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The Astral

Page 27

by V. J. Banis

It was only a little while ago that everything was going his way. Business was good; there were plenty of people willing to pay top dollar for the specialty porn he provided. Colley was stupid, but he had been a useful sidekick, willing and, in his own crude way, good at suckering unsuspecting parents.

  They’d had plenty of money and plenty of sex as a side dish. In a few months they’d have moved on to another city, say Seattle, he had always liked Seattle. And it was never smart to stay in any one place too long.

  It was her fault: that bitch back by the pickup. She was the one had messed it all up for him. It was people like her who made the world such a shitty place. For a moment, he almost changed his mind and went back to choke the worthless life out of her.

  His better sense kicked in. He pulled his gun from his belt and crept to the back door. Through its uncurtained window he saw the green shirt still at the stove, salting something on his plate.

  Paterson hit the door hard, crashing it open, and yelled, “Don’t move.”

  To his surprise, the damn fool threw the plate of food at him. It missed by a mile but it broke his concentration, gave the old fart a minute to wheel and run toward the kitchen counter. Reflexively, Paterson pulled the trigger of his gun, and heard a dull click instead of a blast. Christ! He was out of bullets. Talk about luck.

  He snatched up a chair and flung it. It hit the old man squarely in the back of his head and he stumbled and fell against the counter but he didn’t go down. He reached instead toward a wooden block sitting there with knives sticking from it.

  He had one in his hand by the time Paterson was upon him. For a minute or two they wrestled. Just as Paterson had feared, he was no weakling, wiry but muscled. Desperate, Paterson struck him hard on the temple with the empty gun, stunning him. In an instant, he had grabbed the knife and, crouching back on his heels, stabbed viciously downward with it. The old man gave a moan of agony and fell on his back, blood gushing from the wound in his belly.

  “Stupid bastard,” Paterson told him. “If you’d done as I said I might have left you alive.”

  For good measure he stabbed him again and twisted the knife to be sure there wasn’t any chance he would survive. The eyes staring up at him grew dim and a bubble of blood appeared between his lips.

  Paterson got up and gave him an angry kick. Some days nothing wanted to go right. No wonder he got so pissed at everything. He wiped the knife off on a kitchen towel, thrust it into his belt, and shoved the gun there too. Even an empty gun could come in handy. He looked around quickly and saw keys on the counter near the open kitchen door. Yes, house keys, obviously, and there were the recognizable truck keys as well.

  He snatched them up and was out the door in a second.

  * * * *

  “Damn you!” Paterson was slapping her awake again. He yanked her violently to her feet and drew back his hand to strike her again. She cringed away from him, but instead of hitting her, he snorted in exasperation and fumbled for the key to remove the handcuffs.

  He threw open the door of the truck. “Get in,” he ordered, brandishing the butcher knife under her nose, “And no funny business.”

  There was a sudden crashing and thumping to their left. Paterson’s head snapped around as a dark gray muzzle appeared out of the trees. Burros. As he watched, the rest of them trailed out of the bushes behind their leader. One or two of them cast wide-eyed glances sideways.

  “Dumb fucks,” Paterson said, laughing at his own skittishness. “Shoo, git.”

  He let go of her wrist just for a second. In that same instant, there was a flash of light, like lightning only brighter still. It glared off the curtain of snow, blinding both of them.

  “What the hell...?” He blinked, and thought for a moment he saw another woman standing there in that fierce radiance. Startled, he took a step back. Where did she come from?

  The sudden bolt of light startled the pack of burros into flight. They stampeded in his direction, passing him so closely that one or two of them jostled against him, throwing him off balance. He fell heavily against the truck.

  Run. The voice echoed inside her head. Catherine hesitated no more than a split second before she whirled away from Paterson and dashed down the driveway in the wake of the burros, in the direction of the road.

  * * * *

  “We’ll never find her in this mess,” Chang said. In the dark, in the snow, she could barely make out the pine trees that lined the road.

  Jack looked frantically out his window. She had to be this way. That had certainly been her in the road a mile or two back, signaling them not to take the planned turnoff.

  Chang glanced in the rear view mirror, thought she saw a pair of headlights in the distance. Conners was gaining on them, was only a couple of miles behind the last she’d talked to him. She’d be glad for the reinforcements, but what good would that do if they couldn’t find Catherine?

  “There!” Jack shouted suddenly, pointing.

  Chang saw her then too, trailing a pack of stampeding burros down a driveway they had just passed—and Paterson running after her, and gaining.

  She hit the brakes, hard, felt the Bronco slide.

  * * * *

  “Get back here, you cunt,” he shouted behind her, but she only drove herself harder. She heard his footsteps pounding after her. Twenty yards away, she saw a flash of red on the roadway. The Bronco. Jack and Chang. She was saved.

  It passed the driveway. She gave a hoarse shout, and was rewarded with the flare of brake lights. The Bronco slid in the snow and began to back up rapidly.

  Her elation turned to agony. Her feet were too numb. She was too weary. She stumbled, almost falling, and Paterson grabbed her arm, jerking her around so violently she thought her arm had been pulled from its socket. She fell against him, out of breath, too weak to struggle any further. Behind her, a car door slammed and Jack shouted, “Catherine!”

  * * * *

  Chang was out of the Bronco while it was still rolling, dropping into a crouch. Behind her, she heard a pickup truck sliding to a stop. Conners. Man, that boy was something! She held the Glock in both hands, couldn’t shoot because Paterson was holding Catherine in front of him.

  “Don’t,” she said when Jack would have dashed past her. “He’s got a knife. He’ll kill her.”

  * * * *

  Paterson grabbed her throat and forced her head back, forced her to look directly into his face, twisted with fury. “I told you,” he hissed, “I told you, they wouldn’t never take neither of us alive.”

