Dead Sky

by Weston Ochse

  But there he wouldn’t have as clear line of sight as he had now.

  Which was why he was able to see Faood strolling towards him from almost a full block away. When he saw the man, Boy Scout turned and noted that there were dervishes now poised on the corners of the street to his right, each dressed in a long traditional white dress and wearing a conical hat in the event they needed to put people to sleep.

  “Faood approaching,” McQueen said through his earpiece.

  “Way to go, Captain Obvious,” Preacher’s Daughter said.

  Boy Scout reminded himself to discuss the merits of radio discipline later.

  Faood was dressed to blend in with the tourists. He wore a T-shirt with an image of two cats in suits dressed as Mulder and Scully and the words The Truth Is Meowt There scrawled below it. The shirt was tucked into high-end jeans and he had Jordans on his feet. A gold chain hung from his neck and an expensive watch adorned his left wrist.

  “You look like a middle-aged gangbanger,” Boy Scout said when Faood approached.

  They fist bumped like old friends.

  “Then goal accomplished,” Faood said. “I see you’re not wearing your magic glasses.”

  “They clash with my look.”

  “What you going for, middle-aged government military contractor?”

  “Hoping to pull it off.” Boy Scout glanced at the other dervishes who, even in full kit, seemed able to completely fade into the human mosaic of Hollywood Boulevard. “I see you have your dervishes in place to knock everyone out. Aren’t you worried about the traffic? You might cause some accidents.”

  “Drivers should keep their concentration on the road. What is it they say? A distracted driver is a dangerous driver.”

  “That is what they say,” Boy Scout said. “Cute, what you did back at the mall.”

  “We thought our plan was solid.”

  “But so public. You must want me so bad.”

  “That wasn’t my op. The man who planned that has been recalled back to Turkey.”

  “Can’t tolerate failure.”

  “No one can.”

  “I don’t know about that. But if he’d applied MDMP even a little, he would have discovered that in such a public area with so many witnesses, there’d be too many obstacles to overcome.”

  Faood nodded. “I’ll make a note of that. So where are your men?”

  “Close.”

  Faood leaned against a telephone pole and checked his phone like any normal person would. “Should I be worried?” he asked.

  “My people will stay put as long as your people don’t do anything.”

  “Stay put?”

  “It means they won’t kill your dervishes.”

  “Oh. Good phrase.”

  “Back to your Del Amo Fashion Center escapade,” Boy Scout said. “The problem with such a public performance is that it’s hard to contain the evidence of the event. Although you were able to successfully purge the contents of the mall’s CCTVs, you couldn’t stop individuals from taking videos before they were rendered unconscious. Seven videos were subsequently uploaded to social media once the owners awoke and discovered that they had the footage.”

  Faood’s eyes widened slightly.

  Boy Scout nodded. “Yup. Being high and mighty and living forever can make the best of us out of touch with modern social communication methods. Can’t do shit in this day and age without it being on social media.” He held up a finger. “I bet you’ll like this twist to the story, though. Based on the video evidence, the FBI is investigating a possible chem-bio attack conducted by unknown persons staying in the Turkish Consulate.”

  Faood was in full-out frown mode now. He glowered at the pavement.

  This next part Boy Scout delivered carefully. He leaned into Faood and said, “You’ll love this part even better. The FBI is putting together a package for the Ninth Superior Court to enable them to break diplomacy because of the threat of you using weapons of mass destruction against the American populace. My guess is that within the next twenty-four hours they’ll be able to enter the consulate and take into evidence whatever they encounter.” He repeated. “Whatever they encounter.”

  Faood lifted his head and stared at Boy Scout. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Self-preservation.” He glanced around. “You see, I can’t get the help I need if the daeva is in a federal vault. Ever seen the ending sequence to Raiders of the Lost Ark? Once it goes in there, I’ll have no chance of ever seeing it again.”

  “They would do this?”

  “Gleefully.” He paused. “Proudly. And then they’d accept the rewards for saving America from a Chemical Biological Threat.”

  “How do I know that this isn’t all a setup?” Faood asked, gesturing at the street and surroundings. “This story of yours—do you have proof?”

  “You don’t know that. But I figured that you’d be less willing to make a public spectacle again.” Boy Scout shrugged. “As far as proof, that will come with a warrant. We’re trying to beat that.”

  “You’re asking me to trust you,” Faood said flatly.

  “Like you once asked me to trust you.”

  “And see where that got us.” Faood put his phone away and stood up straight. “I knew the moment they brought you into the cisterns that this would turn out poorly.”

  Boy Scout ignored the man’s self-pity slip. “Will you be able to help?”

  Faood frowned. “There are elements I cannot control.”

  “Should I be worried? I thought I could trust you.”

  “You can, but know that if anything happens to me, I won’t be able to contain them.” Faood tilted his head toward the dervishes.

  Boy Scout looked around. They hadn’t moved. They all stood still, heads cocked, ready to dance. “What would they do?”

  “They want you and the others who survived. They want to kill you. More.”

  Boy Scout laughed. “Torture? That’s ridiculous.”

  “You killed too many of our best,” Faood said, shrugging.

