Red Queen

by Christopher Pike

  James and I jumped. Syn stood firm.

  A figure appeared out of nothing. Alfred.

  He reached into the back of my pants and removed the nine-millimeter Glock I had hidden. He must have been familiar with the weapon, and he sure as hell must have known I was carrying it.

  In a single fluid motion Alfred removed the safety, riffled a bullet into the chamber, and shot Frank in the forehead. The round flew with a soft whistle. Frank sank into the chair at his back, Lara still in his lap, his brains staining the freshly painted wall. His eyes still open, he let out what sounded like a surprised gasp before leaning dangerously to one side. I ran toward my daughter. Alfred beat me to the punch but quickly handed Lara over.

  It was insane to celebrate. The Wicked Witch was still alive and deadly, and we had no house to drop on her head. Still, my daughter felt like heaven in my hands, her tiny body wiggling in my fingers as she twisted her head up to gaze at me. Something happened in that moment as I gazed back into her blue-green eyes. It was impossible to describe, but I’ll say it anyway.

  I saw love. It was real, as real as her physical body.

  It was what Lara was made of.

  Every cell . . . Love, love, love . . .

  From far away I saw and heard two different things.

  Syn’s shattered face. James talking to me.

  All the blood had drained from Syn’s skin. Her mouth moved but no sound emerged. Yet I could read the name her lips were trying to form. . . .

  Herme . . . Herme . . . Herme . . .

  James was closer, beside me, but his explanation also seemed to reach me over a great distance. I heard what he said—that did not mean I understood what he said.

  “I saw you watching me as I delayed getting in and out of the limo,” he told me. “We were lucky Frank didn’t notice. I was just trying to give Alfred a chance to move past me.” He paused. “Jessie?”

  He kept calling me Jessie, not Jessica.

  I shook my head to free it of Lara’s mesmerizing gaze and Syn’s devastated expression. My voice came out like a croak.

  “He was sitting between us the whole way here?”

  “I had to sit somewhere,” Alfred said, talking to me even though his eyes never left Syn. She shook her head as if trying to regroup. She was still pale as a ghost.

  “Huh?” I mumbled.

  “Even when invisible, I can’t walk through objects,” Alfred continued, even though he was as distracted as I was. “If you had reached for James’s hand, you would have bumped into me.”

  Slowly my brain began to comprehend. Very slowly.

  “How did James know where you were?” I asked.

  “It’s one of my many witch powers,” James said.

  “But you’re not a witch,” I protested.

  James reached for my hand. He reached for Lara. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time, because . . . it was the first time. His eyes betrayed the truth. She was like a newborn to him. It took me several seconds to register what that meant. James, this James, was not from witch world.

  This was Jimmy!

  Somehow, he had gone through the death experience.

  Now he was alive in witch world!

  He was a witch! And he was with me!

  “Herme,” Syn managed to say aloud, ignoring Kendor, her eyes locked on her . . . son? Yes, it was true, it was her child. Alfred was Herme, the person Kendor had told me about. That was why Syn was still ashen, still shaken. She had to struggle to speak to her son. “It can’t be. You’re dead,” she whispered.

  Alfred—Herme—shook his head. “I’m here now.”

  “Why?” Syn said, and the word could have stood for a dozen questions. Herme chose to answer the most important one.

  “To put a stop to this madness,” he said.

  Syn glanced at Kendor, her confusion swiftly changing to rage. “You knew our son was alive and you hid it from me?” she snapped.

  Kendor shook his head sadly. “I only found out today.”

  “You lie!” she shouted.

  “No, Mother. It’s the truth,” Herme said.

  “Why did you leave us?” Syn demanded.

  There was no apology in Herme’s voice. “No one could see into your heart like I could. Even Father didn’t know how you had changed, what you were becoming, and I couldn’t bear to tell him. I felt it best just to leave, and I prayed you would find peace in your own way.” Herme paused. “But you never did.”

  “I would never have lost my peace if I’d known you were alive!” Syn shrieked. “It was you, your loss, that broke my heart!”

  “No,” Herme said. “By the time I left for the colonies, there was nothing inside your heart left to break. You are what you are, Mother, what you chose to be. You have no one to blame but yourself.”

  Syn forced a frightening laugh. “So you have all gathered to beg me to behave. My lover, my child, the mother of the perfect child, even the ancient Council. And yes, I can feel the gathering storm of the Council’s minds as they prepare to strike me down if I refuse to obey. But what none of you understand is that long ago I left your world for something far better. A realm of infinite pleasure where I can never again be hurt.”

  “Mother?” Herme begged.

  “Traitor!” she cried, snapping her fingers at him as if trying to make him invisible once more, before putting the same hand over the heart her son had told her was empty. She felt pain then, deep inside her chest, I could tell. But it was only then she turned away from Herme and cursed the rest of us. At last I could say she truly sounded like a witch.

  “All of you, kill me with your petty fusion if you can!” she swore. “But I think you’ll discover that it is you who will perish!”

  Kendor didn’t even try to attack with his sword. Instead he closed his eyes and frowned in concentration. Glancing at Herme, I was sure I would find him taking aim with my Glock. But he too had shut his eyes. It was clear they knew that no physical weapon would work against Syn’s bafflement.

