Read an Excerpt
Lifers - A Secret Society
By Victor A. Cordova AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Victor A. Cordova
All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4685-0901-4
Chapter One
The Beginning
.... It is hard to remember and at the same time, not easy to forget. What I had learned and what I was determined to put behind me, clawed at my very being, my very existence and my every waking moment.
It seemed as though the medication I had taken was rapidly approaching a level of numbness, but the tranquility that many times accompanied this numbing feeling was nowhere to be found. So uncharacteristically had the oasis of pure freedom eluded me and I for once feared death. I did not feel the calmness or the feeling of complete submission to the fading colors before my eyes. The medication I had taken to extinguish my life was not working fast enough. Instead, a feeling of disillusion, confusion and helplessness began to overwhelm my senses. So much so, that moving forward with my thoughts was the only way I could deal with the past or pasts as it would later be revealed. Considering the state of mind I was in, I understood for certain that what I had been asked to do and how I had responded, had molded the remainder of this life and in many ways molded the ones to come. Something needed to happen and fast. In order to get busy living, I had to get busy dying. Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep if I should die before I wake..... that would be a relief. So this is where my story begins and ends, you could say.
My name is Elle, Elle Lucius and I am a Lifer. This term "Lifer", I had first heard when I was only 6 years old. I remember anxiously standing in line with my father and waiting to cash in on a winning horse racing ticket. I had picked out the winner. I know what you're thinking.... big deal ... so what.... but what you must understand is that my father had wagered close to $1,200.00 on a horse that seemed to be on its way to the glue factory. I remember my father making the bet "All of it on my little girl's horse, Clear Beauty." "Dead money," was the term a young man used under his breath while standing behind my father and I. My father turned quickly and told the young man "She's my lucky charm," as he pointed at me. "Lucky charm," was an understatement. Ironically, the young man behind us looked ridiculous wearing a horse shoe around his neck. Who was he to talk? What the young man did not know was that we had taken our place in that same line 6 times in a row to cash in on 6 consecutive winners that day. Was I psychic? No. I couldn't even tell you what the weather would be like the next day. Was I gifted with horses? Was I a horse whisperer? I'm not for certain, but there was something there that gave me an advantage over the other desperate gamblers around me. I didn't know the first thing there was to know about horses. Who rode them or what made them tick? But it felt like I did. What I did know for certain was that this apparent streak of luck made my father happy and his happiness was what I loved most. You see, his happiness felt like a warm summers night under the stars eating a slice of homemade apple pie. For me nothing was better than that. It filled me with a sense of joy to know that through this experience, I was able to give a frail and dying man a bit of happiness and enthusiasm that he had been missing for sometime.
Unlike other children, I remembered all the details of my childhood. Not some details, I mean ALL. Some children were just happy remembering what channels their favorite Saturday morning cartoons came on as their parents overslept after a hard week of work. Memory for the most part is an essential tool and at times a weapon in determining one's life and how they will act in familiar situations. Memory is an odd factor in life and one that has eluded scientist in completely understanding. Could memory merely be a human's collective consciousness stored away for future use? Is memory the missing key in opening up a universe beyond the human realm we reside in? Or is memory just that.... stored bits of information that serve only to remind us of what has already occurred? I'm still not completely sure, but I can tell you that some memories I could have done without and others I could not get enough of.
I remember the day so vividly, in the midst of all the momentary glory at the race track, I first heard the term "Lifer". I remember it as though it were yesterday, then again in my mind it could very well have been. You see I'm no ordinary little girl, I'm a Lifer.
