Rob Thurman - Slashback

“It’s not like that,” Robin protested, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Although six years is a good record, and the fact you didn’t even try to find out from anyone else because you found me that trustworthy while knowing I’m a trickster, that is rather priceless-” An elbow, and a sharp one if his wince was anything to go by, hit him in the ribs. “But that’s neither here nor there. I didn’t lie to simply amuse myself. Think, Cal. Think how young you were when you came to New York, the kid who thought he was a monster, the worst one in the world next to the Auphe. Your self-loathing was epic. Your angst astronomical. The whole emo-thing. . well, it was a cultural trend and I won’t go there. But if I’d told you that angels did exist, then you would’ve wanted to know about Heaven and then you would’ve asked about Hell. I knew precisely what you would think after that.”

He was on the money, no doubt. Six years ago I’d have known there was a Hell. I’d have also known I was destined for it-no way out. “You’re right.” I leaned harder against Nik who hadn’t said a word about any of this. I was beginning to worry. Shit, I was already worried. “I’d have thought I was on the Hell-express for sure.”

“And now?” he asked, the curiosity plain in the inquisitive tilt of his head.

I gave him a black smile. “Hell? Let them lock the doors. They couldn’t fucking survive my ass.”

“Out of curiosity, where do paien go as apparently you’re here to tell us Jack is an angel gone rogue and he cares nothing about paien souls?” It was Nik and better yet it was Nik with a pertinent Nik-style question and an instinctual leap that would be spooky if true. What the hell was I thinking: sinners, Bible, wicked, whores and thieves, raising the dead, judgmental ass-Jack was an angel all right.

“There are hundreds of paien heavens, fewer hells though-we’re not quite so condemning. For every paien race there is at least one heaven if not ten or twelve. Anything you can imagine is out there.”

I didn’t ask Goodfellow about Auphe Heaven and Hell. I imagined they were one and the same. If all you know is murder and torture, then you can’t comprehend wrong and if you can’t imagine wrong, you can’t conceive of a punishment for it. That didn’t mean I wanted to go to wherever dead Auphe went. Whatever they considered Heaven, I knew I’d consider Hell five times over. For the time being I let that go and waited on the Jack-the-angel question.

Ishiah’s wings had disappeared once he’d sat down, but now, as they always did when he was annoyed, pissed, unsettled, conflicted-you name it-they’d reappeared. “Once Robin found out from you about the human followers mentioning praying and Heaven and put that together with Jack teleporting and raising the dead, he knew it had to be an angel, a particular angel. Pyriel. He’s one of the angels responsible for examining the souls for purity in Heaven. He’s also one of the very few angels and the only one missing that is entrusted with the power to raise the dead.”

“That fits Jack. Judging all over the place and a fan of zombies, but what do you mean missing? Doesn’t someone keep track of that? Like, I don’t know, God?” I asked with caustic disbelief. Was heavenly bureaucracy truly that bad? Angels disappeared in the paperwork of it all?

“Pyriel has been missing almost five hundred years,” Ishiah said. “The other angels are aware and have searched for him.” Now the wings spread and I wondered how I’d ever doubted warriors of Heaven walked among us. “God is always present but does not interfere.”

“Does not interfere? What do you mean doesn’t interfere? You’ve got a psycho angel frigging skinning people for at least two hundred years. I think the time for interfering has long since come and gone and circled back to do a victory lap. What the hell?”

“God. . does. . not. . interfere,” Ishiah said in a tone as frozen as his eyes.

Goodfellow leaned back again, this time with feathers draping over his hair. “Let it go. It’s a story for another time, one when peris aren’t around.”

“Don’t you mean angels?” Niko substituted.

“No. There are no angels in New York City. They were banned over fifty years ago when a fight between them and some demons managed to get way out of control. Humans were running about screaming about Armageddon. It was a disaster. From that time on paiens have banned angels and demons from New York. If you come from Above or Below and show your face here, we paiens will work as one to rip it off of you. Only peris are allowed as they gave up their powers and transferred their allegiance to Earth not Heaven.”

“Except for this Pyriel. Except for Jack.” Niko didn’t sound interested, but he didn’t sound lost either. That was an improvement. Something this bizarre had to take his mind off the past-although Jack had in some part been involved with our past. I didn’t think he’d been there the night Junior died. Junior said his master liked to watch. I remembered that through a chloroform haze, but I didn’t think Jack had been watching or we might not be sitting here worrying about his angelic ass now.

“That’s right. If Jack is this Pyriel and paiens stomp trespassing angels like cockroaches, why is he here? Why do none of you even know he’s an angel?”

Robin shook his head, got to his feet, and brought me back a Mountain Dew to replace the one that spilled when Niko had grabbed me in the recliner. “Caffeine for your failing brain cells. You saw him. Did he look like an angel? Not that angels look like Ishiah, not all of the time-only when interacting with humans. But regardless, they don’t look anything like Jack. Whatever he was, Pyriel isn’t an angel any longer. Something has twisted him, mutated him. We keep thinking Jack is a storm spirit from the mist and the electrical activity. My best guess is that Pyriel was injured long ago and a storm spirit latched on to him when he was incapable of fighting it off. Some storm spirits aren’t very bright, but they can be powerful parasites. Pyriel is now Jack and Jack is both less and more than an angel. Angels actually aren’t that difficult to kill if you’re quick with a shotgun.”

“Is that information you felt necessary to share?” Ishiah demanded.

“Cal has already used a submachine gun on Jack. A shotgun is but a tinker toy to him,” Robin retorted. “It’s rather pointless anyway. As I said, we’ve tried that route on Jack. It was useless. The storm spirit, if it is one, surrounding him could stop the bullets from penetrating with wind, ice, who knows what else. What customarily works against angels isn’t going to work with Jack, it seems.”

Nik took my Mountain Dew and swallowed several times from the can. I think he had been fifteen the last time he’d had caffeine. He’d always been serious about martial arts thanks to the Grend-the Auphe outside our windows, but Junior had been the tipping point to devoting every aspect of his life to being the best fighter he could and that included nutrition. It was a good thing that rice was cheap. It was a long time before he could afford a variety of health food. Without rice he might have starved himself to death back then, the stubborn bastard.

I snatched my Mountain Dew back and said under my breath, “Okay, Nik, you’re really beginning to freak me out.”

He ran a less than reassuring hand over my hair. It wasn’t the lightly stinging swat-and-tangle I usually received. It was the smoothing and affectionate motion you used on a child, that he’d used on an eleven-year-old me. He couldn’t pull himself out of the past and if I wanted to kill Jack for anything, it was for that.