by Richard Hein
“Unless you have a personal connection,” Kate said aloud. “Michael’s been in my mind for six years. He’s a long term tenant.”
Kate’s mind sought for the pathway that led to Michael’s mind. All her pain at the loss of her brother and parents, and the scraping clean of her memories and mind… the most intimate of connections possible. I could feel her within our combined consciousness, probing those spots that had been smoothed over, where the past trauma Dieter had noticed had been filed away. Michael pressed back with renewed vigor. The fire in me rippled and slipped, and the universe rocked, twisting around me for a moment like someone had pulled the drain and I was about to be sucked away.
Got it, Kate cried. Sure enough, I could feel the tug of war between us snap taut and open like a freeway, like a yellow-brick lined road that led right to Michael’s mind. Kate’s will would never have been strong enough to have fought into his own consciousness, but maybe now…
Kate opened the roadway, and I slammed the tank down the avenue.
Michael thrashed beneath us. The Archangel let out a bellow that rattled the glass of the bookshelves further down the archives, back arching up off the floor and lifting the two of us up. One blackened hand snatched me by the throat and hefted me up, but it didn’t matter. I was still in contact with him, and our surging wills thundered against his cliff, shattering it. Golden eyes flared as bright as the sun as he yanked me close enough to see the stars swirling within them. All my rage and anger, all my hatred for what had happened to Lauren and the OFC funneled into Michael.
“You’ve doomed humanity,” he whispered. “Let that be upon your head, Samuel Walker.” The Archangel Michael vanished in a flash of light. Kate and I tumbled to the warped floor in a tangled heap atop each other.
“And stay out,” I wheezed.
* * *
Kate rolled to her feet and offered me a hand. It was covered with soot from her struggle with Michael, but I wasn’t going to argue. “What the hell was that, Samuel?” she asked. “I mean, not that I’m not grateful, but you were almost a match for him there.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I stared down at the spot where he’d occupied and dragged a toe through it. He was really gone. “Righteous fury? He was weakened by the magic first and that made it easier for Kate and I to…” I trailed off.
Kate and Daniel shared a look and took a few deliberate steps back. Daniel’s hands shook as he lifted the gun. Kate watched it for a moment before meeting my eyes. Her eyes shimmered with wetness.
“Well?” Daniel asked. The barrel of the gun wavered in his trembling hands.
My hands fell. “Nothing feels different,” I admitted. My gaze drifted between the two of them. “I’m me.”
“Would you know?” Kate said softly. “Wouldn’t something in your mind say that?”
“You exorcised an Archangel,” Daniel said. He took another step back. “That’s just not possible. You could have saved Lauren if it were.”
I stared. My thoughts ran around the halls of my consciousness. He was right, but nothing felt different. Was my house still in order? How would I even know?
Was I still me?
I held up my hands. “I’m still me,” I said slowly, hoping not to spook Daniel into giving me the same look I’d just given Michael. I rather liked the pale Seattle look. “I don’t know what happened there, but I’m not feeling the urge to eat any babies or kick any puppies here.” I frowned. “Any more than normal. I don’t really like dogs.”
The tip of the gun lowered a fraction. “That does sound like Samuel,” Daniel said with a frown. “The odds, though… Using magic twice?”
“He was in my mind,” Kate said. She brushed at her cheeks and walked up to me, peering into my eyes as if she could see into my soul through them. “It was strong, but it felt familiar. Like the man I’d come to…” She turned away. “Like Samuel.”
“If I start barking at the moon, we can talk,” I said. “Honest. No one is more worried about it than me. I feel like me, though, but let’s all keep an eye out on me, okay?”
They both nodded.
I looked around the archives. The immediate area was a burned war zone, but it extended far beyond in two different directions. A lot had been saved. We’d saved Sanctuary, for the time being. I pressed a hand against one of the stone pillars and rested my head against the twisted surface with a sigh.
We’d saved Sanctuary, and every last foot of it was empty save for us. The last survivors, and of them, only I had actually been a full member of the OFC. Saved, but lost all at once. There was no one to blame but myself. Michael had planned and orchestrated all of it, but my weaknesses had been his to exploit. Without me, no one would have died here.
