by eden Hudson
“Dad—” My voice cracked.
“You can open your eyes,” Dad said. “It’s real. You’re home. You’re safe. It’s okay. It’s all over. You can rest now.”
Just hearing that, I could feel the weight rolling off my shoulders like broken chains. I took a shuddering breath. Slowly as I could manage, I opened my eyes.
Sissy had turned a chair around backward and was sitting with her chin resting on her arms. Ryder had his chair tipped back on two legs and his knee propped up against the table for leverage. Standing at the head of the table—
“Mom?”
Dad let me go and stepped back.
“Sunshine,” she whispered. She touched my cheek. “My little black-haired sunshine.”
I had never realized how tiny Mom was. The top of her head barely came up to Dad’s shoulder—and my shoulder, now, too. But when I was little, she’d seemed so huge. It was her personality, her voice, her attitude. In my memories, she had been larger than life, dominating everything she was part of.
When I hugged her, it felt like scooping a baby bird up in your hands. She was so small and fragile. I didn’t want to hurt her.
But she locked her arms behind my back and squeezed until my back popped.
They all looked… When you see someone on Earth, all you can see is their skin. But in Heaven, it’s like you can really see people. Like I didn’t just see that the scar Sissy used to have on her cheek from the battle at the school. I saw Sissy screaming for everyone to get outside, retreat. I saw Principal Baumeyer, gut-shot and bleeding out, telling her to leave him, and Sissy fighting off two vampires and a limn demon to drag Baumeyer out with us. I could see this deep well of concern for every soul she’d ever fought alongside, this sadness for every vamp she’d ever staked, every demon she’d ever sent back to Hell. I could see that she had always known good and right would triumph and she had never given up on that hope.
When I looked at Ryder, I could see that while he was alive, he had never wanted anything as bad as he’d wanted to have a family. A wife to love and protect, kids he could play football with and read Dr. Seuss books to at night and make breakfast for on the weekends. I could see that he’d found the woman of his dreams up here and met his unborn kids.
Mom…everything that she had given up, everything that she’d tried to do to protect us from herself, from the black noise… I had to shut my eyes again. She blamed herself for what I’d gone through. At first she’d been afraid Sissy would have it. Then Ryder showed up and he had the same short fuse as Mom had. And Tough had been so much like Mom in every way. It had seemed like if anybody could’ve heard the black noise, it would’ve been Tough. She’d never thought it would be me.
“You were so quiet, so sweet,” Mom said. Or maybe she didn’t say it. Maybe I felt her thinking it. It was hard to tell. “My good boy. Of all my babies…”
“It’s okay.” I cleared my throat, but I couldn’t get my voice above a whisper. “It helped me stop Mikal.”
She gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Mama’s Sunshine, same as always.”
You would think being talked to like a baby in front of everyone would be embarrassing, but I hadn’t been babied in so long. I just squeezed her tighter and soaked it up.
After a while, Mom’s grip loosened and I took the hint. I put her down.
“So, I’m—” I cleared my throat again. This time it worked. I could speak at a normal volume and didn’t sound like I was about to cry. “This is Heaven. Is it like this for everybody? They go back to their families or—”
Dad shrugged. “‘In my Father’s house are many rooms,’ or in a different translation, ‘many mansions.’ Ryder and Sissy have their homes, their families…”
“We just came over to see you,” Sissy said, grinning. “Just wait until you meet your niece. She’s just like her Uncle Colt—thinks she knows everything.”
“This is Mom and Dad’s, though?” I said.
“Sure ain’t my place,” Ryder said, dropping his chair down onto all four feet and leaning toward me. “Mine’s got poles, stages—”
“Ryder,” Dad warned.
Ryder winked at me.
“Just kidding, Sunshine,” he said. “There’s only one pole. Candi likes to see me shake my moneymaker.”
