Makaila 131 to 140

 

 

131

Makaila sat up quickly and looked around. “Boy, that was weird!”

“I’m getting used to weird. You were breathing, so I didn’t panic. You okay?”

“Yeah. Right as rain, I guess.”

Arianna pulled Makaila to her feet.

“You didn’t tell me you were a saint.”

Arianna blushed. “I kinda thought I was. Wait! How’d you know?”

“God knows everything. I guess it would depend on the meaning we hang on the word. Anyway, did you know this George guy is in love with you?”

“This is getting very weird, even for you. No. He isn’t. I’d have been able to tell by the way he looked at me.”

“I just had a vision, or a dream. I’m leaning toward vision. You’re confusing love with lust again.” Makaila closed her eyes. “Funny, I can’t bring the memory back. I can always bring back something that happened before, like fully in my head.

“Whatever. It seems like I just got invoked.”

“Huh?”

“Called? To a hospital room. Do you know a kid, Terri?”

“Skinny chick, so high, hair about my color without the curl?”

“Yeah. That’s her. You didn’t tell me George’s a babe and Terri’s dead on exactly correct and right. He’s in love with you.”

Arianna’s mind leaped around. “A hospital room?”

“George was hurt, bad. Terri fixed it.”

“Hurt bad? Terri fixed it? How?”

“I couldn’t buy a clue if it were on sale. I thought my miracle was pretty nifty, this kid’s really got it kicking. Her and some guy I don’t know. Stevens? Finally.” Makaila let out a sigh of relief. “Signs of civilization. We can get something to eat.” The dirt road opened to an unpaved parking lot on a narrow paved road.

“That doesn’t make sense. That pastor’s been dogging us. I hope they sell more than just bait. But, I’m hungry enough to eat that!”

Makaila giggled. “I think I’m understanding these mortals enough to know they at least sell beer, too.” They settled in with an early breakfast of coffee and potato chips, relaxing on a railroad tie next to the parking lot.

“Now what?” Arianna asked.

“We wait.”

“For?”

“A car to steal.”

 

132

When Harshaw’s voice in the telephone said: Take care of the problem on your end, Bixby squirmed, answering in the affirmative. He knew, from the first day he signed on with Harshaw, his life was at risk and expendable. He knew there’d be times he’d step directly in harm’s way and what he worked toward and for were far greater than any individual.

Since the first day he signed on with Harshaw, he learned the organization was a harsh mistress, lacking anything that could be called compassion, focused only on the charter and the goal. He liked that. All doubt was removed, all he had to think out was the task directly in his path. He believed in what he did.

Somewhere in time, he made an error. He got to liking Marks. When Harshaw said: Take care of the problem on your end, Bixby knew what Harshaw meant. Bixby formed the arguments, which were never put to words. He knew, if the situation fell within the charter, he could eat a hotdog with one hand and put a bullet between Harshaw’s eyes, finishing lunch without so much as dripping mustard on this tie.

He had done similar, more than once.

Bixby argued with himself. Marks is a good man. He is an asset to the organization and worth any effort to keep him in-house. His real motivation was he had gotten to like Marks. Marks was the younger brother he never had.

Bixby, like many people who dealt with and worked for the organization, had insurance. Most people had a file and proofs squirreled away that could expose the organization’s dealings, much of the dealings being questionable. Bixby also knew such insurance was worthless. The organization made great efforts with rolling investigations and identifications. Marks’ file and any insurance he had, Bixby knew, was being purged even as he navigated the car with Marks in the trunk away from the city.

Bixby’s insurance was different. It was thorough, complex, multifaceted and complete, accounting for every eventuality. He developed his insurance over time and looked toward the planning as he would any Event Horizon. He didn’t prepare for if they killed him. He prepared for if they wanted to kill him. He designed a total blink with over two dozen varied options, even going as far as having psychological records, history and pre-paid sex reassignment surgery if he needed such an option.

Through layers of shells, he owned properties in the United States and four other countries, two not friendly to Americans. In all his dealings, using his experience with the organization, he left no tracks in the sand. He could disappear like he were never born, if he had to.

Nevertheless, he believed in the organization and he believed in his work. He also didn’t want to kill Marks. As much as they disagreed over many things, he happened to like him and didn’t think it fair not to bring him back from his breakdown. To the organization, the harsh mistress, Marks was expendable. He could not be recovered nor could he be redeemed.

Marks’ only crime was to serve the harsh mistress.

Bixby had many safe houses, designed and constructed in the tradition of the late fifties fallout shelters. Isolated from human surroundings, on the surface the buildings appeared as just another hunting cabin, nestled away in the forest. Below the structure were enough provisions to last a man five years if need be. Bixby piloted his car toward one of his cabins, hoping to hold up for a day or maybe two and bring Marks back to sanity. From there, he reasoned, they could make rational decisions what to do next. If his efforts failed, he had his duty.

I will not give up on you so easily, and I would like to believe you would do the same for me.

He gave into the urge for something hot and stimulating, pulling onto the bait and tackle shop parking lot as the sun struggled to find its way above the horizon, through the trees and the clouds.

 

133

Dark eyes, black like coal contrasted a slim ivory face. The black of her hair seemed to draw and consume any nearby light. Her gossamer robes flowed and floated in and around her as if a part of her, drawing the night near to become of her, too. Her appearance was at once startling and amazing. One could not tell whether she were an angel sent by God or a demon sent by Satan. She had been called both.

The fire’s dancing fingers played off the deep ebony of her eyes as she stood before and above the gathering of forty-odd people, stark white arms raised to a cresting full moon pushing its face through the high cloud cover.

Her lips, red as blood dripped into the first snow of winter, smiled warmly. “I shall tell the story of the beginning of all things.” She nodded to the faces of old friends and new. “As I have told the story so many times before. In this world, this place of ours, it is because of you, my friends, all of you that I have learned the true meaning of this story.

“You, all of you, have given me a home in a place of understanding, acceptance and light. You have demanded nothing of me and I have offered nothing. Yet, we share a love beyond what we are. It is this that sustains us.”

As with every time Megan began this particular story, lightning danced on the distant horizon behind her. She smiled down from the platform to hold Catrina’s eyes for a long moment. “Did you do that, my new friend?”

