The ones who had checked out seemed the happiest. Unable to function as their friends and families died, they just stopped processing the slaughter. They sat next to some corpse on the street, holding its stiffening hand and staring at nothing. Or they busied themselves with some crazy, meaningless task, like doing laundry for people who were already dead. Zakkery wasn’t lucky enough to lose his mind, but he almost envied their ability to cocoon themselves from reality. It must have been peaceful.
The righteous, meanwhile, saw the plague burning through the Elemental realm as a chance to make one last sales pitch to Gaia. They knelt beneath stained glass portraits, lighting candles and begging for deliverance. They listed their good deeds and promised to do even more. They prayed for immunity from the disease or an end to their suffering. They asked for help. Those sad, pious fools were kidding themselves, of course.
No one was coming to save the world. Not God or, Gaia, or Superman.
Zakkery and all the unrighteous sons-of-bitches out there knew that this was the big finale. Drop the curtain. Roll the credits. No hiding from the usher and staying in the theater for the twelve o’clock show. The end. This was the last hurrah before the end of days actually ended, so you might as well enjoy yourself.
In a way, it was liberating. No one was enforcing laws or following rules. If you wanted something, you could just take it. If you didn’t like someone --and they weren’t already dead-- you could give the plague a helping hand. Society itself broke down as the plague spread. For people like Zakkery, who never much liked society anyway, the dystopia was one last chance to have a little fun before the lights went out.
Figuratively, anyway.
In a literal sense, the lights had already been out for days. This sort of blackout could only mean that the Electricity House was falling on a catastrophic level. They usually sustained the power for all the Phases, providing the electrical currents for lamps and TVs and blenders. Since the plague had started killing everybody, though, they’d really been falling down on the job. No ice for your drinks, these days.
Off in the distance, Zakkery could see the Fire House’s huge funeral pyres burning. Again and again, he found himself looking towards the flames. They drew him. The flickering, twisting light would have been atmospheric, if it weren’t for the smell of the burning bodies. The stench permeated the entire realm. Not even alcohol blotted it out completely.
No matter how hard people worked at it.
It took a lot for Elementals to achieve DUI levels of inebriation. Their bodies metabolized alcohol differently than the humans’, so they needed bottles instead of glasses before they started slurring words and staggering when they walked. Still, it could be done. As the death toll crept higher and higher, a lot of Phases seemed determined to prove the philological possibility of getting flat-ass wasted.
That worked for Zakkery.
The past four days had shown him that nothing mattered. Not that he’d ever had a lot of faith in some greater purpose to it all. He’d always known this world was just one long practical joke. He was just sorry that he had nobody to share it with.
By nature, Zakkery was a social person. He liked having someone to talk to. Sadly, being Banished from Elemental society severely cut down on his opportunities for hanging out with other people. Technically, he was forbidden from even entering this realm. The Fall meant that no one much cared about that law, though, so he figured he might as well take advantage of the new open door policy. No sense in spending Armageddon alone.
He didn’t recognize anyone in the bar, but one of the women present had to be up for some end-of-the-world sex. Zakkery had few redeeming qualities, but he’d always been a good looking son-of-a-bitch. With ebony hair, smoke-colored eyes, and the face of a fallen angel, he’d spent his whole life attracting attention. Before he’d been Banished, he’d been voted the handsomest man in the realm. Granted, he’d slept with the head judge of that contest, but only after she tallied up the score.
Zakkery wasn’t a cheater.
Sure enough, a tipsy Energy Phase with a double-D chest and a rhinestone tiara perked on her head smiled at him from the other end of the bar. See? Just because everyone was going to die, didn’t mean the celebration was over.
Before Zakkery could head towards the willing stranger, though, a Time Phase entered the picture and fucked up his apocalypse.
