A God to Fear (Thorn Saga Book 5) (27 page)

Thorn laughed at that, but his laugh was cut short by a more sincere sentiment.

“Am I ever gonna see you again?” the Judge asked. “You feel like my sidekick now. Like the next time the bad guys have me cornered, I’ll just have to lay down and die, because you won’t be there to back me up.”

“Perhaps that’s when you’ll see me again.”

“When I’m dead?”

Thorn smirked.

“Ah! Ah! You laugh now, but seriously, man. Am I gonna have to wait sixty years till you’re an old wrinkly dude on his deathbed to have any hope that we can bust some nuts together again?”

Thorn grimaced. “I don’t think that phrase means what you think it means.”

“Whatever. You know what I’m saying.”

“Well, sixty years isn’t long. I just need some time away from spirits, to think, to discover who I really am and want to be. You’re a likable guy, more or less. Or even lesser.” The Judge flipped him the finger. “I’m sure you’ll make new friends quickly enough, Judge. The bad guys will have nowhere to hide once you’re running this town again.”

“Judge, jury, and executioner,” the Judge said in a deep voice, then formed his hands into gun shapes and fired a few shots—”Pew, pew, pew!”—at the crowd.

“That’s the spirit.”

“I’ll send ’em straight to the pits of Hell. Pending the results of a fair trial, of course.”

“You know,” Thorn said, “I found Hell. The
actual
Hell. It has its own realm of existence, right in the iron-nickel ball at the center of everything. Who knew, right?”

“Oh, I could have guessed. I traveled to the center of the Earth one time out of sheer boredom, in our realm, naturally. You know what I found there?”

“What?”

“A guy running really, really fast on a giant hamster wheel, trying to keep the planet spinning.”

Thorn chuckled at the goofy image. Relaxing like this and being able to laugh for a change were luxuries that Thorn would not soon take for granted. He would indeed miss the Judge, but his departure was for the best. Thorn had no doubt that demon culture would fragment into countless sects again, in light of the recent revelations.
Wars might even be fought.
But there were others to fight those battles. Thorn had done his job. The truth was known. And he had other duties.

Across the crowd, Thorn noticed the person he’d come here to see: Darnell, the street preacher Atlanta’s demons had been trying to corrupt for years. Thorn had spotted him a few blocks away, walking in this direction, and he’d seen Darnell perform at this restaurant before, so he’d asked the Judge to join him for one last Darnell sermon as a demon. Thorn looked forward to meeting Darnell in person sometime in the coming weeks.

As distinguished and unabashed as if he’d been invited here by the restaurant’s owners themselves, Darnell paced beneath the outskirts of the wide awning hanging above the tables, then set his wooden box down in the street just beyond the corner curb. Perhaps that was as close to the restaurant as he was allowed to come. Nonetheless, he cleared his voice to speak.

“How you fine folks doing tonight?” Darnell said in an uncharacteristically chummy tone. He even smiled at the dining crowd. As usual, a third of his captive audience perked up, a third ignored him, and a third scowled at him. “I’ll only take a minute of your time,” he said. “I’d like to talk with you about something that’s always popular here in the good old U. S. of A. I’d like to talk with you about freedom.” When the din of restaurant chatter threatened to overwhelm his voice, Darnell shouted, “Freedom!” He earned a few more glances, and one man’s cry of, “Let us eat!”

Darnell continued. “Of course, you can’t have freedom when you’ve got people in charge of you telling you exactly how to think, exactly how to behave. You can’t have freedom when good people let bad ideas grow big and powerful by not asking questions. When you follow whatever you’re told is true and you never ask
why
it’s true, then how do you know what you don’t know? How do you know you’re not living under someone else’s thumb?”

Two demons, one at each of Darnell’s ears, whispered to him. But most of the demons who were scattered about the area turned to listen to the man—for once.

“Some people like to tell you that if you’re not with them and their ideas, then you don’t matter. But wow… Wow! What a waste of everyone’s time and energy, trying to gain all that power over each other. We only have so many resources. Why waste them all trying to keep other people beneath us? Why not work together on something better? Something like… like learning?”