  The living room flooded with strange energies, and began to change, although I’m not sure if the transformation was of a three-dimensional nature. I’m not even sure if I saw the change with my eyes or my mind, on the inside or the outside. For a time it seemed the distinction between the two disappeared.

  I believe I saw a blue light extend from Kendor and Herme toward Syn. The light was both hot and cold, and it appeared to be made of a fabric more real than a chair or table. It was like a living light projected from the hearts and souls of men and women who cared for nothing but the well-being of mankind. Pure selflessness allowed so many minds to join together so powerfully, and it was a fact that although the source of the blue light was sacred, it was capable of destroying almost anything in its path.

  But opposing it, halting the blue light like a wall of psychic bricks cemented across the center of the room, was an expanding red sphere. It was also more palpable than any physical object, and the larger it grew in size, the farther Syn appeared to move away from the blue light.

  In a flash I realized this was the key to bafflement, and it was suddenly obvious why it was impenetrable. For Syn did not only escape into the distance, she entered another realm where there was no blue light, no Council, not even a world known as earth. If the real world was a reflection of witch world, then this sphere was the opposite of life. Yet there was a paradox here because it seemed as if the denizens of this dimension could only exist by feeding off the living. And there were creatures inside this world, besides Syn. They called to me.

  I tried not to respond, but a wave of sheer agony shot through my mind and body, and it was as if every fiber in my nervous system and every feeling and thought in my mind was being singed by flames that had been burning since the beginning of time. The pain was so great I would have made a deal with the devil himself to make it stop.

  That desire alone was enough.

  It was like a secret wish, a special password, that allowed me to respond to the bei
ngs of the realm Syn coveted. Before I knew it, I was standing beside her inside the red sphere. But its shape and color had changed and taken on the form of a battlefield.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?” Syn asked, standing nearby, beside a tree that stood at the edge of a huge field where two armies were killing each other with a fury that only emerged during a last stand. The army on my left was Roman. I recognized the broad shields, the long spears, the iron helmets. On the right were the Huns, masters of their horses, and their bows and arrows. In the distance was the prize, the city of Rome.

  What the fuck is going on? I asked myself.

  Did I have a body? I don’t think so, not there, not then. I don’t think physical bodies could exist inside the red sphere. I drew in no breaths, I did not feel my heart beat in my chest. Yet, it was a paradox, I had hands, I could see my hands. I was a spirit with shape. I was even clothed; I wore the same red robe as Syn.

  “I’m not religious,” I said, answering her question. “But I believe in God.”

  Syn quietly mocked me. “If that’s true, you should be able to answer the question all atheists ask. If there’s a God, why did he create so much suffering?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe to—”

  “Stop,” Syn interrupted. “You have said the only thing that matters. Add one word to ‘I don’t know’ and you’ll be babbling. You can’t know because there’s no answer to that question. No reasonable god would create suffering. Therefore, there can be no God. Do you understand?”

  It seemed important to her that I immediately relinquish my faith, before she proceeded to the next step. “I don’t know,” I repeated. “Your reasoning seems no more valid than that of those who believe in God.”

  “Come on, Jessica, you don’t believe that.”

  “Why does my belief matter to you?”

  She nodded to the nearby tree. “Because of what’s about to happen. You won’t be able to experience it if you allow your human beliefs to get in the way.”

  Suddenly a Hun on horseback raced around the tree and halted his horse in midstride and took aim with his bow. He did not appear to see us. His target was three Roman soldiers racing toward the tree. The Hun let fly an arrow, dropping the soldier on the left. Another arrow killed the man on the right.

  But the Hun couldn’t take down the soldier in the middle. This soldier knew how to use his shield and run at the same time. He was skilled with his sword as well. As he closed on his prey, the Hun drew his own blade and tried to run the Roman soldier down. The Roman didn’t try to dodge his opponent by leaping away from the horse. He did the opposite—he leaped directly into the side of the animal, with the side of his body, as if to tackle it. The move was risky but it brought him inside the swing of the Hun’s sword. As a result the Roman soldier was able to stab the Hun cleanly in the chest.

  The Hun fell to the ground, dead.

  The Roman allowed himself a moment to cheer.

  Unfortunately, the brief ceremony distracted him from another Hun who had come up at his back. This Hun was on his feet and carried a javelin. At the last second the Roman heard him, but it was already too late. The Hun had let fly the javelin, and it caught the Roman in the abdomen, pinning him to the trunk of the tree.

  “Robere,” I heard Syn whisper, and the scene suddenly changed. It was late in the evening, the armies were gone, and a lone woman clothed in a gray robe was weeping as she gripped the end of a bloody javelin and pulled it free of the tree and the man’s body. As he toppled into the woman’s arms, I saw that it was Syn from sixteen hundred years ago. She sobbed as she dropped to her knees and held her only son in her arms.

  Syn pointed to her earlier incarnation. “Do you believe in God?” she asked again.

  “Why should what happened to you change my beliefs?”

  “Touch her.”

  “Why?”

