Number of the Beast (Paladin Cycle, Book One)

by Lita Stone

  “You. Are. Not. Crazy.” Carmen grabbed her hand and helped her to her feet. “Come on, chickie, let’s go get your mother outta here before she sprouts horns and starts ordering new born children.”

  As Amy and Carmen returned, her mom slapped the menu down. “Don’t you serve English muffins or anything that isn’t saturated in grease or made from dead animals?”

  Amy gave Carmen’s hand a reassuring squeeze and mouthed thank you before crossing the dining room toward her mother. “We serve the same food we did last time you were here.”

  “Listen, dear, I went to the galleria with Debra Vanderhort in Houston yesterday and she says her son, Thad, just got accepted into veterinary school at LSU.”

  “That’s nice.” Amy grabbed the pot and refilled Sheriff Bowden’s coffee.

  He looked up at her. “She made me miss American Idol.”

  Grimacing, Amy backed through the swinging door to the kitchen. She gave Charlie, the cook, a nod.

  “You sick?” Charlie asked. The old black man always wore long sleeve shirts while cooking so his face was constantly shimmering with sweat. How in tarnation could he stand the heat?

  “If by sick, you mean hung over, then yes, I’m very, very sick.”

  Charlie chuckled, deep and from the belly. He slipped a cooking apron over his gray-haired head. “I remember those days. Chug-a-lugging all night and yuking all day long. Thank the good Lord above he straightened me out real good.”

  “Got any Ibuprofen?” Amy asked.

  Carmen popped through the doors and tossed Amy a packet of Alka-Seltzer. “Take two now and keep away from children.” She tossed a dirty coffee mug into the soapy sink. “Amateur.”

  Amy dropped the tabs into the glass and drank the rancid fizzy concoction. She put on her happy face and went back out to the dinner room. Approaching her mother, full of resolve not to be bullied by yet another deranged creature. The one in her head was more than enough.

  Her mother said, “So, you could be available if I tell Thad to give you a ring, right?”

  “I’m seeing and living with Shane and you know it.”

  Her mom sipped her coffee and slid a lock of her golden hair behind her ears. “He’s a bit of a troublemaker and he won’t ever add up to much. You deserve a promising young man like Thad. Don’t you want to get out of Buckeye and see the world like your sister?”

  “Vanessa isn’t seeing the world, Mom. She’s in Houston working as a hair stylist.”

  “Well, she’s more cultured than you, dear. She’s currently seeing a pre-med student. You would know that if you ever gave her a call.”

  “Cultured? How do you figure? She’s a hair stylist, a vegan, and constantly gripes about how everyone in Texas are cow-loving morons.”

  “Better than being a waitress in this dive for the rest of your life. You are just like your father was, content with living a boring life in Hicksville.”

  Amy clenched her teeth. Her hand wrapped around her Diet Coke. She could feel the heat surging into her cheeks. Damn her mother!

  “Mami?” Carmen ushered Amy toward the drink station. “Could you stock ice?”

  “Sure.” Amy pressed through the swinging doors and back into the kitchen.

  I’d love to smack the snob with ice! She leaned her ear against the closed door and listened.

  “Mrs. Wintry,” Carmen said.

  “Hello dear,” her mother said. “How are you?”

  “I mean this in the nicest possible way,” Carmen sneered. “But shut the fuck up or I kick your ass out.”

  Amy imagined her mother’s face contorting in annoyance. She stifled a laugh.

  “Always a pleasure,” her mother said.

  “How goes it, spending your dead husband’s money?”

  “I hear your mother has fallen ill. Fortunately, you were able to get her across the border. Mexican medicine is not nearly as advanced as the States.”

  “I’m Portuguese, you stupid bitch. And my mother was born here and so was I.”

  Amy sucked in a breath.

  “I’ve never met a Hispanic who says otherwise,” Amy’s mother said. “But that’s neither here nor there.”

  “My family’s owned chicken farms here since 1935. My family’s richer than you’re sorry white ass. Put a million dollar perfume on a turd and it’s still just a piece of shit.”

