by Mary Eicher
He played with the pretty green ribbons on the package. He felt happy, not afraid as he had been a few days ago when the painful visit from the Harbinger had terrified him. Uberdorf had helped him accept the Harbinger’s visit, telling him he had been chosen to perform a mission of peace.
He set the package on the seat next to him, set the special cell phone in his lap, and stretched out to take a nap. He felt good. The fear had abated. He took a deep breath and closed his hand around the cell phone that had started to slip away. The package beside him exploded with tremendous force, tearing a seven-foot hole in the side of the car and lifting the railcar off the tracks, detaching it from the car in front.
Two trailing cars derailed, dragged into the desert by the exploding car. One of them rolled against a low hill while another skidded sideways and overturned, still connected to the one containing Brandon. Brandon’s car slammed into the sandy ground. It skidded forward and landed in a shallow arroyo where the twisted hulk crumpled as it burned.
The engineer struggled to control the surging locomotive and the cars behind that remained on the tracks. Pulling on the brake with all his strength, he brought the train to a stop three-quarters of a mile later. The train retained only seven of the original ten cars. Running back down the track, he started sending pictures on his phone to his supervisor. Help was at least an hour away.
He put away the phone and began assisting the victims. He tallied thirteen people injured, two seriously, and one person, the Servant of the Harbinger monk, was missing. The engineer wiped sweat from his head and neck and sent another message to his supervisor. Twenty minutes later, he heard helicopters in the distance and looked up into the darkening sky.
*
Artemis poured Merlot into a pair of crystal wine glasses and walked toward Lucy, who stood staring out of the large picture window into a starlit night.
“Here. This will help with your nerves.”
Lucy jumped when Artemis seemed to materialize beside her. “I’m not nervous!”
“Right!” Artemis smiled. “I can see that. Relax; you’ve been to my place dozens of times.” She moved to a panel on the wall, and with a flick of her finger the silence gave way to the soft, seductive voice of Lloyd-Webber’s Phantom.
Lucy smiled shyly. “I like it here. Your home is cool and elegant, just like you. And look at all these souvenirs you’ve got. I swear, Temmie, it looks like you’ve been everywhere and done everything.”
“You don’t have to try so hard, Lucy. Please just relax.” Artemis turned the music a touch lower and settled on the couch. “Come sit next to me. We can discuss the weather if you like.”
Lucy sat down and set her wine on the table. “The weather’s about to turn, I hope. Fall is finally here, and I am more than ready for the heat to end.”
Artemis jerked forward and nearly spit out the wine she was sipping. “I was kidding—about the weather, I mean.”
Lucy grinned mischievously. “I know.”
“Oh.” Artemis smiled. “Good one.”
Artemis kicked off her shoes, stretched out her long legs, and crossed her feet on the coffee table. She tilted her head back and peered at the ceiling. “I realized something when I was with your family tonight. With all this focus on death, we have forgotten about living. At least I did. I was in a dark place after Cab died. I’d probably still be there if it wasn’t for you.” She gave her companion a quick glance and then returned to studying the ceiling.
Lucy took the empty wine glass from Artemis and set it next to her own on the table. She leaned back and, turning slightly to her side, took in the relaxed form of her beautiful companion. She reached out and curled her fingers around Artemis’s hand.
“I remember being here with you just like this…when you kissed me. I’ve relived that kiss a hundred times.”
Artemis’s heart skipped. “Um, so have I,” she said softly, tensing a muscle in her check as a glimmer of anticipation washed through her.
Lucy crept closer. She placed her palm at the side of her companion’s neck and gently played with the long black tresses. Leaning forward, she placed a kiss on Artemis’s cheek.
“I’ve been waiting for a chance to return that kiss,” Lucy said, withdrawing and looking into the warm blue eyes that had turned toward her. “I have no doubt anymore. I love you, Temmie.”
Artemis brushed a stray hair behind Lucy’s ear and smiled. “About time.”
