by Brian Fuller
“That one’s not bad,” Helo had to admit. “Though what I’m really good at now is barbecue. So if you ever need a burger done to perfection, I’m your guy.”
She grinned, but it didn’t reach her eyes. They sat in silence watching the bugs dance around the street lights and listening to the inconsequential muttering of mundane life flowing around them like a soothing stream. Helo stole a glance at her flawless face. A weight clung to her, and Helo found himself wanting a return to the first moments in the movie theater when she seemed carefree and playful, even if it wasn’t sincere.
“We should probably go,” Aclima finally said. “Magdelene will be missing me, though I wouldn’t doubt the AAO has operatives following us around everywhere.”
“Yeah,” Helo agreed, standing. “I’ve got to go make Dolorem angry by telling him I’m returning to the AAO. He wants me to take over at the Redemption Motorcycle Club, and I can’t do it.”
“Do you want me to come along?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I’ll handle it. Where should I meet you and Magdelene?”
“Saint Mary’s Basilica. Take me there now and come as soon as you can.”
As with their ride to the park, Aclima clung to him with what seemed an emotional desperation, not of romance or love but of compassion—a mother comforting her child. It set him on edge. Something was wrong. He dropped her off at Saint Mary’s, and she kissed his forehead and hugged him.
“Come quickly, Helo. I’ll be here for you.”
Her tone and looks tied his stomach in knots. Something bigger than Tela’s song was going on here. What was Aclima hiding? Magdelene’s private conversation with Dolorem after the movie took on a more sinister meaning. He pulled away from the curb, glancing back to find her watching him, arms folded across her chest, expression unreadable.
The drive back to the Redemption Motorcycle Club took much longer than he intended. He took the long way through the streets of Phoenix, trying to collect his thoughts and his arguments and arrange them in a way that wouldn’t hurt his friend. Dolorem had been good to him, had shown him a side of Ash Angel life that helped him feel angelic. Dolorem cared for his parishioners, wanted them cared for when he ascended. Helo shook his head. Letting Dolorem down would be hard.
Despite the prolonged route, Helo’s scattered thoughts refused to coalesce, and he gave up trying to paste them together into something coherent. There was no wrong or right. His gut told him to get back into the fight. He had to help Aclima track down Cain and the other Loremasters. His personal war with Cain in the bowels of the Tempest had intertwined his and Cain’s fates somehow, and he couldn’t walk away into the sunset with Aclima or preach lame sermons for the rest of his afterlife. He turned his motorcycle back toward the club.
The chapel light was on, glowing behind the shutters of the simple structure, as he pulled into the parking lot. He killed the motor and dropped the kickstand, gravel crunching under his shoes as he dismounted. Steeling himself for Dolorem’s disappointment, he pushed open the door to find the Old Master sitting on the back bench, waiting for him.
Dolorem turned and regarded him, face troubled. “Helo, I need to—”
“Look, Dolorem,” Helo interrupted, pushing the door shut. “I know what you’re going to say, so just hear me out.”
Dolorem got up, face downcast. “You’ve got to go back to the AAO, Helo.”
Helo snapped his mouth shut, brow furrowed. “Well, that’s what I was planning, but what’s wrong?”
For several moments, Dolorem regarded him softly. Finally, his friend reached out to grab his shoulders. Pained eyes met his.
“Helo, your parents were murdered.”
Chapter 3
The Six
Slaughtered. Dolorem said murdered, but it was slaughtered. Or butchered. Every news story Helo searched through used that word to describe his parents’ deaths. The news offered few details, but the words they used invited the imagination to wander down grim roads. Hacked. Smeared. Dismembered. A chill settled over Helo’s heart. For hours he sat glued to the computer screen, absorbing every story, addicted to every detail and hint offered by the news.
Helo had spent much of his adult life estranged from his parents, his father furious he had chosen the Marines instead of the Army, and his mother because she was controlled by his father. Only when he had married Terissa had Walter and Marlene Evans haltingly stepped into the role of parents again.
