Page 2 of Night Blind

“You don’t need to be trained to point a weapon and pull a trigger,” he explained. “Any Yahoo with a working index finger can do that. I’m talking about something more. Are you interested in being something more, Helen?”

“Am I interested in being an accountant?”

“The books must be kept in balance, Helen,” Gabriel said gently. “There is a system of checks and balances in order for the ledgers to remain healthy.”

Shenita looked at him. She was seeing the man in a new light. Gabriel Neary was a predator, a handsome-faced snake oil salesman who showed up when a person was at their lowest, crying in a dark corner, and needing to lash out at something. She wanted to lash out at the world in retaliation for what The Collector had done to her, and this man knew it. He was here with a bag of balms to soothe her aches and damn it, she wanted what he was offering, if for no other reason than to temporarily ease her suffering.

“And enrolling in this Junior college, taking these classes, this will teach me where to place my anger? These classes will train me how to use my anger to track down the issues that are keeping me up at night?”

“Helen, I can almost guarantee you, that once you track down the issue and put it to bed, your sleep habits will not change that much,” he offered. “The peace you seek comes from purpose. A person needs a purpose in this world to fight off the demons who plague your rest.”

“You are scary,” she told him. “Your handsome face and fancy words are simply a disguise for recruitment into a cult.”

Gabriel Neary actually laughed. He burst into a gut-busting laugh that rang out through the trees. Across the yard, a door opened to the house where his cousin lived, bringing Mr. Slow into the doorway. Gabriel raised his cup in a morning salute. Slow nodded, closed the door, and returned to the inside of his home.

Shenita was looking at Gabriel again. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled gave a gentle look to the eyes of a man who knew too much, had seen too much, and had felt too much. He had shown up in person for her, and she wasscared. He’d shown up in person to recruit her into his crew of technical experts with the worst sales pitch she’d ever heard in her life, but she was hungry for a purpose. The Archangel was offering her a resolution to balance the books for a much larger company. She was excited but scared. Her eyes asked a silent question, which he answered without prompting.

“My day job is to monitor cults and cult activities. The last thing I would ever want is to recruit for one,” he said, offering her a smile. “What I am offering is focus. I am asking for your trust. I am asking for you to allow me the opportunity to guide your anger, to train it to be of use, allowing you to rest well at night with no demons sitting at the foot of your bed.”

“I hear you, but are you replacing one demon with another?”

“The demon you feed, my dear, is the one who stays with you,” Gabriel said, watching her. “My request is simply to guide you towards the light. Will you allow me to guide you, Helen?”

She sat for a moment, staring into the breaking of the day. Gabriel Neary had arrived as the sun began to crest over the ridgeline. He sat on her porch having coffee and munching on a sweet roll as if it were something they did every day. From his back pocket, he removed a brochure for Sullivan University with a circle in red for accounting technology/Technician and bookkeeping. A glint came into his eyes as she accepted the paper, gaining a slight recognition of what she’d been handed. Her cousin Cherry, years ago, received a similar trifold document.

“Helen, the courses are paid in full for your two-year degree,” he said. “Complete the training. Do the work. Keep your head down and stay focused on the result. I will do the rest. Do you understand?”

“I think I do,” she said.

“If you have questions, now is the time to ask,” he stated, getting to his feet and looking down at her.

She held the brochure in her hand, looking at it closely. She knew what it all meant, but didn’t know how it would play out. What she knew and understood was the demon that sat on her bed each night and watched her toss in the little sleep she received. Maybe this training program and classes would make her so tired that when nightfall arrived, she’d have no choice but to sleep. If nothing else made sense, that simple part did.

“The demon I feed is the one that stays with me,” she repeated his words. “I don’t like my current one, so let us seek and feed a new monster.”

“I don’t make monsters, Helen,” he corrected. “I am a master monster hunter.”

“So says the monster standing before me. We create in our own image Archangel, and just because you’re handsome doesn’t disguise the monster that you are,” she said.

“Well, at least you think I’m handsome,” he replied, nodding as he left the porch. “I shall be in touch soon. Enjoy your classes.”

She watched him walk away, his back rigid, the wide shoulders, narrow waist and purposeful strides bringing back the shiver with a new realization. He was going to make her into a Technician. She was going to become a Technician; what kind she didn’t know and she didn’t care.

“Goodbye Shenita,” she said softly. “Hello, Helen. I have no idea what the fuck we just signed up to do, but it sure beats sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves. Also, you made a promise to go back and get those women. It’s time to get started on moving your life forward.”

She looked down at the brochure, and next to the school’s website was another website in an abbreviated short link form. In red ink was a username and password. Quickly, she went inside and located the laptop Cherry had recently given her to dothe bookkeeping tasks for the hair salon and dance studio. First, she typed in the name of the short link and waited.

The black screen opened to a splotching wave of mixed-in colors, and then a gradient image of what looked like a horse ran across a speckled black screen. A vibrantly colored blue screen appeared with a white unicorn, confused as to his whereabouts, followed by a sign-in box, asking for a username and password. She entered both and waited. Her breath caught when the boxes disappeared, and her face showed up on the screen with bright white letters.

Welcome to the Unicorn Academy, Helen. Let us begin.

****

When Helen returned to the porch to collect the cups, a new fresh cup of coffee awaited her, along with Mr. Slow, who sat in one chair, sipping his own morning eye opener. In profile, she noticed the resemblance between him and the Archangel. Questions zinged left and right, but with him, in the past month, she’d learned to say little and wait for him to open the conversation. Unlike the Archangel, Slow didn’t speak in subdued terminology, which could be taken in several different directions of understanding. He was a straight shooter, and she appreciated that about him.

“I logged on,” she said as she took a seat.

“I know. I received a notification for mentorship,” he replied.

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