by R. E. Vance
There is more discussion and Bella raises her hand, silencing the room. Everyone is quiet, looking at her with both horror and admiration. The Ambassador mouths, Are you sure? Bella nods. The Ambassador’s shoulders slump as he addresses the two hooded Others. Everyone bustles into motion, gathering materials.
And this is the moment when Bella turns and sees me standing at the door, desperately trying to open it. This is when she gives me that smile that says that it will be OK. This is when she blows me our final kiss.
And this is when the two hooded figures descend on her, ripping her apart with their sacred blades.
↔
“Enough,” I cried out. “Enough.”
Bella froze the image before the blade penetrated her skin. “There was no time. The explosions threatened to shut the whole thing down, and if we lost Heaven it would be over forever. That is why I volunteered—”
“Volunteered?” I cut in, staring at her through tear-filled eyes.
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “It was now or lose Heaven forever. I didn’t have time to think—”
“You left me!” I screamed in anger, in hurt and in the thousand nameless emotions that ran through me.
“I had to. Don’t you see what was at stake? We could have fixed everything. Made it better. Imagine a world where everyone was free to come and go to Heaven as they pleased. But someone had to get in there. Someone had to volunteer to turns the lights back on.”
“But why did it have to be you?” I asked, my heart pounding so hard in my chest, it felt as though it were beating itself to death.
The look she gave me told me her answer. It had to be her because she was the only one who cared enough to sacrifice herself for the hope of making the lives of Others better. It had to be her because she believed that a brighter future came because of those who fought for it. It had to be her because she was the only one brave enough to take the leap of faith.
I looked back at the frozen image of Bella the moment before she died. Instinctively I reached for the blade but my hand went through it. I was just as helpless now as I had been then. But I could see a detail that had escaped me every time I replayed that night in my head.
Reflected in the blade was an unmistakable grin.
Oh, Bella …
Chapter 3
Thanks for Making Me a Fighter
There is this girl whom I love very much and I once left her for four years while I fought a war against lost creatures who no longer had any place they could call home. Years were lost to my hate and fear and anger. When I returned, that girl took me back without hesitation or judgment, and I learned how powerful true love could be. And when I lost her again, I gave in to that same hate and fear and anger, until she found a way back from the Void to save my soul once again.
I could have been angry that she volunteered to leave me. I could have spent the last few hours before that bastard Grinner showed up, yelling, sulking, accusing and crying. I would have, except a long, long time ago I had promised to love her in this life and the next. Well, we were standing in the next and I planned to keep my promise.
Besides, too much time had been lost already.
↔
I wished I could have held Bella that night, but instead all we could do was stare at each other, standing dangerously close but never actually touching. I never knew so much joy could also hurt so badly. How does one heart have room for both?
Unsure how to fill the little time we had left, I settled for telling her my plan. If we were to be together, it meant surviving this night. Perhaps if we talked it through, some insight would surface that could make all the difference. And once I got rid of Grinner, we could be together, if only in my dreams. As I spoke, neither of us noticed that the once-blue sky was starting to fill with clouds.
She listened, a frown on her face, and said, “It is a good plan. As good as any, I suppose.”
“What?” I asked. “You don’t think it can work?”
“I didn’t say that. I have faith in you, Jean. I always have.” A single raindrop fell on my face. She looked up. “He’s coming.”
I nodded, looking up with her and watching as heavy gray clouds grew in the sky. “I’m ready.”
Beep.
“Jean,” Bella said, raising her voice over the wind. “Be careful.”
I shot her my best I’m too good to fail look and said, “In this life and the next …”
Beep. Beep.
“I will love you forever.”
Beep. Beep.
“See you soon.”
↔
Beep, beep, beep …
I woke up with a jolt, my alarm ringing. The clock read midnight and I thought how fitting that he should breach the perimeter at that exact moment.
Hellelujah! Grinner was here.
↔
“Human Jean-Luc!” a voice called from outside. “Come out and play.”
My heart raced as I stood up. Before this moment, I had been ready to die to take this guy down, but now, knowing that Bella was truly alive and that there was some hope for us to be together, I wasn’t so sure.
I picked up the remote control and stepped outside, expecting the same serene surroundings I had always known. Instead, I was greeted by something else entirely.
In front of my cabin, the forest hung in the air, a hundred trees suspended to make a wall of wood and earth. Grinner took a step forward and the wall followed him. Thirty feet, I thought. So he had me trapped, because either I charged forward and tried to break through a wall of wood, or I jumped in a lake. Literally. Maybe that’s where the expression came from.
But where it came from didn’t change the fact that Grinner was boxing me in. That was fine. I wasn’t planning to run anyway.