While he had no proof, he knew in his gut his parents were dead because of him. That Magdelene and Aclima had been sent to find him was confirmation that the AAO thought so too. Despite all of the painful memories of neglect and shame, they didn’t deserve to get slaughtered by Cain and his cronies.
Helo finally tired of the awful reports and flipped the monitor off, slumping at the desk with his hands over his face. This was what Aclima meant. This was Cain’s revenge, his awful price for Helo thwarting him. Aclima had known about his parents, and he couldn’t decide if he should be mad at her for withholding the truth or thankful she’d wanted to spare him the raw emotions pulsing through him now—sorrow, anger, revenge, horror. Through the fog of pain, his purpose came clear, buttressing his resolve. He would rejoin the Ash Angels. He would avenge his parents and finish Cain.
Dolorem stepped back into the room, face downcast. “I wish I had more time, Helo. I want to help.”
Helo dropped his hands and leaned back before a thought straightened him in his chair. “What about my brother, Brandon? Terissa?”
“It’s okay,” Dolorem said. “They’re searching for your brother now. Terissa is safe. You may need to tell the AAO about any other friends or relatives you were close to. Cain knows your name, but we can’t be sure he knows much more about you than what is publicly available.”
Helo pushed away from the computer and got up. Time to get to work. “I’ve got to get going.”
“I know,” Dolorem said, “but give me a couple minutes, okay? It’s almost dawn, and Rapture will help settle you some. There is a practice I want to show you, a tradition, really, the Old Masters use that I think can help you. Not many do it anymore, though.”
“I really need to go,” Helo said, glancing at his watch. “Aclima is waiting for me.”
“I know. It won’t take long. Just give it a chance.”
Helo regarded Dolorem’s earnest face. He owed the man. “Okay, what is it?”
“Come out to the chapel,” Dolorem said.
Helo followed Dolorem out. The chapel was still dark, the barest hint of morning brightening the cracks between the shutters at the front of the building.
“Sit on the floor cross-legged,” Dolorem instructed. “Put your hands on your knees.”
Helo exhaled. “If this is some New Age meditation crap, just skip it.”
Dolorem frowned.
Helo closed his eyes and pushed away the urgency yelling at him to get out the door now. “Sorry, Dolorem. I’m just—”
“Sit. Put your hands on your knees. No. Palms down. Relax. Now, when most Ash Angels think of the morning Rapture, they compare it to light flooding in. But it’s also compared to fire. It burns away dark thoughts and emotions like you’ve experienced when recovering from being torched. Like you’re feeling now.”
Helo had plenty of bad memories and emotions to go around. “Right, so?”
“So we often think of Rapture as a healer, something that dispels sadness or fixes us when broken. Some Old Masters thought it was more.”
Helo glanced up at Dolorem. “More what?”
“Close your eyes. More than just daily healing or a divine pat on the back. Relax your posture. Okay, now old lore had it that our thoughts, our desires, our injuries, our emotions—even those that were not negative or evil—were like a curtain drawn over a window. The more troubled or distracted our minds and hearts, the thicker the curtain to the point no light could enter in. The more peaceful and empty our hearts and minds, the thinner and more gauze-like the cove
ring so more light can shine. Does that image make sense?”
“Sure. How much longer is this—”
“Just listen! Now, for Ash Angels, Rapture burns away the proverbial curtain. It doesn’t matter how thick or thin the covering. It brings us peace and healing even after horrible events. The question is this: What if there were no curtain? What if there were no injuries to repair and no thoughts to clear away and no emotions to shut up? Would Rapture have anything to do?”
“Bring joy, I suppose,” Helo answered, not understanding the tack of Dolorem’s explanation.
“Yes, of course, but more. Practitioners of this meditative technique who reached that empty, clean state of mind and heart claimed Rapture gave them more Virtus to power their Bestowals. Some Old Masters claimed it could fill them to the point where even Blanks had an aura.”
Helo opened his eyes again. “Really?”
“Close your eyes! I’ve never seen it or known anyone who has,” Dolorem confessed. “Truth is, I’ve tried this on and off for years. I can feel a difference on those rare occasions where I can convince my mind and emotions to talk in a whisper, but there’s always been a curtain inside me Rapture has to burn through.”
