VEE

“What the fuck?” Ewan half shouts. A nearby couple glances over and Ewan turns away, as if about to leave, before spinning back to us again. He lowers his voice and hisses, “This is a fucking joke! Why send us on crazy missions to find and protect a book and stop Chaos from finding answers. You could’ve stepped in and helped earlier. Told us what we needed to know. What’s this bullshit really about?”

“Calm down,” snaps Erzla. “We were required to watch what you would do before we were allowed to step forward. Due to your… inclinations, we had to be sure you weren’t about to side with him. We had to consider our safety.”

“With Chaos?” asks Heath incredulously. “He’s been trying to fucking kill us!”

“No. With Ripley. You’ve chosen to ally yourselves with demons. You need to break that alliance. It’s dangerous for all involved.”

“We intend to as soon as we can,” Xander retorts. “Maybe if we’d had angels to side with, this would be a different situation.” He drags both hands through his hair and looks at Heath. “Can you believe this shit?”

“What inclinations?” interrupts Joss.

“You kill.” Erzla’s lowered voice guarantees the words don’t attract attention from people around, but the friction sparks again.

Ewan’s mouth tightens. “Only those who need killing. We’re protecting the world. The job someone happily gave us. You, I presume?”

Leoc taps her mouth with a slender finger. “I think your part of the story will become clear when we explain matters. For now, the urgency is dealing with Chaos.”

“Who we will also kill,” replies Xander. “Tell us how, since you already have all the fucking answers.”

She sighs. “Please calm down, Xander. That fact hasn’t changed: Vee will kill Chaos using the power she has.”

“And will survive?” urges Heath. “We read in the book that Vee is a key and we’re here guardians. That the power she took from us will destroy her, once it’s unleashed to kill Chaos and close the portals. Is this true? Or can we stop her dying? All of us, together.”

“There’s something in the text you haven’t interpreted correctly. Vee’s power is from Order," Erzla tells him.

"Order? Doesn't that refer to Ripley?" Ewan straightens. “Are you saying part of Vee power is demonic? Again, I call bullshit.”

He laughs with a mixture of amusement and scorn. "No. Not at all. That demon is very self-important. Really, Ripley and his Order are minor players in all this."

“What do you mean then?” asks Xander.

"The Order in the book is something else. Chaos and Order are the two powers who created the universe. They're opposites but made of the same primordial energy. "

“They?”

"Gods from before we existed and more powerful than ours, but absent from the world. We knew of them from our beginning, of course, but their existence was a secret kept at a high level in our kingdom. Imagine how those lower down the hierarchy would react if they discovered their leader wasn’t the strongest in his universe? That he could be wiped out by other more powerful forces?” Erzla crosses his arms and a shadow crosses his face.

“Millennia passed quietly, and then Chaos appeared,” puts in Leoc. “Chaos attacked the world and Order was with him.”

“Helping him?”

“No, around him, but not self-aware the way Chaos is. Order always felt more like a presence than an entity. We knew Order was with Chaos when he invaded our world because Order and Chaos are partially the same. Yin and yang, if you prefer that term. We had to deal with the situation before Chaos figured this out. Many of our kind died stopping him. He rained down diseases and devastation that wiped out populations in the world, claiming he was bringing order to his messed-up creation. He never realised where the power his sick idea of order came from. We knew if Chaos became aware of and joined with Order, he’d be stronger and we’d lose.”

“We decided we needed to take Order out of the picture,” says Erzla.

“He moved on from the destruction we managed to stop and to playing games. He created portals to his other worlds instead. We struggled and managed to close the portals with our magic.” Leoc glances at Erzla. “He caused more problems than he realises.”

Erzal gives her a small shake of his head. A silent “no”. “Then we regrouped and put all our effort into ensuring Chaos didn’t become aware of and take power from Order.”

Xander interrupts. “And you defeated Order? This other energy… god?”

“Not defeated. There was no physical form to catch. Order was pure energy surrounding Chaos, so we needed to capture that. The process killed more of us as we tried to contain such huge power, but we took hold.”

“Now Order is gone and Chaos is alone, will he be easier to defeat this time?” asks Heath,

“Yes. With Order.”

Ewan rubs his face. “Are you saying you didn’t kill Order? That he exists still?”

“There isn’t one entity we could call Order now, or there wasn’t.” Erzla nods at me. “Now Order’s power is controlled she’s ready to neutralise her opposite.”

She.

My chest tightens as if the angel wound a rope tightly around my lungs and pulled. The darkness in my eyes the day in the museum bathroom. The connection to Seth that made me want to keep him close weeks ago. The new, darker magic.

