A Mystery of Light

by Brian Fuller

  “Helo,” Cassandra said. “Don’t do this. We can’t go where this road leads.”

  “I understand,” Helo said, though he wasn’t quite sure where the road led. But this was what had to be done. It was like when he had rescued Prescilla. He couldn’t abandon the world to Avadan or King. It would be like 44-2ing the entire planet.

  “Well, Helo?” King said, face confident. “Do we have a deal? I’m growing impatient, and I think you’ll find your Ash Angel friend can only fight so many of my servants at one time.”

  “Avadan’s servants,” Helo said, just to rub it in. “But, no, King, we don’t have a deal. There’s only one thing I want from you before I go.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I want your real name.”

  Chapter 48

  The Devil You Know

  King laughed, a cruel expression of haughty mirth. “I was hoping you would say that.”

  Fear struck Helo’s heart. Why would King hope for that?

  Cassandra. Dolorem. Rachel. Aclima. Gone. The image of King disappeared, leaving him in darkness, disembodied and lost.

  The entire weight of King’s mind, the howling and clamoring of his subjects, dropped on Helo like a granite mountain. Crushing was hardly the word. Pulverized was the sensation. He wanted to cover his ears, but in this place he didn’t have any. He wanted to run, but he had no legs to do it with. He was suffocating but had no lungs to pull air for relief.

  Unlike Legion, King didn’t try to hide. King’s embrace enveloped him, surrounded him, locked him with cold iron links. This miserable, constricting chain squeezed and squeezed until its prisoner was broken. King’s voice dropped to a whisper, carrying the same persuasive confidence it had back in the hold of the Tempest. “You already know me, Helo. You know who I am, what I am. I am you. You are me.”

  The hopeless feeling that exuded from Avadan raged with power here, joining in with the cacophony of voices in the darkness who screamed at Helo to give up, to let go. Helo searched his heart for the infinite well of power, that connection given him when Melody had thrown herself into the watery chasm. It was gone. She had thrown herself away for nothing.

  “Knowing my name comes with a price,” King said. “But in the paying, you will know me, and thus you will know yourself.”

  Helo felt uneasy. Did King actually want him to know his name? Why wasn’t he afraid of being Exorcised? The word price echoed through Helo’s head. Facing Legion had cost him, but he had gotten through it with Melody’s help. What would knowing Satan’s name do to him?

  Helo mustered of his courage. “I don’t want to know you. What is your name?”

  “You know better,” King said. “You cannot know my name without knowing me. The names of the mortal world are little more than labels, stickers slapped on boxes mothers and fathers don’t know the contents of. I am King, Satan, the devil, Lucifer, the deceiver, the trickster, and on and on. But those are just a few pieces of a puzzle too big for anyone to put together. But here you’ve come to try, to literally walk where angels fear to tread. You will look good with a red aura.”

  Helo struggled against King’s will. This was a mistake. A huge mistake. What kind of arrogance had tempted him to stand toe to toe with King? He had to find some way to escape, some way to get back to Sparks and take Avadan to the Foundry. He tried to back out, to wake up, to will himself out of King’s mind, but it was no use. Those cold chains he could sense around his soul tightened like a hungry boa.

  “Let’s begin,” King whispered with relish. “You love a puzzle. Let’s throw a few pieces around.”

  He was five. Brandon was seven. Their mom browsed the shelves of a clothing store, considering the merits of a blue blouse while he and Brandon got bored. Despite the dull task of sitting around while their mom browsed clothing, Helo looked forward to these trips, which always ended with their mother buying them a chocolate bar. Brandon stood behind him by the shopping cart and stabbed his finger into Helo’s back, hard. Helo yelped.

  “Be quiet,” his mother scolded.

  Brandon smirked and did it again. And again. And again. Helo’s anger rose, and he shoved Brandon into a rack of clothes that tumbled to the ground with a horrible clatter. Helo swallowed. His mother’s eye twitched, and her cheeks bloomed red. She slammed the hanger down, eyes scanning the store to see if anyone had noticed.

