The Valkyries

plans were and was frightened.
    Why would she be frightened?
That night when he has seen her at the precipice with Valhalla, he and Chris had made a sacred agreement; they had promised that never again would they risk their lives in the desert. Several times, the angel of Death had passed close to them, and it wouldn’t be smart to keep testing the patience of their guardian angel. Chris knew him well enough to know that he would never fail to keep a promise. That’s why he was stealing away before the first rays of the sun were to be seen—to avoid the dangers of the night, and the dangers of the day.
    Nevertheless, she was concerned, and had hidden the key.
    He went to the bed, having decided to awaken her. And he stopped.
    Yes, there was a reason. She wasn’t worried about his safety, or about the risks he might take. She was fearful, but it was a different kind of fear—that her husband might be defeated. She knew that Paulo would try something. Only two days remained before they left the desert.
    It was a good idea to do what you did, Chris,
hethought, laughing to himself.
A defeat such as this would take two years to overcome, and for the whole time you would have to put up with me, spend sleepless nights with me, bear with my bad moods, suffer my frustration along with me. It would be much worse than these days I lived through, before I learned how to make my bet.
    He looked through her things; the key was in the security belt where she kept her passport and her money. Then he remembered his promise about safety—all this may have been a reminder. He had learned that you never go out into the desert without leaving at least some indication of your destination. Even though he knew that he would be back soon, and even knowing that his destination, after all, was not that far away—and that if anything were to happen, he could even return on foot—he decided not to run the risk. After all, he had promised.
    He placed the map on the bathroom sink. And he used the can of pressurized shaving foam to make a circle around a location: Glorieta Canyon.
    Using the same means, he sprayed a message on the mirror:
    I WON’T MAKE ANY MISTAKES.
     
    Then he put on his sneakers, and left.
    When he was about to put the key into the ignition, he found he had left his own key there.
    She must have had a copy made,
he thought.
What did she think was going to happen? That I was going to abandon her in the middle of the desert?
    Then he recalled Gene’s strange behavior when he had forgotten the flashlight in the car. Thanks to the matter of the key, Paulo had marked the place where he was heading. His angel was seeing to it that he took all the necessary precautions.
    The streets of Borrego Springs were deserted.
Just like in the daytime,
he thought to himself. He remembered their first night there, when they had stretched out on the floor of the desert, trying to imagine what their angels would be like. Back then, all he wanted to do was talk to his.
    He turned to the left, out of the city, and headed for Glorieta Canyon. The mountains were to his right—the mountains they had descended by car back when they had first arrived.
Back then,
he thought, and realized it hadn’t been all that long ago. Only thirty-eight days.
    But, as with Chris, his soul had died many timesout there in the desert. He was pursuing a secret that he already knew, and had seen the sun turn into the eyes of death. He had met up with women who appeared to be angels and devils at the same time. He had reentered a darkness he thought he had forgotten. And he had discovered that, although he had spoken so often of Jesus, he had never completely accepted the Savior’s forgiveness.
    He had reencountered his wife—at the very moment when he believed he had lost her forever. Because (and Chris could never know it) he had fallen in love with Valhalla.
    That was when he had learned the difference between infatuation and love. Like conversing with the angels, it was really very simple.
    Valhalla was a fantasy. The warrior woman, the huntress. The woman who conversed with angels, and was ready to run any risk in order to surpass her limits. For her, Paulo was the man who wore the ring of the Tradition of the Moon, the magus who knew about the occult mysteries. The adventurer, capable of leaving everything behind to go out in search of angels. Each would always be fascinated by the other—so long as each remained exactly what the other imagined.
    That’s