Dead & Godless (24 page)

Ransom’s
eyes widened with understanding.

“No,
I didn’t . . .”

“You
wanted them to burn!”

“I,
you’re right!” The angel’s voice quavered. “All this time, have I been atoning
for the wrong sin? Have I truly been so blind?”

He
raised his head and the centuries-old weight that he’d carried with him began
to crumble. Hands of mercy held him, taking him and the burden of his sin—taking
it all and lifting it as though it were nothing. The darkness that had felt so
heavy . . . Why had he worried? There was no sin too heavy for those hands to
lift. He had only to ask.

“Father,
forgive me!”

A
stillness descended, a silence so complete that Corwin couldn’t even hear
himself breathe, and then, howling forth from nowhere, a mighty wind swept
through the chamber. The fire flailed and the demons fought to stay on their
feet. Ransom’s seal seared, ringed in white flames, but the flames weren’t long
for his hand. Peeling free like flakes of ash, the seal’s markings drifted,
spiraling into the cistern shaft. As the last blot left him, the raging wind
calmed.

“Thank
you, Corwin.” Ransom smiled with eyes ablaze, glowing tears running down his
face.
“Now let’s shine a light in this unholy abyss.”

A
tremor ran through the needles piercing him, and all at once they were cast
from his body, fired across the room with lethal force. Missing Corwin, a pair
of darts buried themselves in the burly demon behind him. Isley batted one
away, but lost his grip on the soulrender. It spun through the air and into
Ransom’s hand, severing one of the chains as it flew. A wave of the sword burst
the cuffs from his other wrist and ankles.

“Restrain
him!” Isley bellowed.

Scores
of black-suited fiends poured into the cistern as Ransom freed Corwin from his
fetters.

“Just
wait here,” he said.

Corwin
scarcely had the strength to stand, not that he was planning to.
Now would
be a good time to stay low
. If his instincts were correct, this place was
about to turn into a battleground straight out of the Book of Revelation.

“Ransom!”
roared Strega.

Ignoring
the needles in his chest and thigh, the arch demon grabbed a battleaxe and charged.
The grating rattled beneath his pounding boots. He raised the axe high with
speed that defied his massive size—speed that meant nothing to Ransom. Like a
razor wind, the soulrender sliced invisibly. Strega never got the chance to
bring down his axe. His two halves slid gruesomely apart, his soul banished
before he hit the ground.

The
lesser demons hesitated, paralyzed by fear, and Ransom took a determined step
towards Isley.

“The
human!” Isley cried. “Slay the human!”

Hell
was no escape from their master’s wrath, and so his underlings abandoned all
thought of self-preservation and hurled themselves at Corwin. Dozens of ebony
swords darted towards him, but first they had to get past Ransom. The angel was
death incarnate, a flickering shadow and a flashing blade. Corwin knelt in the
eye of the storm as his attorney painted the walls black with demon blood.

There
seemed no end to them. Torn limbs and corpses littered the cistern, and still
another wave rushed on. But the Prosecutor made no move to join the fight. Amidst
the commotion, he backed slowly away until only the pale disks of his inverted
eyes were visible beneath the rear archway.

“Wherever
you go, I’ll find you,” spoke Isley as the world dimmed, his eyes the lone
source of luster. “You can’t exist without me. I’ll always be with you.” To
Corwin’s horror, the voice twisted and blurred, and then it wasn’t Isley’s
voice at all, but Mary’s.
“I’ll always be with you, Corwin.”

The
demon’s gaze vanished and so did the cistern. Corwin was alone, adrift in
endless darkness. He couldn’t see his body, wasn’t sure that he even had one
anymore. A crack of light split the gloom. He opened his eyes.

Corwin
was lying on his back, the stiff cot of a hospital bed beneath him. A nurse was
checking his IV fluids and Mary was clasping his hand.

“Call
a doctor!” she shouted. “Corwin’s awake!”

Recovering from Reality

This was his
world—the real world—and yet it seemed more surreal than the one he’d left
behind.
Of course,
he reasoned with himself,
that probably has
something to do with the fact that I’m pumped full of enough morphine to
tranquilize a horse.
Corwin’s left arm was encased in a big white sausage
of a cast and Mary clutched his right. His body felt cumbersome and wrong, like
an old suit that didn’t fit quite so well as it used to. And he couldn’t feel
his right leg at all.

Teary-eyed,
Mary buried her face in his chest.

“Oh
my God!” she sobbed. “I thought I’d lost you!”

“If
you think I look bad, you should see the train.”

