"Watchman, How Much Longer the Night?"
Canto IX
Mutatis Mutandis
Scene 1
"The calamity that comes is never the one we had prepared ourselves for."
— Mark Twain
The train platform for the El was moderately busy, but the normal traffic flow didn't bring many people down to the very end of the platform. An observer might have remarked that the three men standing down at the end had been there for quite some time, without any apparent interest in boarding the train; however, all of the people around were either coming or going, and had no reason to pay them any mind.
Brisco and Jebediah were still talking with Vance after more than an hour at the El station. Other Sentinels from the tsaba had dropped by to meet the newest additions to their odd assortment of comrades. Knowing that the entire group might attract unwanted attention, hardly anyone stayed long, but rather came and went like junk food wrappers blowing along in the wind.
"As you can see," said Vance, "we really don't know what we are doing. On the one hand, we are being led to act as investigators, as detectives. On the other hand, we're some sort of guerilla soldiers. Here we are, guided by dreams sent by God through the angels, and most of us weren't even the church-going types. Until the visit, at least. We're one sorry-ass excuse for a team, but among us, we seem to have all of the skills we need, if we take the time to figure things out. We're certainly not accustomed to working together."
"I really don't know what I have to offer," said Brisco. "I'm sure that as long as I have my shop and my tools, I can be useful. Some of my contacts may be able to help us, but not for free." Brisco hadn't mentioned his hobby to the group, so he was purposefully vague. "And I have another building we can use if we don't attract attention."
"Demons are real," interjected Jeb, thinking of his encounter with Yamadori. Vance and Brisco looked at him curiously. The comment didn't seem related to the conversation.
"At least part of this will involve fighting," Jeb continued. "Some kind of physical... well, combat is really the best word. I can handle that as long as I can keep my sanity reasonably intact."
Vance and Brisco looked at each other, and then looked back at Jeb. Each had enough questions about their own sanity, but no way to judge if Jeb had already fallen off the path.
"My background," Jeb explained, "is as a bodyguard, a bouncer. Not the most tasteful line of work, but I'm good at it."
"We'll all be quite interested to hear the details of your journey so far," said Vance. "The group has plans to meet again tonight." He pulled a pen from his pocket to write down the address, but then thought better of it, and gave them the meeting place and time verbally. "Let's split up and get some rest. The nights are long."
Scene 2
[Men in Black: after telling Jay that they're going to check the 'hot sheets', Kay pulls up to a newsstand and buys a pile of supermarket tabloids...]
Jay: "These are the hot sheets?"
Kay: "Best investigative reporting on the planet. But go ahead, read the New York Times if you want. They get lucky sometimes."
That's one of the headlines from the vision! When Vance saw the little article in the sidebar of a page buried in the middle of the Sun-Times, it startled him and snared his full attention. I guess that I'm still not used to all of the connections and "coincidences" that pop up every day. This is rather unnerving.
It only took a moment for Vance to absorb the facts of the article. I don't know why that's important. But I have to believe it is, somehow. It was certainly unusual enough, and a little on the sensationalist side. The kind of thing you'd see in a tabloid... Vance remembered with a smile how the characters in the Men in Black movies would use the tabloid "hot sheets" as their source of legitimate news. That doesn't seem quite so far-fetched any more.
Vance closed his eyes and cradled his head in his hands. So, how am I going to make sense... no, wait, I don't need to do it myself. I'll bring it to the tsaba, and see what they make of it.
Scene 3
"Come on, baby don't you want to go | To the same old place, sweet home Chicago"
— Robert Johnson, Sweet Home Chicago
"Thanks, Ron. See you again later," Samson waved as he finished ringing up the elderly man. As he watched him head out the diner's door, he leaned on the counter to see how the remaining customers were doing. Samson really did have long blonde hair, which he kept tied up in a tight ponytail when he was at the diner, and under a hat, of course, when he was in the kitchen. As the owner of the little restaurant, he was keenly aware of his customers. The great majority of his business was from regular patrons.
