The Wrong Goodbye

by Chris F. Holm

  "Why Varela, though? Why's the soul got to be unclean?"

  "Could be because it's hell's bond he's trying to break. Could be it doesn't have to be at all. Probably Danny's just going by what he's read – which ain't the worst plan, since the Brethren seemed to pull it off."

  "So you're saying this could work? Danny does his little song and dance and busts open Varela and he's free?"

  "Maybe. Maybe not. Seems to me it doesn't matter – what matters is Danny thinks it will. Once he shatters that soul, it won't matter to the millions he'll be killing whether his hoodoo was successful."

  "But it can't be that easy to destroy a soul, can it? I mean, it's not like he can just whack it with a hammer, or every time some yahoo thrill-seeker's parachute failed to open, boom – apocalypse."

  "True enough," Dumas conceded. "Only a demonforged instrument would be capable of inflicting the kind of damage Danny's after. And I'll admit, they're hard to come by. But the boy's already gotten this far – you think we ought to leave it up to chance he falters now?"

  It was a fair point. Actually, from where I was sitting, it was a seriously unfair point, but given that I'm damned and all, that made me more inclined to believe it. I looked for any sign Dumas was putting me on with all of this, but if he was, it didn't show. And truth be told, it jibed with what I'd seen these past few days; after all, the bug-monster'd said, "Were it not for the Great Truce, for the rules to which we three agreed, I would not abide the Nine at all. But now it seems that truce is crumbling, and with it my patience for your games. I assure you I will not abide a tenth." So it sounded to me like the Nine and the Brethren were one and the same. And that Danny was gunning to be number ten. Only Captain Crawly had it in his head I was the one causing problems, which didn't really bode well for me – particularly since I still didn't have the faintest idea who the hell he was, or how he fitted in to all of this. And the rotten cherry on top of this shit sundae was if I didn't stop him, not only would I wind up chillin' in oblivion, but millions of people would die horribly. How'd that old poem go? "Fear death by water."

  Too fucking right, I thought.

  "So the Brethren are real, and Danny's obsessed with them, and he stole Varela's soul to recreate an ancient mystical rite that, if he's successful, would bring about a second Great Flood and wipe out civilization as we know it?"

  "That's about the size of it, yeah."

  "Shit," I said.

  "Yeah," Dumas replied. "Shit."

  "So – what now?" I asked.

  "What're you asking me for? You know what I know. You wanna stop the guy, you're gonna hafta figure out the rest all by yourself."

  "I thought we both wanted to stop the guy."

  "Yeah, and I just gave you all the help I can."

  "Says the guy who knew about Danny's caveman ramblings from the get-go and did fuck-all to stop him going rogue."

  "You gotta understand, Sammy, coming down off a skim, you tap into something. Something greater than yourself. Something greater than the soul you're skimming off of. It's like, for a little while, you're tapped into the whole of human experience or some shit. Past, present, future – who knows what the fuck you're gonna see or why? Call it chance, call it the hand of God – from where I'm sitting, they're the same damn thing. But whatever you call it, I just figured that's where Danny got all this – and hell, maybe it was. I didn't think for a second he understood a word of it. Yeah, maybe I fucked up, but if I start poking around now and then the shit goes down, it only increases the odds it all leads back to me – which is precisely what I'm trying to avoid. So sorry, champ, but you're on your own. But hey – there's a chance you'll come through and save the world. A very, very narrow chance."

  "Thanks."

  "Don't mention it," he said, and then he smiled. "Hey, I think you and me, we just had a breakthrough in our relationship. Hashing things out all civil-like – me not killing you, you not killing me. Feels good. Feels right. Feels like maybe we oughta hug it out."

  He spread his arms. I shook my head.

  "Suit yourself. How 'bout a word of advice instead, on account of how we're such good friends now."

  Friends my ass, I thought, but what I said instead was: "I'm listening."

