Harsh Gods

by Michelle Belanger

  I nudged it open with my elbow. A single lamp burned in the room beyond, the glow of its bulb soft and muted. The lamp—Tinker Bell green with glittery plastic fairies dangling from its shade—rested on a nightstand amid a small regiment of prescription bottles. Nearby, a frail girl lay on a steel-framed hospital bed that looked three sizes too big for her. Dark hair spilled over her pillows, framing a narrow oval of a face. Her thick lashes fluttered restlessly against waxen cheeks, and her hands plucked at the edges of her blanket, one of them clutching the pink and green beads of a garishly colored rosary.

  The bed angled toward a big picture window, curtained now to keep out the late winter chill. Beside the window sat an old wooden rocker. Perched on this was a solid man wearing the black clothes and white collar of a Catholic priest. He had proud, patrician features surmounted by a shock of gunmetal gray hair. His precise age was uncertain—he could have been anywhere between fifty-five and seventy. Although his skin was lined and weathered, his eyes remained bright and startlingly intense.

  I recognized him immediately from the flash I’d had earlier—though he’d been a bit younger in the image in my head. The instant he saw me, he stood with a smooth grace that reminded me more of a panther than a priest. He seemed to know at least some of my quirks, because he didn’t bother extending his hand in greeting. Instead, he cracked a smile that chased decades from his features.

  “Zachary,” he said. He had a big voice, but he did his best to soften it, out of deference to the slumbering girl.

  I nodded. “Father Frank.”

  His poker face was better than Sanjeet’s, but I still caught uncertainty flickering around the edges.

  “It’s been a while,” he said carefully.

  Nodding again, I tried to work out how to respond. It would have helped if I’d had some idea how I knew him—and how well he knew me. There were lots of things I preferred not to share about my life, if I didn’t have to. All of it, really.

  I teased my sight open a little more, trying to get a solid sense of the man. To all appearances, he was mortal. Theoretically, he could have been hiding himself behind his own variation of a cowl, but usually there were tip-offs for that. Cowled like that, a person came across as too normal, or gave off no impressions whatsoever. I felt a strong compulsion to like him, but figured that had more to do with his easy charisma. The man practically radiated affable competence.

  “Thanks for coming out on short notice, Zack,” he said, breaking the awkward silence. “The way you were ignoring my calls, I figured you had to be in the middle of something. I know the demands on your time.”

  I shrugged. The subtle pressure in the room teased my neck hairs to attention. Glancing in Halley’s direction, I tried to tell if the agitation was coming from her, or if it belonged to something that was attracted to her. The presence was vague enough that it could have been either.

  The girl stirred, as if sensing my attention, muttering fitfully in her sleep.

  “Exorcism, hunh?” I ventured, still not certain how much credence to put into that, despite the Roman collar.

  For a long moment, Father Frank searched my face. I could feel the weight of his scrutiny as surely as I felt the odd pressure bearing down upon the room. His eyes were the color of old copper pennies—a brown so burnished and rich it lost you in its depths. I met his gaze without blinking. He parted his thin slash of a mouth to say something, but then seemed to change his mind. He shook his head once—a swift twitch of his narrow jaw—and gave a pensive noise.

  “I’ll give you the high points,” he said.

  I nodded.

  He looked as if he expected me to say more. When I didn’t, he continued with the terse, efficient tone of a soldier reporting to a commanding officer.

  “Her grandfather, Joe Davis, passed a few weeks ago. After the funeral, she started talking about this voice. Tammy thought it might be Joe reaching out to Halley from beyond the grave. The girl had been his favorite of the grandchildren.”

  I glanced to the pill bottles clustered on the nightstand, trying to read the labels.

  “Halley hear voices a lot?”

  “With her talents? Yes,” Father Frank responded. He held his shoulders a little stiffly. “She has a lot of problems, Zack—severe autism, seizure disorders—but I know legitimate abilities when I see them. I’ve been around you long enough.”

  My eyes snapped to his.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  His brow knitted and I got the feeling he was trying to read me right back. Again, the weight of his attention plucked at me.

