Underworld Earth

by Nicholas Gagnier

  My mouth always did get me in trouble.

  “It’s okay. Not like it was last week.”

  “Hey,” I reply, only wanting to cheer him up, “it could always be worse, you know.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. You could be some cheating deadbeat, which is what you would have become if you’d gone to work for Kirk Downpatrick. We might not be rich, but we’re not fucking scumbags, right?”

  Some part of what I’m saying reassures my husband, and he kisses me with a smile.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you more,” I reply. “Now, go make your wife some money.”

  Leaving a final peck on the cheek, Derek disappears upstairs. My phone buzzes on the kitchen island; I enter the unlock code, navigating to messages.

  Happy Mother’s Day, asshole.

  Stephanie.

  I type a paragraph and send it off. A second later, the phone buzzes in my hand.

  She has maybe 48 hours.

  48 hours? I write back, I thought she was stable.

  Something delays my sister’s response. She always does this. Offers dramatic news with no explanation, inducing anxiety for days on my part.

  Just as I am about to roll my eyes, placing the phone back on the counter, it buzzes again.

  Liver’s failing. Nothing they can do. Are you ever going to show up, or should I say goodbye on your behalf?

  The question stops me. Not the snark; Stephanie and I have traded barbs all our lives. While she has bottomless high ground, and the confidence needed to eviscerate me, all I have are questions.

  Do I legitimately want to see my mother again? The woman is my anathema.

  Is Laura going to be there?

  I wonder if she does the same to my siblings. Laura is an even bigger target of my baby sister’s ire, but the delivery is more civil. Awaiting Steph’s response, I know the answer will drip with sarcasm and spite, all neatly tied off with a bow.

  WTF do you think?

  My older brothers won’t go near that mess, and neither will Laura. Stephanie only texts me because nobody else will respond. I’m doubtful she even messages the others anymore.

  Fine.

  In one word, our entire relationship can be summed up. My tepid agreement to fly to Spokane is out of guilt rather than concern, and the reply I receive a moment later is just as cold.

  Can you get yourself here from the airport?

  She can’t even bother to pick me up from the fucking terminal. I am done with this conversation and tell her not to worry. I’ll walk the twenty-seven miles to Haven.

  Fuck her.

  I’ll do my duty for a woman who never did hers as a mother—of all days, on the one they should be celebrated. As soon as Derek returns from New York, I’ll have to leave.

  For once, we took control of our lives, escaping our childhood hometown. Now, I must return to it. The only silver lining of putting my mother in the ground will be the increased likelihood of never returning there, or anywhere in the great American northwest.

  The idea of leaving the ones I love for those who never knew how to properly reciprocate such emotions sends fucking shudders through my entire being.

  If I don’t go, nobody else will.

  I can’t live with that on my conscience.

  Family is a bleak affair.

  Harper

  I am the unhinged.

  Nobody sees me crawl up the Hudson River’s muddy shores. Having drifted to its bottom before I tired of not drowning, land’s textures are a welcome change from the sunken cab, the water my legs lethargically fought up to the surface, and the cool air persisting after making landfall. Damp hair collects over sagging shoulders, pulling my body along a beach’s gentle slope from the water. I am no longer fully human and thus, don’t require oxygen. I appear as I did in life, to those who can see me, but my muscles don’t ache after swimming so far, and I don’t gasp for air after slowly ascending from the riverbed.

  The locket is returned to its mundane silver cast, indicating it does not wish its host to be observed fumbling up New Jersey’s side of the river. Once, when my flesh was warm and my ability to hide from the world depended on rooms and walls and books, I would have certainly shivered at cool air dancing on drenched clothes, grunted at rocks scraping my bare elbows.

  What I wouldn’t give to fear something again—to be at the mercy of human limitation.

  People of distinct shapes, sizes and levels of empathy, varying in degrees of righteous and self-centeredness might come to the woman’s rescue, but I have chosen to hide from my human peers, something the star-shaped trinket is more than happy to oblige. Its weight is heavy at my throat, contrasting the illusion of thin clasps running below my hairline. A lone fist wraps around its star centerpiece, raising the cursed object inside my palm. Unlike the rest of my body, it is not wet.

  I should never have reawakened after death. Once I knew what lay beyond the end of every life, then partook in building a new gateway to its realms, I had seen enough. The old site was destroyed from our confrontation with the last Death, and the man who replaced him was unhappy simply dumping souls into the purgatorial realm under his purview—as had always been the case.

  He was so proud of the damn thing. Stepping back from the three years it took to construct the Arcway, it looked like every other portal I’ve ever seen: dark, mysterious, foreboding, and leading to nothing but more pain.

  We did it, Harper, he once said.

  Did what, exactly? We have done nothing. Looking upon this completed gateway for the first time, where he would personally meet his charges as they died, their souls transitioning to the Shroud; all we had done was taken death and given it fancy window dressing.

  Thank you.

  At the base of my skull, the locket’s eternal sense of duty grows heavier. It pulls my head to the Earth’s grains. Hair restricts vision, spilling over anything still worth watching on this wretched planet.

  I could not have done this without you, Harper.

