by Richard Long
Paul was rising from behind the altar.
“I’d rather discipline Billy meself, if you don’t mind. And I have to say, that potion of yours sure packs a whollop! Too bad you don’t have a few more shots left. I’m beginning to like it better than Bushmills!”
Martin wheeled around in a blur. Blam! Blam! Blam! Paul ducked below the altar with unearthly speed the instant Martin fired, like a reverse jack-in-the-box. Then he popped up again just as quickly. Blam! Blam! And down. Blam! And up and down and up and down until the final sound from Martin’s gun was a ghastly, echoing click.
“That wasn’t very nice of you,” Paul said, waving his finger, not the least bit fatigued from his lightning-fast gymnastics. “I’ll be expecting a bit more respect from you, now that you know I’m your ever-lovin’ da.”
PFFFFT! PFFFFT! PFFFFT! Martin hurled his throwing knives in quick succession. Paul caught one in each hand. The third one hit its mark, burying itself to the hilt directly below his clavicle, barely an inch above his left lung. Paul stared at the haft and at Martin. Then he flung back the knives in his bloody hands, followed by the one in his chest, even faster than he caught them. Martin somersaulted toward the altar and the knives whooshed past him, sticking in the wall behind him one after the next, vibrating like tuning forks. He huddled behind the altar next to the books, loading a fresh clip as fast as he could, then leapt on top of the altar, ready to make his final stand.
Funny thing what happened next. Paul was making the very same leap at the very same time. He grabbed Martin in a choking bear hug so brutal that his pistol fell from his grip, dropping harmlessly behind the altar.
Martin wheezed as all the breath was squeezed out of him. Rose fumbled for the Beretta, but even she had to pause in her loyal defense as Paul rolled his eyes backward and began chanting in the deepest, eeriest voice she had ever heard:
“Never alive…and never dead. Never alive…and never dead!”
It had been a bad day. A bad two days. Now it was getting worse. Rose pointed the Beretta squarely at Paul’s broad back. But she couldn’t pull the trigger. Something was stopping her. She tried to speak, to call out to Martin, to scream with all her might, but as the word left her mouth it seemed to crystallize in the air. “Maaaaaaarrrr…”
Why was everything moving so slowly? Her feet were glued to the floor. Her finger couldn’t squeeze the trigger. And now her eyes were slowing too, locked on the blackness of Paul’s shirt, unable to move, to turn even a fraction of an inch toward Martin’s face, his chin nestled in the crook between Paul’s neck and shoulder. What was happening? She thought I shot her with the tetrodoxin, but it wasn’t anything like that. I was in the same boat as her, staring at the altar in wonder, not blinking, not moving, not able. Wisps of smoke from Martin’s gunshots hung motionless in the air, like gray cotton candy clouds suspended by wires from the ceiling.
“Never alive…and never dead…” Paul chanted again, still moving, though barely. Martin was moving too, immune like Paul to this new source of gravity. He hugged Paul back just as hard, his breath and heartbeat slowing with each crunching squeeeeeeze.
If Rose were able to move, her expression would have changed from bafflement to horror as the sound came out of Martin’s throat from a place as deep and hollow and ghastly as Paul’s: “Never alive…and never dead…”
Rose wondered how her mind could still be working but not her body. She felt like she was in one of those nightmares that keep getting worse, the ones you can’t wake up from even though your heart is racing so fast it feels like its going to explode with your very next breath. And what made her horror even more extreme, what made it absolute, was the sound coming from somewhere behind the altar. From the angel? No. From the man she thought was her friend, but was in truth, her mortal enemy.
“Never alive…and never dead…” The Striker droned, over and over.
Johnny the Saint sat in his cramped cell and watched the ceiling and walls disappear. He spoke the ancient phrase and flung his body to the floor, in the same pose as Loren, but in the opposite direction. He lifted his hands to the blue sky, not the gray stone ceiling above him and joined the choir. “Never alive…and never dead…”
Loren tried to resist. Johnny shouted his command again. This time Loren obeyed.
