by M. R. Forbes
"You left me out there to fight that thing on my own."
"You had Rose to help you."
"No offense to her, but she's not exactly ready to take on a Fist of God. You, on the other hand-"
"I would have been splattered against the dirt. I caught the... Fist, is it?... in the alley off-guard. I disposed of the were for you, and I got into Valerix's computer to get this information. It isn't as though I've just been sitting here twiddling my thumbs."
"I could have been killed, and we could have just asked her for this stuff. You should have been downstairs with us."
"Don't be stupid. She may have been afraid, but she was still a demon. There would have been some kind of bargain involved. This way was more efficient, and it all worked out for the best. Maybe when we're done, I'll come back and claim this territory."
"You don't have the strength to claim the west coast. And if you try, I'll kill you myself."
Gervais grinned. "I will keep that under consideration."
"What's our next move?" Rose asked, interrupting us.
I turned the screen so she could see it. "You know how technology is. You start with a prototype, a proof of concept. Then you iterate. You make improvements, you fix weaknesses. He's the one supplying the technology. We need to find him before he has a chance to make these Fists any stronger than they already are." I picked up the laptop and handed it to her. "Your other job is to see what else you can learn from the data Valerix collected, if you don't mind."
"Not at all."
"If you don't mind," Gervais parroted behind me, raising his voice in pitch. "Not at all." He got up off the chair and walked out ahead of us. "We have what we need. Can we go?"
I glared at Gervais' back as he left the room. I needed to keep a closer eye on the demon.
"Let's get out of here before Adam decides he wants a rematch," Rose said.
I couldn't have agreed more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
We needed to get from L.A. to San Francisco. A plane would have been an obvious choice, but a plane meant going airborne, and airborne meant angels. While we weren't giving off any kind of Divine aura, and Adam would have forgotten about our confrontation by now, I was still feeling skittish about the risk. I could survive a fall, even from thirty-thousand feet. Gervais probably could, too. Not that I cared. Rose on the other hand...
So we drove. We were fortunate that Valerix had a nice collection in a large garage in the back of the property, a cavernous expanse of black Escalades and Camaros for her small Turned army and her vampire and were henchmen, most of whom had fled the scene at the sight of the Fist. We found one of them hiding behind the door of the locked room where they kept the keys. She tried to knife me on my way in, and was rewarded with a blow to the head that would leave her at rest for a few more hours.
Growing up in the city, I'd never cared much for driving. Rose's eyes lit up when I offered her the keys, and she hopped in on the driver's side without hesitation, quickly adjusting the mirrors and seat.
"I've always wanted to drive one of these things," she said.
She pulled us out of the garage and onto a narrow road that led around to the front of the mansion to the main driveway. When we reached it, I noticed that the broken bit of the fountain was still laying on the grass. The Fist was gone from beneath it.
"How do you think they managed that?" Gervais asked.
I didn't know he had actually seen any of the fight.
"Some kind of self-destruct?" Rose said.
I reached out with my power, pushing hard and shoving the marble away. The ground beneath it was black, as though the Fist had burned up. There was no sign of any dust to mark its disintegration.
"Probably. I can imagine they don't want anyone getting their hands on it."
"We have the head," Gervais said. "And they carried the rest of it away."
"That one wasn't too badly damaged. Maybe they thought they could fix it up. If the destruction mechanism is in the body, severing the head would keep it intact."
Gervais kept his eyes on the spot, examining it. "Burned to nothing? No ash? No dust?"
"What are you suggesting?"
"I don't know. A thought, only."
"Care to share?"
He looked at me and smiled. "No."
"Maybe I should rephrase that. Tell me."
"You can't Command me, diuscrucis."
"No, but I can kill you."
He leaned back on the plush leather seat. "Stop the car."
Rose hit the brakes. Gervais jumped out and walked over to the dark circle in the ground. He knelt down and wiped his finger along it, and then lifted it up for me to examine.
"Sulfer?"
"Someone took it."
"Who?"
"What do I look like? A demon powerful enough to sneak in here and send it through a Hell rift in the thirty minutes we were in the house."
"Don't you need runes for a Hell rift?"
He nodded and walked around the scorch marks. He stopped on the other side and pawed at the dirt. "Here. They scratched it out when it was done."
"What's a Hell rift?" Rose asked.
"A portal," Gervais replied. "A transport mechanism. You can guess where it goes."
Her face paled.
"How do you think we get here?" he said.
"If the rift is here, why didn't the statue go through?" Rose said.
"It isn't Divine. It would need to have been held or touched by a demon to make the trip," I said. I turned to Gervais. "So, they brought the body back to Hell. They're going to try to reverse engineer it. They're going to try to make their own."
"They won't be able to fully reproduce it. You crushed most of it," Gervais said.
"Future plots aside, it means someone was either following us, or following Adam." I eyed the demon again. "It seems there have been a lot of strange coincidences since I picked you up."
