by Justin Bloch
“Are they really related to Loki?” Nathaniel asked, squinting as a car on the other side of the road splashed a sheet of water onto his windshield. Lightning imprinted his eyelids with bright afterimages of the deluged world in negative.
The karma policeman was quiet. “Perhaps.” He gave it another moment’s thought, corrected himself. “Probably. Loki is a lecherous little beast, and he has children spread across the worlds. The old gods were prolific.”
“What happens to them? The old gods, I mean.”
Sol shrugged. “Some of them still dwell on the world beside this one. The majority are in one of the borderlands, called Twilight. They fade, as time goes on, as belief in them wanes, although they never fully disappear. They are watched over there. Twilight is a safe place for them.”
The karma policeman leaned back in the passenger seat, and Nathaniel realized that he had never heard the cop talk at such length. Sol was warming up. Nathaniel checked his speed and hazarded a bit more pressure on the gas pedal as the car slid toward his apartment.
They ran across the parking lot to the building door, their feet sending up rings of droplets as they splashed through puddles. The rain fell without any sign of ceasing and streams of filthy water rushed over the black asphalt, carrying along any debris in the way. Leaves and gum wrappers and cigarette butts swirled past, carried by the quick current across the lot and down into one of several storm drains at the edge.
They stumbled into the building, breathing hard and dripping on the carpeting. Mrs. Danforth, the crotchety old widow who lived in 102, poked her head out of her door, squinted at them menacingly, and slammed her door. Nathaniel paid the gossipy woman no mind. He knew that she was deeply religious, and he enjoyed the irony of the glare she had cast upon Sol, an angel.
They shook themselves off, splattering the floor with tiny, dark drops, then made their way to the elevator and up to Nathaniel’s apartment. When Nathaniel opened the door and stepped through, Nova fell from the ceiling above the entryway and walked in step behind him. He didn’t know she was there until he turned around to ask Sol where she was and found himself staring right at her. He jumped and gave a little squawk of surprise, almost tripping over his feet. The karma policeman stood behind her, his arms crossed over his chest.
“You need to be more aware of your surroundings, Nathaniel,” he chastised.
“It’d be tough for me to be any more aware of her,” he answered, then colored when he realized what he’d said. But neither of them seemed to have caught it, and he went on. “I mean, you two are angels. I’m just some guy.”
“And you didn’t know at all?” Nova asked, her eyes sparkling. “You didn’t have any idea?”
He frowned, replayed his entrance through his memory. There had been a draft of air which he had assumed was Sol shutting the door, and which he now thought must have been Nova falling in behind him. Had there been a sound when she landed? He thought maybe there had been, but he also thought his mind might be inventing details. There was something else, but it was so strange that he’d dismissed it at the time and even now only half-remembered it. Something like a…he struggled for a description, but he had no context. It was as if a streak of the color blue had fallen behind him, and he’d witnessed it not with his eyes, which had been facing the other way, but with his mind. It reminded him of the karmic auras, something sensed rather than seen.
But how could he say any of that? It sounded ridiculous. He shrugged instead.
“I won’t always be here to protect you,” Sol admonished. “Or I may be removed, as I was in the Cathedral. And in the end, I don’t matter, because only you can stand against the Allamagoosalum. You need to be prepared. This persistent inattention to detail is dangerous and you need to fix it.”
Nathaniel pursed his lips and said nothing, feeling like a scolded child, and went into his room to change. He stripped off the soaked clothing and laid it neatly across the edge of the bathtub to dry, then walked back into his bedroom to find something warm and dry to wear. He pulled a pair of boxers and pajama pants out of his dresser and tossed them on the bed, then picked out a comfortable hoodie from his closet. When he turned around, Nova was standing by the door, her hands behind her back.
He goggled at her for a moment, trying to figure out how she had gotten into the room without him hearing (although deep down something insisted to him that he had felt and dismissed that strange streak of color once again), then realized he was naked and that he should probably do something about that. The rain, after all, had been pretty cold. He positioned the balled up hoodie in front of himself and tried to look nonchalant, like this sort of thing happened to him all the time.
“Whatever you have behind that, I’ve seen it before,” she said, grinning. “I’m an angel and a karma policewoman as well. There is very little we don’t see.”
The bed was about five miles away, but he sidestepped carefully to it, making sure to keep himself covered. He sat down, pulled up the blanket. He could feel the heat in his cheeks again. “I mean, that’s cool and all, but I think a little mystery between friends is kind of nice.”
She laughed. “Suit yourself. I just came in to tell you that he doesn’t mean to be so hard on you. He wants you to stay safe. You’ve never been a father, but it’s like that.”
“Okay,” Nathaniel replied. This was the moment when he could defuse all of the embarrassment with just the right clever joke. “Okay,” he said again, and thought, Dammit.
“I’ll let you finish getting dressed. Come out when you’re done.” She opened the door and stepped out, began to close it, peeked back in. “Very nice, by the way,” she giggled.
