by KJ Harlow
“Yes. Something must have been eating away at them, something which they couldn’t find the answer that empowered their soul and renders them impervious to our Lucent Guns.” He moved his hand to his hip absent-mindedly. His gun wasn’t there. It must have been back in his room.
“So you’re saying that even if you shoot them, they won’t… Rid?” I asked, pausing as I remembered the term that I heard being used earlier. Walter nodded.
“Yes. Their torment is like an invincible shield that protects them. The only way to break the shield is to discover the truth behind their torment by finding the question they’re looking for the answer to and to provide them the answer. Only then can the Lucent Gun work on them.”
I sipped my hot chocolate in silence. My mind wandered back to the night of my death. The more I revisited the event, the more I became comfortable with it and the idea that I was dead. I would never have imagined that I’d be OK with being shot in the head twice.
“So the night that I died. If Tor had shot Mortimer, what would have happened?” Walter regarded me with a passive expression.
“Mortimer would have been momentarily stunned. You might have been able to escape. He would only be able to Rid him if he knew Mortimer’s source of torment and had the answer to it.” Images of Tor planting his gun into Death’s throat flashed before me.
“Mortimer had a gun too – the Ombre Gun, right? What happens if we get hit by an Ombre Gun?”
Walter’s expression grew serious. In that moment, it looked like he’d aged ten years. “Regardless of whether we’re shot by an Ombre Gun or a Lucent Gun, we Cease.” He said gravely.
Cease. The word hung in the air between us ominously, like a cloud of poison gas.
“What happens when we Cease?” I whispered. Walter looked out the door of the cafe as if he were afraid that Mortimer would walk in through the door at any moment. He looked back at me, expression still serious.
“We don’t know,” he admitted. “That’s why we call it Ceasing. You just Cease to exist.”
I shivered and took another sip of my hot chocolate. It had already grown cool. Despite being an atheist for most of my adult life, I didn’t find it surprising how quickly I adopted my new found beliefs of Deliverers, Tormented and Conflicted souls as well as magical spirit guns. Ceasing to exist in any form scared me the most. We were quiet for a few minutes as I let all this new information sink in. There was one more thing I wanted to ask.
“How did the Tormented come about? Has there always been this battle between the Tormented and Deliverers?”
For the first time since I met him, Walter looked uncomfortable. He shifted his weight in his seat and suddenly looked like he didn’t want to be there. I watched one of the staff methodically make a latte to give him space to think.
“There have always been Conflicted, corporeal beings who have died but are reanimated by the inherent darkness in human hearts. In pop culture, these beings are known as zombies.” He smiled when he saw the flash of recognition in my eyes.
“Deliverers have always hidden in plain sight amongst humans Ridding the world of errant Conflicted and restoring the flow of souls to the Underworld. It was an operation that worked pretty well, until…” he swallowed.
“One day, there was someone recruited to become a new Deliverer. Sad case, he was a pretty young kid, maybe no more than 19 or 20, but he had committed suicide. Death wanted to give this guy a second chance.” I was completely absorbed in Walter’s story at this point. He continued.
“It turns out that the intel that Death had received on this kid was missing some key information. He had some major unresolved Torment while he was alive. On a standard mission to rid a pocket of Conflicted, he broke Rule Number Three,” Walter met my unblinking gaze. He heaved a sigh. “Never shoot a human.”
“What happens when you try and Rid a human?” I probed.
“Well firstly, you’ve automatically broken one of the key terms of your contract. You are stripped of your powers as a Deliverer and returned to the Waiting Room where you will await your fate.”
“As for the human himself, he turned into the first documented case of a Tormented.”
“Was that Mortimer?”
“No, it was another – one that’s since been Rid… by me.” He added, smiling darkly. “But the creation of a Tormented filled this wayward Deliverer with power. So much power that he was able to resist Death’s calls to return for judgment back in the Underworld and stay up above.” Walter finished, looking upwards.