Emptiness. Silence. Peace. How could Dolorem expect him to find any of those after reading the gruesome articles about his parents’ deaths? His mom had gone on a meditation kick once. It hadn’t lasted long, probably because he and his brother Brandon couldn’t keep quiet for more than five minutes at a time. She was dead now. Dead because of Cain.
“Now,” Dolorem instructed, “we’ve only got a couple minutes before dawn. This will be a bit rushed, so listen up. I don’t want you to envision a place or time when you were happy. I don’t want you to think of a time you’ve been hurt. I want you to think of blackness, total blackness. Now, envision a sun about the size of a half dollar in the center of your vision. Do you see it?”
Helo tried. It wasn’t coming. Whenever he thought of blackness, the dark hold of the Tempest intruded on his memory, Cain transformed into King grinning at him like he was an idiot and Cassandra writhing in agony. He fought to clear it.
“I’m trying.”
“Relax. Breathing can help. Once you have the sun, envision a sphere the size of a nickel orbiting the first light slowly. The sphere is perfectly round and perfectly reflective.”
For a moment, Helo was able to conjure the odd imagery. The center light burned bright and fiery, one half of the orbiting sphere blazing with the same light, the other half cast into shadow. He focused to keep it steady.
Butchered. Murdered. Blood-soaked. Grisly.
The darkness returned, Cain staring at him with a smug, vengeful sneer.
“Hold the image. Drive everything out,” Dolorem whispered.
It was hopeless. The engulfing sorrow and his rush to get moving would not release their grip on his thoughts. When Rapture came, Helo was sure it had to burn through a curtain the thickness and consistency of tire rubber. But as it always had since he had reawakened over fifteen months ago, Rapture poured into his cold soul like a bonfire warming a winter traveler. For a moment, the blaze burned away his dark thoughts and tempered his violent emotions. In vain he clung to it, willed it to stay. But just as it came every morning, the intense bliss spilled back out like a tide, though it left smoother edges on his emotions.
It didn’t take long for the corrosive feelings to start eroding the peace in his heart. “I’ve got to go, Dolorem,” he said. “I’ll get back for your ascension, I promise.”
Dolorem helped him up and hugged him. “Keep working on the meditation, Helo. It takes time, but it can help. Remember your gifts. Remember they are for more than Dread hunting. That said, kick Cain in the face for me if you get a chance.”
“I will.”
“And if he gets close to Tela, kick him twice.”
Helo patted his shoulder. “That’s a promise. Thank you for everything.”
Helo drew breath, pulling in the musky, greasy smell of the Redemption Motorcycle Club, a place that had been the first real home of his afterlife. He passed the battered benches and boot-scuffed floors, memories of the shepherd and the flock fortifying him as he gripped the doorknob. With a last look back at Dolorem, he walked out into a cool, gray morning. It was time to find Aclima and the Ash Angel Organization. It was time to kill Cain.
Aclima was the polar opposite of Cassandra when it came to driving. To Helo’s surprise, they left Phoenix not by plane or heart travel but in a modestly appointed gray Honda Civic. It didn’t even have cruise control. Helo sat on the passenger side while Aclima drove the speed limit with uncanny consistency, untroubled by the hurried rush backed up behind them or the cars frenetically passing at every opportunity.
She hadn’t changed her clothes or appearance since their date. From the moment he saw her at St. Mary’s after leaving the club, she had treated him with the same affectionate compassion she had the night before. Magdelene had left before them, boarding a plane to get back to Deep 6, where she had taken Ramis’s old position as head of training.
Helo stared out at the interminable desert as they drove north out of Phoenix, passing the scarred land where the Trevex Propane facility once stood. “Where are we headed? I thought we’d be off to Deep 7.”
Aclima smiled reassuringly at him. “Our destination is another Trevex cover site, a distribution center in Nevada. Or, as the Michaels call it, Zion Alpha. The tip of the spear, apparently. It’s the main base of operations for leading the hunt for The Six.”
