by Brian Corley
“Interesting.”
“So. God was furious and cast out the humans from their carefully cultivated environment into a world of hardship. Lucifer was held responsible for the decision, regardless of who really tempted the humans, and we were subject to a harsher punishment to be administered at the time when God decides to remake this place. Lucifer continued to petition our Father to rethink His position toward humans and this world, but we all accepted the inevitable once he sent His Son.
“Since that time, he relented to the demands of his generals to recruit an army of gifted spirits like yourself—extremely useful as spies, artisans, and craftsman today, but formidable soldiers in the war that is to come. We’re spiraling toward a real battle against an impossible foe, but man’s ability to create combined with our power may give us an edge in the time to come.”
We approached a sharp bend in the tunnel where she stopped to face me.
“That’s why we need you, Jonah.”
“Need me to be one of the millions of collected spirits? Lead a battalion? I don’t get it,” I replied.
“No,” she replied, “you don’t. You are unique, Jonah.”
She played to my pride, but I wasn’t that easy.
“Not really,” I replied, “I watched Willard do a lot of what I can do, and I have friends that can build a house in like an hour. There are plenty of people that can do what I do.”
“I watched Masephson train Willard Hensch. He could not do in training what he did in front of you. Your friends, the architects, it took them months to get their house right. We watched them take weeks on the outside then work their way in, coming back out to add detail, create a landscape. Yet, you called on them to help your friends, and they created the Rodriguezes’ house within an hour.”
“So, if I’m an inspiration, what do I inspire you to do?” I asked as I lay down on the gravelly floor of the tunnel, leaning over on my side. “Paint me like your French girls, Cat.”
She rolled her eyes and playfully kicked gravel toward me.
“You’re an amplifier,” she said and offered her hand to help me up, which I took. “Not only do you have the ability to create copies of nearby items, but you can also quickly improvise once they’re in hand or create them whole from nothing.
“What sets you apart from anyone else we’ve encountered is that you enhance the natural abilities of those around you as well. When Mr. Hensch came to us with his story about what he did to you, we were excited. It is extremely rare to have someone come to us with an ability to utilize actual artifacts from the other plane like he did to eliminate you.”
“Except he didn’t—eliminate me,” I butted in.
“Exactly. After monitoring Hensch in training, I began to have my doubts about his story, so I personally investigated its veracity. I watched for some time as you discovered the new world around you, helping those around you—living or dead. I saw an individual with not only a tremendous talent but someone that was kind, loyal, and had a good heart—all attributes I like to see in a recruit.”
“Of course,” I responded, “if there is one thing we all know, it’s how loyal, kind, and true demons are. Story after story tells us so.”
A sad smile softly stretched across her face. I think that hurt. I may have gone a tad too far.
“You’re right, of course. There are monsters among us, but I hope you heard what I had to say earlier. We’re not all bad …” She paused, looking up like there were words on the ceiling. “Like your Republicans.”
I breathed out a laugh. “Uh-huh, just like them—nice analogy, coming from a demon.”
“Maybe I should have said all politicians, mea culpa,” she said, holding up her hands and kicking at the dirt. “Jonah, I am going to ask you something, and I need an answer before we turn this corner.”
She nodded to a curve in the tunnel ahead.
“Let me train you. I will oversee you personally, place you under my command. You will train with the elite I have assembled over thousands of years. Good people—noble, honorable.”
“Why would I do that? Look, Cat, I like you—really—but all I want to do is get George and Ramona and leave. That’s it. I don’t want to pick a side. I just want out.”
She sighed, and her shoulders slumped. I got the feeling that the sad look on her face wasn’t an act.
“The only way you will leave this place is among our ranks. When we turn the corner, you will be offered another way to join our organization—one you will not enjoy.”
“Ah, so we’re threatening now. That sounds more like it,” I shot back.
“I’m not threatening—I’m trying to help you!”
“But you’re saying if I don’t join up with you, there’s going to be trouble around the corner.”
She nodded.
“So two demons here versus innumerable around the corner.”
She nodded again, and I amassed energy for a devastating right cross. I swung and immediately found myself on the ground. Cat stood above me with her right arm extended casually, the flat of her palm pinning me in place.
“I watched you fight the halfling. You were courageous, creative, and strong. We need you in our ranks, but you are no rival for someone like me—not even with the proper tools.”
The pressure of whatever she was doing was enormous, but I managed to get a few words out. “See? You don’t even need me.”
She released whatever hold she had and offered me a hand—I took it.
“Don’t feel bad. There aren’t many in the host that are a match for me.”
She pulled me up.
“I guess humility isn’t one of those things you value,” I said, dusting myself off again. Maybe one day I’d learn that I can’t get dusty.
“Humility is a nice to have, but again, I value honesty. Just wanted you to know.” She raised an eyebrow. “I can train you to take on some level of angels with the right tools, and with the aid of an army, you’ll have the ability to overcome by sheer numbers. I want to help you, Jonah, but I need an answer.”