I was so absorbed in Walter’s story that I didn’t even notice that The Room had warped back to the Grand Canyon. We sat on top the ledge, wind whistling about us.
“This man, what’s his name?”
This question was innocent enough, but it created a complex combination of emotions that flashed across Walter’s face. I realized that I had seen it before, on Death’s face.
Walter turned to me. There was a hatred in his eyes that made me recoil. For a second I thought it was aimed at me. The wind suddenly picked up and attempted to snatch the name away right from Walter’s lips before it escaped, as if even the wind gods forbade him to utter it.
“Dante.” Walter snarled. The wind suddenly halted. Dante. The name sounded… Spanish? South American? What was he like? What could he have done that could make an angel viscerally angry? Cautiously, I pushed on.
“So Dante is now hunting people to join the ranks of Tormented, right? Why’s that?”
“After realizing that torment was such a powerful life force, he realized that he could grow stronger by finding more people with tormented lives or immense conflict to turn. He feeds off the Torment inside them, growing stronger day by day. Also, the Tormented create more Conflicted, which in turn can create more Conflicted. The longer he’s left to his own devices, the more unstoppable he becomes.” Walter finished breathlessly.
“So why is he building this army in the first place? What does he want to do with all this power? He’s just as dead as we are.” I wasn’t holding back now. Walter shrugged.
“We don’t know. Our informants have been Ceased and he hasn’t told us anything,” he snorted sarcastically. Walter leaned into me as the wind picked up again. “We think that he might be amassing power and waiting for an opportunity to come back to the Underworld to Cease Death himself.” He whispered conspiratorially. Cease an angel? Death? Surely that wasn’t possible. How do you kill Death?
“All we can do is wait for our opportunities where he and his minions show themselves, stop them from finding more people to Turn into Tormented, and meanwhile find out more details about where their Torment comes from so that when the time comes, we can Rid them and severely weaken Dante,” Walter said resolutely. “One day, we might even find what Torments him and put him to rest.” This he said with a hopeful lilt.
The wind blowing around the Grand Canyon had died down again. The full moon glowed mysteriously as a coyote called in the distance. We sat together in silence, each lost in our own thoughts.
“I should get going. I’ve got a date with some bone-breaking training.” I said, grinning. I stood up slowly, stretching upwards. I closed my eyes, feeling the caress of the breeze.
“Rose.”
A voice, terse and sharp spoke directly into my ear, causing me to lose my balance. I clawed at the air as I fell into the canyon. For the second time in my life, I felt like I was going to die. As I was plummeting, I saw Walter’s amused face as he sat on the edge watching me. Next to him stood Tor. As usual, his expression was guarded.
I screamed and I flailed in the air falling until I landed with a thud on my buttocks. The Room had become The Room again. Tor and Walter were standing next to one another. Walter still wore the amused expression. Tor looked at me with exasperation.
“Rose,” Tor repeated. “I have rescheduled your training. If you are ready, we can start straight away.”
“Help a lady up, will you?” I scowled up the two men. Walter had his h
ands crossed, merriment dancing across his eyes. He looked across to Tor, who hesitated before extending his hand down. With a sharp jerk, he lifted me off the ground. He misjudged his own strength; I flew a foot into the air, knocked him over. Somehow, I ended up sitting on his stomach with my hands on his chest. Walter burst out laughing.
“Oh get a room you two!” He snickered. I usually laughed at lame jokes, but in this case, I was fuming. Before I could respond, he turned around and walked out the door. As Tor and I untangled ourselves, he waved without looking back at us. He opened the gnarled door and paused. “Enjoy the training. Once you’re back out in the Overworld, there are no second chances.”
Seven
I listened to Walter’s hooting fade off into the distance. I then turned back to face the Deliverer who had just caused me to fall into the Grand Canyon.
There were a couple of big problems here. The first was that I was in a room with a man who had earlier demonstrated a propensity of threatening to blow people’s brains in by planting his weapon under his boss’ jaw. That, combined with the fact that he had actually blown my brains in was enough to make want to run from the room screaming.
