A God to Fear (Thorn Saga Book 5) Read online

  Heather finally stopped looking at him, thank goodness. Her eyes seemed sad, though. “Yeah,” she said. “I think that happens to a lot of people.”

  Ah, shit. Now I feel guilty. Brandon hadn’t meant to make such a pretty girl so sad. Maybe if he scooted a few feet away from her, she’d get the hint that he wasn’t good around people.

  But when he tried to back away, she took his hand in hers. She took his slimy, soot-covered hand like it was a precious gem in need of great care. She looked into his eyes, and for a moment, those eyes were too mesmerizing to resist. “I get it,” she said. “You had a purpose, and it turned out to be based on empty air, and that hurt you. And that really sucks. I’ve been there. It’s hard to trust again after something like that. But in the end, that’s just one purpose. Just because that purpose was groundless, it doesn’t mean that all purposes are groundless.”

  She spoke well, and Brandon liked her Midwest accent. The cadence of her voice felt like it could clean the grime from his hands, clothes, face, and hair, then pour inside him and clean up his heart, too. Who was this strange girl approaching him at night, offering him a new reason to live?

  He certainly needed a new reason to live.

  Brandon closed his dirty fingers around Heather’s clean ones, smudging them up. He didn’t like touching or being touched, but the gesture came as easily as slipping into old clothes. I know this girl. Somehow, I know her.

  “Well, it’s not like I know everything,” he said. “Maybe I’ll come with you, just for a little bit. Just to see what you’re talking about.”

  Heather smiled. A big, wide, dazzling grin.

  I could get used to that grin. I really could.

  •

  Near the dumpsters where Brandon had found his box, Heather found a weird glowing door. The door led them through a dark hallway—a very dark hallway, in fact. After fifty or so paces, the white floor disappeared into total blackness and Brandon couldn’t even see Heather an arm’s length in front of him. She was nearly sprinting in the darkness.

  “Hold up, hold up,” he said. Half of his brain told him that this was war. It was dark outside, and they were running from enemies, and he badly needed night vision goggles. The other half of his brain insinuated that a wrecked Cessna should be somewhere around here. He squeezed his left arm to check if it was still hurt, but no, he’d gotten that wound in Afghanistan, years ago. They spun around and around in his head, those memories that may or may not have been. Something about a high-rise condo?

  “Can you lead the way from here?” Heather asked.

  Brandon scoffed at the ridiculous question. But when he leaned against a wall, he did feel a sense of place. If he followed this wall long enough, it would lead around a corner to the right, and then…

  “Where do these hallways lead?” Brandon asked.

  “Everywhere, I’ve been told.”

  “Huh.”

  Holding Heather’s hand, Brandon strode through the black, turning right, then left, then right again, not knowing exactly where he was going, but feeling like he’d been here before.

  They soon came to another of the glowing doors. This one was bigger and wide open, and radiant light streamed through it. But how was that possible? It had been nighttime at the shopping plaza.

  When Heather saw the door, she pulled him forward. They burst through it, running ever faster. Brandon tried to take in the mountains, the waterfalls and rivers, the glittering golden city stretching out below them, but Heather didn’t give him a moment. They charged toward a big, fancy-looking building atop a cliff. As they ran, Brandon could see little people with wings flying around the skies.

  Heather led them to a small gate in the side of the grand chateau. No one met them there, so they ran right inside.

  Are we in Heaven? Brandon thought absently. The thought was absurd, but wow! Minutes ago he’d been having nightmares about the war, and now he was running through an exciting adventure dream with a beautiful woman. He was sleeping again, obviously.

  A low, guttural voice slowly rose in Brandon’s ears as they ran. It wasn’t particularly loud, but it was so clear that it seemed to come from right next to him. No one was there but Heather, though.

  “They rebelled against My wishes,” the big voice was saying. “They had a choice. I had none.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s this?” In a small arched hallway joining two larger rooms, Heather stopped and crouched to examine a sword lying on the marble ground. The thing was huge, and rustier than the screw that had vexed Brandon’s neck as he slept. Or was waking up just part of the dream, too?

