Obie squeezed her hand. “Linda? It’s the Show. Remember it’s the Show.”
To Linda it just didn’t fucking matter that it was the goddamned Show. She pulled off the stocking cap, clasped it to her stomach, and stepped toward Cole’s body.
Obie passed her and heaved himself up through the twisted metal and over the first row of seats. He knelt beside his brother’s corpse. The body was quite thoroughly dead, cold and stiff and resting in a drying pool of blood. He pulled open Cole’s shirt but found no gunshot wound to the stomach or chest. What he found was that Cole’s left arm had been severed just under the shoulder. He’d bled to death in a matter of moments. Obie looked around for the missing arm, found it wedged under a seat two rows back. There were three fingers missing. While he’d kept his distance from family affairs, Obie had paid attention when his brother’s wife had been killed. These were the same injuries that Ruth had received in the real crash of Flight 413. He stood and leaned out over the jagged open end. There stood Linda, cradling Cole’s head on her shoulder. She looked up at him with puffy, vacant eyes.
“Let’s get him out of here,” said Obie.
12.8
Linda didn’t think there’d be room for all three of them, but there was, as if the ship had grown larger while they were in the building. Obie lay on the far right with the flight helmet on. Cole’s severed arm, wrapped in a white lab coat they’d found on their way out, was wedged between Obie and the wall. Linda was on the left. Cole’s body, the upper torso wrapped in another lab coat and secured with duct tape to help contain the sticky, drying blood, lay between them. Linda rested her broken hand on Cole’s stomach.
“You ready?” asked Obie. “Rice must know you’re gone by now.”
Linda shivered in the blackness. It had been dark and icy when they’d reached the roof, and Cole’s body was colder than she’d thought it could be. She found unexpected comfort in that. She needed to be frozen right now. She needed the black. She needed the silence. If her heart warmed up even a bit she’d melt in a torrent of horror and grief. She answered with a voice from the far side of death. “I’m ready.” The ship began to glow again, the faint blue-white light the color of cemeteries and nightmares.
After a while Linda spoke again. “Where do we go?”
Obie took a moment before responding. “It seems best to do something random and unexpected, so rather than plan our next move, I’ve asked the ship to take us someplace safe,” he said. He adjusted the helmet strap and consulted the view screen for a moment. “It’s dark, and we’re very high right now, but we seem to be headed north.”
Linda laid her head on the floor and closed her eyes. The sight of Cole’s body was too disturbing to her senses for her to hold for long. Obie’s mention of Rice had frozen her resolve to the same state as her body and heart. With icy determination, she knew she would kill him one day, or die in the attempt. His presence on the planet was an abomination that could not be tolerated. This time, she’d make sure he was dead. She had no idea how she would do that.
She reached out and touched Cole’s thinning hair. He was gone. Totally and inexorably absent. She and Obie would bury him. She could see that far. But what came beyond that moment she could not see. She would look up at Obie and he’d smile his crooked smile and shrug and say something, but she could imagine no words that would make any sense. The path between the present moment and the moment she put a bullet in Rice’s head was blacker than the cell in which he’d imprisoned her, and just as bitter.
“Linda?” said Obie.
“Yes?”
“I want to show you something.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to ask the ship to turn transparent again,” he explained, glancing back at her over his shoulder. “When she does, it’ll look to us as if we’re hurtling through space, which, in fact, we are.”
“Okay.”
“I just wanted to let you know.”
“Thank you.”
Obie turned and mumbled something. The ship disappeared just as he said it would. Linda breathed deeply to steady herself as she hung, seemingly unprotected and unsupported, in the depths of space, their forward movement impossible to discern in the vast distances around her. She looked down to see the Earth below, the dark surface lit by the quarter moon and sparse twinkles of electric light.
“Look ahead,” said Obie, his voice soft with awe.
