Moth: Dead Man's Touch & Coriander's Dance

1- Dead Man's Touch

Raymond "Shiloh" Deighton sat at the dead-end roundabout of Mayflower Drive in his old green Miata, with the top down as the midnight hour bloomed full into late spring night. He stared upwards, his seat reclined back and his hand fixed around the neck of the bottle of Old Crow whiskey. Sitting on the dashboard over the radio was an old Browning 1911 pistol, with one round in the tank and nine in the bank. Mayflower Drive meandered through the center of one of the city's older neighborhoods. One that had lost quite a bit of steam as the old brick and clapboard manses began to show their age in these latter years. The once pristine houses of the city's more affluent citizenry bore something of a ghost town effect, as those that were capable of leaving had began leaving four years ago. As the economy continued to fade, and the temperament of Lyman Michigan seemed to continually grow more fierce and ruthless, Shy had made it through those early years by branching out his old PI office into working the books for Manny Gold. Manny pretty much held the receipt on every deadbeat and renegade ass that had ever blown into or attempted to pass through the city of Lyman. Shy was not certain whether it was about the tough times, or that the world was simply evolving a more highly advanced breed of jackass--but it kept Tull and him afloat while the rest of the state seemed to be sinking deeper into the red.

"When I was a child, I had a fever"...

The radio played through the once upon what must have passed for the good times on WSSO radio station. From what Shy could only figure that real definition of "classic rock" was that mostly old farts listened to it, WSSO had a wholly other sort of format as he was coming up here in Lyman, near the bay. The nearest real city was Saginaw, which had began showing signs of the country's desperation fair earlier than anyone else had started actually noticing that something was running amiss in the economy. There was a point and time that almost everyone that could not find work in Lyman-proper ended up making the thirty minute ride down to Saginaw, and working for one of the big three. Shy had not really recognized that he had been witnessing the end of an era, and yet another transition. What he knew then was that the world that he had always known was nearing an end, an as near as he had come to planning for the end of school days was the big party up in Kalkaska. Lyman had once been something, sort of like a hidden gem stuck out along the water and away from the inland farms and the more urban environment of Saginaw and Bay City. Lyman was small, and seemingly insignificant, by comparison to those two much larger, nearby cities. Now, it seemed as if Saginaw's sprawl had began to absorb some much of the southern edge of the city, and the rest becoming like a suburb to it. The distinction between the two had continued to blur through the days when the economy was up and running smooth.

... "Now, I've got that feeling once again"...

As with any dumbass that made absolutely no plans for life after high school, Shy had went and talked to one of the local recruiters. It was not high on his list of things that he wanted to do so much as he had pissed away his first year after graduation getting stoned and hanging out. He still had the job at the bowling alley, and he had taken a few classes at the community college. Rowland Cummings was something of a grim awakening for him, as he had left work to go over to his apartment. Rowland had been working at the bowling alley for most of his life. He was in his mid thirties, divorced and his greatest possession was a five port water bong that could burn through an half-ounce of trainer weed in a matter of minutes. He drove a bucket of bondo on wheels, and barely managed to keep the near empty fridge turned on. The only thing not way beyond the due date was a half-case of some lesser known beer. Row had weed. He always had weed.

There was plenty enough time for second and third guessing his decision as he sat on the bus, shuttling from Atlanta down to Ft. Benning Georgia. No one would have been able to convince him that he would ever be going back home, let alone all of that in-between that just sort of fell into place. The only thing that was truly left back in Lyman was Isabelle Rhodes. Izzy was that on and off thing that had endured through most of his latter high school days. Cute, a little crazy, and pretty much as lost as he had seemed to be... they had never truly broke up. She had only told him that he would not love her anymore. That there would only be here and there... then and now. One would certainly have to twist and torque the definition of love to make any sort of claim as to that was what was going on between them. That didn't mean that he just stopped thinking about her. He was not sure at what point that thinking became only memory. To suggest that he had just grown into the boots would have been ridiculous. They had nearly kicked him out back in the early nineties. His wild night life had began to interfere with his "military career," which had sounded kind of like a joke to him at the time. A long sit-down with Lt. Col. Walmsley, whom was not entirely convinced that he was the biggest jackass in his unit, had led to some changes.

... "A distant ship's smoke on the horizon"...

