by DD Barant
“So,” the lem says, “you been here before, right?”
“Once,” the pire says. “Did a thing for them. Came here to get a pat on the head.”
“What, you mean like a bonus?”
“Nah, this guy wouldn’t hand a cop anything himself—too careful. This was more a whaddayacallit, expression of respect. Face-to-face. Cultural thing, I guess.”
“Okay, I get that.” The lem pauses. “So, no bonus, then.”
“Not everything gets paid off in cash. There’s favors, too. That’s worth a lot.”
“Right. You really think a guy like this is gonna do us a favor?”
“He might. Could be the favor is more like something he doesn’t do.”
The lem frowns. They’ve got me sandwiched between them in case I try to run. “I don’t get it.”
“You know. Maybe you screw up. Maybe you piss off the wrong person. Something like that happens, he could intervene, give you a pass.”
“Oh.” The lem considers that. “Think I’d rather have the bonus, myself.”
“Corruption and stupidity,” I say. “Back together for the first time. You’re not even an enforcement lem—what, the police department couldn’t afford the real thing?”
“Budget cutbacks,” the pire says.
“Hey, that’s racist,” the lem says, sounding wounded. “The color of my skin doesn’t define what I can do—”
“You’re animated by the life force of a cow,” the pire says. “Not even a bull. A dairy cow.”
“So?”
“So it’s not like you have the instincts of a killer. You’ve got the instincts of something that eats grass and is used to being milked twice a day.”
“That’s not just racist, it’s sexist.”
“How can it be sexist? You don’t have that, either.”
This fascinating exchange is cut short by the path winding around a corner and into a more open area. I can see a still pool with a low waterfall trickling into it; a few fat, golden koi hover just under the surface. Mossy boulders loom artistically around the edge of the water, and a gray stone bench with a single occupant rests beside the path. He gets to his feet as we approach.
I recognize him instantly. It’s Isamu.
I haven’t seen him since our first meeting, at his estate in Japan. That was when my flippant attitude and smart mouth ticked him off enough that he decided to add me to his personal blood distillery; I disagreed with this decision, and demonstrated my feelings accordingly.
Things went downhill from there.
Isamu is a very old pire and member of the Yakuza, which makes him bloodthirsty twice over. He claims he’s never tasted the blood of an animal, and I believe him.
He’s wearing a simple black kimono, just like the first time we met. I doubt that’s a coincidence. I can see hints of his tattoos peeking out from the edges of the robe, a design I remember vividly: layer after layer of faces, only the eyes visible, portraits of every human being he’s ever drunk from. Trophies, etched into his immortal skin with magic and ink.
He smiles when he sees me. He’s not terribly imposing, physically; a little over five feet tall, slight of build, balding on top. His remaining hair is jet black, worn long and tied back into a loose tail.
This is not a guy who needs to look scary. This is a guy who is scary, and knows it. Anyone who ever comes face-to-face with him knows it, too, or they don’t live long enough to matter—with the exception of yours truly. I made all kinds of trouble, insulted him to his face, and got his best assassin turned into something you’d beat out of a rug.
But that was when I had Tanaka and Charlie at my back, and a fully loaded Super Redhawk Alaskan in my hand. Right now I don’t even have my scythes; they’re back in the police car, locked in the trunk. Yeah, this should be fun …
“Ms. Valchek,” Isamu says. “How pleasant to see you again.”
“Wish I could say the same, Isamu. What are you doing in Canada? Did your own country finally throw you out?”
“I have interests in many places, especially on the Pacific Rim. I’m merely here to sign off on a few business transactions before returning home.” His tone is amused, almost gleeful, and why not? He’s got me right where he wants me, and he intends to draw this out. With any luck, I’ll expire of old age or boredom before he gets around to the actual revenge.
“Yeah, I paid a visit to one of your outlets,” I say. “Nice little place, though a bit understaffed. Actually, by the time I left the place was practically abandoned.”
His smile gets a little wider. “Yes, I’m sure it was. A pity. It was a most productive facility, and its output will be missed. I suppose the replacement will have to work even harder to make up for the lost revenue.”
With yours truly as the star heifer, of course. I refuse to show fear—what I’m mainly feeling is anger. This monster is the one that deserves a slow, torturous sentence, not me. “Sorry, Isamu—I’m kind of busy these days. Tell you what—why don’t I pencil you in for a lunch date, sometime soon? You and I can share a nice stake.”
He chuckles. “Your empty bravado only heightens my pleasure, Ms. Valchek. But if my plans for you were as dire as you believe, we would not be having this conversation here. We would be conducting it in a sterile environment, with you strapped to a gurney.”
“Imagine my relief. What do you want, Isamu?”
“I want to show you something.” He turns, motioning me to follow him, and strolls down the path. Not having much of a choice, I do as he suggests. The cops stay where they are.
The path follows the edge of the pond, illuminated by paper lanterns hung from the trees. The patches of algae on the pond look to me like minature green continents.
We stop in front of an immense bell hanging amid four wooden posts, the surface patinaed with a subtler green and inscribed with many kanji. “Hey, this reminds me of a joke,” I say. “There’s this monk up in a bell tower—”
Isamu draw his hand back and makes a fist. He strikes the bell with it.
