The Glory

by J. R. Mabry

  “Don’t use adverbs,” Terry said. He sounded sleepy, delusional. “Everyone hates adverbs.”

  “Hang in there. Stay awake. Hold that bullet wound! Stand up.” Terry did stand but was wobbly. His knees buckled and he would have gone down again had Susan not already thrown his arm over her neck.

  Moving slowly, she eventually got him to the side of the boat. An older black man was waiting on the dock with his hand out, ready to help Terry up. Susan startled at the sight of him—he looked like one of the Oaklanders.

  “Ma’am, I don’t know what happened, or why I’m here, but I’m not gonna hurt you. Let me help you with the little guy.”

  “Thank you,” Susan said, reminding herself that because the scrap was destroyed, the Oaklanders’ minds were once again their own. Another man rushed to join him on the dock and between them, they hauled Terry up. This man, too, seemed to be an Oaklander. He was white and dressed head to toe in faded blue—a truck driver perhaps, or a dock worker. He was big and burly and Susan guessed he could probably out cuss her, but right now he was helping. Once Terry was up, she scrambled onto the dock herself, and pressed on Terry’s wound as the men picked him up and began to move him to higher ground.

  “Ambulance!” Susan shouted. “Someone call for an ambulance!”

  Several people had been simply standing around, lost in mid-fight, confused to find themselves standing in Alameda, and even more confused to be holding guns or knives or blood-encrusted scraps of metal.

  “Are you all right?” she heard several Oaklanders say to the Alamedites standing near them. A moment ago they were at each other’s throats. Now they were rushing to their aid.

  “Call for several ambulances!” she yelled. “Look around you!”

  Gradually the Oaklanders became aware of the carnage that surrounded them. As if waking from a dream, their jaws dropped, and Susan saw one of them drop to his knees in grief or guilt or some other form of overwhelming emotion at the realization of what they had just been doing moments before. The Alamedites dropped their weapons, one by one, as soon as they realized no one was fighting them anymore. Several people fished out their cell phones and began dialing. Susan knew that she didn’t need twenty people calling—one would do, but she also realized that the simple action of dialing a phone was normalizing, a temporary reprieve from the awkwardness and confusion of the moment.

  The men set Terry on a level patch of ground and Susan straddled him to get the best leverage on his shoulder. Terry’s eyes blinked open.

  “Ride the cowboy,” he said. His face screwed up in puzzlement. “You are not a cowboy.”

  “No, honey, I’m your best friend in the fucking world.”

  “Fucking world,” Terry repeated.

  “Stay with me, Terry,” she said. “You’re losing blood, so you have to stay awake.”

  “Blood?”

  “You got shot.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s all right, then.”

  His eyes snapped open and he seemed suddenly alert. “The sigil!” he said.

  “It’s okay. I burned it. Stay still.”

  He relaxed but was much more present, more conscious. A gift of the adrenalin, Susan thought.

  “Thank God,” he muttered.

  “What were you thinking, Terry?” Susan scolded. “Were you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “Maybe,” he confessed. For the first time she noticed all the lacerations on his face. She considered trying to clean it up, but there would be time for that later. She kept the pressure up on his shoulder. “I think…I think a part of me wanted to die.”

  “But why?”

  He looked her in the face and their eyes met for a few seconds. Then he looked away. “Brian and I were together for a long time.”

  “Almost eight years,” she said.

  “Yeah. I think I forgot who I was without him. And when I was…just Terry…the alone Terry…I found I didn’t like him very much.”

  “Are you saying you don’t like who you are without him?”

  He closed his eyes and nodded. “I didn’t know that before. But…I do now.”

  “Oh, Terry.” Susan kissed the top of his head. “Open your eyes, honey. I gotta know you’re with me.”

  Terry did. “I like the me with Brian a whole lot better. He’s happier. He’s easier to be around. He’s less bitchy—”

  “Well, don’t get carried away,” Susan smiled.

  Just then Casey rushed over and nearly slid into them. “Oh, God, is he all right?”

  “He’ll be okay if we can get him some help, I think.”

  “The ambulance is coming,” one of the Alamedites volunteered.