Some much of his life improved, and some he had believed was just the right thing to do. A marriage, and a child later... right and wrong began to blur again. He had flown into a once seemingly familiar space, down in a strange place called Kuwait. He had been there before, back in the early nineties. He had been a grunt, and the armies of Iraq had already been drawn back and away from the border. He could remember that as he docked up into the seat of the old C-130 during OIF-1 that he felt certain that he was probably going to die for his country.  By that time, as his relationship with his wife Sheila was spiraling the tank, it really didn't seem to matter. That he had screwed up, and that it was his little Jessie that was going to be the one that was going to pay big for every decision that he had made.

Dead didn't seem so awful as it probably should, though he certainly was not rushing to the finish line. That the probabilities were pretty high just didn't upset him like it seemed to everyone else on-board the lonely skies airlines.

Everyone aside from a kid named Frankie Tull. Frankie had walked in off the streets of Brooklyn New York, booted up quick as the Army ramped up to speed for a second war in a country that just was not too likely to be welcoming them back with open arms. Shy had went from a Cav Scout, earned his airborne wings and Ranger tab. Spending as much time away from home as possible seemed like a decent plan for dealing with Sheila's rage. Fault was just something to think about as he was getting his ass kicked, and his own anger enough to drive him on through and into OIF 1, OIF 2, OIF 2.5, and beyond. It was during his first run in Afghanistan that Sheila had decided she had had enough.

Shy had returned to a house in foreclosure, all of his accounts drained and his credit cards maxed out, and well into the late pay interest rates. The only thing that Sheila had left behind was his Miata, which he had still owed money on, and had already been repossessed...

... "Your lips move, but I can't hear what you are saying"...

Shy found his gaze set upon the passenger seat of his Miata, where the ghostly image of a young dark haired sat in a booster seat. That image faded into shadow as he tried to remember how old Jessie would be now. He had often taken her out with him, as Sheila was usually too fucked up to even consider taking care of herself, let alone little Jessie. Shy could remember the night that he had her packed in the car, all of their clothes jammed into the trunk and ready to make a long run back up to Michigan. He would have missed his plane ride the next morning. He could have certainly made it back before he was technically considered to be AWOL. It wasn't the potential troubles that he would undoubtedly face once he could get back so much as he could not bring himself to take Jessie away from the only place in this world that she had ever known. If he had done it, she would not have been able to disappear...

... "When I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse"...

Sheila undoubtedly did not plan on winding up dead. Where or what had happened to Jessie was still a mystery, even after all of these years. He had spent large of his time and finances, and came away with finding Sheila's body up in northern California. How or why didn't make any sense, but he had had to call in quite a few favors to get anything more than what the policeman that had found her could remember from that night.

She had been found among the remains of a burnt-out old indigent flop house. She had been listed and buried as a Jane Doe, until Shy had brought in some of her old dental records. The Officer had told him that the place was a somewhat notorious drug house. There was no evidence that Jessie had ever been there, just as there was no evidence that she had not.

..."I turned to look but it was gone"...

'Jessie would be fifteen tonight,' he thought to himself as he lifted the bottle to his lips and considered trying to drain it down. It seemed to be quasi-suicidal, something akin to catching the couch-bounce, early retirement plan from his military career. It was a gift really, as most would have likely just been ran out on a dishonorable discharge. He had started school when his old buddy Tull had suggested opening a private investigations office. Tull was taking the twenty and out, with a bit of a cash incentive driven by the military down-sizing. Five years deeper into this new life, and he gets a call from some nobody out of nowhere about Jessie. The caller claims that she is still alive, and that she is close-by.

..."The child is grown, the dream is gone"...

The lingering belief that he had seen her refused to settle into the more logical sense of such an unlikelihood. She was only four the last time that Shy had last seen here, sitting in the seat beside him... safe for one last long night, until he had made his decision to bring her back. He had not woke Sheila as he placed Jessie in her bed, tucking her in as she slept. Shy had went out into the living room, grabbed his bags and left. The girl that he had seen on the streets in Saginaw looked strangely familiar to him, running with a pack of strays and hiding away into the heart of that once upon another place that used to be Lyman. The girl was about the right age, and her strange reaction to seeing him was what gave him the first good look at her. She had stopped dead in her tracks, and her gaze becoming more intent before the others had started pulling and moving her along. When Shy had raced the Miata down towards them, they had all scattered like rats into the old business and warehouse district.

Shy had heard that most of the younger, homeless crowd hung out down by the river. Bill Denny had worked on the Saginaw police force for nearly thirteen years. Before that, he was an MP stationed in Germany. Bill had first met Shy while he was working a case that involved a client of Tull's. Apparently, he was none too pleased to discover that the missus had a pretty major dick addiction that she couldn't seem to shake. He sure the fuck cured her of that. He had showered her in gas and then struck a match.

