by J.T. Stoll
Vero knocked on Pieter’s door. Gunshots echoed from inside.
“Come in,” Pieter called.
Vero opened the door and watched a body fly across the TV.
“Aww, you killed me,” Pieter said.
“Not funny.”
“Vicodin’s ruining my aim anyways.”
He sat back in a large blue recliner with an Xbox controller in his lap. As far as games went, Pieter wasn’t much of a player. After an awkward first boyfriend who was attached at the hip to his computer, Vero had forever sworn off gamers. But even Pieter sometimes ended up with a controller in his lap.
Vero sat on the couch and yawned. The world seemed a bit out of focus; a double-strong cup of instant coffee kept her awake. Guilt and fear and uncertainty all rumbled around inside. The peace and clarity of that light had faded in the morning. Turned out a mysterious form in her room couldn’t fix all her problems. Here, in Pieter’s house, the thought of the thing seemed silly. It had just been part of the dream.
Though the turmoil was bearable, unlike the night before. She could continue with life, feeling like this. Maybe that’s what continue had meant, if it had meant anything.
“So, you… all right?” she asked.
Pieter fired a few times and missed. “Yeah, doctors patched me up good. Sixteen stitches thanks to dear, deep-fried Jed. I’d say that he got the worst of it.”
She didn’t need reminding of that. Vero slumped in the chair.
Pieter pointed at his torso. “After they patched me up, the doctor asked me how I got a stab wound in a car accident. But right then, a bunch of ambulances blew in with people from the fire, and in the chaos, he dropped it.”
“I thought you’d be with your mom,” Vero said. “She seems to take better care of you.”
“Yeah, well, she decided to let Steve stay with her. So I’m stuck here.”
“Oh, uh…” Vero paused for a moment, then asked, “When are the others coming?”
“Soon.”
Somebody bludgeoned Pieter to death with a rifle.
“So get off that recliner and over here before they do.”
He tossed the controller onto the floor. “Oh? You mean you didn’t just come to watch me play Call of Duty?”
“You’re confusing me with Neil.”
“Nah, you’re a lot prettier.” Pieter staggered to the couch and plopped down, breathing hard.
Vero leaned against his uninjured side. He wrapped an arm around her, and she closed her eyes and breathed. As soldiers shot one another in surround sound, he tilted her head and kissed her.
Warm happiness waged an intense war against her dark regret. Somehow, they both existed inside her simultaneously. Tears slipped from her eyes.
Pieter pulled back a little. “Why you crying, pretty girl?”
“I… I killed two people last night. My soul armor just burned so hot. But I was the one who killed them. And…” She stopped. He didn’t want to hear about the light in her room or her conviction to turn in the soul armors.
“You did what you had to.”
His words didn’t help the sinking guilt inside, but his lips did.
The door opened.
“Whoa, Pieter. Hey, I come at a bad time?” It was Neil, carrying a two-liter bottle of soda in one hand and a rolled-up blanket in the other.
Vero jolted back. “Knock,” she told him.
“Haven’t done that for years here,” Neil said. He tossed the blanket on the coffee table. It fell with a thud. “Got Pieter’s sword and Gloria’s staff there, by the way. Anyways, sorry to spoil your moment. Not the first time you’ve been making out with someone when I came over.”
“Ugh, I’ve tried to forget that,” Pieter said.
Neil held up the soda. “Brought the Cactus Cooler, by the way. It’s a victory party, right?”
“Yeah, sure,” Pieter said, rolling his eyes. “Get some cups.”
“It’s your house.”
“Injured, remember?”
Neil returned with four glasses of ice. He poured the soda and passed them around, leaving one on a coaster for Gloria. Vero sipped hers, glad for the sweetness.
“Get any sleep?” Pieter asked, downing half the glass in a single gulp.
“Nah, had an Army of Pwn raid.” Neil’s voice went really deep. “Flawless slaughter.”
“Wait… you got in a real sword fight, and then you played WoW?” Pieter asked.
Neil picked up the controller and took a turn at Pieter’s game. He scored a quick kill. “Mace fight, actually, and yes, that’s exactly what I did. Great way to wind down. Even got an epic drop.” Despite a smile, Neil’s eyes held heaviness, sadness.
“In other words, you’re better at WoW than real life,” Pieter said.
Neil scowled. “Hey, I would’ve got him. Eventually.”
“You had him just where you wanted?” Pieter said. “Overconfident from disarming you and knocking you to the ground? Oh, and disabling your armor was just a feint, right?”
Gunshots echoed; Neil fell to the ground and died. “I just needed another moment to think, I think.”
Vero stared him in the eyes. “You’re welcome.”
He met her gaze then immediately turned back to the screen. “Yeah, well, thanks. The AoP DPS paladin might have been MIA last night if it weren’t for you.”
Vero smiled and shook her head. It was probably a good sign for Neil to be back to speaking in gamer gibberish.
Neil turned the game off. A Panasonic logo floated around the screen. “By the way, I tried the soul armors from Jed and Dek.”
“Yeah?” Pieter asked.
“They’re broken. I couldn’t activate them.”
“Hmm… then no new recruits,” Pieter said.
“I definitely got better drops in the AoP raid. And I do remember James saying something like if he died with the armor on, it’d kill the armor, too. I think that’s what happened.”
“And the car?” Pieter asked.
