And that I
should
live
for
laughter
But I’ll be sleeping with no one tonight, my love”
One sunny afternoon, I sat in Golden Gate Park with some other long-hairs getting stoned. A few people were drawing with crayons when during some conversation about religion and god and the soul, I said, “Y’know, inside of us, like I mean, our blood vessels and organs and nerves and fat, whatever, we’re just dark. There’s no light source inside you. Physically, man, it’s not like a comic or medical book illustration. The light is all on the outside, so other than some sunshine that peaks in just a bit into our ears or nose or if you open your mouth or are just a giant asshole, man, like, inside our bodies, it’s always dark.”
Enraged at my outlook, a woman slapped a nightmarish drawing into my hands. It portrayed a man scribbled over with frantic black crayon scratchings. The black lines poured into and out of the man, who was untouched by a burst of rainbow colors above his head.
I kept silent for a while, watching people play frisbee and dogs carouse. Then, unable to control a growing impulse, I walked over to a secluded area and touched my hand to the drawing, as if it needed healing. I gasped in awe as the black scratchings changed, dancing with color, drenching the figure with reds and blues, greens and purples, yellows and oranges.
Wow, I can draw with my hand. No need for pencils.
I folded the paper and held it out to the angry artist who had drawn it. “Open this when you get home, not before.”
She frowned, reluctant to acknowledge the black-hearted me.
“Look, I know I didn’t mention the light in people’s eyes, in our souls.”
After a brief hesitation, she forgivingly took the paper. I smiled.
“Why do I have to wait to unfold it?”
“It’s just the way the magic works right now.”
For the next few weeks, I stayed away from the park, worried I had misused my abilities by exposing someone needlessly to magic. But the incident hadn’t been done out of malice, and, over time, I convinced myself Shadow Creature had been involved in the dark drawing. The woman artist had helped my hand discover an ability needed to repair the tunnel. In thanks, I hoped a piece of mystery had fallen into place in her own personal search.
Sometimes I didn’t think I could, or didn’t want to, go on with the quest. Idealism and change, innocence and outrage, swirled in the air outside my door. The city was alive with love and song. Together, we’d change the world into a brighter tomorrow. I wanted that life again, the wild times with Teresa, the music with friends, the laughter that brought people closer, the insight and acceptance of strangers, the rallying call against the establishment, the harmless insanities of a good trip, the simple charm of a peace button to declare who you were.
But how could I escape the fate I had been thrust into?
Johnny and Tuma died to get me here. Teresa and Valentine left me to get me here. I’ve met gods, killed a demon, healed the sick, and shredded the wall of the time tunnel. These are my everyday concerns. My hand is being shaped into a tool. Is that a blessing? Or a curse?
And soon, I’ll use it—to end the existence of my mentor and friend.
The looming dilemma of the tunnel repair would obsess me for days, and I would stay in my apartment, railing against the tunnel immortals and gods that had invested their energies into observing me, involving me in their war, changing my life, and taking me away from Teresa. I prayed to the tunnel that it would go away, that it would help the gods repair the devastated passageway without me.
Every day that passed without a message or synchronous link to gods or demons or immortals, I counted as a comfort. Yet, I spent that same day alert to possible connections or clues left for me—maybe a dream, a phrase, a stranger’s face, a bird’s flight, patterns of light, an odd movement.
I was tempted again and again to test the drawing-with-my-hand trick, but other than the one time, chose not to, believing doing so would increase the odds of another unavoidable and violent investigation by Sheoblask or Steel.
Despite the truce between Pan and the other cosmic god-gamers, I assumed Sheoblask was my natural enemy and might act on his own against me. I had killed one of his children with a blast from my hand. Would he accept the death as a casualty of the war he fought for his masters, or would he seek revenge? And Doctor Steel, despite his assurances, was always willing to risk me in some ruthless gambit. The scars and wounds of his acquaintance constantly preyed upon my thoughts.
