Shooting Eros - The Emuna Chronicles: Book 1: Hell-bent (Shooting Eros Series)

by Benjamin Laskin

  “Yeah. Before I met you, I was in the Midrashic chamber. Captain Cyrus was already in there when I arrived. I mean, he was really in there; doing stuff I had no idea was even possible. I don’t know what he was doing exactly, but he was sure working hard, all trembly and everything. His eyes were rolled up into his head. Captain Volk, I didn’t know we cupids could sweat—”

  Volk snatched the jewel from my hand and gave it a quick examination. He closed his eyes, the crystal inside his clenched fist. I noticed a violet light emitting from between the wedges of his fingers.

  Then he looked up, an expression of deep pain and dread on his face. “Oh no…” he murmured. “C, what have you done…?” The captain turned to me with urgency. “How long ago was this?”

  “About three hours ago by now. Is something wrong?”

  My answer was Volk’s lightning departure. Five minutes my ass! Gobsmacked, I watched as he traversed the entire obstacle course in under sixty-seconds! I had never seen the captain move like that before. He darted, leaped, twisted, dove, nearly flew across that obstacle course. I could hardly believe my eyes. Man, I’ll never get that good!

  Captain Volk could have just dashed around the obstacle course, but he was always a teacher first. He wanted to prove to me that he wasn’t jerking my chain, as I stupidly accused him of doing. He wanted to show me my potential.

  I sighed. Living up to one’s potential can be a big pain in the butt. I shook off my frustration and began to jog in the direction of the cave.

  23

  Sackcloth and Ashes

  I rushed into the Midrashic Chamber, slipped, and fell flat on my back, bashing my head on the hard granite floor. I groaned, looked to my side, and was astonished to see that the floor was covered with hundreds of Captain Cyrus’s jewel-like drops of sweat. But no Captain Cyrus.

  I sat up, rubbed the hurt from the back of my head, and then reached for one of the crystals. I examined it carefully, wondering what the heck it could mean. I flicked it with my thumb, shooting it like a marble against the polished granite wall—ting. I swept up a handful of the glassy beads, dropped them into my pocket, and left to continue my search for the captains.

  I looked everywhere for them: the archives, our different workout spots, their homes, and all over the Academy and its campus. I couldn’t find them anywhere. I finally gave up and meandered back to my dorm room, puzzling over what might be transpiring. I recalled the look of dread on Volk’s face as he held Cyrus’s crystalized drop of sweat, and his dire words: “C, what have you done…?”

  Something awful was afoot, but I hadn’t a clue what it might be.

  Virgil greeted me with a groan. “Hey, Kohai.”

  He was lying on his bunk with a fat lip, an ice pack over one eye, tape around his chest, and cuts and bruises over the rest of his body. He was squinting at a manual of some sort.

  “Good grief, Virgil,” I said, taking up one of the rickety wooden chairs. “Again? Who keeps beating the snot out of you?”

  “No one,” he muttered. “I’ll be fine.”

  I knew Virgil was one of the best fighters among the cadets, so I figured they made him spar with two or three guys at once. I also knew that Virgil was too proud to make excuses.

  Rather than embarrass him I said, “Whattaya studying?”

  “We got a test tomorrow on the new rules of engagement.”

  “A proposal, a ring, a wedding. What’s there to know?”

  “Not marriage engagement,” Virgil said. “Demon engagement.”

  “Oh, so now we’re matching up demons?”

  “Very funny, Kohai. But, you’re not that far off. It’s about how not to engage the enemy. Engage as in fight.”

  “What are you talking about? I thought that there was only one rule for dealing with demons: find them and kill them.”

  “Not anymore. Now there are all these new procedures we must do before we are allowed to resort to force.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Dunno, but those are our new orders.”

  “You’re supposed to put your life on the line so that our sworn enemies can choose to live to fight another day?” I said, incredulous.

  “Yep.”

  “And what do the demons have to do?”

  “We’re not told. Promise not to interfere with our matches, I guess.”

