2012 Novel

 Book I Of IV, Empire Of The Gods—The God Conspiracy 

Black Road 2012

Chapter 1

Lieutenant Warchovski slammed me hard against the wall. "You killed Diana! That's your god-damned knife in her! Admit it Jack—you're psycho!"

I had killed my wife—an oracle foretold it, but destiny trapped me. Ancient evil rode me like a parasite. I knew too much about powerful worldwide forces and now they hunted me. I was tied up in the strangling knot of a terrifying Mayan prophecy—Doomsday, December 21, 2012—my birthday.

But what difference could I possibly make at the end of the world?

At the end of Time…

 

 

Chapter 5

I needed to shut myself off—cool down. I needed to get cold. I didn’t want to fuck up my own suicide. I didn’t want to maybe just paralyze myself or do something else stupid. I mean, I’d already fucked up everything else.

So, I went to this place I knew outside of AbbaCue, low down in the dusty southeast. It was cold in the concrete cellar, an old bomb shelter from the ‘50s. It was dark with candles in glass globes. Faceless men and women leaned back from small tables and smaller circles of candlelight. You could get what you wanted there. As much as you could pay for. You could disappear from yourself there. It was always quiet there. Nobody talked to you there. Except for the Cat. She’d make sure you got what you wanted.

The Cat was small, thin, dark, and beautiful as an art-deco figurine. They said she was Guatemalan, a descendant of the Maya. They said she spoke Hebrew, Portagee, and Gaelic. She was a woman of power. The kind of power that saw into your past or wept for your future.

She wore a red silk pajama set and little gold sandals that showcased her small feet and the gold rings on her toes. Her slim throat was set off by a narrow choker of tiny black feathers with small diamonds. She wore a woven, dark gray shawl wrap that declared her reserve.

When she saw me the thick cloud of black hair around her shoulders stirred. She stared. And then she said, "Go home, muchacho, this trip isn't for you, not tonight.”

She gazed up at me, her big eyes caverns in the narrow face. I looked down at the tiny hand on my chest as she pushed against me. "Go home, Jack. You don't belong here. I'm not letting you across."

She was thin and fierce. I lifted her off the ground, her body nothing against mine. She protested, but not too much. “You’re crazed, Jack.”

I carried her across the room, her frail legs straight down along me, slender arms around my neck, her cool cheek next to mine. She was so light and fragile I was afraid I might damage her. I set her small feet on the floor.

I sat down at the tiled bar. "I’d like my bottle, Cat"

“Let me look at you first, muchacho.”

She laid a finger along her jaw and gazed at me. She stared at me like I was a painting. She said, “Hmmm....”

“What do you see?”

“Your eyes are too intelligent, Jack. Your gaze is too deep. And you’re too damned good looking.”

“I mean, what do you see?”

Her eyes loitered on mine. “I see a journey by water.”

“Why are you staring at me that way?”

“I’m looking for the drowning mark, Jack.”

“The what?”

“Shakespeare. The Tempest. During the storm, Gonzalo says, ‘Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows.’ Hmm....”

“Again, ‘hmm.’ So, do I have this drowning mark?”

“No. Your complexion is a perfect shade of gallows,” she said.

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning you are too big a bastard to die by drowning. You’ll probably be eaten by a shark. Let me look at you.”

She studied me. She took her time.

She picked me apart. Then she put the bits back together.

“You’ve a powerful soul, Jack. It scares me. I see something I can’t identify—it translates into wordless pictures for me. I see a dagger of light. I don’t know what it means. Is the dagger pointing the way forward? If it is, then maybe if I send you over, that brings you. Or, it may let the life out of you. Or maybe the dagger is the sword of God blocking your passage. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know my future? I do. I don’t have one.”

 “No. Fingers in my heart say you do have a future. A destiny. You need help. I can’t change your destiny, but maybe I can help you rise to meet it.”

She stared at me. She suddenly startled and stepped back, hand to mouth, like she’d seen a spider.

“What is it, Cat?”

“I see that tonight truly is your ending. I shall never see Black Jack Vane anymore.”

Her tensed body told me she wanted to run away but she didn’t do it. She squinted up at me with eyes like chips of flint.

“What do you mean, Cat?”

“I see things in you.”

“Tell me.”

“They are pictures, not words.”

“Say what they are.”

