“What’s this?” he asked eyeballing his rosy martini and the cherries gathered in the bottom.
“Sarah wanted you to have these cherries. Said she was going to miss you?”
“Is she going anywhere?” he asked as he drank half the martini in one gulp.
“No. But you are.”
“What do you mean?”
Blane pulled a card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Dick. “Here. Read this. It will explain it all.”
Dick held the card at eye level, glanced once at Blane, then looked at the strange rune inscribed upon it.
“What the hell is this?”
Blane didn’t answer. Instead he merely watched as the change came over the man. Dick’s smile fell. His eyes glassed over, the blue eventually disappearing until they were replaced by the white orbs of the blind. He tried to speak several times, but his mouth failed to work. He stood and tried to struggle for a moment, but the magic took him in its iron grip. Eventually, he stood at the bar, a newly-minted, unwitting zombie to the cause of the League of the Red Palm.
Moments like this were filled with both regret and the limitless horizon of possibility. A wife and child were waiting in Denver for this man. If he ever showed up again, it wouldn’t be for at least a year. Would they wait for him? Was their life ruined? Only time would tell.
But then, there was the possibility. Mr. Richard Dean Smith wasn’t just anyone. He was someone invisible to the Black Bishop. He could infiltrate with ease, his eyes windows for the blood sorcerers as they watched every moment of Dick’s interaction with the minions of evil. They couldn’t go themselves, their magic would taint them. They needed someone good, someone respectable, someone bland.
Blane leaned back in his stool and finished his beer. Times like this he wondered if the end justified the means. Dick was a good man who didn’t deserve this, yet his temporary sacrifice could result in saving some of the children that had gone missing. Blane hadn’t lied about that. He was a finder of lost children. In fact, he’d spent his life searching for one in particular.
The music resumed as Blane eased Dick out of the chair and maneuvered him towards the door. Sarah smiled at him from the stage and shook her head. They were so much alike. What they did for their jobs wasn’t pleasant at all. Their lives were not their own. They were slaves to responsibility– hers to her family of meth addicts, and him to the League of the Red Palm.
He escorted Dick out of the bar to the waiting arms of Reggie and Ronnie Jacoby. They’d once played football for Oklahoma and had a chance to play at the professional level, before their sister had gone missing on a trip to Palm Springs. Ever since then, they’d worked for the League, merging their own mission with everyone else’s. They placed Dick in the front seat of a pickup truck between them and drove away.
Blane stared across the glassy surface of the Salton Sea and allowed himself a moment to reflect. It had been a long time since he’d thought of Mandy. Because he’d just zombiefied a saint to search for her, he allowed himself the luxury of the memory he kept closest to his heart.
The memory of Mandy and her sacrifice, and how she'd died so that he could live.
Chapter Two
Barstow 1972. Blane leaped across the railroad tracks, stumbled down the dusty embankment, barely managing to keep his balance, and dodged around the corner of the adobe shack right into the arms of Big Bear McCutchins. Swallowed in the man’s unbreakable embrace and pressed tight against the giant’s girth, Blane could barely breathe.
“Whoa, little fella. Where you getting you gotta go so fast?” He pushed the boy out to arm’s length and looked him up and down. “As if the Bishop hisself is after you.”
“Sorry Mr. Bear,” said the thirteen year old breathlessly. “Been out all day and promised Mom I’d be home by supper.”
Bear examined the horizon. “You best hurry then, boy. Sun’s setting. You don’t want to be out after dark.”
“No sir.”
As soon as Bear released him, Blane was off and running. He knew he was late. His mom was going to be pissed. She’d made him promise to be home by three. And he’d meant to, he’d just lost track of time as he and the other boys of the East Side played King of Billy Goat Hill on the big dirt pile. Blane’s pants were ripped in three places and his skin was the color of Mojave sand, but that didn’t matter to him. Reaching the summit was all that meant anything. And twice for ten fleeting seconds, he’d been King of the Hill.
But that was then and this was now, when he was desperately racing the setting sun.
He crossed Poplar Avenue and zigged across the Ferguson’s front lawn. Of all the kids, Blane had the farthest to go. His house was on the edge of town by the new interstate. Mom was always complaining about the noise, but to Blane it was a thing of dreams. Every night when everyone thought he was in bed, he’d sit at his window and watch the long trucks drive past on their way to Los Angeles. On occasion he’d see a Charger or a Mustang. He’d even seen a Barracuda once, illuminated by the lights of a semi as it pulled around growling in the night. One day he’d make the journey and leave his dusty old sand pit of a town behind. He’d trade the blistering desert for the beaches and crystal blue water any day. Like his dad had said before he ran off, nothing good ever happens in the desert.
Blane heard them before he saw them, their cries sending shivers up his spine, fueling his feet for a burst of speed he didn’t know he had in him. A block from home and the sun was already half gone, split in two by the flat desert horizon. Panic flooded his system. He’d never cut it this close. He should have kept his promise.
The cries came closer and he risked a glance. Above and behind him, they flew in perfect formation— twelve dark birds, their twenty-four soulless eyes tracking his hopeless flight.