Neil turned the controller over and over in his hands. “The insurance is sending out an estimator tomorrow. But it’s definitely totaled. And since it was a hit and run—that’s what we told them, at least—I might only get five thousand on collision for it. Assuming they don’t ask any strange questions about the damage, that is. Not sure if they’ll figure out that a mace destroyed it.”
That car had looked new. That meant Neil’s family might lose, what, ten or fifteen thousand dollars? With that kind of money, Vero could buy cars for her whole family. How was he not freaking out? He definitely lived in a different world.
“I still don’t get how Jed had a vehicle,” Neil said.
“Stolen,” Pieter said. “I overheard the cops talking about finding a stolen van last night. Must have been Jed’s. If we’re lucky, he’ll get blamed for the fire, too.”
“Doubtful,” Neil said. “The news this morning said that people saw a girl at the gas station, though the security footage burned with the building. We’re just lucky they’d never heard of an offsite backup. Three houses burned down in the neighborhood where you finished Jed off, and they think that the two fires are related.”
The safety of her mask suddenly seemed about as thin as the plastic that composed it. “Hey, still saved you all.”
Neil looked at the ground and sighed. “Can’t deny that.”
Pieter nodded to his friend. “So, you still hot on scenario two, save the world?”
“That was scenario three,” Neil said, voice flat and uncertain. He fumbled with the controller again. “But you think a little car accident is going to stop me?”
Someone knocked on the door. Gloria came in and sat on the couch. She looked as exhausted as the rest of them.
“How’re you?” Vero asked.
“Been better,” Gloria said. “Bill and Lisa seemed pretty freaked out about the break-in.”
“I’d be, too. At least their house didn’t burn down,” Vero said.
“Yeah, well, they were a lot more worried
about their house than me.”
“Huh?” Vero said.
“Let’s just say it hasn’t been the easiest relationship,” Gloria said.
She seemed casual, flippant, but her sarcasm wasn’t like Pieter’s. Pieter joked for fun, to liven things up. Gloria sounded really dark.
“This is some victory party, yeah?” Pieter said. “You sound like we lost.”
“Well, I did manage to destroy a couple houses and a gas station,” Vero said.
“Details, details,” Pieter said. “We got the Ruachians. We’re safe.”
“Assuming the police don’t find us,” Neil said.
“No, there’s more,” Vero said.
“What?” Pieter asked.
They’re coming, little girl. They’re coming for your world. You’ve picked the wrong side.
“Jed, right before he died, said the portal was open. That more people were coming through from Ruach.”
“A bluff,” Pieter said.
“I don’t think so,” Gloria said.
“What?” Pieter asked.
“We… well, while we were still in Neil’s car, I felt something. A little like a soul armor, but really far away. It makes sense. The portal.”
Vero stood up and faced the others, full of her conviction from the night before. “Look, we’ve been fooling ourselves this whole time. All this stuff about just beating Jed and getting our lives back… we lost our old lives the moment James stepped out of that tunnel. All Neil’s scenarios, all our attempts to hide—we’ve been lying to each other, pretending that we could just slip out of this.”
Neil started, “Hey, those scenarios…”
Vero turned to him. “Were your way of manipulating us so you could live out some childhood superhero fantasy. Am I wrong?”
Neil slunk in his seat. “Look, there was a real need for us…”
“A real need for us to do what makes sense,” Vero said. “We turn these things in to somebody—FBI, police, army, whoever—and tell them about the war, whatever the consequences.”
Neil sat up straight. “Oh, whatever the consequences?”
“Yeah.”
“How about you going to jail for thirty years?”
“Because of…”
“Vero, you blew up a gas station, torched some houses, and killed two guys. And we’re all accomplices. Last I checked, those were felonies, even if those men came from another world.”
She felt like a balloon that had just sprung a leak. “But… it was self-defense, right?”
“Good luck convincing a jury that torching the Trex station was self-defense.”
“But, I…” She hated Neil for it, but he was right.
“But you’re right about one thing: We’ve been thinking about this all wrong,” Neil said. “We’ve been thinking about how to undo meeting James and get our lives back. That’s not happening. Especially if James was right and Terian brings the war here. Especially after last night, we can’t just hide. I, for one, say we continue.”
Continue. As though if they did, some good would come out of it.
“Count me out,” Pieter said. “This has been enough trouble.”
“Me, too,” Gloria said. “I said it that first night, I’ll say it again. I’m not a fighter.”
This from the girl who’d dropped a tree on Jed. “You’re wrong on that,” Vero said. “Timid or not, you’re a fighter. You’re strong.”
Gloria looked back at her, a flat expression on her face, her lips sealed. But hope registered in her eyes, as though she wanted it to be true.
Pieter looked up at Vero. “And you? You’ve got a good life here. Why spoil that?”
A good life. He was the best part of her life, but the rest? He’d never seen her house. He didn’t know her family. His parents might be divorced, but at least he had a dad. Pieter had grown up in wealth, she in poverty. He might have a good life to return to; she didn’t.
“Yeah, Vero? Hide or fight?” Neil asked.
She pictured that light floating in her room. She wanted it to be real, wanted it to mean something. Until now, Ruach invading her world had meant fear. Magic had meant armed men robbing her brother-in-law and stabbing her boyfriend. But if that presence had been real, that strange visitor that had wrapped her in serenity like a blanket and chased away her fears, then magic could also mean things more beautiful than she’d imagined.
How strange that she’d end up agreeing with Neil. She kept a few inches between her and Pieter. “You can try and run away. But the rift was open. See how long you can hide.”
Epilogue