by G. P. Ching
Chapter 41
The Other Side
Dr. Silva, Gideon, and Malini landed silently in the garden, the first two crouched ready to attack, the third in a heap in the sand gasping for breath. Dr. Silva pulled a bottle of something that looked like tea from her pack and brought it to Malini’s lips.
“Drink,” she whispered. “There’s no time to rest.”
Malini did as she was told. The tea burned through her veins like a shot of adrenaline. Her heart raced in her chest and she had a sudden urge to run. She leapt to her feet.
“Do I want to know what was in that?” Malini gasped.
“No.”
“As long as we’re clear.” Malini blinked her eyes several times in the darkness. She could make out the outline of thorn bushes but there was no visible source of light. Even the night sky was empty of stars. There was a statue of an angel at the center of the garden that looked menacing in the darkness. Malini wondered if it was supposed to be a fountain because the figure stood in a concrete pool, but it was bone dry.
“There’s no water in Nod,” Dr. Silva said, as if in answer to her unasked question. “That’s why it’s so dangerous for Jacob here. He’s powerless.”
“Do you know where we’re going?” Malini asked.
“Not exactly, but I know someone who will.” Dr. Silva turned to the large red cat. “This is Gideon. You could say he has a nose for Nod. I could get us there, by magic, but I might accidentally hurt you in the process. Gideon, on the other hand, is much better at navigating in a way that’s safe for you.” She clipped a long black leash to his collar. “Sorry, Gid, I know this is humiliating, but without it she’ll never keep track of you in the dark.”
She placed the leash in Malini’s hand.
“Gideon and I can see in the dark. He will be our guide and I will follow from behind. No matter what happens, stick with him. If you get lost on the way, you’ll never find your way out.”
“Wait! Aren’t you going to light the candle so we can see where we are going?” Malini asked, desperately hoping for some break in the darkness. The blindness was terrifying.
“No. We can’t risk it. Light is a powerful thing anywhere but especially here where its presence is so rare. Above all things, we need stealth if we are going to help Jacob. Just hold on to Gideon and follow along.”
“You want me to trust your cat with my life?”
“Do as you wish, but he’s more trustworthy than I am.”
Malini couldn’t argue with the logic. Gideon pulled gently on the leash and she followed him blindly. She tried not to dwell on the what if thoughts that teased her brain. What if the cat didn’t know where he was going? What if they were somehow separated in the darkness? What ifone of them was injured and couldn’t get back to the real world? She decided to leave the what ifs behind and instead concentrated on the prayer that she repeated under her breath as she walked.
At first, Malini thought the blue glow that arose in the distance was a trick her brain was playing on her, like when you turned out the lights at night but could still see spots on the inside of your eyelids. But as they continued down the path, the blue grew brighter and taller on the horizon until she could make out her hand in front of her face. Closer still and she could see the outline of Gideon in front of her and Dr. Silva behind her.
The glow was not a warm natural light but the color of a cheap fluorescent bulb. It bounced off the steel gate and the bland silver buildings stacked like boxes against the desert landscape. The style of the gated city was almost surgical, with no gables or etchings or decorative architecture of any kind. The gates were not scrolled or weathered and had no more character than a concrete slab. The city’s massive size did give the illusion of grandeur but anyone who had experienced the magically historic skyline of Chicago or the twinkling majesty of New York City would find it ugly and repulsive. Malini, who was a veteran traveler of three continents, was sure she was looking at a glorified dog kennel.
“Is this Hell?” Malini asked.
“No. Hell is for the dead. No one in Nod is dead, just lost. Hell is much worse. Much more permanent,” Dr. Silva answered.
Malini looked out over the twisting thorns in the cold dark behind her and then at the ugly mass of steel and stone. It was hard to believe there was a place worse than this.
“Gideon,” Dr. Silva whispered. “You’ll have to wait here for us.” She turned toward Malini. “There are no cats in Nod and even in disguise, they would recognize him.”
The cat nodded and disappeared into the thorns.
“Now, how about something to help us blend in?” Dr. Silva faced Malini and pulled an orchid from her pouch. “It won’t take much of a change for you,” she said, pulling a tiny tube of water from the stem. She passed her hand over the flower and it melted into a blue ball of energy. She worked the ball between her fingers like clay and it grew. When it was about a foot in diameter, her head snapped up and, before Malini could protest, she hurled the energy at her chest.
