Chapter 11: Sabian
Thankfully sleep was something now coming back to me, thanks to the sleeping pills that now took up a semi permanent spot on my side table. I awoke around 8:00am and dragged myself into the day with a double espresso and a hot shower. I felt there had been progress last night at Armada’s even if there had been the opposite with Natasha.
Eagerly, I waited for a decent length of time, then called her. I felt solace in contact with her, especially since everything else in my life felt devoid of sense since the incident.
“Hello?” I heard her dulcet tone and felt relief wash over me.
“Hello, Sabian?” She repeated and I became aware I hadn’t answered her.
“Yes, just me calling to see how you are.”
“I’m good. I had strange dreams all night, but I guess that’s not unexpected.”
“What were they of?”
“Just that door, over and over…no strange things leaping out at me from the dark though, so I suppose that’s a plus.”
“Definitely.”
There was an awkward pause I didn’t know how to fill. Maybe I was still groggy from the sleeping pills.
“What about you?” She probed. “Are you alright? You sound a bit…off centre.”
“I’m fine – just tired. I was thinking, I know it’s none of my business, but it might be a good idea to stay away from Sam for a little bit. He seems a bit overprotective and not really on board with what seems to be happening for you.”
“Can you blame him? It is a bit unbelievable if you look at it. I don’t even know where I stand. You’re a rational man, what do you think, I mean really think.”
“I think that I can’t shut my mind off to anything right now. I know it sounds full of superstition and magic hocus pocus, but it feels like it makes sense. Maybe I am crazy. Maybe that brake in and Amber and Robert …..dying. Maybe that broke me and I’ve gone over the edge. Either way, I’m not sure why, but I think I’m going to hell.”
“Then we can keep each other company.”
“Whatever it is that’s going on, we’ll work it out, then life will be back to how it has always been. Just more interesting…you know.”
“What happened with Natasha?”
“…..Nothing…still in negotiations.” I joked, but the truth is that my marriage had finally dissolved last night. Natasha had actually called to let me know we had a buyer for the house, in record time and she gave me an ultimatum. Come to Germany with her or stay behind and let her go.
“And today is Amber’s funeral.” She added.
“It is – 10:00. Natasha is coming to that, then packing the house up. I move out next week.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Finally going to set up in our holiday house, like I said, take a break and figure out what I want. Truth is I felt lost for a long time before we met. Wasn’t sure what I wanted. It’s true what they say – your life flashes before your eyes and changes you – you question everything.”
“Sabian – you sound depressed. You aren’t going to do anything to hurt yourself are you? Do you want me to come around.”
“No – do whatever you had planned for the day. I’m fine. I will be fine, just going through the motions you know.”
“I understand. I’m going out to the park for lunch…Come over after. We can talk – alright?”
“Let’s do that. I’ll see you after. I was doing some more reading after I left, might be something useful to run through.”
“Great.” And with that I hung up the phone. Today was a bad day. I had to bury my sister, come to the realisation my marriage was over, and plunge in to the ridiculous. No wonder Gavin thought I was crazy, Rachael was right. The whole situation was implausible to say the least. But why should it be. People believe in alien abductions, in ghosts and demons. I wasn’t alone, it just wasn’t what rational people were taught to think. Another time and place, people would be lined up to hear some of the theories I was spouting and people like Sam would be on the outer, the fringe. At least she believed me.
I got dressed and walked past an open book I had left open on the counter, one of the many I had been reading over the last few days. They littered the tables, benches, bed and chairs. There were so many theories, texts and areas of conjecture surrounding the paranormal, it was doing my head in. Really though, I was glad of the distraction. It gave me something other that the type of flowers to pick, the eulogy, the notifications in the paper and the thank you cards I had already asked my assistant to start filling in on my behalf. Losing Amber had been painful. I was almost glad our parents weren’t around for this or I really didn’t think I could take anymore. I shut the book happily and straightened my tie in the mirror.
I managed to hold it mostly together for the service. I read one of her favourite poems, let my Aunt cry on my shoulder and tell me how glad at least I made it. Natasha stood next to me in support, but never touching. The distance may as well have been a mile if it were an inch. I felt vacuous and plastic.
