Seraphim (35 page)

Eli panted into the phone. He stood and glanced out the dining room window, in the direction of the church, four miles distant. And there it was—a faint, gray smudge on the horizon. His heart was beating so loudly in his ears that he actually withdrew the receiver a few inches from his head, fearing Gamble might hear and think him a sissy.

“You should come on down, Eli,” Gamble shouted as the siren of an emergency vehicle heralded its arrival. “That busty redheaded thing from Channel Four, Sheila Livingston I think is her name, is waving that microphone in front of her mouth like it’s a hard dick. Wow! I don’t know what’s hotter right now—her or the St. Christopher medal pooling on Deacon Flannery’s neck!”

“Samuel’s inside the church?” Eli said.

“Oh, you should have been here, Father. It was some of my best material yet. I’m telling you, I’m seriously thinking about trying my luck at show biz.”

Eli wanted—needed—to hang up. “I’ve work to do—”

“Work, work, work,” Gamble lamented. “Listen, why don’t you whittle down a couple of olive branches, grab a bag of those great big marshmallows, and we’ll sing some songs, tell some ghost stories. What’da’ya say?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Momma’s boy,” Gamble taunted. There was a short burst of static, then he said, “Sorry about the connection, Father. It’s this damned cellular phone. It’s geared more for long distance calling, if you know what I mean.
Looong
distance. The phone was free, but the monthly charges are killing me. Ten cents a minute my ass!”

Gritting his teeth, Eli said, “Now that the confessional is no longer an option, where will we meet?”

“Once your chores are finished, you’ll finally get to meet me face-to-face. Are you excited?”

Eli hesitated, then said, “Yes, I’m...I’m looking forward to it.”

“Just remember one thing,” Gamble cautioned. “If and when you walk through that window, you’ll still be mine. You’ll never shed enough cocoons to outshine my wings. Understand?”

“Of course.”

“With all of your restraints gone,” he continued, “it will be tempting to imagine yourself more powerful than you really are. And with your tongue’s brazen demonstration just moments ago, I might be inclined to think that process has already begun.”

“I-I-I—”

“Many before you have felt the heel of my shoe, and you’ll crunch beneath it just as the others who let it go to their heads.”

“Yes, I...understand,” Eli said amidst a thunderous noise.

“Spectacular!” Gamble trumpeted. “The roof just fell in!”

Eli winced. He didn’t have to look out the window to see the surging convoy of embers. The roof was mainly stone, and he believed it would have taken more than a fire to topple it—like a little shove from Gamble, the lousy prick.

A magnificent structure razed. His wondrous masterpiece gone.

Fuck.

“Well,” Eli sighed, “good night, then.”

12.

Patricia smoked at the dining room table as the girl lay on her stomach in front of the television, watching
The Brady Bunch
. One of the first episodes. The girl’s hands propped up her chin, and she slowly bent her right leg back and forth, as if inviting Patricia to come lay beside her but too shy to turn around and summon her more candidly. Then her leg stopped as she began giggling at Alice, who’d stepped between a bickering Greg and Marcia.

Patricia scowled. If this genie were truly her daughter, she would have sent her to bed hours ago.

But at dinner you were beginning to think—

No. This child was not hers. Her daughter and this girl shared the same likeness, that was all, that was the extent of it. And, the truth be known, she didn’t think the girl in front of the TV looked
that
much like her Katherine.
Her
daughter, at the age of ten, had been leaner, her face more angular, her eyes less droopy, her hair a richer and thicker brown.

—was almost convinced that she was—

No.
Her
daughter had been...prettier. Yes, much prettier; her features definitely more innocent, undefiled.

“Mom?” the girl called rather urgently from the floor.

“Yes?” she answered absently.

Glancing back at Patricia, she said, “Gotcha.”

“Clever,” she said with a smirk, her neck and ears growing warm. “But, please, I’m not your mother.”

“For a second there, you were.”

“A weak moment,” Patricia confessed.

Before turning back to the TV, the girl said, “We can’t have too many more of those, can we?”

No
, Patricia thought,
I suppose we can’t.

