The Paladin's Redemption

by Richard Crofton

  “Michael…”

  “And you went through two weeks of inhuman abuse because of it. All so I could execute my personal vendetta against them. But you forgave me right away. Too quickly you decided that it was for the greater good, that it would prevent others from suffering the same.”

  “Michael!” she repeated. “I would have gone through two years of that hell if it meant the same result would happen.”

  He turned to her for a moment. “Why?”

  She turned away from him, an icy sensation of dread began to form in the pit of her stomach.

  Michael sensed it. “There’s something you’re not telling me, Megan. And it has to do with why you forgave me. That’s why I’m bringing it up again.”

  “You said you believe in God,” she said distantly, staring out the window again.

  “Yes,” he confirmed.

  “Even though you also believe there is another plane or dimension where this magic exists. Do you think God has anything to do with that?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Think about what’s said at Mass when you profess your faith.”

  “I believe in one God,” she began to recite, “the Father Almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth…”

  “Of all things visible and invisible,” he chimed in. “If you think of that one line, it makes sense.”

  “So you’re saying that everything is created by God?” she challenged. “Even this dark magic?”

  He thought for a second. “Maybe. Maybe both white magic and dark magic comes from the same plane of existence. Maybe it’s the same magic, but it becomes dark when used by those with black hearts, or for evil purposes.”

  “I can’t believe that,” she said. “You said that when a Dark Year is completed, then evil things escape into this world. I can’t believe that God created those evil things.”

  “No,” he explained, “I don’t mean that. I think the evil that escapes is augmented from the terrible sins committed in the process of the Dark Year. Created by humans. It’s like fire. We can use this gift to keep ourselves warm, cook food, or forge steel. But it can also be used to destroy. God gave us free will, which means we have the power to respect His gifts and use them to help others, or we can abuse those gifts and do terrible things. So maybe there is just one source of magic.”

  “No,” she objected. “That can’t be. There has to be two separate planes. Planes that are connected to our physical world but cut off by barriers. One that is tapped into by your kind, through your methods of love. But another one that’s tapped into through their methods too. Maybe God has dominion over the one that’s pure and full of light, and He used his grace to pull from that plane and create all that’s good in our world. But maybe when He did, it opened a temporary breach from both planes, allowing evil and dark things to leave their mark as well.”

  Michael gave her an odd look. “I’m not sure how you’re coming to this conclusion.”

  “Maybe,” she went on, “the forbidden fruit was the one thing that came from that other plane. And maybe God had no dominion over it. All He could do was warn Adam and Eve to stay away from it.”

  “You know that’s just a Bible story. It’s not meant to be taken literally. Just a fable.”

  “But what if it isn’t?” she proposed. “What if God left his one commandment to love one another, because all He can do is guide us away from the darkness? He’s our shepherd and cares for us, but he doesn’t stop the wolves; only warns us not to wander. And leaves us with the means to stop the wolves ourselves.”

  “You’re suggesting that God is not all powerful,” he contemplated. “That there’s an entity that He didn’t create, but something else did.”

  “Or I’m suggesting there’s a separate plane filled with darkness, void of hope and light, which already existed.”

  Michael considered her words for a moment. “I can’t say your theory is wrong. And I guess we’ll never know for sure. But I don’t understand where you’re going with all of this.”

  She didn’t answer at first, and he didn’t press for one. He could tell that she was trying to answer his question in her own way, in a way that would help him understand, but at the moment, he was completely lost. All he knew was that she was hiding something. Something that haunted her.

  Finally, she let out a long breath and continued her lengthy explanation: “When you arrived at the ritual last night, did you see anything?”

  He shrugged. “I saw what they were doing to you. I saw them reveling in the harm they were inflicting on you.”

  “But,” she hesitated again, “did you see…it?”

  He chanced the traffic ahead and looked at her for a lengthy moment. “See what?” He could almost feel the air around them grow cold with a fear that emitted from her very being, as if the icy dread escaped from her insides and now infected her surrounding area.

  “Something was in there with them,” she finally revealed. “It just… appeared out of nowhere. I don’t think even they saw it. It wasn’t natural, but it was there... for me. And I have never felt more terror, more alone or devoid of my faith, than I did then. It was like whatever dark spell they used on me that kept me petrified and unable to move, suddenly took shape. It surrounded me, blackened my thoughts. Whatever it was, it wasn’t of our world. A black, shapeless thing.”

  “Maybe,” Michael suggested softly, “in your duress, you imagined…”

  “No,” she answered firmly. “I didn’t imagine or hallucinate. I saw it. It grew arms. And a featureless black face. I didn’t just see it, Michael. I could hear it speaking to me. And I could feel it.

  “If you’re right, if their ritual was meant to draw my life force into them to fuel their power, it would have been done through this… whatever it was. I know it. It wanted to enter me… rob me of my spirit. Feed on it, and deliver the scraps of whatever would be left to them. I don’t know how I know this, but I do.”

  The coldness in the air became vibrant, and he sensed the arctic grip of it, as if what she described manifested in the confines of the truck with them as she spoke of it.

