The Wrong Goodbye

by Chris F. Holm

  The voice I heard was low and rumbling, and in a tongue I did not speak – a tongue I could not speak, full of sounds no human could ever hope to make. Though the canyon beyond the cave raged with sounds of battle – screams of anger and of agony, and countless explosions far less muffled than before – that voice cut through them all, and reached my ears as though from mere inches away.

  The voice was Psoglav's.

  The horrid dog-beast was on his knees before the angel – a posture of necessity rather than penitence, given that the angel had in his hand one of Psoglav's wrists, which he held twisted over Psoglav's head, keeping him immobile and in no small amount of pain. Though if Psoglav's acid tone was any indication, the hold still left him somewhere shy of accommodating.

  The angel struck out with his free hand – a chopping blow to Psoglav's throat. An awful gargling sound, and Psoglav fell silent. The angel spoke then, its words in the same tongue as the demon it questioned, but where the latter's words sounded horrid and perverse, the former's were melodic and wellmodulated – serenity itself.

  Then, when Psoglav failed to answer, instead spitting at his captor's feet, the angel ripped off Psoglav's arm, which kind of put a damper on the Zen of the moment.

  Psoglav roared in agony. I'm talking shook-thefucking-walls roared. I thought my ears were going to bleed. Thought the place was going to come down around me. But the angel didn't even flinch. Instead, he smacked Psoglav across the face with his own severed arm, spewing gore across the cavern wall, and asked his question again.

  Psoglav, now free of the angel's wrist-hold on account of the wrist the angel was holding being no longer attached to him, picked himself up off the floor and launched himself at the angel – marshalling every ounce of strength and speed he had – his iron teeth bared for attack. If the angel had a face, I might've thought Psoglav aimed to bite it off.

  But he never got the chance.

  The fastest goddamn demon I've ever seen, and he didn't even come close.

  Oh, sure, he started well enough, rocketing off the ground faster than my human eyes could follow. But a funny thing happened on the way to biting his Chosen brother. Two things, actually. The first was that Psoglav slowed to a halt in mid-air, his snapping maw scant inches from its intended target. The second was that the angel, I don't know, expanded – growing bigger, taller, brighter – until he seemed less a person than a tiny, white-hot sun.

  It happened so fast, I nearly failed to react. Nearly. But when the corona created by the angel-sphere engulfed Psoglav and then collapsed back in on itself, I hit the floor, hiding behind my stalagamabob and burying my face in the dirt.

  Then the angel loosed God's wrath, which set the very air around me ablaze, its blinding white light searing my retinas despite their being protected by closed lids and rock and dirt, while my ears rang with the most beautiful and terrible sound I'd ever heard. Once upon a time, a girl with cause to know told me it sounded like a chorus of children, painful in its beauty, and that strikes me as close to right as anything I could come up with. But even that can't do it justice, because the whole of human experience has yet to invent the words to describe such agony, such ecstasy – and given the animal terror with which I trembled upon hearing it, I pray they never will.

  I pray they'll never have to.

  I pray this infant war between heaven and hell dies in childbirth.

  Because the alternative is too frightening to imagine.

  I've no idea how long I spent, curled fetal behind that stone outcrop and weeping like a child, but when I came to my senses, I was alone. Aside from the charred black husk I assumed was once the demon Psoglav, the cave was empty – deserted – and most of the torches had burned out. All was still and quiet – not just in the cave, but in the canyon beyond as well. After the hue and cry of war, I felt as though I'd been struck deaf, but what few torches remained lit cracked and popped as they burned through the last of their accelerant, and as I found my feet and staggered along the cavern's gentle upslope, my shambling gait echoed off the limestone walls.

  I walked without thought, without fear of discovery, with no intention but to be free of this subterranean hell and to feel fresh air upon my face. I suppose if I had the energy, I would have wondered who'd won, and whether I'd be greeted by a pissed-off Dumas or a legion of wrathful angels upon surfacing. I'd have wondered if it was day or night, or whether I'd been out an hour or twenty-four of them – the latter of which would leave me right screwed with regard to the bug-monster's deadline.

