Choices, Part 27

by john | Jun 27, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen

We rolled into Nashville a bit before suppertime and got a couple of rooms at a Fairfield on the outskirts of town. I didn’t know how long we were going to be on this little adventure and wanted to stretch our cash as long as we could, so I decided to forego the Jacuzzi room, no matter how good a soak sounded after a day in a car with Michael and Myra. Myra was a good co-pilot, but driving all day was driving all day, no matter how much you liked the navigator. Eve and Emily had ridden together, Eve giving me some line about wanting to get to know the kid better, but I figured she just didn’t want me to suggest that Michael ride shotgun with her in her beat up pickup, and I was pretty sure that the suspension in that thing didn’t do anyone any favors after the first five hours on the road. Cain looked fresh as a daisy after a day on his motorcycle, and I was more than a little jealous. I’ve always loved bikes, the feeling of power and control is like nothing else in the world, and there’s really nothing wrong with a couple of gnats in your teeth. I’ve always considered it a fair exchange.

“Alright, kiddies. We’ve got three rooms, so I figured Myra and I would share one…” I started, but Eve was smirking at me so I pulled up short. “What?”

“Nothing, dear. Go right ahead with your little bunk assignments.” Eve replied.

I went on. “Um…there are two beds in each room, so I thought Eve and Emily would share one room and Michael and Cain could share the other one. Is that okay with everyone?” Hearing no objections, I went on. “Why don’t we take an hour or so to freshen up, grab a nap if you want one, and we can all meet back here for dinner, then we can figure out where to start looking for whoever it is we’re supposed to find. That work?” I passed keys out to everyone and grabbed my bag from the back of Eve’s truck. She was still smirking at me as I passed her on my way to the elevator.

“What are you grinning about?” I asked.

“Nothing. I just think it’s cute.” She said.

“What’s cute?”

“You’re being so, what’s the word, solicitous of Myra. I mean, really, Adam. You left her more than two decades ago and haven’t spared a moment’s thought for her until a couple of days ago when you were steered back into her life by our friendly meddling archangel, and now all of a sudden you’re playing Daddy of the Year to little Emily, who I assure you is more than capable of taking care of herself, and you’re being all Ward Cleaver to Myra, who might even be buying it, which is quite possibly saddest thing I’ve seen since you fell head over heels for that redhead in Ireland. You remember her? What was her name?”

“Sorcha.” I replied quietly. I remembered her well. Almost stereotypically Irish, with brilliant green eyes, milk-white skin and curly red hair. The name means “bright, radiant, light” and I used to joke with her that she got particularly radiant when she was angry, which with me around happened more often than she deserved.

I met her when I was passing through Ireland studying the myth of Cuchulain. I’d heard them once long ago, and when Sechan Torpeist brought them back in the 7th Century, I decided to wander through Ireland following the trail of Ulster’s Hound. I’d been hanging around Mecca for a while listening to the (at that time) new teachings of Mohammed, but headed West when it became apparent that one more time a young prophet was going to talk a lot about love and peace, and one more time the powers that be were going to start killing people to protect he status quo.

I’d seen all that before with the Carpenter, and I kinda liked Mohammed, so I headed to Europe before the people around him could muddy up everything he was trying to teach. I’ve always wondered if I stuck around if I could have avoided some of the stupidity they put into his version of The Book about women. I know if Eve had been around that crap would never have seen print. But anyway, I headed west, and stopped in Ireland to wander around and look for Hound tracks.

I do that every now and then, meander a countryside to look for evidence of legends. It’s pretty entertaining to see where the tallest of tales grows from, and you get to see some pretty country that way. Well, I was meandering around the part of Ireland where Cuchulain was supposed to have killed Cullen’s watchdog and taken its place, when I came upon a little farmhouse. It was late, I was hungry, and there was a pot on the fire. The Irish have always been a hospitable people, and when I knocked on the door and showed that I had a little booze with me, I was welcomed to hearth and home.

Her father, Finlay if I recall, was a fisherman in County Donegal, and he had a couple of big mackerel over a fire when I first arrived. He and I sat up most of the night drinking and telling lies, as fisherman and travelling men are wont to do, and by the time the sun came up, we were fast friends. Truth be told, I didn’t even notice Sorcha that first night, but I later found out that she noticed me. That’s not some great comment on my virility or spectacular attractiveness, although I am plenty virile and more attractive than most. It’s more a comment on exactly how few men of apparently similar age had ventured near the coast of County Donegal since she had developed an eye for young men.

The next morning Finlay and I went out on his boat, my first efforts at fishing since most people stopped doing it by standing in the shallows and casting nets. I’d been pretty good at surf fishing, and was relatively handy with a spear in a stream, but this whole business of rods was foreign to me. There were no reels involved, thank Father, or I’m sure I would have ended up more frequently punctured than I did, but I still managed to provide Finlay with a good day’s worth of amusement. At least he knew what he was doing, and I could row well enough, so the day wasn’t a complete waste. It was when we walking back up the path to their house that I first got a good look at Sorcha. She was chopping wood for the dinner fire, and the sun was setting behind her making it look like her hair was a fiery halo. I’ll admit it; I was downright twitterpated. I might even have left the fish lying along the path if Finlay hadn’t noticed my plight and helped me back into motion with a kick in the ass.

“Put ‘em back in yer head, laddie, that’s me Sorcha you’re gapin’ at.”

“Your?”

“Me daughter. And I’ll thank you to be scrubbin’ yer thoughts clean as snow before ye direct ‘em her way again.” I looked over at him, but the old man was grinning at me.

“Sorry.” I said, not meaning a letter of the word.

“Liar,” he laughed as we continued on our way up to the house.

Choices, Part 26

by john | Jun 26, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen

“Em, would you go talk to Michael? He’s sulking.” I asked as she finished singing.

“Why is he sulking? What did you do?” She asked. She looked so cute when she crossed her arms like that and glared at me. It was less cute when I realized that Eve and Myra were doing it, too. Cain, for his part, was sitting on the base of the statue picking out the opening notes to an Avett Brothers tune called Murder in the City. The song is written from one brother to another telling him not to take vengeance if he gets killed. Kid definitely had the ironic thing down cold.

