MORTALITY HAS ITS COMPENSATIONS_ Chapter Fourteen_ THE GIRL WITH SILVER EYES

 

"Mortality has its compensations, son: 

one, that all evils are transitory; another that better times may yet come. 

Is it not better we take our history to our grave and allow the unborn to enter the world unburdened?" 

- Amaia

Lucas knew that sometimes to unravel a mystery, you had to go back to the beginning.

So he "turned the corner" back to Henderson's quarters where she had been showing off her Gestapo uniform to him:

The last time he had seen her alive.

She wasn't there, of course.

But the room was not empty. 

Winter blew on his blood as Lucas heard two Colts having bullets being chambered behind him.

Lucas promised himself that if he survived this assignment, he would never again "turn the corner."

But first, he would have to survive this moment.

A voice born on the streets of New York gruffed behind him, "Buddy, give me one good reason why we shouldn't shoot you where you stand."

A cultured Swedish voice chided her companion. 

"Oh, M&M, we would get no answers as to how he just 'visa sig' oh how do you say it ... appeared like 'magi' in front of us."

"That's magic, Lieutenant Durtz."

"I have repeatedly told you, M&M, that when we are about to eliminate someone, you may call me Ingrid."

Lucas turned as slowly as if he were moving deep underwater and froze, reconsidering his belief that he was incapable of love.

The blonde was dressed all in black like a cat burglar.

She was obviously an amateur since she had been unable to resist the scarlet beret tilted at a rakish angle on her head.

The small man to her left was dressed as if he had burgled before. He held his body as if he meant business. 

The Colt aimed at Luke's chest helped with the impression. He saw Luke's eyes on her beret and shrugged.

"Henderson was her friend. She couldn't resist trying it on when she spotted it on her vanity."

Ingrid gestured with her Colt. "You are out of uniform."

"Look who's talking," said Lucas. 

"I was attending her funeral in Wyoming ... where I am still wanted for murder ... hence my disguise."

"Who did you murder?" frowned Ingrid.

"The sheriff ... killed my mother."

M&M nodded, "Corrupt cop?"

"Corrupt is too mild a word."

Ingrid murmured, "How did you kill him?"

"I forced him to hang himself."

M&M grinned like a wolf. "I like that."

Ingrid frowned, "You would."

Ingrid frowned, "What brings you to her quarters?"

"I'm looking for a clue to her whereabouts."

M&M snorted, "You've just been to her funeral, bud. Where do you think she is?"

"The coffin was empty."

"Oj?" exclaimed Ingrid in her native Swedish. "What happened to her body?"

"I suspect, but I do not know for sure. I came here looking for a clue."

"Ain't no clue here shouting at me, pal," scoffed M&M.

"No?" asked Lucas with a raised eyebrow. 

"That mock-up movie poster on the wall of the girl with silver eyes holding that strange book wasn't here a moment ago."

"Hell!" growled M&M.

"Exactly," murmured Lucas.

KINDNESS AND LIES_ Chapter Thirteen_ THE GIRL WITH SILVER EYES

 

"The truth has never been of any real value to anyone besides philosophers. 

Ask Socrates after the hemlock what it did for him.

In human relations, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths." 

- Lucas

Lucas thought that there was always one moment in a relationship when the door opens and lets the future in.

It came with his dealings with General Donovan when the man snapped, "All right, stage magician, how did you do all this?"

"What are you going on about?"

"You did magic tricks all across Europe. How did you do all this: the glimpse into Venice, the disappearance of Blanche, Henderson appearing as some demon girl?"

Lucas sighed. 

Denial of the uncomfortable was a "save now, pay later" scheme that cost more than you believed at the start.

He thought about telling the general that Miss Devereaux was true and certain dead, long buried in the past.

He studied the frantic desperation in the general's eyes.

Donovan believed in a world that made sense. 

One that did not threaten his sanity. The last war had been nightmare enough for the man, leaving wounds both physical and emotional.

There was no room in his mind for any horror that could not be logically explained.

Lucas held back his initial reply. 

If you told someone ten times what they did not want to believe, you were wasting your breath nine times.

Denial was a bit like sleepwalking. 

People weren't aware they were doing it while they were doing it.

Forcing someone to awaken to the truth was dangerous: they were hiding from it for a reason.

