Nevermore

by Rob Thurman

  Wasn’t that a trick?

  I slid my hand inside my jacket. I touched the only comfort left: the leather holster that cradled my way out. The metal of the trigger, the hard plastic of the grip, and the grimly comfortable weight of my escape.

  Sliding my Desert Eagle out, I placed the muzzle under my chin. My finger captured the trigger tight without any thought from me.

  It didn’t need any. It was automatic. I didn’t have to think as I’d already thought about this too many times before. The end had come, no surprise. I’d been waiting on it for a good part of my life. But I hadn’t thought it would be like this, unbearable as the lone survivor on a burnt and bloody battlefield. Dying was easy. Being alone, the last standing, having seen the others fall, it snatched away the relief and turned a mercy killing into a grim surrender.

  Fuck it, surrender, retreat, despite being coward enough to not only think I’d go first, but to hope for it, I’d been prepared for years, waiting for the feel of the metal, the resistance on the pull of seven pounds of trigger pressure.

  Seven pounds was my ticket out of this hell.

  And it was hell, more of one than I’d ever end up in.

  All because I forgot the goddamn pizzas.

  But I’d forgotten something else too. The pizza guy. And he had something to say.

  First, he said my name. I barely heard it with what small amount of hearing had returned. Whether what came next would have my finger sliding off the trigger, I didn’t know. I doubted it.

  Then he said a second name.

  One that made me question, finger still on the trigger, yeah, but . . .

  It made me . . . not hope. Hope was too hard, too distant. It didn’t do that. Yet . . .

  It did make me think. It made me consider the metal muzzle under my jaw as a sealed letter dropped into my lap, smelling of anchovies. With that second name said aloud and with me climbing out of the muffling quicksand of borderline catatonia, another form of escape that I hadn’t bothered to fight, things changed. I began truly thinking instead of letting the smothering shock pull me deeper. I stopped my body and mind from reacting mechanically as both had from the first moment of the explosion. I did it solely because I could guess what that letter might say considering who had written it.

  Tricks and truths . . .

  It wasn’t over until it was over and in this one unique case, maybe . . . maybe not necessarily then either.

  Once, three or four years ago, I’d said something profound as hell—also wrong as shit—but it had sounded good and I thought it true at the time. I had said that what had been made couldn’t be unmade.

  What had been done couldn’t be undone.

  I’d been wrong.

  I was going to do all that and more now. Undo this all. If I had to unravel reality itself at its seams, as a result, that’s what I would do.

  Why the hell not?

  If there were consequences, if there was a cost? So what?

  I’d already fucking paid it.

  1

  I believe the future is the past again, entered only through another gate.

  —Arthur Wing Pinero, 1894

  History.

  They say that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

  They also say history teaches by example. History is written by the victors. God himself can’t change the past, but historians can. And a thousand more sayings about it. But the last one was the one I was holding on to with both hands. God can’t change it, but historians could. They could write, erase, delete, and write a brand-new version.

  They say a lot—hell, yeah, they do. But who cared?

  History was, for the most part, boring.

  Not like fire. Fire was anything but boring. The starkly chemical tainted smoke, now more of a taste than a smell, still coated my tongue and throat thickly enough to make me want to puke. The stink of burnt blood, sizzled to nothing in seconds. The heat of the flames had been intense enough that I’d been dully surprised my face wasn’t seared to a blackened mask, despite feeling normal when I rubbed a hand roughly over it.

  Then there was the image of it all locked inside my brain and tattooed behind my eyelids whenever I blinked, an afterimage of everything I saw: the explosive eruption of fire and fury that streamed upward with a raging hunger that made it seem possible for it to set Heaven itself on fire, devour God himself if he had existed. And the sound . . . shit, the sound, or the lack of it. The explosion, the roar of not flames, but of not one but two unstoppable infernos, yet not a single scream or shout. Not a sign that anyone had been alive in a building before it had become what Hell longed to be. No sign of it, life, but there had been.

  Before.

  There had been brothers, friends, others. They hadn’t been alive, though, not after that. They’d died with the initial flash of light—there was nothing to hear from them. The Reaper had stolen their voices. They couldn’t scream, couldn’t say my name as they had since the day of my birth. They couldn’t. . . .

  Shit. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t function with this memory, only a half hour old and yet at the same time one that came from an event that wouldn’t happen for eight more years. I took that moment and pushed it away, buried it, as I couldn’t do the job, couldn’t do what I needed to if I had to see it in my head every minute of the day. I couldn’t fucking breathe if I had to carry that weight on my shoulders.

  Forget that was where half of it belonged.

  And there was no goddamn hope of having the strength to carry that.

  Ignoring the mental accusation, I took in the situation at hand and the alley I stood in. Both were grimy and ugly. One, the alley, was expected and two, the situation, wasn’t precisely unexpected.

  In this alley, in fact, this circumstance had been a routine risk in the day.

