The Tenth Order (28 page)

Hash snorted. “Says who? The Bible? Look, kid, I’m not one for religion so don’t quote scripture at me. I know we’re supposed to be cozy with the man upstairs, and maybe we actually are—I don’t know. But see, that’s the whole point. The whole crazy, frustrating, bitch of it…we don’t really know what happens in the beyond.”

“But—”

“What?” Hash spread his hands. “You think I have all the answers? Sorry kid, but I’m a soldier just like you. I might be your boss but I’m not the one calling the shots. My memories are cloudy, just like yours. Everyone’s are. Maybe God exists, but if he does I don’t remember him. Maybe the beyond isn’t Heaven at all, maybe it’s some kind of nightmare realm we can’t remember because we don’t
want
to. If Mika’il knows she’s not telling.

“All I know is when a Seraphim points, I go. And when I’m told to fight, I fight. And when I tell
you
to fight, you fight. Clear? Trust the guy above you and it all works out.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A week passed before Hunter could find the courage to ask Hash about the “meeting” with Mika’il.

Hash had woken Hunter early, a mischievous glint in his eye. “We’re going for a little hike,” he said with a smile, tossing a heavy backpack at him.

Five hours later, gasping and feeling like his lungs were about to burst, Hunter reached the tip of the summit. Below lay the Rocky Mountains, the white-capped peaks dotting the landscape like soft-whipped cream. The ascent had been quick and painful, alternating between beratings from Hash when Hunter would slow, and sudden, large gains when the student achieved his paradox. Now, observing the snow-covered tracks that led up the mountain side, he breathed in a deep lungful of clean mountain air and started to hack.

“Careful,” Hash said. He was annoyingly free of sweat and breathing easily. “The air is thin up here.” He removed his pack and handed a canteen to Hunter, who gave him a grateful look between bouts of wheezing. He took a deep pull from the leather container, and sank gratefully to the stony ground. He stared at the midnight blue sky as he gathered his breath.

“Can I die?” Hunter asked after his coughs subsided.

“What a stupid question,” Hash replied, munching on a pile of nuts and fruit he had pulled from his pack.

“Not really, considering how close I came on this hike.”

Hash laughed, bits of nuts spraying from his lips. “Please. You just scaled one of the tallest mountains in the continental U.S. In five hours. You’re of the sixth order, drama queen—the closest you came to dying was when you asked me ‘are we there yet,’ for the eighth time.”

Hunter laughed, which started a fresh bout of coughing. After a moment they subsided, and he said, “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Of course you can die. You’ve probably lived a dozen lifetimes already.”

“Yeah. But what about
real
death,” Hunter said.
Hash shrugged and continued chewing, saying nothing. Hunter shook his head and let it go. Hash would tell him when he was ready.

The silence stretched. Hunter sat upon his rocky perch and took in the view. Slowly, his shoulders relaxed, releasing stress he hadn’t even known was there. The silence was deeper up here, away from the roar of the city, the buzz of machinery. It was clear, crisp. It was the moment Hunter had been waiting for. Here, alone, towering above the world at this remote peak was the first time Hunter felt comfortable broaching the topic the two men had been avoiding all week.

“Hash…” Hunter began.

“Hunter—” Hash started to say.

Both men laughed a bit nervously, and Hunter motioned for Hash to go first, hoping the older man would address the elephant in the room.

But instead, Hash asked, “Why do you think we’re here?”

“Like…on Earth?”

“Hilarious.” Hash put his hands behind his head and leaned back, his chin pointing toward the canvas of sky. He closed his eyes.

“You look like a Virtue.”

“Oh Lord, save me from witty men. Seriously, Hunter. Why did I bring you here?”

Hunter shrugged, shifting awkwardly. “I guess…well, look. About last week, it was—”

“Stop,” the large man held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“I need to say it.”

“No,” said Hash. “You don’t. I know what Mika’il told you, and that’s the last of it. I’m not about to disobey a direct order from a Seraphim.”

