by Nazri Noor
Sam threw the door open. We weren’t expecting the massive pulse of silver light that spilled out of it, and down into the corridor. As one, Carver and Sterling screamed. I blinked to clear my vision as the light faded.
But they were gone.
Chapter 28
“No,” I said, my heart pounding. “No, they can’t be.”
“Perhaps they aren’t,” Sam said, holding a hand over his eyes, squinting to see into the room.
“How can you be so casual about this? My friends could be dead.”
“See for yourself.” Sam grasped me by the wrist and pointed. “If my brother had destroyed them, they would be piles of dust. The corridor is empty. They must have escaped.”
They must have. I couldn’t deal with the possibility that both Carver and Sterling were – no.
“This fight isn’t over, Dustin.” Sam released my hand, then beckoned. “Come on. It’s down to us.” He eyed Vanitas. “And it. Him?”
“He’s right,” Vanitas said. “Worry about them later. We have a job to do.”
I nodded, stepping through the doorway, prepared to unleash unholy hell on Adriel, to ruin him for what he’d done to my friends. But I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to see at all.
The Comstock Media studio was smaller than the newsroom, not a full-scale production you’d expect from a large network, but enough for a basic news set, for doing simple broadcasts and shooting some occasional online content.
It was big enough, obviously, to contain all the equipment needed to run the show, and all the men and women needed to operate said equipment, all of whom were standing wordless, slack-jawed, at the ready, their eyes blank and white. Towards the far wall, where the set was, stood a man with auburn hair that reached to his thighs, its sleekness broken by loose waves and curls.
Barefoot and bare-chested, he stood in a shallow pool of blood drawn from the five corpses strewn at his feet. A faint corona of light hovered just over his head. If you squinted, you might think it was your eyes playing tricks on you, just a reflection of the hot studio lighting above, but I already knew better. It was a halo, the very emanation that marked this creature for an angel. My eyes flitted to Sam’s head, and for a moment I wondered where his halo was.
The angel was muttering to himself, tracing shapes in the air, drawing them across his chest in blood. Both his hands were drenched up to the elbow. He was reading from a book that hovered just before him: the Tome of Annihilation.
“Adriel,” Sam cried out. “It’s time to stop this.”
Adriel’s lips pressed together in annoyance, but he stopped incanting long enough to favor us with a smile.
“I see that my smiting hasn’t affected all of your companions, brother.” Adriel’s voice was soft and sonorous, nearly a whisper, though I could hear it clearly across the studio. “Then this one must not be one of the undead. A human companion, then? You haven’t changed at all, Samyaza.”
Samyaza?
“But it seems that you have, Adriel. Once you had sense. Once you knew how to serve heaven’s will. In spite of your dominion, your responsibilities, you still acted in humanity’s best interest. What happened?”
Blood dripped from the end of Adriel’s finger as he stretched it out, pointing directly at me. “Him.”
“You’re crazy.” I raised my hands. “I had nothing to do with this. I don’t even know how I’m involved.”
Adriel chuckled. “Your heart – your very soul is tainted by the venom of the Eldest, with a dagger-tip of their corrupted star-metal. The awakening of the Old Ones has begun, and there is no stopping them.” Adriel gestured, and the Tome of Annihilation’s pages flipped rapidly. “But I have found something that can.”
My hand shook as it balled into a fist. “How is killing people in the hundreds helping? And how many more are you planning to murder?”
“Not just any humans. This only reveals how little you understand, oh tainted one.” Adriel tilted his head, his hair shifting to expose more of the bizarre blood glyphs he had drawn on his chest. “You survived, as did your companions, the night I commanded the siren to sing her requiem. That spell – that song – was only meant to kill average humans, those without access to magic, to supernatural power.”
“We already know that,” I said, my anger building. I didn’t like what Adriel was saying any more than the tone he took. There was an edge of mirth in how he talked about the massacre, like – like it was funny to him, somehow. “We already know the spell doesn’t affect magical humans.”
Adriel’s smile stretched across his pale lips, a grin I could only call wolfish. “Then you understand, don’t you? The culling.”
