"The Earthstoppers"

Morrisville, Pennsylvania – 1984

Blueberries usually weren't her kind of thing.

But then again the gooey slice of pie on her plate was probably one of the finest foods she'd had the pleasure of eating in years. Not that the little greasy spoon she was holed up in was anything special, mind you, but their dessert menu certainly beat the usual offerings a guttersnipe like her, living in the choking sprawl of the big city, could hope to get her hands on.

Whip was splurging a little with the remaining money from the dead priest's wallet, spurred on by the unsettling electricity of her nerves. That and the rancidly cloying nectar of rotgut whiskey coursing through her veins. She still had more than half of a small bottle of booze wedged down the side of her pants, courtesy of a very inattentive liquor store clerk on her way out of Philadelphia.

She'd desperately wanted a drink after her little 'chat' with Black Hat, no question. But she waited to swipe the bottle until after she formulated her little plan. That, after all, was when she needed the drink.

Whip was fairly certain that she'd never see Philly again. In fact, with the odds she was facing, she figured she'd be dead by day's end.

Again her eyes wandered up from her little corner booth towards the glass windows spanning the diner entrance. Outside the door, not ten feet from the entrance, a worn pay phone rested on a rusting metal frame, the only lively thing about it being a spiffy new 'Bell Atlantic' logo slapped over the old Ma Bell symbol. It was a funny mismatch— a decrepit old phone with such a shiny new sticker on it— and it really caught the eye.

Might as well be eye-catching.

That phone would probably be what killed her, after all.

Whip had no interest involving herself with any more of this 'immortal' bullshit. She'd rather forget the past few weeks of her life altogether, starting with her decision to jump that unremarkable looking little white boy in an alley.

"It was the dog collar, y'know," she mumbled to herself, picking at the pie on her plate. "Weird. Wrong. Shoulda told you something, you dummy..."

It should have told her she was walking right into one of her brother's 'Tales to Astonish'.

But she figured she deserved that much, at least. What was the word those turban-headed religious folks down at the temple would use? Whip didn't pay much mind to their tenets; she was more interested in the free meals they offered. They were alright as religious folks went, even if their meals didn't have a lick of meat in them. In spite of the conventional wisdom Whip had made a career out of being both a beggar and a chooser. For the turban-heads, however, she could make an exception.

So what was that word they used?

"Karma," she mumbled to herself, again.

That was it: it was 'karmic' that she should walk right onto the pages of one of her brother's corny little comic stories. Only this one wasn't all that corny. And after seeing that bundle of raging insanity burning behind Black Hat's eyes she didn't feel like she was working her way through a comic, anymore.

This was a horror story.

And she had no interest involving herself with it, anymore.

The only thing left to tie her into this whole sorry mess was that ungrateful little bastard. Twice she'd saved his bacon (and once she'd endangered it; well, nobody's perfect) and for her trouble she got left to her own devices, alone, only to be picked up by a psychotic monster like Black Hat.

She set her fork down and gripped her shoulders with her hands. The unpleasant particulars of her little 'chat' with that animal came rushing back into her brain: the knife against her eye, the sword at her throat, him circling her like a hound prepared for the kill, humiliating her, and those awful, evil threats, how he seemed to feed off her animal fear.

Whip liked to think it took a lot to frighten her, but what that bastard did to her went beyond 'fear'. It was something else: something more primal than that.

A violation, but without any 'violation'.

Did that make sense? She didn't really think so, but then she still didn't know what to think, because every time she thought back to that moment, when she was alone and helpless with that psycho— when he had her under his complete and total control— was like an electric shock down her spine. When she relived that moment she could only relive her fear.

She massaged her shoulders, staring down at the remaining gooey chunks of blueberry on her plate. In her half-drunken haze she muttered a line of foolish nonsense to herself.

"Not all rape needs rape to be 'rape'."

She thought it sounded stupid even as she said it, and she quickly put it out of her mind: the ramblings of a boozed-up young girl.

Then again, from the mouths of drunken babes...

