Angel Descending

by Ethan Cooper

  “She’s right you know.” The voice whispers, right in my ear, with deep modulation and quiet, tinkling bells.

  I.

  Know.

  That.

  Voice.

  I spin with enough determination that Kiiziiziixii comes with me.

  “Hello, Blue!” Calamity Carl says. “Ready for your fifth secret?”

  I should have known there was a reason this part of the street was unoccupied. He’s doing that thing he did back at the Circus—making everybody avoid him. Kiiziiziixii and I are standing within the radius of whatever field he’s generating to do that. I guess that means he let us in. He wants us here.

  Kiiziiziixii shoves me behind her, her weapon glinting in her outstretched hand. “Who’s is this clown?”

  “That’s Calamity Carl.”

  “New friend?” Calamity Carl asks. “She’s cute.”

  “Shoot him,” I mutter. Not sure why. It’s a cosmically bad idea.

  “Whoa! Where’d that came from?” Calamity Carl says, voice forceful. “That is not a good idea, Blue. And it’s also not very nice! I’ve done nothing to deserve that level of disdain! I thought we were making progress!”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “What do you want?” Kiiziiziixii says, setting her feet, taking a two-handed grip on her gun.

  Calamity Carl inclines his head toward me, his crown coming perilously close to sliding off his head. “If you care about your friend, you’ll tell her to put her gun down. Not that a pulse displacer can hurt me, but if she pulls the trigger, I’m going to kill her.” The blades on his body are moving. Wait, are they growing?

  Kiiziiziixii is statuesque. I step beside her, my hand on her shoulder. “Don’t shoot.”

  She lowers her weapon until it’s pointed at the street. “You know this…thing?”

  I grunt. “Yeah, found him at the Circus. Apparently, you get a stalker of your very own if you visit at the right time. Where’s yours?”

  “I always miss out on the good deals.”

  The ground shivers beneath our feet. Off in the distance, there’s a constant rumble. Part of the city is collapsing. The number of people in the street has increased to the point where they look like they’re going to start encroaching into our space. Not sure if the energy field Calamity Carl is projecting can hold off that many people.

  Calamity Carl crosses his arms. “This place is coming apart, Blue. That’s why I need to go ahead and tell you your fifth secret.”

  “This is the last one, right?” I ask, taking a half step closer to him, because as strange as it sounds, I’m more scared of the mob than of him right now.

  “There are an infinite number of secrets in this world. I don’t think I’m in danger of running out—especially where you’re concerned.”

  “Whatever that means. Get on with it, clown,” Kiiziiziixii says.

  There’s a flash off to our left that bathes the gray of the sky in brilliant blue light. Kiiziiziixii steps forward, shielding me. A wave of cold air slams into us, almost taking me from my feet. Shrapnel and bodies fill the air, but nothing appears to land close to us. Either we’re lucky, or this energy field is more amazing than I thought at first. Calamity Carl is unmoved by the shockwave. He doesn’t flinch, and his feet remain solid where they are.

  However, the crowd is mightily disturbed. Some of them are running right toward us. Some of them are just being pushed our way because there’s nowhere else to go.

  “Get ready, we’re about to make some new friends,” Kiiziiziixii mutters, her pulse displacer once again held up, but this time pointed out at the crowd. A couple of them see her and try to reverse course, but I can see right away that it’s not going to make a difference. Too many people, too little space. There’s nowhere to run—for any of us. We’re surrounded. We can’t keep them out.

  Calamity Carl is now between us and the street. Didn’t see him move; I hate that. I back up until there’s a wall at my back. It’s a glass store front—some place called XXXNakedGhoulXXX—so it can’t be the safest of locations, but it’s better than closer to the undulating mob that’s beginning to breach the edge of Calamity Carl’s energy field.

  “Blue, you’re going to want to get down.”

  God, I don’t like the real smile I hear behind that horrible fake one he painted on his mask.

  Kiiziiziixii and I go down to our hands and knees.

