Infuriating was winning out, but she didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it other than listen to her own heartbeat accelerating in her ears.
# # #
Eric wrenched against his stasis. Pushed. Shoved. Would have grunted and groaned if he could. Every instinct ingrained into his DNA over the last millions of years to protect, to attack, to run, all battered about his brainpan without firing a single nerve cell.
He heard the man doing something at the computer, then he left the living room, his footsteps fading away behind them. Shortly, a crashing and moaning came from what must be the kitchen.
Eric tried to identify the noises. Nothing shattered that he could hear despite the agonized cries, but clearly dozens upon dozens of items were being tossed, torn, thrown.
Ron sounded like one seriously lost soul in awful torment.
Finally with a deep, rending sigh, Ron’s footsteps passed out through the front door and retreated down the hall toward the stairs.
Silence.
He tried to turn to Valerie.
Nothing.
They sat so close that he could feel the heat of her from shoulder down to hip and along the length of his leg, but he couldn’t move to see her at all.
In a few minutes he heard footsteps returning. He threw himself against his nerve endings with all his might, but to no avail. Even his need to protect Valerie couldn’t break through.
This time he heard the footsteps of two people, first a rap of knuckles on the open apartment door, and then their footsteps proceeding into the room.
“This doesn’t look promising.” A woman’s voice sounded close behind him.
A snap of fingers and he almost fell forward off the couch at the sudden release.
Eric regained his feet. As he spun to face the intruders, his gaze crossed the table. The laptop was still there, but the screen was ominously blank.
Fists raised, he faced the two intruders. One was a woman who could not be ignored. Tall, with long wavy black hair the color of midnight. Blue eyes, so bright they’d have looked crystalline except for the depth of the soul that looked out through them, and their depth was near enough infinite. Her body boasted as much power as her gaze.
The plunging cleavage of the golden blouse revealed a bounty designed by a master craftsman, and jeans that flowed over amazing hips and down over some of the longest legs he’d ever seen.
“You!” Valerie’s shout drew Eric’s attention to the second person.
Blond, blue eyes, broad shoulders. It was the man who’d frozen them.
Before he could think, Eric jumped over the couch arm, flew past the woman, and punched the guy as hard as he could on the chin. He didn’t want to be frozen again.
Pain rocketed up Eric’s arm as the man tumbled backwards to land in a heap on the hall floor.
Eric tried to dive on top of the man, but the woman tripped him. He barely caught himself on his sore hand. A fresh round of pain as he landed in a heap next to Ron Schmidt who he’d just knocked into the hallway.
The guy tried for a headlock, but instead banged his own elbow into the doorjamb. Clearly he was no better at fighting than Eric was.
“Why did you do that?” they shouted at each other. Then they each squinted, Eric and Ron in a stalemate. He’d changed clothes, sharp business suit to a stained white toga, but there was no mistaking him.
“Pretty obvious, don’t you think?” Eric tried to prop himself up but the pain in his hand caused him to once again collapse and lie on the floor. He’d never punched someone before, and, if he was smart, he never would again.
The man reached up to massage his jaw, but Valerie was there and stepped a foot down pinning Ron’s wrist to the floor.
“What in Hell did you do to my software?” She’d clearly noted the blank screen as well.
“It’s not in Hell.” The tall woman’s voice commanded all in the room to attention.
Even Eric could feel his head turning. He’d again noticed the slap-you-in-the-face beauty and the slap-you-in-the-hormones woman, but he’d missed the pin-you-to-the-wall danger she now radiated.
“We thought it was here.”
“It was,” Valerie pointed down at Ron, but kept his wrist trapped under her foot. “Until he stole it.”
“I never stole—” she leaned more weight onto his wrist and he stopped.
Eric couldn’t believe Valerie. The Fearsome Mac indeed. A head shorter and a mere slip compared to the woman who faced her; she wasn’t overshadowed in the slightest. Her chestnut hair shone against the darkness of the other woman’s countenance.
They glowered at each other for several long seconds before the tableau broke.
“Aw, shit!” The woman groaned. “I really need a beer.”
# # #
Eric watched Valerie head for the kitchen. Somehow it was hard not to want to do whatever the woman asked.
She claimed that she was an alibi for the man, and that his name was actually Peter, not Ron, and hers was Michelle. As if that meant something.
What mattered was that the backup Eric had managed to make onto an external USB drive was gone and the message on the screen left no hope.
Drive format complete.
Valerie’s cry galvanized him into action. He sprinted the few steps to where she stood riveted at the kitchen’s threshold.
He looked over her shoulder.
The room had been totally trashed. He recalled the desperate, tortured moans of the Ron Schmidt character.
Eric shuddered, he might never forget them.
Every single thing that was sweet or crunchy, and Eric couldn’t quite believe the sheer diversity or massive quantity that fell into those two categories in Mac’s kitchen, was strewn far and wide. Fritos and spilled soda cans. Cheetos and Frosted Flakes. Frozen yogurt ice creams and Special Dark chocolate syrup. They’d need a snow shovel to clean this up. Odd though. The plates and glasses and all were still neatly lined up behind their glass-fronted doors. Nothing broken, everything spilled.
