Terminus (16 page)

Yuri shut the door, sat with the suitcase on his lap.

The car sped off.

“It’s about time, Yuri.”

His ears grew hot.  She was so hot he couldn’t help but stare. 

“So, you are Raven?” 

“I am.  Seems you ran into some trouble.”  She flicked a lock of hair away from her face, re-crossed her legs, blew a cloud of smoke into Yuri’s face, and pointed to the suitcase.  “Is the package intact?”

43

PROVE IT. HAD SHE REALLY just asked him to do that?  Oh, well—in for a penny…

“For one thing,” Hope said, “I don’t see any wings.”

“Oh, you mean these?”  From behind Nick’s back, two large wings unfurled so quickly they sent a cool gust through her hair.  Nearly stretching the entire length of his body, they glowed, the feathers white as snow.

Her lips remained open, as a silent “wow” floated out.

“Where’d those come from?”

“They’ve been there all along.”

“Why didn’t I see them?”

“I chose not to show them.  Would’ve alarmed you, don’t you think?  Now then...” He stood up and reached out to her.  “If you need more proof...”

She took his hand and stood up, pulling her white robe tight with her free hand.

The entire hotel room just…detonated in a white brilliance that gently obliterated the walls, windows, floor, and ceiling, until all that remained was light. At first it hurt too much to keep her eyes open, so she squeezed them shut. But even that did little to mitigate the overwhelming brightness.

An intimate warmth enveloped her like a down comforter.  Hope didn’t want to open her eyes, breathe, do anything that might disturb the moment.  Beneath her feet she felt nothing, certainly not a floor. Something like a soft breeze whispered past her ear and ran through her hair like a caress.  Then came the early morning scent of a meadow fresh with dew.

Eyes still shut, she took in the wonderful fragrance and smiled.

“Clive? Where are we?”

His deep-chested laughter seemed distant, a mile away across an ethereal valley.  And yet he whispered into her ear.

“Who’s Clive?”  His warm breath tickled the back of her neck.  She felt his firm chest but couldn’t fully distinguish his form.  It was as if he were there and yet not there.

“I’m sorry, it’s just...the way you look, the way you talk, you remind me of someone.  What is
your name, anyway?”  Hope wanted desperately to open her eyes and behold what must be the most incredible sight she’d ever seen.  But it might ruin this amazing moment the way tossing a stone into the still waters of a pond sends infinite ripples, irrevocably altering its placid state.  No, she’d keep her eyes closed as long as she could stand it, take in every sensation.

Nick’s words came into her mind, not by hearing but by perception.

// DO YOU BELIEVE I’M AN ANGEL NOW? //

“No,” she said, smiling to show she was kidding.  “What’s your name?”

A warm wind laced with something like the aroma of sweet olive blew past her.  It was Clive, sighing.

He said, “I could tell you...”

“But then you’d have to kill me?”

He didn’t get it.

“Sorry, I’m kidding.  Look, if you don’t want to tell me your name, that’s fine.  I’ll just keep calling you Clive until—”

“Nikolai.”

All at once she felt him surrounding her, his shoulder beneath the back of her head.  A jolt—like the one she felt when she was five years old and stuck a hairpin into the electric wall socket, only not painful—passed through her body, from her heart out to the tips of her fingers.

She opened her eyes but couldn’t see a thing.

Utter darkness.

But she could feel his arms holding her tight, the way she’d held Chloe when she woke up with the night terrors.

“Shhhh...”  Again his hot breath spread across her neck.  It comforted and electrified her at the same time. “Knowing and speaking the name of an angel with whom you’ve had this much contact should not be taken lightly.”

Part of her thought she might cry. But not from fear. She wasn’t sure why.

“I—I don’t understand.  Can I?”

“Can you what?”

“Say your name?”

Under the veil of the absolute gloom, his chest rose and fell.  His arms tightened around her.

“Can’t believe I’m doing this again,” he said.

“May I?”

“Yes.”  The vibrations from his chest resonated in her shoulders.

“Nikolai.”

All around her, the darkness melted away.  She caught the briefest glimpse of what lay beneath them and buried her face in his chest.