Throughout the reception and the seemingly endless parades of hands to shake, condolences and concerned looks I let my mind wonder to the myriad of theories I had read over, the signs – ancient and less so, the runic sigils I had briefly encountered over the next few days, wraiths and other ‘otherworldly’ spirits and beings described across cultures and expanses of time. There were certainly plenty of similarities, but almost as many discrepancies.
I was going with the term wraith, just like Armada had, and trying to draw on any common factors. Some played on my mind more than others, that they would, where possible surround themselves by those to protect or resource them – politicians, negotiators, killers, those who practice magic, makers and keepers of laws, and outshining it all, the Asatru background was the most encouraging of all. Their history was more or less concrete, their order clearly defined and determined – a polytheistic belief system that was easy enough to categorise and understand for me. The habits and rituals were similarly tangible, with runic magic as a deeper well of knowledge, but again one strongly rooted in history.
The Asatru were, as I understood so far, were descendant from Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian faith that honored Gods and Goddesses, such as Odin and Freyja. These Gods were also recognized as the Æsir and Vanir. There had been recent resurgences of public practices of the faith in the mid to late 1900’s, with worldwide movements and official recognition. Groups of members were called Kindred.
Aligned with the belief in the Æsir and Vanir, there was a heavy focus on ritual practices, and living in accordance with something called the Nine Virtues of Asatru: Courage, truth, honor, fidelity, hospitality, discipline, industriousness, self reliance, and perseverance. In legend, the Æsir and Vanir were born at the beginning of the world, and the God Odin made the first man and woman, along with nine worlds. More deeply rooted in magic, some areas of practice involved something called Runic magic, which engaged using the ancient alphabet tablets allegedly handed down by the gods to men. Rumor added that factions engaged specific individuals ‘assignments’ that were principal to meeting the Nine Virtues.
If any of that were true, and believable, why hadn’t anyone tracked Rachael when she made front page news? She somehow had remained hidden. The Runic symbols she had used that had led me to the theory she was tied to the Asatru in the first place might be the key. Perhaps even, I tried to reason with myself, Rachael had been endowed through their magics with a strength and capacity to protect, but when she fought, expended energy, that made her somehow traceable to them? That would explain how the Wraith would be able to track her like that.
By the time we wrapped up the reception, the wake, I felt like I needed to tell her everything I had run through, explain her background to her, restore her sense of purpose. She hadn’t said so, but I suspected that her lunch in the park was a date with Sam, but as the driver of the taxi escorted me home, I saw them sprawled on a cliché picnic rug a
few hundred meters from the busy road. I called for the driver to stop, paid him and stepped out.
Rachael looked almost blissfully happy there with him and it reminded me of when Natasha and I had met, trekking across Europe. Picnics and hideaways, impulsive behaviours and all those things I had admired in her. Even as she probably was organising the divorce I still missed the way she would smile at me, her strength. I stole myself away along the edge of the park and into a thick section of trees. While I realised I ran the risk of looking like a stalker, I just wanted to hover for a moment. They sat, relaxed and talking about something light, he watched her intently, and she played with a daisy she picked nervously from the grass beside her. Every once in a while the little girl from the family next to them would squeal at her older brother playing Frisbee with his dad while her mother sat with the basket they had brought with them. The girl kept trying to jump up and join but wasn’t old enough to keep up yet. I refocused my attention back on Rachael and Sam. They would probably be in this park five years from now playing ball or flying a kite of something with their kids. Perhaps her being with Sam wasn’t such a bad thing. His lack of lateral thinking might be the distraction she needed. Irony is my mistress I thought.
My gut fell though, when Sam, looking up to the heavens to check on the impending rain clouds scanned over his shoulder and spotted me. This looked bad. Definitely stalker bad.
When he first made eye contact he didn’t say anything to her, just twitched his jaw and grimaced. It took him a moment to tell her I was there. I didn’t bother moving, that would probably look worse. She stood with him, but he ushered her to stay. She stood hands on hips seeming to weigh up whether to just come over anyway. He took giant strides over to me and I could tell he was containing his will to run and probably tackle me to the ground. And honestly, if he had, I think I would have understood. Instead he drew to an agitated halt about a foot away from me.
