by M. R. Forbes
"Thanks," I said, feeling my face turning crimson. "If that's your idea of a pep talk, you're doing great."
She didn't say another word, pressing her lips together as if to hold onto the feeling for one final moment before we crowded through the portal.
One step in, one step out. We exited on the rooftop of the hotel in Thailand where I recovered from Sarah's attack, and where I had met the angel Malize. Coming through, the effect on my senses was staggering; a mixture of coolness and heat that nearly toppled me from the alien nature of it. I had expected demons to be crawling all over the place, but finding a number of angels gathered was a shock.
They were assembled on the roof, angels and devils, neither of them fighting the other. They stayed segregated though, the blue team on one side, the red team on the other, but both reacted as we came into view. Swords were drawn, claws and fangs bared. It was a small army of thirty or so, but there were no major demons, no archfiends, and not even any super-vampires.
Charis strode forward with confidence, holding her sword in front of her face, daring the enemy to attack.
"I don't know what the trap is," I said to Sarah as I started shifting, "but this is some kind of trap." It had to be. The Beast wasn't stupid enough to think a mixture of simple devils and angels would be enough to stop us. Even if we had lost some of our power, that wasn't the only tool we had in our belts.
There was a moment of total silence then. A complete calm. The sun was shining overhead, reducing the effectiveness of the devils even further, but did it strengthen the angels? The light glinted off Charis' sword, illuminating her face in an ethereal glow. I could feel Ulnyx' bloodlust flooding into me, my thoughts turning more aggressive with each huffing breath. Sarah stayed behind me, sword raised. She had years of practice, she could handle these piss-ants.
The devils came first, rushing towards Charis in a mass of red-brown leathery muscle, fangs, and claws. As they reached her, the ground around them began to crumble, not decimated but enough to throw them off balance. She tore into them with the blessed sword, spinning in a tight circle, the blade a deadly extension of her exquisitely executed form. She was a whirling dervish, a tasmanian devil, and Edward Scissorhands all at once. I never had to move.
"Come on," I shouted at the angels, still standing on their side of the rooftop. "You're no children of God. You don't need to wait for us to make the first move. Come and fight."
The angels looked at one another. They didn't seem too keen on the idea of falling, even if they had chosen to serve the Beast.
"Pathetic," I spat. I could sense Ulnyx's glee at my rage. I had taken more of his power, let more of his soul leech through. I hadn't just gained his form.
One of the seraph stepped forward, a boy of no more than ten. His sword was huge, almost twice his height, but he held it with ease. "Why don't you go and get the Box," he said. His face dropped, and a grin spread across it. He was here.
"Why don't you send your little army of birds to get plucked?" I replied.
The Beast chuckled. "That would be a bit of a waste, don't you think?" he asked. "No, they'll wait right here, and you'll go down into the building to get Avriel's Box. I'll tell you right now that it's what I want you to do. That it's a trap, and you'll do it anyway. That's the problem with your kind. You just don't pay attention."
"Landon," Sarah said. "He's stalling. He wants to keep us up here, to buy more time for his archfiend to find the Box."
I let go of Ulnyx, reducing back to human form and turning to face her, and then glancing back at the angel being possessed by the Beast. Was she right? Or was he? How did he know we were here so fast? Unless he'd been waiting for us already, or unless Max was the trickster I had a feeling he'd be. What if Max was the Beast? Would I have been able to tell? What if Sarah was helping the Beast, and I didn't know it?
"Landon," she said, more insistently. "We're wasting time. I can See the archfiend, he's six floors down. There are others there, but they're dying."
"You see," the Beast said. "Listen to the girl. Walk right into my design, and do it willingly."
I looked over at Charis. She was still a dozen feet away, but her expression was pained. She wanted to go down. Sarah wanted to go down. The Beast wanted us to go down. Or was he lying? That power didn't extend to him. That his honesty was even questionable made the decision easier. I would trust Sarah, for better or for worse.
