by C L Walker
The eagle was too far away for me to draw more power, but I had enough for the final guardian. I jogged around the temple to find the wolf waiting.
He sat on his pedestal with his feet in the water, his daggers lying on the stone to either side of him.
“I surrender,” he said, his voice softer than the other angels. He looked down on me and I could have sworn he was trying to smile.
“You’re supposed to fight me,” I said. I was covered in the blood of fallen angels and I wanted more. The red mist had fallen and to me everything was war.
“I can do whatever I want, Agmundr. If I choose to sit here and die then nobody can stop me. Not even you.”
The tattoos were begging to fight, urging me to advance and attack. I felt them like a second voice in my head, screaming for more. But my enemy wasn’t fighting and for a moment I had to pause.
“Is this what is supposed to happen now?” I said. I took up a place before him, the bull’s sword held in my hand. It was a ridiculous thing, twice as long as I was tall, but I could wield it anyway, powered by the blood of the wolf’s fallen brothers.
“Supposed to happen?” He laughed, a soft, low thing that sounded more like crying. “Sure, I guess. You kill me and in my dying moments I try to defend myself despite my conviction that I would rather die quietly. In the end I don’t have the choice of my conscious mind and my instinct takes over.”
“Leave, now, and you can live.” I was calming down despite myself. Angelic energy crackled along my skin with nowhere to go, but the red mist was rising as the wolf watched me with black eyes.
“Take what you want,” he said. He slid off his pedestal and fell to his knees. I could reach him with the sword easily and he wouldn’t be fast enough to defend himself.
“I have never wanted this, angel,” I said.
“That isn’t true, Agmundr.” He lowered his head as though in prayer. “This is what you’ve always been, and what you’ll remain as long as you decide to do so.”
My anger was back, his statement driving me mad. I swung the sword, putting all my rage and stolen energy into it. It cut into the wolf, sweeping him aside and tearing him nearly in half.
I left the bull’s sword where it was and surveyed my surroundings. The nobles had been running, heading up into the amphitheater and into the crowds of slaves living there. The area around the temple was almost deserted, but ten thousand eyes watched me from a distance as I approached the entrance to the temple. I tore the heavy wooden door off its hinges and stepped into the cool darkness within.
I wasn’t expecting the attack and the blade smashed the shields aside. It stabbed into my stomach and out my back before my eyes adjusted to see what was waiting for me.
The snake guardian, waiting within as the last line of defense. I had forgotten what I’d been taught.
The tattoos reacted, burning the ornate sword piercing me and healing the wound in a moment. I raised my hand and sent a blast of power at the snake angel, incinerating him in my fury.
I took the bloody spear at the center of the temple. There was no ceremony to it, no wonder at the seed of this heaven. I put it in my pocket and left, running as fast as I could past the stunned souls in their dying afterlife. I stepped through the gate before it had even begun to crumble.
I was low on power but I had enough to speed me home. The only heaven I noticed as I went was the icy one, but even that passed in a moment.
Chapter 21
The angel at the gate was quiet, which was just as well; I was in no mood to deal with his condemnation.
A car was waiting for me, a large black SUV with a soldier behind the wheel. I climbed in the back, smearing the remains of guardian angels into the fine leather. I was low on power, barely more than human, and I didn’t care. I was numb to the world and the spear in my pocket felt like an anchor dragging me to the ground.
Invehl had moved his headquarters to a tall building downtown. Guards in smart black uniforms stood at the automatic glass doors. I was led through the empty lobby and to the waiting elevator, dripping blood on the polished floors. When I arrived at the top floor a young man in a suit met me and led the way to Invehl’s office.
I saw few people on the way and none of them seemed to notice the gore covering me. Or, perhaps, they were so used to battle that it no longer registered.
The god’s new office was huge and empty, with a simple, expensive wooden desk opposite a window with a panoramic view of the Fairbridge skyline. Invehl leaned against his desk with his arms crossed, obviously excited.
Erindis sat on a leather couch against one wall. She’d cleaned up and washed and styled her hair, and wore a short dress and makeup. She looked less like the hunted woman who had snatched my prison from Bec and more like the queen she had once been.
“See what happens when you do as you’re told,” Invehl said, waving in the direction of Erindis. “You get what you want. I get what I want, you get what you want, and we’re all happy.”
I tossed the spear on the floor at his feet and waited while he picked it up. He caressed it first, running his fingers along the bloody metal before wrapping his hand around the wooden shaft. He lifted it with a reverence that told me he knew what it was. He knew what it represented.
“This wasn’t a million,” he said, even as his eyes told me he was happy.
“It’s what you get,” I replied.
“Always fighting, Agmundr.” He put the spear on the desk, turning his back to me and making me dream of attacking him. “Always so aggressive.”
“Are you well?” I said to Erindis, sparing her a glance before returning my attention to our captor.
“I am,” she said, her voice soft and shy. “They treated me well.”
