Promise: Caulborn #2

by Nicholas Olivo

  I entered my apartment and found Petra seated at the kitchen table, surrounded by open cookbooks. She had a pad of paper in front of her and was jotting down the page numbers for recipes. Her curly brown hair was pulled up on top of her head, and she was wearing a pair of pink sweatpants and a black T-shirt that read “Come to the Dark Side, we have cookies.” The scent of cooking oil was strong in the air, and our deep fryer was out on the counter, a bunch of crumpled Twinkie wrappers on the counter beside it. I swallowed. Deep-fried Twinkies were Petra’s ultimate comfort food, and there was only one time when she ate them.

  “Hey, love,” I said. “When’s your mother coming over?”

  “Saturday lunch,” she replied without looking up. To herself, she said, “Lamb, lamb, lamb, ah here we go.” She thumbed to a page in the book and nodded. “I think this recipe would be good.” I sighed. Petra’s mother is none other than Aphrodite herself. Most theater majors and mythology students know the story of Pygmalion; guy sculpts a beautiful statue, Aphrodite animates it, names it Galatia, and Pygmalion and Galatia live happily ever after. The part that didn’t make it into the myths is that Galatia was destroyed in a stampede. Pygmalion, wracked with grief, sculpted another statue, Petra. Aphrodite animated Petra, but Petra could never live up to her deceased sister’s reputation, despite being stronger, faster, and smarter.

  I ran a hand through my hair. “Petra, don’t do this to yourself. Let’s just order takeout or something. No matter what you do, she’s just going to nitpick you. Remember that time you made escargot? She went on for an hour about how Galatia would’ve caught the snails by singing to them, and how you’d done the best you could, but sung snails tasted so much better.”

  Petra still didn’t look up. “I’m certain this time will be better, Vincent. I asked Hephaestus about this, and Galatia never cooked lamb. There won’t be anything about this meal that will give her a chance to compare me to Galatia.”

  “Petra, you know she’ll just make something up.” I shrugged out of my bloody, chewed-up coat and tossed it into the trash. I hadn’t liked the color anyway. My good old leather bomber would have to do for the time being.

  Petra turned the page in her book. “Did you talk to Megan?”

  The abrupt change in subject caught me flat-footed. “Ah. No,” I said as I rubbed my face.

  She looked up for the first time then. Her brown eyes locked with mine. “Vincent, you have to deal with that.”

  “I know, I know,” I said, putting up my hands. “Look, this isn’t exactly the easiest topic to broach. What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey Meg, remember back when you got attacked by that flower laced with industrial-strength botanical magic and I promised you’d be fine? Well, Orcus, he’s the god of oaths, see, and he’s got a very strict interpretation of that particular promise. He’s saying I have to keep you fine forever or else I’ll suffer eternal damnation in a forgotten corner of Tartarus.’”

  Petra looked at me flatly. “This is serious, Vincent. I waited too long for you to lose you to a silly slip of the tongue. You need to get her to release you from that promise.”

  I looked down at my Reeboks. “It feels like I’m failing if I do that. Like I’m not living up to something.”

  Petra rose and gave me a hug. Despite the fact that she’s living stone, she feels like flesh and blood. “I know,” she said. “But the only alternative is to find a way to keep her fine forever, and that’s not possible, not even for you.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Petra. Trust me.” I stifled a yawn. “I’m turning in. You coming to bed soon?”

  She shook her head and turned her attention back to the cookbooks. “I need to work on this for a bit.” I kissed her on the head and went to the bedroom. The last time I saw the clock, it was two in the morning and Petra still hadn’t come into bed yet. The day’s events drifted through my mind. Skeletons, necromancers, and now an impending visit from Aphrodite. I suppose I should’ve seen the nightmares coming.

