Upon This Rock

by David Marusek

  With this, the agents seemed to sag with sudden exhaustion. They sat down as best they could with the stone between them, and Bertolli said, “What’s happening? Are you drugging me?”

  “I’m not doing nothing. Like I said, the angel . . .”

  “Listen,” Nabor said, wheezing a little and resting his head on his outstretched arms. “I’m a Catholic. That means I’m a Christian too. I believe in angels, and I have no beef with any of them. Least of all any angel named Martha. That was my sister-in-law’s name before she passed. Angels are good folks. They’re guardians and warriors for good, not evil. Call your angel. Call Martha so we can talk to her.”

  Poppy didn’t believe a word of it. Catholics weren’t Christians, not real ones anyway. The agent was simply angling for any advantage, any fingernail of an advantage, to extricate himself and his partner from this, their sudden comeuppance. Not two minutes ago they were in charge; they were the wise-cracking masters of the universe, willing to destroy his family’s life in Obama’s name. Now they were dog meat, and he longed to see their expressions upon confronting an actual angel.

  “You really want to talk to Martha? Be my guest.” He turned and shouted down the tunnel, “Martha! Seraph of the Ninth Order! Someone wants to talk to you.” But she didn’t show, and he called her again. “I guess she don’t want to talk to you. Can’t say I blame her.”

  There were sounds down tunnel, and light, but not heavenly light. In a moment, Proverbs appeared. He was armed, and he crouched behind the rock wall and peered around it before coming out into the open. Poppy was surprised to see him.

  “You’re back.”

  Proverbs didn’t reply, only waved his father to come down to him, and as Poppy made his shaky way down the loose rocks, the boy never took his eyes or his gun off the agents.

  “Are they really bound to the rock, lord?”

  “Yes, it seems so. How did you know?”

  “Martha told us. She’s dying, lord. Adam is with her. She wants to speak to you.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In the cistern chamber.”

  The agents, bound to the stone, watched the Prophecys even as Proverbs watched them. “She says to hurry, lord.”

  “Yes, yes, we’ll hurry, but while they’re bound, you need to go up there and take their guns away from them.”

  “Martha says there’s no need, lord. She says she made their guns impotent.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know except that they won’t fire.”

  “What about yours?”

  “Mine fires good enough.”

  ADAM HAD GATHERED up all the poisons into the wheelbarrow and removed them from the chamber. He was just as protective of the water as his father.

  “Did they contaminate it?” he asked when Poppy and Proverbs arrived.

  “No, praise Him,” Poppy said. He entered the chamber and looked around. “Where is she?”

  At first he couldn’t see the angel because she had no radiance to spare and was laid out on the rocky shore and cloaked in darkness. Adam led him to her. If she had looked ragged before, now she was shattered.

  “Master Prophecy,” she gasped when he knelt beside her. “You have failed me.”

  “I failed you? You would have them destroy the keep?” He already knew her answer to that, but he couldn’t help asking.

  “Yes, if it was necessary, but it wouldn’t have come to that. I was right here, ready to catch the poison before it could reach the water and to fling it back into their faces.”

  “You should have communicated that to me.”

  “You should have trusted me. But let’s not pick at bones while the battle rages. I am holding those two henchmen down, but I won’t be able to continue for long, and when I let go, they will destroy you.”

  “Proverbs says you messed with their guns.”

  “Yes, but they carry other, just-as-lethal weapons, not the least of which are their satellite telephones.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Isn’t it plain, Master Prophecy? Put an end to them before they have another chance to put an end to you.”

  Adam, who had been listening, said, “What? But that would be murder.”

  “Killing one’s enemy in time of war is not murder,” Martha said, “if the war is just.”

  “I hear you, Angel Martha, but can’t we lock ’em up in the powder room or something? Use ’em for — I don’t know — hostages?”

  “There are no hostages in the Final Battle, only the victors and the vanquished. Decide which you would be, Adam the Firstborn, before my strength fails me. These agents of Darkness will show you no mercy if they escape.”

