by C H Chelser
Justice, divided? Two faces of the same truth? Then which should prevail? Impossible choice! What if he was wrong? How could he know? Would he, ever?
The gash in his soul widened. He had fought so hard to avoid that quagmire! Uncertainty – worse, the inability to ever be certain! How could he serve justice without ever ascertaining what was just?
Deep within, one nail raked the bullet buried in his core.
Outside their enclosed tangle, all light had been condensed into the most intense darkness that might still exist. Inside, the tiny orb awoke at her touch. Hope! Proof that the darkness within was not yet absolute. Still she instantly cast a veil to avoid its glow scorching them both. However pure its intentions, too much would destroy him, outright. As it had before.
She permitted a fringe of this light to shine into the fissures she had torn. He recoiled, but she wedged a talon in where he condensed his energy.
‘At full force, it shines too brightly. Now it is but a shimmer.’ She offered it to him. ‘Can you behold it?’
‘No.’
Refusal, not inability. A chance. Her talons pried into his denial.
‘You cannot run. This resides in you because you know it to be true.’
‘One truth, and one truth alone!” he roared, his sudden ferocity shaking their bond. ‘To accept truth is just; rejection a mistake. One of many. Too many…’ He shuddered. ‘Accepting a truth once rejected inevitably reveals an irrevocable fallacy.’
‘To admit you were mistaken—?’
‘—is to have done irreparable damage.’ He repeated her resonance with the perfection of one who can perceive no difference. ‘Irreparable. Unacceptable. Unsustainable!’
He wrested away from her. She fought to anchor her talons before they were both cast adrift in the endless void, but his sudden contraction compressed his tattered soul, rendering it as indomitable as his shield once had been. Closer, tighter, deeper…
He had begun to consume himself.
She enveloped him like wildfire. Flaming tendrils caressed him to both soothe and explore his hatred, searching for a weakness that would allow her access again.
‘Condemning yourself is an injustice,’ she urged. ‘What is just to one may be unjust to another. Please, stop this!’
‘Mistakes, damage. Untold damage; a crime. And crimes require punishment.’
No recognition, no awareness of her or her pleas. Only this, a ceaseless churning of guilt and self-loathing, twisting ever tighter like a snake suffocating its prey.
The hunter hunting himself.
A lifetime ago, she had made promises. One of those had been for him. But what inspired the power that rose from her core didn´t spring from her pledge alone.
Had the concept of colours not been worlds away, her fire would have shimmered with blues and lilacs. Within her cocoon of flames, he had slowed his decay, waiting.
‘You have sought to do what is right.’
‘No matter,’ he rasped into the void inside himself. ‘We are all accountable.’
‘Even so, this fate you chose is neither fair nor just.’
Talons strummed, then pulled, inciting a chorus of inhuman cries. Under her ministrations, the consistency of his most fundamental beliefs faltered. The rips in his energy grew, fraction by fraction, until finally they broke up into strands.
‘Intention, action, inaction bear consequence – a fact! Facts are immutable, irrefutable. Therefore repercussions, always repercussions – pain, damage. Intention, thus culpable. Accountable. Accountable, so take action, bear consequences—’
Separating strands into still finer strings, she unfolded this vicious cycle of crippling responsibility that was etched throughout his blackened soul. Not self-importance, but a genuine and unwavering belief that every individual was ultimately accountable for the consequences of their actions and intentions. Guilty until proven innocent.
He constantly put himself on trial over everything he had done or wished to do, but being accountable, his own judgement could never find him blameless. Thus convicted by default, he suffered whatever punishment he deemed just for himself. No matter how harsh and disproportionate it might be.
Forever trapped, forever in pain, with no chance of reprieve. A criminal of his own making, imprisoned in a cell of his own choosing. For no other reason than his own conviction that this was just.
‘Sincere confusion is neither a sin nor a crime,’ she said, pouring her energy directly into his.
