Dread Uprising

by Brian Fuller

  “Yes.”

  “Then it may be her. She’s the other face I’ve seen, the two of you for years now. You know the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible?”

  “Sort of. Cain killed Abel. The first murder, right?

  “That’s right. The Christian version has it that Cain got all in a huff over the Lord accepting Abel’s sacrifice and not his and that’s why he killed him. A Jewish tradition throws in a few juicy details. You see, Cain and Abel each had a twin sister. Abel’s twin sister was Jumelia. Cain’s twin sister was a little dish named Aclima. When Adam told each brother to marry the other’s twin, Cain got angry and wanted his own twin sister to wife. They settled the little contest with sacrifice, and that’s when Cain lost, killed Abel, and ran off with his own sister. Quite the scandal, I’m sure.”

  “They’ll never believe it,” Helo conjectured.

  “Maybe, maybe not. That won’t matter to you. I’ve been Unascended for thirty-two years. Thirty-two! You’re not even that old, are you?”

  “No.”

  “It’s so strange. Well, it’s said we are Unascended because we haven’t finished some task uniquely ours. I think I know mine now.” Rachel stopped and turned, face troubled. “You want to kill her, don’t you?”

  “She helped take down a plane full of innocent people. She’s a Dread. Of course I do.”

  Rachel reached out and grabbed his hand, her radiance enveloping him. His feelings softened, like when his mom blew on a burn. Her radiance grew in glory and power. “This is the message I have been bidden to give you, Helo. It’s about Dahlia. Believe her. If you do, she will save you.”

  His eyes were slits, so overwhelming was the light. “Save me how?”

  “In all the ways that matter. Listen carefully, Helo. My time is short. In the economy of heaven, there is a hope for every hurt, a love for every loss, and a savior for every satan. Remember that. I have a gift to give you before my chariot swings down to carry me home. Think hard now. If you could choose one Bestowal for your own, which would you choose?”

  He could no longer see her form, his vision completely washed out, and he closed his eyes, fearing they would be burned from their sockets. He needed time to think. “I don’t know.”

  “When you do, say my name and it will be given. Tell the Grand Archus I am sorry. He is a good man. Trust him, too. Remember my name, Helo. I am the Angel Lumina.”

  The radiance behind his eyelids faded, and he opened them again. Rachel rose slowly toward the ceiling, a star of power on a journey to the sky. She passed through the roof of the room, and everything went dark. Only the aura of the sanctified weapons cast small pools of light along the back wall. The life of the room was gone, the warmth and reverence replaced by an empty cold.

  His emotions and thoughts wandered between the marvelous power of the experience and the perplexing message. Believe Dahlia? Helo had believed her, though after the downing of the plane, he doubted her sincerity. Why would believing her save him? Would she keep following him around, keep helping him?

  The whirring and clanging of the door opening startled him, and he moved out of the shelves to see who was coming. Maybe the soldiers had come to collect him for more questions. To his relief, Cassandra, Corinth, and Goldbow entered, faces grim.

  “Lights!” Cassandra barked, and the room was illuminated by lights in the floor and ceiling.

  “So, I guess you’ve heard I’m gone,” Helo said while walking to meet them. “You guys get kicked out too?”

  “No, Helo,” Cassandra said. “Look, it’s not fair, and it sucks and everything else. Just hang in there, okay?”

  “Just me, then?”

  “Yeah, it should be me too,” Cassandra replied, “but with Ramis the head of the Gabriels now—”

  “You’re kidding!” Helo interjected, shocked.

  “I wish I was. Maggie resigned—or rather, was forced to resign—and since our boy Ramis gets results, he’s our new head of the Gabriels. Sucks, but since he is one of the few members of the Archai who trusts me, I get to stay on. Maggie’s going to disappear for a while like you, but by choice. When you get to wherever you’re going, they’ll get you some starter cash and an Ash Angel phone. It will only work for ten minutes before sunset. When they’re ready for you to come back in, they’ll send a message. Otherwise, the phone is a pretty worthless brick. Get a normal phone and send me the number. I’ll try to keep you filled in.”

  Helo nodded, feeling like a kid being forced to go to summer camp while the rest of the family went to Disneyland. “All right. Thanks, Cassandra, for everything.”