“Kill the meek and the powerless,” Sam breathed, his voice shaking. “Then only those who wield magic will survive.”
My heart stopped. That was the plan? To wipe out the normals?
“The siren was only a test,” Adriel said. “To see if the Tome’s magic would work as I intended. Now I mean to cast a much more powerful ritual, one that your filthy monkey brethren will transmit for me through your heathen technology. How fitting, yes? That mankind’s greatest achievements would bring about its downfall.”
“Brother,” Sam said. “Don’t do this.”
“It is done, Samyaza. The culling has begun. These apes will activate their devices, and my voice and my words will be sent to the cow-eyed masses that sit in front of their glass boxes. They will hear. And they will see. And they will die.”
“No,” I said. “That’s insane.”
“It may take years yet, perhaps decades for the Old Ones to finally penetrate this reality. Or they may come tomorrow. None but they may know. But before that time comes, what is left of humanity will be free to breed, to create offspring that is stronger, more adept in the use of sorcery than anyone could possibly imagine.” Adriel’s eyes shone with wetness as he spoke, his hands spread palms out, his face raised to the sky. “This is for the greater good of humanity, to give it a fighting chance against the Old Ones. This is for the betterment of mankind.” He looked at each of us in turn, smiling. “It is heaven’s will.”
“Lies,” Sam said, stepping forward, his fists shaking. It took everything I had to hold him back. “Lies and madness.”
“Dude,” I said. “Don’t. Not yet.”
Angels, it turns out, were hella strong, as if I hadn’t watched him punch people into jelly already. But I didn’t want Sam attacking yet. We hadn’t even spotted Bastion. This was absolutely a trap.
“Vanitas,” I thought. “Kill the cameras.”
“Gladly.”
He spun into action, circling the room, smashing with joyful abandon, his telepathic voice laughing in my head the entire time. The Comstock employees under Adriel’s command remained eerily still, staring at nothing even as their equipment crashed and splintered into plastic fragments and frayed wire.
Vanitas looped around the studio back to me, the path of his flight sounding very much like a low whistle of satisfaction.
“No cameras, no broadcast,” I said, maybe a little more smug than I should have been.
“Charming,” Adriel said. “And certainly a noble attempt at stopping the culling, if only your technology hadn’t progressed to such impressive heights. Even the smallest device would be sufficient for recording, would it not?”
“True,” a voice called out from behind the set. “There’s always the internet.” Bastion appeared, his eyes silvery white, and as he gestured a smartphone the size of his hand floated towards Adriel. “Destroy that if you want to, Dustin, but we’re ready for you. More mics and cameras are hidden around the studio, more than you can possibly find in time.”
“Shall we play a game?” Adriel said. “I understand you have unusual talents, Dustin Graves. Shall you use them to raze this very chamber, and all the people in it, just to stop me?”
Damn it. So they were prepared. But Adriel was the source of all the trouble, wasn’t he? There were shadows, all around him. I
just needed to focus, to peel back the lining between Here and the Dark Room. I shut my eyes and sent out my intent, my petition. My scar ached as I began to call on the blades that lurked in the shadows, and all across my body my skin stung as the Dark prepared to exact its price in blood –
When a force slammed into my chest and catapulted me off my feet, hard enough to send me flying. It was like being punched by a bridge troll, if that bridge troll had fists made out of fire trucks. A blinding pain smashed across my body as I thudded into a wall, then collapsed to the floor.
You know in cartoons, when someone gets injured and they see stars? I saw constellations. I saw fucking galaxies. And when I forced my eyes open, wincing against the monstrous ache in my head, I saw Bastion, his eyes burning like stars, his grin taunting, infuriating.
“Not so fast, Dusty,” he said.
God, I hated when he called me that. I hated even more that I was so helpless. I struggled, twitched, but couldn’t move, couldn’t budge from the ground. Bastion was holding me down with the force of his power. No, not just holding me down – crushing me.
“You just had to follow me, Dusty. I told you to leave us alone. I told you to walk away.”
