The Stolen Karma Of Nathaniel Valentine (The Books Of Balance Book 1)

by Justin Bloch

  He spotted the seraph he had been searching for as soon as he stepped onto the pier. She stood at the railing halfway between himself and the Pearly Gates, and for that Sol was thankful. He couldn’t have approached her had she been within earshot of Bertha. More than that though, he didn’t want Bertha to see him. His shame over the way he had acted the previous night was deep, and he was afraid that he might catch sight of that same coldness in her eyes.

  He moved through the teeming crowd with the easy grace of his profession, and many of the people gathered to greet and cheer the arrival of the Son were not even aware that he had passed. He came to the captain and stood to one side as she instructed several members of the Emerald. The Son and his disciples would be most vulnerable as they made their way from the mist to the pier, so several sailboats of guards would be positioned on the Shimmering Sea to offer protection. They would not travel with the Son’s party but remain on the fringe, not ruining the picturesque view of the boats on their course to the Pearly Gates, yet close enough to swoop in if need be.

  Each of the sailboats headed out to sea as the captain finished with her orders. She had long black hair that reached to her lower back and fell loose over her shoulders and contrasted beautifully with her fair skin. She was gorgeous, but in a knowing, cocky way that Sol didn’t care for. She had dark blue eyes like deep ponds under open sky, long spills of coal dust eyelashes, high cheekbones. Tall and svelte, her body looked constantly poised on the brink of frantic movement. At her hip hung a long sword in a deep red scabbard.

  “Sol,” the captain said, turning to him. Her voice was loud, clear, and commanding and totally unlike the whispered tones of the karma policeman. It spoke of authority and security, and dared insolence.

  “Hello, Luna,” replied Sol. The sun had dipped low and turned alizarin, and the crowd buzzed excitedly. It would be soon now. Sol wondered what Bertha was feeling, alone at her post.

  The captain regarded him quizzically. “Is there something I can do for you, policeman? I’m a bit busy at the moment.”

  Sol suppressed a sneer at the term she had used. He was often referred to as ‘policeman,’ nearly always in a disparaging way. There was nothing specifically insulting in the use of the word, but coming from another seraph, there were connotations to it, hints of inferiority. But now was not the time to pick a fight. He would need her on his side. “I wanted to speak with you concerning a matter of importance,” he said evenly.

  She made a show of checking the position of the sun over the water. She sighed and turned to face him once more. “What is it? Make it quick, for the Son draws nigh.” You play babysitter to Residents while I command the guard of Heaven and I have little time for whatever silliness fills your mind, her tone said.

  “I wanted to speak to you about Bertha’s fate,” Sol replied. When he saw no recognition at the name, he scowled and continued, “The Gatekeeper, the one that the disciple is replacing? She has served the Silver City nearly as long as you and I have, and she merits more than just a dismissal.”

  “As long as you and I have?” she sniffed, and he saw her considering whether to bring up the fact that it was she alone who served Heaven, that he was merely a protector of man. After a few brief moments, she snorted again and continued on a different tack. “What of it? She is a Siren, Sol. She is lucky to have survived this long. There were many who talked of killing her when the rest of her breed was eliminated. Her good service saved her then. It will not save her now.”

  The karma policeman felt his blood begin to heat. She was infuriating. She stood there in front of him, arms crossed over her chest, grinning at him with such condescension that he wanted to punch her square in the mouth and see how many teeth still remained in that disgusting smile of hers when she got up. If she got up.

  “She does not deserve to be banished from this world simply because of what she is, Luna. What matters is who she is. She has never done anything but her duty to the city and to the Source, and it is not right that she should be sent back to the Library without so much as a farewell celebration. She goes back to no one, and she will die lonely and probably half out of her mind because the Silver City showed her no thanks for the job she fulfilled all these many years.”

  As he had been speaking, the smirk on Luna’s face had been growing, the corners of her lips pulling up in a haughty way that made Sol force his hands deep into his pockets so that he would not strangle her. He could not stand her grin. It reminded him too much of her brother’s. Her essence, unhidden, shown through as if a tiny silver sun stood before him. In his pockets, his hands balled into fists. He had missed something, or she simply knew more than him, but one way or another, she had one up on him, and he hated it.

