Heretics book 3 - The Apocryphile Press

258 :: JOHN R. MABRY
What had he missed? What might they have done that would
have avoided his death? And now, for her to face the
prospect that Mikael might never wake from his coma—it
was too much to ask of anyone. Richard simply didn’t know
how to comfort her. I barely know how to comfort myself,
he thought.
Banging the bear with hard, relentless strokes, Richard
wondered momentarily at how outrageously packed the Jizz
Factory was that evening. Of course it would be busy
tonight. It made perfect sense—the grief experienced by the
largely childless gay community would far outweigh that of
the straight, where pets were accorded their “normal” station
in life. For many of Richard’s gay and lesbian friends,
though, their pets were their lives—their children. And here
was the evidence—half the gay population of Berkeley converging
in one place to bang their butts out—literally—to
deal with their grief. Just like me, Richard thought, and the
flash of empathy, insight, and solidarity caught him momentarily
off balance. It made him feel vulnerable, which was no
surprise, lately, but it was also oddly, comfortingly, human.
He simply could not believe that the eradication of the
canine species had been Dane’s ultimate objective—or the
Lodge’s for that matter. It had to be another experiment.
Start with something small, an avocado, then try something
bigger, a dog. But in preparation for what? What was the
ultimate target of Dane and his clueless magickal employees?
Richard was still mystified as to Larch’s antipathy for
God—presumably, a dislike shared by his Lodge as well.
This was not unusual—many people go into the occult
because of a negative reaction to the religious abuse they had
suffered at the hands of so-called “Christian” conservatives.
But Richard could not understand how making fruit or pets
disappear could possibly undermine the Kingdom of
Heaven. Then again, he didn’t know what they were going
to try next—and he shuddered at the thought.