Ravyn, Zenny and I walked through the cold Chicago air, our feet crunching the crusted snow cover as we moved towards the small stone circle behind the Phoenix Coop. Jim followed behind.
Zenny hugged her arms tightly about her body, her teeth chattering as she shivered. “Why must it be so cold in this place?”
Ravyn reached out to touch her shoulder. “I’m sorry dear, I forgot. This will help.” Ravyn closed her eyes for the briefest of moments, uttering a word under her breath that was lost to the whipping winds. A soft red glow slipped from her hand and spread from Zenny’s shoulder to cover her entire body, fading gently as it did.
Zenny brightened up considerably as the glow disappeared. “That’s so much better. I wish I knew how to do that.”
Ravyn threw back her head in laughter, the sound echoing in the still night air. “We all have our own talents dear. Remember, there are things that you can do that I wish I could do as well. But the key is that we all use the abilities that we do have to their best effect. My affinity with fire does come in very handy in these drearily cold Chicago winters. I can’t wait to someplace where I don’t need to worry about making myself or others warmer!”
I led the way into the circle, passing the large, rounded boulder that I always remembered for the way that Betsy had introduced herself to me by killing and devouring a dark wolf-like Spirit that had followed me back from the Underworld into the Shadowland. I had used this place several times since then as a transit point, but that image stuck with me.
Zenny followed close behind, arms still held about her torso as if she were expecting the cold to return at any moment.
Ravyn was the last to enter, but only after she had turned to give Jim a hug. They exchanged a few whispered sentences between themselves in the darkness, but again the bitter, whipping winds rolling in off of the not so distant Lake Michigan claimed those words, preventing me from hearing what was said.
I leaned over to Zenny and quietly posed my own question. “So how long have these two been acting like this with each other?”
“That is none of my, or your, business, Shaitan.”
I looked at her in surprise, until I saw the sly smile cross her face.
‘Shaitan’ was the name that she had first called me when I had rescued her in the Jordanian desert from a bunch of mercenary contractors hired by Dr. Geek. She had been nearly delirious after having been severely damaged by multiple rapes and by a lack of food and water. She had believed me to be an avenging spirit that she had been praying for. Unfortunately for those mercenaries, that was one expectation that I had lived up to.
She had not called me by that name in many months. She hadn’t, in fact, spoken directly too me very much at all in the months since she had been with Ravyn healing and learning to harness her own magickal talents. The fact that she was willing to now joke with me was very promising.
Ravyn bounced through the edge of the circle and came to a stop directly in front of me, fists planted on her hips. “And just what did you mean by that quip?”
I looked up from Ravyn to Jim, who had his own arms folded across his chest as he looked down at us over his glasses. I saw no support there at the moment.
“I…uh…was just wondering…ah…never mind.”
“Good idea. Now, are you done gawking, or do you a question to ask me directly?”
I held up my hands in surrender. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
She glanced back at Jim briefly, a knowing look passed between them. “Good, then let’s go to Hialeah.”
As previously instructed, both Zenny and Ravyn took one of my hands. I summoned the Shadow, opening the path to the Shadowland, and stepped through.
In that place, this stone ring looked almost exactly the same as it did in the world of the living. Now though, I could see a dark stain on the rock where Betsy had dropped and then consumed that wolf-spirit. Jim’s Spirit form stood there watching us as well. His Spirit form was nearly as large and tall as he was in life, roughly in the shape of a bear, standing on his hind legs. The colors of his form shifted slowly from dark blue to a more violet color as he began to worry about us.
I knew that Jim didn’t have the conscious ability to see into the Shadowland, but it was hard to resist one last nod of acknowledgement as I shifted my concentration from getting to the Shadowland to now moving through it to where we needed to go.
Even though the Shadowland was almost a mirror copy of the world of the living, the world in which we experience on a daily basis, time and distance are different concepts here. Moving from place to place within this realm was both much easier and much more difficult than in the traditional world of human experience.
Here in this transitory place, there are portals to many, many different worlds. Not all of these portals, however, work in both directions. It takes a special skill and recognition of the different kinds of portals and where they might lead that can only be acquired through trial and error.
Luckily, I have a well-spring of hard won knowledge of the Shadowland that I gained first from the remnants of Ma Grendel that I still hold within me, and from my own hard-won experience.
I must admit that being (un)dead helps me to overcome almost all of the mistakes I make when traveling through this place.
When John Red Bear taught me to free myself from the bounds of my Chakra by slip my spirit form into the Shadowland and through this place into the Underworld, he taught me to travel as a Shaman, spiritually.
It wasn’t until later, when I was able to observe Papa Locks use the Shadow in this way that I realized that real physical bodies, living and otherwise, could travel here as well. Upon discovering that I had this ability after my confrontation with Ma Grendel, my existence fundamentally changed.
Once in the Shadowland, I could, as a matter of Will send myself flying at such extraordinary speeds that I could arrive in Hialeah within moments. But by flying through the Shadowland that quickly, there would be a risk of passing through some random portal to a world that I would rather not go to. Because I was traveling with Ravyn and Zenny, and because the places we might end up in were just as likely to be inhospitable to living beings, I couldn’t take that chance, unless it was an emergency.
So instead of a single, speed of thought flight through the Shadowland, I drew a cocoon of Shadow about our bodies to keep us hidden from any of the nasty critters and unassociated Spirit forms (those Spirit forms no longer tied to living bodies—but who have been unable or unwilling to seek the next stop in their Spiritual journey—often called ghosts) and made our journey in dozens of shorter, bouncing flights along paths I felt to be safe.
The whole journey took less than half an hour, although it felt like much more by the time I dismissed the bubble of Shadow and we emerged in the dark alley outside the entrance to El Diablito’s old metaphysical shop, NextWorld in the heart of the warehouse district of Hialeah, just a few miles north of Miami International Airport.
Ravyn was the first to let go of my hand as she stepped away, brushing away the fleeting tendrils of dark Shadow substance that still clung to her clothing as if were stray pet hair. “OK, I like my way a LOT better.” She gave me a wicked grin and winked at Zenny. “Remind me again why we decided to travel by Zombie Air?”
Zenny steadied herself against the hard brick wall of the warehouse with both hands, trying to regain her balance. Her normally dark complexion had whitened considerably, but was now beginning to regain her normal hues. “Is there a better way than this? I did not like that very much.”
I shrugged, brushed myself off and grinned back at Ravyn. “Well, coming into the middle of Metro Miami with either a great big flash of fire and smoke or on the back of a flaming Phoenix might have brought a little more unwanted attention than my way did, but hey, I’m open to better suggestions.”
Ravyn stuck her tongue at me before going over to Zenny and helping her.
Having no tongue to stick back out at her, I turned to check out the door to the old shop. It looked very much like I had left it, several years before, when I first received my Chakra. The Cuban-born cabbie who had dropped me off here seemed to have been quite afraid of this place, or the neighborhood, or both.
I crossed the alley and came to the door that led into the front of the shop. The metallic sign hanging overhead creaked as it swung reluctantly in the stiff night breeze. The door had a simple pull handle, no key hole for a lock and no hooks or latches for a padlock of any sort.
As the gals came up behind me, I reached out to the handle.
Ravyn called out in a hushed whisper. “Rusty, wait!”
(To be continued)
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Opening Gambit...Part 1
“So how do we look?” Ravyn bounced and twirled before pulling her best Vanna White pose pointing to the similarly attired Zenny Al Farhan standing next to her.
Both women were dressed in all black, from the snug, form-fitting black hoodies to the soft-soled black leather boots that came half way up the shins of their sleek, black lycra-laced tights. Each of them also wore a military style black nylon utility belt that held closed pouches of varying sizes and shapes.
Ravyn’s hair had been pulled back into the long pony-tail that was customary when she was expecting action. Her normally bright and smiling face had been smudged with some sort of dark charcoal-like substance that only dulled her natural radiance. A pair of fine, black deerskin gloves was stuffed into her belt.
Zenny’s face had also been darkened with the same substance, clouding her fine features from easy recognition. In addition to the hood on her sweatshirt, her hair and ears were obscured by a dark blue hijab that had been wrapped tightly and pinned into place to prevent it from slipping loose.
Jim turned to admire their handiwork and whistled in appreciation. “Wow, I think I can verify those ‘health club’ expenses now.”
Zenny looked down at her shuffling feet in embarrassment.
Ravyn took the compliment in style as she sidled up to Jim, hopped up on the seat of the chair next to him and planted a peck on his cheek. “You ought to know better by now, dear, than to question my expense sheets!” She dropped back down to ground level and danced away before Jim could recover.
Her smooch left a smudge of charcoal on his cheek that only smeared further as he touched the spot, slightly red-faced.
“I like working out, it makes me happy and you know Jim, that there are all sorts of side benefits to making me happy.” Her wink to me as she skipped back over to Zenny showed me that she knew exactly how her flirting would affect him. “C’mon Zenny, let’s go grab a bite to eat and let these guys recover from our radiance.”
I shook my head, smiling as the gals slipped back towards the kitchen. “I’m still not sure that taking Zenny is a good idea. She’s suffered through so much. I’d hate to be responsible for something else happening to her.”
Jim was wiping the charcoal off his cheek with a clean handkerchief. “Well, she’s the one who volunteered. We can’t keep holding her back from things that she wants to try just because they might be dangerous. Besides, her talents could prove to be very useful in finding the clues to where El Diablito is hiding the core of his new organization.”
“Yeah, I know all of that. But I still can’t get the images of the way I found her in that house in the desert out of my mind. She wished that she had died.”
Jim nodded. “True enough. She didn’t die, though. Ravyn and the Frau have spent a lot of time and energy getting her back on her feet. She’s a very strong woman, Rusty. She’s healed from those wounds. Ravyn wouldn’t let her go if she didn’t think Zenny was up to the challenge.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “OK, you win, again. So how confident are you in these addresses that we are going to go check out?”
Jim reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper, unfolded it and handed it to me. There were four addresses listed on it.
“This first address is the corporate headquarters for the Mercury-Unlimited Group in the Bahamas. That is where Dick Arnold has at least an office for himself. It is an office building that has been built within the last year under very tight security on privately owned land, so we don’t have any eyewitness accounts just yet. It’s still too new to have had many ex-employees working inside of it, and the security was too tight to come up with any actionable intelligence. Ravyn and her people have tried to scry inside, but they’ve been blocked by some sort of magickal shield.”
I nodded. “They’ve using Caster as well.”
Jim grunted in agreement and pointed to the second address. “This one is the US headquarters for Bone Financial in Delaware. This building is also brand new and someone or something is shielding it as well, but we have a little more information on the lay out of that building, thanks to the local zoning commission. Ravyn has that information with her.”
“These last two address, they look familiar. Where have I seen them before?”
“You should recognize both addresses. The first, 25343 Covington Way, was the address that Nick was going to visit in the memory orb that you just viewed. It’s in a suburb of Atlanta. We would like you guys to investigate that location and see if you can discern what portals may be in use there and if you can activate them.
“That last address is El Diablito’s shop in Hialeah, NextWorld. It has been supposedly closed down for the last year or so, but who knows, there still may be something of use there.”
Hearing the name NextWorld brought back a rush of memories of that first, fateful visit to that place in South Florida where I first received my Chakra. I had met El Diablito for the first time that night. He had drugged me into a stupor with that tea he had made and used that opportunity to bind my Spirit form to that damnable device that kept me imprisoned in this unfeeling body after I had been killed.
I smiled. “Yes, I’d like to see that place again.”
Jim held up his hands. “Whoa there, Rusty. Remember, this is a scouting mission that we hope ends with us in possession of a few items and a lot more information about Bone Financial and the principles involved in all of this, we’re not looking for a confrontation, unless it can’t be avoided.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll try to be good.”
“I’ve seen that look before…”
Ravyn’s voice cut through Jim’s softer tones. “And so have I.” She stalked up to me, leaving the somewhat befuddled Zenny behind. Her finger was wagging as quickly as she was talking. “We’re going to slip in, grab what we need and slip out with as little disturbance as possible, do you hear me?”
I nodded, backing up a step and holding my hands up in surrender. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Get this through that thick Zombie skull of yours—this is no foolhardy revenge strike against an old enemy. We’ll fight if we have to, but we need to know more about our foe before we go blundering into battle.”
Backed up against the far wall by this time, I dropped my arms and looked down. “Alright already. I’ll be good!”
She gave me one more of those looks, dropped her finger and turned to face Jim and Zenny. “OK then, are we just about ready?” Her tone was a sweet and light as it had been when she had been teasing Jim earlier.
Both women were dressed in all black, from the snug, form-fitting black hoodies to the soft-soled black leather boots that came half way up the shins of their sleek, black lycra-laced tights. Each of them also wore a military style black nylon utility belt that held closed pouches of varying sizes and shapes.
Ravyn’s hair had been pulled back into the long pony-tail that was customary when she was expecting action. Her normally bright and smiling face had been smudged with some sort of dark charcoal-like substance that only dulled her natural radiance. A pair of fine, black deerskin gloves was stuffed into her belt.
Zenny’s face had also been darkened with the same substance, clouding her fine features from easy recognition. In addition to the hood on her sweatshirt, her hair and ears were obscured by a dark blue hijab that had been wrapped tightly and pinned into place to prevent it from slipping loose.
Jim turned to admire their handiwork and whistled in appreciation. “Wow, I think I can verify those ‘health club’ expenses now.”
Zenny looked down at her shuffling feet in embarrassment.
Ravyn took the compliment in style as she sidled up to Jim, hopped up on the seat of the chair next to him and planted a peck on his cheek. “You ought to know better by now, dear, than to question my expense sheets!” She dropped back down to ground level and danced away before Jim could recover.
Her smooch left a smudge of charcoal on his cheek that only smeared further as he touched the spot, slightly red-faced.
“I like working out, it makes me happy and you know Jim, that there are all sorts of side benefits to making me happy.” Her wink to me as she skipped back over to Zenny showed me that she knew exactly how her flirting would affect him. “C’mon Zenny, let’s go grab a bite to eat and let these guys recover from our radiance.”
I shook my head, smiling as the gals slipped back towards the kitchen. “I’m still not sure that taking Zenny is a good idea. She’s suffered through so much. I’d hate to be responsible for something else happening to her.”
Jim was wiping the charcoal off his cheek with a clean handkerchief. “Well, she’s the one who volunteered. We can’t keep holding her back from things that she wants to try just because they might be dangerous. Besides, her talents could prove to be very useful in finding the clues to where El Diablito is hiding the core of his new organization.”
“Yeah, I know all of that. But I still can’t get the images of the way I found her in that house in the desert out of my mind. She wished that she had died.”
Jim nodded. “True enough. She didn’t die, though. Ravyn and the Frau have spent a lot of time and energy getting her back on her feet. She’s a very strong woman, Rusty. She’s healed from those wounds. Ravyn wouldn’t let her go if she didn’t think Zenny was up to the challenge.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “OK, you win, again. So how confident are you in these addresses that we are going to go check out?”
Jim reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper, unfolded it and handed it to me. There were four addresses listed on it.
“This first address is the corporate headquarters for the Mercury-Unlimited Group in the Bahamas. That is where Dick Arnold has at least an office for himself. It is an office building that has been built within the last year under very tight security on privately owned land, so we don’t have any eyewitness accounts just yet. It’s still too new to have had many ex-employees working inside of it, and the security was too tight to come up with any actionable intelligence. Ravyn and her people have tried to scry inside, but they’ve been blocked by some sort of magickal shield.”
I nodded. “They’ve using Caster as well.”
Jim grunted in agreement and pointed to the second address. “This one is the US headquarters for Bone Financial in Delaware. This building is also brand new and someone or something is shielding it as well, but we have a little more information on the lay out of that building, thanks to the local zoning commission. Ravyn has that information with her.”
“These last two address, they look familiar. Where have I seen them before?”
“You should recognize both addresses. The first, 25343 Covington Way, was the address that Nick was going to visit in the memory orb that you just viewed. It’s in a suburb of Atlanta. We would like you guys to investigate that location and see if you can discern what portals may be in use there and if you can activate them.
“That last address is El Diablito’s shop in Hialeah, NextWorld. It has been supposedly closed down for the last year or so, but who knows, there still may be something of use there.”
Hearing the name NextWorld brought back a rush of memories of that first, fateful visit to that place in South Florida where I first received my Chakra. I had met El Diablito for the first time that night. He had drugged me into a stupor with that tea he had made and used that opportunity to bind my Spirit form to that damnable device that kept me imprisoned in this unfeeling body after I had been killed.
I smiled. “Yes, I’d like to see that place again.”
Jim held up his hands. “Whoa there, Rusty. Remember, this is a scouting mission that we hope ends with us in possession of a few items and a lot more information about Bone Financial and the principles involved in all of this, we’re not looking for a confrontation, unless it can’t be avoided.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll try to be good.”
“I’ve seen that look before…”
Ravyn’s voice cut through Jim’s softer tones. “And so have I.” She stalked up to me, leaving the somewhat befuddled Zenny behind. Her finger was wagging as quickly as she was talking. “We’re going to slip in, grab what we need and slip out with as little disturbance as possible, do you hear me?”
I nodded, backing up a step and holding my hands up in surrender. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Get this through that thick Zombie skull of yours—this is no foolhardy revenge strike against an old enemy. We’ll fight if we have to, but we need to know more about our foe before we go blundering into battle.”
Backed up against the far wall by this time, I dropped my arms and looked down. “Alright already. I’ll be good!”
She gave me one more of those looks, dropped her finger and turned to face Jim and Zenny. “OK then, are we just about ready?” Her tone was a sweet and light as it had been when she had been teasing Jim earlier.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
A Mole's View...Part 2
With a cold kiss to Nick’s cheek and feral smile, Rose spun around and started walking towards the dark doorway in the far side of the vast rooms. Halfway back, she paused long enough to throw an inviting look over her shoulder and motion with the index finger of her right hand that Nick should ‘come hither’.
“Bring your little toy. My masters will be very interested in seeing it.”
Nick grunted and reached down to scoop up his CoonBot in one hand and the empty backpack in the other. He stuffed the critter and the controller into the pack as he followed this strange woman towards the door.
