Soul

Author's note: This chapter is NOT a stand-alone...The story starts here.

Jacobo

It was the same way before. They get under your skin. They learn to tease. They learn that they are really safe and then… oh yes, and then their real personalities emerge from under the shells of fear and deprivation that has followed them all their lives.

Both Mirafe and Erlyn were feisty from the get-go. The fact that they have taken that which was a defensive stance and allowed it to be reinvented as loving, and chiding, is not surprising.

Amelae, is right. She is not as smart as the other two. She is loyal, and I will never lose her, but she isn’t the one to raise her shield, as much as she wants to cuddle and mew. Death simply depresses her. It drains her of happiness.

For Mirafe and Erlyn, death may be necessary and it is to be accepted.

Clearly Mirafe sees it as her mission to get me to find love in my heart. She sees the hurt I carry and wants to pull it out of me and discard it. She is convinced she is right.

Erlyn, I suspect knows exactly why that would be a bad thing. She is not arguing with Mirafe. She doesn’t need to do so. She knows why I am the way I am, and has come to savor it. My telling her to cool her heels while I go about protecting her is not a reason to pout. For her, it is a reason to rejoice.

And yet, acknowledging the differences, they are forging a powerful interdependent relationship. I see no jockeying for position.

When Aina says she can breathe now, she can, but she is still scared. She sees this as a momentary respite and is not at all sure what the coming days will bring. She is in many ways still psychically attached to the abusive priest. I have no idea if she will ever really be able to let go. I have a suspicion that if we go too deep into her head, she might shut down as the Nuns do. Francine may be very wrong about this one. The most charitable thing I might do is lose her and place her in a convent, or as Shakespeare would call it in mocking jest, a Nunnery.

What I am about to do will not upset Mirafe or Erlyn. Amelae, as much as she says she understands, is in some turmoil about it. Aina just can’t wrap her head around why it is necessary. In this, they are far from cohesive.

The cops that noticed Erlyn are with Rykel’s old syndicate. There are cops competing with cops in the thing and working for different drug lords. I watch the SMS traffic for a while and note when the guys I need gone are going to be occupied with a load of Shabu. Using the cell number of a snitch the other cops use, I get the needed info about the Shabu transfer and shipment to those who need to know. They are not good cops. They are very bad cops, but I don’t care which side has the drugs, I need a few guys growing daisy’s above them.

It has taken twelve days of watching and waiting before I am able to put the plan into action. In the meantime, Aina eats and sleeps and watches TV and eats and sleeps. She looks healthier, but is still painfully thin. She needs to add a good eight kilo’s and if she adds it too fast, her heart just might quit on her.

Amelae has wanted to accompany her mother, but I am not allowing it. Her Mom is getting treatment without fees. Her bodyguards are transporting her in an SUV with very dark windows, because they are terrified of her being out in the open. All that needs to happen is some fool to take a pot shot to ruin their days. Visitors to her mother are being searched before they can enter her door. Between the TB and an advanced case of diabetes, her mother is not very mobile anyway.

To fill their time, the girls have started a vegetable garden on my grounds. They are cooking up a storm and cleaning the house so well that I have had to make some adjustments from how things had been done before. I have allowed Amelae and Mirafe to do some reconnaissance on what their old church is up to.

Erlyn has asked me to teach her about some of the surveillance tools I am using. It seems like a good idea and we are spending a lot of time together as I put the current plan in motion. Her wound is healing, but she did lose some muscle as well as skin. Healing completely will not be a fast thing.

Tomorrow is the day that things will resolve for us. However, for a cop named Jacobo, the only name I actually learned via the traffic, this Friday is going to be a very bad day. We put the plan in place now, on Thursday.

It is Erlyn who sends the texts. I figure it’s only fair. They want to kill her. They killed her brother and her mother. What is the saying, ‘Payback is Hell’? Now, that is funny. And so my pretty little Devil is giving them their payback. Maybe ‘Payback is a bitch.’ But I just don’t see her as a bitch. No, not a bitch.

At the dinner table, after the texts have been sent, there is a stillness. The food is a bit special. I have a recipe that I picked up many years ago in Mexico. I have it every year on this day, to remind me of the foolishness of conquests and the reality of the fusion of cultures that eventually rise up in spite of the intents of the conquerors. So tonight we silently eat a dish I love, some call it, chicken mole.