A fifty-pound medicine ball hit Malini in the ribs and kept going. She doubled over in pain. The magic burned in her chest, producing a crushing sensation. Was she having a heart attack? Her upper back ached. A heavy weight formed between her shoulder blades and her bones popped as if she were on a stretching machine. Before her eyes, her arms grew longer, her nails painted themselves, and her clothes changed from jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers to six-inch heeled boots, a mini-skirt, and a skintight sweater. It seemed like hours passed before the pain eased. She faced Dr. Silva, ready to tell her off.
“You could have warned me—” she started, but was distracted by the hot pink wing that reached around from her back and pointed at Dr. Silva. Malini’s mouth fell open. Over her shoulder she could see her new pink feathers and with some concentration she flexed and stretched them. The effect was fascinating. She snapped her jaw closed and nodded in Dr. Silva’s direction.
“It hurts more if you can see it coming, or so I am told. Now something a little less recognizable for me.”
Two platinum wings unraveled from Dr. Silva’s back. Malini raised her eyebrows, wondering how it was physically possible for her to retract her wings. Dr. Silva circled her hands above her head and a blue energy ring traveled down her body like a hula-hoop. When it reached her feet, she was a tall redhead in a shimmering green dress with two silky red wings that matched her hair. She was just as gorgeous as before, but in a completely different way.
“Remember, your illusion will only last an hour within these walls. This is very dangerous for you,” Dr. Silva said to Malini in a voice that was lower than it had been minutes ago. “These beings do not understand compassion. They do not know or follow any law, and they do not respect any boundaries. You must move quickly and not draw attention to yourself.” With that she walked up to the gate and, with a flick of her hand, opened the door to Nod.
Immediately, the smell of the place overwhelmed Malini. The difference between the foul, poisonous odor from before and now was like the difference between smelling a dirty toilet and being submerged in raw sewage. She covered her nose with her arm.
“Sorry, forgot about your special ability.” Dr. Silva directed a snowball of energy toward her face. “Is that better?” she whispered, as they walked through the gate.
Malini sniffed but couldn’t smell anything. She nodded.
The chaos that was Nod struck Malini as soon as they entered the city. A mob of angels moved in every direction in the space between buildings. The street was in poor condition, the packed earth covered in garbage and dangerously uneven. Malini supposed roads weren’t important if you had wings.
Malini was taken aback by the beauty of the glamorous Watchers that surrounded them and of the wretched treatment of the humans who seemed to serve as pets to the creatures. Scantily clad Watchers with full, feathery wings certainly looked angelic. However, every form of evil behavior was clearly visible on the street. Nearby a Watcher in a rickshaw whipped his
human mule mercilessly, its face contorted into a grisly mask of rage. Two perfect-looking Watchers sat at a café table eating strips of flesh off of a man’s arm. The man would shriek a bloodcurdling scream every time the knife sliced his skin, but as soon as the Watcher took a bite, the wound would regenerate itself. The man was being forced to endure the first cut, the most painful cut, again and again. Malini had to look away.
They turned a corner. A Watcher in front of them raged over his stolen bag. The leather backpack in his hand was full of merchandise and another Watcher accused him of stealing. While they argued, a third Watcher lifted a sparkling chain from the pack and disappeared into the crowd.
“Don’t let it suck you in,” Dr. Silva whispered to her. “Don’t look.”
“Where do you think Jacob is?”
“I don’t really know. I haven’t been here in several hundred years.”
Malini looked at her, horrified.
“Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.” They found a corner of concrete that was fairly empty and distanced themselves from the others. “There are only three things that dark angels do with human souls. The first is they ingest them, but Jacob’s not a good candidate for that.”
“Why not?” Malini asked.
“Well, he doesn’t scream when he’s in pain. They like the ones who scream.” Dr. Silva paused and shook Malini by the shoulder when it looked like she might vomit.
“What’s the second thing?” Malini managed.
“They make slaves of them, a real possibility for someone as strong as Jacob. Although I doubt they chose that for him.”
“I’m afraid to ask why.”
“Because the third thing they do with humans is display them, in order to remember and copy the image of God.”
