A God to Fear (Thorn Saga Book 5) Page 11

  Thorn calmed himself. She was right, of course. He’d reacted too harshly. Amy looked almost as bad as she had on the night she’d been stabbed, though. And it was Thorn’s fault that her life was once again in jeopardy.

  “Amy, do you have your cell phone on you?”

  “Yeah,” Amy said frailly.

  “Heather, I’m sorry for my outburst. But can you please call a taxi for Amy?”

  “None of us have money to pay.”

  “The driver won’t know that. And I’m sure the police will be happy to pay once she returns to the hospital.”

  “Okay. Fine.”

  Heather turned to leave, but Thorn stopped her. “And Heather?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry that I was imprisoned. I’m sorry that the Judge had to be the one to find you.”

  “Yeah, well… thanks.” She smiled a grim little smile and patted him on the shoulder, then took Amy’s phone and walked past several rows of gravestones.

  Thorn sat next to Amy on a short brick wall, and Brandon moved to examine some of the stone monuments around the graveyard.

  “Amy,” Thorn said. “Do you need any water? Is there anything I can do?”

  “You can thank me,” she said weakly but playfully. “It was me who saved your butt for a change.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

  Thorn laughed. At least she’s in good spirits. “I’m so sorry about all this. I didn’t know Thilial would possess you like that.”

  “Who’s Thilial?”

  Thorn shook his head, wondering how to explain his winged accomplice. “A friend, I think,” was all he could manage.

  He would have touched Amy—perhaps hugged her—had he not been worried about hurting her or spurring her into any type of movement. The less she moved, the better.

  He wondered how he looked to her, and to the other humans, in physical form. Did they find him fearsome, average, strange? Now that he’d experienced having a physical body of his own, he understood how humans could so easily develop an overly critical posture toward their own bodies, as Amy had. Thorn had glimpsed himself in mirrors on a few occasions during the last few days, and was always surprised to find how similar he looked to how he imagined himself to look. Yet another odd quirk of God’s creation? Or perhaps He’s trying to tell us that we, in some small sense, create ourselves.

  “What’s it like being a demon?” Amy suddenly asked, as if she’d read his thoughts. The level of comfort with which she spoke to him hadn’t bothered him at the hospital, but now, with her wound worsening, it gave him pause. Most humans would not have been so comfortable around a demon.

  Thorn searched for words. No one had ever asked him that question before. He decided on an analogy that a human might appreciate. “It’s like the most grueling job you could possibly have, where you can’t clock out, the workday never ends, and all your coworkers are gunning for your position twenty-four hours a day. If you blink, they’ll take it. And the company you work for literally has plans to destroy the world. You tried to play along for a time, but after a while, you just can’t do it anymore. You can’t look your coworkers in the eyes and tell one more goddamn lie. You feel like a monster. And a moron.”

  Amy gazed at him for a few moments, the perpetual smile that she always wore around Thorn still unwilling to leave her face. “Well you don’t look so bad to me,” she said.

  Thorn felt a heaviness behind his eyes: a peculiar sensation, which he only realized was tears when they threatened to escape from his eyelids. He blinked them away. “Thank you, Amy. You should lie down. Rest. A taxi will be here for you soon.”

  “Will do.”

  He helped ease her down onto the ground, and she delicately lay back flat on the bricks.

  Thorn spotted Brandon nearby, kneeling by an old stone cross: a grave marker with its name long worn away. Thorn had difficulty connecting with the troubled young man, so he’d have much rather stayed and talked to Amy. But he’d barely spoken to Brandon since the Sanctuary, and the boy had gone through just as much as the rest of them had, if not more, so Thorn strolled over to him.

  “I take it Heather told you everything? About demons, God, Sanctuaries, the like?”

  Brandon frowned. He traced his fingertips along the horizontal length of the cross. “You say that my dad’s still alive?”

  “Or at least he will be, probably,” Thorn said. “I don’t know exactly how it works.”

  “And you lied to us the whole night, in Virginia? You were never really Virgil? Just something that was using his body?”

