by J. L. Murray
The ballooning power inside of me gave a lurch. I felt a buzz go through my body where his fingers were probing, as though he had grabbed onto a nerved and tugged. I saw Zagan's eyes widen, as though he had been given a zap of static electricity, and he snapped his hand back. He shook his head, looking suddenly concerned. The world flashed white again.
“What?” Zagan said. He looked at Ba'al, then quickly down at me. I knew what the searing power was then. It was the same thing I had unmade the world with. It wasn't as strong as it had been then, but it was there. Zagan's face flashed white, then dark again, then white, like a strobe light was going off in my head. And then the world was washed in white.
“You fool!” Zagan was saying to Ba'al. I had to strain to hear him because there was a rushing in my ears. “Is this the same girl that carried the damn Creator around inside her?”
“It is,” said Ba'al, backing away from me. “But she gave the power back.”
“Even just the residue of strength like that will stay with her forever,” hissed Zagan. “We have to leave. Quickly.”
“Don't be stupid,” said Ba'al. “How powerful could she be?” But he was backing toward the door, followed by the necromancer.
“Not that way,” said Zagan. “Take my hand.” Ba'al enveloped the necromancer's hand in his own. “My father taught me this trick,” said Zagan. And with a sound like a million scuttling insects, they were gone. I felt my fingers again, flexing them. I put my hands over the place on my abdomen where I had felt Zagan thrust his claws into my body. The power was welling up. I remembered my vision. Of the dead, of the burned, of my face, cracked and glowing white.
“Get out,” I tried to scream, to warn the people. They were still gathered outside the structure, I could feel them there. They were unaware. My scream came out as a hoarse whisper. “Get away! I can't stop it!” But the power was squeezing my windpipe, and all my warnings were lost in the air, too quiet for anyone to hear but me. “Bobby, I'm so sorry,” I said. I felt the power gushing out of my mouth and nose and ears, choking me, breaking me apart. There was a roar in my ears and the ground under me shook.
And then I burst apart, burning into a million pieces.
TWENTY-TWO
“You're weak,” said a voice.
I searched the darkness. “If I'm so weak, why can't you show yourself?” There was no answer, but I felt him there. “Why didn't you tell me, Sam?” I concentrated on the thought of him and he flickered into view.
He wouldn't meet my eyes. “You didn't need to know.”
“You will goddamn well look at me when you're spinning lies at me.” My voice was quiet but steely. I wasn't hurt by him anymore, but his betrayals still pissed me off. He raised his eyes to me. He was falling apart. His skin was sagging on one side of his face and his suit was coming unraveled at every seam. “Do you even know what you've done?”
“They're all dead,” he said. “All of them.”
I felt my lip tremble and I had to turn away from him. “I never wanted to hurt anyone,” I said. I turned back to him. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I loved you, you know,” he said. “Now I can't even remember what it felt like. What is it like when you're with my brother?” He wasn't being cruel, there was a note of desperation in his voice. Like he really wanted to know.
“Don't go there, Sam. All those people are dead. All of them. You may as well have pulled the trigger. I'm the goddamn gun and you pulled the trigger.”
“I know,” he said. And there was such sadness in him that I pitied him again. “I know. I did this to you. But please. You have to tell me what it's like.”
I hesitated. “He makes me feel alive,” I said, realizing it was true as I said it. “Like he's fire, and all I want to do, for the rest of my life, is to be consumed by the flames. I want to burn with him.” I shook my head. “God, Sam, I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that.”
“This is your dream,” he said. “It's your truth. And I did ask.” He paused. “I remember that. You were that to me. A bright flame in a sea of gray.”
“I'm sorry,” I said.
“Don't apologize,” he said. “One should never apologize for love. I'm not sorry.”
“I don't love Lucifer,” I said.
“No?” he said. “The way you describe it sounds a great deal like love.”
“I barely know him,” I said. Sam smiled sadly.
“Do you really think that matters?” he said.
