Gods and Monsters: Unclean Spirits (12 page)

“But on the third day... that’s when we had our first ‘marital disagreement.’”

It’s here that Frank lifts a finger to call over a waitress. The one who comes over is different from the one that brought them their beer—this one’s older, more haggard, stringy red hair hanging in front of deep-set eyes. She stares at Frank like he’s a pile of roadkill, but Frank’s expression says it’s a look he’s used to. He just mumbles an order for a shot of Dewar’s. Gets one for Cason, too. Cason tells him no, it’s too early, but Frank just tells the waitress to bring both shots and they’ll figure it out.

“Sally wanted to sit by the pool for the day. Maybe go get a drink at the little cocktail lounge down the block. Tiki bar, I remember. Tiki Tom’s? Something. But I said, shit, we’re in
Vegas
. And we hadn’t done any gambling yet and I just wanted my one day to play the blackjack tables. She said pool-and-lounge, I said gambling, and in the end it wasn’t a fight—nobody raised their voice, everybody stayed smiling. We just decided to each do our own thing that day and we’d meet back up at night at Tiki Tom’s.”

Shots arrive. Frank pincers his with thumb and forefinger, then lifts his craggy chin toward Cason. “Go on. Drink.”

“Seriously?” Cason says. “It’s early.”

“You’re already drinking beer. Go harder, boy. You’re gonna need it. Or
I’m
gonna need you to need it. Or something.” Frank’s jawline tightens, and when his face tightens, you can really see it—all the scar-lines tug and pull like a net with a fish thrashing in it. Cason shakes his head and figures,
what the hell
, it’s been that kind of morning. Both men tip their heads back—the amber liquid disappears. Frank coughs, tinks the two glasses together, and continues.

“So. She stays poolside. I go to the casinos. I started at the Circus Circus because it was closest, but what a mistake. Clowns are bad luck. I lost a couple bucks. Moved onto the Harrah’s. Lost a couple more bucks there. I was starting to feel shitty, like I was being punished for leaving Sally behind. So I’m there at the third casino—the Mirage—and a little voice like a little bird starts pecking at me. Asking, what if something happens to Sally? While I’m gone? I don’t know Vegas. I don’t know what can happen. And there I sat, thinking I should leave, and so I plopped down the rest of my chips just to get rid of ’em, and what happens? I won. Boom. Big money.

“The rush hit me. Like a warm wave. And I kept playing. And I kept winning. Each win quieted that voice a little more until I couldn’t hear it at all, and I was up $1200 by the end of the night. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 8pm—and I was supposed to meet Sally at the lounge at 7. And it wasn’t a short walk off the strip, either.”

Eyedrops, now. He fishes them from a pocket, squeezes a few into each eye. Cason finds it hard to watch. The man can’t blink. You put eyedrops in your eyes, that’s the first thing everybody does is blink. But Frank’s big bloodshot eyes remain open as the drops slide across them—water running off a blister. Cason’s own eyes feel suddenly dry and he finds himself blinking a whole bunch without meaning to.

“I go to the lounge. Gaudy, kitschy old Hawaii. Makes me think of the flowers in our room. But Sally’s not there. I ask the bartender if he’s seen her and he doesn’t know shit from shinola. Now I’m getting worried. Anxiety starts to crawl in my gut like a big fat hairy spider and that voice is back, loud now, real loud,
what if something happened to her—?
So I get up and I hoof it back to the motel. And I go to our room and I remember fumbling with the fuckin’ keys and I drop them—and I hear a cry from inside the door, a cry of what sounded like someone in pain. Sally. I finally get the keys in the lock and throw open the door.”

He hisses air through his teeth.

“And I find her there on the bed. She’s face-down between the legs of some broad. Straw-colored hair sliding against this other woman’s milky thighs. They’re both naked as they were born. Making sounds. Sally’s moaning like she never moaned for me. The woman’s fingers are in Sally’s hair—gentle one minute, tightening her grip the next, then back to gentle. Sally’s fingers are curled up under this woman’s knees, with her elbows out. All around them are flower petals. Petals from the flowers I bought. Torn up and sprinkled around the room and on the bed.