  I just want to fade away, like the woman who bestowed this curse on me; give it to someone else who has actual purpose in living out the twisted vision Tim brought upon us.

  I am the unhinged.

  “Harper?”

  At my lowest point, laid out between layers of wet rock and disparate patches of sand, an unexpected presence startles me. Whisked back to reality by the familiarity of a voice which does not belong here, the woman standing over me has not changed in all the years we’ve known each other. More than three decades after meeting her as a prisoner in my childhood neighbor’s cellar, she doesn’t look a day over nineteen. Considering my own suspended aging process at thirty-five, she could easily be my teenage love child.

  “Grace,” I manage. “What are you doing here?”

  The white gown covering her feet draws sharp contrasts to black hair and brown eyes. Her expression is not the blank look of shock I have long known, summarizing trauma, but a slight smile concealing deeper emotions.

  “You are needed at the Arcway, Harper.”

  I sigh, head sinking back to the ground. Of all places in the universe I never want to revisit, Tim’s creation is at the top of the list.

  “Why?” I ask. “Not like he’s there anymore.”

  Grace grimaces but does not react otherwise.

  “The Atlas has seen to it, since my brother disappeared, that the gateway is maintained. Its interim caretaker would have a word with you.”

  Great. Just what I needed.

  “Yeah?”

  Grace kneels, joining me on my plane of self-pity and misery.

  “If it helps, I didn’t adjust well, either. But I know you, Harper. And right now, we’re in the fight of our lives.”

  Sounds like an Atlas problem. I have never been fond of the supreme realm. Their interference during the Arcway’s construction taught me all I will ever need to know about their kind.

  “I know,” she continues, “you would not want to let all thes
e people suffer if you could stop it.”

  I am the unhinged, and there is no room in my emotional state to play any part in saving the world. I can’t even save myself from crippling eternity. Concerning a city that I’m invisible to, plenty would walk on by, but many others would probably come to the aid of the woman crawling up the Hudson’s shores if I gave them the chance.

  Am I still able to do the same for them?

  They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, but I have never felt more alive than during every futile attempt to kill myself.

  In turn, I have never been so disappointed to survive until now.

  ***

  Once I agree to accompany Grace, travel to the Arcway is a short jaunt through the portal she summons. Detailing such a process would bore its observer; all I will say are shadow wisps in the shape of spider legs swallow us whole. The New York City skyline vanishes inside the illusion, and before long, there are no mothers here, pulling their misbehaving children behind them; no seniors playing chess in parks, or suited men on cell phones, sipping Starbucks in lunchtime negotiations.

  The afterlife’s visitor center that replaces the canopy of skyscrapers and world-renowned landmarks is little more than a dark room with fancy light effects in the overhead ceiling, mimicking stars. The floor is a slick black surface; upon inspection, one might imagine their feet falling right through its dense darkness.

  I have not been here in years. I cringe at its claustrophobic, contradictorily open space. Then, a lifelike replica of Tim pops up, standing in the room’s center. It is not really the man who became Death. I watched him record and perfect this message, designed to personally greet everyone in his absence.

  Unless you watched him create the illusion, you’d be none the wiser.

  “Hello, Harper,” the suited hologram smiles. “Welcome to the Arcway. My name is Tim.”

  Brushing drying hair behind my ear, I feign a stare of interest.

  “Am I dead?” I already know what it will say. I watched him tinker with the responses so long that after all these years, I can still predict them.

  “Unfortunately, you passed away in your sleep, and did not survive your illness.”

  Despite chuckling at ancient history, my heart hurts at the implications.

  “Still impressive, isn’t it?”

  I don’t turn to face the voice behind me. Its deep reverberations are like nails down a chalkboard and belong to a presence I have been fortunate to avoid this long.

  “I was expecting Gabriel.”

  A second voice intervenes beside the first.

  “I’m here too, Harper.”

  The trio of celestial beings who try to hold me accountable in Tim’s wake stand in a line as I finally face them. Each is distinctive, from Grace’s humanity to the more complex motivations of her two associates. My eyes fall on Death’s predecessor and like Tim, Reaper has not changed. After thousands of years, it is not a far-fetched assumption that one’s physical body would stop evolving. Holding a heavy scythe composed of wood and iron that drags on the ground behind him, the cloaked being has no face: only a blue hood surrounding the black visage.

  A man in stunning red robes stands at ease to Reaper’s left. With cropped golden hair, his face is clean shaven. There are no wings or halo, as common perception of angels would dictate.

  “Obviously, the Council is in panic,” I state, “Why else would the most infamous Nephalim show his face in this lowly realm?”

  Gabriel smiles. He has never liked me, proving to be stuck-up over modern humans becoming immortals, much like the rest of his ilk.

  I would take it back, if that makes him feel better.

  Reaper speaks on the Nephalim’s behalf. His hands have no flesh on their knuckles, and the bones have been scrubbed clean since long before we first met.

  “Gabriel has brought us an opportunity, young human.”

  I hold up my palm to him. Grace hangs her head, oblivious to these proceedings.

  “I’ll let the Nephalim tell me, thanks.”

