That Last Onset Read online

  “You are going to tell us to kill ourselves, aren’t you?” said Azazel.

  “I’m not,” said Graham. “But I do think if you guys charge back into reality right now, all buzzing with the power of Darkness, you’re probably going to royally screw things up. So give me some time to explain the way the world really works, why don’t you?”

  I looked at Azazel. “Do you trust him?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Okay then,” I said to Graham. “Explain away.”

  “Come with me,” he said and started walking.

  We followed and walked up a grassy hill. Graham pointed down to where there was a shallow pool of water that had gathered between two hills. Its surface glittered like glass. Graham waved his hand in a circle over it, and the water rippled. Images began to stir in it. For the rest of the time that Graham talked, Azazel and I stared into this pool of water, mesmerized by what we saw there.

  “See, the reason you guys can be sure you aren’t dead,” said Graham, “is that once you die, you get absorbed back into the essence of everything, and you know everything. It’s like a big blinding flash, and you suddenly understand it all. Everything’s connected. The trees, the animals, the people. We’re all part of the world, and we all have a spark that originates here, in the world spirit, or whatever you want to call it. People call the spark different things.”

  In the pool beneath us, a picture surfaced of people on their knees praying.

  “Some people call it a soul,” Graham continued.

  The image shifted to a woman in a turban, presiding over a séance.

  “Some people call it a spirit.”

  The image shifted again to a scientist in a lab, wires attached to several batteries in a closed circuit that turned on a light bulb.

  “Some people,” said Graham, “call it energy. If you paid attention in your physics classes at school, you know that all matter has potential energy. Rocks, aluminum cans, people, atoms, all of those things can be turned into energy. That energy, that spark, is what binds us together. It’s where we all came from, and it’s where we all return to. This place, the world spirit, is the place where all that energy is collected. We’re all in touch with it, because it’s part of us. And it’s part of everything that’s around us. Some people think it’s where we go when we dream.”

  The image in the pool shifted again. Now it showed us a group of primitive people, dressed in animal skins. They were huddled around a fire, tearing hunks of meat off the bone.

  “We’ve always sensed this spark we have,” Graham continued, “and that’s why there are so many names for it. Humans have been obsessed with it forever. They’ve done their best to discover it and describe it and name it.”

  A shaman materialized next to the fire. He wore a helmet made of bones and a long robe of animal furs. He raised his hands and threw back his head.

  “The earliest humans named the spark and divided it. They made gods, they assigned them powers. But the truth is, the spark, the spirit, always resided inside the humans themselves. And whatever they believed, took shape here inside the Spiritus Mundi. And if it took shape here, inside the spirit realm, since the spirit realm is inextricably tied to the real world, it took shape there as well. Whatever they believed became real,” said Graham.

  Azazel spoke up. “That was what the Order the Fly believed. They said that my power and Jason’s power grew to the point that it did, because so many people over the ages believed in us.”

  “It’s true,” said Graham. “People have far more power than they could possibly imagine. They create the universe, but they never realize it.” He waved his hand over the pool, and the image shifted again. Now we saw men rushing through the jungle, clubs and sticks in their hands, and other men, similarly armed, running for them. The groups of men collided, bashing at each other. We watched men fall, their faces bloody. We watched the sky grow dark over the dead bodies. We watched other people come, gather those dead men into their arms, their faces in anguish.

  “Pain,” said Graham, “is a powerful emotion. No one likes feeling it. And so from the very beginning, people began trying to minimize it. They realized there were things that people did to each other that caused pain, and they thought if people could stop doing those things, then they would all be happier. It was the birth of evil. Once people knew they were doing bad things, they had to try to stop doing them. It helped, of course. It made it easier for people to live together. It made people hurt each other less. But it also meant that the Darkness, the evil, the pain that the people were giving up, started to collect in the Spiritus Mundi.”

  A great cloud of Darkness appeared in the pool of water. It swirled like a tornado, picking up speed. Graham pointed at it. “The Darkness is the source of the power you have acquired here in your tests. It’s the most ancient of powers. It has gathered here for eons, growing stronger and stronger. It has powered so much evil throughout the centuries.”

