Authors: Nic Widhalm
One
. She was through the door, past the enormous dance floor.
Two
. Down the corridor. It split into three tunnels, then split again, then again, and again.
Three
. She went down each intersection. Twice
Four
. Back outside, and under the cover of darkness again.
Four seconds. She had seen everything she needed. Karen shivered, realizing for the first time what she was truly up against. There was more to the Order of Venus than she had ever expected.
Was the Power really worth it? She had only known Hunter for a handful of days. There had been that one moment, though, sitting in a small room, reminiscing over their first awakenings. Karen remembered the gentleness in his eyes when she told him about the first time she blurred. He was so young, ignorant to Apkallu culture, completely unaware what a big confession that was.
In this moment she had only two choices: stay, and commit herself to Hunter’s cause, heart and soul; or flee, return to the mansion and hope Bath was in a forgiving mood. The Cherubim knew Karen liked to take vacations here and there, she could still go back. It wasn’t too late.
In her mind she saw Hunter’s tentative smile, the way his eyes softened when he looked at her. The way he laid his hand on hers, hearing her story for the first time.
Karen made her decision.
Jackie had only a moment to think,
aren’t those walls moving
? before the single beam from the flashlight shut off and the corridor was plunged into darkness. A woman screamed, a piercing, terrified screech. Jackie thought it might be Mary.
“Everyone calm down, they’re not here to hurt us,” the General’s gruff voice cut through Mary’s frightened cries.
A pair of hands clamped down on Jackie’s shoulders, pulling her arms roughly behind her. Without thought her body reacted. Hunching and pulling her shoulders forward, Jackie slipped under her attacker and struck out blindly, her foot connecting against the stranger’s shin. She heard a strangled “Umf!” but didn’t stop to investigate.
Jackie dropped to the ground, reducing her profile in case there was gunfire. Groping blindly across the floor, she came in contact with another set of legs, long with a delicate calf. Jackie hooked her hands around the legs and pulled, smiling when she heard a high pitched yelp accompanied by a thump.
“Stop it, stop it everyone!” The General cried. “No one is to be hurt! Mika’il you
promised
.”
That bastard betrayed us. He led us along the whole time, just waiting for the Apkallu could get here.
No time to think. If it was really Mika’il it wasn’t going to be a gunfight, so Jackie pushed herself off the floor. She made out the light breathing of someone directly to her left, and taking a chance, threw a straight jab. Some residue of luck must have stayed with her, because her fist sank into a gut and an explosion of breath followed.
Move your ass, girl. Move!
Jackie’s internal compass had kept track during the fight, and she guessed the exit to the corridor was still behind her. The priest was probably huddling against the wall like last time—nothing as predictable as a coward—so all she had to do was find his cassock and make a run for—
Wind struck Jackie’s face, the sudden gust forcing her back a step. She instinctively brought her hands up to ward off the attack, but there was nothing there. The wind buffeted her again, this time from behind, and sent her staggering across the floor. Then again on her side, and again across the face. She struck out blindly, and her fist met stone. She yelped as her knuckles cracked against the wall, a wave of pain shooting up her arm.
Broken,
her screaming nerves told her, but adrenaline made Jackie turn and strike again. Her blow swished through the air, falling on nothing.
The wind suddenly doubled, buffeting Jackie on both sides, and then doubled again and again. Jackie swung freely, sobbing in pain, her face wet with tears, but her hands found only empty air. Finally, the detective collapsed against a wall, her good hand curled tightly around her head. She was too battered and sore to feel shame at the childish gesture.
“Enough,” a female voice snapped, and the wind ceased. Opening her eyes, Jackie saw a thin light illuminate the tunnel. It came from a small lantern carried by a figure garbed in shadow. There were other shapes that swam in and out of the lantern light, but Jackie couldn’t see any faces. Tears streamed unbidden down her face as she stared defiantly at the figures.
“Amazing. Child, if you were Apkallu you would stand high among us,” the female voice said. “What a waste.”
A figure stepped into the light, and Jackie immediately recognized the straggly beard and eye patch.
The General
.
“You promised, Mika’il,” the General said. “Just the Nephilim and his friend—my people aren’t—”
“I know what I promised,” Mika’il’s voice snapped. Jackie still couldn’t make out her face, but the voice seemed to come from a figure standing next to the lantern. “You don’t speak to me
human
, not like that. Not ever.”
The General scurried to the edge of the light, his head bowed. “Apologies, mistress. If you’ll allow it,” his head raised, his posture tensed, “I will take my people and go.”
Mika’il sniffed. “Absolutely not. The blasphemies of your
people
,” Mika’il stepped forward and grabbed a shadowed arm, dragging its owner into the lantern light, “have been ignored for far too long. I believe a purging is in order.” Mika’il’s hand lifted from the arm and fastened around its owner’s neck. As her eyes adjusted to the light, Jackie suddenly recognized the figure.
Mary’s frightened face swam into view. In the weak light it was shaded with shadow and grime, but her eyes shone with terror. They were fixed firmly on Mika’il’s arm. “Please,” she begged, her voice raw from the Seraphim’s grip. “We are just scholars. We didn’t mean any—”
A crack sounded and Mary slumped to the ground, falling only a few inches from where Jackie crouched. The General cried out and rushed to the fallen woman, but from where Jackie sat she could tell it was too late—the woman, the Captain of the Order of Venus, was dead.
“Kill the rest,” Mika’il said.
Jackie looked down the wall and saw Valdis pressed against the stone. She couldn’t make out his face, but the old man’s hunched figure was unmistakable. To her left was the golden hair of Eli, his face close enough that Jackie was almost burned by the fire in his eyes. Eli’s mouth was pressed in a tight line, his fists clenched at his sides as he watched the General cradle Mary’s twisted neck.
