by Tom Abrahams
Branch pretended not to notice them, despite the measured grunts from both men. He kept his focus on Anaxi and repeated his question. “What do I need to do? What is it I need to see?”
Anaxi suppressed a smile. He was more predictable than she’d imagined. His need for what lay at the end of the map had clouded his judgment. The haze would only thicken the closer to their destination they got…if they reached their destination.
“There are obstacles,” she said. “Three challenges you must face. Those challenges require sacrifice.”
His eyes widened. His expression brightened like a child awaiting the revelation of a surprise. Blood dripped from his chin as he lifted his gaze to meet hers.
“And if I sacrifice, if I defeat the challenges, then what?”
“Then the Kalevanmiekka is yours,” she said.
Chapter Seven
Zeke stood on the front porch of the cantina. Strains of brass-heavy music filtered from the bar through the twin louvered saloon doors. Beyond the porch, deep blue water stretched in all directions. In the distance the Horde sat in skiffs and canoes. They bobbed on the undulating waves, but somehow stayed unmoved by the current.
“I’ll never get used to that,” Zeke said. “They freak me out.”
Pedro put an arm around Zeke’s shoulder. “That’s the point. They’re meant to coax an uneasiness. We’re never too far from the darkness.”
“Without darkness, there is no light,” said Zeke. “That thing?”
Pedro patted Zeke’s shoulder and took two steps toward the edge of the porch. He leaned on the railing and glanced over his shoulder at Zeke. “Something like that.”
Zeke joined Pedro at the railing and rested on his forearms. The wood was warm through the thin fabric of his shirt. The sun was relentless here. It was the only thing in this place of which he was sure. The sun always shined. It never set.
“If I didn’t know any better,” Zeke said to Pedro, “I would think all of the vague answers to direct questions signal that you don’t know anything. Not for sure anyhow.”
Pedro’s face stretched into a grin. “Do any of us?”
Zeke wagged a finger. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
From behind them, the twin doors rocked on their hinges. Boot steps thunked against the wood porch planks. Without turning, Zeke knew the rhythm of the exaggerated walk. It was Uriel. Then she spoke, feigning a lilting Southern accent.
“Y’all talking about li’l ole me? Enough already. I can’t take all the constant attention.”
“Of course we’re talking about you,” said Pedro. “Of whom else might we speak, Uriel?”
She joined them at the railing and clasped the balustrade to swing herself forward and back. Her braid was draped over her shoulder, the bow at the end of it bouncing at her chest.
“We were about to discuss the mission,” said Zeke.
Uriel opened her mouth and pretended to cover it with her flat palm. Her eyes were wide with pretend surprise.
“Mission,” she said. “You. Have. A. Mission?”
Pedro scratched his beard at his chin. “Yes, he does, Uriel. I’m assuming that’s what brought you out here? You want in?”
She spun on her boot heels to face the barkeep. Planting her hands on her leather-clad hips, she huffed offense.
“Of course that’s not why,” she said. “I came to see my two favorite gents. But since you’re asking, yes, I’m interested. I accept. I’ll join your mission, Zekie.”
“I haven’t asked you yet,” said Zeke.
Uriel pouted, pushing her lower lip out in a curl. “How rude. Is she going? Is that why you’re not asking me?”
She was Adaliah. Or Li, as he called her.
Zeke shook his head. “No. Li’s not going. She’s not ready. And I didn’t say I wasn’t asking you, Uriel. I said I hadn’t asked you yet.”
She grinned, and warmth spread from his chest. He tried not to look her in the eyes and mistakenly focused on her décolletage. She put a hand to her chest, covering the parts her leather top did not. His face flushed. Pedro laughed.
“Ahhh. Uriel,” said Pedro, “you are a little devil.”
She winked and blew a kiss to the barkeep. “Don’t you wish, old man.”
The double doors slapped open again. More boot steps. Heavier. More purposeful.
“Am I missing something?” Gabe asked. “We drawing straws?”
Phil followed right behind him.