Trapped in an unguarded moment, she shook her head. “It is not my doing, I don’t think. I am learning much, most of all, that I do not understand.” 

“As it is for us all, Catrina.” Megan raised her arms high once more and began: “If it please my family and the Gods, then this is my telling:”

 

In a time, not a time, and in a place not a place, lived a youthful woman. She was a child yet was a woman and then was not a woman. If we could see her today, we would cry at her beauty and the children would giggle in delight. She sat among the tall pines, danced in the field of flowers and cooled herself in the waters of the lake. Her being was full, yet she felt deep in her heart something missing.

In this place, not a place, in a time not a time, there was only day with the bright sun laughing always. This child looked beyond her mountain, saw darkness and didn’t understand what darkness was. She didn’t like the darkness. She raised her hands to the sky and sang a song that had no words yet was full of wonder. In this song and of herself, she pushed back the darkness, creating a world much like hers but of the darkness, too.

She created a place, which is a place in a time that is a time. With this act of hers, the universe as we see it came to be. It is because of her and of her. She watched with wonder and excitement this place of her creation. Watch is all she could do. She is not of this place of her creation.

She is of the place, not a place in a time that is not a time. Yet, in this place of ours, she saw creatures not unlike herself and not like herself at all. Over the vast time she created, she watched these creatures, generation after generation, stand upright and look toward the stars and beyond. As their minds reached upward, their souls reached inward, both mind and soul growing from the earth that birthed them to be more and more like her.

A time came when she feared these creatures that stood upright and reached so high. She thought to withdraw her light so that all things would return as they were. She could not because she loved her creation, that place that was a place in a time that was a time.

Her love was not like the love we know. Her love is unwashed with matters of the flesh and emotion. Her love is pure and burns with the fire of one thousand suns. Her love is as the virgin’s love of the Mother and of the Father. Her love asks for nothing and offers nothing, yet this love sustains all that is in the place that is a place, in this time that is a time.

“What have you done?” Father asked from above.

“I have done nothing,” she answered.

“You have and this does not please me,” Father told her.

“What pleases me should be what pleases you. What I have done pleases me.”

Father looked deeply into creation. “This does not please me because they are not like us. There, your light dances with that which is not you. The darkness can, and will, climb upon the mountain and take even you into its shadow.”

She saw his wisdom and the truth that lay in his words. “Then, I will walk among them and they will see my light.”

“You do not understand that which you have done. You do not understand its nature,” Father warned her.

She thought into his words. “If I cannot walk among them, I will send my light among them instead,” she told Father. “So that they can have a star to guide them and I can learn and understand.”

“You cannot,” Father told her.

“Then stop me.”

Father could not stop her because Father’s love for her is pure and offered nothing and demanded nothing, yet it is this love that sustained her.

When we get to the mountain, we must have learned and know love as she knows love, else creation shall end. We must watch carefully those who pass through this place that is a place in a time that is a time, for those souls she sends among us so that we can learn this love.

We, all of us, know this love and we know the light. Yet, we know the darkness, too, because we are both. We are not like her, but we can be like her. We must learn this if we are to free ourselves and free her from what she has created.

 

Megan’s eyes deepened, dancing with the reflection of the bonfire. “And, that is my telling this night. How have we kept the wisdom, Catrina?

Catrina wiped tears from her cheeks. “Too well. It’s scary.”

“So mote it be. Do you care to address us?”

“Let’s eat?”

“Thy will be done.” She raised her arms once more. “Let us all feed our bodies and ponder the Way!”

Hayley Siegel poked Elderage hard in the ribs. “Is that it? A run-of-the-mill mystery cult?”

Elderage laughed. “Oh ye of little faith! Hang around. You might get to cover the end of all things!”

She put the back of her hand to his forehead. “You feeling okay? I might have some Prozac in my bag? I can get Joe to fly you off to the nearest loony bin?”

“Answer your phone, will you?” Elderage suggested.

“What?” Her cell phone called from her bag. “Hold on.” She stood and walked off, talking into the telephone, pacing and waving her free hand.

Elderage shrugged at Cat across the fire.

Cat nodded. “It’s getting worse.”

“What is?”

Siegel dropped down beside him.

“Your guy’s okay.”

Elderage nodded with his lip protruding. “Turned the corner, huh? Told you he’s from good stock.”

“I’m getting tired of being out of place.” She shoved the cell phone back in her bag. “I didn’t say he was going to be okay. He is okay. Some girl showed up –”

“Makaila?”

“Close. Acting on her behalf, she said. Jumped up and down on your guy’s chest and now he’s fully recovered.”

“Huh?” Elderage shook his head. “Whatever. We’ll ask him when he gets here.”

“He’s not coming.” She flipped her notebook. “A nurse Book –”

Judy leaned in. “That poor woman! That’s Brook, her first name, with an ‘r.’”

“You sure?” Siegel waved her pen.

“Yes, positive. She got to see the Makaila show.”

“On with it!” Elderage demanded.

“She said they were off to New Jersey.”

“George and the girl?”

“With another guy who came with the girl.” She looked at the pad again. “Stevens?” She looked at Judy.

Judy shrugged. “Never heard of him.”

Elderage took Sally’s hand. “Do you like to fish?”

“Don’t start that again!”

“I know of him. Pastor Stevens. He started all the bad press. He’s running with that crowd now? Sally, see if you can get Potter on the cell.”

“Ahead of you, boss. He’s not online.”

Elderage crossed his eyes. “Do you like to fish?”

“Yes, Larry, I like to fish. We’ll talk about it another time.”

Judy sighed. “Just make sure you don’t run out of another times.” She stared into the fire. “Don’t let the moment pass.” Tears found her eyes. “It was a gift from Makaila. I give it to you now.”

Elderage found his feet and went around the fire, kneeling at Catrina. “Cat, tell me straight up. What should I do? Hang here or head back?”

She put a hand to his face, smiling the best she could. “I don’t know.”

“This isn’t fun anymore, Cat. Not that it ever was a barrel of monkeys.”

“You should have moved to the mountain when you had the chance.” She worked her way to her feet. “I don’t know how you can stand dragging this flesh around with you all the time. Gather up the Makaila fans and let’s find a table and share a meal. I need some answers and I hope you guys have them.”