“I don't know anything any more,” I said. I'd been saying that a lot lately. “Sam, you should have told me. About Ba'al. About Zagan. All of it. Are they really all dead?”
“Mostly,” he said. “I didn't think anyone would die. I had no idea you would still have part of the Creator inside of you.”
“They held me down and that creepy little man forced his hands inside of me,” I said. “They violated me, Sam. You get that, don't you? That it wasn't right?”
“I know,” said Sam.
“You wouldn't come back right.”
“You don't know that,” he said. But his voice was weak. Finally he nodded. “You're right. It's not the same as when I brought you back. You had a spirit. An entire soul. And a body, of sorts. I didn't know about Cassandra, I swear to you. I didn't know when I made Ba'al swear.”
“You know he won't stop,” I said. “I'm going to have to kill him.”
Sam heaved a sigh. He straightened and looked at me. “You have to destroy it.”
“Destroy what?”
“The bar,” he said. “It's where he'll end up eventually. He'll figure out where it is eventually. The necromancer will be able to find it. He'll sense me there. You're the only one that can destroy it. You have to make sure not a single shred of it survives.”
“What about you?” I said.
“When the bar goes, so do I.”
“How?” I said. “Your soul is inside me, too. Not just the bar.”
“This little piece?” he said. He tried for a smile but missed. “It's yours now. I gave it to you. It doesn't belong to me. The only reason I'm able to stay with you is because you allow it. The only bit that was keeping me here was the Deep Blue Sea. And when that goes, I go, too.”
“Shit.”
“Niki, I'm so sorry. I've been so desperate. Do you remember what it was like? To not be alive? To have no power, no form, no emotions except that sense of wanting.”
I nodded. “I remember.”
“I don't want to be a monster,” he whispered. “I don't want you to have to kill me. I would never do that to you. I just want you to be happy.”
“I'm sorry it ended like this,” I said. “A part of me thought we were really meant to be.”
“There isn't any meant-to-be in life, Niki,” he said. “There is only what is, and what is not.”
“Chaos,” I said.
“In a way, yes. Chaos.”
“I don't know how to be, Sam,” I said. “I don't know how to do this.”
“You're doing well, Niki,” he said. “You're a better Death now than I ever was. You see it for what it is. I only ever saw the tragedy of it all. It was never beautiful for me. I wish it had been, but I just couldn't see it.”
“What will happen?”
“I will be at peace,” he said. “I'll be absorbed into the air and the water and the earth. That's what being unmade is.”
“So it's like reincarnation?” I said. “You could be a tree or a bird or a human.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “I don't really know how it works.”
“What happens to your soul?”
“Well, you have most of it,” he said. “And it will become yours. The part that is in the Deep Blue Sea will dissipate. I don't know what will happen to it.”
“Are you scared?”
He frowned. “No. That's odd, isn't it? I'm relieved.”
“But you'll be gone,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. He smiled then, and I think it was the first genuine smile I'd
ever seen on his face. “Isn't it grand? I'll be free.”
“Sam,” I said, my voice breaking. “I'm so sorry. I wanted to bring you back. But, goddammit. If you came back wrong – and from what I've learned you probably would – I can't imagine...” I put a hand over my mouth at the thought. I closed my eyes. He stepped toward me and gently took my hand from my mouth and held it in his own. “Sam, I just can't kill you. I can't kill you like Lucifer had to kill Cassandra.”
He put his arms around me. He wasn't warm any more. He wasn't anything. He seemed barely there. “You'll never have to,” he said. He kissed my forehead. “Promise me something.”
“Anything,” I said.
“Live.”
“What?”
“Live your life. Be happy. I know you could be happy if you really tried. Don't let your head get in the way.”
“I promise,” I said.
“Goodbye, Niki.”