When Rose reached the door, she turned back one more time. “When you step through the Shadow this time, Nick, look for the door that has a likeness of my name on it, otherwise you will find yourself going somewhere you may well regret.” Her eyes narrowed as she spoke, her voice lowered and became quite sultry. “Do you understand?”
The whole view shook up and down as Nick nodded once. “Yeah, I’ve been through such portals before. I’ll watch for your door, babe. I’m not here to fool around. Lead the way.”
Rose shook her head and laughed. It was a deep throaty sound from someone with such a high-pitched nasal voice. “No, I’m afraid I will not be going with you on this journey Nick, I have other applicants that I must sort through. My job is not yet done tonight. You should know though, that everything that you have said here has been seen and heard by those that you are about to meet, so you don’t need to go through any unnecessary formalities with them.”
“Who am I going to be meeting?”
She smiled in response. “They will introduce themselves if they so choose.”
“I don’t know babe, there sure seems to be a lot of cloak and dagger funny business to this job. I thought I was through with that kind of thing years ago.”
She leaned up close to Nick again, her hand drifting from his shoulder down past his elbow before slipping further down and behind him to grab his ass. Her fingernails left chills wherever she touched him, raising goose bumps on his bare skin. “We have to be very careful Nick. We have some very powerful enemies who may be trying even now to infiltrate us.” Her eyes seemed to bore right through Nick’s and into mine. It was like she was speaking directly to me instead of Nick. “But the rewards of working with us are much richer than those of our enemies.”
Nick pushed her away with his free hand, hoisted his backpack with the other. “Alright then, let me go meet these masters of yours. I like rich rewards.”
He stepped through the door before she could respond.
The Shadow swallowed him, causing the image to go all black once again. Before long though, Nick’s vision adjusted to the dark hues and subtle variations of the Shadowland. He found himself in a long hallway with several doors on each side and he shuffled down it.
Each door had some sort of emblem on it. He paused by each on that he passed. The first door on the right was marked with a small green palm tree made of sparkling emeralds. The next door, on the left this time, was marked with a white tulip made out what might have been diamonds. The third door, still on the left side of the hall was marked by a softly glowing rose made of rubies.
Nick reached out and touched the rubies, perhaps to see if they were real or not, pulled his hand back when the door and the rubies faded out of existence, to leave only a darker shade of black shadow in its place. Another portal to step through. Nick stepped through it.
When the blackness faded away again, Nick found himself standing in a bare stone chamber with no windows or other obvious exits. “What the fuck?”
He swung around to the look for the exit again, only to find that the shadowy door had transformed into a steel door with a small barred window that was solidly shut.
He dropped the backpack to the floor and reached out with both strong hands to grab at the door. Using all of his strength to push at the door, he managed only to rattle it slightly in place.
“Hey, what the fuck is going on here? Why am I in a jail cell?”
Footsteps echoed on stone as someone approached from down a hall towards the cell.
Nick called out again. “Hey who’s out there?”
The footsteps continued to grow louder as whoever it was came closer.
“Let me out of this place!”
A small, round face of an older man with a maniacal eyes peeked through the bars at Nick. It was the face of a man I could never forget. El Diablito.
He cackled in his high-pitched voice. “So, Nicholas. You’ve come to spy on me for our friends, the ORC’s? I don’t like spies very much, Nicholas.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, man!” There was a hint of desperation in Nick’s deep voice. He was clearly flustered and surprised.
“Oh, I don’t think that is being quite truthful, Nicholas. I have my own spies you know. I happen to know that you were sent by my adversaries among the ORC’s and that you are trying to work under cover to investigate me and my new organizations. I will not tolerate such attempts on my livelihood.”
“Look man, I don’t even know who the Hell you are and what your organizations are. I just heard about someone who might be hiring Casters with unique skills. I’m tired of making cabinets. I want to make some serious money.”
El Diablito cackled again. “Nice try young man. But I am not as easily fooled as poor Rose there. She’s a useful tool, but she has her limitations. You cannot deceive me with your fake protestations of innocence.”
Nick’s shoulders slumped and his view shifted from the door to the floor for a moment as he seemed to give up. He looked back up into the face of his captor. “OK, so what are you going to do with me?”
El Diablito smiled. “Oh, I’m going to let you live. I want your current masters to know that they cannot catch me as easily as they think that they can. I want them to see what they are going to be going up against when decide to make their move. So, as soon as I have extracted all of the information I need from you, I shall be releasing you with enough memories to make a fine little show to Ms. Fyre and her cohorts.” His eyes narrowed and his face and tone grew more serious. “And Nicholas, when you tire of working for a pittance, risking your life and limb for such a ‘noble cause’ and you instead wish to apply your obvious talents towards enriching yourself and your family, I want you to come back and see me. Know this, however, that I will know what it is that you intend in your heart better than you. If you return to me while trying to deceive me again, I will leave you in Rose’s bedroom here for her to do with as she pleases. Trust me, that will not be a very pleasant fate. That poor creature has needs that will leave you a ruined husk of a man once they have been fulfilled. And you would not be able to resist fulfilling those needs either.”
The recording stopped and the images faded away.
I looked up to see Jim standing there looking at a book from one of his many packed shelves. “I’ve been wondering when I would find time to read this thing.”
“El Diablito is recruiting these Casters? He must have some moles of his own inside our…I mean your…organization.”
He nodded soberly as he put the book back into its slot. “After Ravyn and the Frau recovered these memories from Nick and helped him return to a semblance of his normal self, he disappeared. We’re not sure where he is right now.”
“Maybe he took up El Diablito on his offer.”
Jim shrugged. “That’s certainly possible. Or El Diablito could have had one of his agents eliminate him once his purpose had been served. We don’t know just yet.”
“How much more information did the Little Devil collect from Nick about the ORC’s?”
Jim shook his head. “Nick didn’t have a lot of connections within the organization. He probably didn’t learn much from him that he didn’t already know. But we’re more concerned about Nick than we are about what he gave up about us.”
“I think my decision on which enemy to focus on has been made. I hate that little asshole almost as much as I hated Drake. He also knows too much about Alexa and Naomi. He needs to be dealt with, soon.”
“Bring your little toy. My masters will be very interested in seeing it.”
Nick grunted and reached down to scoop up his CoonBot in one hand and the empty backpack in the other. He stuffed the critter and the controller into the pack as he followed this strange woman towards the door.
When Rose reached the door, she turned back one more time. “When you step through the Shadow this time, Nick, look for the door that has a likeness of my name on it, otherwise you will find yourself going somewhere you may well regret.” Her eyes narrowed as she spoke, her voice lowered and became quite sultry. “Do you understand?”
The whole view shook up and down as Nick nodded once. “Yeah, I’ve been through such portals before. I’ll watch for your door, babe. I’m not here to fool around. Lead the way.”
Rose shook her head and laughed. It was a deep throaty sound from someone with such a high-pitched nasal voice. “No, I’m afraid I will not be going with you on this journey Nick, I have other applicants that I must sort through. My job is not yet done tonight. You should know though, that everything that you have said here has been seen and heard by those that you are about to meet, so you don’t need to go through any unnecessary formalities with them.”
“Who am I going to be meeting?”
She smiled in response. “They will introduce themselves if they so choose.”
“I don’t know babe, there sure seems to be a lot of cloak and dagger funny business to this job. I thought I was through with that kind of thing years ago.”
She leaned up close to Nick again, her hand drifting from his shoulder down past his elbow before slipping further down and behind him to grab his ass. Her fingernails left chills wherever she touched him, raising goose bumps on his bare skin. “We have to be very careful Nick. We have some very powerful enemies who may be trying even now to infiltrate us.” Her eyes seemed to bore right through Nick’s and into mine. It was like she was speaking directly to me instead of Nick. “But the rewards of working with us are much richer than those of our enemies.”
Nick pushed her away with his free hand, hoisted his backpack with the other. “Alright then, let me go meet these masters of yours. I like rich rewards.”
He stepped through the door before she could respond.
The Shadow swallowed him, causing the image to go all black once again. Before long though, Nick’s vision adjusted to the dark hues and subtle variations of the Shadowland. He found himself in a long hallway with several doors on each side and he shuffled down it.
Each door had some sort of emblem on it. He paused by each on that he passed. The first door on the right was marked with a small green palm tree made of sparkling emeralds. The next door, on the left this time, was marked with a white tulip made out what might have been diamonds. The third door, still on the left side of the hall was marked by a softly glowing rose made of rubies.
Nick reached out and touched the rubies, perhaps to see if they were real or not, pulled his hand back when the door and the rubies faded out of existence, to leave only a darker shade of black shadow in its place. Another portal to step through. Nick stepped through it.
When the blackness faded away again, Nick found himself standing in a bare stone chamber with no windows or other obvious exits. “What the fuck?”
He swung around to the look for the exit again, only to find that the shadowy door had transformed into a steel door with a small barred window that was solidly shut.
He dropped the backpack to the floor and reached out with both strong hands to grab at the door. Using all of his strength to push at the door, he managed only to rattle it slightly in place.
“Hey, what the fuck is going on here? Why am I in a jail cell?”
Footsteps echoed on stone as someone approached from down a hall towards the cell.
Nick called out again. “Hey who’s out there?”
The footsteps continued to grow louder as whoever it was came closer.
“Let me out of this place!”
A small, round face of an older man with a maniacal eyes peeked through the bars at Nick. It was the face of a man I could never forget. El Diablito.
He cackled in his high-pitched voice. “So, Nicholas. You’ve come to spy on me for our friends, the ORC’s? I don’t like spies very much, Nicholas.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, man!” There was a hint of desperation in Nick’s deep voice. He was clearly flustered and surprised.
“Oh, I don’t think that is being quite truthful, Nicholas. I have my own spies you know. I happen to know that you were sent by my adversaries among the ORC’s and that you are trying to work under cover to investigate me and my new organizations. I will not tolerate such attempts on my livelihood.”
“Look man, I don’t even know who the Hell you are and what your organizations are. I just heard about someone who might be hiring Casters with unique skills. I’m tired of making cabinets. I want to make some serious money.”
El Diablito cackled again. “Nice try young man. But I am not as easily fooled as poor Rose there. She’s a useful tool, but she has her limitations. You cannot deceive me with your fake protestations of innocence.”
Nick’s shoulders slumped and his view shifted from the door to the floor for a moment as he seemed to give up. He looked back up into the face of his captor. “OK, so what are you going to do with me?”
El Diablito smiled. “Oh, I’m going to let you live. I want your current masters to know that they cannot catch me as easily as they think that they can. I want them to see what they are going to be going up against when decide to make their move. So, as soon as I have extracted all of the information I need from you, I shall be releasing you with enough memories to make a fine little show to Ms. Fyre and her cohorts.” His eyes narrowed and his face and tone grew more serious. “And Nicholas, when you tire of working for a pittance, risking your life and limb for such a ‘noble cause’ and you instead wish to apply your obvious talents towards enriching yourself and your family, I want you to come back and see me. Know this, however, that I will know what it is that you intend in your heart better than you. If you return to me while trying to deceive me again, I will leave you in Rose’s bedroom here for her to do with as she pleases. Trust me, that will not be a very pleasant fate. That poor creature has needs that will leave you a ruined husk of a man once they have been fulfilled. And you would not be able to resist fulfilling those needs either.”
The recording stopped and the images faded away.
I looked up to see Jim standing there looking at a book from one of his many packed shelves. “I’ve been wondering when I would find time to read this thing.”
“El Diablito is recruiting these Casters? He must have some moles of his own inside our…I mean your…organization.”
He nodded soberly as he put the book back into its slot. “After Ravyn and the Frau recovered these memories from Nick and helped him return to a semblance of his normal self, he disappeared. We’re not sure where he is right now.”
“Maybe he took up El Diablito on his offer.”
Jim shrugged. “That’s certainly possible. Or El Diablito could have had one of his agents eliminate him once his purpose had been served. We don’t know just yet.”
“How much more information did the Little Devil collect from Nick about the ORC’s?”
Jim shook his head. “Nick didn’t have a lot of connections within the organization. He probably didn’t learn much from him that he didn’t already know. But we’re more concerned about Nick than we are about what he gave up about us.”
“I think my decision on which enemy to focus on has been made. I hate that little asshole almost as much as I hated Drake. He also knows too much about Alexa and Naomi. He needs to be dealt with, soon.”
Sunday, January 14, 2007
A Mole's View...Part 1
I put the second orb into my jacket pocket. There would be plenty of time learn more about the ORC’s themselves later on.
I held the first orb, the one from the mole, in my hand and spoke the password. “Betsy.”
Immediately, I felt like I was swept up in a vortex of swirling colors, like being inside of a kaleidoscope that was being adjusted by an over-excited 5 year old child. I suppose it would have been quiet disorienting if I had a stomach to empty, but that wasn’t a concern for me. Instead, I relaxed and let the images sort themselves out. It didn’t take very long.
The image coalesced into a view from the back seat of older taxi cab. The tinny sounds of Indian music played in the background. I could make out the back of the purple turban-covered head of the driver of the cab, a bearded Sikh man of middling years.
The cab was moving, but it was dark outside, so the passing images were the neon signs of fast food restaurants, gas stations and convenience stores that could be found on the outskirts of nearly every American town or city.
I tried to focus on details that might give me a better clue as to where the cab was, but I found that I was constrained to the view of the person who had made the orb itself. The images and sounds that the maker of the orb saw and heard were the only images and sounds that came through on this recording. Again, rather than fight the frustration of such a limited view of events, I sat back and relaxed, content to see and hear what the mole was able to show me.
The cabbie’s head bobbed to the rhythms of the music coming from his cassette deck. The mole, however, was only cursorily interested in him. The image kept shifting from the windshield ahead to the piece of paper in the mole’s rough fingers. An address and a phone number showed on the paper: 25343 Covington Way and 555-9832.
The mole glanced back up to the display on the dashboard showing fare adding up. $19.51.
“Hey up, how much further?” The voice of the mole was loud and deep.
The cabbie looked back at the mole in the mirror as he responded. “Not much further, Sir. You get where you go when Gurmeet drive you, no funny business, OK?”
When Gurmeet turned his attention back to the road, the mole caught a small glimpse of his own face in the mirror. It was a rough, masculine face. It was the face of a man who faced many hard times in his life and had overcome those challenges through sheer force of will and more than a little dishonesty. I had seen similar looks on the faces of hundreds of perpetrators that I had arrested as a cop. The icy blue eyes were framed by a prominent brow ridge that sported bushy blonde eyebrows. The nose was on the long side, with a slight hook to the right (left because of the mirror?). His thin lips were firmly pursed in a look of not-so-slight anger or agitation. His upper lip and cheeks showed the stubble of a couple of days gone without shaving, but the stubble wasn’t long enough to hide the long, puckered scar that ran from the left corner of his mouth almost all of the way to his ear. His skin also showed several pock marks from a history of terrible acne or some other skin disease.
Seeing his reflection in the mirror seemed to irritate the man even further, as his mouth twitched in anger as looked back at the tolling meter. $22.27.
“You told me the fare would be no more than $25. I’m going to hold you to that, Gurmeet.”
Gurmeet bobbed his head and chirped out a polite answer. “Yes, Sir, that is the price I quoted. You no pay more.”
The image bobbed as the mole nodded his agreement and grunted in response. He looked down to the paper in his hand one more time and watched as he crumpled it up and tossed it to the floor of the cab.
“Sir, we are pulling up now.”
Good to his word, Gurmeet had the left turn signal on and was cranking hard on the wheel to pull the cab into the unlit driveway of a large McMansion nestled in amongst its nearly identical fellows in an otherwise unremarkable suburban community.
The cab stopped on the sloped driveway. Gurmeet got out of the cab and opened the passenger door behind him. “You see, Gurmeet knows stuff. That will be $24.78, please.”
The mole got up out of the cab, grabbing his small, worn backpack with his right hand. With his left hand he pulled out the two bills that were in his pants pocket. “Here, keep the change, and buy yourself a new air freshener, will you?” The mole easily stood six inches taller than Gurmeet, who did not appear to be a small man himself.
Gurmeet looked down at the crumpled up twenties in his hand and nodded eagerly. “Thank you, Good Sir. Here is my card. You call me direct if you need a ride back to the airport. I give you good deal, OK?”
The mole nodded and grunted. “Sure. Good night, pal.”
The mole watched from the sidewalk as Gurmeet slammed his door shut and jumped back into the front. With a friendly wave, Gurmeet back out of the driveway and sped off back in the direction of the airport. The wailing of the sitars and the female singing her cries of long lost love dwindling into the night as the cab turned from Covington Way back towards the main road.
The mole hoisted his backpack onto his left shoulder, glanced at the address plate next to the double door and began walking around the side to the back door.
With the music from the cab now gone, the night air was quiet. As with all of the homes nearby, the yard was perfectly manicured, with the grass mowed to the standardized golf course length and the bushes and hedges all trimmed to look neat and uniform. There were a number of smaller trees scattered throughout the yards, but they were still too young to stand on their own. This was clearly a recent development. Many of the houses looked to still be unoccupied.
The mole made his way to the elevated back deck of the huge house. The sounds of his heavy boots thumping on the wooden steps seemed loud, but he didn’t hesitate. He tromped up to the sliding glass door and tested it to see if it was open. Once he discovered that it was locked, he tried to peer inside, but the darkness inside the home was even deeper than night outside. Grunting again, he rapped loudly on the glass with his right hand, a thick ring on his ring finger making the loudest crack on the glass.
At first nothing happened. Then a face appeared just inside the glass door, almost as if by magick. It was a thin face of a woman who had seen almost as many hard times as the mole. She looked him up and down, eyes darting back and forth as she seemed to be watching for others as well. Finally a pale hand emerged from the darkness beneath her face and clicked the lock on the door. She nodded towards the handle on the door before both hand and face evaporated back into the inky darkness inside.
He opened the door and slipped inside the home, also glancing back to make sure that he was alone and unseen.
The image from the orb went completely dark, like I experienced when calling the Shadow to use it for travel from place to place.
When the image returned, it was quite clear that the mole was not standing inside the dining room of a suburban McMansion, but was now inside a worn out industrial warehouse of some sort. The light came from flickering fluorescent bulbs swaying in a stiff breeze. Puddles of water reflected that dim light, echoing with the drips of more water that also came from above.
