“Why don’t you do a soul flight for me and find Rose’s mother?”
“It doesn’t work that way. And besides, it was a journey meant for you. Perhaps it will be part of your healing.”
“Speaking of healing,” I said, tilting my empty beer.
“Would you like another?”
“If you ever hear me say no, then I misheard the question.”
Even though it was more than two years since the fire, Seth was convinced I hadn’t yet healed. I had convinced doctors and police administrators of my fitness, but not Seth. Maybe I was one of Blake’s poor souls that dwelled in night; maybe my shaman had seen that on one of his spirit flights.
Seth returned with a tray filled with bread, some cheese, and the beer. I was willing to bet beer tasted a lot better than ayahuasca. He also brought a dog biscuit for Sirius. My partner enthusiastically inhaled it.
“So what did your Mr. Blake have to say about crucifixions?” I asked.
“I can’t recall any verse of his, but I do seem to remember that he drew several disturbing crucifixion scenes.”
“Is there any other kind?”
“Was it bad?”
“It was bad. It was strange fruit.”
Seth knew my shorthand and nodded.
“The boy was shot in the eye.”
“I heard.”
“Something tells me that wasn’t coincidental. My gut feeling is that the kid was killed for revenge, as in an eye for an eye.”
“Are you talking Hammurabi?”
“I am. The boy was a bit of a prick. He was a bully.”
“You think one of his victims struck back?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I’m not sure.” More definitively I added, “Someone wanted an eye for an eye.”
“How do you know that?”
“Gut feeling.”
“Wouldn’t murder have been revenge enough? It seems to me that crucifixion would be…overkill.”
“Paul Klein was put on display. His sins were exposed for all to see.”
“As I understand it, the boy had a drug problem.”
I shook my head. “The drugs were planted.”
“Any idea why?”
“Not yet.”
“Crucifixion isn’t an easy process. I remember reading Sebastian Horsley’s account of it.”
“Who is he?”
“He was an English artist. Horsley was quite the eccentric. He liked to wear top hats and velvet coats. And he collected human skulls.”
“Everybody has to have a hobby.”
“Horsley decided to go to the Philippines to be crucified.”
“That doesn’t sound like a pleasure trip. Why the hell would someone go and get crucified?”
“It was supposed to be an art project. Every year, devotional crucifixions take place in the Philippines over Easter. It’s not a full crucifixion in that there’s a platform to stand on, but nails are driven through the hands of the penitents. Horsley’s crucifixion didn’t go as planned, though. His foot support broke.”
“That had to have hurt.”
“The pain was so terrible he blacked out. There is no good form of capital punishment, but crucifixion is among the worst killing methods ever conceived. It wasn’t just a means to kill someone, but was meant as a punishment to inflict terrible pain and to humiliate.”
“That’s what the killer wanted,” I said. “He felt the need to humiliate Klein, the young man who had everything.”
My burning vision had told me that.
“With your two cases I don’t imagine you will be traveling,” Seth said, sounding hopeful.
I had made arrangements for Seth to take Sirius later in the week. Shaking my head, I said, “I haven’t canceled the meeting yet.”
Seth paused a moment before saying, “Oh.”
His restive note made me ask, “Is there a problem?”
“Not with my taking Sirius. But I worry about how your meetings with Ellis Haines touch you. They’re not healthy.”
Every month I went and visited the Weatherman at San Quentin. The trips were bankrolled by the FBI. Ostensibly, I went to gather information for their Behavioral Sciences Unit. Haines wouldn’t talk with the Feds-he’d only talk to me. That’s how I rationalized my visits, but the truth is I felt my own need to see him. I journeyed to my own shadow side.
“It’s just talk.”
Seth shook his head. “No, it’s not.”
He chewed on his upper lip a moment before continuing. “I know you doubt the worth of what I do.”
I opened my mouth to offer some objection, but he waved it off. “It is who you are, and I don’t take it personally. That said, I will tell you that part of my work involves helping those that are sick in body and spirit. In order to assist them, I need to understand the nature of their illness, and that requires me to do special journeys so as to find what ails them.
“Some of those I help are afflicted with what I call soul loss, which is what happens when the soul gets fragmented and a part of it does not know how to return to the body, or realizes it’s not safe to return. A moment ago I spoke of your own healing. Your wife’s death, and your near-death experience at the fire, marked you. I am convinced that part of your soul escaped and has not been able to find its way back.”
I started shifting in my chair, the same way I start shifting at my front door whenever I experience a home invasion by the likes of Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons. The difference was that Seth wasn’t selling anything but revealing something.
“You mask everything well,” Seth said, “but I know you no longer feel the control you once had.”
“That’s why there’s Viagra.”
Seth smiled, but he wasn’t diverted. “These monthly visits drain you. It is like going to a vampire. The only difference is that he is sucking what remains of your soul instead of draining your blood. You are playing with fire.”
“Playing with fire is what first brought the two of us together.”
“Haven’t you had enough of the burning?”
His question was too close to home. “I’m trying to douse it,” I said, draining my beer, “but it’s a stubborn fire.”
“I am glad you have a guardian spirit,” Seth said, looking at Sirius.
Seth was convinced that ever since the fire Sirius had been transformed into Canis Major or something like that. My shaman was certain that Sirius was looking out for me.
“Do all guardian spirits have as much gas as this one?” I asked.
The shaman found that funny, and that effectively stopped him from shaking his rattles anymore in my direction. I hadn’t told him about my burning dreams, but I had this feeling he already knew about them. Maybe he’d heard me crying out in the middle of the night; maybe he really was a witch doctor. One thing I knew for sure was he was a friend, and that’s a rare commodity.
We’d had enough heavy topics for the night, so we turned to the usual topics of sports, sex, and politics, frequently interspersed by laughter. It was typical guy talk, but yeah, it felt good for my soul.
CHAPTER 9:
