Order of Dust

by Nicholas J. Evans

  Aldrich watched Azazel step outside of the room, down the hallway, and into the bright kitchen. He opened the door to a big, white which released a breath of cool air, and removed a bottle of beer. He leaned on the counter, sipping his drink, watching Aldrich make his way into the area. He did not fully trust the demon, but if that story was true at all then he might have done someone a real honest act of kindness. Aldrich thought of the idea that this man could be out, under the stars along with his military buddies once more, basking in their company. Aldrich wished for something similar.

  “Or,” Azazel said, with a frozen chuckle, “maybe it was I who pulled the strings on the old puppet of war all along. Perhaps his comrades would be here having a cold drink with him right now, but that truly is the fun of being the Ender, I suppose. So many strings, so few fingers to tug at them.” He raised a hand, and with a subtle flick of his fingers he winked at Aldrich.

  “What’s the job, Azazel?” Aldrich asked boldly. He pushed the thoughts of the demon’s words from his mind, and focused on the only thing that mattered: Beth. “I am here, I agreed to this proposal. Now it is your turn, sir.”

  “Ah, it is a simple one my good man,” he said with a smirk, “you are but to drop this letter in a wooden box in a small town just shy of London.” Azazel handed him a stamp-sealed letter in a thick envelope. “There are but two rules to this job.”

  Aldrich swallowed saliva nervously, “And they are?”

  “Simple, Aldrich. One, you are not to open my letter. Second, you are not to see your children.”

  “No…” Aldrich paused. “Cookham? But Azazel... My children are there. I could see them. One last time and explain the things that happened. It could be a most freeing experience to them, something they may have dwelled on for so long.”

  “It is forbidden; I am sorry Aldrich. If you accomplish this task, you may be rewarded, but fail me and I shall condemn you.

  Aldrich studied the letter in his hands, the address printed neatly on the front. It was war times, and travel would not be easy. Luckily, the military papers in his pocket said that he was a sergeant and hopefully that would mean that he would at least be granted such passage. With that, he made his way out of the old house.

  Weeks flew by at a speed of a falcon diving for its prey. At long last, he found his target with a large sign that stated, “Welcome to Cookham, Berkshire.” This small town had changed so much from his times coming to visit Beth’s family. More small shops were open due to London tourists making their way out to the fields, automobiles roamed the streets that used to be barely wide enough for a horse to trot, while military personnel hung around the circumference of the town. He walked down the dirt paths, through the neighborhoods and passed the shops, asking each person he passed to point him in the direction of the address. Hours and hours, yet still no luck. That is when he saw something unmistakable.

  His daughter, all grown up with a girl of her own, young and gripping her dress as they walked. At first, he couldn’t be sure, but he would recognize that smile anywhere, and he thought to the last night he had given her a story. If that wasn’t enough, she looked just like Beth. Aldrich knew he could not approach her, but he could at least follow her, learn a little of her life through watching, and hopefully just make sure she was alright.

  They rounded a bend, past lush green bushes and down a grassy path towards a nice cottage on a corn farm. A man, young and thin, met her with a kiss and bent down to hug the young girl. From the distance he could not hear them but he could hear a faint sound of laughter, see their smiles, and even their true affection. For a moment this was enough to assure him that his children were alright. He turned to walk away but something came over him, as if his instincts and love as a father completely overpowered his state of mind, and no gift from Azazel was enough to stop him.

  “Emily!” he shouted and ran down the hill towards the family. They looked at him confused but they could see his American military uniform and were not worried by his presence. She stepped forward to greet him politely while the man and their daughter remained behind her by a few feet.

  “Yes, Sergeant how may we help you?” she asked with a warm smile.

  “Emily...” he said again, eyes moistening and mouth quivering, “I... you...” but the words would not come how he wanted them to.

  “Is everything alright, sir?”

  “You... you look just like your mother,” was what he managed to say.

