Shadows of Divinity

by Luke Mitchell

  “Alpha be damned,” I growled. “No one else is dying here today, Phineas. So don’t even gropping think about—”

  By some morbid design of cosmic hilarity, that was the moment Carlisle must have finally let go of whatever he’d been holding back.

  One moment, the night sky was calm and dark but for the pale moon low over the city. The next, the world was alive with a blinding flash of violet light.

  It receded as quickly as it’d appeared, leaving a greenish-yellow glow burned into my eyes. Then the shockwave rolled over us with an enormous boom, nearly tearing us apart.

  The violent gale of air that rushed in on its wake finished the job.

  “No!” I screamed, hands and arms slipping, desperately clawing.

  The four of us tumbled apart like so much pollen on a Midsummer wind.

  I panicked for a precious second, mind whirling with how few I had left to waste, air whipping at my clothes and eyes, laughing away my attempts to think, to focus.

  I shut it out. Closed it all down.

  I found the street and steadied my wild spin with telekinesis. Found the other three plummeting in my senses—Phineas and Johnny off to the left and right, Elise front and center.

  I opened my eyes and saw she’d had the good sense to stick out her arms and legs to slow her descent. She’d also pivoted around to face up toward me, which allowed me a clear view of the wide-eyed terror etched across her face.

  “Scud,” I muttered, eyeing the far-too-quickly approaching streets.

  Six seconds. Maybe.

  The tiny shapes of people lined the streets below, pointing emphatically upwards—at us or at the inferno at the top of the White Tower, I didn’t know.

  I reached out and channeled some of the energy of Elise’s fall to push myself toward her. I overdid it. The relative shift in our velocities left me rocketing at Elise. We met with a hard thumping of bodies that took the breath out of both of us. Elise didn’t complain. Just hooked her arms and legs around me and held on.

  I caught a glimpse of rushing pavement and wide-eyed civilians scattering to clear our imminent landing zone.

  No time.

  I rolled us around, putting myself between Elise and the pavement. Closed my eyes and reached for the others.

  I felt the street no more than a hundred feet below.

  No time for intelligent control. No neat give and take. I threw my body down like old tram brakes and tore open the channels.

  Energy ripped through me, so sudden and overwhelming I’m surprised I didn’t pass out immediately. It roared through my ears. Distorted my vision. Vented explosively out to the air around us without waiting for my permission.

  My vision was going dark.

  I held on.

  In the distance, my friends were screaming. Glass was shattering.

  Because of me?

  Didn’t know. Couldn’t think.

  I held on.

  Impact. Jarring, bone-shaking impact.

  I felt Elise shift on top of me. Then I passed out.

  45

  Pieces

  Flames licked at the dry ashwood pyre, hungrily imploring each bramble and twig abandon its stable existence for one ephemeral moment of brilliant release. And release, they did. The crackles filled the silence that rested too heavily between our somber gathering, inviting someone to step forward and pay their tributes.

  No one did.

  Not for the first time, I felt Johnny glance my way. Franco was a few seconds later. Elise simply held my hand in silence, though I can’t imagine she wasn’t thinking similar thoughts. All of them watching me like some wounded pup. Or was it that they were waiting for me to speak first?

  As if I had the right.

  Carlisle had come to save me. And now he was gone.

  The knowledge was a bottomless pit inside me.

  Waking up in the medica after our fall hadn’t been a pleasant experience. Not one bit. I’d felt exactly like one would expect after having fallen out of a half-mile-high tower. Still did, in fact. But it had been paltry compared to the realization that had followed.

  Carlisle was gone. Hundreds had died in the Great Hall. Civilians. Legionnaires. All of them gone because of me—because I’d thought we could beat the raknoth at their own game. And now…

  My attention drifted to Franco as he stepped forward, preparing to speak. I felt him watching me again, a silent question in his posture. I kept my eyes on the fire.

  “I’d say the lines,” Franco finally said, “but something tells me it’s not what he would’ve wanted.”

