Fitz pulls himself up, slips and slides his way out of the corpses, leaving bloody footprints in his wake. Salvation comes into view as he rounds the corner. The elevator.
He stabs at the button with a finger like he’s jackhammering cement, knowing it won’t make it move any faster, doing it anyway. He can’t look behind himself. He can already hear Medeina’s footsteps slowly coming toward him. He knows that if he looks back he’ll start screaming and it’ll be all over.
How far away is she? Thirty feet? Twenty? Is she right behind him? Her footfalls echo and bounce in on each other until he can’t tell where she is.
The elevator dings, the doors part.
And Fitz is faced with an even bigger nightmare than Medeina could ever hope to be.
The FBI.
The agent, manly and chiseled, steps off the elevator, his suit crisp, his brown hair perfectly conservative. This is a fighter in the War on Terror, on Drugs, on Loud Music, on Whatever the Man wants to be at War with. He is tall, muscled, with a manly jaw, a badge that reads Jones—or maybe it’s Smith, Fitz is having a hard time telling. The badge blurs and shifts and he can’t get a good look at it. Is he FBI? Or does that say CIA?
The agent looks down at Fitz and Fitz can see himself reflected perfectly in his too-polished mirrored sunglasses. Not a blemish on them. Not a fingerprint, not a smudge. Preternaturally reflective. As if they can throw Fitz’s own soul right back at him.
And that’s when Fitz realizes there is something terribly, terribly wrong with this man.
The agent steps through the elevator, a gun appearing in his hand that Fitz could swear hadn’t been there a moment before. He doesn’t look at Fitz so much as through him. Not seeming to care whether he is there or not. He pushes Fitz gently to the side and as he touches his arm, Fitz begins to shake uncontrollably. Ice shoots through his veins. Images crawl through his mind the way they did when Medeina threw the force of her personality at him.
Where centuries of Medeina’s history hit Fitz with the force of a stampeding bull, this man’s history is sketchy, young, full of contradictions and lies. He is the G-Man, the Fed, the Gendarme, the Gestapo. He is every jackbooted thug that ever was. He is every faceless goon that ever oppressed a populace. He is every three-letter agency in every language.
His history is short, but filled with so much bloodshed he makes Medeina look like a fucking saint. He is every Black Helicopter, every tinted window, every interrogation cell.
This man is not an agent. He is the Agent.
“What bedevilment is this?” Medeina screams from down the hall, her blade slicing through the air in front of her. “Are you the protector the Cherub sent? One of the others that he spoke of? Answer me!”
The Agent cocks his head to the side, looking at her over Fitz’s shoulder the way a dog might, trying to understand an unusual command. A faceless dog.
Medeina spins her spear and goes into a fighting stance. “Come to me. I shall taste your blood.” Fitz wonders if she’s always that pompous, and then the answer floats up from the memories dumped into his mind.
Yes.
The Agent lowers his head like a bull and rushes the goddess, gun out, firing wildly. Bullets punch through Medeina and she cries out in pain, but she doesn’t go down.
Fitz doesn’t know how this is going to pan out, and he’s not stupid enough to stick around to find out. He bolts to the elevator, leaving a centuries-old Lithuanian goddess to duke it out with a conspiracy theory.
BEST CASE, AND he hates himself for thinking this, everyone on the bottom floor is dead and he can run away and not be seen. Worst case, the place is crawling with police and he gets shot the moment the elevator doors open and they see him covered in blood. He needs a plan he can enact no matter what he’s faced with. After a moment he has it.
The doors open, Fitz closes his eyes, falls to the floor and starts screaming.
As plans go he’s had better. He’s also had worse, and he’s taking the fact that he hasn’t been shot as an encouraging sign. Rough hands grab him, haul him into the hall. It’s not taking a lot to act freaked out and hysterical. He’s mostly there already.
Someone shakes him, shouts at him, asks him his name. He doesn’t stop screaming until somebody slaps him. He stops and pops his eyes open, doing his best to look crazed. Also not a big leap.
