God's Eye

by Scudiere, A. J.

CHAPTER 21

  Katharine closed the door behind her as she entered her office.

  Looking as innocent as she thought he could, Allistair sat on the edge of her desk, holding a cup of coffee cradled in his hands as though he enjoyed the heat. “Good morning.”

  “Not so good. My apartment was ransacked.”

  He appeared surprised by that, but this was the second time she had seen the same reaction, and by her math only one of the men could be genuine. He looked her in the eye and asked, “Do you know who did it?”

  “I have a feeling.” She stared back and waited.

  For what, she didn’t know.

  Maybe she was waiting for the wash of feelings that invaded her when she was in Zachary’s space, maybe for the yearning she felt for Allistair. But she only felt what she had been feeling all morning: the urge to confront him. The feeling that she needed to confront him. The feeling that she wasn’t afraid of him.

  A small knot inside her wanted to go into his arms and find the safety and comfort she had always felt there. Her brain told her in no uncertain terms that it was a false feeling. But even that strong warning didn’t stop her from wanting it.

  Allistair didn’t say anything else. And a part of her appreciated that he didn’t play it off as though he knew nothing about it. The concern stayed in his eyes, though. A very nice trick if it were indeed his work in her condo last night.

  So she stood there with her back to the door and waited for him to get mad, to confess, to tell her something to piss her off.

  When he spoke next it was so far from what she expected that it startled her. “How can I help?”

  Katharine grasped for a response to that. “Tell me what you are.”

  “I’m not like you.”

  “I knew that!” She practically spat it. He hadn’t given her what she wanted. He never did. “What about Zachary?”

  “He’s more like me than like you.” Allistair shook his head as though he were as frustrated as she was. “It’s all I’ll say. Ask for something else.”

  “Then tell me about Mary Wayne.”

  He sipped the coffee, looking more human than he had a right to. “What do you want to know?”

  “You said she agreed to what happened to her. How?”

  With an open hand, he motioned her to sit down at her desk and pulled his own chair up to sit across from her before he spoke again. “She made a deal.”

  Katharine was glad she was sitting. The idea was so preposterous that her knees would have given out. Her words gushed out before she could think about them. “No one makes that kind of deal.”

  “We all do.” He set the coffee mug on the edge of her desk and leaned back in his chair, gesturing as though it were his natural state. “We create reactions in the world around us. We agree to things that have ramifications, even if we don’t see those repercussions when we agree. Think about the impact you’ve had just by recommending or withholding stocks.”

  Her whole body turned to jelly. It was as if he knew that her TV had gotten stuck. As if he knew she had figured out what happened with WeldLink and the firing pins. But then again, maybe both men already knew everything.

  He leaned forward. “She tried to break her deal, Katharine. So be careful what deals you wind up making. Be certain before you make them.”

  “Why me?” It was the question she had been wanting to ask someone for so long. And now she finally could. But as soon as it was out of her mouth she wanted to swallow it back.

  “Mary led us here, to you.”

  Her heart iced at the thought, and her next word was barely a whisper. “How?”

  He shook his head, sadness shuttering his previously open expression. “I will do what I can to help you. I need you with me. But there are many things I can’t tell you, Katharine.”

  Anger, righteous and strong, erupted through her. They could write on her mirrors, scare the crap out of her, ransack her condo, and hurt other people, but he couldn’t tell her what she wanted to know, what she needed to know? “Why not!”

  It was so loud that she was sure Lisa must have heard her from out in the hall. Allistair, too, looked toward the hall, worried. With a glance at her, he opened the door and peered down the hallway, then stepped back, leaving the door open as though everything was business as usual.

  “We’ve all made deals, Katharine, and I am bound by mine.”

  • • •

  Katharine called Margot before she showed up at the library, right before her friend’s shift ended. Because she was on day hours, Margot didn’t have much to do. But Katharine followed her around and, while they were within earshot of the other employees, made Margot tell about her day.

  “Liam called.”

  “Liam?”

  There was something shy in Margot’s smile that wasn’t usually there. Katharine caught on before her friend spoke. “The guy I gave my card to the other day. He asked me out … just for coffee!”

  As if that was a bad thing. “It’s a fantastic place to start.”

  “Yeah, he suggested maybe the coffee date could go on for a long time, so he picked a place in a mall with restaurants and a theater right there. I’m trying not to read too much into it.” After she said good-bye to the other employees she turned to Katharine. “Oh, I made those other photocopies we wanted.”

  The protection spell. They had been too upset the night before. “Thank you. Do we have the stuff to make it tonight?”

  Katharine tried to keep her words ambiguous as Margot was briefly introducing her to some of the other staff coming in for the evening as the two women made their way out of the building.

  “No, but we can get it. I’m anxious to make a double batch after last night.” She pushed her button to unlock the car. “Come with me. We can go out and get the stuff.”

  Margot kept talking as Katharine slid into the passenger seat. “I found a place to buy all the herbs and everything we need. Since it’s experimental, I say we get enough for three batches. In case we mess something up. We need to get you protected, but if there’s any left over, I’d like to do one for me, too. Especially after last night.”