Behind
Mary, a woman sat quietly against the wall, her folded hands trembling.

“Mom?”

Her
almond hair had grayed and crow’s feet creased the corners of her eyes, but as
she rose and walked timidly towards him, all Corwin could think about was how
much she looked like home.

Mary
straightened up and he took his mother’s outstretched hand.

“Corwin,
I know that I don’t have any right to see you,” she said, “but I was so afraid.”

“I’m
sorry for making you worry, Mom.” He squeezed her hand in his. “I missed you.”

“You’ve
got a handful of hairline fractures in your skull,” reported Doctor Renner in his
customary, no-nonsense tone. “We were able to reattach your left arm, but it
will be a while before you can put any pressure on it. The good news is that in
time, you should regain close to full motion. As for the bad news . . .”

“Is
this the part where you show me the bill?” inquired Corwin.

The
doctor chuckled. “You’re going to have some loss of feeling. And then there’s
your right leg. I’m afraid that the damage was too severe. Frankly, it’s a damn
miracle you’re alive at all.”

“A
damn miracle? Is that your professional opinion?”

“Not
many people take a head-on collision from a train and live to crack jokes about
it. If the clearance had been any lower, they’d be spraying you off of those
tracks with a fire hose.”

“Yet
here I am,” said Corwin. “Thanks for saving my life, Doc.”

“You’re
welcome, but it wasn’t just me.”

“I
guess I’ve got a whole lot of thanking to do.”

“If
you’re planning to bake cookies, my wife likes double-chocolate chunk,” Renner slyly
informed him as he strolled out the door.

I
feel like a wreck,
thought Corwin.
So why can’t I stop smiling?

The
gratitude that welled up inside was too big to contain. He had been dead, and
now he was alive! All the things he wished he’d done and the people he wished
he’d spent more time with—now he had a second chance, and there was no way a
little thing like the loss of a leg was going to stop him.

He
was thankful for the doctors and nurses whose talents had saved him, for the
paramedics that had gotten him to the hospital in time, for Mary who never left
his side. He was thankful for all of them, but his gratitude didn’t end there. It
overflowed! As absurd as it seemed, he had an undeniable urge to bow his head
and whisper a heartfelt “thank you!”

To
whom?
Corwin wondered.
To the universe? To God?

Ransom
had once mentioned just this sort of sensation, as Corwin clearly recalled. In
fact, there wasn’t a single word or moment of their adventure that he didn’t
recall. The entire experience was etched into his mind. And that wasn’t all.
Somehow, the crystalline memory he’d gained while in that elaborate dream world
had stuck with him.

I’d
make a fine research project for an enterprising neurologist.

He
would have to tell Mary all about it, but that could wait. For now, Corwin just
wanted to lie back and watch the clouds drift by outside his window. He wasn’t
sure what he would do tomorrow, or what he would be, but today, just being
alive was enough.

“How
does it feel?” asked Maya as she finished adjusting Corwin’s prosthetic leg.
His first day of physical therapy had arrived ahead of schedule.

“Like
I should have a parrot on my shoulder.”

He
gripped the safety rail and stood, testing his balance.

“You’ll
have to take it slow at first,” said the therapist, “but you’ll get used to
it.”

The
length of steel and carbon-fiber that extended below Corwin’s right knee was a
firm fit, sturdy yet awkward.
It’s all mental,
he told himself. The
trick wasn’t relearning to walk, but learning to trust that the foot he
couldn’t feel would nonetheless support him.

“I
heard you were a frequent jogger,” mentioned Maya.

“Every
morning,” Corwin said. “No more of that, huh?”

“Actually,
we have prosthetics that are specifically designed for runners. You can even
play sports, though I wouldn’t recommend soccer.”

Letting
go of the railing, Corwin ventured a few steps on his new leg.
This isn’t so
hard.
Walking in a straight line almost came naturally. However, as he
turned, he pivoted just a tad too fast.

“Careful!”
cautioned Maya.

His
top half teetered, but he managed to hold his feet steady.

“I
got it,” he said, raising one hand in assurance.

“You
can’t afford to take any spills with that left arm of yours, so don’t push
yourself, Mr. Invincible. This is going to take some time.”

Corwin’s
former cast had been swapped for a smaller one with a neon-green sling
supporting his arm. He could wiggle his fingers, which, all things considered,
everyone agreed was a happy fact, but for the time being his left arm wouldn’t
be good for much more. The thought of falling on it certainly wasn’t appealing,
and so he graciously accepted Maya’s assistance in making his way to the
treadmill.