Zeke waved a hand at the group. “I’m guessing you all want in on this?”
The others exchanged glances and nods. In unison they said, “Yes.”
Pedro held up his hands. “Hang on a minute. Since this is Ezekiel’s mission, he chooses the team. The rules dictate no undue influence from any of you.”
“You believe in free will?” asked Zeke.
“That’s a much larger question,” said Pedro. “It requires a long explanation, one for which we don’t have time. Suffice it to say I…we…are proponents of self-determination.”
Zeke adjusted the Stetson on his head. He tipped it back and scratched his forehead. “What’s the difference?”
“You have much to learn, young Padawan.”
Zeke’s brow furrowed. “Pa-da-wan? What’s that?”
“You are so cute,” Uriel said, smirking. “Stupid and cute.”
“It’s a pop culture reference from the late twentieth, early twenty-first centuries,” said Gabe. “Before your time.”
“Was it part of his timeline?” asked Phil.
“Hard to know,” said Uriel. “I get a lot of these divergences confused. It’s hard to keep—”
Zeke’s eyes darted from Watcher to Watcher. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s my fault,” Pedro said. “I typically shy away from obscure references. Just forget I said anything.”
“Okay,” said Zeke. “But what’s a Padawan?”
“Someone who’s cute and stupid,” said Uriel.
Zeke looked at the others for confirmation. They exchanged glances and shrugged.
“Fine.” Zeke sighed. “I invite all of you to be on my team. I can’t imagine the humiliation if I didn’t.”
Pedro clapped his hands together. “Good. That’s settled. You have a team of four plus your charge, Lucius Mander.”
“And the task is to find his daughter?” asked Zeke. “Rescue her and restore the balance of good and evil?”
Pedro pursed his lips. He folded his arms and took in a deep breath. His gaze fell on the Horde sitting patiently upon the water. A gull swooped low along the surface and dove. It surfaced a moment later with a fish, but struggled with the added weight. Its flapping, black-tipped wings beat against the water on their downstrokes until it lifted itself skyward.
“Seagulls are smart animals,” said Pedro. “They’ll drop breadcrumbs to attract fish when they hunt for themselves. They swoop down and stay close to the surface. If they’re not hunting, they’ll steal from others. Other birds, animals, even people. Sometimes, when desperate, they’ll eat their young.”
Zeke didn’t know Pedro well, but he knew him well enough to understand the gull was a metaphor for something, or someone. The old man constantly spoke in riddles and lessons.
The barkeep raked his fingers through his beard. “This mission is more complicated than a simple rescue and balance. Those are easy.”
Zeke thought about his effort to rescue Li. He’d not thought there was anything easy about it.
After running for his life and leaving her to fend for herself, his conscience forced his return to his home city, an authoritarian protectorate where he worked as a bootlegger for a black-market purveyor. It was a violent extraction, which, while successful, ended with Li leaving her life behind. And she hadn’t come to terms with where she was and who she’d become.
Yeah. Nothing easy about it at all.
“How much do you know about the missing Watchers?” Pedro asked.
Zeke thought abo
ut what Phil once told him, then said, “Not a lot. That they sometimes go on missions and don’t return. They disappear along with their weapons.”
Pedro nodded. “What else?”
“You can’t go after them. If they’re smart about it, they grow more powerful. They influence good and evil. Typically, another Watcher has to bring them back.”
Zeke had seen the power of a rogue Watcher. One named Theo had chosen evil, and he’d stopped him from rescuing Li.
“Very good,” said Pedro. “And their weapons?”
“They become legend. Mythical. Every culture tells stories about these weapons. And I guess every version of Earth has them?”
Pedro flashed a smile. “That’s correct. There is more to it, however, and that’s where this mission gets complicated.”
Zeke wasn’t sure how much more complex things could become.
He was dead but seeking redemption. His friends were fallen angels called Watchers who were tasked with maintaining the balance of good and evil in what he now believed might be a multiverse. His new home was a bar and boardinghouse in the middle of nowhere. Once surrounded by a desert wasteland, it was now an island at the edge of a vast sea. What was next? A frozen winter ‘asunder land’?
