Clarice released Aria from an embrace for the hundredth time as they stood in the veranda near the pond discussing the upcoming trip to Antarctica. Their uncle Devon had grown animated when she mentioned visiting Antarctica. She had waited for the excitement around Aria to die down before questioning him. He stood across from her and Aria with his arm around Tamra. Calypso stood on the other side of Aria, absently taking her hand. Their parents were standing with them, there expressions growing serious as they returned to the plans they had started so many months ago.
“What is it about Antarctica that has you acting like an amorous armadillo in a bowling alley?” Clarice asked her uncle, her lips quirking up slightly.
There was a pregnant pause as the strong visual metaphor stalled the conversation. Aria was the first to break the silence, dissolving into a fit of giggles as her parent’s facepalmed. Devon shared a rueful look with Tamra, who snorted a laugh and shook her head.
“It’s nice to have your personality back with us, Clarice,” their mother declared with a fond smile. “I never thought I would say this, but I really missed your deranged sense of humor while Aria was gone.”
“How does his behavior resemble an amorous armadillo in a bowling alley?” Calypso asked with a puzzled crease to her brows.
Clarice connected to Calypso’s thought node with a tendril of energy and sent a visual explanation. “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”
Calypso’s face lit up like a sunset. Clarice sniggered as she watched Calypso shift uncomfortably while the rest of the group tried to hide their amusement at her sudden awkwardness.
“You are a bad angel,” Aria told her with a fondness that was at odds with her words.
“Getting back on track,” their uncle said pointedly. “There are some things you should know about Antarctica.”
“And it doesn’t involve bowling,” Tamra added wryly.
“Well, oddly enough, it does involve a lot of balls,” Devon noted with a hint of a smile. “There is an installation called IceCube with thousands of ball shaped sensors buried a few thousand feet beneath the ice that are ostensibly for detecting neutrinos. It cost half a billion dollars and requires twenty million annually for upkeep. As you discovered after graduating college, Aria, nobody funds projects that don’t offer a return of investment. I was only peripherally involved in the construction, but after hearing about what you found on Saturn, I have to wonder what this IceCube observatory is really being used for. You might want to investigate the installation while you are down there.”
“After discovering the surface of the sun wasn’t hot, I’m definitely suspicious about this neutrino detector,” Aria commented with a frown. “If neutrinos aren’t formed in giant balls of plasma undergoing the fusion of atoms, then it seems likely that they are a result of the electromagnetic interaction of these plasma conduits that connect the star systems together. We’ll have to see what happens if we shut this IceCube place down.”
“It’s probably something put in place by demons to help them manage their control of the planet,” Clarice looked at Aria speculatively. “You’re kind of out of the loop on current events, aren’t you?”
Aria blinked, then shook her head with a sigh. “I keep forgetting that I’ve been gone for four months. It just seems like a bad dream now. What’s going on? Is social media still fixated on Calypso and angels?”
“People have become far more involved in their local and regional politics,” Clarice informed her with a faint smile. “We think the apathy modulator we destroyed on Saturn resulted in a rise of activism worldwide. A lot of politicians have been getting grilled about the rogue intelligence agencies and overpowered billionaires. According to Krajen, the former demon who was the director of the North American Territories, the ostensible billionaires of the world are all owned by the intelligence agencies, who are in turn owned by the demons. They started using billionaires for projects to avoid dealing with the oversite and accountability that governments have to deal with. Krajen has been making information dumps online that confirm this, and people are getting angry. The government tried to implement martial law at one point, but the soldiers and law enforcement officers were just as pissed as everyone else and wouldn’t comply. Things are pretty tense right now in the world. The fact that angels started appearing and claiming that demons were in charge only added fuel to the fire. We were raiding demon agonite processing labs while you were gone, but they have been drying up as the demons still in charge have gone to ground. Lucifer has been putting a dent in their numbers as well. He has a fairly large network of angels tracking demons down for him to redeem.”
“Wow, things really did progress a lot, didn’t they?” Aria commented in wonder. “Are people getting accustomed to seeing angels yet?”