They’d taken Johnny Spaz last month. They got Sissy Franklin last Halloween when she’d stayed out too late, her zest for candied corn costing her her life. And last year, when the bus had broken down, six of the forty-two kids who’d sprinted desperately for home had never made it. No one saw it happen, but everyone knew who’d taken them.
The Black Bishop.
Even as Blane’s mind formed the idea of the boogeyman a sob escaped him. Tears shot from his eyes and poured down his face. He jumped over a flowerbed, and sped around an azalea bush bursting with blossoms.
The Jeffers’ house was beside his and he could see his mother standing at the screen door staring out, looking up and down the street, wondering where he was. Just as he was about to scream out her name, he tripped on an exposed root from the cottonwood and fell in a tangle. His breath left him. His jaw smashed into a rock.
“Blane. Run!”
He struggled to get up, but fell when his ankle gave way. The way the pain arced up his leg, it had to be broken. Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement in the front bay window of the Jeffers’. The curtain pulled aside and a small girl with a face so full of freckles her skin seemed to be red pressed against the glass. Little Mandy stared wide-eyed at something above him. Then he saw it. Reflected in the window and superimposed on her face, a huge dark bird descended, claws extended, wings catching the air, beak fixed to rend and tear.
He rolled hard to his left. The bird shrieked in indignation as it pulled up. Now facing the sky, Blane didn’t have a moment to spare before he was forced to roll again. The birds had lined up and were plummeting towards him one right after the other, the nearest one a dozen feet and closing. He had no chance. Blane rolled away and covered his face, screaming at the top of his lungs.
But instead of feeling the razor sharp talons of the birds, a tremendous crash eclipsed his screams. One of the birds fell onto its back beside him. For one stark moment Blane stared into the eye of the stunned bird as it stared back at him. Like a window, he saw a ghost of a figure staring back at him from within the bottomless orb, a human face, enraged.
Then the bird flapped, a wing smashing into Blane’s face. He turned to protect himself, just in time for
another crash. Mandy stood above him like an avenging angel, a metal trashcan lid grasped in her small hands. With flaming red hair and so many freckles that they almost obliterated her white skin, she stood like a warrior, imperious. She swung again, this time missing as the bird she was aiming at aborted its dive.
Blane climbed to his feet and lurched across the lawn. He fell twice, but managed to regain his feet each time. Every step caused howls of pain as his broken ankle was forced to take what weight it could. Finally he made his porch where his mother waited, screen door open. With a final Herculean effort, he dove inside. Landing on his hip, he crawled the last few feet until his legs were past the threshold.
His mother spit and made the sign of warding, then closed the door behind them. Breathless, terrified and coated with tears, Blane knew that he’d survived the impossible. He should have been dead. If it hadn’t been for–
Mandy!
She was still out there.
He rolled to a sitting position and watched with horror through the screen door. His mother stood above him, hand over her mouth, eyes wide, unable to turn away, as she too watched the girl who stood desperate against the birds.
“Blessed Mary,” she said, crossing herself.
The red haired girl swung fiercely as the birds swarmed her. Spinning in a circle, she tried to keep the birds away. Any one of them could kill her. Even a scratch could be deadly. These weren’t regular birds. They belonged to the Black Bishop. There was no telling what they could do.
Blane wondered what he’d done. She was hopelessly outnumbered. Why’d she do it? Why’d she try and save him?
Suddenly, a bird ripped the trashcan lid free from her hands. She punched defiantly at the air, her arms windmilling desperately. Her only chance to survive was that the birds might decide she was too small a morsel and leave to seek out someone else. She managed to catch one on the side of its head with her tiny fist, but her little girl strength was nothing without the trashcan lid. The birds seemed to realize this the same time she did. She screamed as the birds descended upon her. She fell, her arms shielding her face. The birds swarmed, covering her until she was lost from sight. Their victorious cries split the new twilight. Porch lights flicked on up and down the street. Faces appeared at windows.
Then, as one, the birds took flight, heading south towards their master, flying in a cross formation.
Where Mandy had been there was nothing but dust.
When the birds had all taken flight, the door to the Jeffers’ house flew open.
“Mandy!” screamed a woman.
She ran to where her daughter had been and fell to her knees. She felt the earth in panic, searching from the sky to the spot and back. Finally she let out a keening wail, the sound only a mother could make upon losing a child.
Then it abruptly stopped as the woman turned towards Blane. She stood shakily and stalked towards his house. Jutting a finger out, she cursed him with the sign of the Black Bishop. “This was your fault, Blane. It was your day to die.”
“Go home, Marge,” his mother said evenly from behind the screen door.
“To what? The Black Bishop took the only thing in the world I cared about. Mandy didn’t do nothing to no one. She was a good girl. So good, she saved your boy.” Her face bent around her sobs, turning it ugly and mean. “It should have been you Blane McCready. It should have been you they took and not my Mandy.”
He scooted out of the way as his mother slammed shut the inner door. He leaned against the wall and stared at his throbbing ankle, and his hands and the rip in his pants he’d gotten from playing King of the Hill.
There was no denying, it should have been him.
And one day it would be.
If it killed him trying.
Chapter Three
Berdoo Canyon. Hide Site.
