Notes from the Future: Forest, Night

Forest. 

Night. 

There are sounds all around me and none of them are forest sounds. Gunfire, screams, shouts, whoever is shooting at us is approaching rapidly. I don't think Mother Henrietta is breathing. The person on top of me is either breathing heavily or sobbing quietly. It's an Ezekiel, I know that much. He smells of Bay Rum. Tad would approve. 

It's quiet, now, except for the groans of people around us. I feel the Ezekiel shift his weight, and I realize he's looking at something. I turn my head. Boots. Combat boots. The Ezekiel gets to his knees, silent. The boots have stopped near us, and two more pair arrive. All I can do is stare at them. Combat boots. Military, or more fake military? Either way, I'm dead. 

This means nothing next to the silent stillness of Mother Henrietta beneath me. She was kind and strong and if I could be one tenth as wonderful as she was when I am her age, I would be very happy about that. The boots are just standing there, three pair, and nobody has dragged me to my feet. Kind of old-looking boots. Not like they've been used long, but old-fashioned. It's only been a couple seconds since they got here, but it feels like minutes. Or maybe the other way around.

I push myself up to my knees and two things are not the way I expected them. First: the soldiers facing me are clean, formal and polite; the one in the lead gives a slight bow of the head and says, "Miss Torres. We have been asked to find you. There is an important message that has been waiting a long time to be delivered. And it can only be delivered to you." He is British. That is the second unexpected thing. He has a little moustache. All three of them do; the fellow on the left of their little triangle -- my left, their right -- has a curly moustache. Tidy, small moustaches. British accent. 

I look at their uniforms as I get to my feet, give a little laugh; before I know it, I'm saying:

"Have I wandered onto the set of Downton Abbey?"

His eyes widen, the soldier in the lead. The two flanking him glance at one another, questions in their eyes.

"Oh, God, don't tell me Downton Abbey is a real place? I watched a special on PBS with Tad about how it's based on another place ... has everything gone crazy? Is Hercule Poirot with you? Or Sherlock Holmes?! Because if they are, we fucking need their help!"

I'm angry, and to my surprise, all three men laugh. Even the Ezekiel to my right, the one who shielded me. I glance at him. His beard is white. I never saw a Bearded Ezekiel older than about thirty. Then I remember and I look down. The soldiers' eyes follow mine. Everything changes in an instant.

"No! NO!" the lead soldier falls to his knees, immediately checking Mother Henrietta's vital signs. The other two are on either side of her. He's shouting orders, and now there are people running and I look around to see multiple soldiers in similar uniforms kneeling among the dead and wounded. There are nurses. 

Nurses in crisp white uniforms. 

Downton Abbey style.

What the fuck is going on?

The old Bearded E. is saying things as well, but a blanket of unreality has settled over me. It's like I'm at a Renaissance Faire, only everyone is dressed for World War I. A group of soldiers is here, now, with a stretcher, lifting Mother Henrietta and carrying her off into the night. Where are they going? I have no idea. The old Bearded E. seems to have disappeared.

"Miss Torres," the polite lead officer -- I know nothing about their rank -- is gesturing for me to come with him. "This way."

"What's your rank?" I ask, again before thinking. Is that a rude question to ask? I don't know many soldiers. Actual soldiers.

He snaps to attention in a crisp salute, right hand to the forehead, palm facing out.

"Second Lieutenant Petherbridge, First Royal Fusiliers, at your service, Miss," his eyes are doing that soldier salute thing. I think he might be real.

"Are you real?" I ask. He blinks, his eyes glancing at me, a slight frown in his eyebrows.

"I hope so, Miss," he's still saluting me.

"At ... ease?" I don't even know if I'm supposed to say that. Am I allowed to say that?

"Of course, Miss," he relaxes, lowering his hand, relaxing slightly. "Sorry about the shoddy introduction, Miss. We are all a little out of sorts, it will be in my report. Now, if you would please accompany me, we have an uncertain window of time, and this message must be delivered before anything goes off-track."

"Yes, of course," I say, then feel stupid. Did I just speak in a British accent? Oh, God, that's embarrassing. I hope I didn't. I'm going to have to say as little as possible.

