The Devil's Backbone (A Niki Slobodian Novel: Book Five)

by Murray, J. L.

  “No,” I breathed.

  “Yes,” Leda said. “You just saved me the trouble. You don’t think I filled these empty heads with the power of the angels for nothing, do you? They were vessels. A pretty bowl to hold onto the energy. For him.”

  “He's going to kill you too,” I said. “You know he is.”

  “I know no such thing. But I do know one thing.”

  The balls were rising, one by one, up to the sky. The ground shook below me. Some of the needles broke off of the Backbone, falling like great knives and sticking into the hard ground. Others shattered into thousands of pieces.

  “What do you know?” I said. “How you’re going to die?”

  “I know what Death fears,” she purred. She closed her eyes and began to chant. There was a rumble far-off, and a sound like grinding metal and then the gold light around me began to shake.

  The screams weren’t just in my head any longer. They were all around me. Gage and Ash were there on either side of Lucifer, and I could finally hear them. Gage screamed in pain, clutching at his chest, and Ash wheezed in air, as though he couldn’t breathe.

  “Thank you, little men,” said Leda. “You have given me so many gifts on this day. But the biggest one is this.” She clutched her left fist in her hand and squeezed. Ash clawed at his chest with sharp demon claws. He screamed then, a horrible, raw sound. His head turned then. And kept turning. There was a dull crack that I felt in my chest and then his eyes rolled up and he floated, just as limp as Aki.

  “You evil bitch,” Lucifer growled, his eyes flashing.

  Leda laughed. “You have no power here, angel.” She shifted her eyes to Gage. “It’s you,” she said. “I can take so much from her, but you’re different. You are her family so much more than any blood. She would die for you.”

  “I would die for a lot of people,” I said. “Leave him be.”

  “No,” she said. “I think not.”

  Sacrifice.

  “Niki, do it,” Gage screamed, before his voice cut off with a strangled cry.

  Lucifer was moving toward him, floating through the gold. I frowned, looking at Leda. Her eyes were rolled up into her head, her body rigid. She was controlling Lucifer.

  “No,” I said. “Stop. Not Bobby.”

  Gage seemed to understand what was happening too. He met my eyes as Lucifer's hands went around his throat. Gage didn't fight. He didn't try to stop it. Even as his eyes spider-webbed with red. Even as his mouth opened in a scream with no sound. And then Lucifer's powerful shoulders moved and I heard the sound of Bobby Gage's neck breaking. I felt something break inside of me too. I heard myself screaming, though I didn’t realize I had started. I was shrieking with no words, no meaning, only pure emotion. Lucifer's body went limp and I heard Leda laugh.

  “That’s what I thought,” she crooned.

  The fire was burning through my skin. I could see my veins glowing white. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t tear my eyes from the floating, lifeless form of my best friend. Someone was screaming something, a word.

  Someone was standing beside me. A hand reaching out. I looked up at Gage, standing next to me, watching me fall apart. He looked over at his own body, hanging in the golden air.

  “Do it,” he said. “Please, Niki. End it all. I can hear them now. The screaming. Just end it. Our time is done. Stop these bitches from causing any more pain. This is your damn sacrifice, sis. You don't have to sacrifice anyone else. Just do it.” He reached out and touched my shoulder and then he was gone, in a flurry of dust.

  “NIKI!” Lucifer bellowed. I tore my eyes up to look at him, my chest heaving, my vision turning white. He nodded at me, my pain echoing in his eyes. And then I knew what I had to do. I closed my eyes and let myself go, my mind traveling, powerful and white-hot and angry. So angry.

  Sacrifice.

  “What is happening?” I heard Leda say from a million miles away. I saw a long-forgotten cavern mouth jutting up, hundreds of miles from ground anyone had trod upon for thousands of years. I willed an old door to open that had never been opened before. I released them. All three of them. And I felt them nudge me lovingly as they burst forth.

  “She’s releasing the Scourges,” I heard Lucifer say.

