Atlas

by Nicholas Gagnier

  This is our chance.

  The Brothers subduing Tim and I release their holds, running to their gagging peer’s aid. My fist swings outward, connecting with my captor’s neck. He goes down clutching at his carotid artery, wheezing for relief. The other Brother who held Tim back gets halfway to his struggling comrade, looks back at the one I downed. Fear penetrates the obstruction over his features as I run at him, but does nothing to shield him from the kick that collapses him at my feet, lost to these remaining events.

  Harper pulls her hostage to an uneven balance, dragging him back under the threat of asphyxiation. Hannah doesn’t react to our rebellion. The blond woman lets her cronies meet pavement, holding up a closed fist to the dragon hovering over her.

  “Tim!” I call back to my guardian angel, but there is no time for a follow-up. Having left both of Em’s flanks wide open, Harper drags her captive to the far south end of the arena.

  Oh no, she’s going to —

  Hannah brings her fist down from on high. The dragon advances toward Em, thrusting its neck down toward the ground. A lone scream follows the woman into the open maw, abruptly ended as the dragon’s mandible snaps shut, catching Harper’s friend between its jagged teeth. A river of red liquid pours down between the mandible and snout in thick globs, staining the sand in coagulated blotches where Em stood.

  The Behemoth unhinges its teeth, releasing its victim. All that remains of her is the lower body, collapsing in a heap as the dragon lifts its head high into the air, swallowing her torso.

  The horror washing over Harper’s expression forces her to release her hostage. The man passes out, clutching his folded jugular and battered mask. The Phoenix collapses behind him, devolving into sobbing as her knees meet the ground.

  Hannah doesn’t savor the moment— another hand signal turns the Behemoth towards her. The dragon inhales, casting its trademark inferno directly onto the Phoenix. The fire burns long and dances off the ground’s surface. The Brother caught in its blast zone screams as endless hell rains down on Death’s champion.

  When the eruption ends, Hannah’s underling lays smoking, a thick plume of gray caressing his corpse. By some grace of God, Harper is unharmed— it could have something to do with the now-gold locket around her neck, blazing like Earth’s sun at her collarbone. The hopeless sound of her drawing in convulsing air, crumpled halfway between sitting and lying on the ground, twists my heart like a wet towel, right before I proceed to beat myself with it.

  The dragon returns to Hannah’s side. She pets it, praising it like a dog who fetched its ball and brought it back, wagging its stupid tail— ready for another retrieval of its master’s deepest desires. The blood where a woman named Em stood darkens at her open-toed slippers as the Phoenix buries her forehead in the sand, trying to muffle the depravity of her loss.

  Hannah smiles at the Behemoth’s massive feet, looking at her thralls in the stands— her zombies, her motherfucking legion.

  She smiles, because she has won.

  At last, the real monsters have come out to play in earnest.

  Behemoth

  Part Two

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Once upon a time, had you told me that Heaven was a city in the stars called Atlas, I would have thought you schizophrenic. Had you confided in a woman who had no business growing to be an FBI agent that the afterlife’s supreme realm was closer to any Hell in our wildest fictions or faith-based dreams, I would have referred you to the mental ward.

  Maybe people in mental asylums have been to other worlds, and are simply telling their stories, if they can get past the tics and twitches of trauma.

  Held back by members of a cult who wear red robes and plague doctor masks and call themselves the Red Brotherhood, they and the dragons are are all that restrain our impulse to murder the blond woman.

  At Hannah’s gruff command, the beast used to subdue Death’s champion is dismissed. It clambers up the lowest set of stands. People seated in the first two rows are crushed under the dragon’s front paw — then more as its feet follow. Those around them don’t panic, because they’re mindless zombies in service to the Dark Lord Ziz.

  Harper is pulled to her feet by several Brothers. Her hair is a sand-caked storm of strands. Her eyes are red, mouth pulled in a sorrowful scowl. She doesn’t resist the underlings pulling her forward.

