Reuben couldn’t help but smile. He had never really been broody for
children. The urge to marry had never
happened for him and he’d only ever seen it as a necessary act for fathering
children. His desire to create
offspring had occurred in temporary fits, mostly when he saw Joe and the other
children of his contemporaries. But he
enjoyed being around Joe as a kind of surrogate uncle. He liked to watch him grow up. And, like he had been with Miranda, he found
joy in sharing as Joe discovered the world.
It was slightly different, of course.
With Miranda, it had been discovering what her new powers could do and
Reuben could relate to her as an adult.
With Joe, he shared the childlike wonder of discovering life itself.
He smiled now as Joe stamped his foot,
his little face screwed into a tight ball of temper. The ‘terrible twos’ were worse still for Flamefalls. Regular children had to be controlled. Flamefall children, with their ability to
make fire and lightning and sheer, explosive energy, had to be constrained,
sometimes in safe rooms.
“Wanna go now!” Joe demanded, his fists two small pudgy lumps bathed in
flame.
Peregrine squatted down in front of
him. “I’ve told you already. We go at Thanksgiving, not before. Hey!
Cut it out. You’re making a
scene in front of Rube. What’s he gonna
think of you, huh? Some little kid who
can’t control himself, that’s what.”
“Wanna go now!”
Peregrine took the boy’s hands. “Look at this. Look at this. You’re going crazy, Joe. Crazy people cause accidents. Accidents can kill people. You do that, you pay a big price. It doesn’t matter how old you are or how
young. You let loose with this an’ hurt
someone, kill them, just cos you lost your temper an’ your control, you go
spend forever downstairs .. an’ I don’t mean the basement. When you do this, there has to be a reason. You’re either going to kill something evil
or you’re practicing against an inert target.
There are no targets here, there are no evil things here. There’s just me, you, an’ Rube. Now, are you gonna control yourself or do I
have to send you to your room till you calm down?”
If there was one thing Joe seriously
disliked, it was being talked to by his father in such a calm voice. If he’d shouted or gotten mad, Joe wouldn’t
have minded half so much. But that
calm, level voice, his face so still and expressionless, not angry, not sad,
made the little boy feel small and mean.
He knew at some inner level that he was disappointing his father, and
Peregrine was someone Joe admired a whole lot.
He was a warrior for God’s army.
Tears sprang into his eyes.
“But I wanna go now,” he whispered as
the flames died away.
“I know you do, sport. But every good thing in life is worth a
little wait. It’s only a few days
now. Be patient. It’s tough but, you learn it now, you’ll
have it forever.” Peregrine smiled and
hugged his son. “Nice work. That’s fantastic control you got there. I’m proud of you, Joe,” he murmured. “You done good.”
“You sure did,” Reuben added. “Joe, I wanna see you cross that bridge the
first time just as much you wanna cross it.
I gotta wait as well. How about
we wait together, huh?”
“O-kay,” Joe sighed.
“Not gonna tell me it isn’t fair, are
you?” Peregrine inquired.
“We don’t do fair,” Joe dutifully
replied. “We don’t do bad. We just do good an’ evil.”
“Atta boy!” Peregrine laughed.
“I have to get going,” Reuben
announced. “I have studying to do. But I will be there Thursday.”
“We’re heading over to Paradise
Drive,” Peregrine said. “Mom an’ Dad
are coming here for Christmas. You got
plans? I’m sure they won’t object to
another seat at the table.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t but I have
work to do. I have got it stacked to
the ceiling,” Reuben replied, then grinned.
“Okay, slight exaggeration there but I really do have a ton of stuff to
do. After the holiday weekend, I’m
heading out to the Badlands.
Fieldtrip. I gotta get my gear
packed. But I will be there Thursday
night. I’m not gonna miss Joe’s first
time over the bridge.”
“Okay. Well .. have a great Thanksgiving if I don’t see you again
before.”
“You too. All the best to your parents.”
