Seraphim (11 page)

Taking his interpretations of this
man-made
order to their colorful limits, Eli had nonetheless created a virtual masterpiece, as if Michelangelo himself had possessed every brush stroke, for their brilliant gowns and adorned wings flowed with an archaic fluidity reminiscent of the Renaissance artist.

It had taken him nearly three years to paint them, the first two months alone spent erecting the scaffolding. Funded primarily by the diocese, this stupendous effort was not only followed by a broadening congregation and heftier collection plates (at least for awhile, anyway), but had satisfied the bishop, among others, to no end.

This artistic achievement had come on the heels of a truly inspiring visit to St. Michael’s Church, some eight years earlier.
The
St. Michael’s in New York City, famous for its seven magnificent stained-glass windows. Created by Louis Comfort Tiffany, each long window portrayed an Archangel (Michael, Gabriel and Raphael being the most notable) and placed them into illustrious, angel-filled scenarios. When all were lit at the uppermost levels by daylight, it appeared that the Light of God shone down upon them. The lower portion of the central window had been Eli’s favorite, depicting the Archangel Michael freeing the Court of Heaven from the disobedient angels who’d raised their wills to their Creator.

And just as Michelangelo was now long-extinct, so were the heavenly beliefs that Eli once entertained as a child, that when people died they became angels and were issued their golden haloes and white, gossamer wings at the Pearly Gates by old St. Peter himself—if, of course, they were fortunate enough to have gone that northerly direction.

But the figures on the ceiling still enkindled absolute awe. It was, and would always be, their
loftiness
that invited him.

Eli knew of another brotherhood of lofty being, a fraternity where a mortal man
could
ascend in status and rank. Then into a pair of wings, if he so desired. And Eli so desired. And so what if it was for nothing but vain, aesthetic reasons. All his life he’d longed for his own wings. They were symbols of power and strength and seniority, but most of all they were tokens of flight. And he truly wished to fly; to achieve an altitude that would finally let him look down upon all that existed and gloat in his supremacy. To be where destiny wanted him. Needed him.

And he was so close now. Just one more angel.

Two
, he reminded himself.
There’s the matter of the Bently girl in Los Angeles.

The City of Angels.

“Touché”, he whispered, glancing craftily at the Holy Virgin centered in the reliquary above the altar.

Eli rose and walked over to the pulpit; looked inside. Gamble had left him an ordinary, rectangular cardboard box, one large enough to comfortably fit a pair of running shoes. A harsh, loamy smell wandered from the package.

He leaned in and listened. Its contents made faint, squishy sounds.

“Oh shit,” he mumbled; a phrase, he often argued, that should have been the
real
shortest verse in the Bible. “Jesus wept?” Huh-uh. He
cussed
that night, baby. Like a sailor.

A limerick, written on a plain 3x5 index card in Gamble’s traditional old-world flair, was taped to the box:

There once was an angel named Katherine

Ten years old and full of Saccharine

She flew the wrong way

On a dark, stormy day

So get the bitch before she starts a’yackin’!

Inured to such verse, Eli just shook his head.

He removed the lid. Inside was a mass of what appeared to be earthworms in a shovel-full of black, wet soil, writhing and squirming as if electrically charged. On top of the dirt rested another limerick:

This is a box of night crawlers

They do nothing but squirm for hours

But if placed in the ground

Where flesh, blood and bone abound

Then they’ll demonstrate their nasty powers!

This time Eli let out a giggle, a shifty little titter reminiscent of a bully who, from nearby shadows, has just witnessed the finale of a vicious and well-orchestrated prank.

Deciphering years of this kind of acrostic, nonsensical instruction, Eli knew instantly what he was supposed to do.

And he couldn’t wait.

13.

Back in his study, sitting frumpily behind his desk, Duncan finally shifted his eyes from the photo to his half-eaten dinner. The smells had begun to make him nauseous, and those red Chinese dragons undulating around each box weren’t helping matters. Unheedingly, he pushed an arm out and, as if they were a trio of reluctant lemmings, swiped the containers over the edge and into the wicker wastebasket below.