  But I didn't wonder any of those things. I was too tired. Too sore. Too bruised and bloodied to even care. And God help me for saying so, but as much as my every movement hurt – as much as I wondered where I'd find the strength to even take another step – the momentary absolution from caring bestowed upon me by my pain was bliss.

  For maybe the first time since I shuffled off the mortal coil, I felt free.

  26.

  You know the problem with self-delusion? It doesn't matter if your escape-hatch from reality is drug or drink or – in my case – exhaustion born of repeated brutal ass-whuppings; whatever the method, the comedown is a bitch. It's a lesson I've been privy to plenty in my life, but damn if this particular comedown didn't blindside me all the same.

  Maybe if I'd stuck with the plan – get topside, feel the wind in my face – it could've been avoided. Though looking back at how it all shook out, sticking to the plan would've likely led to nothing more than two days spent wandering in the desert before Big 'n' Buggy came to get me. But speculating now's irrelevant. My plan went out the window the moment I saw the soul.

  It was the flicker I was aware of first: a pale graywhite playing across the right-hand limestone wall just up ahead, like moonlight reflected off of water. As I approached, I realized the light was coming from across the hall, spilling through the doorway left empty by dint of someone or something tearing the heavy iron door that once sat there clean off its hinges.

  The doorway, I realized, led to Psoglav's little machine shop – the withered, pitch-black heart of Dumas's whole operation. And that light was someone's soul, left forgotten by the so-called good guys and the bad guys both.

  But not by me.

  I suppose on some level I must've known it was foolish of me to care. That even if I could lay the soul inside to rest, it was doomed to an eternity of torment – and Danny's failed Gio-for-Varela bait-and-switch sure as hell taught me the point was moot, since my Deliverants wouldn't accept it anyways. Still, I couldn't just leave it there. A damned soul is still a soul; it deserved better than to be cast aside like so much garbage.

  Inside, the room was dark and quiet. The soul was still seated in the spindle of the massive lathe, and cast long shadows of the nightmare machinery on which it sat. The diesel engine that hung above the work surface was cold and quiet, and reeked of motor oil and overuse. Its scent did little to mask the pervasive stench of sulfur from the cistern in the corner, and from the copper pipes that snaked away from it, dripping rotten-egg water in plinks and plunks onto the lathe at random intervals.

  As I approached the soul, I noticed its surface was crosshatched with scratches, and around it, the work surface was littered with tiny, glimmering shards. A fine layer of vaguely iridescent dust blanketed the lathe, glinting dully in the grime-caked nooks and crannies of the machine's many knobs and gears. Too much dust to've been kicked up by this one soul. A shudder ran along my borrowed spine as I wondered how many tiny human moments had been reduced to dust at the hands of that fucking monster and his machine. I wondered if those souls could feel the pain of those moments' absence as they whiled away forever in the depths of hell.

  I felt a sudden urge to destroy the implement that wreaked this havoc. It wasn't enough that Psoglav had been reduced to cinder; I needed to ensure his subtle blade never parted memory from soul again. But as I cast about for it, I realized it was nowhere to be found. Not atop the lathe. Not on the floor around it. Not in the many pockets
and loops that graced Psoglav's discarded apron.

  It was then I realized I was not alone.

  Just a subtle crunch of foot on gravel. Topside, I might never have heard it, but down here, where all was still as death and stone walls amplified even the faintest of noises, it may as well have been a gunshot. But like a gunshot, I couldn't quite tell from which direction it had come. The room was so shrouded in shadow, there were hiding places enough for a half a dozen would-be attackers, and as the sound bounced off the walls, it seemed to come from all of them at once. And it was that moment's hesitation as my brain sorted out the likeliest spot for someone to hide that did me in.

