Sixteen
Blitz stared up at me in complete shock. “I-I can’t believe it. The damn thing bit me!”
“Does this mean he’s going to turn into a zombie?” Lana asked uneasily.
“It’s what happened to me,” Euna replied, a note of pity tinging her words.
I said nothing, just staring at Blitz and letting this new reality sink in. If everything we had seen was accurate, those dark spores were already replicating inside his body and attacking his organs. He’d be dead in minutes, and we would be fighting a zombified Blitz just a short while after that.
“Fuck, dude. I was just starting to like you!”
Blitz cracked a rare smile (seriously I can’t remember seeing his face anything more than a few degrees to either side of neutral ever since he picked up Boris’s rifle). “Really? I figured you still hated my guts after the whole trying-to-kill you bit when you first joined the Bureau.”
I waved off the assumption. “What friendship doesn’t have a rocky start, man? I mean. Are you really even BFFs if you haven’t at least thought about killing each other at least once?”
Blitz considered. “I suppose not,” he allowed. Then his demeanor shifted sharply as the veins in his forearm turned black and his eyes glazed over from the pain. “Gah! I… I can feel it taking hold of me. Ryan, I do not have much time. May I speak to you in private?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lana fluttering back and forth like someone dancing on the balls of their feet out of nervousness. While I lacked any sort of psychic bond with her I could plainly see guilt and shame warring across her features.
Autumn was kneeling in the grass, carefully observing the severed halves of the zombie flower with a curious look on her face.
Euna was the only one with her head on a swivel. She had split into four copies and was guarding us all. I was grateful for her vigilance and chose not to mention that I already had it covered. Werewolf hearing was far more acute than that of the average human (or slime), and the nearest zombie was too far away from us to be an immediate threat unless someone made a bunch of loud noises. Still, I knew she was feeling a bit sensitive about always being the first one of us to get hurt all the time, and wanted to step up and show me that she could handle herself.
Blitz walked a short distance away from Autumn’s tree, to the top of a hill overlooking most of central park. I followed him somberly. From this new perch we had a great view of some of Eastport’s oldest buildings. Old red brick housing, the kind that cost more money than I’ve ever made in a year even with my new Bureau salary, lined the distant streets. On the far northern end of the park sat a massive church with the sacred halo positioned above its front doors, flanked by stained glass windows depicting blessed souls wandering through the fields of paradise while silver-winged angels floated merrily over their heads.
It was towards this church that Blitz directed his attention, staring off at it like he was seeing it for the first, or perhaps last, time.
“Are you much of a believer?” He asked quietly.
In truth, I’d never been a particularly devout follower of the church of Pantheos, it never really resonated with me, but even I had to admit they had some beautiful imagery. For a moment I considered lying to him. I knew enough of the myths and stories they preached inside to get by as one…but in the end I just wasn’t a believer.
“No. My parents tried to get me into it way back when but it wasn’t my thing, honestly.”
Blitz chuckled. “My mom never gave me much of a choice. Took me there every ninth day of the week, like clockwork. She told me if I was good my whole life, if I fought for it, when my time came I’d be worthy of rising up to paradise in the arms of an angel. But then later I find out that I’m half demon, and my soul is bound for hell no matter what I do.”
I frowned. “Wait, what? What do you mean you’re bound for hell no matter what? You’ve only ever tried to help people!”
Blitz nodded. “Thank you my friend. But be at peace. Your anger will not change what happens next. I can feel this foul magic tearing into me. Changing this body and making it unfit for my soul to inhabit. Soon I will be dead, and these hands will no longer be under my control. It is the same way with my demonic blood. I have made choices in life, and perhaps I have made more good than bad, but you cannot balance a red ledger. In a few minutes I will be diving into hell feet-first.” He glanced up at me and fire, literal magical flames, danced in his eyes. “I hope they are ready for me when I land. Because when I get there it’ll be open season on demons.”
A smile split my face and I opened my mouth to encourage him, but Blitz suddenly fell down to one knee. His face was a mask of pain and he was clutching his infected arm tightly to his chest. Black tendrils were crawling up his neck now, and his eyes were already losing some of their pigmentation and going white. Just like Euna had.
“Grab… your… gun,” Blitz hissed out at me in between bouts of severe pain.
Every fiber of my being wanted to protest. But I couldn’t. He was in pain that could only end one way, and I could end it. I drew one of my pistols and took aim for his skull.
“I’m sorry, Blitz. I wish there was another way.”
Blitz looked up at me through gritted teeth. “Do it.”
I took a deep breath to steady myself, and started to squeeze the trigger.
-
It took a moment’s concentration to pull back from my other self’s perspective, but I couldn’t handle putting Blitz down like a horse with a broken leg and also stay focused on driving at the same time. At least, not while I was driving here. The last time I was racing past these particular trees, Hannah had been the one driving, and it had been the last time we’d been together while she was still alive.
With a deep sigh, I compartmentalized and detached my split psyches from one another, erecting a barrier between Red Ryan and myself so that I could focus on my mission without interference.
