Because the pain was twelve on a scale of one to ten. Searing through my heart and ribs and back. And I was hot. Stifling hot. Which only made it worse.
Ellen pounced on top of me and covered my mouth.
“Quiet! You’re gonna give us away,” she whispered.
“I’m not dead?”
“No, you’re not. You were just sleeping … as usual. You must have had a bad dream.”
“Not a dream,” I muttered. I felt my chest. There was no arrowhead. No blood. But there was pain. A bit less now. But still plenty. All that one would expect for being impaled by an arrow. I pulled up my shirt.
“It wasn’t a dream,” I said. “Where’s a flashlight? I need to check something.”
“Can’t. No lights,” said Ellen. “There’s some guy prowling around the opposite stands. And it’s like four in the morning. Urszula went down to check it out. Jeez guy, you were snoozing away half the night. We needed you here. And as usual, we couldn’t wake you.”
“Couldn’t help it. It just came and took me. There was nothing I could do.”
I felt around with my fingers and found a hard, cross-shaped lump on my skin just to the left of my sternum. “There!” I took Ellen’s hand and placed it there. “Feel that?”
I sure felt it. The pain was much less now, but it was still tender. Call it a five.
“It’s … like a scar. So?”
“Feel my back. Directly across.”
She ran her hand under my shirt. Her chilly fingers felt so nice and soothing. My skin still burned. It was stuffy in this press box. Like being trapped in a room that was on fire. Of course, Ellen was all bundled up in her fleece.
“Yeah. There’s one there too. What about it?”
“I didn’t have these yesterday. I just got impaled by an arrow.”
“Well. What can I say? You heal pretty quick.”
“No. What it means is … my injuries are spanning existences. How? And what does it mean? Can I not go back? Am I dead there? Am I stuck here now?”
“Stuck? You call being here stuck? This is your life, James. That other place. That’s not … it’s not where you’re meant to be right now.”
“The hell it isn’t. Ellen. I need to be there. I’m this so close to finding Karla.”
“Well maybe … like I said … maybe that … it wasn’t meant to be.”
“What the fuck? Fuck you! I’m this close! This close to finding her.” I held up my thumb and forefinger so they were almost touching.
Ellen withdrew her hands and let my shirt flop down. She retreated into the darkest corner of the press box. She fell silent.
“Listen. I’m sorry. I lost my cool. I just … I was in the middle of something. And I’m running out of time. I wasn’t ready to come back just yet.”
“But we need you here,” said Ellen, her voice cracking a bit. “We need you here, too. Don’t you understand? We’re in trouble, James. Remember Wendell? Hello? He’s coming after us. Urszula’s been all wonderful … and brave … but we need your help, James, if we’re gonna have any chance against this man.”
I sighed and tilted my head back till it thunked against the wall. “Okay, well. You got me. I’m here. Right now. Whether I wanna be or not.”
Sobs rippled out of the darkness. Why was she crying? I reached for Ellen but touched only air. It hurt to stretch, so I withdrew and hugged my arms tight to myself. The pain had eased a bit more. It didn’t seem so unbearably warm in the room now. But those scars on my chest and back still throbbed.
The sky was looking pale. Only the brightest stars now showed through the broken clouds. Sunrise was approaching.
A foot skidded on the concrete steps out on the bleachers. Ellen scrambled to her feet. Slid one of the guns off a table.
Whoever was outside the press box rapped an intricate syncopated beat on the door.
“That’s Urszula!” said Ellen. She hopped to her feet and rushed to the door, unlocking it.
Urszula slunk in and closed the door quietly behind her.
“So?” said Ellen.
“He was nobody. Just a man from the dart mouth. He is just checking the property.”
“Dartmouth security?”
“Yes. Like I said. Dart. Mouth.” She leaned over me and squinted in the weak light reflecting from a street lamp. She nudged me with her foot. “He is back?”
“Yeah. Sleepy head just woke up.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
“You always say that. Could have fooled me, the way you were snoring.”
“We have breakfast now?” said Urszula.