The liquids, solids, and fried foods had combined into a coagulant mass of mottled color and possible danger that smeared counters and dribbled down cabinets. A fetid odor of dill pickles and stale Cheez-Its hovered in low clouds like swamp gas on a moonless night.
“Looks like a Hungry Ghost to me.” The Michelle woman stood close beside him. Her idea of personal space had him pressing back against the door jamb, almost knocking Valerie forward into the sticky mire that confronted them.
“Hungry Ghost?” he managed to mouth the words in a throat suddenly gone dry.
Xena, the Warrior Princess, was all he could think. But that was like comparing a drinking glass to a Waterford crystal goblet. No insult to the many hours he’d happily enjoyed watching Xena as a teen.
It was the eyes. The world lay in those eyes.
A slow smile, then a soft word. “Mortals.” She said it as if telling herself an old joke. A slight shake of her head sent her hair sliding across her shoulders.
“Yes, Hungry Ghost.” Michelle nodded past his shoulder. “Wanting everything, able to consume nothing. A really sucky turn on the Buddhist wheel of existence.”
“Hey!” Valerie shoved them out of the doorway and back into the tiny hall where they still stood far too close together. “Who are you? Did you do this to my apartment?”
Eric could feel himself blinking several times as if released from too bright a light that had rooted him to the spot. He had to admire Valerie’s bravery, this interloper was not a woman he’d dare confront head on.
Of course, neither was Valerie. Her cell phone was ringing softly, an outbound call. He could see “911” across the screen. More presence of mind than he’d exercised.
Michelle reached out a single finger, ever so leisurely, and pushed it against the cell phone in Valerie’s palm. T
he dialing sound ended abruptly.
“The police won’t be much help here.”
“And I suppose you will?”
The woman’s shrug was eloquent, sending interesting effects all the way down her body.
The Peter guy came to view the kitchen disaster as the two women returned to the living room. In lesser company, he’d have stood out as well. While his eyes didn’t radiate with the deep-rooted wisdom of the woman’s, they’d definitely seen more than your average person. And now that Eric had time for a good look at him, he looked a bit less like their first visitor. They were like the evil and the good side of each other. One person cut in two, spiritually.
Ron Schmidt had worn an elegant, if worn, business suit. This “Peter” was dressed in a white toga, with little brown stains down the front as if he’d spilled something, and golden sandals. He certainly didn’t belong in a Seattle apartment. A part of Eric’s brain thought that he should be surprised by the man’s attire, but he wasn’t particularly. And a part of him started connecting these two to the software and getting very nervous.
“It’s gone again, isn’t it?”
Eric could hear it in his voice, this was a man who had lost too much. He had to be the one who’d lost the software.
At Eric’s nod, the man looked so sad that Eric rested a hand on his shoulder in consolation.
A quiet, “Shit!” sounded from the living room. Apparently the woman was receiving the same bit of information from Valerie.
He and the man shuffled out of the hallway and into the living room. They all four stood in a semicircle in front of the big oak table and stared down at the “Format Complete” message on the screen as if they could make it disappear by sheer will.
They were all in the living room when Valerie stalked fearlessly forward until she was toe-to-toe with Michelle who towered over her.
“I have just one question,” Valerie’s voice was tight.
“Just one? Mortals are so lazy by nature.” The woman sounded endlessly bored. As if she’d been bored for centuries.
Valerie poked her sharply in the shoulder.
“Who the Hell are you and what were you doing in my dream?”
Chapter 16
Valerie did her best to hold the woman’s gaze. It was harder than it sounded to watch those eyes. When they focused on her, she wanted to shy away, to look elsewhere. A sudden desire to study the Paul Klee print of der Goldfisch on her apartment wall nearly overwhelmed her. It was because in the those eyes she saw far too much of herself reflected back.
The woman blinked after a moment, sending a wave of relief through Valerie at her sudden release.
“First of all that’s two questions.”
“Compound sentence,” Valerie shot back. “I’m counting it as one. Now answer.”
“In your dream?” The woman looked intrigued. “That is kind of unusual. What was I doing?”
“Running a blintz food cart. A very successful one. You were wearing, well, these clothes. The men were flocking to you.”
“Occupational hazard,” the woman shrugged as if that were a sufficient explanation. Then she sighed and dropped into one of Valerie’s aubergine armchairs, such a perfect accent to the woman’s golden blouse that it looked planned.
“I try not to do this to mortals, tends to upset them, but we’re in a bit of a bind here.”
“Try not to do what?” Eric moved to sit on the couch.
“Tell the truth.”
Valerie sat beside him guessing that her knees were going to need it.
“This is St. Peter.”
Valerie found herself looking over at the handsome man who had run several tests on the laptop, cursed under his breath, and was now flipping through some of the printouts scattered across her big oak table, searching for something. Peter? St. Peter? In a white toga and wearing gold sandals?