  Flashes appeared in the pool. Fields of bodies. Sobbing children. Screaming women. And blood. So much blood. Despite myself, I felt excitement surge within me at the sight of the suffering, as if some part of me reveled in it. Was it the Darkness itself? The powers it had imbued in me? Or was it something native to me?

  “It’s easy to blame the Darkness,” said Graham, “but the truth is, it wasn’t created from a vacuum. It was created by people. People wanted to give up the Darkness. They defined what made Darkness, and so they gave it form. They made it stronger. And anything that strong has to be fought.”

  In the pool, an image of a lamb on an altar swam up. People were dancing around it while priests lit the dead animal on fire.

  “Once people had tried to give up the Darkness of their own free will, they passed this information on to their children. And their children passed it on. But at some point, it lost its full message. It became a set of rules and beliefs. It was rote memorization, taught to people because it was important—not explained to people in a rational sense. People were taught to believe it blindly. People didn’t have time to spend thinking it through, so they let other people puzzle it out. Philosophers. Shamans. And over time, as things became more and more complicated, priests and rabbis. Soon, there wasn’t just fighting the evil, there was religion and government. The religion and government taught the people what to do to keep the Darkness at bay. And so, the people gave up even more of their own sparks. They created organizations to have power over them, to fight the Darkness. And they were sure that these forces could only be the opposite: the Light.”

  The pool churned in images. Scores of people carried stones to build a temple. Rows of men and women bowed down with their foreheads against the ground. Women donned nuns’ habits. Men stood on pulpits in three-piece suits, gesticulating wildly.

  “It wasn’t that the intentions of the Light weren’t good,” said Graham. “But as more and more people gave up their sparks to swirl into the Light’s growing force, the Light became a polar opposite force in the world. A force with just as much power as the Darkness. The combination of such things proved to be a recipe for disaster. Good intentions and too much power meant that the emissaries of the Light could excuse any of their actions as long as they were in the service of fighting Darkness. And so the war in the world spirit began. Light against Dark. It raged across centuries, culminating ultimately in the two of you.”

  I gazed down into the pool, which was churning turbulent waters. There weren’t any images currently. “Azazel and I? How?”

  Graham moved his hand over the water and it went placid. An image shone forth of a group of men in white robes, kneeling before a man with an outstretched sword and kissing it. “The Light was charged with organization and power. Branches of it grew to stave off the Darkness. In particular, secret societies moved to and fro, giving up their power to the Light. They envisioned a champion to banish Darkness forever. To fight and conquer. And what better name for an emissary of Light than the Rising Sun?”

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bsp; The image changed again. I saw men in a medieval church, each bearing the insignia of the Sons of the Rising Sun. They poured over books. They planted gardens. They ate together, chattering boisterously. They were filled with the excitement of their mission: me.

  “But if I’m from the Light,” I said, “why did the Light try to get me to kill myself? Why do they want me dead?”

  “Oh, convolutions have ensued beyond all imagination,” said Graham. “We’ll get to that. But first, realize that the Darkness was not idle during this time either.” He waved his hand over the water and the picture of the swirling, churning Darkness reappeared. “For a long time, the power of the Darkness lay in its chaos. It was powerful because it kept humans without knowledge or direction. It kept them sublimated in their most primitive desires, forced them to give in to their fears, lusts, and angers. But as time wore on, the Darkness began to acquire symbols of itself—rallying cries for those who celebrated the chaos and confusion of freedom—the opposite of order and the Light.” The image changed, and a man appeared in the pool. He was beautiful—and I don’t usually find men beautiful—but this man had an ethereal sort of attraction about him. He had eyes that beckoned, and an expression that promised wickedness and pleasure. He was irresistible. “They told stories about him, and so he existed,” said Graham. “They called him different names. But you know him chiefly as Satan.”

  “Azazel,” Azazel breathed. She lay down on the ground and reached for the image in the pool.