  Thorn sighed. “Yes, that’s true.”

  “Virgil was my friend,” Brandon said. “He might have been just—what, just a bag of meat, to you? But I knew him. He was a good guy. How could you do that to him?”

  “I did what I had to do to keep you safe. You’d never have believed the truth. Well, not until now.”

  Remaining crouched, Brandon turned to face Thorn. “You think I believe you? You think I believe Heather? I don’t know how you talked her into it. In fact, I want to hear it from your mouth. Is there a God?”

  Thorn looked away and dithered, unsure of how to answer that particular question. Telling the truth that God existed would only add to Brandon’s irritation, and Thorn needed Brandon’s trust, or at least his cooperation. But telling Brandon there was no God would be a lie, and lies were starting to taste more and more sour on Thorn’s tongue.

  Thorn settled for an intermediary answer, which may have been truer than a simple acknowledgement. “Not as anyone on Earth imagines Him. No, that God does not exist.”

  Brandon seemed a bit surprised by this. He nodded, then returned to examining the stone cross, standing stalwart against the ravages of time. “Good. Because I don’t believe in God.”

  Thorn shuffled his feet in place, trying to think of some way to connect with Brandon. A chill wind picked up, and dead leaves danced across the brick walkway. “I wish I had the luxury of believing there is no God,” Thorn said.

  “I don’t even want to try to understand what you mean by that. I’ve had enough of running, of fighting, of trying to make sense of this bullshit. I want to go home.”

  “As do I. But the homes we both remember are gone. We’ll have to make a new home. That’s what I’m fighting for.”

  Brandon knee-walked to the next grave, which was marked by a short stone pillar with a rounded top that might once have been a cross as full as its neighbor. He touched it, then stayed still for a few moments, as if praying for a departed friend who lay beneath the earth. “We’ll join them someday,” he said. “Both me and you. Maybe it’ll happen in sixty years. More likely someday soon, the way things are going.

  “And if we die, who notices? No one will remember us. Eventually the world will end, and nothing we ever did will have any meaning. We’re all just collections of atoms. Just specks on a tiny planet circling one small star in all of space. The universe doesn’t care about us.”

  “Well, who cares about any of that?” Thorn said, surprising himself. Brandon turned, his eyes blazing with offense. Thorn didn’t know if this approach would work, but he’d tried the compassionate approach. Maybe a bit of raw common sense would do Brandon some good. And besides, Thorn was tiring of Brandon’s pouty nonsense, which flew in the face of everything Thorn had come to believe during these last few days. Brandon needed to change, and he’d refused to even contemplate any opposing viewpoints during the short time that Thorn had known him. Well then, I’ll give him a push in the right direction.

  “You heard me,” Thorn continued. “Who cares if there’s no Cosmic Best Friend to make you feel special? It’s not all about you. It’s about humanity. Perhaps I won’t be remembered, and perhaps you won’t either, but our contributions to the human race will matter.” And in my case, I hope, my contributions to spiritkind. “Can every collection of atoms think? Can every collection of atoms reason, emote, empathize, and observe and study the universe around it? The atoms that make yo
u, Brandon, were born in the hearts of dying stars. What are the odds that in all the vastness of space, those atoms would accrete into a planet? What are the odds that that planet would be hospitable to life, or the odds that life would actually develop, or that it would develop into sentient beings? You may be one of eight billion people, but humanity is a one-in-a-centillion chance. You as a species are astoundingly unique. Yet you dare to call yourself ‘just a collection of atoms.’ From where I stand, atoms are pretty impressive if they can be used to build things like you and me.

  “So why waste what little time you have here moping that you have no purpose? Why not use that time to create purpose, to help other people in some way, to—”

  “But it’s all just darkness out there,” Brandon said, finally interrupting Thorn. Thorn was surprised he’d let him speak as long as he had. Without standing, Brandon gestured up to the sky, still full of the day’s sunlight. “It’s all just a big empty void of darkness. Doesn’t the nothingness scare you? Doesn’t knowing you’ll end up as part of that darkness scare the living hell out of you?”

