Balance (The Divine, Book One) (26 page)

“Hey
buddy, any spare change?”

I had
been lost in thought, so the vagrant’s hoarse voice startled me. He was
standing on my right, dressed in an assortment of sweaters and jackets, his
head wound up in three or four different hats. He was clean-shaven, young, and
round enough that I didn’t doubt he spent the money he begged for feeding himself.

“Sure,”
I replied, reaching into my pocket and pulling out one of my last twenties. .

“Thank
you sir,” he said as I handed it to him. “Thank you so much.” He turned to
leave, but I stopped him.

 “You
don’t happen to know a girl who volunteers here, she’s about fourteen or so?
Her name is Josette.”

The
homeless man got all doe-eyed at the name. “Everybody around here knows Josie,”
he said. “She’s the sweetest little thing. She likes to do magic tricks for us
to cheer us up. She’s not in trouble or anything, is she?”

“No,”
I said. Not any more than usual I’d imagine. “But if you see her, can you tell
her that Landon was looking for her. She knows who I am.”

“Sure,
buddy,” he replied. “Have a good night.”

“You
too.”

I
watched him wander off into the night, then spun around to begin the walk back
up to the Waldorf. With any luck, Obi would have gotten what he needed before
the evening wore on too long, and Rebecca would be as good as new after her
nap. There was no part of me that was thinking my planned break-in of Merov’s
apartment was going to be easy or straightforward, and I wanted to be as
prepared as possible.

I was
headed away from the soup kitchen when a flash of light from the rooftop caught
my attention. I looked up and caught just the faintest recognition of someone
Divine moving away from me. Josette? Had she been watching me the whole time,
or had she just happened to stop by?

Assuming
it was
her
, I wasn’t going to just let her go. I did
know why I had come to see her. It was because I wasn’t sure what was going to
happen over the next few days, and I wanted a chance to talk to her one last
time. If it wasn’t her, maybe they could tell me where she went at sundown. I
started running.

My
pace was intense, but I handled it with ease, my legs pumping hard to keep me
moving on the ground faster than the angel was crossing the air. I kept my eyes
focused on the path in front of me while keeping my senses trained on them. The
pedestrian traffic was a blur around me as something in their subconscious told
the crowd to part and let me through. To my amazement, even as I dissected busy
intersections there was never a car crossing at the same time I was.

The
chase continued for a few more blocks before the angel came to a stop. I slowed
to a
walk
as I got closer, taking in my surroundings
and ensuring they were alone. Satisfied, I glanced up to the rooftop where I
knew the angel was waiting for me. Why they had chosen Macy’s,
the
Macy’s, I had no idea.

I
changed my appearance before I made my way into the crowded department store,
going for a more conservative businessman look with a long wool trench coat,
Armani suit, and Italian leather shoes. To the shoppers around me, I was just
another guy who had decided to do his Christmas shopping after work. I headed
straight for the perimeter in search of a way onto the roof. I could sense the
angel was stationary, waiting for me to arrive. I wished I knew how Josette had
made that call to my soul so I could get in touch with whoever was up there
with a little less effort.

I
made my way towards the rear of the store, following the flow of employees as
they moved from the storerooms back out onto the floor. There had to be a
service elevator back there somewhere, or at the very least a stairwell that
would lead to the top of the building. I slipped in behind a pair of Santa’s
elves that stepped out of the back pointing and giggling at each other, and
then circuited the area until I found the maintenance stairs. Locked. I took
the knob in my hand and focused, twisting the handle until I felt the whole
mechanism crumble under the pressure.

“It
took you long enough,” the angel said when I stepped through the doorway and
out onto the rooftop. I knew in an instant that it wasn’t Josette. She was
older, taller, and way prettier, with long golden locks, a golden complexion
and a dancer’s body. She was wearing a fitted leopard print raincoat and funky
red plastic boots over a simple blouse and pants. It was a weird look, but
somehow it worked.

“Do I
know you?” I asked, stepping towards her. I hadn’t bothered to bring a weapon
with me. When would I learn?

“You
do not,” Boots replied. “But I know you, diuscrucis. We have been looking for
you.” We? I hadn’t felt any other Divine nearby.

They
came from the sky, swooping down on pairs of great
white
feathered
wings and landing on the rooftop without a sound. Three more
angels, each of them dressed in something like a toga, draped around their
bodies to give freedom to their wings. When they landed the wings tucked in
behind them, compressing more than I would have thought possible so that they
were almost invisible on their backs. Did Josette have wings? I hadn’t noticed
them.

I
tried to stay calm and confident. If all angels could fight half as well as
Josette, I didn’t stand a chance. I could feel Ulnyx stirring within me. Now
this was a fight he would be glad to join.

“How
did you know where to find me?” I asked.

“Josette
Confessed,” she said, as though that would explain it for me. The other three
angels had taken position around me, putting me in the middle of a very holy
box.

“Confessed?”
I asked.

She
didn’t respond. Instead, she reached into her raincoat and produced a manila
envelope, which she tossed at my feet. I bent down and picked it up, unclasping
it and turning it over to let out a small stack of printed images. Ulnyx.
My room at the Belmont.
The vampires. As I flipped through
them, I realized that they had somehow extracted the pictures from Josette’s
brain. Had she done this of her own volition, or had they forced her?

“We
know that she
Calmed
you,” Boots said, after waiting
for me to flip through all of the images. “She should have done an extraction.
It would have been a misguided action, but it could have explained why she had
helped you to that point. Instead, she just left. We knew you would come
looking for her at some point, so we’ve been watching the area.”