“What the hell man….?” Sam started and I put my hands up in submission.
“Alright, I really know how bad this looks.” I acknowledged, but he just raised an eyebrow.
“Really? Are you sure?”
“I seriously was just passing by and saw her. I was going to meet her later, but thought I would talk to her now instead - until I saw the two of you. I was just leaving when you saw me.” I protested but it was lost on him. I spied Rachael shifting on her feet the few yards away.
“Hey look at me.” Sam actually grabbed me by the collar and my focus transferred back to him. “You, and your freaking crazy theories need to back off.” Before he could say any more, there was a scream from the mother sitting with her family near where Sam and Rachael were set up. The little girl had got away from her parents keen watch and was pummeling the pavement towards the oncoming traffic. The mother lurched from the ground, scrambling to gain distance. The father took off, abandoning the Frisbee, but there was no way they were going to make it. I willed the child to stop, time to freeze but flinched knowing the inevitable.
In the blink of an eye there was a drag of light around Rachael. Just for a second, almost unperceivable if I hadn’t already been attuned to her. Her hands rose to face palm out towards the child and she looked as if she pushed, or lifted something. At the same time, the car headed towards the little girl screeched, black tire smoke surrounding it, but it flipped up, before landing back on the ground. The sound of several cars crashing into each other caused a commotion before, through the dissipating smoke, the little girl’s cry rang out, and in my peripheral vision, I saw Rachael collapse into the grass.
Sam must have seen her fall as well, because as the mother clutched her child weeping, and the family sighed in relief as people came out of their vehicles to investigate what was happening, he bolted over to her. I followed on his heels, and arrived in time to see him checking over her, placing his head to her chest. She wasn’t breathing. I took my phone out to call for help, but I saw, just underneath her collar a bright red marks against her skin.
“What’s that?” I asked him, and Sam pulled back her collar to reveal an unusual welting pattern.
“It looks like a …”
“License plate.” I answered for him. Reading it backwards, I burned the plate number into my memory.
“I’m starting CPR.” His voice was actually shaking. Just as he started the first compression though, she gasped, rising forward to a seating position, struggling to breathe. The capillaries in her eyes had all burst giving the effect of blood red eyes against black irises. She looked haunted, horrified and her eyes bore through us both before she tore free and rushed past us both, pushing Sam to the ground and leaving her slip on shoes on the grass in her wake. She ran even more quickly than I recalled her moving back at my house when she had taken on those murderers. Sam just made it to his feet in time for us to see her disappear into the bushes.
We both followed in to the wooded area, small enough to line the park in shade and not be called a forest, dense enough to let the high school kids get up to socially unacceptable high jinx and hide Rachael from our immediate view. We past two startled pot smoking teenagers as we covered the ground in the woods. One of them was smirking and he pointed behind him.
I saw why he was smirking a moment later. Rachael’s shirt was left hanging as though thrown through the air behind her. Her skirt was only a short distance away. We slowed as we past her underwear and Sam spun around to me.
“Where the hell is she? Where did she go?”
He was panic stricken, and yet oddly, I felt like everything was as it was supposed to be. Except for one thing. In the distance I saw a man who looked like a groundskeeper, head turned upwards, doing the same full-body convulsion I was getting used to seeing. I pointed to him and Sam followed my direction. We both froze for a moment taking the strange sight in. When the man had stopped his seizure his head dropped.
I held my breath waiting, not sure exactly what was going to happen next.
When he lifted his head, his eyes seemed dead. He looked at us and we looked back. Then the man broke his fixation on us, his eyes darting towards a larger tree in the thick of the brush before returning to us. We all remained still, waiting for someone to make the first move. Sam flinched first. He took off through the trees headed to the tree the man had eyeballed a moment ago. The maintenance man headed the same way and I trailed them both. Branches flicked out at me, scratching at my face and arms as they whipped past. The two of them ahead of me met with a crash that saw Sam knocked straight on to his back. As the other man jumped at him, Sam kicked out and I arrived on the edge of the scene. I hesitated and started looking for something that could be a weapon. Quickly recovering, the man, who had clearly been taken over by one of the wraith took hold of Sam’s coat and in spite of Sam’s efforts to block him, landed a punch that snapped Sam’s head back. When Sam straightened his neck again, the Wraith hoisted him in to the air, meaning to slam him down across one of the massive tree roots.