The sound that emerges is deep, sonorous, otherworldly. I feel it as much as hear it, as if it’s resonating on exactly the same frequency as my bones.
It’s getting louder.
I can’t hear anything else. It’s not just my bones that are vibrating in sympathy, it’s my whole body. My vision is shaking along with everything else, and it feels like the whole world is coming apart.
Then it does.
Reality shatters, falling away in shards. Everything—the pond, the trees, the path—smashes to pieces. All that’s left is me, Isamu, and the bell.
But there’s another reality underneath, a swirling, blurry mass of color that gradually slows and comes into focus, resolving into a landscape of lush green. We’re on the crest of a hill, thick with grass and dotted with wildflowers. Below us is a valley, with a river gently meandering through it, and what looks like a small town. The sky is a vibrant, cloudless blue, the air full of the smells of high summer, from ripe fruit to sun-warmed meadow. I can hear birdsong, and distant laughter.
“What the fuck?” I say.
Despite the bright sunshine, Isamu stubbornly refuses to burst into flame. His smile is gone, though, as if the bucolic setting offends him on some deep, instinctual level. “Not what you expected, Ms. Valchek?”
“That’s putting it mildly. What are you going to do now, try to sell me a time share in a condo?”
“In a manner of speaking. I have brought you here for a very specific reason, and it concerns an important decision on your part.”
“And what would that be?”
Isamu shakes his head. “Not yet, Ms. Valchek. You do not possess all the knowledge you need to make an informed choice. First, you need to examine your surroundings. Acquaint yourself with the locals. When you feel you know what you need to, then we shall talk.”
I frown. “That’s it? You want me to wander around, strike up a few conversations?”
“You will understand the purpo
se of this exercise soon enough.”
“And what about you?”
“I will remain on this hilltop and wait. My movements here are somewhat restricted, but yours are not.”
“Yeah? So what’s to stop me from just taking off and not coming back?”
He smiles, ever so slightly. “The fact that the bell is the only way to leave.”
I look around. Behind me is a mountain, and that’s putting it mildly; it’s the biggest mountain I’ve ever seen, one that makes Mount Fuji look like an anthill. It goes up and up until it literally fades out of sight behind some clouds at the edge of the stratosphere—you could probably jump from the peak onto a passing satellite, or maybe the moon. “I hope you don’t expect me to climb that.”
He chuckles. “No. That is beyond your reach. Go down to the village—you will be surprised at what you find.”
Again, it doesn’t look like I have much choice. I start hiking down the hill, and don’t bother saying good-bye. I have no idea what’s going on, or what’s waiting for me down there.
But I don’t think I’m going to like it.
* * *
The hill isn’t steep, or very high. It only takes me a few minutes to reach the bottom, and when I stop and look back I can still see Isamu standing at the crest beside the bell. He doesn’t wave, and neither do I.
The village sits right at the base of the hill. I’m not sure what to expect from it, but I doubt I’m going to encounter anything dangerous. This place just doesn’t feel dangerous. In fact, it feels peaceful and homey and almost serene.
Which is a pretty good description of the village, too. Small structures in a variety of styles and materials: bamboo huts, adobe cubes, even animal-skin tepees. The inhabitants are a real mixture, too: Caucasian, Asian, African, Indian. The clothes are all simple and utilitarian, but again, there are examples of a dozen different cultures.
And everyone seems to be human.
Nobody acts as if my sudden appearance here is odd. I get a lot of smiles and nods, though nobody actually approaches me. I’m not quite sure what to do next; the unrelenting cheeriness of the place is starting to seriously creep me out, like I just wandered into some kind of supernatural Epcot Center full of idealized Real People in their native human costumes. Any second now one of them is going to try to sell me a pair of mouse ears, or maybe a few will start spewing smoke as their robot brains short-circuit.
Doesn’t happen. What does is far, far stranger.
“Hey. Don’t I know you?”
I know that voice.
I turn slowly, thinking I have to be wrong. I’m not.
Standing in front of me is FBI agent Roger Trent. The same Roger Trent I used to be engaged to, the same Roger Trent who betrayed me, stole my promotion, and in general revealed himself to be a complete scumbag. The Roger Trent who is, as far as I know, still working for the FBI back on the world I was born on and grew up in.
He walks forward, a puzzled smile on his face. Still tall, still good looking, still fit. He’s dressed in a white T-shirt and faded blue jeans, well-worn sneakers on his feet. “I can’t quite remember where from, but—”
I let him get about four feet away before I clock him.
It’s not my best punch. My best punch would have broken his jaw, taken out a few teeth, and possibly given him a concussion. No, this is pure reflexive fury, pent-up frustration I’ve been carrying around so long I forgot it was even there. It feels unbelievably good to unload some of it.
It knocks him off his feet. He sprawls on his back in the dirt, looking dazed and not a little confused. No blood, though. I glance around, but everyone seems oblivious to the sudden violence. Interesting.
“Now I remember you,” Roger says groggily, sitting up and gingerly feeling his chin. “You were there when I died.”
