by Hunter Blain
“You call it pride,” Gabriel said with the slightest hint of annoyance in his voice, as if he were having to explain to a group of rowdy kids why they couldn’t throw rocks at the abandoned building’s windows. “I call it His word. Father created the entire universe with His word. Remember that fact the next time judgment is thrown around about the pact and anything else you might not comprehend.”
“Let’s focus on what’s important here,” Depweg said, stepping closer to almost stand between Gabriel and Locke. “You are here now, Gabriel, which means we have a chance, right?”
“I’m pleased that you see it that way.”
“Wait a second,” I interrupted. Both Depweg and Gabriel turned to look at me as I finished thinking before I said, “We should have just under fourteen and a half days. The black hole only just started, like, a day ago. Right?” I lifted my hands palms up as I turned to address the room, searching for confirmation.
“You were in Faerie for nearly two weeks,” Gabriel stated matter-of-factly. The bottom dropped from my stomach and I wavered where I stood.
“Lilith-damned Faerie, man,” I said with a long exhale. I felt light-headed.
“What do you think happens when you travel between dimensions?” Gabriel asked.
“Ha! I knew it! Which one is it? Seventh dimension? Eight?” I asked eagerly.
“Perhaps we should focus on what’s important?” Gabriel replied.
A desperate idea leaped to the front of the line. “Wait, are you saying Lily didn’t screw me over?” I asked, drawing a swift, fierce look from both Depweg and Locke.
“I cannot speak to the actions or desires of the one you call Lily. What I can confirm is that time dilation for those traveling between planes is simply physics. The doorway Varhmiel allowed you to use was of impeccable design and construction; but our universe is tied to the laws of physics, John,” Gabriel explained. I took note that he had tilted his head down slightly as he spoke that last part while staring right at me.
“Well then, I must be off,” Gabriel said as he began to make his way through the OR doors and toward the lobby.
“Wait!” I called out. Gabriel stopped and turned patiently to await what I would say next. “What can you tell me about the armor?”
Gabriel smiled and then replied, “Be mindful of your abilities, John, for if you leapt toward the moon, you might land amongst the sun and be unable to erase your mistakes.” Then he tipped his head and gracefully strode into the lobby. As the swinging metal door flapped in on itself, Gabriel disappeared. He was just…gone. Of course, now I knew angels could shift planes, just like Da had always told me.
“The hell did that mean,” Locke asked, frustration in his tone.
“He turned the ‘leap for the moon, land amongst the stars’ phrase around on purpose, but why?” I asked myself. Then something else bothered me. “He knows about Valenta.”
“I think he mentioned the moon and sun on purpose,” Depweg added, ignoring my comment about Val.
“Yeah…” I let out slowly, remembering how he had looked at me when talking about physics.
“Maybe he meant you can survive in space?” Locke suggested, shrugging his shoulders as he let his arms drop.
“I doubt that. What need would angels have for space when humankind is firmly on Earth? And what’s with you and Gabriel?” As I finished, I turned toward Locke with a cocked eyebrow.
“He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Locke answered.
“Which was?” I asked, shifting my weight from one leg to the other.
Locke hesitated before he said, “Gabriel stopped my soul from leaving my head when we…when you…”
“Killed you,” I finished for him.
“Right. Killed me. He gave me the chance, as he called it, to redeem my soul if I agreed to work with you to fight Satan.”
“I thought you said you did it because you didn’t want to go back to Hell?!” I asked, frustration growing on my already thin patience.
“Exactly! I tried to tell him that, but he insisted on drilling the consequences into my head. John, I-I’m going to tell you something, okay, that you aren’t going to like. But please, let me fully explain,” Locke said hesitantly.
“Oh, man, this is going to be good, isn’t it?” I asked while rolling my eyes and crossing my arms tight across my chest.