  Then it was Leda who was screaming.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  They traveled as one, Leviathan, Behemoth and Ziz. Leviathan swam through the stones and dirt as if through water, raising its head to its brother Ziz, flying through the air with leathery wings. Behemoth ran alongside, the ground shuddering under his feet, his heads looking to and fro and searching for the living. They waited for me, I knew, and in my mind I caressed them, giving them permission to continue.

  “Be gentle,” I heard myself whisper. “Take them without fear. Do not let them see you coming.”

  I felt them travel through Hell. A band of demons encamped in the Wastelands. A hunter waiting on the cliffs with a spear. Stragglers and outlaws and bands of travelers. The Scourges took them all. Graceful and quick and painless. They made for Erebos, and the demons barely had time to sigh. The wounded, the sick, the nearly dead. The caregivers, the plotters, the families shivering in fear. They died peacefully, as if in a dream.

  They came to an alcove, with demons guarding a door. They slipped through and Matthew looked through them. I whispered to him and I felt my own voice rise up from Leviathan.

  “I couldn’t save them, Matthew. I’m sorry.”

  The beasts watched the boy blink, his eyes dry and tearless. He had no more tears to cry. I felt his grief for his mother and his innocent face carried hope, just as Aki’s had carried despair.

  “Do it then,” he said to the air. “Do it and let me see my mom again. I don’t want to live like this.”

  The beasts reached out and, gentle as a lover, took Matthew. He sighed as he went, and as he died he smiled.

  The beasts turned then and made for the last place in Hell. I heard them growl the words.

  “The Devil’s Backbone. The Devil’s Backbone. Devil’s Backbone. Backbone. Backbone. Backbone. Bones, all bones,” they said.

  I opened my eyes to see Leda trembling.

  “They’re coming,” I said.

  “You won’t stop him,” she said, her eyes looking up. “He comes even now.”

  “I’ll stop him,” I said. “I’ll find a way.”

  “The Scourges won’t take the gods. You’re not fixing anything.”

  “I’m ending their suffering.”

  “They are your own people!” she screamed. “You were one of them once.”

  “I’m a monster,” I said. “You killed the last human part of me.”

  The ground shook again and Leda stepped back. The golden circle fell away and I heard four bodies fall, but only one grunt. I looked at Lucifer. His eyes burned into mine. I felt the fire encircle us, like flaming arms all around us.

  “They won’t touch you,” I said.

  “Why?” he said. I could hear his heart beating, racing, a copy of the tiny beat I felt inside of me. Lucifer’s child. The Creator’s child. My child.

  “Because I will it,” I said. “Because she wills it.”

  “There will be no one else left,” he said.

  “For now,” I said. “Nothing is forever.”

  Leda did not scream before she fell. She did not gasp or cry or speak. She was there and then she was not. And the Scourges came towards us.

  “No,” I said. “Not this one.”

  They moved around us, the earth parting to make way. They looked up at the sky, at the god that was emerging, but they left him be. There was a shudder in the air around us and then they were gone.

  “Where did they go?” Lucifer said, but I could tell by his voice that he knew already.

  “To the World,” I said.

  “Will they go to Briah?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Someone told me once that they wouldn’t take the angels. Was that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not
true. A sweet lie the Creator told. They will take everyone. It is what Heaven was made for.”

  “I thought it was a world for the angels,” Lucifer said.

  “It was made for what comes after.”

  “After what?”

  “After judgment. When Typhon is dead I will lift them up. All the souls.”

  “Do you know how?” he said.

  “Not yet,” I said. “But she will show me.”

  “Our daughter?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Our daughter.”

  “Niki,” Lucifer said, and he sounded on the edge of grief. “I didn't...I'm sorry.”

  “It wasn't you. It was her. She killed him.”

  “But my hands. I can still feel him.” Lucifer was looking at his hands. I remembered the swamp god transforming him, Lucifer staring at his hands like he couldn't believe it. I touched his face and he looked up.

  “It wasn't you.”

  He reached out for me like I was the only thing that could keep him afloat.

  He's already drowning for you, Gage's voice whispered in my ear. I looked up but there was no one there. I found myself holding onto Lucifer just as tightly as he held onto me. But I didn't want to stay afloat. I wanted to jump. I looked up at him.