  Chapter 2

  There is an inherent danger in those paranormals who can conjure gateways through other dimensions. This stems beyond the obvious risks in opening a gateway to a hostile location. The true danger lies in the predators that exist in that space between dimensions, where the gateways are created. Should one of them sense an Opener, and then attach itself to that individual, then any opening created by that individual would risk allowing the predator through. Such predators would be unlike anything we have encountered before, and it is highly likely that many paranormal and human lives would be lost in the time it took us to craft a suitable defense.

  —From an internal Caulborn memo dated 1938, authored by Jack Santo

  I was on a boat. There were shirtless and barefoot men running all around the deck, tying down sails and battening down hatches and anything else that a sailor would do when his ship was about to enter a storm. I put my hands in my pockets and withdrew one, now holding a gold coin. The crew suddenly went silent. As one, they said, “Let no man steal from the captain.” They drew pistols and knives and descended on me. I flailed about as they knocked me down and began kicking and beating me. One sat on my stomach and drove a knife straight through my chest.

  I woke up with a jolt. The clock said it was just after six. I reached for Petra. Her side of the bed had been neatly made, and a note left on the pillow. Early morning shoot. See you tonight. Love you.

  Petra’s job as a lingerie model has hours that are worse than mine. If she were human, I’d worry that she’d burn herself out, but technically, she doesn’t need to eat or sleep. My gut told me she had pulled an all-nighter, and even though I knew I shouldn’t be worried about her, I was. The time leading up to and immediately following a visit from Aphrodite was always tense and hectic. I sighed, swung my legs over the side of the bed, stretched, and padded toward the kitchen.

  “Good morning, Vincent.” I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of the voice coming from behind me.

  My Commander Courageous action figure strode across the top of the dresser and planted his plastic fists on his hips. Clad in a scarlet body suit and green gloves and mask, my childhood hero posed proudly in his “I’m a hero, dammit,” stance. Aside from being an ultra rare collectible, this action figure served as a vessel for an adviser my father had sent me years ago, just before I received worshippers. My father, Janus, the Roman god of doors, had to stay away from my mom and me to ensure we stayed safe from his enemies, and Commander Courageous was one of the guardians he left behind. I’ve never learned who the being is behind the mask, but he always gives insightful advice. “You’re going to have company today, Vincent.” Courageous said with a smile. “I’ve arranged a new instructor for you.”

  “An instructor? For what? I know how to control my powers, and I’m caring for my followers. What more is there?” Courageous was silent, having reverted back to a normal action figure. When it was obvious he wasn’t going to say anymore, I headed to the kitchen.

  Where a gateway to Hell had opened.

  The scents of sulfur and brimstone choked me, and a greasy smoke filled the kitchen. On the other side of the gateway, a hellhound sniffed the air. The thing was as big as a Harley and probably weighed twice that. Luminescent yellow eyes regarded me, and I shivered at the intelligence that glimmered there. The hellhound’s thick red and black fur bristled as it walked forward, stepping through to my kitchen. “Sorry,” I said to the hound, “but my apartment has a strict no pets policy.” I telekinetically threw it backward. My initial guess was wrong; the hellhound easily weighed three or four times what a Harley did.

  It got back to its feet and snarled, belching out a cone of flame. I put up a telekinetic shield and deflected the fire back through the gateway and countered with a pyrokinetic blast. The hound made a sound like laughter. Dumbass. It’s a HELL-hound. You can’t hurt it with fire. I telekinetically hurled it again, hoping it would lose interest.

  “Stop playing with it, Corinthos,” a voice from my left said. �
��Just seal the gateway.” I stole a glance at the speaker. Forculus, another Roman god of doors, had his sneakered feet up on my kitchen table, a chocolate-frosted donut in his hand. He regarded me with gray eyes as he bit into his donut and then cocked his head toward the gateway in a “get on with it” gesture. My gaze returned to the hellhound, which had regained its feet and was shaking its head. It looked up at me with pure hatred blazing in its yellow eyes. Shit.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Concentrate on the gateway,” Forculus said. “Feel the energies that make it up, and then tie them together.” I hastily reached out for the gateway with my mind, trying to sense whatever made it work. As I did, the hellhound charged. I abandoned my probing and threw out a telekinetic barrier. A second later, the hellhound slammed into the barrier full force. I strained to hold it in place as the creature pressed against it. But, the hellhound snarled and punched through. Pain exploded in my head as the barrier shattered. I was disoriented and couldn’t concentrate enough to bring it back. The hound charged forward again and leapt for the gateway, jaws open wide. The spittle on its teeth and tongue shimmered as it hurtled through the air. I put my arms up over my face, knowing the gesture wasn’t going to afford me any protection. Forculus snapped his fingers and the smells of brimstone and sulfur vanished.