Reuben left the house and hurried
home. He was majoring in paleontology
but had a course in philosophy and another in psychology to soak up some extra
time. The philosophy was getting him to
think, and the psychology was opening his mind to the how and why he was
thinking the thoughts he was. The
subject matter in philosophy this semester was temptation. Reuben wasn’t sure if the psychology was
helping him cope or leading him into a place he shouldn’t go.
He pushed it away for now, telling
himself that he could easily quit those courses to concentrate on his major
which was more interesting again.
Flamefalls were steeped in history, they’d been around for a lot of it
and lived thru most of the turbulent times, either alone or in concert with
their Legacy allies. But paleontology
dealt with history older still. Older
than man. There had been evil in the
world then, but, without human beings to succumb, it had limited impact. Mostly, it had been about survival. It made a refreshing change to study that.
He’d spent a lot of money buying his
gear and buying only the best. He was
really looking forward to the fieldtrip next week. The students in his class were all younger than him and, at
first, Reuben had been struck dumb and almost crippled with shyness and
embarrassment. The lecturer, though,
was older. Not by much but his face was
weathered to almost leather, his hair was gray, long and grizzled, as was his
beard. He wore knee length safari shorts,
no matter the weather. He knew what he
was talking about and made the subject into a detective story. Reuben found his classmates to be as
enthusiastic as he was, and soon the shyness had evaporated. He actively enjoyed the discussion groups. Reuben Meyer found himself turning into the
man he had always longed to be – a Flamefall but so much more than a mere
warrior for a good cause.
He rarely went training now. He felt he didn’t need to. He kept his hand in, did the bare minimum he
felt he could get away with. It was the
same with his praying. The others were
covering his duties and, thus, he seldom went fighting so why bother with
armor? Reuben felt so much more
positive about his life now. It never
occurred to him that all these outside activities were leaving him wide open
for attack, and that the attack would come from inside. It had already begun and it had begun long
ago …
*****
Reuben’s Thanksgiving in nineteen
fifty seven, two months short of his forty third birthday, was a meager, lonely
affair. He had no family left alive
and, while he could have gone visit his mother, it would also have meant that
he’d have to visit Red. There was no
force on Earth which could have dragged him over there. He spent the day on his own, studying in
readiness for his trip to the Badlands.
He did roast a small chicken in celebration of the day but he ate the
meat in sandwiches, not on a plate with vegetables in the accepted
fashion. Yet that was Reuben Meyer – he
did what he had to do to respect the traditions but not in the accepted
fashion. So long as the principles were
honored, what was the problem?
His bag was packed ready and left by
the door. He had sweaters and thermal
underwear, thick socks and a couple of pair of stout hiking boots. The other piece of luggage was a rucksack
containing a tent, cooking gear, a small camping stove, a sleeping bag, and his
excavation tools.
He had a philosophy assignment to
finish before he left on Sunday afternoon and that meant he had to finish it in
time to deliver it to another student to hand in for him. Reuben was deliberately leaving it until
after Thanksgiving. He figured Ox would
be present for Joe’s big trip and Ox was an incredibly perceptive guy. Nearly sixty six years of practice had honed
it to an art form. He was bound to ask
Reuben all kinds of questions, and Reuben wouldn’t be able to mask the
truth. Meeting Ox with his head full of
‘describe the nature of temptation and how it can be impossible to resist’
would send up signal flares for all the wrong reasons. So Reuben left the study of that until
Friday.
He had a long, hot soak in the tub at
around eight thirty, was in bed by nine fifteen, and over at the chasm by nine
thirty. He had to admit, he was
excited. Joe Gabrielli had been looking
forward to this for weeks and now the big night was finally here.
Peregrine and Miranda arrived at ten
with Joe a bubbling mass of energy. Ox
and Thelma turned up a few minutes later.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Ox greeted. “Glad you could make it, Reuben.”
“I wasn’t gonna miss this,” Reuben
grinned. “I hope you had a happy
Thanksgiving too.”
“We did. Joe was sick but I think that was excitement more than eating too
much.” Ox studied him. “Perry tells me you’re going to college.”
“Yes, I am. Paleontology. Dinosaur
fossils. I’m on a fieldtrip next week.”
“Good for you! Must be interesting, huh?”
