The Realm Page 2

  “What you been up to?” Orion asked, pretending to be curious. He was still irritated that he’d been cajoled into taking a ride with his old rival. Whatever it was Steve had been doing with his life, it clearly wasn’t lucrative.

  “I’m a priest,” he said.

  Orion frowned. His forehead creased with wrinkles. “A priest?”

  “Yeah. Going on about seven years now.”

  “Hang a right here.”

  Steve complied and steered the car in the prescribed direction.

  “What made you decide to do that?”

  Steve drew a deep breath and sighed. There was a sadness in the gesture, deep and brooding. He didn’t answer immediately, taking a moment to collect his thoughts and emotions.

  “Years ago,” he began, “I met a girl. It was after we’d gone to college, taken our separate paths. You were off doing your thing. At the time, I still harbored resentment toward you. I thought you were cocky, full of yourself. I wondered why I could never beat you at anything.”

  Orion had no idea his counterpart felt that way. He’d always considered himself to be a humble sort. Hearing a new perception about him was both interesting and disconcerting. Had he been someone else all along and never realized it?

  “Anyway, this girl, she helped me let go of stupid things like that from the past. She showed me that holding on to negative emotions would only bring negative experience into my present…and future.”

  Orion suddenly had a bad feeling about where this monologue was going, but he had to ask. “What happened?”

  Steve gave a nod and swallowed back the pain. “We got married. Things were great. We hardly ever fought or argued. It was truly the most beautiful and happiest time of my life.”

  Orion remained silent, staring straight ahead as he listened.

  “She got cancer just four months after we were married. The doctors couldn’t do anything. They said it was all over her body. I watched her suffer for two months before she finally died. During that time, I prayed that God would heal her. I begged Him to make the cancer go away. It never did.” He paused, blinking back the burning tears that crept out of the corners of his eyes.

  “God,” Orion said. There was a hint of disdain in the word.

  Steve nodded. “For a while, I blamed God. I was angry with him. I asked him time and time again why this happened, why he hadn’t healed the one woman I’d ever really loved. As time passed, I grew numb.”

  “I know that feeling.”

  “I know you do.” Steve waited a second and then went on. “It was two months after my wife died that I started asking different questions. I wanted to know more about miracles, more about how the universe worked. I learned that the greatest scientific minds who ever lived—like Newton, Einstein, Galileo, and so many others—wanted to understand the universe through science so they could better understand the creator.”

  “And?”

  “I found the answers I was looking for.”

  “Really?” Orion was sincerely surprised. “You found closure to all that? Because I have to admit, Padre, I haven’t found mine yet.”

  Steve smiled and brushed aside the tears with the back of his hand. “Unimaginable tragedy can either push you forward, toward a new future, or it can break you and leave you mired in a ditch, Orion. It’s time to climb out of the ditch.”

  3

  Orion turned the key to his door and twisted the knob. He pushed the door open and turned to face the priest who’d given him a ride home.

  “Thanks, Steve,” he said. “I appreciate the ride.”

  Steve nodded, but he didn’t turn to leave. He lingered on the steps of the apartment building as spats of rain dribbled down from the sky.

  “You mind if I come in for a minute?”

  Orion was caught off guard by the request, but he shrugged and nodded. “Sure, if you don’t mind watching me have another drink. Hell, you can have one with me if you want.”

  “Thank you. I don’t pass that offer up often.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Steve followed the host inside and closed the door behind him. They were in a garage wide enough for three cars; it was at least that deep, too. Four motorcycles lined the back wall: a Ducati, a Harley-Davidson Sportster Forty-Eight, an old Honda CB750 cafe racer, and one more that Steve didn’t immediately recognize.

  “You know, I love motorcycles,” Steve said.

  “Oh yeah?” Orion was already on the second step leading up to his condo.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know what that one is.” He pointed at the last bike in the row.