“I might have given him the impression that the youth, and probably most of humanity in general, was indifferent to religion.” I went for a sheepish grin at the end, but probably only looked queasy. She sighed the sigh of the long-suffering woman, which oddly enough has been quickly mastered by every female I’ve ever spent more than a couple of days with, and went over to talk with Michael. She sat on the bench next to him as Myra came up to stand next to me.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to fix your mess, and I knew you’d come to Em for help. Everybody does eventually.” She said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Then why didn’t you just send her over to talk to him in the first place? Hell, Myra, I don’t even like the guy. Remember, I’m the one who decked him!”

“Yeah, but you needed a little reminder that your words carry weight. Even with angels, Adam. Everybody pays more attention to what you say than you think. And probably more than we should. But we do it anyway.”

“And why is that?”

“Call it respect for our elders if you like.”

“Ouch.”

“I’m kidding. But face it, you’re the Adam. You’ve been around forever, and even though Michael has been an angel a lot longer than you’re been human, he’s only been on earth a few days. You’ve been on earth longer than anyone. So when you talk about human nature, he’s gonna believe you. And if you drop a bombshell, somebody’s gonna have to pick up the pieces. Lucky for you, she’s good at picking up the pieces.” There was something in her eyes when she said that, a little glimmer that she blinked away almost before I could notice it, but I filed it away under the “things I want to ask about when we’re alone rather than in a park with out whole posse and a passel of unwashed kids wearing hemp pants” category.

Emily sat with Michael for a minute or two before he sat up and looked at her. Then they sat there for a few more minutes before he straightened and began to assume a little of the officious shithead posture that we were looking for. Then Emily waved me over to them, and after a few seconds of the confused chest-pointing thing I realized she really did want me over there, so I went. I walked up, a little nervously, to where my daughter and the Sword of Heaven sat on a park bench, her arm around his shoulders and him blotting his eyes with a blue silk hanky that I swear he didn’t have when I was sitting there.

“Dad, I think you owe Michael an apology.” Emily said as I walked up. Crap. They weren’t going to make this easy on me. I looked back at Eve and Myra, who made a “go on” gesture with their hands. Cain just shrugged and smirked a little at me as if to say “I’m not the one who made the angel cry, dad. I just invented murder.”

“Michael…I don’t really know what to say, but I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intimate that people today didn’t believe in The Father anymore, and I didn’t mean to upset you. So, um, sorry.” God I hoped that was all he needed to get going. It had gone from muggy to chilly as the night went on, and if we stuck around this park any longer I was gonna need to pee before we hit the highway. That, and I couldn’t really think of anything else to say.

“What about my face?” Michael asked, his expression a perfect mask.

“Your, uh, face?” I was honestly confused here.

“Yes. My face. You hit me, Adam. That just isn’t done. If I deserve an apology for anything, it’s for you putting your hands on one of the Host.”

“You have got to be kidding me. You deserved every single punch you’ve taken since I saw you, and probably more besides. If you think I’m going to apologize for punching you in the face, then you can take your flaming sword and” Michael was up off the bench with his arms around me before I could tell him exactly where I thought his sword would fit nicely.

“Oh, you do like me! Emily was right, you put on this gruff exterior to hide your true feelings, and the nastier you are to people the more you care about them! I knew there was no way you truly despised me, after all I am an Archangel, the most Heavenly of the Heavenly Host. Oh, Adam, it is so good to know how you truly feel.” I glared over the angel’s shoulder at Emily, who mouthed at me “just go with it” in exaggerated expressions. I took the high road and gently disentangled myself from Michael before he started to sport a chubby. The last thing I needed was an immaculately dressed angel feeling me up in a New Orleans public park in the middle of the night. I’d already been to the precinct house once today, and that was quite enough, thanks.

“Well, now that we’ve got all that sorted out, can we go?” I asked Michael as the rest of our troupe gathered ‘round.

“Of course. We must away at once to find the one who must make the Choice.” Replied the angel.

“So, where are we going? And I’m not leaving my truck. Period.” Eve has always had such a way of making her opinions known. Usually by stating them loudly and often.

“Nashville. We’ll find the young man in Nashville, Tennessee.” Nashville. Ok, I guess we were going country.

Choices, part 25

by john | Jun 25, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen

I don’t know what I expected to find in Lafayette Square in the middle of the night, but Myra dancing in a drum circle wasn’t anywhere on the list. And Michael beating a tambourine and singing folk songs was even further from what I thought we’d find. But that’s exactly what we encountered when we got there. Michael was sitting at the base of the statue of Henry Clay keeping time with a kid playing a battered Martin acoustic while a half-dozen or so dreadlocked white kids beat on djembes around a portable fire pit and Myra danced with two or three hippie chicks who looked like they hadn’t shaved legs or armpits since well before Katrina.

As we walked up to the love-in, I looked incredulously as Michael and a couple of college-aged kids sang “A time to dance, a time to mourn, a time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together…” Michael set the tambourine down beside Henry Clay’s bronze feet and came over to us, his face positively glowing. I swear I could see an outline of wings around the angel made flesh.

“Adam, isn’t it beautiful? They remember the old Books! They haven’t lost faith, these children of yours remember!” It was all I could do not to laugh in the exuberant angel’s face.

“Michael, lemme ask you something. In all your time up there among the heavenly host, have you ever heard of a guy named Pete Seeger?” I was trying to keep a straight face, but it was tough, let me tell you.

“No, who is this Pete Seeger? Is he a minister? A man of God?” Michael asked.

“Kinda. He’s a folk singer. And he took the words from Ecclesiastes and set them to music. He made it into a protest song against a war a few decades ago.” As much as I disliked the archangel and all his brethren for meddling with my family for thousands of years, I hated to watch people’s illusions shatter, and that’s what happened to Michael as he realized that these smelly kids weren’t holy after all, just a little dirty.

He walked over to a park bench, looking for all the world like he’d lost his only friend. Since I never considered myself a friend of his in the first place, I followed along more out of a morbid curiosity than out of any real concern for his feelings. I mean, let’s face it; I really didn’t like Michael on his best days, and this hadn’t been my most stellar week. He put his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. If I didn’t know them to be cold emotionless bastards, I’d have thought the archangel was about to break down and cry.

