Nano Day 30 - Titled: The Pan Aspect

[joegoda]

by the official Nanowrimo counter. I did it!

Official NaNoWriMo 2007 Winner


For Capi and the Readers. The challenge is done, but the story has ONE more chapter. I'm pooped. You get it tomorrow.



"Angelina." I limped my way back to where she sat, dejected and surrendered to her fate. I slid down the wall to sit next to her, stroked her hair, and then held her hand. She refused to look at me, and just kept staring at the ground.

"Angelina, look at me." I pressed her hand harder, but still more gently than I've held a rose petal or a butterfly. "Look at me."

She turned her face to me, her brown eyes almost gray in her resignation. I've seen that look. It's been in the face of my father, it was in the face of my baby brother, in my oldest brother and my mother. They were the eyes of someone who knew they were going to die, and decided it was to be so.

"Angelina," I said, gently and firmly, "we are not going to die. I know this. Trust me on this."

A spark, small and hidden came back and briefly flared in her sad, brown eyes. But it faded quickly. She sighed, the breath causing her breasts to rise and fall. It wasn't arousing. It was just... sad. She turned her face away again.

"How can you know this?" she asked. "My father is very powerful. There isn't anything he wouldn't do. I just never thought he'd kill..."

I stopped her, speaking louder and probably harsher than I had wanted. "Angelina, your father is an idiot and a braggart." She looked up at me quickly. I nodded. "It's true. He's tried to kill me twice." I hadn't told her about the dreams. So I did.

Now, granted, that trap outside of Sprague River may have just been a natural phenomena. It's entirely possible that it was just a combination of vibrations, mixed with my heightened senses at the time that pulled me in to a pit of total black, but somehow I doubt it. In each of daddy's attack, Angelina wasn't harmed. In each attack, Angelina wasn't even involved. The only one where he might have been trying to do something was the one back in Winnemucca, and there's no evidence he was even there during that scuffle.

Her brothers were pretty darned useless against me too. If they were as powerful as Angelina had led me to believe, they would have just swatted me like a fly and left me stranded in my dream. But they didn't. In real life, bad guys don't stand there and talk about their evil plans. They don't brag and give you time to come up with a plan to save your hide. Bad guys will just kill you and shove you into a fifty gallon drum and go on about their business.

Her brother's magic was pretty much as useless as their father.

Even here I didn't see any example of serious witchery or magic or hoodoo. The scariest thing, besides the fact that James Thomas was insane, was Sabu, and he was just... different. The deadliest thing I came across here was my own crippling fear. Michael came in a fast second. He punched hard.

It's amazing how fast a person can think when they feel like they might actually die. I was lucky. I knew that I wouldn't. I've been dead, twice. I've seen the specter of death come for my father, and my two brothers. Ol' Spooky was no where even near this house, that I could see. Unless you count grandma over there, and he already came for her long ago. Besides, I've seen my real death, and that particular even was a long, long way away.

I told her everything that I was thinking, every belief I held about magic and how it works and everything. I was probably repeating some of what I told her on the road, but I didn't care. It didn't matter. I was aiming for two things. Hope and life, and where there is hope, there is life.

"Your father is a charlatan and a bully. He's a fraud." She looked up at me with something new, maybe hope, maybe fear, but at least it wasn't resignation. "He's just an insane coot that believes he knows what he's doing, and will do what ever he believes is right to get it done. He should run for President."

"Oh, he's got some real abilities," I nodded. "He can dream walk and he can create a psychic shield and who knows what other stuff, but they are little things. Small stuff. Parlor tricks. Maybe when he was young playing with LSD, he fell into the dream walking thing, got a bit of taste for the power he had and decided that it was enough. I don't know."

"But look at it this way. I pried open his little mind trick on me with a tiny little spell I made up as a child, and I made that spell up after reading a Science Fiction book. It's a cool spell, but it is certainly not something to challenge a God with. I beat him easily in that dream of hell he stuck me in, with your help." I smiled at her and pressed her hand a bit more, now that she was starting to come back to life. Words, words of reason, words that sounded sure and positive. That is how you dig your way out of the pit of despair.

