A God to Fear (Thorn Saga Book 5) (8 page)

Thorn just shrugged and turned back to the window. He couldn’t tell whether the Judge wanted pity or wanted to make fun of him, but he would give the Judge no satisfaction.

“So if I love something, maybe
I
can enter physical space too?” the Judge said.

“As if you know anything about love.”

“I do! I love… I love puppies.”

“Puppies?” Now the Judge was just being absurd.

“Yeah, who doesn’t love puppies? Do you think if I found some puppies and thought about how much I love them, I’d be able to enter physical space? Then I could get my prestige back. Tell me your secret and maybe I can set you free.”

“Or maybe you’ll tell Marcus. Or one of these guards will. Is that why you’re really here? To spy for him?”

“No! Never. Pinky promise. Or maybe it’s love combined with tragedy that does it? You love her but, like, she’s in pain? And that tips you over into the physical realm?”

“Why don’t you try it? Imagine a puppy getting brutally murdered.”

The Judge said nothing, so Thorn turned to him. The Judge’s eyes were clenched shut in concentration.

“Really?” Thorn said.

The Judge opened his eyes. “I mean, puppies getting brutally murdered would be awesome.”

“But you said you love puppies.”

“Yeah, I love puppies.”

Thorn noticed several of the guards glancing quizzically at the Judge. After a few awkward moments, the Judge waved a hand and abandoned the issue. “I honestly expected I’d die millennia ago,” he said. “It’s a joke that I’m still here. If this is the end of my long reign, I might as well embrace it.”

Moonlight slid from the Judge’s feet up toward his face as he floated forward to join Thorn near the window. They gazed out upon their city together.

“I would have let you be good,” the Judge said. “If society had let me let you. You know, I don’t think any of us really want to be evil. We just live in an evil system where anyone who acts differently is shunned or ignored.” He sighed heavily. “But I’m a demon, Thorn. Through and through. All I’ve ever wanted was to be a badass and kick the Enemy’s butt when I could. So do you know what I say when change is introduced into the world I helped build? The change that you’ve been riding like the world’s tiniest wave?”

Thorn huffed, slunk downward, and curled his arms around his knees. He was in no mood for this taunting banter.

“In the face of such change,” the Judge continued, “I say, ‘Why the hell not?’”

Thorn glanced up in surprise at the sleazy demon in the V-neck suit, who flashed a devilish grin then flipped on his sunglasses and spoke in a murmur. “Fear not, Thorn. The Angel of Manatees is here to save you.”

“No whispering!” Wex yelled.

The Judge floated back toward the lead guard. “Sorry, sorry. I’m done here anyway. Let me out and I’ll go clip Marcus’s toenails or something.”

Wex obliged, untangling himself from the other demons. The Judge glanced back at Thorn, winked over the rim of his shades, then drifted away through moonlight and shadow.

Marcus felt annoyingly insignificant next to these great demon leaders from across the South and East. Next to him floated Blethmohn, from Augusta, whose knack for subtle perversions of familial relationships was legendary. Above the toilet hovered Gorhrum, the obscenely fat demon leader of New York City, who was a pig, completely unsubtle in every way; yet Gorhrum owned charges who ran the world’s largest child pornography network, and other charges who’d caused several nationwide financial recessions, so despite his base nature, demons across the world admired him. Even Shazakahn had stayed in town when Wanderer asked him to; he was perched above a towel rack, looking down on the rest of them. A dozen or so other demon leaders lurked around the ornate bathroom, at the top of an old Midtown high-rise condo that reminded Marcus of Cole’s condo from the Miami Sanctuary.

But all the greatness in the room was dwarfed by the one-winged demon in the shower, hovering over a pudgy man in his fifties. A sole light from overhead fell onto Wanderer’s shoulders, but his downturned face remained in shadow. His hands rooted about inside the naked man’s mind as the man relaxed under steamy water.

“This man is Gregory Cohn,” Wanderer said to the gathering of demons. “Mr. Cohn was the former Demon Judge of Atlanta’s prized charge. He’s sold toxic assets to unsuspecting investors, demeaned his underlings so he could rise to power, and created a small empire on the backs of the weak. Mr. Cohn is my kind of man.” Several of the demons snickered at this. “You all know how I like to put wicked people in power. And put wicked, loyal demons such as yourselves in power as well. We need to get more charges like Mr. Cohn here, and consolidate the world’s wealth and power with them.”

