Balance (The Divine, Book One) (38 page)

“What
would you have done if I hadn't been able to transport myself here? If I hadn't
discovered the secret of my Source?”

Dante
didn't hesitate to answer. “Of course, Signore, I would pray.”

When
I regained my body, Dante was gone. Rebecca was snarling with her fangs bared,
and Josette and Obi sat on the couch and shook out their arms in disbelief that
they could move them again. I jumped to my feet and turned to Obi.

“Obi,
fire that thing up and see what you can get. We need to move fast.”

“What's
going on?” Josette asked. “The Outcast?”

“I'd
like to rip the Outcast into tiny little pieces,” Rebecca said. She relaxed her
posture and looked at me. “Where did he go?”

“Back
to Purgatory,” I told them. Then I gave them the rundown of what he had said to
me.

“Even
if the New York sanctuary is the only one standing, it will not be enough,”
Josette said. “With all of the angels forced to travel to one location, it will
be very easy for Reyzl to keep them boxed in. Archangel Michael will know this,
and will be forced to enter the battle himself.”

“Global
thermonuclear war,” I said.

“Which
means we have to find the Queenie before they have time to take out the rest of
the sanctuaries,” Obi said. “If the archfiends are orchestrating this whole
thing, then they have to know where she is, don't they?”

“Not
necessarily,” Rebecca said. “She could be sending everything along over an
encrypted online channel, or using familiars. There's no guarantee what Merov
knew will be of any use to us, but it's the best we've got right now.”

“What's
the password?” Obi asked. Rebecca reached out for the laptop. He handed it to
her and she keyed it in.

“It's
too complex to say it,” she explained, handing the computer back to Obi.

His
fingers flew over the keys as he worked his hacker magic. “This is going to
take some time,” he said after a few minutes. “There's just so much data here.”

Rebecca
reached out and took my hand. “We still need to talk,” she said. “Holler when
you find something.” She pulled me towards the bedroom again, and this time
there were no interruptions.

She
kissed me the moment the door had closed, wrapping her arms around my shoulders
and pulling my face down to hers. I could feel my pulse quickening at the
sensation of her lips against mine, the sweet smell of her, the soft firmness
of her body pressed against me. It was a moment I didn't want to end, a moment
that I wanted to get lost in, to hold onto forever,
to
forget about the consequences if we failed to find the Demon Queen. It would be
so much easier to stay here, to hide in the Waldorf Astoria with Rebecca and
enjoy one another until the demons came for us. Until we were forced to fight,
were overwhelmed and destroyed. It was the last part that caused me to break the
embrace, to end the kiss.

“You
are incredible,” she said to me.

“So
are you,” I replied.

I had
so many thoughts circulating through my head, but I didn't know how to express
any of them. They all coalesced in the same spot. I wanted her to stay with me,
to stay by my side, to be my girlfriend? It seemed a naïve and simplistic way
to describe the relationship I hoped we could have. Girlfriends were for
humans. I didn't know what it was for us. She was here, now, so that would have
to be good enough.

“Whatever
happens,” she said, “I want you to know that I'm so happy that I met you, and
that we got to spend the last few days together. You've changed my life in more
ways than you can imagine.”

Saying
the premature goodbyes like this, it was like Casablanca or something. “Here's
looking at you, kid,” I replied. She laughed at my bad humor. “Seriously, I'm
not giving up until I'm dead. If I have to take on all of the demons in Hell,
so be it. They'll be after me anyway, and it's not like there'll be much else
to do once Hollywood has been eaten.”

She
smiled. “We'll fight together,” she said. “You're mine. I'm not about to let
some other demon take you.”

“That's
super sweet of you,” I said. “There was something else you wanted to tell me.
Something you learned from Merov.”

Rebecca's
smile faded. “It doesn't matter now,” she said. “If we make it through the next
twenty four hours, we can talk about it then.”  

I was
reluctant to just drop it, but it wouldn't matter anyway if we failed to stop
the Demon Queen. I pulled Rebecca close again and kissed her, initiating the
intimacy for the first time. Her response was passionate, ferocious, her mouth
hungry for mine. The hunger. It was as Josette had named it. I would have let
it continue for who-knows-how-long, but Obi was way too good at cracking
computers.

“I've
got something,” he shouted from the sitting room. I gave Rebecca one last kiss,
and we dashed out to see what Obi had discovered.

“What
do you have?” I said, sliding onto the sofa between Obi and Josette.

Rebecca
took up the space on the arm of the chair on the other side. Obi had his face
planted against the screen, his finger tracing a line of numbers across it.

“This
is an encrypted e-mail Merov received about where to pick up the amulets for
the assault,” he explained. “It was deleted, but I managed to pull it from the
drive and decrypt it.”

I
laughed. “Obi, we were only gone for five minutes.”

“That's
what you think,” he replied.

I
hadn't realized I had been so busy with Rebecca. I had totally lost track of
time.

“Anyway,”
he said, “Reyzl and Merov were exchanging emails about the attacks on the
sanctuaries. As far as I can tell, the dude was planning to carry out the
attack, then join forces with the other lead demons to go after the Queen, your
standard double-cross. He knew he would need control of the Chalice first or
they would lose the power of the amulets and she would kill them all.”

He
scrolled down a bit and pointed at a line of garbled text. “Here, he's telling
Merov that he found out how to reach her, and that once the sanctuary has
fallen he'll send him the location and time that they are going to converge on
it. As near as I can tell, he was going to go talk to her in person and
distract her while his minions stole the Chalice, then once it was out of her
reach they would bring in an army of thousands through a series of Rifts that
the other big bads would create.”

