Shadows of Divinity

by Luke Mitchell

  “Cheeky gingers, for starters,” I grumbled.

  He just beamed and plopped his chin down on his bridged fingers, waiting for more.

  “I dunno, man.” I shook my head, my thoughts returning to the matter at hand. “It’s just… What if there’s more to the story?”

  “Forgive me for missing the Hal Express, but which story are we talking about again?”

  “Kovaks.”

  Johnny frowned at me, then his eyebrows slid up as understanding dawned on him. “You don’t think… Andre Kovaks was a crazy person, broto. Full on lunatic. Mad. Loopy. Weapons-grade nut—”

  “I know,” I said, holding up a hand to stop him. “I know, I know.” I blew out a breath and studied the bustling mess hall with a scowl. “But the whole thing was kind of… I dunno, off, don’t you think?”

  Johnny considered that for a few seconds.

  He’d agree with me. He had to. Executions did happen, but they weren’t overly common these days—ceremonial executions in the Great Hall of the High Cleric himself even less so. Normally, the latter were reserved for people who’d done something truly horrendous, like actively trying to sabotage the Sanctum or the Legion.

  “I guess it seemed a little heavy-handed,” Johnny finally said. “Guy probably could have used help, but sweet Alpha, Hal, he was spouting off against the Sanctum. He accused the High Cleric. Are you surprised they wanted to make a point with him? Let that kind of thing go, and all of a sudden we’re sliding back into the dark ages, with a dozen nations spilling blood for a shot at the driver’s seat. That doesn’t sound like a good time to me.”

  I pursed my lips, considering his words. It was far from the first time we’d had this discussion, or ones very like it, at least.

  It wasn’t that we didn’t believe in our mission. Like every other soul in Sanctuary, we were devoted to the Legion. To Alpha. To keeping the peace of Enochia. All of it.

  It was just that I was a touch inept at the whole not to ask, but to serve thing, and Johnny was one of the few people on base willing to entertain my nonsense. Entertain as he might, though, even when we found ourselves thinking a situation like Kovaks might’ve been handled better, I knew Johnny tended toward the mentality of, Hey, as long as it’s better than the alternative…

  But the lesser of two evils could still be pretty damn evil, right?

  Sweet Alpha, I was being paranoid. Blowing this Kovaks thing out of proportion. I had to be.

  At the end of the day, the Sanctum and the Legion were doing what they thought best for Enochia. I believed that, even if I didn’t always agree with their ruling on what that “best” was.

  “Brighten up, man,” Johnny said. “Hey, if a few seasons down the road it turns out Kovaks was right and we find ourselves fighting a bunch of invading, blood sucking aliens, you get to have the most satisfying ‘I told you so’ in human history. That’s something, right?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Something. Totally, broto.”

  Johnny’s recoil probably would’ve escaped a stranger’s notice, but it was enough to tell me my words had come out harsher than I’d intended.

  “I’m sorry, man,” I added, dropping his gaze. “I’m just driving myself crazy thinking about the way my dad’s been acting and everything.”

  “Hey,” Johnny said, his expression serious, “if I didn’t have you and your heavy thoughts around to drag me down, I’d be liable to float away on a happy cloud.”

  “That doesn’t make me sound like the best friend.”

  “Ahhh,” Johnny said, wrinkling his nose. “Friend is kind of a strong word, don’t you think? Let’s not get carried away, man.”

  “Oh, grop you,” I said, smiling despite myself.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he replied, waggling his eyebrows.

  I shook my head and checked the time on my palmlight. When I looked back up, Johnny’s expression had sobered.

  “You could always ask him, you know. Old Captain Martin is a pretty reasonable guy, as far as CO fathers go.”

  I nodded slowly, playing out how that conversation might go for about the twenty-thousandth time in my head.

  “Or,” Johnny said, splaying his hands, “orrr you could run away from your problems and come move in with us. Problem solved. Or, you know, not. But that’s kind of the point, right? Plus, Belle would probably be too flustered to speak anymore with you around, so that’s a win for Johnny, right there.”