"Let's go," I said to her. We started running for the stairs, the Beast standing behind us, laughing. The laughter grew louder the closer we got, joined by the rest of the assembled angels. It was a disconcerting sound, hearing them augment the Beast with the same flat cackle. Was he possessing them all? I didn't slow to consider it. I pushed open the door to the stairs with a thought, and we charged downward, with Charis in the lead.
The stairwell was empty, but there were scrapes and scratches along the steps and railing, the inadvertent damage caused by the passing of a large force of demons. We dropped the first flight to the penthouse where I had recovered from my wounds. There was a pile of ash outside of the doorway, but the door had been torn aside and discarded, and the runes that had been protecting it had been scraped away by something powerful enough to withstand them. The archfiend.
"Where did you put the Box?" I asked Charis.
We ignored the penthouse, continuing down six floors to where Sarah could See the archfiend. I could feel the heat of the demon masses in my own senses, including one who was more powerful than the rest. It must have been him, but I wasn't sure. There was something not right about that one, like a picture that was hanging just slightly crooked.
"I gave it to Liam. He was second-in-command after Ezekiel. He should have put it in the safe room." She didn't turn back to speak, shouting over her shoulder.
"Which is down six floors?"
"Yes," she replied. "It's hidden behind a glamoured wall, and most demons won't be able to see it."
"What about an archfiend?"
"They shouldn't be, but we've never had a chance to test it. Nobody was supposed to know we were based here."
I saw her head shift slightly toward Sarah. It wasn't even an inch, but I knew what she was saying. I had been here, and Sarah had known I was here. She must have told Rebecca, who told the Beast, and now here we were. It sucked, but there was nothing we could do about it. Even though it had only happened a dozen hours or so ago, it had to be ancient history.
We reached the sixth floor down. The door had been decimated, burnt to nearly nothing by hellfire. Beyond it was a hallway, and there were signs of the passing battle everywhere. The walls were scored with sword marks, shotgun shot, and bullet holes. There were four dead Templars down near where a pair of twin doors used to rest, their heads lying distant from their bodies. The mortals among them didn't get the dignity of reducing to ash on their demise.
I watched Charis for a sign of emotion as we passed them, but she held it together, showing nothing. If I had been able to see her eyes, I was sure I would have found the smoldering rage, the gripping sadness, the eagerness for her revenge. I could See the demons in front of us, beyond the twin doors, beyond the doors that followed after that. I could hear fighting in the distance; the sound of claw against steel and the popping of gunfire.
"They've breached the safe room," Charis said. "The Box is in a secondary safe bolted into steel and runed against Divine. Somebody has to still be alive in there, protecting it."
"Why are they protecting the room, instead of retreating?" I asked. "They couldn't know the Beast would come after the Box."
"Do you think the Box is the only artifact we've recovered?" she replied. "Protocol is to protect the safe room at all costs."
What other artifacts might the Templars have stashed, that the Beast would love to get his mitts on? I didn't like the thought.
Beyond the twin doors was a large living area, with a spread of couches, a pool table, a couple of televisions, a card table, foosball and pinball. Most of it had bee
n shattered and shredded, broken to pieces and scattered along with eight more Templars who hadn't been able to withstand the assault. Two had been burned to bones by hellfire, the others shredded by the demon horde. There was a fair share of demon dust here too, and it was clear they had put up a good fight. They had skill, but they didn't have numbers.
We rushed through the room, to a doorframe that had been twisted and burned almost beyond recognition. It was a misshapen portal, collapsing on itself and at the same time expanding, the weight of the building around it threatening to overthrow it at any moment. There had been a steel door attached to it once, and it had been coated in a thick layer of Templar scripture. That door was laying crushed on top of the remains of the pool table. Through the opening, I could see the backs of the demon forces, a group of harpies hissing while they waited for their turn at the front lines.
The sound of a shotgun firing overtook the hissing, followed by a howl and the body of a hellhound tumbling through the masses to land at our feet. That din was stepped on by the screaming gurgle of another Templar meeting their end.