Myra came over from her dancing, a little breathless, and sat next to Michael on the bench. She looked from the shaken angel to me, and her tone was less than friendly. “What did you say to him?” she demanded.

“I just told him that Pete Seeger used the book of Ecclesiastes as a basis for a protest song from the Vietnam War. He got all weepy when he realized that the kids weren’t quoting scripture and I came over to see what was up.” I noted with no small hint of irony that in the background I could hear a girl singing in a lovely soprano Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try…

“Oh, Adam, what did you have to do that for?” Myra asked me with a glance that was more pitying than accusatory. It read something like “you hapless bastard, why did you have to stick your foot in it up to the nuts this time?”

“Well, aside from the fact that it’s the truth, I don’t really know!” I was starting to get a little defensive. I mean, it’s not as if I wanted to turn the Sword of Heaven into a blubbering pile of goo in the middle of a public park in the wee hours of a Louisiana morning. But for the record, if I’d known that a little folk music was all it took, I’d have trotted out some old Buffy St. Marie records a long time ago.

“The truth doesn’t matter, he was happy. And we need him. If it makes him feel a little better to think that people are still reading the Bible, then let him think that.” She patted Michael on the back for a minute before she got up, shot me a look that spoke volumes, and went over to join Emily, who was singing harmony with the soprano.

I sat there for a minute, trying to figure out what to say to a distraught seraphim whose faith in humanity was restored for one brief, shining moment before I reached in and ripped it away. “Uh, Michael?” I started tentatively.

“Go away, Adam.” He didn’t look up; he didn’t even take his hands away from his face.

“I can’t. For one thing, Myra will kick my ass. And for another thing, we kinda still need you. And we need you with your head in the game. Because, well, because you’re the only one who has any idea where we’re supposed to go next. We got Eve. We got some traveling money, and we’re all here, ready to roll. Except we need you to tell us exactly where to roll to.” Maybe not comforting, but it was all at least honest.

“I don’t care. If the people have no place for The Book, or God, or angels, why should I even bother trying to help them? Why waste my time?” Wow. He had gone from zero to suicidal in .4 seconds. This might require some tough love. Or it would get me skewered on the flaming sword of heavenly retribution. One of those.

“What else are you supposed to do with your time? Tune your harp?” I went for snide, hoping if I behaved the way he expected me to behave, he’d cut out the sniveling and behave the way I expected him to behave. Not that I really liked the way he usually behaved, but at least over the past few days I’d grown accustomed to that Michael. That Michael was an insufferable tightass with an Archangel complex (although I suppose it’s not really a complex if you really are part of the heavenly host), but at least he wasn’t a whiny little bitch.

“You’re immortal, Michael. And immortality is something I know a little about. If there’s one thing the past seventy-five odd eons has taught me, it’s that there’s nothing less precious to an immortal than time. It’s practically impossible to waste your time, because you have so much of it that it’s meaningless. It’s nothing for one of us to put tape measures on the ocean floor and check it every hundred years to see if the earth is expanding (Yes, I did. Yes, it is.). It’s less than nothing for one of us to spend eighty-three years counting every grain of sand on a mile of sea shore (Again, yes, I did. But no, I don’t remember the exact number. I also admit to having lost count a lot and become quite distracted by some of the scenery at the beach. It was Italy, it was several hundred years ago, and while the Italian women of that era may not have been as enhanced as young women are today, they were every bit as lovely, and every bit as unselfconscious at the beach. And that is all I shall share on that topic.) So how can you waste your time? You’ve got nothing but time. So get your head out of your angelic ass and let’s get moving.”

I thought that was pretty good as far as motivational speeches go. For me, it ranked right up there. But Michael didn’t move. Okay, he raised one hand to flip me off, but he left his head bowed and never even looked over at me when he did it. I got up and headed over to Emily, figuring that she would be less likely to chew me out for getting us in this spot than her mother, and more likely to help get us out of it than Eve or Cain.

Choices, Part 24

by john | Jun 24, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen

“I’m sorry.” It was almost a whisper, and I couldn’t see her lips move, but I knew she had said it.

“Sorry? Sorry for what? My Choice hasn’t even happened yet. What do you have to be sorry for?” I kneeled on the floor in front of Eve and tried to look her in the face, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“It wasn’t supposed to ever come.” She almost spat. “The whole point was so that you wouldn’t have to choose. That was the deal. Now the bastard goes back on his word after all these years. I should have known he was just saving it up for when it really mattered.”

“Okay, I’m confused. Cain, do you have any idea what she’s talking about?” I stood up and set my Red Bull down on the counter.

“Yeah. I do.” He murmured.

“Well, would you like to explain things, since your mother obviously isn’t capable of it right this second?” I was getting a little loud, and took a deep breath to try and control my volume. Things wouldn’t improve for us if we were reintroduced to New Orleans’ finest.

“No.”

“Excuse me? What did you say?” I lapsed into the incredulous parent voice. You know the one. The one where the middle name is unstated but understood. The one where the recipient immediately understands that he or she is grounded for the next century if their next answer isn’t completely satisfactory. For the record, the grounding voice loses a great deal of its impact after your child passes his fiftieth millennium.

“I said, no. This is on the list of things that I can’t talk to you about, Dad. And you’re just going to have to take that one how it comes. I know what Mom is saying, and neither of us can tell you about it. It has to do with our Choices, and yours, and we can’t say anything that might sway your decision. It’s one of the few rules the Father enforces directly. This is your free will, Dad. Whatever your Choice is, it’s yours. And nobody, not me, not Mom, not Emily, Lucky, Michael or the man in the moon can stick our nose in. That’s just the deal. So please don’t push. Just come with me into the den and give Mom a second or two to catch her breath. Then we can go down to Lafayette Square, pick up Myra and the assclown angel, and we’ll blow this pop stand.” He handed me my drink, walked me into the den, and sat me down on the couch next to Emily.

