CHAPTER NINE
the great devourer
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BEAU VIDAL WAS thirty-four years old when his wife's head exploded in the Lumière des Étoiles restaurant.
It came out of nowhere, as tragedies often do. Most people don't have the luxury of knowing—or even feeling that something like this is about to happen. They don't wake up with anxiety curdling in their guts. They don't get shivers rushing down their spines. They don't feel the sudden, unexplainable urge to call their grandmother, or their uncle, or their sister. They don't decide to deviate from the routine they'd settled into in favour of something else.
Beau didn't know. Neither did Louise, he thought. He woke up with her that morning same as he always did, his arms around her, their legs entangled. The window was open a crack, and a stream of morning sunlight cut a line across his wife's delicate face. She smiled lazily, and it was a genuine smile, not one that masked an unexplainable fear.
"Joyeux anniversaire, mon amour," she said. Happy anniversary, my love. And her voice was so full of love that Beau thought he might burst from it. But it wasn't the type of love you gave when you were saying goodbye.
As a tradition, Beau and Louise spent their anniversary alternating between activities—one their partner liked, then one they liked—before capping it off at the Lumière des Étoiles. The restaurant didn't have any real sentimental value to them, but it did make the best damn Bouillabaisse they'd ever eaten, and that was reason enough to return. But only on their anniversary. They had to make it special somehow.
Louise was wearing a wine-red dress that truly displayed her body to the world, curves and hips and breasts for days. Beau wasn't jealous, though. He wasn't the kind of man to believe a woman was cheating solely for not covering up. Besides, if he had a body like that, he damn well knew he would show it off, too.
He'd tried, himself, to match his wife's style. A powder-blue suit. A little bit of hair gel to tame his unruly curls. He'd even swapped out his usual turtle shell glasses for ones that were lined with gold.
The effort worked. Twirling her pearl necklace around and around, Louise gazed at Beau the same way he often found himself looking at her—as if he held all of the stars in the galaxy. His heart quickened. He felt twenty-five again, on his first date with her, giggling and young and so in love. He couldn't believe that he'd gotten so lucky.
Louise often fretted that her infertility made it hard for her to love. They both wanted a child—sometimes so desperately that their chests felt hollow. But Beau would never leave her for something as trivial as that. There were always options, ones that they simply hadn't explored yet. He would have the daughter or son he'd always dreamed of, one way or another.
And he did, eventually. Just not with Louise.
When recalling what had happened in the restaurant later, Beau would tell authorities it came out of nowhere. He wasn't lying, either—there were no prior signs that Louise was ill. Nothing in her posture or body expression to convey that she was in pain. Just the bright, happy face of his wife, sipping Le Newbie.
Until that face fell.
This was how it happened, in the patches that had become Beau's memory of the incident: Louise smiled at Beau. She rubbed a pearl under two fingers. The candle lit at the center of their table cast shadows on her face. She lifted her wine glass to take another sip. The rim grazed her lips.
Then her expression whitened. All of the blood seemed to drain from her face. Her mouth parted, ever so slightly, as if in surprise.
The glass slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the table. Knocked askew, the wine within began to spread across the table, a dark, dark stain on the white tablecloth. It looked far too much like blood.
That was the only warning Beau got.
"Louise?" he asked, raising his gaze back to his wife's blanched face. "Ça va, mon cœur?"
Are you okay, my heart?
Louise opened her mouth wider, as if to speak. Nothing but a gasp left her throat, instead.
Then blood began to drip from her eyes.
It leaked down her face like tears, down and down and down. It was red, dark red, almost as red as the wine she'd just spilled on the table. It was ghastly. It was horrifying. It was wrong.
Beau leaped back, pulse roaring in his ears. "Louise?" he asked. "Louise?! Que se passe-t-il?!"
What is going on?
Louise's face became, if possible, even whiter. Beau noticed that blood was dripping down her ears, as well. He was just going to call someone over for help when it happened.
His wife pitched forward and projectile-vomited a spray of blood across his face.
Beau screamed, leaping to his feet. His face was wet and red, his new suit stained, but he didn't care about either. All he cared about—all he could care about—was his wife, and a second eruption of blood. This time, it came from her ears. Something burst in her eyes, too.
"Louise!" he shouted. He whirled around, facing the restaurant. A few people had turned around at his screams, but not enough. "Aide! Aide! Quelqu'un! J'ai besoin d'aide!"
Help! Help! Somebody! I need help!
But by the time help arrived—in the shape of a nearby waiter and several panicked patrons—it was too late. Louise had slumped over completely.
