by M. R. Forbes
The DJ faded out the music, and the rest of the eyes turned to the stage.
"Hey bitches!" The girl shouted into the mic. "DJ Spinz is hot, but I know you all came to hear some real, live, kick-ass rock music!"
The crowd erupted in cheers and whistles.
"Hell yeah!" she agreed. "We've got some killer music for you tonight. Here's Entropy!"
More cheers, clapping, whistles as the girl retreated from the stage and Peter took up the mic. The band started playing behind him, and they blasted into the first song of their set.
"We need to get up front," I said. "You try to get his attention, while I get behind the stage."
"Okay."
We moved forward, making slow progress through the pits that had formed all around the floor, trying to keep outside of them and avoid the distraction. The music blasted around us, and to be honest, it wasn't bad. Peter had a great singing voice, and his riffs were tight.
How could this guy be our killer? It seemed ridiculous, impossible, and it probably was.
I'd gotten screwed by impossible too many times to risk it.
We had nothing else. If we were wrong, we would have been wrong even if we hadn't followed him. If we were right? There was only upside.
It took me four songs to get to the stage. There was a bouncer there, keeping a bunch of screaming females from passing through. It only took a thought for my clothes to morph into a replica of his 'security' t-shirt and jeans, a badge around my neck.
"Hey," I said to him. "They asked me to head into the back."
He was a lot bigger than me, and he tipped his head down and nodded, stepping aside with the end of the rope barrier. I slipped in behind him, thankful to have some room to move again.
I climbed up to the corner of the stage and put my eyes on each of the band members, just in case. They didn't register as anything other than mortal, and so I turned my attention to the crowd, searching for Rose. I found her getting closer to the front, her hands over her head, waving towards Peter.
Perfect. I left the stage, following it around to the dressing rooms in the corner. I knocked on the door before pushing it open and going in. Instrument cases were laying open on the floor, half-empty water bottles resting on simple tables on either side of an old couch. I took a look around, hoping to sense something Divine.
There was nothing.
I retreated from the room, and went to the next one. It was little more than a closet, with a chair and a mirror amidst the cleaning supplies and toilet paper. There was a tiny bathroom in the back corner behind a narrow door, a toilet and sink that looked like it had never been cleaned.
Again, nothing.
Entropy played their set straight through, two hours without a break. By the end, they were coated in sweat, and Peter had removed his shirt to reveal a slim, toned torso. I was standing at the corner of the stage when a sweater landed on it and he picked it up to wipe his forehead.
It was Rose's.
I found her behind the bouncer, her frilly silk bra drawing his eyes. She was giving all of her attention to Peter, hooting and cheering and jumping up and down, making sure her breasts made themselves known. It must have been working, because as soon as Entropy was off the stage, Peter went over to the bouncer and had him let her through. She took his hand, and I retreated to the closet ahead of them.
She was going all-in on figuring out who or what he was. Would she regret it when she discovered he wasn't the demon we were looking for?
Something told me she wouldn't.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"Did you like it?" Peter asked.
I peered out from a crack in the bathroom door, watching him. He held the door for Rose, who kept her eyes locked on him while she walked in.
"You're amazing," she said.
"I think this is yours?" He laughed and held up her sweater. It was damp with his sweat.
"This can be yours, too," she replied.
He closed the door, and she pushed herself into him, bringing her lips to his. He was warm to the affection, and he returned it with enthusiasm.
"You're wild," he said, between kisses.
"I know." She turned him around and pushed him down into the chair. Then she straddled his lap. "Do you like it?"
I wasn't sure if I should keep watching or not. I wasn't interested in being witness to what was about to happen.
"I love it."
More kissing. I backed away from the door when Rose took off her bra. How had I ended up in this situation?
"I can be wild, too," Peter said. "More wild than you've ever had, I bet. You want to see?"
She moaned her consent.
I sat down on the can and closed my eyes. I would have closed my ears if I could.
I heard his lips on her skin. Her soft purring of enjoyment.
Stuck on a toilet. If Obi could see me now.
I didn't catch it right away, and I don't think I would have if I hadn't been sitting there. It was a smell. A light, sweet, strange smell, that traveled from the closet to the closest air duct, which happened to be in the tiny bathroom. It was a smell I sort of recognized, the slightly sulfurous edge making a connection in my mind.
I opened my eyes, jumped to my feet, pulled the black stone from my pocket, threw open the door, and stepped out into the room.
Rose's head was back, her mouth open in ecstasy, her neck long and exposed. Peter removed his lips from it and turned towards me. I could See him now, his hot aura unmistakable.
How the hell had he been hiding it?
He stared at me, standing up with Rose wrapped around him. She was still moaning, still moving in his arms even though he'd stopped. He turned and put her on the chair, extracting himself from her.
I summoned the spatha, pulling it into this world. The black blade appeared in my hand, pointed squarely at the demon. "You've been a bad boy," I said. I noticed his lips were moist, too moist. A dark mucus was resting on the edges. Poison.
It had left Rose in some kind of strange high. She squirmed in the chair, oblivious to me.
"What do you know about it?"
"I know what you are, and I know what you've been doing."