  Thorn stepped toward him, and spoke firmly. “I have seen the darkness, Brandon, and it is not ‘out there.’ The darkness inside ourselves is the darkness that truly causes pain in the world. I’ve seen thousands of people who believe what you believe, Brandon, and that’s no way to live a life. I never cared before, but now I do. I want to save you from that empty life, so please, if you truly believe that no God exists, stop living in depression over the fact that He’s not real. Start living a life you choose for yourself—rather than a pale reflection of what your life would supposedly have been if God were real.”

  Brandon looked back down at the broken cross, shook his head, and stood. Was the Judge drifting nearby, eavesdropping on Thorn’s rant? I wonder what he thinks of all this.

  Brandon stared at Thorn intently, as if studying every pore in his face. “Do you really care about me,” he said, “or do you just care about being right?”

  Thorn’s first instinct was to retort with an even harsher rebuke, but he restrained himself. Leaves crunched under Thorn’s foot as he stepped back and peered into his own mind. Did he truly care about Brandon? The boy had originally been just another means to Thorn’s ends, but now… now, yes. Thorn did care about him. But several seconds had passed, and even if Thorn claimed to value Brandon, the claim would now sound like a lie he’d made up.

  Brandon’s eyes dropped, and he scratched his skin under the edge of his cast. “I really need some sleep,” he said.

  Still trying to form an adequate response, Thorn followed him the short way to Heather, who was tapping her fingers on Amy’s phone. “Taxi should be here any minute,” she said. “What about us? What do we do next?”

  “I’ll have my friend, the Judge, get you a car,” Thorn said, knowing that the Judge had charges he could possess all around Atlanta, and that most of them owned vehicles. “There’s a place I know where you can stop for some rest, where no one will find you. I’ll give you directions. It’s an abandoned warehouse in northwest Atlanta. After you sleep, keep heading north for a day, and then I’ll find you. We’ll go from there.”

  There would be no “after,” of course. Thorn couldn’t ethically keep Brandon and Heather here on Earth. They had no legal identities, no money, no jobs, no friends or family. And they served no further purpose to Thorn, since his plan to use them as evidence of God’s deceit had failed, with Wanderer effectively rallying the city’s demons against him and the Judge and anything they might say. The only humane course of action was to send them to the angels’ quarantine zone. When the angels found them, God would reinsert them into the Sanctuary system, from which they’d eventually be freed to their lives on Earth. Thorn hated to lie to them like this, but with their very lives at stake, the lie was necessary. It was the best outcome any of them could hope for under their current circumstances.

  Thorn hoped that the little speech he’d just given Brandon would somehow remain planted in his mind, a seed to blossom in his next Sanctuary. This Brandon, after all, was far more moral than the previous Brandon, and Thorn couldn’t help speculating that perhaps the change had been caused, even in part, by something Thorn had done or said to him. Heather held memories of previous Sanctuaries, so perhaps Brandon, too, would remember Thorn’s words, and grow.

  Thorn walked back to Amy, whose eyes were now closed. He checked to make sure she was breathing, and he found that she was simply asleep. He gazed fondly down upon her for what might be the last time, then wished Brandon and Heather good luck and goodbye. The humans would be safe, and Thorn could even be said to have felt joy at that moment. At least one goal he’d worked toward had been successful.

  But he had other, more perilous goals to focus on now. He paced down the brick walkway back toward the graveyard’s Confederate section. Before long, gravity vanished, and the Judge appeared before him.

  “You got a plan?” asked the Judge.

  “I do,” said Thorn.

  “You got a couple hours to spare before things get crazy again?”

  “Perhaps. Why?”

  “Because… Well, let me find them a car, and then there’s something you oughta see.”

