The Book of Paul -- A Paranormal Thriller (66 page)

He was home. Home at last. In the grinding, churning heart of the Maelstrom.

Rose was starting to move. Like a freeze frame in a movie theater flickering back to life, cranked slowly forward by the projectionist’s rotating grip, she was moving again…her lips closing, ending the scream she seemed to have released hours ago.

“
Maaaaaarrr
…” became “
Martin!”
She was also squeezing the trigger again, aimed at Paul’s back. Paul and Martin were motionless, as she had been only seconds earlier. Their crushing embrace looked almost tender in its stillness, like a sculpture of a father-and-son reunion, meeting in the airport after a four-year tour of duty in some faraway war zone. The image flashed in her mind for only a fraction of a second. She knew she would never have an opportunity like this again, with Paul so utterly defenseless.

“If you shoot him now, Martin will die,” The Striker rasped loudly.

She turned around, gasping for breath. Good. He was still nailed to the floor.

“Lower the pistol,” he whispered, minimizing the movement of his windpipe. Each utterance was slicing him deeper with the sickle blade.

“Fuck you!” Rose shouted, out of her mind with fear. She didn’t know where to look, where to point her gun, where to fire. I was still frozen. So were Paul and Martin. Rose stared at them. Oh, God! Martin’s gouged out eye was back again, like nothing ever happened! What was going on here? This was so insane! She shook her head to clear it, pointing the pistol at Paul again. At his head.

“If you shoot him, Martin will die,” The Striker repeated, clearly exasperated at the effort she was forcing him to make.

“Why should I listen to you? Why should I trust anything you say?”

“Because your father is making me tell you this,” he said, the blade carving his neck wider with each syllable. “For some reason he cares about you…and Martin.”

“My father is
making
you?” she asked hysterically, the gun shaking in her grip.

“Yes. This is his will, and I must obey,” The Striker said with a barely perceptible nod. “While he holds the Wheel, I am required to assist you, but he must hear me as well. That’s the price he has to pay for the use of this mouthpiece, for there’s something I want to share with you too. I think it will help us pass the time more enjoyably, while we’re waiting for those two…to finish.”

“Finish
what?”
Rose shouted, her face darting up to the figures on the altar, locked in their terrible embrace. “What are they doing up there?”

“That is not what I wish to discuss. I want to talk about Kathy.”

“Kathy? My mother?” Rose shouted, completely baffled.

“Yessssss,” he whispered, his voice gurgling now.

Rose couldn’t speak. She was barely able to stand.

“Sit down,” The Striker said soothingly. “I wouldn’t want you to injure anyone with that pistol. Especially me.”

Rose slumped at his feet, the conjoined shadow of Paul and Martin casting a pall over her face.

“There, that’s better,” The Striker sighed, indifferent to any pain the sickle was causing him. “You’ve been under the impression that your father killed her, yes?” When Rose shook her head, he seemed saddened by the news, then brightened up again. “Well, goody for you. That will save me a few nicks from this razor. Did he, by any chance, reveal the actual perpetrator of that horrendous crime?”

Rose shook her head again.

“Care to venture a guess?” The Striker asked, a sneer curving his lips.

Rose suddenly became more animated. So was her pistol. She pressed it above the bolt in his temple, shouting, “If he knew you killed her, why didn’t he tell me?”

“He knew you’d attempt to exact your revenge, just as you’re contemplating now. And then, sweet darling, all your father’s carefully laid plans would lie in ruins.”

“Plans?” she cried, unaware she was already squeezing the trigger. “
What plans?”

“Lower the gun,” he warned her, “or you’ll destroy everything you’ve ever loved in this world.” Her arm collapsed into her lap like a strand of linguini.

“Good,” The Striker croaked. “We don’t have enough time to fill in all those horrid blanks from your childhood…poor Johnny would be drowned in the tide he’s holding back. And as much as that would delight me, my vow prevents me from abetting that outcome.”

“Your vow?” Rose asked, unsure what to do with her shaking hands.

“Your father and I have an arrangement. He doesn’t prevent me from fulfilling certain goals I have, and I assist when his only child is in mortal danger. A much more difficult task, I admit, since you were foolish enough to surrender the key. My key.”

Rose clutched her naked neck. “You’re lying! Why would he make a deal with you after you killed my mom?”

“Because she isn’t dead,” The Striker said, gasping with delight. “Not all the way.”

“
What are you saying?”
Rose cried, completely frantic.

“She’s in heeeeeeere…” The Striker hissed. “Inside meeeeeeee.”

Rose almost puked. The Striker giggled as her breaths came in short, lurching gasps, the bile rising into her throat, her stomach lurching with horror. “Yesssssss…that’s good,” he wheezed. “Feel my hate! Choke on it! Like I choked on Kathy’s soul when I ate it!”

“
You crazy fucking shithead!”
Rose spat, pointing the pistol at his face.

“Oh my, such an ill-mannered young lady! I must say that your mother is appalled, simply
appalled
at your use of such foul language in her presence.”

“Her presence…” Rose echoed, her skin crawling with goose bumps.

“Yesssssss…she’s watching right now, listening to every word we share, but alas, not from some lofty perch in heaven, nestled on a soft pink cloud. She’s watching through these stapled eyes, listening with these ears. Come a little closer, dear. Maybe you can hear her too. I’d be surprised if you couldn’t…considering how loudly she’s screaming.”

