Underworld Earth

by Nicholas Gagnier

  When I saved Haven the first time, it was only after convincing a Special Forces discharge to train me in the art of killing. When I felt confident in what he taught me, I drove shrapnel through his neck over my marital bed where we fucked the night before. I burned my house down as he bled out on its sheets, and armed with newfound abilities, confronted the brutal militia he belonged to.

  I took back this goddamn hole in the ground once. Whatever my fate, I can do it again.

  Where in the hell is she?

  It doesn’t matter. Nathan is dead, and living is too bleak an affair to continue attempting a half-hearted version of it.

  I need a distraction, and any will do.

  Weapon trained, I let the lethal end tail the girl. She crosses the street, converses with more armed guards. Judging by the interaction, she is their ally, and a threat to my hometown. The barrel never leaves her, only changing target from between the eyes to the back of her head as she parts ways with the sentries.

  My finger applies pressure to the trigger, and I can’t wait any longer.

  The sound of a bullet released from its chamber shatters whatever fragile peace the town is afforded. The woman’s brain being vaulted out the front of her skull turns every head in a twenty-foot radius. Her body hits the ground in a slump, and someone yells that the town is under attack. I break from the wall, bolting across the street; roughly the same distance between me and the woman I downed. A guard stationed in front of the liquor store is taken by surprise at my pistol’s handle meeting his face. The large man topples to the ground, clutching a broken jaw as he alternates between crying and screaming. Whipping him once would be justice, but this is retribution, and I hit him again for good measure. The sick satisfaction of his face’s mutilation drives it in a third time, and the man’s head falls sideways in a bloody mess.

  If I stay here, no number of shadows will protect me. Chaos envelops the town as Victor Quinn’s men yell opposite orders. One asks where Victor is, the question promptly answered by the man of the hour appearing out the same door the dead woman came from.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  “I don’t know, boss! Think Syd is down!”

  “Came from this way!”

  “Find out where it came from!”

  Some of the guards splinter off from Victor’s entourage, flocking in the opposite direction. One group goes west, the other dispersing east. When the coast is clear, I cut across the park, running crouched to avoid being seen. This filters me directly into someone’s sightline and subsequent gunfire pins me behind a tree; a semi-automatic stream of bullets burrows into the thick trunk. I yell out as one of the bullets almost finds my shoulder, and shrivel at another set of rounds, taking further chunks out of the tree’s base.

  Shouted commands transition to non-verbal forms of communication. The floodlights are switched off, the bonfire in the square extinguished with the sounds of splashing. The street lights were shut off some time ago. Other than the stars above, Haven’s Strip is enshrouded in complete darkness. Whispers and tricks of light coincide with my adjusting eyes, and the voice in my head that regrets ever returning here.

  Nathan is gone. Derek and my mother are gone. Stephanie is dead. Even Mark, who tried to kill me, no longer shares the same plane of existence. I am alone and must watch the world’s end.

  Stay strong, Sammy, my husband’s voice chimes in, soon drowned out by the sound of a cocking rifle at point-blank range. So fixated on the gunman behind the tree, I failed to notice the one in front of me.

  Whichever way I try to run, I take a bullet in the back. On the upside, surrender gets me closer to Victor Quinn, and completing the second half of my objective.

  It’s only a loss if I plan to walk away.

  “Hands up, lady. Nice and slow.”

  Even with the helmet that obscures his face, that phrasing brings back memories of a certain fellow who stole our car on the outskirts of Haven. Protected by a bulletproof vest and a helmet concealing his features, the M16 in my face is our only remaining topic of conversation.

  “Ah,” the man I know as Frank snickers, “I remember you. Guess it was a shorter walk back to Haven than wherever you were headed, huh?”

  I say nothing. Frank can either shoot me or take me hostage. I would be at peace bleeding out at his feet as much as I would killing Victor.

  Frank has other ideas. Smacking my ass, he grabs a fistful of hair, sharply pulling my head back. The gun in my hand falls to the ground, landing at his boot.