  "If it were me tracking Danny down, I'd be trying my damndest to figure out where worlds draw thin."

  "Yeah. That'd be more helpful if I had the tiniest idea what the fuck it even meant."

  Dumas shrugged like what're you gonna do? "Hey, you know as well as anyone that the whole of Mankind's prophecies and scripture amount to nothing more than a ten-thousand-year-old game of telephone. Half the time, they don't mean shit at all, and the other half–"

  But before he finished his thought, there was a muffled boom from somewhere overhead, and the very cave around us shifted, raining dust upon us both and forcing me to steady myself with one hand against the wall. The movement was unthinking, reflexive, and of course it was my bum arm I reached out with; when my palm connected with the chamber wall, a jolt of queasy, white-hot pain shot up my arm, settling in my shoulder and throbbing like an impacted molar.

  Another boom, right on the heels of the first. This one loosed more than dust – the darkness above rattled as small rocks bounced off the walls on the way down, and then a not-so-small rock whizzed past my head in the darkness, parting my hair and damn near doing the same to my skull before burying its pointy self six inches into the dirt at my feet.

  "The hell?" I said. "Did Psoglav–"

  "No," Dumas replied, his face set in a frown. "If Psoglav had cracked a soul, he'da brought the whole damn cave down. And whatever that was, it came from outside."

  "It couldn't have been the storm," I said, thinking aloud, "lightning doesn't make the fucking ground shake. Besides, it sounded like a goddamn bomb went off. It sounded like…"

  Dumas watched me talk myself out. Then he supplied the same words my brain had. "An angel's wrath? That what you were gonna say?"

  I said nothing, my mouth moving for a second like that of a dying fish before I took notice and closed it. Dumas was glaring at me now, and the frown that graced his face deepened into something harsher, angrier, more sinister. His squat, round frame seemed to swell until he dominated the narrow room, and his eyes raged with black fire. "You did this."

  "What? No! Why the hell would you think–"

  "Why? Gee, Sam, I don't know – maybe because when you came marching in here, you were pretty sure stealing Varela from you was my idea. Maybe because you blame me for the eternal predicament in which you find yourself. Maybe because despite all the havoc that you wreaked in life, and in the decades since you up and died, you still fancy yourself a Good Guy, and thought turning stoolie on me would be your fast-track into the Maker's good graces. And here I thought you and I were getting on so well."

  Dumas, a full head shorter than me when we crawled in here, dropped the torch he'd been carrying and grabbed me by my lapels, lifting me until I was a good foot off the ground and we were nose to nose. The room seemed to elongate as the torch lit it from below. Dumas's face had elongated as well – to twice its normal size, it seemed – and when he spoke, I saw his mouth was now filled with row upon row of blackened, jagged teeth. "Tell me, Sammy," he said, his striated, spiked tongue lashing at his front teeth with every word, and rasping out the sibilant in my name, "did you ring up one of your angel-friends before you sauntered over here, maybe let 'em know where you were going? Did you promise to deliver me if they'd make your missing-soul problem go bye-bye?"

  My feet cast wild shadows as they scrabbled for purchase, but it wasn't any use. "I didn't – I swear!"

  He slammed me into the rock wall behind me. My head hit so hard I thought I'd puke. Then I did puke, so, you know, yay for being right.

  "I think you're lying to me, Sammy," he said, and slammed me into the wall again, so hard my vision swam. Not that I minded much. In the best of times, Dumas wasn't much to look at, and these weren't the best of times. From what lit
tle I could see through the darkness and the circling cartoon birds, Dumas's current visage put Psoglav to shame. "But it hardly matters, does it? Either you called in the cavalry, or you were so fucking incompetent in get ting here they tracked you. You'll pay dearly either way, I assure you. But now, unfortunately, I have to delay the pleasure of flaying you alive, so I can deal with this fucking mess you've made. Don't worry, though – I'll be back before you know it."