Elderage was stunned. “You’re kidding about the flesh, right?” Elderage knew Cat wasn’t a normal child or even a normal human being. Her eyes told him that. She had always been evasive, saying little and saying much at the same time. He knew the only straight answers he could get from her were the answers she chose to give. He accepted all this in his rational mind and left any thoughts of the myth and madness at the front door. All the muses of flights of fancy didn’t matter. He lived in a real world, in a rational world and he understood his job well. Now, the true confession stunned him.

“No, Larry.”

He blinked at her. “Then you mean to say –”

“Yes, Larry.”

His eyes would have fallen from their sockets if they could. “And, you need answers?”

“Yes, Larry.”

“But – but – but don’t you know everything?”

“It’s funny to see you flustered.”

“I’m glad I amuse you!”

“I used to think that’s what it was all about. Now, I’m not so sure.”

“I need a drink.” He rolled his eyes. “I have a million, no a million and one questions.”

“Gather our friends. It’s time to eat.”

 

134

Judy glanced over her shoulder and then looked across the table at Catrina. “He did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.”

“Should Joe and I leave?” Siegel asked, too amused, receiving a glare from Judy. “You’re not kidding?”

Megan held up a hand. “No, do not leave, you are welcome here. No, Judy is not kidding, because that is her heart’s vision, and no, Judy is not correct. It has never been the way of any gods to withhold from us that which we need.”

“If that were only so.” Catrina’s sad voice sat in the air. “True, but not exactly so. What has been withheld was never for folly or malicious intent. It is from lack of understanding who you are.”

Judy forced her words onto the table. “I didn’t learn I couldn’t understand what I was not, until I lived as one, among those, whom I’m not. This is something Makaila’s shown me. As it must be with you, Catrina.”

Catrina winked playfully at Judy. “You have no idea.”

Megan once again raised a hand. “I feel now is the time to listen, not to speak. Now is the time to listen to she who comes among us so that we can understand the Way.”

“Wait a minute.” Siegel jotted notes. “What are you saying?” She pointed to Catrina. “This child is God?”

Megan narrowed her eyes. “Not as you understand God to be. Did you not hear my story?”

“Enough!” Catrina proclaimed and commanded: “Bring me a barrel of water!” She laughed as only she could. “Only kidding. Ms. Hayley Siegel, it doesn’t matter what you believe or don’t believe. It will change nothing in reality so sit back and shut up. There’ll be plenty of time for questions and answers later. I gotta get some stuff worked out.”

Catrina sipped her coffee. “Good, but Larry brings me much better.” She looked around the table, settling in on Megan. “Boy, do you show the Mark.”

“I am honored by your words.”

“Mark?” Siegel asked.

“Shut up, already.” Catrina waved a hand. “I left the mountain and can’t get back.”

“Piece of cake.” Elderage dismissed the problem. “We’ll take you in the helicopter.”

Catrina laughed rudely. “You don’t listen. I should come over there and smack you on the forehead.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think I can explain it.”

“I can.” Megan closed her eyes.

Judy giggled, her eyes filling with tears again. “So can I.”

“I think I can,” Mike offered, pulling out a chair for Jill, then dropping down next to her. “I may not have Megan’s sight, but I have a brain in my head.”

“And, you are a magician after all,” Jill reminded him.

Josephine leaned on the table, drawing closer to the company. “I don’t understand it, but I think I do.” She pointed to Judy. “I do understand exactly what you’re saying. I’ve been the odd-man out of any crowd all my life.” She pointed to Catrina. “If I’m getting any of this at all, you’re really out of your natural element and don’t understand us or this place. All the details aside, which we could argue until the End Time, that sums it up, right?”

“I like you.” Catrina smiled. “You are again?”

“Josephine, call me Jo.”

“Ah, the cop. It’s all like jumbled up in my head right now so cut a girl some slack.”

“Consider the slack cut. I bet it is. So, the question before you is how to get home?”

“Sums it up, yeah.”

“Why not the helicopter?” Elderage asked.

“Catrina, that’s the core question everyone of us human beings has faced.” Josephine held Catrina’s eyes. “But, we don’t know where home is.”

Catrina stared blankly as Elderage asked yet again: “The Helicopter?”

Mike laughed. “Larry, you can’t get there from here. Think about it for a minute.”

“No.” Elderage shot back. “I don’t want to think about it. I want to go fishing. Tell me.”

Josephine narrowed her eyes. “But, you do know where home is. You know how you got here. All you have to do is leave the way you came.”

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Megan said. “I will answer. Catrina, you have lost what you had used to get here. Is that it?”

Catrina put a palm to her chest. “Yeah, I’m not me anymore. I can’t go back.”

“Can’t or don’t know the way?” Judy asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“I am,” Megan said. “If we find the path, you will regain that which you willingly gave up.”

“See, now, Larry?” Mike asked.

“No, I don’t. I go there all the time.”

Mike smiled curtly. “Catrina is not you.”

“Not even close,” Sally added. “Not like any of us.”

Catrina bit her lip and told Megan: “I didn’t willingly give up anything.”

“You did,” Megan insisted. “To save the existence of Makaila.”

Elderage caught the word existence. “Damn!” He put a hand to his forehead. “You, Makaila, the six girls. The girls are not like you. She is like you.” He turned to Megan. “She sends some among us?”

Megan nodded.

“Now you’re stuck here?” Elderage’s eyes went wide. “With us mere morals, as you called me who knows how many times?”

“Six girls? What six girls?” Josephine asked.

Catrina batted her eyelashes over soft blue eyes at Elderage. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

“Oh, the irony!” Elderage went to his feet, laughing. “This is rich!”

“Don’t be so amused,” Megan warned. “The implications are beyond our knowing.”

“I get it.” Judy laughed with Elderage. “Catrina, forgive me. All that we’ve been through as human beings and you sit there on the mountain watching, musing, right?”

Catrina nodded sadly.

“Now, you get a taste of here!”

Mike joined in the laughter. “Oh, that is funny!”

“No wonder we sent Jesus packing,” Josephine bit sarcastically.

“We should not laugh.” Megan tried a warning. “This is grave seriousness.”