With no time to lose, I grabbed hold of the nearest decent sized tree branch and struck the wraith over the head. Sam was dropped to the ground, but in spite of the blood, the Wraith turned to face me. I took the branch in both hands meaning to use it like a club, but didn’t need it after all. Sam stood behind him and with a rock held in both hands, struck the wraith on the base of his neck causing it to fall unconscious. Panting for breath, Sam rested his hands on his knees.
“Thanks.” He mustered.
“Anytime.” I replied, still steadying myself. It had been a long time since I had run the length of a football pitch, and I was feeling it. I put a hand on my lower back to brace it and Sam laughed. “Something on your mind.” I objected as Sam gathered himself to stand straight.
“Nothing old man.”
“Yeah – think that’s funny, let’s see you in another five or six years.” I mocked him, but the moment returned to serious almost immediately.
“He was something else. Strong” Sam remarked before I tapped
him on the shoulder and nodded towards the base of the tree. There in the underbrush, covered in dirt was Rachael, seeming to be asleep. I knelt beside her and Sam stood back apprehensive as to what I might find. Brushing aside the dirt, she tossed gently as though sleeping soundly. I listened to her breathing.
“She’s alright. She’s sleeping.”
“What is she doing in there? She dug herself a shallow grave – for what?” He asked bemused.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” I responded brushing more dirt aside. I cleared the area across her chest. The deep red license plate mark on her chest had almost all but disappeared.
“She’s healing.” Sam commented, and I looked at him. Finally some acknowledgement. When he finally uttered his next words, I knew now we were all on the same page. “I don’t understand how she did it, but she stopped that car from hitting the girl, then ran in here to heal herself.” He paused dramatically before adding “The world unravels itself.”
I looked back at him for an explanation as to the last sentence. He shrugged. “I read it in a book somewhere…by someone ‘Silver’ – it seemed appropriate.” We both turned our attention back to Rachael, she moaned as if struggling to wake and move.
“Help her up.” I instructed, as I shrugged off the coat I was still wearing. We could pick up her clothes on the way back out.
The dirt slipped from her skin as Sam held her steady as she stood, leaning against him. I covered her as best as I could without looking. We were in the middle of this action when the maintenance guy started rousing.
The man rolled to his back clutching the back of his head and Sam thrust Rachael at me so he could pick up a branch, readying it to club the man as he laid eyes on us. It was immediately obvious that the man was back to himself. He held his hand up in defense, a frightened look on his face. Sam eased off. The man scrambled to stand and fled into the trees. Sam looked like he might go after him for an instant before he stopped to speak. “We need to get lost before he calls the police.” He turned to Rachael who was standing freely now. “You alright?”
“I can stand, I can walk, but….” Her voice wavered. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t think I’m right Sam.” He put an arm around her as I led us back out to the tree line.
“There’s nothing to be scared of Rachael.” I called from up ahead. “You did good.”
As we walked back, she collected her clothes but still looked a mess. Police and ambulances lined the park near where the event with the girl had taken place. “Sam,” I paused to regard him. “You take her home, I’ll go get your things so they can’t find anything too easily. Just in case.”
“See you back at the apartment then.” Sam said nodding and they walked in the opposite direction, Rachael still shoeless and dressed in my coat. It wasn’t too far to walk across the park.
Rain started drizzling by the time I collected her shoes, the blanket and cooler from where they had left them on the grass. I couldn’t help it. I had to go have a look. I ventured over to the flashing lights, the police taking statements and had a closer look at the car that had so nearly taken the life of the little girl, the one that had so amazingly lifted into the air, diverting it’s trajectory from running her down. The license plate number was the same as that which had been burned on to Rachael’s chest. As if I had ever doubted it.