Rachel had called again, this time giving him the CAT scan results. The tomographies, she’d said, had been examined by three resident specialists, and all had passed Amy’s head with a clean bill of health. She’d gone on to say that Doctor Strickland was now under the firm belief that Amy had suffered a seizure, and that it was a transitory episode and would most likely not happen again.

Worst case scenario? The attacks would continue to occur, but infrequently.

He’d felt ashamed for not sounding more excited by her good news, having still been numbed by the photograph. He had lied to her when asked if he’d found the picture, not wanting to discuss the matter over the phone. He’d listened intently, but there had been no tell-tale inflections in her voice, no hint that she was on to him. Just wonderful relief that Amy was going to be all right.

She’d told him that she was going to stay a little while longer, that it wasn’t necessary to come get her, that she would hitch a ride home with Juanita.

And for him to please,
please
continue searching for the photograph.

Once again the name and address on the hospital admission form floated to the surface of his mind, drifting there like slicks of crude oil, threatening the nearby pristine shores of reason.

Katherine Bently, 1402 Hawthorne Avenue, Rock Bay, Massachusetts.

Why in God’s name had Amy told the medics and ER staff that her name was Katherine Bently? The very name of the daughter of a mistress for whom he had once risked everything? And why had Amy given them that particular address in Rock Bay? Though he was no longer sure that he could fully trust his memory, that address sounded, well…more than familiar.

And now a picture of Patricia lay before him, as young and pretty as he remembered her, with Kathy Bently, her daughter, staring back at him with his own daughter’s face.

Coincidence? A fluke?

Sure, he thought, and if you put enough monkeys and typewriters together you’d eventually have some of Shakespeare’s finest pushing up the slush pile.

Maybe Amy had heard the name Katherine Bently elsewhere, he desperately reasoned; had overheard Rachel while in some fit of rage over learning of his affair, mention it, and from her mother’s tone had somehow inferred its disastrous meaning on a subconscious level, only to be recalled in a state of delirium like the one she’d experienced today.

But the address, too? No, that was stretching some already thin speculation. It was preposterous, really. Besides, it still wouldn’t explain Amy and Katherine’s uncanny resemblance.

Or would it? What if the picture was a forgery? What if Rachel had hired an expert to inlay a photo of Amy next to Patricia’s...? Oh, hell, who was he kidding? He shook his head. Rachel would not have gone to all that trouble and expense, not when a simple “Get out you no-good rotten son of a bitch!” would have sufficed. And when he got right down to it, she would have to be a certifiable lunatic to even attempt such a thing. Though occasionally showing promise, like signing contracts to do hemorrhoid commercials, he was sure she was nothing of the sort.

He continued to use the sheer art of deduction, trying to shape and form all potentialities like dough into neat, palatable cookies. And so far none of them tasted logical. Not remotely so.

Though he didn’t want to listen, his old cop instinct—that intuition that he would have normally embraced with every ounce of his trust—was telling him that something beyond his comprehension was at work here; something so far beyond rational explanation that to try and figure it out with just these few puzzle pieces would be an exercise in futility.

Any answers—
reasonable
answers—would have to remain forthcoming until Rachel got home.

He picked up the phone and tried the photographer again.

Nadda. Probably moonlighting at Foto Mart.

14.

Amy McNeil was startled awake by the sound of thunder. It wasn’t the blast that did it so much as it was the rattling window before her. She was on her knees, her thin hospital gown feeling like nothing but an oversized paper towel around her body.

Droplets of rain, as big as quarters, pelted the glass with wind-driven force, melting away the city lights over and over.

Lightning impulsively stung the night.

She glanced around, confused. No one else was in the room with her, as best as she could see. The lighting was dim, coming from a pair of Yosemite Sam night lights glaring at each other from across opposite ends of the room, poised in gunslinger fashion.