The hospital lobby has the look of a disaster film. Police and paramedics, bodies on the floor, desperate attempts to resuscitate the fallen, get them out of the carnage. He’s being held down by three SWAT officers in tactical gear. They rapid-fire questions at him like bullets. What’s going on upstairs? What did he see? How did it happen?
Did he do it?
He babbles at them about some crazy woman with a spear on the fourth floor. All the bodies. All the blood. It doesn’t take much for them to believe that he’s just another victim. Just one more hapless schmuck in the middle of some seriously batshit crazy. The fact that he’s covered head to toe in gore helps sell it.
It won’t last forever. Triage first, questions later. And they are going to be messy questions that he can’t answer.
They get him onto a gurney fast, wheel him out to the ambulance bay, pass him off to a paramedic, a heavily muscled man who looks more MMA fighter than medical professional. His hair is cropped in a flat-top, tattoos creep up his neck and into his hair.
“They’re not going up there, are they?” Fitz says as the paramedic straps a blood pressure cuff around his bicep and takes a reading. “It’s a fucking slaughterhouse up there.”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” the man says. “Got you covered right here.” He pops the cap on a syringe and before Fitz can say a word, jabs it into the side of his neck.
“What the fuck, man?” Fitz tries to move, but the paramedic has him pinned.
“Trust me,” the paramedic says. “I’m a professional.” Fitz struggles but it’s no use. The paramedic isn’t a big guy, but he feels like he’s made out of steel. Fitz’s neck burns as his veins fill with whatever shit this crazy bastard just dumped into them.
Fitz’s vision blurs, his body feels heavy, his tongue thick. “Wha the fug was tha,” is all he can say as the drug hits him.
“Just a sedative, Mister Fitzsimmons. It will make things easier. And then we can get you away from Medeina. She’s pretty hot-headed.”
Fitz tries to scream for help, but nothing comes out.
FITZ’S EYES SNAP open to see the paramedic standing over him, his head wreathed in a halo from a hanging overhead lamp. Fitz sits up on the folding table he’s been laid out on and looks around.
The hospital parking lot is gone. In its place, a wide room with louvered windows all along the sides and a single doorway. Old newspapers and tarp-covered machining equipment sit shoved in the corner, and support columns and lamps hang from the ceiling, breaking the empty space.
“Good. You’re awake,” the paramedic says. He pulls a chair up to the table and sits in it. He’s changed out of his paramedic’s uniform and into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. His tattoos crawl up his neck. Literally. They’re moving like snakes. Fitz’s eyes must still be adjusting, because for a second it looks as though the glow from the lamp behind the paramedic’s head is still there. He blinks and the effect is gone.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” Fitz says.
“You needed some rest. I’m surprised, happily surprised, that you got away from Medeina. Not many do. How are you feeling?”
“Kidnapped.” And terrified. “The hell was that all about?”
“Like I said, you needed some rest. Also, you needed to get out of there. Being in jail would have been a very bad choice, don’t you think?” Fitz does think, but he’s not entirely sure if this is any better. Or much different.
“A cell’s a cell,” he says. “Helps if I know who the jailer is.”
The paramedic sits back in the chair, hands lightly on his legs. “Rightly so,” he says. He sticks out his hand to shake.
“My name is Zaphiel. Archangel of the Lord. At your service.”
“Okay.” Any other day, Fitz would have written this guy off as a nutball. But after experiencing Medeina and the Agent, he’s not sure what to believe anymore. “An angel?”
“An Archangel,” Zaphiel says, correcting him gently. “Chief of the Cherubim.” His voice is mild, with a slight harmonic behind it. Fitz looks at the tattoos crawling along his neck and sees that they’re not snakes. They’re bands of tightly spaced characters. Letters of a type he’s never seen.
Fitz looks at the proffered hand like it’s a dead rat. He’s afraid to touch it. Zaphiel holds it there a moment longer and then lets it drop.
“This must all seem kind of crazy to you,” he says.
“Little bit, yeah.”
“Understandable. I’m sure you have some questions.”