She looked up at Cain and said, “Are they gonna be okay in the park all alone? I mean, I’ve heard New Orleans has a crime problem, and Mom hasn’t been in cities very much.” She was obviously worried, and wanted to get going as fast as possible. Cain gave her a lopsided grin and patted her on the top of the head.

“They’ll be fine, kiddo. Remember who Michael was before he came down here slumming.” He said as he ducked into his bedroom to grab a bag.

“Oh yeah, that whole flaming sword thing’s real, isn’t it?” She relaxed a little when she realized that despite his looking like a skinnier James Marsters, he could handle himself. “But will he take care of my Mom?” A little worry crept back into her eyes.

Cain came out of his bedroom wearing a black leather jacket with a duffle over one shoulder. He tucked a pistol in the back waistband of his pants and said, “He’s an angel, punkin. A real one. He could no more let an innocent mortal be hurt in his presence than I could be upstaged by a snotty older brother. It’s just not in our natures.” He shot me a sidelong smirk and I shook my head. I’d let him poke at the scab now and then, it might heal a little messy, but chicks dig scars. I stood up and held out my hand.

“What do you want, Pop?”

“Something tells me that’s not the only equalizer you’ve got floating around this joint, and if you think you need the firepower, you’d better hook me up, too. I prefer something in a 9mm, Italian if you have it.” He went over to the upright piano, opened the bench, and tossed me a Beretta in a paddle holster. I checked the action, chambered a round, and slid it into the small of my back. “You set for ammo?” I asked.

“If he runs short I’ve got us covered,” came Eve’s voice from the kitchen doorway. “I prefer the Glock, but I don’t have the wrist strength that you boys seem to have in abundance. Here, little bit, you should just tote my duffel. If we get into anything ugly, you’ll want what’s inside.” That confirmed my earlier suspicions about the sawed-off shotgun, but Emily shook her head.

“I’m good. I don’t like guns, but I’ve got a pea-shooter in my boot as a last resort.” She then produced a throwing knife from somewhere I never saw and tossed it underhand across the room into a photo Cain had hanging on the far wall. The little knife quivered right between the eyes of the woman in the picture, and Eve looked impressed.

“That doesn’t exactly improve the composition of the photo, Baby Sister.” Cain said as he crossed the room, yanked the knife out of the wall and returned it to Emily.

“Yeah, but sometimes you just have to make a point.” Somehow I always found myself surrounded by women with a point to make. And all too often, I was at the receiving end of those points. I looked around at my little family assault team, and nodded at Cain.

“Let’s roll, son.” I said.

“Lead the way. I’ll lock up.” I didn’t bother mentioning that I thought it was awfully optimistic to be locking doors. After all, the only reason you lock a door after you leave is because you expect to return to whatever you’re leaving behind. And until very recently, my family was not exactly known for returning to things (or people) we’ve left behind.

Choices, Part 23

by john | Jun 23, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen

Chapter 5 (ish, but who’s really counting?)

Eve was sitting on the bed of a pickup truck when we got to Cain’s. Yes, I know it makes more sense to say she was sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck, but she wasn’t. This particular truck, a late-70s model Ford with an impressive green-and-rust-patterned paint job, didn’t have a tailgate anymore. It had a rope across the bed where the tailgate used to be, and Eve was leaning against that with her hands twined through the frayed rope like a bad Delta S&M flick. She’s changed out of her stripped chic and was sporting more restrained brown cowboy boots, Daisy Duke cutoffs and a faded Faster Pussycat t-shirt with a hole under one arm big enough to show her ribcage tattoo.

“How’d you get that to stick, anyway? I’ve always had a hell of a time with ink fading after a few days.” I pointed to the cherry blossoms that lined her left side and armpit.

“It does. I get it touched up about once a week. Let’s go up, I gotta pee.” My Eve, mother of humanity, but a few steps removed from Anne Landers.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Emily asked.

“Like a bitch.” Eve followed Cain up the stairs without a backwards glance for the girl and me.

Emily looked up at me and asked, “Why would she keep getting it fixed if it’s just going to fade? And why hurt yourself over and over again?”

“That, my dear, may very well be the essence of what makes Eve, Eve. No one’s ever accused her of taking the easy road, or the painless one, or the logical one. But once she commits to something, it’s not a good idea to get in her way. Let’s go on up, we need to grab our bags and get moving.” We followed the others upstairs and found Cain standing in the small living room looking around confused.

“What’s up, son? Mom peeing with the door open again?” I slid past him towards the kitchen and grabbed a Red Bull out of the fridge. Immortal or not, I still wanted a little extra boost if I was going to be driving half the night.

“Where are they?” Emily asked as she looked around the room. That’s when I realized that we were alone in the apartment. Myra and Michael weren’t where we had left them, which would be on the sofa. As a matter of fact, they weren’t anywhere in the apartment.

Eve came out of the bathroom buttoning her shorts and said, “What’s the holdup? Where’s the floozy and the fucknugget angel?” The snarky grin faded from her face when she saw the look in Emily’s eyes. “What’s going on?”

“They’re not here.” I said.

“What do you mean, they’re not here?” Eve said. Finally, somebody else’s turn to give the stupid response.

“Small words, Eve. Was there one in particular you didn’t understand, or was it just a general denseness that you needed help with?” I was worried about Myra, but wasn’t going to pass up one of my few opportunities to be snide. When most of the people you associate with are sharper of wit than you are, it’s important to take your shots whenever they come along.

“I get that they’re not here, asshole, but where are they?” Eve shot a concerned glance over at Emily, who was looking a little frantic at her mom’s absence.

“Saint Patrick’s.” Cain’s voice came from the kitchenette.

“Huh?” I lapsed immediately from witty to my typical eloquence as I wandered into the sitting area with him. He handed me a note in Myra’s hand.

“Don’t worry about me, Michael is showing me St. Patrick’s Church. We’ll wait for you in Lafayette Square until dawn. If you haven’t shown up by then, we’ll watch the sun rise in the park, go to the early Mass, and meet you back here. We’ll pick up some beignets for the road. Love, M.” I showed it to Emily, who was starting to show signs of early freak-out.

