Runaway Nun (Misbegotten) (2 page)

2

The three Black Hawks swooped low over the wall of the
compound. From the open door of the leading helicopter, Elano surveyed the fortified
wall that surrounded the digger’s hideout. A once-upon-a-time two-story-tall
concrete stockade that encircled a military base, the wall had been reinforced
with huge junkyard wreckages that included anything from crushed carcasses of
eighteen-wheelers to dismantled high-voltage latticed poles, all piled on top
of each other and rigged in place with plenty of razor wire. Here and there,
long sharp spikes protruded from the convoluted metallic hotchpotch like the
quills of a giant porcupine.

An intricate web of steel cables
roofed the enclosure, rendering impossible any kind of landing inside the
compound’s walled perimeter. Two double-deckers sat with their rusty wheels on
top of a set of railway tracks lined up transversally in front of the access
gate. Ten-foot-wide and high enough for a man on horse to pass through, the
gate was the only opening in the fortified wall.

Elano turned to Ulf and pointed
toward the two busses.

Ulf nodded.

A
pump-action shotgun in one hand and a worn-out leather bandoleer full of shells
in the other, the High Priest barged through the door of his aluminum trailer
shaped like a blown-up torpedo. His hair hung in long thick braids over
shoulders covered in intricate tattoos mixing Wiccan symbols and overly
detailed vignettes from Kama Sutra. He was wearing only a pair of old breeches
stuck inside equestrian boots the color of dried cranberries; thick veins wreathed
his muscles, turning his lanky torso into an ideal showcase for an anatomy
lesson. Yet the gray hairs in his beard and the wrinkles coating his suntanned
face gave true testimony of his age—he was well into his fifties.

“Sons of one-legged whores,” he
muttered under his breath as he scowled at the whirring helicopters, the mad
twirl of their propellers sending a shock wave through his trailer. From its
doorway, three teenage girls, their long hair in disarray, wrapped their nightgowns
around their bony frames, and followed their master’s stare into the sky.

The grinding turbines hollering
above sent scores of diggers charging out of the run-down trailers and mobile
homes arranged in a U shape, facing the entrance of a shaft that led to an
underground gallery. They glowered at the descending helicopters, and ran back
inside their rickety shelters only to emerge seconds later brandishing swords,
spears, slingshots, pitchforks, bows, and arrows. With anxious stares, they
turned to their leader.

“Lock the gates!” the High Priest
barked, pointing at the double-deckers. “Shelter the women and children!”

The three young concubines jumped
on the ground and darted to the entrance of the shaft, trailing the women and
children who were already seeking cover underground. A group of diggers raced
to the two buses and started to drag them toward each other in an attempt to
cover the entrance of the compound like a double gate. Tires long gone, flaky
paint curling off their sunbaked chassis, the busses squealed over the two
tracks held firmly into the ground with thick iron barbs.

With the rest of the defenders in
tow, the High Priest ran to the fortified wall. They climbed to their posts
behind the parapet of the scaffold-rampart that traced the wall on the inside.
Arrows were hooked in, the bows’ strings pulled back. Extracting one shell at a
time from his bandoleer, the High Priest loaded his shotgun methodically,
cursing all gods that came to his mind—both those he worshiped and those
he despised.

The
choppers finally landed, buffeting twirls of red dust with their prop wash.

Within seconds, the three squads
of monks jumped out and advanced toward the diggers’ compound. Like rehearsing
a well-drilled maneuver, they maintained a tight phalanx formation, their
shields held high, loaded crossbows at ready, swords unsheathed. Arrows kept
whizzing toward them, biting into the raised shields with a dull thud. Rocks
hurled from swirling slingshots rained harmlessly on top. Once in a while, a
spear would whistle through the air and jab at the sandy terrain, then get crushed
by the raiders’ hasty feet.

Recklessly exposed, Elano strode
behind the second squad of monks. Now and then, he fended off a wandering arrow
or poorly aimed rock with the blade of his broadsword.
 
He watched the first squad getting closer
to the compound’s gate. From under the protective layer of overlapped shields, Ulf
had seen the two double-deckers getting closer and closer and shouted at his men
to pick up their pace. The Cardinal’s eyes darted back to the rim of the parapet
from where sharp projectiles kept flying at his men. No gunshots yet, but that
didn’t mean much—bullets and buckshot were luxuries, and were always
spared for the close-quarter phase of the combat. His sights shifted back to
the two busses about to be joined. One of the double-deckers carried a scenic
vista of the Grand Canyon on its advertising panel. The colors of the poster
with the bottomless slit were yellowed to a dismal patina, but Elano could
still discern the words on the caption:

Visit Native Indian
lands by luxury motorcoach and marvel before one of the Seven Wonders of the
World: the Grand Canyon's West Rim!