“The strange woman gives me this look. She just... smiles. Like she doesn’t give a fuck.” Frank’s tongue slides out. Snakes along his non-lips, leaving a slug’s trail of spitty slime. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking,
way to go, Frank, lucky fuckin’ ducky, every man’s fantasy right there—you shoulda just hiked down your dungarees and got into the mix because one day the honeymoon’ll really be over and shit like that won’t happen anymore
. But that’s not what I was thinking. I was mad. And sad. And this deep well of jealousy started burning me up from the inside like I just poured boiling water down my throat.

“I start yelling. Try to pull Sally out from between this bitch’s legs, and Sally just looks up at me—eyes unfocused, mouth all sloppy with juices and lipstick. It’s like she doesn’t even know me. That just makes me madder, so I really pull this time and yank her ass off the bed—not to hurt her, but just to break apart this—this horror show that’s playing out in my motel room, on my goddamn honeymoon.

“I pull her off and she rolls and cracks her head into the set of drawers. You’re thinking that this is where she dies or I kill her, but that’s not it—she’s fine. It’s just a bump on the noggin, no blood or brain scrambling or anything, but before I know what’s happening, the strange woman is up and standing on the bed like the fuckin’ Queen of Sheba, and she’s got me by the throat...”

He rubs his face. Dry hands scrub across hard scars. He leans in suddenly like he’s sharing a secret. Voice low and slow.

“Listen. This was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Green eyes, red lips, hair wild and blonde like a fire-flare coming off the sun. Curvy, too—not like the twigs they call women these days. A chest you could sleep on. Hips you could build a home on. And she smelled like—like the beach. Not like the nasty beach, not like dead fish, but like sand and salt air and the perfume of tropical flowers.”

Cason’s innards twist.

The Lexus. The forest. The apple.

He sits up straight. Suddenly tense.

“Next thing I know, she’s got me outside. Carrying me by the neck like I’m nothing. And...” He swallows hard. “You won’t believe this part; or maybe you will, I dunno. But she whispers in my ear,
Sorry, Pretty Boy
, and then she tosses me into the pool. But the pool isn’t just the pool anymore. It’s like a... a hand, a cradle, the water catching me in a geyser. For a moment I bob there and then I feel the pain. Water forming whips—sharp like razors, like needles—and cutting across me. Lashing my face and arms and fuckin’ everywhere. My lips and couple toes and ears and—”

Here he stops. Crossing his legs under the table. Nervously he fumbles with the eyedrops and plops a few more upon his peepers.

“The water was hot. Burned me, too. When I awoke I was in a hospital. Cops said it must’ve been some kind of gang thing. Initiation, maybe. Nobody saw anything. And I never saw my bride again.

“That was love, what we had.

“And love... love dies.”

So ends Frank’s tale.

O
UTSIDE THE BAR,
Frank smokes a cigarette that he bums off the haggard waitress. She probably doesn’t want to give it to him, but he leers and sneers and she’s likely afraid to do any differently, so there he stands, puffing comically on a Virginia Slim.

Cason doesn’t tell him about his own meeting with the pretty, pretty lady. The lady of the sea. The lady of wrath.

Instead he changes the subject.

“This thing. That you drew on my chest—?”

“Mm,” Frank says, exhaling smoke, not by blowing it out, but just by letting his mouth hang open like a door—the smoke tumbles out of his maw. “Sigil. A symbol of protection. One of Solomon’s seals. See, the Old Testament still admitted that other gods and demons and monsters and all that shit were real. Yahweh’s the One True God in that book, but only by comparison to all the gods that are considered His lessers. New Testament rolls around and all those other gods are gone—just false idols that never existed. But Solomon knew his shit. Knew how to keep those assholes away from his door. This seal
hides
us from them. They can’t just... smell the air and find us by our stink.”