“Sure,” said Ellen. “I’ve got granola bars. Fruit. What would you like?”
“Meat. I would prefer some meat.”
“Well, we’ve got jerky and pepperoni. I was kind of saving them for lunch but—.”
“Give me.” Urszula grabbed a bag of jerky from Ellen and ripped it open with her teeth. “You stay a while, James. Yes?”
“We’ll see,” I said.
“You stay,” said Urszula, sternly.
***
I stayed, reluctantly, all through sunrise and beyond. We were all kind of grumpy but I was by far the grumpiest of the bunch despite being the only one of us who had gotten any significant sleep. Supposedly. I didn’t feel that rested.
But I really, really didn’t want to be here. I knew that time was warped and a few minutes here were like an hour on the other side. I could only think of that Horus moving closer and closer to Karla. It was like watching a truck bearing down on a pedestrian and being powerless to stop it. The strain was unbearable.
“There is a carriage coming,” said Urszula, keeping watch from one of the tall chairs, while Ellen and I slumped across from each other on the floor.
“You mean a car?” said Ellen.
Urszula grabbed her stick. “Not the big one, the one that the Frelsian rides. But this one … it is suspicious.”
“Suspicious? Why?” I rose to my feet and saw immediately what she meant. The car pulling into the lot was far from ordinary. It was some kind of Italian sports car. A Lamborghini or Maserati or something. I could never tell those things apart.
It parked close to the stands in a handicapped spot. A gull-winged door flew up and a blonde girl stepped out. Not just any blonde girl. Wendell’s girlfriend. Meg.
“Oh crap, this is it,” I said. “The shit is coming down.” I scrambled to retrieve my sword from its case.
“Is it just the girl?” said Ellen. “Is she alone?”
“Looks that way. But it might be a diversion. Or … could be she’s the assassin. I wouldn’t put it past him to have trained her up in the craft.”
Urszula opened the door and slipped out. “Lock it behind me,” she said.
“But ….”
“Lock it. I will take her down by myself.”
“No way. I’m coming with you,” I said.
“Jeez guys,” said Ellen. “Remember, I’m the one with the guns.”
“We don’t need any guns,” I said, as I stepped out onto the bleachers. “Lock the door, like Urszula says. Stay here. Stay safe.”
To reach the press box, assuming she knew where to find us, Meg was going to have to pass under the bleachers through a kind of a tunnel leading to the field. Urszula and I took positions on the stairs to either side of the opening.
We waited but she didn’t come. She should have passed through already. A whistle sounded beneath the bleachers.
“Yoo hoo! You guys here?”
Urszula and I looked at each other. Speaking out would reveal our little ambush. So we kept mum. Hard soles clattered on concrete. She was passing through. The moment she turned the corner onto the stairs, Urszula slammed into her hard and knocked her down. Her purse went flying. She bashed her nose against a railing and collapsed against onto the steps.
I stood over, straddling her, the point of my sword nicking her throat.
“Where’s Wendell?”
“He ??
? he … sent me.”
“Why you, not him?”
“Well. He figured you guys would be immediately hostile if he showed up. I guess he was right.” A runnel of blood gushed from her nostrils. “Oh crap! I think I … I think I broke my nose.”
“He sent you? To kill us?”
“Heck no. He wants to give you guys another chance. He likes you, James. He really, really wants you to work for him.”
I sighed. “This guy can’t take a hint … can he?”
“Yeah, well. I think he’s got the message now, loud and clear,” said Meg, eyes teary from the pain. “I think this seals the deal. You guys are done for.”
“Get up. Walk ahead of us. Up those stairs.”
Ellen came trotting down the steps. She suddenly looked aghast.
“Guys! Her purse! It’s moving.”
The purse, a gaudy little tasseled bag of turquoise and gold silk, bulged and writhed like a sackful of rats. Something bulky and muscular was struggling to squirm free of a rent in the fabric.
Ellen took three quick shots at the bag, missing twice and chipping the concrete. The third shot tore open a corner, and a scaly, spade-headed serpent with eyes far too cunning for a reptile came squirming out. They were Wendell’s eyes and I knew then he was watching us through his familiar, this extension of his will.