Hunter lowered the canteen. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know damn well,” Hash said, eyes sweeping the mountain side, the open sky, anywhere that wasn’t Hunter.

“No. Please be more cryptic.”

Hash finally met Hunter’s eyes, and the student saw something he never would have imagined—Hash was scared. “Seriously?” He asked. “She didn’t tell you?”

“Guess not. The only thing Mika’il told me was the same pep talk she gives all the boys and girls: ‘We’re the best,’” Hunter said, in a stiff, high-pitched voice, hoping to lighten the mood. “’We’re the cool kids. We’re all brothers and sisters, and make sure you drink the Kool-Aid at lunch or we won’t hang out with you anymore.’” Hunter looked over at Hash, his grin fading. “You’re serious.”

“Look, I know this hasn’t been easy—”

“Come on. I already heard this crap from Mika’il.”

“You’re going to hear it again,” Hash rumbled, and Hunter knew he was at the limits of the older man’s patience. Over the past month Hunter had learned to shut up when he heard that voice. And now, observing Hash with this guarded, frightened look on his face, Hunter was starting to suspect the real reason his mentor had forced him to climb a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

“I was twelve at my christening,” Hash said. He looked at Hunter expectantly, but the student had learned his lesson and stayed silent. Hash gave him a small nod and continued. “I was a boy, just going through those first awkward, adolescent steps. Though in my case it was a little different, since I’d been living on the street for three years before they found me. I was lucky it was the
Elohim
; I didn’t have to go through what you did,” Hash gave Hunter a tight-lipped smile.

“Anyway,” he continued. “The first time I met an Apkallu I was picking pockets at a neighborhood rally. It was something to do with politics, and everyone was so focused on the parade of speakers they never noticed the little black kid who kept ‘accidentally’ bumping into them.” Hash smiled, his eyes distant, then his face grew rigid. “I was going to call it a day. The soup kitchen had just opened, and a couple of the regulars used to give me an extra bowl if I got there early. They probably felt bad they were serving a minor and not calling social services, but you know how it is,” Hash motioned to his and Hunter’s sculpted face. “Most people just want to get us out of the way as quickly as possible. But they were good people, and they never mentioned how uncomfortable I must have made them.

“I was heading out of the rally when I felt a hand grab my wrist. I freaked out, naturally, figuring I’d been caught, and I did my usual disappearing routine. I twisted my wrist, trusting my strength to let me escape—even at that age I had already begun to count on my gifts—and froze when the hand didn’t loosen. And to make it worse, when I followed the hand to its owner, guess what?”

“It was a woman,” Hunter said, right on cue.

Hash nodded. “She didn’t say a word, just stared at me with those dead, blue eyes until I finally pissed myself in terror.” Hunter frowned, remembering his first meeting with Mika’il and the reaction she’d caused. It hadn’t been fear—it had been unmitigated, animal lust.

“She didn’t waste any time,” Hash continued. “Just dragged me out of the rally, not caring if anyone saw—I’m sure we made a sight, the white lady dragging away the dirty, black kid—threw me in a car, and hauled my ass straight to an
agioi
. I didn’t know what was happening, so I cried and blubbered and made a general mess of myself until it was all over. And when it was finally through, when my sigil had announced who I was, well…you know what Mika’il did?”

Just as before, Hunter had a strange sense that yes, he did know, but stayed silent, intuition telling him that Hash needed to get through this. Maybe he never had before.

“She looked down at me and said, ‘You’re mine, Hashmal. My Domination. Forever.’” He stopped, eyes glazed in memory, looking out on the wide, distant horizon, lost and alone. Hunter said nothing, lost in his own way.

“See, that’s what I’m getting at,” Hash turned and met his student’s eyes. “We’re hers, all of us. Cherubim on down. It doesn’t matter what choir you belong too, it doesn’t matter the gifts you possess—to the Seraphim we’re all ammunition for their goddamn war. They give the orders, we obey. We don’t have a choice.”

