Seraphim

by Jon Michael Kelley

  “There, there, now, Father,” Gamble said, his arms outstretched.

  Eli slowly fell into his embrace. “Why can’t I make new ones?” he cried. “I seem to be able to make everything else...”

  “But nothing else seems to matter,” Gamble said, “isn’t that right?”

  “I...I...” It had been so long since Eli had been in the embrace of another, had been the recipient instead of the giver of solace, and it felt so good, especially in the arms of his mentor, of his counsel, of the one who had brought him so far after so many years of scrupulous devotion, of dedication to a cause to which he virtually remained ignorant. In the arms of the one who was always there for him, rain or shine, through the good and bad times; the one who always kept his promises.

  “You’re only at your best when you can fly, right, Father?”

  “Yes.”

  Gamble tightened his hug, lifted Eli from the ground, then began walking toward the edge of the cliff. “And that’s why you’re no good to me anymore, Father. You can’t get your head out of the clouds.”

  Gamble reached under Eli’s armpits, pushed him out, dangling him over the edge.

  “Fly” Gamble said, then released him.

  18.

  As they neared the stables, Duncan counted at least a dozen gray wolves. All remained back in the trees. Watchful. Duncan was reminded of the wolf he’d encountered in his sojourn back in time and was acutely aware that they were in the presence of heavenly hosts and not indigenous wildlife.

  Moving closer to the structures, he saw a weathervane on top of one of the buildings, could hear the trill it made as the wind pushed it along. As they entered the stalls, the sunlight sliced through the cracks in the boarded windows and was warm on his face. The smells of timeworn flax and linseed oil and hay were frail but ever-present. He reached up and ran his hand across a coil of rope hanging from a nail, and he was suddenly reminded that these were the memories he’d briefly experienced while walking toward the drug dealers’ house, just before Gamble had come off the fence and introduced himself.

  A glitch of reminiscence, he thought, out of place and time. So, he had been here before. How many times? he wondered.

  Duncan stopped; heard a rumbling in the distance.

  It was getting closer.

  “Ssshhh, you hear that?” he said.

  Kathy nodded. “Crap. We have to hurry.”

  “That does not sound good,” Chris offered. “Sounds like a stampede.”

  They pushed hastily through more stalls.

  “Over here,” Kathy said. “There’s a trap door leading to a long tunnel. Goes for maybe fifty yards to the main building.”

  What the tunnel had originally been intended for was anybody’s guess.

  The rumbling was close now. Very close.

  Then the screeching started.

  19.

  They’d entered the edge of a meadow. Amy led the way, Patricia and Rachel behind her.

  “Are you sure they’re all right?” Patricia said.

  “Kathy knows the way,” Amy said. “Don’t worry, they’ll meet us there.”

  “Tell me something, Amy,” Rachel said. “What was Duncan doing back there in Boston?”

  Amy said, “I think Patricia should answer that.”

  Patricia sighed. With some diffidence, she related the story of how Duncan had stole nearly two hundred thousand dollars from some drug dealers the night he got shot, and how it had made its way to her via his lieutenant, Mo White. She explained how Duncan, because of his involvement with her husband’s murder, had become aware of her financial crisis because of her husband’s death, and this led him to commit the crime. She went further and said that she felt guilty for accepting the money at first, but later decided to hell with it, that she would only spend what was absolutely necessary to get out of debt. The rest, she said, would stay hidden for a rainy day. Or maybe she would someday donate it to an orphanage or children’s hospital.

  Rachel was stunned. “He gave you two hundred-thousand dollars?”

  “Yes.”

  “Holy shit!”

  “Yeah.”

  “The same night Tyler was shot and killed?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Duncan’s lieutenant was in on it?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “Christ almighty.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well,” Amy said, “maybe I should clear the air on that. You see, Lieutenant Mo White is one of us.”

  Patricia stopped. “The lieutenant is...what, an angel?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But...he did such a bad thing.”

  “Got you out of debt, didn’t it?”

  “But it was against the law!”