  “Arch Motorcycles. Handmade.” Orion’s statement was short and to the point. He continued up the stairs, leaving Steve to stare at the bikes for another moment.

  The house was cleaner than Steve expected. He’d anticipated empty pizza boxes, old drink cups, and possibly beer cans lying around everywhere. In fact, the home was clean and sparsely decorated. There was a couch, a leather club chair, and a flatscreen on the wall. Between those things, a wooden coffee table sat in the middle of the living room. The kitchen to the right was simple but also clean. No dishes were piled up in the sink. It even smelled like he’d mopped recently.

  Orion wandered over to a bar by the window and picked up a bottle of whiskey. He slid a cocktail glass out from a shelf under the liquor and splashed the amber liquid into the bottom, filling it halfway before stopping and pulling out another glass.

  “Not that much for me, thanks,” Steve said. “Just a short one. Wouldn’t do for a man of the cloth to get a DUI.”

  “I guess not,” Orion muttered as he poured a single shot into the second glass. He put the bottle back and picked up the two drinks, delivering one across the room to Steve.

  Then he made his way over to the sofa and plopped down. The whiskey sloshed up to the rim of the glass but didn’t spill.

  Steve was more cautious, and tiptoed over to the club chair, easing into it with care.

  “So,” Orion said, his voice cutting through the awkward silence in the one-bedroom condo, “what do you want to talk about now?”

  Steve took a sip of his drink, letting the warm liquid sear his throat as it trickled down to his belly. The first drink was always the hottest. Even though he’d had one at the bar, it wasn’t neat like this one. And it wasn’t whiskey like this.

  “That’s strong stuff,” he commented, looking at the glass as if staring at it would give him the answer to an unasked question.

  “One hundred and thirteen proof.” Orion let out a satisfied “ah” like he’d just had a sip of refreshing lemonade on a hot July day.

  Steve coughed. “Yep. That explains the burn.”

  “Look, Steve,” Orion said abruptly, “I’m sorry about your wife. And I’m sorry if I came across like an ass in high school. I didn’t realize that was how you—or anyone else for that matter—saw me. But what do you want? I’m not stupid enough to think it was mere coincidence you bumped into me at the bar. I’ve been going to that place nearly every night for the last…”

  His voice trailed off. He knew exactly how many months, weeks, and days he’d gone to the bar since Sara died. It was no mystery. He just couldn’t make himself say it. The act of simply thinking about the time frame boiled infinite sadness up in his gut and sent it surging toward his throat in the form of hot bile.

  He choked down the nauseated sensation and dumped another gulp of booze down his throat.

  Steve nodded. “You’re right, Orion. I didn’t bump into you by accident or coincidence. I found you.”

  “Why? More than that, how? How did you find me? I’ve done a pretty good job of hiding for the last year or so.”

  The guest nodded. “Yeah, you have. I don’t guess you heard about the Incident.”

  Orion snorted a laugh and took another swig.

  Steve was impressed that the high-octane alcohol didn’t seem to affect his host the same way it did him.

  “The Newton’s Gate incident?” Orion
asked. His voice had a hint of disgust to it.

  Steve gave a nod.

  “Yep. I heard about it, though I don’t pay much attention to the news anymore. Saw something on my phone, I think. Maybe a pop-up or something. I don’t remember much about it. Some kind of science experiment gone horribly wrong or something, right? Been in kind of a self-induced fog for the last—”

  “Ten months or so. Yes, I know.”

  Orion snorted again, but shorter this time, more suspicious. “You know?”

  Steve leaned forward and offered a single, solemn nod. “Yeah.”

  “Look, Steve…Padre, whatever you want to be called, I’m sorry for everything, okay? But if you come strolling in here thinking that you can talk to me about God and salvation and all that, you might as well just head on out.” He took another sip of whiskey. “I don’t have time for it.”

  Steve curled his lip and gave an understanding nod. “Good.”

  Orion thought his guest was playing some kind of reverse psychology game with him. He was too smart for that. Orion had no intention of getting into a religious discussion with this guy, priest or not.

