Back in the bookstore the stranger was handing him a book reminding him to start at the end and work backwards. Well aware this was how one read traditionally structured manga, Eric opens to the middle, defiant. Flipping through the pages at random, images move past, almost coming to life, printed words echoing somewhere. Memories intrude as though he had viewed all of it months before, and more than once. Feelings rise, the disappointment again, and envy. Ridiculous that a two-dimensional character could make him feel that way, but there it was. A wrong number, an errant wish, an ensuing circus of trials for one college student. But throughout she is by his side, supporting him in such a way that no matter how terrible things got, they just aren't all that bad. Somewhere in the middle is a frame filled by her face, gently smiling. This image moves, two-dimensionality fading as her features change from an artistic style to the reality flesh and blood in a way that strikes him as perfectly understandable.

"You're real."

A smile to warm even old, bed-ridden widowers. "Of course I am Eric-san."

Years of unfulfilled goals and visions of what life should be well up and overtake all reason. He remembers that for one person, it only took one wish.

"I wish..."

The smile becomes understanding, patient, sad. "I cannot grant you a wish."

He nods. He knows. "I do not qualify."

No answer. Something seizes his arm. He ignores it.

"Why?"

Still no answer except for the hint of tears in the goddess' eyes. He understands throughout and retreats from the part of him that asked the question. He feels smaller now. The tugging comes again. He knows now who it is that beckons him. He glimpsed her unsmiling face in the pages. She was holding an axe.

"It's ok. I know."

A harder tug. He turns from the goddess to confront another. She stares at him, impatience written on her features. "Let's go," she says. He's awake before he realizes that he's dreaming.

"Don't you ever do that to me again."

The woman kept her attention on something she was seeing in the side-view mirror.

"How do you address law enforcement personal?"

Eric finally realized that they were not moving. For just a second this worried him, then his anger returned. His hand found the door-latch and pulled. It didn't budge.

"This will end sooner if you answer my question."

More out of spite than any conscious plan to make things go wrong with the highway patrol officer he caught glimpse of in the rearview mirror, Eric said, "Pig. We call them pigs."He felt, rather than saw, the impatient, withering glance. He heard her roll down the window and slumped in his seat, yawning, aware that he was not playing the part of a kidnapping victim. He was thinking of the dream that he knew hadn't been a dream.

"Do you know why I pulled you over?"

"Yes," the woman said. "I was traveling at approximately thirty-two kilometers per hour over the posted speed limit."

Though one corner of his mouth twitched upward, Eric did not move his gaze from where it was set on the road ahead.

"That's great," said the still unseen officer, his tone dry. "Do you realize you were breaking the law and endangering yourself and other drivers?"

"I was in perfect control of the vehicle at all times. The probability of a collision with another—"

"License and registration please."

"I cannot provide these documents."

A moment's silence, then: "Please step out of the car."

Eric sighed. The game had gone on far enough. He decided to give the woman the information she had requested before she put a highway control officer to sleep right there on the road. He glanced to his right, saw the ocean, and corrected himself. They were on the freeway. The Pacific Coast Highway to be precise. He also noticed for the first time that it was near dusk. He rested his head against the headrest and closed his eyes.

"I'm afraid I cannot do that..."

"Officer," Eric added quietly.

"Officer," the woman finished without missing a beat.

He frowned, waiting for something. A command that must be obeyed.

"That wasn't a suggestion, miss. I'll ask you only—"

It came. "Officer, return to your vehicle. Return to the city."

"Tell your dispatcher that you let this one off with a warning," Eric added softly.

"And inform your dispatcher that you let me off with a warning."

Not being on the receiving end of the command, Eric found the voice jarring, though still he could not identify just why the way the woman was speaking now could be so compelling, demanding. He doubted the officer would disobey.

"Yes. Of course," the officer said. "You drive more carefully now."

"I will."

Eric waited for the car to be moving again before he spoke. "Don't do that to me again either."

"Do what?"

"Command me. Tell me what to do. Like you did earlier, and to that cop just now."

She did not look at him. "Should I ask nicely then?"

"You know what I mean," he said. The question, he thought, was whether he himself knew. How she had spoken to both him and the highway patrol officer seemed familiar. The dream he had just had came to mind.

"No. I don't."

"Right. That cop was this close to arresting you. You don't ever tell one 'no' when he asks you to get out of the car."

"I have other priorities."

"Yeah, like kidnapping me." This drew a cold look, but now Eric could see it differently. That undefined thing he had seen in her eyes earlier was still there, and not as fleeting. She still looked impatient and condescending, but now there seemed to be a reason behind it.

