The Fate of Her Father
I wrote this 25 June 2009; very little has been done to it since. Please note, reasons for Nokion and Berar disliking Eligos aren't as shallow as his lifestyle choices. I have no qualm with anyone. To each his own, and I have since developed Nokion and Berar's story in a different direction, anyway. I'm preserving here what it once was, since it goes with "Berar the Terrible". Critique is ALWAYS welcome.
"The Fate of Her Father"
“Hey, Sarah, it’s Derrick. I just wanted to say hi, see how things were going. I guess you’re busy…have been, I guess, for the past few months, seein’ as how you never pick up. Well, I’m goin’ to the beach now, figured I’d go for a swim.
“Oh, and you were right-my job was a dead end. I guess workin’ for the same firm for eight years hard as hell doesn’t win you a promotion over the guy with the gift of gab-yeah, Steve got the promotion.
“Listen, I…I just want to say sorry, okay? I got so busy in work that I didn’t…Please forgive me. And if you can’t do that, at least think better of me after I’m gone. Please.
“I love you, Sarah.” Click.
Sarah stood over the phone in her dark living room. It was dark because it was late, and Tina was asleep. Sarah had come down for a glass of warm milk and rum to put herself to sleep.
She knew that tone in his voice. She knew that beach.
Sarah ran upstairs and grabbed her keys.
Nokion sat triumphantly on a large rock at the beach, one leg pulled up against his chest while the other dangled lazily off the side, as the body floated further out in the water. He nudged Berar with his elbow. “See there? That’s how you do it.”
Berar was, as usual, a child. Nokion raked his dark, collar-length black hair from his face and smirked at him. “Now watch her face when she comes. Hell and harems, I love this job.”
He popped open a Coke. “See why everybody is jealous? Sure you do. Tempters get a break from all the fire and brimstone and eternal torment…oh. Oh, look.” He bit his knuckles, trying to repress the smile spreading across his face. “Oh, there’s her car. Watch her when she realizes that she’s too late to make up with her husband.”
Nokion licked his lips and stared as the blonde waded out into the water, frantically calling Derrick’s name. The hysteric cries built in volume and desperation; a couple further down stopped making out to see what the trouble was.
“Come on.” Nokion nudged Berar’s pudgy elbow. “We’ve seen enough. The police and ambulances will be here in a few minutes.”
The two hellions rose from their flat-topped perch and walked back to the parking lot. Nokion’s strides were jaunty and smug while his partner-in-crime, currently a little girl sucking on a lollipop, ran to keep up. Their beautiful grey Mercedes was exactly where they left it.
Except…Nokion’s jaunt faltered. He approached cautiously, circling around the driver’s side where the window had been smashed.
Berar bounced up next to him.
“My-my st-”
“Someone stole your stereo,” Berar observed.
“I know!”
Berar popped the lollipop back in his mouth and looked up blankly. “I thought you liked thieves?”
Nokion’s eyes were fixed on the dashboard. “Not when they steal from me!”
Berar rocked back and forth on his heels. “Can’t you get a new one?”
Nokion shot Berar a glare and shooed him away. “Sweep out the glass on your side,” he grumbled. He yanked open the door and wiped the glass out of his car. It tinkled out on the ground.
Berar hopped in and continued sucking his lollipop.
Nokion sighed and buckled himself in. For a few minutes he did nothing. The only sound inside the car was the slurping of the small child next to him and the ticking of his watch. Nokion glanced down and shoved his key into the ignition. “Yeah, I suppose it is good,” he said finally, though his tone was one of resignation and annoyance. The engine roared to life. Nokion pulled out of the parking lot. “But I just spent-agh!”
Tires screeched. Nokion’s eyes jerked back to the road and his hands tightened on the wheel. “What in-Eligos! What in Luc’s name are you doing here?”
Eligos leaned against the back of Nokion’s seat, the fingers of one hand brushing his neck. “I’m stealing your stereo.”
“You-You bastard! Get out of my car!”
Nokion hunched his shoulders against those coarse fingertips and turned petulant. “And stop doing that.”
“Am I bothering you, Nokion?”
“Very much. And I will turn around and drive the stick of Berar’s lollipop into your eyes if you don’t stop.”
Eligos laughed and withdrew his hand. Instead he dangled the stripped radio in front of his face.
Nokion slapped the hand aside. “Are you trying to get us into an accident? I don’t want to reroll back here. I like this gig.”
“You won’t.”
“What do you mean, I won’t?”
“That Foras won’t give you another chance.” Eligos dangled the clipped wires of the stereo in front of Nokion’s face.
“Do it one more time.” Nokion growled. “Just try me, go ahead.”
“I would love to.”
Berar’s eyes widened. Nokion’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “That is just sick. You disgusting little f-”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re going all moral on me now,” Eligos drawled. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
Nokion reached for the knob on his radio before remembering that it was currently in the possession of his unwanted passenger. “I never said anything about morality. I, personally, find it disgusting.”
