by Corey Brown
Cody stares at T'biah a moment longer, inhales then nods, says, “Go on.”
“As I said, I was born almost forty-three thousand years ago. In Australia. My family and I foraged, along with some other Aboriginals, in the north, near what is now called the Torres Strait. Back then New Zealand and Australia were connected by a narrow land bridge, my ancestors just walked into the land down under. When I was eight when the sky turned gray and the air became hard to breathe. For days, we heard rumblings from across the water, then there was an incredibly loud sound and soon after the sun disappeared completely. I know now it was the volcanic eruption of Mount Taranaki, but back then we were scared to death.”
T’biah laughs to himself. “Back then, my world was so simple and so ill-defined, everything scared me. A thunderstorm, a stranger, anything would make me sweat with fear. Now, I crush demons on the other side of the universe and know everything about this entire planet.”
T’biah starts pacing again but takes on a more relaxed manner, almost that of a storyteller. “During that time of volcanic darkness,” he says, “I was separated from my family. I had stumbled across a patch of delicious mushrooms and was taking my fill when I discovered I was alone. My family and all the others were gone. I spent days looking for them but never saw them again. When I was, oh, I suppose about ten years old I slipped and fell down a steep embankment. I was hurt badly. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t climb back up the slope, I was helpless.”
T’biah pauses, as if to interrupt himself. He looks at Suzanne and says, “What would happen if you died right now?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you died right now, what would happen to your soul?”
Suzanne straightens, shoulders and back, then glances sideways at Cody and says, “I would be welcomed into heaven by God.”
“Why do you believe that?” T’biah says.
“Because Christ died for my sins, he purchased my life through his death. I believe in God’s promise to redeem my soul through Christ.”
“What about before Jesus? What would happen if you died before Jesus was born?”
“Well, that would depend. Some theologians believe that God made promises to the Jews through Abraham, Moses, and the prophets and that’s how they were redeemed. Other scholars teach that the Jews who followed God’s laws and believed in his promises were redeemed at Christ’s resurrection.”
T’biah nods. “What about before that, before Islam, before the crucifixion of Jesus, before Moses and Abraham and Noah? Long before the Quran or the Bible or the Torah? Before the faiths fought over their common ancestry, go beyond the Garden and the serpent, before human ideas and greed and lust for power got in the way, before religion. What do you think happened when I died in Australia forty-three thousand years ago?”
Suzanne makes a face, a puzzled frown. “I don’t know exactly. I haven’t really considered the idea. Some people don’t think humans have been around that long.”
“True. Of course, those people are ignoring science.”
“That may be,” Suzanne says, with a shrug. “But, to be honest, what happened that long ago doesn’t seem relevant to my life. It doesn’t much matter to me because it won’t change what I believe, it doesn’t change my faith. Besides, what you’re saying is pretty weird, I’m not sure what to think.”
“Let me tell you what happened when I died,” T’biah says, a smile stretching wide across his face. “I was given a choice.” He looks at Cody, his face beaming. “God offered me a choice between life and death. You see, I lay at the bottom of that slope for three days, thirsty, starving and in great pain. The first night was the worst, the carnivores could smell my blood and they came prowling. By daybreak I had chased off several marsupial lions and a Giant Wonambi. Oh, I remember listening to that huge snake creep up on me in the still of the night. I was scared out of my mind. A Procoptodon goliah visited me, too, but he was just curious, he wouldn’t have hurt me. After I died, I think it was a Tasmanian tiger that finally consumed my body.”
T’biah pauses, thinking. “But there were quiet times,” he says. “When the animals weren’t trying to eat my flesh, when the pain was dull, and I thought about my life. As primitive as I was, I thought about the world around me. I had a sense there was so much more than I could understand, not that I understood anything at all. But I could tell something great was at work in all that I saw.”
T’biah frowns, looks out the window then back at Cody and Suzanne. “That day, the day my body died, it was hot like it is now. Anyway, as I lay under that burning Australian sun, as my life slipped away, a shadow passed over me. Someone stood near me, shading my body. Suddenly, I felt cool. It was like a drink of iced water after long, hard work. At first, I assumed it was a lion looking for his meal or that Procoptodon coming back. I was so tired and too weak to fight, I expected to see a pair of fangs. I was ready to die. But when I opened my eyes, I saw the face of God.”