  “Absolutely. You need it. I can’t believe it came to your house.” She held her thoughts back. There was so much to say. Instead, she moved the conversation back to something she could manage. “Where’s this place? What is it?”

  “It’s a store for magic practitioners and witches and pagans.”

  Katharine didn’t even ask how she’d found it. Margot could find anything. “When’s this date with Liam?”

  She watched as her friend actually blushed. Amazing.

  “Friday after work. But I told him that I had a friend who was in a bad place and if I canceled last minute or even no-showed on him, he shouldn’t take it personally … he said it was good I was being such a good friend.”

  Katharine sobered. Liam didn’t know the half of it. “He’s beyond right.”

  There was a pause in the conversation, and with a breath, Katharine dove in. “My apartment was ransacked last night.”

  “What!”

  “Yeah, nothing broken. It didn’t look like they were looking for anything.” She shrugged and told her how Zachary had come by that morning and offered her the chance to stay with him.

  Katharine had decided to clean it up and stay at her own condo, but Margot wouldn’t hear of it.

  “Margot! In the one night I stayed at your place, we got visited by something. I can’t stay with you. This stuff is just following me wherever I go. But thank you for offering.” After that, she deliberately changed tacks. “So there’s one demon and one angel after me? Right?”

  “That’s what everything would lead us to believe.”

  She relayed everything she’d asked Allistair that day before he’d clammed up.

  Margot finally made a left turn they’d waited through three lights for, then spoke. “It’s all about making deals? Do they want you to make a deal? Like some weird devil-went-down-to-Georgia k
ind of thing?”

  Bless her, Margot could make her laugh even in the middle of a terrible conversation. “It seems that way. But which one of them do I make the deal with? Allistair said he needed me with him.”

  “But if they’ve both already made deals, then they each need you for something. You’re clearly a part of it.” Margot frowned. “I’ll feel a lot better when this protection spell is on you.”

  “On us,” Katharine clarified.

  They finally parked and entered the store. It was painted purple both inside and out, and it carried everything listed in the spell Margot had decided on. Katharine paid for all the materials and Margot insisted they do the spell at her apartment.

  “I picked this one because it seemed hard to screw up. And it says to do it at a safe location. I think that means my un-ransacked apartment right now.”

  They picked up Katharine’s car and then stopped for huge slices of pizza, each of them eating in the car as they made their way up the hill to Margot’s. In twenty minutes they had all the materials laid out and were ready to start.

  Flipping through the pages she had stapled, Margot read the whole thing through again just to be sure, and then they began. Katharine felt silly at first, sprinkling salt and saying chants, but Margot kept a straight face. However, it only took a moment before it started to feel like something right, something she needed to be doing.

  It was fine until she put her finger in the salted water and began to stir.

  “Counter-clockwise!” Margot reprimanded her.

  “Does it matter?” Katharine moved her finger the other direction, against the tiny current she had made in the water.

  “I don’t want to find out” was all her friend would say.

  At the end of the ritual Katharine was to blow out the big candle on the table, and she gathered a breath to do so.

  Right on cue, the flame went out, and that was it.

  “I don’t feel anything, Margot.”

  “Everything I’ve read about pagan magic says you won’t. You just sit back and have faith and wait for the changes you have wrought.” She snapped on the light and began clearing the materials out of the way. Just as easily, she laid out a brand-new setup of salt and candle and settled herself behind the table in the spot Katharine had just vacated.

  Twenty minutes later they had completed the whole thing again and wished each other a good night and sound sleep with no incidents.

  The drive home afforded little traffic, and Katharine made it in quick time. As she parked the car in her spot behind the building, she noticed how serene she felt and thought about what Margot had said about rituals. That partly they worked because people had been doing the same rituals for eons, that others had put energy behind the spell that Katharine and Margot would tap into and add to.

  In her own hallway, she latched onto that feeling of serenity and prayed it wasn’t false, prayed that the protection spell had worked.

  Margot had said the rituals had to be repeated or they wore off. That would mean it was at its strongest now, right?

  She passed her own door and knocked on Zachary’s.

  He answered immediately. “I have been waiting for you.”

  Stepping aside, he motioned her in. The gray stains were still on the carpet and she wondered how she had ignored them. She saw them now for what they were–soot stains from his comings and goings, and not well cleaned. It was clearer now. So was her resolve. “Talk to me.”

  “Of course.”

  They stood in the center of the sparsely furnished room. “Tell me about Mary Wayne.”

  Something flickered in his eyes. “She didn’t listen, Katie. I tried to, but I couldn’t stop her. She got herself into trouble I couldn’t save her from.”

  It was virtually the same thing Allistair had told her. Trust came over her in a wave, as it always did when she was with him. But this time it passed right through her. It didn’t root, she didn’t feel it; she simply knew it had been there.

  “Tell me about me.”

  He shrugged. “We each need you. But he can’t give you what I can give you.”

  Her serenity fled, replaced with a simmering curiosity laced with just a hint of dread. “And what is that? That you can give me?”

