Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel (43 page)

But the lady Books ushered in was
not the fire-scarred Queen of Demons, nor one of her three harridan daughters.
The Rider was genuinely surprised to see who it was.

She was a dainty, refined woman in
fine light petticoats, a lace parasol over her shoulder, one small gloved hand
poised on the calamander and ivory handle. Her skin was so pale, her neatly
bound hair so frosty white, she seemed to glow in the dimness. A casual
observer would have said it was just the afternoon sun coming in the door
behind her.

The Rider knew better.

She was a
malakh
. An angel of the Lord. She had been his companion in his
ascent through the holy
hekhalots
of
Heaven, his spirit guide through the regions of Paradise. They had parted
company at the foot of the Throne, when the terrible angel Metatron had cast
his unworthy soul from the Presence. Then about two years ago she had appeared
to him again in Delirium Tremens, during the affair where he’d smashed a
Canaanite cult of Molech and first heard of the Hour of Incursion plot.

He never learned her name.

Marshal Books touched the brim of
his hat and closed the door behind her. He never once looked directly at her.

“Hello again, Rider,” she said, when
the door to the outer office clanked shut.

“Hello.”

“You’re in a fix this time.”

“It certainly appears so.” He stood
and went to the bars. “I guess it would be too much to hope you’re here to
spring me out of this calaboose.”

She knitted her cornsilk eyebrows
together.

“Spring you?”

“Break me out of jail.”

“No, I’m afraid not. It was your own
weakness which led you here. I cannot intervene.”

“My weakness.” He shook his head. “I
came here to save someone I thought was in trouble.”

The angel looked at him sideways, a
prim smile on her small lips.

“You cannot lie to me, Rider. I know
you too well.”

The Rider looked away. It had only
been half a lie. He knew he had done wrong in abandoning his purpose to see
Nehema. But he really had been concerned about her. Hadn’t he?

“Why are you here then?” he asked
gruffly.

“To comfort you, and to prepare you
for what is to come.”

“It’s about time,” the Rider
smirked.

“What do you mean?” she asked with
apparent innocence.

“I mean I could have used a little
more preparation up to this point. A little more angelic comfort.”

When she still seemed oblivious to
his words, he got angry.

“I was taught to see the Lord’s hand
in the dew on the grass. But I haven’t seen green grass in many a year.”

The angel raised her pale eyebrows.

“Does this mean the Lord is not
here? Even here?”

“I want answers.”

“I am not here to give answers.”

“I want answers of the Lord.”

“He will not give them.”

“He had better,” the Rider nearly
shouted.

“Do you presume to make demands of
the Lord?” she asked calmly in the face of his outrage.

“Well, he’s made some pretty sizable
demands of me,” he said, stalking about the cell.

“And what have you done for Him?”

“What have I…I’ve given up
everything! I’ve been His Joshua. I’ve hunted down His enemies, destroyed them
when I could. Alone. I’ve seen His enemies up close. His real enemies. Felt
their power. Lost friends to it.”

“Do you really believe that? That
you have been alone?”

“Oh, there’ve been men and women who’ve
helped me…”

“Men and women? And the Lord has not
helped you?
I
have not helped you?”

“You? I haven’t seen you in two
years. And as to the Lord—”

“Be careful, Rider,” she
interrupted. “Do not think your Father does not listen. He hears you. When you
hung upon the windmill in Polvo Arrido, who gave the boy the courage to return
and cut you down? When Medgar Tooms and the
dybbukim
threatened you, and the old Reverend Lessmoor prayed to the Lord of The
Thunderstorms, who answered with lightning? Did you forget it was the
Sar ha-Cholem
, an angel of the Lord,
that sent Kabede to you? And who do you suppose gave Dick Belden the dream that
helped you defeat the necromancer above the Valle del Torreon?

“Could you have passed through hell
itself, where no mortal soul may pass, without the protection of the Lord of
Hosts? Do you think you have survived this long solely because of your own
abilities? And if you do, where does your power come from? Is not every one of
your amulets inscribed with the name of an angel? Did the names of the Lord not
serve you against the Grigori Armoni and in the den of the
lilin
? Did the angels themselves not fight for you at
Pa-Gotzin-Kay? And did you not call on the Lord through His Psalm only days
ago? You Israelites never change. Must the Lord clear every obstruction for you
to earn your faith?”

The Rider stood dumbfounded. She
couldn’t have known about any of those things unless she or the Lord had been
watching him.

“Why didn’t you ever make yourself
known?” he said miserably, a tremble of emotion in his voice.

“Has the Lord not made Himself known
to you since the beginning of time?”

He had a thought then, and kicked
off his boots, falling to his knees before her.

“Are you…are you the Lord?”

She giggled.

“No, Rider. You would not come to
Him. He will not come to you. But I have been with you. All the days of your
life, though you knew me not.”

No mere guide then. He felt a
wetness on his cheek.

“My
malakh memuneh,
” he said thickly. His deputy, his guardian angel.
It made sense. She had come unbidden whenever he had explored Heaven as a
novice. “Adon told me you were just a curious spirit, drawn to a mortal soul
among the
hekhalots
.” A common
occurrence, he had said.

“Adon told you many things,” she
said. “And he will tell you more yet. I was never perceptible by you until you
set upon the Merkabah path. It is my task to bear witness to your life.”

How had he never suspected? This was
the angel who aided him when he served the Lord. She had seen him at his worst
and at his best, and watched him break bread every
Shabbat.

“Soon you’ll be out of a job,” the
Rider said.