Catrina found her voice. “Lighten up, Megan. Sure, it’s about as serious as it gets, but I’m learning something important here about you people. If I forget who I am for a second, it is funny.” She laughed openly. “Let’s find a better way to send me packing than you did with JC!”

 

135

Harshaw was not pleased to hear Marks slipped over the edge. He needed two men on location. However, the prime target in the Event Horizon was dealt with, leaving just a matter of mopping up. With her files gone, Harshaw knew Josephine McCarthy was left with wild tales to tell, which no one would believe.

The principals in the murder cult, as he had come to call it, were under his thumb. In time, he knew, they’d give him all the information he needed and the other conspirators would be dealt with. Larry Elderage and the mystery hacker were a concern, but Harshaw felt they could wait. Time would end that part of the story, too.

With his system back up and the programs to feed information, the unsolved murders for the past decade didn’t reveal a pattern. He saw three that might fit, but only at a stretch. Dr. Charles Zogg was the only unsolved murder he was sure fit in the equation. An odd pattern of children missing, disappearing in early November, came to the surface.

“My money says they joined the cult. Run down the pictures and once we identify other cult locations, I’m sure the children will turn up.”

Harshaw felt he finally had control of the Event Horizon, yet couldn’t shake the feeling of a coming storm. He didn’t believe in psychic phenomena but was a firm believer in intuition as long as it was coupled with and governed by reason. He stood at the front door of F-36, hands behind his back, rocking on his heels. The sun, just over the trees, promised a clear day. “I have faced the worst life could possibly offer,” he said to the glass doors. “Bring on the storm. I’ve got an umbrella.”

A car stopped on the dirt road fifty yards from the front door. Two adult men, one with a bible, and a child climbed out.

Harshaw smirked. “My job’s very easy when they come right to me.” He called over his shoulder: “Prepare three beds. We have guests.”

 

136

“I’m not sure what I mean, Larry.” Catrina scanned the faces around the table. “I told you before, I don’t know the mechanics of things. They just are. I’ve lost my inner sight. Everything that was so clear and obvious just isn’t anymore.”

“But, you feel there’s something out of whack?”

“Oh, yeah. Way out of whack.”

“If I may.” Megan watched Catrina carefully. “There is a balance in all things. If the balance is disturbed, all things are affected.”

“Not in all things, Megan the witch. There’s a balance in this universe of yours. Not so on the mountain.”

“Then that is what you mean. You have left the mountain. That is what caused things to be out of balance here. This place, here, Catrina, is of you, not separate from you.”

Catrina put her head in her hands. “Maybe it was. I don’t think so anymore. I’ve been consumed by my own creation.” She looked to the distance glow of the horizon. “I wish I could see clearly, but all I got is feelings. There’s one, a child, doing what she cannot do, forcing things even farther from the balance that should be.”

“What you said last night? It gets worse?” Elderage asked.

“Yeah.”

“The kid in the hospital?” Siegel asked for clarification.

Catrina nodded.

“I’m still not ready to run the God comes to Earth story. I haven’t seen anything with my own eyes to convince me that you’re not just some crazy kid.”

“Want me to smite someone for you?”

Elderage laughed.

“Siegel.” Mike put a hand down on the table. “My wife’s pregnant.”

“For sure?” Judy asked with wide eyes.

“For one hundred percent sure. EPT.”

“So what?” Siegel asked.

“She has no uterus.”

“I need to talk to you about that in private,” Catrina informed Jill.

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.” Siegel punctuated her statement with a wave of a hand.

“I have some rubber gloves in the trailer if you want to look for yourself.” Mike received a sharp hand up the back of his head from Jill.

“I’ll say it again. It doesn’t matter to me what you believe or don’t believe.” Catrina crossed her arms over her chest.

“So mote it be.” Megan agreed with a nod.

Josephine blinked hard, trying to keep her eyes open. “It’s been a very long day. I need to impose on someone for a place to crash.”

“Our trailer, door’s never locked.” Mike pointed across the lot.

She stood. “I’ve listened for hours to you guys arguing about the nature of things. Me, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, but I know what the problem is and I know what you need to do. Forgive the wrong terms I use. They’re the only ones I have.”

All eyes fell on Josephine as she leaned on the table. “God, I’m tired!” She looked at Catrina. “You were someplace else and came here by magical means. You can only return by magical means. If it was a matter of the law, I’d be the-man, but it’s not. It’s a matter of magic. Megan, Mike this falls in your laps. Put your heads together, figure it out and do the magic. If the magic’s right, problem solved. The rest is only details.”

“Magic?” Siegel asked.

 Megan, Mike and Catrina nodded.

“Whatever the hell you want to call it! I don’t have the right words. I told you that already.” She turned back to Catrina. “That’s what you need to do. Do it. I’m going to get some sleep. If you leave before I wake, I’ll see you on the other side.” She turned on Siegel again. “Or whatever the hell you want to call it!”

She looked to the clouds. “I do have one question, Catrina. There was this clown, you got a glimpse of him last night, who shot me twice in the chest. He had a smile on his face, I think. Anyway, is it cool for me to hunt him down like the dog he is and return the favor or is that wrong?”

“I guess that’s an age old question, huh?”

“I’m tired, don’t you dare distract me with parable nonsense!”

“I do like you.” Catrina nodded to Megan. “If you weren’t so distracted, you’d see she does show the Mark.” Back to Josephine, she told her: “No parable, just the dirt. There is no right and wrong. It’s your life. Do what you got to do to live with yourself. I have never, nor will I ever judge you.”

Josephine’s lip curled. “So mote that be! Thanks.”

“I do like her.” Catrina nodded. “You guys got such fire when you get going!”

“She’s right, though,” Elderage said to Josephine’s retreating figure. “It’s gotta be magic, whatever you want to call it. And, Catrina, just so you know: I’m down to only a million questions now.”

“I need to search the text of the old wisdom.” Megan’s eyes hung tired.

Larry put a hand on Megan’s arm, surprised her white flesh wasn’t cold to the touch. “Assimilating and coordinating information is what Sally and I do. We’ll help.”

“Count me and Jill in on the read-fest,” Mike volunteered. “I’ve been frothing at the mouth to get at those witchy books. Professional interest, you know.”

Megan raised her hand. “The old wisdom is for the few, not to be viewed by those not of the Way.”

