18 Truths

by Jamie Ayres

  Turning slowly, I opened my eyes. He held a tranquillizer gun in his hand, the same one issued to us by angel headquarters.

  “Nate? What is going on?” Grace shrieked. “Are you part of some satanic cult?”

  He inclined his head and turned toward Grace. I could tell from the blank look on his face that his confusion was genuine as to why she was here with me.

  “Nate, you don’t want to do this.” My plea was the desperate cry of an insecure spirit guide who didn’t understand what the heck was going on.

  He leaned forward, pressing his nose to mine. “You’re right. What I wanted was loyalty from you, but we can’t always get what we want, can we?”

  “Well, that’s what The Rolling Stones told us anyway,” Conner answered, his voice hoarse. “Guess they were right.”

  “You think you’re funny, Con-ner?”

  Conner shrugged. “Olga did, N-ate.” He lifted his finger and pointed at Nate, but looked at me. “This douche bag is your boyfriend?”

  “Was,” Nate answered. “And you’ll shut your mouth if you know what’s good for you. Or would you like me to beat you again?”

  “Boyfriend?” Grace muttered. “I thought you were her brother? Oh. My. Gosh. You’re part of an incestuous satanic cult! Gross!”

  Any other day I would’ve laughed at the absurdity of her conclusion. But all I could do now was suck in a quick gasp of breath, everything hitting me at once. The world seemed to slow down as a million images flooded my mind. Nate—who helped me see the beauty inside myself, who I thought I’d spend eternity with, who pushed me away to protect me, who had always been kind and gentle—Nate, who now had the knowledge of good and evil. The shock of realizing he’d beaten Conner, of realizing I’d created a monster, made me want to scream, but what good would screaming do?

  A door off to the left caught Nate’s attention. Two demons approached in heavy, deliberate steps, their smiles a flash of black decay. A bloody apron covered the wide girth of one, and he carried an ice pick in his hand. Nate looked at me and Grace, then the demons nearing, then Conner. He trained the tranq gun on me and pulled the trigger, the dart sailing into my neck. My eyes drooped; my limbs felt like they were made out of spaghetti as warmness spread through me, then pain.

  Once, when I was five years old, I stuck my finger into an outlet, just out of curiosity. The electricity pulsed through my skin, but the tingling subsided after a few seconds, barely raising an ‘Ow’ out of me. This pain felt three hundred times worse.

  Finally, I dropped to the ground, sleepiness washing over me as Nate told the demons he had me. He scooped me up in his arms, our eyes meeting. I wanted to tear him apart, just like he was doing to me, metaphorically. But paralysis made the notion impossible. So I stared at those eyes with all the hatred I could muster, wishing he were dead. He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped short.

  Then everything went dark.

  “I used to believe in forever,

  but forever’s too good to be true.”

  —Winnie The Pooh

  opened my eyes and looked directly into a bright light above my head. Groans escaped me as an explosion of pain erupted in the side of my neck. I tried to raise my hands, but they were clamped down at my sides. From the cold penetrating my clothing, I guessed I’d been strapped to some kind of metal slab. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited for the pain and the stars to subside and opened them again and looked down, much more carefully. Turning my head from side to side, I discovered my instincts were correct.

  I was strapped to a table in what looked like a medical laboratory. Worse, Grace lay unconscious, strapped to the table next to me. For what, I didn’t know. Maybe they wanted to make sure we were okay after the tranquilizer gun had rendered us unconscious, but that was the least likely of the scenarios running through my mind.

  I surveyed my surroundings a little better. A computer was set up on a cart about three feet away from me, the Alpha File 120 flashing on the screen. I swallowed hard and thought back to copying the files at the storage facility yesterday. Instinct now told me that my capture had been their plan all along. Pulling at my leg and arm restraints, I tried at least to make them looser, but struggling proved useless. I was bolted to the table, and the table was likely bolted to the floor.

  The moments ticked by in silence, nothing but dead air. I felt dizzy, not just from the drug injected into my system with the tranquilizer, but with betrayal. As I digested the situation I’d put Grace and Conner and myself in, I felt like the ultimate failure.