Samson liked to come in late in the morning and work until after midnight. The day had been unusually busy ever since he had walked in the door today, and Samson and his staff had been running to keep up with the extra load of customers.
Well after the lunch crunch, a group from a rehab center came in. All 22 of them. The regulars could hardly find a place to sit until the fellas finished their late lunch and marched on.
Looking around the room, Samson spotted a man who he had presumed was with the group. The man had remained behind, toying with a coffee mug and staring aimlessly out the window. Samson walked over to chat with him.
"You're not with the rest of the guys?" he asked.
The man looked up at Samson, and then at the last of the rehab group as they disappeared down the sidewalk. He looked down at his own rumpled clothes before looking back at Samson to answer.
"Not yet."
Samson looked the man over carefully. He was middle-aged, maybe as old as Samson himself. The man was unshaven, tall and stocky. He sported a mop of uncooperative dark hair, wearing an un-pressed dress shirt and jeans. A well-worn fedora sat on the table.
Seeing that he was drinking black coffee, Samson asked, "Can I refill your mug for ya?"
"Sure," the man said with a friendly nod.
As Samson retrieved and poured the coffee, he tried to remember why the man looked familiar. Ah! he remembered. Motley group that recently started coming in and sitting in the corner , really late.
"You were in here the other night, weren't you?" Samson asked.
"Yeah," the man said, looking at Samson suspiciously.
"Don't worry about me," Samson laughed, seeing the man's appraising look. "I just like to get to know the folks who come in. I'm Samson," he said, sticking out his hand.
"Billy," said the man at the table, shaking Samson's hand. "Thanks for the welcome."
Billy glanced at his watch. "Do you work around the clock or something? It must have been almost midnight when I was here last and saw you in the kitchen."
"Well," Samson started, "I enjoy being here, and I don't have much else to do."
Billy raised an eyebrow, but didn't press for details. "I appreciate your efforts. It's good to have a refuge from..." From the creeping horrors of the city Billy thought to himself.
"...from the hustle of the city," he actually said.
Samson knew from the pause that there was more to what Billy was saying, but that didn't surprise him.
A group of four elderly ladies that Samson recognized came in at that moment, so Samson thanked Billy and went to greet them, leaving Billy to his thoughts and his coffee.
Scene 4
"Given time and a fair amount of goodwill, any freak can become part of any family."
— Stephen King, From a Buick 8
Vance was a little edgy as he waited at Samson's for the rest of the tsaba to trickle in. He was scheduled to work tonight, and needed to keep the income as long as he could. Showing up late or not at all would probably cost him the job. The meeting was important, but he could see that it wouldn't take long before the different Sentinels started to get on each other's nerves.
Once Jimmy came in (he seemed to have a knack for arriving first or last), Vance shared with the group his dream of the newspapers in the best detail he could remember. Then, he pulled the clipped-out "Dead man lives" article from a pocket and showed it to them.
"This is one of the articles I saw in the vision. It showed up in today's paper. I'm sure there will be others, too."
Rabecka picked up the article clipping and fingered the edges, lost in thought. "Bring me any of these you find," she said, "but don't clip them out. Bring the whole section, or at least the page."
"How will that help?" asked Sean.
"Clues," added Brisco.
"That's right," continued Rab. "The date on the page, for starters, but the way articles are placed around it, the advertisements... it all adds up sometimes." She waved her fingers around the newspaper clipping as if pointing to the various elements on the original page.
Rab paused before adding, "Raguel's gift is... well... good for finding patterns and clues, especially in media." She stared off into the diner without focus, her hands still in the air. "I don't know how to describe it, but, do you ever get the sense after seeing or reading something that you didn't get the whole story?"
Everyone at the table agreed on that one.
