Well met, Traveler. You have taken the first step towards the treasure trove of knowledge I have amassed. Know that you are firmly on this path, now, and the only way outward is onward.
Cain shot me a brief, incredulous look, lowering his dagger, but we didn’t dare risk missing the rest of the message, because the first lines were already fading as the message continued, only showing several lines at a time.
You have chosen the path of the mind—the tougher, more arduous path—over the path of the Earth. This implies you seek more than material wealth, which is commendable, but with greater rewards comes greater risk. I do not envy your decision but applaud your fortitude.
Cain shot me the frankest look of accusation I think I had ever seen. “Shortcut my ass,” he muttered, folding his arms.
“Shut up, Cain,” I snapped defensively. “The magical rock phallus is talking.” But part of me also wanted to throttle Fabrizio’s neck as well. Of course, a magical Door hanging from a chain in a mysterious cavern had been a terrible idea. It made so much sense in hindsight. But we’d really had no other choice.
Knowledge requires sacrifice—ironically, memories. The mind of man can hold only so much information, after all. A grail can only hold so much water before overflowing. Only so many thoughts can fill a man’s mind.
But in a thought lies the keys to existence, to life itself.
For what is existence, but a single thought from God?
I shared a look with Cain. The magical rock phallus was deep. Existence was nothing but an errant thought of God? Wow. That put things into perspective.
Doors will litter your path, and behind each is a different gift. An immediate gain or a delayed gratification—but either gift requires a sacrifice, a memory. There are no single correct answers to this quest, as it is tailored by God and his Angels to each Traveler. An immediate gain may sometimes be the wisest choice over a delayed gratification. Likewise, a delayed gratification may sometimes be the wisest choice over an immediate gain.
Your choice is to find the right Doors that lead to your ultimate desire—knowledge or power. Truth or fiction. Behind each choice is a consequence. But consequences are sometimes known as penance, so be steadfast. Momentary failures might be required for a future gain. Yet momentary successes might be required to prepare you for a future loss. To earn you enough to pay a future price for something you covet most dearly.
Behold the lesson of Free Will, in all her glory.
Godspeed.
The words slowly faded from view, but we continued staring at the obelisk for a few more moments, wanting to be certain no additional advice was forthcoming. Nothing else appeared.
“Well, at least it wasn’t ominous,” Cain finally grumbled.
I nodded in agreement. But there wasn’t any use complaining about it. We were stuck here, wherever here was. I took a nervous breath and made a ball of flame in my palms, ready to extinguish it in an instant if it set off any alarm bells. It worked, and nothing deadly happened. Then I tried creating a Gateway the size of my fist—only big enough to see through—thinking of the steps of the church above. It worked, about a gallon of rain pouring through the opening from the storm outside.
I released it with a nervous laugh. It really was the same night. It had to be!
Cain grunted from a pace away, pointing down at the ground. A skeleton sat propped against the wall. I frowned, thinking furiously. Then it hit me. “Is that…Fabrizio’s friend?” I asked in a whisper.
Cain knelt down and used his dagger to shift the man’s threadbare shirt. It revealed a cross hanging on a chain around the skeleton’s neck. He glanced up at me with a somber look. “It seems plausible.”
I crouched beside him, flipping over the crucifix pendant. The initials A.D. were etched into the back. I stared at them for a long time, thinking of Fabrizio’s story. This had to be Anthony. I hesitated for a moment before lifting the pendant from the skeleton’s neck. Thankfully, it came free without knocking Anthony’s skull off, and I placed it around my neck, so I wouldn’t lose it. I turned to Cain with a shrug. “Maybe I can give it to Fabrizio. Put his mind at ease. At least for his friend Anthony…” I said, thinking of the other Shepherd, Luke.
Cain nodded. “What do we do, now?” he asked, tucking the blade into his belt.
“I think we should go check on the…baby,” I whispered. “It will at least confirm if we’re here the night all this happened.”
Cain nodded, but in his eyes was an obvious concern. Was my head in the game, or was I too close to this world around us? I took a deep breath, trying to center myself.
I honestly didn’t know the answer, but I could almost hear a baby crying—like a chorus between the verses of a faint hymnal song woven on the fabric of the air.
Chapter 27
I opened a Gateway again, this one large enough to step through, and stared out at a dark city street. Rain pelted the pavement and the skies exploded with light that threatened to strike any number of the tall buildings around us and was accompanied by great thunderous booms. I saw a billboard advertising a new movie titled First Knight.
The sight struck me like a blow to the jaw. It was a new movie about the abduction of Guinevere, featuring Sean Connery as Arthur and Richard Gere as Lancelot. From the mid-90s. I peeled my eyes away from the billboard, feeling strangely uncomfortable for some reason. It was important somehow…
We really were here in the past; the night I had been left on the church steps.
In fact…
I could hear myself crying in the darkness. Me as a baby.
Rain pelted down, hard enough to attempt to wash Original Sin from the streets of Kansas City, Missouri.
Hard enough to terrify a small baby girl as she was abandoned to face a dark, terrible world without her parents—the two people in the world who should have protected her, kept her safe, loved her, taught her to overcome her fears, comforted her with her first broken heart, taught her to drive her first car, guided her through her first use of magic, perhaps even take her to church.