“Nonsense, witch.” Catrina’s words cut the air. “Knowing stuff can never hurt anyone.”

Megan’s eyes held Catrina’s. “Are you sure I may share the old wisdom with those not of the Way?”

“Of course, I’m sure! I’m freaking God, aren’t I?”

Everyone, including Megan, laughed into the light of the dawning sun.

 

137

“Do you believe there’s like a master plan or something and everything’s all laid out somehow, maybe even directed by the old guy in the woods?” Makaila asked Arianna.

“Don’t know. If my life was all predetermined by the guy in the woods and all I can do, and all that’s happened is because he wrote the script, let’s go back and kick his butt!”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Why do you ask?”

Makaila snickered. “Sometimes things fit together too well for it to be happenstance.”

“You mean like the states on the map fitting together perfectly?”

“Well, yeah. That, too.” She pointed to a car pulling to a stop. “But, more like one of the guys who shot me last night pulling into this very parking lot we happen to be sitting in.”

Arianna was stunned. “Shouldn’t we be running or something?”

“I can’t stop giggling. Nah, he’ll think he’s seeing a ghost or something. Like how can I be sitting here? His brain won’t make any sense of it and we need a car.” Makaila felt light-headed, shaking it off. She had the odd feeling of being in two places at once.

Stay here and now.

Arianna went from giggle to laugh. “They call that karma.”

“Karma?”

“What goes around comes around?”

“Oh, sure, something like that. Should I kill him?”

“What?”

“Kill him, like send him to God. Get him out of my face.”

“Get out my face. Something George used to say. Why don’t you just steal his clothes? Can you overpower him or something?”

“Just seeing me’s going to send him into shock. However, he is a professional. He might empty his gun into me again before he even has a chance to think about it.” She shook the bag. “We need more chips.”

“I’m ready for more coffee, soon as I get rid of what I drank. Be right back. Don’t do nothing I might not want to miss.” Arianna set out for the trees around the corner of the building.

Makaila turned her head just a bit with a smile and a nod as Bixby nodded and entered the bait shop. She read his subtle body, analyzed his attire, compared how he appeared then with how he had appeared, compared with his movements and actions from the night before. In her mind, she saw where his gun was, identified his other gun, noted he was right-handed but overcompensated, thus his right side was his weak or slower side.

Pulling up every memory she had of him, she calculated his reactions. She knew he wouldn’t be inside long and she knew he would not freeze. Just like Harshaw, he’d make a move if he weren’t one hundred per cent convinced she was serious.

He’s much younger and less cautious. Mortality hasn’t really come home yet.

Makaila came to her feet, entered the bait and tackle shop, had Bixby’s pistol out, firing once into the back of the man’s knee, sending him kneeling to the floor before the shopkeeper or Bixby knew she was there. The shopkeeper immediately had both hands in the air.

She smacked Bixby hard on the side of the head with the barrel and planted it behind his ear. “Keep the hands on the counter and don’t even breathe hard or I’ll send you to hell!”

“This girl is a –” Bixby started to the shopkeeper.

Makaila fired again, barely nicking his right ear.

“Now, you and Harshaw are twins! I really didn’t want to do that. Want to go for one in the brain?” She smiled at the man behind the counter. “Two more coffees, please. Oh, and put your hands down. Me and this guy got this personal thing going on. And, yeah, smack your 9-1-1.” She steadied the gun in one hand and retrieved a folded paper from her hip pocket. With a shake to open it, she placed it on the counter.

“Give this guy a couple of packs of gum, on me.”

“Damn.” The shopkeeper eyed the poster. “He’s a bad one!”

“Actually, just misled. If he was a bad one, he’d be talking to Satan right now, saying: ‘I was just buying some coffee and Makaila, she-who-is-like-God punched my ticket!’”

“Kill him.” Arianna’s voice came from the door. “Kill him now. He’ll just keep coming.”

The bait and tackle shop owner hung up the telephone and looked hard at Makaila. “You’d better listen to your friend there. He’s a bad one.”

Makaila saw the reason and the sense in what they said. The muscles in her hand agreed. She stopped short.

Now, that doesn’t make sense.

She swung around and looked into Arianna’s worried eyes and then at the shop owner.

“Dammit!” She put a hand to the back on Bixby’s head, sending him into a deep sleep to land face-up on the floor. Falling to her knees, she fished in his pocket and then threw the keys to Arianna. “Hang onto these.”

Placing a hand on either side of his shattered knee, she drew a deep breath and gave out a loud scream. She dug out his other gun and tossed both onto the counter. “If you want him dead, you kill him.” She placed a hand on Bixby’s forehead. “Come back to us, now!” Bixby’s eyes fluttered. Makaila waved Arianna over to help her up, using her friend as a crutch.

“Listen.” She looked down at the confused Bixby. “There’s sirens in the distance. I’m taking your car. Too bad for you. You can take to the woods or try to talk your way out of it. Doesn’t matter to me. You don’t really understand me or anything about me. I’m considering that here. It ain’t personal. Know this: you keep coming, I will kill you next time just like I’d kill a fly buzzing around my head. I got nothing against the fly, but it’s bothering me. As it is, I’m giving you another chance. Use it wisely.”

Bixby came up on an elbow and looked at his guns on the counter. The shopkeeper nodded. Bixby fell back down and looked at the ceiling.

“Makaila?”

Makaila stopped half out the door in Arianna’s tow.

“Yeah, Bixby?”

“There’s something in the trunk. Would you leave it, please? It’s important to me.”

Makaila rolled her eyes into her head. “Yeah, Bixby. We’ll leave it.”

“Thanks.” Bixby closed his eyes, gathering his thoughts for a moment before jumping back into life.

It took all Makaila had to pull the dazed and weak Marks from the trunk. Dropping him to the dirt, Makaila put a hand to his forehead. “You’ll be okay.” She undid the handcuffs and removed the car key from the ring, leaving the extra keys in Marks’ hand.

Marks put his hands to Makaila’s face. “I told him you weren’t dead. I told him.”

“No, Marks. Not for a while yet.”

 

Arianna watched out the back window as they sped away. “I’m getting tired of saying, I don’t understand.”

“I was real close to missing it myself, so don’t feel bad.” She flexed her leg. “Good, the pains going away already.”

