by G. P. Ching
“Finn,” Hope said again. “He’s using you. It’s your sorcery fueling the tear. You opened it. You can close it. Pull your magic back inside.” Her voice was calm, clear, and demanding.
He noticed Damien then, trying his best to distract Lucifer. But the Devil was too large, too powerful. He swatted the angel away like a pest. Silver blood fizzled as it dripped into the open flames below. The angel was hurt. He would not last long against the Devil.
Finn understood what Hope wanted him to do and why. It was impossible. Close it? Didn’t she comprehend the amount of power chugging above their heads? Only something equally as powerful could stop it. Finn wasn’t strong enough to do such a thing, even if he could choose to do it. It had been a long time since Finn had made his own decisions. He knew that now. The symbols he’d bound to his flesh had been making his decisions for him for months. It was strange how they’d taken control. It had started so innocently. A little power, a little more to save a friend. But the power was intoxicating. If he was honest with himself, and there was no better time to be honest than now, the hour of his probable death, he’d come here to this cemetery because the idea of possessing the obsidian dagger had made him drunk with the potential for power. The Soulkeepers couldn’t reject him if he had such a thing. He’d be their hero.
It hadn’t gone the way he’d planned.
Something large and black buzzed past his face and he swatted at it. A small bird? A large bug? It hovered in the corner of his vision and then she was there, projected from the onboard camera in her drone, tail twitching and anime eyes wide with wonder. HORU.
“Finn, finally. I’ve missed you so much. My system hasn’t been the same. I’m in need of maintenance and recalibration.”
“I can’t help you anymore, HORU,” Finn said. Every word cost him. Splitting pain cut through his head. But he had to tell her. She was his creation. He owed her an explanation. “Ask Jenny. Tell her how to do it. She’ll help you.”
The drone whirred as HORU’s image shifted. “That is unacceptable, Finn. You programmed me to take care of you. I’ve protected you and your data for the length of my existence.”
“I’m not doing this on purpose. I have no choice.”
More whirring. “The symbols in your skin are a virus, not unlike the one that infected my data index years ago. Do you remember?”
“Yeah. We fixed you.” He groaned and squeezed his eyes closed. So tired. So much pain.
“My analysis shows that removing the symbols from your skin would undo the damage they’ve done and the hold Lucifer has over you.”
“I can’t just shed my skin,” Finn said.
“No. You did not delete my data index to remove the virus.”
“No. We copied the good stuff, extracted the bad stuff, and filled in the holes through the trapdoor I coded into your operating system.” Finn frowned and looked up at Lucifer, who was now roughly the size of a house and doing a mighty fine job tearing the veil between realms. The hole was now big enough to drive a car through.
Finn blinked. She was right. HORU was a genius. The Devil was a virus and it was his responsibility to remove it. “HORU, record.”
“Yes, Finn. Recording now.”
Finn grabbed the hilt of the obsidian dagger and yanked it from Kirsa’s back. Every symbol on his body swirled to life on his command. All the power he’d ever had or could ever draw on filled him at once. He backed up a few steps, gained momentum, and flew.
It had been a long time since Finn had flown, not because he couldn’t fly, but because with his magic so readily available, he hadn’t needed to fly in months. But now, there was no better way to do what he wanted to do, and flying was his original power, one that came as naturally as walking. He flew as fast as he could, straight into Lucifer. At the Devil’s current size, Finn could only wrap himself around the beast’s neck, but that’s where he wanted to be anyway. He plunged the obsidian dagger into Lucifer’s throat, right where the carotid would be on a human.
On the plus side, Lucifer couldn’t both swat him and Damien away and hold the portal open, which meant he was safe for the moment. On the other hand, Lucifer didn’t even flinch.
“Obsidian can’t hurt me, boy,” the Devil roared. Finn watched him swipe Damien out of the sky with his free hand to Hope’s panicked cries below.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Finn said. “I wanted to distract you.” Gripping the Devil’s neck as tight as he could with all his limbs, Finn twisted his shoulders. He thought of hellfire and obsidian, of the spiraling hole that he had opened to Hell in the basement of the school. But mostly, he thought of the space on the other side of the portal.
