Helen

Now, Grimsby, there’s a sewer!  No, no, I don’t mean the city itself, which is one of the coolest in the world.  I mean the actual sewers beneath Grimsby as compared with Los Angeles (also a cool city just not under the streets).  Grimsby in the fall had rivers of muck and sludge.  And maybe there are crocodiles and piranha but certainly there were villains and monsters; Grimsby sewers have soul. 

That’s what I kept saying, anyway.  But was my newest sister listening?

“I don’t understand how I can walk,” she kept saying.  She’d gotten the hang of breathing with a crushed chest and had by now also discovered how to avoid spewing blood when she spoke.  “I said I don’t understand how I can walk!”

“You call that walking?” I said.  “I’ve seen sewer crocodiles who could lift their feet higher.  Quit slogging!”

“You’re the one who crushed my knee,” I said.  “I don’t see how you can expect me to hurry along.”

“I expect it because you can,” I said.  “Obviously you have Darren’s shields.  And you regenerate.  We all do.”

“Shields?  You mean the holy light?”

“Stop calling it that,” I said.  “It’s Sanctity.  It’s the universal antidote to Corruption. I mean, your light was ‘holy’ but really that’s just a Provincial term.  Paladins pop up from time to time in different planes with local powers that can fight demons.  They make good allies.  And good fucks, too, if you like virgins.  And I do.”

I could feel Mackie’s glare without having to turn around.  But then, I have eyes in the back of my head.  Effectively.  “Well, anyway, paladins have these ‘holy powers’, ” I used my fingers as quotation marks, “that really do in demons; and their power sometimes injures them.  It’s a Provincial power, mind you.  Your Sanctity is the Higher Planes version of holy powers.  It’s like comparing a candle to a volcano.  Well, no, maybe a home furnace to a volcano.”

“What do you mean, ‘Provincial’,” she said.  She mocked my quotation marks with a pair of her own or the best she could do, what with a broken arm and all.

“Provincial means particular to the plane,” I said.  “Not primal or fundamental like our powers.  On some planes, the Provincial righteous can turn the wicked aside; on others, they’ve no effect whatsoever.  It depends on the rules of the plane.  Our powers adapt to planar conditions but they’re universal.  But never underestimate Provincials.  They can tie themselves to local power sources and be many times stronger than us.  Our consolation is that we can always run far, far away and, most especially, we can inevitably triumph over any Provincial.  If you’re willing to spend a year or fifty.

“Anyway, you can count on that solid light, that Sanctity, wherever you go.”

“That’s why you made me collect it?” she asked.

“Right,” I said.  My voice betrayed nothing but I was lying.  Her “light” would have certainly flowed back to her wherever she went.  Making her collect her own shields burnt time and diverted her concentration fully while I took care of Father Paul’s body.  She had let me do as I will because I promised I could resurrect the man.  And I would.  But I had needed to perform a little operation so I snatched the body while he was distracted. 

I found rubber fishing overalls in the closet where I finally stashed him.  That got me to thinking that maybe we could chase the demon via the sewers rather than go straight for the subway.  It would be better, really, because both of us were beautiful women in very bad shape and we’d attract a fuss if we went aboveground (at least from horny guys). 

Thank God Father Paul kept big Ziploc bags!  And had sharp kitchen knives (turned out they were probably Mackie’s on loan).

Anyway, talking her into a sewer proved easier than I’d expected.  She wanted to believe I was telling the truth and I guess the world had become so crazy for her this seemed like a sensible course.

“How come you can move so freely,” she repeated.

“Oh, that’s my powers,” I said.  “I am the jungle.”   

“Is that supposed to make some sense?”

I sighed.  “We Edens develop specialties over time.  We all Feed and we all fight demons.  After that whole Trojan curse thingie—don’t get me started-- demons gravitated towards me and I had to do something about it.  My powers adapted and I became the huntress.”

“Trojan thingie?  You’re that Helen?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, having heard it all before.  “It’s all my fault.” I sung the words in a particularly sarcastic way.  “Anyway, Circe, the slut, cursed me because she’d lost a lover of hers in the war and that asshole magi Toth wouldn’t undo the curse unless I did something particularly awful for him.   So, I was stuck with it.  It’s actually violence.”

“What’s violence?” I asked.

“My curse is violence.  I draw violence towards me because ‘I caused so much violence’ Circe said.  She’s a real wizard, Circe, and more than just a local talent; but you can’t curse an Eden forever.  I found that I liked violence.  Once I adapted, it added a zestful element to my life.

“It was Dad’s idea that I become the huntress.  My power attracts demons and Discordant beasties and I destroy them in my ‘forest’: basically any area I claim as my own.  The side effect, because there’s always one of those, is that if badies somehow survive in my orbit they can magnify their own power.  So sometimes I turn little demon into a big demon.”