  Don't get me wrong; I got the answer right. The sound came from behind the squat bulk of the cistern. It's where I would've hid. It's where my assailant did. But the time I took to get to that conclusion was time enough for them to close the gap between us.

  I wheeled, too late. Electric pain as a white-hot needle pierced my neck. For a half-second, I wondered if it was the pain of Psoglav's subtle blade. Then all of the sudden, I was a little girl.

  Yeah, I know how it sounds. But it's the fucking truth. One minute, I'm getting ambushed in a demon's lair, and the next, I'm on my belly underneath my bed – a darkened flashlight in my trembling hands, my heart racing beneath my favorite flannel nightgown.

  A creak of hardwood floor, and then another. Stocking feet beside the bed. Familiar. Familial. Adrenaline prickled through my system, chemical fear steeling my tiny frame. Whatever minuscule part of me was still Sam reflected back to another girl, another time – this one locked inside a wooden trunk in Amsterdam. But who she was, or how I knew her, I couldn't recall. Those thoughts were too far from reach. Those memories belonged to someone else.

  The stocking feet shuffled away, my stalker leaving – or so I thought. I relaxed a little, my fear subsiding.

  Prematurely, it seemed.

  Rough hands, strong and calloused, grasped my ankles and dragged me from my hiding place. I let out a squeal of sheer terror as those same hands lifted me up off the floor and hurtled me toward the bed. For an endless second, I flew through the air as though gravity had no dominion over my tiny frame – my nightgown flapping, my pigtails trailing out behind me, the flashlight clattering to the floor. Then I hit the bed and bounced so hard it rattled on its frame, and sent stuffed animals flying in all directions.

  Dad was on me in a flash, roaring like a cartoon monster and tickling my ribs until I roared too, with laughter. I clamped my hands over my mouth, determined not to give him the satisfaction, but mischief glinted in his eyes, and he grabbed both my ankles with the crook of his elbow like a headlock, and set to tickling my feet. It was too much for me to take. I thrashed and thrashed, but his grip was like iron, and I couldn't break free. I guess I must've been shrieking something fierce, too, because before long, Mom poked her head in, her frown of mock-disapproval not quite hiding the amusement that crinkled her nose and the corners of her eyes.

  "Raymond," she said, her tone stern, "you were supposed to be putting Gabriella to bed."

  "Oh!" he said, feigning surprise and lifting me once more off the bed. He held me up so we were eye-to-eye and leveled an appraising gaze my way. "Is this my Gabby? I thought it was an intruder – I found her hiding under the bed with a flashlight."

  "If this is how you handle intruders, I think we've got more to worry about than a daughter up past her bedtime." Mom turned her attention to me. "What on earth were you doing under there, anyway?"

  "Reading," I said.

  "Reading," she echoed, one eyebrow going up.

  "Mmm-hmm," I said. "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. Almost finished it, too."

  "You hear that, dear?" Dad said. "Our four-year-old was up late reading. Thank God we put a stop to that."

  "She'll be cranky in the morning," Mom said.

  "You seem pretty cranky now," he replied, but there was no malice behind it.

  Mom once more arched an eyebrow, and said, "I do, do I? Well, then, don't expect to be staying up past your bedtime with me tonight, mister."

  Dad laughed at that, though I had no idea why. Grown-ups can be so weird sometimes.

  "All right, kiddo – time for you to go to bed."

  "But I'm not sleepy!" I replied. As I said it, though, I realized it wasn't true; a yawn hit me out of nowhere, and I tried my best to stifle it, to no avail.

  "Sure you're not," he said. "But how 'bout you try anyway, as a favor to your old man."

  He tucked me in and kissed my forehead. Then he headed for the hall, flicking out the bedroom light as he went by. The hall light was still on – that's how Mom and Dad always left it; that's the only way I slept. When he reached the doorway, he turned around, silhouetted by the golden hallway light.

  "Sleep well, kiddo," he said, and in that moment, I knew I would.

