My oldest son slid into the room, all sinewy muscle, motorcycle jacket, and blue-black hair, and sat in a chair. He took the glass of whiskey I’d left sitting on the dresser, knocked it back, and poured himself another. “Good choice, Pops. Life’s too short for cheap liquor, even for us.” He tipped the glass to Emily. “Cheers, baby sister. Cheers.” He sipped the amber liquid, then put the empty glass back on the table.
“Now, Dad. How about you tell me exactly what’s going on and why you and baby sis and this mortal floozy are snuggling in a no-tell motel with Mom nowhere in sight. I mean, after all these years of being the black sheep of the family, I suddenly find myself downright respectable by comparison.”
I was on my feet before I knew it, but Cain had always been fast. He caught me and had me bent backward over the cheap table quicker than an eye blink. His arm went across my neck in a choke, and he got right down in my face, close enough for me to smell the hate on his breath. He smiled, and my blood ran cold. I knew real fear for the first time in centuries as my psychotic son held my life in his hands.
“No, no, Papa. We’ll have none of those outbursts. They aren’t good for the soul, are they? But what would I know about that, right? I don’t know how you got me here, and I don’t care. But it’s not going to end well for you, Daddy. It’s not going to end well at all. Remember, only one of us can really hurt one of us. And I know how to hurt. I know very well how to hurt. I—” Cain grunted heavily and his grip on my neck loosened as he slumped off my back onto the floor.
I got up off the table shakily and saw Emily holding a Gideon Bible like a sledgehammer, her hands shaking, but her blue eyes fierce. I saw her ultimate grandmother in those flaming eyes, and there was no denying that the kid was something to reckon with.
Chapter 11
I tied Cain to the chair with his belt and mine, then sent Emily running for Michael. I hoped the angel was within earshot and had a plan because I had no idea how we were going to deal with our new development. In the back of my mind, I had known we would have to deal with Cain eventually, but I had convinced myself that Eve would come first, because Eve could deal with him.
Yeah, I know, probably not the greatest parenting strategy, but after a half dozen eons or so, I think I can get by without any tips from Dr. Spock, all right?
Apparently Michael was nearby because Emily brought him back a few minutes later. The snotty angel had the audacity to look pleased about the situation.
“What, by all the names of the Father, are you grinning about?” I asked as Emily closed the door behind them.
“Well, Adam, it should be apparent. Now we don’t have to look for Cain. He’s found us. It’s a capital development!”
“Capital? Jesus and Mohammed, no wonder nobody likes the British. I’ll grant you that he’s found us, but now we have to deal with him, and I guarantee that will do nothing but complicate matters.”
Cain raised his head and laughed, a dry chuckle that came from somewhere out of time. “Complicate matters? Oh, Daddy, you always did underestimate me. I will do so much more than merely complicate matters. I plan to end matters. I’m tired of this dance we’ve been doing with each other, and now that I’ve seen you again, it’s finally time to do something about it. Just like I did with your precious Abel.”
“Don’t speak that name! You lost all right to say your brother’s name when you took his life, you insane little bastard. I should end you myself right now. I should have done it a lifetime ago, but—”
“But what, Daddy? But Mommy wouldn’t let you? But you didn’t have the guts? But you didn’t know then that you couldn’t die, so you chickened out because you were afraid of going to Hell with your friend Lucypher? But what, Daddy?” Spittle landed on my shirt as he screamed the last.
“But he still loves you and can’t stand the thought of losing you, too.” Though sitting on the far bed, all the way across the room from where Michael and I flanked Cain’s chair, Emily didn’t have to raise her voice to stop our yelling match cold. Every head in the room turned to look at her.
She paled a little under all the scrutiny, but swallowed and continued, “Can’t you see? He’s spent thousands of years bludgeoning himself for not seeing what you were going to do, for not stopping you. He’s beaten himself bloody for centuries for not stopping your mother from going off alone into the Garden that day. He’s never forgiven himself for never admitting to anyone, especially you, that he forgave you the second he told you to get out of his sight, and he’s been so afraid of the hurt in your eyes every time you look at him that he’s tried to cover it up with anger. You know, for people who’ve lived for thousands of years, you’re all pretty stupid sometimes.”
I listened to her say the words I couldn’t even bring myself to think. When I looked at Cain, I knew he saw the truth of what she said reflected in my eyes. I did something I thought I’d never do again after Matthew died in my arms. I cried. My legs went weak, and I collapsed on the edge of the flimsy mattress in that cheap room on the second floor of a Quality Inn in Tyler, Texas, and wept like a baby.
I might have mentioned that I have remarkable children. I might have mentioned that they are sometimes a pain in the ass. If I didn’t, then I’ll say it now. It’s sometimes a pain in the ass to have remarkable children. To find out twenty-four years into my daughter’s life, well after the time that she would have learned enough to not hold back the truth just to spare her elders’ feelings, that you have a daughter that’s blessed—or cursed—with the type of insight that leads Asian men to sit on mountaintops and burn incense, that she is remarkable is the kind of unwelcome surprise that I’ve had just about e-damn-nuff of this week.
