The Kingdom (Berkeley Blackfriars Book 1) Read online

  21

  MIKAEL WAS BEGINNING to think it was not such a bad assignment. He rolled into the Lower Haight at a leisurely pace. A scrap of paper in his lap bore a hastily scrawled address he had just received from Susan. Mornings were always chilly in San Francisco, especially in February, which he didn’t mind at all since it meant he could keep the windows up and blast a Black Flag album as loud as he wanted to with impunity to all but his future hearing.

  He followed the numbers on the buildings and realized he had another couple of blocks to go. His thoughts kept drifting to Kat, and as he played unconsciously with his long black hair, he imagined it was her fingers running through it. He was excited to discover she was Wiccan, since that was the tradition he practiced, albeit with a Christian spin, and he had found out the hard way that it was always best to date someone he could connect with spiritually.

  “Hmm, 2617…2619…there it is,” he said out loud to himself. He noticed a parking space on the street across from the target building, which was nothing short of a minor miracle in almost any part of San Francisco. He spun the wheel, completing an illegal Y turn in the middle of a business district and almost tossed a bicycle messenger in the process. “Ope…sorry, guy…” he said out loud again, completing his parallel park. He turned off the engine and surveyed the building. It was a grand but dilapidated Victorian that looked like it hadn’t been painted in fifty years. Black felt covered the windows, blocking out every possible scrap of light.

  The house was quiet, but any knowledge of those coming in or out could be useful, so he reached in the backseat for his camera, attached the telephoto lens, and settled in for a lengthy wait. “Now, where is that Snapple bottle?” he asked himself aloud.

  22

  ASTRID HAD SOUNDED groggy when Richard called. And, indeed, she had been taking a nap. He had apologized profusely, and she had called him a cunt. Still, after he explained what they were up against, she agreed to come right over. “I can’t stay long, though,” she had said. “I have a date at six.”

  Richard said that was fine, but it really wasn’t. He had had a crush on her from the moment they had met at one of the socials hosted by the Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies at the Graduate Theological Union. Astrid had been Andrew at the time, and Richard’s interest had not been swayed by her transsexuality. He had never betrayed his feelings, but he was certain that his mooning over her could not possibly go unnoticed. He just hoped it also did not go completely unappreciated.

  In the kitchen, Kat found Susan and the friars gathered around a steaming French press of enormous dimensions. She took a place at the table, and soon Susan was sliding a large mug of steaming Italian roast under her nose. “Oh my, that’s decadent,” she said, waving the fragrant steam into her face.

  She looked up to see Richard come in, an oddly mesmerized look on his face.

  “What’s the scoop, dude?” asked Dylan. “Was Astrid home?”

  “Yeah, she’s on her way over,” Richard said.

  “Who is this chick?” asked Kat, a little absently as she was really debating whether to add half-and-half to what was already such a wondrous treat.

  “Well, she used to be a dude,” Dylan answered. “Ah don’t think she’s had surgery, so Ah suppose anatomically she still is. Dicky’s got a thing for her.”

  “I do not—”

  “Unfortunately for him,” Dylan ignored him, “she only dates lesbians.”

  “Wait, how does that even work?” Kat asked, confused.

  “She also used to be a professor at the Swedenborgian House of Studies,” Susan swatted her husband on the back of the head, “until her little ‘talent’ became common knowledge.”

  “Transsexuality is a talent?”

  “Astrid is a scryer,” Richard said, taking a seat and reaching for a cup.

  “You mean like crystal balls and such?” asked Kat incredulously.

  “Well, she uses a seer’s stone, but yeah, it’s pretty much the same thing.”

  “Why did that get her into trouble?” asked Kat and then thought better of it. “Oh, these are Christians we’re talking about, isn’t it? Stupid question.”

  At this comment, every eye in the room locked on her, accompanied by a look of shock and a little hurt. Brian laughed out loud.

  “Oh my God,” Kat said, covering her mouth and turning red in a rush. “I am so sorry. That was really, really insensitive of me. Please forgive me.”