  They were face to face, his eyes boring into hers, eyes filled with hatred...and with something larger than that, something she could not define.

  Her dark angel, Gabronski, had called him. Yes, she could see it now: they had been tied together all along, since that moment when he had shot her. Still, even here, even now, something like a magical bond linked them.

  She had never contemplated what an intimate act murder might be: to feel with a shock of pain and invasion his knife tear into her belly. She put her hand down and felt the warm blood thawing its numbness. To have this man of all men thrusting into her....

  And, in a burst of light as fierce as any she had yet experienced, she understood finally, clearly, why she had been sent back, what it was that only she could do. Not to trap him, not to kill him, not even to imprison him. It was this moment, and she, and she alone, who could set him free. And herself as well, by doing so.

  The snow became a vortex into which she was falling, falling, down, down, down...she must say it before she vanished: “I forgive you,” she whispered.

  This time, it was true.

  * * * *

  She sagged in his arms, eyes closing, lips parting on a final breath.

  Christ, he had killed her. His head swam. What if she really had been...? She’d said something as she died—what? I forgive you. That was it, that was what she’d said. Something surged through him, like an electric current.

  In a distance, as if miles away, he heard c
ar doors slamming, someone shouting. He looked up, and there was a frizzy haired woman with a gun, some kind of cop, and two guys, the boyfriend and another one he didn’t recognize.

  He’d killed her. Jesus, Paterson, you are crazy. He let her fall, dropped the knife with her, reached to his waistband for the gun, and held it out in front of him, aiming it at the redhead.

  * * * *

  Suddenly, Catherine was out of the way, sinking to the ground in a river of red, and Paterson was in the clear. “Catherine,” Jack yelled and ran toward her.

  Paterson ignored the man charging toward him. From somewhere a gun appeared in his hand. He lifted it and aimed it straight at Chang.

  Behind her, Chang heard Conners hit the ground on the run. I hope I get another chance to jump your bones, you cute little bastard, she thought. She steadied the Glock, sighted carefully—best shot in her class at the bureau—and fired. A crimson stain blossomed like a rose in the middle of Paterson’s forehead and he dropped to one knee. The gun slipped from his fingers and he collapsed in a heap in the bloody snow, one arm falling across Catherine as if to comfort her.

  EPILOGUE

  She was there, in the light again, just as before. She sensed familiar spirits waiting for her somewhere ahead, felt herself weightless, free of pain and care, flying into the light.

  And again, someone separated herself from the whiteness and moved toward her. Catherine squinted, and felt her heart turn over.

  “Mommy,” a voice that seemed to be within her cried.

  “Becky?” she asked, thrilled beyond all meaning. “Becky, it’s really you?”

  She remembered then what Gabronski had said about her guardian spirit: without sex, without age. And knew who had been guiding her all along.

  They embraced. Even without a physical self she could sense the arms encircling her, knew that she held her daughter to her breast once again, knew that her tears flowed.

  “My darling, I’ll never let you go again,” Catherine vowed. “We will be together forever.”

  After a moment, Becky seemed to retreat from her slightly. “No, you must go back.”

  “No, no, I can’t, I won’t,” Catherine cried and reached out, trying to grab her daughter back to her, but Becky was receding. “Don’t leave me, Becky, don’t go.”

  “You must go back,” her voice growing fainter. “You must take care of my baby sister. But I will be with you always, my love will never leave you, or yours leave me.”

  “Becky,” Catherine sobbed again. The silvery glow was swirling, eddying about her. A drop of light, turned liquid, fell upon her cheek. She opened her eyes, and found herself lying in the snow, in Jack’s arms.

  Beyond him, from a far, far distance, someone shouted, “They’re on their way.”

  “Catherine, hold on,” Jack sobbed, kissing her brow, “Don’t leave me again, darling, I couldn’t bear it.”

  Her lips parted, and she found the breath to whisper, faintly, “I’m here.” She closed her eyes, and felt another of his tears fall upon her cheek.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  V. J. Banis is the critically acclaimed author (“the master’s touch in storytelling...”—Publishers Weekly) of more than 200 published books and numerous short stories in a career spanning nearly a half century. A native of Ohio and a longtime Californian, he lives and writes now in West Virginia’s beautiful Blue Ridge.

  You can visit him at http://www.vjbanis.com

  BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY VICTOR J. BANIS

  The Astral; or, Till the Day I Die: A Novel of Psychic Projection

  Avalon

  Charms, Spells, and Curses for the Millions

  Color Him Gay: Being the Further Adventures of That Man from C.A.M.P.

  The Curse of Bloodstone: A Gothic Novel of Terror

  Darkwater

  The Devil’s Dance

  Drag Thing; or, The Strange Tale of Jackle and Hyde

  The Earth and All It Holds

  The Gay Dogs: Being the Further Adventures of That Man from C.A.M.P.

  The Gay Haunt

  The Glass House

  The Glass Painting: A Gothic Tale of Horror

  Goodbye, My Lover

  The Greek Boy

  The Green Rolling Hills: Writings from West Virginia (editor)

  Kenny’s Back

  Life and Other Passing Moments: A Collection of Short Writings

  The Lion’s Gate

  Moon Garden

  The Pot Thickens: Recipes from the Kitchens of Writers and Editors (editor)

  San Antone

  The Second Tijuana Bible Reader (editor)

  Spine Intact, Some Creases: Remembrances of a Paperback Writer

  Stranger at the Door

  The Sword and the Rose: An Historical Novel

  This Splendid Earth

  The Tijuana Bible Reader (editor)

  The WATERCRESS File: Being the Further Adventures of That Man from C.A.M.P.

  A Westward Love: An Historical Romance

  The Wolves of Craywood: A Novel of Terror

  The Why Not

 

 

 


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