“AKA Mr. Gamble,” Chris offered, breaking his shame-induced silence. “Satan plagiarized.”
Juanita gasped. “The one who was shaped from a ball of clay? That is him?”
“Close enough for Government work,” Chris said, moving up the aisle.
Another figure now, approaching from their left. Low in the sky, it soared majestically toward them.
“Well, looks like we won’t need to go to Seattle, after all,” Rachel said, staring at the winged entity. “It’s come to us.”
“It’s the priest,” Kathy confirmed.
Alighting upon the road, his appendages folding crisply behind him, the priest made his short way to Gamble’s side. A winged emissary, steadfast and true; shirtless, wearing only khakis and white sneakers. And a smile that said he was now curator of this shop; eyes that relayed a confidence just a breath below the certitude spangling in Gamble’s own.
The prodigal son, Duncan thought.
As Gamble approached, Tyler rolled down his window.
“Mr. Kaddison,” Gamble began, peering in, “I ask for a grape, and you bring me the vineyard.” He winked at Juanita. “Migrant workers included! Now, in light of your generosity, I’m almost inclined to become a man of my word. But then, that would make me one of the good guys, wouldn’t it?”
Thrusting a finger at Gamble, Chris said, “We had a deal, you asshole!”
Gamble clucked. “If I had a day for every time some poor schmuck said that to me, I’d be ten years past Tuesday.”
“Alright,” Duncan said. “You want me, you got me. Just let everyone else go.”
Feigning surprise, Gamble placed a hand over his heart. “Why, Donut! And to think I was recently informed that chivalry was dead.” He waved a finger. “But first things first,” he said, rolling his eyes to Kathy. “You have something of mine, you little winch. And since I’m under the incontrovertible impression that you’re not going to hand yourself over, I suppose I’m going to have to get creative, eh? Smoke you out, as they say?”
Kathy remained seated. Accosted again by a voice not her own, she said simply, “You can’t have her.”
“We’ll see,” Gamble said, then turned to the priest. “Fetch me the package, will you, Father?”
As if suffused by a sudden gust of wind, the priest’s leather sails billowed outward. “Right away,” he said, then took to the air.
6.
The first worm wriggled from the soil and stretched its glistening, vermicular body across the mound. In quick peristaltic movements, it disgorged a viscous substance. With serrated mandibles it began shaping the matter the way a bee fashions wax. Another worm wriggled beside the first and affixed its own pulpy retch to the tiny segment.
Then a third arrived.
A fourth.
Within minutes, a multitude of worms squirmed upon the surface, each one focusing on a particular area, adding vomitus to a puzzle as yet unrecognizable.
Upon the leafless branches above, marsupial-like creatures skittered in uncertainty, squeaking their displeasure, their whiskered noses bobbing frantically in the air.
Faster and faster, the worms worked; snaking and slithering and undulating, up and around, over and under, spewing and ejecting, shaping and constructing.
Still not yet discernible, the project was nonetheless taking greater form. The freshly forged parts shone like polished silver, turning a rich vermillion as they cooled.
Then, finally, into bone and muscle, flesh and hair. Eyes.
The squealing creatures above were now delirious, tripping and hopping and loping over one another to get to higher branches.
Completely reformed, Amy took in a huge breath of air. She turned her head, but found that Melanie Sands was no longer with her. Not only had she failed to cleanse Melanie of Gamble’s daughter, she’d failed to save Melanie, period. Her magic proved successful against the worms, but somehow the link had been broken between her and Melanie by Gamble’s own sorcery. Just one more sign that she was still too weak.
Now Gamble had six daughters, making him even more powerful.
She sat up, assuming her adult form.
This was not the first time she’d tried saving Melanie, but that didn’t make her failure any less painful. .
7.
Eli soared, his thoughts gliding cleanly and evenly through his mind; as unimpaired as his wings upon the windless twilight.
