by Brian Fuller
She laughed softly. “Well, you have to make some allowances for my unique perspective. I will say that after a long life, I am surprisingly still a sucker for many of the things most women are—charm, wit, and, yes, jacked-up biceps. I have long since given up thinking I could find a man who could be my equal in knowledge, but I feel very keenly how I am not the equal of many who are beyond me in their ability to be good. Goodness, I think, is what attracts me now. It is what I am striving for.”
Helo nodded, not sure she had answered the question. He was expecting more of a “boxers or briefs” kind of reply, but she had opened up her soul just a crack instead.
“We’ve been over this,” Helo said. “You were good enough to be made an Ash Angel, and that is pretty damned good.”
“I’m trying,” she said. “I really am. I did only cut your head off when I had it in mind to cut some other things off as well, so I think I have made some progress.”
He laughed loud enough for Tela to snort in surprise and then roll over. She giggled in her sleep and smiled.
“She’s got it bad,” Aclima quipped. “I think she’s actually having one of those kinds of dreams about you rather than a prophetic one.”
Helo shook his head. “So tell me what you thought of her dreams. Lots of dark imagery. I’m not quite sure what to think of it other than bad.”
“Well, bad is the main takeaway,” she said. “The first one is clearly tree-of-life imagery, but rather than magic fruit or eternal life, the tree would seem to represent your life. Roots often stand for things that make you who you are, like family and friends. Branches are about what you do, your future. Fruit in this context could mean a couple things. Abilities, good works, good characteristics of your soul. All of them together, perhaps.
“The two naked, bloody men hacking at the tree is a bit of a mystery. If it were only one, I would say it was Cain, the others in the woods most likely the Dread Loremasters. At any rate, the point is you are under attack, and we’ve seen that already. It makes me think it’s going to get worse.”
Helo nodded. How much worse could it get? “And the devil one with the fingernail broken off in my head?”
“A very interesting one but probably the easier of the two,” Aclima said.
“Really? Fill me in, professor.”
“Well, the devil was in your head,” she said, “almost literally from what I saw on the Tempest. He was tormenting you. This dream implies there is something left in there, some residual effect. And because of the woman’s lips kissing the finger that grew the nail, I would guess it has to do with Terissa cheating on you. Is that how King attacked you?”
“Yes,” he said, though he was pretty sure Aclima already knew the answer. He certainly didn’t want to relive that scene again.
“And do you feel like you’ve left it behind?” she asked. “I mean, you beat it and escaped his hold. But is there anything lingering inside you from the experience, something you’ve felt, especially after tonight?”
There was. And he knew it wouldn’t go away. He hoped time would help it fade, but when King had shown him Terissa cheating on him with his brother, it had nearly destroyed him. Was it true or a deception? How could he ask Terissa, a woman who had just become an Ash Angel, to admit to past sins when it was clear she wanted to move on with her afterlife just as he had after being awakened? It was wrong and more than a little unfair. The best question, however, was if it even mattered anymore. He liked to think it didn’t, but why couldn’t he let it go?
“What is it?” Aclima prompted, putting a hand on his knee.
“Terissa,” he said. “When I died, I knew she had cheated on me with Simon the Dread. King showed me she had cheated on me with my brother, too. That . . . well, it was bad. I don’t know if it’s true. I can’t ask her. But I can’t get it out of my head, either.”
“And if you asked her, and if she said yes, what would you do?”
“That’s just it,” he answered. “I’ve forgiven her, so why am I so wound up about this? With both of them showing up in my life tonight, it’s brought it all back up to the surface. I don’t know what to do.”
Aclima paused for a few moments. “There is one thing, Helo. You’ve forgiven her. Have you forgiven him?”
“I don’t know if I need to,” he said a little too loudly, Tela startling and then settling back in.
“Right,” she said, “but because what King showed you was so vivid and so plausible, to you it is real, Helo. Whether or not it actually happened is relevant, but if I were you, I would just assume it was true and do the forgiving. If it turns out it didn’t happen, your forgiveness muscles will still have gotten a good workout and be stronger for it.”
