by Brian Fuller
Fear spawned within Helo—and mounted. Devon was doing something even the Dreads feared. Through his body, Devon was bringing something awful into the world.
“Stop!” Helo yelled.
Devon’s lifeless eyes met his, and when the auraless Dread spoke, the tenor of his voice wavered uncomfortably between two tonalities, one not his own. “In acquisition, what you cannot make and what you cannot take, you must gain by giving up something in trade. Avadan!”
A wild-eyed Dread wearing a top hat, sweater, and running shorts stepped forward and repeated what the others had done. One by one, faces solemn, a procession of Dreads marched forward and got into the pool. With each infusion of Vexus, the man Devon changed into someone entirely different, the new features like a mask slowly fusing to the face of the man behind it. Helo expected the Vexus to gather and swirl around its new host, but instead it seemed to disappear.
Was it because Devon was Cain, a Blank Dread? Or was the aura jailed inside him, concentrated in the confines of his heart?
At last, all seven finished. The storm outside blistered in intensity, the gale whipping over the open hold howling. Helo barely heard it. Liquid terror ran through him. It was as if someone had opened a door and let a ravenous wolf inside a room full of helpless children.
Devon was gone. A new man stood in the swirling pool. He was tall, his corpse white and muscular. Shoulder-length raven hair accented a handsome, commanding mien. His eyes were closed, clean-shaven face relaxed. But it wasn’t over. The man’s appearance vibrated and wavered, Devon’s countenance flashing and fading, fighting to return. But the pale visage always surfaced. His eyes opened, black from sclera to pupil. No emotion. No awareness of the hold or the nervous fear of everyone in it, including the Dreads.
Slowly he lowered himself to his knees, water chest deep. The Sheid stepped forward and rammed his arm up into the man’s torso as the Dreads had done. With a push, the Sheid submerged his master in the water, kneeling to keep its arm inside the chest. The Vexus cloud in the pool pulled toward the Sheid as if drawn by a magnet, coalescing about its torso and then pulsing down its arm. Down into the heart of the man it coursed until the water in the pool was free of the nebulous Vexus.
Finished, the Sheid stood and backed away. With the Vexus gone, Helo’s vision improved, but from his vantage point on the floor, he could only see the top half of the Sheid waiting at the rear of the pool. Still, the pale man did not rise. A Dread’s phone’s beeped, signaling the approach of dusk.
Seconds later, the water stirred, and the raven-haired man rose ponderously, as if relishing his birth. No trace of Devon remained. What had taken his place was terrible and beautiful, with commanding eyes—now ice blue—that regarded the room with a cold satisfaction. He studied his hands for a moment and then moved his arms as if warming up for exercise.
“It is magnificent,” he crowed in a voice as deep as the ocean as he admired himself. “Better than I could have hoped for and all the sweeter for having been denied me for so long.” He took in the assembled Dreads. “You have all done well. Your master, Cain, and I are one now, as he promised to me and I promised to him according to the ancient oath. For the first time, I walk as clay upon the earth. You may address me as King, for I was the first throne seeker.”
He stepped over the edge of the pool, Devon’s pant legs rising to midcalf on the taller man. Sheid in tow, King strode toward Helo and Cassandra, stopping and standing over them like a master overlooking two inconsequential slaves. Helo tried to choke off his fear, but he could barely meet the man’s gaze. It wasn’t the evil that exuded from him like a reeking stench. It wasn’t the imposing figure that could break any man. It was the cunning intelligence burning in his eyes. Never had Helo felt so stupid and inferior.
“I see we have two Blanks to convert instead of just one,” King commented. He glanced at Cassandra. “One is nearly broken already.”
King’s presence washed over Helo, a chill not of temperature but of essence beating against his soul and snaking into his mind. The familiar visions of Terissa’s infidelity and his dad’s cruelty resurfaced, but Helo beat the feelings down, anchoring his mind to the memory of Rachel’s light. If only he had that light now. His stomach clenched. Flee! Flee! But he couldn’t.
