Bound (The Divine, Book Four) (38 page)

At last I heard voices. One I recognized, the other I didn't. I knew the Beast for what he was. I knew him better than most. The other speaker wasn't Landon or Charis. How many people were actually in here?

Max slowed to a stop, and I dropped to my knees and slid at an angle, coming to rest behind a pillar. I peeked out a couple of seconds later and saw him standing to the left side of the archway into the room beyond, listening.

I stayed low and made my way forward, dancing from column to column in near silence, doing everything I could to avoid detection. I didn't have any weapons, but I was me again. I held out a hand and watched my fingers grow into sharp talons. I opened my mouth and felt my fangs with my tongue. I was all the weapons I needed.

I still couldn't see what was happening, but I got within a dozen feet of Max without being noticed. Just as I reached the spot, I felt a wave of coldness flow through me, a strange feeling of an immense but silent shockwave of energy. Max had felt it too, and now he was back on the move.

I slipped to the wall where he had just been standing, and ducked my head in. Landon! I could see him now, crouched near the front of the room, behind a display case with a large golden chalice in it, a look of indecision crossing his face. I followed his eyes to a woman I didn't recognize, standing still as a statue, to a man hunched over the Beast, and then to Charis. I snapped back to Max. He was sneaking towards Landon, and now I saw he had a dagger in his hand.

There was no time to try to figure out what was happening. It was obvious Max was here to help the stranger. I swung myself around the archway and into the room, hugging the wall and trying to remain silent. Everything I had gone through over the last five months had come down to this place and this time. I needed to stop Max, but the timing had to be perfect. Otherwise I would mess everything up, instead of helping to fix it.

Max was only a dozen feet away from Landon, and I was almost the same distance from him. I watched Landon rise to his feet, a gun in his hand. A gun? He raised it and held it out, aiming it forwards.
 

My hands became claws, my senses sharpened.

Max stepped up behind Landon, pulling back his arm to strike.

 
I lunged forward, covering the remaining distance in one long leap. I came down right behind him with silent grace, digging my left hand into his back, and grabbing his right arm with my right hand. I used my momentum to pull him sideways and throw him away, stopping him from his assassination. Without looking, he locked his arm against my grip and pulled me with him as he tumbled.
 

I heard a gunshot.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Landon

I heard the commotion behind me, the sound of two bodies crashing into the display of chalices against the wall. I fought every instinct to turn and look. I held my breath, and pulled the trigger.

Clara's head snapped to the left as the bullet pierced her skull and travelled through to the other side. I heard Charis cry out in shock. Malize's head whipped towards me while her body tumbled to the floor.
 

I felt it instantly. The power unconfined, released from the battery in one tremendous burst. I focused, pulling it into me, gathering it as quickly as it exploded away, taking hold of every line and tendril and dragging it inward towards my soul with a desperation beyond desperation. I traced it through her, to the energy of a dying Beast. Malize had been trying to take it, but he had been resisting.
 

He didn't resist me.

"
I still hate you, kid,
" I heard in my mind. "
But I hate him more
."

Malize was on his feet. He stretched a hand out towards me, and I felt the push of his power. I caught it, met it, and turned it around, drawing from a well that seemed infinitely deep. He stumbled back, and then recovered with a smile.

"I had hoped to keep you out of this," he said.
 

"You knew this might happen," I replied, throwing the gun towards him.
 

"Balance."
 

He launched towards me, his entire body changing as he approached.
 

I focused, casting the power out at his growing mass of dark strength. He fell straight down, once more in human form. He looked up at me.
 

"I've destroyed one of you already, and you're using the same power. You can't beat me." He swiped his hand to the left, and one of the pedestals flew towards me from the side. I should have been thrown across the room, but I planted my feet and hardened myself. It crumbled against me.
 

"Do you know why he could't beat you?" I asked. I brought the sword to bear, stepping in towards him and bringing it down. He caught it in his hand and snapped it in half.
 

"Why?" His face was right next to mine, our eyes locked.

"He didn't have a good enough reason to live."
 

I focused, pushing against him. The power sent a shockwave through the air that shattered the glass of every display case in the room. Malize flew backwards, slamming into the rear wall and dropping to the ground. I didn't hesitate to chase after him.

He was on his feet again before I could get there. His eyes flared with white energy, and he threw his hands out towards me. I couldn't overpower it this time, and I found myself on my back.
 

"Erus wanted to be a god. I
am
a god where I come from, Landon. When I'm done with you, I'll be a god here as well."

I rolled away from the blast of power that drove a deep hole into the marble floor, spinning fast enough for the momentum to bring me to my feet. I could feel my power growing even now, the spigot opened fully. I skipped towards him, catching his waist with my arms and powering ahead. We blasted through the wall of the Museum together, and out into the street. Except there was no street, just cold, empty ground. The entire world was burning in blue flame, dark clouds, lightning and wind. Malize used my shock to slam my back, knocking me down.

"The Box can't handle this much power," he said, hovering above me. "You'll destroy your world In your effort to stop me."

I had no choice. I shot up at him, my own energy dancing from my fingertips. It lanced out, catching him off-guard. He screamed in pain and recovered, firing back with his own power.
 

We circled like that, rising up and up into the Box's atmosphere, into the heavy clouds filled with our warring energy. I strained against the force of his power, and he strained against the force of mine. We traded blows, we ebbed and flowed like the tide. We were evenly matched. Balanced. All of Ross' power versus all of his.
 

The world around us began to shake.

"You'll kill us all, Landon," Malize said. "Submit, and I'll spare your life, and Charis'. Of all of your kind, I always intended to keep her safe."

I felt like I was burning alive, the power coursing through me reaching its upper limits. I was on fire. I was drenched in ice. I was drowning and suffocating and overwhelmed. I couldn't lose, not like this. We both knew it.
 