He remained on the bed for a moment, making sure she wasn’t going to spring back in and surprise him, then got up and locked the bedroom door before anyone else could enter. He pulled on the clothes he had picked out, then left the room and went and sat on the couch. Robber jumped immediately into his lap and curled up. Nova was sitting in the chair by the window, once again knitting, and Sol stood by the television, dry already. The three of them sat without speaking for several moments with only the rhythmic thrum of Robber’s purring and the click-clack of Nova’s needles.
Nova was the first one to break the silence, glancing up briefly. “So, how did your visit with the Shine go?”
Nathaniel exchanged a look with Sol. “Not well,” he answered.
“No,” corrected the karma policeman. “It didn’t go the way I had expected, but I suppose it was for the best.” He paused, ran a hand over his hair. “Nathaniel knows that I am responsible for the Allamagoosalum. He just doesn’t know the story concerning its creation.”
Nova’s needles had frozen. “You told him, then.”
He nodded.
She gave him a reproachful glance and pointed one of the long knitting needles at him. “He should have known long ago. At the beginning.”
“Yes, I know.”
She held her pose for a moment longer, then sighed and dropped it. “What’s done is done, I guess.”
“Yes,” Sol agreed, his expression distant. He came back to himself after a moment, picked up the train of the conversation. “The Shine told us that it is killing in circles.” Nova inhaled sharply, and the karma policeman nodded. “I don’t know how we missed it before, even History, but now we know, and it may give us an advantage.”
“What do you mean, it’s killing in circles?” asked Nathaniel. He ran his hand down Robber’s back, and the cat squirmed happily.
The karma policeman thought for a moment. “No, it would be better if we left that to its place in the story. It will make more sense.”
“You’re going to tell him, then? Everything?” asked Nova, her knitting once more resumed. “You’ve never told anyone before. Even I don’t know all of the pieces.”
“He needs to know, to understand why I would do such a thing. He…and you I suppose, for I don’t think I could tell the whole story by myself…will hear all of it, from begin
ning to end.”
“There is healing in stories. Maybe you should have told yours long ago,” spoke Nova in her tart voice.
“Perhaps.” The karma policeman appeared to consider the idea. “It will be told now, though, and whatever shall come of it shall come of it. I have lived with these wounds in my mind for too long, teetering between salvation and damnation, and now it is time to start healing. All things balance.” He went silent, and Nathaniel could see him working his words out in his head. After a moment, he spoke.
“It begins as almost all of the best stories do.”
Chapter XIII
Once upon a time, in the Silver City on the world above this one, all the choirs of angels readied a great celebration. The Son, the manifestation of the Source on the Earth, was set to return, his mission completed, for better or for worse. It was the first time the Source had walked among humans as a human, not as a god. The Son felt the soil beneath his feet and the air in his lungs. Although the trip’s purpose had been business, there was pleasure involved as well, a great pleasure in for the first time fully understanding life through the eyes of a Resident. The Son had eaten and slept and worked with them, had seen and felt firsthand their flaws and weaknesses.
The Morningstar sent an envoy to visit the Son in the desert. Sitting at the edge of a cliff among the scattered shards of shale, the Demon questioned him at great length. Why had he come to Earth, what was his purpose? The Son answered that he wished to show humanity a way to reach Heaven, and the envoy had laughed, deep, rumbling peals of humor that had echoed off the cliff face. The Residents, those favored creations, were unworthy of the world above this one, as the Morningstar had always maintained. The Son did not deign to respond; he was the Source, after all, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnitemporal, and knew the course of things from beginning to end. The envoy was nothing, an anonymous angel, and Lucifer had his own part to play in the story set down by the Source, whether he knew it or not.
The Son went on to finish his ministry, die and be reborn, and now waited in Limbo for his entrance into Heaven. His entire life had lasted a little over a month in the Silver City. A single day here was equivalent to a year on Earth, and yet the city was held outside of time as well, an apex moment.
Since the fall of the Morningstar, the Source had become more and more withdrawn. Some of the angels believed the Source was bored, that the machinery of the worlds had been set in motion and now there was nothing to do. Others believed it was due to humanity’s slow progress toward Heaven. The Divinors could never be overwhelmed, but they did for the first time find themselves taxed by the volume of souls who sought another chance in Limbo. The true reasons would probably remain a mystery though. One did not question the force of creation.
But now a celebration was being prepared, for things finally seemed to be changing for the better. The Son was due to return, at which time all of Heaven would eat, drink, and be merry, a phrase that would later be coined by a different Son in the court of King Richard.
Among the hustle and bustle of preparation walked two seraphim. They retained their human form, but the fire just behind their eyes burned brighter here on the world they called home. The man was tall and the woman was short; both were thin; both of them had hair of the purest white-blonde. She smiled and called greetings to other Citizens as they strolled, but he kept his face lowered to the ground, speaking only to her. They both wore the uniform of their profession, the dark gray button-up shirt, the black pants, the long, dark jackets. Here, where they did not have to hide their essence, they were creatures of light, and even in their present form, even surrounded by the majesty of the Silver City, they were gorgeous.
