Morningstar

by A. J. Curry

  Murgenstaern had again opted to sit on the picnic table. I had found an abandoned lawn chair and was sitting with my feet propped on the table. The growler sat between us. We each had a glass.

  He shook his head. “I wished to set an example for any Others who might consider attempting such a thing.”

  “You made them ‘disappear’?”

  “Something on that order. Too little remained for any meaningful analysis.”

  “But you think whoever it was, or someone like them, is still here on Earth?”

  “It is a risk I cannot afford to take. That’s why I am declining your helpful suggestion that I simply let the Stone remain warehoused until after the impending collapse of current human civilization − and that is why I need your help.”

  “I’m still waiting”, I said, “to hear the part about how you can disarm my booby-trapped modem and the other ‘impediments’ − as you call them − to joining you on a road trip. I’m also waiting for the part about why I want to, particularly if I wind up crossing The Order in the process.”

  “The ‘why’ part is fairly simple, and as I have said: I have resources that could enable you to live out the rest of your life very comfortably. Resources I will no longer need, resources that far exceed anything either The Order or The Company will ever share with you, should you spend your remaining days at their bidding.

  “The ‘how’ part is little more complicated. This body you are having a beer with is essentially a puppet the ‘real me’ operates from within by remote control − telekinesis, if you like. The various toys employed by your ‘day job’ to ensure your obedience are far less complex than my ‘puppet’. I need only physical proximity to bend them to my will.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Now how about the part where we actually get there? Do you sprout wings and fly to the Indian Ocean? Or do your ‘resources’ include a private jet or two?”

  “I can transport myself anywhere on the face of this planet. Transporting you as well to the far side of the world would be somewhat difficult, but not necessary. Your prediction that the Seraphim Stone would be moved is coming true. It is moving, and moving this way.”

  “I still haven’t said I’d help you.”

  “No, but neither have you said you would not. You have only pointed out reasons why you could not. I do not need an answer now, but I will need one soon. If you chose not to aid me, I will take you at your word and seek other options.”

  “You have other options?”

  “No good ones, nor am I as convinced as you there is nothing more to our meeting than coincidence. But I cannot and will not compel you into this against your will. I would like to ask you another question, though.”

  “Sure,” I said, pouring another beer. “Ask away”

  “I do not believe this is the life you wanted. You are a bitter, angry, and lonely man. You are an adept who pretends to be a spy who pretends to be ordinary − and yet none of those things are what you truly are. If not this, what? What do you propose to do with what remains of your life?”

  It was the same question I’d been asking myself ever since I’d watched Caroline walk away in search of a new life, the question that kept me awake on the nights the meds and the booze weren’t enough to keep me asleep.

  I never had a “plan B”. I’m not good at “plan B”. I’d put my heart and soul and every resource I’d had into the one plan of having a life with Caroline. I’d kept my job at the cost of my career and pushed my real job as far out of my life as I could. By the time Caroline decided life here and life with me wasn’t what she wanted after all, I had painted myself into a corner. Worse yet, I’d gotten old.

  Part of the reason I’d been willing to leave behind everything and everyone else I had ever known or loved, leave Texas and start over again in the Northwest, was because I knew it was the one chance I’d ever have, and that I’d spend the rest of my life regretting not doing it.

  The other part was that I was literally willing to face down demons for Caroline. Too bad I could never tell her. All I could tell her was that I loved her. Too bad that wasn’t enough.

  “I don’t have a good answer for that,” I told Murgenstaern, “and I don’t have an answer to your proposition, either − at least not right this minute. I have no idea what else I want to do. There are times when I feel like I’m dead already and this is just some sort of crappy afterlife.

  “Assuming otherwise − that I am still alive and want to stay that way − the smartest thing I can possibly do is leave here right now, while I’m still marginally sober enough to get home, and find a new watering hole for awhile.

  “The stupidest thing I could do would be to take your gig without some serious proof that you can deliver on one damned thing you’ve offered.