T’biah shakes his head. When he speaks again, it’s as though he is alone, keeping his own counsel. “I have stood before the Creator so many times,” he says. “I have sought wisdom and bowed in amazement more often than I can recall, but that first time, that day when God first cast a shadow over me, when I saw his smile, it will remain in my memory as the most incredible experience of my life.”
“So you’re an angel?” Suzanne ventures. Her words seem like an intrusion and Cody looks at her sharply, feeling almost angry at her interruption. He catches himself, remembers to not get reeled in by this character.
T'biah smiles crookedly. “Not at all. I am human, just like you. I was born to parents, conceived after sex. Angels have different origins than humans. Remember when I said God offered me a choice?”
Suzanne nods.
T’biah holds her eyes, waits, collects his thoughts.
“My choice,” T’biah says. “Was to live with God or live alone, without God.”
T’biah’s expression turns sad and now he sounds distant, detached. “I’m not an angel but I was named after one. I was named for the angel of free will, of self-determination. Now look at what I’ve done, because of my choices I am split apart from God, severed.”
T'biah remains quiet for a few seconds then his face brightens, but the change comes across as feigned, as if he is masking his true feelings.
“But there was more for me,” he says. “Once I had chosen God, once my body had died, God departed and I was greeted by a host of others. Angels, attendants, people who had passed on before me, scores of new friends. They taught me things, showed me the stars and introduced me to beings from other worlds. My mind was opened to the universe and filled from the storehouse of knowledge God keeps for those who choose to live. They made me feel welcome, for the first time in my whole life I was at peace. Later, after learning everything there was to know, I had other choices. I had to decide what I would do, who I would be. I could have been an attendant, that is to say, someone who serves others, I could have chosen to be a wise man, a maker, or an artist. I could have been anything.”
T’biah looks at Cody, gives a little shrug and says, “But I decided to become a Regulator. I pressed the rule of God, pursued lawbreakers. In a sense, I am like you. I am— I was a patrolman.”
As T'biah says this, Cody feels something nudge his memory. Not knowing exactly what a Regulator is, he cannot dispute T'biah’s simile. But that mental prod, that pinprick in Cody’s mind nags at him. Why does he want to argue, why does he want to tell T'biah they are not alike, he is not a Regulator?
“No, I’m not like you,” Cody says. Even as he is speaking Cody has no idea what he will say next. “I’m not a Regulator,” he says. “I am a Rider.”
A Rider? Cody thinks. Where did that come from? What the hell is a Rider?
The look on T'biah’s face is a mix of surprise and mild amusement and, oddly, concern. He nods then says, “Ah yes, I had forgotten about your encounter with the horsemen. A Rider? Maybe. In another time, under o
ther circumstances you might have been a Rider. You certainly have the raw ingredients of an enforcer, but you lack one crucial characteristic. Or, more accurately, you possess the one thing a Rider cannot. You have a conscience.”
“You’re wrong,” Cody starts to say. “I…” He is caught off guard. Cody looks at T'biah, squints, makes a face. “What did you say?”
“You can never be a Rider,” T'biah says, his voice is calm, collected. “Because you care about how your actions affect others.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Let’s not over-analyze.” T'biah takes a deep breath, exhales. “You know exactly what I mean. You killed those Skulls and that bothers you. A Rider carries out God’s will without question, without doubt or guilt. Do not be mistaken, a Rider never breaks the law of God, but he does not care about the wrong-doers who suffer at his hand. And that is the distinction, a Regulator cares, Riders do not. A Rider carries out God’s will without compunction, a Regulator worries about those whom he pursues. Mostly.”