"It was with YOUR help, Angelina. The way I figure it, you dad, your brothers... they might have something, but you are the real deal. You have a Goddess inside of you. What have they got? A few minor parlor tricks. While they're playing three-card Monte on the streets of Jersey, you could be playing the Casinos in Vegas." I smiled.

I could feel the jazz coming on, and I was suspecting I was starting to glow. I hope so, because I saw it reflected in her eyes. She had started to smile, too. It was small, and it was still rather far around the bend, but it was there. Grandfather Chester was a tent minister. Before she died, my Grandmother used to tell me that I reminded her of him in the way I spoke, and Grandfather Chester, it was said, could sell snow balls to Eskimos in December.

"While they're playing Chase the Spirit in dreamworld, your Goddess has the ability to talk to animals, you have the ability to toss flaming rocks. You, my love, are the real deal. You don't just say you're a Goddess, you are a Goddess."

Angelina was smiling fully now. Her eyes contained most of what she had before this death nonsense. "Did you just call me your love?" Her smile turned into a grin.

"Huh?" Add it to the list.

"You did!" She clapped her hands. "You just called me your love!"

"Angelina," I coughed, "You know what I meant."

"You called me your love, Chester! You can't deny it, now." She stood up and placed her hands on her hips. It was a lovely sight, seeing her standing there, naked, looking all alive and all. Of course, it wasn't the time, and she wasn't the place. "Admit it to me. Tell me that you love me!"

Ah, hell. I stood up too, so that I wouldn't have the distraction of a naked her, and looked her straight in the eyes. "Yes, Angelina, I love you. I wouldn't be here in this jam if I didn't. I love lots of people that I love. I love all those people that I've met that are decent and good and just and deserving. I even love some that don't deserve it. I'm masochistic like that."

I don't think she heard anything past yes.

"But that's not really the point right now," I told her. "The point right now is to either get out of here before your brothers come back, or be ready for them when they do." I reached up and very gently, trying to be as platonic as possible, placed my hand on her upper arm. "Can I assume you aren't ready to die, yet?"

She nodded that incredibly disconcerting nod of hers. Internally I sighed. Would that I were younger, would that... well, would a lot of things. The world is built on woulda beens and shoulda beens.

"No dying today," I said to her goofy, grinning face. "That's a good thing. Now, would you like to help me get out of here?"

She looked around, and I think it was the first time she noticed she was naked. "Oh!" she said, and tried to cover herself with her hands.

"Honey, you're lovely and a great distraction, but please stop that." I had to put my hands on her shoulders to get my point across. "Naked is how we're born. And the more you focus on that, the less you are able to focus on the task at hand. Yes, I could stand here all day and watch you bounce around like that, and yes I'm a gross old guy with gray hair and a potbelly, but that isn't helping. So sit!" I pushed her down to the floor to sit with me.

"I'm going to do something that is, potentially, very dangerous." I looked at her from my cross-legged pose, trying to be casual. The more casual I felt, the more casual she would feel. I was, in this situation, the Alpha Dog. She would follow my lead.

"I need you to sit across from me and hold my hands." She moved until she was in position. "Knees touching, please. It's important."

And really, it was. Like wires in a circuit, if they don't have as much contact as possible, things wouldn't work right. Angelina butt walked a step until her young flawless knees were touching my old wrinkled ones. She started to grab my hands as if we were lovers, that clench fisted type of hand holding, but I stopped her.

"No, honey," I told her, "just turn your palms down and place them on top of mine." She did as I instructed.

"What are we doing?" She asked. It was a perfectly reasonable question. When you have two naked people in a room, sitting with their knees touching and ones hands are laying on top of the others, the first thing I would ask is "What are you doing?"

The truth is, I didn't quite know. This was a part of that hidden knowledge I got from the globe. It only comes when I need it, and I don't know where it was before then. The idea came to me when I first realized that I was in a hopeless situation, but refused to believe the situation was hopeless. When faced with no positive outcome, I start looking to make a new path. I'm lucky. I have a little golden guardian angel somewhere, that left me with a whole map of new paths.

As I spoke, explaining what we were, and what I was going to do, I felt the knowledge of it come to me one split second before the words came out. Maybe it was my own Aspect, feeding me the dialogue. Who knows? Not me.

"We're building a radio, Angelina," I told her. "I'm going to be the sending and receiving unit, you're going to be my battery."

