“Not really your problem,” Hecate said.
There was truth to that statement. Had the goddess not interfered, Clara would not have lived to care. Drusilla would live to see another night, although scarred from their encounter but nonetheless free to continue her pattern of violence. Clara wondered if stories of her sucker punching Drusilla would become legend.
Hecate’s yawn had been the definitive clue Clara needed. She would live to fight another day, but at the expense of becoming a diversion. Once bored, would Hecate toss her away like trash?
“You would leave her to exact her revenge on the innocent?” Clara asked.
Time for her to start poking the bear, she thought. For a moment, all three versions of her appeared to break away from the unified form but were quickly drawn back together.
“Innocent,” the goddess laughed. “No one in this room is innocent.”
“God forgives all sins,” Clara said.
What were her chances of being killed for simply throwing down that name? Hecate glared at Clara, a sore point to their kind, given how Christianity had usurped their dominance long ago.
She walked away and made sure to have the bottle of coffin varnish with her. Clara stopped by Victor then giggled at the look on his face. He may have believed he was going to get lucky tonight, but that was a deal forged entirely in his mind.
“What can you offer me that God cannot?” Clara asked.
Clara’s demeanour was that of a woman who was drunk. The emotional upheaval, stress, and booze created the perfect conditions for Clara to lose control. To pull off a convincing lie, she needed some effects to seem authentic.
As expected, the goddess’ reaction was more violent this time. The goddess split back to her three distinct entities and this time, the ethereal entity took the lead.
“This one is trying to rile us up,” the ethereal sister said.
For once, the ethereal one was right. Sparky began to channel her powers which mimicked a tesla coil as surges of energy flowed along her length. Clara giggled. A goddess that was unable to conceal her temper was silly.
“Now why would I do that,” Clara said while playing the role of a dumb dora.
Clara pulled at her last pearl earring, then crushed it over the mouth of the bottle. The sleight of hand had been quick and expertly done, appearing as though she had been fumbling with the bottle prior to taking another swig.
“See! See! She just did something,” the ethereal sister said.
“What did you see?” the silvery sister asked.
Clara saw how Sparky’s eyes were set aglow in a bright blue hue. This was the first time Clara had observed this behaviour, so perhaps her capacitors were fully charged?
This was the perfect time for her to pretend to be scared. Her heart rate rose, and she backed away from the sisters until she tripped over Drusilla. Clara’s fall caused the bottle to fly through the air like some slapstick comedy. To think that all that time spent watching Charlie Chaplin movies would come in handy someday?
When she landed hard on Drusilla, the bottle crashed on top of that monster’s head, drenching both of them in alcohol. God she hoped the bitch could still feel that. The odour of alcohol invaded every one of her senses. It even made her eyes water.
“Bravo!” the silvery sister goddess exclaimed.
“All part of the act,” the ethereal sister added to keep the other two focused.
Based on the hysterical laughter, the ethereal sister’s words were having no effect. Clara needed them to unleash their wrath for her plan to work. That meant it was time to up the ante.
Clara grabbed onto the hilt of her blade buried into Drusilla’s spine. As expected, the blade would not budge, nonetheless, she hoped this act would force the goddess to play her hand.
“She’s going to attack,” said the decidedly paranoid ethereal sister.
“Now wait—,” the silvery sister managed to say just as a long and powerful bolt of blue energy made the air crackle.
The beam struck Clara dead centre in her chest, spreading over her body then passed through the blade and into Drusilla’s spine which made them both convulse. Whatever prevented Clara from affecting others in the room was easily sidestepped by the goddesses’ power.
The other two sisters turned to look at Sparky. The look matched precisely what was etched on the bimbo’s face. Of all the times to wish for a camera!
The look on their faces soon dissipated when a bright yellow light filled the room. That bolt of energy had been enough to ignite the alcohol which engulfed both women in an inferno.
“In nómine Patris et Fílii et Spíritus Sancti,” Clara said while making the sign of a cross.
In a final act of faith, Clara closed her eyes, understanding that time was not on her side. This would be a painful and unpleasant death. So where were the effects? Her skin should have been burning, her flesh drawing tight while pain flooded her mind.
Surprised, she opened her eyes and expected to see Hecate taunting her. Instead, she was greeted with a wall of flame growing in intensity.
When Clara glanced at Drusilla, she saw how the flames licked her corpse with zeal. Soon enough, Drusilla would be nothing more than a collection of charred bones. That idea put a smile on her face, succeeding in her mission despite interference from a higher power. Drusilla would never again be a threat to anyone.
