Inter-Magisteria Cooperation by Patrice Stanton
Inter-Magisteria Cooperation
By Patrice Stanton
copyright 2013 Patrice Stanton
Cover & glyphs copyright 2013 Patrice Stanton
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This book is a work of fiction and any similarities within it to other persons (living, dead, or fictional), businesses (public, private, non-profit, or fictional), places (actual or fictional), or events (current, historical, or fictional) are purely coincidental or used fictionally since the work is a product of the author’s imagination.
Table of Contents
Section 1 - “You only go around once”
Section 2 – “Better late than never” NOT!
Section 3 – Don’t judge a book
Section 4 – No, there’s no need to consult a professional
Section 5 – Be still my wildly beating heart…or yours
Section 6 – Watch the time (piece)
Section 7 – Nowhere Man
Section 8 – The long way home
Section 9 – Second chances
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
1 – “You only go around once”
As usual, demon operative Mel Dobson was annoyed. He looked at the 21st century cellphone compared to his hulk-sized hand and shook his head. To add to an already dreaded tag-team job, he’d been assigned rich, chocolate-colored skin. And a lot of it. “Yeah, yeah, I know how important this is, but I’d already worked it out with--”(click!) the Boss, he was going to say.
He’d finally gotten through, reached one of Satan’s (countless it seemed) power-tripping secretaries. They had temporary authority to boss-around Mel’s kind, on too many occasions. Like now.
She was back.
“Yeah, yeah, ‘IMC, Inter-Magisteria cooperation…” Mel grumbled, “quote, ‘to get a feel for how the other half rules,’ unquote. Yeah, but this skin is just not gonna work where I’m, uh, where we’re going. Don’t you--” There was an explosion, then another. Though novel coming over a phone line, direct from the Underworld, Mel could take it. The fingernails now scraping down something hollow and metallic? He couldn’t, so pulled the thing away from his ear.
“Damn secretaries,” he muttered. Always filing their nails.
Sure, sunrise or sunset made for bad connections to back home, but didn’t typically cause explosive devices to detonate. And he likewise knew getting an official e-mail Objection to go through - unaffected by gremlins or leprechauns or whatever crazy kind of hacker-group had it in for the demonics this century - would be equally as futile.
“Secretaries…” he muttered again. A couple of earthbound humans, also on break from slaving away in the White House, looked over at him. He glared at them; pressed the phone back to his squishy ear.
With the sun already below the buildings only the white of his jacket was visible. If he’d been allowed to wear the typical all-black damnation-uniform (even with its fiery-red accents) and remained deathly still, he could go completely unnoticed. Even at the 350 pounds he’d also been assigned. Probably by the same interfering secretary. Who likely thought it’d be hellarious forcing him to go back in time built like…this. To see him climb narrow 19th century stairs, squeeze into cramped horse-drawn buggies, and bump down unpaved D.C. streets in an extra-jiggly suit of flesh. Like…this.
Another concussion shook his phone, vibrating his jowl. What the... He sniffed at the air; swore he smelled gunpowder mixed with the second hand smoke around him. “Gotta have a smoke.”
With his free hand he reached straight through the filthy chef-coat he’d labored in for a hellish eight-hour day and pulled out a pack of old school American filter less cigarettes. He yanked the phone away from his flabby face; it made a reluctant suction-y Slurp! He thumbed “speakerphone” to be hands’ free and dropped it in the breast pocket embroidered with the union food-workers’ logo. Now the occasional out-of-sync pair of blasts were a lot less jarring.
The human smokers nearby glanced wistfully at the pure white “coffin nail” he pulled out of the half-empty pack. Tobacco…one of America’s original strokes of cash-crop genius.
This time he sneered. “You only go around once.”
“You jus-s-s-t put me on s-s-speaker!” his Underworld Boss hissed. “You do realize I can tell, right?”
Mel started; forgot there was no such thing as turning-down that voice. He glanced again at the others around him. Folks from the several kitchens, housekeeping crew, and maintenance team were all catching overtime minutes the easy way. Since his assigned IM partner was way more than the typical day late Mel had been relegated to the highly esteemed bowels of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He killed an entire week’s worth of time custom-cutting bloody animal sacrifices and chopping the occasional vegetable for the First Family. And try as he might no one had reported anything suspicious about him at all.
So much for high security at the White House. None of the idiots he worked amongst had noticed any of his tricks. Must see knives slicing and dicing on their own or folks pulling stuff out of thin air or through intact fabric all the time. Mel already had a long list of vital organs he’d like to try pulling out of the body cavity of the IM dude supposedly on his way from the Heavenly realms.
“Uh, no worries, Boss,” Mel said, then bragged, “I’ve got the frequency set to, well, let’s just say dogs are the only beasts hearing the actual words we’re saying and they’ve got a long way to evolve before we have to start worrying. Right?”
“Shut up, Dobson,” the Boss hissed again, “there are plenty of worries and you’d remember that if you knew what’s good for you. It’s been a hellacious week down here – um-m-m, perhaps you can…” Another detonation followed by staccato ka-POW-ka-POW- ka-POW’s ate into the Boss’s words. “…betting you haven’t finished your job, right? Anyway, I’ve changed my mind…(glass breaking, then tinkling)…a new Plan; gotta get these damn Blues and Greys the hell outta here…Dobson? You hearing me?”
