Harsh Gods

by Michelle Belanger

  Impressions too vague to be classed as memories suggested that I didn’t trust the apartment to be safe enough to leave truly transparent notes about myself. But this stash was in a church with Father Frank—my anchor—to look after it. If that wasn’t safe enough…

  A brittle, yearning hope welled up, sharp enough it stole my breath.

  Those blades I imagined would really, really be nice.

  It was as close to praying as I got. Father Frank’s voice interrupted the moment.

  “Hey. Slow down. You’ll pass the entrance.” His arm jerked toward what might have been an empty lot, laden with drifts. Belatedly, I realized it was parking for the church.

  I tapped the brakes, but 4,500 pounds of top-of-the-line Detroit engineering wasn’t going to stop in time for that turn.

  “Fuck me running,” I grumbled.

  “Never mind.” He gestured to a crosswalk just past the church. “Go up to the Montessori school. There’s a side street you can use.”

  The thin stretch of concrete qualified as more of a sidewalk than a proper street, but I nosed the Hellcat over a mound of snow at the curb, and cut the engine right next to the stairs leading to the side entrance of the stonework cathedral. Rime-covered saints looked down on us from their vigilant posts across the pediment.

  Father Frank unfolded himself from the passenger side, digging a substantial set of keys from the depths of his coat pocket. He gripped the metal railing in one gloved hand as he navigated the snow-covered stairs to the door at the top. Grabbing my phone from where he’d left it on the seat, I trailed after him.

  “You never answered my question,” I said.

  “You were too busy gathering wool to hear me.”

  The padre bent over the lock, sorting through his collection for the right key. The thick suede fingers of his heavy gloves made it a painstaking process. He didn’t say anything for a while. Impatient, I smacked my hand against the railing. Fragments of ice shivered off, dropping into the drifts below. I stared at their jigsaw imprints, wondering if we’d killed Halley by taking this side trip.

  “Hard to be specific anyway. Over the years, I’ve seen you bring all kinds of little packages in and out. Last time you came through was around All Souls’ Day.” Cursing, he banged ice from the lock, then tried the key again without success. “It was my turn to say mass, so I only caught you in passing,” he explained. “I’ll be kicking myself about that for a while.”

  “All Souls’ Day.” I did some mental math. “That was right before—”

  “Your ‘incident?’ Yeah.” He kept his back to me, shoulders stiffening beneath his coat. “Like I said, kicking myself. You came in with some weapons I’ve seen you carry everywhere. I should have known you were in trouble when you left them both behind.”

  His displeasure at being lied to, or at least misled, prickled palpably through the frigid air. And I felt bad—I really did. But all my guilt failed to stand before the rush of hope his words inspired. Twined through that rush was a quieter sense—nothing so certain as a memory, but a comfort all the same.

  Beyond this door lay tools that would help me win the fight for Halley.

  As much as we were pressed for time, Father Frank had made the right call in bringing me here.

  The padre finally got the key to work, ice grinding audibly in the lock as he turned the haft. He had to yank on the side door to drag its bottom across the buildup of snow outside. I reached out to give him a hand.

  Once inside, we stood in a narrow antechamber with a clutter of snow shovels angling against one corner, together with a squat bucket of salt. He gestured for quiet.

  “I’ve got to take us the long way,” he said in a hush. “Father Cerilli is probably already up and getting ready for six o’clock Mass. Easier not to interrupt him—he’ll talk our ears raw.”

  Tapping slush from his boots, he led me down a narrow flight of stairs deep into the bowels of the church. We passed through a storage area with ranks of folding chairs—the old metal kind that made it impossible to get comfortable, no matter how you sat.

  Shadows crouched in the furthest corners, together with drifts of cobwebs and dust. We passed a boiler room, then more storage, only to emerge into the church hall. Father Frank strode across the vacant space, his damp boots making soft squeaking sounds on the highly polished tile.

  Through the double doors at the far end of the hall, we followed a long, narrow corridor to its end. The padre used another key to open the door, reaching in to flick on a single light inside.