I’ve considered the next words time and time again recently, Ewan once said them to me and our eyes meet briefly before I address Leoc. "Are you talking about me?"

Leoc nods.

“I’m Order?” A silent look between the two. “No. I’m Truth. A Horseman. I would know if I was something more.” The world retreats again, the small voice that exists inside me whispering “you always did”.

“But you do know.” Leoc places a hand on my leg and I stare down in shock. “You’ve seen the power you have over the Horsemen.”

My head pounds, each word like an icepick behind my eyes.

I focus on my hands, at where Xander’s body touches mine, and the realisation trembles through with denial. I look wildly at the others and the horrible sensation I’m floating outside my body returns. I grip onto Xander’s hand and breathe in the cool winter air. Focus on the chattering around. I’m real. This exists.

“You created me?” I ask them. “You’re the ones who made me... this?”

“Not us specifically, but higher-ranked angels captured Order’s power and created a body to keep Order contained.”

“That’s not true,” I repeat. “No. I have Truth’s powers. And theirs. The book said I was a key.”

“You are. The key to destroying Chaos. Your interpretation was too literal.”

“She’s only existed ten years,” retorts Xander.

“Her life cycles. Order’s power can’t be contained for long so we move her from body to body and hide her back in the world, somewhere else. We gave her the name Truth. Order, the hidden truth Seth knew nothing about.” Erzla smirks. “Clever, right?”

My mouth fills with bile and perspiration slicks my forehead. If this continues, I’m going to vomit on somebody’s feet.

“Then who are the Horsemen?” asks Joss. “Are we her guardians or not?”

Erzla and Leoc look at each other, a silent conversation. Are they telepathic? Communicating what to tell Joss?

“Not,” says Leoc. “Another misinterpretation. You are guardians of the portals and of the Order you contain. That’s what you were created for.”

Xander interrupts. “But we searched for Vee as Truth. She has our powers.”

“Yes. But you’re not her protectors,” puts in Erzla. “That isn’t your role here.”

“We protect Vee,” says Ewan. “She’s more to us than whatever name you give her. We’ll protect her to the end. She’s our Fifth.”

Erzla takes a deep breath and looks away.

“Your true connection?” says Leoc. “You’re the same energy, split five ways. This was the safest way to keep Order from escaping before we could take down Chaos. We knew one day Chaos would return, that the Horsemen we created and their Fifth would need to meet and five parts would reunite the energy. Order needed to be whole again. To kill Chaos.”

“Five?” Joss wraps his arms around his chest. “We’re like Vee? You created us too?”

Leoc nods. “Partly. Created and separated to keep Order hidden.”

Xander breaks his silence. “Why should we believe you? If this is true, why didn’t you step in as soon as you knew Chaos was back? Bring us together then or whatever the hell this is?”

“We did. We allowed you to detect and find Vee, something we’d prevented for hundreds of years. You’re powerful apart and unstoppable as one. Chaos knows that Truth was revealed in the world shortly after he returned. He also knows there’s a reason for the Fifth that is connected to a power we can use against him. But he still has no idea what. We’re not sure how long before he realises what you are. We need to put our plan into action.”

“Plan. Nice.” Heath snorts.

“And this plan? Unite the five parts of Order and have Vee—Order—take down Chaos?” Xander sits forward, elbows on his knees and hands beneath his chin. “That’s what we’ve done together. Unified?”

Erzla’s sullen mouth thins again. “Yes. You have.”

Why does he sound pissed off when he just said we were created to unify?

“Yes. And killing Chaos will permanently close the portals you were created to protect,” adds Leoc.

“So why did we interpret that Vee would die?”

Erzla gestures the length of me. “There’s a more power inside Vee now that she’s Order than a human body can contain. But we think we can keep her safe.”

The amount of information being dropped on us, nuclear bomb after nuclear bomb, explodes my mind. First, I’m a girl, then I’m a Horseman. Now? What am I? The weapon to kill a god? Part god? No.

“Vee won’t die.” Xander’s words are firm. “You’re sure of this.”

The angels’ glance prickles along my spine, and even though they say ‘yes’, something inside terrifies me.

Their answers. Their contradictions.

Their absence until now.

Something isn’t right and however much I want to believe, I’m not convinced.

I turn my face to the sky and retreat into myself the way I did when Ewan told me I didn’t exist. The conversation continues around me, but they sound far away. Not real.

I fight against the hyperventilation dizzying me, unaware which of the guys holds my hand and says my name.

This isn’t reality.

None of this is real.