She looked at me with a face that said "Um. Okay." She considered it for only a second. "Will it hurt?"

"No, it won't hurt you." I scrunched my face. "Or, at least it shouldn't." I paused. "At least I hope not." I sighed. "You have to be the battery because one, you're younger than me, you have a lot more energy than I do, two, I'm damaged. That was quite a beating your brothers gave me."

She started to look at my wounds, but I stopped her. "Focus, Angel, or we're stuck. Okay?" She nodded and brought her serious gaze back to my eyes.

"And three, you have recently touched your Aspect. I think, though I don't know, that these Aspects are more than just little personalities in our head that can do magical things. I think that these Aspects are connected to other Aspects around the world in ways I can't even begin to imagine. I'm going to tap into your Aspect and see if I can't get a little help."

"Um." Angelina absorbed what I had told her. "What do I have to do?"

"You have the easiest job of all," I assured her. "You just have to relax, sit there, and look pretty. Easy stuff. Comes naturally to you."

I looked at Angelina, who was seriously nodding at what I was telling her. The compliment I had just paid her sunk in too, and she smiled that soul brightening smile.

"That's better," I told her cheerfully. "You look so much happier when you don't believe you're about to die." I nodded at her, she nodded at me, and I asked her, for the final time, "Ready?"

"Let's rock and roll," she said. I had to smile. She's so cute when she tries to be me.

I closed my eyes and I began.

The key to it all is relaxation. Three deep breaths and I can do it. I've been doing it for over forty years and it comes to me as natural as, well, as breathing. Once a person is relaxed properly, then they just have to focus. Once they focus properly, then there isn't a single thing that cannot be done. Within reason, of course.

I dove into my head, feeling the flow of energy from Angelina like a golden river, feeding me. I did a quick check of my body, checking to see if the healing was going as it should. I'm a quick healer. So is Sam. It might be something genetic, but that's the way it is.

Broken ribs and assorted bruises accounted for, sir, and healing nicely. I crawled out of my poor old chassis and checked Angelina's health while I was at it, and she was a great glowing blob of wonderfully formed energy, sitting before me. She was fine. Physically, she may have been banged up, emotionally, she was pretty torn and a bit scarred and scared, but spiritually, she was a wonder to behold, all shiny indigo and gold.

I let go.

It's like a roller coaster, sometimes, when the train chugs slowly, slowly up that first very tall hill and then, after what seems like an interminable second of pause at the top of that firs hill, the bottom drops out and you find yourself screaming at two hundred miles an hour straight down.

I had no idea how long I had to do what I had to do. I had no whirly gig to go casting out among the world. I just knew who I needed to find, and I just knew I needed to find them sooner than later.

My very best chums, Tim and Sherry, those friends who have shared more adventures with me than anyone else, those friends who I know would give their lives to protect me and visa versa, they were who I was looking for first.

I didn't waste time on looking for lines of energy. I had no time to waste, because when you don't know how long you have, you have no time at all. What I had was the unmistakable signature of their soul, of their love for me, and my love for them. It is the best way to find anyone. Love them with all your heart and your heart will lead you to them, every time, without delay.

My consciousness flashed across half the country in less time than it takes to write this sentence. Remember that I said travel like this does not travel at the speed of light? It's true. It does travel at the speed of heart and soul, though. And the more desperate the need, the faster the journey.

Sherry came first. I found her dreaming of sitting at her desk at work. She was processing tickets for patrons of the next performance at the theater she works for. I didn't want to disturb her dream, but I couldn't be to terribly subtle either. I reached into her dreaming mind and tugged at a memory of her and I, long ago.

"Remember..." I whispered into her memories ear. And she did. And she smiled.

I found Tim, reading. Some incredibly boring book that he would find interesting. It was about the fighting styles of Prussian swordsmen. I tapped on a part of his brain that he wasn't using for reading and whispered "Remember..."

An image of us, oddly enough, walking into a McDonalds popped into his memory, and he laughed out loud. It was enough.

Tim's memory prompted me to think of someone else and I went in search of them. From there I was reminded of more and more people that I have sat with, laughed with, sang with, and I tugged from them the good that we had shared.

