“But there’s only one left,” I said. “My father. And he’s not rushing to my side. He’s a stranger to me.”
“He will come,” said Lucifer.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think he’s afraid. I tried to call him before this all started. He won't come.”
“We are all afraid,” said Lucifer. “We should prepare immediately. Can you take us to the Backbone?”
“Yes,” I said. “I can see it now. The spirits showed it to me.”
“How many can you take?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “No more than a few, I guess. But I can’t guarantee that I won’t just burn us all up.”
“Does it hurt?” he said. “Does it cause you pain to have His power?”
“Yes,” I said. “It feels like I’m burning up from the inside.”
He took my hand. “Can I help?” he said.
“How?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, frowning. “Can I help you carry it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t even understand how it works. I’ll feel better when these witches are dead and we save the world. All the worlds.”
“Niki?” Lucifer was still holding my hand. “It may be time to consider that we won’t be able to save it. We may die trying to save it.”
“The ghosts kept saying one thing over and over,” I said. “Sacrifice. They kept saying it.”
“Did they mean us?” said Lucifer.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I squeezed his hand. “Do you still want to run away?”
“More than anything,” he said. “But if we don’t fight, there will be nowhere to run to.”
“I should have said yes,” I said. “I wanted to. I just didn’t know how.”
“You’ll say yes next time,” he said.
“What if there isn’t a next time?” I said. “What if this is the end?”
“I’d rather die with you than anyone else,” he said.
“That is not comforting,” I said. “Do you have a plan? For the Grace?”
“I was hoping you might.”
“We’ll need Gage.”
“A combination of World magic and Hellion magic would be useful,” said Lucifer.
“You want Gage to work with a demon?”
“Magic from two different worlds can be incredibly powerful.”
“Have anyone in mind?”
“The best there is. Ashmodai.”
“Ash is a Caster?”
“Well, that’s not what we call it, but yes.”
“I have one other idea,” I said. “But you might not like it.”
“Why?”
“I have to go to the World.”
“I’m going with you,” he said.
“It would be better if I went alone. The guy I’m thinking of, you might make him nervous. He barely trusts me.”
“We were separated because I went off alone,” said Lucifer. “Now you want to do the same thing?”
“I have the Creator’s power,” I said. “There’s nothing in the World that can hurt me.”
“That's what I thought,” said Lucifer. “And then I was a dog.”
“A hell-hound,” I said.
“What’s the difference?”
I shrugged. “Hell-hound sounds more impressive.”
“Niki, I don’t want you going off alone.”
“We have to get ready,” I said. “You’re still naked and in need of rest. We have to make sure Matthew is protected so they don’t come looking for him again. And you need to get Bobby and Ash prepared. They probably need to go through some books. There isn’t time to waste. I’ll go. I’ll be back in less than an hour. I’ll grab my guy and be back before you know it.”
“You’re going to do this no matter what I say, aren’t you?” he said.
I tried for a smile. “Sorry.”
He grasped my arms and pulled me closer to him. He stared into my eyes and I felt my pulse quicken.
Sacrifice.
“If you die, I will never forgive you,” said Lucifer.
“I know,” I said.
“Be careful,” he said. “Stay alive.”
I nodded. “I’m going to find Aki. I think he can help us. It’s going to be okay.”
Sacrifice.
“I wish I believed that,” said Lucifer.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I braced myself for the pull of the souls as I touched down in the World, but as my feet met the road, I felt nothing. I frowned. There should have been dozens of souls waiting for me. And since Matthew was certain he had released monsters when the Grace had taken over his body, the lack of souls was eerie.
Something was wrong. I needed to find Aki.
He wasn’t where I left him, in Gage’s apartment. I found his shredded suit jacket in the hallway, riddled with the bullet-holes I had put there. I walked out into the street. The city was silent. No cars, no people, not even birds. I walked down the sidewalk, peering into the windows of shops along the way. It seemed as though everyone had just gotten up, dropped whatever they were doing, and left. Smoke poured out of a bakery where someone had left something cooking. Cars idled in the street, purses and phones left on the front seat.
I paused in front of Happy's Pub, Gage’s favorite hangout. I listened hard and after a moment I felt something. Whispers, breathing, heartbeats. I entered and a woman screamed, her male companion putting a firm but gentle hand over her mouth, shushing her. I frowned. The bar was crammed with people. Abbies. Happy came forward, frowning at me.
“Where is he?” he said.
“Who?” I said.
“Gage. What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “Bobby’s fine. He’s safe.”
“For now,” the man said. I noticed he was holding a shotgun. “I’ve seen it. He’s going to die and it’s going to be your fault.”
“What?” I said. “I told you, he’s safe. What the hell is going on?”
“You don’t know?” said a tall brunette woman nearby. I shook my head. “How can you not know?”
“She’s not from around here,” said Happy, scowling. “Are you?”