She
instructed him to climb on.

“Now
let’s start with the basics.”

With
Corwin’s right hand securely grasping the handle, Maya dialed the treadmill to
its lowest setting. The black track slid towards him and Corwin kept pace,
shambling with all the swiftness and grace of a peg-legged zombie. After only
fifteen minutes his first session was over, but he returned to the fitness
center the next day, and the day after that. The prosthetic became a part of
him. Soon he was marching up inclines and down stairs. The sling went away, his
cast shrank, and one morning in March it finally came time to hit the pavement.

The
last gasps of winter were in the air, filling his lungs with frosty electricity.
Corwin felt as though he could run forever.

He
had jogged these streets hundreds of times, never really seeing them. The city
wasn’t, by ordinary standards, a beautiful place. Drab bricks and scarred
concrete covered one block after the next. But to Corwin’s reborn eyes, each
one of those scars told a story. Dreams were born and crushed here, feeding the
fires of this vampiric machine, but the machine remembered. Every life it
devoured was enshrined in some little way. A stain on a windowsill, a skid mark
on the road; if he could see things as Ransom did, would he be able to glimpse
the stories behind the scars?

His
prosthetic leg flexed, its carbon-fiber curving to absorb his weight as he leapt
over a line of ants that processed in single file between a garbage can and a crack
in the adjacent building’s foundation. He imagined shrinking down and exploring
the world beyond that fissure, uncovering a whole other city, a subterranean land
uncharted by man. And perhaps the towers of that land would have cracks in
their foundations as well.

Lights
enlivened store windows as he passed between the park and the market. Half of
the shops were already open, though it would be another hour before the crowds
arrived. One shopkeeper recognized Corwin and waved. Like a lover, the city
showed an intimate side of itself to those who woke with it, and every early
riser shared a bond. They were all unofficial members of the same sleepless club.

The
scent of coffee, bold and earthy, wafted through the doors of a corner café.
Corwin could almost taste it, the beans mingling with the aroma of doughy,
steaming bagels as the baker next door pulled hot racks from his oven. Young
leaves garnished the oaks and sycamores in the park. The trees were coming back
to life, just as Corwin had. Dewy branches sprouted new shoots on the dogwoods,
their flower buds anxious for spring.

Each
bend in the road arrested him with another view, hues vibrant and subtle, all
blending and brimming with effusive detail beyond the skill of any painter’s
brush to capture. Corwin found himself pausing, not from exhaustion, but simply
to take it all in. How many times in his life had he stopped, turned off the
music and actually appreciated a sunrise? The eastern sky was a gold flood
spilling between the high-rises. He propped his hands on his knees and stared.

Sliding
glass doors parted for a woman and her daughter as they emerged from the
grocer’s.

“Mommy,
that man’s leg is
weird!”
declared the girl.

“Honey,
that’s not polite,” said her mother, embarrassment flushing her cheeks.

The
child’s blunt assessment gave Corwin a laugh.

Reaching
into one of the shopping bags, she withdrew a cherry-red apple and innocently
approached him.

“Here,
Mister,” she said, holding it forth.

Corwin
accepted the gift with a smile.

“Thanks.”

As
his gaze met hers, the gears in his head ground to a halt. Her eyes were arctic
sapphires, coldly burning with the wonder of undiscovered stars. They were eyes
that he had seen before. Corwin took a stunned step back. She looked younger,
but those eyes, that mousy brown hair, that voice like a bell . . .

She’s
not Blue,
his inner self said.
There is no Blue. She doesn’t really exist.

His
phone rang, breaking the trance.

“Good
morning, Sunshine.”

“I
knew you’d be awake,” said Mary.

“Life
is too short for sleep.”

Corwin
waved gratefully to the girl and her mother as the sidewalk’s invisible current
pulled them away.

“It
feels nice to tackle the great outdoors again, but I just had the strangest
sensation.”

“Are
you okay?” Mary’s voice was concerned.

“Yeah,
it’s probably nothing, just a spell of déjà vu. Either that, or a rogue memory
from one of my past lives.”

“Maybe
your karma is catching up to you.”

“I
hope not! Somebody once told me that karma is a dangerous thing.”

“Since
you’re done doing time at the hospital, I was thinking that we should go out
somewhere to celebrate,” suggested Mary.

“You read
my mind,” said Corwin. “And there’s this place that I’ve been dying to try. When
you get home from work, why don’t you slip into that green dress? I’ll make reservations
and pick you up at a quarter to seven.”