‘Perhaps…’ A faint tremor brushed her talons, gathering a dawning awareness of her presence. ‘It may be a reason, but never an excuse. Sincerity cannot undo the damage caused.’
He turned in on himself, but she caressed a single string. He writhed at the thought she exposed.
‘Too much of what I have done cannot be justified. Too many false beliefs, erroneous decisions, all with destructive consequences.’
‘None of which you intended.’
‘Intention cannot unmake a fact or mitigate responsibility.’
‘What of culpability?’ One talon stabbed deeper. ‘Is my daughter guilty of the grief her death caused me? Am I guilty of her death when I could not prevent it?’
Preposterous propositions, both. But there had been a time when she had believed the latter to be true.
‘Neither she nor I had intended this tragedy. Neither of us have the power to change it, so we forgave one another.
He resisted her proximity as well as her propositions. ‘Forgiveness is futile! A falsehood to circumvent the magnitude of damage that cannot be undone.’ His energy trembled with agony. ‘These inventions, these lies… The laws of existence should be a battlement against such rampant madness. A steadfast, universal truth.’
For a brief instant, his core flared with a force that might once have been as bright as the bullet lodged inside him. Honesty, loyalty, dependability; his true self. But just as quickly, it died.
‘Now even this last bastion proves to be made of quicksand. Exceptions, uncertainties. I cannot abide them any longer.’ The strings she held began to fall still. ‘If this is the true essence of existence, I no longer wish any part in it.’
‘You believe yourself unique in this sentiment?’
She plunged into the heart of his core with a burst of flames. Thus ensnared, she shared her memories of the bridge and the river. How her aching need to rid herself of the confusion, pain and conundrums had driven her to destroy herself.
‘Yet you did not.’ A statement, too weakened and weary to fully convey his bewilderment.
‘Such was my choice,’ she said. ‘Anne encouraged it, but the choice was mine.’ Tender flames caressed him. ‘Everything is a choice. To eat or not, to descend or not. To heal, or not…’
At her touch, that damnable bullet inside his core burst to life. Its dimmed light scathed him despite her veil. Yet it beckoned him, as is always did. Before, it had struck him blind. Not now. Its pulse had not changed since, but… he had? No other reasoning explained why he now saw its intent so clearly.
Choice. The sole purpose of this baleful intrusion had been to convey a choice.
The choice of the thief to show mercy without expecting it returned.
The choice of the thief to surrender and submit himself.
Choice…
Her long talons tore and antagonised him, bringing forth thoughts he preferred not to entertain. She didn’t grant him that comfort.
Choice. Choose to be a criminal or a benefactor, to be a man of the law or a man of mercy. Choices, each and every one.
He, too, had made choices. The choice to let his prey go, repay mercy in kind to a criminal benefactor who perceived no debt. The choice not to succumb to his hunger, to hunt to uphold justice in exchange for clemency. His choices, and his alone.
But what of the other?
‘L’Autre made his own choices,’ her talons said. ‘His intents, his actions, have had consequences for which he is responsible. And he chose to live with that re
sponsibility.’
‘The sentinels. They have held it accountable.’
‘No. He did.’
‘They destroyed it.’ As they would destroy him.
‘Are you so certain?’ she asked. ‘They protect, as you have done.’ A memory of parasites seeking refuge behind his shield.
‘They incarcerate.’
‘They shield. Again, as you have done.’ The echo of her presence nested within his. ‘Those they take fear to face themselves. The cocoon is their haven, a sanctuary while they have need of it.’
Her talons trembled, her energy throbbed amidst his own. The bullet shone a little brighter, willing him to understand. To accept the error or his assumption.
To confess to yet another grievous mistake.
Enough!
What she had drawn apart began to coagulate once more. ‘Choices are fleeting. Intentions change. Only facts are reliable. We are what we are.’
‘By choice. We are what we choose to be.’
A flurry shook him. Choice implied change, yet one’s nature was fact. Choice did not change his unholy hunger or the violence inherent in his kind.
