by N. P. Martin
Lucas nodded slowly. "It’s as I told you last time, the longer your brother is a demon, the greater the chance of him remaining one, and especially if his actions afterward reflect that darkness. At any rate, his soul will never be the same, even if you do save him from Abigor."
I nodded, then looked down at the bed, taking no comfort at all from his words. "So how the hell do I even save him from this Abigor anyway?"
A small sigh left Lucas, and he went silent.
"What?" I said.
His eyes were dark and serious when he looked at me. "I’m not sure you understand who you are up against, Leia. Abigor is no ordinary demon. He is one of the first of the Fallen, and about as powerful as you can get. You can’t just kill a being like that. In fact, he would probably crush you if you went up against him."
Despite him clearly not wanting to, he was telling the truth, I could see that. Which it only made it harder to hear. "I don’t care about killing him, I just want my brother back."
He nodded. "I know, which is why I know you’re going to try and get him back, despite what I say."
It was my turn to look dark and serious. "Josh has always been there for me when I needed him. He needs me now, so I’m going to be there for him."
A slight smile appeared on Lucas’ face, which I didn’t expect. "Such resolve," he said.
"Does that mean you’re going to help me?"
"Did I say that?"
"No, but…"
"Frank will tell you I usually don’t get involved directly with things, especially with other demons. It’s sort of a policy of mine, and it keeps me out of Hell, a place I have no wish to return to."
"Why not, beyond the obvious fact that it’s Hell?"
"I pissed off a lot of demons in my time there. Some of them still hunt me to this day, directly or through third parties. Hence, I try to stay under the radar. In a way, I’m like the NSA, but much longer established, gathering information as I influence from afar."
"The NSA?" I shook my head. "So you spy on people?"
"I gather information."
"Right, okay. So why haven’t you found out where Abigor is yet?"
"Because he is proving to be elusive, that’s why." He shook his head as if he didn’t like to be outwitted by anyone. "He has the power to conceal himself from everyone if he wishes, which at this point, he obviously does. Furthermore, abducting any of his demonized progeny will be to no avail, otherwise I'd have done it already. Through the blood bond, Abigor can not only compel them to keep his confidence, he can also detect their anxiety, like that of being tortured for information, such that the link can be used by him to end the lives of any who might become the leak."
"You said before that Abigor might want a war against us— against the world. Do you really think that’s true?"
He shook his head. "I can’t be sure at this point. Anything is possible, though I can’t think why Abigor would even be here on Earth in the first place, other than to destroy it, or more likely, to rule over it. If he can’t rule in Hell, maybe he thinks he can rule here."
"None of that fills my heart with hope."
Lucas looked at me as if it wasn’t supposed to. "The stakes are much higher in the real world, the real world being the world most humans aren’t even aware of."
"Until it’s too late." I was thinking of Kasey when I said it, and then of all the billions of people who could potentially have their lives ruled by demons if Abigor had his way, assuming that’s what he was planning.
"Unfortunately," Lucas said.
"So if this Abigor can’t really be killed, would it be possible to trap him somehow?" I asked. "Frank has already spoken of summoning Abigor."
"Summoning him?"
"I take it you think that’s a bad idea?"
He thought for a moment. "Ordinarily, I would say yes, but thinking about it…" He trailed off, lost in thought again.
"What?" I said after a moment.
"Normally summoning a demon like Abigor would indeed be a bad idea, but since things are presently looking so dire…"
"Could we trap him? Send him to Hell or some place in the asshole of the universe where he will do no further harm?"
"It’s possible, with the right magic maybe, but it would still be a huge risk."
I sighed and shook my head as I wondered why everything had to be so fucking hopeless all the time. "Well," I said. "As he might kill or enslave us all anyway, I’d say a summoning might be worth the risk, wouldn’t you? I mean, I’m new to this and all, but I don’t see any other choice here. Unless…"
He noticed me staring at him. "Unless what?"