“Your loss.”
“Go to Hell.”
“No, actually.” Eligos smirked. “I got a pass. I made it topside.”
It was fortunate that Nokion was at a red light. He jerked around in his seat. “That is the stupidest decision anyone has made since sending Berar up here. You better be kidding me.”
“You look a little pale,” said Berar.
“You shut up. Eligos, who the hell let you be a Tempter?”
Eligos stretched across the back seat with his arms under his head. “Well, remember how you proved Navix to be less of a Tempter than you are to the consternation of some very powerful hellions in the Lowerarchy?”
Nokion’s voice was quiet. “…Yeah.”
Eligos laughed and pointed to the stoplight. “Green.”
Nokion hit the gas and threw his eyes back on the road. “So…what gives? Foras decided to get back at me by sending you up here to fuck up my stereo?”
“It’s called sending a message, Nate. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”
“I’ve told you before about calling me that. As in, don’t. And what an unimaginative message. I would have thought he could come up with something better.”
“Actually, it was my idea.” Eligos sat up and poked his head between the two front seats. “I’m warning you-you’re right, you are better than Navix up here, but not as politically savvy down there, which matters more.”
“So what? I’m not going back to Hell because some duke in the Lowerarchy of logic and math wants me to kiss his favorite servant’s ass. I got Samael’s override.”
“It’s not that simple. Go back to tormenting, or they will tear you apart.”
Nokion pulled in to the apartment parking lot and shut off the engine. After a minute, he said, “No,” and got out.
Eligos and Berar piled out of the car and followed him up the stairs on the backside of the complex. Eligos had that whiney tone in his voice Nokion hated so much. “Why?”
Nokion spun around at the door and hissed, “Because I’m not going to bow to them.” He turned back around and shoved his key into the lock.
Eligos snorted from behind him. “That’s always been your problem.” Nokion’s eyes flickered toward the voice, but the scrawny hellion had disappeared.
Nokion shoved open his door and tromped to his room. Berar closed the front door behind him, utterly silent. He said nothing when Nokion’s door slammed shut.
Nokion sat in silence on his bed, glaring at his second-story window. What else could he have expected from Eligos than a falsely-concerned warning and a personal jibe? Anyway, it didn’t matter. None of it mattered as long as he was on top of his game, as long as he didn’t go back. He’d keep bringing them souls. If Samael didn’t back him again, at least his own reputation would hold up in spite of Berar’s presence, which hadn’t been nearly as disastrous as he’d first dreaded it would be.
He got up and paced to the window. Look-cars speeding past with their headlights, the HEB parking lot across the street where a carnival had been set up for three days now was closed for the night, a pair of boys in T-shirts tossing rocks into the ditch at something, no agonized screaming, no burning sensation, no…Hell.
It wasn’t Heaven, but it was worth holding on to for as long as he could, everyone else be damned.
Nokion paced away and left his room, saw Berar in front of the television with his hair down, and leaned against the wall.
“Berar? Question.”
The little girl on the couch looked up at him with bright eyes. “What?”
“Why a little girl?”
Berar grinned. “It’s easy. I cause less trouble for you if people think I’m a child, in case I make some mistake before I know what I’m doing.”
“Oh.” Nokion scratched the back of his head. “I was just wondering. Maybe you were…”
“What? Eligos? No way, man. Give me a little more credit than that. I make you suddenly everyone’s favorite single father. I’m damn cute.”
“Oh. Well…thanks, I guess.” Nokion went to the front door and pried it open.
“Where’re you goin’?”
“Out,” replied Nokion. He left. Berar went back to watching MASH.
“…You were right-my job was a dead end. I guess workin’ for the same firm for eight years…”
Tina came down the stairs to her mother crying in the kitchen. It was almost dawn, and she had seen her mother’s headlights from her window. Her footsteps were quiet on the stairs, her hair mussed from sleep. She hid to the side of the doorway.
“I just want to say sorry, okay?”
“Momma?” Tina’s voice was small and faint, but Sarah looked up.
“I got so busy in work that I didn’t…Please forgive me. And if you can’t do that, at least think better of me after I’m gone.”
“Momma, what’s wrong?”
Tina approached slowly, hearing her father’s voice play from the answering machine. Her mother gathered her in her arms.
“I love you, Sarah.” Click.
Sarah looked into her daughter’s eyes. “I have to tell you something, sweetie…” Her eyes were full of tears. Tina reached up and wiped them away.
“It’s okay, Momma. God will look after us, won’t He?”
Sarah couldn’t help it. She burst into tears.
Nokion sat at the ditch after the boys had gone, staring into the water. “Everyone else be damned,” he muttered, and threw a rock at the school of minnows. They scattered.
The rock sank unceremoniously to the bottom of the ditch.