  If nothing else, it could be a needed distraction. But with my luck, which was no luck, it would be nothing but an inconvenience. I found out which when I sidestepped, with little effort, the shard of metal rusty and crusted with old blood swung at my face or throat, his aim wasn’t good enough to make an estimate, by a stinking, filthy waste of humanity. He’d leaped out of a bed of alley trash, his tainted harsh exhalation the hiss of a snake thanks to several missing teeth. He wore a stench of living on the street that was one step from decomposition and eyes muddy brown swimming in wide pools of deep piss-yellow.

  Inconvenience it was.

  Putting a boot in his lower back as he passed me unable to stop in time, I helped him continue his headlong rush attempt by sending him the rest of the way across the alley to slam into the opposite wall. As inconvenience was more likely to piss me off than distract me. But I’d smelled what was on the knife. I couldn’t let that go. I’d have to make do because this was what I had.

  There was the sound of crushing cartilage and the scent of blood when he hit the brick. Someone had bought themselves a broken nose. Those were a bitch. It would be several seconds before he could see through the tears of pain to attack again. I folded my arms to wait. Inconvenience and then some. If not for what coated that damned knife . . .

  I’d originally planned coming here eight years in my past to stop an assassination, my own assassination, by the Vigil. Pretentious asshole name aside, they had played a big part in history as well. They’d been human, but they hadn’t interfered with the paien world often, didn’t care if a boggle made a meal of a human. It was the circle of life, in their opinion—no more, no less, and their group had been around thousands of years, long enough to see the truth of that. Humans, thanks to a population of billions, were on top of the food chain as a species, but not individually. If it came down to a war, humans would win with their bigger weapons. Unimaginable monsters worse than anything you dreamed could live in your closet at night, even they couldn’t walk away from ground zero of a nuke blast. Yeah, humans would win
, but, first, the paien would make them damn sorry they played. Second, when it came to nukes, and it would have to come to them to end up on top, collateral damage to your own population will be a bitch.

  The Vigil had one rule: stay hidden. Humans do not need to know mythology books are actually wildly incorrect, but with a grain of truth, history books. Do not show yourself in a manner that humanity might find out werewolves, vampires, lamia, revenants, ghouls, hundreds of other “bogeymen” existed. Let humans live in the ignorant bliss that fairy tales were just that. That fairies weren’t real, spit acid in your face, and sucked off the melted flesh. Eating was a necessary sin of survival, of course, and some paien are predators. They have certain nutritional requirements. Merely don’t be seen doing it unless it’s by who you’re currently consuming.

  Slipups were understandable, but make certain they’re at night and only at night and by no more than two or three people who will easily convince themselves it was a trick of the light. Admittedly, the paien were here first. It’s a big world and they wanted to share it. But the average human, masses of them, wouldn’t understand, the Vigil had said. They’d panic, and it’ll happen as it has always happened when one civilization discovers another. War. We don’t want to be pushed into that corner. If a paien follows the rule, we won’t have to put that paien down. We don’t want to put you down. We—

  Aaand here he came again, interrupting my train of thought. With his nose bent to the side, blood gushing from it, I’d thought he’d have learned. Nope. This attack was crazed wild motion like the first. He was fast, I’d give him that, but fast is useless when your ambition wildly exceeds your ability to aim and your victim can . . . hell . . . practically Sunday fucking stroll out of your target area. With this attack he managed to hit the opposite wall himself, no assistance called for.

  This was a chore and a half. I had to face it. I wasn’t getting an iota of distraction here. It was down to business on his next try.

  Back to the Vigil until then.

  One rule. It seemed simple. It wasn’t.

  I broke that fucking rule like it had never been broken.

  But I’d had a good reason, and I’d do it again.

  The Vigil hadn’t seen it that way and turned out to be aggressively armed with weapons, stolen paien artifacts, biology labs, and assassins than they’d been remotely upfront about when it came to the subject. For all the sharing and fucking caring they spouted, they had the type of Cold War arsenal they hadn’t hinted at wanting or needing. Pity it wasn’t as effective as they’d planned.

  In the end, when it came to the world, humans would win. When it came to a throw down in NYC, the Vigil was wiped out except for my guess of two or three members: one a custom-made assassin with a stolen time traveling artifact.

  They couldn’t fix their wholesale destruction in the present, but they could send their hypocritically fabricated, mutated hope, Project Lazarus, back. They could kill me, the younger me, before the Vigil had known of Caliban Leandros, before I’d known of them, before I could break that rule. Then they’d be reborn. They never would’ve died.

  Aside from the assassin, the remaining one or two members would’ve been all that had been left of the last cell. And every cell had one of their goddamn psychics the Vigil had loved for their spying. They would’ve briefed the cell, before we’d wiped them out, that a paien friend of mine, with contacts and spies better than psychics on his payroll, had already discovered what the Vigil had stolen years ago. The psychic would’ve told the cell we knew what we’d need to stop Lazarus when he used the artifact. They had known we already had a twin to their stolen one.

  That was the two pieces of information my friend’s contacts hadn’t found out, that the Vigil was aware we were equally equipped to their assassin and that any of the Vigil survived aside from that assassin. The Vigil had been closer to being Nazis than the shepherds they painted themselves, but they were loyal—fanatically loyal. The single or few left made one last ditch effort against us. A truck packed with ANFO—overkill, not that they’d cared. The ammonia and nitrate reek I’d smelled was the unmistakable sign of a tool popular when the monsters were human and homegrown. The one or two Vigil who’d survived—it had probably been two, to gather all the components necessary, pack them in barrels, load the truck as that shit sounded heavy—had planned to keep me from using my own borrowed artifact to following Lazarus when he used his. They had tried to catch me at the bar.