But none of that would ever happen.
Because they loved their babe too much to hold her close to their breasts.
Loved her enough to leave her—cold, crying, soaking wet, alone in a world that wanted to destroy her very soul, and gobble her up.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son…
I spun frantically to stare up at the Church. Thunder and lightning cracked across the sky, chaotic enough to reveal long, demented arms of light connecting with each other, growing and snaking and expanding from one to the next in seconds-long explosions of raw power. The very ground shook like there was a succession of mortar shells striking the earth.
And I saw two shadows slip from the front steps of the church, racing away into the darkness. One supported the other, seeming to force the other to run from the steps no matter what it desired.
And above the baby crying, I heard the anguished sound of two parents doing their best to hold themselves together—soul-deep sobs sounding like they were being torn into thirds.
“My parents…” I rasped, blinking heavy tears from my eyes.
Then they were gone, before I could even think to consider chasing them down, to stare into their eyes for the first time, to tell them that I had made it.
That I’d fucking conquered this thing called life and that I…
Understood their decision.
Then another thought hit me.
“The Demon,” I breathed, suddenly remembering Father David’s story about the Demon that had attacked the door to the church. What if it had been Last Breath?
What if he was the Demon? What if this place was different than the one I knew? What if the only reason Father David had opened a door to see the baby was because…
Someone had battled the Demon long enough for Father David to hear the baby crying in the first place. That someone had defended the baby long enough for Father David to save her.
<
br /> What if I needed to save myself?
Cain cursed as I bolted away from him, towards the front door of the church, to the tiny, fragile crib I could see sitting on the top steps.
I never ran so fast in my entire life. Never. I needed to save the baby. To save myself.
But…
I suddenly realized that I also needed to see. To see myself. To try and administer all the love of the world in a single glance.
To give that sweet, terrified, innocent, forgotten and abandoned baby the armor she would need to fight.
To stare into those baby blue eyes and tell that tiny, terrified child that she would grow up safe with a family who loved her more than anything else in the world.
That the raging storms that now terrified her would soon become a favorite pastime of her new daddy—that he would hold her in his big, strong arms to watch the infamous Midwest storms with her, sipping hot cups of cocoa with tiny marshmallows as they sat on a rickety porch together, huddled under a warm blanket…
That her new dad would love the Kansas City Royals slightly less than he would love her, which was saying a lot…
That her mother would get really sick one day, but that it would be okay. The world would keep turning, just with one less laugh to echo across the mountains and the oceans and the fields…
That she would meet a Man of God, and that he would teach her wondrous, magical things…
That she would befriend a snarky blonde-haired stick of a girl who loved teddy bears and animals of all kinds, and wanted to take care of them…
That she would save a heroic, downtrodden, forgotten man living in an alley, and help him remember his own magical story, rekindling the fire of his very soul and giving him a purpose…
That she would meet a dangerous, wild boy in St. Louis who she would like very much, and that his lips would taste like licorice and mint…
And that, no matter what happened, she would grow up to become a woman of value and virtue—protecting those who needed her help, and picking up soldiers off the field of regret to return them to the front lines refueled with an unquenchable passion back in their hearts…
Yet she would also become a woman of violence and vice—willing to do wrong in order to do right—a woman to vanquish the wicked demons of the earth, the hypocrites in power, ripping off masks of deceit to show the world the truth, wielding despair like a blade to terrify Saints and Sinners alike.
I wanted to tell that baby that I loved her, that I would always love her, and that she was worth being loved…no matter how dark the world seemed.
The front door of the church opened, and I screamed as I saw Father David stare down at the crib in disbelief, but the thunderous booming of the storm drowned out my desperate plea.
“I need to see her!” I screamed, sobbing and tripping as I ran. “I need to hold her!” I gasped, stumbling and slipping through a puddle.
But the thunder muted my screams, seeming to laugh at my need.
Father David scooped up the crib, scanned the street quickly, and slammed the door, never noticing me waving my arms, screaming, shouting, bawling my fucking eyes out.
Cain was roaring behind me like a caged lion, but I couldn’t hear his words over my own ragged shout as that door slammed shut.
“NOOOOOOOO!” I screamed, reaching the steps. I ran up them two at a time, and finally slammed my fists against the door, hammering as hard as I could. “I need to see her! I need to hold her!” I shrieked, repeating the pleas Father David had not heard. “To tell her it will be alright!” I sobbed, my throat raw, my vocal chords shredded so that I could no longer recognize my own voice.
Thunder rolled in one continuous boom, like a train derailing from the tracks to strike an oil rig in a plentiful oil reserve and set off a chain reaction of explosions from deep within the earth.
The doors would not open.
I beat at them, railed at them, gnashing my teeth as I screamed.
They. Still. Did. Not. Open
My fists suddenly erupted with Silver claws, and I tore at the door, screaming at the top of my lungs to give me the baby, to let me see her, that she was mine to protect.
Like a mother should have done.
