by Thomas Green
Katherine blushed slightly, and whispered, “Sure.”
“I’ll go with her,” Amaranta added.
“And I will go sigh-seeing,” Zhang said. “It’s been years since I’ve last visited the Big Apple.”
Good. I wondered how long they would keep obeying my commands. I headed to the exit, and they followed.
We left the airport, I took a cab, and grabbed my phone. I wrote a message to Vivian, saying: ‘I need to dreamwalk tonight. Watch my body at the Abbey before I wake up. L’ And then I told the driver the abbey’s address.
He started driving, understanding I wasn’t going to chit-chat. My phone buzzed. Vivian was already awake. ‘Say please.’
‘If I die tonight, you get nothing,’ I sent as the reply and pocketed my phone. This wasn’t up for bargaining.
Due to the traffic, the trip took almost an hour, so the sun was starting to set when the car stopped in front of the destroyed abbey.
I paid the driver and walked toward the half-ruin. Once, during my first ever mission for Lucielle, Vivian destroyed this abbey. She got tasked with reconstructing it and I helped her. We never managed to finish the job.
The walls were all in place, as was the roof, but we never got to putting in new windows. I entered the main church; empty save for the burnt altar. I closed the door behind myself and headed straight there.
Clicking of heels echoed through the air and Vivian walked from behind the altar. “Rather rude, haven’t you become?” She stood positioned just so sunlight wouldn’t touch her milky skin, sapphire eyes shining in the dark.
“I need to handle something and I can’t do that from work.” I walked straight to the altar and sagged down with my back against the stone. “And it’ll take a few hours.”
She peered down at me. “I am almost curious what this is about.”
Like I would tell her. I leaned against the altar, closed my eyes, and ejected my spirit from my body. To dreamwalk, I needed to be at a place of power, but also somewhere without a score of anti-everything magical defenses like at the Wall St. headquarters.
I flew up through the sky and changed the spiritual frequency to enter the Void. In essence, the Void was an endless space encompassing our reality. This was from where aether came, and also where souls went after death. Most of those perished, but those which survived did so by taking on a twisted shape, commonly called a demon.
The only souls spared of this fate were those taken for refuge in special sectors of the Void, like when angels brought the souls of the faithful to Heaven.
I breathed in the surrounding power. I was once cast out of heaven and barred from using my divine blessing. But I was still an angel at the core, and with the combination of my ability to absorb external aether and not having the petty limitations of a human body, here in the Void, I was second only to God.
Around me, millions of bubbles filled the endless emptiness. Soul chambers of the people living in New York, each connected to the respective body with a string-shaped soul anchor.
With a thought, I bent the endless power around me, making the energy move me around. A second later, I floated among the souls of people sleeping in Arkansas. Time to see my daughter.
This was far from the first time I have used this path to see Lillith. Though I never quite told her I could do this. As every night, she slept at the dormitories of the Heaven’s Mercy High School in Alabama.
In sharp contrast to the bubbles of light, her soul chamber looked like a tiny sun surrounded with a yarn of chains made of pure darkness. I created those chains, defenses of her soul chamber that I made just in case.
The defenses ignored me as they should, and I floated to the tiny sun, and entered.
Her soul chamber looked like the insides of a near-barren nuclear vault. That made my heart drop. The soul chamber was the reflection of one’s soul, often taking the shape of the place where the person wanted to be the most. This vault was the replica of the hideout where we stayed after we first met. This was where I raised her, the only place where we were only the two of us.
She slept peacefully in a large bed, tiny among thick duvets. Even for an eleven-year-old, she was small. And I missed her more than anything. I stepped to the bed, wondering what to do.
What would I tell her if I woke her up? I didn’t know. Saying I was doing something so dangerous that I wanted to see her one more time would be the worst thing I could do. That would only make her worry.
But I didn’t want to lie to her, waking her up only to make some bullshit story of being a figment of her imagination. She deserved better than that. Well, in the first place, she deserved a better father.
Yet there wasn’t anything I could do about that. And I was working on part of it, at the very least.
With a heavy heart, I watched her sleep.
I had to give her something. But I couldn’t create anything here she could take into reality. I focused my thoughts and bent the Void energies surrounding me. A book appeared, filled with blank pages.
There was something I could give her. Upon my focused thought, words and pictures started appearing on the pages. I started with the basics – footwork, breathing, sleeping. Since I never was a good teacher, I put just put in the full version of how I learned the techniques I used, how I practiced, and how I used them. To make learning easier, I added illustrative pictures and sketches, and also named the techniques to be easier to remember.
The pages filled at a blazing speed. Next, I made the hand to hand combat, the weird mixtures of the martial arts I was using. Though calling it an art would be a stretch since it was really whatever had proven to work over the years I’ve spent fighting with aether.
If I were to teach her these techniques myself, I would most likely chicken out half-way. Hell, one just doesn’t teach his daughter a super-fast jab designed to shatter the opponent’s eye socket, accompanied with the story of how I spent a year perfecting the move to be the fastest it can be.
But I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if all I left her was a skimmed-down version.
