The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [156]
WE HAVE HER NOW
AND SOON SO MUCH MORE
TO THE SWEET HORIZON OF SUCCESS,
ON TO THE NEXT,
AND HAPPY
The Halloween portion was mangled off, perhaps even bitten off.
All Andrew could mutter was....
“She’s gone.”
On to the next.
It was time to visit Ralston.
43.
Company for Ralston
Ralston Cooper had always been the chip on the shoulder of his own ego, always immersed in his own fabrications of personal importance and glory, never pausing for even one admitted moment to discern the meaning of his own life, to find himself.
Until, that Fall, himself found him.
Funny, this time period, this season called Fall.
For just about everything did fall...and, for Ralston, things even fell from the sky.
***
The inside of the Cooper residence seemed as lifeless and abysmal as the bowels of an empty church sanctuary in the dead of night.
Bari had materialized in the downstairs weight room after making sure the coast was clear from antagonistic elements, to unlock the sliding glass door and allow Andrew to enter from the outside pool court.
There was something about Bari and sliding glass doors lately.
Andrew emerged from the early morning air as cautiously as a catburglar, but feeling himself looking like a gargoyle returning late from a masquerade party disguised as a gargoyle. He hadn’t been fully used to the entire experience of this whole transformation gig since he first began losing his hair and by this point in time he’d practically sworn off him own human mentality. His enigmatic self-identity was pretty damn well crystal clear about now, and though Bari had maintained the entire truth well beyond arm’s reach until now, she recently pointed out it should’ve been clear to him all along. In retrospect, everything was to Andrew as much of a Catch-22 as it was existing as a human being anyway, this ignorance to foreknowledge, and that was the excuse he gave.
Of course, Bari understood that. For Andrew, she had meant for it to be that way. Any Everborn carrying the privilege of a conscious relationship with his Watchmaid throughout any given lifetime held more than a clue to the answers to his own existence, but one of the many specialties of a Watchmaid’s power was a profound influence over the mind. That was the excuse Bari gave.
Andrew’s sneakers hit carpet, and he clicked the switch of a dollar store plastic flashlight in one hand to reveal the time on the other hand’s wrist. He assumed the time was around one a.m., give or take. He still wore his costume, sans the mask, and even with his real hands he found it difficult to lift his sleeve to check. It took long enough to arrive here in Brea all the way from the Politos’ in Malibu, long enough for Salvatia to have already struck. The outlook to Andrew thus far was that Salvatia already had. The only way to know for sure was to investigate.
Bari then moved toward him, pressing him backwards and outside, shushing him before he could utter an offended objection. She gazed into him with a sobering stringency, which never failed to win over Andrew’s undivided attention, each pupil a blazing orange sun mirrored by the dual black holes of Andrew’s own as he reacted to her.
“Don’t be too hasty and listen to me,” Bari decreed. “I’ve been through the house, inside and out. Ralston is alone in the upstairs bedroom and all the lights are off as if he purposely wishes for people to think no one’s home. Even the phone’s answering machine’s outgoing message is Ralston’s voice insisting he is away in Bermuda sipping Coronas beneath a bamboo umbrella and living out the Chris Isaak video Wicked Game.”
“Tell me what you sense, and what you think we should do....” Andrew’s impatience was mounting, “Goddammit, Mel’s life is on the line and there’s no time to lose. Has Salvatia been here, Bari?"
“There’s no indication, but that means little,” Bari reported, then turned solemn. “Andrew, you need to confront Ralston, now, one on one. I’ll leave you two alone until you summon me. Ralston isn’t himself anymore, and....”
Andrew beckoned her as Bari paused to think,