The Power: Berkeley Blackfriars Book Two

by J. R. Mabry

  “Our Lord was innocent, and yet the Father was pleased to sacrifice him so that many might be saved. Christians have always understood that sometimes innocent people have to suffer if a great and powerful evil is to be stopped. I think our actions in the Second World War testify to this grim but necessary truth.”

  “You know what the problem is with him?” Susan asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “He sounds completely reasonable. If I were just a tad more hawkish than I am, I’d buy his shit hook, line, and sinker.” She shook her head in disbelief.

  “That’s the thing about evil,” Brian said. “People wouldn’t be tempted by crazy.”

  “Here’s what I think, Block.” The bishop placed both hands on the table and leaned forward, a look of grave resolve on his jowly visage. “David is my friend. I trust his judgment implicitly. If he says there were seventy Islamic terror cells ready to strike us this very day, then I believe him and I thank God that he was in a position to do something about it. Because not everyone would be. The Constitution is a noble document, but it must be kept in perspective. To paraphrase someone that I happen to hold in very high esteem, the Constitution is here to serve people, people are not here to serve the Constitution. Given the choice between American lives and upholding every last jot and tittle of Constitutional law, I’m going to come down on the side of saving American lives. And I think anyone who says otherwise is either unpatriotic or a fool.”

  He sat back, and Block opened his mouth and began to turn toward Mehilia Tanner. But Preston held his hand up and continued. “I think the crisis in Dearborn is just the beginning. I think that Islamic terror is a worldwide phenomenon that is about to blow the lid off anything we’ve ever seen before. We just dodged a bullet, but there are more bullets coming—lots of them. I don’t think we ought to be censuring David Ivory; I think we ought to be promoting him. I respectfully submit that the Republican leadership ought to wake up and realize just what a bold and necessary leader David Ivory is. And I suggest that he be put forward as the next Republican candidate for president of the United States.”

  Preston slammed the table with the flat of his hand. “The Republican National Convention begins tomorrow, and I intend to be there, speaking from the floor, and I encourage everyone who agrees with me to phone and email your Republican leadership and let your will be known. David Ivory was the right person, at the right time, in the right place to stop the Terror of Dearborn. He is the right person, right now, to lead this great nation.”

  “Oh my God,” Susan breathed. “I did not see that coming.”

  “I think we have our missing piece of the puzzle,” Brian said, unable to stop looking at the computer screen.

  “If he didn’t hesitate to nuke an entire American city…” Susan said, realization dawning on her slowly.

  “Just what is he going to do as commander-in-chief?” Brian finished. “You know, I talked to Nazim today, down at the Islamic Cultural Center. He can use two of us tomorrow afternoon, for grief counseling, by the way. Anyway, he said that Ivory is a rabid Islamophobe.”

  “Great…just what we need.” Susan shook her head.

  “If that man gets elected,” Brian said, “I can guarantee you that the whole Middle East is going to get bombed right back to the Stone Age.”

  “Then I guess we’d better stop it.” Susan faced him gravely.

  “Any ideas how to do that?” Brian asked.

  “Not a one,” Susan answered.

  “You know what I need right now?” Brian asked. “Frosting. Straight from the can.” He turned and walked from the room.

  Just then, Susan’s cell phone buzzed. She didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?” she asked.

  “Mrs. Mel…Mela…” a grim voice stuttered.

  “Melanchthon,” Susan corrected the voice. “This is she.”

  “This is Alta Bates Hospital. Your husband was just brought into emergency. Can you come down?”

  55

  IT WAS A PIECE OF CAKE, really. Jesse had zoomed through the parking lot of the rest stop in his pickup, and a late-model Toyota Corolla was there, all by its lonely. Tig jumped out, duffle bag over his shoulder, and tried the door. It was unlocked. He waved his baseball cap around—Jesse’s engine roared, and he took off. “Too damn easy,” Tig said to himself.

  He jumped into the driver’s seat and looked around. No keys, but he shrugged. There was easy, and there was easy. He pulled a cordless drill from the duffle bag and quickly drilled into the flap near the keyhole. In seconds, he had drilled through the lock pins, and he threw the drill back in the bag. Pulling a screwdriver from his back pocket, he jammed it into the keyhole, and the little car roared to life.

