Underworld Earth

by Nicholas Gagnier

  That is what you must always be, Olivia said before stabbing me with the katana. You must always put the greater good ahead of yours, or you are no better than Hale was.

  I failed her. Along with the comatose woman who sacrificed her good for the greater, I was not able to do the same, and she paid for my greatest mistake.

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back. But if I do, I hope to find this bed empty, because the Atlas freed you from this state.”

  Machinery continues to whir. All I can do is close my eyes, drowning out distant gunfire of my former charges, and hope she can hear. I would take her with me, if there were any realistic expectations she would survive.

  “Goodbye, Ro.”

  Squeezing one of the hands folded over her solar plexus, her head faces away from me, offering no response as I turn to leave. Only light breathing calls me back. By the time I clear the door, it is pulled under the silence, no longer offering the steady tone of her heart monitor to drown out my guilt.

  It’s time to finish this.

  Samantha

  I don’t know when this went to Hell.

  The shimmering blue door I can only equate to some kind of portal drops us back in the Arizona desert. Its effect is more muted this time; there are no grand displays of night sky wrapping themselves around us. There is only a flash of white light, and my knees sink in sand, fingers digging into parallel grains. The blindness fades, and I distinguish Nathan’s silhouette. His arms cross over his mutilated midriff, legs spread, shoes pointed to the cloudless sky.

  I can’t look at him.

  Harper waits where I emerged from the portal. I don’t acknowledge her, or the body of the boy I created, spread-eagled in the sand. Sneakers that Derek and I bought him less than a month ago are coated in white sediment climbing up the knees of his jeans.

  “You alright?” she asks. There is no pleasure or affection in her words. The woman may be a walking corpse, but like me, is dead inside.

  “I don’t even know how to answer that question,” I tell the sands, wanting nothing more than to lay down in them and die.

  Harper chuckles.

  “They call me Phoenix, you know. Phoenix, the Phoenix. Not sure on the article. I didn’t come up with it.”

  “Why? Why would they call you that?”

  “Because of this.” She holds up an object around her neck by its glaring pendant as the chain attached to it digs into her skin, leaving no red outline when it drops back to its resting position. “I inherited this thing. Some locket that ensures I can’t die completely.”

  I scoff.

  “Most people would not be unhappy about living forever, no?”

  “Maybe. When it came into my possession, I was told it was for safekeeping,” she explains. “The woman who gave it to me said I should pass it down to my children. But I died before having any. And then, I just woke up—from that day on, I couldn’t die, even if I didn’t want to live.”

  Letting go of the chain wrapped around her thumb, it falls back at her collarbone, dangling as Harper kneels beside me.

  “I can’t even... begin... to relate to your loss, Samantha. Tim can be cold about it, but I would also be a bit frigid if I only dealt with dead people entering the afterlife. Take what he says with a grain of salt, okay?”

  “Kind of hard when he’s trying to convince you the child you spent two lifetimes raising is not real.”

  The angel shakes her head.

  “Of course he said that. The point is, some version of this Sam Wallace will always exist. The one who’s happy and doesn’t ultimately lose everything. I know what it’s like. But... we can’t get it back unless we lift a finger to try, right?”

  “So, what you’re saying is... we need to save Haven?”

  Harper nods.

  “Maybe not right away. We have some time. That is,” she grimaces, “if you would like to do right by your son.”

  Somehow, I was transported to an alternate timeline, stripped of all my memories and left to play at house. I forgot that under different circumstances, my loving husband left me for another woman; my son still had affection for the man, and I became a murderer to save my hometown.

  I don’t know when this all went to Hell and frankly, don’t care. Burying Nathan away from Younglight, under a rock with a red cloth flag cut from the seam of his polo shirt, its fabric is stained brown as it flaps in the wind, marking my son’s final resting place.

  Harper said nothing as I dug at the earth. She disappeared for a while; returning with a shovel. I was too thankful to ask. She watched my foot press metal into the ground, pulling up all my emotions with the patches of dirt and grains tossed aside. Some of it blew back in my eyes and mouth.

  Under the blazing sun, I sweated and wiped my brow until a hole deep enough was carved out of the Earth. Harper helped me lower the body into its final resting place, offering a hand to lift me out of the pit. The locket glowed gold around her neck when I could have sworn it was silver earlier, but such questions are beyond my ken.

  Any parents burying their child is a tragedy; any parent who has to do it twice is in a special kind of Hell. At least the first time he died, someone buried him in the ground on my behalf. All I can do now is stare at his closed eyes and bloodied center where the bullets went through.

  I did this.

  “Here lies Nathan Wallace,” Harper says, when I can’t manage the words myself. “A son, friend and all-around hero. I remember the first time we met. You had just seen me do something neither of us could explain. Something I still can’t rightly explain to this day. And when I wanted to give up, so convinced we would never make it home... you refused to let me quit.”

  I can’t speak, caught somewhere between wanting to die and murdering everything that still lives. My lip furls, but the twirling shovel in my hand does not reach for the uprooted sand, so Harper keeps talking.

