Before knocking on the door, he heard faint moans, both female and male. Jalen shook his head. While he was busy creating the cosmos, here Aldo was, engaged in the pleasures of the flesh. He knocked loudly, once, twice, and a third round before someone answered the door.

“What’s the fucking fuss... oh shit! Jalen? How long’s it been, man? Months? Come in. Come in.”

Aldo wore just a loincloth, his hairy chest gleaming with sweat. On his bed lay a female terisar, who made no effort to cover up. He had to tip his hat to the guy, fully understanding why Aldo was so preoccupied.

“Hold on, my sweet kitty. Lemme talk to my friend,” Aldo said, then disappeared into an adjacent room.

The terisar stared at Jalen like she’d seen a ghost. So he placed a finger on his lips, urging her to keep his presence a secret before joining Aldo.

“You care for some wine?” Aldo asked.

He stepped into a large room lined with baskets for storage and a low table in the middle that required him to sit on the ground. The scent of spices clung to the barely motionless air. Aldo retrieved a heavy wineskin from a basket and offered it to him.

“No need,” he said, pushing the leather bottle away. “I just came here to tell you I’d be leaving.”

Yet Aldo wasn’t having it. The man grabbed his hand and placed the wineskin in it. “Trust me on this one, my man. They call it Jabakai. It’s made from fruits and wild figs. Heavily fermented and all that unimportant crap. The only thing you need to know is that it tastes fucking sublime. Trust me.”

With a speculatively raised brow, he uncapped the bottle. Aldo watched him down the wine, intently.

“Well, how’s it taste? It sure beats cheap beer, right?”

“Not bad,” he replied, grinning.

“Yeah, fucking right. If you don’t like it, I’ll gladly take it back. No reason for it to go to waste.”

However, he swathed Aldo’s outstretched hand away. They both chuckled, enjoying the wine while seated on the floor before the table. Afterward, Aldo fell silent, his gaze distant and unfocused.

Then those eyes that stared off with a glint of regret fell on him. “I have a note for my daughter. I wish I had one last chance to say my goodbyes. But alas, it was not to be. Can you do the honors instead? Place it somewhere she’ll find it? You don’t have to hand it to her.”

He nodded.

With that confirmation, a relieved smile crossed Aldo’s lips as he left the room and returned with his notebook and pen. Then, Aldo pulled a folded piece of paper from the notebook, wrapped it in leather, and placed it on the table.

“So you don’t leave fingerprints when you touch it,” Aldo said when he gave the man a quizzing look.

“Well, enjoy your exile, Aldo,” he said, then picked up the leather wrap and got up. “It seems like you are managing fine.”

“Hold on!”

When he turned back, Aldo was jotting down something in his notebook, then ripped a piece of paper and handed it to him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Coordinates to my stash,” Aldo said. “When I found out who Antonio Lombardi really was, I did some reshuffling of assets, you know. Stashed away funds for a rainy day. Mafia retirement pension. Daughter’s college fund.”

“You mean you stole from The Black Book?”

“Eh, more like repurposing some money. It was better in my pockets than the law’s coffers, you know. I mean, the rest of the money wound up getting seized, anyway.”

He read the note, which turned out to be just a GPS coordinate and Aldo’s home address in Athens.

“Head southeast. Off Athens. The numbers will lead you to a crooked oak tree. You can’t miss it. Dig right on the spot cast in the tree’s shadow as the sun comes up.”

“How much is in there?”

“Couldn’t tell you. I didn’t have the time to count. The bags were bloody heavy, though. I just ask that you give my daughter a cut.” Aldo stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Not much. Just enough to set her up. She’s always wanted to start a pedicure business. Can you promise me that?”

“Yeah, you have my word.”

“Anyway, before you go, can you clarify something for me?”

He paused at the doorway again. “Sure.”