“It’s all right,” he said, stroking her hair.  “Don’t be afraid. Go ahead, look.”

Trembling, Hope lifted her face and peered over his arm.

Far below—she couldn’t tell how far—she saw a blue mass with green and brown patterns under a floating cottony patchwork.  The earth and they were high above it.  It was so beautiful she had to force herself to look and not hide her eyes.

“I’m dreaming.”

“You’re not.”

“Then I must be dead.”

“Definitely not.”

She looked up to him and thought he looked resigned.  But to what?

“How can we be—how can
I
be here out in space and still alive?” she said.

“Because you’re not really in space.  At least, not as you understand it.”  He winced, suddenly.  Touched the side of his head.

“What’s wrong?”

“Not sure.  It takes a bit of effort to project a construct around you so you can experience this.”

“A what?” 

“A construct.”

“I don’t understand any of this, Nikolai.”  She wrapped her arms around him even tighter and gazed down at the planet.  Though she didn’t sense herself falling hundreds of miles to the surface, everything within her felt that if she were to let go, that was exactly what would happen.

“May I ask a small favor?” he said.

“I’m not in a position to object.”

“Would you call me Nick?  Nikolai is so...I don’t know nineteenth-century.”

“Nineteenth—okay, whatever you say.” 

Any fear had given way to an odd euphoria. She was staring down at the earth!  Not in an astronaut’s space suit but just as she was, wearing nothing but her hotel robe, the belt of which had floated up.

“How’s this possible?” she said.

“Welcome to my realm.” Nick was gazing down at the giant blue marble that was Hope’s home.  “I don’t mean that as in
my
realm where I’m the owner or master, but the realm in which I’m indigenous.”

“So, you’re an alien?”

He shook his head and grinned.  “I’ve brought you to the spiritual realm.”

“Not to sound skeptical, but you see that big globe down there, with the continents—North America, Africa, and all? That looks pretty physical to me.”

“Of course.  The physical and spiritual realms aren’t mutually exclusive. They coexist, layered and woven together like a basket’s distinct ribbons.  But here’s the part most humans don’t realize.  
Your
realm, the physical, is merely a likeness, a dim reflection of reality—which is, of course, the spiritual realm.”

She thought of
The Chronicles of Narnia
, which her father used to read to her when she was a child. 

“Like the Shadowlands.”

“Precisely.”

Just then, something massive overshadowed the moon’s reflected light. Hope turned around just in time to see the large pair of solar panels and a communications dish mounted to the center of a huge NASA-emblazoned satellite—coming straight at them.

“Nick!” She threw herself into his arms again.

“It’s okay, just relax.”

She braced for the impending impact.  

“Do something!” she yelled.

“Why?”

She pounded his chest.  “Hello?  We’re going to die!”

“Get a grip, will you?  Now watch. Wait for it...”

Hope turned around and looked on in horror as it careened straight at them.

“We’re going to die, we’re going to—Oh..My—!”

She was about to shut her eyes, but it was too late. She saw the whole thing happen, even as the satellite reached them.

She felt nothing.

In the course of a second—maybe less—the entire satellite passed through them.  Or rather, they passed through
it
.  Everything happened so fast Hope could barely make out what she saw inside the spacecraft the moment before it continued past them and cruised into the distance.

“What in the world?”

Nick winked at her.  “Of the world, not
in
the world.”

“You said I wasn’t dead, but I just passed right through solid matter.  Oh my God, I’m a ghost—what have you done with my body?” 

“You’ve got it all wrong,” he said.  “Most mortals do, so I can’t say I blame you.  What was it C.S. Lewis said?  ‘You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.’”

“Then what happened to it?”

“You’re still in it.”  She loved the way his eyes fixed on hers.  “Think of this as another dimension—though even that would be a gross oversimplification.”

“Humor me.”

“Here in the spiritual realm or layer, we’re free from the limitations of physical time and space.  Hawking, Einstein, Sagan, all their mumbo-jumbo about quantum physics?  At best, their theories are like a six-year-old’s explanation of how semiconductors work.”

