Betrayal (The Divine, Book Two) (7 page)

“Izak,” I said in warning. The demon just stood there with a light grip on her wrist. All he would have to do is run a fingernail through her flesh and his poison could begin to seep in. It would serve her right for being so impetuous, but it would also force Thomas to act.

“Melody,” Thomas said, his displeasure obvious. “You have been instructed in the basis of our laws. This type of rash violence is forbidden, and giving in to such impulses could lead you down a very dark path that you wouldn’t wish to travel. Furthermore, you would serve yourself and our Lord well to heed my warnings, and take advantage of my experience. Look at the back of the fiend’s hand.”

Melody’s eyes shifted down, her pupils dilating when she saw the dark etchings of the runes beginning from the back of Izak’s hands. No minor fiend would ever have knowledge of such things. It was a testament to the demon’s power.

“You can let her go now,” I said.
 

Izak bore his eyes into Melody’s for a few seconds, sending a warning about further aggression, and then released her wrist. Able to move again, the seraph took a few steps back and put her hand to her face to cover her tears.

“We have a plane to catch,” I said to Thomas, pulling Melody’s blade up to my hand and glamouring it as a guitar case. “It was good to see you again.”
 

I started walking around the angels, but when I looked at Melody I felt a sudden, unbidden twinge of guilt. I stood in front of her until she looked up at me.

“Your time will come Initiate,” I said, the words familiar on my tongue but foreign in my mind. “Remember that your greatest strength comes not from your skill, but from your faith.”

Somehow, the words brought her comfort, but they completely sapped me of mine.
 

“
Josette
,” I said, calling out to her in my soul. I could feel her spirit, her warmth, but it was gone as quickly as it had arrived. I stepped around Melody and continued towards the terminal, my entire being weighed down by the experience.
 

When we got to the gate, I found a couple of empty seats in the corner by the window and led Izak over to them to wait. The demon eschewed the chairs for the floor in front of the window, taking off his suit coat, bunching it in a ball, and using it as a pillow to rest his head against. He glanced over at me one last time, and then closed his eyes and went to sleep.

The action confirmed everything I already suspected about our alliance. Demons didn’t need to sleep any more than I did, so the move was an obvious dismissal. Izak was interested in Sarah, nothing more. The feeling was mutual.

I closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, feeling the river of power feeding into my soul. I tracked it back to its source, my Source, and watched as the mortal world began to dematerialize around me. In moments it was a frozen haze, and then it was gone. I was sitting in the airport again, but my soul was firmly planted in Purgatory.
 

A wave of my hand, and the glass of the terminal vanished. I stood and ran towards it, kicking off at the last instant and launching into the air. I couldn’t fly in the mortal world, but things were different here.

There was no real need to fly at all, I could have brought myself to my destination with nothing more than a thought, but I had found that maintaining a relative amount of consistency between the worlds was useful for normalizing the feedback of the experience to my physical mind. In the early days after Rebecca had vanished I had visited Purgatory often, exploring my newfound power and testing my limits. I had made and remade the world so many times, and when I had returned to my body I had found my power reduced. Like everything else, it was a balance.

I found Dante outside of his eleventh century manse, tending to his garden. He was kneeling over a smaller outcropping of roses, a simple white linen robe resting over his shoulders, with lines of dirt stains slicking down his back where he would wipe his hands. His balding head was shiny under the sun, and a layer of perspiration trickled down through the wafts of hair that ringed his temple. He was picking delicately at the rose bushes, pruning with precision and adoration.
 

“Biongiorno signore,” I said, landing behind him without a sound.
 

“Ahh, biongiorno Landon,” he replied, his voice relaxed. I had never been able to sneak up on him, or surprise him. “It is quite a fine day for tending the garden, wouldn’t you say?”

“Gervais,” I said.

Dante dropped the shears and stood, his robe changing to a clean, rich red velvet as he turned. “The archfiend?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m on my way to Paris to kill him.”