“People still think all angels have wings,” Clarice replied wryly. “They don’t know that only archangels and higher have wings, and since there are way fewer archangels, people aren’t noticing the angels in their midst. Apparently, people have to believe in regular angels in order to see them, but that hasn’t been a problem due to all of the publicity we created months ago. They’ve seen us a few more times over the last several months when we delivered kids to their parents after raiding agonite farms, but we are still a pretty hot topic in social media. People are convinced that something big is about to happen, not realizing that it is already happening right under their noses.”
“Are there any plans to start redeeming humans yet?” Aria asked hopefully.
“Yes, but it’s been done quietly,” Devon answered with a nod. “Most of the humans being redeemed are regular angels, so their physical attributes and senses aren’t all that different from humans. We’ve been requesting that all new angels continue with their daily work life routines until we reach a tipping point in the number of redeemed. That way, the world economies and supply chains won’t collapse and doom the remaining humans.”
“How are people showing up to work after they are turned into angels if humans have to believe in them to see them?” Aria wondered, her brows drawn down in confusion.
“Let me amend that,” Devon answered, glancing at their parents with a wry quirk of his lips. “Humans can’t see angels who weren’t raised from mortality. Whatever happens to the soul after experiencing mortality seems to remove that effect. Of course, there aren’t a lot of angels left in the world who weren’t caught by demons.”
“What about this soul trap?” Aria asked with a frown. “Do we know anything else about how they are trapping angels in a reincarnation loop?”
Clarice shared a look with the others before turning back to Aria with a mischievous grin. “You know that big bright ball in the sky that appears at night?”
“Are we referring to the moon?” Aria asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes we are,” Clarice nodded, her grin widening. “Apparently, the machine that is responsible for catching and reincarnating souls is what makes up most of the moon. It’s pretty much hollow, with a giant machine inside that looks like it popped out of a sci-fi story with alien technology.”
“What are you grinning about?” Aria asked suspiciously.
“Because we get to vaporize the moon!” Clarice exclaimed, her eyes shining with excitement.
“Hold on, can’t we just flip the off switch?” Aria asked anxiously. “Do you know how many repercussions destroying the moon would have on life on earth?”
“Nothing any time soon,” Clarice replied with a shrug. “It would mess with some of the ecology that has become dependent on tides, but it won’t do anything too crazy for tens of thousands of years. Considering we will be rewriting reality long before that time, the effects will be minimal. Besides, there will still be solar tides.”
Aria stared at Clarice as her sister’s evil grin returned. “Will it affect the ability for people to incarnate at all? We still want people to be able to incarnate, right?”
“The device that initiates a mortality experience for an angel is in the lower light realm,” Calypso answered her reassuringly.
Aria studied Calypso intently, her eyes curious. “How much of your memories of being a Seraph have returned?”
“A very small amount,” Calypso replied wistfully. “Some things will trigger a recall of a past event or conversation, while other times I just intuitively know about something without associating it with a memory. Considering how old we really are, I’m just scratching the surface of my soul memory. What about you? Have you had any kind of recall?”
“Just the intuitive knowledge so far,” Aria answered, then hesitated as she looked at Clarice and Calypso. “Except for one. I remember both of you. It’s like remembering my arm though. We’ve been together for so long that I didn’t realize just how much I knew you until I saw the two of you again when I returned from the splinter reality. The three of us were close before experiencing mortality, but after our first time trying it we became more like we are now. I felt a closeness to Lucifer and even Grodek, but it wasn’t anywhere near the same strength. I remember feeling a sense of distaste for the four Seraphim still in the light realm. The memories just appeared after returning to this reality.”
“Maybe we need to visit the light realms,” Clarice spoke musingly, looking at Calypso and Aria speculatively. “Probably just the lowest two realms for now. I wonder if it would trigger additional recall.”
“It would probably trigger an accelerated evolution,” Calypso said thoughtfully. “The energy in those realms is a lot higher than the mortal realm, so we would probably get flooded with energy. That’s a great idea, Clarice.”
“So, what did they call the light realms before the mortal realm was created?” Clarice asked, her eyes speculative. “Did they just call it ‘The Realm’ or something lame like that? And why is it called the ‘Light Realm’ anyway? As opposed to the Dark Realm?”
“By them, you mean we, remember?” Aria reminded her dryly. “We’re the ones who have been around for jillions of years.”
