by Sawyer Black
The demon would be inside soon. And then it would devour Aela’s soul.
He pressed his hand to the wall as the demon readied itself for another run. Henry’s fingers sank into the greasy bricks, and he pushed, passing through the wall like sinking into a lake made of heavy syrup. Into the dark of the interior, and he stood in the center of a Way Home.
Aela curled over the baby, crying and shushing. The baby fussed, its tiny voice rising and falling as she traced a frantic hand over its face. Rocking it in her lap.
She turned to the man who had followed, and her rocking slowed. The baby shrieked and the wall shook with a BOOM!
Aela jumped, a scream squeaking past her lips, and she rubbed the man’s thigh.
“Gerald?” her voice broke, and she cleared her throat.
Gerald’s hand fell to his lap. Blood filled his palm. Soaked the front of his shirt. Glistened in his lap.
“Gerald? Darling, no. No!”
Henry’s heart skipped into sympathy. His stomach heaved. He swallowed all of the acid and sugar back down. He ached to reach out to her, but in this torturous memory, he had no form. No power.
Gerald slumped, and his body fell over, his head smacking the stone floor with a dull crack. She reached for him, her fingers clawing through his shirt, but the fabric slipped through her grasp.
The building shook with the demon’s impact, and the baby screamed in Aela’s arms. Shelves along the wall collapsed, scattering the good work of the Sisters of Solitude across the floor. Cans and bundles spilled atop Gerald’s body. The baby squealed, its anger splitting Henry’s ears, and the demon outside roared in response.
Aela bent forward, her eyes dazed, rocking and bouncing.
“Shhh, little one. My sweet baby, shhh.”
Oh, fucking Christ.
Her hand, coated with her lover’s blood, patted the baby’s chest. The baby’s forehead. Fluttering over the baby’s face, it settled over its little mouth, and the cries fell to a muffled whine. Aela curled over it, bearing down to keep the baby quiet, and the wall crumbled in, filling the air with brick dust and rotten heat.
The demon bellowed in triumph. Aela didn’t flinch, and her eyes stayed fixed on the darkness. She rocked the baby in her lap, and Henry noticed it was no longer crying.
The demon raised its head to get her scent. Then it froze, head cocked to the side.
A golden glow grew from the alley, and the demon’s fur smoked and sizzled. A Tracker’s song swelled as a counterpoint to the quiet rain, and the demon turned to offer its face to the angel as it slowly descended from the sky. Its eyes boiled away as it stared, and still it stood, waiting in a wash of holy light.
Begone from here, vile creature.
The booming command pressed into Henry. He almost turned and ran.
An end to your pain will end the torment you cause.
Suffer no more.
The glittering web descended, and the demon sagged under its weight. Its hideous face split into a burning smile, and the Tracker lifted the net, slinging its evil burden over his shoulder. It turned to rise back into the sky, and Aela jumped to her feet.
“Wait” The Tracker lowered his net and turned back. Aela held the baby out with shaking hands. “Please.”
I am sorry, little sister, but he is lost to me.
Without a change in expression, the angel re-shouldered his net and rose on a beat of his wings that sent a tornado of wet grit into the air to swirl around Aela’s head.
She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head. Henry closed his eyes to her pain.
Aela groaned, her voice rising into a keening moan that opened wide into a wail of grief. A ragged breath and a scream. Fury into the retreating light of an angel that hadn’t even tried.
Henry opened his eyes, and Aela collapsed to her knees. Her dead child rolled from her arms, and she sat back, chest heaving as she inhaled and exhaled with painful, shuddering sobs. She lifted her right hand and dug her nails through her cheeks. Blood poured from the wounds and spattered into her lap.
Her other hand lit with white fire, and she passed it over her face, healing her own damage with her angelic birthright. Aela dug her claws in then healed herself again. Digging and healing, until her lap was soaked with her own blood. And still she reached for her face, her hand frozen in a bloody claw.