She gathered Lucy into her arms and kissed her forehead and made a trail of kisses down Lucy’s cheek to her waiting mouth. The kiss grew passionate, each woman releasing the affection they had kept imprisoned in their hearts.
“What happens to us now?” Lucy murmured, head tucked against Artemis’s shoulder.
“Wondrous things,” Artemis promised. Taking Lucy by the hand, she interlaced their fingers and led them down the hall.
The spacious bed chamber was illuminated by rays of moonlight penetrating a wall of windows where curtain sheers fluttered in a cool breeze. They paused at the foot of a large platform bed. Artemis stepped behind Lucy. She removed Lucy’s blouse and then ran her fingers along her slender torso.
Lucy felt her heart begin to race as warm hands stripped away her bra. She turned to put her arms around Artemis’s neck and place a kiss at the hollow of her throat. Artemis slipped out of the garments confining her own breasts. She pressed their bodies together, letting the warmth of skin on skin send a shock of electricity coursing through them both.
Artemis lifted Lucy and set her gently on the bed. She removed the remainder of their clothes, bent to kiss Lucy once again, and then slipped her knee between Lucy’s thighs, pressing against Lucy’s center. Savoring the closeness, Lucy traced faint circles on her lover’s back with the tips of her fingers.
Strands of ebony hair tickled Lucy’s shoulders while Artemis’s warm lips nibbled at her breasts. Lucy moaned and tangled her fingers in the thick tresses, urging her lover downward. The sensation of Artemis’s touch roaming her hips made fire roil beneath her skin. Then the touch became more intimate and Lucy’s body accepted Artemis’s ardent caresses, passion blotting out all else as rhythmic strokes brought her to the edge and then over. Lucy arched her back and shivered, consumed by cascading waves of pleasure.
Settling herself astride her sated lover, Artemis cradled Lucy close. “I hope that lived up to your expectations,” she whispered, nuzzling Lucy’s neck.
Lucy brushed her fingers along Artemis’s cheek and responded with a mischievous grin. “It was wondrous, just as promised.”
Artemis’s breath caught for an instant at the playful look in Lucy’s eyes.
Freeing herself from their embrace, Lucy rose on an elbow and surveyed the perfect, heated body beside her. She ran her fingers down the length of Artemis’s torso and felt muscles react at her touch. Her hand came to rest amid dark curls, and she played her fingers through them. Artemis pulled her upward with strong hands, enfolded her once again, and claimed a kiss.
Lucy pressed her leg between her lover’s eager thighs and began a trail of kisses across a heaving chest. Artemis writhed and Lucy smiled at the moans escaping from deep in her lover’s throat. Lucy’s explored and petted until Artemis’s need grew urgent. Then Lucy joined their souls with an intimate touch and took Artemis to exquisite release.
Chapter Nine
Uberdorf listened to Jerry confirm his worst fears. It had been Brandon’s train that derailed, and the kid was most certainly dead although whatever pieces of him had been found had not been positively identified yet. It was a shitty way to start the day, and Uberdorf had a broadcast in eight hours. The sensational sermon he had prepared on Joel Osteen’s spectacular demise no longer applied.
He drubbed out a butt and lit another cigarette. The Harbinger had taken Brandon a day earlier than Jamil had calculated, not that he had ever believed the Harbinger was involved at all.
“How hard is it to count to three?” he wondered aloud. Brandon must have lied abou
t when the Harbinger visited him. Or he was a moron. Or Uberdorf was right and the Harbinger had nothing to do with the kid’s death. Pick your favorite. It didn’t matter. The plan had failed.
He cursed, realizing the future was going to be a clusterfuck. If—or was it more like when?—the authorities eventually tied the explosion to Brandon and then to the cult, it could mean big trouble. He tapped a pencil against his forehead and tried to think. He needed to use tonight’s broadcast to thwart the investigation. Scientists were always declaring that knowledge is power. He must challenge the assertion if he was to salvage the situation.
