The Book of Black Redemption

by A L Hart

  I sat on the edge of the bed as Tathri paced, his gaze alternating between the floor and me.

  “In fact, there was a time . . . not even the Maker himself existed.”

  My brows drew up. “You mean someone else created the Maker?” Well, someone had to.

  “Oh yes, someone definitely created him.” He smirked. “He did.”

  Wait, huh? “The Maker created himself?”

  The smirk became a smile. “Incomprehensible, right? It breaks many human laws. But imagine this: your world, spinning and spinning, life going on in vibrant colors. Such a wondrous concept, glee and sadness, hatred and love, thrill and depression. The emotions that cultivated the world, churning out into the vast, infinite universe, until it was these emotions encountered something.

  “Imagine a being so powerful it can simply think itself into existence. Imagine the Maker. He felt the potent expressions of life from your world and he wished to know it all. At first, he was but a concept, a drifting, bodiless presence drawn to Earth like a moth to a flame. How infatuated he was with you humans, how in love with their existence and all it entailed. He wanted to be a part of your world, but he was afraid. Afraid you would reject him as back then, anything unknown was loathed. Thus, he created the Shatters, a world apart from yours, yet he wished to make it the same. When the world was created, he needed to then populate it, yet when he tried to make man and woman, they came out . . . wrong.

  “He was determined, however. So he took on the form of a small child and entered your world at a prehistoric mark in time; adults were less likely to outright slaughter the young back then. Once amongst the humans in the flesh, he began to study them. What made them . . . human. What he found saddened him deeply. How divided they were, how barbaric and debased, yet beautiful all the same. What if he could create beings whose lifespans did not desist? What if there was no illness? What if he could create beings so different from their brethren, yet the same?

  “The Maker created millions of creatures and filled the Shatters with them. He never revealed himself to them as their creator, merely allowed them to live in peace with one another. Yet still, there was something missing. Something the human world had that the Shatters did not, so he visited it frequently, studied it endlessly. Never could he find what it was Earth had in which the Shatters did not.

  “That was when he made his first mistake. He visited a world he did not create in an attempt to find what the Shatters was missing. A world with no name. Still taking the form of a child, he inserted himself amongst a small village and became one with them, learning their ways, their world. A very simple world it was, filled with routine and expectations, black and white. A world intolerant of change and anomalies. Which was why, when one of the village people gave birth to twins—an unheard of concept in that world—panic and havoc reigned. The first thing they wished to do was kill the twins, but the Maker compelled them not to.

  “It was no coincidence that the time the Maker showed up was the time the world, so banal and unchanging, changed. He knew his presence was the reason the anomaly of twins occured. Therefore, he parted from that world—though not without whispering immortality over the loathed twins to protect them from any harm that may or may not come their way. That was his second mistake.

  “Though he left the world to keep it from changing, the damage of change had already been done. When a cycle is tainted, there is no true way to rid of the toxin.”

  This had to be Jera and Ophelia he spoke about. My heart thundered, my mind focused. This was the past the dreams hadn’t showed me. A past Jera herself must have repressed to the point not even our bond would leak it.

  “Those twins, as they aged, they kept changing in ways the village people despised, until at the age of five summers, the youngest of them began to grow horns. The village elders saw it as demonic, and without thought, they and the twins’ parents made to kill it. But due to the Maker’s spell, it would not die. They tried drowning it, ripping out its heart, decapitating it. Nothing worked, so at last, they simply shoved it into a pit of fire it could not escape from, a place far away from the village so its screams would not disturb the way of the village.”

  Vomit rose as I took in the truth of what he was saying. They’d burned Jera. At five years old, they’d shoved her into a pit of fire and left her for the flames to do as they wanted. “What—” I cleared my throat, steadied my trembling hands. “How long did they leave her in the fire?” I whispered.

  “Until she became it,” he returned softly. “When presented with pain, it’s all we can do. If it doesn’t kill us, we become it. Only when the torment stopped could she climb from that hole and return to the village.”

  Where she burned it down, I remembered from my dreams.

  “Where she crawled back to her mother and father’s arms and begged to stay with them.”

  My mouth dropped. Had the dreams been wrong? The Maker had said she burned them all.

  “Terrified of their immortal daughters, but more so of the twin with horns, they rejected her, returned her to the fire.”

  “A-and she just went?”

  “When young, all we know are those who care for us. Cared for us.”

  Disgust had me ready to throw up the large meal Valen had had his servants force down. What was wrong with all of these worlds?

  “When her sister grew her horns and the village people bound her in another pit in an empty field, rain flooded it, but that particular part of the lands was known for its heavy lightning, and it was this which changed the female Ophelia. Caused her heart to develop in a fatal direction, destined for failure as the Maker’s cast of immortality, dark energy, mixed with the lightning.

  “When Jera found out what they’d done to her sister, she killed them all. Every last one of them, so that it was only the two of them. Until the Maker returned to assess the world he’d left behind. When all he discovered were the two twins, he deduced what happened, and without thought, he took them from their doomed world and brought them to the Shatters. Peter?”

