by Chloe Garner
Samantha nodded.
“I get it,” she said. Jason took another bite of his steak and looked at her.
“I think you’re up,” he said. She pressed her lips together and nodded. The waiter asked if they wanted another round of drinks, and Jason ordered them another pair of beers.
“It’s not actually that bad, once you get going,” he said. She sighed and took a drink of her water.
“All right. Here goes. I died when I was twenty-two.”
Jason reached slowly across the table and took her wrist.
“I know you have a pulse. We’d have noticed before now if you didn’t,” he said, checking anyway.
“There is no such thing as the undead,” she said.
“Oh, Sweetheart, they’re out there,” he said. “You’ve just been up in your ivory tower for too long. I assume you mean you died figuratively, then?”
“Nope. Heart stopped. Brain stopped. Went to heaven. Frolicked in the clouds for a bit, so to speak, then got sent back.”
He sat back against the back of the booth and crossed his arms.
“I can’t wait to hear the rest of this.”
“Carter doesn’t have many friends. The people that he does care about, though, he is kind of insane about protecting. One of them didn’t turn up when we expected her to, so he had me drive him to her apartment, and we found the place trashed. Just… drywall ripped down, trashed. They weren’t looking for anything, they were just destroying everything to make sure Carter knew how angry they were. And she was gone. No blood, just gone. He was ready to burn the city down to find her, but I noticed that the fluorescent light bulb in the bathroom was cracked, and that it was glowing green. Xenon green. And, because I had nothing to do but read, back then…”
“I thought you said you did nothing but work on cars,” Jason said.
“I did nothing but read and work on cars,” she said. “Well, read, work on cars, do metal fabrication, and work out. Better? Since I had nothing to do but read back then, I remembered that there was a family of power demons that had rituals involving Xenon, and that was enough to get Carter a lead on how to find them. He let me go with him to get her. It was the best day of my life. It was the first time he ever let me go with. He always told me I was too weak. Maybe when I was stronger.
“They were in an old part of the subway system, and Carter went through them with a sword and a sawed-off shotgun, and left nothing but puddles that were too slow to turn into ash. It was magnificent. I picked off a couple of them with the handgun he let me carry, but nothing really that important. They had her tied to a chair in the corner. I mean, it was just over so quickly. They had known we would come, but they underestimated him. Just, completely underestimated him. Anyway, I went in to help him get her out, and something grabbed me and slammed me into the ceiling and then dropped me on the floor. And then did it again.”
Jason opened his mouth to say something, but couldn’t find anything useful. She looked at him and then closed her eyes, face looking slightly pained at the memory.
“It hurt. That’s what they want to know. It just hurt a lot, and then it was over. I was dead. I can’t tell you much about what happened in the middle, because of rules, but… Time works different on the other side. Paradise and Hell are on the same clock, but it sort of slips and slides compared to time on Earth. I think it has something to do with how closely the other sides are watching Earth. It was pretty slow, that day, but I hung out in the front courts of Heaven for eighty-five years, in that fifteen minutes.”
Jason did the math.
“Yes. Fifteen minutes means definitely brain dead. No more life. Not a vision.”
He looked at her a little guiltily and she sighed.
“Even the ones who believe that there is another side ask. It’s okay. After I died, the demon who had actually trapped Carter glitched in.”
“Glitched?” Jason asked. “You used that word before.”
“I think you guys call it blinking.”
“Demons don’t blink.”
“High level ones do,” she said. “Carter had exhausted his killing spree, and they did the hand to hand thing for a while.” She pursed her lips and took a drink. “I think this is the point of the story where you need to know that Carter has a massive demonic bounty on his head. Massive. They’ve always said the devil himself has a side-wager on it. I checked in on him every few years, from Paradise, waiting to see what would happen. They were never explicit, but I was pretty sure that they were keeping me in the front courts until that fight was over. It’s hard to keep track of the details at that rate, though. It was a big, dramatic fight, and in the end, Carter, who values his own life more than anything in existence, believe me, everyone knows this, stepped in front of a bullet to save his friend. So, here’s the thing. The whole side-bet with the devil thing. Don’t do that. I mean, seriously. Make your bets, set your bounties, whatever, but keep the devil out of it, because…
“Time on the other sides is funny. It spun by so fast, but time on Earth was still going the whole time. In that moment, though, time on Earth stopped. Just stopped. Everyone got really excited for a while, and Satan crossed to the Earth plane - Satan himself, I am not kidding - and pulled the bullet out of Carter’s chest. I watched this happen in real time. Everyone watched this happen in real time. The angels wanted to storm Earth, but God held them off. He said it was disproportionate. Even Carter didn’t know what had happened, but I watched the devil pull a bullet out of his chest in the instant before he died, and put the flesh back whole. Satan doesn’t like to lose bets. It was this big, noisy chaos for a few hours, and then Satan crossed back and Carter and the demon went back to their fight, and I thought something was going to change for me, but it didn’t. That was about sixty years in. They finished their fight, finally, and Carter was walking out with his friend, and God called me in to the inner court of the front courts, and He told me that if Satan was going to put a piece back on the board, so was He. He told me that He needed me to save Carter, and asked if I would do it. My choice.”