So where was the sense of accomplishment? If her life revolved around revenge, then her goal had been met. To die doing God’s work was a good way to go, and certainly better than Drusilla’s pot-roast welcome to hell.
Then it dawned on her. Revenge had consumed her life because she was furious with these creatures for robbing her of a mundane life. Until that moment, she never stopped to think about her desire to find a good man, fall in love, and become a mother. The idea of existing like a normal person and carrying on in a world oblivious to what lurked in the shadows had been her idea of paradise.
Clara felt some form of energy from within which was hard to describe. She humbly accepted her fate, even while this power kept the flames at bay. Despite this divine intervention, Clara knew she had moments before being overwhelmed.
Clara finished off by saying, “Amen.”
Her final word was followed by an intense shock wave of blinding light that knocked down the column of fire.
“That bastard,” the ethereal sister said before spitting on the floor.
For the first time tonight, her voice carried a depth of emotion.
“Ab-so-lute-ly,” the silvery sister said before she turned to look at Sparky. “Someone just had to go and stir up enough shit so that egomaniac would save the day,” she added with a hint of disdain.
“What did I do,” Sparky said while feigning ignorance.
Tired of this party, Sparky casually strolled towards the exit. However, that did nothing to diffuse the situation.
“You know full well what you did,” the silvery sister said following suit.
“You always fuck things up,” the ethereal sister threw in to get one last dig in.
“Me?” Sparky asked while her eyes were aglow.
“Just ducky,” the silvery sister said.
The latter knew this would take a while to resolve. The last fight that broke out between those two had taken the better part of a century to resolve!
FREYJA’S SHIELDMAIDEN
1929
Clara’s eyes opened in a flutter and revealed an immaculate world. Not only were the walls a pristine white, but so was the ceiling, floor and, alarmingly, so was her gown. Everything was imbued with a white so intense that she had trouble focusing.
“Just ducky,” Clara said although her voice did not echo back. “I’m in the nuthouse.”
Clara had been in sanatoriums before, places where colour and style were relentlessly shed away to avoid upsetting a patient’s fragile psyche. Of course this was the first time that Clara was there as the patient.
Occurrences were rare, but from
time to time one of them would wind up in an institution. Normally they were newly turned, still clinging to their unravelling humanity. Hunters would pose as doctors or nurses to infiltrate the site and deal with the threat.
“Mister Jones,” Clara said. “The doctor feels that some fresh air would do you wonders,” she chuckled.
Sometimes these sanatoriums would suffer a devastating fire in the early morning, a side-effect of not reaching these patients on time. There were no official causes in the reports, but those from the order had their suspicions.
“Am I mad?” Clara asked.
That was an interesting question. Would someone suffering from a sickness of the mind be able to answer? Would they even be able to formulate the question?
After all, believing she was a well-travelled flapper who cleansed the world of the undead was bound to have people contact the nearest nuthouse. Clara could just as easily be suffering from a psychotic break. After all, she did remember being burnt to a crisp in a fiery inferno.
As the memory of Drusilla’s final moments filled her mind, she had to ask what was going on. Clara reached for her face and felt her smooth clean skin. She sighed in relief, thankful that while perhaps insane, she had not been mutilated in the fire.
“That still doesn’t mean that I’m sane,” Clara said.
In fact, her steady heartbeat, pristine skin, and surroundings did more to lend credence that this had been nothing more than a drug-addled dream.
Clara checked her arms for needle marks but found none. At least the staff did not have to inject her with drugs to keep her docile. However, that did not preclude a steady diet of mind altering pills.
For a moment, Clara seemed to find the idea of being institutionalised somewhat alluring. A world without a care, all thanks to a state sponsored high that she could never afford at an opium den.
While she had never tried to kick the gong around, the idea of being in a blissful drug induced haze did have some perks. But were the monsters encountered throughout her life brought on by her addictions? Did they not refer to it as chasing the dragon? Could it be that for the first time in her life she was actually seeing the world clearly?
The reasonable thing for her to do was to wait for an answer. A doctor or nurse would eventually come through that door to check up on her. Wait? What door?
Clara examined every surface of this room and found it free of seams or imperfections. For lack of a better term she was inside a geometric shape. Fortunately, it was too big to be a coffin.
“So where is this light coming from?” Clara asked.
There seemed to be no specific source. It was as though she were being immersed in pure light. It certainly explained how everything was a pristine colour of white.
Where was she now? Where to begin?
“First off,” Clara said. “Light.”
A pure white light, flawless in every way. True perfection was often used to describe art and architecture, but perfection was a myth. People were imperfect beings who subsequently passed down their flaws to their creations.