  “You all right, Zack?”

  “Tell me about the girl,” I responded. “She heard this voice. Mom thought it was the grandfather. What made you think it wasn’t?”

  While I spoke, I paced the length of room on the near side of the bed, skimming the contents of the bookshelves. They were packed—every full-color Disney book imaginable, but also Narnia, Potter, Tolkien. Shakespeare on the shelf below that, along with Octavia Butler, George MacDonald, and a full run of Andrew Lang’s fairy books. Whatever else she was, the kid was a reader, and a precocious one.

  “She got progressively more agitated,” the old priest replied. “Started calling it Whisper Man. Said it was asking her to do things, though she wouldn’t explain what. She’s not always good at communicating.”

  I nodded, picking up a Tupperware container full of beads from the nightstand. There were similar containers stacked all over the shelves, each meticulously sorted by shape, color, and size. A quart-sized freezer bag stuffed with plastic crosses and coils of waxed cord lay on a desk on the other side of the bed.

  “She makes rosaries for the parish,” Father Frank explained, gesturing to the little tub of beads in my hand. A weary smile tugged at one half of his mouth. “She obsesses on making things or taking them apart—common for kids like her who fall on the spectrum. The rosaries help give that a direction. She’s very proud of them.”

  I nodded, returning the plastic container to its carefully allotted space. The girl murmured in her sleep, her fingers worrying the beads twined round her hand. That rippling tension contracted again within the air. I still couldn’t tell what was causing it—there weren’t any obvious spirits or other entities lingering on the Shadowside.

  Father Frank watched me intently.

  “What was it asking her to do?”

  He sighed. “It might be easier to show you.” He crossed the room in a few quick steps, withdrawing a stack of papers from a shelf of the nightstand. They were covered in symbols. “The first time, she wrote all over the walls before anyone knew what was happening. Like with the rosaries, we helped her steer it toward something less destructive.”

  He shuffled through the papers, holding them out so I could see. Some were scribbled in magic marker, a few in crayon, others in what appeared to be finger paint.

  “Can you read them?” he asked.

  I took the papers, sorting slowly through the stack. The symbols crowding each page looked like a legitimate language—but it was gibberish to me.

  “No,” I said, a little shocked by the admission. I had a knack for languages, kind of a superpower, really.

  “No?” he responded, and his eyes widened. “But Zack, you read practically everything.”

  I studied him over the papers. “Is that why I’m here? Because I taught ancient languages at Case?”

  “Taught them?” Father Frank scoffed. “You learned Sumerian first-hand. I thought if anyone could make sense of these symbols, it would be you. Are you telling me they’re nonsense?”

  I stared at him, too gobsmacked to respond. He misinterpreted my shock for a look of alarm.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “How do you know that about me?” Fear stropped a wicked edge on my voice. This was the nightmare that plagued me every time I dropped into sleep—exposure, then judgment. My nature revealed for everyone to see.

  Father Frank shushed me, then grabbed my arm
with a familiarity more shocking than his statement about Sumer. Hand firm on my elbow, he steered me to the farthest corner of the room, well away from the sleeping Halley. Fear glinted in the burnished depths of his eyes. Not fear of me—

  Fear for me.

  “Zaquiel, what’s the matter with you?” He kept his voice low, but quiet as he was, those first three syllables resounded to my core. This man knew my name. My True Name—a name older than the body I wore around me, older than the priest who uttered it, older even than the city in which we both stood.

  He knew me.

  Questions jostled through my thoughts—too many to frame coherently. How long had he known me? When had I revealed myself to him? Did this man know anything about the events leading up to my attack on the lake?

  I didn’t get a chance to ask any of them.

  Behind us, Halley jolted upright in bed. She scrambled backward in a panic, kicking furiously at her blankets. Little mewling sounds erupted from her throat.

  “Shit,” the priest cursed.

  He reached to calm her. She clawed wildly at him.

  “Is this a seizure?” I asked, moving to assist.