I had never mentioned Sarah to Dante. While I had more trust for the Lord of Purgatory than I did for most, it didn’t extend deep enough for me to believe the poet wouldn’t have his own designs for a true diuscrucis. Sarah’s current life was mortal, and she deserved a chance to live as close to being one as she could.

“Why Gervais? Why now? Come, walk with me.” Dante put his hand on my shoulder and guided me away from the rose bushes, back up towards his home. A servant waited there, holding a tray with two glasses on it.

“I told you about the children being killed in New York,” I said.

“Yes, of course. A serial killer no doubt. You said you would let the mortal law enforcement deal with it.”

“A girl was killed by a vampire this morning. She and her mother were both Awake. They never sensed it coming. It turns out, the other children were killed the same way.”

I watched Dante’s eyes shift. He already knew about it. I locked my hand on his wrist as he grabbed for a glass of water.
 

“You already knew,” I said, my anger growing. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

One moment I was holding his wrist, the next I wasn’t. He slipped my grasp with no effort and picked up his water, taking a few swallows.

“Tell you what, signore?” he asked. “That a vampire was killing children? How is that so different to you from a mortal killing children? Such a thing has little meaning on the balance, and the angels will track the demon down sooner or later, if your Obi doesn’t first.”

He was right, but I hated hearing it. In the beginning I had taken a hard line on certain kinds of evil, and it had been easy to justify because the balance required it. Lately, I had been too committed to my quest for answers, and too ambivalent to make it a priority. Now Sarah was gone.
 

“We can’t wait for anyone else,” I said. “If the demons have figured out how to hide themselves, we need to stop them, right now.”
 

He turned and started walking down a cobblestone path towards a small pond. I followed next to him. “I agree, signore. So the question is, why do you think it is the Parisian archfiend? What would he have to gain by killing children in New York City?”

I wasn’t about to tell Dante my real motives. “A test,” I said.

He stopped and looked at me. “A test?”

“To see if I could sense him. If your goal was to get close to the diuscrucis undetected, wouldn’t you test it nearby, with an increasing degree of difficulty?” Dante didn’t look wholly convinced. “Besides, only an archfiend can rune and power a Hell rift, and send something truly nasty through it.”

“Nasty?”

I described the creature to Dante, and the destruction that I claimed it had caused. I didn’t mention Izak’s role in its defeat, changing the outcome to make me look oh-so-clever. It didn’t matter, it was the results that were important. In the meantime, Dante had walked to the pond and sat down along its stone banks, hiking up his robes and dipping his feet in the water.

“So you believe it was Gervais?” Dante asked. “It is possible, for only a powerful demon such as he could Command a wraith. Yet, I have two questions for you, signore. How do you know the archfiend returned to Paris, and have you considered that it was not Gervais, but the Demon Queen who is responsible?”

The questions caught me off-guard. I knew that Charis wasn’t responsible, because she wasn’t against me. How could she be, when she had me in the palm of her hand and let me go? But what if that had been a trick? A deception to point me in the direction she wanted me to go, so that I would be easier to manipulate? That was how demons liked to work after all, and there was no doubt that she had the ability to create such complex plots. But what could she want with Sarah, and how did she even know she existed?
 

“The archfiend is back in Paris,” a smooth voice said from behind us. I turned to see Mr. Ross standing there, still wearing the same pinstripe suit and sunglasses that he had been sporting when we first met. “The kid is right to be concerned.”

“What do you know?” I asked. I hated how he refused to use my name. I was always ‘son’, ‘kid’, or ‘boy’. Dante pulled himself away from the water and stood next to me.
 

Mr. Ross reached into his pocket, pulling out a fine gold antique pocket watch and flipping it open. “There isn’t much time,” he said, reaching up to lower his sunglasses and look at me with his rich blue eyes. “Something big is going down, and you’re at the center of it, son.”

“Me?” No, this was about Sarah. Not me. Unless...

“A trap?” Dante asked.
 

Mr. Ross pushed his sunglasses back up his nose. His response was smug. “An archfiend picks a fight with you and takes off halfway around the world, hoping you’ll give chase... yeah, I’d say it’s a trap.”

