The Arcana

by Matt Hiebert

  II.

  A supersonic transport is already waiting for me at the Dallas airport. It is the only plane on the tarmac.

  I sit in an uncomfortable seat inside the passenger area of the jet. There are no cheerful words from the pilot. No stewardess to serve me drinks or remind me to buckle my seatbelt. The canvas and rubber smell of the military fills the cabin.

  The jet climbs into the sky and I watch the ground descend into a patchwork beneath the clouds. Black smoke still rises over downtown Dallas, but my part is finished.

  In a few moments my hands start to shake. The fear drains from me and I am left hollow, exhausted.

  I think of Justice entering the mouth of the demon, kicking and screaming on the end of the pitch fork. I think of the World disappearing beneath the monster’s foot. I think of the Chariot, sacrificing himself to give me one more second to prepare. The Hanged Man. The Hermit.

  I think of their husbands, wives and children. My eyes crush shut trying to push away the images.

  Will it ever end?

  Four years ago I was a reference librarian in Springfield, Missouri. The pay wasn’t great but I loved my job. I liked helping the younger patrons with their homework and bullshitting with the older ones who had nothing better to do than hang out at the library.

  I had a wife and a daughter.

  When the demons came, all that went away. No more time for the mundane. No more pretending that politics or television or income tax or retirement or families meant anything anymore. The curtain had fallen away.

  Most of the world still plods forward between attacks, hoping their city is not next on the list. They go to work, hang out with friends, raise their kids, watch TV. But for those of us conscripted into the Arcana, the loss of innocence is fatal. It ends the lives we lived before. We are the front line of humanity’s defense. The mysteriously chosen. The mystically transformed. One day we are nurses, truck drivers, students, doctors, librarians, bottled water salesmen. The next, we are the Hierophant, the Sun, the Hermit, Death. The Tower. As if born with the knowledge, all of us knew what to do and how to do it. But inside, we are still us.

  I long for the past too often.

  After a while, the white noise from the jet engines helps push the memories from my head, and sleep fills the hole left by the fear.

  It only takes a little while to make it back to the Florida Panhandle, where the Enclave stands. I startle awake when I feel the jet bank on approach.

  The great pillar of the Enclave seems to follow us as we circle to land. Its vaulting organic spires reach into the sky like strange elongated seashells, spiraling five hundred feet above the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico. It reminds me of something Gaudi would have built, but smoother and shinier. Something grown, not built. Green lights wink down the length of a black runway next to the fortress, welcoming us home. The military built the runway very quickly after the Enclave appeared out of nowhere. They knew they’d be around a lot.

  On the ground I am again escorted by a squad of heavily armed soldiers. I am a very important man. I could be replaced in a second, but they don’t want that to happen. No one’s lived through this as long as I have. I was one of the first chosen four years ago. The only original left. My death would be bad for morale.

  I am happy to get back to the Enclave. In many ways it’s a prison, but I am safe here. I can rest. Monsters aren’t trying to kill me.

  The Enclave materialized from thin air the day the Arcana appeared. Its smooth vaulting walls rose from the empty earth like a sprouting tree. It has hundreds of rooms but not a single right angle. Its walls are covered in raised and recessed glyphs whose meaning is beyond our comprehension. Even the members of the Arcana cannot read them.

  As I walk through the cavernous central great room of the structure, several of the Arcana stand to greet me. They were not summoned to the fight, but their pity for the fallen is just as great. Although some of it is for themselves.

  We are all physically altered by the change. Some are marked by mysterious tattoos that crawl up their arms, neck and face in chains of occult symbology. Others have raised metallic brands upon their flesh that look like the glyphs on the Enclave walls. My change is different. I have solid blue eyes. No pupil or iris. Just two blue glass marbles that don’t make the world look any different to me. I’m told they blaze when I summon the lightning.

  Strength, who now stands before me in tears, suffers the most profound alteration. She is from Berlin, a woman in her thirties, dark blond hair, eight-foot tall with biceps like beach balls, shoulders as wide as a Volkswagen. She can lift a dump truck but she cries all the time. Before I pass, I stop and squeeze her hand in reassurance, then move on quickly.

  But not quick enough. Before I can get to my compartment, an Air Force captain stops me at the edge of the great room.

  “General wants a debrief,” he says to me. I sigh, but nod and follow the captain to the cluster of offices the international coalition has commandeered at the far end of the Enclave.

