Playing God

by Lana Pecherczyk

  A lethargic breath consumed me. My heart grew heavy, and I ached to be with Cash wherever he was.

  You should’ve known this would happen, The Others taunted me. One night was all it took for you to fall hook, line and sinker, and one night was all it took for him to fall back into old patterns.

  Gone.

  Again.

  “Shut up,” I screamed and threw the brush at the glass. It bounced off and clattered onto the counter. In the deafening silence that followed, I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Time to take control back. I didn’t need Cash with me. I could do it on my own. With concentration and willpower, I glared at my hair in the mirror.

  Brown.

  Turn brown.

  I urged my hair to change appearance, just the way I did when putting up a disguise. Start small. Think big.

  I owned this. I controlled this. It was my body.

  Turn brown.

  Tingles and prickles broke over my scalp in a wave, and the color bled from red to auburn, to light brown.

  I smiled, elation lifting my chin.

  Take that, Others.

  Now the trick was to keep it that way.

  Brown, brown, brown. My new mantra.

  With a hop, skip and a jump, I flicked my hair dramatically over my shoulders and entered the main room. Brown. My hair is brown. I kept repeating the words until my eyes snagged on the little pot plant still on the dining table. I watered it, then returned it to the coffee table near the couch. When I leant down to place the pot on the surface, my foot kicked something under the table. I bent down to have a look.

  It was the book Wren found at the depository, the one Cash had taken from her arms. I pulled it out and dusted the top of the leather jacket. It was heavy and about the length of my forearm. When I opened it, the first page had the oroboros symbol etched on… but this one was slightly different. This one had two snakes entwining before eating their own tails. One snake symbolized ones eternal soul. So two snakes, perhaps infinity linked together. My finger traced the outline of each circle. Soulmates. Written by someone who’s name started with S. The rest of the inscription had been smudged and stained by water, as had much of the book. Time hadn’t been good to the pages.

  I flipped the pages carefully, reading with unbridled curiosity. Much of the book was about using blood to link souls. Nothing much new. I already guessed that through my abilities. There was more in the book, mostly equations I couldn’t understand, but what I found most interesting, was the reference to The Book of the Dead. The same soul-scientist who’d written this book had also written that one.

  The S person.

  In the park, Marc called me by a name that had started with S.

  I shut the book. I had to know. All the secrets could be locked away in my memories. I left the apartment, ignoring the queasy roll in my gut. People in control didn’t second guess themselves. People in control had the power to never be alone again.

  I went to the entrance to the Ludus and forced the timid admin guy to show me where I could find the librarian on a map. Then I went there.

  I did not have breakfast, did not collect two-hundred dollars, and did not pass go. I went directly to the librarian where I was ready to gamble my way out of my predicament.

  A girl stood outside the nondescript opaque door, arms folded, chewing her nails. She looked up, and I recognized her—goth girl. I should probably ask about her name. Goth girl was getting tired.

  “Hi,” I said as I approached. “I’ve seen you around, but I’m afraid I’ve not worked up the courage to ask you your name until now.”

  She lifted her gaze, surprised. “You talking to me?”

  “Yeah, I’m talking to you. I’m Roo. What’s your name?”

  She bit the nail on her thumb, assessing me, as though I were a complicated math problem.

  “You don’t have to tell me. I just thought—”

  “You want to stop calling me goth girl.”

  I laughed. “Precog, right?”

  She nodded.

  “How does it work? Can you, like, see the lotto numbers before they’re drawn?”

  “No. Well, maybe. I haven’t tried, and I can’t control what I see.”

  I frowned. “But you see a lot about me, right?”

  She half-heartedly lifted a shoulder.

  “Let me guess, you’re not allowed to tell me, right?”

  Her tiny chest lifted in a sigh. “Yeah. I mean no. I don’t know what…” Her voice trailed off and her cheeks flushed pink.

  “It’s okay. It must be a tough gig. I get it. Believe me.”