Dad and Sissy both rolled their eyes at him—same time, same right-to-left motion—just like when they were alive.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I laughed a real laugh that came out like an explosion. It all hit me at once. It was really over. I didn’t have to fight anymore. The world didn’t depend on me anymore. No more fighting fallen angels I could never beat. No more being hated and reviled by the people I was trying to protect. No more failure, death, or shame. No more holding back the black noise, no more fighting to hang onto some shred of sanity.
I turned to Dad. “The last battle—”
“It’s not your responsibility anymore,” he said.
“I gave up the sword.” As I said it, the last few minutes of my life came back to me. “The Sword of Judgment. I gave it to Rian. To save Tiffani.”
Dad looked down at the floor, quiet.
“Baby,” Mom whispered, rubbing my back.
“Tiffani,” I said. “Where is she?”
“She’s not here,” Dad said.
I took a step backward. I didn’t mean to, but my legs didn’t want to hold me up anymore. The only thing I could do short of fall was step back.
“Hell?” I swallowed. “Tiffani’s in Hell?”
“Son, you knew that. Vampires—”
“—go to Hell?” I was yelling. But I couldn’t keep my voice down. Tiffani was in Hell.
To me, Heaven looked like this—an eternity with Tiffani and my family, relaxing for the rest of forever in God’s arms. Sissy and Ryder had found their families. Mom and Dad had each other back.
But Tiffani wasn’t just not in Heaven. She was in Hell, being tortured for all eternity.
This weird, wired shaking started up in my chest and spread down my arms to my hands.
Eternal hellfire. Screaming. Gnashing of teeth. Unending death.
“That vamp made her choice,” Sissy said. “You used to understand that.”
“Yeah, well I’m not a fucking robot anymore.”
Sissy made a disgusted sound in her throat. “Nice language. Real intelligent.”
“Children,” Dad said.
“Tiff saved me. She—” Even as sick and screwed up as I was, even knowing what it would cost her, Tiffani had saved me. “How can you guys not understand?”
Beside me, Mom had started crying. Looking at her felt like looking into the infinite reflections of two mirrors facing each other. I could see that she was looking at me and seeing Dad saving her. No matter how far gone she was, Dad had always saved her.
“Dad, you would’ve done it for Mom. I know—”
“No, you don’t know.” Dad shook his head. “Only a sinless soul can walk out of Hell. The only way a condemned soul can be redeemed is—”
“—substitution,” I said. “I know. A sanctified soul takes its place.”
“Well, I hate to point out the obvious,” Sissy said. “But you’re no Jesus, Colt. If you walk in, you’re not walking out.”
My hands balled into fists. That weird, wired shaking had spread out through my whole body. How could they not understand? Tiffani was in Hell. I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.
Ryder clicked at me. When I looked, he nodded at me—an I got your back nod.
“Speaking of the J-man,” he said, tipping his chair back up on two legs.
For a second, I could see the day Principal Baumeyer called Ryder and me into the elementary office and accused us—rightfully—of clicking at each other during school-wide standardize testing. Baumeyer had tried to play us against each other, but neither of us would snitch. When he threatened to take us both down, Ryder had given him the sort of casual cussing out that elementary school legends are made of. Baumeyer had b
een so pissed that he’d forgotten all about me.
Ryder scratched his jaw and gave Sissy the same look he’d given Baumeyer just before he called him a fart-sucking fat-ass.
“You’re supposed to be the logical one, Sis. But here I am, the only one who’s going to point out that there’s probably a reason JC didn’t show for the meet and greet? Like maybe He already knew Colt wasn’t here to stay?”
Everyone went still.
Dad was the first to move. He bowed his head. “Please, Heavenly Father, if there’s any other way, please don’t let this happen.”
Goose bumps ran down the back of my neck. I had prayed that exact same prayer before. I could remember it—strapped to the table in Mikal’s basement doctor’s office. I had begged God not to let Mikal take away my last memory of Tiffani. At the time, I hadn’t been able to see that He didn’t let Mikal take it away. He sent me to Tiffani so she could bring it back, so she could bring all of me back.