With a wave of her hand, she continued, "Raguel told me that I would be able to, sort of, read between the lines and see the truth." Rab's voice conveyed her excitement, although she was outwardly calm. "If I study and look for clues, I think I'll be able to find them and put them together." She placed the "Dead man lives" article on the table and tapped it for emphasis.
"Do we have any other issues to discuss tonight?" asked Vance, glancing at the clock on the wall.
Sean spoke up. "I'm out on the street. I don't mind sleeping in my van for a night or two, but that gets old real quick. What are the chances any of you have a lead on a cheap place to stay?"
Brisco lifted his hand in the air. "I've got some space. If you can get together some furniture, you could make a temporary apartment out of it, if you keep a low profile."
"Thanks, I'd really appreciate it," answered Sean. "Furniture should be no problem," he added with a smile.
"You're not going to steal it, are you?" asked Billy, thinking of Sean's job in the furniture store.
"Ah, no. I guess not," replied Sean. Living with a defined moral code was forcing Sean to adjust his methods. "I'll have to go with my normal employee discount, huh?"
"You wouldn't want to load up on much anyway," observed Billy. "We'll all need to travel lightly from here on out. You could try a cot. Stay mobile. I'm living with a friend at the moment, but I'll overstay my welcome soon enough. Everything I have is portable," he added, waving a harmonica in the air for emphasis.
"I've got an apartment," said Jeb, "but it would save a lot of cash if some of us could get along well enough to share a place."
The table was quiet as they all looked at each other, or stared purposefully off into space to avoid making eye contact. The fact was, they really didn't know each other all that well yet. They didn't mind being courteous and cooperative, but most of them were accustomed to living alone with some degree of comfort and privacy. Sean's predicament illustrated how fast things could change.
Scene 5
"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."
— a witch, from Macbeth, act IV, scene I (Shakespeare)
A gentleman in a stylish, tailored suit walked casually through the abandoned graveyard, an electric lantern one hand. He made his way toward the other lantern glowing among the headstones, and soon came upon four others, leaning on dirty shovels, contemplating their just-completed work. Although the night was cool, the workers' sweat glistened on their faces in the lantern light, accented by streaks of dirt where they had wiped their faces with their dirty sleeves. The sacrifices from the previous night now lay together in this new mass grave. They would come in handy to deter any visitors from the next phase of the ritual.
The man in the suit walked a circle around the fresh grave, looking over the results of their work, and then nodded to the four workers. They gathered their tools and their lantern, and made their way to their van, leaving the gentleman behind. A few moments later, two figures dressed completely in black slipped from the shadows of the cemetery and stepped into the pool of light thrown by the remaining lantern.
"You have news?" asked the man in the suit.
"The Sentinel has already moved on," said the one.
"Those we questioned did not know where he went," said the other. The two of them smiled at the memory of the interrogation.
"We know the Sentinel has a black Ford van," said the one.
"Perhaps your contacts in the police could help to track him down," said the other.
"Yes," agreed the man in the suit. "I'll use any information you've gathered to put the police on the lookout for him." He thought for a moment. "I take it that those you questioned did not survive the experience?"
"Not quite," said the one, grinning.
"Not even close," said the other, smiling broadly.
"Hmmm. This gives us an opportunity to try to tie the Sentinel to the, ah, incident. I want you to make an anonymous call to the police, claiming to have seen that van near the building at about the time of your visit. You have the license plate number, I presume?"
"Ah. . . no," said the one.
"We missed that part," said the other.
"Then give the best description of the van and the Sentinel that you can to the police," instructed the man in the suit. "We don't want any Sentinels getting organized before the big event."
Scene 6
"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration."
— from the 'Litany Against Fear', Frank Herbert, Dune
Vance stared at the various newspapers in the rack of the corner store. He was almost afraid to look at a newspaper now, knowing that further clues would pull him inevitably down a dark road. A road for which he and the other Sentinels were supposed to be the light. Vance didn't feel much like a light for anyone. Sure, his anointing by Michael had been the catalyst for the rediscovery of his spirituality, but he felt as frail as any other human when faced with overwhelming odds. He looked at the sword-like symbol on the palm of his hand, and then at the tattoo of a flaming sword which went from the back of his right hand and covered most of the outside of his forearm. Almost as frail, he reminded himself.