“For sure,” Reuben replied. “I wanted to thank you for covering my
duties for me. I appreciate that.”
“No problem. If you were just being idle for the sake of it, it’d be
different, but a college degree is something else. You are keeping up your training an’ praying on top of all your
studies?”
Reuben was expecting that. “Yes, sir,” he said. It wasn’t a lie – he was keeping it up, just
not as often as Ox would have liked.
“Because it is important, Reuben. The
call can come at any time and it takes priority over everything. You do understand that, don’t you?”
“Of course and, when it comes, you
won’t find me lacking.”
Ox nodded. “Good to know.”
“You guys finished cos Joe here is fit
to bust something,” Peregrine called.
“This is it, little fella,” Ox
grinned. “You all set?”
“Go, go, go!” Joe shouted.
Peregrine carried him to the
edge. “Daddy’s gonna build the bridge
now,” he told the boy. “You sit up
there an’ watch.”
Reuben smiled as Joe settled on his
father’s shoulders. The bridge
shimmered into existence, then solidified.
It was a bridge from an action movie – slung between two cliffs, it was
wooden planks on dark ropes. Peregrine
gave a dramatic shiver and they set off. Miranda, her hands held to her mouth, Thelma, her arm around
Miranda’s shoulders, Ox, grinning so broadly it seemed he would split his face
in two, and Reuben, nodding and laughing quietly, all watched as Peregrine made
the bridge sway and bounce. Joe was
wide eyed and quivering with pride and excitement. Once they reached the Gorge and the Flamefall training ground,
Peregrine lifted his son down and stood him on the ground. Holding on tightly to Joe’s hand, Peregrine
showed him the darkness.
“That’s one trooper,” Ox
breathed. “He ain’t scared at all. He’ll be good.”
“He’s got a great role model in his
father and in his grandfather,” Reuben remarked, and he sounded just a little
envious.
Peregrine brought Joe back and
dissolved the bridge.
“Well ..? How was it?” Reuben asked.
“Black over there,” Joe told him.
“Oh yeah. Did you know that, if you go in far enough, the black is alive?”
Joe solemnly shook his head.
“One day, when you’re older, you an’
me will go look for it. Would you like
that?” Reuben inquired. “Cos I’ve been
in a very long way .. an’ I’ve never found that place. I think I need a big, strong warrior to come
with me.”
“O-kay,” Joe agreed slowly.
“It’s enough excitement for you for
one night,” Miranda declared. “Time for
you to head home an’ sleep it off. Just
this once. Tomorrow, it’s back to the
routine.” She turned. “Perry, I guess you’ll be heading over there
again. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“How about all three of us?” Ox
suggested. “Me, Perry and Reuben.”
Reuben hadn’t been expecting that but
he should have. “I can’t put in a full
night, I’ve got an assignment to write before Sunday.”
As he said it, he could’ve bit out his
tongue.
“Oh?
What’s the subject?” Ox asked as Peregrine rebuilt the bridge.
“It’s for my philosophy class. The nature of temptation,” Reuben replied
and braced himself for the reaction.
To his surprise, Ox laughed. “Shouldn’t be a problem for you. You know what temptation is and you resist
it every day. At least .. I hope you
do.”
“I haven’t succumbed yet,” Reuben
responded. “Though the chocolate cake
in the cafeteria is getting harder to refuse each time I see it.”
Peregrine set off, Ox gestured for
Reuben to go next, and then he brought up the rear. Ox wanted to be at the back so no one could see his face. He was frowning deeply. He was not pleased at all.
*****
“You should’ve said something!” Ox
repeated as he paced. “Perry knows the
dangers. He knows what to look
for. And if he came to you with
concerns, you should’ve told me.”
Thelma paused in her gift
wrapping. “Ox, Reuben’s done this so
many times now yet nothing’s come of it.
He goes away, he comes back not quite himself. That’s because he’s learned something. Once he’s digested it, reasoned it thru, he’s back to normal.”
“Sweetheart, I know you have the best
intentions but Reuben isn’t normal.
