Seraphim (55 page)

Duncan and the others saw Patricia and Rachel standing just within the tree-line. There was another woman with them. And the closer they got, the more the woman resembled Amy.

The adult version of his daughter.

“My God,” Duncan said. “Amy?”

Chris was equally benumbed. “Dude.”

“Hi, Dad,” she said, then hugged him. “How was Boston?”

“I learned my lesson,” he said.

“Well, it’s about time.”

Juanita was stunned. “Amy! You’ve grown to be a woman.”

“Juanita,” Amy said, “you’ve been a wonderful guardian to me all these years. Now it’s my turn to protect you.” She looked at everyone. “It’s time to go.”

When they broke tree-line, they saw Gamble and six naked girls standing near the cliff’s edge.

Juanita reached for Kathy’s hand. “You hold on to me,” she said. Now Kathy had Juanita in one hand, Patricia in the other.

“Let’s do it,” Chris said, bravado staunch in his posture but lean in his voice.

As they approached, Gamble held out his arms. “And I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show.”

Amy said nothing, just kept on walking. She was in front of the group, Duncan directly behind her.

Below them, hundreds of feet down, waves crashed rhythmically against the rocky shore. Except for a large bank of clouds to the west, the sky above was light blue, and a gentle wind rustled through the fir just behind them. The setting was more befit a picnic, Duncan thought, than it was a showdown of deities.

“I don’t like this place,” Kathy said. “I really don’t.”

Patricia pulled her close. “I know, baby. I know.”

Amy stopped ten feet from Gamble; Duncan and Rachel now by her side. The rest stayed close behind, Kathy now in Patricia’s clutches, Juanita in close orbit. Chris and Emilio took up the rear, both apprehensive but steady.

Gamble waved a hand toward the naked girls. “These are my offspring,” he said. “They’ll be judging your demeanor, so mind your manners. It might also please you to know that my protégé, the priest, has suffered a hopeless accident and thus will not be joining the festivities.” He shook his head. “You know, it’s so true what they say about finding good help.”

Kathy glanced back at the tree-line and saw the wolves, all silent and still within the dusky perimeter.

Gamble had noticed the wolves, too, and said to Amy, “I see you brought your
other
family along. Unless you want them to become an endangered species again,” he warned her, “then keep them at bay.”

“You just stick to our bargain,” Amy said, “and they’ll keep their distance.”

Patricia was staring, too. She said, “My God, how many are there?”

“Not nearly enough,” Gamble assured, then walked over to Kathy. “Now, it’s finally time I gather my remaining daughter from you.”

“No!” Patricia cried, stepping in front of Kathy. “You leave her alone!”

Juanita was now alongside Patricia, shaking her head wildly. “No, señor! No, you don’t!”

As Gamble stood before Katherine, the wolves began slinking from the shadowy timber, their steely eyes fixed ahead, their noses to the ground. They stopped their advance when Amy held up a hand.

Then Amy looked at Patricia and Juanita and said, “Step aside, the both of you, and let him have her.”

Patricia was stunned. “W-What?”

“Amy, what are you doing?” Duncan said.

Amy was now beside Gamble. “Just do as I say and let him have her.”

“Patricia, Juanita,” Duncan said, surprising himself. “Do as Amy says.”

Juanita, still protesting madly, had to finally be pulled away by both Rachel and Chris.

With stark resignation, Patricia slowly moved aside. “I’m so sorry, baby,” she said. “Forgive me.”

Gamble placed his right hand upon Kathy’s head. Instantly, as if suffused in electrical current, her arms jerked outward, her body became rigid, and a white mist began spiraling from her back like a thin rope, stretching toward his six daughters. At the other end of the cord a wispy form began taking shape, gathering there, and quickly coalesced into a body, that of Katherine Bently.

It was quite the magic trick.

Behind them, a baying rose from the woods; a lamenting chorus of howls from a symphony of wolves.

The wind was picking up, and, looking west, Duncan saw that the clouds had moved considerably closer, their docile color having changed to an angry gray, their bellies bulging.

Eyes rolling back into their sockets, the Kathy beneath Gamble’s right hand crumpled to the ground.

Patricia was immediately cowering over her, shaking her. “Kathy, baby! Kathy! Wake up!”

“I’m afraid she’s no longer with the living,” Gamble said, briskly wiping his hands, as if the chore had been a dirty one.

Juanita fell to her knees and wailed.

“Dear God, Duncan,” Rachel whispered. “What have we done?”