He looked at the blade. He looked at my face. Then he ran, taking three quick steps and getting out the door before I had a chance to move.
"Shit." I took two steps and paused at Rose's side. I remembered the wounds on Cheryl Paulson's body. The poison was to incapacitate, not to kill. "I'll be right back."
I gave chase.
The spatha vanished and I pocketed the stone, even as I flew out the door and turned my head just in time to see him round the corner. I raced along the hallway, past the main dressing room, towards an illuminated 'exit' sign mounted on the wall. Ahead of me, I heard an old door squeal open.
I pushed the energy into my muscles, increasing their strength and upping my speed. I went horizontal to bounce off the wall with my legs, pushing off and rolling to my feet, launching towards a metal door ahead. I reached out and yanked it open before I got there, hitting the steps without slowing, taking them up three at a time.
They fed to a second door, and that door led out into the alley behind the apartments. I came out and skidded to a stop, my head going left and right, then up in search of the demon. I had gone as fast as I was able.
Somehow, he had gone faster.
The alley was deserted. Bags of garbage rested against the wall next to an overflowing dumpster. A trickle of water dribbled from a pipe near my feet. I could just barely hear the thumping of the club through the cement.
A cough near the mouth of the alley drew my attention. I walked towards it, keeping the stone in my hand, ready to summon the sword. As I approached, I saw a homeless man on the ground, his back against the wall. He was almost invisible under all of the threadbare clothes he was wearing.
I stepped right up to him. His head shifted, and he stared up at me. He was old, his skin wrinkled and veined, his fingers narrow and bony.
"Spare some change?" h
e asked with a nearly toothless smile.
I summoned the spatha, and shoved it up against his throat.
"Huh? What are you doing?" He tried to push himself further back against the wall. I caught the smell of his urine rising below us. "Please, don't hurt me."
"Did you see a man with long hair come down here?" I asked. I knew the demon could change shape, but the vagrant was clearly terrified.
"I... He went that way," he raised his hand and pointed down the street. "Please don't hurt me. I didn't do-"
I didn't hear the rest of what he said, because something hit me.
I didn't see it, didn't hear it, didn't sense it. I felt a heavy blow to my ribs, and then I was airborne, twisting and coming to ground back down the alley, sliding through the grime. I tried to breathe in, finding it labored. My ribs were broken by the strike, my arm by the fall. I pushed the energy into the wounds, pulling myself back together at the same time I got to my feet and looked down the alley.
There was nothing there.
"What the hell?"
I felt the rush of air from an incoming mass, and then was back in the air, my body slamming into the wall of the apartments hard enough to crack the cement. I threw some of the energy into healing my spine, the rest into throwing myself away from the impact point. I landed in a roll, facing back towards it.
The attack had taken my first breath.
What I saw stole the second.
He looked like a medieval knight, six feet tall, in matte steel armor with a simple helm covering his head. He was covered in scripture, angelic scripture, dense and tight, etched into the armor and glowing a soft blue in the darkness of the alley. His fist was planted in the wall where my head should have been; a wide, flat blade slung below it, stabbed directly into what would have been my neck.
An angel? It couldn't be. Angels weren't allowed to strike first. It was against the rules. It made them fall.
The knight's head turned. His face was visored, the eyes hidden by black shadows. He started towards me, feet almost silent against the ground. A second blade extended from beneath his other arm.
I got to my feet. The first hit had forced the spatha from my grip, and I backed away, trying to get a second to find it on the ground.
The knight was fast, ridiculously fast in that heavy armor. He took a dozen steps towards me and then leaped, jumping high in the air in an arc that would bring him down on me. When he reached the top of his leap, his arm pointed out and his wrist turned over, revealing a set of six small bolts mounted to the forearm. A small spark, and one of them shot towards me.
I swung the power out like a cape, using it to knock the missile aside, and letting the momentum push me. I slid back a few feet, the knight hitting the ground right in front of me.
"Who are you?" I asked, still trying to see through the visor.
It answered with its blades, coming at me again in a flurry of attacks. I sidestepped the first blade, and managed to back just far enough away to avoid the second. It launched another bolt as its arm swept past. The missile dug deep into my flesh, puncturing a lung and leaving me breathless again. I stumbled away, my new fall to the pavement helping me avoid getting stabbed.
It wouldn't miss me again.
I gathered the energy around me and pushed it out, driving it all into the knight. It slammed against it like a tidal wave, throwing my opponent away, sending it into the wall across from us. I fought to breathe, pulling the energy back and redirecting it into healing.
The knight started coming again, unaffected.
"Wait," I said. "Damn it, wait."
He didn't listen. He didn't slow. I threw the power against him again, and again he was thrown. It was a delaying tactic, and I couldn't do it indefinitely.
I finished healing, the bolt falling out of my stomach and clattering on the pavement. I reached out with my power, lifting it and firing it at the knight like a bullet. It rocketed into the chest plate, the force sending it through. A blessed weapon couldn't kill an angel, but it would still hurt going in.
I waited for a scream that never came. He still didn't slow, raising his arm to make the killing blow as he arrived.
"Landon."