  “Put your arms down, boy.” The gateway and hellhound were gone. I lowered my arms and turned to Forculus. He’d put his feet down and was rubbing the heels of his palms against his forehead. He lowered his hands and regarded me, disgust plain on his face. “That was pathetic,” he said.

  “Well excuse me for not having a couple of millennia’s worth of practice sealing gateways.”

  “Do you mean to say that you’ve never opened a gateway, Corinthos? How do you visit your followers on the Bright Side?”

  “Phasilion.”

  “Ah, those living gateways. Yes, I’ve heard of them.” Forculus picked up his donut and munched thoughtfully. “So you tell them where to open for you. That’s not a bad start.”

  “No,” I said. “Each phasilion opens to a specific location. I go to the one that opens in the heart of the Urisk city.”

  Forculus’s jaw dropped. Tiny crumbs of donut were stuck in his salt-and-pepper beard, and his face was a mask of disbelief. “You go to the one that opens where you want to go,” he said flatly. “You’ve never commanded one to open?”

  “Well, there was one time.” I told Forculus about the time I’d telepathically dominated an unfriendly phasilion named Grenlori into opening to a specific location.

  “Hera’s frosty crotch, boy,” Forculus swore. “You think you telepathically dominated it? You have the domain of doors,” he enunciated every word carefully, like he was explaining to a simpleton. “That means doors obey your every whim. The phasilion is a living door. It had to obey you. Did you at least have it open to your desired location?”

  “Mostly.”

  Forculus rolled his eyes as he stuffed the last of his donut into his mouth. “That’s something, I suppose. Come on, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Didn’t your adviser tell you? I’m going to teach you how to make gateways of your own. And from what I can see, it’s not going to be easy. Go get dressed and come back here.” Once I’d geared up and rejoined him, Forculus waved his hand and another gateway sprang into existence. This one opened onto a grove of fig trees. “Follow me.” We stepped through and the temperature difference was striking on the other side. It’d been about seventy degrees in my apartment, but this was at least eighty. The sun was lower in the sky. The air was sweet, but there was tang of salt in the air, too. All around me, short trees with nearly white trunks stretched their pale branches to the sky, and their vibrant green leaves swished in a gentle, warm breeze.

  “Where are we?”

  “Sicily,” Forculus smiled as he plucked a fig off a branch. He bit into it and smiled. “Ah, yes. You don’t get stuff like this in America, Corinthos. Try one.” I bit into the fig. It was sweet. The only time I’d ever had figs before was in Newtons. This was really good.

  “Hang on a sec,” I said. “Sicily and Boston are pretty close, latitude-wise. Shouldn’t it be winter here, too?”

  Forculus picked a bit of fig out of his teeth. “This is my domain,” he said, waving a hand around. “It’s only winter here if I want it to be. Now then, enough chatter about the weather. Let’s talk gateways.” Forculus rolled his shoulders like a fighter warming up for a match. “The obvious advantage to controlling gateways is the freedom it provides you. You don’t need these mechanized contraptions that humans rely on to fly from point to point, or those clumsy mechanical chariots. Just think about where you want to go and poof, you’re there.” He held up a finger to me. “But, for the clever, there’s more to gateways than just travel. Gateways can be effective weapons when employed properly.”

  “You mean like sending an enemy directly into Hell?”