When the woman said nothing, he rested his head back against the headrest again and thought ahead. His captor did not appear to have a weapon of any kind, and despite her strength, she could not hold on to him forever. Sooner or later they'd need to stop for gas, and then, if a chance for escape presented itself, he could easily take it. A quick dash to the inside of a service station or convenience store was all he would need. Even if she dragged him out again, the ensuing scene might prompt the clerk to report to the police. Then if their license plate number got recorded by somewhere it would only take a few more stops before someone realized that a this one car kept getting pulled over. Or maybe sooner or later a cop would come by who could resist and the woman would end up putting to sleep right in view of the dashboard cam in his car.

After all, I resisted, Eric thought.

That thought brought him back to the present. Then the past.

How? Yes, there was something... that mirage...

He replayed the events, but found no reason for a mirage to be relevant; it had been a hot day, mirages were to be expected. And yet this one had been so fascinating that he had resisted the equally inexplicable impulse to climb in to the car when the woman had told him to.

What had followed made less sense. They had fled the scene as if being chased. He could remember being afraid just as he could remember being compelled by both mirage and car, but not why. Only once they had put some distance from the scene could he remember sanity returning to him. He had tried to escape, assuming he truly had it in him to leap from a speeding car. But then the inexplicable popped into his life again. She had put him to sleep.

What followed, the dream, was still a raw mental wound. The manga again, or rather a dream of it, fiction on the surface. Eric tried to get past the memory of the dream, but the more he tried to ignore it, the more it insisted and staying in his conscious mind.

Why should I fight it? If it's not fiction and she is who she appears...

The unbidden thought went a long way toward explaining everything that was happening and would give him a genuine reason to trust this woman who had taken him away from his life. But if the images were in fact from something he had once read, then he was now trapped in a car with someone crazy enough to play an exceedingly mad and clever hoax on him, which probably went as far as to have planted what might be a perfectly common graphic novel, or series of them, in his possession and then drugging him so that he was without a clear memory of reading them.

He admitted to himself that both explanations were absurd. A goddess protecting him from a "mirage" or a very thorough conspiracy waged against him. He was not special enough to merit that kind of attention from either.

His heart sank a little then, into bitterness rather than despair. Even extraordinary events left him feeling worthless and mundane.

Helpless, he let the memories run their course, reading a dream from start to finish. At their end he looked at the woman beside him for a long moment. He could place her now, or at least a stylized vision of her, last seen fighting something that looked like a cross between a slug, a lizard, and a lobster.

"What is it?" she asked, her eyes never leaving the road.

"What's your name?"

There, a stiffening in her shoulders, a subtle tightening of her hands on the steering wheel. Eric guessed she was about to lie to him.

"Linda."

Softly, "Bullshit."

"Whether you believe me or not is not my concern."

Interesting twist to a hoax... lying about who she appears to be, and all but denying that there was anything unique about some of the things she had done.

The hoax theory had worn out its welcome.

"Sure it is. Things would go a lot better if I cooperated."

No response.

"And I'm not going to feel like cooperating if you're not up front with me."

He reached for a name, a nickname. He knew her proper name, but wanted something that he suspected would get a greater reaction from her, something he had seen get a greater reaction from her.

"One winged angel," he said.

The change was immediate, subtle, but he saw every emotion. Anger. Frustration. Confusion. Fear. And maybe something that might evolve into relief if given enough time.

Without warning the woman, the goddess, pressed down onto the break and pulled the car abruptly into a small lot of shop. Eric saw a small restaurant, a tiny general store, and what was nearly a shack selling fishing supplies. However, he believed the important thing was the payphone in front of the restaurant. The woman pulled to a stop right in front of it.

"Stay in the car."

Eric followed her out and stood while she dialed a number he could not follow on the payphone. When she spoke, it was in a language he was certain existed nowhere on earth. Tension flowed through her as she spoke, a tightening of the grip, a stiffening of her posture. At one point she uttered something that sounded akin to the electronic squeal that had somehow put him to sleep, and a moment later her tension peaked into a dreadful stillness. As he watched, the payphone's handset frosted over, and frost began to creep back down its cord. He took a step back, chastising himself for ever thinking this situation a prank and realizing that he was in territory beyond his comprehension. All he knew about the goddess before him was still in the form of drawings in his mind, drawings that gave only a superficial account of what he was seeing. He felt like running away, not from the goddess Rind, but from this total upset of his life that was now well under way.

A sharp plastic sound drew him from his dawning panic. The terse conversation was over. The goddess was facing him now, the payphone behind her looking like any one might find in Minnesota in January, sheathed in a mold of fuzzy ice, drawing stares from passersby.

"Get in the car. We're leaving."

Though she had not used what Eric now remembered was called something like "command speech", he complied at once. He was inside and seatbelted before she was even back in the car. He waited until they were moving again before speaking.

"You know this is going to ruin what little I have of a life."

The goddess said nothing. He watched her face to see if his complaint in any way compounded the frustration and anger he had seen in her face while she was using the phone.

"And it's going to worry a lot of people. My father. My best friend. I was going meet him this weekend."