Pedro seemed to sense Zeke’s concern. He offered a sympathetic frown. “I understand this is a lot to grasp.”
Zeke said nothing. He ran his fingers along the brim of his hat.
“When a Watcher’s gifted weapon disappears,” Pedro said, “it’s lost to us. We can’t see it. We can’t retrieve it.”
“Why not?” asked Zeke.
“Once gifted, the weapon belongs to the Watcher,” Phil interjected. “Only he controls it and has the ability to harness its power. If he leaves it on Earth, intentionally or otherwise, it stays hidden from us.”
“She,” said Uriel.
Phil’s face squeezed with confusion. He tilted his head to one side.
Uriel rolled her eyes. “He or she. You said he controls it. There are women Watchers, Phil.”
Phil bowed his head. “Apologies.”
“There are exceptions,” said Gabe.
Zeke chuckled nervously. His head was beginning to spin.
“There are,” Phil admitted.
Pedro held up his hands. “Let me do this, friends. One voice. One explanation. It’ll make it easier to digest. In fact, perhaps it’s best if you get yourselves some drinks or toss some darts.”
The trio stood there. None moved.
Pedro shooed them into the bar. His features grew serious. “Now.”
Uriel huffed. Gabe grunted. Phil mumbled something under his breath. Together they sulked back into the bar. Zeke watched the louvered doors swing back and forth on their hinges.
Pedro sighed. “Children.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Zeke. “When a Watcher loses or leaves a weapon on Earth, you can’t find it. I’m guessing the longer it stays on Earth, the more legendary it becomes?”
Pedro nodded. “Both those things are true. As Gabe said, though, there are exceptions. If a human finds a weapon, he or she can wield it. That upsets the balance, which is not good. Once the human uses it, we can see it. We can find it. We can retrieve it.”
“What does this have to do with my mission?”
“Everything,” said Pedro. “Besides finding Lucius Mander’s daughter, you are tasked with retrieving a weapon before the man who took her can wield it.”
“Okay. What is the weapon?”
“A sword. Once the weapon of a Watcher named Josephine. Long ago, she disappeared and her sword vanished with her.”
“How long?”
“Centuries,” said Pedro. “Give or take a millennium or two.”
“What does it do?”
“The sword?” Pedro asked and answered, “It’s similar to your pistol, to Gabe’s batons, Phil’s flail. To Uriel’s…body.”
“So it’s a pulse weapon.”
“More or less. It harnesses the energy of good and evil and displaces one or the other to set things right.”
Zeke absently put his hand on the grip of his pistol. “Does the sword have a legend?”
Pedro nodded. “Many. Different civilizations have called it different names. The Japanese called it Kusanagi. The British named it Excalibur. To the Greek it was Harpe and used to decapitate a snake-headed monster named Medusa.”
“What do you call it?”
The barkeep’s features brightened. “Excellent question.”
“The answer?”
“I refer to the sword by its Finnish name,” Pedro said. “Kalevanmiekka. Translated, it means Kaleva’s sword. If you look to the night sky toward Orion’s Belt, you’ll see stars with this name.”
“Kalevan…” Zeke attempted to pronounce.
“You need to find the sword to stop an imbalance of power,” said Pedro. “Mortal humans can’t be trusted with such a weapon. They’ve proven repeatedly that use of the sword, or any of our arms, leads to a strong imbalance. It has been a long time since a human possessed one of our weapons. It never ends well. Even the seemingly worthy, like a legendary boy nicknamed the Wart, caused more harm than good in the end. You and your team need to prevent it.”
“I thought you said we can’t find it until a human touches it?”
“I did.”
“We have to find it after this bad guy touches it but before he uses it,” said Zeke. “That sounds impossible.”
Pedro shrugged. “Anything worth having isn’t easy, Ezekiel.”
“By anything, you mean redemption.”
“I mean anything. Balance in all things requires sacrifice, complications, tweaks and shifts.”