The thin woman stood in a plain blue jumpsuit and boots, her frazzled hair framing her anemic looking face. Her arms were crossed as if she had been waiting impatiently. She was alone in the large, abandoned looking room.
Her sharp, nasal voice cut through the air as she spoke. “Name?”
The mole looked her up and down, glanced about the room. His eyes took in the darkened doorways and halls leading from this rather large, empty room. “Nick, Nicholas Kolkiwiecz. Who’re you?”
“You may call me Rose. State your purpose here.”
The mole shrugged. “Look, I heard that this was the place to come if you have certain talents and are looking for work. I sure as Hell hope that I’m in the right damn place or I’m going to make someone pay for my trip out here. I need work, not extra expenses.”
Rose didn’t look all that impressed. She uncrossed her arms and took a couple of steps towards Nick. Her head titled slightly to the left and down as she spoke, a sly smile creeping over her plain, drawn face. Her eyes were perhaps her only attractive feature, as they were large, almond shaped and brown. The rest of her face was pale to the point of being almost sickly. Her thin eyebrows had been drawn in after having been shaved, plucked or waxed clean. Her nose was long and thin, ending in two flaring nostrils that showed the redness of a drug addict while her lips were thin and colorless. Her cheekbones nearly protruded through her pale skin.
“You’re in the right place if you are looking for work, but I need to make sure that you have the talent to make it worth the while of my masters for you to speak with them. What talents do you bring to this party, Nick?”
Her lips pulled back as she smiled. Her teeth glittered and gleamed in the dim light, reflecting off of the silver and gems that were set in them. Her canines were the most modified, having been lengthened and given a fang-like sharpness to them.
Nick nodded, standing his ground. “Good enough. I’m very talented with my hands.” He let the backpack slide to the ground and brought his hand to show Rose. His hands were thick with calluses, showing the obvious wear and tear of a person who worked with tools on a daily basis.
Rose came even close, touching his hand with hers. Her fingers ended in talon-like nails that were painted a bright red. Her touch must have been cold, because Nick flinched ever so slightly with her touch.
“That’s nice, Nick, but we don’t need any cabinets built here.” She stroked her fingers up and down his right hand, her nails leaving a slight trail of white marks where they passed. “The things we’re building require a bit more finesse than your hands seem to be capable of producing, if you know what I mean?” Her smile was only a few inches from his hand now.
“Look Lady, I only work with wood and metal when I need to, when I need to look like I make an honest living.” He pulled his hand back from her face as she ran a tongue over the gems in her upper teeth. “My talents lie with other, less conventional materials.”
“Oh, and just what might those be, dear Nick?” Her eyes ran up and down his body, as if she were she was very hungry and he was a great meal.
Nick knelt down to his backpack. “Step back now, Miss, I don’t want you to get hurt.” He reached into the pack and pulled out a small black controller with a knob and several buttons. He then flipped back the flap covering the opening and stood up.
Curious, Rose knelt down towards the pack despite Nick’s warning. “Show me what surprise you have for us.”
“Alright, but I warned you.”
Nick mashed a button with one of his fingers and the pack rustled as if something was coming alive.
Rose leaned closer.
Nick turned the knob on the controller and pressed another button. The thing in the backpack erupted from inside with a leap to land right in front of the startled Rose. It was a raccoon with glassy eyes and a permanent snarl to its face. As Nick manipulated the buttons and the knob, the creature moved with almost lifelike precision and speed.
Rose laughed with delight as she reached out to touch the fur. “It feels so life-like. Did you use real fur?”
Nick nodded. “It’s almost all real, from the bones and sinew to the fur. It’s a real raccoon.”
She marveled at the creature as he made it dance and maneuver around in front of her. “How does it move around?”
“That’s my little secret. Let me just say that you can’t buy it in stores. But my talents are for sale, if you know what I mean.”
Rose looked up from the zombified ‘coon and back up to Nick with a new kind of appreciation. “Can you do this with other creatures? Bigger creatures?”
Nick nodded again. “Yep, anything that’s got a body with bones, muscles and skin. The bigger they are, the easier they are to work with.”
Rose smiled again, this time it was the smile of someone who is pleasantly surprised. “I think, Nick, that you need to speak to my masters.”
(To be continued…)
I held the first orb, the one from the mole, in my hand and spoke the password. “Betsy.”
Immediately, I felt like I was swept up in a vortex of swirling colors, like being inside of a kaleidoscope that was being adjusted by an over-excited 5 year old child. I suppose it would have been quiet disorienting if I had a stomach to empty, but that wasn’t a concern for me. Instead, I relaxed and let the images sort themselves out. It didn’t take very long.
The image coalesced into a view from the back seat of older taxi cab. The tinny sounds of Indian music played in the background. I could make out the back of the purple turban-covered head of the driver of the cab, a bearded Sikh man of middling years.
The cab was moving, but it was dark outside, so the passing images were the neon signs of fast food restaurants, gas stations and convenience stores that could be found on the outskirts of nearly every American town or city.
I tried to focus on details that might give me a better clue as to where the cab was, but I found that I was constrained to the view of the person who had made the orb itself. The images and sounds that the maker of the orb saw and heard were the only images and sounds that came through on this recording. Again, rather than fight the frustration of such a limited view of events, I sat back and relaxed, content to see and hear what the mole was able to show me.
The cabbie’s head bobbed to the rhythms of the music coming from his cassette deck. The mole, however, was only cursorily interested in him. The image kept shifting from the windshield ahead to the piece of paper in the mole’s rough fingers. An address and a phone number showed on the paper: 25343 Covington Way and 555-9832.
The mole glanced back up to the display on the dashboard showing fare adding up. $19.51.
“Hey up, how much further?” The voice of the mole was loud and deep.
The cabbie looked back at the mole in the mirror as he responded. “Not much further, Sir. You get where you go when Gurmeet drive you, no funny business, OK?”
When Gurmeet turned his attention back to the road, the mole caught a small glimpse of his own face in the mirror. It was a rough, masculine face. It was the face of a man who faced many hard times in his life and had overcome those challenges through sheer force of will and more than a little dishonesty. I had seen similar looks on the faces of hundreds of perpetrators that I had arrested as a cop. The icy blue eyes were framed by a prominent brow ridge that sported bushy blonde eyebrows. The nose was on the long side, with a slight hook to the right (left because of the mirror?). His thin lips were firmly pursed in a look of not-so-slight anger or agitation. His upper lip and cheeks showed the stubble of a couple of days gone without shaving, but the stubble wasn’t long enough to hide the long, puckered scar that ran from the left corner of his mouth almost all of the way to his ear. His skin also showed several pock marks from a history of terrible acne or some other skin disease.
Seeing his reflection in the mirror seemed to irritate the man even further, as his mouth twitched in anger as looked back at the tolling meter. $22.27.
“You told me the fare would be no more than $25. I’m going to hold you to that, Gurmeet.”
Gurmeet bobbed his head and chirped out a polite answer. “Yes, Sir, that is the price I quoted. You no pay more.”
The image bobbed as the mole nodded his agreement and grunted in response. He looked down to the paper in his hand one more time and watched as he crumpled it up and tossed it to the floor of the cab.
“Sir, we are pulling up now.”
Good to his word, Gurmeet had the left turn signal on and was cranking hard on the wheel to pull the cab into the unlit driveway of a large McMansion nestled in amongst its nearly identical fellows in an otherwise unremarkable suburban community.
The cab stopped on the sloped driveway. Gurmeet got out of the cab and opened the passenger door behind him. “You see, Gurmeet knows stuff. That will be $24.78, please.”
The mole got up out of the cab, grabbing his small, worn backpack with his right hand. With his left hand he pulled out the two bills that were in his pants pocket. “Here, keep the change, and buy yourself a new air freshener, will you?” The mole easily stood six inches taller than Gurmeet, who did not appear to be a small man himself.
Gurmeet looked down at the crumpled up twenties in his hand and nodded eagerly. “Thank you, Good Sir. Here is my card. You call me direct if you need a ride back to the airport. I give you good deal, OK?”
The mole nodded and grunted. “Sure. Good night, pal.”
The mole watched from the sidewalk as Gurmeet slammed his door shut and jumped back into the front. With a friendly wave, Gurmeet back out of the driveway and sped off back in the direction of the airport. The wailing of the sitars and the female singing her cries of long lost love dwindling into the night as the cab turned from Covington Way back towards the main road.
The mole hoisted his backpack onto his left shoulder, glanced at the address plate next to the double door and began walking around the side to the back door.
With the music from the cab now gone, the night air was quiet. As with all of the homes nearby, the yard was perfectly manicured, with the grass mowed to the standardized golf course length and the bushes and hedges all trimmed to look neat and uniform. There were a number of smaller trees scattered throughout the yards, but they were still too young to stand on their own. This was clearly a recent development. Many of the houses looked to still be unoccupied.
The mole made his way to the elevated back deck of the huge house. The sounds of his heavy boots thumping on the wooden steps seemed loud, but he didn’t hesitate. He tromped up to the sliding glass door and tested it to see if it was open. Once he discovered that it was locked, he tried to peer inside, but the darkness inside the home was even deeper than night outside. Grunting again, he rapped loudly on the glass with his right hand, a thick ring on his ring finger making the loudest crack on the glass.
At first nothing happened. Then a face appeared just inside the glass door, almost as if by magick. It was a thin face of a woman who had seen almost as many hard times as the mole. She looked him up and down, eyes darting back and forth as she seemed to be watching for others as well. Finally a pale hand emerged from the darkness beneath her face and clicked the lock on the door. She nodded towards the handle on the door before both hand and face evaporated back into the inky darkness inside.
He opened the door and slipped inside the home, also glancing back to make sure that he was alone and unseen.
The image from the orb went completely dark, like I experienced when calling the Shadow to use it for travel from place to place.
When the image returned, it was quite clear that the mole was not standing inside the dining room of a suburban McMansion, but was now inside a worn out industrial warehouse of some sort. The light came from flickering fluorescent bulbs swaying in a stiff breeze. Puddles of water reflected that dim light, echoing with the drips of more water that also came from above.
The thin woman stood in a plain blue jumpsuit and boots, her frazzled hair framing her anemic looking face. Her arms were crossed as if she had been waiting impatiently. She was alone in the large, abandoned looking room.
Her sharp, nasal voice cut through the air as she spoke. “Name?”
The mole looked her up and down, glanced about the room. His eyes took in the darkened doorways and halls leading from this rather large, empty room. “Nick, Nicholas Kolkiwiecz. Who’re you?”
“You may call me Rose. State your purpose here.”
The mole shrugged. “Look, I heard that this was the place to come if you have certain talents and are looking for work. I sure as Hell hope that I’m in the right damn place or I’m going to make someone pay for my trip out here. I need work, not extra expenses.”
Rose didn’t look all that impressed. She uncrossed her arms and took a couple of steps towards Nick. Her head titled slightly to the left and down as she spoke, a sly smile creeping over her plain, drawn face. Her eyes were perhaps her only attractive feature, as they were large, almond shaped and brown. The rest of her face was pale to the point of being almost sickly. Her thin eyebrows had been drawn in after having been shaved, plucked or waxed clean. Her nose was long and thin, ending in two flaring nostrils that showed the redness of a drug addict while her lips were thin and colorless. Her cheekbones nearly protruded through her pale skin.
“You’re in the right place if you are looking for work, but I need to make sure that you have the talent to make it worth the while of my masters for you to speak with them. What talents do you bring to this party, Nick?”
Her lips pulled back as she smiled. Her teeth glittered and gleamed in the dim light, reflecting off of the silver and gems that were set in them. Her canines were the most modified, having been lengthened and given a fang-like sharpness to them.
Nick nodded, standing his ground. “Good enough. I’m very talented with my hands.” He let the backpack slide to the ground and brought his hand to show Rose. His hands were thick with calluses, showing the obvious wear and tear of a person who worked with tools on a daily basis.
Rose came even close, touching his hand with hers. Her fingers ended in talon-like nails that were painted a bright red. Her touch must have been cold, because Nick flinched ever so slightly with her touch.
“That’s nice, Nick, but we don’t need any cabinets built here.” She stroked her fingers up and down his right hand, her nails leaving a slight trail of white marks where they passed. “The things we’re building require a bit more finesse than your hands seem to be capable of producing, if you know what I mean?” Her smile was only a few inches from his hand now.
“Look Lady, I only work with wood and metal when I need to, when I need to look like I make an honest living.” He pulled his hand back from her face as she ran a tongue over the gems in her upper teeth. “My talents lie with other, less conventional materials.”
“Oh, and just what might those be, dear Nick?” Her eyes ran up and down his body, as if she were she was very hungry and he was a great meal.
Nick knelt down to his backpack. “Step back now, Miss, I don’t want you to get hurt.” He reached into the pack and pulled out a small black controller with a knob and several buttons. He then flipped back the flap covering the opening and stood up.
Curious, Rose knelt down towards the pack despite Nick’s warning. “Show me what surprise you have for us.”
“Alright, but I warned you.”
Nick mashed a button with one of his fingers and the pack rustled as if something was coming alive.
Rose leaned closer.
Nick turned the knob on the controller and pressed another button. The thing in the backpack erupted from inside with a leap to land right in front of the startled Rose. It was a raccoon with glassy eyes and a permanent snarl to its face. As Nick manipulated the buttons and the knob, the creature moved with almost lifelike precision and speed.
Rose laughed with delight as she reached out to touch the fur. “It feels so life-like. Did you use real fur?”
Nick nodded. “It’s almost all real, from the bones and sinew to the fur. It’s a real raccoon.”
She marveled at the creature as he made it dance and maneuver around in front of her. “How does it move around?”
“That’s my little secret. Let me just say that you can’t buy it in stores. But my talents are for sale, if you know what I mean.”
Rose looked up from the zombified ‘coon and back up to Nick with a new kind of appreciation. “Can you do this with other creatures? Bigger creatures?”
Nick nodded again. “Yep, anything that’s got a body with bones, muscles and skin. The bigger they are, the easier they are to work with.”
Rose smiled again, this time it was the smile of someone who is pleasantly surprised. “I think, Nick, that you need to speak to my masters.”
(To be continued…)
Monday, January 01, 2007
Puzzling Choices and Surprising Revelations
“I’m not sure what to do next.” I paced restlessly back and forth, the wooden floorboards of the Professor’s library creaking under my weight. “Do we focus on putting Dick Arnold and his shell companies out of business, or concentrate on the An’girasii like Drake wants me to do? I don’t like how things are shaping up.”
Jim was comfortably resting in his worn leather easy chair, a half-full 2 liter bottle of Diet Pepsi in hand. His eyes followed me as I paced, but his thoughts were clearly distant.
“Has Agent Wilson reported any more killings that look like the ones you dealt with in South Beach?”
I stopped briefly, looked back at him and shook my head. “No. Nothing is showing up as that glaring just yet, but there are a couple of historical cases where she is getting the old files on. She said she’d let me know when they arrived.”
He took a swig from the bottle before setting it down. “Well if there is anything to be found, she’ll find it. She was one of Ravyn’s best students. We were sorry to see her go, but at least we have a reliable contact at the Bureau again.”
“What, I’m not reliable enough for you?”
Jim laughed. “Well, you don’t actually spend much time down at Quantico, do you? Besides Ravyn’s not wrong when she points out how clueless you can be when it comes to dealing with people.”
“Hey now, that’s not fair. Do you know how hard it is to get people to open up and talk to you when you got a face like this? Even FBI agents turn around and walk the other way when they see me coming.”
Jim held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I’m just agreeing with Ravyn. I’m not much of a small talker either. But you have to admit, Jennifer has an easier time talking her way into gossip and secrets than you do!”
I nodded. “Well it also helps that she has the Talents she does to read people and profile people. I certainly don’t have the people skills that she does, or the cute smile either.”
He smiled at that. “Right. Now back to the issue at hand. I’ve heard some troubling rumors from number of non-ORC Casters who’ve told me about a recruiting campaign that has been taking place.”
“Who is being recruited and who’s doing the recruiting?”
Jim got up from his chair and walked over to the window, looking out on his unnaturally green backyard for a late December day. “The Casters that are being recruited are the ones that we ORC’s have always been mindful of, the unsavory, unethical types who use their special talents solely for personal gain, usually at the expense of clueless, defenseless innocent people with no inherent Talent themselves.”
He turned back from the window, reached into a pocket in his jeans to pull out a small, transparent orb. He stared down into it briefly before he looked up and tossed it in my direction. “Catch!”
I bobbled the small, egg sized orb before securing it with both hands. I brought it up to closer to my face with my right hand, holding it firmly between thumb and index finger.
“What’s this?”
Jim settled back down into his easy chair, chuckling as he did so. “You catch about as well as our poor Tiger’s pitchers. Perhaps Jim Leyland should include you in that special fielding practice that he’s got ready for our pitchers this spring. That orb contains the entire field report from one of our moles. That will give you a very good idea of who is doing this recruiting.”
“Wait a minute…we have moles? How big of an organization do we actually have here? And how come I was never told about us having our own moles and spies?”
Jim glanced up at me through the wire-rimmed glasses that had slid down his nose and sighed. “Rusty, even with everything that we have been through together over the last year and a half, you have only seen the tip of the iceberg as far as this organization goes. Part of the reason for that has been happenstance, but the main reason has been by design. It has only been recently that we could be absolutely certain that you weren’t an agent of Drake’s trying to infiltrate our organization. There was simply too much at stake to risk revealing our entire organization and its resources to a person as dangerous as Drake and too someone as dangerous as you had become.”
That last sentence staggered me. “You were worried about me?”
He nodded. “We had to be.”
“It was John Red Bear who sought me out, not the other way around you know.”
“I know. It was also John’s advice that we were following to limit our exposure with you. Even he was worried that you could either be a double agent, or that you would fall prey to forces beyond your ability to control. That’s why you’ve dealt with a relatively small number of us to date. We’ve had to keep our exposure limited to Ravyn’s Phoenix Clan and her associate members such as the Frau, Cerrydwen and myself, plus Herne and Moira and a few folks that you met in Vegas.”
“How damn big is this organization?”
His expression was completely blank as he replied. “Big enough.”
“What, don’t you trust me yet?”
