by M. R. Forbes
"Bravo," I heard Gervais say, followed my sarcastic clapping. "Bravo, mon frere."
I scanned the field. The demons were all gone, save for the French fop. He was standing alone ahead of the Eye, looking very pleased with himself.
I glanced up at the sky again, looking for Adam. Judging by Gervais' reaction, I had a bad feeling the fallen angel was working with him. Was his line about getting back in God's good graces all a bunch of bullshit? It wouldn't surprise me.
"Why are you getting mortals involved?" I asked, pointing back at the Eye. I glanced at the scared faces of the passengers. They likely didn't see Divine. What did they see?
"Why not?" he asked. "I figured upping the stakes would keep you from running. You see, if you leave, they die."
It made sense in a typically demonic way.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said, noticing he still had a scar on his face where Srizyl had burned him.
"Good. I owe you for this, Landon. Among many other things."
If he knew about Adam, he wasn't showing it. But then, why play his hand too early?
"I'm right here. Where's Zifah?"
"Doing what he does best, I'm afraid," Gervais said. "Hiding."
The Fist appeared beside me, its wrist blades extended. I brought Uriel's sword up in time to block the first series of strikes, stepping back as I maneuvered.
Game on.
Fifty
It came at me in a blur, twin blades hacking and slashing toward me as I moved away, frantically angling my own blade to block the attack. I saw Obi move in behind it and make to punch it in the back, only to have Gervais change into his super-vampire mode and tackle him. They rolled on the ground together until Obi managed to throw him off, getting to his feet and squaring up against the demon.
"Alichino, see if you can find Zifah,' I shouted to the harlequin demon. He looked at me like I was crazy and then ran off toward the shadows.
Demons. Sigh.
I threw my power out at the Fist. Its scripture flared, reducing the power. It was still enough to drive it back, to buy me a little more breathing room. I teleported as it closed the gap again, moving a couple dozen feet behind it. It turned, raising its arm to fire its bolts.
They launched at me, the Fist vanishing the moment the rounds cleared it.
I dove to the side, rolling to my feet as the bolts hit the wall behind me. The Fist appeared right ahead of me, an armored hand slamming into my face and sending me airborne, ten feet back and onto the street.
It appeared right above me, swords ready to come down. I tried to look past it for Adam. If there was ever a time for him to do his thing, it was now.
I felt a hand grab my collar and pull me along the ground, bringing me clear of the blades as they dug into the cement where I had just been.
"Close call," Obi said, turning and slapping one of Gervais' claws aside. I threw myself to my feet, hitting the demon with my power as I did and sending him tumbling back.
The Fist vanished.
"Where the hell is Adam?" I said, getting more pissed at him with each passing second.
"He must have left, man. There's no other way to explain it. First chance he got to get away from you, he took it."
"No matter what happens here, I'm going to find that asshole, and I'm going to cut his damn throat."
"One thing at a time."
The Fist materialized behind Obi, its sword arm already moving forward to stab him in the back. My reaction was instant, tugging at my friend with my power while pushing against the Fist. I managed to create just enough distance to keep him from being skewered.
The Fist disappeared once more.
Gervais was close by, and he came at Obi again. I grabbed him with my power before he could, lifting him and throwing him like a ragdoll, sending him hurtling through the air. He went through the wall of the Eye's ticketing booth and landed with a crash.
The distraction worked, the Fist appearing beside me, wrapping massive arms around me and lifting me in a tight bear hug. I strained against it, pushing power to my muscles and fighting back, trying to break the hold. Its scripture flared, fighting against my power, meeting it with imbued Divine energy of its own. Obi moved in, hitting the Fist with his gloves. They were useless against it, and it ignored him.
I felt a rush of cold air as the Fist vanished, bringing me with it to wherever it was going.
I stopped struggling for a moment, my heart feeling as though it had stopped.
We were somewhere between realms. Somewhere that time seemed to slow. I felt the stillness of it. The loneliness of it. The silence.
The armor had turned translucent, like bright sigils on a pane of frosted glass. Through it, I could see a face.
Rebecca's face.
It was twisted in pain, the eyes sadder than anything I had ever seen.
The Fist continued to apply the pressure, to crush me in the place outside of time where it could destroy me before anyone could intervene. I pushed my power against it, harder and harder, to no avail. Gervais had done what he had intended to do all along. To catch me with the Fist. To trap me here where he knew I couldn't escape. To end me, and perhaps to leave my body here for eternity.
The eyes shifted, looking at me. They changed slightly then. She could see me here. I knew she could.
"Rebecca," I mouthed, my lungs too compressed to put any air behind it. Was there even any air here to begin with?
She didn't respond. She only continued to look. She was in pain. So much pain. It hurt me to see her like this. Even after all that she had done, it was hard to know she was hurting this bad.
I gathered my power, pushing back even harder than before. I felt some of the pressure against me ease for a moment, letting go as though I were finally shifting the balance of power. A few heartbeats later it was gone, and I heard and felt one of my ribs crack.