I gasped, the massive pressure pushing the air full out of my lungs. “Sam,” I cried. “Get to Adriel. Stop him yourself.”
“I can’t,” Sam shouted.
I watched mournfully out of the corner of my eye as he rammed his open hand against something invisible. Adriel had directed Bastion to create one of his shields. That way he could finish the ritual unmolested, undisturbed.
But perhaps I wouldn’t be around for humanity’s extinction after all. Bastion’s power was pushing me harder and harder into the floor, grinding my body, so much that I knew I was going to bruise all over. Then the force pushed even harder, and that was when the pain turned into fear. Bastion wasn’t only trying to restrain me. He was trying to kill me.
“Vanitas,” I thought. “Help me. V. I’m dying.”
I heard the sword whizzing through the air, then the sound of metal clanging against cement.
“He’s got me, too,” Vanitas shouted in my head. “He’s pinned me against the wall.”
“No,” I groaned. Hardly any air was left in my body. “Bastion, don’t do this. Please.”
I lifted my head weakly, straining my neck to see him. If he could see my face, if he could see my eyes, then maybe he would remember. Or I could summon the Dark Room and conjure its blades. I strained, and groaned, and called out to it, but – nothing.
Sam had turned his attention to Bastion, blasting at his shields with emanations of blue light, but nothing could penetrate his defenses. However powerful Samyaza was, the combined might of Adriel and Bastion was far stronger. I craned my neck, straining to see Bastion’s face, but I only saw enough to watch him curl his fingers into a fist.
“Stay down,” Bastion said. “Yes. Good dog.”
My face slammed into the floor, grit and dirt digging into my cheek. I grunted as the weight of his power bore down on my head, like he was trying to crack a nut open against a table, like he was forcing my skull to split at its seams.
The pain was too much to bear. I squinted against the tears forming in my eyes, my breath ragged as I muttered worthless supplications, as I prayed for Bastion to hear me, both in his head and his heart. But nothing.
Something cracked, and a horrific pain shot from where my collarbone was supposed to be. A second crack. My knee. It was bent the wrong way. I didn’t have to look. Bastion had broken my leg. I sobbed.
Then he broke the other one.
I screamed.
Chapter 29
Tears and blood mingled on my face, a warm, sticky mess, slick against the floor. I shouldn’t have been alive – couldn’t have been. It almost felt like Bastion wanted me to survive long enough to feel the mind-shattering pain he’d left me in, and to see the end of humanity.
This wasn’t him, I reminded myself, as the air wheezed in and out of me through ragged lips. It was getting harder to breathe. Maybe one of my lungs had been punctured, maybe both. Yet all I could think was how this wasn’t Bastion’s fault. There had to be some way of reaching him.
That, or I had to run. I chuckled bitterly, the sound burbling into the puddle of blood against my face. Like I would ever run again. Like I would ever walk again. The tears streamed again, even when I told myself not to sob. Even breathing hurt too much, wrenching at my body each time I inhaled.
The Dark Room, I thought. Call out to it. My body ached and begged for its cold grasp, for the mists of the chamber to accept me. Take your blood, I thought. Take all the blood you want.
Half of it was on the floor, the other half barely held in my body, dribbling out of me where bone had pierced skin. But the Dark wouldn’t let me enter. The door wouldn’t budge. Bastion wasn’t just keeping me pinned to the ground – he was keeping me pinned to this reality.
Above me I heard sounds of struggle as Samyaza threw himself at Bastion. I could tell that it wasn’t going well. From the ground all I could see were feet. Around the room the Comstock employees stood like statues, still zombified under Adriel’s thrall. Nearby Sam’s sneakers scuffed the ground as he rushed Bastion, blasted him, and was summarily rebuffed.
Too strong. Adriel was much too powerful. How was the angel sustaining his mass possession while fully manipulating Bastion and casting the Tome’s horrific spell? I couldn’t fathom it. I could barely get Vanitas to do anything in my state.
“You’re looking bad there,” Vanitas said, an edge of worry in his voice.
