by R. E. Vance
I looked over at this supercharged Ghost and saw utter defeat in him. I’d seen it before, in the eyes of soldiers who, either from fear or exhaustion, believed that there was a bullet out there just for them. And like some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, those guys never lasted very long. Then I thought of Bella and the mission she had been on. How damn important it was. How much she believed in Others and this Ambassador. How determined she was to help. I couldn’t let this all fade away. If not for me, then for Bella.
Our eyes connected. Even though I was looking at a face that was sixty years old, his eyes were still those of a young man. They had yet to soften by years of experience and understanding, still holding the hardness of youth and determination. There I saw the glint of empathy. He knew Bella. He knew me. And he knew how much we loved each other. How I would end my life without a millisecond of hesitation if it meant she could breathe for another hour. That’s what we meant to each other, and everyone who knew us knew that.
I stood to take my leave as the pain still burned inside me. I thought about telling him about my dreams. About Bella. And how Grinner knew about them. That might mean something. Then again it might not. I looked over at the old, defeated Ghost and knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Like I said before, I’d seen that look. He was done—no point in adding to his anguish. Still, before leaving I wanted to let him know that although his fight was over, mine was not. “It does matter,” I said, offering my hand to him. “It matters to me.”
He didn’t take my hand. Like I said—defeated. Fine, I’d leave him to his relative peace.
I headed for the door when the chandelier lights flickered. Shock painted his face and in haste he ran over to his candles. They were all still lit and yet, somehow Grinner had found us.
The old man’s eyes darted around the room before he took a deep breath and, resigned that escape was not an option, said, “It will not matter to you for much longer.”
Chapter 7
Betrayal Can Be Sweet
The lights flickered as Hermes stood too fast for his old, brittle bones to handle. “Damn,” he winced as he lit more candles. “I don’t understand. I just don’t understand. The candles, they are not working.”
“Just tell him what you told me,” I said, drawing my sword. “That it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Hermes ignored me, still looking at his candles.
There were two points of entry into this room. Others were into “grand entrances” and, given the kind of personality Grinner had, I was pretty sure that he’d come through the front door. I stood next to it, readying my sword. If I could time it just right, I might be able to impale him before he even got in.
That plan went out the window when the building started to shake. He wasn’t coming in the front door, or any door for that matter. He was going to simply use Hermes’s house to crush us.
Struggling to keep my balance, I yelled over at the demigod, “Do something!”
He returned my gaze with bitter, frustrated eyes. “I have already wasted enough time on you.”
The baseboards were beginning to crack. I looked out the window and saw Grinner standing in the middle of the street, looking as youthful as he did the day I first met him in the parking lot of St. Mercy’s Hospital. Holy crap, this Other hardly aged at all, with only light wrinkles and a few strands of white hair to show for his epic battle with Hermes.
Grinner rose his hands up in the air and I was no longer looking at him from the first-floor window. I was looking down at him from the first-floor window. He was levitating the whole house. Grinner wrenched his hands apart, crumbling away the floor on which I stood. I grabbed onto the window ledge, my feet dangling beneath me as I hung from the floating home.
Hermes had been smarter or slower than me, because he didn’t grab onto anything when the building lifted. He just sat on his wood panel floor, which did not, clutching onto those damn candles which were no longer lit. Meanwhile my flooring did move. A lot.
The building hovered about fifteen feet above the ground and I prepared to let go. My plan: fall into a roll and use that momentum to charge Grinner with sword in hand. If I timed it right, I’d be able to cut off his head before he did anything else.
That was the plan at least, but the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Grinner pushed down with the palm of his hand just when I was about to make my move, dropping the house flat and cracking open the ground—and Hermes and I were together swallowed by the Earth.
↔
We tumbled into the sinkhole Grinner had created and I gracefully hit my head on every loose piece of furniture, debris and floor as I fell, conveniently missing carpet and pillows on the way. Hey, at least I was being consistent. Above me, the low-hanging chandelier was compressed against the ceiling. Grinner had flattened the building on top of us. I tried to imagine what it looked like from the outside—a building perfectly flat, the rubble on the smooth flat surface a comical jigsaw puzzle of brick and mortar, roof tiling and chimney. To the unsuspecting pedestrian, it would have looked intentional.
Hermes sat in the corner, still kneeling by the candles, gathering them around him like some goblin hoarding gold even though he knew there was no escape. If only to hold onto them one more minute. He quickly put unlit candles in pockets, leaving behind the few that somehow managed to keep their flame. He held the candles in his hands, under his armpits, one in his mouth.
“Come on,” I yelled, the words sending a jolt of pain in my head. I was looking around the collapsed room for an escape.
Hermes looked up at me, managing a smile despite the candle he bit into, and muffled, “Uh coming …” But it was too late.
As the words came out of his mouth, a section of the ceiling crumbled before moving apart and Grinner slowly lowered himself inside, sealing the hole he made behind him.
↔
“How did you find us?” Hermes asked, still holding his candles.