  Helo swallowed and flinched. His mother grabbed him by the arm.

  “Why, Trace? Why would you do that? Are you trying to disgrace this family? Make me look stupid?”

  She spanked him right there in the store, right in front of everyone. Brandon smirked again and stuck his tongue out, then put on an Oscar-worthy “my arm is hurt” display.

  His mom bought the candy bars, but she gave both of them to Brandon. The whole ride home he would hold pieces out to Helo like he was going to share and then snap them back and wolf them down.

  Helo felt the chains bite into him. This was years ago. This memory had long been buried. Even so, the injustice and the shame and the anger rushed back with redoubled force. It wasn’t fair. Why could Brandon abuse him and his mother not even care?

  “Remember what I told you before, Helo?” King said. “Do you think you can face God with these memories resurrected inside you with their perfect power and still count yourself worthy?”

  “It was just kid stuff,” Helo said, trying to convince himself. “It doesn’t matter.”

  King chuckled. “It matters. You can feel it, and I can feel it in you. But that’s not the problem. The problem is you keep dismissing and excusing the people who have robbed you over and over again of what you deserved. From the very beginning your brother has taken and taken and taken from you, and you just keep on saying it’s okay. He stole your chocolate—and maybe that’s not important in the grand scheme of things. But he stole your parents’ affection. He stole your girlfriends. He slept with your wife! Your wife! And yet when you see this brother—this thief of a brother—stick a gun to his head and blow his brains out, you still feel pity and sorrow. You should have rejoiced!”

  A spark of anger spit into Helo’s heart. There was truth in that. Why had he always worshiped an older brother who had so often treated him with cruelty, who had betrayed him?

  King pressed on. “And I know we spoke of your treacherous wife before, but again, here is a woman whose infidelity nearly destroyed you, yet when she shows up as an Ash Angel, you are happy for her, you wish her the best. She should have fallen on her knees and begged—begged!—for your forgiveness. Not that you should have given it. Even now she shows she can’t be faithful. I know Legion tried to paint you as a coward, but what you really are is a doormat who lets everyone walk all over you and take the dignity and respect that are yours! When do you stand up, Helo? When is enough, enough?”

  Terissa’s wandering heart did irritate him. She’d already beat him half to death with it and then made Corinth’s last weeks as an Ash Angel miserable. When would she ever learn? Who would teach her?

  “And the Ash Angel Organization,” King chided. “They should have laid you out on the receiving floor of Deep 7 so everyone could wipe their boots on you on the way in. I mean, how much grief and suffering did they put you through? But like a stupid little dog you keep on going back for another helping of humiliation and suspicion. Sure, they made you an Archus when they realized they would get crushed without your power, but trust me, you won’t have any real power. They won’t let you have it. As soon as they feel they’re safe, they’ll strip you of the influence and recognition you deserve. Can’t you see that you should be the one leading that pack of buffoons? You should be sitting in the chair of the Grand Archus.”

  A swell of anger burned through Helo’s veins. The AAO had not been kind or even reasonable to him. Not even close. King was right. He kept going back to the AAO time and time again, even when Dolorem hadn’t wanted him to, had warned him against it.

  “Now you’re understanding,” King cooed. �
��What has your life and your afterlife been but long stretches of surrender to other people’s indulgence and cruelty? Is this the gift God gave you, Helo, to live a life of misery under the boot of people who are your inferiors in every way? And you’re not alone. Even those with so called ‘good lives’ find no peace from disaster, disease, and the unrelenting pounding of other people’s selfish, warped decisions. But neither your life nor your afterlife have been good. So what are you doing? Why persist in living a life that has brought you nothing but horror?”

  Helo’s invisible heart hammered to the drumbeat of King’s logic. Was surrendering a path to freedom? A path to power over those who used and abused him? Could he ever get what he deserved or dish out what others deserved if he remained in the light?

