The Tenth Order

by Nic Widhalm

  Hash stood, stretching his blocky arms until the joints cracked. He took a couple of steps around the rocky summit, then turned back. “Except you, Hunter.”

  “What?” Hunter, who had been lulled into a kind of meditative lethargy by Hash’s deep, gravelly voice, started awake.

  “You,” Hash repeated. “Mika’il has shared maybe a dozen words with me in the last five years. I can count on one hand how many people she’s had private conversations with, and not a single one is lower than a Domination. You’ve been here for four weeks and she spends five hours in a locked cell with you? You almost kill me, one of the only generals she has left, and the only thing she asks me afterward is if I really gave you a direct command to stop?”

  “Look,” Hunter stood. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I didn’t mean—” But Hash waved him away.

  “Come on. You’re hardly the first acolyte to throw a temper-tantrum and try to break my skull. Good thing Mama Hash makes them tough,” He smiled, finally, and winked. “Besides, a Power getting the drop on me isn’t the fault of the student. Jesus, Hunter, don’t you get what I’m telling you?”

  Hunter slowly shook his head, his arms prickling.

  “Why did I bring you to one of the most remote spots in the country?” Hash asked. “If Mika’il hears what I’m about to say…” He stopped, crossed his arms and took a deep breath. “You ignore direct commands, your sigil shifts, we still don’t know your true name, you can’t achieve a consistent paradox, and you hold conversations with Seraphim like it’s the fucking Actor’s Studio. Hunter, you’re not…you’re not normal. And whatever the reason, it frightens the ever-living shit out of Mika’il.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The dying day was colder than Hunter expected, even taking winter into account. He had spent almost fifteen years in the mountain state, but had never grown used to the sudden weather changes. The chill sank deep into his bones as he sat cross-legged and slightly hunched in the shadowy, late-afternoon light. Around him stood the stout pine trees of the Rocky Mountains—evergreens that pointed toward the slate-gray sky, surrounded by groves of Aspens, white and spotted in the late winter chill.

  Hunter had traveled the mountains a hundred times since his family moved to Colorado when he was just a boy. At first, his father thought the long hikes and lectures over which berries to eat and how to light a fire would toughen his timid son. Then, later, when Hunter had shot past his father in height, shoulders filling out and timidity laid aside for awkward adolescence, he’d hoped it would give the kid a dose of reality. Maybe shock his son from of the strange, inward turning he’d seen in the boy ever since his dog died. And then, after Hunter had taken on his frightening, preternatural beauty and caused suspicion and outright hostility in strangers, he just wanted to get his kid out of the city and away from other people.

  Hunter had understood that the frequent hiking trips and camping excursions were the only way his father knew to communicate with a son who seemed to grow more removed with every passing day. Now, knowing what he did about who and what he was, Hunter wondered if his father had always suspected in some small way that his son wasn’t entirely human.

  It must have been an impossibly hard thing for a father to accept. Hunter figured he must have fought against it, the first time the thought popped into his head. He must have been filled with shame afterward, guilt overpowering the truth that lay tucked-away in the corner of his mind: Thomas Friskin’s son wasn’t normal.

  Hunter understood all of this now, and looking back forgave his father for the distance that had grown between them. Distance which Hunter had always secretly blamed on his dad, figuring the old man must have given up on his son when he decided not to pursue the football scholarship that five different universities offered.

  His father had been dead for five years now, and every year Hunter forced himself to come up here, to the quiet, removed recesses of the Rockies. Not to remember him—there was too much pain, confusion and love to allow something simple like “remembering.” But Hunter hoped, in his own small, unvoiced way, that if he made himself take the trip each year maybe he could still prove something to his father; prove whatever had made his dad bring him up here in the first place.

  “No fucking way,” Hash said when Hunter told him what he was planning. “You’re out of your damned mind. You’ve been here a month, a baby has a better grasp of its gifts. I’m not letting you wander the wilderness by yourself because you have daddy issues.”

  “Hash,” Hunter said quietly. “I need to do this.”

  The older man stared into his pupils eyes and must have seen something that changed his mind, because in the end the older man relented and released Hunter with a warning: “Two hours. Don’t test me.”