Take a ride over the
newly built Hoover Dam Bridge, and still be back in time to spin the wheel in
Vegas by nighttime!

Includes continental breakfast and authentic Indian
BBQ lunch.

On
the other side of the wall, the diggers strained and grunted struggling to push
the double-deckers into place over the last few yards, when Ulf’s squad suddenly
reached the gate. The monks raised their shields in one swift move as a cascade
of rocks and spears descended from the rim of the parapet. The raised shields opened
a clear line of fire for the first row of monks armed with crossbows.

“Release!” Ulf commanded, holding
up the protective layer of shields with the others.

Firing rapidly, the sniper monks
unleashed a hailstorm of bolts that found their way into the chests of the
defenders, ripping through their bodies, thunking sinisterly as they penetrated
the buses’ carcasses.

Elano saw his raiders pouring in
through the narrow passageway left between the double-deckers and disappearing
inside the compound. Howling a desperate battle cry, the throng of diggers
immediately jumped from their defensive posts atop the rampart and charged at
the monks.

“Hold!” Ulf shouted, and held his
sword high in the air.

The monks held back their next
salvo; they lined up, aimed their crossbows, and waited until the first wave of
assailants reached within a surefire deadly range.

“Release!” Ulf ordered, slashing
the air with his sword.

The bolts whistled through the air
like a host of enraged locusts. They severed limbs, split craniums and pierced
chests, dropping scores of defenders into the dirt. Gushing freely, blood turned
into crimson runnels that found their way into the parched ground.

Elano and the next two squads
finally barged their way inside the fortified wall. Flaunting crudely made
weapons, cohorts of enraged diggers closed in on them from every direction, and
a no-holds-barred medieval pandemonium took over the area around the tour buses
and spread through the entire courtyard. Blade stroked blade, iron pounded
iron, wood cracked and burst into splinters, bones were crushed, flesh ripped
open, people howled, grunted, yelled, and cursed as they died. The cacophony of
battle clamors raised into the morning sky like a grotesque symphony Elano had
heard one too many times.

Although outnumbered, the monks
fought deftly and with economy of movement, letting the diggers’ blind courage drive
them into defeat. Between delivering blows, Elano could hear Ulf shouting
orders to ensure the monks maintained their close-knit formation. Like a
detachment of riot troops with each man covering for the man near him, the monks
waited patiently for that crucial second when one well-aimed strike would
accomplish what a fury of poorly delivered strikes could not. They kept pushing
the diggers back towards the cluster of buildings at the center of the
compound, one square foot of desert at a time.

Swinging his broadsword in wide
arcs, Elano broke away from the closely-knit formation of monks and headed in
the direction of the rampart where he had spotted the High Priest and his
shotgun. Never a still target for more than a second, his body twirling in
intricate fluid movements, he sliced his way through bands of diggers with an
almost detached, mechanical efficiency. Blood spurting from slit throats,
chopped arms, and split-open bellies splashed his arms, face, and black tunic.
Its coopery tang invaded his nostrils like the cursed aroma of a drug engulfing
his mind and emptying his soul of all fear. He kept wielding his broadsword,
parrying poorly aimed lunges of spears and short swords, and delivering quick
death in return—and then he heard the first gunshot.

He looked in the direction where
the blast had come; the first thing he saw was a young monk lying in the dirt
at the base of the rampart—his head gone, the bloody stump of his neck a
mangled mass of flesh, sinew, and bone. From atop the wooden platform, the High
Priest was aiming the smoking shotgun at a second monk who reluctantly advanced
on him, holding a sword at ready.

“Take cover!” Elano shouted at the
monk who immediately dove behind the bodyshell of a rusted Cadillac protruding
from the jury-rigged wall.

Elano grabbed a spear off the
ground and hurled it at the High Priest. The man’s instincts were
sharp—he ducked just in time for the spear to jam its sharp tip into the
wall behind. A snarl etched on his face, the High Priest jolted back on his
feet and aimed the shotgun at Elano who was zigzagging among the contorted
bodies of the dead, racing toward the rampart. The High Priest pulled the
trigger. Elano ducked. The buckshot missed the young Cardinal and tore into the
chest of a digger wearing a discolored DIAMONDBACKS jersey about to deliver a
deadly blow with a nail-spiked baseball bat. The man shrieked and dropped to
the dirt; the makeshift mace hit the ground.

