by J. R. Mabry
“Toby?” he called, his voice cracking in disbelief. The dog sprang on him, licking his entire face in great, slurping swaths of foam, spittle, and blood. Richard fell to the floor and hugged at the dog with both hands, bursting into relieved sobs at the sight of a friend.
As happy as Tobias seemed, he was also insistent. Greetings accomplished, the dog backed up and nosed something toward Richard in the dust. He sat up and snatched at whatever it was the dog was pushing at with his snout.
Keys.
Richard’s eyes widened, and he clutched at Tobias’s great red mane again, whispering, “Thank you, my friend.” With shaking hands, Richard found the small key that fit the padlock on the iron shackle. It turned easily. Richard exhaled with extreme relief as the pressure around his swollen ankle was released and cool, healing air bathed the sopping wound.
Tobias sprang back toward the gap he had entered through, barking for Richard to follow. Richard started in that direction but reversed course, heading to the workbench where he snatched up his phone and wallet. He paused for just a moment, and his heart fell as he saw that his phone had been smashed. Go! Go! said the voice in his head. He turned and ran for the gap. “Go, Toby, I’m right behind you.”
You’ll never make it, Duunel said. The gaping jaws of the corpse grooms seemed poised for a scream of warning. The eyeless orbs of the reverend gazed on him with what could only be hopeless pity.
Richard forced himself to look away, and he consciously ignored the demon. Falling on his face, he wormed his way under the boards, scrabbling at the dirt until he was free in the blinding sun.
About five yards away was Sarah’s Geo. Scrambling to his feet, Richard lunged for it, at the same time fumbling for the car key that would start it. The door, as he suspected in a rural area like this, was unlocked, and Toby leaped in as soon as he’d pulled it open. He jumped in after and had to make several attempts to fit the key into the ignition, his hands were shaking so.
The little engine roared to life, and Richard put the automatic into gear and gunned the engine. As he came around the corner of the barn, into full sight of the house, he slammed on the brakes. There, in the middle of the road, was Gabe, holding a shovel.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Richard breathed.
Run him over, the demon said.
“Too late. I stopped.” Richard cursed himself. Stopping was natural, after all. Every driving instinct he had was conditioned against running down pedestrians.
Do exactly as I say, Duunel commanded. Get out of the car and lean against the door. Be cool.
Richard was too panicked to have any ideas of his own. He obeyed. He unlatched the door and put one foot on the ground. He leaned against the open door frame.
Say, ‘Hey, Gabe’, Duunel ordered.
“Hey, Gabe,” Richard said.
Smile, Duunel said.
Richard smiled.
“Whatcha doin’ with my new dog, Reverend?” Gabe pointed at Tobias.
His lip is hurt real bad, Duunel said.
“His lip is hurt real bad,” Richard said, cluing in to what Duunel was up to.
Sarah asked me to take him to the vet, Duunel prompted.
“Sarah asked me to take him to the vet,” Richard parroted.
“I know the vet!” Gabe said. “His name is Doctor Duck. It’s funny ’cause he’s a animal doctor, and his name is Duck.”
“Yeah, that’s a riot,” Richard agreed.
Don’t ruin it with sarcasm, you idiot, Duunel warned. You’ve got him in your pocket. Now just get him out of your way.
“Hey, Gabe, you wanna go with me? After all, you know Doctor Duck and I don’t.”
“Yeah!” Gabe threw his shovel down and started to move toward the car. “I like Doctor Duck. A lot!”
“Great!” Richard said. He waved toward the other side of the car. “Hop in, and let’s go.”
Richard got back in the driver’s seat. As soon as Gabe approached the passenger’s side door, Richard pressed the accelerator to the floor and shot out of the drive in a pluming spray of dust and gravel.
72
AS THEY GOT BACK in the car, Susan took shotgun. She sagged in her seat like a rag doll. Brian patted her knee. “Me, too, sister.” She didn’t have the energy to look behind her.
“Mikael, how are you doing?” she moaned.
