Balance (The Divine, Book One) (37 page)

He
laughed and nodded. “That girl was crazy. She didn’t remember anything that had
happened to her though. She just kept going on and on about how her mother
messed up her whole life, how she would never meet someone special or get
married. Man, I know why. Oh yeah, we’ve got something for you.”

Obi
reached around and brought his bag to the front of his body, unsnapping it and
pulling out a laptop. It was a super thin, slick black slab of coolness that
must have cost a fortune.

“Merov’s,”
Rebecca said.

“It
has VPN access to the main servers,” Obi said. He was like a kid on Christmas.
“Merov had a killer setup, and one of the biggest pipes in the city.”

“He
used it to do automated stock transactions,” Rebecca explained. I was familiar
with the latency wars being fought on and around Wall Street. He who had the
best ping wins.

“I
take it we can use it to get the information we need?” I asked.

“You
bet,” Obi replied. He walked over to the sofa and plopped down on the end next
to Josette, seeming to notice her for the first time. He gave her a big smile
and held out his hand. “I’m Obi,” he said. “You must be Josette. I recognize
you from the pictures. It’s awesome to meet a real angel.”

Josette
hid her pained embarrassment well, taking Obi’s huge hand into her own tiny
one. “Thank you,” she said. “It is fine to meet you fellow. What pictures are
you speaking of?”

She
didn’t know. Obi stammered out a reply. “Uhh... I’m sorry. I thought you knew.
Merov had a lot of eyes on you. He wanted you to uhh... your blood and umm...
being a virgin...”

She
didn’t mask her pain as well the second time, casting her eyes down and
clenching her jaw. I had to stop Obi before he stuck his foot any further down
his throat.

“Obi,
can you get us booted into the mainframe,” I said. He hadn’t been oblivious to
her reaction, and he jumped at the chance to get out of the awkward situation.

“Sure,”
he said, flipping open the cover and losing himself in the screen.

I
turned back to Rebecca. Her blue eyes were dazzling looking up at me, and I
could feel myself getting lost in them.

“You
said before we left Merov’s that you had a lot more to tell me,” I said, my
voice cracking a little.

Her
eyes sparkled at my discomfort. Why was it that just admitting there was a real
attraction and interest had made her existence so much more deliciously
unbearable?

“Can
we talk about it in private?” she asked.

She
grabbed my hand and started pulling me toward the bedroom, causing my whole
face to start heating up and turning red. I had never been good with this sort
of thing, as Carly Lane could attest.
I was interrupted from
the alone time by the bell
. The doorbell. Who could that be?

Everyone
was on high alert when I let go of Rebecca’s hand and approached the door. “Who
is it?” I asked, trying to catch a glimpse of the visitor through the peephole.
I don’t know why I was so on edge. I doubted that Reyzl or the Demon Queen
would bother knocking.

Nobody
answered. The door clicked and then swung open, almost smashing me in the head
in the process. I didn’t get to see who was there before I was thrown backwards
and onto the floor, sliding back until I reached Josette’s feet. I gazed over
to the side to see Rebecca had been thrown as well.

“Buongiorno
Signore,” Dante said, bursting into the room.

He
was wearing a gaudy red suit, holding a black cane with a large red diamond on
the end, his white hair making him look like a pimped up Santa Claus. He looked
pissed as he took in the four of us, piled together en masse against the sofa.

“I
leave you alone for a few days, and when I come back you have a veritable Army
of.” He paused as he tried to find a word to describe what he saw. Failing, he
gave up. “Didn’t I warn you about working with our enemies,” he said.

I
tried to get up, but my body was frozen solid. “They aren’t our enemies,” I
murmured through petrified lips.

Dante
raised his eyebrows. “Not our enemies?” he asked. He walked over and slammed
the cane down between my legs. “Not our enemies.” He looked down on me like I
was a misbehaving kindergartener. “Not our enemies. It is the nature of good
and evil to be the enemy of balance,” he shouted. He pointed the cane at
Rebecca, lying motionless next to me on the floor. “Her kind especially. They
cannot survive without murder and destruction, and the wanton manner in which
they fulfill their base needs is sickening.”

I
looked to Rebecca, her face sweating and muscles tense as she tried to move.
The bonds that held us were too strong, Dante’s power too great. He aimed his
cane at Josette next, the angry look in his eyes exploding in ferocity at the
sight of her.

“The
seraph, the servants of God who wouldn’t even let me in to see Him when I
discovered the truth. All of my years of loyalty and servitude, I asked for no
more than a conversation, for understanding. Instead I was turned away. They
play at righteousness, but their end game is not so much.”

I
tried to move again, feeling the force pushing back against me when I attempted
to bend my fingers. Dante was from Purgatory, his power had to be the same. He
had said that Purgatory was mine to make as I saw fit, that my bloodlines and
life had made me special. If that was true, he shouldn’t be able to hold me
here. I closed my eyes and focused on the flow of power I could feel bleeding
into me. I focused my will on bending my fingers, pulling the power in to aid
me. I strained to make a fist, to conquer Dante’s hold. I failed.

Dante
had moved on to Obi, who sat there in silence, his eyes glued to him, not even
trying to move. Ever the soldier, he was conserving his strength, waiting for
his opportunity. Dante looked him over, then reached out and poked him in the
chest with the cane.

“You
are Awake, but mortal,” he said, all of the anger fading from his tone. “What
are you doing here?”

He
must have let go of Obi’s mouth, because the former Marine was able to speak.
“I’m fighting for my people,” he said. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Dante’s
face exposed his huge smile. “No, you aren’t. Nor should you be my friend. This
is your fight, and you have every right to be part of it.”

“So
you’ll let me go?” Obi asked, motioning to the rest of his body with his head.