Strange machine-shapes occupied the shadows.

The silhouettes of other Looney-Tune characters danced on the wallpaper. There was Elmer Fudd chasing that “wascally wabbit,” Bugs Bunny. There was Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, all her favorites. There were red and green dots of light above the bed next to her; her bed, she presumed. There was another bed, as well; one with a curtain pulled all the way around, like a shower.

The smell of alcohol was faint, but unmistakable.

I’m in a hospital
, she concluded with little effort.

She’d been having a dream, could recall it vividly. The strange thing was, in the dream her name was Kathy.

In a bewildered gesture, she raised her hands to her face, wanting to inspect them, to make sure that they were free of injury. On her right forearm was some kind of splint (to keep her lower arm immobile, she suspected. But why?), and she noticed a plastic tube, secured with transparent tape, jutting from the back of her hand. Further inspection found two small round tags with silver nipples stuck to her chest, then two more on her lower abdomen.

With puzzled scrutiny, she examined her legs, then poked subtly at her stomach, her chest. She methodically ran a hand through her hair, then tugged a few strands as if to make sure they were securely embedded.

Relief slowly washed over her after realizing that she was, as she suspected, all right. At least as far as her eyes and fingers could tell. She
felt
okay. Almost. There was a slight tingling, burning sensation on her upper back, as if someone had just sprayed Bactine on her sunburn.

But she didn’t have a sunburn. And as she considered this, the feeling on her back dwindled away.

Initially in her dream she’d been standing on the edge of a very high cliff, looking out over a violent ocean where waves crashed thunderously against black, volcanic-like rock. A feeling that someone was standing behind her had caused her to turn around. Finding no one, she’d turned back to the ocean. Instantly, it had changed. The water had flattened, had turned glassy, and mirrored the blue sky above and its gauzy streams of clouds without a single, rippling blemish. It was as if God had suddenly inhaled. And that calm had set upon her a feeling like no other she had ever known. A wonderful, magnificent peace had settled within her heart, her soul, warming her internally.

Now, while recalling it, it felt as if she’d been standing there and staring out over that blue expanse for hundreds of years.

And then, deep within the water, she had watched a shape slowly rise; a dot at first, gradually growing bigger and bigger, as if a great whale was on its way to the surface for a breath of air. Then a breeze had begun to stir, which quickly turned into a mighty wind that whipped her sandy-blonde hair across her forehead and eyes. Then a roar, like hundreds of trains speeding toward her, engulfed her ears.

The water below, however, had remained crystalline, undisturbed.

Then, as she glanced upward to find the source of the thunderous noise, she’d realized that the shape in the water below could not have been a whale but was actually the reflection of something coming down from the sky. Something staggeringly huge. Something charging headlong on the power of gigantic, multiple, luminous wings.

Then someone had called out a name: “Katherine?”

The voice kept calling the name, over and over; frantic, like a mother searching for her lost child. In the dream she had truly believed that Kathy was her name, had responded to it without hesitation, just as if it were the name given to her at birth.

Just as she would have reacted now if someone were to call out “Amy?”

“I’m here,” she had replied. “I’m here, I’m here.” But she and the voice never found one another. The storm outside had roused her awake before they could meet.

At no time in the dream had she been scared. Not the slightest bit.

But she was scared now.

What happened to me?
she wondered.
Why am I in front of this window?

The last thing she remembered before waking in this room was sitting in front of a man who was going to take her picture. Where was her mother? Her Daddy? Juanita?

She began to rise to her feet, being extra quiet just in case someone was in the other bed. She didn’t think there was because she couldn’t hear any breathing or moaning, but just in case...

She placed a hand on the window sill to steady herself, then put her other hand on the glass. And the moment she did, a blinding flash of light erupted from the window, so immediate and intense that the pane of glass might have been a cloud shedding a bolt of lightning.