A Mystery of Light

by Brian Fuller

  He came to, the beard on the left side of his face soaking up the coffee from his downed cup. As with his previous visions, he knew instinctively where to go.

  “He’s all right,” Grail said to an employee with a startled face, trying to keep his tone light. “Probably forgot his meds. I’ll get him back home.”

  After the fog of the vision cleared, Helo raised his head, finding a line of concerned faces pointed his way. Coffee dripped off his face, and he reddened it where he should have been burned.

  “Got some napkins?” Grail asked. The employee nodded.

  A few minutes later he was cleaned up and walking out the door with Grail.

  “What is it this time?” Grail asked, following him to the street corner.

  “A young woman,” he said. “This way. Six houses down.”

  “Well, slow down,” Grail said. “No one’s going to believe an old man can move like that.”

  Helo didn’t care. Like anyone was going to pay attention anyway. The old homes along the street appeared to be what was left of some neighborhood slowly being swallowed by newer businesses popping up all around them. The house he sought had dingy white panels and a yard someone cared about, with cropped grass and a flower bed gone brown with the season. The carport was empty, blue drapes drawn.

  Grail breathed out and looked nervously behind him. “Should I, you know . . .”

  “No,” Helo said. Grail still wasn’t ready for action. “Stay out here. Once the yelling stops, call the cops.”

  “Okay,” he said, face relaxing.

  Helo turned away and marched up a front walk bordered with decorative bricks. It looked like recent work. A cheery light-blue door waited up two concrete steps. While not very subtle, he called on his Strength and kicked the door down in a very ungeriatric fashion.

  And there was what he had come to expect. Three Ghostpackers sitting at a table drinking beer at nine in the morning, all dingy, greasy messes.

  “Hey!” one said, face stunned.

  They scrambled, seats toppling backward. Helo didn’t give them time to collect themselves or hurl any threats. They must have had the smarts to realize he was an Ash Angel, because the red eyes of the first one flared to torch him. A quick left hook to the jaw sent him down in a heap.

  The other two closed in on him at the same time, the one behind him stabbing him ineffectually in the back. The other grabbed Helo’s coat. He paid for it with a headbutt to the face that would leave him with reminders about the encounter for weeks. Helo turned on the last one, who sneered and stabbed him again. Helo sneered back. After a quick shin to the Ghostpacker’s groin and a few knees to his face, he was done.

  He guessed this was Legion’s work. Once Grail checked them, he’d know for sure. The last vision had led them to an entire family imprisoned in their home by a group of five Possessed. Helo had rolled over the lot of them like a freight truck. It felt good, felt real. The first vision after the Red Angel had led them to a teenage girl changing a tire. While they helped her with it, a car with two Dreads had driven by.

  “Help,” came a weak cry from down the hall.

  Helo jogged down to the last room on the left, finding the door lock had been reversed. He went in, the woman he had seen in vision duct-taped to the bed. Relief flooded her face, sobs wracking her body. Helo covered her in a blanket, ripped the duct tape from her hands, and removed the gag. He took her in his arms and let Inspiration flow.

  “It will be okay,” he said, feeling her body relax. “Your prayer was heard. You will be safe now.”

  He held her, trying to stay calm for her sake, but his anger was starting to boil. After Legion had gotten free from the Pit, he really hadn’t given it much thought. His mind had been fixed on Aclima, and he hadn’t even considered what a disaster Legion might become. Perhaps nobody understood. Even worse, his brief encounters might have been a simple beginning compared to what Avadan had planned.

  Grail poked his head in and nodded. Helo nodded back. It was Legion. Grail could Exorcise, but he couldn’t Exorcise any of the evil spirits confederated with Legion. To remove an evil spirit from its victim required finding its true name, and every evil spirit belonging to Legion truthfully claimed Legion as his name. But it wasn’t the true name. Grail had no clue what to do, and neither did Helo. But if he couldn’t Exorcise the hell out of Ghostpackers, he’d settle for beating the hell out of them.

