by Tim Waggoner
It’s like she’s royalty or something, Geoffrey thought.
“Today the two of you have the great honor of becoming the first of my worshippers. Kneel before me, accept me into your hearts, and I will lead you to glory.”
As Adamantine spoke these words her presence, already far stronger than anything Geoffrey had ever experienced, intensified. He felt her power reach out and envelop him, call to him, tell him that he could be part of something larger than himself, that he would no longer have to live on the streets and seek out the most menial jobs just so he could put a few crumbs in his belly. If he went with her, he would eat and eat well.
He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, Jimmy shook his head back and forth rapidly, as if trying to clear his mind. Then he looked at Adamantine and laughed.
“I don’t know what you’re on, lady, but whatever it is, it’s got to be pretty damn strong. Do you want us to take you to the free clinic? It’s only a few blocks away. Or we could stay with you until you come down, make sure you’re okay.”
Adamantine’s smile had remained in place as she made her offer, but now it fell away, and her brow furrowed in anger. The humming noise that seemed to emanate from the air around her grew louder. She turned to look at Jimmy, the light in her eyes glowing with increased intensity.
“Do you mock me?” Her voice was soft, but the anger in her tone was unmistakable, at least to Geoffrey. He tried to catch Jimmy’s attention, wanted to signal to him to cool it before he got hurt. But Jimmy ignored him.
“Maybe just a little,” Jimmy said. “But you have to admit, that’s one wild costume you’re wearing. You do know that Halloween was like, two months ago, right?”
Adamantine regarded Jimmy for a moment, and then she stepped toward him. She didn’t run, didn’t seem to move fast in any way. But within an instant she stood directly in front of Jimmy, a hair’s breadth between them. Before Jimmy could react, she grabbed hold of his throat with her gauntlet, and the humming noise grew so loud it hurt Geoffrey’s ears. A crackling sound filled the air as thin bolts of electricity coruscated across the gauntlet’s metal surface. Jimmy’s eyes flew wide and he screamed, his body jerking all over, as if some invisible force was shaking him. No, Geoffrey thought. As if he were being electrocuted.
Jimmy reached up to grab hold of the gauntlet and tried to pull it off him, but either he was too weak or Adamantine was too strong, and he couldn’t budge it. Wisps of smoke began curling upward from both his hands and his neck, and the skin that was in contact with the metal began to blacken. Jimmy no longer screamed. Instead, he was making uh-uh-uh sounds, his voice pulsing in time to the electric current running through him. Sparks began to shoot off his body, and tendrils of smoke rose from his head, arms, torso, and legs. Geoffrey feared that his friend would burst into flames, but then his body stiffened all over, and then his head lolled to the side and he fell limp.
The humming diminished, and while Jimmy’s body—his dead body, Geoffrey thought—was still smoking, it no longer emitted sparks. Adamantine continued to hold onto him for a moment longer, looking at him with a detached curiosity, before finally releasing her grip. Jimmy’s body fell to the sidewalk and lay still, smoke continuing to curl upward from his form, the skin on his neck and palms charred black.
Adamantine then turned her attention to Geoffrey.
“And how do you feel about my more than generous offer?” she asked.
Geoffrey glanced sideways at his friend’s smoldering corpse. He was horrified by what had happened to Jimmy. He was a good guy and hadn’t deserved to die like that. But… he had mocked Adamantine. Hadn’t he been able to feel the power radiating from the woman? You didn’t make fun of that kind of power. It demanded respect. And if you respected it, maybe you could share in it, even if only a little.
Geoffrey got down on one knee and bowed his head.
“My lady,” he said.
The gauntlet was still warm when Adamantine placed it gently on his head. He felt that warmth spread through his body, and he trembled with the joy of it. He’d never experienced anything so wonderful.
* * *
“I’m sorry.”