He barely noticed her, at first. One quick glance assured him that she wasn’t his type, at all, so he’d been prepared to dismiss her from his mind. Zakkery couldn’t be sure of her actual age, but she seemed terminally young, with an innocent face and a golden-blonde ponytail tied with a bow. Her poufy dress was covered in a vivid pattern of cartoon snakes swallowing their own tails to form hundreds of infinity symbols. If she’d been born a human, he would have guessed that she’d just escaped some sorority party. She looked like a real sweet kid.
Zakkery didn’t do sweet.
He automatically gave her a flirtatious wink --Because, too sweet or not, she was still a female-- and started for the voluptuous Energy Phase.
The Time Phase shifted to block him. “Hey, Zakk.” She said as if he was her long lost brother. “You won’t remember this yet, but I’m Daphne.”
The sound of his nickname caused him to jolt. No one called him Zakk anymore and no one in this bar knew him, at all. In every way that mattered, no one anywhere knew him. So who the hell was this petite stranger?
Zakkery forgot about getting the Energy Phase into bed. All his focus centered on Daphne, trying to place her. He knew he’d never met her before. The power this Time Phase gave off was like nothing he’d ever felt, so he’d remember if he’d encountered it. But she did seem familiar. Like he should know her.
Like she was his… friend.
Except, Zakkery no longer had any friends.
Daphne gave him a wide smile as he studied her. “Buy me a drink.” She ordered and sat down at the bar. “Or, hell, don’t bother. I’ll just take yours.”
As she hoisted herself up onto a stool, Zakkery’s eyes went to her cowboy boots. They were made of some bizarre silver material that he couldn’t identify. As he watched, the odd leather seemed to change color like a lava lamp. No fashion designer in the world could make something like that.
At least, not in this century.
The hair on his arms stood up as thing began to make sense. Zakkery didn’t go around advertising his IQ, but he’d never been a stupid man. His mind quickly zeroed in on the truth.
“You’re from the future.” He whispered.
“No shit.” She agreed and leaned over to grab his beer.
“Which means there must be a future and I --what?-- know you in it?”
“Now you’re getting it.” She took a swallow from his glass and made a face. “It’s warm. Jesus’s cats. This is for sure my least favorite time to visit.”
Zakkery still wasn’t sure how this was possible. “You can time jump without dying?” As far as he knew, Time Phases only got a single, fifty-two second window to go into the past. Then, they exploded into dust. It was a suicide mission that very few of them ever signed up for.
“Is that really a question?” She rolled her eyes. “Come on. If this was a one way trip for me, would I really be spending it here?” She gestured around the bar. “You’re usually smarter than this, Zakk. Try to keep up.” She snapped her fingers at him. “We’re on a schedule here.”
“All I’m doing today is getting drunk and getting laid.” He had his whole evening planned and he didn’t plan to let anything distract him. …Except, a time traveling blonde was way more interesting than the Energy Phase had been. He found himself sitting down next to Daphne. “What’s the future like?” He asked before he could stop himself.
“Chaotic.” She said shortly. “And it’s getting worse all the time. Part of that is my fault, but --don’t worry-- I’m fixing it.” She paused. “We’re fixing it. That’s why I’m here. I need your help.”
“How did you e
ven find me?”
She grinned at him. “You told me you’d be here, of course. I mean, would anyone else know?”
Maybe he was already drunk, because that sort of made sense. “So… we’re friends?”
“You’re my best friend.” She said simply. “We’re partners in this.”
“In what?” He asked, still suspicious. But the idea of having a best friend was so fucking appealing, he found himself wanting to believe her. “How can I be sure this isn’t a trick?”
“You wrote you a letter.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out an envelope. “I imagine it lays out the reasons you should trust me. Aside from my wholesome good looks, of course.”
He recognized his own writing across the seal. It said, “Do Not Open Unless You’re Me.” Already knowing that this was going to lead to badness, he ripped it open and scanned the contents.
Shit.
Daphne picked up his beer, again. “You might want to skip to the part where I’m going to save your Match.” She suggested pleasantly. “It lessens the sting of the rest.”