But then to make matters more complicated, when I was actually screaming in my room earlier, he was there cradling and comforting me, whispering sweet nothings. This wasn’t to mention that I fantasized about spending an imaginary life with him seconds before I was shot dead the first time, all of course while Stan, my boyfriend on earth, was still the one I wanted to get back to – I think.
Around Tor I felt safe, slightly attracted and very confused. Now I was in a room with him and he wanted to do something physical with me.
“Rose,” Tor said again for the 57th time. For someone who I’d heard speak very few words in the Underworld, he sure did say my name a lot.
“That’s my name. Don’t wear it out,” I responded tiredly. For a second, he looked at me as if I were something he scraped from the bottom of his boot. His expression became guarded again. I was getting better at reading him.
“I was coming to see if you were ready for our training,” he said matter-of-factly. OK, so now we were getting somewhere. I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows, putting on my displeased expression. This usually got Stan to confess that he’d done something wrong. One time, I caught him rummaging around in my underwear drawer. Turned out he was trying to find the right size to buy me some new lingerie.
Tor stared back at me, not responding to my antagonizing. Either he never had a girlfriend, he could withstand pressure or he had nothing to hide. I didn’t know which option was true. After half a minute of our stand off, he spoke.
“You were having night terrors before. I called out your name and you didn’t respond. You just kept saying, ‘mama’”. He said. Once he uttered that last word, there were flashes of red when I blinked. The ringing in my ears began again. I bowed my head slightly to hide the fear that had just gripped me. I clenched my fists and relaxed them, over and over. What had gotten over me?
“Rose?” Tor asked. Hearing his voice made the ringing subside and the red flashes disappear. I blinked a few more times just to check that the episode had finished.
“Rose, are you alright?” Tor repeated.
“Stop saying my name!” I snapped. I turned my head up to look at the man, my eyes blazing with ferocity. I was met with a cool, steely gaze. It was too easy to dislike someone who just wouldn’t fight back. Sometimes Stan would fight other times he’d admit he was wrong. But he never just stonewalled. It was frustrating – I had to get through this man’s defences.
“It’s good that you are feeling better now. Are you ready to begin your training?” Tor enquired. Was that a hint of excitement that I sensed? I feigned defeat.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Tor cracked a small smile. Aha! There it was, a smile! Just like I’d imagined, it was a small, cute smile. I knew that I couldn’t point it out though. If I made fun of him for smiling, it would go again into hiding, maybe forever.
I kept my face as neutral as possible. “OK Tor, how are we going to train today?”
While looking at me steadily, he reached both of his hands behind his back and pulled out two guns. He tossed one into the air and grabbed it by the barrel, facing the handle towards me. I had never held a gun before. I looked down at the gun Tor was giving to me.
“Don’t worry, it’s not real,” he said assuringly. “You can’t Cease me with it.”
I eyed the gun a moment longer then reached out my right hand to grab the handle. It felt heavy and in a strange way alive in my hand, almost like it had a pulse.
“Does it feel good?” Tor asked expectantly.
I stared down at it, not really knowing what to think. I wasn’t as scared of it as I thought I would be. I was – dare I say it – excited to fire my first round. I looked at Tor and nodded slightly. He smiled his small, cute smile again before getting rid of it.
“OK, now let’s practice.” He looked around the white expanse. From his body, a new environment began rolling out. I saw some cows and about a dozen wind-powered generators spinning lazily in the distance. Was this Tor’s home?
“Where is this? The Netherlands?” I blurted.
Tor looked at me, hesitantly. After some deliberation, he corrected me. “Norway.” So that explained his accent. We looked at each other for a moment longer before he looked towards the distance.
“Now let’s begin the training.” He waved his gun casually at a point where he was looking. “Do you see that cow over there?”
My eyes flew open. “You want me to shoot a cow? What’s wrong with you!” I squawked in outrage. Then something happened that caught me off guard: he laughed. It was an unburdened laugh, full of mirth.