Mikael didn’t answer, so she mustered the energy to look over her shoulder. He looked like a dead spider, crumpled up in the backseat. He appeared to be already asleep. She turned back to face the front as Brian wheeled them about toward the freeway on-ramp.
“Did you hear the rumors?” Susan asked.
“About the concentration camps?” Brian said but then quickly added, “Oh, I’m sorry, you mean of course the refugee centers.”
“Right.”
“Only over and over and over again.”
“Didn’t that creep you out?” she asked.
“And made me so angry I couldn’t see straight,” he said. “Do you think that’s real?”
She looked over at him but couldn’t read anything except a driver’s concentration. “Don’t you?” she asked.
“I can’t let myself believe it.”
“That’s how the Germans got through the Second World War, you know.”
He nodded, and she saw his jaw tighten.
“I like Nazim,” she said, deliberately choosing a lighter subject.
“I knew you would,” Brian said. “We used to date, before I met Terry.”
“I suspected as much,” Susan smiled. “You have a…well, there’s an energy between you.”
“Yeah,” Brian agreed. His smile was wistful and a little sad. “There’s still a little bit of the old flame burning.”
“Does Terry know?” she asked.
Brian shrugged. “It’s never come up.”
Susan nodded. “I know how that is. I sometimes wonder…” but she didn’t finish the sentence.
“What?”
She shook her head. “Can you do me a huge favor?”
“Okay,” he agreed.
“Can you swing by the house of that guy that I’m…well, trying to exorcise? It’s time for his daily dose of whup-ass.”
“Will that take long?”
“Five minutes,” she promised.
“Really?” he looked at her with one eyebrow raised.
“Yeah. It’s short,” she said. “But if Luther’s method is going to have any chance of working, it’s got to be regular.”
“You got it,” he said, veering toward the Fifty-First Street off-ramp.
“Kat usually comes with me,” Susan said, “but better to go without her than to miss a day.”
Brian nodded. They traversed Berkeley in tired silence. A low but audible snore rose from the backseat. Susan felt the pressure of affection welling up in her for Mikael when she heard it, and she watched the cars and trees as they passed them with a detached interest.
She directed Brian to the house, and he quickly found a place to park a few houses away. “No need to get out, Honey,” she said, opening the car door.
“You mean, ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m just going to face this demon by myself—be back in a minute’?” Brian reared back, giving her a withering eye. “Nothing doing. Sleeping Beauty here can guard the car, but I’m coming with you.”
They heard a snort from behind them, and Mikael sat up. “Huh?” he said groggily.
“Thank you,” Susan said, touching Brian’s arm. “I know you’re tired.”
“Let’s kick some demon ass.”
“There’s not much to it,” she assured him.
“Good,” he said. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Where are we?” asked Mikael.
“Mornin’, beautiful. We’re gonna do a quick exorcism,” Brian said, looking at Mikael in the rearview mirror.
“I’m in,” he said.
Together they walked to the house, and Susan knocked on the door. No one came. She knocked aga
in, as Brian, hands behind his back, faced the street and waited patiently. Mikael rubbed at his eyes.
“Not home?” Brian asked.
“He’s been home every day,” she said, knocking a third time. “He knows I’m coming.”
“Uh…Susan?” Brian said hesitantly.
“What?” she asked.
“Look,” he said. She turned and followed the line of his finger. Small dark spots splashed the walkway up to the house.
Her brow furrowed as she walked over to the nearest splashes. She knelt down and examined them. “They’re almost black.”
Brian and Mikael joined her on their hands and knees. Brian spat on the sidewalk, and rubbed at one of the spots, resulting in a deep ochre smear.
“I think that’s dried blood,” he said.
73
WHEN DYLAN WOKE, his neck was throbbing. He downed another couple of pain pills from Susan’s bottle and haltingly made his way downstairs. As he passed the chapel, he saw Kat sitting still, either in prayer or meditation. Respectfully, he tiptoed through and headed for the kitchen.
