A Vegas magician’s assistant with a drinking problem, Jezebel is being chased by the men who murdered her fiancé. After she reads an odd, golden page, she wakes with the ability to sense other actives within thirty feet. Benny, the handsome former actor, is the only one she thinks that she can rely on, but even he has secrets. Each page stretches the mind beyond what our civilization has discovered, sometimes too far. Each could give you the next Nobel Prize or a ticket to the psych ward. Strong-willed, smart, and sexy, Jez acquires pages faster than anyone. She uses her new paranormal talents to climb the corporate ladder. Now, companies and governments are killing people to find and keep the secrets that will guarantee supremacy for the next century. Jezebel needs to adapt fast if she's going to survive success.
Contains portions of the previously e-published novella "the Icarus Transformation".
Available on smashwords and Amazon.SAMPLE of Jezebel's Ladder
Copyright 2011 Scott Rhine
Chapter 1 – A Drink before the War
Jezebel Johnson hadn’t hit rock bottom yet. By 2:00 a.m.,
she couldn’t remember the day of the week. She was stuck in Yesterday, her
second favorite bar, because she had bounced a check in her usual place. Jez
sat next to the speakers so she could feel the beat in her chest. The pounding music
also kept conversation to a minimum. The last ounce of her Screwdriver had been
bitter, but she stared at the empty glass, wishing for more.
It had taken her five years to work
up from showgirl to magician’s assistant, and another year to work up to The
Amazing Chance’s fiancée. For a few years, they’d had an apartment and a good life.
He had been a rising star. However, her comfortable home had vanished in a
flash when The Amazing Chance had been killed in a car-jacking. Since he had neglected
to change his will, their joint condo, bank account, and magic show had all
gone to his greedy sister, Olive. Months later, Jezebel had nothing left of him
except the gold, origami butterfly around her neck.
But she could still rely on her
toned legs and shoulder-length, ginger-blonde hair. When she wore her short,
red dress for a night of forgetting, she never had to pay. It wasn’t long
before the bartender said, “The two guys at the end of the bar want to buy you
a drink.”
She knew she could go home with any
man there, or even the bartender, if she requested a Screaming Orgasm in her
husky voice. The two men wore tan hunting vests and cowboy boots. Their idea of
a good time was probably sex in the back of the truck with the strapped-down
deer watching.
“Long Island Iced Tea,” she said to
the bartender, waving to the hunters with a forced smile. She could nurse it
for a long time, and it even had a little vitamin C. Maybe the headache
wouldn’t be so bad tomorrow.
The pale, round-faced,
sixteen-year-old boy to her right muttered, “Lady, you need to stop drinking
and get out of here while you still can.”
“Mind your own business,” she
snapped. She jabbed her thumb toward the boy and said to the bartender, “I
thought you were supposed to keep kids like this out.”
The bartender raised an eyebrow as
he slid the tall drink toward her.
When Jez looked again, the kid had
vanished. She felt a wave of dizziness. Damn, that usually didn’t happen till
at least three in the morning. Since somebody was already snorting lines in the
ladies’ room, she decided to step out back for some fresh air.
Standing on the loading dock in
silence after the overpowering music felt liberating. She just had to ignore
the noxious smell coming from the open dumpster below: the unwanted parts of
the all-you-can-eat buffet, fish heads, onions, and rancid sour cream that had
been in the heat all week, garnished with cigarette butts and beer-soaked
napkins.
The kid appeared at her left elbow
again, making her heart jump like a startled rabbit. He looked innocent, with a
mop of sandy-brown hair that hadn’t seen a brush in days. He wore a gray,
chamois shirt, and waved his hands in the air. “Run! Get out of here. Those
hunters are coming after you.”
The nearest exit from this alley
was three buildings away, and the route was riddled with heel-snapping chuck
holes and rats. The guys buying her drinks had looked like thick-necked morons
but weren’t scary enough to risk needing a tetanus shot. As she started to
object, the boy disappeared. To herself, she said, “It’s either blackouts or
hallucinations. Neither one is good.”