Kate’s hand on my shoulder was a comfort I didn’t deserve. “Is this a sign of the crazy?”
“I was just thinking about everyone that died because of me.”
“It was Michael. Years of planning…”
I scrubbed at my face. “If I hadn’t been so bitter at everything with Lauren, I’d have done things a bit more legit. Followed the rules better. I was so bound up in trying to prove myself and look where it got us. You’re right, this is on Michael, but I’m not clean either, Kate.” I spun and slumped against the pillar.
“How long are we safe?”
“Michael’s bound to this place for eternity, and last I checked, that was a long time. Someone has to summon him up, but the next time it happens…”
Kate pressed closed and draped her head across my shoulder. My eyes drifted closed as we sat there in the silence and warmth of each other for long moments. It felt too good to ruin with words or actions.
“He’ll be back in my head then, too,” she whispered. I wanted to comfort her, to tell her it’d be okay, but I could only nod.
“Let’s hope it’s a long time coming,” I said.
“I never figured you for an optimist, Samuel.”
“I’m a bottle half full sort of guy.”
Chapter 19
I pushed into Christina’s office feeling like I was violating a tomb. Nothing differed. The globe spun on. It wasn’t just empty, it felt hollow. You can always tell when there’s someone else in the room with you, that feeling of life, even if someone is asleep, even if your eyes are closed. You know. The room was dead, a collection of objects that no longer had meaning. I hadn’t even known Christina, but something wrenched in my chest at the emptiness that had settled around the room like a layer of dust.
I traced a finger along the desk with a forlorn squeak as I stepped around it, unsure why I’d come. I’d felt the need to peek in, drawn to give it one last look. My foot nudged her chair out of the way, and I planted my palms on the desk and let my eyes wander about the room. Affixed across from it, etched in cursive on a plaque of copper, read three simple words.
Ordo Felix Culpa.
My laugh was bitter. I hung my head, shoulders twitching with the force of it. Felix Culpa indeed. The “happy fault.” The idea that God loosed evil into the world so we could see a greater good from it, by overcoming it. I slumped back into the chair and rubbed at my face. Without the darkness, you can’t ever understand how bright the light is. Without a fall, you couldn’t appreciate the struggle of getting up again, of earning your place.
The OFC was supposed to be a part of that light, knocking back the shadow. Instead it had been consumed by it, ripped apart by something that wore the guise of goodness.
I sat staring at the words, feeling the burn of them. Their wrongness. Nothing good could ever come of what had happened. Kate was alive and Sanctuary was safe, but the cost…
With a snarl, I jumped from the seat and snatched up a bottle of Scotch from the table against the wall. I rolled it in my hand. The contents sloshed in trembling fingers. So many people dead because of me. The urge to take a swig, to finish the whole damn bottle was a maddening itch that wormed at the base of my skull. It whispered like a familiar lover, with promises of bliss and numb
ness, with familiar expectations that only it…
I spun and hurled the bottle against the copper inscription in silence. Glass bounced and skipped across the floor. A poster of The Pirates of Penzance beneath sagged as a nearly full bottle of booze splashed down upon it. I snatched up another bottle, heart beating a rapid staccato, but the fire boiled out of me. It slipped to the floor and sloshed under the heavy desk.
“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” I asked the empty room.
“Rebuild.”
I jumped and turned. Sitting in Christina’s chair, shoes kicked up onto the desk, sat a man in a navy blue suit. A white folded square of cloth poked from one jacket pocket. His hair had been bleached to the point of being as white as my skin and neatly combed. The man tented his fingers above his chest as he absently spun from side to side in the chair like a restless child.
“Who the hell are you?” I snapped, yanking out the baton I’d stuffed into my back pocket and holding it between us.
“Oh goodness,” he breathed, eyes widening. “A stick. Heavens above, whatever shall I do? Haven’t you learned how ineffective those things are by now? Would you please just have a seat, Samuel? This would go quite a lot easier if you’re not so…” He waved a vague, irritated hand. “So you.”
