In other words, we would never have found it until Cain wanted us to. Whether I had concocted a good plan beforehand or not, that was the bottom line.
It made me feel a little better about being caught. Not much, but a little. If I hadn't been so preoccupied with Alyx, I would have seen him coming. Maybe. At the same time, now I knew that this mess could be the only way to have even a slim chance at grabbing the FOG.
The carriage crossed the pool and entered a large courtyard. A pair of demons met us there, opening the door for Cain and dropping to their knees so he could climb down their backs. They did the same for Alyx before leaving me to my own devices.
Cain didn't try to keep me from running. He knew I wouldn't leave Alyx behind, and he was still manipulating her like a marionette. She walked stiffly beside him as he strolled across the open area to a marble archway, through the archway and into a large foyer. I followed him, unsure what else to do.
Then Cain clapped his hands. Immediately, a dozen female souls in gossamer fabrics filed out and to him, surrounding him and looking at him with adoring eyes. They were all wearing a gold bracelet with demonic runes etched around them. Cain took an extra from the hands of one of the women and slipped it onto Alyx's wrist. Then he whispered something; it flamed on for a few seconds, and he visibly relaxed, no longer having to hold her with his will.
She fell into line with the others.
"I thought you liked her feisty," I said, doing my best to stay calm about the whole thing. It wouldn't help either of us to be stupid.
"I will release her when needed. Right now, I want her docile so that I can show you around."
"Show me around?"
"Yes. I want you to see the work I've been doing."
"Why bother?"
"Because I'm surrounded by peons, diuscrucis. Pathetic demons who don't know what true power is. You do. I can talk to you on an almost even level."
"Your power is much stronger than mine."
"Only here. If we were in your realm, it would be different."
He was humble enough to admit it. That wasn't a common quality in a demon.
Or maybe he was just placating me.
He led me out of the foyer through a series of corridors that I tried to memorize as we passed. I had no way of knowing if the demon would change the layout behind us. I figured if he could move the entire palace, he could shift a few walls. He spoke casually while we walked as if we were old friends.
"I visited the mortal realm once. Did you know that, diuscrucis?"
"You can call me Landon. No, I wasn't aware."
"It was before your time, of course. Though I believe the other one may have been getting started then. What was that one's name again?"
"Charis," I said, wondering if he was trying to get under my skin.
"Right. Yes. That was it. British. I've always loved the British. So proper. So much class. Stiff upper lip, and all that rot." He feigned a proper British accent. "They crumble to nothing when their souls find their way down here. The Germans, though." He laughed but didn't finish the sentence. "Where is she these days?"
He was trying to get under my skin. There was no other reason for him to be mentioning Charis. I should have guessed Lucifer's son couldn't be anything but a bastard, in every sense of the word.
"She's one with the universe," I said. "Her soul is free from all of this crap. Forever."
He seemed confused by the statement. "Free?" I had totally thrown him off his game, and I hadn't even done it on purpose. "Forever? How?"
"I had the power of the Beast inside me. You know the Beast was almost a God in his own right?"
"Can you still do it?"
I didn't think so. But to be honest, I didn't know. Demons had the ability to try to transfer their souls into another host before they went back down to Hell. Did I have the ability to set those souls loose into the aether? I couldn't rule it out completely.
"Maybe, but I doubt it," I said.
He looked at me for a few seconds, and we continued the rest of the walk in silence until we finally reached his laboratory.
"There it is," he said, pushing aside a curtain of spiked beads and leading me into the room.
The Fist of God was hanging above an altar in the center, its shape much less clean than it had been before I crushed it. It had small dents and ripples throughout, and the demonic runes had been etched on the outside, not the inside like the scripture. It was a trap within a trap.
The rest of the room was filled out with some fiends and devils of all sizes, sitting at computers and typing out algorithms and code, and 3D modeling runes. It was as high-tech an operation as I had ever seen, and it felt surreal to be witnessing it in Hell.
Then again, everything about my life was surreal.
"What do you think?" Cain asked, steering me over to it.
"I don't recognize any of the runes."
"That's because they're new. All of them. It had never occurred to us that we could generate unique capabilities by altering the age old glyphs. Not until we saw how the seraphim had done it."
"It never occurred to you? In thousands of years?"
"Such thinking isn't limited to humankind, Landon. We kept it the way it was because that was the way it had always been."
It reminded me of a Youtube video I had seen once about an experiment with monkeys, bananas at the top of a ladder, and electric shocks. The point was to prove how easy it was to create that kind of thinking.
"Master," one of the fiends said, approaching us. He was slender and a little bent, with a ring of wispy white hair circling his scalp. He looked like a scientist.
"Ah, Wilson. Just the fiend I wanted to see." Cain put his arm over the older demon's shoulder. "I want you to meet my friend, Landon. He is the diuscrucis."
Wilson looked me over like I was a lab rat. "Interesting," was all he said.
"I want to put him in the armor, to trap his soul and his power and see what happens. Can it be done?"
It bothered me that he said it with me there.
