Homeward Bound (Journeyman Book 1) (26 page)

It might as well have sprouted arms and four heads with the look he was giving. “Oh that’s just fuckin’ ironic, isn’t it?” he said, crumpling the label and flinging himself down on his knees. Balling up a fist, he smashed it against the debossed rose, a faint light kindling from the impact.

The light grew to cover the entire square and Gage backed away from it, startled. The solid stone became like gravel then dissolved into powder before his eyes. The motes took on the muted shape of Solomon’s third seal before getting carried away by a soft, unearthly breeze that wafted from the hole.

The alcove was barren except for a mahogany jewelry box which sat in the exact center. It was adorned with baroque, golden floral patterns on each of its eight corners and sat upon four small clawed feet. The lid rose without prompting and settled wide open.

There was the amulet perched atop a wadded silk cloth that shimmered between ephemeral shades of blue and gray, itself crowning a mound of jewels of various shapes, sizes, and colors.

There it waited as he reached out carefully, unwilling or perhaps unable to touch its plain metal surface. His hand quivered a hair’s breath from the shiny disc before an overwhelming urge to set his fingers down drove him to do just that.

As his flesh touched the cool metal it scalded his fingertips, the pain surging straight up his arm and into to his temples. Visions surged into his mind and forcibly commanded all of his senses.

A foul odor of rotten eggs rushed him as he was whooshed away from the cellar. The sting of sparks cascaded over his body, naked under the night sky.

The pendant hung low and heavy upon his neck as he looked to the endless stars above. He took a step on an invisible set of stairs, climbing higher as the chain sweltered and the disc burned brightly. The eighth seal of Solomon flashed brilliantly in front of his eyes. He raised an arm to shield his face from the heat, yet the symbol was gone in an instant, consumed by a swirling vortex of fiery tendrils.

Sparks stung mercilessly again as the cities of humankind burned across the horizon. Packs of hell hounds hunted openly in the streets, flames spitting from underfoot while soot churned like dust devils high into the air. The screams of countless souls rose up in those swirling columns to join monstrous behemoths that loomed overhead, sending great swaths of shadow across the land as the skulls of hundreds poured from the sky.

Gage looked down as the shade swept across him. Two rings appeared out of thin air, landing in his palms. The one on the right was made of platinum entwined gold and on the left, a thin circle of rust was on the verge of falling apart.

The ferrous metal grew thick and weighty, sinking into his skin with an effervescent hiss while his bones were crunched into foul shapes. Black ash leached out of the fissures in his cracked skin, the plumes dancing spherically around his other hand, unaffected as if a barrier protected it.

Unable to hold it in any longer, Gage screamed as the pain and soot overtook him. He felt a pinch at the nape of his neck and was cinched backwards before blacking out.

Awakening on a small island set above a sea of stormy clouds, the roiling vapors stretched out beneath him as far as his eyes could see.

The land abruptly heaved to and fro and Gage became ill from all the rocking. He looked up from the horizon, blazing like a distant sunset, in an attempt to alleviate his motion sickness. It didn't help, as far above another blanket of darkness quaked, sandwiching him in between.

Lightning flung its way from the topmost clouds to the bottom, building in rage until a massive bolt whipped free and tore a path through the ground.

Solid rock was obliterated and fell away into the abyss. Gage soon followed, pummeled by the many fragments of sharp stone. As the distant lightning pulsed, he saw things take shape in the swirling debris.

A golden crown, wreathed in flame, was set upon the silhouette of a man. He turned and …

An army of Journeyman, both supernatural and human, were locked in a great battle against a legion of demons and other foul beasts that defied description as …

Joey turned away, disheartened, while the faint sounds of a woman's scream rose in his ears…

Adrienne?

Gage raised his hands to cover his ears and tumbled end over end before facing into the endless pit of black. Silence arrived as a hint of gray flickered way ahead and he realized at last the bottom could be seen.

However, he was approaching too quickly with no indication of slowing down. As the hard ground raced toward him, he held out his arms in an impotent attempt to brace himself before he struck. The impact was so great his entire body broke.

As blood trickled from his mouth and eyes and his last few breaths escaped in coughs, Gage saw a hooded figure approaching, wielding a sickle in its ancient hand.

It stopped before him and looked down through empty, sunken sockets. Extending a skeletal arm toward Gage’s arm, it snapped his hand clean off just below the wrist.

Gage tried to scream, the loudest he ever had, but no sound came.

The figure placed the end of the sickle against the frayed appendage and they shimmered, the sounds of Gage’s delayed scream echoing as the objects melded together. As the painful cries subsided, Gage watched motionless as Death raised his newly formed scythe above him and came down in one fell swoop.

The gruesome and prophetic flashes subsided and he was left in the gloom with far too little breath. Lying in a heap on the floor he worked to build his capacity back up, eventually setting up on his knees.

The weight of the world seemed to drag his shoulders down and he was drawn down to the thin, spiky chain and round bit of silver that threatened to turn his life upside down. There was a choice that needed to be made, right now.

A large part of him wanted to ignore the problem at hand and just leave.