  “That’s what scares me, Michael,” Megan said with a quivering voice. “That thing, and the ones who let it in. Not you. And whatever that thing was, it came from that place. That plane. And there’s no way God had anything to do with its origin.” She began to shake as she recalled the horrible anomaly that had laid dormant in her subconscious until now.

  Michael, still holding her hand, which was now as frigid as the hairs on the back of his neck, waited until they had arrived at a stop at the next traffic light. He then closed his eyes and willed himself to go back through her mind, back to the night before, until he could see through her eyes.

  Megan felt a strange tingle in her hand that he held, as well as a sensation like the one she felt when he helped her remove her curse the night before. “You’re doing that crystal ball thing again?”

  “Yes,” he said dreamily. “I can see from your position on the altar. The candles, the cultists in their cloaks and masks… one on the right holding the dagger…”

  “Do you see it?” she almost pleaded. “Hovering above?”

  He was silent for a moment. She watched his eyes beneath their lids moving side to side, as if searching. Within seconds, his body shuddered as if he were walking indoors from a blizzard. “No,” he finally answered with a shaky voice. “I don’t see this thing. But I feel…”

  Less than a minute later, just before the light turned green, he reopened his eyes. They held a pensive but worried stare as he accelerated the truck through the intersection. “I believe you, Megan. I don’t know what the hell it was, or why I couldn’t see it, but something was there. At least briefly.”

  “When you go back and see something that happened through another’s eyes,” she asked, “can you hear too? Because it was telling me horrible things. It spoke in my head.”

  “I didn’t hear it,” he admitted. “I heard their sadistic chanting and your cries. I even hea
rd your thoughts. You were reciting Psalm 23 in your head. But there was a moment when the terror you were experiencing suddenly spiked… just before I got there. I could feel what you felt. I’ve never known fear of that magnitude before. And I could tell it was because of more than the fact they were about to remove your tongue.”

  Megan’s memory suddenly recalled distinct details of that moment the night before. “YOU spoke to me too!” she cried. “It was you who told me to keep praying.”

  He nodded. “I was just on the other side of the door,” he explained. Being so close, and with your necklace that I used to find you in my pocket, I could pick up some of your thoughts like radio waves. But I didn’t detect anything supernatural outside of the Primary Circle’s spells over you. Certainly nothing from beyond the physical world. In fact, I’ve never heard of this being a part of the ritual. But then, we’ve never recovered someone who had gone through it. This new information is disturbing. None of the records or parchments mention anything like this.”

  He glanced at her, realizing that he wasn’t helping to calm her of her fright. “Don’t worry, Megan. We’ll figure this out.”

  She turned away again, her voice softer. “You want to know why I forgave you so quickly, Michael. Now you know. The moment you burst through that door, whatever it was, it disappeared. When you came, the fear that held me broke. You put an end to the darkness in that cellar. Just your presence alone. This evil thing vanished as if you scared it off.”

  “Or maybe it knew the ritual wouldn’t be completed and therefore no longer had reason to remain,” he suggested.

  “No,” she argued with confidence. Her eyes grew wide with enlightenment. “When you entered, it became uncertain. I felt its doubt… even maybe fear.” She suddenly spoke with such conviction, and she herself was surprised by her own words, as if she didn’t think of them, but said them anyway: “Last night was meant to happen, Michael. You were meant to let them abduct me. If you had kept me safe the way your Code mandates, if I hadn’t gone through that last night, you never would have learned of this… this… demon. And you needed to know about it. Because you were meant to stop it.”

  “Megan,” Michael said gently, “I think you’ve been through a lot and…”

  “Things happen for a reason Michael,” she continued. Her eyes staring dead center, without blinking, as if she had been possessed, not by a devil or spirit, but by a knowledge that had entered her from beyond her understanding. She turned to him again, staring at him with a penetrating look. “Things played out the way they have because you were meant to stop all of it. What’s happened to me, even what’s happened to you. It was all meant to be.”

  “Don’t,” he said, but with no power in his voice to stop her.

  “Your suffering and loss is what set you on this path you’re on.”

  “Don’t!” he suddenly snapped more forcefully, pulling the truck over onto the shoulder. He then turned to her and bore into her with shining, blue daggers for eyes. “That’s enough.”

  Though she suddenly feared the power that now erupted from the man beside her, her voice continued involuntarily. “You were meant to save the world,” she whispered.

  Suddenly, Michael jolted up and pulled back from her, as if struck with a shock of electric pulses in his brain. A deep memory, hidden below a web of thickness stirred. He could recall nothing. Nothing but a quiet voice, from long before he could remember:

  When the world’s end is at hand, you must save it, for only you can. And if you succeed, your daughter will change it.

  “Michael?” Megan called to him, gripping his hands. “Michael!” she cried more loudly. He opened his eyes. Focused on her. He had no idea his body was mildly convulsing. As soon as he grabbed his bearings, he began to inhale and exhale short, forceful breaths. “What is it?” she asked worriedly.

  He waited another minute. Then, without saying anything, he put the truck into gear again, and pulled back onto the highway.

  “Michael,” she repeated. “Talk to me. What just happened?”

