Terminus (7 page)

No longer concerned he might be heard, Yuri began to hyperventilate.  He was not one to mourn the death of such a man as Jonas.  But he had no idea how to pilot a boat.  And in the vast ocean around it, not a trace of land could be seen.

12

THEY’D BEEN AT IT FOR HOURS, and Nick was sick of it.

Talking, muttering, whining, Elaine’s voice rising in pitch, volume, and intensity, then Jon’s voice catching up, eventually booming over hers.  If they only understood just how short mortal life was, how little time they really had to get it right, they might think twice about arguing over money, control, sex, and other such minutiae.

The door to their bedroom slammed shut, but the shouting seemed every bit as loud as when it had been open.  When Matthew scooped up Riley, their golden retriever puppy, and ran down to the foot of the white-carpeted stairs, Nick wondered why it had taken him so long.

He went over and sat next to Matthew, who sighed like an old man as he stroked the dog’s ears. 

No child should have a sigh like that.

Nick wanted to step in and chide Matthew’s parents—
An innocent child’s future is being irrevocably cast in a mold of your wrath and self-centredness!

Stupid mortals.

But what could he do?  He couldn’t reveal himself—the interaction might complicate his assignment.  The yelling continued.  Now they were accusing each other of just about everything under the sun.

He looked upstairs and glowered at the shut door that did nothing to shield Matthew from the hatred spewing forth and bleeding into his spirit.  He had to get him outside for some fresh toxin-free air. 

Nick leaned over and whispered to Riley, “Want to go for a walk?”

Riley looked right at him, opened her mouth for a big puppy smile, and leapt down from Matthew’s lap.  Her tail swiped left-right, left-right, left-right.  She looked up at both of them and barked.

“What is it, girl?” Matthew said.

Riley ran to the front door.  Barked twice, then ran back and barked once.

Matthew pointed to the door.  “You want to go out?”

The ongoing combat in his parents’ room paused for a moment, and Matthew looked up. 

Nick called out to Riley.  “Out?  Out?”

Riley started yapping incessantly.  The yelling upstairs resumed.  Matthew  barely had the door open before Riley dashed out.

“Hey, wait up!” Matthew started out the door.

Just then, the door at the top of the stairs swung open. 

“AND WHAT ABOUT MATTHEW!”  Elaine screamed.  “DO YOU THINK
HE
CAN RESPECT A MAN LIKE YOU?”

Matthew froze.

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Nick muttered. 

If only he could cover Matthew’s ears.  His blue eyes were about to fill up, and the doorknob rattled in his hand.

But Riley’s barking outside alerted Matthew.  He turned around to look. 

“Riley, no!”

He bolted out the door, which shut before Nick could see what was happening. 

Something felt wrong. 

Nick rushed out and saw it all. 

Barking excitedly at a white toy poodle across the two-way street, Riley ran between the parked cars and out into the oncoming traffic.  Matthew ran after her.

“Stop, Riley!  Come back!”

Knowing what was about to happen, Nick flew out after him. 

Two cars coming from both directions came down the street.  Matthew,  focused on his puppy, didn’t see them.

13

JUST AS NICK REACHED HIM, Matthew saw the car coming from the left and blasting its horn at him.  With a terrified shriek he dove forward and out of the way.

He landed face down on the pavement in the opposite lane.

When she heard Matthew scream, Riley stopped barking and ran over to him.

But the car from the right was coming.  Both the boy and dog were in the middle of the street.  With the first car in the left lane and the curb blocked by parked cars, it had nowhere to swerve.

Ignoring all angel dictates and canon, Nick grabbed Matthew by the waist of his pants and yanked him over to the narrow yellow painted space between the two lanes.

The second car sped by, blaring its horn.  To Nick’s disgust, it didn’t stop.

He set Matthew down.

He looked up at Nick—scared to death, and not just by the near accident.  Matthew could see him!

Nick looked over to the first car, but the driver who’d seen Nick appear—out of thin air from her point of view—rolled up her window and sped off, not bothering to see if the little boy she’d almost killed was all right. 
That’s humans for you.

Nick knelt down and touched Matthew’s shoulder. 

“You all right, little man?”

