by john | Jun 29, 2009 | Fiction, The Chosen
Somehow I found an excuse to stick around Finlay’s place, and became somewhat less useless as a fisherman, although I was a much better oarsman than I’d ever be an angler. And I found other ways to make myself useful, splitting wood, re-thatching the roof, hunting rabbits and other small game. Sorcha wasn’t immediately receptive to my charms, but after a few weeks of persistence, not to mention a few weeks of being the only guy around who wasn’t her father, we came to an understanding of sorts.
That understanding being that whenever her father wasn’t around, we’d make love like minks as often as possible while still getting all her chores done. This went on for a couple of months before Finlay made mention of getting along in years and needing someone to start taking the boat out a few days a week. Now Finlay wasn’t an old man, but when the average man lived to only his mid-thirties, it didn’t take long for someone to think he was old, especially when he was well into his third decade. That would usually have been my clue to move on before anyone caught on to the fact that I wasn’t aging, but I decided that Finlay already knew something was odd about me, and Sorcha was so head over heels for me that she wouldn’t care. So one night, after dinner, I decided to tell them the truth about myself.
“Sorcha, Finlay, there’s something about me that you should know.” I started.
“Aye, son, what’s that?” Fin replied.
“Well, I’ve enjoyed my time here. A lot. And I’d like to stay on for a while longer. But if you don’t want me around after you hear what I have to say, then I understand.”
“What is it, lad? I can’t fathom anything ye could say that we’d toss ye out on your ear for, but go ahead with yuir tale.”
“Well, it’s like this. You were talking about getting on in years…” I paused, unsure of how to continue.
“Aye, and I am. It’s not something I’m thrilled about, but it’s happenin’ just the same.”
“Well, I won’t.”
“Huh?” I love it when I can get that reaction out of someone else. Petty, I know, but that’s how I roll.
“I don’t age. And I don’t die. I’ve been alive a long time, a lot longer than anyone else ever has, and there’s no sign that I’m going to die any time soon.” It felt good to say it, but I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen next.
“What…are ye?” Sorcha asked in a scared, small voice. The look on her face was why I so seldom told anyone about my true nature.
“I’m a man, like any other. Except I don’t get old, and I don’t die.”
“So yuir a god?” She asked, breathless. In Ireland at that time it wasn’t out of the realm of most people’s understanding for a deity to visit the Earth and consort with mortal women. And Sorcha was worth some consorting, let me tell you.
“No. I’m just a man.” I said.
“But ye won’t die? Ever?” Fin asked.
“If history serves as any indication for future performance, no, I’ll never die.”
“And Aidan isn’t yuir name, is it?” he continued.
“No. Most places I’m called Adam.” I confirmed.
“I need a drink.” Sorcha sat down heavily in a chair by the fire, and I got a bottle from the cupboard and poured a big slug for each of us. Fin drained his in one gulp, and held out his cup for another. I poured him another drink, and sat down myself.
“So do you want me to leave? I’m sorry I deceived you both, but I wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”
“Nay, son, ye don’t need ta leave. I’ve grown a bit attached to ye, and I know Sorcha’s taken a right shine to ye as well. I don’t mind keeping ye around if ye’ll learn to be a bit of a better fisherman, so ye can take car of our girl here once I’m gone.” Fin sipped his second drink and settled in to his chair.
“I…I don’t want ye to leave.” Sorcha spoke very quietly, not looking at me. “But what will ye do when I get old?”
“I’ll love you.” I said very quietly, surprising myself a little because it was true. I hadn’t talked of love to anyone since Eve, but this fire-haired maid of Erin had captivated me completely.
“Do ye mean it?” She looked up at me then, and there was a moisture in those jade eyes that tore my heart apart. I knew it was a bad idea, and I knew that it was going to hurt like hell when it ended, but Father help me, I was in love with the girl.
“Aye, I mean it.” I went over to her, took her hands in mine, and said, “Sorcha, will ye be mine and no other’s?” I don’t often affect the accent of the times, but it seemed appropriate at the moment.e
“Aye. Will ye be mine and no other’s?” She asked in turn, and then thought of whom she was asking and added, “as long as we both draw breath?”
“Aye. As long as we both draw breath I am yours and no other’s.” I pulled her to her feet and kissed her for a long time in front of the fire. After what might have been an uncomfortable moment for a father, Finlay coughed.
“Then it’s done. Now that ye be me son, ye must learn to fish for real. I’ll not be havin’ ye stay here and do woman’s work just so ye can sneak off to the woodshed with me daughter every afternoon.” I had the courtesy to blush, and we all laughed and drank well into the night. It was with a throbbing head and a delicate stomach that I went out with Fin the next morning to begin my true education as a fisherman, but somehow I managed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