  He had that right, at least. When our magnanimous Legion keepers had finally seen fit to allow us to gather in the tiny outpost courtyard, the outpost’s cleric had made a point of publicly disavowing himself from any service involving me, the demon previously known as Carlisle, or any who’d associate with us.

  Furious as his biting words had made me, though, it was for the best. A Sanctum cleric was the last person Carlisle would’ve wanted presiding over his pyre.

  As it was, it was just the six of us. Me, Johnny, and Elise. Franco, James, and Phineas. If Carlisle had had any family or friends outside of that, we didn’t know about them, and I doubted our Legion babysitters would’ve let us notify them anyway.

  “Above all else,” Franco continued, “Carlisle was a good man. Determined, yes. Driven. But always kind and good. He lived a hard life. I can’t claim to have known him as well as I would’ve liked. Carlisle was not an easy man to get to know. All I can truly be sure of is that he deserved more than the life he was dealt. But my heart is glad knowing that, at the very least, he wasn’t alone in the end.”

  The way he looked at me as he said that last part… the way the others turned my way… I couldn’t bear it. I stared at the ground, a deep, steady ache pulsing through me from my stomach up to my teary eyes.

  “I barely knew him for a season,” I muttered.

  I didn’t add that it was my fault he was gone. I knew what they’d say.

  “You knew him better than anyone else, Hal,” Elise said softly.

  I refused to meet their waiting eyes. I kept my gaze on the flickering pyre. Empty.

  Carlisle’s sacrifice, I’d learned, had atomized the entire Great Hall, and everything in it. There’d been nothing left to burn. Just like with my parents. I wavered on my feet, overwhelmed by it all, the walls starting to crack.

  Then their collective attention shifted off me, and I felt some of the pressure bleed away, lowering me mercifully back toward the numb emptiness that’d filled much of the past few days since the White Tower.

  “Would anyone else like to say something?” Franco asked.

  Silence stretched.

  “He… he never made me feel small,” James said tentatively. “The things he could do…” He shook his head. “He could’ve had anything. Probably could’ve trampled us like insects. But he always looked at me like I mattered, like he saw the best version of who I could be, even if I couldn’t. He saved my life, and I won’t forget it. I… Thank you, Carlisle.”

  Everyone voiced their agreement. Everyone but me.

  I wanted to say something. Wanted to thank Carlisle for having been exactly the man I’d needed him to be. For showing me what I was truly capable of. I wanted to apologize for having failed him in the end, and to promise to make amends someday. But I couldn’t seem to open my mouth. Couldn’t seem to do anything but watch the pyre flicker and curl down until the smoldering pile of ash rivaled the one in my gut.

  We sat in the courtyard for a while after that, watching the sun set. I listened to the others trade stories about Carlisle. Even added a few of my own, eventually. It wasn’t much, and it only deepened the ache in my heart, knowing that this was all Enochia could muster for the man who’d given everything for them. But it was something.

  “I don’t know what to say, Hal,” Franco said when he caught me alone at the edge of the courtyard, staring off at nothing in particular. I didn’t know wha
t to say either, so I said nothing as he lay his hand on my shoulder. “I want you to know, Hal, that as long as we’re alive, you have family. You’re not alone.”

  On any other day, his words probably would’ve stirred up a rush of emotions in me. Scud, I might have even had to fight back a tear or two. But I was too tired—too shell-shocked and emotionally raw—to do anything other than reach stiffly up and put my hand over his. He seemed to understand, and after a second, we broke the contact and went back to join the others.

  “You okay, buddy?” Johnny asked as I settled down beside him.

  I felt Elise’s eyes on me, both of them watching me with an intensity that made me want to crawl under a rock. I looked around the courtyard, as if expecting I might find an answer lurking somewhere. “I’m okay.”

  Had it just been Johnny there, or just Elise, I might have said something else. Maybe. But with both of them staring, and with the others nearby… I wasn’t looking to start group therapy time. Not right now.

  “What do you need, Hal?” Elise asked, taking my hand. “We’re here for you. No matter what.”