  So, Hunter had made his way into the surrounding country, aware as he hiked through woods covered in snow and fragrant with pine, that he had no idea where he was. Cautionary tales from his youth flared to life. Stories of hikers lost for months, their remains found only after the snows had lifted and some hiker stumbled on their bones. He needed to be careful. But strangely, despite the horror stories chattering at the back of his mind, he wasn’t scared. The farther he stepped from the fortress the more certain he became that he couldn’t get lost. Not here.

  Just to be sure he tried a little experiment: eyes closed, Hunter spun until his legs began to tremble and stopped, flinging out his hand and pointing. Opening his eyes, he followed the direction of his finger for half a mile, until the trees thinned and, sure enough—there were the soaring castle towers, just peeking over the evergreens. Certain that the castle would pull him back if he became disoriented, Hunter turned back and hiked until his legs felt like jelly.

  He’d told Hash he needed to get away, to spend some time in the yearly ritual marking the death of his father—and in a sense, that was all true, but the ritual had taken on a deeper meaning this year. Hunter had to find a way to survive.

  What would Dad do? He wondered, reflecting for almost thirty minutes on his gruff, short-spoken father. After turning the question over and over Hunter finally admitted he had no idea. He hadn’t really known his father. The man had spent a lifetime pretending Hunter was someone else; someone popular, social…normal. And Hunter had spent his lifetime pretending his father cared about him.

  Now, the last month having stripped his illusions, Hunter realized the truth—his dad had been an asshole. Truly. And Hunter no longer cared to maintain the fantasy that his had been a normal childhood with a loving family. His father would have had no idea what to do in this situation, because Hunter’s father had never been in a place where his back was against a wall, the stakes life and death. Hunter had out-grown the old man.

  So—what would Hunter do? He expected to hear an answering…run! It’s what he’d always done, moving job to job, city to city, taking his severance check without complaint and knowing better than to ask for a reference. But this time the answer surprised him: Fight. Fight Mika’il, fight the whole damn Elohim. He wasn’t the same man from a month ago. He wasn’t the man who stood by while his prick of a boss pushed him around, cut his insurance, insulted his work while Hunter said nothing. He wasn’t the same man who let his wife ridicule him, cheat on him, pretend to love him while telling her friends she was married to a loser.

  Hunter stood. Facing the castle—the tug of the fortress pulling him like a lodestone—he began the long trek back, resolved to not go gentle. If this threat existed, if Mika’il really wanted to get rid of him as Hash suggested, Hunter would make her work for it.

  She could crush you with a breath, a small voice whispered in his mind.

  His stomach suddenly cramped, and Hunter felt a desperate need to urinate. What the hell was he thinking? Mika’il was a Seraphim! She was the angel Michael, the leader of the great host, the prince of heaven, the slayer of the beast. Hunter was a defunct beautician.

  He stopped in his tracks, his legs beginning to tremble, and all thoughts
of returning fled. I’m going to die, he thought. There’s no way out; I’m through. I can’t match Mika’il’s power, her resources. I’m a college-dropout, for Christ’s sake! The back of his throat tingled, signaling the early signs of vomit. And just when he was sure, absolutely sure he was going to lose his breakfast right here against this tree…the pine shifted, and Hunter was looking at a mailbox.

  A normal, metal box on a normal, metal pedestal, holding a dozen small chambers numbered for an office park or apartment building. The top was dented and scuffed with years of use, but still serviceable. It carried no marks of an object living in the wild for even a day; no debris, no scat, no dirt or fallen leaves. It was just a mailbox.

  And then it was gone, vanished with another shift, and Hunter was again staring at a large, slightly wilting pine.

  “What the—” Hunter started, but was interrupted by a sudden whirlwind of needles and leaves that roared through the forest. He covered his eyes, whipping his head about to find the source of the sudden storm. And then, as quickly as it began, the cyclone stopped and Hunter found himself staring into the crisp, penetrating green of Karen’s eyes.

  “Hunter.”

