--David Batista
June 7, 2020
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You stand transfixed just inside the door of the diner when you see her waiting at your usual booth. More than a few customers peel furtive glances your way as you let vestiges of dawn chill into the place. It’s simply too early for some to care much, and those few return to their first meals with barely a grunt. The others glower until you realize that you’ve been holding the door open the whole time.
Not one of them senses what an important day this will be, as last ones go.
So you step into the cheerless establishment, the door clicking shut behind you a hermetic seal on the outside world. From this moment on you’re nothing if not committed to what comes next.
Yes, the decision’s been made, but you dare pretend to be one of them for a while longer. You nod politely to the cashier as you walk by, who’s back to reading her tweenage paranormal romance without a care as to who you are. You’ll remember to tag her on the way out.
Around you the diner returns to its normal subdued hubbub commensurate with this time of morning. Everybody’s preoccupied with their own troubles to recognize the monster prowling in their midst. They pay you no mind as you pad your way toward the back, touching each patron on the shoulder with a practiced nonchalance that goes similarly unnoticed. Their naïveté fuels your boldness, to the point that the plan you concocted seems less foolhardy than it did a week ago after her final follow-up visit with the specialist.
And at last you’re standing at her booth, the one against the wall. Your booth. That classic checkerboard black and white pattern you remember from decades ago. She’s as lovely as always, timeless. Elfin features framed by mid-cropped, raven hair styled in the fashion of the time, curled around perfect ears; almond-shaped eyes turned downcast upon the oversized mug steaming before her. The usual English Breakfast tea, you know, made pale from too much cream and just a spoon or two of sugar. The sight brings back familiar memories from another era.
She pretends not to notice your arrival, but the surprise lift of her bare shoulders betrays such coyness. She holds her breath, anticipating. It’s all you can do not to trace a finger along the slender curve of her neck. Your eye detects a slight tremble there, aware as she is of your need. But you’re not ready. No, not yet. The urge is too painful, too insistent to indulge so soon. You need space. Perspective. Like an artist stepping back to admire the forest for the trees, you need a better view of the canvas.
You need more time!
So you continue walking past. In your wake, even above the murmur of groggy morning chitchat around you, you hear the small exhalation of her disappointment. But she’s a patient soul and knows you’ll return. Wise beyond her years, your love; a shining beacon of calm against the dark storm of your heart.
Yes, even monsters have hearts. And, oh, don’t you believe for one second she’d let you get away with such thoughts!
We’ve discussed this before, darling.
The
memory of her words falter your steps. You lean hard against the cheap Formica
table propped against the rear wall of the establishment. The teenagers in the
next booth pay you no mind, engrossed as they are in their handheld gadgets and
unconscious ribbing of one another. They’re dressed for school, with bulky bags
stuffed between their legs as if concealing the stolen treasures of
The elderly woman sitting catty-corner from your table is a different matter. She’s propped a weathered walking stick beside her seat, head cocked at your approach. A patient seeing-eye dog rests his head on calico paws at her feet, harnessed and all. But if the old girl’s blind then why is she staring right at you? She doesn’t just see you, she sees you. Straight into your soul, bad man. Milky eyes track your unsteady movement, a knowing smile curved beneath a broad, flat nose. She nods twice in your direction, wispy white hair all a-flounce beneath a floral babushka tied around her chin. She could be someone’s grandmother, though certainly not yours.
You collapse into the empty chair, ignoring Madame for now. You have someone else on your mind. Speaking of which . . .
You can see her clearly from here. Those bared café-au-lait shoulders rise and fall with the knowledge of your eyes upon her. She leafs through a magazine while stirring her tea, a masterful show of indifference. She can play your game, too, you see?
You fight the ghost of a smile, letting timeworn memories finally have their due.
#
“It comes to an end, you know? It always does.”
She distracts you with a smile, loving caresses at the small of your back as you watch her. Such exquisite pleasure in those tiny, delicate hands. The slender fingers of a surgeon. Or an artist. That’s what you want to tell her, but the words never leave your lips. Compliments were always a riddle to you, as melody is to a tone-deaf troubadour. So instead you project concern and worry.
“What does, my love? This day? Or do you mean, us?”