  “But that’s what fear demons do!” I exclaimed. “That’s like telling a snake not to bite; a wasp not to sting; a vulture not to pick clean a carcass.”

  “I know, I know. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Captain Volk isn’t going to like this one bit,” I said, more to myself than to Virgil.

  “Maybe that is why he was in such a hurry.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Yeah, about an hour ago. He was in a mad dash across campus. I would never have guessed Captain Volk could move so fast. He was a blur. And man, that guy can leap. I saw him bound over a two-meter fence! Are you going to be able to do that too, Kohai?”

  “But I looked all over campus. I didn’t see him anywhere.”

  “I said he dashed across campus. I think he was headed to the disgronifiers.”

  “The what?”

  “The disgronifiers. You know, the reformatting pods.” Virgil saw me shaking my head in incomprehension. “The travel pods, you dope. Where we beam down.”

  “I know what they are, but why would he go there? He doesn’t even—” I caught myself. No one was supposed to know the secret of how the captains and I travel. “Are you sure that was where he was headed?”

  “Pretty sure. Kohai, what’s wrong? You look confused.”

  “I am. Gotta go.” I bolted from the room and raced across campus towards the geodesic dome and its disgronifying pods at the far edge of the Academy.

  When I arrived at the disgronifying dome, two very large and intimidating veteran cupids stopped me at the entrance.

  I knew their names and faces from portraits that hung in the Academy’s Hall of Fame: Commandos Deimos and Styx. They were among the Academy’s most decorated cupids. I don’t know what they did to deserve such recognition, but one doesn’t get there without having been a real badass of a cupid. That two such esteemed commandos were doing something so menial as guard duty meant that whatever was going on inside must have been very important.

  “Hey squirt,” said Deimos on the left, a big bruiser of a cupid with long, wavy blond hair. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “There’s no one here, so beat it.”

  “I heard that Captain Volk was here.”

  “Captain Volk,” Styx on the right repeated, the two cupids exchanging smirks. “You heard wrong. The old fart isn’t here.”

  “Old fart!” I said, outraged. “You two clods combined don’t measure up to one of his whiskers.”

  Commando Styx, muscles rippling through his jumpsuit, put his face to mine. “Leave,” he barked, “before I disgronify your scrawny ass with my bare hands.”

  “That’s no way to talk to a fellow cupid,” I said. “We’re all brothers. Commander Sett would be very disappointed to learn that two of his top graduates would speak in such a manner to a fellow cupid.”

  I should have been shaking in my boots, but I had learned to better control my emotions. I was very pleased by this newfound composure and mastery over myself. It was a byproduct of my ever-increasing emuna, just as the captains had assured me.

  “You’re right, little brother,” Styx replied derisively. “Now do as big brother says, and take a hike.”

  “That’s better,” I said. “Thank you. I’ll leave. But first, apologize for insulting Captain Volk.”

  “Don’t push your luck,” he said, back in my face. “Now scram, and go do some push-ups or something. You’re an embarrassment.”

  I walked away. I had said my piece and there was no point in engaging them any longer. If they thought that they had seen the last of me, they had. But if they
thought I wasn’t going to complete my mission, about that they were very wrong.

  Once out of view of the two soldiers, I went into cloaking mode, and then headed directly back to the entrance to the disgronifier station. Deimos and Styx were still yucking it up at my expense. I strode unseen right between them.

  As soon as I was inside, I detected muffled confusion coming from the far end of a long hallway.

  I jogged to where the hallway split into a T, and turned left, following the voices. At the end of this second hallway I heard a commotion from behind a closed door marked: DISGRONIFIERS. Cloaking could get me past the guards posted at the entrance, but it wasn’t going to get me through that metal sliding door.

  Luck would, however.

  The door slid open, and as two quarreling cupids marched out, I marched in. I caught a scrap of their conversation.

  “…Disgronifying while unconscious is like an astronaut space-walking without a tether. This is a death sentence!”

  I found myself on an observation deck with a Plexiglas wall that separated me from a much larger room below that contained about twenty disgronifiers: glass capsules, or pods, as Virgil called them, with an array of multicolored lights flashing at their tops and bottoms. They were all empty. A crew of cupids hovered around one pod, however, and among the group I recognized Commander Sett and, to my growing, and greater consternation, Judge Minos.