“Missing what?”

“What did the bait guy say?”

“Well, he agreed with me. I still think you shoulda plugged him.”

Makaila took her eyes off the road, staring deeply at Arianna, her eyebrow raised.

Arianna blinked hard three times. “He saw me! He heard me! Duh!”

“So I did the exact opposite of what he said.”

Arianna laughed. “I am so dumb!”

“This killing thing has confused me forever. I really didn’t understand it and I’m not sure I do yet. Cat says there’s no right and wrong only choices, but I’m thinking there’s right and wrong choices. Follow?”

“Not an inch.”

“It’s mine to figure out, not yours. Most people are almost born knowing murder’s wrong. It’s a habit. You don’t have to think about it. A normal person would be too damn worried about killing someone, they’d hesitate when faced with a guy like that back there and end up dead.

“Come to think of it, just a few months ago, I would have blown his brains out instead of shooting his knee off. I did consider the brain as an option and if he threatened someone else, I would have nailed him and never looked back.

“Murder is not right or wrong, the circumstances make it one or the other, just like chickens.” She smiled. “It’s all so clear now. How come I didn’t see it before?”

“It was in your head and not real?” Arianna suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“Okay. You were trying to think it out in your head. It’s not really real there. It’s only real when it counts.”

“When my finger’s on the trigger.”

“Yeah.”

“We gotta find Cat. Her finger’s on a trigger it’s never been on before.” She rolled her eyes and made estimations. “Least she can’t be with a better group of people. Couldn’t be better if I hand-picked them myself.”

Makaila looked to the passenger side of the car. Arianna was gone. “See you on the other side,” she muttered to the highway ahead and calculated how long she could keep the car before the net came down.

 

138

Stevens didn’t ask and Potter didn’t get any answers. Terri sat, wordless as if a million miles away, speaking only to give directions or point to something out the window as they passed. Potter gave up asking, surrendering to a restless on and off sleep.

Stevens pushed the car into the coming day as if propelled by the force of will rather than a gas pedal. His jaw was tight, giving no sign of the weakness Potter saw the other day.

“Would you have really killed me?” he asked Potter early in the journey.

“I don’t really know.”

“I’d have deserved it.”

Potter lobbied for a stop, insisting his bladder was going to burst. Terri briefly stretched her legs and then sat on the car’s hood, staring to the east seeing what no mortal could. Stevens unwrapped a hamburger and broke off pieces, forcing food in Terri’s mouth, alternating with a straw for Terri to drink.

“She’s possessed by God.” Stevens offered the explanation. “I will take her, follow her to where she wants to go.”

The glare in Terri’s eyes shouted down any arguments Potter could make. Stevens hinted Larry Carleton was at the end of the road. Potter hoped Arianna would be there, too.

Potter looked toward the east, trying to see with Terri’s eyes. “I abandoned you once. I will not again.”

“She’ll be fine, George. I see it clearly. Everything’ll be fine.” Terri gave her own promise, her voice like speaking from the bottom of a well.

 

George shivered when he heard the words and he shook when he climbed from the car to see F-36 and its cold, forbidding façade.

Emotionless, face like a mannequin, inhuman, Terri took the center of the road. Stevens put his hand up to block George’s forward motion, nodding toward the ground. Stevens dropped to his knees and opened his Bible. “Pray with me.”

“That child can’t face them alone. We have to go with her!”

“Trust in God, my friend. It’s out of our hands. Don’t you see that?”

George was caught. He couldn’t move forward or down to his knees.

“You’re safer here anyway. George, you felt the child’s hands on you. You cannot deny what you know. You should also know, the hands that can heal so powerfully can just as powerfully do the opposite.” He looked to his Bible. “If you cannot find it in your heart to trust God in this moment, then simply trust what you know already.”

George dropped to the dirt beside the pastor. “I’ve never prayed before.”

Stevens looked at him sideways. “Then just keep your wits about you and your head down.”

 

139

Harshaw stared in wonder at the child moving slow and steady, measured step by measured step like a bride toward the altar. “There’s nothing more dangerous than someone who truly believes,” he muttered.

“We’ll fix that believing with a date with the electrodes.” The aide in a white lab coat nodded. “What are those other two doing?”

“Looks like they’re praying.”

Terri stopped, the glass of the door and fifteen feet separating her and Harshaw. Her eyes burned into the eyes of the half-dozen men awaiting Harshaw’s orders. She settled in on Harshaw. She fisted her hands, crossed over her chest. Terri’s lips didn’t move.

You are the one?

The words boomed in Harshaw’s ears. He shook his head, blinking hard.

Terri raised a small hand with an extended finger. The voice came again.

I ask you: are you the one who has my people? Her eyes flashed with an inner light as she returned her hands to her chest.

Hide in silence if you must. It doesn’t matter. You will let my people go.

“Do you hear that?” Harshaw asked the man next to him.

“Hear what?”

He looked hard at Terri’s immature face.

“Come on in, and we’ll talk about it.”

I will not come in. You will deliver my people to me, here and now or I will kill you and walk over your lifeless body.

“This is ridiculous. Bring them in.” He waved a hand in the air, as if shooing a fly.

Terri raised her arms.

Somewhere in the distance of imagination, a low rumble grew from the mundane background noise. The walls vibrated and then shook. The glass doors shattered inward, forcing Harshaw and the others back.

“Earthquake.” Harshaw shrugged calmly, dropping to one knee, producing his handgun. He drew a quick bead on Terri’s forehead and released three bullets. “That’s that. Now go get the others.”

Terri’s form wavered in the air as if Harshaw were looking down a long road on a hot summer day. She stepped forwarded, stopping two short paces from the entrance. Her eyes flashed and glistened. She said in the voice of any child: “As you wish it.” She raised her arms again. The sky behind her grew black with thick, billowing clouds.

Harshaw emptied his pistol into the shimmering figure.

Fingers of light danced like a living spider web across and around the storm clouds, coalesced and finally raced downward as one, through Terri, filling the foyer and hallway with ear-shattering thunder and blinding, flesh-searing light.

Terri tilted her head, listening with her inner sight. “It is done.”

Stevens stood, pulling George to his feet. “It is done.”

“I’ll be damned!”

“Unlikely.”

They hurried to catch up to Terri.

