Angel City

by Jon Steele

  “That’s right . . . you and your bloody hobby. Caring for immortal souls of men. Inspiring, really . . .”

  The cavern was beginning to spin. Bloody swell, boyo, every time you come to this bloody town, you end up dead.

  “Bloody inspiring.”

  He watched Goose pull a set of night vision goggles from his backpack. Watched him pull off his headlamp, mount the goggles to his oddly shaped head. Watched him pull out a second pair of night vision goggles, hand them to Astruc. Watched a few small plastic tubes slip from the backpack and tumble onto the stone floor, next to Astruc’s knee. Familiar-looking kit, Harper thought, or Captain Jay Michael Harper thought. It was getting hard to tell who was who with the divine whatsit rushing through his blood. He put it together: The goggles captured undetectable levels of near-infrared light, amplified them to the visible spectrum, and it was bright, as if the world were lit by a green sun. The tubes were Cyalume ChemLights in the near-infrared range, eight-hour duration, only visible with night vision. Easy peasy.

  “How ’bout that?”

  Astruc regarded him with a quizzical look.

  “Your pal with the ears. Goose, yeah? He’s been dropping ChemLights. That’s why he was at the rear. Dropping ChemLights to mark a trail so you two can find your way back with the night gogs.”

  “How clever of you to notice.”

  “Me? You kidding, I’m off my fucking head. I’m still trying to get my head around the whole gun-toting priest and his merry altar boy motif. Not to mention . . . the rest of it . . . whatever it was. Something about me, no, wasn’t me . . . was the dead guy in my head. Pull up some floor, I’ll tell you all about him. By the way, Father Fucking Astruc, him and me, or me and him, the both of us think you’re a bloody loon.”

  Astruc leaned close to Harper, studying his eyes.

  “Looking for something in particular, Padre, or is watching the light go out in someone’s eyes the way you get your kicks?”

  Astruc leaned closer. Harper caught the scent of something malodorous and ancient as Astruc whispered in Harper’s ear.

  “The reign of the Dark Ones is finished. Now is the time of salvation of all men.”

  “That’s what this is about? The Dark Ones? And here I was thinking you were just a fucking lunatic.”

  Astruc slammed his fat fist into Harper’s face, knocked him flat.

  Harper rolled over slowly. He watched Astruc grab Gilles Lambert’s backpack from the floor, toss it over his shoulder. Goose circled the cavern collecting the candles, blowing them out, and dropping them in his own backpack. As he held the last candle, he looked at Astruc and signed, Are you ready, Father? Astruc nodded. The two of them pulled their night goggles down over their eyes and switched them on. Goose blew at the flame and presto. It was more than dark, it was the complete absence of light. Harper couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “So, Father Astruc, it’s been a swell evening. What happens next?”

  “Next? Next is easy. Next we leave and you stay.”

  Harper listened to the priest’s sepulchral voice, wrapped in a French accent, echo and rise through the cavern. Then came the sound of boots walking away. Then the rustle of bodies and gear as Astruc and the kid ducked under the lintel and into the passageway. Then the sound of steps climbing the passage to the real world. Then nothing.

  BOOK TWO

  WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT? WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?

  TEN

  THE EIGHTEEN-WHEELER TURNED OFF THE ROAD AT THE CARSON lumberyards. They’d been following the slow-moving truck since leaving the house. Katherine watched the giant timbers sway and strain at the chains with every bend in the road, often wondering aloud what they’d do if the chains broke and the timbers spilled onto the road.

  “We’d stop,” Officer Jannsen said.

  “No shit, we’d stop.”

  “Relax, Kat. Look, there isn’t a cloud in the sky. Enjoy the drive.”

  Katherine turned to Max, strapped to his car seat like an astronaut, planted between his mother and Officer Jannsen in the backseat of the Ford Explorer.

  “How about you, buster, you enjoying the drive?”

  Max, too, had been watching the timbers atop the flatbed sway, tipping his head whichever direction they shifted as if expecting them to fall over any second. He turned to Katherine and spoke droolingly through the pacifier in his mouth.