“You are a rising sun. You shine. But you must contend with a dark enemy and your destiny. Like the sun and the night, your destiny and your enemy are the same thing. I see a blazing mist around you, but a dark cloud cleaves the center. Something watches you from the other side. You will cross to the end of the world, and that thing will follow you through.”

She stopped, and stared at my chest.

“Is that it, Cat?”

“No. You’re in mortal peril. Nothing will be as it seems. The spirits are bound to you by skins that aren’t their own, they are confused by powerful forces that hunt you. Your soul is at risk. You will descend into darkness and be without breath among the dead—but the dead will share their secrets if you hold them close.”

She put a dry hand on my forehead. “Wait—I see a serpent of flame that consumes its own tail.”

“My tattoo. I have that tattoo, a snake eating its tail.”

Her eyes went wide, a hand fluttered to her mouth. “Ah! Then you are the Balance! You’re an instrument of fate, you have no choice of action. You are driven by desire and need. You are driven by ghosts and weaknesses that blind you. They are your past and your present and they compel you into your future.”

“I’ve been told that before. An old Indian--”

“Stop. Don’t tell me while I am telling, it could change your future—your destiny. Don’t try to see it or measure it or decide it. Your destiny has been set by the Fates—by the Spinner, the Measurer, and the Cutter. It is theirs alone. Or—so it is said. But…I wonder.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “I see that you’re important to the Fates. But whether to destroy you, or raise you up, I cannot tell. I think it’s your own choice, Jack. You’re special to them.”

I started to say something, but her eyes suddenly sharpened to pinpoints and her fine brows arched over them. She said, “Wait, Jack—there are shadows at your heels that are not your own. They are these: a powerful woman, and a powerful man. They are two, but they are not what they seem. They are like a hand of playing-cards with two suits of faces. And they are both false.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They are two people but each is two-faced, like they are two cards each, so that makes them four cards, not two people. I see aces and eights in the hand.”

She startled and trembled. “Beware of numbers, Jack. I see a third person, a second man—he is the fifth card in the hand, but not yet drawn. He is much more powerful. He conceals himself in the deck, a fifth card hidden. His suit and value are hidden. So there are five cards altogether in the hand. The two aces and the two eights, the man and the woman; the fifth card is not yet drawn. the unknown card is the second man. That’s your hand, Jack.” She looked sad.”

“What.”

“It’s the dead man’s hand.”

“What’s…”

“It’s Hickok. Bleeding his brains out onto the card table. Do you see him? Right there in the corner of your mind? I do. Beware. It was guilt that killed Wild Bill, not his assassin. Hicock was a drunk like you. He was careless like you. He was self-absorbed, egotistical, and distracted like you. He lied to himself like you. He shot and killed his own deputy, but he didn’t mean to do it. You killed your wife, but you didn’t mean to do it, either.

“You and Wild Bill are the same. You are an arrogant, self-centered, ignorant, lying bastard—and a killer, Jack. That’s all I see now. There’s no charges.”

She turned in a hiss of fabric, glanced at me over her shoulder, and walked away with flip of open hand, “Lá está, meu amigo.”

She was gone, into the shadows.

I was sweating in the cold. I turned to look for a stool to sit down. Under a harsh overhead bulb, the tiled bar glittered like ice. A hollow-cheeked barman with black shadows for a face polished the bartop. I thought he’d rub a trench into it with his rag. I asked for my bottle. His eyes were shadows with glints. He stared at me without judgment. Without pity. Without anything.

He brought out a dusty cobalt-blue glass. He wiped it with the rag. He set the glass down in front of me. He kept his glinting eyes on me. He hauled out my old green bottle and put it in front of me, a thin hand locked around it.

The bottle was the good-stuff. The drink. It had been called a lot of things: the green faery; the old man; lad’s love; distillate of wormwood; thujone; artemisia absinthium.

The barman just stared at me. He didn't say anything. He didn't move anything.

I dragged out my last Franklin and laid it down. He unclamped his pale hand from the bottle, and backed out of the light.

I stared into the mirror at my reflection. The candlelit darkness behind me glittered like stars on a black lake. I’d go across with the green faery.

I'd kill it.

Then I’d kill any love left in me.

And then I’d kill myself.

   

 

By Jeffrey Friedberg

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Jeffrey Friedberg, Former Big City Private Eye
 8201 Golf Course Rd., NW, Suite D3-288, , NM, 87120

 

• 2012

 

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