Bound (The Divine, Book Four)

by Forbes, M. R.

  "Let's make them regret ever messing with us."

  I couldn't help but smile. I was really starting to feel a bond with her.

  Together, we stepped into the void.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Rebecca

  "Rebecca, get the Box," Sarah said. "Now!"

  I was frozen in shock while the demon walked towards us. His eyes were washed in hellfire, his body glowing along the scarred runes dug into his skin. He'd trimmed his beard and slicked back his white hair. Even more surprising, his damaged hand was whole.

  "Izak, no!" Sarah moved to intercept him.

  I broke out of my trance and headed towards the airlock that separated us from the Box. A line of hellfire rose up in my path.

  "Izak!"

  Sarah stood right in front of him, looking up at him with tears in her eyes. He met her gaze, and his face twisted in pain.

  The Deceiver. I gripped the hilt tight, feeling the warmth of the power through my hand. It was a simple illusion, but I hoped it would be enough. I ran for the door again.

  I could feel the heat from the other side of the room. I'd flipped his perception of it, and he had attacked the wrong place. I fell into the clean room, stumbling towards the Box.

  "Izak, don't let him control you. Izak!" Sarah pounded her fists against his chest, but he didn't react to her at all. He clenched his new hand and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he looked right at me.

  I don't know how he defeated the power of the Deceiver, and I didn't have time to care. I rolled away from the blast of hellfire that flowed from his other hand, passing easily through the glass and striking the air above me. I felt it hot against Elyse's scarred head, and I scrambled on my elbows towards the Box. Even if I reached it, I had no idea how I would get past the fiend.

  "Izak!" Sarah backed away from him. "Stop, now!"

  I felt the wave of power. I went to my knees and looked through the melted glass. Izak stood there, looking at Sarah.

  "You can fight," she said. "Don't let him own you."

  I stood and approached the Box, feeling a sense of relief at its proximity. I put down Truth and took it in my hand, and then jammed it under the tight waistband of the yoga pants. It was uncomfortable against the skin, sending waves of heat and cold through Elyse's body.

  Sarah was stroking Izak's face, her small hand gentle on his rough skin. He was branded, a puppet to Gervais. That meant the archfiend had to be nearby.

  Without warning, his hand came up, and smacked Sarah's away. His mouth curled into a snarl and his muscles rippled in confusion. He shoved her back, throwing her across the room.

  I didn't have time to think. I leaped towards him, through the open space the hellfire had made, bringing the swords to bear and coming down on him with a fierce double-strike.

  He took two steps back and raised his hands, summoning a sword of hellfire and using it to deflect Truth. He caught the Deceiver on the forearm, the runes flaring and deflecting the demonic blade.

  His return blows were blurs, and it was all I could do to get Truth up in time to block the sword and protect me from the heat of the fire. I caught it edge on edge and twisted, turning beneath the momentum and stepping back beside him. He smiled and drove forward, flaring the hellfire and leaving me on the defensive.

  The lab wasn't a wide open space to fight in. I ducked and dodged around tables and computers, staying close enough that he had to use his sword but far enough back that he couldn't hit me. It was clear within a few seconds that he was a superior fighter, and it would take pure luck to get out of here with the Box.

  Then I tripped on a wire. It caught my foot and sent me stumbling backwards. I dropped Deceiver to put my hand against a wall and keep my balance, and got Truth up only inches from my face. It protected me from the heat of the hellfire, and the demon and I grappled together. He was taller than me, but my face was close enough to his to see his expression clearly. He didn't want to fight, but he had to.

  Which made him as much of an enemy as anyone else. More than anyone else. He had put enough fear into Joe that he'd given up without a fight. Looking into his sorrowful eyes, I knew he was the biggest thing standing between Landon's freedom and his complete slavery. If Gervais got his hands on the Box and the archfiend knew what to do with it...