  In that moment, the small, forgotten part of me that was Sam Thornton felt safer than he'd ever felt before.

  It didn't last.

  Jesus Christ, did it not last.

  Don't get me wrong – those few moments I spent nestled snug in my bed, the soft glow of the hall light a gentle reassurance that Mom and Dad were just a room away, were second only to the first time I'd laid eyes on my Elizabeth. Before her illness. Before my cursed deal. Before everything I ever cared about was stripped from me, and my life became a literal, unending hell.

  But those moments of feeling snug and protected were few indeed – and hell wanted me back.

  The first sign this world was slipping from me was the hall light. One moment its calming presence shone like the light of God's grace, and the next… it was simply gone.

  I'm not talking gone like someone flicked it off. I'm talking gone like the very concept of light was torn free from the fabric of reality. Like my room was swallowed whole by some nightmare beast. Like any sense of security I'd been clinging to was ripped from my chest and devoured right in front of me – a feeling amplified by the horrid slavering sounds that seemed to fill the sudden darkness. They crept up on me, first so faint I had to strain to hear them – my body stock still, the covers pulled over my head to keep away the pressing dark – but soon, it was as though they were coming from right beside the bed. And something else was happening, as well: the bed seemed to come untethered from gravity, pitching and roiling like a ship on choppy seas. Only instead of the ocean's roar, what I heard was the wet, wrong sounds of smacking lips and gnashing teeth, and the squeak and crunch of floorboards rending.

  Whatever lurked in the darkness was coming closer.

  Whatever semblance of sane reality this room represented was flying apart at the seams.

  And I experienced it all not as a Collector who'd grown accustomed to such horrors, but through the eyes and mind of a frightened little girl.

  At first, I was paralyzed. I couldn't even bring myself to draw breath. I was too terrified to draw the attention of whatever it was that made those noises in the darkness.

  So instead I lay there with the covers over my head willing the room's vertiginous yawing to stop.

  But then I heard it draw a breath, and then another, as if whatever the darkness hid was sampling the air around it – air that no longer smelled of dust and fabric softener and Mom's pot roast, but instead of rust and rot and death – and the noises intensified. A whisper of motion surrounded me, like when Dad dragged our cooler down to the water's edge when we went to the beach. Like the scales of a snake scraping across each other as it uncoiled.

  The unseen creature was surrounding me.

  I mustered whatever steely reserve this little girl contained, and drew the blankets down, uncovering my face. My tiny hands were balled into fists, still clutching the blankets for dear life as my eyes strained against the black. But it was no use. Whatever was out there could've been six miles, six feet, six inches from my face, and I wouldn't have known the difference.

  I heard an awful clicking noise that seemed to come from everywhere at once, and the ima
ge of a basement in the desert – of a ruined brown-red beak – bubbled to the surface of my mind.

  The monster in the dark whispered to me, then. Not a threat, exactly. More like an invitation. It seemed to speak not in language but images, each somehow imbued with a tone of lurid suggestion – of it feasting on my flesh, of it subsuming me, of me joining countless others of the eaten in an eternity of torment, of oneness, of experiencing the beast's relentless hunger. Those countless others called to me as well, their throaty, lustful whispers assuring me it only hurts a moment, that soon I'll see how fun it is down down down where they are, all I have to do is let the creature (Abyzou they called her in reverent tones) take me taste me eat me end me and oh how lovely it will be!

  Though my mind had once proven closed off to such suggestion, world-weary and guarded as I'd then been, little-girl-me was guileless and unprotected. The desperate pleas of the consumed held me rapt, revulsion and morbid curiosity forcing me to listen – and the more attention I paid them, the more voices joined the chorus. Some begged, some threatened, some cajoled, but all to the same end: to partake of my flesh, my innocence, my life. And as the pressure they exerted on my fragile mind increased, I was horrified to realize I was tempted to give in, if for no other reason than to get them all to stop.