  Then the moment passed, and most everyone chuckled. “Why don’t you tell us how you really feel, Kat?” invited Dylan.

  “Actually,” said Susan, “the Swedenborgians are technically heretics, so they’re not your average Christians. They’re pretty cool, by and large.”

  “The congregational Swedenborgians, you mean,” corrected Dylan. “The episcopal Swedenborgians are pretty fundamentalist.”

  “Wait, this is getting confusing,” said Kat. “What the hell is a Sweden…I can’t even say it.”

  Brian made an O with his right index finger and thumb and threw his arm back so that his palm cupped the right side of his face, creating a little monocle with spider fingers spread over his cheek. “We. Are. The Sweden-Borg,” he said in his best mechanical Stephen Hawking impersonation. “Comprehension. Is. Futile.”

  Everyone laughed, but Kat was utterly lost.

  “Sorry,” said Brian. “It’s a Star Trek thing.”

  “Emanuel Swedenborg was the eighteenth century’s greatest scientist, certainly the greatest Sweden has ever known,” Richard explained. “He mastered every one of the sciences in his day, but when he entered middle age, he had a mystical experience that compelled him to drop everything and pursue spiritual investigation full time.”

  “Yeah,” continued Dylan, “he used to go into these trances, and travel to Heaven and Hell and all, and talk to the angels. He wrote about thirty books detailing his conversations with angelic beings. It’s pretty trippy shit.”

  “Swedenborg gave us some very explicit descriptions of the other side, most of which have been corroborated by folks who have had near-death experiences,” Richard said.

  “And so the Sweden…borgians, they’re the people who believe in his writings?” asked Kat.

  “Yup,” said Dylan, pouring himself some coffee. “But he never intended to start a church—just to reform the old one.”

  “Where have we heard that one before?” moaned Terry.

  “Of course, none of the established churches would listen,” Richard picked up the tale again. “Swedenborg was a modal monarchian, which was condemned as a heresy fifteen hundred years ago.”

  “Do I want to know what that is?” asked Kat.

  “Probably not,” laughed Susan, “It’s one of the pettier, hair-splitting proclamations of heresy that make even conservative Christians roll their eyes.”

  “Mah theory is that most Christians are modals,” said Dylan, wiping coffee from where he had just spilled it down the front of his shirt. “They just don’t know what to call it.”

  “Okay, so why is this Astrid on the outs with the Swedenborg people? Isn’t she basically doing the same thing with her crystal ba…stone that Mr. Swedenborg was doing in a trance?”

  “Well, yes, exactly,” answered Susan, handing her husband a wet washcloth to better tend to his shirt. “And let that be a lesson to you ladies out there in TV land—don’t try at home those things that are the reserved domain of Old Dead White Guys.”

  “Lest you be kicked out on yo’ asses,” added Dylan, wiping at his shirt.

  “Amen,” agreed Terry liturgically, and poured himself a final cup from the dregs.

  Just then the doorbell rang, and Richard froze. Of course, this was not lost on anyone. “Get yourself together, Lover Boy,” Susan said to him, heading for the door. “I’ll let her in.”

  Kat, intrigued, extracted her legs from the bench and followed. Susan opened the door, and Astrid swept into the foyer like a goddess. She was the closest thing to a Swedish Amazon Kat
had ever seen, her shining golden hair hanging knee length and her body veiled in enough sequins and gauze to instigate all-out war between Liberace and the gypsies.

  “Hey, Tobers,” Astrid said, hugging the dog.

  “Astrid, meet Kat,” Susan said. Kat rose and shook her hand, wondering at its size and also at how anyone could get away with dressing in such a fashion in California.

  “Hey, assholes!” she waved through the kitchen door. Kat squinted at Richard—was he drooling? It appeared that he was. Astrid set down a bowling bag. “Where’s Morpheus?”

  “Mikael’s on stakeout,” Richard said.

  “Got a hot one, huh?” she asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “Where do you want me to set up? In the chapel, like last time?”

  “That’ll do,” said Terry, and rushed ahead of her to clear the candlesticks from the main altar to make a space for her. He paused to give her a kiss. She had to lean down to do it. “Hi, you big tranny.”