“It’s her handwriting, and she loves old churches, so it makes sense. Not sure why she’d go off with Michael, though. He’s a bit of a douche.” Emily looked around as Eve barked out a laugh at that last bit. I stifled my own laugh, but Cain didn’t bother.

Between chuckles he said, “She probably went out with him because we were gone all friggin’ day. Remember, we left around 11:30 in the morning to bail Mom out. Then we went to the casino, and what happens in casinos happened, which is to say we lost track of more than a few hours. Then we had our little encounter with the Prince of Fucking Darkness and meandered on back here, and now it’s well after midnight. So I’m not surprised that your mom got tired of waiting on us and decided to go off and do something on her own.”

“Prince of Darkness? This would be a really good time for you to tell me that vampires are real and Lestat really does wander the Quarter.” Eve said in a voice more concerned than any I’d ever heard her use. She actually looked frightened, an emotion I’d thought her incapable of.

“No, Mom. It was Him. He found us outside the casino and made his presence known.” Cain went over to Eve and guided her down to a diner-style kitchen chair when it looked like her legs suddenly wouldn’t hold her weight.

“What did he want?” She looked haunted, like everything since The Garden was flashing through her mind.

“He wanted to warn Dad.”

“Warn Adam? About what?” she asked.

“His Choice.” Cain told her. He sat next to her in another chair that looked like it belonged to a four-top in Mel’s Diner, but also looked just about perfect against his ultra-modern kitchen appliances. The fifties-style vinyl chairs and flecked table stood is stark relief against the iPod white of all his various blenders, dicers, juicers and other implements of destruction that would surely baffle Paula Deen, much less me, with my culinary skills leaning more towards the Swedish Chef on the Muppets than anything ever shown on the Food Network. Eve just stared at him for a minute before she looked up at me.

Choices, part 22

by john | Jun 20, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen

a little longer chunk this time, couldn’t find a good break around the 1,000-word mark. Enjoy

“We’ve gotta go.” I said after allowing myself a moment to wallow.

“Where?” Cain asked.

“I’m not sure yet, but we need to get everybody together and get ready to roll. If Lucky’s known about this for any length of time, then we can’t be sure what parts of what has happened have been our idea and what’s been his.” I dropped a five on the table for a tip and headed back to the poker room. When we got there Emily had taken her seat in the back corner, and her stacks were smaller than when we had left. There were more green chips, though, so it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I stayed on the periphery of her vision for a minute while she played a hand, and then tapped my wrist where a watch would be if I wore one. She looked at me and Cain, nodded, and picked up a couple of racks for her chips. We met her at the cashier’s cage as she was folding a nice little stack of hundred dollar bills into her front pocket.

“You boys are back early. What’s up?” She asked as we came up on either side of her. Cain and I were both looking around like our heads were on swivels, sure that we’d see Lucky leaning on a slot machine somewhere. It was useless, of course. Nobody sees Lucky unless he wants to be seen, and then you usually don’t want to see Lucky.

“Time to go sweetheart. Did you have fun?” I kept my tone light as we headed for the doors. I didn’t need any interference from casino security if they thought we were trying to muscle the girl. She picked up that something was wrong, and put her arm through Cain’s as we walked. We looked for all the world like a father and a couple of young lovebirds. I put that disturbing thought out of my head, and before anyone took notice of us, we were back out on the street headed toward Cain’s place.

We’d gone about half a block when Emily pulled up short. “Okay boys, out with it. What’s going on? Why did you come back early, and why were you in such a hurry to get me out of there?”

I could see that she wasn’t interested in waiting for an explanation, and checked off impatience as another attribute that she got from Eve. Yes, I know I credit Eve with all the character traits that I find annoying, and that I take credit for all the traits I like. She does exactly the same thing. She blames every hot-tempered moment in human history on me, from the start of wars to hockey fights. It’s a thing we do, so just leave me alone, okay?

“Well, Em, Dad and I had a little conversation and we realized that your friend Luke is someone we both know, only I knew him as Lucien, and the last time I saw him was in the 19th century.” Cain started.

“And I usually call him Lucky, and the last time I saw him was just a few days ago, when I left Las Vegas and started this whole trek.” I continued.

Her eyes got big and her mouth opened in a big, round “O” as she sat down on the stoop of the house we were in front of. I thought for a minute that it was because she had made the leap as to whom we were really talking about, and I guess that was probably part of it. But the rest of it was the fact that the son of a bitch was standing right behind me. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, and spun to throw a punch. Lucky wasn’t the pacifist that Michael was, though and he caught my fist in his left hand without so much as a blink.

“Peace, Adam. I’m just here to talk.” He purred in my ear as he slowly forced my fist down to my side. We tend to forget exactly how powerful the seraphim are when we don’t see them do anything out of the ordinary, but Lucky was strong. “Good evening, Cain. Emily.” He inclined his head to each of them in turn.

“Morningstar,” replied Cain with a nod.

“Um, Luke? What’s going on? And why did he just call you…oh.” Emily put it all together pretty quickly, then her hand flashed to outside of her pocket where the money was, as if to touch it to see if it burned her or something.

Lucky chuckled a little at her discomfort. He let go of my hand and took a step back, holding his hands outstretched, palms out at me to keep me from charging him. I had no doubt that he could do plenty of unpleasant things to me, maybe even kill me, but I wasn’t in a place to care just then.

“Relax, Big A. I’m just here to talk. And just for a minute. We wouldn’t want your little poof friend Michael to smell sulfur on you, after all.”

“Alright then, talk.” I muttered, moving slightly in front of Emily.

“That’s sweet, Adam. But really, if I wanted to hurt the child I would have done it long before you ever knew she existed. But anyway, I’m here about the Choice. There are things you should know.”

“And we should believe you why?” I asked with no small hint of sarcasm.

“You probably shouldn’t. But you shouldn’t believe everything your mealy-mouthed sword-swinging nancy-boy tells you, either. Just like me, Michael has his own agenda. And it might not have your best interests at heart.”

“Oh don’t worry. I trust him at least as much as I trust you, pal.” I spat.

“And when, in all the years we’ve known each other, have I ever lied to you?” If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was actually hurt at the notion. I had to take a minute and think it through, then I looked over at Cain, whose expression mirrored my own.

