by Joshua Ingle
Tim shook his head at Brandon’s half-hearted reply. “You’re always saying how the universe doesn’t care about us, and maybe that’s true. But you know what? We’re part of the universe. And you’re not some piece of inert matter in a faraway asteroid, either. You’re a human being. You matter.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“Then why not believe it?”
“We’ve been over this, Dad. You think you matter because God thinks you matter. We all want to believe we have a destiny, a divine purpose for being here. I want that as much as anyone. But God isn’t real. Religion is just a story we tell ourselves, not based on evidence, to make us feel like we have all the answers.”
“And nihilism isn’t?”
Brandon opened his mouth to retort, but no words came out. Oh, come on, that was a cheap shot. There’s gotta be an easy comeback for that. But he could think of none, and that made him angry. Why did he have to deal with this on his wedding day, anyway? Tim of all people should know better. Does he really care so little that he’d bring this up on today of all days?
“Let me ask you,” Brandon said. “Would you have paid for my biology degree if you’d known it would lead me to become nonreligious? And to marry a nonreligious woman? Would you still have adopted me even?”
Tim made direct eye contact then, and Brandon realized that this was the first time he’d done so since they’d started smoking. Tim’s usually cheery eyes now winced with heartache. “Of course I would have. You’re my son. I love you.”
Aw, damn it. Now I feel guilty. Brandon used puffing on his cigarette as an excuse to look away. Inside, the band had started to take a break, and someone had just turned on the “Cha Cha Slide” in their absence. Many of the reception guests rose to join others on the dance floor, which encouraged Brandon. The wedding’s detractors were indulging in the celebration after all.
“Do you remember my wife?” Tim asked.
“A little,” Brandon said. “I only met her once or twice.” Pamela. Brandon had actually resented her a little, since her death in a traffic accident had caused his first year in Tim’s house to be filled with grief, at a time when he’d much rather have been back on the streets with his old friends. In time, though, Brandon had come to admire her a great deal. Everyone in church treated her like a saint, often telling Brandon what a caring, selfless woman she’d been. Tim often asserted that Pamela’s death had been a test for him, sent from God. But looking back, Brandon could see that the event had planted the first seeds of doubt in his own mind. How could a loving God allow so much pain, even for a test?
Brandon was surprised how much weight these distressing memories still placed on him. But Tim’s next words lifted much of it.
“Adopting you was the last and best thing Pam and I ever did together.”
Brandon nodded his appreciation. “You gave me a life.”
“And you helped me get mine back. Brandon, you know I don’t approve of a secular wedding, but I will support you and Heather. She’s a nice girl, and I welcome her to the family. And I hope that in time, you’ll both reconsider looking to God for your answers.”
He reached out his hand, and Brandon readily shook it. The men nodded to each other, then Tim pressed his cigarette butt into an ashtray and headed back indoors.
Brandon took one last pull. Of all those people inside, he was glad that Tim was the one who’d adopted him. Brandon wished he knew how to better express his appreciation to the man. They disagreed often, even when Brandon had been a Christian, but Tim had always consoled Brandon when kids picked on him at school, disciplined him when he’d needed it, spent every Saturday afternoon with his adopted son until he’d left for college. Tim had always been a good dad. And he still was.
This brief exchange over cigarettes made Brandon long to return to years past. Simpler years, full of joy. Is it abandoning my faith that’s made me so miserable lately, or is this just part of growing up?
The far-off clouds were getting closer, blotting out the starry heavens as they neared. Brandon exhaled sooty breath, dropped his cigarette on the ground, and stamped the light out of it. He’d been spending much of tonight avoiding the party, but now he realized how much he wanted to take part in it, if only to forget the bitter emptiness that plagued him whenever he looked up into the night sky.
How many wars have you fought for that speck of dust you call a planet? the sky asked him as he left. How much misery has been wrought in the name of blind tribalism, of tradition? In your own life and in the lives of others? How much pain have you petty ants caused each other because you’re so convinced you’re at the center of everything?
“We live in a world full of sin,” Tim had said.
Indeed we do, Dad. Indeed we do.