“Oh, you think?” My mind’s voice transmitted a bitter laugh. “Understatement of the century.”
“Still can’t move,” Vanitas said. “This isn’t going well. Your angel friend is losing.”
Sam screamed, his body making a sickly, meaty thud when it hit the wall behind me.
“Correction,” Vanitas murmured. “Your friend lost.”
Behind me I heard Sam groaning, then a kind of shuffling noise, as if he was crawling across the ground. Bastion’s shoes turned the other way as he walked off. The force bearing down on me lightened, but only just. Maybe he was attending to his master, diverting his energies to help in Adriel’s ritual. In any case, we were dismissed. Defeated. No longer threats. Either way, I was going to die.
A hand landed on my shoulder, then on my head, coaxing my neck to the side. I groaned and grimaced at the pain. Sam was turning me so he could see my face. Or perhaps, so I could see him. He was bleeding. Not nearly as much as I was, but bloodied and beaten all the same.
“I don’t think I’m going to win this for us, Dustin,” he said, chuckling, a thin stream of blood dripping from the corner of his lips. “We might have lost this one.”
I would have answered if I had the strength for it. I would have agreed. His hand went to my waist, searching through my pockets. He pulled out the Null Dagger, then tore at his shirt.
“What?” Even speaking was a struggle. “What are you doing?”
“This blade,” Sam said. “It kills enchantments, yes? I was so hoping it would work on me.”
He sliced a line down his chest, down his stomach, carving against the tattoos that were now a far darker blue, as if to signify how much of his power he’d spent. He hissed as the blade bit into his skin, as red blood mingled with the glyphs etched there. I waited, I watched. Nothing happened.
“Just as I thought,” he said, sighing. The Null Dagger clattered as he set it down against the ground. “I suppose the blade’s power isn’t strong enough to sever the mandate of heaven.”
“Don’t,” I murmured. “Don’t understand.”
Sam repositioned himself on the ground, sitting cross-legged, like we somehow had the time to be chatting. I watched as his blood trickled onto the floor, as it seeped into the waist of his jeans.
“That’s how I got here, Dustin. It was a long time ago. A very long time ago. My brothers and I, we were cast out of heaven for
our – proclivities. We enjoyed the company of humans.” He grinned, his gaze going distant. “Women, men, it didn’t matter. Perhaps we enjoyed ourselves a little too much. And that displeased the people upstairs, you understand.”
I said nothing. My clothes, already soaked through with sweat and blood, felt like they were only getting warmer, wetter. I wondered how much longer I could hang on.
“And so we fell, my brothers and I. Grigori, they called us. The Watchers. The fallen. Cast to earth and bound to stone.” He ran his finger through his blood, smearing it across his chest. “And the fullest extent of our power was chained within us. We wanted to be with humans, we were told, so we were made to live as you did. Some of us learned to loosen those chains a little, to reclaim part of our divinity.” The runes on his skin glowed. “But these bindings remain on my body. My sins stay etched on my skin, free for all of heaven and earth to see.”
So that’s what they were. Not just runes, not decorative etchings. The sins of the fallen. When I blinked, trying to focus on the glyphs, my eyes grew heavier. It was getting harder to stay awake.
“So, in sum, your blade could not unbind the tethers that hold back my true strength. I’ve always had a theory, though — that there was an alternate way to release my power. I might be able to unleash it through dying. I might be able to pass it on to someone who can wield it, if only for a short time.”
“How?” I gurgled. “Domicile. Death.”
“Yes,” he said, somehow understanding. “Entities will only truly die outside of their domiciles. It works somewhat differently for us celestials. If we’re slain, we return to heaven, to reform. It may take time – months, years, more – but generally, that’s how it works. As I understand the same appears to be true for certain demons. But mainly angels. Unless, of course, an angel loses his wings. For how would he return to heaven then?”
He shrugged off the rest of his shirt, the blood criss-crossing with his tattoos. Samyaza stretched out his arms, groaning, and then there they were, where they weren’t once before: his wings. They shone as bright as the sun, as if every filament of every feather was made of the finest gold.