  He turns his back to the crowds. “Here’s a freebie for you, Blue: sometimes it’s necessary to cause a little mayhem to stop a lot of mayhem!”

  Rioters spill inside the perimeter. It’s the last thing they do, because Calamity Carl crouches down, arching his back and extending his arms out sideways, those red lines of light on the surface of his armor flaring like narrow channels of lava. There’s a low whine coming from his body. The closest rioter—a young girl wielding a pipe with a rusty spike driven through it—has her entire face torn away. One second it’s there, and the next it’s just a sea of exposed muscle and bone. She recoils, falling back into the turbulent throng. Those that take her place experience the same fate, flesh and clothing and limbs turning to red mists as if by some arcane magic. They go so quickly, it’s as if they were never there. It takes several cycles of this before I realize what’s happening: Calamity Carl is launching his blades and spikes at them. As he sends them tearing into the crowd, another blade or spike grows in its place. It’s a quiet, efficient weapon, each projectile subsonic, shredding limbs and bone, impaling organs, ripping clothes. The crowd seems to groan under Calamity Carl’s assault.

  Kiiziiziixii is shouting something. Her head is near mine, but I’m too caught up in the destruction to comprehend what she’s saying.

  (don’t want to)

  (be here)

  He continues, cutting down anybody that gets close, and even those that are just trying to escape the crowd. Some of those climbing over dead bodies fall, exposing themselves, joining the lifeless moments later. I see ten people decapitated in a single volley, their heads rolling back into the crowd. Others are merely wounded, their bodies spinning in ungraceful corkscrews, tracing spirals of blood in the air as they go down.

  Enough. I push to my feet, keeping low to make sure I’m beneath Calamity Carl’s arc of attack. Not surprised to see that the mob has stopped advancing directly toward us. I’m in Calamity Carl’s face, screaming, “Stop it! Don’t kill anybody else!”

  No static as I scream. No automatic version of myself. No, all this anger—this is all me.

  He shakes his head. “Blue, you just don’t understand what it takes to survive in this world. You probably used to know, but you’ve obviously forgotten. Don’t worry, you’ll learn soon enough. But really, why would I want to stop? I’m having a blast!” He rises up to his full height, then wades into the crowd, arms flailing, blades and spikes chewing into flesh like teeth through meat.

  I feel that sensation at the lower part of my jaw, that little trickle of unease that signals I’m about to vomit. I swallow a mouthful of saliva, hoping that I can keep my stomach under control.

  But whatever happens, I’m done talking with Calamity Carl right now. When an opening presents itself, I take it, running through a gap in the crowd. Kiiziiziixii follows. We run as best we can, Kiiziiziixii taking a position by my side, deflecting threats as we encounter them. Don’t know where we’re going, but as long as it’s away from Calamity Carl and away from the rioters, then I don’t care. Once I’m not in immediate danger, then I’ll either leave Kiiziiziixii or find out what she knows about my marking and then leave her. Sometimes I pull her in one direction, and other times she guides me. Staying in one place is death; we both realize that. We navigate our way past ruined buildings and giant craters bubbling with fire and smoke. We’re attacked again and again. Kiiziiziixii saves us again and again.

  Not sure how, but we manage to escape the worst of the riots without major injury. For the most part, I’m content to let Kiiziiziixii guide our direction. She s
eems to know the city. I wonder how long she’s been here. Then again, maybe she’s just one of those people who always seem to know what they’re doing and where they’re going.

  I’d probably find that annoying in other, calmer circumstances.

  We turn a corner. Unlike every other street we’ve been on, there’s nobody here. The buildings on both sides of the street are on fire. The heat is bearable though. “Where are you taking us?” I ask.

  “A Haven. This is the safest route.”

  “Everything’s burning.”

  “I’m more worried about people than fire.”

  We’re halfway down the block when—bzzzzzZZZZt!!!!!—the static returns. I can’t help but gasp at the sudden, unexpected pain. My right foot gets caught on the back of my left heel, and I stumble.