  My anger flared, and I shoved against him with as much force as Elyse's small frame could muster. It was enough to slip the lock. I leaped sideways and rolled across a desk, feeling the heat of his blade behind me and hearing the spark and sizzle as it tore through the furniture. I hit the ground already moving laterally, digging into the sports bra and finding the black stone. We were so close, Izak and me. I pressed my palm tight against the stone to summon the black blade in the same motion I threw the rock at him.

  He didn't see it as a threat. He didn't even try to block it. It changed in midair, replaced with the long stick of alloy that could kill both demon and angel alike. It went right past his defenses, hissing and sparking when it struck the skin and buried itself deep inside. The runes of power covering his arms flickered and faded. He stopped moving and looked down at the protruding expanse.

  Then he looked at me.

  I'd expected to see anger, and relief. I hadn't thought his sad expression could get any sadder.

  The sword hissed in his chest and the smell of frankincense was overwhelming. He should have fallen. He should have died.

  He didn't.

  He reached up with his new hand and took hold of the hilt. He was slow and deliberate while he pulled it out of his chest, his eyes locked to mine. If I hadn't been so surprised, I might have been smart enough to run while I could. Then again, I doubt I would have gotten far.

  He held the blade up. I watched his wound vanish beneath the stench of dead flesh. It was only then that I realized what was happening, and what Izak had truly become. His hand was whole again, but it wasn't his hand. I couldn't be sure, but it wouldn't have surprised me if it had once belonged to Gervais. That was how he was controlling him. That was how he had healed.

  My revelation was short-lived. The spatha whistled through the air towards my head. I backed up just in time, feeling the coldness of it nick Elyse's cheek and send a line of blood into the air. I got Truth up to block the second thrust, and felt the flare of tattoos trying to fight off hellfire that got too close. It would have incinerated my arm, but instead it only burned.

  The dance started again, only I had been losing before, and now I was down to a single blade. I ducked and twisted, thrusted and parried, turned and leaped and kicked. I used everything I knew, and every muscle Elyse had worked to perfection.

  In the end, it wasn't enough.

  In the end, there was only one thing left for me to do. There was only one thing I could do. It was the path of least resistance, and it made me question everything Sarah had said and everything I wished I could be.

  In the end, I had to be the demon, and think only of the win. It didn't matter if the cause was good, or even if Elyse would have understood and done the same thing. In my heart I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway. It had worked the first time after all, but I could have saved her the first time.

  I knocked aside the hellfire sword and leaned forward, into the path of the second blade. I prepared to be run through, ready to use the moment that Izak dropped his guard to remove his hand.

  I hadn't expected Sarah to screw it up.

  The Deceiver knocked against the spatha, pushing it out of the path of my body. She put her weight against Izak, shoving him to the side and succeeding in bringing him off his feet. He crashed into a table and onto the ground, his hand raised and shooting more of the flames towards her. The Deceiver protected her from the heat, and she rushed him and brought it down at his chest.

  He knocked it away with one hand while bringing the spatha up with the other, stabbing Sarah in the gut and catching her in his arms as she fell. For just an instant his eyes changed, and he let out a weak wail of torment that would plan
t its memory forever in my soul. His hand fell away from his body, and he burst into tears.

  There was no time to waste. I was on him in two steps. I found the Deceiver laying next to them and I scooped it up and brought it down, severing his arm at the elbow. He grunted in pain and looked down at the wound. The hand landed on the ground and began to scream.

  "Izak, we need to get her to the armory. Let's go." The Nicht Creidim had one of the amulets. If she were still alive, it might save her.

  He didn't hesitate. He got to his feet, still holding her in his good arm and ignoring the damage to the other. The sword was still buried in her stomach and blood was running down her legs, but her eyes were open and holding a measure of life.

  He paused on the way out, putting his foot to the hand and igniting it in hellfire. The screams continued until it had finished burning away.

  I picked up Truth and we raced out of the lab, down the hallway to the armory. The walls around us were singed and burned, the remains of Izak's inception. I put Elyse's hand to the lock and cursed at the slowness of the door mechanism. Once inside, I found the small shelf where the amulet had been kept and prayed to God that it was there.