Henry felt the trick of it all. He was supposed to be angry. Furious at a woman who would kill her son while he was going through Hell to save his daughter. Even if it had been a mistake. A desperate act that could never be taken back. Or punished enough. He couldn’t do it. The sound of her nails scraping through her own skin made him want to vomit.
He squatted behind her as she passed the light over her face again, and before she reached back up to cut herself, Henry whispered, “I know I don’t have the right, but I forgive you.”
Aela’s hands fell to her lap, and she sighed, slumping forward with her head down.
The elevator dinged behind him, and Henry pushed against his knees, grimacing in pain as he stood.
Exhaustion settled across his shoulders, and he turned with a sigh of his own.
He stepped into the elevator, and the doors slid closed.
Henry’s stomach pitched as the elevator shot up another level.
This time the lights didn’t flicker. The car came to a stop and the doors opened. He stepped out into the tasteful lighting of the first level of the Edifice. Back where I fucking started.
But he wasn’t.
Like before, they groaned in a pile on the floor, coated with the oil that lubricated their passage through Hell’s portal. Aela rising to her feet with a groan. Boothe pulling Maria up, her hands on his shoulder for support. Nadia and Charlie Mara, their arms entwined as they stood.
Henry looked across the room at the elevator that he started on, and the arrow was all the way to the top. Hot damn.
He broke into a shuffling run, his breath sending stabbing pain through his ribs. Naked and bleeding, still wet from the rain of the Forgotten, he stumbled up to Aela and swept her into his arms. He pressed his mouth to her ear. “I love you,” he said, his voice breaking from the emotion he’d held inside for too long. “It wasn’t your fault.”
She stiffened against him, but he wouldn’t let go. “Your son. Your baby. It wasn’t your fault.”
Aela struggled in his embrace, twisting in his arms, and he crushed her to him, afraid to let her go. “No, no. Please. From someone who has hated himself all his fucking miserable life, please. I love you. Someone loved me when I never thought it was possible, and now I love you. Yes, I believe our souls can be saved.”
He rocked her as she had her baby, and she sagged into his chest, pressing her face against the twisted pucker of his scar. He stroked the black slick from her hair and leaned against her, moving his feet, pushing her into a walk toward the elevator. “We gotta move,” he said over his shoulder.
Aela stepped away, pushing off to walk by his side. She wiped at her tears, smearing the greasy black into a raccoon mask. “How did you find out?”
“Oh, I’ve been through some shit, lady.”
They made it to the elevator, and when he turned back to them, they looked at him with confusion. Wanting direction.
I’m not a leader, dammit.
He took a breath to start his story, and the three doors opened. Like before, the demons tumbled out.
Fire belched from the opening to accompany their arrival, and they screamed in ravenous hunger as their numbers swelled. They gathered amid an inferno, and their churning mass settled. They calmed as they looked at Henry across the carpeted distance, and before he could shout a warning, they charged.
Frank jumped into a spin, shifting into the massive shape of the Hell Hound. The demons didn’t slow.
Maria shed the form of the seductress and swept fire across the demons’ path to join the flames that Frank belched out of his terrible maw.
Henry spun to the elevator as the threat drew neare
r, but the doors didn’t slide open. He beat against the metal and send a booming echo into the car.
Boothe stepped beside him, laid his hand flat against the door, then turned back, shaking his head. “There is a great enchantment on this door.”
“So fucking break it.”
“It is beyond me, Henry. I’m sorry.”
Fucking sorry doesn’t cut it, you piece of shit.
The demons broke through Maria’s flames, and Nadia burst into her raptor form, jaws wide to receive an enemy between her teeth. Charlie blurred into action, and Frank stomped into their midst, burning and biting.
Henry shoved Boothe aside and raised his claws, and as he passed, he saw the demon’s face.
Boothe stared at Maria with a love so radiant that Henry was struck dumb by his beauty. The angel’s eyes flicked to meet Henry’s gaze, and they shone with unshed tears. Henry stumbled, falling to one knee, and Boothe smiled.
Henry couldn’t hear what the angel said, but his lips formed a single word. And before Henry fell to the floor, he saw it.