  “It’s really too bad they never caught that awful maniac who dismembered all those people on your family’s farm back in ‘82 Were you even born then?”

  Amy pushed through the double doors. “Please leave.”

  Amy’s mother slipped her purse over her shoulder. “They serve better breakfast and coffee at Denny’s. And they don’t have sassy foreigners working there, either.”

  Amy held the door open. “Today’s not a good day. I’ll call you later.”

  “No you won’t, but it’s sweet of you to say so.”

  As her mother left the diner, Amy darted an apologetic look at Carmen.

  “One of these days you’re going to tell that woman to fuck off and I hope I have a front row seat.” Carmen shook her head. “I’ll stock glasses.” She disappeared behind the double doors.

  Amy’s phone dinged twice: a text from Shane.

  On my way home. I’ll text when I get closer. No reception in BFE.

  Amy smiled and forced herself to ignore the churning in her stomach and the banging in her brain. She grabbed a rag and spray bottle and began wiping tables.

  Maybe Carmen was right and it was just all in her head. Think positive, she told herself.

  “We’re open,” Roxy yelled from behind the line. She straightened the netting over her tightly permed white hair. “Get this place in order. We need ice tea brewed, ketchup bottles refilled and on the tables, and dinner salads brought forward from the walk-in. This ain’t a family reunion, girls, so stop looking like this is your first rodeo and get the lead out.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Amy walked to the bathroom to pee and freshen up. When she finished her business, she lathered her hands and rinsed them under warm water.

  Female.

  Amy glanced up. Instead of seeing her reflection, she saw the blurred face of the young boy, the trespasser of her mind and her mirrors. “I asked you not to call me that.”

  Do not doubt your sanity or my existence.

  Amy hung her head, clutching her stomach, as hysterical laughter overwhelmed her body.

  She regained her composure and looked into the mirror. “Bathroom time is off limits. We discussed this.”

  I was uncertain you would recall our communication last eve.

  “I’m not drunk now and I’m telling you that bathroom time is not permitted.”

  I wish to validate my existence. What must I do?

  “You’re telling me you’re real? Start by telling me who are you, where you’re from and why me? And bypass the cryptic ‘dark trinity’ stuff.”

  I come from a time not of yours, nor of your world or of your universe.

  “Oh, that’s so much more helpful.”

  I do not understand your tone, but neither do I care. The Beast has chosen you because something most special is within you.

  “So this Beast wishes to eat me? Is it a tiger? A bear?” She covered her mouth. “Oh my.”

  He is Geminus, king of all beasts, neither tiger nor bear, for they are his servants as are the hounds and serpents. It is life within you that he was sent to claim.

  Amy hesitated.

  You will know him when he comes, for he will wear the Narkush stone, a powerful gem that only the Geminus possess. It is the vessel of their souls.

  A nervous laughter escaped her. “I’ll play along. What does this gem look like? What does this Beast or Geminus, as you say, look like?”

  I cannot say what the Geminus will look like as I have not beheld his face in over a decade. The stone will gleam a thousand shades of ruby and the Beast will hold it near his flesh.

  “How do you know so much about th
is Beast?”

  That is a long story and I must depart soon.

  “Wait. Could you at least tell me your real name?”

  My given name is Tobias.

  Amy brought her face closer to the mirror. “Will you be there when the Beast comes, Tobias?”

  The voice never replied.

  “Have mercy.” She swatted the counter with an open palm. Ice tea needed to be brewed. Roxy wasn’t paying her to carry on absurd conversations with the people in her head.

  #

  Abe stood from the old army cot positioned in the corner of Fort Chimera, his home and man cave residence. He'd built the structure from scrap metal, junkyard parts, and wood right before bulldozing his house down.

  Course, when he’d sobered up he felt like the biggest jackass for knocking down his own goddamn house. Thankfully, he didn’t too much mind living entirely inside Fort Chimera and the wood from his house had made an amazing bonfire last Fourth of July.

  He needed to wake and open the tackle shop, but an ominous presence lured him outside. Trapped in a self-aware subconscious state, Abe made his way to the camo-painted door, which had originally belonged on a Caterpillar dump truck.