He’d just put the pure white cylinder-of-death between his lips and it was sticking to them. Now it started to shake as he went ahead and tried to light it. Finally the thing flared up as if pre-dipped in gasoline and hit with a flame thrower instead of an old disposable. He took a weak drag and gulped it down. Then he bit his tongue, tried to calm himself before speaking, to keep from blurting angrily about the missing angel.
2 – “Better late than never” NOT!
O.K. so I’ll wait. “Arrival imminent,” the Boss had said. Sure. The one e-mail he’d gotten six days earlier had said the very same thing (but he could tell it was from a secretary; the Boss’s “mark” was missing).
Dobson’s current cigarette looked about to burn his fingers when the chime finally signaled the end of the day-shift’s last 30 minute break. Everyone except the newest fat chef (him) began a ritual stampede inside to the unisex locker room to ditch uniforms, grab their “civvies,” and punch the hell out.
A commotion came from the propped open door and drew his attention that way. It swung out with some great force; caused the workers already in line to begin a tumble backwards like variously colored and shaped soft dominoes.
“Excuse me, pardon me…” Came a bright feminine voice and instantly the demon alerted. He waved the cigarette stub i
He peered through the jumble of bodies and continued chewing.
Then he saw her. Or rather the fabric portion of her. She seemed in no great hurry now for only segments of sheer white dress wafted out the doorway. They moved in shapes that could only be called ethereally wing like. Of course. Just my luck. Dobson rubbed his old eyes to be sure. Plentiful earth assignments over the ages had taught him no American girl, even in Washington D.C., dressed like that. Not at 5:30PM on a weeknight. Not in the 21st century at least.
It has to be the Boss’s doing. To trip ‘ol Melly up. Mess with Melly’s promotion. Then he was struck with a nastier thought. Or maybe it’s just the Really-Big Guy’s way of agreeing with the Boss...But making it nearly impossible to actually accomplish. So-o-o, not only do I get an albatross-on-purpose for a partner but one that can’t tell last Friday on earth from this one.
In deep despair he switched sides and, as fast as he could, breathed a prayer, “Dear RBG, please let this be a lost bridesmaid for a surprise shotgun wedding tonight,” he shivered both from what he was about to offer and with the realization of what his betrayal might cost…then kept going anyway, “I’ll even carve a flock of ice swans. From dry ice. With my bare hands…”
The heavenly creature was blonde and beautiful and kept coming towards him.
3 – Don’t judge a book
The delicate looking woman could also pull stuff from the air. Hm-m-m…It looked like a tablet style computer. She glanced from it to Mel and back to it. Then with a wrist swish similar to the demonic kind apparently returned the hardware to Heaven, after all she had no pockets. She smiled broadly as her hand shot out to shake his.
She spoke crisply, “Mel Dobson, I presume?” and shook hands the same way. Almost militarily.
Soft warm hand, though. If “Mel” hadn’t been his name he would have been terribly tempted to say, “Yes.” Instead he merely nodded; all thoughts of needling her with, “Guess you got lost,” had evaporated.
“You’re supposed to acknowledge - for the record - with a spoken answer…” Her blue eyes chilled the airspace between them, emphasizing a spiritual distance the size of a grand canyon. Even with lids half closed her eyes had the Power of the RBG, so certainly they saw all the way through Mel. Saw that he didn’t have a soul. But he could tell she did, it was the way creatures like her smelled. Like fresh air after a bout of cabin fever or in the old days when clean sheets just got taken in from a clothesline.
So this one used to be human. Double albatross.
His hands dropped maybe a fraction of an inch to rest on his cushiony sides. Meaty fingers on each hand balled into grapefruit-sized fists. He could feel the charge he was summoning gather in the earth from far beneath his feet. It moved upwards at light speed, like all electricity does, and spread in, around, and throughout his body then exited every pore. Hairs stood on end as he radiated electrons. Smiling, he saw her unconscious attempt to dig in with her feet, even wearing shoes; she so wanted to hold on somehow, to grip the concrete patio. But it was a fight against Nature itself, this irresistible repulsive force exuding from his human guise. His kind normally handled such fleeting power more professionally but Mel was past annoyed with this albatross of a partner. Finally. She was starting to slide away in slow motion, flatfooted, high heels making that hollow chattering reverberation. Her eyes were about as wide as they could get, barring some sort of laser-surgery get-up.
“Yeah,” he said. He could play a bit part, too. Actually that was a big part of his plan for this assignment - if he could get a replacement for her. One he could effectively convince or else evade until the real work was done. “I’m Dobson, and yeah, I’m a demon. But you knew that.” She flailed with both hands now and scored some of his sleeve in one and part of his hand in her other, nails sinking deeply into his toughened flesh. He winced, bit his lip, and contorted his face. Yeowza, she’s got a grip of iron and samurai-sharp nails.