  He almost leapt to hug her, but stopped himself at the last second. Karen was Adonai. Even though Hunter didn’t give two shits about some war in the beyond, the Arch in front of him certainly did. “I’ll kill you as soon as look at you,” Karen’s words flashed through his mind, reminding him of the pledge she’d made before Hunter’s christening.

  “Um..” Hunter said dumbly. What did you say to a woman who had promised to kill you? “I’m sorry…”

  Karen placed a hand over Hunter’s mouth, her eyes blazing. She was clothed in deep, midnight black, the fabric clinging to her body but dark enough to mask the curves Hunter remembered so well.

  “Nice threads,” Hunter mumbled against her palm. Karen rolled her eyes, then flicked her head sideways, the move so subtle Hunter thought he might have imagined it. Following the motion, Hunter’s eyes focused on a thick copse of pine trees to his left. He frowned, wondering what could be so important about a bunch of…and then, suddenly, he saw it.

  The trees weren’t really there.

  What the…?

  Then, Hunter heard the music.

  “Damn,” said one of the black clad strangers. Valdis thought it might have been the leader, the one called “Bath.” The melody cut off as Bath spoke, the discordant song fading into the twilight sky. “He’s awake.”

  Valdis winced. Hunter wasn’t supposed to come to his senses until after they freed him. The six other strangers surrounding Valdis stiffened. Someone muttered a curse.

  They had spent

  planning this; waiting for the moment when Hunter was free and far enough from the Elohim that he could be influenced, and now the plan was falling apart. Bath was so arrogant, so damn certain he could cloud Hunter’s sight until the Power made his way into the heart of Denver. Valdis prayed the rest of his plan would go more smoothly.

  Around them shops were closing for business, the managers turning the signs from “open” to “closed” as the sun descended behind the mountain peaks. Valdis, Jackie, and their small group of Adonai stood in a close circle within a parking lot of a suburban strip mall. For the last few hours they’d followed Hunter as he walked through what he imagined was empty forest, his feet quickened by the strange magic of the Arch, and his eyes blinded by the Cherubim’s queer melody.

  They’d almost made it. The large Power walked along the side of the road, eyes clouded and feet preternaturally fast, oblivious to the cars streaking past him. Valdis and Jackie had followed with their strange group, surrounded in a kind of magic the priest couldn’t explain. They shouldn’t have been able to cover this much ground, not this quickly, not in only a few hours. Hunter, the priest could understand; it was one thing to accept that an angel in human clothing could bend the laws of space-time, but Valdis and Jackie were human. It wasn’t right.

  The plan had seemed ludicrous when the small, oddly effeminate Bath had explained it to Valdis. The priest—who was in no real position to negotiate with his new allies— had reluctantly gone along, praying Jackie would keep her mouth shut. And surprisingly, for once she had.

  Valdis had never thought they would get this far, however. He would have told Bath as much if the olive-skinned man didn’t frighten him so terribly. Valdis had read about the Apkallu, he had unearthed their artifacts, made his life work the discovery of their secrets—but no matter how long he spent studying them in books and parchment, in person they were far, far different. Bath was more than powerful, more than a beautiful, angelic being—he was primordial. In the Cherubim’s eyes Valdis saw the beginnings of the universe; a power beyond the earthly, beyond the material wonders Valdis took for granted. And that was before Bath sang.

  “What the fuck is she doing?” Jackie muttered, her voice low and angled so only Valdis could hear it. Everything had been on track until a few minutes ago, when Hunter had inexplicably turned and started walking in the opposite direction. Valdis had watched as Bath cursed, and the red-haired one, the “Arch” presumably, had vanished, reappearing next to Hunter.

  Valdis sighed. “Probably improvising. I know I am.”

  The surrounding businesses were locking up, but there were still enough people that any confrontation between Hunter and the Adonai wouldn’t go unnoticed. And Valdis, knowing what he did, and having seen what Hunter could do—the images of those broken men in the ally still plagued his dreams—was sure that when the Power realized what was going on, attention would be the least of their concerns.

  “No,” Hunter mumbled, his eyes fixed on the trees. They had faded to a bare resemblance of pine. Beyond, Hunter could make out the shapes of an industrial park. Shapes moved behind the thin, faded trees, sliding between nebulous buildings, squirming and squiggling in Hunter’s sight. “No. Dammit. No.”