I was less concerned with how he found us and more concerned with escape. I stood to face Grinner, with my head still spinning, when the room went heavy—as in the-opposite-of-being-on-the-Moon heavy—and I dropped to my knees.
Grinner hissed, “How else? The fallen angel betrayed you.”
Penemue. That’s why he was so insistent on knowing where I was.
Grinner turned to Hermes, and in an exaggerated show, blew out one of the candles that remained lit. Once completed, his smile widened, pushing his eyes out to the sides of his head making him look like a crazed deer. He said, “You almost made it. Almost escaped. But how can a OnceMortal defeat one such as I? Still, to be so close must make you bitter.” Then, turning to me, he said, “What is the mortal expression? ‘Close only counts in …’ ” Grinner snapped his fingers, gesturing for Hermes to complete his thought.
“Horseshoes and hand grenades,” I muttered.
“That is correct. Horseshoes and hand grenades. You cannot blame me for not remembering. Despite all these years of being mortal, there are so many of your mundane objects I have yet to learn about.” As he said the word mortal he brushed the arms of his black overcoat as one might try to clean dirt off one’s self, and now he was holding the box —he must have taken it from Penemue. Grinner looked over at me. “But that is all about to change.”
“How?” Hermes asked. “The Ambassador and Bella—they failed.”
The Avatar of Gravity’s smile widened further. “You are half right. The Ambassador did fail, but the human known as Bella … she did not,” he said, tossing me Joseph’s box. I grunted as I caught it—it felt as heavy as a bowling ball.
“What do you want from me?” I asked, my head hurting way too much to think of anything obnoxious to say.
Grinner chuckled. “A kiss and nothing more.”
… to be continued
Prologue
There is this girl whom I love very much. I’ve only been back with her for less than a year when the Devil walks through our front door and offers Bella a job. T
hese days, the Devil calls himself the Ambassador, because he has dedicated his life in this new GoneGod world to brokering peace between humans and Others. He’s still too large, too red, too self-assured and too sulfurous-smelling for me—a stinking rose by another name.
Paradise Lot is doing well, the Ambassador says, but there are still many pockets of the world where the species fight. Even here, there are frequent attacks by Fanatics and by roving gangs of Other-haters. There is still much good to be done.
The Ambassador’s plan is to travel the world and broker peace deals, acting as a conduit between the species. But he needs a human counterpart. “Bella—I need a human who loves Others and whom Others love back,” he says, taking her hand in his massive red paws. “And yes, before you say anything, He was right. It is about love. Will you help?”
Before she can answer, I scream out, “You are the Devil!”
“Only by reputation,” he smiles, “I assure you that when the gods left, I abandoned my wicked ways. After all, the Devil can only exist when there is a god to oppose.”
That night, Bella and I fight over her decision to accept the Ambassador’s offer. It starts the way all of our fights do—electrified silence revved so high that the slightest movement will ignite the room.
“It is a chance,” she says. The spark.
“He’s the Devil,” I retort.
“Was the Devil. Was! People change. Others change.
“You did!” she yells.
Now I know she’s wrong. I haven’t changed. I’ve just chosen her over my nature. I am better because she wants me to be better. But make no mistake—no Bella and I’m back in the army, pointing my rifle at anyOther that looks at me funny. I don’t say that to her. I don’t say that because I don’t want to tarnish myself in her eyes.
Instead, I say, “First of all, I’m human. Secondly, I haven’t spent the last several thousand years hell-bent on corrupting the human soul. And thirdly, I’m not the friggin’ Devil! He doesn’t want to help, he wants to control, dominate. Rule. You must see that.”
“No, he doesn’t.” Her arms are akimbo, a stance I’ve seen many times. She will spend the rest of the argument like that—a statue that no clever retort, no witty reply, no concrete argument will move. As soon as I see her in that position, I know I’ve lost.
But I don’t care. I’m angry. I may not win this fight, but come hell or high water, I’m going to get my licks in before it’s over. “How do you know?” I ask.
“Because I do. I have a feeling.”
“A feeling? A feeling! Are you honestly telling me that you’ll take it on faith that the Devil has changed?”
“Yes! I am. And do you know why? Because I have to! If we don’t believe that we can change, that the Devil can change, then we’re doomed. And I’d rather live in a world where I believe the Devil is good and be wrong, than not give him a chance and be right.”
Bella is resolute. An insurmountable force that cannot be overcome by guns, bombs, philosophy or debate. I know when I’ve lost and give in.
“OK,” I say, defeated. “But I’m going to be by your side. Always.”
What else can I do?
↔
The Ambassador takes Bella on mission after diplomatic mission. We hardly see each other and I am tired of baking cookies. I protest and as a reward for my complaints, I get a job—I am now Bella’s official bodyguard. I spend my days either training or on guard duty, bored out of my skull. Still … I am with Bella.
Helsinki, Tokyo, Geneva, Rio—sometimes I think we spend more time on planes than on the ground.
I do my best to be a good husband. An understanding husband. But I want my wife back, and the few evenings we have together are spent fighting over the little things that don’t really matter. By the GoneGods, I am so stupid. We should be spending this time making love, holding each other, cooking, cleaning or the thousand other mundane things that couples do just to be near each other.