  A sepia tone colored his front yard and his truck parked on the dirt driveway. The heap of ashy debris that was his former house was miraculously smoking again.

  Abe descended the metal stairs toward an obvious path cut through the new woodlands that were not part of Sacred Oaks, and he knew every inch of Sacred Oaks better than he knew his own whiskers.

  He heard none of the typical sounds most common to woods–crickets and birds and locusts–yet he went deeper into the forest of his dream world.

  He was having another vision; something that had invaded his dreams since he was a small child. Papa Chief Red Crow told him once, “You beware them dream gods. They don’t come fuckin’ wit you for no damn reason.”

  Formed from towering trees, a corridor stretched before him like a mystical black and white tunnel. A young man stepped from the gray trees at the far end of the forested hallway. He wore a leather vest with crisscrossed bones. He had a face that reminded Abe of a predatory animal. Dark, dangerous and cunning.

  Between him and the neanderthalic visitor, a tree stump grew. The boy pulled back his hood and their eyes met. His hair was as long as Abe’s but darker than blackened fish.

  Abe saw nothing within the youngster's expression. Abe spoke, but no words sounded from his moving lips.

  From his waist, the boy unsheathed a dagger and stabbed it silently into the stump. Giving Abe a nod, he turned and disappeared into the woods.

  Abe waited until the ghostly projection was out of sight before approaching the stump. His hand reached out to grab the dagger but it swiped through the handle. He tried again, but again his hand passed through the handle with a ghostly wisp.

  He panned the eerie woods and called out to Vicki, Shane’s dead sister. She’d first appeared to him in his dream world shortly after Amy had been admitted to the psych hospital. Ever since, she’d been appearing to Abe in his dreams.

  She wanted him to help watch over Amy and Shane. Abe assured her that he would and that she could pass onto the next dimension without worry for them. But she’d never left him.

  Vicki, appearing dressed in the same shorts and shirt she’d died in at ten yearsold, appeared on the other side of the stump. Before he could utter a syllable, she easily slid the dagger from the wood and offered it to him.

  Abe’s eyes opened. He found himself no longer in the eerie woods. He was now in his own bed, lying on his back. Three lawnmower blades slowly rotated above him. His ceiling fan. Abe rolled off his cot and examined the dagger in his hand.

  A name was etched into the ivory handle: TOBIAS.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Carmen pushed toward the bar as Amy disappeared into the lady’s room. After plunking her purse on the burnished copper bar top, Carmen slid out a mahogany beech wood stool. At the other end of the counter Mike poured two tall drafts.

  Instead of his usual overalls, he wore a bright red corduroy shirt and crisp jeans, of which his ever-expanding beer gut crept over.

  Mike set the drafts in front of two frat guys a few stools away, then strolled to Carmen, drying his hands on a rag. “What’s it tonight? Calamity Jane in Vegas?”

  With a quirked brow, Carmen shot him a pistol-signal with her hand. “Nope, but that’s a brilliant idea. Give me a rum and Coke on the rocks, but hold the Coke. And the ice.”

  Mike reached for a bottle of Morgan. “The usual then.”

  “Hey, Carmen!” a voice called from behind.

  Carmen grinned. And so the game begins.

  #

  Amy dropped the cosmetic bag on the rim of the sink. The reflection in the mirror gawked at her and she promptly shook her head. Maybe Carmen was right. All she needed was to get pretty and loosen herself up.

  But Carmen hadn’t been through the day she had. Even ignoring the deep, rude voice in her head and the defiled rat grave, there was still that weird light in the woods, and Abe creeping around Sacred Oaks like a guerilla in his own personal mission. He knew dang well what was going on out there. Classic Abe. That old coot would take more secrets to the grave than Jimmy Hoffa.

  Amy fished through the makeup bag and pulled out mascara, eyeliner and four different hues of lipstick, shades ranging from hot red to freaky purple and ghoulish black. A sense of envy for Carmen fumed inside her. That girl could shape shift herself into anyone with nothing more than a bag of makeup and a closet full of thrift store specials.