  “The woman who brought me to see you,” she admits, changing the subject, “in the graveyard... is my partner. Was. I’m not sure where I stand on that anymore. It’s been something like fifteen years now.

  “She took care of me until I died. I don’t remember much after the diagnosis... only everything after waking up.”

  Harper must realize what she’s saying is not really a eulogy for my son, but I have no wish to interrupt her.

  “I went to see her. Michaela. Em, as she likes to be called. And…” The angel struggles to keep her voice from cracking, exhaling through a small opening in her lips. “She didn’t remember me.”

  “What?”

  Harper doesn’t meet my stare.

  “Whatever Tim had done at that point, that was the moment I understood. It wasn’t because I looked on television and saw the Twin Towers standing one day, when they’d been long gone the day before. Wasn’t waking up and realizing Rupert Smith was President instead of Barack Obama, or that it was suddenly 2011 again, and those years had to be relived. All these things should have been a dead giveaway, but... they never were. It wasn’t... until I went home and tried talking to the person I love... and she didn’t know who I was!”

  We stand there for a while, until I find the courage to balance a small piece of earth on my spade. She watches the shovel turn its contents over, releasing the first grains over Nathan’s body. With every subsequent downpour, it becomes easier.

  “Sorry,” she says. “This should be your moment. Don’t mind me.”

  “It’s all right,” I reply, readying another spadeful. “Sometimes, it’s not the worst thing in the world, being reminded other people have problems, too.”

  For every inch less I see of him, the world becomes a little easier to distinguish. Guilt fades, and I can make out the endless desert panorama beyond the glare of the mid-morning sun. Remorse will return, but for now, I can focus on the outlines of rock formations dotting the landscape between trees.

  The problem being; the only world left that I can see within them is drenched in red.

  Harpe
r

  We are the unhinged.

  The trip from Arizona was straightforward as a cloud of shadow enveloped Samantha and me. It wrapped itself around our bodies in a wisp, curling around every curvature until we were similarly consumed inside its weightlessness. Spirited hundreds of miles north—past rivers and valleys, marshes and gorgeous, haunted landscapes—the entire process was over in seconds.

  A lifetime of thoughts must have raced through our heads. For Samantha, our return to Haven is the chance to avenge her son. Not that Victor Quinn or Sydney Mayhew were the cause; they're merely a symptom of the sickness that washed across the continent, claiming Nathan in its depraved husk.

  For me, the backwater town offers opportunity to complete the task bestowed by Atlas and be free of the Council’s sway. I anticipate the moment I can spit in their faces, say their will is done, and walk away forever.

  Left on a ledge of balding grass, overlooking the town itself, reckoning is inevitable. Whose reckoning—mine, Victor Quinn’s, or Earth itself—will be answered in a matter of minutes.

  Samantha scans the roads below, surveying the town square. Bodies in the double digits gather in front of a massive bonfire. Her eyes fall on Victor Quinn, pacing back and forth. Aviator shades are the only article of clothing above the waist as he consults his armed troops. I can’t hear what is said but no part of me wishes to hear another word from that monster’s mouth.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Sam asks. “Unless you mean to send me against a small militia, unarmed.”

  “Not at all,” I reply, “All you need to do is corner Victor.”

  “And how do you propose I do that? I count at least... twenty men with him! And those are only the ones we can see.”

  Reaching into the waistband of my pants—I could have stored the weapon somewhere less obvious, but human logic dies hard—I produce the gun used to murder Peter York.

  “Start with this.”

  “Where did you get this?” she asks.

  I shake my head, unwilling to relive that night.

  “Doesn’t matter. Take it, make your way down to Haven. I will clear you a path to Victor. Stay low and out of sight. Let me do the rest. You should be able to pick up something stronger along the way.”

  She looks down at the gun in my outstretched grip. Her fingers reluctantly pry the weapon from my own, concealing it. Her hair is matted in comparison to my unspoiled strands, her face stained with grime in ways my own never will be again.

  “Okay,” she says, making for the rugged path down to Haven’s lower elevation, when I call her back.

  “Be careful and wait for my signal.”

  She nods in return. To say anything else would rob her of the perfect resolve Nathan’s death instilled, and I won’t take that from her.

  All that matters now is freeing the little girl who did nothing to deserve being Victor’s prisoner. The only thing I care about is fulfilling the Atlas’s wishes and liberating Fiona York from a town no longer worth saving. When Gabriel bestowed this task on me, there was still a chance to circumvent it; glimmers of hope I would not have to become a monster to save the world.

  Boy, was I wrong.

  A familiar sensation rumbles over my collarbone. Light pours between the locket’s metallic seams, and I blink out of the mountainous crevice. Emerging between tree lines, Samantha’s hometown filters into full view, and I blink again.

  The men occupying Haven’s main throughway of commercial buildings and plazas gather in a park near the town’s center. The corresponding marble monument is not much to behold, at least compared to the small army entrenched inside of it. They are heavily armed, most carrying assault rifles on their shoulders by nylon straps. The handful not carrying automatic weapons are outfitted with pistols. An idle tank, stolen in Quinn’s raid on Fairchild, lurks near the gated entrance, but does not seem to have an occupant.

