by Richard Long
He was here. But elsewhere. He had waited too long for this moment to take any further chances. He peered into the darkness, sensing everything. He felt Johnny watching him too, powerless to reveal his secret intent. His blood vow would always prevent it.
Even Paul, the Great Master, had been deceived. Remained deceived. And now he would have another chance. A slim one, admittedly, but a chance, nonetheless.
Paul would never have allowed it willingly. He had seen through that lie for untold years. But time was worth nothing, if not for planning…and Loren DeVilbiss, The Striker, The Lord of the Twelfth House…was ready to claim his due.
Strange. So strange. When Bean entered the hallway and the last feeble flickers of candlelight faded behind him, he didn’t think about how he was moving. He just did, one foot in front of the other. It wasn’t like he could see with his eyes, exactly. He simply knew where he was. Something in his gut, right below his navel, was pulling him like a leash, like it had when he was holding the Book. He walked and walked, never bumping into a wall or even brushing against one. Walking, turning, until he felt the sudden urge to stop and sit, which he accomplished with just as much mindless efficiency.
Black. So black. He’d never felt so safe before. So calm. So cruel. He held the Beretta serenely in his hand, his finger on the trigger, his back against the wall, his feet pressed against the opposite side of the narrow corridor. The gun felt good in his grip. His thoughts were nearly absent. He stared directly ahead, wondering if his eyelids were open or closed. He couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t feel them. Yet somehow he was seeing. Not the grimy floor or the cruddy wallpaper—they were as numbly nonexistent as his outstretched feet. He began to wonder if he were really here at all. Was he a ghost? A puff of smoke? Black on black? He didn’t know, but whatever he felt, whatever he was…he liked it. He liked it just as much as this new form of perception. If he could have put it into words, he might have described his altered vision as a cross between a daydream and a particularly vivid night dream. It resembled those vague mental images you get when you stare out the window, yet was combined with the crisper clarity and total immersion of an ordinary dream.
It was nice. The best of both worlds…his vision shifting from sleepy, cloudy pictures of people and places, always moving…busy, busy, busy…punctuated by sudden bursts of hyper-real (and unreal) panoramas he was witnessing from the inside, as if he were there. The pictures came and went, nothing so recognizable or compelling to distract him from the novelty of the experience. But when he thought about Martin, everything changed and he got the shock of his life. It wasn’t what he saw that jolted him so entirely. It was what he heard:
“Never alive…and never dead…” the voice whispered. The voice was Paul’s. The ear he whispered into…Martin’s. Michael saw them together, like they were standing in front of him, not in this hallway darkness. In the chapel. He knew they weren’t there now. But he didn’t know how he knew that. He was seeing Martin’s memories.
“Never alive…and never dead…” Paul repeated, his arms wrapped around Martin in an unbreakable bear hug, their hearts pressed so tightly against each other that they could feel every muffled thump.
“Never alive…and never dead…” Paul whispered again, his voice soothing as a hypnotist. “The angel knows everything…feel his tortured wings…see the hole in his heart…guide yourself there…to the absence…to the crack.…”
Martin was hugging Paul just as fiercely, his face pressed against those blister-red cheeks, staring unblinking at the angel only ten feet before him. They were standing together on top of the altar, their feet placed like sunken anchors, carefully positioned on top of the crude carvings that were almost obscured by the many layers of dried, caked-on blood.
“Never alive…and never dead…” Paul whispered more softly. “Feel our hearts beat together…slower…yes…slower and slower…”
Martin nodded, his eyes glazing over, his lids drooping, the angel smiling at him like an angry threat…his heart thumping softer, less frequently…right in time with Paul’s.
“Never alive…and never dead…” Paul seemed to say. But no air escaped his lungs. “There! The crack is opening! Can you see it? Hold me even tighter…like I showed you! Now…jump, boy…jump!”
Michael’s eyes snapped open. Or did they? He couldn’t tell. But he wasn’t in the chapel anymore, witnessing the inconceivable tableau of two men standing on an ancient altar, squeezing the last breath from each other. His eyes were traveling to the other end of the hallway. There was only one man standing there and it wasn’t Paul. Michael could see him just as clearly as he had before. Even clearer. It was Martin, and he was indeed jumping, into the darkness of the hallway. Running, no, loping directly toward him.