  I honestly wasn’t sure how to answer that.

  What did I need? It felt like a meaningless question. I was empty. Utterly spent. Numb. Maybe it was denial, or some kind of coping mechanism. Maybe I was just too exhausted to feel a single thing. What I needed right then, I finally decided, was to not think about any of it.

  “Are we sure we’re safe here?” I asked, directing the question toward Franco. “How are things looking?”

  “We’re safe,” Franco said.

  “Ish,” Johnny added. “There are still a lot of people asking a lot of questions right now, but we’ve got enough legionnaires at this outpost who were at the battle for Sanctuary. They have some idea what’s going on. And the rest of the Legion is coming around, what with all the witnesses who saw the High General sprout red eyes and try to eat us.”

  Between the long stints of fitful sleep and the generous armed guard detail they’d had on me at all hours, I hadn’t really been able to catch up on much beyond the fact that Enochia was in a tumult and that the raknoth seemed to have gone to ground with the considerable remainder of their hybrid armies. They’d kept me away from the reels. I might have fought it if they hadn’t let Elise and Johnny visit, or if they’d tried to keep me any longer. As it was, it hadn’t been too hard to convince me to lie there for a few days, letting the hours numbly slide by.

  “Are they going to release us?” I asked.

  Franco looked less certain about that. “I think we’re moving in the right direction, at least. Johnny’s right, with all the witness reports of the High General and the High Cleric going red-eyed and murdering civilians, we have a lot less bullscud to cut through this time. We already delivered the footage you tried to broadcast from Sanctuary. It’s only a matter of time until all of Legion command is ready to acknowledge the raknoth threat.”

  “They’re still trying to deny it?”

  “You know how they are,” Johnny said. “Especially when it comes to wild stories about blood-sucking alien invaders. You have to admit, it’s a lot to wrap your head around.”

  “They’ve got an entire damn conquered Legion fortress for proof,” I said.

  “An empty base,” Franco pointed out.

  I scowled at that. Johnny had already filled me in on that much. The hybrids had left Sanctuary a charred, smoking ghost town. Most of the survivors who’d escaped—Johnny’s family thankfully among them—had taken up temporary residence in Oasis, Haven, and half a dozen smaller bases.

  “But they have hundreds of witnesses,” I said. “And the rest of the hybrids can’t have just disappeared.”

  “I’ve heard rumors that a sizeable force was spotted maneuvering near Haven on the night of the White Tower,” Franco said. “Hybrids numbering in the thousands. I haven’t been able to confirm it, but if that’s truly the case—”

  “They were getting ready to launch a full-on assault on Enochia,” I said.

  “Or at least to knock out the next most secure fortress on the planet while everyone was busy freaking out about an attack on the White Tower,” Johnny added.

  “But then they lost their commanders,” I said, thinking it through. Carlisle kills Zar’Faenor and Al’Kundesha, then the hybrids mysteriously go missing the same night? I doubted it was coincidence.

  Franco nodded. “Some might admit that their withdrawal from Sanctuary and everywhere else means the raknoth are redrawing their plans, or possibly restructuring whatever chain of command might exist among them.”

  “The rest,” Elise said, “are probably being none too shy in pointing out that the easiest explanation for the miraculous disappearance of the blood-sucking alien armies is that they never really existed to begin with.”

  “That’s—How can they…” But I couldn’t even finish my thought for the weight of the answer slapping me in the face. People believed what they wanted to believe, usually right up until the proof became so undeniably vast that they were forced to sink or swim.

  “They’re going to see reason, Hal,” Franco said. “Some may just need a few days to gather reports and process.”

  “They’ll get there,” Johnny agreed. “I’ve even heard some of the legionnaires around here starting to admit that maybe you guys weren’t really terrorists after all. Except for the whole Demon of Divin-nnnever mind,” he said, cutting off midsentence at a sharp look from Elise.

  I glanced between them. “Demon of what?”

  Elise glared at Johnny, then sighed. “Demon of Divinity.”