  “Hi, faggot. Hey, I’m having a housewarming next weekend. Can you and your bottom half come?”

  “We’ll look at the calendar. I’ll let you know. But we’d love to if we can. Will we be the only testosterone in the room—besides your estrogen-addled self, I mean?”

  “You’ll be the tokens.”

  “Bully for us, then.”

  Richard brought a stool from the kitchen for Astrid to sit on. He set it in the place where he and the other priests usually stood to say mass, and then watched as Astrid opened her bag and took out a large black tablecloth. She spread it over the altar and then removed a leather case. She unlocked it, and Kat saw a flash of red velvet as she opened it. Inside was a shiny black rock, polished flat and smooth on one side until it shone like glass.

  Astrid placed the stone in the middle of the altar and turned it so the shiny side was angled toward her face. Then she took another black sheet of cloth and threw it over her shoulders like a stole.

  “Okay, Gents, what am I looking for?”

  “We think Kat’s brother used demon magick to trade bodies with an angel, and he is now roaming Heaven. And he’s probably up to no good.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “God’s honest truth,” Dylan said, settling into one of the chairs on the side to enjoy the show.

  “What do you think he’s doing?” asked Astrid.

  “That’s what we called you to find out,” said Richard.

  “You know for sure he’s in Heaven?”

  “No. But we found one of his books open to the passage in Heaven and Hell where the Borg describes the Akashic records neighborhood.”

  “He doesn’t call it that, dufus,” said Astrid.

  “No, but you know the general vicinity I mean.”

  “I know it. That’s helpful. Do you know what this angel’s body he’s in looks like?”

  Richard shuffled nervously. “No.”

  Dylan piped up helpfully. “He will be totin’ an avocada.”

  Richard rolled his eyes, but Astrid nodded vigorously. “Good, that’s really good. Can’t be too many angels carrying avocados around. I’ll tune into that.” Then she paused, her face screwed up into a puzzle. “Why an avocado?”

  “Beats us,” said Dylan. “But he had a whole fridge full of the suckers. Gotta be involved somehow.”

  “Speaking of avocados, I’ll go make some snacks. Guacamole, anyone?” asked Brian. A cheer went up all around. Brian smiled and headed for the kitchen.

  Astrid turned to Kat. “What can you tell me about your brother’s energy?”

  Kat considered a moment. “He’s got horrendous ADD. He’s a computer programmer but can’t sit still for a moment. He works at home—”

  “’Nuff said,” Astrid proclaimed, dismissing her with a wave. “Let’s take a look.”

  She pulled over her head one edge of the cloth draped around her neck until the corners of it met the black cloth covering the altar. Like a hill of bumpy blackness, she quivered beneath the cloth as she entered into her ecstasy.

  The others waited breathlessly. Scrying was often a lengthy process. Sometimes access was easy; sometimes it was not. Planetary alignments and the scryer’s own emotional equilibrium all must conspire to make a session successful. If something was off, it could complicate or even frustrate the effort. But apparently, neither the astrological orientations nor her excitement over her upcoming date prevented her. Within minutes, a muffled voice called out from beneath the black cloth. “Got something…”

  Kat was beside herself with anxiety. She was concerned about her brother but also nervous and a little ashamed of what he was doing. She wanted to help him, she realized, but also wanted to stop him.

  “What do you see?” Terry had his omnipresent laptop open and clacking as she spoke.

  “I see a teeming crowd in a huge city square. Fountains, enormous buildings on every side of the square. We’re in the neighborhood, just as Swedenborg described it. A few new additions since his time, nothing dramatic. Lots of angels. Typical sabbath in Heaven.”

  “Are there people there? Or only angels?” Kat asked.

  “According to Swedenborg, people become angels when they pass over,” Dylan explained.

  “Ah…” she nodded. “Do people become demons, too?”

  Dylan looked at Richard, and Kat saw both sets of eyebrows shoot up. “What a good question, Kat,” said Richard. “I haven’t a clue.”

  “Yes,” called Astrid from beneath her blanket.

