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“When you’ve lived for this long,” Nicky says meaningfully from where he’s lying on his back in a hammock, making a sweeping motion with his hand, “you realize that there is a very very thin line between what is good and what is right.”
Nile hums and looks up from the novel she’d been flipping through, mostly trying to parse out easy sentences to translate in her head as the two of them take a very rare moment to just exist , while the others are out. “I sense there’s a story coming.”
A soft laugh and Nicky’s arm drops back down to rest against his stomach, “There is,” he agrees, “If you’re interested, I could tell you, unless you’d rather continue with the book,” he lifts his head enough so he can squint at the cover of it, “Do you know enough Russian to understand anything in that?” he asks.
Closing the book with a huff, Nile rolls her eyes, “Work in progress,” she says, “Anyway, tell me this story,” she says, “You’ve got that look on your face, like you’re both reminiscing and this is also a life lesson or something.”
Nicky lets his head rest back against the small pillow in the hammock, “There is a life lesson here,” he says, tilting his face up into the sun, “Even if you’re immortal, if the right entity finds you, you will be nothing but a pawn to them.”
“I’m sorry,” Nile says after a long stretch of silence, “A entity , like a ghost ?” she asks.
“I think they prefer to be called poltergeists,” Nicky says, “And really, all things considered, we’re immortal , possession isn’t really that outlandish,” he pauses for a moment to give Nile time to think on it, “There are a lot of things out there, you find out, that can and will cause harm whenever they want.”
Nile’s staring straight ahead, eyes fixed to a small section of chipping paint on one of the shutters around a window on the safehouse, “I’m sorry,” she says again, “I grew up in the US, I’ve heard about exorcisms and possession, I know what those are, I’m just trying to wrap my head around how this will loop into your line about good and right.”
Nicky laughs at that, “Always willing to get directly to the point,” he comments, “The point is, just because someone does something good , doesn’t necessarily make it right.”
“Okay,” Nile says, “And how does possession fit with all of this?”
This time, it’s Nicky who goes quiet, sinking back into the hammock and widening his knees a little bit so he’s barely visible over the edge of it, “A bad call,” he starts out, voice quiet and far away, “We were in the US in the early seventies, I barely remember the real reason anymore, but we were different people then, and I had found myself sort of...listless, trying to find reason—it wasn’t the first time I’d thought about religion, especially not the modern interpretations, but it was the first time I’d decided to take a—ah more direct approach, I guess.”
Nile chooses not to say anything, though there are several questions on the tip of her tongue, instead, she makes an encouraging noise.
“There are many sinister things about Christianity, and one of those is its ability to sink it’s claws into someone and make them believe they’re doing right,” Nicky continues, “And while I am no pushover, and I like to think I’ve now moved past the need for modern organized religion, at that point in time, I was in a very odd place mentally and something about the words coming from the preacher’s mouth drew me in like a moth to a flame.”
“What about the others?” Nile finally asks, “If they saw you get tempted by all of that, did they try to stop you?”
Nicky shrugs a little, “It wasn’t their place, a few years earlier, Booker fell into Scientology and while we didn’t really agree with it, we couldn’t stop him. Being immortal, sometimes you also make mistakes.” He takes a moment to himself and breathes in deeply through his nose, “Either way, this preacher, he was a very convincing man. He spoke about all of the things that, at the time, seemed important to me. When you live this long, your priorities will change. It may not be obvious now, but in twenty, thirty, one hundred years from now, you will realize that the things you hold close today don’t matter any longer.”
“What sort of things?”
A small, barely there smile crosses Nicky’s lips, “Forgiveness,” he starts, “A sense of community with like-minded people who follow Him. Healing in the name of a religion you once so revered. I had many reasons for being so eager to listen to the preacher speak.” A silence stretches between them then, and neither make a move to fill it in any way.
Something seems to click for Nile then, “You said the seventies, that’s when all of this happened, right? You mentioned possession, and that good and right doesn’t always seem to line up. There was a rise in exorcisms in the US then...” she trails off, “ Nicky.”
