by eden Hudson
“The next time you see Logan, you’re going to need to offer him something in return for drinking off me. Money would probably be best since you’re not anybody’s protector yet.”
I gave her a thumbs-up. If me and the world survived long enough to run into Logan, I would deal with that then.
Harper snorted. “I can’t believe that after everything you still manage to be such an asshole.” She laughed some more and after a few seconds that turned into crying. “Dammit, Tough. I can’t stop doing this. Am I just going to cry forever?”
I tried to hug her again, but she pushed me away.
“No. Just please tell me what we’re going to do now.”
I thought about it, then went and got the shopping list and pen out of the kitchen.
I got to go tell Owen about Willow and Dodge. Then back to the family business.
Harper read it. “You’re going after Kathan?”
I nodded.
“I am, too, I guess,” she said.
I shook my head, hard.
“It’s not like I can live happily ever after now. And if it helps somebody else never feel this…” She sighed. “There’s nothing else I can do. I either go fight or stay here and wish I was dead some more.”
That I could understand. Fight and die or live and cry.
“I’m going to go get dressed,” she said, heading for the stairs. “Get anything you want out of the house. We’re not coming back.”
There wasn’t anything left that I wanted, but I went upstairs and changed into a clean t-shirt with less blood and dirt and bullet holes. My jeans were just about shot, but they were the only pair I had.
Across the hall, I could hear Harper sobbing again. I pulled my hat back on, then looked around the room for something I couldn’t live without. Mom’s tattooed acoustic was in pieces on the front lawn, the agate pick with Tough written on it that Colt got me for my thirteenth birthday was lost somewhere out there, too. The only other thing I could think of was my beat-up MP3 player, but I couldn’t find it. The speaker dock was on its side on the floor, with the plug hanging halfway in and halfway out of the outlet.
Harper’s footsteps went down the hall. The top step creaked as she headed downstairs.
Fuck it. It wasn’t like I could even listen to music right now anyway. It would just sound like noise.
When I got down to the living room, I could hear something hissing air in the kitchen and Harper digging around in the drawers.
I grabbed the shopping list and pen off the coffee table and wrote a note to Owen.
Harper came out of the kitchen with a lighter and a Molotov cocktail made out of what was left of a bottle of tequila and a washrag. She went to the couch and bent down to kiss Scout on the cheek. Then she stood up and looked at me.
I could smell the gas now, coming from the stove. I wondered whether Harper had turned on all the burners or jerked the pipe out of the back of the connector, but I didn’t go look. I just ripped my note off the shopping list and nodded to let her know I was ready to go.
We headed out onto the front porch. The sky was still the color of dried blood, but since it was night, the darkness didn’t feel as weird.
Harper stopped on the steps, tipped the tequila upside down so it would soak the rag, then she lit it up and threw it through the broken screen door. We were about halfway down the block when we heard the boom.
*
The wind picked up as we walked, kicking up dust devils around us and tearing at my shirt. I pulled my hat down tighter just in case. Overhead, lightning crackled and disappeared. Every now and then the ground shook like the planet was trying to explode from the inside out.
By the time we got to the trailer court, the moon was shining down as bright and red as a new scab. Harper waited out in the street near one of the smaller potholes while I went up the metal steps to Owen and Clara’s little trailer and knocked.
At first I didn’t think anybody was going to answer, but then I heard movement inside. The door swung open.
As soon as Owen saw me, he hit me. He socked me with everything a guy pushing 230 could throw into a punch. It knocked me off the porch and into the dry grass next to his car. He came down the steps, grabbed me up by the last unripped shirt I owned and hit me again.
“What are we supposed to tell Bitsy?” Owen yelled. “When she starts hollering for mama tomorrow, what are we supposed to tell her? Huh? What? What do I tell her? What the fuck do you tell a little baby girl who wants her mama?”
Then he wrapped his big arms around my shoulders and let loose with some grade-A, certified, country-fried sobbing that shook us both. All I could do was let him get it out of his system. Honestly, I’d been hoping he would hit me some more, give me the ass-whupping I deserved.
When Owen got himself a little more under control, he stepped back and asked, “Dodge? He make it or—”
I shook my head.
He started crying again. “Dammit all.”
Tell me about it, I thought.
After a few more minutes, Owen pulled it together again. I handed him the note I’d made before Harper and I left the house.
Get out of town. Take Bitsy and get somewhere safe.
I didn’t actually know if there was any safe place left in the world, but anywhere had to be better than Halo.
Owen stared at the note for a while before nodding. “I don’t know how we’re going to explain this to her. How do we tell her why we’re leaving her mama behind? Will and Dodge both… Dammit. Did they… Was it bad?”
I pointed at the note.
He turned it over.
Will and Dodge died tonight. Dodge died trying to save me. Will died trying to warn everybody that fallen angels were trying to sneak around and pick them off. They didn’t suffer. It was fast.
“That’s something, I guess.” But it wasn’t. You could see it in his face. “I should’ve gone, too. Maybe I could’ve—”
I grabbed his hand and turned the note back over, then pointed at one word—Bitsy.