“Were you hiding down here during the fight?” I asked. I reached out to poke him in the shoulder with the baton. “Christina said we were everyone, but I didn’t think that could be true. So, who exactly are…”
The baton passed right through him and thumped against the back of the seat. My chest tightened. The figure was still sitting there, not looking at me, spinning in the chair, but the baton hadn’t found any purchase. I yanked my hand back in surprise and slammed into the cart of alcohol. A couple of bottles tumbled free.
“I failed.” My voice came out as a ragged croak. My eyes slipped closed. “I thought I’d beaten the odds.”
The man waved a dismissive hand. “You have it all wrong, Samuel. I’m not the thing in your head, the creature of your fears. I’m this place.” The chair swiveled and faded gray eyes took me in from foot to crown. “You? I’m not so sure about.”
“Sanctuary? You’re Sanctuary.”
“Guilty,” Sanctuary sang, spinning in a full circle. “With Christina’s death, the mantle of responsibility has fallen to you. The OFC is yours. My power, such as it is, is yours.”
I bounded off of the cart and slapped my palms down on the desk facing the Entity. I’d seen what Christina had done against Michael, though it hadn’t saved her in the end. She’d been tied to this place at a deeper level than any of us had suspected. I stared. It stared back at me, eyebrows arched, waiting.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in a coma, or sleeping?” I asked.
“I am,” Sanctuary said with a nod and waved an expansive hand. “This is my dream. That’s your first question, really? I’m disappointed. Christina was a doll, but she was rather…” It rolled a hand and kicked back. I shuddered as the chair rolled back a few inches. Not actually there, but able to affect the pocket reality anyway.
“A ten-ton bitch?” I provided.
Sanctuary’s smile was all teeth. “Yes. I like that.”
I nodded. “That’s how she was able to do all those things out there. It wasn’t magic.”
“Just a tiny bit of expressive manipulation of my inner self.”
“Yeah, well, it didn’t help her stay alive. Great job.”
Its expression fell. “For which I am eternally saddened. However, as much as I lament the passing of…” It’s pale face twisted like it had tasted something sour. “’The Boss’, as you called her, I’m hoping you’re more entertaining if we’re going to be working together. I do have to say, the inrush of knowledge you’ve brought me is exhilarating. Christina hadn’t been back to Earth in a long time. I can see all sorts of things in your mind I’d like to know more about. Let’s start with the Internet.”
“You’re in my head?”
“While you’re in this place? Oh yes. The bond goes both ways, to facilitate the administration and management that the OFC—”
“Oh no,” I said, waving a finger at the Entity. “I never agreed to this. Why the hell did you pick me anyway?”
“Pick? I reached into my magic hat and pulled out the only name left in it.” It did just that, producing a top hat from below the desk and drawing out a paper slip. Both vanished in a puff of violet fog. I shivered. “Samuel Walker.”
“Ah, no, there’s Daniel.”
Sanctuary shrugged. “Intern Daniel, as you think of him in the cobwebbed recesses of your mind, isn’t on the books. He’s not a full member and thus is ineligible. Sorry. Rules are rules. The burden passed to you by default, Samuel. No, I would have chosen someone else.” Its eyes flicked to the dripping wall. “That bottle of single malt Scotch you ruined, perhaps. Wisdom comes with age, they say. It was a rather old bottle.”
“Well, un-pass it,” I said.
“Of course,” Sanctuary said, bowing its head. “I will need to necessitate your death, and then the mantle will—”
“Uh.”
Sanctuary paused, head tilting to the side. I turned away and scrubbed at my face with one hand. I led the OFC now. Of course, that meant myself. I’d have to figure out how to promote Daniel, and maybe I could somehow pass him the keys and just…
Just what? Leave? Go back to the job I’d lost? Knowing that everyone I’d known had died, that there was nothing acting as a buffer between the darkness anymore? My eyes traced the tiny rivers of alcohol as they twisted down the poster, a dull, knowing ache growing in my chest.