Lucas chose his words carefully. He had no regard for the man's rank, but he would endanger no man's sanity lightly.

"You sent Henderson and myself off to retrieve a cursed book. What did you expect?"

Donovan waved about his office. "Not all this!"

"Have you ever read O'Henry's THE MONKEY'S PAW?"

"The only books I read are law books, Mister. Oh, I've heard of Tarot cards, Ouija Boards, Aladdin's Lamp."

The general let out a kind of terrier noise, half snort, half laugh. 

"I thought it was worth a shot to see if I could use this office to bring a little magic back to my life."

Lucas fought the urge to strangle the man.

So a decorated war hero misused his position for the first time, destroying the only woman he called friend.

Lucas turned his back on the man.

"Where the hell do you think you are going, Captain?"

"Funny you should phrase it that way, General. I'm following your orders."

And to save what was left of the man's sanity, Lucas hurled down a fistful of flash power as he "turned the corner."

LOVE IS SHORT; FORGETTING SO LONG_ Chapter Twelve_ THE GIRL WITH SILVER EYES

 

"We are the miracle of force and matter transforming itself into dream and will. Think of it, son: the Life Force experimenting with forms. 

You for one. Me for another. The Universe sang itself alive. We are two of the notes." 

- Amaia

Henderson morphed from Hell-Child to brooding demon woman.

Lucas sensed another presence in the office. The Book or the Girl with Silver Eyes?

No matter.

Lucas thought: 

'We who now breathe air will join the vast layers of those who breathed air once. We arise from dirt and dwindle to dust ... and the might of the universe is arrayed against us.

But if the worth of a soul is measured by its enemies, then how precious is one human soul that must contend against such odds?' 

Henderson's newly formed bat-wings quivered as she fluidly walked to Donovan's desk.

She gently touched the silver frame which housed the photograph of his wife when young.

It smoldered and began to glow red.

"Love is so short. Lured by the illusion of the youthful war hero, she ignored the warnings of her high-born parents."

Henderson tapped the metal, and it became foul-smelling slag.

"Only to realize she had married beneath her status when you, General, arrested her elite relatives and friends for breaking those senseless prohibition laws."

"I-I was US Attorney General. I had to."

"You have to eat, breathe, and sleep, General. All else is choice. Your wife never forgave you that choice. "

"She has never shared your bed since. Are you so foolish to think a cursed Book will restore that love? Lust, yes. But love, no."

As Donovan seemed to try to press himself into the very plaster of the wall, Henderson left smoking hoof prints in the carpet as she walked to the photograph of Donovan and Father Duffy,

"Your beloved friend and mentor, Father Duffy, has gone on to the Gateless Realm. Do you truly believe a Book of the Damned could wrench a soul from Paradise? And if it could, would a saint thank you for doing so?"

"I-I need his counsel."

Lucas murmured, "You have the memory of it. Damn you, General, for sending my only friend to her death for pipe dreams!"

Henderson's demon-slanted eyes flicked to Lucas. and she sighed, 

"We are born alone. We live alone. We die alone. Only through our friendship can we create the illusion that we are not alone."

Her lower lip trembled along with her bat wings. "If you are, indeed, my friend, Lucas, find me. Free me. End me."

And with that, she was gone.

Lucas brooded. Had she left of her own accord? 

Or had the Book, angered by her truths to Donovan, wrenched her back for punishment?

No matter. Lucas had had only one friend. 

He would find out and do his damnedest, pun intended, to do just what she had asked of him.

NO ORDER TO CHAOS AND LIFE IS CHAOS_ Chapter Eleven_ THE GIRL WITH SILVER EYES

 

"Son, I know why you love to run with your wolves. It is the appeal of the wild. It hones your awareness, speeds your reactions, forces you to form a plan to survive in a frenzied heartbeat and act upon it. You are the most alive person I know because of this."

- Amaia

The shade of Henderson flowed like heated honey to become a vengeful moon-haired girl with eyes of flame.

Lucas shook his head. "Henderson ... if Henderson is who you truly are. You know theatrics don't work on me. I do them on stage."

Apparently, they worked on General Donovan. He had backed up to the nearest wall.

Henderson kept her hell-child form. "I told her that you did not scare ... that fear had been seared out of you."

Lucas didn't know about that last. His mouth was plenty dry.

Instead he said, "The book has a gender?"