“Why bother with any of this?” Aldo crossed his arms below his chest. “Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t know what you really are. My current theory is that you are an angel of God, maybe Michael, Lucifer, or Gabriel. You got fed up working under God, so you branched out to this place. Forgive my tangent there. Why bother with crime, money, betrayal, and all the bullshit that comes with that life when you could move here and be worshiped?”

“Angel of God? Really?” He quenched the laughter bubbling within. “To answer your question, I am still coming to terms with what I want. Take it like this; sometimes I like to feel all-powerful, be worshiped, and revered. Other times I’d rather be left alone and be anonymous.

“Though you raised an interesting point about my involvement with the Black Book. I admit that I may have miscalculated what I was willing to do to progress in Hermosville. Hunting down estranged mobsters, I find clashes with my interest. Not to talk about whether it is beneath my statue.” More to himself, he added. “Perhaps it is time I came out into the open. Though I’ll give that more thought.”

Aldo gulped. “Well, for the sake of anyone suicidal enough to antagonize you, I hope they fare better than Vrask that day.”

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He reached out his hand, and Aldo took it in a firm shake. “Believe me when I say that beings like that are a dime a dozen on Earth. Goodbye, Aldo.”

❊ ❊ ❊

Jalen’s return portal exited into the bedroom of an apartment he rented in Southside Haven. On the bed, casually laid out, was Yun, her golden eyes focused on him. As soon as the portal closed, the leather-wrapped around Aldo’s note erupted into a golden blaze, embers dancing about until all that was left was the folded piece of paper.

“Unfortunate,” he noted. “It seems I can’t bring things that originated from our universe here.”

“Of course,” Yun said. “We are still lacking many of the abilities a mature Cosmonar possesses. One such handicap we have is the inability of our creation to survive in other creations.”

He dropped the note on the desk and took a shower. Upon his return, he smiled at the other half of his being. “Long time, Yun. How was your excursion?”

“Liberating.” She drew out that word as she stretched. “This world is teeming with so much culture. I only had taken a quick journey to Mexico to try out the authentic carnitas, as you put it. I must say, that delicacy is exquisite. It almost made me ignore the rampant disregard for life that the country’s inhabitants practice. So much death over material possessions, the paper that gives you the ability to acquire things, and a white powder called cocaine.

“A young human who procured the most interesting delicacies for my consumption ran into the merchants of that cocaine. Apparently, his father owed them. So they took it upon themselves to take the young human as collateral, completely disregarding my presence. Of course, I cut short their pitiful lives and had a sample of that cocaine.” Yun’s face reflected disgust. “For all the fuss over that substance, I find it utterly repulsive. How can the mortals ingest that?”

“It serves a different purpose than taste alone,” he said, plumping down on a chair. “Makes them high.”

“High? What is that?”

“Purely a chemical response of the brain. Brings relaxation and euphoria. Though cocaine’s side effects are enormous.”

“I see. Interesting. Anyway, now that I have shared my adventures, why don’t you tell me what you were doing in our universe?”

He smiled. “Made a few new additions. The whole place seemed a bit empty and lifeless.”

Then he proceeded to tell Yun about his adventures on Avani and the eons of time he spent afterward, livening up the universe. He even let her know about the Aleph, the primordial watcher. Plain to see, Yun shared in his excitement.

“Well, it seems you have unknowingly sped up my plans,” she said when he finished.

“What do you mean?” he inquired.

“Though I applaud you for thinking to give the universe a guardian like Aleph. I am afraid it will need more. Much more. The universe will need a Cosmonar to oversee things.”

He reclined back in his chair. “I fail to see what you mean. I applied all that you taught me. The universe is as stable as possible.”

“And I don’t doubt that it is. However, did you create an afterlife?”

“Oh.”

“In your haste to get back, you may have overlooked other minor issues. Do not fret, judging from the knowledge imprinted on me by the original Cosmonar who created our Seed of the Universe, creation is the most complex phenomenon in the universe. It is impossible to plan for all potential issues that may arise in the future. I will return to our home to overlook things immediately.”

