“No you don’t,” she threw right back, positively.
“Yes, I do.”
“No. You don’t.”
“Yes. I do.”
“No you don’t.” Her sighed response and monotone said she was prepared to repeat it another thousand times, no problem.
Ruin shook his head. “You’re so damn obstinate. And for what? Because I don’t know what love is? Are you sure you should fault me for that? Seeing as I’m not really human?”
She gave a light miffed noise but he sensed an advantageous break in her wall.
“I assure you if I were entirely human I’d know what it is you think I should know.”
“What should you know?” She looked at him now. “Say it.”
“What love is.”
She squinted her eyes and turned away like she’d expected him to have a hard time answering what it was that he didn’t know.
“Don’t you see that because I have no issue saying I don’t love you it’s actually a good thing?”
She did that head swivel thing again, squinting at him. “Come again?”
“I mean if it me not knowing love was bad, then I’d know that.”
She turned her squinty gaze forward. “Wait… so it’s good that you don’t love me because if you did, it’d be bad?”
Wow, how could she…“What? No. If it was bad that I didn’t love you, I’d know. I don’t feel like it’s bad.”
She gasped. “Well I feel like it’s bad! What about how I feel! Is this all about the awesome and powerful Ruin with the endless muscles and-and sexy green eyes and Wiley ways with women?” He couldn’t keep from smiling and she jabbed a finger at him. “And then you laugh at those misfortunate enough to be ensnared by your sick bag of tricks, laugh at people who are…” She turned toward the window.
Ruin wanted to stab his eyes out when her voice had gone hoarse and she couldn’t finish her sentence. “Isadore, I am sorry that you’re hurt. I wouldn’t say that if I wasn’t, you know that.”
“Well whoop tee doo,” she barely managed in a tiny voice. “You’re sorry. You’re sorry that my heart is ripped into two bazillion pieces and thrown in the trash.”
“Angel,” Ruin whispered around the stabbing pressure in his chest. “I don’t like that I don’t love you any more than you do.”
“Stop!” she gasped, looking at him like he was a monster. “My God, stop saying it! I can’t stand it. I’d rather be shot in the ear than hear it. At least then I might actually die instead of having this stupid hole in my chest that doesn’t bleed, it just sits there like a stupid hole with no reason but to… make me wish I was dead.”
“Jesus—“
“Don’t you dare say that name to me,” she shot out, “you don’t even believe in God.” She jabbed her finger repeatedly, as though realizing something. “And that is no doubt why you are broken mister. You are broken because you are defiant against God.” She nodded incessantly before turning away with a tiny squeaking, “And here I go falling in love with you.” She tossed her hands in her lap. “Falling in love with a broken angel, that’s me. Can’t do anything right, always manage to find a way to fuck shit up.” She wiped her face with the back of her arms.
Her pain was suffocating him and he rolled down the window to breathe around it. “How is it that I hurt the one I need to protect more than my own life?” he wondered to himself.
“Like a puppy, that’s what I am to you. A clown puppy. Pathetic and weird who likes to mop her problems out and dissect mice brains and say it’s to help save the world when really it’s to try and figure out what’s so wrong with me that nobody can love me.”
“Fuck, Isadore! Stop!” he gasped. “You’re so wrong.” But so much of what she said was true and frustration to analyze which, tore him. “I don’t even like animals!”
“Oh,” she cried lightly, flopping her hands again, “and he misses the bloody point.”
“Well quit saying things that don’t apply.”
“Well I thought you did your homework with your goddamn idioms!” The words growled out like a rabid dog as Ruin pulled into a parking lot. “Now, what are you doing?” she whispered, wiping her eyes, looking around.
“This is it.”
“A…retirement home? A retirement home is your assignment? Are you supposed to kill old people or something?” Like she’d lose the rest of her fragile mind if it were.
“Is that what this place is?” A living graveyard? What. The. Hell?