Vance reached over and picked up a copy of the Sun-Times, paid the clerk the 50¢ and continued down the street. Fortune smiled on his timing, and his bus came along as if on cue. He stepped up into the nearly empty bus and began to leaf through the paper, scanning the headings. Here. Metro pages. Vance opened up the front section and began perusing the headlines. Driver gets prison term in death of motorcyclist. 3 resign in wake of video. DCFS probes juvenile center. Then, as he expected, he saw one of the headlines from his dream. Southside victim bleeds to death at home.
The information in the story didn't seem to mean much. Blood loss. Wound to the neck. Vampire, commented Vance's subconscious. What was the word Michael used?. . . Akhkharu?
Vance had always believed that there was a seed of truth in monster stories. He'd made it his hobby to study such stories, especially the ones without rational explanations. Ghosts. Sasquatch. Poltergeists. Demonic possession. Vance especially liked the stories about possession. Even with all the knowledge of mental illnesses achieved by society, suffering people often referred to their mental afflictions as entities. In those afflictions, the seed of truth was perhaps closer to the surface.
Now, Vance's life had been turned upside-down. He had been visited by an angel of God, who implied that something like vampires were real, although they had a different name.
Vance was accustomed to being a loner but now he was thrown together with a group of others who didn't seem to have it together any more than he did. And, inexplicably, he was somehow their leader. Staring off into space, Vance began to think about a Bible story from his childhood.
Moses. Burning bush. Vance could see the rocky ground, the barefoot Moses, the flames. Thunder echoed off the mountain, but there was no lightning. Moses talked to the flames in awestruck tones. Then, more thunder. Moses looked over his shoulder at where Vance was standing, but, seeing no one, looked back at the flames, pointing to himself with the obvious question: "Me?" Vance knew exactly how he felt. Moses argued with the flames. Then, the thunder became so intense that the ground shook, and Moses hid his face in his hands. God was not fond of excuses.
Vance blinked his eyes hard as his attention returned to the bus and the newspaper he was holding. He stared down at the little article for a while, but saw precious little that seemed helpful. Undoubtedly, there was something more to this little article than he could figure out.
Vance folded the paper up to take to Rabecka as he stepped off the bus and began walking the small distance to his apartment. His thoughts still swirled around the tsaba and what part he may be called to play in it. Vance wasn't an unfriendly person, but he wasn't quick to trust strangers either. Being thrown together with the other Sentinels highlighted how much he had become accustomed to his privacy and freedom. Granted, since he had met other Sentinels, the shadow of loneliness that previously accompanied him had paled and become conspicuous more by its absence.
Vance reflected on that at some length as he arrived at his apartment and tossed his keys onto the desk. His apartment was small, but not uncomfortable. Here in the main room, a bookshelf filled with books, magazines and notebooks stood next to his cluttered desk. The papers were filled with fragments of possible evidence he had collected over the years: stories, anecdotes, unexplained happenings, odd coincidences. The thought struck him that even though he had been trying, he knew precious little about how to conduct a real investigation. I'll need to work on that as a priority.
Vance thought briefly about bringing members of the tsaba here to help him go through his papers and notes, but found that he immediately disliked the idea. Glancing down at the mark on his palm, he paused to wonder why he felt threatened by the thought of asking for help. No one else has been in my apartment since I moved in. Am I just afraid to let anyone see who I am? Is that it? Even after starting this new life, am I afraid to let go of what I think I have control over? Am I really that afraid of losing the life I had before, when I wasn't really thrilled with it to begin with?
He looked around at his odd collection of belongings and sighed. Fear is the mind-killer.
Scene 7
mutatis mutandis — Latin, meaning "the necessary changes having been made".
