by Mark Jeffrey
Ian looked up as Sasha. “You okay?” Sasha nodded, waving it off mutely.
“You were outside the window? I thought you were supposed to stay downstairs?” Sasha asked.
“I heard shooting,” Ian said. “So I sort of punched my way through the outside walls and climbed up here, one punch at a time. This Doctor here is going to be re-panelling for months.”
“Now,” Enki said. “Again. The Bondsman. Who is he?”
The compulsion upon Bogenbroom once again was intolerable. But he laughed as he gagged on his answer — and expired, once again, just as he had done before.
Enki checked his pulse. “Dead.” He shook his head. “But Bogenbroom is too selfish to choose expiration under any circumstances, even to protect the Bondsman. We’re missing something.”
Ian snapped — or rather tried to snap — his metal-encased fingers. He looked down in momentary confusion and then said. “The bodies! The ones in the medical ward!”
Sasha picked up the thought: “My God. They’re spares. He keeps them around so he can jump into one when he needs to.”
The foursome all ran for the stairs, hastily beating a retreat into the bottom of the mansion. When they arrived at the medical ward, it was as Ian had feared — one of the bodies was missing.
“There!” Casey said, pointing out the window. A figure in a hospital gown — a woman — ran across the greensward.
“After him!” Enki barked. The foursome tore out the house, with Ian in the lead, whooshing.
But Bogenbroom could also whoosh, it seemed. He made a beeline for the edge of the property.
Savagely, Sasha drew her White Roses. She fired, but missed: it was too difficult to hit a moving target while whooshing she discovered to her dismay.
“No!” Enki screamed at her. “That body he’s in — that’s whole other person! You can’t kill her!”
Sasha screamed in frustration. She wanted revenge on Bogenbroom for what he had done to her! Possession? Occupying her body, while she was forced, helpless, to simply watch from inside? She was revolted. Her slave time under Jadeth had been bad enough — and up until now, that had been the very definition of nightmare.
This had been worse. This was a violation on a primal level that was deep and personal. Her own body had enslaved her — or that’s what it felt like. And you couldn’t escape your own body afterwards — the reminder of the most deeply personal enslavement you’ve ever felt would always be with you.
Almost she lost herself in fury, in a taste for savage revenge of the highest order. Almost she stopped chasing — only to stand, aim properly, and gun down Bogenbroom inside that woman. She would be dead, but also, she presumed would be Bogenbroom.
After all — both times, Bogenbroom had willing fled a body. He was not killed inside of it. He had vacated, left it behind, before death had occured. If he were killed inside that body, with nowhere else to run to …
Enki kept the Singular Eye shard at the ready. Now that he knew what he was up against, he knew how to protect the company from a second successful possession by the Doctor.
Then, the thought overpowered Sasha. Her hated for Bogenbroom washed over her. She stopped. She raised a White Rose and aimed, squeezed the trigger slowly …
Bogenbroom fell. The woman’s body crumpled to the ground.
But Sasha had not yet fired.
What the —?
Her finger quaked on the trigger. She released the pressure and lowered her weapon.
“Dammit!” Ian howled. “Ah, damn, damn, bloody hell, damn!”
“What?” Sasha demanded.
“Don’t you see? He just doubled back on us! He vacated that body there.” Ian pointed at the woman, “And then he jumped into another one of those bodies back at the house! By now, that new body is running in the opposite direction, with him inside. And now, because we chased him in this body, if we want to catch him, we have to go back all this distance we’ve already covered, plus whatever distance he can put between us and the house in the meantime. It can’t be done.” Ian kick the dirt. Grassburgers flew. “I should have seen this coming … I should have stayed back at the house!”
Enki shook his head, also kicking himself internally for not seeing the ruse.
“We’ll never catch him now.”
“He must have some kind of range,” Casey said. “You know, some kind of distance limit for who he can jump into. And this must be it — however far away from the house we are now. Otherwise, he could just jump into someone across the world.”
Ian stared at the gate, realizing that it lay just beyond the crumpled woman’s body.