"Couldn’t you go up against Abigor? I’ve felt your power, it seems endless."
"It may seem that way, but my power is finite." He shook his head. "Abigor is still more powerful than I, and his power is much darker."
"So back to plan A then, which is trapping him. What happens if we do manage to trap him, though?"
"We use magic to open a portal to another dimension, and we send Abigor through it."
I shook my head. "A portal to another dimension. I think my head is going to explode."
Lucas smiled. "The wonders of the multiverse."
"Multiverse?"
"Oh yes. Ours is not the only universe."
"Of course it isn’t," I said nodding, shocked once again at just how much is hidden from the hordes of "normals" out there, of which I used to be one. "Shit, I can’t even think about that now…"
"It’s a lot to process."
"Yes it is."
I slid off the bed and started gathering up my clothes so I could dress.
"Where are you going?" Lucas asked, sounding somewhat disappointed that I had left him. Under ordinary circumstances, wild horses probably wouldn’t have dragged me from that bed, but there were other more important things to do now, like summon a psycho demon to try and save my brother.
"I don’t care what you say, Lucas," I said as I pulled my jeans on. "I’m not giving up on Josh. If we can somehow take care of Abigor, I know I can make Josh see the light again. I just need to get through to him, that’s all."
Like that really worked last time I saw him.
Lucas lay there staring at me, then said, "Okay," as if he knew he couldn’t persuade me otherwise, as far as Josh was concerned, that is.
I shook my head. "Okay what?"
"Okay, I’ll help you."
He got out of bed and started to gather up his own clothes. As he was buttoning up his shirt, I went over to him and held each of his hands as I looked into his eyes. "Thank you, Lucas."
"What for?" he asked.
I made a motion with my head as if I didn’t want to say it. "You know what for."
He smiled. "I should be thanking you as well, then, for making me see that there is still wonder in this world. "
It was possibly the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me.
Stepping forward, I pressed my head against his chest, hugging him for a moment while he held me in his arms.
I savored every second of that embrace, for I had a horrible feeling that it might just be our last, for a while at least.
29
Sometime later, after I had drove Lucas and I to Frank’s cabin, we all sat in the living room. Eva was also there. Needless to say, Frank was predictably shocked that I was with Lucas, so much so that he obviously forgot to even mention the fact that I had my phone turned off all night, and that it was now past noon the next day. No doubt he didn’t need to ask where I was all night, the slightly embarrassed look on my face as Lucas walked into the cabin behind me, being all the cue he needed. Not that it was any of Frank’s business, though I did still think I’d been a bit disrespectful for not letting him know I was okay, especially given all we faced together.
After Frank had made us all coffee, he and Eva sat in the armchairs by the fireplace, while Lucas and I sat at the reading table by the window. There was a long moment of awkward silence, then Frank said, "So,
Lucas, what are you doing here, or more to the point, how were you able to get past my wards?"
Lucas smiled at Frank as he crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair. In his expensive gray suit, Lucas looked somewhat out of place in the shabbiness of the cabin, not that he seemed to mind. I had to suppress a smile when I realized he was secretly reveling in the fact that he was on Frank’s home territory, and probably also that he was with me. "Come on, Frank," he said. "I’m not some low level Pit Demon, you know. I’ve been around too long not to have learned a few tricks."
Frank shook his head, and I saw Eva smile at his annoyance. "I think," said Eva, "that Lucas is here for the same reason I am, to figure out how we are going to stop Abigor. Isn’t that right, Lucas?"
Lucas bowed his head slightly. "That is correct, Eva," he said. "I fear the problem has become too large to ignore, even for me."
"Yeah," Frank said. "Otherwise, you would just leave the grunt work to other people as always."
"Frank." Lucas smiled as if he wasn’t offended. "We all have our roles to play."
Frank nodded. "So what’s your role going to be this time? Special advisor?"