  Forculus pursed his lips. “That would work, I suppose, but it lacks style, and those who reside in the Pit do not appreciate unexpected guests. Pull a stunt like that and you’ll likely find your adversary returned and a throng of angry demons charging you as well.” He shook his head. “No, the combat potential of a gateway is something else entirely. Allow me to demonstrate.”

  Forculus snapped his fingers, and a small gateway, about the size of a dinner plate, popped open to his left. It was angled such that I couldn’t see where it led. He threw a fig through it—

  —and something struck me on the back of the head. I spun around and found a fig on the ground behind me. A second gateway hung open in the air, level with my head. Through it I could see Forculus. I turned to him. “So you split the gateway. Put the entry point in front of you and the exit behind me.”

  Forculus smiled. “That’s exactly right. Thank goodness. I was afraid I’d need a puppet show to explain it to you. Now then, your initial gateways will only open to places you know very well, or places you can see. This limits their utility, but make no mistake, for the clever, even these hobbled gateways can be used in a variety of ways. Let’s start with something small. Open a gateway that leads to that stone over there.” He pointed to a gray and blue rock about ten feet away. “Relax your mind and picture an opening from point A to point B.”

  I cleared my head and looked at the rock. I imagined a doorway with square edges and clean lines forming in front of me. Nothing happened. I tried again, this time envisioning a circular portal. Nothing. “For someone who’s supposed to be my tutor, you’re not saying a whole lot,” I called. Forculus sat down and leaned back against the trunk of the fig tree.

  “There’s nothing more to explain, Corinthos. Either you can open gates or you can’t. Your adviser thought you had the potential, but perhaps he was mistaken. Maybe the human blood in your veins is preventing you from an ability that should be your birthright. I never did understand what Janus saw in human women. They always seemed so inferior, and the offspring they gave were nothing more than trouble.”

  Forculus had just committed one of the three classic blunders. The first two—never get into a land war in Asia and never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line—are pretty easy to avoid. However, number three is never insult my mother. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to reach out and tear Forculus’s head off. Something inside me cracked, and a ripping sound, like ten thousand sheets of paper being torn at once, shattered the still air. A tear in reality opened before me, an angry red gash about ten feet tall. It opened into blackness, and cold poured out of it.

  Frost suddenly rimed the nearby fig trees and the scent of decay, like rotting meat, spoiled the sweetness of the grove. In my mind’s eye, something alien, something with tentacles and claws lurked just beyond the rip. It was snaking toward me, ready to—

  Forculus was next to me in a flash and opened a gateway of his own, facing the tear. The alien monstrosity bolted through the tear an
d shot right into his gateway, which he slammed shut. He slapped me across the face, and the sudden shock forced me to release the tear, which sealed itself. The other god ran a hand through his hair. “Well that was fun,” he said. “Lesson one, Corinthos, always keep you mind focused on where you want your gateway to lead. If you get distracted, your gate may not open where you’re expecting.”

  I nodded, then punched him as hard as I could in the mouth. His head snapped back and he fell, but instead of hitting the ground, he opened a gateway, fell through—

  —and landed on top of me. Surprising me like he had, Forculus had no trouble pinning me. “Now then,” he said. “None of that. I apologize for what I said about your mother. Sometimes it’s necessary to arouse emotion to fuel your abilities, and that is all that comment was, nothing more.”

  Part of me wanted to immolate him, and that must have shown in my expression. He got off me and put up his hands. “You mother is a lovely woman, Vincent. I had dinner with her and Janus several times while they were courting. I assure you I won’t say anything like that again. Now that we know you have the ability, there’s no need. You just need to practice.”

  For the next two hours, I tried opening gateways. All I succeeded in doing was creating tears back to that dark, cold dimension. Finally Forculus had me stop. “All right, Corinthos, that’s enough for today. I’ll be back in a few days so we can work more on this. In the meantime, don’t try to open any gateways without me here.” He opened a gateway back to my kitchen.

  I really needed to learn how to do this; it would make my life so much easier. I nodded my thanks and stepped through the portal. I grabbed my jacket and headed out the door. Time to go to work.