  I frowned a little thinking of Johnny’s younger sister, Anabelle, and the peculiar habit she’d recently adopted of turning rosy red and shortly vacating any room I entered. “Yeah. Tempting, buddy, but I think I might have to wait until at least tomorrow to run away. We’re having Kublich over for supper tonight.”

  “As in the High General of the Legion? That Kublich?”

  I inclined my head. “I believe that’s the one. What?” I added at Johnny’s awestruck expression. “It’s not like this is the first time it’s ever happened.”

  It was Johnny’s turn to shake his head at me. “What’s it like, living up there in your white tower?”

  I looked pointedly in the rough direction of the distant heart of Divinity. “Probably not as nice as living in their White Tower.”

  Johnny tilted his head in concession. “Fair point. So what’s the occasion, then? Business? Pleasure? Are they gonna go ahead and just promote you straight to captain when we graduate next season, demons to the wind with regulations?”

  I shrugged. “No idea. My mom only told me this morning. Might just be a social call.”

  “Well,” Johnny said, leaning forward, “whatever’s going on, let’s just hope the good General doesn’t bring that foxy little servitor of his.”

  The thought didn’t improve my focus for the remainder of the day.

  Every other tyro in Sanctuary—and most of the legionnaires, at that—would have jumped at the chance to lick the High General’s boots in person for an entire evening.

  I was dreading it.

  Adrian Kublich was a nice enough man, I guess, but I wasn’t in any mood today to play politics and dance the dance. Plus, for some reason I’d never quite been able to distinguish, Kublich had always kind of given me the creeps.

  So maybe my position as a Captain’s son actually had spoiled me.

  Still, all I really wanted to do was find out what was scratching at my father’s brain, because now it was scratching at mine too. So I decided I was going to listen to Johnny for once and talk to him after dinner. I’d never confronted him like that. Something told me it wouldn’t be a fun conversation. But I needed to know—for my own sanity and for my mom’s sake.

  One way or another, I was going to find out what the hell was going on with him tonight.

  3

  Meat and Gravy

  “This pie is to die for, Klara,” High General Adrian Kublich said from across the dining room table as his fork descended for another bite.

  I couldn’t disagree. The meat and gravy pie was delicious, as usual. But something about the way Kublich looked at my mom while he said it made my stomach squirm.

  My mom smiled, inclining her head at the compliment, but didn’t say anything.

  “How’s your work coming along?” Kublich added. “I imagine you’ve had a productive season with Martin running around, as busy as he’s been.”

  Was it my imagination, or did my father tense at that?

  I know I did, though maybe for different reasons.

  Kublich didn’t seem to notice our reactions as my mom put on a thin smile and said, “It’s going quite well, thank you. I’m just putting the finishing touches on a bit of an anthology.”

  “Hmm,” Kublich said, raising his wine glass in cheers. “I look forward to reading it.”

  As if.

  Having spent enough time watching my mom interact with people about her writing, I’d pretty much come to interpret those six words as polite-speak for, That’s great, but I don’t really care.

&nbs
p; Then again, the High General wasn’t really one for idle scudspouting, so who knew?

  “And what about you, Haldin?” Kublich said, yanking my attention back to the table. “How goes the training?”

  “Good, sir,” I said reflexively. Then, feeling like that was a weak answer, I added, “Getting better all the time.”

  Great. Much better.

  But it was a loaded question anyway.

  If he had the slightest inclination to know how my training was going, he could have performance reports and assessments about my abilities, psyche, and a dozen other things all with a few swipes of a finger. One peek at my file, and he could probably know more about me and my training than I could tell him if I talked all night.

  “Word around base is that you made a bit of a spectacle of Docere Mathis this morning,” he said, his expression unreadable.

  Ah. So that’s where this was going.

  My parents turned to me, each bearing their own brand of frown.

