“Well young Jamison as they say no man is an island. Even you have found a pack of dogs to run with,” the man said with a grin and a glance at the gunslinger.
“I need you it seems,” he said turning back to Cort.
“You will be my first you see. My employees, my outriders, my minions. You will ride down all of the souls that you need and drink your fill. The rest you will bring to me,” the stranger said, his voice growing steadily louder and his eyes wilder as he went on.
“And all the while you will be separating the wheat from the chaff. You will find me souls like yourselves. Those with a pension for violence and not afraid to do what it takes to survive in this world. Soon enough, my Lieutenant, you will be leading an army.”
Then without warning the stranger leapt to his feet. To a man the riders followed suit, hands reaching for their guns. Jerry was now the only one left sitting at the table. He looked around bewildered not sure what he should do or what was about to happen. If the stranger even noticed that the room was on the verge of violence he didn’t show it. Instead, his mask-like face spread into a wide grin as he lifted his bloody shot for a toast.
“Gentleman, drink with me now. Together we will spread across this land, and not a single soul will escape us,” his violet eyes now holding a far-off look and then added quietly.
“We’ll deny those bastards the very souls on which they thrive.”
With that, he tipped back his glass and drank the thick, sticky liquor in a single gulp. The riders looked around the table at one another, but then their eyes settled on Cort. After what seemed like a very long pause the Lieutenant lifted his own glass. He drank it slowly with the obvious reluctance that all of them felt. The rest of the riders followed his lead downing their drinks. Even Father Callahan drank from his seat on the floor, but it was with a mechanical motion. To Jerry, the man looked broken, somehow lesser than he had but a moment before. The stranger held his now empty drink in front of him and peered down into the red tinted glass.
“A shame, a bit heavy on the whiskey for my taste,” he said with a grin, his normally pristine teeth now showing a blood red tinge.
The riders looked on in a collective silence. Each man wondering if they had made the right decision, each wondering what this monster was that they had just pledged themselves. To Jerry’s surprise, he was the one that broke the silence.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
The stranger turned to look at Jerry in surprise.
“What?” it asked.
“Your name. What do we call you?” Jerry asked again.
The riders all turned looking back and forth between Jerry and the stranger. The man’s smile disappeared now and a look of surprise mingled with confusion replaced. His eyes went wide and for a moment drifted up towards the ceiling. He let out a long breath and then a moment later sucked it back in as his eyes snapped back to meet Jerry’s.
“It’s funny really. When did I come into being? How long have I walked this plain? These are things that even I can’t say for certain, but from my first breathe I have planned and plotted my rise,” he said looking around the table at each of the riders in turn. Then the stranger laughed quietly to himself for a moment before he continued.
“But never did I realize that I would need a name, it seems so obvious now. Something for my followers to call me and something for my worshippers to chant,” his grin returned and he added, “something for my enemies to curse.”
“I’m a thing that should not be. Born and destined to rule over a land that should not exist. Yet, here I am, and here we are. So, I shall be the thing that should not be. I shall be what I am; I shall be Paradox!”
“Para…what?” Jamie asked.
“Paradox!” the stranger snapped in reply and Jamie seemed to wither before his gaze.
The room was silent, Jerry like the others were stunned. This thing, the self-appointed Paradox wasn’t just incredibly powerful, but also it seemed, utterly insane. But then if Paradox was truly a creature born from this twisted place how could he be anything else?
“What happens now?” Cort asked.
“Now,” Paradox replied stepping around the table and moving towards the doors of the saloon. “You wait. When the time comes, I will send word.”
“That’s it? We just wait?” Jaime asked sounding confused.
“Yes, wait here! Drink, bitch about your shitty lives, plot how you’re going to try and kill me! I don’t care just wait!” Paradox shouted over his shoulder dismissively.
As Paradox moved towards the door, the riders watched him warily turning to mark his passage as if scared to turn their back to him. All except for Cort, the cavalryman sat down heavily at the table and stared ahead blankly his face an unreadable mask. Their new benefactor pushed through the saloon doors without as much as a look back. On an impulse, Jerry stepped out after him, but Paradox was gone, and the street was empty, he just shook his head somehow not surprised.
Returning to The Rose Jerry found the riders seated back around the table again and he retook his seat. Oliver was the first to speak.
“Well Leftenant, what do you think?”
Cort let out a long breath that to Jerry sounded like defeat.
“I think whatever that thing is, he has us over a barrel,” Cort replied.
“He’s the Devil,” Father Callahan said.
“What’s wrong preacher? Afraid you’ll wind up in hell?” Jamie asked smugly.
“I don’t think Paradox is the Devil,” came Corts reply.
“And why not? Because he said so? Seems scary enough to be and crazy to boot,” Oliver said.
“Why would the Devil want to start a kingdom in the middle of his own Hell?” Cort asked dismissively.
“When he lies, he speaks his native language, because he is a liar and the father of lies,” Father Callahan quoted.
The words of scripture seemed to take the air out of the room for a moment. Jerry had to admit they held a new-found weight for him now also. It was harder to ignore something you knew to be true. Here in hell, the proof was all around them.