  “Why don’t you get going,” Helo said. “I’ll stay here and handle the police. Thanks for everything.”

  Grail nodded. “Keep close to the phone. I’ll update you if I find anything. Thank you for getting me out of that hole.”

  Grail left. The Inspiration was doing its work, the young woman’s sobs settling into a tearful calm. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asked in his best grandpa voice.

  “Lisa,” she said.

  “How long did they have you in here?”

  “Since yesterday after work,” she said.

  “This your house?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  A chair scooted in the kitchen. He hadn’t hit one hard enough.

  “Excuse me,” Helo said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He strode back to the kitchen. Sure enough, two of the Ghostpackers were struggling to their feet. A few groin kicks and ankle stomps later, he figured they wouldn’t be going anywhere and returned to comfort the young woman until the police arrived.

  He answered their questions, claiming to have heard her call for help while strolling by outside. The cops had a hard time believing his claims about adrenaline and being an expert at Krav Maga. Kicking a door off its hinges and destroying three men in their prime had demonstrated a lack of subtlety Archus Ramis and Cassandra would have chided him for, and they would have been right. He could have at least added some bruises to his knuckles or something. But without any other plausible explanation, the cops just shook their heads and accepted it. They wanted to cart him off to the hospital, but he stonewalled them.

  The detective taking his statement handed him her card. “Remind me not to mess with your grandkids,” she said. “And if you remember anything else, give us a call.”

  Helo escaped before any reporters showed up, wishing the young woman well as they loaded her into an ambulance. Once he got a couple blocks down, he resumed his old-man walk. It was time to find a bus station and make his way to Denver.

  Chapter 13

  Wanderer

  Helo lay on his back on the sidewalk in front of the Maverick gas station in Castle Rock, the snow falling down on top of him. He’d been in Denver for almost three weeks hunting for any sign of Aclima, Dreads, or Avadan. Nothing. The longer he went without any sign of her, the stupider he felt. Was he really as deluded as everyone in the Ash Angels thought he was?

  The visions kept coming, leading him to increasingly violent encounters with Legion’s army of Possessed, in every case a kidnapping. The last one got him shot twice after interrupting a carjacking by two nasty Ghostpackers. The news had finally picked up on the fact that people were disappearing at an alarming rate all over the United States. The police were catching some, but they couldn’t see any plausible connection between all the disappearances. If they only knew. Avadan was bold, and whatever he was going to do wouldn’t be pretty.

  Helo picked himself up off the concrete where the vision had dropped him. A weird vision. No captives. No Ghostpackers, Shedim, or Dreads. It was a task.

  Shovel snow on Johnson Drive.

  It was something different, and it was something to do now that his search for Aclima had turned as cold as the cement he had just visited. He swatted the snow off his jacket as the door to the Maverick gas station swung open, a gangly twenty-something in a black sweater leaning out.

  “You okay, bro?” he said. “You totally ate it.”

  “I’m good,” Helo said. “Hey, do you know where Johnson Drive is?”

  “No, but I can find it,” he said. “Come in. You sure you’re okay
? You look a little buzzed, know what I’m saying? It’s legal, dude. Not judging or anything.”

  “Just slipped,” Helo said as he walked inside, rubbing his hands together to fake warm them. At a chilly two in the morning, the interior seemed like noonday on the Las Vegas Strip—lights, ads, and video screens everywhere. He’d morphed back into a younger version of himself; acting old got tiring. For a disguise, he settled on a goatee and buzzed hair.

  The clerk tapped on his phone a few times. “Yeah, that’s up by the rock. Check it out. That where you’re headed?”

  “Yep,” Helo said, examining the route. Pretty straightforward. “Got it. Thanks.”

  “Well, be careful out there,” the clerk said, settling in behind the register. “You got all-wheel drive? It’s snowed like eight inches today. Roads are total slush and slide.”

  “I’ll walk it.”