CODENAME: TRAVESTY
Flight Sequence 20051025b
CLASSIFIED TALENT KEYHOLE
UAV Narration: Sgt Frank Spann
UAV Mode: Combat Swarm
…14 fly 100 meters, overview of compound. As was before, single black adobe hut set back 300 meters from nearest buildings. Other buildings include three two story dormitories, a main meeting lodge with dining facility, gymnasium and motor pool. Cathedral complex. No substantive activity.
…12 fly 70 meters, circling black hut. Red smoke comes from single chimney. Sand is clear of underbrush in 300 meter circle around building. No birds. No animals of any kind. No substantive activity.
…7 fly 20 meters, above motor pool. New vehicle. Red Mercedes-Benz, 500 series. Heavily tinted windows.
Frank Spann stepped out of the windowless OD green military trailer and lit up a smoke. He inhaled deeply, letting his system soak up the nicotine. He walked to the back of the trailer. With no moon, the blanket of cirrus clouds acted like an onyx veil covering the broad swath of the Milky Way that was usually so brilliant in the desert. He unzipped and released three cups of coffee and a diet coke into the shadow of a yucca.
He’d been at it for three hours. The critical times were launch, release and orbit. Short of a nuclear holocaust, he couldn’t leave his position, much less take a break to smoke or bleed his lizard– really the only downside of his job if you forgot the fact that he was in the Army, which came with a whole slew of bullshit civilians couldn’t understand.
He was third generation military. His grandfather had fought in Korea, his dad in Vietnam, and he’d fought in both Iraq and in Afghanistan. If you listened to his grandpa, he’d been the only one to face a real enemy.
‘You haven’t known fear until you’ve seen ten thousand Chinese charging up the side of your hill.’
His father’s haunted eyes spoke differently, though. His old man had never told him a single story about his time in Southeast Asia, but having seen all the movies and read most of the books, Frank imagined it was one fucked up tour.
‘Your father and I were infantry. That’s real soldiering. That’s what real men do. What the hell kind of Army pays you to play video games?’
Frank got as much respect from his grandpa as he did from his ex-wife. Both of them thought he was an underachiever. Both of them sniped him at every opportunity. He’d gotten rid of his wife, but he was stuck with his grandpa.
‘This is the new Army, gramps. Unmanned aerial vehicles are the leading edge of the modern battlefield. Not only do we use them for surveillance, but we can use them to kill.’
‘Nintendo, that’s all it is. You want to face an enemy, do it down the length of a rifle, not through a television monitor.’
Which is about how all their conversations went. There were some people in this world you couldn’t please. For Frank Spann, it was his family. He buttoned up his fly, chained a new cigarette from the dying ember of his first, then crushed the butt beneath his boot.
Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.
He was just as much a soldier as anyone ever was. That he sat behind a monitor instead of fighting the front lines was more a comment to his skills and abilities than a comment on his courage. He shouldn’t be ashamed of them. He should be proud of them.
And he was.
He stepped back to the door of the trailer, taking a few quick drags before returning to the action. He was about to ascend the stairs when he heard a noise behind him.
He whirled in a crouch, searching the Abyssinian shadows for what could have made it. But he couldn’t see a thing. It was just too damned dark. Maybe if he’d redirect a UAV from its orbit over the Black Grotto, he could use its infrared and starlight scopes to pierce the veil of darkness. He dismissed the thought. Talk about overreacting.
He stood straight again and was about to mount the steps when he heard it again– the rustle of vegetation followed by several gruff barks. He leaped up the stairs putting distance between himself and the ground. Not a moment too soon. A javelina stepped into the nimbus of light. Eyeing Frank atop the stairs, it raised its recurving boar tusks and barked twice more.
Frank had seen enough. He opened the door and jumped inside the UAV operations trailer, slamming the door, then locking it. He’d forgotten that with the night came the denizens of the desert. Wild boar, or javelina as they were called, was just one species among hundreds of nasty creatures he had to watch out for.
He barely suppressed a shudder as he took his seat at the long counter in front of the bank of video screens. He pulled a Diet Coke from the mini-fridge and slipped his headphones back on. Checking the status of all the UAVs to make sure none had slipped from their control arcs, he began checking the monitors, and recording his observations in the log.
TRAVESTY was such a Top Secret operation, only his commander and the Joint Chiefs of Staff knew where he was and what he was doing. Frank didn’t see the importance of such secrecy. It wasn’t like he hadn’t operated in the U.S. before. He’d spent last spring down on the New Mexico-Mexico border interdicting illegals. No big deal. So why was the Black Bishop so special? He’d yet to see the man, but nothing so far made him seem to be the person of interest the government thought him to be.
Frank reminded himself that he could be back in Iraq right now. Things could be worse. If the government wanted him to spend his nights watching the comings and goings of some religious nut, then who was he to argue? He took a sip of the Diet Coke and noted the red car leaving the compound.
His job was to pull seventy-two hours on, and twenty-four hours off. When he wasn't working, he had a room in a run-down hotel three miles away. He was picked up and dropped off by the local army recruiter, who seemed pissed at his sudden and enduring additional duty.
Red Palm Page 2