There’s something wrong in him somewhere. Something loose where it should be tight. Or maybe it’s the other way round. It needs to be fixed. He hasn’t been tested yet. It can’t be much longer. Forgotten his bridge building skills? His candle flame is faint? How’s he gonna pass?”
“I don’t know.”
“And this philosophy class of
his? Temptation! Yes, it most
certainly is, right when he doesn’t need it.”
Thelma pushed away the paper and put
down the scissors. “I would’ve said
that knowing about temptation – what causes it, how it works, how people fight
it or give in to it – would be a useful skill to have.”
“Absolutely,” Ox agreed. “That’s why we trueborns marry women like
you. You already know these things. But, for
a trueborn, getting too close to temptation, especially when faith is on the
weak side .. it’s a recipe for disaster.
Reuben is heading for the biggest fall of his entire life.”
That sobered her. “What do we do?”
“Keep him outta the loop. We don’t send him into any kind of combat,
not now. He’s a loose cannon.”
“You went fighting with him only last
week!” she exclaimed.
“But he didn’t do much fighting. Never made one kill. Went home early. And hitched a ride on someone else’s bridge. I snuck back and watched.”
“I’ll get Perry to invite him for
Christmas. We’ll all be there. We’ll get it fixed,” Thelma declared.
*****
Reuben returned from his fieldtrip a
greatly satisfied man. The first night
there, snuggled in his sleeping bag, listening to the low moan of the wind, an
idea had occurred to him. It had started
simply and he knew that all the really great ideas had simple beginnings. And this one answered every one of his
problems. Over the week, it had
grown. He had it all worked out. He couldn’t see a way for it to fail. All he needed .. was a chance to speak with
Ox.
Then the phone rang. It was Peregrine.
“Hey, man! How you doing?”
“I’m fine,” Peregrine replied. “Rube, you spent Thanksgiving on your
own. I’d like you to come stay with us
for Christmas. My parents are gonna be
here. Ox is gonna be taking Joe over to
the Gorge a few days before. December
21, I think. We’d like you to share
that with us. We see you as family.”
“I’d be honored to accept, thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. So .. how was the fieldtrip? Find a new extinct species of dinosaur?”
“No,” Reuben laughed. “We were learning field techniques. Not much new work gets done this time of
year. It’s too cold. We even had snow! But it was good. I had a
great time.”
“Well, if you have an hour spare this
weekend, you could call round for coffee.”
“Man, I wish I could, but .. what with
studying an’ shopping for the holiday .. I can’t see it happening. Rain check.”
“You got it. Take care of yourself.
An’ we’ll expect you, bag an’ baggage, December 20.”
“Deal.” Reuben hung up and felt a warm glow spread thru his body. It wasn’t due to a sense of family nor to
the fast approaching holiday, it was because things were going right for him to
make his idea a reality.
“Roll on Christmas,” he smiled.
*****
Miranda and Thelma declared the kitchen
a no go area which meant the task of putting up the tree and decorating it fell
to the men of the house. Joe couldn’t
be trusted yet so Ox and Peregrine were hard at work when Reuben arrived in the
middle of the afternoon on December 20.
“Happy holiday!” he greeted as
Peregrine opened the front door. “Wow,
the place looks amazing.”
“Have to fit in,” Peregrine
replied. “We’d be thought of as strange
if we didn’t do lights on the house.
Come on in! Get warmed up.”
“Not eggnog, not yet,” Reuben laughed.
“I meant the fire. Wanna help with the tree?”
“When my hands have thawed out,”
Reuben replied.
“Okay,” Peregrine smiled. “You got the room at the back, third
floor. The nice one.”
“All the rooms here are nice,
Perry. This is a palace!”
“Hi, Reuben, nice to see you again,”
Ox called from the lounge.
“I wouldn’t miss this. A real family Christmas, an’ a brand new
year just around the corner.”
“Coming across to the Gorge as part of
the big procession?”
“Sure!”
“A word of warning,” Peregrine
whispered. “If you don’t wanna get your
ears chewed off, I’d stay outta the kitchen.”
“Got it. Let me go dump my bag an’ I’ll give you a hand.”
“Daddy .. Grampa won’t let me help,”
Joe called.