  General Stokes doesn’t bother to wear a uniform anymore. He hasn’t in two years. Just said screw it. He still oversees strategic operations of the unified forces but the futility of the task burned him out some time ago. The demons are disorganized and their surreal technology is inferior to ours. His forces are often victorious even without us. But no matter how many battles he wins -- with or without the Arcana – the horrors just keep coming, materializing out of nowhere without plan or warning. He cannot counterattack. Just react, react, react. I suffer the same gnawing frustration.

  He’s sitting behind a forest of computer monitors that vomit video of the recent battle recorded from various angles. Some shots are from helicopters above the conflict, some are from the helmet cameras of the soldiers who were there. I see myself appear in many of the shots. In one of the rectangles, I see the World get squashed again, but from a different perspective.

  “The whole damned Hand?” Stokes says in greeting.

  I don’t answer. My silence tells him to take it down a notch. We’ve worked together for a while. He sighs and turns his desk chair toward me. That’s his way of offering sympathy, or whatever similar emotion he can muster.

  “The Baal was smart,” I say. “It pretended to be snared by the Hanged Man. The Hermit told me to strike when it fell. I did and it dodged.”

  He reaches over and hits a button on a black keyboard. The largest computer screen flashes and begins replaying the scene I just narrated. The shot was captured by some anonymous solider with a helmet cam, crouched behind a taxi a few blocks up the street.

  From behind the action I watch the Baal fall to street. The Hanged Man is visible in the left side of the frame. I can see myself glowing blue in the distant background, tentacles of lightning arc from my body in all directions. The screen goes white when I drop the blow. The picture fades back from a new angle showing the demon already standing. The Hanged Man is gone.

  Stokes taps a key and the image freezes.

  “Its pitchfork could shoot flames?”

  “More like fireballs.”

  “That’s new.”

  “It was bad.”

  He hits another button. It is a blurry image of the Hanged Man being vaporized by a stray fragment from my strike.

  “Your shot took out the Hanged Man?” He asks, but I know he knows.

  I nod. “Yes. It was out of my control.”

  “And the Chariot? Do you think it was his idea to ram the Baal. Or was he forced to?”

  He clicks a button and displays an aerial view of the Chariot smashing into the Baal’s eyeball.

  “I don’t know.”

  He clicks his mouse and all the video screens pause, capturing various images of mayhem.

  “Get some rest. When you feel like it, talk to Borges.” He speaks in a low, even voice, visibly trying not to show his frustration. It is not often an entire Hand is killed. “This time was different. We need to gather a
ll the intelligence we can.”

  There is an unspoken distrust between the military and the Arcana. They think we know more than we do. I think it’s because our private language is indecipherable. When we address each other, no one but another member can understand our words. The military always thinks we’re talking about them, telling secrets. And sometimes we are.

  I stand to leave.

  “Not to keep stats,” Stokes says. “But you broke a hundred trips today. Congratulations.”

  Back in my personal area of the Enclave, I lie on my bed and turn on the television. The very first station is showing footage of Dallas. I instantly change the channel to a documentary on penguins. Television is a thread that connects me to the past. Sometimes I can watch it and feel like nothing’s changed.

  I sleep for several hours. When I wake up I don’t know if it’s day or night. Not that it makes any difference.

  I make a pot of coffee in my little kitchen and drink it black while an infomercial blares the virtues of a miracle cleaning product. Must be night.

  Someone knocks on my ornate shell door. I know who it is.

  “Come in!” A section of wall melts away allowing my visitor access by a magic we will never figure out.

  Borges comes in reeking of cigarettes. He’s some kind of quantum physics genius. Young, maybe thirty. From Argentina, but speaks perfect English. The government conscripted him right after they read a paper he wrote as a joke many years before the demon invasion. Borges had used humor to illustrate a theory about how many dimensions could coexist within shared space. He talked about what kind of creatures might live upon these ethereal realms. What if our imaginations were actually perceptions of other dimensions? What if the creatures we invented to scare children actually existed somewhere? What if our dreams, nightmares and fairy tales were reflections of real places vibrating at different frequencies?

  Turned out he might be right.

  “How’s it going?” he asks absently.

  “Tired,” I say.

  “I tried to give you time to sleep.”

  “I’m good.”

  He sits in a leather chair against the wall. I sit at the edge of my bed.

  “Okay, let’s get all of it. Start from the time you were summoned.” He turns on a small recorder and props a yellow legal pad on his knee. I narrate the incident, telling him what I remember, what I saw, how I felt. He asks very specific follow up questions. Where was the Hermit standing when he gave me the bad advice? Did I see Justice on the roof before she jumped? Were there any funny smells? Flashes of light? What did the Chariot talk about after we fled? How did the second bolt I dropped differ from the first?