Uh-oh …
Normally, I love the sensation when everything finally lines up and locks into place, that feeling of rock-solid certainty that you get when you figure out what’s actually going on. Not this time.
This isn’t my Roger. This is the Roger from Thropirelem, the one Stoker sacrificed as part of a ritual to wake up an Elder God.
This Roger is dead.
I know where I am.
I sigh, and take another look around. Nothing but gentle, smiling faces looking back. Damn. I was really hoping there’d be more scotch. And male strippers. And houses made out of chocolate, filled with male strippers who would bring me scotch. Ah, well, at least nobody seems to be carrying a harp …
I hold out my hand, which Roger 2.0 stares at for a moment before taking and letting me pull him to his feet.
“Sorry about that. Thought you were someone else.”
“That’s okay. Didn’t actually hurt—nothing does, here. Just caught me by surprise is all.”
I nod. “So. This is it, huh? The End of the Line, the Big Finish, the Final Reward?”
“The Afterlife, you mean?”
“That’s where I was going, yeah.”
He gives me a big, beatific smile. “Well, you don’t have to worry about where you’re going, not anymore. You’re here. Welcome to Heaven…”
I just stare at him.
Game over. Apparently, I won.
Now what?
* * *
I wish I could say things aren’t that simple. But—according to Roger, anyway—they really are.
He tells me as much as he can. Yes, he’s exactly who and what he seems to be. Yes, there’s a lot more to Heaven than what I see—this is just the part of it he and his fellow villagers prefer.
We’re sitting on a bench in the center of the village. The longer he talks, the more I believe him—it’s not so much what he says, it’s everything around him. The air is too fresh, too clean. The smells are universally pleasant. The colors are slightly oversaturated, better than real, and every sound has this wonderful, crisp quality. Even the bench I’m sitting on somehow seems like the best bench ever, the smooth cool surface of the stone exactly right. It’s like the whole place was run through a very fine conceptual mesh and had every little flaw removed.
“—so that was how I died,” Roger says. “I don’t mind talking about that. But some things I can’t discuss … like the Powers in charge here. You understand that, right?”
“Not really. What, even in Paradise I need security clearance?”
“There are some things the living aren’t ready to know.”
“You mean I’m still alive?”
He grins. “Oh, yes. I didn’t realize right away, but I’ve been … advised since then.”
Sure. Angels whispering in his ear, no doubt. “So if I’m still alive, what am I doing here? You guys decide to explore the possibilities of tourism or something?”
Now Roger looks a little uncomfortable. “No, of course not. But this isn’t exactly without precedent; living souls have been given glimpses of Heaven before.”
Sure—prophets, usually. Not NSA agents who’ve been kidnapped by vampire Yakuza warlords. “Why am I here?”
“I don’t know. How did you get here?”
“It wasn’t my choice.” I tell him about the bell, and what happened when Isamu struck it.
He nods. “Magic, then. Powerful sorcerers can visit other planes of existence—even this one—though they can’t stay for long. This Isamu—he’s waiting for you on the hill?”
“So he says.”
“He can’t go far from the bell. I’m surprised you can, actually.”
“Maybe he’s planning on stranding me here.”
Rogers shakes his head. “Can’t be done. When he goes back, you’ll go with him.”
He tilts his head abruptly, as if he’s listening to something I can’t hear, then smiles. “Oh. I see.”
“What?”
“You’re here to see me, of course.”
“Why?”
“You’ll have to figure that one out yourself.”
My eyes narrow. My Roger had a tendency toward smugness
that I never liked, and this one has it, too. Come to think of it, from what Stoker told me about this guy, he shared a few other traits with my version. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but … you don’t seem like you really belong here.”
He looks back at me mildly. “Why would you say that?”
“Because I knew someone a lot like you—practically a twin, in fact. And he wouldn’t make the cut for a place like this, not in a thousand years.”
“Then I guess he and I aren’t that much alike after all, are we?”
Hard to argue with that—but that’s never stopped me. “Oh, I think you are. You were a car salesman, right? Liked to deal a little Bane on the side?”
He looks puzzled. “I worked for a car dealership, sure—but I never sold drugs. I was never in any trouble at all until those terrorists kidnapped me.”
“That’s not what I was told.”
“Oh? And who told you, exactly? The guy who killed me?”
I open my mouth, then shut it again. Of course Stoker would have told me that his victim was a scumbag; he was trying to convince me to join him at the time. This Roger grew up in a very different world from the man who betrayed me—and maybe he grew up to be a better person, too. It all comes down to Nature versus Nurture, I guess, and which one has the greater effect.
I look around at where this Roger wound up, and I’m forced to admit that maybe—just maybe—he turned out to be a reasonably decent human being.
As if he’s reading my mind, Roger says, “Okay, I was far from perfect. I probably got by a little too much on charm. I could be selfish. But I wasn’t a monster—I was just human. Like you.”
“And like everyone else here?”
He hesitates, just for a second. “Oh, no. Heaven isn’t divided into species, Jace. This village is mostly human because we feel comfortable with one another, but there’s nothing exclusionary about it. There are other villages—and towns, and cities, and islands, and forests … every environment you can think of. Everyone is free to come and go as they wish.”