“It’s the property circumference,” he said, clunking his head in further annoyance. “Of course! That’s why there’s so much land here — it’s not because he’s bloody rich and showing off. No! It’s for his protection. It’s so he could pull exactly this stunt, if he ever needed to.”
Enki suddenly jerked up and ran towards the woman who had been inhabited by Bogenbroom, realizing in that moment that she might need medical aid.
But when he reached her and felt for a pulse, he found that she was already dead.
BACK AT the Rosewood Arms, the exhausted foursome debated while Maurice cooked them breakfast in the pre-dawn light.
“So what was the point of that?” Casey asked. “Bogenbroom obviously knew we were coming. In fact, he looked downright bored while he waited for us to show up. So why didn’t he just leave? Why face us down at all?”
Enki nodded, pulling at his beard thoughtfully. “We were being toyed with, I agree wholeheartedly. But I don’t yet know why.”
“So it was a trap,” Sasha added. “And the good Doctor was the bait. But we escaped. None of us were caught, none of us were injured. Right? We came out — well, not on top, maybe. But certainly better than what the Bondsman had planned for us! Whatever that was …”
“I’m not so sure,” Ian replied.
“Neither am I,” Enki agreed. “What did the Bondsman hope to gain? What, in fact, was the trap Bogenbroom had set for us? His plan was to get caught? And then, just prove to us that we couldn’t make him answer our questions? That seems ludicrous in the extreme.”
“Well, Bogenbroom was caught off guard by the Singular Eye — that was what that was, right?” Casey said. Enki nodded. “That much I’m sure of.”
“Yeah,” Ian laughed a little. “He wasn’t expecting that one, you could tell.”
“So that’s what threw him off,” Sasha said like she had just solved an equation. “Has to be it. That was what unravelled his whole trap — he never to the chance to spring it on us because we hit him with the Singular Eye before he had a chance. He probably had a whole thing going in that house — something we never saw, and something we’ll never know about.”
“So we’re just that good?” Enki said with a glint in his eye. “Is that it? The four of us are smarter than all the Archons? No. The Archons are preternaturally intelligent, as I have said. The can conceive of every possible scenario in ways that we —”
“No,” Sasha cut him off, with a quick glance to Casey. Enki was acting odd, and Sasha was starting to see it as well. “Not this time. The Archons can make mistakes, you know. Max is proof of that. Hell, you’re proof of that, Enki. Right? Didn’t you or somebody bring Max to earth? Hide him from the Archons, while back on Nibiru, Anu told some fish story when they came to collect little baby Max?”
“That is true,” Enki said carefully. “But …”
“But nothing. Can or cannot the Archons be fooled? Binary question, like Ian always says to me. Yes or No. One or Zero. Yin or Yang. And the answer is yes. It is possible. And we got lucky — we did, Enki, I grant you that! Probably super lucky, luckier than I know. But we got away. We wrecked the plans of the Archons, this one time — just like you did with Max.”
Enki gave her a funny look then, as if he saw something that disturbed him, but he didn’t want to voice it.
“What?” Sasha said uncomfortab
ly.
“Nothing,” Enki said. “Sorry, just thinking is all.” He rubbed his nose just under his forehead.
“No, that’s a lie,” Casey persisted. “C’mon Enki. I saw that look also. What is it you’re holding back?”
“A thought I just had … Well, alright,” Enki said, clearly reluctant. “Here it is. What if the point of the ‘trap’ was to induce a certain mindset on us? That is, it accomplished its goal in stealth, without our believing or even knowing that we had been trapped?”
“Like … being in a Book and not knowing it?” Sasha said.
“Something like that. And no, we’re not in a Book now, I can assure you of that,” Enki said. “I’m speaking of a subtle trap. A trap of the mind.”
“Be specific,” Sasha said, a hint of anger in her voice.
“Well then,” Enki said. “Bogenbroom possessed you, did he not? And you found it … immensely distasteful, I would imagine. In point of fact, it reminded you of your captivity under Jadeth, but this was a far greater transgression. Am I correct?”