Without a sound, the boy reappeared
on her other side. If she concentrated, she could see moonlight through his
form. The shock of the ghostly apparition caused her to drop her purse. She
stared down as the purse bounced off the cement into the open trash container. “Oh,
this can’t get any worse.”
Impatient, the kid shouted, “They’ve
got guns, and they’re going to rape you before they kill you. Hurry!”
Holding her nose, she hopped into
the dumpster on top of some nasty, stained carpeting. When the heel snapped off
her right, candy-apple-red shoe, she decided to use the tragedy for
misdirection. After throwing the broken shoe down the middle of the alley, she
pulled the dumpster lid shut over herself.
Jez heard the blast of music as the
men came out the back and let the back door close again. Next, a nearby gun
made a distinctive click as someone slid a round into its chamber. She held her
breath. A calm, male voice with a Texas
drawl said, “She took off that way. You try to catch her while I get the car.”
Footsteps pounded down the cement
steps and away. She heard a burst of static before the Texan spoke again, “Control,
target is in the wind. Send a unit to her apartment for pickup.”
Between the stress, the smell, and
her alcohol intake, her stomach was on a rollercoaster. The moment she heard
the man go back into the bar, she threw up, worrying that everyone on the Strip
could hear her. As soon as Jezebel was able, she climbed out of the dumpster,
shaking. Her left shoe came off, stuck in something disgusting, so she left it
in the trash. At least I still have my
purse, she thought wryly, wiping a brown lettuce leaf off her shoulder.
The transparent teenager beckoned
her down the right side of the alley. She ran, ignoring protests from her bare
feet. Every time she got close to him, he would vanish and reappear a short
distance further. Jez felt like she was in a bizarre dream sequence. Once on
the main drag, he pointed to a shiny, new, chrome-plated bus that looked like
the home for a rock band. Then, her guide was gone.
Jezebel fumbled open the bus door
and closed it behind her. Desperate for a weapon of some kind, she grabbed a
small fire extinguisher from behind the driver’s seat. She crouched behind the
two rows of royal-blue seats, waiting for her breathing to slow and for any
evidence of her pursuers.
After a few minutes, she heard
rustling from the back area. Jez clenched her makeshift club and peeked through
the curtain into the main cabin. She saw computer terminals, a big-screen TV, a
sound system, two sets of bunk beds, and the kid who had helped her in the
alley. He was dressed in the same gray, long-sleeved shirt over a heavy-metal
band t-shirt, and blue-flannel pajama bottoms. However, this time he was
definitely solid and sitting in a wheelchair. Electrical cables dangled from his
forehead like dreadlocks, causing jittery sine waves to dance on one of the
monitors.
The absurdity of the pajamas put
her at ease a little. She set the fire extinguisher on the black, rubber floor
and held out her hand tentatively. “I’m Jezebel. Thanks, I think.”
The teen smiled. After peeling off
the last electrode, he reached out as well. “I’m Daniel… crap, I mean Oobie.
Pretend you didn’t hear me say that.” He sounded more nervous and nasal in
person. There were also traces of a struggle with weight gain in his face that
she hadn’t seen before. He threw her a hand towel from a pouch on the side of
his wheelchair.
Grateful for the towel, she started
to clean slime from her hands and face. “Thanks again. Now, what the hell is
going on here?” she whispered, afraid the thugs outside might hear her.
“I can’t tell you,” Daniel said,
biting his lower lip.
Desperate, she struggled to find
some way to extract an explanation. “Where are your parents? Maybe they could
help me.”
“I have guards, but I sort of sent
them out on a burrito run. Bad timing.” Then, an idea lit up his face, and he
raised a forefinger. “I have something that will clear everything up.”
Daniel rolled his chair over to the
work desk and opened a small safe with his thumbprint. He pulled out a sheet of
paper the same width as normal stationery, but a quarter the length. It had
gold threads and shimmered in the dim light from the desk lamp as he slid it
toward her.
Cautiously, Jez took the page from
the desktop. The black letters flickered a little at first, but then became
perfectly clear.