Beau reached out a single, bloody hand, feeling for her pulse.
There was none.
His wife—his beautiful wife, who had, as of five minutes ago, been completely alive and well—was gone.
THE SPARROW ACADEMY COURTYARD gave Nadine the same, strange sense of déjà vu that the interior of the mansion did. There was enough to be familiar—it was the same layout, after all, with the same garden paths and ornately decorated benches—but just enough differences to skew her entire perspective. There was no statue of Ben here, for example, though that was to be expected. This Ben Hargreeves wasn't dead, so there was no need for such a commemoration. Even so, the place seemed strange, even sinister without it. It was just... wrong.
There were other differences, too. Nadine remembered the courtyard as a wild thing, with a garden of green, overgrown bushes, branches that could entangle both hair and clothing, and vines that had climbed up the side of the house. It had been nature in its purest, wildest form, constrained to a small space. It was obvious that the members of the Umbrella Academy had liked it that way.
But the Sparrow Academy courtyard was reigned in. There were no more vines on the walls, no more bushes growing out of control. Everything had been corralled into their proper places—the trees were lined up like sentinels, the plants remained in their sectioned-off gardens, and even the blades of grass sprouting underneath Nadine's feet were all the same length. It was meticulous. It was symmetrical. It was everything the Sparrow Academy was—and everything the Umbrella Academy wasn't.
Even so, it was beautiful.
There were flowers. A nearly infinite number of flowers in a nearly infinite number of colours, all blooming in rows. They were planted in such a way that they appeared to be a gradient; red bled into lighter red which bled into orange which bled into lighter orange. The air was thick with their scent, but it wasn't sweet enough to be cloying. It was the kind of sweet that you just wanted to close your eyes and inhale.
It was packed with life, too. Birds chirped from the branches of fresh, green trees, their voices swelling into one gentle harmony. Butterflies with orange or purple or blue wings flew above Nadine's head, adding more bursts of colour to the scene. Bees droned on the flower stems, spreading their pollen. A chipmunk darted by, then dove into a bush.
Even though it seemed to come right out of one of Nadine's Sanctuaries, she didn't let herself trust it. This was the Sparrow Academy. This was the place her enemies had made their homes. It might as well have been a Venus flytrap, ready to catch unsuspecting flies within its jaws.
It was easy to remind herself of this when she came face-to-face with three of the Sparrow Academy's members. Ben, the woman with the sunglasses, and the asshole who'd fought Nadine—Fei and Kadence, respectively, according to Luther—all smirked at them, eyes brimming with condescension and loathing. Nadine glared back, focusing specifically on Kadence. Although it had technically been Fei who had gotten the better of her, Kadence had been the one she'd really fought. Kadence had been the one who mocked her.
She curled her hands into fists. One wrong move, and she was going to see what Nadine was really made of.
Ben, the wrong Ben, cocked his head at them. "You're one short," he pointed out.
"Where's the rest of your pathetic family?" Fei asked.
"Aww. Is that the best you can do?" Allison mocked.
"It's like you're not even trying," Nadine agreed.
"You talk a lot of shit for someone who got your ass handed to you," Kadence said, picking at her nails. "Nadine, was it? What are you here for? To be the Umbrella Academy's guard dog?"
"I'm no one's dog," Nadine said. "Though I suppose I do have the teeth of one."
"Oh, how—"
Ben raised a hand, interrupting her. "Enough, Kadence. Let the adults speak."
Nadine expected her to argue about that—after all, even though it wasn't directed at her, it still was patronizing enough to make her teeth clench. And Kadence had proven to be out-spoken enough to completely ignore her brother and continue on.
But she didn't. Instead, she huffed, crossed her arms, and shut her mouth. Nadine couldn't help but raise her eyebrows at this.
Fei lifted her chin, reminding them all of what they were here for. "Last warning."
"Yeah, you don't get to warn us about shit, Flock of She-Gulls," Allison snapped.
Ben actually laughed at that one, snickering into his fist. Fei turned to him. He stopped and cleared his throat. "Whatever. Where the fuck is Marcus?"
"Marcus is, uh..." Viktor began. "Marcus, uh... Marcus is—"
"Safe," Allison blurted. "For now."
Nadine whirled to her. What was she doing? This wasn't a part of the plan! They were supposed to have told the Sparrows the truth, even if it was a hard pill to swallow. Not further their beliefs that they'd kidnapped him.
"Allison—" she started, her voice a hiss.