  One side of her lips curled up. “Thanks. Listen, I have to go but, ah, yeah, thanks for introducing yourself. My name is Victoria.”

  “Please to meet you Victoria. I hope we can catch up again.”

  Her head cocked to the side. “Really?”

  “Of course. Maybe in the cafeteria one day, okay? Or better yet, the food van topside has amazing tacos. We should totally go there one night.”

  “Sure.” She lingered in front of me, staring. It was as though she wanted to say something but she bit her thumbnail again. “Bye.”

  “See ya.”

  She turned and took a few steps, then faced me again. “I really like your hair that color. Whatever you do, don’t change it.”

  “I like it too. Thanks.” I waved as she walked away.

  Weird.

  I pulled my hair in front of my face. Brown. Good.

  The waiting room I entered was quiet. A row of plastic, uncomfortable chairs lined one of the gray walls. On the other side was an unmanned desk behind a long counter. Posters of kittens being cute hung on the wall behind the desk. There were also other hand made signs taped up such as “Shh. Quiet, Please. Librarian at Work.”.

  Nobody here.

  I twiddled my thumbs for a minute and then noticed a small reception bell so hit it. Loud ringing echoed in the silence.

  “Can I help you?” A small woman with short hair and red-framed glasses came out of a door behind the reception area.

  “Hello, I’d like to see the librarian.”

  The woman lowered her glasses to the nib of her nose and inspected me.

  “Naturally. Have you been here before?”

  “No, first time.”

  She pushed her glasses back up. She licked her finger and singled out a few pieces of paper from a large stack on her desk. “Please fill out this form”—she laid one on the counter—“and this form”—she laid another—“and this one.”

  After searching the desk, she found a pen and slapped it on the bench. She looked at me with thoughtful eyes.

  “Sweetheart, don’t tell me you’re Nephilim.”

  “Yes, is that a problem?”

  She sighed loudly. “When will you kids learn? We can’t access your original memories. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. It’s against the rules. This service is mainly for Watchers who have lived for thousands of years and need help to access their internal archives.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. I know that. I want to remember this life.”

  “What could you possibly want to remember, coming out of the birth canal? I can tell you now, sweetheart, it’s not as exciting as others claim it to be. A lot of blood, goo and screaming.”

  “I want to remember The Book of the Dead.”

  “From your memory archive.”

  “Yes.”

  “This an earth-soul request. Not extraterrestrial.”

  “That’s correct.”

  She gave me that silent, thoughtful look again. Eventually, she pulled out another form, and placed it on the laminate counter. “You’ll need to sign this waiver. Block letters, please.”

  “Waiver?” I picked up the paper and read it.

  “Honey, this procedure is for Seraphim. If your inferior brain packs it in, we accept no responsibility. The form is so that your House mentor doesn’t come looking for blood if you turn into a vegetable.”

  “A vegetable?
” I gulped.

  “Or worse. Ring the bell when you’re done.”

  The beads around her neck clicked as she left.

  I gathered the papers and moved to a wobbly chair. The small coffee table in front of me had various books and other magazines with curled up corners. One of them would be good to lean on. I sat staring at the forms for a while, hesitating. Vegetable. She’d said vegetable.

  Inside me, The Others stirred, waking up. Not so afraid of me anymore. Gritty fingernails down a blackboard. What if this procedure didn’t just access their information, but gave them full access to my brain?

  I pulled a strand of hair in front of my face. Still brown. Still in control. I could do this.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ONCE I’D FILLED out my forms, the librarian took me through the door behind her counter. Similar to the registrar’s office, a reclining chair sat in the middle with computers and surgical equipment around the room. A little sink and faucet took up one side.

  “Please, take a seat,” she said and perused my documents.

  I shifted myself onto the chair, sliding so as not to disturb my dress, then sat there, hands in my lap, awkwardly waiting. More motivational posters with cats were on the wall. One cat clung to a tree, with the caption: “Hang in there, baby!”. Another had a puppy winking and pointing its paw, saying, “Who’s awesome? You’re awesome.”. I chuckled a little and felt the tension roll out of me.