The
Collective Unconscious, the Union of Souls:
We
all come from the same over-world and will return there someday. Someone once
said, if we closed our eyes at the same time, we’d see the same thing. That’s
close. We do all go to the same plane, but with different locations and with
different points of view. This multiplicity is important when defining or
triangulating upon a higher truth.
Theta
state is necessary for…
Jezebel felt her eyes roll back in
her head as the dream state swept over her. She fell to the rubber mat,
unconscious.
Chapter 2 – The Ward
Jezebel had an amazing dream. She was performing again, with
hundreds of people watching her. Coming from backstage, she felt waves of
support and a sense of belonging she hadn’t experienced since her father died.
She wanted to stay in that
wonderful place, but sunlight battered its way in. Jez woke in clean clothes,
on starched-white sheets, with a headache that would have brought an elephant to
its knees. Grabbing her temples, she moaned, “Shoot me now.”
“Not only would that be ungentlemanly, but it
would probably make all the tabloids,” a man with suave voice confided from his
chair across the room.
She was in a private hospital room
of some kind. She instinctively pulled the sheets up to her chin. Her hair was
a rat’s nest and still caked with fragrant organic material from the night
before. After she patted her chest, she exclaimed, “My butterfly pendant!”
The attractive, thirtyish man deactivated
and pocketed his smart phone. “Relax. It’s standard procedure for the nurses to
take your clothes and accessories. You’re officially checked-in to a drug and
alcohol rehabilitation spa in the Hollywood
hills. You'll get your personal possessions back when you leave.”
“I can’t afford …”
The man held up a
perfectly-manicured hand. “It’ll be on our dime. Oobie was indiscreet on
several levels.”
His voice triggered a memory. Jez
pointed. “You’re that guy, Benny Wholesome, I mean Hollis! You were in all those
buddy pictures. I loved when you played that high-school kid who could get away
with anything.” She could still see the boy inside, with a little more weight
and polish. Then, she stopped the gushing, embarrassed by her fan-girl
outburst. The smooth character-actor had been in twenty-three pictures before
suddenly disappearing from the spotlight.
As he stood, she noticed that his
legs were more firmly muscled than most people who wore suits for a living.
Benny walked over and examined her pupils with a pen light. When they responded
normally, he smiled. “Beautiful. No apparent damage. In here, please refer to
me as ‘Uncle Buddy.’ I’m a dozen years older than you, so the staff will
believe it.” She revised her estimate of his age upward, but the years had been
kind to him. “You seem coherent. Have there been any ill effects from your
ordeal?”
She wrinkled a lip. “I need to
shower for a few hours and find a new place to live, if that’s what you mean.
Then, I’d like some answers.” She remembered reading the golden document. The
sensation had been familiar. “What’s this Collective Unconscious thing the
paper mentioned?”
“Human beings are connected on a
deeper level than most of us realize,” Benny began. “Some of our more religious
members call it the Community of Saints, but I think being human is the only
real requirement.” When she looked puzzled, he said, “Allow me to demonstrate.”
The actor’s warm hand took
Jezebel’s with surprising gentleness. The moment his thumb caressed the palm of
her hand, she felt the sea of belonging supporting her again. “Oh.”
Benny released her hand, but the
pleasant tingle remained. “You’ll develop your own definition and sensitivity.
More important is the responsibility it places on us to help our fellow humans.”
“Why did I pass out?” Jez said,
mellowed by his touch. Even his voice was soothing.
“First, you have to dry out,” Benny
said. “The doctors are going to poke and prod you a lot, and ask a lot of silly
questions. Cooperate and my employer will give you a fifty-thousand dollar
bonus at the end of two weeks, with the possibility of an employment offer.
Once you work for us, I can answer any question you like.”
Jez laughed. “What’s the catch?”
The former star’s winning smile
dropped as he stood up. “Oobie didn’t know about our failures with this page.” From his emphasis, she knew he
was discussing the strange golden document. He turned away in shame, unable to
face her. “You’re the first woman who ever read it that didn’t either go stark,
raving mad or die outright. The EMTs monitored you the whole way here.”
The revelation shocked her into
momentary silence. He walked to the door before she could react. Before he
left, Benny said, “Even if you don’t take the job, see the rehab program
through as a personal favor to me. I’ve seen too many good people end up dead
in the gutter.”