  It was. I cracked the crystal open in my hand and pushed Sarah's head back so I could pour the blood into her mouth. If Elyse was right, her wound would heal. I could only hope Elyse had been right.

  I pulled the spatha from her stomach while Izak rocked her in his arm, the tears flowing down his face. I pressed my hands against the wound, willing the warmth of the flow beneath them to decrease and subside. It didn't matter what I wanted, only how the power of the blood would act on her mortal self.

  Her eyes opened more, and she took a deep gasping breath. The wound grew hot beneath my fingers, forcing me to let go. She gulped in more air, and then turned her head to the demon.

  "Izak. Are you okay?"

  Izak smiled and nodded his head, then lowered her down and kissed her on the cheek.

  "Are you okay?" I asked.

  "You saved my life," she said.

  "I owed you one."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Rebecca

  "It looks like the gang's all here," Obi said.

  "Not the whole gang," Ulnyx replied, looking at the Box.

  We had retrieved the Damned from the stone in the ruins of the Nicht Creidim stronghold, and taken it, Truth, the Deceiver, and the Box out of the area; which had been decimated by Izak's attack. The entire dock was on fire, the cement and steel scorched and melted, and on emerging from what was left of the warehouse I had made the assumption that Obi and the Were couldn't have survived.

  They had proven me wrong.

  According to them, Ulnyx had benefitted from Izak's first pass, when he had killed the soldiers who were pinning him down. Free to move, he'd followed behind the demon, and bounded past him to grab Obi before he was noticed. Izak had been focused on retrieving the Box, and had ignored the two of them. Or, more likely, he had bypassed them and spared their lives because they weren't standing between him and his orders.

  They were waiting on the outskirts of the damage, hidden in a dark corner and keeping an eye out for either us or Izak. When we'd exited together, Obi had stolen the closest vehicle he could find and brought it into the war zone. We'd gone full-speed back to the airport, and now we were standing in the hanger outside the plane, waiting for the techs to finish refueling.

  "I can only imagine how Gervais is going to react when Izak doesn't come back," Sarah said. She was holding tight to the fiend's good arm. As soon as we had gotten clear of the docks, he'd used his own hellfire to cauterize the wound and begun treating it as though he had never had the damaged arm to begin with.

  "He's going to be rightfully angry," Max said, emerging from the plane with Brian trailing behind him. He was holding towels coated in a wet gel; an anti-burn ointment to treat the blistered skin my brush with Izak had left Elyse with.

  "This is going to hurt," Brian said when he reached me. He took the towels and wrapped them around my forearm. "The towels were dipped in holy water. Max says it will help you heal faster."

  The pain of the wound had been excruciating, but I had refused to show it. Now I smiled at the icy hot relief given by the wrap. The holy water couldn't mend mortal skin, but it would negate the nature of the wound.

  "We need to collect the remaining blades and make our way to Paris," Max said. "As I had feared, Gervais was alerted to the swords' relevance to the Box when Joe put the two together. He sent Izak here for the mother load, but he'll have other servants searching for the Destroyer. Izak, do you know if he knew its whereabouts?"

  Izak shrugged with his good arm, pointed at me, and then moved his fingers as though he were typing.

  "No," I said. "If Joe had found it, he didn't tell Elyse." But why would he?

  "You understood that?" Obi asked. He had warmed to me just a little, after Sarah had recounted what had happened. On one hand, I was grateful to have proven something to him. On the other, I knew what I had been about to do. If he had known, his opinion would surely have gone the other direction.

  "Excellent." Max said. "I was hoping that would be the case. We can still come out on top, but we're going to have to get the timing right. I believe divide and conquer will be appropriate here."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "We booked a flight plan for Paris," Brian said.

  I was still confused. "I thought the Destroyer was in Shanghai?"