  Obviously, the Council is in panic; why else would the most famous Nephalim show his face in this lowly realm?

  Blinking closer to the town’s center, Victor’s men all don thick body armor, and would gun down Samantha easily.

  Not on my watch.

  The Breach is a serious occurrence, Harper. It is expressly forbidden for Death to interfere in such a way that he did.

  I have done everything asked of me. And yet, Gabriel sees my refusal to do it the Atlas’s way as an affront to the mission. He isn’t the one driving in the proverbial knife; he just wants to dictate the angle. This locket I have tried so hard to be rid of is the only thing still allowing autonomy from my celestial minder.

  There is a reason it does not abandon you, Phoenix. It chose you, same as it chose Olivia. The locket is more powerful than you can ever imagine.

  If the Atlas wanted subtlety, they chose the wrong fucking immortal.

  One final blink places me directly in their line of sight. Were it not for my decision to remain invisible, thirty-five trigger fingers would lapse inward, sending bullets flying at a being none would penetrate.

  I want Victor to think he can win; and when he is dying, I want him to know.

  Protect my daughter. Please... don’t let them hurt her.

  I can already taste the victory. Glancing at my surroundings for a threat I could take advantage of—exposed wires, a faulty mechanical switch in the exterior infrastructure—I savor the sweet moment I can stare into Victor Quinn’s eyes and tell him karma has arrived.

  A set of shots ring out across the square, pulling all eyes northwest of the park. Victor’s men scramble and panic, yelling out commands to one another as they flank the area, searching for the assailant.

  It could have been Samantha.

  Across from the park, a familiar face emerges from within one of the shops. Pistol in hand, I immediately recognize Sydney Mayhew as she barks orders at the men surrounding her to regroup with Victor.

  Dammit.

  I told her to wait for my fucking signal.

  Still unseen by all the involved parties, my blood boils as I watch Sydney round the corner, pursuing my only remaining ally in the world. My heart hurts for misjudging the woman who saved me in the Shroud so badly but feels relief at the idea Peter York’s murder will soon be avenged, and his little girl made safe once more.

  Samantha

  Homecoming is a bleak affair.

  When Derek and I were young, the term meant something completely different—vain, shallow, no great indicator of how successful we would become in life, or not. A week before Homecoming—after a tumultuous period wondering if my future husband would choose me over fucking Mariela Layton—he asked the question, and we never looked back.

  Of course, in one timeline, he met a woman named Lorelai years later; sat me on the end of our marital bed, took my hands in his and professed his love for her. In that timeline, it was Mariela all over again.

  But in another reality, the one I chose, we moved far away with our baby boy. I never heard that whore’s name, and we lived happily ever after.

  At least, until my mother died.

  In that reality, my husband and son are dead, and nothing matters. There are no streamers to Homecoming; there is no band but the sound of voices I mean to subdue by murdering Victor Quinn.

  For all I know, these are the last people in the world. I would not be sorry to see them wiped off the face of the Earth so I could wander it alone.

  Maybe Harper needs a companion.

  Peeking out from between two buildings, I attempt counting the number of men patrolling the square. Civilians are sparse, likely kept within an enclosed space for better control. Marking at least twenty armed guards, several more must be stationed within buildings surrounding the small park. Far more than Campbell Madison’s Haven, which consisted of ten well-armed men.

  In comparison, Victor’s boys are gods, outfitted with rocket launchers, AK-47s and tanks in the streets. I don’t rightly know where they acquired so much packing power, and don’t care. My family is dead, and there is little reason to con
cern myself with survival. That gives me the ultimate advantage over Victor Quinn, no matter how many weapons are at his disposal.

  The first impulsive gunshots drew them out. I watched as a woman came out of the same liquor store Selene and Ben Dorset used to kick us out of for attempting to buy alcohol underage. I didn’t recognize her, despite being the only female among them.

  Giant flood lights affixed to the stores’ shared rooftop cast beams over the park, but somehow miss the thirty something woman sneaking past Victor’s patrols. So concentrated on threats within the town, rather than coming from outside of it, their backs are all turned to me, crawling on my stomach well under their glow.

  The girl doesn’t move like a hostage or have binds restricting movement, suggesting complicity in Haven’s management. Rifle too heavy for my small shoulders, I lift its strap over my head, setting it on the ground. Acquired from a guard at the west road leading into town, I may regret leaving it yet. I unholster my pistol, assuming a prone position. On the sidewalk across from operational storefronts on Main Street’s left side, I scrape elbows against pavement to pull myself along until I reach the end. I grunt and pull and stifle my discomfort to advance to the strip mall’s back alley.

  A gray brick wall facing a row of green dumpsters on the fence across from it will provide adequate cover for now, offering a full view of the town square around its corner. Six men with rifles guard a massive metal chassis on chained wheels. No doubt they raided the Air Force base near Spokane, taking anything that wasn’t nailed down. All the males don Kevlar and head gear. The only woman among them foregoes cranial protection, barking orders at the idling sentries.

  Harper said to wait for her signal, but the opportunity to scatter them is too tempting. I slowly raise my pistol, lining up the woman’s forehead in my sights.