One of Ellen’s shots had nearly severed the snake in two. It struggled to crawl towards us, brandishing enormous fangs oozing with venom.
I raised my sword for the coup de grâce, but Urszula beat me to it. She blasted it with a spell that sent it bursting into flames. It went up like a bunch of briquettes soaked in lighter fluid, far too flammable for anything flesh and blood. It reared up and tried to strike out, expiring with a furious hiss.
“Jesus Christ! Empty your pockets!”
“I don’t have anything. Just my keys and my phone.”
“Take off your blouse. And your pants.”
“What?”
“James. Really?”
“We’ve gotta make sure she’s not carrying anything else with her.”
Meg handed over her phone. Ellen reached for it. I lunged and slapped it away before she could touch it.
“Don’t touch it! Don’t touch anything of hers. It might be contaminated.”
Meg stripped down to panties and a bra revealing a nasty tattoo of what looked like a Reaper.
“Now walk ahead of us up to the press box.”
Meg smirked. “What are you gonna do with me?”
“We’re gonna use you as a hostage … collateral.”
She guffawed.
“Why are you laughing?”
“You think Wendell cares? He’ll tell you to go ahead and waste me.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because … you’d be doing me a favor. I’m in line to be a Freesoul. In fact … I can’t wait. The sooner the better.”
***
We let Meg get dressed before walking her up to the press box and locking ourselves inside. I could hear her phone ringing down on the steps. And right after, my phone rang. I didn’t answer. I knew it had to be Wendell. A couple of texts chimed in but I refused to look at them. I didn’t want to hear that bastard’s voice or read his words ever again.
“So what now?” said Ellen.
“Ball’s in his court,” I said. “This forces him to come after us in person.”
“Not necessarily,” said Meg, pronouncing her n’s like d’s because her nostrils were stuffed with the Kleenex Ellen had given her.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see,” she said, cheerily.
“Shit. That guys a bigger coward than I thought.”
“Oh, he’s not afraid of you. He’s just … slick. He likes variety. And he’s like a cat. He likes to play with his prey.”
“What do you mean? What the hell is he gonna do to us?”
“Just wait. You’ll see soon enough.”
My stomach sank. I didn’t have the patience for this shit. I didn’t say it out loud, but I so didn’t want to hang around here to find out what he had up his sleeve. The feeling was so strong in me that I could feel the power of my will uncoil, and before I could take anything back ... I got my wish.
Chapter 40: Debris
My head spun. I was on the plateau, still impaled by that arrow, feeling a weird mix of relief and guilt for willing myself back. But what else could I do? I couldn’t be in two places at once.
Karla needed me now more than the girls. Ellen and Urszula had firepower and hostages enough to give Wendell pause, to delay him. But a gimpy Karla had no chance against the Horus. Particularly since she seemed to be chasing it when she should have been fleeing.
I lay my head down in the dust and luxuriated in the absence of pain. The way the cold sank deep into my bones felt almost cozy now. There was something exciting about its absoluteness, how thoroughly it penetrated. One could get used to the Deeps, comfortably numb no matter what, never thirsty, hungry or tired.
Once the transitional fuzz cleared out of my head and I spotted the Horus looming on the next plateau, anxiety filled the void. My mind flooded with worry and urgency. Mental anguish was one thing a soul could never escape.
I looked around, trying to get my bearings, searching for Olivier’s dust-shrouded pyramid. But the hilltop was bare, the fortification razed down to a ragged heap of rubble. Fighters rushed through orphaned swirls of blowing dust, voices raised, some retreating all frantic and desperate, others cocky and triumphant. One side had prevailed, but I couldn’t tell who was who.
There were two bright dots high in the sky now, higher than before and soaring even higher, retreating from the scene. Between me and what was left of the hillock a crumpled mass of something pale and floppy was draped over a boulder. A Seraph had fallen. Big things had gone down while I was away.
