“You gonna tell me why they want her dead?”
I shook my head. “I can’t. Hell, I’m taking a risk even coming here.”
“Why? This is neutral ground. Everybody from up down and in between knows to keep their shit out of the Brisk Mart.”
I exhaled heavily. “There is something going on in the realms of the infinite, Dave. Something very bad and very big.”
“The girl on the beach,” he added, taking on a conciliatory tone. “I heard about that, too. Sorry, you couldn’t save her. But maybe I can help you save this one. I’ve seen a lot of crazy-ass shit, but you don’t hurt kids. They’re innocent.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Bloodsuckers do.”
“Yeah, but they have a consolation prize – you get to become immortal. Mind you, that means you don’t get to see the sun ever again. Plus, there’s the whole drinking blood bit. I could never give up beer.”
“Amen to that. Can you help me out?”
He nodded as he reached underneath a thick pile of waybills and then pulled out a black book with stickers from the film Top Gun plastered on the cover and nearly worn away from the passage of time. He flipped open the book and I craned my neck over his shoulder to read. It was a list of names in one column. There were three columns to the right with the headings, debt, paid and date.
“Debt ledger, Reaper. There are some people in here who owe me big time and I’m going to give you a name. Someone who can hide you and the kid for a little while at least. Until you can figure out what the hell to do next. And one day, you’re going to be called on to do a little favour for someone in the big black book.”
I blinked. “I’m going in there, right? In your list of names?”
Dave nodded. “That’s how it works. That’s how we keep this place neutral ground because everyone in this book has one favour they have to fulfil in the event of one of the other people who owe me decides to maybe stop owing me—get it?”
I nodded. “If anyone kills you, everyone in the book comes after the killer. Nice insurance policy.”
He grabbed a pen and handed it to me. “Put your name there, Reaper. You’re in the ledger now. You either go after anyone who comes after me or another favour of my design at future date. It could be tickets to the playoffs or I might need you to do something highly illegal and probably immoral.”
I shrugged and signed my name. Dave took the pen and closed the book with a loud slap.
“So, who am I seeing?” I asked.
Dave grimaced as he scribbled a name and address on a Brisk Mart matchbook. “You won’t like it but hey, you don’t exactly have a lot of options. And anyway, she owes me too, so there’s that. The matches are free, by the way.”
I glanced down at the torn piece of paper and saw the name: Barbie Ross.
Shit.
11
For the record, I had never met Barbie Ross. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t heard of her.
If you’ve got access to YouTube then you’ll know who Barbie Ross is because she’s taken to saving young people from themselves through a series of weekly broadcasts featuring her size eight self, her string bikini, candles and endless mojitos. All of this happens while Barbie soaks in a frothy, bubbling hot tub and praising Jesus the entire time.
It’s a creative approach to redemption, that’s for sure.
Anyone with a basic cable package and who isn’t sleeping in on a Sunday morning after getting liquored up on a Saturday night and who is desperate from some old-time fundamentalism most assuredly knows who Barbie Ross is. She’s perpetually thirty-five years old. You won’t find a Wikipedia entry with her official date of birth but I have it on good authority that she is in her late fifties though you’ll never know it from looking at her. One of her social media handles is cougar4jesus and last year she was challenged in the local paper regarding her overtly sexualized YouTube videos which simply pissed her off. What did she do? She doubled her uploads, started a swag store and got an enormous Jesus Saves tattoo on the small of her back. She’s practical. She ends her videos by stating that God gave her all that and a bag of chips and that she’s going to use what He gave her to save souls.
Sex sells in the marketing world so I can’t really see how it would be a bad thing to use sex to save people from the abyss.
Barbie’s Life-Anchor Ministries operates out of a decommissioned movie theater on the outskirts of town. There’s an enormous cross fixed to the roof and yes, it’s a multicoloured cross that flashes mood lights into the heavens every night from 8:00 PM until 11:30 PM, rain or shine. I should also mention that while God is receiving the fundamentalist version of the Bat-Signal each night, those flashing lights are accompanied by a recording of the Life Anchor Ministries Chorus singing praise to Him.