“What do you mean by demon?” she asked.  “You make it sound biblical but also imply its a monster.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said.  “You know, I’m not good at initiating a new Regal.  I mean, it never really happens anyway and there’s Démia or Delilah or Father…”

“Is that Samson’s Delilah?”

“Samson?  That prick!  He owes me a long sensual vacation and keeps forgetting to pay me back.  He says it’s me who owes him but I saved those Isreali folks before he—”        

“You mean there’s really a Samson?  Like the Bible?”

“I thought you were the religious girl,” I said.  “Yes, he’s a member of what we call House Solomon.”

“I am religious,” I said.  “But you’re talking about biblical heroes as if they’re really alive.  Delilah? Samson? Eve? And Adam?”

“We call him Dad.”

Well, I couldn’t have stunned her more if I’d shot her temple with an elephant gun.  I paused until she digested that idea but of course she’d need more than five minutes for that.  That was the kind of idea you need maybe fifty years or centuries to digest. 

“This will make sense in time,” I lied.  “Look, there’s a bunch of planar travelers: Coreals, wizards, mages, Majestics, demons, angels….  You won’t see a lot of Coreals or wizards outside of the Higher Planes, well, except in Nexus worlds.  Demons and angels are pretty universal in scope, though their strength always varies based on local planar laws.  Mages stick to parts of the multiverse where their magics works.  Majestics, well, they form Houses in the Lower Planes and you could call them the sort of magical rules or their worlds.  Their strength depends on their magical treasure or whether they can tie in with a local power font.  Those you will see. 

“Samson isn’t in the family.  He’s a Majestic, sort of two degrees below us but powerful enough Majestics travel through the Lower Planes—in really bizarre ways—and they sometimes form Houses of their own.  Mutual protection societies, really.  Majestic Houses seek power sources that are Provincial, unique to each plane, but can be added to their pool.  The more power in their overall pool, the stronger every Majestic in the House becomes.”

“Wait, I don't understand something.  You speak of growing up in the garden of Eden but in the bible...”

“The sins of the father.  Quite a few of us were born in the garden, Qayin, Abel, Seth, me, Démia, Delilah...  Course a lot of us had different names back then.  I think Démia was Sarah?  Mom fiddles with our names over the ages so Dad has more or less influence over us. 

“So, anyway, back to me because I’m what’s really important and you’ll get used to that fact.  I hunt demons and demons are Corrupt and Corruption is what tainted the garden.  Yes, that Garden.  Eden.

“Before you ask we don’t know what caused Corruption.  Maybe the fall of Lucifer.  Maybe Mom’s, I mean Eve’s, quite sensible decision that she’d rather have knowledge instead of spend her days wallowing in Daddy’s playpen the Garden and Adam better eat this damn fruit or his bed would be really cold from now on… 

“Or maybe it was Havel’s murder in the garden.   Poor Qayin...”

“Please don’t tell me he’s still alive,” I said.

“Qayin?  Sure.  You’ll like him.  Probably.  Maybe not.  No, you will.  He’s very wise in a wicked, dangerous kind of way.”
“He’s a killer!”

“The first killer.  I think that’s very wise.  Killing is very, very wise.  And who deserved to be killed more than Havel?  He was the biggest asshole ever.  So maybe Qayin created Corruption.

“Sister Melindra sometimes says Démia ate a low hanging fruit off that tree and so in her innocent knowledge of good and evil, she discovered Corruption which let her dissolve things in the garden so she could create magic, which could then manipulate the garden itself.  This feels more true to me.  Then again, the whole tree of knowledge thing implies God and I’m pretty sure I don’t remember God. 

“Maybe it was me.  Démia accidentally killed a deer with the Corruption and once she did that, I discovered I could hunt for the family and put meat on the table. 

“Probably it was all those things.  Corruption exists in all power, in every plane, everywhere.  Sanctity can cleanse Corruption but all that does is turn it into, well, magical vapor; it will condense, it will pool, and those pools will produce more demons and monsters.  For various reasons, Corruption became the overwhelming problem of the universe and we needed a solution.  Mom and Dad invented Feeding.   yes, like vampire Feeding, a kind of sexualized murder.   The profanity of a child of Eden Feeding upon a human sucks Corruption from all around us—even from beyond the plane—and we basically swallow and digest it.  The Coreals called Darkthanes copied are methods and now the best way to fight demons isn’t chasing after them and killing them—though you’d better do that—it’s actually Feeding upon humanity itself.

“The multiverse is a dark and twisted place but what can you expect?  We cut up the garden of Eden with the evil in the human heart to make it.”

“You mean we’re monsters, don’t you?” I said.  “Am I supposed to drink blood?”