“Light is another word for energy,” Calypso explained with a fond look at Clarice. “Since there are three realms with three degrees of energy output, they were called light realms. The void still exists, or rather, doesn’t exist, so light realm refers to a place where energy exists. Technically, the mortal realm is a light realm too. The energy here is just so low that it’s classified as the mortal realm instead of a light realm.”
Clarice stared back at Calypso silently for a moment, her eyes considering. She finally sighed and slumped her shoulders. “Okay, that’s a good reason, I guess. I was really looking forward to poking holes in their verbiage.”
“By their, you mean our,” Aria reminded her critically. “We’re the ones who came up with said verbiage.”
“Are we though?” Clarice asked challengingly. “Maybe it was those other four asshats, and we were against it.”
“Except that it makes sense,” Aria pointed out, her eyes sparkling with humor. “You admitted it was a good reason just a second ago.”
“Did I though?” Clarice asked belligerently. “Can you prove that I admitted it?”
“Yep,” Aria grinned as she connected a tendril of energy to her sister and replayed the memory across the telepathic bond.
“You could have just fabricated that memory,” Clarice declared stubbornly.
“Okay, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,” their mother broke in with an exasperated laugh. “Let’s get back on track here, shall we?”
Clarice stuck her tongue at their mother, eliciting a headshake.
“So, what’s the priority here,” their father asked quizzically.
“I vote we blow up the moon,” Clarice declared eagerly. “Think of all of the people who die every day who would start returning to the light realm instead of being staged for rebirth.”
“I vote we visit Antarctica and take down the IceCube,” Devon stated, glancing at Calypso. “Vaporizing the moon could potentially be disruptive to societal order. Visiting the light realms might have unforeseen consequences, or even traps waiting for you. I think we need to focus on getting the remaining pieces of the divine instruments before trying to visit any of the light realms.”
Clarice felt a sudden shock and wariness in the part of her soul that was connected to Lexi. Without hesitating, she teleported over to her protégé, followed a moment later by Aria and Calypso.
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“Oh, we have some new contestants!” a wannabe monk declared grandiloquently, his dark eyes alight with excitement. “It’s going to be an exciting day!”
There was something off about the guy. Clarice couldn’t tell if he was a demon, mortal, or angel unless she looked through her spiritual eyes. She had never seen anything like him. He appeared to be sitting on the razors edge between demon and angel while being neither. There was also an odd resonance emanating away from him that felt familiar somehow.
Clarice made a quick telepathic link with the others as she watched the man cautiously. Lexi, what’s this guy’s deal?
He says he has a piece of the divine instruments, Lexi responded. I think he’s kind of crazy. He started by talking about Jesus and calling us demon spawn, then his personality just did a one-eighty, and he turned into a gameshow host.
“Some contestants for what?” Aria asked him warily.
“For the battle royale, of course!” he proclaimed grandly, raising both hands high into the sky.
“Sorry, we haven’t got time for games,” Aria told him doubtfully. “We have more important things to do.”
“I guess some other lucky demon will win this soul-bound divine instrument then,” he sighed dramatically. “It’s a pity, really. Who knows what another demon might be able to do with the soul attached to this thing. Probably nothing too painful.”
Clarice felt a flash of rage as she realized he was talking about her, holding her piece of soul hostage.
“If you play nicely and give us the divine instrument piece right now, I promise not to spend the next ten thousand years finding new ways to make an immortal suffer untold agony,” Aria told the man conversationally. Clarice could feel the white hot rage in the bond to her sister. She couldn’t believe Aria was talking so calmly. “I’m pretty creative, so things will probably get very educational for anyone else who thinks they can threaten my sister in front of me.”
“Oh, dear me, I feel so threatened,” the monk declared dramatically, hunching in on himself and looking around in feigned terror. Suddenly, his mannerism changed, and he scowled at them with malevolent eyes. “You witches will burn. You demon spawn will feel the wrath of the lord and it shall be terrible. You’ll writhe in agony for all eternity as the worms feast on your remains forever and ever!” He finished with spittle flying out of his mouth and the whites of his bulging eyes clearly showing.
“Won’t they run out of remains to feast on after a while?” Clarice asked dubiously. “I mean, how can worms feast on our bodies forever? Just how small are these worms?”