He leaned his head back against the wall. If only it were so simple. His phone and Aclima’s buzzed in unison. He fished his out of his pocket, and she retrieved hers from the floor. It was from Argyle. Yay.
Mission in two days. Please return to Zion Alpha promptly. The briefing will commence at twenty-three hundred hours tomorrow. Be on time. Be ready. Be a team.
Aclima sighed. “I think I’m going to hate Argyle.”
Helo shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Think? I already do. See? You’ve already become a better person than I am.”
Chapter 16
A Real Mission
Helo peered out the car window. No Dreads. No Shedim. No Ghostpackers. He scanned the cards in his hand and turned to Aclima. “Got any eights?”
“Go fish,” Aclima said.
He fished a card off the top of the pile and angled it up to the sparse illumination from the street lamp near the curb where they had parked. An eight! He had a full set and plunked it down next to his collection of queens on the dashboard.
“So,” he said, “six thousand years and Go Fish is the best game you got?”
“No,” she answered, shuffling through her cards. “It’s a game with enough chance in it that you might actually be able to beat me. If you can’t beat me at this, we’ll have to try Candy Land. You got any kings?”
“One,” he said, handing it over. “You are so arrogant.”
She stuffed the card into her hand. “It’s not arrogance; it’s self-assurance.”
“Smells like the same thing to me,” he said, glancing around the car at the rows of old single-story houses lining the street. No Dreads. No Shedim. No Ghostpackers.
“It’s not,” she said. “The arrogant say anything to make themselves look better than other people. The self-assured say what’s necessary to make other people more informed.”
“Right.”
Helo’s comm unit crackled in unison with Aclima’s, and they hurriedly stuffed them back in their ears. Helo had missed the first few words of whatever Argyle was saying.
“. . . breach position. Helo, give me a sitrep.”
“All clear,” he said. Goliath was letting Argyle quarterback the lame mission, which was fine since the mission was Argyle’s idea anyway.
“Confirm clear, Jeopardy,” Argyle prompted.
Aclima rolled her eyes. “Helo and I are in the same car looking out the same—”
“Confirm clear, Jeopardy,” Argyle repeated.
Aclima squeezed her eyes shut in resignation. “Clear confirmed.”
“Two minutes to breach,” Argyle continued. “Check weapons and confirm.”
“Check,” Goliath said. Helo thought he detected a slight note of exasperation in her answer.
“Cocked, locked, and ready to rock,” Faramir chimed in.
“Keep it short, Faramir,” Argyle said. “Shujaa?”
“Ready,” Shujaa reported.
A few seconds passed in silence, and Helo was about to remove his earpiece and get on with Go Fish when Argyle broke the silence again.
“Helo, weapons status.”
“Weapons in the trunk,” he answered—like they had been all night long.
“Jeopardy?” Argyle prompted.
“Also in the damn trunk, like the
y have been the whole damn time!”
Helo cleared his throat to cover a laugh, though someone wasn’t able to keep a snicker from leaking over comms. Aclima was losing it. She yanked her earpiece from her ear, letting it dangle down on her shoulder.
Argyle was unfazed. “We move to breach positions in one minute.”
Helo was right there with Aclima. This was a glorified ride-along mission, the type given to newbies. In his infinite wisdom, Argyle had determined that Helo and Aclima needed to see what a real Michaels mission was like in terms of protocol and procedure. To accomplish this goal, he had commandeered a mission from another Michaels group and given Aclima and Helo the important job of staying in the car.
“Do you have any sixes?” Aclima asked.
Helo had three and held them up, 666, while opening his mouth in feigned shock. Aclima’s angry face melted. She stripped the cards from his hand and put her completed set on the dashboard.
Helo checked their six: No Dreads, no Shedim, no Ghostpackers. He perused his cards when his phone buzzed.