Speaking isn't really going to be a concern, though: he leads me off down the trail in the direction we were headed, and we're half-jogging, almost running. Breathing is what I'm focused on. Wow. These guys are fit. We're running in the dark and he knows exactly where to go, what to avoid, we're passing other soldiers and an occasional nurse along the way and they all know him. They must be impressed with him, because their eyes widen when they see us. For a second I think I hear one of the nurses say, "It's her." But that's just ... not as important as breathing. Fuck. Once again, Tad was right: weed may not cause lung cancer, but smoke inhalation is smoke inhalation. 

That thought makes me angry. We're running now, actually running. And now I just want to stop. Tad is such an asshole. Always lecturing. Always promising to keep me safe, always making me promise that in the event of a Zompocalypse, I will do exactly as he says. Right. Zombies. Fucking bullshit. There are no Zombies, Tad! I'm shouting at him in my mind, struggling to keep up with Second Lieutenant Petherbridge of the Dashing Little Moustache. There are no Zombies, there's just a volcano right where you always thought there would be. Right again! You're right, you're right, you're always right -- even when you disappear in an escape act Houdini couldn't have pulled off, you're right! You fucking arrogant, pompous, self-important, vainglorious actor! That's all you are! An actor! An unemployed, painfully talented, unmotivated, lazy, pudgy, charming, charismatic, too-clever-for-your-own-good actor! My Mom was right. And now, I realize, he's done exactly what she warned me he would do: "He'll leave you, honey. He'll just disappear. Right when you need him the most. Trust me. He'll be there one second and gone the next. He will probably even tell you that he'll be right back. But he won't. He's the kind that will just be -- poof -- gone. And you won't be able to find him. Anywhere. I know the type. I can see it in his eyes."

I haven't thought of that conversation in years. My eyes blur. I realize that there's been no earthquake in San Diego. We could have gone South. We could have gone to my family. My mother, my aunts and uncles, my thousands-of-cousins, as Tad would never fail to observe. My eyes are blurred with tears, but I just keep running. The trail is relatively clear, and if I stick to the Second Lieutenant I should be okay. I try to wipe some tears away, but it interferes with my rhythm. I am still so angry with Tad right now that I'd like to deck him. As usual, though, the angrier I get the more I love and miss him.

Second Lieutenant Petherbridge veers off the trail to our right, into a stand of Oak and Bay. There are tables here, and lanterns. It's very organized, but looks a little empty. Second Lieutenant Petherbridge stops short, hardly breathing heavily at all, addressing a nurse gathering bandages into a messenger bag.

"Is she here?"

"You've just missed her. She's off. The gunfire alerted their sentries. It's begun," and there is something in her words, a significance or knowledge, that scares me. I wish I knew what these polite, well dressed mystery people were talking about. She looks at me, and her gaze changes. "It's an honor, Miss. We've all heard so much about you."

"Oh ... okay ..." I say, smiling. "I have no idea what you're talking about, but, okay ... it's a pleasure. Miss ... ?" 

"Nurse Elfie Jones, Miss," she gives a little curtsey, eyes downcast. She's a redhead, I realize.

It's a good thing Tad isn't here after all.

I'm beginning to hate her just a little bit when she steps forward and puts the messenger bag over my head and right shoulder, kissing me on the cheek. "Godspeed," she says, looking at Second Lieutenant Petherbridge. Again, significance.

"Right. We're off," Petherbridge turns and runs and I'm following him and whatever we did earlier was just a warmup because now we are running through the trees like crazy people. Crazy Olympic athletes in the forest. Playing fancy dress. Except I feel like I forgot my costume.

This feels good, I realize. Things are clear: Mother H. is dead, but I'm doing something. I'm taking action. Against whom, with exactly what -- unclear. But it feels good. Thoughts blossom one after another: I am running with the people who shot Mother H.; okay, noted: ask why they shot her. I still don't know where Max is; okay, noted: is there anyone to ask? Probably not. There is no way we are ever going to find Tad's family now; this is a surprise. I stumble. Petherbridge reaches back, still running somehow, and steadies me. I keep running. Running into a future so wildly different from what we had planned, from the little craftsman cottage with hardwood floors and a fireplace we'd always planned on, a future that now seems as distant and unlikely as running through the night in Northern California with a British soldier toward ...

