“Like Hardwick, right?”
I had resolved to keep my mouth shut— given the present circumstances, that is no longer possible.
Hannah glosses over it.
“The trial set out by the Council was a mockery of justice. The Council had to balance punishment with its own safety, and keeping their newest protector at ease. Their well-being depended on allegiance to Miss Knox— to cast her friend Death to some heinous outcome would have damaged that partnership, bringing doubt unto their longevity as rulers of this realm.
“Unfortunately for you, I do not have the same considerations— keeping in the true spirit of cosmic justice.”
“Excuse me,” Tim says. Until now, he has been unable to muster the words to denigrate her. “I think you’re forgetting something.”
“Please,” Hannah snipes. “Inform us.”
“You are a biased judge, whose reasons for siding with Ziz I can only guess. But if you did it for the reason I’m guessing, you are no better than every selfish god I’ve met. Worse, in fact— you don’t even have the cosmic title to hold such authority.”
His outrage enlivens her— all I can think of is the conversation in Maya’s illusion of an apartment, speaking as if we had known each other for years.
“I beg to differ,” our new judge says. “Follow me, if you would.”
The white gown trails behind her as she rounds the bench, walking past us. The force field around Tim’s prisoner box dissipates like a released gust of electrical currents powering down. Tim reluctantly lowers his right hand, unlatching the gate. Its gold-cast bars swing outward and his feet touch solid ground. I wait for him, afraid to walk alone, or step on the gown’s entrails, sentencing me to worse fates than this one.
The nebulous sky over Atlas’ northern most point darkens above the macabre display— whether due to reality or my capsized emotional state is hard to tell. Tim’s fingers wrap around my own as we follow Hannah over the dust and ashes of a natural order ripped from its pedestal, put on a bloody display for all to see.
The wall previously enclosing the Observatory district has been pulled down by the dragons climbing its thin collection of stones. Many have toppled off the highest point, meeting the ground in pieces. Bodies on the lawn are bloodied or charred black, sprawling in every godless direction. Most were caught in a direct blast and barbecued to Hell.
And in the lawn’s center, a body has been nailed onto crude crossbeams, and the corpse has all my attention.
Stephen Hardwick— the man who stole children, murdered and then betrayed me in the afterlife— lies lifeless on its joists. His hands are bloodied where six-inch nails were driven through them by robed figures surrounding the cross. Bird masks cover their features, reminiscent of plague doctors. Hardwick is naked— his eyes have been gouged out, and thin, gray hairs of his beard flutter in the slight wind.
The twin Behemoths scale the wall above his corpse. They are fast creatures, ascending the broken arch before I have assigned a specific emotion to their proximity.
Hannah looks onward, clearly pleased with her handiwork. She cranes her neck toward Tim, whose lifelong calming presence is a gaping wound, bleeding at his estranged wife’s feet.
“Choose your champion, Death. Light has chosen hers.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
White lights— not the kind I have come to know; of opening my eyes from darkness, only to discover Light holds no regard for its own well-being. It was born from darkness, is infested with it — a slow-acting metabolic disease.
It has been several days since the trial ended with Hannah tricking Hardwick into being crucified. His body was left there. I don’t know if bodies rot in Atlas, but have no desire to return to the Observatory district to find out.
Not that we could — Tim and I were immediately escorted back to his apartment in God City. The district was robbed of its former spirit. So many lives were lost in the Whoville of celestial creations, the place is a shell of what it once was. The houses are still bright and quirky, but gone are the unique lifeforms who inhabited them. The Illumitory sits in perennial daylight, casting optimistic shadows over a world washed away in them.
The Brotherhood has kept us here for days. I’m sure Tim could evaporate into his cloud form, were he brave enough to try — but the man who calls himself Death was rocked by his trial. The return of his wife didn’t help, and all these deaths are on him.
Every ticking timer has a bomb attached, and three Ages worth of resentment and tension just exploded in Atlas. No biological need for sleep or hunger, I have fallen catatonic by the time a nameless member of the Brotherhood comes to collect us. There was some conversation a couple days ago, but it has fallen off as we await Tim’s champion.
