by J. R. Mabry
“My khan,” the magickian said. “I present to you…I’m sorry, I neglected to ask your name.”
“Kat.”
“That’s it? Just Kat?”
“Oh all right. Kat Webber.”
“May I present to you Kat Webber, who desires an audience with your highness.” He whispered, “Curtsy.”
Kat spread her cassock out and fumbled a one-footed bow. She knew it was pathetic, but the magickian seemed satisfied. He turned and walked toward a wall, where he seemed to disappear once again into shadow.
Ong Khan Toghrul turned to her and fixed her with fierce, cold eyes. When he spoke, his voice was that of a man who was used to being obeyed. “You may not see it. You may not touch it,” he said, in heavily accented English. “You may not hold it. You may not steal it.”
“Steal? What are you even talking about? Steal what?”
“The Graal.”
Kat was taken aback. She had expected a polite if condescending, “Well, hello little girl, and what’s your name?” which would have been irritating in its own right but a considerable cut above this opening volley. “What’s a grale?” she asked.
“The Graal, the Graal!” he repeated testily. “The Holy Graal—pretend not that you are simple, woman, for it does not become you.”
“Holy Grail? Like the Monty Python movie?” She was confused. She decided to roll with it and shrugged. “You know, I never clued in to what the big deal was about all that. I don’t understand why saying ‘ni’ makes people giggle.”
Prester John scowled at her, his fierce black eyebrows meeting and meshing in the center of his forehead. “Do you speak a riddle?”
“Nope. No riddles here.” Kat fidgeted and pursed her lips, thinking to herself, This is not off to a good start.
“Your speech is coarse,” the man pronounced, looking down on her. “Your attire is unbefitting—”
“What the hell is wrong with my attire?” Kat raised her voice.
“And your ends are obscure,” he finished.
Kat cocked her head. “Come again? My ends are fine.” She really had no idea what she meant by that, but since she was equally clueless what he had meant by it, she figured they were even.
But her response seemed to confuse the man. “You come from a rude country, and you know not how to comport yourself in the presence of royalty.”
It was Kat’s turn to furrow her brow. What would Susan do? she asked herself. And then she knew. “I know how to fucking comport myself just fine,” she said. “And in the ‘rude country’ where I come from, guests are made to feel welcome. Where I come from, people are treated royally when they act royally. In the ‘rude place’ where I come from, women are given the same respect as rude men. In the ‘rude place’ where I live, people usually know a friend when they see one.” She turned on her heel. “And you’re an asshole,” she said and strode toward the door she had just come through.
“Whither do you go?”
“Back to my rude fucking country.” She waved her middle finger behind her and slammed the big aqua door with a booming thud that reverberated throughout the massive stone hall.
75
RICHARD GUNNED the engine whenever a straight patch of road appeared before him. He’d learned to slow down along the curves after Sarah’s Geo nearly fishtailed into a stump, but his heart was still pounding and his adrenaline was still running high.
Tobias mostly kept to the wheel wells, apparently conscious of his center of gravity, and not keen to go careening to the floorboards. The thought flashed briefly through Richard’s brain that this was the angel’s caution, not Toby’s, since the old Toby would be firmly in shotgun position with his tongue flapping in the breeze.
At last, Richard seemed to come to a major street, and he was able to really open it up. He felt himself relax as he was finally able to put some distance between himself and his captors.
He was just beginning to notice things again—like sunshine, beauty, trees, and wind—when a high-pitched whine intruded. Glancing in his rear-view mirror, he saw the flashing lights of a county sheriff blazing away, and all for him.
“Oh, freaking Christ-at-the-nipple!” he swore, resisting the urge to sink into sobs of despair. “Can you do something?” he asked Duunel.
What? You want me to throw him into the trees? Duunel responded.
“I don’t know. I just want to get away,” Richard said. “Can you scare him somehow?” But Duunel didn’t reply. “Duunel! Duunel!!!” But the demon had apparently checked out. “Oh great,” Richard said to himself out loud. “Abandoned. Again.” He looked at Tobias. “What did I expect?”
