by J. R. Mabry
“Not Pek!” Betts shouted.
“Oh, right,” Dylan stroked his chin. “Oh, great…Fintin.”
“Fintin?”
“Irish demon. Big on the glamor,” Dylan assured him. He raised his voice again. “Oh, great Fintin. By the rules laid down long ago by King Solomon, Ah implore you to appear before me. Nay, Ah command you to appear before me!”
Then there was silence. And that was it. Dylan’s shoulders slumped. His play was at an end. Whatever time he might have bought Susan and the others, it was over. Whatever fun he had been able to wrest from Betts was complete. Dylan sighed.
“What? What’s going on? Why isn’t it work—”
Then the door exploded open.
89
Richard shifted on his seat and felt the tingling of blood returning to his left buttock.
“What’s going to happen to us?” Sophie asked. She had her arm around Mike protectively. He’d been crying earlier, and Richard’s heart hurt for both of them.
They were all sharing the back seat of a late 70s Oldsmobile, which wouldn’t have been uncomfortable for a short stretch, but it was apparently being used as a makeshift holding cell. After three hours, Richard was beginning to feel a variety of bodily needs. “I wish I knew, honey,” he answered.
“Where’s my mom?” Mike asked.
This one Richard knew the answer to, but he didn’t see any reason to cause the children further distress. “I don’t know,” he lied.
“Who was the man with the horns?”
“He calls himself the Goat King. He’s a magickian.”
“Is he a good magician?” Mike asked. His face even brightened a little.
Richard knew that Mike wasn’t inquiring about the Goat King’s morals, but about his skill at stage magic. Feeling tired, he ignored the distinction. “Nope. I’m sorry, he’s a very, very bad magickian,” Richard said. Actually, he’s probably a piss-poor magickian, even by evil magickian standards, he thought.
“Why are we here?” Sophie asked.
It was a good question. Richard had a good idea, but he certainly wasn’t going to tell her. “That’s what we’re waiting to find out.”
Sophie nodded. “It’s like that time Mike went to the doctor.”
“When I was little?” Mike asked.
“Yes, and Mom and Dad were scared that you might have cancer.”
“That’s silly,” Mike buried his face into his sister’s shoulder.
“We were waiting in a little room to find out then, too. I didn’t like it then, either.”
Richard nodded. Without really thinking he asked, “So what did you do?”
Sophie cocked her head. “I pretended I went to a place where I did want to be.”
Richard blinked and sat up straighter. “Of course…” he whispered.
“What?” Sophie asked.
Richard stroked at his chin as he reasoned through the idea. “Listen, you guys. What if I could take you someplace safe?”
“Like Lake Barryessa?” Sophie asked.
“Uh…sure. As safe as that,” Richard said.
She brightened. “Okay.”
“Will Mommy be there?” Mike asked.
“No. But the bad men with horns can’t get you there,” Richard said.
“Okay then,” Mike agreed.
“Close your eyes,” Richard said, “and pretend that in front of us—”
“This is just pretend, huh?” Sophie said.
Richard opened his eyes and leaned over to squeeze her hand. “No, honey.” He looked her in the eyes so she could see he was sincere. “This is for real. But we have to use our imaginations—like a tool—in order to make it happen.”
She scrunched up her nose, clearly dubious.
“It’s like this. Do you know how sometimes you want to draw a picture and you don’t know what to draw a picture of?”
“Yes,” she said. Mike agreed.
“So how do you figure out what to draw?”
“I see something inside, in my head,” Sophie said.
“Exactly. And then you draw it,” Richard smiled. “We’re going to see something in our heads, and then we’re going to go there.”
“Can you really do that?” Sophie asked.
“I do it all the time. It’s part of my job.”
Sophie nodded. Richard could see her skepticism lift along with her frown. She still looked deadly serious.
“I have to pee,” Mike said.
“So do I, but they didn’t let us out the last time we asked, did they?”
Mike looked down.
“Listen, you can pee when we get to where I’m going to take you,” Richard said. “Okay?”
He brightened and nodded.
“Okay, close your eyes then, and imagine the exact same scene that you see in front of you when your eyes are open. You see the car, you see the seat in front of us. Over that seat you see the rear-view mirror at the front of the car. And you can see the hood out the window. Can you see all that?”
“Yes,” said Sophie.
“Yeah,” said Mike.
“Okay then, now imagine that a hole starts to form just above the seat in front of us. The hole is floating in mid-air. The air around it is kind of wavy and weird. The hole is black, but it’s kind of shimmering too, like the surface of a puddle of water.
“Now reach your hand into the hole—see how it goes in? Now I’m going to climb into the hole. When I’m through it, I’m going to put my hand back through to this side, and I want you, Mike, to take my hand and let me pull you through. Then I’ll pull Sophie through. Can we try that?”
“Yes…” they said in unison, a note of wonder creeping into their whispered voices.