Five years, and I felt like I hadn’t learned anything. It would be so easy to draw me in by taking Sarah. If Gervais knew where she was, he was sure to know about our connection, if only through observation.
 

“Do you know anything about demons being invisible to Divine Sight?” I asked.

Mr. Ross shrugged. “I know
you
can do it. Maybe you aren’t the only one?” He turned his attention to Dante. “Should I look into it?”

Dante nodded. “Yes, thank you, Signore Ross.”
 

He disappeared before Dante had finished speaking. I stood and stared at the spot where he had been, annoyed that he had left without telling me anything concrete about the demons’ plans. The fact that I knew I was walking into a trap would have to be enough.
 

“Well, signore,” Dante said, “I guess it is Gervais after all.”

“It seems that way,” I said. “See if you can find out anything more about what I may be getting myself into. I know Mr. Ross was thorough, but I want to be sure we cover all of our bases.”

Dante smirked at my sarcasm. “Without Mr. Ross, you would know nothing. At least you can prepare.”

“Spare me the platitudes and just do it,” I replied, and then I did my own disappearing act, riding the river of power back from Purgatory to my body in meatspace.

We boarded the plane without incident, making our way to our seats near the front of first class. I took both Izak and Melody’s ‘guitars’ and stowed them up in the overheads, forcing the other passengers to figure out how to get their own overabundant carry-ons squeezed into the limited space. Our stewardess, Farrah, stopped by to introduce herself, and to take our drink order so she could serve us as soon as possible after takeoff. I was going to politely send her away, but Izak grabbed my arm and pulled on my coat sleeve.
 

“You want a drink?” I asked him. The demon nodded. I didn’t see the point - I had already tried to decompress with hard liquor. It was a fruitless endeavor. “My associate would like a..whiskey, neat,” I said to Farrah. Izak grinned, approving of my choice.
 

Farrah smiled at him, successful in her effort to hide the oddness of the encounter. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I’ll be able to serve as soon as we’ve completed our take-off procedures.” She moved on to the next passenger.

“Have you ever been in an airplane before?” I asked.
 

Izak shook his head. He waved his arm at the interior of the plane, then swept his hand back and forth in front of his chest. No such thing as airplanes, at least in the days before he was able to travel through rifts. Based on his scars, he knew how to use transport rifts. Why hadn’t he suggested one for us?

“You know how to use rifts?”

His face grew more grim, but he nodded.

“Then why are we flying?” I asked.

He grinned again, then took his hands and clamped them together. Trap.
 

“Good call,” I said. “How old are you anyway?”

He didn’t respond, but a flash of flame cascaded through his opaque eyes. It caused me to question whether trapping myself in a metal tube six miles above the ground with him was a good idea. Could I be sure he wasn’t still working for Gervais? I’d seen what he’d done to the wraith. We would never be friends, but for the moment I could trust him.

The jet taxied out to the runway and launched skyward without incident. I put my head back against the soft, supple leather of the first-class seat and shut my eyes. There was no sleep there, little relaxation, and no escape from the guilt that was hounding me. Whether or not this whole thing was a plot to lure me in, Sarah being taken was my fault. Maybe if I had met her for training on time, this whole thing could have been avoided.

My eyes were still closed when Farrah returned with Izak’s drink. I didn’t open them to watch the exchange, but something the demon had done caused the attendant to giggle like a schoolgirl. She returned a few minutes later, and I could hear her handing him another. Maybe I was the only Divine who wasn’t affected by liquor.

I opened my eyes when the ‘fasten seatbelt’ light dinged off. I looked over to Izak, then jerked my head back. He was staring right at me, booze on his breath and his eyes glowing like smoldering embers. Before I could focus, his right arm lashed out and his hand wrapped around the back of my head. He held me steady, forcing my eyes to lock onto his. I found my focus, felt the pull of my power, but held up in taking action. I felt something else, a warmth that calmed me in an instant. My vision began to fade, the interior of the airliner vanishing into the black void, my self being pulled into Izak’s dark soul.