  “Casey, I can’t find Dylan,” Susan said.

  “What?” Terry asked. He tried to sit up.

  Susan pushed him back down. “He’s missing. The hospital has no record of him checking out or being released or anything. He’s just gone.”

  “Maybe they just misplaced him,” Casey said. “That kind of thing happens. Things are a little chaotic right now.”

  “Hope he doesn’t wake up with a lung missing,” Terry said.

  “What? Why would he have a lung missing?” Susan asked.

  “You know, surgical mix-up?”

  “Oh, thanks for that. You can lose consciousness again anytime now.”

  “We’ll find him, Susan,” Casey said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

  “I can’t find Chicken, either,” Susan said.

  “We’ll find them, Susan. As soon as the paramedics get here, we’ll go looking. We’ll find them.”

  “No. They disappeared at the hospital. I am not leaving Terry’s side.”

  “I’m touched,” Terry said.

  “I mean it. I’m not letting what happened to them happen to you.”

  “We’ll find them, Susan,” Casey repeated.

  Susan fought back tears as she renewed her pressure on Terry’s wound, her hands crimson and slick with his blood.

  78

  Maggie washed her hands and then sprinkled some water on her face. She dried it with a hand towel hanging on a nail as she hummed a little tune from her childhood. She looked at herself in the mirror and pushed a straying lock of gray hair back into place. Satisfied, she opened the bathroom door.

  She crossed to the kitchen, but Brian wasn’t there. “Brian?” she called. It didn’t take long to search the rest of the apartment. He was gone. “Aaron’s balls,” she swore, and she reached for her coat and hat.

  As nimbly as she could manage, she descended the steps to the street and looked both ways. There was no sign of him. She shook her head and turned left, the direction from which they had earlier come.

  “Lord, give me patience,” she prayed aloud. She waddled as fast as she could. When she reached the intersection, she looked both directions—there was Brian, several blocks away, off to the right. “And thank you for decent eyesight, even after all these many years.” She trudged after him.

  Despite her best efforts she was not able to gain on him, but at least she wasn’t losing ground, either. She could see him walking a block or two ahead of her. “So this, Jesus, is one of those kettles of fish people are always talking about,” she continued. “And if you care about your worlds, you’ll do something about it. If you don’t, then I suppose we’ll all just wither away and die because some bloody magickian has authority issues left over from adolescence. Is that what you want? Well, don’t mind me, love, they’re your fookin’ worlds.”

  She was panting now and noted with relief that he’d stopped. He appeared to be simply staring. He’d reached the edge of the greenbelt and seemed frozen in place, gazing at the zayin. She was well and truly tuckered when she pulled up next to him. “Gettin’ all hot and bothered starin’ at that thing?” she asked, her cockney accent more pronounced since she was tired.

  “Maggie, I’m…” but he didn’t finish his sentence. “I have to do something.”

  “Like what?” She put a hand on the brick
wall of the building beside her, steadying herself. “Your shoelaces are untied, dear.”

  He looked down and swore. As he knelt, he seemed to finally see her. “Maggie, are you all right?”

  “I’ll be all right, love.” She was hyperventilating, she realized. She concentrated on her breath to steady it. “I shouldn’t be seen out here with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “You could easily be taken for a magickian, you know. They’ll put you in a cell and they’ll do the same to me. Conspiracy.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m putting you at risk.”

  “Some things are worth risking.” She gulped at the air. “Why’d you run just now?”

  “I didn’t run. I just…I couldn’t sit there drinking tea and…do nothing.”

  She narrowed one eye at him. “Some things take planning.”

  Brian didn’t answer. Instead, he looked back at the zayin.

  “This is my fault—”

  “How in the world is this your fault?”

  “I have to fix it.”

  “How is this your fault?” she asked.

  “I know the person who did this,” Brian said, his voice sounding slightly hysterical. “I should have been able to stop him.”

  “Because you’re psychic? Because you have a dungeon under the friary where you keep magickal miscreants so they can’t offend again? You’re talking bollocks.”

  “I feel responsible,” he said.

