Shards and Ashes

Harmony shrugged, snagged the cigarette from his hand, and took a drag. It was more ritual than necessity. The first night she’d killed one of them, this was how they met. She clung to those little details, like they would save her. Maybe she’s right. He didn’t try to understand the whole ritual or faith thing. All he knew was that a few drags on a cigarette wouldn’t deaden her sense of smell nearly as much as either of them would like. He smoked more often. The childhood warnings about cancer weren’t relevant anymore, not to them. If they stayed here, kept fighting, they’d die before there was any time for the carcinogens to have an impact, and the cigarettes helped. Even a slight deadening of scent and taste was a benefit in their line of work. Corpse-feeders stank.

Chris took the cigarette back. “Trouble?”

“Not really. Drunk earlier than usual. Sometimes, I think he hates me.” Harmony shrugged and looked away, but not before he saw the flicker of sadness she would deny if he asked about it. For all of her strengths, she still wanted a life that they’d never know again.

When the god awakened, society changed, and short of killing Nidhogg, the odds of finding the sort of society they’d once known were exceedingly slim. Of course, the odds of killing a god were slimmer still. Nidhogg was here, was real, and was staying. To those who questioned, it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t as omnipotent as he claimed. If he were all-powerful, they wouldn’t be resisting, killing his devoted Nidos, and refusing to obey him.

However, the faith that strengthened him was impossible to negate: he was real. Denying his existence was hard to do when he lived, breathed, and consumed them. The more they believed, the stronger he grew. Even those who wanted his death strengthened him with their thoughts of him. It didn’t matter whether they loathed or loved him. They thought of him, and that was enough.

How do you deny what is undeniably here?

The answer to that question was one the philosophers in the resistance pondered at length. Chris wasn’t a philosopher; even now that a god had come to earth, he wasn’t prone to a lot of metaphysical contemplation. His skills were far more practical: he killed monsters.

“Which area did we draw tonight?” Harmony walked close enough to his side that she appeared to be with him. Together they looked like a couple undaunted by the regulations that had spread up most of the eastern part of the country.

“Old Downtown.” He draped an arm around her shoulders, reminding himself that they had agreed that it wasn’t personal for either of them. Even though that’s a lie. The illusion required acting like a couple often enough that a good team had to be able to appear completely at ease. They had to look like they were together; teams were a harder target if they were convincing. The challenge, of course, was remembering that it was to be an act.

He and Chastity had allowed themselves to forget, and when she died, he hadn’t been sure he wanted to keep living. Of course, loving her was the only thing that had made living matter in the first place. He had no religion, no family, nothing but the fight and his partner. When he lost his first partner, he had tried to lose himself in a drunken haze he’d had absolutely no intention of coming out of.

He lifted bottle after bottle, shook them, and tossed them aside. “Empty. Every damn bottle is empty, Chas.”

Saying her name wasn’t enough though. He’d kept on talking to her like she was there, but she never answered.

Three more bottles were rejected. The fourth had a good inch of liquid—hopefully gin—in it. Unfortunately, it also had a cigarette butt floating in it. He paused, shrugged, and lifted the bottle to his lips.

“That’s disgusting, Chris.”

He turned. “Chas?” He lowered the bottle, holding it loosely in his hand. “You’re dead.”

She didn’t say anything, but her head bowed momentarily. After what sounded like a sob, she crossed the room and took the bottle from him. “It’s not your fault.”

“I was late. If I hadn’t been late—”

“You’d be dead too,” she interrupted.

“I’d rather be dead.”

She slapped him. “You’d rather let them kill you? Let him eat your corpse? What happened to fighting?”

“I can’t fight without you.” He pulled her to him. He knew now that it was a dream. It had to be a dream because dead girls don’t slap people, but he would rather sleep than wake if that meant Chastity was with him. “I need you, Chas. I love you.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but he kissed her before she spoke. Her kisses were different, but he couldn’t expect a dream to be the same as the real thing.

When he pulled away, he told her all the things he had told her since they’d first fallen into bed. “I love you. I can’t do this alone. I need you here. Now.”

“You’ll fight?” She stepped away. “Promise me, Chris. You’ll fight. No giving up. . . . They killed Chastity. You have to fight. Help me fight them.”

“I will,” he agreed. Something in her words was wrong. He paused, but then she kissed him.

Chastity let him undress her, and they made love.

Later, when he sobered up, he realized that it wasn’t a dream at all—nor was it Chastity.

“I need you to train me,” Harmony said. “My sister wouldn’t want you—or me—to die.”

“You’re not . . .” He put an arm over his eyes. “I didn’t mean . . . Tell me I didn’t force —”

“I said yes, Chris. You needed to think I was her, and it’s probably for the best. Partners need to be at ease with each other. Now, you . . . you should be at ease with me, right? It’ll help.”

“Partners?” He moved his arm and stared up at her.

“I’m not interested in replacing her”—she made a vague waving gesture toward the mattress on his floor where she’d just been—“there. I want to be your partner on the streets, though. You trained her. Train me. I’ll fight.”

“No.”

Ten months later, she was every bit as good a fighter as Chastity had been. A year after that, she was more lethal and still looked enough like Chastity that more than a few people mistakenly called her by her dead sister’s name, but there was no way he’d ever mistake them for one another now that he’d gotten to know Harmony.

The elder Davis sister had been a good soldier, devoted to the fight; up until the day she died, Chastity had done her job and done it well, too. She killed any of the creatures—human and other—that served Nidhogg. She was still soft though; she wept when she killed humans, not in the moment, but afterward when they were home. Harmony, on the other hand, didn’t cry. She also didn’t laugh the way Chastity had. Sometimes, when she’d won in a fight where she been outnumbered or overpowered initially, she smiled with the sort of relaxed joy that Chastity often took in little things. But the only things that seemed to make Harmony that happy were victories in the almost-lost fights. Getting close to the edge of death and winning, that was where Harmony found her joy.

Chris stuffed the extinguished cigarette butt into his pocket. The nicotine-stained filters would be recycled again and again until they were so noxious that they were of no use as cigarettes. Some fighters tore little bits of them off to use as nose plugs, but he hadn’t yet gotten to that point. If he survived long enough, he would, but counting on surviving was foolish. Maybe if they lived farther north, they’d have better odds, but if they stayed this close to the god’s lair, they were just biding time. In the days before the god’s arrival, people stayed in dead-end towns, in dead-end jobs, in dead-end relationships rather than take the risk of something new. He’d sworn he would be different, but here he was, staying in a town where dying young was inevitable. Because Harmony won’t leave. If he could convince her to move, they could try to find a safer place, but she only cared about the fight. And I only care about her.

He hadn’t meant to fall in love with his dead girlfriend’s sister, but he had—not that he’d be foolish enough to tell her: Harmony didn’t believe in love. She’d told him early on, “Two of the three people I’ve loved are dead. The