But the shock to my relatively calm lifestyle in San Francisco came not with Steel or Sheoblask. It came with the inevitable return of Cassandra.
Chapter 39
Hunched over a pencil illustration one late August evening, I grew excited as I composed the first rendering in four months that had me believing my burn-damaged hand no longer affected my ability to draw. The graphite lines were steady, the shading well-controlled, and the detail true to the directions streaming from my inner muse.
Suddenly, my process was interrupted. A rapid movement caught my eye as it swept across the far end of my studio. Green, fast, and squealing in laughter, then gone.
A tunnel, here? I hadn’t noticed. And that flash was Cassandra.
The shaft manifested itself boldly, shifting and twitching restlessly. Small feelers, like tentacles, undulated curiously across the floor. Rising, falling, sniffing. The tunnel’s hyperactivity was a development I’d never witnessed before.
I sat at my desk all night observing the tunnel’s shimmering light move in the shadows of my studio. The main trunk looked fat and wide, enough to squeeze a Cadillac through. It snaked small roots across the floor, splayed branches up the walls, and traversed the ceiling. The skin of the passage faded and flickered, pulsed and sprayed sparks. The god sucked and dispersed energies and thoughts from around the city, from around the universe, from my brain. At times, loud rumblings passed over the Bay Area. Simultaneously, the skin of the passage turned effervescent, the light animated.
North? Yes, all the thundering has rolled off towards the Golden Gate Bridge and beyond.
A vine-like tunnel tributary slithered across the floor towards me. Reaching the desk, it raised itself and snorted quickly at my right hand. It swayed like a cobra, back and forth, left and right, then settled itself to the floor and receded across the room into a corner where my knapsack was stored.
By morning, I had concluded the non-temporal parts of the tunnel were reaching out to its broken part, and their search had led to me. Time to move on again. Despite being disappointed that the gods hadn’t resolved their catastrophe without me and sickened with worry at what lay ahead, a tingle of excitement radiated through my hand. It felt ready to do its part in the quest.
I had some chores to take care of—phone calls, check out the bike, buy some supplies for the road, withdraw cash from the bank.
About two hours later, outside a clinic and free-food storefront near Haight Street, I came across Cassandra, still barefoot, still in her torn green sundress. A blue jean jacket completed her uniform.
She was agitated. “Deets, you’ve got to help me.” She nervously flipped up the collar of her jacket.
“Lay it on me. I’ll do what I can.”
“I should have listened to you. After I went with Rolly to Seattle, I wandered around with some people. We found a pasture of magic mushrooms.”
“Where?”
“Near some snow-covered mountains outside of Seattle or Portland. Up in that area.”
“Could you find that field again?”
“I think so, but... come here.” She led me around a corner and down a syringe-littered alleyway. Ducking behind a pile of wooden crates, she looked upwards, checking out the windows. Then she removed the denim jacket. “Look.”
She touched one hand to
her exposed shoulder, her lips trembled, and she struggled to fight back tears.
“What? Cassandra, What is it?”
She wiped away the wetness in her eyes, then rubbed at her collarbone. “It’s not an hallucination, is it?”
I looked closely at the skin near where her fingers lay. Feathers. Soft, fluffy down layered evenly from her neck to her upper arm. I ran my hand along her shoulder blades. She was covered with tiny bumps where new feathers were starting to emerge.
“Lift your arms.”
“Sometimes I think they’re pretty, but when I’m out of the tunnels, I’m scared.”
I lifted her dress up and she scooted it over her head. The feathers on her lower back were longer, more rigid. Her spine was clear, as were her buttocks.
She turned back to face me. “My legs are okay, so’s my face. I wanted to believe I was turning into an angel, but that’s not it.”
My head shifted slightly, an almost imperceptible shake, but signaling clearly that I knew her condition was an effect from tunnel-jumping.
She looked down at her body. My eyes followed hers, to her tits, then to the black bush covering her cunt. I touched her hip as if searching for a sign of more feathers.
“You’re still beautiful.”
“Make love to me before I turn into a bird.”