Darnell swept his hands out over the crowd. His affable voice grew more powerful, his grin a bit wider, demanding even more attention. As best Thorn could guess, at least half of the restaurant’s patrons were now watching Darnell, even as the managers in the open kitchen dialed for the police.

“Knowledge, my friends, is inextricably linked to freedom. The more we know, the better we can see through the lies of anyone who wants to manipulate us. If we plug our ears and hold our eyes shut tight, and the only thoughts we ever think are the ones already inside our heads, we may as well chain our arms and legs and walk back into slavery. So open your eyes. The strange and the new are not as scary as you’ve been told. Open your ears, and you might hear something that changes you into a better woman or man. Swim in the sea of ideas, of knowledge, of reason. This sea is deep and it is warm and you are welcome any time.

“Swim, my friends, and be free.”

Darnell gave a small bow to the crowd, some of whom clapped lightly. As he stepped down off of his box and picked it up, the people returned to their food and their conversations, and the restaurant grew clamorous again. The demons took a bit longer than the humans to return to their routines. Many drifted in place, caught in the still wake of the powerful address.

Thorn turned to the Judge. “What’d you think?”

“Meh. I could do better.”

Thorn shook his head at the joke… if it had indeed been a joke. He watched Darnell marching away at a measured pace, as if the police had never once been called on him. In spite of all the times he’d been booed, he’d lost none of his dignity or aplomb.

Just as Darnell walked past the end of the awning, a man at the table there stood up to greet him. Thorn took a few moments to recognize him.
Joel?

Thorn hadn’t realized until now that the wayward doctor was present. He drifted closer to hear the conversation as Joel shook Darnell’s hand.

“—was a really great speech,” Joel finished saying.

“Thank you, thank you, I do my best,” said Darnell.

As Thorn neared, he saw that Joel had abandoned a fresh and steaming fajita dish, a nearly full bottle of wine, and a date who looked fifteen years his junior.

“I’ve seen you around town,” Joel said. “You always draw a crowd, but I can never tell if they like you.”

“Neither can I,” Darnell said, laughing.

“Well, I thought it was great. Where do you come up with that stuff? Are you trained as an orator?”

Darnell held out his hands, palms up, in a gesture of humility. “I’m just another traveler on the road of life. If no one else is saying something that needs to be said, I say it.”

“It spoke to me. It did. I really appreciate what you do. And hey.” Joel dug through his pocket and procured a business card holder. He slid a card out for Darnell to take. “I own a restaurant up in Midtown. It’s all indoors, but if you want the curb out front, you’re welcome any time.”

Darnell’s poise faltered a bit as he plucked the business card with his fingertips. He stared at Joel with what looked like surprise heavily tainted with suspicion. “Really?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Joel said.

Darnell’s face alternated between wariness and glee, and Thorn wasn’t sure which would win. But Darnell was beaming by the time he slipped the card into the pocket of his weather-beaten pants. “I may just take you up on that.”

The two men said their goodbyes. Now Thorn was more excited than ever about entering human society. Whispering positive thoughts to his charges was one thing, but actually knowing and growing with these people he’d once studied… Thorn could scarcely wait.

“I think I’m going to leave now,” Thorn said to the Judge, who’d floated up behind him.

The Judge didn’t look too happy about that, but he shrugged anyway. “All right man, it’s been real.”

The Judge moved toward Thorn, so Thorn reached out his hand to shake. But instead of shaking hands, the Judge widened his arms and embraced Thorn tightly. Thorn stiffened at the awkward display of friendship. “No, don’t fight it, Thorn. Don’t fight the love. Hug it out.”

Thorn endured several more seconds of the hug before the Judge let him go. “I won’t miss your hugs,” Thorn said.

“And I won’t miss your sunny disposition.”

Thorn grabbed the Judge’s hand and shook it. “You have my deepest gratitude, Judge. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. You’ve been an essential ally, and a good friend.” Thorn had been hoping for an apology from the Judge for his role in hindering Thorn’s progress, back before he’d decided to assist Thorn. Given the productive relationship they’d developed since then, Thorn was surprised that he hadn’t yet received that apology.

But it seemed he wouldn’t be getting it now, at their last goodbye; the Judge only nodded. “You’ve been a pain in my ass. In a good way.” And perhaps that was as much of an apology as Thorn would ever get. The Judge waved farewell and backed away through the restaurant’s oblivious patrons, their tables, and their food.