  If there was some grand plan for joy, it had certainly skipped him over, like King said. He had run from one misery to the next his entire life while the very people who had made him miserable smiled and deceived and kicked him down whenever he tried to rise. It was like Melody’s dream where people sawed and hacked him apart while he screamed, cutting him to pieces until there was nothing left. She had seen it.

  Melody.

  The chains loosened. How cold those chains had become! How they bit into his soul and numbed it! Melody. Undeserved. That’s what she was. Her love came from nowhere. It was almost like she loved him simply because he existed, saw something of worth in him when he didn’t. His inflamed heart cooled in the river of gratitude he felt for her.

  “You didn’t deserve her,” King said. “You deserved better. She—”

  Deserved. King said that a lot. But Melody’s love was perfect because he didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t won her or wooed her or worked for her. She was a gift. The best gift. One he had never doubted. He’d never loved anything as easily as he loved her. She had loved him first without reservation, and how could his soul not reach for such a pure offering? Her love was a reflection of what God offered to everyone, as bright as the sun with a gravity he could not escape. He could never deserve it. He could only accept it.

  Something warm poured into him, a feeling like Rapture, a connection to the light that had gone entirely missing in King’s domain. His mind settled, and he pulled in the brilliance suffusing him, the chains around him loosening. And in that clarity, the darkness King had tried to raise within him revealed a handful of pieces of the puzzle of King’s own name.

  Slighted. Bitter. Vengeful. Entitled. Angry. Outcast.

  “What was taken from you?” Helo pressed, pulling on the connection of light and forcing it into the abyss of King’s mind.

  King snarled. “EVERYTHING! Everything was taken from me! You should understand! You have felt what I feel!”

  Helo pulled in more light. “What is your name?”

  Helo found himself back on the stairs that awful Christmas eve, watching as his dad brutalized his mother and his valiant brother. Fear had vibrated through him, his underwear soaked with urine, his heart blackened by his father’s disappointment. More pieces of the name fell in place. King wanted the power and control of his father but felt as helpless as Helo had that night.

  Fear. Shame. Humiliation. Weak. Powerless. Insignificant.

  “I am not powerless!” King said. “You have felt my power! Seen what it can do!”

  “What is your name?”

  “No!”

  King asserted his will, a wall thrown up against the intruding question. But King’s walls couldn’t stop the battering ram of light Helo now threw against them. The core of what King was, the face he wanted no one to see, was locked deep within him. The wall shattered, and Helo dove into the murk. He thought he would see into King’s mind, view King’s memories. But as before, one of his own memories surfaced, the last of his mortal life.

  Helo pulled his hand back from the bullet wound on his leg, finding it sticky with blood. It slicked the steering wheel of his truck as he tried to negotiate the dark highway, his vision blurred. His life had just been crushed. His wife had never loved him. She had cheated on him with some jerk from her office. The vision in his head of love and family when he had married exploded into vapor, his future obliterated.

  He drifted into the left lane, head swimming, and overcorrected. The truck rolled and crashed through the unknown forest, his body tumbling within the cab, body and soul breaking in unison until it all stopped upside down in the night. Bones snapped. Blood pooled. Vision black. This was the end. All alone in the dark.

  Blind. Lost. Broken. Wrecked. Hopeless. Ended.

  “You see?” King snarled. “You see! You and I are the same! You know who I am because you know who you are. The difference between us is that you accept what was done to you. I am not weak, Helo. I don’t accept it. I will never accept it. And neither should you.”

  King’s tone was frenzied, his emotions a hurricane of ill will. His mind was a twisted warren of tantrums and rants and fits with no exit, nowhere to go except one place: vengeance. There was no victory. King knew that. He just wanted to corrupt and burn what he could out of corrosive spite.

  And all the puzzle pieces fell together, all the images and words and ideas. Satan’s name was long, miserable, and unpronounceable, but it was him. It was everything he was, everything he stood against, and most of all, the lonely nothingness he was steadily becoming. Alone was the closest any mortal word came, but it couldn’t express the utter annihilation of connection King had brought upon himself, the terror and finality of his severance from light. King was no king, the very name a laughable fraud.

