Page 23 of Demon Apathy: Sunderverse
He waved a hand in the air. “It’s fine.” He looked pensive for a long moment, then grabbed something from his desk and handed it over. “This is your e-boarding pass and flawless fake ID. You should have no problem with it at all.”
I took the card and the piece of paper he offered. “Thank you.”
“I also called you an Uber, and it will be here in,” he looked at his watch, “twenty minutes. Your plane leaves at 8:00 AM, and you should arrive in St. Louis by 10 AM. No connections.”
“Great. Thank you so much.”
“Are you sure I can’t convince you to stay?” Grant asked.
“I’m sure.”
“So you see… thereisfree will.”
I rolled my eyes. “That prophecy is not about me. There’s no way. I mean… how could anyone—and more accurately, a human—bring down the heavens in a fury of fire?”
“You’re no ordinary human, Lucia. You’rethe one.”
“That’s ridiculous. Next thing you’ll tell me, I will be able to dodge bullets.”
“The truth is… you won’t have to.”
We exchanged smiles at ourThe Matrixreference. He sat quietly, pondering.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, after a moment. “You can probably stop bullets using your telekinetic powers, can’t you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never volunteered to try it out.”
He let his eyes roam around the room as if he were truly contemplating putting the theory to the test. Fat chance. No one would convince me to try.
“Bringing down the heavens in a fury of fire could mean a number of things,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be literal.”
“Literal or not, I will not be the one bringing a fury of anything to heaven. Maybe I could’ve tried something that stupid before you all showed me the error of my ways, but I know better now. Anyway, why would you want that to happen? Bringing down heaven doesn’t sound much better than the apocalypse Drevan keeps talking about. Or maybe they’re one and the same. Also, why would anyone want to mess with… God?”
“You’ve had a small insight into the way He looks at the world. We are no more than an experiment to Him, one He’s willing to terminate if we don’t play His game to satisfaction. Not exactly the merciful God most people have in mind. The fact that He’s our creator doesn’t mean He’s any different from a child playing with a defenseless ant colony.”
The analogy left me thinking of a giant toddler in overalls pouring boiling water over an ant pile to watch them all scatter in a panic. It wasn’t a pleasant image.
“But what would happen if heaven is destroyed—if that’s what the prophecy means?” I wondered out loud.
“What would happen to the ant colony?” Grant asked.
“I guess they would keep toiling away in their tunnels until the next threat came around.”
He shrugged.
I pressed a couple of fingers to my temple as I felt a headache coming on. I wasn’t much for philosophical conversations, especially ones that involved me.
“Whatever it may be,” I said, “I suggest you pass Striker’s Queller around more liberally if you really want to findthe one,or try Keanu Reeves. Only allowing your demon hunter friends to have a turn at the sword doesn’t count as a valid effort to find the right person.”
“Oh, Ms. Sunder, but you are it… the only person who can wield the sword. There is no one else. There’s onlythe one.”
9
Theprophecyconsistedoftwo ambiguous ass sentences, and Grant thought his interpretation was the correct one. That was a bunch of bullshit. I could easily whip out a dozen other versions that still worked, every single one of themnotinvolving me.
As I walked out of his office, I checked the time on my phone, wondering if I could still take a moment to tell Jenna goodbye. But it was 6:20 AM, which meant the Uber would be here any minute.
Feet dragging, I veered toward the staircase that would lead me to the first floor. I’d gotten a couple of hours of sleep, but it felt as if I’d been up for days. I was exhausted. Mentally more than physically, and emotionally even more.
