Age of Blood

34

Walker was gone thirty seconds before YaYa let out his breath. He hoped he’d put on a good enough show. What had happened was so terrifying that his toes were still curled and the muscles along the base of his spine were still clenched. If this had been anywhere near what Walker had gone through, then YaYa’s appreciation of his fellow SEAL skyrocketed. Flashes of the priests screaming at him and him screaming back were interspersed with rapid-fire images of torment, him in different poses as if seen by a third person—coiled and ready to strike, curled in a ball, standing empty-eyed, frothing at the mouth, barking at shadows, laughing uncontrollably. It was as if he’d become a mere passenger in his own mind. Whatever had taken him over had shoved him aside and taken control, and if it hadn’t been for the priest and the Knights of Valvanera, he’d still be in the thing’s grip. What had the priest called it? A little demon? YaYa couldn’t imagine the full power of a big demon.

YaYa rubbed absentmindedly at his left arm as he thought about what his father would have done if he’d seen him possessed. The fact that he was a Navy SEAL was bad enough. To think that part of him had joined to impress his father, even though he knew the man would never be impressed, expressed the folly of his attempt. The formula for his father’s love was comprised of an equation he’d never been able to learn, which is why he’d continually done more extravagant and dangerous things. It had started with cross-country running in high school. Then he’d gone to half marathons, then iron man competitions, then full marathons. He’d won his first iron man at age nineteen and his first marathon at age twenty. Even after he’d joined the navy, he’d continued, finally discovering the glory of ultramarathons and thematic road races such as the one held in honor of Bataan Death March. He’d gone on leave after one such race, his feet bloody and his toes black with bruises. His father had seen them and merely commented that it was “the price you pay for doing the things you do.” If his father saw his arm or knew how bruised YaYa’s soul was from the possession, he imagined the old man would say the same thing.

He frowned and shook his head. As he did, Hoover’s demeanor changed. The dog stared worriedly at YaYa, then slid off the bed. She found a place near the door and lay down, never once taking her eyes off him.

Running had given YaYa a long time to think. Somewhere between the Bighorn 100 in Wyoming and the Zane Grey Highline in Arizona, he’d ascertained a truth about his father: The man would never forgive YaYa for joining the forces that had aligned themselves against the cause of the Koran. He’d heard his father drinking tea with the other men and talking about the state of Islam. He’d heard him yelling and them agreeing, at a table in their suburban American backyard, but he’d never allowed that information to become part of his own analogue.

His father believed that the U.S. government had begun a pogrom against the Muslims and that it wouldn’t end until the last Muslim had been rounded up and sent to a camp or killed. The justice system, the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. military were in the process of fulfilling this pogrom. The term came from Russian, to destroy, to wreak havoc, and was used to describe the Russian attacks against the Jews in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. How ironic that his father would use it to describe a supposed American design to attack the Muslims. And if the U.S. military was the tip of the spear used to conduct these attacks, U.S. Navy SEALs were the shiny blade of that same weapon.

Yeah, if his father had seen him, the old man would have said the possession was something YaYa deserved. Just then, that piece of his heart he’d reserved for his father hardened. A son had an obligation to love his father, but he had no obligation past that. He’d spent what had seemed like an eternity trying to be something he wasn’t.