  Graham quickly moved his hands over the water. The image faded.

  Azazel looked up at him. “They said they imbued me with his spirit. Did they?”

  “They believed they did,” said Graham. “And so they did. Elements of the Darkness seeped into you.”

  “No,” I said. “No, I made her Dark. If I’d left her alone, she’d never have—”

  “Stop saying things like that, Jason,” Azazel interrupted. “It’s never been true. I had this within me.”

  Graham laughed. “The truth is that concentrated Darkness and concentrated Light are much the same. They are both destructive, and they are both primarily concerned with obliterating the other side. They are human energies, you see. And it is what humans do. They obsess. They lose their grand ideas in the pursuit of trivialities. Jason may have been born of Light and Azazel of Darkness, but by the time you absorbed your powers, it hardly made any difference. You were absorbed into a battle that predated you, that was rooted in the origins of the world. You shouldn’t try to categorize yourselves as either good or evil. Duality is so limiting anyway.”

  “So our powers came from these two fighting forces?” Azazel asked.

  “Yes. You were incarnations of the Light and the Dark. That’s why you have always been placed in situations where you are against each other.”

  “But we’ve always chosen to be together,” I said. “I mean, it hasn’t always been our first instinct. But in the end, we choose each other.”

  “Yeah,” said Azazel. “If we’re destined to fight, why are we in love?”

  Graham didn’t answer for a moment. “I don’t think that’s my story to tell. The answer is inside you.”

  “You mean because we have free will?” I asked.

  “Maybe it will help if I show you how interconnected the Light and the Darkness really have become. The two forces are opposite, but they also draw each other close as well, like north and south poles of a magnet. Neither of you has ever been pure Light or pure Dark. You’ve been mixtures of both since you were conceived. I’ll show you.”

  The pool showed an image of my father, wearing a suit and standing in front of a classroom. In the front row was my mother, eagerly taking in his every word, adoration all over her face.

  “It all started with Edgar Weem. But then you two know this story, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “He told himself he made me to do good, but really he was driven by a lust for power, a desire for revenge, and by pride.”

  “Exactly,” said Graham. “He was never completely guided by Light. Darkness slipped into you from the very beginning. You were meant to be pure order. You were meant to be the symbol that guided people into the beacon of utter civilization. But Edgar Weem didn’t get it quite right. He summoned great power, but it was a hodgepodge of Light and Dark. And others found their ways in as well.”

  The image shifted to Arabella Hoyt, Azazel’s grandmother, spitting curses over Michaela Weem’s belly.

  “She only wanted revenge,” said Graham. “Her curse was part of you.”

  “And my mother,” I said. “Michaela served Darkness. She worshipped chaos.”

  “Oh, we’ll get to Michaela Weem eventually,” said Graham. “She was quite confused. It was partly Arabella Hoyt’s fault, but there was more to it than that.” He moved his hand over the pool of water. The interior of the sorority house filled the surface of the water. I was pumping bullets into a dead girl’s body, maniacally grinning. I had to turn away from the image. I’d never known I looked like that.

  Azazel looked away as well.

  “They put the Darkness into you in other ways,” said Graham. “They forced you to be violent. They wanted your unquestioning obedience. They pushed you to see how far you would go. And when they were finished with you, you hardly wanted to follow the Light anymore. They had hurt you, twisted you.” Graham sat down on the ground. His face grew sad. “That’s what the Light always does. They try to force goodness on people, but it only leads to evil. That’s what people do, because the Light is part of us. It’s what we created. It’s us. We try so hard to do things right, but we always...” He was quiet for a second. “Maybe if we didn’t give up so much of ourselves to other things. Maybe if we weren’t always following one idea or another—making that idea stronger with our own ideas. Maybe if we kept our own sparks.”

  Graham passed a hand over the water. The image changed. Now it showed Azazel’s mother. She was very young, and her eyes shone bright with hope. Azazel’s father slid in behind her, embracing her. “Your parents,” Graham said. “They were very much in love. But their desire for children blinded them.”