“I bet it’s Terissa,” Aclima said, leaning over to get a glimpse of his screen.
“I told you she won’t contact me,” Helo said. He checked. It was Tela. Again. True to her word, she had sent along a press photo so he could use it as the contact picture less than an hour after they had left her at the hotel in the care of Corinth and Scarlet. It was still weird calling her that.
“She will,” Aclima said. “I can feel it. She loved you once, and those feelings will come back to her now. You should talk to her first, though. Show her you aren’t harboring grudges. What’s Tela have to say?”
Tela had texted him on and off throughout the day, mostly “How are you doing” kind of stuff. Helo tapped the message. It was a selfie with her, Corinth, and Scarlet, still at the crappy hotel. Alan was lingering in the background. Helo showed the picture to Aclima, who grinned.
“Cute girl,” Aclima said. “She mention any more dreams?”
“Nope,” Helo said, pocketing the phone. “I think my visit cured her.”
The comms crackled again and they reaffixed their earpieces. The team was moving into breach position. It was three in the morning. The other four members of the team had disguised themselves as SWAT officers. They stepped out of the darkness on the side of the target house and walked smoothly toward the front door.
A basement light glowed through a small rectangular window cut into the foundation, but the top floor was dark. Shujaa led the team up the front walk, no doubt hungry for some Dread-killing action. Argyle and Goliath came up next, Faramir at the rear. Faramir still wore his stupid hat, even with his tactical helmet on, the two tassels dangling below his ears. Why did Argyle let that slide?
The job was to end two Dreads who had been brothers and violent bank robbers in life and who were misspending their afterlife cooking meth in the basement of the house across the street from the car from where Helo and Aclima observed. If they lived in a house that crappy, Helo guessed they weren’t doing very well for themselves, though one of them had a brand-new Dodge Charger in the driveway.
Aclima tapped Helo’s arm and pointed at his cards.
It was his turn. “Kings?” Helo mouthed, pantomiming a crown on his head using his cards. She handed him two. He needed one more.
“Give me a sitrep, Helo,” Argyle ordered.
“All clear,” Helo confirmed, not bothering to look. Argyle could see that just as well as he could now.
“Confirm, Jeopardy,” Argyle ordered.
Aclima closed her eyes for a second and then opened them, scanning around the car. “For the love of . . . wait. There’s a Possessed in the house next door.”
Helo followed her gaze. Sure enough, there he was, in the picture window in the house next to the one they were about to raid. The room was dark, so the man was hard to see, but the unmistakable glowing red eyes and shadowy ghost form sent a shiver up his spine. Had it noticed them? The rest of the team had telltale auras, though Helo doubted the Possessed could see them from his current vantage point.
“Permission for Jeopardy and I to engage and contain the Possessed after you breach,” Helo requested.
“Negative,” Argyle said. “Remain in the vehicle. Goliath, you hang back and make sure the Possessed does not interfere while the rest of us breach. On my mark. Now!”
Shujaa destroyed the front door with a devastating kick, and he, Argyle, and Faramir plowed inside all at once while Goliath sprinted across the front lawn toward the house where Aclima had spotted the Possessed.
Helo yanked his comm out. “This is ridiculous. I’m going to help her.”
He grabbed the door latch, but Aclima dove across the seat and pulled his hand away. “No, you don’t. Goliath’s a big girl and can take care of herself. There might be normals in there. All she’s going to do is make sure the Possessed doesn’t get involved. If you are insubordinate, Argyle’s going to make us do these kinds of missions until he’s satisfied you’ll behave.”
She pulled away. Helo knew Aclima was right, but it still sucked. Goliath crouched behind some bushes next to the Possessed’s front door. Then gunfire and yelling erupted from the basement of the Dreads’ house.
“Too noisy,” Helo commented.
Kaboom!
The basement exploded. The whole house seemed to jump and shift on its foundation, windows shattering, the shock wave rattling their car windows.