  She began to look uncomfortable, throwing her hands in the pockets of her jacket and looking towards the ground. “Oh... thank you, sir...” she said awkwardly. “May I ask how you knew my late mother?”

  Aldrich looked at his daughter, it was a friendly face he put on that barely masked the pain within him. This was his chance, his one opportunity to reveal things to her that could uncage the demons she is keeping buried inside. He had to take a moment to think before making his next move, planning this like chess and taking everything into account. What would Beth want? She was an ambient wife with beauty and vigor, but more than that she was an ideal mother. Aldrich took a deep breath, knowing that this next part may block him from seeing Beth, but this is the clarity that she would have wanted for their children.

  “Emily... I am... Well... I am your father,” he said softly.

  Her face scrunched in an angry fashion, eyes pierced him like the ends of bayonets. “Is this some kind of sick joke? I have been polite sir, but you will not insult myself nor my family or their past with your jokes and assumptions.” Her husband and their daughter rushed to her side seeing the frustration mount.

  A cold crashing wave of emotions slammed Aldrich who knew he had handled this all wrong. He needed an ace to save him from himself, he needed to get through to her.

  “That night...” he began, “I read you, and your brother, the story of Frankenstein.”

  Her face grew wide, eyes lit up, but the anger still grew. “Get off of our property you bloody freak.”

  “I did the voices! Igor and the doctor!” He shouted over her.

  “I said leave!” She screamed back.

  “You fell asleep before the end! Your mother and myself went downstairs to the couch and had tea! Emily!” He continued to shout.

  She fell silent, tears rolling down her cheeks and her husband held her tightly. The cold air flooded over them and they stood in a brief silence. Her husband stared at him with fiery eyes, their daughter looked at the ground visibly scared. Then there was Emily.

  “You sick bastard,” she said quietly. “I am mortified by your actions. You must have met my brother during battle, he must have confided this in you before his death. Now, you come and mock me?”

  It was as if Aldrich died all over again. The same numbness, coldness, and hollow feeling that comes once you fall limp. He replayed her words with lightning speed over and over in his mind. His son was dead. He felt his eyebrows shake, his eyes full of tears, his lips forcing their way downward.

  “Oh, you’re sad, are you? Good. It is what you get. Here,” Emily trembled with rage, “let’s do a real test if you would be so kind and willing, of course. This is something my brother, and myself, have never shared with anyone. My murdering, deadbeat of a father had been secretly working on something in the cellar every night for years that we were not allowed to see. The bobbies came and found it all downstairs, what was it?” she asked, confidently and intently.

  Aldrich wiped tears from his eyes with the sleeve of his military jacket. The fabric was coarse against his skin leaving a mild red scuffing under his eyes. He looked up towards Emily, and he began to smile. “Books...” he said softly. “Children's books... Whole series of them. Named the two characters after the two of you. Worked down there for hours. I was set to have them published, you know. A whole series. My gift to both of you was going to be the first, hot, new copies of them.” He wiped his eyes again, the red marks stung with the salt of his tears and the second rubbing. “Even left a message for you both in the back
of each one…”

  Emily froze, she shuttered, and she cried harder than anyone could have expected. “These... These...” She began to sob.

  He walked closer to her and reached into his pocket pulling out a handkerchief. “These stories are yours, for your bedtime and your children's bedtime. As my mother did for me, as your mother and I did for you, and so you will carry this tradition, my angels.”

  His daughter backed away, almost on instinct. His arms were raised toward her, reaching out like he had done so many times when she was still very young. She fought herself at first, but something overcame her.

  Emily took a few steps towards him, embracing him and in that moment, they held one another close. In a matter of seconds, they were attempting to make up for the near thirty years they had been apart.