“Yeah.” Owen didn’t sound too convinced. He looked back at me. “You’re going to get them back for this, aren’t you? Will was—” His voice cracked again and two huge tears rolled down his cheeks. “She was so good. They put out a light with her. Dodge, too. You know what I mean, don’t you? The world needed people like them. The payback for that ought to fit the crime.”
I nodded. It’s going to.
Godkiller
We pulled the liquid metal and rock outward from the center of the planet, cracking the crust in places that had never seen a lava flow. Ash and poisonous gases filled the air, choking the life from human and NP bodies alike.
“You have to stop.” The voice was quiet, but it cut through us, to the center of our being.
We turned to find Him there. (God with us, now literally.)
“It’s always been literal,” He said.
“You think that makes it better?” we yelled.
The Earth trembled at the sound of our fury, but He didn’t flinch.
“You were always with us?” we raged. “You were there when they stuck that coat hanger into me and ripped out my insides? You were there every time Leif raped me, then said he’d tell everyone in school I was a slut if I broke up with him? When Mom was deciding she would rather be dead than our mom? When Dad was screwing a girl young enough to be our big sister? When vampires used us, when boys and angels treated us like cum rags, when we used to cut ourselves and pray to die, and when we laid awake all night crying and praying for you to make everything okay, you were there? YOU WERE THERE?”
Moons and planets shook in their orbits. Asteroid belts and planetary rings ripped apart, firing meteorites and debris out into the solar system.
We reached out our hands to take Him apart, but He grabbed our wrists. Then He said a name that we had never heard before.
It was mine, it was me. I…we… It was us as one. It was my name.
“Yes, I was there,” He said. “Go ahead. Ask.”
/>
We thrashed in His grasp, but He didn’t let go.
“Why didn’t you do anything?” we demanded. “Why didn’t you stop it?”
“Desty already knows the answer to that,” He said. “You both know the answer, even if you can’t get it through to your emotions yet. Do you think you’re the only one who gets free will?”
We screamed. It was the sound of continents cracking apart, of nuclear bombs detonating. Any mortal within hearing distance would have dropped dead at the sound.
“That was my feeling as well,” He said.
Our fury raised in pitch until the air caught fire with it. The holocaust exploded off of us in a flare of fire that scorched the moon and turned smaller meteorites to ash. The sun shuddered and flickered. For a moment, it looked as if it would burn out. Then He spoke a word and it returned to full strength.
“What now, —?” He said my name again in the language I couldn’t speak. “Will you fight me? Try to destroy me?”
“You watched! Everything they did to us and you just stood back and watched! You let this happen to us! You made us this by doing nothing!”
He shook His head. “What I created was something beautiful. A destroyer of evil, a protector of innocent, a replenisher of life. You’ve allowed your original purpose to become corrupted.”
“Life?” we spat. “I am the Godkiller. I am the Destroyer. I am Death and the end of all worlds!”
“But you could have been life.” His expression was so sincere and sad that it silenced us. “Your blood can revive the undead. Your voice comforts the brokenhearted. Your touch exposes the true nature of evil and your presence cleanses it from the Earth with holy fire. You could have healed the dead in spirit and body, comforted the broken, led the lost back home, and purged evil from the world.” He squeezed our wrists, but not hard enough to hurt. “You could have been so much greater than this.”
“This was done to us!”
“Do you think that’s an excuse? When Harper Ives asks me why her baby sister died, what should I tell her? That you were angry about being mistreated? Is that supposed to make her feel better?”
(Scout’s dead? I didn’t mean for—)
“Tough Whitney’s entire family is dead. Should I tell him not to miss them because the fallen angels who murdered them were angry and wanted revenge?”
“We’re different!”
“How?”
Our mouth opened, but no words would come.
After several seconds, He shook his head and let out a soft sigh. “You were beautifully and fearfully made, —. Kathan and his kind did everything they could to pervert your purpose, but you still could have chosen to overcome that. Instead…”
We raised our chin. “Instead we chose to hold you accountable for everything you should have done, for every impossible standard you hold your creations to, for every punishment you lay on us that outweighs our crimes. We chose to exact justice on behalf of a world that could never touch you.”
“You chose to exact what you were told was justice by a proven liar,” He said. “Academic speculation has always been one of your greatest gifts. The moment you saw me, you were already wondering whether I was appearing like this because it was the only way the mortal mind could comprehend me. The answer is yes. Of course I tailor my appearance to anybody who sees me. I have to dial it back or else…” With one hand, He made an exploding gesture beside his head. “One day you’ll all be able to see me as I truly am, but for now, I keep it within your realm of comprehension.”
“You’re saying the sort of justice Kathan sold us on doesn’t exist. True justice is outside mortal comprehension.”
“In a nutshell, as the saying goes.”
“Then what is true justice?”
“You want me to condense an incomprehensible concept down into a few simple words so you can make a decision about your next course of action?”
“In a nutshell, as the saying goes,” I said.
He smiled. “That’s one of my favorite things about you, —.”
We waited.
“Death,” He said. “Death and Hell. That’s the short version.”