I looked around the alley, remembering the blackened soot of the pigeon in Monster Alley, Audrey in the filthy cellar of Bellevue.
“We have a lot to talk about. C’mon back to my place.”
On the way home I bought a map of the West Coast plus a loose cotton blouse and a long skirt for Cassandra.
“I spent some time with the god Pan. He had goat-like legs. From what I’ve witnessed, tunnel travelers can pick up the attributes of gods. Animal features seem the most common, at least from what I know.”
“None of the gods at that terrible bar looked like animals.”
“Yeah, and sometimes Pan didn’t. I believe the features are only visible at times when they have to be seen. Some kind of subconscious or tunnel-connected masking. Has anyone but me seen your feathers?”
“Outside in the world? I don’t think so. I’ve met others in the tunnels with strange characteristics, but it just seemed normal then.” She slipped the shoulder straps of her old dress off, revealing her tits, and I sat there talking with a half-naked, quasi-bird woman.
She told me about the mountain she could see from where she had eaten the mushrooms and showed me possible locations on the map, but her indications were too scattered, her impressions too sketchy. When she spoke of colored lights she had seen coming from the sky and landing in the woods nearby, I figured that to be a sign of a nearby major portal, much like the one in the Andes.
One thing seemed clear as she related her adventures. She had spent most of the last few months in the god tunnels, but didn’t have any knowledge of portals and their use for long distance jumps. It sounded like she wandered and explored, reappearing to the world occasionally. It struck me, as she told me of a jump to a volcanic island where she had discovered a pasture of rock statues shaped like cows and goats, that she couldn’t move in and out of tunnels on her own.
“Who transferred you in or out? What did they look like?”
“An old guy who looked like Santa Claus. He always knew where to find me.” She brushed at a loose feather. It swirled into the air and flipped softly onto one of her tits. “I wonder if I’ll get feathers all over.” She shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. This is who I am now.”
Has Santa Pigeon been testing her like Doctor Steel had been with me?
I reached out and caressed her nipple as I removed the feather. “Did some guys who looked like a monkey or a fish ever hang out with you?”
“No, but there was a woman and a child. Inside the tunnels, they kind of looked like cows. Happy cows. I guess I could be happy too. As a beautiful bird.” She slid out of her dress. “That feels good. Don’t stop.”
What were the residents of the Mansion at Monster Alley up to? Why Cassandra? They must have discovered something about Cassandra that told them she was part of the search for the ruined tunnel.
And why, after all these months of not getting involved with anyone, am I about to fuck the exact woman whose antics caused me to crack the tunnel? Thinking about her and the shark has always reminded me not to get entangled with other women.
I couldn’t stop myself.
I sat next to her, playing with her tits, massaging and stroking her pubic area as we talked more about places she’d been. “The first night I ate mushrooms, those lights in the sky were incredible. I was sitting by a big lake up by the snowy mountain, and the lights were reflecting in the water. It was wild. Suddenly this Negro man’s head popped up out of the lake and smiled at me.”
My hands kept feeling her up, but my attention focused on her story.
“What did he look like? Notice anything about his eyes? Was he alive?”
“He was talking and acting like he was alive. I mean he wasn’t like a ghoul or anything. He seemed nice. I don’t know how to describe him.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing really, just something about everything looking clearer now.”
“What happened? Anything else?”
“Nothing much. I watched him climb out of the lake, and he started hiking towards the mountain. Man, after that, I think the next day, I met the Santa Claus guy, and wow, it’s pretty crazy, but I knew he could guide me to the tunnels. And he did.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What’s there to tell? I met him on some path, he took my wrist without a word, and I tunnel-hopped all around those mountains, then the world.” She tugged at my zipper. “Now shut up with the questions.”
We were entangled, with me sucking her tits and pushing myself deep inside her when she blew at a sweaty feather, licked her lips, and panted, “Take me into the tunnel. Let’s do it in the tunnel.” She wrapped her legs around me, then my hand around her wrist. “Now, Deets, come in me inside the tunnel.”