Lena Nguyen finished speaking and clasped her hands in front of her on the top of her desk. She always did this whenever she delivered bad news to a patient, although she wasn’t sure why. A self-comforting gesture, perhaps. Oncology wasn’t the easiest field to work in, especially when you cared for your patients as deeply as she did. She was used to delivering bad news—too used to it—but that didn’t make it any easier.
A couple sat on the other side of the desk, two men in their forties. They both had short hair flecked with gray and neatly trimmed goatees that looked the same. One of the men was thinner than the other, and Lena knew his appearance wasn’t down to choice. The men held hands, and while the heavier of the two had tears in his eyes, his husband’s expression remained stoic. Lena had seen that look on patients’ faces many times before. He was stunned by the news he’d just received, and it hadn’t fully hit him yet. But it would, sooner rather than later.
Thomas Rosenman and his husband, David, had first come to her three years ago. Thomas had been having trouble breathing, and his doctor scheduled a battery of tests for him. The result: several suspicious masses were found in his right lung, and they proved to be Stage Three cancer. Ironic, considering the man had never smoked a cigarette in his life. But cancer was like that. Sometimes it had a clear cause, but all too often it was random, like being struck by lightning. It just happened.
Lena had been brought onto his medical team after that. She prescribed surgery followed by aggressive chemotherapy. The surgery went well, and while the chemo was rough, Thomas endured and made it through. Thomas had gone through more tests afterward, and it looked like he was free of cancer. Of course, when it came to cancer, “free” really meant “free for now.” There was always a chance it could come back, and that’s what had happened to Thomas. Two years without a sign of recurrence, and now his latest CT scan revealed his lung had several tumors, all of which had grown so rapidly that Lena knew Thomas had little chance of survival this time. She hadn’t put it that way to him, of course. She’d talked about immediate surgery, followed by more chemo. She’d tried to sound positive, even upbeat about his chances, but neither Thomas nor David seemed to buy her sales pitch. Maybe she hadn’t been as convincing as she’d hoped. Or maybe they’d simply been through so much already that they didn’t have the strength for another fight.
Neither Thomas nor David spoke for several minutes, and Lena sat silently as well, hands still clasped on her desk. It was difficult to sit and observe their pain without doing something—anything—to relieve it, but she knew from experience that there was nothing she could do right now, other than give them more time to absorb the news they’d received.
Lena’s office was small, but since she used it primarily as a consulting room, its size didn’t matter much. What did matter to her was that it didn’t look like just another cold, sterile examining room. She wanted it to be warm and comfortable, a place where her patients could relax—at least as much as possible, given their reason for coming to see her. To that end, she had the walls covered with wood paneling, and she’d installed cream-colored carpet. The chairs were plush leather and extremely comfortable to sit in. There was a wooden bookcase behind her filled with medical texts, and paintings of soothing landscapes—a mountain range, a forest, an ocean beach—hung on the walls, along with her framed diplomas, honors, and awards. She’d brought plants into the office too—a Boston fern, a peace lily, and a philodendron. Not only did they scrub the air, they helped create a calmer environment. Or so she hoped. Aside from a phone and a laptop that usually remained closed, there was nothing to clutter the surface of her desk. There were fluorescent lights on the ceiling, but she left them off, preferring to use a floor lamp whenever possible, or the softer, natural light provided by the room’s lone window. But no matter how h
ard she worked at making her office comforting, in the end she knew it only helped a little, if at all.
Lena was a short woman, barely over five feet, with a round face, shoulder-length black hair, and glasses. She thought the latter gave her an air of seriousness that helped counter her height. When people first met her—especially if they didn’t know she was a doctor—they tended to treat her like… not a child, exactly, but not like a full adult either. It was for this reason that she kept her glasses instead of switching to contacts. She wasn’t sure if it really helped, though.
Thomas stared at the wall the entire time the three of them were silent, but at last he turned to meet Lena’s gaze and spoke.
“If I don’t do anything—no surgery, no chemo—how long will I have?”
She wasn’t surprised by the question. She’d gotten it from patients before, but it was one she never liked answering. She didn’t believe in giving up.