  “Trust me, Patty,” Amy said. “In the grand scheme of things, it’ll be overlooked.”

  Grudgingly, Patricia started walking again. “I thought your kind were supposed to be decent and pure.”

  Amy laughed. “We’re half-human. What do you expect?”

  “So,” Rachel said, “why did Duncan have to go back and relive that night again?”

  “You’ll have to ask Duncan that question,” Amy said.

  They reached the end of the meadow and entered a dense, steep-sloping forest.

  “We’re almost there,” Amy said. “Just over the hill.”

  “I can smell the ocean,” Rachel said.

  “Oh, my God,” Patricia said. “Look at the wolves!”

  To their left, there were at least twenty wolves standing among the trees.

  “Don’t be frightened,” Amy said. “They’re friends.”

  Rachel shook her head. “Two hundred-thousand dollars?”

  “Yup.”

  20.

  The going was pitch black.

  Before climbing down into the tunnel, Chris and Duncan had just enough time to peek out a window and see what kind of animals were making those frightful screeching sounds. They were huge, flightless, featherless birds with taloned feet and horrific sets of insect-like mouth parts. They were terrifying.

  Even underground, the thunder of their passing was near deafening.

  Crawling on hands and knees, Duncan stopped. “Wait a minute,” he said above the din. “Gamble can do better than that.”

  In front of him, Kathy said, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if Gamble wanted us, he could pluck us from the ground like carrots.”

  “So?”

  “So, those creatures really aren’t interested in us, are they?”

  “Not really,” she said. “We just had to get out of their way. Gamble’s just showing some muscle.”

  “Any idea where they’re going?”

  “To the Apocalypse.”

  “They’re going topside?” Chris said.

  “And where are we going?”

  “To meet the others,” Kathy said, “at the cliffs.”

  “To the same cliffs where the priest took you?” Duncan said. Now it was all making sense. A place where angels are born, Amy had told him. And she’d been speaking metaphorically, just as the face in the window had suggested. Sewing angel wings into the backs of little girls didn’t get more metaphorical than that.

  “And we’re going to deliver an angel,” he said. “The last seraph.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Duncan started moving. “And you couldn’t have told me this earlier?”

  “I knew you’d figure it out, sooner or later.”

  Emilio and Juanita were ahead of them and had apparently found the other entrance, a shaft of light now shining down some twenty yards ahead.

  “Señor Duncan,” Juanita called out, “the monsters, they are almost gone. Is safe to go up?”

  She was right. The thunder was diminishing to a low rumble now.

  “Go ahead, take a peek,” Duncan said. “If they’re gone, we’ll move on out.”

  “It’s less than a quarter mile away from here,” Kathy said. “We’ll be
there in no time.”

  21.

  Duncan and the others saw Patricia and Rachel standing just within the tree-line. There was another woman with them. And the closer they got, the more the woman resembled Amy.

  The adult version of his daughter.

  “My God,” Duncan said. “Amy?”

  Chris was equally benumbed. “Dude.”

  “Hi, Dad,” she said, then hugged him. “How was Boston?”

  “I learned my lesson,” he said.

  “Well, it’s about time.”

  Juanita was stunned. “Amy! You’ve grown to be a woman.”

  “Juanita,” Amy said, “you’ve been a wonderful guardian to me all these years. Now it’s my turn to protect you.” She looked at everyone. “It’s time to go.”

  When they broke tree-line, they saw Gamble and six naked girls standing near the cliff’s edge.

  Juanita reached for Kathy’s hand. “You hold on to me,” she said. Now Kathy had Juanita in one hand, Patricia in the other.

  “Let’s do it,” Chris said, bravado staunch in his posture but lean in his voice.

  As they approached, Gamble held out his arms. “And I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show.”

  Amy said nothing, just kept on walking. She was in front of the group, Duncan directly behind her.

  Below them, hundreds of feet down, waves crashed rhythmically against the rocky shore. Except for a large bank of clouds to the west, the sky above was light blue, and a gentle wind rustled through the fir just behind them. The setting was more befit a picnic, Duncan thought, than it was a showdown of deities.

