Authors: Nic Widhalm
“If you like,” Bath held up his hand, eyes still on Hunter, and the skinny young man behind the couch filled it with a cup of light brown liquid. Bath took a sip and sighed contentedly. His eyes closed, and almost a minute of silence passed before they opened again. “Sorry, where was I?”
“Freaks.”
“Right,” Bath took another sip. “Call them whatever you’d like, but these aren’t circus acts we’re looking for. Zadkiel, a demonstration.”
Hunter angled to Karen, but there was only emptiness where she stood a moment ago. He felt a tap on his shoulder and saw Karen standing on the other side of the couch. She grinned and disappeared.
“What the—” Hunter leaped from his seat, scanning the room. His eyes swept the far corner, where the bar sat, disguised as a row of bamboo trees, and Karen suddenly popped back into view. She gave Hunter another playful grin, and was gone. Another tap on his shoulder, and he spun to see Karen standing behind him.
“Some ‘freak,’ wouldn’t you say?” Asked Bath.
Hunter sat back down, eyes glued on Karen. “What are you people?”
“What are
we
? What are
you,
Hunter Friskin?” Bath placed his drink on the table and joined Karen. Though she was taller by several inches, she seemed to shrink as Bath stood beside her.
“We’ve been called many things.” Bath said. “But my favorite…is
angel
.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Calm down,
Hunter told himself.
Don’t panic, you can still get out of this alive.
“Um…angel?” He asked.
Karen looked at Bath, and after a small nod from the petite man, sat next to Hunter and took his hand in hers. “I know this is a lot to take in,” she said. “But we’ve all been there. Lost, confused. Angry.”
“Not all of us,” Bath said flippantly.
“I don’t understand any of this.”
“Of course not,” Karen purred, stroking Hunter’s hand. “That’s why we’re here. The transitional period is difficult for all of us.”
Hunter pulled back his hand. “I don’t know who you people are, or how you did any of…” He gestured helplessly around the room that Karen had just…had just…
Teleported?
“…any of that,” Hunter continued. “But angels? I’m not crazy.”
“Actually, according to the news you are,” said Bath. “But Zadkiel’s right; most Apkallu think they’re crazy at first. As your memories return you’ll find the rabbit hole goes far deeper.
Crazy
is just the beginning
”
“Memories?”
Bath nodded. “I imagine you’ve already experienced a few. Troublesome little bastards.”
“I don’t have any
memories
.”
“Really? No dreams that plague your sleep? No waking nightmares?”
Hunter thought of the red filter and the phantom battle cries. The strange language he kept hearing.
They were just dreams,
he thought. But a part of himself knew differently.
Dreams don’t kill people.
“I don’t know,” Hunter said.
Bath cocked his head. “You don’t know? Adorable.”
“Hunter, I get it. I know where you’re coming from,” Karen tried to take his hand again, but Hunter kept it fixed to his leg. “These things you can do, the dreams….when it happened to me I was terrified. But the
Adonai
found me, they helped me through it.”
“
Adonai
?”
“The chosen few, the blessed,” Bath said, his voice raising, eyes alight. “The kings of the Apkallu.”
Apkallu
,
Adonai?
Should I be taking notes?
“You keep repeating that,” Hunter said. “’Apkallu.’”
Bath smiled. “It’s what we are…now.”
“A second ago you were angels.”
The smile faded. “Do I look like an angel to you, Hunter?”
“Um,” Hunter searched for the right words. “Not at the moment?”
“Of course not!” Bath threw his arms up, rolling his eyes. “Why would an angel waist time talking with a
human
?” His face grew pensive. “We have fallen. We are more than what we seem, but less than what we were. Apkallu.”
The circular logic didn’t seem to bother Bath, so instead of arguing Hunter opted for a different tactic.
“
Fine. If you want to give me the pitch, by all means, go for it. Angels, Vampires, Werewolves, have at it. What does any of that have to do with that lady in the hospital?”
Bath laughed, and the room swam in Hunter’s eyes. His voice cracked through Hunter like an electrical storm. “I tell you that you’re a member of the celestial chorus, and you’re worried about what happened to a
nurse
?”
Hunter closed his eyes and when he opened them again the room was still, his vertigo a memory. He took a slow breath. “Call her whatever you want—where I’m from we still go away for murder.”
Murder.
There. He had said it aloud. His gut tightened and he tasted yesterday’s cornflakes in the back of his throat. It was the last meal he’d eaten.
Bath shook his head. “You’re going to be fine. Once we find out if you belong with us we’ll get this whole…” Bath glanced at the TV, “…
mess
dealt with.”
“’Belong with you?’” Hunter turned to Karen. “This whole time you’ve been trying to convince me I’m a…what the hell was it? Aptoto?”
Karen’s lips tightened. “Apkallu. Yes. But there are different…there are things you don’t understand—”
“What she means,” Bath interrupted. “Is whether you’re one of
us,
or one of
them
.”
Hunter sat back and ran a hand through his shoulder-length hair. “Maybe we’d better start from the beginning,” Karen said, glancing questionably at Bath.
“Fine, fine,” the petite man lowered himself into a deep leather couch opposite Hunter. “Everything you see around you, the trees, the hills, the seas—they were all ours. Once.”
“Ours? You mean…
angels
?”
Bath waved his hand dismissively. “Yes. Though we have other names. But over time things changed.” The olive-skinned man stopped and tapped a finger against his lip. Hunter opened his mouth, but Bath waved him shut. “There will be more when we’re sure of your allegiance. For now, just know there’s a war. A war that’s raged the span of human history. And wars come with…
casualties.
” Bath said the word with a sneer.
“You mean in heaven?” Hunter asked.
