by Ryan Talbot
“Thanks for clearing absolutely nothing up,” I pulled my cigarettes out of my pocket and lit one, handing it to Corrigan.
“It is the Demiurge,” he said. “The Fallen Ascendant, the Risen Damned. The perfected Angel and the successor to the Almighty himself.”
“That’s insane,” I said. “I’m not Fallen.”
“You aren’t,” he said, taking a drag on the cigarette. “Man, I needed that. You aren’t Fallen, but you have the essence of the Lord of the Fallen at your core. And you have one thing he doesn’t.”
“What?”
“A soul,” the Widow replied. “The Lord of the Fallen has no soul to redeem.”
“If Thorne thinks I’m gonna go all churchy, he’s out of his fucking mind.”
“It’s in the Book,” Corrigan shook his head. “And with the Harbinger of Days in his head, there’s no alternative for him to consider. If the Book says it’s so, and that’s how it’s got to be.”
“Yeah, well for now,” I said, pulling Corrigan to his feet. “We gotta get you out of here.”
“I told you, Liar,” the Widow warned quietly. “I cannot let him escape.”
“Corrigan,” I asked quietly.
“Yeah?”
“If I got in here through one of the Sons,” I asked. “How do you think she got in here?”
“Same way, I’d wager,” a sick grin spread over his wasted face.
“And if the prison’s bound to each one of them, and you’re bound to the prison,” I smiled sweetly at the Widow. “What would you call that?”
“A perfect correspondence,” he chuckled.
“If you were facing two reasonably competent sorcerers who could burn your entire world down around you with a Word, what would you do?”
“I’d probably start run—” he doubled over coughing, then stood unsteadily. “Running.” He finished.
“You have three seconds,” I said to the Widow. “Go.”
The Widow roared, her limbs flailing at the air, her claws flexing in her frustration. Without another word, she rolled in the air and gracefully climbed back up the gossamer thread that brought her.
“We don’t have much time,” I said, my eyes glued to the Widow until she climbed out of sight. “What the fuck is the deal with the Book?”
“The Harbinger of Days was torn apart by Satariel himself,” Corrigan dropped his cigarette and launched into another coughing fit. “But his essence, his central soul was recovered by one of the lieutenants of Beleth and bound in a book called the Dreams of the Ebon Mountain.”
“Thorne found the book?”
“Yeah,” Corrigan wiped at his mouth. “He was forced to wander the earth when he was barred from both Heaven and Perdition and he found the book hidden in a cave and murdered its keepers. Their blood awakened the Harbinger.”
“How is it that everybody knows about it, but nobody did anything?” I asked, incredulous.
“How many bums on the streets of New York scream about the end of the world?” He fixed his eyes on me. “You believe them? Or do you recognize them for the lunatics that they are?”
“No one thought he was a threat?” I furrowed my brow. “The freak’s a fucking genius.”
“He’s an abomination, Jason.”
“So he let a nutcase remodel his face,” I shrugged. “So what? Rich women in Manhattan do it all the fucking time.”
“You’re not looking past the surface again,” Corrigan’s eyes scoured the dream around us. “Where do you think he’s got my body on the Lifeside?”
“Probably buried in a storage container,” I shrugged. “Why?”
“I’m tired of playing someone else’s games,” he said. “I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I’m pissed off.”
“Before you do anything craz—”
His Word set the air ablaze with its force. Everything shook as the walls of the dream cracked and a fissure ripped the floor apart.
“Corrigan!” I screamed. “Wait!”
“I’ve waited enough,” he flung his arms wide and spoke another Word.
Darkness burst through the cracks in the walls and floor, and behind that, fire. Surging lava ripped through the fabric of the dream, tearing it to pieces. The floor buckled and separated, pulling Corrigan and I apart.
“Corrigan,” I yelled over the cacophonous disintegration of the dream. “Why didn’t you think he was a threat?”
“Wolf in sheep’s clothing,” he yelled back. “Among wolves.”