It was slow breaking apart. Dissemination was hard enough on his own. Doing it while holding someone who was as large as a semitruck was nearly impossible. But Finn was the strongest he’d ever been, and he drew on his bond to Theodor and Wendy to become even stronger. Cell by cell, he came apart, and he took Lucifer with him. He didn’t have to go far. A few inches. A few more. Into the heart of the portal to Hell.
Lucifer realized what was happening too late. He tried to sink his talons into the edges of the opening, tried to hold himself in the earthly realm. But even the Devil couldn’t grip the night sky. The truth was, he was weak. Lucifer had used his power to perform the ritual and then struggled to expand the tear. And although his access to Hell had increased his size, that expanding girth was a detriment now. Finn had used that weight against him. All the forces of Hell now drew on Lucifer like gravity, helping to move the beast into the portal. Finn was relieved when his strength wasn’t the primary force driving the Devil toward that place, toward the wicked green fire and the walls of obsidian.
When he and the Devil were entirely through the opening, he reached out a hand, tattoo spinning. “Bind,” he yelled. After the incident at Revelations, Finn had learned one simple rule: anytime he opened a portal he must close it behind him. His failure to do that with the tree had been part of the trouble. This time, he wouldn’t screw it up. The slit in the night sky stitch itself closed at his command as they tumbled toward Hell. With a sad smile, he watched the portal disappear, knowing he’d sealed his fate.
34
The Fall
To the sounds of Lucifer’s howls, Finn dodged shredding talons and slashing teeth, clinging to the back of Lucifer’s neck as they plummeted through the fiery abyss. The obsidian dagger was still buried in Lucifer’s thick cord of muscle and Finn used it as an anchor as they fell through time and space.
He’d channeled everything he had, every power he had left, to propel Lucifer through the portal. Now, there was nothing left to do but fall with him. God’s curse was still in place. If Finn could return the beast to his dungeon in Hell, Lucifer would be a prisoner there. Finn’s choice came at a price. He watched the spell for bind rise from his arm and burn off, the magic fueling his propulsion. Eviscerate dissolved next. That one hurt. When he arrived where he was going, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. Ignite, silence, portate. One by one, the spells he’d placed in his skin ignited, sparked like a firecracker, and dissolved in the atmosphere. Farther, faster, the magic propelled him forward until they reached their destination.
Through a barrier of green flames, Finn burst into Hell, finally tumbling off Lucifer and rolling across the hard black stone of Hell’s terrain. He grunted, his body feeling raw, like his skin had been flayed from his body. He had no spells left. No tattoos. No weapons either, aside from the dagger in his hand.
The Devil landed on his feet, still howling like a wounded beast. Although Finn raised the dagger between them, he was powerless against the Devil here. When he’d thrown himself through the tear in the veil, he’d known he was going to Lucifer’s domain and that here the Devil would have the ultimate power over him. All of his sorcery, any power he’d had before, would be lost in the fall. He knew, yet he accepted his fate. He may be trapped here, but so was Lucifer.
It was worth it to Finn to save his fr
iends.
Still seething, the Devil transformed from the beast into something that looked like a man. Not the lead singer of Technothrob this time, but more like the man Finn had raised in the basement of Revelations. With platinum hair and blue eyes, a straight back and a proud jaw, the Devil paced toward Finn, unblinking, irate. A flick of his finger and the obsidian dagger flew from Finn’s grip, skidding across the stone and out of his reach. A pack of oily black hounds fought over it like a bone, dragging it away.
Lucifer bared his teeth. “Do you know what you have done?” Fire rose in a circle around Finn, the heat like sticking his head in a hot oven. “I would have given you power beyond your wildest dreams. I would have brought the humans what they wanted, ruled them with hate, greed, lust, anger, and fear. You could have been rich, my minion, my honored slave. Instead, you do this!” The fire blazed closer, singeing Finn’s already raw flesh.