"Hey," Charis shouted as we came up behind them. The back row turned in time to catch her blessed sword through their cheeks, and I could See the tide of the enemy turn as they realized they were being attacked from the rear. Within moments they were coming at us, reversing direction to take on the new threat. I could sense the archfiend there, held out of sight behind the army, near the front of the line. How could they be in front, yet there were Templars still fighting?
The harpies turned towards us. The three that had been sliced by Charis' blade began to smoke and collapsed, leaving the others to step over them. She used the obstacle to her advantage, kicking one of the bodies towards the rushing demons, tripping them up and stabbing them as they stumbled. I heard another gunshot, and then a cry.
"Hurry," the voice said from the far end of the room.
"We need to get up there," I said.
"Working on it," Charis replied over her shoulder, ducking under a claw and punching the attacker in the face. The demon flew back, knocking into a devil behind it.
"You're too slow," I said.
I took hold of Ulnyx's power, not shifting completely, but allowing it to flow through to my hands, transforming them. I focused, gathering my strength and springing forward over Charis' head, coming down towards a group of devils. I let the claws lead the way, clearing a path in front of me, hitting the ground and leaping into the air again before they could recover.
The safe room was big, much bigger than I had expected it to be. It had a low ceiling, but it was at least thirty feet wide and equally deep. The walls were made of steel, and there were small alcoves lining it where racks of weapons had once resided. I could see the mounts for daggers and swords, the racks for shotguns and handguns and magazines filled with silver bullets. There were other alcoves too, some holding bottles of holy water, others cans of food. It was everything a Templar would need to be sieged in for a few weeks at least, but it wasn't designed to be overrun.
It took four such leaps to get to the head of the class. I finally landed next to a scrawny, red-headed man in combat fatigues, holding a shotgun cradled in his arms, a magazine of shells snaking out of it. I had never seen a shotgun rigged like that before, but it allowed him to keep peppering the demons with holy water, preventing them from getting too close. Dead Templars lay on either side of him, their flesh turned black from the demons' poison. Behind him was a large painting of Joan of Arc. She had been a Templar too? I could only assume the secondary safe was sitting behind Saint Joan.
There was no time for pleasantries. I nodded to the ginger and turned around, looking for the archfiend. In my Sight, he was right in front of me, no more than ten feet away, a dark red mass of heat. To my eyes, there was nothing but harpies, hellhounds, and devils; a standard army, and outside of sheer volume a pretty pathetic one at that. There was no way this group had done the damage I had seen on the way in. The Beast had told us we were walking into a trap. I knew it was here, and yet I still couldn't find it.
"The archfiend?" I asked, hearing the blast of the shotgun and watching the front line of demons stumble back.
"He's right here," the redhead replied. I heard the gun clang onto the steel floor.
I didn't even have a chance to turn before the dagger was across my throat and he had me wrapped in a tight hold. He had grown, his voice had changed, and my Sight flared with the heat of him. He was powerful, so much more powerful than the fake signature he had somehow cast out into the mess of lesser demons. Worse, he was familiar.
I wasn't the only one who knew him. As soon as he was revealed I could feel it, like a change in air pressure that filled the entire room. All of the energy was stolen from it at once, and a mental coldness swept in; a raw, harsh void that caused the entirety of the Beast's army to fall, clutching at their heads to rid themselves of the emotion.
Standing in the back, her head jutted down and her arms at her sides was Sarah. Her empty eyes were drawn tight, and I could almost see the fury through the black shadows.
"Hello, my dear," Gervais said. "Did you miss your papa?"
CHAPTER TEN
Sarah didn't respond right away. She just stood there, her body language substituting for the fire that would have been in her eyes.
"Let him go," she whispered, a Command that drove the demons kneeling between them to try to duck their heads even lower.
I could feel the archfiend suck in some air, as if trying to capture the Command. "I'm sorry," he said. "Could you repeat that? I thought you tried to make me let Landon here go, but I'm not sure."
"Let him go," she repeated, a violently snapped growl.