3
“God damn it!” said God. “Thorn’s gone? All the millions of you, and he somehow snuck through to a transit door?”
Every angel in God’s House stood still, looking down at their feet. Thilial wasn’t sure if she should offer suggestions to God, flee to join the army mobilizing to track down the renegade demon, or just stand here and take the verbal lashing that God had been dealing out for the last five minutes. He’d asked her here today due to her unique history with Thorn, and she had objected. She hadn’t wanted to see such a vile creature accepted back into God’s good graces, and had even pleaded with God to cast the demon into the fiery pit in spite of Thorn’s benevolent and rational actions of late. Now, fortunately, she’d never have to worry about it again.
“I want him found!” God continued, His awkward voice booming, echoing off of every corner of Heaven, for every angel to hear. “I want that Sanctuary locked down, and I want—I want him killed! Send the traitor back to Me and I’ll send him straight back to Hell! Whoever captures him can expect a promotion. Now go! What are you doing standing here? Go!”
The angels fled back to their consoles. Thilial glanced out the window—the same window through which Thorn had jumped minutes ago—to see cloudy wisps rising from across the city, as if a desert wind battered at dunes, sending sand flying high. Each particle of sand was, of course, an angel, on its way to earn glory and prestige by killing a demon for the Lord.
But Thilial would get to Thorn before any of them. She had more reason than anyone to want him dead. If he’d turned a moral corner in the recent Sanctuary, so what? His crimes deserved punishment. Forgiveness was not an option for someone like him. And Thilial’s knowledge of the twisting maze that was the Corridors reached deeper than most angels’. She was confident that she could get to him first, if she started out soon.
“Tamior, you ignoramus!” God said, approaching the unassuming angel trying to blend in with the others. “Think before you speak! Think! Thinking is important.”
“I’m sorry, Lord. I’m so sorry.”
“Get your butt back down to the city. I don’t want to see you in My House again for another hundred years!”
“Yes, Lord. As You will it.” Tamior departed through the window.
“Thilial!” God’s attention turned to her. “I have a special assignment for you.”
The plants growing out of His robes rustled against the marble floor as His bare feet carried Him toward her. No matter how accustomed Thilial became to His presence, the sight of Him approaching still filled her with awe. She felt now, as she always did around Him, like she was about to be punished.
I told You Thorn couldn’t be trusted, she wanted to say. Why did You have to bring Amy into it? she wanted to say. But Almighty God was her king, and she would not raise her voice against Him no matter how breathless and hurt she felt at the girl’s demise. Lord, I am Yours. Keep me safe and give me Your strength.
“Yes, Lord?” she said.
“If Thorn somehow gets out of that Sanctuary alive, I think we know exactly where he’ll go next.”
“Atlanta.”
“Yes. I need you to go back there with a contingent of angels. Post guards by as many transit doors as
you can.”
“Lord, with respect, I was planning to join the others and pursue him to the new Sanctuary.”
“We need as many angels as possible in Atlanta in case a manhunt is needed. Pleurian and the other leaders there have already been alerted, but you have command experience, and you know the city well. I need you to make preparations.”
“But I know Thorn. I know how he thinks. I can hunt him better than anyone.”
“Thilial, he destroyed our way into the Sanctuary. It might take all day before we can navigate a new path. I’m aware that you know Thorn well, but unless you know exactly which doors currently lead to his present location, the task for which you’re most qualified lies in Atlanta. Go there now.”
God’s orders severely disappointed Thilial, but she knew better than to argue. “Yes, Lord.”
•
Thirty minutes later, Thilial was flying through a warehouse in the Atlanta quarantine zone, shouting orders, ensuring that the bustle indoors was hidden from the demons who were always loitering outside, and making all sorts of preparations in case Thorn should reach Atlanta. She sent scouts into the Corridors—the network of dark hallways and transit doors between Heaven and Earth—and she made sure all the angels finished any pressing business with their charges throughout the city. She even snuck underground and across the street to overhear the day’s demon gossip.