I took a moment to think. My instincts told me I could trust Cat. I didn’t believe she took me on a stroll to obfuscate the truth. This was her truth, and she made some interesting points. Literature is full of stories of man’s creation gone terribly wrong, from Frankenstein to the entire Terminator series.
Even today, we face a serious ethical dilemma of how far to go with artificial intelligence. We know we can create programs that learn and distribute information orders of magnitude faster than we could ever imagine, and we can connect that technology into our lives—be it through shopping, travel (cars, planes, etc.), running our house, and maybe even our military. What happens when we’re finally able to add the ability for that programming to make its own decisions. What will it do?
I understood their fear of us as a creation. I understood the jealousy that stemmed from being supplanted as the former favorite of that Creator. I even understood how our behavior over time reinforced that concern. Moreover, I understood the desire to stop a punishment that lumped good people—or angels—into the same yolk as the bad. The terrible. The unimaginably evil.
Still, even with this new information, with everything I’d read or learned, my experience with Seph, my experience with Masephson, even my experience with Cat informed me of what my choice should be. All the evidence was there.
“I’m sorry, Cat. The answer is no—whatever the consequence.”
“No, I’m sorry, Jonah—truly,” she said.
Chapter 34
We stepped through an enormous open maw of a door into a buzz of excited chatter similar to any that would be heard in a full stadium waiting for action—minus the frenetic, over-the-top, adrenaline-pumping beats.
I went to the Superdome in New Orleans once in college, and I would describe the space in front of me as a combination
of that and the Roman Colosseum with stalactites instead of steel girders across the ceiling. The arena was lit by a soft yellowish-orange light, as if illuminated by a giant torch rather than the bright-white lights of a football game. Various spirits sat, stood, and hovered just above the seating provided in the stands.
Masephson posed before us in the middle of the arena, decked out in a red top hat and tails befitting a circus ringmaster while holding the same walking cane he had with him in front of my house. His eyes sparkled as he watched Cat and I enter the arena.
“And now, for our main event …” He began speaking into the end of the cane with an amplified voice that filled the stadium. “Are you ready, Fight Night?”
The crowd cheered with one voice and applauded.
“I said, are you ready, Fight Night?”
The crowd roared, and competing chants broke out in different sections around the stadium.
“Well done, well done. Settle now, settle.” Masephson milked the moment. “Up first, from Lyon, France, with a record of nine hundred ninety-nine wins and two losses, the fast, the frenzied, the very French—RE-NEE—LA-CA-ZETTE!”
A howl of approval went up through the crowd as a slight, young-looking man burst forth from the opposite side of the stadium with his hands above his head, pointing and shouting into the stands, then staring over and pointing to me. Masephson waved his arms down in a motion to hush the crowd, and they did. “And here, accompanied by [Cat].”
I’m not actually sure what name he used, but my ears chose to hear the name “Cat.”
“A local boy made good, from Austin, Texas, recently deceased. No doubt, some of you have heard of him already—the young—the resourceful—the formidable—JO-NAH—PRES-TON!” Masephson’s hands went wide and above his head as he said my name. He twirled for theatrical effect to the audience at large. The response was loud, although not near the response for Renee Lacazette.
I leaned in and whispered out the side of my mouth to Cat, “What the hell is this?”
“This is the hard way,” she responded.
“So I can fight my way out of this?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” she said.
Masephson left his feet and circled into the air.
“Tonight,” he began, “should Monsieur Lacazette secure his thousandth win, he shall be awarded the rank of lieutenant commandant in the esteemed Legion Cinquante Cinquième. Bonne chance a toi, Monsieur Lacazette.” Masephson gave a polite nod of the head to Lacazette, and they exchanged words the rest of us could not hear.
“He’s very good, Lacazette,” Cat said in my ear. “This will be a unique challenge for you, taking on one of the best from the ranks of the unproven. You can beat him, I think, but I’m curious to see how you adapt to his fighting style.”
“Unproven?” I winced. “He’s basically gone unbeaten for a thousand fights.”
“I see,” she said. “That still sounds like a lot to you.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me this was what I would be facing?”
She dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “It is as though you do not know the first rule of this sort of thing.”
Did she really just make a Fight Club reference?
Masephson calmed the crowd once again and, once he felt he had their attention, began to speak.
“Mr. Preston will be fighting for something else entirely.” His face cracked in a sinister grin. “Lower the cage!” he rumbled with glee.
The assembled throng looked up to see a trap door open in the ceiling as two reptilian demons lowered a cage containing George and Ramona.
“You said they would be OK!” I turned on my heel and shouted at Cat.
“They are,” she responded flatly. “I tried to stop it. I gave you a chance. We could have avoided this—and still can, if you join my ranks right now.”
“Tonight,” Masephson boomed, “Jonah Preston will fight for his friends. If he wins, they will continue to dwell with us here. If he loses, they will face a generation of torment within the Pit of Khepri!”