  Max smiled and clapped is hands. "It is, my hot buttered rum. In the hands of a seraph named Lu, though he may not quite remember he has it." He pulled a folded piece of paper from a pocket, and tossed it to me. "His address is on the paper."

  "Great, you gave me a piece of paper. Unless it can transport me a thousand miles west, how am I supposed to get there?"

  Max put up his hand. "If you'll step outside with Brian and myself," he said, motioning towards the front of the hanger.

  I followed behind him, with Brian at my side.

  "You look amazing in that body," he whispered. "Much better than that salesman you showed up at my office in."

  "Impure thoughts?" I asked. I tried not to smile, but failed.

  "A few," he replied. "It's the tattoos."

  Max opened the smaller door inset into the larger hanger doors, and then waved us through with a flourished bow. "Right this way, my friends, right this way." We shuffled past him and onto the tarmac. He closed the door behind him, and put up his hand again before I could say anything. "All will be revealed, cupcake. Give me just one moment."

  He reached into his pocket, removing a small gold cross from it. I could see the Templar script etched into the back. Max closed his eyes and began to murmur. A moment later he changed, his body growing and transforming into his true reaper form.

  "Max?" I had no idea what he was doing, but they had hidden the plane for a reason, and now he was making himself as obvious as any Divine could.

  He turned his head back. "A moment, Rebecca. Please."

  "Did he tell you what this was about?" I asked Brian.

  He shook his head. "He just said he wanted me to be out here because it would help smooth things over. I don't know what that means."

  I couldn't even begin to guess, but I didn't have to. Max stopped talking. A breeze began to blow along the runway. Something fell from the sky - a white streak of light that touched down right in front of him.

  "You?" the newcomer asked, his gold-edged wings folding back behind him.

  "Adam," Max said. "It's a pleasure."

  The seraph glowered, and a blade appeared in his hand. He had brought the Deliverer. "If you were calling me for a fight, have at it."

  Max chuckled. "Do you think I'd have gone to the trouble of summoning you just to box your ears? We need your help."

  "We?" Adam glanced past Max, to where Brian and I were standing. His eyes stayed on his mortal counterpart. "What kind of angel are you?"

  Brian's face flushe
d. He already looked unnerved by Adam's presence. "I... uh... I..."

  "He's a changeling," I said. "A mortal angel."

  The Deliverer vanished, and Adam strode over to him and put his hand onto his back. "How?"

  "You don't know?" I asked.

  He turned to me. "I've been busy trying to fix the damage the Beast did when he possessed one of the most populated cities on the planet." His attention returned to Max. "A Nicht Creidim, Max? You expect me to take you seriously?"

  The reaper put his hand on Adam's shoulder. "Don't underestimate her. She's full of surprises." His eyes fell on mine for a short second. "I expect you to help us solve a problem. A mortal has turned into an angel. Think on that for a second or two, and maybe you'll make the correct connection."

  "Mortals changing into demons," he said.

  Max clapped his hands. "Bingo, old chap. Now, how many angels do you think have been created?"

  He shrugged.

  "I can count them on one hand." He pointed at Brian. "Do you want to guess how many demons?"

  "They aren't all bad," Brian said, before Adam could answer. "Most of the ones I met are just as confused about this whole thing as I am."

  "Yet, my boy," Max said. "Their genetics and their personalities mark them. But then, the seraph have been forbidden from dallying with mortals for how long? Oh yes, since God created them." He smirked at Adam. "By the way, Brian, your father wasn't your father, if you know what I mean."

  Brian turned white.

  "Get to the point," Adam said.

  "I told you, we need your help. Landon put the Beast in the Box, but he didn't capture all of his energy. It's leaking out into the world at large, and the consequences are disastrous."

  Adam was still while he considered. "We're stretched thin to breaking as it is."

  "He isn't telling you everything," I said. "For one, people who aren't being turned into angels and demons are getting sick and dying. For another, Gervais is after the Box. You can imagine what he wants with it."