by Gary Starta
One and two word answers indicated I had failed. Carter, Boston’s top detective, couldn’t be redirected that easily. I should have known.
“I’m just glad to know you weren’t harmed and that you’re headed back to Boston, right Caitlin?”
“Actually, I’m taking a safety break.”
“Take five, stay alive?”
“Exactly. So how about telling me what’s going on? Did the Bureau find the imposter yet? Are they still preparing for Mollini?”
“Police are scouring Pennsylvania for Grant’s doppelganger right now. That’s where the plane landed, fortunately without incident. The pilot says radio silence during flight probably accounts for why I couldn’t reach anyone during the flight.”
My cell phone had been switched off per the pilot’s instructions. That would explain why Carter couldn’t reach me; but why radio silence? “Stanford, why did the pilot fly with a communications blackout?”
“FBI orders. They feared Mollini might have accomplices, able to home in on our communications. They still don’t believe Mollini to be capable of his paranormal feats.”
Carter again pointed out their folly. By refusing to operate with open minds, the Bureau would waste valuable time and resources on conventional pursuits. Of course Mollini proved capable of paranormal abilities. Nonetheless, the FBI still refused to believe. Consequently, I now felt more confident concerning my decision to redirect them. Only I hadn’t redirected the FBI. I had redirected an FBI impersonator. I doubted the imposter to be Mollini. Although it would be a smart plan; taking a flight to reach his escape destination quicker. Only Mollini knew the whereabouts of the portal. He couldn’t have been misled. That could only mean someone else was also in pursuit--someone with paranormal capability--someone who was definitely not FBI.
Carter interrupted my theorizing. I couldn’t share this with him. Confidence began to fade into guilt. “So, Caitlin, did you give this impersonator an exact location in Pennsylvania? A place you believe Mollini might be headed?”
“Yes. Longwood Gardens, in Kennett Square. You should be able to find the imposter there.” I couldn’t say it aloud. I couldn’t confirm Mollini would be there. I couldn’t lie to Carter outright.
“I’m sorry, Stanford. I should have called, kept you in the loop, told you about my vision.”
“No need to apologize. You trusted Grant was whom he claimed. You couldn’t have known.”
We disconnected. I hoped not as friends. Carter might never trust me again. And then I thought about my so-called empathic ability. I had read this Grant imposter. His aura shined, squeaky clean in an all-American good guy hero kind of way. Why didn’t I feel his duplicity? I hadn’t misread a person. I had misread an entity. I knew only another demon could be capable of this deception. I dared not say it to Carter over the phone. Odds were Grant had been listening in. So now I had to deal with yet another demon?
Before I could ponder this my phone rang. Sweeney had come through. The coordinates were so much mumbo jumbo techno babble to my overtaxed brain, but Sweeney, crooning in the most alluring voice he could muster, scored points by translating it into layman’s terms.
“The shark attack occurred in an easterly direction of the bridge, about a sixteenth of a mile down the creek. I bet this dude you’re after is really into Jaws.”
“What?” I stammered, fumbling for my compass. “Jaws?”
“Yes. It’s believed Peter Benchley wrote Jaws based upon the 1916 Jersey shark attacks. I mean it’s really strange when you think about it. Why would a shark be traveling in a small tributary creek?”
“Sweeney, you did good work. Now, please see if your Doppler is tracking a current storm or weather related disturbance at those coordinates. Sorry, but I’ve got to disconnect.”
I wouldn’t need my compass. An odd glowing light bounced upon the water as if a gigantic coin were somehow reflecting itself in the creek. Only I knew the difference between a coin and the beginnings of a paranormal occurrence.
