by Hanna Peach
“Then tell me, Alyx, why did you fall for me?”
She didn’t have any answers. At least, none that she was willing to admit. Guilt and lust burned inside her. How could she love being this close to him? How could she want to pull him in closer? How could she want to betray Israel?
An angry hot tear burst from the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. Jordan leaned in and caught the tear at the corner of her lips with his mouth. A stab of longing went through her belly and her lips parted in a small gasp.
For a moment they both remained still. The corners of their lips barely touching, his nose pressed against her cheek, his breath in her hair. Then slowly he slid his mouth across hers, stealing her breath. Stealing her breath like he stole her heart. The heart that was meant for someone else.
Her hand came up and cracked against his cheek. Jordan’s head snapped to the side. The slap echoed in the tunnel as he turned his head back to face her. He couldn’t hide the pain that flashed in his eyes.
“I’m s-sorry.” He swallowed. “I shouldn’t have. It won’t happen again.” Then he stumbled back a step, one hand clutching his face.
As he moved back, the world around her began to pour in again, filling up with noise. Her shoulders drooped. She didn’t want to face the world just yet.
“Damn you,” she whispered. She surged forward before she had time to think about what she was doing. Her fingers clasped at his hair and she pulled herself up to meet his lips.
For a moment he was still. It was just her kissing him.
Then his mouth parted around her bottom lip and his lips fought back, his tongue finding hers. His fingers twisted in her hair and he pushed her into the wall so hard that she thought he might crush her. But then she stopped thinking. The only thing that existed was his large strong hands holding her head in place, his closeness. Her heart crashed against her chest as her body erupted in a symphony of heat.
Then he was torn from her.
“What the fuck are you doing to her?”
Oh God. No other sound could have caused her stomach to clench with more pain than that voice.
Alyx’s eyes snapped open. Israel had grabbed Jordan and had thrown him off her. Jordan hit the opposite wall with a grunt. Israel spun and stormed towards Jordan again, an unnatural wind whipping up the dirt around them.
Alyx lunged for Israel and grabbed his arm with both her hands. “Israel, stop.”
Only then did he turn his head towards her. His eyes were wild and dark with fury. “He was forcing himself on you.”
“She kissed me,” Jordan spat out as he pushed himself up off the wall.
“You’re lying,” Israel hissed at Jordan, then he turned towards Alyx, his hands brushing at her hair. “Angel, are you okay?”
No. I’m not okay. Nothing is okay.
But no words came out of her mouth. What the hell should she say?
Israel peered at her, shaking his head as if stunned in disbelief. “No.” His arms were tense cords by his sides, fisted at the ends. “Alyx, tell me what he said isn’t true.”
Oh God.
Alyx rubbed her face with her hands. She was trying not to hurt anyone, but it seemed that she was just screwing this all up.
Someone’s going to be hurt in the end anyway, a voice inside her said. There’s no way around it. She just had the heartbreaking job of deciding who. Despite this knowledge, she held onto this stubborn belief that she could find a way through it with both of their hearts intact. Even if it meant breaking my own, I’d do it.
“Alyx?” Israel’s voice sounded desperate now. “Tell me?”
“I can’t do that,” she whispered.
Israel froze. “You kissed him.”
“I’m s-sorry.” It was all she could get out. Her throat had closed up and her lungs felt like they had collapsed.
She saw the moment Israel’s heart broke. She swore she could almost hear it. She saw it in his eyes, when the wildness and fire died in him. The wind stilled to nothing. His jaw and his shoulders dropped like he was a puppet and she had cut all his strings.
“Israel,” she pleaded. “I can explain.”
He just stared back at her vacantly. Then he shook his head, a small gesture, and he began to walk away through the tunnels. She didn’t know where he was going, but she had to stop him. She couldn’t leave things like this.
“Wait!”
Before she could get too far, Jordan grabbed her hand, halting her. “This isn’t over, Alyx.” Then he let go of her.
Alyx tore her eyes away from him and continued after Israel.
Chapter 2
“Israel, please. Let me explain…”
In the dim tunnel ahead of Alyx, Israel stopped. But he didn’t turn around. The few steps between them felt like an ocean. Deep and dark and full of secrets. How would they ever cross it?
His voice came out low and deadly. “What could you possibly say that could explain why I just caught the woman I love kissing another man?”
“I was going to tell you. I never wanted you to find out like that.”
“Tell me now.”
“Something happened when you were asleep.”
He turned, slowly, until he faced her. His eyes remained a dull, dead shade. She barely recognized his features, now turned to stone. “Evidently.”
“The MemoryThief stole my memories of you. Not all of them, just the ones where I fell in love with you. And with the loss of our bond and Jordan and me spending so much time together trying to find a cure for you, trying to save you…” she trailed off.
“Do you love him?”
Alyx squeezed her eyes shut. Disappear, why couldn’t she just disappear?
“Don’t bother answering. I’ve heard and seen enough.” She heard him moving away.
Her eyes flew open. “No, wait.” He paused mid-turn. “That’s not everything… I took back my memories of you. I remember everything about you. I still feel…everything.”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s like trying to have two lives in one body. If I could have had two lives…I could love you both. This shouldn’t have happened.”