  •

  They sailed over snow-capped hills, shimmering lakes, and trees with long shadows as the sun sank toward the horizon. Tonight the sunset smoldered a dull pink, lazily tinting the gray clouds as it stretched its gradient across the sky. They passed a flock of geese flying beneath those clouds. It’s some consolation, Thorn thought, that we can fly, in a way. I envy humans for so much, yet they would envy me this view.

  The pair drifted away from roads and power lines, departing these last traces of civilization for a dense tree canopy ahead. Thorn hadn’t the faintest idea where the Judge might be taking him.

  “You remember our agreement, Thorn?” the Judge said.

  Thorn took a few moments to recall a deal he’d made in his old, wicked life. “Our agreement for shared power, when I first rose to prominence in Atlanta?”

  “Bingo. You and I have never been enemies, but we still competed with each other for charges, for recognition. We both had the power to seriously fuck each other up.”

  “Which is exactly why we didn’t. Mutually assured destruction. Checks and balances. Hence our agreement to share power.”

  “Right, yeah. But my point is, you’ve always been a rival to me. A possible threat to my power.”

  “Why are you bringing this up?” Thorn asked.

  “Because I wanted you to know why I never told you about this.”

  “About what?”

  The Judge pointed downward. Thorn looked, and saw only treetops at first. He descended to look closer, and soon saw beings in suits drifting beneath the canopy. Demons. Many of them. Why such a large group of them would gather out here in the woods was beyond Thorn, but he tensed as he saw their eyes peeping up at him. Do they recognize me? He rose back up toward the Judge. “Why have you led me here? If they find out who we are, they’ll kill us.”

  The Judge chuckled mischievously. “Right now, they’re thinking the same thing about you.” He gestured for Thorn to follow him down. Thorn half-feared another of the Judge’s disastrous escapades, but for all the Judge’s shortcomings, Thorn did trust him.

  They lowered themselves through a dense web of oaks and hickories, and the world darkened. This secluded forest reminded Thorn of his own place of solace at the Cherokee burial ground. He had a feeling that he was about to discover the Judge’s equivalent.

  Hundreds of eyes watched them as they dropped. The other demons did not try to hide themselves. Rather, they slowly—cautiously?—closed in around their visitors. Thorn was curious to note that their ties were all loosened, their jackets unbuttoned, as if they were unwinding with a beer after a hard day at the office.

  As Thorn neared the leaf-blanketed ground and gained a view stretching farther back into the dim forest, so many demons wandered beneath the trees that
the darkness itself seemed to move. Incredible! There must be thousands of them. Why are they hiding here? Away from humans and therefore from the spirits who exploited them, these woods offered an ideal refuge from anyone wishing to avoid demon society. Could it be…?

  Thorn and the Judge stopped their descent two feet above the ground. The other demons formed a circle, then a sphere around them, blocking the wan light that penetrated the canopy. And blocking any potential for our retreat underground. Thorn read the crowd’s faces. Some seemed curious, others fearful. One demon smiled—cordially!—as he hovered forward toward the Judge. The smile seemed a bit forced, though. Thorn took it to mean that this visit was unexpected, and at least a bit unwelcome.

  “Anaak, what’s shaking?” the Judge said.

  The smiling demon gave a small bow. Despite his shabby clothes, face full of stubble, and deferential posture, he looked healthy and hale—far more so than most demons. His skin appeared bronzed and youthful, as if to spite the fact that he hadn’t seen the sun in some time. “All is well with us, mighty Judge,” Anaak said. “We are most pleased by your surprise visitation.”

  “And I am most pleased to have smoke blown up my mighty ass,” said the Judge. “But you don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’ve been deposed.”

  Anaak’s posture straightened a bit. “Truly?”

  “Yessir. As has my pal Thorn here.”

  Several gasps escaped the throng. Murmuring erupted, and the sphere of demons widened a few feet. Anaak’s eyes grew fearful as he took in Thorn. “Ah, yes. Fearsome Thorn, you are welcome here.”

  “Anaak!” said the Judge. “Chill! We’re outcasts now, same as you. We’re not here to bust your balls. We’re here because we need a safe place to stay.”