He held his head in his hands. “Perhaps I was too hasty with things.”

Yun dropped from the bed and stood up, resting her paws on his knee, their eyes locked. “That is nonsense. You performed remarkably well. Tanarion’s records state that Flurn, another Cosmonar operating its own cosmos, had to create and destroy its universe over ten times to get something stable. As long as you aren’t that incompetent, you are doing fine. Goodbye for now Jalen. Take good care of our sister, Ella.”

❊ ❊ ❊

In the early hours of the next morning, when the sky was varying shades of dark blue and gray, when bird cries were the loudest sounds, Jalen landed in a clearing near a crooked oak tree, with leaves of yellow, brown, and orange.

He fiddled with his phone, the fat fingers of his god form proving difficult to use. After minutes of trial and error, he finally loaded the GPS coordinates. The date on his phone confirmed that he had been gone for a week while he had spent no less than billions of years in his universe—the place Yun currently was. Thankfully, he slowed the time dilation effect between both universes before coming over.

After confirming that he had reached the correct location, he plunged his hand into the ground and dug at the spot where the tree’s shadow was cast. It was a measured and meticulous effort on his part, as ripping into the money would do him no good. After a few feet of progress, he saw something—a partially buried duffle bag. More bags were buried beneath the initial bag. There were four in total.

With the bags in hand, he headed into the shade of the forest, so he could count the money and figure out Aldo’s daughter, Bianca’s cut. Once again, his large hands made things difficult. He even ripped the zip off the first bag in his attempt to open it. Still, he did not change into his human vessel. What would his story be if someone saw him here, in the forest with four duffle bags? Or if the police placed him in Athens when Aldo went missing?

Then he caught himself thinking along old ideals. Why should he care if he was found out? What did it matter? Mind in turmoil, he continued the task at hand. The money was wrapped in plastic, five stacks a piece, in a denomination of 100-dollar bills. So, eyeballing it, he estimated that one stack equaled $10,000. Piece that together with a bag containing about a hundred stacks and the sum total amounted to four million dollars.

Not bad!

He repacked the money and soared into the sky. Using the directions written on the note, it didn’t take him long to find Aldo’s house. It was a bungalow that sat secluded, shielded by trees on its sides, with the forest as their backyard. He landed on the front lawn and waited.

Twenty minutes later, Bianca came out rushing. Oblivious to his presence, she hurriedly tinkered with the door lock before dashing to her beat-up car.

“Hello,” he said.

She jumped, screamed, and dropped her car keys. When she got a good look at him, her shoulders trembled as she reached for her pepper spray.

“Back off,” she said. “I don’t have no beef with you and I fuck as hell don’t got no money either.”

“Me neither,” he said. “Your dad sent me.”

The mention of her father broke her fear somewhat. “What? Really? What the fuck is going on? Did he do something again? Is that why the feds have been coming around?”

He arched his eyebrow. “No, your father gave me something to pass to you. Here.”

He stretched out his arm with the folded letter attached. Understandably, Bianca made no attempt to collect it, still fearful of him. Eventually, he dropped the letter and floated backward. Only now did she step forward, albeit with her eyes trained on him and her finger poised on the cap of the pepper spray. He waited as she unfolded the letter and read the note. Soon, her eyes welled with tears and she dropped to her knees.

He waited patiently as she sobbed and cleaned her face, her make-up ruined. After all, his senses were dialed to the max, so all sounds within a mile were known to him. Anyone daring to sneak up was in for a rude awakening.

“At least he is alive,” she said, wiping at her tears with a napkin again. “Will I get to see him again?”

He shook his head.

“Okay.”

“He mention anything about money?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, your cut is half what’s in this bag.”

“Hold on.” With a renewed determination, she stood up and retrieved a bag from her house. Then he watched as she transferred the money over.

“Thank you,” she said, holding a bag with half a million in it.

“You’re welcome. If I were you, I’d move.”

With a powerful burst of speed, he shot into the sky and vanished into the clouds.