  “Think of it as a vacation, Helo. I’ll be sure to have a stack of forms waiting for you when you get called in.”

  “Can’t wait,” he said, forcing a smile.

  “Take care, my friend,” Corinth said, laying a man hug on him.

  Helo turned to Goldbow and shook his hand. “Take care of her, Goldbow.”

  He put his arm around Cassandra’s waist, eyes bright. “You got it.” Cassandra threw him a gooey, affectionate look so not her that Helo nearly fell over. On a face he was so used to seeing in the throes of irritation, it was almost as beautiful a view as seeing Rachel pass into the next life in a blaze of glory. Almost. They stood around uncomfortably for a few moments, when thinking of Rachel and her message about Dahlia reminded him of something.

  “I almost forgot. When I was interrogated, I told them about Dahlia and the marks on her arm, but they never asked me what they looked like.”

  “That’s because they think the whole Dahlia thing is some sort of Dread trick at best,” Cassandra said. “They’re convinced she’s real but don’t believe much you’ve said about her.”

  Helo folded his arms. “Yeah, whatever. Look, I’ll draw them, and if you can get the Scholus to look into it, maybe it will help some piece of the puzzle fall into place. Maybe Rachel had some paper in her desk back here—”

  Corinth’s eyes shot up. “Rachel the Unascended?”

  “Yeah, well, Rachel the Ascended now,” Helo corrected, leading them toward the rear of the room.

  “They had her down here? When did she ascend?” Corinth asked.

  “Just before you guys came in. It was . . . amazing. Hard to describe.” They all stopped dead in their tracks, and Helo turned back toward them. “What?”

  “You saw it?” Cassandra asked, face in awe.

  “I did.” And he was quiet for a moment. “Haven’t you ever seen anyone ascend?”

  “I think we all have,” Cassandra said. “We celebrate them when we can. But when an Unascended finally returns home, it’s different. They say the light is so bright you can’t see and that one witness receives some kind of a blessing. Is it true?”

  “Yes. All of it,” Helo replied.

  “You lucky little jarhead, you!” Cassandra exclaimed. “There’s only one other Unascended left. Silas, I think. Wonder what hole they have him stuck in? So what was the gift?”

  “That I could call upon her name and I would receive whatever Bestowal I wanted.”

  “That is the bomb!” Corinth exclaimed. “I would totally choose Beauty and never leave home without it burning loud and proud. With that and my guns and buns, I’d be irresistible, even to Cassie.”

  Cassandra shot him a disgusted glare. “You need help, Chumpkins. Seriously. I’d do Exorcise. It’s rare and desperately needed out there.”

  Goldbow thought for a moment. “Holy Wrath, for sure. Also rare but totally unbeatable. I’ll let Cassandra handle the Beauty side.”

  Another affectionate smile. Clearly the two had bonded over something.

  “So what’s it going to be, Helo?” Goldbow asked.

  “I haven’t decided. I think I’ll wait until I really need something and then choose.” He arrived at Rachel’s desk. “Here we go.”

  Rachel’s desk was scattered with papers and books. There were sketches of people and places taped to the wall, and the computer was practically buried, evidencing t
hat its owner didn’t care to use it much. Helo found a pen and paper and started sketching when Goldbow interrupted him.

  “Did the symbols look anything like those?” he asked, pointing to one of the sketches on the wall.

  Helo glanced up, and there, right by the desk, was a drawing of the three symbols he had seen engraved on Dahlia’s arm, dated four days ago. He carefully pulled the sketch down.

  “This is it. She saw them,” Helo said, tracing the odd figures reverentially.

  “Saw you too, and Dahlia,” Cassandra added, pointing to the two portraits next to each other.

  “She must have been a Visionary,” Helo commented.

  “Of course,” Cassandra said. “The Unascended have all Bestowals. Did she tell you something before she ascended? Or did you just walk in and pow!—she was gone?”

  “Just some advice. Look, let the Scholus know these are down here. Who knows what else she has in this pile.”

  “I’ll try, but Ebenezer is a stubborn old goat who thinks you’ve got a great imagination,” Cassandra said. “Give me a hug now. We’ve got to get going. We’ve got a lead on your mystery man. But don’t ask! We’ve been told not to tell you anything. Sorry.”