You know, you could just forget about this tiny trinket here in this dark and dusty hole.
Keli and the Noctis, they would all be none the wiser, still struggling to grasp power.

But he continued to stare. The treasure glimmered even though no light was overhead.

Yet, that’s still the problem, isn’t it Gage? Murder. Death. Kill. Repeat. You said it yourself, it's what demons do. It goes on and on and on, whether you leave this glorified piece of tin here or carry it out with you.

But if you do take it, there’s a chance of fucking over the Noctis and their biggest plans, stopping them dead in their tracks.

That brought a loose smile to his face.

And who better to fuck them over than you?

Now convinced, Gage brought the chain over his neck, the necklace coming to rest on the red rose in the center of his chest.

The items seemed to get heavier, as if they were securing themselves in place. A slight buzz then came from them, penetrating his skin like a massage. It felt comforting yet mildly irritating.

Empowered, he rose to his feet and gave the area a final once-over. What he thought were the most interesting items and notes had already been secured in the truck whilst the big prize sat firmly around his neck. He took a last whiff of the chalky air before turning, heading back to the ladder to climb out.

As he took his first steps, deja vu fell upon him, then again as he took another. He continued on up, passing through the warded threshold.

A low rumble rolled in the ground and shook the very foundations as the talisman floated away from his chest, coming to rest in mid air before his eyes.

There it remained while he paused, spreading his arms for balance. “What the -”

Without warning, vivid red spindles erupted from the center of the pendant, spinning high into the late afternoon sky. They coalesced, the clouds themselves groaning and cracking under the onslaught. Forks of intense lightning careened down and out across countless miles and everything that the violent bolts touched vaporized in bursts of shadow and flame.

Then, in an instant, all was gone.

“What the hell was that?” asked Gage, voice peppered with cumbersome gasps. “Getting a lil’ bit weirded out by the deadly laser beams that seems to shoot out of this thing at random!”

“It was a signal,” said Madeline.

Adrienne had returned to Gage’s side, helping him out of the doorway. She turned to Madeline. “To whom?” she asked.

She sighed, her ghostly form especially grave. “My dear, to everyone.”

KELI SAT ATOP A
pillar at the highest point of Bennett Peak, looking out to the west. A hawk flew by, diving down toward the ground in pursuit of its prey. Darkness would arrive within a few hours, although she already felt as if the chill of the night air was on her skin.

Agares was gone, the look on his bare and pained face hung in her waking thoughts. Even closing her eyes could not shield her from that vision. Another of the ancient Greats, a supreme demon of Hell, had been ended in an instant – this time by the hand of Dajjal, who was still trapped in the blistering fires and bound in eternal chains.

How was that even possible? Never before had a demon been able to send an item to Earth from Hell, never mind control it.

Doubt for her fate had entered into her once secure and confident mind. His powers were definitely growing and she began to question herself and her actions. Was she being too lax? Was she too lenient to the throngs? Was she blinded by her own arrogance?

Regardless, she wanted to be like the hawk, now soaring away with a rabbit in its talons. Quick, efficient, and deadly.

As she reflected and the claws of depression threatened to close on her, there was a distant roar like a great beast piercing the stillness. It was accompanied by a scarlet luster, her lengthening shadow indicating that the light was coming from the northeast and it was growing brighter. She turned and what she saw compelled her to rise.

The sky was alight as a barrage of lightning came down to strike the mountaintops, plains, and anything in between. There, at the very center of the monstrous and sudden storm, was a vivid red column that penetrated the heavens. The Herald called out for all to see.

“In Lucifer's name…” she said with her mouth open in awe.

A stray bolt leaped from the distant and dark clouds, striking a forlorn gas station sitting along the desolate highway. The fuel was ignited and the place exploded in a burst of fire, smoke, and dirt. The debris rose high into the air before it rained down around the wreckage.

The pillar stayed for a moment longer, then faded, the broken vestige of clouds the only evidence that something odd was ever there.

That was it: the moment she had been waiting for. Instantly all her doubt was erased, or at least pushed back into the depths of her psyche where it would be harmless, for the time being.

IN A LARGE CONFERENCE
room on the uppermost floor of the New York offices, Marcus completed reciting his findings to the Council, tapping the thick stack of papers end first on the glossy tabletop.

The window shades of the corner room had been drawn to keep out the blinding sunlight at this time of day. Around the arched mahogany table sat seven individuals. Five of them were there in person, seated in luxurious leather chairs and the other two were at remote locations, displayed on two-way mirrors that had been set in place of their empty seats.

They all took to murmuring amongst themselves, voices raising high and low, all but relegating Marcus to the the status of a wallflower.

“Excuse me,” he interrupted, following a throat clearing cough; protocols be damned during a time like this. “Do we call an Assembly for the matter at hand? What do you say to this?”

The supernatural members of the Council stared back at him, unblinking. Tensions had certainly increased between the supernaturals of the world and humans in recent years, who some viewed as prideful. In a way they were right, such pride from a human archmage leading to the most devastating event in Journeyman history just five years earlier. As such, humans found themselves outnumbered in the current iteration of the Council.