I was too late. The blue ring could be faintly seen in the sizzling summer sun. It meant Mollini had beaten me. I dashed down the bank. Skidding over stones, my feet planted sideways, I felt more as if I were skiing than running. Brown dust plumed upwards threatening to blind me. I shielded my eyes with my right arm and continued on, giving no thought to twisting an ankle. Branches whipped at my open midriff, slashing me in punishment for my lack of preparation. Birds squawked in protest of the intrusion. But whose intrusion did they protest? The demon’s? Or mine? I could see Mollini now, but I didn’t stare at him for long. Something more bizarre had caught my attention. Floating in midair, a white shark bared its teeth into the abyss materializing before it. And then in a flash, the shark plummeted through the ring into nothingness. At least I thought, because the nothingness quickly became replaced with the bluish plume of waves, but not water. Just like in my vision, the waves were ethereal, wispy, or what air would look like if you could visualize it. Standing below the ring, as if he were some Ringling Brothers show master, Mollini stood with right arm outright, hand cupped to accentuate his feat of magic. I stared in horror, the image of him bouncing, jagged, because my feet were pounding along sand, legs in full stride struggling to reach a parallel point across the creek from the demented magician.
And finally, I made it. He had allowed it to mock me. What could I do, now? Could I seriously stop him from stepping through this ring to God knows where? I was still standing a good twenty five feet from him, separated by a body of water. I had no weapon, only my mind. Now would be a good time to test my telekinetic abilities. I focused hard on drawing Mollini away from the ring and into the water. I winced and opened my eyes to find wind spraying leaves about the area behind Mollini, but nowhere else. At that moment, I wondered if my mind had cracked the branch that startled me. I tried again. Nothing else happened, only a cold feeling--an induced state of dissociation. Possibly the feeling Mollini’s victims felt when he willed them to die. I literally shook my head. I felt something else now, anger. Then fear. It was Mollini’s anger and fear. He’s afraid of me, I thought, somehow blindly walking into the water, just like in my vision, the current threatening to throw me off balance. Mollini began to take a step forward though I didn’t feel I had been coercing him. The anger and fear dared make him take a step towards me, menacingly, an act of desperation. I heard a voice in my head. Not my own, manly, it said: Who are you to confront me? See how futile your efforts are. The water even urges you to go back, to save yourself. You are not my concern, nor your world. Let me go, and I promise I will never harm another being here again.
A plea bargain had been offered to me. Had I somehow stepped into some kind of demonic People’s Court? Did he think I was going to settle out of court? No way. No deals with a demon. I hoped Mollini could hear my silent railings. I began to flail in the water, empowered by the notion I had just rattled the evil bastard’s cage. The feeling of empowerment didn’t last long. I stumbled, my water slogged foot failing to navigate a small boulder of a stone. I fell, face first into water. Submerged, I could only hear that vacuum of deafening silence, the roar you hear when you press a seashell to your ear. By the time I emerged, the ring glowed in a rich azure haze of mystical enticement. Sopping wet, much of my hair matted against my face, I struggled to see. Mollini--about half of Mollini in reality--had begun to enter the portal. The other half, his legs, dangled in the air, He continued floating, suspended animation, defying all laws of nature for a long moment. Magic, it had to be pure magic. No logical FBI explanations. No scientific analysis. Just pure frickin’ magic and it was about to whip my ass. All I could think about was Mollini’s fear.
He’s fleeing me. I scared him, not with a weapon, but with something in me, my courage. Finally finding it, didn’t feel quite as good as I had imagined. Half of me pleaded to stop pursuit. What else could I do? Mollini will be leaving this world, possibly causing it no more harm--if demons could be trusted. Why can’t I cut my losses, swallow
my pride? Answer: Too stubborn. It all goes in circles. Back to square one. I had never called off pursuit of a human being just because it was dangerous or even futile, not even if it meant my life. My job is my life. My life is my job. Nothing can be done to change that equation. No one can change that. Not even by a soul stealing demon hell bent on opening what might be a portal of hell. I flailed along. Water splashing, water splaying, water seemingly laughing at my folly, because for an instant I felt as if I could read the water’s emotions. I could see my ruffian reflection rippling in the cascading white puffs of water. Only the puffs don’t feel like water, they resembled--in my mind’s eye--erupting volcanoes. Danger: pure and simple, warning me to stop. So I did for a second. I thought about Tara, about Celeste. Maybe I should go back--go back to them. Listen to Carter for God’s sake. Too late…
I’m flying. Bird like. Arms spread horizontally, water below me.