“Never.” I said in a quiet voice.

“Exactly. I have never lied to you, Adam. And I haven’t spent the better part of seventy-five thousand years telling you the truth, not always the whole truth, mind you, but the truth nonetheless, just to build up equity so that I can lie to you on a muggy early morning in Louisiana. So will you at least give me a chance to say my peace?”

“Go ahead.” I was actually listening, although I wouldn’t for a second put it past him to be honest for a few thousand years just to set up one huge lie now. After all, he invented the long con, as it were.

“So far Michael has been telling you the truth as well. There is a Choice coming, and it’s another major Choice. But just like me, he hasn’t told you the whole truth. He hasn’t told you what’s at stake, and he won’t. Neither will I.”

“So why bring it up?” Emily asked. “If you’re not going to explain yourself and tell us the consequences of this Choice, why bring it up in the first place?”

“My dear girl, I am the Devil, remember? Torment is kinda right in my wheelhouse.”

“Ass.” She muttered as she leaned back on the stoop.

“Adam, you always did breed the most potty-mouthed children. But where was I? Oh yes, the point. The Choice
Michael is leading you to isn’t the only one coming for you, Big A, and it might not even be the most important one.”

“What the hell are you talking about? I get the whole tormenting obtuse thing, but shit, Lucky, I have no idea what you’re babbling about.” I interjected.

“Your Choice, Adam.” He replied calmly.

“Huh?” My natural eloquence sometimes amazes even me.

“Your. Choice.” He said very slowly and distinctly, as though speaking to a particularly slow first-grader. Eve did that, too, and I can bet I know where she learned it. “Haven’t you wondered why Eve made the Choice in The Garden instead of you? Haven’t you wondered why Cain and Abel both had their Choices so early in life and after all these years, you’ve never had to make a major decision? You know, something that might affect someone other than yourself?”

“Not really, no. I figured not everybody makes the big decisions. And after this long, I just kinda figured that I wasn’t going to have to.” It sounded lame even to my ears, but it was how I’d muddled through for so long.

“Sorry, pal. The father of the human race has a Choice to make, too. And yours is coming up soon. It’s part of this whole trip, and it might be even more important than the one little Mikey has already told you about.”

“Why would he do that? Why wouldn’t he tell me I had a Choice coming? And why won’t you tell me what it is?” I was starting to get agitated, and Cain put a hand on my shoulder to keep me from going completely apeshit.

“He won’t tell you for the same reason that I won’t tell you more. We don’t want to influence your decision too soon. We both want the same thing, for you to choose our side, but we don’t want to make our case until the last possible moment so our arguments stay fresh.”

“Yeah, like there’s any chance I’d take your side in any argument.” I spat at the fallen angel.

“Of course there’s a chance. After all, Eve did, didn’t she? And by telling you a little bit now, while Michael is still keeping you in the dark, I undermine his argument before he ever makes it. Quite brilliant, if I do say so myself.”

He smirked and it was all I could do not to punch him square in the face. It helped that I knew he wouldn’t let me, and I didn’t want to end up with a sore jaw.

“So what do you want with us tonight, Lucypher?” I drew myself up to my full height and addressed him with all the weight I could put in my words.

“So formal, Adam? That was all. I’ve just been waiting for you to find my connection to dear little Emmy here, and thought that would be the most apropos moment for a chat. But now I think you probably want to be on your way, and since Eve got to Cain’s apartment about twenty minutes ago, you should probably go see if your first love and your last one have started the jell-o wrestling yet, don’t you think?” I glanced over at Cain, a little alarmed for his knick-knacks, and when I looked back at where Lucky had been standing, he was gone.

“Dad?” Emily asked from the step where she was sitting.

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“I’m a little scared.” Her voice was very small, and when I looked back at her, she could have as easily been fifteen as twenty-four. I held out my hand to help her up, and put my arm around her shoulder as we started walking through the night toward Cain’s place. Our feet splashed through things that were probably better left undescribed as we walked down the suddenly too-empty streets.

“I am too, baby girl. I am too.”

Choices, part 21

by john | Jun 19, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen

So I realize that this is getting long, we’re in the 30,000-word range now, and it’s feeling like it’s going to be novel-length by the time I’m finished. So I guess my question now is, if I keep posting the whole thing up here, am I killing any chances of getting the thing published later? I didn’t start this journey with an idea towards writing a book, but that’s more and more what it feels like. Meh, if you wanna buy a copy when I’m done with it, you will. If you don’t, you’ll read it here and that’ll be that. Enjoy.

I sat for a moment digesting. I knew Lucky kept tabs on me, and it stood to reason that he had kept an eye on Eve and Cain, too. What I didn’t understand was why Cain had been playing cards with him, and said as much.

“Because we were making money, Pop. We were hustling mining camps for their claims in card games.”

“With Lucypher? What kind of stupid shit were you up to, son?” I started to stand, but sat down at the look in Cain’s eyes. It was a cross between shame and fear, with more than a little resentment thrown in, and a lot of it was directed at me.

“Really? Who was I supposed to pal around with, Dad?” The emphasis on the last word was heavy with sarcasm, and I suppose it was only to be expected. “I was thousands of years removed from any paternal influence, I had murdered my closest relative and best friend, and Mom was in the middle of one her nuttier periods. Besides, Lucien and I had plenty in common.”

“Lucien?”

“Yeah, that’s what he called himself then. Nobody in their right mind would play cards with a guy named Lucky, and Lucypher was a little blatant.”

“And what in the hell, no pun intended, do you think you have in common with Lucypher?” I was trying to keep my voice down in case the octogenarians sharing the buffet with us weren’t as deaf as I thought.

“The same thing that Mom does, we’ve made Choices. Look, I can’t tell you any more about it. It’s part of the deal I accepted when I made my Choice. Just let that part of it go for now, because I’ve got a feeling before long you’re going to understand it better than you’ve ever wanted to. Suffice to say that Lucky and I have spent some time together in some of the seedier parts of the world, and that we were working together in Deadwood. Of course, what I didn’t know was that Lucky also had other things working.”

“He always does.”