  “What do you say we go somewhere more private, huh? Continue what we started on the highway—”

  He is not given the opportunity to complete his sentence. A deep rumbling beneath our feet, and all of Haven at that, is followed by a gushing wind aimed for Frank. The assailing force grazes me as it carries him off. His hand’s violent separation from my hair tears a patch of it out, having been thrown like a freight train hit him out of nowhere.

  When I lift my throbbing head to scan for any sign of Victor, Haven has completely changed. Where the Strip stood, several buildings are levelled. Debris swept into the town square across the street was swallowed by a sinkhole where the park once stood. The sky above is a sickly orange, jaundiced clouds in direct contrast to any storm I’ve ever seen.

  What the hell?

  Bodies are strewn across the downtown arena. Guilty, innocent; their deaths are indiscriminate. None of the guards still stand, swallowed by the sinkhole or among the dead.

  The ground rumbles again. Its tones are starved of treble, a deep wound surfacing out of the Earth itself.

  Taking uncertain steps forward under duress from regular, frequent aftershocks, my head pounds and the now vacant patch of hair stings like Hell.

  I need to kill Victor.

  If I don’t, all these innocent people died for nothing.

  Harper

  I am apocalypse.

  A week ago, I stole a cab off East Broadway in New York City. Driving it into the Hudson River marked the ending to months of futile suicide attempts. Pulled into this cycle of murder, mayhem and general discomfort with the cosmic role afforded to me, I have done as I was told and made sure people who didn’t deserve to die ultimately did.

  Only two names remaining, I am almost free.

  As Sydney fell on the road, the back of her head blown out the front by a single bullet, the trinket around my neck activated, and we were in the final stages of our greatest moral struggle.

  I must help Samantha.

  The star at my collarbone transitioned from silver to gold, granting me powers to bend time and space, fitting through it like an open window and manifesting on the other side. Victor Quinn’s men shouted and scurried in the near distance. They would soon be on her, and she wouldn’t stand a chance of escaping.

  “Kill the bitch!”

  “Shots came from over there!”

  “We’re gonna put you down!”

  The last voice was bloodcurdling. It echoed on shrill syllables, yet the voice was clearly male.

  And that’s when I saw them; my human companion’s head pulled back by a masked male grabbing her hair. I didn’t have a fair look at the man trying to dominate her, but the outcome couldn’t be good if he was allowed to continue.

  The locket’s glow encases my body in faint red light. A single blink vaults me half the distance toward Samantha, bringing her assailant into my line of sight. But I still can’t see him past her head, pushing me another hundred yards east, lining up my final jump towards them.

  In the moment I rush him, his body flops like a ragdoll, cast off toward a patch of trees. I should feel more successful in saving her, but victory does not last long because a separate force intersects with me from the south, ricocheting me in the opposite direction from Samantha’s attacker.

  Those five seconds through the air are faster and more terrifying than anything my own flexible physics could have wrought toward the mortal man. For a second, I believe God might have answered my h
alf-hearted prayers, separating the locket’s clasps around the nape of my neck.

  Cast over the Strip, the force from the ethereal blow sends me through the ground floor of an apartment building’s front facade; it is only by the mercy of my slowing speed I am not flung out the building’s opposite side.

  Within a cocoon of broken plaster and wall studs, I groan, hoisting myself out, stumbling into the street. Wrecked bricks crumble around the buckling exterior into the street below, landing on the sidewalk surrounding me.

  What the hell was that?

  The voice answering that question makes me realize it should have been obvious.

  “Hello, Phoenix.”

  Before this moment, I may have forgotten what physical pain felt like. It has not manifested since I died. I have wished for it, begged for it; anything to feel something other than numb remorse and endless existence. The locket weakens around my neck, and pain radiates through my lower back. I am reduced to crawling on hands and knees before the Nephalim who approaches slowly.

  “Gabriel?”