“You asshole!” Duncan roared. Fists clenched at his sides, he was about to charge Gamble when Rachel grabbed his arm. “No! That’s a fight you can’t possibly win.”

Something arced across his mind then, something Kathy had told him upon his return from yesteryear. “It left in you remarkable wonders,” she’d said. “Indulge them” And upon that musing, he was suddenly granted insight into what she’d been referring. It was crazy, of course, but he had to try. He walked over to Kathy’s lifeless body and, kneeling down, placed both hands upon her head, just as she had done with her own hands when healing his leg wound. But she had only healed the flesh. He, on the other hand, was attempting to revive the soul.

“Come back,” he said.

For a moment there was nothing.

He leaned over and pressed his ear to her chest.

She stirred.

Her eyes fluttered open.

“Donut,” she said softly. “I was at the Shallows.”

“That’s great, sweetheart,” he said, smiling.

Rachel, tears in her eyes, said, “My God, Duncan.”

“Why, Donut, I’m impressed,” Gamble said. “But then, I suppose it only confirms what I’ve suspected for quite some time. You see, only God and the seraphim have the power of resurrection.”

Duncan ignored Gamble as he helped Kathy back to her feet. Patricia, tears streaming from her eyes, kneeled in front of Kathy. “Oh, baby, oh, baby,” she said, brushing her hands through her daughter’s hair over and over. Juanita, now back on her feet, stood close by, clutching her rosary to her chest and thanking the Blessed Mother, her own wet eyes heavenward.

Gamble’s insinuation that the seraph was inside him was no longer true, he felt. It had been at one time, that was certain. But why did Gamble feel that the seraph was still a part of him? After all, that was why Chris had tricked them into Gamble’s Wonderland. And why was that? Because the seraph had built up some kind of barricade inside his mind, one high enough that Gamble couldn’t enter. That was obvious. So, if Gamble couldn’t get inside his mind, then he would bring him inside his own, where they could square off. But Gamble was able to bring the boy in without Chris’s help. So, did that mean that the boy did not have the same kind of barricade? Did that mean the seraph wasn’t inside the boy? Or had Gamble found someone else who, like Chris, could psychically maneuver him inside.

No, that was doubtful. Duncan had the sneaking suspicion that Chris was one of a kind.

But if the seraph wasn’t inside the boy, and if it wasn’t inside himself, then where was it hiding? It was close, he could feel it; a sapience, almost sacrosanct in its quality, knotted in his gut. The more freedom he gave this cognizance, the more the knot unraveled, becoming an umbilicus to a forbidden knowledge that divinity was at play here, that this was all preordained. After all, he’d been here before. They all had.

The big question: Would they get it right this time?

“Behold them,” Gamble said, swinging an arm toward his seven daughters, “the devils that they are.”

All of his daughters, starting with Kathy, had begun to morph into grotesque forms. Bat-like wings maturated from their backs. And tails, growing long, barbed and sword-slender. Their hands and feet elongated, became scaled and taloned; a mixture of something canine, avian, and reptilian. Horns sprung from the foreheads, curling down and around. Muzzles burgeoned from their faces, sprigs of wiry hair cropping up here and there, niched deeply into the crevices that pocked the mutation, each one savagely ranked with long, pointed teeth. Menacing now, they regarded everyone with snarls and snorts, their eyes black as marbles.

“Ain’t they a sight,” Gamble said; then he turned to Juanita. “It’s my understanding that you have the power to release the seraph. Is this true?”

Juanita looked terribly confused. “I...I did not know I could do this,” she said. Then she straightened. “But if it is God’s will...”

“God’s will?” he said. “
God’s
will? Sweetie, you’ve been shanghaied by a bunch of interloping mongrels who don’t know squat about God’s will. They’ve been making it up as they go along.”

“I do not care,” Juanita said. “I do what they tell me.”

“Do you?” Gamble said, walking over to Emilio. “Then, just for grins, let’s see what’s hiding inside the boy here.” He waved a hand. “Come along.”

Juanita hesitantly made her way to Emilio. Standing in front of him, she shrugged, then reached out and, with her rosary, touched her hand to his chest.

Nothing happened.

“No, no,” Amy said, “you’ve got to hit him, Juanita. Get pissed, goddammit! Hit him hard!”

This time Juanita hauled off and punched Emilio in the chest. Not real hard, but hard enough. A tiny, solitary moth escaped from the impact, fluttered upward, and was lost from view in seconds.