“Worms? Worms? Who said anything about worms,” the monks voice had changed back from hellfire and brimstone to a gameshow host again. “We have a contest to win!”
Aria blurred over and grabbed the short man by his robe and pulled him up off of the ground until he was eye to eye with her. “If I have to pull you apart piece by piece to find that piece of divine instrument, I will make it excruciating. If I have to rewrite reality to grow pain receptors in your twisted little mind, then I won’t hesitate to do so. Hand it over now.”
At mention of rewriting reality, something seemed to get through to the crazy monk. There was a sudden fear in his eyes as he stared at Aria in sudden recognition. “You’re supposed to be locked up.”
Clarice felt her own rage building. She blurred toward him, but as she got close to him she felt a wave of dizziness hit her and she nearly fell over. Lexi was by her side immediately, pulling her back quickly. Something about the man’s proximity was making her motor skills go haywire. As soon as Lexi had moved her away from him the sensation faded away.
“What the hell was that?” Aria demanded, shaking the monk furiously like a ragdoll. “What did you do to her?”
“I didn’t do it,” the monk whimpered, suddenly docile. “They said that you would be gone.”
Aria dropped the man, and he fell to his knees. She pulled her tin whistle out of her soul, holding it to her lips. “It’s time to rewrite reality for you, Redgart.”
He stared at her in terror before finally seeming to snap. “The other Seraphim! It was the other Seraphim. They promised to bring me back to the light realms if I made you fight each other for the divine instrument piece.”
“Why is she getting dizzy when she gets near you?” Aria demanded, her eyes boring into him.
“I don’t know! I swear!” he exclaimed desperately. “They said that I was to give her the piece of instrument even if she lost.”
Clarice narrowed her eyes as she studied the nutjob of a monk. “It sounds like they’ve set a trap of some kind on it. Where is it?”
He hesitated, looking up at Aria fearfully as she stood over him with the tin whistle to her lips. He licked his lips nervously before speaking. “It’s back in a cave in Tibet.”
Aria took a deep breath as she prepared to play. He gasped and hurriedly plunged a hand into a large pocket on the front of his robes and removed a violin body.
“Set it down on the ground and step back,” Aria commanded, her lips never leaving the instrument.
He licked his lips again, looking at the violin body and then back at Aria, clearly wondering how quickly she could play something. She started to push some air into the pipe and an immediate rush of power rippled away from her in waves. Redgart screamed in terror and immediately dropped the violin body and backed up a dozen feet.
Clarice, are you able to come close to the body without getting sick? Aria asked anxiously.
Clarice blurred forward to stand next to Aria. The man stumbled back even further in surprise at her sudden movement. She stared down at the violin body, then looked up at Redgart suspiciously. Why would it have only done that when I was near this clown?
Maybe the Seraphim did something to trap it while it was with him, Calypso answered, her emotions radiating caution.
Clarice blurred up to where the monk was shrinking away from her with fear in his eyes. The vertigo didn’t return. She glared down at the monk as righteous fury erupted in her core, glowing like the sun.
“Tell me everything and start from the beginning,” Clarice grated through clenched teeth “Who contacted you, what did they say, and what did you plan. Answer now or it’s back to the primordial sludge for you,” He had threatened her with a piece of her soul.
He stared wide-eyed at her wrathful expression for several seconds before something inside him seemed to break. “Foul witch! Fornicating whore! Despicable demon spawn! Fallen creatures of the devil!”
His rant went on and on, shouting imprecations at them in a never ending tirade.
They’ve done something to him, Calypso thought, frowning at the man with concern in her swirling eyes. I’m going to try something.
Calypso opened a small gateway and pulled her regular harp through. She began plucking an intricate fast paced melody. Her voice joined the harp and blended into something similar to a fast shanty. It was different from anything she had ever heard Calypso play.
As Calypso played, she stared at Redgart intently, clearly watching for something to happen. Clarice focused on his aura and meridians as she tried to understand what Calypso had seen. After a moment, she noticed the energy shift in his meridians, as if the flow of life force were changing signatures. She gasped as she realized what she was seeing. The man had two souls trapped in one body. He was vacillating between souls based on his mental state. Someone had re-engineered him to become useless if he were questioned forcefully, switching over to the witch-hunting madman persona.
