“About the Veyron, or would you prefer the Vitesse?”
“No, the Veyron model. But why never with Leeda? Tell me, or no deal.”
“If she has sex with you, she has to kill you.”
The prince looked away slowly, then back smiling, and laughed heartily.
“The Veyron then?” Nathan asked.
“Do you have it in black?” the prince continued laughing.
“Yes. Two-five.”
“Can you do two-three?”
“I can but give me two-four.”
“Alright,” the prince laughed. “Two million four hundred thousand, but after I make this one fly.”
“That’ll be hard.”
“Watch.”
Nathan still lounged with his arms spread when the prince pushed the pedal to the floor. The engine screamed, the body raced, tires ate the road. Only inches remained where the car pointed and the road ended—and only if he slammed the brakes. The next second, the inches were gone, the car was crashing through the barrier, and Nathan’s shrieking thought was, we’re flying!
The Mas sailed gently away from the mountain, arching into a smooth trajectory off the coastal cliff. “Uuuuuuuu,” Nathan heard the prince expel, and incredibly, saw him smile. “Liiiike doooooing Leedaaaaaa! . . .” he gleefully called. This madman thinks he’s controlling the car, Nathan thought, watching the prince gripping the steering wheel. In fact, the prince seemed to hold the car straight, until the front end started dropping. “Uuuuuuuuu dooooooing Leedaaaaaa!” the prince yelled in pleasure.
Like a plane’s nose dropping, the car started turning vertical in its descent, for sure no longer “flying.” Nathan’s fist slammed a button on the dash. “Ahhhhhhhhh,” the smiling prince screamed, steering the wheel as if it had any effect on what was happening. Nathan repeatedly hit the button, and nothing. Then he stamped it with his foot, and the switch to the convertible’s hood finally sent the top out. It grabbed wind just as the car’s front hood ripped open and snapped back. The front lid countering gravity’s force with aileron-like effect, the front end leveled out, while the retractable roof acted like a parachute adding drag. The vehicle leveling, the car ploughed on, flat with the surface, and when the undercarriage met ground, a turbulent wash of water sprayed from its sides. “Wuuuuuuuuu!” the prince joyfully cried. “Wuuuuuuuu,” he called, throwing his arms up triumphantly.
“No . . . no . . . no . . . ,” Nathan cried, as seawater started seeping in from the floor.
“What’s wrong?” the prince said. “Here!” He waved to two outboards racing toward them. “Here!”
“No . . . no . . . ,” Nathan continued, panicking, scampering to stand on the bucket seat.
“What’s wrong? They’re coming. Look. They’ll be here a minute.”
“Water . . . water . . .”
“Yes. Water. A little water. Good clean Mediterranean water.”
The water up to the seat cushions, the car sinking, they stood straddling the seatbacks and the front dash. “Here!” the prince waved smiling to the motorboats. “We better jump,” he turned to Nathan. “It could turn over or something and take us down. Better jump,” he said, diving into the water. When he came up and looked back paddling away, he saw Nathan still standing on the car, his feet covered by the water, anguish covering his face. “Jump. Jump! You might be caught! Can’t you swim? Jump! Jump!”
>
A bucket of water flew past T’s head on the ground where he remained shackled from a collar around his neck. The water splashed off the equally chained alligator, roused it, and it hissed and snapped its jaws and pulled on its tether.
“Got to keep its skin moist. We don’t want him dryin’ an’ turnin’ all belly up on us before he gets a chance to bite your stupid head off,” said a tall, strapping young denizen of the swamplands to T, Nathan’s yulen friend.
“Joseph Henry, throw some water on the gator,” said another strapping swamper with equally bad teeth, as he stepped out of a grayed board shack.
“I just did, Josiah.”
“Well then throw on some more. He’s lookin’ dried up.”
“Why don’t you just tell us what we wanna know,” Joseph Henry said to T strung out on the dust. “Tell us so we can all go home. You too.”