  If King’s name were a puzzle, Helo knew he would find many of the pieces familiar. But every moment he spent with Melody painted a new picture, and his own name took on a new meaning every time it fell from her lips.

  King’s grasp broke asunder, the light flooding into Helo without barriers now. King let loose a yell of bitter frustration, a sour note of anger so potent it curdled Helo’s soul. King’s howl of despair he would never forget, the rot of a hate that had fermented for thousands of years without relief. All the voices of the evil spirits connected to King’s mind went silent as one as if to reverence the pain of their master.

  And then Helo was out. One hand still squeezed Avadan’s throat, the armless Loremaster shaking. In Helo’s other hand was the diamond he had somehow grabbed during his visit with King. It buzzed with fury, and if he opened his fist, he knew it would jump out and ping around the room like a ricocheting bullet. A feeling radiated from the gem, a whispered yell of malice heard in the soul. Of its own accord, the stone cut into his hand, buried itself inside his skin, and went still. The evil spirit on Avadan’s back was gone.

  “’Bout time,” Sparks said. He had blood on his knuckles and a veritable barge of beaten people floating around the room. It looked like he’d tried to stack them out of the water, which had lowered to about thigh level. But none of the people had an evil spirit clinging to them anymore. Not one. A few people milled about the front of the bar, wondering where they were.

  “You good?” Helo asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Sparks said. “Nice to brush up on my boxing. You Exorcise Legion? All the evil spirits disappeared at the same time. And so did Avadan’s! What’d you do?”

  “You learned his name!” Avadan said. “You Exorcised them all!” The Loremaster’s eyes bulged, expression eager. “What was his name? You must share it with me! It is the greatest secret!”

  “How do we kill this one?” Sparks said, wading over. “Part Sheid. Part Dread.”

  Helo thought for a moment. “Sanctified weapons kill Shedim, and Angel Fire to the heart kills Dreads. I say we do both and see what happens.”

  “No!” Avadan said. “I can help you. There are more prisons. More prisoners you can save!”

  “We’ll find them without you,” Helo said.

  “No, no, no!” Avadan begged. “Let me do one more concert, just one more.”

  “Ridiculous,” Sparks answered.

  Avadan swallowed and his face s
ettled. “I tell you this in all seriousness, Helo. I swear it is the truth. Cain was not the only one who made deals with the devil. You kill me, they go free!”

  Helo formed a long dagger of light in his hand and shoved it into Avadan’s body. The Loremaster yelped, struggling against the grip on his throat. Helo pinned him, keeping the dagger firmly inside Avadan’s chest.

  “Sparks,” Helo said. “If you would do the honor.”

  “Hell, yes,” he said. Angel Fire erupted from his palm and tore into Avadan’s chest. The holy flames fried the Loremaster’s heart, and Avadan crumbled into an insignificant pile of dust, disappearing to join the muddy, impure water of the flood.

  It was over. All the Loremasters were dead. There were no more Shedim. No more Possessed. There were at least two Dreads left, probably more. But their days were numbered. The world was finally free.

  Chapter 49

  Bonded

  Kansas City was a mess. The Old Masters arrived a couple hours after they had defeated Avadan and immediately began the work of helping to clean streets, help the wounded, and comfort the bereaved. The water receded quickly in the absence of the storm, leaving a soggy, suffering city behind.

  Helo spoke with Magdelene for over an hour, and it was confirmed. There were no more Possessed. There were no more desecration zones engulfing entire cities. Confusion. That’s what there was. The normals had no explanation for why cities full of people had suddenly lost their minds and gone after each other. Not even the people who had rampaged for a couple hours that evening had any idea of what they had done.

  But the healing could begin now, and the Old Masters were perfectly suited to the task. Counseling, soothing, inspiring—it was what they lived for, and Helo wished Dolorem were still around to help. He would have been perfect. The Ash Angels from the Foundry had arrived a couple hours after the Loremasters and gotten right to work, their auras joining with those of the Old Masters to brighten the streets in their divine glow.