“It-it was actually Gabriel who made me endure your mother’s and father’s—passings—over and over again. The angel placed his hand on my forehead and cleansed my soul in the fire of redemption, as he called it. A sort of deliverance.” Locke began crying before blurting out, “I was already going to be on your side! He didn’t need to make me suffer that much. Not that much. I regretted what I had done after the first experience—the very first death, John! But he made me endure for what felt like an eternity, and I hate him for it! I HATE HIM!” He collapsed slowly to his knees as his emotions took hold and his body was wracked with sorrow. “I’m so sorry, John! Oh, God. I’m so sorry I lied to you!”
I stood, frozen, as I looked at him. He looked up at me and I crossed the room in a blur and smashed my fist into his face hard enough to send blood squirting out. He cried out in surprise as he went sprawling backward to the floor.
“That’s not for my parents. I told you I had already punished you when I ripped your fucking head off for what you did to them,” I said with much more anger and aggression than I had meant to. “That was for lying to me. You told me Satan had punished you, and I don’t appreciate being lied to, Locke.”
Depweg took a step forward, concern on his face, before deciding to let the scene play out.
Locke had stopped crying and was grabbing his gushing nose to stanch the blood. I felt the warmth from his blood on my fist and resisted the urge to lick it off. This wasn’t about punishing Locke like he was my enemy. This was about setting a clear expectation. He needed to be reminded that the grace Depweg and I had afforded him was not to be taken for granted.
“Gabriel said it was best to not tell you until, well, now,” he said in a nasally voice as he held his nose closed.
“Now? Like he mentioned right now?” I demanded incredulously.
“He didn’t mention right now specifically, but he said I would know when the time was right.” Blood spilled into his mouth, staining his teeth bright red, before continuing down his chin.
“Anything else you want to tell us,” Depweg added in calm contrast to my agitation.
“No! I swear!” Locke said as he looked back and forth between Depweg and myself. My brow remained furrowed as I glared at him. “Dude!” Locke cried out in frustration, “The Archangel Gabriel told me to keep my mouth quiet, and I did just that! Much like you, John, I want to go to Heaven when I die. What would you have done? Huh?”
His words forced themselves past my defenses, and my brow relaxed as I realized he was right.
“Ironic that a warlock wants to go to Heaven,” I mused like an asshole. As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized the real irony of me having been the one to say it. Both Depweg and Locke let it slide.
“Doesn’t make sense why Gabriel didn’t want him to tell you, John,” Depweg added, still unsure of the situation.
“Does anything make sense with Gabe? That dude’s an enema, wrapped in bacon, in a riddle.”
“Swing and a miss,” Doc Jim said under his breath from where he stood, filling in a chart.
“Here’s the truth about what happened when I died: I went to Hell and it was all chaos and random attacks from bored demons. I fought them off as best as I could, which is what caused Satan to eventually take notice of me.”
“How did you have powers while in Hell?” I asked, super curious about this revelation.
“The powers of a warlock come from Hell, technically speaking. I infused the power into my very soul once I was shown how.”
“Who showed you?” I asked as I thought about Ulric teaching me about vampirism.
“Before Satan himself, it
was my master, Hecate.”
“Weird name for a dude,” I said.
“My master was a woman.”
“Weird name for a dudette,” I said lamely as I looked to the ground and scuffed at the clean tile with my boot.
“None of this is important right now,” Depweg exclaimed, course correcting the conversation.
“Oh shit,” Locke said to himself. I looked up as he realized something and said, “Gabriel mentioned I had created a hole in your heart that had sucked all the light of the world into it, and it was my job to help return that light.”
“See, this is what I mean,” I fumed as I threw my hands up in surrender and began pacing. “That holy dude could have just told us what we needed to do to save the world. Instead, he-he-he makes a game of it. Are we his entertainment or something?” I asked, struggling to find the words in my exasperation.
I went to where Locke sat on the ground and extended a hand out to him. He looked at it then grabbed it, accepting my wordless apology.
“Aren’t you going to apologize?” Locke asked, hurt in his eyes. Aw, damn it.