Hanging to the maze of beams and
truces, Elano climbed onto the parapet. The High Priest tried to lock and load,
struggling to unstick the pump-action mechanism of the shotgun for a few
precious seconds. He finally aimed his weapon at Elano and was ready to fire
when, springing forward, Elano whacked the gun’s barrel away with the tip of
his broadsword just as the High Priest pulled the trigger. The buckshot headed
straight for the sky. The High Priest cursed and, yelling at the top of his
lungs, charged Elano, swinging the shotgun like a club. Elano avoided the
incoming strike with a soft Aikido feint and walloped the High Priest with the
pommel of his broadsword.

The High Priest’s skull split open
with a crack. He dropped the shotgun onto the planks of the rampart, doubled
over, and tumbled over the rail; he hit the ground with a grunt, raising a
small cloud of dust.

Elano picked up the shotgun and
fired all the remaining pellets at the sky, one after another, locking and
loading and pulling the trigger until the last spent shell twirled through the
air and the gun clanked on empty.

The rapid series of gunshots brought
the combat to a standstill.

The remaining groups of fighting
diggers took a few steps back and looked in the direction of the gun blasts.
They saw Elano leaning against the parapet, holding the smoking shotgun above
his head, still aimed at the sky.

They saw the High Priest crouched
on the ground, not moving.

One by one, they dropped their
weapons into the dirt.

3

Placed at intervals around the parapet, a squad of monks
stood guard. They kept their eyes on the desert covered in waves of shimmering heat,
swaying before their eyes like legions of drifting phantoms circling the three
landed helicopters.

Near the gate, two monks watched
over a handful of young children huddled in the shade of a double-decker. One
of them uncorked a water canteen and handed it to a skinny boy who was drawing
shapes in the sand with a twig. The boy took the canteen and drank with small
sips. The monk gestured to pass the canteen around. One by one, the children
drank from it, glancing furtively at the monk, at the huge battle-ax sheathed
across his back.

Two other monks guarded a group of
teenagers strolling around, picking up the bloody bolts that littered the
grounds—pulling them from the dead bodies when needed, and dropping them
in the rusty buckets they carried.

At the other end of the courtyard,
half a dozen men were digging graves for the three monks who’d died during the
raid. The bodies were veiled in their tunics, hands folded on their chests. Two
of them had rosaries placed on their livid lips; the third cadaver had the
rosary hanging from his interlocked fingers instead, the bloody stump of his
neck hastily wrapped in a shirt borrowed from a dead digger.

Hungry buzzards were already circling
above, their banshee caws echoing from the sky like a bad omen. Flapping its wings,
a daring bird finally landed near a cluster of cadavers, hobbled close to them,
and proceeded to poke and nip at the eyes of the dead. Soon another bird joined
in the feast, tugging out a string of intestines from a ruptured abdomen and
flying away with it.

Watched
intently by Ulf, Elano stabbed his broadsword into the ground in front of the
rows of captured diggers. On their knees, hands tied behind their back, the men
who survived the raid were scattered among the rest of the compound’s
inhabitants: mostly women and children who’d been brought out from their
underground shelter where they’d sought refuge. Necklaces with amulets,
earrings, and all sorts of jewelry adorned the women and children’s heads and
arms, displaying bizarre symbols and words in a pagan calligraphy that Elano
didn’t recognize. The mishmash of strange-looking clothes that covered their
bodies bore testimony of their scavenging practices. On some of them, written
in brightly colored large letters, there were words Elano could read, although
they meant nothing to him: GAP, Aeropostale, Polo, Nike, and a host of other cryptic
names that the World Before took pride in and perhaps even worshiped. Painted
on top of a T-shirt hanging off a skinny teenage girl, a stick man holding a
fishing rod waved and smiled back at Elano—“Life is Good” was written
underneath.

Elano stepped in front of the High
Priest. On his knees like all the others, the man stared at the ground. The
blood from his head wound was slowly coagulating around his left ear, jellying
into his braided hair. Dejected, he glanced at the crucifix-shaped hilt of
Elano’s sword.

“Our God is a merciful God. He
desires that none of you should perish, but that you forsake your wicked ways
and come to know Christ the Savior,” Elano said. He glanced at the High
Priest’s bloodshot eyes, searching for that glint of stubborn rebellion he knew
would still be there.

The High Priest didn’t
disappoint—he hawked up phlegm and spat on the ground.