Richard climbed into the Void. He was used to stepping in, but had never accessed it from the back seat of a car before—or from the front seat for that matter. But he climbed through, even if it wasn’t the most dignified act of his career. Setting his feet firmly on the ground inside the Void, he put his hand back through and held it ready for Mike. He felt Mike’s hand grasp his, and he pulled the little boy up, out of his seat, and though the aperture. He set Mike down with a grunt and quickly stuck his hand through to get Sophie. He felt her hand almost instantly, and pulled—harder this time because she was bigger—and in a moment set her down on the solid, dark earth of the Void.
The children’s mouths dropped open and they stared around in wonder.
“I didn’t know you could do this,” Sophie said.
“The world is full of wonders,” Richard said, “His glories to perform.”
“What’s that, a song?” Sophie asked.
“Not really, I just pulled it out of my a—” Richard swallowed his word. “Um…it’s a half-baked aphorism of mutt-like provenance.”
“What?” asked Mike.
“Never mind, it’s not important,” Richard said. “I want to introduce you to some friends. They are important. Come this way.”
Richard set off across the dry, baked dirt. The sky was dimly red, and Richard could see the familiar mountains in the distance. What looked like tumbleweeds rolled by, although the breeze was faint.
“It’s like cowboys,” Mike said.
Richard’s brow furrowed. “What’s like cowboys?”
“He means it looks like it does on TV, on cowboy movies.”
“Oh, yeah.” Richard got it. The Void was a very desert-like place, and it did kind of remind him of Arizona. “But it’s a lot bigger than any real desert. It’s almost infinite, and you can get to anywhere else from here.”
Sophie’s eyes got bigger as she looked around. Richard guessed she was trying to figure out how it all worked. Good luck with that, Richard thought.
They walked in silence for a few moments when Richard saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He stopped and turned and saw five tall, looming figures—almost like walking bananas, if bananas were nine feet tall and covered with prodigious brown fur. A choir of Sandalphon, and a goodly numbe
r—an indication of how seriously they were taking their mission to guide and protect. Five Sandalphon for two children. He was pleased and impressed.
They swayed and lumbered as they walked, and Richard could feel the steps of their heavy feet as they approached. As they drew near, Richard bowed in greeting. In his peripheral vision, he saw Sophie bow in imitation. He looked over at Mike to see him simply gawking, wide eyed.
“They don’t have any eyes…” he said.
“They don’t need them,” Richard said.
“How do they see?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know. With their hearts, I guess.”
“Can you ask them?”
“They don’t speak, either.”
“’Cause they don’t have mouths?”
“That’s right.”
“Are they scary?”
“Do they look scary?”
Mike didn’t look too sure. Richard smiled, stepped forward, and wrapped his arms around the waist of the nearest Sandalphon, burying his face in its warm, dusty fur.
The fur enveloped him and held him. He was tempted to simply stay there, being held, feeling with the whole of his being the fundamental benevolence of the universe toward him. In that moment, this one Sandalphon became metonymous for the whole of the celestial order, for angels and archangels and all the hosts of heaven, who forever sing around the Throne the hymn of glory proclaimed in his own feeble heart.
Don’t go. Richard distinctly heard the words in his head. You have served enough. Stay here and let us carry you to your reward.
Richard stopped short. What if he just…stayed? He could just walk away with the Sandalphon. He could stay with Mike and Sophie, help them with their transition. Their bodies would be in comas until they were killed or just…wasted away. But they would never know. They would be safely…elsewhere.
“I can’t do that,” Richard said. “I’m not finished.”
This is Adonai’s battle, not yours alone, the voice in his head said with calm detachment. And you can be sure Adonai will win it.
Richard wavered.
The voice continued, You can be gathered to your people. Your father is waiting. Bishop Tom is waiting. And several of his cats.
Richard laughed. He hadn’t known the Sandalphon had a sense of humor—not until now. He stroked his chin and thought hard for several moments. “It’s tempting. It is. I’m…tired. But…I’m just not finished.”
You are finished. There is no more room to write on your page.
Richard stopped to wonder at that information. It meant that he would die soon. “You’ll have to use post-its, then, I’m afraid.”
He stepped back and saw that Sophie and Mike were no longer beside him. Beneath the cascades of Sandalphon fur he saw them each hugging one of the great angelic beasts. “Keep them safe,” he said.
All will be well. None can harm them here. Not ever.
“I’m counting on that. And if their bodies die…”
All will be well. We will take them home.
“Mike has to pee.”
All will be well. Do what your heart compels you to do, for the glory of Adonai.
Richard nodded, hugged the beast once more, then turned back toward the Void.
90
With determined vigor, Mikael strode away from Castro Street toward Caselli St. once more. He was this close to Larch, and what did he do? He just walked away. Mikael felt a pang of guilt, of failure. What kind of Blackfriar was he? Even Susan would have kicked Larch’s ass. But he…he had just walked out. “That is not going to happen again,” he told himself. But what would he say? What would he do? He didn’t know, and not knowing sapped his resolve until his feet were dragging and he felt like he was slogging through tar.
He played through the possibilities in his head. He could try to talk Larch out of his quest—but he doubted he would get very far with that. He could do a citizen’s arrest, or maybe even tie him up—but the more he contemplated force, the less possible it seemed. There were three of them and only one of him, and he didn’t like those odds one bit.