  The corroded weapon looked out of place in the pristine surroundings.

  “He told us about this sword,” Heather said.

  “Huh? Who did?”

  “Let them hear. Let them know,” Heather replied absently. Then she turned to the wall, where another one of those glowing doors was set into the marble. Only this one wasn’t glowing. When Brandon inspected it more closely, he saw that it was just a carving, and a gnarled, misshapen one at that. But why was it carved here, at a random spot in this hallway? With no other such carvings nearby, the non-door looked just as unseemly in this environment as the sword. Even stranger, little marble rocks littered the walkway in a half circle around the carving. Had someone just chiseled this door recently?

  Brandon chuckled, cheerfully this time, as Heather hefted the sword. This dream was so detailed, but also so ludicrous. What was his wife gonna do with a sword like that?

  Wait. My wife?

  “What are you laughing at?” Heather asked.

  “Sorry, sorry. This is just so far out.”

  “It is,” she said, that fabulous grin peeking out again. “Thank you for trusting me.”

  “Ten-four. And hey… I swear I know you. Where do I know you from?”

  Pointing the sword safely away, Heather dashed toward Brandon. She smacked into him, and briefly—but passionately—kissed him on the lips. “You know me from Bristol, and Miami, and a hundred other places,” she said. “You’re not always a good guy, but today, you are.”

  With that, she turned and approached the wall, and brandished the rusty sword. Brandon just stared, rigid as the marble walls, clueless as to what to make of any of this. Although he liked this Heather girl, she did seem a bit crazy. But soon I’ll wake up on the streets of Tampa again, with no food and no hope.

  And then he remembered his jar of coins, which he’d left next to the streetlight for any passerby to steal. Damn it! It was only a couple bucks, but his stomach was still gurgling with unused acid. Was the sensation part of his dream? Was the money he’d forgotten? What if someone swiped it while he slept?

  He pinched his arm, which did nothing. Maybe he’d have an easier time waking up if the dream turned sour…

  He sidled up beside Heather as she examined the poorly carved door. Maybe if he brought their conversation away from this flight of fancy, and back toward the uncomfortableness of their initial conversation, that would do the trick. Brandon was still just an indigent vet, after all, and Heather a middle-class dream girl. And even in my dreams, it’s dangerous to want someone like her.

  “You know,” Brandon said, “there’s no one up in the sky to give us a reason for doing this, whatever this is. So do you really believe it’s worth doing?”

  Gripping the sword’s hilt with two hands, Heather drew the weapon back, then plunged it into the heart of the door. The blade pierced the marble as if the stone were made of flesh.

  Immediately the door’s grooves deepened, its runes grew more defined, and within seconds, it began to take the shape of the doors he’d seen in the dark hallways.

  “I don’t believe,” Heather said. “I know.”

  14

  Thorn lowered his arm from across his eyes, his ears ringing in the blast’s aftermath. He saw God doubled over in front of His throne, coughing. The planet He’d created revolved behind Him as He struggled to reclaim His composure. Brandon an
d Heather were gone.

  “Where are they?” Thorn asked.

  “I re—” He coughed, shook His head vigorously. “I reprocessed them into the Sanctuary system.” God bounded down the stairs and raised His bony arms above His head. Bright blue energy flickered between them. “And now I shall send you, like the plague you are, to Hell.”

  Thorn jumped aside as the energy leaped from God’s hands. The current sought him out regardless, arcing around him and surging through him. He reeled, the room spiraling around him, the zaps pricking at his nerves… but other than that and the dizziness, Thorn felt no ill effects. He stayed right where he was in God’s throne room, and God bent over in another coughing fit.

  Not enough power to pull that trick off twice in a row, eh?

  Thorn heard a dense ruffling behind him. He turned and saw angels—hundreds of them—streaming through the gate. “Lord!” one of them called. “We heard a blast. Do You need our assistance?”