Jackie tensed, ready to grab the priest and make a run for it, but a soft voice stopped her.
“They might be useful,” the voice said. “Especially the priest.” A slim, male figure stepped out of the darkness and into the light. He smiled at the detective. Even with the shadows obscuring most of his olive-toned skin, Jackie recognized the Apkallu.
Bath.
“Keep them if you want, they’re useless to me,” Mika’il said, turning from the humans.
Two sets of arms grabbed Jackie on either side and lifted her to her feet. Another figure pushed Eli forward, one arm restraining his wrist, and farther down the wall the priest was collected by a hulking shape and shoved down the hallway. Trying to keep her footing, each step twisting her broken fingers like an iron vice, Jackie stumbled along the corridor behind the faint outlines of Bath and the rest of Mika’il’s group. Behind her, Mary’s lifeless body faded into shadow.
“Can you remember anything of the beyond, Herchel?”
Hunter lowered his tea slowly, giving himself a moment to think. “Not really,” he said.
“Have you ever tried?”
Hunter—the beginning of a monster headache baring down like a freight train—did his best not to scream at the Throne.
Why can’t anyone just give me a straight answer? Riddle after riddle.
He took a deep breath and
looked inward, trying to remember a time before remembering. How did you recall something before you were born?
Hunter remembered throwing the ball with his father in their backyard. The grass brown and dry, the peach tree taking up most of the tiny yard, refusing to bloom even in perfect weather. Hunter tried to go back further, and had the barest impression of hands holding him, caressing him, carrying him from a room into something else.
The hospital.
Grimacing, he tried to go back further, but hit a wall. There was nothing. Nothing beyond that faint impression of being held. So, squeezing his eyes shut, Hunter began the exercise to achieve paradox.
His head whipped back as Oriphiel’s hand struck his cheek.
“What the—?
“No. Not like that,” The Throne crossed her arms, her fingers gently stroking her own back. “You aren’t like those morons who call themselves
Elohim
and
Adonai.
You don’t need their tricks.”
“Lady, if you know a better way I’m open to suggestion.”
“I don’t,” she said. “But you do.”
Hunter started to argue, then bit back his retort. He’d made it this far; past lunatic priests, crazed angels, obsessed detectives and a secret-society of fan-boys who worshiped the devil. One old lady wouldn’t break him.
“You’re better than that, boy.”
Hunter heard his father chastising him.
“You’ve dealt with a lot worse. Hell, I gave you more shit than this old bat. Remember that fool dog you had? Remember that idiotic name you gave him? God, I hated that name.”
Hunter smiled, remembering how his father winced each time his small voice yelled “Cabbage-breath!” As if the name were a personal insult, something the boy had crafted just to piss off the old-man.
Still, his dad had loved that dog. He remembered the way his father had cradled the mutt’s head as Cabbage-breath lay hurt, bleeding in the road, the truck disappearing in a trail of dust.
Against all odds, the dog had survived. The vet said it was because mutts were stronger than thoroughbreds; their genes unpolluted by inbreeding. Hunter thought it was because the dog was magic. Either way, his father had watched after the old hound like a newborn, checking on him every two hours and spoon-feeding Cabbage-breath his medicine every day.
The hound had whimpered unceasingly, and one day Hunter had demanded in his petulant, childish voice, “Make him shut up already!”
His father had shot Hunter a look that he remembered to this day—a look of disgust, of disappointment. Hunter had been too shocked even to cry, and his father had turned back to the injured dog, watching him tenderly.
“Let him howl,” his father had said. “It’s good for ‘im. Healing hurts.”
Healing hurts.
Hunter’s eyes flew open. Oriphiel sat across from him nodding. “Yes,” she said. “It does.”
Distantly, Hunter was aware he hadn’t said anything, but for the moment it was forgotten as he tried to focus on the realization threatening to squirm away.
Pain
. That was it, the key, the first step to unlocking the puzzle. Hadn’t his visions always started with pain—agony so familiar that over the years it had grown almost comfortable? Hadn’t his most vivid moments, his clearest memories, circled around pain?
And weren’t the Apkallu on Earth to heal?
Hunter closed his eyes again, trying to capture that sense of discomfort, of agony that preceded his visions. Just before the sky darkened into the color of fresh blood, and the clang of steel on steel began to ring through the air, there was a moment of anguish that Hunter could almost touch. It was so close, so
familiar
, all he needed to do was reach out…
And as he stretched, the pain almost in reach, he saw again the misty field of endless gray. The field he had seen in Bath’s illusion, and again at the christening. Shapes emerged from the mists—human in some ways, alien in others. Their necks stretched long and outlandish, their eyes burning with a fierce, foreign heat.
They moved amongst each other, their thin limbs weaving in and out until it seemed they danced. Some held long, pointed rods of shining silver that met in a shimmer of sparks, producing a buzzing sound that grated against Hunter’s ears like fingers on a chalkboard.
Three stepped forward, at once similar and yet distinct from the other alien forms. They were neither male or female, and were enveloped in a thick ivory glow. As Hunter looked closer, his vision responding to his unspoken need, he saw that the surrounding glow was actually fine, ultra-thin strands of feathers.
They were wings. Thousands upon thousands of tiny wings that fluttered and flapped, sprouting from the figures’ backs like a million centipede legs.
And Hunter knew—knew in the cold depths of his bones—that the three were Seraphim. The first, carrying the proud, arrogant posture of Mika’il, the General, the Leader of the Great Host. The second, the artist Gavri’el with his dreamy, half-distant gaze (oh how Hunter had hated that look, like the Seraphim had more important things to do). And the third, the last—Luk’faer, with a cocked, half-smile on his lips. The trickster, the con-man.
The magician.