Demons of Divinity

by Luke R. Mitchell

  “I hadn’t realized she was…” I started. “Is she okay?”

  “She’ll be fine,” Four said. “She traded fisticuffs with Seven, or the thing that used to be Seven, when it was trying to make a break for it. Thing got ahold of her and broke a few bones.”

  “So those raknoth that escaped did take over more of your people?” Elise asked.

  Four gave a grim nod. “Looks that way. Five was no great surprise. He might’ve even volunteered for this bullscud. But Seven… she always seemed all right. Makes me nervous for the rest of our people.”

  “Well,” Elise said, “for what it’s worth, there may only be one other raknoth out there without a gifted body now.”

  “Alton Parker,” I agreed. Then, to Four, I added, “I can help you with cloaks for your people if you’d still like.”

  He looked a little surprised, but mostly just relieved. “That would be appreciated. We get the basic idea, but I have a feeling the execution might take a while to grasp.”

  He gave me an odd look as he said the last part, like he was wondering just how in demons’ depths I’d managed to figure it out in the first place.

  “We can work on it together,” I said.

  “So where are you headed?” Elise asked. “You said something about making it out of here with Eight.”

  “You do realize you’re probably on the Sanctum’s kill list too now, right?” I added.

  He smirked. “I’m familiar with how they do business. Our people will be waiting for us in a safe place. We’d like to join them.”

  I wanted to ask, but that was pretty clearly all he wanted to say on the matter.

  “No more fighting the good fight?” I asked instead.

  He shrugged. “As far as I can tell, there’s more than a few good fights to be fought out there. We don’t wish to incur the Sanctum’s wrath any more than we already have.”

  I couldn’t really blame them for that. Especially not when I’d spent all morning wishing I could somehow escape it all myself. But I couldn’t. And even as we said our farewells with Four and made plans for a cloaking rune session that evening, I had the distinct feeling that he and Eight might well yet find themselves pulled into this scudstorm as inexorably as I seemed to be. But maybe that was just wishful thinking.

  I was kind of conflicted on the matter.

  “What are you thinking about?” Elise asked some time later when we’d been sitting together in the garden for a good while, lost in our own thoughts.

  I paused and realized I’d been toying with Carlisle’s holodisk. “Guess I’m just wondering if maybe the Seekers don’t have the right idea, running for the hills and not looking back.”

  “Sounds like Four and Eight did look back. Pretty hard.”

  “Yeah, I guess they did. It’s just… I can’t stop wondering how many more Shapers are out there, living in the shadows, either ignorant of their power or terrified of it. I mean, can you imagine how much quicker the raknoth invasion could’ve been shut down if people like us were… I don’t know, common? Accepted?”

  Elise arched an eyebrow at me. “Can you imagine how frightened everyone else would be if they understood how easily someone could walk by and steal their darkest secrets, or make them do anything they wanted?”

  I frowned. “We don’t really have to imagine. We’re already looking at what happens when the fear wins.”

  “Hey,” she said, holding her hands up, “I’m not arguing with you. Just pointing out the first of many prominent roadblocks to that world.”

  I sighed. “We need to find Burton Kovaks and his pasty little friend.”

  She didn’t argue, or even ask what I might hope to learn out of the endeavor. Probably because she knew that I had no idea what we might find. Only that Kovaks and Pasty had too many arcane secrets stashed away down there with their elaborate rune devices and their ancient Emmútari records.

  “You ever wonder what our relationship would be like if we were just normal civilians kids?” she asked after a thoughtful silence. “Like, if our biggest concern was where we could sneak a swive instead of whether or not we could win a war or survive being hunted by aliens and the entire Sanctum?”

  I scrunched my face up. “Ehhh, I don’t think it would’ve worked out between us.”

  She shot me a dramatically affronted look. “Oh, no?”

  I shook my head. “Nah. I think you would’ve realized pretty quickly that I’m actually a breathtakingly boring guy when no one’s trying to kill m—”

  An alarm blared so loud that it almost seemed to be coming from inside my head.

  “You’ve gotta be gropping kidding me,” I growled, jumping to my feet and clamping my hands over my ears as the alarm amp fired up again.

  I looked around, noting an immediate spike in activity all around us—legionnaires gathering, shouting to one another, and pointing toward… I followed the stares, squinting, and spotted a dark speck in the eastern sky.

  A dark speck that was getting closer. Fast.

  Too fast.

  No sooner had I seen it growing closer than it seemed to be rushing by overhead, so fast I could barely make out more than a dark purplish hue and an elongated hull.

  “Well,” Elise said breathlessly beside me. “Nothing boring about that.”

  We exchanged a look, and set off after the ship without another word.

  We were halfway to the western edge of Haven, about ten minutes into the trek, when my palmlight buzzed with a call from Glenbark herself.

  “That can’t be good,” Elise said.

  I slid my earpiece in and answered.

  “Sir?”

  “Haldin.” She hesitated more than I was used to. Probably, she was just addressing someone on the other end. “I need you at the western gate, immediately.”

  “On my way already. This doesn’t happen to have anything to do with the thing that just zipped past Haven, does it?”

  “Just hurry, please.”

  She killed the connection.

  I shot Elise an uneasy look.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said.

  “And here I was thinking that was my line.”

  Somehow, neither of us smiled.

  Quickening our pace, we arrived about five minutes later to a growing crowd of onlookers. Several companies’ worth of heavily-armed legionnaires were piled on the western walls and towers, all clearly ready to blow whatever was on the other side of the wall straight to demon’s depths.

