The Beast That Was Max

by Gerard Houarner

  From the Box, Dex moaned.

  ~*~

  Max drifted in and out of a haze of pain. The Beast howled for the both of them, and the rock they held on to was cold and gave no comfort. The twins and the healers wandered into and out of focus around him.

  "I am his latest sifu," he heard Mrs. Chan tell the sadhu as they both sipped tea over Max. "He has mastered many arts, and came to me several years ago to learn what I had to teach."

  "Does he teach you?"

  "I am not interested in what he knows. I only agreed to take him on as my student to temper his savage spirit. And you?"

  "He's my cousin. A distant cousin, according to my father. We met in India not too long ago. Visiting separately, we became rivals in a temple buried beneath one of the new high-tech centers they're building in Bangalore. We tasted each other's blood as he was about to kill me, and recognized each other. He had never met one of his family before. I was about to meet my next life. He offered me a chance to build karma in this life, and I took it. Together we took what we wanted from the temple, returned here, and since then have done nothing more than have dinner on occasion."

  "Are you afraid of him?"

  "He walks a path I might have taken. Might yet take. My father has not spoken to me since I've taken up with him."

  "So?"

  After a moment's hesitation, the sadhu said, "Yes.”

  “That is wise."

  The oknirabata joined them, saying, "The mambo is gone."

  Mrs. Chan said, "I know."

  "Did you see what the twins did to the crystal healer?" the sadhu asked.

  "He was not really one of us," Mrs. Chan answered.

  "I wonder how many more will die," said the oknirabata. By his tone, Max understood he did not expect, or want, an answer.

  "As many as needed, I suppose," the sadhu said.

  "That's always the way with him. Sometimes good comes out of it." The oknirabata lifted his hands, smiled. "He killed the clever-man pointing the bone at me. Not to save me. He was spinning his own web. I just happened to benefit. Still, we belong to the same Dreaming." The oknirabata put his hands down. "Though I think my clan will dance and sing me back to the Dreaming long before he ever moves on."

  "You can run," the sadhu said.

  "So can you." The oknirabata laughed, dry and low. "You didn't even have to answer the twins' call.”

  “You can't outrun or ignore death."

  "No.

  "Better, I think, to carry karma on to the next life.”

  “Or the Dreaming."

  The three fell into silent reverie. Dr. Plummer appeared suddenly over him, flashing a light into his eye. The doctor shook his head, placed a sensor pad on his temple, moved off. Farther away, talk between the Navajos, shuwwafat, and twins penetrated the fog of pain enclosing Max. The rhythm of their speech echoed the crashing waves of contractions washing through him. Max watched the group—four Navajo shamans and three women with the blood of Africa, Asia, and gods running through them—and wondered over the powers watching over him.

  "Why do they call them cowboy boots?" the shuwwafat asked, her arms around the twins' waists in a maternal embrace.

  The ancient Navajo looked at his boots and frowned. The youngest laughed. One of the middle Navajos tapped the youngest on the shoulder and said, with a smile, "We don't call 'em that on the res."

  "Shit-kickers is what we call 'em," the youngest added.

  "No," said the other man, who looked like the brother the first middle Navajo, except for the turquoise in his eyes, ears pointed like a coyote's, and the silver in his hair. “They're called cowboy boots 'cause, first, we get us a cowboy, then we paint him, and then we skin him. Afterward, we make us a boot out of his skin and wear him. Like this." He lifted his foot, brushed off dust, and showed off the leather. The skin shade and pattern was different from that of the other boot the Navajo wore.

  The old shaman shook his head and said, "He ain't all Indian, as you can tell. My fault, really. I was a wandering one, a hundred years ago. But we still like the part of him that ain't."

  Darkness swallowed the figures, and moments later their laughter faded. For a while he heard the rustle of their clothing as they moved around the loft. Then he heard only the beating of hearts, his and the child's, his breathing, and his gasps of pain. In a moment in which muscles seemed to twist and wrench and squeeze his spine, he believed the twins And all the rest had been snatched away by the scarves, and that he was alone forever with the pain of the spirits of women he had raped and killed throughout the years. He believed, for an empty moment, that the spirits had killed those who tried to help him, and that their deaths had been added to the burden he had created for himself.