“Never alive…and never dead…” they chanted as one.
Only a handful of souls had been able to accomplish this task unassisted. Johnny was one of them. Loren was another. But now they toiled together, bound forever by their vow. No, not forever. For life. When the crack opened and they jumped inside, no one was there to greet them. Good. Just in time.
Johnny groaned in agony as the Great Wheel turned, grinding his head and bones and body into dust. Loren groaned in pleasure. Together they moved through the swirling mass with all the silent souls…all the angels…always dying, always being born. Together they moved…one person, one being, one mind…to the Axis.
Martin remembered everything. He knew where they were going and what he could do there and how much it mattered. He remembered the rest of the stories. Not only Paul’s…but Kathy’s too. He remembered that he was the only one who knew both sides of the tale. He remembered what he could gain with that knowledge.
His eyes opened wider. Not his remaining eye. He was whole again, seeing first with both eyes, then with none…seeing with his entirety, his luminous self.
He saw it coming. The light. The darkness. It was so beautiful. They were past the portal, moving inside…to the place where they had always been…always here, always near, always just beyond reach, beyond sight and sound and breath. Beyond death. Beyond life.
He remembered what would happen next. He welcomed the transformation. His heart wept with joy, and he smiled. It was a real smile this time, unencumbered by all the memories that seemed so trivial in the glory surrounding him. None of that mattered anymore, not the pain, or the sadness, or the fear, or the lost hopes and dreams.
Nothing mattered. Nothing ever mattered. Except this.
When Paul yelled, “Jump!” he jumped gladly…off the widest, deepest cliff from which any human could leap. He never landed. There was no other side. And when he exploded into his once and future essence, he smiled again with a shudder of gratitude.
He was home. Home at last. In the grinding, churning heart of the Maelstrom.
Rose was starting to move. Like a freeze frame in a movie theater flickering back to life, cranked slowly forward by the projectionist’s rotating grip, she was moving again…her lips closing, ending the scream she seemed to have released hours ago.
“Maaaaaarrr…” became “Martin!” She was also squeezing the trigger again, aimed at Paul’s back. Paul and Martin were motionless, as she had been only seconds earlier. Their crushing embrace looked almost tender in its stillness, like a sculpture of a father-and-son reunion, meeting in the airport after a four-year tour of duty in some faraway war zone. The image flashed in her mind for only a fraction of a second. She knew she would never have an opportunity like this again, with Paul so utterly defenseless.
“If you shoot him now, Martin will die,” The Striker rasped loudly.
She turned around, gasping for breath. Good. He was still nailed to the floor.
“Lower the pistol,” he whispered, minimizing the movement of his windpipe. Each utterance was slicing him deeper with the sickle blade.
“Fuck you!” Rose shouted, out of her mind with fear. She didn’t know where to look, where to point her gun, where to fire. I was still frozen. So were Paul and Martin. Rose stared at them. Oh, God! Martin’s gouged out eye was back again, like nothing ever happened! What was going on here? This was so insane! She shook her head to clear it, pointing the pistol at Paul again. At his head.
“If you shoot him, Martin will die,” The Striker repeated, clearly exasperated at the effort she was forcing him to make.
“Why should I listen to you? Why should I trust anything you say?”
“Because yo
ur father is making me tell you this,” he said, the blade carving his neck wider with each syllable. “For some reason he cares about you…and Martin.”
“My father is making you?” she asked hysterically, the gun shaking in her grip.
“Yes. This is his will, and I must obey,” The Striker said with a barely perceptible nod. “While he holds the Wheel, I am required to assist you, but he must hear me as well. That’s the price he has to pay for the use of this mouthpiece, for there’s something I want to share with you too. I think it will help us pass the time more enjoyably, while we’re waiting for those two…to finish.”
“Finish what?” Rose shouted, her face darting up to the figures on the altar, locked in their terrible embrace. “What are they doing up there?”