“It’s not merely a matter of trust, Rusty. It’s a matter of a need to know. Right now you don’t really have a need to know details that are really unimportant right now.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Jim. After all of the shit we’ve been through together, you’re pulling this on me? What the Hell do I have to do for you guys to fully trust me and treat me as an equal?”
Now he smiled. “I thought you’d never ask. Rusty, would you like to become a fully vested member of the Organization of Responsible Casters?”
I shook my head, but couldn’t keep from smiling myself. “Yeah, I would. So what do I need to do?”
Jim got up out of the chair again. As he moved towards me, he held out his right hand which held another small crystal orb. This orb will give you some details about the induction ceremony and what all it entails. Take some time to review the information in both orbs, while I make the necessary arrangements for your formal induction.”
“One question, how do I get the information out of these things?”
He chuckled again as he passed me. “Hold the one you want to view clasped in your right hand and just state the password. The images will begin playing in your head. The password for each stone is ‘Betsy.’ I would sit down when you are watching the images. It can be very disorienting. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some arrangements to make.”
I sat down in easy chair, looked at the orb in each hand and tried to decide which one to view first.
Jim was comfortably resting in his worn leather easy chair, a half-full 2 liter bottle of Diet Pepsi in hand. His eyes followed me as I paced, but his thoughts were clearly distant.
“Has Agent Wilson reported any more killings that look like the ones you dealt with in South Beach?”
I stopped briefly, looked back at him and shook my head. “No. Nothing is showing up as that glaring just yet, but there are a couple of historical cases where she is getting the old files on. She said she’d let me know when they arrived.”
He took a swig from the bottle before setting it down. “Well if there is anything to be found, she’ll find it. She was one of Ravyn’s best students. We were sorry to see her go, but at least we have a reliable contact at the Bureau again.”
“What, I’m not reliable enough for you?”
Jim laughed. “Well, you don’t actually spend much time down at Quantico, do you? Besides Ravyn’s not wrong when she points out how clueless you can be when it comes to dealing with people.”
“Hey now, that’s not fair. Do you know how hard it is to get people to open up and talk to you when you got a face like this? Even FBI agents turn around and walk the other way when they see me coming.”
Jim held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I’m just agreeing with Ravyn. I’m not much of a small talker either. But you have to admit, Jennifer has an easier time talking her way into gossip and secrets than you do!”
I nodded. “Well it also helps that she has the Talents she does to read people and profile people. I certainly don’t have the people skills that she does, or the cute smile either.”
He smiled at that. “Right. Now back to the issue at hand. I’ve heard some troubling rumors from number of non-ORC Casters who’ve told me about a recruiting campaign that has been taking place.”
“Who is being recruited and who’s doing the recruiting?”
Jim got up from his chair and walked over to the window, looking out on his unnaturally green backyard for a late December day. “The Casters that are being recruited are the ones that we ORC’s have always been mindful of, the unsavory, unethical types who use their special talents solely for personal gain, usually at the expense of clueless, defenseless innocent people with no inherent Talent themselves.”
He turned back from the window, reached into a pocket in his jeans to pull out a small, transparent orb. He stared down into it briefly before he looked up and tossed it in my direction. “Catch!”
I bobbled the small, egg sized orb before securing it with both hands. I brought it up to closer to my face with my right hand, holding it firmly between thumb and index finger.
“What’s this?”
Jim settled back down into his easy chair, chuckling as he did so. “You catch about as well as our poor Tiger’s pitchers. Perhaps Jim Leyland should include you in that special fielding practice that he’s got ready for our pitchers this spring. That orb contains the entire field report from one of our moles. That will give you a very good idea of who is doing this recruiting.”
“Wait a minute…we have moles? How big of an organization do we actually have here? And how come I was never told about us having our own moles and spies?”
Jim glanced up at me through the wire-rimmed glasses that had slid down his nose and sighed. “Rusty, even with everything that we have been through together over the last year and a half, you have only seen the tip of the iceberg as far as this organization goes. Part of the reason for that has been happenstance, but the main reason has been by design. It has only been recently that we could be absolutely certain that you weren’t an agent of Drake’s trying to infiltrate our organization. There was simply too much at stake to risk revealing our entire organization and its resources to a person as dangerous as Drake and too someone as dangerous as you had become.”
That last sentence staggered me. “You were worried about me?”
He nodded. “We had to be.”
“It was John Red Bear who sought me out, not the other way around you know.”
“I know. It was also John’s advice that we were following to limit our exposure with you. Even he was worried that you could either be a double agent, or that you would fall prey to forces beyond your ability to control. That’s why you’ve dealt with a relatively small number of us to date. We’ve had to keep our exposure limited to Ravyn’s Phoenix Clan and her associate members such as the Frau, Cerrydwen and myself, plus Herne and Moira and a few folks that you met in Vegas.”
“How damn big is this organization?”
His expression was completely blank as he replied. “Big enough.”
“What, don’t you trust me yet?”
“It’s not merely a matter of trust, Rusty. It’s a matter of a need to know. Right now you don’t really have a need to know details that are really unimportant right now.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Jim. After all of the shit we’ve been through together, you’re pulling this on me? What the Hell do I have to do for you guys to fully trust me and treat me as an equal?”
Now he smiled. “I thought you’d never ask. Rusty, would you like to become a fully vested member of the Organization of Responsible Casters?”
I shook my head, but couldn’t keep from smiling myself. “Yeah, I would. So what do I need to do?”
Jim got up out of the chair again. As he moved towards me, he held out his right hand which held another small crystal orb. This orb will give you some details about the induction ceremony and what all it entails. Take some time to review the information in both orbs, while I make the necessary arrangements for your formal induction.”
“One question, how do I get the information out of these things?”
He chuckled again as he passed me. “Hold the one you want to view clasped in your right hand and just state the password. The images will begin playing in your head. The password for each stone is ‘Betsy.’ I would sit down when you are watching the images. It can be very disorienting. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some arrangements to make.”
I sat down in easy chair, looked at the orb in each hand and tried to decide which one to view first.
Monday, December 18, 2006
A Brief Yuletide Respite--An ORC Family Reunion
Yesterday, I had the honor of attending a Yule dinner at the Phoenix Coop. It was a full fledged Pagan feast hosted by Ravyn, organized by Katherine, and run with drill sergeant-like precision by the Frau and her dreaded sauce-covered Wooden Spoon of Doom.
The Coop was jam-packed with the entire extended family of Casters that had trained under Ravyn’s patient tutelage in addition to all of the folks who become family over the last almost two years of adventure.
Of course, my entire family, including my daughter Alexa and her mother, Naomi were present. Alexa, as she always seemed to be, was the center of attention. Her infectious smile and peals of giggling laughter caused more than her share of bright smiles and tears of joy. At nearly 18 months old, Alexa toddled and scoot around the house and through the legs of unsuspecting adults with the agility of a house cat. Somehow, she managed to find the time and energy to spend time with each person in the house, crawling into laps, playing games, and just plain cuddling in a way that left everyone at the party marveling at her.
Naomi kept herself close to our daughter wherever she went, keeping one watchful eye on her in the way that mothers everywhere do while making polite, but distracted small talk with other guests. She lit up and basked in the praise that was heaped upon her for our beautiful daughter, but she also radiant in her own right. She had made great strides in discovering and mastering her talents under the tutelage of Ravyn and it showed in her newly found self-confidence.
Jim tried to keep a fairly low profile, as he was always uncomfortable in large groups, but all of that ended when Alexa crawled up into his lap with a book in hand. It was a tradition that had been going on now for the last six months whenever she saw him. Somehow Alexa knew that the one surefire way to draw the Professor out of his self-imposed shell was to offer him the opportunity read out loud to her. It didn’t matter what the book was about, this particular book was an illustrated children’s version of Bulfinch’s Mythology. A small crowd that included the beaming Naomi gathered as Jim opened the book and threw himself into a rousing impersonation of Zeus’s voice thundering down from Mount Olympus.
Cerrydwen was the next victim of Alexa’s tour. After having been shooed from the kitchen Hurricane Frau, Cerrydwen found herself standing at the back of the crowd as the Professor finished his tale to a round of applause. He looked up in red-faced amazement to see that he was surrounded by an appreciative audience. With a quick smooch on the cheek for Jim, Alexa was up and bouncing through the forest of adult legs before a path could clear for her. A quick, mischievous giggle was all of the warning that Cerrydwen had before she found herself with an armful of wriggling, giggling happiness.
Cerrdywen’s normally dour demeanor melted away as she was smothered in an avalanche of Alexa’s hugs and kisses. But even as the onlookers were treated to an ever-so-rare smile from Cerrydwen, she was led away, hand in hand, by Alexa to enjoy some quiet time with Alexa in her room, Naomi trailing behind at a discrete distance.
I found Katherine, Kenny and Jasmine catching up on as they nibbled on vegetables from a party tray. Jasmine leaped up from her seat and buried me in a huge bear hug, to be joined shortly by the strong arms of Kenny. Katherine stayed back, watching as the kids and I spent a few moments together bonding.
I looked up to her, and saw for the first time in a very long time that she was the strong, independent woman that I had fallen in love with so long ago. She had a presence, the strength of Will, of a person who was now confident that she could take on any potential foe, any challenge, head-on. She nodded towards the backdoor and extended a welcoming hand towards me. “Let’s take a walk, Jason.”
I nodded, hugged the kids once again and took her small hand in mine as she led me towards the backdoor and the quiet darkness of the unseasonably warm northern Illinois night. Silently, she led me out the door and towards the small stone circle that was so familiar.
She took a seat on the metal bench and motioned for me to join her, which I did.
“So what’s up? You’re looking very good, by the way.”
She smiled, brought a hand up to my cheek. “I just wanted a private moment with you, Jason. There’s something I wanted to share with you, I was just waiting for the right moment.”
“What’s that?”
Her hand dropped to her lap as she looked away briefly before looking me in the eye again. “I’m sorry that things had to end the way they did…” Tears were rolling down her cheek as she sobbed.
I reached out and touched her hand gently. “Hey, I think that’s all water under the bridge now Kate. I know I certainly wasn’t the perfect husband that you deserved.”
She waved me quiet with her other hand, took a deep breath and composed herself once more. “Jason, I know that we were both at fault in how things ended between us, and I also know that Drake made things worse so that things would break down between us. I know all of that. I’m sorry though, for everything that you’ve had to give up to make all of this happen, but I also want you to know how much I appreciate that things did work out this way.” She squeezed my hand as she paused. “I can’t tell you how happy I am now for the way things have worked out. I have finally found some of what I had been searching for all of my life. For all of the hard times we went through, the sacrifices that had to be made, I want to thank you for being the man who I loved, and still, with all of my heart and soul.”
I didn’t know how to respond. It had been so long since we had talked, really talked to each other like this.
She held up her hand again, forestalling the stuttering words I was trying to find. She leaned close to me, looking up into my eyes with an expression I hadn’t seen from her in years, the expression of love. “I also wanted to tell you that I have been working with someone and that I can now travel to that place where you describe the Tree. I’ve been there and seen it.” Her eyes narrowed into a very sultry ‘come hither’ look. “I would like to see just how magickal that place can be, if you know what I mean.”
“You mean…”
She nodded. “I’ll bet spirit sex in that place would be mind-blowing. I want you, Jason Smith.”
“Uh…um…now?”
“No, not right this instant, but soon. And I won’t take no for an answer.”
I gave her hand a squeeze before pulling closer in an embrace. “Count on it babe. You name the time, and I’ll be there.”
We were still hugging when a bundled up, but exuberant Alexa came bouncing outside, followed closely by a hurrying Naomi, a regal Ravyn, and a gaggle of followers who seemed curious as to why they had been told to come out in the balmy December night.
Soon we were joined by nearly everyone who had come to mean so much me over the last year and half. The crowd gathered around the edges of the stone circle that Alexa had moved to the center of, dancing and cooing in the nonsensical baby-talk language that she used.
As each person joined the circle they gripped the hand of the two people next to them. Naomi was to might right, and Katherine to my left. Kenny and Jasmine stood next in line from their mother, followed by Jim, the Frau, Cerrydwen and Ravyn almost directly across from me. Moira and Herne, the FBI agent Jenny Wilson and then Zenny Al Farhan and T’tubah filled in the final spaces of the circle.
When the circle was closed, everyone fell silent, as did Alexa. With supernatural ease for a toddler who normally seemed to have trouble walking in a straight line, she stood tall and straight, raising both of her arms to starlit night. We all followed her gaze and gasped in amazement at the sight of a shooting star streaking across the sky at that exact moment.
The comet blazed with a pure, brilliant blue light with an enormous tail that stretched half way across the sky, bathing the whole scene in a pearlescent blue light for nearly a minute. But none of were paying any attention to the light shed by the comet anymore as a clear, sweet voice came forth from the child at the center of our gathering.
“Dearest loved ones; take a brief moment to give thanks for the blessings that have been bestowed upon us in this time of death and rebirth. Know that it is from Death that new Life may spring forth brighter and more vibrant, stronger and more resilient. Know that this time that we have together is all too brief, but that the Love that we share is Eternal. Know that the times of great trial will soon be upon us and that great sacrifices will be required before the Dawn of New Hope will brighten our sky once again. Know though, that when all else seems lost and the night becomes darkest, that Hope and Love will see you through the time of travails. Know that my Love for each of you is as boundless as the night sky above us.”
As the strange blue light faded, Alexa’s arms came back down to her sides. She giggled once and took off at a staggering, stumbling run right into Ravyn’s arms.
Ravyn gathered up the child and stood back up. Looking at each of us in turn, Ravyn finally broke the awed silence. “Let us each remember this night. We have each glimpsed something of the person this child will become. Let us also hold onto the hope of which she spoke so eloquently. It may be that Hope and our Love for her and for each other that sees us through the coming time.” She paused for effect, before breaking into a huge grin. “But tonight, tonight we give thanks for the blessings that we have right now, right here. The Frau has managed to put together an impressive feast. So let us celebrate Yule this night in peace and love. Let’s go eat!”
(No post next weekend due to family obligations--next post to come in the weekend of New Year's.)
The Coop was jam-packed with the entire extended family of Casters that had trained under Ravyn’s patient tutelage in addition to all of the folks who become family over the last almost two years of adventure.
Of course, my entire family, including my daughter Alexa and her mother, Naomi were present. Alexa, as she always seemed to be, was the center of attention. Her infectious smile and peals of giggling laughter caused more than her share of bright smiles and tears of joy. At nearly 18 months old, Alexa toddled and scoot around the house and through the legs of unsuspecting adults with the agility of a house cat. Somehow, she managed to find the time and energy to spend time with each person in the house, crawling into laps, playing games, and just plain cuddling in a way that left everyone at the party marveling at her.
Naomi kept herself close to our daughter wherever she went, keeping one watchful eye on her in the way that mothers everywhere do while making polite, but distracted small talk with other guests. She lit up and basked in the praise that was heaped upon her for our beautiful daughter, but she also radiant in her own right. She had made great strides in discovering and mastering her talents under the tutelage of Ravyn and it showed in her newly found self-confidence.
Jim tried to keep a fairly low profile, as he was always uncomfortable in large groups, but all of that ended when Alexa crawled up into his lap with a book in hand. It was a tradition that had been going on now for the last six months whenever she saw him. Somehow Alexa knew that the one surefire way to draw the Professor out of his self-imposed shell was to offer him the opportunity read out loud to her. It didn’t matter what the book was about, this particular book was an illustrated children’s version of Bulfinch’s Mythology. A small crowd that included the beaming Naomi gathered as Jim opened the book and threw himself into a rousing impersonation of Zeus’s voice thundering down from Mount Olympus.
Cerrydwen was the next victim of Alexa’s tour. After having been shooed from the kitchen Hurricane Frau, Cerrydwen found herself standing at the back of the crowd as the Professor finished his tale to a round of applause. He looked up in red-faced amazement to see that he was surrounded by an appreciative audience. With a quick smooch on the cheek for Jim, Alexa was up and bouncing through the forest of adult legs before a path could clear for her. A quick, mischievous giggle was all of the warning that Cerrydwen had before she found herself with an armful of wriggling, giggling happiness.
Cerrdywen’s normally dour demeanor melted away as she was smothered in an avalanche of Alexa’s hugs and kisses. But even as the onlookers were treated to an ever-so-rare smile from Cerrydwen, she was led away, hand in hand, by Alexa to enjoy some quiet time with Alexa in her room, Naomi trailing behind at a discrete distance.
I found Katherine, Kenny and Jasmine catching up on as they nibbled on vegetables from a party tray. Jasmine leaped up from her seat and buried me in a huge bear hug, to be joined shortly by the strong arms of Kenny. Katherine stayed back, watching as the kids and I spent a few moments together bonding.
I looked up to her, and saw for the first time in a very long time that she was the strong, independent woman that I had fallen in love with so long ago. She had a presence, the strength of Will, of a person who was now confident that she could take on any potential foe, any challenge, head-on. She nodded towards the backdoor and extended a welcoming hand towards me. “Let’s take a walk, Jason.”
I nodded, hugged the kids once again and took her small hand in mine as she led me towards the backdoor and the quiet darkness of the unseasonably warm northern Illinois night. Silently, she led me out the door and towards the small stone circle that was so familiar.
She took a seat on the metal bench and motioned for me to join her, which I did.
“So what’s up? You’re looking very good, by the way.”
She smiled, brought a hand up to my cheek. “I just wanted a private moment with you, Jason. There’s something I wanted to share with you, I was just waiting for the right moment.”
“What’s that?”
Her hand dropped to her lap as she looked away briefly before looking me in the eye again. “I’m sorry that things had to end the way they did…” Tears were rolling down her cheek as she sobbed.
I reached out and touched her hand gently. “Hey, I think that’s all water under the bridge now Kate. I know I certainly wasn’t the perfect husband that you deserved.”
She waved me quiet with her other hand, took a deep breath and composed herself once more. “Jason, I know that we were both at fault in how things ended between us, and I also know that Drake made things worse so that things would break down between us. I know all of that. I’m sorry though, for everything that you’ve had to give up to make all of this happen, but I also want you to know how much I appreciate that things did work out this way.” She squeezed my hand as she paused. “I can’t tell you how happy I am now for the way things have worked out. I have finally found some of what I had been searching for all of my life. For all of the hard times we went through, the sacrifices that had to be made, I want to thank you for being the man who I loved, and still, with all of my heart and soul.”
