In the End (2 page)

CHAPTER ONE

             
The world was not about to End, contrary to popular opinion. As far as the Two Realms were concerned, it certainly was. But Earth wasn't about to vanish into thin air, after all.

However, Lucien was currently suffering from a lack of information. He did not know about the oncoming battle; neither did he know that the of the world's Imminent End was being talked about in all social circles of both Realms. No, he was the only immortal being in the entirety of Creation who thought that life on Earth was going to go on as it had for thousands of years. No one had remembered to tell him otherwise.

Had he known, he might have spent the last days differently – visiting his favorite café one last time, backing out of his stock market investments... No one he came into regular contact with these days had any idea of anything that was happening on the Celestial Glass Coffee-table or Beneath the Floorboards, so no one asked his opinion on the upcoming events, but if he had gotten the chance to have a sensible discussion about it, he would have said with a shrug that it would be a shame, that these things had to happen or he'd be out of a job, and he would have begun to slowly develop a horrible tension in his shoulders.

Lucien was a Fallen. He did not have horns or a pointed tail, and his wings, which he generally kept tucked out of existence, were the unobtrusive color of a pile of ashes flecked with charcoal. He was not a demon, and the only possible link that could be made between the two would be their loyalties and their natural habitat. However, even the questions of loyalty and habitat can be debated: Lucien and his peers were, after all, firstly angels and originally of the High Realm, no matter how much Rielat had warped some of them after a few centuries.

In spite of all this, as his sort go, he was quite average, even unremarkable. Even his looks, which were enough to get him double- and sometimes triple-takes from humans when in public, were nothing special when compared to others of his background.

Lucien had been stationed on Earth for the past seven years, the last of which he had spent living in a fairly nice second-floor apartment. He had spent this time writing a report of all the places on Earth he had visited, especially the ones that, for one reason or another, had higher focuses of celestial vibrations. His superiors had been so pleased with his work and efficiency that they were granting him a sabbatical, as it were, in honor of a job well done.

He'd been happy, delighted in fact, to stay on Earth a little longer, and to dreamily contemplate the possibility of getting a job transfer to stay semi-permanently: nothing is forever, after all, and he realized that although Earth had many merits, at times it was much, much worse than the Lower Realm.

***

He had been watching the weather channel when the phone rang. This irritation was unwelcome, for Lucien had a long-standing fascination with the weather in all its forms. It was, then, completely a given that he should become a solemn devotee of they who attempted to forecast it.

His crush on the weatherperson didn't hurt, either.

“
No, thank you, that's very kind of you to offer,” Lucien said into the phone with his most calming voice after he and the telemarketer had spoken for a few moments, “But I really don't have a use for a nine-by-eleven inch engraving of YourLordJesusChrist, even if it IS in blue ink.” He listened intently to the telemarketer's nasal, guilty voice. “Yes, I'm well aware of all that. Everyone in Rielat keeps complaining about the souls That Man stole from us when he went and did his thing. The lava pits just haven't been the same since the Spanish Inquisition, either, or so say the demons of the lower circles. Not like those sorts of places are to my taste. Sorry, didn't catch that?” He paused. “Only in the best bar in Dis; where else would I hear gossip like that? Can't mix a drink to save their souls, but they do up a pretty good blooming onion. Also deep-fried whatever-you-give-them on Fridays. Get it? Fry-days?” He paused again. “No, I'm sorry, but they don't like me to have role models from That Side, you know what I mean? ...Hello?” He gave the phone an odd look and, returned his attention to the television and hung up without giving the phone another glance: The cute weatherperson was cheerily reporting that there was an 86% chance of rain. His besotted smile grew brighter has he heard a crash of thunder and the beginnings of wet, tapping fingertips upon the windows.