“Hey partner, how about you come
upstairs with me an’ help me unpack, huh?” Reuben suggested.
“O-kay.”
Peregrine watched his son carefully
climb the stairs then returned to the lounge.
“He seems fine, Dad.”
Ox grunted. “That’s his trouble. He
always does. Next thing, we’re facing
meltdown an’ a lotta hard work. Perry,
I have to put you on alert, son. This
isn’t gonna be an easy Christmas, not for any of us.”
“We’ll see. I know Reuben better than anyone. And .. once, he promised me he’d never cross the line. I have never forgotten that. A promise is a promise.”
“Yes, it is,” Ox agreed solemnly.
The following night, everyone went to
bed early. Even Joe, who was so excited
at this second trip over the bridge, fell asleep quickly. He knew he couldn’t go until he was asleep.
Once at the chasm, grandfather and
grandson got into position, flanked by the proud parents, the grandmother and
the surrogate uncle.
“Everyone set?” Ox asked cheerfully.
“Build the bridge, Grampa! Build it now!”
Joe shouted.
“Yes, sir,” Ox obeyed.
“Make it bounce! Make it swing!”
Sitting on Ox’s broad shoulders, Joe
whooped with laughter as Ox stamped his way over the bridge. Peregrine and Miranda followed, then came
Reuben and finally Thelma.
“Can we go into the black?” Joe
whispered loudly.
Ox glanced at Peregrine. “Just a few steps.”
“Okay. But I’ll be right beside you.”
“C’mon, Reuben,” Ox cajoled. “You can
guard my left flank.”
Reuben moistened his lips. “All right.”
Miranda stood close to Thelma and
watched the three men vanish into the training ground. She felt Thelma shiver.
“What is it?” she asked, frowning.
“Nothing, Mira. They’ll be fine.”
Miranda nodded. “It’s Reuben, isn’t it?”
Thelma smiled quickly. “I don’t think this is gonna be much of a
Christmas to remember. I’m sorry.”
Ox stepped out of the blackness. Joe’s eyes were big and wide. “Wow … ” the boy whispered. “Cool!”
“You’re gonna be okay, Joe,” Ox
declared proudly. “Say, Reuben, you
wanna do the honors for the bridge back home?”
Reuben hesitated. “I don’t wanna spoil your occasion, Ox. You build great bridges. Next time, okay?”
“Sure. No problem. But, Joe, I’m
feeling a little tired. How about you help build the bridge?”
“Can I, Grampa?”
“You can. You just gotta have faith.”
Reuben swallowed, wondering if that
was a sly dig at his refusal. Did Ox
suspect something? He couldn’t exactly
ask outright. But then he told himself
it didn’t matter. Tomorrow, at some
time when everyone was quiet, he’d have his chance.
“Hey, Joe, look at that!” Ox
exclaimed. “We did it, the two of us.”
“I got faith, Grampa,” Joe responded
in a serious voice.
“I know you do. I don’t have to worry about you at all. C’mon, let’s head home. I’m giving everyone the night off.”
*****
All the next morning, Reuben couldn’t
shake the idea that he was being watched.
It was being done carefully but he was
being watched and not in a particularly pleasant way. The conversation at breakfast was light, but eye contact was a
little too direct and just a fraction too long for comfort. Thelma and Miranda went shopping during the
morning, and the conversation turned to more serious maters. And the silent examination went on.
Reuben couldn’t explain this. It made no sense to him at all. Ox was interested in his college major and,
by degrees, turned the talk to philosophy, asking why Reuben had chosen that
instead of, for example, economics.
“I had an opportunity to travel with a
Legacy member earlier this year and our discussions were far ranging. Philosophical. I thought I’d go deeper into it,” Reuben replied honestly.
“An’ what have you learned about
temptation?”
“That it’s everywhere. It’s deliberately engineered. The ad agencies create temptation. Every commercial on TV is designed to make
people want.”
“That’s superficial. It isn’t really temptation. What TV commercials do is show what’s
available. It’ll spur people to ..
curiosity, maybe buying something to try it out, see if it’s any good. Envy.