I slipped into more peoples mind and memory, than I knew I had friends for. Each person that I visited would remind me that someone else had a memory of me. Waking or dreaming, I found a way to tug a memory of me out of each them, something good, something positive that either made them smile or made them laugh out loud.

I used the power, the pure positive, glowing energy and vibration of their memories of me to make me stronger, to enhance what I already had, but to make me bigger than I was, to make me larger than I would have been by myself.

I had one more person to visit. I had to. There was no way around it. I went to my wife, who sat sad and lonely, watching midnight television while her son played some computer game. I touched her mind, ever so gently, prodded a memory of us, long ago, in happier times.

I felt from her such a burst of energy from that one, single happy thought that for a second I was overwhelmed. I knew, at that very moment, that I could fix her life. I could take away ever sad moment and every injury that I had done to her. I knew I had the ability to make her body whole and her life happy again.

It is not to be. Karma is indeed, a bitch. On wheels. Down hill. Just because you know you can, doesn't give you the right to. Akashic records will find a way to correct the Universe and the lesson you are learning. I had to turn away, but before I did, I pushed the thought in her head that she was loved by me, and always would be. I gave her a psychic kiss and turned away. I had to go.

I had the memories of fifty-one close friends and loved ones and I knew I had been gone a very long time. I could feel the strain that I was putting on Angelina. I knew that my drain on her for this trip was immense, because using someone else as a battery can suck them dry very quickly, if you aren't careful.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to be careful, so when I felt the connection between her and I cease, I felt a bare moment of panic, stark and naked. If used improperly, this sort of drain can kill a person, and leave them as dry and as mummified as Angelina's grandmother. I kicked whatever panic I had out of the way, and snapped back on the silver cord that connected her and me.

Back at the House from Hell, I opened my eyes to find me laying on my side. Any other time, I would have been severely drained and ready to eat a bear. With Angelina's help, I wasn't' drained and in fact, being bolstered by the love and memories of half a hundred other people, I was so full of myself that I could have burst. The sight of Angelina being attacked by her brothers more than enraged me. It let Anger completely out.

The first one I got to was Raphael. Him, I picked up bodily from where he was sitting astride Angelina, and tossed through the wall of the room. Not into, but through. The Archangel Raphael is the Patron Saint of Travelers. The name means 'God has healed'. He traveled, all right, but I don't think he's going to heal from a broken back anytime soon. Like swinging a chicken, I felt his neck snap just as I let him go. I didn't stop to watch his flight. I had other things to do.

Daniel came next, and I had spent enough energy on Raphael that Anger found my voice. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, hauled him from where he was holding Angelina's feet and drug him over to where Grandmother's corpse was.

"I am so very disappointed in you!" I roared at him. "With your intellect, with your heart, you could have been and done so many other things." I slammed my open fist into his face, shattering his nose and driving it into his brain.

That left Michael, who was the one doing the unspeakable act to Angelina. I could see why the connection had been broken. The three of them had drug her from me, and when I fell over, they may have assumed I was dead or unconscious. It didn't matter to me then, it doesn't matter to me now.

Michael was facing away from me, and it looked like he was choking the life out of Angelina. It is very possible that is exactly what he was doing, since he had one massive hand wrapped around her neck, and the other had grabbed her by her hair. The rest of his actions will, when I remember them, and I do, bring a tinge of red to my eyes and a lump of anger to my throat.

I was and am not a very tall person. It was to my advantage that he was not standing up and it was to my advantage that he was facing away from me. I do not have a problem sneaking up on someone larger than me when the need arises.

Apparently the deaths of his brothers had not registered with him yet. I imagine they had happened so fast that he was still processing what in the world was going on. It really didn't matter to me. I don't fight fair. I'm not a nice guy.

I grabbed Michael's hair and pulled it back. I didn't stop pulling until I looked directly into his eyes, into which I spit. Michael let go of Angelina's hair and her neck, reached back and tried to pull my head off of my shoulders. He had his hands on either side of my head and he was straining, mightily.

There is a statue of the Buddha as he sits in meditation where he has his right index finger pointed straight down. Many a debate has revolved around what he meant by that. The best interpretation I like is that he was simply saying 'Here I am. I cannot be moved.' meaning that he is a peace and nothing can sway him from that path.