  “I…” I swallowed. “Yes, sir. I acted… beyond what was required.” He kept staring. It made me feel hollow, despite the fact that I was decidedly full of the meat pie that had seemed so delicious until only a moment ago. “I will apologize to Docere Mathis, sir. Formally. And it won’t happen again.”

  “What did you do?” my father asked, glancing between me and Kublich.

  “It was nothing,” Kublich said, his mouth finally breaking into a small smile. “Haldin is simply outgrowing our ability to challenge him, I fear.”

  Why did that smile make me feel like I was about to be eaten?

  Whatever it was, I did my best to keep my eyes on the food and avoid Kublich’s gaze for the rest of the meal.

  After we’d finished supping, Kublich retreated to my father’s study to discuss some manner of classified business with him.

  “What do you think they’re talking about?” I asked my mom as we worked on the dishes together.

  Under her bangs, her eyebrows shrugged as she started scrubbing the dish I’d just handed her. “You know the drill. Classified means classified.”

  Something about the way she said it…

  She held out her hand for the next dish, then turned to look at me when it didn’t come. I searched her face, the white serving dish in my hand all but forgotten.

  “Are you guys…” I faltered, the words caught in my throat. “Are you, uh, okay?”

  “Sweetie,” she said, pulling the dish from my hands and setting it aside so she could grab my wet hands in hers. “Of course we are. Dad’s just been… Well, I don’t know exactly what he’s been. He’s worried about something. Something he can’t talk about. That’s why we’ve been… tense. But we’ll get past it. He’ll fix whatever it is.” A small smile pulled at her lips. “He always does.”

  I was surprised to feel the light hint of tears not far off. I couldn’t even say why. Just something about the look on her face. “Promise?”

  Her smile sweetened, and she reached her wet hands to the back of my head and pulled me down to plant a warm kiss on my forehead. “Promise.” She stepped back and waved her hands in a shooing motion. “Now you go relax. Watch a storyvid or something. Whatever the kids are doing for fun these days.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, I’m not sure you want me doing what the kids are doing these days, Mom.”

  Her smile grew as she shooed me again, and mine did the same as I turned to head for my room. I thought about messaging Johnny to see if he wanted to fire up a sim, but then I saw my bed and the big, inviting screen on the opposite wall and thought I might just take my mom’s directions to heart.

  Why not kick back and watch a vid?

  Outside of Sanctuary’s thick walls, in the loud, bustling city of Divinity, kids my age were playing smashball while we ran combat drills. While we practiced small unit tactics, they went on dates. While we slept, they snuck out and did all the things their parents told them not to—throwing parties and otherwise flipping the middle finger to people like me, who spent their lives in service to make sure their kids would likewise be able to flip the middle finger to ours.

  But maybe I was just a touch judgmental toward the undisciplined madness that was civilian life.

  Either way, taking the evening to relax was probably acceptable. I was excelling in the eyes of the Legion, and even those of the High General himself, apparently. My parents were going to be okay. And, demons to the wind, I was allowed to casually watch a vid if I damn well pleased. Plus, it’d probably help take my mind off things for a little while.

  Eager energy bubbling through my chest at my little act of defiance, I waved the screen on my wall to life and began navigating through menus with little flicks of my fingers.

  It took me all of two minutes to realize I had no idea what to watch.

  I sighed, the excitement draining, and flicked on my palmlight, reaching for Johnny’s name. “So much for—”

  A pair of loud thumps sounded from elsewhere in the house, burning all thoughts of vids and leisure from my mind.

  No. Not thumps. Gunshots. Distorted and dulled by thick walls.

  Thick walls like the ones in my father’s study.

  I was already on my feet, though I didn’t remember deciding to move. I tore the door open and bounded down the hall. A crash from the living room goaded my legs to move faster.

  Then a horrible wail filled the air, clawing at my insides, and my step faltered.

  My mom’s voice. There was no mistaking it. She cried out again—a scream that ended with an abrupt, sickeningly wet noise.

