Balance (The Divine, Book One)

by M. R. Forbes

  “Why not?” I asked.

  He pointed at the window. “For one, NYPD is out there. They want to talk to you real bad.”

  I followed his finger. There was a pair of detectives hanging outside the room. They hadn’t noticed me yet, and they wouldn’t. I focused my will, altering the room to look undisturbed to anyone outside of it. I couldn’t see the illusion, but the tug in my mind told me it had taken.

  “What do they want to talk to me about?” I asked.

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “You don’t know?”

  “Would I have asked if I did?” I replied. “I’ve been a little indisposed to keep up with current events.”

  He laughed. “True enough. I don’t know what was happening to you man, but you caused an earthquake when you dropped. Took out two of the tunnels.”

  An earthquake? I had thought the pressure was internal. “Was anybody hurt?”

  “No, “ he said, “but the cops think it was a terrorist attack or something. They already questioned me. They just want to talk to you, see if you know or saw anything.”

  “Is that how I ended up here?” I didn’t even know how long I had been out. By the fact that Oblitrix was still hanging around, it couldn’t have been too long.

  He nodded. “Yup. I didn’t want to just leave you like that, especially after what I saw you do. I hung around and made sure nothing else from my nightmares popped up until the cops showed. Good thing I have a permit. I told them I didn’t know what had happened, but I was trying to protect you.”

  I looked at Oblitrix and tilted my head. After what he had seen, he could have just kept running in the tunnel and left me to be destroyed. Not only had he come back, but he had stayed with me when I was most vulnerable.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You didn’t have to come back.”

  He laughed again. “I don’t care who or what you are, nobody deserves to get eaten by whatever those were. You’re the one who sent me the PM, aren’t you? The screen name looked familiar, but from what I hear that guy died like six months ago.”

  “Yeah, that was me,” I admitted. “Death didn’t work out so well.” I held out my hand. “Landon Hamilton.”

  He didn’t hesitate to grab my hand and give it a firm shake. “Obi-Wan Sampson,” he said. “Most people just call me Obi.”

  “Obi-wan?”

  He sighed. “Yeah. My folks were huge Star Wars fans, the classic trilogy anyway. I’m just glad they didn’t name me Jar Jar.”

  “So am I,” I said. “You’re a crack shot with that hand cannon of yours.”

  “I did four years in the Corps,” he said. “Two in the field, two behind a computer. I still work out every day, and hit the range at least once a week. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Semper Fi, you know.”

  “I’m impressed, and super glad to meet you,” I said. “If you want to stick around, I’d love to chat some more, but right now I’ve got to get out of here before they try to come in.”

  He looked back at the detectives. “Alright man. I’ll distract them so you can slip past. The elevator is down the hall to the...”

  I went over to the window and flung it open.

  “There’s bound to be a Starbucks nearby,” I said. “Meet me there.”

  I was on the third floor. Not too high to jump, so I did. I focused my will on the air below me as I fell, feeling it give to my demands. It became denser, heavier, slowing me down as though I were falling through mud. I landed almost gently and looked up to where Obi was hanging out the window. I gave him a thumbs up and headed down the street, thoroughly impressed with myself.

  I changed my appearance and circled back around to the front of the hospital, getting out front just as Obi pushed his way through the large glass doors. I let him walk by, then tailed close behind him as he headed away from the building. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. Okay, it was that I didn’t trust him. Divinity was making me paranoid, and I didn’t have any confidence that his bravery wasn’t one huge setup. I didn’t see any downside to being extra cautious.

  He rounded the corner ahead of me, and I followed a good twenty feet behind, mixed in with a few other pedestrians who were headed in the same general direction. When I turned the corner I could see the Starbucks sign dead ahead. What I didn’t see was Obi.

