Chapter 8: The Bitter Truth Over greasy Wings
The smell of frying oil and lemon-scented cleaner was a profound relief after the stench of the thing they’d just killed. It had smelled of burnt hair and rotting copper pennies. This just smelled like Tuesday.
Hunter slid into the booth, the vinyl creaking under his weight. He was drenched. Not with sweat, but with a thick, oily black ichor that clung to his flannel and dripped from his beard. It smelled faintly of battery acid and despair. Across from him, Morag patted her face with a stack of cheap paper napkins, smearing more than cleaning. Her piercing blue eyes were bright with something like satisfaction.
A teenage employee with a name tag reading “Kevin” approached, holding two overflowing red plastic baskets. His hands shook, making the fried chicken tremble. “Here you go,” he stammered, not meeting their eyes. “On the house. Seriously. Thank you. For… for dealing with the… the thing in the dumpster.”
“Any time, kid,” Hunter said, his voice a low rumble. He willed his hands to just be hands, not embers. Five months of practice had given him control, but the warmth was always there, just under the skin, like a banked furnace. He could light a cigarette with a snap of his fingers now, or reduce a shrieking, multi-limbed shadow to ashes with a focused thought. He still set his own sleeves on fire sometimes when he got startled, but progress was progress.
Kevin scurried away. Hunter tore into a drumstick, the crispy skin cracking loudly. Morag nibbled on a wing, her movements delicate despite the monster gunk caking her shawl.
“So,” Hunter said around a mouthful of perfectly greasy chicken. “Why now? The monsters. The… everything. The wings. The goddamn cosmic breeding program.” He’d gotten better at saying it without his voice cracking. Not good, just better.
Morag chewed thoughtfully, swallowing. “It’s the conscription, darling. The mustering of the hosts. The heavens have been gearing up for a very dangerous war with Hell for such a long, quiet time. And it looks like the paperwork’s finally through. Armageddon is upon us soon.”
Hunter put his chicken down. “Armageddon. Like, fire and brimstone, trumpets, the whole bit?”
“Less trumpets, more the screaming void consuming all dimensionality. But yes, the whole bit.” She sipped her iced tea. “The barriers are thinning. Reality’s getting… porous. Everyone’s afflicted in some way now. Mutations. Manifestations. Nasty business. You’re among the very lucky ones, Hunter. You were blessed with a gift you can actually use to protect people. The vulnerable. The mutated. The ones who just grow extra mouths or weep blood.”
He stared at his hands, calloused and stained with foulness. “Lucky.” The word tasted like ash.
“Comparatively speaking.”
He wiped his mouth. The silence stretched, filled by the hum of the fluorescent lights and the distant clang of the kitchen. “How do you know all this? About Heaven, the war… Isaiah.”
Morag didn’t answer immediately. She studied her wing, picking at a bit of breading. The usual cryptic spark in her eyes dimmed, replaced by a weary, ancient trepidation. She took a deep breath, as if steeling herself.
“I know because I helped write the original bylaws,” she said, her voice softer than he’d ever heard it. “I know because Metagos is my ex-husband. And I know because Isaiah… Isaiah is my son.”
Hunter froze. A single, controlled spark popped from his thumb and fizzled on the Formica. “Your son.”
“My only child. My heart. The reason the universe began and why all this,” she gestured vaguely around them, at the cheap booth, the rainy window, the entire crushing weight of existence, “exists. More or less.”
The world seemed to tilt. The kind, crazy old witch who’d shown up in the aftermath of Izzy’s disappearance, who’d taught him to control the fire, who’d fought beside him against nightmares made flesh… was that. The mother. The creator.
“You’re fucking with me.”
“I am profoundly not.”
“Then get him back.” The words were out, harsh and desperate, before he could stop them. “You’re a universe-starter. You’re his mom. Go in there and get our guy back.”
Morag went very quiet. The trepidation was gone, replaced by a flat, unutterable sadness. She looked old, not in a wise, magical way, but in a human way. Tired. Beaten.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “Because we—I—designed him for this. I conceived him, shaped him in realms beyond flesh, with a very specific, loving purpose. Isaiah was lovingly and specifically created to birth the holy army that saves the universe from Hell. His womb, his… compliance… his perfect, beautiful design… it’s the keystone of the entire celestial defense strategy.” She finally looked at Hunter, her eyes glistening. “I regret it now. More than any of my countless mistakes. Seeing from a distance, through scrying pools and heart-aches, that my son was happy. That he was so adorable with his freedom, with his books and his bad coffee and his… you. But he has a duty to do. Now more than ever.”
Hunter saw red. Literally, a shimmer of heat haze rose from his shoulders. The air around their booth grew warm. He saw Izzy, not as the celestial prince, but as the man who stole his fries and laughed until he snorted. He saw the imagined version, the one from Morag’s horrific description weeks ago: whimpering, gagged, being used. A factory. A sleeve.
“You let them do that to him.” It wasn’t a question.
“I didn’t let them. I designed the system. Metagos and I… we separated over creative differences. He saw a weapon. I saw a son. But by then, the blueprint was already active. The war is coming, Hunter. Without the legions Isaiah produces, we lose. Everything loses.”
The fire in Hunter’s veins banked, cooling into a hard, heavy coal of resolve in his gut. Rage wouldn’t burn this problem away. He took a shuddering breath, the smell of chicken grease and cleaner anchoring him.
“Okay,” he said, his voice rough. “Okay. Fine. Cosmic war. Divine baby factory. Got it.” He leaned forward, elbows on the sticky table. “But he doesn’t have to be kept in a fucking prison cell, does he? Even soldiers get leave. Even… incubators get visitors. Can we at least… see him? Can he come down for a weekend? Can we go up there? I don’t know, some kind of… custody arrangement?”
Morag blinked. The concept was so bizarrely, mundanely human it seemed to short-circuit her ancient thought processes. A custody arrangement. For the prince of creation.
A slow, reluctant, utterly surprising smile touched her lips. “I was married to Metagos for eons. The divorce was… messy. The terms of the separation are complex.” She fiddled with a napkin. “But. He is still technically my husband. And I am still the mother of the heir. And you… you are a blessed mortal who cares for him. That is a form of power in the bureaucracy of the divine.” She nodded slowly, as if convincing herself. “We could petition. We could try. For visitation rights. For… shared time. For the sake of Isaiah’s morale, of course. And yours.”
Hunter’s heart, which had felt like a lump of cold stone for five months, gave a single, tentative thump. It wasn’t getting him back. But it wasn’t nothing.
“So we try to get along,” he said. “You, me, and God.”
“For the sake of our boy,” Morag said, raising her iced tea in a feeble toast.
Hunter picked up his drumstick again. The future tasted like cold chicken and the faint, distant hope of a negotiated ceasefire in a heavenly war. He’d take it. For now, he’d take it.