***

The rain had pattered invitingly for over an hour before he decided to go out for a walk in it. It had hissed in gentle gusts on the tiny balcony just outside his bedroom, and it had burbled to him from the empty window box that he had bought filled with colorful blooms, then promptly had forgotten about. Lucien, helpless when it came to such persuasive weather, hadn't spared a thought for the early-fall temperatures, or the possibility that he could drown in such a downpour-- instead, once the rain convinced him to come play, he strode out into the gray afternoon with nothing but the clothes on his back and a vague sense of glee for such good weather.

Dusk had fallen since he left, though he couldn't tell through the storm. Street lamps lit the falling drops silver, and, when each of them hit the pavement, the drops shattered into a million pieces like chips of diamond.

A stranger, stranded under the narrow overhang of a building and dolefully wondering when the rain would stop, saw him first as only a hunched silhouette meandering along the sidewalk in the driving rain.

“
No, come on,” Lucien was saying to the half-drowned creature he held in his arms, smiling though his teeth chattered and his arms shivered, though his dark hair hung and curled into his eyes and trickled icy rainwater down the back of his neck. “Kitty, I'm not that wet, and whatever you think, I can't be wetter than you.” The cat wriggled, not quite trying to get away, but certainly protesting this bruising of his pride by the indignity of being carried and cooed at. “Who belongs to you, kitty?” An overcoated couple, scurrying past under a shabby umbrella, glanced at the Fallen, puzzled by this odd man. “I've always wanted a cat,” Lucien continued, oblivious, “ever since I saw them in Egypt a few thousand years ago when they sent me with Fallen Prince Sitri's entourage to fetch Prince Belial and the Prince Lightbringer back. They were there on vacation,” he explained to the cat, “or Prince Lightbringer was, and Prince Belial was along because Prince Lightbringer told him to. Anyway, they were sitting in the sunshine on the steps on a temple of Bastet when we found them, and I hadn't finished manifesting to this plane-- Hell on the nerves, let me tell you: It's worse than a gallon of coffee on an empty stomach. Anyway, the crowd of us were there, convincing the Lightbringer to come back to Dis, when one of the priestesses walked by with a basket of kittens.” The cat in his arms glanced up at him, and in the cat's eyes, Lucien saw the golden sun, glaring upon miles of sand that swept towards the temple. He saw the light glinting painfully off a wide, gold Egyptian collar that draped across Prince Lightbringer's chest and shoulders, and the Prince's dead-straight platinum hair spilling over sandstone steps. He saw the memories of how the silver eyes of the Adversary had bored into his heart, making him feel dizzy and lightheaded. He remembered the sizzling, scorching heat on his eyes, which had been so used to the dim, flickering light of Rielat, and he remembered a young lady, swathed in white, who couldn't see the crowd of Fallen on the steps of her temple, and who, standing a ways apart from the entourage, delighted over her basket of mewling, wriggling bits.

The cat looked away, which broke the spell. The memory of brutal desert heat faded, and returning came the frigid line of rain dripping down Lucien's spine, returned was the thin, soaked shirt clinging to his shoulders, the gray sky pressing down on the world, the squelching shoes on his feet, the driving rain, and the curls sticking wetly to his cheek. He sniffled and missed the sun and the desert, then freed one hand from around the cat so he could rub at his pinking nose and uselessly flicked the hair from his eyes.

“
I think I'll call you 'Antichrist',” he said to the cat, as pleased with the name as any child would be. The cat had given up with his struggling and simply glowered, so Lucien carted him up to the apartment.

Unbeknown to Lucien, the next morning was the beginning of the First Day.

***

He awoke the next morning, warm and dry, to the first of several strange and scientifically improbable news reports.

Residents of the Florida Keys, some of whom in their entire lives had never gone further north than the Mason-Dixon Line, had seen the Northern Lights without having to leave their own tropical front lawns.

“
Scientists are researching this phenomenon as we speak,” intoned the newscaster – who was not nearly as crush-worthy as the weatherperson – as Lucien looked on in disbelief. “As of yet, they are not sure of the case – possible explanations may include a shifting of the Earth's magnetic field.”