“Locke, I’m sorry I brokeded your nose,” I said, throwing in a funny word because I had to inject levity into awkward or stressful situations. I thought of it as a positive attribute.
I grabbed his nose, twisting it back into place, before sending my blood out to repair the damage. He closed his eyes and lightly held onto my wrist as I worked.
“I feel like we’ve been here before,” I joked while retracting my blood back into my hand. Locke rolled his eyes in answer.
“Let’s recap,” Depweg started. “Gabriel mentioned John jumping to the sun, right? And then Locke mentioned Gabriel telling him to help return the light of the world…surely he isn’t suggesting John fly into space and—I don’t know—use some of Locke’s magic or something to destroy the black hole.”
“Dude, this is urban fantasy, not sci-fi,” I said, winking at the camera.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Depweg demanded through a fatigued sigh at my jesting. “And who are you winking at? Are you having a stroke? Can vampires have strokes?”
“Never mind,” I said, ignoring his question. “We can assume that Gabriel isn’t being literal. I’m not flying into space, no matter how fucking cool that would be.” I raised my hands and scrolled them across the air as if revealing a name as I said in a dramatic movie voice, “Sexy Vampire in Space, coming this summer…”
“John…” Depweg started before I continued.
“Rated R.”
Depweg looked at me in silence, waiting for me to finish my tomfoolery.
I looked back at him.
Locke looked back and forth between us.
I continued to stare at Depweg, whose eyes dared me to keep talking.
I did not.
“So, if it is a metaphor, what could it mean?” Locke interjected, breaking the silence.
“I mean, sounds better than ‘Werewolf in Space,’” I said under my breath.
“John!” Locke and Depweg called out in unison.
“I don’t have a hole in my heart. At least I don’t think I do. So how do I return the light to Earth?” I looked up as I spoke, staring at a portion of the ceiling I thought the black hole might be behind, albeit about three million miles away.
“We have twenty-four hours to figure that out,” Depweg said as he pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.
Ludvig moaned and began squirming on the stainless-steel operating table.
“Ludvig!” Magni cried out as he ran to his master’s side, taking one massive hand into both of his.
“By Odin’s beard!” Ludvig said, sitting up.
“How are ya feel—” I started to ask before the sound of breaking glass interrupted me. We all froze in place and slowly turned to watch the OR doors that led to the lobby. There was the sound of slapping flesh on the tile floor, followed by a sloshing drag. Then another slap, drag. Slap, drag.
Nervous glances were exchanged as Depweg, Locke, and I spaced out evenly around the OR entrance, preparing for whatever was about to come through those doors.
A thud sounded as one of the metal doors slowly inched open with an agonizingly long creak. We all stared, with Doc Jim taking several steps backward, as a familiar face fell into view about two feet off the ground.
“Oh God,” Doc Jim said as his hand covered his mouth in shock. Depweg’s bug-eyed expression matched my own as we looked at an impossibility.
His eyes were now purple, while white skin had darkened to charcoal. He smiled, shredded cheeks revealing teeth caked in dirt, pale gums, and jawbone.
“Da-Da-Dawson?” I stammered as my eyebrows raced up to my hairline.
“Ye-ye-yeah, dumbass,” Dawson responded with a voice that sounded two-toned. It was like someone with a different octave voice was speaking the words with him.
I took a step back while exhaling, “No. Oh no, no, no.”
Dawson pushed the door the rest of the way open and slapped a hand on the floor before pulling his torso into the OR. His intestines left behind him a trail of blood and dirt extending all the way to the door whose glass had been shattered.
“Glad to see everyone’s here. But wait—where’s Joey?” Dawson asked, making a show of looking around, even to the point of lifting up his flapping pieces of skin gliding across the floor. “You-you didn’t lose him, did you?” As he asked the question, he turned to me and tilted his head.
I nearly fainted as I remembered what I had wanted to focus on earlier. I had seen Joey’s multiple scratches from the shadow wave that had enveloped him back at the Faerie prison that had begun to turn black around the puckering edges even then.