  A leathery rustle, the click of claws on stone, and Dumas was gone – gone so quickly that he was through the narrow aperture of Danny's hovel and out of sight before I even hit the ground.

  Which I did.

  Hard.

  And then got whacked square in the back by a stone the size of a fucking cantaloupe falling from above.

  This week was not my favorite ever.

  The cantaloupe brought friends. Like half the fucking roof. Shit pelted me like this was a game of dodgeball and I was the last kid standing, only harder, meaner, and from above. OK, maybe it wasn't so much like a game of dodgeball as it was a game of try-not-to-get-stoned-to-death. I'd never played that one before, but I hoped to God I'd catch on quick.

  Got up. To my knees, at least. Felt like an accomplishment, till I got knocked back down. Figured maybe up wasn't the way to go. Figured instead I'd stay low.

  I protected my head as best I could with my bum arm. The tendons in my shoulder hurt like hell, holding it up like that, and the old bean still got clocked a couple times, but I deflected enough blows to stay conscious, so we'll call that a win. Tried to snatch the torch with my good arm, but the steady rain of dust from above proved too much for it, extinguishing the flame.

  That was OK. I'd seen darkness aplenty those past two days. I was starting to get used to it.

  What was harder to get used to was the constant battery outside – like London in the fucking Blitz – and the deadly hail of rocks it set upon me.

  A stone dagger shook loose from the ceiling and sliced along my side, through fabric and skin both. The wound burned white hot, the only light in the room – and I could see it even when my eyes were closed. Hurt enough it made me lower my shieldarm for a moment. Then a quick shot to my temple reminded me why that was a bad idea.

  A crushing blow from nowhere set off fireworks in my kidney. Something inside me went all wet and loose. I'll be pissing blood if I get out of here alive, I thought. The notion didn't fill me with warm fuzzies.

  Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking why didn't I let nature take its course and say sayonara to this poor pathetic meat-suit? After all, just two days back I was rooting for the bug-monster to kill me, so why not? Why bother busting ass for the privilege of wandering smack into the middle of an angel/demon grudge match when I could take my chances with reseeding and hope I wind up possessing someone hale and hearty and way the fuck away from here? And believe me, I get where you're coming from. But there's a couple things I'm privy to that you're not.

  Thing One: dying fucking hurts.

  Thing Two: dying really fucking hurts.

  How bad does dying hurt? So bad that even if shit's hitting the fan full-on and you've got no other choice, you still stop and check the math to make sure it don't add up another way. And yeah, OK, I'll cop to trying to goad the bug-monster into killing me, but there were extenuating circumstances – namely the fact that I was (mistakenly, as it turned out) pretty sure he was going to kill me anyway. So I wasn't so much rooting for death as I was for him to make it quick. Big difference.

  Besides, the key to a successful reseeding is luck, and lots of it. Luck's the difference between winding up in a millionaire meat-suit with a private jet or an invalid in an adult diaper without enough spare juice to raise his head, let alone allow you to hop hosts.

  Now do I strike you as the lucky type?

  Yeah, that's what I thought – which is why most times I'd just as soon take my chances in the here and now, regardless of the crappiness of said here and now.

  Sick of getting pummeled, I crawled toward where I figured the door was, but ran into Danny's cot instead. I started to turn around, and then I got me the beginnings of an idea, so I stopped. My fingers traced the cot's metal frame until I found the hinge. Then I folded it in half and climbed under. It was a tight fit, me hunched inside my makeshift Aframe tent, but it was better than being crushed to death. It was, at best, a temporary solution; the way this place was filling up, I had to get through that crawlspace and into the outer chamber fast if I wanted to keep this meat-suit breathing.

  I tried sliding the whole shebang forward, toward the door. Too damn many rocks in the way. I looped my hands around the frame and lifted, figuring I'd use it all umbrella-like and knee-walk over, but the uneven terrain required all fours to maneuver, which is to say I tipped over and wound up on my face.