... "I have become... comfortably numb."

Bill had set him up with a sketch artist, and put the face out on the wire for him. Mayflower Drive was really about as close as he was going to get to where Bill had told him that the stray youth had their nightly little parties, which was just enough away from the city bounds to avoid the public eye and live a gypsy sort of life. Bill was not too happy to hear that Jessie may have wound up in that crowd, as they were a common enough problem as to be a pain in the ass. Catting, theft and dope were not entirely welcome, though Bill had told him that this particular group had only recently rolled into the city--if it was the same group that he thought they might be.

Bill said that this group was particularly dangerous, like a stray pack of mad dogs. He said that he could not be sure where it was that they hung out, but that the riverside was a common ground. Shy was not even certain what it was that he expected to see, especially when he was hunting for those that did not care to be found. The presence of the bottle was mostly to key himself back down to earth. The chances of that girl being Jessie was borderline impossible, let alone that they would be here at all. It also killed time, for which he really could not leave without some risk of winding up on ugly side of Bill's crew-of-blues.

"I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord"...

Sleep was moving with some thickness into his brain, and trying to take over the reigns of his thoughts as that unlikelihood seemed to be fading fast. Phil Collins really was not helping, but the thought of putting the top back up and locking the doors before he fell asleep seemed like an idea that made sense. Common sense and his ambition had seemingly lost contact with one another somewhere in the deep end of the bottle.

He was not certain if he was dreaming or not when he seen the warm, soft flickering glow about two hundred meters in front of his car, just inside the wood-line.


2- Coriander's Dance

"Rolling down the road, going nowhere"...

Coriander Moon, as she was called among her fellow tribesman, smiled as Milgram Nash began drumming against the face of his guitar, slipping his fingers down the strings as he spliced the melody in between the rhythm that he had set. She knew the song well enough, though she had never actually realized that Mill had not written the song himself. It would be impossible to say what Milgram's voice truly sounded like, as he seemingly practiced a near perfected form of mimicry that would make mockingbird blush. Sometimes, such as now, he had a gravel and whiskey sound to his voice, while at others it was perfectly clear and strong. Milgram never spoke, though he often sang.

Cori had never even heard of Marc Broussard.

... "I got a jones in my bones"...

Raising up, her arms lifting as her hips moved and her eyes closed. Wearing a black jean jacket with a colorful cloth hood, opening away from herself and feeling the rhythm invade her, mingling into her nerves and the night drawing her closer toward the edge of the bonfire. Wearing a raggedy old pair of jeans, a blue flannel shirt, and a yellowed tanked tee shirt underneath that; her long and curly dark hair stirring as she moved both toward and away from the music.

... "I said, take me hoooo-hooo-home"...

Laughter filled and brimmed over as she reached up star-ward, and left her with a pure smile upon her face in this one truest expression of joy overwhelmed her--through that dank and dirty, dismal haze of being alone in this world, she had found them-- and they had become her tribe.

"I could feel the sun about to rise, when I realized that I had nothing to fear"...

Milgram's voice rose as Coriander allowed herself into the ecstatic embrace, the motion of her body unplanned and so not choreographed as that she might know where her next step might fall... like a prayer unremembered and unrehearsed to some forgotten goddess in an old temple, she knew that her body spoke in old and new emotions. Some had sought to hold and keep her, while from others she could only feel the bitter-sweet release its pull back down, toward her true identity and the one that had bloomed out naturally as the music took her mind further and farther away from all of that--which may have once been good or evil, but was now--if only for a moment, erased.

... "Makin' music that no one would hear"...

It was only here, in this sacred place, that she could feel the embrace of the infinite--where tears and laughter mixed, becoming one and the same spirit and enjoined unto this mad dance that she did not even seek to control anything but the rise from dirt and mud of this common ground. It here that she knew that she truly believed in something or someone beyond that sensual crust, a soul that was dark and primitive, sensual and bound to something that even she never truly understood. Heaven may be too much to expect, but some place... different, and unchanged for eons... a pure and blesssed place that were, like each and everyone around her, some piece had been removed and whose truest instincts only sought to return to it again.

... "Said take me ho-ho-home!"...

When and where she had found this place was long lost to her now, though she felt certain that it must have been discovered from some another night, an awakening of desperation. The Dark Fathers had so easily overcome her as a child, bound her to them with sorceries that she could, even now, scantily understand. They had bound her to the angel, which they had sought to convince her could only have been fallen. That those that still ho'ered among the Divine would ne'er bend so low...