  “We're alive,” I said. “Only us. It's time to live.”

  Lucifer kissed me inside the glow of the white fire. It didn’t burn any longer. There was no pain. The screams were dying out, one by one. I had answered prayers with death. I could do that at least. If I couldn't save them, I could at least give them mercy.

  But just as the last of the screams stopped, I heard a noise above us. The sound of a god being born.

  * * *

  I watched as Lucifer emptied his gun into the sky. And then he took the one he’d given me and emptied that one as well. I watched as the fire spread over the water and a hand emerged, so big it could have crushed us with a finger. The skin was mottled and pink, like a newborn baby. Slowly, the arm that was connected to the hand could be seen. And then a naked shoulder.

  The shots had bounced off the god like Lucifer had been throwing pebbles instead of bullets.

  “How do we stop him?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” said Lucifer. “We run.”

  “No. There’s a way.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know yet.” I held Lucifer’s hand and felt a cold heat spread through me. I realized that was what his power felt like. I looked at him and his eyes flashed like there was lightning behind him. His power was for the dead, though. Not the living. The dead were his reason for existing.

  “The dead,” I whispered as a cloven hoof emerged. Sulfur burned my nose and throat. A neck, covered in hair, a broad chest. Another foot. Legs that nearly reached the ground. And finally, at last, a head with a wide mouth filled with sharpened teeth so white they seemed to glow, a snout that breathed smoke, eyes that blazed. Horns of a demon. Then another neck, and another head, this one more terrible than the last, hairless and soft with tiny sharp eyes as black as night and a round mouth like a hole. Then a third and final face. Ears like a boar, eyeless, nose-less. Just a wide mouth that split its head when it opened. Toothless but able to swallow mountains, trees, cities.

  And then Typhon stood before us, the very air trembling as he stepped down. He could take whatever he wanted. I could see it now. Entire worlds. Entire galaxies. Everything that lived. Humanity was only the beginning for him. Barely an afterthought. Typhon would devour worlds. Gods. Planets. Universes. There would be nothing left.

  I felt the gods in the World stop and quake when they felt him. The child inside of me huddled in fear. The Scourges weren’t the end. Typhon was. Humanity could be remade. Unless there was no one to remake them.

  All three heads looked down at us and a booming voice shattered a needle-sharp mountain behind him.

  “YOU TREMBLE BEFORE ME,” he said, three voices speaking as one, so loud that I felt a drop of blood drip from my ear and down the side of my neck.

  “Go back where you came from,” I said, fire shooting out of my mouth as I spoke.

  “YOUR POWER IS SMALL. JUST LIKE THE ONE WHO GAVE IT TO YOU. SURRENDER AND YOU WILL DIE QUICKLY. I CANNOT PROMISE THE SAME FOR THE OTHERS.”

  Let them burn. As soon as the thought came, I finally understood. It wasn't us. They had sealed their fate already.

  “The dead,” I said again.

  “What about them?” Lucifer said, like me unable to tear his eyes away from the creature in front of us. I felt an otherworldly nudge as the Scourges returned. Like faithful dogs, I could feel them returning to me. But they couldn’t help. Their dominion was over the living. Humans, angels, demons. They had no power over gods.

  “The Pits can hold a god,” I said, my voice so soft I wasn’t sure if Lucifer could hear me.

  “For a time,” Lucifer said. He glanced at me, afraid to take his eyes off Typhon for too long. “We cannot get him to the Pits, though, Niki. I have power only over the demons of Hell and the dead. I cannot cast him down.”

  “But you’re the only one who can,” I said. “Not even I can send a soul to the Pits. You rule here.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I don’t understand.”

  “They said sacrifice,” I said. “I thought they meant me. I thought I had to sacrifice humanity.” I felt a tear well up and drop down my cheek. “It has to be you, Lucifer. You have to cast them down. I have to call them and you have to cast them down. I’m so sorry.”

  “What are you talking about?” he said. “I told you, the Pit will only hold Typhon for a short time. He will get out.”

  “Not after I unmake Hell.”

