Read Online Broken Angels by Harambee K. Grey-Sun - Free Book Online

chuckled. “Well, there’re better ways of doing that.”
    “Better for whom?” Robert asked. “I’d just as well avoid that route.”
    Zel said, “Going to XynKroma, under the supervision of Vince, is quite safe.”
    Robert wondered how traveling to an extra-dimensional realm that could best be described as an unstable marriage of Heaven and Hell could ever be considered safe, regardless of whether or not the process was being monitored by an IAI board member. “Reading Death’s Heart seemed to me the wiser option,” he said.
    “Maybe I should try my eyes at it.”
    “You shouldn’t. Death’s Heart is a bad story, an allegory told by way of a connected series of convoluted poems. It’s about a character named ‘Vastion,’ or ‘Vast’ for short. And he…Listen, I’ll spare you all the ridiculous details. I can summarize the whole stupid thing by just telling you that Vastion is some kind of supernatural being, from another dimension, and he’s worried about the sick condition of Love, which is considered a god, or maybe The God, where he’s from. What’s more, Love is also Vastion’s father.”
    Zel gave him a pained look.
    “Yeah,” Robert said. “It’s kind of an abstract, metaphysical concept. As I said, Vastion’s a being from another dimension. So, just stay with me a sec.”
    Zel nodded. Robert continued.
    “Vastion is angry that human beings have been using the word ‘Love’ in vain and, worse, the perverse acts they carry out in the name of Love are directly to blame for the sick condition of Vastion’s God. Somehow, what humans say and do in their dimension has dire effects in Vastion’s. So Vastion somehow leaves his dimension and comes to Earth as a supercharged man in order to get people to change how they think about the concept of Love—not to regard it simply as the product of momentary crushes and one-night stands. But while living among humans, as a human, Vastion becomes convinced that Love is actually a false god; rather than misbehaving humans corrupting Love, Love is actually corrupting humans. So Vastion changes his tactics—and his mission.”
    “That sounds…interesting,” Zel said.
    “If so,” Robert said, “it’s only because I’m summarizing and you haven’t heard the worst of it. There are five chapters in the book. Five short chapters of convoluted, mind-numbing poetry. They’re not named by numbers, but colors, and in the last chapter, the Blue chapter, Vastion gets to the point where he sets out to destroy this false god Love by, in a sense, overloading it. He sets out on a mission to encourage select humans to engage in all sorts of despicable and perverse ‘acts of Love.’ You can imagine the details; just consider the idea of sexual terrorists . Rapes, violent crimes of passion, and so on. Vastion’s theory is that Love and its worshippers—lovers—can only take so much. After too much, they’ll self-destruct. Once the false god is dead, the real God— Peace, Love’s estranged wife and Vastion’s missing mother—will reclaim its rightful place.”
    Zel thought for a moment then chuckled. “Sounds like a nice little bedtime storybook.”
    “Maybe for insomniacs in an asylum,” Robert said.
    Zel put a thumb and finger on his chin as he cocked his head. Robert pressed his lips together and gazed at Zel’s glasses, waiting for the older, wiser man to fully digest what he’d just heard.
    After more than a full minute of silence, the toymaker said, “I’m sorry. I still don’t get it. What does this have to do with Darryl?”
    “Vastion is Darryl’s prophet, his inspiration.”
    “In what way?”
    “Darryl doesn’t just think about peace, or talk about peace,” Robert said. “He inflicts peace. On every woman and man he can.”
    Zel hummed and nodded. “I still don’t quite follow you.”
    Robert sighed. “Think about it. The fundamentalist fanatics in this country preach that ‘God is Love.’ Every pop song you hear, every