48
“Emissary!” Abbadonna’s surprise filtered through the haze of my disorientation.
“What?” I blinked in vain trying to clear the spots in my eyes.
“What have you done?”
The Skull-Kid I’d knocked out lay face down, his skin and muscle peeling and folding back away from his blackened bones. Standing quickly, I swept my eyes over the bodies of the other Skull-Kids. All of them were the same, burned from within.
“Fucking hell, Corrigan,” I whispered aloud.
“The Disciple of Hekate is responsible for this?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Like it was nothing. He sent fire and death out along the…” I faded off as I realized that Corrigan had, with a single Word, gutted Thorne’s organization.
“Perhaps,” Abbadonna said cautiously. “It would be wise to avoid angering that one.”
“Without a doubt,” I nodded emphatically.
“What did you learn, Emissary?”
“Thorne’s a fucked-up bastard.” I held my hand against my forehead. My brain throbbed. “And something about a wolf in sheep’s clothing among wolves.”
“That makes sense,” Abbadonna said.
“Are all of you people drunk?” I snapped. “I really fucking wish you'd share.”
“It is a foolish enterprise for the wolf to attempt to appear harmless to his kin,” Abbadonna said. “Clearly, Thorne is insane.”
“No,” I shook my head. “That’s not what he meant.”
“Are you certain?”
“Look, for one thing, Corrigan’s never that clear when he’s teaching you something,” I knelt next to the body. “And for another, he implied that Thorne’s insanity was why everyone ignored him.”
“That much is true,” I felt her mental shrug. “No one believed him capable of bringing about the end of the world.”
“It’s the wolves part,” I said. “He emphasized that over everything.”
“What then does the wolf represent?”
“Monsters,” I speculated. “Something monstrous, maybe. Thorne was trying to hide the fact that he was a monster from the other monsters.”
“Thorne is not a monster,” she said simply. “He is djinn.”
“He was hiding the fact that he was an angel among angels?” I said slowly, considering each word.
“Why would he do that?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I whispered. “He’s not trying to hide that he’s a monster. He’s pretending to be human! He’s trying to prove he has a soul!”
“To what end?”
“Redemption,” I said.
“That’s insane!”
“Is it?” I asked her. “He wanted to be the favored son of the Almighty. He was cast down instead. Is it crazy to want to get back into his father’s good graces?”
“He was disobedient. He failed to do what YHWH willed.”
“And it broke him,” I said. “He went from being the golden child, to nothing. And on top of that, YHWH chose a mortal to house the soul of his only true son.”
“Yes, but for all of that, Thorne cannot have a soul,” Abbadonna snapped. “He is djinn!”
“Except that he ripped out everything inside himself to make room for ultimate evil,” I began to pace furiously. “He gutted himself to make room for the Harbinger.”
“Umbral souls cannot be redeemed, Emissary,” Abbadonna’s voice went icy. “They are the ultimate evil.”
“Not by YHWH,” I said. “But what if he did everyt
hing right for this fucking Demiurge creature. Wouldn’t YHWH see the ultimate good that he’d done, despite all of his evil?”
“He would create the Demiurge as a means for his own salvation?”
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“There is nothing altruistic in that,” she said. “It is entirely selfish.”
“When’s the last time you went to church?” I snapped. “There’s nothing selfless in religion anymore. It’s all a bunch of idiots praying louder than the idiot beside them. Waving, flailing, screeching in the vain fucking hope that Heaven might notice them first.”
“You take a dim view of humanity, Emissary.”
“So does Thorne,” I said. “Especially if he equates human wickedness with Umbral malice.”
49
The door was armored, and set in a steel frame. The angle of the frame left no doubt that it lead into the earth. It looked like nothing if not a raised root cellar door crafted entirely of steel. Angelic script adorned the entire surface of the door, beveled in silver and embossed in lead, it spelled out a ward against Angelic creatures. I sighed.
“End of the road,” I said aloud to Abbadonna.
“There must be another way,” she said.