I also couldn't win.

It was a simple decision, made in the height of my pain and in the desperation of distant hope. I let it go. I let all of it go. I dropped my guard, and his power dug into me, lacing me with pain and forcing every part of my soul to cry out in horror. He stopped attacking, and followed me down as I went into free-fall, riding from the heights towards the welcoming ground below.
 

I closed my eyes and thought of Josette, her plain face and soft smile, her bright and shining heart of pure goodness.
 

I thought of Ulnyx, my antagonistic conscience, putting the truth before me and pummeling me with it like a blunt instrument.
 

I thought of Dante, sending me off from my demise to protect the world from dangers we had all underestimated.
 

I thought of Sarah, of her strength and resolve, and the battle I hoped she would always win.
 

I thought of Obi, the truest friend I had ever had.
 

Last, I thought of Charis. I had never truly loved before. I hadn't even known what it meant. She had opened my eyes to everything, in more ways than I could count.
 

There was one other person, one who I had almost forgotten about. I didn't really know what to make of her, or what to feel or think. She was an afterthought, a piece of my existence I had believed settled.
 

She was the reason I was going to win.

I hit the ground hard, but I didn't even feel it. Every part of me was already in so much pain, there was nothing left to add. I looked up at Malize, who landed softly at my side and knelt down beside me.
 

He reached out towards my forehead. "We can only be what we are, Landon."
 

"I can't believe you fell for that," Rebecca said from behind him.

It was the slightest distraction, but it was what I had been waiting for. I reached up and grabbed Malize's head, twisting it and breaking his neck.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Landon

His body fell on top of me, his eyes still open. I could see the power swimming in them. I could almost hear it calling out to me. Rebecca came and knelt at my side, but I ignored her. I lifted my hand and put it to Malize's forehead.
 

I touched his power.
 

I took it in.

"Landon, are you okay?" Rebecca asked. Her voice was far away, and growing more distant.
 

The entire universe of the Box opened up to me as I connected Ross' power to Malize's. I drew it in, and in doing so was revived. I didn't so much stand up as drift to my feet, and then further upward. I floated into the air once more, into the roiling clouds of wayward energy, into the hurricane of unstable power. I held my arms out and commanded it still, and it responded.
 

I could see everything now. Every line of power that held the Box together, every calculation, every note. I had sensed Rebecca below me right before I had fallen, and had guessed right that Malize was too concerned with me to notice. Now I could feel Charis, the dying energy of the demon Samael, and even those who were gathered in a ring around this place. Malize's energy reached into the Box from the clandestine white star at the top of the prison, the astral glow that I had seen but not understood. It connected this universe to that one, and was the secret sauce to his ingress. Take Ross' power, mix it with his own, and carry both out of the Box and into our world. The truth of it was staggering.

The same option was available to me.

The power of a god, or maybe even two. Enough to challenge God, if that was what I desired. It was certainly enough to keep both sides at rest for all of eternity, and I would never need to lift more than a finger to do it.

I looked down to where Rebecca was standing, gazing up at me. I re-ordered the world. I took away the clouds, I took away the emptiness. I put us in Dante's garden, where the roses shifted in the breeze and a trickling brook poured serenity into a small pond. I lowered myself to the ground, walked past Rebecca and into the mansion, to where Charis was waiting for me.

She was kneeling over Clara, cradling her head in her lap.
 

"What did you do?" she asked me.

"What do you mean? It's over. We won."

"You killed her."

"Ch..." I started to argue, but we'd had this fight already. "I know. I'm sorry. It was the only way."

Her anger lessened. Not her pain, but her anger. "Malize?"

"Gone. The Beast is gone. I can get us out of here. I can do anything, now. I have their power. All of it." It was strange to say. I couldn't even fathom the depths of what I had under my control.

"Can you bring her back?"

I could, in this place. Maybe I could have even made her real out there. What kind of thing would she be? What kind of life would she live?

 
"No."
 

She leaned down and kissed Clara's forehead, and then stood. "Where will she go?"

"She'll always be part of us." I put my arms around her, holding her tight while she sobbed into my shoulder. I don't know how much time passed, but eventually she pulled away and wiped her eyes.
 

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

We kissed. A simple kiss, basic and plain, a sharing of affection and understanding. I hated that it had to end. I hated the understanding that it gave me.

"Charis... I can't."

"You have to."

"Why?"

"I'm tired, Landon. Finished. I gave everything I had to being a Templar, to protecting the world from the Beast. Only, it wasn't just the Beast, was it? Everything I was fighting for was a lie."

"You mean Malize? Without him, Ross would have destroyed everything a long time ago. He told me he wanted to make God fight, but He does fight. He fights with the free will He gave His creations. He allows us to make our own decisions, and forge our own destiny. Malize knew he might lose. Hell, he gave me everything I needed to defeat him. He had to maintain the balance if he wanted to stay hidden until the last moment."

As I said it, I wasn't so sure. Maybe Malize had intended to lose. Maybe, like Abaddon, he had lived beyond his desire, but couldn't bring himself to make his own end.
 

"I'm glad you stopped him, Landon. I'm proud of you. I just..." She didn't know what to say, but she didn't need to say it. I saw it in her eyes. I heard it in Abaddon's voice, and in Erus'. For a few eternal life was a gift. For most, it was a curse.

"You'll still have me," I said. It was a weak attempt to change her mind, but it was all I had.

"You don't have to go back," she replied. "It can end for you, too. The fighting, the loss, the hurt. You've done your part. You saved the world."

Maybe if I hadn't seen what Clara had shown me. The death, the destruction. Maybe if I had been more selfish, or more experienced, or more tired. Maybe if my judgement weren't clouded by the power of a god, or my eyes opened with the clarity of one.