Cody wants to argue with T'biah, Cody wants to know more, tries to speak but he can’t. There is something to all this talk about Regulators and Riders, but Cody can’t put his finger on it. Then it comes to him: the real struggle was over hard-heartedness. Way back when, staying up late getting drunk wasn’t about killing five young men, it wasn’t angst over the decision to execute the Skulls. Cody’s alcoholic morality play revolved around the fact that he just didn’t care. And now it all makes sense, his vision, those horsemen and their apocalyptic run. Cody was, indeed, a Rider.
For just a moment, an unexpected moment, T’biah sees a change come over Cody. T'biah frowns, narrows his eyes, but before he can translate visual data into real understanding, Suzanne speaks.
“This is all very interesting,” she says, looking from T'biah to Cody then back at T'biah. “But it seems kind of out there, you know.” Suzanne exhales in a puff. She makes an airy hand gesture and says, “Your story is pretty wild, I mean about choosing, but I’m not sure the Bible teaches anything like what you’re talking about. Besides, who would choose to live alone, without God? And, really, that doesn’t seem like much of a choice. Or the other way around, it seems like an easy decision.” Suzanne shakes her head. “And how do you live alone, without God, after you’re dead?”
“Some humans are so self-absorbed,” T’biah says, casting a sideways look at Cody. “So evil and dark-hearted, they simply will not choose God. Even when standing face to face with the Creator. In short, they choose hell. That is to say, they choose a place where God is not. That’s how you live alone when you die. You exist without God’s grace, isolated, alone. That is true damnation, a soul beyond the presence of God.”
Cody is shaking his head, a cynical smile on his face, and, oddly, still thinking about being a Rider.
“You do not believe me?” T’biah says.
“All this religious mumbo-jumbo,” Cody says, still shaking his head. He glances at Suzanne. “You aren’t buying this shit, are you?”
Suzanne gives Cody a look, something bordering on indignant. “This ‘shit’,” Suzanne says, practically harpooning the word. “Happens to be the truth.” Uncertainty flashes over her face, she glances at T’biah. “Well, I don’t know about his being forty-three thousand years old, I don’t know Riders or Regulators or the idea of choosing after death, but I believe God exists. I can’t understand why you don’t. Don’t you believe in heaven and hell?”
Cody doesn’t answer. Instead, he turns away and walks to the window, keeping his back to Suzanne and T’biah. He stands there, arms folded, staring down at the street. He has lost patience, his emotions are swept cold like the Arctic tundra.
He glances at the wall clock then double-checking the time against his watch, Cody looks at the shrouded figure of David Carlson. Frustration roils up inside, this kind of talk does not interest Cody. God is the last thing he cares about right now. Cody’s back stiffens, the reflex making it painfully clear that his shoulder is still sore from yesterday’s car accident.
Looking East, Cody stares toward the intersection where Hank Mitchell had tried to shotgun him. Cody’s mind spins away to thoughts of someone butchering Mitchell and that thought spirals to someone shooting Eric Hansen which explodes into a hundred others, each one chained together into cacophony of mental noise, no one thought in chronological order, no single memory holding his attention for more than a moment. He has the sense that these events and a million, unseen others are grinding together, turning apart, like teeth on giant gears.
“If you’re not an angel,” Suzanne says, “and you’re dead, how can you be here? Were you sent by God?”
T’biah’s shoulders sag. “No,” he whispers. “God did not send me. With a glad heart, I served, and with a heavy one, I fled.”
“What? How’s that possible? No one can escape God, especially someone who serves him.”
“Escape? No. Run? Oh, yes. The Master allows even the faithful to run. And I have been doing just that for over thirty years.”
“You’re running from God? Why?”
“I….” T’biah pauses, the right words poised on his tongue, not wanting to say them. “Well, I sinned.”
Surprise shows on Suzanne’s face and, at the same time, she understands. Suzanne wants to ask how a servant of God can possibly sin. Instead, she nods and says, “When David was born, is that when you strayed from God?”
T’biah shrugs. “Sort of. As I said, I was a Regulator. And until David’s birth, I had been at work for thousands of years, doing God’s bidding wherever I was needed.”
“So you’re like an angel,” Suzanne says. “Sent by God to protect us.”