  The angel who charged me with all this senseless murder smiles. My hands tremble against the ground at this new sensation, burning its way through every inch of my body.

  “You didn’t really think the Atlas would ask you to play savior, did you? I mean, really. You are a gnat among immortals—new and naive, so full of anger. Placing blind faith in you would have been a foolish mistake, Phoenix. By rights, you shouldn’t even be here.”

  At my predicament, Gabriel giggles; it is a terrible sound, considering I have never so much as heard him laugh.

  “I honestly believed you would see right through it, Harper. After all, a deadly virus just... happens to break free of one of the most secure biological containment sites on Earth? No explanation as to how the plague escaped its vials?”

  Looking up at him from my compromised vantage point, I can’t believe I missed it, either.

  “You?”

  Victor’s men dart past us; reacting to their compatriot whom I knocked into the trees. They search for Sydney’s killer; whose bullet broke the woman’s head open like a cracked egg. They all move past us, none taking notice.

  We are the unhinged, and invisible to all.

  Gabriel kneels. Lips pulled up; the smile is terrible to behold. I avoid it until two fingers lift my chin to meet his blue eyes.

  “Shame. Had you told me you were aiding and abetting your friend Death, I might have found an ounce of faith in you. You could have helped bring him to justice, Harper. Instead, you will be remembered as his accomplice.

  “Oh, I knew,” he says. “You cannot get many things by a Nephalim. I know he is the reason the Knox woman lives and will soon wake. I know you have seen him on at least two occasions you failed to mention!”

  The plague is his doing. Withdrawing his slender fingers, my head points back to the ground without their support.

  “So,” he continues, “it seems we are at a crossroads now. Either I let you continue running around, doing whatever you please, or I inform the Council you turned against me... against humanity.”

  “That’s a lie and you know it!”

  The scream from my throat is primal, consisting of more grunt than shriek. Its low tones provoke a smile on Gabriel’s lips. Until they are coursing through me, I am unaware of the electrical currents travelling lengths of the locket’s chain. Once I am, the strength to focus on him is lost, and can only assume punishment is his to dole out.

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

  Indeed, Gabriel wields some form of control over it. All the trinket represents is a prison for my soul, and how the Atlas subjects me to their will.

  Don’t give in to him.

  The locket drags my neck to the ground. Earth is its magnet, calling me home to submission. I can’t see the Nephalim, but know he takes pleasure in every scream.

  “You could have been a force to be reckoned with! Instead, you are governed by emotions that do not serve you. I knew it as soon as you allowed the Knox woman to live. I knew you were abetting the man that Atlas would give anything to apprehend, or that woman would have long been a corpse!

  “Luckily, the Council gave me the means to deal with angels who don’t fall into line,” he concludes. “Goodbye, Harper.”

  The locket emits glimpses of blue. Like tentacles hanging off the main chain, their lines are jagged like electricity, swarming around me. Carried head to toe, they make lifting the head impossible any longer, and my arms buckle trying to support my weight.

  Just as I think the killing blow may be composed of currents travelling through my shell, a high-pitched shriek pierces the night. The crackling static withdraws and looking up to thank my savior, neither they nor Gabriel are present. Air around my pounding head falls quiet, no longer filled with the sound of gunfire from conflicting directions.

  I don’t know where Samantha has gone, but I did everything I could to help her.

  Finally, it’s time to save myself.

  I was once the landslide.

  Once, I was made up of rocks and pebbles. Sitting atop their mountain among larger boulders, an echo through the valleys and summits below shook me, pulling down all my rage and suffering toward its source. It flattened towns and natural formations on the descent, rock bottom met my rage and dust was scattered when the landslide came to its complete halt.

  Following the direction in which a banshee’s scream descended on the Nephalim, carrying him off, I have settled at the bottom for too long. There is no more rage to disperse. The town where I convinced Peter York to help me kill Victor Quinn offers no hope of redemption.