  “It was fucking war,” Boy Scout snarled. “And you brought us to this. It was you who put us in a position to have to fight. Without you, there would be no deaths and my three people would still be alive.”

  “I understand that, but you only lost three. We lost twenty-seven.”

  Boy Scout shoved his finger into Faood’s chest as he said, “Tell the others that so many died because we are better at killing. If they want more, we’ll do the same to them.”

  “Bold words,” Faood said, swiping Boy Scout’s hand away.

  “Backed up. Proven. If we were a stock, I’d say to invest because our superior ability to kill and survive is a safe bet.”

  Faood stared at Boy Scout for a long moment. “I will let them know. I anticipate you already have a plan.”

  “It’s totally up to you. I need access to the daeva. I don’t want the yazata in my mind. I need it gone. Maybe we can find another place to conceal it so it can be used.”

  “They’re not going to want to move it from the consulate.”

  “They’re going to lose it if the judge allows the FBI to break diplomatic seal. The argument for weapons of mass destruction is a game breaker. WMD is a magic word—the modern open sesame—and it can open any door. You can trust me on that. We can either do it in plain sight, like in a hotel room anywhere in LA, or we can find a more remote location.”

  “Do you have a remote location in mind?”

  “We have a friend who has a house in Malibu, right off the ocean. We could meet there.”

  “Malibu? Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Malibu?”

  “The same.”

  “Will your people bring weapons?”

  “As protection. I expect yours to do the same. As long as we remain adults, nothing should happen.”

  “My people will need convincing.”

  Boy Scout shrugged. “That’s up to you. The only reason I’m doing this is for personal reasons. Frankly, what the FBI
is doing is the right thing. If they knew I was here, they’d be really pissed. I try not to piss off major three-letter government agencies.”

  “I have twenty-four hours, then?”

  “Less. The FBI will move in as soon as they have the warrant.”

  Faood glanced at his watch which turned out to be a Breitling. Evidently being a dervish had more perks than Boy Scout realized. “Then I need to move.”

  Boy Scout held out a piece of paper. “Here’s the address.”

  Faood glanced down, then took it. “You had the Malibu place planned all along.”

  “We had to do it somewhere.”

  Faood glanced at him one more time, then headed back the way he’d come.

  “Think he bought it?” McQueen asked through his earpiece once Faood was a block away and the dervishes had left.

  Boy Scout began to walk in the opposite direction that Faood had gone. “He did. Everything ready at the house?”

  “We got it locked down.”

  “And Ripple?”

  “I heard,” Special Agent Ripple said from behind Boy Scout. “You did good.”

  Boy Scout could hear the grudging respect from the other man. They’d argued hard about the specifics of the meeting. The agent had wanted him to go armed and to have backup. Boy Scout insisted that not only he not have backup, but that his people be prepping the meeting house and the FBI not be anywhere close to this operation. It was bad enough that they traveled in pairs in sedans and wearing suits. Boy Scout took this moment to remind Ripple of his promise.

  “Remember, this is a complete MilOp. We don’t want you or your men anywhere near. And no surveillance.”

  “I heard you.”

  “I’m serious about that.”

  Ripple didn’t respond, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t heard.

  Boy Scout continued heading west along Hollywood Boulevard, then a petite red-head stepped in front of him.

  “I don’t know if you know me, but I’m Charlene Johnson,” she said.

  The woman’s appearance sent Boy Scout reeling. Was this real? Had the yazata taken over? The world spun for a moment. He backed up, stumbling a bit as he did. He managed to collect himself and realized he was holding his breath.

  “Preacher’s Daughter, are you there?” he asked desperately.

  “I’m here, boss.”

  “What’s the safe word?”

  “The safe word?”

  Charlene’s eyes scrunched in confusion, hearing him speak but not to her. “Your name is Bryan but they call you Boy Scout.”

  “Wait. Am I hearing who I think I’m hearing?” Lore asked.

  “I’m afraid so. Am I awake?”

  “Rumpestiltskin,” she said, as if it were a magic word to keep them all safe.

  “Boy Scout, is that you?” Charlene asked. “I mean, we’ve never met, but we have sort of. It’s pretty hard to explain.”

  He reached out and touched her shoulder with the tip of the forefinger of his right hand.

  “Are you real?”

  “I think I am,” she said. She touched him in the same way he was touching her. With a grin she asked, “Is this how they greet each other from your planet?”

  “Fuck me,” McQueen said in his ear.

  Boy Scout nodded.

  “Oh, I see. You’re talking to your team.” She withdrew her hand, straightened and smiled. “Please say hi to that tomboy and the fat gay hipster.”

  Preacher’s Daughter laughed a good one in his ear. “I told you that you were fat,” she said to McQueen.

  Chapter Thirty

  In-N-Out Burger

  OTHER THAN THE words, Follow me, Boy Scout didn’t even speak until they were seated at In-N-Out Burger. They were the only ones with no food and had taken the last table, causing several customers with trays heaped with fast food to give them dirty looks. But whether it was Boy Scout’s size or his barely controlled look of terror, they didn’t bother and instead just grumbled on by.