  "Not their fault," he mumbled. "Not their fault." But no one answered him.

  ~*~

  Power gathered in the loft like a wind trapped in a sealed cave, building in intensity with every contraction that seized Max. Candles and lamps distributed throughout the loft released sacred smoke and gave off halos of light. The Navajos stood near him, prayer sticks in hand, solemnly discussing whether to interpret a mad angel as Monster or spirit and debating the use of the Night Chant without proper preparation. The shuwwafat was in the kitchen preparing potions on the stove. Dr. Plummer, wiping sweat from his dark brow and working in shirtsleeves and tie, tinkered with connections between Max's monitoring equipment and a computer workstation set up in front of the Box, muttering "madness" to himself. The sadhu sat on the dining counter, cross-legged in the lotus position, chanting. The oknirabata held a mabanba stone in front of Max's face and said, "Come to take the big one out, this time." He smiled a gap-toothed smile and went to a stool, where he pulled a didgeridoo out of his long travel bag. "Don't worry about that Djanba spirit," he said with a wink, then blew into the thick, wood instrument, filling the loft with the guttural breath of creation.

  Mrs. Chan rolled a cart up to the couch, picked at a tray of shiny surgical instruments as if considering which dumpling to consume next. "Look at what your kind Dr. Plummer let me borrow."

  Max glanced at the instruments and said, "Only because he's afraid to use them on me himself."

  "A wise man knows his limitations."

  The twins emerged from the Box, moving Dex into the main room on a gurney covered beneath a red silk sheet. "The counter or the couch?" Alioune asked Mrs. Chan.

  "Leave him on the couch," she answered. "I will get the rest of what I need from his medical supplies." She adjusted the sheets on which he lay, and the blankets and prayer rug covering his nude body.

  "There are things we must do; sacrifices to prepare, complications to defend against," Kueur said, holding Mrs. Chan back with a hand on her shoulder.

  "There usually are, in these situations," Mrs. Chan replied. "Do not concern yourself. You do what you have to do, dear, and I will follow. As long as we both hold the innocent's life as most important."

  "Yes, we do," Max said.

  Kueur smiled at him, and Alioune nodded her head.

  "Good," said Mrs. Chan, passing her palm over Max. "Now please excuse me while I untangle the child's flow of chi from the mother's. We would not want to make any unnecessary cuts."

  The Navajos began singing as the shuwwafat brought a cup of her concoction to Max. After he downed the thick, spiced drink, a chilling numbness crept down from his stomach to his legs. He tensed, afraid the witch had betrayed him, or had been possessed by the angel. But she returned with a warm, greasy substance that she proceeded to spread over his naked belly after drawing back the blankets. "Be calm, boy," she said with a disdainful half-smile. "Just smoothing the way for the child to come. Don't want you jumping around too much when the way gets opened."

  A cool sense of remoteness settled over Max as the shuwwafat' s mixtures worked their way into his body and spirit. He felt himself floating out of his body until he hovered a few feet over the couch staring down at himself. At the same time, he sank deeper into his flesh, past the r
ocky crevice that held him and the Beast over the howling sea, the needy embrace of his child, the pain of his tormented flesh, until he was trapped and sealed in a tomb beyond all sensation.

  The sadhu brought up a large pot of hot, fragrant water and set it beside Mrs. Chan. While the sadhu chanted prayers, Mrs. Chan dipped cutting tools into the water, cleansing them. The baby moved as if fighting off a gang of robber newborns. The contractions came in fanatical waves, one after the other, but Max felt none of them.

  Kueur and Alioune rolled the gurney to the end of the couch and swiveled Dex until the red silk sheet had fallen off and he was nearly erect, facing Max while strapped from head to foot to the gurney bed.

  "The sacrifice is ready," Kueur said.

  Mrs. Chan glanced at the ruins of Dex, looked away quickly, face wrinkled in an expression of distaste. "Please," she said, then stopped after exchanging looks with the twins.

  "His pain is an illusion," the sadhu said in a gentle voice, breaking his chant and patting Mrs. Chan's back.