  “Touch her or the pain will return. You know the pain, don’t you, Jessica?”

  She had me. I would never forget that pain.

  I touched the woman with what I assumed were spirit hands and was immediately engulfed in her sorrow. It was total, capable of shattering my soul, equal in every way to the pain that Syn had just threatened me with. More than anything I wanted it to stop. I went to take my hand away.

  “Stop!” Syn commanded before I could let go.

  Tears rolled over my face. “Please. I can’t bear it.”

  “Because you have forgotten the lesson you learned in the sewer. Pain, pleasure, power. The three ingredients that create the triangle that forms the circle that manifests the red sphere.” She paused. “Should I recite it for you?”

  “Yes! If you’ll let me take my hand away when you’re done!”

  Syn spoke in a solemn tone. “Pain becomes a pleasure when power creates pain.” She paused. “Do you understand?”

  I did not understand, not with my mind, but the instant she recited the words, the pain flowing up my arm and into my heart turned to pleasure. It was remarkable. It was as if every nerve in my body were bathed in ecstasy. Now the last thing I wanted to do was to remove my hand. Syn nodded as if reading my mind.

  “I didn’t discover the reality of this world the day I went searching for my son’s body,” she said. “I didn’t even learn of it when the Justinian plague struck Sicily and took away my family. So much agony and still I could not see what was right in front of me. It was only when Herme had left for the colonies—and was dead, I thought—that I understood the purpose of suffering.”

  “That’s when the Alchemist came to you,” I said.

  Syn appeared annoyed that I knew of the man, that Kendor had shared such a secret with me. She spoke quickly. “I was ripe for the truth. I would have discovered it on my own. He merely pointed me in the right direction.”

  “In the direction of hell, where demons feed on the pain of others?” I asked.

  “Phrase it that way if you wish. Or call them gods who are capable of transforming the greatest evil into the greatest good.”

  “Pleasure?” I asked.

  “Pleasure. Ecstasy. Bliss. Different words for the same goal.” Syn paused. “Remove your hand from my younger self.”

  I hesitated. “Why?”

  Syn chuckled. “The believer in God asks why? Did you know that the atheist who has realized that the only salvation in life is pleasure usually asks why not? Why shouldn’t your pain be used to generate joy?”

  “Because you create it at another’s expense,” I replied.

  “Then remove your hand. The longer you touch her, the greater her pain will last.”

  “That’s a lie. Your son died sixteen centuries ago. This is just a play. We can’t change the past.”

  Syn grew more serious. “Maybe it can’t be changed, no one knows. But I do know I saw you right after I found Robere. You stood above me as you stand now. I thought you were a demon, come to mock me in my grief.” She paused. “Remove your hand from my shoulder. Stop the pleasure from entering your heart.”

  With a tremendous act of will, I managed to withdraw my hand. The pleasure stopped. Not even the satisfaction of letting the old Syn go prevented the loss from crashing down on me. I felt buried beneath a mountain of blandness, where there was neither pleasure nor pain, only emptiness. It was amazing how dreadful it was. That quick, I feared I was already addicted to the pleasure.

  “I did it,” I taunted her. “It wasn’t so hard.”

  “That’s because you’ve just begun.”

  I should have known what was to follow.

  Suddenly we were in Sicily with the Syn and Kendor of that time, who were attending to their daughter, Era, a grown woman with two children, Anna and Theo, all of whom were sick with the bubonic plague. Anna was the sickest of the three, and Syn stayed with her night and day in both worlds.

  It helped their offspring that Syn and Kendor had healing abilities, but the disease possessed the power of a demon’s curse. It was too virulent for any f
orm of psychic healing. Over a week—which I experienced as compressed moments—Anna’s face and throat swelled a terrible black-blue as the bubonic bacteria multiplied in her veins. Every breath was a nightmare. As the girl neared death, Syn insisted I touch her, and the weary Syn of that time. I protested, but she grabbed my hands and placed them where she wanted.

  The emotional grief, the physical pain, it was all a horrible blur. I couldn’t stand it. Indeed, I refused to take it, and although I knew I was once again falling for Syn’s seduction, I repeated the line from the litany in my mind: Pain becomes a pleasure when power creates pain.

  Instantly the pain stopped as a tidal wave of pleasure rocked me to the core. The euphoria was like a gift. Yes, I thought, that was exactly what it was. A gift from the denizens of the red realm.

  “Naturally they reward those who reward them,” Syn whispered in my ear, in Anna’s room, as the girl began to choke and ancient Syn wept. “All you have to do is bring them suffering, yours or another’s, and the pleasure will be there. Not only that, but they’ll grant you great power.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “So you’ll have the ability to create more pain.”

  Her remark explained the last line of the litany, the one I had been reciting.

  “That’s how you discovered bafflement. During World War Two,” I said. “It was given to you because you helped the Nazis.”

  “You strike near the truth. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. But you forget how much the Americans contributed with their firebombing of millions of Japanese, and the final two blows that gave me full access to this realm, the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In those two instants I felt a thrill you cannot imagine.” Syn seemed to lean closer, although she was already on top of me. “From my perspective, it was the most God-fearing nation on earth that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that there can be no God.”