“I did it for my friends,” Finn said. “I did it for the people I love and most of all because I love myself. Because letting you rule humanity would have meant the end of everything dear to me. If you’d ever known love or friendship, you’d understand that no amount of money or power could ever replace those things.”
Lucifer growled and the flames contracted, close enough that Finn cried out from the pain. He folded his shoulders in to try to avoid the heat and felt a tingle in his torso. He concentrated on the feeling, trying to sort it out.
“You are a worm, Finn Wager. Nothing more than excrement. I will roast you. I will allow the demons and tormented souls of Hell to rip you apart and eat you. And when you are nothing more than vomit from the stomach of the wretched, I will slowly and painfully put you back together only to rip you apart again.”
It was no idle threat. Finn watched the shadows move in. Dark souls clawed closer, hellhounds at their sides, oily and sharp. Demons with claws to tear and teeth to bite licked their jowls.
The Devil growled through flashing fangs as the flames licked Finn’s shoulders. He was burning alive. But inside, he felt a tingle, a part of him the Devil couldn’t touch.
“I wasn’t sure if it was true,” Finn said.
Lucifer rolled his eyes. “If what were true?”
“Theodor told me that being a Soulkeeper was in my genes, and that the real problem, the reason I was rejected was that I’d polluted my skin with spells.”
“Hmm. A lot of good this knowledge has done you.”
His skin blistered. He focused on the tingle. “Being a Soulkeeper was always inside me. It was always a part of me. It’s why I could fly and why magic came easily to me. It’s why I was able to open the bridge with Theodor. For the longest time, I didn’t understand. Theodor never suspected either. He thought his spell had gone wrong. He never supposed that the variable was me. That something about me was different, stronger than he expected. I didn’t know it at first. I’d put a piece of my soul into that tree. That was my price and why I couldn’t enter Veil Island.”
“How sad. A damaged soul. Let’s find out if we can damage it some more.” He hissed.
But Finn wasn’t done. “Hope told me that I couldn’t grow as a Soulkeeper because I was distracted by sorcery. She was right too. Now that the symbols are gone, I know what I can do, what I’ve always been able to do. I can feel it under my skin begging to be used. It should have been obvious based on what I was good at. At Revelations, I could fly. I’ve always been fast and light and nearly invisible in my human life. Flying under the radar was the talent that made Deviant Joe possible”
“You bore me with your stories.”
“I was able to open the portal that brought you back and able to disseminate faster than any magician before me. I could do these things because I didn’t need a card or a symbol to do them. Those things were just training wheels. The power to open a portal, to tear the veil, to fold space and move between places, that had been my God-given power all along. The thing I was searching for with the spells and the magic, the power I thought I needed to keep my friends safe, the way I was never able to keep my mother safe… All this time, I was searching for something I already had.”
He placed his palms together in front of his heart, prayer position. His flesh burned. He closed his eyes and prayed.
“Thank you, Lord for my Soulkeeper gift. I accept.” When he opened his eyes again, he twisted his shoulders. The last thing he heard before he broke apart was Lucifer’s howl of rage.
There were no symbols left in Finn’s skin. They’d all been burned away when he’d descended into Hell. And he was weak and exhausted, starved by Lucifer these last weeks, and used as part of the ritual. But the talent God had given him was enough. Not enough to carry him all the way home, but enough to take him to safety. He didn’t have to go far. He focused on the tree, on the part of his soul he’d left inside it. And as he had anticipated, he was strong enough to make the leap from Hell to the place Hope and Theodor had called Nod. Hell and Nod were close, which was why Theodor had been able to slide here, as injured as he was, during his descent to Hell.
Finn became whole again in a garden of thorns at the base of a fountain that was dry as a bone. Sand blew across the marble, and the sculpture of an angel loomed over him from its center, wings outstretched. There was nothing living here. Nothing good. But he was not burning. He was not in Hell.
And beside the fountain was the tree. Well, a skeleton of a tree. It looked dead. And when he touched it, nothing happened. He slid down its trunk, to its roots, and closed his eyes. He was too exhausted to do more.