  “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I’m fine though.”

  She watched him for a moment. His eyes again showed strength and determination, but also a hint of a wall he started to build, a wall that she feared he might use to push her away. “I’m sorry if I upset you. I didn’t mean to.”

  “I said I’m fine. Let’s just get forget it, okay?”

  “Okay,” she agreed. But she was not okay. She pushed too far, suggesting Manifest Destiny, suggesting that his loved one, whoever she was, was supposed to die. And now he retreated into himself, possibly removing her from his minute list of people to open up to.

  She wasn’t sure why she had said that to him. She wasn’t even sure where it came from. It just came. And she had felt an uncanny urge to say it, the way one needs to scratch an increasingly irritating itch. Now that it was out, it affected his demeanor, which in turn affected hers. After everything she had been through, even with what she was facing now, the only reason she hadn’t suffered a psychological breakdown was because he had a way of keeping her spirits lifted. If he shut her out, if he would suddenly become a closed shell, she didn’t think she could cope with all the stresses and strains she had been burying these past dozen hours.

  The black Chevy Silverado crossed over the Walt Whitman Bridge out of the City of Brotherly Love, over the Delaware River, and to the other side, where the Garden State awaited. “A little more than an hour to go,” Michael commented, speaking for the first time since telling her he was fine.

  “Okay,” Megan said plainly with her head facing out the passenger window again. She did not want him to see the tears in her eyes this time. It was a rather long hour, as neither one of them spoke to the other.

  Chapter VIII

  When they pulled up to the electronic gate after Michael carefully maneuvered along the long dirt driveway, Megan felt a sense of relief. She knew they had arrived at their destination, and she was anxious to exit the truck and out of the long, drawn-out, awkward silence that had fallen between them throughout the entire journey across New Jersey. Earlier in the afternoon, she had somewhat hoped the drive would never end as she had enjoyed her time alone with him. But things had changed dramatically since then.

  Michael rolled down his window and extended his arm to push the call button on the speaker. Within seconds a voice crackled in response. “Yes?” the voice simply said.

  “Home plate, shithead,” Michael answered.

  “Welcome back, fuck-face!” the voice answered back. The gate retracted slowly, and Michael drove forward until they reached the appearance of the quaint ranch house that lay deep in the wooded area.

  He parked next to a silver Chevy Suburban with tinted windows and temporary tags, indicating, along with its pristine appearance, that the vehicle was brand new. “Nice car,” Megan remarked. “Your friend has good taste. He just get it?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said, “but not for himself. Moonie doesn’t drive.” He shut off the engine and removed the key. “Let’s leave our things in the truck for now. We can come back for them later.”

  They didn’t have to knock when they got to the front door. It was already open. Standing, or more appropriately sitting, just past the threshold was a short, thin man in a wheelchair. His head was nearly devoid of hair; dark stubble surrounded the sides and back of his head, but the shiny baldness at the front and top explained the man’s choice to shave the rest. His brown eyes, though dark, seemed to light up as they approached.

  “Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!” the man exclaimed with a wide, friendly grin. Without hesitating, he pushed a joystick on the arm of his wheelchair to move forward, and gracefully took Megan’s hand, kissing it comically. She nearly laughed at his attempt at suaveness, but also felt warmth at the welcoming atmosphere that he created. “Name’s Rob,” he introduced. “But you can call me Moonie.”

  “Nice to meet you,” she said with a pleasant smile. For a moment,
she eyed the lower portion of the wheelchair where no legs hung down, and she immediately realized she was standing before the Keeper of White who had been crippled by the Agents of Shadow, one of the few survivors of Michael’s former faction.

  Moonie released her hand and directed his attention to Michael. “Oh yeah,” he added nonchalantly, “good to see you too, Mick. Bout time you showed up. What, did ya sleep in or somethin’?”

  “Well,” Michael said with less enthusiasm as he nodded, “it was a long night.”

  “No shit,” Moonie expressed. “Well, you got here just in time for dinner.”

  “Glad to hear. We’re starving.”

  “Oh it’s not ready yet,” Moonie explained. “I mean you’re just in time to cook it, ass wipe!”

  Michael grimaced. “Couldn’t you just order pizza or something?”

  “What’s the fun in that? It’s more gratifying making you my bitch while you’re here!” He gave Megan a wink, causing her to stifle another laugh, as he used the joystick to turn around and head back down the hallway. “So get in here already! Lot of catching up to do.”

  Megan gave a quick glance in Michael’s direction as they shut the door behind them. “Mick?” she whispered.

  “When we speak on the phone,” he explained, “I’m Mickey Mantle. He’s Roger Clemens.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “The initials are the same as our real names,” he clarified. “Robert Cirillo, Roger Clemens.”

  “Michael Messenger,” she added, “Mickey Mantle.”

  Michael gave a goofy smirk. “Leave it to a couple of baseball fans to come up with code names. Never know who might be listening in on a phone conversation.”

  Megan was about to shoot him a witty reply, but stopped short as she suddenly fell into astonishment when her eyes focused on two, small, darling children racing toward them in the hallway. Michael immediately ran to them and dropped to his knees.