Gervais' laughter was nauseating. "Your Commands won't work on me, daughter," he said. "Your toadie, Izak took care of that when he branded me and left me to be destroyed."
I didn't know what he meant, but I didn't like the sound of it. I squirmed against his grip, and he dug the dagger into my neck, deep enough to show me he could remove my head before I could escape him. The Beast had set the trap, and we had walked right into it, just as he had said we would. What choice did we have?
"If I kill him, you lose," Gervais said. "Not that you stand much of a chance to begin with."
"Then why not just do it?" Charis asked. "Cut off his head and end the game right now."
Gervais smiled. "Oh, I'd love to, after what he did to me." The knife point dug in a little deeper. "But there's something we need that is much more important than this one."
I looked at Sarah. Her body was trembling in anger at her inability to help me. She was the reason the Beast had brought us here. She was the prize. He had already gotten what he needed from Charis and I, but he had to kill Sarah, to take all of her Divine infused, mortal blood in order to gain his full power. He didn't even care about the Box; it was useless to us without her anyway.
If I could speak, I would have told Charis to get Sarah out of here, to run as fast as she could. There was no value to my existence if the Beast took Sarah; it would be a short existence after all. I looked at her and tried to express it in my gaze, and she looked back at me and it seemed as though she understood, but I could sense the reluctance to just give me away.
"Well, my dear?" Gervais asked. "Will you surrender to me, to save your friend? You never know, maybe he'll even find some way to save you. He's certainly proven himself to be quite resourceful."
Sarah's face grew wet with tears, her fists clenched, and I could almost feel the heat of her anger pouring from her body. She dropped her eyes to the ground, and then let it all go. "Yes," she whispered.
I had to do something. I tried to make eye contact with Charis, to beg her to take Sarah away, right now. She wouldn't look at me. She knew what she was supposed to do, and she wouldn't do it. Why? I felt my anger building, and I knew I had to do something.
"Just step over here then," Gervais said. "A simple trade. Landon for you, and then we will leave together,
through the rift and then back to his prison."
Sarah's head nodded almost imperceptibly. This couldn't happen. I couldn't let it. If I was the bargaining chip, I only had value if I was alive.
I closed my eyes and focused, willing strength into my body. I knew Gervais would sense it, and I could feel his own power growing. He was expecting me to try to escape and throw his arm off. He didn't plan on me pulling forward to dig the dagger deeper into my neck, to try to sever my own head.
"No," he shouted as the blade bit into me. He couldn't fight back against my pull in time. The only thing he could do was let go, so he did.
I immediately began to fall. The weapon had gone deep, piercing my esophagus and nearly reaching my spine, leaving me only centimeters from reaching my goal. The blood poured from my neck, and I couldn't help but be reminded of Rebecca. She had done nearly the same thing to me, and now I had done it to myself. Was that balance?
Things seemed to slow down for me then. Gervais turned, reaching for the blade, to get hold of it before I could make another attempt at suicide. In the corner of my eye I saw Charis, her arm drawing back and then shooting forward, loosing her blessed sword towards the archfiend like a spear. At the same time, a glimpse of Sarah, running towards us, her fingernails impossibly stretched into daggers of their own.
It felt like ages, but it happened in less than a second. Gervais got a hold of the hilt of the weapon, and I felt the slick coldness of it being pulled from my neck. Charis' sword slammed into the archfiend, biting deep into him, entering his chest and piercing right through, forcing him back. Sarah leaped towards him, her hands raised high, her face as feral as any I had ever seen, and yet so familiar to me.
My body didn't reach the floor, smacking against the wall behind me. The dagger gone, it was already healing, and I managed to catch myself before I tumbled over completely. Gervais was run through by the sword, but it didn't seem to matter. He ignored the wound, catching Sarah as she flew towards him, spinning her around and pinning her against the painting, the weapon against her throat. There was stillness for a heartbeat, and then another. I watched the archfiend, waiting for his body to hiss and steam, waiting for even a trace of blood to bloom from the hole in his body. Neither happened.