I tried rolling over on my side, but the shaft of the arrow wedged against a seam in the bedrock. I pushed harder, making it flex. All that torque against my wound should have been excruciating but all I felt was a little pressure, like a dentist’s drill under Novocain.
I threw my full weight against it. It bent almost in two and snapped. I picked up the broken end and got to my feet, the splintered stub still sticking out of my back. The tail was fletched with tufts of what looked like human hair, glued together in flat, glassy fins to mimic feathers. The shaft itself was made from slivers of laminated bone.
A group of fighters gathered around the fallen Seraph to gawk at the remains. I hung back, unsure of who they were, until their distinctive scaly armor told me they were infidels not Protectors. I was a bit nervous they might treat me like the deserter I was, but curiosity got the better of me. I came up behind them and did some of my own gawking.
I nudged one of the Seraph’s broken wings with my toe. It was a fascinating creature. Four of its wings, fore and aft, were rounded like a butterfly’s, with a translucent whitish-green membrane stretched between cells framed by tubular elements as thick as soda straws. The middle wings, long and pointy, were jointed like a gull’s.
But then I realized that this collection of wings was not physically part of the Seraph but rather a mechanism fastened via straps and a harness, powered by an elaborate system of coils and springs that amplified the movements of his actual limbs.
The Seraph embedded in the wreckage was just a man. A broken one. He had multiple fractures with bones protruding. His blood spattered the wings and had frozen immediately on contact with the frigid, arid atmosphere.
Real flesh … and blood. Not a mummified replica of a human like the rest of us souls here, whether pink or gray. This was a real man who had eaten and breathed in these afterlands and had probably felt pain.
Traces of the air bubble that had sustained him still lingered, trapped beneath the membranes of his wings. He cradled some kind of weapon in his broken arms, a cross between a blunderbuss and a broom, its fluted business end ending in a cluster of bristles
and tubes. The intricately carved stock had multiple triggers and bulges that seem to be removable canisters.
Stylized newts and salamanders decorated its length. I wondered what they meant. Some personal obsession of its owner or some general symbol of his realm? Heaven or some sub-dominion? Was that where he came from? I could only assume.
My gaze wandered to the hillock where a group of fighters were combing its surface searching for something, the wounded and the dead perhaps. I couldn’t help but notice there were more souls here now than the fifteen volunteers who had accompanied us from Tiamat.
One of the gawkers finally noticed me. His eyes bulged at the sight of my wound.
“Oh my God! You’ve been tagged.”
“Yeah, well … that’s putting it mildly.”
“The Hashmallim. They have marked you. You’re a target now … for elimination.”
I shrugged. “What else is new?”
A woman came over and studied the arrow sprouting from my chest. The wound remained completely dry.
“It’s … lovely,” she said.
“It’s a beaut alright,” I said. “Can you help me get it the fuck out?”
She gripped the feathered shaft protruding from my back and gave it a firm tug. It wouldn’t even budge.
Brian strolled over. He was missing an ear and had a deep gouge across his forehead. “I wouldn’t bother. The point’s probably fused to his breastbone.”
“So I’m just supposed to walk around with this thing sticking out of me?”
He sneered and without any warning, he raised his staff in both hands and jabbed the end of it against the flat of the arrowhead, snapping off the point flush to my skin.
“Better?”
“I suppose.”
“When we get back to Tiamat, folks there can trim it off, polish it up, make it look pretty.”
“Scatter!” Fighters were running off the hillock, shouting.
“What’s going on?”
“Run!”
I looked up at the sky. A pair of bright blue pinwheels were hurtling down from the pair of retreating Seraphim, like balls of cold fire. The first slammed down onto the remains of Olivier’s fortifications. It hit more with a splash than an explosion, flattening into an irregular disc that seeped into the stone and crumbled the blocks into grit and dust.
The second ball struck the fallen Seraph, causing his flesh to sizzle and bubble, dissolving his wings and weapons into a sludge that set in mid-flow like instant concrete.
The Seraphim that had unleashed these were barely visible now, pinpricks in the sky.