  “She goes back to no one?” she inquired softly. “Sol, she does not go back at all.”

  He advanced on her suddenly, till they were nose to nose. “What are you talking about?”

  “While she was Gatekeeper, Bertha had a purpose, a reason to be. Now that she’s to be stripped of that, she will be only a Siren that has outlived her usefulness.” She paused, and there was a glint of joy in her eye as she uncrossed her arms and placed one hand on the butt of her sword. “After the celebration, Bertha is to be put to death.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, I’m serious. Deadly serious,” she responded, and laughed at her own joke. The sound of it grated on Sol’s nerves, and he restrained himself yet again. It would not do to fight an angel on the pier of the Silver City as the Son arrived. There would be hell to pay then and he had no wish to ruin the occasion.

  Luna went on. “She is a Siren, she could spawn more Sirens, and their kind cannot be allowed to gather once more. Would you want them to take away all of this?” she asked, her hand sweeping over the metropolis.

  “The Sirens would never have moved against the city and you know it, Luna. Don’t be idiotic.”

  This caught her off-guard, and her face darkened. She took a step toward him and poked a stiff finger into the center of his chest. “Unlike some angels, policeman, I am responsible for the safety of a great many Citizens,” she seethed. “I do not wager on their lives. Bertha is a Siren and that means she is a threat to the sanctity of Heaven. I do not tolerate threats.” She turned away from him, facing the Shimmering Sea once again. The prow of a sailboat pushed through the thick mist hanging over the water, and the crowd along the pier roared their excitement. “Bertha will die,” said Luna. “The Sirens’ story ends this day.”

  In his jacket pocket, Sol’s gifted hand toyed with his straight razor. A light breeze blew in over the water and Luna’s hair caught in it every few seconds, revealing a flash of clear, porcelain-skinned neck. The razor felt too right in his grip, too willing to do its blood work. All things balanced, but his weapon was not a way of making sure they did.

  “You of all people should know that no one should be punished for who they are related to, Luna,” he hissed, then pushed roughly past her, jostling her on his way to the end of the pier. He pressed his way through the throng of people, all of whom seemed to be nearing a frenzy over the coming of the Son. Special measures had been put into place so that the Son and his followers arrived in the Silver City simultaneously, with the souls of the earliest dead remaining in Limbo until the last Apostle had passed on, and now two more boats sailed out of the mist. The mob surged and pulsed, and the karma policeman slipped through them like a ghost. He had to see Bertha, to tell her that he was sorry, to let her know that she had been right and he had been blind. He had to say goodbye to her.

  As he neared the Gates, his progress became more and more difficult until he was finally halted. He could go no further, the mass of people surrounding him was simply too great. He was still twenty feet from the Gates, Bertha still out of sight, presumably at the bottom of the staircase waiting to receive the Son. There were now five boats coasting over the waves toward the pier, moving swiftly as the wind filled their sails. Sol tried in vain to squeeze forw
ard, to make at least a slight gain, but his way was blocked. The roar of the crowd had reached a deafening level and become nothing more than white noise, individual cries losing themselves in the cacophony. He yelled in frustration and could not hear himself.

  Over the heads of the mob he saw the mast of the first ship come to a stop, followed shortly by the second and third. The masts wobbled back and forth as the ships rocked with the passengers’ departure. The fourth and fifth ships arrived only a few moments later. He watched with defeated eyes as the Pearly Gates swung open and a path opened up amidst the crowd, extending the entire length of the pier. People all around him stood on tiptoe to try to catch sight of the Son. This was it then, Sol thought. He would not have a chance to see her again. Peter would have already taken over. Bertha the Gatekeeper was gatekeeper no more.

  He sat alone on a bench in the pocket park where he had been the previous day with Nova. It was deserted now. Behind him, he could hear the celebration going on as the Citizens of the Silver City made merry at the return of the Son. Technically, he thought, he’d been in the park two days ago now, for dawn was fast approaching, the sky gray with the coming of the light. The atmosphere around him seemed to be holding its breath, waiting anxiously for the first curve of the sun to appear above the horizon and give life to the illuminated day. His hands were folded neatly in his lap and he sat with perfect posture. Waking birds gave their first tentative chirps of the morning, warming their voices. A few squirrels chased each other up and down tree trunks. The karma policeman did not notice them, motionless on his shadowed bench.