  I fell forward into a dazed run.

  She was dead. Something about the sound told me that even before I came barreling out of the hallway. But I refused to listen. I stumbled into the dim living room, straight into a nightmare darker than anything I could have imagined.

  It was odd, the way my mind took in all the inconsequential details first. The couch, uprooted and overturned. The blue ceramic vase, shattered, its pieces strewn across the neutral tones of the big soft rug in the center of the room.

  The fresh spots of dark crimson staining that rug.

  My knees buckled. I caught myself on the wall. I was going to be sick.

  Feet thrashed next to the dark stains. Blood. It was blood. My eyes traced upward, unable to stop, my stupor too complete to do anything but stare. My mom’s dress was soaked across the front with blood. A dark figure held her, arms wrapped tight around her from behind, face pressed against her throat, where a soft crimson glow illuminated her ghastly wound.

  Her attacker shifted at the sound of my entry, looking up and—

  My mind went blank. I couldn’t move.

  It wasn’t possible.

  Where the thing’s eyes should’ve been, it stared back at me with twin orbs of demon fire. They pulsed crimson, lighting the dark rivulets of my mom’s blood still running down the thing’s chin.

  I tried to scream. Tried to charge the demon. To save my mom. It was like my brain had been disconnected from my body. Like those impossible glowing eyes had cast some dark sorcery upon me.

  I strained with everything I had, and I couldn’t move a damn muscle.

  “Haldin,” it said. “I was hoping you’d join us.”

  Merciful Alpha. That was Kublich’s voice. Deeper and rougher, maybe. But it was his. And behind those glowing crimson eyes and the bloody fangs the demon bared in a grin, that was Kublich’s face.

  Impossible. It was impossible. And yet it was his ruby tunic on the creature clutching my mom’s bloody body. His High General’s insignia.

  My stupefied gaze dropped back to my mom, my mouth hanging open in a silent cry. Her body was so broken, so limp, her head dangling against the Kublich-thing’s arms at an unnatural angle. Her legs kicked weakly, the last bits of her life ebbing away before me.

  I met her frightened eyes just before she died.

  The haze hung heavy in my mind. I couldn’t move. I was trapped in that moment. It stretched, independent of time, the im
age of the fire-eyed demon holding my mom’s broken, bloody body carving its way deep into my brain.

  A thud to the left, and my father stumbled into the room, leaning heavily against the wall for support. His dark shirt hid the details of his injury, but judging from the trail of blood he left on the white wall, he was hurt, and badly. Still, his hand barely wavered as he raised his sidearm and fired three shots into Kublich’s back.

  In the confines of the living room, the shots were painfully loud. Kublich staggered forward as the slugs tore into him. But he handled it too well, recovered too quickly.

  Armor. He was wearing armor.

  Kublich turned away from me to face my father with a low, guttural growl. He tossed my mom aside as if she were no more heavy or important than a sack of potatoes. I reached out helplessly, the knots in my stomach tightening as her body tumbled over the couch and thudded to the floor in an undignified mess of slack limbs.

  “Martin,” Kublich said calmly, starting toward my father. “You see the price of your meddling? I—”

  Another crack of thunder from my father’s sidearm, and Kublich’s head snapped back as if the shot had found his forehead. I waited for him to fall dead to the floor.

  He didn’t.

  He just gave his head a little shake and reached up to rub at his forehead. I could’ve sworn his skin was turning green. If my eyes could even be trusted anymore. The small, dark object Kublich flicked to the rug at his feet told me they couldn’t.

  It was a crumpled softsteel slug. The one my father had just shot him in the head with.

  “HAL, RUN!” my father roared.

  I barely registered the words.

  My mind couldn’t work through the haze—the impossibility of everything that was happening. Adrian Kublich, the damned High General of the Legion, had just murdered my mother, survived a direct gunshot to the head, and was now stalking toward my father. My father who was screaming at me to run.

  But I still couldn’t move. Except… My hand. Still raised toward my mom’s body.