Fighting. 

I can hear it. Gunfire. Shouting. Screams. Something whining, screaming, getting louder.

Second Lieutenant Petherbridge pivots and tackles me to the right. We hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of me, as the tree ten feet behind me explodes. I can't move. I can't breathe. I'm making some horrid noise, he won't get off me. He's just laying there.

He's just laying on me. Is he dead? Something wet on my face. Warm. Blood. He's bleeding from his head, I know this without looking or seeing, it's just something I know as deeply as the pain in my lungs.

This hurts so much, this hurts so much, I'm saying things I can't even hear over the fighting. I'm crying and for once I don't even care. Oh God, oh God, oh God I need to get up, I'm trying to push him off me but I can't seem to move my arms.

I feel his body move. He takes a breath. Shakes his head. He's alive!

Getting to his knees, he pulls me up and it hurts so much, then he turns me and I'm kneeling and I lean forward and ... I can get some breath in. Hurts, but ... okay, another breath. I sob a little. That hurts more. Wow, I'm being a girl right now. Jesus. Okay. Breathe, slow, take a deep breath ... yes. My lungs are sore, but I've got my wind back. I turn to the Second Lieutenant.

I see that he is bleeding from his head. I was right. Take that, Tad, I think. Before I can fully feel bad for thinking that way, there is a creaking, rending crash and we've jumped up and away from the burning tree without a word, running for darkness as the branch above where we were drops, flaming, into the dry grass where we have just been. Bullets whizzing past us as we run, crouching, I realize we're completely visible because of the firelight.

Now we're on the ground behind a fallen tree and someone lands next to us, having thrown himself the last six feet or so. Brushing the dirt off his face, he says, "Petherbridge? This her?"

"Indeed it is, Boggs. Where is Her Ladyship just now?" Petherbridge is unholstering his gun and peeking up over the trunk of the tree toward the source of the bullets slamming into its other side and the ground several feet behind us.

"Leading the charge, of course. Couldn't wait. Said to bring her. You, Miss, that is. Meanin' no disrespect," he smiles and he reminds me a little of Samwise.

"None taken," I smile. He blushes, his bright blue eyes hidden for a moment under long dark lashes. Wow, these British soldier boys are cute. Tad can have the redhead. I might have to give these boys some Tequila. Boggs turns his head slightly and I see a cut on his face.

All I want to do is bandage it. Instantly. I get to my knees, opening the messenger bag -- and a volley of bullets hits the tree, a splinter of wood cutting my face as Boggs and Petherbridge yank me back down where I can't be seen. 

"Fucking idiot," I mutter to myself. Both men turn to me, shocked, but maybe amused. "What?" I ask.

"American girls sure are different," Boggs says, smiling. As he says this, my hand closes on something unexpected in the messenger bag.

"Yeah, well, Mexican American girls are the best you can find," I say, and, pulling the gun from the bag, I check it for ammunition and turn, taking aim over the log just as Tad's uncle Edward taught us. Inhale, bullets zinging past to thump behind me, wood chips and splinters flying from where they hit the tree. Exhale, squinting, looking both inward and outward. Gentle pressure, gentle pressure, and ...

There's a cry from about two hundred yards away where my bullet hits home. The gunfire momentarily ceases. All of that in about three seconds, and we're up and running back the way Boggs came, into darkness and trees and both men are whooping and congratulating me. We're passing other soldiers here and there, making a beeline for someplace, Boggs in the lead.

On the left, I see lights. I glance in that direction and there's a ... ranch. Or a ranch house, at least. Some kind of a structure with lights on inside. And people on the roof, shooting. A barn nearby, people shooting from inside and on top of that as well. A word of warning from Petherbridge and I turn front in time to jump.

We land in a deep ravine, a fresh crack in the ground that has clearly opened since the earthquake. It's been widened here and there, and we're running through it, angling toward trees on the other side of the field in front of the house and barn. We pass other soldiers. They stare at us, if they see us. 

As the ravine narrows to a crack we reach a ladder and climb up and out into the cover of more Oak and Bay. There's a trail and Boggs leads with me in the middle and Petherbridge at the rear. We're running up a hillside and into a dugout screened on the left with fallen branches and coyote bush. We stop. I am panting like a fat lady at a male strip club. Boggs and Petherbridge are not. Jeez, way to make a girl feel special. Maybe no Tequila after all.