  As the librarian mouthed the words she read, her eyebrows lifted, and she made understanding noises. Fine lines wrinkled around her eyes. I looked closely. She was older than me, by at least a few decades. Unusual for Seraphim. Unless she wasn’t.

  “I’m sorry if this is rude, but are you a Watcher?”

  She didn’t break her gaze from the form. “No, I’m a Player, like you.”

  “How did you get to fill this role?”

  Now she looked up with questioning eyes. “I was born in Corvus and here I am.”

  “Is there a librarian every generation? I guess, what I mean is, do you have a choice, or are you forced into this because of your skill?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t really have a choice. None of us from Corvus House do. But we keep coming. So I suppose when we get back to the Empire, we’re okay with it. We’re a people of helpers, so we like to go where we can help.”

  “Huh.”

  “Right,” the librarian said. “Let me get this straight. You have one, two—three!—souls inside you, correct?”

  “Yes. Well, if you include my own, there’s four.”

  “But two of them have joined to make a larger soul, and the other knows about The Book of the Dead, correct?”

  “Yes. Sort of. The conjoined soul knew about it. The one on its own was pretty much The Book of the Dead in human form. Does that make sense?”

  “And you think we can reach into its memories and pull out the data.”

  “Bingo.”

  She tapped her finger on her lips. “If this will work, you need to have a foothold into that”—she made a circle shape with her fingers, trying to come up with the appropriate word—“being, soul, no… what is it exactly?”

  “The grimoire of a witch. A living breathing person who had their DNA encoded with the witch’s spells and memories.”

  “Right. Of course. And you want information—a spell to be specific—on splitting souls.”

  “Specifically how she fused two souls together. I want to split them apart.”

  “Okay.” The woman tilted her head and looked at me weird, as though I were about to eat her head off. “Very well. Lie back. Let’s get started.”

  I reclined on the chair, wiggled a bit, and settled in. On the ceiling there was another poster. Alvin and the Chipmunks.

  A light touch on my temples made all my muscles tensed with anticipation.

  “This might pinch a bit.”

  “Oh—kay——! Son of a—” Pain pierced my temples and radiated into my being. White light burned my eyes, searing, flickering.

  Holy mother of… were her fingers inside my head, actually pushing into my temples?

  I gasped, gurgled, tried to swallow. Waves of nausea engulfed me.

  “Relax, take a deep breath.”

  A slow shaky breath in. The pain receded but didn’t end.

  “And exhale.”

  Slow shaky breath out. Still hurt. I gagged, but kept from throwing up.

  “Now, tell me about the time you… ingested… The Book of the Dead.”

  Images rammed into the forefront of my mind. It was suddenly a few weeks ago. I was stuck in the bottom of a pit. A cave behind me. Rocky walls in front of me. Above. A boy. Laughing. Taunting.

  I swallowed. “He shot my friend in front of my face.”

  “Who did?”

  “The ancient boy. The grimoire.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I lost my temper. I pulled him to me with my power. He fell and landed, crushed at my feet.”

  The memory pierced me, and I squeezed my eyes, shaking my head. I didn’t want to relive it. Shame washed over me.

  “Go on, Roo. What happened next?”

  “He was dying, his life-force waning, and the voice inside me bade me to drink from him, to save the knowledge bleeding out.” I swallowed. “So I did. I took it all into me. Hieroglyphs appeared on my skin. But, something blocked my full understanding. A spell.”

  “Good.” She moved her fingers, and pain erupted. “What have you learned? Anything from the book?”

  “Schtt—” I tried to speak, but my tongue wouldn’t work. She eased off until the pain ebbed. I took a breath and continued. “I learned that you can trap a soul in a mirror.”

  She moved some more. Pain. Oh God.

  White hot pain.

  “Relax. Just relax, Roo. Tell me more about what the book can do with souls.”