“Don’t take us,” said a small boy. “Please. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’m not going to take anyone,” I said. “Just someone please tell me what’s happening.”
Happy exhaled heavily out of his nose, looking at me with disdain. Finally he nodded. “It came in the night,” he said. “No one knew what was happening at first. There was all this shaking and the news was reporting earthquakes. But I went outside and I saw them.”
An older man with a bolo tie shuddered and Happy patted him on the shoulder.
“I don’t know what they are,” he said. “But they’re big. Tall as a building some of them. They’re not like anything I ever saw.”
“Like monsters?” I said.
“I suppose,” said Happy.
“Where are they now?”
“Some of them left,” said the brunette.
“How do you know?” I said.
She shrugged. “I just know. I felt it. One of them stayed, though.”
“Just one?” I said. “How do I find it?”
“Just listen,” she said. “You’ll hear it.”
“You’re all Abbies?” I said. Happy nodded. “Where is everyone else?”
“Dead,” he said.
“Dead?” I repeated. That made no sense. If they were dead, I’d be able to feel it.
“It was like a goddamned Pied Piper,” said the old man. “It only happened about an hour ago. They all lined up, quick as you please. Like it was the damned DMV. And their faces were…strange. No emotion. Like they was robots or something.”
An hour ago. I was crying and telling Lucifer I loved him an hour ago. I should have been here.
“No emotion,” said the brunette with a haunted look. “There was nothing in their eyes. They were gone.”
Sacrifice.
; I swallowed, not sure I wanted to know the answer to my next question. “Why did they line up?”
Happy suddenly looked stricken, as though he’d forgotten to hate me for a moment. He shook his head and his eyes watered. He looked at me. “They ate them. The monsters. Just picked them up, one by one, like candy. The worst of it was that they didn’t even scream. Didn’t run, didn’t wiggle. Didn’t cry. Just died.”
“What the hell kind of monsters are these?” I said.
“Are you going to take us?” said the little girl again.
“What?” I said. “No, I said I wasn’t.”
She crooked her finger at me, gesturing for me to come closer. I bent down and she turned my head to whisper in my ear. “Don’t tell the grownups,” she said, her little fingers on my face. She smelled like cherries. “They'll be afraid.”
“Tell them what?” I whispered back.
“They’re not monsters,” she said. “They’re gods.”
I turned to look at her and she let her hands drop from my face. I looked into her hazel eyes. She was around seven years old with chubby cheeks and wearing a dirty dress. But her eyes looked old, like so many Abby children I’d seen. They had shouldered so much in their young lives. I’d had the same haunted look about me, once upon a time.
“Are you sure?” I said. The girl nodded solemnly.
“They’re not like my mommy’s god,” she said, her voice low, as though no one would be able to hear her. “They’re not nice. They want to do bad things to us.”
“Us?” I said.
“People. They don’t like us. We're dirty and in the way.”
“How do you know?”
“I heard their thoughts when they passed by,” she said. Her lip trembled. “It hurt really bad when I heard them. Their thoughts didn’t feel right.”
I nodded and smiled gently at her. “Okay.” I held her hand. “You’ve been a big help.”
“Are you going to save us?” she said.
“I…” I looked around. All eyes were on me. “I’m going to try.” But even that flimsy promise sounded like a lie.
I turned to go and Happy grabbed my arm. I met his eyes.
“You can’t save us, you know,” he whispered. “This is the end.”
“It can’t be,” I said.
“I’ve seen it,” he said.
“Seen what?”
“The end of the world.”
* * *
When I took the car, it had a quarter tank of gas. It was on Empty after driving around the city with the windows down, looking for this thing.
A god. The little girl had said it was a god.
I had to drive on the sidewalk in places, where the abandoned cars clogged the road, and I stopped every few blocks to listen. When the car sputtered out of gas, I got into another one. Its gas tank was nearly empty. After that, I was near downtown and the cars clotted the streets. Purchased items had been left on the sidewalk where people dropped them. Groceries, garbage, even a painting on a large canvas. For a moment, the strange fire in me flared up, burning me inside my arms and legs and throat. I’d not felt it since arriving in the World. It could mean I was close.
I smelled dust and wet cement as I came around the corner. The windows in the building next to me rattled. Then I heard a scream. I felt myself running and then it was there in front of me, and I wondered how I couldn’t see it before.
It was gray as stone and blended in with the buildings around it. It was all sharp angles and jutting bones under leathery skin and when it moved it was like watching an insect. But its movements were fast, faster than an angel. Faster than me. I kept my eyes on it but I kept losing it, going left and right, back and forth, striking out at something in front of it. Like it was fighting. Until I realized it was fighting.
For a moment its opponent, a hundred times smaller but still holding his ground stopped, before rushing off in a blur again. But I had seen him. Tangled gray hair falling out of a ponytail. Grizzled cheeks. A Hawaiian shirt and wrinkled shorts.
“Pineme?” I muttered.