One lantern hanging from a broken branch jammed into the left wall of the dugout lights a map spread out on a log, pored over by the figure kneeling next to it. Both men salute. Should I? Who is this?

"Second Lieutenant Petherbridge, Your Ladyship. We've brought her," he says. 

She turns, standing, faces me.

I can't believe my eyes.  

Notes from the Future: Felonious Monk, Part VII

I smile, charming as hell, and say, "Done, ladies. Honey, I love you. Hold on to that amulet." As an added touch, I kiss my hand and toss it to her, Cyrano de Bergerac style. Then I throw the sheet over my head again and as I feel it settle all around me I can't help thinking of the penultimate -- which means second-to-last -- moment in Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. But I need to focus, so I hold Chauncey tight and I --

Wait, why am I holding Chauncey? I should leave him here, right? Isn't that the whole idea? Right?

Feeling a buzz and tingle in my forehead, I try to push Chauncey away without touching him, trying to twist and not have any contact with him at the same time, hearing a gunshot as 

POP

Smunch face down in dry white cold, I close my eyes, blinking as I shake my head. Opening my eyes and taking a breath of the shockingly cold air, I see flames that are blood red. I see hooves. I see black hair hanging down almost to the snow and I follow it up to where an attractive young woman is slumped over the back of a donkey. Maybe a mule.

The only sounds are of the animals' breathing and the crackling of the flames. Sitting up carefully, I see that the flames appear to be burning in the snow itself, no wood or other material as fuel. This is odd. The snow is cold, soaking through my hospital gown. I want to stand and get my balls warm.

Something moves to my right. I flinch away, throwing up my right hand to ward off whatever it is. No blow comes, and I sneak a squinty glance toward the movement.

Two men crouch there in the snow, staring at me. The one in front is young, maybe in his late twenties. But the man behind him ... I've seen him before. 

Staring at me in frank disbelief is the fat old monk I saw standing over me in my hospital room, what, minutes ago? It feels that way in my timeline. Mother Henrietta and the hot nursies were going to get me painkillers and I saw a flash of light and rolled myself over to look. This guy was standing over my bed. Then some bright symbol appeared in the air behind him, wrapped itself around him like tentacles and he was gone in a flash of lightning.

He's staring at me and his eyes travel to my leg. He breathes something to the other man, shaking his head. The other man simply stares at me, then reaches out with a dagger and pokes at my arm, drawing blood.

"Hey!" I shout. They both flinch back.

"Robert?" the old monk asks. Again, as before, it sounds to me like old French. Not that I would know, I'm not a linguist. But that's the way it sounds. I'm just staring at him and he says it again, pointing at me, "Robert?"

Ah, he wants to know if that is my name. I shake my head no, saying, "Edward. Edward," pointing at my chest.

"Ehtwerht," the old monk repeats, looking at the younger man. "Ehtwerhd, Ehdwehrt ..." It's as though he's trying the word on his tongue. It doesn't seem to fit. I get an idea.

"Édouard," I say, trying to recall what Dr. Hodgson taught us at Chabot College back in 1991 ... is the final 'd' hard or soft? I kind of let it trail off, but the old monk's eyes light up.

"Édouard? Édouard?" he asks, again in an old old dialect.

"Oui," I say. Both men gasp.

"Oh, Dieu merci! Je ne savais pas où je serais allé ou ce que j'avais fait, mais sûrement, vous pouvez nous aider maintenant que les dieux ont jugé bon de vous amener ici lorsque nous vous avons tant besoin! C'est en effet un jour de joie! Ah, mais j'oubliais: je suis Frère Rudel et c'est Hannibal le Bavard, tandis que là-bas sur le dos de la mule et l'âne sont le Père Robert et une mystérieuse jeune fille que nous essayons de sauver de ce qui semble être une brûlure loup démon. Je suis désolé, je parle trop vite? Et quelle est cette chose sur votre jambe?"

It's at a time like this that I curse my younger self for focusing on girls instead of French in my first two years of college. I say, "Uh ...  I am ... how to say ..." but a sound comes from beyond the red flames and I see something moving there in the snow, but it isn't clear what it might be. 