Linda complied. Ahead in the distance, against the field of stars, she saw two straight lines of illumination, slowly converging. As they neared, the lines resolved into perfect rows of blue-white lights, stretching before her as far as she could see. Ships. Woks, like the one she was in, waiting at attention as the three of them passed between. This time, Linda had no trouble seeing it for the honor guard that it was, a loving salute to a fallen comrade. Her tears spilled forth at last, and her quiet sobs of grief and gratitude filled the whole of her soul.
The ship landed on a frozen lake and the door melted open. Frigid arctic air burst into the cabin, freezing Linda even further. Obie scrambled out, feet first, and then helped Linda do the same. As soon as she was clear of the ship the door melted shut.
“Hey!” shouted Linda in the gale, but she couldn’t even hear herself.
Obie grabbed her hand and pulled her back a few steps. The ship began to glow, faintly at first, then bright and clear, moving from yellow to orange to a deep, rich red. Linda could feel the heat of it through her jumpsuit and stepped back another few feet. Together they stood and watched as the ice beneath the ship melted and the wok sank down into the water-filled hole. In just a couple of minutes the ship was gone from sight, its glow pulsing up through the ice for just a moment before fading away. The water started to skim with slush. Cole was gone.
Obie pulled her away. She turned to face him, filled with questions but unable to ask any of them in the roar of the wind. He pointed over her shoulder and she turned.
There stood three figures, bundled in fur.
12.9
Grace was thankful to find no scary ones lurking about. And thankful as well to find Evlyn nearby. Grace had used Linda’s heart as a beacon to navigate this realm, found the President standing next to a man she did not know, with three others nearby, and more beyond that. Good hearts, all of them. Strong hearts. Hearts that could help. Grace vibrated with relief. She’d been gone so long. She reached down to scratch Dennis’s head, grateful that he had come with her again. She was glad that Linda was safe. But where was her father? She beamed her concern.
The old woman flickered to her side. “You’re back, eh?” she said, before sliding momentarily into the form of a young Chinese man. Grace could see that Evlyn’s appearance was more stable now, less chaotic. Her transformations were fewer and briefer. She was settling into her essential self, integrating her lives, her lessons, her times. And she was more light, now, than woman. The power of her glow bathed Grace with peace.
Grace soaked up that light and love. “Where’s my father?” she asked.
Evlyn dimmed, anticipating this young one’s sadness. “He has become untethered from his body,” she said.
Grace shifted down into the thickness of the densest layers to see for herself, then returned to the old woman’s side. “Then where did he go?” she asked. “Shouldn’t he be here with us?”
The old woman rolled in confusion, shifting to the body of the large, dark-haired white man, and then a young Hispanic girl, before settling back into her dominant form. “I do not know, little sleeper,” she said. “His disappearance surprised me. The dark ones returned to follow your father and Linda, and in the physical realm they encountered a very black heart. Your father vanished in an instant. I did not see where he went, and I have not seen him since.”
Grace watched as Linda and the others moved away across the snow and ice. “That is very odd,” she said. She extended a hand into the physical. It was extremely cold there. “Is Linda okay?” she asked.
Evlyn beamed her ass
urance. “She is. The old ones have surrounded her. The dark ones have been forced to flee.”
“The Elders?” asked Grace, searching with her heart, glad of the news, and yet wary.
“The Elders, yes. And the alive ones. Both are standing guard. And a few of the other ancient races are now present, observing from a distance. Much has happened since you were last here.” Evlyn held steady in her old woman form. “Two days have come and gone for your friend Linda. Where have you been?” Grace slowly turned around, as if trying to see the path that had brought her here. Evlyn frowned, puzzled at what she now noticed. “And what has become of your own tether?” the old woman asked.
Grace stopped turning and folded in tightly to think, gathering her power around her like a cloak, trying to recall through the fog. It was so hard to remember, sometimes, that other life. Something about a doctor talking to her grandfather. Something about some medication. She remembered screaming at them to let her sleep. Emily cried. Grandpa fretted. Dennis was frantic at her feet. She pleaded to be left alone, but they would not listen. They didn’t understand.
