Forgiven

by Gina Detwiler

  Maybe I was wrong to marry her. But I did it for the right reasons—for love and for hope.

  Among my many hopes is that Darwin Speer has forgotten all about me.

  But, of course, he hasn’t.

  ***

  It’s nearly midnight. Grace and I are playing in the studio when everything goes dark.

  “What happened?” she says. I can’t see her at all. “Power outage?”

  “It shouldn’t be. We run on a generator.”

  “Maybe it broke.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Can you turn your glow on so we can get out of here?”

  I laugh a little. “Turning on my glow” is not something I have that much control over.

  “Sing a little,” I say.

  As soon as she starts singing, my body heats up and the room lightens.

  “Not bad,” she says. “The human flashlight.”

  I take her hand and we find our way out the door to the Lair. All the computer screens are blank. I practically trip over Ripley, who’s asleep on the floor, wrapped in his tauntaun sleeping bag.

  “Rip, wake up!”

  I shake him and he startles awake.

  “Huh?”

  “The power’s out,” I say.

  “That’s impossible.” He lurches over to a computer and bangs on the keyboard. “What the—”

  “Maybe the generator blew a fuse. Where is it?”

  “It’s topside in the shed. Maybe it got hit by lightning or ran out of gas. Wait, let me find a flashlight.” Ripley searches through his piles of stuff and overloaded drawers until he finds a red plastic flashlight with a dim, wavering beam. “There must be a dozen LEDs in this place. How come this is the only flashlight I can find?” He grumbles to himself.

  We follow him outside. My glow dims until the flashlight is the only light we have. It’s pitch black. No lights shine from nearby houses and no glow in the sky from the lights of the city.

  “Weird,” says Ripley. “It looks widespread. There haven’t been any storms in the area. Maybe it’s a computer glitch, like the one that knocked out the whole east coast in 2003.” He leads us behind the burned-out mansion to a corrugated steel shed and fishes in his pocket for the keys. We wait impatiently as he fumbles around and finally unlocks the padlock.

  He opens the door and shines the beam of the flashlight all around the generator. He checks the gas level, the spark plugs, the batteries. “Can’t see anything wrong—” He opens a compartment and pulls out the control board. “Holden Caulfied. It’s fried.”

  “Fried? How could that happen?” I ask.

  “Only one way. EMP.”

  “A what?”

  “Electromagnetic Pulse. I always knew this could happen. We should have put the generator in a Faraday cage—”

  “What causes that?”

  “Solar storm or nuclear blast—it wipes out electronics. That means the whole city grid is probably down. Check your phone.”

  Grace pulls her phone from her pocket.

  “It works, but there’s no signal.”

  “The towers are down,” Ripley says. “This is it. We’re dead.”

  “Take it easy,” I say. “There might be another explanation. I’ll go check it out.”

  “I’ll come too,” Grace says.

  “There’s no need—”

  “We’re married, remember? Wherever you go, I go.”

  “Take the PsychoVan,” says Ripley. “It’s old enough that it should still work.”

  “You mean, the EMP affects cars too?” Grace asks.

  “Anything with unshielded electronics.”

  We go back to the Hobbit Hole. I take the flashlight and grab the van keys from the hook in the kitchen. I also pull some candles out of a drawer and bring them back to Ripley.

  “In case you don’t find your LEDs,” I say.

  “Thanks.”

  Grace and I go to the garage and start up the PsychoVan. The engine turns over. Grace exhales in relief.

  I pull out of the garage and drive slowly down the street. It’s deathly quiet. A few blocks later, we see a driver peering anxiously under the hood of a stalled car. He’s trying to make a call on a cell phone.

  “This is eerie,” Grace whispers.

  As we draw closer to downtown, we catch glimpses of more disabled cars. People roam the street and mill in clusters, shining the lights from their cell phones, obviously confused and frightened. Abandoned cars block our way to the main thoroughfare.

  A sudden loud thwump on the roof elicits a scream from Grace. The van is surrounded.