She nuzzles your cheek with her nose, breathes into the one ear not pressed against decadent soft silk pillows. “Stop that,” she whispers, her breath like a warm promise of surrender. “We’ve discussed this before, darling. You deserve this. Us. Never believe otherwise.”
It’s the one command of hers you cannot obey. She alone knows the terrible truth of your soul.
“What will come to an end, then?” You trap her in your arms, but the deft maneuver is not a success. Nimbly slipping free, her laughter is like dancers’ feet pirouetted across the gilded arched ceiling of the palace quarters.
“Happiness,” she replies, that smile still on her lips. “It’s only fleeting, so the poets say.”
“Which poet? I shall have his tongue for spreading such untruths, milady.”
But the jest misses its mark, eliciting not even the customary punch in the arm you expect. She returns to the pillows in all seriousness, one slender hand on your cheek as she watches you with concern. Once, she fell you with a single glance of those soft brown eyes. Have you forgotten?
“Darling,” she urges. “Let’s enjoy this time. Right here in this moment. For soon I will leave this world and our warmth will be just a dream.”
“But the sultan’s physicians, they say . . .”
A
tapered finger against your lips silences you, replaced with a brief kiss. “My
father’s sycophants, you mean? They would say anything to gain his appeasement.
I haven’t much time, as you well know. So forget your duty for a little while
longer,
You know you should rebel against such acquiescence. Tell her how you won’t allow her to be taken. You alone have such power, for time bows to your will. But those eyes douse the fires of your defiance. Now it’s her arms which have you ensnared, helpless to escape. Yet if this is a cage, then surely your imprisonment’s eternal.
Alas, you realized in that moment. Now there’s a thought!
#
An
elegantly dressed man has entered the diner without your notice, normally an
impossible feat. The seal you’ve placed on the entrance collapses multifold
into the time stream. Technically speaking, this establishment no longer exists.
In static time, a burnt out husk now sits where the squat structure once stood.
Yet there he is, obstructing your view of the woman you love. Something
familiar in his oval face and high cheekbones as well. A hint of the
The eyes always give it away.
But he doesn’t make notice of you. Not yet. You still have the upper hand at least, but you don’t make a move, arm crooked in an ‘L’ upon your wobbly small table, chin cradled in the palm of your hand. I’m no threat, you project. Just a young daydreamer full of his own piss. Pay me no mind.
The newcomer closes his eyes, seeming to soak it all in. He sports a wide-brimmed hat, dressed to the nines in three-piece pinstripes. Windsor-knotted striped tie, charcoal wool overcoat snug at the shoulders and full through the waist. An obscenely bright white silk scarf completes the ensemble. Suddenly those hard eyes flash open again. The well-dressed man strides forward, brushing past you like he owns the place.
Good. You want him to believe he has the upper hand.
You move to follow when it stops you in mid-turn. The booth. Her booth—your booth. It’s empty! You slowly rise so as not to attract attention from the other diners, but what passes for a heart these days trip-hammers in your chest. You’re flustered, panicked. You’ve lost your cool.
WHERE IS SHE?
But wait—there! You can see it now that you’re standing. Her white-on-blue snowflake sweater pressed into the curve of the booth. The open magazine, dog-eared and crammed beneath the lip of the saucer. Her precious shoulder bag tucked into a corner of the plush cushions, which you already know is filled with: a change of clothing, her oversized shades for after-treatment walks, meds and attendant literature, that cumbersome Russian novel she’s been months in the reading. And a certain sepia photo of you both, taken when the technology was still just a marvel of wizardry to the road-side Bedouin who captured it for a few francs. She was not much younger in those days, but, oh, full of such hope!
And you? Well . . . was there ever a youth for you?
But something tugs at the back of your mind. You didn’t forget so soon, did you? Yes, him. All this time, and here you left your back exposed for a—
The feral spin is missing nothing but the snarl for all you’ve nearly revealed your true form. And what do you get for your trouble? Nothing but a table of hungry teenagers staring at you as if you’ve just broken into a spirited rendition of Don Giovanni. Can it be they’ve learned their own fates? Do they know the doom you’ve orchestrated for them and everyone else at the diner that morning? But the kids are spooked by something else, your one normal eye shows you. They’re fidgety and pouty, and not in the precocious way of youths. Too tense, for one. And those flashy toys of theirs are nowhere to be seen.