Shit.
Zakkery stared at the words for a moment, but only one sentence mattered:
Our Match will die and Daphne can save her.
Conflicting emotions swept over him, but the words were too powerful to resist. He’d never thought he’d find his true Match. It would be better if he didn’t. He knew that. He’d been in love once and he had no desire to ever repeat the experience. But, to have his Match dangled in front of him… The one person no one could take… The woman who was born to be his…
Well, he’d never been any good at resisting temptation.
“Shit.” Zakkery gave into the inevitable and shoved the letter into the pocket of his jeans. He wasn’t sure what he planned to do with a Match, but --hell-- he’d done stupider things, for far less of a reward. He might as well hear the Time Phase out, right? “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to help me help the Fire House.”
Zakkery felt a moment of relief. Well, that wasn’t so bad. He liked Oberon. The guy was the only Council member who hadn’t voted to Banish him. The Fire King said he saw potential in Zakkery. Potential. Zakkery had never forgotten that word. No one else had ever noticed anything special about him, so he owed Oberon one.
“Sure.” Zakkery agreed readily. “We can help the Fire House. Like right now or…?”
“Tomorrow. Teja is going to do something stupid and you need to stop it.” She nodded to the envelope in his hand. “Just follow the instructions in the letter.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, in two years, I’m going to need you to spread some rumors about this human named Sullivan Pryce. Tell the Air House, and every other bad guy out there, that he has the Happiness box.” She leaned closer to him. “See, I can’t find the damn thing. I’m hoping that the Fire Phases will do the leg work for me, if I motivate them. Siccing a cat-load of assassins on Teja’s Match should do the trick.”
Zakkery understood about two words of that gibberish. “The what box?”
“It’s one of the Tablets of Fate.”
“Those things are real?”
She nodded, taking another sip of beer.
“And you want to steal one of them from the Fire House?” He shook his head. “No one steals from the Fire House. Not even me. You know I once saw Djinn stab someone through the head, right? And that guy was his fucking uncle.”
“Oh, everyone’s stabbed Frankie.”
“Djinn’s the only one who’s ever used a kitchen faucet, though. He ripped it right off the sink. No way am I getting on the bad side of those psychos.”
“Hey, we’re doing all this to save them. They’ll see things our way.” She paused. “Eventually.”
“Eventually? As in before or after they peel off my skin like a banana?”
“I know what I’m doing.” Daphne waved a dismissive hand. “I need the Fire Phases alive, so we’re going to make sure they keep breathing.” She polished off the last of Zakkery’s beer. “We’re all on the same side. …In the long run, anyhow.”
That didn’t sound promising. “Are you sure we’re friends? ‘Cause it seems like you’re trying to get me chopped into bloody chunks of meat.”
“Relax, you’re going to be fine. If anything goes wrong --which it totally won’t-- I still have an ace up my sleeve.”
“Which is?”
“Something a certain Fire Phase will do anything for.” Daphne smirked. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”
Chapter Fourteen
I am fire and air;
my other elements I give to baser life.
William Shakespeare- “Cleopatra”
Sullivan figured that he’d lost his mind.
It was the only explanation.
He had no idea how it happened, but somehow he was inside Teja’s memories.
Things like that just weren’t possible without some kind of significant mental breakdown. He should’ve known that he was going nuts. The volcanoes and the broadswords alone should’ve been a dead giveaway. And the gorgeous woman pulling her top off and ordering him to strip. And the world-changing sex. And the whole “Surprise, we’re married!” thing.
Yeah, total straightjacket time.
After all, what were the odds of someone like Teja getting within fifty yards of him? Answer: Zero, outside of a psychotic episode. How could he have ever thought that she was real?
Wonderful.
So, it turned out that Sullivan was a lunatic and an idiot.