Like a werewolf chasing a rabbit.
Black. Everything was black again. Not that calm, soft, velvety darkness where all was well and fear was just a memory. No, this was the same blackness that had swallowed him up like Jonah’s whale only an hour earlier. He was scared shitless. The change came over him as soon as he saw Martin charge into the hallway, all his newfound bravado erased in the wake of his silent footsteps. Martin was coming for him! He was coming to kill him!
His ears pricked up for any sound. Nothing. Was he really coming? Was this all just another insane hallucination…like the burned-up closet? Was he going nuts? He couldn’t see a fucking thing! But that’s why he came in here, wasn’t it? So no one could see him either. Yeah, that’s right. That fuckhead would probably trip over his legs. Then he could shoot him! Wait, what was that? Muffled movement. Where was it coming from? He couldn’t tell! Was Martin in front of him? Behind him? In the other hallway? He wondered how many bullets were in his gun. He hoped he had enough. Because if he heard even one more sound anywhere near him he was going to start firing.
Then he heard it. Whoooosh. It seemed like it was almost on top of him.
He clenched his jaw and squeezed the trigger. The trigger wouldn’t squeeze. Fuckity fuck! The safety was on! But Michael Bean, who knew as much about firearms as he did about cold-blooded murder, didn’t have a clue where to look for it. And even if he did, it wouldn’t have mattered.
Because it was too fucking dark!
“You’re it!” Martin wanted to yell as he smacked Michael’s head on his whooshing way past. He leapt over him like a sleek panther, his eyes dilated to their maximum aperture, enough to see Michael’s comically horrified face while he fumbled to find the safety.
What an idiot, he thought, galloping silently away. When Martin leapt over him, slapping his head on the way, Michael gasped with relief. Then he heard more footsteps shuffling from the other end of the hall. Fuck! Who was it this time? As soon as he asked himself the question, his visionary ability momentarily returned and he saw the answer. It was The Striker. He was coming for him too!
WhatamIgunnado? screamed his fear-clogged brain. If he ran toward Martin, he was sure to deliver more than a playful punch next time. But he couldn’t wait here either. The Striker’s nearly silent feet were creeping closer. Could he shoot him? Could he…kill him? “Yes,” said a creepy whisper in the back of his mind. “You can and you will.”
Michael fumbled for the safety again and felt a tab of metal above his thumb. He flipped the tab, pointed the pistol, closed his eyes…and squeezed. Bang! Bang! Bang!
Yes! It worked! He wanted to scream with joy. But it wasn’t time to celebrate yet. The shots were so loud he couldn’t tell if the footsteps were still approaching. He listened. Nothing. Maybe I got him.
No such luck. Martin was standing in front of the chapel when he heard Bean’s shots. He didn’t hear the sound of any impact. Better yet, he didn’t feel any. “Wow,” he whispered, peering into the candlelit room. Everything he remembered was true. It was exactly like he pictured it…the altar…the angel. The only thing missing was the two of them standing on top of that blood-soaked wood, caught in that suffocating embrace…squeezing and squeezing until…No. He cou
ldn’t think about that now. He looked down the nightmare-black hallway and raised his pistol. He didn’t want to kill the kid. Just clip him. The rest could wait until Paul followed him in here. Until Paul could watch him die.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
“Ow!” Michael yelled as a bullet tore through his shirt and bit off a slice of his armpit. “SHEEEEIT!” he screamed as the pain increased with every step, the idea never occurring to him that making more noise might not be in his best interests.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Thud. Thud. Thud.
Was he hit again? No. The next three slugs from Martin’s pistol slammed into the plasterboard behind him. He stopped running and started listening. Everything was quiet.
What should he do? The Striker was behind him. Was he shot? Silently waiting? And in the other direction, toward the chapel, Martin was waiting too.
He felt another wave of panic. Then he was seeing again. As soon as he pictured Martin waiting for him in front of the chapel, he saw him there. Awesome! Every muscle in Michael’s body relaxed. Even the bullet wound didn’t hurt so much.
