VI. Remote

The Philistine is hanging from a void of space and time. It looks like the top of a narrow staircase. A misremembered image of clashing architecture. Strange angles. It is a gap in reality she has created to avoid detection. She sleeps here because even the dead have to sleep when they’ve taken on life again.

The Angel has his void and she has hers. They are not friends and they do not trust each other. Even though they accompany one another; even though they share a sense of familiarity. They are not friends. Those who have been damned can walk in and out of life but they never return to human concepts of fraternity.

The Angel was cursed with a soul before his fall but it wasn’t a true soul. It was an approximation of a soul forced on him by a malicious archangel. He was cursed not to feel or care or create but to covet and resent. Luckily for them, most humans now possess a soul that is fairly similar so he can avoid detection in that regard.

Various unsavory characters in the lower realms can locate souls with similar aberrations. This is usually how the Damned replenish their ranks. They track sadists, narcissists, the machiavellian, et cetera. For years they watch one of these humans shed the good from themselves; until they are pliant enough to be officially coerced to one side or another. Most of these types of humans end up in the Heavenly Host amusingly enough. But that’s neither here nor there.

Psychic detection of deserters among defective souls can be quite problematic though. To start, defective souls currently outnumber so-called innocents 100:1. Which means 7.62 billion of the current 7.7 billion humans are deemed defective by the standards outlined by the Heavenly Host. The numbers are staggering. To add to this problem, Hell is deliberately kept understaffed by the Host. One of many jabs delivered from the pricks that run the show from on high. The Marshals in charge of retrieving Deserters approach this systematically but there are far too many living humans to sift through to hope to complete the search. Furthermore, the numbers are constantly fluctuating. Defective souls are being born more and more each day. The older defective humans are living longer and longer as well. The whole manhunt is futile. Finally, there is the fact that the Marshals recognize this futility as part of their own punishment and don’t put much effort into their jobs. Imagine being forced to do a pointless minimum wage job; for free, for all of eternity. Most Marshals don’t really care. They do their job to pass the time, avoid torment from middle management (aka the Heavenly Host), and to spend some time back on Earth. Which isn’t that bad a place, all things considered.

Sorry. Office politics. It’s a bit annoying.

“It’s fine, Bosch. Go on.”

Right. right. The vision. The Philistine and the Angel. She was hanging in her void. So we can’t track her in that regard.

Then there was a mirror. A reality mirror. They were looking in on one the Angel’s lackeys. Another schizophrenic arsonist.

“Like the bag lady at the bus depot.”

Yea. And the runaway that lives in the sewer.

“So this is like his M.O.”

I mean, yea. But you don’t need to get fancy about it.

Back to the mirror. The Arsonist was obviously in the downtown area.

“How do we know that?”

The train.

“Right. Sorry, Bosch.”

So anyway. We saw them talk to the Arsonist. Then they were talking amongst themselves. Nothing descriptive was occurring outside of their meeting place. A single room. Looks like a trailer home. 70s or 80s style decor. Probably not the Angel’s main haunt. He’s an aristocrat by nature. Considers himself too good for a place like that.

“Wasn’t he living in a river of shit before he escaped?”

Heh. Yeah.

Yea.

Anyway. Trailer. Air smelled fresh. Dry. Very dry. Not in a city. Could be in the western states. Too general. Probably why the Angel chose it. He’s clever like that.

“Okay, well. So far. We have Buffalo. Chicago. Memphis. Tacoma. Los Angeles…”

Are you gonna keep interrupting me, kid. You’re making me lose my train of thought.

“… Sorry”

Dry Air. Western states. There’s a magazine. Address is crossed out of course. Chinese food containers. Menu says San Francisco. Probably a ploy. Air doesn’t smell like San Francisco. Rent check. Bingo. Flagstaff Mobile Rentals. Alright, now we gotta route a couple Marshals to Arizona. The Seer and her Dog will continue to stake the Arsonist out in case the Angel shows up there again. Let’s put the Rook on it. Maybe Verlaine. They don’t really like each other but fuck ‘em. Verlaine’s always been an asshole anyway.

“Will do. So, Bosch. How did you get so good at that psychic shit?”