“You remind me of my little sister,” he said, almost warmly. “She talked a lot too.” His sudden show of human emotion caught me off guard. Before I had time to ask, his emotionless mask was back on. “This is The Room. That is not a real cow. And besides,” he fired a shot calmly, knocking a can over that was sitting on a fence about 12 yards away, “that’s what I wanted you to hit.”
For what seemed like hours, I practiced shooting. Tor stood to one side, leaning casually against a tree as I fired round after round, missing the cans. I was pretty sure that I had missed over a hundred shots. My arm was sore. This wasn’t working. I was starting to wonder whether there was a clause in my contract that allowed for a cooling off period. Maybe Hell wasn’t as bad as this. A few times, Tor came up to me and stood right behind me. Using his firm, sure hands he straightened my back and readjusted my shooting arm.
It wasn’t possible, but I could have sworn that I felt heat coming off his body. He was that close to me. If I was alive, my heart would have been doing backflips in my chest. Right next to my ear he rumbled, “remember Rule Number One”. What was it again? Have your eye on the target when you shoot?
I couldn’t think straight, not when a hunky Norwegian ex-soldier stood inches away from me. I steadied my arm, focused on the can I’d been trying to shoot for the last hour and pulled the trigger again. The shot was even more off-target, the bullet zooming a couple feet above. He stood back away from me, crossing his arms, his eyebrow raised in bewilderment. At this rate, I’d be more of a liability on the battlefield than an asset.
I dropped my arm, letting it swing by my side so some feeling would return to it. My mind wandered back to the scene outside the meeting room. I remembered looking up and seeing slivers of smoke slithering out from the barrel of Silas’ gun after just disarming Tor.
“Have unwavering conviction when you shoot.” I mouthed silently, as his words rang through my mind. Conviction. Conviction towards what? Conviction that I’m a Deliverer? That I made the right choice by signing the agreement with Death to take down the most tormented souls to roam the Overworld? No. Those were important, but they weren’t the driving force behind my decision. It was Stan.
His last few messages before I died that night appeared befor
e my mind. What if he didn’t want to end our relationship? What if he wanted to end his life? Why would he want to do that? Was he under too much pressure at work? Did he have depression? If that were true, my death might have tipped him over the edge. I had to go back and let him know everything was OK… for now.
Conviction.
In one fluid movement, I raised my gun and fired a shot. Sure and true, it pierced the can that had evaded my shots for the last hour, the Norwegian grass cushioning its fall. I punched the air with my gun in hand. It went off and I half-ducked instinctively. Grating my teeth, I turned back sheepishly to Tor.
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. He pushed himself off the tree and walked towards the fence. He bent down and picked up the can that I had shot. Propping himself against the fence, he surveyed it, turning it back and forth casually. Nonchalantly, he threw it back over his shoulder. He looked at me with his azure eyes, piercing as icicles.
“Now try and shoot me,” he said calmly. The breeze in the Norwegian field had picked up a little. Did he just say what I thought he said? Seeing that I hadn’t moved, he stood up straight and put his hands on the fence behind him.
“Shoot me,” he repeated.
“Why?” I demanded. I tried to hide the alarm creeping into my voice.
“You have shot a can. The next step is to shoot a moving target. I won’t move first. The more shots you land, the faster I’ll move,” he paused, waiting for my response. Seeing I didn’t have one, he repeated his command. “Shoot me.”
“No,” I said, flatly. The sun had already sunk half way behind the hill. I still couldn’t see his expression, but I could almost feel his exasperation in the air.
“Why?” This time, it was his turn to ask. “These are training guns. They won’t hurt me.” He added as if to sound reassuring.
I was silent. This wasn’t right. I knew it was just training, but I couldn’t shoot him. Why couldn’t I bring myself to pull the trigger? A melange of dark orange and pink stained the sky now. Tor and I held our positions, neither of us budging an inch.
