Mary looked at the locket then turned around and grabbed a notebook from the shelf behind her. It was black, looked like it was handled with care, and had notes upon notes inside of it. “You’re asking me this because of your magic?” Mary said looking at the image of the woman. Dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a smile that made you forget about the worries of the world.Old memories of a more simple time.Where people knew each other and the most fun they had was going to the movies at the mall downtown.
“It…makes me forget. I already know when I use it I forget something that I pick, and I know this person means something to me,” he said placing his hands against his face, laying his forehead on the counter. It was something he always wanted to know. He kept the locket, didn’t talk about it much or hardly at all but it was a part of him that he couldn’t let go of what it meant before he lost it.
“When I was younger, when things were a bit simpler there was always this person that came to the store I was working at. She would come and ask about the latest King books and we would talk so much about their writing. She would tell me that she always felt that they told the real truth when it came to our world, that it didn’t shy away from the horrors we try to look away from. She was a bright person,” Mary said closing the locket and handing it back to Nick.
“Did you know this person?” he said pointing to his locket. His eyes narrowing at her, his body started to feel uneasy. He didn’t like forgetting, it made him feel like he was always empty as a person. He tried hard not to think about his magic, he knew the cost, and it was too high for him. Instead, he relied on just trying to get by without it, but not knowing the woman close to his chest hurt the most because it was like a part of him that had gone missing.
“The person in the locket? No, I don’t know them personally, but I do know their mother,” Mary said as she got up and started to look through the black book pacing back and forth.
“What do you mean, who is this?” he said grabbing his hair with both hands, pushing down on his skull.
“Skydove is what I use to call her, but she was Maria. Maria Martinez, she was your mother and she was a half-angel,” Mary said opening the book, showing Nick an image of his father with his mother. She also had dark hair and eyes, but she stood tall and fierce, a warrior.
“How? That isn’t possible, the awakening happened way after I was born,” he said grabbing the book, starring at his parents holding each other in front of a sunset.
“She loved your father way before that. They had to keep their lives a secret, the world wasn’t ready. They had enough trouble with people judging them with his being white and she brown, they thought the worse of them together. There was no way they could let anyone know about their abilities, but they loved hard. You came into their life, she got banished from the spirit kingdom as some call it for having a half-born, and she gave up her wings to stay with your father. Until one day when the awakening happened and the angels needed her so they went into the unknown, a battle that they didn’t know what the outcome would be. They never found her remains,” Mary said lowering her head, she sniffed a bit and wiped a tear away from one of her eyes.
“An aerion, she was part of the almighty and she gave it up to have me. I should be shocked, but it must be how I have my magic. But who is this woman if not my mother?” He said opening the locket and starring at the image.
“Nick, you can be oblivious sometimes. That’s your sister,” Mary said slapping him on the side of his head lightly.
“My sister…what’s her name, where is she?” he asked holding his locket close to his chest.
“Wish I could tell you where she was but I have no idea. Her name is Christina though. I’m going to get some rest, you are welcome to stay here for the night, restrooms in the back,” Mary said grabbing another bottle, heading to her room, and shutting the door behind her.
My sister's name is Christina…and my mother is an aerion…Where did you go sister, what happened to you? He felt like he knew a small bit of who he forgot, the small information that Mary gave him was enough for him to hold on to their names, and he hoped to never forget them. He had to find his sister, not for anything important, but to make sure she was well, to be there for her as a brother, and to feel some sense of wholeness that he ached for. I may not find you anytime soon, but to know you exist is enough for me to keep going. He thought.
45
Veronica stood in front of Cameron who was in a chair snoring, holding a book against his chest. “Hey old man, wake up,” she said kicking the chair waking him up abruptly.
“What’s wrong, what happened?” Cameron said looking around the room seeing nothing but the sun coming up.
She pointed a finger towards the door of Cameron's shop. “Nicks gone, he hasn’t come back yet, we should go and find him.” She wondered why he up and went, where he could be. He was not in the best shape to be out on his own.
“Got a text from him a while ago, he’s fine, now go get some rest,” Cameron said getting up from the chair and stretching his arms. “Didn’t know you were fond of the boy, a bit ago you wanted to kill us both.” That was true. She saw them more than enemies or strangers. To her being together and spending more time together she grew a fondness for them, for all of them. They were still stupid humans though.
“It’s not that. We just got him back and with the god breakers out there, they could be looking for him,” she said rubbing the back of her head. “My father, he’s probably angry with me, mother is probably worried.”
Cameron went in front of his armor and started to wipe it down with a towel. “You should go home, ease the worry of the vorpals. Wouldn’t want them coming topside and getting upset seeing you around us humans.”
“The count isn’t so bad. What he does, he does for what is best for the people of the undercity,” she said walking to the wall near Cameron's armor and leaning against it.
“If you say so. Your count is as good as our leaders in this world. I know you care for them, but no one with power can rule justly,” Cameron said rubbing the leg areas of his armor. He should know he was next to the biggest ruler of them all.