Do you think she’ll come? I asked.
Hard to say, Tim muttered. She will not come on her own.
What makes you say that?
He shook his head, and mostly fell quiet after that. Time took on shades of pointlessness beyond its simple passing. The sun never went down beyond the drawn gray curtains — the only thing protecting our sanity from abundant Light.
So, when the Brotherhood come in the form of a lone guard, I almost welcome the break in despondent silence and abject resignation. The shifting door is sudden, and the masked guard beckons us outside.
Atlas has grown worse in the time we’ve been under house arrest. Several structures lie collapsed in our tour north. The sky is a lovely shade of blue, only now I see it for the illusion it contains.
Tim says little as we walk, and I turn my attention to the escorting Brother as he grunts at me to speed up. With no visible weapons to enforce his commands, maybe I can take him.
“Where are you taking us?” I ask our escort. The Brother grunts a reply (something like the red wind blows in the west, father), and tells me to keep moving.
But the Brother’s casual muttering revives the phrase in my brain — back to when I first came to Atlas, confronting a Whisperer in Devil’s Corner with Luca — and the rabbit hole descends through my memory.
You must get Gossamer’s attention. Tell him you’re a courier on behalf of the Red Brotherhood. He will ask you to prove it, so tell him ‘the red wind blows in the west’. It is their code phrase, used to communicate with the Whisperers.
But when I used that code phrase on the Whisperer called Gossamer, he disregarded it — what had he said?
That has not been the Red Brotherhood’s communique in a few months. Who sent you?
These Whisperers fear for their souls. This is much worse than Stone Mountain threatens them with. Whatever has them scared, they will not cooperate lightly.
Barrett.
Atlas has a storied and conflicted history. We have spoken somewhat of Ziz, and the ever present threat he poses to all Creation—
His followers are the more dangerous threat.
One by one, all the Maesters have been incapacitated or killed. It began with our arresting Quorroc; from there, Siskett was advised to seek the White Light— by Barrett. He was crushed by a Behemoth.
All the others were killed in Hannah’s weird flash.
They are of many factions.
“Ramona?”
Why is Barrett still alive?
The red wind blows in the West.
Because he helped Hannah.
Barrett is the inside player. He fed information to Ziz’s agent, provided access and the Council’s whereabouts on at least three occasions he was present for. He was quick to put Luca and I onto Gossamer’s trail, and must have let the Atlas ball’s attackers into the city.
That has not been the Red Brotherhood’s communique in a few months. Who sent you?
The communique never changed— Barrett put the Crimson League up to telling me it had. Changing their beloved catchphrase was about as likely as America deciding in God it no longer trusts. Ramona Knox didn’t know that— like a naive little girl in Oz, she took its proclamations at face value, and failed in her quest.
“Ramona?” Tim says. “Are you alright?”
The Brother is annoyed at my lack of urgency, and tells me to hurry it along. I tell Tim I’m fine — but inside, I am more terrified than any encounter with Death as a child, my career with the Bureau or anything I thought possible in the land of wild things.
***
The sound is the first thing I notice as the curmudgeonly Brother pushes us under the Arena’s arched doorway, and over the scant layer of sand-kissing concrete. The open-roof stands are filled with spectators, but none I would have recognized outside of Devil’s Corner days ago. Their clothes are ragged, empty eyes a collective cloud washing over us from all angles. Gaunt cheeks and emaciated souls are the calling card of Ziz’s worshippers, and they have come through for their deity in strength.
But it is the percussion— those fucking drums — that make my heart sink. Hollow, persistent tribal rhythms of moccasin instruments accentuate each dip in terror’s electrocardiography.
Do you think she’ll come? I asked Tim in the safe house we were held before the Brother came to collect.
Choose your champion, Death.
The drums pound maddeningly, martyring thoughts I can’t hear and dislodging optimism that any of this will have a good end.