A rap at the window made him jump. He rolled it down and attempted a smile. He failed. “What can I do for you, officer?”
“License and registration, please,” the officer said. He wasn’t wearing sunglasses, as Richard always expected cops to, but he was tall and portly. He had sandy hair and spotty red skin that still looked irritated from this morning’s scrape with the razor.
Richard breathed a deep breath to steady himself as he fished for his wallet. Then he leaned over and opened the glove box. He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not, but there was the registration, where normal, sane, non-parent-murdering folks also kept it.
He handed both to the officer, who took a couple of paces back to examine them. He stepped to the window again. “This is not your car, Mr. …Kinney?”
“No,” he said simply. What else could he say? Several scenarios raced through his brain, but the truth seemed like the path of least complication. Who knows, he might even help to catch a pair of serial-killing siblings.
“Do you have Miss Ecbatana’s permission to be driving her car?” the officer asked.
“No, I don’t,” Richard said.
“Can you explain that?” the officer asked, looking sideways at him.
“Yes. I met Sarah at the truck stop, and she invited me to stay the night. When I got to her house, she showed me the corpses of her parents, which are posed in an upright position in her living room.” He struggled to keep his voice tight, controlled, matter-of-fact. “There are eight other corpses in the barn. I believe that she and her little brother killed all of them. I was going to be the ninth, but I escaped. If you will allow me to open the door, I will show you the wound on my ankle from the shackle they used to restrain me. I escaped, and I stole Sarah’s car.”
The sheriff tapped Richard’s driver’s license a few times with his fingernails. “That’s quite a story, mister,” he said. “Can you prove any of that?”
“I mentioned the leg wound,” Richard said. “It’s hard to see how it could be caused by anything else.”
“All right, open the door slowly, keep your hands where I can see them, and swing your legs to the pavement. Do it now,” the officer said, drawing his weapon. Richard heard the click of the safety, and told himself to be calm, that the officer was just acting defensively.
Richard opened the door slowly, kept his hands up, and swung his feet out. Sitting sideways on the seat, he stuck his legs out in the air and slowly hiked up his cassock, revealing his ankles. His left ankle was purple, swollen, and crusty with yellow pus. The officer’s face puckered with distaste.
“All right, you’ve proved your point. Stay there while I run your license,” he said, and walked back to his car. Looking over his shoulder, Richard saw the sheriff speaking into a microphone and reading from his driver’s license. He sighed. “Lord, you haven’t let me down yet,” he prayed. “Help me now.”
Fuck the Lord, Duunel’s voice said in his ear. Here’s the plan. I talk, you parrot. Got it?
“Why should I trust you?” Richard said with mixed anger and desperation. “You keep skipping out on me—unlike the Lord.”
Yes, but also unlike the Lord, I have actual, practical help, Duunel argued. Just do what I say.
“Where have you been?” Richard asked, not at all sure about Duunel’s “plan.”
Doing reconnaiss
ance, Duunel answered. Knowledge is power, and believe me, we have a lot of power in this situation.
“Like what?” Richard wanted to know.
You’ll just have to trust me. Say what I say.
“What if he doesn’t like what I say?” Richard asked.
The way I see it, once we do this, one of two things will happen. If your badged friend over there has a conscience—always a liability, in my opinion—you’ll soon be on your way.
“And if he doesn’t have a conscience?” Richard wanted to know.
He’ll probably kill you and stuff your body into his trunk.
“And I’m supposed to like this plan?” Richard asked, fighting back the hysteria. “I’m not going to do this.”
I don’t think you have a choice, Duunel said. Let me tell you what’s going to happen if you don’t listen to me. He’s going to ask you to get out of the car and cuff you. Then he’s going to put you in the back of his car. Then you’re going to sit here until animal control arrives.
“Animal control?” Richard asked, eyes widening.