Grace searched through her entire being, scanning her pulsing patterns, feeling and sensing but finding no connection now whatsoever. She remembered the stretching she’d felt. The tearing away. The focus it had taken her. The pain. The loss. But that pain was gone now. All that remained was an absence. She beamed at the old woman. “I broke the cord!” she said.
Evlyn slumped. She did not think this young one understood what that meant.
Chapter Thirteen
13.1
Rice didn’t know which was more humiliating: that he’d lost her again or that he had to sit here on the toilet with cramps and diarrhea. He wondered, as he always did at such times, whether he was really an alien himself, some advanced being from another galaxy living on Earth in a human body, an agent under the covers as well as above them. That would explain his disgust for these people. And his disdain for this weak, limited bag of flesh in which he had to live. Even with the enhancements that kept him feeling much younger than his one hundred and ten years, this body could not begin to match the full reality of who he knew himself to be.
He grimaced and pushed, feeling his flesh burn. Fucking take-out. And fucking Carl. He was really going to enjoy cutting that motherfucker into little pieces, one of these fucking days. Put him in the vats with the rest of the bungled and botched. Should’ve done that a long time ago.
Bob had recognized Carl right away, of course. She’d watched him enter the Lodge. Watched him find Ma Kettle. Watched them leave. She’d tried to call Rice to tell him before they got away. But Theodore Rice hadn’t managed to get a new implant yet, had he? When had he had the time? He hadn’t told Bob where he was staying, which was just plain stupid. And his fucking cell phone, hung on the back of the door in his jacket pocket, was set to vibrate. There he was, less than ten feet away, sprawled out in the agony of food poisoning on his fucking hotel bed, cramping and sweating and puking and shitting his fucking guts out, and he didn’t hear Bob’s calls. He’d figured the Prez would just sit cozy and tight in her dark little cage until he was back on his feet. He’d figured poorly.
Rice coughed up a bitter laugh, the movement roiling his stomach again. It’s a crazy fucking universe we live in, where the fate of worlds can hang on one bad enchilada. What had he been thinking? Fucking Canadians can’t make Mexican. And given the upheavals in world agricultural markets, it was probably fucking rat meat they’d served him.
Hot acids spilled from his bowels and he looked up at the ceiling, roaring to the heavens and pounding the wall with his fist. Holy fuck! He took some deep breaths to try to calm himself, realizing that he probably shouldn’t make this much noise. The last thing he needed was somebody knocking at his door.
He’d already drawn suspicion. When he’d finally fallen asleep the evening before, Bob had been able to get in and implant a compulsion to call her, which he’d done at about two in the morning, when he awakened to puke. He’d emptied himself out as best he could, coked up on painkillers, and stormed out of the hotel, berating the young woman at the front desk just because she was there. Bad form, that.
Moaning, stumbling, doubled over with cramps, he’d made his way down into the Lodge and to the scene of the crime, cursing the tiny rooms, the low ceilings and the bare, cold stone as he made his way to Linda’s cell. The President was gone. So was that little wok. All he’d found was Linda’s filthy bathrobe on the floor. Like, what the fuck? Had she left naked? He could feel his own arousal at the thought of that. Should’ve fucked her while he’d had the chance.
The thing that really pissed him off is that he should have seen this coming. Ten minutes of Googling would have told him that the goddamned President’s fuck-toy was goddamned Carl Thomas’s goddamned little brother. The aliens loved to do shit like that. They’re probably all yukking it up over beer and brats right now, while he sits here flushing half his body weight down a fucking toilet in the Ottawa Hilton. He breathed deeply and pushed, hoping this was the last of it.
Enough. It was all a test. To see if he could keep to the Plan. To see if the People were still worthy. As if they hadn’t already proven themselves over and over. Rice sighed. So he’d choked on the true-and-false. So fucking what? Let’s see how he does on the multiple-choice. Bob said the aliens were now blocking her from getting anywhere near Carl and the Prez. Fine. Play your stupid little games, buggy-boys. Theodore Rice was not without resources, even now. He still had his own wok. In a few hours this sickness would run its course. Soon enough he’d be back in the game. This was not over yet.