I woke up shaking. As I opened my eyes I gasped for breath, drawing in air, my throat ragged and pulsing with pain. Something was burning, the acrid smell dirty in my throat. I forced the air out again, then drew in breath again. I could tell I was naked. I sat up slowly, trying to cover myself. Smoke hovered over the ground. Someone was coming toward me. Two shapes, one small, one large. Everything was blurry. I blinked hard.
“Niki, you okay?” Large hands shook me. “Are you alive?”
“Obviously,” I croaked. My teeth were chattering freely now.
“Jesus, sis, I though you'd bit it for sure that time.”
I heard the other shape speak in a low voice. “They're all dead.”
“What happened?” I said. But I knew. I felt hot tears trickle down my face. “I did this?” My eyes were focusing better now. I could see Gage's bearded face, the demon-like features of Dorana. And the smoke was clearing, and I saw what had been veiled on the ground.
It was just like my vision. Some of the bodies were still on fire. Some had been scorched down to bone already. The force exploding from inside me had thrown them through the air on all sides, and the ground was scorched with a perfect circle, with a silhouette of my own body burned directly in the center. I scrambled up, seeing it underneath me. “Oh god,” I whispered. “No.”
There were hundreds. Men, women, children. I had done this. I knew it would happen and I hadn't been strong enough to stop it. I'd been paralyzed by a simple spell. How was that possible? A goddamn spell. I was Death, and I'd let a magician get the better of me. I looked at Dorana.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “I tried to stop it. They wouldn't listen to me. They just...” I trailed off. There was no excuse for this. “I did this,” I said with finality.
“No,” she said, her voice gentler than it had any right to be. “They did this.” She offered me her hand, but I shook my head. My gloves had burned off. I staggered to my feet. Gage gave me his coat to cover my nakedness. He had done the same when Sam had brought me back from the dead. I felt something sharp underneath me and pulled out a piece of metal that looked like it had been in an atomic explosion. My gun. I threw it away from me.
“Bobby, how are you alive?”
“Dorana led me away,” he said. “She saw something too. She has visions. Like your godmother. She knew this would happen. We got as far as we could without leaving the dome. We hunkered down behind these big boulders over there.” He looked up. “Guess the spell goes away when the necromancer does.”
“Are they dead?” said Dorana.
I shook my head. “No. They disappeared. How did they disappear? It was like—”
“Kane,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “Even the sound was the same.”
“There's a simple reason,” she said, her voice dry and dead. “Kane is Zagan's father.”
“Well, if that ain't perfect, I don't know what is,” said Gage sarcastically.
“So,” I said, thinking. “The Outsider children...that was Zagan?”
“He asked Kane to take them, yes,” said Dorana. “He hasn't always been cruel. But Kane had a price.”
“Which was?” said Gage.
“Boshta,” she said.
“Boshta?” I said. “What about him?”
“He was dead for a very long time,” said Dorana. “Kane would only deliver the children if Zagan swore to bring him back.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “He came back not quite right.”
“He was a beautiful soul,” she said. “The creature he became after my husband brought him back is not even a reflection of what he was. He's an animal.”
“So if Grazial hired Kane to kill Outsiders,” I said. “He'd know just how to find them.”
“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” said Gage. He looked at me. “Grazial?”
“Eli's dad,” I said.
“That's going to be a fun conversation,” said Gage.
“I have to go,” I said. “I'm sorry, Dorana, it's important.”
“What? Sis, you're a mess. And you're naked.”
“Lucifer's in trouble,” I said. “How much time has passed?”
“Since you detonated?” said Gage. “Maybe ten minutes.”
“Good,” I said. “Maybe I'll be in time.”
“In time for what?” said Gage.
“In time to raise some hell,” I said. I felt a mad smile cross my face. “I'm going to save the devil.”
“But how?” said Gage. “How will you get there in time?”
“Hellions don't shy away from death,” I said. “They don't become spirits. But I can still feel it. I can feel the deaths if I concentrate. I think I can let it pull me.”
“Nik, promise me you'll be safe,” said Gage. “Don't risk everything for some guy.”
