The Sword of Michael

by Marcus Wynne

  “How do you do it?” I thought.

  “If you were a woman, you’d understand,” she said. She licked a paw and groomed herself. “You need to go, Marius . . .”

  I pushed myself all the way up, reached down and grabbed one of Sabrina’s limp arms and looped it around my neck. Dillon looked on the verge of a heart attack.

  “You know, I love her,” he said.

  “I know. So do I.”

  “How can a woman weigh that much and not be fat?”

  I laughed. “You better look at her now, Dillon. She finds out you even thought that, you’ll never see her naked again.”

  We staggered off, our unconscious medicine woman between us.

  A sudden brilliant light illuminated us, the smoldering wreckage of the house, everything—fields, road, everything—for at least a quarter of a mile.

  I looked up.

  A gigantic glowing disk hovered above, moving slowly, like the Empire’s battle cruiser in Star Wars.

  Dillon looked up. Looked at me. Looked at Sabrina. Sighed.

  “Marius . . . tonight I’ve shot it out with goats, clones, demons, possessed humans, fought my way into Hell and back, carrying a heavy-ass woman I love dearly, been blown up, shot, stabbed and almost drank dry by a vampire. The last freaking thing I need now is a freaking flying saucer!”

  “Uh . . .” I didn’t really know what else to say.

  We were moving, but a blast of light descended from the saucer and tore up the road in front of us.

  Just like the house behind us.

  That’s what we would call a clue.

  So we stopped.

  “You got any grenades left?” I said hopefully.

  “Nope.”

  The saucer descended. Landing gear extended and it touched down. It hummed and glowed with light. A port opened in the side, and a long ramp extended from it, all the way to the ground in front of us. A backlit figure, humanoid, stood at the stop of the stairs and then descended to stand in front of us.

  Human. Late thirties, early forties. Black hair closely cropped, burly, fit and very tall, a cylindrical head like an artillery shell, white skin, a neatly trimmed mustache and several expansive saber scars across his face.

  The Nazi Wehrmacht uniform was pretty sharp, and his knee-high leather boots gleamed with fresh brushing.

  His voice had, as you might guess, a heavy German accent. “My name is Otto Skorzeny,” he said. “Come with me if you want to live.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Okay . . . so we’re in this flying saucer . . .

  That sounds strange.

  Let me back up and start again.

  A shamanic practitioner, by definition, must be able to grasp and participate in at least two different realities—at the same time. Someone much smarter than me, in the ordinary reality, said that the sign of true genius is to embrace simultaneously two different and opposing perspectives. Someone else said that’s the sign of true mental illness and psychosis.

  So you make your choice and you live with it.

  Me, I hew to the shamanic view. I was Chosen for this Path. I had to learn how to embrace at least two realities at the same time.

  Or I would have gone mad.

  That happens to neophyte shamans or apprentices or people Called within a society that doesn’t know what to do with shamanic initiation except to define it as illness and try to legislate or medicate it out of existence. Like our society—rife with sorcery and curses, controlled by people who deny that—despite the overwhelming evidence from traditions much older and deeper than our own that show us the way.

  So there’s what Michael Harner calls “ordinary reality.” That’s the world where we have to pay our bills and our child support and alimony, stop at red lights, talk over the fence with our neighbors, watch mindless TV, be a good citizen and neighbor.

  And then there’s “nonordinary reality.” That’s the reality the great indigenous cultures all over the world define as the reality that surrounds and permeates us, the reality that is just a dream—or journey—away. The Other Realms, the Realms of the Upper, Middle and Lower Worlds, the Realms of powerful spirits, malevolent and benevolent ones, the world of magic and insight, of healing and sorcery, the Realms where shamans—good, evil, competent, incompetent, student-apprentices, masters (though they dislike that term)—traveled to gather information and power to further their agendas or the agendas of the Great Powers or to do healing or divination or other work on behalf of others.

  If you like the duality of that model, then “nonordinary” reality is where you might put phenomenon like flying saucers, the Cabal’s military involvement, time travel, age regression and other topics most often found on conspiracy theory websites or the “New Age” section of the bookstore.

