Seraphim (54 page)

14.

Josephine Kagan was more than pleased with the change of scenery. That weird old African stuff was for the birds. She was still in front of the sanctuary, steadfast and true. She was a trooper.

She missed Jacob and called out for him again.

Something fluttered then, something behind her, on the gate. She turned and found another piece of paper speared upon a vertex of metal.

TIME TO PUSH THE LITTLE RED BUTTON, DEAR

YOURS FOREVER, GAMBLE

She wadded up the paper and tossed it over her shoulder. She then walked over and pressed the little red button.

That wasn’t so hard.

The massive gate began to open outward. Slowly at first, the creatures began to muster near the entrance, then trickle out one by one.

Josephine banged the gate with her cane. “Come on, come on, what are ya waitin’ for!”

The herd began to move faster. Soon there was a stampede of creatures great and not so great charging through the massive opening, their cries deafening over the thunder of their feet.

Josephine clamped her hands to her ears, stumbled backward. It was an astonishing sight to behold.

It felt like she’d watched the commotion for a good fifteen minutes before the last one came out, stopped, regarded her with a quizzical expression, then loped over to her and, with startling swiftness, devoured her in one single bite.

15.

Whimpering, on his knees, Eli scratched at the grass, listening to the surf below. It had a calming effect. And the mild breeze washed over his sweaty torso and brow, cooling him.

His mighty wings were gone, and so was the vocalizing that had sprung from them. But now he was without power. He had tried repeatedly to conjure a new pair. But without success. It seemed that Gamble was the only one who could fit him with new ones.

He was useless without his wings.

The boy and the others had a major head start on him now. How was he going to chase them down? He could run after them, but where was the supremacy in that?

Gamble was going to be hugely pissed at him. But what could he do? For all he knew, this was just another test, another trial by fire set by Gamble’s own incendiary hand. Another riddle, another conundrum, another fucking infantile limerick that he was supposed to solve.

But this one made no sense whatsoever. Why let him taste the wonders of flight, then take the gift away so quickly, so cruelly?

What had he done to deserve this punishment?

He gazed into the sky and wished a moon upon the stratus. Suddenly there appeared a gray crescent, mordacious upon the blue sky. He then imagined Zeus fast about in a fiery chariot. Not two hundred feet above him roared a sleigh, arcing across the sky, pulled by a hundred flaming horses, and at the reins was a long-bearded god adorned in lambent white robes and a golden crown.

He could conjure anything. Except a pair of wings.

What were his options?

Wings
. That was his only option, to have a mighty pair lift him into the heavens once more.

Did he dare summon his mentor?

Yes, he would have to risk losing face. Or more. There was just no other way.

He stood, then reached for the sky. “Gamble! Come! I need you now!”

16.

Tyler saw her coming before she had a chance to knock. Now in blue jeans and a white tank top, Amy McNeil stood in her adult form in front of the open doors of the bus. Her hair was shoulder-length, strawberry blonde, and the sunlight pranced along the fibers of red as the breeze lifted and parted the strands. The freckles on her face were now more prominent around her pug nose than on her cheeks, as they had been when she was a little girl. Her eyes had changed from aquamarine to the deepest, cobalt blue, her eyebrows thin and silver-blonde. She looked to be around twenty-five.

“Hi, Tyler,” she said. “I see the seraph’s been good to you.”

He smiled, as if he’d been expecting her. “Got me out of the ground for awhile. Come on up.”

Rachel and Patricia were already on their feet.

Squinting, Rachel stared at the woman. “Oh...my...God,” she said. “Is that you, Amy?”

“It’s me, Mom.”

Eyes welded to her daughter’s maturated image, Rachel slowly, gropingly, sat back down. “My, you’ve...you’ve grown up...fast.”

Amy looked down, as if ashamed. “Not fast enough. We have to leave now; you, me, and Patricia. Tyler’s staying on the bus.”

The adoration in Rachel’s eyes conceded to the inevitable. “Okay,” she said. “Where are we going?”

“To meet Gamble,” Amy said. “Not too far from here. It’s in walking distance.”

