by R. E. Vance
“Now you tell me.”
“And since it does not have the typical, expected physiology, you cannot assume a chest blow will pierce its heart.”
“How do I kill it?”
Shouf ignores my question, turning to the other officers in the peanut gallery. But I can still hear the bitch. “It is also impervious to direct magic. It cannot be levitated or frozen. There is no fireball that will burn it or magic missile that will penetrate its skin. Moreover, it does not feel fear, it is perfectly obedient and it has no remorse. The perfect Other-killer. Even more so, as you can see, than Mr. Matthias down there.”
I would have taken offense to the comment, except I’m too busy dodging this perfect Other-killer’s attacks. In a particularly stupid move on my part, I try to pull out my sword. It manages to grab me with all seven of its arms and begins to squeeze.
“Ahhh!” I cry out.
“Shall I end the exercise?” Shouf asks.
I shake my head. She clicks to see what I am trying to do. “Clever, Mr. Matthias. Unlikely to work—but clever, nonetheless.”
“I’d like to see that for myself,” I say, hitting the word see hard.
She clicks twice in response.
With my hand clamped to my side, I strain to reach my sword. I figure that severe damage will kill it, and from this angle I should be able to carve a good piece off the creature. Looking at it in its nine eyes, I say, “By the GoneGods, you are one ugly sonnuvabitch.” And then I have my weapon, and I’m digging my sword deep into its abdomen and slicing. I’m trying to write my name in its chest. The thing doesn’t even wince. It doesn’t move. Just holds me in its iron grip. “I would hate to meet your mother, because whatever made you must be a real piece of work,” I say as I finish carving the letter C.
I survey my handiwork. Hellelujah—I didn’t expect my whole name would fit on the bastard’s chest.
The monstrous Other narrows its multiple eyes, tilting its head to the side. Then it starts to bubble. I don’t mean metaphorically, like it’s bubbling with anger or rage. I mean it literally starts to bubble. Its head dissolves into a thick, mucus-like foam and runs down its front. I feel its arms break off me and I breathe freely again. Slowly, bit by bit, the creature bubbles down until it’s nothing more than a puddle on the ground.
I am left standing in the liquid, sword in hand. I look expectantly up at the booth.
“Very good, Mr. Matthias,” Shouf says.
“Thanks, I guess?”
Shouf clicks twice in the direction of the puddle and turning to the other generals, grates. “Seems this one had yet to fully form, wouldn’t you agree, Jean-Luc?”
“Sure, whatever you say,” I agree, looking at the foam as it slowly fizzles away in the cold Norwegian air.
Chapter 1
Anomalies and Sleeping Angels
On Day Three—
NOW—
“I said, I found your anomalies,” I growled into the phone. “You could have told me, Shouf.”
“Would that have made you more eager to help?” General Shouf’s grating voice calmly replied.
“No, but—”
“But nothing, Jean-Luc. The truth is that I did not know. I only suspected.”
“Whatever,” I said. “We need an evac, right away.”
“Evac?” Conner said. He had climbed to the top of the small hill which housed the gate. He was looking off into the distance, toward the Tree.
“Negative. This is a non-sanctioned mission.”
“OK,” I said, running my fingers through my hair. This was bad. Very bad. The Memnock Securities’ steel door would only hold them for so long, and given that they somehow broke into the underground security facility, I was pretty sure they were equally adept at breaking out. “At least call for backup. Local PD.”
There was silence on the line.
“Anonymous phone call,” I said desperately.
There was a long pause before Shouf grated, “Very well,” and hung up.
I looked up at Conner, who was pointing at the Tree. “I think I see Michael,” he said.
“How far?”
“Not far. He’s under the Tree’s canopy, maybe three hundred yards from here.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Nothing. It looks like he’s kneeling.”
“Kneeling?”