I also added a weapons section, focused on swords, daggers, and spears. Next, I went to magic, I put there everything I knew about aether manipulation, and all my techniques. The pages suddenly ran out so I had to make the book a lot thicker.
I started with the less visible stuff, like the three-layer multi-octagonal strengthening pattern I was using now, continued through magical sight, and got all the way to my apocalypse-tier spells.
A few hours later, I was nearly finished, and stopped at the last three techniques I knew. These, I developed myself, and had never told or shown anyone. They were last-resort spells I saved for extreme circumstances. The first was an aether-injection technique, that caused damage straight to the target’s spiritual core and to the soul, so that it was impossible to heal by any means.
The second one was a blueprint-style spell, through which the user could recreate his body from pure aether, and the third one was a wipe-a-continent scale spell, the only spell in the book that would have an actual incantation.
When I invented these, I hoped I would never use them, much less teach them to someone. But one day, Lillith may need these.
I named the spells and put them onto the last three pages of the book, into a chapter I named ‘Forbidden techniques.’
Okay, I had to name the book. After a bit of thought, I focused and ‘Art of the Fallen One’, appeared in pure darkness on the leather cover. On the zero page, I needed to put something personal, something by which she would unmistakably recognize it as from me. I had an endless number of things to tell her in case I didn’t come back.
But that felt pointless. So, I put there ‘Angels are strong.’ Lillith knew what that meant. Gently, I placed the book on the bed next to her.
She wouldn’t find it if everything went well. But if something happened to me, she would eventually come to seek me in the Void, and she would find the book.
Not much, but it was the most I
could leave her.
I wiped the tears from my eyes with the back of my arm, kissed her on the forehead, and flew out of her soul chamber.
I returned to my body half an hour before dawn. Vivian sat on the altar above me, playing games on her phone.
Dust filled the temple’s corners, remainders of the vampires who came to kill me at night. In spite of all the drama, Vivian was reliable.
I rose and she put down the phone.
“Well, well, well, someone has finally gotten up,” she said venomously.
“Took longer than expected.” I stretched to fill my muscles with blood. “Is there any trouble lurking around?”
“No, and if you were planning to go to the office, don’t.” She pointed at a large, wooden casket to the side. “I packed up for you.”
Interested, I walked to the casket, and removed the lid. Inside lay fresh clothes and my main weapons. Good. I undressed to change, putting on a fresh suit and shirt, new tie and shoes. I placed my sword’s sheath across my back, my knife behind my belt, and stared at the last items in the box, a pair of Colt Anaconda’s in holsters.
Those were my first weapon, left to me by my father when he abandoned us when I was eight. They served me for years. But now, there was nothing the colts could do that my magic couldn’t.
I closed the casket, leaving them inside. I buttoned up my suit, threw the leather coat over my shoulders, arranging it so the sword’s hilt peaked out through the collar behind my neck, and donned my hat.
Once finished, Vivian gave me an appraising stare. “Come here.”
With a shrug, I walked to the altar.
She slid down and straightened my tie. She caught my nape, pulled herself up, and kissed me. “Good luck,” she whispered after her blazing lips detached from mine.
Wordless, I turned, and headed into the dawn.
I was the first to arrive to St. John’s Cathedral. Since it wasn’t even six in the morning, the city around me lay asleep. I sat on the stairs leading to the entry door, pulled out an ancient pack of cigarettes from my pocket, and lit up a smoke. Terrible habit.
The others arrived soon, Zhang being the first, brought in by a limousine. Before he managed to come greet me, Katherine’s green Mazda pulled around the corner. She stopped in the parking lot reserved for priests and got out with Amaranta and Joseph.
Under a long coat, Katherine wore full plate armor, winged helmet attached to her belt next to half a dozen of bags, longsword on the back, over which she had a massive, empty backpack. Amaranta wore plain nun robes, which could hide anything.
In comparison, Joseph Solomon, the cipher mage, looked almost normal, having jeans, jacket, a badly-hidden chainmail vest on his chest, and a backpack.
Zhang, wearing a black suit, stopped by the stair’s bottom, glancing at them, and at me. “I seem to have under-dressed for the occasion.”
I smiled sourly, not feeling like talking.
When the three led by Katherine got close, I flicked away the cigarette’s butt, rose, and stepped to the door.
“Moment,” Katherine shouted and ran up the stairs, her armor surprisingly silent as she moved. “If we are using a Church portal, aren’t we supposed to be sneaking in or something?”
I shook my head. “I have arranged this with Azrael.”
She and Amaranta froze and I opened the door to the cathedral. “And when exactly were you planning to tell us?” Amaranta asked.
Never, because I wanted them to come of their own will. Sure, things would have been easier if I started with the Azrael deal, but then it would be an official Church operation for them, allowing them both to wash their conscience clean.
I entered the Church, heading sideways to reach the stairs to the lower levels.
Katherine caught up to my side. “Why do you have to be such a manipulative bastard?”
“Isn’t that how I’m supposed to be?” Checking the others were following, I followed the path of slightly opened doors that Azrael had clearly swept up for me.
