by Joe Ducie
Even by my standards, the damage caused by Oblivion’s presence had been severe, organs had ruptured, but the healing was spooky fast. I thought again on Emily’s mantle, and wondered just what that made me now. Human, knight, or something… else. Such thoughts strayed into dangerous territory, better left for future reminiscence.
By the third day, I was sitting up in bed and feeding myself. By the fifth day, I was itching to get out of the hospital and was moved from isolation to intensive care—all my blood tests had come back negative for Ebola or anything worse. The sweat-bleeding had been the doctors’ major cause for concern, but I was clean. And a mystery to them. I caught the curious, assessing glances from the younger doctors, those eager to prove themselves, and I caught the way the older doctors, those that had seen everything a hundred times over, didn’t look at me. I scared them, because the world didn’t make sense.
If one of them had asked, I would have told them the truth—a case of possession by a being from the dawn of moment, a cruel Elder God, but in my weakened state I may not have won a fight against the restraints and the psychiatric assessment. Better to keep the truth between me and Annie.
Speaking of, she didn’t leave me side. Even when I insisted, reminding her of her job as a detective and her fiancé. Out of the hazmat suit, however, I noticed she was no longer wearing an engagement ring.
That was curious, and I regretted thinking it so, seeing an opportunity, when she must have been hurting as much, if not more, than I had in my time. She saw me staring at the pale band of skin and her eyes invited a challenge, a question.
Being a wise king—well, usurped and dethroned now—I wisely kept my mouth shut.
On the seventh day, I’d had enough and unplugged myself from all the machines. Annie urged me to stay, but in the end helped me up and I walked from that hospital under my own strength, feeling a little worse for the wear but, after all said and done, basically back to my old self.
The game was on—I had needed the week in hospital, but it put me a week behind my enemies. The Everlasting would not have been idle. I had to rally my allies, begin my assault. No more waiting around for whatever scheme of theirs I got caught up in next. It was time to take the fight to them.
But first I needed some things from the ruin of my bookshop.
*~*~*~*
Annie dropped me off at Riverwood Plaza and I gave her a long hug before promising to see her in a few hours. She was going to hand in her badge—though not her gun—and join me, my friend and ally, on the quest to come. To Desire’s Eternity and whatever lay beyond. She was all in, no more sitting on the fence.
I loved her for that.
Limping across Riverwood Plaza, I sighed to see the old façade of my bookshop in burnt and charcoal ruin. Oblivion’s fire had ravaged the store, burnt up a library of books under my protection.
I slipped under the caution tape surrounding the entrance and stood for a long moment in the sun, staring into the burnt mess of shelves and stacks of books that had towered so high toward the chandelier-lit ceiling. What I wanted would still be in there, still be whole, but it would take some getting. The towers of books still stood, in a way, though fused into burnt and melted lumps, creating ugly stalagmites.
A shadow fell over me, briefly blocked the sun, and I turned to beheld a familiar face. I was instantly on my guard, but I felt as if this man wanted me dead—I would simply be dead.
Quirinus, Father of the Everlasting, held a hand to the ruin of my bookshop and squinted. In a moment, a small sliver of time, the space between heartbeats, my bookshop was renewed. Restored. As if it had never been destroyed.
Down to the finest detail.
He grinned at me.
The flaked etching and weathered sills on the windows, the dead plants in the planter boxes, and the library of books within, hovering and tilting in stacks held up only by hope and prayer and string.
Glimpsed through the window, ever the old stains of wine and whisky on the dusty floorboards had been restored.
“A boon,” he said and took a sip of coffee from one of the carts across the plaza. Had he been waiting for me? Watching? He scratched at the rough stubble coating his cheeks. “For your good work.”
“Why aren’t you scattering my essence across the starways?” I asked. “After everything, after…” I shook my head. “The insults, the death of your children, the destruction of your fucking citadel! I did all that.”
Quirinus raised an eyebrow and smirked. “It’s almost as if you want me to destroy you.”
I bit off a retort and, after a moment, considered his words. A confused frown creased my brow.
“Something to see a psychiatrist about, I’d say.” Quirinus shrugged. “Though I’m no expert on the minds of humanity, I’d say you have a pattern of self-destructive behaviour, Hale. Sacrificing your health and happiness, seeking out danger and trouble every other week…” He sighed and shook his head.
Tal and Annie had told me much the same, more than once. Annie had even offered her police psychiatrist not too long ago. I had laughed it away.
“I’m not going to stop,” I said. “I could lie to you right now, tell you I’m done, but I don’t doubt you’d see through it. The Everlasting are a blight on the face of the Story Thread. I will stand against them—always.”
Quirinus nodded. He scanned the titles of the books in the old bins out the front of my shop. Books I gave away, really, marked for fifty cents here, a dollar there. He found a dog-eared copy of Slaughterhouse Five and held it up. “Do you mind?”
I waved at the book. “Seventy-five cents,” I said. “Price right there on the cover. And it’s yours. Though I don’t buy the bargain bin books back, so you’re stuck with it.”
Quirinus chuckled and held out his hand. A shiny Australian dollar coin, kangaroos on the tail, Queen Elizabeth on the heads, appeared on his palm. “You may keep the change.”
He flicked through the book and then placed it quite carefully in the inner pocket of his jacket, almost over his heart.
“When we met in the citadel,” he said. “Do you remember?”
I nodded.
“You were arrogant, argumentative, unpleasant—and scared, so very scared.”
“I’m still scared.”
He nodded. “Good, that’s good. If you’re not afraid, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
I was lost now, that much was certain. I glanced across the plaza, into the sun and the fountain. A nice day, in this little lost corner of Western Australia. “Quirinus,” I said, “The Wielder of the Spear. That’s what you called yourself.”
He nodded again, an easy grin.
“You never had a spear,” I muttered.
“Keep going, you’re nearly there.”
I looked down and clenched my fists. The scars and nicks stretched white over my skin. “Oh no, no, no, no… I refuse that.”
“And yet, here we are. You are my Spear, Declan Hale. You, my power and will set to human form.”
“Bullshit.”
He chuckled, his patience seemingly infinite. “How else would you have survived so much, for so long? Against my children? You were born as a weapon in my hand.”
I said nothing for a long moment, considering his words, honestly playing them through my mind.
“How else could you father a child with one of my daughters?” he whispered, as if those words were the greatest secret in the whole wide universe.
To me, and perhaps others, they were.
I stepped forward and, my heart making more sense than my mind, closed my hand around Quirinus’ throat.
When my mind caught up to what I was doing, trying to squeeze the air from his throat, I released him—it was like releasing a shaft of pure steel—and stepped back. “I… sorry.”
“You are mortal,” he said. “In everything, you are mortal. I am not your father, nor is Saturnia your mother, but a drop of my essence, my divinity, guided your birth. You are the Spear, Declan Hale
. You are… Everlasting.”
“Oh, fuck off,” I said and waved him away, pushing open the door to my shop to the familiar old bell chime. “Shop’s closed.”
The End of Book Five
Declan Hale will return in:
VEILED SCAR
The Reminiscent Exile #6
Coming January, 2018
Follow me on the social pipes, join the mailing list, for updates on the Reminiscent Exile and all my other work:
Facebook
Twitter
Joe’s Blog
Joe’s Mailing List and Newsletter