Rose crept closer and pushed the sickle farther into his throat.

“No? Don’t even want to try?” The Striker spat, delirious with pleasure in spite of the blade chewing at his neck. “Tsk. What a pity. It would be like a family reunion! Johnny could tell you himself why he never avenged poor mummy. Because he’s still trying to save her! He protects me for the same reason you shall, in the desperate hope of rescuing her on some distant day, bringing her home to his own aching heart, or in failing, share a bed with her inside me. And here’s another amusing twist: There are only two people that can help him achieve his fervent prayer, and they’re both here in this room. But neither can aid you while the Master lives. So if you care about saving poor Kathy, get your hand off this blade and point your gun at Paul’s head, but don’t pull the trigger until I say. I want him dead even more than you or Johnny, so you can trust me just this once.”

Rose let go of the blade and raised the gun to Paul’s head, her hand quivering with fear and hatred.

“Yessssss…that’s good. I think we understand one another. Now take a deep, slow breath, steady your hand and make sure your aim is true. When I give you the word, squeeze the trigger and get ready for the ride of your life…or death. Johnny is releasing the Wheel now and the Guardian will awaken.”

“Come Ceallach,” the angel said. The Princess and the Great Mother were the first to go. Then he and the Master passed through the Curtain of Dreams.

“It’s beautiful,” he said to the Master as they gazed upon the golden light of the Axis. He felt so much younger than his seventeen years, almost like the boy who sat on his father’s lap the first time he told him the story. Róisín and Morgana were waiting for them at the Axis, Róisín holding the angel’s hand as they hovered above the Great Wheel.

“Yes, it is beautiful,” said his father, having witnessed the glory many times before.

“Come,” the angel said again.

“Come Da,” Ceallach said eagerly, pulling his father’s hand, smiling as the princess beckoned him.

The Master let go of his hand. “I cannot.”

“But you said I would take this voyage with you, you said we would…”

“What was whole must be joined again,” he said, looking beyond him to the Great Mother. “It is your time now. The time of the
Becoming
.”

“What’s going to happen to me?” he asked, looking not to the angel or his beloved princess, but to his father and Master who had spoke to him of this wondrous place so often.

“I do not know,” his father said, his eyes full of longing.

“Where will the angel take us?”

“I do not know. This—your journey—has never been made.”

“Will I still be…me?”

“You will be changed.”

“What will happen to you? Where will you go?”

“I will return.”

“But all our enemies were in pursuit! They will surely be waiting!”

“My fate rests with the
Nous.
It is the will of the
Nous
that I remain behind…and that you become one with her and the angel.”

“Come,” said the angel more urgently. “It is time.”

“Will I see you again?” he asked, resisting the pull of the angel.

“Not in this way. Not with these memories.”

“Da! Don’t leave me!” he cried out, his heart breaking.

“I will never leave you, son. I will always live inside you.”

“But you said we couldn’t die! You said we’d never die!”

“We cannot truly die. We…change.”

“If I see you again, will I remember who you are?”

“You won’t care. You will be love…all love. Go with her…you’ll be so wonderful.
You
are
…
so wonderful!”

“I don’t want to lose you!”

“Trust the angel. Don’t resist,” his father said, his voice choked with emotion. Then the Wheel suddenly began turning again, the screaming winds of the Maelstrom almost deafening.

“
Da! Don’t leave me! I’m scared!”
Ceallach cried out, struggling to reach his father’s side, but the pull of the Axis grew in direct proportion to the grinding force of the Maelstrom and soon he found himself clutching the angel as his father waved farewell, still resisting the terrible vortex.

“I will always love you,” his father said as his body began to disintegrate.

“
Daaaaaa!”
Ceallach screamed.

But the Maelstrom had blown him into dust.

Ceallach cried out in anguish. The angel held him as he wept. Róisín wrapped her arms around him and kissed the top of his head. They clung to each other and their hearts began to glow like the angel’s chest as he cradled them in his giant arms.

“We must go now,” said the angel without speaking, and they began to descend into the Axis. Their hearts ached with longing as they looked into each other’s eyes. Then the same terrifying thought entered both their minds. They didn’t have to speak it. They were already joining with the angel and knew each other’s mind the same as their own.

“We will be lost as well! We will cease to exist to each other! Only one being will be born in the angel! This new thing will leave us both behind, as it abandoned the Master!”

“
No! I love you! I won’t let you go!”
Róisín cried, her strong, willful soul parting from Ceallach and the angel. He echoed her cry, their hearts blazing with love.

Suddenly, Ceallach was assaulted by the image of his father being chained to the altar by Tormac. Ceallach shouted to the angel, “We have to help him! They’ll kill him!”

“It is too late. Our merging has already begun. You cannot go back. You cannot live in that world again until we become whole.”

“
No!”
Ceallach shouted, tearing himself free of the angel. Then clutching the princess close to his heart, they flew headlong into the merciless jaws of the Maelstrom.

“
COME BACK!”

He turned to look. It wasn’t the angel calling after him. The angel had disappeared along with Róisín and everything else he had seen beyond the curtain of dreams. What was this place? Who had called him?

“I thought I lost you!” the voice shouted from far away. It was Da, his arms extended.

“
Da!”
he cried, rushing to his father’s side, gripping him in a crushing embrace. When he pulled back to look upon his beloved father, he was filled with terror.