“But it did.”
“But it did.”
There was a silence. Then he spoke, “Choose.”
“What?”
“Choose, goddamn you. Choose right now because I’m not sharing.” His voice rumbled with anger and his eyes flashed dark again. The normally still tunnel air shook as she felt his latent magic rolling from him. Unlike the previous times she had seen his anger lash out erratically through his magic, this felt…different. It was still anger, but there was a cold control to it now.
“I-I can’t just choose…”
“Yes you can,” he yelled, and the air crackled with static. Her hair began to twist and curl around her. “It’s simple. Who do you love more, him or me?”
She shook her head. “It’s not that simple.”
He didn’t speak. He stared at her for a moment as she tried to keep herself together. Then he turned.
“Israel−”
“Don’t.” And he walked away.
Chapter 3
The man curled himself into a ball in his hospital bed. They had stationed an officer outside his door so that he wouldn’t try to run again. They said that he was still wanted by the police for questioning over the massacre at the Hell’s Fire bar. They needed to know what he knew, they said. But they didn’t believe him when he told them the truth.
They said there was nothing in this room with him. But he knew better.
He tried to tell them. Over and over again he tried to explain it to them. Over and over. But they wouldn’t listen. The Evil was here. It was here. In here with him.
Something rattled in his brain and he whimpered. Get it out. Get it out, he wanted to scream. But if he screamed they would return and they would bring with them the sleeping needle. And the sleeping needle would only push him further into the clutches of the Evil.
The Evil might have left him, but it left so many things behind. The man cried out softly as one of the creature’s memories flashed in his mind like an unwanted visitor. The Evil that called himself Bhima.
In Hell, the demon named Bhima leaned over and stared into the small bowl of pure water before him. Reflected in all the waters of Hell was Earth. Every puddle, every lake, every drop of water was a window into a world where the demons could no longer walk as themselves. To a world where they could get relief from this blasted heat and the scorching cold. It had been torture for them. Especially for the ones who had lived before the gates had been closed.
But now, Samyara had given them hope.
Bhima had never actually met Samyara. Not yet. When Bhima made it through to Earth he would get to meet their messiah, the one who would save them, who would give them a new life, away from this oppression down here.
Samyara had been setting his plans in motion on Earth in a mortal host for some time. His demon-body in its sleep-like state was rumored to be kept in the belly of a Drahgion, the fiercest of all Hell creatures, who lived in the heart of the Disciple, one of the many moving airfortresses of Hell. It was said that you couldn’t tame a Drahgion unless you were very, very clever and had discovered the Drahgion’s name. Samyara must be very, very clever to tame this one.
Bhima focused both his red pupils back to his bowl of water. It reflected a man, clean-cut and clean-shaven. The man held one of those placards, homemade with wonky writing and a smaller last letter, no doubt because he realized that he would run out of space for his message if he continued in his large furious font.
The placard read, “God hates gays.”
The man was yelling something. His words were not as important to Bhima as the spit that flew from his mouth when he spoke them, thick and hot like the volcanoes of the Lava Seas of the Underworld. How perfect. The hate that rolled off this man was so thick, so real, Bhima could feel it emanating from the surface of the water in shuddering ripples. Hate so intense it could be felt even here in the depths of Hell.
Bhima grinned. There was no easier way to Earth from Hell than through the narrow-minded heart of a self-righteous zealot. It looked like he had found his host.
Back in his hospital room, the man whimpered. That was his memory. No, not his memory. The Evil’s memory. Twisted in with all his memories were those of the Evil, bound together like braids. And the shadows of the terrible things that he had done, now cast in a different light.
The girl shook her head, her lips trembling as she begged him for her life. She was hysterical. Her voice broke with every desperate “please”. Her hair already matted with blood and sweat. But he wouldn’t stop hurting her.
There was no respite. When he closed his eyes, he saw the faces of those innocents whom he had destroyed, their mouths open in frozen screams. When he woke, their whispers rumbled in an ever-persistent chant, begging him, no, please, no. At every moment, awake or asleep, he was coated in shame. It burned through the very shreds left of his soul. No…he was given no respite.
He had not prayed in a while but he was praying now. Oh Lord, please, show me a way out of this hell.
A soft breeze blew the sheer white curtain from the window like an answer, revealing a smiling moon.
He sat up in his bed. And for the first time in weeks, he smiled.
Go towards the light.
Of course, the light. The light would take away this pain and this horror inside him. The light would carry him into a deep, peaceful sleep. He walked to the window, his hospital gown fluttering behind him. He climbed up onto the sill, one foot, then the other foot.
The moon smiled at him and he smiled back before he stretched out his left foot and took his last step.
Chapter 4
“I’m sorry, Alyx,” said Owl, the street pirates’ intelligence expert. “But the mortal is dead. He committed suicide. I just saw it on the news.”
So they had nothing. No leads. No way of finding Samyara. Which meant Israel was doomed. What was she going to do now?
If Mayrekk was still alive, he’d know what to do. He would know how to fix this mess. Oh Mayrekk, how I miss you.