The elderly babushka at the next table is fairing no better. She sits there absently sipping at her soup from a large spoon, brow crinkled and eyes storm-cloud grey under the eatery’s soft candescent lighting. Is she aware that her time has come as well? Does she know of the danger you bring? She’s clearly troubled over something, or someone. You feel you should know what it is . . . something’s missing from the picture, yes?
Yes. Strange tidings are afoot here for sure, but that’s the least of your worries. Your elegantly dressed quarry has gone missing. Which is impossible since there isn’t much diner left back there to begin with. What were you thinking letting him out of your sight?
It’s then that the door to a heretofore unnoticed back room flaps outward, disgorging a rumpled mouse of a bus boy carrying an empty tray. He slides sideways past you, nearly trips over one of the teenagers’ outstretched feet, and skips ahead on squeaky Converses that have seen better days.
You ignore him for now, returning your gaze back to that familiar checkerboard booth again. This is your whole world falling to pieces around you. Quickly, find her!
So you resort to that old skill from a time before time. Damn who sees you use it, too. Your senses dial up to eleven, a nose that would put a bloodhound to shame. The cheap perfume off the waitress two booths over. The more subtle, though no less pungent, gas leak coming from the kitchen, which of course no one will notice until it’s too late.
And . . . the scent off her favorite sweater, taking on a form of its own. It fills your lungs, bleeds into your good eye. Thoughts all akimbo inside that prehistoric brain of yours, the memories simply pile on like an avalanche behind the heady, familiar scent. Her trail is faint, which makes no damn sense at all. Your gaze snaps up. He’s in the back room with her for sure!
Remembering to tap each adolescent on the shoulder first, you head for the double-hinged door, whisper soft like the preternatural predator some of your victims mistake you for before their end. But what you are, it’s older than all that. Death is at your fingertips and shadows lengthen behind your stride.
The walking stick jams into your gut just below where your celiac plexus would be if you were mortal. You’re stuck, staring in disbelief at the wizened little grandma smiling not so sweetly up at you. You don’t know how she’s doing it, but suddenly you can’t move. You only stare, helpless, in the grip of her power.
“Beware, pale rider,” the old woman intones. Her sightless eyes see you for who you really are, and it’s all you can do not to unleash your inner badass and put her straight. But what she says next knocks the fight right out of you.
“He’s come to collect,” she whispers knowingly. “He’ll take that which is most precious to you. That which you love most, sad one. And you won’t know you’ve lost it. It’s his game, you see? All his now. He’s—”
She touches your arm, and suddenly the words drown away under a deluge of heightened sensory input. It’s the Old Magic taken hold of you, coughing up dusty remembrances in your hind brain of an age before time began. When the promise of man was but a dream, and wispy godlings flittered across the starscape on gossamer wings in their merriment. It’s faint . . . oh so sweet, the melody in your ears. The eldritch scent of juniper and sage fills the air. Brief flashes of the First Forests draw you forward, endless in their verdant majesty, chasing shadows in their wake.
You blink. Once. Twice. The diner emerges around you like from a dissipating fog. The old woman stares ahead, mouth open as if lost in thought. The stick drops from her lifeless hands, freeing you from her spell. It’s only when you bend to retrieve it that you notice her pawed companion has gone missing.
“Oh, thank you,” she chirps, sincere gratitude behind the words. Her hand stretches out, grasping air. You straighten and hand it back to her, watch as she returns the cane by her side and pats it protectively. The fae whiff of wee folk’s blood you sniff running through her veins has diluted over the many years, but was once potent. Where has her strength gone so suddenly?
Of course, you know the answer already as you tag her without a word and head for the back room. It’s been eighty years since your last encounter, but it’s time to confront your old foe at last.
#
“They’re
coming,” she says matter-of-factly, turning away from the large bay window of
your rented
She’s right, you think. Very soon now.
Their third-floor apartment is sparse of all the usual items a married couple accumulates over time. A simple table-and-chair arrangement placed near the cozy kitchenette. There’s an armchair beside a bulky Victrola as well. Wonderful technology, the latter, but who has time for jaunty ditties these days?