The city was only a small part of the paradise called Heaven, but was its most well-known. While the rest of the world was a mosaic of dreams, changing to fit each soul’s individual idea of perfection, the Silver City remained constant. A wall surrounded the city, held it fixed and unchangeable in the shifting realities of the world above this one. It was the home to the Citizens and a true metropolis, with a soaring skyline and a consistent ebb and flow of life through its streets. Towers gleamed in the sun, each reflecting back a different shade of light so that looking upon the city at any point in the day was like gazing upon a garden sown with prisms. Patches of green were scattered among the silver sprawl, tiny pocket parks radiating out from a massive central one like dotted rays of sun. The streets were wide and clean and filled with shops of every variety, where you could purchase any imaginable delight or wonder, no matter how obscure or rare. Wander the avenues and boulevards long enough and you were bound to come upon just the very thing for which you had been searching, often when you didn’t even realize you had been looking for it. Elaborate fountains decorated the major plazas. Each building was constructed with unique and exquisite architecture. The city stretched to the banks of the Shimmering Sea and its reflection wavered in the pristine water’s aquamarine surface. Sailboats coasted back and forth across the waves, the white canvas of their sails glowing like sheets of light in the bright sun. A long pier stretched out over the water, and children ran and chased sea gulls and tried to skip stones across the waves.
Surrounded on all sides by the rich, vibrant celadon of the main park’s foliage, the jewel of the city lay at its center: the Glass Palace, the throne of the Source. The entire building was made of a translucent blue glass. Standing outside, one saw vague shadows moving within the castle, silhouettes that waxed and waned as their creators moved closer to or farther away from the thick walls. The palace was circular, the flawless, impossible wall of glass smooth and unbroken save for the single entrance, two towering doors that curved up into a gothic arch. Each door was intricately decorated with a bas relief of an angel, the left holding a book, the right holding a sword, both hooded with wings spread. Above the doors, etched into the blue, were the words Behold, for within dwells the Source, creator of life, architect of worlds. As the sun made its journey across the sky each day, the castle’s color changed from pale periwinkle in the morning to its true robin’s egg at midday and dark indigo as the last rays of light touched its lustrous walls. At the very center of the palace was a tall, circular tower that stretched into the sky. The tip of this tower was constructed entirely of panes of stained glass of various shapes, sizes, and colors in a random pattern, as if a rainbow had been shattered and its shards pieced back together to form a chamber. The pieces were constantly shifting, changing position like a sliding puzzle, but the movement was like that of the hour hand on a watch, infinitesimal and unnoticeable. The roof of the stained glass chamber came to a peak, and from this point a thin, blue glass spire jutted into the sky.
The Silver City was like any great metropolis, and yet not, for there was nothing to stain its image or tarnish its sheen. There were no traffic jams because there were no cars to block the streets; there was no filth because there was no disrespect for the city; and there was no crime because there were no criminals to break the law. The very idea of crime was laughable, for this was the Silver City, this was Heaven, and there were other places for those uninterested in sharing the utopia.
The two seraphim meandered through the streets, looking in shop windows, watching fountains spray sparkling water into the air. They wandered into one of the pocket parks and stopped to sit on a bench because the woman wanted to watch the children on the playground. The sky was the perfect shade of blue and the clouds were the perfect shade of white, because that was how things were in Paradise: perfect.
“You can’t always expect everything to be perfect, Sol,” said Nova, exasperated. A gold finch fluttered around her head, darting back and forth, its plumage flashing in the sun, and she smiled and let it perch on her finger. After a moment, and reluctantly, she shooed it away and turned back to her companion. “You’re looking for something you’ll never find if you seek perfection, especially out of them.”
Sol sat silent beside her. His gaze was turned toward the playground, but she could tell
that he didn’t see any of what was going on there. He had withdrawn into himself. It was any wonder she put up with it, as busy as she was. They were both karma police and the affairs of the Residents, of which there were a great many, were their business, not the affairs of each other.
Still, she wasn’t terribly surprised that he had turned to her. She was, after all, his sister. Twins, created together by the Source in a single moment and linked together for all of eternity. It was the same with all angels, made in pairs, one male, one female, a balance: all things balanced. And so Sol had come to her, and she had suggested they take a walk.
“They are flawed,” she continued when her brother made no response. “Deeply flawed. The Source made them that way. Does it really surprise you that this happened?”
She thought he would remain quiet, but he surprised her. “No, Nova, it doesn’t surprise me. I have watched the Residents for a very long time now, and nothing that they do surprises me any longer. But this…this…” he said, raising his hands to either side of his head. He could not understand, could not go on.
“It’s their way, Sol. And remember, the Source went into it already knowing the outcome. It knew what would happen.”
“Does that make it any better?” snapped Sol, and the harshness in his voice caught Nova unawares. She hadn’t realized that her brother’s hurt went so deep. “Does it make it any better that they tortured and murdered the Son? They’re innocent because the Source knew what would happen? No. No, they are savages. Even Lucifer did not strike at the Source directly. They did not deserve the Son’s visit and they do not deserve our help with karma. The system should be abolished. If they are all damned to Hell, then so be it.”