  The air temperature drops, so quickly that I’m struggling for breath. In front of us, the world is all wavy, as if it’s made of water. There’s a sensation of being pulled forward just before the world implodes.

  I shut my eyes, but I know what I’m gonna see when I open them.

  “Blue, you’re alive!” Calamity Carl says, clapping his hands.

  He’s set there in the middle of the street, blocking my way like he usually does, with his calm, patient demeanor. “You escaped. You always have, and you always will. Glad to see that you haven’t changed much!”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  He sits down in the middle of the street and begins to count. He’s using his fingers.

  “Don’t ignore me.”

  He looks up as if he’s in deep thought, ticking off numbers on the tips of his fingers. “I knew it!” he exclaims, jumping back to his feet, his crown rising off his head for a moment. “I knew I could beat my old record!”

  “Oh no,” is all I can say.

  “Over three hundred kills! I’m quite proud of myself! How about you?” My mind tries to tell me that painted on smile of his just grew wider.

  “The day I start playing your games is the day I kill myself. Get to the point, tell me what you came here to tell me, and then get the fuck out of our way. In case you didn’t notice, the buildings on either side of us are on fire. They could collapse at any moment. It would cosmically stupid for us to all die here in the middle of the street.”

  “Language, young one,” Kiiziiziixii says.

  “Her tongue gets away from her,” Calamity Carl agrees. “I told her it was going to get her in serious trouble one day. I don’t think she was paying attention.”

  “Oh, I heard you, I just didn’t give a f—”

  “Come here,” his voice whispers in my ear. “Leave your friend where she is.”

  I take one step, but Kiiziiziixii has her hand on my shoulder before I can take the next. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m okay. It’s the only way we’re going to get out of here. He won’t hurt me.”

  “It’s the only way?”

  I open my mouth, but Calamity Carl answers for me: “Yes.”

  Kiiziiziixii’s hand drops. Moving forward, Calamity Carl starts backing up. The red lines in his armor glow like they’re feeding on heat from the fires all around us. Silhouetted against the fiery backdrop, he looks like a demon—well, with that crown, maybe the king of demons. When he stops, I move up right in front of him, take a wide stance, fold my arms, and wait. His smile is bleeding; flecks of blood dot the surface of his mask. It looks like somebody had a mouthful of blood and then sneezed in his face. A more likely scenario is that Calamity Carl smashed faces with some rioter. The blades on his arms are flecked with blood as well.

  I resist the urge to cringe when his hand goes to my head, I can feel the tiny studs on his fingers running through my blue strands up there. He moves his head as if he’s looking at my body.

  “Interesting choice of clothes, Blue. Much like you don’t care about the words you use, neither do you care about what parts of your body other people see. Letting everybody see your back is an invitation that is unwise to extend.”

  “You’re one to talk. Last time you ripped my shirt to shreds, you fucker.”

  He widens his stance and crosses his arms, once again mirroring me, his voice quieter than it’s ever been. “You’re being rude and ungrateful. I told you that Devilgod has a plan for your life. I’m here as his messenger. I’m doing this for you.”

  There are at least thirty seconds of silence where I stare into those red domes over his eyes, peering deep, hoping to glimpse what might be behind them. All I see is my reflection. “We’re done.” I turn my back on him.

  Big mistake.

  He has me in a headlock before I can take my next breath. I’m in his arms, fully against his body. He didn’t fully retract all his spikes and blades. It’s like I’m being hugged by a pincushion—a strong one.

  Calamity squeezes me tight. “Tell your modie friend to back away, or you both die tonight.”

  Kiiziiziixii, who had jumped forward, stops dead, her pulse displacer held ready. She’s closer than she was, but there’s no way should could do anything to save me, even if she tried.

  As best I can while being held as tight as he’s holding me right now, I shake my head at her.

  Calamity Carl lifts me off my feet, moving backward, reestablishing some distance between us and Kiiziiziixii. His body armor is hot through my clothes. “We’re not done, Blue. Your careless behavior guarantees that.”

  “You’re hurting me!” I say.

  “Bleeding is a part of life. The world bleeds. This island bleeds. Now, you bleed.”