Because there’s that other concern, as always. A bed disheveled and damp from the ravages of your love’s consuming illness fills the far corner. The doctors in this era are no more useless than the charlatans of the sultan’s court. It’s time to move on. You’ve lingered too long in this modern age of terrible wonders, besides. The Great War is ended, but already you feel the dark storm of another, much larger, conflict brewing on the headwinds of tomorrow. Soon your services will be in greater demand than ever before, and they will come demanding you set to rights your one solitary indiscretion centuries ago.
But you’re not ready to give her up yet, so again you must hide her from your kin.
The room shakes as a large thunder boom deafens your ears. This is a different storm, however. One terrible and beautiful altogether in its raw, natural fury, spelling the arrival of the one you’ve been expecting.
“It’s almost done,” you whisper in the gloom, as if such words cannot be heard by your ancient nemesis. You’re cutting it fairly close.
She walks across the bare floor of the spacious apartment, fingering the dark curls of her new expensive wig as she watches you work with wide eyes. The sound of car horns bleating from the streets below lend urgency to your movements; your fingers are flashes of white-hot quicksilver as they dance through the air directing the construct. Already the faint outlines of a prism floating before you has become visible to your one mundane eye, while the other, hidden, orb refocuses to reveal the busy energies you manipulate.
A slim hand grasps your shoulder. “Darling, stop. Please.”
You pause in your labor, but refuse to even hear this conversation again. “No, my dear. We cannot give up. I promised you we will be together, didn’t I? Eternally.” Your fingers continue their weaving pantomime.
“I used to believe this,” she agrees, her hand a warming balm against your bare skin. “I had such grand hope in those days.”
Your good eye catches sight of her smiling wistfully behind the glow of your workmanship. The prism has expanded to a sphere now, large enough to fit a slim human form. Very carefully you begin to interlace the new pattern of your will into the skein holding it all together, and which may someday prove to be her salvation. Hers and yours together.
“And now?” you ask, matching her tremulous tone.
A sigh. “And now, my love, I am tired. Tired of running from destiny. If my condition is by His design, who am I to cheat it?”
“You are mine,” you reply, hating yourself already for the petulant child your tone mimics now. “I have such power to repudiate even fate itself.”
In the end, it is her love for you which makes the difference. Not fear, nor refusal to accept her own fate. She agrees to leave this era behind for you and you alone. And yes, you know you’re being selfish, but you Just. Don’t. Care. This much is owed you, if nothing more.
As the glowing sphere closes around her stilled form, shrinking smaller and smaller, fading with her into the temporal stream, you hear the laughter you so expected.
He’s here!
He’s been watching you the entire time, better than you’d hoped. You anticipate now the disappointment when your brother discovers she is once again beyond Father’s grasp. Your chapped lips curve upward in a smile as the pale light of your labor fades.
The sound of your sibling’s bemusement precedes him, dragging the shadows with it from the far corners of the room, encompassing and forming the shape of a man. Beyond the bay window, the storm laying havoc across the city grows more ferocious, attracted to the great forces now gathering within the tiny lower east side apartment.
Brother, the shadowy figure intones inside your mind. At long last I have found you. Alas, I’ve come to collect . . .
#
When you burst into the back room of the diner, you’re unsurprised to find nothing of consequence there. A low, wide sink already half full of dirty dishes and utensils. A short maze of shelves beyond, with crates of tomatoes stacked to the height of a man wilting against one corner, attracting flies. But your elusive, well-dressed intruder is gone missing.
The bus boy jerks as he nearly runs into you from behind, mouth opened to deliver you a decree ordering you back where customers belong. But the words get stuck when he notices your other eye. The one that’s definitely not human, but something out of every boy’s darkest nightmare. The inky black eye of the monster under the bed, that demon in the closet. Whatever they call it, you’re all that and more, but the poor boy looks ready to wet himself. You’ve dropped your guard and he’s spied what no mortal has ever seen or lived to tell.