Barbie Ross is the head of the church after she ditched her cheating husband, Reverend Dennis Ross. He got caught up in a sting by Halifax’s finest and the press reported there were three girls and one Reverend Dennis along with crazy string and electric blue body paint. Possibly even a goat, but I got that bit from Twitter.
There was a scandal, naturally. Reverend Dennis acted out some form of contrition during the news conference when his kinky ways were made public. What nobody expected during that media event was that the good Reverend would drop dead of a massive coronary halfway through his mea-culpa. I wasn’t there, but I could see the reaper waiting in the wings when I watched him keel over on the nightly news. Nobody else could see it, but I could. I see them all and they see me even though I’m wearing human skin.
I climbed back into Sparks’ SUV and she started the engine. I tossed the kid an Oh Henry bar and slipped a pair of coffees into the cup holders.
“So … what’s the plan?” asked Sparks.
I opened my mouth to answer but Charlotte beat me to it. “He has found some sanctuary. But for how long?”
“Head over to Life Anchor Ministries.” I said.
“The fundamentalist church?” blurted Sparks. “Barbie Ross? The hot tub queen of soul-saving? How in the world is she going to help us out?”
I shook my head. “Beats me, but Dave says that she’s off the grid and them arses from up on high will have to back off.”
“And what about the ones from down below?” Sparks asked.
“If angels won’t touch us there, I can’t see how the guys downstairs can touch us either. Unless, of course, someone lets them in. Demons are like vampires that way.”
“Vampires!” Sparks choked as she put the SUV in reverse and backed out of the parking stall. “You’re going to tell me they’re real too?”
“There are many beings that are not human beings,” said Charlotte in her social worker voice. “You would be wise to open your mind to those things you believe to be fiction because, for some of these beings, you are their food.”
Sparks tromped on the gas pedal and we were back on Robie Street, this time headed for the Bedford Highway.
“And how do vampires fit into the religious narrative?” asked Sparks. “There’s nothing in the bible about them.”
I blew on my coffee and took a sip while Charlotte tore off the wrapper of her chocolate bar. “The bible was written by men with an agenda,” I noted with a slurp. “That agenda is all about controlling the narrative and keeping the sheep in line.”
“The sheep?”
“Humanity. Organized religion is just that, organized. Churches are a power structure with a specific hierarchy. If you want to control the masses, you first have to control their understanding of God because the Man with the Big White Beard doesn’t go slumming like He used to back in the days of the Book of Genesis.”
Sparks chewed her lip for a moment and said, “That kind of makes sense. I’m not going to worry about vampires when we’ve got angels and demons after Charlotte.”
“That’s the spirit!” I announced.
We flew over a level crossing and soon we were cruising alongside the Bedford Basin. A full moon hung low in the sky and here a
nd there I could see the occasional duck bobbing and weaving on the waves.
“Two days,” said Charlotte after about a few minutes of silence.
I cocked my head over my shoulder and glanced at the girl. She had chocolate on her face, so I tossed her a wet nap from inside Sparks glove box. “Two days for what?”
“Two Days until He arrives,” she said, taking another bite of her chocolate bar.
Sparks jammed on the brakes and the SUV slid to a stop in a bus lane. “What … are you talking about God? What’s He doing in two days?”
Charlotte crumpled the wrapper to her chocolate bar and handed it to me. I dropped it into a plastic trash bag.
“He is coming,” she said.
I snorted. “Yeah, yeah, kid. He is risen. Easter Sunday. Chocolate bunnies, I get it.”
Charlotte reached over and grabbed my shoulder. “No … HE is coming. In two days.”
I gave my head a shake. “What … you mean God? Where?”
