Summoned to Rule Read online

“Shouldn’t you kill him?” Bec said, showing her typical emotionless rationality.

  “Let’s just go to the gate, alright?”

  We entered the office on stilts and I took her hand. She squeezed it as hard as she could, and I took her through and into the heaven.

  Chapter 3

  “I could get used to this,” Bec said as we walked down the pristine beach to the next gate.

  “This place isn’t for you,” Buddy said. He still held the boy’s hand, helping him navigate the hot, soft sand.

  “Sure, but I’m never going to get into a heaven that is made for me, so maybe I should stay here while I have the chance.”

  She was toying with him and he didn’t realize. He turned and scowled at her and she put on a fake smile to rile him up. I realized how much the angel had changed since we first ran into each other. When I’d first faced him, he’d been like any of the hollow men, barely able to show his emotions through the dead flesh of his host body, and perfectly happy with the state of affairs.

  Now he showed emotion and life, something I’d never seen in a hollow man before. He was almost human, in a stilted way, and more emotional than Bec was most of the time.

  “You’re different, Buddy,” I said. “More at home in that body, maybe. I don’t know.”

  “I’m fallen, Agmundr,” he replied as he offered his support to James. “I will slowly lose my angelic countenance as my power decreases. Eventually I will be barely better than the humanity I am surrounded by.”

  “You say that like it isn’t something you’re concerned about,” I said.

  “I am not. I expected this, when I decided to journey to earth. I knew that I would change and it was something I wanted. Do you feel bad for me?”

  I didn’t know how to feel for the angel, but I knew what losing my power had done to me. My life was far more complicated now that I couldn’t simply punch my problems away. While this had given me a measure of humanity I hadn’t known I was missing, it had also introduced a lot more risk into my life. I still wasn’t sure if the trade was worth it.

  “Why did you come get me?” I asked. I was bound to the boy now and I felt I had to follow him, but that didn’t mean I didn’t still have business with Erindis.

  “Should we have left you with the super bitch?” Bec said. I wanted to be annoyed that she’d called my wife a bitch, but I wasn’t. I didn’t care anymore, a change that frightened me.

  I tucked it away, to think about when I had a moment. Assuming I ever had a moment.

  “We need your help,” Buddy said.

  “But we would have done it anyway,” Bec added. “Because we’re friends, and you saved our lives.”

  “He hasn’t saved my life, actually,” Buddy said. “Still, I do feel more friendly toward you than other humans. So perhaps that colored my decision.”

  “Decision?” I said, trying to get them back on track.

  “We were hoping you could do something for us,” Bec said. “The city has gone a little crazy and we think it’s about to get a lot worse.”

  Buddy stopped before the next gate. “There are people making the journey to earth, as I did.” He stepped through without explaining further.

  I took Bec’s hand and followed him. The next heaven was a small village in a shallow valley. People wandered the rutted main street, waving hello to one another and constantly smiling. Everyone was happy. The weather was perfect and even the direct sunlight didn’t beat down as strong as it would on earth.

  It was a view of heaven I didn’t share with the souls who lived there, but I could see the appeal. Bec, however, could not.

  “Why is everything here boring?” she said. “It’s always quiet and everyone is happy to just go on and on. Where’s the conflict, the excitement?”

  “Your heaven would be an interesting place, Rebecca Fletcher,” Buddy said.

  “Except I don’t get a heaven,” she replied immediately. It didn’t seem to bother her much, though with Bec it was difficult to tell.

  “So there are people heading to earth,” I said, trying to get things back on track. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “Nothing,” Buddy continued. “But they are gathering and getting ready to enter your world. Some of them already have and they are causing conflicts. There is a gang that I believe is being run by one of these people, perhaps a demon or an odd angel.”

  “Those would be bad guys,” Bec said. “But the good guys are pretty terrifying too.”

  The next gate in the chain was just outside town. None of the people seemed alarmed at our appearance, or the fact that strange people were roaming the streets of a town that hadn’t seen a stranger in thousands of years. We stopped at the invisible gate and Buddy took James through.

  “We need to talk,” Bec said as I took her hand. “When he isn’t around. After you’ve spoken to the court.”

  “Court?”

  “Later.”

  The next heaven was a large one, as most of the heavens near earth were. The tattoos searched it for gates and painted a picture of what there was to find.

  It was made of mounds of earth, like giant molehills covered in short grass so green it almost hurt the eyes. Thousands of the hills spread out to the horizon at regular intervals. Within and below us were millions of people living in tunnels, like ants.

  “Are they down there for some reason?” I said.

  “No idea,” Buddy replied. “Not my heaven. Anyway, I don’t believe the current course of action regarding these refugees and travelers is going to work.”

  “But nobody will listen to him,” Bec said. “So that’s where you come in.”

  I sighed, though I wanted to yell at them. I was always being dragged into other people’s business, always brought in to end a fight or start a new one. For a moment I had hoped things might be different this time, but I could see the outline of this summoning and it looked a lot like every other one, even if the people in it were all being friendly.