  “Hey, man, give me your cool ride,” a young man yells through the windshield.

  “Get away from my car.” I try to keep my voice steady.

  “I said give it up!” The man raises a baseball bat and aims for the windshield.

  I work the anger through my veins and throw the door open, slamming into him. He grunts and buckles and I grab the bat. Another one jumps me, but I throw him off, send him flying into two more of them. The others desert quickly, looking for easier prey. I toss the bat after them.

  “You okay?” Grace reaches through the window for my arm which glows brightly.

  “Yeah.”

  Demons are everywhere—big demons, bigger than I’ve ever seen. They are darker than the darkness, enveloping everything around us.

  I get back in the car but we can’t drive any further. Dead cars and debris block the road. No point anyway. I will my heart to slow, my breathing to even out.

  Grace speaks softly, her hand still on my arm. “Jared, we should go back and tell Ripley.”

  “Yeah.” I put the car in reverse.

  Then I hear my name.

  “Jared!”

  “What’s the matter?” Her grip on me strengthens.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Jared!”

  “I don’t hear anything. Jared, let’s go back. Now!”

  I get out of the car and start walking.

  47: Bad Dreams

  Grace

  “Jared!”

  I yell at him to stop but it’s like he doesn’t hear me—like he’s in a trance. I jump out of the van, follow him, and grab his arm.

  “Jared! What’s the matter?”

  He doesn’t answer but continues purposefully up Delaware toward Niagara Square. I run to keep up with him, begging him to tell me what’s going on.

  At the square, mayhem rules, with people running and screaming as if they’ve seen ghosts—or demons. Cars are not only dead, they’re flipped over and some are on fire. The trees lining the square are all broken, some pulled out by their roots. It looks like a war zone.

  Suddenly, Jared stops walking and stares. His eyes pulse and his body lights up, but I can’t see what he’s seeing. He seems to be listening intently.

  Then I hear it too.

  “Son of Azazel!”

  Azazel? Was Azazel here? Has the Abyss opened? A thousand horrible thoughts run through my mind all at once.

  A crash precedes more screams. I gasp as the huge marble obelisk that stands in the center of the square smashes to the ground. In its place on the stone slab stands a huge figure—half man and half reptile—with a white face and electric blue eyes that glow in the dark night. Its whole body glows, even brighter than Jared’s. The creature spreads its long arms to display a fan of snake-like tentacles and sharp talons.

  It has to be some kind of demon. A demon I can see.

  This is a dream. That’s what I tell myself. Dreams often do this. They start out reasonably and then descend into total chaos. I try desperately to wake myself, to force my consciousness through the layers of sleep, one after the other. No matter what I do, I can’t get all the way to the surface.

  Jared shouts. “Rael!”

  Rael. The Nephilim who had captured him in the ice cave.

  This is the worst dream ever.

  The creature turns to Jared. “Son of Azazel!” The voice is whispery and deafenin
g at the same time, weirdly distorted as if it’s been run through an Autotune gone haywire. “I have searched for you in many places.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Come with me and I will show you.”

  “No!” I grab Jared and turn him to face me. “Look at me, Jared. Look at me! You are not going with him.”

  His eyes glow white, strangely vacant. “I have to.”

  “Why?”

  “I just do.”

  “Then I’m coming too.”

  “No.”

  “You promised me.”

  He sighs. “I’m sorry.”

  Jared pushes me away and walks toward the giant.

  “No!” I try to pull him back. He shrugs me off, but I won’t be stopped. At the stone slab, the giant wraps one of its long tentacles around him. I grab the thick appendage, feebly attempting to pull it off him. I’m sobbing now. And then I am torn away, pulled out of Jared’s reach by a tremendous force. Another tentacle encircles me, so tight I am nearly suffocated. I scream, but I am drowned out by a chorus of screams all around me. Others watch in horror.

  Rael jumps. My stomach lurches into my throat as we launch into the air and slam into the side of a building. I’m sure we will be crushed or plummet to the ground, but Rael’s other tentacles cling to the surface like Spiderman. He climbs the building, using his many limbs as anchors until we reach the top.