  I won't lie – tipping over hurt. Hurt enough it took a sec to realize I wasn't getting pummeled anymore. I could hear shit falling, sure – louder every second, in fact, suggesting this room wasn't going to be a room much longer – but it was no longer reaching me. Seemed the cot had gotten wedged against the wall, building me a little fort. But by the creaking of its frame, it wasn't going to stay wedged for long.

  I clawed over rock and dirt and the still-hot cinders of the torch, mindful not of the scratches and burns I inflicted on myself in the process, only of the door, of freedom, of away. A few seconds of blind groping and I found it. The aperture was narrower now, and riddled with loose stone, but there it was.

  There it was.

  A sound like a thousand hoofbeats as the ceiling caved in, and the darkness around me imploded. I dove for the passage as the cot crunched beneath the sudden weight. Hot, stale, dusty breath chased after me as all the air in the heap of rock that used to be a room was expelled along with me. And then the ceiling of the crawlspace popped overhead like a crack spreading through glass, the sound zipping past me in the darkness and letting me know I wasn't out of the woods yet.

  I scampered through the short passage and into the slightly larger outer chamber of Dumas's socalled monkey house, only realizing I'd left the crawlspace behind when the echoes of its collapse reverberated off the walls around me. All I wanted was to collapse as well, bloodied and spent as my egress from Danny's burrow had left me. But the muffled booms of the angels' continued onslaught, and the constant patter of pebbles on the dirt floor, suggested that wouldn't be prudent. Suggested that Danny's hidey-hole was only the beginning. Suggested that if I didn't get my ass out of these caves and into the open desert air, my ass was gonna get a whole lot flatter.

  So I kept moving.

  Finding the fissure that connected the monkey house to the main cavern wasn't easy. Damn thing was only sideways-me wide, and in complete darkness, every nook and cranny in the cavern wall felt like pay dirt. I must've circumnavigated the chamber twice before I finally found it, and beat to hell as I was, squeezing through was no mean feat. But, halting though my progress was, it was progress, and eventually, I spilled from the crevice, tumbling to the dirt floor and squinting against the sudden light.

  Sweet Christ, was I sick of falling down.

  Turns out, though, much as it hurt, that fall was lucky as all get-out. Not like it was strategy or anything – I was just beat up enough I was having trouble supporting my own weight, is all – but still, it was lucky nonetheless. 'Cause when I fell, I wound up hunkered behind one of them rock formations that juts up from the floors of caves – stalagmite or stalactite, I can never keep them straight – and so I managed not to run afoul of the angry angel.

  I should've known that this light I stumbled into was too bright, too white – too pure to be cast by torches alone. Should've recognized it for what it was. Because I'd seen light like this before. Breathtaking. Painful. Glorious. Deadly.

  The light of God's grace.

  The light that emanates from His most trusted servants – and from His deadliest assassins.

  Most times, were you to spy an angel topsi
de, you'd never know it. They, I don't know, seem to dim their natural light, and project a sort of vague suggestion of human form that your eyes slide right off of. I mean, you register the basics. Eyes? Check. Hair? Check. Two arms? Two legs? Yup and yup. But if I were to ask you what color those eyes were, or was the hair cut long or short, you'd have no earthly idea. Which makes sense, because an angel is a celestial being; there ain't nothing earthly about 'em.

  This guy, though, he wasn't bashful. Wasn't subtle. Wasn't hiding his true nature. Which, quite frankly, means me saying "guy" wasn't quite accurate. But junk-having or not, tall and hulking as he was, "guy" and "he" seem closer than the alternative. Seem as close as this earthly, imperfect language of ours is gonna get.

  The angel stood naked in the middle of the hall, lit from within and shimmering like a mirage on the horizon. Like pavement on a hot day. Like a reactor on the verge of meltdown. He was eight feet tall if he was an inch, and he was so beautiful – and so goddamn terrifying – I didn't realize until I heard his captive speak that he was not alone.