Let’s see, kiddies. Today’s problem: Crazy Carl comes out of nowhere and steals the President right from under his nose. Should Agent Rice:
a) go to the topside facility and grind up that fucker Cole’s body for dog food,
b) head back to D.C. and get Bob and Random and Alice and whomever the fuck else they could find, and go kick some astral ass,
c) nab Cole’s newly-orphaned larvae and toss them down into the Rock to use as bargaining chips or,
d) all of the above?
Rice smiled, grabbing a huge wad of paper to wipe his ass. This was a no-brainer. D it would be: all of the fucking above.
13.2
Linda opened her eyes. Obie was right where she’d left him, sitting cross-legged on the tattered brown recliner opposite the futon on which she’d slept. The only difference was that it was morning now. Soft gray light sifted like drifting snow through the closed blinds behind Obie’s head, hiding his eyes in darkness, surrounding him with an ethereal glow.
Obie felt her gaze and opened his eyes and smiled. “You look better,” he said.
The President reached up to run her fingers over her smooth scalp. In the middle of the night, consumed by grief and surrounded by safety and willing help, she’d insisted, before she could sleep, that they cut her hair and find her a hot shower. Rice’s assault was lodged in her body. Though she would have to tolerate the bruises and broken bones, she would not collude with his attempt to humiliate and disfigure her. A short search at the vet’s office had turned up some clippers used to shave sled dogs before surgery. Those would do. The hair had to go. All of it, save for the fine, velvety stubble the clippers left, the sparse promise of something new. She’d wear a fucking hat.
“Rather stylish, wouldn’t you say?” She smiled weakly.
“It’s appropriate,” said Obie with a nod. “Around the world, shaving one’s head symbolizes an intention to detach oneself from the old, material world, and to apprentice oneself to that which lies beyond the material.”
Linda frowned. “I didn’t realize I’d taken vows,” she said, her voice edging on sarcasm.
“I think, before this is all over, you’ll understand what I mean,” answered Obie.
Linda let it go for now and swabbed the sleep from her eyes with gentle finger strokes, careful of the swelling and the bruises. “You sure I don’t need my pills?”
“You saw the ships last night, Mrs. President. What does your heart tell you?”
Linda closed her eyes to see what she could feel, imagining herself voyaging around inside her body, then up through the sky and into the void. She pictured the multitude of ships patrolling the airspace over her body far below, just as she’d seen them in the night sky over the trailer in which she now sat. She felt no hostile eyes spying, no evil mind possessing hers, no ill will, no attack. She opened her eyes and nodded. “I feel pretty safe,” she said.
“Then you are,” said Obie.
Linda pulled back the down comforter and pushed out her legs, lifting her torso into a sitting position and resting her feet gently on the carpeted floor. She noted the dull throb in her right hand, now splinted and wrapped, as her heart rate increased in response to her movements. She breathed through the deep aching in her abdominals. She could endure this. The broken fingers. The ankle. The cuts and welts and bruises. The memories. She could take it all in, feel it as it passed through her in waves, live through it, let it go, and move on. She was the fucking President. She could do that.
But there was a black hole inside her now, eating her up from the inside out, a puncture, a tear, a grief so profound that it threatened to unravel her. The world was not as it seemed, not as she’d always believed. There was magic and wonder far grander than she’d ever imagined, and evil to match, it seemed. And Cole was dead. Rice had scoffed that she’d hardly even known him. He was right, but he was also wrong. She could feel in her body a truth her mind could not fathom: she and Cole had been meant to do something together. Some big work. And now it appeared that she’d been left to do it alone, to “follow this through,” as Keeley had demanded. She did not know if she could do that. The black hole’s pull was relentless.
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