It was magic. And it was magical. No longer would he need to shake the glass ball to incite glittering confetti upon miniature landmarks once visited, to excite flurries of snow upon cheesy winter vistas—or perturb any such unimaginative keepsake for nostalgia’s sake; those mementoes, those old frames of reference purchased from the roadside displays and curio shelves of vacationlands utterly aseptic in comparison.
No longer was he on the outside looking in.
In this world, he would terminate any illusion of reality as he’d once known it, would eradicate with extreme prejudice those sentiments that are likely to skulk away amid the unbridled novelty and seek haven in the deepest ravines of an erstwhile imagination. Then, upon those quivering, obsolete notions, he would, with a single stroke of thought, commence creating lands and peoples—and set upon them astonishing wickedness should they forget to kneel and give thanks.
Yet, something continued to mar his exultation; something disturbing him. Blotches had begun appearing on his wings; initially only a dappling affect created by shadow, he was sure, and from there enhanced by his own imagination into more valid, more permanent shapes. But now, the closer he got to the boy, he was aware—and annoyingly so—that his eyes weren’t playing tricks.
Something was showing through. But what, he didn’t have the faintest idea.
Far below, he could now make out the boy, his bleak form alone within a circle of bushes. No, not bushes, he now realized, but animals of some kind; hyena-like. Gamble, it appeared, had taken precautions that the boy stay put, or suffer a mauling he was not likely to crawl away from.
The boy’s eyes, as pursuing as his ears were reined, now fixed skyward upon him.
As Eli descended, he was reminded of a verse from Psalms. “‘Be still,’” he cried, arms outstretched for the boy, “‘and know that I am God!’”
8.
The sky bowed inward with each inhalation, then reset as Gamble breathed the slow, cadenced breaths of a transcendental practitioner reciting a mantra.
“...ohmmmm, ohmmmm,” he chanted before them, now cross-legged upon the roadway, hands on knees, thumbs and middle fingers fused in harmony. “...ohmmmmm, ohmmmmm...”
Patricia was staring at Chris, wearing the evocative expression of a customer irksome over the proprietor’s inability to speak the English language. “Excuse me?” she said.
Chris sighed. “Okay, look, I’ll explain it this way: without his daughters, Gamble wouldn’t be able to maintain the charade as well. Like, they free him up so he can concentrate on more important things, like being a dickhead.”
Rachel said to Kathy, “And you said he needs seven offspring to succeed, and that one of them is inside you?”
Kathy just nodded.
“Why seven?” Duncan said to Chris. “And why girls?”
“That’s just his way, dude. I believe it’s a spoof on biblical innuendo. The number seven. Like, if he’d elected to go with forty masturbating chimpanzees in hoop skirts, it wouldn’t matter. You’re trying to figure him out from a rational perspective. Gamble is the antithesis of rational. He made his own rules, set the criteria, and for reasons none of us can fathom, he feels obligated to follow them.”
“If he’s some kind of god,” Patricia said, “then why doesn’t he just come inside here and get Katherine himself?”
“First of all,” Tyler said, “this bus is special. It would take Gamble a long time to bust inside here.”
“Like your gun is special?” Duncan said.
“That’s right.”
“So, what’s so special about them?
”
“They’re products of the seraph’s imagination.”
“Then why doesn’t the seraph just imagine Gamble away?” Rachel said.
Tyler shrugged. “Because it just doesn’t work that way.”
“Then how do we defeat Gamble?” Patricia said.
“Just be patient,” Tyler said.
“Patient my ass!” Rachel said. “I want some goddamn answers! Just how the hell do we get out of here?”
“We’re in Gamble’s mind, his universe,” Tyler said. “The only way out is to kill Gamble, or at least bring him to his knees.”
Patricia threw her hands in the air. “Oh, great,” she said. “We’re screwed.”
“Speak for yourself!” Rachel said.
“There are certain rules to this game,” Tyler offered. “Our hope of dethroning Gamble won’t be in understanding them, but exploiting our own. Gamble’s playing with multiple decks of cards, but that doesn’t mean we can’t trump him with our own lousy hand.”