“Rebuilding is important, Samuel. You of all people understand the need for the OFC. This isn’t something you can let slide, another job you can just shirk.”
I jabbed a finger at Sanctuary. “What I’m not doing right now is taking advice from things that weren’t born on Earth. That’s pretty much how we all got in this situation here, you realize.”
A flicker of annoyance passed across its face. “This isn’t the time to be childish. More than you normally are, anyway. I had years to observe you, and know how you—”
“Not happening,” I snapped, slapping my hands over my face and scrubbing. “Do you not understand that trusting Entities of any shape is why everything is all fucked? Rushing into things in the heat of the moment is bad. Juggling fully loaded baby diapers sort of bad, right? So when an Entity starts speaking sense, I’m going to take some time and just think instead.”
Sanctuary stared for a moment and gave a bare nod. “That’s… surprisingly wise. Fair enough. Don’t take too long, though. All the things are going to keep crawling out of the dark while you stare at your navel, questioning the universe.”
“Maybe,” I said, unconvinced, and sighed. “I… maybe. I need to figure things out first.”
“It is a lot for your tiny brain to process, isn’t it?”
“Everyone is dead,” I snapped. “I’m not sure if you’re capable of reverence, but maybe you can pretend to have a little respect?”
Sanctuary bowed its head. “Fair enough,” Sanctuary said. “Let’s not forget that not long ago you were planning on enacting a plan that would cease my existence as well, however. This is my home universe, Samuel. Death here is permanent for me.”
I glared at the figure. “Why all this, though? Why does there even need to be some mantle of power?”
Sanctuary smiled. The suited figure grew misty, a purple fog that swirled away and evaporated to nothing. I was alone once more in the room, but that hollowness was no longer present. I could feel Sanctuary, could even feel Kate and Daniel like they were standing beside me, even though they were a floor away. For a second, whispers of their voices swirled around me as I thought of them.
“The day this place was created for is fast approaching,” it said. The voice whispered to me from all around, perfect surround sound speakers.
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
There w
as a pause. “Oh, Samuel. You really aren’t going to like it at all.”
Epilogue
“Everything okay?”
I looked up at Kate. She was sitting beside Daniel at one of the notched and ancient tables in the undamaged part of the library. I could see the rows of burned shelves and melted computers, the flames snuffed out by my connection to Sanctuary it seemed. At least that had proved useful, though I wasn’t sure what to make of the rest of it. It was all so overwhelming, far too much information to take in at once, given everything that had gone on. My eyes flicked to Kate’s. Worry lined her face, likely because they both thought I had every chance of going crazy at any moment. I slumped into a chair beside them and dropped my head into my hands with a weary sigh.
“Not at all,” I said into my palms. “Doesn’t change a thing though, does it?”
I wasn’t sure if I should tell them yet. The revelation was still worming its way through my consciousness, trying to find a home. It was too early to start bothering them with such details after everything they’d been through. Kate’s admissions about keeping things from her swam to the surface of my thoughts, but adding to their burdens wasn’t something I relished at the moment. I looked up and glanced between them, the only two friends I had left in existence. Kate gave me a wan, tired smile. Daniel wouldn’t meet my eyes, his clunky old gun at hand on the table.
Waiting.
“What do we do now?” Daniel asked. He stared out over the melted plastic of the computers, at the burned shelves and ruined books. I spun in my chair and followed his gaze, to where the floor bent and warped. The two broken halves of my ring glittered in the light.
“We rebuild,” I said, echoing Sanctuary. I wasn’t sure how to feel about it all, but I couldn’t argue with the plan. Not yet, anyway. The world needed the OFC, even if it was just to spite Michael. “I don’t know how, but we recover.”
“Really?”
I snorted. “Give up on all the atrocious coffee this place has to offer? Never. We’ll figure something out, Daniel. I promise. We can post ads on telephone poles or something. There’s still plenty to do. Coffin Head is still out there with his two cronies, and we’re probably going to see a pretty big increase in activity soon.”