****
Jezebel showered, ate, and went
through the motions of living while doctors bombarded her with tests and more
questions than the IRS and college-entrance paperwork combined. Early on the
third morning, just after she woke, she had a visitor.
Daniel wheeled in, carrying her
breakfast tray. He was wearing the same band t-shirt as before, unwashed. Guilt
shrouded him. “I’m not supposed to be here. I’ll leave if you’re mad.”
Jez waved him in. The page might’ve
killed her and had given her persistent headaches; nevertheless, she couldn’t
stay mad at the kid. Daniel’s sad eyes reminded her of the puppy her family had
owned after it’d been caught with a shredded slipper in its mouth. As she put
her blonde hair up in a ponytail, she said, “You saved me from becoming a
murder victim, or worse, and put me in a five-star hotel. I can’t be too
pissed.”
He handed over the food on a beige
tray. In addition to the bland eggs, apple juice, and English muffin, Daniel
had smuggled in a bag containing two chocolate Pop-Tarts. She ripped open the
foil bag. After days of nutrient paste, the sugary pastries smelled divine, and
she started wolfing them down.
“I didn’t mean to risk your life,”
he said.
“I know,” she said between bites.
“We think we know what makes you
special.” Daniel fumbled his words. “I mean phys…physiologically speaking. You
had your appendix out. The information will help us save lives. The appendix
and endocrine system react negatively to the chemicals released by the brain
during the high-gamma processing phase. I didn’t understand all the details, but
the effect is worse in women; guys just have shorter lives and early onset of
certain psychological disorders.”
She nodded while chewing. Jez
wanted to ask about pages but didn’t
dare interrupt the flow of information. She was sure the kid wasn’t supposed to
be telling her any of this.
Daniel asked, “Why did you have your
appendix removed?”
“My dad died of a burst appendix in
his twenties. I was working as an escape artist, and when I had a flareup,
Chance said—”
She broke off in mid-sentence, no
longer hungry.
After a long moment, she could
breathe again. “I’ve been awake for twenty minutes now. That’s the longest it’s
ever taken me to remember the accident.”
Daniel met her gaze. In the
sunlight, she could see that his eyes were the same green as her own, but much
more earnest. “His death wasn’t a random act. The same Rexes that carjacked
your friend were coming after you. When they didn’t find a page among his
things, they thought you might know where he hid it.”
“Dinosaurs?”
“No. While Rexes are big, strong, stupid and
cold-blooded, in this case I mean flunkies for another organization that’s also
collecting pages, the Fossils. When their lead scientist, Dr. Wannamaker, wants
a problem resolved, he dispatches a ‘prescription’ to eliminate it, an RX.”
First, her hands turned to ice.
Then, the anger started. Jez growled, “Chance was murdered by hit men?”
“They weren’t supposed to kill him. Rexes start as washed-up
athletes and ex-cons who would do anything for a job. They’re given an Override…
treatment that enables them to ignore pain and certain bodily limits. Without
pain of their own, they begin to lose normal, human empathy and turn into
sadistic bastards. In this case, they misjudged the amount of force during
questioning and killed him by mistake. It happened so quickly that I couldn’t
send a team in. I shouted, but he couldn’t see me like you could,” Daniel
babbled.
“You saw them kill Chance?” she snapped.
Daniel paused. “There are some
things you can’t un-see. That’s why I couldn’t stand by and let them hurt
someone else.”
“And you came here to confess, so
you’d feel better?”
Daniel started to lose his temper,
too. “I came to make sure that when they let you go from here, you run, and keep running. I’ve got a Swiss
bank-account number that I can give you. Use whatever you need.”
She snorted, and he took offense.
Daniel said, “I have real money. They pay me well for what I do. I can’t spend
it all.”
Jez shook her head. “No. I believe
you, sweetie. I’m laughing because you think I’m going to leave now that I know
who killed my fiancé.”