Suddenly, the gate started to open—great, the Occultists broke out a lot quicker than I’d hoped. Luckily for me, only the ijiraq came out. Good. I could handle a charging ijiraq.
“Conner, get to Michael. Now!”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be right behind you,” I said, pointing my sword at the ijiraq.
↔
The ijiraq stomped toward me, antlers down, looking to impale me. Thing about that is, ijirait don’t have eyes on the top of their head. If they did, this one would see that not only did I have my sword in one hand, I also had a flashlight in the other.
I waited until he was almost upon me, then I dropped the flashlight on the ground with the barrel perpendicular to his feet. This was a heavy duty flashlight made from reinforced steel; once his hoof stepped on it, he lost balance. He went barreling past me, falling flat on his face. I jumped on his back. I wanted to bury my blade in the back of his skull—that would be something he wouldn’t get up from—but instead, I hit him with the hilt of my sword. The blow was hard and perfectly placed, knocking him out instantly. I wasn’t quite satisfied, so I bore the hilt down on him several more times, screaming in rage as I did.
It felt good to let go. Kinda like the old days.
I would have continued doing so had I not heard a gunshot. I turned to see the tiyanak right behind me. He had been about to jump on me, but Conner had managed to deliver a bullet right into his shoulder. That wouldn’t keep him down for long, but the shot was good enough to cause him to fall.
Idiot! I told myself. Could’ve gotten killed, and for what? Letting my old rage consume myself, after everything I’d done to change for Bella?
I got off the ijiraq’s back and ran after Conner toward the Tree and Michael.
↔↔↔
I stood out in the middle of nowhere, under the behemoth canopy of some ancient pomegranate tree that should not be able to grow in this arid climate. I was bleeding and gasping for breath, and so was Conner. But the worst thing about our situation was what we found when we reached the archangel Michael who, from all outward appearances, had seemed perfectly fine.
Perfectly fine—if you considered kneeling, eyes wide open as he stared at the tree with his mouth ajar in a completely catatonic state as “perfectly fine.”
Even on his knees, Michael was bigger than me.
“Come on, big guy,” I said. “We need you to wake up.”
Michael muttered words under his breath that no mortal had ever spoken. And that’s not just me speaking in hyperbole. Had I not heard it before I wouldn’t have recognized the language, but in the fourteen years since the gods left I’d been exposed to a whole bunch of stuff I wished I didn’t know. And the language he spoke was the one used to create the Universe—the language only truly divine creatures were allowed to speak: Tongues.
From what I’d been told, if you were not truly divine, utter a couple words in Tongues and your head would explode. Literally. But knowing that little tidbit of information wasn’t going to help me now.
Now I needed Michael to wake up. I needed him to come to his senses so he could airlift Conner and me out of here and away from certain doom.
“Come on, Michael, wake up.” I looked back in the direction we came and saw, off in the distance, that the tiyanak was standing again. He had his hand over the wound from Conner’s bullet. I’d seen the move before. He was burning time to heal himself.
Then the tiyanak knelt by the ijiraq, and a few seconds later the bag of bones stood up, evidently healed as well. The cloaked woman and the spiked turtle came out of the tunnel and joined them. Then the four of them ambled t
oward us as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
Great. A creature unlike any I’d ever seen before and three seriously overpowered Occultists were meandering our way. Why “meander”? Because even though I stood next to an archangel, one of the most powerful creatures on the planet, they were apparently completely unafraid of us.
Another couple of minutes and they would be upon us. This situation couldn’t get any worse.
“I’m out of bullets,” Conner said.
OK, so the situation could get worse.
“Hellelujah,” I muttered. I pulled out my phone and dialed the only being I could think of that might be able to help: Penemue.
The twice-fallen angel answered on the third ring with a “No, no, no!”
“Penemue!” I yelled into the phone.