His feet started moving. He saw flickers of candlelight painting the hallway up ahead. And with the cool-headed courage only the doomed can feel, he recognized that if his time had truly come, then he was going to do his very best to take Martin with him.
It’s time to go back there, he decided.
Back to the room with the angel.
When Paul was on his way out the door last night, I asked him one last question: “What’s the story with the crucified angel?”
“Now you’re on the right track!” he yelled, clapping loudly. Then he left.
What a prick. I was so exhausted at that point that I flopped down on the couch. I closed my eyes for a second, trying to peer inside the chapel, hoping if I gazed upon the angel one more time, I would see all his secrets. I didn’t see shit. I thought about getting up to look at the tarot cards, something I felt more excited about than a kid waiting for Christmas before I hit the sofa, but I couldn’t get up.
Ten hours later, I opened my eyes again, waking from the strangest dreams I’ve ever had. They were all about Paul’s tarot and the story it told, which I completely understood while I was dreaming. I immediately wrote down as much as I could remember in my dream journal. But even though I scribbled as fast as I could, my insights faded with each second, until I got so frustrated that I quit and went over to the table to look at the cards, hoping I’d be able to recapture my lost treasures.
Last night, Paul had left the deck in a nice, neat stack on top of my cards. They weren’t in a stack anymore. They were laid out on the table in the same pattern Paul had arranged my own cards—which were gone. My first reaction was rage. I hadn’t touched the new cards, even looked at them! Yet there they were, in all their glory. I was certain Paul had snuck back into my apartment after I fell asleep so he could scare the shit out of me with the tarot switch. I was equally sure he had invaded my mind so he could fuck with my dreams. But as I bent over the table and gazed at those amazing cards, I knew it Paul hadn’t done it.
How was this possible? How did I get from the point of seriously doubting Paul’s sanity to even more seriously questioning my own? A sleepwalking tarot card reader? What’s next—multiple personalities?
I sat at the table, trying to calm down, fully intending to gather up the cards and confront Paul with my latest out of mind/body experience. The cards had other plans.
He was right—they were mesmerizing. Every picture was like an open doorway, inviting me inside. A couple of times I could have sworn I saw the images moving in my peripheral vision, like they were peeking at me and as soon as they saw I wasn’t looking directly at them, they began whispering about me.
When my eyes landed on the card called The Saint (formerly The Hanged Man), I saw a flash from my dream vision about the crucified angel. Every tarot deck I’ve seen depicts The Hanged Man upside down, hung by his foot. Paul’s Saint is crucified. Lots of nails. Everywhere. A halo too, but no wings. So The Saint (any relation to Johnny?) isn’t an angel. But what did the crucifixion signify? A sacrifice? Or persecution?
I thought the surrounding cards might offer an explanation, but they only deepened the mystery—and wonder. An androgynous Judge (Justice) precedes The Saint. She/He is sitting on a throne, holding scales in one hand—and the Emerald Tablet in the other. That blew me away. The others are just as strange and wonderful. Death is called the Turning. I know I’ve heard that before. Paul? The Striker? Anyway, it shows an angel ascending into the heavens, carrying the bloody Saint. Then comes The Alchemist (Temperance) with the angel and the Saint superimposed in Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man pose, standing on an altar with the four elementals. The next card is called Triumph, with a very godlike male figure seated on a throne. Two angels kneel on one side, a man and woman kneel on the other.
This card frightens and confuses me more than any other. First of all, it has a subtitle, The Lord of Two Realms, which appears to be painted over. Secondly, it looks a fuck of a lot like Paul. Since this card is called The Devil in other decks, what is this supposed to mean? The Devil triumphs as Lord of Heaven and Earth? Are we talking Anti-Christ here? When Paul shouted, “The Devil is jealous of me!” did he mean it…literally?
I got up and splashed some water on my face. I felt slightly less crazy and panicked, but I didn’t want to look at those cards anymore. They called me back anyway. Maybe it was The Angel beckoning—that’s the new name of the Judgment card. The four cards preceding it are some of the few cards in the deck that aren’t renamed—The Tower, The Star, The Moon and The Sun. Then…The Angel.
