Versus

by Nick Freo

“—the hell—pun not intended—would I do that?” I continued, the absurdity wearing me thin. “It sounds more likely that I’d end up dead like my father. You just told me he was the most powerful wizard in the world. He had home-field advantage, and he’s dead. I know nothing, and it sounds like I’m walking into a minefield. You may not know me well, so let me say it straight. Like most people, I prefer not dying.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” he scolded me. “It’s naïve and reckless. You’ll have—”

  His head swung around as the doorbell rang. His gaze snapped back toward me. A scowl was carved into his face.

  “That must be them. Let them in.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t leave them waiting. They hate even the slightest form of subjugation.”

  He looked away from me, picking up an aboriginal mask. He rubbed his thumb over the wood, completely unfazed by anything that had happened tonight.

  “Who?” I repeated.

  “Michael and Belial,” he said, the names rolling off his tongue like he knew twenty other people named Belial. “The archangel and the archdemon representatives of the Celestial Court. I highly advise you to get the door. Patience is a virtue, but not even Michael values it in his own life. Angels are like that—holier than thou.”

  He returned his attention to the mask. Somebody knocked again, louder this time. I turned towards the doorway and stepped out of it.

  Chapter 3

  I entered into the hallway, a spiral stairway to my right. As I walked down the stairs, soft light slowly flowed over the steps. At first, it seemed like magic, but I looked up and saw the dome-shaped ceiling with a circular skylight above me. Moonlight guided my way—except I knew that was impossible because there was no moon out tonight or, if there had been, it was barely a sliver.

  The memory of my father’s dead body in the car filtered through my mind. It had unmistakably been dark outside. At the very least, it had been cloudy enough that I hadn’t seen my father in my car until I opened it, and I hadn’t seen Mr. Gray approach the car, either. It had been difficult to even see my car.

  Somebody knocked again, more impatiently this time, as I reached the bottom of the stairs. In front of me, there was white marble flooring and two massive wooden doors. There were carvings of the Earth in the center of the two doors and whirl-shaped windows in all four corners. The door handles were steel, curved around the coasts of the United States.

  The doors were heavier than I expected, but once they’d swung open and the cold March breeze swept in, I knew I had to get accustomed to the unexpected.

  When Mr. Gray had used terms like archangel and archdemon, I had an image of wings, halos, horns, and forked-tails. I imagined glowing light and bright red skin. That was not what I saw.

  The man on the right sighed. “Look at him. They get more pitiful every century. Remember Alvilda? Even her elegance could kill.”

  He bent his head to adjust the jacket of his three-piece beige suit, but his sleek blond hair remained perfectly in place. It should have come across as bizarre—too much hair gel or a hairpiece—but it felt appropriate.

  The man beside him smirked, his white teeth bright against his tan skin. “We thought Morgan would be decapitated on his first day. Maybe his son will be equally surprising.”

  The blond man shot a look at the other man that could only be described as I wish I could surprise and decapitate you.

  They seemed to be opposites in multiple ways. The other man’s brown hair seemed to have constant movement. He was wearing a black suit that must have cost him a few grand, and he might have been stoned from the complete and utter lack of tension in his actions. They weren’t complete contradictions, though. I was usually one of the tallest in the room, but both men had a few inches on me, and they both gave off a sense of power that would make even the most arrogant billionaires take a step backward.

  Before I could say anything, they stepped inside together. The blond man’s foot grazed the edge of my shoe, and I jerked my foot back. When he looked over at me, it felt like a gust of drifting snow, cold enough to seep under my skin. I quickly shifted my gaze over to the other man. The cold tapered off, but instead, there was an uncomfortable heat, like I was standing a little too close to a bonfire.

  I crossed my hands over my chest. I wasn’t the type to back down at the first sign of danger, but these men had a sense of careless violence about them and, quite frankly, other than saving the world from Armageddon, I hadn’t heard much reason to stick around.