Aclima turned to him, face bemused. “That’ll wake the neighbors. I don’t know about you, but I’m learning a lot.”
“We’ve got to help,” Helo said, putting his comm unit back in. “Permission to engage.”
“Negative,” Argyle said, voice strained. “Remain in the vehicle.”
He couldn’t believe it. The mission was obviously going sideways. They could use the help before the real cops showed up. He eyed the door handle.
“Helo!” Aclima said.
“What?”
“Got any twos?”
“Are you serious?” he said, not sure whether to laugh or growl in frustration. Then a Dread lurched out the front door of the burning house. His jeans and T-shirt were charred and tattered, his hair singed and smoking. He hadn’t taken five steps toward the street when Shujaa stepped out of the house and leapt in a high arc, aura flared, and caved the Dread’s head in on the way down with the butt of his Big Blessed Shotgun.
“That was subtle,” Aclima said. “You see anyone looking?”
Helo scanned the street. It was impossible to tell who might be peeking through the slats of their blinds or opening their doors a crack. The Possessed was there, though. He peered out the window for a moment and moved off. Helo shoved his comm unit back in.
“Goliath,” Helo said. “I think the Possessed might be coming out.”
“Copy that,” she said. “Quite a show tonight, eh, Helo?”
“I should have brought popcorn,” he returned.
“Cut the chatter,” Argyle growled. “One Dread burned down here. Status on the second, Shujaa.”
Shujaa had grabbed the Dread by the belt on the back of his pants and dragged him back toward the house, where flames bloomed along the floor.
“On his way back in,” Shujaa said.
Shujaa’s aura flared as he chucked the Dread through the door and back into the burgeoning flames, then followed him inside. After a few moments, Shujaa confirmed the Dread was dust.
“Assemble out back, double quick,” Argyle commanded. “I’ve got Faramir. Everyone else confirm copy.”
Helo wondered what prevented Faramir for answering for himself.
“Copy,” Shujaa said.
A few seconds passed with nothing from Goliath. Helo could see her problem. The Possessed—a slovenly man in gray shorts—had stepped out onto the front porch, and Goliath was crouched behind a narrow section of the house jutting out to the side. If she spoke or moved, the Possessed would hear her.
“Goliath is unable to move or respond,�
�� Helo reported. “A Possessed is close.”
“Run for it, Goliath,” Argyle ordered. “The Possessed isn’t a threat to the operation anymore. We’ll send a team back for it later. The primary mission is complete.”
Goliath sped out of the bushes, the Possessed nearly falling over in shock. He backed into the threshold of the door and caught the frame before disappearing inside in a rush. Some lights flicked on, the Possessed now visible through the picture window. And so was his family. A scrawny woman in a long nightgown and a couple of adolescent boys stepped out onto the front porch, moving toward the driveway as the house next to theirs began to burn in earnest, thick smoke billowing up into the sky. The Possessed stayed inside, beer bottle in hand.
In all his imaginings of the Possessed, he had never thought of them having families, but he supposed it made sense. Cassandra had told him how addiction and compulsion were the key to opening a human body to host an evil spirit, and addiction was found everywhere, suburban homes included. Evil spirits wanted to experience a human body and even human living through another, and this one had picked a family man.
“We’ve gotta do something about this,” Helo said, drawing Aclima’s attention to the family with a nod of his head.
“They just said that they will,” she said. “You stay in the car. You’ve almost completed a mission where you won’t be the controversy. Besides, we’re about to get called off. Now, do you have any twos, or do I need to grab your deck and find them for you?”
People from all up and down the street were coming out of their homes to watch the conflagration.
“Look,” Helo said. “There’s another one.”
Three houses down and across the street, another Possessed wandered out of her home, this one an older woman.
“We’ve got another Possessed,” Helo said.
“Get the address on your way out,” Argyle replied. “You are cleared to leave. We can hear the emergency vehicles en route to this position. Meet at the rendezvous point in twenty. Radio silence until then. Do you copy, Helo?”