  “I don’t like this place,” Kathy said. “I really don’t.”

  Patricia pulled her close. “I know, baby. I know.”

  Amy stopped ten feet from Gamble; Duncan and Rachel now by her side. The rest stayed close behind, Kathy now in Patricia’s clutches, Juanita in close orbit. Chris and Emilio took up the rear, both apprehensive but steady.

  Gamble waved a hand toward the naked girls. “These are my offspring,” he said. “They’ll be judging your demeanor, so mind your manners. It might also please you to know that my protégé, the priest, has suffered a hopeless accident and thus will not be joining the festivities.” He shook his head. “You know, it’s so true what they say about finding good help.”

  Kathy glanced back at the tree-line and saw the wolves, all silent and still within the dusky perimeter.

  Gamble had noticed the wolves, too, and said to Amy, “I see you brought your other family along. Unless you want them to become an endangered species again,” he warned her, “then keep them at bay.”

  “You just stick to our bargain,” Amy said, “and they’ll keep their distance.”

  Patricia was staring, too. She said, “My God, how many are there?”

  “Not nearly enough,” Gamble assured, then walked over to Kathy. “Now, it’s finally time I gather my remaining daughter from you.”

  “No!” Patricia cried, stepping in front of Kathy. “You leave her alone!”

  Juanita was now alongside Patricia, shaking her head wildly. “No, señor! No, you don’t!”

  As Gamble stood before Katherine, the wolves began slinking from the shadowy timber, their steely eyes fixed ahead, their noses to the ground. They stopped their advance when Amy held up a hand.

  Then Amy looked at Patricia and Juanita and said, “Step aside, the both of you, and let him have her.”

  Patricia was stunned. “W-What?”

  “Amy, what are you doing?” Duncan said.

  Amy was now beside Gamble. “Just do as I say and let him have her.”

  “Patricia, Juanita,” Duncan said, surprising himself. “Do as Amy says.”

  Juanita, still protesting madly, had to finally be pulled away by both Rachel and Chris.

  With stark resignation, Patricia slowly moved aside. “I’m so sorry, baby,” she said. “Forgive me.”

  Gamble placed his right hand upon Kathy’s head. Instantly, as if suffused in electrical current, her arms jerked outward, her body became rigid, and a white mist began spiraling from her back like a thin rope, stretching toward his six daughters. At the other end of the cord a wispy form began taking shape, gathering there, and quickly coalesced into a body, that of Katherine Bently.

  It was quite the magic trick.

  Behind them, a baying rose from the woods; a lamenting chorus of howls from a symphony of wolves.

  The wind was picking up, and, looking west, Duncan saw that the clouds had moved considerably closer, their docile color having changed to an angry gray, their bellies bulging.

  Eyes rolling back into their sockets, the Kathy beneath Gamble’s right hand crumpled to the ground.

  Patricia was immediately cowering over her, shaking her. “Kathy, baby! Kathy! Wake up!”

  “I’m afraid she’s no longer with the living,” Gamble said, briskly wiping his hands, as if the chore had been a dirty one.

  Juanita fell to her knees and wailed.

  “Dear God, Duncan,” Rachel whispered. “What have we done?”

  “You asshole!” Duncan roared. Fists clenched at his sides, he was about to charge Gamble when Rachel grabbed his arm. “No! That’s a fight you can’t possibly win.”

  Something arced across his mind then, something Kathy had told him upon his return from yesteryear. “It left in you remarkable wonders,” she’d said. “Indulge them” And upon that musing, he was suddenly granted insight into what she’d been referring. It was crazy, of course, but he had to try. He walked over to Kathy’s lifeless body and, kneeling down, placed both hands upon her head, just as she had done with her own hands when healing his leg wound. But she had only healed the flesh. He, on the other hand, was attempting to revive the soul.

  “Come back,” he said.

  For a moment there was nothing.

  He leaned over and pressed his ear to her chest.

  She stirred.

  Her eyes fluttered open.