Clarice watched as Calypso forged runes of power within the man’s nodes, removing the alterations that had turned him into a Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde. Clarice shook her head in wonder as she observed billions of strands of light connecting Calypso to the man in a kind of soul surgery more complex than she could comprehend. It was easy to forget that Calypso was over a hundred years old until you witnessed some of the skills she had developed after working with music around the clock for most of her life. The music seemed to act as a timing and rhythm aid for the complicated energies she was utilizing to operate on his immortal body.
Clarice felt the moment the second trapped soul was released from its immortal prison. She jumped as a beam of light shot out of the man’s body and faded into obscurity. Calypso stopped playing and put her harp back into the cabin through a portal.
Redgart stared at Calypso in reverence as he rolled his shoulders and flexed his fingers. “It’s gone…the demon is gone.”
“It wasn’t a demon,” Calypso told him gently. “It was the soul of another person that’s been awaiting incarnation. Was it the Seraphim themselves that did this to you, or someone else?”
“There was a man without a face who spoke in my mind,” Redgart replied with a shudder at the memory. “He said he was the voice of the Seraph. I don’t know how they knew that I had a piece of a divine instrument. He said I would be able to return to the light realm if I could lure you to a cave in Tibet. He said I should make a show of trying to make you earn the divine instrument so that you would be more desperate to take it when it was within reach. He didn’t say what would happen when you took the instrument, but whenever I touched it, the other soul became…hungry.”
“Hungry, eh?” Clarice repeated, feeling a sense of unease at the thought of what might have happened if they had played along with his plan. “Why are you neither demon nor angel? You are an immortal, but you have no positive energy flowing through your meridians, but you also don’t have the poisoned energy of a demon.”
“The Cherubim said that I hadn’t met the requirements to be punished as a demon when I was cast out of the light realm, but they also said I wasn’t deserving of the light anymore either,” he spoke with a bitterness in his voice that Clarice could understand. To have the positive energy taken away in such a way wasn’t much better than being turned into a demon. At least mortals had no memory of their loss.
“Was it the Cherubim who sealed your nodes?” Calypso asked him, compassion in her voice.
“No, it was a Seraph,” he responded with a shudder. “They said I would be a good subject for gathering data on whether angels could survive without access to light.”
“They will pay,” Clarice told him darkly. “There is a day of reckoning coming for those bastards, a day of retribution and justice.”
“Will you allow me to heal you?” Calypso asked him gently.
His eyes widened as he stared back at her with sudden hope. “You can do that?”
“Are you unaware of who we are?” Clarice asked him dryly. “Clearly you knew who Aria was if you thought she was still imprisoned in that splinter reality.”
“You are Cherubim, are you not?” he asked slowly, studying their eyes and wings.
“Close, but no cigar,” Clarice grinned at him. “Did you think Cherubim could play divine instruments?”
“They can’t?” he frowned, his brow drawn down in confusion.
“Only Seraphim can play divine instruments,” Calypso informed him. She walked up until she was standing directly in front of where he remained kneeling on the ground. “Let’s fix your meridians, Redgart.”
He stood up, staring at her with naked hope in his eyes. She grasped his head in her hands and closed her eyes. “Hold still while I work.”
Calypso lit up like a miniature sun as billions of tendrils of energy shot out of her hands and into his head. They grew down into his body like roots, boring open meridians that had sealed shut after being starved of light. He gasped as light began to spread into his body as the tendrils of energy pushed deeper into his meridians. He began glowing as well, as Calypso opened the floodgates of her powerful aura and charged his spiritual matrix with light. Clarice could see the runes on his nodes changing as well, forged into those of an archangel. His robe deformed as large wings sprouted onto his back.
As Calypso stepped back from Redgart, he stood, frozen in place. Quicksilver tears filled his eyes and ran down his cheeks as he stared at Calypso in ecstasy. As his meridians continued pulsing with light, his scalp filled in with dark hair and his eyes changed to a glowing amber.
“I’m sorry for what those other Seraphim did to you, Redgart,” Calypso told him sympathetically. “We are not all like them.”