I’m being pulled, swirling, dizzy and nauseated.
I’m too enamored with the kaleidoscope of colors to get physically sick, though. I laugh, crazily. Realizing this all might be in my mind. I can’t trust my mind anymore. Too many changes lately…
I’m sailing. Spinning and shrieking. Can’t convince my body it’s all in my mind… It seems to know better…
You can move like this. My body is answering me?
The wild ride I recalled taking with my mother as a kid. Only on a smaller scale because nothing could prepare me for this supernatural excursion through what I understand to be the very fabric of space and time. My body’s experience convinces me I am not imagining this.
Einstein. I see his face. His theories: Real, tangible wormholes. Parallels and alternate states, they mimic and mock my expectations. Einstein laughs, knowingly, vindicated.
Finally I am falling, so slowly, and for so long; so unbelievably long…
Waking…
Spitting sand from my mouth…
A formula with consequences appears in my mind:
Disbelief plus Awakening plus Pain, plus Realization equals Horror.
Horror, because I hadn’t been prepared, because you always fear the unknown…
Who is talking…? The voice sounds strange. Is it my mind… Einstein... Mollini?
The man I know as Manners, the cat judge/realtor/incubus approaches me and I can’t move my arms and legs. I’m a snow angel in the wrong season, in the wrong world…
I don’t belong here. It’s a feeling. Another swinging vine I’m grasping onto, but this time it’s for dear life.
Eight
A croak, maybe a grunt; the unintelligible sound I managed to make after spitting more sand from my mouth. My body felt as if it had been pulled apart and then only partially put back together again. I knew I had to make a more commanding sound. Manners continued to approach me in silence. And in my field of work, silence comes before danger. From where I lay, I could only estimate his approach was from the bridge, the way I had come. Only, the way I had come, possibly no longer existed. I did go through a portal, didn’t I? The aches, pains and protests of my body concurred. If so, maybe I entered Hell and Manners was its gatekeeper. I had to get some answers. Yes, desperate enough to ask the devil. But first I had to take charge. Sound threatening, appear menacing. At the very least, a little bit bitchy.
“Don’t come any closer,” I gurgled. Hardly menacing, yet I was talking. I knew I had to continue talking, misdirect the incubus bastard long enough to come up with a plan. “What do you want? What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Manners stopped walking. Now about three yards away from me, he appeared more contemplative than threatening. He even put one hand under his chin, reminding me of a genius professor who taught at the academy. “But I think I know. You followed that demon here, didn’t you?”
“What do you mean…here?” I would try to play coy even though I was nearly totally convinced I had left my realm of reality. Although, the possibility existed, maybe only Mollini passed through the ring-which by the way had managed to totally disappear in the process.
“You passed through to my world, a parallel universe of sorts, at least for you…” He removed his hand from his chin. “I think you got caught in the wake of a wormhole, becoming an unwilling guest to what you might call an alternate reality.”
“Just stay where you are. I’m not in a very trusting mood, considering your little disappearing act. Not to mention, you helped a fugitive escape--” I stuttered, aggravated “to--who knows where…”
“Please, Ms. Diggs, don’t be upset. I told you the boy would be judged.”
“You don’t know me or the boy very well to make that type of judgment. So I suggest you stay back. In fact, why don’t you slowly turn around and return to wherever you came before I find my feet and arrest you. Or do you want to see me become really upset?”
I wiggled my legs in the heat of anger. Good, there was movement. Not paralyzed. Yet not quite in shape to chase a fugitive. Speaking of which…
“But before you go, Mr. Manners. Why don’t you tell me where I can find that demon I was chasing.”
“I don’t know. He’s in my world, that’s all I know.”
“Then you can understand my need to be curt. Turn around. Get out of here. Let me do my job.”
He laughed a high-pitched airy sort of laugh, not very demonic, yet not without hurtful sarcasm. Did demons learn cruelty from humans or was it the other way around? He interrupted my private reflection.
“You have no jurisdiction here. You’re in another world.”
