Seraphim (46 page)

4.

Fashioned to comfortably accommodate fifteen passengers, the shuttle was a banged up, rusted old thing reminiscent of the kind often seen at airports; originally white on the outside, grungy green upholstery inside, with a rather sweet musty smell that was causing Duncan to wonder if it was from years of dank storage or just the mummified driver’s BO.

Duncan speculated to himself that the chassis was probably a Ford E350 RV. Then again, he thought, it was most likely nothing of the sort, but rather an older model that had once rolled crystal clean off the assembly line of a factory located nowhere near Dearborn, let alone this planet, despite its apparent earthly manufacture.

Just like Dead Man’s gun.

When they’d reached the interstate, traffic had been chaotic, but negotiable; surprising, given the circumstances. Their chauffeur had skillfully woven them through infrequent snarls and smoldering pile-ups, the occasional roll-over, around corpses...

Too many corpses.

They weren’t long on the highway, though, as Dead Man had chosen an exit taking them eastward, quickly out of Rock Bay proper and onto its bucolic back roads.

Thousands of harpies soared high overhead, grouped not like geese, but ranked like marching ants. For now, they seemed content to leave the shuttle and its passengers alone.

Duncan inspected his leg wound, which was nearly healed now. He turned to Kathy, amazed. For the third time, he thanked her.

“No problem,” she said.
Think nothing of it.

Patricia leaned forward. “We’re going straight to Seattle, right?”

Dead Man said, “Not before we make a few pit stops.”

“Pit stops
where?
” Patricia demanded.

Dead Man chuckled. “Places that Rand McNally’s never heard of.”

Patricia sighed, turned toward the window. “I can’t cope with this.”

“Did it ever occur to any of you,” Chris said, “that we were selected because we can cope with it better than most?”

“We’re old souls,” Kathy added. “We can handle a lot more than we think we can.”

“All of us were groomed for just this very occasion,” Chris continued. “Not just in this lifetime, but in a long string of previous ones.”

“Right-O,” Kathy vouched. “Groomed.”

“What do you say about all this, Dead Man?” Duncan said. “Is all of this preordained?”

Before Dead Man could answer, Patricia walked to the front and pointing past the windshield. “Why are there seven toll booths on a two-lane frontage road?”

Dead Man nodded. “We’ll be running into a few like those.”

Duncan, on his feet now, asked, “Who in the hell built them?”

“Angels,” Dead Man said. “Funded by the seraph.”

One hundred feet from the toll booths, Dead Man stopped the shuttle.

“I don’t think I like this,” Rachel confessed.

“Ditto,” murmured Patricia.

Dead Man pointed through the windshield. “Chris, which one do we go through?”

Chris looked puzzled. “What are you asking me for? I don’t know—”

“Yes you do, just concentrate.”

The shuttle idled doubtfully as Chris focused. A slow tick began to pulse beneath his left cheek. Finally, he shouted, “Three! Three! Three!”

Dead Man revved the engine. “Three it is.”

Dead Man eased the shuttle into the third booth and, before he could stop, the hooded figure within raised the gate and waved him through.

Chris returned to his seat, grinning proudly. “Three!”

As they passed through the gate, a different world emerged. An urban world.

A world that Duncan recognized immediately.

5.

The morning sun shone through the grille of the window well, casting a latticework of shadows across Eli’s body and wings.

With her cane, Josephine nudged Eli’s foot.

He bolted up wide-eyed, as if chased awake by a nightmare pack of wolves rather than the blunt end of a stick.

There was now a blanket over him, one of red and black Indian weave, obviously thrown down by his mother. And it wasted no time in making him itch.

Josephine thumped her cane twice. “Where’s Robin?” she said.

Eli stared up at her. “Who?”

“Your sidekick, cape crusader!” she cackled. “I just figured since you got the role of Batman that they woulda given you a good-looking partner.” She cackled some more, then pointed to his wings. “Does a cave and souped-up Cadillac come with those?”

Ignoring his crazy mother, Eli stood, cinched the blanket around his waist, then unsteadily walked to the center of the room. He flexed his wings. They were almost completely dry now, and exceeded his original estimate in length. Each one had to be at least fifteen feet long. Their color had also changed; a rich opulent brown with black mottling having replaced the neonate, rodent pink.