Her friend ignored her. "But that'll change real quick if you don't do exactly as we say."
Fei turned to Ben again. "See? I told you they have him."
"Pieces of shit," Kadence muttered.
Ben clasped his hands together, frustration practically bursting through his features. "I warned Marcus, but no. He said we had to hear what you had to say."
"Look, he wasn't wrong, okay?" Viktor said. "We want to make things right with you—"
"By kidnapping our brother?"
"No, that's—"
"Yes," Allison said. Viktor looked at her, and he must've seen something in her eyes, because he didn't argue.
"Look," he said instead, "there is a lot more going on here. The world is in trouble, and we need to work together. My brother could explain it all a lot better than me, but... it's a time-travelling problem. We caused a paradox, and that paradox is swallowing things. Lots of cows, and a dog, a few lobsters..."
"And people," Nadine interrupted, shooting him a look. These assholes wouldn't care about the missing animals. Indeed, they were already looking as if they were holding in their laughter. "A whole street of people. There one second, gone the next."
"Exactly," Viktor agreed. "Look, I know it sounds like—"
"Just give us the briefcase, and we'll give you Marcus," Allison said.
"What briefcase?" Fei asked.
"The one we left in your house."
"We didn't—" Kadence began.
"Deal," Ben snarled. "The briefcase for our brother."
"Great," Allison said. "Hotel Obsidian, four o'clock sharp. Or we'll send him back in pieces."
Kadence snarled. "You do that, and it'll be your death sentence." She curled her hands into fists. Something in the ground rumbled. Nadine nearly lost her balance. "What you call us kicking your asses was us going easy on you. But that's not going to happen if you kill our brother. Shit, it's not going to happen if you send him back with a scratch. So I'd watch your back, Umbrella Academy."
Allison pushed her sunglasses up her nose. "Same to you. We've got a lot more tricks than we showed you the other day."
Nadine had no idea what kind of tricks Allison was referring to. In fact, she had no idea what in the world was happening. In just a couple of minutes, their plan had completely gone sideways. They were now threatening the Sparrow Academy with Marcus, someone they didn't have. And Allison had gone and given them their address. She was practically begging them to attack.
Looking at her friend's face, though, Nadine got the uneasy feeling that it was exactly what she wanted.
So, she gritted her teeth. "Glad everyone's on the same page."
She'd have to come up with a plan when she got back to the hotel.
With that, the meeting—brief as it was—came to an end. Ben, Fei, and Kadence all headed inside, though not without a whispered conversation that made the hairs on the back of Nadine's neck stand up. Given the way Kadence, in particular, was looking at her, she got the sense that the Sparrow Academy wasn't exactly going to play fair. They were going to do everything in their power to get Marcus back, briefcase or no briefcase.
Which meant that Nadine had to play dirty, too.
She, Viktor, and Allison headed back the way they came. Viktor walked like he was seconds away from bursting—every muscle tense, every part of his body rigid. His expression was neutral, but Nadine could sense the annoyance behind it. It wouldn't be long until it all came bursting through.
And it did, right when they were out of the Sparrows' earshot. "Whoa, what the hell was that?"
"What?" Allison snapped. "You were losing them. I'm an actor, I improvised."
"Well, superb performance, Helen Mirren, but we don't have Marcus."
"Yeah, well, they don't know that."
"It's gonna be pretty obvious when we meet them for the trade tonight," Nadine pointed out.
"Yeah," Viktor agreed. "What are we gonna do when they show up and find out the truth?"
"Uh, I don't know," Allison said. "We'll figure that out next. But why don't you two relax, okay? We're powerful superheroes. It's about time we start acting like it."
"Oh, like how you almost turned a conversation with Ben into a street fight? Come on, it's not like you."
"What does that mean?"
Viktor shrugged. "Since when you have a hair trigger? You're usually the calm and cool one. Nadine's the one who punches at a moment's notice."
"That is true," Nadine agreed.
"Yeah, well, look at how well being the calm and cool one turned out for me," Allison said. "Guys, we could go home tonight, okay? And for the first time in days, I'm feeling hope, so please don't step on that."
"That's not what we're doing," Nadine said. "We're not stepping on anyone's hope. We're just trying to do what we came here to do—get the briefcase without starting a goddamn war. Didn't you hear what they were saying? They want us dead. They think we took their brother. And yeah, I don't think any of them are very reasonable, but Viktor's right. We might have made them a little more amiable to us if we'd just told them the truth."