Thorn was dead, they all said. He’d “perished in the Sanctuary.” Several of the city’s top demons were fighting each other for the right to succeed him. And apparently the Atlanta Judge had gotten into some kind of fight. But no demons were actively trying to aid Thorn, and that was all Thilial cared to know. She dropped underground and flew back to the warehouses.
As an Angel of Truth, Thilial had journeyed all over the world, helping to devise and implement God’s strategy on the ground. Along with the Angels of Love and the Angels of Reason (and formerly the Angels of Judgment), Thilial’s order was considered one of the three dominant orders of cherubim, thus allowing her the privilege of travel. She’d been in Novosibirsk last year, and in Xi’an the year before that. As an administrator, she rarely stayed in one location more than two years: she came, ensured all was running smoothly, and then went.
She’d never expected to run into Thorn again—and so close to Tugaloo! Seeing him in the church last December had shaken her. Her thoughts had dwelled on Thorn for days afterward, then weeks. She hated him: his arrogance, his cruelty, his callousness. She wanted him dead more than God wanted him dead. More even than Marcus wanted him dead.
These venomous thoughts roiling through her mind, Thilial found herself in a corner of a warehouse she hadn’t visited in months: a corner containing a special crate, near the back of one of the smaller stockrooms. The place was lit by a single dim fluorescent light that barely even illuminated the dust wafting through the air.
No, I shouldn’t look at the crate. I shouldn’t be in this room when I’m mad.
But temptation got the better of her. She opened the crate and reached inside. When her hand reemerged, it held an immense, lumbering sword, nearly as long as Thilial was tall. Despite its size, it was a simple-looking thing. Whatever cloth had once clothed its hilt lay in tatters now, rotted through, and the rust of many ages covered the blade, leaving only the barest tendril of original metal still visible. Ugly and ungainly, the weapon was a relic of the ancient days when such things had been used by angelkind.
Its fine edge still looked sharp enough to slice through diamond, though. The sword was a fearsome thing, and thus had it been named. Fear, the sword was called. The oldest sword known to exist.
“My, that’s a sight,” said a voice from behind Thilial.
She spun around to find an angel marveling at her weapon. He’d frozen in mid-gait, as if he’d just been passing by when he’d suddenly been awestruck by the sword. He was an older fellow—very old, in fact. Wrinkles adorned his skin and his wings sagged a bit. He looked as if he might have been around to see Fear during its glory days.
“It’s just a keepsake I like to admire now and then,” Thilial said. “It certainly is a sight, though.”
The elderly angel stepped toward the blade, walking cautiously, as if trying not to trip over his white robes. “May I touch it?”
“Please.”
He did so, running his frail hand along the rusty blade, all the way down to the cross-guard. “Can you wield it?”
“Ha. I suppose I could, though I’ve no idea why I’d want to.”
“For Thorn,” the old angel said, and he was right. “A public execution with the likes of this would send quite a message to Atlanta’s other demons.”
“That it would. Though God would never allow such a thing.” As the angel squinted through age-worn eyes at her sword, Thilial squinted back at him, trying to place him. “Have we met before? I don’t think I’ve seen you around here.”
“Ah, no. I’m Leregnon, an Angel of War. A group of us was sent here to plan for contingencies.”
“Yes, I’ve heard. I’m Thilial, an Angel of—”
“Oh, I know who you are. You don’t have to introduce yourself. We’re all behind you, you know. We all want to see Thorn suffer for what he did to Ezandris.”
“You knew Ezandris?”
“Indeed. He was an acquaintance. I mostly knew him through friends. His breakdown was such a shame. I was sad to hear he’d been murdered.”
“Yes.”
As much as anything else Thorn had done to Thilial, the memory of her friend Ezandris stung as fiercely as the blade she carried. She paced to some boxes and sat on them, placing Fear athwart her lap.
Leregnon must have noticed her somber mood, because he unfolded a nearby chair, sat across from her, then spoke in a chipper voice. “Tell me the story of your sword. Where does it come from? What’s its history?”
“Ha. I’m sure you have things to do. I won’t waste your time with an old sword story.”
“Ah, we both have things to do. The Man Up Top has us working our asses off. We deserve a break.”
“I suppose so.”
