Eterna and Omega

by Leanna Renee Hieber

  “For London!” The crowd lifted Wards high in a cascading ripple of light.

  And then unrolled an incredible patchwork quilt of the plan.

  The clergymen Bishop and Evelyn had invited began to pray, as did the rabbis summoned by Zhavia. Vodoun practitioners Andre had located began drumming. A muezzin that Mrs. Wilson convinced to come began to sing a call to prayer in Arabic. Buddhists rang bells. Hindus of the Raj lifted hands in sacred dances.

  Mediums channeled guardians and benevolent spirits. All across the Embankment, London and her people were being blessed and peace was being invoked. And, following Bishop’s example, lifted Wards added threads of personal magic into the city’s tapestry. Whether they shared any faith or believed in nothing but themselves and humanity in atheistic peace, all were a part of the fabric.

  The cloud of onyx shadows, the horde of demon forms, halted, wavering, a street away from Parliament’s doors. Moriel looked confused, unsure of himself or perhaps just how to command his silhouette army in response.

  “For London!” Black cried again. Another wave of Wards lofted into the air with a resounding response: “For London!”

  And then came gunfire. While some onlookers had fainted during the previous acts, now, many fled at the sound of shots.

  Seemingly from out of nowhere, Gabriel Brinkman was racing toward Moriel, shooting as he went. Every guard around Moriel, all of them sporting the blackened eyes of the demon possessed, stepped into the path of a bullet as the calash proceeded, bodies falling away in an increasing wake.

  “Metropolitan!” Spire shouted. Two hundred men whipped off a top layer of nondescript worker’s clothes, revealing their uniforms beneath. All leaped at the possessed guards. The officers were wearing padding and carrying various weapons, ready to face the brute force of the demonically possessed. Moriel kept the weaker bodies for flag bearing, the stronger for his personal guard.

  Many of the recovering standard-bearers, having been returned to themselves, were eager to battle the still possessed. The police guarding Westminster did not stand in the way of victims adding their numbers to the good fight.

  “Stand strong! Hold your lights aloft, London!” Lord Black shouted, his voice towering above all. “Help our brave policemen by holding your light so they might see!”

  Those remaining did so.

  Black, Clara, and Rose clambered down to street level; Spire had already gone to take command of the Metropolitans. Bishop was weaving through the crowds, his mesmeric forces keeping them strong of will and heart, Andre and Effie still at his sides.

  This secondary rally scattered lightless Summoned shadows like roaches scurrying from a blaze. Brinkman continued to fire his multichambered gun, taking down the guards closest to Moriel.

  Moriel screamed, swiping his blood-drenched long-sword toward Brinkman; the Summoned swept over the double agent immediately. There was a horrible cry, followed by the even more horrible sound of a body disintegrating. Brinkman suffered the same fate as Tourney had, his blood and body splattered over the Embankment’s stones.

  The police officers did their best to shield the crowd from that horror, but there was no hiding it entirely, and a wave of fear and terror swept through the onlookers.

  Clara fervently prayed for the souls of Brinkman and his young son, hoping they would be immediately reunited in heaven and rewarded for all their trials on Earth.

  The Wards were holding despite the wavering of the crowd. The Summoned silhouettes could not get closer to the bystanders or to Parliament’s stones.

  Moriel descended from the calash, closely shadowed by a large, bald man Clara assumed was his primary personal guard. Moriel lifted something golden from within the calash—a wide-mouthed chalice.

  Clara shuddered at the chalice, another item from her dreams coming into vivid focus. Holding the large goblet in one hand, he struck at the Embankment stones and then at the air with his bloody sword—whose blood that was she could not guess—then splashed liquid from the chalice onto the ground in a vague line, creating a threshold. The crimson fluid was garish even in the light of the gas lamps.

  Clara wondered if he was trying to call forth more Summoned or join them in their nether state. She had barely completed the thought when a hazy, uneven trapezoid—a wavering doorway—flickered into existence.

