Hyun: No Time To Die

It hits me that for allegedly being willing to start the Apocalypse over me, Lucifer hasn’t done anything about bailing me out of this. He hasn’t even shown his face once in this entire mess. At least Ramiel showed up when Coach called.

I scoff at the air and my absent “father”; my breath curls like smoke in the chill. I turn around corners and pass one portrait after another. Some are faded, their colours barely able to register against the forever black of the ink lines; others still shine bright and vivid, like they had only just been set to paper. I never would have guessed Death to be so into art, until I realize that it looks like each face is an effigy of a past Horseman; each display has beside it a placard on which is inked a name and a set of dates. Save for one, all of the Wars had short lifespans.

So this was less a garden of relaxation and more of a memorial hall. Fitting.

It takes me a while, but I eventually find Coach. He’s standing at what I guess is the dead center of the maze, in front of the only portrait I’ve seen that has more than one person; there are four figures intertwined with each other. Only one of these has anything akin to a weapon, and it’s little more than a crooked staff. Coach is fascinated by it. His arms are folded across his chest, weight back on his heels, head cocked to the side.

I come up beside him and frown at the statue. “What do you think they’re supposed to be?”

Coach points, top to bottom, “Winter. Spring. Summer. Autumn.”

“How’d you know that?”

He points to words etched into a stone that rests at the edge of the portrait’s display: Per Archetypis. I assume that means The Seasons or something similar…? I was never great at English, so I’m taking Coach’s word for it.

“Everything comes in fours, I guess.” I lean closer to the words, like squinting at them’s going to make me magically understand what I’m starting to suspect isn’t English, but I can’t really be certain. All I know is that this is the only label that is carved into stone and not written in characters.

Coach starts laughing.

“What’s the joke?” I look up at him.

“Nothing, nothing,” he waves a hand. “I suppose I’ve just usually heard “everything comes in threes” but, now that you say it, I guess in this case...it is in fours.”

I don’t get the joke, but he’s laughing so damn hard that I can’t help but laugh with him. It’s infectious -- it might also be that my body is that desperate to relieve even some of the tension.

“You know,” Coach wipes at the edge of one eye, “I see a lot of myself in you.”

“Really?” I snort, doing my best to hide how pleased that makes me.

“Yes,” he laughs. “We’re both very stubborn, born into religious families with whom we clashed, though, I’ll admit to having outright rowed with my brothers.”

“I didn’t know you had siblings.”

“Mmm,” he nods. “We haven’t spoken in ages, though. Not since...well, not since our major falling out -- came to blows and that sort of thing…” he shakes his head, voice trailing off a bit. “It’s always hardest to forgive those you love, because there’s all the more to resent.”

“I can understand that,” I say, though all I resent my family for now is being dead. I know it’s not much of a fair argument; it’s not like my parents chose to die.

“The mind is its own place,” Coach says quietly, “and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. Milton,” he adds for my benefit. I still frown at him, and he elaborates, “A long-dead Western poet who wrote about the fall of Lucifer from Heaven.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

A chorus of screams loud enough to break the sound barrier rips across the sky, echoing through maze, and sending a long crack through the frozen water of the fountain behind us.

That didn’t sound good.

Coach immediately takes a fighting stance; I echo it with one of my own.

“So do we stay here or…”

I don’t get to finish my question as Conquest and Famine burst through a nearby hedge.

“I told you they’d be together,” Famine smiles, only a little breathless.

“What was that?” I ask.

“I’m not entirely sure, but I’ve always been pretty certain that Death keeps ghosts in here,” Famine shrugs.

“You are awfully calm,” Coach frowns.

“Few things ruffle Famine,” Conquest grumbles, eyes doing a ceaselessly roving tour of our surroundings.

“Ok, can someone answer me and tell me what the hell that was?” my voice shakes.

“Honestly?” Conquest keeps looking around us, an eagle-eyed sentry. “I have one...okay, several ideas -- but since they’re all impossible, let’s go with: I have no idea.”

“Impossible or improbable?” Coach asks.

“Impossible,” Conquest answers, surprisingly not offended at Coach’s questioning of their grammar. Famine, meanwhile, does a jump, skip, and a hop onto the highest point of the poles from which the large portrait hangs. She crouches, cat-like, to peer above the hedges and trees.

We wait. Everything is eerily silent.

“Well,” Coach says carefully, “given everything that’s happened over the last however many hours we’ve been here, I’m currently very willing to entertain impossible.

“Well,” Conquest inhales, and they pull in tighter to me and Coach. Their bow and arrow appears in their hands from a sudden swirl of white dust. “Saying for a moment that it was possible...I’d wager somebody from one side or the other is now in here. And judging by that scream...I’d further wager that they’re from the basement.”

“You mean...a demon is in here with us?” I nearly shout.

A gust of cold wind blows at my back, as if in response to me even saying the word “demon.” Why is there wind inside?

“Ooh, visitors!” Famine giggles with disturbing excitement.

“It...how…” Conquest frowns, eyes darting rapidly back and forth. I can practically hear the mental calculations they’re probably making in their head.

“Just out of curiosity,” my voice creeps and cracks through an octave, “how could a demon manage to get into a room that even the angel who is trying to kill me can’t get into?”

“It would mean a pretty major change to the game, because it would mean that Lucifer is in here with us and summoned one to him,” Conquest replies. “Since the seals are breaking, I suppose there could be holes to exploit. But--”

“But clearly it’s only the four of us,” Famine hops back down, to take a fourth side of our makeshift back-to-back formation. “Obviously Lucifer isn’t here, so--...oh.”

Oh?

“Good oh? Bad oh? ‘Oh’ what?”

“It’s you,” she says, turning to look at me with wide eyes.

“Me? What’d I do now?”

Seriously, how many things can be my fault?

Conquest swears in a language I don’t recognize, but the tone is pretty unmistakable. “Of course,” they say. “We didn’t consider what it would mean for either of you to be here behind Death’s doors -- but especially you, Hyun.”

“How big a difference does it make?” Coach asks.

“I don’t know,” Conquest answers reluctantly. “I have never needed to account for such a contingency.”

“Well, if you don’t know,” I say, “and we’re probably not secure here…”

“Run?” Famine suggests.

A beat. A breath in before a bolt of lightning rips down from the sky. I jump. The light is blinding and thunder crashes like a cannon blast. That cold wind gives an extra hard gust, only now at my face, pushing me back into Conquest, back towards where I think the door is.

“Run,” Conquest agrees.