“What’s going on?” Fitz says. “Why did you kidnap me? Why did...” He trails off, not wanting to say her name. If he says her name, she might be real. And if she’s real, then this guy is real and gods are real and everything Fitz thought he knew about the world is wrong.
“...Medeina try to kill you?” Zaphiel finishes. He shrugs. “No idea. She was just supposed to find you. I suppose it’s my fault. She’s become increasingly unstable lately. I was hoping that this would be good for her. That maybe she’d find some purpose with this task. I suppose that was too much to hope for.”
“People are dead,” Fitz says. “A lot of people.”
Zaphiel looks down. “I know. And I wish I could have prevented it. But they have moved on now. To a better place.”
Fitz presses the palms of his hands hard into his eyes, hoping the stars that burst into his vision will somehow have an answer to all this insanity.
“That’s all you have to say? What the hell is going on? What do you people want from me?”
“You’re special, Fitz. Can I call you Fitz?” Zaphiel doesn’t wait for an answer. “You’re important. Not just to me, but to so many. Possibly to the world.”
“Important how?” Fitz says.
“You’re a Chronicler, Fitz. A prophet. Like Hesiod, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Muhammad. Like a thousand others who history has left nameless. You should be honored. When the gods speak, you hear it.”
“I thought there was only one god. Isn’t that your thing?”
“I am a servant of the One True God, yes, but think about that phrasing. There’s an inherent idea in that. If there is One True God that implies that there are other gods. Lesser gods, to be sure—false gods—but gods nonetheless. And there are. So many of them. Our innermost desires are like an open book to you. Our will channels through you so that we may spread our word across the globe. Humanity has been too long without guidance. You will change that.”
There’s something wrong here. It takes a second for Fitz to see it. “What do you mean ‘our’? You’re not a god. And what do you mean, no guidance? Don’t your lot have churches and, I dunno, the Pope?” Fitz smells a con here, but he can’t place where or what it is. “Does your boss know you’re here?”
Zaphiel laughs. “Caught me,” he says. “No, my boss doesn’t know I’m here. Things have changed. I know it’s not something you could understand, but the gods and goddesses, the monsters and heroes of myth, even Archangels like me, we used to stay pretty separate. We all had our domains, all took care of our own.”
“I hear a but coming.”
“It’s a big one,” Zaphiel says. “Something happened. It’s hard to explain, so forgive me for not trying. But we’re in a bit of a jam. All of us. And we could really use your help. You see, you’ve got an ability that no one’s seen in a very long time. There have been people who can do it, but for various reasons they, well, they don’t last long. But you, you’re a talent.”
“Since when?” Fitz says, his insides churning. He’s getting a feeling he knows, but he wants confirmation. He hopes he’s wrong. Hopes that whatever Zaphiel says next it isn’t what he thinks it will be.
“Your entire life,” Zaphiel says.
His entire life. Through all the foster homes, the involuntary psych holds, the pills and shots and shock treatments. Through the midnight seizures, the desperate attempts to quell the noise, the ruined relationships, the shattered friendships, there has always been one common thread.
The voices.
“This is all your fault,” Fitz says, his voice quiet. “You ruined my life. You destroyed everything.”
“Fault?” Zaphiel says. “No, Fitz. We’ve granted you a gift. You should be—”
“Honored,” Fitz says. “I got that, yeah. Honored to have my life destroyed before it got started. Honored to be in and out of institutions. Honored to have this screaming in my fucking head my entire life. Because of you.”
“No Fitz, I don’t think—”
“Who the fuck cares what you think?” Fitz screams, leaping off the table and grabbing Zaphiel by the collar. “You ruined my life.”
Zaphiel’s eyes turn red, pupils shrinking into points. “Ruined?” he says, his voice taking on more of that strange harmonic. “This is an honor, you ungrateful little turd.” His neck thickens, tearing the collar of his shirt open. Fitz lets go, falls back against the table and scrambles to get it between him and the transforming Archangel.