“Six months,” she said. “Maybe as long as a year. But you’ll be in a great deal of pain for much of that time, and toward the end you’ll be hospitalized.” She paused. “Or in a hospice, depending on your choice.”
“Whatever you’re thinking about, Tom, you can stop it right now,” David said. Lena could hear the fear in his voice, but his manner was firm. “We’re going to fight this just like we did last time, and we’re going to beat it.”
Thomas gave his husband a sad but loving smile.
“The odds—” he began.
“I don’t care about the odds,” David snapped. “I only care about you.”
Lena found the man’s love touching. Her own marriage had ended in divorce several years ago. It had been amicable enough, but they’d had no children, and while she’d dated on and off since, she’d never gotten close to anyone, let alone fallen in love.
Conversations like this were the worst part of her job. She’d become a doctor and specialized in oncology after losing her mother to breast cancer when she was in high school. And while she wasn’t foolish or arrogant enough to believe she could single-handedly cure cancer, she’d dedicated her life to fighting it and, more importantly, giving people hope. But she had no hope to give Thomas and David, and she hated it.
She was about to make another pitch for treatment, even if the chances of success were low, but before she spoke, the office door opened, and a man in a white lab coat entered.
Lena’s breath caught in her throat when she saw him. He wasn’t just handsome, he was beautiful, in the same way that an ancient Greek statue was. He had curly black hair, high cheekbones, a strong chin, full lips, and the most startling blue eyes she’d ever seen. They were so bright they seemed to gleam with internal light. The effect was so powerful that she could only look at his eyes for a few seconds before experiencing a strong urge to turn away. His lab coat was so white it practically glowed, and a name was stitched onto the left breast in blue thread the same color as his eyes, one word: Paeon. The name struck her as familiar, but she couldn’t place it. He wore a white shirt under his coat, along with a red tie that had a design made from a collection of medical instruments—stethoscopes, hypodermics, tongue depressors, thermometers, and blood pressure cuffs. Black pants and shoes completed his outfit, so dark they seemed to draw in and swallow the light around them.
He was tall, but more than that, his entire body, facial features included, was larger than an average man. It was almost as if he belonged to a different species entirely, or was a more highly evolved form of human. A word came to her mind then: god. His appearance was only part of what created the impression of otherworldliness, though. The man—Paeon—exuded an aura of strength and power which filled the room, a raw energy like the way the air feels before the arrival of a massive thunderstorm. The sensation didn’t provoke fear, but rather a feeling of vitality. Lena felt alert, bursting with energy, as if she could go outside and run a mile—no, five miles—at top speed without getting winded or becoming tired.
She’d never seen this man before. She definitely would’ve remembered if she had.
It took her a moment to find her voice, but when she did, she said, “I’m in a private consultation with a patient at the moment. If you’ll go back to the reception area, I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”
It took an effort of will for her to get the words out. The last thing she wanted to do was send him away, but she had to think of Thomas first.
Paeon gave her a warm, caring smile.
“That is why I am here.”
His rich tenor was like honey in her ears. He held her gaze for a moment before turning to Thomas. He lowered his gaze to the man’s chest, eyes narrowing, as if he were peering inside his body.
“You are ill,” he said to Thomas. “Gravely so.” He lifted his gaze and smiled. “It is most fortunate for you that I Manifested in this place.”
Paeon reached inside his lab coat and withdrew an object from an inner pocket. It was ten inches long, too large to conceivably fit inside the pocket, and it appeared to be made from gold. It was a rod with a pair of intertwined serpents wrapped around it and two small wings protruding from the top. Lena recognized the object, although she’d never seen a three-dimensional version of it. It was a caduceus, an ancient symbol that the medical profession had adopted as its emblem. And when she saw it, she remembered where she’d heard the name Paeon before. In mythology, Paeon was the physician of the Greek gods.
Paeon held the rod in his right hand and extended it toward Thomas.