“A Michael base? They’re not going to put you in the Michaels, are they?”
“Well, I’ve got a bit of leverage. I can do what I want, but everyone agrees I need to be involved in the hunt. I know Cain. I know the Loremasters.”
Helo nodded. “You’d be a natural fit for the Gabriels. I’m sure Ramis has been begging for you.”
“Maybe,” Aclima said. “Magdelene didn’t tell me everything, but Archus Mars wanted you in a bad way. It appears he has gotten his way.”
Mars had wanted him from the time he had awakened. “Yeah, he was trying to recruit me before. I was such a screwup as a Gabriel that Archus Ramis must have let me go.”
Aclima regarded him coldly. “You are not a screwup and are no kind of failure. No more self-deprecation. If you keep it up, I will crush your throat until you can’t talk, do you understand?”
Now it felt like a drive with Cassandra. Aclima was even speeding a little until she relaxed her grip on the wheel and moderated her speed.
“Look,” Helo said. “That’s the way the AAO sees it, especially Ramis.”
She shook her head. “I read the reports. You saved the AAO, Helo.”
“Not really,” he contradicted.
“You saved me from my own red aura! Isn’t that good enough for you? No more, okay?” She reached out and took his hand, her skin impossibly soft. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be abrupt, Helo, especially not now. You were my angel in my need, and I will not stand by and watch you clip your own wings. Can you forgive me?”
“It’s okay, Aclima,” Helo said, surprised by her strong emotions. “Thinking of my parents—it’s bringing back a lot of garbage I thought was buried. And you were the one who saved me. Three times.”
“Let’s say we’re even,” Aclima said. “Look, we’ll honor your parents by putting an end to this.” She squeezed his hand before returning her own to the wheel. “I need to tell you about what you’re facing. Cain and his cruelty you know, but the other Loremasters are an interesting lot. I’ve briefed the AAO on them. Of the six, there are only two who will support Cain without being forced or without any incentive. The most deluded is Jumelia, Abel’s twin sister and Cain’s wife. It is, of course, an open marriage, but she has always taken his side and done his bidding, in part to spite me. The second and the worst of the lot is my first son by Cain, Avadan.”
“Your son?”
“Yes. In biology only. He practically worships Cain and wo
uld never listen to me, even in the early years. He is as cruel and ambitious as his father, but not as controlled. To be blunt, he’s not quite sane. There are stories about some sort of prison he keeps where he tortures Dreads, Ash Angels, and normals alike. I’ve avoided him at all costs, but I couldn’t outrun the tales of his deeds. When he came to the Tempest at Cain’s bidding, it was the first I’d seen of him in centuries.”
Helo remembered one of them for his dress. “Was he the one in the top hat and running shorts?”
“Yeah,” Aclima said. “That’s him—the most insane and unpredictable of the bunch.”
“Do you have pull with any of them?”
“No,” she said. “Especially not now. But if we can get rid of Jumelia or Avadan, it will be a severe blow to Cain. The other four Loremasters are children of Cain and Jumelia. Hrojax is almost a clone of Cain in ambition but without the cunning. You knew him as Goutre. Padru, their second son, was his partner in the law firm.”
“Hudgins,” Helo filled in. That Terissa had unknowingly worked for two Dread Loremasters still blew his mind. They had even attended parties at their houses!
“Padru has the brains,” Aclima continued, “but takes more pleasure in subtle evil than anything flashy or violent. He and Hrojax almost always work together, in the background mostly. Ashakaz is Cain and Jumelia’s only daughter. We may find her with Jumelia. She is either loyal to her mother or furious with her without a lot of in between. She is a liar and a seductress and is good at getting her way. Their third son, Admah, we may never find. He is a man of the wild places and will never aid Cain unless forced to.”
Helo thought his family was dysfunctional. Cain’s was worse. “Wouldn’t most of them have blown into the wind after we took Cain’s pendant?”
“Yes, all save Jumelia and Avadan. Hrojax and Padru might maintain contact if there were profit to be had.”