“You and your holy hippie can go
straight to Hell,” he mumbled.

Ulf drew his sword instantly, the
blade leaving its sheath with a sinister hiss. He took one step toward the High
Priest, both hands gripping the hilt, readying his weapon for a blow meant to
put an end to all blasphemy.

Elano laid a hand on the young
monk’s shoulder and held him back. Eyes burning with righteous indignation, Ulf
glared at the High Priest. The High Priest held his stare, and taunted the
young monk back with a sneer. As Ulf took one step back and reluctantly
sheathed his sword, Elano moved in closer to the High Priest, and bent over. He
inspected the bleeding wound, assessing its gravity with the eyes of a
concerned surgeon. He touched the crack in the skull, dipping his finger in
blood. The High Priest jerked his head back.

“Killing is easy,” Elano said,
wiping the blood on the High Priest’s shoulder. “Breaking a soul? That’s hard. But
God loves hard.” He sought the High Priest’s eyes and smiled. “And He has
prepared a place for those He loves: three thousand feet underground, my brother.”

The High Priest grinned, defiant.

“The lungs give out first, then
the eyes. Can’t tell day from night,” Elano continued. “That’s when you start
seeing
with the heart. Trust me,
brother—you haven’t seen glory yet.”

“And you, monk, haven’t seen shit
yet,” the High Priest replied. He coughed, hawked another load of phlegm, and
spat it at Elano’s broadsword. Blood and spittle trickled on the blade.

The grin returned on the High
Priest’s face. “When you get to Hell, tell the holy hippie ‘Hi’ from me, will
ya, monk?”

“Down in the belly of the earth,
my brother,” Elano said, and he resumed his upright stance. “Where God draws
near—” It was then that he saw the girl, on her knees, almost hiding
behind the High Priest. She was frail, with a pallid demeanor, and light
blonde, almost bleached hair falling in helter-skelter soft curls that concealed
her eyes. An amulet with a small, desiccated claw—of a squirrel or a rat
?—
hung from around her neck. Stirred by the way she
held her statuesque pose, Elano sauntered around the High Priest and dropped
slowly to one knee in front of her. She didn’t move, as if she hadn’t seen him
drawing near.

The High Priest looked over his
shoulder and scowled at Elano.

“You’re treading on holy ground,”
the High Priest said. “The oracle won’t lie; it can’t.”

Elano glanced at the High Priest,
then
turned back to the girl.

“All men bare their souls before
it,” the High Priest continued. “I dare you on the hidden stars above and the
nameless rivers below—be careful, monk! Ignorance’s is from on high, ain’t
that what the good book’s saying?”

Elano paid him no mind. He raised
his hand and gently parted the girl’s hair, exposing her eyes. Her eyelids were
shut tight, her face straining to keep them that way. Once she sensed Elano’s
touch, the girl jolted and started to sway from side to side, humming softly,
whispering strange words—chanting almost.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit!”
the High Priest proclaimed, raising his eyes toward the sky in a mock gesture
of devotion. He then turned to Ulf and grinned. “And that’s the whole damned
truth, Amen?” And he winked at Ulf—Ulf’s jaw tightened.

Knelt beside the chanting girl, a
woman in her thirties with a mane of blonde hair in disarray and strikingly
similar features to that of the girl kept casting pleading glances at Elano.
The mother, Elano thought as he sized her up. The love for her child blended on
the woman’s face with a sense of an imminent, foreboding dread. The mixture
veiled her in a sudden aura of vulnerable beauty that touched him strangely,
awakening a tender yearning—for what? Beauty and sin: the ancient spell.
A true daughter of Eve at his feet, and he couldn’t stop from feeling a tinge
of guilt. She was on her way to those cursed coalmines, the place where beauty
was a currency most sought after; she’ll end up like all the others, he
thought, selling her charms for an extra bowl of soup or the chance to work in
the laundry rooms on the grounds above.

He suddenly felt out of place,
lost in the midst of a parched desert, forsaken before a girl with a shriveled
claw around her neck, and a woman with pleading eyes. For a split second, he
longed again to be released from his sacred vows and just simply be. The
craving burned in his belly and descended lower, like a rolling fireball finding
its way toward his groin. Resigned to temptation, he peered into the woman’s lustrous
hazel eyes. The fear. The lust. The bargain. He was stirred—the man in
him instantly awoken.
Ianua Diaboli.
Cursed to crawl, cast from the garden and now taking shape in
his own
flesh, swelling with blood. He turned to Ulf, nodded
at the girl,
then
gestured in the direction of the kids
gathered in the shade of the double-decker.

