44
THIS JUST IN
The seraphim had had the advantage of staging their arrival. They brought their own musical accompaniment, had costumes made for the occasion, and calculated their destination for effect. And even if they hadnt managed all of this, they were beautiful and graceful. Centuries of beneficent mythology anticipated them. They could scarcely have gone wrong.
The beasts made their debut with somewhat less aplomb.
Their clothing was wrinkled and dark with dried blood, their music was chosen for them by sensationalistic television producers, and their beauty and grace were somewhat lacking.
On account of their being dead.
Two days after the angelic leaders stunning proclamation of The Beasts are coming for youtwo days of riots and suicide pacts and mass baptisms in overcrowded churches, two days of furrowed brows and hemming and hawing on the part of a closed council of world leadersa news bulletin preempted a preempt and exploded in the collective human consciousness with as much force as the Arrival had, if not more.
This just in.
The media was already operating at a pretty fevered pitchit was hummingbird-metabolism journalism: fast fast fast , and voracious. The many flavors of fear were seasoned liberally with glee; such times as these were the stuff of broadcasters dreams. Be afraid. No. Be more afraid! This is not a drill.
In that context, the delivery of the latest this just in stood apart for its solemnity and gravitas.
The story was broken by the highest-paid news anchor in the world, a kind of human comfort food delivered nightly to American living rooms, year after year, his youthful face changeless save for a subtle lengthening effect brought on by a slow-climbing hairline. He had dignity, and not just the faux kind created by a real-or-fake sprinkling of salt in his pepper, and, to his credit, if it hadnt been for his willingness to use his clout in the service of journalistic ethics, things could have been far worse.
My fellow Americans, citizens of Earth Oh, to be able to say that, Citizens of Earth! Lesser broadcasters trembled with envy. This station has just come into possession of evidence that appears to validate the Visitors claims. You know what claims I mean. Early independent inquiry suggests these photographs are legitimate, though as youll see, many questions arise to which we do not yet have answers. I warn you. These images are not suitable for children. Pause. Millions leaned forward, breath held. They may not be suitable for anyone , but this is our world, and we cannot look away.
And no one did, and very few sent their children from the room as, without further preamble, he showed the pictures in silence.
In living rooms across the nation, and in bars and offices and dorm commons and fire stations and the basement laboratories of the National Museum of Natural History and everywhere else, when the first image appeared, brows furrowed.
This was the grace periodthe furrowing of brows, the knee-jerk disbeliefbut it didnt last long. Knee-jerk disbelief had, over the past forty-eight hours, been knuckled under by credulity. Many people were newly learning how to believe . And so, swiftly and in a great wave, viewer cognition swept from What the hell? to Oh my god , and panic on Earth met its new high-water mark.
Demon.
It was Ziri, though of course no one knew his name, or wondered at it, the way Eliza had.
The personals ad Zuzana and Mik had composed for the Kirin in flight was something along the lines of: Heroic sweetheart currently occupying smoking-hot maniac body in order to save the world. Would sacrifice everything for love, but hopefully wont have to. I really deserve a happy ending.
In a fairy tale, Zuzana had argued, he would get one for sure. The pure of heart always prevail. There was, between her and Mik, a fairy-tale promise: that when he had performed three heroic tasks, he could ask for her hand. Shed meant it in jest, but hed taken it to heart, and was only one task down out of threethough secretly Zuzana accepted his fixing the air-conditioning in their last hotel room as a heroic act and counted it.
Ziris sacrifice of his born flesh absolutely qualified as heroism, but life so very much is not a fairy tale, and furthermore, it sometimes goes out of its way to prove just how un -fairy-tale-like it can be.
As now.
Far away, something happened. It was a connection no one would or could make, in either world. What happened in Eretz, happened in Eretz, and the same went for Earth. No one was auditing the time lines for coincidence. But this it almost suggested a synchronism between the worlds.
At the same moment that the image of Ziris discarded Kirin body made its debut on human airwavesthe same moment exactly in Eretz, a Dominion blade pierced him through the heart.
If there
were other worlds beyond these two, maybe they were linked, and maybe echoes of his story were playing out in all of them, shadows of shadows of shadows of shadows. Or maybe it was just coincidence. Brutal. Uncanny. While the image of Ziris corpse burned itself into the human consciousness demon! he died again.