  He had, in fact, been sitting there for hours now. After the Gates had swung open, the disciples had filed through one by one, waving to the crowd as if they were in a parade, which in some sense, Sol thought, they were. Following them, nothing more than a vaguely spherical ball of light, was the Son. The crowd had hushed immediately as he moved through the Gates, watching in awe as he passed among their ranks. For most of them, it would be the closest they would come to viewing the Source in their afterlifetimes. Sol stood quiet with the rest of them, depressed and beaten.

  I GREET YOU WITH LOVE AND WISH THE BLESSING OF THE SOURCE UPON YOU ALL, the Voice of the Son said suddenly from deep within his head. A feeling of perfect contentment filled the karma policeman, and Bertha was wiped from his thoughts. A smile rose to his lips, unbidden and irrepressible. Around him, souls and angels stared in dazed and starry-eyed wonder at the Son. The Son was love, pure love given consciousness.

  MY LOVE IS BESTOWED UPON ALL CITIZENS OF THE SILVER CITY, FOR YOU ARE THE TREASURES OF THE SOURCE, THE JEWELS OF HEAVEN, AND I GREET YOU AS BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

  And then the Son had passed beyond the pier and into the bounds of the Silver City, and the karma policeman was no longer within range of the Voice. The sense of overwhelming euphoria lingered however, and returning thoughts of Bertha troubled him less.

  After the mob had moved off of the pier, he walked to the Gates to look for Bertha, but she was already gone. Peter was there, sitting at the bottom of the steps. The old man raised a hand to the karma policeman, but Sol left without returning the gesture.

  Now, however, as he sat in the park, watching the spray of the fountain turn from silver to gold as the sun finally broke cover and revealed its shining arc, the last of the false contentment had dissipated, and the full heaviness of the Gatekeeper’s death sat upon him. His mind made circles. She would die thinking him just like all the uncaring others. He shouldn’t have been so quick to argue. He had made some of her last hours unpleasant when they should have been filled with joy. He was so lost in thought that he gave a little jump when his sister suddenly spoke up from beside him.

  “Why aren’t you at the celebration, Sol?” she asked. She was still wearing her costume from the ball, and she was radiant. She was dressed as an ice queen, and she wore a long, flowing white gown, the fabric airy and light. Her skin was naturally fair, but she had applied some glittery makeup that made it look as if her cheeks were covered in ice crystals. With her white-blonde hair sweeping straight back from her face and sparkling like icicles, she looked ethereal, beautiful, delicate as a snowflake. She left a winter’s trail wherever she walked, and the grass frosted over as she passed in front of Sol and sat beside him. “You’re probably the only one in the entire city that isn’t there. I’ve looked everywhere for you.”

  “I wanted to be alone,” he responded. His hands were once more folded in his lap. His eyes were downcast toward them. A pair of birds, a robin and a sparrow, chased each other through the air. They whirled and dipped and dropped together, two small balls of feathers at play.

  “Hmm,” she said. A brief silence followed as she waited for him to elaborate and he waited for her to finish waiting. “You’re brooding again,” she continued. “I can tell. I thought we finished the business of the Residents yesterday.”

  “Two days ago,” he pointed out.

  “Whatever.” She turned to look at him, her arm stretched out along the back of the bench. The paint crackled as the cold radiated out from her skin and reached icy fingers into the wood. “What’s bothering you?”

  He sighed, long and slow. He debated whether it would be easier to tell her everything or to just pass his malaise off on the Residents and decided on something in the middle. “There are things happening that aren’t fair,” he spoke. “Someone is going to be punished when they did nothing wrong. It doesn’t sit well with me.”

  Nova was quiet for a moment, considering. “Who is this someone?”

  “A woman I’ve only just met.” He paused. “We parted on bad terms.”