Following my gaze, the old monk whispers, "Le démon brûlante loup. Il nous a suivis pour lieues de la plus longue et la plus sombre de cette nuit."

I can't see it clearly. I find myself struggling to stand and both men are on either side of me, supporting me and lifting me until I can lean against the neck of the donkey, its warm wet fur a comfort in this cold snowy night. Looking out beyond the red flames I see a large pool of steaming, reddish-pink chunky fluid. It looks like raw pork coagulating in half-cooked egg whites, except that it bubbles slightly and there, crouched around its edges, are five small abominations and one large horror. The small abominations are drinking at the edge of the pool, sucking the thick, steaming liquid in with relish, squealing and grunting with pleasure. The large thing, torn almost diagonally in half, is stroking what appears to be the remains of a literally monstrous cock and gazing ... directly into my eyes.

Something about its eyes is very, very familiar.

A face is beginning to coalesce in my memory around those eyes when the thing grabs one of the little meatwads drinking at the edge of the disgusting pool and devours it, blood dripping from its jaws, steaming in the red light of the fire. The other little creatures go screaming, scampering around the pool, trying to keep their distance from the thing but unwilling to leave their meat soup. Lunging after them, the thing lands in the pool of steaming meatjuice and I am surprised to see that it has stumps of legs with raw, exposed nerves. They were buried under the snow. 

"What -- what is that thing?" I ask, pointing.

The old monk says, in a tone of why-are-you-making-me-repeat-myself, "Le démon brûlante loup," pointing at it with a gesture of impatience.

 

Something catches in my brain.

 

"Le ... démon ... ?" I ask.

 

"Oui, je vous l'ai déjà dit. Pourquoi me fais-tu répéter les choses? Vous venez de certains univers fantastique, vous devez disposer de pouvoirs fantastiques. Tu ne peux pas faire quelque chose? Sinon, comment avez-vous ici si vous n'êtes pas un grand sorcier?!"

 

Whatever he's bellowing at me, he's confirmed that that thing is a demon. I've never dealt with a demon before. Well, something like a demon, but she's still in Massachusetts, as far as I can tell. And that was a long, long time ago at TAC. I've kept pretty well to the bright side of the ghostlight since then, and yet ... here I am in ... this place. It's fucking cold. I'm shaking uncontrollably. And this fat old monk expects me to banish what appears to be a wounded, flaming, rapey werewolf that is wallowing in some kind of raw meat stew.

 

Only ... oh my God.

 

The little meatwads have grown legs and arms and heads -- they are little replicas of the werewolfy demon thingy. That can't be good.

 

He's rolling over in the stew and it appears that the torn and broken half of him is regenerating. No more flapping lung, no more broken ribs -- his torso is whole, pink flesh. And the parts of him that are regrowing look entirely human.  Maybe he is a werewolf after all.

 

Whatever he is, he keeps looking directly at me. Now he's drinking the soup and his face and head are regenerating where they looked to have been burned. And the face ...

 

Holy shit. I have seen that face before. I know who this is.

 

I turn to the monk. "Listen to me, we have to kill that thing and kill it now. We have to stop it right where it is. We have to end its life now and forever, here in this place. If we can do that, if we can kill that thing, we will stop a great evil from spreading from here forward through time. We can stop hundreds, maybe thousands of peoples' deaths. Do you have anything, a sword, a gun, any kind of weapon?"

 

The monk grabs me by my hospital gown, ignoring the frozen vomit stuck to the front, bellowing, "Écoutez-moi, vous devez tuer cette chose et la tuer maintenant! Vous devez l'arrêter là où il est. Vous devez mettre fin à sa vie maintenant et pour toujours, ici, dans cet endroit. Quoi qu'il en soit, partout où il est venu, il a le pouvoir de se régénérer! Si vous ne le tue pas maintenant, il ne peut jamais être tué. Et nous avons déclenché un grand mal sur le monde!"

 

There was a lot of vous in that paragraph. Only one nous that I could catch. 

 

They expect me to kill this thing, I think. Glancing at it, I watch it struggle to its knees, testing newly-grown muscles. The face is that of a man, a man I recognize, but something seems to be moving under the skin of his skull. He is watching me, smiling, tugging on his now normal, average human cock, reaching down to get a handful of the steaming meatchunk juice in which to baste his penis.