“Well…what are you supposed to do here? I don’t get it?” She looked at him, her eyes worried and wide. “You think maybe you get a chance to make it right.”
He looked at her, not needing more senseless mysteries. “Make what right?”
“What you did to Mr. Thibodeaux!” she cried.
“I already made that right!”
“By killing him?” she shrilled.
He turned in his seat, dumbfounded. “What are you not understanding? You are not a stupid woman, you’re a scientist. Do the deductions, Angel. I’m a Carnificem, remember? I judge and I execute. And I told you,” he pointed at her, “if you have a problem with that, take it up with your Creator. So if that is my job—“
“But you said yourself you’re powers are messed up! What if you’re judging wrong?”
“Not about that, no,” he shook his head, positive.
“How do you know for sure? What about your block? What if you think you’re right but you’re wrong? Huh?”
“No. I know when it’s right and wrong, I just…”
“What-what, you just what?”
“I just don’t know everything. There are some things I don’t know, but what I do know, I know.” He cut the air with a hand.
“Okay, okay,” she said lightly. “So let’s do the math like you said. What are you here for? Do you even know?”
He shook his head looking around. “No. I don’t.”
“Homework. Something you need to work on, finish, figure out, that’s what homework is. So in the retirement home, we are going to encounter something you need to learn, correct?”
“I would assume and hope, yes.”
“And this…” she rolled her hand as though drawing the words to her, “information that you-you gain is something you need to know, should know, and don’t know.” She pointed at him. “Because of what Caliber said, you’re not seeing, that means you should see and can’t… and until you do…” she nodded as though figuring it out as she spoke, “you can’t do the mission! And so that means whatever you’re not knowing or remembering is something you need to know to do that.”
He stared at her, fighting for patience. “Isadore…why are you stating all the obvious facts?”
She gasped, her jaw dropped. “To figure it out!”
“What have you figured out?”
“I’ll tell you what I figured out--”
“Good, tell me.”
“I will if you shut up and let me tell you how we humans do things. We consider all of the variables in a problem when we’re solving them. We look at all the angles before we tackle, we find out as much as we possibly can with what we don’t know to help us narrow down what we need to know. You’re looking for an answer to a problem you don’t even know. So you need to know all about what you don’t know.”
“Well I realize I’m only part human, but that is the exact process I am using as well.”
“Good! And what did you figure out?”
“That I need to go in there and discover what I need to learn instead of sitting here talking in circles with you about what I don’t know.”
“Circles.”
“Basically, yes.”
“Fine, Mr. Smart-ass. Let’s go in blind and trip on whatever it is you need to know, possibly break and maim old people in the process.”
Ruin opened his door when the assignment in his body gave him a burning jab. Isadore met him at the front of the truck, even as Scriber appeared at their side. “Are you coming
?” Ruin asked.
“I must. Nobody can see me.”
That was exactly Ruin’s worry. The public seeing him and flipping out. “Ok.” Ruin looked forward and took a breath and then a chance of asking. “You have any idea what I’m doing here?”
Scriber turned his black face to him and Ruin struggled to find his eyes in the dark abyss. “To judge and execute.” Like that were obvious.
“What?” Isadore hissed. “At an old folk’s home? Please no, why? Why here?”
Ruin started forward, ready to figure out what it was about judging here that he needed to learn or know.
“Wait a minute!” Isadore yanked on his arm after catching up. But he couldn’t stop, his body had heard the directive and it was like Scriber had loaded the gun. His power was gearing up, ready or not, he’d better have it aimed in the right direction. “You can’t do this, Ruin.”
Ten feet from the building, he stopped and closed his eyes, mentally locating his targets. Ten humans, ready for judgement and execution. “I’ll do it from out here. It’s a Kanénas Diago̱nismós.”
“Good,” Scriber murmured, eying the area. “The less trouble, the better.”
“What?” Isadore whispered. “What is that?”
“Means nobody is contesting the judgements.”
“Well I am!”