  “Donut,” she said softly. “I was at the Shallows.”

  “That’s great, sweetheart,” he said, smiling.

  Rachel, tears in her eyes, said, “My God, Duncan.”

  “Why, Donut, I’m impressed,” Gamble said. “But then, I suppose it only confirms what I’ve suspected for quite some time. You see, only God and the seraphim have the power of resurrection.”

  Duncan ignored Gamble as he helped Kathy back to her feet. Patricia, tears streaming from her eyes, kneeled in front of Kathy. “Oh, baby, oh, baby,” she said, brushing her hands through her daughter’s hair over and over. Juanita, now back on her feet, stood close by, clutching her rosary to her chest and thanking the Blessed Mother, her own wet eyes heavenward.

  Gamble’s insinuation that the seraph was inside him was no longer true, he felt. It had been at one time, that was certain. But why did Gamble feel that the seraph was still a part of him? After all, that was why Chris had tricked them into Gamble’s Wonderland. And why was that? Because the seraph had built up some kind of barricade inside his mind, one high enough that Gamble couldn’t enter. That was obvious. So, if Gamble couldn’t get inside his mind, then he would bring him inside his own, where they could square off. But Gamble was able to bring the boy in without Chris’s help. So, did that mean that the boy did not have the same kind of barricade? Did that mean the seraph wasn’t inside the boy? Or had Gamble found someone else who, like Chris, could psychically maneuver him inside.

  No, that was doubtful. Duncan had the sneaking suspicion that Chris was one of a kind.

  But if the seraph wasn’t inside the boy, and if it wasn’t inside himself, then where was it hiding? It was close, he could feel it; a sapience, almost sacrosanct in its quality, knotted in his gut. The more freedom he gave this cognizance, the more the knot unraveled, becoming an umbilicus to a forbidden knowledge that divinity was at play here, that this was all preordained. After all, he’d been here before. They all had.

  The big question: Would they get it
right this time?

  “Behold them,” Gamble said, swinging an arm toward his seven daughters, “the devils that they are.”

  All of his daughters, starting with Kathy, had begun to morph into grotesque forms. Bat-like wings maturated from their backs. And tails, growing long, barbed and sword-slender. Their hands and feet elongated, became scaled and taloned; a mixture of something canine, avian, and reptilian. Horns sprung from the foreheads, curling down and around. Muzzles burgeoned from their faces, sprigs of wiry hair cropping up here and there, niched deeply into the crevices that pocked the mutation, each one savagely ranked with long, pointed teeth. Menacing now, they regarded everyone with snarls and snorts, their eyes black as marbles.

  “Ain’t they a sight,” Gamble said; then he turned to Juanita. “It’s my understanding that you have the power to release the seraph. Is this true?”

  Juanita looked terribly confused. “I...I did not know I could do this,” she said. Then she straightened. “But if it is God’s will...”

  “God’s will?” he said. “God’s will? Sweetie, you’ve been shanghaied by a bunch of interloping mongrels who don’t know squat about God’s will. They’ve been making it up as they go along.”

  “I do not care,” Juanita said. “I do what they tell me.”

  “Do you?” Gamble said, walking over to Emilio. “Then, just for grins, let’s see what’s hiding inside the boy here.” He waved a hand. “Come along.”

  Juanita hesitantly made her way to Emilio. Standing in front of him, she shrugged, then reached out and, with her rosary, touched her hand to his chest.

  Nothing happened.

  “No, no,” Amy said, “you’ve got to hit him, Juanita. Get pissed, goddammit! Hit him hard!”

  This time Juanita hauled off and punched Emilio in the chest. Not real hard, but hard enough. A tiny, solitary moth escaped from the impact, fluttered upward, and was lost from view in seconds.

  Gamble turned to Amy. “As I knew all along.” Then, with a simple touch of Gamble’s finger, Emilio began to swell. Within moments he was immense, off the ground and floating upward like some Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. Now the size of dinner plates, his eyes conveyed, in stereo, the horror he was experiencing.