  “Good.”

  He poured the contents of the glass into his mouth and got up to get seconds. “Want another?”

  “No, I’m fine. Thanks.” Steve nursed his drink, fully aware he had to drive home soon.

  “So, if you don’t want to talk about God, what do you want to talk about?”

  “No sense in playing coy, I suppose. It’s getting late, and I should be leaving soon.”

  Orion poured another whiskey, this time leaving the cap off the bottle. He turned around with one hand planted on the bar and tipped back the glass again. “Nope. No sense at all.”

  “What do you know about the Newton’s Gate incident, Orion?”

  Orion frowned. “I thought we already covered that, Steve. I told you, I don’t know much ’bout it. Zasser Industries or something?” He was half-lying. Everyone knew about what happened, at least most people in the civilized world. The massive catastrophe had opened inter dimensional rifts all over the planet and led to a huge influx of bizarre species, aliens, and beings that were once thought to be purely based in imagination. Orion simply didn’t care to go over it again.

  Steve leaned back in his chair and drew a sip of the warm liquid into his mouth. This time, the swallow didn’t burn nearly as much as the first.

  “New Year’s Eve. Last year.”

  “Yep. The night all hell broke loose,” Orion said.

  “Precisely. And more literally than you might realize.”

  Orion didn’t push for an explanation to his guest’s comment, though he absently noted it in his mind.

  “The government covered up most of it,” Steve went on. “At least they tried to cover it up. It was too late. Everyone knew what happened and you can’t silence the masses for long.”

  “That incident wasn’t even remotely close to here, Steve. It was a thousand miles away. What does this have to do with anything?”

  “Two thousand miles,” Steve corrected. “The containment field for Newton’s Gate collapsed. When it did, it tore open the fabric of space-time that separates our dimension and world from billions of others in the multiverse.”

  “If you say so.” Orion had heard that story before a hundred times. He didn’t care to recap it again. What would it solve?

  Steve looked down and grinned into the glass. Then his eyes shifted and stared straight at his host. “After I lost my wife, I was inconsolable. I wouldn’t talk to anyone for months. I’d resigned myself to a life of wallowing in my own self-pity.”

  “This supposed to be a pep talk, Padre?”

  “Then, one night, I met a man who offered me something more. He accepted me as I was and taught me that God did the same.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to talk about God.”

  “A few years ago, a stranger came into my church. I get lots of strangers, so that wasn’t a big deal. Not at first, anyway.” He paused, reflecting on the memory like it was one of his favorites in life. “He gave me something, something extremely powerful.”

  Orion raised one eyebrow, slightly interested in the story, though it may have been a result of the whiskey.

  “It was a weapon,” Steve said. “An ancient sword with mystical powers.”

  And then Orion was lost again. He blew air out of his lips, causing them to flap loudly. He didn’t care that Steve knew he was doubtful.

  “I know,” Steve continued. “Crazy, right? Except that he told me the weapon wasn’t for me, that I was not to wield the sword. He said that only an enemy from my past who’d gone through extraordinary suffering such as mine could wield it, that I was only the messenger.”

  “Sounds like maybe you don’t need to finish that drink, Padre,” Orion said. He started to walk over, but Steve stood up. The gesture froze Orion for some reason, and he remained motionless.

  Steve’s eyes almost seemed to turn black. His gaze held Orion firm and didn’t let go. “Tell me, Orion. What is it that you want more than anything else in life?”

  Orion trembled. He knew he wasn’t paralyzed. He wasn’t being held by some magical spell. He’d heard rumors about spell casters lately. There’d been more and more of that since the Incident…or so he’d heard. To his knowledge, he’d never experienced it or seen it with his own eyes.

  No, this wasn’t magic. It was something else.

  Memories of Sara soared through his mind’s eye like a slide show. Picnics, walks in the woods, playing soccer in the yard, going to theme parks, birthdays, Christmas, and then the accident flashed through his mind. The last scene was him holding his daughter once more.