Ruin took a careful breath, steadying his gathering power. “Sorry Angel. You don’t count in that.”
“Says who!” she hissed angrily then turned to pleading, “Why here, Ruin, I’m begging you, please don’t do this, let’s go to a-a prison or something, a drug neighborhood, judge those who deserve it! Ruin!”
Isadore’s words echoed from a distance outside of the sphere of power around him now. His right eye throbbed as the Soul Prison moved into place, the hot wires locking into his jaw and skull, even in his brain. The Kleftis swarmed around him, ready to steal a human soul during transportation. To live part of their wretched damned existence in the human realm was a delicacy they reveled in obtaining, even for the briefest of moments, and the very idea filled him with a subconscious and bloodthirsty need to prevent them. “You should wait in the truck, Isadore.”
“Oh my God, you’re going to do this?”
He jerked his gaze to her and she stiffened in shock. He had no clue what he looked like with Soul Prison on but judging by the horror in her expression, it wasn’t anything that impressed the ladies. Oddly, what bothered him more was the trouble she was giving him about this, knowing he had no choice in the matter. “Go to the truck.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to kill an old person,” she whispered, her disgust loud and clear. “Again,” she added. “And I won’t leave,” she shook her head, adamantly. “I’m staying.”
Fine.
“Watch for the Diávolos Pipílisma,” Scriber announced with caution. “They’re headed this way.”
It was the first time he’d heard the word, but understanding and alarm filled him. “Why would they be involved?”
“Because you’re special. But it’s her they come for.”
“Her? How and why?”
“I can’t say.” Scriber nodded once. “Grim.”
Ruin glanced right at the silent presence of the Transporter in his human form, still a giant in size. Like the being’s attendance was a green light, the power to execute barreled through Ruin like a locomotive with rocket boosters. He shut his eyes and located each judged soul and held both palms out, sending forth the whispered command, “Díkaios Termatismoú.” Ruin mentally followed the ten bolts of fire that shot from his fingers into the building. Upon hitting their targets, the Soul Prison triggered and ten slivers of metal blasted forth from his right eye. The hooks latched on to the judged and raced back at an extreme velocity, creating a warbled, screaming whipping sound.
“The Diávolos Pipílisma are here,” Scriber whispered. His eyes and tattoos suddenly glowed bright red, and blood like ink erupted from all ten fingers, rigid and erect at his sides. The liquid flooded the ground around them, then raced up invisible dome walls, cocooning them in crimson fire. “Finish now,” Scriber said calmly, red ink barely leaking from his fingers now.
Ruin bound the ten human souls with the blue fire and shot them to Grim who caught the sphere with that same practiced ease from before then disappeared, like he was needed elsewhere instantly, or preferred not being there.
The air suddenly vibrated and tingled before turning to a full out growl much like at Isadore’s just before Scriber showed up. “Go to the truck.” Scriber looked all around them as Ruin did as told, the dome walls pulsating in various areas like an erratic heartbeat.
In this realm, Ruin was quickly learning that everything seemed to have less to do with power, and more to do with right and wrong. And it was also apparent to him that those laws were being manipulated using the inconsistency of free will and the shitty make-up of human nature. Every human act had a power behind it, every power had an authority, and every authority had a purpose—dirty bombs constituted by free will and amended by angelic and demonic influence unto the driving of humanity—yes driving, for it certainly wasn’t government that was going on, it was very much active directing.
But for what? To gain the loyalty of humans? Gain frailty and sickness? Unto what purpose and end? Ruin saw no point in prolonging the inevitable, and maybe that’s what this was all about, angelic influence in high gear to hurry along the clean-up of the human mistake. Ruin, even as half human could logically see the human creation was flawed, the plan was flawed, which seemed to lead back to the extremely even wonderfully flawed flesh. He’d seen it first-hand, felt it, the power of that mistake. And if said appetites were addictive by their very nature, how was one supposed to achieve not becoming addicted and being ruled by that addiction? On top of that, what would happen if full angels had such influences? Would the condition not affect them at all, or would it affect them more perfectly? Judging by how he felt with Isadore, he’d wager affect more perfectly. He was so perfectly subject to her, that he couldn’t watch her speak without envisioning his manhood between her lips. Not even the disgrace of such a weakness could remove the fire in his bones just the thought caused.