“Yeah. So he had been pumping McCall full of liquor earlier in the day, and telling him how Hickock had been talking about what a sucker McCall was and how Hickock had to give him money for breakfast because McCall had lost his last dollar playing cards. I never did find out what Lucky had against Hickock, but he got McCall wound up enough to walk right up behind Hickock and blow his brains out through his eyeballs. Hickock dropped his cards on the table, a couple of boys went after McCall, and Lucky stole the money in the pot while I sat there with pieces of Wild Bill’s brains splattered all over my favorite coat. After a couple minutes’ shock I ran out into the street and grabbed Lucky. I pulled him into an alley and asked him what the hell he was doing. He said that he was done with Hickock, done with McCall and done with the West. He said he had bigger things to do in Europe and needed a little seed money to get him there. He left me with half our winnings, a coat matted with blood and brains and a stupid look on my face. I didn’t see him again until Germany.”

“Germany?” I asked.

“Another time, Dad. The point is, he told me the same thing he told Emily, you never leave while game’s still good. And judging by the look on your face, he’s said the same thing to you more than once.”

“Yeah. We played Glic once or twice in France, and Lucky always had a sense for when the game was good, when you could take down a hand just by vying at the right time, and who at the table was not terribly attached to their money. I always wondered what he wanted with the money. It’s not like he needs it.”

“I asked once. He said it’s just a way to keep score. The money itself only matters in that it means something to the guy you’re taking it from.”

“That sounds like Lucky.”

“Yeah. But what does he want with Emily? He had to know who she was, and he had to know that eventually you’d find out he’d been around her, and that you’d be pissed.”

“True, but would he care? It’s not like I can hurt him, Cain. Nobody can. At least nobody that was born here.”

“No, you’re probably right. But then why mess with her? She’s just a normal kid. It’s not like she’s one of us.”

“Maybe not, but he’d know that she mattered to me, and he’s always loved screwing with the things that I care about.” I leaned back in the booth and sipped on a Coke. None of this made sense. I’d spent enough time around Lucky over the centuries to start to think I had an idea how he thought, but this had me completely stumped. It’s like he knew I’d find her, like he…I sat bolt upright as the thought hit me. “He knew!”

“Knew what?”

“He knew this was coming! He knew that we’d all get together, that I’d see Emily together, that I’d have to come for Eve, that I’d find out that he’d been messing with the kid, all of it. The bastard probably set up the whole mess in Vegas that sent me to her in the first place.” I let out a low whistle at the way he’d played me. Again. After all this time, just when I thought I was getting to a point where I could see his moves, and he’d checkmated me again.

Choices, part 20

by john | Jun 18, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen

“Where did you learn to play poker?” Cain asked.

“Now, big brother, don’t worry. I can teach you if you want. Daddy, where did you pick me and Mama up?”

“Texas.”

“And what’s the name of the game we’re playing?”

“Texas Hold’em.”

“Now doesn’t it stand to reason that a girl who grew up in Texas, and happened to have been raised next to a bar, might have learned a little about poker?” She kept up the sweetness and light demeanor, which I think made it all the worse.

“So how much do you have?” I finally asked.

“About sixteen hundred dollars. The three hundred you gave me was seed money, and as soon as I could double that, I took a seat in a juicy 2/5 game. I’m gonna pick up another decent pot or two and then hit up the Pot Limit Omaha game they’ve got over in the back corner. It’s an uncapped game and the three seat’s throwing money away like a Catholic priest on a Bangkok bender, while the seven seat has had about seventeen Crown and Cokes and is falling asleep between hands. As long as I stay out of the way of the four and six seats, I should be okay. I can’t tell if they’re playing partners or just locals that don’t see any need to tangle with each other, but either way they aren’t the soft spots at the table. I’ll avoid them unless I’ve got the mortal nuts, and I figure they’ll take a shot or two at me because I’m a girl and then they’ll go back to the easy pickings themselves.” Her whole body language changed when she went on this description of the table. It was like a general talking about an opposing army’s strengths and weaknesses. And never once did she look back at the table to make sure she was talking about the right people. It was, to put it mildly, the damndest thing I’d ever seen.

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t understand a damn word you said, Baby Sister, and I’m real sure I can’t afford any poker lessons from you.” Cain said with more than a little awe in his voice.

“Well, are you about ready to roll? We’ve got about two grand between us now, and that’s enough to make some headway before we need to reload our funds. We might even have enough to get us all the way through this mess, wherever that is.” I was not very comfortable with some of the looks we were getting. Not that they were threatening looks, more like Emily was a piece of meat, and I get squirrelly where my girl children are concerned.

“Come back in two, two and a half hours. I’m just about done with this table, but it’ll take a couple of good hands at the next to get me where I want to be before we head out. And besides, you never leave while the game is good.” She turned to go back to the table and I grabbed her elbow and pulled her back, hard.

“Where did you hear that phrase?” I asked in a low, very serious tone. All the levity went out of her when she looked up into my eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she actually looked afraid of me. And frankly, I didn’t know better, and she probably was afraid of me. I loosened my grip on her arm but stayed right down in her face. “Who told you that line about never leave when the game is good?”

“A..a guy. He used to come in the diner. He taught me how to play cards. He’d flirt with Mom and play cards with me in one of the booths after school.”

“What was his name?” I kept my voice down but she could see in my eyes that something was going on.

“Luke. Why?”

“Nothing.” I tried to force my face back to normal, but could tell I wasn’t doing a very good job. “Nothing. It’s just that’s a phrase I heard a long time ago, but it’s been years, and I’m sure it’s just part of the vernacular now.” I was lying through my teeth and she knew it, but she could tell that I wasn’t going to come across with any truth right then. “Go on back to your game.”

“Are you sure? You wanna tell me what’s got you so spooked?” She asked. “Besides, now that you’ve got me rattled, I’m gonna have to fold every hand for the next orbit to get my head back in the game.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. It’s nothing, really. Go on back to slaying the redneck dragons and we’ll be back in a couple hours.”

“Yeah, go rob the poor unsuspecting swamp rats, Baby Sister. Me and the old man are gonna go grab a bite and play a little more blackjack.” Cain put an arm around my shoulders and steered me towards the buffet. As soon as he saw Emily take her seat again, he whispered fiercely in my ear “Exactly what the hell do you think you were doing?”