He was about to commit blasphemy again with a second prayer to the RBG when he could see her façade finally crack. All that bluster replaced he hoped with the kind of momentary fear felt only by those who’ve gotten a glimpse down into the more desperate sort of “afterlife.” It’s a place and a soul-deep revulsion that never makes it into popular novels or TV shows or feature-length movies. At least not often.
The backbone seemed to melt out of her and she just slumped. She wilted from Mel’s shy-of-6-feet down to well below his eye level.
That’s better, girly-girl. Maybe this arrangement will work out after all…
“I’m, I’m Lena Winger…and I’m, oh, I’m sorry, I did something wrong didn’t I, and, and you’re bleeding, I’m a nurse, well, I was and…Oh, I don’t know how I’m supposed to…” She started sniffing and wiped at the corners of her eyes like she was going to start bawling. A total newbie, too? Triple albatross. O.K. She’s either gonna make this a piece of devil’s food cake or turn it into the worst nightmare of my entire damnation.
“Hey. Hey, hey,” he put his hand on her shoulder gently. Um-m-m. Smooth. Must be all that cloud moisture or…Focus, idiot! “I’m fine, you’ll do fine, hell--” her drooping head snapped up, though she remained silent if not still cowed. “Sorry,” he offered lamely, “But for the next 24 hours or so I’ll have to deal with you praying to…well, you know, praying all the time. So you’ll just have to get used to some, well, some ‘more colorful’ language than you normally have to deal with. Up…up there. So-o-o…” he felt something running down his hand. Blood! Damn. I am bleeding. Or this sap-of-a-human-shell is. Oh, well, his loss not mine. He swiped the back of his hand on his pants’ leg, the oozing parallel slashes leaving four wet lines, and looked into her eyes as he continued. Mm-m-m…pretty irises…
“Um-m-m, so. How many, how long…damn, spit it out, Dobson,” he chastised himself, “How long since you took the dirt nap?” She’d continued to look straight at him, but now her sweet face went blank. “Dead,” he spoke louder in the universal way that even misunderstood demons do, “get it? Dirt nap? How long’s it been?” He waited. Experienced angelics wouldn’t reveal that detail. Made them too vulnerable to trickery since demons weren’t above messing with anyone’s head. Especially not the stratospheric kind considering how rare the opportunity.
He would have sworn her eyes darkened. She looked through him again, only differently. “July 14th, ’63,” she said, then went thoughtfully silent for a moment, “it was during a, during a protest…”
Ah…Just a few months before another fateful day in U.S. presidential history. Now Mel probably looked a little dreamy himself. Maybe if this goes well I’ll get that Dallas assignment, too.
“A war protest, right?” he said, not knowing mid-20th century history real well. Only that there were so many wars they were nearly one after another; “war protest” would safely encompass more than enough of the time-scape.
“Yes. That’s exactly what it was. In the city. Well, in New York. I was working, putting my kid brother through school. But the newspapers all called us rioters. It was horrible what they did…what they wanted my brother to sign up to do…to innocent women and children and where they wanted him to go to do it...” She looked to really start crying now. “Her-ness” was beginning to cloud Mel’s thinking; he needed to take charge.
This time he looked around quickly, saw no one, then with no more than a thought followed by a slight “poof” transposed them to deep within the deserted bowels of the Library of Congress. Immediately her fresh-air scent was washed away beneath waves of “old book.” Mel couldn’t read very fast or with much retention but he sure loved turning the pages of books. Especially old ones. He’d come to this national library many times never realizing this time in D.C. it would turn out to be an assignment-saver.
“O.K.,” Mel used the power of positive thinking on her, “Lena? Lena, look at me.” No longer sad, now sh
“Where--” she’d started then stopped. For anyone at all familiar with even a small town library the invisible mustiness of books which surrounded the two other-worldlies needed no explanation nor much illumination. Even the dim afterhours lighting in that venerable biblio-basement was more than sufficient to show off its seemingly endless series of jam-packed bookcases.
“So,” Mel began slowly, “your Boss has given your people ideas on getting this job done and I, er, my Boss has given me mine. So…let’s compare, shall we?” If he could get her to reveal the details of the RBG’s plan he’d know how to distract and divert her; could get someone to stay alongside to hold her hand, so to speak. Or even do that himself…all while his boys would go back even farther in time; get the dirtier work done, so to speak.
“But I thought we, I thought the plan was delivered to us, once we met up?”
Mel guffawed then stifled it seeing she was dead serious. “You mean you’ve been waiting for a kind of between the dimensions golden ‘Oscar’ moment with the glittering winner’s envelope we’d open Mel-a-dramatically?”
She stared blankly.
“Get it? ‘Mel.’ Mel-uh-drama?” She didn’t. Maybe she never watched the Oscars. “Not into the movies, I guess. Anyway I’ve got mine, see?” He whipped a roll of parchment from an interior pocket invisible to the living eye and snapped it flat with a flourish.
She looked at the writing, mesmerized as most of them seemed when they first came upon something inked in the Underworld. His Boss used a special substance that didn’t last long in other realms. This inscription was no different. Its flame-like flickering was especially fetching but never more so than in low light.
“Stop The Carnage,” she read.