Duncan eyed Tyler suspiciously. “Translate.”
Chris piped in. “We have an ace in the hole. Juanita. And, if I’m guessing right, she’ll know just when to pull it from her sleeve.” He smiled proudly. “After all, I’m the one who went in and got it going.”
Aghast that Chris had been inside her without her explicit permission, Juanita said, “Where have you been in me?”
“While you were sleeping,” Kathy explained, “Chris went inside your mind and left a present.”
Juanita stared mistrustfully at Chris. Almost a whisper, she said, “What kind of present?”
“I kind of calibrated something that was already inside you,” he admitted. “Someone else gave you the present.”
“The Mother Mary!” Juanita said, suddenly understanding. “At the hospital. She gave it to me!”
“What is this present?” Duncan persisted.
“Remember when she knocked a part of me into that window?” Chris said. “Well, that’s what it is.”
“What? She’s going to knock something out of somebody?” Rachel said.
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Chris said.
Patricia rolled her eyes. “Oh, that’s just ridiculous.”
Smirking, Chris said, “We’ll see.”
9.
Eli returned with the boy.
Inside the shuttle, everyone crowded around the windshield.
“Oh, no” Kathy said. “He’s got Emilio.”
“The boy we were going after?” Rachel said. “But how did he know?”
Duncan put his hands on Rachel’s shoulders. “He’s a god, remember?”
“Is this the boy you’re all so concerned over?” Gamble hollered. “Mischievous little shit. Found him in a juvenile detention facility in Chicago. Oh, he wasn’t that hard to find. Fact is, I simply sang out the name Emilio Chavez, and all those tympanums that fluctuated dismally on my pitch, I sought out. You see, this here brat’s deaf as a stone.” He smiled at Duncan. “Ain’t that right, Donut?”
Duncan nodded, the gunshots that inflicted the malady still fresh in his own ears.
“So, tell you what,” Gamble continued. “Being the sport that I am, I’m gonna let the delinquent here go, and give whoever wants to play a generous head start. If you can catch him, you can have him.” Then, to the boy, he signed adeptly with his hands.
Wide-eyed now, Emilio burst from Gamble’s side, leaving the road for the interior of the trees; a macabre network of cindered capillaries.
“No!” Kathy shouted. “We can’t let him get away!”
Tyler opened the shuttle’s doors. “She’s right. Duncan, Chris, move it!”
There was no time to argue. Duncan and Chris dashed through the open doors and into the night.
“Go after them, Father,” Gamble instructed. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”
10.
Josephine stopped, gaping at the enclosure. It was colossal. As were its occupants; flocks of them, a series of creatures not so unlike one another, the smallest standing no less than twenty feet high, she guessed, the largest easily exceeding that times two. She didn’t know how many there were but guessed that if they’d all cooperate by lining up, it’d take her a good week to count them.
They reminded her a little of moas, those large flightless birds of New Zealand; now extinct, thanks to man and his dog. There were no feathers here, though, elephantine or otherwise. Just grotesqueries aplenty. And derivations of beauty, as well, she had to admit; the way the pinks and purples of twilight glazed along their knobbed and bony fringes, made even ruddier along the onyx keratin of their mandibles, more insect-like than bird.
The cage itself was surrealistic in fashion, its bars comprising a menagerie all their own, of coiling and sleuthing and flying serpents, scaled, beaked and taloned, as if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had—during an onerous bout of schizophrenia—prodigiously emulated in bronze sculpture the inhabitants of his own Lost World.
The closer she got, the more Jacob protested until, finally, he convinced her to let him go. The instant she pulled the collar from around his neck, he was off like a shot in the opposite direction, half-flying, half-hopping, his tail literally tucked between his legs.
“Ya big sissy!” she yelled after him. “Christ on high!”
Upon reaching what was obviously the gate, she read the note attached, a white spec of paper snared upon a colossal bramble of metal.