 

"Oh my God, he's masturbating with raw meat juice. Does nobody here understand hygiene?!" I shout this, looking at them, but the old monk and the quiet guy are staring at me, waiting. I don't know what to say.

 

One of the miniature wolfy demons grabs another one and starts to fuck and eat it, devouring it and growing larger. A third sees this and grabs the nearest little monster, trying to fuck its mouth. But the would-be victim bites the cock off its attacker and fucks and devours it instead. By the time the first one is done eating its litter mate, it is the size of a tall child of ten. The other one isn't far behind. They both turn toward the final little foulling, calculation clear in their eyes, but in that moment the werewolfy fellow stands up from within his raw soup and points. Directly at me. Then it opens its mouth and a sound comes out which seems like speech but speech made of screams. As though its voice is that of torment itself. Then its shadow moves up from the ground to hang about it like a cloak, and from the shadow comes a voice, thickly accented in a dialect I've never heard -- but speaking English.

 

"You," it says. "You are like me. You are broken. You are outside of the time from which you were spawned. I see places and things sticking to you, I smell alien smells upon you. You are not from this place, or from my place. Yet I see that there are none like me in your time, and I would dearly love to have more playthings. If you were more like me, you could be made whole in a stew of your own seed and filth. If you make it easy for me, I can make you as I am. If you let me into that circle, let me at that girl, I will make you just like me. Take me with you to your place and I will reward you with an inky cloak like mine. This is what you want, yes?"

 

I find myself urged to say yes, as though a hand is pushing my thoughts to that place. Talking is like running upstream in whitewater but I say, "No."

The man in the puddle of raw meat smiles. The three little creatures have gathered at his feet, the runt greedily gulping more of the disgusting stew as they all smile at me.

 

His face, squirming this whole time, now splits almost down the middle, just to the left of his nose. Hair is poking out. The little beastlings are stroking their cocks, smiling. This is some bizarre shit. No American filmmaker would have the balls to put this on the screen. That thought has me thinking of Hercules Saves Christmas -- what if the evil elves had wickedly stroked their cocks and raped and eaten one another? Excellent family fare, you're welcome Animal Planet.

 

I am brought back to the present by his odd screamsong voice, and the accented translation coming from the shadowy coalescence around him. 

 

"No. Of course not. But what if I simply give you the gift of a monstrous cock? Doesn't every man wish for a little more? Doesn't every man ... ?" His eyes roll back in his head and his back arches and hair sprouts over more of his body like mold, and his cock engorges like someone is pushing their arm into it from inside him. It stretches, bending forward and down.

 

Then it rips and peels back and there is a great, bleeding, bulbous barbed thing, dripping blood and some kind of ichor from the tip. He appears to be in the throes of orgasm and suddenly arches his back as a great gob of sizzling greenish jizz shoots from his horribly misshapen penis, arching through the air over the fire, straight for the inert form of the girl on the back of the mule. Donkey?

  

I'm turning, panicked, watching, helpless, thinking I could jump in the way when -- CLANG -- the demon jizz hits an iron pan, sizzling, screaming, and the holder of the pan -- the old monk -- whirls in place and flings it back through the flames wherein the jizz really does scream, louder than I thought jizz could scream. The pan slams into the beast's face, breaking nose and upper jaw and teeth.

 

This does not matter, because the face beneath is now free to push through. It's the face of a wolf, if a wolf were a rapey demon. 

 

It raises its head and howls. 

 

The little creatures around it, now as tall as its shoulders, join in the howling. But their howls are nothing next to their father's.

 

In all my life I have never heard the sound of doom. Until now. Final trumpets of failed battles, babies trampled under hooves of invaders, mothers dying as they are raped in childbirth, boys mutilated for pleasure, families forced to eat the fresh entrails of their still-living loved ones, atrocities piling up like plague dead -- and all of it spawned in my mind in a moment by this howl, this certainty, this dark and possible prophecy. I understand one thing now with complete clarity: his howl is his promise. And he means to fulfill it.

 

I have to stop him. 

