by Gary Starta
~ * ~
A white stretch limo whisked us off to the concert. Inside, I found Dr. Federov outfitted in an elegant white gown. She sat opposite us on a leather-upholstered bench. Briana and I traded stunned glances when she produced goblets from an ice bucket. If we were teens, we would have been in seventh heaven. However, the reality of our mission sobered me. We kindly refused her offer of champagne citing that we were on the job. Despite her earlier stoicism, Federov apparently enjoyed the finer things of life. When she spoke, I realized her celebratory manner was not based on frivolity.
“Agents, I’m sorry if my imbibing shocks or offends you but I just find that I have to give thanks to the powers that be for blessing us. Each and every time Charlize sings, she gives such hope and joy to this world.”
My natural inclination would be to press for more information. Specifically, what is Charlize’s full name, where she comes from, how she came to sing and--oh and almost forgot--how her voice literally manages to inhibit demons from dishing big heaps of harm. I pressed my lips together, opting to observe instead. The heartfelt sentiment in Federov’s words moved me enough to again ponder the relationship between the two. If I didn’t know better, I had just heard the words of a proud parent. Or maybe, I just concluded this because my current cases were so family-oriented. That gave me another pause. The relationships between Manners and his son, and most notably, between Mollini and Brahms were not exactly the most nurturing kind. I had to hope the relationship this woman shared with Charlize was devoid of betrayal and hatred.
I waited for her to finish sipping her drink.
“So how do you two get along? I imagine you both share a great passion for music.” I hoped this line of questioning would be a lot less interrogational than asking how she had come to meet Charlize.
I sneaked a sidelong glance at Briana while Federov thought. I felt Briana’s approval of my leading questions.
“Agent Diggs, we get along superbly. I don’t know if I share her passion for music, though, specifically singing, for that matter. In fact, I think I’m tone deaf.” She paused to smile. “But it’s the effect of her voice that engages me. How she is able to transform demons is beyond understanding. I will be forever intrigued with her gift. It’s why I chose to enlist your aid in this matter. I did have reservations.” My mind flashed back to image of her pointing a Glock at me. I had felt her suspicion, particularly of humans at that moment, as well as now.
“Dr. Federov, you don’t trust humans with Charlize, do you?”
“It’s not just about human prejudice towards what Charlize is accomplishing. It’s also about their ability to offer her adequate protection.”
“Well, you’re human, Dr. Federov. You seem to be doing a pretty good job at it.”
“I can’t continue to do it alone. I selectively attempt to screen all attendees, but it’s growing increasingly difficult what with Charlize’s growing popularity. She is not yet jaded. She wants to help all comers. I know this attitude will only put her at greater risk of an attack each time she performs. There are haters out there, Agents. Not only in human form, but there are even demons who would not approve of Charlize’s mission. We have kept the peace because we respect the barriers. We leave the demons to themselves, their own neighborhoods, hangouts, and places of employment. Desegregation is not a popular idea. Many will conclude that Charlize’s intention is integration.”
“We will protect her--and her mission--to the best of our abilities,” Briana said. The finality of her tone told me it would best not push the issue further at this point.
The holi-concert would begin in an hour. I hoped our commute would give me ample time to conduct an interview with Charlize. Until I did, I would keep a wary eye on Federov. She had loosened up a whole lot in the space of a short limo ride. She had become a lot more emotional and a lot less guarded. That change in behavior mandated a need to find out if Charlize’s feelings were in sync with the dentist’s. Maybe it’s just me, but I find people who pack guns and drink often carry a lot of baggage with them. Some of that might include a vendetta or two. Essentially, I wouldn’t be all right with Charlize’s career choice until I heard it from her own lips. I simply hated the very notion that Charlize might have been possibly coerced by Federov. I just needed to know that Charlize’s crusade was indeed her own.
I sashayed into The Star of the Sea like a celebrity, decked out in a black skirt and matching blouse compliments of Agent Diggs’s wardrobe closet.
The enthusiasm… so electric, I swear the place hummed. Briana laughed at my wonder. My face must have betrayed the emotions of a young child. We walked a step behind Dr. Federov who stopped to speak in hushed tones with a tuxedoed bouncer. A nod indicated we had met his approval. Or so I thought. The next moment his hands roamed my body, checking for concealed weapons. After he satisfied himself with a similar body search of Briana we continued on a ramp that led to the heart of the club. There, in many forms, and many different shapes, sat a throng of demons. All colors, varieties and deformities. The ones with fangs I deduced were vampires. But the others, the ones who sported horns, elfin ears, bumpy foreheads and grayish green skin tones were a mystery to me. No matter, demon or not, I sensed their excitement. I shared it, their anticipation. In that instant, I felt unity. We all were here to share wonder.
I must have stared a bit too long at them, incognizant to how much time had passed because Briana elbowed me in the ribs. Still, I felt no shame at what I had done. I had not surveyed them as a collection of freaks or monsters, but as beings, who simply wanted to bring beauty into their lives. I had amazed myself. Emotion had usurped the human need to visually classify and categorize. Maybe Charlize’s gift could overcome prejudice. Still on a high, Federov pointed me in the direction of Charlize’s dressing room. I entered with Briana in tow. Federov disappeared into the crowd. The fact she trusted us to speak to Charlize without her supervision scored the dentist valuable points.
