by Bill Myers
“So you’ve been lying to us about who you are,” I said.
“For that I must apologize. But we saw no other way.”
“And by ‘we’ you mean—”
“The Gate. Yes.”
“And you expect us to believe what? That we’ve been working for the wrong side all this time?”
“I can only point you to the facts. I cannot make you believe them.”
Chad spoke. “And by facts. . . You’re talking about what we witnessed today. With our gifts.”
“Not just from today, but please consider the evil you have witnessed these many months. Starting as far back at the Institute.”
“The Psychic Institute?” I said. “Where you were doing all that stuff to those kids?”
“Those kids, as you call them volunteered . . . freely volunteered. They understood the sacrifice that had to be made—that is being made. Every day.”
I snorted.
“Laugh if you wish, but that is the only way to liberate your planet from the oppressor’s tyranny . . . and the evil of his people.”
I wasn’t buying it. Not for a second. But it did get me thinking back to my last set of visions. All that torture, and all that killing.
“What about the orbs?” Andi said. “The ones that followed us around and attacked us. Were they yours?”
“Of course.”
“Not exactly friendly,” I said.
“They are our eyes and ears. The enemy has spies everywhere. We are outnumbered two to one.” Bijan turned to me. There was something in his eyes I’d not seen before. A depth. A sincerity. “And yes,” he said, speaking more softly, “sometimes they are not so friendly. Sometimes their actions must be for our protection.”
“Your protection?”
“To protect our identity. Our location. And sometimes, as you say in your sports, I am afraid the best defense is a good offense.”
I frowned. He might have had a point. A small one. Maybe we had been intruding, accidentally threatening them. Or, in the Watcher’s case, intentionally trying to destroy them.
Bijan continued. Besides his eyes, there was something in his voice I’d not heard—a gentleness, a soothing calmness. “You saw a glimpse of our beloved home, actually our home away from home, during your mind traveling exercise.”
“The portal in the mountain?” Chad said. “The spaceship, the snowflake things?”
He turned those eyes on Chad and, I swear, you could actually see Pretty Boy’s ego start to soften.
“Yes,” Bijan said. “When your brain sees things it cannot comprehend, it turns such things into symbols.”
Chad nodded, continuing to stare into his eyes.
“Those fairies were no symbol,” Andi said. “Or that awful fungus.”
“Or what invaded Chad in Vegas,” I said. “And killed Stephanie.”
Bijan gave a sad, heartfelt sigh. “Yes. But these were not of our making. They were His.”
Cowboy looked up, his voice hoarse and quiet. “To try and stop you.”
Bijan turned those understanding eyes on him. “Stop us from what?” His voice grew even more gentle. “Wanting to free you? We have nothing to gain, my big friend. What we do is only for you. It has always been for you.”
It took a moment, but Cowboy was able to break his gaze and look away.
“What about the professor?” I said. “He appeared to us, he told us we were in training.”
“Yes.”
“But not to fight you?” I asked.
There was no missing the hurt in those eyes or his voice. “No, of course not. He wants you to join him. To join us in fighting your enemy, our common enemy—this dictator who insists upon controlling all lives.”
I took a deep breath. Like it or not, he was starting to make sense. And if what he said was even half true . . .
“Brenda Barnick.” He smiled softly and it was like I felt some connection happening . . . way down deep inside. “Don’t you understand? We are on your side. We’ve come all this way, we’ve made all of these sacrifices for you, to free your world. And you four—five, counting the professor—you are the ones, the special ones who have been chosen—”
“So he is alive,” Andi interrupted. “I mean we’ve seen him and everything . . . at least we thought we have. But still . . .”
Bijan turned his smile upon her. “Yes, Andrea, and he misses you very much. He sends his deepest and warmest greetings to you in particular.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “Can you take us to him? Can we talk to him?”
“Yes. That is our plan. He loves you. He always has.” He turned to the rest of us. “In his own way he loves each of you all very much.”
“And that file, the one he gave me?” Andi’s voice was thick with emotion. “The one that only had a name?”
“Ambrosi Giacomo? Yes.”
I leaned in, listened harder.
“He is our leader. Like each of you, he comes from a human mother. He understands your many struggles, your silent pain. More importantly, he fully experiences and feels your great bondage.”
Andi started to nod.
“And his father?” Chad asked. “You say he has a human mother, what about his father?”
Bijan’s face brightened. “He comes from a reality that is much higher. One that is far more understanding and compassionate than—”
“And he wants to overthrow God!” Cowboy had regained his strength. But with it his voice sounded harsh, judgmental. Not at all like Bijan’s.
The same with Cowboy’s eyes. They were full of anger. While Bijan’s . . . I can’t explain it, but the more I stared into Bijan’s eyes, the more I felt a warmth, a soft blanket gently enfolding me.
He smiled sadly at Cowboy and tried to explain. “The name god is only a title. An office he has given to himself. Trust me, my big-hearted friend, there are many like your god, but they are much more benevolent.”