"You don't know that." Allison crossed her arms. "For all we know, they might blame us for killing Marcus, anyway. After all, we're the ones who brought the paradox here. At least this way they're not going to rush in guns-a-blazing. This way, we still have leverage!"
"We have to be smarter about this," Viktor pointed out. "We don't know enough about the Sparrows."
"I don't give a shit about them. I've got the two of you. No one's gonna win a fight against Nadine, me, and my tiny badass brother."
He sighed. It seemed as if he'd noticed the logic in her statements. Personally, Nadine was just upset that Allison had made the decision without consulting them, first. They were supposed to be a team. And being in a team meant that they made decisions together.
But Viktor just shook his head. "Okay. Well, I need the briefcase too. It's my only way back to Sissy."
Nadine's heart sunk, just a little. "You're going to go back?"
He met her eyes, tipping his head up a little so as to do it properly. His face softened. "Nadine, you can, too. I know how much you miss Molly. And I know—I know what you found about her. Wouldn't you like to see her again?"
"Of course, I do." Didn't Viktor know that? Didn't he see how many times her hands had found the charm bracelet around her wrist? "But we don't belong in the '60s, Viktor. That was the reason I left in the first place. And it's—it's the reason I'm not going back.
"I want the briefcase so I can go home. So we can bring back the right timeline, where your father never adopted those son-of-a-bitch Sparrows. So I can go home to my dad and not have to worry about Other Me—if there even is an Other Me—getting in the way. And maybe Molly will be alive in that timeline. Maybe she won't be. But at least I'll know that I left her for the right reasons. Not to end up trapped here."
It hurt, saying it out loud. Because, to Nadine, it had only been a few days ago that she'd gone to sleep with Molly in her arms. Molly Hamasaki, who'd seen her when no one else would, who hadn't run away even in the midst of superheroes and apocalypses and Swedish assassins. But they'd said goodbye. And it had been a real goodbye, a goodbye of everything their relationship was. Molly had promised to find her, if she lived. But both of them knew that, even if she had, things wouldn't have been the same.
Nadine had sacrificed that, all of that, to come back to 2019. And she'd known what she was doing was permanent. She'd known that her relationship would have to end,
She'd thought Viktor did, too.
She'd thought... she'd thought...
Oh, she'd been so stupid.
"I'm sorry, Nadine," Viktor said. His voice had turned soft, edging the line. It was as if he was trying to avoid stepping on the eggshell of Nadine's heart. "But I'm not—I'm not like you. You've had a life here. You always have, long before you came to us. But me? I never had that."
"Yes, you did." Nadine's eyes burned. "You had your family."
You had me.
"Nadine—"
"Whatever." Nadine wiped at her eyes. Fortunately, they were still dry. "Let's just head back. We can talk about this when we have the briefcase. For now, we've got more important shit to worry about."
"Nadine—" Viktor tried again. Nadine waved him off.
"Seriously."
His face fell. Allison frowned. Nadine started walking faster.
She was right. They did have more important things to be worried about.
But that didn't mean that it didn't hurt.
BECAUSE KADENCE HAD SWINDLED her way into the meeting with the Umbrella Academy, she made herself involved in the hunt for the so-called briefcase, too. She hadn't been faking her confusion when Cape-Lady—Allison, apparently; Kadence had to call her something else now that she was no longer wearing said cape—had brought it up. She had no idea what the woman was talking about. But, neither, it seemed, did Fei or Ben.
So, now the three of them were searching for whatever it is the Umbrella Academy had left behind. With Fei's help, they'd already gone through a significant chunk of the mansion—which was saying something, considering its magnitude. Kadence had even shifted the walls in order to check the nooks and crannies she used to hide things in. There was nothing.
Which led them to make their way into the basement. Kadence didn't like going down here if she didn't have to. It was stifling, confined, the air thick and mouldy. The ugly stone walls seemed to be growing every second she remained, getting closer and closer to her until they'd close her in completely. Even as someone with the ability to literally change the matter it was made up with, it still got to Kadence. She'd been claustrophobic ever since her father had buried her alive to see if she could get herself out.
"If they left a briefcase behind, Grace will know where it is," Ben rationalized as they descended the steps. It was dark in here, too, the room lit by a single, flickering lightbulb. It was the type that burnt if you got too close to it and needed to be yanked on by a chain. Kadence far preferred the cool, futuristic bulbs that made up most of the upstairs.
"You don't think it's weird that they 'forgot' something here?" Fei asked. "What if it's a trap? What if we open it and it explodes?"
"Please," Ben scoffed. "They aren't that smart."