  “It wouldn’t be a surprise. It would be a statistical impossibility. He’s less than half the man that Morgan was,” the blond man said, indicating me with a nod of his head. The dark-haired one glanced at me for less than a second before switching his focus to a mirror hanging on the wall. “Young. A bit thinner than Morgan. And about an inch and a half shorter,” the blond man continued.

  “Michael, you care too much about height,” the dark-haired one said, his voice smoother and almost nonchalant. “He does seem to lack a bit of muscle, and I doubt he has the tenacity or the innate skill of Morgan. It’s a shame. It would have been nice to know a bit sooner that the Arbiter line was going to end.”

  Michael’s eyes narrowed. “Belial, you could have known it was going to end two millennia ago. My angels will annihilate your cretins no matter how much time you’ve had to prepare. The only prayer you have is that this godforsaken Earth is nearly like your own domain, so you should—”

  “Hey!” I cut in. “I’m still here. I’m Morgan’s son. I can still be the Arbiter.”

  They glanced at me, neither one of their faces betraying any of their thoughts. They turned back toward each other as if I didn’t exist.

  “Your side has nothing,” Belial said. “There’s a reason these humans put you on top of pine trees like you’re dolls while they make horror films about demons. You’re weak.”

  “You only think we’re weak because we don’t show our power until we need to. A weak demon constantly needs to exhibit how much power he has because it’s the only way he knows how to keep weaker people in line. A strong angel is confident in his power and—”

  “Still here,” I interrupted. “And I’m still capable of stopping all of this from happening.”

  “The Arbiter line is over,” Belial said, his hands sliding into his pants pockets. “I apologize if our conversation sounds crude to an ant like you but we’re talking about much bigger circumstances than your feelings. Someone like you could never fill your father’s shoes. Not even if you had the ambition to do so.”

  “Now, Belial, you know how the Celestial Court looks upon false premises.”

  We all turned to see Mr. Gray stepping off the stairway. Mr. Gray looked directly at the two men but didn’t react to any sensation of heat or cold.

  “The Arbiter line isn’t over,” Mr. Gray said. “Mr. Bishop understands what’s at stake, and he will put his personal feelings aside in order to fulfill his role as Arbiter. Isn’t that correct, Mr. Bishop?”

  He turned to me. There was no indication on his face that he expected anything other than agreement.

  Follow the gray.

  I had assumed my father meant the ring, but Mr. Gray’s name was Gray and he personified the color gray—even the dull sternness of gray. It seemed just as likely that my father meant a person, his employer and the executor of his will, as the ring he had given me.

  “Mr. Bishop,” Mr. Gray prompted.

  I had no intention of doing anything for the sake of my father. His habit of only appearing in my life once a year made it clear that I was a disappointment as an ordinary son. But this position—being an Arbiter, preventing a war between Heaven and Hell—could mean that I turned into something more, something magical. I could learn about the world that my father had immersed himself in. That he had abandoned me for. And if Mr. Gray believed in me fully enough to push me towards this, it seemed that I could, at the very least, be as good at this job as my father was. />
  Besides, I’d spent my last couple years as a pizza delivery guy, and the last thing I wanted was to see seventy-eight-year-old Maude again, who ordered Hawaiian pizza every Monday and Thursday and tried to convince me every time that her fifty-nine-year-old daughter was worth dating.

  “The line isn’t over,” I agreed. “There’s still me. I can do it.”

  Michael snorted, turning away from me to snap the doors shut. Belial looked me over again, his eyes searching for something and coming up empty.

  “This is ridiculous,” Michael muttered. Belial shrugged.

  “We’ll see how it goes.” He smiled at me. “Good luck.”

  The heat in the room seemed to become suffocating, like a humid Florida summer. I stumbled back from the surge of it. I took my eyes off Belial for a second, but when I steadied myself, he was gone. Michael sighed, adjusting his suit jacket sleeves.