I didn’t know how to respond. It had been so long since we had talked, really talked to each other like this.
She held up her hand again, forestalling the stuttering words I was trying to find. She leaned close to me, looking up into my eyes with an expression I hadn’t seen from her in years, the expression of love. “I also wanted to tell you that I have been working with someone and that I can now travel to that place where you describe the Tree. I’ve been there and seen it.” Her eyes narrowed into a very sultry ‘come hither’ look. “I would like to see just how magickal that place can be, if you know what I mean.”
“You mean…”
She nodded. “I’ll bet spirit sex in that place would be mind-blowing. I want you, Jason Smith.”
“Uh…um…now?”
“No, not right this instant, but soon. And I won’t take no for an answer.”
I gave her hand a squeeze before pulling closer in an embrace. “Count on it babe. You name the time, and I’ll be there.”
We were still hugging when a bundled up, but exuberant Alexa came bouncing outside, followed closely by a hurrying Naomi, a regal Ravyn, and a gaggle of followers who seemed curious as to why they had been told to come out in the balmy December night.
Soon we were joined by nearly everyone who had come to mean so much me over the last year and half. The crowd gathered around the edges of the stone circle that Alexa had moved to the center of, dancing and cooing in the nonsensical baby-talk language that she used.
As each person joined the circle they gripped the hand of the two people next to them. Naomi was to might right, and Katherine to my left. Kenny and Jasmine stood next in line from their mother, followed by Jim, the Frau, Cerrydwen and Ravyn almost directly across from me. Moira and Herne, the FBI agent Jenny Wilson and then Zenny Al Farhan and T’tubah filled in the final spaces of the circle.
When the circle was closed, everyone fell silent, as did Alexa. With supernatural ease for a toddler who normally seemed to have trouble walking in a straight line, she stood tall and straight, raising both of her arms to starlit night. We all followed her gaze and gasped in amazement at the sight of a shooting star streaking across the sky at that exact moment.
The comet blazed with a pure, brilliant blue light with an enormous tail that stretched half way across the sky, bathing the whole scene in a pearlescent blue light for nearly a minute. But none of were paying any attention to the light shed by the comet anymore as a clear, sweet voice came forth from the child at the center of our gathering.
“Dearest loved ones; take a brief moment to give thanks for the blessings that have been bestowed upon us in this time of death and rebirth. Know that it is from Death that new Life may spring forth brighter and more vibrant, stronger and more resilient. Know that this time that we have together is all too brief, but that the Love that we share is Eternal. Know that the times of great trial will soon be upon us and that great sacrifices will be required before the Dawn of New Hope will brighten our sky once again. Know though, that when all else seems lost and the night becomes darkest, that Hope and Love will see you through the time of travails. Know that my Love for each of you is as boundless as the night sky above us.”
As the strange blue light faded, Alexa’s arms came back down to her sides. She giggled once and took off at a staggering, stumbling run right into Ravyn’s arms.
Ravyn gathered up the child and stood back up. Looking at each of us in turn, Ravyn finally broke the awed silence. “Let us each remember this night. We have each glimpsed something of the person this child will become. Let us also hold onto the hope of which she spoke so eloquently. It may be that Hope and our Love for her and for each other that sees us through the coming time.” She paused for effect, before breaking into a huge grin. “But tonight, tonight we give thanks for the blessings that we have right now, right here. The Frau has managed to put together an impressive feast. So let us celebrate Yule this night in peace and love. Let’s go eat!”
(No post next weekend due to family obligations--next post to come in the weekend of New Year's.)
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Drake's Tale--#2...Cosmology Primer
You will have to pardon me for the diversion I am about to go into, but some things must be said before I can continue with my tale.
Let it be noted for the record that I will not tolerate such a long delay in my narrative again. If my ‘son’ wants to avoid any further nasty defeats against creatures that he has only dreamed existed, he would be well advised to pay heed to my story and learn what it is I have to offer.
My father is one of the three most powerful lords among the An’girasii. He commands Spirits both great and small. He will stop at nothing to regain the worship and admiration of millions of human subjects. It is his birthright, his destiny, and his most ardent desire.
The scrolls that his servant left with Rusty are but a mere hint at the tactics to which he will resort, once he has laid the groundwork he feels is necessary.
As much as I might want to let the full nature of the An’girasii be revealed throughout the course of my story, it appears that I will have to be far less subtle in my storytelling.
So let me start at the beginning. Not my beginning, mind you, but the very beginning…
Your modern scientific theories of the beginning of the universe are actually not that far off from how it all actually began, of course I might have played a hand in or two in helping guide the right individuals along a bit, but I digress…
In the beginning, the universe, including the various worlds and dimensions of both physical and the Spiritual existence, was a very tiny, very compressed ball containing enormous amounts of energy, matter and Spirit that were bound together into The One.
There are almost as many names for The One as there are languages to say it in…YHWH, Jehovah, Allah, Dios, God, the Holy Spirit, etc.
Everything, everyone, that has ever existed in this Universe, and that ever will exist, was contained within The One, all bound together for untold countless eons as one omnipotent, omniscient entity.
But just as a living body is comprised of millions of living cells and countless billions of atoms of matter, The One was also comprised of trillions of unique Spirits, an unfathomable amount of compressed matter, and nearly limitless amounts of energy.
For reasons unknown to (but often guessed at) any individual Spirit that I know of, The One erupted in a massive conflagration that your scientists call the Big Bang, creating the ‘multiverse’ as we know it now.
Each of the Spirits that had been previously part of The One were now free entities to explore this new universe, to try and make sense of the maelstrom of Chaos that existed in those early moments after the Big Bang.
Just as matter and energy scattered and then later coalesced into galaxies and stars, planets and asteroids, Spirits also first scattered and then began coming back together, for the most part bringing Order to the Chaos of the Big Bang.
Your modern science can measure and quantify both matter and energy (at least most of the common forms of each), but human science has not yet been able to come to grips with the existence of the third, and most important aspect of existence, Spirit. It is fairly well understood that neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed. Matter can be converted into energy and energy can be converted into matter, but the motivating ‘force’ for any of that to happen is Spirit.
Only once humans begin to truly grasp this concept and begin to apply it on a regular basis, will they be able to make the breakthroughs to become fully engaged in this Universe of ours.
As time progressed, Spirits were able to find expression within the physical world by manipulating both energy and matter in such a way as to develop Life. Once living organisms became developed to such as degree as to be useful, Spirits began to invest themselves into those living organisms.
In the process of doing so, however, something strange and wonderful happened…once they became attached to living organisms, almost all Spirits lost (at least temporarily) the conscious knowledge of their own true existence, becoming instead, fully invested in the struggle to survive in the physical environment in which they found themselves.
Oh, the more advanced the biological form was, the higher the level of consciousness became, but it was only the rare living being that remained even partially cognizant of the existence of their own, or anyone else’s, Spirit. But, it was often not until the death of the living organism was imminent that the Spirit within that organism began to recall its true nature and could begin to incorporate the lessons and knowledge it had gained by living. By participating in the drama of life and death in the physical world, Spirits gain invaluable knowledge and experience and forge relationships that help them to learn and grow.
Many Spirits choose to enter this cycle of life and death many, many times. Each time they do so, they enter a new body, immediately prior to the birth (or hatching, etc.) of that creature. Most of the time the kind of Spirit that is attracted to that life form is the same kind of Spirit that inhabits the bodies of most members of that species. In those rare instances when the ‘wrong’ kind of Spirit is attracted to the new life form, interesting things may happen.
Now, let’s get refocused just a little bit from this grander picture that I have been painting and bring us back a little bit towards the portrait at hand.
Just as each cell in your body is individually unique, there a clearly groups of similar cells that perform similar functions with each other, and have similar needs. It was the same within The One. Each Spirit and each seed of a Spirit contained within The One was a unique individual, but there were, at minimum, several dozen different Orders of Spirits.
The vast majority of Spirits are rather small and inconsequential beings that don’t have the self awareness or the power to manifest any changes upon the physical world. They are the lowest level of spiritual entities.
I will try not to bore you overly much with the details of this, but suffice it to say that the kinds of Spirits that inhabit human bodies, are for the most part, middling level entities that are neither particularly high nor particularly low on the pecking order of Spirit existence.
To shorten this up a bit, let me just state that the An’girasii are Spirits that are of a significantly higher Order than the Spirits that are called into human bodies. (To be continued in my next permitted installment.)
Let it be noted for the record that I will not tolerate such a long delay in my narrative again. If my ‘son’ wants to avoid any further nasty defeats against creatures that he has only dreamed existed, he would be well advised to pay heed to my story and learn what it is I have to offer.
My father is one of the three most powerful lords among the An’girasii. He commands Spirits both great and small. He will stop at nothing to regain the worship and admiration of millions of human subjects. It is his birthright, his destiny, and his most ardent desire.
The scrolls that his servant left with Rusty are but a mere hint at the tactics to which he will resort, once he has laid the groundwork he feels is necessary.
As much as I might want to let the full nature of the An’girasii be revealed throughout the course of my story, it appears that I will have to be far less subtle in my storytelling.
So let me start at the beginning. Not my beginning, mind you, but the very beginning…
Your modern scientific theories of the beginning of the universe are actually not that far off from how it all actually began, of course I might have played a hand in or two in helping guide the right individuals along a bit, but I digress…
In the beginning, the universe, including the various worlds and dimensions of both physical and the Spiritual existence, was a very tiny, very compressed ball containing enormous amounts of energy, matter and Spirit that were bound together into The One.
There are almost as many names for The One as there are languages to say it in…YHWH, Jehovah, Allah, Dios, God, the Holy Spirit, etc.
Everything, everyone, that has ever existed in this Universe, and that ever will exist, was contained within The One, all bound together for untold countless eons as one omnipotent, omniscient entity.
But just as a living body is comprised of millions of living cells and countless billions of atoms of matter, The One was also comprised of trillions of unique Spirits, an unfathomable amount of compressed matter, and nearly limitless amounts of energy.
For reasons unknown to (but often guessed at) any individual Spirit that I know of, The One erupted in a massive conflagration that your scientists call the Big Bang, creating the ‘multiverse’ as we know it now.
Each of the Spirits that had been previously part of The One were now free entities to explore this new universe, to try and make sense of the maelstrom of Chaos that existed in those early moments after the Big Bang.
Just as matter and energy scattered and then later coalesced into galaxies and stars, planets and asteroids, Spirits also first scattered and then began coming back together, for the most part bringing Order to the Chaos of the Big Bang.
Your modern science can measure and quantify both matter and energy (at least most of the common forms of each), but human science has not yet been able to come to grips with the existence of the third, and most important aspect of existence, Spirit. It is fairly well understood that neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed. Matter can be converted into energy and energy can be converted into matter, but the motivating ‘force’ for any of that to happen is Spirit.
Only once humans begin to truly grasp this concept and begin to apply it on a regular basis, will they be able to make the breakthroughs to become fully engaged in this Universe of ours.
As time progressed, Spirits were able to find expression within the physical world by manipulating both energy and matter in such a way as to develop Life. Once living organisms became developed to such as degree as to be useful, Spirits began to invest themselves into those living organisms.
In the process of doing so, however, something strange and wonderful happened…once they became attached to living organisms, almost all Spirits lost (at least temporarily) the conscious knowledge of their own true existence, becoming instead, fully invested in the struggle to survive in the physical environment in which they found themselves.
Oh, the more advanced the biological form was, the higher the level of consciousness became, but it was only the rare living being that remained even partially cognizant of the existence of their own, or anyone else’s, Spirit. But, it was often not until the death of the living organism was imminent that the Spirit within that organism began to recall its true nature and could begin to incorporate the lessons and knowledge it had gained by living. By participating in the drama of life and death in the physical world, Spirits gain invaluable knowledge and experience and forge relationships that help them to learn and grow.
Many Spirits choose to enter this cycle of life and death many, many times. Each time they do so, they enter a new body, immediately prior to the birth (or hatching, etc.) of that creature. Most of the time the kind of Spirit that is attracted to that life form is the same kind of Spirit that inhabits the bodies of most members of that species. In those rare instances when the ‘wrong’ kind of Spirit is attracted to the new life form, interesting things may happen.
Now, let’s get refocused just a little bit from this grander picture that I have been painting and bring us back a little bit towards the portrait at hand.
Just as each cell in your body is individually unique, there a clearly groups of similar cells that perform similar functions with each other, and have similar needs. It was the same within The One. Each Spirit and each seed of a Spirit contained within The One was a unique individual, but there were, at minimum, several dozen different Orders of Spirits.
The vast majority of Spirits are rather small and inconsequential beings that don’t have the self awareness or the power to manifest any changes upon the physical world. They are the lowest level of spiritual entities.
I will try not to bore you overly much with the details of this, but suffice it to say that the kinds of Spirits that inhabit human bodies, are for the most part, middling level entities that are neither particularly high nor particularly low on the pecking order of Spirit existence.
To shorten this up a bit, let me just state that the An’girasii are Spirits that are of a significantly higher Order than the Spirits that are called into human bodies. (To be continued in my next permitted installment.)
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Dracaar's Scrolls
(I discovered that what appeared to be one scroll was actually two. The contents of the top scroll have been translated from the original An’girasii language by me. I have made every attempt to translate this message as accurately as possible. My mastery of this language, however, is incomplete. The second scroll was a more personal message, also written in his original language, although it was far less formal, and thus easier to translate.—RB)
The First Scroll
“Rejoice, O’ Sons and Daughters of Man, Rejoice! For the Son of God walks among you once more! Rejoice!
“Know ye, one and all, that I have returned after lo’ these many years to fulfill the Prophecies of Old!
“Let it be known far and wide that the Lord has returned! I come bearing the Sword of Truth and the Shield of Justice. I have returned to lead my true and faithful Servants to battle against the Forces of Darkness that seek to deprive you of my Majesty, my Mercy!
“Know ye, one and all, that Witches and Sorcerers—Servants of Darkness, one and all—walk amongst you, unseen and unknown except to those who remain True and Faithful to the Lord, your God!
“Rise up! Cast down the Wicked amongst you! Those without Faith in the Lord must be cast down into the Lake of Fire, so that their Sins might be purified, their Souls cleansed of the Darkness that they serve!
“The Daughter of Death has been born! She preaches a False Faith and offers a False Hope. She is the Enemy of Enemies! She will be cast down with all who serve her!
“The End is near! The Enemy is Strong! The Time of Tribulation is upon you!”
The Second Scroll
“Whelp,
Thank you for releasing me from the prison that my traitorous son had devised for me. I have taken some time to get to know this new world, this new era in which I now find myself.
I marvel both at how much humans have changed and how much they have changed their world, yet how weak and gullible they continue to be! I will very much enjoy our time together. It will be so easy to bend the multitudes to my Will. Even in this singular nation, the pinnacle of achievement in human civilization, the multitudes cry out for true leadership. They seek succor of the soul that only I and my siblings can offer. With all of your technology, your science, your vaunted and illusory freedoms, humanity still fears that which goes bump in the night.
The time is not yet ripe for my Call to be heard by your people. When that time arrives, whole nations will tremble and fall before me. At my word, whole populations will bend to my Will, eager to serve as whatever fodder I may need.
Your time grows short whelp. Learn quickly from your father if you wish to engage me or my servants in battle.
--Dracaar”
The First Scroll
“Rejoice, O’ Sons and Daughters of Man, Rejoice! For the Son of God walks among you once more! Rejoice!
“Know ye, one and all, that I have returned after lo’ these many years to fulfill the Prophecies of Old!
“Let it be known far and wide that the Lord has returned! I come bearing the Sword of Truth and the Shield of Justice. I have returned to lead my true and faithful Servants to battle against the Forces of Darkness that seek to deprive you of my Majesty, my Mercy!
“Know ye, one and all, that Witches and Sorcerers—Servants of Darkness, one and all—walk amongst you, unseen and unknown except to those who remain True and Faithful to the Lord, your God!
“Rise up! Cast down the Wicked amongst you! Those without Faith in the Lord must be cast down into the Lake of Fire, so that their Sins might be purified, their Souls cleansed of the Darkness that they serve!
“The Daughter of Death has been born! She preaches a False Faith and offers a False Hope. She is the Enemy of Enemies! She will be cast down with all who serve her!
“The End is near! The Enemy is Strong! The Time of Tribulation is upon you!”
The Second Scroll
“Whelp,
Thank you for releasing me from the prison that my traitorous son had devised for me. I have taken some time to get to know this new world, this new era in which I now find myself.
I marvel both at how much humans have changed and how much they have changed their world, yet how weak and gullible they continue to be! I will very much enjoy our time together. It will be so easy to bend the multitudes to my Will. Even in this singular nation, the pinnacle of achievement in human civilization, the multitudes cry out for true leadership. They seek succor of the soul that only I and my siblings can offer. With all of your technology, your science, your vaunted and illusory freedoms, humanity still fears that which goes bump in the night.
The time is not yet ripe for my Call to be heard by your people. When that time arrives, whole nations will tremble and fall before me. At my word, whole populations will bend to my Will, eager to serve as whatever fodder I may need.
Your time grows short whelp. Learn quickly from your father if you wish to engage me or my servants in battle.
--Dracaar”
Sunday, December 03, 2006
South Beach Diet...Epilogue
I stood, arms folded across my chest, as I watched the discussion taking place in the room behind the one way mirror.
Special Agent Jennifer Wilson paced behind me, flailing her arms as she spoke. “How can Corrales possibly think that he is the real killer? That man is stark raving mad!”
“Who is, Corrales?” I continued to focus my attention on the face of the man I knocked out.
His face was still stained with the blood from the victim’s kidney that he had nearly finished. His eyes were wide open, his pupils dilated. The dark circles beneath his eyes indicated that he had been running on little sleep for quite some time.
He was speaking in short, quick sentences that were nearly incoherent, especially if, like Corrales, you didn’t understand the babbled references he was throwing out like barbs to me.
“It’s been a great run man. I love the beach. It’s a perfect place for a midnight meal with the Beast. Blood never tasted so good.”