The little girl leaned back and then put her legs across the back seat. “He is coming here. To see me. I’m not entirely certain why, but He is most definitely coming.”
I could hear Sparks’ teeth grating together and that meant she was about two seconds away from losing her shit.
“Are you freaking serious?” she ranted. I was wrong. It only took one second. “You mean to tell me that God is coming to the Halifax Regional Municipality in two days? So, what is it then … the end of the world? Do we all have to do eleventh-hour conversions to Christianity or something? Damn it, Charlotte, I am getting renovations done to my house!”
I motioned for Sparks to calm down even though I was shaking in my boots. The Supreme Being was coming to see Charlotte and instantly my mind flooded with a wide variety of unpalatable possibilities. Maybe He was going to lay waste to the city as a show of force to those who refuse to accept His grace. Or possibly He would be pulling a George Burns in that movie Oh God! and was intending to use Charlotte to spread the good word. Or maybe still, there was a darker purpose. Perhaps He would be coming simply to give humanity a reboot. To bring forth another great flood or to kick that supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park into high gear.
I glanced at the girl through the corner of my eye. Was His visit something to do with Charlotte’s abilities? The girl could see the base code of all creation and had taken to scribbling it on a multitude of surfaces for reasons I still wasn’t entirely sure of. Was the girl an angel in human skin like Jael? Is that how she got her powers? Was Charlotte actually a divine creature?
“You wouldn’t happen to know why He is coming, kid, would you?” I asked as I massaged my temples. “Also, I’m going to assume you know He is coming because you saw it in the Form you had written earlier today.”
Charlotte shook her head. “I don’t know why He is coming, Mister R. I just know that He is.”
“He sent you a text, then?”
“I don’t have a phone,” she stated firmly. “All I know is that He is coming in two days. I’m going to have a nap now.”
And with that, Charlotte closed her eyes and put Sparks and me on auto-ignore.
***
You can’t miss the multi-coloured “beams of hope” shooting high into the night sky emanating from the cross high atop Life Anchor Ministries. There is also a twenty-four-hour chorus of pre-recorded hymns playing softly enough from speakers in the parking lot that neighbours rarely complain about anymore because it keeps the seagulls and skater kids away.
Sparks pulled into the parking lot and we were met by a large black Chevrolet Suburban with limousine tinted windows. It could have been a government vehicle filled with spooks but the neon glow of the front license plate which read GODWGN1 told me there was nothing to fear. Sparks parked alongside the SUV and I rolled down my window. The left rear window of the Suburban slid down and a shapely hand with a large emerald ring on the ring finger motioned us to the vehicle.
“This looks like our stop,” I said as I slipped a cigarette between my lips and opened the door. “Hang tight, I’ll be right back.”
Sparks nodded and I took a look down at Charlotte who was sleeping peacefully across the back seat. I opened the door and stepped out of the SUV, gazing heavenward in case there was a flock of angels patrolling the sky and intent on attacking. I exhaled easily when I saw nothing but the twinkle of stars and a three-quarter-full moon.
The driver’s door opened and out stepped an enormous chauffeur who looked to be about six foot five and whose shoulders were broad enough to plant a real estate sign. He was dressed in a black business suit and he was wearing sunglasses.
“Spread ‘em,” he said. His voice was oozing with menace so I went to the land of snark. My default position when dealing with people who try to intimidate.
I threw him an easy smile and leaned against the side of Sparks’ SUV. “I had no idea that church types need linebacker-sized goons. Not that you’re a goon by any stretch of the imagination. You’re just more of a meat sack in a suit on somebody’s payroll, but what the hell, right? I’ll warn you though, I’m carrying and you’re not going to take my guns. That simply isn’t on the agenda.”
His jaw was shaped like a brick and his hands were the size of catcher’s mitts. He clenched and unclenched his fists a few times as he sized me up. “Then you ain’t getting inside with Miss Ross, shit bird.”