  Judge Minos was chief among the council of five judges that ruled over the Academy. Like the other four judges, he rarely appeared in public. All I really knew of him was what I had gleaned from his arid, uninspiring works that I had been forced to read during my time at the Cupid Academy. Minos was tall, gaunt, with sloping shoulders, a well-trimmed Van dyke beard, and walked with an ivory-handled cane.

  The group of cupids was huddled around something. I moved to get a better look. When one of the cupid soldiers bent over to pick up a bucket that had been set down beside him, I saw that it was not an object that they were huddled around, but a pale, disheveled, and unconscious Captain Cyrus.

  The cupid soldier tossed the bucket of ice water into Cyrus’s face, stirring the captain to consciousness. I was about to shout out to the Captain, when a hand clamped over my mouth, extinguishing my cry. I turned my head to see who had discovered me. I saw no one, but I knew that hairy, iron bar of a forearm that I had instinctually grabbed.

  Captain Volk modulated his cloaking just enough for me to see him, and released his grip. He put an index finger to his lips to ensure my silence, then signaled to me to use my lip-reading abilities. I nodded, and together we looked on and observed the following.

  Judge Minos tapped Captain Cyrus on the chest with his cane and said, “Why didn’t you report to me as ordered?”

  Cyrus, still punchy and looking like he might lose consciousness again any second, answered, “I don’t report to robed judges. I report only to the Almighty, blessed be He, and last I checked, that wasn’t you.”

  Minos glowered at the captain. “Where were you and what were you up to?”

  “I was in prayer,” Cyrus answered. “You should try it sometime.”

  The judge’s face twitched in indignation. “Look at you, Captain. All slovenly, wandering around like a pathetic drunk. You were drinking! You’re a disgrace!”

  Commander Sett interjected. “He wasn’t drinking, Sir. We tested him. We found no alcohol or drugs of any kind. We did, however, find off-the-scale levels of a little known or understood biomarker called Q-dusha.”

  “What the hell is that?” Minos snapped.

  “It’s the name of a peculiar kind of molecular biomarker used to detect the occurrence of a rarefied essence found in trace amounts among cupids and some humans.”

  “What kind of essence, Commander?”

  “It is so scarce that one of our lab technicians had to look it up. He said it is something called emuna, but neither he nor any known medical book seems to know much about it. The actual material substance has never been located. The Q-dusha marker merely indicates its presence. Whatever it is, apparently Captain Cyrus has more of it than every cupid at the Academy combined.”

  “By the looks of him,” Minos said, “this emuna must be nasty business.”

  “I really can’t say, Sir.”

  “Well, what does this emuna junk do, Commander?”

  Sett did not seem to be enjoying his job. He said, “I repeat, I don’t know. You’re the professor, you tell me.”

  “Careful, Commander,” Minos said with a wave of his cane. “Don’t forget who you are talking to.”

  “I’ve reported all that the physicians told me,” Sett said, swallowing his ire. “Why don’t you ask him?” He pointed to Cyrus, who had already passed out again. “And while you’re at it, you might want to inquire about this curious artifact we found on his person.” He placed a crystallized bead of Cyrus’s sweat on the judge’s opened hand.

  Minos held the jewel up to the skylight to examine it. He nodded to one of the cupids to toss another bucket of ice water on Cyrus, rousing him back to consciousness.

  “Captain,” the judge said, slapping him twice across the face to snap him from his disorientation. “Do you want to tell me about emuna?”

  Minos’s ignorance had a much more stimulating effect on Cyrus than the slaps or buckets of ice water. He laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Minos demanded.

  “The head judge of an academy for angels is asking me about emu—!” He broke off into more laughter.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Minos said to Sett. “The man is delirious. Are you sure he isn’t drunk? All right then, Captain. Maybe you can explain this.” He held out the gemlike drop of sweat, the sight of which quickly cured Cyrus of his belly laughing.