“Wait. Then why were you in my world? Shouldn’t you be the parallel of yourself?” Damn it. I spit out more sand, sure I had come off sounding like a complete loon. Still, I had no patience to use manners with Manners. “Come on. You know what I mean. Answer me.”
“I am from this world. Yet I choose to live in your world--sometimes--although you’ve made that option most difficult for me. No matter. Think of me as a snowbird, those geriatric types who relocate to a more southerly location for the winter. I use my psychic abilities to teleport between the two universes. I have no other double in your world. However, Ms. Diggs you have.--”
“Don’t play innocent with me.” I cut him off in mid-sentence. “You’re up to something. Why were you here? Is it possible you use your demonic abilities to shape-shift? Because if so, I’m on to your game, trying to pose as an FBI agent is a federal crime--in either universe…”
“I truly don’t know what you’re talking about. However, I do admit to harboring a grave concern for the man who escaped your world. He is a danger to this world now. He must be stopped. I know that because I monitor this site, it’s a key link, possibly the only portal that connects the two universes.”
I somehow managed to drag myself into a kneeling position during Manners’s explanation. “But you don’t use this portal. You do that thing--teleport…” I brushed soppy, seaweed like hair from my forehead.
“Correct. I would not use this portal for my own safety. Only the most desperate demon would resort to using it. Only the most demonic know how to open it. I can’t. I wouldn’t, it’s a danger to all.”
“Okay, Manners. So say I trust you. You are concerned about stopping this demon I know as Mollini. Can you assist me?”
He sighed. “You just ordered me to leave a moment ago.”
“I’m serious, Manners. I need to stop him. Sounds like you need to stop him, too. Do you have a means for us to pursue him?”
“Ms. Diggs, you’re in no shape to pursue anything right now. I can offer you some shelter.” He paused to sigh again. Then with one hand clenched in a fist and the other pointing he said. “My minivan is parked on the street, up there, near the bridge. Please allow me to get you back on your feet if you excuse the pun.”
I couldn’t really argue the point. If I had truly entered another universe I’d come nearly as naked as a newborn into it. I couldn’t even recall where I had dropped my purse or my cell. Talk ab
out the ultimate identity theft. Someone could be impersonating me right now. Maybe the same vermin who posed as Grant; and if this being wasn’t Manners, where was he, she or it, right now? In pursuit like me, or possibly cut off, trapped in my world? Right now I had become trapped as well. A paradox, in pursuit of Mollini I had cut myself off from everyone I had ever cared about. I couldn’t stand to think about it for one minute longer. I forced myself to think like an FBI agent. Albeit, a soggy, soaked and raggedy one.
I began by letting Manners assist me. I even made the first move, hooking my left arm over his shoulder. I walked, spastically as if I really were a newborn, my sneakers sinking into soft, wet sand. As I struggled, Manners gently lifting me out of several quagmire-like sinkholes, I began to think about what he had just said. Manners seemed panicked about the portal, the danger it could bring. Had I exposed myself to something lethal? Furthermore, how could I hope to reenter my world? Once seated in the passenger’s seat, cuddling in the comfort of a pink and blue blanket replete with stuffed teddy bears, I really began to appreciate the absurdity of my circumstance. A big bad demon wraps me in a wimpy baby’s blanket and offers me a ride in his minivan. Could it all be just a cover? Possibly… maybe he’s using charm to lead me into danger. I considered the circumstance. His arrival did reek of rotted fish. Pretty coincidental he just happened to monitor the portal as I arrived through it. What about the other side of the coin? A headlong dash through an unchartered gateway had, if nothing else, forced me to think of alternate possibilities. If he were truly a sentinel of this gateway, our meeting could justifiably be coincidental. Could he be an ally? I decided to test him.
“I want to borrow your cell phone. You do have one, Mr. Manners-or do you just telepathically communicate with your incubi associates?”
He handed it to me, without hesitation, scoring some points in the process.
“I know you need verification. Go ahead make your call. To whomever it is.”
Hmm... He’s not concerned about long distance. I wondered if there were even charges for phone service here. I suppose anything could be possible in a parallel universe.