“I can banish the foul corruption from your body. Is this something you desire?”
Thomas looked up at Paeon, doubt and confusion in his eyes. But there was also a glimmer of hope.
“Yes,” he said.
Paeon smiled. “Good. And in return for this gift, you must swear allegiance to me and come to me when I summon you. Are you willing to do this?”
David put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder.
“I don’t think this is a good—”
“I am,” Thomas said.
Lena could sense there was more behind Thomas’s answer than a dying man’s desperation. She felt power emanating from Paeon. It was as if he had willed Thomas to agree. She wanted to tell him to stop it, that no patient should ever be coerced into treatment, but she couldn’t make herself speak. Despite her objection, part of her was glad that Thomas had agreed to Paeon’s terms.
Paeon nodded, clearly pleased, and then he stepped forward and touched the tip of the caduceus to Thomas’s chest. The rod glowed with golden light, and Thomas drew in a gasping breath, his eyes widening.
Lena rose to her feet, afraid that the caduceus was hurting Thomas somehow, although she knew instinctively that it wasn’t.
This can’t be real, she told herself, but she knew it was. More, she hoped it was, for Thomas’s sake.
Paeon held the caduceus to Thomas’s chest for several seconds before pulling it away. The instant the rod was no longer in contact with Thomas’s body, its glow began to diminish and quickly faded to nothing.
“How do you feel?” Paeon asked.
Thomas drew in a deep breath, held it, and then blew it out in a burst of air.
“I feel…”
Lena and David leaned toward him.
“Great!” Thomas finished and grinned.
* * *
Both Thomas and David thanked Paeon profusely, and David also accepted the caduceus’s touch in exchange for his “allegiance.” The couple then left, all smiles and laughter, pledging to go forth and tell everyone they met about Paeon’s miracle cure. Paeon seemed satisfied by their promise, as if he wanted them to go out and drum up more business for him.
“Do you really expect me to believe that you can cure lung cancer with a touch from your magic wand?” But even as Lena spoke these words, she knew she did believe, such was the man’s strange power over her.
Paeon gave her a tolerant smile and sat in one of the leather chairs. “You are a physician, Lena. Skepticism is one of your most important tools. B
ut I assure you that man is free of his illness.”
“Next you’ll tell me that he’ll live forever.”
Paeon grew thoughtful. “I’m not certain how long my servants will live.” He smiled. “I’m still very new at this, you know.”
She didn’t know. She had a dozen questions for him. Two dozen. But right now, she could only think of one that was important.
“Can you heal any illness with that?”
He still held the caduceus, and Lena nodded toward it.
“Yes.”
There was no ego or arrogance in his answer. He spoke the word as if it were a simple statement of fact.
“Then I’ve got patients for you to see,” Lena said. “A lot of them. Are you willing to help them?”
She didn’t know exactly who or what this man was—or if he was even human, as crazy as that sounded. But if he could heal people—especially people like Thomas, who had been given a death sentence by their bodies—then that was all that mattered.
“Of course,” Paeon said. “That is, after all, why I’m here. But I will require payment for my services. They will have to give me their allegiance.”
“Why?” Lena asked. “What could they possibly have that someone like you—with all your power—might need?”
Paeon’s smile fell away and his too-blue eyes literally darkened, as if thick shadows fell over them.
“There’s a war coming to your town, Lena. A war in which there can be but a single victor. I intend to win this war, and to do so, I’m going to need all the… allies I can get, as quickly as I can get them. I’ve already got Thomas and David.” His eyes brightened and his smile returned. “Would you like to join them?”
He’d first referred to those his caduceus touched as servants, but then—as if realizing how that might sound to her—he’d instead used the word allies. There was a world of distinction between the two words, and she knew which she preferred.
He held the caduceus out over her desk, and its golden surface began to glow. She could feel warmth emanating from the metal, and in response she experienced a sensation of well-being and contentment. The caduceus was so close she could reach out and touch it. And she wanted to, needed to.