It’s his lucky moment, though. It’s not his hour to die, and you have greater matters to attend besides. You tap the young man on the shoulder and wink, then poof! And just like that—
—Just like that, you’re home. You’ve twisted space-time and wrapped it all around you like the regal cloak of a lord returned to govern his realm. The world spirals outward as dimensions peel back, allowing your full form to roam free through the multifold of His consciousness. Layer upon faceted layer churn as a cauldron around you, and your senses extend until the scent of your special quarry is acquired. Finally it all comes collapsing down around your human shell once more, shattering into infinite pieces like twinkling rubies spread across the carpet of primordial night.
In the wake of this fading maelstrom he stands, narrow back turned to you, the sad melody of some ancient tune dying on unseen lips. He’s surrounded by a multitude of hovering objects: glittering orbs suspended in time, spinning, immune to gravity. With your one mortal eye they appear nothing more than mirrored spheres pulsating within the otherwise claustrophobic storage closet of the diner’s back room. A pocket within that room, in fact, accessible only to your kind.
But with your other eye—the one which grants you vision beyond sight—you see past the ordinary, and . . .
The man whirls, discarding the scarf and overcoat in a single fluid motion with a dancer’s flourish.
“Welcome, brother! Good of you to join me at last.”
He grins and bows, one arm curved across his tapered torso, the other thrust theatrically outward indicating his gleaming prizes. But when he lifts his face toward you, those rugged North African features dissolve to reveal a visage so plain and unremarkable, yet familiar all the same.
“Renleth. I should have known.” The words are like bitter fruit falling from your lips. You try not to bite into them with a sneer, but your restraint is not where it should be at the moment. Inadvertently you step forward, hands balled into fists at your side. You hope the performance is a convincing one, even as you spit your next words like a curse, cruelly turned with damning intonation.
“You won’t take her, brother. Not while I yet live.”
He frowns and stands upright once more, this man who is not a man. Brother who was never really your brother. Beyond him your true eye sees the villain for what he is, stretched tall into the upper reaches of existence, scimitar wings blending into shadow. His revealed self is not an ugly form in origin, but it’s become maleficent over the eons. Twisted in design, maligned by cruel intention and deceit. Renny the Wicked, you once called him out of jest. But that was during happier times, back when brothers taunted one another out of love. Never could the Brethren anticipate what the passing millennia would do to each other, or what terrible price service to their Liege would enact on their eternal souls.
You also see the truth behind the glittering spheroids bobbing in the tourbillion of their master’s wake. Their surfaces no longer reflect the illusion of reality. You see them for what they are now, preserved forever in timeless vacuum: a man’s reading glasses, a young woman’s tattered paperback, a child’s gamepad, a blind woman’s dog, and—
Renleth swoops down into mere three-dimensional space with a laugh, grabbing you about the shoulders and pinning you where you stand.
“As you can see, dear brother, I have her. And yet you still exist. At least until I decide what to do with you.”
You shrug him aside, but he makes no move to restrict you a second time. She’s there before you, hand frozen in mid-stir of the tea cup, lips curved upward at one corner of her perfect mouth as if recalling some private joke. And that face. The face that has been your doom ever since the day you came across her chestnut mare foundered alongside that dusty road to Anah. The day you defied your very nature.
The stasis bubble undulates, warping the sweet image of her as the orb drifts away to mingle with the others. You reach out a hand to bring her back.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Nasty consequences, as you well know. Of course, you were always trying to take my things.”
You spin around, grab your nemesis by his well-tailored lapels and press him against a shelf stacked to sagging with canned apricots. “Does this amuse you, Renny? How dare you interfere with my work!”
His features twist from mirth to sneer like stone turned to melting candle wax. A shove sends you stumbling back, hands snapped free of their grasp.
“Brother, your work leaves much to be desired. What has become of you? Cavorting with these creatures!” Tendrils of shadow bloom outward from his shoulder blades, pulsing with each word. “I’ve come to return things to their natural order. We’re all very disappointed in you, you know? Oh, how far you’ve fallen.”
You hear the words but your eyes—one open outward, the other closed within—search the store room for signs of a trap ready to spring. You brush imaginary dust off your clothes as you widen the distance between you, a slow backpedal masked behind the exaggerated whirl of hands. You hope you’re not layering it on too thick.
“They’ve no right to judge me. None of you do. The Brethren feel nothing anymore.” A cynical burst of laughter fills your ears. It comes as a surprise when you realize it for your own. “So tell me, Renny. What is your angle in all this?”
