by Weston Ochse
“BOY SCOUT. GET THIS OUT OF YOU. THIS IS FAR WORSE THAN ANY DEMONS. THIS IS THE FATHER OF DEMONS AND IT WANTS YOU BACK.”
Then silence.
Boy Scout tried to pull away, but his astral arm wouldn’t move. He tried again, pulling and heaving, but the more he tried, the more held fast he became. He was desperate to figure out a way to keep himself from being consumed. Gone were the wrappings of Sister Renee. Any vestige of her was no more and the entity burned brightly from within like Boy Scout had when he had consumed the boy.
Boy Scout didn’t want to be next.
He didn’t want to be this thing’s meal.
It was then that he knew exactly what he had to do.
He imagined himself falling backwards off the ramp of a C140 at 30,000 feet. Down, down, down, he tumbled, until he felt himself slam into something solid with enough force to shatter himself into a million pieces.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Camp Pendleton Command Center
“WHAT’S THE SAFE word?”
He opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but realized that his right arm was dead—paralyzed.
“No no no no!” This time he managed to sit up, and he brought his left hand to his head and began knocking on his skull. “Let her go, damn you! Let her go!”
“Boy Scout, is that you?” Preacher’s Daughter asked. “What’s the safe word?”
“No—you’ve got to save her. You’ve got to—”
McQueen grabbed Boy Scout’s hand and held it so he couldn’t keep hurting himself.
Preacher’s Daughter knelt in front of him. “Boy Scout, is that you? What’s wrong with your arm?”
His gaze sharpened and he finally realized where he was. He hyperventilated for a moment, then sighed. “Sister Renee is gone.”
Lore glanced at McQueen. “I know. De Cherge called.”
“Boss, what’s wrong with your arm?” McQueen asked.
“I have no—I think the entity hurt it.” He shrugged his shoulder and the arm flopped like a dead fish. He looked up at his two team mates. “She tried to save me, but she couldn’t,” he said. “She—she—I think the thing inside of me ate her.”
“Then she’s inside of you?” McQueen looked from Lore to Boy Scout. “I don’t get it.”
“Help me up,” Boy Scout asked.
McQueen stood and hauled Boy Scout to his feet.
“I don’t know if I do either, but I need to make a call.”
“Who you gonna call?” McQueen asked.
“Ghostbusters,” said Preacher’s Daughter.
Boy Scout shook his head. “Not funny. I’m calling Faood. I think he’s the only one who can possibly help.”
“Why him?” she demanded. “I’m not forgetting he tricked us. Bully, Narco, Criminal. He killed them.”
“He didn’t kill them. Is he responsible? Fuck, yes. But he didn’t kill them. The machine killed them.” He stumbled.
“There is no machine, boss.” McQueen held his hand out to steady Boy Scout.
“The machine. The fucking machine. The mechanism that the dervishes have created that taps into things they shouldn’t even be fucking dealing with.”
“A virtual machine, McQueen,” Preacher’s Daughter said. To Boy Scout she asked, “What is it you think Faood can do?”
“Blow it up. Or if not him, tell me how to do it. But first, I need to call him.” He sighed and hung his head. “I need to clean up. If you don’t mind, maybe you can leave me alone.”
“Not until you tell me the safe word,” Preacher’s Daughter said.
“We never agreed on a safe word,” he said, not looking up, his mind already on the problem.
She paused. “That’s true, but I recommended one to you. Do you remember?”
He said nothing, just stared at the floor.
“I asked if you remember.”
“I do remember,” he said, loud then soft as he repeated the words.
“Then what is it?”
“Rumpelstiltskin,” he said. “Rumpelstiltskin.” He finally looked up. “Can you leave now?”
She stared at him, a worried frown on her face. Then she nodded and left, dragging a reluctant McQueen with her.
When the door slammed, Boy Scout stumbled over to his bed and sat heavily. He grabbed his right wrist with his left hand and inspected the arm. He couldn’t feel a thing. It was like it wasn’t even there, except he could feel the weight of it pulling on his shoulder. Part of him wondered if it was permanent. Another part wondered if it even mattered. An interesting idea, since he’d always been concerned about the nature of his body, the primary tool of a Ranger and protector.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Oceanside, California
BOY SCOUT DIDN’T actually have Faood’s number, but in the end he managed. He left Camp Pendleton and found the fishing pier in Oceanside. Couples young and old walked hand in hand up and down the pier. Several hardened fishermen camped out in their favorite spots, surly looks on their faces. Using a burner phone with no GPS chip supplied by Poe, he called the Turkish Consulate and asked to speak to Faood. When he was asked about the last name, he said, “Just tell someone that Boy Scout wants to chat.”