  “She’s right,” Poppy said. “You saw the poisons they brung into this chamber. Take your brother’s gun and send them to their judgement.”

  But Adam was not convinced. “Why’s it up to us to do it, lord? She’s the angel; it’s her key; it’s her battle. She should leave us out of it.”

  “Does it look to you like she’s fit to fight?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, lord. Looks can be deceiving. She’s fit enough to hold those men down all the way from here. She can make their guns misfire. That seems pretty powerful to me. Why don’t she just choke them to death from here while she’s at it?”

  “Son . . .”

  “No, lord, I mean it. Are you telling me that Father God wants me to go up there and execute those two men?”

  Poppy stifled his anger — and embarrassment — over his son’s display in front of the angel. “No, He’s not,” he said. “It was me who asked you, and now I’m un-asking you, so settle down and shut up. I’ll do it.”

  “Lord?”

  “I thought you wanted to step up around here. You wanted a wife, you said. You wanted to give me grandchildren, you said. Boy, you had me fooled. So sit tight and suck your thumb while I do it.”

  Poppy reached for the Winchester. Proverbs, who had been silently observing them, at first lifted the gun to his father, but then withdrew it.

  “You too?” Poppy said. “Give it to me!”

  “No, lord, I’ll do it.”

  “You’ll put those dogs down?”

  “Yes, lord. I already put down one of ’em today. I can probably handle two more.” He said this with the cool self-assurance of a born-again psychopath.

  “Then go in haste,” Angel Martha said, resting her pale cheek on the cold stone shore. “With the Father’s blessing.”

  THE AGENTS’ ONCE powerful searchlight had glimmered its last by the time Poppy and Proverbs returned to the rock pile. But there was enough heavenly light from the buried key to make out the captured agents. They lay on either side of the stone like exhausted marathon contestants unwilling to let go of the prize. Proverbs handed the rifle to Poppy and began to climb the pile alone.

  “What’s this?” Poppy said. “Don’t you need it?”

  But Proverbs never looked back.

  Agent Nabor’s head snapped to attention when he heard Proverbs approaching. The agent struggled to his knees and pulled and tugged his hands, but the stone held them fast. Finally, he let out a low howl that rose in intensity and ended in a fierce shriek as he jerked his right hand and tore it free. He left behind the pads of his fingers and palm of his hand.

  Freed of his restraint, the agent drew his machine pistol from its holster, bare tendons on blued steel, and brandished it at Proverbs.

  “Halt!” he cried.

  Proverbs paused only for a moment.

  “Have it your way,” Nabor said and opened fire on him. But his weapon misfired, and he struggled to eject the bad round with only one free hand. He raised the gun again and pulled the trigger, only to misfire a second time. Desperate, he hurled the bulky pistol at Proverbs’ head. Proverbs ducked, and the gun clattered on the rocks below. The agent tried to wrest his other hand free, but he lacked the strength or the resolve this time. So instead he picked up a sizable rock and flung it at his approachi
ng, patch-eyed killer. But the rock stuck to the agent’s raw hand, and its inertia pulled him off balance. He toppled awkwardly, and his captured arm twisted until it snapped. He scrabbled on the rocks frantically trying to relieve the pain.

  Proverbs calmly searched for a suitable rock of his own and found one the size of a watermelon.

  “Don’t do it, son,” Nabor gasped. “You know it’s wrong.”

  “I’m not your son,” Proverbs said, taking a position over the man’s head.

  The other agent, Bertolli, said, “You can’t murder federal agents and get away with it. We’ll hunt you down.”

  “You shut up and wait your turn,” Proverbs scolded. “You should be spending your time asking for the Father’s forgiveness.”

  Nabor said, “Give me a moment to make my peace.”

  “All right, but hurry. This stone weighs a ton.”

  “Then put it down!” Bertolli pleaded.