I worked on Project Stargate when I was alive. Had the worst performance of anyone involved though. Guess I just kept at it. Been working for one group of assholes or another for 40 some years. Years in Hell are longer though. So it’s hard to tell. I will say though. Angels are way bigger assholes than the agency ever was.

V. Good Boy

There stood a building. Now stands a shell. The charred skeleton of the Arsonist’s first kill. After the first responders left. After chainlink fences were erected to keep out trespassers. After all of this. The burned out apartment complex is still noisy. The echoing cries of 37 human souls; thick in the air. It cakes the walls. Black. Stained. Agony.

Staring off with second sight. A pale maggot of a woman caresses the thick blackened cries staining the walls. She is tall. Regal. Impeccably dressed. Her head is almost skeletal. Empty eye sockets. Blind by all appearances. But that doesn’t slow her down. The Seer is slow and deliberate. A picture of perfect calculation. Never a misstep. She possesses a sort of second sight. Far superior to anything in the natural world.

Fossilized, molten polyester clings to the couch. Charred skin and fatty tissue still cling to it. The bodies having been removed, were imperfectly removed at best. The Seer’s companion sniffs at the metallic frame of the couch. Licking it, like a dog, to discern identity. A long human tongue slips out of his mouth. He walks on all fours but is unnaturally tall with long, lanky arms. Skinless, he has long since forgotten what he looked like when he was alive. His flesh is slick with black blood. Shining in the moonlight like an oil slick. Like treacle. Like pitch.

Moving his muzzle along the floor. His head swings slowly back and forth; leaving black blood in his wake like a snail. He finds the wall. Turns his head upward. Sniffs up the wall. Tracking some smell, some echo of a cry, up and up the wall. Standing on his hind legs. He hits his head on the ceiling.

“Now, now Dog. Back to the task at hand”

Dog slinks back down on all fours and tracks something down a hallway. Down a flight of stairs. In the basement. The Seer trails behind. Slowly dodging obstacles. Ducking below water pipes. Stepping over an old tool box. A single dresser drawer.

“I see it, Dog. It’s below those stairs. Behind that tiny cupboard door.

Dog changes course to obey his master. He lifts a tiny latch with long black fingers and drags out their prize. It’s a little girl. Dead from smoke inhalation. The coroner had all of the bodies removed. All but one. Dog picks the little girl up and presents her to the Seer; palms up, head low. In deference. The little girl is almost perfectly preserved. And that is precisely the point.

The Seer points a long thin nail. Slips it skillfully along the outside of each of the little girl’s eye sockets and then removes each eye with surgical precision. She places the little girl’s eyes in her own empty eye sockets; adjusts it gently.

“We have a witness, Dog.”

“She hid down here. She saw him upstairs. On the second floor. Singing to himself. It wasn’t the Angel. Another one of his pets, of course. Our little runaway seldom dirties his own hands. The Angel’s trace is all over him. The Arsonist. He’s in love. How sweet. We can start there, Dog.”

The Seer removes the little girl’s eyes from her sockets. Placing them lovingly back in her head. Dog puts her back down; crosses her arms. The Seer produces a bright silver dust from a small leather pouch. Spilling it on the little girl’s body she begins to burn white hot and vanishes in seconds. Not even bones are left.

The Seer is grinning thin and wide. She’s lets him lick the blood and ashen cries off her fingers. Licking her fingers dry and clean. She pets his head slow and lovingly. Dog is excited.

“Good boy”

IV. An Island Of Trees

I woke the next morning feeling alive for the first time in years. And for the first time in years I felt a remarkable clarity. I had been growing more scattered as the years progressed; growing more fearful. The gnawing feeling of great big razor white teeth gnashing at itself. Always out of sight. Always at my hind. Stone on stone and metal on metal. But for the first time in years. I was clear. My path was apparent. I was made whole once more.

Shower and a shave. Clean clothes. Boots laced. Immaculate.

Two eggs over easy. Ham. Toast. Jelly. Coffee Black.

I fill my belly and leave my apartment.

Ms. 3F is yelling at herself again. She’s accusing someone of stealing her mail. Putting the whole apartment on trial. Again. She never married. Never had kids. And is much happier for it. Every week she hurls one of her sculptures off the fire escape into the alley below. Launching it down like she’s defending her castle. Sometimes I watch her and smile. I imagine her as a knight. She tells me to fuck off. I smile. She smiles. She goes back inside and starts on another sculpture.

