by R. E. Vance
The twice-fallen takes a deep breath to continue. “I intervened because it was not the asag’s right to end you before you had a chance at revenge. You had—have—a right to my life and until that right is claimed, no harm could befall you. I made sure of it. Besides, if he had killed you, then he would have inherited the claim, and being ‘owned’ by an asag is positively dire. Especially if you are a mountain.” The angel chuckles at a joke only he gets.
No one else does.
“Because asag demons like to fornicate with rocks and …” Penemue waves a dismissive hand. “Never mind—I digress. So if that is how you wish to use your claim, then so be it.”
At first, the boy says nothing.
The angel takes a step toward the portal, planning to step into the garden. “Come,” he says to Jean and Bella, “we must leave here before this hell implodes into a very literal nothing.”
“And what?” Jean says. “Go out there and let him bash your brains out? I will not let that—”
“You will not intervene,” Penemue yells. As he does, Hell trembles. The angel softens his voice. “You will not, Jean. I will submit to the boy. I will let him destroy my body with the miserable instrument of destruction he wields. I will do so because there is no other path to peace for him.”
“That is no path to peace,” Bella says.
“Then closure.” The angel touches the once dead human on the cheek. “Now come, before this place consumes us.”
There are more terrifying sounds of the reality being stripped away as they take a step forward. Another two feet and they will be outside. Another step or two and—
But before they can do so, a terrible, thunderous sound precedes a dark elf with a scythe leaping from the forest and onto the lawn. She extends her hand toward the portal and whispers one word. “Back.”
And that word sends forth a gale wind so powerful it knocks the angel and his two companions back into the portal, sewing up the rip in reality and returning the night sky to what it had been before.
Demons of the Past Hurt, But Monsters in the Present Kill
Marc watches the portal close, trapping Jean, Penemue and Bella in Hell, and he feels something that he knows is not his right to feel: anger at losing Bella. He loves her, will always love her. Now and forever, in this life and the next.
He hits his forehead so hard with the flat of his own palm that he falls backward and away from the chain gun. “No, no, no,” he mutters to himself. “Bella is dead, but even if she wasn’t, she is Jean’s wife, not mine. Not mine. Not mine!” The last words come out as a roar as he wrestles with memories that are not his own.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” EightBall says, confused and not understanding that the suffering man in the body of the helicopter is not Jean.
Two Jeans … one in Hell and one here.
Not sure what to do, EightBall approaches the helicopter, but before he can get close, one of the fae women manifests behind him and, holding him close to her body, sets a blade at his throat.
Up close, Marc sees that she has aged, no longer the youthful beauty he first saw in the garden. She has burned time. Lots of time.
“Jean,” she cries out, holding the boy close to her, “I have come to make you suffer for what you’ve done to my husband.” She looks over at the hotel. “And my sisters. My world.”
Marc barely hears her; his mind is consumed with the vision that just appeared before him.
Bella … alive?
His heart yearns for her, wants to know how it is that she still exists. Searching Jean’s memories, he knows that she lives alone in Heaven. But she wasn’t in Heaven just then. She was with Jean, standing by his side in some sort of magical portal and—
“Human,” Hecate cries out, “are you listening? I am here to take everything from you. I am here to—”
But Marc turns around, giving the elven warrior his back as his mind travels elsewhere.
Bella was with Jean. But Bella is his. His wife? His love? His—
No, those are Jean’s memories, Jean’s experiences. Marc is not Jean. He is someone else. Someone new.
Someone better.
As Marc’s sense of self slowly returns to him, he feels a thud against his back. Looking behind him, he sees a rock that Hecate has thrown at him like some petulant child desperate for attention.
“Jean!” She screams his name so loudly that the moon itself hears her. “Jean, I will have my revenge. I will end you, but not before I take everything from you, just like you did me. Just like you did when you killed the Erlking.”
“Erlking?” He’s so distracted, the name means nothing to him.
A fact that does not escape Hecate. “You do not remember ending the life of one such as he? You do not—”
“Oh yes,” Marc says as he searches Jean’s memories. “The guy whose sword I—Jean took.”
“The Erlking’s hunting sword. A weapon whose blade is so sharp it can draw the blood of a god. I will have that returned after.” She presses her blade closer to EightBall’s neck.
“Please don’t,” EightBall whimpers.
“This boy, he means something to you,” Hecate said. “I have seen the two of you interact over the months that my sisters and I stalked your—”
“Kill the kid,” Marc says, his senses finally returning. “What do I care?” And as the words escape his lips, he knows that he doesn’t care. He wishes to be alone to meditate on himself. What he really desires is to purge himself of his desire for Bella, and to do so will take time. Time to build his own memories. His own thoughts.
Time to build who he is to become.
“What?” Hecate and EightBall say together.
Marc stands, shaking his body as if trying to physically shake loose the memory of Bella. Not his memories—not his wife. He is Marc, not Jean. They are different. He is different, and in order to be different he must accept that he has no one.