Hard to say. She will not come on her own.
Light has chosen hers.
What makes you say that?
Tim’s champion is our only hope now.
***
Hannah waits in the Coliseum’s ground-level pit, well below the full moon of eyes intently watching these proceedings. Barrett and Seraphina wait behind her. Two Brothers work together to create the heartrending rhythms echoing through the Arena.
The world dies on the soulless tide of those drums. Barrett is composed behind the blond woman, none of the warmth he previously showed me in reserve. Over Hannah’s other shoulder, the former High Priestess is smug in her content, having wrangled back the respect and position she was due.
But it is the songs of war— of darkness versus Light, the allegiances of each backwards— that will haunt me longest.
Light is the darkness, and darkness is salvation.
Darkness is Light, because Light has forgotten everything it once represented among the endless stars.
Everything except the songs of war.
***
The wretched beating ceases, enshrouding the Arena in quiet so far from the piercing bass that pushed fear to the top and left me in cold sweats. As Tim and I arrive at judgement, I have never seen a crowd so still. They are everywhere; the stands are filled to capacity, people pushed together in blank reception of cosmic justice. They are conduits, the eyes of Ziz, offering the Dark Lord a view from all angles of the giant ring.
Hannah’s mouth corners lift in her trademark condescension as we are pulled to a stop by our escort, and she addresses people seated overhead.
“People of Atlas!” The call echoes through the Arena, bouncing off the stands, barely registering with the zombie faces occupying them. “For too long, Creation has been held hostage! By schemers and benefactors, angels and their overlords!”
Hannah’s voice drops off. Her blue eyes are empty as the crowd her statement targets— a shell for Ziz to utilize in his quest for supremacy.
There is no response from the crowd.
“But today is a new day! No longer will imperfect gods rule, masking all their imperfections! No longer masquerading as untouchable beings standing on your shoulders, dragging you down! Instead, we serve a new god— one who is humble and merciful; one who will tell you a mistake is something to learn from, not be punished over!”
When she resumes, her words are quieter, no longer thrown as far as a yell can travel.
“But first,” she says, “we must close out certain chapters opened by history. Bring out the Phoenix!”
At Hannah’s command, an iron gate at the arena’s northern end opens. There are no changes in the crowd’s demeanor— they do not stir for the Brotherhood’s members who cross the gate’s threshold, nor the figure shackled between them with iron links.
On the walls of the arena, the beats return, but not because the drummers have returned to pounding on their instruments. This is a different breed of percussion, climbing the Coliseum walls. Three of the winged reptiles clamber over, balancing on the crumbling strip just above the stands on all sides— I count four of the giant beasts, though there could be more lying in wait— the drums are no longer needed.
The screams are an orchestra all their fucking own.
***
The woman pulled from the gate in chains is blond like Hannah. Her clothes are a ragged assembly of Earthen convention— t-shirt and faded jeans, soiled by her journey here. Her face is smudged, short hair tangled on her shoulder. A silver locket in the shape of a star hangs at her neck, glowing at its seams.
The Lone Brother steps between us, demanding we back up ten paces. The dragons grip the arena’s outer rings— their massive claws use the stone strip for balance, pinching chunks of it away, which topple under their massive weight onto the non-reactive audience.
Do you think she’ll come?
The girl hangs her head as a squadron of Brotherhood pushes her forward into the pit, wheeling around Hannah’s entourage to face her. The prisoner’s hazel eyes drift upward momentarily— her only interest is Tim, casting a glare worthy of Death itself.
Hard to say. She will not come on her own.
“Harper Whitaker,” Hannah says. “Welcome to Atlas, Phoenix. I hope your journey was comfortable?”
The woman says nothing, continuing to stare at the thin layer of sand at her feet.
“Do you know why you have been summoned here?”
Harper mutters something. Her back to us, all I can see is the back of her head, tilted downward.
“What was that?”
The second time, her words emerge more confidently.
“Go to hell.”