He thumbed through the old Bible he’d retrieved from the bottom drawer of his desk. It had a thick, faded leather cover and dog-eared pages long since yellowed. It had been his grandmother’s and probably had belonged to a grandmother or two before that. The huge book was a memory of being raised by a strong hand and a weak mind. Uberdorf kept the relic out of a sense of duty and to remind him of the circumstances he had managed to escape. The old woman had told him the book was a guide to living a good life. Now it was proving useful in ways she never could have dreamed.
He opened the book and flipped through the thin, parchment-like pages. She had made notes on nearly every chapter, underlining favored passages like the one he found himself staring at: Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. He could hear his grandmother preaching as he read a few underscored versus. Then it hit him. Knowledge was at the root of original sin. Eve had eaten from the tree of knowledge and been turned out of the Garden of Eden. He closed the book and shoved it back into the desk drawer. Knowledge is a false god. That would be the message of his sermon. He smiled. Grandma had been right in the end—the Bible was going to save him after all.
He wrote furiously as the words seemed to tumble from his supercharged brain. The dead Servant of the Harbinger was on a mission of peace. He died a hero, sacrificing himself for the greater good. The Harbinger selected Brandon from among my faithful servants, but the incompetence of the railroad killed him. The railroad was at fault. They will try to cover their malfeasance and claim a bomb was responsible. But that would be evil. You cannot trust scientists who worship knowledge. They are minions of the same devil who tempted Eve. Cast out the apostate theories of evil men. Put your faith in the Harbinger and the miracles of our benevolent God.
He sat back and read what he had written. It needed a few embellishments, but his message was taking shape. He put his notes in a folder, shed his robe, and went to lunch.
*
Just before noon, Artemis returned from signing the papers that set her free from her responsibilities as an attorney and filed the documents in her study. She had driven a fair deal, retaining sufficient ownership to go back in if the firm should need her. But she was free to devote all her time to the Harbinger. Well, not all her time. She found her thoughts occupied with visions of her delicious new lover. Their bodies were perfect together. Lucy was responsive and playful, everything Artemis could want. More than want, Lucy made her happy.
She cleared her desk and headed to the kitchen. They would be together again tonight. The thought alone filled her with an overwhelming sense of desire.
She poured herself a glass of ice water and pondered the possibilities. Then, pulling herself together, she decided to use the sense of happiness to focus on solving the nagging mystery that continued to haunt her life. She needed to know what the Harbinger was and why it had selected her brother. She had pondered the mystery while in the depths of depression. She wondered if she would do better feeling happy and alive. She opened her laptop, logged in, and pulled up the old spreadsheet that contained the names of several thousand Harbinger-related deaths. Ichabod Andronikos headed the list.
“Miss you, Cab,” she whispered, knowing he’d have been pleased about Lucy.
She continued to keep the file even though she no longer maintained it. It was a link to her brother and a starting place whenever she picked up the thread. Lucy had long since stopped sending names. She closed the file, clicked on the internet, and searched for information about changes to DNA, mutations, and a score of other variations on her theme. After two hours of searching, nothing useful popped out. Evidently science wasn’t sharing information concerning sudden changes to the building blocks of life. She toyed with calling Ben in Rome to see if he would share anything. Instead she sent him an email and got the distinct feeling she would not be getting an answer.
She stood and stretched and thought again of her pretty lover. Her cell chirped, and she smiled knowing it was Lucy.
”Did you know your last name means ‘victory’?” Lucy asked.
“Yes.”
“I looked it up. For some reason I can’t get you out of my mind for more than ten seconds.”
A flush of warmth enveloped Artemis. “I feel the same way.”
Lucy sighed wistfully. “I just wanted to say, don’t cook. I’m bringing dinner tonight if you can wait until I put Angie to bed. My mother is making us a treat. I think she likes our being, you know, together.”
“Have I told you that I really like your mother?”