“And we’ll keep treating her well,” Invehl said. He turned to face me, grinning like a boy the first night he lay with a girl. The spear was what he’d been hoping for, and whatever he planned on doing with it, however he was going to gain advantage from my actions, he was clearly satisfied.
“Why do you want it?” I said. I didn’t expect a straight answer, but I had to ask.
“I told you, I want to stop them from migrating here and messing up the world.” His voice and the smile on his face told me he didn’t expect me to believe him, and he didn’t care.
“How many more?” I said.
“All of them, Agmundr. Every last one. Empty out the heavens and leave them to the void.”
“There are billions of people out there.”
“And I want them gone. They sit around and do nothing for eternity, and you want me to feel sorry for them while there are those of us here on earth who can use them? They’ve had their time, their glory days. Now it’s ours.”
“You’re gaining power from the heartstones somehow.” I put my hands behind my back for fear of either of them seeing how tightly I was holding my fists. “There’s nothing inherent to them, as far as I can see.”
“You can’t see very much,” Invehl said. He was smug, superior, and I wanted to tear his face off before seeing it for another second.
“So it isn’t raw power, like the angels or the souls.” I was half talking to myself, half watching him to see what he reacted to. He was crowing in his victory and that was the perfect time to get him to say something he didn’t intend.
“No, there’s no power dripping out of this.”
“And it isn’t a desire to protect the world.”
“Why do you say that?”
I looked down at the thick carpet and the red stain surrounding me, ignoring his stupid question.
“What do gods want?” I said.
“Love, power, a place to call home.” He laughed. “The usual things.”
“Followers,” I said, waiting for him to react. He paused in his swaying happiness for a fraction of a second. “The more followers a god has, the more power they have compared to the other gods. And if they’re the top the pile then they get their way, they get to be king.”
“I run all the armies of the world, Agmundr. I’m already the king.”
“But that’s not true,” I said, looking up at him again. “Money rules this world. I grew up in a world that worshipped war, and this is nothing like that. Even your worst battles are echoes of the smallest from my childhood.”
“Now you’re just trying to piss me off,” he replied, though the smile never left his face.
“Your armies are powerful, but people don’t worship war anymore.”
“So what am I trying to do?” He leaned against his desk again and crossed his arms, waiting for my revelation.
“I’ve seen your plans for this city, the war between the vampires, and I can see the logic behind it. Sow chaos and let humanity gift you with a war on the streets. Have them believe the cause is just and their faith will flow to you.”
“It’s kind of what I do.”
I shook my head, my own smile beginning to form. “But that only gets you a few hundred people, the most vocal, perhaps. That gets you an inch closer to your goal, but it doesn’t turn a million people who would otherwise be worshipping politics or business, or humanity itself, to your side.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said.
“No, I’ve learned enough about this world to know that the people in it are better than before, wiser. They are still stupid, but they are not the kind of stupid that I am, that my people were. They won’t worship you; they’ll wish you away.”
“Alright,” Invehl said. “Maybe. So what?”
“So you need another source of faith, another way of bolstering your power without driving the world into absolute chaos.”
“I like chaos,” he said. “It’s good for business.”
“No it isn’t, and it isn’t going to change the way people feel. And I bet your brothers and sisters will fight you every step of the way.”
“They lack vision. So, what do you think I’m doing?”
I didn’t know. I could see on his face that I was right, that the heartstones were elevating his power in an indirect way, but I didn’t know enough to see how. Roman might, but I doubted it. I decided to gamble.
“The heartstone are the focal point of the faith of a heaven,” I said.
“They are.”
“And you can tell how many people a heaven held somehow, when I hand you the heartstone.”
“I can. And the angels, too.”
“So you’re keeping the heartstones to increase the faith you command. Somehow by simply possessing the seed of a heaven, you gain the followers.”
He clapped his hands and looked to Erindis. She had a slight smile on her face, my performance impressing her at last.
“People say you’re stupid, Agmundr, but I think you’re underappreciated.” He waved at the door and the young man in the suit entered. “Go to your quarters and get cleaned up. You’ve got more work to do.”
I still didn’t know how to stop him, or really how he was doing it, but I had a lot to go on now. I spared Erindis a glance and found her looking out the enormous windows, then turned to follow the assistant out.
I was giving him faith. The idea rocked me, especially when I thought about the heights of his vision; there were more souls in the heavens than there were on earth, which meant he planned on making himself the most powerful god still living. And all he needed was for me to do what I did best.
I was shown to my room – a converted office near Invehl’s – where I washed up and changed clothes before leaving and heading to ACDCs.
Chapter 22
“She’s in on it,” Bec said, raising her voice to be heard over the band of teenagers playing on the stage. “She’s his buddy and you’re the stooge.”
“Shut up,” I replied. I had run out of angelic power and was back to being mostly human. I was capitalizing on this by getting drunk while I could.
“She’s playing you for a fool.”