  My heart skipped a beat when the door at my feet opened and Nate walked in. He wore a different outfit than this morning, a casual pair of khaki shorts and a Super Mario Donkey Kong shirt that said ‘Going Bananas.’ I felt another surge of pure hatred for him flow through me, and I wished more than anything I could go ape on him. How could he turn on me like this just for an innocent kiss I had with someone I’d been in love with for most of my life?

  “You’re awake,” he said.

  “No dip, Observer of the Obvious.”

  “There’s no need for name calling.” Sam’s face, nostrils flaring, appeared behind Nate’s shoulder.

  “Nate…”

  I turned toward the sound of Grace’s groggy voice, wishing she would stay asleep. The less she knew, the better.

  Grace glanced down at her hands for a moment before looking at me as if I could give her answers, brows drawing together quizzically. “Olga?” She turned her gaze toward Sam, her eyes half-closing.

  “Oh, don’t go back to sleep now, sweetheart. You’ll miss all the fun,” Sam told her before studying me through his dark lashes. “My associate paid Juvie a visit not long after you left and questioned Julia. She told us you were trying to scramble the file. That’s when we decided to grab Conner for insurance. I must say, I’m very disappointed in you.”

  “What do you want from me?” My words were barely a whisper, all I could muster, and even that caused black spots to cloud my vision.

  “We were just going to throw you to Hell for your betrayal. No doubt, we could approach the Throne and build a solid case for your sentence. But Nate intervened on your behalf. He told us you have a perfect photographic memory and could recall what you saw on the original file. Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You can simply tell us what you saw. Of course, I understand any reluctance on your behalf, which is why we’ve concocted a truth serum. Sometimes, those serums don’t work on a strong-willed subject, though. That’s what Conner’s here for. We can torture him, focusing on one body part at a time until you cave.”

  “And if I still don’t tell you?”

  I thought of Conner’s words earlier, telling me not to give in to their demands. Before today, I would’ve never entertained the thought of sacrificing Conner. But I’d finally learned something in the past twenty-four hours. This wasn’t about me, Nate, and Conner. In my journey to save us all, I’d sacrificed the greater good. I’d sacrificed Grace. God loves His children so much, and I just threw that love back in His face. My pride deceived me into thinking I knew what was best. I didn’t listen to Riel or Dr. Judy or Nate, before he turned all evil. And now Conner and I would be damned right along with him. I guess I’d get my eternity with the two guys I loved beside me after all. But the Conner I knew would rather be beaten and thrown into Hell before betraying his honor anyway.

  “What will happen if you don’t tell us? Well, that’s why you’re in this laboratory.” He craned his head back, nodding to the medical equipment. “We have scientists here ready to perform a lobotomy. The procedure is tricky, so we’d rather not, but if you don’t cooperate—”

  “We won’t hesitate to hijack your brain,” a man said in a deep voice, moving forward and standing beside Nate. A woman trailed behind him, but I couldn’t get a good look at her. I could, however, get a good look at the guy. He was well dressed in a black suit, a buttoned down red shirt under his jacket. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Samuel’s father.�
�� He clasped his hands at waist level and flashed me a welcoming smile.

  I’d never seen him before, but he looked dashing, his face all shadowy angles and his dark hair slicked back into a ponytail. But I wouldn’t let my eyes deceive me. I knew under all his good looks lay the coldest of hearts.

  “Although you probably know me by another name,” he said. “Perhaps Lucifer, Angel of Death, the Grim Reaper, the Devil—”

  “You’re Satan?” I spat.

  He reached out and gently ran his fingers through my tangled red curls. “The one and only. And this is my bride, Lilith, Demon of Storms. This whole time, your friend Conner, and sometimes even you, blamed God for that lightning strike. But you really should’ve been bowing down to Lilith. God doesn’t send storms like that, my Lilith does.”

  “You wanted us dead?”

  “Well, at first you were nothing special. Just another pure spirit I sought to destroy. But now I can use you for my revenge.”