“Ah, that’s one way, I suppose.  I typically Feed through killing.  Most of us Feed like Incubae or Succubae, simply killing the lucky, er unlucky, victim through sex.  But we came out of Hell into the land of Darkthanes and we all found our own ways of Feeding or even our own Feeding forms!  Démia becomes a cute vampire catgirl.  Melindra steals boyfriends and eats their love (though they technically stay alive).  Gavin literally fucks all the luck out of lovers so they immediately go out and die in accidents.”

“You are all monsters!” she said.

“Whatever,” I said.  “The more you Feed, the safter everyone else is, so find a pretty boy or girl and bon apatite.”

I know what you’re going to say.  It was too much, too soon, and I assumed she had the family obsession with sex.  And she did.  But she was a virgin (yes, I recognized her virginity but I thought she was a State virgin and not a “I’ve never, ever had sex before” virgin) and a woman who felt that sex and romance were tied together.  She didn’t need me describing all the different ways our family can transform one of the most wonderful experiences in life into a horror show. 

On the other hand, we were all in our way incubi and succubae (without the dream element common in those demons) and the sooner she learned that the better. 

“I will never do something that monsterous.”

I stopped and faced her because this was critical.  “If you let Corruption fester,” I said, emphasizing each word, “it will consume you.  It will take over your body and mind and you will lose your soul. Eventually, your soul will come back.  But in the meanwhile, ten times the number of people who would have died because you were too squeamish.  Edens are fundamental.  Gone wild, we can damage the fabric of the universe itself.  We can never, never, never—a thousand nevers—let Corruption consume us.  If you hunger, you must Feed.”

“I’d rather die than do the things you describe,” she said. 

“Death isn’t an option.  You are of Eden.  Jump off a building and you might die, sure, but you’ll soon wake up in a new State.  You’ll live happily for a time but eventually you’ll realize who you are.  And how much you need to Feed…”

“My God!” She looked so wounded.  “We’re monsters and there’s no escape, that’s what you’re telling me!”

I shrugged.  “Corruption exists.  And if you pray your Corruption away—because I bet you could do that—a demon composed of your darkest desires will spring into existence.  That demon will ravage the earth, doing a hundred times the damage your one little Feeding would have done.  The only way the demon will stop is if you find it and hunt it down.  Which is a pain in the ass.  Why not just do the evil yourself and be done with it?”

I paused for dramatic effect.  “Want to here the upside?”

“How could there possibly be an upside,” she said.  Good gravy, she was crying. 

“Darkthanes merely contain the evil: every Darkthane has hundreds of demons worth of evil inside of them.   They save probably a thousand lives for each one they Feed upon.   But we of Eden absorb it, merge the Corruption with our internal Sanctity, and create pure and simple magic out if.  And we do this across planes!  We destroy the Corrruption that would have formed into thousands upon thousands of demons across dozens and dozens of worlds.

“And when we kill one demon, we reflect an echo of that death on all planes around us.  When I kill a demon, I can kill a demon over a whole section of the multiuniverse. 

“With that Paladin power of yours, I expect you’ll be just as effective.  For every life we destroy when we Feed, we save ten thousand; for every demon we hunt, we save ten thousand. 

“That’s why Delilah has a theory that God lives vicariously through us.  Because we will eventually do every wicked thing so we can Feed.  And while we live very selfish lives in an infinite variety of fun, self-indulgent States, we also are the implacable enemies of Corruption and demons.  Our existence is justified many times over.”

“If morality were a numbers game,” Mackie said.  “But it’s not.  How will I live with myself if I must do the terrible things you describe?”  She didn’t expect an answer.  “How do you live with yourself?”

“You mean me or the family?  The family lives with Corruption because they’re adults and adults live with suffering.  Life throws them roses and shit and they smell the roses and fertilize with the shit after they wipe it off and clean their jeans.  The dark secrets they push away from their thoughts and they muddle through.  Haunted, sure, sometimes, but most soldiers, say, manage very well despite all the awful things they’ve seen.”

I smiled my cutest super-cute smile.  “I’m not an adult.  At some level, I’m just the ten-and-a-half-year-old-girl who left Eden before she became a woman.  I gain my current age through Corrupt means.  Killing good people upsets me and while I always return eventually to my Eden innocence, it takes too long.  I age backwards, you know, until I’m ten again.  So I just kill an innocent person and steal their innocence and sometimes a year or two of their life (to age myself).  Then I feel great!”

“I need to get out of here,” Mackie said. 

“Go ahead,” I said.  “I can’t stop you.  You’ve Darren’s Legacy which you’ve mostly inverted.  It means you’re impossibly strong and your shield is Willpower—not just that light.  

“Me, well, I’m going to resurrect your priest.”

I went on.  She stood there by herself for a time but after a time she changed her mind and followed.