The Everborn Read online

  Rather than an attack of anxiety, Salvatia exhibited a puzzling state a bliss.

  “Do you feel that?” Salvatia declared. “It’s the joyful call of my blessed sisters. They are here, now, and they’ve come to partake in the freedom I’m about to offer them through their allegiance to the Daughter of God!”

  Daughter of God???

  How melodramatic.

  Bari looked upon Salvatia with a bitter confoundment she could not conceal, like the look on the recipient of a very stupid joke.

  Salvatia then disappeared from the room.

  She’s a tad more clueless than I’d perceived, Bari thought to herself.

  But there were urgent matters to tend to mounting outside the diner terrace. Bari’d been keeping keenly intuitive tabs on Andrew and on Ralston as well, and though her focus had centered upon the Magdalene Queen’s every move, she was prepared for an instant’s rescue should either Evenborn fall into harm dangerously more lethal than a few flesh wounds from BoLeve’s razor.

  She disappeared out of the room also, for it was time to do just that.

  ***

  “I see naked children walking in the grass,” Melony said to herself, said in her head where no one else could hear except perhaps for the children...for what appeared to be unclothed children scurrying and wandering about the tall grass at the foot of the terrace embankment. She’d noticed them during a final attempt to escape over the railing, and upon seeing them she soberly made up her mind to stay put.

  “We need to confront my brother this way,” came Andrew’s persistent whisper to her, but as Scratch drew his attentions towards the two, Andrew felt himself intimidated suddenly like a child at an elementary school Halloween costume contest, a human young boy in a prosthetic spaceman outfit standing beside his stage-stricken costumed mother.

  He wished it was only that.

  Perhaps in the next life.

  Scratch had at last grown weary of terrorizing poor Ralston and decided to focus upon the real matters-at-hand, upon the witch parody and her alien boyfriend/son; Ralston had been seized in an instant as soon as Scratch had allowed him to burst through the diner’s side door to join them. Uncle Maxy had been ready and waiting to snatch up the mock novelist at Scratch’s command like an awaiting mantis eager and impatient for its meal.

  When the deed was done, Scratch toyed with a restrained Ralston, by blade and with words, words such as “you’re telling me how I can’t be reborn?? Why don’t you think about what just happened to your pitiful little self, at how your groupie girlfriend slut Jessica bit the big one right before your oversized fathomless eyes. Your destiny is fucked my friend!”

  Ralston had not been prepared for this news, even after reading a majority of his own book, even after his recently acquired enhanced mental intuition and insight. Scratch then had withdrawn from him, leaving him for the following moments emotionally raped and devastated.

  The Dreg then commenced his approach towards Andrew and Mel with a bag-of-bones stature preceding his own confidence, a menacing alien grey tinker-toy man welding a straight razor and a bloodlust.

  ***

  “Well, if I ain’t the man in charge about now,” Scratch mused aloud and with a damnable pride. Yet as he passed the first two wrought iron tables and then the next one, he slowed in mounting consternation. By the time he was beside the last row of tables and about six feet between himself and the uncanny duo of his Everborn brother and the estranged ufologist’s wife, he halted altogether.

  Upon the table beside him, he set aside his razor deliberately but calmly, his eyes never leaving Andrew’s. It was difficult for Scratch to determine whether Andrew’s own eyes never left him in turn and likewise, for eyes lacking pupils could only scarcely reveal exactly what it was they were observing.

  But Scratch was clearly purposeful in making notice to all eyes present that he was relinquishing his weapon, dragging a single bony finger along the surface of the blade as a stroke of farewell sentiment.

  Scratch held his position six feet in front of Andrew and Mel, not far enough away from them nor from the razor on the table to make either one of them feel more at ease. He sighed, slackened from his bolder stature and into a listless slump in composure as if to impersonate surrender.

  “Listen, Andrew....” came the attempt of Scratch to reason with him, taking full advantage of a face-to-face and brother-to-brother moment. “....firstly, now that we can share together a short social exchange, I must apologize for not having written any letters or sent any postcards, hadn’t kept in touch over the years. You see, circumstances being what they are and all...they’ve made what I am today and you who you are right now. And here we are, swimming like feeder fish in the waters of circumstance, as if higher powers have purchased us in water-filled sandwich bags tied with rubber bands, to bring us home as aquarium food for the pets of the gods!”