  Amy decided to go with the bright red instead of her usual pale pink. Tonight she would be sassy and vibrant, instead of timid and boring. If she could step away from herself for even a few hours then maybe the unfinished rat business, creepy voice and the spooky Sacred Oaks phenomena would let loose of her psyche. No wonder Sherry freaked out. She wanted no part of all this bad mojo.

  Amy had just finished applying the lipstick when the bathroom door opened and a large guy wearing a football jersey lurched his drunk-self right into the lady’s room.

  “What did Mike do with the urinals?” Twice, the guy turned in a complete circle. “And when the hell did he put doors on the stalls?”

  “I think you’re looking for the men’s room.” Amy scooped the makeup back into the bag as she kept her eyes focused on the hulking guy who staggered about next to the sink.

  The man looked at Amy, seemingly surprised by the sound of her voice and by her presence. When she caught a clear glimpse of his face an unnerving sense of familiarity alarmed her.

  She dropped the cosmetic bag into her purse and shuffled closer to the door, but he put himself between her and the exit. She stepped back. Her heart hiccupped.

  Worst day. Ever.

  “You’re Shane Baker’s little woman. Used to be in the Kettle with that dickhead. You know, a Vulture. I played defense.” He leaned into her, driving her deeper into the restroom and further from the exit. A sinister smile showcased a missing front tooth. Grin widened, he burped in her face.

  Fumes of regurgitated stale beer and fried mushrooms made her gag.

  “Me and Shane go way back. Back to the good ol’ glory days. Pussy. Pussy. Pussy. All the fucking time.”

  The Kettle, she recalled, was what the all-star football players called themselves when they’d party on the town. Shane had told her a hundred stories of all the wild times they’d had doing mostly harmless things.

  Mostly.

  A dry knot inched down her throat. “Excuse me,” she said, but her voice was quieter than she’d intended. “I have to get back to my friend.”

  His hand grabbed her wrist. “I ain’t had a good piece of tail in over a year. Not since I got the fucking clap down in Austin.”

  #

  Carmen watched the roadies trek on and off the stage, connecting and testing equipment while the jukebox played a twisted mix of obscure outlaw country and psychobilly rock’n’roll. The s
awdust dance floor was sparse and tame. After dark, all the guys and gals would be reborn as two-step dosey-do kings and queens with a nice dose of punk rock in their sway.

  Derrick stood in the center of a gaggle of giddy sorority bimbos. With a cocky grin and waving arms, he was probably telling them about his thrill-seeking exploits or, maybe, he was trying to charm his way into their pants with the recaps of his latest victory in the amateur boxing circuit. Hearing their girly ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’, and seeing their glasses full of brightly colored fruity drinks, Carmen chugged the dark contents of her Collins.

  Amateur. Vapid. Idiotic. Brainless...whores.

  She peered through the crowd toward the restroom. What the hell was taking Amy so long?

  Carmen smelled his spicy after shave, before she felt his arm come around from behind.

  Jeff tucked his head beside Carmen’s. “Hey sweet child o’ mine.” He still wore his black Buckeye Police Department uniform which brought a little tingle to Carmen.

  She turned on her stool and smiled. Two months ago he’d guessed both her themed costume and trivia question of the eve and got a ticket to her bed. They spent one very hot night together and he’d been a haunt ever since. It really was a shame too that he hadn’t been able to duplicate his luck. But she had standards.

  “How are you?” she asked, only mildly interested in the answer.

  Jeff shrugged. “I’ve been better.” He looked Carmen up and down, pausing on her breasts. Lifting his gaze higher, he seemed to focus on her face and glasses. He snapped his fingers. “I got it. Country bumpkin who just moved to the city and needs to turn tricks to afford college.”

  A corner of Carmen’s mouth twitched with amusement. She clucked her tongue. “Sorry. Better luck next time.”

  “Come on, babe, give me a second chance. I’m just warming up.”

  Carmen laughed. “I don’t do warm-ups.”

  “How ‘bout I just arrest you for resisting an officer’s charms and lock you in my bedroom for a night?”

  A deep laughter sounded behind Officer Jeff. Derrick slapped a hand on Jeff’s back. “I’m already warmed up.”