Discovering Normal (22 page)

“I’ve found her!” bellowed a voice belonging to a face she couldn’t see. The guard who Beth had been studying for long minutes now approached, poked at her as if she’d detonate, and felt the lump of gun. He slid his hand through her wrap, lingering too long in her opinion, and pulled out the stealth. He examined it for a minute and then hurled it into the atmosphere, leaving it to spin and slide to some unknown place.

“I saw children,” she said hoping he’d think and recall that others were
here;
innocent others and anyone could stumble upon the loaded and deadly steel.

But he laughed as he wrenched her hands behind her and
allowed
the beefier figure she still couldn’t see grab hold.

“Farley-Fauna the Divine!” the voice behind her shouted into an echo.

Then he pulled her toward the outer light and she had no choice but to follow.

***

Chris shook with a chill. He was hot and cold all at the same time and comfort seemed like a dream from a long, long time ago.

There were things that you remembered, even this close to death. You remembered smells and jokes that made your side split when you were just a kid and had all the time in the world to laugh. You remembered the high you got when the bases were loaded and your smack of bat to ball drove them all home.

You remembered the smiles of children you loved and the feeling of slipping under the warm and thick covers to find the person you wanted most of all waiting there.

And then, even this close to death, you had to figure out it if any of it had ever really happened
at all
.

Far above the platform that Chris rested on, a door opened and there was more commotion than usual as it slammed closed
. T
ime again for gray broth and a fish head.

He tried to sit up because the sounds were different and so little was ever different here in this world of cold. He attempted to hoist, though his energy was gone and through the fogginess of his eyes he could just make out heavy forms tugging something so utterly soft and white down the treacherous stairs.

They’d reached the bottom now, but the guard kept tugging until it was all so close. The white--the angelic and clean white--rippled in the cold and damp vapor from the water below. Chris squinted and heard a gasp, saw hands fly and others grip tighter to the alabaster flesh they clutched.

“Chris,” the one in white muttered, but hands slapped over the mouth. Still her eyes--it was female he could determine--held firm and concerned.

And then like a wave crashing or a sky opening or a threatening blow that didn’t come, he knew.

It was her.

She was here.

“You are the pair of true evil,” the guard who had mauled Chris more than once said before he released the heavenly vision and flung her toward him. “Partake of your foolishness. Alas, your time in this realm is soon to be past. At long last you will watch one another suffer and then be no more.” The guard turned, not looking back or even caring that he’d brought them together after so much time apart.

The vision in white straightened and crawled to the place Chris lay, curled and broken. She touched his cheek and it felt like silk against his rough and unshaven skin. “Chris, my lord what have they done to you?”

The door far above slammed, but she didn’t stop or pause; she just stroked and hoisted so his head rested against her chest. Chris felt his eyes slip closed because it really didn’t matter anymore, but she jostled him until he opened them again. “Please, stay with me. Please, don’t disappear.”

She clutched him close and it felt so good, felt a way he never dreamed he’d feel again. He didn’t know for sure what she’d been to him once long ago--she could’ve been mother, lover, friend--but she cared somehow though nothing was completely clear.

“Who?” he managed to mouth through the dryness and pain.

“Who am I?” she asked as she stroked and cradled him.

“Who?”

“I’m Beth Stoddard. I’m your wife.”

Some things got you wondering, some things helped you to know. But he was just so damned tired.

“Chris!” She jostled and shook him. “Chris!” She landed what he could almost feel--a stinging slap
to
his cheek. “You’re Christopher Phillip Stoddard. You’re a former Special Services
Agent of the United States. You’re fr
om Philadelphia
,
Pennsylvania, but we live in Ontario
,
Canada now. We have two children, Noah and Audrey. Your mother is a housewife who made wedding cakes for friends and family. Your father has worked for the Department of Public Works for forty-five years. You love hunt
ing, fishing, the Phillies, and EAgles
,
Saturday Night Live
and Worsteschire Sauce. You laugh when our friend Jackson insists upon singing Karaoke and run when you see a green pepper. You hate phoniness, the Dallas Cowboys and anything by
Michael Buble.
” She clutched him so tight, shook him when she wasn’t sure and wouldn’t even think about allowing his eyes to slip closed. “I know everything there is to know about you, Chris. You have a life. Just hang on for me, please.”

He studied what he could and somehow knew it was true. He tried to think, but decided it was best to leave that up to her.
He’d concentrate on the clarity that hovered just out of his reach.

Chapter 2
3

“I received word that Farley-Fauna has been
seized
. Where have you taken her?”

Omish-Ogden paused near the stone doorway. The corridor was dark and lit only by sconces--ambience that The Most Masterful generally loved
,
but he had much else on his mind. The betrayal of Farley-Fauna was at the top of the list.

“We have thrown her to him, Your Excellency. Joined them in the deepest depths of the Flora-Sky.”

The Most Masterful looked to all of the
walls of the fortress. “The forces of evil have arrived.”