As he had hoped, a pot of coffee was still on the burner. It was, he realized, probably left over from breakfast. He swirled it around and gave it a sniff. Its viscosity was undeniable, its odor rank. He bobbed his head from side to side, equivocating—but he stopped such motions when his neck complained. “It’ll do,” he announced to no one in particular.
He reached for a mug and poured out the thick black sludge, topping it off with generous quantities of milk and sugar. He took a deep, satisfying quaff, savoring the rich beany stink of it, the acrid bite, the warm slimy coating moving down his throat. “Ain’t nuthin’ like coffee,” he praised. He raised the cup for a second draft, then paused, wavering. With his other hand, he clutched at his gut, gasped, and fell over twitching.
74
THE HAND ASCENDED, so quickly that Kat lost balance and clung to the meat of the giant thumb for dear life. Panicked, she crawled toward the center of the palm for safety. Within moments, however, the ascent slowed and stopped. The hand brought itself level with a grassy field.
Cautiously, Kat stepped off onto the springy turf. She involuntarily grinned. The sun was bright, and a pleasant, fragrant breeze tugged at her hair. Wildflowers grew in patchy bursts of color over verdant, rolling hills. A copse of gnarled trees stood just ahead and to the left, but even these, rugged as they were, exploded in bright violet bloom.
For a timeless moment, Kat simply whirled in place, enchanted. She was sure that she’d seen places more beautiful sometime in her life, but she could not for the life of her remember when. She had no idea which direction to head, so she just headed in.
There was a spring chill in the air, a bit cooler than Berkeley’s mild summers. Breathing in, Kat’s nose tickled with the mingled scents of lilac, lavender, and rose, or something very like them.
Small animals scattered as she approached. Rabbits, she was sure, and birds, of course. It made her heart glad to see them. As she rounded the crest of a hill, she saw a deer in the distance pause with a mouthful of leaf. Then it turned away and resumed its meal.
After a while, she had to open the double breast of the cassock to let some air in. Her breathing was harder, and she realized she was more out of shape than she liked to think.
In her Wiccan training, she had been very good at visualization, but it was nothing like this. There was nothing imaginary about this. The grass beneath her feet was as real as any on Earth, and the sun shone with a brightness and clarity that rivaled any sunny day she could remember. Her body ached, too, as she walked. If she tripped on a rock, her feet hurt. “This is as real as Hell,” she said out loud to herself.
After more than an hour of walking, she began looking around for a place to rest. One of the gnarled trees hovered above a smooth, grassy hill. She sat and stretched out her legs.
“Assalamu ’alaykum,” said a voice.
Kat whirled her head about and saw a swarthy man about two yards away from her, leaning on a walking stick. He looked like he was about ten years older than her and was dressed like an extra in a performance of The Arabian Nights she’d seen at the Berkeley Rep.
Swallowing her surprise, Kat jumped to her feet and extended her hand. “I’m Kat,” she said.
The man retreated, either offended or frightened by her gesture. She withdrew her hand and put it awkwardly behind her back. “Um…I’m still Kat,” she informed him. Then it occurred to her that maybe the man didn’t speak English. Well, duh, she said to herself. He probably speaks Arabic. The problem was, she didn’t know any Arabic. If only Brian were here, she thought.
Realizing she was acting like something out of a cowboy and Indians movie, she put her hand on her chest and said, “Me Kat.”
The man scowled at her uncertainly and took another step back.
Okay, striking out, here, she said to herself. “Can you take me to Prester John?” she asked.
“Prest…” the man repeated, puzzled. Then his eyes lit up. “Khan Jahn?”
She nodded, uncertain about that last phrase. But he clearly understood the name. A smile broke out over his face, and he nodded vigorously, gesturing with wild, looping movements that she didn’t understand.
Continuing the circular arm motions, he turned and headed off in a straight line over the next hill.
“We’re off to see the fucking wizard.” Kat pursed her lips. Then she followed him.