A massive shape—at least eight feet tall, with dark, chiseled features and the head of a scarab beetle—ascended from beneath the floor of the arena with a large staff in his right hand. Khepri raised the staff above his head to a deafening roar.
“Still a no. What happens in the Pit of Khepri?” I leaned in and asked Cat.
“Your friends will be bound and thrown into a pit full of beetles that will burrow in and out of their bodies for the duration of one generation on Earth—about sixty-four years. They will suffer the unending torment and frustration of restrained captivity compounded with the pain of tens of thousands of insects nesting within their bodies.”
“Yeesh,” I replied. “I thought a generation was like twenty years or something.”
“We measure it differently.”
“OK. Well, any words of advice for me?”
“Don’t let him know you’re scared,” Cat said. “Don’t look overconfident. Trust your instincts.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Don’t lose,” she said solemnly then retreated into the shadows of the arena.
Masephson pointed at Lacazette and shouted, “Are you ready?”
Lacazette nodded, rolled his neck, and punched the air.
Masephson then turned to me. “Are you ready?”
I nodded, zeroed in on Renee Lacazette, and tried to put on a neutral mask to disguise my fear and keep from pissing him off by throwing off an arrogant air.
We jogged toward each other in the middle of the ring, circling and sizing each other up. I had about five inches in height on him but knew better than to think that would be an advantage in this type of fight, or on this plane. He got in close enough where he was in my striking distance, but I was still outside his. I jabbed hard with my left, setting myself up for a hard right hook. I connected with my left, but he disappeared by the time I started the motion for my hook. In a fraction of a second, he was gone, and I felt a blow to the back of my head.
I staggered as I felt another blow to the side of my head, then saw him materialize in front of me for an uppercut that landed just underneath my jaw and sent me flying about twenty feet in the air. I felt a blow to my chest and went screaming back down to solid ground.
My head was spinning. My hands reached out to feel for earth like a pilot might use an altimeter. I’d completely lost my bearings. I looked up to see him dancing in front of me with his hands stretched high, playing to the crowd. They loved every second of it.
It took me a few seconds to realize that he was teleporting all around me as he rained down hit after hit.
I could probably do the same thing by blinking around the room like I did between home and downtown.
I had a thought. Why haven’t I tried to blink home? So I tried—no luck.
I tried to blink to the other side of the ring—success.
The corners of Lacazette’s mouth bent down, and he nodded his head as though impressed. He teleported behind me and started throwing me around the half-dome. My energy faded as his repeated blows and throws began to take their toll on me. He could tell and milked the moment. He would grab me by the shoulders and throw me across the ring only to catch me. The crowd started singing a song about Lacazette like we were in a Champions League match.
My mind clicked back to an old multiplayer game Max and I used to play together. There was a weapon called a “sticky bomb” that you would throw at an opponent. If it hit, they would keep on running, sometimes completely unaware, and then blow up a few seconds later. It was always fun to stick an opponent with one as they ran into a cave to meet up with the rest of their team that we were previously unable to target from the outside and take them out for us.
Maybe that was my way out of this. I imagined two sleeves full of sticky bombs running down the length o
f my arms, from my shoulders to my wrists. It wasn’t too long before Lacazette grabbed me to throw again, only this time, I teleported to the top of the half-dome and watched as he tried to shake the sticky bombs from his hands.
They exploded, and pieces of Renee went flying to every nook and cranny of the arena—either hilarious or a horror show, depending on your point of view. My particular emotion was relief. Masephson appeared at my side and raised my arm in the air as I watched Lacazette’s arm inchworm across the gravel-dusted floor toward another piece of his body.
“Your winner—JO-NAH—PRESSSS-TON! Let’s hear it for Jonah, folks, a perfect one and oh start. What did I tell ya? This kid is resourceful! Better luck next time, Renee.”
Masephson looked down, smiling, and Lacazette began to retake shape as pieces found each other from across the stadium. A few smaller demons appeared to collect the pieces and speed along the reassembly. I could only imagine Lacazette’s fate, given the stakes put on ping-pong games.
Masephson looked up at the cage. “You can release George Rodriguez. Let’s hear it for George, everyone! George, do you have anything you want to say?”
One of the reptilian demons unlocked the cage and yanked George out by his left leg. George tried to fight him off with no luck, ignoring Masephson and flying back up to hold Ramona through the bars of the cage.
“Nothing, George?” Masephson chided. “OK, well, Jonah—that was an excellent fight. Do you want to know who you’re going to face to free Ramona?”
“I was under the impression that was supposed to free them both,” I said into the microphone cane.
The audience roared with laughter.
“Isn’t he just precious?” Masephson mocked, shooting a fist underneath my chin. “Just great—thank you, Jonah. Why don’t you go back to your holding area over there with [Cat].”
He flew to the middle of the dome with a flamboyant twirl. “Now for the second leg of our main event. Are you ready?”
Chapter 35