Still standing, Patricia said, “Where are the others?”

“They’re safe. They’ll meet us there. Kathy knows the way.”

In a long-suffering sigh, Rachel said, “This is it, isn’t it? This is where it all comes together?”

“It’ll be a showdown,” Amy assured.

Rachel, straightening her already taut posture, said, “I...I just can’t believe how lovely you’ve turned out to be. Your father’s going to be awfully proud, you know.”

She smiled. “I know. Now, we have to go.”

17.

“You rang,” Gamble said. “I must say, Father, that with all of your newly acquired inclinations, one would have imagined a more exotic decor than what you’ve just laid out for us.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully with his forefinger. “But...I have to admit, it is apropos, as it’s come full circle. Yes, I think I’ll let it remain.” He turned to Eli. “I told you you’d have quite the magic wand once you passed through the seventh window, didn’t I?”

Nodding, Eli swallowed hard, wiping away the tears that were streaming down his cheeks. “I...I lost my wings,” he stammered. “I wished them away. They were...infested with...demons.”

“You let a bunch of mongrels get under your skin, Father,” Gamble said, a pitying tone in his voice.

“M-mongrels?” Eli stammered.

“Angels, Father. Given your profession, I’m surprised you didn’t realize it, least of all expect it.”

“Then...it wasn’t you who...did this?”

“Why heavens no,” Gamble said. “Why would you even consider such a thing?”

Immediately ashamed, Eli’s tears began anew. “I tried to make new ones, but I...I can’t seem to—”

“There, there, now, Father,” Gamble said, his arms outstretched.

Eli slowly fell into his embrace. “Why can’t I make new ones?” he cried. “I seem to be able to make everything else...”

“But nothing else seems to matter,” Gamble said, “isn’t that right?”

“I...I...” It had been so long since Eli had been in the embrace of another, had been the recipient instead of the giver of solace, and it felt so good, especially in the arms of his mentor, of his counsel, of the one who had brought him so far after so many years of scrupulous devotion, of dedication to a cause to which he virtually remained ignorant. In the arms of the one who was always there for him, rain or shine, through the good and bad times; the one who always kept his promises.

“You’re only at your best when you can fly, right, Father?”

“Yes.”

Gamble tightened his hug, lifted Eli from the ground, then began walking toward the edge of the cliff. “And that’s why you’re no good to me anymore, Father. You can’t get your head out of the clouds.”

Gamble reached under Eli’s armpits, pushed him out, dangling him over the edge.

“Fly” Gamble said, then released him.

18.

As they neared the stables, Duncan counted at least a dozen gray wolves. All remained back in the trees. Watchful. Duncan was reminded of the wolf he’d encountered in his sojourn back in time and was acutely aware that they were in the presence of heavenly hosts and not indigenous wildlife.

Moving closer to the structures, he saw a weathervane on top of one of the buildings, could hear the trill it made as the wind pushed it along. As they entered the stalls, the sunlight sliced through the cracks in the boarded windows and was warm on his face. The smells of timeworn flax and linseed oil and hay were frail but ever-present. He reached up and ran his hand across a coil of rope hanging from a nail, and he was suddenly reminded that these were the memories he’d briefly experienced while walking toward the drug dealers’ house, just before Gamble had come off the fence and introduced himself.

A glitch of reminiscence, he thought, out of place and time. So, he
had
been here before. How many times? he wondered.

Duncan stopped; heard a rumbling in the distance.

It was getting closer.

“Ssshhh, you hear that?” he said.

Kathy nodded. “Crap. We have to hurry.”

“That does not sound good,” Chris offered. “Sounds like a stampede.”

They pushed hastily through more stalls.

“Over here,” Kathy said. “There’s a trap door leading to a long tunnel. Goes for maybe fifty yards to the main building.”

What the tunnel had originally been intended for was anybody’s guess.

The rumbling was close now. Very close.

Then the screeching started.

19.

They’d entered the edge of a meadow. Amy led the way, Patricia and Rachel behind her.

“Are you sure they’re all right?” Patricia said.

