Balance (The Divine, Book One) (31 page)

My
father? He was there some of the time, gone the rest. He had popped back in and
out of our lives a few times over the years, usually to have someplace to be
when he couldn’t think of anywhere else. I didn’t know if he was even still
alive. I had some extended family too, but I didn’t know any of them that well.
It had just been my mother and I, and even so I wouldn’t say that I felt close
to her.

“No,”
I said after a long pause. “My mother is super religious. No offense, but I
don’t think she’d approve of my choice of friends.”

We
continued talking for the rest of the drive. It was simple, easy talk about
everything and nothing. I learned about how she was raised, her first taste of
fresh blood, how she came to be appalled by the way Merov killed humans so
casually for food. I told her about my mortal childhood, my love of technology,
my first kiss, the sadness I had felt when my dog Whisper had been hit by a car
when I was nine years old. We were new friends and old friends at the same
time, keeping each other good company while we drove through the night towards
an uncertain future. I took comfort in knowing that there was nobody else I
would rather have headed towards oblivion with, and that if oblivion did come
at least I wouldn’t end alone.

I was
looking out of the window, listening to Rebecca tell me about how she had come
to live at the Statue of Liberty and marveling at the snowy landscape of the
Catskill mountains when the darkness of the night was pierced by a blinding
beam of white light off in the distance, shooting straight up into the sky. At
the same instant I felt a distinct unease in my gut, my soul reverberating in
alarm.

“Do
you see that?” I asked Rebecca.

She
stopped talking and looked around. “I don’t see anything,” she replied.

 “It’s
started,” I told her. “There’s a light shining out that way.” I pointed into
the woods. “If you can’t see it, it’s for angel eyes only, I guess.”

“How
far?”

“Five
miles at least, maybe ten,” I replied.

We had been slowed by the snow
, which was at
least three inches deep and counting. While it had provided for a beautiful
visual distraction, it was costing us now.

“Can
you go any faster?” I asked.

She
put her foot down on the accelerator. I could hear the wheels spinning,
fighting to find traction.

“Not
if you want to stay on the road,” she said.

“Then
let’s hope they can hold out,” I said.

Twenty
minutes had passed by the time we reached a small, unpaved roadway marked by a
small wooden sign that read ‘St. Francis Monastery’. I had kept my eyes on the
beacon the entire time, and now I could see it down the road.

“That’s
the place,” I said. “Turn here.”

Rebecca
complied, putting us on a straight track towards the fight. There was still at
least two or three miles left to travel through the snow covered woods, and the
weather was getting worse. The snow was falling in such volume that we couldn’t
see the road five feet in front of us. I focused on the light ahead and reached
out with my senses, only to be crushed from the weight of so many demons
concentrated in such a small area. We weren’t far away, but we would have to go
in blind in every sense of the word.

“We’re
close,” I told Rebecca, my head still pounding from the effort. There was a
thump and a cry as we slammed into something dark that had been standing in the
road.

“Scratch
that, we’re here,” I said. A moment later, another
thump
,
this one on the roof.

“I think
we’ve been spotted,” she said. A batlike head peered down at me from the
passenger side window. A clawed fist tried to punch through the glass, but the
armor was too tough for it. I heard another thump, then another, as more demons
spotted the car and leaped onto it.

“How
do they know we’re not on their side?” I asked, trying to keep my voice
somewhat calm.

“I
don’t think they care,” Rebecca replied. “Now what?”

“Just
keep driving,” I said. “We need to get to wherever the angels are.”

The
demons on the car were pounding on the roof, on the windows. Another one landed
on the hood, looking in at us and hissing. It reminded me of Reyzl’s messenger,
but bigger.

“Scouts,”
Rebecca said. “Their job would have been to gather info on the location, then
back up when the stronger demons arrived. If Reyzl isn’t here, one of his
lackeys will be. He’ll be
Commanding
them, and holding
open the Rift.”

“Rift?
Is that what it sounds like?”

“Yes.
It’s a passageway to and from Hell. Get off!” She cursed as two more demons
slammed into the side of the car, almost sending us into spin. “There are
hundreds of types of demons. Most are big, ugly, mean, and dumb, like the
grunts at the Belmont. The higher order demons create them to fight, but they
can’t organize without being
Commanded
, and they don’t
have the power to travel a Rift on their own. You’ll find some strays once in
awhile, but for the most part they remain in Hell.”

It
was a weird time to be having this conversation, but she wouldn’t have been
telling me this stuff if it weren’t important. The outer shell of the car was a
cacophony of hammer blows as the smaller demons tried to break through. I could
see the beacon clearly now, a laser thread of light that reached up into
eternity. We were almost there.

“So
what about the weres, and the nosferatu, or Reyzl for that matter?” I asked
her. “You reproduce like mortals, have families, loyalties, the whole deal.”

Rebecca’s
face was a mask of concentration, fighting to keep the car under control. I was
impressed with her ability to multi-task.

“God
created man,” she said. “When he gave Hell to the Devil, the Devil wanted to
one up him, and to thwart his designs. He started creating his own vision of
mankind, one that was not so... constrained. His early efforts were fruitless,
after all he’s not God, but in time he found limited success. The problem was
that his creations still required God’s original touch of life, and so the
demons such as nosferatu required human blood to survive. Our story has grown
and evolved much the same as man. We have lived secretly in parallel and worked
to claim for our own whatever God and man has built. No demon can stay here
indefinitely without feeding on a human, or feeding on a demon that has fed on
a human. We all need God’s seed to survive.”

“Or
some badass technology,” I said. “Synthetic blood to replace the touch of God?”