“Oh.” Cason doesn’t know what else to say. This is all a bit much. He pats his chest.

“You’re gonna want to get that branded. Or inked. Because it won’t last.”

“Yeah. Sure.” He looks at his watch. It’s only noon. “Listen, I’m gonna get out of here. This has been a long, fucked-up day.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

“I think we’re done here.”

“Listen. The gods? I told you that there were gods, and there were monsters. That’s a bit of bullshit right there, because you wanna know the real truth? Truth is, the gods
are
monsters. They’re not like you and me, Case. They play at being human, but they’re made of ideas and emotions and they’re far fucking weirder and meaner than anything we could ever hope to be. You feel me? They’ve got your wife and your kid twisted around their fingers. Which means they still have
you
wound up, too. I want to cut you free. I want to cut us
all
free. I want payback. We’re the fuckin’
resistance
, you and me.”

“I dunno, Frank.” Cason can’t deny it: his heart is pounding, an angry, excited gallop. Get his wife back. Get his
son
back. Rip the scales from his eyes and start paying back those cosmic, celestial sonofabitches who thought they could fuck with him and his.

“Like I said, I’ll be in touch.”

“How will you know where to find me?”

“Truth-telling time. Your brother sold you up the river.”

“What?”

“Uh-huh. Called a guy I knew who called me. Said you were poking around looking for me. So I looked back and... he set you up.”

Conny. That prick.

“So,” Frank continues, “I know how to get in touch.”

Cason says nothing. He’s too outraged. He just nods. And that’s that.

F
RANK WATCHES
C
ASON
go. A big African dude picks him up in a yellow cab.

He pitches the cigarette into a puddle. It fizzles.

A voice whispers in his ear—a voice that has no body, that stinks of burning rock and makes the air in front of Frank’s face warp and shift like heat coming off the hood of a hot car. The voice says:

Is he with us?

Frank grumbles in assent.

How much does he know?

“Enough. But not everything.”

As is the plan
.

Frank shakes his head. Cason, that poor fuck.

PART TWO

THE DIVINE

RIGHT OF KINGS

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Whispered Missives

Of Secret Gods

C
ASON RUNS.

Dark trees against a moonless night turn the forest into a labyrinth and Cason into a blind man—branches whip against his face, cutting his cheeks. Thorns catch at his fingers and palms. But the Antlered God is coming.

His coming is heralded by the crashing of brush, the angry snorts, the occasional howls that turn Cason’s blood and bowels to cold milk. He looks up. Tries to think of how he could guide himself by the stars, but it’s a fool’s endeavor—he knows nothing of the stars and the broken ceiling of trees above does little to afford him a proper view. And so he does the only thing he can—

Run, rabbit, run
. He lets his head fall forward and works his legs to catch up—a terrified, inelegant flight.

The Antlered God laying on the forest floor, the dark woman with devil horns straddling him, pinning him to the earth with hands like bird-claws—moving against his bristled hips, his hooves digging ditches in the mossy loam. Beast mouth raised to the sky, tongue playing across white fangs, antlers tangled in brush and vine. The dark woman laughs—her breasts are small and sharp, nipples tilted upwards like the beaks of curious birds, and as she laughs, real birds settle in the eaves of the trees above, dark birds, black crows with blood-red eyes. Cason sees, but he’s not supposed to see—he knows this, knows intimately that he’s just seen something that human eyes are not meant to witness, and before he knows what’s happening, the woman is shrieking as she’s thrown into the brush and the Antlered God is up and charging and—

Cason runs. But the forest is deep and dark; the maze seems forever. Where is Tundu? And Frank? In the distance, he hears Alison: sobbing, sobbing his name.

He passes a tree. On it, a yellow sign, rusted: the three-bladed nuclear trefoil, round in the center of a triangle, hanging half-obscured by an old twisted vine climbing up the tree-trunk—