Still she kept her eyes straight ahead. Eric's gaze flicked to the steering wheel. No sign of frost.

"I'm going to lose my job for sure. My apartment. Probably my car."

"It cannot be helped."

Eric nodded to himself. "Sure. But one thing can. You can tell me what's going on so I can at least know why the life I know is over."

"Indeed." Rind paused as traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway thickened some.

"Approximately three days ago a member of a faction of gods and demons calling themselves the Voice of Earth came into contact with you. My superiors now suspect that this individual planted information in your mind. At this time the nature of this information is no longer unknown, but as for its extent, I will attempt to ascertain this later."

"You're not going in my mind." Apparently a god or demon had already done this, and again Eric had the sensation of being the victim of a cruel hoax, only now one of a different kind.

Before Rind had seemed to relax as she spoke, but now she tensed slightly.

"I am not authorized to do a full read. I am only permitted to learn what I can verbally."

"Right," he said, frowning. Something didn't feel right with what she was telling him. The hoaxed feeling remained.

"This information is relevant to certain plans the Voice have for humankind. A demon by the name of Itzumishita wishes these to fail. Because you are involved in these plans, Itzumishita sent a beast, a hitokui, to destroy you."

"That mirage?"

"That was its cover. Camoflauge. It was calling to you. Appearing in its true from would have likely broken the spell."

"No, that was up to you." He rubbed his head. "It was calling me?"

"Correct. I could not command you at that time."

So I didn't resist, he thought. He said something else entirely, something that brought the tension back so fast that he thought for sure the steering wheel, column, and dashboard would be sheathed in ice.

"Calling me like an angel-eater calls angels?"

Rind's words were clipped. "An adequate comparison."

Though there was no ice, Eric moved away from the subject somewhat.

"So why didn't you just kill it? The hitokui?"

"I am not authorized to engage it in battle."

"Why?"

"Unknown."

"You could kill it, right?"

"Yes."

"So somebody told you to come ruin my life when you could just swat this thing."

"The implication was that killing it would lead to a more dangerous situation."

Eric rolled his eyes and came to the conclusion that she was either lying about her ability to kill the hitokui, which he doubted, or the real reason she couldn't was a sensitive issue.

"Why me? No wait. That's unknown too, right?"

"Unknown beyond what I have already stated."

"Great. I don't suppose you know where we're going?"

Again he earned an angered look for the goddess. "North. The hitokui prefers warm climates."

"I hate to break it to you, but this is California in the summer. It's not going to be cold anywhere."

"It will be sufficient. To remain in stealth mode the hitokui must have exposure to at least five hours in temperatures exceeding 82 degrees Fahrenheit. Below this it is visible. Below 65 degrees it is sluggish."

A small voice in the back of his mind told Eric to drop the subject, but the question came out anyway. "So at what temperature does it die?"

"Unknown."

He wasn't so sure. The image of the payphone sheathed in frost came back to him, as did the anger in her tone while she spoke to whomever she had called. He would be surprised if cold didn't kill the thing, and perhaps it was a simple thing for the goddess to freeze the monster solid. All the more insult to injury then to have to protect him from some minor menace.

Eric sighed and looked out his window. He was so beneath her it was no wonder she had been so short with him. But rather than making him feel sympathetic he felt worthless instead, more a burden than something worth saving, and no less angry to have been put in this situation.

Night had fallen by the time they drew near to the outskirts of San Luis Obispo. Bored now with looking out the window at the moonlit landscape, Eric turned to look at Rind. The instrumentation panel of the old car could not illuminate her face.

"We should stop."

"For what purpose?"

"Eric sighed and held up a hand to count off his reasons."

"One, I'm tired of sitting in this car. Two, I have to take a piss. Three, I'm hungry."

He paused while reason number four came to him.

"Four, I'll need a change of clothes and stuff for this little roadtrip of yours. Five... I don't sleep so well sitting up."

"When not actively pursuing you the hitokui can use its energy to track you."

If ever a person could utter a lie and realize she it was a lie in one breath, what Rind said would have sounded just like that.

A bank stood to one side of the freeway. On it's pillar-like sign a digital display showed the temperature.

"Look at that," Eric said. "Three degrees above sluggish. I think you know it won't get near us tonight."

The goddess was silent for a long moment. Eric thought the air in the car was getting colder.

"You are correct. We will stop."

"Great," Eric said. And because he could not resist another quip, "Is there any reason to believe this thing can track me by my credit card?"

"Clarify."

"Uh, if I use it, can it...? Oh never mind." He hadn't thought she'd take him seriously.

"That will not be necessary. I have been provided with the appropriate paper currency to ensure your needs are met."

How about my need for a normal life? His mouth said something else entirely.

"Counterfeit? Do you have any idea how much trouble we'll get into using that?"

"You doubt Heaven's ability to duplicate such a simple thing?"

"Point taken."

"Heaven will pay its debts."