Sometimes jealousy if their neighbors already have X, Y or Z and they
don’t. Temptation’s far more sly. It creeps in and tackles people by tying
their shoe laces together an’ bringing ’em to their knees rather than punching
them between the eyes an’ knocking ’em out.
Just like TV advertising, it reveals a wonderful picture but then it
whispers this is how it could be for you.
Are you big enough, brave enough, man enough to say yes an’ take
it? Or are you strong enough to say no
an’ walk away? True temptation attacks
the fundamental areas in a man’s life,” Ox continued. “Money, housing, transportation, sex and other forms of physical
satisfaction and gratification. And it
goes for personal appearance and mental wellbeing too. Self esteem. Confidence.”
Reuben gave a tight smile. “I should have talked with you weeks ago. My paper would’ve been more insightful.”
“Really,” Ox murmured. “I would’ve said that nearly forty three
years in this business would’ve taught you most of what you need to know about
temptation, Reuben.”
“I disagree,” Reuben responded in a
stiff voice. “We’re taught to keep it
at arm’s length. That’s our way of ..
saying no. We never let it get close
enough to damage us.”
Until you come to the test, Peregrine
thought. Then all your defenses go down
and you’re dropped straight into the middle of it.
“Maybe you’re right,” Ox said
softly. “And maybe that’s for the best
as well.” He sat up. “Is that Thelma coming back? Great.
I’m getting hungry. Let’s go see
what’s for lunch.”
Reuben felt a surge of resentment but
he swallowed it down and let it churn in his stomach. It doesn’t matter, he told himself. None of it does, not now.
*****
Lunch was over, the fire burned
cheerfully in the hearth. In the
corner, the tree with its twinkling lights looked festive. Gifts were piled around the base. Reuben’s moment had come.
“Ox .. I’ve thought a lot about this,”
he began softly. “It’s only recently
that I’ve realized it’s been in the back of my mind for some time, but, just
lately, it’s grown to fill my dreams.”
He paused, slowly drawing in a deep breath. “I want to give up the power.
I don’t want to be like this anymore.
I’m enjoying my other life far too much an’ the duties I have .. intrude
too much.” Reuben warily looked
round. “Can you fix that for me?”
Thelma was staring. Miranda looked surprised more than
shocked. Peregrine felt numb. He couldn’t believe his friend had just said
those words. But Ox was frowning in
consideration.
“It’s never been done,” he commented.
“So I’ll be a first,” Reuben
remarked. “It seems kinda appropriate.”
“No, I mean it’s never been done.”
“But you can fix it for me, right?”
Reuben persisted, an edge to his voice.
“You can go speak to whoever you need to speak to an’ tell ’em to take
it away. I don’t want it anymore. I’ve done enough for the cause. It’s time I got to do what I want.
I told you, I’ve thought a lot about it. I’m a good Flamefall, I know, but I want something
different. I don’t feel I’m being appreciated
in my present position.”
“You want a reward?” Ox queried.
“No, I just .. I’ve had enough. I wanna take the money an’ run. It’s my dream.”
“Who have you been listening to?”
Peregrine inquired.
“No one! People have told me things about me an’ they make sense. I figured it out for myself.”
Ox sighed. “Reuben, I don’t understand why you leave yourself open like
this,” he remarked. “If you’d just done
what we’d told you, none of this would’ve happened.”
Reuben slowly shook his head. “No, you
don’t understand. You never will. I don’t want
to do what you tell me. I never have. I was happy before, going my own way.”
“And that way will lead you into big
trouble.”
Reuben’s hands slowly closed into
fists. “And what makes you think you
have all the answers? Don’t we have a
right to choose for ourselves? Don’t we
have a right to .. evolve?”
“Evolve? You haven’t evolved!”
Ox exclaimed. “You’ve deluded yourself,
sure, you’ve let yourself think you’re better than the rest of us. You’re not.
You’re just like us, Reuben. You
always have been.”
“I’m not like you. I’m not typical!”
Reuben spit.