Charlize offered her hands to us and curtseyed. She could not have been more than fifteen years old. She wore her black hair in a ponytail. Her skin was caramel colored. Her outfit, a white sequined sleeved shirt and carnation pink pants, contrasted her demeanor. She dressed like a star but did not behave like one. She noted how pleased she was to make our acquaintance in a self deprecating way. “I didn’t really think agents of the law would find me important enough to protect. Oh, silly me,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I imagine Alexis kept my name from you. She’s so mother-hen. Anyway, I am Charlize Anne Wilson.”
We gave our names and job titles.
She felt obliged to explain her job.
“I’m obviously a singer by trade. But by circumstance, I have become a healer. A shaman of sorts, you might say.”
She explained how miraculous recoveries began to occur in a church she sang in. It was finally deduced she had been responsible for curing several cases of cancer in addition to shrinking a man’s inoperable brain tumor.
Consequently, she took the initiative to reach out to more people. She did not use the term demon once. I ascertained the people she had healed had been human. However, the beings she had affected, those whom she described as “lost beings in need of spiritual stimuli” were undoubtedly non-human. She described someone, or something, with horns and a tail who had sought her out on a sidewalk after one of her concerts. He wept openly, telling her he had never felt so free. How his demon nature always threatened to rise to the surface and how ashamed he had always been of his innate desire to bring harm to humans. He felt as if his brain had been wired to conspire against the very humans that had always aided him, whether it was finding a job or putting a roof over his head, he also said a human hand had always reached out to him. And now he said he felt as if a human god had reached out and touched him, offering him a way to come to terms with his shame. He told Charlize she must be a goddess. In his excitement he soon spread the word. It finally reached his dentist, Alexis Federov.
A part of
me believed her, another part of me felt as if she were reading a script. Regardless, her joy could not be manufactured. As a human, I could read her emotion. Elation filled me. I could only conclude Charlize Wilson took great pleasure in aiding the demon citizens of her world.
“What about your power to heal?” Briana asked. “Do you still aid the afflicted?”
“Oh, of course I do. People have no problem with that.” Her eyes dropped to the floor. She didn’t have to explain herself. I knew she was referring to humans. They readily accepted a miracle that could cure them but apparently remained opposed to one which might help demons. This logic smacked of ignorance. Why would humans be opposed to treatments that might inhibit a demon from bringing them harm? Wasn’t that what they ultimately feared from demons, being harmed? Or was there more?
I felt Charlize’s stare as I thought. I swore I heard a voice other than my own. It said. I understand your confusion.
She took me by the arm. “Please excuse me, Agent McFadden, I need to talk to Agent Diggs alone.”
Suddenly she was no longer a gushing teen. By the time she shuffled me an empty dressing room, she had transformed into an adult.
“I’ve had a premonition. I knew you were coming. You’re the matrix, aren’t you?”
I stared blankly, agog. “I am… the… what?”
“You are the goddess. The one I envisioned coming through a portal. You’re here to aid me; to unite this world with your everlasting love.”
For some odd reason, I didn’t think Charlize ever shared this premonition with Dr. Federov. When I didn’t respond, she continued.
“Matrix in Latin means substance, as in the Earth. The Egyptians honored Isis by personifying her in the form of the black loam that lined the Nile. Obviously, they regarded her highly, the loam giving rise to fertility.”
“You believed…?”
“I believed you would come.” She finished my sentence. Not quite the way I would have. “But I could never be prepared. Forgive me, your goddess…”
I tried to pardon her but she continued.
“And the fact you came to this club, The Star of the Sea, should have been a dead giveaway. Isis’s followers had given her this name.”
She took my hand again. I followed her, too shaken to respond. This was not the first time someone had called me Isis. My last case as an FBI agent found me grappling with a reincarnated occultist who came to me in a dream. He also said I was Isis, and that I existed as her double because of some numeric logic called the Fibonacci sequence. Don’t ask me to explain. I always despised mathematics.
However, this young girl acted as if I were her second coming. A resurrection…
She pointed at several basins, breaking my thought. They aligned all the walls of a corridor leading to the stage. They resembled birdbaths. In them, floated what she called lotus blossoms. She said the lotus symbolized the purity of the goddess. She said she brings them to every one of her concerts as a tribute to me. I tried to interrupt, but failed. She kept on talking. I wanted to tell her, I needed to tell her, that I had been anything but pure up until recently. I really didn’t think a few workouts and a steady diet of avocado had transformed me. I also didn’t think my romp with Assistant Director Grant had been exactly godly. But I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. At this moment, she resembled a teen with the gift of incessant chatter. Yet even if I could interrupt, I really didn’t have the heart to burst this young woman’s bubble.
