Silence in the Flames (The Traitor's Shadow Book 1)

by Ryan Talbot

  .

  39

  I waited a moment, partially out of respect, and partially out of pragmatism. Resurrection doesn’t work as well when the intended target is still alive. Once I was certain she was gone, I knelt beside the bones of her sister and got to work, tracing a pentagram on the forehead of the skull and speaking a Word of binding. Leah’s soul was now bound to the skeleton, trapped beyond the reach of her Creator. He wasn’t going to be happy about that, of course that only made me smile. My larger concern was what Rachel would do if she found out that I’d used her dead sister to resurrect her.

  I incanted the spell, ensuring that my intonation was precise. I was already on shaky ground with my stand-in remains. Granted, an identical twin was about the most perfect stand-in one could hope for. Nevertheless, I was as cautious as possible. With the final syllable, I lowered my Mark above the remains and waited. A second later, it began, a slow pulse as the Veil parted, releasing her soul. The skeleton shifted violently, jarring the manacles and the spreader bar between the ankles. With a Word of force, I shattered the rusted and badly damaged manacles. The spreader bar fell to the same magic.

  The bones grew steadily brighter as calcium and marrow infused them. Veins and arteries warred with tendons and ligaments as flesh began to spread along the bones. As each new stage began, I was there forcing my will through my Mark and speaking Words of healing. Finally, the body began to resemble Rachel; flame red hair sprouted from the scalp and elsewhere, answering the vulgar question asked by more than one Legionnaire. I took off my jacket and laid it over her. She was going to be pissed enough, if she realized that I’d seen her exposed, it would only get worse.

  Her eyes fluttered open, the deep green irises stared at me with fear and hurt. I touched my finger to my lips, urging her to silence.

  “Shhh,” I rested my left hand on her forehead. “It’s almost over, then I can explain everything.”

  She closed her eyes and tears began to wend their way down her cheeks and falling from her earlobes to the floor below. I spoke another Word of healing, grimacing as she spasmed. Healing something as minor as a gunshot wound hurt like hell. Healing death? I’ve never experienced its equal, and as you can imagine, I’ve had my ass kicked a lot. Within minutes, she was back to herself, or at least as close as I could get her. Let’s face it, her body had been incinerated and crushed to nothing, I couldn’t get that back. She’d spend whatever was left of her life wearing the corpse of the sister that didn’t make it.

  “Before you try to talk,” I said quietly. “Let me explain what happened.”

  Rachel’s mouth worked for a second, then she shut it. Her nod was nearly imperceptible.

  “I told you that you couldn’t exit the way I did,” I began. “Because you’d rip yourself apart. I wouldn’t know where to find you, or how to put you back together.” I took a breath and lied my ass off. “I was able to reconstruct you here from the blood you left on my shoe when I kicked you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything in advance, but I thought it would be easier than sitting there waiting for the end to come.” I shrugged as I looked at her nearly naked body. “Unfortunately, I’m not much on making clothes, but maybe we can find something here.”

  “You killed me.” She said quietly.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “If you need to look at that way. You could also say that I brought you back to life.”

  “This is an abomination,” she whispered, touching her skin.

  “Is it?” I asked curtly. “Maybe you oughta ask the Man Upstairs if that’s the case before you pass judgment.”

  Her lips moved through familiar prayers, and the golden light of YHWH’s blessing flowed from behind her eyes. Her lips broke into a wide smile and she fell silent. I didn’t utter the “I told you so” that I wanted. Instead, I backed away from her. While the big guy might like her back alive, I knew he didn’t approve of my methods and to stay close was to risk getting something important blown off.

  “I need to get back to New York,” she said, sitting up.

  “Me too,” I agreed. “What’s the nearest city?”

  “Reno,” she replied as she buttoned my jacket.

  “I know how I’m getting there,” I said, thinking of the Shadow Road. “How about you?”

  “The Lord provides.”

  For fuck’s sake.