“Ah .. flattery. It suckered you in, didn’t it?” Ox remarked
in a sad voice. “Flattery is the first
step in temptation’s sneaky campaign to get into what makes you tick, what
presses your buttons. How you react to flattery
.. tells a whole lotta things.”
Reuben surged to his feet, his entire
body quivering. The atmosphere,
difficult before, now crackled with warning tension.
“Don’t you patronize me. Don’t you dare patronize me!” Reuben raged.
“Mom, take Miranda and Joe outta
here. Now,” Peregrine ordered quietly
but firmly. “Don’t come back in.”
They hurried, not looking back at the
increasingly hostile confrontation.
There was a sense of .. time fast running out.
“I’m not a kid to be ordered around –
”
“No, you’re not,” Ox interrupted, also
rising. “You’re a grown man. And you should act like one. If you tried
that, you’d find a lotta things would
change in your life. But you prefer to
pretend you’re a grownup while you act and think like a kid. Joe
has a better grasp of his life than you do and he doesn’t complain half as
much.”
“Rube,
for God’s sake – ” Peregrine began with weary and desperate patience.
“God? God?
What has God ever done for
me?” Reuben demanded shrilly. “I didn’t
ask to be born into a family so bound
by the rules they couldn’t breathe enough to live! I didn’t ask to have a
father who saw his death as some glorious sacrifice to the cause! No, God let him die, and God did nothing to
help me.”
Peregrine
blinked as this torrent of hatred poured from his friend’s mouth. He looked at Ox to see that his father’s
expression had gone flat. No one
badmouthed the big boss.
Reuben
was pacing furiously. “My entire life
has been a series of disasters. Every
time I tried to do something just a little different, I was pulled back. It didn’t matter what good I did, how many
demons I killed, how many lives I saved.
You told me you wouldn’t make me into a good company guy but that’s
exactly what you did. You broke
me. You put your own ideas an’
standards in my head and you forced me to believe them as being the only way. I trusted you, Ox! But I was broke an’ so I had to be stripped
down an’ rebuilt from scratch, an’ I wasn’t broke till you did it. I tell you now, you won’t do it again.”
“Rube,
calm down,” Peregrine commanded. “I
mean it. If our friendship means
anything to you – ”
“Friendship? You must be kidding me!” Reuben flared. “Good little Daddy’s boy, that’s what you
are, Peregrine. Oh dear, Reuben’s done something
a little strange again, I’d better run to my Daddy an’ tell him all about it. You couldn’t enjoy my ideas, my success, no. You had to sneak behind my back to your
holier than thou father.”
“It
wasn’t like that!” Peregrine protested.
Reuben
faced him, his eyes suddenly flat calm.
“You were concerned about me, weren’t you?”
“Yes!”
“Then
.. why didn’t you ask me? Why didn’t you come to me with your concerns? Why
didn’t you tell me about praying,
Peregrine? That meeting with my father
would have been so different if you
hadn’t kept that little secret all to yourself.”
“But
.. I thought you knew … ” Peregrine began, floundering. “I believed you prayed every day, just like
I did. It wasn’t a secret, Rube!”
“Yeah,
trot out the excuses, whydoncha?” Reuben sneered.
“It
isn’t an excuse,” Ox replied. “It’s the
truth, Reuben, something you seem to have a lotta trouble accepting.”
“Yeah,
that’s true because it’s your
truth. It isn’t mine. I see things in a different way.”
“Not
the Flamefall way, and that’s wrong.”
Reuben
became very still. “I want to give up
this life, then it won’t matter. I want
to be a normal person. Ox, go speak to
the boss an’ tell him to take the power away.
He gave it to us, he can take it back.”
“I
can’t do that, Reuben. You go tell him
if you want,” Ox shrugged, “but you can’t because you’ve forgotten how to build
the bridge. Yeah, I asked deliberately,
just to see your reaction. Your faith
won’t light the darkness anymore.”
“So
I’m stuck like this. I can’t ever
change.”
“No. You’re a Flamefall,” Ox replied. “Take it or leave it, it’s who you are.”