  I had a decent guess where the unidentified purple blur had landed.

  I clicked my pendant off and tried to reach my senses ahead only to find there were at least a few cloaking packs nearby—more than a few, actually, judging by how many odd little pockets I found myself passing through in just the next ten yards alone.

  I decided I might have to do something about that at some point, but now clearly wasn’t the time to worry about such things.

  Finding Glenbark, at least, wasn’t much of a challenge. We pushed our way toward her, the crowd parting to admit us more readily the closer we got. Johnny found us just before we reached her, dressed in a tunic and no armor, reminding me that I was equally unprotected in my civilian clothes.

  The one day I decide to go without the armor skin.

  “Had a feeling I’d find you guys here,” Johnny said, pushing over to us. “Any idea what’s going on?”

  “We were about to ask you,” I admitted.

  Ahead, Glenbark waved down a captain who was talking rather animatedly with his hands and disengaged from her officers to come join us. My insides clenched when I saw General Auckus and the murderous glare he skewered her with. His gaze shifted from Glenbark’s back to me and back again, only darkening. Traitor or no, it was hard not to get the feeling that he wasn’t done with either of us.

  But the gravity in Glenbark’s expression suggested we had more pressing problems at the moment.

  “It’s Alton Parker’s ship,” she said without preamb
le as she drew close, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the commotion around us.

  “As in, his ship ship?” Johnny asked. “His… alien ship?”

  “We’ve never seen anything like it,” she admitted, turning to me. “And he’s made it clear he’ll talk to you and you only, Haldin.”

  “What? Why?”

  She shook her head. “I can only assume for the same reason he’s seen fit to target you in the past, whatever that might be. He wouldn’t say more than that. Only that it has to be you and that, if we try anything, it will take no more than his death or a single telepathic thought to trigger his ship to destroy the entire planet.”

  “And you believe that?” Elise asked.

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” Glenbark glanced toward the gate. “But given that I’ve also never seen a ship like that, I’m disinclined to casually dismiss a planetary threat.” She looked at me. “Are you willing to speak with him?”

  I looked to Elise.

  “I don’t like it,” We both sent at the same time.

  “They’re not going to let me go with you, are they?”

  “You’re one day out of the medica.”

  “That’s rich, coming from you.”

  “I don’t like it either, for what it’s worth,” Glenbark said, guessing the gist of our exchange.

  “But hey,” Johnny said, “on the bright side, we finally found the ship, right?”

  “Yeah, Praise Alpha,” Elise muttered.

  Glenbark ignored their comments, still fixed on me. “We have over twenty snipers on him, and you won’t have to leave our sight. He’s waiting out in the open.”

  I half-thought about asking her to clear the cloaking packs out of the area so I could commune with him from that very spot, but on top of that being a dangerous idea, it probably didn’t matter anyway. If Alton Parker wanted a face-to-face, he probably wouldn’t be happy until we played his little game. That alone made me want to refuse. But there had to be a damn good reason he’d played such a drastic move.

  We needed to know what he was up to.

  “Hal, I really don’t like this,” Elise sent.

  “I know.” I held her gaze until I felt the shift between us and knew that we’d come to an understanding together.

  “Just please don’t get on that ship,” she said quietly.

  “I’ll second that,” Glenbark said. “No matter what threats he might make.”

  I nodded, kissed Elise’s forehead, touched Johnny’s shoulder, and started for the gate. At an order from Glenbark, the massive doors began to open with a ponderous groan.

  It was embarrassing, seeing doors that enormous opening just to let one man through. Even more so when some of the legionnaires lining the way decided to turn and throw me salutes. I walked on, trying not to blush, trying not to let it show just how much I did not want to march through that gate.

  The gargantuan doors froze when the opening was no wider than a few shoulder widths. I paused at the threshold, fighting the urge to look back. The doors loomed over me, pressing in like the dark jaws of some colossal beast.

  I stepped into the gap.

  Halfway through, I caught sight of Alton Parker. He stood a hundred yards from the wall in a crisp dark suit, watching me with crimson eyes.

  The ship parked behind him was of alien origin. I was almost positive about that the moment I laid eyes on it. Tracing the long, oddly flowing shape of the hull as I emerged from the gate doors, I could see it was larger than five or six transports combined, but probably smaller than a legion carrier. As to what the hull was made from, I didn’t have the faintest guess. It seemed to have a deep, dark purple hue to it, but it shimmered with a kind of iridescence that made it hard to tell for sure.

  I shifted my focus back to Alton Parker, remaining vigilant, but he seemed content just watching—waiting.

  I drew my mental defenses tighter and continued out to meet him.

  “Haldin Raish,” he finally said when I was within easy speaking distance. “Demon. Savior. Bastard son of Enochia.”

  “What do you want with me, Parker?”

  Instead of answering, he just studied me for a long while. Too long. I pulled a telekinetic barrier in place, suddenly sure he must be waiting for some trap to spring—for hybrids to come pouring out of his ship, or for one of Frosty’s peers to telekinetically yank me in.

  The silence stretched.

  Then he came to some decision, took a short step forward, and offered his wrists out to me with a smile, as if courteously inviting himself to be shackled.

  “I think it’s time we had ourselves a proper talk.”

  Are you ready for more?

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  -Luke R. Mitchell

  About the Author

  Luke is a storyteller whose dreams include learning the ways of the Force, becoming a sentient robot, and maybe even one day growing up. And lots of zombies. Don't ask.

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