  “What’s the Demon of Divinity?” I asked, pretty sure I already knew the answer.

  Johnny’s face scrunched in apology as he slowly raised a finger to point at me.

  “It’s been all over the reels,” Elise started slowly. “The whole planet’s talking about what happened at the White Tower. And there are plenty of eye witnesses trying to explain how things really happened, of course. But, you know, things got hazy when the fighting started and the cameras started going down. The one thing pretty much everyone saw, though, was you floating on thin air when they tried to… you know.”

  “Demon of Divinity,” I repeated.

  “Just don’t think about it,” Elise said.

  “Or think of it like being a celebrity,” Johnny said.

  “For being a gropping demon?” I growled.

  “Well…” Johnny raised a finger, as if a wise point were imminent, then dropped it back down. “That part’s a little shaky right now, I guess. What?” he added, spreading his hands at the glare Elise shot him. “They’ll come around.” He waved a hand at me. “Look at that face. Who could hate that face?”

  “Half this damn outpost, apparently,” I muttered, suddenly understanding all the strange, frightened, and sometimes outright violent looks I’d been getting these past few days. Sweet Alpha, one of the techs had nearly jumped out of her skin when I roused from sleep to find her changing one of my IV bags.

  Demon.

  Alpha-damn this planet.

  I’d lost everything, then I’d picked myself up just to lose it again. And it still wasn’t enough. I stood, unable to cope with it anymore, needing to be alone. My armed guard bristled at my approach, but I strode past them without a word, headed straight back for my bed in the medica.

  No one tried to stop me.

  The following days were not happy ones.

  Whether by Franco’s doing or simply by the merit of pulling their own heads out of the dirt, Legion command finally deigned it acceptable to grant me limited freedom within the outpost. It hardly made things better. Everywhere I went, people stared. Some stopped what they were doing and openly reached for weapons. Some just looked angry or scared. Others curious. A few even looked sympathetic, but none spoke. Well, aside from the few who called me Demon under their breaths.

  I was half-surprised one of the more brazen packs hadn’t tried to jump me yet.

  Of course, it p
robably helped that I was rarely alone. Elise and Johnny barely left my side, inundating me with a steady stream of concerned affection and updates they gleaned from the reels when I wasn’t paying attention. I suppose I could’ve turned to the reels myself, but I wasn’t ready to hear the things they were saying about me and Carlisle. Elise tried to show me a few pieces from the survivors who wanted to thank us, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch those either.

  Enochia was reeling in the power vacuums left behind by the simultaneous death and disappearance of the High General and the High Cleric. Replacements vied for position like a pack of wild hounds, some with purer intentions than others. And meanwhile, by my count, there were still at least five raknoth and at least one or two turned Seekers out there, doing Alpha knew what with their hybrid army.

  No one seemed to know where Alton Parker had vanished off to, but I could only assume he was intimately involved. The missing High Cleric aside, that left three more nameless, faceless raknoth who could feasibly be anyone, anywhere. It occurred to me that what remained of the Seeker core could be invaluable in tracking our enemies down, but it wasn’t like anyone here was going to listen to me.

  That became abundantly clear on the day that a new High Cleric was chosen. Not that the Sanctum said it outright. But when the stories about me and Carlisle—good or bad—began vanishing from the reels without a trace, somehow, it didn’t strike me as a good sign.

  I couldn’t help wondering how long it would be before an assassin might show up in the night to quietly rid the world of my problematic existence. At least if that happened, I’d be with my parents again.

  I thought about them every day. About the kind of man my dad had been to stand up to the High General of the Legion. About my mom’s eternal warmth, and the way she’d always managed to remain her own person, to balance the belief and the doubt.

  I thought about Carlisle. What he’d gone through in the twelve years since losing Cassius. Everything he’d done for me in our short time together. As well as I’d come to know him, it was strange to realize how little I knew about where he’d come from, or the person he’d been before I’d met him. The thought saddened me. But maybe it didn’t really matter who he’d been in the past.