Corrales was overwhelmed, trying to take an intelligible statement form this guy, but he kept pressing anyway. “George, why did you kill these five victims?”
George shook his head. “I didn’t kill them, man. The Beast did. Oh, I suppose that I helped. Especially with that last one. She was a wild one, that one. I don’t know why the Beast wanted them dead, dude, but they sure were tasty.”
“Who is this Beast you keep referring to?”
George smiled; his bloody lips curling back as he did so. “It’s here watching you, so you better treat me right, Detective. It’s always here watching, learning, judging. The Beast is you, me, all of us.”
Corrales nodded, seemingly glad to have received an answer that he could use. “So you are the Beast, right George?”
George just smiled.
I had seen enough. I turned to face the still pacing Jennifer and touched her lightly at her elbow. When she turned to face me, I leaned in close and spoke softly nearly her left ear.
“Don’t worry Jennifer, your profile was impeccable. This man is not the killer of these people, but the creature that led me to him left him to take the fall for those killings. All of the forensic evidence will be made to fit this guy. There is nothing that you or I can do to stop that now. This whole series of killings was meant to solely to draw me here.”
She pulled back at that. “But why would…?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know enough yet to say for sure, other than that I was given a message. I message I haven’t had time to read yet.”
She looked shaken. “I have pictures of the symbols that were left next to each body. Do you want me to give you copies? Maybe they were part of the message too?”
“Yeah, you can send them to me via e-mail. I need to go, now.” I looked back through the one-way glass into the interrogation room to see that Corrales was putting the papers he had been filling out back into a folder. A group of burly officers from the Metro-Dade Police Department had entered the room to escort the soon-to-be-famous serial killer du jour to his cell. I leaned in close to Jennifer again. “Keep an eye out for strange profiles like this one. Let me know ASAP when you encounter another one.”
“There will be more?” Her eyes had grown wide with shock.
I nodded. “It’s just a matter of time. You can count on that. Tell Corrales that I’ve left. He won’t get, or need, any testimony from me for this nutcase.”
I left her to her own thoughts and Corrales’ likely wrath at my failure to stick around. I found a nice, darkened office just off the main hall and slipped into the Shadowland for the brief trip home.
I emerged in my meditation chamber, a particularly dark room that had no actual door into it in the mundane world. It was here that I came when I needed to be alone with my own thoughts.
I touched a small orb that lit up the small room with a bright, clear blue light. I pulled the rolled up scroll from the pocket I had kept it in and began examining it as I sat down at the small roll top desk that served as my only work surface for writing.
The leather of the scroll had a strange look to it and felt thinner and lighter than new leather should have. The scroll was held closed by a thick wax seal that was embossed with the symbol of a dragon with three heads…Dracaar’s sigil.
I cracked open the seal, letting the pieces of wax crumble onto the desk. I unrolled the scroll carefully.
The language of the letters and symbols of the scroll gave me pause for a moment as I searched the memories of Ma Grendel to come up with meanings. When it clicked into place, I drew an instinctive breath. This was no human language, but the original script of the An’girasii.
The message contained within those words was chilling…(to be revealed in the next post.)
Special Agent Jennifer Wilson paced behind me, flailing her arms as she spoke. “How can Corrales possibly think that he is the real killer? That man is stark raving mad!”
“Who is, Corrales?” I continued to focus my attention on the face of the man I knocked out.
His face was still stained with the blood from the victim’s kidney that he had nearly finished. His eyes were wide open, his pupils dilated. The dark circles beneath his eyes indicated that he had been running on little sleep for quite some time.
He was speaking in short, quick sentences that were nearly incoherent, especially if, like Corrales, you didn’t understand the babbled references he was throwing out like barbs to me.
“It’s been a great run man. I love the beach. It’s a perfect place for a midnight meal with the Beast. Blood never tasted so good.”
Corrales was overwhelmed, trying to take an intelligible statement form this guy, but he kept pressing anyway. “George, why did you kill these five victims?”
George shook his head. “I didn’t kill them, man. The Beast did. Oh, I suppose that I helped. Especially with that last one. She was a wild one, that one. I don’t know why the Beast wanted them dead, dude, but they sure were tasty.”
“Who is this Beast you keep referring to?”
George smiled; his bloody lips curling back as he did so. “It’s here watching you, so you better treat me right, Detective. It’s always here watching, learning, judging. The Beast is you, me, all of us.”
Corrales nodded, seemingly glad to have received an answer that he could use. “So you are the Beast, right George?”
George just smiled.
I had seen enough. I turned to face the still pacing Jennifer and touched her lightly at her elbow. When she turned to face me, I leaned in close and spoke softly nearly her left ear.
“Don’t worry Jennifer, your profile was impeccable. This man is not the killer of these people, but the creature that led me to him left him to take the fall for those killings. All of the forensic evidence will be made to fit this guy. There is nothing that you or I can do to stop that now. This whole series of killings was meant to solely to draw me here.”
She pulled back at that. “But why would…?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know enough yet to say for sure, other than that I was given a message. I message I haven’t had time to read yet.”
She looked shaken. “I have pictures of the symbols that were left next to each body. Do you want me to give you copies? Maybe they were part of the message too?”
“Yeah, you can send them to me via e-mail. I need to go, now.” I looked back through the one-way glass into the interrogation room to see that Corrales was putting the papers he had been filling out back into a folder. A group of burly officers from the Metro-Dade Police Department had entered the room to escort the soon-to-be-famous serial killer du jour to his cell. I leaned in close to Jennifer again. “Keep an eye out for strange profiles like this one. Let me know ASAP when you encounter another one.”
“There will be more?” Her eyes had grown wide with shock.
I nodded. “It’s just a matter of time. You can count on that. Tell Corrales that I’ve left. He won’t get, or need, any testimony from me for this nutcase.”
I left her to her own thoughts and Corrales’ likely wrath at my failure to stick around. I found a nice, darkened office just off the main hall and slipped into the Shadowland for the brief trip home.
I emerged in my meditation chamber, a particularly dark room that had no actual door into it in the mundane world. It was here that I came when I needed to be alone with my own thoughts.
I touched a small orb that lit up the small room with a bright, clear blue light. I pulled the rolled up scroll from the pocket I had kept it in and began examining it as I sat down at the small roll top desk that served as my only work surface for writing.
The leather of the scroll had a strange look to it and felt thinner and lighter than new leather should have. The scroll was held closed by a thick wax seal that was embossed with the symbol of a dragon with three heads…Dracaar’s sigil.
I cracked open the seal, letting the pieces of wax crumble onto the desk. I unrolled the scroll carefully.
The language of the letters and symbols of the scroll gave me pause for a moment as I searched the memories of Ma Grendel to come up with meanings. When it clicked into place, I drew an instinctive breath. This was no human language, but the original script of the An’girasii.
The message contained within those words was chilling…(to be revealed in the next post.)
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
South Beach Diet...Part 4
A figure strolled in the darkness along the beach, off to my left. It was walking that line between earth and ocean, alone, just as I moved between the world of Shadow and Light. Its physical form was that of a lithe young man. Its Spirit form was something Other, something that I had not seen before. It was small and dark, exuding a roiling, seething hatred.
The doppelganger was issuing its challenge to me- ‘Come play!’
It was time to make a proper introduction. I called the Shadow, wrapping myself fully within it. I gave the dark energy the twist that took me from one place to another and stepped out directly in front of the creature.
The fleshy face of the young man melted away as I stood at arms length from the creature. I was standing face to face with a being that now had no face.
“Why have you come, Hunter?” No mouth opened as it spoke, instead a slow, grating whisper just emanated from the creature.
“Why are you killing these people? What have they done to you?” I stood facing the thing in a combat-ready stance. My hands open and ready to trigger my batons to drop into place at the first sign that it was done talking.
“It is time to Hunt again. Have you not heard the Call?” Its form shifted slightly, its arms grew slightly longer than would be normal for a human being of its height, its hands shifted into large, wicked looking claws.
“What Call is that?” I rose up on the balls of my feet and shifted my balance forward ever so slightly.
“The Call of the An’girasii, that which has not been uttered in over six hundred years, ever since the Burning Times. How can you not hear it, Brother?” It reached one razor sharp talon towards me slowly, pointing towards where my heart used to be. “Lord Dracaar walks the land once more. My Spirit sings with his Call. I feast so that I may grow strong enough to serve him once again! Shall we dine together tonight?”
I brushed the talon away with a sweep of my left arm while reaching up to the sheath across my back that was not actually present in the physical world. Somehow I didn’t think my batons would be of much use against this creature.
“Look buddy, I don’t hear any Call from Dracaar or anyone else, but I think you’ve had your last meal on this or any beach.”
It drew back from my brush off and gathered itself for a lunging attack, both clawed hands ready to strike with its leap.
It leapt before I could get my hand on the hilt of Excalibur, knocking me backwards onto my back in the wet sand. We became a tangle of grasping hands and claws, kicking legs and tussling forms in the gently rolling waves.
It wrestled with the strength of several men, moving lightning fast with the ferocity of natural predator as it tried to keep me from reaching the blade that it somehow knew was there.
“You are known to us, young Hunter. You have much to learn before you will inspire fear in any of us the way your Father did.” It was not straining to speak as we continued to wrestle, it continued to gain the upper hand, always anticipating my next attempt to wrest my hand free to reach for the blade.
“Drake was not my father, dammit!”
It gave off what could only be considered a chuckle as it leaned its grey, blank face close to mine. “It was only through him that you were born into this existence. He is your Father in every way that matters.”
I stopped struggling when I realized that this creature, this doppelganger, was sitting astride my chest in the shallow surf, holding me down, but not otherwise trying to harm me. I stared into its blank mask of a face, trying to pierce the veil into its Spirit. “Who or what exactly are you and why did you draw me here?”
Two pinpricks of red light grew into glowing orbs of eyes. “I am a humble Servant, a messenger, if you will. I have something for you.”
“What is it?”
It reached into the dark robes that I now realized it was wearing and drew out a rolled up piece of what looked like leather that was sealed by some sort of wax-like blob and placed it on my chest as it let go of my right arm with its other claw and stood up.
“Read this soon, it is a message for your eyes only. You will find the fifth and final victim a short ways down the beach. You will also find a suitably guilty killer alive next to the carcass. He will serve the needs of your human justice system well enough for now.”
“I can’t scapegoat some poor schmuck for your crimes!”
It stood over me, its eyes fading back into the grey of the mask. “Oh, I’ve chosen well for you. He’s killed far more of his fellow men than I have lately. If he weren’t so fallibly human, he might have been of more use to us. I have enjoyed this meeting young Hunter, until we meet again, fare thee well.”
I sat up, grabbing the thick leather scroll before it fell into the water. As I did, the creature faded into Shadow and was gone.
I got up, knocked some of the wet sand off of me and set off towards the site of the fifth victim a few hundred yards to the south. As promised, I found the fifth victim and a dazed man with the sickly Spirit of an unrepentant killer kneeling next to her. In one blood drenched hand he held the half eaten kidney of the young woman laid out, spread eagle on the bloodied sands of South Beach. His other hand was covered by bloody glove with jagged blades extending from the fingers.
I subdued the bastard with one quick blow to the back of his head with my fist and made the call for Agent Corrales to collect his prize for the dog and pony show that was sure to follow this arrest…
The doppelganger was issuing its challenge to me- ‘Come play!’
It was time to make a proper introduction. I called the Shadow, wrapping myself fully within it. I gave the dark energy the twist that took me from one place to another and stepped out directly in front of the creature.
The fleshy face of the young man melted away as I stood at arms length from the creature. I was standing face to face with a being that now had no face.
“Why have you come, Hunter?” No mouth opened as it spoke, instead a slow, grating whisper just emanated from the creature.
“Why are you killing these people? What have they done to you?” I stood facing the thing in a combat-ready stance. My hands open and ready to trigger my batons to drop into place at the first sign that it was done talking.
“It is time to Hunt again. Have you not heard the Call?” Its form shifted slightly, its arms grew slightly longer than would be normal for a human being of its height, its hands shifted into large, wicked looking claws.
“What Call is that?” I rose up on the balls of my feet and shifted my balance forward ever so slightly.
“The Call of the An’girasii, that which has not been uttered in over six hundred years, ever since the Burning Times. How can you not hear it, Brother?” It reached one razor sharp talon towards me slowly, pointing towards where my heart used to be. “Lord Dracaar walks the land once more. My Spirit sings with his Call. I feast so that I may grow strong enough to serve him once again! Shall we dine together tonight?”
I brushed the talon away with a sweep of my left arm while reaching up to the sheath across my back that was not actually present in the physical world. Somehow I didn’t think my batons would be of much use against this creature.
“Look buddy, I don’t hear any Call from Dracaar or anyone else, but I think you’ve had your last meal on this or any beach.”
It drew back from my brush off and gathered itself for a lunging attack, both clawed hands ready to strike with its leap.
It leapt before I could get my hand on the hilt of Excalibur, knocking me backwards onto my back in the wet sand. We became a tangle of grasping hands and claws, kicking legs and tussling forms in the gently rolling waves.
It wrestled with the strength of several men, moving lightning fast with the ferocity of natural predator as it tried to keep me from reaching the blade that it somehow knew was there.
“You are known to us, young Hunter. You have much to learn before you will inspire fear in any of us the way your Father did.” It was not straining to speak as we continued to wrestle, it continued to gain the upper hand, always anticipating my next attempt to wrest my hand free to reach for the blade.
“Drake was not my father, dammit!”
It gave off what could only be considered a chuckle as it leaned its grey, blank face close to mine. “It was only through him that you were born into this existence. He is your Father in every way that matters.”
I stopped struggling when I realized that this creature, this doppelganger, was sitting astride my chest in the shallow surf, holding me down, but not otherwise trying to harm me. I stared into its blank mask of a face, trying to pierce the veil into its Spirit. “Who or what exactly are you and why did you draw me here?”
Two pinpricks of red light grew into glowing orbs of eyes. “I am a humble Servant, a messenger, if you will. I have something for you.”
“What is it?”
It reached into the dark robes that I now realized it was wearing and drew out a rolled up piece of what looked like leather that was sealed by some sort of wax-like blob and placed it on my chest as it let go of my right arm with its other claw and stood up.
“Read this soon, it is a message for your eyes only. You will find the fifth and final victim a short ways down the beach. You will also find a suitably guilty killer alive next to the carcass. He will serve the needs of your human justice system well enough for now.”
“I can’t scapegoat some poor schmuck for your crimes!”
It stood over me, its eyes fading back into the grey of the mask. “Oh, I’ve chosen well for you. He’s killed far more of his fellow men than I have lately. If he weren’t so fallibly human, he might have been of more use to us. I have enjoyed this meeting young Hunter, until we meet again, fare thee well.”
I sat up, grabbing the thick leather scroll before it fell into the water. As I did, the creature faded into Shadow and was gone.
I got up, knocked some of the wet sand off of me and set off towards the site of the fifth victim a few hundred yards to the south. As promised, I found the fifth victim and a dazed man with the sickly Spirit of an unrepentant killer kneeling next to her. In one blood drenched hand he held the half eaten kidney of the young woman laid out, spread eagle on the bloodied sands of South Beach. His other hand was covered by bloody glove with jagged blades extending from the fingers.
I subdued the bastard with one quick blow to the back of his head with my fist and made the call for Agent Corrales to collect his prize for the dog and pony show that was sure to follow this arrest…
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Reasons to Be Thankful for Being (Un)Dead
On this Thanksgiving morning, let me list some of the reasons that I am thankful for being (un)dead:
1) I get to spend time with family again.
2) Being able to walk the Shadowland...a wondrously beautiful and dangerous place!
3) Appearances no longer matter--I'm dead, who cares how I look?
4) Low expecatations of others--hey, he's dead, we can't expect him to remember our birthdays or anniversaries.
5) The Rat Race has a completely new meaning--just stay ahead of the little buggers so they don't nibble off my ears!
6) Being able to stay up all night to watch the late games on the West Coast...and SportsCenter all night long!
7) Long, deep conversations with the Professor! (Go Tigers!)
8) Discovering a long lost Sister-in-Spirit in Ravyn and discovering her many wonderful qualities. (As well as Betsy!)
9) Seeing the Frau streaking through the woods as changes into Bear form. (Even if she did have to sit on me!)
10) Seeing from Cerrydwen that embracing the Shadow Within doesn't mean that you fall to Evil, that we each make the choice to Do Evil or to help others.
Here are some reasons to be less thankful for being (un)dead:
1) Coke and Mentos doesn't make much of a Thanksgiving feast!
2) Being unable to truly feel the touch of another person.
3) Knowing that in any given situation, I am pretty much the ugliest person in the room (or on the street, etc).
4) To finally discover what it is to be fully human, to be fully alive, after you are already dead.
5) To see a beautiful, nekkid, hindside of a ravishingly beautiful woman, and be completely unable to do anything about it!
Happy Thanksgiving to One and All!
1) I get to spend time with family again.
2) Being able to walk the Shadowland...a wondrously beautiful and dangerous place!
3) Appearances no longer matter--I'm dead, who cares how I look?
4) Low expecatations of others--hey, he's dead, we can't expect him to remember our birthdays or anniversaries.
5) The Rat Race has a completely new meaning--just stay ahead of the little buggers so they don't nibble off my ears!
6) Being able to stay up all night to watch the late games on the West Coast...and SportsCenter all night long!
7) Long, deep conversations with the Professor! (Go Tigers!)
8) Discovering a long lost Sister-in-Spirit in Ravyn and discovering her many wonderful qualities. (As well as Betsy!)
9) Seeing the Frau streaking through the woods as changes into Bear form. (Even if she did have to sit on me!)
10) Seeing from Cerrydwen that embracing the Shadow Within doesn't mean that you fall to Evil, that we each make the choice to Do Evil or to help others.
Here are some reasons to be less thankful for being (un)dead:
1) Coke and Mentos doesn't make much of a Thanksgiving feast!
2) Being unable to truly feel the touch of another person.
3) Knowing that in any given situation, I am pretty much the ugliest person in the room (or on the street, etc).
4) To finally discover what it is to be fully human, to be fully alive, after you are already dead.
5) To see a beautiful, nekkid, hindside of a ravishingly beautiful woman, and be completely unable to do anything about it!