He’s fingering the bejeweled stud on one of his suit’s tailored French cuffs when he pauses, intrigued. The dark umbra of his true form spills down his back and sides like a murky waterfall. It bubbles around his shiny wing-tipped shoes, engulfs them.
“Ah, Delan. You wound me. You truly do. Believe it or not, I’ve come to allow you one more chance. Yes, one more opportunity to regain your rightful place at Father’s side. You see, I never gave up hope for you. There’s still time.”
Atop a pulsating cloud the color of soot, Renleth glides across the small patch of chipped linoleum to wrangle his shiny trophies together. The orbs in his collection are many, and jostle within such close proximity to each other.
“Time,” you reply with a mocking tone. “Yes, I see you’ve finally mastered my old trick, little brother. Only took you all of eternity.”
Renleth peers up from admiring his borrowed handiwork, lips stretched thin in the nightmarish approximation of a smile. “You did always think too highly of your abilities, big brother. But you had to know the day would come when we’d find you again. How long did you think to keep your little plaything from us?”
The orb in which she’s imprisoned jostles to the top of the pile. You step forward without thought, but catch yourself in time from reaching out. If you’re not careful your hated sibling will see right through you. You close your eldritch eye to him, even though the flawed interlaced pattern in his work shines so bright it almost blinds.
How does he not see it?
“Since creation,” you begin, “I’ve done all that’s been asked of me, and asked for naught in return. I alone took upon my shoulders the burden of souls when the rest of you complained and mewled at Father’s feet like spoiled brats. It was I who took upon my mantle the cloak of Death, and the countless other names of man: the Reaper; the lone Rider; Charon the Ferryman; Samael; Kalika. I, brother, who weathered the enmity, the scorn, the curses—the fear of those whom we would shepherd. It’s my name that can never be spoken, nor even whispered. My face that is never to be gazed upon. My song which goes unsung. I am outcast, shunned by all. The steward of entropy, the usher of dissolution. Do you then wish to relieve me of this burden? Do you truly, brother?”
The shadowy figure, now cloaked in his unknowable glory, denuded of all earthly vestments, leans forward with a gleam in his terrible eyes.
“Yes!”
The single word echoes through the storage room, thrown off the walls by the sheer force of your sibling’s will. “I would have gladly taken up such responsibility in the beginning, Delan, had Father not chosen you above us all. Instead I toil in obscurity, a trickster god to frightful children huddled around campfires at night. Give me your burden. Give it to me and all will be forgotten. All your indiscretions, even be it just the one.”
You have him at the brink now. Oh, the vainglorious fool!
“But will I be forgiven, brother? Is such within your grace?”
Renny leans back. His wings droop slightly, the uncertainty palpable in the way he allows orb after gleaming orb to silently bob away as if on soft currents.
“It’s a great sin you’ve committed, Delan,” he admits. “Even I cannot vouchsafe your favorable reception back unto Him. Your . . . infatuation has brought much suffering into the world. You must realize this.”
“Why must I? Because I dared to open my heart? To love, brother? Is that truly a sin? We are His creations, as much unto His rendering as to those whom we oversee. Why are we denied what the children of this world are free to indulge?”
Your brother may have allowed his other collections to wander off, but he still grips the one object of most interest to you. You cannot see her trapped within the bubble anymore, but its light is bright and familiar to you.
Renny’s elongated head turns in your direction. “And she? Why do you deny her His grace? Her path was chosen since the beginning, my brother. If we’re going to bandy about useless inquiries, explain this to me. You who I once thought my closest friend. Why disrupt the balance of fate?”
“Because, brother—I do not accept her fate!”
And there it is. So simple a statement, but the ramifications of such a declaration from the likes of you are heretical. Apocalyptic.
Renleth hisses. “Blaspheme!” His form surrounds you, constricts and pulls your still human shell close into the unfolding maelstrom that is his heart. You feel the world drop away beneath your feet. The diner is nothing but a tiny, infinitesimal island lost in a darkened void of inert uniformity. End World. Chaos. The future yet to come.
Your adversary’s domain.
“How dare you refute your own nature, brother! Do you turn your back on Father as well?”