  “The second stupidest thing I could do − and God help me, I’m considering it − is to ask for that serious proof. I’m one of the goddam fucking Men in Black, dude. You can tell me you’re a fallen angel from the center of the universe without getting laughed at. Consider it a professional courtesy. But if you expect me to risk what’s left of my career as well as my one and only puny human life, you need to throw down, old son. Show me a miracle or two, something better than the run of the mill magick I’ve used and had used on me for the last twenty years. If it’s impressive enough, we’ll talk.”

  I jumped to my feet. A little unsteady, but I’ve been worse.

  “You can have the rest of the beer, just be sure to return the growler and the glasses. You can even keep the deposit.”

  Murgenstaern shook his head. “Take it with you. But I agree with you that should not drink more if you are planning to drive home.”

  I threw the glasses and the growler in the bag they’d given me at the bar. “I’m good, but your concern is duly noted.”

  “When shall we meet again?”

  “You figure it out, you get in touch. Text me, or send over a sasquatch with an engraved gold tablet. Impressive, remember? I’m out − need me to drop you off anywhere?”

  He shook his head again. “Do try to be careful. I shall consider your words. I will be in touch.”

  “Marvelous. Later, dude.”

  The walk back to the parking lot didn’t sober me up as much as I’d hoped it would, but it sobered me up enough to realize that my usual route home was a little bit busier street than I felt like dealing with. I was a little startled to find The Lamb closed when I got there. I’d been hanging out with Murgenstaern a lot longer than I’d realized. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I’d ever logged in for work with a hangover − not by a long shot.

  I threw the bag with the growler in the back of the Porsche and eased my way out of the parking lot, back the way I’d come. Not surprisingly, Murgenstaern was no longer there when I drove past the park.

  From there, the road wound up the side of the mountain, then down again. Yeah, I was taking the curves a little fast.

  But I would’ve been fucked at any speed when the tire blew.

  The car spun through a railing and pitched forward into a ravine. The bag with the growler and glasses flew ahead from the back seat. It occurred to me that I was going to lose the deposit on the growler.

  three: caroline

  We talked it back and forth for a year. In some ways, things got better; in some ways, worse. But we finally made a decision. Once I finished my degree, we’d leave. Yeah, I’d gone back to school. It was the one thing I was really good at, and another Masters might help me land a new job.

  Having a goal helped me. I was still married to a charming older man with a mysterious past, but at least the present was less mysterious, and I could convince myself there was a future.

  We still traveled a lot when we could, but more and more of our vacations focused on parts of the Northwest I could talk Murphy into moving to. I’d given up on getting him to go much of anywhere else. He flatly did not want to go to South or Central America, flatly would not say why. I’d think about the rumors I’d heard a
bout him… and decided I didn’t want to know.

  It really wasn’t a bad life. I worked at a hospital in the Texas Medical Center, Murphy worked in an office building in downtown Houston. Sometimes, one of us would hop on the light rail line between the two and meet somewhere for lunch or happy hour.

  I got to meet some of Murphy’s coworkers. They seemed like any other group of IT people you’d run into in downtown, except for the fact that when they “talked shop”, it was even more incomprehensible than usual. And they never, never invited anyone up to their office.

  They were nice, though, and they all seemed to like Murphy, even though the ”Murphy” they talked about didn’t sound very much like the one his old friends talked about, or even the one I thought I knew.

  “You know Colvin Case has a big ol’ man-crush on you, right?” We were sitting on the patio watching the sunset. It was a nice, private space behind Murphy’s duplex facing away from the street. It was also a lush little private jungle where the cats could stalk lizards and birds. It was a warm evening − warm enough to switch from our usual red wine to a chilled bottle of something white and slightly fizzy.

  Murphy laughed. “The only thing Case has a crush on is his career. You know he’s going to wind up being my boss, right?”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t offer it to you.”