BE A DOLL AND PRESS THE LITTLE RED BUTTON WHEN I
GIVE THE WORD
P.S. YOUR SHOE’S UNTIED
Josephine peered down at her shoestring-less loafers, then back at the note, which had changed.
HA! THANKS FOR PLAYING!
“Smartass,” she grumbled.
Off to her left rose one of those dispensers often found beside the Giraffe pens of a local zoo, the ones that with a quarter and a turn of the knob you can purchase a granola-looking treat for the animals. Despite its proportionate immensity—and that the knob and coin receptacle were at arm’s reach and designed for her physical dimensions—there was no guessing its function.
Yessir, she thought, there has to be some mighty big biscuits in there.
But it wasn’t Gamble’s brand of humor that was pissing her off so much. She, unfortunately, was without any change.
11.
Eli heard voices. Murmurings, undecipherable, as if becalmed in the vacuum of this alien atmosphere. But voices nonetheless.
Now in a kind of slow, eerie animation, the blotches were becoming more focused. With rising determination those blurry images continued to struggle within their rarefied encapsulations; hatchlings straining against the embryonic membranes that were his wings.
They were blistering.
The voices getting louder now; clearer. They were coming from his wings.
Diving, lest he should suddenly be without ballast, Eli aimed for an outcropping of rock.
He was going to have to leave the chase. But just for a moment.
Fluttering down, he reached a level spot. Then, with something fast approaching revulsion, he began scrutinizing the voices.
“...finished, Eli, finished, you’re finished...” said the voices. Pustules were taking the shapes of faces, the faces of demons, declaring, “...you’re finished, Eli, finished...”
“Be gone!” Eli commanded, but the images remained, squirming in delight, as did their decrees, rising in his ears.
“Be gone!” he cried again. “Be gone, all of you!”
Stymied, Eli considered the possibility that the demons inside his wings were artifacts of this new world he was in, were demonstrations of the kind of skullduggery he should no less expect in a carnival world where Gamble was ringmaster. Perhaps, he thought, if he were to change the venue back to a more earthly flavor he could banish the intruders. He imagined the first place that came to his mind—
Instantly, surrealistically, the goblin world gave way to that of the Pacific Northwest, the very landscape that saw hi
s evolution from pawn to king.
The surf below him washed loudly against the rocky shore, but still did not drown out the jeers issuing from his wings.
“...finished, Eli, finished, you’re finished...”
Eli clamped his hands over his ears, tightly closed his eyes, then fancied the only thing left he could think of.
He envisioned the wings gone from his back.
12.
The change had come like a breakneck wind, an astounding storm of transformation sweeping across horizon to horizon, so swiftly that the eye could barely keep up. The sanguine purple of twilight had given way to the warm yellow light of a mid-afternoon sun. The air, now redolent of moss and rain and dirt, still crackled as if statically charged.
Up ahead, Emilio Chavez had stopped; was signaling with both hands for them to hurry.
Duncan nearly tripped and fell, the ground suddenly thick with fern and vine. They were in a forest of Douglas fir and hemlock, and Duncan’s instinct was telling him that, for whatever reason, the priest—not Gamble—had changed their surroundings into his old stomping grounds, the coastal regions of Washington State.
And damned if it wasn’t to the T, he thought, right down to pesky mosquitoes. The world before seemed almost cardboard in comparison; had lacked a particular depth, the atmosphere almost antiseptic. The scenery before them now was so real that Duncan wondered if the priest had not just imagined their surroundings into being, but had literally brought the real thing to them somehow.
There were running footsteps behind them. Duncan looked back, expecting Gamble to be in fast pursuit. But it wasn’t Gamble. It was Kathy and Juanita.
Jesus Christ, that was all he needed.
“Just what the hell are you two doing?” he said.
“You’ll get lost without me,” Kathy said.
“In case you haven’t been paying attention, we were already lost the moment we entered this damned place.”
Seraphim Page 41
