Chapter 8
I squeezed into a back table at Gigi’s, where I could see the front entrance and still duck out the back exit. First In Front lounged at an empty table across from me, invisible to all but me, still as a tree. On the sidewalk in front, Tigre sat, her back to the window, an invisible guardian; Burt circled overhead—I felt his watchful presence circling.
It was good to know that my protective spirits were on guard.
I hit redial and after six or seven rings, Sabrina answered. She was smoking a cigarette and took a long draw before she said, “You don’t mess around, do you, Marius?”
“What do you mean, babe?”
“You’ve got an extreme case of extreme addiction. Adrenaline junkie.” Another long draw on her cigarette. “Maybe you were a biker in another life.”
“Could be,” I said. “Was I the biker or the bitch?”
She laughed that deep throaty laugh. “You could never be my bitch, honey. Though I’d let you try it out.”
I felt her shift gears and drop into an altered consciousness as she channeled the information she’d found for me. “You have a complex situation, Marius. I’ll try and keep it simple. I know how you get confused. You’re right about past lives…there’s history here. An old curse. We can unravel it, it’s having a hard time sticking to you anyway. You’ve fought this sorcerer. It’s a he. You’ve fought him before. Several lifetimes. Black hair, pale skin, dark eyes, square head, right?”
“Yeah. That’s him.”
“You should see him in a Nazi uniform.”
“He play dress up?”
She laughed. “Could be. But he was one in the war. Goes further back, too. Atlantis. He’s a Son of Belial.”
I sighed. “Couldn’t be easy, could it?”
“No, baby,” she said. “That’s the lot of a Son of the Light.”
Yes. It is.
“Go on,” I said.
“You’ve thwarted him over and over. He’s obsessed. By you and how you’ve beaten him time and again. Every time he thinks he’s beaten you down, you fool him. Again and again. You know that great gift you have? For pissing the bad guys off? You’ve mocked him and defeated him again and again and again…so he’s obsessed with you. He gets away with it with so many others…but not with you. He’s so full of hatred, the need for control, he takes pleasure in hurting…he’s a bad one.”
“Demon?”
“Yes. He’s willingly possessed. Made a bargain, they’re bound together in an ancient pact. That’s where his strength comes from. It’s also his weakness. He’s a control freak, so he struggles against the demon’s agenda while at the same time playing along. That’s his dilemma. He’s not yet perfectly possessed, may never be. He thinks he’s smarter than everybody including his demon. But in this, you, they both want the same thing. You. Your downfall. For him it’s personal. He comes back lifetime after lifetime to get even. But he can’t, so he keeps coming back. The demon? I didn’t get too close…it’s a bad one.”
She took another long drag on her cigarette. I heard her exhale slowly. “You’re high on the Dark Forces hit list, Marius. Because of your Work. How many souls have you rescued? How many have you brought to the Light? Each one of them is a failure for the Dark. And there’s a Being that keeps track. So the score sheet is getting unbalanced, and they sent a heavy hitter for you. Wouldn’t be the first time, if I recall.”
“What’s the Nazi thing?”
“He was there,” she said. “In the concentration camps. An officer. I saw that clearly. In his last incarnation. The sick pleasure of that is fresh in his mind. He loved being in control, able to hurt others whenever he wanted to. But he died. Badly. Terrified and alone. And that, my friend, brings us to the Cabal.”
“Oh, great,” I said. “The news just gets better and better.”
“We’ve both run across them before, honey,” she said. “Once you’re in the Machine they’ll never forget about you. They hate shamans. All of us. Because they can’t control us and what we do on behalf of the Light. More of the Sons of Belial are incarnating; the stage is being set here in America for an epic replay of Atlantis. So where do they end up? Banking, politics, cops, military and spooks, computer companies…What are they doing? Same things they did before. Manipulate, confuse, muddle…they’re setting the stage for the final showdown between the Sons of the Light and the Sons of Belial. And they all work with or for the Cabal.”
“Military. Intelligence. Law enforcement,” I said heavily.
“And armies of snitches,” she said. “Legions of the possessed or controlled. This one must be strong with a very powerful demon if he can remote control four humans.”
“At least one of them seemed conscious of it.”
“His soul was fighting it, then?”
“Yeah,” I said. I remembered the look of desperate fear, the violation apparent in every line of the man’s face. My Work was to prevent that, to confront it and stop it. And I felt rage rise in me as the attack on me had, at least in that man’s part, been forced into an otherwise innocent bystander.
“What else, sister?”
“What else?” she said. “It’s not clear. To me, anyway. There’s always a cloud around you; your spirits protect you with their shielding and it diffuses your presence. You’re hard to find and fix unless there’s a positive connection. You shrug off any attempts otherwise.”
“Were you able to see through to the outcome?”
“With you there’s always two paths, Marius. The red and the black. You walk the razor’s edge, like we all do, but you more than most. You’ll be tempted. You have to be aware of your reactiveness. Your desire to lash out. It’s your style, you know? Kick the cart over, piss on it, set it on fire.”
She laughed, coughed. “Personally, I love that about you. But it pisses people—or entities—off, and keeps them pissed off. Not good when you’re dealing with people who come back time and again to try and even the score.”
“I work on compassion,” I said.
“I know you do,” she said. “I know. You put it into action. It’s not an abstract principle or idea with you. You practice it. It’s your path. You’ve got that whole Bodhisattva thing going and you bring that energy into the world. It’s a gift. People are grateful you do it…most wouldn’t or couldn’t deal with the things you have to deal with every day. You get big power, you get big challenges. You work on compassion, but you have a fiery temper. Your work is to heal and protect, but you love a good fight. So there you have it.”
“How do I take him out, Sabrina?”
“Do what you do best, Marius. You won’t be able to depossess him. He won’t give his permission. But you can draw him and his demon out and in the confrontation, the Law of the One gives you the absolute right to self-defense…you can do whatever you need to in defense of yourself…or others. He’s coming after you in any way he can. He’s coming. In every possible way.”