  Walking over Sydney, who I once told Tim was salvageable, she shows no atonement in her blank expression. The bloody hole out the front of her head has steeped into the sidewalk beneath her, and I am glad.

  Stepping around several others like her, I immediately know it to be Samantha’s handiwork. A trail of corpses and debris illustrate where her conflict led, and I can only assume Victor will be in the same place.

  My battle is no longer with them.

  I have to find Gabriel.

  By his own admission, the Nephalim is responsible for all of this. He released the deadliest disease known to man and allowed Victor Quinn to come to power.

  He knew the outcome this whole fucking time.

  Reaching the town square where I meant to face off against Victor, the game has changed. Only Gabriel’s end matters now. Whether sanctioned by Atlas or not, he has gone too far.

  Turning past the park, something smacks me sideways, and I am cast back toward the ground, rolling onto the grass, spinning between views of dirt and sky until coming to a full stop on my stomach.

  “Think your friend Death can save you?” the Nephalim screams over me. His face is bloody and full of scratches, like he fought a cat—a trait I did not know angels could embody. Scrambling to my feet, he strikes me again, baring his bottom teeth. “Think either of you can defeat me? I am Almighty!”

  A third blow sends me onto my side. Shortness of breath I was not aware of drawing stops me getting back up.

  Whatever power Gabriel has over me, it is too strong.

  “You can show yourself now, Mr. Hawkins!” he calls. Turning his back on me, arms raised towards the heavens—as if the Man who became Death will come from that direction—Gabriel will not be caught off guard again.

  But I am an apocalypse and have been underestimated too. Vaulting back to balance, I slam my fist into the Nephalim’s spine. Almost as if the betrayal weighs as heavily on it, the locket flares, adding a ring of fire around my bunched hand. Gabriel stumbles, missing the first retaliatory swing. I counter, my limb of fire connecting with his chiseled jaw. He grabs the lapels of my jacket as I thrust my full weight into his torso, pulling me down with him.

  Together, we would fall forward, but for a black cloud spawning behind Gabriel. Its wisps
of darkness reach out on all sides of our duel, swallowing us in the portal it creates as I am pulled through behind the Nephalim. Next thing I know, we are falling through thin air, punching and kicking at each other.

  I should immediately recognize the transition from Haven to the Arcway—the portal to the afterlife I spent three years helping Tim build. All the while, Gabriel stood over us, challenging every modification and blueprint for its eventual completion. But it happens too fast, and not until we slam into its slick black floors do I recognize the illusion of a starlit canopy. It shatters, raining down around us like glass.

  Both the Nephalim and I struggle for dominance, and I expect the next strike to render me a puddle on the floor. It never comes. Something has taken the wind out of him, and this may be my sole opportunity to win. Throwing every punch I can, landing any hit I will, Gabriel struggles against my fury. The locket glows its extracurricular shade of gold, but now both my hands are one with fire, slamming into him over and over again.

  “Enough!” the Nephalim yells, throwing me off. I roll over the Arcway’s cracked black flooring. A pair of massive hands pull me to my feet; slamming my back into the cosmic wallpaper sends pieces to the floor like shards, shattering further on impact.

  Able to focus on my opponent again, the being named Gabriel has completely morphed. Shoulders have grown to twice their original span. His skin doesn’t glow, but is imbued with Light from within, almost taken on a plastic texture. The features of a man are gone, replaced with an organic faceguard and red eyes above it. His voice is deeper, filled with terrible bass. A giant crack formed in the floor of the Arcway spews violet glow beneath his legs as he chucks me back toward the ground.

  “Had enough?” Gabriel asks. Ready to defiantly tell him no—that I’m a masochist at heart who will take it until he kills me—he is not so keen to listen as lecture.

  “If only you could see the greater purpose here, Phoenix,” the unrecognizable figure informs me, as I lay broken at its feet. “Realize that, despite how it seems, your elimination will ensure the powers that be are well-insulated from your friend’s foolishness.”