Balance (The Divine, Book One) (43 page)

I
almost didn’t move in time, skipping to the side as a clawed hand raked across
my abdomen. I felt the tips of his hands scrape against my skin, the demon fire
burning worse than any real flame. I winced in pain as I dodged a second strike
and blocked a third with my forearm. The wound wasn’t healing. In fact it was
growing more painful as I moved.

“Does
it hurt?” Reyzl asked. “You aren’t as impervious as you believed.”

I
grunted in response, catching his arm when he threw it forward, twisting it and
hearing a satisfying crack as it shattered. Reyzl moaned and backed away, his
snarled lip defying his nonplussed expression.

I
pressed the attack, but the arm healed almost instantly, twisting back into the
proper position and coming up in time to block my punches. Each time my hand
hit one of the runes I felt the pain of the demon fire biting into me. Each
time I felt the pain I grew angrier. The anger made me sloppy.

An
overthrown, off-balance punch later I found myself slammed up against the wall,
four deep punctures in my chest and lungs, gasping for air and trying to get
back up. Reyzl stood ten feet away, allowing himself just the slightest smirk
while he watched me struggle.

My
whole body was burning up, my soul was crying out in despair. Josette had given
herself up for me, given
herself
up for nothing. My
anger fell way, replaced by acceptance and a sudden calm. I had done my best,
hadn’t I? There had never been any guarantees.

I
looked around for Rebecca, finding a mass of demons near the opening to the
corridor but not seeing her anywhere. I wanted to tell her I was sorry, that I
wished we had more time together, that I thought she and I could have been
something special. I swallowed with a dry throat and licked my lips. Reyzl was
still standing there, just looking at me, watching me die.

The demon fire.
It was burning me up, preventing me from
healing. I almost laughed when I thought of it, not that I could laugh with the
holes in my lungs. I closed my eyes and relaxed, pulling on my Source and
letting my focus fade. The air held moisture, moisture meant water, and
water doused
fire. Could it put out demon fire? There was
one way it could. Josette hadn’t sacrificed herself so I would know how to
fight like her. She had given herself to me for another reason, to provide me
with something she knew I would need. After all, who knew the archfiend better
than she did?

I
reached for her power, picturing her bedroom, her simple straw doll, her
carefree and safe life before her brother had become evil, before her mischief
had brought down her parent’s ire. I mixed it with my own, sent it out with my
will, demanding the vapor in the air to condense, demanding that it rain.

My
eyes were closed, but I felt my body cool and heal as the air around me began
to cry. This wasn’t just any rain, but holy rain, holy water, Josette’s tears.
I finally took a deep breath, opening my eyes to glorious chaos. In front of
me, Reyzl was hunched over, trying to escape the water, his skin sizzling
wherever it touched him. Behind him, the demons were rushing back towards the
Hell Rift, but the rain had extinguished it. With no escape, they shrieked and
howled in pain as the flesh washed off of them like dirt. Where was Rebecca?

“How?”
Reyzl asked, trying to straighten up. The runes on his body had been extinguished,
but he had
drank
my blood from the Chalice, and he was
healing as fast as the water could wound him. I knew from experience how much
it must hurt.

I
caught the motion out of the corner of my eye. With a thought, I stopped the
rain. “Something you can’t begin to understand,” I said to him.

“And
what is that,” he growled. His strength was returning, and he started moving
towards me, his fury obvious despite his blank black eyes.

“Friends,”
I said.

He
caught on too slowly, sensed her too late. An instant later Rebecca was on his
back, a hand on each end of the cursed sword. She winked at me, and then pulled
the blade towards herself, slicing through Reyzl’s neck.

The
black fog of his soul poured from the top of his headless corpse as it fell. Rebecca
opened her mouth to accept it, her head tilting back in ecstasy as she absorbed
the immense power of the archfiend. I sat against the wall and watched it
happen, waiting for it to be done.

Then
it was. The last of the black fog vanished down Rebecca’s throat, and she fell
to her hands and knees, her breathing heavy. I rushed over to her and put my
arms around her waist, holding her steady.

“Are
you okay?” I asked. She didn’t respond right away. “Rebecca?”