*
Star KIC 8462852, Tabby’s star, was experiencing another diminishment in brightness. Seventeen percent less than a week ago, Strang noted. Streams of dust particles were passing between the star and Earth. The mystery of the star’s strange behavior had been largely proved, and Strang was satisfied with the conclusion although it shed little light on his own investigations.
He paged through the latest journal and came upon an article regarding object 1I/2017 U1. Oumuamua as the object was called—based on the Hawaiian for “messenger”—was confirmed to be carbon-based and proceeding on an orbit that would return it to a distant solar system.
It pleased him to see mysteries solved. These were not mysteries he had chosen to investigate, but they were worthy of research, and Strang found the solutions interesting. He had not yet arrived at a solution either for the object that fascinated at the edge of the Great Rift nor for the nature of dark matter.
He set aside the journal and let his thoughts go where they willed. There was an article he would share with Willa. His wife loved to hear stories of the oddities Wolfgang came across. He would regale her with a new one this evening when he returned home.
The conference had provided no new information pertinent to his lifelong quest. Dark matter was known to exert gravitational pull on visible matter, a fact he had known for decades. One of the speakers postulated that dark matter was a webby, filamentous structure, and galaxies clustered around its strands. Strang found such speculation less than convincing. To his mind, dark matter was a process not an invisible substance that jerked planets left and right.
He exited the plane and went directly to his car, eager to get home. Willa was still feeling ill, and he needed to hear what her latest tests had found. The worry never left him, and he had been reluctant to make the conference. But she had insisted in that gentle way of hers as if his leaving for a few days was a favor instead of an imposition.
She greeted him on the porch with a hug, clinging tightly to his tall, lanky frame. He held her close and noticed she had lost more weight from her already fragile body. He leaned down and kissed her gently and then gave her a smile and took her hand as they went inside.
“Do you have a new story for me?” she asked when she had fed him, and they were settled on the lanai to watch the sunset.
“I do indeed,” he said. “It is the story of something known as a cataclysmic variable.”
Willa’s eyes lit up. “Quite an ominous sounding name, Wolf. Not one of your usual Greek myths, I take it.”
He thrust his arm out and twirled his hand. “Ah, yes. Nothing Greek about this one, dear. It is the story of two stars—a red giant and a white dwarf.”
Willa sank back into the cushions of her lounge chair and tucked a blanket about her legs, her face radiant in the slanted light. Strang leaned forward and began the tale of one of the univer
se’s incomprehensible events.
“Somewhere in the unimaginable emptiness of space, a white dwarf wanders too near a luscious red giant and becomes captive to her gravitational pull. They circle each other like teenaged lovers unable to turn away. Then the dwarf wanders too close, and the giant consumes the small white interloper in a single bite.”
“Goodness.” Willa chuckled. “I wasn’t expecting that. It was beginning to sound like a love story for a moment.”
Her husband waggled his finger. “Fear not. Our white dwarf is a clever fellow. He spins inside her, uses his strength to blow away the gases that enclose him. In the end the swallowed dwarf reduces the red giant to a small white dwarf just like himself. From that moment on, the new dwarf orbits the victor, and they become binary stars bound to each other until the end of time.”
Willa shook her head. “You are a romantic, my love.”
“But you have always known that.” He reached out and took her hand. “Everything is connected, Willa. Just as you and I.”
*
“Where have you been, Temmie?” Lucy was excited but not in a positive way. “I couldn’t reach you at your office, and your cell was off.”
“I turned it off to work on something, Lucy. What’s wrong?”
“Other than the riot in San Diego, you mean?”
“What?”
“Temmie, do you even visit the real world?”
“Not unless I have to.”
She turned on her television and hit mute. The footage on the screen explained Lucy’s agitation. There were huge crowds milling through the streets of San Diego. The signs they carried identified their cause du jour—the Harbinger.
“It looks like more of a demonstration than a riot, Lucy.”
“All arranged via social media. Some group called Victims No More coordinated the demonstrations and specifically called for violence. Things will be burning by nightfall. I guarantee it.”