  “What revenge? You’ve already taken over the planet. The whole world is madness.”

  “This is an ancient war spanning the beginning of time, child. The world hasn’t yet seen what I am capable of. Most of the world doesn’t even believe I exist, the greatest trick I’ve ever played. But now they will know just how grave the consequences are when a man doesn’t follow me.”

  What the heck is he talking about? “What does any of this have to do with me?”

  Lucifer chuckled. “It’s your reward for retrieving The Alpha File 120 for me earlier. You see, for years I’ve sent in my demons, disguised as the best looking men of this world, to impregnate the women and bare my spawn to raise up an army. But the women and demon children always died before completion of the first trimester, unable to take the more powerful physical changes.

  “I realized I was going about my plans all wrong. I looked at the other realms. I knew I couldn’t get access to Heaven, and Hell was already bound. So I studied Purgatory, Limbo, and Juvie. Perfect subjects for my experiment. But first, I needed the chemical makeup of the people residing there. God’s angels had obviously changed the DNA of the deceased to become immortal, even though they retained most of their human characteristics in those realms. They’re half breeds, just like Grace, and she holds the key to unlocking the genetic code.”

  I looked at Grace, and her gaze was on me, too, wide and dark with horror. Here the devil was, confirming the suspicions Nate announced earlier to me about why the demons wanted the file. Was he a double agent the whole time? I fixed my gaze on God’s Public Enemy Number One. He smirked down at me like a television evangelist who had just swindled me out of all my money in exchange for false hope.

  “Now I have Grace’s genetic code and the Alpha File 120. I will be able to see what God sees in Dr. Judy’s mutant spawn, and I will replicate it. Then my greater demons can begin impregnating the women of the Underworld, creating an army more powerful than the angels, uprising from within.”

  I expected him to end his little speech with an evil laugh, but he didn’t. A fit of rage took over, my body thrashing against the restraints. “You sick bastard! You’re going to order your demons to force themselves onto the vulnerable souls of the Underworld?”

  He laughed, throwing his head back. “Relax. We’re living in the modern age now. We’ll accomplish the whole thing through an in vitro fertilization process to control the super powers we want to impart to each subject. I assume you’re familiar with IVF?”

  I snorted through my nose. “Even with God’s genetic codes, there’s no way anybody remotely human would accept your demonic fertility treatment plan.” I tried to sound bold, but my voice cracked on the last few words.

  “We’ll see soon enough, my dear, for you will be our little guinea pig today to get this whole ball rolling. First, we’ll feed you the truth serum. Then, you’ll get dibs on carrying my first half-breed spawn. Aren’t you glad you stopped by?” His tone served to patronize me. “And no worries, if at first we don’t succeed, we can try again with this second little piggy you’ve brought us.” He nodded toward Grace.

  “You’re psychotic. You know that, don’t you?”

  He leaned closer to me, looking me in the eye. “That may very well be true. I’ve certainly been called worse. But ask yourself, which one of us stands here a free man, holding all the cards, and which one of us is strapped to a metal table? Look where all your good deeds have landed you. Where is your all-powerful God now?”

  His words caused my stomach to turn violently, but I wouldn’t look away. “Don’t worry. I’m sure He’ll be here soon.” God, you won’t let this happen, right?

  Lucifer looked at his watch, then turned toward the door. “Oh, I do hope you’re right. I’ve been waiting to see him for a long time now. But in any case, I doubt you’re correct in your assumption. He cares about free will far too much to intervene in most circumstances. Now, I must go meet our other prisoner. I do hope this Conner was worth all the fuss.”

  As he walked out, the others followed. Nate turned and gave me a long hard stare before flipping the light switch, and once again, Grace and I were left in complete darkness.

