Chapter 2

Lloyd Denman sat at the counter of the Waffle House sipping cup of Maxwell House coffee and reading a dog-eared copy of the Miami Herald.  Beside him a fat man in a plaid shirt and suspenders lit a Winston and took a long drag.  Lloyd shifted away from the man and held his paper higher.  Lloyd hated smoke.

                A waitress with bleach-blonde hair and too-tan cleavage approached him with a coffee pot.

                "You want me to freshen that up for you honey?" she asked with a yellow grin.

                "I'm okay,” Lloyd said smiling in return and she shrugged her shoulders and walked away.

                Lloyd loved the South, where waitresses always referred to you as 'honey’ or 'sweetie' or 'dear'.  Since he had embarked on his wandering it was one of the few small touches that made him feel at home.

                He folded the paper under his arm, threw a five-dollar bill onto the counter and exited the restaurant to the accompanying clang of a cowbell suspended from the door.  Outside his latest automobile sat parked beside a palm tree.  Lloyd used to favor German luxury sedans, BMWs and Mercedes.  Before embarking on his cross country journey he had sold his wrecked B'mer and purchased a restored 1976 Cadillac El Dorado.  His current car was a sky blue 1977 Lincoln Continental in perfect condition.  He preferred classic American cars with big engines and 'high overhang', along with the ability to comfortably seat seven adults should it prove necessary.

                Lloyd opened the door and slid into the leather bench seat.  He threw his newspaper on top of a well thumbed Jeffrey Archer novel, turned the key and listened to the V-8 thrum to life.  The cassette player started where it had left off.  Johnny Cash was singing.

"Love is a burning thing...And it makes a fiery ring...Bound by wild desire...I fell into a ring of fire..." 

Lloyd rested his head on the steering wheel and sighed.  His temple throbbed along with the music and a spectral voice hissed in his ear.

"Celia."

Lloyd shifted the car into reverse and looked over his shoulder as he backed out of his parking spot. 

"The taste of love is sweet...When hearts like ours meet...I fell for you like a child...Oh, but the fire went wild..."

Driving down the palm lined streets of Miami Beach; Lloyd stared at the three story art deco hotels and thought about how much his life had changed since San Diego.   Lloyd had been a successful businessman with a thriving restaurant then.  Denman's Fish Depot had served an upscale clientele in a lovely location.

"Celia."

Lloyd was engaged to be married to a beautiful woman he thought he knew better than anyone in the world.  Everything was wonderful, almost too good to be true.  Then a match was struck and his life was turned upside down.

                Celia had hidden the fact that she had Multiple Sclerosis.  In her work with the San Diego Opera she met Otto, an Aryan religious nut selling the dream of everlasting life and a master race.  Otto had worked in the concentration camps in World War II and had discovered a previously unknown opera by Richard Wagner.  The opera itself was based on ancient Nordic chants and black magic and promised life everlasting if the proper rituals were observed.

                In a fit of religious fervor Celia had poured gasoline on her body and burned herself to death in the parking lot of a McDonalds.  One minute Lloyd had been concerned about the state of the Grouper on his specials menu.  The police showed up and everything changed.

                Celia had transformed herself into a being that was not quite alive and not quite dead.  A soul intermingled with smoke with black pits for eyes.  Otto attempted to complete the magic rituals at the summer solstice, giving immortality and the power of fire to Celia and all of those like her.  Lloyd had succeeded in stopping the foul ritual and Otto's dreams of Aryan supermen with some help from a blind Indian child named Tony Express and his grandfather, John Dullknife.  In the back of his mind he had the feeling it was only a temporary victory.

                After things settled down Lloyd had tried to resume his life as a San Diego restaurateur.  It didn't work out very well.  He started seeing Celia in his dreams.  When he was awake Lloyd would often catch glimpses of a familiar woman in a long overcoat, headscarf and dark glasses.   She was always at the periphery of his vision.  When he focused his attention she was always gone.

                 Lloyd sold the Fish Depot (now an El Torito Mexican Restaurant), bought the Cadillac and left San Diego.  He didn't know where it was all leading.   He would settle down in a place, maybe for six months or a year.  Then the dreams would start again, and he would hear the whispers. He would see a woman in dark glasses standing at a bus stop.  It was time to move on.

                 Last week he had ended up in South Florida with no clear idea of how long he would stay.  The beach reminded him of Southern California.  The beach reminded him of Celia.

"Lllooooyyyy-dddd..."

                He pulled the Lincoln into the parking garage of the Miami Beach Ocean Resort and picked up his newspaper.  On page three there was a story about the increase in security of cargo moving through the port of Miami.   There was a picture of a metal cargo container being unloaded from a ship.  It was one of the large containers used for shipping things like automobiles.  In the corner of the picture was a small old man watching the crate as it was lowered to the ground.  It was Otto.

                Lloyd opened the door and stepped out of his car.  He wanted to get plenty of sleep tonight.  He had a busy day ahead of him.

"I stepped in to a burning ring of fire...I went down, down, down and the flames got higher...and I burned, burned, burned, in a ring of fire, in a ring of fire..."