops, daypacks, and briefcases. He edged his way towards the entrance, and looked for a chance to escape.

  Opportunity arrived when a new customer opened the door and strode in. Cyrus dove headfirst between the businessman’s legs and out onto the sidewalk. He rolled and sprang to his feet, looked left and right for Chance and Ellen, but they were nowhere in sight.

  Inside the Starbucks the customers were feeling oddly dazed and confused as a dozen yetzers growled and licked their wounds. A line quickly formed at the counter. Suddenly everyone felt the need for a double espresso.

  13

  Breathless

  Captain Volk and I stood in a forest clearing near the sacred pillars. We were facing one another, both of us turning an imaginary ball in circles in front of us with our hands.

  “It’s not a beach ball,” Volk scolded. “It’s heavy. Imagine a heavy, golden ball.”

  I focused harder and tried to get it right.

  “Okay, now compress it and drop it inside you. Like this…”

  He demonstrated, and I followed suit.

  “Now with just your hips, move it around. Feel the energy disperse within you, from the tip of your toes to the top of your head.”

  “I feel like Elvis,” I giggled.

  “Concentrate!”

  “What does this have to do with any of the stuff I saw you and Captain Cyrus do?”

  “Come here,” Volk commanded, annoyed.

  I approached. He picked up a potato sack stuffed with rags that we used as a punching bag. He tossed it to me.

  “Hold it against your chest,” he ordered.

  I did as told. Captain Volk stood relaxed in front of me and set the palm of his right hand on the bag.

  “I’m going to show you what’s in that golden ball. Ready?”

  I braced, determined to prove to the captain how tough I could be.

  He smirked. “Attaboy.”

  Without drawing back his hand, using just his hips and shoulders, he smacked the bag and blasted me off my feet. I crashed against an oak tree fifteen feet behind me, slid to the ground, and gasped for air.

  “Satisfied? Now get back over here, Elvis. We’ve got work to do.”

  I rubbed my chest and sucked desperately for my breath. A dazed minute later, I staggered back to my feet and wobbled over to the captain.

  After my lessons with Captain Volk, I put in a few hours of study in the archives and then returned to my dormitory room. It was nearly midnight.

  To my surprise, I saw Virgil sitting head lowered on the edge of his bed. He was praying. I walked stiffly over to him, still smarting from the blow that Captain Volk had delivered to me. Virgil looked up and dropped from the upper bunk to the floor.

  “Kohai, you okay?”

  I removed my shirt with a groan. Virgil pointed to a big purple bruise on my chest.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Captain Volk hit me with his golden ball.” I sat down slowly on my bed, and lay back with a moan.

  “His what?”

  “Never mind. Were you praying?”

  “Pray? Me? Nah…”

  “If you’re ashamed to admit it, Virgil, then your prayers will have no wings.”

  “Okay, I was. But don’t tell the other guys. They’ll think I’m a wuss.”

  “Don’t worry. Why were you praying?”

  “I…I’m going back into the field tomorrow, and, um, well the other day was a close call, and—” Virgil sat down on the edge of my bunk. “Kohai, do you think my prayers had anything to do with me making it out of there alive?”

  “I don’t know, Virge. They certainly couldn’t have hurt, right?”

  “That’s what I was thinking. Besides, it’s kinda fun.”

  “Fun?”

  “Well, yeah…sorta. I can talk about anything, even stuff I can’t tell you, my best friend. Once I get going, it’s hard to stop. All kinds of thoughts and ideas come bubbling up. Not all pleasant either, but I think it’s good for me to get it out. Know what I mean?”

  I made a move to fluff my pillow, and grunted in pain. Seeing my discomfort, Virgil fluffed it for me.

  “Thanks. Yeah, I do. What you’re doing is called hitbodedút. It is a form of prayer and meditation taught by the late Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. He was a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov.”

  “Baal Shem who?”

  “A great sage. But another day, okay? It hurts to talk.”

  “Can I get you anything?” Virgil offered. “Ice maybe?”

  “In the top drawer of my desk there’s a green bag. Take some of the stuff in it and make a paste with a little water and bring it to me, would you?”

  Virgil did as asked. As he prepared the ointment he said, “There’s a nasty rumor going around about Captain Cyrus.”

  “Rumor? What rumor?”

  “People are saying he’s failing to carry out an order. A match. You know that’s a crime comparable to treason, Kohai, and that the penalty—”

  “Captain Cyrus? Baloney. I don’t believe it for a second.”

  “He’s had at least two chances to finish up his targets, and both times he held back. I’m told Eros is pissed.”

  “Virgil, since when does anyone at the Academy speak to Eros? That match is an Academy-made match. Who’s spreading these vicious lies?”

  “You know, cadets talk.”

&nb
sp; Virgil brought me the ointment. I scooped some up with my fingers and rubbed it into my chest.

  “Don’t you listen to them, Virgil. Cyrus has devoted his life and soul to his work. He would never do anything treasonous. The captains are the only cupids left with a knowledge of the ancient ways. They were apprenticed to Bauer the Brave and Varner the Virtuous, whose honors they have sworn to uphold.”

  “Those guys weren’t just legends?”

  “As real as you and me, Virge. True warrior saints who raised themselves up the Seven Rungs of Righteousness through the education of their wills. They live with the Immortals now, but their breath is carried in the lungs of Captains Cyrus and Volk.”

  “Wow,” Virgil said. “And do you think one day their breath shall become yours?”

  “I-I’m not worthy.”

  “Don’t say that, Kohai. The captains chose you as their student for a reason. You must have faith in them having done so.”

  “Look at me, Virgil. I can barely carry my own breath right now. I don’t think I have what it takes, and it shames me.”

  “If that were so, if you were a disgrace, then they would have dismissed you already. Maybe you won’t be some sort of super cupid like Cyrus, but they must see something in you that you don’t see. Have a little faith in yourself, Kohai. I do.”

  “Oh Captain, my Captain,” Grace said with a pout, having just reminded Volk that it was their third date together. “What am I going to do with you?” She dropped sulkily onto Volk’s sofa and stuck out her bottom lip.

  “Nothing,” Volk said. He draped a shawl over Grace’s bare shoulders, and then placed a blanket across her lap to cover the split in her clingy, black silk dress that revealed the length of one of her shapely legs. He pulled up a chair, flipped it around, and sat down in front of her with his arms folded over the back.

  Grace sank deeper into the sofa and stared up at the masses of stars through Volk’s glass ceiling.