  The tires spun momentarily on the gravel, but in a second they caught. Tig peeled out of the parking lot, making for the on-ramp, fast on Jesse’s heels. He quickly got up to speed and merged onto the freeway, feeling the usual rush of adrenaline that was half the reward of boosting. The money would be nice, but this high was better than crack.

  Then he sneezed. His nostrils twitched. He looked in the rearview mirror but didn’t see anything. He sneezed again. His sinuses were swelling quickly, which could only mean one thing.

  Dog.

  He was fiercely allergic to dogs. He knew that if he didn’t get away from the dog quickly—or get the dog away from him—his eyes would soon be too swollen to drive. He looked over his shoulder, and there in the footwell of the backseat, he saw it—a yellow Lab looking up at him uncertainly, tongue hanging out of its nasty little mouth, panting.

  “Goddamned shit!” he yelled at the windshield and pulled over as quickly as he safely could. He so hated dogs. It wasn’t that they were ever mean to him or anything; it was just that they made him suffer so. He was sure that they were very nice animals—for other people. He just wanted them kept away from him. When, a few months ago, there had been the very strange dog rapture, he was secretly glad, relieved, even. Finally, his years of exile from the homes of his family and friends—all of whom kept the filthy beasts—seemed at an end. Until, of course, they had all come back—redder, furrier than before, and strangely bearing advertising for the Pfizer corporation.

  Jumping out of the car, he jerked open the passenger door. “Out, fucking mutt!” he shouted. The dog’s ears drooped. The dog stepped out onto the blacktop—one infuriating paw at a time. Once the dog was clear of the car, Tig slammed the door, jumped back into the driver’s seat, and roared off.

  Tobias watched the car go and uttered a single whine. Then he sniffed at the wind. His eyes brightened, and he began to trot along the shoulder.

  56

  IT WAS the licking that woke him. The huge pink tongue, hot and wet and rough as sandpaper, moved up over his broad, Melungeon nose again and again. “Wah,” he said and rolled to the side to avoid another slobberous assault. He sat up but instantly winced at the pain in his lower neck.

  He opened one eye. He was face to face with an enormous black jaguar, whose gold, unblinking eyes looked straight into his own. “Jaggy?” Dylan asked. The smell of that hot feline breath was unmistakable. Jaguar was his power animal, the spirit guide that had accompanied him on every shamanic journey he had ever made.

  “Come,” Jaguar spoke. “Old Leatherface has summoned you.” Jaguar turned and began to walk away from him into shadow. Dylan looked around and discovered he was in the underworld. It was a place that was familiar to him. Whenever he wanted to consult with Jaguar, this was usually the place he came to.

  It was a cave, deep underground, with a waterfall against a far wall. Between himself and the waterfall was a large outcropping of rock to his right, around which Jaguar usually appeared. It was around this wall now that Jaguar was walking…and disappearing. Dylan flinched, trying to rise. Gritting his teeth, he succeeded in getting to his feet. Stooping unnaturally and moving slowly, he followed after Jaguar.

  After what seemed to be about ten minutes of subterranean walking, Jaguar led him
out of the cave, into a field of wildflowers. Although it was brighter here than in the cave, it was dimmer than it should have been. The sun was visible, but it was a ghostly version of itself. A nearby rock, as tall as Dylan’s knees, though solid, was eerily translucent. “Middle World,” Dylan said. “Oh no, Ah’m gonna have to climb that damned tree, ain’t Ah?”

  Jaguar did not respond but just kept moving. To Dylan’s chagrin, “that damned tree” appeared about a half mile ahead. It grew larger as they grew closer, its branches ascending higher than any tree had a right to go, twisting up into mist and disappearing.

  Jaguar paused beside it. “You first,” Dylan said. Jaguar did not respond but only swished his tail patiently. Dylan had never seen Jaguar climb, and he assumed that power animals didn’t need to transport themselves by physical means no matter how metaphorical those means were.

  “You know mah whole body aches like a motherfucker?” Dylan complained.