“What would Dicky do?” He asked out loud. He stopped to consider the notion. If anyone had a better chance of talking Larch out of it, it would be Dicky, but Dicky wasn’t here. Persuasion seemed unlikely, force seemed doomed to failure, so that left…what? Threats. What did he have on Larch that might provide some kind of leverage?
He’d heard that the police had raided the Lodge of the Hawk and Serpent’s house and had found the Urim and Thummim, the consecrated stones originally kept in the Jewish high priest’s breastplate only to be taken out to be used as oracles. They had been stolen from the Maccabee Museum of Jewish Art and Life in Berkeley a few months before. Surely the police would still love to know the location of the house’s owners.
He didn’t really feel the need to turn them in—magickal tchotchkes were something the Order collected, too. But they didn’t know that. It was a threat he needed, after all, not revenge.
With renewed vigor he set out for the house again. Internally, he rehearsed what he would say when Eleazar or that other weasel opened the door. What if Larch was already ascended? I’ll fucking wake him up, he said to himself.
He missed Kat and was troubled by how they’d left things. He longed to apologize, to hear her out, to make things right. He felt a gulf between them that was more than just the distance of the several city blocks that actually separated them. He felt further away from her than he had since they’d gotten together. He felt a physical ache in his chest, and he knew it was more than just acid reflux.
Turning the final corner, the house came into view. Mikael strode toward it with a boldness he did not feel and literally had to force one foot to follow the other. The idea of threatening Larch with the theft had sounded great a couple of minutes ago, but now that he had to actually make the threat…he wished he could be anywhere else.
He climbed the stairs and punched at the door. The sound from his own fist was thunderous. He waited but heard nothing. He reached for the handle, turned it, and pushed the door open.
There were lights on, but he heard no sound. Mikael turned and looked around at the neighborhood, unconsciously checking to see if anyone would notice him going in. He saw people, but no one was paying any attention to him. He turned back to the door and walked through it.
It looked like a tornado had been through the place. He’d been here only—what, two hours ago? Now the place was stripped bare, void of humans, and as far as he could tell, furniture. He walked into the kitchen where they had just been talking. Everything was gone except the mess—no food, no pots, no pans.
Gone. They were just gone.
Mikael sat down on the floor and hugged his large, angular knees.
91
Kat saw the steam rising from her breath as she walked in procession down Harrison Street. The Bay Bridge entrance loomed before them, and she felt a chill run down her spine that had nothing to do with the autumnal air. All around her were sisters and brothers in the Craft—Wiccans and neo-pagans of various sub-traditions—thousands of them. Perhaps ten thousand, she thought, and she felt her heart swell within her. It felt holy, and it was truly a religious procession. Everyone held candles, and everyone was chanting songs of the Goddess.
If there’s fear, if there’s fear
Mother be near, be near
If there’s strife, if there’s strife
Mother give life, give life
Several people were playing djembe drums to carry the rhythm. She knew the words and the lilting chant rose up within her as if it were singing her. As she walked, she struggled with her dual identity. Yes, she and Mikael were Christians, but they were still Wiccans. They worshipped Christ in their rituals, but they used Wiccan liturgical forms. They were Christo-pagans, part of a small but vocal sub-tradition in the Wiccan community, one that was not always entirely welcome. That made sense, since some sources say that Christians were responsible for killing as many as nine milli
on witches during the burning times. The number had probably not been that high, but it was quibbling. Kat saw her practice as one that healed the rift between the two communities.
They also worshipped Christ is his pre-incarnate form as the Lady Wisdom, Sophia. For them, the Lady and the Lord were not two gods, but two aspects of the same being: one spiritual and one incarnate, one feminine and the other masculine, one eternal and the other temporal. This succeeded in putting them at odds with some Wiccans and most Christians. It was not a comfortable place to be.
Yet, she felt at home as she walked and sang and held her candle aloft in defiance of the dark. There had not been any traffic across the bridge for many days now, but she stepped easily over the concrete roadblocks CalTrans had placed across the onramp. She stopped to help a couple of the more corpulent practitioners of the Craft cross the barriers. Then she set her face toward Oakland.
One of the women she had helped caught up to her. She was a large, fleshy woman who looked confident in her cronehood. She seemed to be sweating despite the cold. “Thank you for that, back there,” she said, her voice raised slightly so that Kat could hear her over the chanting.
“No problem,” Kat said.
“Celtic,” she said.
“Christo-pagan,” Kat answered.
“Oh, one of those,” the old woman smiled. “Well, goddess bless you for trying.”
“We’re all about healing, aren’t we?”
“We are indeed, child. And there’s a lot that needs healing right now. Where’s home?”
“Oakland.”
“So this is personal?”
“Yes.”
The old woman nodded. “We’re from Burlingame. I say ‘we.’ My Carl is at home. Had to have part of his leg amputated last month. Diabetes. He just won’t let up on the ice cream.”
“Addiction is a bitch.” Kat nodded.
“Ha!” The woman’s quick laugh added a percussive counterpoint to the song around them. “I like you, girl. Her spirit is in you. My brother Sam would have loved to be here, too. So I guess I’m here for the three of us.”