“There may be, but this is the way I have to go,” I said.
“That’s foolish,” she argued. “Why would you play into his hands?”
“Because he makes the rules here,” I shrugged. “I’m going to wind up drugged and beaten and dragged into his lair one way or another. At least this time, I know it’s coming and it’s on my terms.”
“Lord Satan will not be pleased should you fail,” she warned.
“Honestly, I don’t think it’ll matter.” I said. “Look at what he did to himself, do you think Thorne will hesitate to do that to me?”
“Then wait,” she urged me. “Assemble the Legion, move against him in force.”
“He’s already infiltrated the Legion,” I reminded her. “And he’s infected the Church with his soulless kids. Who knows what other plans he’s got in place? The best way to attack him is by denying him complete victory. In the end, I’m just a man. The Devil can do without me.”
“This is insane,” she snapped. “What do you stand to gain in all of this?”
“Revenge,” I said. “But even still, it’s the only thing that might work.”
Denying her any further argument, I put my hand on the door. A pulse of sorcery blasted into my flesh, forcing her out. Her departure took with it all of the energy that she’d lent me. I swooned against the door frame, holding myself up with will alone. Taking a deep breath, I swung it open and stared into the darkness below.
Tendrils of smoke snapped out from the darkness and wrapped around me like the grip of a deranged god. Pain flared all over my body as embers in the smoke burned deep into my skin.
“I told you how this would end, Mr. Beckett,” Thorne spoke from within the dark. “I warned you that you could not escape your fate.”
“Fuck your fate,” I moaned, unable to struggle against the burning pressure. My spine cracked over and over as the grip of the smoke tightened. My left leg swung at a horrific angle as my hip exploded under the force. I screamed, unable to contain my pain any longer.
Lower and lower the smoke pulled me, in the flickering of the embers that wafted upwards on invisible thermals, I could see deep cuts in the earth that seemed to bleed thick black blood. The walls became a blur as I fell faster and faster. The smoke gripped, shook and spun me, it was impossible to keep my bearings long enough to speak a Word. I tried every exercise I knew to strengthen my resolve, to hold my concentration, but the second I made progress, another bone snapped and I was back to square one. Square one, of course, was screaming in agony.
The bottom dropped out unexpectedly and I fell, slamming into the embers of a massive fire. My skin peeled and curled as it tore away from the fat beneath. Both of my lungs caught fire as I breathed in the embers disturbed by my violent landing. Tears fell and evaporated in the same second. My hands flew up to my face, as if I might keep the embers away with such an empty gesture. Though my skin blackened and fell away, my Mark remained visible, enduring beyond the pain, beyond the destruction of my flesh.
“Jason!” Rachel’s voice cut through the darkness, through the agony.
“Can you bear to see him suffer so?” Thorne’s voice echoed through the vast cavern. “It is within your power to grant him rest!”
“I can’t!” She screamed at him. “He is beyond grace!”
“You are not the Judge!” I heard a fist meeting flesh. “How dare you presume to be!”
“I’m so sorry, Jason,” she screamed.
“Then you can burn with him!” Thorne’s ragged shriek came from above me.
Through the remnants of my eyes, I could see Rachel standing on a platform a hundred feet up. Thorne stood alongside her. Chains bound her to one of the massive earthenware jugs. He kicked her savagely in the lower back, forcing her into empty air. I tried to warn her, my lungs no longer functioned, and my mind was nothing more than the ravings of a lunatic. I stumbled toward where she was going to fall. Any chance to keep her out of the flames meant another chance that someone, anyone might kill Thorne.
“The flames of Gehenna will purify you, Beckett,” he called down. “What you feel is your sin, your impiety, your human failures burning away.”
What I felt was rage, raw unbridled rage. What I felt was a desire, beyond anything else, to choke the life from Thorne with my bare hands. I stumbled over the jagged, interlocking logs that comprised the massive fire in which I found myself. Rachel hit like a meteor. I reached for her as the earthenware jug smashed over my back. Freezing cold water covered me, sloughing off my skin, smothering the hellish fire that consumed me, inside and out. Rachel spasmed as the fire tore the skin from her back and wept as the cooling water drenched her front. I pulled her to me, her skin tearing away as I peeled her off of the logs that ate away her flesh.