Zeke clenched his fist before he flattened his palms against the sides of his hat. There were so many things to say, so many questions to ask. None of them crystalized. Instead, he snapped at the barkeep, “Who comes up with these stupid rules? And these random exceptions? All of this is too much. Every time I think I have a handle on where I’m headed, what my task is, I find out I have no idea. It’s… It’s…”
“Overwhelming,” said Pedro. “Confusing. Maddening. All of those things and more. I understand. I empathize. This part of your existence is always going to be a balance of those things. You are free to leave if you can’t handle it.”
“Leave?”
Pedro laid his hands on the railing’s balustrade. He faced the unending sea and focused on the Horde. The flotilla was there. Waiting. Watching. Stalking.
Zeke’s jaw dropped. “That’s my way out? It’s either this jumbled mess of rules and regulations, or it’s them?”
Pedro said nothing. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “Salt air is so much more refreshing than the arid heat of the desert,” he said to Zeke and to nobody in particular.
Zeke removed his hat and held it against his chest. The music inside the cantina had stopped. It was replaced with laughter and the clack of billiard balls slapping into one another.
He scanned the sea, looking toward the horizon where the pale blue sky transitioned to the dark blue water. It was cloudless. The sun was a white-hot smudge of orange in the sky. Its light danced on the rise and fall of the waves moving across the ocean’s surface. A flock of gulls rode a current of air, gliding without moving their wings. Their bodies shifted almost imperceptibly from one side to the other as they balanced themselves. The flock moved in sync, one organism adjusting and compensating for changes in the environment.
Zeke was never one for balance. Not in life. Not in death. He’d always acted in his own self-interest at the edges of society. When he was committed to something, he was all in. When he wasn’t, he was out and didn’t look back. When he loved, it was with his soul. When he hated, it was to his core.
He turned his attention to the leader of the Horde. He was the tallest of the motley group of ghouls and monstrous beings. The skeletal man with sunken black eyes stared back. He ran a gray tongue across yellow daggerlike teeth. An
d Zeke understood why they were always there, why they patiently bided their time within sight of Pedro’s Cantina.
They waited for arrivals to give up, to give in, and choose whatever it was they offered. They waited for Zeke.
The leader lifted his chin and sniffed the air. His wide nostrils flared.
Pedro motioned toward them. “They’re called the Harbingers of Real Death. If you go with them, they’ll gladly take you home. They know how difficult becoming a Watcher can be. They count on it. Many of them once stood where you do now. They sought refuge at the bar. I granted it. I tasked them with missions. They failed or gave up. Now they are among the Horde.”
A wave of guilt washed over Zeke. He was here, offered a second chance for his soul, and he complained about impossibilities, difficulties, challenges. Whatever lay ahead was surely a better alternative to an eternity in the ravenous Horde.
Zeke puffed his cheeks and blew out a warm breath. He faced Pedro and offered his hand.
The barkeep regarded the offering for a moment before taking the smaller hand in his meat hook. He shook vigorously.
“To what do I owe this?” asked Pedro.
“We have a deal,” Zeke said. “I’m in. All or nothing. I’ll find this Calvin Maker. I’ll save the girl and put the bad guy in a world of hurt.”
Pedro stopped shaking but held the grip. “Deal. And it’s not the Calvin Maker. It’s the Kalevanmiekka.”
“Calvin Maker. Kelvin Meter. You have your name for it, I have mine.” He chuckled. “Maybe I’ll stick with Excalibur.”
“Fair enough,” said the barkeep. “I think you’re worthy.”
Chapter Eight
Zeke scratched his head. This was not what he expected.
He stood on a thin strip of land that arced around the back of the cantina. It extended in a curved arc away from the building like an atoll. The water inside the sandbar was teal more than blue. Colorful varieties of fish swam near the surface in sharply moving schools.
Uriel stood next to him, her hip leaning into his thigh. Zeke had trouble concentrating. Her perfume was intoxicating, as always. Next to them, standing with his hands over his mouth, was Lucius Mander. He looked like he would puke.