Blue team consisted of my blue-tie-wearing copy (yours truly), another extra thicc copy of Euna of course, Selene/Hannah, a particularly stubborn Tabitha sitting in the passenger seat despite my protests against her presence, and Derek; my old pal from the Hilltop gas station.
Recap. Back when I first joined up with the Bureau and started training to become a Keeper, Derek joined up right alongside me and learned how to cast magic. While I slowly acquired a group of girls who became my lovers and partners, Derek took a slightly different approach to ingratiating himself to the strange new world we found ourselves in. He became one of the many dudes in the Bureau who slept with this succubus named Bianca (total bitch, turned my best friend into a simp).
I thought he’d fallen head over nuts in love with her but it turned out he had just fallen victim to some sort of spell that turned him (and a bunch of other guys besides) into her obedient thralls. Once we killed her, it broke the spell she had over Derek, and my friend returned to his old self. Except ever since then he had been mastering magic and could now cast spells as deftly as I could use firearms.
Blue Team was far more talkative than Red Team thus far.
“... so then we sent Alan on this wild chase throughout the whole city, incinerating every last vampire in Eastport and drawing most of the agents out of the Bureau so we could have out final showdown with Boris,” Tabitha explained.
Selene shook her head in disbelief. “Holy shit. You sent a sun tiger on a rampage?”
“Sun lion,” Euna corrected. “But yes.”
“And that was the distraction?”
“Yup.”
“And then you snuck in through the back door-”
Derek immediately blurted out, “That’s what she said!”
In spite of the seriousness of our situation, I chuckled. Same old Derek.
“Very mature,” Selene snarked. “Anyway, you snuck in and rescued Tabitha’s father?”
Tabitha “Adoptive father, just so you don’t get confused. He’s a dragon, I’m a werewolf. Zero blood relation. But he looked after me a hell of a lot better than my real parents did.”
“Right. I sort of gathered that from the whole y’know, he’s russian thing but thank you for clarifying,” she remarked sarcastically.
“Oh hush!” Tabitha smiled and tossed a few bits of the bag of popcorn resting on her belly (pregnant lady needs snacks) back at Selene, who cheerfully caught them and helped herself to some buttery goodness.
“What happened next? How did you guys defeat such a powerful demon?”
Tabitha turned in her seat so she could better answer Selene’s question. “Well, you seem, it turns out a drunken dragon is extremely dangerous in close quarters. So the whole elevator ride down, Aleksei’s just chugging from this flask, and then…”
I let a small smile cross my lips as Tabitha continued retelling the story of our big battle against Boris the bastard. She told it the best, honestly. But something caught my attention on the road and it was like someone turned off my hearing.
A small sacred halo hanging from an all-too-familiar tree. Flowers adorned the area around the base of the tree In white lettering that was only slightly faded, the name I had long dreaded seeing was etched into the truck below.
Hannah.
This was where it had happened. The accident that had taken so much from me.
My heart fluttered like a lightbulb hooked up to sketchy electrical wiring.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly feeling dry, and I heard music playing over the radio. The radio that Tabitha had turned off a while back so she could talk to Selene. It was the same song that had been playing when Hannah had suddenly jerked the wheel to avoid the incoming car, sending us off the road and into that unforgiving tree.
My left hand had been mangled when I flew from the car, but Hannah had been killed on impact. The love of my life, my fiance, gone in an instant.
Right here. Just two short years ago nearly to the day.
Oh fuck.
I could almost hear Hannah’s voice, calling to me again. Only that wasn’t possible.
She was dead. I could see her broken body in the driver’s seat, there was so much blood.
My hand, my left hand ached like I was gripping too hard, but that wasn’t possible either.
My hand was gone.
Ryan! Calm down and look up!
With a start, I was back in the present. Hannah’s phantom form was beside me, fitting between Tabitha and I as she spoke to me in my mind, trying her best to calm me down.
It’s over, Ryan. The accident is long past. We’re here now. Let’s deal with things as they are, okay? Look. Your girl and my best friend are getting along like gasoline and a wood fire. That’s your child in her belly. I’m sorry I’m not here in the flesh, but I’m still here with you. It’s going to be okay. You’re my chosen one, remember?
Hearing her voice started to calm my heartrate down a little, but it didn’t last.
Everything got real loud and real bright all of a sudden. My chest hurt, and for a long moment I really thought I was having some sort of heart attack. Nope. There was just a meteorite crashing down out of the blue sky. Because why the fuck not?
The meteor was a great golden streak across the sky, burning its way across the heavens as it grew larger and larger. Almost like… no.
Ryan, look out!
I swerved to avoid it, I swear, but the damn thing was moving way too fast.
A great blinding golden something sideswiped our vehicle and sent us spinning off through the trees, tumbling end over end through the same trees that had claimed Hannah’s life, and here I was driving with Euna, Selene, and a very pregnant Tabitha. If anything happened to them… My mind couldn’t take it.
We hit something solid and my vision instantly went dark.