Your mortal form is squeezed so tight that the darkness viewed through your one good eye sizzles and sparks as capillaries burst from within. Yet you refuse to open your true self to his corruption. Your trap is so very close to closing . . .
“Your purpose, Delan,” he continues, “was to guide His children on to the next path. Not to fall in love with one of them. You betray us all with your selfishness.”
“What do you know of purpose, Renleth? You who’s only design is to harry His children, tease and worry them through existence like some fanciful demon borne out of their superstitions.”
His wings spread wide at that, fanning the chords of discontent and misdoubt woven deep into the very core of the void. You wound his pride, feed into his self doubt as only a true brother can. You feel the souls in the diner—your souls—react instinctively with fear at his manipulation. That worrying sensation in their collective gut that something’s amiss with their world.
Your demented sibling laughs, a cruel scar of misguided righteousness ripped across the fabric of time. “I see now. So this is your plan to save your delicious little mortal? Did you think we would not know? So many souls fated to die together, on this day, gathered conveniently in one unassuming structure. In the aftermath of what I assume will be a grisly gas explosion, who would think to notice that one body was missing? One who was fated to move on centuries ago, but whom yet lives? Sloppy work, Delan. So unlike you. How foolish do you take your brother to be?”
It’s then you finally make your move. Your inner eye flashes open like a fire brand. Space-time constricts around your spinning forms. Renleth’s gasp, it echoes in eternity. His sudden surprise a sweet song of lament in your ears. The diner slams up around you, shelves sent tipping over themselves, row after row crashing in an unceremonious clatter. Your brother is ripped from the higher dimensions, howling, unable to maintain his expanded form under the sheer onslaught of your will. His body squeezes fitfully into the shell of his previously discarded self, merely human once more.
From out of the shadows the orbs of his collection tease their way back into your presence, drawn to your sibling’s waning power. The flaw you spied before gleams orange-white now on each hovering sphere, orienting to align with the flailing limbs of your helpless nemesis.
“You may have copied my gift when last we met,” you announce as he struggles, gaping at you now that the enormity of your design becomes clear. “But Renleth, you’ll never be quite as good as the original.”
“You . . . you tricked me! Brother, what have you done?”
You laugh aloud at the irony, but even now the sound is drowned under the crash of each of your brother’s spells shattering around him. The flaw in the skein written across each orb’s crystalline matrix open precisely along the fault lines you’ve willed into the pattern for such an inevitability, allowing the cast-off detritus to reconnect new bonds, recombining and growing to engulf your terrible sibling’s rapidly succumbing form.
“Fate is not set, brother,” you hear yourself say. Your gaze is filled with her now as she stands outside the circle, freed of her prison, watching you intently. “Time is not immutable. I will not allow it to be.”
“You shall suffer for this!” Renleth shouts to be heard above the din, neck veins popping even as the rest of his vulnerable form stiffens under the temporal cessation effects of the sphere you’ve constructed. “You will never be forgiven!”
The bubble rises to his shoulders and encloses in a dome above his head. You hold out your hand, your love stepping tentatively across the discolored linoleum to grasp it. Her eyes are not quite sure of what they’re seeing, and you know the memory of this moment will not last. But you savor the sight of her, drinking in the full beauty of her soul with both mundane and immortal eyes alike. As no man has ever gazed upon another woman before, not in all of time.
“I don’t need forgiveness, brother. All I need is one final moment to last eternity.
What Renleth intends to say next is lost as the last components of the bubble snap into place, shrinking in size and cementing his imprisonment for all time. You turn to her then, smiling for the first time in eighty years. Smiling now that you are truly together, no one and nothing to keep you apart.
“Yasmina,” you say, her name rolling so melodic off your tongue. Her face lights up with that smile that has so enamored you.
“Del,” she responds, reaching up to caress your cheek with her fingertips as if seeing you anew. “My love. There you are.”
#
Your waitress ceases tapping the pad with her pencil once the commotion up front starts. She leaves you two alone at the checkerboard booth, still holding hands. Yasmina traces errant diamond patterns across your palm, eyes shyly darting away each time you try to hold her gaze. She bites her lower lip, a habit which allured you the first day you met her standing so forlorn by that injured horse, and which still drives you insane with desire all these centuries later.