  “Umm, Simon?” Andrew said to his Dreg twin brother, clearing his throat in introduction. “We’re all of us here pressed for time. For your information, Melony and I have been under the impression that you were about to kill me and Ralston, too. If you don’t, then your Magdalene Majesty surely will, unless she’s incapable. So if you truly have something to say, release Ralston and let us all free, and we can sit down and chat as soon as we get the hell away from here. Otherwise, get on with it and kill me now.”

  Scratch hesitated, questioned himself and stretched an index finger to his chin to think.

  Andrew, impatient and observing his brother’s pause as a waste of everyone’s valuable time, motioned a tug at Melony’s witches skirt and another at her arm, turning away and toward her.

  “All right,” he resolved sternly to Mel, “let’s go. Come on...it’s okay to flee. Down the embankment, he’s letting us go...I’ll take care of you....”

  It wasn’t clear to Melony whether Andrew’s assertions were serious or intentionally sarcastic as if to purposely invoke a response from Simon; hopefully, to invoke a quick resolution.

  Melony would nevertheless refuse to budge; even though she did not know what to do at this point, she know what not to do, and that was to not escape down the embankment.

  It was because of the unclothed children down there....

  “Aaaah...goddammit Simon,” Uncle Maxy exclaimed, his patience exhausted from all of this, and all eyes turned towards him and his enervated prisoner. “You sonofabitch! At least Andrew mentioned one plausible thing and I say also, let’s get on with it! Here, I’ll even help you off to a fresh start....”

  With that, and with no more effort than with a Diaper Dan doll, Uncle Maxy let go of his strangle-hold on Ralston, only to lift the protesting Everborn up and fling his body across the air, over the railing and into the darkness of the steep embankment. Ralston’s screams faded, then abruptly squelched.

  “There,” Uncle Maxy said in accomplished relief, brushing his ghostly hands together as if after having discarded the daily garbage.

  “No!” Andrew cried out after his friend. He quickly abandoned Melony and rushed past Scratch, knocking into his side, and went for the section of railing where Ralston went over. He gazed down into the direction where Ralston disappeared, speechless, eyes searching.

  As Scratch turned to Mel, her body stiffened and her eyes returned a transfixed glare upon him, helpless and hopelessly afraid.

  “What are you lookin’ at?” he barked.

  Scratch then turned once again, over to one of the wrought iron tables, where he picked up his cherished straight razor.

  ***

  That was when, just then, Salvatia herself materialized to join him at his side; a swift backhand to a space-constricting table served as a clamorous wake-up call to all for her presence to be known, as if simply appearing among them in itself wasn’t enough. She then spoke to Simon, coaxing him, “Now is the time, my beloved!”

  Scratch looked over at her and into her diabolical scowl towering above.

  “You see that over there?” the Magdale
ne spoke and pointed a twisted, black-nailed finger at Melony, who broke from her frozen aghast and became animated again, head darting for an alternate escape route. “That over there in her womb is your potential redemption. Your way out. To emerge into the next life you must destroy your successor into that womb. The longer you allow Andrew Erlandson to live, the more Melony’s womb serves as incubator for his next life and not yours. You will cease to exist, my troubled beloved.”

  “She’s lying to you!” Andrew moved from the railing to sternly face him, challenging what emotions and sensible reasoning abilities Simon might have retained. “How do you know she’s telling the truth? She’s manipulated you throughout your life to suit her will, not yours! All she cares about is transforming into a Watchmaid again, so she could become limitlessly physical and manipulate the rest of the world as we know it!”

  “My plan is a mutual plan, Evenborn,” Salvatia hissed at Andrew, “for both myself and Simon, my beloved. The end will justify the means for him and me. Besides, it will be a better world....”

  “Where is Bari?” Andrew demanded hen, as if Salvatia was responsible for Bari’s absence.