‘Yet you choose not to feed. You choose to curb your violence.’
‘Intention does not change facts.’
‘By your own admission, actions do,’ she insisted. ‘To choose, to decide, is to act. In every moment you renew that choice, you perpetuate yourself as you are in that moment. Continuously.’ Her core almost touched his. ‘Indefinitely, if you so choose…’
A habitual urge to resist jolted his strings in her grasp, but then relented. A warmth spread from her in response.
‘You have a choice, too. Now. In this moment. In any moment.’
A spasm of pained confusion. ‘A chain of choices to maintain a fact? Is that—could that be the essence of “being”?’
‘We are what we are,’ she echoed, ‘but you are always free to choose another path.’
‘Choose to…change what is? To alter a fact? How can I alter what is true? Truth is unchangeable!’
Deep inside, the veiled bullet pulsated sharply. Every flare pained him to behold it, but when its light receded, he could make out a shape before the next flare blasted forth. If indeed it did flare at intervals.
‘A crystal,’ the talons hummed, losing their grip; this discovery seemed to surprise even her.
What he had believed to be an orb, a bullet, now revealed itself as a facetted crystal, slowly turning inside him. Some facets caught a stray beam of energy, while others caught only darkness. Black facets aside the bright reflections, shadows aside light, yet both part of the same crystal.
‘If choice is action, it has consequences. Repercussions.’ He cupped the gem, but dared not remove the veil. ‘Black and white. Which choices should prevail?’
‘It is your prerogative to decide, as it was l’Autre’s prerogative to escape his fate by any means possible.’
‘Unconscionable! The damage it did!’
Her sadness resonated through the energy she had weaved into his, but her strands frayed, talons faltering. ‘He knows, and it hurts him. That guilt is his punishment, for as long as he chooses to suffer it.’
The perpetrator deciding on its own punishment? Choose when to punish, and when to find oneself blameless of one’s own actions?
‘No. Certain things cannot be changed, even by choice. I’m still accountable.’
As her talons crumbled, what was left of her energy wrapped around his vulnerable core with tenderness.
‘Accountable to whom?’ she asked.
‘To all of existence. To the ultimate superior.’
‘You mean, to yourself?’
At the final tremor of that thought, their little world turned itself inside out with devastating force. The shockwave blasted her back, severing their connection completely. She stretched herself in a desperate attempt to hold on to him, but harnessing her willpower to search the outer edge took more strength than she had left. Whether he was still struggling or already gone, he was beyond her reach.
She had lost him.
Untethered, exhausted and defeated, she surrendered to the plane’s repulsion that compelled her to rise from its depths. Without the resistance of will, she effortlessly shifted upwards through the void. The pressure eased gradually as she crossed the darker planes to the first bleak shimmers, reminding her of how light existence could be.
A lightness she would have liked to share with M'sieur.
Fog rolled in from above. Its billows folded around her as the grey city manifested overhead. She expected pavement and buildings, but instead the fog delivered her to the currents of the Seine as they rushed beneath the old arches of the Pont-au-Change.
His haven and final resting place.
A pang of sadness struck her. Too drained and depleted to rouse herself, she let herself float on the turbulent waters, which washed up trails of her aura that had lagged behind during her descent. If she had surfaced here, surely he would have, too? The river reassembled her wave by wave, but she was still alone.
As she waited, the river began to change. The old banks faded and fresh brickwork appeared instead, while above her, the aging Pont-au-Change became surrounded by wooden scaffolding. The river flowed unperturbed. And still she was alone.
Had the sentinels found him? Offered him a chance to come to terms with himself, like they had given l’Autre? An outcome devoutly to be wished for, but exceedingly improbable. Where l’Autre, for all his faults, had wanted to enlighten himself even after the agony she had put him through, M’sieur had done the unimaginable.
‘He… gave up.’ Through their bond, she had felt his soul flicker out. Showing him a way forward had postponed his fate, but after the last implosion...