Now it was my turn.
“Please,” Dad begged, his voice hoarse with desperation.
Mom put her arms around him. He pressed his face into her hair.
The scent of coffee and cinnamon and cigarettes and hot peppers swirled through my brain. Tiffani. Without her, without knowing that she was safe and protected and finally enjoying all the things that had been stolen from her on Earth… That wasn’t Heaven.
I took a step toward my parents. “I can’t just leave her there. I won’t.”
Mom sniffed.
“I know.” She kissed Dad, then stepped back and faced me. She smiled and wiped her eyes. When she touched my arm, her fingers were wet with tears. “Always my good little boy. I know you won’t.”
Tough
After a while, Lonely got off me, stood up, stretched, then hauled me up onto his shoulder.
“Sun’s coming up,” he said, hooking his thick arm around my knees. “Best get you inside.”
He carried me two and a half blocks like that. My arms bounced off his ass with every step he took and my nose smashed flat against his back over and over. I stared into the red and blue print on his Hawaiian shirt until the lines stopped making flower-shapes and turned into blood splatter and spilled guts and cracked skulls.
That heavy metal psycho-screaming in my head had gone quiet. Maybe my brain had overloaded and something had popped. Maybe I’d had an aneurysm. All I felt was this cold, sick ball of ice in my stomach.
The same words looped through my head over and over again—I’m going to kill everybody in this fucking town.
Lonely shoved open the door of the tattoo parlor, ringing the wind chime overhead. I hadn’t been in here since Harper had gotten her belly button pierced. The air inside the shop smelled like incense and ink and disinfectant. I had smelled that before. Recently. But I couldn’t take a breath while I was paralyzed. The tiny amount of that smell curled up inside my nose was driving me crazy.
At least until Lonely cracked my head on a sharp corner as we passed the counter full of piercings and shit. He bent over and dumped me onto a tattoo chair.
“Phew.” He straightened his shirt out and shook his head. “You’re heavy for such a little guy.”
Normally, I probably would’ve thought something like, Big enough to stomp your sorry ass, but that icy black hole in my gut seemed to suck in every thought. Nothing could escape it. Nothing could escape me. Everything and everyone was going to be sorry. Lonely first, then Rian, then Kathan. All the fallen angels and anybody who got in my way. The second Lonely took this paralysis off, everyone was going to pay.
“Not everyone,” Lonely said. “The others ought to be here soon.”
That derailed my revenge fantasies for a second. That was the second time Lonely had acted like he could hear me.
“You’re crowspawn now, tarnished one.” He plopped onto a rolling stool and leaned forward. “Your mind speaks a language I can understand.”
Then understand this—unparalyze me. Now.
“Let me tell you a story,” Lonely said, picking at one of the piercings in his nose.
They took Colt. He’s going to get resurrected surrounded by foot soldiers, all alone. He needs me.
“He won’t be resurrected. The white knight is dead.”
Bullshit he is.
“The story.” Lonely shook himself like a bird shaking rain off its feathers and leaned toward me. “There was once a girl who wanted to be a crow so badly that she covered her body with pictures of their black feathers. She went to the crows, but they laughed at her skin pictures. Those feathers would never make her fly, they said. So, the girl leapt into the air and flew. Furious, the crows grabbed her out of the sky. They tore her body to pieces and scattered her across the Earth. When the pieces hit the dirt, each one turned into a metal that reflected twice the light of the sun. The crows loved the pieces, sought them out, fought each other and died to gather them.”
He stared at me.
If I’m supposed to be having some kind of epiphany, you’d better spell it out, I thought. I’m not good at this game.
Lonely straightened up and half-flapped his arms at me. “She became their one desire! The shiny girl directed the will of all crows from that day on.”
I hoped he could feel the sarcasm rolling off me.
“The white knight, your brother—he never cared about this earth. He never lived in it. He lived in her, in that crowspawn.”