Henderson snorted in a jarring adult voice from such a child's face. "I spoke of the girl with silver eyes. The Book is beyond sex."

Lucas returned her snort. "How boring for the Book."

Henderson's flame eyes grew haunted. "Not so you'd notice."

A HEART TOUCHED BY WINTER_ Chapter Ten_ THE GIRL WITH SILVER EYES

 

" Is death always a sad occasion?" 

- Amaia

Moira had gone silent. Her eyes, glazed and dull, perhaps seeing the evaporating fragments of a broken mind.

She swayed on her knees, kneading the smoldering carpet like a kitten seeking comfort from tactile sensation.

Lucas had hoped she would eventually come to herself. 

He grimaced. 

Perhaps there had been too little of a self to begin with for there to be anything to which to return.

Donovan snapped, "In God's Name, why did you bring her here in such shape?"

"At the start of the journey, she was corrupt but sentient, much like your fellow generals. I had hoped the sight of your uniform would shake the truth from her."

Lucas turned eyes of ice to Donovan. "Like you with Lt. Henderson, I underestimated her ability to endure."

"You ever going to forgive or forget?"

"I do not do forgiveness, General. As for forgetfulness, I am Basque. We forget the past ... once we get even."

Lucas' icy face was a sham done for the benefit of an observing enemy.

Moira's state he knew was his doing. He could not undo it, but he could end it.

He bent quick as the strike of a snake, twisting the woman's neck in one fluid move, 

breaking it as efficiently and calmly as a surgeon might amputate a finger ... and with as little observable emotion.

"My God!" exclaimed the general. "The doctors were right. You are a sociopath!"

Lucas shrugged. "What are names but tags we hang on people to easier deal with them without having to struggle to understand them."

Lucas' eyes flicked to the motionless body of Moira. So vibrant, even in madness. Now, nothing.

The bird had flown. In what tree did she now sing?

He turned to General Donovan. "Man is Man by  strength of mind. Man becomes Man by way of his heart."

The general spat a laugh. "Heart? What heart? Yours is a withered husk of Winter."

The voice Lucas never thought to hear again wisped from the shadows, though it was whispery as if coming from the depths of an open grave.

"Oh, General, you look but do not see. Man pays with gold for a slip of the foot, but pays with his soul for such a slip of the tongue as yours just now."

The misty form of Lt. Henderson wavered before the two men. 

Eyes even more tortured than Lucas remembered ... eyes in whose depths swam the monsters that drove him or haunted him ... or both.

Was she here to hone the edge of his razor soul ... or worse.

FOR THE DAYS ARE EVIL_ Chapter Nine_ THE GIRL WITH SILVER EYES

 

"Live wisely, redeeming the time, for the days are evil." 

- Paul of Tarsus

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

Lucas swore at himself. It was his fault. He had let his mind wander down dark halls of festered memories.

The first time he'd found himself in "Hell," he had lost focus.

"Eyes blurred with the past do not see clear enough to hit the mark," his mother had warned him.

Adding, "A spear has no branches."

Moira began to whimper. 

Lucas dropped her limp body to General Donovan's smoldering carpet.

Yes, he had brought them to the general's office.

But not totally.

Outraged Time and Tide demanded their penalty for being violated.

Somehow misty after-images of Renaissance Venice billowed throughout the office.

Ghostly figures in fine robes pointed aghast at the intruding visitors from the future.

Donovan's secretary, Blanche Devereaux, screamed shrill as the carpet beneath her heels misted away into the rippling Grand Canal.

The flailing woman sank into the waters, now once again billowing fog.

Donovan sprang from his chair and reached for his secretary, 

but his fingers went right through the woman's spectral wrist.

The office resumed its normal state ... except for the gibbering Moira prone on the carpet.

General Donovan turned slowly towards him as if against pressure. 

Lucas thought it might be the pressure of choices better off not made. 

Lucas knew the feeling.

  

The general snarled, "Lucas, what the hell have you done?"

Mother once said, 

"Son, no matter how badly you have bungled affairs, never admit it to your enemies. Always thrust it back upon them. They have done worse ... and on purpose."

He forced his face to become as hard as the life into which he had been born.

"Right back at you, General. You sent a trusting subordinate after a book of the damned, and she paid the price."

At Donovan's feet, Lucas hurled the movie poster emblazoned with the girl with silver eyes holding the deadly volume.