Jason was torn between going along with the story and mocking it mercilessly as more evidence of how completely off her nut she was, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“You decided to come back,” he said.
“I did. Eighty-five years in Paradise, and I came back here to save that man. I didn’t even know from what. Still don’t.”
“I probably would have, too. Sounds really boring,” Jason said. She shook her head.
“No. It’s perfect. It’s what we were designed for. I told Sam the other day that I hadn’t felt so safe since my parents died, and it was true, because in Paradise, you don’t feel safe. There’s nothing to feel safe from. The idea becomes foreign. It’s just… peace. And it wasn’t as though there wasn’t anything going on. The angels play this game, it’s so complicated, they just join and leave as they have time, and it spans decades. I don’t even remember the rules clearly, any more. There were so many. And I had friends who taught me things. So many people who knew so many things, and none of them were too busy to teach me. Well, okay, a lot of them liked to think they were too busy, but some of them always had time. The friendships you can have when there is nothing but time, and no conflict.”
“What did they teach you?” Jason asked.
“Angeltongue and its alphabet. Hellspeak and its. Various magics. Angeldance. War games.”
“Look, I’m trying,” Jason said. “But you can imagine how this would be hard to believe.”
She reached across the table and took his hand and began to speak a slippery, lilting language that his brain couldn’t catch hold of. His hand warmed and his heart rate dropped. He was calm, and his mind clear. She looked different, but he couldn’t put his finger on how. He pulled his hand away.
“Mind games,” he said. She laughed and pulled a peanut out of the bucket on the table and held it in her closed hand and spoke the rough, grating language he had heard back at th
e factory, then handed the peanut to him. It looked normal. He opened it and found the two nuts inside shriveled and burnt.
“Luck,” he said. She laughed again and grinned.
“Fine,” she said, putting her water glass in front of him and closing her hand around it. She spoke another language that he didn’t recognize, but at least the sounds felt familiar, and nothing happened. He raised his eyebrows and looked at her after a few seconds. She smiled and turned the cup upside down onto his plate. He stared at it, then reached out and poked it with his finger. Just as cold as it should have been, if it were frozen solid.
“What language was that?” he asked absently.
“Random combination of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Egyptian,” she said. “As it occurred to me.”
He poked the glass again.
“I’ve got to give it to you, that’s impressive.”
She smiled.
“So, does Sam know any of this?” he asked.
“Pieces,” she said. “I wanted to try it out on you before I dumped it on him. I mean, how do you tell someone that you died four years ago and got sent back from Heaven by God, other than by conning him into a storytelling exchange on a date that neither of you want to be on?”
Jason turned the glass back over and put it back on the table.
“How could it be anything but awesome? You’re super-powered, on a mission from God, and you know you’re going to Heaven when you die, because you’ve already been there.”
“None of the three, sadly,” she said. “The reason that they took Carter’s friend is because they wanted to use her as leverage against him. And he’s a lot scarier than me. If I turn up again - I’ve been very careful to be invisible for a long time, now - they’re going to come after you and Sam as the way to get to me, as the way to get to Carter. Not to mention - demons kind of hate me on my own merits, now. I’ve done some stuff. So I may be super powered, but I can’t use them without endangering you, or sucking myself back into the life with Carter again. Carter doesn’t want to be saved, so scratch the mission from God.” She took a breath. “Heaven. I can’t tell you what it takes to get in, because while the list isn’t complicated, it’s based on faith. You have to believe things. I don’t believe.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know. I know all the rules. Stupid Shaman brain, I was completely obsessed with them for about fifteen years. I learned them all. I know which ones I’m following and which ones I’m breaking, and the only way to maintain redemption is to be clean on all of them. And it isn’t possible. I look at a girl like Elizabeth, and I’m toast. I hate her. But I have to do my best, because I don’t know what else to do. Faith isn’t an option for me, any more.”
“That’s messed up.”
“No kidding. Most people don’t have this problem.”
“God sent you back voluntarily, with some giant catch that, because you died and went to Heaven once, you couldn’t get back in?”
“It can’t possibly be like that,” she said. “But I don’t see any way around it. Especially now that I’ve run away.”
“Why did you run away? I mean, apart from the obvious, where Carter is impossible to be around for more than a day.”
“That was more story than I was hoping to tell, tonight,” she said, looking away. He was going to tell her not to worry about it, but she slid her thumb underneath a chain that she wore around her neck and pulled it clear of her shirt to reveal an engagement ring.