  “Mr. Gray, I think you and I should discuss this,” he said. He gestured down the hall. “Perhaps the boy should make us some white tea and we can reach an amicable arrangement.”

  “Mr. Bishop has spoken his intentions, Michael,” Mr. Gray said. “Are you willing to tell the Celestial Court that you have a quandary with that?”

  Michael’s lip twitched, and I felt another flare of coldness. He bowed his head. “Of course not. The Celestial Court always has my full confidence in it.”

  He took a deep breath before looking over at me.

  “Good luck,” he said, the slightest trace of sarcasm in his voice. There was a plunge of bitter cold, but I focused enough on Michael to see several flickers of light like reflective snowflakes before he disappeared.

  “Why didn’t they just use a door?” I asked Mr. Gray, gesturing to the empty spaces in front of me. “If they wanted to be assholes, they might as well have just let themselves in like assholes, talk like assholes, and then disappear like assholes. They could at least be consistent.”

  “Consistency isn’t exactly a trait of discourteous individuals.” Mr. Gray ran his hand over the door handles. He could have been performing magic or admiring the quality of the steel. I didn’t particularly care at this point.

  “What the hell is their problem?” I asked. “I would have thought an archangel and archdemon would have been happy that I’m preventing their sides from going to war.”

  “You aren’t that knowledgeable about their conflict then, are you?” he asked. “They’re restless. Creatures of war are compelled to fulfill their purpose. Your father had the power and the prestige to keep them in line and reassure them that the other side wouldn’t rise up. Michael and Belial can sense the rising tensions. Both sides know that if there is going to be a war, they need to strike first to gain an advantage. That’s why it’s critical for the Arbiter line to recommence and for you to fulfill your role as well as your father did. Both sides need to have sufficient faith in you.”

  I ran my finger over the smooth texture of the ring. “They don’t respect me at all right now.”

  “Correct.”

  “How am I going to get them to believe I can do anything when I don’t have magic?”

  “There is a way to mitigate that.” He slid his hands into his trench coat. I expected him to pull something out, but he only watched me—there he went, observing me again. Maybe he didn’t believe in me as much as I thought he had.

  “What’s the way it can be, uh, mitigated?” I asked.

  “It’s an ancient way to gain quick power,” he stalled.

  “Sacrificing a virgin?”

  He frowned. “No. That would be barbaric.”

  “What is it?”

  Mr. Gray raised his eyebrow like I should already know the answer. “It’s a very simple procedure.”

  “If it doesn’t involve anyone getting killed, I’m interested.”

  He smiled. “Good. You must sell your soul.”

  I was, to say the least, less interested than before.

  Chapter 4

  “Isn’t selling my soul something the devil would ask me to do?” I walked down the hall, away from the mansion’s entrance. I stopped at the first doorway. Every wall had a bookshelf built into it, and the bookshelves were jammed full of books. In the center of the room, there was a brown leather armchair and a couch. Who did my father read with? I bet it was some magical asshole who could disappear in a burst of flame or in a cascade of snow.

  “If you are insinuating that I am the devil, I can assure you that I am not.”

  “You’re just my father’s employer,” I said. “And the executor of his will. And some job involving something called the Celestial Court.”

  “Correct.”

  I looked down at my feet. The hallway was long, decorated by a Persian rug that could likely pay for a small island. I could steal everything from this house and live like a king for the rest of my life. Except I wouldn’t need to steal it. And it sounded like it wouldn’t be a very long life.

  “I own everything my father had?” I asked, spinning around. Mr. Gray picked a piece of lint off his trench coat.

  “All of it,” he stated.

  “Did he have anything that could help me with this job? Tools? Equipment? A magic wand?”

  Mr. Gray frowned like a magic wand was the most absurd idea that had occurred tonight.

  “As the executor of Morgan’s will and the Steward of the Celestial Court, it’s my responsibility to show you the extent of your new estate,” he said, his tone clipped. “But I would highly advise against using any of the magical equipment here. All magic can be volatile in unqualified hands.”