But it happened, and then Cain happened, and then Emily dropped one of her little insight bombs, and I did my best impression of a four-year-old with a bloody knee, wailing on the carpet in a cheap motel in Texas. It wasn’t my most dignified of moments, to say the least.
After a few minutes, I stopped crying, stood up, and made my way over to the cheap dresser. I leaned on it for a minute, then grabbed the bottle of whiskey and knocked off the last of it in one long pull. Next, I turned around and untied Cain. Something told me he wasn’t going to try to kill me anymore.
“Is it true?” he asked after a long moment of us just looking at each other, while Myra and Emily watched us watching each other.
“I don’t know if I could have put it so succinctly, but yeah, it’s true.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“We were always a little busy trying to beat each other’s brains out. It just seemed easier to work with the status quo than to try and change things.”
“You mean easier than admitting you were wrong?”
“Yeah, well, that’s never been one of my strong points. Ask your mom.”
“She might have used the term ‘pig-headed’ once or twice.”
“Among others,” I replied.
“Among many, many others.”
“Your mother is a well-spoken woman, in many languages. I’m sure her descriptions of me were unflattering in at least a dozen.”
“At least.” He paused, then took a deep breath. “I really am sorry, you know.”
“I know. You loved him as much as any of us.”
“More, most days.”
“Then why? What would possess you to…?” I trailed off as I looked at the doorway, where Michael was suddenly trying to look very small.
That’s tough to pull off when you’re a six-foot-three Adonis with eyes the color of lapis jewelry and a hair color that has spawned an entire line of Clairol products.
I worked diligently to keep my voice steady and my hands from shaking as I asked him, “Did you have anything to do with this?”
“Anything to do with what, mate?”
“I’m going to ask you this once, calmly. And I’m going to give you one chance to answer me truthfully with a limited time offer that neither I nor any of my progeny will take any retributio
n on you due to the answer.”
“Attempt.”
“Excuse me?”
“Attempt to take any retribution. Remember exactly who I am, Son of God.” I saw the faint outline of wings glowing behind him, and it seemed like a ghostly fire engulfed the air around his right hand.
“There is no attempt. Remember exactly who I am, Angel. I am the first earthborn son of the Lord Almighty, and I understand exactly what I can and cannot do, as do you. Now, I will ask this only once. Did you have anything to do with the death of my son Abel?”
“Yes.”
“Emily, hold your brother down. Michael, explain to me exactly what happened.”
“You don’t need to know everything about it. You aren’t part of that story, but I will tell you that there were forces other than mere human jealousy at work on your sons that day. Another Choice was made, and you and Cain are still dealing with the consequences.”
“Cain, what was the Choice? What did he make you do?”
“I don’t know what either of you are talking about. I didn’t see Michael that day, or any other day, until just now. Remember, you were already long out of the Garden by the time Abel and I came along; we just heard the stories. We never cavorted naked with the Seraphim.”
“It wasn’t like that. And if he didn’t force you into the Choice, then… fucking Lucky.” I knew I was going to have to kick his ass for this one.
“He didn’t choose, Dad,” Emily said from the bed.
“Huh?”
I swear, some days I sound like a Neanderthal. Or Al Bundy.
“He wasn’t the one who made the Choice. Look at them.” She gestured to Michael and Cain. “Cain has no idea what kind of Choice you mean, and no clue why you keep giving it emphasis, and Michael can’t look either of you in the eye. Cain didn’t choose to kill Abel. Abel chose to die in Cain’s place.”
Nobody spoke. The silence stretched past uncomfortable well into downright disturbing before Cain finally asked, “Is it true? Did Abel choose to die?”
Michael never looked up, and when he spoke, it was almost a whisper, as though he were looking back through all those years at my son’s broken body. “Yes.”
Cain stood, walked over to Michael, and in a low voice that made my blood stop moving altogether for a moment, said, “I will abide by my father’s promise and will take no vengeance upon you for my brother’s death. Nor will I exact my due recompense for the thousands of years of suffering I have endured thanks to your meddling, but I will, just one more time, let enough of the beast loose from my soul to do this.” Without another word, he grabbed the angel by the shirtfront, spun him around, and punched him straight in the nose. Michael fell, clutching his freshly rebroken nose as he crawled towards the small bathroom, and Cain calmly walked out to lean on the railing outside our door.
Chapter 12
I looked at the bloodied angel for a moment, then glanced up at Emily and Myra. “You’re gonna want some clothes at this point. Pajamas are no good for the next step.”
“Next step?” Myra asked.