  “Goog.”

  Katherine rubbed the hair on Max’s head.

  “You bet.”

  They passed through Carson and joined Route 14 West, two lanes of asphalt that ran along the Columbia River. Officer Jannsen was right. It was a cloudless sky, and just now, the sun was breaking over the high forest and sparks of golden light skipped off the river and into Katherine’s eyes.

  Two Swiss Guards sat up front. One at the wheel, one with a Brügger & Thomet machine gun on his lap. “Riding shotgun,” Katherine called it a long time ago. The Swiss Guards liked the sound of it, and the title stuck. The dashboard between the guards had been customized, the driver had explained to Katherine after she’d commented, “Looks like the deck of the Starship Enterprise up there.” Katherine went on to note that she was talking about the Captain Picard version of Star Trek, not Captain Kirk. “You know, the episode where Picard gets kidnapped by the Borg?”

  Officer Jannsen looked at Katherine.

  “The Borg?”

  “Yeah, ‘We are the Borg. Resistance is futile, prepare to be assimilated.’”

  The guard riding shotgun looked back at Katherine and said, “Yes, I like this program very much. I have all the episodes on DVD. The Klingon security officer, Lieutenant Worf, is my favorite.”

  “Woof!” Max added.

  Katherine reached over, tapped Officer Jannsen’s shoulder, pointed to the guard with the machine gun on his lap.

  “See? Everybody loves Star Trek.”

  Officer Jannsen smiled. One of those smiles that caused Katherine’s tummy to flip and flop. She turned her attention to Max.

  “What about you, bud, what do you think of those stinky Borg guys?”

  The whole trip Max had been carrying his rubber hammer in his right hand in the event a round of Whac-A-Mole might be called for. But without a mole in sight, the sound of the word Borg seemed to fire the same synapses in his brain, and he gave the air a firm bashing.

  “Boog!”

  “Yeah. Who needs the Swiss Guard when we’ve got you and your hammer? Hey, you want some applesauce?”

  Max ceased to bash the Borg and looked at Katherine, licking his lips.

  “Aposoose.”

  “Yeah, I thought so.”

  Katherine opened the tote bag at her feet, removed a baby bib (the one with the blue bunnies and faded stains of assorted meals past on it), and tied it around Max’s neck. She dug out the plastic container and spoon.

  “Mmmmmm, applesauce,” she said. “Max’s favorite.” She opened the container, dipped the spoon into the applesauce, and held it to Max’s mouth. “Okay, beam up the good stuff.”

  Max opened his mouth and in went the spoon. He smiled with delight as rivulets of applesauce dribbled down his chin.

  “Can’t take you anywhere, can I?”

  “Goo . . .” Max said, not even finishing his favorite word to experience the sensation of applesauce bubbles forming on his lips.

  “See what happens when you talk with your mouth full, buster? You get bubble mouth. Not a good look on anyone.”

  Max remained very still as Katherine rounded up the drops and dribbles on his face and herded them back into his mouth. He wasn’t that hungry, and after a drink of water from his sippy cup, and after Katherine washed his face with a damp washcloth, he offered a hearty burp that made the Swiss Guard with the machine gun on his lap turn around to make sure all was well in the backseat.

  “Guten ap
petit, Kapitän Picard,” he said.

  Max looked at him, smiled. “Woof!”

  “No, he’s not Worf, he’s your buddy Luc. He always goes with us when we drive to Portland.”

  Max pointed his hammer at the back of the driver’s head. “Woof!”

  “No, that’s . . . Sorry, what’s your name again, besides Corporal?”

  “I am Corporal Sebastianus Fassnacht, madame.”

  “That’s it, and how could I forget? Mind if we make it Seb?”

  “It would be my honor, Madame Taylor.”

  Katherine looked at Max.

  “There you go, you can call him Seb.”

  “Woof.”

  Katherine curled her brow.

  “Are you teasing Mommy?”

  Max giggled at the tone of Katherine’s voice.