  He hauls himself over the edge and flings us away from him. I careen forward and smack my head into something hard—a concrete block. Everything goes black.

  “Grace! Can you hear me?”

  Hazy shapes waver in the dark. Jared’s eyes glow bright.

  “Yeah.” I try to rise and pain shoots through my skull. “My head hurts.”

  “Who is this insect?” Rael looms over both of us. One of his tentacles snakes toward me and Jared slaps it away.

  “Don’t touch her,” he orders and the Nephilim withdraws.

  “She was not invited.”

  “I don’t go without her.”

  Rael moves away from us and crouches on his haunches, his serpentine tail coiling around him.

  Jared bends to examine my head. “No blood, but you hit pretty hard,” he says. “Just stay still.”

  I obey as every tiny movement causes a spear of pain to slice through my skull. Presently, I hear a rhythmic thumping and see the twinkling lights of a helicopter overhead.

  “How come that thing works?” I manage to say.

  Jared watches the chopper. “Either it came from outside the EMP’s range, or it’s been somehow shielded.” The wind kicks up and Jared hovers over me to protect me from the blast of air. The chopper lands on the roof like a giant locust. The Speer Enterprises logo flashes on its side.

  A man wearing a headset opens the door and beckons to us.

  “Get in!” Rael orders.

  I gasp in pain as Jared picks me up and carries me into the chopper, ducking to avoid the spinning rotors. He sets me gently on the seat and climbs in after me. The man with the headset shuts the door and clambers back into the pilot’s seat.

  No way will Rael fit inside the chopper. But as we lift off, he grabs hold of the landing skid. The whole craft wobbles and I’m sure we will crash. Somehow, the chopper continues to rise into the black sky with Rael dangling below.

  I lie with my head in Jared’s lap. He cradles me and strokes my forehead.

  Part of me still refuses to accept this as anything more than a bad dream. Soon, I will wake up and it will be morning, and everything will be all right.

  Or not.

  48: Courage

  Jared

  “Hang on, kids. We’ll be there in a jiff.”

  The pilot has a laconic, Texas accent. The chopper wobbles mercilessly with the weight of the Nephilim clinging to the skid. It flies low, barely clearing the tops of buildings. I glance out the window. The center of the city is one giant black hole but the outskirts are still lit. So it had been a limited strike, enough to get my attention.

  The pilot speaks over the radio. “Angel in the net,” he says.

  There’s a burst of static and another voice responds, “Fantastic! FatBoy is on standby.”

  “Got a Smurfette too.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Girlfriend, maybe.”

  There’s some garbled swearing.

  Grace opens her eyes. “Smurfette?”

  “It’s only a code name.”

  “Great. You get to be an angel and I get to be a blue-skinned cartoon.”

  I smile. “You’re way prettier.”

  She grips her head and presses her face into my stomach as the chopper dips and wavers. Grace hates flying, even in regular planes. This is far worse, but I can see she’s in too much pain to care.

  We land a half hour later at the Rochester airport where a cargo jet waits on the tarmac with a side door open. Rael has already jumped off. The pilot tells us to get into the plane. The Nephilim watches our every move—we won’t be able to make a break for it. Grace clutches my arm as she walks.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  “Dizzy. Nauseous. Like I’m going to die. Otherwise, awesome.”

  The interior of the plane is empty but for two rows of seats at the back. A pilot appears holding a bag of cheese puffs. He chews as he points to the back. “Sit down and buckle up.” He seems unsurprised when Rael climbs aboard. The Nephilim doesn’t try to sit. Instead, he crouches in the center area and wraps himself in his tentacles.

  Once we’re buckled in, the new pilot closes and locks the door and disappears into the cockpit. A moment later, the engine whines and revs up. Grace covers her ears and squeezes her eyes shut. I touch her leg. The plane shudders as it takes off, bobs around in the unsteady air, then finally levels out. Grace puts her hands down and closes her fingers over mine.