Redemption.
Henry struggled to his knees, and a blade of fire sheared through his upper arm. He punched his nubbin into the slavering mouth of the demon that stabbed him, and jerked his claws up into its balls. The demon squealed around Henry’s stump and fell forward, trapping Henry under his dead weight.
Henry rolled his head up, and he heard Maria scream. Her goddess voice echoing like the voice of a Tracker.
My love!
Boothe grabbed Aela by the arm that held Ramiel’s sword, and spun her around as he pressed his back to the elevator doors. He curled forward, grabbing her resisting wrist in both hands. Henry remembered trying to break that grip during his funeral, and his voice joined Maria’s. Crying out for his friend.
Boothe jerked Aela’s hand forward, and the black sword punched through his chest, sliding out his back and into the gap between the doors. His life force exploded in a thunderous rush, bursting from his filthy suit in a wave as strong as Henry’s flare.
Everyone was swept from their feet, pressed into the floor by angel’s energy, flames guttered out in a hollow whoosh.
The elevator doors dinged as they opened.
Charlie blurred from the floor, catching Boothe as his lifeless body fell forward. Charlie eased him to the carpet and thrust out his hand to hold the doors. They bounced open, and Charlie entered the car, leaning against the doors to keep them wide.
Maria ran to her husband’s body. Her wail as she lifted his head into her lap cut through Henry.
Shuffling and grunts. Demons rising to their feet. Growls and howls.
Henry struggled out from under the body that had trapped him, sliding the blade from his arm with teeth gritted against the pain. Now just rusty steel without the life force of the demon behind it, the sword clattered to the carpet with a vibrating ring. Henry staggered up and found Aela there to catch him. He leaned on her as they staggered to the elevator as one. Nadia joined Charlie at the door, twirling the silver ring on her finger. Frank stumbled into the car, his Hawaiian shirt in bloody tatters. He held his hand to a flowing wound on his forehead.
They crowded into the elevator, pressing against each other as they turned to face front. Maria looked up from Boothe’s face, her eyes blazing with white fire. “He was a good husband.”
She stood, and the fire burst from her hands to spread along the curves of her body. The gold hoop around her waist glowed like the heart of a volcano. She turned to face the demons, roiling with anticipation. She lifted her hands, fire swelling into swirling globes.
GO!
The demons charged, and Charlie stepped inside, squeezing into a gap between Nadia and Frank. As the doors slid closed, a sickening explosion filled the elevator with pressure. An explosion they probably heard all the way in the basement. The doors hissed closed, severing the song of terror and agony.
A hum underfoot as the elevator rose.
“Where is it going?” Nadia asked.
Charlie pulled her into his side. “Who gives a shit?”
Henry smiled. Dammit. That’s my line.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The elevator opened onto the gas lights of Solitude.
The swaying branches of the Dreaming Tree hanging heavy with pods as nuns climbed the spiral to harvest.
Charlie stepped out, pulling Nadia behind him, stopping to hold the door for the rest of them. Henry pushed off the wall, still leaning on Aela, and walked into the thick scent of white flowers. A deep breath made his head swim.
“Henry!” Like a little white bullet, Adam shot across the room. The nuns halted their procession to watch, and Henry pulled Aela down with him as he opened his arms to catch the little angel in a hug that he didn’t know he’d been waiting for.
The little boy’s hair smelled like the Dreaming Tree. Fresh and clean … and right.
Henry squeezed the child and looked up through his tears. A radiant beauty with strawberry blonde hair and sharp features stood over Adam’s shoulder. Her lip twitched with a smile, her eyes shining with tears. She looked up from Henry’s gaze, and the tears fell. She lifted her arms, and Frank stumbled out, crushing himself against her in an embrace that turned Henry’s face even redder with its passion.
Frank had been starving for the sight of her and found his plate filled with so much more. Adam turned and his mouth opened in a joyous cry. He untangled himself from Henry and flung himself at Frank’s leg. The demon rocked into the angel.
“Daddy!” His small voice was muffled against Frank’s dirty pants.
