Thirty-Five
“What could we possibly have to talk about?” Gertrude blanched, shoving Chelsea’s eye back into its socket and doing her best to right the girl’s jaw. It didn’t work.
“Your plan. The one I rudely interrupted back in the forest. Would you like to finish explaining it to me now?”
Gertrude shook her head defiantly, and Chelsea’s eye popped back out.
“No? Alright. Let me try. Make sure I’ve got all the pieces right. In life you were a powerful crime boss with all of the influence and none of the recognition. You were scorned, betrayed, and butchered. So when death found you and offered a reprieve, you spat in its face and clung to the mortal world like a leech. You arranged for your husband to meet his end and toppled his criminal empire.”
“My criminal empire!” She shouted. Her voice fired off like a shotgun blast, then echoed throughout the church until it sounded small and distant. Tiny. Then it faded completely.
“Of course. You toppled your criminal empire because if you couldn’t have it, no one could. Then you sat around and brooded, letting your hatred fester for two hundred years. Nine months ago a demon kicked open a shitload of portals and suddenly phantoms started pouring in, ripe for your influence. You promised them positions of influence in a world of your own making. Immortality. Fresh hosts every few years so the dead can live as hot young mortals for all eternity, am I on the right track so far?”
Gertrude nodded. “What’s so wrong with that?”
I winced. “I’ve got to admit, on paper it sounds pretty sweet. Experience the thrills of life forever. But it can’t last, Gertrude. Your time is past. So has the time of all these other phantoms. Life is hard. It’s messy. It’s dark. We deserve peace at the end of all this, don’t you agree?”
Gertrude shook her head. “I do. But it wasn’t peace that was waiting for me, boy. It was a flaming pit of punishment and endless agony. All because I lived too large and never apologized for it. Georgie couldn’t keep me satisfied, so I found other men who could do it for him. Does that really mean I deserve hell?”
“I mean. You ran a criminal empire. I don’t think it was a little infidelity that damned your soul, Gerti. A bit of smudged lipstick is one thing but I’m pretty sure it’s all the bodies floating down in the harbor that punched your ticket, don’t you think?”
Gertrude inclined her head, conceding. “Yeah you might have a point there.”
I took a deep breath. “Look. I get it. Mortality is shit deal. But how is your way any better? You’d rob people of their own lives just so that the dead could walk again?”
“Ugh, why does it always have to be so narrow with you hero types? I wouldn’t be a cruel empress! My subjects would get to live full rich lives, only sacrificing a year or two here or there to the phantoms. The rest of that time they would be free to roam the world as they liked! There would be no inequality. No war. No poverty. No famine! I’d be fair. Kind. Respectful!”
“‘Respectful.’ Like you’re being to poor Chelsea right now?”
Gertrude’s phantom form pursed its lips. Chelsea’s jaw still hung out of place.
“It’s not…t-this isn’t the same thing. This body is a means to an end. A tool. My vision is beautiful! If you would just give it a chance to let it be, you would see for yourself!”
I shook my head slowly. “I’m sure it would be great. Why don’t you write a book all about it in the afterworld? But for now, you need to let that poor girl rest, Gertrude. Stop desecrating her bones like this. She died violently. Do what Kevin should have done for her long ago. The hardest thing, but also the kindest thing. Let her spirit rest.”
Gertrude struggled to rise to her feet, glaring at me all the while. “You don’t understand. It’s going to be beautiful. I just need more time!”
“You’ve had more time than most, Gertrude. And you did so much with it. You did incredible, I mean, for a gangster mastermind. And then your time came to a close. It’s time to let go. Aren’t you tired? Fuck, I know I am.”
Gertrude smiled to herself. “I really did do well for myself didn’t I?” Her shoulders sagged slightly. “Maybe Georgie wasn’t so bad. I put that big teddy bear through an awful lot y’know. Always nagging him about keeping profits up, making him buy me dresses, remindin’ him of how he wouldn’t be nothin’ without me.”
“And then you wore those dresses on dates with other men, didn’t you?”
Gertrude winced. “Oh I was a wretched thing, wasn’t I? Who am I kidding thinking I could rule the world? I’d probably ruin that too!”
I cleared my throat and rose to a standing position. “C’mon, Gertrude. It’s time. Let go of the past. Let go of Chelsea. Let go of this world. You’re such a small part of this vast universe, I promise you it’s not as serious as you think it is. Go gently, and this can all be over.”