"Like I was swimming in the sea of soul"...

For how long had she been gone away this time? The missing pieces of the song she knew well enough to remember all of the words had seemingly broken apart, and fell away into some place where she had not moved with it. She wondered if those gathered around her could still see her then, until she fell herself, reunited again to her body and still drifting along that seam between this world, and some other place... somewhere like nowhere, undiscovered and unnamed by mankind.

"My daddy turned his face up towards the sky"...

With one word, like the active principle of any spell, she felt her body again, as if it had become heavy and lethargic. "Daddy," had been the word, and her mind was drawn back to yesterday, where they had been walking through the city, and gathering up what they might find to bring back here. She had never really felt any contact with anyone before, outside of her tribe. She didn't know what part of her had recognized that face, but it wasn't until that word had exited from Milgram's mouth that she began to understand who that man truly was.

... "Take me hooo-hooo-home!"...

She found herself, still by the water's edge. Inside, down within its depths, she believed that there was a very old god... beckoning unto the child, lost and disappeared into some another part of the world. She believed that she could hear the voices of those that it had called before, calling her away... to never return back here again. She could never be certain if the gods in old rivers were good or evil. She had never trusted any other gods than those that she had first known...

"Straight from the water!
Straight from the water children!"...

Coriander stripped away her jacket and shirt, and then pulled off her shoes. She could feel the effects of the ecstasy and marijuana, as if they were trying to pull her apart. Cori unfastened her pants and pulled her jeans down, stepping out of them before pulling off her shirt. She took only a few steps outwards before she dove into the black waters, her body immediately clenched against the cold. She dove down deeper, unto the bottoms, her fingertips brushed like a caress against the small skull that had been sunken there. She had no idea for how long it had been there, only that she had some kind of sense or knowing that it would be here...

And that the child that it had once been was taken away from this world by something ancient, and unknowable but to a chosen few...

Such as only a chosen few would ever know the Dark Fathers. Most would never survive that knowing. The worshiped and sacrificed to the gods of blood and chaos. They believed that they were some essential part of this place, and would one day be forgiven unto to become like gods themselves.

They served most obediently their highest Lord, whom they had called The Mad One. They fed it pain, humiliation and death... panic and misery...loving it with such a loathing of their own kind. Coriander was the name that they had given her. They had fucked her with such cruelty, and made her cry adoringly...

Coriander gathered the skull into her arm, and swam back up towards the shore. There was a sense that something was moving in towards her, behind her; a child's soul following or an angry god's minion chasing after her... seeking to return her back into the hands of the Dark Fathers.

Coriander broke the water's surface, feeling the current attempting to drag and pull her away, but she managed to regain her feet in the shallower water and moved up onto the earth again, spilling forward and falling down cold and naked in the mud, and shivering as she cradled the skull into her side.

Dandelion moved to her quickly, petting at the side of her head t first, and then grabbing up her coat and covering her over with it before she laid in beside her. Coriander opened her eyes and stared into the young girl's face. Coriander lifted her jacket, and the child crawled in beside her, drawing her arm around her and pulling her in close against herself and the skull...

She knew that he would come to her again soon, the spirit that she had stolen from the river would have to be reborn-- as it could never exist here, in the open air. Dandelion, or Dandy, was one of their children, as were the rest of her tribe... her cognatti, as the Dark Fathers had called all of her sires from before she had managed to escape them. Like the old legends of Lilith, the Dark Fathers had first made her unworthy, and then they had given her, unforgiven, to what they had considered to be a devil's bed once she had come of age to bear children.

She had thought that she was going to die when the first was born. The pain had seemed unendurable, that she might have prayed to have never done that again. Given any other choice, she may have never had another child. She was never given a choice of what she wanted to be, let alone what she might allow herself to become. Ironically, it was through her children that she had been redeemed.

Dandy and Little D was the only of the two that she was able to take with her. She had lashed out at them, with powers that she could not understand so much as she knew that they were there... a gift perhaps, from them that are likened to these Children of Sodom... ken of angels or demons, given unto this human womb. She had attempted to find Perpetua and Eryine... Dionysus and Rose... and those that she was never allowed time to even give a name. She knew that someday, that they would all seek her out and find her. She thought of the man that she now recognized as her mortal father, the one that had gone away so long ago.

Her mother had been crazy, though she could never be certain to what part of it was natural. The Dark Fathers had been calling to her all along, and had brought her to them. They had kept her for a time, and then they gave her up to the Mad One, once that they were certain that they had broken her.