I frowned at Frank’s barely concealed antagonism for a second, then let it go. No doubt there were a few different reasons as to why he would have a problem with me being so close to Lucas now, chief among them being that I’m family, and he thus felt compelled to take on a fatherly role. Which was fair enough, I guess. In the absence of anyone else in my life, I was content to let him play that role if that’s what he wanted (as long as he accepted my adult status, and the realization that I'd been making decisions about my life since my early teens by virtue of being in the foster system. Indeed, it wasn't until the respect that Diane conjured from both Josh and I, that I started to truly listen to parental input following the deaths of my own. It saddened me no end, and filled me with such guilt that Diane was killed before I could restore her faith in me, and I wanted Abigor dead for just that sole theft alone, let alone the many others.)
Not that I was 'with’ Lucas anyway. Jesus, we only had sex, it wasn’t like we we’re going to get married soon. Although in saying that, I’d be lying if I said my interest in him didn’t go beyond just sex. It did, I just wasn’t sure how far beyond yet. "He’s here to help get Josh back," I told Frank. "In case you haven’t noticed, we need all the help we can get."
Frank stared at me a moment, then looked away without saying anything as he drank his coffee, which no doubt had whiskey in it.
Eva, wearing a black, long-sleeved dress, her dark hair loosely tied on top of her head, said, "Let’s start by going over what we know. Then we’ll try to come up with a plan of action."
I was going to interject by telling Eva that Lucas and I already had a plan, but I thought it best to wait. There was something procedural about the way she was conducting things, and I didn’t want to arrogantly interrupt her.
"Well," Frank said. "We know that this Abigor has been focused on turning the younger members of our race. Whether that’s to weaken our ranks, or for some other purpose, we still aren’t sure."
"Probably both," Lucas said. "He’s building an army, don’t forget, and a unit of trained Nephilim would be useful to him."
"We also know that he demonizes them," I said, then told Frank and Eva about my visit from Josh the previous night. "If Josh is anything to go by, Abigor’s new Nephilim soldiers are powerful and completely committed, both to him and to whatever aspects of the darkness he put inside them."
"As I explained to Leia," Lucas said. "It will be difficult to cleanse the young Nephilim of the darkness, even if you do manage to round them all up. They will fight it every step of the way. Plus, there is of course the logistics of rounding up a load of actively resistant and powerful beings, and then keeping them restrained until they can be put through the cleansing rituals. Killing Abigor himself would make things easier, as his influence over the young Nephilim would vanish. But of course, Abigor can’t be killed, so…"
Frank shook his head like he disagreed. "Anything can be killed if you have the right tool to do it. There has to be something out there that can kill this son of a bitch."
Lucas shook his head. "There’s nothing that I know of, I’m afraid. Even your fabled Watcher blades wouldn’t cut it, excuse the pun, not on one as old and as powerful as Abigor."
"Hell," Eva said. "We don’t even know where to find Abigor, despite having tried several different location spells, all to no avail. We can’t even be sure a summoning will work."
"Well, assuming it does," I said, "Lucas and I came up with the idea of trapping Abigor once summoned, and then—I can’t believe I’m going to say this—banish him to another dimension."
Eva looked at Frank with raised eyebrows. "Frank?"
Frank shrugged. "I guess it could work. You obviously think so, Lucas."
Lucas nodded, but cautiously. "I think it is perhaps our best option. Whether it will work is a different matter. The magic involved would have to be strong, and even then…"
"What?" Frank said.
"You know what," Lucas said as if it was obvious. "A demon like Abigor has access to immense power. We may not be able to trap him at all."
Frank sighed as he looked at Eva. "What do you think, Eva? You’re the magic expert here. Will we be able to hold this demon?"
"I can’t say, Frank, you know this," Eva said. "It’s always a crapshoot with these things. Magic is difficult to control, and demons are unpredictable."
"So what do we do?" I asked, trying to stem my frustrations at not finding any suitable answers.
Everyone remained silent for a long time, a silence which was finally broken by Eva.
"There’s something else I should mention," Eva said.
"What?" I asked.