  “Ah, that’s different. Now you’re talking ’bout feelings. They’re mad. They’re also ephemeral, love. They’ll pass.”

  “But the danger won’t. It’s real.”

  “Yes. It’s real.”

  “And now I’m endangering you. Stay here, Maggie. Pretend you never met me.” Without another word, Brian set out across the street, heading straight for the zayin.

  “Brian!” Maggie shouted. “Jesus teething on the teats,” she swore and set off after him again.

  He didn’t stop. His gait determined, he strode directly toward the construction machinery gathered around the base of the zayin—bulldozers and dump trucks and wrecking balls.

  “It’s not safe, Brian. Brian!” Maggie called to him. “It’s not just me in danger. It’s you. Listen to me! If they throw you in the gaol you won’t be able to help anyone or do anything!”

  Brain stopped and faced her. “But only the me in this world will be in jail, right? The me in Malkuth will still be in Chava’s apartment.”

  “Well, yes…”

  “And the me in Hod will be…wherever I am?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then it’s worth the risk.” He turned and started walking again.

  “But not if you die!” she called.

  He stopped again. “What?”

  “What are you planning to do? Throw yourself in front of the bulldozer? You think people in this world are as merciful as in your own? You don’t know this world, Brian. Efficiency counts for a lot here. Other worlds than ours depend on it. I swear on Peter’s testicles they will run you over. And then where will you be, eh? You’ll be dead. In this world and in every other.”

  Brian blinked. “But…how does that happen?”

  “Lots of ways,” Maggie was breathing hard again, and she tugged on his arm for support. “Someone gets hit by a bus here in Yesod, doesn’t mean they get hit by a bus in Malkuth, but they’re dead just the same. In Malkuth they just fall to the floor, dead. Heart attacks. Aneurysms. Spontaneous human combustion, you name it.”

  “Are you pulling my leg?”

  “I’m telling you the truth, lad. Don’t do it.” She could see that Brian was torn. Desperation flashed in his eyes. Finally, with a look of resignation, he looked down at her and asked. “Do you have another idea?”

  “What kind of prophetess would I be if I didn’t? Listen, it’s going to take them days to sever the link here—this is a big project. But I’m betting your magickian has moved on, which means we don’t have time to busy ourselves here. We have to catch up with him and stop him where he is. Water flows downhill and so does grace. We stop him up there, things down here will sort themselves out.”

  “It will?” He did not sound convinced.

  “I’m guessing your bladder in Malkuth is about to burst,” Maggie patted his arm. “Get down there and piss yourself silly. Eat something fatty and get some strong black tea in ye. Then meet me in Hod.”

  “How do I get to Hod?”

  “Same way you got here. Except that when you get here, you keep going.”

  Brian nodded. “And you’ll meet me there?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it won’t be you—it’ll be the you in Hod, right?”

  “And the you in Hod, too.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. We’ll recognize each other.”

  “Will you be okay here?” he asked.

  “Love, I’m okay anywhere. I’m the Bat Asher.” She pinched his nose.

  79

  “What do you think we should do?” the shorter man said.

  The taller man was driving the van. He looked in the rear view mirror. Chicken waved at him. “I’m sure as hell not going to…obey orders. She’s just a little girl, for Christ’s sake!”

  “But, the boss is the boss.”

  “He’s the fucking mayor—not the pope, not the president, and he’s sure as hell not the führer.” The tall man looked at his friend. “Would you obey an order like that? I mean, if you were alone?”

  The shorter man looked out the window. “You should watch your language around the little one.”

  “Oh, I should watch my language, because it might, what? Harm her somehow? But you wouldn’t hesitate to k—to obey an order like that?”

  “I don’t know, man. I don’t know what I would do. I…I follow orders, all right? I’m not a thinker, not like you.”

  “I’m a thinker?”

  “Yeah. I mean…yeah. You think.”

  “Every teacher I ever had would be blowing snot out of their asses laughing at that.”

  Chicken wished she had some paper and a pencil. She’d like to draw people with snot coming out of their asses. She smiled at the thought of it.

  “What are you going to do?” the smaller one asked.