“I don’t want to go back,” she says. “No more dreamless sleep. Please, darling.”
Her words take you aback. Is that what she fears?
“No,” you say simply. “No more of that.” I promise.
She doesn’t see the smile tugging at your lips. Eyes still downcast, her fingers dance across your hand.
“Good. I’m glad we finally agree. I’m sick of the doctors. Sick of all the tests and endless cocktails of colored pills.” And now her eyes shoot up at you, spearing you with a directness you also find impossible to resist. “I’m just sick of being sick, Del. Don’t you understand?”
You squeeze her fingers to still their fidgeting, and this time there is no hiding your smile. “Mina, I understand. I swear it to you.”
The old woman and her seeing-eye dog drift past your booth, her cane tapping rhythmically on the diner’s terrazzo floor as she makes her way toward the sound of excitement near the entrance. The dog pauses to look in your direction, makes a brief whuff sound low in his throat, then continues to lead his mistress around the tables and chairs. The schoolboys from the booth in the back are already peering out the window blinds near the entrance, amidst much shouting and animated pointing.
“I know what has to happen here,” Yasmina continues. “I know what you have to do. This is our fate, dear heart. Mine and theirs. I’m ready to move on now. I’m ready to start on my next Path. I cannot be yours forever.”
Her expression softens to show the compassion and heartbreak behind those last words. You caress the back of her hand, sighing inwardly at the delicate smoothness there.
“No, not forever. But for just a little while longer. I know what I am . . . the terrible work my Father has me carry out.”
Her mouth hardens at the sound of your self-deprecating tone. You’ve had this conversation too many times before, yes, but you hasten to reassure her with another squeeze of her hand.
“It’s okay, Mina. I accept it all. Your decision, my duty.”
Yasmina sighs as if concluding some internal struggle. She glances around as more and more diners leave their meals and head for the front of the establishment, drawn by something happening outside. One of the boys has opened the door, breaking the temporal seal at last. Shafts of diffuse sunlight shine through the blinds and entrance. A warm zephyr carries the scent of desert spring, sweeping away the greasy, smoky food smells of the diner.
Her head turns to you, tilted askance as one exquisite eyebrow lifts in inquiry.
“Delan, what have you done?”
Your smile broadens as you stand. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
Her eyes gaze into yours and you see the implicit trust there. Her love reassures you. You’ve made the right decision, yes.
“My meds,” she cautions, reaching for her bag even as you pull her to her feet.
“Leave it. You won’t need those where we’ve arrived.”
On the way out, you remember to tap the cashier girl on the shoulder. She awakens as if from some daydream, lips pursed in an O of surprise.
The
sunlight is warm on your face when you step out of the diner. All around you
patrons and employees alike gasp and shade their eyes in wonder. Several meters
from the entrance where a busy
Yasmina
turns to you, her lovely brown eyes wide with surprise. “Oh
“Time is not a straight arrow to my kind, Mina. You know this.” Encompassing the scene before you with a lazy wave of your hand, you continue: “But we are endlessly patient. I’ve brought us back to the beginning, where on this day I met a soul I could not bear to deliver.”
She follows your direction and clasps her hands in delight at the sight of the familiar mare waiting impatiently on the other side of the road for her rider to return.
“But . . . what about my . . .” she stammers, squeezing your hand with barely controlled excitement.
“Let’s not worry about that, my love. I’m with you for as long as we have, be that another day or another year. Let us start anew, one woman and one man. No duty. No sumptuous palaces. No sultan and his expensive healers. You and I, darling. Until the very end.”
“And the others? How long do they have?"
You shrug. It’s really of no consequence to you now. Removed from the time stream, freed from the crushing hand of fate, their deaths will now come whenever they so choose.
“Another chance for us all, sweetheart. Another life. It will be up to them how to live it. There are no more rules. Not for us.”
You lead her toward the waiting animal, its left foreleg swollen at the ankle. If memory serves you correct, it’s going to take the rest of the morning to walk to the nearest village and stables. Plenty of time for reminiscing and reacquainting along the way.
“Now if you don’t mind,” you say, threading her arm through yours and patting her hand one more time. “I believe we have to see a man about a horse?”
“Yes, my love,” Yasmina smiles. “I remember now.”
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