She doesn’t talk about her work, partly because it is top secret, partly because she knows I am jealous. Jealous of how important she is, and how useless I am. I am so stupid.
One day she comes home so excited that she can barely string her thoughts together. “There is a way,” she tells me, “to make everything right again. We found it.” She is buzzing with excitement.
“Found what?” I ask.
My words bring her to reality and she focuses on me for the first time since coming home to the underground Army barracks that is our latest base of operations. “It,” she says, drawing me close. I can feel her breath on my cheek as she whispers that word, “It.” Teeth tease my earlobe. Soft lips kiss my cheek. “It,” she repeats in my ear as she undresses me. “It.” She takes me on the cold, concrete floor between the gray, galvanized bunk beds.
It.
↔
My memories fast-forward.
Lights are flashing as the alarm relentlessly rings throughout the facility. My first thought is of Bella. Make sure she is safe.
The wall’s warning lights blink crimson red from the light-shield rotating within the heavy-duty, military-grade casing. An engineer announces that the reactor is overheating.
“Damn Eastern European technology,” complains another engineer, “I told them the reactor was too small to handle the power that dam produces.”
The first one yells that the coolant system is down and he is unable to get it back online. The other curses and tells the first to warn the others. To get above and to run. Then he asks me to help twist the giant metal wheel in order to cut off as much hydro power as possible. That, he says, should slow the whole thing down and therefore give us a chance to escape.
“Escape?” I ask. “Why would we need to do that?”
“Because,” he says with an expression far too calm for the sirens and chaos he speaks over, “the whole thing is going to blow. Now twist!”
That’s all I need to hear. My hands latch onto the comically large metal wheel. I use every ounce of strength I have in me to get the wheel to turn. I need it to turn. I need the valve to close. I need more time. Time to save Bella. I breathe a sigh of relief when it finally moves. Inch by inch it turns, and when we manage to twist it twice around, the engineer says, “That should do it.”
He heads upstairs and I yell after him, “Where are you going?”
“Out of here,” he says, “and so should you.”
But instead of listening, instead of running up, I run down.
Down toward Bella.
↔
She is at the bottom level. Why did they need to hold their meeting so deep? I curse as I run down stairwell after endless stairwell.
Down, down, down—I run until I get to the bunker. I look through the reinforced metal door, through the portal window a bit too small for a cat to pass. I see Bella, the Ambassador and several Others running about, gathering materials.
The door is locked. I pound on it. “Bella,” I scream. “Bella!”
In the chaos, she looks up at me, our eyes locking, slowing down the world. That’s what happens every time we look at each other. Everything slows down. Sounds are muted, backgrounds are blurred—all I can see is her. And despite the panic, that is what happens now.
She gives me her best It’s-going-to-be-OK smile.
But that’s my role. I’m here to save her. I gesture for her to open the door. To let me in. But she doesn’t move. She just stands there, looking at me with that damn smile of hers.
“Hurry!” I scream.
She blows me a kiss as two cloaked Others that I’ve never seen before grab her and throw her to the ground. She does not resist. One of them pulls out a long curved blade from dark, heavy robes. What are they? Monks? Priests? Satanist bastards? I don’t care. I cry out, pounding on the door. I pull out my pistol and shoot at the window, but its reinforced glass does not shatter. I push at the door, praying, begging, pleading to every GoneGod to come back and let me in.
Save my Bella. Please. I’l
l do anything. Be anything. I forfeit my life for her. I give you my soul. Just save my Bella.
For a moment, I actually believe that the GoneGods hear my cry because the Ambassador approaches the two cloaked figures and stands by their side. He is a massive creature, twice the size of a minotaur and three times the weight of a baby elephant. He will be able to crush them under his heel. He is, after all, the once-upon-a-time Devil. But his hulking red body does nothing to help Bella. His horned head does not attack, nor do his cloven feet kick at them. Only his spiked tail swings—a dog excited for the coming meal.
One of the robed figures strikes down, piercing her body, the knife slamming down on her. As one carves, the other cloaked figure calmly puts his hand into her now-open belly and begins pulling out her innards and laying them by her side. He’s neatly stacking them by her head, as the first takes out a smaller blade and with a smooth motion gouges out her eyes and places them on top of the pyramid of flesh and blood, organs and guts. They appear to be chanting as they do so.
“BASTARDS!” I cry out. But I am hollow. The same as my Bella.
A third figure draws in near and, judging from his appearance and the white coat he is wearing, I know that he is human. He lifts a giant glass decanter over Bella’s body as another human in a lab coat focuses a light through the glass and onto her lifeless body. The scientists nod at each other and say something I cannot hear to the cloaked figures and the Ambassador.
The Ambassador nods then, looking up, notices me for the first time. His face softens and his shoulders hunch. I am so sorry, he mouths. I am so sorry.
I am slamming my hands on the door, but all I manage to do is cut my knuckles. “I’ll kill you!” I scream through the blood-tinted window. “I swear to the GoneGods, I will kill you!”