Gamble turned to Amy. “As I knew all along.” Then, with a simple touch of Gamble’s finger, Emilio began to swell. Within moments he was immense, off the ground and floating upward like some Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. Now the size of dinner plates, his eyes conveyed, in stereo, the horror he was experiencing.

“Dear God!” Rachel screamed.

“I believe he just might pop!” Gamble declared .

And Emilio did just that, stridently and in hundreds of thin, rubbery pieces.

“Full of nothing but hot air,” Gamble said. He turned to Duncan and said, “Let’s see you bring
that one
back to life.”

Duncan was reeling from the spectacle. It all happened so fast, was so dreamlike, that he could hardly fathom that it occurred at all. All he could do was stand there and stare.

“Why, Donut,” Gamble said gleefully, “I believe you’ve gone dreadfully pale.”

“You rotten bastard,” Duncan finally mumbled. “No good rotten bastard.”

“Motherfucker!” Chris declared.

“Easy, Christopher-san,” Gamble said, “you might just pull something.” Then he turned his attention back to Juanita. “Now, let’s see you sock the stuffing out of old Duncan McNeil, eh?”

Juanita, now a jumble of wobbly nerves thanks to Gamble’s horrific prank, staggered over to Duncan. “Please forgive, Señor Duncan,” she said, then punched his chest. Again, only a tiny moth appeared, fluttering aimlessly away.

Juanita appeared mildly surprised.

Duncan didn’t appear surprised at all.

Gamble whirled on Amy. “Don’t toy with me, bitch! Produce for me the seraph, or I’ll rip the maid apart!”

“There’s still one place you haven’t looked,” Amy said.

Gamble stiffened, his eyes going round.

This is it
, Duncan thought.
Here we go.

Amy stepped forward. “Right under your nose.”

Gamble guffawed. “Surely you don’t mean...?”

A smile slowly broadened across Juanita’s face, and she turned to Amy for permission.

“Go ahead,” Amy said. “Punch him. Hard.”

Gamble did not back away as Juanita ambled toward him; just stared virulently at Amy.

The moment Juanita’s fist struck his chest, Gamble was thrown hard to the ground. A bulbous shape of opulently brilliant, pulsating light shot from his mouth and nostrils, then surged into a greater form, one struggling within those luminous confines to become something more tangible, more corporeal. As it soared higher toward the approaching storm, the clouds parted, and as the entity entered the rift a ferocious salvo of lightning swept across the ocean, each strike of fire turning the waters to the smoothest glass.

Gamble cried out for his minions, and within moments legions of winged demons had darkened the western horizon like a swarm of locusts.

Then above them, the nimbus parted again in deafening thunder, and amid the noise the seraph descended upon multiple, luminous wings. It was colossal. Through the glaring brilliance, Duncan thought the creature resembled many forms, the sleek head of a horned serpent, the scaled and sinewy body of a dragon, the deadly talons of an eagle. It looked mythical and, in a fantastical way, elegant, despite its bulk, the way it undulated, the way its many wings moved in perfect synchrony around its entire girth. It reminded him somewhat of a whale; its gracefulness flawless upon an ocean of air.

The baying from the woods grew to a crescendo.

Still upon the ground, Gamble shouted to his daughters. “Kill it!” he cried. “Kill it now!”

His daughters took to the wing, caterwauling. From the seraph’s eyes erupted bursts of deep blue fire, each barrage perfectly aimed at the ascending demons. One by one, Gamble’s brood was reduced to cinders, their smoking remains falling to the crystalline surface below.

Gamble, back on his feet, threw out his hands, and a truculence of flame shot from his fingertips, toward the descending giant. The sky erupted in a molten storm as the seraph countered with its own breath of fire, turning Gamble’s volley to a river of ashes.

“
Nooo!
” Gamble cried. “How can this be?”

Gamble raised his hands and the sky parted, unveiling a starry universe.

“Be gone!” He cried.

But nothing vanished into the void. The storm clouds remained, and the seraph continued its descent, crashing into the mirror ocean. The ground shook forcibly as a volcanic eruption of glass went scattering into the sky. At the epicenter, a perfect circle remained, where a whirlpool began to form, counterclockwise. Slowly, Gamble’s Wonderland began spiraling inward as the vortex pulled it down. Multitudes of Gamble’s demons now swarmed over the fractured surface, pouring down into the pit, their cries rising to the angry, swelling clouds above. They came from all directions, from the smallest, monkey-sized bats to the behemoths, flying amalgamations pieced together from the most wretched imagination, many as large as the seraph itself. The sky was full of them.