“I don’t know what to believe. The only thing I know is that I want a drink,” Cort said and waved Al and his eternal tray over to the table.
In the Court of Lenny Two-Thumbs
The rain fell lightly now, a welcome relief from the day’s nearly constant downpour. It was funny Danny thought; just how little consideration he use to give to the weather. Now it dictated his day, telling him where he would go, it told him what he would do and where he would sleep each night. For example, it was easy enough to wait out a light rain by sticking to the cover of the trees in one of Portland’s many parks and wooded lots. If it was to be a heavy rain that lasted all day or until after dark then a more substantial shelter would be necessary. Danny had learned which abandoned buildings he could get into, which were safe for squatters and which were claimed by gangs. He had learned to live on the street and figured out through trial and error how to survive, where to beg and when he needed, where to steal.
But none of that mattered to Danny at the moment. He knew he was too far along now and that he had gone too long without a fix. If he couldn’t score tonight, he knew that the pounding behind his eyes would only increase. By first light he would be violently ill and nearly delirious, caught in the throes of withdrawal. Danny tried to push the thoughts from his mind as if merely thinking about the pain would summon it. He was forced to panhand for money in the rain, hoping for the generosity of strangers. That wasn’t much of an option now in the fading gloom of a rainy day. So now he crouched in the bushes across the street from a place he knew well and waited.
The Volvo had been parked in the driveway when he arrived. That was odd he thought it seemed much too early for that. Though time was a concept that meant little to Danny now, having traded his watch away months ago. The two-story brick house was mostly dark now, with only a muted light visible in one window that Danny guessed came from the kitchen.
He pictured them together there sitting at the island, eating together in near silence.
As if summoned by Danny’s thoughts the front door suddenly opened and his parent stepped out onto the porch. For a moment each of them was outlined by the light from the hall and Danny froze. The couple walked down the driveway past the Volvo, and for one terrifying second, Danny thought they were going to walk right up to him. Crouched here dirty and hiding in the bushes what would they say? What would they ask him? Was there anything he could say to repair the hurt that he had caused? As his parents approached him a step at a time his nerve wavered and he readied himself to turn and run. But as the older couple reached the street they turned left and began walking down the sidewalk, neither giving the tree line a second glance.
Danny released a breath he didn’t know he had been holding and watched them as they walked away. His father wore his old gray peacoat with his collar turned up against the light rain. His mother produced the small umbrella that she always carried from her purse and held it above them both. His father reached out to hold her other hand, it was a small gesture, but it made Danny smile. His Father had never been an affectionate man, but suddenly Danny was glad that they had each other. He had no doubts that what he had done had put them both through hell and tonight wouldn’t help.
Danny stood from his hiding place, he took a deep breath and walked across the street to his childhood home. He moved briskly trying to look natural, not sure what, if anything, the neighbors had been told. He glanced down the street looking after his parents. They didn’t take the car so they must not have been going far. Perhaps down to Sutter’s Market for a pint of after-dinner ice cream. How many times had they done that as a family he absently wondered? Or perhaps they were headed to a meeting of the Homeowners Association. His father had told him once it was a half hour of business followed by two hours of wine and gossip. Either way, Danny would have all the time he needed.
The teen bound up the front porch the way he had done countless times, but he reached out for the doorknob his hand froze in mid-air. The large brass knob that had been there for as long as he could remember was gone. In its place, a sleek new steel lock greeted him along with a matching deadbolt. For a moment, Donny felt somehow betrayed. But what did he expect after all he had done to them? Without a second thought, he turned and ran around the side of the house, through the unlocked wooden gate and into the backyard.
The backdoor had received a matching lock, but this time Danny was ready for it. He ignored the lock and instead reached up for the top of the door jam. He stretched as far as he could, rocking up onto his tiptoes and rubbing his fingers through the thin layer of muck and dead leaves that had collected there, but the key was gone. Danny took a breath for him the key had confirmed it; this wasn’t really his home anymore. Just then a fresh wave of pain throbbed to life deep behind his eyes as if urging him forward. Danny grimaced at the prospect of a long hellish night of detox. He bent down and pulled up one of the flagstone from the backyard path, and without a second thought, he threw it through the narrow basement window next to the stairs.
The sound of breaking glass shattered the quiet of the young night. Danny stooped down and kicked away the rest of the glass in the frame before dropping to his stomach and sliding into the darkness of the basement. Danny stood and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The family’s washer and dryer sat in one corner as they always had. What was different now was the pile of laundry stacked in front of them. His Mother had always been meticulous in her housework, his Father often joking that her OCD was one of the reasons he married her. Danny cautiously made his way across the dark basement until his toe found the bottom step of the wooden stairs. He climbed the stairs and opened the door into the lit kitchen.
The Kitchen was just as Danny remembered it, with perhaps the addition of the dirty dishes that now filled the sink. Danny moved through the kitchen eager to be out of the space where he and his family had shared so many warm memories. Then a stack of papers left on the counter caught his attention. He gave them just a quick glance and then scooped them up, his heart now beating at a pace to match the throbbing in his head.
It was several pages of official-looking forms; the letter head declaring it a Sunnybrook Detox Center admittance form.