The bastard stood in the foreground, his maniacal smile pushing out his eyes. “It is funny how the old ways still matter. When Michael asked me his question, I had to answer it. It was, after all, ordained that I must. There was so much ordained when the gods were here. So many protocols, so many rules. But that is all changing now.” He pointed to the ground, then at me, and said, “By now you are aware that I can only influence the environment immediately around me. That, too, was ordained. A … precaution the gods put in place when creating me. They always made sure that when I spoke to them I was at least five fathoms away. It was much less threatening that way. I may only influence so far, but Gravity is so much more than fifty feet. I am not the embodiment of a principle in which all the Universe is connected, as so many think. I am its shadow bound by rules that are slowly eroding. Just like the orbit of the stars that the archangel asked me to map out, so too are the rules that confine us all.”
“Blah, blah, blah …” I interrupted. “Brave new GoneGod World, everything has changed. Boo-hoo. What’s your point?”
Scorn colored his face. “Indeed, everything has changed. But what has been done can be undone. By now you must know that my words are no lie. Bella lives and I am the path back to her. I am also the path back to the Void. To things returning to what they once were.” He pointed to the sky. “And all I need is a kiss between two mortals deeply in love. Let me draw Heaven in close. Once it is here, you will be able to touch your beloved. Embrace her so that I might be able to find the Heaven in which she now resides.” He pulled a plain-looking box from his pocket.
“You killed her!” I said, reliving the memory of his dagger piercing her chest.
He nodded. “A necessity. Only a human soul can enter Heaven uninvited. And only Bella was brave enough to try.”
“That’s my Bella,” I said.
“Come, embrace her. And by doing so, embrace the new world I offer.”
It was tempting. I could have Bella back. But having someOther like him in charge was simply too high a price. Bella and I might not have seen eye to eye on many things, but we both agreed on this … now that the gods were gone, it was up to us mortals to find our way. They might have left behind a mess of lost creatures to find their way,
but it was our mess and I wasn’t about to take the easy way out by letting the whole charade of gods and mortals start again.
“No,” I said, pushing the big red button on my remote control.
↔
My two sentry guns had been set high enough in the treeline so he couldn’t affect them. They flared to life, and their shots rang out like a thousand thunderclaps, each sending out a bullet flying at supersonic speed. But not a single bullet touched him. Not one. I knew his gravitational power could cause the bullets to fly off course, but it was the way he blocked the bullets that was unnerving. He was picking up tiny stones, pebbles and rocks, causing them to orbit around him like some twisted version of Saturn’s rings. Bullets ricocheted off the stones before joining their twisted orbit, except that the bullets were imbued with so much kinetic energy, they looped around him several times faster than the other debris.
The son of a bitch was showing off.
And that was OK—I wasn’t trying to kill him with a bullet. That would have been too easy. My tactics were blunter. The ferocity of the sentry guns forced him to move just a few feet farther down the path, and by varying the intensity of each gun, I was able to maneuver him to where I wanted. Just another step and … there! You see, the way I figured it was that Grinner was prepared for a sideways attack and even one from above. But from below …
I hit another button, setting off several mines I had buried beneath the spot he now stood. The earth shattered upward, sweeping Grinner off his feet. He fell with a whoop, flat on his back. The thing about these land mines is that they explode upward, leaving the ground on which they rested virtually untouched. That meant there could be several layers of them, and it was a good way to lure an invading army into believing they were safe. Let their sweepers destroy the top row, only to have them walk on the field and set off the second row. That was dirty tactics, and it was exactly what I did.
The second row of mines went off, tearing at Grinner’s back as bullets from the sentry guns managed to get through his defenses. He was literally being torn apart, piece by piece. I tore at him, bits of him flopping away only to get further shredded by mines and bullets. And still he moved.
Explosions rang from all around us as I rained holy Hell on the bastard’s head. I was going to tear him apart, if that was what it took. I was going to—
Suddenly everything went silent. And I don’t mean quiet. I mean sound ceased to exist. Even the vibrations of the guns and mines stopped, and at that moment the world went completely still. At first I thought Grinner had removed all the gravity, like he had done at the One Spire Hotel, but a quick look around proved that was not the case. The guns still rattled, empty shells falling to the side, and as dirt burst up in the air with each mine explosion, I was still able to move about normally.
With each bullet that ripped through Grinner’s body, bits of blood sprayed out. Unlike most Others, who bled different colors, Grinner bled in the same crimson red as humans; it made the scene all the more sickening to watch. I was thankful for the lack of sound. Somehow watching all this on Mute made it more bearable. I prepared my next few tricks, expecting Grinner to do something, anything, but he did not.
The last layer of mines exploded as the sentry guns ran through their final thread of bullets. Grinner lay in pieces, bits of him strewn throughout the field. Judith had asked me to kick him in the balls, but I guessed this would have to do.
I noticed that his hand rested not ten feet from me, ripped away by a mine blast. Grinner was finally dead. I had won. After all that power and magic, in the end all it took was the brute, blunt force of a whole lot of land mines to take down the Avatar of Gravity.
And still the world was silent.
If living in a mute world was the price to pay for having rid it of this evil false god, then so be it. Bella and I would just have to learn sign language.