 

He turns to his left, grabs the smallest of his spawn, hoists it in the air, then crouches. Ready to throw. He's going to throw it over the fire. It will terrify the animals, they'll bolt -- and he'll have the girl. 

I shout the first thing that comes to mind.

 

Notes from the Future: Henrietta's Tale, Part IX

The night is clear, silent and bright with stars. Mother Henrietta continues her tale.

"With one last monumental strike of steel to flint, Friar Rudel bellowed into the face of the beast, 'We stand in circles of light that none may cross!'"

"The force of his bellow upset his footing in the snow. Slipping to one knee, Friar Rudel nevertheless angled flint and steel upward. Perhaps it was the fall, the strength it added to his strike, but in that moment a shower of ruby-red, blood-red, deepest Pomegranate red sparks shot forth from his flint and steel toward the oil-soaked shreds of the monk's cloak, surrounding the tightly-wrapped cloth for a moment in its own flurry of fire.

"The beast tried to halt, skidding in the snow and scrabbling back with its claws, a new look on its face, one Friar Rudel and Hannibal the Talkative had not seen yet in this longest and darkest of nights: surprised terror.

"But then the sparks blew away, gone, snuffed out like their lives would be in moments. The beast, seeing this, smiled, catching its lolling tongue between needle-sharp teeth and tearing it, then deliberately licking its own blood all around its misshapen muzzle. The sparks were gone. It knew it could use its own burning against them. Already its flames were turning black and adding evil smoke to its cloak of pain.

"Friar Rudel saw something the beast did not. For, hovering there, just on his side of the staff, was a single red spark. It glowed. It faded. It glowed brighter, then faded farther. And Friar Rudel began to pray, fervently, over and over: 'We stand in circles of light that none may cross, we stand in circles of light that none may cross, we stand in circles of light that none may cross, bless and protect us in this and all we do Mighty Mother of the World, we stand in circles of light that none may cross ...' Feeling a presence next to him, Friar Rudel turned, still praying, to see that Hannibal the Talkative knelt to his left and had added his voice to the prayer, his own eyes focused on the same tiny, weak spark.

"The beast crouched, gathering its strength.

"Both men raised their voices and as they did so, the spark grew brighter and began to float upward in that meandering way sparks have, closer and closer to the oil-soaked rags. Seeing this, they got even louder, Friar Rudel began to sing the prayer and Hannibal the Talkative tried his best to add a harmony to the melody of Friar Rudel. Reaching a crescendo, Hannibal went slightly flat; the spark began to droop backwards and away from the rags and Friar Rudel turned, smacking him on the back of the head and gesturing to raise his pitch. The beast launched himself into the air. Hannibal went a tone too high and the spark flew up into the wind-driven snow above their improvised torch; Rudel smacked Hannibal again and sang the correct note which Hannibal immediately matched.


"The beast was in the air, mouth open, teeth jutting, eyes wild, claws extended.


"The spark moved down behind the rags.


"Friar Rudel switched from Hannibal's correct harmony, pointing at Hannibal to indicate that Hannibal must maintain his harmonic pitch as Friar Rudel hit the final note of the melody.


"Everything was still for a moment. Wind, snow, the leaping beast ready to devour them, the spark glowing brighter, even hot for a moment.


"Then the spark moved straight back a space, paused a hair, and shot directly into the rags of the torch, igniting the oil and the rags and sending up a sudden wall of blood red flame in the circle around them. 


"The beast, his gaping mouth inches from Friar Rudel's throat, was caught halfway across the boundary inscribed by Father Robert's staff. He howled one last time as the red flames burned him right in half at the waist, burning off the tip of his wickedly barbed penis as well. A look of surprise and confusion on his face, his upper torso skidded in the snow to cross the circle and hit the fire on the other side, where it again burned in half. His legs and the bleeding majority of his monstrous penis fell to the snow outside the circle, leaking red blood tinged with a black, greasy ichor. 

"Friar Rudel took the woodsman's axe wielded by Hannibal the Talkative and used it to flick the gigantic barbed head of the beast's penis outside the circle, then moved to the back of the circle and did the same. Each piece he flicked through the fire was burned in half again, so that by the time he was done, there were six smoldering chunks of the burning beast leaking their black-tinged blood into the snow, where it smoked and gave off a smell of sulfur and grinding, burning bone.


