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of the political spotlight, or the Ragnarok soldiers were trained not to be awed by celebrity—something Michael Princippi still considered himself to be. Whatever the reason, no one batted an eye as Mike "the Prince" Princippi pulled up to the ranch house at the end of the main path.
A full-figured woman in white-and-gold vestments waited for him on the wide hacienda-style porch. When Princippi climbed out of his car, she rose from a small wooden bench beside the door.
"You're here for Kaspar," she intoned.
It was a statement, not a question. Her eyes were dull and her voice flat. For a second he thought she was wearing a mask. On closer inspection, he realized both of her eyes had been blackened. Painful dark rings encircled both eyes, making her resemble a raven-haired raccoon. Her nose was bluish and slightly swollen.
Princippi cleared his throat. "I'm here to see my future."
The woman sighed. "You want Kaspar," she said, nodding to herself. "Everyone wants Kaspar."
She beckoned him inside the ranch.
There was an office in a former bedroom at the rear of the building and, between a pair of four-drawer filing cabinets, a concrete staircase descended into the earth below.
Princippi followed the woman down.
The tunnel was cool and musty. Lally support columns held up iron cross beams, and the side walls were stacked with cinder blocks as far into the distance as Michael Princippi could see.
The dirt floor was boxed in with open frames of
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wood, which butted up against one another. Princippi had to step over the four-inch-high cross sections of wood every few feet.
"They start pouring the concrete tomorrow," the woman called over her shoulder by way of explanation.
At several points along the way the new tunnel met with sections that appeared to be older. Vast storehouses faded into the distant shadows both left and right of the tunnel.
There were rooms packed to the ceiling with U.S. Army surplus supplies. Boxes of K rations left over from the Korean War were piled neatly on forged metal shelves. One room held nothing but jug upon jug of bottled water. Most of the rooms, however, seemed stuffed to near overflowing with crates bearing sinister-sounding names like White Phosphorus and Thermite in bold black stenciled letters on the sides. There were various cryptic warnings on all of the containers concerning the danger of exposure to fire or extreme heat. Disconcertingly these were packed next to huge galvanized steel drums that reeked of gasoline.
Other rooms were lined with rack upon rack of guns. More weapons than Princippi had ever seen— even during his famous photo-op tank ride during the 1988 presidential race. Ragnarok soldiers shuffled sleeplessly through the underground chambers in a human parody of a paramilitary ant colony.
Judging from where they had entered the tunnel, Princippi guessed that the rooms were all near or beneath the large, warehouse-type buildings he had seen in the distance on his drive up, and he was relieved
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when the woman led him beyond this area and into another long stretch of newly constructed tunnel.
This section seemed to go on forever, but at last he saw that the thread of insulated wire that was tacked to the cinder-block wall and hung at regular intervals with sickly yellow lights along the whole length of the tunnel finally turned upward.
He was escorted up another flight of concrete stairs and soon found himself in the torch-lit interior of the old airplane hangar.
Without a backward glance, Esther Clear-Seer led him through the building to the Pythia Pit.
Inside the newly constructed room, Princippi saw an emaciated girl with stringy hair perched atop the rocky hillock in the center of the room. The girl stared, immobile, into space. Thin wisps of yellow smoke spluttered up from somewhere in the riven rock beneath her.
Resplendent in his priestly garb, Kaspar stood at the base of the small hill, a tethered goat staked to the dirt floor near him. He smiled when he spied Princippi.
"I was expecting you," he said politely. "I am Kaspar. Present your offering to the priestess of the Ragnarok Oracle."
Princippi blinked at the name, but said nothing. He nodded and fished in the jacket pocket of his suit, pulling out his checkbook.
"How much was it again?"
"The fee is twenty thousand."
Princippi gulped. "Dollars?" he squeaked.
"You were aware of the fee before you came," Kaspar said flatly.
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"I'm a former presidential candidate. Is there a discount?"
When he saw the stony expression on Kaspar's face, Princippi dragged a Bic pen from his pocket. Reluctantly he filled out the check, double-, then triple-checking the amount he had filled in before turning the scrap of paper over to Esther Clear-Seer.
"Give the woman two hundred dollars for the goat," Kaspar commanded.
Princippi balked. "I don't want a goat," he complained.
"The goat is for sacrifice. This you knew, as well."
Princippi was ready to put up a stink about the goat clause, but it seemed as if this Kaspar already knew everything Princippi himself knew. Suppressing a shuddery wave of personal anguish, he handed over the cash to Esther.
Kaspar next presented Princippi with a gem-encrusted knife.
"Slaughter the animal."
Princippi stared at the knife dully. He looked down into the wide, fear-filled eyes of the tiny creature before him.
"What if PETA hears about this?" he asked fearfully.
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Esther snapped. "Give me that." She grabbed the knife away from Michael Princippi and slit the throat of the terrified animal. At the top of the rock incline, the ecstatic twitching of the young girl became a bizarre parody of the spastic death movements of the bleeding goat.
The smoke from out of the fissure grew more dense.
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Kaspar slowly mounted the hewed-rock steps and took his place beside the dazed girl.
"The Apollo Pythia awaits your question," Kaspar intoned.
The former governor of Massachusetts swallowed hard. "Can you make me President?" he blurted out. His glowering features brightened momentarily with a hopeful half grin. His fat black eyebrows bunched together like butting sheep.
The Pythia's reply was immediate. "I foretell events. I do not affect them." The girl bounced like a palsy victim on her tripod.
Princippi appeared crestfallen. "You've got to," he begged. "I've got to get back in the game. Please. I gave you twenty grand."
"It is as I have spoken."
Kaspar interceded. "That is not to say, Mr. Princippi, that foreknowledge of events does not allow you to alter your approach to those events, thus changing the presaged outcome."
"I can change the future?" Princippi asked. "Is that what you're saying?"
"Most assuredly."
Princippi faced the Pythia once more. "Tell me how to affect the future so that I can one day become President," he asked boldly.
The Pythia twitched on her tripod.
"Your future exists as one with him who stands before you. You are the past. My priest is the future. Together you will change tomorrow."
Princippi scrunched up his face.
"I don't understand."
The girl appeared to be tiring. Her body twitched
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less spastically now, like the faint spasms of someone in her death throes.
"My priest," she wheezed. "He is your destiny."
And with that, she fell from the tripod.
"Shit!" snapped Esther Clear-Seer. She bounded up the stone staircase as Kaspar made his somber way back down to Princippi's level.
"I still don't get it," Princippi said, once Kaspar was beside him again. "What did she mean?"
"She's dead, Kaspar," Esther Clear-Seer shouted down. "You told me she'd last a while longer. It's been barely ten hours."