  "Neither truth nor illusion can touch him anymore," said Alioune.

  "He is ready," Mrs. Chan said, returning her attention to Max. She took a deep breath, grasped a long, thin instrument, and began to pick at the birth knot of his belly button.

  Kueur and Alioune caressed Max as they danced around the couch, slowly at first, like a pair of eels undulating against the current along a riverbed. They glided around the cart full of instruments, Mrs. Chan, the sadhu and the shuwwafat kneeling to either side of her, Dex, the wires and monitor racks and IV stands. The Navajos stood just outside the circle of their dance, and flinched whenever Kueur or Alioune came near them. But the low, driving force of their chanting continued without interruption.

  The twins' hands, arms, and legs wove a tapestry of motion in which Max detected ancient sigils that hung in the air like contrails, warping perspective and bending light before evaporating. The twins stared, unblinking, beyond Max and the material reality of the loft. To Max, they seemed to gaze at bright points of truth veiled in super-natural beauty and terror, peering into the heart of mysteries, which in turn cast the shifting shadows he saw flicker across their eyes. Max tried to follow their line of sight and share their vision, but his floating self saw only the hazy boundary just beyond the circle of his caretakers, and his buried self saw nothing at all.

  The twins danced faster, leaping, darting, spinning, as they spiraled into Max. The heat of their bodies made the air shimmer. Their scent was an intoxicant, musky with a bite like pepper. The hoarse rhythm of their breathing added a ragged beat to the sounds of singing, chanting, and blowing. Their dance lured him to places he could not go, left him unbalanced, between worlds. He became dizzy watching them and focused instead on Mrs. Chan's work, until the sight of himself being peeled open unsettled him and he turned to the hazy border and watched for the mad angel's intrusion.

  Dex's scream brought him back to the operating theater. The twins had not touched him, but his flayed, broken, gem-encrusted body writhed under the bonds. His cry re-minded Max of a baby's first wail: an innocent confronted by the corrupting newness of the world.

  Instinctively, he looked down at himself, watched Mrs. Chan clear away blood and fat around a bone-colored, leathery pod seated atop his organs and entrails, writhing with the baby's struggle for birth. A cord, pulsing with the flow of blood, wound around the pod and entered it from the bottom. Spasms ran through the muscles surrounding the pod holding it in place.

  The shuwwafat passed a surgical saw to Mrs. Chan, who began to cut open the pod. A feeling of loss washed over Max, trickling through his mind like the rivulets of blood flowing from the gash Mrs. Chan was making in the pod. He wanted to protect the pod, the child. He did not want to hear the birth cry, its recognition of reality's betrayal.

  He felt the baby turn away from him, reach for the light coming through the opening in the pod. The raging storm died away in him as the baby sensed the presence of other people, and their souls. Inside Max, the sea fled, the sky cleared, the storm passed. He found himself and the Beast standing on a mountain peak. surveying a dry, dusty expanse of desert wasteland, trying to find the limits of tracks of earth untouched since gods first shaped dirt and rock.

  Pain embraced Max. It dragged him down from his floating viewpoint, dug him out of his tomb. He found himself in his body once again, alone with his bond to the Beast, which was roaring in triumph at the severing of ties with the baby.

  He reached out to the twins, hungry for their comfort. They danced through his fingers, leaving blood from their reopened wounds on his hand. He tried to rise, to latch on to them and tell them to stop before they killed themselves. But the sadhu held him down with a light touch, and the twins continued their dance though they stumbled and tripped, and the magic they wove showed signs of unraveling.

  Mrs. Chan completed her first cut into the pod womb. She and the shuwwafat pried the lips apart. A moist, sucking sound rose briefly above the sacred songs in the air. A tiny, bloody hand pushed out.

  Max was blinded by pain. He screamed until his voice was raw, and he thrashed under the shuwwafat's and sadbu's fumbling attempts at restraining him.

  "We're losing stability, here," Dr. Plummer shouted. "It's time for the sedatives."

  Mrs. Chan shoved a thick slab of wood between Max's teeth, and he bit down hard, moaning, rocking his head back and forth. "No," she yelled back at Dr. Plummer. "We will do this as it was planned." To Max she said, "Hold still. Breathe. Remember your discipline. Unless you want to force him to work on you and your child."