I glanced to Cowboy. His chin jutted out. But he was so outclassed . . . and so wrong.
Bijan continued. “You say your god is good. Would such goodness allow so much pain and suffering in your world?”
Cowboy’s face was getting red again. He forced himself to look away.
“Ambrosi Giacomo wants to free you from his tyranny.” Bijan turned back to Andi. “And he wants you to join the professor in the battle.”
Andi wiped her face and nodded.
He turned to me. “You saw the history, the death, the misery he brings.”
“The thousands murdered,” I said. “All in his name.”
“Yes.”
I felt the blanket tightening. So warm, so secure.”
“Nearly two million,” Andi said. “If you count the Inquisition, the Crusades, the witch hunts, that comes to nearly two million.” She was understanding now, too. You could hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes. “Two million innocent people slaughtered in his name.”
“Yes, Andrea. And if we don’t stop him, there will be many more. So many more.”
I was nodding now. So was she. I glanced over to Cowboy. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving. That’s when I noticed the butterflies. I counted four. They were flittering about, faster than before. Probably my imagination, but they also seemed bigger.
“Bjorn?” Bijan called out to Cowboy, but the big guy never looked up. He just kept his head bowed and his lips moving. I’d seen him pray like that before. Nothing fancy, but sometimes stuff happened. Bijan continued to call, “Bjorn? Bjorn Christiansen.”
No response. At least not to Bijan. Instead, I now heard Cowboy’s voice. He wasn’t praying, he was singing. I couldn’t make out all the words, but he was definitely singing and getting louder.
And those butterflies? They were definitely getting bigger.
Bijan saw them too. “Bjorn, you must stop.”
But Cowboy kept at it. The butterflies kept on growing. Pretty soon they were the size of crows. Flapping their wings faster and harder. We watched, awed and a
mazed.
Everyone but Chad. His eyes were still glued to Bijan. And his voice sounded like a little boy’s. “And don’t forget my gifts. All that hatred I read in their minds, in his followers. They’re just his puppets, right? Power mongers who only want—”
But Bijan wasn’t listening. “Bjorn!”
Cowboy’s voice got louder. And now I could make out the words:
“. . . waking or sleeping thy presence my light . . .”
The butterflies or crows or whatever they were flapped harder. And kept growing! They were more like eagles, now. Giant eagles.
“Bjorn, no!”
Cowboy finally looked up, his face filled with determination as he sang even louder. Loud enough for everyone to hear:
“Be thou my wisdom and thou my true word . . .”
That’s when all hell broke lose . . . or at least a sizeable portion of it.
Chapter 12
. . . I ever with Thee and Thou
with me, Lord—”
Bijan tried to outshout him, his voice getting louder, shriller. “Stop this! Stop this at once!” And the louder it got, the more his face seemed to change. Not just that gentle look of understanding, but his actual features—his chin, his nose—everything about him seemed to get longer, sharper.
And scales. At first I thought it was the light, the flickering shadows from all those flapping wings. But, no. His skin was actually growing scales, black and shiny. Within seconds his face began looking more lizard than human.
“Thou my great Father, I Thy true son . . .”
“Stop!” Bijan screamed. “I order you to stop!”
The butterflies that were the size of eagles had grown to the size of humans . . . and in some ways they even looked human. Except for those pounding wings. And the eyes on those wings. There were hundreds of them now. And they were real eyes. Moving. Looking around. Even blinking.
Bijan let loose a scream and I spun around to see him drop to the ground. He jerked and writhed like someone had thrown acid on him. “Stop! Stop it!”
But Cowboy wasn’t stopping. Fact, he raised his arms and sang even louder.
“Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.”
“Brenda!”
Andi pointed to the winged things. They’d doubled in size and circled thirty feet above us, screeching and flapping their wings. One had all of its eyes focused on Andi. Another on Chad. A third watched Cowboy, but it was a lot higher up, like it was afraid to get too close. And the fourth? It stared directly at me . . . until it folded back its leathery wings and dove.
“Run!” Andi yelled.
Good idea, but where? There was no place to go. Except maybe to Cowboy. Like I said, those things seemed afraid of him as he stood there, arms raised, singing at the top of his lungs.
“Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight.”
Good enough for me.
I ran towards Cowboy as my personal monster screamed and came straight at me. It was close, but I got there, throwing my arms around the big guy’s waist. The wing thing shrieked and veered off just as Andi’s and Chad’s started their attacks.
“Over here!” I shouted. “Hurry!”
No second invitation needed. They ran and ducked under Cowboy’s arms with me. The things swerved off and circled, screeching in anger. And Cowboy? He just stood there, eyes closed, arms raised and singing:
“Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.”
“Help me! Somebody!”
I spun back to Bijan. He writhed on the ground looking more reptile than human. Like his face, his body had grown long and thin. He no longer had arms or legs, not even a neck. Just a face attached to something that squirmed and wiggled like a common variety earthworm. Or a snake.