  Instead of answering, the man made a quick turn onto McKay.

  “What are you doing?”

  “There’s a park here, by the water.”

  “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” The shorter man’s face lit up.

  The tall man looked at him and scowled. “No I’m not going to fucking do it, you moron. We’re just going to keep her safe.”

  He pulled up at a small day-use building on the corner. Just beyond the building was a small parking lot and the beginning of a large park. Looming eucalyptus trees swayed in a ring around a grassy area, while to the south of them six-foot boulders marked the entrance to a beach.

  The tall man fished through a large ring of keys. “Okay, little one, come with me.”

  He opened his door and got out. Crossing to the other side of the van, he opened the sliding door. Chicken hopped out obediently, sporting a playful smile. The tall man led her to the wooden building, which had been painted a deep maroon. He put a key into the padlock on the door, but it didn’t seem to work. He tried several more, until eventually, the lock snapped open. The man held the door for her and followed her inside.

  After he closed the door he squatted down to her height. His face was worried but kind. “Okay, honey, we’re going to leave you here for a little while. I don’t know if there’s any food in the little fridge, but you can look,” he pointed through the doorway at the far side of the room to what must have been a kitchen. “And there’s a bathroom, in case you need it. And here’s a comfy couch, in case you get sleepy.” He slapped the top of a corduroy loveseat. Chicken saw a plume of dust erupt into the air. She smiled encouragingly. “I’m going to lock this door and go away for a little while. Can you stay here and be good until I get back?”


  “Okie-dokie.” Chicken chirped, trying to look as adorable as possible. She knew it was one of her strengths.

  “Good. I’ll be back soon.” The man tried the switch and a light came on, looking dim in the afternoon sun. He shrugged, smiled at her, and closed the door. A moment later, she heard the lock fasten.

  For a few minutes, she looked around her, madly curious about the little house. She was listening to hear the van pull away, but she didn’t hear anything yet. Maybe the men were still arguing? While she waited, she went through the door at the far side of the room. There seemed to be nothing else to do, so why not explore the house?

  She poked her head into the bathroom and scrunched her nose up at the smell. Definitely something not right there. She went into the kitchen—except it wasn’t much of a kitchen. A tiny table hugged one wall, while the other wall held a small sink and some cupboards. A microwave sat on the counter, alongside a stained coffee maker, but there wasn’t any stove. A refrigerator was built into the lower cupboards, shorter than her. She opened it and once again made a face at the smell. There was an old carton of milk—very old, given the odor—and a candy bar. She snatched up the candy and unwrapped it. She didn’t recognize the brand, but it was covered with chocolate and it had peanuts, and it was delicious.

  Chicken heard the van start up and drive away. She wandered back to the front room and peeked through the window. The van was gone, all right. She went back to the kitchen and dragged a chair to the back door. Standing on the chair, she undid the deadbolt. She climbed down, opened the door, and walked out into the park.

  No one was in the park, but it didn’t occur to her to wonder at that. She didn’t really have a destination in mind and kept going farther into the park. She knew she needed to find Aunt Susan or Uncle Terry, but she didn’t know where they were. If she met a grown-up, should she trust them? She didn’t know. She just followed her nose.

  Eventually the park led to some tennis courts. A large, fenced-in area was nearby, but she didn’t know what it was for—although there were signs with dogs on them. She walked past this area and started walking past the houses on Otis Drive. She followed Otis for quite a while until she discovered a shopping mall to her right. Ordinarily she would have been plenty hungry, but the candy bar had done its job. Intuitively, she turned left at Park Street and headed for the shops. No one seemed to pay any attention to her. People rushed by, but no one seemed to be actually shopping. Most of the stores were closed, and some were boarded up. At Tilden, she noticed how the street jutted off at a strange angle, and this appealed to her. She followed it, and it led directly to a grocery store. She went inside and noted once again that almost no one was shopping. It was open, though, and that was a good sign. She went first to the bread aisle and grabbed a box of chocolate donuts. Then she went to the aisle for household items and found a notebook. She had to look for a while to find one without lines, and it was heavier than the others, but that was okay. Then she found some pencils.