  40

  I dropped off of the rock face. I’d known it the moment I exited the Orphanage. The fuckers moved quickly. I’m not sure how they found out where I was, I only knew I wasn’t about to let them get me. Not again. At the bottom of the narrow draw, a small cave beckoned. I could sense the Dark the moment I looked down at it. Entrances to the Shadow Road always held an echo of the Umbral Darkness that created them.

  The Road was the remains of the wormholes torn in the fabric of Creation by the Umbrals when they assailed Reality. No matter the location, no matter the time of day, the entrances were always dark. Most haunted houses or cold spots investigated by paranormal investigators were entrances or cover for one. It didn’t happen all that often, but people occasionally wandered into the Road and were lost forever. Things hunted in the Dark, things even Nightmares learned to fear.

  I slid feet first down the steep walls of the draw, my hands thrown out behind me, fingers digging into the dirt to slow my descent. I didn’t need to break my neck inches before I hit my escape route. My heels hit the thick rock above the shadowed arch that marked the entrance, and the momentum hurled me forward, I tucked into a roll as I hit the dirt and bullets tore ragged slashes in the ground all around me. On hands and knees, I pulled myself into the cold embrace of the Road.

  The sickly glow of the Road pulsed around me as I staggered back to my feet. The cross-eyed pricks that just ate up half an acre of real estate trying to kill me were too close behind for me to rest. With a quick scan of the horizon, I found what I was looking for, the far-off glow of Reno. With a grin, I turned my back on it. I had an ace up my sleeve in Sacramento, and on the Road, that was only about two hours longer a walk.

  I moved over the sparse terrain as quickly as possible until I crossed the tree line a couple thousand feet down the mountainside. I didn’t bother looking behind me, I was reasonably certain the gunshots would herald their arrival. A flicker of motion on my left made me freeze. This is one thing humans get wrong all the time. We dive for cover. Rabbits, squirrels, deer, they know the drill. When something’s wrong, you fucking freeze. Peripheral vision detects motion an order of magnitude better than focal vision. Let your body go rigid and sweep your fucking eyes. I saw the muzzle of the rifle in clear relief against the fungus whitened bark of the tree its owner rested against. Once I found him, his pals faded into view, moving in a tight wedge formation centered on him.

  “You might make it if you run, Emissary.” Her voice was deep, resonant and entirely too fucking close to my ear.

  I stopped my breathing to prevent the horrendous gasp from ripping out of me. I turned slowly and looked at her, my eyes as wide as a cow’s as it faced the farmer and his captive bolt pistol. “You scared the shit out of me,” I said quietly.

  “You can run,” she repeated, as she rolled her shoulders, flexing her delicate black wings. “Or you can make them regret hunting you.”

  “Abbadonna,” I remembered her aloud. “Right?”

  “At your service, Emissary.”

  “I’m gonna guess you’re my help?”

  “I am here to help you fight,” she pointed toward the deeper shadows. “Or cover your escape, should cowardice be in your nature.”

  “I'm unarmed,” I said. “I lost my pistol when the pricks took me prisoner.”

  “I was given to understand that you were Ghul trained,” her delicate eyebrow lifted.

  “I am,” I said.

  “Then what need have you of a gun?”

  “Sorcery is a bit noisy here,” I said.

  “So are guns,” she smiled.

  “Fair point,” I nodded.


  “Then we are agreed?” She looked across the tree line pointedly.

  “Just you and me?” I said.

  “That should suffice,” she grinned evilly. “They are only men.”

  “What’s that suppos—” I cut off as the bastards caught sight of us and opened fire.

  Abbadonna tossed me aside, wrapping her wings around her body. The bullets slammed into her Angelic flesh and fell away twisted and distorted by the force of impact. When her wings opened, she was laughing. A second later, I realized I was too. Kicking my way up from the stony and moss-covered ground, I raced after her. First rule of combat with immortals, find something bigger, stronger, and faster than you, and follow it to the enemy. No one in their right mind will even bother to target you. Abbadonna moved like lightning on meth, her form blurred as she raced forward. She caught the barrel of the point man’s rifle and with a sensual laugh, ripped it out of his hands. She spun it in the air and brought it down, barrel first, slamming the blunt metal through the top of his skull. The rest of his squad leveled their weapons at her. I screamed a Word of command and threw my will at them. Stunned, they lowered their weapons. A Word of agony dropped them screaming to their knees. Abbadonna tore the throats out of the first two before I registered that she’d moved at all. A Word of conflagration killed the remaining three as it detonated the tree between them, sharp splinters tearing their flesh to ribbons.