  “Heavenly Father,” Nabor prayed, “I implore You to send wisdom to this young man before he does something he’ll regret the rest of his life. Let him see that we are Christians too, just trying to serve Your will —”

  “Liar!” Proverbs said. “You’re not real Christians.” He strained to raise the rock over his head. Balancing it there only a moment, he slammed it down on the injured man with enough force to crush his skull. The rock tumbled down the pile with a strip of scalp stuck to it. Nabor spasmed violently, but only once, and lay still.

  Bertolli was already on his knees furiously trying to yank his hands free. He cursed with each pull and managed to tear away one palm. But before he could get any fingers free, Proverbs picked up a small rock, the first one at hand, and whacked him on the side of the head. The blow stunned Bertolli, and the rock stuck to his scalp. Proverbs picked up another rock and hit him again. It stuck too, and it slowed the FBI agent down enough to give Proverbs a chance to find a proper killing stone.

  “Pray,” Proverbs advised. “Pray fast.”

  The Bringer of Sorrow

  BS1 1.0

  GINGER SHOOK OFF her fatigue and sat up straight. She had no way of telling the time, but she’d been in the bathhouse for hours, and still the rangers had not returned. She prayed for their safety as she tossed more firewood into the barrel stove.

  The short winter’s day was spent, and the long subarctic twilight was turning the whole world outside the window gray. Lights came on in the big house. Maybe she should forget about the rangers and try to make it to the Bunyans’ on her own. She was dressed for the cold, and eight miles was not that far. But she doubted she’d make it; she was still too wobbly on her feet.

  There was the sound of a door shutting, and she looked out the window to see Deut coming across the yard with a covered tray and LED lantern. The dog Chrissy Lou came with her. They tramped across the porch and came in without knocking.

  Chrissy Lou bounded to the window to greet Ginger, and Deut said, “I’m sorry you were locked out. My sister locked all the doors, and I didn’t even know it until a few minutes ago.”

  She shut the door with her hip and set the lantern and tray on the sorting table. She’d brought Ginger a bowl of soup and a large moose roast sandwich. The meat oozed with ketchup and was topped with home-fried onion rings between two thick slices of white bread baked just that morning.

  “I thought you might be hungry.”

  Ginger was hungry. Still . . . “Aren’t you afraid of me?”

  Deut gave a nervous laugh. “Actually, I am.”

  “Yet here you are.”

  “Yet here I am.”

  “Why?”

  Deut glanced all over the room. “I guess because you used to be my friend.”

  “Used to be? I’m not your friend anymore?”

  “I don’t know. You changed.”

  “I didn’t change, Deut. The situation changed. Do you know what the situation is?”

  “The demons got you.”

  Ginger laughed bitterly. “No, Deut, the demons didn’t get me. Let me tell you what the situation is. It involves your father and your twin. You won’t want to hear it, but you have to because it’s true.”

  BS2 1.0

  ADAM HAD STAYED behind with the angel in the cistern chamber. “It’s done,” she told him after a while. “We’re safe, for now.” The angel seemed to gain renewed strength and sat up against a rock ledge.

  “My brother killed them agents?”

  “Verily.”

  Adam didn’t know what to think about this. His little brother had taken the lives of three men in the span of an hour. Did he even know who Proverbs was anymore?

  A short time later, his brother and father entered the chamber in silence, heads down, solemn. Martha struggled to boost herself to the rock ledge where she sat hunched over. She was faintly glowing again.

  “No blame,” she said. “It needed to be done.”

  “We know that!” Poppy snapped.

  “It’s begun, the Final Battle.”

  “We know that too!” To Adam, Poppy said, “Go help your brother move the bodies and clean up the mess. Take them and the ranger to the river and cut a hole in the ice. Get rid of everything they brought with them: their sno-gos, their guns, flashlights, phones. Burn what papers they have on ’em.”

  “Even their guns?” Proverbs said. “Can’t we at least keep those? We could hide them in the woods.”

  “I agree,” Adam said in brotherly solidarity. He favored the dead ranger’s six-gun.