“Joseph Henry!” came a heavy gravelly voice that straightened Joseph Henry’s back to attention. “Stop talkin’ and do what your brother told ya!” shouted his father, Macon Early and variably self-anointed Reverend Early, The Right Reverend Macon Early, Deacon Early and First Disciple of The Right Reverenced First Resurrection Church of Early Day Saints. His church, The Tabernacle of His Holy Followers was the gray board structure standing in the clearing. His parish was the bayou swamp that T lay prostrate, and where he’d been whipped and boot-stomped for seven days.
Things had gone well for T after departing New York about the same time Nathan also fled Gotham. He headed for the land of his milk and honey where deep-fried bacon-wrapped meatloaf, prized county fair pigs, and vats of Crisco Oil reincarnated into human beings. The wonderfully lard sodden southern states of the United States were where he wished to roam. He landed in Alabama and slowly migrated west.
Life was good living off the fat of those lands. Then such a little nothing thing happened as he introduced himself to a housekeeper in a Louisiana hotel room. As she slid off his pants, an American Gold Eagle one-ounce coin dropped from his pocket. And as she pulled the pants legs free from around his shoes, more gold coins bounced on the carpet. He let her keep one. She promptly showed it to her lover Josiah Early whom she hoped to please with all things. The eldest of the three Early boys showed the coin to his pa. The next day, T found himself in a sack normally used for carrying alligators that the Earlys hunted for part of their livelihood.
T had no problem telling them where they could locate the balance of his hoard of gold coins. He told them the combination to his hotel room’s guest safe. When Macon Early suspected that there was more, T told them where indeed there was, in a bank’s safety deposit box in Houma. His sons emptied the box.
Macon believed that he’d been sent the thieving heathen of Sodom and insisted there was still more gold, and he was right. T directed them to check his rented car and find a bagful hanging down the windshield washer fluid well. They pulled up the gleaming stash.
The practice of traveling with gold or “coin” as yulen called it, and storing or strategically hiding it, was common practice among yulen as they journeyed across states and continents. They never knew when they might be discovered, and need to flee a place. Sufficient coin allowed them to newly settle and have a stake to begin another life anywhere.
The gold eagle ounces that T directed the Earlys to were not enough for them. The balance, which he stashed along vents under a false lining of a leather jacket, only incited the Earlys to want even more. His vows, even on the Reverend’s Bible, that there was no more, were to no avail. The Earlys wanted to believe there was more gold at the end of their captive’s rainbow.
To the Reverend Early, T was a heathen devil, whore of Beelzebub, son of the anti-Christ, Golem of Gomorrah. To the young woman who had told the Earlys about him and who laid claim to part of the gold and any found treasure, he was a leprechaun. Joseph, the youngest Early boy, also believed it, and one evening unwittingly called their captive so.
“Sacrilege!” his father raged, when he heard the heathen term from his youngest at their dinner table outside the Tabernacle Church and before the wooden cross nailed to its uneven peak.
“That’s what Sissy called ‘em, Pa,” Joseph said, his small build trembling before his father’s gangly frame.
“Tie ‘er to the stump,” his father growled, and the Early boys pushed the visiting girl to a waist high sawed tree stump down a ways from the tabernacle’s entrance.
“Wait, I got somethin’ for yas. I got somethin’ for yas,” the girl pleaded, reaching into her flowery dress’ pocket.
“What’s it?” Macon as
ked his son, when she gave what she took from her pocket to Josiah.
“Postcard . . .”
“It was sent to him,” she said, pointing to T on the ground not far from the stump. “Came to the hotel for ‘em. Was at the front desk. From somebody called N. Signed N. From France. You can see the stamps. Say France on ‘em.”
“Whore of Beelzebub, Whore of Babylon, whore of whores,” Reverend Early discharged. “I’m goin’ to teach you what you cannot be taught by the mercy of God, for God is too loving. God is too kind, God the magnificent, holy, and father of our resurrected savior. Against you, whore of vanities, whore of the disciples of Hell, it’s left to me to bring down the sword of The Lord. I bring the grace of His cure to your filthy blasphemous heart and mind, your stained body, your ways of witch craftin’, your odorous mouth filled with lies and delusion you bring to my boys to pollute their cleansed minds, fill them with the untruth and evil of Satin, challenge my mission, my word, my teachings, all spoke with your lying tongue!”