  But like anything else, you have to practice discernment to filter out what the truth is. In the Middle World especially, there are sorcerers—often called politicians, reporters, media people—who manipulate perception to deceive and distort and muddle. The advertising industry was one “beneficiary” of the expertise in propaganda developed during the Third Reich by the visionary Joseph Goebbels in the service of Adolf Hitler—the Big Lie.

  Remember what I said about the Father of Lies?

  I was privy to a discussion, at a teaching, by one of the best shamans in the country, a brilliant, beautiful, and gifted teacher and practitioner, and the leading exponent of “compassionate depossession”—utilizing the Light in a gentle fashion, more in alignment with the belief of the Tibetan Buddhist than, say, traditional Christianity, to do releasement for the suffering being (i.e. possessing spirit) as well as the client with the presenting symptoms. She was responding to one student-practitioner who was mocking a belief in flying saucers and especially aliens or extraterrestrials.

  “So you believe and practice a modality that accepts spirits and powers, but you deny a reality where aliens or extraterrestrials might exist? How do you draw that line?” the teacher asked.

  Willing suspension of disbelief aside, as any good reader of urban fantasy or science fiction does, do you accept everything or do you reject everything?

  I look for the Middle Way in all things.

  I’ve seen and experienced enough things that can be defined as strange, bizarre or insane—and I have no need to convince others that I’ve seen or experienced something. My belief is mine and I don’t force it down the throats of others. And those the Creator brings to me generally are satisfied with the evidence of their own personal experience, which may be completely different from my own.

  Which brings me back to the flying saucer.

  Any depossessionist who practices long enough will run across extraterrestrial or extradimensional beings. Extraterrestrial possessions are often experiments run remotely—or lost ETs without a way to phone home. So in essence the same procedures used in a standard depossession apply—we help them find the Light of their home, and away they go. They are Spirit, or energetic beings.

  More rarely, a practitioner may encounter clients who have experienced, or may have him- or herself experienced, physical encounters with ETs, including abductions, experimentation, and, yes, flying saucers or other aircraft.

  Some of these are Cabal interventions/experiments with technology given to them by ET or extradimensional beings (extradimension is a fancy term for the inhabitants of the Other Realms; in the Cabal’s case demonic, in those aligned with the Light, angelic . . .); some are genuinely ET—not always benign, either. But key to having a workable comprehension of this end of the phenomenon spectrum is accepting, up front, that a human will never completely understand the mind and thinking of an ET . . . unless that ET is also human.

  Does that open a Pandora’s Box?

  It sure does.

  But back to the flying saucer . . .

  “So here we are,” I said, “in a flying saucer piloted by Hitler’s bodyguard and personal assassin, one Otto Skorzeny, escaping from a portal that leads to Hell, leav
ing in flaming wreckage behind us one farmhouse, dozens of dead goats and clones that looked just like local law enforcement, a number of seriously pissed off demons and the closely controlled humans who make up the infrastructure of a seriously cursed town . . .”

  “You missed the part about batshit crazy,” Dillon said. “This is all . . .”

  Skorzeny laughed. “You have good humor. I like this.”

  I had to admit, I kinda liked him, Nazi or not. He had, after all, plucked us off the battlefield where who knows what was about to happen.

  “We know what,” Tigre opined. She was curled up in one corner of the spacious cabin of the saucer, which was disturbingly retro in design, like a ’40s dirigible run through Architect Digest and run through the latest technoware from Akihabara in Tokyo. “He is your unlooked-for ally . . .”

  Burt perched on the back of one of the luxuriously upholstered seats and cawed once. Then tilted his head and said in his best Brooklynese, “Yep.”

  First In Front hovered over Sabrina, looked at me and nodded . . .

  So a legendary Nazi commando, long dead, appears in a flying saucer and plucks me and mine off the battlefield. Okay.

  “So now what?” I said. “What do I call you?”