The homeless man was on his feet, the spatha in his hand, hilt out. There was no time to wonder who the man was, or how he knew my name. I latched onto the sword with my power, pulling it to me. I was just fast enough to catch the knight's blade on it, and I poured energy into my muscles to keep steady against the force of the blow. The angel had lost the element of surprise, and now it was a fair fight.
I turned the blade and used the momentum to spin to his side, swinging the side with the demonic runes on the edge, hitting it up against the armor. The scripture there flared brighter, pushing me back. I spun the other way, caught the incoming blade, and threw out the energy to shove the other one aside. I kicked out with enhanced strength, knocking the knight back. It fired a third bolt at the same time it tumbled to the ground, the missile catching me in the shoulder.
I cursed in pain and switched sword hands, not taking the time to heal just yet. The arm was coming up to fire again, and I shoved it aside and then came down hard on the elbow, the spatha leading with the scripture edge. The blade sunk into the metal, and then straight through, severing the hand.
Again, I expected a scream of pain.
Again, he didn't make a sound.
The second blade came around and caught me in the thigh, slashing across and creating a deep wound. I did cry out, even as the bolt it fired from the same hand caught me below the arm. The damage made me drop the blade again, and I fell away, bringing the power back to heal.
The knight started getting up.
The vagrant appeared in front of me. He lifted the hilt of the spatha with his foot, bringing it up into his hand in a smooth motion. He hopped onto the knight's chest, kicked the arm away and drove the blade down into the angel's head.
It fell back, but it wasn't over. The homeless man repositioned himself at the knight's side and pulled the blade from his head, raising it and bringing it down in a strong chop.
The helm rolled away.
That should have been the end of it. Instead, the body started moving again. My savior hit it with the sword, leaving deep marks in the metal, even as it regained its feet, ignoring the attacks. As it did, I could see that there was no blood, and in fact no flesh at all.
Hearst's message resonated.
The angels were consorting with a leading robotic engineer.
The body raised its arms to the sky, holding them together like it was praying. I heard the whisper, and I tracked the trio of angels that swooped in. Two took it by the arms and lifted it away like a broken toy, while the third landed between it and us, sword out, ready to defend. He didn't speak. He didn't even look at us directly.
Then they were gone.
I pushed myself to a sitting position, feeling the burn of the energy healing my body. The vagrant approached me, the obsidian sword in his hand. My mind was racing to catch up, to make sense of the entire sequence of events.
"Who are you?" I asked.
One moment, I was looking at a homeless man.
The next, long-haired Peter.
The next, Cheryl Paulson.
Finally, I was gazing up at a man I recognized.
A man I hated.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"It can't be," I said. He was still holding the blade. I waited for him to plant it in me.
His smirk twisted every part of my soul.
"Surprise."
Gervais. The archfiend responsible for more of my pain and loss than any other demon. He had imprisoned and raped his own sister, the angel Josette, to produce Sarah, to create a creature outlawed by both Heaven and Hell, a true diuscrucis, a true balance of demon, angel, and human. A creature that could wield untold power. Enough power to rule the world.
Or destroy it.
Gervais, who had sided with the Beast, taking the smallest thread of his powe
r and becoming an undead... thing. A thing with no soul, evil or otherwise. A thing that had plotted to capture the rest of the Beast's power. A thing that had been destroyed when the Beast's power had become mine.
Or so I had thought.
I bounced to my feet, tensing to attack, ready to rip the smirking demon apart.
"Landon, wait." He flipped the sword in his hand, and held it out to me, hilt first. "I don't want to fight you."
I laughed, filled with anger and hate. "Are you kidding me? I don't give a shit what you want."
He pushed a lock of curly black hair away from his angled face. "You should, diuscrucis." He kicked the helm of the knight towards me. "This is bad for both of us."
I glared at him, seething, the head laying at my feet. I could see the wires and actuators in my peripheral vision, along with the etched scripture along the surface of the metal.
"I know. I know. You are angry with me. I don't blame you. I hurt Sarah. I tried to destroy the world, and yes, given this new chance I would like to do so again. I know about the balance, Landon. That thing at your feet, that is a threat to the balance, not me. Look at me. I'm a pathetic little piss-ant now compared to that. Compared to you."
My hands clenched, my heart pounded, my breath was shallow.
"I saved your life. I helped you fight it. You didn't know the hobo was me. I could have escaped."
I took one more deep breath, pictured pummeling him in my mind, and then let it go. Damn him, because he was right.
"That is better, no?"
I took the spatha from him and sent it away. "How are you even here? Sarah killed you."
He shrugged. "Not quite. When I sided with the Beast, he destroyed my body, and he ravaged my soul. He wrapped it up in his power, both to make me stronger, and to compel me to do his bidding. I was a slave, you see. Something he didn't mention when he offered me the opportunity to be second to a god.
"Then you put him away, and I was free. I knew I could capture his power, and have it all for mine. I would have succeeded, but I underestimated my sweet daughter. Oh, you should have been there, Landon. To see her make the change. To see the power of her. Power that should have been mine. Power we were supposed to share. You and Josette. You made her... good."