  “I wouldn’t worry, dear,” came Bari’s reply from seemingly everywhere, as it seemed always at first to Andrew.

  But then as Andrew looked and saw back to where he’d gazed down over the railing and into the depths of the embankment, Bari’s shadow came forth into rapid view as she emerged trudging in upward climb through the tall grass, a delirious Ralston draped limp, and mumbling nonsense in her arms.

  “Talk about being in the right place and at the right time,” Bari continued. “It was as if the poor guy had fallen into my lap from out of the sky.”

  “That’s pretty goddamn ironic,” Ralston uttered. “Some of us might as well have fallen from the sky....”

  “Bari!” Andrew responded, and by the sight of her was thoroughly relived. “As usual, you’re just in time....”

  “...Time enough, I must say,” as Salvatia say, “to witness a death, and my rebirth!”

  “It’s my rebirth, too.” Scratch whipped out a verbal check mark.

  “Oh, yes,” Salvatia corrected herself.

  “Lets kill Erlandson," Uncle Maxy regained his side spotlight. “My Queen, your power here is so great that, as you’ve witnessed, I can achieve physical feats like pinning Erlandson into a diner table and tossing Cooper over the side. Mr. BoLeve is clearly flaking in our efforts, like he did the first time when he flaked at the school playground. The Dreg’s a wimp. Why can’t I....?"

  “Hush, my spectral puppet,” Salvatia told him. She then turned to all the others in a display of mock modesty. “He’s a little overzealous. What can I say? There’s more of myself inside him than there ever was any of himself. Besides, this must be the work of a Dreg alone, if it’s going to work at all….”

  “Bari,” Andrew called, his attentions this time not abandoning his brother’s opposing leering stance, Scratch’s mounting persuasions towards his Magdalene’s will drawing him threateningly closer.

  Bari responded not to Andrew, but addressed Salvatia personally, almost arrestingly humbly, in an unbiased time-out, to ask Her Magdalene Majesty a most uncharacteristic question. “Salvatia, excuse me sincerely, but I, in the last recent moments before Ralston had fallen into my arms, had words with a number of your reclusive Magdalene sisters. Might I inquire, if I should allow your Dreg to take my Andrew’s life, and I become a dimensionally-challenged entity such as yourself, that I may become physical again through you like your sisters who anticipate the same redemption?”

  “You wish to join me, Watchmaid?” Salvatia said with curious, brow-raised delight.

  “At this point, yes,” Bari replied to her plainly.

  Hearing this reply distracted Andrew promptly away from his overbearing brother. “What?”

  Salvatia flexed her silvery-skinned palms and outstretched her arms as if awakened out of bed from a good night’s sleep, wrenching her dreamstate burdens away into a new morning yawn. Then, she addressed Bari stringently, black eye brows sunken together in fleshy folds over the glare of eyes blazing orange like pools of molten iron. She looked upon Bari this way, and imposed a vow to test her.

  “Do you, Watchmaid Bari, who was once Bari Davenport, a very human young lady who chanced to fall in love with an Everborn, swear allegiance to me? I know more than you can fathom, Watchmaid Bari, and I certainly know more about you. Three of Erlandson’s lifetimes ago you were a woman who chose to take the place of his last Watchmaid, who now lives her final days human again and in a home for the elderly in Southhampton, England. You saw to him through his subsequent life as a popular film director and then through this one. Surely you’re aware of how important your ‘Born is, and of his true name as a Watcher from long ago, and how for three generations you’ve loved him so....”

  “Enough,” Bari said to her. “It surprises me not that you know these things. You’ve been in your state for centuries as where I have barely a century to speak of. I’ve made up my mind, and you have nothing to lose. Simon BoLeve can go ahead and kill his brother, see if I care, and I won’t raise a single finger to stop him.”

  “What?!” Andrew exclaimed, bewildered and betrayed.

  “What?!” Ralston exclaimed, awakened fully and coherent in Bari’s arms, and Bari paid him no mind but to toss his body over her shoulders and back again into the depths of the dark embankment, his trenchcoat and limbs flailing through the air, his screams perishing into a haunted silence.