  I sensed the danger before I saw it, and reacted immediately. I ducked to the left to avoid a strong right hook, then reached out and twisted his other hand away before he could get a shot off with his gun. I pulled us both off to the side of the pavement to get clear of the bystanders, who hadn’t even noticed the attack. I was going to drop my disguise, to show him it was me, but he had already relaxed his guard.

  “What’s up, Landon,” he said. “Nice moves.”

  “What was that all about?” I asked him. “How did you know it was me?”

  He dropped his gun back into the messenger bag. “I knew it was you when I left the hospital. You started tailing me, so I decided to jump you. Figured if you were hostile you would kill me, otherwise you’d trust me.”

  “You do know I’m throwing an illusion, a glamour?” I said. “You aren’t supposed to recognize me.”

  He laughed. “Sorry man, I only see you. There’s this weird haze around you, almost like looking through some foggy glass, but that’s it. Hey, do you think you could tell me what all of this is about?”

  I was hesitant to let him get involved. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “This is the most action I’ve had since Afghanistan,’ he replied. “Computers are fun toys, but nothing compared to an adrenaline high.”

  “Come on,” I said, leading him towards the Starbucks. “I’ve got a craving for an Americano.”

  I put us in the corner, out of earshot of all but the most adept listeners. Obi opened his bag and pulled out a manila folder, then sat down.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you already know, and I’ll try to fill in the blanks,” I said.

  He handed the folder over to me. I opened it up, and was greeted with a photo of two vampires, fangs and claws extended, looking as if they were about to tear each other apart.

  “A still from the video,” he said. “I was walking home from work; I’m a backend developer for a startup. Anyway, I hear this commotion in the alley, and being the nosy-ass son of a bitch I am, I make my way down with my cellphone camera running. That’s what I saw.”

  I flipped past the photo to a print out of a message board thread.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “After I saw those guys go at it, I hit the internet in search of information about real vampires,” he said. “What you saw on SamChan was just the tip of the iceberg, I didn’t expect much from that collection of miscreants... no offense.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “None taken.”

  “Cool. So I started digging a bit more, hitting up some Tor sites, looking for a lead into illegal blood trade. I figured if these guys are real, they’ve got to eat. If they’ve got to eat, there’s bound to be suppliers. That’s my pay dirt.”

  I looked at the printout again. Everything was written in code.

  “You cracked this?” I asked.

  “Yeah man,” he said. “That wasn’t easy though. They’re using a lexical encryption based on Romanian, circa six hundred A.D. Figures right? Anyway, it took me close to ten hours to find a reference to the language, another four to crack it. In a nutshell, it’s a blood exchange. The most twisted market you could imagine - with a premium for two things.”

  He stopped talking and started tapping his fingers on the table.

  “You’re going to make me guess?” I asked.

  He nodded. I thought about it for a couple of minutes while he waited.

  “Angels, and young girls?”

  He slapped his hand on the table. “Close; angels, and virgin young girls. It was the angel part that got me going. I mean, vampires and angels? So I followed the trail a little further.”

  I flipped past a
ll of the prints of Romanian cryptography, and my breath caught in my throat. She looked like she was looking right at the camera. Josette.

  “You know her?” he asked me.

  I knew my expression was giving me away.

  “We’ve met,” I said.

  “She’s an angel,” he said. “From what I can gather, she’s worth quite a bit of coin to capture alive. I’m guessing they think she’s the best of both worlds.”

  She was an angel, and a virgin. In seven hundred years, had she never found love? Or was it forbidden for angels to get involved in those kinds of relationships. I hoped it was the latter. The thought of her spending all of those years alone saddened me.

  “How did you find her?” I asked.

  “The vampires are tracking her for a guy named Reyzl,” he replied. “They have all kinds of spotters trying to keep their eyes on her. She still manages to fall off their radar from time to time, but she always turns up again. When I took the pic, she was working at a soup kitchen down in Chelsea. You can see the entrance in the background. Anyway, the homeless I talked to seemed to know her, so I guess she works there pretty regularly.”