Gertrude started to wail, a release of grief and pain that ended with her translucent afterimage bursting apart and Chelsea’s body crumbling down to the ground.
Reaching out with my powers, I summoned a swarm of roots and vines to work their way up through the floor, taking her bones below the earth and returning her energy to the world around us. A silver light engulfed her new grave, and then I sheathed my sword over my shoulder. My other self could take it from here.
I started rearranging the pews as best as I could, and sat down heavily, just taking a minute to breath.
-
Gabby and I made a competition out of seeing who could take out the most ritual circles the fastest. We were neck and neck right up until the end, when I pulled out ahead by beating her to the last one and wiping it out right as she arrived.
Far from being a sore loser, Gabby just marched up to me and kissed me, telling me that it was really hot watching me go to work.
Io seconded the notion.
Over our heads, Hannah rose up into the night sky alone before an army of phantoms that had not been returned to their respective anomalies. She had her arms out and was calling to them all, gleaming a brighter white by the second as she spoke in a voice that split the sky like thunder.
“This world is not for you, anymore! Your time is done! Leave the mortal world to the living, and pass on in peace! I offer you all a place in paradise if you will but only leave with me now. Any who linger, will answer to the mortal champion!”
Babe, that means you. Come make a big entrance!
“Duty calls,” I flirted with Gabby, soaring off into the night sky to hover beside Hannah.
A gleaming white crown glowed above her head, and she was almost as blindingly radiant as Gabby had been, only her light was a soothing white rather than as fiery gold. She spoke with an otherworldly authority, and just like back in the forest, the phantoms listened.
A few resisted her call.
Gabby and I dispersed them.
The others fell in line.
After that it all went quite smoothly.
With one massive hitch.
-
“What are you saying?” I asked again.
Hannah, in Selene’s body, sighed. “My duty lies with these displaced spirits. My place is in the afterworld. I’m sort of their champion in the same way that you are the champion here. I can still come visit. But… it’ll only be every now and again. Like, like a…”
“Like a long distance relationship?” I offered.
“Yeah. Like that. Selene wants to stay, and I’ll always be yours, hero. But I have a duty-”
I held up my hands to stop her, and leaned in for a kiss. I made sure it was a long, drawn out, and thorough kiss too. When I pulled back, Selene looked a little out of it from giddiness. “Easy girl. I understand. After everything you’ve shown me? I get it. We can visit one another. Besides, we’ll be together in the end anyway. This isn’t goodbye. It’s just an I’ll see you later.”
Hannah smiled up at me. “Thank you for understanding. I’m so proud of the hero you’ve become. I know you’ll do great things. Reach out to me any time, okay?”
I nodded and sent a wave of reassurance and peace her way through our mental link.
Hannah leapt free of Selene’s body and rose up from the park. A crown blazed atop her head, and a massive flock of phantoms followed her up into the sky. One-by-one, they all winked away, joining the cosmos like a cluster of shooting stars skipping across the upper atmosphere.
Honestly, even though I was sad to see her go, I knew it wasn’t forever. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as last time she went to paradise. Of course, back then I hadn’t known that’s where she was heading. Back then it had all been a big dark mystery.
I would see her again. And I could always speak to her via our psychic link. Distance or no, it wasn’t like before. She was still a part of me.
I gave Selene a big hug when I spotted some tears spilling down her cheeks, and guided her back toward the rest of the girls.
“C’mon. We’ve got to go find you all places to stay in the Bureau,” I said with a grin.
My girls were quick to rush to my side and express their happiness that I’d made it. They called me all sorts of nice things like ‘hero’ and ‘chosen one’ and ‘your majesty’ and clamored over one another to offer me progressively naughtier acts to show exactly how proud they all were of me for saving the world again.
I made promises to take them all up on their offers, but first I needed to have a hot shower and sleep for a long time. Then I needed to check on Tabitha and my son.
My grin grew wider as I considered the fact that I was now a father.
Life was good.
And after everything I’d experienced in the past week I knew that someday? I’d meet my death knowing that I lived far more fully and fearlessly than most.
Until then though? I’d keep fighting whatever came my way, I’d keep fucking my women better than anyone else ever could, and I’d raise my son to live up to his namesake.