Sasha looked down at her slave glyph, the Sunbolt tattoo. Mafdet had given it to her. She cringed at the memory, and then cringed that she was so transparent to Enki. The experience had been personal — no one else should have known.
“And it enraged you. You felt violated. You wanted to lash out. So you —”
“Stop it!” Sasha howled, tears welling in her eyes now. “Just — stop it!” Ian moved to comfort her, but she pushed him away.
“Forgive me Sasha, but I must,” Enki said solemnly. “So you stopped on the grass. You drew the White Roses, and were milliseconds away from killing an innocent woman — just so you could be certain that you also killed Bogenbroom in the process.”
“She died anyway!” Sasha howled. “She was going to die anyway! She was already dead!”
“You didn’t know that at the time,” Enki persisted. “I even specifically warned you that —”
“Shut up, Enki! Just — put a lid on it, will you?” Ian yelled with a ferocity that stunned even himself. “You’re hurting her.”
“I am sorry,” Enki said, seeming stately, but in a smug kind of way to Ian. “My point is: the trap may have been to get one or more of us to behave in a way that was not ourselves. To inch into darkness, if you will. To become … well, more like Bondsman.”
At that, the very air clawed at them and felt crowded with shadows. No one spoke for a long moment. The only sound came from Sasha as she wiped tears from her cheeks.
“Well what about you, then,” Sasha said.
“Me?” Enki said, mildly surprised.
“Yes. You. Bogenbroom even pointed it out. You used the Singular Eye on him. You used a thing made for sharing of the One or whatever, something supposed to be used for good. And you tried to interrogate him with it. Like Johnny Siren did to Max.”
A stunned look came across Enki’s face. It was a look none of them had ever seen before from him. He was always so sure of himself, so above everything, so nine moves ahead of where everyone else was. It seemed Sasha was capable of surprising him after all.
“But I …” Enki faltered, cornered. “There was no other way! We needed the information. We needed to know who the Bondsman was.”
“What, by using a Bondsman-like way to get it?” Ian yelped. “That seems like the very trap you were just talking about.”
“‘One should never seek to own the will of another’,” Sasha quoted. “‘There is never, never, ever a reason good enough.’ Your words, Enki.” His eyes flickered.
“And using the Singular Eye to probe someone else’s brain seems exactly like that to me,” Casey cut in, suddenly speaking up. She had been watching this exchange intently, focused on Enki the whole time. “That’s what you were talking about — or the Mr. E version of you which is the same thing, as far as I’m concerned. Right? You ripped information out of someone else’s head without their permission. So you violated another being’s will. Bogenbroom did not volunteer the information, you robbed him of the choice. So. Would you normally have done something like that?”
Enki drew in a deep breath and considered. “Things are sometimes complicated, Casey. When you have lived as long as —”
“No,” Casey waved his words away. “Answer the question. Don’t hide behind your lofty Niburian longevity, or one of your arrogant little speeches.”
That last part bit him; they all saw it in his eyes — eyes that normally flashed with the fire of angels, eyes that could incinerate you with a glance. Now, they were small, tiny and scared. Full of doubt.
“No,” Enki said at last, quietly. “No. Normally, I would not have done such a thing.”
“There it is as last, then,” Casey said. “And now you forgive me — but that also was necessary.”
Enki said nothing. He sat down.
“Enki,” Sasha said. “Where did you get our guns? Where did they come from?”
Enki reacted like he had been bitten in the rear end. He stood bolt upright, fire back in his eyes. “It doesn’t matter where I got them!” he bellowed. “You have them! They were meant for you! I delivered them! That is all!” Then he caught himself and massaged the bridge of his nose again. “I am sorry. I am tired,” he said. “We will continue this tomorrow.” With that, Enki left and went towards his bedroom.
“There it is again,” Casey said quietly to Sasha. “That weirdness. He clams right up and goes absolutely bonkers every time we bring it up.”
“Yeah,” Sasha replied in a whisper. “I’m beginning to see what you mean.”
THE NEXT DAY, there was a knock on their door.
Casey opened it: a bellhop in white gloves stood there holding a large envelope on a golden tray. Wordlessly, he gave it to Sasha with a bow and left.
