Dagger Key and Other Stories

It seems that he’s debating whether or not he wants to touch upon the subject of his therapist. You wait for him to continue.

“Okay,” says Sessions. “My therapist…we had a thing, you know. She did stuff to my body, man, that you wouldn’t believe. With her knowledge of muscles and the chakras, you know. She really got me off. Especially when she did this thing with my back. It was incredible. So one morning after we had sex, I woke up with bad pain in my back and I couldn’t move my legs. My doctor said it would have happened eventually, anyway. But what she did probably accelerated the deterioration. I was pissed, man. Full of negativity. But Abi, my therapist, she wouldn’t let me cop an attitude. She brought me back physically and mentally. She helped me with my diet, my rehab.”

“She must have had a lot of guilt.”

“With Abi…she’s not easy to figure out. But I never tripped on her about what happened, you know. I was the one begging her to do her thing, so it’s on me.”

It appears that Sessions has said all he intends to about the subject and you’re having difficulty framing a question that will start him up again, one that won’t give away your position—you’re not sure about Sessions’s disposition toward Abi. It’s possible he’s her complicitor, though to think that would be quintessential paranoia, and the question arises, complicit in what?

“That’s a cool tattoo on your neck,” you say. “The backwards seven.”

“It not a seven, it’s a letter in the Hebrew alphabet. I had it done when I was with Abi. She’s got one like it.”

“Does it stand for anything?”

“It’s got something to do with angels.” Sessions shifts uneasily, flicks a glance at the door, as if expecting someone.

“Seems like this woman’s been a big influence on every part of your life.”

“Oh, yeah. Abi’s unique. If I told you some of the stuff she can do…Man!”

“Like for instance?”

“That’s okay,” says Sessions. “You can live without hearing it. I’ll tell you this much. She made me realize that we can change our destinies. Abi’s all about destiny. Hers, mine…everyone’s. She’s trying to change the world, and I think she just might do it.”

“How’s she going to change it?”

“By changing the planet’s dharma.”

It’s a rote answer, glibly stated, and you don’t know how to respond; you shuffle your papers, pretending to be searching for something. “So you’re not with her anymore?”

“We’re doing a project together, but we’re not…like we were.” A distracted expression comes over Sessions’s face. “Listen, I need to get working here.”

“You mean work on the project?” Grasping at straws, you pick up one of the books you cleared off the seat. “Does it have anything to do with time?”

Sessions swings himself back into his chair and precedes you toward the door, obviously eager to have you gone. “That’s right, man. There’s never enough of it. We need to make some more.”

The Hebrew letter tattooed on Sessions’s neck and Abi’s thigh is Chof. As far as you can determine, there’s no connection whatsoever between this letter and the various hierarchies of angels, but while searching the internet for such a connection, you happen across a webpage entitled Fallen Angels, a section devoted to a group of such angels known as the Grigori, also known as the Watchers. According to the page, they looked like men, only larger, and were appointed by God to be the shepherds of mankind, there to instruct and lend a helping hand when necessary, but never to interfere in the course of human development. Sort of like that Federation rule, the Prime Directive, that Captain Kirk used to break every other episode of Star Trek. The Grigori, too, broke the Prime Directive by teaching mankind the forbidden sciences of astrology, divination, herb craft, and magic (the very disciplines, you note, in which Abi claims proficiency). To compound their sin, they began to lust after human women, to cohabit and have children with them. For this, they were banished from Heaven. Two of the princes of the Grigori were the angels Michael and Remiel.

Mike and Rem Gregory.

Abi’s friends, the purple sweatshirt non-twins.

…they’re angels, really…

You wish you hadn’t stumbled across the webpage; you don’t want conjecture about angels, or any peripheral matter, cluttering up your head and interfering with your ability to make judgments, now the essential circumstance that’s confusing you has been revealed. Though Reiner and Sessions corroborate each other’s story to an extent, the stories have different outcomes. Sessions may have been under pressure to tell you what he did—that could explain his haste in getting rid of you; but his anxiety could be also be chalked up to boredom or, as he indicated, to time considerations. Whatever, the bottom line is clear. Either you’re misinterpreting a series of coincidences, or Abi is serially fucking and crippling clients for purposes unknown, purposes that may involve the complicity of angels and will, if Sessions is to be believed, affect all of mankind.