Wilson stared at me again. "I don't know, Master. We will need to measure his energy and see if we can calculate the wavelengths."
"Wavelengths?" I asked.
"Yes," Cain said. "All power in existence is measurable if you have the right tools. Wavelengths are as good a word to describe it as any other. The ingenuity of humanity has helped provide us with those tools." He paused before he sighed. "Sometimes I wish we could stop the fighting for a while and let your kind be. I am always curious to see what new things you would devise to kill one another with, and the tools you would create to devise them."
"Me, too," I said.
"Can you measure it?" Cain asked.
"We'll need some time to create a new idolastat," Wilson replied.
"How long?"
"Three days."
"Very well."
Wilson bowed below Cain's arm and wandered off, barking orders to a few of the smaller devils in the lab. Cain shifted his arm to my shoulders.
"Just think about it, Landon. You will be part of the greatest change ever made in Hell. If we can perfect the armor, we will be able to claim the other planes once and for all."
"Lucky me."
He laughed. It was a smooth, charismatic laugh. Part of me felt like he honestly believed he was doing me a favor.
"Come, Landon. Three days is plenty of time to get some nice torture in."
I cringed on the inside. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.
"I'm looking forward to it."
Nineteen
Cain kept his word. He brought me to a dungeon, a pit in the ground that raged with flames and stunk of sulfur, a smaller version of the Pit we had passed by train. He had me stripped naked, and then he shackled my arms and legs and hoisted me up against the hot side of the exposed earth. It would have burned my skin in an instant if I didn't wrap my power around me to protect myself.
"My minions will care for you from here," Cain said. "I
'm going to pay a visit to your companion."
"If you lay a hand on her, I will kill you," I said. It was more bravado that I couldn't cash in on, but it escaped me without hesitation.
"I'll keep that in mind while I'm playing with her. Thank you again for stopping by, Landon. You've made me a very happy demon."
He bowed to me and then took his leave.
I struggled against the shackles, pushing my power out beneath them. They were covered in demonic runes that made them extra, extra strong, and they didn't break. I had guessed Cain knew what he was doing, and wouldn't have made it that easy.
A demon fluttered down to eye level on leather wings. In my anger, I gripped him in my power and threw him into the pit.
"Stay away from me," I shouted.
All I got for the effort was laughter from the other devils. Assholes.
I tried to relax. To calm my mind and think. I didn't know if my innate power to be forgotten would work on Cain. He had been able to find me out in the Desolation, after all. If it did, either I would eventually escape, or I would hang here for the rest of eternity. At least, until he re-discovered me.
Unless I figured out how to escape my bonds.
I had three days.
I was dangling for a few hours when the first visitor arrived. She was an ugly thing, with a rough face and distorted limbs. She had the legs of a goat, the torso of a female weightlifter, and a pair of thorny wings that sat cockeyed on her back.
"A new prisoner," she said. "What fun."
She produced a serrated whip from somewhere, holding up so I could see it. "Master says not to hurt it too much." Her eyes fell to my midsection. "Maybe I won't hurt it at all."
There was no way I was going to let that happen. I threw some of my power out at her. Just enough to shove her away.
"Oh. It has power. More fun." She unrolled the whip, drawing it back. "Hit me again, you get pain over pleasure."
I hit her again, shoving her back hard enough that she needed to use her wings to keep from falling into the pit.
"Have it that way," she said.
She came at me, and I threw my power out once more. She didn't react to it this time. In fact, it seemed almost as though it entered her, traveled through her arm, and extended out into the whip. The end smacked against my chest with enough force that I was shoved back into the rock hard enough that it broke my spine.
I tried not to make a sound. I couldn't help it. The pain was intense, and I cried out, even as I worked to heal myself. The demon began laughing.
"It could have had pleasure," she said.
This was one of those times when pleasure was worse than pain. I was still happy with the choice I had made.
"Go to-" I started to say. That vulgarity didn't mean anything down here.
The whip hit me again. And again. I winced each time but didn't scream. I healed the wounds as quickly as she made them, causing her to increase the pace.
We kept going like that for some time. I refused to let her break me or destroy my spirit, and she refused to stop. I don't know how many times I was struck, at least, a thousand. I don't know how much time was passing. We settled into a persistent rhythm of whip and heal, whip and heal.
After a while, I became numb to the pain.
After a while, the whole thing just became tedious.
And then boring.
And then, it truly became hell.
It was like someone poking you in the arm over and over again. Tolerable for a while, until it became the most annoying, frustrating thing imaginable. This was just like that. I went from boredom to true anguish. Not physical. Mental.
And the damn demon knew it.
She knew it was going to go like that. From experience, I guess. She gained this sick, smug grin, and she wore it proudly while she drew back and threw the whip forward one, two, a hundred more times. There was nothing I could do.
I was stuck.
I closed my eyes, unable to bear the sight of her anymore. I felt each strike like a slap on the skin, and I wished it would just stop, even if only for a moment. I knew it wouldn't though. It would continue for hours. She wouldn't get tired because she knew how much I hated it. Even though I tried not to show it, I knew that she knew.