  “I get it.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Goldbow asked. “I can see if I can pull a few strings in the Michaels and keep you on the inside, even if it’s just doing grunt security work.”

  “Thanks,” Helo replied. “I think I’ll go hang out with Dolorem at the Redemption Motorcycle Club. Just don’t get too attached to whatever new Gabriel they send to take my place.”

  The robotic heart extractors at Deep 7 impressed Helo with their precision. They had his heart extracted, diced, and burned in a matter of minutes. To retrieve his sword and his motorcycle, he asked to be returned to the Midwest Operations Center where he had left them. As if to drive home the reason for his expulsion, two armed Michaels escorted him everywhere until he exited the Rafael’s Goodwill Barn with a nearly useless Ash Angel phone and $5,000. March had just turned the corner, and the air was still nippy, but the roads were clear as he powered his bike south toward Arizona and warmer climes.

  The daylong trip and the monotony of the highway whipping by cleared his head, though what Rachel had said about Dahlia bothered him. If Biblical tradition was correct, claiming to be Cain’s sister would make her six thousand years old. Not only would she have been Cain’s sister, but the daughter of Adam and Eve. A shiver went up his spine whenever he thought about it. Dahlia seemed sincere when she claimed the Aclima name for herself. Still, if she had been a Dread for thousands of years, then she was probably a Mozart in the art of lying.

  Believe her. If you do, she will save you.

  Surely Rachel hadn’t meant that he should accept everything the woman said as the truth, but how one could trust a Dread lay beyond his understanding. And on what path did Dahlia think the word Aclima would take him? As the miles whipped by, one word stuck out in his mind, a word both the man and Dahlia had said. Millennia. In the bathroom the man mentioned he hadn’t been normal for millennia. On the plane, Dahlia said she hadn’t confessed for millennia and that she had known the man for a long time. If she were Aclima, as she claimed, and if she and the man had known each other for millennia, was she suggesting the man was Cain?

  When the idea hit him, he nearly steered his motorcycle into a ditch on the side of the road. He should have paid more attention in church! He vaguely remembered that God had cursed Cain somehow after he had killed his brother, but the particulars escaped him. As Phoenix slid up from the desert and into view the next morning, his mind writhed with questions. Dolorem was steeped in religious lore, and Trace sped forward, anxious to run the ideas by him.

  Before turning his motorcycle to the Redemption Motorcycle Club, he took a side trip to set himself up with a normal cell phone and send his contact information to Cassandra. She never texted back an acknowledgment, and he wondered if she had a new mission already. He missed her. He missed his team. Filling the empty hours between missions had always cursed him. Now the missions were gone. What would he do all day?

  He arrived at the Redemption Motorcycle Club a little before noon. Dolorem’s massive Harley and a sporty gray Nissan waited in the parking lot. Helo removed his helmet and set it on his seat while he looked the building over. Everything damaged in the Dread attack had been repaired by Dolorem and his faithful flock. The chapel side building looked clean and sharp with a fresh coat of tan paint on the redone stucco facade. A metallic silver cross over the doorway replaced the wooden one that had once hung there, and the motorcycle with the twin-haloed exhausts had been repainted.

  Helo pushed open the new glass door, a little bell jingling as he entered. The interior looked much as it had. The simple benches had been repainted white, but the podium and raised dais were just as he remembered them. A new ceiling fan spun at the center of the roof, teasing the loose edges of the motorcycle posters lining the walls. The door to Dolorem’s office stood ajar in the back, light spilling onto the shadowy dais.

  Helo flipped on the lights. A woman’s black purse sat on the back bench.

  “Anybody home?” Helo called as he walked up the center aisle.

  The chair in the office creaked, but instead of Dolorem, Dahlia strode purposefully out the door, favoring her left leg. She wore her Hammer Bar and Grill outfit and regarded Helo with a placating look, lifting her hands in the air in a sign of truce. The Vexus she had absorbed from the atrocity site still swirled about her, and however beautiful she was, the ugly associations of the plane wreck and what dark powers she held turned her into an object of fear.

  Helo drew his katana. “Where’s Dolorem?”