“Be good,” Thorn called to him as a final request. “We’ve fought too hard for either of us to return to our old ways.”

The Judge backed through a waitress balancing several plates of food, then toward the restaurant’s outer wall. “Well, you know,” he said, lowering his sunglasses a bit, “playa gon’ play.”

He winked at Thorn, then disappeared inside.

Thorn flew over Atlanta one more time, solemnly aware that if he wanted to do so in the future, he’d need an airplane. This city had been his home for over two decades, and although he intended to stay here for the time being, the uncomfortable feeling that he was leaving his home forever welled within him. He meandered past the skyscrapers of Downtown, then Midtown, then Buckhead, then curved back around to drift over parks, metro stations, the stadium, and all that traffic that he’d have to get used to. Plenty of other demons threw him foul glances on his journey, but Thorn didn’t mind. Perhaps the next time he saw them all, they’d have changed their minds about him, and about what he’d done.

When he’d finished his sightseeing, Thorn descended to an isolated corner of the lake at Piedmont Park. The sun was sinking behind the skyscrapers in the distance, casting oranges and reds to dance together in the water. The only two humans in sight were a couple leaning against each other in the gazebo out in the lake. It seemed as good a time as any.

Thorn summoned one of the few remaining remnants of god’s knowledge, and just like that, he was human. His body jolted as gravity pulled him downward an inch and his feet landed on the ground. He breathed in deeply. After pondering for a few minutes whether he was certain about this course of action, Thorn steeled his resolve and destroyed the knowledge that could change him back to a spirit.

Now he was human. Permanently.

To test this, Thorn tried to force his spirit up out of his physical body, as he’d been able to do in the Sanctuaries. The sun’s reds and oranges had softened to pinks and purples by the time Thorn was satisfied that he could not. His spirit and his body were one and the same. For the first time, Thorn’s physical brain housed everything that made him
him
, just like all the other humans.

An entire mind made out of cells
, he thought in amazement.
Out of physical neural tissue.
The concept was as strange to him now as it had always been. But it was beautiful.

Thorn strode to the lake’s shore and gazed down into the water’s reflection. The man he saw there was in his early thirties—somewhat younger than his past human incarnations had been, and with different enough facial features that the police wouldn’t recognize him. He reached his hands back between his shoulder blades, and was relieved to find no stubs of wings there.

Fantastic!

He had to see his smooth back for himself—he’d never thought to do so before, during his previous stints as a human. He yanked off his tie and tugged at his constricting jacket hard enough that the buttons popped off. He threw both items of dress into the lake.
Good luck to anyone who ever tries to force me into a suit again.
Then he ripped off his white dress shirt, exposing his new skin to the faint tickle of the evening wind.

Musky lake water, a thousand different types of pollen, and even the smell of his own skin wafted into Thorn’s nostrils as he bent backward over the edge of the lake. Turning his head, he was just barely able to catch a glimpse of the smooth contours of his reflected human back. And then gravity, to which he was unaccustomed, tipped him too far.

A dull rush swamped his ears and cool water splashed against his face, up his nose, and down his legs. He thrashed around, trying to swim.
After all that I’ve been through, I’d better not drown now.
In his confusion, he inhaled a deep gulp, and nearly panicked before realizing that he’d breathed in mostly air. He coughed a few times, then stood up. He was only waist-deep in the lake.

Thorn cracked up. He whacked at the water, spraying glimmering orange droplets. He splashed again, more deeply, and this time the surge of liquid glanced across his face. The couple in the gazebo gawked at his chortling, but Thorn didn’t care. He slid off his shoes and merrily threw each one toward the humans. They yelped but remained put, so Thorn balled up his socks and threw those as well. After another half minute of Thorn’s laughing, the onlookers scuttled away.

Thorn sloshed around in the lake until the sun had vanished and the city’s lights shone brilliantly through late dusk. Then he waded through the shallows some more, relishing the feel of the water lapping against him. He waited for the stars to come out before he leaped out of the lake. Then he ran forward, the ground thumping against his wet feet, cold wind bracing his flesh as each exhilarating jolt resounded through his knees, reminding him that he was truly, finally,
alive
.