  “They did. I turned it down.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “A couple of months ago.”

  “Nice of you to say something.”

  “What’s to say?” Murphy refreshed our glasses. “We had already made other plans that involve going the opposite direction.”

  “Opposite direction?”

  “Well, yeah − Case is going to have to relocate to the main office in Baltimore.”

  “I wouldn’t mind living in Baltimore.”

  “I thought you wanted to go live in the Northwest so you could hang out with Shannon.” Murphy looked confused and exasperated − but not as exasperated as I was.

  “I just want to get out of here. I don’t want to be some failure who spends the rest of their life in the city they grew up in.”

  “You just described most of my friends − you pretty much just described me.”

  There was a long silence while I tried to figure out a way to say I was sorry when I really wasn’t − or if I even wanted to. Then Murphy broke the silence.

  “Wow,” he said. “Would you look at that,” and pointed into the sky.

  I looked. A bright light was descending through the twilight. “A shooting star,” I said. “Cool.”

  “Make a wish, if you haven’t already.”

  “That’s weird. It looked like it changed directions.”

  “That’s been known to happen,” Murphy said. “Which way is it going?”

  “Toward the airport − North, I guess.”

  “Maybe its an omen. Maybe that’s where we should be going as well.”

  I took a deep breath. Half the time I got mad at him, I wasn’t really sure why − I wasn’t even sure if he was really why I was mad. “Great timing,” I said.

  “How so?”

  “It sure changed the subject.”

  An odd smile crossed Murphy’s face. “If I could arrange things like that, we could pretty much live anywhere we wanted.”

  “If you could ‘arrange things like that’ you could probably just make me be happy anywhere you wanted to be.”

  The smile fell. “It ain’t that simple, baby − sometimes I wish it was.”

  four: murphy

  “I was just kidding,” I said as the world came back into focus. “Still, the engraved gold tablet would’ve been a nice touch.”

  “No need and no time,” Murgenstaern replied. “For this is no messenger of mine. I could still fabricate the tablet, if you remain unimpressed.”

  “Fuck both you guys,” said the sasquatch.

  I was sitting in an extremely comfortable chair that looked like it had been appropriated from a high-end gentleman’s club or the United Emirates airport lounge. Murgenstaern was similarly seated not far away. The sasquatch was sitting a few yards away, cross-legged on the floor. He didn’t have much choice in the matter, given that there was a metal collar around his neck, attached to the floor by way of four extremely heavy chains. More chains bound his wrists. Behind him, I could see my old Porsche. Except for the blown tire, it was far more intact than it had any business being. So was I.

  There wasn’t much else in the room, which was a hundred feet or so across and appeared to be hewn from solid rock. Sunlight streamed in from skylights in a distant ceiling. Other, smaller rooms were on the periphery. One of them was full of flat panel TVs. Another appeared to be full of racks of men’s suits.

  The expected impact with the ravine floor simply… never happened. The Porsche had continued to fall through increasing blackness, slowed, then stopped. At some point, the engine and headlights had shut off. Turning the lights back on had crossed my mind, as well as a few other things I’d wished I’d thought of sooner. But I didn’t seem to be dead, and staying that way was beginning to seem like a good idea. As quietly as I could manage, I made my way into the back seat. It had never been intended as something a guy my size could bunk down in, but I managed anyway.

  A flashlight and a water bottle were left in the seat pockets from a hike a few weeks earlier. I drained the bottle and made sure the flashlight was where I could find it. Then I took a nap.

  Really, what else was I going to do? Wherever I was, it was dead silent and could be anywhere. I had also been drunk enough to get myself in this spot, whatever the hell it was, in the first place. If someone or something wanted me dead, someone or something (maybe the same someone/something) had taken extraordinary measures to keep me above room temperature at least temporarily.

  Floundering around drunk with a flashlight was an option. So was sobering up and waiting for someone/something to make the next move.