  A blackness was creeping into me, a rage that she’d been raised by cruelty. I could all but hear her screams, a taunting echo in my blood, threatening madness. No wonder . . . no wonder she’d latched to Ophelia the way she had—it was the only true, authentic kindness she’d ever known.

  I forced in a breath, forced it out, then again. “I’m fine,” I whispered, feeling everything but.

  “You wanted the truth, and this is it. She, Ophelia and the Maker, they were really all but children. In the Shatters, they learned to play together, grow together, marveling at the many creatures that inhabited that world. But all good things come to an end, hm? The Maker secretly despised Jera for destroying the village, overlooking the evil done onto her. He cherished life in all its forms and to take a life that could not be reborn . . . Jera taught him hatred. While on the other hand, Ophelia showed him what it was the Shatters had been missing all along. Love. He fell in love with her, and strange it is, how love can alter the color of the world. Brighter, clearer, more lively. He wanted to take her to the humans, to show her the beings he was infatuated by. But before they left, something happened. Ophelia, her powers began to degrade with her organs, dark energy tearing from her in deadly currents. Unstoppable currents that destroyed all in which he’d created in the Shatters. Needless to say, he never took her or Jera to the human world, instead attempting to heal Ophelia’s failing body, but to do so, he would have to understand her origins. The village people she came from. The village people who were all dead due to Jera’s slaughter.”

  I found my lips peeling back. “How could he hate her for it?”

  “Oh, he hated her more for it. If anything, that he could not study the village people they came from, he blamed Ophelia’s sickness on her. But he did so subtly. Guilting her, so that when Ophelia’s organs began to shut down one at a time, Jera felt compelled to offer her own, knowing they would grow back—”

  I shook my head. “That’s n
ot why.”

  Tathri cocked his head. “Oh?”

  “She gave Lia her organs because she loved the Maker as much as he loved Ophelia. She’d have done anything to see him happy.”

  Tathri’s face relaxed. “I see. Perhaps my understanding of that tidbit was faulty. Nevertheless, there came a point Jera could not keep offering her organs without it ultimately destroying her own health. The Maker, unable to create the organs himself, instead decided to try one last thing: he took Jinxy, killed him and used his essence to preserve Ophelia’s last transplanted heart. The moment he inserted the altered heart . . . that was the moment Ophelia officially died.”

  “What?”

  “The Ophelia who lived on after that heart was implanted was but an imposter. Jinxy destroyed every last trace of Ophelia and impersonated her until this day.”

  “H-how can you be sure?”

  Tathri sighed and gave a sad smile. “Why, I know my brother better than I know my own self.”

  My mouth dropped, mind working. “The Imperial Beasts are all related?”

  “When Ophelia first got sick, it drove the Maker . . . slightly insane, and by slightly, I mean completely. When apart from the twins, he would fall apart. When he would tell them he was going to visit the humans, he really only went to another side of the Shatters, where he began operating on, well, himself. You see, the pain of watching the only thing he truly loved die, it was shredding his mind. He just wanted it all to go away. He wanted silence. So he began to tear parts of himself out. Torment. Sympathy. Neutrality. Rage. Peace. Destruction. So on. And these pieces of himself he ripped free, he left them in the vacant ruins where he retreated, until one day, he returned to find the emotions had taken form into little beasts of a thing. The Imperial Beasts. Ah, one of the faults of being the Maker. Accidentally creating things.” He chuckled.

  But I felt no amusement towards any of this. “Which are you?”

  “Neutrality.”

  Funny, seeing as he was so involved in everything.

  “Which is Jinxy?”

  “That’s the thing. Torment, destruction and his fear of death were the first things he wanted to go. He ripped those out in one cluster, and the three congealed into one entity while the others did so individually. Jinxy was the result.”

  It all made sense now. The first time I’d gone through Ophelia’s dark energy, peering inside her heart chamber.

  I am Death.

  We are Damnation.

  This is Torment.

  “Every other immortal has been secretive to some degree about everything. Why is it you’re telling me all this? Why have you been so involved in my life?”

  “I have been tracking Jinxy for a very, very long time now, Peter. When I came to Earth, I was originally following the twins, looking to kill Jinxy, but he is renown for being elusive. Once, I got close enough to him, and he injured me, left me for dead—until Danny found me. That kid has a kindness in him that knows no bounds. Originally I went after Jinxy to get the golden vambrace he’d taken from me—but quickly I grew apathetic towards such a trivial piece of accessory when I discovered Danny’s brother was sick. Those boys, they were the first thing to make me feel something beyond apathy, the first to contradict my birth of Neutrality. When Ethan grew ill, I took his mind and placed it in a world apart from our own, one where he would perceive a hundred years whereas it’d only been a few. I was trying to preserve time. Time enough for—”

  “Me to learn to use my ability and heal him.”

  Tathri nodded solemnly.

  “How did you know about my ability? How did you know about me?”

  He tapped his temple. “All Imperial Beast have impeccable foresight. But to answer your question, the reason I am being as candid as I am with you is because only you can do what is necessary to protect Earth, protect Danny.”