For Lassie here, Duunel said flatly. What, did you think you’d share a cell? Are they gonna print him, take a mug shot? No, they’re going to put him in the pound, and when no one comes for him in forty-eight hours, they’re going to put a needle in his paw and put him down.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Richard said, not wanting to believe it.
Open your eyes, asshole. This is the Central Valley, where animal husbandry does not have sexual connotations. This place makes Tennessee look cultured. Here they don’t see dogs as little furry people that go to spas and visit animal-intuitive therapists. Here they just chain ’em out back and put ’em down when they become a problem.
“Excuse me, Mr. Kinney. To whom are you talking?” The sheriff was at his door again.
“Sorry, officer. To my dog.” Richard indicated Tobias, still lying low in the backseat footwell.
“Is that your dog?” the officer asked skeptically.
Richard sighed and lowered his head. “No. It’s my best friend’s dog.”
“Stolen vehicle. Stolen dog. And an outstanding 5150 warrant in Berkeley. Mr. Kinney, I’m going to have to ask you to step outside your vehicle and put your hands behind your back.” He clicked the little microphone hanging over his shoulder. “Dispatch, this is Unit 3, I’m going to need Animal Control at my GPS coordinates ASAP.”
Richard was shaking. He had not moved despite the officer’s command.
Say exactly what I say, Duunel ordered, and he began speaking Richard’s “lines.”
Richard obeyed. “Uh, Officer…”
Be confident, Duunel demanded.
“Get out of the car now, Mr. Kinney. Please don’t make it worse for yourself.”
“Officer, I want you to listen to me carefully. I’m investigating a serial murderer,” Richard was repeating Duunel’s words. “I know about Emily. I know where she is. Everyone in my organization knows.”
Richard saw shock and non-comprehension register on the sheriff’s blotchy red face. A rapid succession of emotions then passed over it: fear, anger, then resignation. He was obviously playing out the scenarios in his own head.
“We’re not interested in your peccadilloes,” Richard continued, repeating Duunel’s words. “We’re interested only in the Ecbatanas, and the larger web of terrorists that they inform. We don’t want trouble. We don’t need to drag your…indiscretions into this. But if you stop me now…my people won’t have any choice.”
“Who…who are your people?” the officer said, suspiciously.
“You don’t need to know that. Just believe me when I say that we have much, much bigger fish to fry than you and your little…mistake.”
The sheriff’s hands dropped to his sides, and he stood with his head down. Was it shame? Richard couldn’t be sure.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” Richard said. “You’re going to tell me to drive on. Then you’re going to assemble a team to raid the Ecbatana Ranch. Most of the bodies are in the barn.”
“I thought you were interested in catching them yourself? I mean, your people,” the sheriff said warily.
“We don’t care who gets credit, and this will send a good message to the folks higher up, the ones we’re really interested in.” Richard smiled. “This is a big catch, Sheriff. But we don’t mind you taking the credit for it. We have other priorities.”
The sheriff nodded. He punched the button on his radio. “C1, C1, cancel that. Nothing to report here.”
The sheriff just stood looking at the car. Richard shut the door and rolled down the window. “You do your part, and we’ll bury the whole Emily thing. I promise,” Richard said. “After all, everyone makes a bad call now and then. Doesn’t have to ruin a man’s life. Does it?”
The sheriff shook his head no.
“God bless, Sheriff. Careful of that Gabe—he’s slow, but he’s mean.”
The sheriff nodded. Richard started the car and took off down the road once more. As they drove away, Richard said, “Do I want to know?”
Duunel replied, If you knew, you’d have to do something about it.
“That’s true,” Richard conceded.
Because you’re an idiot, Duunel said. And you have a conscience.
“I think I peed myself,” Richard noted.