It was July 17, 1965 and no day could have been more perfect than the opening day at the Del Mar Race Track in San Diego. The skies were blue and the smell of the ocean swept over me as gust of wind threatened to blow away the new hat my father bought me for the opening day. It was a white bonnet with pink roses attached to the front of the hat. What else could you ask for on such a beautiful day? My father had just purchased some drinks and hot dogs from the winnings of the 6th race and we were in line to cash in on the 7th days race. "Clear Beauty" had run a flawless race beating the favorites by two lengths for a 60 to 1 winner, which my father had parlayed $1,200.00 on. And although my father rejoiced in the moment, I knew he was in pain and he was living on borrowed time. Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead threatening to splash into his soda. Even though my father fought to hide the pain, I saw it in his every step and in every breath he took. I loved him so and at times I truly do not know if the pain he felt was equivalent to the one I felt for him. My father was diagnosed with lymph node cancer and it had aggressively spread throughout his body. My father chose to live his final days with me and not hooked up to machines in a hospital. He was going out the way he felt it best. He would not be persuaded to live his final days medicated and unconscious. My father you could say was as stubborn as an ox and beyond all recommendations to be placed in hospice care, he chose to remain with me; by my side until the very end. My father who was old fashioned, to say the least, had refused treatment to prolong his life and to this day I believe it was this single decision that ultimately drove my mother away forever. He made me swear that when the time came that I would just let him go. "Don't take any unnecessary steps to keep me alive princess. I'll be just fine," he would say. I cried every time he spoke about it and he always would say the same thing, "I will always be with you Elle and you can take that to the bank." I not sure if he thought that corny line would cheer me up or if he thought I was okay with him passing away, but I knew that when the time came, I would do everything in my power to keep him alive. I would do whatever it took to keep my Papa with me. He was all I had that was right in the world.
When you are 6 years of age many things are not explained to you. Things happen and even though adults feel that you are too young to understand things such as heartbreak, sadness or regret, a child feels their way through it. A child understands the look in a parent's eyes that has just lost a job and ponders while looking tearfully through a window, "How will we survive." A child understands when death is circling above a loved one like buzzards circle a fresh carcass. And I felt everything concerning my Papa. My father worried for me and never once did he worry about himself. My father insisted that the remaining days of his life would not be spent hooked up to machines and drug out like a TV soap opera. With only months to live my mother just about went crazy and as she put it, "I need to leave." To this very day, I have a hard time forgiving my mother for what she had done to us, but mostly what she had done to father. Although my father never spoke a word about my mother after she left us, you could always see disappointment in my father's eyes every time he would glance at one family photo he chose to keep in view in our home. In the end, I'm not sure if it was the cancer that beat him or the loneliness that found refuge in his heart. I want to believe it was the cancer and I want to believe I was enough to fill his heart since I stayed with him until the end, but I am not sure. I know I was his prize possession. I was his princess and his world.
I remember the sirens blaring. I remember the paramedics and the frantic state that people were in when my father dropped helplessly to the floor. But what I remember most of all is the news a total stranger would give me when I was only 6 years old as my father was dying before me. "Elle, you are a Lifer."
Her name was Helen Bennett and she would prove to be the corner stone of all my joy and sorrows that were to come. Ms. Bennett had carefully considered many options on how she would eventually approach me and deliver this message to me. A message that I had unknowing instructed her to deliver. She understood that there was no easy way to carry out her task and time was not on her side. She opted to take a more subtle approach and befriend my father. She possessed a charm about her and had managed to get my father to let down his guard just enough to accomplish what she had set out to do. While standing in line Ms. Bennett had completely engrossed my father in his favorite topic of conversation, religion. Luckily she knew everything there was to know about the topic and she made it seem as though they shared many of the same views. Ms. Bennett had accomplished a feat so spectacular that to the untrained eye it would go unnoticed. She was able to get along with my father. To get along with my father was like getting along with a tooth ached alligator and she had manipulated my father's trust like a neurosurgeon. Carefully and precise. Their conversation did not last long at all, but Helen had managed to gain my father's trust. There was a certain sophistication about her and she knew how to use her bodily assets to command an audience's attention.
It was evident that the two soda pops I had earlier consumed at a record pace time were now starting to kick in and I must have clued my father in with the notorious "Pee Pee dance" that I needed to go and go quick. My father being the man that he was would never escort me to the restroom and Ms. Bennett found this opportunity to test my father's trust. "I'll take her Marcus if that is okay with you, I need to go myself," she said in a very caring tone. It was not in my father's nature to trust women, not after my mother had left us and yet she had touched something in my father to allow him to say yes. What appeared to be a caring woman taking me to the restroom to help out my father, ended up being so much more. From that moment on Ms. Bennett would prove to be the most important person to my education as a "Lifer".