“Kill the kid,” Marc repeats. Jean would save the kid, or at least try. But Marc wants to be different. Needs to be different, and to be so means turning his back on everything that Jean would do.
Is this the best way? Marc ponders before slamming the door on his own self-doubt. That is something Jean would do. Ponder, wonder, invite angst while agonizing over every decision he makes. Marc will not do that. Ever.
“Best way or not,” he mutters to himself, “this is my choice.”
Hecate turns her head slightly as she tries to capture Marc’s words. But the human speaks too softly and she cannot hear what is said. “Excuse me?” she says.
Marc flashes her a wicked smile of indifference. “Nothing. Those were just the last vestiges of the part of me that is no more.” Hopping down from the helicopter’s bowels, he heads to the hotel. “Do as you wish with the kid—he’s none of my concern.” Then remembering everything that passed between EightBall and Penemue, says, “He’s no one’s concern now. Isn’t that right, kid? You shunned the only angel who ever loved you and you’re planning to kill him, right? After that, who will you have? No one.” Marc looks at Hecate. “In fact, I take that back. Don’t do what you like … Kill the kid. After he does what he’s planning to do, his life will be over, anyway.”
Hecate presses the blade so hard against EightBall’s throat that a thread of blood trails down to his shirt collar.
“No, please,” EightBall pleads.
“Come on, kid,” Marc says. “Let go. After you kill the angel, you’re done. Jean won’t have you. Judith won’t, either. Your ex-gang members already hate you. You’ll be penniless, friendless, homeless. She’s doing you a favor. Kill him.”
“No!” EightBall repeats. “I don’t want to die.”
“Why not?”
“Because …” EightBall pauses, searching his heart for an answer. But only one answer comes to him. One reason to live. “Because the angel still lives,” he says, his voice dripping with hate.
“So revenge, huh?” Marc meets Hecate’s eyes. “Sound famil
iar?” Marc shrugs. “Do as you wish. But if you kill him, then you’ll be denying him what you so desire.” He gives them his back, heading inside, but not before he unceremoniously steps over Hecate’s dead sister.
“No,” Hecate growls, knowing that she cannot deny this child what her heart yearns for more than life itself. “No, no. NO!”
Hecate lets EightBall go, charging at Marc. She is an experienced warrior, but nothing in her long, long past prepared her for someone as indifferent as this man.
Lunging forward with her dagger, she knows that she has lost. She has let her rage consume her, and thus she has left herself vulnerable. She will perish at the hands of this man. Just like her husband.
And Marc does not disappoint. With a simple pivot, Marc hits the inside of her elbow with one hand as he guides the tip of her blade with the other. It is a seamless insertion, an artist’s exactness sending the metal right into her heart.
Impaled on her own blade, Hecate feels her lifeblood drain from her, experiencing an emotion she did not expect during her last moments.
She is grateful. Grateful to finally leave this GoneGod World. Grateful to join her sisters and husband in death. Grateful that her pain will soon end.
Marc lets her drop, leaving her to bleed out. Taking a step toward the hotel’s back door, he feel a weak, fumbling hand on him. The boy.
“Thank you, Jean.”
“I am not Jean,” Marc says.
But Marc’s words do not register. EightBall simply looks down at his would-be killer and says, “You knew she’d let me go. That if she saw my desire for revenge, she’d let me go. And that was the only way to save me?”
Marc pauses for a second, mulling over the kid’s question. After a long pause, he nods. “Yeah, I suppose I did.” And with silent disgust, muses that maybe he’s not so different from Jean-Luc, after all.
Part XIX
Hell
Prologue 4
Penemue might have perished in those first years had it not been for the kindness of one mortal.
A human named Bella.
The human, discovering him passed out in an alleyway, pulled Penemue out of the gutter and into her home.
Before the gods left, Penemue knew what was written on the souls of humans. Therefore, he knew in a way that contained no hyperbole or exaggeration that there were few brighter souls that Bella’s.
Seeing her again, Penemue knew that the gods’ GrandExodus had done nothing to dim her soul’s glow.
She offered him a place to sleep in her hotel, a tiny attic to call home. And living with her in the One Spire Hotel, Penemue found a sliver of peace in this new GoneGod World.
Of course, it was not without some static. For one thing, one of the other residents was also an angel, the once-upon-a-time captain of the Lord’s Army and an angel of Heaven.
But the Angel of Heaven and the Angel of Hell did not fight. Maybe once they had been enemies, but here on Earth they were two being suffering the same reality.
Comrades in misery, brethren of fate.
Old grudges did not hold the same credence here.
No, the static did not come from Penemue’s mortal enemy … it came from Bella’s husband. He had been fighting with the human armies against Others and, three years later, returned to help his wife run the hotel.
He was suspicious of Others, and thought Penemue drank too much.
Maybe the angel did, but what else was there to do on Earth? Better to drink and read than just read.
Penemue and Jean quarreled.
They quipped.
And just before it could turn into anything serious, in walked Bella with her indomitable will. A will she used to force peace.
Until, that is, she died.