“Yeah. The next step is where the healing starts. Follow me when you’re dressed. Em knows where to find me.” I walked out into the morning sun and leaned next to my son on the rail. He held his head in his hands as though it weighed a thousand pounds.
“Come on, son. We’re blowing this pop stand.”
“Where are we going?”
“Intensive therapy. Follow me.”
I walked down the stairs and back to the bar where I’d bought the whiskey the night before. The morning shift didn’t recognize me, but when I tossed ten twenties on the bar and said, “Bring good whiskey ‘til that’s gone, then you can bring cheap stuff for the next couple hours,” it was as if we were long-lost friends. I took a seat at a table near the far wall and lined up eight shot glasses. It didn’t take long before all four seats were full, and we commenced to thinking and drinking our way through all the events and revelations of the past twenty-four hours. I figured by the time Michael got himself cleaned up, we’d all be too drunk to want to hit him again, or at least too drunk to actually connect with a punch.
After several hours, multiple bottles of whiskey, bourbon, and by the end of things, tequila, we had gone through about twenty-five hundred dollars’ worth of booze, and Emily and Myra were looking a little worse for the wear. Cain and I may have had a slight edge on them in the tolerance department. Ever since I’d partied with real Vikings, it became pretty hard to be affected by the swill rolling out of Milwaukee. There wasn’t much conversation, just a lot of liquid group therapy and some gentle dancing around the big topics. Cain and I talked to each other through Emily a lot, asking her what she was interested in, what she wanted to be when she grew up, that kind of stuff. Asking her questions kept us from asking them of each other, and that could have been bad. We very studiously didn’t discuss any abandonment issues, empty feelings because of being an only child, or anything else that might have ripped off scabs just starting to form.
We sat in that bar for the better part of a day and a half, digesting a steady diet of Emmylou Harris and Johnny Cash. Michael finally came strolling in, looking for all the world as though he were on a pleasure cruise, rather than rolling cross-country with a couple of immortals who’d broken his nose twice in twenty-four hours and their indefinable mortal relations.
“Well, look what the cat regurgitated onto the rug,” I said sweetly as he pulled up a chair and materialized a white wine spritzer. On the jukebox, Lucinda Williams sang “Return of the Grievous Angel,” and I was pretty sure that he had either timed his entrance to fit the song, or more likely, that he had changed the jukebox to make a better entrance.
“Really, Michael?” Myra snorted with laughter. “That has to be the only wine glass within a hundred miles. Do you want to get punched in the face again that badly? I’m sure if you just asked, one of the boys here would be willing to oblige you. It’s not necessary to show all of Texas exactly what fairies you angels can be.” Myra went into a fit of drunken giggles at her own fairy angels joke.
“I presume we have gotten all of our childishness out of our systems and are ready to proceed with the world-saving portion of our program?” Michael ignored Myra, probably a good idea given her level of inebriation. I wouldn’t have put it past her to knock the angel on his ass herself.
“Well, in the words of Roy Scheider, we’re gonna need a bigger boat,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
Pop culture references, even ones dated enough for me to follow, are apparently no good with the Seraphim. All that harp music interferes with their television reception, I guess.
“We came here in a Civic. I don’t think five of us are leaving that way,” I explained.
“Don’t sweat it, Dad. I didn’t exactly fly here, you know?” Oh, yeah. Cain had to have some type of transportation. “My bike’s right outside.” I felt a little twinge when he said that. Like father, like son, I supposed. Maybe I could have a relationship with this son, even after all the water under—and over—that bridge.
“Then, we should go. Cain, I believe you should take the lead on this leg. After all, you know where we’re going,” Michael said.
“Well, I don’t know exactly where we’re going, just a general idea.” Cain suddenly became very interested in the tops of his shoes.
“And where, roughly, does that general idea lead?” I had started to have a really bad feeling about the answer when my thoughts flashed back to Cain’s initial re-entry into my life just a few hours before.
“Well, it’s kinda tough to say. You know how Mom is; she doesn’t like to stay in one place too long, and sometimes I get mixed signals when I’m trying to track her down, and—”
“Cain. Where is Eve?” I used the Daddy Voice. It’s different from the Voice, but has a similar effect, if the audience is a little more limited. I was happy and more than a little surprised to see that it still worked, even though my kid was a few thousand years o
ld.
“Bourbon Street.”
Michael leaned forward. “And what is she doing on Bourbon Street? As I recall, Eve is an excellent musician, so I have some slight hope that she’s playing music. I have always been quite the aficionado of jazz.”
“She’s not exactly playing music, Michael,” Cain replied.
I knew that whatever the answer, I wasn’t going to like it. “So, what exactly is she doing, son?”
“Dancing.”
“Where is she dancing, Cain?” I tried to keep my voice level.
“Well, she moves around a lot.”
“Cain. Talk.” I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but it had been a long time since I’d been on Bourbon Street, so I had a modicum of hope that it had changed since the hurricane.
The Chosen Page 6