“That is not what I wish to discuss. I want to talk about Kathy.”
“Kathy? My mother?” Rose shouted, completely baffled.
“Yessssss,” he whispered, his voice gurgling now.
Rose couldn’t speak. She was barely able to stand.
“Sit down,” The Striker said soothingly. “I wouldn’t want you to injure anyone with that pistol. Especially me.”
Rose slumped at his feet, the conjoined shadow of Paul and Martin casting a pall over her face.
“There, that’s better,” The Striker sighed, indifferent to any pain the sickle was causing him. “You’ve been under the impression that your father killed her, yes?” When Rose shook her head, he seemed saddened by the news, then brightened up again. “Well, goody for you. That will save me a few nicks from this razor. Did he, by any chance, reveal the actual perpetrator of that horrendous crime?”
Rose shook her head again.
“Care to venture a guess?” The Striker asked, a sneer curving his lips.
Rose suddenly became more animated. So was her pistol. She pressed it above the bolt in his temple, shouting, “If he knew you killed her, why didn’t he tell me?”
“He knew you’d attempt to exact your revenge, just as you’re contemplating now. And then, sweet darling, all your father’s carefully laid plans would lie in ruins.”
“Plans?” she cried, unaware she was already squeezing the trigger. “What plans?”
“Lower the gun,” he warned her, “or you’ll destroy everything you’ve ever loved in this world.” Her arm collapsed into her lap like a strand of linguini.
“Good,” The Striker croaked. “We don’t have enough time to fill in all those horrid blanks from your childhood…poor Johnny would be drowned in the tide he’s holding back. And as much as that would delight me, my vow prevents me from abetting that outcome.”
“Your vow?” Rose asked, unsure what to do with her shaking hands.
“Your father and I have an arrangement. He doesn’t prevent me from fulfilling certain goals I have, and I assist when his only child is in mortal danger. A much more difficult task, I admit, since you were foolish enough to surrender the key. My key.”
Rose clutched her naked neck. “You’re lying! Why would he make a deal with you after you killed my mom?”
“Because she isn’t dead,” The Striker said, gasping with delight. “Not all the way.”
“What are you saying?” Rose cried, completely frantic.
“She’s in heeeeeeere…” The Striker hissed. “Inside meeeeeeee.”
Rose almost puked. The Striker giggled as her breaths came in short, lurching gasps, the bile rising into her throat, her stomach lurching with horror. “Yesssssss…that’s good,” he wheezed. “Feel my hate! Choke on it! Like I choked on Kathy’s soul when I ate it!”
“You crazy fucking shithead!” Rose spat, pointing the pistol at his face.
“Oh my, such an ill-mannered young lady! I must say that your mother is appalled, simply appalled at your use of such foul language in her presence.”
“Her presence…” Rose echoed, her skin crawling with goose bumps.
“Yesssssss…she’s watching right now, listening to every word we share, but alas, not from some lofty perch in heaven, nestled on a soft pink cloud. She’s watching through these stapled eyes, listening with these ears. Come a little closer, dear. Maybe you can hear her too. I’d be surprised if you couldn’t…considering how loudly she’s screaming.”
Rose crept closer and pushed the sickle farther into his throat.
“No? Don’t even want to try?” The Striker spat, delirious with pleasure in spite of the blade chewing at his neck. “Tsk. What a pity. It would be like a family reunion! Johnny could tell you himself why he never avenged poor mummy. Because he’s still trying to save her! He protects me for the same reason you shall, in the desperate hope of rescuing her on some distant day, bringing her home to his own aching heart, or in failing, share a bed with her inside me. And here’s another amusing twist: There are only two people that can help him achieve his fervent prayer, and they’re both here in this room. But neither can aid you while the Master lives. So if you care about saving poor Kathy, get your hand off this blade and point your gun at Paul’s head, but don’t pull the trigger until I say. I want him dead even more than you or Johnny, so you can trust me just this once.”