When Nicky lifts his head enough for Nile to see him, there’s an expression on his face that she can’t quite place, “The things we do, they are not always right, they may be good, but they are not always something that is for the greater good .” He drops his head back down behind the thick fabric, “At the time, I believed that I was doing something good. That I was helping these people out, that I was helping the church out. That the way to get rid of this unknown entity was to throw myself into something I had never experienced before.”
“Is that how you got possessed?” Nile chances, scooting her chair a little bit closer to Nicky’s hammock in a silent bid for comfort, “By being part of an exorcism?”
Nicky turns his head just enough to look just over Nile’s shoulder, “The thing about being possessed by something...not of this world, they’re really good at preying on those who are weak. Once they find a host, especially one who has been stretched thin by fanatical religion, they’ll latch onto you tightly and refuse to let go.”
Nile rests her hand just over Nicky’s, curling her fingers around the back of his, fingertips pressing into his palm in a comforting way, “Did the others know?” she asks softly.
It takes him a moment, but Nicky turns his hand, grasping hers back tightly, “Joe used to say, shortly after everything, that he immediately knew, but those words had eventually lost their meaning. It was the preacher who noticed it first, eventually. After everything was done.”
“You don’t have to go on,” Nile offers, “If talking about this is hard.”
“It’s hard to talk about because I know in that moment of weakness, something went wrong and the effect of that was a long string of horrible things that I’d done. I have a lot of blood on my hands, some of it I remember, some of it I don’t, but I will always remember these particular deaths.” Nicky says with a wry sort of smile, “I’m not saying that I searched out these spirits, or that I intentionally allowed myself to get possessed, but I was very swayed by nice words and sweet promises. In a way, I’d taken on this mindset to help this church with their crusade against immoral beings possessing their followers that I lost sight of myself...” he trails off then, going quiet for a bit.
Nile squeezes Nicky’s hand gently, a small frown on her lips as she watches him. She wants to say something, to maybe talk out what exactly had felt right for him then, to inconspicuously steer the conversation towards her own religious beliefs and where they might lie in a few years' time—how did you still believe in God when you were living past your expiration?
She’s saved from this, from her thoughts, when the screen door behind them opens, breaking the bubble of quiet that had settled over them.
“Oh, there’s a serious talk here, I see,” Joe says as he carefully closes the patio door behind himself, “I brought refreshments,” he continues, coming closer to the two of them carrying two glasses of cold lemonade.
Nicky’s face does something weird then, he’s watching Joe somewhat fondly, though his mouth is still downturned with a frown, “Yusuf,” he says finally, “I’m telling Nile about the time I was possessed by something otherworldly.”
Joe makes a soft noise of assent, placing both glasses down on a small patio table near Nile’s chair, before pulling up another chair, scooting it closer to the hammock like Niles, though he refrains from taking Nicky’s hand, instead, letting Nile keep their hands clasped together.
“That was a hard time,” Joe says casually, reaching out to briefly rest his hand on Nicky’s stomach, before pulling away, “We had been watching Nicky throw himself into this church, though we didn’t say anything about it. We have to do something to keep busy sometimes too. When you live for centuries like we do, revisiting religion or going to college, it gives you something to do in between all the other things.”
Joe takes a deep breath and continues, “I noticed something was off with Nicky, about three or four months into all of this—not his actions or anything, he was still Nicky , still going to the church to help, still cooking for us, still laughing—but his hands were always cold.”
Nicky makes a quiet noise, “What?”
“Your hands are always warm, especially in the summer—but every time I'd grab your hand, it was cold. I didn’t know what it was, but there was something off.” Joe looks over at Nile, “We didn’t really know the extent of...what had happened until a man from the church came to us and said they’d found Nicky, covered in blood. They’d taken him back to the church and we’d all went down, fearing the worst.”
Nicky carefully nudges his knee against the side of the hammock, into Joe’s shoulder, enough of a touch to draw Joe’s attention to him, who smiles softly, reaching out again to rest his hand on Nicky’s knee.
“I didn’t die that night,” Nicky says with a sort of shaky sigh, “It’s very blurry still, what happened from the time I was brought into the church, until the entity had left me, but there was a lot of yelling, screaming, I was in a very, very dark place, trapped inside my own mind. It would only let me see things when it wanted me to.”