  “Everything means everything. Get rid of every trace those men were ever here.”

  “Master Prophecy is correct,” Martha said, “Scour every trace from these walls, but not yet. Deal with the dead tomorrow. A more urgent matter clamors for our attention at this hour.”

  “This seems pretty urgent to me,” Poppy said. “What if more come looking for these ones?”

  “More will come, but not today. And when they do come, the key must be in a place they cannot find. Let us secure the key before we deal with any other matter.”

  Poppy didn’t have to ask what place she had in mind for it. “All right,” he said. “We’ll try it your way. Adam, go bring the key here. Proverbs, show him where it’s at.”

  ADAM SWEPT HIS gaze back and forth, lighting the execution scene with his headlamp, trying to piece together how it had all gone down. The bodies of the two agents lay sprawled on their backs, released from the bondage of the stone. Their bloody heads were weirdly misshapen, and the torn finger pads and palms of their hands still lay on the stone. Proverbs collected the bits of flesh and tucked them into one of the agents’ pockets.

  “We’ll never mop up all this mess,” he said, meaning the blood and brains coating the rock pile.

  “We can burn it off or something,” Adam said.

  They moved the agents aside and used an iron pry bar to lift the stone and retrieve the golden marble. It glowed of fairy light.

  “How come you didn’t just shoot them?” Adam said, dropping the marble into the coffee can. “Your ammo go bad too?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Then why?”

  Proverbs removed his eyepatch, for the first time in weeks. He wound the leather cord around it and stuffed it into his pocket. His eye was bleary-looking, and he rubbed it and said, “Because I loaned them my headache and sent it straight to Hell.”

  HOSEA AND CORNY were in the cistern chamber when they returned. Corny wore a bandage on his head and seemed a little dopey.

  Adam set the coffee can down on the shore in front of the angel. “Now what?”

  Poppy said, “Now I drop it into the lake.”

  “But how will you ever get it up again?”

  “I won’t; the angels will, when they come.”

  “And what if they don’t come?”

  “Then all is lost and nothing matters,” the angel interjected. “Have faith, Son of Abraham. “My cohort will surely come if we launch another flare, a more powerful beacon than the last.”
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  “And how we gonna do that?”

  Poppy said, “She wants you to go to Korea.”

  “Japan,” the angel corrected. “And I have changed my mind as to the courier. Proverbs has proven his warrior’s spirit today; he should be the one to deliver the flare.”

  “What?” Proverbs said. He looked oddly boyish without the patch.

  The angel explained the mission of delivering the flare to the ruined Fukushima nuclear reactor, the danger involved, and the low probability of returning alive.

  Adam said, “But my brother doesn’t speak Japanese. Neither do I. He doesn’t have a passport. None of us do. We don’t have any Japanese money or even know where this reactor thing is or how to get there.”

  “Courage,” Martha said. “I will make the way smooth.”

  Poppy said, “I need to pray over this first.”

  Proverbs said, “I’ll go. If that’s what it takes, then I want to go.”

  “Brave lad,” Martha said. “Then it’s settled.”

  “Nothing’s settled!” Poppy said. “I said I need to pray on it first.”

  “Yes, pray on it,” the angel all but purred. “Go, and take your fine sons for a break. Join the others in your household for Worship and dinner. The day has been overfilled with terrors; relax a little. Take as much time you need, Master Prophecy, to pray on it.

  “But before you do, please finish securing the key.”

  The can with the marble sat on the shore. All the angel needed to do was lift one foot and knock it over, and gravity would do the rest. And yet she expected him to do it for her. At least that was what he thought until he came over to do just that and she stopped him.

  “Think, Master Prophecy,” she said. “You need to remove the flap, as you did the first one, before sinking the key.”

  Well, that made sense, though Poppy didn’t appreciate be lectured to by anyone, even an angel. He removed the heavy marble from the can. The flap was more like a skin tag now than the mouse ear the earlier one had been.

  “Remember to let go of it,” Martha said.