The definition of a lifer is: a prisoner who serves a life sentence and in a way my life sentence would begin at the tender age of 6. Ms. Bennett had escorted me to the restroom, which I completely appreciated and she began her conversation with me like this. "Elle you probably don't remember me, but I am here not by chance, but by design. Your very own design. I am here to teach you of the things you must know and know fast." "Elle you are destined to do great things. Do you understand what that means?" Even at an early age I knew I was different. My father, an avid crossword puzzle buff, would many times get stuck on clues and I would somehow know the answers. My father never questioned the intelligence I possessed at an early age and to my father, the small fortune he paid the private school in the form of a monthly tuition must have been paying off. "Yes, I understand, Ms. Bennett" I replied in a very respectful manner as I had been taught by the nuns at my school. "Elle you are a Lifer." "You possess a gift that many envy and would do just about anything to have." "My meeting with you today is not by coincidence and you would do well to listen carefully to what I tell you." "Unfortunately, I know of your fathers illness and I am sorry." "I understand the love you have for him and that love you share will be your greatest weapon and point of reference in your life as your journey unfolds." "I will watch over you for as long as I can, but there is much for you to learn until then." I could sense urgency in her voice and this frightened me. How could she know of my father? What gift did I possess? What was she going to prepare me for? I had many questions for her, but they would have to wait. At that very moment a woman began to yell at the top of her lungs from just outside the restrooms. "Someone call an ambulance.... Oh my God he is having trouble breathing." I knew in that instant I would be alone soon and I wish I did not possess the ability to recall the details of my father's death. I would definitely be alone and the only person I could trust was a woman I had just met 30 minutes ago.
Chapter Two
Uncommon Enemy
"It is the Eve of Descension and we again will determine leadership for The Dark. Is there a vote of no confidence amongst you?" the dark figure at the podium announced with firm and unrelenting authority. All remained silent until one rose and declared his name and position. "I, Judas Alberte plea thy vote of no confidence," a member from the crowded shouted. "Judas, Judas, Judas," the dark figure repeated. "Your very name defines you as the ultimate trader of the ages." "So you believe that my time is over, that a new day shall dawn and it shall be with you at the forefront!" Judas, who had bit his tongue since the day he was reborn into The Dark, stood firm and said, "We approach an era of where total domination is within our grasp and yet we celebrate and feast as if we were already victorious. The time of vigilance is upon us all and we must prepare for...." "Enough!" the dark figured declared. "You understand that you and those who question the authority of the Master shall be without mercy if found to be unworthy," said the Master. "I do so and I challenge the position held by thy Master," said Judas. The Master waited a moment collecting his composure and with a slow, yet concentrated motion of his hand over a single black candle, it lit before him and a group of four gentlemen dressed in black suits approached Judas and began to strip him of his clothing as had been done centuries ago. The tradition of disrobing the challenger was a symbol of humility and the penalty for dishonor within the ranks. Judas stood unshaken by what was occurring and continued to stare directly at the Master with unwavering contempt. As the suits continued to disrobe Judas, the Master had already begun the next step of the ceremony and had knelt down in front of an ebony box of wood which lay before him. He began to chant and the silence in the audience had turned into a monotone moan of sorts. It had begun and all present knew there would be no turning back for Judas. Only twice in the history of The Dark had this ceremony been performed and both resulted with the same end, no change of power. Death was not the ultimate penalty for Judas should he fail, but what Judas feared most was eternal banishment from The Dark. This was something he had already contemplated before committing to the challenge for leadership. This was something he was willing to sacrifice to ensure his place as the new Master. Judas was a mystic of sorts and many questions regarding Judas' dark powers remained unanswered. It was even a mystery to his Master just how strong Judas really was. Judas exhibited many of the characteristics the Master possessed, but one thing that did distinguish Judas from the Master was his temper. Judas' anger was so raw that the Master at times could see that Judas, although powerful, was uncontrollable. The Master needed Judas to protect him, but now he wondered who would protect him from Judas.
The Master was aware of one thing, he had yet to be dethroned and he felt confident with his abilities to lead The Dark whether Judas was around or not. This again would be a small speed bump the Master would have to endure in his quest to continue ruling The Dark.
Judas now stood naked in place where he had only minutes ago stood up and voiced his vote of no confidence in a $10,000.00 Armani suit. All in the audience knew that this day would come, but very few amongst them understood what Judas coveted. Judas was not alone in the desire to be Master, but he by far was the most ruthless. For it was not the Master they feared, it was the Master's apprentice they dreaded and Judas had learned quickly, efficiently and without hesitation all the Master could teach him. Judas had surpassed his own Master in ambition, determination and he yearned for the day he would lead and assume his role as Master.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Lifers - A Secret Society by Victor A. Cordova Copyright © 2011 by Victor A. Cordova. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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