“So tell me about your sword.”
Thilial shrugged. “Its name is Fear. I’ve been told it was made in Heaven’s great forges at the beginning of time. Some say Tobrius smithed the blade himself, and that when he was slain during the War in Heaven, this was the blade he wielded. A hundred years ago, I actually had the metal tested, and it’s no metal known to angels or humans.” She hefted the blade and arced it through the air in a figure eight. “It’s stronger and lighter than any other metal, and it allows the sword to affect the physical world and the spirit worlds simultaneously.” To demonstrate, she let the sword fall to the floor. It clattered against the cement in the physical realm.
“Fascinating,” Leregnon said.
Thilial grabbed the sword and placed it back into her lap. “Over the course of history, Fear has become more of a prestigious antique than a practical weapon, especially after God declared an end to the war on demonkind. Countless angels have owned it. I’m only the most recent in a very long line.”
“How’d you come by it?”
“Oh, a superior gave it to me as a gift for my role in ending the legal slave trade. I’ve kept it close at hand in every city I’ve traveled to ever since. And that’s really all there is to say about it. I’m sure an Angel of History could tell us more, but I’ve never taken the time to check with one.”
“Well, you’re quite fortunate to own something like this.”
“Indeed. Now tell me a story about yourself. You’re an Angel of War—you must have seen some crucial historical events. I’m very young compared to you.” Such a statement might have struck a sour chord among humans, but angels revered their elderly. To admit one’s own youth was an act of deference.
“I’m no spring chicken, that’s for sure,” said Leregnon. “But truthfully, I’ve lived a rather humdrum life. I haven’t got many stories to tell.”
“I don’t
believe that for a moment.” Thilial smiled a coy grin, though in truth she was just looking for a distraction from her thoughts of Amy. I’d better find out when the funeral will be held. “Come now, Leregnon. A story for a story. I told you of my sword, now you tell me of something from your life’s history. Your favorite story from the past.”
Leregnon glanced at the boxes, the drawers, and the shelves full of dusty old knickknacks around the room, as if looking for a way to escape Thilial’s request. Apparently he found none, and his eyebrows arched. Thilial couldn’t tell if he was angry, or deep in thought.
After several seconds, he finally said, “Well, I don’t have any interesting stories from my own life, but I do have a favorite story that I like to tell to anyone who will listen to an old-timer’s tale. I told a form of it to Ezandris, as a matter of fact.”
“Oh, now I have to hear it.” Though anything that rekindles the memory of my dead friend is necessarily bittersweet.
“It’s a dark story, but it’s always captivated me.” He glanced again at the sword in Thilial’s lap. “I overheard it when I was stationed in the Carpathian Mountains, at the edge of Transylvania in the fifteenth century. I’d followed an old man out hunting with his grandsons, and around a fire one night, they heard the howling of wolves in the darkness. The boys weren’t scared of the wolves one bit though: in fact, they bragged to each other about how many they could kill. But the old man warned them that they should be very afraid of the wolves. And then he told them this folk tale, ancient even when I first heard it centuries ago.
“Long ago, in the world’s darkest forest, there lived a wolf named Othundro. Othundro was among the greatest of all the wolves. He was one of the strongest, fastest, and most vicious. But he wanted to become greater still. He had a rival, a wolf named Uthifel, with whom he fought for dominion of the forest. Othundro knew that if he could just get an edge over Uthifel, he could kill him. And if Uthifel died, Uthifel’s pack would abscond to Othundro, and he’d be the undisputed power in the forest.
“Othundro and his pack had eaten all of the other animals in the woods, so they began to prey on the livestock in the nearby town, pestering the villagers and frightening their children. One night, while his pack was feasting on a man’s cattle, Othundro left his pack and peered into the man’s house. By candlelight, Othundro saw how tall the man stood. How he walked around on only two feet, one in front of the other. Then with some effort, Othundro tried to do the same. He stood on his hind legs, put one foot in front of the other, and tried to stride as a man would. It was difficult at first, but Othundro practiced all night, even after his pack had returned to the woods without him. And by dawn, Othundro had learned how to walk like a man.
