Eyeing them quizzically, Kari didn’t think it was possible for them to take
passengers when they left.
“We need a little bit of a favor in order to show you the way,” Michael continued.
“You mean, you know how I can leave this place? How I can go somewhere
that’s still alive? With people?”
“You see,” Jonathan said, winking conspiratorially. “We need to warn our father about the Apostle, but we’re not allowed to go back to tell him.”
Kari’s jaw dropped. Why hadn’t she thought of that? It was so obvious!
“But you can,” Michael said.
“Me? How?”
“The Gate will take you to our father,” Kari said. “You can give our message to him, and tell him everything that happened here. Then he can send you to a different world where you can live the rest of your life in peace and happiness.”
“I will forever be in your debt,” Keir cried.
“Not at all,” Kari gave her brothers a smile to tell them that they’d done well.
“Let’s get some sleep, and then we’ll go to your castle and send you on your way. All right?”
Nodding slowly, Keir looked away, his face coloring deeply. “I have
nightmares.”
Moving to his side, Kari pulled him close to her, wrapping her arm and her bushy tails around him for warmth. “I’ll stay with you, all right?”
“Thank you,” Keir said, leaning into her. “You’re so warm.”
Shaking with silent tears, his skeletal arms encircled her tightly. The poor boy had been through one hell of a terrible ordeal. Offering him what comfort she could, Kari only wished that she could do more. No one deserved to know the pain he had known.
Before long he’d cried himself to sleep.
“It was the Apostle that started the war,” Michael looked at the stationary sun,
“but the kid’s people that destroyed the world. I’m not sure which side was worse.”
“He’s just a child,” Kari snapped. “He had nothing to do with it!”
Gesturing to the destruction all around, Michael shrugged. “No one deserves this.
No one.”
Chapter 13: The Empire Strikes Preemptively
Telling the stories of his favorite movies made the journey across the wasteland less boring, but Gabriel had long since run out of stories to tell. Acting out Star Wars and other such favorites from his childhood had been rather fun, and he enjoyed it when Sam applauded his performances with childlike glee. She, like everyone else, had been especially taken with the plot twist at the end of Empire.
Whilst studying to become the best damned lawyer on Earth, Gabriel had taken
drama classes to learn how to intone, narrate, and monologue properly, all skills that a lawyer needed honed as sharply as possible. He’d found that he actually had some talent for vocal storytelling. Painting pictures in a way most people never could, he was so good that his words alone could sway the opinions of a jury.
In telling the greatest saga in movie history, Gabriel had left out the prequels. As far as he was concerned it was a damn shame George Lucas never got around to making those. They were atrocities, raping his childhood in the name of the almighty dollar.
George Lucas had somehow forgotten how to tell a good story. Forgetting everything that was important, he’d focused more on making as much money as possible.
Shivering, Gabriel had a moment of epiphany. Was that the reason he’d been
headed to hell before the Northern Sage intervened? Had he lost sight of what he set out to do in becoming a lawyer, focusing only on money and the all-important, perfect score?
In the beginning it was about justice, and proving his father wrong. In the end it was fame, and money, his expensive clothes and car, and maintaining his perfect record at any cost. Shame washed over him as he realized how much he’d sold out.
With no more stories to tell, Gabriel found the silence oppressive and
uncomfortable. Glancing over at Sam, who was picking at something in her teeth with a dirty fingernail, he was genuinely curious about what sort of life could produce such a repulsive, yet attractive girl. He actually wanted to know someone else’s story, to get to know her. He was actually beginning to see her as a person, rather than a pair of breasts that existed for nothing more than his own personal pleasure, like every other woman that he’d ever met.
This realization came as something of a shock to Gabriel. He’d been such an
unrepentant, sociopathic sex fiend for so long, that this desire to connect with another person of the opposite gender was both alien and somewhat frightening. It was rather disturbing to find that he was beginning to care about someone that was not him, but still, his curiosity prevailed.
Nudging his Cathor toward Sam’s, Gabriel felt uncharacteristically nervous as he smiled at her.
“What’s up,” she asked, hawking a monster of a loogie onto the ground.
“I was just wondering,” Gabriel said. “What’s your story?”
Shrugging, Sam looked away. Awakened by the motion, Mister Mittens glared at
Gabriel, obviously blaming him for it.
“I don’t know any good stories like the ones you told.”
“I don’t mean like that. Tell me about yourself. I don’t know anything about you at all. Who are you? Where did you come from? What’s your story?”
“You show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” Sam cracked a lewd grin, with a
pointed look at his crotch. “I don’t know anything about you either.”
“Fair enough,” Gabriel nodded.
“Yeah,” Sam shrugged, again disturbing Mister Mittens, who swatted at the back of her neck with his claws. “I guess there’s nothing better to do.”
Watching her expectantly, Gabriel cleared his throat when she made no indication of continuing the conversation.
“Oh, you want me to go first?”
“If you would be so kind.”
“Well. There’s not much to tell really. My mother was poor as dirt. She whored herself out when funds got tight, which is where I came from. Neither of us ever really knew who my father was. I guess I was as happy as any other child oblivious of her total poverty. I was always hungry, and my clothes always had holes in them, but I didn’t know any different.
“When it was time for my tenth birthday, my mother said she’d take me
somewhere special. I was so excited, because I’d never gotten a birthday present before.
I couldn’t sleep at all the night before. She took me to the market, but instead of buying me something special, she sold me.”
“What,” Gabriel blinked at her, wondering if he’d heard that right. “She sold you? Like a slave?”
“No,” Sam looked down at her hands on the pommel of her saddle. “Like a
whore. She sold me to a brothel.”
“What kind of a parent would actually sell her own daughter to a life like that,”
Gabriel cried, suddenly remembering his father. He had no doubt that bastard would have sold him for booze money if he thought he could get away with it.
“She was always poor,” Sam continued uncomfortably. “Things were harder on
her with a child to feed and clothe. Which would you choose, abject poverty and a child you never wanted or loved, or a pocket full of money that would keep you from having to whore yourself out for next month’s rent?”
“That’s no excuse. And stop defending her! What she did to you was horrible.”
“You think I’m defending her? I hate her. I always hated her. Looking back