  Exposed masonry lent a vault-like feeling to the roughly fifteen by twenty space. Wooden rafters stretched dusty and bare over a water-stained cement floor with a worn tan rug positioned roughly in the middle. Old copper pipes ran the length of the left-hand wall, hugging the ceiling to disappear deeper into the building.

  Holy Rosary was an old structure, and it showed in the foundation—hand-quarried stone, it was held together with a sandy-colored mortar. Flecks of silica caught the light. An interior section of cinderblock running half the length of the room stood out as a more recent construction, dull and gray by contrast.

  Attempts had been made to turn the underground space homey, with framed images of nature photography arranged on three of the walls. In the far corner, a heavy bag hung from the rafters, with a treadmill and a rack of free weights nearby. The treadmill angled so it sectioned off the gym space. A patched green couch that sagged in the middle made up the other divider for that side of the room with a battered old Army trunk squatting in front of it in lieu of a coffee table.

  Nestled in the nook created by the cinderblock addition was a spartan desk of pitted wood. Neatly arranged on the desk were some file trays, a tower computer with an ancient CRT monitor, and a triptych of photos in a hinged wooden frame. An old brass crucifix overlooked the desk from the narrowest cinderblock wall, probably hung with masonry screws.

  “Be it ever so humble,” Father Frank murmured, gesturing me to precede him into the room. My eyes were drawn immediately to the crucifix before my brain consciously registered the reason. A play of light seemed to glimmer deep within the tarnished brass. Curious, I teased open my vision.

  The cross blazed like a beacon.

  “Is that a relic?” I asked. I didn’t mean it in the Catholic sense, and from his face, Father Frank knew it.

  “You’ve called it that,” he responded. “I know it’s got something to do with your disappearing act.”

  I strode past him to investigate. The cross fairly thrummed as I approached it, layers of emotion and purpose spilling from the worn brass image. On the Shadowside, most objects in the physical world showed up as echoes, if they showed up at all. Relics were items that possessed weight and substance on both sides of reality. Like a Crossing, they were often associated with mortal trauma or death.

  More than that, they could function like portable Crossings—although they took a hell of a lot more effort to use. It was the difference between stepping through a neatly opened door and squeezing through a partially collapsed tunnel.

  “I think I get it,” I murmured, looking past the crucifix to the cinderblock wall. Wards glimmered in the spaces between each gray block, scribed minutely into the cement with what might have been a felt-tip pen. Blue and faded, the scrolling spellwork was nearly invisible unless you peered at it from inches away. When I trailed my hand along a line of mortar, power prickled against my skin.

  I recognized it immediately as my own.

  “You did good, Mazetti,” I said, not bothering to look up.

  “I knew even without your memory, you’d figure that part out,” he responded.

  Pressing my fingers against the wards again, I tasted their purpose and resistance. No doubt about it. The two sections of cinderblock had been added to enclose a hidden space large enough to be a walk-in closet—except there was no door. I’d put the Anakim equivalent of a bank vault in the basement of the padre’s church.

  Slipping to the desk, I
emptied out my pockets of cellphone and keys, dropping them in a heap by the three-way picture frame. Father Frank shrugged out of his coat as he watched me, mild interest vying with exhaustion in the lines of his face.

  “You always do that,” he said. He gestured to the pile of electronics. “You never say why.”

  “Wrecks the phone when I cross sides,” I explained. “Something about the energy.”

  Thoughtfully, he grunted, then settled on the couch. I leaned over the side of the desk to reach the crucifix, lifting it away from its masonry screw. The old, charged metal buzzed against my palm.

  I opened myself to it.

  A host of visions unspooled within my mind—an elderly soldier praying on his death bed. Another voice prayed along with him, the whole scene guttering with golden candleshine.

  The prayers faded and another sickroom took form. An elderly woman curled beneath a massive heap of blankets, gnarled fingers twined through the threads of a crocheted woolen comforter. A gift from her daughter. Handmade. She breathed her last, still gripping her treasure.