In the old days, before Americans decided all holidays should be on Monday, this would have been their Columbus Day. A day to celebrate the guy who didn’t discover America and who never landed on the continent, and whose personal habits resulted in his soul being in my collection. He is one of those guys whose life is so disgusting that I just can’t fathom why he is celebrated. I mean he butchered natives and sold their meat as dog food. Old Chris was a real asshole. And that is why I remember him every October 12^th with pollo ‘de mole’ poblano.

But it is awkward tonight. Mirafe mentions that Aina has gained two kilos this week. That’s three kilos in the last twelve days. It’s a lot of weight, and though she needs to gain even more, I ask her to slow down.

Maybe you not want me to gain weight fast because you like me here and not want to see me go!

That is an interesting question. But the answer is that I just want you to be healthy when you leave here.

Amelae is close to apoplectic. Master, why you both say, ‘when she leaves.’ Has this been decided?

No, not for me. It was she who said it first. Ask her if she has made up her mind.

Aina, you decide na? You decide you go?

Hindi. Maybe I just teasing.

Master, you know what is in our minds. Is she teasing?

Why do you think I can read minds?

You can, don’t argue. What she thinking?

Ask her?

I did!

No you didn’t. You asked her if she had made up her mind. Now ask her what she is thinking.

Sige, sige. Friend Aina, what your thought?

I am unsure.

Amelae looks at me. She wants my help. Aina, do you miss Jesus?

Oo, talaga.

OK, Amelae, do you see now?

But there is no Jesus!

OK and how does that matter to Aina, who needs to believe there is a Jesus?

Oh, it like you say. If people want to believe, there is nothing you can do about it. It is free will?

Yes.

That why Aina is needing to leave?

Ask her.

Amelae, takes Aina’s hand and places it above her own breast, on her chest, Friend Aina, is it true that you reject the teachings of the Master and want to pray to this Jesus, who not really exist?

I know you say Jesus not exist but many others say he does. How I know?

When you pray to Jesus, he do anything to help you?

How I know?

Ask Erlyn what happen when she pray to Master! She know!

Yes, yes, maybe it true. Maybe both Master and Jesus powerful. How I know?

OK, you pray that, … Master what’s the name of that guy who will die?

Jacobo?

Tama! Aina, you pray to your Jesus that he spare Jacobo tomorrow. See what happen.

How I know Jesus not want him dead too?

Aina, you believe in Mumu too?

Oo. You not?

I give up. Get fat and go!

Why you mean to me?

Not mean, but Master save you. Jesus never save you. But you want to believe in a mumu and not a real divine. No helping you!

OK, that’s enough Amelae. There is no reason to argue. Aina has every right to see the world as she needs to see it. I will not try to change it. I like Aina, and have no interest in making her unhappy. If she wants to go, that is fine.

But…

Erlyn breaks in, Amelae, stop. Master say stop, you stop!

Mirafe is playing with her spoon. I can hear the wheels spinning.

OK, Mirafe, I know you are afraid to say what is on your mind, but please share it.

Why she need to stay? She not sick. She not at risk of dying. You sent the priest away. She rejects you and still prays to Jesus. Why she here? Yes, she is not ready to carry a child, but if she not staying, she not carrying your child.

As far as I know, Aina has not made up her mind yet. She asked a little less than two weeks ago, how long she had to make up her mind. I told her she had until she was healthy enough to carry my child. She can leave whenever she wants before that. I never said she couldn’t. But I will not kick her out if she hasn’t made up her mind and she isn’t well enough to get pregnant.

Mirafe looks at Aina. If you want Jesus and not Master, I think you have already made up your mind. I think Master is being too kind again. What you think, girl?

I not sure yet. Master is kind. This is true. But Master is also cruel. Some will die tomorrow. This is also true. I know Master is powerful. I taught that Jesus saves souls. I not know what to think right now. I need time.

She does need more time, if only to find the courage to say goodbye to us. I see no point in pushing. She is, in her own way, teaching my girls a great deal about how the world works and why it is so hard to change things.

Mirafe’s brain is bubbling again. Girl, what is the question you are afraid to ask now?

How you do that? It not fair. Why I ask? You know already.

I don’t know. Tell me.

You allow me to be with you tonight?

You may sleep in my bed tonight. I am not sure I will be in it much.

You have to sleep!

Erlyn is giggling, Friend, I slept in his bed last night. I not sure he ever was there. When I go to sleep he was in the work room. When I wake up, he was in the work room. If he come in I not know. If he do me, it must be a miracle, I not feel it!