And whumph, encircled by her heat and my orgasm approaching, we were across the room, surrounded by spinning sparkles, and pulled into the divine passageway.
She squeezed my cock with her cunt, holding it tightly as she rocked beneath me.
How does she even do that? What am I doing? The tunnel’s going to cave. Why did I do this without a thought? God, she feels good.
Her feathers were dancing with a purple iridescence.
Pigeon woman. Shark attractor. Tunnel temptress.
Her vagina muscles pulsed in a way that stretched my climax beyond what I believed to be possible.
How did that happen? She must have some kind of goddess power. Man, that was like a supercharged version of diagram 54 from that rajah and princess sex manual. Unbelievably amazing, but I gotta get out of here. I’m an idiot.
I rolled off her, out of the tunnel, lay on the floor expecting the universe to explode. Because I couldn’t say no to her request, the tunnels would cease. Not only time travel, but local hops would be rendered impossible, aliens would be stranded in inhospitable dimensions. Everything was going to crash. I held my breath, waiting.
I looked over at Cassandra, still inside the tunnel. Her feathers fluttered softly. With one hand, she teased at her breast. “Come back in, Deets.” She spread her legs slightly, inviting me with her wetness.
God, she was a lovely sight, no wonder I hadn’t considered the possible consequences.
But no, not again. Not in the tunnel. She doesn’t understand my role with the tunnels.
“It could crack, like with the shark. I’ll bring you back out. I need to see if I damaged anything.”
“I’m not coming out. I belong here. I’ll learn to fly.” She giggled. “Maybe I’ll build a nest, lay eggs, and sing sweet song
s. Tweet. Tweet. Tweet.”
We watched each other, in different worlds, bidding the other to see reason. Fear and tension gripped me. Her giggling turned to laughter.
“Bye-bye, Deets.” And she was up and skipping naked down the tunnel, her feathers shining alternately gold and purple. Her laughter grew louder, and she interspersed it with a bird-like squawk or whistle. I curled up into a fetus position and hoped I never saw her again. Twice now, she had tempted me to take her into the tunnels and succeeded. The results of the first were nearly catastrophic. I waited now, hoping that however I caused cracks in the god tunnels, lovemaking wasn’t one of them.
I lay on the wood floor all day and through the long night, listening to the skies rumble northwards, jumping in apprehension each time I imagined some shift of the tunnel. I felt the universe was threatening me, blaming me for the coming destruction. Cassandra’s squawking and cackling reverberated over and over in my mind. I felt trapped and exposed by her impulses to ride the tunnels and cowered with the thought of entering them.
Sometime near dawn the next day, I fell into a ragged sleep, ashamed of my confusion, despairing the risk I had taken, humiliated in front of whatever gods were watching, and ignoring my thirst and a need to piss.
From the gloom, a hand of shadow gently touched my forehead. It didn’t feel solid—more like a soothing hush. “Look, see how close we are. Everything is falling into place.”
I reached out and grasped the ethereal hand in mine. It sang perfect sounds and flashed images of stunning beauty, born from a place only it, of all the gods, existed in. My own hand pulsed in golden waves.
“I thought maybe I was a fool—that I had brought the tunnels down.”
“Despite the madness of both of you, it needed to happen. It’s not clear to you, but you’re gathering the pieces to make everything whole again.”
“Why don’t you just tell me how to find and heal you?”
“Because I’m broken and lost.”
The Shadow Creature had never sounded so tender.
The touch of the ancient hand comforted me as I sank into a murky oblivion, wondering if it had just referred to the madness of Cassandra and me fucking, or Sheoblask and me fighting. My sleep was riddled with tears as I cried through my dreams—dreams of Hank and Betsy, of Teresa and her father, of Audrey and her baby—yet when I awoke, I felt cleansed and clear-minded. I wanted to solve the enigma of the tunnel location and do what had to be done.
Miracles (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 3) Page 26