“Kathy knows the way,” Amy said. “Don’t worry, they’ll meet us there.”

“Tell me something, Amy,” Rachel said. “What was Duncan doing back there in Boston?”

Amy said, “I think Patricia should answer that.”

Patricia sighed. With some diffidence, she related the story of how Duncan had stole nearly two hundred thousand dollars from some drug dealers the night he got shot, and how it had made its way to her via his lieutenant, Mo White. She explained how Duncan, because of his involvement with her husband’s murder, had become aware of her financial crisis because of her husband’s death, and this led him to commit the crime. She went further and said that she felt guilty for accepting the money at first, but later decided to hell with it, that she would only spend what was absolutely necessary to get out of debt. The rest, she said, would stay hidden for a rainy day. Or maybe she would someday donate it to an orphanage or children’s hospital.

Rachel was stunned.
“He gave you two hundred-thousand dollars?”

“Yes.”

“Holy shit!”

“Yeah.”

“The same night Tyler was shot and killed?”

“Yes.”

“And Duncan’s lieutenant was in on it?”

“Apparently so.”

“Christ almighty.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well,” Amy said, “maybe I should clear the air on that. You see, Lieutenant Mo White is one of us.”

Patricia stopped. “The lieutenant is...what, an angel?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“But...he did such a bad thing.”

“Got you out of debt, didn’t it?”

“But it was against the law!”

“Trust me, Patty,” Amy said. “In the grand scheme of things, it’ll be overlooked.”

Grudgingly, Patricia started walking again. “I thought your kind were supposed to be decent and pure.”

Amy laughed. “We’re half-human. What do you expect?”

“So,” Rachel said, “why did Duncan have to go back and relive that night again?”

“You’ll have to ask Duncan that question,” Amy said.

They reached the end of the meadow and entered a dense, steep-sloping forest.

“We’re almost there,” Amy said. “Just over the hill.”

“I can smell the ocean,” Rachel said.

“Oh, my God,” Patricia said. “Look at the
wolves!
”

To their left, there were at least twenty wolves standing among the trees.

“Don’t be frightened,” Amy said. “They’re friends.”

Rachel shook her head.
“Two hundred-thousand dollars?”

“Yup.”

20.

The going was pitch black.

Before climbing down into the tunnel, Chris and Duncan had just enough time to peek out a window and see what kind of animals were making those frightful screeching sounds. They were huge, flightless, featherless birds with taloned feet and horrific sets of insect-like mouth parts. They were terrifying.

Even underground, the thunder of their passing was near deafening.

Crawling on hands and knees, Duncan stopped. “Wait a minute,” he said above the din. “Gamble can do better than that.”

In front of him, Kathy said, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, if Gamble wanted us, he could pluck us from the ground like carrots.”

“So?”

“So, those creatures really aren’t interested in us, are they?”

“Not really,” she said. “We just had to get out of their way. Gamble’s just showing some muscle.”

“Any idea where they’re going?”

“To the Apocalypse.”

“They’re going topside?” Chris said.

“And where are we going?”

“To meet the others,” Kathy said, “at the cliffs.”

“To the same cliffs where the priest took you?” Duncan said. Now it was all making sense.
A place where angels are born
, Amy had told him. And she’d been speaking metaphorically, just as the face in the window had suggested. Sewing angel wings into the backs of little girls didn’t get more metaphorical than that.

“And we’re going to deliver an angel,” he said. “The last seraph.”

“That’s the plan.”

Duncan started moving. “And you couldn’t have told me this earlier?”

“I knew you’d figure it out, sooner or later.”

Emilio and Juanita were ahead of them and had apparently found the other entrance, a shaft of light now shining down some twenty yards ahead.

“Señor Duncan,” Juanita called out, “the monsters, they are almost gone. Is safe to go up?”

She was right. The thunder was diminishing to a low rumble now.

“Go ahead, take a peek,” Duncan said. “If they’re gone, we’ll move on out.”

“It’s less than a quarter mile away from here,” Kathy said. “We’ll be there in no time.”

21.