She recommenced staring out the dining room window. With flashlight in hand, Chris continued to pace a tight grid on her front yard. She supposed he was looking to link telepathically with some wayward wraith, or perhaps he’d discovered that her property was over some Indian burial ground and was, like, dude, eager to direct the Great Indian Chief, Me Smokem Plenty, and his empty pipe to the nearest hemp field.

Just then, Chris stopped, bent over, and pointed an ear to the ground. After fifteen seconds or so, he walked a few steps, then directed downward his fleshy radar once more.

Fascinated, she watched him repeat this act half a dozen times.

Whatever he was doing, she decided, it was definitely better entertainment than what cable was presently offering.

“He’s a weird duck, that one,” Patricia said.

“We’re all weird,” said the girl, not bothering to look away from her show. “Every last one of us. It’s just a matter of degree.”

Taken aback, Patricia was awed at this child’s insight. It wasn’t what she said, but the way she said it, with a chilling tone of wisdom.

“I guess that means you think I’m weird, then?” Patricia said.

“Especially you!” Then, barely audible, “At least Grammy never lost hope.”

Patricia was shocked. “Oh, really?”

Finally disconnecting altogether from the TV, she said, “All these years you’ve prayed and prayed to have me back, and now that I’m back, you don’t want to have anything to do with me. Now
that’s
weird.”

“No,” Patricia started, angrier than she intended, “what’s weird is that you’re still ten years old, young lady. You should’ve been married by now, and maybe pregnant with my grandchild. But no, you show up on my doorstep with the same snotty nose and wearing the same size shoes you were in the day you disappeared!”

“My nose was not snotty!”

“Everything all right,” Juanita gingerly asked, snooping through the kitchen doors. Behind her, Patricia’s mother was bobbing like a cork, straining to peek around Juanita.

“Just peachy,” Patricia said, exasperated. It occurred to her then that maybe everyone had left her and the girl alone like an affianced couple on their first date, hoping that they might warm to one another.

Everyone else was sold on the idea that this little girl was her daughter. Even Rachel, who had given birth to her. So why wasn’t she convinced?

As Juanita let the kitchen doors swivel back into place, Patricia said, “I just can’t. Not right now.” Her eyes misted over, and an old ache flared in her heart. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe. “I...I’m just scared. I...I don’t think I could survive losing you again.”

“I understand,” said the girl, standing now. “And I’m sorry I was disrespectful.”

At that moment, Patricia wanted so badly to open her arms wide and hug the girl, who, upon review,
did
look just like her own daughter,
was
just as beautiful as she remembered her.
Was
just as pretty as her pictures.

But she couldn’t. Not yet. “Honey, it’s been a crazy day for all of us. No need to apologize—”

A loud knock on the window.

Patricia turned and saw Chris’s horror-stricken face pressed against the glass. His mouth was open wide, his nose askew and mashed bloodless, and his tongue groped wetly like the foot of some desperate mollusk seeking purchase along an aquarium wall.

It was quite a hilarious sight. But she didn’t know whether to laugh or be terrified. This was Chris, after all.

The girl had now joined Patricia and was giggling at Chris’s antics.

“You’re streaking my window, surfer dude,” Patricia hollered.

“Just ignore him,” the face called down from the other window. “He’s an ignoramus.”

Chris was now holding the flashlight beneath his chin, an obvious attempt to appear more sinister. His mouth chewed at the glass, his words unintelligible.

“What?” Patricia said, a hand to her ear.

Chris answered with another flatulent round of words.

“What?”

Perturbed, Chris backed away from the window and yelled, “They’re almost here!”

“Hey, knock it off, wolf-boy,” yelled the face. “You’re scaring the ladies.”

Patricia looked down at the girl. “Who’s almost here?”

Although her eyes appeared quite concerned, she shrugged indifferently. “Monsters, probably.”

13.

Earlier that morning, Eli had developed the rolls of film he’d so far taken of his seventh angel. Now that they were dry, he began artfully cutting and pasting them to the Wall of Faces. After applying the last one, he stepped back and regarded the montage with pride, if not downright pomposity.