"It is what it is. That isn't my fault, though I can't deny the circumstantial evidence. Leave me here, if you want. Kill me. I still have information. Information you won't get."
I walked across the center of the abandoned rift. "Which could be just another misdirection so that I'll bring you along. I figured you had some value, and it was better to keep an eye on you. Now... I'm not so sure."
I summoned the spatha, the black blade appearing only inches from Gervais' neck.
"Wait," he said. He put his hand on the side of the sword and pushed the tip off his throat. "I'll give you a name. A token of faith."
"No. You could give me any name. You know we don't have time to go chasing some random fiend right now."
"What do you want from me, diuscrucis? I'm trying to help you in this."
"You don't help anyone without getting something in return. Is that it?" I pointed back at the rift. "Or maybe you just wanted to get Valerix out of the way? What's your game, Gervais?"
"Just kill him and be done with it," Rose said. "Whatever small way he can help can't compare to having to put up with his smell."
"Thank you," Gervais said, glaring at her. "Of course there's a game. You know as well as anyone that there always is. It took some time for the dust to settle once you defeated the Beast, and now the pieces are all starting to shift and move again. Heaven has made the first maneuver. Should it surprise you that Hell has an interest, the same way that I have an interest? They can't count on you coming out on top. I, on the other hand, have cast my lot with you. I didn't call Adam here. I have nothing to do with whoever took what was left of the Fist."
He was a consummate liar. A perfect manipulator.
"Your words don't mean anything."
"I have one that will."
"Do you?"
"Abaddon."
I felt my body turn cold. "What about him?"
"The summoning is to bring Abaddon back from Hell. Lucifer won't let him out, and the rifts aren't strong enough to carry him."
"Who's Abaddon?" Rose asked.
"Why the he
ll would you summon Abaddon?" I said, ignoring her.
"The summoner has control over him, the most powerful demon ever made. I'm weak in this form, relegated to parlor tricks." He changed his form twice for effect. "With Abaddon, I could regain my former glory, and more."
I stood and stared at him, feeling my heart thumping against my chest. I had made a promise to Abaddon.
A promise to destroy him.
The binding of the deal had been lost in my transformation. It didn't mean I had forgotten. I'm sure the demon hadn't either.
"Who is Abaddon?" Rose asked again.
"A demon. The demon. Lucifer modeled him after the Beast. We've crossed paths a couple of times. If anyone brought Abaddon back to this world, they would instantly become the greatest threat to everything here, Divine or not." I shifted my eyes back to Gervais. "Why would you give that up so easily?"
"You think it was an easy choice to make? I can't rise to glory if I'm dead, if we're all dead. I told you, I'll find another way. As long as you can keep the others from completing the summoning."
"You need to tell me who they are."
He smiled. "I know."
Right. He would tell me when we defeated the Fists. If we defeated the Fists. The situation had circled back around. At least now I knew what he was after. At least now I knew how important the names he was withholding might actually be.
Assuming he wasn't full of shit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We drove up the coast. It was four hundred miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and we made good time. Rose had a heavy foot and an aggressive style, honking, cursing, and flashing her lights at anyone who dared cross her path in the wrong way.
Her road rage kept the ride from being too quiet or tense.
I spent the journey halfway inside my head, trying to work through the overload of information I'd been given in the last twenty-four hours. Abaddon worried me, but it was a problem I could deal with later. Gervais was two years into the summoning and hadn't been too close, so I had to believe I would get at least a couple of weeks to finish working through this mess before I had to start cleaning up the next one.
That left me with Matthias Zheng.
I didn't know what to make of him. Smart, yes. A good guy? He must have believed it, to be helping the angels. Was he the kind of guy you could talk to? To persuade? I hoped so.
The only other option was to kill him.
I wondered if that was even a good idea. The now destroyed Canaan Blades had been forged in Heaven. What was to say Matthias' soul wouldn't just rise up, or that he wouldn't decide to join the seraphim as their new high-tech armorer? He could keep making the Fists, could keep improving the tech. Right now, I could fight them - well, one at a time, anyway. What if he had an eternity to perfect the work?
I was still stuck on that line of thought as we drove past the airport and made our way into the city of San Francisco itself. It was funny, because for all the Divine power I had witnessed, for the little bit of energy I had saved for myself - we still needed to rely on GPS to get us close to the safe house address.
We stopped the car almost a mile away. According to the nav, the safe house was near Islais Creek, and the satellite view we pulled up showed it to be a pretty ragged industrial area. Lots of concrete and big, square buildings. Lots of pickups and older model cars. Even here, the homes and apartments were proving their proximity, most of them small and suggesting lower income inhabitants. If the SUV had been mine, I might have even worried about it.
I was tempted to ask Rose and Gervais to stay behind, and not for any other reason than because I didn't trust the demon, and thought it would be safer for Rose. I wanted to protect her, when I knew that I couldn't. If mankind was going to learn to fend for itself, it started with her.