  The image swirled again. A sign reading, “Welcome to Bramford,” appeared. “There was a group of Satanists in Bramford. They ostensibly served the Darkness, because they embraced chaos and refused to follow any kind of rule or order. But truthfully, they contributed very little to the growing Dark in the world spirit. They were simply too mundane and peaceful, living out their lives with very little conflict. When your parents arrived in Bramford, they were originally attracted to the Satanists, because their beliefs centered so much on individual freedom, which your parents embraced. But your mother wanted a baby. They tried everything the Satanists told them to do.” The image shifted, and an elderly woman was handing Azazel’s mother a necklace with a pentagram pendant.

  “The necklace my mother got from Mrs. Cantle,” said Azazel. “She gave it to me before the prom.”

  “But the Satanists,” continued Graham, “didn’t offer anything more than charms and hopes. They weren’t driven. Not the way Michaela Weem was anyway.” The pool showed my young mother opening the door to Azazel’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jones.

  Azazel reached down towards the pool again. “They’re so young,” she murmured. “I miss them. I miss the sounds of their voices.”

  Graham raised his eyebrows. “Even after what they did to you?”

  Azazel shrugged. “They weren’t always awful. They were my parents. At one point, I loved them so much.”

  Graham waved his hand over the pool, and suddenly, there was sound.

  Michaela closed the door after the couple, who fidgeted with their jackets, looking uncomfortable. “It’s good to finally meet you,” she said.

  ”It’s good to meet you,” said Mrs. Jones. “We found your articles in the pamphlet so unsettling. We came to help.”

  Michaela smiled. “You came because you could not conceive on your own. Isn’t that right?”
r />   Azazel’s parents exchanged an uncomfortable look.

  ”Well,” said Mr. Jones, “that’s certainly a factor. But we are concerned with this threat from an agent of order, and our coven is too. Anything we can do to help.”

  Michaela’s smile widened, but it wasn’t exactly friendly. “You realize this child will be called into the service of Azazel before he is grown, don’t you? You realize that if you give birth to this baby, he will not be yours forever. He will only be on loan from the gods of chaos.” ”I guess they didn’t realize I was going to be a girl,” said Azazel.

  “I’m glad you were,” I said.

  Azazel’s parents both bobbed their heads. “We understand,” said Mrs. Jones. “We are willing to do whatever we can. We will sacrifice what we must to preserve individuality and chaos.”

  ”Well, then,” said Michaela, “you must do exactly as I say.”

  The image shifted to Michaela mixing strange ingredients together and giving it to Mrs. Jones to drink. Graham spoke. “Michaela set herself up as a leader. She ordered everyone around, and they listened. Though she did it to further the Darkness, she used the trappings of organization and the Light to accomplish it. And thus, Azazel, you were also both Dark and Light.”

  “But how did she do it?” asked Azazel. “My parents couldn’t have babies before they went to her. What did she do?”

  “She petitioned the Darkness,” said Graham. “It’s possible if you can access the power to manipulate matter in all kinds of ways. After all, the power here is made of sparks from individuals, remember? It’s made up of us. Turning it back into matter is possible. But it takes a tremendous amount of power.”

  “So I am Dark,” said Azazel.

  “Didn’t I just explain that you were both Dark and Light?” said Graham.

  “We were both created out of both,” I said.

  “Exactly,” said Graham, “and so you had the potential to be swayed either way. If you’d followed the plans of the people who brought you into being, you’d have towed the party line, so to speak. But instead you two fell in love.” He waved his hand over the pool and the two of us appeared outside the homecoming dance in Bramford. We were kissing. But I noted the way our bodies fit together. I noted that I was pushing Azazel into the wall, that I was the aggressor. And I remembered the way that night had gone. I’d initiated the entire incident. It had been me who had come to her and said that I couldn’t watch her with Toby. Maybe if I’d only backed off… But we’d tried that scenario earlier in this weird spirit world dream sequence. Maybe I was the aggressor. Maybe I had brought Darkness into Azazel’s life. But if Graham was right, Darkness was already there.