The look I gave her made her be quiet, finally. She went back to serving drinks to the small crowd enjoying the annoying music.
It wasn’t the first time I’d considered it; Erindis was working with Invehl, using me to get something from the god. I couldn’t think what she’d want from him, though. She didn’t want power or she’d use me more directly, and I couldn’t think of a reason she’d want the heavens set adrift from earth. She might have been doing it for the safety Invehl offered her, but she had that just by summoning me.
Which meant Bec was wrong and she was as helpless as she looked. He’d taken her away and threatened her with harm to get me to do what he wanted, and he’d returned her when I’d done it. He’d even let her clean up and make herself presentable for me.
The smile, though. That was an image that wouldn’t go away. I’d said my piece to Invehl, guessing at his plan, and she’d smiled. It could have been a smile showing she liked the plan the god had hatched, or it could have been a smile for how smart I was being. Or something else entirely; she might have seen a helicopter out the window and thought it was interesting.
I downed the whiskey and poured myself another. I didn’t understand why Bec wanted me to use the glass when I was going to finish the bottle regardless, but it had something to do with the look of the bar. She said she didn’t want it turning into a place people cradled bottles in their laps as they passed out on the floor.
I was supposed to be fetching Invehl another heartstone. He’d smiled when I left and I’d let him believe what he wanted, but I needed time to think. I’d destroyed the heaven of my birth and delivered its core to the enemy. I needed time to process what I’d done.
I finished the glass and poured another, determined to get something out of being weak.
The only things I knew about the world were those that my masters believed were important for the missions they sent me on. Their memories and knowledge of the facts appeared in my mind so I could use them when I was in the field. I had faded memories from all my masters buried in my head somewhere.
Erindis had given me nothing, and the freshest memories beside hers were Bec’s. Neither of them had any idea how many people had lived and died on the planet since my time. It would be billions though.
If Invehl could harness the faith of those billions he’d be more powerful than any of the new gods could ever hope to match. The elder gods would have stopped him before, but they had disappeared after the end of days and now there was nothing to stand in his way.
I was going to hand the world to a god who wanted wars everywhere, and I couldn’t think of a way to stop it that wouldn’t hurt my wife.
I finished the glass and emptied the bottle into my mouth. To hell with Bec’s sensibilities.
Could he really do it? Could he use the heartstones to make himself a more powerful god? If so, what would the ramifications be, because I couldn’t imagine the other new gods letting him get away with it without a fight.
“Can I ask you a question?” Bec was standing opposite me behind the bar and I hadn’t noticed her appear.
“If you get me more whiskey you can ask whatever you want,” I said. I had a light head and felt a little dizzy, but my problems weren’t being washed away. If anything, they were getting worse and I wanted to punch something. Drinking more would no doubt fix that.
She handed me another bottle and waited while I opened it and poured a glass.
“Ask away,” I said.
“Is my father in one of those heavens?”
I felt more drunk than I was and for a moment I wondered if I’d heard her right. Bec didn’t have feelings like other people and for her to ask about her father was too abnormal for me to easily handle.
“Are you feeling alright?” I said. “Have you been drinking too?”
“Forget it,” she said, turning to serve the guy next to me. He held money out for her and yelled about some creatively named drink he wanted.
“No,” I told the man. He shot me an angry look. “No.”
He noticed how big I was and thought better of arguing.
He backed away from the bar and walked out the door.
“I need that money, Agmundr,” Bec said.
“No, you don’t. You’re rich, remember? Ask me again.”
“I don’t want to.” She was back to being her normal self, calm and rational, emotionless.
“Do it anyway.”
She spoke haltingly, her voice too low for me to actually hear. “Is my father out there somewhere?”
“I’m sorry, Bec, but no. He isn’t.”
“Is he in a hell then?” She showed none of the horror at the thought a normal person would have shown, but there was something there.
“No. He is in the nether. It’s like limbo. Not heaven and not hell. Everyone goes there, now.”
“Why?”
“I closed the heavens and killed the gods. There’s nowhere for people to go, no faith to guide them. The only afterlife I left was the nether, because it has no god. Everyone goes there, and has for longer than your history.”
She thought about it for a moment, staring at the bar as she wrapped her mind around the idea, then looked up and shrugged her shoulders. “Bummer,” she said.
She went back to serving and I went back to drinking. There was a chance I’d be able to get so drunk I’d pass out, and then perhaps the nagging guilt I couldn’t wash away would leave me alone for a few hours.
Roman walked into the bar and I remembered why I was there.
“Guys,” he said anxiously. “There’s a large black car outside with some serious looking people inside. I think they’re coming in.”
Bec slapped the bar, making me jump. “Good. It’s about time they turned up.”
“Who?” I said.
“Him,” she replied, pointing to the open door.
Artem, the new king of the vampires stood on the threshold watching the crowd. Behind him were three more vampires with suspicious bulges under their suit jackets.