“It seems like shutting down their meridians would be a good way to deal with those bastards,” Clarice asserted ominously. “This is twice they’ve attempted to snare us. It’s time to start changing up the rules of this game and give them something to worry about.”
“What did you have in mind?” Aria asked curiously. “It seems like they are untouchable so long as they remain in the higher realm.”
“Then it’s time to make the highest realm unpleasant,” Clarice declared grimly. “We created the light realms. What’s to stop us from modifying them and altering the energy density? If they won’t come out on their own, we need to flush them out.”
“How, exactly, are we going to reroute the power that supplies the highest realm?” Aria asked with a raised eyebrow.
“We have two divine instruments,” Clarice explained with a bleak smile. “I have a feeling that we don’t need all four to make smaller alterations in the fabric of reality.”
Calypso shared a thoughtful look with Aria and Lexi. “I’m inclined to agree with her,” Calypso said, nodding slowly. “They’re going to keep throwing trouble our way so long as there’s nothing to stop them, and they’ll probably be successful one of these times. We need to go on the offensive.”
“What about this?” Lexi asked warily, nudging the violin body with her toe.
As soon as Lexi’s toe touched the violin body, Clarice felt a shock go through her system and she gave an involuntary shiver.
“Wow, did you all feel that?” Aria asked them curiously. “It felt like the part of my spirit that is bonded with Clarice just came into contact with Lexi. It was…weird.”
“I felt it too,” Calypso nodded thoughtfully. “This bond between our souls is a new thing that has never been done before. My intuition tells me it would have been taboo and avoided.”
Clarice walked over to the violin body slowly, watching it with her spiritual eyes. It was a dense micronova of intense energy and information. There were countless tendrils of ethereal energy connecting it to Clarice.
“I’m not letting you touch this thing without testing it first,” Lexi declared protectively. She reached down and picked the violin body up in her hands.
Clarice blushed crimson and gasped as she felt a sense of intimacy beyond what she would have thought was possible. Lexi froze as she felt the overpowering intimacy through her bond with Clarice, her own cheeks turning bright red.
“This is really really awkward,” Aria breathed, her face burning with embarrassment.
“Agreed,” Calypso spoke in barely more than a whisper.
Lexi held the violin body out to Clarice wordlessly, too embarrassed to speak.
Clarice took it from her with shaky hands. She looked into Lexi’s eyes as she took it and there was a moment of unspoken vulnerability where Clarice felt all of the mental walls and social shields that protected her psyche from exploitation were laid bare. All that remained was the core of what made Clarice who she was, exposed to Lexi’s searching gaze. Lexi’s eyes widened in amazement before softening and filling with golden tears.
“You are beautiful,” Lexi whispered in wonder and admiration as gold rivulets ran down her cheeks. “I knew you were amazing, but Clarice…how can anything be so beautiful?”
Clarice smiled at Lexi with the pure love of her soul in her eyes. There was no trace of snark or humor; for that moment in time she was just Clarice the Seraph, with a boundless love that couldn’t be quantified. The full weight of her spirit shone out brilliantly, a light full of joy and endless wonder.
When Lexi released the guitar head, the moment came to an end. There was an inverted boom as a blast of energy rushed into her and her splintered soul was reunited. She closed her eyes in wonder. “How could I have lived without a piece of my soul?” she whispered as tears of joy filled her eyes. “I can’t imagine losing it now that it is back. I feel so much more…me now.”
Lexi pulled her into a warm embrace, experiencing a shared revelry in the unification of her soul as the emotions flooded the bond. Aria and Calypso joined her, laughing from the pure joy infusing them.
“This is so freaking awesome,” Mandy said with a wondering smile on her face. “I’m so glad you brought me to this world.”
Aria laughed, staring at Mandy affectionately. “It’s only going to get more awesome from here on out, now that our professor of awesomeness has more of her soul.”
Lexi dissolved into giggles. “I almost forgot that she has an honorary doctorate of awesomeness.”
“We better go back to the cabin,” Aria suggested, making a gateway. “We didn’t get a chance to tell the others why were left so suddenly, so they are probably worried.”
“You’re probably right,” Clarice agreed, looking over at Redgart. “Would you like to come with us, Redgart?”
“Okay,” he accepted with a nod, his eyes serious. “I owe you a great debt, and I will repay it.”