"Now, another woman, who did not see you as you were, has paid the price for it."

"Damn you, Lucas."

"Of course, I thought you knew."

Lucas wondered if his true Hell would be to roam dark streets alongside all the people he had sent there while alive.

The hate-filled eyes of the general bored into him, and Lucas felt he would find out sooner than later.

THE FIRST AND FINAL TRUTH_ Chapter Eight_ THE GIRL WITH SILVER EYES

 

"The wind that sweeps the sun and the other stars across the void swirls within you, my son. Harness it, or it will consume you."

- Amaia, Lucas' mother

"Turning the corner."

Something the mind of a terrified child would conjure to make an incomprehensible nightmare manageable.

Not that it worked.

But the "first and final truth" Lucas' mother had taught him was that sometimes no matter the odds, you just had to try.

If you failed, at least you died with your head held high ... and when you were Basque, sometimes pride was all you had.

Clutched in his right arm, Moira was moaning, her writhing lips wet with drool, her wide eyes no longer comprehending what they saw.

Mother had taken it better ... but then, she was ... Mother.

Still, Lucas had killed her taking her here.

No.

He refused to own that thought.

Sheriff Danvers had mortally wounded her. Lucas simply refused to let Mother die caged. 

She would die free ... or as free as he could arrange.

He aimed his will for the den he shared with his pack of wild wolves.

Mother had been too injured to survive this wild transition.

Mother had simply evaporated in his arms like mist from the hidden surface of a winter lake.

Moira was only the second person he had taken with him here. 

She was still solid.

Perhaps you had to be sane to be translated.

He had, of course, went back for Sheriff Danvers.

Not to be brought here. 

Lucas would not foul the last place Mother breathed with that corrupt soul.

By accident, Lucas had once ended up in Hell ... or a realm close enough to be its suburbs.

He brought Danvers there. 

Lucas let him stay long enough that the sheriff was more than happy to hang himself.

Moira was turning opaque. Not that Lucas could blame her.

Gravity was just a taunting memory, reality was only nightmare, the only sound the howling of the blood hammering within their eardrums.

This wouldn't do.

Lucas had a debt to pay Brigadier General Donovan and Moira ... and Mother had taught him to always pay his debts.

Lucas smiled grimly ... it had always worked out so well in the past, hadn't it? 

But there was always a first time.

THOSSE WHO DIE BEFORE THEIR TIME_ Chapter Seven of THE GIRL WITH SILVER EYES

 

"Sooner of later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences." 

- Robert Louis Stevenson

In the dim light of the desk lamp, Moira looked like someone seen for the last time.

She dropped the fist full of dollar bills and glared at Lucas accusingly.

They fluttered to the dark carpet in swirls like starlets' broken dreams. Lucas imagined the office of the famous director had seen too many of those.

"There. Satisfied?"

"Takes a lot to satisfy me."

Moira shivered. She looked as if she had given up on civilization and was ready for anything ... or nothing.

If Lucas had been born with feelings, he would have wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

His arm stayed where it was.

Lucas nodded to the carpet. "You've broken three sets of Law ... God's, Man's, and mine."

"You ain't a cop or a priest or God."

"You're not that lucky. God forgives. You betrayed your boss ... and my friend."

As she yelped, Lucas snatched the movie poster off the wall and wrapped an arm around her waist.

"Let's take a trip around the corner."

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK i'M NOT DAMNED? _Chapter Six_ The Girl With Silver Eyes

 

"Honor and Integrity are choices. They are not always easy ones ... but the only ones worth making." 

- Lucas

Moira sputtered,

"Hey, hold on there! If to know the Book is to be damned, and you know so much about it, how come you ain't damned?" 

"Who says I am not?" 

"B-But you're still alive!" 

"Am I? Perhaps I killed my mother and damned myself?" 

"You what?" 

"Long story, sad ending, post-script yet to be written." 

Moira stiffened as if Lucas' words had stirred the ghosts of badly thought-out choices with their bitter consequences.

Lt. Henderson had similar eyes to Moira's ... maybe with similar pasts but from different worlds, different ways to make sense of a senseless life.

Lucas wished them both luck with that, though some foreboding told him Henderson was already dead or worse than dead.

How could anyone be worse than dead?

Lucas thought you could only ask that question if Life hadn't taught you that ... yet.