“There is nothing here in the image of God,” Malini blurted, still sick from the thought of Jacob being eaten alive.
“Yes, yes, you have to remember that Watchers do not understand good. They assume that since they know man was made in the image of God that it is his physical image they must emulate. It’s like a spiritual cosmetic to them. There is nothing a Watcher loves more than power, so they emulate God’s power. It’s not real, of course, but they take pleasure in the shallow illusion.”
Malini nodded.
“You may have noticed that Jacob is easy to look at?”
A blush crept across her face.
“Don’t be embarrassed, girl. You’d have to be dead not to think so. That is why I believe we will find him on display.”
Dr. Silva led Malini to an odd sort of train with glass walls. They boarded in a crowd of pushing and shoving Watchers. It was less of a conscious decision really and more of a necessity to board as the crowd had surrounded them and rudely forced them onto the train. Malini stuck close to Dr. Silva as fights broke out for the limited seats. After several minutes of violent pushing and angry yelling, Malini worried they’d be detected by their lack of obnoxious behavior. She was about to scream an obscenity just to fit in when the doors opened again and the crowd emptied into an ill-lit alleyway with red neon signs in a language unfamiliar to her. When the doors closed again, they were alone in the car.
“Tell me again, why are they called Watchers? Why not fallen angels?” Malini asked.
“They are called Watchers because their entire purpose is to observe human weakness and seize every opportunity to corrupt and enslave. They are voyeurs, doing and feeling nothing that isn’t immediately gratifying to them. Instead they watch the unraveling of the universe, contributing only to its chaos.”
“So, if they just watch, how do they have so much power?”
“Think of it this way. If you have a garden plot and plant nothing, what will grow?”
“Weeds.”
“Yes. The evil is already there. And how do you hold back the weeds?”
“You plant things to crowd them out.”
“Exactly. The good people of the world are the ones who hold the evil at bay. They crowd out the weeds. See, the Watchers wait for opportunity, a corrupt politician or a failing corporation, and they pounce. They push the weak ones over the edge. They lure them to do things they would normally never do. And after their evil has taken root and corrupted everything in its wake, they bring any guilty humans they desire here.”
“So, Jacob?”
“Yes. It was his sin that allowed Auriel to take him. An innocent person cannot be taken unless they choose to come here of their own free will. But the reason Auriel chose Jacob was not because of his indiscretions. She chose him because he is a Horseman. Everyone is guilty, Malini, of something. The Watchers choose the important ones, the ones whose taking will leave a bigger space in the garden, so that more weeds can grow. They leave the weeds.”
The train jerked to a halt and the doors opened. They exited the train, alone on a poorly lit dirt path. They could see a metal arch ahead of them. The path led toward it and was otherwise surrounded by desert and garbage that protruded randomly from the sand.
“Dr. Silva, I feel something here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I feel a … tingling. There’s something like butterflies in my stomach but in a good way. I don’t know why but I think Jacob is in there.”
“Good. You two are close. Perhaps the connection between you will work to our advantage.”
They continued up to the arch and Malini stared at the strange language that was carved at its peak. “I wish I knew what it said.”
“It says zoo,” Dr. Silva whispered. “It’s Aramaic.”
They tried to blend into the Watchers, milling between the cages. In the first cage, a black man dressed in rags did not look at them. His eyes stared vacantly at a stone on the pathway.
“What does this say?” Malini whispered.
“African,” Dr. Silva answered sadly. “Italian, Portuguese, French, Swedish…” she whispered the name on each cage as they walked by.
Malini’s heart sank into her stomach. These people were completely dehumanized. But more than that, they weren’t talking to each other or fighting to get out. Expressions vacant, their bodies were propped up like empty shells.
“Why don’t they struggle?” Malini asked under her breath.
“They’ve lost hope,” Dr. Silva said. “You would be surprised how easy it is to make a human feel worthless.”
“But—” Malini grabbed Dr. Silva’s upper arm. A group of Watchers gathered around one cage in particular. The occupant was pacing, agitated, yelling something not at the Watchers but at a person in another cage. Dr. Silva placed her hand on Malini’s and they moved in, joining the outskirts of the crowd.
Even at a distance, the captive was definitely Jacob.