Melanie Sands was just as beautiful in black-and-white as she was in color.

Now
his
wings were almost complete. The next—and last—series of photographs would be taken of Melanie in the throes of agony, just before her short trip into the wide blue yonder. He’d tried every time to capture each girl’s terrified expression as they plummeted toward the surf and rocks, but had yet to pluck even one pose worthy of the Wall. Hell, he’d been lucky just to catch blurry glimpses of their little faces. He would click off a few of Melanie as she was falling, of course, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath. Still, he couldn’t help but feel that just one of those images—a portrait of consummate, mouth-wrenching, eye-bulging terror—would be worth more than all the other pictures combined.

He turned and stared at the second window. He’d finally gone ahead and dispatched another courier to assist in finding the Bently girl. And if he had to, he’d dispatch a whole gaggle.

He felt like a child on Christmas Eve night, one unable to keep his eyes from the fireplace, expecting at any moment to see the trickle of chimney ash.

His hands trembled, mostly the residual jitters from his earlier hours of meticulous sewing. But some of it was adrenaline. And before the day was over, he was confident that his circulatory system would be clogged with the stuff.

Who was this Bently girl? What had she become? And how did she manage to win a brawl with one of the couriers? Not even good old Arnold could best a courier. No mortal man could. Gamble had assured him of that. So, did that mean she wasn’t mortal? Well, his mentor had so far elected not to divulge Katherine Bently’s more intimate secrets. So, he would just let the questions be…for now.

Finally tearing his eyes from the window, he stepped inside the room where Melanie Sands lay prostrate, naked and bleeding. She was still unconscious, had passed out from the pain. Her mouth was taped shut. He studied her trunk for signs of breathing. Nothing. He peered closer, squinting. Still nothing. Instantly horrified, he knelt down and crimped her nostrils shut. Within seconds, her eyes flew open as her body jerked in response. He released her nose, recaptured his own stolen breath, then stood, his knees burning and a little wobbly.

“Christ,” he muttered.

A few hours earlier, with the help of his mother, Eli had finished sewing the wings into Melanie’s back. She had fought hard before succumbing to the torture, so much so that Eli had to employ Jacob to help hold her.

He stared down at her body and was struck with queer wonderment. Now, he thought, just what kind of sick pervert would sexually molest a child? He’d never so much as entertained the idea, and it turned his stomach to even imagine someone taking those kinds of prurient liberties.

Help the dwindling frog population, he thought, and instead put a pedophile in every biology class for dissection. Yes, that would do very nicely.

He reached down, grabbed a handful of hair, pulled her head up, and with one swift yank removed the tape from her mouth. “I have some wonderful news,” he said, releasing her. “In just a few hours, you’ll be crab bait.”

Wide-eyed and panting, she tried to roll onto her back. The pressure exerted on the wings tore at her sutures, and she squealed in pain.

“Hey, easy on those,” he said, thumping her ear with a knuckle.

She winced, but did not cry out.

“It takes us a long time to make these wings just right,” he lectured, “and I don’t need you thrashing about like some harpooned seal.”

Quietly crying now, she said, “Sir, where’s my mommy?”

“I know where she isn’t.” He winked.

“Am I going to die?”

He nodded. “Yes. Horribly so.”

“But why?” she beseeched.
“Why?”

Eli turned to the window once again. “So that I won’t.”

14.

Behind the priest’s seven windows, Amy stood naked in her adult, angel form. She was on the outside looking in upon a cold, gray basement that was much more inviting than the unremitting crypt she’d just entered. The one
this
side of those equally macabre panes.

Halloween country.

Graffiti was literally strewn across a pumpkin sky, carved out by the willful hand of a demigod. Everything from toilet habits to incestuous affinities were remarked upon, as well as some things even she had difficulty translating. An army of scarecrows hung crucified along the hilly landscape, their black-button eyes fixed repentantly toward heaven.

The ground here was crawling with thick, twisted vines, from which sprouted millions of large gourds, their rinds a pearly translucence. And within each of those knobby hulls the shadow of something rat-sized and spider-like skittered like a lightning ball.