Thou Shalt Not Kiss

II: The Shaman

Riktor studies Mrs. Featherstone as he sips his coffee, now with a calm eye and without the bias of an admirer, which is one of the first rules his father, the original shaman, hammered into him.

Be observant of people, pay attention to details. Tune in on them like an antenna.

As he expected, Mrs. Featherstone isn't drinking her faux coffee. Nor is she excited about the two slices of canned peaches that he served her in a wooden bowl. He has been saving those for just this special occasion. The can was a big find made by the Riordan clan scavengers amidst the pre-Rapture ruins because unlike, say, soda, canned fruit keeps well for an indefinite period of time without losing all of its taste.

Having married into the literal high-borns though, Mrs. Featherstone probably has her pick of fresh fruits that's why she hasn't touched the treat even though Riktor made sure to offer it to her twice, as is customary amongst Blinkers. Never mind, he decides. He'll just eat it himself later.

Mrs. Featherstone hasn't once put down her shoulder bag either, content to bear its weight on her lap rather than let its crocodile embossed leather touch any of the surfaces around her. Sure, the couches are more spring than cushion and even the best one and Riktor's favorite, which she is now sitting on, has some bumps that must jar against her sensitive posterior – Riktor supposes like that of the princess in the Old World voxtale who could feel a single pea through layers upon layers of eider down.

Mrs. Featherstone is sitting with her legs tightly pressed and occupying as little space in the living room as possible. She looks like someone who has taken a wrong turn into a dark alley and ended up in the territory of a rival gang. Add to that her elevated heart rate as she keeps surveying all the curious odds and ends that litter the bunker – here the figurine of a blue-skinned Bodhishiva, there an Acupuncture map – either scavenged or bequeathed, and Riktor feels reassured that her own visor has missed the indicators of his arousal.

Riktor has been a fan of Mrs. Featherstone since he was a kid, when she was discovered by the producers of the Judgement Day show and soon tied the knot, in a much-publicized wedding, to Saint Mitzrael. Theirs was a May-December romance, she being nineteen at the time and Saint Mitzrael 25 years her senior – at least in Blinker years. But no one expressed any reservations about the match because Saint Mitzrael is one of the 24 jurors of the Thrones.

Naturally, they had met on the set of the Judgment Day show. She used to go by her mononym "Diva", short for Divina. She's a coloratura soprano and belongs to the top line of the Trisagion Choir. Fans have dubbed her The Blinker with the Seraphine Voice and The Blind Seraph. Although a dozen years older than him, Diva was Riktor's first prepubescent crush, and he continued to love her through the radio broadcasts, the occasional grainy TV screen and throughout every five-year extension of the Tribulation.

Now Mrs. Featherstone is chauffeured around in a Maybach Pullman hover-limo, blacked-out with all windows tinted super-dark. If anonymity's the effect she's going for, she failed because the transport's sticking out like a sore thumb aboveground of Colony 7086. If it wasn't for the arctic temperature outside, it would already be mobbed by the snotty-nosed bunker kids. Now everybody's just content wagging their tongues in their bunkers like the serpent in the primordial Garden.

To be fair, anything that provides mobility would stick out in an earthbound, rooted and frozen community like Colony 7086. What really keeps the mob under control is Mrs. Featherstone's Seraph chauffeur-slash-bodyguard who at this very moment is standing like a statue next to the hover-limo, alone and unbothered by the freezing temperature.

Even now in her mid-30s, Diva has lost none of her beauty in Riktor's eyes. This and her inborn talent are what separates her from her husband and his kind. There are also many talented Seraphim but, if Riktor's being honest, most of them are political, corporate and science luminaries. Few of them have the raw, formally untrained creativity that Diva has, which has led to the nasty rumors about how Seraphim are incapable of having imagination or creating a work of art. Vice versa, Diva is the most popular Blinker because she's a bright reminder to her kind that genius could emerge from the humblest of origins.

Oh, this is Riktor's object of infatuation, Saint Zolestine observes from over his shoulder, making Riktor choke on his coffee. She must be, judging by the dramatic increase in the oxytocin and vasopressin levels in his system.

The shaman has a fit of coughing.

I have to inform you, Saint Zolestine continues her unsolicited commentary, this Blinker is credited for having rekindled interspecies tensions. In fact, in certain circles here on the Firmament, she's called a heaven-digger and – I quote – 'the upstart crow beautified with Seraph feathers'.

Riktor closes his eyes behind his visor. He strives to regain concentration by counting to ten.

If she's a sexy little crow, Watcher Nezha jumps in, what would she need your dumb feathers for? She should fly straight down here in the Abyss. We'd roll out the red carpet for her. She doesn't need to burn right away. She's got all the time in the world for that. I wouldn't mind eating a crow before it's roasted.

"Are you quite all right?" Mrs. Featherstone asks, completely clueless about the psychic communication zipping back and forth inside the room.

"Hmm?" Riktor snaps back to the here and now. "Yes. Yes, I am."

"I thought I was stressing you out because your heart rate variability just went down."

"Did it?" Riktor asks innocently. "If I'm getting stressed, rest assured that it's not because of you, Mrs. Featherstone. It's just that both my Ascension and Damnation Liaisons are with us."

Mrs. Featherstone's own heart skips a beat.

"They are?" She puts her head on a swivel as though his words were a cue for the immaterial beings to suddenly show themselves.

Riktor nods. "Always."

Mrs. Featherstone makes a gulp that doesn't escape Riktor's visor and ears. Blinkers have a heightened sense of hearing to make up for their lack of visual acuity.

"I-Is it safe for me to talk here?" she asks.

"Hmm. Oh, yes! Yes, definitely! Have no fear, Mrs. Featherstone. No Seraph or Nephila below Thrones-rank has the power to influence Judgement. In case it hasn't been clear, the 25,000 crystal you brought today as indulgence and your presence in the Trisagion Choir are more than enough to guarantee your name on the Book of Life."

Mrs. Featherstone is visibly relieved.

Riktor clears his throat to assert dominance, of both himself and his client.

"Shall we begin?" he asks with his game face on.

****

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