She knelt at the smoldering charred remains of what was once the animated being known as Jordan Aristotle Harshaw. “Why did he make me do it, Steve?”

Stevens bowed his head in silent prayer for a moment. “It seems we receive from God what we ask for.”

She looked up. “This place is evil. Do you feel it?”

Stevens nodded. “Maybe this place made him do it.”

Terri stood, tilting her head again. “He made this place, this place made him.” She rolled her eyes into her head. “We have much work to do. We have many souls to recover. It is too much for me alone. My mortal body cannot sustain.”

“Ordain us.” Stevens nodded toward the speechless Potter.

“I will do just that after we retrieve Brother Larry and Saint Arianna. Arianna is very close to death. It is she-who-is-like-God who sustains her even now.” Terri blinked twice. “This way.”

 

140

They found Larry strapped to a bed in a small, pale green room. With a hand to his forehead, Terri muttered to herself. “He’s been drugged. I’ll cleanse this.” She held her right hand to Stevens, who placed the knife blade on her palm.

With one long sweep, she placed her fiery blood-soaked palm to Larry’s forehead. “By the blood of the Saint, in the name of God and the power of Makaila, she-who-is-like-God and by the power of Saint Arianna and by the power granted to me, in the name of Makaila, she-who-is-like-God and in my name, I do now command you be cleansed of the toxins that keeps your soul away from us. Come back to us, now!”

George released the straps as Stevens stood back, close but out of the way, Bible open with his lips moving.

Terri crawled on top of Larry as he gained consciousness. “I love you,” she muttered softly.

“Welcome back.” Stevens nodded, guiding Terri back to the floor. “George, if you would bring Larry up to date the best you can, Saint Terri and I have more work to do.”

“Saint Terri?” Larry’s eyes went wide as he came up on his elbows.

“Of course.” Terri, for a brief moment, found the child within. “Listen to George. We’ll talk in a few minutes. There is work to do!”

George wanted to go to Arianna. He obeyed the instructions.

 

Terri staggered, almost losing her footing as she entered the room hosting Arianna. She fell against Stevens. Visions danced in her head, tears came.

Stevens held her. “Suck it up, Saint Terri.”

With three deep breaths, Terri found the center of her soul. “Yeah. I just learned something. Makaila, she-who-is-like-God was here. This was her room. I just had a vision of her experiences here.”

Stevens looked toward the bed holding the restrained saint. “How ironic. This must be the saint room.”

“This place is evil. That guy lives on here. We’ll send it back to hell.” She nodded twice, hard, climbing on top of Arianna’s chest with Stevens’ help. Terri held her hands to the ceiling.

“In the name of God, in the name of Makaila, she-who-is-like-God and in my name, by the power granted me, I do now command you back to full health so that you may serve Makaila, she-who-is-like-God.” She held her open hands to Stevens and in turn, pulled each hand across the blade.

With her hands to Arianna’s face, she closed her eyes. “By the blood of the Saint, I call you back to life. I call you back to health. I demand your wounds be healed. I demand: come back to us, now, that you may serve her!”

“Where do you think Cat is?” Arianna asked Makaila, but found herself looking up at Terri.

“Welcome back.” Stevens worked on the straps.

“Eh, thanks. Hi, Terri. I hear you been a busy little Saint.”

“Yeah, kinda sorta.”

“We have work,” Stevens reminded Terri again, helping her off Arianna.

Arianna swung her feet over the side of the bed, completely oblivious to her nakedness. “We haven’t officially met. Pastor Stevens, I’m Arianna.” She held out a hand.

“Saint Arianna.” He bowed. “Just Steve is fine, please.” He did not take her hand.

Arianna turned to Terri, taking her shoulders. “I’ve been with Makaila!”

Terri nodded. “Which explains why you’re not dead. I thought so. She-who-is-like-God has held the life in your body so that you may serve her.”

Arianna blinked at the depth and intensity of the child. That’s scary.

Larry rushed in, George close behind. “I don’t believe a word of it! And you!” He pointed an angry finger at Stevens. “You who stand against us!”

Terri stepped between Stevens and Larry. “Brother Larry! Look in the hall! Those in this place standing against us lay dead! Brother Larry! I did that!”

Larry’s face grew hard, yet excited. “It’s beginning.”

“George was sent by Makaila.” Arianna waved a hand.

“You dare use her name like that?” Terri challenged.

Larry’s eyes narrowed. He was overcome, everything moving so quickly. He was glad to see Arianna was alive, but asked: “How can you be so sure?”

Arianna climbed to her feet, realized she was naked and wrapped in a sheet. “Terri, I told you. I’ve been with her. We’re like on a first name basis. Larry, she told me herself.”

Larry thought into all the new information, looking at the faces. “Okay, what do we do now?”

“We have work here.” Stevens nodded toward the hallway.

Terri rolled her eyes into her head. “There’re fifty-eight others here, held against their will. We now heal all of them. We set them free.” She turned to Stevens. “I will empower you in her name, that you may help me. Brother Larry?”

“I will accept what you offer. I will help.” Larry puffed his chest out.

“I’m stealing George.” Arianna took George’s arm. “We have some mundane things to attend to.”

“Such as?” Stevens asked before Terri could.

Arianna took in the dynamics of the personalities, her mind racing to put everything in order. She knew, human beings being what human beings are, she had to avoid a power struggle for the authority to speak for Makaila, she-who-is-like-God. Arianna knew Terri didn’t have the theology exactly correct. She also remembered the warning she herself had given Makaila about robbing people of their beliefs.

Arianna knew what Makaila called the place. She knew she stood in a room in Hell. It was good to free the souls.

Should I even try to explain Cat or the true nature of Makaila?

Arianna decided things were confused enough already. She carefully framed her words. “Makaila, she-who-is-like-God awaits us, once our tasks here are done. I sat with her and listened to her words.” She looked hard at Terri. “While you finish our tasks here, I will prepare for our journey.”

“It will be so.” She waved George and Arianna off, turning to Stevens and Larry. “Kneel before me.”

They did.

Terri placed a hand on either head, turning her face to the ceiling. “By my blood and in the name, power and glory of Makaila, she-who-is-like-God and in my name, I empower and bestow upon you both her light and her power, that you may serve her will and her plan for this world. I empower you in my name and her name, that you may remove the evil that has been put within these people. This I command now!”