“Aye.” Omish-Ogden cocked a gun. “We are ready.”

“Wait for the first sign of infiltration. Only then shall we strike.”

“And the women?”

The Most Masterful paused at the door leading to the vast catacombs. “They shall prepare the meal and tend to our clothes, Omish-Ogden. Nothing has changed.”

“But with the forces come fire and steel--”

The Most Masterful spun to face his hired gun. “You question me, Omish-Ogden? Question my vast knowledge of all?”

Th
e huge man trembled. “No, Your E
xcellency. No.”

The Most Masterful starred him
down;
exuded his strength and power in the metaphysical. “I am delighted to hear that, Omish-Ogden. It would dishearten me greatly if I had to deal with not one but two of my most faithful believers in one day’s time.”

Omish-Ogden lowered his bald head in reverence.

The Most Masterful snatched a sconce and left
Omish-Ogden
there, bowing in repentance, as he made his way down the dimly lit stairs.

***

Beth adjusted the sheath of gauze she’d ripped from her wrap and had tucked around Chris. She shivered and pulled him closer to her chest. He wasn’t conscious--sleeping or comatose she couldn’t be sure--but she clutched him tight and took comfort in the vague beating of his heart. He’d always been so strong, so in control, so unwavering. To see him here like this--thin, sick, broken--was all the hurt Beth had ever felt rolled up into one painful moment. But he was alive, he hadn’t taken his own life and that had to be enough for now.

“Chris?” she murmured with her lips buried in his thick, but matted hair. God only knew how long it had been since he’d been allowed a shower, a shave, decent food. He didn’t move, just laid motionless in her arms. His frame was still large and heavy, but it was covered with so little flesh now, he felt like a completely different man.

But he wasn’t.

Her finger traced the sockets of his eyes, the sharp plane of his sculpted nose, the lips that had won her over that very first day with their taut and sly slope. He was bloody and bruised, but despite it all, he was still handsome--still had the exact proportion of dashing bad boy charm.

She scooped him closer and rocked as if she were holding Noah or Audrey. “Deej,” she whispered into the microphone, but there was nothing. He’d said they’d move soon and swiftly.

The game was over, but it was impossible to tell who’d won.

***

He’d never allow it.

He couldn’t allow it.

Not happening in this lifetime.

The Most Masterful watched as the one who’d dare impersonate his beloved Farley-Fauna rocked gently with the one of true evil in her arms.

Did she think him a fool? 

“Chris,” she murmured as her hand lovingly stroked what was left of him.

Fury bubbled in The Most Masterful’s very human gut. He detested doubting himself, but perhaps he should’ve killed the one of evil weeks ago when he’d been broken, but still completely coherent. Arrogance was never a good thing, The Master had taught
that over and over
. This was proof. His father’s greatest strength had been in his ability to recognize and react.

Now these two who had served to ruin the peace of Flora-Sky once before appeared to be reunited though, Beth Stoddard the imposter, had wanted nothing to do with her husband even before the ordeal had begun. She had recognized then that he was so very inadequate.

But had The Most Masterful driven her back into her husband’s arms?

The Most Masterful watched from the stairway of stone. They would meet their fate--they left him no choice. Farley-Fauna could have been spared had she not betrayed him.

But
Beth Stoddard deserved to die.

A
swift demise
, however, would be
far too fine a fate for those as crafty and evil as the Stoddards. They needed to witness something more.

But they weren’t alone. His posted followers at the gate had said that once again the very human world was trying to infiltrate. Once again they’d brought blazing weapons and cameras of vanity. They didn’t understand the peaceful Flora-Sky
who
strove only to launch the chosen ones to the heavenly stratosphere of truth.

The Stoddards were responsible for this
calamity
and those such as Dara-Dawn as well. She had proven to be such a disappointment. She’d shown jealously and envy--all too human of emotions. She proved to be weak when she should’ve been strong. She proved to be frightened when she should’ve understood. She wasn’t worthy. Another mistake though he, The Most Masterful, was but a young deity; still learning, still striving to ensure it was all where it should be.

Understandable, but unavoidable nevertheless. Dara-Dawn would have to join the visiting Stoddards in their struggle for redemption.

Beth Stoddard raised her head as if she’d caught a glimmer of his torch. The Most Masterful wouldn’t move, wouldn’t hide. She would bow to him--The Most Masterful of them all.

He turned and disappeared up the stairs and into the light.

Chapter 24

She told him about the day they met.

She told him about the day they married.

She told him about the sump pump they’d had to replace three times that first spring because the little hardware store in town kept ordering the wrong model. It seemed that heavy duty sump pumps weren’t all that popular in Garrity.

She told him the story of the no hitter he’d pitched when he was thirteen. It was a family favorite that she’d heard relayed again and again and again by everyone from his grandfather right down to his parents’ eighty-year-old next-door neighbor who’d sat in the stands that day.