  I fought back a sudden bout of embarrassment. I had been under the impression that angels kept the balance by hunting demons. It had never occurred to me that they would take on such mundane tasks as manning the line at a shelter. Then there was Reyzl. He seemed to be involved in everything around here, and not in a good way. I took note of the sign on the building, ‘Holy Trinity’. I should have guessed.

  “What do you know about Reyzl?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Not much man. The vamps seem like they’re afraid to even type his name.”

  He sat back and took a sip of his Quad Caramel Latte with Extra Caramel. If vampires ran on blood, I imagined Obi ran on sugar.

  “Your turn,” he said.

  Until he said it, I had never considered how I would explain myself to a mortal. He knew what vampires were, and he knew angels existed, so that was a good start. I gulped my Americano and took a deep breath.

  “So you have angels, and you have demons,” I said. “And then you have me. I’m kind of a Divine mutt, the only one my kind.”

  I told him everything I knew, using much the same description that Dante had used with me. Obi was stoic through it all, not reacting to anything I said, but analyzing every word. When I was finished, he just sat there for a minute, then licked his lips and reached for his bag.

  “Silver won’t work on me,” I told him.

  He didn’t say anything. I watched while he opened the messenger bag, pulled out the Desert Eagle, and handed it to me, butt first.

  “Knights used to pledge their swords,” he said. “I don’t have a sword.”

  I didn’t take it right away. I looked into his eyes. He looked back, unflinching. I could see the strength in him, the conviction. If I was going to champion mankind, he was going to squire, and nothing I said or did was going to change his mind. I reached out and took the offered handle.

  “You’re probably going to be dead within a week,” I told him.

  His laugh was loud. “You have a strange way of welcoming people, man.”

  He reached out and clapped me on the shoulder. I discreetly handed the gun back to him.

  “So what’s next?” he asked me.

  I picked up the folder. “I need to find out what the demons know about the Chalice Jesus drank from at the Last Supper, the Holy Grail. They’ve begun using it to make themselves near invincible.”

  I had just told him that the Holy Grail was real. I might as well have told him his shoe was untied. He was all business.

  “That’s heavy stuff,’ he said. “I think I can help you out there. There’s a vampire named Merov. He’s a big deal in that circle, one of the largest suppliers on the exchange. He’s having a big party tonight at his penthouse. From what I gather, its his daughter’s eighty fourth birthday.”

  That sounded promising. “You have an address?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I didn’t,” he replied.

  I swallowed the last of my Americano and stood up. “Let’s go,” I said. “I’d say we could stop by your place, but I’m going to venture to guess it’s been trashed by now. Was there anything on your computer that might give them a clue you know about this party?”

  “Unencrypted?” he asked, offended.

  I smiled. “Right. Then we’ll go back to my place. Maybe you could teach me to fight.”

  It was good to have a friend, for as long as he lasted. I had a feeling the lifespan of mortal Purgatorian sympathizers was pretty short.

  Chapter 12

  “Man, you need a serious upgrade.” Obi looked around my apartment. It was the third or fourth time he had commented on my lousy living conditions.

  “It suits my needs,” I told him. “It’s not like I get social security or anything. I’ve got about three thousand dollars to last me the rest of eternity, or until a die, whichever comes first. I’ll take bets on which one it’ll be.”

  “Come on man, I saw you. I don’t think anything can keep you down.”

  “If I lose my head, I die. If I take enough damage, I could be thrown in a safe somewhere and buried for all time. I won’t die, but I’ll be trapped.”

  I hadn’t thought about that scenario before. I had to fight back a wave of panic. With any luck the other players wouldn’t think about that one either.

  Obi’s voice snapped me out of my macabre introspective. “So you said you wanted to learn to fight. How much do you know?”

  “You saw me,” I said. “How much do you think I know?”

  “Good point. Lucky for you, I served as an assistant instructor for my squad while we were in Afghanistan. I’ll whip you into shape in no time.”