Terri’s eyes glistened with an internal light. “Let’s begin our work in her name!”

 

“First.” Arianna began.

George cut her off. “First we find you some clothes. Not that the toga look doesn’t work for you.” He kicked in a door. “Saw this on the way by.” They entered. He quickly scanned the cardboard boxes on the shelves. “That was too easy.” He pulled a box down. “I’ll wait in the hall.”

“No, stay. I want you to see something.” She set the box on a bench, dropping the sheet to the floor. “This.” She watched his eyes carefully as she dressed.

“I don’t understand. What exactly is it I’m supposed to be seeing?”

She pulled her pants up. “I can’t believe I lost this much weight so quickly. Something Makaila told me. Something she said I don’t understand, confusing love with lust.”

George didn’t yield or avert his eyes as she worked into her shirt. “Blood stains never come out. Maybe I should have stayed with the toga? I lied. It’s something I wanted to see.”

“Hi.” A stranger entered. “My clothes are here somewhere?”

George helped him find his box.

“Makaila told me you love me, are in love with me. I told her no. You don’t have the look in your eyes when you look at me. She said I was confusing lust with love. I wanted to see what love looks like.”

George blushed like a sixteen-year-old girl whose diary was being read in front of her English class. “I have no right.”

Someone else came looking for clothes. “Find them yourself.” Arianna put a hand to George’s face, stepping close. “We have the right to love, George. We have the right to do anything we wish.” She looked over George’s shoulder. “Your name’s on a box somewhere.” Arianna glanced around. “See, George. These people are helping each other, strangers helping strangers. They have that right, too.”

She brought her other hand to his face and held his eyes. “In this moment, in this time, my life is not my own. My life is in service to another.”

“Makaila.”

“No. Not really. Makaila by proxy, maybe.” She lifted herself on her toes and kissed Potter long and hard. “We need to find a phone that still works. What happened out there?”

Potter stared into Arianna’s eyes. “Out where? What phone?”

She giggled. “I’m going to like this love thing, I think. In the hallway. What happened?”

The room became crowded. George pulled Arianna into the hall. “I’m not really sure. I can tell you what I saw.”

The telephones at the nurses’ station and reception desk were melted and useless, George’s cell lost in Pennsylvania.

“Tell me what you think, then.”

“Terri caused an earthquake and then called lightning down and through herself.”

“That’s what I figured.”

“You accept readily something I don’t believe even though I saw it happen?”

“I’ve been to the mountain. It’d take a lot to surprise me.”

“Mountain? This looks like something.” Larry stepped into a far back room, its door removed, full of electronic equipment. The telephone had a dial tone. “Who we calling?”

“God.”

“God?”

“Yeah, prayer’s so Dark Ages, you know.”

“What’s the number?” He half-joked.

“Don’t know. I’m taking a wild guess here. Call your boss.”

“Who? Oh, okay.” Potter punched the numbers and waited. “Hey Sally, what’s up, baby.”

A paused followed. “George Potter? Where the hell are you and why didn’t you have your damn phone on?” Larry Elderage yelled.

“Good to hear your voice, too, Mr. Elderage.”

“I wish people would stop saying stuff like that to me. We’re up to our eyeballs out here. What do you have?”

“Out where?”

“Pittsburgh.” Arianna and Elderage spoke at the same time.

“Okay, Mr. Elderage, I got my own mess happening here. Let me take care of this business first. Do you have a Mr. God around there somewhere?” He winked at Arianna.

“That would be Miss or even Ms. to be politically correct, God, actually.”

“What? Hold on a sec.”

Arianna took the telephone. “Hi, Mr. Elderage. Could I speak to Cat, please?”

“Who’s this?” Elderage put his hand over the receiver and said to Sally: “Let’s go fishing.”

“Arianna, or Saint Arianna to many.”

“Arianna? But you’re locked up, or dead?”

“Or, maybe both. I don’t know anymore. Terri showed up and brought one of them Horsemen with her, the fire rider. When she’s done healing the unwashed masses, I think she’s going to bury the place right to hell. She’s really out of control, but I love her for it. That don’t matter. Let me talk to Cat.”

“Terri? Oh, never mind. Let me get her. I want to buy a ticket out of here, anyway. I have a fishing rod with my name on it in the trunk.”

A moment inched by. “Arianna? What are you doing off the mountain?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing. Forget how I got here. Makaila’s guessing you screwed up and she’s heading at you right now.”

“I was wondering what the cavalry was going to look like. Is she okay?”

“She’s pretty pissed. At you, and just might boot you back to the mountain with one foot to the butt. Other than that, she’s cool.” Arianna bit her lip. “You lost your sight?”

“I got a list of stuff I lost. I won’t bore you with my problems. Where are you?”

“Hell – still.”

“You’re back in the corporal then?”

Arianna laughed. “Now, why would you even think I’d know what you’re talking about?”

Cat giggled. “Makaila can’t keep her mouth shut.”

“Yeah, I’m all hooked back up.”

“Makaila sent you back?”

“No, Terri. Do you know Terri? Anyway, one of your Saints. Smote the sinners and healed my body. I guess she called me back. Sound right to you?”

“Smote the sinners?”

“Biblically. Old Testament stuff.”

“Dammit! You gotta rein her in. She’s doing what she shouldn’t be doing, gumming up the balance. This is not good.”

Arianna took a leap. “It’s because you’re off the mountain. That’s why she can do this? What can’t be done?”

“Yeah, dammit. Makaila can do miracles because, well, let me just say she can do miracles, not others.”

“Because she’s like God. She’s like you, but she’s like us, too.”

“Well –”

Arianna’s eyes got big. “You have the same father!”

“Arianna. Rein the kid in. Do whatever it takes.”

“It would take Makaila appearing in a vision, spinning in the sky, sitting on a flaming throne.”

“Where do you fit in her theology?”

“Well, I’m a Saint. I’ve walked with Makaila. I think, for now, I’m a step up the ladder from Terri. I might be slipping off a rung though.”

“Cool. It’s time to gather together. Makaila calls us all.”

“I get it. We come there?” She looked at George. “Do you know exactly where they are?”

He nodded.

 

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