  The recovering Brothers I sent to a keel secure Tim and I, using more aggression than required to haul their prisoners before the woman. The Brother manhandling my arm jerks me to a stop between the Phoenix and Tim. Harper emits nothing other than a quivering lower lip, baring her bottom teeth.

  Hannah — who may have once been Death’s wife but now holds matrimony with a far worse Devil — gloats at her sunken shoulders and the remains of her friend Em, whose mangled legs stain the ground only yards away.

  “An awful precedent to set,” she says. “May this woman’s death serve as a reminder to all those who would challenge the new order in Atlas, and seek to defy the Dark Lord’s will.”

  My shock has followed me from the moment two Behemoths stormed Tim’s trial. This bitch has broken Atlas like dropping a wine bottle— the only difference is the blood from its broken neck, replacing merlot.

  I can’t contain my rage any longer.

  “Who the fuck died and made you Mad Queen, lady?”

  Hannah raises a single eyebrow. Her composure is unbreakable, powered by Ziz’s arrogance and fury toward the world.

  “Spoken lightly from the mortal whose gallivanting around with my husband caused the apocalypse. You are in no position to lecture me, Miss Knox. I am more powerful than you will ever be, meant for greater things than being Death’s lapdog.

  “The three of you will be kept under guard for now — due to Miss Whitaker’s outburst, her restraints will remain in place until she decides to become more cooperative. Once I decide the nature of the trial by combat, the Phoenix will stand for Death. Until such time, Harper, you will receive adequate training to defend yourself.”

  Based on Harper’s sneer, her trainers may have to face her wrath before anything Hannah throws at us. But she remains silent, occasionally looking at Em’s mangled body before closing her eyes.

  “Is that understood, Phoenix?”

  Harper lifts her head, meeting Hannah’s confident stare. The locket at her collarbone thrashes with light embodying her anger, but the face affords her none.

  “I have nothing left to say.”

  The Phoenix is unrelenting in refusing the blond woman satisfaction, hardened by the stories Tim has told me about her — how the locket belonged to her mother Olivia; how its passing down made Harper immortal, bestowing powers she never wanted.

  “Very well,” our captor smiles. “Go with my friends in the Red Brotherhood. They will show you to your new accomodations.”

  I cast a glare at Maester Barrett. The dramatic sorrow draping his face after the Council’s death is absent. He seems almost as pleased as Hannah, mouth corners lifted in a slight smile. Seraphina stifles discomfort with what just happened. Survival dictates action for the High Priestess, but she may have finally met with regret in her moral travels.

  Harper’s shackled forearms require an extra tug from her Brotherhood escort, while Tim goes along quietly. The man who calls himself Death has barely climbed out of the awe I shared with him over Hannah’s reappearance. I was stunned by it, but it has clearly broken him — a man notorious for composure in crisis, who thrived on lording over mortals with his infinite knowledge.

  He is reduced to nothing now— just another cog in Creation’s sick machine.

  ***

  The screeching Behemoths follow us out of the Arena district, yet another layer of security to prevent our escape. The dragons are legion in the skies over Atlas — their collective of spread wings creates storm clouds of their own, flapping powerful currents down over us. Even our escorts are perturbed by the beasts’ presence; they have not walked Atlas since the First Age of Creatio
n, and make volatile guardians at best.

  My mind drifts as we walk toward the Barracks — now an empty representation of what the Nephalim stood for. But I am the last of them, once again the lone survivor of a massacre, doomed to wander on. My companions on this journey are disquieted and offer no comfort on the lonely road Atlas has become. Little remains of the liveliness when I first arrived in the supreme realm, naive to the darkness that lived within. Like Venicia said in the Spire’s peak, I see it now, and may never recognize this city’s beauty again.

  Over time, you start to see flaws in the perfection — little strategic folds to cover all the things its creators didn’t want us to see. It is an illusion, like anything you stare at for too long, trying to make sense of. Its flawlessness warps and erodes, like anything else does in the storms of time.