  “I’m not going to fight a war for you,” I said, knowing that as long as they held the child I would do whatever they told me to do.

  Buddy stopped and focused on me. James stood at his side, looking down at the too-green grass intently, though he otherwise showed no real interest in it.

  “That isn’t why you’re here,” the hollow man said. “I don’t want you to fight unless you want to. I don’t even want you to go to earth unless you want. You can stay out here and I will take care of your young master forever, if that’s what you want.”

  “But?” I said, knowing there was always a but at the end of statements like that.

  “But I want to make you an offer. The choice will be yours in the end, but I’d like you to hear me out first.”

  “Me too,” Bec said. “For more earthly things.”

  They both wanted me to do something for them, as people always did when I was summoned. Still, they were going about it differently, at least. It was a refreshing change to what normally happened.

  “What do you want me to do?” I said to Buddy.

  “I’d like to save that for the next heaven, if that’s all right? There are some things I want you to see before I tell you.”

  “Fine. What about you, Bec?”

  “Same here. Go sort out Buddy’s life and then we can talk.”

  I shook my head, but I wasn’t as annoyed as I normally would have been. The core of anger that ran my life was still there, still burning and waiting for me to call on it, but these were my friends. It felt appropriate that they would ask a favor of me.

  If they tried to force me to give them that favor, if they treated me as a slave, then my reaction would be different. But I didn’t think they would, and that was refreshing.

  We walked for an hour, passing several invisible gates before Buddy stopped at the one he wanted us to use.

  “Don’t overreact,” he said. Before I could ask him what he was talking about he’d taken James and stepped through the gate.

&n
bsp; “What did he mean?” I asked Bec.

  “You have a tendency to start punching before you get all the facts,” she said as she took my hand again. “Just don’t freak out when you see what’s waiting.”

  “I don’t freak out,” I said.

  I took her through the gate. The next heaven was a blasted plain with an enormous volcano in the distance. Dark clouds covered the daytime sky and nothing grew in the heaven, or provided any sign of life. It was a strange heaven, as most of them had a lot of water in them as a central theme. This heaven could have been a hell, for all the hospitality it presented.

  A collection of ramshackle buildings waited ahead of us, surrounded by tents with people walking between them. A fifty-foot tall demon, looking like a fat, greasy pig creature, stood over everything, watching the lives of the inhabitants.

  The tattoos began to glow, preparing me for the battle that was coming, with the remainder of the power they’d absorbed.

  “Like I said,” Bec said, squeezing my arm again. “Don’t freak out.”

  I looked at her, then looked back at the demon and the town it was clearly about to destroy. Then back at her half smile, then back to the demon.

  “Alright,” I said and started walking toward the town.

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. I’m not going to freak out.”

  We walked the rest of the way in silence, following Buddy and James. I didn’t freak out, but the tattoos remained powered, just in case.

  Chapter 4

  The court Bec had mentioned was a collection of travelers from across the heavens, and at least one hell. The demon waited outside, sending an imp creature in to be his voice in the meeting. It was a four-foot tall, scaly humanoid, and it smelled of sour milk.

  “We didn’t invite you here,” the head of the court, Peter, said. He was a hollow man, but unlike any hollow man I’d ever seen. He wore a well-built Asian man with tanned skin, and at first I’d thought it was his natural form. He looked too alive to be wearing a corpse from earth, but a quick check with the tattoos confirmed what he was.

  “I invited him,” Buddy said. “We need guidance.”

  “We don’t need guidance from him,” Peter said. He was an angry angel, another strange change to the usual look of a hollow man.

  “We need it from someone,” Buddy said. “We’ve been debating this for a month.”

  “You’ve been debating it,” Peter said. “I know exactly what has to happen next.”

  “You don’t get to decide for us. We vote.”

  The others in the room either nodded in agreement or shook their heads. They were mostly human, the souls of people displaced from their heavens by the recent upheaval. When things went back to normal a large number of souls, now realizing there were other heavens and ways between them, had decided they wanted to return. For some reason they’d gathered on the blasted plain and formed a society while waiting for a way back.

  “We keep voting and it’s never unanimous,” Peter said. He slammed his fist on the driftwood table in the center of the room. “I’m not staying here any longer.”

  Other than the humans, there were a few other fallen angels and some creatures I couldn’t define: they could have been demons or souls traveling from strange heavens. They could have been angels, too. There was no way to easily tell.

  “Let’s hear what Agmundr suggests,” Buddy said. “He has more experience with earth than any of us, and he has helped the fallen who already made the journey.”

  I told them to be nice to the humans and take their morality cues from them rather than the gods. That was the extent of my wisdom, but Buddy and the others had latched onto it as if what I said was the word of one of their gods.

  Everyone in the room turned to look at me, waiting to hear what else I had to say.

  “Tell me the options,” I said. It was always good to know what the discussion was about, and also, I had no idea what I was supposed to say.

  “We have the strength in this room to take what we need,” Peter said. “We journey through the gates and we take this city on the far side. We rule it and we make it a place of safety for anyone who follows.”