“It’s what they were made for, you know. The Watchers.”
I turned to find Aki standing beside me, watching the fight with his hands in his pockets. There was black smoke coming in a slow, drifting stream out of his arm, which was at an odd angle. He had an angry, puffy black bruise that covered nearly half of his face.
“What happened to you?” I said.
He turned and looked at me. His pale eyes were tired and one had a burst blood vessel that was bleeding black into it.
“I tried to stop them,” he said, and there was defeat in his voice. “I tried so hard. But they’re not monsters, Niki. They won’t die, even if they listened to me.” He leaned in until he was an inch away from me. “You can’t kill them.”
“Because they’re gods?” I said, looking past him to the streaking movements of the creature in front of us.
“Yes,” said Aki. “We put them away before. It’s why the shinigami were made. It’s why the Watchers exist. The Creator was no match for them. His gift was to create. So He created us. He created the Watchers. To put the gods aside until humanity had run its course.”
“I thought you said the Creator didn’t have anything to do with you,” I said, looking back at him.
“I lied,” he said. “The Creator took over everything. And then we put them away. The gods, the monsters, anything that hated them. Humanity was so new and fresh and innocent. Weak.”
“It was all for the humans.”
Aki gave a bitter laugh. “They were His pets. His creation. Nothing else mattered to Him. And then He started leaving Heaven to be with them. To become them.”
“He’s gone,” I said. “He left and stuck me with his power. I think it’s killing me.”
Aki laughed, but stopped when I looked at him. “You really don’t know, do you?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Know what?”
“It’s not killing you, Lady Death. It’s keeping you alive. You’re using a power that doesn’t belong to you.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “Because it belongs to God?”
“No,” said Aki. “Because it belongs to your child.”
“I don’t have a…”
Aki smiled. “And there it is. The light bulb.”
“No,” I said. “That can’t be right. How would you even know?”
“I saw it,” he said. “When you were killing me. I could see it glowing inside of you. Fingers like fire and a heart to match. A tiny ball of power so strong that it had to hold you together. But, it was glad to do so, I got that feeling too. I guess that's what love feels like. I've never felt such a thing. It made me feel...small.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t breathe. The fire felt like it was consuming me. It was coming from deep in my belly. Right where…
“A baby?” I said, barely able to say the words. “I can’t have a baby.”
“You’re not going to have a baby,” said Aki. “You’re going to have a god.”
* * *
I saw a flurry of movement from the corner of my eye and a building exploded. The creature was rising from the rubble with a scream that I could feel in my bones. It was the furthest thing from human. A blur and then Pineme was there, standing in front of me, glowing gold with power and magic.
“Niki, it’s not safe here,” he said, shouting to be heard. “Go back to Erebos.”
“There are people here,” I said. I looked around. Humans standing in a line, their faces blank. The line went for blocks until I couldn’t make them out any longer.
“You can’t save them,” said Pineme. “You can’t save anyone but yourself.”
And whatever it was growing inside me, I thought.
“I came for Aki,” I said, nodding to the shinigami.
Pineme glanced behind him at the giant kicking through the destroyed building. He had almost freed himself.
“I have to save them,” I said, surprised that I was crying. �
��It’s what I do. I have to save them.”
“No!” Pineme said, suddenly angry. “This is what I do. It’s what I was made for. To save the humans, the Creator’s favorite creation. It is what I was made for, and even I cannot stop this. I’m going to die here, Niki. I can’t beat them without the others. Your mother died because of me. You will not. You will live. You must. Or what was it all for?”
“I can’t leave you here,” I said. “Please don’t ask me to. I don’t even know you yet.”
Pineme smiled. “But I know you. Let it go, Niki. Please. Take your friend. NOW!” He was a blur again, dodging the god that he fought and suddenly I was surrounded in golden light.
“No!” I said, trying to run forward, but the light held me. I looked at Aki, who shook his head sadly. There was a tear and I felt myself being driven back, into the Unsung. In that moment, my mind seemed to flatten out, to spread long and wide until it was the whole world I saw in my head. Giants walking through cities, people screaming, being ripped apart, eaten, flung aside broken and battered. Entire cities collapsing in a single footstep. Pain, agony, fear and, worst of all, hopelessness. A world returning to its state of balance. I could see that in a matter of years, forests would begin to grow and would soon heal the scarred earth where cities and roads had once been. The gods would once more be at peace. They had waited centuries to come home. It was their world again.
But for now the screams. The screams filled my head, shook my bones. And I realized that I was screaming too. Screaming for them, for myself, for everything that I'd had in this world. All the pain and joy I'd felt here. And the screams, the screams, the screams...
I was still gasping for breath when we landed on Lucifer’s tower and the golden light melted away and disappeared. I felt the tears coming, the cries being ripped out of me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. And the fire, the white fire, burned like magma inside my belly.
The Devil's Backbone (A Niki Slobodian Novel: Book Five) Page 13