Down a flight of stairs I dodge an oatmeal thick puddle Mr. 4A left in the hallway. He passed out on the second floor; clutching a wrapper filled with half-eaten falafel. He won’t wake up until its time to start drinking again. Grinding his teeth down in his sleep. He mutters obscene things to a woman; real or imagined? He’s either dreaming or remembering. He smiles and nudges the wrapper up to his mouth. Stuffing it in his face instinctually. He forgets to open his greasy mouth.

Out the front door. All of the trees in our neighborhood whistle as plastic bags slowly disintegrate in the tangled barbs of their branches. There’s always music here.

I walk with purpose to the corner store to say hello to Mr. Bahar. He changed his name legally to Stanley when he came to America. Every morning he straightens his hair to fit in. His wife hates it; she misses running her fingers through it. She misses how proud he used to me in the old country. I still call him Mr. Bahar. He always smiles real big when I do. Years ago he was a surgeon in Damascus. Sometimes i think of how many lives he saved. He never brags about it though. He’s the kindest man I ever met.

I take the bus to the park. I stare out the window. Slowly the neighborhoods get nicer. The people look less and less like me and more and more like people on TV. I get off the bus and get lost in the park. The trees quiet the city outside. It’s like an island. Remote, Quiet. Everything is beautiful here. I lose the path. I lose my way. I pass lakes most people never care to find. And out here, it’s alive. Everything’s alive. Birds dart past with life and music. I am still. I am whole again. I am not afraid. I am present.

I close my eyes and lose track of time. I go further into the park. It seems impossibly big. Further and further still, I find the edge of the park. I find the fence. Wrought Iron. Tall, black, cold to the touch. I walk along the fence line. Maybe I’ll walk the entirety of its length; a great big square. I drag a branch along the fence, tapping out a slow resounding metallic tang. On the other side, I can see taxis and buses trudge by. People litter the streets but somehow its still perfectly silent. Like the fence holds this little world in. Perfect, contained and peaceful. Further along the fence I walk. The taxis and buses slow to a crawl. The people stand with a fixed glance; singular and amazed. Not amazed. Concerned. Up come the car horns. They stab, jagged. As cars lurch forward in violent stutters. A deer is in the middle of the street. Scared. Spasming back and forth, unsure of its footing. Somehow it got out of the park. The wrought iron fence is over eight feet. How did it get out? The only gate is on the other side of the park. How high could it jump? Great big points of bone stick out of its head. Swinging at cars, scraping at buses. People shout. A man throws a water bottle. A rock. They try to shoo it away. Back into the park. It stutters forward. Stabs back. Cars lunge. Brake Hard. Screeching brakes. Horns blare. People are late. Angry. Crying. The deer is crying. Moaning a slobbish bellow. Terror. Jagged car horns. Swinging its head. Violent. Pained. Yelling. More lunging. A car nudges its hind leg and he’s off. Out of the street. On to the grass. Barreling toward the wrought iron fence. Faster and faster. Heading straight toward me. I stagger back. Run away. He leaps hard and high. Eight feet straight up. His ribs catch. Jagged points at the top of the fence. Cold iron digs in under his chest. Screaming high and horrid. His voice shakes. Unreal. Louder than the city. Screaming. Rasping. His legs struggle to climb up the smooth iron. His fore legs flail wildly. Struggling more and more. His weight sinks him. Stuck to the fence. Wailing. His entrails heave up and out of the jagged wound under his ribs. The fence is shaking like its going to break loose. People on the street are screaming. A young boy cries. An old man vomits on his suit. I fall back and look up at this horrid thing. A thunder clap rings out. Loud as a cannon. Amplified by the canyons of metal and concrete. No one moves. I don’t breath. A cop shot the deer. He isn’t wailing anymore. His legs hang limp. His arms rest on the top of the fence. His head cranes down and to the right; looking near me but not at me. Impaled on the fence. The poor thing looks like Christ crucified. Bowels hanging out.

Sound is gone once more. The city carries on. Buses and cars speed home. They just leave him there. Hanging. I can’t move. It’s getting dark. And again. I lose time.