Ghost of a chance

Went to the hardware store this morning. The idea was to observe Renan at work. The problem was how to observe them without them noticing I was there to watch. More than any conclusion I wanted to come to, it was more like sheer curiosity of watching Renan working at a store.

I noticed that Anderson and Renan hardly talked, even in the moments of calm at the store. That took my attention. I thought they were a bit cold in their friendship now, what made me sad and uncomfortable inside. The way Renan manoeuvered during the meeting might have been the cause of that silence (though if I stopped to analyze the situation coldly there was really nothing else Renan could do). Renan beamed upon seeing me and we talked a bit. Anderson glanced our way sometimes while he positioned some boxes. The precision with which he did it gave me the impression the work he did in that moment was far from necessary.

A costumer arrived, shopped and smiled when he saw Renan working there. He obviously knew about the story behind his working at the store. He commented it was good to see him working with Anderson and didn't seem to resist making another remark:

"Now it only remains to see Anderson working with you, Renan."

I saw the young blacksmith discreetly fulminate the costumer with his eyes. Turning his back on Anderson, Renan smiled at the costumer, a mischievous smile, "yes, who knows he will turn out to be my partner in the end?"

Five o'clock tea on the farm Taurinos (what didn't happen frequently). Adriano even got up from bed today, despite Aparecida's protest. The chaos he lived through seemed to have made her an overly protective mother. He looked totally normal today, an absurd improvement overnight. I did think returning to where he actually belonged did him good.

Outside, the Sun started its descent, heading for the horizon, going to hide behind the beautiful mountains of Taurinos. From the cerrado there came the lush perfume of candeias, the trees beginning to become like mere silhouettes against the Sun that went down and down in time.

"So you went to visit Renan on his working day?", asked Andrés, clutching to a thick slice of corn meal cake nearby.

"I did, yes, he and Anderson didn't seem to be talking to each other a lot", I answered, uncertain whether I should talk about Renan at the table.

"It was unbelievable of him to ask me to hit him on the face until I drew blood, have you heard about anything alike in your lifetime?", inquired Aparecida, still appalled at the events of the day before.

"No, but I sure heard about it in my deathtime", I said, laughing and making the whole family laugh.

"I have always said he was insane and nobody would lend me an ear", added Adriano.

"He's really far from insane, believe me, Adriano. You should have seen him at the meeting, but of course you couldn't be there. By the way, master Danilo said things at the meeting I would never imgine he could say. He is always so easy, but was revolted at the meeting. Renan did feel the weight of his words, yes he did. To him it might have been like being bludgeoned on the head", Andrés commented.

I confirmed Andrés' words. Said I found he was really deft with his words, and the situation only made him show how deft he really was.

Andrés was going to add something to the discussion, but was cut short by my cell phone ringing in my purse. Left there, forgotten, not having rung for months, it got me startled. Who in the whole city of Taurinos could know my cell phone number? I got the call and it surprised me to the bone.

It was Meire on the other side. I commented it was her and Andrés and Adriano were in suspense, staring at me. Duílio and Aparecida didn't seem to understand what was going on, though they had already heard a lot about Meire.

"I can't believe you have finally answered this goddamned phone, Stella!", said her voice on the other side.

Very true. Left inside my purse, deep inside of it, a purse I didn't always carry along with me; it should have rung a thousand times without me realizing it.

"I managed!", she said happily, leaving me confused. At first, I figured she was still speaking about the fact I had finally gotten her call. But what she said next filled me with astonishment and aprehension.

"I'm in Taurinos", she said with a slightly triumphant tone in her voice, "it took me ages of practice, but I have finally gotten to the town where you live now, my friend!"

"Meire, we didn't arrange for you to come here without telling me first!…"

"Did I do something wrong?"

At my side, startled, Andrés dropped the mug he had intended to fill with coffee again. He held me by my sleeve and was scared, "hey, wait there, your friend is in town and you haven't told Renan?", his eyes and Adriano's were as big as the saucers under their mugs.