  God wheezed out a weak cough, then inhaled deeply. “Hold on,” He rasped. “Need to recharge.” When He tried to stand up straight, He groaned, then bent over again, His hands braced against His knees. “Oh, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  Two seconds later, an angel was at His side with a plastic bucket, just in case.

  Thorn allowed himself to chuckle at the sight. He was beyond caution now, along with any willingness he might once have had to be civil toward God. He’d exhausted so many last-resort options in the last hour that his own fate seemed completely up to chance. He tried to think beyond this randomness, to set aside his delirium. But in the end, he could think of only one way to save his hide, and that task—to change God’s mind—was an impossible one, for God was more ancient and stubborn than any demon, unbending in all of His encounters with Thorn.

  Except that He let Amy live.

  The task was impossible, but God did claim to value reason. Thorn had to try.

  “Hell,” Thorn said, stepping forward. “You want to send me to Hell, with all the other bad people. With all the bad people and the even worse demons You sent there based on their actions. Actions which were taken because of a lack of information provided by You. Not exactly fair and just.”

  “They failed the—the tests. Why not confine them to their own world, to live with each other in the absence of Me?” This last word came out as a croak, followed shortly by vomit. The angel holding the bucket turned his head away as God lost His holy lunch.

  Two angels moved to restrain Thorn, but God waved them away. Thorn paced forward still, walking in a predatory circular motion around God.

  “Why sentence people to infinite punishment for a finite amount of wrongs? And what about all the bygone humans who were sent to Hell just because they lived in a time before modern moral and rational sentiments? And even if someone is genuinely evil, why not just erase them from existence? Why the need to punish them like a teenage bully? Do You send Christians to Hell? Those poor people who believe in You and love You?”

  Still bending over His bucket, God glanced up at Thorn and shrugged.

  “That’s appalling,” Thorn said. “Christians aren’t rational enough for Your sensitive ego, so You banish them to eternal punishment? Put Yourself in their shoes, for Christ’s sake. They’re not evil. Let them live out eternity in a day spa, for all it matters. Why all the fire and brimstone?”

  God sucked in a lungful of air, held it in, and righted Himself. He waved the angel with the bucket aside, then rotated to face Thorn as Thorn paced around Him. “Those who walked away from Me have only themselves to blame for their fate. They rebelled against My wishes. How can I be blamed for the dark place they wound up in? They had a choice. I had none. Don’t blame Me.”

  “Don’t blame You for a system that You set up? For a Hell that You created? Of course You had a choice. You’re omnipotent, or near enough. Yet You insist on Hell. You insist on causing untold suffering for the sake of testing and ‘perfecting’ us.”

  “It’s the only way I know how,” God said weakly, even meekly. His lower lip quivered. He stopped turning to follow Thorn’s movements, His gaze resting instead on the green snake that was just now reaching the gate at the room’s entrance, slithering unnoticed beneath the multitude of angels above it. Thorn noted that a number of the cherubim were battle-worn, with torn white robes and disfigured limbs. He spotted Thilial among them, watching him. Her robe was half-gone, ripped on one side, and a thick white bandage was wrapped tightly around her midsection.

  Wearing an astonished expression, she raised a hand to wave hello. Thorn gave only a terse nod in response; he could not allow God or the angels to see him as soft.

  When he turned back to God, he saw that the Great Almighty was fighting to keep His androgynous face calm. His facial muscles twitched, like they wanted to fracture His countenance into a thousand different expressions. He breathed only through His nose, but the breaths were strong and fierce. As Thorn watched, gleaming rivulets fell from His eyes down past His stubbly jaw.

  “I’m sorry,” God said. He began to weep as He spoke. “All I wanted was some friends. Friends who would think, who wouldn’t let others tell them what was true and false without investigating for themselves. Who wouldn’t suffer the same fate as… I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  Thorn stood at a distance from the odd breakdown. Success suddenly seemed possible, but Thorn was hesitant to lower his guard. God’s bipolar nature could flip His mood in a heartbeat.

