Penult (The Liminality, Part Four)

Chapter 3: Excursion

I charged out of that fancy compound having no idea where I was. All I knew was that it was some residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Rome. The buildings here looked pretty upmarket, though there was tons of graffiti. I kept on walking until I came to an area that was more commercial with dress shops and delis. At a busy intersection I managed through some awkward pantomiming to hail a cab.

I hated the idea of blowing my ample but limited cash on a taxi ride but I was in a hurry. Karla was waiting for me at her special place, the identity and location of which, I still wasn’t completely sure about. I wish she had her own phone instead of borrowing her cousin’s. It would have made things so much easier.

As the cab careened through the back streets, I had time to reflect on what had just happened. Were these the people who had been following Karla? I don’t know why they would be so interested in us, or why they wanted me to stay away from Wendell. Maybe they were just purists who didn’t want anyone to tamper with the natural order of the Liminality?

It surprised me how little they knew about me. Belinda saw me as some guy with a little black card who was being courted by Wendell’s guild of friendly assassins. All she cared was that I stayed the hell away from them.

She mentioned nothing of my exploits in the afterlife: busting out of Root, raiding Frelsi, cruising the Singularity, taking down the Horus. I would have thought by now my name would have gotten around.

Maybe I was a little too full of myself. The afterlife was an enormous place, populated by hundreds of generations of souls, many more talented and powerful than I could ever hope to become. Why should I expect her to know about some kid named James Moody?

Penult sounded not much different from Frelsi. Another bunch of surface dwellers broken out of Root. Angel wannabes. Folks trying to pretend they were somehow more special than everybody else, living in yet another facsimile of Heaven.

I had nothing to worry about from their so-called ‘Friends.’ I had no intentions of working for Wendell. I don’t even think Wendell had any interest in me anymore. He didn’t strike me as the vindictive type, unlike Sergei. Wendell was all business. He knew when to cut his losses and walk away.

It irked me that the Friends were able to track my purchases on that little black card. That meant Wendell could do the same. But if I refrained from using the card in Rome until we were ready to leave, that would keep us one step ahead. As long as we kept moving, we would be fine.

If Karla and I could agree on a place to settle down, we could withdraw a big cash advance someplace far from our destination, travel there incognito, and then burn the damned thing once we got there.

For now, though, I was not quite ready to give it up. I was hooked on the purchasing power it brought us. Not having to worry about money was a huge convenience. It made everything so easy. Hungry? Pick a restaurant. Any restaurant. Tired? Any comfy hotel will do, no matter how expensive.

I let the driver take me into central Rome and drop me downtown near the Coliseum. That wasn’t anywhere near where I planned to meet Karla, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being followed by whomever. She had warned me to be careful.

Karla had intended to stay with her cousin Franca in Rome the whole time I was in prison, one of the ‘black sheep’ from her father’s warped Sedevacantist perspective. To me she sounded like one of the few normal people in that clan of weirdoes and religious fanatics.

She didn’t stay put for long. It only took a few days for her to realizing that someone was tracking her. She didn’t know who and didn’t care to find out. She bounced between Italy and the UK because her sister Isobel was still missing and she suspected that her dad’s sect might have something to do with it. I don’t know how she managed it because she didn’t have much money. I had a feeling that most nights she slept on the streets.