“Please Father Early, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean nothin’. I’m sorry if I blasphemed.”
“Hush, girl.”
“I know I’m a little whore. You don’t have to teach me. You don’t have to teach me.”
“Gonna cleanse you.”
“Ain’t fair. I didn’t do nothin’. Your son Josiah loves me. I got us all the gold.”
“Shut your mouth sinnin’ whore. Cheatin’ woman foolin’ my boy with your belly of lust, your legs like serpents.”
“Father Early—“
“Not another blasphemous word, Whore of Babylon!”
He forced her head over the stump’s side, the sawed trunk forming a table on which he pushed her belly, and resting against her back, he thrust. “As a bull of Sodom I am. As the bull of heaven’s darkest devil from the lowest pits of the damned I am. I am the smiter of untruth. I am the bringer of the sponge of The Lord. Wipe away the sins of speakers of lies like serpents’ tongues forked crooked and defiled. The curse of Satin is in you, and you bring it here to corrupt. Sent to defile our church tabernacle spirit of He The Holy God, and the cleansed mission of ours. Die bitch, die. Bitch die. Die bitch die. Witch, sinner, hater of truth and the Love of Our Lord, Lord of Tabernacle, Lord of Glorious Sanctity. Die you bitch, witch, Satin’s tool!”
Macon Early backed away. The breathless girl, her knees pressing into the stump, her limp arms along its sides, did not move.
“Looks like maybe she liked it, Pa,” said Josiah, his brothers breathing excitedly over the wench.
“Can I . . . ,” Josiah dared ask his father, the elder Early looking out far into the swampland.
“Pa?” asked Joseph Henry of his father, his breath excited, his eyes wide with fire. “Pa? Pa, can we?”
Macon’s head lowered. His labored body turned. His legs shuffled, feet dragging, back to his church.
Lying on the dirt, T watched the eldest Early son begin to plunder the stump, and he turned away. Behind him, the hissing gator’s eyes held T’s reflection starting to sob.
III
Soft backlight illuminated a human figure’s outline standing behind a white floor-to-ceiling curtain and someone crouching beside it. “Uuuuuu, ohhhhhh, ahh-ahh-ahhh,” the standing figure moaned.
“Does that feel good?” a woman’s voice asked.
Russell and Shawn, Sammy and Gus, exchanged humored glances standing on the opposite side of the curtain.
“Better?” the woman said.
“Ye . . . yeah . . . yes,” they heard Nathan’s voice answer.
A hand slid open the curtain, revealing Nathan fastening a hospital robe. A female nurse removed the plastic gloves she’d used to apply the ointment from the bottle she returned to a tray. “I’ll return in two hours to apply another coat over you. It does take the sting away, doesn’t it?”
Nathan smiled politely.
“And I see your friends, I think, have arrived.”
He smiled again, looking at them.
“Nathan . . .” they nodded and smiled. Russell went to him to embrace, “Ace,” but the nurse stopped him. “Please sir, the patient’s skin is still extremely tender.”
“Ace . . . ,” Russell said, moved by the sight of his friend obviously in pain from reddened skin covered by dried blisters.
Nathan’s lips pressed.
“Even if his recovery’s been remarkably quick,” the nurse said, packing her ointment tray, “he’s been in comma over a week. You gentlemen can stay, just don’t excite him. His body’s been under tremendous strain.” She started to leave. “We’re surprised he didn’t die of shock.”
“Thank you for everything,” Gus said.
“An extremely rare and the strangest allergic reaction to water that doctor’s ever seen,” she said, the visitors exchanging uncomfortable looks. “According to doctor, physical manifestation to psychological trauma, it seems. Oh, Mr. Nols, your wife will be coming by later.” She closed the door, then peeking in again, “He needs rest, gentlemen. Please don’t excite him.” The door shut.
“Gosh, Ace, your whole body in water like that,” Russell said, still moved by Nathan’s slumped shoulders, white blisters, and red skin from second degree burns over his face body.
“It’s really a miracle you didn’t die,” Shawn said. “We’re all really glad you made it.”
“Hey, guess what?” Russell said.
Nathan’s eyes rose.
“Gus got the operation. Can you believe it!”