“Stem
cells,” she said. “Even the synthetic uses human blood, we just manufacture it
ourselves. One day maybe we’ll be able to make it fast enough we won’t need any
synthetic materials, but that day is a long way off.”

We
were within a mile of our destination, and the number of demons assaulting the
car was reaching ridiculousness. How Rebecca was managing to keep the vehicle
under control with so many of the things pounding against it was a feat beyond
understanding. Finally, she skidded the car to a stop.

“We’re
close enough,” she growled. The angel light was burning up the sky now, and I
could tell that it was originating from the center of a large stone building. Even
with the illumination from the light visibility still sucked, the snowfall
creating a whiteout across the entire area.

Rebecca
reached behind the seat and grabbed the swords. She handed me mine with a
smile, and then her eyes clouded over and the smile grew longer and more
frightening. The car began to rock. The demons covering it were able to get a
better purchase now that it wasn’t moving. She reached for the door handle.

“Hold
on,” I said. “How much do you like this car?”

“I
can get another,” she replied.

“Just
what I wanted to hear,” I told her. “The air’s going to get a little weird in
here."

I
looked down at my feet and focused my will, pulling cold air in through the
ventilation system, packing it into the cabin and compressing it. I could feel
the pressure building as I did so, pushing in on us and making it hard to
breathe. The demons continued to rock the car, and a claw managed to sneak in
through the seam of the driver’s side door.

My
head was a melon ready to explode from the intense pressure. Rebecca was
moaning, unable to handle the discomfort any longer.
The
inhale
complete, I pushed out the exhale, forcing the air to expand
around us.

The
air exited at supersonic speed, ripping apart the Rolls Royce and sending its
pieces exploding outward. The demons that had been assaulting the car were
shredded by the power of the blast, their bodies pulled apart by the
decompressing air and fragments of steel. In the distance, I could hear more
cries of pain as the bullets found other soft flesh to dig into. The frame of
the car was all that remained, with us sitting in the center.

If
Rebecca was impressed, she didn’t show it. She was all business. “The Commander
will be near the center of the assault, ringed with the strongest of the
demons,” she said. “Unless he brought a second, killing him will cause the less
intelligent to lose cohesiveness and start fighting with one another.”

“Got
it. Are you ready?” I asked.

She
responded with a wink, and then disappeared into the snow. I didn’t waste any
time following after her.

“This
way,” she said, leading me at a slight angle away from the light. “I can smell
them. The main force is already inside.”

We
ran about a thousand feet, passing pieces of the Rolls and disintegrating parts
of demons. The snow was well packed here, trampled by hundreds of claws. I
could hear the sound of steel, the roar of monsters. A fourteen foot mass of
muscle appeared out of nowhere, throwing a huge ham fist right at me. I dove to
the side and rolled to my feet just in time to see Rebecca leap upwards and
decapitate it with one smooth stroke. The somewhat humanoid head landed at my
feet, its patchy black hair matted with blood.

“Trolls,”
she said, kicking the head away. “They’re too big to go inside.”

“I’m
glad you aren’t,” I told her. We went another hundred feet or so before we came
across the first dead angel.

He
had long blonde hair, delicate features, and a smooth, boyish face. He was
lying in blood soaked snow, one wing torn from his body, his skin marbleized by
the black demon poison that had felled him. He wore a pair of white linen
pants, his chest and feet bare. He had died recently enough that he hadn’t yet
turned to dust, and his blood steamed against the cold snow. I stood there
smoldering until Rebecca pulled me away.

“Come
on, Landon,” she said. “There are still some that we can save.”

And
plenty of demons left to kill. As if on cue, another troll charged in through
the veil of snow. Before Rebecca could react, I leapt forward at the creature,
digging my sword deep into its chest and using it as a springboard to bounce
away. It all happened too fast for the demon to follow, and it stopped and
grabbed at its wound with a look of confusion before toppling to the ground.

“Lead
on,” I said.

Our
pace slowed as we moved in closer to the Monastery, the entire grounds heavy
with demons. ‘Fodder’, Rebecca had called them. They were weak demons whose
role was to harass and distract the defenders while trying to overwhelm them
with their numbers and get in a lucky hit that would break the skin and allow
entry to their poison. They were simple humanoid creatures, five feet tall,
skeletal frames with clawed hands and feet, and skin that lay taut against
sinewy muscle and bone. It was like they had taken a human being, flayed it,
and shrink-wrapped it with a new skin.

There
were hundreds of them still wandering about outside in search of more enemies
to attack. They hooted when they saw us coming, bringing even more of their
brethren to the scene. They dropped like flies. Even with my non-existent skill
at swordplay they were too slow to be a threat to us.

“Landon,
behind you,” Rebecca shouted. I didn’t turn to look, but instead bent my knees
and launched myself into the air, shooting up and over the troll’s fist as it
smashed into the ground where I had been standing. It was becoming a favorite
tactic of mine since I had tried it with the gargoyles. It allowed me to both
evade attack and also get a better perspective on the attacker and my
surroundings.

The
troll looked at me as I reached the apex of my ascent, pulling back his fist
and throwing it upwards. He was faster than the others had been, and I
scrambled to get my sword up in time to block the incoming ball of demonic
muscle. He didn’t hit me dead on, but even so the impact sent me flying.

I
crashed on the ground twenty feet away, just in time to see Rebecca decapitate
the troll while it was trying to gauge my descent. I jumped to my feet to
sidestep a clumsy lunge by a fodder demon and plant my sword in its back, then
drop under another blow and bring the blade back around and through the head of
the second demon. I had dispatched six more by the time Rebecca got over to me.