  His sister wondered whether she should press him for more information about the woman, but decided against it. If he wanted to tell her, he would. Pushing him would only make him draw inside himself. She knew all about the walls he had built around himself, whether or not he thought she did, and knew that the best way to get around them was to chink at them with a chisel rather than break through with a battering ram. “Why don’t you try to patch things up with her then? I’m sure it’s nothing irrevocable.”

  “I can’t find her. If she’s not at the celebration, and I doubt she is, there’s no telling where she could be. I barely know her, I don’t have any idea where she might live in the city.” He thought this over for a moment, then corrected himself. “Actually, I know she doesn’t live in the city. She could be anywhere.”

  “Why don’t we look for her together, then? We can cover more—”

  “No,” he said, cutting her off a bit more harshly than he had intended. “She’s probably in the custody of the Emerald already. It doesn’t matter. I just didn’t want her to think that I really am as terrible as she thinks.”

  Nova scowled. How had her brother gotten mixed up with someone wanted by the Emerald? She tried to repress a question, but couldn’t help herself. She had to know who he was involved with. “What did this woman do, Sol?”

  “That’s the thing,” he replied, at last facing her. His hands raised, hovered palms up for a moment, then dropped back to his lap. “She didn’t do anything. She’s being punished for what she is, not what she did.”

  “That doesn’t sound very fair.”

  “No, it doesn’t, does it?” he snapped, then quickly added an apology when he saw how taken aback she was. “I’m just frustrated. I tried to talk to Luna about it, but she wouldn’t listen. And it’s not right.”

  “Why don’t you try to do something about it, then?” Nova asked. She took a powder blue glass vial from her gown and unscrewed the top, drew it away from the bottle. Attached to the bottom of the lid was a slim wand with a hoop at the end, like a child uses to blow bubbles. There was a thin sheet of iridescent liquid stretched within the center of the hoop and Nova brought this to her lips and blew gently. A stream of snowflakes burst from the hoop, floating in the air before her. She dipped the wand and blew again and a second miniature blizzard rushed out, the snow crystals beginning to settle to the grou
nd. Nova smiled at the distraction, creating her own patch of winter amidst the beautiful summer of the Silver City.

  “What can I do?” Sol retorted, oblivious to his sister’s snowstorm. He had taken his straight razor from his pocket, and he twirled the closed weapon through his fingers, the mother of pearl flashing in the dawn’s light. “Luna’s decision is final. She is the captain of the Emerald.”

  “Luna,” said his sister softly, “is a self-important, haughty tyrant, but she is not the be-all and end-all authority, Sol.”

  The karma policeman froze. “What do you mean?” he asked, although he thought he knew.

  “Even she serves,” answered Nova. “Go to the Source.”

  “What if it refuses to help?”

  “Then ask for your boon,” she said. “If it really means this much to you, and I’d advise you to consider that very carefully, ask the Source for this.”

  “My boon,” said Sol thoughtfully. He gazed blankly at the fountain once more. It had begun to freeze over with Nova’s presence, but he was oblivious to it. Because of their service, every angel was allowed to ask for a boon, a single request which the Source could not deny. But, Sol wondered, was this really what he wanted to use his for? The gift was a great one, a magnificent one, the ability to do or have any possible thing you could want. The karma policeman had been alive for eons and had never been able to decide what he wanted to use his boon for. He had only just met Bertha, and if he were to use it for her, then he would have to decide quickly. Far behind him, he could hear the sounds of the celebration dimming as the sun raced higher into the sky.

  Beside him, Nova hummed quietly to herself, watching the birds flit from tree to tree and adding more snow to the drift before her. A breeze had sprung up, twirling and dancing the snowflakes in the air and making the trees whisper among themselves. The clouds were gray streaks in the sky above, like brushstrokes in a Japanese watercolor. Sol closed his eyes and pictured himself and Bertha as they had first been, her singing as he listened at the top of the steps. He remembered the immediate connection he felt with her, even though it was so rare for him to feel any link to another. He thought of the beauty he had seen in her and heard in her voice, that wellspring of perfect tones and notes. Moreover, she was the very last of her kind, the final Siren, and he could not justify the extinction of her line simply for what they were. He turned to his sister and took her hand in his. It was ice cold, but he barely noticed.