Nathan nodded and smiled to Gus.
“Can you believe it of old fussbudget?” Russell said.
“I figured it was that,” Nathan said, clearing his throat. “That or he had a catheter surgically attached to a vodka bottle in his pocket.”
“When I heard they’d they rushed you to the hospital, I had Constance bring you to this private clinic,” Gus said. “Very fine and very discreet. Your doctor friend came right away. We had you assigned exclusively to him, and since he was here and I was here, I thought . . . might as well do the procedure.”
“And the book?”
“The owner contacted Gus back,” Russell said excited.
“It’s ours if we want.”
“If we want to kill ourselves,” Sammy simpered.
“Why do you have to be so sarcastical?” Russell responded.
“You’ll hurt yourself using such complex words, Russell,” Sammy countered.
Russell reduced, looked to Nathan.
“Sammy, you’re a guest in my recovery room. My friends, our friends, deserve your courtesy. And they are your friends, aren’t they, Sammy?”
“He doesn’t have any friends,” Russell said. “He likes to make everybody feel small.”
“Russell,” Sammy said, “I’m sorry I offended you. It wasn’t really my intention. I’m sorry. And yes Nathan . . . my friends as well.”
“What good our discovered cooperation, if we let it slip instead of building from it lasting trust? Cooperation, the thing that long eluded yulen is now ours, and we can reverse the diminished expectations of lives of suffering and toil we endured for centuries.”
“Ace!” Russell beamed.
“I’m with you Nathan,” Shawn said uplifted. “All the way.”
“All the way, Ace.”
“Kindred in spirit, we can start to claim equality with men, end being the dispossessed, endure no more at their cruel hands.”
“Ace, I’m with you,” Russell said.
“This is where we begin to regain from our downfall.”
“What downfall, Nathan?” Gus complained. “We aren’t befallen. We are already nature’s highest, and man’s most virtuous example. I don’t accept your portrayal of us.”
“We maintain their, man’s highest ideals, I don’t deny that. What has it gained us? What good the burden of peaceful souls in the face of the aggression and violence cast against us?”
“It may be burden, Nathan, but it is who we are, and who I am proud to be, and the ideal I
carry without regrets.”
“But you got the operation. You altered nature, Gus,” Sammy said.
“All I’m seeking,” Nathan continued, “is to find in The Book of Yulen a key to self-defense to overcome attacks against us. Is that wrong?”
“No,” Shawn and Russell answered.
“To find in The Book the power and dignity equal to man’s to defend oneself, Gus. To no longer have to kneel for mercy from their kindness—rare as it is. With the liberating powers of science unknown to our ancients and that we ignored, along with the secrets in The Book, we’ll have found the way. I’m sure of it.”
“But that I still question as sound for us to play with,” Gus said.
“Yeah but if the ancients wrote it down, they meant for us to have it, Gus. Right?”
“There were no ancients!” Gus spat out. “The Book of Yulen was not written by some cabal of sages and mystics wishing to hand down the wisdom of ages. The writer was a renegade! A single, some claim, supremely dangerous radical, treacherous, a traitor to his race!”
“Treasonous, Gus?” Nathan said.
“Treasonous to the nature that made and nurtured him, and kept him part of men but apart from their darkest traits—hate, vengeance, duplicity, covetousness, violence.”
“And a nature, for them and us, that above all things demands survival. And by this act that I suggest, Gus, it’s what we’ll improve while remaining loyal to nature’s central dictate—survival. Survival. Life. To live, not die. Not perish in the face of aggression. In this way, we’d maintain our life’s thread in nature’s life loving bosom deeper and longer. Are you in, Gus?”
“For a book of secrets whose dangers we can’t even begin to know? For revelations from an audacious maverick? A wild, dangerous creature?”
“A genuine creature,” Nathan responded.
“Irreverent.”
“Visionary . . . Are you in, Gus?”
“Am I in? You have no idea what you are getting yourselves into.”
“Our rightful defense as natural beings under siege, under attack, is what we deserve. Self-preservation—a right, a duty, of all living things.”
Yulen: Return of the Beast – Mystery Suspense Thriller (Yulen - Book 2) Page 4