76
TERRY GOT off the bus at Cedar Street and began to walk up the hill toward the friary. He was still elated from the success at Bishop Preston’s office—but in the hours since, his mood had been tempered by sadness as he completed two pastoral visits. His first stop had been Children’s Hospital in Oakland, just a short walk from the MacArthur BART station, where the child of one of the parishioners at Trinity North Church was undergoing chemotherapy. Terry had joked and clowned with the child, but she tired quickly. He had laid a hand on her and asked Jesus to heal her and protect her. There had been tears in his eyes when he left.
After that he had taken the bus north to El Cerrito, where he got off near a Safeway to pick up a few cans of soup, then walked several blocks to the house of a parishioner suffering from a raging head cold. He delivered the groceries—as the church secretary had asked him to—offered his sympathy after asking how the man was doing, but declined an offer to enter.
As he walked back to the bus stop he wrestled with his feelings of guilt over that. He knew that putting himself in the way of plague was a time-honored tradition among the clergy, and ordinarily he was not loath to do it. Indeed, ordinary visiting pastors put themselves in danger every day, every bit as much as the Blackfriars did. But, Terry reasoned, when the fate of the world was hanging in the balance, it was imprudent to take a risk with something as seemingly insignificant but potentially disastrous as a virus. He needed to be healthy, he argued. He felt depressed, and he knew that this day, at least, he had missed the mark as a pastor.
Finally, he stopped at Alta Bates to check in on Charlie. His vital signs were fine, but the tubes coming out of his mouth told a different story. Terry watched his chest rise and fall in a peaceful, regular pattern and comforted himself with the thought that Charlie was in no pain. He was, in fact…The word “happy” sprang to his mind, but he pushed it away as it wasn’t right. “Content,” he said out loud. That was it. Charlie was at home, and he was content. Terry shuddered.
During the bus ride home he sank deeper into a funk, and by the time he arrived, he was feeling sorry for himself and desperately craving a cookie. As he stepped into the foyer, he saw Kat sitting in the next room. She seemed to be at prayer, so he quietly hung up his jacket and fixed his look in the mirror. He moved his head from side to side, tweaked the little upturned brush stroke of his hair in front, then looked at himself in profile before announcing in a satisfied whisper, “I’d fuck you.”
This bit of self-affirmation buoyed his spirits, and he tiptoed past Kat into the kitchen, where he promptly tripped over Dylan, sprawled like a beached manatee in the middle of the kitc
hen floor. Terry swore under his breath but collected himself quickly and knelt by his friend, a panic quickly rising in him. He felt under Dylan’s jaw for a pulse—it was there, and strong. Terry let out a large, audible sigh of relief.
Dylan’s head was to the side, and a pool of spittle had begun to collect on the floor. Terry opened Dylan’s mouth to check his tongue, to make sure he hadn’t been choking on anything. His mouth was clear. His breathing seemed to be fine.
Terry sat back on his heels and wondered at the scene. As far as he could tell, Dylan had decided to take a nap in the kitchen. But since that was highly unlikely—Dylan had never, to his knowledge, napped in the kitchen before—he wracked his brain for other explanations. Could Dylan have fainted? Could he have had a stroke?
He was still pondering this when he heard the front door open. He heard the distant voices of his husband, of Susan and Mikael, but they were not buoyant. They also hushed quickly when, he guessed, one of them had noticed Kat. Terry jumped up and went to the doorway. Catching Brian’s eye, he motioned them to the kitchen.
All three rushed to join him. Wordlessly, he stopped them at the threshold and pointed at Dylan. Susan emitted a brief shriek of alarm and dropped to his side. Like Terry, she checked his pulse and his breathing.
“He seems fine,” Terry said in a near whisper.
“He’s not fine; he’s unconscious,” Susan retorted.
“I mean he’s alive,” Terry corrected.
Brian surveyed the room. “He was drinking coffee,” he said, pointing out a shattered cup under the bench of the long dining table. Splashes of gooey brown liquid marred the linoleum in several places.
Susan looked up at Brian and met his eyes. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked.
“That this is another allergic reaction?” he said. “Yeah. Are we going to have Dylan dropping like a sack of root vegetables every time we have a meal?”