  “It started so innocently, but—but I should have nipped dogmatic beliefs in the bud when Wanderer started them up,” God said, His wide eyes pleading with Thorn, drawing him in. “I should have realized My creations would use those beliefs to control one another. It’s so… offensive. Hell, the creation story is the only part of the religion that’s true, and even that’s offensive. It made humans worship Me. I wanted to be the source of rationality, not blind conviction!

  “But see, I—I thought that with those beliefs around to tempt you, the people who did choose reason over comfort, empathy over factionalism, would be even better people in the end. Maybe they’d grow to a level where they didn’t need to believe in Me anymore. And some do grow! And when they do, it’s beautiful and inspiring. I just didn’t know that so many humans and demons would take so much on faith.

  “I want to reconcile with you, Thorn. And with all of demonkind. I want you to go into the Sanctuaries and pass the tests I built for you. I want you all to be free to think, and to prosper, and I’m working toward that world the only way I know how.”

  As He spoke, God gradually backed toward the steps beneath His throne, and now He sat on them. His torso rocked forward and backward, His eyes staring nowhere in particular, lost.

  I must tread lightly. This being who controlled everything had such a vastly different perspective than Thorn. How can someone as limited as me console someone like this, and coax Him into the light?

  Thorn stepped toward Him with such caution that his hard-soled shoes made no sound on the golden floor. He laid his hand on God’s shoulder like a feather. When God made no acknowledgement of its presence, Thorn sat on the step next to Him.

  “You got morality mostly right,” Thorn admitted. “Reason and empathy are good things. But You can’t force us into them, and You can’t stand aloof and leave us in abject suffering until we choose them for ourselves. Sometimes, Lord—” The word felt caustic on his tongue, but he did his best to sound submissive; if he could share how he himself had stumbled onto the right path, perhaps he could demonstrate to God the effectiveness of that path. “Sometimes, to ensure maximum freedom, you have to help people along. Gently. Don’t coerce them, but give them resources, information, encouragement, love. As long as they’re not hurting anyone, You should accept them even if they choose something different from You. Please. Is control over all of us what You really want after all this time? After all this failure?”

  A thousand angels waited to hear what God would say. His eyes had re
mained focused on the same indistinct spot during Thorn’s appeal, and they stayed there even now that he’d finished speaking. Thorn loosened his tie to let himself breathe a little easier. His heart felt like all the souls he’d sent to Hell were pounding at his chest, eager for revenge.

  But whatever response God was considering, He never got the chance to say it. The room suddenly filled with the fluttering of wings and the guttering of sconce flames. When Thorn looked up, he saw angels hurrying away from the entrance gate, forming a wall of their own bodies between the gate and God, barking commands at each other and at something else. One angel yelled sharply, “Demon! Stay back!”

  Thorn peered through the wall of angels, and indeed he glimpsed a single demon stealing around the corner of the gate, its feet light and cautious upon the ground. A demon, here? How? Thorn bolted upright, then ran toward the side wall for a better view. God rose as well, His face betraying the same confusion that Thorn felt.

  A second demon slunk around the edge of the gate. Then a third. Two dozen angels left their line and charged at the newcomers, but their ranks broke like a wave against a glass wall. They bumped into each other in their rush to return to the line.

  It soon became clear what had caused their retreat: first dozens of demons, then hundreds rambled through the halls of God’s House, toward the throne room.

  “Sound the alarm!” someone called. A few angels zipped away to do so, but Thorn guessed that the alarm would prove unnecessary. The angelic forces must realize what’s happening. The demons made no move to fight, nor to defend themselves against potential attack. They simply walked forward and stared with what looked like bewilderment.

  Confirming Thorn’s suspicion, he saw Heather and Brandon walking with the quizzical demons, in the very center of the crowd. The humans were dressed strangely, but they looked unharmed. Is she carrying Thilial’s sword?