As an investigative journalist, he had had to cultivate a thick skin through the years, an objective point of view which afforded him the aptitude for apathy to a certain extent, for lack of a better explanation. He never thought of himself as apathetic, but he did notice, as his career matured, that he became more and more desensitized. This attitude spared him a lot of emotional trauma until he had to watch Trish getting shot in the face. Sam ousted the memory with a violent shake of his head that most patrons must have construed as a vicious banishment of impending blackout. Inside him, he recollected something terrible that did not punch him as hard as before, yet it was enough to provoke upset for the recent passing of someone he did not even know well. Sam was angry, for some reason. He did not mean to be, but he was angry for failing his fiancé, for not caring anymore — or so it had been feeling. Maybe Nina was right that night. He had become soft, comfortable in his selfish forgiveness born from his recent professional mindfuck courtesy of Dr. Klein and his bullshit of absolving oneself. Sam got another drink, the music in the establishment now nothing more than a morose soundtrack to his secret blame game.
Without being at all aware of it, he was treading unsurely, his footing less than desirable for a sober man. As he approached the bar he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and defiantly pressed the red button to get some time alone with his demons. Sam felt a mean streak possess him, a cruel indifference that momentarily ate up his compassion. It was as if his dormant self-pity grew tentacles and dipped into his guilt to grow on what had been long festering there.
“Another one, Dugal!” he shouted to the bartender on the far side and placed his phone back in his jacket pocket. It was Sam-time now and he wanted no interruptions while he wrestled with thoughts of international travel, past tragedies, recent tragedies, haunted alcohol flasks, and spate of attacks against historical treasures. It was rather surreal, he thought, all these strange happenings. Previous encounters with clandestine and insidious organizations had tempered him into a less cynical man, but what he was getting into now was a tad too hard to swallow. It was all a bit too deep for him; too deep, emotionally, too deep, historically and certainly way too deep spiritually.
Sam had never really believed in a god, or gods, or miracles and mythos. Legends and their heroic characters, in his opinion, had always been cultural moral code put to flesh, rules, and behavioral tradition represented by a name. Names feared and worshipped for generations assured the continuation of racial pride, of reverence for one’s breed. All this he could understand before, he just did not embrace it in himself. What chewed at him this time round was something tangible in the details that he could not deny.
Sam Cleave had stumbled right into a fairy tale world of dragons and swords, or so it felt, and he had to admit that it was all very real to him. The tales and characters stretched well beyond books and role playing games this time. It all grasped him by the back of the neck, where the truth had a tendency to apply its icy grip and make the flesh crawl in its affirmation. It forced him to change his perceptions.
The Brotherhood, the persistently resurfacing Black Sun Order, Norse Mythology lodged squarely in antique history, and the irrefutable parallels between historical men of renowned and ethereal gods was undeniably real. For those who cared to venture deeper into the origins of these factors, cults, and tales, it would become frighteningly obvious that there existed a fascinating connotation with the old heathen gods when wandering to the right places on earth. Even when the cynic questioned the existence of that magic, in those places where gods walked as mere chieftains the atmosphere was gripping, a direct conduit to the soul of the visitor regardless of their orientation or culture. Sam could feel the arms of ancient men reach out to shake his hand and it terrified him.
This was beyond a doubt what Nina found so enticing about her vocation, he realized. But he was a reporter, a voyeur into the soulless eyes of events and the voice of reason that made it known. What was he doing getting involved with modern day Templars and Nazis in this daft world, still tracing the footsteps of history’s cadavers?
“After this one, I cut you off, Cleave,” Dugal warned with a raised eyebrow as he poured the amber liquid into a tumbler. “You look like shite. Why don’t you catch up on your sleep?”
Sam and Dugal had known each other for years. The bartender knew well when the journalist was ill or tired, angry or curious. Sam knew he was right too, to call him on his drinking, but he could not explain his reluctance to return home and he just nodded.
“Just one more, my friend,” Sam smiled sheepishly and reveled in the rich pristine whisky that filled the bottom of the equally unsullied cut glass of the tumbler. “I’m heading home anyway.”
“I hope you’re not driving!” Dugal gasped, the sagging bags under his old eyes quivering with the contortion of his expression. Sam’s eyes scrutinized his, trying to lie, but Dugal knew him too well to even allow him his answer.
“That’s it,” the old man exclaimed and tossed his dish cloth under the counter, “I’m getting my boy to take you home. We’ll pick you up in the morning to collect your car here in the parking lot, ye hear?”
“I need my car. I am on my way somewhere after this,” Sam explained quickly.
“The hell you are!” Dugal protested, “There is no way you are walking out of my pub like this, left to your own devices and go… go kill yourself from that belly full of devil’s piss!”
No matter how Sam tried to explain that he wished to go to Newington this night, Dugal would not hear of it.
“Terry! Take Cleave home, would you?”
“Aye, just gotta take a piss,” his son answered from the small corridor between the back of the bar counter and the men’s room.
And with no other choice but to allow this, lest he be reported to the police as per Dugal’s well-intended threat, Sam was on his way home with Terry.
“Good thing to that you’re not driving, ‘ey Cleave?” Terry’s deceptively deep voice filled the silent car. He was a gaunt, acne-riddled lad in his early twenties, but his scrawny neck harbored a voice that could intimidate just about anyone. He briefly shot a glance to the heavily inebriated journalist in the passenger seat, “You know, with it pissing down with rain and all that. You are half asleep. Hell, I can’t even see the road in front of us, so I can’t imagine how you would have gotten four blocks from dad’s pub.”
Sam was quiet and just stared ahead while the roof of the car was battered with heavy rain, obscuring all vision through the windows. It had become night much quicker than Sam had anticipated and he soon realized that it was, indeed, too late for him to go anywhere tonight. Eventually, after a long pause, he turned his head to Terry and asked plainly, “Do you believe in gods?”
“In God? Well, yes, of course. I’ve been a…”
But Sam cut him off, “Not God. Gods. Like all that god of thunder, god of war, god of biscuits, goddess of nail polish…”
Terry frowned. Sam burst out laughing, a genuine robust laugh that possessed an inkling between sincerity and fear, “I don’t either!” He laughed and slapped the young man’s knee three times as he chuckled. Terry cracked a smile. He was not stupid, but he was hardly an informed lad in anything more than politics, religion, music and the footie. All he knew about Mythology was that the God of War had a crush on Xena, Warrior Princess and that Hercules was the son of Zeus… because it said so in the TV show.