  He held his hand out to her, and though she waited for it to transform into something with sharpened claws, it didn’t. It and he stayed entirely human-looking.

  It took a moment for her to reach her hand out to him. She did as Margot said and put faith in the spell they had cast, believed that it would work, and she wondered if he knew she had done it.

  His fingers laced through hers, bringing her palm into warm contact with his.

  His voice ran like thick honey over her. “Close your eyes and watch.”

  Behind her eyelids, a world opened up. Something he was showing her, she knew. Light was everywhere, food was plentiful, and a sense of deep satisfaction told her that her wants would always be met. But there were faint shadows in the background. Katharine tried to focus on them, though they resisted, flitting just beyond her vision. With effort, she sharpened her gaze and saw that there were people beyond what she was seeing. They were hungry and cold and sometimes went without.

  Her head shook back and forth a little as she tried to make sense of it. Though she didn’t speak and neither did he, Zachary answered her question.

  In her mind, she simply knew. These were the people who had not accepted. They had not sided with Zachary and his brethren, and so they did not live the gifted life he showed her.

  At last she opened her eyes. “What is it?”

  “It is the Kingdom.”

  Without another word she left, wandering back to her own apartment, still in awe of what she had seen. When she opened her door, she found that nothing was out of place. Though she had only straightened a little of the mess, her home now looked as if this morning had never happened.

  After getting ready to go to sleep, she lay down in her perfectly made bed and let her eyes drift shut.

  When she dreamed, she dreamed of the Kingdom.

  • • •

  Once again, Katharine found herself rushing to find Margot. She knew her friend would help her sort these things out. Her friend would keep her sane. Her friend was … her friend, and that was enough.

  She pulled Margot from the library on yet another impromptu break. Katharine was glad she had a trust fund, as both women were likely to lose their earthly jobs over this one. She startled Margot by telling her right off that she had sent a document to her lawyer saying that a large amount would go to Margot should she die. She laughed a little when she related how she had started the missive with I, Katharine Geryon, being of sound mind and body. “You’re the only one who can contradict that, Margot. So if anything happens to me, you have to keep your mouth shut so I can make up for the fact that you lost your job because of all this.”

  Margot finally opened her mouth in amazement and laughed. “You really shouldn’t do that Katharine, I’m not going to lose my job. They love me.”

  “Well, of course they do, and thank God for that.” Katharine leaned back in the chair. They were at the coffee shop closest to the library, and her drink wasn’t very good, but she couldn’t tell if that was because it was actually bad or because she was still shaking from her conversation with Allistair that morning.

  Margot knew enough not to ask while they were inside and surrounded by other patrons, but now that they were outside at the patio table, she leaned in. “What has you so shaken up that you’re changing your will?”

  She blurted everything she could about what Zachary had shown her, about the Kingdom and all that came with it. “I told Allistair, and he said he couldn’t show me anything other than earth.”

  Margot looked thoughtful at that, but Katharine barreled on with the rest of it.

  “He then asked me what I knew of myself. If I knew what it meant to be a Geryon.” She was flustered just in the retelling. “I don’t know what he me
ans.”

  “That is an odd thing to say.” She frowned and started rooting in her purse. “I want to go back to the branch and all my great access, but I worry what everyone will say if I bring you in yet again.” She pulled out her phone. “This is a little slow, but I’ve done a bit of research with it before. We’ll just see what it gives us.”

  Katharine nodded while Margot pushed a few buttons, presumably typing in something about her name. “What about their names? Does it mean anything that Zachary is ‘Zachary’? Isn’t Zachary biblical? Zachariah? God, I wish I’d paid more attention in church.”

  She took a sip of her drink to calm herself, but didn’t remember until she tasted it that she didn’t like it. At least the bitterness distracted her.

  Margot was looking at the little screen on her phone and shaking her head. “I don’t think your Zachary is the biblical Zachary. That wouldn’t make any sense. Not that any of this makes a lot of sense.”

  “Yeah, I don’t really think so either. I don’t know where the name Allistair comes from, but … I probably shouldn’t rely on that. I didn’t even think of it until he asked about my name.” She shrugged.

  Margot looked up. “’Katharine’ was easy. It popped right up. But ‘Geryon’ … well, you should look.”

  Warily, she took the phone her friend was offering. On the tiny screen was a standard picture of a devil. She looked back up at Margot. “The demon Geryon? Is he saying I’m part demon?”

  “Who knows? But that’s kind of interesting that you’ve had this last name all your life and never knew it was a demon name.” Margot tucked the phone back in her purse. “And it’s the first thing that pops up on the search engines.”

  “What did ‘Katharine’ mean? I never looked it up myself. I guess I was never curious.” She mistakenly sipped the drink again before leaning over and throwing the almost-full cup into a nearby trash can.

  “It means ‘pure.’”

  Katharine jerked back. “Like I’m pure demon? That just can’t be right.”

  “No, it means pure as in good. Taken together as your name, it’s contradictory, that’s for sure.” Margot stood and hiked her purse up on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I have to get back to work, but we’ll talk tonight.”