“That’s why you created me? To send the whole world to Hell?”
“Sometimes it does seem like a mass extinction would be the only way to remove evil from the world, but there’s a reason I haven’t done it myself in all these years. Even right now, there’s a reason I’m not stepping in and smiting up the place. Can I show you something?”
“What is it?”
“One man—”
“We already know about Jesus. Everybody knows that story.”
“Not Him. I love My Son and take great pride in what He did, but He already paid the price for humanity. The man I want to show you is something else altogether. Sort of the opposite of sinless. But I’ve been waiting for him. I still am.”
He reached up and touched my forehead before I could flinch away.
And I saw.
Tough
By the time Harper and I made it back to the tattoo parlor, the earth was shaking nonstop under our feet and the thunder sounded like one long rumble with bombs detonating every now and then for good measure.
Addison and Drake and a couple younger kids met me at the door.
“What’re we doing now, Tough?” Addison asked. She looked scared.
Drake crowded up next to her. “Yeah, what’s the plan?”
Clarion waited for me to push through the crowd to him, then he lowered his voice and said, “The humans are looking for some answers from somebody who used to be one of them. Without Scout here, they’re expecting you to lead them.”
Harper shot me a look, but didn’t say anything about how them expecting me to be the new leader pretty much summed up how fucked we were.
Lonely was hanging back near the stairs. He nodded his head in that half-peck when he saw me.
What’d you see when you did the flyover? I asked him. What’s going on with the fallen angels?
“Kathan and his legions are regrouping. The Destroyer…” He shrugged like he was adjusting a pair of wings instead of shoulders and cocked his head. “I don’t think she’s in this world anymore. Some of her power is, but I don’t think her soul is.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
“Only one being can be in all places at all times,” Lonely said, “But there are certain beings that can move parts of themselves into more than one place at a time. I think the Destroyer is one of them. That’s what it feels like.”
Clarion nodded in agreement. “The crow and me talked it over. We think she decided to go after God before she blows the world apart.”
Can she do that?
Lonely nodded. “If she wasn’t going after the Creator first, she would’ve kept all of herself here and the world wouldn’t be around for us to have this conversation in.”
“Which means Kathan got his way,” Clarion said. “At least to some extent. Now he’s using the Destroyer to take down God so he can rule over the world.”
When you say it like that it sounds retarded. Is there anything else we can call it?
“Kathan’s takeover?” Lonely smirked. “How about ‘become king of the earth?’ That’s what Bailey and her witch friends keep calling it.”
That sounds less retarded. I looked from Clarion to Lonely. So, we’ve got to stop him. I don’t want that fucker ruling the world, even if Desty kills…even if she can take Him down. Hell, I don’t even want Kathan to know whether he was right about her or not. I want him and Rian and every other asshole angel waiting for me in Hell when I get there. Any word on the reinforcements?
Lonely relayed the question to Clarion.
The old one-eyed coyote shook his head. “It’s a long drive from here to Wisconsin. They’ve probably made it there, but we can’t trust phone lines, so we won’t know anything until they get back into town. Even speeding, it might be until tomorrow before we hear anything back.”
Waiting sounds like shit.<
br />
“Waiting might be all we can do right now, tarnished one,” Lonely said. “It’s too late to save your girlfriend. I’d say it’s pretty clear she doesn’t want to be saved, anyway.”
Harper turned to look at me, her eyebrows scrunched together. “Your girlfriend? Desty?”
I took a deep breath and blew it back out, then nodded. It wasn’t really a conversation I wanted to spend time trying to have, even though I probably owed Harper an explanation of what she was getting into at some point.
Clarion saved me from having to go into it. “We either throw away a bunch more lives on attacking when we’re not ready or we wait a few more hours, regroup, and try to form some sort of plan. Two, actually. One that takes into account the extra manpower and one that doesn’t, just in case they don’t show.”
That still sounded like shit, but I didn’t want to get anyone else killed so soon. I took another long breath and realized that I was doing it so that broken rib would spike and the pain would clear my head. But the pain was barely there. Not only was I cold all the way through now, but I was numb most of the way through, too.
Fine. I whipped off my hat and scratched my hand through my hair, then pulled it back on. Lonely, tell Clare I said fine. He went with me earlier, I’ll go with him on this one.
Lonely relayed that.
When he was done, I nodded upstairs. He went and I followed.
What happened with Willow? I thought I told you to keep her away from the Dark Mansion.
“Some people don’t take to crow magic, tarnished one. She was some people. I stunned her and left her here. She must’ve woke up not long after.”
I wanted to hit him, but I didn’t. Something about that sounded right—that Will would be resistant to crow magic. Something about her personality, her way of smiling at you so that you wanted to hang around and talk, the way she never even cussed. I bet Desty would’ve been resistant to crow magic, too. Guess we’d never know now.
Colt
I wasn’t going to make it. The light was leaving my skin and the pain was intensifying every second. Every step ripped muscles and ground my bones against each other like broken glass. Tiffani was sometimes there and sometimes in her head. She tried to stay with me, but she couldn’t.