Happy Thanksgiving to One and All!
Monday, November 20, 2006
South Beach Diet...Part 3
I slipped back into the Shadowland, hoping to catch a glimpse of my prey yet again, only to find that the creature had slipped away for the moment. I shifted back to normal vision, clenching my fist in frustration. I turned, stepped out into the street, easily slipping between the cars stuck in traffic. It was time to check out the beach. Once on the far side, I pulled the Shadow closer, hoping to use it for cover as I thought back to Corrales’ reaction to Jennifer’s shocking pronouncement.
“What do you mean by ‘not entirely human’? What else could the killer be? No animal would leave the victims spread out like that or draw those weird pictures next to the bodies.”
Jennifer nodded. Her medium length gray curls bounced as she did so. She pointed out items on her computer screen with her long elegant fingers as she spoke. “The pattern of the bodies and the symbols that are drawn has meaning, so it definitely isn’t an animal. But the way these people have been killed, it isn’t with a weapon. A knife, even a dull one, wouldn’t tear the flesh like was done on this victim and over here on this victim. These are wounds that have been made by claws of some kind, very sharp claws.”
“That doesn’t mean that some sicko hasn’t found a way to make a weapon that acts like a claw. Remember, we are in South Florida. We have more than our share of weirdos down here.”
She looked back at Corrales, her eyes intense behind her large glasses. “This killer is not your average weirdo, Miguel. There is something about the feel of this case…I believe that the missing organs of the victims have been removed for some important reason.” She shook her head violently as she contemplated the case, which sent her silver-gray curls flying. When she started speaking again her words spilled out in ever faster sentences. “I just don’t think a human killer would have been capable of doing everything this killer did to each victim in such a short time in place where someone could come up on them at any time. The evidence is here Miguel. These people were killed on this beach. They each walked to the spot of their death with someone else who was clearly human at that time, but the tracks leading away from the site are not human. Each victim is missing an organ, a different organ from any of the other victims.”
Both Miguel and I just sat there watching and listening as she ran through the evidence as she spoke, clicking on a photo here, flipping past a slide there, all at the same speed she was talking. It all came so fast that it took us a moment to catch up to her when she had stopped, glancing between the two of us. She was the first speak again, but only as she reach over to click on the final slide in her presentation.
“I think the killer is a doppelganger.”
To be honest, I wasn’t that shocked. I had been following her points fairly closely and had already come to the conclusion that this killer was not your run-of-the-mill psychopath.
Miguel broke out in laughter, slapping his forehead. “You almost had me there, girl! I haven’t heard that word in over twenty year…doppelganger indeed. I remember those creatures from my role-playing days. So, now that you’ve had your little joke at my expense, what’s your real theory?”
Corrales had gone from side-splitting laughter to serious-as-a-heart-attack in the span of ten seconds. He looked from Jennifer to me and back to Jennifer.
“I wasn’t joking Miguel. That’s why I asked for Agent Bones to be here as well. He has considerable…experience…with creatures like this.”
His expression went from serious to confusion as he tried to make sense of this.
I slid my chair over to be close to him and looked him in the eye. I reached out and gently but firmly brought his right hand up to my neck. He was so confused that he didn’t even try to resist.
“Miguel, I not this ugly because of some crazy disease or any botched plastic surgery. I know you look at me and you think you see just a deformed person; at least once you try to process that information. But your true first reaction, the reaction you have before your brain dismissed it out of hand, is that I look like a zombie, that I look like a walking dead man. Well guess what? Your first impulse is right. Feel my right there where the carotid artery should be. No pulse. Feel how cold and clammy my skin is? I’ve got the flesh of a dead man because that’s what I am.”
“But…but…” He jerked his hand away, wiped it on his Armani pants as if they were dirty jeans and as if the feel of Death could be wiped off like a smudge of dirt.
I nodded. “I know. You see, I’ve found that I can walk around with less and less make-up than my makers ever thought I could because people see me for who I am at first glance, but then dismiss the mere thought of an undead zombie as either a good Halloween costume, or some weird skin disease, or a botched surgery or two. The human mind doesn’t deal well with things that don’t fit neatly inside the niches that it has assigned to them to. Simply because everyone knows that monsters such as zombies and vampires and…doppelgangers…their own minds fool them into believing that the thing they just saw with their own eyes was something else entirely.”
He looked shaken, to say the least. I put one hand to try and steady him, but he cringed, so I pulled it back with a shrug.
“Like Jennifer says, I do have some rather specialized knowledge and experience about creatures like this killer of yours. I agree with her profile in that I don’t think you are dealing with a human killer here. But why this thing is killing people like this, so publicly, so quickly, that I don’t know. I’m going to have to try and track it for awhile. I will need to spend time where it has been hunting. I need to see what it is seeing and see if I can discern its real purpose before it actually kills again. I will start tonight, since that is when it is active, at night.”
Jennifer was nodding as I spoke. She really looked pleased that I agreed with her profile so far.
Miguel, on the other hand, was looking almost as pale as I did. He was looking at me, listening to me, but with the vacant kind of stare that told me that his understanding of the world had just been turned upside down.
“Jennifer, make sure that the Bureau communicates with the local police. They should maintain the same vigilant presence that they’ve had in place for the last week, but I don’t want anyone else trying to cover for me. I need to hunt this thing in my own way. I don’t want to spook it, unless we absolutely have to in order to save a life…”
Standing on the edge of Light and Night, of City and Beach, I was in Shadow. A watchful, vigilant Shade that moved from one world to the next with the ease of a moth flitting around a light bulb, one moment fully visible and real, the next moment a figment of the imagination.
In this new quasi-state of being, I could walk among the evening revelers leaving no more memory of my passing than that of a strange, cold shiver that caused a tingle along the spine and raised the hairs on the back of the neck.
The Hunt continued…
“What do you mean by ‘not entirely human’? What else could the killer be? No animal would leave the victims spread out like that or draw those weird pictures next to the bodies.”
Jennifer nodded. Her medium length gray curls bounced as she did so. She pointed out items on her computer screen with her long elegant fingers as she spoke. “The pattern of the bodies and the symbols that are drawn has meaning, so it definitely isn’t an animal. But the way these people have been killed, it isn’t with a weapon. A knife, even a dull one, wouldn’t tear the flesh like was done on this victim and over here on this victim. These are wounds that have been made by claws of some kind, very sharp claws.”
“That doesn’t mean that some sicko hasn’t found a way to make a weapon that acts like a claw. Remember, we are in South Florida. We have more than our share of weirdos down here.”
She looked back at Corrales, her eyes intense behind her large glasses. “This killer is not your average weirdo, Miguel. There is something about the feel of this case…I believe that the missing organs of the victims have been removed for some important reason.” She shook her head violently as she contemplated the case, which sent her silver-gray curls flying. When she started speaking again her words spilled out in ever faster sentences. “I just don’t think a human killer would have been capable of doing everything this killer did to each victim in such a short time in place where someone could come up on them at any time. The evidence is here Miguel. These people were killed on this beach. They each walked to the spot of their death with someone else who was clearly human at that time, but the tracks leading away from the site are not human. Each victim is missing an organ, a different organ from any of the other victims.”
Both Miguel and I just sat there watching and listening as she ran through the evidence as she spoke, clicking on a photo here, flipping past a slide there, all at the same speed she was talking. It all came so fast that it took us a moment to catch up to her when she had stopped, glancing between the two of us. She was the first speak again, but only as she reach over to click on the final slide in her presentation.
“I think the killer is a doppelganger.”
To be honest, I wasn’t that shocked. I had been following her points fairly closely and had already come to the conclusion that this killer was not your run-of-the-mill psychopath.
Miguel broke out in laughter, slapping his forehead. “You almost had me there, girl! I haven’t heard that word in over twenty year…doppelganger indeed. I remember those creatures from my role-playing days. So, now that you’ve had your little joke at my expense, what’s your real theory?”
Corrales had gone from side-splitting laughter to serious-as-a-heart-attack in the span of ten seconds. He looked from Jennifer to me and back to Jennifer.
“I wasn’t joking Miguel. That’s why I asked for Agent Bones to be here as well. He has considerable…experience…with creatures like this.”
His expression went from serious to confusion as he tried to make sense of this.
I slid my chair over to be close to him and looked him in the eye. I reached out and gently but firmly brought his right hand up to my neck. He was so confused that he didn’t even try to resist.
“Miguel, I not this ugly because of some crazy disease or any botched plastic surgery. I know you look at me and you think you see just a deformed person; at least once you try to process that information. But your true first reaction, the reaction you have before your brain dismissed it out of hand, is that I look like a zombie, that I look like a walking dead man. Well guess what? Your first impulse is right. Feel my right there where the carotid artery should be. No pulse. Feel how cold and clammy my skin is? I’ve got the flesh of a dead man because that’s what I am.”
“But…but…” He jerked his hand away, wiped it on his Armani pants as if they were dirty jeans and as if the feel of Death could be wiped off like a smudge of dirt.
I nodded. “I know. You see, I’ve found that I can walk around with less and less make-up than my makers ever thought I could because people see me for who I am at first glance, but then dismiss the mere thought of an undead zombie as either a good Halloween costume, or some weird skin disease, or a botched surgery or two. The human mind doesn’t deal well with things that don’t fit neatly inside the niches that it has assigned to them to. Simply because everyone knows that monsters such as zombies and vampires and…doppelgangers…their own minds fool them into believing that the thing they just saw with their own eyes was something else entirely.”
He looked shaken, to say the least. I put one hand to try and steady him, but he cringed, so I pulled it back with a shrug.
“Like Jennifer says, I do have some rather specialized knowledge and experience about creatures like this killer of yours. I agree with her profile in that I don’t think you are dealing with a human killer here. But why this thing is killing people like this, so publicly, so quickly, that I don’t know. I’m going to have to try and track it for awhile. I will need to spend time where it has been hunting. I need to see what it is seeing and see if I can discern its real purpose before it actually kills again. I will start tonight, since that is when it is active, at night.”
Jennifer was nodding as I spoke. She really looked pleased that I agreed with her profile so far.
Miguel, on the other hand, was looking almost as pale as I did. He was looking at me, listening to me, but with the vacant kind of stare that told me that his understanding of the world had just been turned upside down.
“Jennifer, make sure that the Bureau communicates with the local police. They should maintain the same vigilant presence that they’ve had in place for the last week, but I don’t want anyone else trying to cover for me. I need to hunt this thing in my own way. I don’t want to spook it, unless we absolutely have to in order to save a life…”
Standing on the edge of Light and Night, of City and Beach, I was in Shadow. A watchful, vigilant Shade that moved from one world to the next with the ease of a moth flitting around a light bulb, one moment fully visible and real, the next moment a figment of the imagination.
In this new quasi-state of being, I could walk among the evening revelers leaving no more memory of my passing than that of a strange, cold shiver that caused a tingle along the spine and raised the hairs on the back of the neck.
The Hunt continued…
Friday, November 17, 2006
South Beach Diet...Part 2
Shaking my head as I stepped over the puddle of fermented vomit, I emerged from the darkness of the small alley and entered the pulsating stream of human sexuality that was the South Beach night life.
If the dress code of the partying crowd was any indication, it was about 80 degrees and humid out. Even the bikini clad gals and the bare-chested young studs were shiny with beaded sweat. I was, of course, the lone exception. I was wearing a lightweight, black windbreaker over a loose black sweatshirt. My sturdy jeans were properly distressed while my heavy black steel-toed work boots were brand new.
While preening, inebriated minnows darted and dodged all around me, I was the plodding, brooding predator seeking others who might be trolling for prey.
As chaotic and colorful as the neon, Art Deco scene was in normal vision, it was bland compared to the ever changing arrays of color displayed by the Spirit forms of the overflowing crowd. In the last year I had gotten much better at switching my vision from the mundane to the Shadowland while continuing to navigate physically through the mundane world.
It was so easy to scan crowds this way that I could almost operate on auto-pilot. If Agent Wilson had been right, the creatures that I was looking for would be far more likely to stand out in the Shadowland than they would in the mundane:
I made my appearance the next morning in the Flagler Federal Law Center where the Bureau had their main office in Miami. My ‘flight’ had been quick and hassle free. Agent Corrales met me in the spacious lobby on the first floor before taking me up the thirtieth floor meeting room that had a breathtaking view of Miami Beach across the bay and the sparkling ocean beyond that. Jennifer and a small cadre of forensic techs were waiting for me with all of the photographs and collected evidence laid out on the expansive conference table.
The photographs of the four victims, two men and two women, were gruesome. Each of the victims lay spread eagle on their backs, with arms outstretched and their guts ripped open.
My entrance stopped all discussion as each person took stock of me. Corrales had hid his reaction well down in the lobby, but that had more to do with the fact that I had waited in one of the darker areas for him to come find me. Even though I had my standard makeup job to cover up the worst of my appearance, it was getting harder and harder to disguise the fact that I now had a seriously ugly mug.
Jennifer got up from her seat at the table where she had been typing on her laptop and approached me, hand extended. “Rusty, thanks for coming so quickly.”
I shook her hand, carefully. “No problem, Jennifer. I hope that I can be of help to you.”
Corrales came up beside me, careful not to get too close to me. “Agent Wilson here has been singing your praises, Agent Bones. We certainly hope that you can help us resolve this case before the press eats us alive.” His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t see much in your Bureau profile though about building profiles.”
Jennifer cleared her throat, looked back at the various techs who had been watching our exchange. “Rusty’s skills are rather unique, Miguel, and his full profile is classified. Can we clear the room? The information we are about to discuss is to shared on a need-to-know basis only.”
“I see.” He looked sharply over at the techs. They got the point and began to shuffle from the room; more than one of them looked relieved. “May I presume that I am allowed to stay?”
Jennifer nodded and sat back down in her chair while pointing out two others to be pulled up. “Of course you are Miguel. You are the lead agent on this case, after all.”
We both sat down as she pulled up a presentation that she had been working on. Once the room was clear except for the three of us and the doors had been shut, she began to speak again.
“Miguel, as I’ve told you before, I can’t build an accurate profile of the killer in this case based on the facts that we have accumulated to date. What I haven’t told you yet is that I am pretty sure that the killer is not entirely human…”
The flashback was interrupted as I caught a glimpse of someone, something, in the crowd that didn’t fit. The Spirit form of the being stood out from the large cluster of younger, brighter Spirits gathered outside of a particularly flashy nightclub. It was a darker, smaller form than those of most humans, and it felt my presence as I honed in on it.
The small head of the form swiveled in my direction as soon as I locked my gaze onto it. Two laser red eyes locked onto me for the briefest of moments before a massive explosion of intense light knocked me from the Shadowland and back into the realm of normal vision.
The crowd was milling about, oblivious to the dance between two Hunters as I tried to associate the out of place Spirit form I had seen with the right physical body in the swirling, dancing, flirting mass of humanity.
With all of the glances of fear, disgust, and disdain that I was getting, I couldn’t pinpoint my prey just yet. I was reasonably certain, however, that I stood out well enough to let my prey know that he or she wasn’t alone at the top of the food chain any more.
The minnows danced and darted about, too exhilarated by Life to realize that the true dance of Death had only just begun.
If the dress code of the partying crowd was any indication, it was about 80 degrees and humid out. Even the bikini clad gals and the bare-chested young studs were shiny with beaded sweat. I was, of course, the lone exception. I was wearing a lightweight, black windbreaker over a loose black sweatshirt. My sturdy jeans were properly distressed while my heavy black steel-toed work boots were brand new.
While preening, inebriated minnows darted and dodged all around me, I was the plodding, brooding predator seeking others who might be trolling for prey.
As chaotic and colorful as the neon, Art Deco scene was in normal vision, it was bland compared to the ever changing arrays of color displayed by the Spirit forms of the overflowing crowd. In the last year I had gotten much better at switching my vision from the mundane to the Shadowland while continuing to navigate physically through the mundane world.
It was so easy to scan crowds this way that I could almost operate on auto-pilot. If Agent Wilson had been right, the creatures that I was looking for would be far more likely to stand out in the Shadowland than they would in the mundane:
I made my appearance the next morning in the Flagler Federal Law Center where the Bureau had their main office in Miami. My ‘flight’ had been quick and hassle free. Agent Corrales met me in the spacious lobby on the first floor before taking me up the thirtieth floor meeting room that had a breathtaking view of Miami Beach across the bay and the sparkling ocean beyond that. Jennifer and a small cadre of forensic techs were waiting for me with all of the photographs and collected evidence laid out on the expansive conference table.
The photographs of the four victims, two men and two women, were gruesome. Each of the victims lay spread eagle on their backs, with arms outstretched and their guts ripped open.
My entrance stopped all discussion as each person took stock of me. Corrales had hid his reaction well down in the lobby, but that had more to do with the fact that I had waited in one of the darker areas for him to come find me. Even though I had my standard makeup job to cover up the worst of my appearance, it was getting harder and harder to disguise the fact that I now had a seriously ugly mug.
Jennifer got up from her seat at the table where she had been typing on her laptop and approached me, hand extended. “Rusty, thanks for coming so quickly.”
I shook her hand, carefully. “No problem, Jennifer. I hope that I can be of help to you.”
Corrales came up beside me, careful not to get too close to me. “Agent Wilson here has been singing your praises, Agent Bones. We certainly hope that you can help us resolve this case before the press eats us alive.” His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t see much in your Bureau profile though about building profiles.”
Jennifer cleared her throat, looked back at the various techs who had been watching our exchange. “Rusty’s skills are rather unique, Miguel, and his full profile is classified. Can we clear the room? The information we are about to discuss is to shared on a need-to-know basis only.”
“I see.” He looked sharply over at the techs. They got the point and began to shuffle from the room; more than one of them looked relieved. “May I presume that I am allowed to stay?”
Jennifer nodded and sat back down in her chair while pointing out two others to be pulled up. “Of course you are Miguel. You are the lead agent on this case, after all.”
We both sat down as she pulled up a presentation that she had been working on. Once the room was clear except for the three of us and the doors had been shut, she began to speak again.