“Who are you?” Helo asked, forcing his gaze upward.
“I am a king. But I have no throne. For now I must be content to be a general. A general, Trace Daniel Evans, in a war that’s been fought forever. A war you’re fighting right now in your heart. A war you cannot possibly win, whatever lies you’ve been told. You squirm and rail and fight against the wrongs others have done to you. You war against the poison it puts in your veins. You think you can win that war if you forgive them.”
“I have forgiven them!”
King looked down on him and laughed as one would at a fool. “Really? The only way you pathetic creatures can forgive anything is because you do not know the whole truth. You can forgive because your flawed, anemic senses conceal the real thoughts and intentions of others from you. Because your weak minds let the passage of time numb the sting of past wrongs. But is forgiveness really forgiveness if you do not know the full extent of how you have been wronged?”
King crouched down to look him in the eye. “You Christians think the great test of the final judgment is to see if you have done what was needed to be forgiven. No, Trace. It’s not that easy. The real test is to see if you can forgive—forgive everything—when nothing that was ever thought of you or done to you is hidden anymore. If you can still forgive when every treachery committed against you burns eternally and unfadingly bright. If you can forgive yourself when the hot, horrible weight of what you’ve done to others falls without mitigation on your guilty soul. It is a test all of you miserable children are doomed to fail.”
“It can be done,” Trace said between his teeth.
King’s smile was condescending, a college professor staring down at a naive freshman. He stood back up to tower over him.
“I see. So you think you are ready for the test? Shall we see if Trace Daniel Evans’s declaration of forgiveness can withstand the horror of full disclosure? People have wanted to read others’ minds for centuries, thinking it would give them great power. Knowing everyone’s thoughts is the curse God takes upon Himself, forced to rifle around in the infantile trash in your hearts and minds until even He must rue it. I could have prevented all of this pain and misery. I could have prevented it and marched you all back to glory! You would have thanked me for it. But you think you’re so strong. Let us see, then.”
King stretched forth his right hand, a tendril of churning Vexus snaking out and splitting in two. Like vipers they writhed, one striking into Helo’s head and the other into his heart.
Helo fought it. He tried to push the dark creepers away as they entwined about his emotions and his thoughts. But he was too weak. Or King was too strong. The dark hold of the cargo ship faded, and King led him into a world of agony he had never known.
Chapter 38
The Gift
Helo rallied every good thought, every memory of Rapture and Rachel’s glory, but each fell away like a shriveled leaf in autumn. King had him. He waited in the theater of Helo’s mind, a commentator sitting one row behind him, whispering in his ear while scenes from Helo’s life played out on the stage. Argument was useless. Who could contradict the flawless logic, the obvious truths? Who could resist the strangling despair?
“Finding out that Terissa cheated on you with a Dread made it a bit easier, didn’t it?” King said, tone reasonable and sure. “It was balm to your soul to be able to rationalize that he had some supernatural power or seductive skills born of a long life. You could forgive her because you could paint her as a victim. What if I were to tell you that Simon wasn’t the first man to replace you in Terissa’s heart and bed? You suspected it, didn’t you? Remember?”
Helo did remember. He had bricked it away.
King bashed the wall down w
ith a thought.
“It’s time for the truth, Trace. It will set you free, remember? Think. When had you ever beaten your brother at basketball? You knew he let you win that day, but you jumped off the train of logic you were following before it took you into the abyss. Why do you think Brandon would let you win when he never had before? Yes, it’s coming clear to you now. He felt bad for some reason. Hmmm, let’s see if we can find out what that was. That family reunion just after you were married—you went into town with your mom and left your new bride and your brother all alone at the house . . .”
“Don’t.” Trace begged. It was too much.
“Cracking already, Trace? We’ve barely even started! Would you like to see her mind when you returned that day?”