Nile presses her thumb to a white scar across Nicky’s knuckles, no doubt leftover from his previous life before his first death, “How did it end?” she asks, “The possession, your involvement with that church.”
“There was an exorcism,” Joe answers for Nicky, “It was hard to watch, knowing I couldn’t do anything to help him—there was a lot of screaming, a sound that I haven’t heard since that night, thankfully.” Joe squeezes his knee, “It took hours, whatever it was inside him was very strong. Very powerful and it took several sessions, holy men taking shifts to ensure that at the end of it all, the entity would be gone.”
Nicky hums quietly, “I woke up to us traveling,” he says, “Despite my dead weight, the others had figured out how to sneak us on a cargo ship, traveling to Europe. Probably easier than explaining a comatose body to the front desk clerk at an airport.” he smiles a bit bitterly, “We had to leave though, before the church started asking questions, there was apparently a whole thing with the church wanting me to go to a hospital or see a doctor when I hadn’t woken up after the exorcism.”
“Definitely didn’t need a doctor poking around,” Joe echoes, “So we got him out of the church while Booker was making plans for us. Paid off some guy at the docks to look the other way while we got on the ship. Found a place to hide until we made landfall. It worked out in the end; Nicky woke up and we never went back there.”
Nicky finally shifts in the hammock, letting go of Nile’s hand and sitting up, his legs hanging over the side of it, “There’s a lesson here, and it’s not just me sharing a story of one of the worst moments of my life,” he says with a wry smile, “The lesson is, one day, in the distant future, you’re going to do something that seems good, that looks and feels and is good, but it may or may not have unintended consequences, ones that, once you look at the bigger picture, make everything seem as if the good thing you did was actually not .” He reaches for Nile’s hand again, holding it tightly, “And whatever that may be, we’ll be there with you to help you work through it.” he promises. “I probably wouldn’t have ever been able to tell that story if it hadn’t been for Joe, Andy and Booker afterwards. We are immortal, but we are still human and that means we are prone to making mistakes just as anyone else would.”
Nile looks down at her hand in Nicky’s, then over at Joe and thinks about the small, golden cross pressed against her chest, wonders if in twenty or thirty years she’ll grow jaded with religion like Andy, or if she’ll still be able to find faith somewhere like Joe and Nicky, “You make it sound like I’m going to trip up and suddenly cause a national conflict,” she says, though there’s no real heat behind it. “But I appreciate the lesson in all of this, even if the story to get there is...horrifying.” She squeezes Nicky’s hand and covers the back of his with her other hand, “I can’t imagine the impact this has had on your relationship with religion.”
Nicky laughs then, less stressed and tight, “I haven’t stepped into a church or spoken to anyone preaching Christianity since that night. But there are other ways to show your appreciation to Him that don’t require organized religious participation.” He smiles at her, “We’re not going to tell you how to practice. Don’t let Andy’s jaded view on it tarnish what you believe. In fact, as the years pass, I’m sure things will change and that’s always a fun thing to experience. How religion changes over the years.”
“We’ll have to talk about that sometime,” Nile says, finally pulling her hands back from Nicky, “I’d like to hear about it. See what I have waiting for me in the coming years.” She smiles at him, “Right now though, I could use some food. And since Joe’s back, that means Andy is too and maybe Booker, so we should probably get started on dinner.”
Joe laughs at that, patting Nicky’s knee one more time before standing up, “She’s right, my love. We should work on dinner, maybe Nile and I can cook while you sit at the table and read to us.”
“Something in English, please,” Nile says with a little snort, “I can’t concentrate enough on cooking and language lessons.”
Accepting Joe’s hand, Nicky lets the other man pull him up, “I’ll find something while you two start preparing things,” he picks up the book that Nile had been picking through before their talk, “Maybe something less agriculturally inclined.” he squints at the title again, shaking his head.
Nile throws her arm around Nicky, and with Joe laughing after them, they make their way into the house, the heavy atmosphere dissipating as conversation moves away from religion and past mistakes and onto more mundane things like what to cook for dinner and the proper cutting techniques for potatoes.