He’s lived a long life, an unusual one I’m sure, but he doesn’t know our leaders, what they do they do the best for everyone to help us thrive in a new world. She knew her father could be a bit aggressive and that he wasn’t the best when talking or expressing himself, but she saw him in the different areas of the undercity. He would be around the young eternals, giving them advice on how to control their emotions, their hunger and to get along with each other despite who they were. If one was a vorpal, a werewolf, gargoyle, or whatever the being was, they had the count to help guide them. He would spend all his waking hours making ways for them to not go hungry, to not be afraid, and to just learn to live out of the shadows. He just doesn’t know him because he never met the count. She thought.
“Tell me, you worked with the almighty, what makes them so different?” she asked folding her arms, starring at Cameron.
He leaned back a little and threw his towel over his shoulder and let out a sigh. “Nothing, nothing at all. Do you think the almighty doesn’t want to keep power? Their rule is absolute, no matter what, they are the creator. I don’t like power because when you have that you are tempted dammit, tempted to look out for your self-interest. Then people stare as you are riding into the streets hungry, ill, and on the verge of a breakdown, and you can not do fuck all. We thought we were doing the best for mankind but when the awakening lifted the veil we got to see just how little we did to help.” The great pretenders the lot of them were.
“So you came to live with the regular humans, just got tired of living the good life?” she said letting out a small chuckle. She tapped her fingers on the wall and starred at Cameron's armor. A person who fought in battle among the light, smiting evil and being in the land of light, the holy land that many people strive to end up at, and he gave it up.
“Just because it's in the light, among the c
reator doesn’t mean it was good. They expected perfection from regular beings, angels, and non-alike. It felt more and more like a prison with each passing year and seeing my comrades disappear, killed off one by one just felt like a faith worse than death. That we did not get a death, we were lost and forgotten. We weren’t born by a mother, nor were we raised by parents, we just existed. No one knew me by name, just by Judicer 54, that is what I was called, what they have known me as. If I passed on, who would hold a memory about me? Noone,” Cameron said looking at Veronica as a tear left his eye, he lowered his head and shook it. “Living is more than just being born, and then death. It’s about the memories made along the way among people who pass by you, and when one passes on you continue to live on in stories.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think of it like that. I just thought it was better for you all. Hell, I thought that topside would be better after the awakening but I look at the television or read the news in the undercity and it is worse it feels like. It feels like it is humans against eternals, and I fed into that. I did not like humans anymore, what they stood for. I should have been better, and I know we have a long way to go, but it gives me hope when I see my friend Domina and her boyfriend Chris,” she said looking at Cameron and smiling. “Nothing should be so pure, so vanilla. She followed her heart as a gargoyle and it led her to be with a human. I didn’t understand it or get it honestly, just assumed he was going to use her, break her heart or it was some fetish. In my mind I tried to think of ways he would harm her but meeting him, he’s not a bad person. He’s different, so is she, but them together, man it’s adorable.”
“People can always try to get in the way of love. Who people are or want to be. You have to look beyond what is different and just accept people who they are, that’s what makes you all including eternals so unique, there is only one of you Veronica,” Cameron said standing up and patting her on the shoulder.
She looked at him and saw maybe why he did not like the land of light, why he went against the almighty. He wanted to be his own being, to have his name, live his own unique life without judgment. Veronica placed her hand on his armor, the cold steel and the hollowness of it, it was like a cocoon that stood for his old life, while his skin and flesh are who he was, that he was human and all she could do was smile and think of Cameron the old man.Human.Vanilla.Shop owner.A life worth living.
46
Nick walked into Cameron's shop looking for Abigail. He wanted to talk to her about his mother and his sister, who he didn’t remember, but he needed to just talk to her. “Hey old man, where’s Abigail?” he asked looking around the shop to see if she was hiding.
“I sent her to get some supplies for the shop, she should have been back by now,” Cameron said looking at the clock on the wall, scratching his head.
“I’ll go look for her, she probably stopped at a video game store, she loves the one right down the street,” Nick said opening the door.
Nick walked down the street, the sun was out and people were walking into the different shops with bags or food, and kids were playing in the street. He heard a scream and turned his head, many people began to rush towards the noise with their phones opened. He sprinted to the sound and saw Abigail on the floor trying to pick up the items from her bags. “What the hell happened,” he said helping her put the groceries back in the bags and patting her to get the dirt off her clothes.
“It’s nothing let's just go Nick,” Abigail said lowering her head and started to walk, but Nick's hand on her shoulder stopped her dead in her tracks.
“She was in my way.”
Nick turned his head and saw Beta grinning from ear to ear. “What the fuck is your problem man?” he said getting up to his face and poking a finger into his chest. A lousy bastard of a man who would pick on someone who wasn’t doing anything to them.Sounded like Beta, royal ass numero uno.
Beta was out of his armor and wearing just a black suit with sunglasses on. “Low life’s the lot of them. Halfbreeds, full breeds, just roaches on the floor,” Beta said shoving Nick to the side. “Look at her, all you that are recording this, a vorpal, at least one who is almost one just look at her ears.”He grinned grabbing hold of her ear like a parent pulling a kid's cheek.