  “Seriously, what the fuck are you talking about? Put me down!”

  “No. Here’s your fifth secret, Blue: Leave the island. Today. If you don’t, every single living thing here is going to bleed. Every single living thing here is going to die. And it will be all because you were too stubborn to listen to me—to do what you’re supposed to. When everybody dies, it will be your fault.”

  (be honest angel what’s keeping

  you here anyway)

  After a few seconds, I ask. “Aren’t you going to teleport?”

  “I’m savoring you in my arms.”

  I’d struggle, but it’d hurt more.

  Where is the automatic me when I need her? She knows how to fight. She’d know what to do here.

  Calamity Carl tightens his embrace. I moan as trickles of blood travel down my lower back, soaking into the waist of my pants.

  “Leave,” he says. “If you don’t leave, I’m going to find you and you’re going to bleed a lot more. You’re going to have to prove that you’re worthy of Devilgod’s plan, and let me tell you—it’s going to be painful. You…may not survive.”

  bzzzzzZZZZt!!!!!

  Ah yes, here we go.

  Static. Shimmering air. Incessant buzzing. World collapsing. An explosion. Eyes closed. Waves of cold and heat.

  bzzzzzZZZZt!!!!!

  Again, I’m on my knees, on the ground, just like the other two times.

  I need a weapon. I can’t go around unarmed. There are people in this world that need to get shot. I should start keeping a list. Put Calamity Carl’s name right at the top.

  Kiiziiziixii helps me to my feet. She doesn’t ask me any questions. She doesn’t chastise me. She doesn’t do anything other than walk beside me. We walk until we’re clear of the burning buildings.

  We navigate the city. Sometimes we run. Night comes, and we continue.

  Somewhere, in some dark part of the city, we find an intersection littered with fresh corpses. The legs and arms of each body have been removed, leaving the torsos and heads. Stuck in each corpse is a sign, each bearing a different message, scrawled in blood:

  REPENT OF YOUR SINS

  and

  THE WORLD STOPS TOMORROW

  and

  KILL ALL UNBELIEVERS

  and

  NO SALVATION FOR THE WEAK

  and

  THE PURE WILL BE DEFILED

  As we pass through, I find myself t
aking one last look. The final message—the one that stays with me—says:

  THE END IS HERE.

  And I believe it.

  32/Reunion

  2195.12.15/Night

  I’m standing in front of the doorway, amazed at every new breath I take. Sometimes it’s the little, simple things that generate the most wonder. So yeah, I’m still breathing. Hurts to move, but most of the bleeding has stopped. Kiiziiziixii is beside me. We both made it—though I only made it because she was with me.

  I keep expecting Tam to come bursting through that door, to yell at me about how I shouldn’t be outside while the city’s tearing itself apart, all the while putting a strong arm around my shoulder and ushering me inside.

  Guess that’s not gonna happen tonight.

  The entrance to the Haven is unscathed. Either the violence hasn’t reached this part of the city yet or the insanity hasn’t reached a level where it would breach the sanctity of a Haven.

  (too late she witchkissed him in there)

  Frozen, fingers clenched, not sure if I can do this. Assuming the Haven is still operational, are JACK and Tam in there? Scared they are. Scared they aren’t.

  A Haven is safer than most places in a city, but I’m also positive that witchkisses are a no-no inside a Haven. Then again, this Haven is without its Guardian unless Tam took up his previous role. Regardless of whether a scenario like that is even possible, I can’t bring myself to imagine that a newborn wirewitch’s priorities include overseeing Haven operations.

  Kiiziiziixii grabs her hair in one hand, pulling it off to one side. I can see a small black implant at the base of her skull. “I got you here like I said I would, so why do you look like you don’t want to go in?”

  “I’m scared.” Admitting that to an almost-complete stranger felt good. Weird.

  She pauses only a second before replying. “You’ve been here before.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If there’s another Haven on this island, I haven’t found it. There’s not really a safe space here, but this is as close as you’re likely to get.”