She was strong, that one. I knew that's why I wanted her back. Between her strength and her access to the Nicht Creidim's collection of relics, she was the only mortal on Earth who could survive through what I knew would come next.
What was that, exactly? I'd spent more than enough time trying to answer that question. The top layer was simple enough: find a way to get Landon out of the Box without allowing the Beast to escape with him. Or, find a way to destroy the Beast while he was still inside the Box. I knew he had gone in with another, Charis. I knew he loved her, and would want her to be saved too. I would try for his sake, but she wasn't my goal, he was.
How to do either of those things? I didn't know. I didn't even know where to start. I had seen Landon in Egypt. I had seen him vanish, and I had seen when he returned that he had been given something, a bracelet. Maybe whoever had given it to him could help?
First, I needed a shell. A permanent, mortal shell that could fight the Divine and make it through. That was why I had come to Japan. That was why I wanted Elyse. One step at a time.
The cab dropped me off near the front of the dock. Most mortals didn't know about the Nicht Creidim, or if they did they called them by other names that were incorrect, but close enough. This driver knew what awaited at the other end of the pier. He didn't want any part of it.
"Good luck to you, sir," he said. He was speaking Japanese, but fortunately so did my host. I had the part of his mind that allowed me to do the translation.
"Keep the change," I said, handing him a large bill from the man's wallet. Of course he would have Japanese currency, he was headed here before I took him over.
I shoved the body over across the back seat of the cab, and grabbed the handle with meaty fingers. A soft shove, the door swung open, and I waddled out. The driver didn't waste much time getting out of there, making a tight three point turn and revving away. I stood at the mouth of the dragon and stared down its throat.
I took a deep breath and starting walking forward, retracing the steps that Landon had taken when he'd come for the sword. The Deliverer, sister to the Redeemer, which had pierced my heart and made me whole. Staring ahead into the deepening twilight with mortal eyes, I felt a weakness and vulnerability that I could barely describe. Did humans feel like this all the time? I wondered that often.
The smallest splash behind me alerted me to an attacker. Before, I would have heard or smelled him from a dozen yards out or more. Now, I had just enough time to squat beneath his attempted grapple, and then sweep his legs out with an awkward twist. The motion took him off his feet, but it also brought me off mine.
"Christ!" I shifted, trying to bring the weight under control and put myself back to my feet. I flopped onto my side and shoved with a pudgy arm, feeling the muscles complain. I had only gotten halfway up when a sneaker planted itself in my gut.
"Stay down," he said.
I stumbled to my hands and knees, lifting my head to get a look at him. A younger man, with a ring in his nose and a tattoo on the side of his face. He had short, spiked hair and big ears. "Take what you want," I said, staying still. He was a few yards away. I wanted him to come closer.
"I don't want your money," he replied.
"What do you want?"
He smiled, his teeth extending into sharp points. A vampire. It figured.
"Your blood," he said.
If he were human, I could have just dumped the Korean and taken him. He would have been a better ride. He wasn't, so I couldn't. Jettisoning the body and floating in the aether wasn't an appealing thought just yet.
He started walking towards me, but he looked confused. "This is the part where you're supposed to be afraid," he said.
"This is the part where you're going to be afraid," a voice said from somewhere in the darkness.
The vampire and I both turned our heads, seeking it out. She jumped down from the warehouse next to us, landing softly despite the twenty foot drop. Elyse.
"You're a fool to come around here," she said.
I didn't know if she was talking to me, or to him. Probably him. I waited.
"Who are you?" he asked. He did look a little bit afraid.
"I'm security." She started walking towards us. She was decked out in black, her head covered by a scarf so that only her eyes were visible. They turned my way for only a moment, but I got the feeling she knew who I was.
The vampire's grin widened. "You're hot, so I'm not going to kill you," he said. "I'm going to make you my bitch."
He really had no idea who he was dealing with. I didn't understand how that could be? Even if his family didn't know this was Nicht Creidim territory, they would have known to stay away.
Elyse didn't answer. She pulled an ornate dagger from her hip and threw it at him. He didn't even move, his eyes following the trajectory of the missile while it planted itself in his stomach. I expected the wound to begin steaming immediately, but it didn't. Blood began running out like a river and he screamed from the pain.
"Please," he screamed. "Please help me." He looked down at the dagger in disbelief, and then dropped to his knees. What kind of vampire was this?
Elyse finished her approach, took hold of the dagger, and pulled it from his gut. Intestines trailed behind it and he fell over onto his stomach, dead. He didn't turn to ash.
"What?" The word escaped me without thought.
Elyse knelt and wiped the blade off on his back, and then turned to me.
"Rebecca," she said. "I'm glad you've come. We need to talk."
I stayed on my hands and knees, looking at her. I didn't know what to say.
"How did you know it was me?" I asked at last.
She lifted her scarf back from her head, revealing a bald scalp, her forehead carrying a fork-shaped scar that had been inlaid with gold. A small amount of blood still oozed from the wound around it.
"The secret to seeing spirits," she said. "You aren't the only one."
I stared at it, my eyes wide. "Where did you learn that?"