In the truck, Ruin pulled a silent but terrified Isadore close to him as they watched Scriber eye the dome above. “What’s he doing?” she whispered. “How many people did you kill?”
“I hope he’s coming and that what we’re doing is leaving.”
“How many did you kill?”
Of course she’d press that. “Only ten.”
She gasped and jerked toward him. “Only? Only? Oh my God, you say it like it’s nothing.”
“Sorry.” He eyed the east side of the blood dome that Scriber now faced. “But Judging and Executing is normal for me, and it’d be really nice if you came to grips with that.”
More gasping shock and silent staring at him. “Normal?”
“Look, don’t judge my genetic make-up and I won’t judge your need to breathe, ok?”
She turned said judgemental stare to the windshield. “That is not normal. And what is he doing now?” She gasped as Scriber changed colors again. “He’s purple. Even his dress, oh wow, look how beautiful.”
“Yes, and his body, I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
She leaned away from him, regarding him pointedly. “I did, yes. And his eyes.”
Ruin was too worried to be angry. “I just hope that’s his kick-ass-and-leave- color.” He watched the dome shake and tremble on the left and Scriber raise his right hand. A brilliant purple ink slowly floated out of his pointer finger. Holding his arm extended, he began running to the truck, the purple slowly spreading along that wall like a vein of webs, slowly getting brighter.
Ruin started the truck at seeing his urgency and Scriber jumped in the front this time. “Leave very quickly. There will be aftershocks.”
Chapter Seven
Ruin tore out as fast as the machine allowed and headed in the direction of the next
assignment, already screaming in his spine. The urgency troubled him. If it was another judgement, Isadore would be worse than pissed. Already he sensed a change in her toward him for the ten souls he’d judged as commanded, as created to do, as he had no choice to do. And Ruin felt the indignation of her unrighteous judgement burning a special path through his special bones.
“Can you go faster?”
Scriber’s tense words drew Ruin’s gaze to the mirror just as the truck rocked and skidded on the road with an explosion that nearly tossed them from the pavement. Red and purple ink rushed toward them from behind then. “Maximum velocity,” Ruin said. “Is that going to hit us?”
“It’s not the ink I’m worried about, it’s what might escape it.”
“Shit,” Ruin muttered, as Isadore turned to watch the back glass while he held the accelerator to the floor. His gaze moved from mirror to road, hoping to her God the thing continued with no turns.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” Isadore whispered. “What is that?”
“Excuse me.” Scriber climbed out the window and into the back of the truck. Ruin caught sight of him writing in the air, his color like setting sun now. Ruin read the word, wondering why he wrote them as he climbed back into the cab. “That should distract them.”
“Why did you write mirror?” Isadore remained fixated on the still approaching hellish beings rapidly closing on them. Close enough now to see the block-headed creatures with square mouths, no eyes, and nine inch nail teeth.
“They love looking in mirrors.”
“I don’t get it,” Isadore whispered. “Won’t that like make them want to come more?”
“That is the idea.”
Ruin eyed the word in the rear-view mirror. It travelled along with them at ninety-five miles per-hour, despite the odometer’s hundred twenty lying claim made by some human.
“Allagi.”
At Scriber’s mutter, the word ceased to travel with them and Ruin watched as it expanded into a rectangular wall of iridescent orange, rimmed with matching flames. It was like a supernatural circus act as beast after hellish beast jumped through, disintegrating as they entered the glass in a show of glittery orange sparks against the now black sky. “Oh my God,” Isadore whispered in awe, then in alarm, “Oh my God! They’re still coming.”