She
left? I fought to contain myself with the news. She hadn’t been using me as
Dante had suggested. She had been honest with me.

“Where
is she?” I asked, now fearing for what Confession meant. What had they done to
her once they had uncovered her memories?

“That
is none of your concern diuscrucis,” Boots said. “What you should be worried
about is yourself. We know you have one of the amulets. What do you know about
the Chalice?”

So
that’s what this was about. They wanted the information that Josette hadn’t
tried to take. They didn’t know I hadn’t known anything about it at the time,
which in a way was kind of funny, but also kind of sad. They were blaming
Josette for not getting
intel
that she couldn’t have
gotten. Of course, I knew what they were after now, and I had a lead on where
to find it. Maybe they could make themselves useful.

“I’ll
tell you what,” I said. “You show up back here in an hour with Josette and
agree to help me, and we can take care of the Chalice together.”

There
was no hesitation, no consideration.

“No,”
she replied. “Our laws are not to be bartered. Whether you tell us what you
know or not, we will still destroy you.”

I saw
the swords appear in the hands of the other angels. It was time to plan my
escape.

“It
will hurt less if you talk,” Boots said.

Why
was it that it always came down to tired clichés? I flicked my eyes around the
rooftop, hoping to find something to distract them. My greatest weapon was that
I was an unknown quantity. They had to know I could call on Ulnyx, which I
guessed was why they had come as a group, but they might not know what other
tricks I could pull out of my sleeve. Or maybe they did know; the roof was
sorely lacking in spare projectiles.

“Your
laws are the reason you’re losing,” I said, refusing to let them see me sweat.
“You think you can manage on your own, but it’s pretty obvious that you can’t,
and the only one of you smart enough to see it ended up in your doghouse.”

“What
would a diuscrucis know of laws, rules, or righteousness,” Boots hissed. “The
power of the Lord guarantees our victory. Those of true faith know it to be
so.”

I
could see by her eyes she was giving commands to the other angels. They were
playing it cautious.

“Now,”
she said, “tell us what you know or raise your blade, but do not continue
standing there like a coward.”

I
stood there like a coward. I remembered when Josette and I were in the park.

“You
can’t attack me if I don’t defend myself, can you?” I asked. “It’s against your
rules.” A demon would never hesitate to attack an angel, or defend
themselves
from one, so they never had a problem there.

“Defend
yourself,” Boots shouted, growing frustrated.

“No,”
I replied.

I
turned away from her so that I was facing the stairwell back down into the
store. One of the angels was standing between it and me, a tall muscular male
with dark hair and a trimmed beard. I started walking away from them, moving to
step around him when I got close enough.

Boots
cried out in anger. “Do you know what we do to traitors,” she yelled. “How we
make them Confess?”

I
stopped walking and ever so slowly turned back around. Her face was a twisted
mess of rage, her golden eyes blazing with hate. I knew what she was trying to
do. She couldn’t lie, so she was making implications, hoping I would read
malice and evil behind them. What I saw instead was desperation. I didn’t blame
her for that, the demons had the upper hand and that had to be eating away at
her soul. I resumed my walk towards the stairs, but Beard stepped in front of
me.

“We
cannot fight you if you will not fight back,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we
have to let you leave.”

I
looked up at him. I could feel Ulnyx all but begging me to let him out. The
door was just a few feet away. I could be through it before they could stop me.
All I had to do was get Beard to move over. We stood staring at each other for
what seemed like an eternity. Then I stabbed him.

The
single claw that had been my right middle finger pierced the angel’s heart,
causing him to crumple to the ground. I had taken just enough from Ulnyx to
create it, and could almost hear the demon in my mind, laughing at the results.
I shut him off before he could get me into any more trouble, and then looked up
to the stairwell door. It would be so easy to get away, but where would I go
that they couldn’t find me? It wasn’t like I could just skip town.

I
picked up Beard’s sword and once more turned to face Boots, unsure about what I
was doing, but doing it anyway.

“You
want to fight?” I asked.

Boots
broke out her best supermodel smile and raised her sword up over her head. She
seemed to float towards me, her feet leaving the ground and not touching back
down until she was right on top of me. The other two angels had started moving
too, and without a word, all three converged, their movements synchronized.

The
sword I was holding was pretty much useless against them, and it wasn’t like I
knew what to do with it anyway. I had one idea, one somewhat twisted,
desperate, crazy idea, and I had about three seconds to make it happen.

I
focused my will hard on the sword, demanding that it lose its adhesion, its
rigidity, and its molecular attraction. The weapon shattered in my hand much as
the windows of Merov’s apartment had. I held the pieces, twirling them around
me as with as much velocity as I could manage. I could see the angels coming at
me out of the corners of my eyes, could feel the rush of the air they were
pushing toward me as they moved in, confident of their odds. They watched my
maneuver with a measure of surprise, but didn’t even slow their attack. I took
a deep breath, closed my eyes, and focused again.

Peppering
them with shrapnel would be a minor diversion at best, and wouldn’t get me more
than a few strides head start down the stairs. Instead, I sent the hundred or
so slivers of metal hurtling forward on a different trajectory, one that put me
right in their path. The pain of the steel passing through me was almost
unbearable, but I convinced myself to stay lucent.

The
angels cried out in pain as one, the shards exiting my body and entering
theirs, coated in my blood. Josette had said all a demon needed to do to harm a
seraph was to break the skin. Being half, I was betting my plasma wouldn’t be
too healthy lodged deep inside of them. It didn’t matter if I were wrong. I
wasn’t going to survive this fight any other way.