  “Grace, listen. No matter what happens, if you get the chance to run, take it. Don’t worry about me dying or anything else. I’m already dead. You’re dead, too, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet. And I’m really sorry about deceiving you, but I was under your mother’s orders.” I waited a moment for her to ask questions, but she didn’t. “Are you okay, Grace?” I wished I could see her.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Right now there’s nothing to do but pray. Pray hard, Grace. Pray very, very hard.”

  t could’ve been minutes or hours later that the door burst open, blinding me with brightness when the light switch flipped on. The same demon from earlier came in, still wearing his bloody apron and carrying a glass of water in one hand and some sort of kit in the other. I struggled in vain to sit up.

  “No use in trying, Olga,” he said, stepping up to my side. “Don’t make this harder on yourself than it needs to be. I’ll have to use my ice pick if you don’t cooperate, and believe me, you don’t want that. You saw what it did to Conner’s back, didn’t you?”

  My insides twisted as I remembered Conner in his cell, bloody and beaten.

  “First things first. We’ll need to do a blood test before I give you any drugs to help our DNA study.”

  He pushed up the shirtsleeve on my left arm, then retrieved some gauze and antiseptic spray from his kit. Terror built inside me at the sight of him putting on sterile gloves before he held my arm in place so he could clean the filth off my flesh.

  I tried to make small talk while we waited for the spray to dry. “You should really rethink your path in life. I have this boss named Riel, maybe you’ve heard of him? He’s a pretty powerful angel, and he is gonna be very pissed when he finds out about this.”

  The demon ripped a sterile needle from its package. “You want to know what I think? I think you’re just a little girl who’s too stupid to realize the honor being done to her.” He stabbed my arm with the needle, harder than necessary, and drew blood into a syringe.

  “Stupid is as stupid does,” I said, watching him prepare a second syringe for Grace as he stood between our tables.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” He transferred my blood to a bottle and scribbled my name in black marker on the label, then repeated the process for Grace.

  Stars swam before my eyes. I will not pass out, I will not pass out, I will not pass out. “It means I’m agreeing with you. Even an intelligent person is stupid if she does stupid things.”

  He shut his medical kit with a bang. “Perhaps you’d like to stop acting stupid then? Are you ready to tell me what was in that Alpha File, or shall I proceed with the truth serum?”

  “You got a pen and paper?” I whispered, still feeling woozy from the blood work.

  He picked up the black marker and heaved himself across the room to gr
ab a piece of paper off the counter. “Go ahead.”

  “Olga, don’t,” Grace warned, writhing and kicking as much as the straps would allow.

  Spots still clouded my vision as I spoke. “It started with a series of letters. E, W, S, C, R, A, Y. You got that so far?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. O, U, Y, A, Y. You’ll have to decode the letters to read what it says. Are you familiar with the rules of Pig Latin?”

  “No.”

  I was buying myself some time, but having a little fun, too. “Okay, in Pig Latin you take the first consonant of each word, then move the letter to the end and suffix an ‘ay’ at the end.”

  There was a long silence before the demon stared straight into my eyes and chuckled. “A pity such talent is wasted on always trying to be the hero. But we’ll fix that soon enough.”

  I held my breath while he brought the rim of the cup toward my lips. My mouth wanted to scream, but all I could do was press my lips together and thrash. To what avail, I didn’t know, since I was sure he’d just bring another glass if I knocked this one out of his hands. Or worse, get his ice pick.

  “You’re only hurting yourself,” he said, grabbing my chin between his fingers. His grip was like a vise. “Come on; drink up like a good little girl for daddy.” He grunted from the effort of trying to hold me still, but then he pressed his fingers together, forcing my lips into a pucker.

  I clamped my jaw shut and tried to kick my legs, fighting to free my hands or feet. But then, forced by muscles beyond my control, my lips started to part. Try as I might, I couldn’t struggle against his grip any longer. I wanted to yell, appeal to anyone who might hear me and still have a heart, but that would be the end of me. If the truth serum worked, they’d discover I didn’t know how to read the Alpha File, and then what? Conner and I wouldn’t have any leverage, and what about Nate? That thought blurred into another. If Nate had gone all evil on me and wanted to help the dark side, why hadn’t he told Sam he knew what the file said? I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, and I didn’t have enough time to try to work through the convoluted thought process.