  “What?” The clerk chuckled. “Dude, it’s like five miles in the dark. You don’t have a car?”

  “No,” Helo answered. “Hitched my way here.”

  “Well, hold up a minute. My shift’s done. Just waiting for Marty to show up. I’ll take you over, no problem. I don’t live far from there. I’m Brett, by the way.”

  Brett’s Ford F-150 with a lift kit was definitely better than walking, the roads an unholy mess the plows had just started to clear. They wound up on a four-lane road heading up a hill, Castle Rock a lump somewhere to his right. The snow had trickled down to a flurry, flakes zipping through the headlight beams, but the unplowed roads in the neighborhood of Johnson Drive taxed even Brett’s muscular ride.

  “What’s the address?” Brett asked.

  “Right here,” Helo said as they turned right onto the road. There it was, the house with the partially cleared driveway and the abandoned shovel sticking out of one of the snowbanks. The home was green with brick trim, garage jutting out front, basketball hoop hanging underneath the gable. All the lights were off except for a string of Christmas lights along the roof still beaming into the night.

  “Thanks, Brett,” Helo said after cracking the door. “Take care.”

  “You too, bro.”

  Helo shut the door, and the truck fishtailed into the slushy snow as it pulled away. On the sidewalk, the snow was up to the top of his boots. He tromped to the shadowy driveway and yanked the orange snow shovel out of the low bank. Someone had shoveled a quarter of the driveway when the snow had been about half as deep as it was now.

  The vision said to clear the snow. Didn’t seem like there was much purpose to it, but he got busy. It was the wet kind of snow, heavy and clumpy, perfect for building snowmen. He cleared the driveway—which was all the vision had showed him—then just kept going. It was an old neighborhood, and bumps in the concrete sometimes jarred the shovel. But as an Ash Angel, the work, while repetitive, wasn’t exhausting. He cleared sidewalks. He cleared driveways. He cleared porches. He swiped snow from windshields and car hoods. Dogs yammered at him from inside a few homes, but either no one came to investigate, or, if they did, they were happy with what they saw.

  It wasn’t until he’d almost cleared one side of the entire street that a cop pulled up to the curb and dropped his window. He was an older black man, graying along his temples.

  “You do all these houses?” he said.

  Helo looked back up the street at his handiwork. “Yep.”

  “Damn!” the cop said. “You’re a machine! Had someone call about a suspicious man in the neighborhood. You see anyone . . . well, besides you suspiciously shoveling snow at four thirty in the morning?”

  “Just me,” Helo answered. “I’m probably who they saw. Dogs barked at me at a couple of places.”

  The cop nodded. “Couldn’t sleep? Missus kick you out?”

  “Just paying it forward, you know?” Helo explained.

  “Well, you got some good karma coming your way, that’s for sure. What’s your name?”

  “Jason.”

  “Well, Jason,” the cop said, “you feel like you need a little more to do, come on down to my neighborhood. Nobody shovels nothing over there.”

  Helo leaned on the shovel and smiled. “Will do.”

  “Okay, God bless!”

  The cop car pulled away, struggling through the slush, and Helo got back to work. He had just scooped the last bit off the last driveway on the side he’d been clearing when a snowplow rumbled by and pitched up a nice mountain of snow in front of everyone’s driveway. He hated that. Always had. If they could make cell phones that could contact satellites in space, couldn’t they invent snowplow technology that didn’t trap everyone in their driveway?

  Well, it was something to do.

  He got to work, heading back up the way he came down. Push. Scoop. Throw. It was so packed and heavy in spots he actually had to employ his Strength Bestowal to shove it back. The poor shovel was sturdy but taking a beating. The bottom of the plastic blade had ground down at least a quarter of an inch by the time he returned to the house where he had started. Once he finished clearing the snowplow’s mess, he would find a way to leave the family some money to replace the shovel.

  The morning had broken, lights flicking on and steam puffing from roof vents. He enjoyed the embrace of Rapture again. He reminded himself to get back into the meditation. His daily habit had slipped during all his wandering.