While he waited, listening to Turkish pop music play in the background, he could only think of Sister Renee. She’d been a fun-loving girl until the entity came out and snatched her life. She’d always been told it was a demon—a major demon nonetheless. In fact, it had named itself. Had it merely used the language of its victims, pretending to be what they thought it was? Was there any difference? Without the Hollywood smoke and sulfur version of Hell, was the thing inside of him merely a demon with another name? He wondered vaguely if those who’d created the first Latin Bible knew the truth of it. Demons and the threat of Hell sure made it far easier to control the masses. After all, with the eternal soul as a fungible resource being fought for by two competing sides—in this case Heaven and Hell—one needed to make sure that their eternity wasn’t among long-limbed, fire-breathing demons.
He chuckled to himself.
Even as he thought it, he knew he’d just described a daeva.
He moved his shoulder and his arm flopped. Still no feeling. Was it permanent?
“Mr. Starling, is that you?” came Faood’s familiar voice.
“I’m Boy Scout right now.”
The voice on the other end of the line hesitated. Then, “Of course you are. You’re on mission.”
“That I am.”
“To what honor do I accept this call?” Faood asked, his word order strange but lyrical.
“I want to speak about the daeva you have at the consulate.”
Again hesitation. “I could say that I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’d not trust my words to you so I will just say, what about it?”
“I need to get into The White.”
“Of course, you do. This is why we brought it.”
“Your methods of looking for me have been interesting,” Boy Scout said, thinking of the dead security guards dressed as monks at the monastery. “Not exactly a welcome wagon.”
“When others are in charge, they tend to make poor tactical decisions.”
“Is that your way of saying that now you are in charge and everything is hunky dory?”
“I’m not familiar with this hunky dory.”
“It means cool. Fine. Without problem.”
“Then, yes,” Boy Scout could almost see Faood nodding. “Everything will be hunky dory.”
“What is it I have inside of me?” Boy Scout asked, the question he’d been asking the universe ever since his last time in The White.
“Ahh, that is the question, isn’t it? What is it you think you have inside of you? Or if your woman lieutenant is there, what is it she thinks is inside of you?”
So Faood remembered Preacher’s Daughter. Hell, he should remember them all.
“She thinks it’s a son of God, whatever that is.”
“Whatever that is is a
good way to describe it. My guess is she is right. We don’t actually know because the only historical references we have are various religious scriptures.”
“Which can’t be trusted,” Boy Scout said. Then he asked, “When did you discover them?”
“Early on in our search for Rumi. We call them yazatas.”
On intuition, Boy Scout asked, “How many times have you been into The White?”
“One hundred and sixty-seven.”
Boy Scout couldn’t help but whistle aloud. The number made his visits seem paltry, like a whine.
“Do you have one inside of you?”
“Yes.”
A simple word like nuclear or bomb. “What does it do?”
“You can learn to use it. The problem with the yazatas we find in the Sefid is that they’ve been there for so long they don’t know what they are.”
“It doesn’t know? But it eats. It consumes.”
“Other travelers. Yes. I have to feed it.”
“Then why keep it?” Boy Scout asked.
“Because I can live forever and no one gets hurt.”
Boy Scout let the hand holding the phone fall to his side. He watched as a fisherman reeled in a large flat red snapper. The fisherman’s scowl turned into joy as he hauled it up and into a waiting bucket of ice. All the while the words I can live forever were being power drilled into the inside of his skull. He licked his suddenly dry lips and breathed for a moment. Then he put the phone back to his face. “Why have you told me all of this?”
“There are those who want you for what you did. There are those who want you for who you killed. There are those who want you for what’s inside of you. I don’t want any of those. I have another idea about you and our relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship.”
“Not yet. But we should.”
“Why should I ever trust you?”
“Because I’ve never lied to you. Everything you’ve ever asked, I’ve answered.”
Boy Scout remembered the words they’d exchanged in the cistern.
“It was Rumi who discovered you could travel,” Boy Scout said.
“Travel to learn. Travel to discover. Not to be what we’ve become. We Sufi memorize thousands of Rumi sayings. He was truly marvelous with words. Want to know my favorite one? Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.”
“Notorious,” Boy Scout repeated. “That’s a hell of a word. Is that what made you come around?” At Faood’s confused expression, he added, “Change sides. Did you want to be notorious?”
“Many things I didn’t like, but yes, this saying is central to who I am.”
“I once wanted to be a teacher,” Boy Scout said. “Then I became a killer. Think there’s ever a time I could be a teacher again?”
“Intellect takes you to the door, but it can’t take you into the house,” Faood recited.
“Was that Rumi again?”
“No. That was from Shams Tabrizi, Rumi’s teacher.”
Intellect can get you to the door, but it can’t get you into the house. “So you say that what I do is necessary then?”
“Everything is necessary. Nothing is necessary. It depends on your design. Listen, these are merely sayings. We have thousands of them. Sayings can mean many things to different people. The meanings of sayings are not owned by those who say them.”
“Then why offer me the saying to begin with?”
“Every word is a doorway. Every thought is an egress. Doors are everywhere. There is no shortage of doors. What’s important is deciding which one to go through.”
“Are you saying you can’t go back?”
“Once you are who you are, you can’t become someone who you were,” Faood said. “Be who you are and become what you want to be.”
“You know how that sounds, right?” Boy Scout asked.
Faood blinked and asked, “Like what?”