  Tears streamed down Orion’s face. “You know damn well what I want more than anything. Get out of my house.” He spoke the venomous words through clenched teeth.

  Steve took a step forward. “I know the two things you want more than anything in the world, Orion.”

  Orion’s eyebrows lowered. “Two things?”

  As if reading his mind, Steve nodded. “I can’t give you Sara back, but I can give you the other thing you want.”

  “There is nothing else.” He pulled away from his guest’s gaze and walked back to the kitchen.

  “What did you feel when you lost her, Orion?” Steve pressed.

  “Get the hell out of my house, Father. I don’t want to punch a priest, past or no past with you.”

  Steve’s gaze intensified, and he held firm, shaking his head side to side. “Tell me what you felt!” he yelled.

  Orion was caught off guard, and he started, twitching his head to the side but keeping his back to the visitor. He breathed heavily as the tidal wave of emotions smashed into him with all the weight of the ocean.

  He lowered his chin to his chest. “After I lost her,” he whispered, “all I felt was the pain of her absence.”

  “Yes. And?”

  “And anger. Rage. Fury.”

  “That is normal, Orion. But we cannot be mad at God for these things. He doesn’t intervene directly. He always uses a human conduit.”

  Orion snorted in derision. “I told you not to come here talking about God, Steve. And I never said my anger was with Him.”

  He twisted around, eyes blazing with pain and madness. “I wasn’t angry at God. I was angry at the other guy.”

  Steve held his gaze as he stalked across the room. He moved almost without touching his feet to the ground, as if he was floating. Before Orion knew it, his guest was inches away from him.

  “I know. And that leads to the second thing you want more than anything else in the world.”

  Orion’s eyes darted back and forth, searching the priest for answers.

  When Steve spoke, his voice barely cracked the silence of the tiny apartment.

  “Revenge.”

  4

  Orion woke up as the first faint rays of dawn poked through the curtains in his bedroom. He winced, then grimaced. His head pounded, and the l
ight coming through the window wasn’t doing anything to make it feel better.

  He sat up, and the rocks glass at his side tumbled over the edge of the mattress. His hand shot out and caught the cup a second before it hit the hardwood floor. He clutched it for a moment and then placed it on the nightstand. He leaned over with elbows on knees, running his fingers through his hair. After a quick scalp massage, he turned his head and noted the time. It was a few minutes past seven.

  Orion hadn’t been able to sleep in since he was younger, much younger. Ever since high school, going to bed early and rising early had been his modus operandi. Now that he worked for himself, he knew he could sleep in as much as he wanted, but old habits die hard, apparently.

  He forced himself onto his feet, wobbled for a second, and then meandered over to the bathroom to start his morning ritual. Today would be somewhat different than the rest of the week. He didn’t work on Saturdays. Never had. While his faith had been tested over the last two years, one thing had never wavered: his view on taking the seventh day of the week to do no work.

  It recharged him, even when nothing else could. Sometimes, he would spend hours just meditating and thinking. Other times, he’d go out for a walk, hit some golf balls, or ride one of his bikes. That last option sounded like a good one as he peeked out the window and saw the cloudless sky.

  “Nice day for a ride.”

  He wouldn’t check the forecast until he was about to put on his helmet, but he’d checked it the day before and knew it would be warm and sunny. Living in the South had its advantages. That meant occasionally having a day in the mid sixties near Christmas.

  He didn’t want to think about the holiday, but he’d inadvertently done it. It was unavoidable and he knew that. The second he pulled out onto the street, he’d see Christmas trees, decorations, ornaments, and advertisements for the big holiday sales going on at nearly every retailer.

  The sooner he got out of the city and into the mountains, the better.

  With jeans on and a long sleeve T-shirt, he strode out into the kitchen and saw the glasses left unwashed from the night before. He blinked several times before he remembered everything.