"Warmed by the incarnadine fire, Friar Rudel was able to examine Father Robert and the mysterious girl where they hung limp over the packs of Abelard the Donkey and Bluebell the Mule. By a miracle -- or, perhaps, by the magic of this strange mountain -- they were both alive, breathing, but only just. He was turning to remark on this to Hannibal the Talkative when Hannibal himself gave a cry and pointed through the flames to where the left half of the beast's torso lay twitching in the snow.


"Twitching. It hadn't been twitching before. But as Friar Rudel watched, the black smoke issuing from its blood began to coalesce around it, and though the beast's innards and lungs, torn raggedly by the fire, leaked onto the snow around it -- the beast opened its left eye. The beast flexed its left arm. As they watched, it began to pull the bloody, blackened snow about its gaping, torn body, half its foul face grinning at them as it coughed and hacked on its own leaking fluids. 


"Turning, Rudel saw tiny arms and a face beginning to sprout from each separate half of the beast's severed penis tip. The eyes of each face were fixed on his own eyes, watching him as mouths formed and the halves of the beastcock began to squall like babies. The beast's lower body was rutting in the snow, shoving its ruined phallus deep into the bloody ice and presently ejaculated a great gob of greenish, acidic semen, its great torn penis pulsing and jerking as it squirted quarts of its foul seed. Thus mixed with its smoking blood, the seed began to form pinkish matter that looked like a kind of raw pork stew. Hannibal the Mute grew pale. 'I may never eat pig again,' he said.


"Friar Rudel turned to the slumped form of his barely-alive friend Father Robert. 'Robert,' he begged. 'You're still alive -- if you can hear me at all, please, please help us. Can you help us? Is there a way to wake you, to heal you, to bring you back and get you to speak?! Please, Robert! We're running out of time!'


"Silence and the wind, filled by the sound of the squalling beastcock babies and the coughing, hacking laugh of the slowly regenerating beast, was all that answered Friar Rudel.


"He closed his eyes. Searching for a place of peace within himself, he tried to ignore the sounds of evil rebirth coming from the snow outside the circle. He is a priest, you are a monk, yet you are not so different; you are both men, he told himself. You created sigils tonight that delighted the Merry Guardian, wherever he's gone; mayhaps you can do something better, brighter, clearer. What if you could bring Father Robert back awake, bring him awake for even a moment, just to ask him one question?


"Opening his eyes, Friar Rudel stepped forward and, facing East, began inscribing a series of complex but connected symbols in the air; first a framework, then, moving counter-clockwise, a basis for the sigil. Finally, moving clockwise over the basis, he inscribed what he thought and hoped would be the best miniature sigils to put at the twelve points of the image that now hung, suspended in blue white light, in the air before him.

"Hannibal the Talkative stood by Abelard the Donkey and stared in frank amazement.

"Never pausing to think, Friar Rudel smacked his right hand onto the top of the flaming torchstaff whose magic protected them, setting his hand aflame with oil and the red fire of the single spark that had lingered. Then he stepped forward and, planting his red-flaming hand in the center of his utterly new and untried sigil, shouted, 'Awake, Robert! Come back to us and heal!'

"There was a blinding blue-white flash of light from the sigil, echoed by lightning shattering down from the clouds to strike the peaks all around them, deafening thunder a second behind.

"The sigil hung in the air, its parts moving and weaving within its framework, the blue-white of its lines now edged with red flame. Where Friar Rudel had stood was only a set of footprints in the snow."

Mother Henrietta stops, holds up a hand, looking around in the forested California night. Everyone behind us takes a knee in alert combat stance or whatever it would be called.

"What is it?" I whisper.

"It's ... time. This is the place," says Mother Henrietta.

I hear a wet snap and a warm mist covers my face. I know this feeling.

Mother Henrietta falls to the trail, more wet snaps erupt around me, some hitting the embankment to my right, some hitting the Rachels and Ezekiels just behind me and I'm just standing here as I realize they're shooting. They're shooting at us. 

Rachels and Ezekiels are shooting back, someone tackles me and I fall on Mother Henrietta. Whoever tackled me is shielding me, there's blood everywhere, I can feel it. Too much blood.

Mother Henrietta is dead.