Penance was the only thing she could find in her heart to still care about, and he'd abandoned her like a busted knife grip. She resented that. No, that's too mild. She hated him for it. Hated his self-righteous belief that suffering was his 'destiny', even when he wasn't the one doing the suffering. Hated his go-it-alone martyr's attitude. Hated him for leaving her to someone like Black Hat.

Hated that she was left feeling so vulnerable and afraid, like she'd never felt before in her life.

Hated that, in spite of all that, she was still going to do anything she could to keep Penance out of Black Hat's hands. No matter how much she resented the boy there wasn't a person on God's green earth who deserved that.

Yes, that was the reason. Simple and straightforward.

Again Whip looked outside at the pay phone. It would only take one dial: a simple 911 call. All she had to do was report a knife-wielding little kid running amok in the area and give a basic description. Right now Black Hat would be doing everything in his power to look for Penance, and that had to include monitoring the local yokels' police band.

He'd come to investigate. He'd have to.

And then Whip would slit his God-damned throat when he did, and finish him off with his own foppish little umbrella sword to boot.

Of course she almost certainly wouldn't manage any of that. He'd catch her, and then most likely kill her.

"Karma," she again muttered.

If her destiny was to suffer and die for this cause then so be it. For all that little asshole's assholishness, it was still better for Whip to risk her neck than the kid to risk capture. She only risked dying, after all.

Right now that seemed to be the least of Penance's worries.

The fat, bespectacled waitress walked by Whip's booth, flashing the girl yet another disapproving scowl. Seemed to be her hobby. No doubt she'd be accounting for the silverware before Whip left. She'd probably account for the salt shaker, too. The woman toddled over to a table across the diner, putting on a more sunny face as she asked the man sitting there if he wanted a coffee refill. He was reading the newspaper but at her query politely set it aside and accepted the refill. The waitress again walked past Whip's booth as she returned behind the counter, again flashing a little sneer, then put away the coffee and started humming along with the tinny radio behind her as she wiped down the countertop.

Yeah, she'd probably count the individual salt grains in the shaker while she was at it.

The man at the table was perhaps in his mid-20s, tall but extraordinarily lean; his body filled out an immaculately well-tailored black suit, but it was clearly adorned with padding, especially in the shoulders, to give him a more 'proportional' frame. His face was long and thin, and his beaming blue eyes spaced a bit too far apart for comfort, although that might be more a reflection of how lean and thin the rest of his body was in comparison. His hair was stringy and sparse, dangling from his head in unkempt clumps despite his obvious use of conditioning products.

Whip knew a thing or two about hair care, and this man appeared to have tried every trick in the book to tame that reedy bird's nest, without success.

She was ready to go back to her own thoughts when the diner door swung open and in walked a man wearing a nearly identical, immaculate black suit, complete with matching black tie over a crisp white shirt: a dead ringer for the seated man. He was approximately the same age as the other man but his build was more substantial and his face of 'healthier' proportions, with a set of wide black eyes over a stubby, fleshy nose. If the first man looked sickly and gaunt— no matter how healthy he might actually be— this one at least looked 'robust'.

The seated man acknowledged the newcomer with a smile, motioning to the chair opposite. The black-eyed man took a seat, waving away the waitress as she prepared to come out from behind the counter, then he leaned forward over the table with clasped hands. The other man retained his relaxed, laid-back posture. For all their casualness they both had a strange, 'artificial' air about them. It was remarkable how they could both look so in place and yet out of place at the same time. Was it the suits? Did either man look like he belonged in such bespoke fashion? No. Whip didn't think so. Somehow they looked like ranch hands in cattleman's clothes, if that made any sense.

In the back of her mind Whip remembered one of her brother's fanciful stories: this one was about aliens, and something about a group of well-dressed men in black suits who kept those aliens secret. They also did things that one wouldn't expect a person wearing a nice suit to do...

Or maybe she'd just found D.B. Cooper. And his brother, no less.

"Diùlt!" The gaunt man chuckled, resting his arm over an adjacent empty chair's back. "Our wandering brother. Never thought I'd see you out here on the new home turf."