“I mean in the beyond. But as you can see,” Bath looked at Karen pointedly. “The effects of that war have spilled onto this world.”
Hunter stared at Bath blankly. “You lost me.”
“Fine, we’ll do it the hard way.” Bath closed his eyes and the two bodyguards quickly exited the room. Hunter looked questionably at Karen, but her gaze was fixed on Bath. Opening his mouth, the petite man began to sing.
It was unlike anything Hunter had ever heard.
It began as a single note that poured from Bath’s mouth like thick smoke, bathing the room in a soft glow. The lights dimmed, but Hunter only noticed out of the corner of his eye; he couldn’t pull his eyes away from Bath as the sound rang through the room, pure and unwavering. Then, so seamless that Hunter couldn’t pinpoint when it began, the note split into two interweaving harmonies that played about, whimsically at first, then stronger and faster as the song progressed. Bells pealed in the distance, and Hunter felt the deep, urgent rumbling of a timpani shake his bones. The room began to fade, disappearing into a bright glow that pulsed all around him, and for a moment Hunter was worried he was succumbing to one of his visions. But no dream of Hunter’s had ever looked like this.
It was as though he stared at the sun, but the light didn’t burn his eyes. A part of him knew it was impossible, that the blinding view should have burned out his cornea, sent rivers of tears streaming down his cheeks. But all Hunter felt in that moment, transfixed by the light, the pounding, aching beat of some ancestral song coursing through his body, was rapture. This
was revelation. Not the psalms his mother had dutifully recited from the family bible on holidays; not the angry, righteous tones of the preacher on Channel Three. This was faith made flesh.
Mist
rose, obscuring the blinding light, and figures emerged, bobbing in some kind of complicated dance. Twisting and turning to Bath’s song. But as the image cleared, Hunter saw the truth was far more gruesome—the dim figures did seem to leap and swirl around each other, but it was swords that filled their hands and spears that glinted in the brilliant, smoky light.
It was like and unlike any battle Hunter had ever seen. At times the graceful flow of point and counterpoint, parry and repost, felt overwhelmingly familiar, like a movie he’d watched so often he could act out all the parts. Other times it looked alien, bizarre, the figures twisting and contorting in unnatural movement, their voices punctuated by cries of agony. And through it all, loud then unexpectedly soft, wove the crisp, sure harmonies of Bath’s song.
The destructive dance circled Hunter, gliding within centimeters of his wide eyes, but he never felt true danger. Indistinct bodies moved around him, close enough to touch but still obscured by the bright mist. Then abruptly his perspective widened, soaring out past his body and beyond, until he saw the entire battle. The mist made it impossible to discern anything as distinct as a horizon, but Hunter had a feeling it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Hundreds, thousands, maybe millions were capering through the choreographed fight. The vignette of war was endless.
In the center of the battle, removed by a gap of several feet, stood two figures. The fighting revolved around them, and as Hunter focused on the pair his vision suddenly narrowed and drew him closer.
They were a strange kind of man, oddly proportioned, with arms too long and slender necks that didn’t seem capable of supporting the weight of their heads. They glistened, naked in the brilliant light, smooth as polished glass without ripples of muscle or fat. Their faces, which were beautiful in an alien kind of way, possessed an unnatural symmetry that Hunter found both intoxicating and frightening. Beautiful, absolutely, but lacking the small imperfections that differentiated one person from another. Their eyes, however…perfectly human. They were fixed on each other with a tight, narrow gaze that Hunter recognized instantly. Hate.
In that moment Hunter was filled with a revelation that made two things very clear. The first, that these two were great leaders. And the second, that their abhorrence for one another was so intense it had defined their existence for years beyond measure. Hunter knew this, just as he knew that what he was witnessing was an event both past, present, and future.
As he watched the pair, who were either frozen in time or just refusing to move, the harmonies playing in the background suddenly took off, changing to a fast, pounding
allegro
.
The two figures lurched into action, rushing at one another and shouting short, angry phrases. It was gibberish, an incomprehensible string of phonemes, and yet…it sounded familiar.
It was the language of his dreams.
Hunter couldn’t make out much. At times the string of syllables seemed on the verge of clarifying, then, maddeningly, they would slip through his fingers as if he was trying to catch rain. The words “
Adonai,”
and “
Elohim,”
kept repeating, the two figures flinging the words as if they were weapons, but the meaning remained unclear.
Then, quick as a summer storm, the scene evaporated, and Hunter was slammed back into his chair, once again with Bath and Karen. The elegant little man was watching Hunter oddly, like a stray dog he didn’t know whether to feed or kick. Karen’s face was turned away, her body shaking with silent sobs.
“How did you do that?” Bath softly asked.
Hunter blinked, twisting in his chair to scan the room. “What just happened?”
“Answer me!” Bath’s smile was gone, his eyes flashing. “How did you
do
that
?”
“That…that stuff was real, wasn’t it?”
The little man’s eyes narrowed, and he looked as though he would say more, then he shook his head and his postured relaxed. He sat back into his chair. “Some of it,” he said.
“Those guys, the ones who hate each other…?”
“Yes.” The word hissed from Bath’s lips.
Reaching up, Hunter wiped cold sweat from his brow. This entire gathering, what he had first thought was some kind of shake-down, was beginning to make a frightening kind of sense. The angels. The Apkallu. He had felt a resonance when Bath said the words…and an even deeper connection seeing those two figures. “It’s really true,” he whispered. “It’s not a game.”
Bath’s face twisted in puzzlement, then he threw back his head and laughed. “Dear, dear, boy. You had me going for a moment.”
“What?”
“The talking. Tell me, how did you bring that across? A Domination? Or…a Cherubim?” Bath said the last word with a flinty undertone.