“Miguel, as I’ve told you before, I can’t build an accurate profile of the killer in this case based on the facts that we have accumulated to date. What I haven’t told you yet is that I am pretty sure that the killer is not entirely human…”
The flashback was interrupted as I caught a glimpse of someone, something, in the crowd that didn’t fit. The Spirit form of the being stood out from the large cluster of younger, brighter Spirits gathered outside of a particularly flashy nightclub. It was a darker, smaller form than those of most humans, and it felt my presence as I honed in on it.
The small head of the form swiveled in my direction as soon as I locked my gaze onto it. Two laser red eyes locked onto me for the briefest of moments before a massive explosion of intense light knocked me from the Shadowland and back into the realm of normal vision.
The crowd was milling about, oblivious to the dance between two Hunters as I tried to associate the out of place Spirit form I had seen with the right physical body in the swirling, dancing, flirting mass of humanity.
With all of the glances of fear, disgust, and disdain that I was getting, I couldn’t pinpoint my prey just yet. I was reasonably certain, however, that I stood out well enough to let my prey know that he or she wasn’t alone at the top of the food chain any more.
The minnows danced and darted about, too exhilarated by Life to realize that the true dance of Death had only just begun.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
South Beach Diet...Part 1
I emerged from the Shadow into a dark side alley. I stopped at the end of the alley for a moment to take in the festive scene of a typical South Beach evening—pounding music, snarled traffic, pulsing neon lights, and a throbbing crowd of underdressed people of all races, genders and orientations milling about happily trolling for their next fling.
The call for assistance had come earlier in the afternoon from the Miami office of the Bureau:
“Hello.”
“This is Special Agent Miguel Corrales from the Miami Office, are you Agent Rusty Bones?”
“Yeah, that would be me. What can I do for you Agent Corrales?”
“Well, uh, we’re having a bit of a problem down here and we’re hoping that you might be able to help us to solve it.”
“What kind of problem are you having?”
“Well, um, it’s kind of hard to explain without sounding…ridiculous.”
I laughed. “Don’t worry about that Agent Corrales. I specialize in handling problems that sound ridiculous to most people. Tell me what you got going on.”
“You’ve probably seen some of our problem on the news, if you watch that stuff. We have someone, or something that is stalking and killing people here near South Beach.”
There had been a few news stories about a series of gruesome killings in Miami Beach lately. I hadn’t really paid attention to the stories, so I didn’t know too many details, other than that the mutilated bodies of young, otherwise healthy young people were turning up on the beaches of that city’s hottest nightspots, only to be discovered in the early morning hours.
“I’ve seen some of the coverage, yes. Looks like you might have a serial killer of some sort who has become active down there. But the Bureau has better people than me to create a profile of potential serial killers.”
“Yeah, well that’s just it. We’ve had a profiler brought in from Quantico already, Jennifer Wilson, she’s looked at everything, including the details that haven’t been released for the media outlets and she swears that the facts aren’t fitting any into any of her profile models. She gave me you name and number and suggested that I give you a call.”
I remembered Jennifer. She was a bright young agent who had sought me out on one of my many trips to Washington in the last few months. She had been one of Ravyn’s students a few years back. She had the natural talent to be a full fledged Caster and had been offered a position within the ORC’s, but had decided to pursue a career in law enforcement. She was now a rising star within the Bureau using her Talent and her training to build profiles of serial killers. She hadn’t been wrong yet. If she was stumped, this was serious.
“OK, I’m listening. What details have you guys kept from the press?”
“Well, all of the victims were badly mutilated, that much has been made public. But what wasn’t released is that each victim was missing a particular organ. We’ve also found blood and other…evidence that wasn’t from any of the victims at each site.”
“What kind of evidence?”
“Fluids that we can’t identify, strange looking symbols drawn in the sand near each body. Tracks going away from the sites of the killings always lead to the ocean.”
“And Agent Wilson said that she couldn’t create a profile from this?”
A young woman in a skimpy bikini top and a multi-colored sarong staggered to the edge of the alley where I was hidden and retched onto the ground, interrupting my reverie. She looked up from my puke spattered boots, staggering up to one knee. “Hey buddy, whatcha doin’ back there?” As her eyes traveled upward from my boots, her eyes grew wide. She got up quickly and stumbled off to rejoin her friends.
The call for assistance had come earlier in the afternoon from the Miami office of the Bureau:
“Hello.”
“This is Special Agent Miguel Corrales from the Miami Office, are you Agent Rusty Bones?”
“Yeah, that would be me. What can I do for you Agent Corrales?”
“Well, uh, we’re having a bit of a problem down here and we’re hoping that you might be able to help us to solve it.”
“What kind of problem are you having?”
“Well, um, it’s kind of hard to explain without sounding…ridiculous.”
I laughed. “Don’t worry about that Agent Corrales. I specialize in handling problems that sound ridiculous to most people. Tell me what you got going on.”
“You’ve probably seen some of our problem on the news, if you watch that stuff. We have someone, or something that is stalking and killing people here near South Beach.”
There had been a few news stories about a series of gruesome killings in Miami Beach lately. I hadn’t really paid attention to the stories, so I didn’t know too many details, other than that the mutilated bodies of young, otherwise healthy young people were turning up on the beaches of that city’s hottest nightspots, only to be discovered in the early morning hours.
“I’ve seen some of the coverage, yes. Looks like you might have a serial killer of some sort who has become active down there. But the Bureau has better people than me to create a profile of potential serial killers.”
“Yeah, well that’s just it. We’ve had a profiler brought in from Quantico already, Jennifer Wilson, she’s looked at everything, including the details that haven’t been released for the media outlets and she swears that the facts aren’t fitting any into any of her profile models. She gave me you name and number and suggested that I give you a call.”
I remembered Jennifer. She was a bright young agent who had sought me out on one of my many trips to Washington in the last few months. She had been one of Ravyn’s students a few years back. She had the natural talent to be a full fledged Caster and had been offered a position within the ORC’s, but had decided to pursue a career in law enforcement. She was now a rising star within the Bureau using her Talent and her training to build profiles of serial killers. She hadn’t been wrong yet. If she was stumped, this was serious.
“OK, I’m listening. What details have you guys kept from the press?”
“Well, all of the victims were badly mutilated, that much has been made public. But what wasn’t released is that each victim was missing a particular organ. We’ve also found blood and other…evidence that wasn’t from any of the victims at each site.”
“What kind of evidence?”
“Fluids that we can’t identify, strange looking symbols drawn in the sand near each body. Tracks going away from the sites of the killings always lead to the ocean.”
“And Agent Wilson said that she couldn’t create a profile from this?”
A young woman in a skimpy bikini top and a multi-colored sarong staggered to the edge of the alley where I was hidden and retched onto the ground, interrupting my reverie. She looked up from my puke spattered boots, staggering up to one knee. “Hey buddy, whatcha doin’ back there?” As her eyes traveled upward from my boots, her eyes grew wide. She got up quickly and stumbled off to rejoin her friends.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Zulu's Message
Dear Rusty,
As requested, here is a brief description of some of the loans that Bone Financial has detailed in its SEC application and promotional material. The material is all part of the public domain at this time, available upon request to any interested party. Quoted sections are taken verbatim from Bone Financial documents.
“The Bone Financial Life Loan is the ideal financial instrument for applicants who are highly skilled, white collar professionals that are working in industries that are undergoing significant economic disturbance, such as the auto industry.”
The Life Loan is designed to be the main financial product that keeps the company in the public eye. The premise for this loan is that the eligible applicant receives a temptingly sizable lump sum of money that they can anything they want with. They can use it to pay off mortgages, consolidate bills, to take large vacations, purchase businesses or other large ticket items that enable the beneficiary of the loan to seemingly change their lives in a qualitative way. The borrower then has a choice to make either monthly or quarterly payments to pay the interest on that lump sum. The size of those payments is of course dependent on the interest rate assigned to the loan, which is derived using a formula based on a number of factors such as the credit rating of the individual, their current income, their total asset/liability ratio and their expected lifespan.
“The true beauty of the Life Loan, and perhaps its most appealing feature for many borrowers, is that the payments remain relatively low because the borrower only has to the interest during their life.”
The balance of the loan is collected from the estate of the borrower. The borrower is required to maintain a term life insurance policy for the full amount of the loan balance plus a premium of at least 25%.
While the Life Loan is the product that is most prominently featured in their literature, the more puzzling product is almost hidden in dismissive footnotes as a philanthropic outreach program. This ‘product’ is called a ‘pre-mortem purchase agreement’ or a PMPA.
PMPA’s are essentially arrangements where Bone Financial purchases the rights a person’s body after they die. The literature is unclear on exactly why Bone Financial would pay out money to buy the rights to dead bodies, especially prior to the death of the individual in question, but they do make vague allusions to using the bodies for ‘scientific research.’ The customer sells away all rights to their body after death.
As part of the PMPA, the person who is selling the rights to their body receives a lump sum payment—the size of which is based on a formula that the company refuses to divulge based on ‘trade secrets’—that payment though will be reduced if the person wishes to retain the services of a Certified Mortuary Assistant who would plan and conduct the appropriate memorial service for the decedent when that time comes.
As you can see, our friends at Bone Financial have put considerable thought into this set-up and have figured out how to legally acquire a large number of dead bodies to which they will have full legal rights to use as they deem appropriate, although I would anticipate that there will be some local resistance to any facility that will be used as a warehouse for these cadavers.
I will continue to look for information that may be of value to you and your friends, but I want you to keep in mind that you will not have any support from the Bureau or the DOJ, so be very careful.
Take care,
Zulu
As requested, here is a brief description of some of the loans that Bone Financial has detailed in its SEC application and promotional material. The material is all part of the public domain at this time, available upon request to any interested party. Quoted sections are taken verbatim from Bone Financial documents.
“The Bone Financial Life Loan is the ideal financial instrument for applicants who are highly skilled, white collar professionals that are working in industries that are undergoing significant economic disturbance, such as the auto industry.”
The Life Loan is designed to be the main financial product that keeps the company in the public eye. The premise for this loan is that the eligible applicant receives a temptingly sizable lump sum of money that they can anything they want with. They can use it to pay off mortgages, consolidate bills, to take large vacations, purchase businesses or other large ticket items that enable the beneficiary of the loan to seemingly change their lives in a qualitative way. The borrower then has a choice to make either monthly or quarterly payments to pay the interest on that lump sum. The size of those payments is of course dependent on the interest rate assigned to the loan, which is derived using a formula based on a number of factors such as the credit rating of the individual, their current income, their total asset/liability ratio and their expected lifespan.
“The true beauty of the Life Loan, and perhaps its most appealing feature for many borrowers, is that the payments remain relatively low because the borrower only has to the interest during their life.”
The balance of the loan is collected from the estate of the borrower. The borrower is required to maintain a term life insurance policy for the full amount of the loan balance plus a premium of at least 25%.
While the Life Loan is the product that is most prominently featured in their literature, the more puzzling product is almost hidden in dismissive footnotes as a philanthropic outreach program. This ‘product’ is called a ‘pre-mortem purchase agreement’ or a PMPA.
PMPA’s are essentially arrangements where Bone Financial purchases the rights a person’s body after they die. The literature is unclear on exactly why Bone Financial would pay out money to buy the rights to dead bodies, especially prior to the death of the individual in question, but they do make vague allusions to using the bodies for ‘scientific research.’ The customer sells away all rights to their body after death.
As part of the PMPA, the person who is selling the rights to their body receives a lump sum payment—the size of which is based on a formula that the company refuses to divulge based on ‘trade secrets’—that payment though will be reduced if the person wishes to retain the services of a Certified Mortuary Assistant who would plan and conduct the appropriate memorial service for the decedent when that time comes.
As you can see, our friends at Bone Financial have put considerable thought into this set-up and have figured out how to legally acquire a large number of dead bodies to which they will have full legal rights to use as they deem appropriate, although I would anticipate that there will be some local resistance to any facility that will be used as a warehouse for these cadavers.
I will continue to look for information that may be of value to you and your friends, but I want you to keep in mind that you will not have any support from the Bureau or the DOJ, so be very careful.
Take care,
Zulu
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Sunny Daze
(This post is dedicated in loving memory to Mrs. Helen Hakes, a kind and loving soul who passed to soon.)
Unpacking a box of belongings that my ex-wife had placed in storage when she had sold our old home and moved to Phoenix Coop, I stumbled across an old, battered rag doll with a dull green dress and a smiling face framed with faded yellow sunflower petals.
The doll brought a smile to my face. Sunny. Sunny Daze. That was the name that my daughter Jasmine had given her when she received her as a Christmas present when she was four years old by our neighbor at the time, Mrs. Hanes.
Jasmine had so many stuffed animals and dolls at that time, but Sunny had been one of her favorites. She was the simplest of toys, her dress was sewn on tight, so she couldn’t be undressed like Jasmine’s Barbie dolls could, but there was something special about that doll and her smile.
I picked up the soft, limp doll, remembering the way that my daughter’s eyes had lit up when she opened the box containing Sunny. The name leaped from her lips as if they had been old friends, just reunited. I don’t think she put her down for three days after receiving her.
The dress was stained in the front from what looked like fruit punch, and one petal was now missing, but somehow that just increased her charm.
Mrs. Hanes had smiled and nodded her head when she heard how much Jasmine had liked the doll. “I’m so glad. She’s just like a doll I had when I was a little girl. We didn’t have much when I was young, but I always had a friend that I could talk to when I had my raggedy doll.”
We only lived next to Mrs. Hanes for a couple of years before we were able to buy a bigger house in a better neighborhood, but the memory of Mrs. Hanes brought a smile to my face. She was the kind of person that I watched out for as a beat cop. She was a feisty widow who lived on her own in a home full of knickknacks and memories.
Despite having the use of only one arm, she was determined to ignore her disability as she went about her daily tasks. Her husband had passed some years before we moved next door, but I felt like I knew him well, since she was always eager to proudly show her old family pictures and tell stories about their lives together.
She was even more eager though, to show the newspaper clippings and photos of her pride and joy, her son. She was so proud of his accomplishments that tears formed in her eyes whenever she spoke of him.
Looking into the smiling face of Sunny, I thought of the love that Mrs. Hanes gave and the way that she always remembered our kids’ birthdays and our wedding anniversary. It wasn’t a true holiday season until we received the traditional Christmas card from Mrs. Hanes.
When I called Jasmine to tell that I had found Sunny again, I could hear her voice light up over the phone. “You found Sunny? Wow, I had wondered where she went!”
“Do you want me to bring her to you, Jazz?”
“You know what, Dad? I think Sunny would be something that would be perfect for Alexa.”
“Are you sure Jazz? I know how much you loved this doll.”
“I think that Mrs. Hanes would approve Dad. I miss her.”
“Who, Sunny or Mrs. Hanes?”
She laughed. “Silly! I miss Mrs. Hanes.”
“Me too, Jazz. Me too. Say hello to your mother and Ms. Fyre for me, won’t you?”
“Sure thing. Bye Dad!”
I held the small, soft doll carefully in my hand as I hung up the cell phone with the other hand. It was amazing to think that such a small thing could mean so much, could represent so many memories and so much love.
Just like there could never be too much love in life, there could never be enough Sunny Daze. It was good to be reminded of that once in a while.
I sent a silent prayer of thanks to Mrs. Hanes for her many gifts.
Unpacking a box of belongings that my ex-wife had placed in storage when she had sold our old home and moved to Phoenix Coop, I stumbled across an old, battered rag doll with a dull green dress and a smiling face framed with faded yellow sunflower petals.
The doll brought a smile to my face. Sunny. Sunny Daze. That was the name that my daughter Jasmine had given her when she received her as a Christmas present when she was four years old by our neighbor at the time, Mrs. Hanes.
Jasmine had so many stuffed animals and dolls at that time, but Sunny had been one of her favorites. She was the simplest of toys, her dress was sewn on tight, so she couldn’t be undressed like Jasmine’s Barbie dolls could, but there was something special about that doll and her smile.
I picked up the soft, limp doll, remembering the way that my daughter’s eyes had lit up when she opened the box containing Sunny. The name leaped from her lips as if they had been old friends, just reunited. I don’t think she put her down for three days after receiving her.
The dress was stained in the front from what looked like fruit punch, and one petal was now missing, but somehow that just increased her charm.
Mrs. Hanes had smiled and nodded her head when she heard how much Jasmine had liked the doll. “I’m so glad. She’s just like a doll I had when I was a little girl. We didn’t have much when I was young, but I always had a friend that I could talk to when I had my raggedy doll.”
We only lived next to Mrs. Hanes for a couple of years before we were able to buy a bigger house in a better neighborhood, but the memory of Mrs. Hanes brought a smile to my face. She was the kind of person that I watched out for as a beat cop. She was a feisty widow who lived on her own in a home full of knickknacks and memories.
Despite having the use of only one arm, she was determined to ignore her disability as she went about her daily tasks. Her husband had passed some years before we moved next door, but I felt like I knew him well, since she was always eager to proudly show her old family pictures and tell stories about their lives together.
She was even more eager though, to show the newspaper clippings and photos of her pride and joy, her son. She was so proud of his accomplishments that tears formed in her eyes whenever she spoke of him.
Looking into the smiling face of Sunny, I thought of the love that Mrs. Hanes gave and the way that she always remembered our kids’ birthdays and our wedding anniversary. It wasn’t a true holiday season until we received the traditional Christmas card from Mrs. Hanes.
When I called Jasmine to tell that I had found Sunny again, I could hear her voice light up over the phone. “You found Sunny? Wow, I had wondered where she went!”
“Do you want me to bring her to you, Jazz?”
“You know what, Dad? I think Sunny would be something that would be perfect for Alexa.”
“Are you sure Jazz? I know how much you loved this doll.”
“I think that Mrs. Hanes would approve Dad. I miss her.”
“Who, Sunny or Mrs. Hanes?”
She laughed. “Silly! I miss Mrs. Hanes.”
“Me too, Jazz. Me too. Say hello to your mother and Ms. Fyre for me, won’t you?”
“Sure thing. Bye Dad!”
I held the small, soft doll carefully in my hand as I hung up the cell phone with the other hand. It was amazing to think that such a small thing could mean so much, could represent so many memories and so much love.
Just like there could never be too much love in life, there could never be enough Sunny Daze. It was good to be reminded of that once in a while.
I sent a silent prayer of thanks to Mrs. Hanes for her many gifts.
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