  “Yes, demons are actually of human origin?” Richard asked.

  “Some of them. Some are Nephilim.”

  “Huh,” said Richard. “Who knew?”

  “Nephilim?” asked Kat.

  “The offspring of God’s original angels and human women,” Richard explained. “Also known as giants.”

  “This sounds like myth,” said Kat.

  “Yeah, and so do angels, demons, jinn, faeries, and a whole host of other allegedly ‘mythological’ beings we deal with every day around here,” said Dylan with a chuckle.

  “Okay, I’ve located the Hall of Records,” called Astrid.

  “Did you say that was where the Akashic records are kept, Richard?” Kat asked.

  “Swedenborg didn’t call it that,” Astrid said again with an irritated lilt to her voice. “Blavatsky did.”

  “Whatever you call it, yeah, that’s where everything that has ever happened in this or any other universe is stored,” Richard answered.

  “Makes the Smithsonian pale by comparison,” Susan commented.

  “What I wouldn’t give to browse that place,” said Terry wistfully.

  “Ah heard that,” agreed Dylan.

  “Eat your Wheaties, and say your rosary, little boy, and someday you will,” Richard grinned.

  “Wait! I think I see your guy!” Astrid’s voice raised up several notches in excitement. “He’s limping—obviously, he doesn’t quite know how to work that body he’s in. And he’s carrying an avocado—very hard to do, I’d imagine given the gross, heavy nature of an earthly object and the subtle form of an angelic body. It’s gotta be like lugging an anvil around! No doubt about it, though, this is your guy.”

  “What’s he doing?” asked Kat. “I mean, besides struggling with the avocado?”

  “Well, he’s not going into the Hall of Records. He’s headed toward another building. God! It’s hard work. My heart would go out to him if he weren’t up to no good!”

  “Well, we don’t actually have any evidence that he’s intending any evil, do we?” asked Kat hopefully.

  “You mean aside from the demon-magick conspiracy, the violence to an angel, and breaking and entering Heaven?” Terry asked, mock-bitchily.

  “Okay, okay…” Kat trailed off, feeling a little pathetic for her lunge at hope.

  “Hey, gang,” called Brian, “chips, salsa, and my famous guacamole are on the kitchen table when you need a break.”

  “Thanks, Honey,” said Terry. He leaned over and grabbed Brian’s pant
leg and pulled him toward him, wrapping his arm around Brian’s legs and holding him still as everyone concentrated on Astrid. Brian played with Terry’s tonsure and waited with them.

  “He’s going into another building. It’s still large but not as large. It’s very old, though, older than the Hall of Records, or as old at least. I can’t see a sign yet…”

  They all waited breathlessly.

  “Okay, there’s one. It’s in Enochian, of course. Aziazior—that mean anything to you, Terry?”

  “Yeah, it means ‘forms,’” Terry answered quickly. “A pretty common word, actually, as the angels use it in a number of different contexts. It’s synonymous with our words ‘likeness,’ ‘image,’ ‘archetype,’ ‘symbol,’ ‘shape,’ ‘projection,’ and a whole bunch of others, but you get the idea.”

  “Yeah,” said Richard. “Is he going in?”

  “It looks like he is…yes, he’s headed up the stairs. Not gracefully, mind you. In fact, as I get closer to him, he looks like he’s in a lot of pain.”

  Susan reached over and squeezed Kat’s hand.

  “But he’s soldiering on,” Astrid said. “I’m going to try to follow him into the building. Sometimes I can, and sometimes I can’t…”

  “Do your best,” Richard implored.

  “So, what is this ‘Forms’ place?” Kat asked, trying to cap the hysteria that threatened to overwhelm her.

  “The Hall of Forms is where the archetypes for all things are enshrined,” Astrid called from beneath her cloth.

  “Huh?” Kat shot Richard a confused look.

  “Ever studied Plato?” he asked.

  “I always preferred Silly-Putty, why?” she answered, without a trace of humor.

  Brian burst out with such a forceful guffaw that he accidentally farted.

  “Good one, dude,” called Dylan, holding up his hand to Brian for a high-five.