  Her hand flew to her mouth as she saw Louis standing on the other side, along with Barnard Smith and the dead Omega scientists. They stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking the passage, holding their hands out to show Moriel that he was not welcome in the world they had been driven into.

  Clara rushed toward that portal, drawn by Louis, their bond magnetizing them in the moment. Rose was dragged along in her wake as if by a rope, as was Andre.

  Their compass held, their four corners never so much a concentrated power until now. The quartet’s bonded magic had catalyzed into an elemental force beyond blood, body, or timeline.

  Moriel tried to move, but Clara, Rose, and Andre spread out, keeping him rooted from behind, while Louis and the scientists blocked him from in front, a dark mist rising behind them in this gray otherworld as if a ghostly fog were rolling in.

  As the three living “corners” approached Moriel, Clara noted that his cruel, bloodshot eyes no longer looked human.

  Clara tried to focus, but her vision swam. No! Her body couldn’t fail her now. She stared at Rose, rallying.

  “O’Rourke!” Moriel cried.

  “I’m here, Your Majesty,” the enormous Irishman replied in monotone, his eyes vacant. Not possessed, Clara noted, as the guard’s eyes were not blackened, but he was not to be trusted. “Not to worry.”

  Acrid smoke, that rising tide of fog, poured then from the portal Moriel had opened, going right for his throat and making the attempted usurper choke and gag, smothering whatever orders he had been about to give as he gasped and writhed in his place.

  Though Andre and Clara had stopped moving, Rose kept going, approaching the portal where Louis floated.

  “Rose, what are you doing?” Clara cried. Rose turned to her with such conviction it was like a flower had been dipped into molten metal and turned steel in the instant.

  “If we are the points of a compass, Clara,” she said, looking at her, Andre, and Louis alternately, “we aren’t properly balanced. We have to hold Moriel in place, and there’s only one way to do that.”

  “Rose,” Clara cautioned.

  “You’ve led so many lives, Clara,” Rose explained. “Maybe I’ll do the same. This was destined. Don’t you remember what I first told you? It was prophesied that you would be the death of me, dear sister, and I forgive you for it.” And with that, Rose stepped over the bloody line into the next realm, and her living body crumpled at the threshold.

  Within the portal, another Rose now stood, grayscale like Louis, who reached out for her hand … the compass between worlds balanced.

  Blinking rapidly, the sights before her spinning, Clara felt herself begin to seize, this threshold was too much, and with her dear tether Rose, now … dead.…

  She looked over her shoulder, seeking aid, and found Bishop a few feet away, trying to reach her through an invisible barrier. The forces she and the others had created in their compass had stopped him in his tracks, and she despaired, feeling her knees give out.

  Even as Clara faltered, Bishop dropped to his knees as if falling for her. His hands were upraised, palms toward her. She felt a veritable wave of light and harmonious reverberations surround her, felt him shield her like never before. The first symptoms of the seizure eased. He’d bought her another few minutes, perhaps, and Clara knew he would keep bolstering her as long as he, giving over the whole of his life force, could remain conscious.

  “O’Rourke, shield me, I cannot move, I am pinned to this fulcrum,” Moriel gasped in panic, still struggling.

  “Yes…” O’Rourke moved closer to Moriel.

  A flash of light caught everyone’s eye.

  Spire strode toward
the usurper with a ball of something fiery held in one raised hand. Clara could just make out that it was four Ward vials tied together. He would have only a moment, and nothing could stand in his way.…

  The visitor’s words about her lives and their relationship to time rang in Clara’s ears, along with Zhavia’s bid to bring all of her lives with her. She responded to that call to arms and drew upon every life she’d ever lived. The representations of them peeled away from her like ghosts given color, like all those souls she’d seen earlier, transparent memories representing the threads of her soul’s tapestry.

  Spooling around her in a widening circle, spilling centuries into this single, modern moment, time slowed, expanded, and all of Clara Templeton that had ever been was all around them, every life culminating to the breathless now.…

  As if moving through mud, O’Rourke slowly stepped aside, giving Spire clear aim. “May you burn, Majesty,” the guard hissed, the words elongated by the stretch in time, “and may the saints forgive me.”