Dying Isn’t What You’d Expect
I had always hoped to die by Bella’s side, but I knew that was too much to expect. I was destined to to die alone. Of that much, I was sure.
When I was in the Army, I always expected that an Other would get the best of me on some deserted island—or worse, catch me with my pants down in some two-star hotel room. The best I could have hoped for then was dying on my feet, fighting the good fight to my bitter end (and hopefully with my pants up).
Then Bella died (the first time) and I quit the Army and returned home to fulfill her promise.
During those days, I figured that I’d get electrocuted changing some lightbulb. Or worse, I’d manage to make it to my seventies, when natural causes would catch up with me and I’d die alone in my bedroom, probably staging some battle between G.I. Joes and Smurfs.
But however death eventually found me, I’d always assumed it would be me all by my lonesome, and if I died today, well, then I had figured right.
I turned to face the darkness. It was still several yards away and I guessed I had about thirty seconds before it hit me. Thirty seconds was a long time and I was genuinely lost as to what to do. Let my life flash before my eyes? Remember the good times? Ask forgiveness for my sins?
The answer was simple. I did what I always did when the end seemed near: I thought of Bella.
Except this time, I didn’t have to remember one of the happy times—the simple moments of being together, like watching TV or sitting across from each other sipping on coffee—because before I conjured one of those moments, two perfect arms wrapped around my chest. They held me in an embrace that was so far beyond anything Heaven could hope to give you.
“What are you doing?” I said, the side of me that wanted to protect her seeking to push out her of the portal.
“I’m testing your theory about the angel not killing you,” she said with a chuckle.
The darkness drew closer. We had ten seconds at best.
“I don’t suppose I could convince you to leave.”
“Not on your life.” She rested her head against my back. Heaven. Pure Heaven.
“OK,” I said, looking at a darkness so close that if I reached out I could touch it. “So much for dying alone.” I chuckled.
“Excuse me—” Bella started, but before she could say anything more, the darkness crashed into us … and there was nothing.
↔
A cool rush washed over us like stepping outside on a winter day, and with the cold came the complete lack of air. I guess that’s what the nothing of the void is … nothing. Nothing to latch on to, nothing to see. Nothing to breathe.
But this wasn’t like drowning. There was no thrashing about as we desperately tried to find air. No panic, no flailing that usually came with drowning. Instead, we were calm. At peace. I guess Penemue meant to end us, but he didn’t want us to suffer in our last moments.
Or maybe this was what it was like for all the Others who had let the darkness envelop them—a peaceful goodbye to their homes and gods.
Whichever it was, I knew we had almost no time left. And what little I did have, I decided to spend as best I could. With a kiss.
Our lips met, and Bella folded into me, her mouth pressing against mine. Evidently she’d wanted the same thing.
Embracing her, I knew that we had a few moments left before we passed out and then … well … bye bye birdie. We’d fall unconscious before we slipped into nothing. All in all, not the worst way to go.
Another few seconds and that would be it. Holding her tight, I let sleep overtake us.
As my mind went woozy, I thought of Penemue. He would suffer for our deaths—deaths we chose, and somehow that didn’t seem fair. So using the last of me, I said, “I forgive you.”
I didn’t know if he could hear me, or if the words would do anything to offer him comfort, but it was all I could do.
↔
But we didn’t die. Instead, we woke up in the darkness. A darkness that now had air in it. Flipping open my cellphone and using its screen as light, I saw that Bella was there. Her cheeks, flush with oxygen, bore a perfect pinkish hue.
“So we made it,” she said.
“We did.” And before she could say anything, I kissed her ag
ain. I kissed her like I should have done from the first moment I saw her and the hundred moments in between.
Except this time, we had air.
“Humm,” she moaned. “I’ve been waiting for that.”
“Yeah, sorry. I was … you know …”
“Not convinced it was me?”
I nodded.
“I figured. These things can be tricky. Heaven and Hell, and all this other godly stuff.”
“And you weren’t acting like you. Not always,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for one thing, you got jealous about Medusa. That wasn’t you … um, I mean, isn’t you.”
“Hey,” she said, giving me a light tap on my chest. “I just spent the last seven years alone in Heaven and, believe it or not, thinking about you. You can excuse a girl a little out-of-character jealousy.”
“And the distant thoughts. It was like you were somewhere else half the time.”
Bella squeezed my hands before sighing. “Well, yeah. About that …” Her voice trailed off in the way it did when she was about to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.
“Hey, you’re not breaking up with me here. I mean, if you are, you might want to reconsider. I’ll make a scene,” I said, looking around at the nothing we stood in.
She chuckled, but not as hard as I would have liked.
“I was distant because I’m not fully here.”
“What do you mean?” I narrowed my eyes, then poked her on the chest like she’d done me. “You feel like you’re here.”
“My mind … it’s also there.” She pointed up.
“There, there? As in Heaven there?”
She nodded.
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “All I know is that a part of me is still up there. I can feel it, and every now and then I get a glimpse of what I built up there.”