  The air in the little room grew thick enough to choke on, and the pall of strange power roiled around the girl like a sentient cloud. Frail as she was, desperation rendered her incredibly strong. She shook off both of us, drawing her knees up and trying to press herself into the tiniest space possible. Her thin shoulders smacked against the wall and still she pushed backward, digging her heels into the mattress. All her hair fell across her features like a dark, tangled veil. She crushed her palms against her ears, whipping her head back and forth while crying out.

  “Nononononononono!”

  “Halley,” the padre said. He tried for her hands again, but she twisted away, nimble as a cat. She shook her head so violently, she was in danger of hurting herself. “Halley, please—” he begged.

  She muttered with the singsong rhythm of a nursery rhyme, repeating the same pattern of words breathlessly over and over. From the way she clutched the rosary, I thought it was a prayer.

  Then I caught the words.

  “Hands to take and eyes to see. A mouth to speak.”

  She said it again, rocking in time till the whole bed shook beneath her.

  “What the hell is that?” I breathed. The girl kept rocking, growing louder with each repetition.

  “Hands to take and eyes to see. A mouth to speak.”

  “It’s trying for her again,” Father Frank whispered, as if stating it any louder would invite it to become more real. Halley clutched her rosary to her lips, murmuring in a rush against the beads.

  “Hands to take and eyes to see. A mouth to speak—he comes for me. He comes for me!”

  “Oh, that’s not creepy,” I breathed.

  With each cycle of her words, the presence—whatever it was—bore down harder upon the space. The pressure made my ears ring.

  “Can you see it?” Father Frank asked as he wrestled with her. “Tell me you see something so we know what to fight.”

  I let my sight spill wide till the Shadowside aspect of the room hung thicker in my vision than any of its physical objects. Father Frank and the girl grayed out in the wake of the suffocating power.

  “I can feel what it’s doing, but I can’t see anything behind it,” I said. “Just power. Ripples of power.”

  “Leave me alone!” Halley wailed, then started up with the rhyme again. With hooked fingers, she tore at her ears, yanking away long drifts of hair in the process. I moved to grab one wrist while the padre struggled with the other. The instant I made skin-to-skin contact, Halley’s head whipped around. Her eyes pinholed till there was hardly any pupil left.

  She darted at me, saying in a rush, “He can see you. He can see you, even without his eye!”

  I staggered back, the scar on my palm blazing. The Eye of Nefer-Ka? She couldn’t mean that. How could she even know about that?

  The padre dragged her away from me, raising his voice to a stentorian bellow.

  “Halley. Listen to me. Make the wall in your head. You’re a strong girl. Make the wall and drive him out!”

  Halley flailed in the old priest’s grip, then suddenly calmed.

  “Brick by brick by brick by brick,” she breathed in a rapid patter. She nodded her head in time with each word, but without the frenzied rhythm that had driven the creeptastic rhyme before. The overbearing sense of pressure dwindled by stages in the room.

  From elsewhere in the house came a thunderous crash—followed swiftly by the piercing wail of a terrified little boy.

  “Fuck me running,” I swore. “You stay with her. I’ll check on Tyson and the rest.”

  4

  Tingling power rushed to my fingers as I charged down the hall and into the living room. I held it back—no sense in starting the fireworks till I knew what I was up against. Still, my hands itched with the memory of twin blades forged of pure light, and the power was there, if I wanted it.

  The front door stood wide open, a cold wind blowing in from outside. I felt a pang of guilt—I didn’t remember locking it behind me, and as far as I knew, I’d been the last person inside. Snowy footprints—already melting—were visible across the hardwood. They moved past the fireplace, toward the kitchen, then backtracked to the staircase.

  There was another crash, and something heavy struck the floor above me with enough force to rattle the pictures on the walls. I ran up the steep flight of stairs, taking them two—and sometimes three—at a time. I hesitated a moment at the top, not sure which room was which, but I didn’t have to wait long.