  Regaining consciousness under present circumstances wasn’t exactly what I had expected, but neither was it far removed. “Got any water?” I asked. “I’m still kinda dehydrated.”

  Murgenstaern nodded “To your right.” An end table I hadn’t noticed previously held an ice bucket. In the bucket was the water bottle I’d drained before passing out, apparently refilled.

  “Thanks.” The cold, clean water was the best thing I’d had in a long time. I drained half the bottle at one pass. “So how long was I out? Am I a suspected defector at this point, or merely homeless?

  “Neither,” Murgenstaern replied. “I took the liberty of disarming your modem as previously offered and turned on the out-of-office message on your computer. I also fed your cats.”

  “I don’t recall offering up either my home address or my spare key.”

  “Your address is on your driver’s license, which happens to be in your wallet between an expired health club membership card and a credit card. I believe I previously mentioned having senses you do not, as well as abilities sufficient to disarming your home security system and the safeguards built into your VPN. I hardly need point out that having your computer password written on a post-it note affixed to your monitor is something your employers would not appreciate.”

  I shrugged. “I live alone and there’s nothing simple about any of my security systems. OK, I’m impressed. Any lingering doubts about you being a baseline human with an interesting psychosis have pretty much gone out the window. That still doesn’t make you a fallen angel, but William of Occam would probably be arguing in favor of it right about now.

  “What about him?” I said, nodding in the sasquatch’s direction.

  “Fuck both you guys,” said the sasquatch.

  “Limited vocabulary notwithstanding, he’s fairly enterprising − if not quite a credit to his species. He is largely to thank for your present circumstances.” Murgenstaern gestured, and a steel utility table rolled into view from one of the side rooms. Sitting on top of it was a rifle. It
wasn’t the first time I’d ever seen someone use TK, but it was the first time I’d seen Murgenstaern do so. Interesting, if no longer surprising.

  “I became aware of his presence not long after you and I parted ways last night,” Murgenstaern continued. “His people rarely hunt in this part of The Northwest anymore, and to the best of my awareness do not do so with rifles. He followed you back to the Lyin’ Lamb, continued to follow you once you retrieved your vehicle to head home.

  “While he was stalking you, I stalked him. It was actually fortunate that he shot out your tire at the place where your ‘accident’ occured, since it happens to be directly above this place.” Murgenstaern gestured outward with raised palms. “One of my homes, as I suspect you suspect already.”

  I nodded. It looked more like recent depictions of Bruce Wayne’s man cave than anyone’s idea of a home, but it fit the profile.

  “The entrance at the bottom of that ravine has not been used in a long time, but it remains serviceable. I used it to lower you and your vehicle to this chamber, then restrained our friend here. The rest you largely know.”

  “Don’t think me ungrateful, but why’d you let him shoot my car?”

  “I had to be sure of his intentions,” Murgenstaern said. “Members of your order claim the ability to read minds, but I have no such ability of my own. My senses, though acute, are entirely physical. I would not have permitted you to be injured, in any event. I do still have need of you.”

  “We can talk about that later,” I said. “What about this guy?”

  “I think a few questions are in order, after which he can be turned over to his people to deal with as they see fit − after which we most certainly need to talk.”

  “Fuck both you guys,” said the sasquatch.

  five: murgenstaern

  My fondness for various fermented and distilled beverages has entirely to do with an appreciation of taste, scent, and other factors. The physical component of my masquerade resembles a human being as closely as my abilities permit, but it does not become intoxicated. My true self, needless to say, is far beyond such things.

  I had planned in any event to ensure Murphy’s impaired abilities did not interfere with his return home. I had told him the truth when I told him that my other options for gaining access to the Seraphim Stone were few and poorer. Close to nonexistent, really. I also continued to wonder just how much I could truly consider the discovery of someone with Murphy’s credentials in what amounted to my backyard as “coincidence”. His associates in The Order, particularly the less human among them, would likely consider it nothing of the kind.