  We talk for an hour. I like Borges. I would almost call him a friend, but there’s no one I’m that close to anymore.

  “That’s all I need for now.” He clicks off his recorder and stands up. “If you think of anything else, call me.”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “See you, Tower.” He doesn’t know the name I was born with. To my knowledge no one here does. I don’t give it out. I don’t like to say it. As he’s walking out the door, he turns to me. “Oh, a new Chariot arrived a few hours ago. She’s out reassembling the…ones we lost.”

  “Okay, let me know when they get here. I’ll go meet them.”

  I make it a point to meet the new arrivals whenever I can. I want to know who they are. We will be fighting together very soon and each new member is slightly different than their dead predecessor. I want to see these differences before my life is in their hands.

  Also, my appearance is said to be good for morale. I am proof that not every member of the Arcana dies within a year.

  The replacements arrive in a very short time, swooping through an opening in the ceiling of the Enclave upon a white disk of glowing light. I’ve never seen this many arrive at once.

  The Hermit is always an old man. The elderly Asian farmer who now holds the title kneels on all fours upon the disk as it settles to the floor. He is terrified and has puked.

  The World is now a tall, freckled woman from some Scandinavian country. She’s about my age. The World is always a woman. Now this woman commands the earth. She can raise great walls of stone from flat ground. She can summon tidal waves or hurl boulders through the air with a thought. Her arms are crossed, tears streak her face.

  The Chariot is frowning. She is middle-aged, strong cheekbones, slim, attractive, possibly from Africa.

  The new Hanged Man wears the turban of a Sikh. I can tell he is trying hard to be stoic. His hands are interlocked behind his back. His eyes are closed and he breathes deeply. He is in his underwear.

  When I notice the new Justice, almost hidden in the crowd, something closes in my throat. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. She is a little girl. Not even a teenager. An American judging by her t-shirt and sneakers. I don’t breathe for several seconds. A child has never been chosen for the Arcana.

  The horrified look on my face is noticed by the new arrivals. It doesn’t help their anxiety. Borges comes up behind me.

  “Is this right?” he asks when he sees the child.

  They ask me questions like that as if I know the answers. “How could it be?” I say.

  The others are all looking at me but I can only stare at the girl. She was about the same age as my daughter the last time I saw her.

  The sword of blue fire already glows upon her hip.

  “Welcome to the Arcana,” I say in our private language, trying to hide my duress. “We will try to answer your questions as best we can, but to be honest, there’s not much we can tell you. You already know what your powers are. You already know what role you play. You know why you’re here. Beyond that, I can show you where the bathrooms are. The rest is theory.”

  “Are we going to die?” The World asks.

  I meet her eyes and shake my head, helpless. “I don’t know.”

  “Will I be able to see my mom?” Justice calls from the back of the group. The Chariot leans over and hugs her.

  I can’t bring myself to answer. There is a theory that the Enclave is sentient. That it has a mind. It is selective about who can come and go. The soldiers and airmen enter and leave as they please, but members of the Arcana are locked in. The barrier extends to anybody we love, keeping them out and away from us. The only time we leave is to fight. Often, families camp outside the razor wire, begging to see their kidnapped loved one. But to no avail. The Enclave is possessive. Only letters can be exchanged, passed by soldiers. For some members, the letters sustain courage and hope while they are here. I wouldn’t know.

  “How am I understanding you?” The Hermit asks. “What is this place?”

  And so the orientation begins. As always, Borges and I answer most of their questions with “We don’t know.” After a while, we escort them to their rooms. This is where they will live until the end of their days. That’s one of the things you automatically know after it happens. I don’t have to tell them.

  We take Justice to her room last. She is trembling.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, because I can’t think of anything else to say. “You can write letters to your mom.”

  “Letters?” She looks up as if I can help her, but I can’t.

  “Check out your quarters and make a list of everything you need. They’ll bring you anything you want. Food. Music. Books. The biggest TV you can imagine. Anything.”

  I say good night and head back to my room as quickly as possible. I want to get away from her. I can’t bear to be around her. I can only think of my family now. Lost to the past. Memories. I rarely allow myself to remember their faces. Now that is all I can see. After all these years you would think the pain would ease. But it doesn’t

  Borges follows me back to my room.

  “A kid!” he is upset, outraged. “For god’s sake is there no mercy?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed.”

  He sits in the chair he sat in earlie
r, but doesn’t say another word. He stares at the floor with his hands clinched as if he’s praying. After several minutes of silence he gets up and leaves. I turn on the television and watch a 1960s sitcom.