  “Well,” I said. “That isn’t going to happen. Next.”

  “Wait,” Peter snapped, cutting Buddy off. “You don’t get to decide this for us.”

  The tattoos were still glowing and I could see he knew what that meant; he kept staring at them and he remained a safe distance from me. When it came to Buddy he was happy to get up in his face and yell.

  “I’m not deciding anything for you,” I said. “You can all vote to do whatever you want. But none of you are attacking the city.”

  “You can’t stop us,” Peter said.

  “Would you care to wager on that?” I had the tattoos increase their brightness. It was all theatrics, but it made a point.

  “I say we do as the other fallen have done,” Buddy said. “We find everyone a body to inhabit and we try to integrate them into society. Things are complex over there and we can provide guidance. We don’t have to fight.”

  “You would have us be slaves,” Peter said. He was starting to irritate me, but I’d already decided this wasn’t my problem. None of them were my problem, and I was just waiting for the argument to end so I could leave.

  “No,” Buddy said. “But I don’t want the humans to be slaves either.”

  “I pick Buddy’s option,” I said. “For whatever that’s worth.”

  “It isn’t worth anything,” Peter snapped. There was murmuring agreement in the room. “You weren’t invited here, and it has nothing to do with you.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “I’m going to leave now and you are welcome to keep arguing until the end of time. Just don’t come through the gate.”

  “Or what?” Peter said. He looked ready to fight, to risk it all and face me. This was a stupid reaction to seeing the tattoos etched on my skin glowing.

  “Just don’t.” I turned and started toward the door, but Bec stood in my way and didn’t move when I approached. She raised her eyebrows and pointed back to the center of the room.

  “Agmundr,” Buddy said behind me. I turned to face him and sighed. “My proposal is simple. I would like you to lead us.”

  “That will never happen,” Peter said. “I won’t be ordered around by him.”

  “Then who?” Buddy snapped back. “Because we are all followers. We were made that way, or trained to be that way by thousands of years of conditioning. We need a leader, and it isn’t going to be you.”

  “So you propose we choose the man you brought here? One guess which side of this argument he chooses.”

  Peter had a point, and I didn’t want to lead them anyway. So I kept my mouth shut and let them argue.

  “He has led armies,” Buddy said. “He has fought and defeated everything that has been thrown against him. He is the right choice.”

  “Then we put it to a vote,” Peter said. “The same as everything else in this ridiculous community.”

  “I would like to speak first,” the imp said. His voice was guttural and hard to make out, as though it wasn’t designed for words. He stepped into the center of the room and hopped up on the table. He stared at me for a moment before addressing the room. “I have met Agmundr before, in my hell.”

  The imp spoke for the demon outside, and now I remembered where I’d seen the giant before: holding Bec aloft by the chains around her hands, while Seng taunted me.

  “He faced down a god of old and he won. He defeated not only the god, but the angels who had flocked to his cause. And when he was done he left all but the god alive.”

  “So?” Peter said. “He got into a fight and we’re supposed to do what he says?”

  “No,” the imp said. The demon outside shifted and a tremor ran through the floor. “I am saying that I have seen this man in action, and my vote will go to him.”

  “I say we vote, then,” Buddy said.

  I grabbed his coat and dragged
him to the side, putting my mouth near his ear so nobody could overhear us. “I’m not interested.”

  “We need this. We need you.”

  “I don’t need this. Work it out yourselves.”

  “I brought you back so you can help us. I made sure your new master wouldn’t stand in your way or threaten your freedom. I have given you the opportunity to live a life, and all I ask in return is for you to break this deadlock and stop the warrior from endangering humans.”

  “This isn’t my problem. Why do you even care?”

  “Because you told me to.” The earnest look on his face was almost enough to stop me from laughing. Almost.

  “I told you to follow their example. And I did it as a way to make you people stop bothering me. I didn’t want to lead you then and I don’t want to now.”

  “Allow us to vote,” he said. “See what they want and then decide. You can do a lot of good here, and I get the feeling you want to.”

  He turned away before I could answer. I didn’t know what to tell him anyway; I wasn’t a leader, though I’d been given the task many times. It didn’t sit well with me, ordering others around. It felt too much like I was becoming one of the masters I hated.

  The vote was close, but Buddy won. He turned to me with a broad smile on his face, as did the imp on the table. Peter’s look alone should have killed me; I could see that he hated me, and I didn’t blame him. In his position I would have hated me too.

  I turned and walked out. It seemed the best thing to do. When Bec tried to stop me I walked around her, pushing through the crowd to get out.

  The demon looked down on me. I couldn’t read his face but I got the feeling he wasn’t happy with me.

  “Not interested,” I told him. I closed my eyes and searched for the nearest gate, then started walking.

  Chapter 5

  “Agmundr, stop,” Bec said, chasing me across the hellish landscape.

  I’d only been walking for a few minutes and I knew she’d catch up quickly. I had enough angelic power in the tattoos that I could have run to the gate in moments, and yet I didn’t. I got the horrible suspicion that some part of me wanted her to catch me.