  She stopped in front of the podium. “He wasn’t cooperative, so I had to restrain him. Just hear what I’ve got to say. Please!”

  “Make it fast, Dahlia,” he growled, everything urging him to hack her down despite Rachel’s instructions.

  “I have to know what passed between you and . . . the man. Why did he want to kill you so quickly?”

  “It’s Cain, isn’t it?” he said. “Devon is Cain.”

  She stared at him as if in a war with herself. “I cannot speak of him. What did he say?”

  Helo weighed his options. His original theory that the man had sent her to find out what he knew made less and less sense. The man had to know the Ash Angels had debriefed him. The damage was done—unless the man somehow knew that most of the Ash Angel leadership thought the reports delusions or lies. Helo decided to tell her, though he would try to get something for the knowledge.

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me how you manage to find me wherever I go.”

  She shook her head. “I told you he forces us to keep these secrets. I can’t tell you, or I swear that I would.”

  Believe her. If you do, she will save you.

  “Okay. If I tell you, will you leave me alone?” he asked.

  “If he lets me, I will.”

  “After your friends broke me to pieces—”

  “They are not my friends,” she said, face registering disgust.

  “Sorry. After those guys broke me into pieces and tossed me in the tub, the man came in acting all cocky and started asking about my past. I saw the talisman he wears around his neck glow, and you came in as if summoned. He ordered you to get the camera. I’d seen that pendant before at the graveyard when he replaced Tela Mirren with the Sheid.”

  “That was your team in the graveyard?” she asked, eyes wide.

  “Yes.”

  “He was furious after that. Does he know it was you?”

  “I doubt it. He arrived late with the Sheid to do cleanup. That’s when I saw him use it for the first time to call back one of the Dreads that ran away.”

  She scrunched her eyebrows and sat down on the edge of the dais. “And you’ve told all this to your superiors?”

  “Yes. Have you seen it?”

  “No. I’ve never seen him wear a pendant of any
kind recently. Are you sure? You said it glows when he uses it?”

  “That’s what I saw, Dahlia.”

  “Why have none of us seen it?” she wondered aloud to no one in particular, staring into empty space for several moments until her phone went off. She stiffened and stood.

  “Listen carefully,” she said, speaking rapidly. “After I answer this call, there will be no peace for you. You are hunted, and I cannot disobey what I am told to do. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Helo answered, the katana’s hilt tight against his hands.

  She jogged toward the outer door, frowning. Before she reached the door, she turned toward him. “Thank you for what you did for me at the bar. It’s been a long time. I am sorry.” She turned back to the door and answered the phone. “Hello?” she said, stopping as she placed her hand on the handle. “Yes, he’s at the club. Yes, I am here.” After listening for a moment, she clicked the phone shut and threw it onto the black purse.

  “What did they say?” Helo asked. When she faced him again, the Dahlia he knew was gone. She was a puppet controlled by an unseen master, her eyes afire with a new purpose—to destroy him.

  Helo brought his sword up.

  A desecrating red glow flowed out of her, painting the floor with an evil aura. Helo groaned, his mortal senses livening. She charged. The footfalls came too fast. She had Speed.

  She was on him before he could blink. He heaved his sword back to swing it. Too slow. Her open-palmed hit to his chest was so strong he flew backward ten feet into the podium. The faux wood cracked and collapsed, pain lancing up his back and searing his mind. The katana flew from his hands and stuck into the back wall, wiggling there. He rolled himself out of the wreckage. She had Strength.

  “Dahlia!” He came to his feet, trying to call forth the woman he had talked to but moments before. Only the instinctual animal remained. A torching red aura blasted outward from her, filling his vision. He staggered, fighting to keep his mind and his emotions his own, to keep Dahlia in his eyes, but it wormed its way inside.

  2:45 in the afternoon. Basic training was over, and he’d been given a weeklong furlough before his first deployment. Every attempt to call his mom and dad to tell them the time his flight would land had resulted in an answering-machine recording. He waited on the curb at the airport, thinking they would have the decency to give him a ride. After an hour and a host of failed phone calls, he gave up and signaled a cab. He watched the trees pass by, every mile closer to home widening the hole in his stomach and deepening his trepidation. He was their son. They wouldn’t turn him away.