“I...I...” Then he turned around and looked into the lane Nick had just pulled him from.  His face crumpled.  “Riley!”

There she was, lying still about fifteen feet down the street.  As if he’d forgotten everything that just happened, Matthew rushed to his puppy, calling her name.  Nick went with him, watching for more oncoming traffic.

Matthew fell to his knees, crying.  Riley had been hit and was gasping her final breaths—something Nick was all too familiar with.  Matthew looked at his puppy, his face all tears and dirt and heart-wrenching despair. 

“I’m sorry, Riley!  This is all my fault!”

“It’s not, Matthew.  Not your—”

“I let her out without me.  Oh, Riley...Riley, please don’t die!”  He turned back to Nick.  “I messed up—I always mess up!  That’s why Mommy and Daddy don’t want me.”

“That’s not true!”  Nick made up his mind.  The laws about unassigned healings couldn’t be so inane as to apply to animals.  And if they did, he didn’t care.

He knelt down and placed his hands around Riley’s head.  His entire body tingled with a pulsating light that started from his heart and radiated to his fingertips, which glowed as he pressed them gently against the puppy’s furry brow.  

He shut his eyes.

Connected with Riley’s soul.

It surprised him, how deep was the love a puppy felt for her master, how intense the memories.   But there they were, strong as any human’s if not stronger.  He had to take care not to send too much light into so young a puppy.

A tear slid down Nick’s cheek.

Joy and sadness.

“Get up, Riley,” he whispered.  The light left him.  The puppy’s breathing returned to normal, and she lifted her head.

“Riley?”  Matthew’s face was alight with joy and wonder.  “Riley!”

She rolled to her feet and let out a happy bark.  Tail wagging furiously, she  leapt into Matthew’s arms and proceeded to bathe his face with puppy kisses.  Matthew finally managed to lower her enough to look up at Nick. 

“Wow, mister!  That was awesome!”

“Be careful crossing the street, okay?”

“Thanks for fixing up Riley.  She’s good as new.”  He smiled big and offered Nick an outstretched hand.

He’d already revealed himself, might as well.  Nick shook his hand.  “Don’t mention it...” Just then, the Hartwell’s front door opened.  “
Really
, don’t mention it.”

“Matthew?”  Elaine Hartwell called from across the street.

“Over here, Mom.”

She started for the street.  “What are you doing there?  And who is that man?”

Nick straightened up.  He’d have to remain visible now that they’d seen him too. 

“It’s all right, Mrs. Hartwell, I was just helping Matt—”

She reached them and took Matthew by the arm.    “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then how do you know us?  And what are you doing talking to my son?”

“Everyone knows you.  From the television shows, the radio, your books—”

“What books? Nobody knows about that yet.”

Oops.

“I mean your husband’s books.” 

“He saved your son!”  From a second-floor window an elderly woman pointed down to the street.  “Your boy nearly got hit by a car.  Twice!  That nice man just came out of nowhere and pulled him out of the way and...Hey, your dog!  I thought it got—”

“Thank you!”  Nick called out.  “But really, anybody would have done it.  Have a nice day!”

Hartwell now joined them.  While he and Elaine asked their son what had happened, Nick tried to slip away.  But the preacher stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder. 

“Excuse me.”

Nick sighed, then turned around to face him. 

“Yes?”

“You’re not from around here, are you?”  Hartwell said.  “England, Australia?  Sorry, I always mix up the accents.”

“It’s you Americans who’ve got the accent.”

Hartwell smiled.  “I guess.  Hey, Matthew just told me what you did.”

“I assure you he’s exaggerating.”

He took Nick’s hand and instead of shaking it held it firmly for a moment.   

“I can’t thank you enough.  What you did for my son…”

And the dog?  
“Nothing any decent person wouldn’t do.”

“I don’t know what we were thinking, how we let this happen.  But thank you.”  A wet sniff.  “I wish there was something we could do.”

Nick took back his hand.  “Keep an eye on him.”

Hartwell laughed.  “I’ll do that.  Hey, why don’t you come on over? I’ll fire up the grill and we’ll have some burgers.  I’d love to get to know the man who saved my son’s life.”

“Thank you, but—”

“I insist.”