‘You showed him he had a choice,’ said a boyish voice, ‘and he chose.’
Mercedes lifted herself upright and faced the ancient gamin sitting on the bridge pylon that marked M’sieur’s grave. ‘Not much of a consolation, I’m afraid.’
‘You tried, didn’t you?’
‘And failed. He deserved better. More than he permitted himself.’
‘His choice, his prerogative,’ the boy said. ‘By the way, what of yours?’
‘Mine?’
‘Your decision to run was not entirely without consequences, either.’
At his mental nudge, Mercedes turned her attention to where he led it.
‘My cord!’ Her back was bare. No line or stub extended from where her cord should be. ‘Heavens above, I stayed away too long!’
‘Not quite,’ he said, and beckoned her to follow him into the streets of the Cité.
The shroud over the world peeled back as they walked the threshold without crossing it, and the city came together with remarkable clarity. People ignored them, objects did not stop them, and neither did the night sky and strained light of countless lanterns hamper her vision. Even the inherent noise of a crowd seemed far away when the gamin brought her to the square at the foot of Notre Dame, where dozens of people were craning to see.
‘An accident, of course,’ the boy said. ‘Completely unintentional, I’m sure, but still a stroke of luck. Strung to a body, you couldn’t have done what you did for those demons.’
Mercedes stopped listening as she pushed through the throng without hindrance. They seemed to be converging on a carriage, and the man huddling beside it. She recognised his signature before she saw him.
‘Eric?’
He sat on his knees on the cobbles, cradling the limp and lifeless body of a woman. Vacant eyes stared out of an ashen face that Mercedes barely recognised as her own. The shaking hand with which Eric held her head was bloodstained at the cuff.
‘Oh, Eric…’
His tears and broken sobs stung with the loss in them. So much like a little boy crying inconsolably for a mother who never came.
‘I’m so sorry, mon cher. I never meant to leave you. Not like this.’ She stroked his hair, wanting to comfort him as best
she could, but her fingers passed right through him. She riled in frustration. ‘His hurt is my fault. Can I do nothing to help him?’
‘Like you, like the devourers, he’ll find help,’ said the gamin. ‘Just not from you.’
Mercedes shivered as someone stepped from the crowd and passed through her to crouch beside Eric. It was Carmen.
‘Honestly?’ she bristled, but her resentment faded quickly. Eric loved his sister, and who else was there to comfort him, now his wife was no longer part of his world, never mind his life?
‘Quite so,’ the gamin mused. ‘No point in haunting them for the rest of their days. He took her hand and shifted a fraction, to a brighter Paris that basked in ethereal sunlight. ‘Besides, you didn’t go through all this trouble just for them.’
‘My family,’ she sighed. ‘I only wished to keep my family safe.’ Yet now Eric’s life lay in ruins, Anne had gone, and she had not felt her daughter’s presence since Jean—
‘Maman!’
She didn’t dare to believe her senses. Too many dreams, visions and hallucinations had twisted her core and broken her heart with fear and deception. She trusted Jean, but even a guide could not guarantee—
‘Maman!’ Out of the myriad of blues, a honey-blonde little girl ran with a skip and a hop and leapt into her mothers’ arms. ‘There you are, maman. What took you so long?’
Stunned beyond thought, Mercedes embraced her daughter, who was giggling with joy. Only then did her mind register that she at last held her baby. For the very first time.
‘Ma Danielle!’ Overcome, she hugged Danielle like crazy, so close and so tight that their energies almost melted into each other. ‘Look at you! Oh, ma petite, if only your father could have seen you.’
A gentle peace flowed through her when Danielle nuzzled her neck. ‘Papa will be all right, too,’ said the girl. ‘You’ll see. Just like the black monster you helped, Monsieur Jean said.’
‘Oh, really? Did he now?’
‘Would you rather I had lied to her?’ said Jean as the rest of him took shape.