  Karen looked on, her gaze softening slightly then narrowing again. “You just couldn’t keep walking, could you?” Looking over her should she called out, “Might as well give it up.”

  The foliage around Hunter began to evaporate. Underfoot, the dirt and needles shifted to a pitted asphalt, the white, skeletal aspens morphing into lamp posts whose light was just beginning to illuminate the lapis sky. As the forest faded to metal and concrete, Hunter's ears strained, searching for music. He knew it was there…somewhere.

  “Bath,” Hunter hissed.

  Karen’s lips curved in a sly grin, and she stepped back. The dying sun silhouetted her frame, the intoxicating curves of her body standing out despite her plain clothing. Hunter’s mouth went dry for a moment. After Mika’il he’d assumed all other women would pale by comparison—but not Karen. Watching her, his heart racing, Hunter felt like a little kid on the monkey bars.

  She moved farther back, the mountains tall and distant against her silhouette, and several black-clad figures rose from behind a parked car and came forward to meet her.

  A parked car.

  The sudden roar of a truck speeding past brought him to his senses. He was standing on the corner of I-70, hundreds of cars whizzing past in the crunch of rush-hour traffic. An industrial park stood to his left, the parking lot beginning to empty as office workers left for the night. What the hell? Just a second ago he’d been alone in the woods, stressing over whether to resist Mika’il, lost in memories of his father, trying to figure if he could trust Hash.

  Now, somehow, he was back in Denver.

  “Karen?” Hunter asked, his voice cracking on her name.

  Her face softened again. She looked over her shoulder at the figures emerging from behind the car, and when she turned back Hunter thought he saw regret in her eyes. “Why did you have to be born Capulet?” She asked, then disappeared in a blur. Hunter’s eyes only registered the fading afterimage of where she had stood.

  “Now!” A voice cried, and the black-clad figures rushed him. Hunter had only the barest second to recognize he was be
ing attacked before an elbow smashed into his jaw. Falling to one knee—how many times had his jaw been broken in the last month?—he felt a boot hammer his abdomen. A sharp, dry crack sounded, like firewood popping in the cold, and pain blossomed through his body.

  The sky exploded in red.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Across the parking lot, hiding behind a row of parked cars, Jackie and Valdis watched as figures flew through the air.

  It’s not possible, Jackie thought as Hunter threw one of the black-clothed men thirty feet across the asphalt to crash against an SUV. Impossible. Just…just…impossible! No one can do that.

  But possible or not, it was happening. Jackie watched as the man rolled away from the SUV, a body-sized dent in the door, shook his head and ran toward Hunter. Friskin stood his ground, and, even though Jackie couldn’t quite make out his face from this distance, she would have sworn his eyes turned jet black. The man ran at Hunter, but before he could reach the Power the ground suddenly erupted, ropey green tendrils ripping through the parking lot, dislodging large chunks of asphalt and piping. It was Hunter’s turn to fly through the air, and only a second after he skidded to a stop another of the black-clad figures jumped him, pinning the large man’s arms to the ground.

  The two Adonai soldiers wreathed him; one holding Hunter down, barely able to restrain the struggling Power, the other directing newly birthed vines and leafs of massive size to wind around him. Jackie scanned the parking lot, expecting at any moment to hear the outcry of pedestrians, the startled screams of the innocent, but the few remaining businessmen seemed oblivious to the chaos.

  “Father…” Jackie began, then stopped, her eyes fixed on Bath. The petite Apkallu stood one car down, eyes closed and lips moving in small, concentrated bursts. The music spreading from the Cherubim was different than the melody that had shepherded Hunter from the castle—it was softer, relaxed, smooth as hot wax. The shifting, cryptic melody had a hypnotic beat, and as Jackie listened the office park began to fade, disappearing into the foreground. All she could see, all she could hear, was the steady, rhythmic cadence of cars racing down the interstate. She wondered what she was having for dinner. Was this Wednesday? She needed to get home before the Tonight Show, because…because….