  “That’s what I thought. Here, have a drink.”

  Max latched on to the sippy cup and promptly fell asleep. The fingers of his right hand slowly loosened around his Borg-bashing hammer. Katherine took the toy from his hand and tucked it next to him in the car seat. She pulled a blanket from the tote bag and wrapped it around him. She brushed back his black hair, kissed his forehead.

  “My big, brave Max.”

  They slowed approaching Stevenson, drove along the main street past the barbershop, the Big River Grill, and Granny’s Gedunk Ice Cream Parlor. They’d hit Granny’s on the way back for a chocolate milk shake. That was the routine on Max-and/or-Katherine-go-to-the-doctor days. Played this way: Drive to Portland, Max gets a checkup or Katherine drops in to see the shrink, grab a milk shake on the way home. These days, Katherine considered Granny’s Gedunk the highlight of the social season. She leaned across the seat, tapped the window next to Officer Jannsen, pointing toward the ice cream parlor.

  “Promise?”

  Officer Jannsen was looking through the messages on her mobile, smiling.

  “Yes, Kat, I promise.”

  Kat lingered to enjoy the scent of Chanel emanating from the pulse points of Officer Jannsen’s neck. Officer Jannsen looked up from her mobile.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing. How long to Portland?”

  “ETA is 09:45.”

  “Are you going to talk like a cop till we get home?”

  “Just doing my job, Kat.”

  “Okeydoke, and out.”

  The Explorer sped up leaving Stevenson and quickly traversed the causeway at Rock Cove, passing Ashes Lake and Little Ashes Lake, then slowing again to let another timber-laden truck pass before turning south onto the narrow cantilevered bridge stretching half a mile across the Columbia River. Katherine leaned ahead for a better view.

  “Wow,” she said. “I never noticed that sign before.”

  “What sign?”

  “The blue one, over the entrance ramp. ‘Bridge of the Gods.’”

  “Because you usually manage to sleep the whole way.”

  “At my age I need all the beauty sleep I can get.”

  “You’re not even thirty.”

  “Never too early to start.”

  They passed under the sign, and the steel bridge rose one hundred forty feet above the river. And as another sign read 15 MPH, Katherine had time to enjoy the view. A daylight moon hanging in the blue sky, green mountains, flashes of light in water. It was pretty.

  “Funny name for a bridge, isn’t it?”

  Officer Jannsen put away her mobile, looked out the window.

  “It’s named after a natural land bridge that crossed above the river,” she said. “It fell into the water a thousand years ago. The Native Americans who settled here called it the Bridge of the Gods.”

  “And you know it how?”

  “I read about it, before we moved here from Switzerland.”

  They reached the Oregon side of the river and looped around Cascade Locks and joined up with I–84. Katherine looked out the rear window and watched the Bridge of the Gods disappear. Just then, Max stretched his arms and woke up. Katherine found the sippy cup of water and set it to Max’s lips.

  “So what did you read about it? The bridge back there.”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Yeah, why not? How about you, Max, you want to hear about the bridge?”

  “Zug,” he said.

  “Yeah, yeah, but wait a sec.”

  Katherine handed Max his toy hammer. And with that, he smiled and kicked his legs and turned his eyes to Officer Jannsen.

  “See? Max wants to hear it, too. Shoot.”

  Officer Jannsen looked up front. “How’s our time, Corporal?”

  “Still on track.”

  “And the road?”

  “Normal. Drawbridge will be down when we reach it, lights are synchronized. No waiting time.”

  “Good.”

  She turned to Katherine and Max.

  “All right, long ago, the Great Spirit traveled to this place from the ice world of the north. He brought his two sons, Klickitat and Wyeast. And they thought it the most beautiful place they had ever seen and wished to settle here. The sons couldn’t decide where they would live, so the Great Spirit shot two arrows into the air; one to the north and one to the south. Klickitat followed the arrow to the north, Wyeast followed the arrow to the south. They were separated by the river, so the Great Spirit built a bridge of stone they could use to cross and visit each other. All the natives used the bridge as well, and as thanks, they called it . . .”