"As you know, we have quite a collection of ancient scrolls. If Landon had known how many, I'm sure I would have met him sooner." She held out her hand, and helped me to my feet. "If you were trying to look inconspicuous, you failed. If you were trying to look helpless, you succeeded."
I pointed at the body of the vampire. "I don't understand that."
She looked back at him and sighed. "The world is changing, Rebecca. I don't think in a good way. He's the second I've put down this week."
"Shouldn't vampires know to stay away from here?"
"The vampires do. He isn't a vampire. Not a true blood-drinker, anyway."
I was more confused. "I don't understand."
"Come," she said, taking my hand. "I'll tell you everything I know. I think perhaps we can help one another."
CHAPTER THREE
Rebecca
She brought me into the warehouse, down into the hardened subterranean estate where she lived. The others looked at me curiously, wondering what she was doing with a mortal in tow, but they knew well enough not to question Joe's daughter.
She led me to her apartment, an open space with a huge fish tank ringing the outer walls. She made us some tea, and we sat on a soft mat in the center of the floor, sipping chamomile while we talked.
"You were going to tell me what's going on," I said, lifting the porcelain cup to my shell's mouth. The fingers barely managed to get a passable grip on the handle, and I nearly poured the drink into my lap. "Vampires that aren't vampires."
She took a delicate sip from her own cup, and then put it down next to her. "Yes. It started about two months ago. The same time as the so-called outbreak in Mumbai that made people start killing one another."
"It was the Beast."
She nodded. "I wasn't sure, but I suspected. As did father. His exact words were, 'I wonder if we'll ever see the Deliverer again'. He can be a little... single-tracked... at times. The riots ended. At first I believed Landon had defeated him, but then we started hearin
g rumors."
I had been single-tracked myself. All of my energy had been poured into arriving here. "Rumors?"
"That the diuscrucis were gone. Both of them. That there was a new Demon Queen, who also happened to be the daughter of Baal himself. That the Parisian archfiend was back in play, more powerful than he had ever been before, and with the demon Izak under his heel. That Hell was back on top, and defeat was inevitable without Landon to put things right." She caught my eyes in hers, and held them in a steel gaze. "That they had broken the world."
So much power had been funneled into the Box. A universe of energy in a Rubik's Cube. Had our universe not been able to withstand it? "Landon trapped the Beast inside Avriel's Box. He had to join him there to keep him contained."
"You want to free him," Elyse said.
I couldn't hide it from her. She had seen into me, when I had taken her. I don't know how, but she had. "Yes."
"So do I."
I didn't understand. "Why? Why do you care about him?"
She laughed. "I don't care about him. I care about us. Humanity. The world is broken."
"You keep saying that. I don't know what you mean."
She picked up her cup, and took another soft sip of the tea. "That... thing... I just killed. Where do you think it came from?"
"I would have said the same place all vampires come from, but you've already said he wasn't one."
She shrugged. "Technically, he was, I suppose. He wasn't always. He changed."
"What do you mean, changed? As in, from human to vampire?"
"Yes. It isn't just vampires. People are changing into other things too. Some of them, I don't know what they are. I've never seen it before."
I still didn't believe it. "You're telling me that humans are turning into demons?"
"Yes and no. They're taking on the characteristics of the Divine, we think according to their genetics, though there may be some other factors that we haven't considered yet. For the most part they're still human, but they have power. Divine power."
"I would think you'd be in favor," I said. "The whole goal of the Nicht Creidim is to use Divine power against them."
"To save humanity. Not to have it become the very thing we fight. These people are abominations. To kill them is to free them."
"So, that's why you're glad I came? Because you think Landon can stop this somehow?"
"I know how you feel about him. When you took over my body, I could feel it too. A strange devotion. I knew from the rumors he had gone missing, which meant you would be searching for a way to help him. You understand some of the things our family has collected, and in your current state, it made sense that you would seek me out again. I'd seen the writings about spirits, and so I made an Eye of Third Sight and waited for you.
"The changelings started appearing soon after the Beast was trapped inside the Box. We think there's too much power concentrated into too little space, and it's having massive side effects on our world. We need to release the energy."
"If you release Landon, you release the Beast," I said.
""Of course, which is why we can't just take the Box and open it up. Releasing the Beast would be worse than dealing with changelings, which is why I was waiting for you."
"What do you need me to do?"
"Sarah."
I almost choked on my laughter. "Sarah hates me," I said. "How in the world can I help you with her?"
"I don't need you to make friends with her", Elyse replied. "I need you to get through her. I can't get near her, you know. All of the things we've collected, and we have nothing to protect us. There aren't supposed to be any true diuscrucis, so neither side has created anything to fight them. I may have the genetics to make me resistant to the Divine, but as you are aware, I'm not impervious."
"I was never sure if I took you by force, or by invitation," I said.
She smiled, but didn't offer me a clue. "She can Command me, if she sees me as a threat. These days, she sees everything as a threat, but I don't blame her for that. Both sides are after the Box, because they believe they are best suited to protect it. The fact is that they would prefer if Landon remains in there with the Beast for all of eternity."