  “Which is what?”

  “You have to kill Jinxy, Peter. Kill Ophelia.”

  Ch. 7

  I stared at him blankly, unsure I’d heard him right.

  “Peter?”

  “You want me to find a way to separate Jinxy from Lia’s heart and kill him, you mean?” I asked slowly, studying him.

  He shook his head, his gaze as steady as my own as he said unwaveringly, “I want you to kill Ophelia. All that was once Ophelia is long gone, thus she is practically dead anyway. Separating Jinxy from her body is close to impossible unless he wills it—”

  “But not impossible.”

  “Peter, Jinxy is a powerful creature with uncanny intuition. You will only ever get one chance to kill him and capture his essence. You are the only one who has ever been able to get close to him when he was parading around as Ophelia.”

  “Jera slept beside her, him, whatever, for years.”

  “She is exempt from all of this. There’s no way she would ever hurt her twin.”

  “And you think I will?” When his lips thinned with impatience, I shook my head. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t. As far as I know, he hasn’t done anything that warrants me killing him. Beesides, is that seriously the answer to all immortal problems, killing them?” Tathri began pacing again, watching me carefully as though trying to figure out which angle to approach the matter that would change my mind. “Why can’t he return to his body?” I redirected.

  Tathri growled. “He can, but he doesn’t want to. His only goal is finding the Maker and destroying the shell of Ophelia in front of him, simply as retribution for what our father did to him.”

  “Wait.” I lurched to my feet. “The Maker is alive?”

  Tathri crossed his arms, frowning as he scuffed the rug with the tip of his shoe. “A semblance of it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he is somewhere in the Shatters, buried deep in its crust, sleeping.”

  “Sleeping?!”

  “Please, keep your voice down. Yes, sleeping. A little after giving Ophelia her last new heart, he began to create inhabitants in the Shatters again, but because his mind was so fragmented and unstable, these creatures were not the way he wanted them to be. He created an entire race of succubi for Ophelia, only to kill them all when they had one miniscule flaw. Then he created them again, killed them. On and on until Ophelia—Jinxy—convinced him to stop. But the damage had already been done; he created all of the immortal species, Peter, and went through a period of killing them then remaking them. It did things to his head, and the part of himself that loved life in all its forms lamented. It was a vicious cycle that eventually drove him over the edge.

  “The incubi were his last creations and they hated him as their king, only accepted him because he was Ophelia’s mate—”

  “Hold on.” I crossed my arms and tried to piece the timeline of it all together. “If what you say is true, if Ophelia’s body and mind was taken over by Jinxy when the Maker implanted the last heart, then that means every action committed by Ophelia after that point was actually Jinxy.” Wearing Lia’s face.

  Tathri nodded.

  “But . . . weren’t the Maker and Ophelia . . . intimate?”

  Tathri nodded.

  “If Jinxy—all of you—are fragments of the Maker, then does that mean he slept with . . . himself?”

  Tathri nodded again. “Not that the Maker knew Ophelia was long dead. Jinxy likes to play games and impersonating the love of our father’s life was the best game of all. Until it wasn’t. Until the Maker lost his mind and Jinxy couldn’t reel him back, not even while posing as Ophelia. It wasn’t until the Maker began exercising his madness on the twins—and by extension Jinxy—that Jinxy decided it was time to drop the act and outright murder our father. But at that point, the Maker had gone missing.”

  “But Ophelia said she’d come to Earth to find the Maker because she was sick.”

  “A partial truth. Jinxy had occupied the host of Ophelia for eons and more. Even with his fortified dark energy, Ophelia’s body had always been sickly; it was bound to start failing again. Jinxy wanted to find the Mak
er and slaughter the shell of Ophelia before her body desisted.”

  I couldn’t wrap my head around it all. Every encounter, every word said to me, it hadn’t been the Ophelia I had painted in my mind. No demure, innocent succubus with wide, trusting eyes, but some deranged Imperial Beast playing the long game, and for what, to kill himself in front of his father to hurt him one last time?

  “That’s not all, Peter. As you said, Jinxy’s qualm with our father could easily be disregarded were it not for his true desire.”

  “Which is what, an endless supply of catnip?”

  “To bring suffrage to life across all worlds. It’s his design. Jinxy is but the part of the Maker that wanted to break everything he’d ever created. And that is why he cannot go on.”

  I closed my eyes, head starting to ache as I realized I was completely in this. There was no detangling myself from the dangers, the intricate network of insane agendas.

  “Why did you send them to me?” I asked quietly, eyes shutting tighter, headache growing. It was a question I’d had since the very first case, the girl with the rabbit ears.

  “Because they needed—”

  “You said you’d give me the truth, Tathri. I want to know why you sent immortals and infected humans to my shop, and don’t say because they needed my help. You yourself said you are Neutrality, so what would you care?”

  A sigh fell from him and I felt him step in closer, his dark energy a bright array of blue threads. “Because, Peter, what you were back then would not suffice. I needed you to become what our worlds needed, but the more I stand here and speak with you, the closer I come to believing that’s impossible.”