Her urge to return to him was strong when she seen him, but dwindled away slowly. She knew that he had recognized her at well, and it kind of frightened her as he started driving the car straight at her, as if he intended to run her down. She knew, even if she went to him, that he would never accept her children. She had to protect them. From the Dark Fathers, from humanity in general... from all of the angels and devils that were not among the earthbound. The Divine would not tolerate their continued existence, for to them, her children were an abomination. To the fallen, they were not to be allowed to roam free, but to become a part of them... instruments to be used and abused toward what aims that they could be bent and turned. Humans didn't recognize them for what they were, so much as their instinctual reactions were destroy that which only their souls recognized as a threat.

She could not really say what Bella and Milgram were, save that the twin brother and sister had chosen to come with her when she left the Fathers' castle in flight. Their fear of Little D had been enough to overcome what her own powers could not keep them at bay.

She had killed some of them, though she knew that they would return. They always came back, with different names and faces. She did not know how long it was that they had been here, only that a part of them was older than any living man... older than this place, which had once been called the New World... older than Rome, Athens and Babylon, perhaps even Egypt and Sumeria. They spoke of such things that no living mortal human being could ever know...

Such as Sodom, and their belief that they were awakening those children that had been lost there through her womb. She knew that what few stories had been told about that ancient place were not entirely true... as they were not entirely untrue. They were another sort, different than those peoples that had began to move in closer around them. They did not welcome travelers from outside of the city, and would more often kill them. Some of the Dark Fathers claimed that the "others" had rose up around them, while others suggested that a certain text had been found, purportedly written by an angel's hand before he had fallen from grace. It was that book that had caused its fall.

It was the mere presence of that book among them that had brought down The Wrath, and it was supposedly lost within that unholy conflagration. The Dark Fathers desired to have it again. It is here, though she doubted that they would ever be able to get it back.

The Dark Fathers were obviously aware of the presence of the Firstborn here, as the "distinguished gentleman" which they had given her to was one of them. He was the father of her children. Jude was an Olivine, though it was not his true name. Coriander never used that, never aloud leastwise. She rarely let the once Divine name form in her head. She did not know under what enchantments or eldritch prison that they had once held him in the castle, but that spell had been broken. Once unleashed, the Dark Fathers scrambled away from him as if The Wrath had been reawakened upon them.

Those that Jude had destroyed could not return here. He was not near so powerful as he had once been. Not among his own kind. His exile here was not the same sort of banishment as the Mad One, as he had never truly become an enemy to the Divine. He had mingled among mankind, sent here and obedient to what cause he had been made...

He had gone away and left her here, as he had some word that Eryine had fled unto somewhere she shouldn't be. Coriander could not go there, but he could.

She cradled both child and the skull she had found to her, wondering what she might name this new one, yet to be born. She could feel it, somewhere close about her, like some animal that was unsure of what it had found. She smiled as the Dandelion's soft breath evened out and purred, Milgram setting the guitar aside and moving away from the fire. She did not know where he was going, or when he would be back. Bella was gone, as well as some of the others. The only thing that she knew for certain about them was that they were not human. Not entirely leastwise.

Coriander let her eyes close, and she seen the face of a young boy staring back at her. His cheeks pouched out like a chipmunk, dark eyes staring up towards her from a dark face. He could not have been anymore than nine or ten, his gaze steady yet uncertain as she tried to move towards him. She watched as he moved back, and attempted to hide himself behind a tree. In her head, the image of herself smiled and knelt down, sitting beside the stream as she let her eyes raise skyward toward the unfilling crescent moon that hovered over the night. She chanced a glance back to him, and she found him looking up there as well.

Coriander held her arms outward as the young soul started moving towards her, moving down into her lap and leaning his head in against her chest, listening to her heartbeat and clinging into her warmth. She watched as he manipulated a piece of what appeared to be paper in his hand, bending it and contorting it into the shape of a bird as the sun slowly began to rise over the distant city-scape. Cori watched as he drew it up, floating in the air between his fingers, and then letting it go... feathers and wing immediately forming from beneath his small black hand, and then a startled panic of action sparking as a red and yellow bird that had never existed before flit up quickly into the branches nearby tree that the boy had recently tried to hide behind as well.

'Juan,' she thought to herself, and then said aloud in the dream, and watched as the young boy's eyes moved from the bird back to her face. "San Juan," she smiled as the boy continued to stare up into her face, and then pulled him in close to her as she listened to the bird's first song.

Uley