Matthew stepped away from his mother and walked up to them. 

“Please?”

Between Riley’s and Matthew’s puppy dog eyes, all was lost.

14

MARIA HAD DRIVEN ALMOST AN HOUR and a half from Chula Vista to San Clemente, where she was stuck in a log jam at the checkpoint on the I-5 north.  For most of the drive she’d heard Alfonso’s scream behind the door just before the gunshot that ended his life.

Lito hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he might as well have. 

If you kissed up to him, he’d throw thousands of dollars at you or take care of a problem for you.  But watch out if you crossed him, lied to him, or broke his rules.  Who did he think he was, God?

She’d probably benefit from seeing Dr. Kramer, but right now she was too upset.  Her therapist would try to help her get perspective on what had happened, do the right thing, not let her emotions rule.  Well, she was in no mood to do what was right, and she could no more control her emotions than she could stop the tide. 

Gray clouds obscured the ordinarily bright sky that made the waves off the coast sparkle like diamonds.  Like the diamonds on the ring Alfonso had given her last night at
Casa del Oro
in Old Town.  Surrounded by a touristy Mariachi band, he got down on one knee and proposed.  And of course she accepted, to a chorus of cheers and music and wine and...

Maria put her car in park and wiped her eyes.  She’d tried to stop Alfonso’s screams in her head by listening to a sermon by Jonathan Hartwell, whose event at Cabrillo Stadium she planned on attending—her first time hearing him speak live in San Diego.  It hadn’t worked.  Today nothing could lift her from the turmoil into which Lito’s pig-headed arrogance had cast her.

The ring on her finger, a symbol of Alfonso’s devotion, now served only as a painful reminder of her brother’s cruelty.  She slammed the steering wheel over and over. 

“Damn you, Lito!  Damn you to hell!”  All her life he’d been overbearing, overprotective, with his overinflated sense of honor.  According to him, he’d done everything “
for your own good,
hermanita,
” but she knew damned well everything he did was for one reason.

Power. 

He’d killed Alfonso just to assert his power.  To demonstrate that no one better cross Lito Guzman or mess with his property.  And that’s all she was to him, right?  Property.  She might as well have been his dog, for all he cared.  Maria had had enough of Lito’s control.  Enough of his power trips, pathetic overcompensation for his short stature.

You’re not the only Guzman who can get things done.

She reached inside the center console and grasped it:  cold, hard, deadly.  The feel of the gun sent a tingling chill from her fingertips straight to her scalp.

But a stolen weapon was not enough to get her the justice she needed.  For that she’d decided to go to her cousin Joey Hernandez.  He could help. 

She took the gun out, caressed the barrel, felt the tension in the trigger.  God should not mind one bit if she rid the planet of such a wicked man, even if he was her brother.  And would Papi turn in his grave?  Ha! Maybe he’d thank her.

Carefully, she laid the gun on the passenger seat.  A white flash lit the pewter sky followed almost immediately by a thunderclap.  Then a heavy downpour of rain, so heavy she didn’t hear the CHP officer rapping on her window. 

“Ma’am?”  

She threw some papers over the gun, then opened the window. 

“Is there a problem, officer?”

“You’re parked.”

Maria glanced over at the passenger seat.  The papers only half concealed the gun.

“Parked?”

“You’re holding up traffic, ma’am.”

Glancing into her rearview, she noticed what had been there the last time she looked—an endless line of cars, their windshield wipers now whipping aside the rain. 

Back to the officer:  “But we’ve been this way for—”

“Ma’am, please?”  While he looked in front of her car, pointing, Maria grabbed a sweater from the back seat and threw it on top of the gun and papers.  Then she looked.

“Oh.”

A wide open lane was ahead of her. 

Now she could hear the horns honking behind her, the drivers annoyed at her stopping for what had to have been a few minutes.

“I’m sorry, I must have dozed off.”  She quickly shifted into drive. 

“You going to be all right?” the officer asked.

“Yes...I just received some bad news.   Wasn’t paying attention, that’s all.”  Her heart pounded so hard she could feel it in her ears.  But he couldn’t see the gun.

“Be careful.  Freeway’s going to be slick.” He tipped his hat and started walking back to the checkpoint.