Hours passed. Or maybe it was minutes. When you're in the state of being tortured, it becomes impossible to know. The only thing I felt certain of was that it would never, ever stop.
Until it did.
Twenty
I opened my eyes slowly.
The demon that had been whipping me was on the ground at my feet, a pool of blood spreading below her.
Zifah was standing on top of the corpse, looking up at me.
"I decided to give you another chance," he said.
"What?"
I was a little bit dazed, and a lot confused. How had that tiny demon cut down the harpy without her even making a sound?
"I said, I decided to give you another chance. The truth is, I need to get out of this place, and you're the only one who would even remotely be willing to help me do it. I know you don't trust me, diuscrucis, but you will. I'll make sure of that."
"How did you find me? How did you even remember me?"
"Sorry bub, you've got too many demons down here talking about you for them to forget. I mean, nobody remembers seeing you, but you've already become like a legend down here. Plus, I got off the train when you did. I couldn't remember why I got off, but I figured the reason was in the Desolation, and if it was in the Desolation, that meant Cain. So I came to the palace and started poking around until I saw you, and then I remembered that was why I was here. Where's your hot girlfriend?"
"Cain took her. How did you get in here?"
"Look at me. Nobody gives a poop about a demon like me."
Did he just say poop?
"Are you going to help me down?"
"Heh. Deal first, down after."
"Whatever you want, you've got. Just get me down."
"I want to come back to the mortal realm with you."
"Okay."
"I want to have sex with your girlfriend."
Was that all demons thought about?
"No."
"You just said anything."
I reached out with my power, squeezing it against him.
"Hey. Oh, come on, diuscrucis. That hurts. Fine. No sex. Just take me with you."
I let him go, and he leaned over like he couldn't breathe.
"How do you know I'm going to get out of here alive?" I asked.
"Because now you've got Zifah. Big things come in small packages."
I hoped he was right. "Fine. We have a deal. I'll swear it in blood once you let me down."
"No need. I believe you. We have a deal. There's only one problem."
"Which is?"
"I can't get you down."
"What?"
"I have some power, but it's not enough to break Cain's runes. You have to get yourself down."
"What happened to big things in small packages?"
"I'm not Son of Lucifer big."
Great. So my torturer was dead, but I was still trapped. And Zifah thought I was going to get out of this alive?
"Alyx," I said. "You need to find Alyx and set her free. She's in Cain's harem. He put a bracelet on her."
"Cain?"
"Yes." I groaned. He couldn't open that one either.
He stood there, tapping his foot on top of the harpy's chest as it turned to ash. "What if you pull the rock out that the shackles are connected to? You would still be confined, but you'd be able to move."
"The moment Cain sees me I'll be back up here. Unless he dies of laughter first."
"There has to be a way."
I had tried being hopeful. I was starting to lose it. "I'm sorry you came, Zifah. There isn't."
"Cain's power isn't absolute."
"I can't break the bonds. I tried."
"What if brute force isn't the answer?"
Brute force. Pushing and
pulling. I closed my eyes again.
"Diuscrucis?" Zifah said, concerned.
"I'm thinking," I replied.
And I was. I had taken the smallest morsel of the Beast's power. A god's power. I had let it enter inside of me, and used it to remake myself. I had taken on many new traits in my experience of it, but Zifah was right. In all of this time, I had always taken a brute force approach to its use. Push it out, pull it back. There were a million applications of the same idea, and even so the concept of it was limiting me.
The Beast's power had been enough to challenge both God and Lucifer, and I had a sliver of that inside my soul. I had used it to set Charis free, to cast her energy and light out into the universe and set it loose from the cycle of the Divine. It had been a simple act, born of love and sadness. It had hardly taken any effort at all.
I had taken the Divine power and turned it into something else. Something simple and beautiful. I hadn't created or destroyed. I had only transformed it.
Neutralized it.
Balanced it.
I opened my eyes. "Zifah, you're a genius."
He returned a toothy grin. "I know."
I felt the shackles on my wrists and ankles. I felt Cain's runes burning into me. I sensed the power there.
I reached out with my own. Calmly. Gently. I laid it on top of the demonic energy. I didn't push. I didn't pull. I let it be. I felt Cain's power beneath it, and I asked it to change.
Almost at once, the shackles shattered.
I fell to the ground, landing on my feet.
"Holy poop," Zifah said.
"I can't believe that worked," I replied, smiling.
All this time I thought I knew myself.
I still didn't know myself at all.
Twenty-One
"We need to find Alyx," I said, bending down and retrieving the dead demon's whip from the ash.
"You need some clothes," Zifah said.
I looked down at my naked self. I couldn't create clothes out of nothing. "That would help."
"This way." Zifah scampered off toward the door to the dungeon.
I followed behind him, noting the other smaller piles of ash as I went. He had killed the other demons down here, too.
Execution (The Divine Book 6) Page 8
