“What are you?” Kim asked.

She had the same voice. The same gentle expressions. The same graceful mannerisms. But it wasn’t her. It was the god.

Kim was supposed to be in Mexico. How did she get here? How did the god get to her?

I fought my urge to have a complete meltdown and feigned ignorance.

“Kim?” I asked, stepping closer. “Is that you?”

When I rushed forward, it didn’t move. It didn’t step back and veer away from me. It simply tried to figure out what I was. Without my light, I had no idea what I would look like to a supernatural being, but it clearly wasn’t just like any other human.

“Kim,” I said, throwing my arms around her and hugging. I knew she was just the shell, just the vessel, and that her spirit had probably already crossed, but I couldn’t help it. I held her tight, wanting to apologize for not getting to know her better. I should’ve spent more time with her. We should’ve had coffee and lunch and gone to male revues together.

I pulled back, took her face into my hands, and kissed her mouth.

That’s when the tears broke through. They streamed down my face as I kissed her hard and followed with a dozen tiny pecks.

It watched me, growing more suspicious by the second, so I quickly stepped out of its reach.

Then realization dawned. “Where is your light, little girl?”

“Why her?” I said, my voice breaking. “Why his sister?”

“How else to cripple him? He is almost as indestructible as I.”

“Ah,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Of course. Human life means nothing to you.”

“As a gnat’s life means nothing to you.”

I nodded, beginning to understand him. It reached out and took a cotton candy from an elderly woman. When she began to protest, it turned to her.

“No,” I said, starting toward him.

He chuckled and let her go. “Where is he? Rey’azikeen? I was hoping to see him before this body becomes completely useless.”

“He’s out. Which one are you? Which brother of Uzan?”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Brother? We are brothers, are we?”

I frowned at him, and how better to get the answers I needed than to ask? “I don’t understand.”

“What do you think Uzan is?”

“Your home dimension.”

He seemed to become more confused. “I was under the impression you had learned your celestial name, Elle-Ryn.”

“I have.”

He stuffed another mouthful of cotton candy into Kim’s mouth. The movement caused the sores to split. Blood slid down her chin, and I fought the quivering of my lower lip.

“Then why wouldn’t you know … oh, my. Jehovah. He is a sneaky one, is he not?”

“Again, you lost me.”

“Uzan, my dear, is a prison. One is not from there. One is sent there.”

“A—a prison?”

“Rey’azikeen, Eidolon, and I were prisoners. It was supposed to be inescapable. Eidolon and I spent centuries there, rotting away much like this body. Until…”

Kim’s eyes sparkled as he told the tale.

“Until?”

“Until Rey’azikeen was sent. Young. Rebellious. Absolutely brilliant.”

That was Reyes, all right.

“And this is where the irony of it all plays a part. For you, Elle-Ryn-Ahleethia, are the one who sent him there.”

“What?”

He was lying. How would that even be possible?

“You truly have no idea who he is. It is so lavish, so unprecedented, that you should fall in love with the very being you sent to rot in stink and decay. Into an agony that the seven original gods from your dimension, from Evuthwana, created.”

“I didn’t send him anywhere. I didn’t know him.”

“But you were, how do they say it? Tight? Yes, tight. You were tight with his brother. His real brother, for the day I am brothers with the likes of either of those two, I shall send myself back to Uzan.”

“His brother?”

“You know. The older brother left with the burden of taking care of the younger one. But youth these days. He was too rebellious. Too stubborn. Too irresponsible. And his older brother worried for the world he had created.”

“And what world would that be?”

“Why, you’re standing on it, my dear.”

27

Hearts are wild creatures.

That’s why our ribs are cages.

—AUTHOR UNKNOWN

The world that I was standing on started to spin. He was lying. He had to be.

“I would remember.”

“Ah, but Jehovah wanted you to reap his lost. You volunteered, yes, but not without some encouragement from the Man himself. And once you were in his realm under his laws, he must’ve plucked”—Kim acted like she plucked something out of the air—“the memory from your mind.”

“Why would he do that?”

“To control you, of course.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He took another mouthful of cotton candy. “Now that you know the memory is there, it will come back to you whenever you allow it to. But don’t feel too bad. His brother created an entire dimension just for him. A hell dimension, though how it could be worse than Uzan, I have no idea. He was going to lock Rey’azikeen in it and throw away the key, as they say. But you talked him out of it. You begged Jehovah to just send his brother away until he came around. Until he understood Jehovah’s vision.” He gasped as a thought dawned. “Were you in love with him, even then?”

“The god glass was meant for Reyes?” Stunned would’ve been an understatement.

“Ingenious instrument. A vault. Absolutely inescapable. Then again, we are talking about the only god ever to escape Uzan. If it could be done…”

“This is unreal.”

“Oh, don’t wallow, my dear. It is most unbecoming. Besides, if it makes you feel better, I am the one who helped Lucifer trap him. It’s like we’re on the same team.”

“You trapped him?”

“You did it first.”

“Why would you do that?”

“He didn’t exactly invite us to go with him when he escaped Uzan. We followed him. So, he went to big brother and begged for the god glass to trap us. To put us away like we were any worse than he. Well, that is a strong possibility, but it’s all in one’s perspective.”