In truth,
Marcus
had been the one who’d won Mr. Cohn for Wanderer. Marcus had returned to Atlanta in the wake of Wanderer’s takeover and learned that the Judge’s most loyal followers had clustered around this esteemed banker as a last stand. And despite the injuries that Marcus had suffered at the hands of Thorn, Wanderer had sent Marcus to fight those followers off. Meanwhile, Wanderer himself entered the Bristol Sanctuary to deal with Thorn.
And Thorn chopped off his left wing. Unbelievable.

Marcus was amazed that Wanderer had managed to slaughter that traitor Paxis and escape through a transit door with only one wing. A fresh stub now protruded from Wanderer’s clothing where the wing had been just hours before. Marcus’s own wounds were far from healed, but with Wanderer having lost a wing, he could scarcely gripe about his own pain.

Still, Marcus had fought hard to obtain this Gregory Cohn, so he felt he deserved to keep him as a charge. Wanderer should have had no claim to the man. Eons ago, when devils had outnumbered humans, competition amongst demonkind had been exceedingly brutal; Marcus had once seen twenty demons battling over a single man. Now that the human population had grown, about twenty people existed for every demon, and demons couldn’t possibly get to them all. The result was much less competition over any individual human.

But even though the harvest of humans was plentiful, Mr. Cohn was of a rare crop indeed. Marcus wanted him for himself, almost as badly as he’d wanted to know Thorn’s secret to entering physical space. Almost as badly as he’d been wanting to usurp Wanderer’s power for the last several thousand years.

Wanderer eased his hands out of Mr. Cohn’s mind, then drifted through the shower curtain into the company of the other demons. “My sources in Heaven tell me that for the first time in ages, the Enemy is mobilizing against us.” The demon leaders jeered, circling around Wanderer, some urging him to do battle with the Enemy once more. Wanderer gestured for them to be silent. “The angels didn’t spot me in the Sanctuary, so I know they’re not mobilizing because of my involvement. I believe they’re mobilizing because of Thorn. They want him dead—him and anyone he’s talked to. I tried to avoid this consequence, but someone…” He shifted his gaze onto Marcus. “Someone disappointed me, twice.”

Marcus glowered. He didn’t see how Wanderer could blame him for failing to kill Thorn when it was Wanderer who was now forcing Marcus to keep him alive.

And why were Brandon and Heather still so important to Wanderer? If Heaven had already declared war, why not just forget about them, kill Thorn, and end his slander? All other demons—including the elites in this room—would forget about the two measly humans in the face of a renewed war with Heaven anyway. Yet Wanderer insisted that Thorn be kept alive, and tortured, until he provided the location of the humans.

Wanderer continued: “I called you all here on such short notice as a contingency. We need to rally as many demons from as many cities as we can get. We need as many as can travel to Atlanta immediately. A new war with the Enemy is dawning, and its first battle will be waged here. And we will shock the Enemy with how strong we’ve grown since our last war. We will entomb Him beneath a mountain of the corpses of His angel slaves!” The demons cheered for Wanderer, and Marcus’s envy deepened. “Toward this end, I have begun my long-awaited yet inevitable ascent to greatness, and I have taken Atlanta for myself. The Judge has been brought low, and Thorn, of course, is imprisoned and waiting execution, which will happen once we locate those humans of his. So join me in terrorizing this city. Join me in—”

“Wanderer,” Gorhrum interrupted.

Wanderer spun toward the obese demon. “Gorhrum! You dare interrupt me, the leader of leaders?”

“I dare indeed,” Gorhrum said. “I was just wondering where your charge went off to so suddenly.”

He lifted a pudgy finger toward the shower, which was still turned on, steam rising from behind the curtain. But the bathroom door was open now, and Mr. Cohn was gone.

The broken bone in Brandon’s arm had looked ugly, all purple and swollen, but fortunately it wasn’t a serious break and didn’t require surgery. The doctors had injected some local anesthetic, which nestled Brandon into a relaxation that—after gritting his teeth against the pain for the past hour—felt positively transcendent. They’d then set the bones, bandaged the arm in a cast, and eased the cast into a sling. Over the course of the procedure, Brandon felt his heartbeat slow and his breathing return to a normal rate. Fatigue began to chisel away at his consciousness, and he realized he hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours.
Add in a wedding massacre, Dad’s death, and a plane crash, and it’s a wonder I haven’t passed out.