“Yes, kind of, but angels watch over the earth and nothing else. Other creatures of God work elsewhere. The Urgani, for instance, they watch over a galaxy just beyond this one. And Mestiel stands by itself in the battle to keep a small planetary system, some four hundred thousand earth light years away.” An empathetic smile appears on T’biah’s face. “That’s a solitary effort,” he says, speaking as much to himself. “Mestiel fights alone most of the time, I tried to visit whenever I could. But, unlike them, I traveled the universe. Just like God’s goodness, evil is pervasive. Every planet, every galaxy, everywhere there is life, the battle rages, there is a contest for the hearts of the living. As a Regulator, I went where I was needed. I had no single charge.” T’biah pauses, drawing in a short breath. “But all of that changed when I saw Celine.”
T’biah walks over to David. Broad-shouldered, upright, T’biah’s body is a dark outline against the splash of fluorescent light washing around him. He reaches out and gently straightens the sheet, pulling it up over David’s head, covering an exposed patch of brown hair.
Suzanne studies T’biah. He is attractive, even sexy, and there is something wild about him, a subtle power and something….familiar? Has she met this man before? Although she didn’t know, couldn’t know it, Suzanne is experiencing nearly the same mental gymnastics as Cody; a subliminal thought process of knowing something, seeing some kind of fit between things then losing the thread.
The difference is that, unlike Cody, Suzanne does not feel the idea slip away like a handful of sand, and one thought seems to punch through: Suzanne knows someday she and T'biah will be together. Startled by this impression, Suzanne stares at T'biah, trying to understand what she feels.
In the silence, T'biah looks away from David, looks back at Suzanne and can’t help but notice her gaze. From Suzanne’s expression, T'biah knows she is trying to connect her sensations of familiarity, he knows she is trying to remember meeting him a few days ago in David’s condo. But there is something else, something new and despite himself, T'biah cannot intuit Suzanne’s surprising realization. First Cody, now Suzanne; each of them had given him a look that expressed something T'biah could not quite decipher.
“Are you okay?” T'biah says.
And just like that, Suzanne’s new revelation is gone from her mind.
But she can sense it, like the aftertaste of some exotic food.
“Uh, yeah.” Suzanne says, trying to make sense of the confusing thoughts swirling around her mind. “You were talking about Celine, was she your wife?”
T’biah feels his skin go flush, shakes his head. “No, but I wish she had been. Celine was the most incredible woman I’d ever met. She was beautiful and kind and decent. In all of my life I’d never met anyone like her. She was…”
“She was David’s mother?” Suzanne says. Although it was a question, she didn’t mean it to be one. She already knew the answer.
“I’d just returned to earth,” T’biah says. “I had learned Abaddon, the Destroyer, was pressing some new effort. I made my way here, to the New Orleans, and eventually to the home of Sanite Dede, the first voodoo queen. I spent many days observing her witches, listening to them summon Abaddon. It appeared that a man named Malveaux was acting as a conduit for them. After I studied Malveaux it was plain that he served Abaddon directly, and, in reality, the coven was a conduit for him. Malveaux was being used for some purpose, for some end I could not ascertain.”
T’biah’s eyes dart to Cody, who remains with his back to them, stolid and silent. “A purpose,” T’biah says, “I could not understand until today.”
Cody turns to face T’biah, his arms still crossed. “Are you talking about The Bull?” he says. “Remy Malveaux?”
T’biah nods slightly. “I am.”
“Who is Remy Malveaux?” Suzanne says.
“Remy ‘The Bull’ Malveaux, Cody says. “Was one of the most notorious police captains in New Orleans history. He forced Carlos Marcello, the undisputed mob king of New Orleans, to go underground just so he could take over the business. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, numbers, money laundering, all of it. Carlos Marcello’s operation evaporated so fast it was an FBI wet dream. Malveaux controlled legitimate businesses, too. You know, collected fire insurance money, security fees, that kind of stuff. Malveaux’s rule was so tight, that judges and criminals and politicians were petrified of him. And God help you if you didn’t have permission to break the law in Remy’s district. Due process wasn’t even a part of his vocabulary. The Bull was judge, jury and executioner.”