  As they both composed themselves Aldrich told her everything that had happened. It was a long story, but she always enjoyed story time. George and Helen, her husband and daughter, both sat with them taking in the information from this unbelievable tale of both bad luck and twisted fate. There were moments when they cried again, moments they smiled, and moments where she would tell him of her life which filled him with more warmth than an eternity in Hell could ever give. She told him of his son, her brother, how he died a hero which made Aldrich proud. It had grown very late, but there was still enough time to tell his granddaughter the childish version of the Frankenstein story, with the same gestures and voices he had done all of those years ago, and she fell fast asleep.

  He knew he had broken the one of only two rules he was set to keep, but in this moment he felt it was worth it. These were emotions and memories that gave him back the part of him that was lost to time. With this he thought, as a show of good faith to Azazel, he should at least deliver the letter that he was supposed to, and maybe it would earn him some points back to see Beth. He longed to tell her everything that Emily had told him.

  “I know this may sound strange, but would you actually be willing to tell me where the address is for that letter I had told you about? Thought I should at least pay him back the gratitude he had given me with this opportunity to at least see you and speak to you. Even if it was against the rules.” He gave her the envelope.

  She turned it over, read it, and raised an eyebrow in confusion. She showed her husband who laughed and shook his head.

  “Yea, the townspeople were confused, as well. Said it wouldn’t be off of the main road as I had thought.”

  “Yes,” George said in return, “we have always had some trouble receiving our parcels out this way. They often forget where we are.”

  “Oh, then you can show me the way?” Aldrich asked.

  “No,” she said with a little bit of worry in her face, “this is this address, Father.”

  Aldrich grew pale, and knew something was not right. In that moment he reached forward, snatching the letter from her hands. With one rule already broken under their pact, he decided to violate another with trembling hands and a panicked mind. His stubby fingers peeled and ripped at the envelope to release its contents, which was nothing but a folded piece of paper. He pulled apart the edges and the blank sheet sat in front of him with only one simple phrase.

  * * *

  “Hope you enjoyed your family reunion. I will see you soon.”

  8

  Sleepless

  “Immediately after I set the letter down, I was able to share one last sweet smile with my Emily before things went completely white, and I found myself in Paragon once more,” Aldrich said quietly. His small teeth grinded, and his body grew tense. “It was… predetermined to say the least… Things went just as they were always intended to, I am afraid.”

  “What... what happened next,” Coldin asked, the story haunting him. He was more aware of his situation now than before, and more fearful.

  The boy shook his head silently; the sinister grin nowhere to be found. Even Jackson could see that the Un-Ascended smile that was always wore like a badge of honor for their kind was one of pain, and of loss. His small, pasty white hands were tangled together in his lap as he sat hunched over staring blindly towards the floor. A nervous twitch came from the corners of his mouth and eyes as if they were an old dam attempting to hold back massive quantities of raging waters. Aldrich cleared his throat for a moment, sat up straight, and then looked at them, forcing a smile that was too human to be real.

  “Well, one could say I went on to keep living.” He said calmly through the painted smile. “When I awoke another decade or so had past, with I none the wiser of course, and sought out my beloved daughter once more. Only to... Only to be recruited into a military regime, the cause of which was unknown at the time. If I recall this was the late 1930’s, a fine year for some and horrid for others.”

  “Where were you Aldrich?” Jackson queried.

  “Germany this time, Munich to be exact. A wondrous city which had much prospered since my absence, I would assume,” he responded. “Before you ask it, I was not aware of the other dealings in the works. Rather, I, or that particular body, had perished during the first rounds of combat never making it to my destination of my daughter’s small town.”

  It was now that Jackson began seeing the overall picture, and the reason why Aldrich and Azazel have held this relationship. It was not one of friendship, employee and employer, or even a mutual understanding. Torturer, and the tortured. Judging by the scrunched, pursed expression Coldin carried, it was obvious that he had a different question in mind.

  “Hold up,” Coldin said abruptly. “So you just keep possessing these damn people the same way Sandy possessed me? They get no say in this shit?”