  “Why are we in this stupid cargo plane?” she whispers.

  “Because of him, probably.” I point to Rael.

  “Where are we going?”

  “My guess would be Switzerland.”

  “You are correct.” Rael speaks in Archean so Grace won’t understand.

  “So you work for Speer now?” I ask in English.

  He seems to bridle at the suggestion. “I made a bargain.”

  “What kind of bargain?”

  “He promised to let my people go free if I found you.”

  “And you believe he will keep his promise?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Soon, our fathers will be released. All humans will be at their mercy.”

  “God will not allow Speer or anyone to open the Abyss.” I’ve switched to Archean. I don’t want Grace to hear this part.

  “Is that so? Did God stop scientists from building nuclear weapons? Did He stop Adolf Hitler from killing six million people? Has He stopped governments from committing ethnic cleansing or condoning the murder of unborn humans? No, God has left the world to its own devices. And its own destruction.”

  “You’re wrong,” I say. “The world will end one day, but only when He decides to end it.”

  “And are you not the agent of that? You gave your own body for it. God has forsaken you. It is time you forsook Him as well.”

  “What are you talking about?” Grace asks.

  “Nothing. Just…nothing.”

  The flight takes six hours. Grace sleeps most of the time, which seems to be her only relief from the pain and the terror. I remember something about having to keep concussion victims awake. I watch her carefully and listen to her breathing and her heartbeat. It’s strong and regular. Sleep, I decide, is what she needs.

  Although I might never sleep again.

  A loud banging noise fills the cabin. Grace awakens with a yelp.

  “Landing gear,” I say.

  She blinks. “Oh.” Her fingers take a white-knuckled grasp on the arm rests. “I hate landings.”

  “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  “My head hurts. My body hurts. Everything
hurts.” I know she isn’t only talking about physical pain. “I’m giving this airline a bad review on TripAdvisor.”

  I smile.

  The plane lands hard and bounces twice before reversing the engines. Grace groans, holding her head as if she’s afraid it might explode.

  After an eternity of taxiing, the planes stops and the engine powers down. The pilot appears, without the cheese puffs this time. He opens the door and lowers the steps.

  The sun is out when we emerge, although the air is chilly. A snow-capped mountain range rises up along one side of us with a lake on the other.

  “Where are we?” Grace asks.

  “Geneva,” says the pilot. “Watch your step.”

  A car idles on the tarmac. Two men stand beside it, watching us from behind dark sunglasses. From the bulk of their coats, I know they’re armed. Beside the car is a large panel van. For Rael, probably.

  I help Grace down the stairs—she’s still unsteady. One of the men approaches and holds out two pieces of black fabric. “Put these on. Don’t take them off.”

  Blindfolds.

  I take them, then help Grace into the car. The doors slam behind us. The two men take the front seats. I tie one of the blindfolds around Grace’s head and she winces. After I do mine, I take her hand. She grips my fingers hard. The car starts moving although I never hear the engine start. Electric.

  “It will only be a short ride,” the driver says. “Mr. Speer is waiting.”

  Part Six

  Drones

  49: Algorithm

  Angel

  One day before Grace and Jared land in Geneva, a large crowd gathers in the courtyard of the CERN campus. They sit in stands erected for the occasion—the celebration of the re-opening of the new and improved Large Hadron Collider. All the members of the Interlaken Group are present, as well as heads of state of forty countries, including the President of the United States. The Governor of California, Harry Ravel is also present, his expectant wife Shannon at his side. Rows of white-coated scientists surround the dignitaries, all waiting in eager anticipation for the ceremony to begin.

  It is strange that Darwin Speer himself is absent.

  Piped-in orchestral music thunders from a hundred speakers. They surround a gigantic screen that has been erected behind a statue of the multi-limbed god, Shiva. An image of the god is superimposed over the façade of the newest detector known as APOLLYON, a massive magnetic coil that shines bright orange so it resembles Shiva’s circle of fire.