by S. O. Green
The debt needed paying.
“A tricky Reaper’s still a Reaper,” she grunted.
Lailah laughed. “Is that what you think I am, dear?”
“Going to pretend you’re not?”
“I am older than the Reaping. Older than the cities you scavenge from, and the country that was founded on this continent. I am older than civilization, older than Empires, older than tribes. I walked this earth before your kind began its first harvests, and long before you smothered it with concrete. Did you ever wonder why my symbol is an eye?”
“Can’t say as I did.”
“They called us Watchers. We were supposed to observe, gauge the balance of the human race. But we knew, when your kind raised its monuments on the backs of dead slaves, when they bent their knees to murderers and savages, when they hailed the great instead of the good, when they chose cruelty, we knew what the future would hold. Humans brought about the Reaping. Heaven is closed and Hell has arrived, and it is your fault. I am simply…profiting from it.”
“Good for you,” Ness spat, trying to ignore the way Lailah’s tirade made her skin prickle. “Where’s my fucking truck?”
Lailah chuckled. She cupped Ness’s cheek, and just for a moment, Ness felt her lips tingling in anticipation. Then Lailah cut her with her fingernail.
Ness recoiled, fist clenching. Lailah was already withdrawing, turning to leave the room.
“Goodbye, Vanessa,” she said, as the door fell closed behind her. “I hope I will see you again.”
Ness wiped the blood off her cheek with her sleeve. “Not if I see you first.”
…
”What is the emptiness that grows before the Reaper comes? What is the creeping void that appears within a person when they succumb to wickedness? It is the space where the love of God once was. Where love once was. People who turn their back on each other, on the Struggle, become hollow within. And what is hollow in this world will be filled with darkness. Reject the Struggle, and invite the Reaper.”
They drove in silence until they were back on the highway. Faith, like Ness, had rejected all of Lailah’s charity and changed into the outfit she’d taken from the mall. She clutched at Chip’s Circle until her little fingers blanched.
Their hosts had filled the truck’s tank while they were indisposed, but Ness considered that payment for services rendered.
She steered and stared at the black blood worn into the grooves on her hands. She hadn’t been able to scrub it all off, but blood was like that. It didn’t wash away so easy.
“Sorry you had to see that,” she muttered.
“You don’t need to apologize,” Faith said, voice hoarse. Ness wondered if she’d been crying.
“No. I do. The place you grew up, it was nice. Not like that hotel was; I mean really nice. I thought I was doing the right thing, bringing you to Archangel, but… Maybe I was wrong. This world can be…”
“I’m not an idiot,” the girl whispered. “I know what kind of world I’m living in. I know what people have to do to survive. But there’s a difference between what you do and what Lailah’s doing.”
“Maybe.”
“Some of those people at the hotel were slaves. They had collars on. They belonged to the residents. That’s what Lailah does. She lets them stay with her, where it’s safe, then she gets them what they want. Whatever they want. A trophy, a servant, a lover, a child…”
“We could go back,” Ness said, “break them out.”
“Where would they go? Their families and their settlements are the ones who sold them. The hotel’s their home now.” Faith sighed and sank low in her seat. “At least they’re safe from the Big Seven and the Reapers.”
Ness stared at the broken asphalt ahead, wrestling with all the platitudes that weren’t going to make this right. Wasn’t there something she could say? Just the right thing to make this all better? Wasn’t that how it worked?
“That’s how the world works, isn’t it?” Faith asked. “Good people die. Evil people live together in luxury. They have slaves. And we’re all just crops for the Reapers. God isn’t here and the Big Seven won’t stop until we’re all dead. Why are we even going to Archangel? It’s like Lailah said: Heaven is closed.”
Ness stamped on the brake. The truck screeched to a halt. She reached over and took Faith’s shoulder in one of those blood-stained hands.
“Listen to me, kid. I don’t give a fuck about Lailah or Watchers or Heaven or the Big Seven. I give a fuck about you. About people like you. The good people. The ones who don’t deserve any of this. Now, I’m taking you to Archangel because there’s something special about you. Maybe someone there will know what’s going on with you and how you can help, but if not, it doesn’t matter. We’ll keep going, right? You and me. We’ll do what we can. Deal?”
Maybe there was blood on her hands. There always would be, because she’d never stop fighting to keep people like Faith safe. A soft smile bloomed on the girl’s lips and Ness put the truck back in gear.
“I think I get it. Why the folks in your town never told you what it’s like out here. They were trying to keep you safe. You were a ray of light to them, and that’s worth trying to shield. They didn’t see this coming, but…I’m here for you, like they were. Whatever happens, I’ll protect you.”
“You can’t protect me from everything.”
“I can try.”
Faith nodded, hesitant. Her voice was a whisper when she said, “Thank you.”
Chapter Eight
The Best is Yet to Come
“And what is your interest in dear Vanessa?” Lailah asked, as one of her suitors filled her glass.
The man—for though a Reaper drove him, he was still very much a man—glared at her. He had declined every offering she had made, because he desired only one thing.