My claws scored, scraped, ripped, and scratched at the wood…
But the wooden doors were as hard as stone, my claws not doing the damage they should have. I pummeled at them, fueling my claws with as much Silver magic as I could hold, the world suddenly a palette of quicksilver in my eyes.
“I NEED THIS! SHE NEEDS MEEEEEE!” I screamed into the thunder and lightning and rain. The Silvers were based on need.
“I. NEED. YOUUUUUUUU!” I roared, my voice hoarse and animalistic.
Because I had never needed something in my life so badly.
Just one look, eyeball to eyeball, to tell that child that it would all be okay someday, that she didn’t have to be scared, didn’t have to hold onto her nightmare about this very night—one that had plagued me for so many years until I came face-to-face with the Demon, Johnathan.
The doors didn’t budge, and I fell to my knees, dragging my claws down the wooden door the whole way, weeping in defeat as the rain relentlessly soaked me.
Cain finally caught up with me, and I heard one word through the thunder. “…Demon!”
My tears vanished in an instant—having momentarily forgotten all about the Demon, about Father David’s story about this very night, about the Demon threatening the church itself.
And my fucking heart…
Lit.
On.
Fire.
No Demon was coming within reach of this door. No matter what.
I lifted my eyes, rain and tears pouring down my cheeks as I slowly held up my claws to look at Cain. He was staring incredulously at the door, shaking his head, mouthing something I couldn’t make out through the thunder. Then his eyes fell to my face and hands, widening in shock. I glanced down at my hands and saw the Silver tears falling from my eyes. Like when I had bound Nameless to my thumb.
I stood to my feet, dismissing his concern. “Where is the fucking Demon?” I snarled, staring out at the streets. I imagined a dome of air above me, and the rain abruptly stopped pelting us, hitting my magical umbrella instead. The only way a Demon was coming near these doors was over my dead body.
Cain gripped my arms, his face frantic. “You’re not listening! You are the Demon!” he hissed, shaking me violently.
I jolted as if he had slapped me in the face. The dome of air protecting us from the rain disappeared and I saw Cain pointing at the door to Abundant Angel Catholic Church.
I turned to find faint, scored lines marring the wood—the destruction, the scratches in the steps…just like…
A Demon had been clawing at the doors, demanding to have the baby for itself.
My legs gave out and Cain caught me, wiping hair from my eyes as he squeezed me to his chest tight enough to restrain me and almost hurt me, murmuring something else unintelligible through the raging storm. I sobbed, jerking my head back and forth in horror, unable to make sense of it all.
How? If we were here now, and David had seen the claw marks in the wooden doors…this wasn’t some reflection, some memory, some hallucination of that night.
This. Was. That. Night.
Or Father David wouldn’t have ever had the story to tell.
And if, in the real world, Father David had ever decided to share that particular story with me—about a Demon clawing at the doors to the church, desperate to get its hands on me as a baby…
Well, something like that could have ruined an impressionable girl’s life. Make her feel like she was innately bad. Or that she needed to turn bad. Like a bitter apple.
Turn a potential Saint into a definite Sinner.
I straightened my legs, shaken by the revelation, but also accepting it. By not telling me—or anyone else—sooner, Father David had saved my soul.
Just like a Man of God should.
I just hoped th
at if this was reality, that I hadn’t changed anything by overacting my part. That if I survived this quest, I wouldn’t return to find that I was an entirely different person—that my actions here, now, had changed the sequence of events—that Father David had instead informed me of the Demon on the church steps when I was only a child, turning me into an entirely different person.
I lifted my eyes to see a white form of shifting fog standing beneath an overhang for a bus stop. Blue eyes stared back at me through that fog, and I imagined them winking. “YOU’RE DEAD, DEMON!” I roared instinctively, loud enough to feel like I had torn something in my vocal chords. It was all this fucking creature’s fault. Cain grabbed me as tightly as he could.
I began struggling and fighting, trying to jerk free of Cain’s grasp, but he held me as tight as a straightjacket.
“No, Callie. It’s what he wants! It’s a trap!” he growled, squeezing me tight against his chest until I was spitting and screaming like a wet cat.
But he hadn’t seen what I had. The Door behind Last Breath, and it was glowing Silver. “Let me GO!” I roared, my throat feeling bloody and shredded.
“Not like this! You’re crazy right now! Your arrogance is going to get us both killed! This is about more than your ego! More than your pride! More than your self-esteem!” he yelled in my ears.
“That’s it!” I snarled.
And I flung my arms out, sending Cain skidding to the ground, his back slamming into the steps of the church. I stared down at him, panting, trying to remind myself that he was a friend, family, not a foe. I glanced back to see that Last Breath hadn’t moved and, for all the world, looked to be smiling at me. Taunting me.
I turned back to Cain, forcing my breathing to slow, my head to clear. “You’re right. I am arrogant, but that can be a strength, too.” I offered him my hand. “Get up, Cain. The fucking Door is behind the bastard.” I was still furious, but I had it under control, able to think clearly again. Barely.
He flinched, staring out to find I was telling the truth. “Oh.” Then he grabbed my hand and pulled himself to his feet. “Yeah, okay…” he said apologetically.
Feathers and Fire Series Box Set 2 Page 44