  So much to love has been lost, and now Creation’s devils lord over its pinnacle. The Barracks are gutted in pride as we cross into them, lured toward the Obelisk, then whisked left into one of the temple-like buildings that symmetrically oppose each other on either side. Their walls seem darker, shingled pyramids sloping downward from the peak on all sides, but Light has abandoned them as well, and the Nephalim who lived here are ash and dust.

  Our escorts are quiet — we don’t fight them, allowing them to pull us into the temple’s recesses, past a room with more canvas paintings I am no longer enamored with. My curiosity is long sated.

  The world runs together from hallway to cellar, to the shared dungeon cell they slide closed behind us. The fringe of illumination from beyond the cellar door disappears as the Brotherhood closes the hatch over a sloped ladder, pulling back its last threads.

  All my life I have pretended to love the darkness. But as the door closes, snatching all Light’s hope of redemption, I meet its true form. It is not a man who professed to be Death when I was a child, nor monsters like Stephen Hardwick or Tim’s wife.

  In true darkness, I am forced to meet myself — the reason why I have often avoided squarely looking at myself in mirrors, or going to therapy.

  In true darkness, fumbling for walls and the boundaries of our existence, there is nothing left to look for but existing silhouettes, intermingling with imaginary ones. I might stumble onto some greater truth within them, but am saved by a spark to my left, lighting the entire cell.

  “Of course,” Tim mutters.

  The mysterious star-shaped locket at Harper’s neckline acts as a flashlight. Its glow reminds me of the cosmic light when I took the Nephalim’s oath before the Council; white like all other lights, but dotted with tiny constellations.

  The Light around the locket, when it seems lost everywhere else, is alive.

  The majority of the Light's power is protected by the four-member Council of Atlas. Another percentage is used to power Atlas itself, and another yet for Earth. Certain artifacts are imbued with it, allowing its bearers powers to surpass their physiological limitations, survive physical death, or other such enhancements.

  It must be one of those artifacts.

  “You’re welcome,” Harper snipes. “I ought to leave you in the dark, but knowing you, you can probably see through it.”

  “I’m sorry about Mic—”

  There is no warning to the cocked fist that strikes Tim in the jaw, sending him sprawling on the cold floor. Harper doesn’t follow up, retreating to a far corner of the cell, covering the opposite stone wall in the locket’s glare. In the second before the amplified picture is lost, I catch sight of something in its projection. It stands out, even in the second-long glimpse before it pours back onto the floor with Harper’s frantic paces, and I help Tim to his feet. He rubs his jaw while I stare at the darkened wall.

  Tim takes no notice of my wonder, solely focused on Harper as he nurses his swelling cheek.

  “Blame me if you want, Harper—”

  “Oh, I do! I blamed you when your interference in a natural order resulted in the world going to shit, and my life going to shit with it! I blamed you when you weren’t just straight with me, and had to play your stupid, minutiative games, when you could have just been honest! But you had to do your godly thing, like all gods do, just playing fucking mysterious!”

  The locket pulses with rage. Her shackled hands move violently with her speech, wavering near tears but never quite reaching the devastation she deserves. She holds it back, for some reason — maybe all they have been through together is the softened blow.

  Harper falls much quieter, enunciations more pronounced and pointed, riding the wave of a hollow whisper.

  “Everything I had left to fight for is gone. Gonna go back in time and change that, too? Be my guest. I wouldn’t defend your honor if it reversed everything!”

  The constellations at her neck dull as she slumps in the corner, staring into nothing. The Light around her collar bone weakens, and darkness is stronger for it, creeping across our flesh and threatening to envelop us once more.

  If my eyes saw what I think they did, that locket may hold information instrumental to saving Atlas. I need her to show it to me, but the poor woman is emotionally destroyed by Em’s death — coming at it from the good old Ramona Knox angle, shrewd and aloof, will net only hostility.