The man didn’t try to talk to her after that. He just walked. Every now and then he’d turn to make sure she was following. Then he’d smile and pick up the pace a bit. Kat thought her legs were tired before. But she still didn’t mind. The countryside continued to be relentlessly beautiful.
As they passed through a copse of trees, she caught her first sight of buildings. As they drew nearer, she saw what appeared to be a medieval-style fortress built of sandy yellow stones. They were irregular and rough-hewn. The building was huge and at the same time squat and rambling.
As they approached a lovely carved archway, another man in Arabic dress stood solemnly by, holding a spear. He wasn’t standing at attention, nor was he stiff like the guards outside Buckingham Palace. He was relaxed, but alert. As they approached, he shifted his spear from one hand to another and leaned against a pillar, watching.
Her guide began gesturing wildly again and speaking what sounded like Arabic. The man looked over her guide, for he was much taller, and gazed up and down. Kat had the distinct impression she was being checked out. She resisted the urge to glare. She heard the guide say the word “khan,” and the guard perked up. He nodded and waved the guide on.
The guide turned and bowed low to her with a bright smile. Then he walked past her, back to the road where they had come from. She realized he had gone out of his way to bring her here. Her heart filled with gratitude. The guard waved her toward him, and she followed.
This guy, too, had a dark complexion. Not black but definitely well tanned, she thought. His steps were confident, his strides long. Once again, Kat struggled to keep up. “No one walks slow here,” she noted out loud. “Okay, got it.”
The inside of the keep was made of the same rough yellow stone. A tall ceiling arched over a long hallway. Near the center of the walkway the stone was shiny and well worn. At the edges, where the stone floor met the crafted rock wall, it was dusty and dull.
They passed many dark wooden doors on either side, but the hallway was reasonably well lit from light pouring through long but narrow windows. She could see by looking out the windows that the walls were several feet thick, and also that they were not very far off the ground—in fact, the ground was too close. The hallway, she realized, must be cut into the ground, which made sense, as the rock and the surrounding air seemed unusually cool.
Soon they reached the end of the hall, which came to a dead end at a giant, bright aquamarine door. The guard held up his palm, which Kat took to be the universal symbol for “stay here” as he opened the door. She sta
yed.
A couple of moments later the great door swung inward, and the guard gestured to her again, this time to enter. Crossing the threshold, she discovered herself in a small antechamber, which seemed to be a waiting room. From a shadow, a short man, about Terry’s height appeared.
“Are you Prester John?” Kat asked.
The man’s dark eyes sparkled and he laughed. “No. I am his court magickian. I think you know something of this, yes?” He gave her a knowing look.
“Something of that…like that…” she agreed warily.
“I will bring you to the khan,” he said. “But first some protocol—”
“How do you know English?” Kat asked, still wary.
“We have a lot of time here.” The man’s smile was large but not necessarily sincere. “Languages are a worthy pastime. And it’s not as if your language is hard.”
Kat had heard otherwise from non-native speakers, but she kept her peace.
“So, if you please, do not speak until the khan has spoken to you. When you enter his presence, you must curtsy.”
“You must be joking,” Kat said.
“Do ladies in your realm not show deference to their betters?” The man was curious.
“We have no betters,” Kat said, trying to control her temper.
“Then you have no manners,” he smiled again, but the mirth had gone from it.
“I think you’re rude,” she said.
“The feeling is entirely mutual,” the man said. “Please come with me. Providing you promise to curtsy.”
“Oh all right. I’ll probably trip.”
The man nodded and opened the door at the rear of the small chamber. Following him inside, Kat discovered a cheery blaze in a fireplace that was nearly as large as the room she and Mikael shared at the friary.
Staring into the fire was a giant of a man. He, too, was dark, but his eyes looked almost Asian, as if only one of his parents had been Asian, like Terry. His straight, stiff black hair was tinged with gray, and his cheeks bore more than one scar. His clothes, too, were Asian—a long golden robe hung to his feet, adorned with geometric designs embroidered in metallic green and purple threads.