"Plus, it seems like they really wanted it," Kadence pointed out. "I mean, they're willing to trade Marcus for it. It must have some sort of value to them."
"Exactly. So it's got to be our bargaining chip."
Kadence's eyes widened. Had Ben just... agreed with her? That was practically a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Her brother had the tendency to disagree with everything she said, even if it was rational. Though, to be fair to him, it rarely was.
She might've pointed this out in a way teasing enough to not set him off, but that was before she actually entered the basement itself. There was a strange... humming in the air, an electricity that burrowed right under her skin. It was unnatural enough to make her wince.
"What is that?" she muttered.
"Grace?" Ben called out. "What the hell's going on down here?"
Around the corner, something was glowing, pulsating with a burnt amber glow. The closer Kadence got to it, the more discomfort she felt. It was... rot, almost, but not natural rot. This was not corpses slowly decaying, mould growing on food left out for too long. This was artificial rot, a rot that had been made by something more.
Experimentally, she reached out for the matter at the centre of the rot, trying to see if she could change it. But when she did, the molecules repelled her. They pulsed, hot and heavy. When Kadence probed them—like a finger on a fresh bruise—it hurt.
Her entire body shuddered with pain, and for a moment, her own molecules in her body seemed to shift. They returned to normal in an instant, but that instant was enough to nearly send her to the ground. She couldn't help the cry of pain that left her lips.
Fei turned to her immediately. "Kadence?" she asked. "Are you okay?"
"There's something wrong," Kadence hissed.
And when they turned the corner, they found out what it was.
Grace was kneeling in front of a great, throbbing ball of energy, flickering and warping and undulating unnaturally. It reminded Kadence of the Sun—starting white hot in the middle, then gradually turning orange as it spread out. Heat seemed to wash over her face from here.
"Sweet Jesus," Fei breathed.
This, whatever it was, was the source of Kadence's pain, of the wrongness that seemed to hum through the air. This was what was at odds with its surroundings—because, of course, it didn't fit here. It didn't belong here. In fact, staring at it, Kadence got the feeling that it wasn't meant to exist at all.
Ben began to walk forward, getting closer to... whatever it was. After a moment, Kadence and Fei followed.
"Jesus is one possible interpretation of this deity," Grace said, not turning around. Her eyes were closed. Religious symbols decorated the floor by her feet. "Or perhaps it's the reincarnation of Buddha or Brahma the Creator."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Ben said. He reached out towards the energy. Grace finally opened her eyes.
"Be careful, Number Two. You don't want to disturb his slumber. Who knows who the waking god will choose next."
Kadence turned to the robot, horror filling her. Whatever this was, it was no deity. It was—it was powerful. She could feel it, without even reaching out with her abilities. It was overflowing with it, sucking it out of everyone and everything. Even now, it pulled on her.
To make matters worse, it wasn't satisfied. Kadence could feel that, too. She could feel its hunger.
It had enough power, and enough hunger, to swallow up the world.
Or... no. It was more than that.
It could eat the entire universe.
"Oh, my God," she breathed.
Fei's face blanched with horror. "Grace, is this what took Marcus?"
Grace got to her feet. Her eyes, though robotic, seemed to brim with worship. In fact, her whole face was aglow with it. "He went right up and touched it," she said. "Brazen man. The light of the Lord is too much for mere mortals."
Kadence, Ben, and Fei all exchanged a panicked look. Fei asked, "Grace, when did God get here?"
"Two days ago, with our new visitors," Grace answered.
"Holy shit," Ben said. "This is what the Umbrella assholes were talking about."
Kadence's entire body went cold. She couldn't look away from this horrifying devourer. Standing there, face aglow with the light of it, she got the sudden, sinking feeling that this, whatever this was, would be the end of everything. It had the appetite for a universe, and the power to eat one.
She'd never felt smaller.
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HAVEN: wow i love writing vidine angst!! as if the three-book-long slow burn isn't enough, we've got to have *drama*, too!! i'm sure my readers definitely don't want to kill me!!
seriously, though, i am SORRY. viktor and nadine are idiots and as much as we all want them together, the wounds of sissy and molly are fresh. they're not going to get over it right away (though there may be development later in this fic, hehe). don't worry, i'm going insane over them, too.
also rip kadence. the kugelblitz doesn't exactly work well with her powers. there are definitely going to be some consequences to this, but that's a problem we have to deal with later. right now we have to worry about her plans to take down the umbrella academy. i wonder how that's gonna work out???
thanks for reading >:)