  We need to get out of this cell first.

  ***

  Time passes by. It’s all relative now. Minutes bleed into days, because I am dead. Harper’s locket provides its restrained berth of Light throughout. Tim is morose, though he seems to possess some sort of regenerative power — the bruise on his face was gone in minutes. We sit in our individual corners for a long time, three spokes on a broken wheel; wondering if anyone will return for us. There must be punishments to dole out and Creation to tarnish, dragons to feed and spectaculars to hold.

  Whatever Hannah’s endgame is, it’s far from realized.

  Trying to make peace with the pariahs of the universe, and the gnats employed to ensure their will is done, I think of Maya, and each time Tim appeared throughout my young life; of Tomas’ rebellion and Venicia’s revelation the blame laid with an angel named Gabriel; of Hardwick and his propensity for betrayal, until he met someone who was far better at its nuances.

  I think of all this— until finally, mercifully considering that dwelling on these matters has only deepened my obsession over them, doing little to alleviate them. Lifting myself off the cold floor, I gravitate to Harper. Tim eyes me the entire time.

  I slide down the bars next to the Phoenix, who barely acknowledges me. The thick iron bands around her wrists don’t seem to bother her, but that does nothing to change the fact I would free her if I held the key.

  “When I was two,” I begin in a hushed voice, “my parents died. Well, they killed each other— you think that would make it worse. Ask any little girl who lost her family and she’d probably say it doesn’t matter whether a drunk driver killed them, or they turned on each other, like mine did. Any little kid would tell you the cause wasn’t the important part— only the result.”

  The Phoenix says nothing, but her fingers pull nervously at the chain between her shackled wrists, and I know she is listening, which is all I need.

  “I’m not going to sit here and try to convince you that we have a world in common. Anything in common, really, apart from being in this cell together, with a man who hasn’t always done best by either of us.”

  In the corner of my eye, Tim’s face puckers, trying to determine where I’m going with this. But he’s not the one who I need to convince.

  “That man — who I met long after you did— is not just part of my life. He is my life,” I say, returning his inquisitive glare. “He first showed his face when I was a little kid, but he was watching over me long before that— before I was anything worth caring about.

  “When he told me the truth — about how he was moving backwards through my memory— I felt betrayed. Stupid, for thinking I was special, that he had a genuine interest in me.

  “At first, I regretted any sort of alliance with him — and rightf
ully so. It was too easy to blame, and cast everything gone wrong in my life onto him. It wouldn’t have changed the scope of betrayal I faced among the living, or made me any better off without him. I would have died regardless, tied to a chair in a burning warehouse.”

  Harper tries to keep her expression from morphing— to maintain the composed shock worn since we were dragged into this cell — but it sags. Her eyes drift to our mutual ally, and I continue.

  “But then I came here — to Atlas; and suddenly I understood. The man who saved my life might have made a terrible, unfathomable mistake. But he did it to save me. Because, in my heart of hearts, I know he cares about me. On some level, he may even love me. And if I was trying to save the person who meant more than anything, I’d risk Creation itself.”

  The Phoenix closes her eyes, letting loose an exhale from her tense chest. The chain between her arms jangles, filling the cell with metallic friction. The full light from her locket betrays her emotions, but nothing more than her fixation on Death.

  “Whatever may have happened between you,” I conclude, “there are clearly worse evils out there.”

  Not wanting to agitate her further, I leave the Phoenix to her troubled thoughts and dancing chain links to fill the gap between them. Returning to my lonely corner of the darkness — where I always pretended to belong but masqueraded within — the light from Harper’s locket only casts the thinnest quilts of light along the floor.

  It is inadequate for something so far gone as hope, and I won’t even try to look for its fleeting shadow any longer.

  ***

  Time passes by some more — its increments are ambiguously drawn out like tricks played by my eyes. Harper does not react to its passage any differently than Tim does; both seem to be waiting for something, while I can only continue drawing blanks.