  The dull gray sky offered up no more flakes. He didn’t feel the cold, but the temperature seemed to have dropped, the slushy snow starting to ice over a little. He jammed the shovel into the mound. Scoop and throw. Scoop and throw. Scoop and throw. Almost done.

  The front door opened. From the far side of the driveway, he couldn’t see the people the voices belonged to at first.

  “I left it out here last night,” a boy’s voice said.

  “Did you do all this already?” a woman’s voice asked.

  “I don’t think so,” the boy answered.

  They rounded the corner, and Helo looked up. A woman in her late twenties with long brown hair and a pink knit stocking hat stopped dead in her tracks. The boy, eight or so years old, stood beside her in a blue stocking hat and puffy blue coat that doubled his size. The boy was staring but not at the driveway. At him.

  “Oh!” the woman exclaimed. “You do all this?”

  Helo nodded. “Yeah. Borrowed your shovel. Hope that’s okay.”

  “Sure, sure,” she said. “Um, thanks so much! My husband’s got to go to work soon, and this is a total lifesaver, Mr. Umm . . .”

  “Jason,” he said. “Sorry. I know this is a little weird. Just thought I’d help a few folks out. I’ll finish up and lean the shovel by the garage door, okay?”

  “Yeah, um, sure,” the woman said, looking away and then down at her son.

  The boy reached out and touched her arm. “Don’t worry, Mom. He’s an angel.”

  Helo grinned, but there was awe in the boy’s face, reverence in his tone. Had he sensed something?

  “He certainly is this morning,” she said. “Well, thanks, Jason!”

  “No problem.”

  She turned to go, steering the boy back toward the door.

  “But, Mom,” he said. “He’s an angel! We should feed him breakfast. It’s good luck to have an angel in your house. We’ve got to!”

  “Now, Jeremy . . .”

  Helo chuckled softly to himself and made quick work of the rest of the drift. He walked the shovel back to the garage and leaned it against the side. How much would a new shovel cost? He pulled a twenty out of his wallet—about the last he had—and trapped it against the wall with the shovel handle, hoping it was enough and wouldn’t blow away if a breeze kicked up. The front door opened, and a few moments later the woman stepped around the corner, coat gone and arms folded across her chest.

  “Excuse me, Jason,” she said. “My son is demanding you come have some breakfast. Is that all right?”

  “I don’t want to be any trouble,” he said.

  She sighed, finally looking him in the eye. �
�Well, I think Jeremy will be the trouble if you don’t eat a couple pancakes. I’m Lacey, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you, Lacey.”

  “Well, come on in. House is a bit of a mess, so . . .”

  He followed her down the walk and into the house. A small landing littered with shoes left little room to stand. She kicked some aside.

  “I’ll take your coat,” she said. “Just leave your boots . . . around here . . . somewhere.”

  He shed the coat. He wore a formfitting T-shirt the Old Masters had given him. He reminded himself to start breathing as she took the jacket. “So, looks like you’re in good shape.” She blushed. “Um, my husband’s name is Torey. You can meet him when he comes down. Kitchen’s down the hall.”

  “Thanks a bunch,” he said. “This is really nice of you.”

  She took the coat into a separate room, an office, and walked past a Christmas tree and toward the kitchen while he worked his boots off. The smell of syrup and bacon led him down the hall to the kitchen where Lacey had just poured some batter on a hot griddle. Syrup steamed in a pot nearby, and, most importantly, the bacon awaited on a platter with a napkin soaking up the grease.

  “Dining room’s through that door,” she said. “I’ll bring you a plate in a minute.”

  Helo crossed the white linoleum floor to find the small carpeted dining room where Jeremy sat wolfing down a stack of three pancakes. Some balloons hung from a chandelier, and a Happy Birthday banner spanned the window.

  “Hey!” Jeremy said through a muffled mouthful.

  “Hey,” Helo answered, taking a seat at the head of the table. “Your birthday?”