“This is a gift,” Zaphiel screams. His head bulges on the sides, distending into something twisted and unrecognizable. “Something you fucking mortals just don’t understand. You are given the greatest gifts and you piss them away. Rail against the heavens, that you didn’t get what you wanted, didn’t have it easy.”
The bulges along Zaphiel’s head crease, holes tearing through the flesh. Fitz watches, horrified, as new faces appear on the sides of Zaphiel’s head, which spins like a top to show each one in turn. A lion’s face with massive teeth, a razor-beaked eagle, an ox with horns still erupting from its forehead.
Zaphiel roars, each head adding its own sound to the cacophony. “All you thankless worms ever do is bitch and moan about how tough you have it. Well, if it hadn’t been for you not knowing your fucking place, this would all still be a paradise.”
He kicks the table out of his way and it sails across the room to shatter against a drill press. Two long strides and he’s standing over Fitz. He reaches down, picks him up, shakes him.
“You will do what you are fucking told, Chronicler. Do you understand me?”
“Y-yes,” Fitz stammers.
“Good.” He drops Fitz to the floor, each of his faces twisting to get a good look at him. “Do not try to leave. Or I will tear out your still-beating heart and eat it while you watch.”
He turns on his heel and walks out the door, slamming it hard behind him and throwing a bolt to lock it, leaving Fitz shaking on the floor.
CHAPTER FOUR
FITZ IS THROWING up. He’s trying not to, but what just happened was horrific and intense. His brain can’t process it all and his body has decided that the best way to cope is to empty everything in it as violently and loudly as possible.
After a while his stomach settles down and he lies on the cement floor, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. He’s reeling from what Zaphiel has told him. He’d like to believe it isn’t true, that he’s just sitting in a padded cell somewhere having an extended psychotic break, but everything about it feels too solid, too real. He has a hard time believing that he’s completely snapped.
And if it is true, then he’s not insane at all. He’s just some sort of god radio with the volume knob snapped off, and he’s been picking up signals for years from any passing immortal who happens to be screaming on his frequency.
Those fuckers.
Does it work with any god? He didn’t get anything off Zaphiel the way he did off Medeina and the Agent. How come? Is it because Zaphiel is an angel, not a god?
And what do the gods want with him? He’s some sort of prophet? A Chronicler? The hell does that even mean? They want him to tell their stories and—what? Mak
e people believe in them?
How many gods are there? Well, he knows about Medeina and all of Medeina’s Lithuanian pantheon. That’s, what, fifteen or so? Plus all the gods he’s heard of, like Zeus and Thor and, well, God. Are they all real? If some pissed off Lithuanian hunting goddess and an Archangel can be real, why not?
And then there’s the Agent. Is it one of them? He didn’t get a sense from it that it was a god, more of... an idea? Not quite fully formed, either. That much came through when he got that infodump in the hospital. But if it isn’t a god, then why would he have gotten any sense of it at all?
There are too many questions and not enough answers, and he’s not going to get them from the fucking monstrosity that’s locked him up in here.
He thinks back to something Medeina said. She mentioned a Cherub. She must have been talking about Zaphiel. He obviously knows her; it stands to reason that she would know him.
Fitz’s head pounds the more he thinks about it. If only he could have gotten more from Medeina. How is it he can pick up all of Medeina’s history, all of her names, what she does, how she thinks, but he couldn’t actually pick up what she’s thinking? Aside from what Zaphiel has told him, he has no idea what’s going on here.
As holy powers go, this one sucks.
He needs to find someone who can get him answers. He has no idea who that might be, but he knows he’s not going to find them sitting in an abandoned warehouse waiting for some psychotic four-faced nightmare to come eat his face off.
He paces past one of the industrial machines and hears something buzz. At first he thinks it’s maybe traffic, a truck going by, something like that. Then he hears it again and wonders if he’s about to have another seizure. Maybe there’s another god coming, one he’s tuned into. It might not give him answers, but it will give him more information, and maybe he can start piecing together the truth.
But the pattern of the buzzing is wrong. It’s not a continuous buzz, but a burst of two shorts and one long. And it’s not in his head.
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