  Moriel shrieked, Spire cried out in fury, and the vials arced into the air, heading straight for the horrid little man.

  “Go whence you came,” Spire growled as the projectile landed squarely on Moriel’s chest.

  Upon contact, the Wards exploded in a coruscation of light and sound. The intensity, Clara imagined, was exacerbated by the monstrousness of the evil Moriel had perpetrated. Time returned to its normal flow as Clara’s lives folded in on themselves and returned to their histories with a loud tearing sound.

  The madman went up in flames.

  O’Rourke was immediately beset by the jet-black silhouettes of the Summoned. With an ungodly cry, the guard was instantly reduced to nothing but crimson pulp slickening the stones.

  The horde of shadows then pounced upon Moriel, who disappeared into their black tumult. A fresh burst of acrid smoke rose from the spot. Louis and Clara both murmured prayers while Andre and Rose stared at one another across the dimensional doorway.

  An instant later, the pitch-black Summoned that remained floating in parade form rose, hovered, then scattered to the winds, no longer a coalesced mass oozing toward Parliament but thin dark lines losing focus.

  “London, I beg once more for your light!” Lord Black yelled. His cry was taken up and echoed through the city’s streets, and people everywhere lifted whatever fire they had unto the darkening night. Effie had joined Lord Black at his vantage point, holding two Wards high and bright.

  The portal that Moriel had opened by blood wavered. Some of the remaining Summoned slipped into that strange corridor. Others became wisps of night sky. A few sank into the Embankment’s stones. In seconds they had all vanished, their mission having disappeared with Moriel himself.

  The moment there seemed to be peace, Clara turned to Louis, still floating in that precarious space, her own body still clenched on a precarious seizure precipice. “Can you help Rose?”

  Spire, thinking Clara was speaking to him, rushed to Rose’s body and knelt before her, lifting her torso carefully onto his knees. He blinked at the air before him, past the line of blood and toward the threshold it demarked, as if trying to focus on something he could not quite see.

  Louis lifted Rose’s hand, grayscale transparencies able to make contact on that other side. Her spirit stared about, taking in her dim surroundings with wonderment. “No, Miss Everhart,” Louis declared, “this purgatorial place is not yet for you. You may cross through here one day, but not today.” He led her back across the threshold with a gentle push toward the living.

  “Now, Miss Everhart,” Spire said with a mounting urgency teetering on desperation, taking her pulse at her wrist and leaning over her to watch for breath, “do come back, we need you here. I need you here.…”

  Rose’s spirit stepped back across that mortal line and reconnected with her body in a shimmering ripple of light, two Roses superimposed and then just one limp body that suddenly gave a spasm. She gasped and coughed, curling inward against Spire, who held her tightly. He murmured, “There, there, oh good, very good…” in a tone gentler than Clara had ever heard from him. She felt confident they would both be quite all right indeed.

  And so would she be. As Rose was restored, so, too, did the threat of Clara’s imminent seizure lessen, with the additional help of Bishop rushing up to her, engulfing her in a joyful embrace, invigorating her with a rush of energy that allowed her fraught muscles to relax against his tight hold.

  Over Bishop’s shoulder she saw the final images of the portal.…

  Louis’s grayscale form stared at his twin across the threshold. Andre stood with his hand upraised to the doorway, as if trying to take the sprit’s hand.

  “No, don’t reach through, Andre,” Louis warned. “I wouldn’t try Miss Everhart’s stunt if I were you.”

  Bishop noted Clara’s gaze and released her, letting her have a moment with this scene, as always respecting her loss even though he’d been wounded by her secrets.

  “You’ve been so good to me, Louis,” Andre murmured, tears streaming from his hazel eyes. “We’ve never been closer, and all since you died … This, Brother, isn’t fair … You’ve made me a better man—”

  “And for that my afterlife is sweeter, Brother,” Louis assured. “Do not grieve. I would not trade a day of this, and indeed, had I done so, I doubt we’d have been successful.”