  Next was a child, body broken and half her face a slushy mess. Her single eye fixed upon the ceiling, blessedly ignorant of her circumstance. Again the prayers and candles—and in her case, a silent plea for justice.

  Death upon death upon death unfolded from the cross, each linked by the ritual of final absolution. A deeper imprint threaded between the rest—the death of the owner. Broad frame wasted to nothing. Mottled hands. Wisps of hair worn white by time, and the tabbed collar that he proudly wore as a priest of the Catholic faith. He clutched the precious crucifix to his breast as he lay dying, remembering a lifetime of last rites.

  Seizing the steady, solemn weight of his emotion, I dragged myself across.

  45

  The transition stole my breath. Still gripping the crucifix, I waited for the world to stop reeling.

  The century-old church rose as a palpable presence above me, the stone walls of its foundation standing as solid on this side as they had in the flesh-and-blood world. The age of the building, combined with its significance for a whole population of mortals, guaranteed that it stood sturdy and unassailable. The newer cinderblock addition, tucked away where very few people could see it and thus reinforce its existence, shouldn’t have held the same impenetrable weight.

  But the wards changed all that.

  Floor to ceiling, power wove through them, glimmering a deep, electric blue. In the approximate center of the main wall, finely written symbols picked out the lines of a doorway. A thick mesh of warding sealed the portal. I’d relearned enough in the past few months to recognize some seriously aggressive defenses. Whatever I’d stored in that room, I’d wanted it well protected.

  Promising.

  Pressing my palm flat against a central point of resistance, I struggled to recall what I needed to make it open. The lines of power leapt at my touch and I felt the magic recognize me. A familiar rush spread through my wings—the same sensation that flooded me when I called my blades through the intonation of my Name.

  “It can’t be that simple, can it?” I murmured. But our Names were our magic, our station, our identity. There was nothing simple in that immutable truth.

  Certain that I had the answer, I drew a breath and intoned the syllables of my Name. As the sound vibrated from my core, the sigils scribed around the threshold erupted in a play of silver fire. Threads of it leapt from the dense strata of warding, cascading across my face, chest, and wings. Testing me.

  There was that recognition again, more profoundly this time. An instant later, the mesh of power flickered, and the door stood open.

  “The soul equivalent of a retina-scan,” I muttered. Tucking the relic crucifix into the inner pocket of my jacket, I stepped through. The warded door snapped shut as soon as I crossed the threshold.

  In the crowded space beyond, the boundaries of the secret room stood thick and inviolable. Ceiling, floor, and walls all were reinforced with glimmering rows of wards. Another series of sigils—larger and paler than the ward-signs—picked out a small circle on the ground, arranged in the middle of the hidden space. I instinctively understood what it was for.

  Stepping inside the circle, I shifted back over to the flesh-and-blood world. The guiding lines of the circle guaranteed that I reappeared away from everything crowded together in the lightless space.

  I emerged into utter darkness, stale air heavy with dust. A tiny pinprick of light filtered through a crack in the floor above me, serving only to reinforce the choking blackness of the interior space. Through touch, I got vague impressions of crowded shelves rising above a narrow stretch of unfinished wood. I fumbled at the rough counter in front of me, my hand brushing something that clattered to the floor. It struck the bare concrete with a fatal shattering of plastic.

  “Shit.”

  I stood very still, unwilling to crush more of whatever I’d broken under my boots. I felt all shoulders and elbows in the tiny space. With the walls so solid on both sides of reality, my wings were as cramped as the rest of me, heightening the overall feel of claustrophobia.

  Light would make it better. At least I’d stop knocking things over.

  A tattery memory of a candle and a box of strike-anywhere matches drifted from the depths of my mind, with no conscious sense of where in the room I might find these things. I screwed my eyes shut—not that it made much difference—and blindly struck out in the direction that seemed right. The edge of my hand impacted what felt like a brass candlestick. Jerking with surprise at my success, I heard it tip. Without thought and without being able to see it, I seized the candlestick before it tumbled to the ground.

  “Why couldn’t you manifest the ninja skills five minutes ago?” I chided myself, still wondering what I’d broken in my initial foray. Plastic parts rattled as I gingerly shifted my feet.