I put down the remote control and the other weapons I had thankfully not needed, and withdrew my hunting sword from its sheath. I wanted a piece of his heart, assuming that he had a heart and I could find it in this mess.
The first time he did this, back in the hotel, I had no idea what was happening, but I’d had some time to think about it. Grinner was so powerful that even sound could not escape his pull—just like a black hole—and that was why I needed to stop him. A force such as his did not nourish, it did not enlighten—it pulled at you, never letting you go, ensuring you never became what you were destined to be.
Then I heard a crackle. “Good show,” Grinner said. “I knew you were a worthy opponent.”
“GoneGodDamn it!” I said, looking for the source of the voice.
In the center of the mess was a single black sphere, no larger than marble. It shot up. Bits of Grinner started to rise, orbiting the tiny ball. Bits of flesh and blood, bone and nail, all circled that center point. I even noticed a few of Grinner’s abnormally large teeth joining the orbit.
The voice spoke again. “What is it you humans say? Earth to earth …”
Droplets of blood joined into larger bodies, uniting to form larger parts of him. Organs were spawning—lungs, stomach, heart. And around them the skeleton began to take shape.
“Ashes to ashes …”
A thin filament of skin gathered around the organs and bones, like a jigsaw puzzle being constructed in 3-D.
“Dust to dust.”
Damn it, I thought, using my hunting sword to pierce his hand, which still rested by me. I held it up and looked at it. He might be piecing himself together from the tiny shreds I reduced his body to, but by the GoneGods, I was keeping his hand. Petty, I know.
Within moments Grinner was fully formed, only his hand missing. He smiled. I could feel him using his magic, but I was too far away to be affected.
“You and I are not that different,” he said, pointing his stump at me.
Looking at the speared hand, I grunted, “I am nothing like you,” then backed away slowly. I needed to get back to my porch and use my last trick.
“Yes, you are. There is a piece within all of us that holds us together. For me, it is my core. For you, it is Bella.”
“Don’t say her name!” I spat out, still inching backwards. Letting him think I was afraid. Just a few more steps and …
“I picked her precisely because she was your core. I knew that if we lost her, you would always be the map back to her. In a way, her ascension happened because of you.”
“Bastard!” I said, the heel of my foot touching the base of the cabin’s stairs. I turned and started up them. There were only five steps and I could clear them in two strides. I just had to be faster than him and make sure I stayed out of the thirty-foot radius.
Grinner’s hand moved on the tip of my sword. “Shit,” I cried out, and threw the blade down to the ground. “Come on, you got to be kidding me.”
But it was too late—the hand freed itself from the sword and pulled me off the stoop, somehow holding me down. Apparently, a First Law’s hand didn’t need to be attached to a body to work.
So. Totally. Unfair.
Grinner stepped closer. His force pinned me down again and this time he wasn’t messing around. He crushed my ankle, bones compressed by tons of pressure, until all that was left was a sack of purple skin filled with powdered bone. I screamed in pain.
“It is because of you that we are here,” Grinner said. “Yes, she loved you. Loves you still. But what you felt for her was so beyond love. It was an attraction that could traverse solar systems. A connection that could defy even Time. Truly, amongst the human race, you are one of a kind.”
“Screw you,” I grunted.
“There is something I need of you.”
“Let me guess … a kiss?”
Grinner laughed. “A kiss, a touch—they are all the same. What I need is the attraction that you have for the human called Bella. Don’t you see? You are a magnet which can draw close only one person.”
“What? You don’t like my affable personality?” I couldn�
�t get up, but maybe I could move sideways. I inched forward, my fingers stretching to my felled blade. Just a few more inches. “And if I refuse?” I said, trying to buy myself some more time.
“By now you know that a kiss is just a—how do you mortals put it?—a formality. All I need is for you both to join in emotion. Her witnessing your death is enough. But I do not wish to make a martyr out of you. Don’t you understand? It is you whom she loves …” His voice trailed off and he began swaying, as if dancing to music that only he could hear. His eyes closed and he hugged himself dearly. “And she loves you so, so much. No matter what comes next, you can take comfort in that certainty, Jean-Luc.” His disembodied hand pointed a finger at me, so close it could poke my eye out. Then he pointed another finger to the sky, twirling it as one might when selecting a song from a jukebox—and all the while he swayed, entranced by the soundless music. “Yes … there. I feel it. She worries for you. Worries that you have failed and are now dead. Somewhere beyond, your love cries in fear for you,” he said, drifting off again, his arms outstretched to the sky—and the hand pinning me down zoomed up and reattached itself to his stump. I tried moving, but by now his gravity was weighing me down.
“Hey, Cheshire cat,” I said, but he didn’t hear me. It was more than that—the way he swayed, he was concentrating so deeply that I sincerely doubted anything short of a nuclear bomb would break his trance. Since I didn’t have one of those on hand, I looked around for another weapon. All I had left was my hunting sword, which lay a few feet away. In agony, I began crawling toward it again.