  “The Breach is a serious occurrence, Harper,” the angel says, unmoved by my attitude. “It is expressly forbidden for Death to interfere in such a way that he did.”

  “Worse than what he did?” I ask, pointing to Reaper. “Or Hale?”

  “I will not argue with you, Phoenix,” the Nephalim replies, “and while I won’t sit here and defend what either have done, it does not change the facts in front of us. Your friend has greatly erred, and the Atlas would see him held accountable for this action. But seeing as we cannot find him, and enough time has passed since we had any expectation of accomplishing such, something else must be done.”

  “And you just expect me to fix Tim’s mess?”

  “Not in that light. But by having that locket around your neck, you are a soldier of the Atlas, and I am moving to conscript you into my service.”

  “What?”

  Gabriel does not flinch.

  “There is a reason it does not abandon you, Phoenix. It chose you, same as it chose Olivia. The locket is more powerful than you can ever imagine.”

  Furling my lip, I want to beg him to take it. Return it to the Atlas, let me fade away; same as my mother did after Hale’s defeat. The woman I lost at thirteen, who I knew as Nancy Whitaker, turned out to be a celestial presence at Reaper’s mercy.

  “I am no soldier,” I reply, “and I don’t belong to anyone.”

  The star bounces against the neckline it calls home as I turn to leave. There are a million reasons to return to my darkness, and not one is to atone for Tim’s.

  “The world hangs by a thread, Harper,” Gabriel calls. “Whether you choose to help or not, it will be you who has to look upon it for the rest of your time. I would think twice about what kind of scenery you want to live in.”

  I have little respect for the agent of Atlas, but there is no disregarding his warning. He knows I have tried to get rid of the locket and wasn’t able to.

  The angel is stone-faced as I turn to face him—a brick wall to my guided missiles of emotion.

  “What would I have to do?”

  Gabriel takes no pride at the concession. He paces away from Reaper and Grace, and says he wishes to converse in private.

  “Fine,” I tell him. Within seconds, the Arcway is gone, along with our present company. In their place, a familiar urban sprawl extends beyond unmistakable landmarks, lording over the Seine River.

  “Really?” I ask. From atop the Arc de Triomphe, seeing the city I spent the last seven years hiding in feels like coming home. “You brought me here?”

  Gabriel chuckles.

  “It is where you find something akin to peace, is it not? For years, you both eluded us. I don’t know how you did it, Phoenix, but very few are able to escape the Atlas’s watchful eye.”

  “You sound impressed.”

  Gabriel says nothing, looking over the Place de Gaulle; several lanes of cars maneuver the enormous roundabout below. Meanwhile, I can only mourn this place, where I came with nowhere to belong—where he eventually found me, imploring I return home to the Shroud. But I had unfinished business; knowing I would never be free of the Atlas’s leash, I set about trying to kill myself with no success.

  “Seven individuals,” he says.

  “What was that?”

  “Seven individuals are all that stand between us and closing the Breach. Something that should have never occurred to begin with, but here we are.”

  “Who are these people?”

  Gabriel grimaces. If those below could see the duo of celestial beings perched on their monument, peering over them from its peak, it would unnerve just about anyone. But I am the unhinged, invisible to all, making no attempt to lean back from the edge.

  One fall is all it would take, a meek voice in my head reminds me, before another overpowers it.

  You know it would fail.

  “Some of them,” he replies, “you know. Some a
ccompanied you on the journey to stop Hale. All of them, however, must be eliminated.”

  “Why?”

  “The Breach changed many things. Death reversing a person’s demise, regardless of who it was, altered variables on which progress is charted. This disruption branched into billions of indiscernible directions and exponential consequences. It led to outcomes we never considered. But the time has come for more drastic measures, Phoenix.”

  I say nothing, allowing Gabriel to continue.

  “These individuals already saw the ending to their story. Their continued existence is an affront to the Atlas’s wishes.”

  “And you would have me kill them?”

  “No,” the angel says. “Simply, guide them to their required end.”

  Gabriel glances toward the Seine. I have never known him to be the most empathetic celestial being, but he is not wholly without compassion.

  “For the sake of simplicity, I will give you the first two names. Just because they are the initial targets does not mean either death will come without its challenges.

  “The first is a man named Campbell Madison.” The name rings a bell, but I don’t immediately place it. “Madison moves between his home in New Orleans and Virginia. He’s a former U.S. Special Forces soldier. He will be armed, most likely surrounded by allies. You will have your work cut out, Phoenix.”

  “And the second?” I ask.

  Gabriel sighs, still fixated on the river running through the heart of Paris. The Eiffel Tower dominates its horizon, naturally drawing my admiration to the triangular landmark.

  “Ramona Knox.”

  I should have expected as much.

  “Come,” the Nephalim says, “We should return to the Arcway. There is little time to waste.”

  He glosses over the second name, trying to move past his discomfort with it.

  “Gabriel,” I say, calling him back across the Arc’s rooftop. This time, it is my eyes drifting to the river, as if the universe’s answers are scribbled into its lazy currents. “Ramona Knox is in a vegetative state in the Capitol.”