Some occasionally told her how she was beautiful and perfect in every way. Of course that was a lie, most men said such things to get a girl in bed. She had her flaws, everyone did, so to witness true perfection was almost…
“Like being touched by God,” Clara said.
Clara looked from side-to-side half-hoping that her current reality would change to reveal the truth of her situation. She supposed that simply invoking his name was not enough.
“Two,” Clara said. “Trapped in a perfect geometric shape.”
Again, the element of perfection implied the presence of God. Clara seriously doubted that Hecate could manage such a feat. Those three personalities would never be able to work together long enough to make such a construct possible.
“Construct?” Clara asked.
In this particular case, a blank slate. Clara was quite literally in a world without a basis in reality. She was not thirsty, hungry nor uncomfortable. How long had she been standing? Where was the fatigue? Her need to pee?
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Clara said.
Alice had the benefit of transitioning from one world to the next. As she fell through the rabbit hole, Alice knew that change was afoot and she was now in unfamiliar territory.
If this was a precursor to reality, then who controlled the settings? Now that was a question that deserved an answer.
If Clara were truly insane, then the control of this construct rested with her. That meant things would be getting rather interesting. To her, it might have appeared normal, but for some hapless witness it would be a rendition of Through the Looking Glass on Opium.
If she were sane and in control, then Clara hoped she could imagine something more entertaining than this sterile scene. A mind this empty spoke volumes on the personality that spawned it.
That meant someone else was pulling the strings. Who and why were questions that she could not easily discern. She needed to peer beyond this construct to gain insight.
“What a shame,” Clara said. “Yet another challenge,” she sighed.
* * * *
Time passed by and nothing changed, so Clara wavered between the presumption of madness and sanity. Each argument, when carried to its conclusion, could be used to prove either side.
Eventually, she gave up on this never-ending battle of wills, closed her eyes, and began to meditate. Given the lack of distraction, it was only fitting to relax her body and mind. Once her heart rate slowed, Clara began to recite a prayer.
“What’s the harm in meditating?” Clara asked. “None at all,” she answered.
“Quite correct,” a voice boomed.
Clara fought against her desire to confront the voice. If it waited this long to make its presence known, then she should not risk rolling back any gain.
“I’m Clara Grey,” she said.
A weak opening move, but she had no precedents on how to approach such a situation. How did people normally introduce themselves? They provided their identity and waited for a reply.
“Ah yes,” the man said. “Just as my register states.”
“Saint Peter?” Clara asked.
“Of course, child,” Saint Peter replied. “You can open your eyes now.”
When Clara complied, she found herself in a world of dreams. Clouds, angels frolicking in a bright blue sky, golden gates, and a wise old man behind a podium looking through a ledger. It was perfect, too perfect.
“Had I guessed Osiris, Aeacus, or Freyja, would you have replied accordingly?” Clara asked.
The old man quirked a brow while his deep blue eyes twinkled. Even now, she saw that he was concealing a slight smirk.
“Of course, child. That is, if you had been Egyptian, Greek or Norse,” Saint Peter said. “Freyja would have been proud of her latest shieldmaiden.”
“To ease my transition?” Clara asked.
“In a way,” Saint Peter replied. “Unlike your faith, death has always been a part of life.”
“Will I be judged?” Clara asked.
Saint Peter chuckled then said, “You were judged before you reached these gates.”
Clara’s eyes widened in surprise. While technically an answer, it did not address the how. Did that matter?
“You were expecting different surroundings?” Saint Peter asked.
Clara shrugged because she honestly had never thought about it. If one followed the tenets of a Franciscan monk, then Clara was far from immaculate. Her list of sins was rather extensive.
Saint Peter flipped a few pages. He appeared to be pensive as though he were absorbing a large amount of new information quickly.
“Projections indicate that you might have lived for thousands of years had you accepted Hecate’s proposal,” Saint Peter said.
Clara remained quiet. The idea that she could have lived a long life if she acquiesced to that goddess was astounding. She had been so certain in her convictions that she would end up as a chew to
y to be tossed out once threadbare.
“You were given a sixty percent chance of ending up a goddess in your own right,” Saint Peter added.
“What happens in the other forty?” Clara asked.
Saint Peter cringed before he said, “Less than desirable.”
“Just ducky,” Clara said.
“Although, you did cut short Drusilla’s forecasted lifespan by two thousand years,” Saint Peter said. “I can also assure you that she won’t be passing by these gates.”
The Van Helsing Paradox Page 21