  He heard the mildest growl from Jaguar’s direction. “All right, all right, Ah’m goin’,” Dylan said and reached for the lowest branch. He hauled himself up awkwardly and reached for the next. Every ascent caused a new stab of pain to course through him, and by the time he reached the top, he was exhausted and his body was fairly screaming with agony.

  As his head cleared the cloud cover, Arnault reached out his hand. “I’ve got you, Father Dylan. No need to worry. You shan’t fall.”

  Dylan relaxed and let Arnault pull him onto the foggy plain. Being in the Upper World always unnerved him at first. The ground seemed like it should be insubstantial, and he always feared falling half a mile to his certain death. Yet when he stood on it, the cloudy turf was solid. Sure, it had lots of give, like walking on a mattress, but it was stable.

  Arnault helped him to his feet and sized him up. “Stay here,” he said, and before Dylan could get his bearings, Arnault was gone. He didn’t see where the Frenchman with the BBC accent had gone to, but he waited dutifully. He didn’t see whence Arnault reappeared, either. He simply walked up from behind Dylan and offered him a cup of tea. “It’s a restorative,” he said. “You’ll feel better once you get something warm inside you.”

  It seemed to be just regular black tea, but he was amazed how much better he felt after he’d had a cup. “Keep that in mind, Father,” Arnault said, taking the emptied cup and saucer from him once he’d finished.

  “Uh…keep what in mind?” Dylan asked, wiping his beard with the back of his hand.

  “Tea. Good for the soul.” Arnault smiled.

  Strangely restored but still confused, Dylan thanked him and turned toward the valley where the teepees were gathered in a ring. Somehow, Jaguar was there, ahead of him, and moving with long, sleek motions over the cloudy firmament.

  Jaguar descended into the valley, and before long they were stooping to enter the largest teepee in the center of the circle. Dylan’s nose twitched at the familiar smell of sweet grass, sage, and venison. It made him feel simultaneously reverent and hungry. He started to salivate but swallowed hard.

  Inside was a circle of grandfathers and grandmothers—Native American men and women—some of them waving at him playfully, the others taking no notice but chatting convivially. On the far side of the teepee sat Old Leatherface, the Grandfather to whom he felt the greatest degree of kinship.

  He took his place next to him and waited. Old Leatherface began to hum. As the humming grew louder, the chatting and laughing subsided until a calm had descended on the circle.

  Old Leatherface started to rock back and forth but eventually opened one eye, piercing Dylan with its gaze. The rocking slowed, and the Grandfather smacked his lips. “Sleeping Bear has returned to us.”

  “Where have you been, Sleeping Bear?” one of the Grandmothers asked.

  “You neglect us,” one of the other Grandfathers said. “Not good for you.”

  Dylan felt instantly chastened. It was true—he hadn’t been on a journey since the Dane affair. He hung his head slightly and waited. He’d never been summoned by the Grandfathers before. He’d always sought them out. It didn’t occur to him that they’d be calling him to a reckoning. He tensed up.

  “Sleeping Bear fears,” Old Leatherface said into the circle of elders. “He is right to fear. But, my grandson, it is not us you need to fear. We are always on your side.”

  For some reason, the Grandfathers and Grandmothers considered this a very funny joke. Many of them laughed out loud. They all smiled.

  “But before we meet in council, let us have a smoke,” Old Leatherface said.

  “Thank God,” Dylan said. “Ah could really use a smoke about now.”

  One of the Grandmothers pulled a peace pipe from her sleeve and lit the sacred tobacco. She passed it to her left. Each of the Grandfathers and Grandmothers puffed on the pipe then held it up toward Heaven before passing it on. When it came to Dylan, he put it to his lips, anticipating the green, acrid taste of marijuana.

  Instead, his mouth filled with liquid. He spat it out. “What the fuck?” he swore. “What was that, tea?” The Grandfathers and Grandmothers laughed loud and long at this, but no one answered him. Eventually, Old Leatherface stopped chuckling and leaned over to speak to him, more or less privately. “Do not be concerned, Sleeping Bear. It is an omen. There is wisdom in this sign.”