It is absolutely stunning, by far the most masterfully painted card. The Angel is semi-androgynous, but masculine, like The Hero and The Herald. He is posed with his arms stretched out and feet together, like The Saint on his cross. Unlike that bloody mess, The Angel glows with golden light, free and floating in the clouds, smiling beatifically. His giant white wings reach upward, the tips almost touching above his golden hair. It is so incredibly beautiful. It should be in a museum, not on my crappy table in my crappy apartment.
Speaking of which, I need to get out of here and over to the chapel to see what Paul has waiting for me. As much as I’m semi-looking forward to another of Paul’s theological discourses, I just want to know more about the angel. More later.
Well, I’m back—more or less in one piece. I keep trying to convince myself that what I saw and heard and felt in the chapel could not have happened. I’ve tried every explanation I can think of—that I was hypnotized the whole time, that Paul is simply a master illusionist. Unfortunately, even if his conjuring abilities exceed David Copperfield’s, and my sensations of sight and touch can be manipulated to such an extreme extent, there is no way to account for the sheer pain I felt. Like everything else, it had to be real. I am the sorcerer’s apprentice. But my Master isn’t Merlin in a purple robe…it’s who the fuck knows who, in a filthy, long, black overcoat.
I better start at the beginning.
On my way over to the chapel, I stopped to see The Striker. I wanted to know what, if anything, he was willing to tell me about the angel. Like Paul, all his replies were cryptic or insulting, until I changed direction and asked, “Who is Johnny the Saint?”
The Striker’s eyes lit up like someone struck a match inside them. “Johnny the Saint is the most dangerous man in the world,” he said, sounding both respectful and contemptuous.
“To who?” I asked, completely taken aback by his response.
“To all of us. Especially to you and your line. To the Kellys.”
“What about you? Aren’t you part a part of the clan?”
“Not by blood. Viking stock. Druid High Priest,” he replied, as if compelled to answer, but with no more information than necessary—name, rank, serial number.
Druid High Priest. Here we go again. Still, it opened an opportunity I wasn’t going to waste. “So, do you know…”
“M
ore than you ever will, at the rate you’re progressing,” he said, cutting me off from asking whether he knew the secret druid lore, if it was really written in Paul’s Book, and what I was most curious about—whether he had mastered the druids’ alleged prowess in sorcery.
“Tell me more about Johnny,” I said, bobbing and weaving. He said nothing, so I pressed ahead, “Does he have something to do with the angel?”
“Oh, my! It thinks!” The Striker gasped, covering his mouth with bony fingers. I’d had enough of his crap. I didn’t even bother with a follow-up, just put on my coat and headed for the door. As my fingers touched the doorknob, he gave me a parting shot.
“If you want answers, consider the source.”
“I intend to. I’m going over there now.”
“Not Paul. If you have questions about the angel…ask him.”
“Ask the angel?” I replied, not sure I heard him correctly.
The Striker laughed in that deep voice. “Isn’t that what all your grimoires are for?”
I walked out, shaking my head. Was he seriously suggesting that I invoke an angel? Without even knowing “who” the angel was? Apparently. But that was impossible. I had never even attempted to conjure a spirit. I sure wasn’t going to break my cherry in that creepy chapel, calling forth whoever or whatever happened to be floating between those piss-soaked walls. Most of the grimoires I’ve read use the same basic recipe for invocation: create a protective magic circle (carved into the floor using a consecrated ritual sword, which I didn’t have); wear a protective amulet (which I didn’t have); carve a lot of magical symbols in the circle and then recite all the invocation phrases from memory (which I could do, but without the other stuff it didn’t make a difference).
Suddenly, I had a one-word flash of inspiration. Prayer. I could pray to the angel and see what happened. It was a chapel, right? What do you do in chapels? Pray. Mother was never a churchgoer, so I didn’t have any templates to work with, but I figured whatever success I might have would come from a combination of desire, heartfelt sincerity and of course, my big, fat gift. Maybe it was finally going to provide me with something other than an effective eavesdropping device.