But what desire! A burning, desperate thing. A savage, unrelenting thing. A focused and fatal need. It took her breath away to feel it radiating from him.
“That is none of your concern,” he said, and Lailah watched the way his fingers toyed with the wedding band on his left hand.
She smiled. “I must admit, I am…envious of your desire for her. She is very fortunate to be the focus of such ardent attention, though I’m sure she doesn’t realize it.”
He didn’t answer. He was still waiting for the answer to his original question.
Where is she?
“I could never stand in the way of true love,” Lailah conceded. “I can tell you exactly where to go, but I have a condition. The girl must reach Archangel. It is of the utmost importance. Do I make myself clear?”
The man nodded. He rose from his seat, a towering figure, all dark hair and angular features and blazing red eyes. Perhaps handsome once, in a stern way. Now, just frightening.
Vanessa was a lucky girl indeed.
“I will not interfere,” he said. “She is the only thing that concerns me.”
“In that case…” Lailah set her glass aside and smiled. “…it would be my pleasure to assist you.”
…
”You think you know the rules, Faithful? Well, let me tell you something. Folks before the Reaping thought they knew the rules too. They thought they had it all figured—science, mathematics, physics, chemistry. They were slaves to their immutable quantum rules. Everything that is will always be. But those laws were not God’s laws. They were observations of his world and his works, and they failed to appreciate that everything can change in a heartbeat. Like how a creature big as a city can just appear on an ordinary, August day, or how demons can whisper to us all, demanding the keys to the doors we use to keep them out. Never forget, Faithful. The Struggle has rules only so long as God says it does. Everything can change.”
The truck didn’t appreciate Ness’s handbrake turn. It screamed as it swung out, and Faith clung to her seatbelt, express
ion panic-stricken. The next moment, they were roaring back the way they’d come.
“What’s happening?” the girl asked.
“You see that cloud over there?” Ness asked, aiming a finger through the passenger-side window. “That’s Archangel.”
She watched Faith’s features twisting with confusion and tried not to smile. Cute.
“It’s moving!” she gasped. “You mean, the whole settlement moves?”
“Kind of has to,” Ness said, with a shrug. “It’s not like Lailah’s enclave. If one of the Big Seven comes along, they have to get out of the way quick. That’s why we need to listen to the radio, so we know where to find it.”
Faith screwed up her face, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. “But that’s not a road, is it?”
“Not exactly.”
“Stop teasing me!”
Ness laughed and turned them onto the road that would intersect with Archangel. They’d stop soon. Then Faith would be able to see for herself what kind of place Archangel was.
Until then, Ness just wanted to see the wonder in her eyes, and enjoy the last leg of their long road.
She tried to ignore the nagging sense that something was going to go horribly wrong.
…
It had started out as a few box cars clustered in an old rail yard. Oil drum fires and flop mattresses, but it was shelter. It was home. Then the engineers had shown up, started tinkering with an old diesel locomotive. Pretty soon, the dream had become a reality.
They were living aboard a working train.
They’d added cars over the years, expanded, until they were a functioning town. They had merchants, an infirmary, a place of worship, even a radio station. They had law and order, and they had places for pilgrims to stay.
And, presumably, someone was in charge.
Ness parked the truck up outside the old freight station where Archangel eventually stopped. They weren’t the first to arrive. Other vehicles were already there, ticking in the burning sun. This place had its dedicated satellites, vehicles that followed it everywhere like a swarm of steel flies.
She hadn’t seen Archangel in years. Something was different about it. Might have been all the tall shapes in white jumpsuits standing around the platform, on the roof, in the dust around the tracks. Every single one wore black armor and—yeah, she wasn’t mistaken—a sword strapped to their back.
“Don’t see that every day,” Ness muttered, as they stepped out.
The citizens were already rolling out their business on the platform, maintaining the cars and the tracks, dragging out the planters to catch the sun, praying thanks to God for this new slice of Heaven. The newcomers didn’t join in. They kept their watch, like a platoon of monochrome statues. Ness started to itch.
Faith ambled behind her, clutching at the Circle around her neck pensively. Ness guessed nerves were starting to set in. She kept her pace leisurely, trying to tell herself it was for the girl’s sake, that she just wanted her to have the chance to prepare properly.
She asked a couple of people who was in charge. The soldiers said nothing, wouldn’t even look at her. Others pointed her to the car just behind the engine.
“You ready?” Ness asked.
Faith nodded and took her hand. “I guess.”
“I’m right here with you, kid.”
Most of the cars had their decorations—graffiti declarations of faith or murals of smiting angels and the rolling plains of a plentiful Heaven—but this one had been wrought from gold and silver like some kind of ancient burial casket. Its walls were carved with patterns that made Ness’s head hurt when she tried to look at them, whorls and glyphs and spirals spinning into spirals.
She didn’t think she’d ever seen anything like this in her life.
Faith clasped her hand tighter. They stepped up to the car. Ness lifted her fist to hammer on the door. Before she could, someone jumped down from above—Ness hadn’t seen anyone on the roof—and stood in her way.