I quickly told Andrés that I didn't have to tell Renan about it, because it was only being planned, there was no fixed day arranged for her to come and actually see me. I only didn't count on the fact she wanted to surprise me, but I knew it wouldn't make a world of difference in case the Obscure Police found her wandering on the city limits.

"But Renan must still be at the hardware store, no? We can call him and tell him there will be a visitor…", tried Adriano.

"Today's Saturday, Adriano; Anderson's hardware closes at noon", Andrés reminded his brother, in dismay.

"Great Mithra…" Aparecida was nervous.

"Where are you?", I nervously asked her on the phone. Meire noticed my nervousness and asked me what was going on, "there's no time for details right now, only tell me exactly where you are and we'll pick you up there right now."

"Ask her if there's a city limit sign", suggested Aparecida, followed by her husband's agreement, "the poor souls usually step in town through the main entrance anyhow."

I did and Meire said there was no sign around, only lots and lots of trees. Andrés snatched the cell phone from my hand and asked her for references, listed various objects and features that might give him an idea of exactly where she was, but nothing she said really gave him an exact location. He said he even "saw" her, but nothing in the image he got from her allowed him to come to any conclusions either.

"Dad, come with us, we'll have to cover the town limits until we find her. We'll have to pray to Mithra that we find her before Renan. Because if he finds her first, Miss Grisam, I have no idea how she's going to die, but you can be sure it's going to be something creepy."

"Holy Mithra", Duílio looked for his car keys as nervous as everybody else, "Adriano, you're staying here with your mother, don't even think of coming along. You're still too weak to step out", he added, glancing at his elder son.

Sun starting his way to his bed amid the mountains of Taurinos. No one of us said a word in the car. Both father and son seemed to share the same aprehension for me and for my friend they had never met. Our eyes turned to the outside of the car, to the limits of Taurinos and the outside world where the terrible threats came from, threats that the Obscure Police combated like an antibody.

It was Duílio who first heard the screams. He stopped the car for us to be able to hear better, but there was no need for that; all of us could hear them clearly even with the engine running.

"Fuck! We should have known better than to think we could be faster than the lil' devil to find her", Andrés shook his head and turned his eyes to me, desolated, "I don't want to discourage you, Miss Grisam, but I think your friend doesn't stand a ghost of a chance", he stared at me with an expression of infinite compassion.

I felt like crying. There would be no one to place blame on but myself in case something happened to my best friend. And something was already happening. Her screams were lancinating.

Duílio said we had to get off the car and walk. There was no way of getting by car to the point where the screams seemed to be coming from; it was a part of the frontier with dense vegetation and forest. When Andrés and I got off the car he departed all of a sudden leaving us there on our own. I didn't understand a thing, but was too desperate to try to figure anything out. What I knew was that a friend of mine was in great danger. And I couldn't envision any reasonable way of helping her out.

Andrés and I embroiled deeper into the forest. The screams got stronger and stronger as we advanced through the mass of trees and bushes around us. All of a sudden, on a curve of the way we caught sight of the scene: a net hanging from the branches of a tree and Meire trapped inside of it as a game that gets captured by the hunter. Beside her was the Agent Renan. He appeared in all of its visual monstrousness I had seen before and it didn't scare me less than that last time I saw him at that clearing. Like I would never be able to get used to it. Renan was so right. I'd never get used to the ugliness of that hellish apparition. I could hardly stand looking at that, the fearsome vision of him and the net like a trap where Meire shook convulsively, screaming in complete desperation and horror. There was no way of coming any closer than what we already were. My eyeballs ached like hell. Everything around the scene was wrapped in such a dark and ominous ambient that it made it difficult for us to even breathe. I didn't want to imagine how Meire was feeling so close to him. But I had to do something, I did really have to.

"Renan", I shouted, "for Mithra's sake, for everything that's sacred to you, this is my friend. She hasn't come to do me any harm! She hasn't come to do Taurinos and its people any harm! Please let my friend go! Please let her go!"