  Even after several minutes to collect his thoughts, he had more questions than he had answers. That wasn’t right. He wasn’t even smart enough to know what questions to ask. Instead, he had a great chasm of what the fuck that needed to be filled with something. So he stared at her, ready for her to explain, seeing that she was eager to say something.

  But she didn’t. She just sat and stared at him, a half smile on her face.

  Finally, he asked her, “How?”

  Her face lit up. “How did I get here? Or how did I know to come to you?”

  He frowned more deeply. “Are you real?”

  She playfully pinched her arm. “I’m as real as you are.”

  He pinched his own hard enough to feel pain. “Is this part of a dream? Are we in a fugue?”

  Her smile dropped. “I see the problem. Here, let me hold your hand.”

  He tentatively offered her his hand.

  She took it in both her hands and closed her eyes.

  He watched as her face twitched. Her eyebrows raised at one point. Her mouth opened in surprise, only to close and morph into a frown. She shook her head slightly and began to hum. After several increasingly uncomfortable minutes of this, she clucked her tongue and let go of his hand. She sat back and stared at him, then stood and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  Boy Scout watched her go, not knowing what to say.

  When she returned, it was with a tray that held two orders of fries, two double cheeseburgers, and two diet cokes. She placed the food in front of him, then began to eat her own.

  He didn’t touch his food. He wasn’t hungry. He just wanted to know what was going on.

  She was about halfway through her burger before she put it down and wiped the corners of her mouth with a napkin. When she spoke, her words couldn’t have surprised him more.

  “Tell me about Sister Renee.”

  “Sister—How?”

  Charlene raised her eyebrows indicating he should answer her question.

  He cleared his throat, totally flummoxed at the turn of events. “Sister Renee was a nun I met at Our Lady of Atlas in Exile, a monastery in the San Bernardino Mountains. She taught me astral projection and gave her life in a futile attempt to save me from the yazata inside of me.”

  While he spoke, Charlene nodded and chewed on a bite of burger. When he finished, she said, “That’s about what she told me. What she wants to know is why you’ve abandoned her.”

  “Why I—She’s dead. The entity inside of me consumed her essence.”

  “Bits and pieces. She’s still there. She’s just not herself nowadays.”

  Not herself nowadays. Bits and pieces. The understatement of the year. “What else does she say?”

  “She wants you to visit her.”

  “In the astral plane?” He couldn’t believe he was even having this conversation. “Are you certain that you spoke with her and not the yazata? It can take on aspects of what it most recently consumed.” Which was Sister Renee. He couldn’t suppress a shudder.

  “That beast inside of her? Is that what you call it? I try to avoid it as much as I can. It craves power. It feels like a battery that’s almost empty of its charge.” She touched his arm. “Whatever you do, don’t feed it. Don’t let it get back its power. It will burn you from the inside out.” She pulled back her hand and dipped a fry in ketchup, then jammed it into her mouth.

  “I did not abandon her,” he said.

  She raised her eyebrows to express her doubt.

  “I didn’t. She was eaten,” he said.

  “She’s still there. She wants to talk to you.”

  He stared at her for a long minute. “Can’t you just tell me what she wants?”

  “She needs to say it to you herself. She’s worried about you.”

  He glanced down at his food. He still felt absolutely no inclination to eat. “You came once before, but you weren’t here. An entity inside of me brought you into my dreams so that it could try and convince me that what I was doing was real. So
part of me doesn’t even know if this is real or if I am locked inside of a dream thinking I’m doing something.”

  “What do you think is going on?” she asked.

  “That’s the point, isn’t it? I can’t be sure. Every waking moment I’m alert to the fact that something might not be real and I wouldn’t even know it. I just power through and act the part and hope that this thing I’m calling life isn’t really a dream pretending to be me.”

  “Like in that old movie The Matrix. Everyone is being used as a biological battery and they think they’re living certain lives. Only a few know otherwise.”

  “But the difference is once they wake up, they don’t fall back to sleep unless they’re captured.”

  “But are they really captured, or is that part of yet another dream?” she asked.

  He gave her a horrified look.

  “The point is that you can only play the part in the way you’re able. If this is a dream, then be the best you can be and do what needs to be done.”

  He leaned forward and whispered, “Is this really a dream, then?”

  She leaned forward as well and whispered, “If it is, we’re living the same dream.”

  “Then all of this is real?” He glanced around.

  “As far as I’m concerned.” She sat back. “Then again, my idea of what’s real isn’t the same as yours. For instance, I knew you’d dreamed me the moment it happened. It was such a peculiar feeling being in someone’s dream and being aware of it. I can still remember our conversation about the girl and the goat and the sky that burned.”

  “You seemed so real to me, as well.”

  “That was a bad time for you. I felt your weakness. I felt your sadness. They had you locked away but I see you escaped.”

  “Mostly,” he said, finally leaning back and accepting that he’d have to at least pretend he wasn’t in a dream. He touched the side of his head with his fist. “I left with some souvenirs.”

  She nodded. “The boy, yes. I can still smell the oranges on his mother’s fingers. What a wonderful memory that was. The others were violent men, though. I can see where you’d want to be rid of them.”