“Rachel,” I sobbed. The water’s purifying embrace ripped my sin from me, washing clean the blood on my hands. For the briefest second, as our skin touched, the water acted as a conduit bringing our souls together. I saw her pain naked of preconception, of worldly concern, wholly free of humanity. For a moment, I saw her as her god saw her. I stood in awe of the creature before me. I held her face in my hands, and I wanted her to live. I wanted to take from her the agonies she’d endured at the hands of her tormentors.
“Now you see,” Thorne called ecstatically from above. “The Godsight is upon you!”
I could feel the presence of water, no, it wasn’t water. I ran my tongue over my healing lips, and I tasted bitter salt. It was tears. Those earthenware jugs had been holding tears. Thorne had tortured hundreds of people for this moment. I felt the burden of their souls on me, each tear, each second of torture weighed a thousand pounds, and it crushed me under the impossibly heavy yoke of their pain. Throwing my head back, I screamed. All around the fissure that contained the fires of torment, the jars shattered, their waters poured down from above.
I held Rachel’s body over my head, one hand on her chest, the other on her thigh. I stared into her eyes as the water hit her exposed back. Peace washed over her pain contorted features and I sighed in relief. At least I could spare her this one injustice, this one torment. I lowered her to her feet, pushing her behind me, as steam rose from the sodden ash beneath us. Gehenna, the flames of torment, were no more. Quelled by the suffering of the many, its rage and hatred had been banished. All that remained was the purified bodies of the sinners. Rachel’s arms embraced me from behind, the warmth of her pressed against my back.
I stared up at Thorne. The madness in his eyes evident in my perfect Sight. He was right, I could rise, I could speak the words and bow my head. I could end the War forever. With one gesture, the salvation of mankind, of the world entire, could be made manifest. And I, the Demiurge, could displace Satan and adorn the vaults of Heaven with my light. All I had
to do was kneel. Just kneel. In my head, far beyond the peace and stillness of a sinless soul, a voice called to me. A voice at once distant, and yet familiar.
Be not led, brother. Never a slave!
My eyes snapped open, and my left hand ached. My Mark bled, as raw as the day I’d accepted it. My investiture fought against the healing power of the tears. I stared up at Thorne and hate gripped me. There was nothing pure in this. This was not my choice; this was not an end which I had ever hoped to achieve. To kneel before the Almighty? Rage boiled within my chest. This was the antithesis of what I desired. Somehow, Thorne had turned it all around on me. Maybe it was the pain, or maybe it was the relief of not burning to death, but I'd become intoxicated with the emotions of the moment. I’d lost myself to the magic he’d engineered.
The remains of the fire hissed all around me. I held my ground for a minute, giving the remnant of the flames a chance, a moment to give me a sign, to tell me that I was wrong. There was nothing, only silence. My rage went cold as the dead flames around me. I stared at my bleeding Mark for a second, then looked up at Thorne.
“Run.”
50
Thorne jerked backwards, throwing himself out of sight. Bracing myself against the collapsing mass of sodden logs beneath me, I sucked in a breath, a Word of force on my lips.
“Let him go,” Rachel whispered, her breath light on my neck.
I yanked myself out of her grip. “This is between me and him.” I growled. “You're free to run home.”
“Jason,” she grabbed my wrist. “Stop! Listen to reason!”
I turned, yanking my arm away from her. “What?”
“This whole thing has been plans inside plans inside plans,” she waved her hands in exasperation. “Don't you think he's ready for you?”
I snorted. “If there's one thing he didn't plan for, it's me.”
“You can't be serious!” She snapped. “Not even you can be so egotistical. He's ready for you. You go charging up there half-cocked, and you're going to die.” She pointed at the platform.