  “Otto,” Skorzeny said. “Or Ed. As you wish.”

  “Ed?” Dillon said.

  “My American name.”

  “Ah,” Dillon said. “I thought I was confused before.”

  “I like Otto,” I said. “May I call you Otto?”

  Otto tilted his head to one side, a surprisingly delicate movement in so big a man, but then, he was flying the aircraft. His hands were huge, oversized frying pan huge, and they rested in what looked like molded cutouts on the armrests of the command chair in the cabin. It appeared that small, precise movements of his fingers controlled the aircraft.

  “Of course,” Otto said.

  “There’s so much I want to ask you,” I said.

  Otto laughed. “I enjoyed that film very much. Classic. The Day the Earth Stood Still. Yes?”

  “Dude, you’re the real Otto Skorzeny? Not a clone? You’re the guy? The one who flew a paraglider in to rescue Mussolini?” Dillon said.

  “You are a student of history?” Otto said.

  “Military history, yeah,” Dillon said. “You’re the Patron Saint of modern Military Special Operations.”

  “Ah, you flatter,” Otto said. “Yes, I am the real Otto Skorzeny.”

  “Look, not to interfere with the military fanboy thing, but let’s stay on task here—where are you taking us?” I said.

  “I am returning you to your home in Minneapolis, Marius,” Otto said. “Your woman requires your assistance.” He looked at me. “You are a fortunate man to have such a woman. She is very powerful.”

  The lights of Minneapolis grew in the dark; he’d followed the highway straight back, the glow of the ship somehow hidden from eyes below.

  “How do you know this?” I said.

  “We will have a long conversation, Marius. Probably many. Right now, you must return to your home.” He looked at Sabrina. “There is a greatcoat in the panel behind you.”

  Dillon opened a panel and found a full-length leather greatcoat inside. He draped it over Sabrina, who was now completely unconscious.

  The craft lowered, hovered over my house, right below, the lights on.

  “Step into that chamber, there,” Otto said, nodding towards what looked exactly like an old elevator from a ’40s musical. His huge hands were delicate on the controls.

  Dillon and I lifted Sabrina into the chamber.

  Otto looked over at us. “Till we meet again, my friend. I will return in a less ostentatious conveyance, yes?”

  He pushed a button and the chamber door closed.

  We descended in a cone of light and were left on my back lawn, all three of us. Above our heads, only the stars . . . and a wrinkling of the night sky’s fabric as something big and unseen flew away . . .

  “Cloaking device,” Dillon breathed. “Just like the Romulans.”

  “I don’t know if we’ve gone where no man has gone before, but I think Gene Roddenberry would have given his left arm to go where we just went.” I said.

  Standing in the rear door, framed by the light behind her, was Jolene.

  “I left the lights on for you,” she said.

  I swept her into my arms. Or words to that effect.

  She was exhausted. Long lines on her face, dried sweat and/or tears on her face, her dress damp with perspiration, long arms and legs trembling.

  But she was my Jolene.

  She pulled away, her hand lingering along my cheek and jawline, then touched Sabrina’s head.

  “Bring her in, set her in the bedroom,” she said.

  We carried Sabrina in and laid her down in my bed. And only then did she blink open her eyes. She looked up at Dillon, at me, then at Jolene; down at herself, naked, and the black leather greatcoat she wore. She ran her hands over the rich leather.

  “Damn,” she said in a shaky whisper. “Musta been some party . . .”

  CHAPTER 18

  Dillon and I sat on the floor, backs against my couch, our weapons spread out in a greasy array around us; the shower ran long from the bathroom where Sabrina stood and let cleansing water run over her; Jolene came in from the kitchen and handed Dillon and me each a mug of fresh-brewed steaming coffee, then went and brought one back for herself, slid cross-legged with boneless grace into a seated posture, yogalike, across from the two of us.