Hannah smiles at the refusal to answer.
“Your old friend requested your presence. I told him to choose his champion. To be honest, I assumed it might be Miss Knox here. But that would be out of character, wouldn’t it? Death, sending the woman he has protected to no end, to her own? Not likely.
“So instead he chose you — someone with little love for his escapades. Someone he knew would be a hard sell. Who knows?” Hannah says. “Maybe he did it, thinking there wasn’t a hope in Creation you would show. But once again, Miss Whitaker, he underestimates me— you will represent Death, whether you choose to or not. Won’t you?”
The prisoner is unmoved by the blond woman. They would be the same height if the shackled girl’s posture wasn’t as atrocious as this chain of events.
“No.”
“No...what?”
“No,” the woman repeats. “I will never stand for him again.”
“And why is that?”
The woman cranes her neck, glancing at the bearded figure behind her, then back to his wife.
“I think you know why,” the Phoenix says. “You’d not have brought me here unless you did.”
Hannah’s smile grows— like a blossom in spring, its stalk grows, curling the rose in her pale cheeks.
“Ziz said you were a clever girl. No matter— His will be served. So yes, Miss Whitaker, I know all about your relationship with my husband— that he helped you stop Hale; saved you from Gabriel after the Nephalim turned his back on you. You weren’t the reason for the Breach— but in refusing to fulfill your task, it made its effects irreversible.”
The Phoenix does not react, nor give any indication how she came to bear the title.
“As I said before, Miss Whitaker — you will capitulate, one way or the other.”
Hannah snaps the fingers on her left hand. The sound produced is unpleasant, and echoes through the Arena like a heavy plank of landing wood.
One of the Behemoths leaps down from its place on the crumbling outer wall; gliding over the crowd, its massiv
e front paws kick up a thin layer of sand. Its sickly gray wings retract onto its back with the landing as another group of masked Brotherhood enter the arena through the south gate. Two guide the group, with another set taking up the rear. The middle pair wields a captive by either arm.
The thin woman screams behind the burlap bag thrown over her head, hyperventilating under the fabric, manhandled by her minders as they pull her forward.
The Phoenix glances between their concealed woman and the creature lurking over Hannah’s shoulder, small yellow eyes resting on me. The woman continues shrieking— whatever words accompany her shrill tones are lost to them. She temporarily breaks free, and the Brothers spare no mercy or time in grabbing her off the ground, setting her upright.
The voice rings true to Death’s champion, and her gaze snaps past Tim and I, gunning for Hannah’s soul.
“What are you doing?”
As during Tim’s trial, her shit-eating grin has reached its maximum threshold. The Behemoth behind Hannah snorts, unleashing a stale breath of hot air over us.
“Let’s call it, ‘providing motivation’.”
A pair of hands grab my arms, pulling me toward the eastern arena wall. The Brotherhood subdue Tim, dragging him the same way.
A robed figure removes the burlap sack from over their prisoner’s face, revealing a woman about the Phoenix’s age with short dark hair and a loose t-shirt draping thin shoulders. Her eyes operate in a logical sequence once uncovered— beginning with the massive beast they can’t explain, then moving to the dragon’s owner before finding a face she recognizes.
“Harper?” she gasps.
The Phoenix’s expression is remarkably changed from its earlier resignation, twisting Harper’s face into murderous rage.
“Em,” she says. “It’s going to be okay.”
Her assurances do nothing to assuage Em’s terror at the Behemoth salivating over Hannah’s head.
“Don’t you fucking touch her,” Harper warns. Shackled at the wrists, she has little recourse to stop the Behemoth from slinking closer.
One of the Brothers in service to Hannah grabs the Phoenix by her left arm, attempting to pull her away — Harper wheels around, slugging him in the face. The iron shackle connects with the plague doctor mask, crumpling it against the man’s face, sending him tumbling back. She ducks another of our captors as he swings above her head. Throwing the connector links over his throat, the Phoenix forces him to an oxygen-starved kneel.
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