“Well, they’re all a heck of a lot smarter than me.”

“Not necessarily.” He took her by both hands and they started moving toward the planet.  Slowly, thank God.  Since there was no wind nor any sense of motion as Hope knew it, it was astonishing but not really frightening that they were hovering over the Great Wall of China in seconds.

She touched her neck and frowned.

“What is it?” Nick said, floating closer.

“Looking down at the Great Wall reminds me of my father.  Before he died, he gave me a jade pendant with a dragon and phoenix carved into it.  He told me all kinds of stories about it, and after he died that pendant was the only thing I had from him besides my memories.”

“When did you lose it?”

“Last night, when I...”  Hope lifted her eyes to meet Nick’s.  “When you saved me.” She put on a brave face and changed the subject.  “Anyway, you were telling me about the physical and spiritual realms?”

“I can tell you a lot more, but I think it’s best if I show you.”  He pointed down.

“Okay, I guess. The laws of physics don’t apply, so I can’t get hurt, right?”

“Had you been in the physical layer just a few moments ago, you’d be abstract art, splattered over the hull of that satellite by now.”  He took her hands and aimed  headlong towards the surface of what looked like California.

“Nick?”

He turned and looked her in the eye:
Trust me
. 

“Is any of this real?” 

They were flying straight down as he replied. 

“All of it.”

44

LITO PICKED UP AN OLD PHOTO from his desk: Papi and him as a boy of eight on a fishing boat in Ensenada.  He was holding a large halibut by the tail,  Papi standing proudly next to him—proud because it was Lito’s fourth catch of the day and the only fish he’d kept.  “Toss the little fish back and go for the big ones” was a lesson Lito had finally learned.

Had Alfonso been a little fish?

What had he done with the Suarezes?  And had he ever so much as hinted to Maria about the secret?  Perhaps the best thing to do was to get it out in the open, tell her himself lest she hear it elsewhere—she must have wondered all these years.

Lito set the picture down and sighed.  Papi would know what to do.  At least, not the old man who was drunk every hour of his final days but the handsome man everyone used to come to for advice, money, and—

A light rap on the door.

“Come in!”

In came Manuel, a tall and lanky twenty-year-old high school dropout with the remarkable ability to blend into any setting—the kid was practically invisible.  He was second in line to Alfonso but nowhere near as close to the family. 

Following Manuel in was Eduardo, an older man who used to shadow Papi and was now Lito’s advisor, since Papi had died.  When he smiled he was like an
abuelo
, a grandpa, but when he scowled no one dared mistake him as anything but a vicious assassin, hence the very best protection, as well as counsel.

Back in the day, anyway.

Oh, Eduardo could still catch you by surprise and break your neck.  But he just wasn’t as quick as he used to be.  For now, Lito chose him because he was the only person he could trust—or rather, the person he mistrusted the least.

“Manuel has some information,” Eduardo said, making himself comfortable in the red leather chair at the back of the office.  He lit up a cigar, just as he always had when Papi occupied this office.  Lito hated the smoke, but the smell brought back the days when he read Superman comics while the two of them talked “business” here.

“What kind of information?”

Manuel looked over at Eduardo, who nodded.

Still standing, Manuel said,  “It’s about Alfonso.”  His eyes shifted to Eduardo, then back to Lito.

“Go
on
,” Lito said.

Eduardo got up and slapped the back of Manuel’s head.  Hard.

“Estupido
! Just tell him what you told me.”

Rubbing the back of his head and glaring back at the old man, Manuel took the spoke up. 

“I’m only telling you what I heard, okay?  I don’t really know anything and I don’t want to get in any trouble.”

“You will if you don’t stop wasting my time like this.”

“Okay, okay.  Well, before Alfonso...
died
, he was telling me all kinds of crazy stuff.  I thought he was just messing with me, being the new guy, you know? But then he starts telling me there’s something coming and I should decide what side I’m going to be on when it all hits the fan, you know?”

Lito glared at him.  “Go on.”

“He was saying crap like, ‘When it all goes down I’ll own it all and Lito can kiss my hairy—’”

“When
what
goes down?  Own
what
?”