She sighed slightly, as if she dreaded saying anything. "Since the youngest of our race started going missing over six months ago, strange things have been happening around the city and surrounding areas."
"Strange things?" I said confused. "What do you mean?"
"Things like freak weather, earthquakes, whole towns riddled with unknown diseases, tornadoes of blood, lakes full of boiling water, entire animal populations wiped out in certain areas for no apparent reason, flocks of birds attacking schools…" She stopped and shook her head. "I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea."
"Jesus," I said. "All this has been happening recently?" Then I remembered the bloody hailstones falling from a sky too clear for rain or hail on the night I was with Kasey, just before the demon attacked us. I thought it seemed like a weird occurrence at the time, but with everything else happening, I’d completely forgotten about it.
"Yes," Eva said. "Since the Nephilim kids have been going missing. It wasn’t until Frank mentioned Abigor to me, that these freak occurrences started to make sense."
"Yes," Lucas said, shaking his head slightly. "I don’t know how I missed it."
"Does somebody want to fill me in?" I asked looking around the room.
"We don’t know for certain yet," Eva said to me. "But we think Abigor is the cause of all these aberrations."
"Okay," I said. "How?"
"Well," she said. "This took a bit of figuring out, but I think these weird things are happening in response to Abigor breaking some very ancient sacred seals."
"The seals were created by angels millennia ago," Frank said.
"What for?" I asked.
"To keep something shut," Frank replied. "A door of sorts."
I shook my head, still not understanding. "What door?"
Lucas cut in then. "More of a gateway really," he said, looking at me, and then to Frank and Eva. "A gateway to Hell to be precise."
I allowed that to sink in while everyone sat in tense silence for a minute, then I said, "So Abigor wants to open…the gates of Hell, right here?"
"There are several Hell Gates around the world," Lucas said. "One of them happens to be in the city."
"Where?" I asked
.
"Greenmount Cemetery," he said.
I couldn’t help but laugh as I shook my head. "Yep, it would have to be in a fucking graveyard, wouldn’t it? Where else?"
Lucas chuckled while Eva and Frank smiled at each other. "There was no room at Disney Land apparently," Frank said.
"Plus," Eva said. "It’s hell there already."
Mild laughter filled the room, going some way to break the tension that had built up.
Soon, my thoughts turned to the demon who attacked me in Hector’s storage facility. "We can finally claim what is rightfully ours," I said quietly.
"What’s that?" Eva asked.
"Something a demon said to me," I said. "He said the demons will soon claim what is rightfully there’s. It didn’t make much sense to me before, but now…"
"Yes," Eva said. "Everything seems to be pointing to the same conclusion. Abigor wants to open a gateway to Hell, giving free passage to whatever wants to come and go."
"As a former long term resident of Hell," Lucas said. "Believe me when I say, you do not want to see the kind of things that will surely spew forth from that gateway. This world will not survive their destructive presence."
"I think that’s the point," Frank said. "Hell on Earth. Christ, I need a drink."
Frank got up and walked to the kitchen to get the bottle of whiskey he kept in one of the top cupboards. As he grabbed a glass, he asked us if we wanted one, and everyone said no. Shrugging, he poured himself a large measure and came to sit back down.
"Well," Lucas said after a bit. "Now that we know exactly what’s at stake, I think we had better make sure we don’t fuck up the next part, eh?" He laughed slightly to himself, as if he found the situation funny in some weird way.
No one else did.
30
We decided to set everything up in the clearing at the back of the cabin, mainly because there wasn’t much room in Frank’s basement, and because Lucas jokingly mentioned that it wouldn’t be a good idea to open a portal inside the cabin, unless we all wanted to get sucked in along with Abigor. Frank didn’t find the comment amusing, and Eva merely looked at Lucas as if she was indifferent to his charm. Me, I couldn’t help smiling at Lucas’ attempt to lighten things up, even though I thought the situation didn’t necessarily merit lightening up. There was a good chance we would all be killed, after all.