  Cyrus rubbed his eyes and squinted at the glistening jewel. “Looks like a diamond,” he said, his voice still thin and wispy. “Who’s the lucky celestial, Judge?”

  Sett said, “When we found you passed out on the edge of the village, there were enough of these things lodged in your beard to fill a bracelet. Wanna tell us about them?”

  “Let me see,” Cyrus said.

  Minos handed him the crystal bead.

  Cyrus held it up to examine, then before anyone could react, he pitched it into a grate in the floor about ten yards away. “Oops,” he said.

  A cupid sprinted over to the grate, yanked it off and thrust in his hand to fish around. After a few moments, he pulled out his arm dripping with water and shook his head. “Gone. The water is flowing fast.”

  Incensed, Minos swung his walking stick at Cyrus’s head.

  “Judge!” Sett caught the cane before Minos landed his blow.

  “Commander, that’s twice now that you have challenged my authority. Maybe we should be sending you down with him!”

  “Your Honor, I am only following your orders. We cannot carry out his sentence if he’s unconscious or has a concussion. That would be deemed an execution, which his crime does not call for. Clearly, he’s alert enough now to disgronify. I suggest we put him in the pod and fulfill the punishment for subversion that the captain brought upon himself according to Academy law.”

  Aghast, I turned to Captain Volk for an explanation. He shook his head grimly and signaled me to remain still.

  Two husky cupids yanked Cyrus to his feet and escorted him to a nearby pod. The captain did not put up a struggle. He seemed at peace with his fate; as if he had known this day was coming.

  A cupid physician in a white lab coat was waved over. He strolled up to the captain, checked his vitals, and then rolled up Cyrus’s sleeve. He withdrew a syringe filled with a milky blue substance, and injected Cyrus with the elixir. The concoction would alter the captain’s molecular makeup, allowing him to live at the human’s lower frequency; cutting him off from us forever.

  Cyrus rolled down his sleeve, stepped resolvedly into the pod, and lowered his head in prayer.

  Judge Minos stated the following: “Cyrus, Captain of Cupid Corps
Seven, after repeated warnings and admonishments, you have been found guilty of deliberate disloyalty, faithlessness, and breach of trust to your unit, the Academy, the honor of all cupids, and to Eros. The penalty for these charges as specified by Academy law is banishment to the human realm. You shall arrive stripped of all your powers, weapons, belongings of any kind, and your long life. You will be rendered human in every way, form, and matter. All that you shall retain from this heavenly sphere is a haunting memory of it so that it may be a constant reminder of what you have lost, and an everlasting shame upon you until your dying day. May the human creatures have pity upon you.”

  “Where do you want to send him?” asked a cupid standing by a control panel.

  Sett turned to Minos. “We ought to at least give him a fighting chance at survival.”

  The judge said, “They never last long, no matter where we send them. Give the dial a spin, and leave it up to chance.”

  “Your honor—” Sett protested.

  “Commander!” Minos snapped, tired of Sett questioning his authority.

  Sett put his hand on the button to close the pod’s glass door. Regret in his eyes, he said to Cyrus, “I’m sorry it had to end this way.”

  Cyrus looked up from his praying and smiled forgivingly at Sett. “Just because I may no longer be able to recall all the laughs you and I shared over the centuries, that doesn’t mean you have to forget them.”

  Sett nodded and offered Cyrus a weak salute. “Wilco, Captain,” he said, and pushed the button. The glass capsule closed.

  Captain Cyrus stood tall in the module. He snuck a glance at the palm of his right hand. I thought I detected a wry smile cross his lips. Then, he turned his gaze upward towards the observation deck, to Captain Volk and me. He raised his arms and placed his hands against the glass.

  I read these words from his lips: “Yivarechecha Adonai viyishmirecha. Ya’er Adonai panav elecha veechuneka. Yeesa Adonai panav elecha, viyasem lecha shalom.”7

  Note 7: Translation: May HaShem [God] bless you and guard you. May HaShem shine His countenance upon you and be gracious to you. May HaShem turn His countenance toward you and grant you peace.