“Jean-Luc, is this important?” he slurred. “EightBall and I are competing for Master of the Universe. Seems that’s the title the winner of FIFA—”
“Penemue!” I shouted. “I’m in the middle of the desert, being hunted by creatures that turn to foam when killed. My car is wreaked, I’m hurt and Michael is kneeling in front of me, speaking in Tongues.”
“So … important,” he slurred. “Where are you?”
“At the Tree.”
Penemue went quiet. I heard a window open and then a rush of air filled the phone. My own personal rescue team. “How long do I have?” Penemue asked, yelling to be heard over the wind.
“Not long. They’re meandering. Menacingly.”
Conner was piling up the largest rocks he could find. I had to hand it to the guy—he wasn’t about to go down without a fight.
“No good,” Penemue yelled. “It will take me at least ten minutes to get to you. What’s wrong with Michael?”
“I don’t know. We found him this way.”
“Kneeling and speaking in Tongues?” Penemue confirmed.
“Yeah-huh,” I said.
“There is only one situation in which the archangel would ever kneel and speak in Tongues. When he is before his god.”
“The gods are gone!”
“I know that. You know that. But whatever happened to Michael makes him think otherwise.”
“So what do I do?”
“Make him question his faith.”
“Excuse me? What will that do?”
“Jean-Luc, neither of us has the time for me to explain.”
They were much closer now. Conner lifted his left knee, went into a pitcher’s stance and threw his first rock at Vampire Bowser. It hit him square in the chest. That rock must have been going at least seventy miles an hour. The guy had an arm on him … not that it did us any good. The rock bounced off Bowser with a muffled thud.
Conner lined up another shot, this time at the woman. The rock flew true and should have hit her in the face, but at the last second, she tilted her head to the side and it flew on, landing on the desert floor behind her in a cloud of dust. She smirked—even though I was pretty sure I was going to die, I couldn’t help but admire her style.
“OK,” I said, looking at Michael. “Question his faith. How do I do that?”
“Just be you,” Penemue said. The phone clicked off.
“Conner,” I said. “I’m going to need a couple minutes. Think you can distract them?”
Conner lined up another shot. “I’ll do my best.”
“Good.” I circled Michael, patting him on the back. I whispered into his ear, “They left you behind.”
No response. Just more Tongues.
“The great archangel Michael reduced to a mortal after so many eons of faithful service … and yet you still bow down? Pathetic. What’s wrong with you? You deserve more. You are more. Get up. Get up!” I punched the angel as hard as I could, square in the nose.
He didn’t even flinch.
This wasn’t working. Clearly, bruising his ego wasn’t going to get us anywhere, and there was no way I could actually bruise his face. Michael was the original Boy Scout—the do-good-for-good’s-sake kind of guy. He would never choose ego over what he thought was right. Never.
I needed to switch strategies.
I thought of what Penemue said: “Just be you.” What was being me? I gritted my teeth—and then it just came out: “I’m angry,” I said. “Angry that I lost both Bella and Medusa. Angry that my future with either of them was stolen … and for what? To satisfy some god wannabe?
“But I’m not just angry at the world or the Universe or even the GoneGods. I’m more of a tangible kind of guy … I’m angry with you, Michael. I’m angry at Miral and Penemue and Judith and Astarte and every Other on this planet. You have the power, you have the knowledge … and they still died. And why? Because when you boil it all down, Others like you are just as human as the rest of us. Pathetic, petty and frightened. You’re not worthy. None of you are.”
I turned to face the four creatures that were finally upon us. Conner had given up throwing rocks, using the back of his empty gun as a hammer against the ijiraq, but it merely toyed with him like a cat does a mouse. The tiyanak and spiked turtle watched with devilish smiles on their faces.
The woman, on the other hand, was focused on me.
“You couldn’t save them,” I said, turning back to Michael. At that moment, something inside me snapped. Mr. Cain’s money was a way out, but it wasn’t the only way. “And I guess you can’t save me, either.”
I held out my sword, hilt side pointing at the lead Occultist, Evil-and-Cute, blade pointing at my heart.