“Yes,” Michelle nodded as if reading Valerie’s thoughts. “That St. Peter. Heavenly guardian, close buddy to the son of god, apostle on the plains of Galilee, founder of the Catholic church, for which he still should be spanked, all of that. And I’m the Devil Incarnate, Ruler of Hell, Co-founder of the Universe, Developer of Evolution, Torturer of the Foul, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. You can call me Michelle, if that’s easier.”
“And I’m fricking Alice in Wonderland and Eric is my Cheshire cat!” She spat back.
But Eric was nodding his head.
“But that makes no sense!” Valerie protested, while his smile slowly grew.
“Thanks,” Eric’s voice was impossibly calm. “That explains the software. That was really bugging me.”
Valerie sifted back through the words, back to lunch. Back to when Eric had asked if she believed in God. Her answer had been…
“No!”
“I’m afraid so,” Michelle shrugged. “It can be awkward, but you’ll get used to it. Takes time, but deities aren’t all that bizarre, once you get over our warping effect on the fabric of the universe. Or perhaps you won’t.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Oh, your head will explode. Messy.”
Valerie’s hand was halfway from her lap to the top of her head before she stopped herself. Great, the Devil or whoever was a practical joker.
At least she hoped so.
“If you’re the Devil, where’s God?”
At that, the woman looked down for a moment studying her fingernails, perhaps overly intently. They were close trimmed and painted fire-red.
“We, um,” she didn’t look up. “No pressure or anything. But we were rather hoping you could tell us.”
Chapter 17
Valerie could do little more than gawk at the woman proclaiming herself to be the Devil seeking God.
Peter waved Eric over to the table.
“You’ve been working with the software,” Peter began before Eric even sat down. “The problem I’m having is understanding how a Hungry Ghost from the Buddhist software system looks like me and why it stole the software.”
“The Buddhists have their own software?” At Peter’s nod, Eric found some scratch paper and unearthed a pen. “Diagram them for me.”
Within moments, they were talking one of those foreign languages that men and computer geeks thought was actual communication.
A single glance at the woman elicited an eye-roll that mirrored her own feelings, get as far away as possible, as fast as possible.
Valerie stood and announced loudly enough to break in on the guys’ attention.
“Michelle and I are going out, anyone need anything?”
They both shook their heads.
“Maybe, Peter,” Michelle interrupted their attempt to collapse back into geek-speak. “Some clothes that aren’t quite so dated? You’re a couple millennia out of date you know.”
“I am?” Peter looked down at his toga then over at Eric’s Smith College sweats and shrugged as if he couldn’t see the difference. “Okay, sure. I guess.”
“Uh, my clothes aren’t dry yet and we’re about the same size. Here,” he dug out his keys and scribbled his address on the back of a recipe for Heavenly Devil’s Upside Down Cake, as if that made any sense.
Valerie was going to murder Mathilda Reeves the next time she saw her. That would make her feel much better and might well be worth the price of extended incarceration.
And then the guys were back into their discussion of sessions and transports. They’d gone as far away as if they were on another planet.
The chill rain outside her window had abated, but it would only be for a moment. This was Seattle in late October and it would surely return.
She grabbed a coat, dug out an oversized parka that kind of fit Michelle, and a pair of umbrellas.
“Let’s get out of here before they melt our brains.”
Michelle nodded emphatic agreement
and then went out the door, though the men didn’t notice in the slightest.
# # #
Out of the corner of his eye, Eric watched the two women. They were endlessly fascinating to him. Two powerhouses who couldn’t be more different.
They were debating the existence of God as they walked out the front door, and he could really pay attention to what Peter was diagramming.
Twenty minutes later, he saw it.
“There,” Eric pointed.
“No,” Peter protested. Then he slowly began nodding his head as he realized Eric was right. “Darn.”
This guy must really be from Heaven to think “darn” an appropriate curse word at this juncture.
“It’s the moment you initiated the software to awaken God—your desire became manifested inside the monotheistic system and rode the session layer right into the non-theistic Buddhist system. It slammed up against their prayer wheel firewall and dropped down into the Hungry Ghost algorithm. Your manifested desire to posses and control the software was carried directly into the Hungry Ghost code deck. That even explains why he looks like you. Because he kind of is you, only not. He’s your manifested desire to control the software.”
“Double darn,” was Peter’s follow-up response. “But that was centuries ago. Why did the Ghost take so long to come steal it?”
Eric traced over the diagram Peter had drawn to explain the system, half logic diagram and half Jewish Kabbalah.
“There. It wasn’t in Heaven any more, but even a Hungry Ghost wouldn’t be stupid enough to mess with Hell’s security, or with The Devil for that matter.” He knew that for a fact even after just meeting her the first time.
There was a neatness to the solution of what had happened, a clear sense to it that told Eric he’d found it. He’d spent a lifetime learning to search for that mental click when the puzzle pieces came together and he knew he’d found a solution.
Cookbook from Hell Reheated Page 9