I struggled between looking away and looking directly at Renan, but it was like staring at the Sun. His aspect attacked our sight as a kick between the eyes. It burned my eyes like Sun rays, an inverted, black Sun that was the very spirit of what people here used to call the Obscure Police.

"For the love of the King Star, Miss Grisam don't you look at him directly, look away, look away", shouted Andrés, not able to look at Renan himself, "you're so deranged, you're so friggin' deranged!!!"

It was hard to tell — amid all the din the screams from us and from Meire herself formed — but Renan was gathering firewood under the net that held my friend. The last Sun rays for that Saturday made the net shine; a net all made of metal, a wireframe. It was not difficult to foresee what he would do to Meire in a short while. She'd be burned alive inside that sinister wireframe before our very scared eyes. Renan turned to look at us two for a while. And, for the very first time within that gruesome aspect, he spoke to us. As he himself told me once, we were not prepared to hear his voice. The voice was not Renan's, not Renan's voice as we knew it, but it was a deep sweltering voice wrapped in a hellish noise like that of hundreds of gasoline drums rolling down a staircase. His voice involved us like a shock wave, throwing us down on the ground, ressonating like hell inside our very bones with a vibration that could only be described by those who died in an electric chair.

"I used to hear that kind of talk from the outsiders. Now that you're helping them out is novelty to me, Miss Grisam", and saw something in him I could remotely relate to laughter. If a creature like that could ever laugh, that'd be the closest he would come to it.

Only talking to him was sheer hell, let alone trying to talk him out of doing anything. Andrés had hit a nearby tree trunk with his head and was sitting stunned, eyes shut, lacking the guts to open them again. Meire's screams were even more lancinating, more, more, she was simply unable to shout articulated words. There was nothing else to do. Not even a miracle would save her now.

Suddenly, when the pile of firewood had reached the height intended by Renan, the sound of a car engine was heard at a distance, low, but perceptible even under the din of screams let out by my unfortunate friend. Andrés finally opened his eyes and looked at me, I turned my eyes back at him. We had clearly heard the engine come to a stop, doors being slammed closed and the sound of footsteps inside the forest, breaking fallen branches and sticks on the way to where we were. Was it Duílio coming back? What could he do against that monstrosity?

When Duílio emerged to the clearing where we stood he sought not to look at anything else but at his son and me. He knew where we were and what awaited him in case he dared to look around any further. He wouldn't dare to. But he hadn't come back by himself. And the one who had come with him passed us by without even glancing at us. His eyes aimed at the eyesore none of us could afford to look at without having the sensation we were having our eyeballs pulled out of our faces. More than that, he dared to walk close to him until the Agent was within his reach. That was Anderson. The only of us who could handle Renan in that aspect. Duílio, Andrés and I stared at him while he stood in front of the Agent, too close to a unimaginable danger that wouldn't affect him anyhow, indifferent to the unending screams coming from the trap that shook more and more violent as time passed us by.

"Let the lady go, Renan", he simply said with a very clear, crisp voice, "let her go and we'll patrol the town together from now on. I give up fighting against you. You have won and I have lost. You were right and I was wrong. Let Miss Grisam's friend go, please do. I want to join the Police and fight on your side."

Renan picked Anderson up and raised him as high as his "eyes", in a manoeuver that would have obliterated anyone of us. The very sight of the movement got me all dizzy as though I was about to faint. None of us saw it when the enormous figure of a drake set Anderson on his black horse, mounted on it too and disappeared in the bush, heading for the clearing outside. We only had our eyes turned to the net that opened as if it had never existed, letting go of Meire that fell to the ground still shaken by those heinous cramps all over. I ran to embrace my friend. Anderson had managed what none of us would ever manage: to set Meire free from the most appalling of deaths. Even knowing it would be his way in the end, I didn't have the faintest idea of the price the young blacksmith would pay for his heroism.

Forgiveness day | Black sun

Radio Universal: Obscure Police