— Motto for Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, a.k.a. The Xavier Institute for Higher Learning
Sean watched as Brisco stepped over to the door of the pole barn-type building and unlocked the side door. The building was about as non-descript as one could get: no signage, no interesting colors, no great location, not pristine, not falling apart. As Sean followed Brisco into the building, he found himself in an office area with about an eight-foot ceiling.
"There's this front office, but in this area there is also a bathroom, kitchenette, and a second, empty office space you could use for a room," Brisco said, as he led Sean through a couple of doors and finally to a small, but clean room.
"No one is here during the day?" Sean asked.
"Not for the time being," sighed Brisco. "I shut the place down a few weeks ago so I could focus on my main business. . . and this Sentinel thing."
Sean couldn't believe his luck. It wasn't large, but it had everything he needed, and the price (free) was ideal. "Where do I park my van?" he asked.
Brisco took him to the door at the end of the little hallway and led Sean into the rest of the building. As Sean stepped in, he could see that the majority of the building was one large room, outfitted as a complete auto shop. There was a vehicle door at each end of the building, with a path down the center among lifts, welding equipment, a painting area, assorted tools and racks for storing parts.
"I can't give you a garage door opener," Brisco added, "but I'll give you the code for the keypad on the wall outside. You can drive in off West Superior there, and exit out the other end." Brisco paused for a moment.
"As much as possible, I've kept this place off the radar. It should make a good safe house, but only if we keep it low profile and don't lead people here." Brisco continued, giving Sean tips for losing possible tails and coming into and leaving the neighborhood by different routes so as not to fall into a routine that could be tracked.
Sean was impressed by Brisco's street smarts. "So, if you don't mind my asking, what did you use this place for?"
Brisco hesitated, but Sean's manner put him at ease. They were teammates of a sort, and Brisco had trusted him enough to bring him here. "I was in the business of running an illicit shop handling cars and car parts." Brisco hesitated again. He had never confessed the truth this way before. "My sources would bring in stolen vehicles, and I would prep them for new ownership, usually as parts."
Sean looked around the room appreciatively. "So, you stopped after , ah, which angel did you say visited you?"
"Raphael. And no, I had stopped before that. The police are watching me because of something unrelated. It was too risky, both for me and anyone associated with this place, to keep it running. It was really depressing at the time, but I've got other stuff to worry about now."
"You have the police watching you?" Sean interjected.
"Well, yeah, but not too closely, as far as I can tell. They. . . suspect me of a small thing I didn't even do. It's not like they were trying to link me to what I was actually doing, or something more serious."
Brisco turned and faced Sean as he changed the subject. "Even though this building is clean, now, as far as the law is concerned, it is to our advantage that it doesn't attract attention. We need all the advantages we can get."
Sean nodded in agreement, looking around the room and soaking in details. No windows. Doors at both ends and in the middle of each long wall. A boxed in column along the wall, leading to the roof above the office area, like a large ventilation duct, but not quite right.
"So, what's the story of the boxed-in, um, chute?" he asked, gesturing upward.
"There's a ladder in there. It serves as a maintenance access," Brisco pointed out, "but it has the secondary advantage of being a bolt-hole. There is a place you can grab the ceiling in the kitchenette, pulling down a stair which takes you up to that ladder. The stair returns to it's normal place automatically. If a person doesn't make too much noise, they could make it to the roof and, hopefully, avoid whatever trouble that's looking for them."
They met each other's eyes, and Brisco could see Sean's next question coming.
"Have you. . . ?" Sean started to ask.
". . .ever used it?" Brisco finished the question for him. "Not in a crisis, fortunately."
Brisco began walking toward the nearby vehicle door. "Let's get your van inside, and you can start getting unloaded."
It's not quite the Bat Cave Sean thought to himself, but it's nice - nicer than I deserve.
:: End Canto 9 ::
7th Seal Image: Pat Loboyko. ©2005 Scott Mitchell.