  “Louis…” Clara rushed up too close to that same perilous line. Her former lover held up another halting hand.

  “I’ll try to come again, Clara, one last time, but for now, this door has been open too long to be safe,” Louis said. “You’re brilliant, you know, my forever muse, what incredible work you’ve done to save the day!” He beamed, blowing a ghostly kiss to her and then saluting his brother before turning into the gray mist behind him and vanishing in the murk. The hovering trapezoidal shape between worlds snapped into nothingness.

  Clara willed back tears and turned back to Bishop, stalwart. He was there with a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you for your help, Rupert. You are my rock.”

  “He was right, you know,” Bishop said. “You saved the day, you brilliant woman. I’ll never let you forget it.” He held out his arm and she took it with a wide smile.

  Captain Grange appeared, seeking Spire, and launched into his report even as Spire gently helped Rose to her feet.

  “Sir, madam, pardon me please,” Grange said breathlessly.

  “Yes, my friend,” Spire replied. “Go on.”

  “I have received a report via wire from precinct to precinct that your colleagues, Mrs. Northe-Stewart and the rest of your team, are safe. They had to remove the portraits from the estate to finish their work because of an electrical fire that blew out the entire place.” Grange paused, then said hesitantly, “They described a man as … standing directly in the middle of a lightning blast. There was no evidence of him after.”

  “You will say that man died in that fire,” Spire said.

  Clara was glad to hear Mosley would get his freedom after all.

  “Yes, sir. Understood. Mrs. Northe-Stewart and the rest of your team have been taken to an inn north of the city to rest.”

  “I am headed home for a stiff drink,” Black announced, having descended to join the group on their level, Effie quiet behind him, still looking around warily, and Clara wondered what of the proceedings she had seen, and what she could only have sensed. “Where you’re all invited to stay the night,” Black added. “I think it might be best if we stay close, considering.”

  Rose nodded. “Yes, sir, that would be best.” Still holding on to Spire for support, she reached out a hand to clasp Clara’s.

  “Can your men coordinate cleaning all this horrible mess up, Captain Grange?” Black asked. “In addition, perhaps ask some of the various clergymen to … help people with whatever they saw?”

  “I’m wondering what the hell I saw—” Spire said, almost under his breath.

  “‘Hell’ being the operative word,” Grange stated.
“But yes. Our men will handle cleanup. Go in peace, friends. I believe, if I may, that the worst is over, but I’ll have to be more sure of it when I wake up in the morning and the whole world hasn’t gone more mad than it did tonight.”

  “Tomorrow will be a brighter day,” Bishop assured him. “The momentum is in our favor now.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  Lord Black’s residence had been such a pleasant safe haven before, and so was it again, for those who took Black up on the invitation. Effie and Andre wished to stay with other friends, and no one took offense at anyone’s preferences.

  The embrace between Black and his lover at the front door was long and fond, and after a moment, Francis pulled back with a blush and ushered everyone in. “There’s a roaring fire for you to shake off the horrors of the day,” he declared, “and a vat of spiced rum.”

  “Don’t mind if I take a cup or two of that.” Spire chuckled.

  “May all my lives be praised we survived to see this night through,” Clara murmured, collapsing onto the settee before the welcome fire.

  “I feel like I’ve lived several lifetimes today, and I don’t even believe in more than one,” Spire said, eagerly accepting a mug of liquor from Francis with a warm thanks before leaning toward Clara. “I ask now not for your mysticism but for your opinion. Is our age doomed? Is there more of this to come?”

  Clara thought a long moment before speaking with very careful words.

  “At the beginning of this century the world presented itself as more innocent, full of incalculable possibility. We were a hopeful, optimistic people with the possibility to be generous. Now, for all the powers of the modern age, all the freedoms and conveniences, there are so many more complications as each mechanization comes with a cost. Innovation is necessary across every front, but there are times when I long for simpler days.

  “If that’s what Moriel had advocated,” she continued, “simple peace rather than an absurd return to feudalistic dictatorship, who could have argued against simplicity? But simplicity should not come at the cost of modernity and broader societal freedom.”