None of which had any redeeming value whatsoever.

With all seriousness, Josephine said, “Shall I get the bat-phone when it rings, or will Alfred be taking over those duties?”

Undaunted by his mother’s jeers, Eli practiced operating his wings. Fully extended, they reminded him of a caudal fin of some monstrous fish. They neatly folded behind his back. It was as if he’d never been without them.

“How does my back look?” he said.

“Like the Joker’s best prank yet.”

“The wings, Mother. Do they look real?”

“I don’t see any glue dribbling down your back, if that’s what you mean.”

He sighed. “Do they look
natural?
”

She stepped closer. “You mean homegrown? Part of the original package?” She inspected the wings, pulled and shook them. She snorted. “I imagine they’ll do. But it sure is gonna be hot in that leather outfit.”

For a demented old woman, Eli had to admit, she could still maintain a train of thought.

“I’m getting the wings I deserve,” he told her. “Not these ugly things. We had a deal.”

“Who? You and that Gamble fellow?”

“That’s right.”

“Ha! That asshole’s been pulling you around by the tallywhacker for so long that you’ve got stretch marks on your balls.”

“Very attractive, Mother. And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“Means you’re a sucker, Eli! Wake up and smell the bullshit!”

Eli flexed his wings bombastically. “I think I’ll just fan the fumes,” he said.

“Not even angels were meant to have wings,” she declared. “You can thank those renaissance hippies for creating that screwy notion.”

“Michelangelo was hardly a hippie, Mother.”

“Ha!” Josephine started up the stairs. “I know one thing—I have a bowl of rice pudding and some toast waiting for me in the kitchen.” She turned, grinning mischievously. “Would you like me to make you some, batboy, or will you be switching your diet over to moths and mosquitoes?”

6.

They’d gone from day to night in a wink.

From country to city.

Boston.

Dead Man had left the interstate just moments earlier and was now cruising through the suburbs. Traffic was light, to say the least, as theirs was the only vehicle moving.

This was yesterday, Dead Man stated, the wee hours of the morning. A reprieve from the apocalypse. From here their journey would begin.

“Yesterday?” Rachel exclaimed. “We’re back to yesterday? And just how did we manage that?”

“With a little help from my friends,” Dead Man explained.

Finally, he eased the shuttle to the curb, killed the engine. Without turning around, he spoke to Duncan through the mirror above the driver’s seat. “Remember this neighborhood?”

“Vaguely,” Duncan said thickly. His face felt numb, as if suddenly impaired by a bilateral blitz of Bell’s Palsy. “But you’re too late. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to go back.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” said Dead Man. “Besides, who said this has anything to do with what
you
want?”

Duncan stared at the driver’s sunken eyes. “This is some kind of punishment?”

“Nonsense,” Dead Man assured. “Just has to be done is all.”

“Where are we, Duncan?” Rachel said, alarm etching her voice.

“Hell.” He kissed her cheek, then left his seat and approached Dead Man. “What are they going to do if I refuse?”

“That night hooked into you twelve years ago,” said Dead Man, “and has been reeling you in ever since, playing you to exhaustion. You might think you can still snap the line, but the hard truth is you’re already in the boat, weighed and measured.”

Duncan didn’t like where that analogy was heading. “Next thing you’ll be telling me is, I’m about to be gutted, mounted, and hung over someone’s fireplace.”

“Jesus, you’re such a malcontent,” charged Dead Man. “If this wasn’t necessary, we wouldn’t be here.”

“Damn it, Duncan McNeil, talk to me!” Rachel insisted, standing now. “What’s going on?”

“Remember those ghosts I told you about?”

She nodded.

“Well,” he said, “this is their cemetery.”

“And being the gravedigger that you are,” Rachel said, “you’re naturally going to have to rattle some old bones, right?”

“Not if I don’t have to,” he said. Then he turned and stared into the darkness. Something out there was strangely compelling, though. Taunting him.

Rachel aimed a finger at Dead Man. “Start this bus,” she ordered, “and just slowly drive away, or I swear I’ll tie you to the luggage rack like a piece of Samsonite.”

“Please, Mrs. McNeil,” Dead Man appealed, “understand that Duncan has to see this through.”