Encountering no one, we descended another level, and after two sets of gates, we entered a wide chamber. On the wall at the far end was a painting of an oval-shaped gate. The painting displayed the gate’s frame as made of wings, its wings made of light, and the surrounding area a wasteland covered with statues of men in armor.
I didn’t slow down, walking to the gate. When Joseph, the last of the group, entered the hallway, he shouted after me. “Wait, they said you would walk me through the details.”
Really? I didn’t stop walking, stretching out my magic to the painting. As expected, the inscriptions making the gate were carved into the wall beneath the painting. I filled them with aether, feeling an immediate response. I pushed in more and saw the oval-shaped Latin inscription shining from beneath the painting, matching the gate’s frame.
Joseph ran to me, shouting, “Wait.”
“I also have a few questions,” Zhang said, catching up.
Not in the mood. With a focused thought, I activated the portal. Violet energy burst out, consuming the painting, forming a black-violet shining disc in the wall. Instantly, I pushed in more of my power, and made the gate reach out for us.
The black and violet light spewed out, filled the room, and then retracted, sucking us into the gate. For a split second, I saw nothing, and then the gate spit us out into the Void.
Lucas 11
TO OUR EYES, the Void was an endless expanse of blackness filled with all-shades-of-purple lights. Like space, but a lot more colorful and alive since both the darkness and the lights moved in currents or whirled, randomly appearing and disappearing.
Since I didn’t set any coordinates into the portal, it threw us somewhere between Earth and Moon, seeing Earth as a globe beneath us covered in bubbles of light—human soul chambers—and the moon a smaller, silvery orb above us.
As we stared at the beauty, the three-second protection from the gate ran out, and cold wrapped us. I released a heat wave from myself and stabilized a protective bubble around us. I bent the all-encompassing aether to fill the bubble with air.
I gazed over the others, who were still staring at the Void. Aside from Zhang, who was poking with his magic at the area around us, attempting to locate and open the gate we just used to enter.
I floated to him. “Don’t bother. No one without a divine soul can open that.”
He glowered at me. “Which is a detail you seem to have omitted.”
“One of the many.” I smiled. “In short, there is no way back to reality without me making it happen.”
Joseph turned toward us, eyes wide. “Is he… telling the truth?”
“He is,” Amaranta said, still enjoying the beauty of the Void.
“Weren’t angels supposed to help people?” Zhang asked, voice heating up.
“To help Christians.” Amaranta smirked. “Pray to your own gods for help.”
“Amaranta!” Katherine shouted. “That’s not how the priests see the role of the Church.”
“On Earth, sure,” Amaranta said, not evading Katherine’s glare. “But we’re in the Void. Here, I answer only to Baraquiel, and he couldn’t care less.” She turned toward me. “So, what are we waiting for?”
I waved my hand and a set of numbers, three rows with eight digits each, appeared shining in the air. “These are the coordinates,” I told Zhang. “Just point me in the correct direction.”
He looked like he wanted to argue further, but apparently swallowed the idea, refocusing on the task at hand. He analyzed the numbers for a moment. Joseph, realizing discussion was over, walked to us and also inspected the inscription.
Katherine flew to Amaranta and started arguing with her in a low voice. I couldn’t make out the precise words, but by the raised chin and scrunched nose, Amaranta was not repentant.
With everyone busy, I made a cigarette appear in my hand and lit it up.
“This is impossibly far,” Zhang said when I was halfway through the smoke. He pointed at the middle row.
“The location is transcribed in an archaistic pattern, but this is the sector number in relation to our sun. The sun is traditionally marked as point zero, and this number is over seventeen million. That means the vault we are seeking is, in real-world terms, over seventeen million light years away.”
Lucielle sure didn’t keep her vault close. “Can you tell the direction?”
“There,” Joseph said, pointing into the emptiness.
I arched my eyebrow at Zhang. “Is he correct?”
“No.” Zhang passed a smile. “But perhaps, with a few years of practice, our colleague could learn to navigate the void. Can you make a long thin line we could manipulate?”
Upon my thought, an endless ray of light appeared through the space between us. “You should be able to hold it as if it was material.” I turned toward Joseph. “And you seem to have calmed down.”
He smiled awkwardly, digging something from his backpack. “From what I’ve gathered, I’m in another dimension—” he pointed at Amaranta “—that’s a literal angel, and you are someone who has god-like powers over whatever this plane of existence is. I don’t think I will ever get to do anything at least one tenth as interesting as whatever this heist is.” He pulled out a water bottle from the backpack. Except that instead of water, inside was dust. He scowled, and reached for a baguette he brought, now dust inside the plastic wrapping.
“You can’t bring anything organic in here that doesn’t contain aether,” I said.
“Then, what do we eat or drink?”
Nothing. I turned toward Zhang to watch him work with the ray of light. He already finished pointing the ray of light into the emptiness in quite a very different direction than where Joseph pointed. “This is the best I can estimate the direction. I will make it more precise when we get closer.”
I nodded. “Amaranta, turn on the teleportation matrix and make it record this location. We will need it for the way back.”