Page 48 of The Pale Rider
Aeron spoke freely about all the paintings in my bedroom, but he was tightlipped about the horses. One of these paintings was about the bombing of a sacred site in Iraq. I painted a tsunami that killed thousands of people. One was a hate crime in Georgia. They were all these huge disasters where people got killed. I don’t know how Aeron figured that out because it wasn’t totally obvious looking at the painting.
Did I ever paint anything nice like puppies and kittens? What about a lovely still life? Were all my visions doom and gloom?
“Should I try again? I mean, if I painted he would end up in the Oval Office, and it happened, should I try to figure out what’s next?”
“We know what’s next, Ariel. We have to take him off the playing field before it happens.”
“Are you letting me in on this, or is it a big secret?”
“The Book of Revelations is his playbook. It’s written that there are three and a half years of peace before the next wave of shit hits the fan. World War III ended three years ago. We only have half a year to stop him before things get even worse. I found you just in time.”
Miss Mabel gave Aeron some epic stink eye.
“I know what the painting in her bedroom says, and her paintings always come true, but if you put her in danger, I’ll do worse to you than beat you with my broom. And no Oval Office orgies! Don’t get fresh with her! Ariel, beat him with Smurfette if he tries anything.”
Yeah, the colossal problem was, until I saw those horses on my wall, Iwantedhim to get fresh with me. He was still hot as hell, and I couldn’t deny that I always felt safe with him. Now, I was confused, and I hated feeling like this.
I remembered enough about my bedroom that I kept my sketchpads underneath the drafting table in the corner. I had no idea how to trigger one of these visions, but I had to try. I stalked over to my drafting table and whipped out a sketchpad. I pulled my box out and found a piece of charcoal.
My vision blurred, and my hand just started moving. I couldn’t tell what was going on in the surrounding room. I was only focused on getting something down on this piece of paper. I could hear the scratch of the charcoal against the paper, but all I could see was a blur. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop drawing until I finished it.
Finally, my hand stilled. It was over. I blinked until my vision went back into focus. I had no idea what I had just drawn. I looked down and realized that if I really could draw the future, we were totally fucked.
I had drawn an angel with a fiery sword slaying a demon. I guess all that blustering about the Book of Revelations being a fairytale was me talking out my ass. If this really would happen, then we didn’t have a lot of time to get to Washington and kill my father. How was my father even doing all this?
Aeron and Miss Mabel peered over my shoulder.
“I think we’d better leave for Mexico in the morning if this drawing will come true.”
Chapter 29
A
s much as I wanted to stay in Los Angeles with Miss Mabel, it wasn’t possible. My father was bringing the Book of Revelations to life, and I was apparently some mutant who could draw the future and whose blood could mutate people into cannibal corpses. If we managed to end this, that shit wouldn’t look good on a resume at all.
I wept like a total child as I hugged Miss Mabel goodbye the next morning. I made her swear to be there still when I got back. And I intended to come back. My father fucked up my life for too long. I would not stand for this. I’d bash his brains in with Smurfette.
Aeron let me say goodbye for as long as I wanted before Miss Mabel finally shooed me away and told me I had a job to do. She also made me swear I’d come back. It was later than usual, but we were back on the road. I’d stopped asking Aeron where Meremoth went in California or how he managed to eat when we were staying in hotels or my apartment. I was dying to know, but I knew he wouldn’t tell me. It was probably something fucking biblical.
We made our way through California, stopping at hotels for the night. I would miss the comforts California offered. We had proper beds and hot food every night. And apparently, you could get good weed if you had the hookup like Miss Mabel.
By the time we got to the gate to leave, something was wrong. There was a massive crowd at the entrance and men with guns at the top. Personally, I thought we should go the other way, but Aeron rode straight up to them.
“What’s going on?”
“The Skull Brotherhood is trying to break in. It looks like they’ve joined up with three other gangs we’ve refused to let in. They are heavily armed. We are waiting for reinforcements, but they cut a tree down, and they are using it to batter down the gate.”
Just then, the entire wall shook, and gunshots rang out. Aeron snapped to attention.
“Why isn’t there more shooting?”
The man at the gate looked furious. He ran his hand over his bald scalp and glared at Aeron.
“Yeah, we already thought of that, dickhead. They built some sort of shield wall out of car doors like they think they are fucking Vikings.”
Aeron hopped off Meremoth. Before I could dismount, he smacked the horse on the ass.
“You know what to do, boy.”