Abigail covered her ears and cowered behind Nick. The people recording didn’t put their phones down, did not ask if she was okay. They just kept staring, kept filming. “ I don’t want to be here,” Abigail said pressing her face against Nick's back.
“You see them, look at these people, their savage nature, their group mentality, sheep for the slaughter,” Beta said whispering in Nick's ear. “You love nonhumans, enough to probably fuck one and taint your body.”
Nick clenched his fist and swung it as hard as he could, knocking Betas sunglasses to the floor. “You talk so high for someone that’s a murderer,” he said motioning Abigail to wait inside the store.
“He hit a god breaker, he can’t do that,” A man said from the ground.
“Take him down Beta!” A little kid yelled pumping his fist into the air. The next generation, showing how it may be the future if nothing changed in the world.
“You see what you do is cause chaos, no order. You need to fall in line, and know your place,” Beta said spitting blood onto the cement. He began walking around Nick eying him up and down. “You hold a weapon, I should call my breakers to come arrest you, or better yet the Draken police would like to hear that you have a suspect of a crime. I know you have the girl, if you tell me I could forget all of this.”
“So you did kill that vorpal,” Nick said gripping his hand around lightborne.
“I did what the god breakers had to do. We are the warriors of the light and a vorpal was trying to attack two humans, two women. It could have been one of you, one of your daughters and I would have done the same because the highest priority to us god breakers and the almighty are humans,” Beta said pointing to different people that circled them. The crowd looked at them and nodded. It didn’t matter who died, how they died, just as long as they were safe.
The people around them began to cheer for Beta, to agree to everything that he was saying. They were eating up everything that he said even after admitting to killing Jake. “You are blinded by your faith, by the thought of appeasing a higher power. Well, fuck your higher power, and anyone that thinks it’s okay to place judgment on people just because they are different. What if one of your loved ones became eternal,” Nick said narrowing his eyes.
“You think I wouldn’t sacrifice my own for the greater good? Think again. If it meant what was best by our savior, then so be it,” Beta said smirking at Nick.
Nick ran into Beta, tackling him down on the floor. He sat on his chest swinging his fist. Every blow came with a thud, his hands bleeding, sweat coming down his forehead. “You don’t get to judge Abigail, not anyone. You talk like you’re above everyone,” he said pounding away at Beta.
“Who’s the bad person right now, look around you boy,” Beta said laughing smiling as blood draped over his perfect white teeth.
He starred around him and saw people old and young, male and female recording and looking on in horror. No, no, no it isn’t like this, they think I’m the bad person. He’s the one that killed Jake, the one who captured me. He thought.
“You can’t just let him talk down to others, it isn’t right,” Nick said getting off Beta and pointing at him starring at the people around them. He knew that he wasn’t getting through to them, they looked at him like other people did throughout his life. Like he didn’t belong. “He killed a vorpal, he pushed around a half vorpal and you are just okay with this?”
“A course they are okay with all of this. Since the awakening, since the god breakers came into existence the amount of violence that happened to humans went down. Women and children could walk in the streets at night without fear of being murdered or taken. People could go outside without thinking about someone coming to them and placing metal between their eyes. We set the rules, we enfor
ced them and in the end, it wasn’t the Draken police that lowered crime, it was us the ones you hate oh so much,” Beta said getting up from the floor.
“Is it that easy for you to give up your freedoms, your way of life? You think that you are safe, but you have to have these breakers track you. Whether it be your phones or your vehicles, they know where you go, who you see and you are all okay with this?” Nick said looking at the crowd of people and seeing that every single one of them saying nothing like it was a sea of faceless robots doing what they were told to do.
“You see what we do, what we prove works. Protect the people, denounce nonbelievers and those that try to change the ways in a drastic way. You can let half breeds in topside easily without a bit issue, but at the end of the day they are just meant to be another wheel in the cog,” Beta said pointing a finger at Nick.
“You can’t believe the bullshit that you spew, that you say, you can’t be that dumb. To go backward, have you learned nothing of what we’ve been through,” Nick said taking out lightborne from his back.
Beta slowly walked up to Nick, he placed a hand on the blade lowering it. “They will follow because they hear what they want to. Do I believe what I say, the words I chant or yell? No, I don’t, not at all, but it benefits me oh so well. The thing is you can try to kill me here right now, but you know it goes against what the almighty wants so you can’t. You can try to fight me some more, beat me until my face is bloody, would that make you feel better? I’m sure it will but they already have you on video, and to do it a second time would only make you look bad. So how about you shut up, walk away with your head down and keep an eye out,” Beta said patting Nick on the shoulder smiling at the people that surrounded them.
“I won’t tell you where the girl is, you’ll just kill her too,” Nick whispered. His hands clenched on lightborne, he wanted to swing it so bad, to rid the world of Beta, but it wouldn’t rid the world of his ideas, the message he spreads.
The God Breaker's Ruin Page 19