If what Hope had told him was true, Lucifer was bound to Hell now, returned to the curse that Finn and Hope had freed him from. Even if Finn spent the rest of his days in this barren wasteland, it would be worth it. This was a good thing. Whatever happened next, it was a good thing.
With peace in his heart, he slept.
35
The Soulkeepers
“Finn, no!” Hope ran toward the altar and the closing portal. With all the strength she could muster, she shot a vine toward the closing hole, her intention to lasso Finn. But the hole in the night sky collapsed on all chance of rescue.
“What happened?” Mike was on his feet. He steadied himself with one hand on the sacrificial stone, staring blindly in her direction.
“Don’t move,” she said. “The fire is still smoldering. Damn, you’re covered in blood.”
“Is Finn okay?” he demanded.
“Are we too late?” Victoria and Theodor arrived at a run, staring at the place in the sky that had once been a revolving ball of fire.
Mike stomped his foot. “Is Finn okay, Hope?”
“He’s gone. He… dragged the Devil through the tear in the veil.”
“Kirsa?” Victoria released Theodor’s hand and stepped to the sacrificial table where Kirsa was facedown on the stone in a pool of her own blood.
“It’s her. She sacrificed herself to save Mike. I think she assumed the obsidian dagger wouldn’t pierce her flesh. No weapon ever had before. But somehow it did.”
“It was my fault,” Mike said.
Hope’s forehead furrowed. “How could Kirsa’s sacrifice possibly be your fault?”
“I brought holy water from the pool on Veil Island.”
There was a collective gasp. Hope couldn’t find the words to berate him for the risk he had taken. A vial of that water had changed an entire island and made it inhabitable only by Soulkeepers. Using it on Earth could wreak havoc.
Mike couldn’t see their faces, but by the silence that followed he must have known they were deeply disappointed with his actions. “I meant to have Finn drink it,” he explained, “to break whatever hold Lucifer had over him. But Kirsa and Finn switched glasses. She drank it instead. I told her she was a Soulkeeper. Once the water broke Lucifer’s influence, her instinct was to protect me.”
“You had no choice, Mike. You had to use the resources available to you. Her death is not your fault. Accountability for this horror falls fully and completely
on Lucifer.” Victoria crossed to him and led him away from the bloody stone.
Damien hobbled out from between two crypts and Hope rushed into his arms. “Thank God you’re okay. I was about to come look for you.” She kissed him fully on the lips.
“I’m sorry. I could not stop him,” the angel said.
“What happened to Finn?” Theodor asked, his voice cracking with concern.
“He disseminated with Lucifer in his grip,” Hope said. “He carried the devil into the portal.”
“Impossible,” Theodor said. “Even Victoria and I couldn’t disseminate with a beast that large in tow.”
“I saw it. All of his tattoos came to life. Lucifer had his hands in the portal—he was trying to make it bigger, pull it open. Finn only had to move him a few inches. He did it. I don’t know how but he did it.”
“I can help.” HORU appeared between them, her drone hovering nearby.
“HORU…” Hope had seen the AI unit talking to Finn, but from the place where she was hiding, with the chugging of the magic above his head, she couldn’t make out what was said.
“Finn gave me specific instructions to record what happened. Would you like me to play it back for you?”
They all said yes at once. Mike cursed. “You’ll have to tell me what you see,” he said. “I’m still blind.” Ms. D put her arm around Mike and assured him she would relay what happened.
HORU broadcast the video. It was as horrific as the first time Hope had seen it. Finn leapt onto Lucifer’s neck, plunging the dagger into the beast’s flesh. Then he disseminated, slowly taking the Devil with him through the opening in the night sky. All of Finn’s tattoos were raised from his skin, spinning and swirling. He lifted his hand and the portal closed behind him.
“Finn is truly a prodigy. A gifted magician,” Victoria said. “I have never seen anyone that strong.”
“Yes, he is,” Theodor said softly, stroking his chin. “HORU, rewind the video and zoom in on Finn. Slow motion please.”