Alyx lifted her hand and knocked on Cleo’s dark painted door in Purgatory. Cleo was a mortal who worked in Purgatory; Alyx had met her a few days ago.
Why was she here? She barely knew Cleo. This was silly. Alyx was about to turn away and sneak back out of Purgatory when the door opened. Cleo’s face registered surprise, then a smile lightened her dark features. She was wearing a white sundress, strapless with a fitted bodice and flowing to her ankles.
“Alyx,” she said in that musical tone of hers. “It’s so good to see you again.”
“You said that time we met that if I ever needed to escape… I’m sorry. You look like you were about to go out.”
Cleo shook her head and opened the door wide to let Alyx in. “Just an errand on my day off, but I can do that later. Come in.”
“Thanks.” Alyx got a whiff of spicy dragon’s blood perfume as she moved past Cleo and stepped inside. She recognized the room, simple and darkly furnished, the dramatic black poster bed with blood-red drapery as the main feature. Alyx had been here a few days ago when she had woken up hungover after she had gotten drunk for the first time in the Purgatory bar downstairs.
The door clicked shut behind her and she turned to see Cleo watching her with curious eyes. “I’m glad you came.” Cleo began to approach her.
Alyx started to ramble her apologies for disturbing Cleo, but she was cut off when Cleo stopped in front of her and pressed a single finger against her mouth. “Shhh.” Cleo let her finger fall slowly, brushing Alyx’s lips with it. “I know what you need.”
“You do?”
Cleo nodded. “What everyone needs when they come here…someone to talk to…somewhere to escape to. I’m glad you came to me.”
Alyx let out a whoosh of breath and she felt some of the tension start to leave her shoulders. Maybe she had done the right thing by coming here?
Cleo took Alyx’s hand in hers. “Come.” Cleo led her towards her bed. “Sit,” she commanded.
Alyx pulled off her boots and de-weaponed herself, then crawled onto the mattress, propping up a pillow to lean against the headboard. When she looked back at Cleo, she had undone all the ties that held the curtains of the poster bed back and had pulled them around three sides of the bed. The bed was beginning to feel like a cocoon. Through the open side of the bed she saw Cleo pull something out of a drawer before she slipped onto the bed, closing the last set of curtains behind her.
Cleo stood up on the mattress. That was when Alyx noticed what looked like a hanging lantern held up over the center of the bed by crossbars. Cleo opened part of the lantern, shook something into it, then struck a match. Once lit, she blew out the match and sat down next to Alyx.
The lantern glowed with warm coal-like stones, adding to the cocoon-like effect of the bed. She could almost feel like there was nothing outside of it. No problems, no worries, no mistakes. She began to smell a soft vanilla scent and looked up to see wispy curls of smoke beginning to roll out from the top of the lantern.
“Should it be doing that?” Alyx asked.
Cleo nodded. “It’s to help us relax.”
“I don’t want to relax, I want to disappear.”
Something flashed in Cleo’s eyes. “This will help with that too.”
* * *
Israel reached up along the brickwork of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, found the platform of the bell tower and pulled himself up. His muscles weren’t tired from climbing, but his heart felt every shred of pain from the last few hours. The last few hours when his life broke apart.
He positioned himself to sit with his legs over the edge of the tower, and he stared out into the night. Involuntarily, his fingers reached out to his side along the brickwork. This is where Alyx should be. By his side. This is where they first kissed.
The image of Jordan pressing up against Alyx in
the tunnels flashed in his mind; his hands in her hair, his mouth on hers. He winced and squeezed his eyes shut as if it would block the image out of his mind. It didn’t work. Goddammit, the image burned like a lance and his chest gave another throb. He only realized he was gritting his teeth when he heard them squeaking like the branches of the trees below as a harsh wind whipped around the tower. The bell began to sway above his head. His nails scratched across the concrete as his hands clenched into fists and he let out a pained howl that cut through the night like an injured wolf. The wind around him rose in ferocity as his anger broke through the wall of numbness. The bell above him groaned as it swung uncontrollably. Branches around the cathedral began to break off and whip around the building, smashing into smaller and smaller pieces as they ricocheted against the outer walls. He sat in the center of his very own storm, the wind pouring out from where his heart had broken open. It lifted his hair from his forehead and flung the moisture from his eyes before the tears could roll down his face.
If anyone had been observing, they would have thought they were looking at a tornado, localized around the house of the Lord like a sign from above that the world was ending. It was, at least for him.
All night the tornado raged inside and outside of Israel until there was no more anger in him left. He slumped to his side and curled his knees up. All that was left was a dull exhaustion. Israel shut his eyes and prayed that sleep would take him.
“Hello, Israel.”
Israel blinked. In this dark space, the voice of the Elder floated to him. He realized he must be asleep.
“Elder, what are you doing here?”
“I sensed your…pain.”
“From all the way in China?”
“Physical distance means nothing to the spirit.”
Israel felt the tightness clutching at his chest again. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“We don’t have to talk about her.”
Israel noticed that the Elder said “her”. Smart bastard. “What do you want to talk about, then?”