  More images, tingles up my arms, my body sang through the pain. Floodgates of awareness opened. She broke the barrier holding the knowledge back. Suddenly, understanding pelted me so much it hurt to comprehend. “Magnets. Electricity and… water… conducts… I know. Glass. Energy. Blood. I know how to do it.” I panted, breathless. “I know everything.”

  “Good.” She yanked her fingers from my head.

  The sharp pain receded, only to be replaced by a dull, throbbing ache and nausea. I groaned and rubbed my temples, scowling at her fingers as she wrote notes on my form.

  “Okay, sweetheart, now that we’re finished, there’s the small issue of your payment. Where shall I send the bill?”

  “Ah… The what?”

  She sighed. “Not you too. I’ve already had one walk out this month, I can’t afford another. We don’t run on fumes here you know. You have to pay me.”

  Sweat prickled my forehead. Wow. That pain really worked its magic on me. Tiny tingles of fire danced behind my eyes. Soon, pain shot down my neck, feeding into my arms, my spine, my heart. “Can I write an I-O-U? Oh God this is really hurting. Is it supposed to be like this?”

  The second I said it, pain cracked me in two. I dropped, lifeless to the chair and everything went black.

  When I came to, I knew it hadn’t been long because the librarian stood over me, checking my vitals. Her glasses had fallen to dangle from a chain around her neck. Her red lipstick had smeared a little.

  “Thank the gods you’re alive.”

  Dull pain throbbed in my head with every minute movement I made. “Barely,” I croaked.

  “I thought you died. You were so still. Your breathing had stopped. I checked your heart and… but you’re okay now, you’re okay.” She inhaled deeply, patting herself at the base of her neck. “You’re okay.”

  I frowned. “I guess so.”

  She cursed under her breath and banged things around the room as she put tools away. “I’m never doing a Nephilim again. I don’t care what the waiver says.”

  The door burst open.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  I
sat up quickly and regretted it. My mind swirled. When I got my vision to hold still, the dark figure in the doorway came into focus. Cash.

  His steely eyes landed on me, assessed, then moved to the librarian where they narrowed with malice.

  “What did you do?” he said through clenched teeth.

  The librarian shrunk back. I tried to sit forward, wincing as movement pounded my head, but swooned and flopped back.

  “Leave her alone,” I croaked.

  “Her?” He gaped at me. “I don’t care about her. I’m asking you. What the hell did you do?”

  “It’s okay… I know now. I don’t need your help. You can carry on saving the world, or whatever it is you’ve been doing all night.”

  His face contorted, jaw flexing. “I told you to wait. Why couldn’t you just wait?”

  “Sorry to be the wet rag,” the librarian said, interrupting, and timidly waved her papers in between Cash and me. “Someone needs to pay.”

  “Put it on my tab,” Cash growled and told her his room number. “Leave us before I make this about you.”

  She scribbled down the number and left, closing the door behind us.

  “That was uncalled for,” I said. “She was only doing her job.”

  “Roo.” Cash made a frustrated sound and scrubbed his face. He paced the small space next to the chair. “You put yourself at risk.”

  I read the onslaught of information in his eyes, his expression, his body language. I knew exactly what he thought. What he would say. That I didn’t know how to handle myself, that I didn’t know enough about this world, or this game, to make proper, informed decisions. Too naïve to be included in whatever he did all night because surely the Tribunal hadn’t taken that long.

  Stupid, male, chauvinistic—gah!

  Shut up Others! I screamed in my mind.

  “Shut up,” I yelled to Cash. “You can’t tell me what to do all the time.”

  “I’m not telling you… okay, I am, but there’s a good reason for it. How many times do I have to say to trust me before you believe it?”

  “Trust you?” I gaped back at him, aghast. The Others laughed, relentlessly, taunting me. Why were they here? They should be weak with Cash. I held my head between my hands. “You expect me to trust you when you keep secrets from me, despite everything?”