  “. . . the Bridge of the Gods.”

  “Yes.”

  “What else?”

  “What else what?”

  “Is that it?”

  “Kat, settle back. I’m telling it to you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Everything was fine in the world until the sons both fell in love with a beautiful maiden named Loowit.”

  Kat sighed. “Yeah, yeah; there’s always a woman. And she’s always beautiful, and she’s always a maiden. This is what’s wrong with the world. I mean, look at the fashion mags. Overflowing with beautiful, coke-snorting maidens, not a real-looking banana in the bunch. What do you think, Max?”

  Max waved his hammer, excited at the sound of his favorite fruit.

  “Nanas!”

  Officer Jannsen continued: “So, a war broke out between the brothers. Klickitat and Wyeast began to spew fire and throw gigantic rocks at each other till the earth shook so much that the Bridge of the Gods collapsed into the river. This made the Great Spirit angry, and he turned the three lovers into mountains. Today those same mountains are known as Mount Hood, Mount Evans, and Mount St. Helens.”

  Katherine stared at Officer Jannsen, waiting for more.

  “It’s creation mythology, Kat.”

  “Creation what?”

  “Stories prehistoric peoples developed to explain how the world came into existence. The tribes of the Pacific Northwest were isolated, so their mythology remained localized. Other creation mythologies spread along trade routes, like the Silk Road from China to the Middle East. Many of those stories form the basis of most present-day religions.”

  “No kidding.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Anne?”

  “Yes?”

  “Sometimes you totally freak me out.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “Then merci, madame.”

  Max pointed his hammer toward the window.

  “Choo, choo!”

  Katherine saw a commuter train speeding at the side of the road.

  “That’s right, Max, it’s a choo-choo train.”

  Katherine looked around. The land of rivers and trees where mountains were born had become a flatland of urban sprawl with a six-lane expressway running through it.

  �
�Gee,” Katherine mumbled to herself, “the Bridge of the Gods ain’t got nothin’ on the highway of men.”

  They cruised with the traffic, following the signs for downtown Portland. The sprawl gave way to suburban neighborhoods that gave way to perfectly squared city blocks of office and apartment buildings. The expressway reached the banks of the Willamette River, and the Explorer followed the traffic south, exiting for Morrison Bridge and the skyscrapers of downtown West Portland on the far bank.

  “Look, Max, it’s another river, and you can see all the boats and all the other bridges.”

  “Choo, choo!”

  “Nope, these are boats. Boats go toot, toot!”

  They looped off the expressway and drove south again with the river to their left. A cruise ship was tied up along the bank.

  “And look at that big boat, Max. That’s what we’re going to do one day, we’re going to take a ride on a big boat up the river. Would you like that?”

  “Choo, choo!”

  The Explorer’s dashboard beeped and blinked to life. A 3-D map popped up on a small screen, and a voice sounded over the speakers.

  “Right on Taylor Street, six blocks to Sixth Avenue, right again.”

  “Roger.”

  Katherine pointed out the window.

  “Look at all the people and the cars, Max. And look, there’s real-life shopping. The expensive kind.”

  “Left on Morrison Street.”

  “Roger.”

  “Toot, toot!”

  Max was pointing to the trolley car clanging its way down along the tree-lined road.

  “Nope, that’s a train. That one goes choo, choo.”

  “Toot, toot!” Max insisted.

  “Left onto Broadway.”

  “Roger.”

  On the left there was a redbrick urban park the size of a city block. Katherine didn’t know the name of the park, but it caught her eye each time they passed it on Max-and/or-Katherine-go-to-the-doctor days. And just now, with the bright autumn sun rising above the skyscrapers and flickering off the red leaves of the sycamore trees, it looked like a nice place. The Explorer eased across the next intersection and into the shadows and pulled into a parking space directly in front of the Jackson Tower, a twelve-storied, beaux arts, wedding cake of a building with a clock tower on top.