  Abbadonna batted the burning tree aside as it fell toward her. “As I said,” with a bestial grin, she faced me. “They are only men.”

  “I wish I had a witty comeback,” I shrugged. “But, wow. You’re amazing.”

  “Flattery is unbecoming,” she said flatly.

  “It’s only flattery if it’s a lie,” I scratched at my face, three days growth of beard itched like hell. “And trust me, lady, that wasn’t a fucking lie.”

  “There will be others,” she said. “Shall we wait?”

  “No,” I declined. “I’m good with this.”

  “Where are we bound?”

  “Sacramento,” I said. “I know a guy there.”

  “And just what does this guy do?”

  “Owns a jet,” I smiled. “A really nice fucking jet.”

  “Can he be trusted?”

  “Of course not,” I laughed. “But I have something he really wants.”

  “What would that be, Emissary?” Her delicate brow raised skyward.

  “Money,” I said. “Lots and lots of money.”

  41

  Abbadonna left me at the Sacramento Airport and within twenty-five minutes, I was airborne. That’s the beauty of money, it makes the difficult easy. I fell into a deep, untroubled sleep and didn’t wake until we landed. I jerked to alertness as soon as our wheels hit the deck, and wiped the drool from my mouth. After being sleep deprived for so long, even after four hours of uninterrupted rest, I still felt like shit. I stretched and slammed the rest of the bottled water I’d gotten from the mini-fridge in the galley. I needed a shower, a shave, a bottle of scotch, and about two weeks of sleep. I wasn’t going to get it. I had to find Corrigan, and kill Thorne. After that, I was going to have to deal with Rachel. As much as it was easy to hope that everything between us was neutral and simple, it wasn’t. Satan and YHWH hated one another with fanatical zeal. Whatever peace had been made between their emissaries was simply that, peace between two inconsequential humans.

  I sighed and headed for the front of the small aircraft. I’d asked Dzingai, my mercenary pilot, to call ahead for transport. Like everything else in the War, that meant calling a front company who, in turn, contacted the Embassy and requested a car for me. Nothing was ever straightforward, layers upon layers of deception guarded what little truth remained in the jumbled quagmire that was the War. I wondered if things had been easier in the old days when everyone was aware of the conflict, before science had displaced blind faith, and man had fallen prey to his own overblown sense of greatness.

  No sooner had we rolled to a stop, than the black limo pulled out of the shadows. Dzingai finished his landing checklists as the driver stepped out of the limo, briefcase in hand. I grinned. Dzingai must’ve asked for cash. I wasn’t surprised, no one in their right mind did anything on celestial credit. Except me, of course, and we’ve been over just how bright I am.

  Dzingai stepped out of the cockpit and shook my hand. “As usual, thanks for your business.”

  “And as usual, thanks for making short notice exceptions.”

  “I’ll make exceptions any day of the week for you, Mr. Franklin.” He grinned.

  “Please,” I smiled back. “Call me Ben.” I took the briefcase from my driver and handed it to him.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” he tipped an imaginary cap.

  I climbed out of the plane and crossed the windy tarmac, my mind anything but still. Thorne would know I was coming. He had to know I was going to kill him. If nothing else, he was a careful planner. He’d covered every eventuality, even ensuring he had the right sort of Aetheric for every task. I couldn’t sneak silently enough, nor bring enough firepower to bear to ensure I’d kill him on the first go ‘round. Not to mention he had Corrigan somewhere, and there was no way that I’d risk the wholesale destruction of his spider hole without knowing that Corrigan was safe. That negated the easiest option, which was sending a demolition team to drop the ceiling on his little hideout. I opened the door to the limo and dropped heavily on the seat. Turning toward the bar, I found the barrel of a semiautomatic pistol in my face. A second later, the explosion sounded behind me, followed by the shockwave. I didn’t need to look to know that I’d handed Dzingai a bomb. It didn’t sound very big, but it was big enough to kill him and end any chance of a quick escape.