  Max focused on his body and its pain, trying to regain the distance the shuwwafat's potions had given him from sensation. The Beast raged, distracting him with its only emotion. He grabbed hold of the couch, locked his body, trembled from the agony. Tears burned his eyes.

  "Should I push or something?" he asked between clenched teeth, desperate for something to do.

  Mrs. Chan shook her head, scoffed, "Push with what? Through where?" She pulled out a length of crimson cloth from the pod. Max thought she had used it to sop up his blood, until he remembered the scarves, blood red, the symbol of the spirits of his victims. Painfreak. The rape by ghosts. Mrs. Chan glanced at the silk scarf in her hand and then threw it away.

  Max wished Kueur and Alioune did not have to dance. He needed their love to balance the pain with pleasure. He wanted the warmth of their bodies to take away the chill in his spine.

  Dex relaxed in his bonds. His mouth stayed opened, but he stopped screaming. The crystals in his eye sockets filled with light, one purple, the other red. Light gathered in his mouth, strained from his ears and nose genitals, streamed out, flying up at first, then dipping toward the floor before finally settling into the trail of shimmering air behind the dancing twins.

  What was left of Dex's soul flowed along the bridge built by Kueur and Alioune. It spiraled down to the child's emptiness, balanced between heaven and hell on the magic of mortal will and demonic power.

  Suddenly, the soul sparked and slipped. A cry split the air, thin and high-pitched, like a distant keening. The stream of light spilling from Dex strained against the path leading to its receptacle, as if tempted by another destination. The air behind Dex wavered like a heat mirage as the outline of a human form appeared, arms spread. Flickering shadows on the wall behind Dex lengthened, curled, shivered with growing frenzy.

  Seraphim, Max tried to say through the bit. Enoch. Spreading its wings. Luring the newborn's soul away.

  But the twins kept dancing. The shuwwafat and Navajos sang, the sadhu chanted, the oknirabata blew into the didgeridoo. The power of Kueur and Alioune's primal sorcery kept the soul on the bridge, while the sacred sounds of mortal music drowned the angel's alien song and kept it at bay.

  The soul light poured into the hole in the pod. Warmth spread through Max, dampening his pain and fear. A gurgling sound rose from the pod. Max's heart skipped with shock and excitement over the tiny voice.

&nbs
p; Mrs. Chan bore down with her instruments on the leathery wall while the soul transfer was completed. Dex's last gasp came with the light leaving his eyes and the extinguishing of the fire coming from his mouth. He sagged against his bindings. The twins fluttered to the floor, gasping for air.

  Dex's head snapped back up. The crystals in his eyes turned black. The air behind him lost its mirage of a human figure as the angel took over the empty shell of Dex's body and screamed in a voice Max was certain the twins had never managed to draw from him.

  "Ani Enoch!" Dex cried out, the scream dying into hoarse speech made ragged by sporadic breathing, as if the angel was having difficulty playing such a delicate instrument as a deceased human body. "Achad mayalphi malachi chuurban shel Alohim. Ani haza'am shel Alohim. Ani hanakamah shel Alohim. Ani basi besh'velcham."

  The shuwwafat and sadhu fell silent, and the Navajos' song diminished as the shaman with the turquoise in his eyes and the silver in his hair turned to Max and said, "I am Enoch, one of the Lord's thousand thousand angels of destruction. I am the Lord's wrath, I am the Lord's vengeance. I have come for you."

  Max struggled to sit up, but gave way to the shuwwafat's insistent pushing. "What—"

  The Navajo said, "It speaks Hebrew. We know the tongues of lost tribes, though this wisdom is one of our secrets. Don't you tell a soul."

  The angel spoke again, making the oknirabata lose his breath. "Bayamim elah shel merivah. Itah'avodah shel Alohim he gadvlah v'norah. Ha'pashaim shelocham tzo'akim le 'tagmolim. Aval haim adayin to maspik gedolim l'hasav es t' shumas ha'lev shel Alohim." It wrenched an arm out of its restraint and clawed at the other straps holding Dex's corpse.