The vanilla envelope was trimmed in a very fancy golden lace had a simple B drawn in elegant calligraphy on it’s surface. “Uh-oh,” Sasha said when she saw it. “Bet that doesn’t stand for ‘Beauty Parlor’.”
Despite her reservations about Enki, Casey decided to give the envelope to him to see what he thought about it. He took it wordlessly as she explained how it had arrived. He held it up to light and then, oddly, licked it. He smacked his lips and raised his eyebrows. Then abruptly, he tore the envelope open.
A card lay within — again with the calligraphic B, and the Bondsman’s face in gold leaf on thick bone-colored paper. Enki opened it and read silently. When he finished, he said, “It seems we have been invited to a gathering of the Elites. A rally for the Bondsman.”
“How?” Casey asked in half panic. “Does he know who were are — and that we’re here?”
“No,” Ian said, holding up Cassandra Veerspike’s card. “It’s because of this. We checked in with it. They think we’re a bunch of Veerspikes. That’s why we’re invited.”
Enki nodded. “Quite right.”
“This is a … rally?” Casey said.
“Yes,” Enki replied handing her the card. “It’s several days’ journey from here by car I believe.”
“It says that the Bondsman will present in person,” Casey said. Could that be true? she thought. Already, an idea was forming in her mind …
“Yes,” Enki said. “It does. And I think in this case, we should accept the Bondsman’s gracious hospitality.”
“So do I,” Casey said decisively. “I want to see him up close.”
Enki nodded. “As do I. This is an unlooked-for but fortuitous bit of good luck. If we are indeed able to gain proximity to the Bondsman we may be able to scry much about his nature that distance precludes. I, for one, relish such an opportunity.”
“So do I,” Casey said.
But of her deeper purpose, of the idea that had formed in the secret places of her mind, she said nothing.
Twelve: The Bondsman Rally
MAX MADE HIS way on foot across the red desert.
Cars swept by him on either side — expensive cars, mostly SUV’s. The Elites of this world — the Veerspik
es and their ilk — were converging. Anticipation, like that before a huge rock concert, made the very air tingle.
Max knew it was hard to articulate exactly what is was he hoped to accomplish here. He thought that if he could just get close enough to the Bondsman, he’d know his identity. If it were Johnny Siren, he’d know. If it were a future version of himself, he’d know.
Something about proximity would tell him, he was somehow sure of it.
Even though that didn’t make much sense. And was very dangerous.
But he didn’t have a better answer. He’d left Marvin Sparkle behind. He’d rejected the Resistance and how they wanted to do things. And he’d lost Casey and Sasha and Ian and Enki — he had no idea where even to look for them.
And he’d shown his face on television: there was that. Everyone here knew that Max Quick was marked for death — and everyone here was fanatically loyal to the Bondsman.
Yet he felt convinced this was the right path — Romani would want him to do this. He was trusting his instincts.
A ragged haze raised by the constant stream of cars blotted out the sunlight. He kept his hoodie pulled up tight over his face, and adjusted a bandana around his mouth to block the dust. A pair of googles he’d managed to steal in Raffle’s Pass protected his eyes.
He wasn’t sure what they inhabitants of the cars passing by made of him. A desert bum? A homeless shuffler? They didn’t seem to care or notice him. Their focus was ahead, towards the great stadium that had been erected ahead where the forest and the Southwestern desert met.
AS MAX NEARED THE parking lot, the clean hot air was electric. The sun was setting. Red light sprayed the canyon floor, dousing the jutting rock formations in deep sawdust-and-chocolate coloring. Shadows the size of continents stretched to the horizon.
Trams were picking up people from the orderly rows of black SUV’s and limousines. Pulling off his bandana and goggles, Max slipped in with the crowd and rode the tram towards the gates.
Everyone was chattering and laughing gleefully. These people were ecstatic, and clearly felt lucky to be here, Max noticed. Bondsman shirts and hats and trinkets were everywhere. It was like some sort of inverted Disney World. Max hung in the back and tried not to be noticed.