A
thin shriek began in Reuben’s throat and grew to a roar of pure venom. Peregrine was trembling, his body twanging
with the urge to do something. But he
didn’t move. And that was his final
mistake. He couldn’t hurt his
friend. Ox was calm. He still believed he could bring Reuben back
from the edge. Once all the anger was
out of his system, he would be an empty shell, finally at peace with himself.
“I
can’t leave it,” Reuben hissed, “so I suppose I’ll have to take it, embrace it,
and let it consume me.”
His
hand shot out to the side and a blast of raw, apparently uncontrolled energy
flashed across the room. It looked like
Reuben had decided after all to self destruct, but then, in that split second,
Peregrine saw that it wasn’t uncontrolled at all. Reuben knew exactly what he was doing. It hit Ox full in the chest, picking him up and throwing him
across the room like a pile of discarded rags.
Peregrine froze for a moment then ran on shaking legs to where his
father had landed in a crumpled heap.
Warily, gingerly but frantically, he turned Ox over and choked. There was a gaping hole in Ox’s chest. Peregrine could see his father’s spine thru
the shattered ribs and the torn and twisted organs. He lurched round to stare at Reuben thru eyes sheened with
horrified tears.
“I’ve
wanted to do that for such a long time,” Reuben Meyer said with an angelic
smile. “I feel so much better now.”
“Reuben
… ” Peregrine had to clear his
throat. “Reuben, what have you
done? My God, you promised me .. an’
you’ve broken it. You used your power
to kill an’ not just an
innocent. You killed my father!
One of us!”
“And,
now, I will be free of it. I’ll no longer have to do what anyone tells me when they tell me. He was right. Your father. I see it
now. I was tempted a very long time ago an’ all these years I was
just denying myself. Trying to be what
I really wasn’t. And now I’ve given in
and .. I am myself. It’s a wonderful feeling, to know who you
are. It feels supreme.”
“You
bastard … ” Peregrine choked, his hands clenching into fists.
“C’mon,
Perry. You know you want to. Send me to Hell. I have finally broken the
number one rule. You have the right to
avenge your father’s death .. no, murder.
Put me with all the others just like me. I’ll enjoy it.”
“Yes,
I do have the right .. but, if I killed you, I’d be just like you. I’ll leave the punishment to the boss.”
Reuben
blinked then. “Punishment … ”
“You
think it’s just a matter of being sent downstairs? Slap your wrists, say naughty boy, an’ send you away? Think again. Think of all the demons
you’ve put back there, demons who’ll be waiting for you … ”
There
was a rushing roar of wind which whipped hair and clothes. Reuben felt heat start to tear at him.
“I
hope you roast down there for eternity,” Peregrine seethed in a whisper. “You killed my own blood. Now you pay the price.”
A
whoomping column of fire ignited around Reuben Meyer’s body. Peregrine watched for as long as he could
before he had to turn away. He knelt by
Ox’s body and wept raggedly, his entire body shaking with the towering grief. When the room was silent again, he looked
back. Not even ash remained.
Peregrine
breathed in. How could he face his
mother? How could he tell her ..? She’d be coming back in soon, wanting to
know if everything was all right …
A
hand was put gently on his shoulder.
“Ox is at rest, and you and I must speak.”
Peregrine
looked round, his face streaked with tears, his body barely able to breathe,
and he stared up into the eyes of an angel.
“Reuben
Meyer was the first to break the rule,” Michael said softly. “The first .. in five thousand years. It is no reason to celebrate. What he did must not be known. It cannot be erased, I cannot bring your
father back, but it can be forgotten.
Ox died of a heart attack – ”
“No! He was murdered!”
“And
you will become paralyzed by this unless you forget. Reuben Meyer never existed.
You never knew him. He’s gone
from our ranks and it is no great loss.
But we’ve lost a great and noble warrior in your father. We can’t afford to lose you as well, not to
grief. Ox died of a heart attack. Mourn him and then resume the fight.”
“And
Reuben ..?” Peregrine swallowed, forcing the name out thru numb lips. “Will he pay for what he did?”
“He
has been put on the wheel of fire. His
blood price will last forever.”
Peregrine
nodded. “Good.” He paused and sucked in a breath. “Now let me forget.”
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