Daniel growled in frustration. He
whipped out a pass card and gave it to her. “Take my badge. Everyone always
opens the doors for me anyway. When no one is looking, use it to get into Ward
Seven. It’s where they keep the mistakes. Meet them, and then tell me you’re
not afraid.”
“What are these pages you keep
talking about?” Jez asked.
Daniel rolled toward the door. “I
refuse to tell you anything that someone may want to torture out of you later.”
****
For the first day she was in the
general population, Jez just watched the routines of the ward between her own
activities: exercise, shower, therapy, lunch, art, group, journal, dinner, TV,
massage, bed. The workout time felt good after being idle so long. She could
get used to this life, but the counselor told her that the evaluation period
was only three more days. If she needed medication, or aversion therapy, the
stay could be extended by two weeks.
Late the next day, as she peeked
through the window into Ward Seven, one of the shuffling forms looked up. An
unshaven man locked eyes with her and recognition passed between them. After a
long moment, the patient on the other side laid a finger over his lips and left
her field of vision.
The heavy-set, African-American
nurse coming back from her break said, “You’re not supposed to be here, ma’am.”
Jez jumped in surprise. “I know
him.”
The healthcare worker had biceps as
big as Jezebel’s thighs. For a moment, the former dancer was afraid that the
other woman was going to pick her up and carry her to pottery class. Instead,
the nurse made a face. “Please don’t tell anyone you saw him here; we have
confidentiality rules. A big-name screen writer like Mr. Ragnar would bring in
the press.”
Jez held up a hand. “Don't worry;
we have the same boss. Ragnar was great, but his last two films were…
disturbed.”
The nurse nodded glumly. “No matter
what kind of therapy they do with him, writing exercises, art therapy, or
talking, it always ends in zombies. Trust me, honey, he’s better off here.”
When the nurse went to dinner, Jez
used Daniel’s badge to slip into the ward. Locating Ragnar was easy. Of the
four men in the TV lounge, his was the only face tracking her like a sunflower
following the sun. Ragnar motioned her to join him in the art room.
“An angel comes to visit me,” said
the patient in rasping, stalker-like tones. “I saw you rise in the east.”
Jez dazzled him with her best
smile. “How did you know I was a … friend?”
He glanced around, checking for
observers. “Whenever someone becomes active,
the rest of us see, like a lightning flash in the distance.”
“Active?” she asked.
“Normal people are like trees. Half
their existence is buried in the dirt of daily life, half in the air of dreams
reaching for the light of heaven. Actives are not rooted in place.” Ragnar
leaned close to her, and her skin crawled. “But not all the actives are good.
Beware the zombies! You can hide from them in the cornfields if you hear them
first. They may not be bright, but they can run and never tire. Your only hope
is to get out of their sight, out of their reach.”
The man was raising his voice and
would soon attract attention. Jez tried to change the subject. Whispering, she asked,
“What can you tell me about the pages?”
He lowered his head. “They tortured
me for days before Fortune found me. I didn’t betray my trust.”
“I don’t think that was luck.”
“Elias Fortune,” he clarified,
naming a tycoon who got his start in real estate and pornography. Fortune was
the billionaire head of a multi-media empire.
Jez blinked. This conspiracy was
bigger than she’d imagined.
Then, the writer lost the little
coherency he possessed. “He said my page was blank. It was all for nothing.
That which is beautiful is often fragile. Why must we guard against things
being stolen or destroyed: children, tall buildings, planes, water systems?
Destroying is easier than building. It only takes one insect.”
Jez tried to talk him down. “Good
ideas infect and lift nations for generations to come—paper clips, the number
zero, Velcro. We just need that one positive while suppressing the thousands of
bad. Have faith that people are basically good. You still have the Collective
Unconscious.”
He shuddered. “At night, when the
noise stops, when the ocean turns quiet, I hear them. I must build barricades and hide, but your sun has been a
blessing to me. I can sleep when you’re here. You’re not afraid.”
Jez suddenly realized that the
zombies were the men Daniel referred to as Rexes, the ones who had killed
Chance. This writer could see them for what they were, and it had torn him up
inside. “Sweetie, I’m just as afraid as you are, but nobody hurts the people I
love and gets away with it.”