  He reached forward. I thought he wanted to examine my hands, but his palm touched my elbow, and there was the same sensation of vertigo when he had transported us here. This time, it was a fraction of a second, and I was already steady on my feet as I realized we were still in my father’s mansion—evident by the brick wall and white wall contrast. This was a different room than the one we had been in before, though. It was wider with rows of metal shelves filled with metal bins and miscellaneous items that could be described as alien, futuristic, or ancient.

  “We could have walked here,” I said. “I need to figure out the layout of this place.”

  “I would inform you that we have plenty of time to do that, but I prefer to stick with facts over reassurances.”

  I stepped up to the closest shelf. The metal bin was battered and the remnants of a white sticker remained on the front. There was only a dashboard hula girl swaying inside it. I reached toward it.

  “No,” Mr. Gray said. “Don’t touch that. It’s imbibed with experimental magic. I do not desire to explain to the Celestial Court that the last Arbiter melted in a volcano because of his compulsion to play with a doll.”

  I moved on to the next bin. It was filled with miniature spiky balls. Before Mr. Gray could stop me, I picked one of them up. The points were sharp against my fingertips, but nothing happened.

  “Is this magical?” I asked.

  “It is imbibed with magic, but it appears that it requires some additional magical stimulus to operate.”

  I traveled down the shelf, Mr. Gray following closely behind me. He occasionally picked up something before shaking his head and placing it back where it had been. Near the end of the shelf, I found a compact Glock. I picked it up. It was small in my hands, but it would be good for keeping concealed. It was loaded.

  “Does this have any magic in it?” I asked.

  “It’s a gun,” he said. The condescension was unnecessary, but I could agree with his thought process—what other magic would be necessary once you had a gun?

  I searched for magazines of 9mm ammunition. I had to go through two different shelves before finding two magazines, leaning against a tackle box, and a holster, lying on top of a coloring book. I slid the gun into the holster before clipping it onto my pants. Mr. Gray watched me, his expression impassive.

  “Those bullets will slow down angels and demons, but it won’t kill them.”

&nbs
p; “Mr. Gray, if you had anything useful to add, now would be the time.” I checked to make sure the gun was secure. The ring caught my eye. I raised my hand to show Mr. Gray. “What about this? My father gave it to me, so it must be able to do something, right?”

  “Yes, I noticed it before.” He stepped forward, taking my hand in his. His hands felt surprisingly human for the strange color of his skin. “A son should trust his father.”

  “Should a son trust his absent father who has—I mean, had—been living in the same city as him but only showed up once a year?”

  “That was for your own good,” Mr. Gray said. “Your safety was paramount to Morgan. That ring has power, so if he bequeathed it to you, something has altered his mindset. There must be a reason that your father needed you to enter the supernatural world. He has spent decades keeping your existence a secret from everyone but myself, the upper tiers of the Celestial Court, and Michael and Belial. The idea of Morgan purposefully presenting you with an object that would connect you to this world is highly irregular. I would come to the conclusion that it is significant.”

  I pulled the ring off. Similar to when my father had taken it off, it was a bit of a struggle. I peered into the center of it. Nothing. I rubbed it. Nothing. I closed my hand around it and wished for a Coney dog. Nothing. I slid the ring back on. Mr. Gray stared at me, his lack of emotion starting to become more unnerving than this abrupt appearance in my life.

  “Do you know anything about what happened to my father?” I asked.

  “I do not,” Mr. Gray said. “All I know is that Morgan couldn’t have died by mere accident. He was powerful enough to challenge even the archangels and archdemons. Whoever killed him had to be formidable, no doubt.”

  I swallowed. In the back of my mind, I knew my father had been killed. He’d been bleeding and there hadn’t been anything around him that would have caused that kind of wound. But part of my mind had concocted images of him falling off a balcony, hit-and-run drivers, or a mugging gone wrong. I hadn’t imagined a strategic murder.