What. The hell. Are we talking about?
“The vampire. When he found her, he found life. When he lost her, he lost it.” Lonely nodded over his shoulder, toward the door. “Without her, he will never return to this earth.”
Colt’s not dead. He’ll get resurrected. He’s the last Soldier of Heaven. He—
“He shined for her, tarnished one, not for the Earth. He would never cover his skin with their feathers. He could never have directed their will.” Lonely sat forward again and glared into my eyes. “The last battle was never his to win or lose.”
Desty— Shit, just thinking her name hurt. —told me about the prophecy. Colt—
“In trying to save you, he brought death upon you instead. He created the holy champion.”
I killed Colt. Colt got resurrected. Brought. Back. To. Life.
“You laid down your life and you rose again,” Lonely said, completely ignoring my tone. “You fall and you rise back up. You covered yourself with the feathers of this earth and they laughed at you. You leapt into the sky and you soared. They tore your tarnished soul into pieces and scattered it across the earth. Now, you have become their metal. They will seek you out and they will follow you.”
Oh yeah? I thought of Scout and her crappy little living room packed full of people I hated, all staring at me. So, this is what? The part where I suddenly turn all good and start doing right and all my sins are washed away?
Lonely cocked his head at me. “Nope. Redemption takes something you’ve never had, tarnished one.”
No kidding.
“But—” Lonely twisted his head even farther, until it was about a quarter-turn from upside down, and grinned that creepy crow grin. “—you don’t have to be the favored son to wage the father’s war.”
Colt
Mom led me out of the farmhouse. Dad, Sissy, and Ryder followed along behind us like one of those old-fashioned funeral processions.
Outside… I can’t describe the brightness. It was like staring directly into the flash of a concussion grenade, except it didn’t hurt or burn an afterimage onto my retinas. And there was music. Singing. I hadn’t really thought about music in years—not since Mom died—but that sound. It was full. It made something in my chest swell and soar. If the black noise had an opposite, it was that singing light.
For the longest time, I couldn’t even remember why we were outside. All I could think was that I wanted to spend the rest of eternity out here. I wanted to live in that light forever.
An itch started up across my chest. That turned into a prickling burn, like being ta
ttooed with dry ice.
My chest piece. Resist or Serve. Tiffani. It all came flooding back.
I looked at Mom, since she seemed to know what she was doing. “How do I…?”
“He knows,” she said. “He’ll send someone.”
We waited. That wired shaking was still running through me like electrical current. Every second I was here was another second Tiffani had to spend in Hell.
Dad cleared his throat. “I wish you could’ve met your grandparents.”
“And your Aunt Charlotte,” Mom said.
I took a deep breath and let it out. I wished that, too.
Something changed in the air, almost a shift in pressure. The light burned as bright as before. The music went on. But something was different.
Sissy stepped up beside me and gave me a hug.
“I don’t want to be here when It gets here,” she said. “Sorry.”
“Yeah,” Ryder said, pulling me away from Sissy and slapping me on the back a couple times. “No offense, Sunshine—I know I’m your hero—but not even for you, buddy.”
They headed up to the house.
“Ryder?” I said.
He stopped in the doorway and turned back.
“Candi… Hunting accident or four-wheeler wreck?”
He grinned. “Even better. Dynamite fishing while under the influence.”
I snorted.
“That’s right, motherfucker,” he said. “Dream girl.”
Then he followed Sissy inside.
The pressure in the air grew heavier and I felt something spiraling downward toward us. It made me want to sprint back into the farmhouse and hide.
Dad put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Colt, are you sure—”
“Yeah.” I shook out my arms and legs as if that would dispel the trembling in my stomach. Tiffani needed me. She was in Hell. If I didn’t do this, she would be there forever. Unending death. An eternity of torture. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
Mom squeaked when It swooped down and landed in front of us. Both her and Dad took a step back.
I held my ground. This was for Tiffani. I wouldn’t leave her there.
