The Last Handful of Clover - Book 3: The Stone in the Stream

3.13 Seeing

June 16, 7:55 am

"Where the fuck is that old bitch?" Richard barked, banging his fist uselessly against the keyboard of the great pipe organ. They had been at the Tabernacle for hours, and it was still just as deserted as it had been when they arrived. And with every passing minute, he was getting more and more frantic.

He had known even before they walked into the building that the old woman would not be there. When they were close to Temple Square, Richard had opened his mind to let his vision of the Hereafter bloom, and he had searched it for turquoise stars. By all rights, the old woman should have shown up on his radar as one of those blue dots that represented the ghosts not under the sway of the Wanderer. But to his surprise, not only were there no turquoise stars in his visualization of the Tabernacle, there were none anywhere around Temple Square. Surprised and a little alarmed, he pulled his vision back to see the Hereafter from above, like an ancient and golden Lake Bonneville, spreading out across northern Utah.

It appeared that all the dead that did not serve the Wanderer had fled the city center. They were now congregated in a dozen pockets—sanctuaries of some kind, like they were seeking safety in numbers.

No, that's not it, Richard realized. Cemeteries. They're gathering in the graveyards.

In the heart of Salt Lake City itself, only the red stars of the angels still burned, now flaring and sparking in their destructive power. The rest of the Hereafter was covered with scattered red stars, like an angry case of the measles.

But despite his doubts, Richard had rushed them to the Tabernacle anyway. Perhaps his powers had failed him. And perhaps—he hoped against hope—they would still find the old woman waiting for them there.

"Try to stay calm, Richard," Billy said. He was seated now on the dais of the empty Tabernacle, looking forlorn. Like him, Billy had clung to the hope that they would find Tuilla waiting, and that she could somehow give them the last piece of the puzzle, and finally lead them to Drouillard.

"Have you tried contacting him again?" Billy asked.

"I haven't stopped trying!" Richard snapped at him. "I've been trying off and on ever since Liberty Park. But he recognizes me now, and he's blocking me, I think. It must have been a fluke that I got through when I did. Something about my vulnerability, or maybe because his mind was so open to his fucking minions at that moment."

Over the last hours he had tried to contact Drouillard, and that had failed. He had tried to just wait, hoping that Drouillard would be consumed by curiosity, and come looking for him. He had even tried using some of the techniques that Tuilla had taught him. He opened his mind and made himself vulnerable. He tried tapping into his compassion and directing it outward, with the image of the Wanderer firmly in his mind. He tried envisioning the evil being's mind as a giant sponge with paths to explore. And when none of that worked, he even tried Drouillard's path of rage.

It's like setting a trap over and over again with different bait, hoping that one will finally attract the prey.

"I can feel him," Richard said, his frustration at a fever pitch. "I can sense his presence over this whole valley. When I picture the Hereafter now, he is like a kind of... webbing that holds it all together, with threads linking him to each of his angels. But I can't sense a direction or a location to where he's holed up."

Richard sat on the organist's bench and leaned his elbows heavily on his knees. His hands worked each other like they were kneading bread, and he felt the perspiration on his face, born out of effort and frustration.

"What am I missing?" he moaned. "Is he afraid of me? Does he know we're close to finding him? Does he even fucking care? Or has he decided that I'm more like a gnat, buzzing about his ears. Has he decided that I'm not any threat to him after all? Billy, I just don't know..."