"What about the Nicht Creidim?"
She took another sip of tea, finishing the small cup and placing it off to the side of the mat. "Joe wants the Box. He believes he can use the power to destroy all of the Divine. An ethereal EMP. Considering the energy he could unleash, I think he can do it. He doesn't realize that it will be more like a nuclear blast than a magnetic pulse. The power will go everywhere, and expose us even more. He'll destroy the Divine, only to turn us into them."
I was beginning to understand my place on the board. I was the Queen to Landon's King, able to traverse the field while he was pinned down. Sarah couldn't Command me, because I had been transformed. God still held dominion over all things, and He had put me on this mission, I knew. He wanted me to save him.
"Okay. Let's say I agree, and we work together to find Sarah. Let's say we get close to her. Then what?"
"Simple. We steal the Box."
I wasn't expecting that. "Steal it? Why? Sarah has more reason to want to free Landon than anyone. We should work with her."
Elyse laughed. "Does she? How do you know? She is a true diuscrucis. Her ultimate loyalty will be to herself. Think of what she can do, if she finds a way to harness the power of the Box to her own ends. Power that no one can have without tearing the world apart, even if by accident. No, we need to take the Box."
"And bring it where?"
"Wherever the Beast came from in the first place."
I closed my eyes, catching the memories. I had followed his instructions to bring Sarah through the rift. A special rift that was the only link between this world and the one he had been trapped in. You didn't go to it, you called it and it came to collect you. "I can't open the rift anymore, and even if I could, it's a one-way trip."
"Not so. The archfiend Gervais has created a permanent connection to the Beast's original prison. He's been seeking a means to steal the power that remains there in hopes that it will lead him to a method of taking what is trapped in the Box itself. He doesn't just want to be the minion of a god. He wants to be a god."
Gervais. He had been granted a gift of power from the Beast, which was the only reason he was still standing. Of course, like any good demon he had been given a taste, and now he wanted it all.
"I can't get past Gervais, especially now that he has Izak back under his control. Besides, you didn't say anything about how this is going to help Landon? Even if you could put the power of the Box back into the Beast's prison, Landon will still be trapped with him."
"Do you take me for a fool, Rebecca? All the information I've shared with you has come from a single source. One who has proven their reliability, and whose goals are similar to ours. He's given me assurances that there is a way to free the object of your infatuation, and to remove the Beast's power from play."
There was silence for a few minutes, while I considered her words. Assurances? There were no assurances among demons, not in anything. Still, I had been guided to this place by something so much bigger than me. How could I have been brought back, only to be led astray?
"Fine. What's your offer?"
Elyse smiled. Was I making a mistake even considering this? "A partnership. You get to use my body to help save the diuscrucis. I get to return the power of the Beast to where it belongs and make things right again. We both get to stop Joe from polluting the world with creatures that shouldn't be, and Gervais from claiming power that isn't his."
Stopping Joe was one thing. Gervais was a different monster altogether. One that came with an equally powerful slave. "Do you have a plan to defeat the archfiend?"
"Not defeat, no. A different plan."
CHAPTER FOUR
Landon
"Do you see him?" Charis asked.
We were hunkered down behind an ambulance, peering around the corner in search of
the gunman that had opened fire on us.
"No. Maybe he gave up?" I stuck my head out a little more, and a bullet bounced off the hood of the van, nearly ricocheting into my face. I ducked my head back in. "Wishful thinking."
The Beast. I knew it was him, though it had taken a little while to realize. It seemed as if every time we played this game the memories returned faster. That I knew who I really was, and Charis knew who she really was.
Not that it had helped.
Our power had been his power, and when we poured it all into the Box, we had lost control of it. He was the closest thing to a god here, for real. We were little more than mortals. The only difference was that we couldn't die, not permanently anyway. He could catch us, have his way with us, destroy us in infinite ways, and we'd always come back.
There was no way to measure time here. No way to know how long it had been going on. The one thing we'd learned - maybe the only thing we'd learned - was that the longer we stayed alive, the more we remembered. It would take a lot to convince me that was a good thing.
"We should just let him hit us, and get on with it," I said. I didn't really favor the thought of recalling the other countless deaths we had suffered at his hands. Calculated, measured deaths. He was building up the pain the way any good torturer would. The only consolation I could find was that he would run out of ways to slaughter us once a few thousand years had gone by. At least, I hoped he would.
"Come on," Charis said. She grabbed my hand and pulled me away, towards a dark alley.
I tugged against her. "We did that last time," I said. The memory came back to me, and I shivered. He had eviscerated Charis, and splattered me in her blood before decapitating me. I looked around the street, and led her to the next parked car, bullets pinging off the sidewalk behind us.
My mind went back to Avriel, the archangel who had spent thousands of years in this place with the demon Abaddon. Time had no real meaning here, but the pain and the memories were real enough to make it meaningful. I could only imagine what he had endured, both while he was in the Box, and after he had been released. All of that torture and suffering, and not only had I extended it for him, but once he was finally freed, I had gotten him killed.
Bound (The Divine, Book Four) Page 2