  She had aged, my beauty, and that filled and topped off the reservoir of rage and anger that had driven me at some point during the night. Her face was drawn with fatigue; long lines running beside her mouth that seemed to have grown overnight, a streak of gray hair along the front of her red mane, a boneless hunch, round-shouldered, the posture of the terminally fatigued or beaten . . . and as though she could read my mind—she probably could, fatigue or not—she straightened herself, took two deep breaths, and a clarity seemed to emerge from within her, settle her straight-backed and once again the proud and strong Priestess of the Great Mother.

  She sipped her coffee and stared at me over the lip of the mug.

  It was almost, for a moment, like it had been.

  From the shower, barely muted by the fall of water, muffled sobs.

  Dillon began to get to his feet.

  “Leave her,” Jolene said. “I’ll see to her. She needs to be alone right now.”

  “I . . .” Dillon said.

  “Yes,” Jolene said. “I know, Dillon. But she needs to be alone for now. She’ll be with us when she’s ready.”

  The shower shut off.

  Jolene nodded. “Soon.”

  “So what now, Marius?” Dillon said. “I just, I just don’t, I just . . .”

  I took a long hot pull off my coffee and focused on the simple warmth of it in my belly.

  “First we drink our coffee,” I said, “and see to Sabrina. All of us stay together right now. And then we’ll sit in Circle and seek guidance. But right now? Drink coffee. Clean guns. Check the wards and boundaries and protection. Rest.” I looked at Jolene. “Yes?”

  She nodded. Once. Rose without using her hands, the blossoming of a red and white and black-garbed flower, left the room. I heard muffled words and the homey sound of women in a bathroom.

  “It’s all like a dream,” Dillon said. “Is it always like this?”

  “Yes,” I said. “In the ’twixt and the ’tween, when the Other Realms open up, in the area between where we go to fight, it’s always like this. A dream and a not-dream. Nonordinary reality.”

  “The whole Otto Skorzeny thing?”

  I shrugged. “Just as real, or not, as everything else we saw and did, Dillon.”

  “He said he’ll be back. To talk to you.”

  “If it’s in accordance with the Creator’s Plan, he will be. If not, he won’t be.”

  I drank my coffee. Jamaican Blue Mountain. That was real. Or rea
l enough.

  We cleaned guns. Reloaded magazines and moon clips. Refreshed holy water. Sharpened knives.

  The women were alone in the back of the house and we left them be. Their work was the work of the Goddess, the Divine Feminine, and ours, tonight, was that of the Divine Masculine, the protective principle of the universe.

  “Oh, Marius,” came the soft tigerish voice I loved so much. “You’re so serious . . .”

  “Should be,” Burt said. “Big night’s work. And it’s just the beginning . . .”

  And they were gone, or rather, gone silent.

  First In Front was there, sitting in my recliner, watching me and Dillon at our tasks. As always, his knife seemed scoured and sharp, and he seemed still and focused, his eyes gleaming bright with the White Light of the Creator radiating from him like a stove carefully banked.

  “It is the end of the beginning,” he said. “You came close tonight, to the trap they set for you.” He nodded yes in response to my silent question. “Anger and rage, the fuel of the fighter, the warrior . . . you have to beware. And you must watch for Dillon, because he doesn’t understand or know, he only trusts you and follows your lead. Be careful where you lead, Marius. The path is perilous . . .”

  And he was gone.

  Spirit guides are never really gone—they are with you always. Most times, when they seem to disappear, it’s you and your junk that blocks the channel. Junk being the stuff we need to work through—distraction, anger, Dark Forces interfering, all of the long list of things that are obstacles on the way back to the Light—and that junk interferes with our reception. The Creator always knows and is always connected to us; or to be accurate, we’re always part of the Creator. But the exercise of Free Will allows us to disconnect, to be separate, to feel and experience that we are separate. And the exercise of the Return to the Light leads us back to the full and direct experience of God the Creator, and the connection of all of us.

  We are all related.

  We are all connected.

  Sometimes, when our spirit guides go away for a while, it’s for us to examine our relationship with the Creator and our guides, and in the silence the appearance of absence brings, to develop a new appreciation and integrate the lessons we’ve learned.