"'New'," Diùlt mumbled. "The Aurelia's been the cathair since we were both in grade school."

"Less time than the wink of an eye." The gaunt man mockingly winked at the other. "But then all good things must come to an end; we're already scheduled to strip out the finery of the cathair and then bring the workers in to finish building the damn slum house. Eh, the Trenton politicians are at their wit's end with us anyway, 'campaign contributions' or not."

"And you're sorry to see the place go, Measan?"

The gaunt man shrugged, scratching at the stubble on his narrow chin.

"Well, obviously our first lesson is to avoid nostalgia. But then one can't help getting a little attached after so many years, can they? Eh, I've seen the new place— it damn-near scrapes the sky, and it's got a lovely view of Central Park— so out with the old." Measan chuckled; it was an unstable, 'sissy' sound.

"So it's true," Diùlt stared down at the silver watch on his hand. "We move to the endgame..."

Measan held up a finger.

"It's never time for the 'endgame' until the lesser pieces are cleared from the board. We happen to have one 'lesser piece' left, but then it's also a greater piece. Perhaps the most important, even."

Whip was only half-listening to the men's conversation, staring down at her lap and absently flapping Father Kenaz's wallet open and closed. All that changed, however, with Diùlt's next words.

"And this FBI agent can be trusted?"

Measan shrugged.

"My understanding is that he can be trusted to not be trusted, which is as good as being trustworthy, really. Better, in fact. He should at least be predictable."

"And it's him? We know it's actually him?" Diùlt asked. "The child, Penance?"

Whip flapped shut the wallet, catching her breath. She quickly willed herself to release it, desperately trying to avoid acting suspicious. That was difficult when every nerve in her body seemed to spark to life at once. She kept her eyes on her lap, and her ears on the two men.

"We do."

"You say this FBI agent is not trustworthy, but—"

"But we know it's the boy—"

"But how can we be certain—"

"I do not question the keenness of the Banrigh," Measan's jovial tone was suddenly replaced by a cold and mechanical grumble. "With respect: perhaps you've wandered too long out there, Diùlt. Perhaps your resolve has weakened in your time away from the cathair?"

Diùlt took exception to that, drawing a slow breath before responding. His voice was also cold, but laced with a quiet anger rather than mechanical dogma.

"With respect: I'm not the one looking to make amends for the failings of my ances—"

Measan rapped one fist on the tabletop, startling both Whip and the woman behind the counter. Diùlt didn't so much as flinch. Measan flashed a shit-eating grin to the waitress and mouthed a silent apology; she eventually went back to cleaning, still humming along with the music from the radio.

After this outburst the men's voices were more subdued and Whip couldn't hear all of their words. Eventually Diùlt leaned back from the table, matching Measan's posture, and he waved an impatient hand.

"I do not question the Banrigh, of course," Diùlt said. "I only want to know what it is we're expected to do, and how this FBI agents wishes to proceed."

"All I know is that he's the ultimate key to the plan," Measan said. "And at the moment the child Penance is near. Very near. Our task is not to engage and capture, but to guide. We're to put pressure on the prey, Diùlt: seek his potential routes and refuges, then spook him out and away from them, keeping him from 'going to ground', if you like. Even if we never see him once in our patrols he will likely see us, being the wiry little animal he is, and we will influence his movements."

Diùlt smirked, again toying with the silver watch on his wrist.

"I'll admit: I wouldn't be particularly keen on having to take the child down. Not this one, certainly..."

"I would," Measan's voice was again cold. He got to his feet and tossed some bills on the tabletop. "He's special prey, perhaps, but he's prey, nonetheless."

Diùlt got to his feet as well, giving Measan a noncommittal shrug.

"You damn him with faint praise, I think."

"Let's just get out there and damn him, period. Shall we?"

The men moved for the door. As they passed Whip's booth Measan took note of the girl for the first time, surprised that anyone was sitting there—in the girl's slumped state her head barely came up to the rim of the booth— but then he scoffed with irritated indifference, following his compatriot outside.