  “You didn’t think this was over did you?” Asked the male voice on the other end of the gun.

  “Over?” I snapped and shook my head. “No. In fact, I was just on my way back to see your boss.”

  “That’s good,” he said. His cold blue eyes stared at me over the sights.

  “What made you turn, Simon?” I frowned at him.

  “Turn?” He laughed. “I didn’t turn. I just showed up and said a bunch of pointless words, shook the right hands, and here we are.”

  “How many of you infiltrated the Church?” I asked.

  “One, ten, ten thousand,” he shrugged. “What does it matter? In a few hours, the War ends. In a few hours, all realities will be reshaped.”

  “Who told you that?” I shook my head sadly. “Which idiot filled your head with that bullshit, Thorne or the Toymaker?”

  He banged the butt of his pistol against the privacy screen and the limo sped into motion. “It’s in the Book,” his face took on a beatific light. “There are no lies in the Book.”

  “Every book has lies, Simon,” I said. “It’s all a matter of perspective, and trust me, yours is off.” The limo left the airport via a private tunnel. Sometimes being rich and powerful had its advantages. Today, however, turned that supposition on its head. This time, it was likely to kill me.

  “You will see,” he chuckled. “You don’t have a choice. You are the Chosen.”

  “Chosen?” I snorted. “Why do you fucking people always fall for that shit? There is no ‘chosen’. I was always picked last for dodgeball; no one chose me for shit. You’ve been lied to.”

  “Don’t you feel it?” He shifted in his seat. “Don’t you feel the presence?”

  “I feel a presence,” I grinned from ear to ear and casually buckled my seat belt. “But somehow, I think you’re referring to something else.”

  “The Peacock Angel,” he said reverently. “Can’t you feel it?”

  “Oh, I can feel an Angel, but I wouldn’t call her a peacock,” I said as I braced my feet against the floor.

  “Who?” Simon asked, his confusion written all over his face.

  “Abbadonna,” I answered as I felt her take control of the limo.

  The limo jerked wildly across the tunnel and slammed
into the wall. Simon’s pistol tumbled out of his hand as he flew across the passenger compartment and shattered the window as he passed through. The limo jerked again, this time righting itself and pulling back into the lane. I looked out the back windshield and watched his blond head paint the ground red as his body violently flopped across the pavement at sixty miles an hour.

  “Emissary,” her voice seemed to come at me from all directions as she possessed the limo. “Are you well?”

  “I am now,” I said, picking up Simon’s pistol. The blocky, plastic European design felt weird in my hand. “I could be better, but this’ll have to do.” I fired three shots into the back of the driver’s head. He slumped across the steering wheel.

  “Where must we go now?” She sounded impatient, the engine revved with her eagerness to depart.

  “The Embassy,” I said. “The Legion’s been compromised.” I yanked a bottle of Bushmills from the bar and cranked the top off.

  “How do we know the Embassy is secure?” She asked.

  “Because Erzebet hand picks her staff,” I took a deep drink and breathlessly replied. “And that fucking woman can sense duplicity from a thousand yards.”

  42

  I rested my head in my hands. I was tired. My stubble bit into my palms as I shut my eyes and listened to Erzebet bark out orders. She’d already cut off communication to the Legion and routed all official message traffic through safe houses in Staten Island and Brooklyn. Normally, I’d have left her to her own devices, the woman was damned devious and didn’t need shit from me. Her voice grated on my nerves, and her mannerisms were about as pleasurable as putting my balls in a vice. At the moment, I had to deal with it as I waited on intelligence to come back from the field. I needed to know if Rachel had been taken as quickly as I had. I’d already taken as much time as I could to get a new pistol and resupply myself with ammo, sadly it hadn’t been enough and I was stuck listening to her.