  Aldrich shook his head again. “On the contrary, all of the Dust’s of these bodies were granted safe passage through the North-Lane courtesy of Azazel,” he said, to the puzzlement of the others. “I can see you do not understand, I shall offer a small example,” Aldrich began again. “The third body inhabited by my Dust belonged to an older man who recently learned of a rare disease diagnosis, later known as Legionnaires Disease, not to mention his own depression. It did not cripple him for many months and caused his death shortly after. Azazel came to him offering the North-Lane, or Heaven as they called it then. I was given his body as a hollow vessel, no passenger present inside.”

  “And the previous one? The German?” Jackson asked.

  “Drafted during the early days of the war, before a more sinister agenda had made itself known. Azazel showed this man a dark near-future and offered a reprieve for himself and his parents,” he retorted. “His parents were Jewish immigrants.”

  Aldrich jumped back up from the couch and made his way to the kitchen. Coldin and Jackson shared a glance to the sound of clanking pots, pouring water, and the click of the stove. While Coldin’s face softened and his stern resolve subsided, Jackson’s stayed with the same intense stillness it had normally carried. The two large men sat on the couches in silence as the whistle of a teapot rang behind them. Aldrich called out at one point to offer them some but received no response, so he continued about his own business. Minutes later he walked back in with a steaming cup, making a loud sipping noise as he rounded the corner of the couch. Instead of sitting he stood in front of them a little more perked up from having his drink.

  “Sorry gentlemen, but I needed a sip,” he stated a little livelier. “Now then. After the soldier I awoke nearing the end of the war after finding myself in Paragon once more, of course. This time I was a female, and was somewhere very cold with a hard language I was not used to hearing. While I did not spend much time here, I later found out that it was a rural district of Russia. In that life, I knew that my daughter and myself would not reconnect as leaving was nearly impossible, and for that matter improbable. I was married to a… well a less than sober character who held an inhuman amount of anger within him. After only a mere month he ended my life at the end of his own knuckles, most likely from the language barrier but could easily have also been due to the fact that I did not
back down in a challenge. I will say this: he had practice before I became her. You can see Azazel’s trend, yes?”

  “I don’t get it, man,” Coldin spoke up. “Sounds to me like this weird, suit wearing, black smoke appearing guy ain’t all bad. He’s saving these people. Sounds like he’s only bad to you.”

  That smile made its way crawling back on Aldrich. “That is the thing is it not, my large new friend?” he said with a sarcastic whit. “He had saved some, but I remained in an endless loop of life after life long past when I should have expired. Each life I entered was worse than the last and each one made seeing my family more difficult. Regretfully my family is no longer among us and have made their way to the North-Lane, yet still I walk this earth alone. At least I said goodbye to my daughter in Paragon at the time of her own death, the one kindness I was given. Of course, if you can consider it a true kindness at all as here I am, as far from her as I can be with nothing but a simple goodbye shared between us.”

  “What about this body?” Jackson began as a burst of blinding light split the frame of the apartment.

  The beam was brilliant, similar to the shining of an opening door in a pitch-black room. The air spun from the stream of light was both warm and cold, and the sound coming from this light sounded of a piercing screech. Coldin raised his large arm to block his eyes from the white, brimming beams, and Aldrich simply sipped his tea staring at Jackson with a smile completely ignoring this new occurrence as if he had been through this before. Jackson did not flinch, but he did pull out his gold-lined weapon and point it towards the light, ready for anything with his hat pulled low to offer a shade for his eyes.

  It was here that a caramel leg, feminine and muscular, stepped from this stream of light, followed by an arm, and a gleam of golden armor. Jackson’s hat blocked out the view of the face but he did not need to see it; he recognized her the moment she stepped from the light. He watched as a familiar pale hand reached out from the light, clothed in the translucent silk that flowed up the arm, touched her arm gently and receded back in the stream as it began to close and disappear, almost as if it had never been there to begin with. They all looked towards her at once, this angelic and strong figure with long braids that fell like waterfalls over her shoulders. Jackson smiled, only for a moment, but just enough where she took notice.