The Madness at Koresh Manor­ Part 3

The Next Night

Patmos, Canada

Time: 1934

 

The streets of the small town almost looked like any small town in American except for the feet of snow and people staring at him. From what Karalius told Raphael everyone in the town was a part of the cult and the leader of the cult, Cyrus, already knew he was walking the streets. He got out of his cars a half a mile ago and was heading for the only diner in the whole place. He opens the door as everything went quiet and he grins to himself a little.

                Raphael loved watching western and loved when the hero walked into the bar, and everything stopped for him. It’s how you could tell you were the hero of the movie, not that this was a movie, but at this moment, it felt like it.

                He walked all the way across the diner which seems to be built out of an old train car to sit where he could watch the whole room. He put his back against the wall waiting for someone to come over and take his order. It didn’t take long for him to notice no was paying as they came and went but they all kept their eyes on him.

                After too long of waiting an old lady walked over to him placing a glass of water in front of him.

                “Ma’am,” he said.

                “Sorry, son, we don’t ser---”

                “Ida,” a voice said from the front of the train car, “get the boy whatever he wants.”

                Raphael studied the man who gives the order, and he was a tall man with long brown hair and a hook nose. He nodded his shape angle head at him then turning back to his dinner. There was no one sitting with him, but a few men were sitting around him like guards. They all were packing heat.

                “What can I get for you, sir?” Ida asked with a big smile on her face stained by time.

                “Something warm, ma’am,” he said seeing more snow start to fall outside.

                “We got the best chill in the Great North,” she said.

                Raphael typed on his phone, “You okay?”

                “I’m fine,” Karalius texted back. “It’s just a little cold out here.”

                “No much better in here,” he wrote back. “Hey, send me a picture of this Cyrus.” A second later the face of the man who gives the order blinked on to his phone. He glanced up in time to see the man leaving and another big man walking towards him.

                Raphael slipped his phone back into the pocket and squared his shoulders as the man stopped in front of him.

                “Hello,” he said with a thick Texas drawl. “May I?” He asked pointing at the chair.

                “Sure,” Raphael told him but not like he waited for the answer anyway.

                He sat down holding out his hand. Raphael took as the man tried to show his strength and said, “I’m Jimmy Conner.”

                “Nice to meet you,” Raphael said and told him his name.

                “Where you from, son?” He asked with a fake smile written on his face and his other hand near the hilt of his pistol.

                “Colorado.”

                “You are a long way from home,” Jimmy said.

                “Sure am, sir.”

“So, what brings you here, Mister Talon?”

                “I had a friend tell me how great this place is,” he said. “He said he found peace here and man, I’m looking for some peace.”

                “Friend?” Jimmy asked a little shock at the reason Raphael gave him.

                “Yes, sir,” Raphael said with a nodded. “My friend Rain Lovecraft wrote to me about this lovely place.”

                “Rain,” Jimmy said not happy about the name being dropped. Something was not right about Raphael saying his name, but he couldn’t tell what, not now anyway.

                “You know him?” He asked.

                “I do,” Jimmy said, “He lives in the mansion on the hill.”

                “Yeah,” Raphael creaked a smile. “You think I could see him.”

                “He is doing a lot of work, but I could ask,” Jimmy said. “Where you are staying tonight?”

                “I don’t have a place as of right now,” Raphael explained as he glanced around to see that mostly everyone was listening and on edge with Jimmy talking to him. He wore a gun and must have been a law enforcer of the cult. “I was planning on getting something hot to eat and then finding a place for the night.”

                “There are not many places to stay here,” Jimmy told him. “We don’t do well to outsiders.”

                “I’ve noticed,” Raphael said still waiting on his bowl of the best chill in the Great White North. He doubted he was going to get it as long as Jimmy was sitting in front of him.

                “We just like to keep to ourselves and not get in any trouble, you know?”

                “Me too, sir, me too.”

                He stood up and said, “Enjoy your dinner, and I’ll check on your friend for you. I’m sure he would love to see you.”

                “Thank you, sir.”

                He walked away and before he made it to the door a steaming bowl of chill was sitting in front of Raphael. It was the best tasting chill he has ever had in his life. He ate it with a side of sweet corn beard, something he didn’t expect to find this far north and was happy by the end of it. He didn’t plan on staying in the town tonight but what choice did he have now. The question was where is he going to sleep?

                A phone call in the diner gives him his place of rest. Ida told him she had a small cottage behind her house he could sleep in. He agrees she seems nice enough. She had another hour before she could go home but made a call ahead of them to make sure her sister, Abby, got the cottage ready.

                Ida showed him to the small cottage with a small bed and an iron stove already burning with warmth. “You should be fine until the morning,” Ida told him with a smile. “Please, don’t leave, it’s easy to get lost in the snow, and a storm is coming.”

                “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He didn’t have anywhere to go. He sat down on the bed hearing the door being locked from the other side and sigh, this was going just as he thought it would, not easy at all. He kicked his boots off, hung his winter coat on the nail beside the door and turn into a time to see Karalius phrasing through the back wall. He didn’t know she could go intangible, it must have been a side effect of the magic which turns her into a fox lady.

                “Come to tuck me and give me a goodnight kiss?” Raphael asked her with a sly grin.

                “You wish.”