  Lucifer paused and I heard his heart speed up. “He would be cast into the Unsung.”

  “No way out but to be pulled out by the gods.”

  “No one would be able to Travel ever again,” said Lucifer. “There will be no way between the worlds.”

  “No,” I said. “There wouldn’t. Not through the Unsung.”

  “How?”

  Typhon took a step toward us, nearly sending Lucifer and me to the ground with the force of his step.

  I looked at Lucifer. “I’m sorry,’ I said. “It has to be this way. It hurts me too.”

  “What?”

  I closed my eyes and willed them awake. I pulled at them and felt the softness of them. Like cool silk. They were in front of us when I opened my eyes again and I heard Lucifer sob next to me. He covered his mouth with his hand.

  “No,” he said, his voice muffled behind his hand. “I can’t do this, Niki.”

  “You have to,” I said gently. “They come willingly. Cloak him in death. It's the only way.”

  It took everything I had to look at them. Into their eyes. I felt a cold hollow in my chest to see them. Sasha. My mother. Sofi. Eli. And Cassandra looking more beautiful in death than anything I had ever seen in life. I stepped forward and touched Sasha’s face, my mother. I touched Sofi’s hand and she closed her empty eyes. I looked at Cassandra.

  “It’s time,” I said. She nodded.

  As one the spirits backed away from us. They reached out and touched Typhon and he froze, looking down, moving his slow, gigantic body to see the dead encircling him.

  “NO,” he boomed. “YOU DO NOT BELONG. I WILL TAKE THE LITTLE GOD AND THE LITTLE WORLD.”

  “No,” said Cassandra, staring at Lucifer as she spoke. “We will drag you to Hell with us.”

  “THIS IS HELL, DEAD HUMAN.”

  “You will know Hell,” said Cassandra. “Lucifer will send you there. It’s not a place. It’s an eternity. You will burn first. And then you will feel nothing. An eternity of nothing.”

  “I can’t,” Lucifer said, his voice thick. “Please.”

  “Do it,” said Cassandra in her hollow voice. “Do it now. For the child that you made. Do it for the world that she will remake. Do it for Niki.”

  Lucifer looked at me and his resolve seemed to harden. He inhaled and exhaled slowly.<
br />
  Typhon was trying to shake off the souls. He was kicking his legs. He fell on the Backbone and screamed as the stone swords jutting into the sky pierced his arms and back.

  “I damn these spirits to the holy Pits,” said Lucifer quietly, his voice barely shaking. “For eternity.”

  A flash lit up the sky and it seemed as though even Typhon’s fire that still raged in the sky quailed. A great bolt of lightning shot down and struck the ground in front of us. It tore a hole in the ground and then dissipated. A slow rumbling began. Then a crack. The ground ripped open and I could see flames racing up towards the surface. The flames made a hissing noise as they touched Typhon’s cloven hoof and he pulled back, howling. The spirits held onto him somehow, in spite of his clawing and screaming and thrusting. He turned then and looked right at me. With a speed he had not yet shown, he ran toward me, holding a great hand out as if to grab me.

  Lucifer stepped in front of me and held out a hand that crackled with power.

  “Be gone,” he said meeting Cassandra’s eyes. Light shot from his hands and eyes and chest and the spirits became engulfed in it. The fire reached up and wrapped around them, pulling them down and Typhon with them. He clawed desperately at the ground as he went, the spirits holding fast as they were pulled into the Pit.

  “I’m sorry,” Lucifer said as we watched them go. Sasha raised a hand in farewell to me as he went, and I saw my mother close her eyes as the flames engulfed her. A tear shone down Sofi's cheek as she smiled the same way she had smiled at me in life. Cassandra simply watched us, her eyes eerily still as the fire pulled her into an eternity of nothingness. The Scourges followed them in and, as their tails disappeared into the fire, the ground closed around them, healing like a wound, pushing Typhon down until even his mighty horns were deep under the earth.

  And then there was silence. As though nothing had happened here. My eyes landed on Bobby’s body. Ash and Aki. I closed my eyes and sank to my knees.