The report continued with a few strained jokes from the newscasters and a geologist who, called in to consult, turned out to be less of an expert and more of a conspiracy theorist than the newscasters seemed entirely comfortable with.

After the geologist had brought up the nationwide failure of compasses as his prime piece of evidence, Lucien said goodbye to Antichrist, ruffled his ears, and went out to see for himself.

***

In a shop that sold devices of a nautical nature, including compasses, Lucien stared.

They were all wrong. Every single one of them, from the heavy-duty, highly accurate compasses designed for large sailing vessels, to a few smaller, tourist-oriented numbers with tourist-oriented pictures of local attractions and landmarks and print along the bottom of trite, tourist-oriented expressions. And they were all wrong.

What's more, none of them agreed on the wrongness. A few pointed west, a couple more danced between south and east, while most spun hazily this way and that, as if they'd just been shaken and hadn't reoriented themselves, and one or two stubbornly pointed towards Lucien, following him as he moved back and forth among the shelves.

Someone wearing the store's uniform appeared, quite suddenly, at Lucien's elbow. “Weird, isn't it?” the young man said. His hair, Lucien noted with puzzlement, was unnaturally blond and spiky. Before the he had a chance to answer, the be-uniformed young man began talking once more, in a rambling, fast pace which was punctuated by regular pops as he snapped his gum. “The news said it was some sort of thing with the magnetic force of the earth and that's why the Northern Lights were all like, 'Woo, let's go to Florida!'” He paused just long enough to breathe and powered on. “Hey, did you ever think that the Northern Lights might be alien holographs or something? That would be so cool! But I guess we can't call them Northern Lights anymore because they aren't northern! Hey, do you want to buy a compass? They're acting funny.” He pointed.

Lucien, vaguely intimidated by this torrent of words, shook his head. “I just wanted to see if it was true.”

“
Yeah, everyone's been coming in all morning.” The young man bobbled his head and snapped his gum especially loudly.

Lucien nodded once.
             
“Well, I certainly don't know why they're being so strange.”

“
Like, not even the science-type guys know what's up! Did you see that one guy this morning on the TV? The one who thought it might be terrorist aliens trying to – hey, you're going to buy one?” Lucien had picked up one of the cheap tourist compasses, one emblazoned with cheery rainbow letters.

“
I suppose,” he answered. “Good to keep an eye on these things.”

***

He returned to the apartment, compass in one hand and the store's logo-emblazoned plastic bag crumpled in the other. “It's true,” he told Antichrist. “Look.” He knelt and placed the compass on the floor between them – one of the cheap touristy kind. The Fallen and the cat watched the needle swing lazily in a circle, then back the other way, every so often halting abruptly and shivering towards any direction that wasn't due north. Antichrist reached out one paw and touched it gently.

“
I wonder why too,” Lucien said. He picked up the compass, then the cat and walked around the apartment, noting the areas in which the needle reacted. Finally, he placed it on the windowsill and buried his nose in Antichrist's long, dusky fur. He thought, and when he was done thinking, he pondered.

***

The Second of the Last Days was marked with an earthquake, and the ground spent the day gently vibrating, as if whatever force kept the earth still had been distracted. There was a strange resonance in the air, and all of Lucien's things rattled a little where they sat on their shelves. A wine glass, placed in the center of the coffee table, rang softly and with even consistency. Lucien shot it a worried look every few minutes throughout the day, sometimes stopping to chew his lip at it and frown. When finally he was about to go mad from the rattling, he neatly duct-taped the smaller things in place; the larger ones he simply took down onto the carpet.  Antichrist sat curled on the back of the couch and glowered.

“
It's not my fault. Don't give me that look.”

The cat flicked his left ear.  The power flickered a few times until six o'clock, when Lucien stepped out to find a copy of the evening news.