We got a booth a little separate from the rest of the buffet and sat. I downed a Coke in one quick gulp and once the waitress was headed off for my refill I leaned forward. “You know who her poker lessons came from?”

“Yeah, the Morningstar.”

“Yeah. Exactly. That son of a bitch has been hanging around my daughter and I want to know why. Wait a minute. That was supposed to be a rhetorical question. How did you know who her ‘Luke’ was?” I leaned back as my son took a moment to figure out the best way to tell his story.

“Remember when I mentioned not liking to sit with my back to a door?” He started.

“Yeah, you said you were in Deadwood when Hickock got shot.”

“Yeah. I was sitting across from him at the table, and probably was about to lose my ass, because my two pair wasn’t as good as his when McCall came in and shot him.”

“What does that have to do with the Morningstar?”

“He was there, too.”

Choices, part 19

by john | Jun 17, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen

The casino in New Orleans is just like most of them, loud, garish and a little depressing. It’s no wonder Lucky feels so at home in them. I wonder what it says about me that I also feel very at home among the dropouts, the degenerates and the hopeless dreamers. But I’ve always like blackjack, and I count cards just well enough to generally make a little money without getting noticed by the floor guys or the eye in the sky. I sat down at a low-limit table and settled in to a nice six-deck shoe. Most people think you can’t count a six-deck shoe, but the reality is that it’s just a little harder. If you’re patient, you can figure it out. If you’re immortal, patience is one thing you’ve got in spades. The kids wandered around the slot machines for while as I got my groove started. I was up about a hundred bucks at a $15 table when Emily came back.

“Gimme a couple hundred bucks.” She said, holding out her hand.

“And why, pray tell, would I want to do that?” I responded without touching either the chips in front of me or the cash in my pocket.

“Because you’re taking too long and I can make us a lot more money a lot more quickly. So gimme $300.”

“How do you plan to make significantly more money than me, faster than me, with half our remaining money?” I was a little concerned. She had an odd look about her, not like she had a gambling bug, but like she knew she had an edge. It worries me when people think they have an edge over a casino, especially one that’s as close to water as that one was. I’ve seen people frantically trying to learn to swim after big winning sessions in casinos, but it can be difficult to learn new things with you hands and feet tied together. I ended up very soggy in that little adventure and didn’t relish an opportunity to repeat it. It’s a lot harder to find thugs in casinos nowadays, since they’re all run my huge multinational conglomerates, but there’s still the occasional neckless twit rolling around, and if I could avoid any interaction with them, I would.

“Poker.” She looked up at me and when I didn’t fork over any cash, she went on. “I’m a good poker player, and I read people very, very well. So give me one buyin and I’ll make us some serious cash. I’ve been watching, and these games are ridiculously juicy. It’s almost like these guys want to give their money away.” Now I’ve played a little poker, and I’ve played once or twice in the Delta, and the boys down there like to gamble. And they would never think that a little girl like Emily could hold her own, so even if she didn’t have a somewhat amazing ability to know what people were thinking and feeling, she’d probably have an edge. Couple that with her mildly disturbing insight, and I did what any right-thinking father would do. I gave her the money.

“Thanks. Now stay here. If you’re there with me it’ll singe my groove.” She walked off, and I saw her tying her hair up in pigtails as she went. Singe her groove? Really?

“They grow up fast, don’t they Poppa?” Cain was in the seat next to me at the table. I hadn’t noticed him there before and wasn’t sure how much of the exchange he’d witnessed.

“Yeah. They sure do. Did you ever have any?” I realized how little I really knew about my son, what with that whole wanting to murder each other for millennia thing getting in the way.

“A few. I had a few early, but they all bore The Mark on their foreheads, so I waited until after the carpenter did his thing to have any more. You know what’s funny? After they killed him, none of my children since had The Mark.
Funny, huh?”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t have thought he could have affected us, what with us being so much older than him and all.”

“I know. But it really did seem like something changed after his time. Like Father hit the reset button or something.” I’d never pegged Cain for the philosophical type, but people can change in 5,000 years I guess. We sat there for an hour or two pushing chips back and forth. I wasn’t counting cards much anymore, just chatting with Cain about our lives through the years. Basic blackjack strategy will keep you from getting in too much trouble, and after a while doesn’t really require any thought. I managed to get lucky a few times and pick up a couple hundred dollars when I realized that Emily hadn’t come back for any more money.

“Wanna go check on your sister?” I asked Cain.

“I thought she didn’t want you to singe her groove?” Cain asked with a smirk.

“Really? Out of all the people, do you think I would singe a girl’s groove. C’mon.” I colored up to a purple and a couple of black chips and walked over towards the poker room. Poker room is something of a misnomer, it’s more a slightly enclosed area with a rail around it where addicts can go smoke.

It took a little bit of eyeballing from the rail, but we finally caught sight of Emily, and when we did, Cain and I exchanged what could most charitably be called shocked glances. She was sitting at one end of the table, the only girl in a sea of fat, sweaty men, and she had a wall of chips in front of her that was impressive in its size alone, much less in the fact that it was made up of mostly red and green chips. I made a quick guess and figured she had close to $1500 sitting in front of her. She saw us watching, folded her hand and sashayed over to the rail to give her brother a big hug and me a kiss on the cheek.

“Hey boys, how did you do?” She asked with an altogether impertinent smile.

“We made a little. Looks like you hit a nice little lucky streak yourself, sweetheart.” I replied cautiously. I wanted to know what she was up to, but damned if I was going to give her the satisfaction of asking.

“I’ve had worse days.” She answered with a twinkle in her eye. She knew I wasn’t going to be able to resist asking, and as a matter of fact, I wasn’t.

“Where did you get all that money?” I finally blurted out.

“It’s the funniest thing, Daddy. When you have the best hand, they give you all the chips in the middle of the table. And if you put all your chips in the middle, and you have the best hand, you don’t just get your chips back, you get everybody else’s chips too! Isn’t that fun!” She even squealed a little at the end. I felt ill.