A void followed in their wake; Whip was so focused on their conversation that she'd blocked out all other noises. Now they slowly trickled back: the tick of a clock on the wall behind her, the high-pitched squeak of the waitress's washcloth on the countertop and the tinny drone of that radio behind the counter.

Fleetwood Mac belted out the chorus of "Go Your Own Way" with peppy aplomb. Every note seemed to be a mocking derision of Whip's current predicament.

Whip again flipped out the wallet, but fumbled with it and dropped it on the floor. When she retrieved it she found a curious thing peeking out, hidden between leather flaps. It was a folded piece of paper, and it was pinched out of sight by that little safety pin that had been holding the bills inside.

Whip took out the safety pin and examined the folded paper. There were two words scrawled in precise handwriting on the front, tiny but legible.

"For Penance."

She examined the writing with hazy confusion; all her mind was still focused on the men in black and this new problem in her lap.

Well, no: it wasn't in her lap, exactly. It was in Penance's lap.

Right?

Fleetwood Mac continued belting out the chorus of the song, and as they did the girl began unconsciously bobbing her head with the beat.

She could go her own way, after all.

And she would.

She knew exactly where 'her way' would take her, too.

She hastily crammed the paper back into the wallet and took out money for the bill. When the waitress again walked past her Whip gripped the woman's apron, making the woman glare down at her with renewed vitriol. But the pleading look in Whip's cinnamon eyes softened that glare a bit.

"Ma'am, please: do you know where the nearest Catholic Church is?"

X

X

X

At a brisk jog St. Anthony's wasn't but 15 minutes away from the greasy spoon.

Whip made it there in 10.

There were no formal services in the rotund, white-bricked building, but a smattering of people knelt in the main worship space. They dutifully prayed before the altar, which was empty save for a glitzy, golden device that held a piece of their fancy bread at its center.

Penance wasn't among the kneelers, and she didn't expect him to be.

She checked the restrooms outside the worship space, then went up to the second floor of the building, which was all but deserted. Past the parish offices were what looked like rooms for religious education. All of them were empty, and Whip raced back into the main corridor, ready to run out back and check the cemetery.

As she approached the large glass window on the second floor she stopped, holding her breath in her throat.

Below her, down in the otherwise deserted little street, a boy ran full-tilt for the church.

And she recognized him.

When Penance looked up at the window above him, coming to a sudden and awkward halt at the curb beside a ritzy silver car, he recognized her too.

A flood of emotion threatened to spill out from the girl: anger, resentment, spite. Betrayal, even. And with all those emotions bubbling up inside her she looked down upon the boy with the only expression that came to mind; it was as instinctual as breathing.

She smiled, sighing in relief, resting her forehead against the window.

Penance, meanwhile, looked up at her with that same relieved smile, and the moment seemed to last a lifetime.

Until the boy's body convulsed and his eyes bugged, rolling over into the back of his head.

A man walked up behind Penance; with effortless precision he thrust something deep into the base of the boy's skull. Penance immediately went limp in the man's arms. The man opened the back door of that silver car with his free hand and deftly tossed the limp boy inside. The handle of an icepick jutted from the nape of Penance's neck.

Whip shrieked, pounding the glass with both fists. The man looked up at her. He was dressed in a trendy black sport coat and charcoal pants, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses that obscured most of his features. The only thing she could make out for certain was his smile, and it curled up with bemused interest as he observed Whip freaking out above him.

The man held up one hand and flipped his fingers about, playfully exposing a small white card. He casually tossed it to the ground, motioning to it with his head before rounding the vehicle and opening the driver's side door.

Whip bounded down the church stairs and burst out into the sunshine, racing for the curb. She was just in time to see the silver car round the corner, turn on to the main street, accelerate to speed and then disappear into traffic.

She had no emotion to spare, so Whip merely fell to her knees at the side of the street, hanging her head. Between her knees the man's white card glowed in the sunlight.

And inside her chest her heart dropped like a sinking stone.