“You sound like a fortune cookie.”
Faood grinned. “You mean I sound like the paper inside a fortune cookie. Ever wonder where that paper comes from?”
“A factory? A machine?”
“Ever wonder why that fortune comes to you?”
“It’s random.”
“Is it now?” Faood nodded. “Yet the fortune always seems to fit. Interesting.”
Sparked by the memory of their earlier meeting, Boy Scout said, “Intellect can get you to the door, but it can’t get you into the house.”
“Ah, you remember what I told you. Tell me, Boy Scout, are you at the door, then, or are you in the house?”
“What if I am afraid to go into the house?”
“Then you don’t have adequate intellect. Is that the right word? Adequate?”
“That’s probably the right word, but I don’t think it applies. I have the intellect but I lack data. I don’t know enough about the side effects of having something like this inside of me.”
“Think of this,” Faood said. “You can think more clearly. You heal faster. You know what others are thinking, not by reading their minds, but by intuition. There is no downside.”
Except that the yazata ate Sister Renee.
But that gave him another question. “What happens when they figure out what they are?”
“Then they are the most dangerous things in the universe.”
“How do I keep them from figuring it out?”
“Feed them souls.”
And there it was. All he had to do to live forever was to feed them souls.
Boy Scout wondered how that wasn’t hurting anyone. “What is this relationship you have in mind?” he asked.
“The others in the cistern were following an old tradition. They play a game of chance with human lives. I belong to another group. All of us have yazatas. All of us can live forever. Myself, I am two hundred and sixteen years.” He chuckled. “But who’s counting.”
“You talk as if living forever is the greatest prize.”
“Is it not?” Faood asked, in a way Boy Scout could tell the man was smiling as he said the words.
“I’ve always wondered if the quality of one’s life might be greater than the quantity, but I’ve never been in a position to experience it.”
“Always the warrior.”
“It seems so. This group of yours, do the others know?” Boy Scout asked.
“They do not. They are busy searching for Rumi.”
“He doesn’t want to be found. He told me as much.”
“We know this and no longer look.”
“Instead you feed the beast,” Boy Scout put in. “One hundred and sixty-seven times, you said. All those times to get travelers or souls or essences or whatever the fuck they are so you could keep the beast inside of you fat, dumb and happy. I don’t call that a quality of life. I call that being a zoo keeper who feeds the animals their own.”
“But you are then a zoo keeper who lives forever. Feeding it something that has gone lost is not so wrong.”
Boy Scout thought about Sister Renee and how she’d been absorbed. She hadn’t been lost. She’d sacrificed herself for him. Was he going to keep feeding this beast inside of him? Did he even want to live forever? There were nights and days when the events of his past became too much, overwhelming, sometimes leaving him unable to breathe. Did he want more of those days? Or in the middle of them was a final silence more likely something he wanted to achieve? A permanent silencing of the sights and sounds and smells of what seemed like a lifetime of war.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Camp Pendleton Command Center
AFTER HE HUNG up and tossed the burner into the trash, Boy Scout went inside the nearest bar. He entered a bar and had a cold beer. He didn’t want to get drunk. He didn’t want to self-medicate. All he wanted was to just get away from the others for a time. Baseball games were on all three of the televisions above the bar. He hadn’t paid attention to sports in more than a decade, but he could remember when he was young how it all but con
sumed him. He’d loved playing baseball. He’d been a second baseman on his high school varsity team. His batting average had been .289, which should have been enough to get him a scholarship, or even a look by pro scouts. But his utter inability to hit a breaking ball doomed any hopes he’d had to play in the majors.
Which was probably just as well.
As Boy Scout drank, he noticed that the finger of his paralyzed arm had begun to twitch. The same arm that had thrown out batters at first base and home plate like he’d been made to do just that. Baseball. He hadn’t thought of the sport in so long. So he sat back and watched two innings of the Red Sox versus the New York Yankees. He didn’t know any of the players but watched the infield play, sparking memories of when he’d done the same on a smaller stage.
Then, when the beer was gone and his arm was all but his own again, he got up and left the bar, found the Expedition, and returned to Camp Pendleton
McQueen was back and laying out weapons and ammo.
Preacher’s Daughter worked industriously at her workstation.
No one said a word when he entered, which he found unusual. He stood watching them for several moments, remembering the times each of them had come into his life.
Preacher’s Daughter, the US Army military intelligence lieutenant who’d had a taste of special operations... but just a taste because back then women couldn’t be operators. The army had lost a good one the day she’d chosen to leave them and search for more violent pastures.
Randall McQueen, the only one of them who didn’t really have a call sign. When asked if he wanted one, he’d said his name was perfect the way it was. After all, he was just a generic gay guy, or as he liked to say when he’d had a little too much hooch, a McDonald’s Queen, shortened to McQueen. He’d found acceptance in the special forces teams, brotherhoods tighter than most families. He hadn’t said much during his initial interview, but the way he’d carried himself had spoken legions about his capabilities.
Both their loyalties and friendships were rock solid.