He was beautiful, hair thick and black and lustrous, skin burnished ochre. The blankness in his eyes was a void Ness thought she might fall into, and never hit the bottom. He wore the white suit and black armor of the newcomers suddenly infesting Archangel, but unlike the others he looked right at her. It was like someone taking a razor across her soul. His gaze settled on Faith.
She stared up at him, eyes wide. She looked terrified.
A smile formed on his lips. It looked alien on his pristine features, as much as the jewelry box car behind him. “Welcome, little sister,” he said.
“And you are?” Ness asked.
“They have named me Elim. I would know your name also.”
“It’s Ness. And this is Faith.”
“Yes, I know who she is,” Elim said, still smiling. “The Father’s wayward child, lost to us for fourteen years. Have you returned to embrace the Struggle, sister?”
He lowered himself to one knee so that he was on a level with Faith. Ness felt something tug at her sleeve and realized Faith had stepped behind her.
“Her home was wiped out by one of the Big Seven,” Ness said. “She was the only one who survived. I thought…maybe someone here would know why, or they could find out.”
“Then the transgressors have been punished for their crime. That is good to know. Thank you for these tidings, stranger. The Father will wish you to be rewarded. Every nephilim is precious to him and he only wished he could have come for her sooner.”
“Wait, their crime?”
“They stole away one of his children while she was still in the womb, after her mother had been blessed with the duty of bearing her and bringing her into the world. If they had remained, her mother could have perished in the Father’s purifying light. He would have shed a precious tear for her. Instead, she spurned his gift and fled to die in exile, carrying his beloved child with him. It was shameful.”
Ness stared at him, trying to figure if she was reading this right. Elim’s father—with a capital F, no less—had chosen Faith’s mother to bear his child. Her dying in childbirth had all been part of the plan, it seemed. Only she’d gone on the run, rather than leave her little girl in the hands of whatever he was.
And now Ness had brought her back.
“Fuck me…”
“Rejoice, stranger!” Elim said. It sounded like an order. “Our sister is back with us, ready to take on her duty as part of the Struggle. We must begin her training straight away, to make up for lost time. She will take up arms against the Reapers, and when our numbers are great enough, when the Father commands the time is right, we will reveal ourselves to the world in all our glory. She will fight with us against the Sins and the other Watchers. This world will be ours.”
“Watchers? You mean, like Lailah?”
Elim’s expression twisted into vicious hate. Honestly, it looked more at home on his face than the smile. “Have you met the snake? That beast is not to be trusted, nor are the creatures she calls her children. What did you agree to in order to earn your freedom?”
“I didn’t agree to shit. I killed a Reaper for her entertainment and that’s it. She doesn’t have anything on me.”
Elim studied her. She felt seen. “Fine. Then you may leave.”
“No!” Faith cried, and seized Ness’s wrist. “I want her to stay. Don’t make her go. Please!”
“Yeah, I’m not going anywhere,” Ness agreed.
She wouldn’t leave Faith with these psychopaths. They’d basically admitted to killing her mom—the least of their crimes—and now they wanted to turn the girl into a soldier against monsters the size of cities. The Father might have considered his kids precious, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t use them up to own the world.
First chance she got, she was taking Faith back on the road.
Elim’s expression was inscrutable, features slack and eyes
hollow, just like before. Then the smile returned and Ness tamped down a shudder. “Of course you may stay. Any friend of our sister is a friend of ours. But I wish to introduce her to her other siblings, so I ask that you give us time. Perhaps go to worship with the other humans.”
“I’m not really the worshipping kind,” Ness said, and then remembered who she was talking to.
“No?” the nephilim asked, cocking his head. “Is it not our due? Will we not save you from those that prey upon you? The Father will not be pleased.”
“Maybe he could come out of his box and rap with me a while. I might see his point of view.”
Elim gave a soft laugh. “The Father does not deign to take human form. We are his voice, just as we are his hands. But, if you are going to stay here, perhaps you should think carefully about how you conduct yourself.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Ness muttered. And, if she’d had any intention of staying, maybe she would have. “Got an errand to run anyway, but I’ll be back later.”
“You promise?” Faith asked, eyes wet.
“Pinky swear and all that shit.”
Ness ruffled her hair, squeezed her shoulder like she’d done back at the mall.
If anything happens, scream bloody murder.
She just needed the kid to be strong for an hour or two. Then they’d be out of there like a fucking bullet.
Nephilim—those white-clad warriors—glided from their positions around the station and crowded Faith as Ness made her way further along the platform. This whole place made her itch, but she couldn’t leave without the girl. The moment her ‘siblings’ left her alone for even a second, they’d be so gone.
She unfolded the letter from Harlon and Marie. She hadn’t bothered to check the name on the envelope—felt too much like tempting fate, before they reached Archangel—but now she finally read it.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
The folks she asked pointed her to a car with a crook painted on it. It felt strange to have come so far and find herself on the doorstep of the closest thing their ravaged country had to a celebrity, one of the only people who was famous outside their own settlement, like the folks on the billboards and in the battered, old magazines they used for fuel.