  Suddenly, Dylan’s vision spun, and the teepee was gone. He, Jaguar, and the Grandfathers and Grandmothers were sitting in an open field. The sun was shining bright and strong—not the shadow sun of the Middle World but the true and substantial sun of the Upper World.

  In the center of their circle were two beasts linked by a chain. One was a dog, looking a lot like Tobias but much smaller, and so thin that Dylan could see his ribs through his skin. The dog’s eyes were wild with fear, and he strained against the chain to get as far away as possible from the other beast. And no wonder—the other beast was a wolf, twice as large as a wolf had any right to be. His eyes were wild, too, but with fury and madness. A shackle was attached to his leg, too, but it had obviously been fixed there when the beast was much smaller because now it cut into the leg, the meat of it raw and swollen and angry.

  “Ah Jesus,” Dylan breathed. “That wolf is gonna kill that poor puppy.”

  Old Leatherface nodded. “Yes, that is what we fear. Wolf is good but has been given too much food. Too much leads to madness. Little Dog is a good dog. Loyal. Scarred in his mind, now, but still…he can love. He can make his master happy with him. But he will not last for long.”

  “We gotta do something,” Dylan said. The wolf snapped at the terrified dog, foam drizzling from its fangs. The dog screamed and strained at the chain, scrambling to get away.

  “What to do? What to do?” Old Leatherface shrugged. “You put on the shackles. You decided how much to feed to each of them. You tell us what can be done.”

  Dylan had no idea what he meant by this. He had no memory of shackling the two animals together. And he certainly didn’t remember starving the dog or fattening up the vicious wolf. “Ah say kill the wolf,” Dylan said. “An’ do it quick!”

  Although Old Leatherface nodded approvingly, he said, “Think carefully about what you say, Sleeping Bear. What will life be like without Wolf?”

  Dylan looked at them, saw the wolf snarling and snapping at the little dog’s legs. Dylan’s heart leaped up into his throat. He spoke without thinking. “Ah don’t love the wolf. Ah love the dog.”

  “I think you do love Wolf,” Old Leatherface said. “I think you love Wolf more than Dog. That’s why you feed Wolf and starve Dog.”

  “Ah would never do that!” Dylan shouted. “Do something!”

  The wolf lunged and sank a fang into the little dog’s haunches. Blood sprayed, and the dog screamed.

  “You do something,” Old Leatherface said.

  Dylan didn’t know what to do but reacted instinctually. With more alacrity than he’d known in many years, he sprang over one of the Grandmothers and ran to the two beasts. He snatched the
little dog up in his arms and held it close to his bosom. Still not thinking, he crouched like a linebacker setting up for a play, the little dog held close in one arm, the other arm on the ground in a three-point stance. He faced the wolf and from the bowels of his being let forth the most terrifying roar he could muster. Its fury echoed off the far hills, and the wolf faltered, and retreated a step. But then its green eyes narrowed, and it began to advance on Dylan.

  “Sleeping Bear will not survive his own wolf without medicine!” Old Leatherface called. Then Jaguar stepped up and stood between Dylan and the wolf. He turned to Dylan, standing nose to nose. Then, opening his massive jaws, Jaguar ate Dylan’s head.

  57

  AFTER ABOUT AN HOUR OF WALKING, Richard began to get a cramp in his ankle. He tried not to limp. He also tried not to walk on the actual highway. The last thing he needed was to be stopped by the Highway Patrol, so he kept the highway in sight, but kept to the frontage road as much as possible.

  You could hitchhike, suggested Duunel.

  “And try to explain to someone why I’m a friar in full habit on an ill-equipped hiking tour through the Central Valley, and why we’re not calling the police?” Richard said.

  Well, when you put it like that, Duunel responded.

  A faint glow on the horizon gradually became brighter as he walked. Eventually, he saw a gas station sign, and another sign sporting a buxom young woman straight off a 1950s pinup calendar promising homemade beer sausage and Breakfast All Day.

  “Sounds like our kind of place,” Richard said.

  There are few times when we agree, my religiously misguided friend, but this is one of them, Duunel affirmed. I’m famished.

  “You mean I’m famished,” Richard corrected him.

  And you want some beer, Duunel added.

  “I would not say no to beer,” Richard agreed.