  By driving their bomb on wheels into it.

  Funny, wasn’t it? All that work and I was the only one they hadn’t caught.

  Funny.

  But if they could undo what had been done, so could I. I’d still stop the assassination of an eighteen-year-old me. That goal would stay the same, but I had to do so goddamn much more now. I had to also fix a world, my world. It was a small part of the whole, but all I wanted or needed. The rest of the world—I didn’t give a shit about, not anymore. If I couldn’t remake mine, if I failed, what was left could burn for all I cared. Hell, I’d start the fire myself.

  Anyone have a match?

  Or maybe a lighter.

  “You have a lighter I could borrow, shithead?” I drawled, tired of waiting for the third attempt. Shit, he’d been playing possum. He might have a brain cell left that the drugs hadn’t eaten. Coming off the wall, quicker than before, the jagged steel was now whipping at my throat. The hand that held it was white knuckled with tension where it wasn’t encrusted with dirt, and it slashed with vicious force, but no skill. Too easy. I didn’t have to waste any effort on a fight this pathetic.

  That was the trouble with what lurked in dirty, ugly alleys. Dirty, ugly assholes who will cut your throat for a dollar. Drugs aren’t easy to come by when you have no money. I might have money. If nothing else my jacket would go for ten.

  I didn’t let my mind fixate about how this was holding me up. I needed to go, but I also needed to crush a poisonous scorpion under my heel. Dripping venom from its stinger, it hid in the trash and the dark. Deadly to anyone who wandered off the path, the single safe place as all fairy tales tell you. It wouldn’t take long and required little effort, handling the scorpion, I had to think of that, think of anything that wouldn’t have me throwing him to the side and running to save the people I knew, not strangers.

  It would take minutes, less, to save those strangers and those minutes were nothing compared to the time I’d need to change everything back. I could spare it. Nik would want me to.

  Shit. Shit. Okay, then, big brother. For you.

  I scavenged in my thoughts for anything else to concentrate on besides abandoning wandering sheep to this murderer. As inefficient as this dick was at cutting throats, I had the time. What had I been dwelling on—during my first step into the alley? Before the burnt and bloody thoughts. The boring side of history, that’s what it had been. Dull, boring, cruel and unusual punishment. Ask any kid in school.

  The generation of Saturday morning cartoons had it so much easier, the middle-aged bastards.

  The shot heard ’round the world . . .

  Was the beginning of the revolution. . . .

  Take your rifle, take your gun. . . .

  Knives hadn’t made that list. I didn’t know why. They were as good in the right situation. Good, well-made ones at least.

  Mine was very good.

  That’s what I thought as I changed mental paths with a quick and savage satisfaction. I grabbed a handful of greasy hair as I evaded the man’s lunge at me. It was as unexpectedly fast, if as unskilled as his knife-work. Desperate and fast go hand in hand sometimes. I yanked my attacker’s head back, and did what he’d tried to do to me, only more efficiently. I cut his throat with one slice, blood erupting to paint the dirty brick wall of the alley with vivid crimson. It was almost twilight here as it had been almost twilight there—eight years in the future.

  When you’re killing
someone, whether it’s self-defense as they tried to kill you first or you’re a jackass who tries to kill for the hope of five bucks in your wallet, twilight is a good time for it. Alleys are a good place. Anyone would be less likely to be seen. It was probably why this one had chosen it.

  I’d slid behind him before using my knife as that was some small piece of history, for once, worth remembering. I’d learned it long ago and it remained useful. Stand in front of someone when you cut their throat and the force of the crimson carotid spray will cover you from face to chest. As much as you wipe, you never get it all off either, not until you hit the shower. It makes for a cannibal-fresh-from-an-all-you-can-eat-buffet look.

  And it makes catching a taxi impossible.

  The man—no, not the man, not some guy—the shithead was what he was. And he proved that further by collapsing onto the asphalt and continuing to breathe. Not too well as he was doing it through a few pints of blood. It was pointless, but it didn’t stop him from making the effort. Some people, the assholes like him, refused to make your life any easier by just dying already.

  I could’ve helped him along.

  But considering what I knew he’d done—bad.

  That I knew what he was—a human monster.

  Nah.

  Let him suffer. Slow and painful was what he deserved. At least he hadn’t turned while falling and hit me with that hosing down of blood I’d been so careful to avoid. It didn’t change my opinion on history, though, that one useful cut from behind, dodge the blood, if you plan on catching a cab later little fact picked up along the way.

  I’d always thought history was boring. I thought that the books were too thick, and whoever once gave a shit about memorizing all the tedious dates of this war or that ancient plague or some long dead philosopher who made logic so illogical you wished he’d died sooner? Dull as dirt, plain and simple.

  Or so I’d believed.

  But look at me now. According to one of those sayings about history, in this place, I was a historian. I could do what God couldn’t.