Depweg took a step forward and screamed, “What have you done with him?!”
“We turned him to the dark side,” Dawson said with a haunting smile while he kept his gaze on me. “Did you like that? Made a Star Wars reference for ya. I know how you loooooove your movies.” As he said love with its extra letters, he let his head roll in a dramatic circle.
“What do you want?” Locke asked calmly but with an audible gulp.
Dawson’s head snapped to face Locke in a quick gesture that sounded like snapping twigs before letting his smile fade. In the quick gesture, dirt from his grave flew out of his shaggy hair.
“From you, warlock? Only your soul.” His head snapped back to me with that same sickening, bone-grinding-on-bone sound. His voice went deeper and his amethyst eyes began to glow. “But from you, vampire, all we want…is your life.”
“Lolth,” I said authoritatively, “Satan tricked Oberon. The black hole is rushing toward Earth, not with it.”
“I know,” Lolth said through Dawson’s decimated face, the smile never wavering.
Something tugged at my attention. My eyes flicked to the lights above and then back to Dawson’s animated corpse. I took note that the bright light of the OR was not affecting him.
“Why? I thought you wanted this plane for yourselves,” Locke asked, fear stealing the power from his words.
“I’ll stop it, vampire. All you must do…is die. Heheheheheeeeeee.”
“How about no, Scott?” I responded in my Dr. Evil voice.
“I knew you’d say that,” Dawson said, his voice going back to the original two-toned one from when he first arrived. His eyes dimmed, signaling the end of our conversation. “Doesn’t matter either way. By this time tomorrow, you’ll be dead, and I will have won.”
“Okay, well, thanks for dropping by!” I said as I willed my flaming gladius into my hand.
“Wait!” Doc Jim said, “We can study him.”
I thought for a moment and then let my celestial sword begin to go out before it faded into thin air.
At that, Dawson’s smile dropped to a frown as he looked around, confused. “Y-you’re not going to kill me?”
“Why would I strike you down? So you can become more powerful than I could possibly imagine?” I inquired, toss
ing the Star Wars reference back into his creepy face.
Dawson began to look worried and shifted back and forth on his hands.
“What is it? I thought you liked movie references,” I said as I willed a bloodwhip out of my palm.
Dawson, who had painstakingly dragged himself in, sprang backward and began a full-on sprint to the door. Using only his hands, he moved with a horrifying speed that surprised and disgusted me. I lashed out with my whip and was surprised to see it was a real whip and not just a bloodwhip.
“The fuck…?” I drawled as my eyes ran up and down the length of the ivory with gold sigils etched down its length that started at my palm and ended around Dawson’s neck. Forcing myself back to reality, I yanked Dawson back into the OR, letting my rope swarm over him like a snake about to squeeze its prey.
“Where do ya want him, Doc?” I asked, reeling in the excess rope and lifting Dawson up like a freshly caught fish. Then I leaned in and whispered, “I know you aren’t him, Lolth. Dawson is dead, and soon you are going to join him.” I feigned looking at the watch I didn’t have on my bare wrist and said, “Actually, in less than twenty-four hours. So get comfortable.”
“In here, please,” Doc Jim said as he punched in a code on a digital screen. A wall on the back hissed open to reveal a path leading below ground level.
“Okay, seriously. When did everyone in Houston get freaking basements?” I asked with my free hand out to my side, palm up.
“Where is your home located?” Doc Jim asked with a knowing smile as we walked down the metal stairs.
“Firstly, it’s a lair. Second, how the heck did you know about that? Does anyone not know where the hell I live? And lastly, touché, good sir. I do suppose most people wouldn’t search for an underground structure in Houston.”
“In Texas, it is either the clay or being below sea level, especially so close to the coast, that renders basements obsolete,” Doc Jim said as he approached a clear plastic cell. It looked like Hannibal Lecter’s prison, but much, much smaller.
I noticed Depweg hadn’t followed us down and I raised a single brow as I looked over my shoulder to the empty staircase.
