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One look showed four lifeless bodies with blood starting to pool. The visitor lit with catlike grace, apparently as unconcerned as if nothing had just happened. I had a decision to make, and I did. I jumped in my car and got the hell out of Dodge. I didn’t want to be anywhere in the neighborhood when the cops finally got there. I didn’t stop to say thanks, I definitely didn’t talk to him, I just jumped in and went. I didn’t slow down until I was home. I might have run a red light or two; I really couldn’t tell you with any certainty.
I pulled into the parking lot, and spent a few minutes having a quiet attack of the shakes. The steering wheel was a nice solid reassurance of the familiar world of everyday life. Things like that just did not happen. Bad enough to come that close to being raped or maybe worse. I lived in the real world, and things like that happened even though you don’t want them to. But you do not get six and a half feet of impossibly fast man walking down out of the sky to kill your enemies every day, or any day. Maybe in fairy tales or fiction, not in Riverside.
It was close to nine-thirty by the time I pulled myself together enough to get out of the car. I locked the door of the old blue Hyundai and walked through the gate, up to my door, went in and locked the door, then collapsed into my old vinyl chair – just in time to see him step into my field of vision. Where the hell did he come from, how the fuck did he do that? I’m sorry, my Mama raised a lady, words like that did not come out of my mouth, but they definitely went through my mind that time. I started out of the chair, then caught his gaze and froze. As in could not move, gazing into those eyes. I don’t know how long – but it felt like an eternity.
In the light, I could see he was dressed in a deep sapphire blue with golden trim, a few pieces of decoration I didn’t understand here and there – not any military uniforms I’d seen, or police, but of that nature. He himself looked like nothing I’d ever seen. His skin color was a deep bronze – If I had to guess based on that, I would have said “Cuban” because most of them have some black ancestry, and his hair was that dark brown shade of almost black of many hispanics, but his facial structure was pure north European aristocrat – aquiline nose, hawk sharp face. The rest of his body was even thinner, if that made sense, and just as tall as I’d thought at first. At five-four, I barely came up to chest high on him. Obviously greyhound fit, though. I’d expect to see someone like him at the Olympics on TV, pole-vaulting or maybe running hurdles, not killing gang members on the side of a nondescript office building in Riverside, the armpit of Southern California. His eyes? They were steel grey, unlike anything else I had ever seen, and just as hard as that implies. Not unwelcoming to me, personally, at that moment, but I got the impression he would have no difficulty staring down the entire world if he thought it necessary. Age? Outside the eyes, he looked younger than me – I’d guess 25, or maybe younger. He was a young vibrant powerful man, not a boy. The eyes were older – way older.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a completely normal California anglo accent, not a trace of anything else. It broke the spell holding me in place, and I started to scream at him in my parents’ native Spanish. I got about half a word out before he made a gesture of peace, in an unhurried way but just as fast as I’d seen back in the parking lot, “As you have probably figured out, I’m from a long way away. I’d hoped to get my business taken care of and leave, but I managed to miss the people I came to see.” And then I noticed – or should I say realized that I had noticed that his lips weren’t moving and I wasn’t actually hearing him with my ears, only in my head.
“Think of me as a wizard,” the voiceless words went on, “A long time ago, my ancestors bred themselves in a certain way. There was a danger, and they instituted a breeding program such as even livestock had never been subjected to. They paid a terrible price, but the breeding program succeeded. I am one result of that program. “
He continued, now starting to actually speak, a strong baritone, but I somehow knew tenor or bass would be just as easy for him. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, and I apologize again. I simply had no place better to go, and when I missed my business meeting, I decided there was no point in going to someone else who hadn’t seen what happened. I thought I might as well keep the witnesses to the ones that already had seen something. I need to track down someone, and I need to keep myself out of his sight while I do. The fewer people who know anything of my errand, the higher the odds of success. I’ll stay out of your way, and I’ll see that you are well compensated for your trouble. If you don’t want me around, I’ll leave.”
Copyright 2013 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.
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