His father scooped Adam onto his hip, and the family spun in a small circle while staring into each other’s eyes.
Henry looked behind him. The elevator was gone. He chuckled, shaking his head, and pushed on Aela’s shoulder as he stood. He looked around. Behind every black robe. In every corner. Up in the swaying limbs.
Where is she?
“Is she here?” he whispered. “Is she in Heaven?”
He swallowed his bitterness, and hissed in pain as Aela bore down on his arm, fingers digging into the skin under his wound. He saw her frozen face, staring past his shoulder, and the shit he was about to give her died on his lips.
Henry followed her gaze as Abraham stepped around the trunk of the Dreaming Tree carrying a beautiful girl on his shoulders.
My little angel. My baby girl. My Amélie.
Henry pulled Aela into his side, leaning on her to stay standing. His daughter had already seen the monster he’d become, but still he wanted to hide his face. He took a shuffling step forward, and Aela followed. The next step was easier.
After the third step, Amélie looked up from her conversation with the old man.
Her gaze hit his face with a wallop. He caught his breath and eased to a stop. Tears rolled down his cheeks and dripped onto his chest.
“Daddy?”
He heard her choked whisper from many yards away.
He felt hands pressing into the skin of his abdomen, and he looked down to find sister Gladys holding a rough blanket around his waist. He threw his head back and laughed. Great bellows that came back to him in the dancing branches overhead.
Aela slipped out from under his arm, joining Sister Gladys to tie the blanket around him with a heavy knot at the base of his spine. Henry laughed.
“Daddy!”
Henry caught his breath and put his hands on his hips, shaking his head. Abraham slid the little girl over his head, her feet kicking the air in excitement. He planted her on the ground and then she was running. Henry dropped to his knees, and her squeal of delight was a favorite song on the trumpets of Heaven.
She jumped into his arms. He pressed her into his skin as she sobbed. His hand stroking her hair. His tears mingling with hers.
She leaned back and looked up into his eyes. “I’ve been waiting here for weeks, Daddy.”
“I’m so sorry, baby girl. I got hung up, you know?”
Her eyes narrowed, and he
r mouth twitched into a smile. “Oh, yeah? Doing what?”
“Planting flowers, mostly. And watching cartoons.”
Amélie giggled, and it was the best laugh of any of his lives. “That’s not funny, Daddy.”
“Then why are you laughing?”
He pulled her back into his chest, and when Aela dropped her hand on his head, Henry finally felt like everything was going to be okay. For the first time since his death, things were good.
Henry opened his eyes in the room full of clocks, grinning as he stretched. He threw the sheet aside and slid over, dropping his feet to the floor. Aela’s side of the bed was still warm, so she must not have been gone for too long.
He imagined himself all clean and shiny, dressed in a black tee and the canvas jeans he’d learned to love. He stood, wiggling his toes inside his boots, and leaned over for the pitcher of water that someone had left for him on the nightstand.
With his belly sloshing, Henry stepped into Solitude, and not a single person looked at him like a stranger.
He took the route he remembered weaving through the stone halls with confidence, until he stood at the base of the stairs that would take him to the city’s highest point. He ascended the steps two at a time, and hit the top one with no labor in his breath.
He walked up to the rail, and inspected Adam’s work. No swirling mist. Just clear air. Only puffy clouds flowing by under the bright glow of a summer sun. Shimmering blue skies and birds wheeling overhead, their faint cries reminding Henry of falcons.
Straight building along the curving streets of the Forgotten. Bright parks with green grass. People, no longer lost, walking on the cobblestones. Lovers holding hands on the sidewalks instead of cowering in the dark behind filthy glass.
It looks like the fucking Shire.
Rolling hills, swaying plants, leaves spreading out to catch the light. Even the tops of the trees at the edge of the cemetery looked bright and happy, despite their shadows. Mind, body, and soul, this place had been healed. As the boy grew up, so would everything around him, and one day, he might even desire to become more. But for now, he was a beautiful boy who could heal the whole world.