“My fiancé died,” she said. There was a long pause as he stared at the ring and she quietly looked away. She tucked it away again. “It broke me. I couldn’t do the superhero thing any more, so I left. Made it so they couldn’t find me. Until I found the two of you at that bloody mine and couldn’t leave it alone. And then I triggered Sam by mistake, and now I can’t just walk away and leave him to fend for himself, through that.”
“And then there’s the fact that you love him,” Jason said. She laughed at the ceiling.
“I know. And then there’s the fact that I love him. Jason, I was nineteen and a giant nerd when I got myself sent to Carter. Everything I know about sex, I learned from demons. Can I possibly tell you how messed up I am with relationships?”
“Apparently you managed to get yourself engaged,” he said.
“Yeah, and then he and his entire family got themselves wiped out by a spiteful blood demon,” she said. “The room at the factory? Yeah, only that was the man that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”
Jason looked away now. She nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.
“Because I haven’t told anyone. And Sam and I kind of have more important things going on. I will tell him. Soon. It’s just, I haven’t practiced this on anyone, yet. I don’t know how to make it make sense. I mean, why would you believe anything I just said?”
“Mostly? I don’t. But I expect Sam will, and if Sam believes you, I will.”
“That simple?”
“That simple.”
Jason finally picked up the check that the server had left lying on the table some time back and dropped it with cash back on the table.
“You ready?” he asked. She nodded.
“Well, that was the most interesting date I’ve had in a while,” he said, “though, I’ll admit, it couldn’t compete for entertaining.”
“First date I’ve been on in more than two years, and only the fourth guy,” she said.
“Seriously?” he asked.
“Giant nerd, Carter, roaming aimlessly,” she said. “Which part of my life should have been generating more dates?”
“How about superhero?” Jason asked. She shook her head.
“I had a few guys hit on me, but it’s really not attractive, after you just pulled a demon out of them.”
“Fair enough.”
He got her car door for her and walked around to get in to the driver’s side.
“Sam is going to be impossible, after this,” Jason said.
“Why?”
“I actually had a good night.”
<><><>
Simon didn’t have anything for them to chase the next morning, so Sam called north and they headed across Kentucky. They stopped for lunch before they crossed the Ohio river, then Samantha, now awake, was laying in the back seat singing for the next hundred miles. Sam asked if Jason wanted to do some off-highway driving for a while, so they picked an exit and then one turn and then another through Indiana. This was an old game for them. Wander until they were lost, then see what the locals were like and what there was in the way of entertainment.
“You suppose she even knows what she’s singing about?” Jason asked Sam. Sam laughed.
“I don’t know.”
“Not only do I know, I’ve watched it in person,” she said, returning to her song. Sam and Jason looked at each other and Sam spun in his seat to look at Samantha as Jason sat up to find her in the rearview.
“You’ve what?” Sam asked. She raised her eyebrows at him, but otherwise ignored the question. Sam shook his head, bemused, and Jason raised an eyebrow at her in the rearview. She saw him and shrugged.
“Hold on,” Sam said. Jason looked at him. “No, man, stop. Stop here.”
Jason pulled over and Sam got out of the car and ran back up the street.
“He saw something. Just wait here for a minute,” Samantha said, sitting up and focused.
“You’ve seriously watched…” he started.
“Shhhh….” she said. He waited.
“Takes a lot of focus, huh?”
“No, I just want you to shut up.”
He considered.
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
Sam opened his door again.
“That sign back there, on the hotel. It’s the sign I saw before in the hallway,” Sam said.
“What hallway?”
“From your vision?” Samantha asked. He nodded.
“What
vision?”
“Let’s go see,” she said.
“What vision?”
Jason followed Sam and Samantha back down the street after he locked the car and made it into the lobby just as they did. He saw the girl working the desk and grinned.
“Hi,” he said over top of Sam. “I’m Jason, and this is my brother and his girlfriend. We were just driving through and noticed your sign. It’s interesting.”
He hadn’t, in fact, noticed the sign, and he hoped it was actually interesting. He heard Samantha sigh mockingly.
“It’s very historical,” the girl said, her eyes widening. “Most people don’t notice.”
Jason leaned on the desk.
“I’d love to hear all about it. What time do you get off?”
“Eight,” she said and giggled. He glanced over his shoulder. Sam was smoldering and Samantha was batting her eyes in mockery of the girl.
“That will be great. Can we get a room and get checked in?”
“Just one?” she asked, glancing around him at Sam and Samantha.
“You know what, you’re right. I’ll go ahead and get theirs, too.”
“Oh,” she said brightly. She took his credit card and gave him four room keys.
“This is recon,” Jason said as he handed the keys to Sam. “I’m going to find out all about this hotel from that girl, and then, if I’m lucky, I’ll learn all about its ceilings, too.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she knows everything,” Sam said, looking pointedly at Samantha. Samantha elbowed him hard.
“Looks like she knows enough, to me,” Jason said and grinned. Samantha reached over and grabbed a measure of Sam’s flesh at the waist and twisted it hard. Sam squeaked and nearly fell on the floor.