Rose let go of the blade and raised the gun to Paul’s head, her hand quivering with fear and hatred.
“Yessssss…that’s good. I think we understand one another. Now take a deep, slow breath, steady your hand and make sure your aim is true. When I give you the word, squeeze the trigger and get ready for the ride of your life…or death. Johnny is releasing the Wheel now and the Guardian will awaken.”
“Come Ceallach,” the angel said. The Princess and the Great Mother were the first to go. Then he and the Master passed through the Curtain of Dreams.
“It’s beautiful,” he said to the Master as they gazed upon the golden light of the Axis. He felt so much younger than his seventeen years, almost like the boy who sat on his father’s lap the first time he told him the story. Róisín and Morgana were waiting for them at the Axis, Róisín holding the angel’s hand as they hovered above the Great Wheel.
“Yes, it is beautiful,” said his father, having witnessed the glory many times before.
“Come,” the angel said again.
“Come Da,” Ceallach said eagerly, pulling his father’s hand, smiling as the princess beckoned him.
The Master let go of his hand. “I cannot.”
“But you said I would take this voyage with you, you said we would…”
“What was whole must be joined again,” he said, looking beyond him to the Great Mother. “It is your time now. The time of the Becoming.”
“What’s going to happen to me?” he asked, looking not to the angel or his beloved princess, but to his father and Master who had spoke to him of this wondrous place so often.
“I do not know,” his father said, his eyes full of longing.
“Where will the angel take us?”
“I do not know. This—your journey—has never been made.”
“Will I still be…me?”
“You will be changed.”
“What will happen to you? Where will you go?”
“I will return.”
“But all our enemies were in pursuit! They will surely be waiting!”
“My fate rests with the Nous. It is the will of the Nous that I remain behind…and that you become one with her and the angel.”
“Come,” said the angel more urgently. “It is time.”
“Will I see you again?” he asked, resisting the pull of the angel.
“Not in this way. Not with these memories.”
“Da! Don’t leave me!” he cried out, his heart breaking.
“I will never leave you, son. I will always live inside you.”
“But you said we couldn’t die! You said we’d never die!”
“We cannot truly die. We…change.”
“If I see you again, will I remember who you are?”
“You won’t care. You will be love…all love. Go with her…you’ll be so wonderful
. You are…so wonderful!”
“I don’t want to lose you!”
“Trust the angel. Don’t resist,” his father said, his voice choked with emotion. Then the Wheel suddenly began turning again, the screaming winds of the Maelstrom almost deafening.
“Da! Don’t leave me! I’m scared!” Ceallach cried out, struggling to reach his father’s side, but the pull of the Axis grew in direct proportion to the grinding force of the Maelstrom and soon he found himself clutching the angel as his father waved farewell, still resisting the terrible vortex.
“I will always love you,” his father said as his body began to disintegrate.
“Daaaaaa!” Ceallach screamed.
But the Maelstrom had blown him into dust.
Ceallach cried out in anguish. The angel held him as he wept. Róisín wrapped her arms around him and kissed the top of his head. They clung to each other and their hearts began to glow like the angel’s chest as he cradled them in his giant arms.
“We must go now,” said the angel without speaking, and they began to descend into the Axis. Their hearts ached with longing as they looked into each other’s eyes. Then the same terrifying thought entered both their minds. They didn’t have to speak it. They were already joining with the angel and knew each other’s mind the same as their own.
“We will be lost as well! We will cease to exist to each other! Only one being will be born in the angel! This new thing will leave us both behind, as it abandoned the Master!”
“No! I love you! I won’t let you go!” Róisín cried, her strong, willful soul parting from Ceallach and the angel. He echoed her cry, their hearts blazing with love.
Suddenly, Ceallach was assaulted by the image of his father being chained to the altar by Tormac. Ceallach shouted to the angel, “We have to help him! They’ll kill him!”