I arched my eyebrows and pushed out my bottom lip. I pointed to it and said, “See this? This is my pouty face. You’re actually making me pout.”
“I’ll staple your lip to your forehead,” he rumbled as he took a menacing step forward.
I snorted and gazed at the open rear door. “Barbie … you knew I was coming because you’ve been called on a debt that is owed. When you are in the debt ledger, you don’t get to make the rules unless you want really bad things to happen. That’s how it works so I’m keeping my guns and if your goon takes another step toward me, I’m going to do two things. First, I’m going to kick him in the balls so hard his testicles will become transformed into pulpy goo and second, I will shave off his eyebrows while he is lying on the ground clutching what’s left of his nut sack. It’s been that kind of morning. I’m not in the mood to get in a dustup on Church property. Oh, and by the way, the lady driving this SUV I’m leaning on is one of Halifax’s finest. If we wind up squaring off, she’ll have a dozen police cruisers here in ten minutes. So, what’s it going to be?”
The goon grated his teeth together and looked like he was ready to introduce my face to the fender of the Suburban. He kept his mouth shut as I waited for a response.
“Fine,” said Barbie Ross in a voice that was smooth as silk pyjamas. “He’s okay, Alvin. Let him pass.”
“There are two more in the car he’s leaning on, Miss Ross,” said the goon.
“Alvin?” I said with a snicker. “Dude, that is the most un-terrifying name for an enforcer that I’ve ever heard. You might want to change that one of these days. I recommend Rocco. It’s a classic.”
The goon took another threatening step forward and lifted me up by the collar. My feet left the ground for a few seconds and then he lowered me and looked down at his stomach to see one of my Berettas pressed against his suit jacket. He slowly stepped backwards and then reluctantly stood holding the door of the Suburban open like a good chauffeur.
I stepped inside the Suburban and the door closed beside me. Barbie Ross sat on a plush leather bench seat sipping a drink. She was dressed in a sheer top with sequins and I could see her nipples pressing against the fabric because she wasn’t wearing a bra. She crossed her long, luxuriant legs with and rolled her left ankle; the stiletto of her left foot dangled off her toes.
“I understand you are in need of sanctuary,” she said as she poured me a drink from a crystal decanter into a glass filled with ice. She handed me the drink and I raised my hands to politely decline.
“I never drink hootch in the back of expensive SUV’s with sweet sexy religious types. Nothing
but bad comes from that kind of interaction” I said. “But yes, I need a place to hide a girl.”
She leaned forward and threw me a sultry wink. “A girl? Well … what kind of girl is she? Does she … play both sides of the street if you catch my meaning.”
Her voice was like liquid smoke mixed with honey. I breathed in her scent. An exotic blend with notes of cinnamon and jasmine. It’s always jasmine with the high-class women in my experience.
“She’s eight,” I said flatly. “And if you have had dealings with Dave at the Brisk then you know there are things out there which aren’t entirely human.”
She leaned forward and her lips arched into a thin smile. “Yes, of course. Human and not quite human. It seems to me the not quite human side of the equation has been popping up a lot lately. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Who is after the girl?”
I folded my arms across my chest and said, “That which isn’t quite human. Some from up above and some from down below.”
She took another sip of her drink. “I see. That is a bit of a pickle for you, mister …”
“I go by the name of Richter and that’s as much as you need to know,” I cautioned. “We need a place to lay low for a couple of days. Somewhere that isn’t going to be on anybody’s radar from up or down if you get my meaning. Is that something you can arrange?”
She tilted her head to the right and placed her drink inside a fancy cup holder. “My goodness, Mister Richter. You certainly seem to be involved in something quite … significant. I am curious though.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, it appears to me that an eight-year-old girl who is being sought out by forces from heaven and hell must be some kind of threat to both. Or perhaps valuable. It must be hard to be on the run.”
The Girl On Victoria Road: A Tim Reaper Novel Page 10