“Fuck that noise!” Danny blurted aloud.
As he shuffled through the rest of the forms in disbelief, a business card slipped from between the sheets and fell to the kitchen floor. Donny bent down and scooped up the card. One side of the white card showed the outline of a chess piece, the black knight. The opposite side read simply:
Mr. Max Harris
Private Investigator & Bodyguard
“Oh, well that’s just great. Go ahead and take your best fucking shot, Max!”
Danny threw the papers and the card along with it into the trashcan and stepped out into the dining room. At first glance the space seemed just as Danny remembered it, then he noticed the china hutch. The family silver from which he had pilfered a few pieces from before was nowhere to be found. In its place, a row of framed family photos now stood. He couldn’t help but notice most of them were of him when he was younger. Annoyed but not overly surprised Danny moved upstairs starting to worry about time, the pounding in his head now thumping back and forth like the pendulum of a tortured clock.
He went into his Father’s office first and found changes there as well. His Father’s laptop was missing from the desk where it usually sat, and fresh locks secured the drawers. Donny opened the closet door and found the family safe where he had left it. On his last visit home, he had tried desperately to try and guess his father’s combination only to find that the electronic lock went dead after his 10th failed attempt. Donny noticed the safe was now freshly bolted down as if he was strong enough to carry the thing away by himself.
As if spurred on by his failures the pounding in his head renewed, increasing in both rhythm and intensity. Danny squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to drown out the pain and then he realized, his own tears. He slumped down to the floor awkwardly, now feeling more frustrated than hurt. His parents couldn’t understand, and they definitely wouldn’t forgive him. They would pack him off and send him away to their hospital the first chance they got. Danny looked around the room again, now sitting on the floor the place seemed much larger. Like it had when he was a child.
The memory came to him then. His Mother had been so angry with him, perhaps the angriest he had seen her up to that point. He had been much younger, little more than a toddler when he had taken away her egg and hidden it. It had seemed a great game at the time, burying pirate treasure while his mother quietly sewed away. She had screamed at him when she saw that it was missing from the mantle. She had grown even madder when he admitted he had forgotten where he had hidden it. His mother had torn the room apart in a desperate search for the egg. Turning over boxes of crafting supplies, searching through every drawer in the small space. All the while Danny had sat on the floor, trapped in the eye of her hurricane, sobbing uncontrollably.
She found it eventually, bundled up in a scrap of red felt and hidden away in the bottom drawer of her old sewing machine stand. Then once she inspected it closely and found it undamaged, she returned it to its place on the mantle. Now with her anger spent she collected him up in her arms and gently hushed him until he stopped crying. Years later Danny would learn the jeweled egg was the last thing that his mother had that was her grandmother’s. It was a copy of one of the famed Faberge eggs, made in the 1920’s by Tiffany’s. Her grandmother had received it as a wedding gift from Danny’s grandfather.
Danny pulled himself up from the floor, and the pounding in his head roared to new heights. The world swam a bit, and he grabbed hold of his Father’s desk to steady himself. For maybe the first-time Danny was glad he felt so terrible, he deserved it he thought, he deserved all of it. On shaking feet, he walked down the hall and found the door to his mother’s sewing room open. At just a glance he could tell t
hat she hadn’t been in the space for a quite some time. Danny stepped through the door and looked at the mantle. The egg was gone, and for a fleeting moment, he was relieved.
Then Danny turned and looked down at the bottom drawer of the old sewing machine. He shook his head willing himself to be wrong, desperately hoping she hadn’t hidden it in there. He dropped to his knees and pulled the small drawer open. Inside wrapped in a bundle of felt he found the precious egg. It was smaller than he remembered it. Perhaps just a bit larger than a goose’s egg. The glass shell was pink and overlaid with delicate gold scrollwork and a scattering of semi-precious stones. The real thing was worth millions, but even this beautiful copy was probably worth several hundred. Of course, Danny knew that to his mother it was priceless.
Downstairs the key hit the lock on the new front door and instantly Danny was on his feet. The door swung open on old hinges, and muffled steps entered the hallway below. Danny stepped back to the door of the sewing room and as quietly as he could he managed to swing the door closed all but just a crack. Even in his short time on the street, his sense of fight or flight had become heightened. His heart pounded in his chest filling his ears with a steady thump and nearly drowning out the sound of light feet climbing the stairs. He tensed ready to bolt the precious egg still wrapped in felt held close to his chest all but forgotten.
Danny’s Mother reached the top of the stairs, and for a fleeting moment, he saw her standing there in the half-light of the hallway. She seemed to have aged so much since the last time he had seen her. The always slim woman now seemed frail, the edges of her eyes held a hollow look. He took a breath, shocked at the difference between his memories and the woman standing just feet away. She turned then and walked down the hall headed for the bedroom. Some part of Danny wasn’t ready to let her go just yet and instinctively he pulled the door open another few inches so he could watch her go. The door made no sound, but somehow, she seemed to sense it, and his Mother stopped suddenly. Danny took a quick breath and for a moment the two of them stood there frozen in time. Then a shout from down stairs broke the spell.
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