I cried out. In pain. In anger. In frustration. In hurt and loss. To have fought so hard and have it end like this? It hardly seemed fair.
Nothing was fair.
I pushed even harder, the strain of the power making my body feel as though it were on fire. Again, the pressure eased, and I managed to grab a single breath before it returned. It was enough to delay the inevitable, that was all.
Except, the Fist was moving, running through the landscape between time and space, crossing the mortal realm in an instant. It went right through a solid wall and into a small clothes boutique where Zifah was standing.
Alichino had a single sharp finger to the demon's throat.
Somehow, he had not only found Satan's son, but he had managed to sneak completely up on him and take him by surprise, causing the demon to summon his protector.
It paused in front of the scene, squeezing even harder. Zifah knew he could kill me and then save himself as long as he was ready. And he was ready. I could feel my body weakening, and my vision was beginning to fade. I was going to die here unless I did something about it.
I looked at Rebecca again.
"Help me," I mouthed, hoping she could understand but expecting nothing.
Her eyes narrowed, shifting enough that I thought for a moment that maybe she had heard, and maybe she would react.
"Yes," she mouthed back.
The Fist fell from the interim realm, back into mortal time. Zifah screeched a little in surprise at the momentary loss of control, recovering in an instant, the Fist hitting Alichino so hard he went through the boutique window steaming, crushed by the scriptured gauntlets.
It had to release me to do so, and I tumbled to the floor, desperately trying to recover from the episode. Uriel's blade fell beside me, out of my hand. The Fist stepped on it before I could pull it back, holding it in place.
Zifah jumped onto my chest, one of his poisoned needles in his grip.
"You almost had me, Landon," he said. "Almost."
Something large and dark hit the window and barreled through in a flash of hair and feathers, slamming into the small demon and knocki
ng him from me. It smashed into the chest of the Fist a moment later, hitting it like a steel wall. I heard Adam's bones crunch beneath the impact, and he slumped to the floor at its feet, halfway between it and me.
"What the hell was that?" Zifah said, reappearing on the boutique's counter a moment later, and then putting his eyes on Adam. "You? What happened to your arm?"
Adam glanced up at the demon. His face was bloody and broken, his wings bent at odd angles behind him. He looked like he was in agony, but he smiled anyway.
"This," he said.
The Fist stood straight up and froze.
"What?" Zifah said, immediately recognizing his loss of control.
Five seconds. That was all the time I had.
I only needed two.
With one motion, one massive push and pull, I yanked the sword from beneath the Fist, lifted myself, and blasted toward Zifah. He tried to get his arms up. He tried to run away.
He failed at both.
I grabbed him by the neck, carrying him as momentum brought us into the rear wall of the boutique and through, out into the alley behind it.
"Landon, please, don't," Zifah said. "We can still be friends."
"I don't think so," I replied, stabbing Uriel's blade into his chest.
Fifty-One
I fell back, screaming, as the power of a son of Satan began pouring into me. I could feel my body convulse, every limb superheating in an instant. I writhed on my feet, holding the blade inside the demon's gut, drawing in every last bit of power.
I stumbled as Zifah turned to dust, reaching out and grabbing the wall to brace myself.
I took a few heaving breaths and then made my way back into the boutique. The Fist was moving again, bending to lift Adam in its arms and turning toward me.
He didn't look good. His body was steaming, the scripture on the Fist causing him to burn. He stared at me, his eyes dim.
"I thought you left," I said.
"It wouldn't have done me any good to stop the Fist until you were close to Zifah," he replied. "I thought taking them by surprise would be best."
"Turns out it was. You didn't have to take me by surprise."
"I had to get back at you somehow."
He smiled. His body was burning away slowly. "Do you believe in second chances, Landon?" he asked, eyeing Uriel's sword.
I nodded. A long time ago, I had needed a second chance as much as anyone.
"Would you?"
"You might die."
"Whatever happens, it has to be better than the alternative."
"Okay."
He closed his eyes as I drove the tip of Uriel's sword into his chest. I pushed my power into it, feeling his Divine energy gathering, and replacing it with something else. I still didn't know if the transfer would work on a real Divine.
As the process was completed, his body healed. Even the metal arm that had been affixed to him fell off, as a replacement limb sprouted from the stump. Finally, his red eyes turned blue once more. He shifted himself, falling from the Fist's cradling posture and standing in front of me.
"Did it work?" I asked.
"Yeah, I think it did," he replied, looking at his new arm. "Amazing."
"You wanted another shot to get back to Heaven," I said.
"You had better stop Sarah then, so I get to take it."
My attention was diverted by cursing outside the storefront. I slipped past Adam and the Fist, leaving the shop and finding Obi holding Gervais by the neck.
"You beat him?" I said.
"Don't sound so surprised, man," he replied. "I'm feeling pretty damn motivated right now." He looked past me. "Since that hunk of metal isn't moving, I assume you got Zifah?"
I could feel the demon's power rippling through me with the rest. I was quickly approaching god-mode if I hadn't reached it already.
"Yup."
I approached Gervais.