“It may be. You are entering a very
dark place, Rider. You will not know truth from lies, friend from foe. And due
to your own infidelity, you enter into this stripped of all your protection,
all the power entrusted to you.”

“I know it,” said the Rider,
lowering his head. “Please, can’t you answer me anything?”

The angel stared at him, then closed
her eyes.

Would she grant him this boon? He
had to know what the Great Old Ones were. If HaShem, the Lord, or Shamblaparn
as Faustus called Him, was greater, or where the Outer Gods fit in His plan.

The angel opened her eyes.

“I am not to answer the question
which is now in your heart,” she said. “It is for you to ask and answer. I will
give you an answer to a question you have never asked. The answer is The
Thunder of God.”

“The Thunder of God?” the Rider
repeated.

She smiled then, and the smile
warmed him in spite of his predicament.

“Remember it in your dreams.”

The Rider nodded and bowed his head,
though he didn’t understand.

“Thank you.”

He was startled from his obeisance
by the opening of the door to the outer office.

He looked up, and the angel, his
angel, was gone.

Books stood in the doorway, swinging
the iron key ring on one finger, looking at him as if he had sprouted a tail.

“Get up and put your boots on.”

“Where did she go?”

Books raised an eyebrow in answer.

“The woman. My visitor.”

“Wishful thinking, pard. You must’ve
been dreamin.’ Last visitor you had was the scribbler from the Sentinel. Now
get your boots on.”

The Rider did as he was told.

“Have the marshals from New Mexico
come?”

“You ain’t goin’ to New Mexico.”

“Where am I going?”

“Up to Prison Hill. The acting
superintendant’s requested to see you. Told the judge he knows you.”

“Who’s the acting superintendant?”

Books drew his pistol and fit the
key into the lock. “Don’t try anything,” he warned.

The Rider raised his hands as Books
swung open the squealing iron door and motioned for him to come out. He did,
and Books closed a pair of shackles around his wrists behind his back, and shut
the door again.

“Fella named Laird,” Books said. “He’s
fillin’ in for Captain Meder while he’s away.”

The Rider blinked. Laird? Who was
he? He’d never even heard the name. What possible interest could the man have
in him?

Books led him outside to a waiting prison
wagon, the cage in the back of the crossed iron variety.

A deputy sat waiting in the seat.

Books opened the cage and deposited
him inside, locking it. He passed the key to the deputy and went back into his
office without another word.

The deputy cracked the reins and the
rocking cage wagon rumbled out of town.

Those townspeople who paused to
watch his passage fixed him with hard stares through the bars. He was a known
killer. Most of the men in town had fought the fire that burned down the Haddox
Woodyard, and those that hadn’t had spread word of him faster than that
conflagration. No doubt when Bantas from the Sentinel had identified him as the
same man wanted in New Mexico for destroying a watering hole and killing
several men, his repugnance had increased considerably.

The accusing stares followed him out
of town, and a few kids pitched stones that bounced off the bars, or directed
mucus-laden spit at him, which passed through and struck his cheeks. The Jew
slurs came, of course, and he turned his thoughts from where he was.

He reflected on the specific killing
that had led him to his, that of Nehema. It did not burden his conscience
particularly, as he knew she still existed in Hell, and that she would have
driven her husband to evil eventually. He took comfort in that he had preserved
the idyllic false image Harry Haddox had held of her. Better she be a martyr
who broke his heart than a demon who hacked it in two.

The wagon lurched up the gravel road
ascending Prison Hill, and the Rider was pressed back against the barred doors
of his cage.

The prison was an imposing sight
overlooking the rushes of the river below. Convicts in black and white striped
clothes whittled away at the side of the hill with pick and shovel, chains
clinking, freeing more clay from the ground to improve upon their durance. The
walls were eight foot high and plank, but were slowly being replaced by a thick
adobe wall eighteen feet tall. A tall, pagoda-like wooden guard tower sat over
an old stone water tank, and uniformed guards with Winchesters propped on their
hips overlooked the sullen work details as they clinked by in long drudging
lines. In the shade of the wall, a number of lean looking, near-naked Indians
in straw hats cradling rifles sat or dozed. Quechans.

They passed a cemetery outside the
east wall, the board grave markers jutting like a stubborn, hardscrabble crop
from the dusty, stony ground.

Winding up and around the main drive
to the entrance, the wagon came at last to a halt, and a broad, unshaven guard
in a yellow planter’s hat sweating in the intense heat of the day beneath his
wool coat came over.

“What say, deputy? Not much of a
haul today,” said the guard.

“Mister Laird asked special for this’n,”
said the deputy, getting down from his seat and coming around to the back. “I’m
to tell you he’s the one wanted in New Mexico. The one killed the Haddox woman.”

“Ah,” said the guard. “Yeah I was
told to expect this one.”

The deputy opened the cage and
stepped back to allow the Rider to disembark, which he did presently, the
threat of the guard’s rifle imminent to discourage any notion of untoward
behavior.

There were a few silent moments
while he was pulled and turned and pushed as the deputy and the guard swapped
shackles, then the deputy bid farewell, got back in his wagon and rattled off
down the hill.

The guard led him into the prison
yard by the crook of his elbow. He was an exceedingly ugly individual. Besides
being disproportionately large, he had some kind of skin condition that had
caused him to grow thick, powdery white calluses on his knuckles. There were
similarly dry, unsightly patches on either side of his face as well, scabbed
over many times until the skin there had a reptilian consistency.