I looked at Gage. I swallowed. “It's not just some guy, Bobby. It's Lucifer.”
“Exactly,” he said. “The crazy bastard king of Hell.”
“I kind of like crazy bastards,” I said. “He means something to me, Bobby. I don't know what, but I have to save him. You should come with me.” I looked at Dorana. “Both of you.”
“There are dead that need to be buried here,” he said. “Wouldn't be right to just leave them like this. Go. Save the angel. Come back for me later.”
“Bobby, I can't just leave you here.”
“Yeah you can,” he said. “All the time in the world to find Kane. And I guess you killed his head-crushing buddy. So we got that going for us.” He smiled.
“I'm sorry, Gage. I didn't mean for this to happen.”
“It is what it is,” he said. “Not your fault, you know.”
“It is my fault,” I said. “But I had help. The day I see Ba'al and Zagan again is going to be a bad day for them.”
“I thought Death was supposed to be passive,” he said. “You know, wait for the folks to die instead of doing the killing yourself.”
“Sam was passive,” I said. “And look at all the shit he let happen. If there's one thing I've realized, it's that I have the power to make bad things right again.” I remembered the boy in the institution. And all the families, the people who had died because Grazial had money and was willing to have them killed to enhance his reputation. “He can't do this,” I said. “Not Kane, not Grazial. If anyone wants to spread their evil around on the world, I'm not going to sit back and let it happen. I don't have Michael breathing down my neck, and I don't have rules from Briah to abide by. I do things my way. Always have.”
“Always will,” said Gage. “Be careful, sis,” he said. “You gotta come back and get me out of this place. I'll do a casting and get these bodies buried.” He looked behind him as Dorana crouched over one of the bodies. I knew without looking it was Boshta. She stood after a moment and walked over to us. She put a small hand on my shoulder. It was so human it was eerie.
“Go to him,” she said. “If one person can be saved tonight, let it be him. My husband won't win. You'll see to it.”
“I'll see to it,” I said.
“Good,” she said. �
��He will not ruin another life.” She spat on the ground. “I hope you will make him pay.”
I closed my eyes. I could feel the place where the deaths were concentrated in the city. I could feel it like a hook. But it kept slipping away. Lucifer's face popped up in my mind then. Lucifer hurrying to check on me when I kicked the shutters open in the tower, Lucifer pouring wine, Lucifer taking my hands as we tended to the dead so I wouldn't feel so alone, Lucifer's kiss. Lucifer showing me the way the world moved under my feet. I knew he wasn't in the Pit. Not yet. And then I could feel the pull, bright and white-hot and the pull stronger than anything I'd felt. Like getting tugged by a Mack truck. I gasped at the intensity of it, but I let it take me.
TWENTY-THREE
This pull was different, not like the languid spinning when I helped the spirits. It was rough and bumpy and terrifying, but I kept Lucifer's image in my head. I half expected the Creator to show up and unravel me on the other side. I felt a bit like I was doing something wrong. But I had to stop them. I couldn't even explain to myself the why of it. I would think about the why later. I just knew he needed my help. I wouldn't leave him.
My feet touched down on an empty street that I recognized as being near Eli's father's house. Grazial and his sons liked to call it Blood House. Charming. I could see blood now. I could smell it, too. The street was sloped, and it dripped down the red stone road and into the gutters. I looked for the source and saw a pile of bodies. I walked up the hill, sidestepping the rivulets of black blood from the three bodies. I recognized them: Forcas, Eblis, and the third lord's name had been Shadim. I wondered what had set Lucifer off. Had they antagonized him? Had he gone off on his own? I told him to find Ba'al if he had troubles, thinking he was an ally. Had he tried to find Ba'al and uncovered the truth?
A streak of black blood led off onto a side street, away from Blood House. So maybe he hadn't uncovered the whole truth. At any rate, there was no angel blood on the street. Angel blood tended to be gold or silver and I didn't see that here. Yet. And I was fairly sure that Lucifer was still technically an angel.