  The door at the end burst open and a grizzled man in greasy sweatpants came stumbling backward into the hall. Sanjeet stood backlit in the doorway, her stance wide and her hair flying. Her glasses were askew and she had a purpling bruise on her jaw, but she had clearly landed more blows than she had taken.

  The intruder recovered from her kick and tried grappling her. She broke the hold with the ease of someone trained to do it, then dropped and twisted to slam him bodily into the wall. Little bits of plaster cascaded from a hole left behind by his elbow.

  “Don’t you touch that little boy!” she cried fiercely, all her timidity forgotten in the heat of the conflict.

  Tyson wailed in the background and I could hear Tammy speaking rapidly in an effort to soothe him. The old guy—he looked like a vagrant who had wandered in from the street—groaned, but shook it off.

  “Hands to take,” he babbled. “Eyes to see!”

  Nope, not a random home invasion.

  The guy made another grab for Sanjeet, and without hesitation, she kicked him solidly in the nuts. When that blow doubled him over, she brought both fists down on the back of his neck. He dropped to all fours, wheezing. That should have knocked the fight right out of him, but instantly he scrambled to pick himself back up.

  “Who the fuck is this guy?” I demanded.

  “Look out!” Sanjeet shouted. Her eyes flicked to something just behind me.

  Power danced across my hands and the world around me slowed. Dimly, I was aware that I was the one moving fast—faster than I should have in front of Sanjeet and the others—but that inhuman speed allowed me to dodge the rusty tire iron that came whistling toward my head. I turned to face a shabbily dressed woman with picking scars all over her face. Her pupils were blown and I wasn’t sure she had enough brains left to be aware of what she was doing.

  Instinctively, I peered through the Shadowside to see what was pulling her strings. I expected to confront the leering grin of a cacodaimon—they liked to ride addicts and the brain-fucked—but there was nothing around her except that weird pressure distorting the air. I still couldn’t see what was making it.

  “Won’t—stop!” she shrieked, and she took another swing.

  The woman held the tire iron like it was a baseball bat, bringing it in a wide arc from just over her shoulder. I was already half in a crouch from ducking the first attempt, s
o I simply dropped lower and let her swing over me, moving too fast for the scar-faced woman to compensate. As her arms crossed her body, I thrust hard with the base of my palm, connecting above her elbow. The joint popped. She kept her grip on the tire iron—barely—and the combined momentum of blow and swing sent her spinning.

  Lady Scarface stood only a couple of feet from the top of the stairs, so I did the most logical thing in the moment—kicked hard at the central mass of her body. She flew backwards with a startled yelp, uselessly cartwheeling her arms. The tire iron clattered down the stairs alongside her. With a miserable groan, she struck bottom, splayed like a heap of dirty rags.

  One down.

  The old guy, who was still babbling about hands and eyes and other wild things, twisted away from Sanjeet and crashed into me. He twined his arms around my midsection, clinging with a strength I hardly expected. With his filthy sneakers scrabbling for purchase on the runner of hallway carpet, he started driving me back in the direction I’d sent the lady.

  Sanjeet rushed forward and tried to drag him off of me. Trained as she was, she lacked the bodyweight to effectively wrestle from that position.

  Running on adrenaline and instinct, I didn’t really think about how I responded. I shouted my power and wrapped my fingers round the guy’s head. Blue-white fire that only I could see blazed from my hands, leaping from me to the deranged hobo.

  He jerked like I’d hit him with a Taser. I pried his face backward with my thumbs planted at the outside corners of his eyes. I was just about to blind him and snap his neck when a tiny voice of reason shrilled in my mind.

  Sanjeet was watching.

  Tammy was somewhere close by. So was little Tyson.

  Killing the guy with my bare hands in front of so many witnesses—

  That would be bad.

  I wasn’t exceptionally concerned about committing murder—just the part about getting caught. That snapped me out of the battle lust, leaving a sick feeling to slither in my gut. I flexed with the gathered power, sending concussions of it into his head. I didn’t consciously understand the technique, just knew in the moment that it would fuck him up, but not in any way that would be fatal.