That was Michael and me. He was a large strong man who was trying t pull the head off of a shorter weaker man standing behind him. He had all the force of his muscles and brawn. I had the force of fifty-one memories of me and my own strength to boot. Neither of us was moving.

Angelina blinked and coughed, coming to now that she could get air into her lungs. She looked up at me, looked at her brother and her eyes grew wide. And then, bless her heart, she did the one thing that she should have done a long time ago. She bit back. Hard.

Michael, who had been making no sound up until then except grunting, howled in pain and rage. Emasculated, he tried to stand and found he could not. I was standing on his legs.

"Angelina!" I yelled out. "Move, honey! Now!"

She looked at me, wide eyed and nodded her head. She spit something out, something I don't want to remember, and scootched back away from the scene.

I held Michael's hair in my left hand, and I was still looking in his eyes. "You've been a bad, bad brother, Michael." I said this while I pulled back my right hand and willed the last of the remaining borrowed energy into it. "The right hand giveth," I said, smiling grimly. I drove my right hand into his back, through his back, feeling the snap and break of his ribs. They made a sound of stepping on dried branches in a forest after a rain. Sharp and wet. My right hand went through the other side of him and emerged, red and gory, holding his heart. "And the left hand taketh away." I pulled his head back and back until I heard another snap. I dropped him and his heart in a pile, and turned away.

I was spent. I dropped to my knees and wept, loudly. It is never, ever, and easy thing to take a life, even when that taking is justified. I felt the flood energy leave my body and I could do nothing more than simply be, and want to not. I wanted so badly to not be there. I wanted so badly for none of this to have ever happened. To me. To Angelina. I was incredibly tired, and incredibly empty.

I felt two hands on my shoulders and I flinched. I tried to pull away, but the hands were firm and insistent. They pulled me away from my misery and cradled me on a soft breast, and a voice cooed to me and told me that it would be all right.

All right. Everything is always going to be all right. Eventually. Except for me. I get to live on and on, with my memories.

After minutes of me acting like some big baby, and who knows, maybe I was at that point, I looked up into the brown, brown eyes and smiling face of The Countess. "My hero," she purred. She leaned down and kissed my brow, and cradled me there, rocking gently.

"You know we aren't done yet, mister Chester."

"I know," I sniffed. "The dance ain't over until the music ends."

"Just so," she said softly. "Just so."

I sighed, incredibly, my chest expanding to the size of the room before falling back to me sized. I wiped the wet from my face and and sniffed again. I so wanted to snuggle right then and forget that a monster waited downstairs. But, of course, it wasn't to be.

"I guess," I said, standing up, "there's nothing to it, but to do it."

"Just so," said Angelina's aspect. She looked around the room and nodded. "Very impressive for a pacifist."

"Just because I'm a pacifist doesn't mean I can't fight."

"And you fight dirty." She smiled. "I like that in a hero."

"Rules of war, my dear," I said as I stripped the bodies of Daniel and Raphael, "are for pussies. Nobody wins a war with rules."

"Oddly," she said, while she slipped on Daniels trousers, "I seem to remember Mars himself saying that very same thing."

"Hey." I stopped in the middle of putting on Raphael's shirt. "How did you get here? No Aspects allowed, remember?" I tapped my head to indicate the skullcap that used to be there.

"I am not just an Aspect, remember?" Demeter had finished buttoning up Daniels shirt, and had bent over to tie his shoes. "I am also a persona, and I emerge when the situation becomes to stressful for Angelina to handle it." She straightened up, started to tie Daniels tie, thought better of it and tossed it to the side. "I wish I had a mirror."

She looked a fright. Michael's blood had run down her face, down her neck and had covered the parts of her body that Daniels shirt didn't.

"I would bet there is a sink in the master bedroom." I said, as I rolled up the sleeves of Raphael's shirt and the cuffs of his trousers. Like I said, I'm not a tall guy. "I bet you could freshen up there." I'm glad Raphael was wearing suspenders tonight. "But to me, you're beautiful"

She considered the suggestion of washing up by tilting her head to one side and looking up at the ceiling. One moment passed, and it was a short moment, when I thought she was going to do it.

"No," she said finally. "Let us, instead, go finish this."

"All righty then," I said.

Arm in arm, we went down to meet her father.