So I listened. And as I did, I realized she could be my daughter. It made me empathize with Dr. Federov’s desire to protect here. I continued to listen and ponder simultaneously, disturbed by the realization that this universe would put such a frail young women in such peril. Why should such a young girl bear such a heavy burden? And why did she feel she even needed my help, either as an agent of the law or goddess of this reality? Her abilities were obviously beyond my scope of comprehension. I had become psychic, empathic and somewhat telepathic. I didn’t think these abilities stacked up to the power to heal.
I really didn’t put much more stock in her conviction that I was Isis until she explained the symbolism of the lotus in relation to portals. She said the blossom represented parallel worlds and the entrance of spirits into them. “The water the blossom floats upon represents the otherworldly realm the blossom came from. This links the lotus to the concept of rebirth.” She smiled at me as if I were her long lost mother.
And then she hammered her point home with one sentence.
“The lotus can also represent the idea of becoming.”
I considered this statement. I definitely was changing, becoming. But what I didn’t know--until this moment. Could this girl be right? Could I be transforming into a goddess?
Just when I thought this might be a good thing, she became the adult again.
“This means you’re in great danger. But don’t worry, I won’t give you away.”
“Charlize, I came here to protect you. I don’t need your…”
“Oh, but you do. Those hate groups that Alexis fears would join in full force to eradicate you. You are more of a threat to them than any demon. You are a truth they don’t want to acknowledge.”
She explained how men had sapped the power of the Goddess through the written word. Men had created three major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, each a monotheistic religion, featuring a Father deity whose words were sanctified by books. “Patriarchy dominated every culture afterward. By focusing on the word, modern cultures no longer valued images, such of the ones of Isis. The male deity was an abstract, with no concrete image. Images are concrete. Words are more abstract. The written word must be analyzed by the brain, however, images--those of goddesses like Isis--are more real. You see an image, you immediately understand. So in effect, men didn’t have need to lift a sword in their initial efforts to usurp the power of femininity. They simply wrote books and effectively banished the goddesses from this world.”
I wanted to tell her that the same thing must have happened where I came from, but again, she rambled on. “But the sword would come into play. Nearly seven centuries ago, women were hunted and slaughtered in the name of religion. You might know them as witch hunts.”
How could I not? I had set up residence in Salem--the capital of persecution.
Briana interrupted, knocking on the door. “Dr. Federov wanted me to tell you it’s nearly show time.”
“I want to talk to you more,” Charlize said to me. She popped a pair of contacts in and they made her eyes violet. She explained it helped her demon audience identify with her. Apparently, violet eyes were an infliction. She hugged me. “Be safe.”
I hugged her back, staring into the bewildered face of Briana. “You be safe, too.”
I nearly cried a few times during her concert.
The entire show epitomized beauty. Her voice soared, accompanied only by a piano that was played by a tall blue skinned gent with wormlike fingers. The lilt of her voice, the gentleness, made me forget all about the strange blue being tickling the ivories. He simply became an instrument of her, an extension of her radiance.
Furthermore, her song selection did not alter that beauty either, not even when she sang a gut-wrenching ballad by the likes of Etta James. Pain had become a beautiful thing too, it seemed.
She brought the house down with a cover of a Christina Aguilera song called “All about Trust.” To my knowledge, the Aguilera of my world had never sung such a song. In fact I was damned certain of that because Tara had made it a point to play everyone of her albums to me. The show ended with tumultuous applause. I was certain each and every one of those demons in attendance would go home a lover and not a fighter. I thanked Federov for her invitation but found Charlize nowhere in sight after her encore. Apparently, Federov had whisked her off in a limo to some undisclosed location.
~ * ~
What a wonderful alternative reality. I’m not sure if I muttered this aloud or simply thought it while we waited for a cab in the par
king lot. Briana’s continued bewildered stare gave me reason to believe I had spoken it aloud. I did not care if she thought I had lost my senses. I didn’t know if her Wicca perception allowed her to eavesdrop on my conversation with Charlize. Would she believe me to be crazy if I even considered the singer’s theories, that a displaced FBI agent had transformed herself into a goddess? Based upon Charlize’s fears, I would keep any reference to Isis under wraps. It’s not that I didn’t trust Briana. I just didn’t need beings like Judge Manners to get wind of this. I still didn’t trust demons, Manners in particular.
All the joy of Charlize’s holi-concert evaporated when we returned to resume our watch of the Yilosk residence.
My heart sank at the sight of several cruisers, all parked in front of the home. Their blue lights cascaded about the neighborhood, painting a picture of doom.
I asked the officer in charge what had happened. I already knew. Josef Yilosk was dead. The officer carefully avoided any intimation of foul play or murder.
“It looks like he fell in the tub,” Sergeant Fleming said. He didn’t introduce himself. I read the name embroidered on his uniform. “We got a call from his wife who couldn’t reach him by phone.”
I produced my ID. I told him how Yilosk had approached me for protection. That his department damn well knew he had been threatened and that it had done nothing to help.
He shifted his weight and pursed his lips.
“I’m in charge of this investigation. I will call the shots here. Looks like simple accident. I’m sure you know more people die in accidents in the home than from murder. But I’ll be thorough in my investigation, rest assured, Agent Diggs.”