Terissa sat in the front room of Helo’s parents’ home, biting her lip, face torn. An anxious guilt ran through her veins, but her cheeks flushed as thoughts of her encounter with Brandon bloomed in her mind. She had sought Helo’s brother out, seduced him, and now, having succeeded, she was trying to feel bad about it. She rose when she heard the car door slam in the driveway. Biting a fingernail, she peered out the front window. There was Trace, her husband, the man she had promised herself to, helping his mom pull grocery bags out of the trunk.
She had married the wrong Evans. Comparisons between the two brothers flooded her mind. To her, Brandon was the warrior, the hero, the stud, while Trace had turned, in a single afternoon, into a pity date she would just as soon cancel. She knew it was wrong to think of Trace that way, but she couldn’t deny its truth. She would seek Brandon out again. She could hardly help herself. Trace had treated her with respect. He had loved her. But Brandon was everything she thought Trace should have been and more.
The vision ended, Helo gasping like a knife had just twisted in his gut. It had to be a lie. Terissa had loved him, hadn’t she? But the more he tried to defend her, to paint her back into the wonderful portrait in his head, the angrier he became. She had made a fool of him. How dare she treat him that way! How dare his brother, the man he considered a friend above all! The sour ache of shame stoked the fire of fury building within him.
“How’s that forgiveness coming along, Trace?” King said. “Still feeling magnanimous and merciful about your adulterous wife? So much for ‘I do’ and ‘until death do us part.’ And, yes, I can feel it! There’s that delightful sense of inadequacy that followed you like a well-trained dog your whole life. Other people did that to you, you know. I hate to burden you further, but the test gets even worse. How about this horrible conversation you’ll wish you had never heard?”
“What should I do, Dad?” Brandon said over a plate of scrambled eggs. “She’s after me and, well, she’s hard to turn down. Even if I wanted to.”
His father looked at him, lips turning up in a smirk. He shrugged and took a sip of his coffee.
“Brandon,” his dad said, “any girl that boy ever dated liked you better, and that’s not going to change because he marries one of them. He’s never going to keep any girl worth having. Just try to be discreet. For your mother’s sake, if nothing else.”
Ash Angels didn’t get nauseated, but the urge to throw up nearly sent Helo into convulsions. King was right. He had no idea how deep the wrongs perpetrated against him went. They should have loved him. At the very least they should have shown some respect! His guilt over his petty rebellion against his father suddenly seemed silly. His father deserved whatever pain he had suffered over his son not joining the “proper” branch of the military. How could his father hate him so much?
“Feeling better now, aren’t you?” King said. “Good. You remember that day you came home from basic only to have your father shut the door in your face because you weren’t wearing the right uniform? Should I show you the drunken rage afterward where he took his anger out on your mother for coddling you? Would you like to see that, too? Would you like to see a few nights of your mother weeping because you refused to write or to call for months while you were on active duty? Ah! There’s the self-hatred I was looking for.”
King drew near. While only in his mind, Trace swore he could feel the man’s breath warm the back of his ear.
“I haven’t shown you a tithe of all the horrible things your family and your wife thought about you. I haven’t shown you a tithe of the horrible consequences of your mistakes on the lives of those around you. What do you think, Trace? Are you ready to stand before God, as good as you may be, and say to Him that you can forgive others their trespasses? That you can forgive yourself of yours? Of course you aren’t, and if one who is an Ash Angel shrinks at that challenge, what chance will the rest of immature, idiotic humanity have when they have their turn to know and be known as you now know and are known? This is the impossible burden God has placed on His children.”
“Go away,” Helo pleaded, misery lashing his soul.
“Set yourself free,” he offered. “You don’t need to forgive these people. They wronged you. And you don’t need to forgive yourself for wanting to hurt them back. The misery will stop when you quit dancing to someone else’s music and listen to your own.”
Music.
What had Rachel said? You think all the crazy things we can do come from us? We dance in borrowed shoes to music we can’t play. God shines, and if we keep the windows clean, that light just fills us up, and we can do what we never could alone.
