the uncanny – Page 2 – A Piece, of the Sky

Dan stood by the window of Hod’s study, watching the storm outside. The fire cracked and popped in the hearth. Hod sat on a huge, scarlet armchair, patterned with subtle, yellow flowers, in his magenta smoking jacket, – with the black, velvet trim – the paragon of fine sensibility and sophistication.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for such a dandy,” Dan remarked, still looking out the window, holding his familiar snifter of whiskey.

Hod also had a snifter on the table, at his side. In his delicate fingers, he held a cigar, Honduran tobacco. As he took a drag, the butt burned crimson. “Do you know why you’re here?” he said.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Dan answered, finally turning around. He was in a black blazer, no tie, no socks, burnt sienna loafers. A Persian rug lay between them.

“Do you know why serial killers act the way they do?” Hod asked, taking a sip of whiskey.

Dan came closer, into the light of the flames. He could see a bleached skull and a golden Solar System ellipse on Hod’s desk, “Again, I haven’t the foggiest clue.”

He chewed slightly on the end of his cigar, even though he wasn’t supposed to do that, “The first step, is that serial killers – or unsubs, as we call them – won’t, or can’t, communicate with the entity that’s really bothering them.”

“Like their mothers or ‘the system,’ right?” Dan guessed.

Hod nodded, “Their own lives are chaotic, confused, frustrating. They won’t, or can’t, establish control, in what we consider to be ‘normal’ life.”

“For whatever reason, they don’t feel like they’re getting their due,” Dan added again.

A degree from Yale, lay behind glass, glittering in the darkness beyond, near the bookcase, “People break up; people get rejected. These are things that happen to everyone – but to the unsub, they are stressors. Why?”

Dan put out a hand and leaned on the mantelpiece, “The problem lies in the way the unsub thinks…”

“Yes,” Hod answered, looking at Dan directly for the first time, “Rob Ressler thought so, too.”

“You know,” Hod said, getting up and topping off his whiskey, “unsubs crave power and control; they just wall it off into one area of their lives. This process of reasserting power and control, though, eliminates the one witness to their great exhibit of dominance – the victim.”

“The nature of their crime thus becomes serial!” Dan realized, slapping his hand on the mantel.

“Correct,” Hod said, as he turned back around. Where his head had been, when he was seated in the chair, was a photo on Hod’s desk, of himself, Sebastian and a sandy-haired teenager.

“Your son?” Dan indicated the direction, with a slight movement of his head.

“Yes!” Hod raised his heavy eyebrows and looked behind him, picking up the frame, “Jon’s visiting his aunt this weekend.” He smiled for the first time that evening.

Dan looked wistful, “It’s a hard job, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Hod replied, solemn, setting the picture back down.

“Why did Cai bring me into this?” Dan wondered aloud.

Hod laughed, “That lothario with the curls, wearing coats redolent of Lord Dracula’s cape? The anti-avatars we’ll be hunting, are like the unsubs I mentioned, if not worse…”

The blood in Dan’s veins dried up. “Really?” he rasped.

“Of course,” Hod spread his arms wide, glass in one hand, cigar in another, “You didn’t think the spirit world was some sort of heaven, did you?”

Rain beat a staccato on the windowpane. Dan set his snifter down on the mantel and looked at his shoes on the 18th century rug. “He really pulled the rug out from under me, eh?” Dan said, glancing up, with a painful, rueful grin.

“The earth is shaky beneath everyone’s feet,” Hod intoned, as he reclined in the armchair once more.

Music

“In the Light” – Led Zeppelin

“Hold my Hand” – UNKLE

“Sweet Child O’ Mine” – Guns N’ Roses

“Diamonds are Forever” – Shirley Bassey

They went up to the rooftop of a nearby motel, the one where Cai was staying. A gentle whirring rose from the boiler turbines, down below, deep in the bowels of the building. Sleeping pigeons roosted under the water tower. The rain had stopped, and clouds floated in the night sky, reflected by giant puddles.

Cai had retrieved his long, black overcoat, which swirled around his thin legs. He pulled out a Camel cigarette and offered his lighter to Dan, who took it, and lit up.

The two men watched the retreating cumulus formation, illuminated by the veins of traffic below. Steam floated from thousands of dark rooftops, with myriad HVAC units, vents and tunnels.

Dan glanced at the Dracula-like creature in front of him. “You’re from out-of-town?” he muttered.

The lothario gave him a crafty, cryptic look, “You might say that.”

There was a density to him – that aristocratic nose, that lofty, sweeping brow – that spoke to him, that offered a weight, a depth. He felt himself drawn forward into this man’s orbit, like falling into the path of a black hole – or a runaway bullet train.

“Where did you say you were from?” Dan tried again.

“I didn’t,” the stranger guffawed.

“Excuse me?” Dan also laughed, but he was 100% serious. He really wanted to know.

“Originally, I am from London, but I came here from Seattle,” Cai began.

“Misty Seattle. Hmm,” Dan said, taking a drag on his cigarette.

“Yes; how well versed are you in the mystical arts?” the stranger gave him a significant look.

“The mystical what?” Dan asked, dumbfounded.

“The mystical. Arts.” Cai said, punctuating each word with an action: he dropped the butt and stepped on it – grinding it out – also taking one step closer to Dan, in the process. His massive, intellectual weight was all directed at Dan. The tall man loomed in front of him, looking down on him, his eyes narrowed in that oily, feline slant again.

Dan stepped back, confused, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cai stood still, as if his metaphysical weight were settling, like a dense ball of dark matter. He sighed, as if confessing something to himself for the first time, “I am the Lightning Avatar. I come from Atev. You’re aware of parallel dimensions, right?”

Dan, a high-energy particle physicist, nodded. He was still baffled, but something Cai said, rang true to him: a bell knell of recognition tolled inside his psyche, on the shores of his consciousness. He didn’t know why. It was a note, the clarion call, of destiny.

He decided he would address that later, and pushed on gamely, “So, what’s your job?”

“Anesthesiologist,” Cai smirked, with obvious relief. He seemed to be standing over Dan less, and the angles of his body opened into a more welcoming posture. Cai’s mien took on the very definition of ease. Dan allowed himself to come closer, into the circle of Cai’s cologne – into the circle of energy that vibrated and emanated from him.

“You would be,” Dan murmured, surprised at how close he was to this man. The nail edge of a crescent moon emerged from a cloud bank and towered over them both.