"All that planning. All that scheming. You lost again."
He glared up at me without speaking.
"You have ten seconds of existence left, and you have nothing to say?"
"I'll be back, Landon. I always come back."
"Not this time."
I shoved Uriel's sword into him, feeling the sharp bite as his power transferred to me. I had never felt more satisfied with anything as I did watching him turn to ash in front of me.
"It seems a little anti-climactic," Obi said. "After all the shit he put you through."
"I don't need drama," I replied.
"You ready to take on Sarah?"
"Almost. Not quite."
He was surprised. "You need more power than that?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Then what is it?"
I turned back to where the Fist was standing with no one to control it. I approached it, gathering my power as I did. The scripture would protect it, but not enough. Not now. I reached out, wrapping my power around it and pulling. It came apart at the seams, ripping open in a bright flash of light as the sigils tried to protect it and failed.
The power allowed me to see her then, her form barely visible against the backdrop of the mortal realm.
"Rebecca, don't go," I said.
She looked at me, frightened.
"You've done a lot of bad things, but you've done a lot of good things, too," I said.
"I only wanted God to love me," she replied.
"You can't force it. You have to earn it."
"I tried."
"Over years. Over the course of a lifetime."
"It's too late. I've done too many things wrong."
"It isn't too late," I said, holding up Uriel's sword. "I can give you another chance. Do you want it?"
Her eyes welled with tears. "Yes," she said.
I jabbed the blade into her. I felt it gain purchase on her otherwise invisible form, my increased power allowing it to cross the space between this realm and that one. I fed my energy through it, changing hers, removing it and replacing it with a new form to house her soul. She materialized back into the real world, as naked as the day she was born.
"Oh, man," Obi said. "You look like Bruce Valanch. Good thing we're in a clothing store." He grabbed the nearest thing from one of the racks and handed it over.
Rebecca took it, clutching it in front of her, her face flushed with embarrassment. The fact that she was embarrassed was a good sign.
"Thank you, Landon," she said. "I know I don't deserve this." Her eyes were wet, the tears rolling down her face.
"Make the most of it," I said. "You won't get any more chances."
"I know."
I turned to Obi. "Do you want me to leave you here with them, or drop you somewhere?"
"What do you mean?"
"I know where Sarah is," I said. "I know where every Divine on the planet is. I can feel them all. Sense them all."
"You're going to go to her?"
"No. She's going to come to me. But not here."
Obi looked at Adam and Rebecca. "I'll stay," he said. "These two will need a little help getting settled."
"Okay. In that case, wish me luck."
"Good luck, man," Obi said, stepping forward and man-hugging me.
I clapped him on the back, and then stepped away, looking over the three of them one last time.
Then I went somewhere else.
Fifty-Two
The where was a split-second decision. I needed a place where there wouldn't be too many people, and where a battle between two powerful entities wouldn't cause a lot of collateral damage. At the same time, Sarah was still part mortal. She couldn't withstand the extreme temperatures of a place like Death Valley or the North Pole.
Instead, I ended up standing in the middle of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. It was as good a place as any, and a better place because it was wide, open, and flat. I would be able to see Sarah coming from miles away, long before she arrived.
Not that it mattered. With my increase in power, I could already see Sarah coming. I could feel the powe
r of every Divine in the mortal realm, and she was easy to spot. Her signature was different from all of the others. Instead of running hot or cold, she was even and plain, a white light instead of a colored one. Could she sense my power in return? Would she have continued approaching if she could?
She had said I was the problem, that my existence was throwing the balance out of balance for as much as I attempted to steady it. So much of my experience over the last few months had proven it to be true. It was something I knew in my soul. Something I could feel. At the same time, I also knew now that my return to the fight had been necessary. I also had a niggling feeling that there was a higher power behind it. That God wasn't just on my side now, but that He had been on my side all along, even as the angels had sought to get rid of me with the Fist.
It was all conjecture, but standing out on the salted plains watching Sarah swoop in on wings of red and gold, I had the feeling He wanted me to fix what Gervais had broken.
He wanted me to stop Sarah, to return her to what she was always supposed to be, and in turn, make right all that had been wrong since Dante's decision first to send back Charis, and then me.
At least, that's what I was coming to believe.
"Brother," Sarah said, as she fell from the sky, landing smoothly a dozen feet away.
"Sarah," I replied. "Thanks for coming."
"You didn't leave me any choice."
"You had a choice. You could have come to London. You could have interfered there."
I didn't know why she hadn't. A vision, I assumed.
"Too many innocents," she replied. "Too many mortals in harm's way."
It wasn't the answer I was expecting, but I appreciated it. She wasn't a monster, not by mortal standards. She wasn't looking to kill regular men and women.
Only Divine.
"I don't want to fight you," I said.
"I don't want to fight you, either," she replied. "If you submit to me, if you allow me to do what I need to do, we don't have to."
"You know I can't do that. You'll destroy the mortal world. People need Heaven and Hell, even if they don't know it."
Her wings spread out wide behind her, the razor edges gleaming in the sunlight.