Rachel’s words shot through his tortured mind like a fiery meteor, his guilt and shame evaporating under its heat. Confusion melted like a shadow in its light. The weight of its impact shook his soul awake, destroying the chain that bound him to his misery. He finally understood what the angelic Unascended sought to convey to him in Deep 7’s reliquarium that day. His weak heart could not bear the weight. But it didn’t have to. Even angels needed help. And help was there. He just needed to open up and listen to the music that had been there all along.
“I am sorry for what I’ve done,” Helo said, the constriction around his conscience loosening like a snake uncoiling from its prey. The anodyne of Rachel’s truth sealed his wounds with divine fire. “I don’t want to hate or hurt anyone. The weight of my pain is heavy, but I can forgive because my strength is not my own.”
The dark tentacles that had ensnared his heart and mind snapped away like cut high-tension wires. The memories King had dredged up spun back into the recesses of his mind, his vision returning to the dripping, dark hold. King frowned as the wisps of dark power retreated into his hand. The seven Dreads loitered behind him, mute witnesses to the awful scene.
Helo found Dahlia’s eyes, but she looked away, face pale.
“Delusional fool,” King spat.
Helo wished his body worked. He wanted to smack the arrogance off King’s face. His tormentor’s gaze turned to Cassandra. She had curled into a ball, wet sweater clinging to her body as she shook. Thick strands of her blonde hair fell over her wan face and into the gritty water.
King stepped to her side. “I do not think your companion will resist quite as well as you.”
“Leave her alone, you bastard.”
The smoky tendrils twisted out of King’s hands and bit into Cassandra’s forehead and chest. She convulsed as if shocked, back arching and limbs flailing. Her eyes squirmed beneath their lids, her body coming to rest on its back. A corpse-like rigor settled over her, only her eyes still twitching in torment.
King’s eyes closed, his thin-lipped smile like a knife gash on his face.
“Stop it!” Helo begged.
Goutre stepped forward and kicked him in the face.
Two teeth broke, and he spit them out. Fighting his unresponsive body, he rolled over, finding Cassandra pale and lifeless. He was going to lose her. King had entered her playground of pain and found everything he needed to convert her into a Dread.
The beating of helicopter blades thudded somewhere above them. Helo looked up but couldn’t see it in the brief bursts of light. Thunder rolled in the midst of the boom of Big Blessed Guns fired from the
deck.
“Seems your angelic companions have found you after all,” King said unconcernedly. The talisman around his neck glowed against his rain-slicked chest. As one, the Sheid and all the Dreads returned to the center of the hold as the crane lowered the basket at an accelerated pace. Dahlia was right. Devon and now King had complete control. Like mindless slaves they stared, slack faces upturned, as they waited for the swinging basket to hit bottom.
King returned his gaze to Cassandra, the dark probes in her head and heart throbbing, pumping darkness into her soul. She writhed again, curses tumbling out of her mouth in disconnected streams. Helo scooted toward her, his heart a stone. Cassandra’s self-loathing ran deep. King thickened the mire, her angry tirade turning from self-reproach to acidic anger.
Helo, banged and battered, reached out a hand and planted it on the gritty floor. He heaved forward. He had to reach Cassandra. His body didn’t want to work, ribs pulling and snapping as he edged toward her. His leg weighed him down like a useless bag of sand. She was sinking into a mindless fury, eyes closed, head whipping back and forth in the water. The spray from her hair hit his face. There had to be a way to pull King’s darkness out of her, to remind her of the light. The memory of Rachel’s light had pulled him free, once. How could he give that to her?
Rachel.
The answer grabbed him by the ears and shook him. How could he forget? In the abyssal hold of the Tempest, he whispered Rachel’s angelic name.
“Lumina!”
A feeling like the Rapture of dawn ignited within him. Like a bonfire on a winter night, the sweet flame purged him of the horrors of the hold. His leg knit. His back aligned. His crushed ribs snapped together. From terror to bliss in a moment of time. In his mind he fixed his desire for the promised Bestowal, and in a moment’s time it was given. Dolorem had used Imparting to teach him the sword. Helo would use it to save Cassandra.