“Why isn’t she with the rest?”

“She’s too old, Monsignor,” Ulf
answered.

Elano turned back to the girl.
“How old are you, my daughter?”

“Ten in the flesh,” she said, her
lips barely moving, eyes clenched shut.

Elano stretched out his hand
slowly, this time towards the girl’s closed eyes.

The High Priest shifted on his
knees, a muffled growl rumbling in his throat.

“Cursed is the man who touches
them, monk!” the High Priest said.

Elano’s fingers got closer to the
girl’s eyelids. She recoiled from his hand. A tremor rattled her thin body, her
shoulders convulsed with a spasm. Then she remained still, anchored into the
ground by an invisible force that kept her captive in its crushing wave-matrix.

“I was there when they took the
blood and the bone,” the girl said, and her eyes finally flinched open to
reveal a pair of grey, washed-out eyeballs crisscrossed by thin capillaries but
no pupils.

A grin thrived on the High
Priest’s face.

“What do you see,
Sunrise-At-Last?” the High Priest asked the girl.

Elano panned his eyes from the
High Priest to the blind girl and back to her mother. The girl’s mother swallowed
once, her lips quivering.

“Priest, I beg you—” she said.

“I see a black man holding a
cross,” the girl said, her dull eyes not blinking. She tilted her head slowly
at an odd angle—Elano heard the bones in her neck cracking.

“A skinny man hangs on the cross.
Blood and water.
Dirt and tears.
No
crows.
And not yet Sabbath.
The skinny man cries. The
black man breaks bread before the children. The bread is not sweet. The wine is
sour. The children eat their god. But
one
is not an orphan—”

“Pay her no mind,” the woman
blurted as she crawled on her knees toward Elano. “She’s ill. Show her mercy, I
beg you!”

The High Priest laughed and locked
eyes with Elano.

“She’s not ill. She’s a
seer
,” the High Priest said. “She’s
dancing all over your soul, monk, isn’t she? Her feet burn, eh?” He then turned
to the blind oracle and smiled.

“Dance, Sunrise, keep on dancing,
girl.”

“Flesh from the flesh of men, soul
robbed from on high,” the girl continued, singing the phrase with the
intonation of a liturgical chant. The bones in her neck cracked again, her head
regained its upright posture, and a faint smile blossomed on her face.

Elano pinned his stare onto the
girl’s dead irises, trying to penetrate into the cavern of her mind where
peculiar words and images flashed swiftly like a zoetrope spinning fast, out of
control. He’d recognized the black man breaking the bread before the children.
And the wine
was
sour—he could
still taste it in the back of his throat, twenty years later, dry and tart.

“Marian, oh, poor Marian,” the
girl continued, “How she wanted to be a mermaid and sail away.” Her head
twitched in the opposite direction, and the bones in her necked snapped again.
She rested her head on her shoulder, her neck bent at an odd angle. She turned
her glacial retinas towards Elano and blinked, her eyelids opening and closing
like the shutters of a camera. “Oh, Marian, the dead virgin. I see a boy
collecting her body washed ashore—and yet, he’s not an orphan. Do
you
know that boy, monk?”

“Heh-heh,” the High Priest chuckled.
“Damn me! Mystery abounds! Poor mermaid…”

Of course Elano knew the boy. And
he remembered Marian’s naked body wrapped in seaweed filaments that coiled around
her budding breasts, crawling over her soft belly and below, hiding the auburn
fuzz that adorned her groin. A thin layer of salt crusted her death-pallid
lips, eyes forever closed. He was ten, eleven? She was a few years older. He’d
come out to pray on the beach right before dawn, and found her drowned body
swaying in the surf… But he
was
an
orphan. Who was this girl? How did she
know
?
How did she
see
?

“He who has no mother and no
father will cast three lions to the bottom of the ocean,” and she looked in the
direction of the coat of arms engraved on the hilt of Elano’s broadsword. “I
say because I see,” the bling girl said in one breath,
then
she straightened up her head, closed her eyes, and resumed humming.

Elano stood and turned to Ulf. “Take
her with the rest of the children.”

“Monsignor, that’s three years
past the eligibility threshold—”

The Cardinal stared into the young
monk’s eyes.

“That rule wasn’t carved in stone
by the Almighty,” Elano said in a labored whisper. “It’s a vote a bunch of
beer-bellies took one Sunday after vespers. We’ll make an exception. I’ll talk
to the Vicar myself. She’s
not
going
to the coalmines!”