“I don’t get it,” she said. “My husband has to make a pit stop and revisit something that—no matter how heinous it might have been to
pre
-Armageddon society—couldn’t possibly compare to the carnage happening around us, or...above us, behind us—oh, hell, wherever the fuck it is, or we are, or—
oh, Jesus Christ!
” She was so agitated, so flustered, it appeared she might literally unhinge from herself, both halves going in different directions.

“Trust me on this,” said Dead Man. “It’s so very important.”

“Oh, piss off,” Rachel said, then motioned to their seat. “Duncan, you just sit right back down. There’s no way you’re going to leave us here alone with, with the Grim Reaper.”

Duncan was still staring out the windshield, entranced.

So, this is what it felt like,
he mused,
when sea nymphs sang the ancient sailors to the rocks.
Outside might be the early hours of yesterday morning, he thought, but that night of twelve years ago was waiting behind the subterfuge, secreted like a thief.

He met Rachel’s frightened eyes and sighed. “Dead Man’s right. I have to go.”

Rachel turned to Patricia. “You were a part of this, weren’t you?”

Patricia’s eyes diverted to the floor. “In a way.”

“Then get your ass up and help him, sweetheart!” Rachel demanded.

Patricia stared regretfully into Rachel’s eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I would take Duncan’s place if I could. Jesus, I can only imagine what he’s gone through for me.”

Rachel’s face twisted jeeringly. “Don’t flatter yourself!”

Patricia countered with her own wry expression. “Listen, I know you’re upset, but that’s no—”

“No
what?
” Rachel snapped. “Maybe if you would have been crossing your legs instead of your T’s while signing the motel register with John Cassavetes,
Rosemary
, we wouldn’t be in this pickle! And I don’t mean just us! I’m talking the whole fucking planet!”

Patricia bolted to her feet, fists clenched. “Why, you conceited, arrogant bitch!” she hissed. “I oughta kick your—”

“Alright!” Duncan demanded.” “Enough!” He pulled the Colt .45 from his pants and handed it to Dead Man.

Dead Man said, “Stay relaxed, stay calm. Don’t try to change anything. That’s not what this is about.” As if expecting the night to be cold, the corpse pulled his robe tight. “I wish I could tell you more.”

“Nonsense,” Duncan quipped. “You’ve been a cornucopia of information.”

“Sorry,” Dead Man said. The doors squealed open. “Good luck.”

Duncan stared at the storm drain awaiting him at the foot of the metal steps. An oval splotch of water lay as smooth as a mirror in front of the clogged grate, capturing a yellow cleft of moon and a deep well of blackness, turning the ordinary puddle into a serpent’s eye.

Omens don’t get any more shameless than that,
he thought.

He turned to Rachel, tipping his head toward the open door and beyond. “I was a real asshole back then.”

“You still are,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. Then…

Come back to me,
she mouthed.

“If it’s the last thing I do,” he promised. He turned to Juanita. “I know I don’t thank you enough—okay, at all—so, thanks for always being there for us. You’re one tough, wonderful lady.”

That did it; now she was bawling like a baby. She uttered something, but the words fell with her tears down into the cleavage of her huge bosom.

“Just go with the flow,” Kathy said.

She was holding out on them, Duncan thought. Oh yeah, big time.

Chris, looking up at Duncan and regarding him as if he were just stepping out to get a pack of Camels and a Lotto ticket, said, “Hey, man, like Garth Brooks says, ‘Do what you gotta do.’”

Duncan paused in front of the open doors. He put his hands in his pockets, as if to make certain that he had enough tokens for the colporteur and his magical gate. He lifted his head and started down the steps, his knees buzzing with adrenaline.

At last, the turnstile wrapped him in its cold, steel appendages, then delivered him into the outstretched arms of something even colder.

His past.

7.

Eli had cast aside his blanket and faced away from the seventh window when Mr. Gamble came through.

“We meet outside the confessional at last, Father.”

Eli jumped, whirled around. “Gamble,” he hissed.

“None other,” Gamble said. “Now, I realize that this is a long-awaited moment for you, and I would love nothing more than to reward you with a gala worthy of your tremendous dedication. But I’m afraid we’re pressed for time. Seems we have another problem.”