“I
wonder if it would be enough,” I said. I looked at Rebecca. “You don't have
this in your inherited memories anywhere?”

 She
shook her head. “What time was it sent? Maybe Merov never saw it.”

“Hang
on one sec,” Obi said, using his finger to trace the line of code across the
screen again. “Yeah, this was sent about an hour before we went in. He never
read it. So
..
we
know that Reyzl
knows where the Chalice is, and that Merov didn’t know. Now what?”

I
didn’t want to say it, but there was only one answer. “We have to get Reyzl and
make him talk.”

“How
are we going to do that?” Josette asked.

“We
bring him to us,” Rebecca said, her blue eyes twinkling. “We make a deal with
him.”

“What
kind of deal?” I asked.

“We
want the Chalice, he wants the Demon Queen. If we take the Chalice, then he has
his chance to attack her.”

That
must have made sense to her in some kind of demon-logic, because it evaded me.
“Why would he do that?” I said. “He already has his plan to go after the Queen,
he doesn’t need us.”

She
looked at me as though I was to be pitied for my lack of understanding of the
complexities of deals with devils. “Landon, you have to think more like a
demon. Think with your evil side.”

She
was right. I was thinking too much like a human. Reyzl had the potential to
live forever. He was hundreds of years old. He didn’t need to do anything based
on the immediate reward. He could plot and scheme for years to see a single
thread reach its completion.

“There
are a few possibilities,” I said. “The most important part is that if we do the
dirty work for him, his risk is reduced, because if we fail she’ll never know
he had anything to do with it and he’ll get rid of some of the thorns in his
side.” I looked at Josette as I said it. She had been his greatest adversary
for who knows how long. “If we succeed, he’ll either renege on the deal and try
to take the Chalice by force, or he’ll let us go with it, but he’ll make sure
he does everything he can to know its whereabouts and go after it when our
guard is down. A thousand years or two is nothing to him.”

“He’s
already waited more than two thousand,” Josette agreed. “He was not an archfiend
then, but he predates Christ.”

I
hadn’t known that. I looked at Josette in shock. “Seriously?”

“Reyzl
was known by another name once, before the First Fallen returned him to this
world. He was Pentawere, son of Egyptian King Ramses III, last of the great
Egyptian Pharaohs. He plotted with his mother from her bed, and slit his
father’s throat, murdering him in cold blood. He was hanged for his treachery,
but he always hungered to return to this world and claim the power that he
still believes is his. The First granted him his wish, and he has spent the
last three thousand years building his strength through deceit, destruction,
and orchestrated chaos.”

“Three
thousand years,” Obi said. “That’s a heck of a lot of deceit, destruction, and
chaos.”

Josette
nodded. “Yes, it is. I have spent the last two hundred years working with my
fellows to keep his power neutralized. He has almost reached the point that he
will be unstoppable without intervention from an archangel. The Chalice will
give him the power he needs.”

“So
the likelihood that he won’t double-cross us is pretty much zero,” I said.

“I
wouldn’t be too sure,” Rebecca said. “He’ll have to decide if he wants to take
on the Demon Queen immediately, because she’s sure to come after the Chalice as
soon as she knows it’s gone. It may be to his advantage to let us go with it
and recapture it later.”

There
were so many possibilities. It was enough to make my head spin. “Either way, we
need to be ready to fight back. I think I’d rather deal with Reyzl than the
Demon Queen.”

“I
think we’re all agreed on that,” Josette said.

The
idea of making a deal with Reyzl was crazy, but it didn’t seem we had any other
choice. We had to get the Chalice. We could worry about everything else once
that was done. “Okay,” I decided. “Rebecca, do you know how to get a message to
him?”

“Of
course,” she replied. “I just need to make a phone call.”

Perfect.
That would give me some time to take care of something else. “Make the call,” I
said. “Obi, can I talk to you in private for a minute?” The former Marine
lifted his head from the laptop.

“Sure
man,” he replied, closing the lid and putting it onto the end table next to
him. He got up and followed me into the bedroom. “Look man, I like you, but I’m
not going to make out with you,” he said with a laugh when I closed the door.

“I
had something else in mind,” I said. “I was talking to Josette, and she
suggested that I promote you.”

Obi
laughed. “Promote me? I didn’t know we had ranks.”

“It’s
not that kind of promotion. I want to... I don’t know what a good word is...
enhance
you.”

“Like
Robocop?”

I
couldn’t stop myself from smiling. “I was thinking Steve Rodgers,” I replied.

Obi’s
smile faded as he accepted that I was being serious. “What do I have to do?
What are you going to do?”

“You
don’t have to do anything,” I said. “You’ve seen what I can do. How I can do it
is a little complicated, but the important part is that I can pull some of that
power out, and push it into you. I can make you stronger, faster, more
resistant to damage, fatigue.”

“Steve
Rodgers,” Obi said, his expression thoughtful. “What’s the catch?”

“You’ll
be tied to Purgatory. If you die, you can never go to Heaven, but you can also
never go to Hell. Other than that, no uniform, no shield.”

It
was obvious that Obi was torn. It was an easy decision to make if you were a
devout believer or a serial killer. Join your team and be assured that the life
after your life would be what you wanted or deserved. It wasn’t so simple for
someone like Obi. He had a strong desire to help his fellow man; almost his
entire life had been dedicated to it. At the same time, he believed he was a
good person, and he wanted to see Heaven one day. From what Josette had told me
about getting souls to come back to fight, I couldn’t blame him.

“Do
it,” he said, lifting his eyes and looking right into mine, burning into them
with the strength of his conviction. He was a soldier first. “You aren’t going
to make it through this without me.”

“No,
I don’t think I would,” I replied. “Kneel down.”