And what had caused that plane crash? To where had he stumbled in the darkness afterward? He remembered Virgil barking commands at him, and he remembered stumbling upon a radiant doorway in the darkness, but his brain was probably creating memories to explain his trauma. In time, a more accurate picture of the accident would likely form in his mind. Had he even crashed in a plane? Heather had said it was a plane, and so he’d told the doctors it had been a plane. But maybe it had been a car after all.
Why was I flying my plane again? Was anyone else hurt?

The thought that Heather could be injured pushed back against the sedatives in his bloodstream and roused him to alertness. He stood.

“Whoa, there. Take it easy, fella.”

“Where’s my wife? Heather. Is she okay?” Brandon squinted to see the nurse against the harsh fluorescent lights.

“She’s just fine. A little scuffed up, but she came in here with you. Not sure where she ran off to, but I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”

Dark fog speckled Brandon’s vision. Dizziness forced him to sit back down.

“That’s it. You’re fine. Just relax. Can I get you anything?”

“Water would be nice.”

“Sure thing, dear. I’ll be right back.”

The bed beckoned, but Brandon was hesitant to lie back down, for fear that he might doze off. Before he let himself rest, he needed to know exactly what had happened.

Luckily, shortly after the nurse left, Heather peered around the doorframe and stole into the room like a runaway, glancing all around, her eyes awash with fear.

“What’s wrong?” Brandon asked.

“There are some police downstairs who want to talk with us,” Heather said. “We have to go.”

Brandon hefted himself off the bed, more gingerly this time. The dizziness wasn’t as bad now. “What do you mean we have to go? Let’s tell the cops what happened.”

Heather slung Brandon’s good arm over her shoulder. “Hon, can you trust me with something?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“We need to get out of this hospital. Now.”

“Why?”

“It’s not something I can explain. Not for a while. But we’re not safe here. I have a place where we can hide. Where you can rest.”

“I don’t do well taking things like this on faith,” Brandon said. He’d followed Virgil on faith last night, and the lunatic had nearly gotten them killed.
He’d
caused the plane crash! Hadn’t he?

“It’s not on faith,” Heather said as she led him toward the hallway. “I took vows to you. You know me, you know I love you. I have good reasons for not telling you what I know. I can tell you eventually—just not now. Can you be okay with that?”

Brandon idled. Seeing the pink light of dawn seep through the outer windows, and new doctors and nurses arriving for their shifts as their yawning colleagues departed, he marveled at how
normal
it all looked. This white-walled hospital appeared so innocuous, so mundane. No danger would assail him here, and he was so tired. Staying in his bed and talking to the police after he woke up seemed like the best option.

Nevertheless, he let Heather help him get his shirt and jacket back on. She led him downstairs, out a back door, down some concrete steps next to a loading dock, and away from the building. He never answered her question; he didn’t have the energy to protest. He’d have lain down here on the asphalt and slept if his wife had let him. Whenever he tried to think about what she’d said, or tried to analyze what was happening to him, a cloud of drowsiness blocked his efforts, lulling and dulling his mind into a childlike daze.
I’ll go wherever you want to take me, hon
, he thought.
But let’s get there soon.
Heather had promised safety, and safety sounded good. But the comfort of sleep sounded better.

As the sun rose, the newlyweds blended in with a steady stream of pedestrians and walked through the unfamiliar city. Brandon tried to convince himself he was in Charlotte, or even Seattle, but after fifteen minutes of not recognizing a single street or landmark, he let himself believe they were truly walking the streets of Atlanta.

They passed some brick houses, a power substation, and some hole-in-the-wall restaurants where the smells of sausages and pancakes woke Brandon up a little. In his disoriented state, he half-wanted to go in and try a bite. An American flag overhead snapped in the wind, brakes squeaked in the morning rush hour, and a metro train rattled on its tracks. Brandon’s internal clock protested as the sun rose steadily higher.

As Heather led him beneath a series of pedestrian skybridges, deep bells rung far away. Down one side street, Brandon glimpsed a hundred or more people waving signs and hollering slogans in the midst of a heated protest. Some kind of street preacher stood on a wooden box beside them, egging them on. Straight ahead, skyscrapers reached up past clouds and looked down on the demonstration with indifference.