So we left the Escalade parked in front of a small green house with a busted fence, and walked down cracked sidewalks towards the creek. I kind of wished we had a pickup to ride in on, because walking was almost as conspicuous as the SUV. At least losing the roof had made it easier to watch the skies.
We walked in silence, with Rose at my side and Gervais trailing behind, his eyes sweeping back and forth, scanning rooftops, the sky, and our backs as we moved. If we were fortunate, the angels didn't know that we knew where they had stashed Matthias. The wrinkle was that Valerix had lost her informant over a week ago. Was the engineer still holed up inside? There was only going to be one way to find out.
The address turned out to be a large, aluminum sided building in the middle of the industrial area. It was nothing special compared to its surrounds, ringed by a chain link fence with a semi trailer resting on the west side. The place had no windows, and the only other visible doors were two roll-ups near the trailer. I expected maybe there would be some security cameras mounted to the exterior, or near the corners of the fencing. There was none of that either.
The entire place was deserted. The businesses around the building were closed - it looked like for good. We hadn't Seen any Divine on our way in, and there was nothing about any of it that suggested anyone was home.
Which made it the perfect place to hide.
The lack of people was the biggest clue. The Divine had a special power over the mortal, their very presence causing a subliminal, subconscious response that tended to cause humans to shy away from areas where they gathered, especially in areas of recent or upcoming conflict. It was almost like an unknown, unrecognizable sixth sense.
Was that why the surrounding businesses were shuttered? Or was there a simpler explanation? Heaven and Hell both had their share of supporters with deep pockets. Buying out the area around the building wouldn't have been out of the question.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Rose said.
We were up the street from the building, crouched at the corner of one of the other buildings, staying in the shadows.
"A specific feeling, or just general unease?" I asked. The Awake could See the Divine. They also had a better handle on that innate sixth sense. What she was feeling might have been caused by a buildup of Divine power.
"I don't know. A little bit of both."
Gervais sighed from behind her. "Can you be a little more specific?"
"I'm nervous. I also feel like something is... I don't know... off."
"He's probably still inside," I said.
Gervais nodded. "I agree. Or seraphim at the least. I didn't sense any demons while we were coming in, but that doesn't mean they aren't out here, watching from a distance." He pointed back the way we'd come. "High powered binoculars or a scope could keep an eye on this place from further back."
"What should we do?" Rose asked.
"We need to go for it," I said. "If there are demons out here they aren't working for Valerix, or they would have been reporting in. We need to get in and grab Matthias before they can stop us or take him themselves."
"They might not even know what they're watching," Gervais said. "If they came upon Valerix's minions and decided there could be something valuable inside, they may have killed them to claim the prize. Of course they'll scout it first, if they know the seraphim are involved."
"Seriously?" Rose said. "How do you demons ever threaten the balance when you can't even cooperate among yourselves?"
Gervais smiled at her, a condescending smile. "Landon can tell you how close I came."
"The squabbling is the only reason the angels are able to keep the balance, considering they are far fewer in number," I said, not giving the archfiend credit for anything.
Gervais spat on the ground. "Pah. The other archfiends are pathetic and small-minded. That is why they don't succeed."
I returned my attention to the building. We needed to be fast, to break our way in before who or whatever was inside had a chance to react. If there were demons watching the building, forcing them to enter would give us a better chance to pick them off before they could amass.
The question was: how were we going to get there fast enough? G
ervais had been plenty quick back at the Underground, and I could force more power into my muscles to speed myself up. What about Rose? It wasn't enough for me to handle everything.
I turned back towards her to discuss it.
She was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
"Where did she go?" I asked.
Gervais shrugged. "Who?"
He just had to be an asshole. "You know who."
"Your bitch went that way," he said, pointing across the street. I saw her vanish behind a tall, square cement building.
I wondered what she was doing. A few seconds later, I heard a rumble, the release of heavy brakes, and the roar of an engine.
"Not exactly subtle," Gervais said.
Not exactly. A cement truck appeared from behind the building, making a tight right turn in front of us and chugging down the street. It bounced and rolled as Rose changed gears, pegging the accelerator and getting it moving as fast as it could.
"Not the worst idea either." It was brute force instead of stealth. Maybe it would attract the occupant's attention. Maybe they would see her coming. They wouldn't be able to stop a cement truck.
I pushed the power into my limbs and started running, getting up to the back of the truck and hopping on. Gervais did the same, moving with a speed and agility that no mortal could match. I didn't feel anything when the machine slammed into the fence, ripping it down without slowing. I leaned out from the edge, watching the building approach at breakneck speed. I ducked back behind it as it slammed into the wall, and kept going.
There was a clatter and ringing as the truck pierced the building, passing through anything that was in its way. Aluminum siding fell around me, and fibers coated me in a layer of dust. Then there was a jolt, a whine and crushing of metal, and we came to an abrupt halt that sent waves of pain up my neck. I pushed myself to heal and jumped off the back, rushing to the driver's side.