  I wanted to go up to the roof, but Obi protested due to the cold. I had already forgotten that he wasn’t immune to the elements. I led us over to the room across the hall instead, pushing the furniture out of the way so we would have some room to maneuver.

  The second we had finished clearing the floor he started barking at me Marine style, ordering me to drop and give him fifty. Just to make a point, I pumped out two hundred, asked him to sit on me, and did one hundred more. It didn’t take too much effort for me to make myself a little stronger, and I had already found that my physical endurance was pretty much limitless.

  “Point made she-hulk,” Obi said, hopping off of me. “I’ll show you some mixed martial arts moves instead.”

  He had me stand next to him and mimic his movements. He was a natural teacher, his manner and pace easy to follow and understand. Within a couple of hours I was able to deflect his most aggressive advances. I wasn’t as successful on offense, having to pull my punches so I wouldn’t hurt him. He seemed pleased with the results though.

  “Best grub I’ve trained,” he told me. “Hit the shower private, the party starts in three hours, and you need to get uptown.”

  I took another shower, and then sat with Obi to go over the plan. It was pretty basic, but the best we could do with the limited information we had. I would go in alone, disguised as a vampire and hoping that nobody there could see through the glamour. I would talk up the guests a bit, using some of the code words Obi taught me so I could intelligently make reference to the trade. The goal would be to try to coerce the guests into talking, or otherwise overhear anything that could be related to the Chalice.

  As an aside, I also intended to listen for any chatter regarding Josette. There was no way I was going to let her wind up as some rich vampire’s tasty snack. Once I had gotten what I needed, or decided I had overstayed my welcome, I would duck back out and return to the Belmont to debrief General Kenobi.

  At the same time that I was attending the soiree, Obi would be working the Internet some more, trying to land info about the Chalice. Now that he knew what he was up against, he knew well enough to stay on the move and hop hotspots.

  “I wish I was feeling
confident about this,” I said to Obi.

  The party started in half an hour, which was just enough time to be fashionably late. I hadn’t vamped myself out yet, but I had changed my clothes into a super sharp black tuxedo with a Nehru jacket and gaudy diamond cufflinks. We decided I should go as a major player, and being able to look the part would help me integrate and get them talking.

  Regardless, I was doing battle with the feeling of being over exposed. It didn’t help that I had lost possession of the blessed sword back at Grand Central. What would happen to it now? Would some homeless guy just happen by and find himself in possession of an incredibly sharp and deadly demon-killing tool?

  “I’ve been pulped three times already, and I won’t have backup,” I said.

  Well, I guess I did have backup, if Ulnyx decided to make himself available. After the not-dream I had experienced I was feeling a little bit better about being able to control that bastard, but he knew I could control him too, which made his participation iffy.

  “Don’t worry about it, man,” Obi said. “All you have to do is keep the disguise going, and you won’t have any trouble. Just channel your inner James Bond.”

  Obi’s overconfidence was a great counter to my apprehension. I walked over to the door and swung it open.

  “Wish me luck,” I said, trying to keep my nerves in check.

  Obi laughed. “Nah. Good hunting!” He gave me a stiff salute as I shut the door behind me.

  The party was taking place in the penthouse of a Trump property on the Upper East Side, a ritzy glitzy area where celebrity sightings were sure to be more common than vampire sightings. It was at the total end of the island from where I was starting, but the distance wasn’t a problem. Obi had called a livery while I had showered, and a confused limo driver greeted me when I exited the Belmont.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him as he pulled the back door of the stretch limo open for me.

  This was costing ten percent of my stash, but Obi had insisted I needed to go all in to earn their trust. He had even gone so far as to plant some messages about ‘Stefano Giovanni’ across the online blood exchanges, hushed whispers of a reclusive trafficker who had decided at the last minute to fly in from Venice to attend the birthday bash. He was sure there were no other major players in Venice; it seemed vampires weren’t big fans of water, and my ability to operate there would also gain me some respect.