Cowboy lifted his arms higher. Sang louder.
“High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys,
O bright Heaven’s Sun.”
The winged things kept rising, pulling back like they were trying to get away. They flew higher and higher until one slammed into the stone ceiling. Not once, but twice. Like it wanted to get out of there. Like it had to get out.
A second one joined it. Then the other two. Again and again they hit the rock trying to break through.
That’s when the roof cracked. Spider webs shot across the ceiling.
“Ssssstop!” Bijan shouted. His voice and pleading as much hiss as words. “Ssssstop thisssssss . . .”
Water began seeping through the cracks. A little at first. But more and more, until the rocks suddenly gave way. Then it was Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls with an avalanche of rocks.
“Cowboy!”
But even his magic couldn’t protect us from the truck-sized boulders as they fell and splashed around us.
“What do we do?” Chad shouted.
“The wall!” Andi shouted. “Run to the wall and stay close to it!”
We took off. The wall was fifty yards away. Water continued falling, filling up the place as we sloshed toward it.
There was a sudden scream and splash to our left. One of the winged things lay there. Its head bloody and dazed. Dazed, but not dead.
I shouted at Cowboy, “Keep singing!”
He nodded and started up again.
“Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart--”
By the time we got to the wall, the water was up to our thighs and rising fast.
“Now what?” I yelled.
Looking up we saw the wall had all sorts of rocks and ledges jutting out. There was only one and Chad gave it:
“Climb!”
And climb we did. The stones were wet and slick. I slipped more than once. So did everyone else. But not as bad as Chad, who fell all the way back into the water.
“Chad!” I yelled.
He popped back up, swam to the wall, and started over again.
It was rough going for all of us, even our resident jock. But we kept climbing—two steps up, one slip down, searching for the next handhold, pulling, slipping, scrambling. Water pouring all around.
We were fifteen feet from the top when my legs started to shake. Hard. Not because I was scared, but because they’d given out. I had no strength. They’d turned to rubber.
“Look!” Andi, who was just above me and following Cowboy, pointed downward. It was hard to see through the sheets of water, but another one of those winged things had been hit. Actually two. They were floating side by side, flapping in the water, trying to get airborne. But something about the water made it impossible.
I’m no mathematician, but three out of four meant there was one left. As I stood, hoping strength would return to my legs, I peered through the falling water and rocks. I eventually spotted it . . . forty or fifty yards away, almost eye level. So far, it had managed to dodge the crashing boulders.
“Look out!” Cowboy shouted.
I looked up to see the whole ceiling give way. Rocks, water, everything. I pressed myself against the wall as it kept coming down. A deafening thunder that went on forever and I thought would never stop.
But it did.
Well, at least the ceiling. But there was still the wall. Its edges were crumbling, caving in.
“Hurry!” Cowboy shouted.
I looked up to see him and Andi already on top. They were on their stomachs on what must have been the bank of the river, staring down at me.
“Miss Brenda, Chad, get out of there!”
I forced my legs, which still felt rubbery and strangely foreign, to begin moving. They did. They didn’t like it, but they did. I was only a couple of feet from the top when I saw Cowboy’s hands reaching down to me. I grabbed them and he pulled. I tried helping, scrambling with my feet, but he did all the work until I was up, over the edge and lying on my back, amazed I was still alive.
Chad came next.
But we weren’t out of the woods. Not yet.
“We’ve got to get away from the edge,” Andi shouted. “It’s all going to cave in.”
/>
I rolled onto my hands and knees. Planned to crawl since I didn’t have the strength to stand . . . until Cowboy grabbed me around the gut, lifted me and ran.
We’d gone twenty, thirty steps before the rest gave way. The entire wall circling the garden toppled, falling into the hole, smoothing it into a wide but shallow crater, a gentle depression, that slowly filled with the river’s water.
Chapter 13
“Is this seat taken?”
I pried open an eye. Andi stood in the aisle, laptop in hand. “Knock yourself out,” I mumbled. To make room, I grabbed my coat from the seat beside me and winced in pain. There had to be a muscle somewhere that didn’t hurt. I just hadn’t found it yet.
“How many Advil this time?” she asked.
“Not enough.” I stuffed the coat between my head and the plane’s window for extra padding. “How long we been in the air?”
“Approximately ninety minutes.”
I grunted, closed my eyes, and for the hundredth time calculated how many hours before I’d see my boy.
Andi started working her computer . . . for about ten seconds.
“Hey there.” It was Cowboy. “Kinda lonely up front. Mind if I take this here seat across from you?”
“Sure,” Andi said. “No one’s sitting there.”
“That’s swell.” I heard him settle in. “Wonder what time dinner’s gonna be?”
“Good question,” she said.
“These headphone jacks work? Mine was broken.”
Andi continued typing. “I hope so. Looks like we’ll have some interesting movies.”
“Fantastic. Kinda hard to find time to see them these days, with our schedule and all.”
“Yes.”
“Chad though, he says the hotel’s got streaming video.”