  I found the matches by setting the candlestick on top of them. Fighting not to rush and spill them everywhere, I grabbed the box and slid it open. I shook a couple matches into my hand, striking the first one on the wall next to me. The sudden eruption of light left me blinking.

  Shelves everywhere—pigeonholes, really—crammed with a baffling assortment of stuff. Rolls of paper, little boxes, yellowed envelopes sealed with tape. I put the match to the wick of the candle, making sure the flame transferred before I shook it out. The candle sputtered once, then the flame burned straight and bright. The scent of molten beeswax mellowed the lingering sulfur from the match.

  All too conscious of Halley’s dwindling time, I lofted the candle and dug frantically through the contents of the pigeonholes, searching for the weapons Father Frank had mentioned—tracking spells, scrying mirrors—anything that might be useful in the current situation. I dragged down stacks of silver certificates, thick rolls of more conventional cash, and checkbooks for accounts in a variety of names.

  One newer-looking envelope disgorged a slew of fake ID cards, all of them bearing my face. Boxes of ammunition—9mm, .38, .45—were hidden behind tightly rolled papers that turned out to be pages cut from medieval texts.

  “Fuck me running,” I snarled. “Where’s the stuff I actually need?” Seizing a promisingly paper-wrapped parcel, I discovered only a stack of assorted passports, several left over from the Vietnam version of me. Temper frayed, I slammed the heel of my free hand against the unfinished wood of the shelves. No blades. All my instincts clamored they should be here.

  If they’re anything but a pipe dream.

  The whole rack of pigeonholes jumped at the impact—nothing anchored it to the back wall. Packages and little boxes tumbled out in a riot of dust.

  With faster-than-human speed, I tried catching one before it hit the plywood counter. I overshot, and my hand struck the box in mid-air. Its aged cardboard lid flew open, disgorging a swatch of black silk. This arced to the right, weighted with something inside. It came to rest on a sleek wooden chest angled at the far end of the counter.

  The candlelight glittered off of g
old and gems.

  A ring rested in the folds of silk. I peeled back the rich scrap of fabric, sensation prickling my fingers—the cloth was delicately warded, tiny sigils stitched with blue thread around the seam. The ring itself shone in my vision, four mismatched gems gleaming with a depth far beyond their simple oval faceting.

  Another relic. I knew even before I touched it.

  Flickers of information danced across my brain as my fingers grazed the object—a child for each of the birthstones, even little Joey who didn’t see more than two days in the world. The dead son’s name hit with a wrenching sense of loss as brutal as a train wreck.

  Hastily, I scooped the ring back into its protective swatch of silk, pocketing them both. A portable Crossing was never a bad thing to keep around.

  A woman’s name—Mary Reilly—and a date—1956—were both scribed on the underside of the little box that had held the ring. It was my handwriting, faded with time. My distinctive scrawl was visible across a larger piece of paper resting where the ring box had fallen. An envelope. I nudged the container aside to investigate.

  From Zaquiel, to Zaquiel, I thought wryly.

  Then an unreasonable feeling of dread seized me.

  Despite this, I snatched up the envelope from where it lay diagonally across the wooden case. With numb fingers, I tore the seal. I had to set the candle down before extracting the letter within—my hands were shaking too much to safely manage both.

  The single sheet of folded paper was covered in my angled cursive, both front and back. The letters were spidery with haste. A vertiginous feeling of unreality washed over me as I read the date at the top of the letter. November 3.

  I’d written this the day before I woke on the shores of Lake Erie.

  I took in the first paragraph in a glance.

  Zaquiel—

  If we’re reading this, then things went badly out on the lake—but we’re not stuck in some jar, so I hope we got the Stylus like we’d planned. If you’re not Zachary Aaron Westland any more, then all we did was get ourselves killed. That’s actually good news. The alternative is uglier, because if you don’t remember being me, that means Dorimiel got his hands on Neferkariel’s icon, and that’s a whole level of fucked I’d hoped to avoid.