“Ahhh,
most assuredly so, Signore. But not yet.” By Obi’s reaction, I could tell Dante
had frozen him again.

I
reached for the flow a second time. I couldn’t use it to make myself strong
enough to move, but maybe that was a clue. If all I was doing was trying to
counter force with force, it was a zero sum game. Whatever hold Dante had on
me, I couldn’t remove it physically, and so I stopped trying. What I needed to
do was understand the power, and counter that.

“I am
happy, Landon, that you have found one reasonable ally, though I find it
unlikely that he will survive much longer.” Dante turned his attention back on
me, looking down with the smile still on his face.

I
maintained my calm, my senses questing forward to try to discern his Divinity,
to test his power.  I focused, watching in fascination as his form lost
its solidity, fading away and becoming almost ghostlike. He tilted his head,
observing me. I focused harder and literally made his visage split in two, one
atop the other but just the tiniest fraction off, as if I were watching a 3d
movie without the glasses. I looked past him around the rest of the room, and I
could see the same double vision effect. My excitement grew when I realized that
I had uncovered his secret.

“Signore,”
Dante said, still looking down on me. “We should speak in private.”

I
looked down at myself, my single,
solid
self. Yes, we
should. I felt the flow of power pounding in my soul, and I opened it up into a
stream and followed it back to its origin. I watched my body shift, one world
superimposed over another.

In
Purgatory I was free, and I reached out with my will and lifted Dante away from
me, holding him in midair with ease. I floated to my feet, noticing with awe
that the entire other world was frozen in time.

“You
wanted to talk,” I said to him. “Talk.” I lowered him to the ground, but I
summoned Ulnyx. “Keep an eye on him,” I ordered the Great Were. Ulnyx bowed and
went to stand at Dante’s side.

A
solid mountain of laughter erupted from Dante then. It was so strong and loud
that I almost lost my hold on the tether of energy that I was using to keep
myself there. Before I even knew what had happened, he had grabbed Ulnyx by the
throat and thrown him to the ground, stepping on his neck with a fine Italian
leather shoe.

“Excellente
Signore,” he said, his voice booming. “You have surpassed every one of my
expectations for what you could become. I am a proud papa.” His face turned
serious. “Still, do not think that any of your toys can control me. I will
forgive your error this once.” He stepped off Ulnyx and allowed the
Were
to rise, sputtering, and slink back behind me.

He
had been hoping for this, I realized. Every word and gesture in the Waldorf had
been to push me, to test me, to find out what I could do.

“How
did you know?” I asked him.

“I
can see it in you,” he replied. “I can feel it like a geyser bubbling up from
your soul. It is the power I always knew you had, but I did not expect you to
master it so soon.”

It
wasn’t as though I had a choice at the pace. Even with my success, I had almost
died a half dozen times. “What you said about my companions?”

He
shrugged his shoulders. “Mostly true,” he replied. “But I didn’t send you back
as my puppet, I sent you back as man’s Champion. The decisions you make are
yours to make. I may give in to my discontent at times, but do not be dissuaded
by my biases.”

“Did
you see the seraph’s eyes?” I asked him. I wanted to find out what he knew
about Josette’s situation.

He
nodded. “Yes. She has fallen to you, which is a most fortunate event. She is a
powerful ally, though I would expect her to refuse to fight against good. The
other one, the human, he is a rare and unexpected find.”

“It’s
like I’ve been blessed,” I said. Dante didn’t laugh. “Lost your sense of
humor?” I asked him.

“Mr.
Ross has provided me with some information,” he replied, ignoring my question.
“It’s the reason I came to visit you. We’re running out of time, Landon. As you
know, the North American archfiend has already launched the first of a series
of attacks against seraph strongholds. Their goal is to cut off the angels’
sanctuaries so that they cannot reinforce their numbers. Once that is done,
they will hunt down the remaining forces one by one until they have shifted the
balance enough to gain complete control of the mortal world. The power of the
Grail makes them close to unstoppable.”

“The
holder of the Chalice has power over the amulets,” I said. “We can stop it if
we can get the Grail.”

Dante
nodded. “That is so. We know the Demon Queen is in possession of the Chalice,
but even Mr. Ross has been unable to discover her location. Demons would rather
be tortured to death than give her up.”

If
the Demon Queen had the power to summon the fire demon on her own, I could only
imagine what she could do to squealers. I would have chosen torture too.

“Rebecca,
the nosferatu, has the information we need to track her down. How much time do
we have?”

“According
to Mr. Ross, all sanctuaries are to be attacked at midnight in their respective
time zones. New York was not supposed to be attacked until then either, but the
archfiend Reyzl chose not to wait, likely so he could claim glory for being the
first to victory. It’s too late to save Australia, but the sooner you find the
Demon Queen, the better.“  

I had
been shortsighted to think that the goal of destroying the sanctuary had been
to create a single foothold of power in New York. I had underestimated the
Demon Queen, not realizing that her play was for a quick and decisive victory
versus a strategically staged attack. To be honest, I hadn't thought about any
of that. I had been more concerned with saving Josette, not even considering
the ultimate motives. Now more seraphs were dead, and the balance was sliding
further and further towards Hell.

“Okay,”
I said. “I'll find out where the Demon Queen is, hunt her down, get the
Chalice, and save the world.” It sounded so simple, and somehow I managed to
say it as if I thought I could pull it off. To think that six months ago I was
just an ex-con security guard. “What are you going to do?”

Dante
shook his head. “There is nothing I can do. This fight is for the world of
mankind. The way you draw your energy to return here, I must do something
similar to walk in your world, and neither one of us can do so forever.”

I
looked back at my body in man-space, still frozen in time. “One last question,”
I said.

Dante
raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Yes?”