“Just
give me a minute, worm,” she replied. “I think it was something I ate.”

It
was the perfect release. I closed my eyes and gave myself up to the joke, my
laughter strong and loud. A moment later she joined me, laughing weakly, then
coughing, then laughing again.

“Help
me up?” she asked.

I let
go of her waist and circled around in front of her. She reached up and took my
hand, and I pulled her to her feet. She stumbled as she rose, so I wrapped her
arm over my shoulder to support her.

“Nice
work,” I said.

“You
almost killed me with that rain,” she said. “I was lucky to duck under the sofa
before I got too beat up.”

“I’m
sorry Becca,” I replied. “I couldn’t think of anything else.”

She
shifted her weight so she could drag my head down to hers. She kissed me
hungrily. “Apology accepted,” she said. “It all worked out.”

“Reyzl?”
I asked.

“I
took his power,” she said. “Let’s grab the Chalice and get out of here.”

We
walked over to where the Chalice sat on the floor next to the Hell Rift,
surrounded by the wet ash of the demons killed by the holy water, and filled
with the water itself.

“I’ve
got it,” Rebecca said, bending over to pick it up. She couldn’t reach it with
her arm around me, so she pulled away to bend down further.

“I
know this is going to sound corny,” I started saying as she grasped the Chalice
by the stem and turned it over to dump out the holy water, “and the timing kind
of stinks, but I was thinking maybe you and I could, you know, be together. See
how it goes?”

“I’m
sorry, Landon,” she replied.

Huh?
I wasn’t expecting the rejection. “I don’t understand,” I said. No reply.
“Rebecca?”

That
was when I noticed the flames of the runes around the Hell Rift had reignited.
She turned to face me, her eyes as black as night, her expression sad but
strong. She shifted forward and the pain in my stomach was renewed. Her claws
made a sick sucking sound when she removed them from my gut. Blood ran down
over my wet clothes, down into the Chalice.

“What
are you doing?” I asked her. I didn’t even see her other hand sweep up behind
me, her claws digging into my neck. My spinal cord severed, I dropped to the
ground like a sack of potatoes.

“I’m
sorry,” she repeated, lifting the Chalice to her mouth and pouring the contents
down her throat. After she swallowed, she dropped the Chalice to the ground.

“Why?”
I asked.

“Survival,”
she said. Without another word she stepped into the Hell Rift and was gone.

Physically,
I couldn’t feel anything. Emotionally, I had just been ripped in half. She had
saved my life more than once. She had been my friend, my companion, and I had
hoped she would be something more. I had trusted her with my life, trusted her
despite the fact that she was a vampire, a creature of evil. I had told Josette
she was different. She was supposed to be different. I wanted to believe that
absorbing Reyzl’s soul had done something to her, that there was no other
explanation. As much as I hated it, I was having trouble with that. When she had
said she was sorry, she had been lying.

I lay
there alone, waiting for my body to heal, not knowing if I would ever see her
again. The tears ran unabated from my eyes, and I didn’t think they would ever
stop.

END OF BOOK ONE

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Michael
Forbes is mobile and web application engineer and author of science fiction and
fantasy. He has a degree in fine art, and loves good user interface and
industrial design. Michael lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife, a cat
that thinks she’s a dog, and a dog that thinks she’s a cat. Although he has
been reading and writing voraciously since childhood, Balance is Michael’s
debut novel. If you like what you’ve read, he’d love to hear from you!

To
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:
http://www.mrforbes.com/site/writing
.

Credit goes to the following for the royalty free stock
imagery used in the creation of the book cover.
All
graphics licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Statue of Liberty:
takashiirie.com
http://www.freevector.com/free-vectors-graphics/
Wings
www.artshare.ru
http://www.freevector.com/wings/
Landon Silhouette
123FreeVectors.com
http://www.freevector.com/club-people-silhouettes/
Grunge Background
ImaginaryRosse
http://imaginaryrosse.deviantart.com/art/Grunge-Textures-117555400
Cityscape
Stockgraphicdesigns.com
http://www.freevector.com/cityscapes-vector-graphics/