She narrowed her eyes in suspicious curiosity. “What’s this?” she asked.
“I can’t win. There’s no escape for us. That much is perfectly obvious. So I’m going for the ‘non-bad’ end.” I got on my knees. “Just make it quick.”
“So you give up.”
“I do.”
“Jean-Luc,” Conner growled. “What are you doing?” He kicked sand in the tiyanak’s tiny eyes, who merely curled his lower lip and pouted in response before grinning, exposing his serrated teeth. “We gotta keep fighting.”
“No,” I said, “we don’t. I’m tired, Conner. I’m so tired … and I want out.”
“So, what? You’re just going to let her kill you? That’s suicide.”
“I don’t care.” My own words shocked me, but they were true. I really didn’t care.
Evil-and-Cute cackled. “A man who accepts his fate. How evolved of you,” she said, her hand reaching out for the hilt of my sword. “Very well, then. Fast and painless … that is my promise to you.”
“Good.”
Her fingers touched the hilt of my sword. I didn’t move. There was no trick here, no last-second Aha! twist-the-sword-around-and-chop-off-her-head. Even if I wanted to, I seriously doubted I could. She was fast. Unnaturally fast.
She must have been skeptical, too, because she was cautious at first. But when she saw that I wasn’t going to move, she grabbed the sword.
I let go. “Fast and painless,” I said.
“My promise to you,” she said.
“Jean-Luc!” Conner said. He threw his pistol at her in a last-ditch effort to save me. It was a good shot. Conner was really trying to save me. But it wasn’t going to work, because whether this lady was a human or an Other didn’t matter. She had power. Or natural abilities. Whatever it was, she dodged the gun that rocketed her way like a throwing star without even looking in Conner’s direction.
She raised her arm.
And that was when Michael woke up.
Chapter 2
Angels in the Sky, Police on the Ground and Ghosts in the Night
Ever been lifted off the ground by a tornado?
I have. It hurts like hell.
Michael grabbed me and Conner with such speed and force that it was literally like being picked up by a whirlwind, and the three of us took to the sky with such unimaginable speeds that the g-force knocked both Conner and me out like a light.
↔
When we came to, we were still in the air, flying awa
y from the Tree.
“Where are you going?” I yelled over the rush of wind. “They’re down there!”
Michael, whose chief super sense was hearing, winced.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
To which Conner cupped his ears and said, “What?”
I formed a funnel over my lips and was about to yell when Michael cut in.
“Stop. I am still sensitive to whatever caused my catatonic state.” His booming baritone voice cut through the rushing wind with ease and I was beginning to understand why he thundered when he spoke. “As for them getting away, do not worry: I see them, but I also see reinforcements on their way. Humans—there.” He pointed to what, from this height, looked like a trail of four ants scurrying to the Tree. Then he pointed farther into the distance to something my human eyes couldn’t see. “And Others—there. The three Gruffs are on the way, as are several other Others from the Paradise Lot PD.” He sighed. “But as for myself, I cannot go back down. I have also forbidden other angels as well. Whatever form of defense they have, angels seem particularly susceptible.”
“No kidding. You were on your knees speaking Tongues.”
Michael gave me a look that told me he’d had no idea he was kneeling or even muttering. “I wasn’t unconscious?”
“No.”
“And … Tongues? You are sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I’ve heard you speak it before … when you asked the Avatar of Gravity a question.”
He nodded. “The answer to a mystery.”
“Whatever. Point is, once you hear that language, you don’t tend to forget it.”
Conner said something I couldn’t hear over the wind. He pointed at me aggressively. I cupped my ears and Conner gestured in exasperation before giving me the finger.
“I think he’s mad at me.”
Michael nodded. “He says you were reckless down there. That what you did was akin to committing suicide.” Conner started up again and Michael paused to listen. “He also says that you are lucky I woke up when I did.”