A fierce sense of disappointment gripped him. Not that he was a madman. Obviously, that was a bummer and all. But, far more crushing was the idea that Teja might not exist outside of his own unbalanced thoughts. Sullivan’s heart clenched and his undoubtedly damaged mind cast around for a way to deny the terrible reality staring him in the face.
There were two hopeful signs and Sullivan latched onto them like a drowning man with a life preserver. One: His instincts still felt Teja. They still told him she was his. That seemed too crazy to manufacture, even for someone who’d so recently joined the ranks of the deranged. How could he invent this feeling of belonging?
Two: These memories --these visions of Teja’s past-- seemed very, very real. Super real. Sullivan Pryce had never been a guy with an active imagination. How the hell could he possibly dream up anything this vivid?
And weird.
So far he’d seen Teja as a little girl, with a head full of black curls, highlighted with that beautiful periwinkle streak. He’d seen her exploring strange lands with her parents, places so incredible that Sullivan could only stare at them in wonder. And he’d watched her digging through rocks after the landslide that killed them. For three days, she searched without rest, until she finally found their bodies. Then, she took them back to the Elemental realm and collapsed sobbing into Job, of the Earth House’s arms.
Sullivan’s heart broke for her.
And that was before he saw her stuck in the middle of a god-awful custody battle. The Cold and the Fire House both wanted her. The fight seemed to stretch on endlessly, with both sides pulling out all the stops in their attempts to win.
…But it was pretty much impossible to beat the Fire House.
War meant nothing to them. Cheating meant nothing to them. Laws meant nothing to them. They would keep fighting until their opponents either quit or died. They wanted Teja and nothing would stop them from having her. Nothing.
It was sort of inspiring.
The Cold House’s frigid control was no match for the no-holds-barred passion of the Fire Phases. Just by observing the fight, Sullivan knew that Teja’s family was violating the Elemental rules by keeping her. The fact that she could control both sets of powers provided a small loophole that the Fire House could exploit, but the periwinkle streak at her temple clearly meant that she was supposed to live in the Cold Kingdom.
Oberon, of the Fire House just didn’t care about “supposed to.” He cared about
having his granddaughter at his side.
He was a big, larger-than-life man with bushy eyebrows and a booming voice. Oberon was patient and loving and focused on his family. He actually seemed a little familiar, maybe because he reminded Sullivan of his own grandfather.
Only he swore a lot more.
“Fuck you, Eian.” Oberon spat out, pacing around the Fire House’s throne room. He was speaking in the Elemental language, but Sullivan could somehow understand it. “Teja’s here with me and this is where she’ll stay.”
“This is ridiculous.” Eian, of the Cold House snapped. He stood with a military precision, a tall, regal looking man with silvery blond hair and hazel eyes.
Thus far, Sullivan wasn’t loving the guy. And not just because the Cold Phases were a major suspect in his twelve hour amnesia and their stupid castle had almost blown-up around him. More importantly, after spending time with the Fire House, Sullivan couldn’t adjust to the Cold Phase’s… coldness. Oberon was right to fight for Teja. She would never be happy with her father’s family. It wasn’t where she belonged.
“I don’t see what there even is to discuss. Just look at her temple!” Eian waved an elegant hand in Teja’s direction. “She has our House designation. She’s a Cold Phase. A blind man could see it.”
“Phases follow their mother’s House.” Oberon retorted. “Do we really need to review third grade civics, now?” Unlike Eian, he wasn’t even trying to contain his restless energy. His black boots thudded against the marble floor. Teja’s grandfather shared the Fire House’s morbid fashion sense and badass attitudes. “My daughter was a Fire Phase. My granddaughter is a Fire Phase. End of story.”
“We only follow our mother’s House, if we’ve inherited our mother’s House.” Eian shot back. “And eight percent of Phases follow their father’s. We all know that.” He arched a frigid blond brow. “Council law says she belongs to me. The precedent is very clear.”
“No one is taking Teja from me.” Oberon warned in a deadly voice. “I don’t give a shit about precedent. I won’t lose anyone else I love.”
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