Hash stood, stretching his blocky arms until the joints cracked. He took a couple of steps around the rocky summit, then turned back. “Except you, Hunter.”

“What?” Hunter, who had been lulled into a kind of meditative lethargy by Hash’s deep, gravelly voice, started awake.

“You,” Hash repeated. “Mika’il has shared maybe a dozen words with me in the last five years. I can count on one hand how many people she’s had private conversations with, and not a single one is lower than a Domination. You’ve been here for four weeks and she spends five hours in a locked cell with you? You almost kill me, one of the only generals she has left, and the only thing she asks me afterward is if I really gave you a direct command to stop?”

“Look,” Hunter stood. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I didn’t mean—” But Hash waved him away.

“Come on. You’re hardly the first acolyte to throw a temper-tantrum and try to break my skull. Good thing Mama Hash makes them tough,” He smiled, finally, and winked. “Besides, a Power getting the drop on me isn’t the fault of the student. Jesus, Hunter, don’t you get what I’m telling you?”

Hunter slowly shook his head, his arms prickling.

“Why did I bring you to one of the most remote spots in the country?” Hash asked. “If Mika’il hears what I’m about to say…” He stopped, crossed his arms and took a deep breath. “You ignore direct commands, your sigil shifts, we
still
don’t know your true name, you can’t achieve a consistent paradox, and you hold conversations with Seraphim like it’s the fucking
Actor’s Studio.
Hunter, you’re not…you’re not
normal
. And whatever the reason, it frightens the ever-living shit out of Mika’il.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The dying day was colder than Hunter expected, even taking winter into account. He had spent almost fifteen years in the mountain state, but had never grown used to the sudden weather changes. The chill sank deep into his bones as he sat cross-legged and slightly hunched in the shadowy, late-afternoon light. Around him stood the stout pine trees of the Rocky Mountains—evergreens that pointed toward the slate-gray sky, surrounded by groves of Aspens, white and spotted in the late winter chill.

Hunter had traveled the mountains a hundred times since his family moved to Colorado when he was just a boy. At first, his father thought the long hikes and lectures over which berries to eat and how to light a fire would toughen his timid son. Then, later, when Hunter had shot past his father in height, shoulders filling out and timidity laid aside for awkward adolescence, he’d hoped it would give the kid a dose of reality. Maybe shock his son from of the strange, inward turning he’d seen in the boy ever since his dog died. And then, after Hunter had taken on his frightening, preternatural beauty and caused suspicion and outright hostility in strangers, he just wanted to get his kid out of the city and away from other people.

Hunter had understood that the frequent hiking trips and camping excursions were the only way his father knew to communicate with a son who seemed to grow more removed with every passing day. Now, knowing what he did about who and what he was, Hunter wondered if his father had always suspected in some small way that his son wasn’t entirely human.

It must have been an impossibly hard thing for a father to accept. Hunter figured he must have fought against it, the first time the thought popped into his head. He must have been filled with shame afterward, guilt overpowering the truth that lay tucked-away in the corner of his mind: Thomas Friskin’s son wasn’t normal.

Hunter understood all of this now, and looking back forgave his father for the distance that had grown between them. Distance which Hunter had always secretly blamed on his dad, figuring the old man must have given up on his son when he decided not to pursue the football scholarship that five different universities offered.

His father had been dead for five years now, and every year Hunter forced himself to come up here, to the quiet, removed recesses of the Rockies. Not to remember him—there was too much pain, confusion and love to allow something simple like “remembering.” But Hunter hoped, in his own small, unvoiced way, that if he made himself take the trip each year maybe he could still prove something to his father; prove whatever had made his dad bring him up here in the first place.

“No fucking way,” Hash said when Hunter told him what he was planning. “You’re out of your damned mind. You’ve been here a month, a baby has a better grasp of its gifts. I’m not letting you wander the wilderness by yourself because you have daddy issues.”