That gets Amelae and Aina laughing. Mirafe is nonplused. Master, when this is over, maybe you will find time for me?

Yes. That will be nice. And, it will be nice. I do not enjoy this tense period. These things are not easy. We normally allow humans to go about their business uninterrupted. With three billion on the planet, there is really no reason to micromanage. What I am doing is highly unusual. I almost never take souls… well that isn’t true. Over the years I normally take one and stay with her until the years take her. So it is infrequent that I really do any of this type of thing. Once they are with me, I normally don’t have to do anything. Francine’s mother was an exception. To say it caught me by surprise is to state the obvious.

It was easy to love in the past, when there was little need to be always vigilant. But with Francine’s mother, things were different. It taught me to never make that mistake again. How many women have I had as mates over the many years? I most certainly do not count. I do not want to feel the weight of those good women on my heart all at once and all together. Each was a good companion for decades, then yielding to time and age, giving way sweetly as I always took their pain away.

Each gave me a child. Each child grew up and until Francine, emerged from my roof without ever knowing anything other than I was a good father. I allowed them to see me appear to age along with their mother and at her passing, they were left to understand that I too had passed.

Do I need to be here?

No, I most certainly do not. It’s just that I really don’t like the game. Yes, it is the game we agreed to, but that was a mistake. So, as a reminder of the evil created by having the game, I live among those who are the game pieces. This is my penance.

Francine is the weight on my being. She is the loving reminder of my one failure. I cannot afford to forget. And so Francine had to know how I failed, if not exactly who I am, or the punishment I dole out to myself would be too easily left aside in the passing of time.

If I took but one female again, I might have lulled myself into complacency. I cannot allow that to happen. And so there are three here who are more assuredly now mine. And having three gives me reason to not love any. It is protection. I chose females with difficulties to remind me to be vigilant. I may have chosen too well.

Tonight I will watch and wait. What is going to happen will occur in the very early morning hours. As I watch, Aina is silently praying to her Jesus. She is imploring him to intervene and save lives. She sees it as a test. If her Jesus comes through against this lessor god, she will take it as a sign. What she will do when the guys die, is less certain in her mind. She wants to believe that they will be saved and in that act of redemption find Jesus in their hearts, mending their evil ways.

I could tell her that if they don’t die they will only take it that they were successful and continue on in their evil path, but such logic is beyond her need for faith. There may be may such battles she will see fought in the coming weeks while she gains weight and continues to say she is unsure. I suspect in the end she will go, but free will is just that. I have no way of knowing what she will choose.

Jacobo is the top cop in his region. He strides around in his para-military PNP uniform. He wears a cross which is always visible. In some ways, he sees himself as a modern day Christian Knight crusading against the heathens. He justifies his Shabu activities as that which he must do to finance his holy war. Jacobo the Grand Master of his coterie of modern day knights.

How do I know this? The man is constantly writing to his bishop of his valiant efforts and those who serve under him. He takes selfies of himself in a manner that leaves little to the imagination. I am not reading his mind… I am reading his mail.

And so I am thinking about Jacobo as I scoop up the last of my 'de mole' and wait for the early hours of Friday the 13^th.

After dinner I kiss each of my three a sweet goodnight, only to find Erlyn unwilling to leave my side. Go to bed. There is nothing for you to do now.

Master, you are not going to bed and the same advice can be given to you. I want to watch with you.

I allow it and am about to leave the others, only to hear Aina ask, May I come too?

No, Aina. Only those who have put their souls in my hands may pass this locked door. You may not enter.

I want to see what happens.

There will be nothing that you will see in there. That is not why we will be there.

What does it matter if you have my soul, to allow me to go in there?

Aina, you are a guest in this house. You are welcome to stay in here. But you are only a guest and have no rights. Do I make myself clear?

Yes. Sorry.

If there comes a time when your soul is mine, you will be back in those rooms often enough. But only if that happens.

Erlyn and I enter, locking the door behind us.

It is a series of long and uneventful hours until three in the morning. Erlyn and I pass the time talking about her life growing up. We talk about the games she played. The candies she liked to eat. The names of the tricycle drivers who her mom trusted and the ones she was to stay away from. We talked about her dreams, and her fears.

At three we start seeing activity, on both ends of the matter. We watch as some assemble and others are in transit. The sun will rise a little after five-thirty, but the sky will lighten at about five-fifteen. All will transpire before that happens.

We wait and watch. I wonder, will Jacobo live long enough to see the dawn break?

Chapter 14