  All this was at last enough to convince Scratch to abandon any lingering convictions and sentiment and to do the deed.

  Andrew, whose slit of a mouth widened in horror suddenly, whose exposed alien-grey-skinned throat and neck diameter had decreased in size through the regression process, was easily beheaded in one swift stroke of his Dreg twin brother’s razor.

  Andrew Erlandson’s severed head flung into the night, an airborne trail of liquid red blood hung and then fell in splotches to the terrace cement floor; his head fell the way of the embankment and down into the depths to where Ralston had vanished twice, where Melony had detected the first glimpses of the children down there. Andrew’s alien Halloween-disguised body collapsed before them all.

  Salvatia cackled triumphantly, bellowing in delicious delight not only in the very execution of the murder, but at her own disbelief in how it finally came to pass. “Good, my beloved Dreg! Very good!”

  Scratch exhaled a laborious breath, as like a gladiator victorious in the strenuous achievement of having stricken down an opponent, basking in a moment of thought-consuming glory before thinking twice about what he’d truly done.

  Melony Polito fell to her knees just then in what could have been shock from having witnessed the traumatic act no doubt,she doubled oven in agonizing pain, her arms folded into her belly and hands clenching elbows.

  Scratch, observing this, diverted himself back into his Magdalene’s rapturous glare, intensely troubled. “What’s wrong with her? If what you’ve been telling me all along is true, then what Polito’s wife carries within her womb is now me! So do something!”

  “So do what?” Salvatia lulled in her euphoria for a disenchanted reply. “You’re on your own from here on out. No Magdalene has even in all of history known this day. Truth is, you could be reborn, then again you couldn’t. Who could tell what to expect ‘til it happens? I, on the other hand, am guaranteed to be reborn, for it has been my prophesy....”

  “What??” Scratch answered. Then, more profoundly aghast, “What??!”

  “Watchmaid Bari!” Salvatia turned away from the impassioned Dreg and called forth to her persuaded accomplice, “Are you still with me?”

  But Bari, who remained remarkably unmindful and even humble to the otherwise dastardly turn of events, knew what she was doing.

  And it wasn’t what anyone could’ve foreseen.

  ***

  “Still with you?” Bari returned Salvatia’s query. “Not in
another, say, thirty seconds...”

  She grinned cleverly, and had she a wristwatch she would have given it a melodramatic lookover, just to set what she’d said in visual stone.

  Salvatia looked upon Bari quizzically, until her attentions reverted to her subjugated phantasm Max Polito. Uncle Maxy dropped inanimate to the ground in all the instantaneity of a death angel’s call.

  Scratch was both furious and perplexed, like an already caged lion surrounded on all four sides by the upturned chairs of whip-cracking lion tamers. Melony was paralyzed and arched over in a ball like a sow bug. On another front was the sight of Polito’s demise, the second to date. Before him, a traitorous Salvatia continued to ignore him, and behind him was the focus of Salvatia’s transfixed scrutiny.

  Something was beginning to happen to Bari.

  At the same time, something was beginning to happen to Salvatia.

  Both of them began to glow a radiant orange hue about each of their waistlines, like luminescent hula-hoops at the point where their vaporous transparent lower torsos merged with their physical upper halves. As soon as this happened, a spark from the belt buckle region of both their glows ignited the bodies of the two entities as though they were two matchstick heads gone up in flames simultaneously. This proved to be a painful experience for both of them, albeit an experience short-lived. They emerged from the wrenching agonies of their mutual spontaneous combustions as opposites, yet opposites in colors alone.

  The Watchmaid Bari bore upon her the silver-toned flesh of a Magdalene.

  The Magdalene Salvatia bore upon herself the coppertone brass flesh of a Watchmaid.

  The process had now become complete, the two entities’ roles reversed.

  Bari’s Everborn was dead, which in the supernatural scheme of things resulted in the inability for a Watchmaid-turned-Magdalene to materialize into the physical realm except in the presence of a Dreg. Salvatia’s Dreg brought about this death, resulting in her taking the Watchmaid’s place.