Slowly, I shrugged out of the vest.
Julian took a step down. “You know, I have read that silly little memoir your friend the priest was carrying with him.” He laughed, an ugly sound. “You certainly think the world of yourself, do you not? No, do not bother answering. I was much amused at your conclusions, wrong as they were.
“You believe you are the last of the Line? And that that little fact will afford you some measure of protection? Let me set the record straight, young man.” All trace of amusement fled his face as he stopped ten feet away and drew a pistol from a shoulder holster. A Sig Sauer P229. “You are not the Redeemer, you are just a talented magus who thinks too much of himself. Now shed your weaponry. Slowly.”
I complied. “Then how come I knew all thirty of the Terrible Words the Silver offered?”
Julian shook his head dismissively. “It is not the quantity of the Words, it is the ability to use them without killing yourself.” At my puzzled look, he sighed. “The Words the Silver offered exacts a toll from a body, depleting it of vital energy. The Redeemer would be the magus who could use the Silver without slowly killing himself. Is that not that correct, sir?”
From hidden speakers all around came a familiar voice. “Correct, Julian. Hello, Olivier.”
Well, hell. The Voice. My stomach took a plunge.
The speakers squawked, then that same terribly beautiful voice continued. “Trust me, my boy, you are not the Redeemer. You are not the last. There are always others. Tell him everything, Julian.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Mike
Cain stripped to the waist after handing me a pistol, a Glock. I liked a heftier weapon, like a .45, but at that moment I would have been happy with a peashooter.
The Russian kept grinning like a wolf and it took every ounce of self-control not to unload, but I sent a prayer to the Lord for strength and remained true to my calling. Besides, I’d already killed a man that day and that was burden enough—more terrible than I could explain.
Boris stripped off jacket, tie and shirt, revealing a massive torso covered in black hair. Scars crisscrossed skin stretching tight over great slabs of muscle that moved like greased ropes. Black tattoos, Cyrillic characters, covered shoulders and belly. He looked like a fair-skinned gorilla with a bad attitude.
In contrast, Cain looked puny, almost skinny, but almost anyone would next to Boris. If you took a close look, you could see the sharp definition in Cain’s muscles.
Then he took his sunglasses off. I longed for a rosary but had to be content with crossing myself. It was driven home to me that this man was the Cain, the first murderer. Off-white, slightly blue irises centered with pitch-black pupils. A cold shiver ran up and down my spine, matched by the freezing wind entering the suite.
Cain started removing his boots and that’s when Boris attacked, leaping like a gazelle, great fist slashing forward toward Cain’s skull.
It never connected.
If it had, Cain’s neck would have no doubt snapped like a twig, but the tall man had simply flickered as if he had been edited from reality for a moment. The knobbly fist swished past Cain’s nose by a whisker. Boris almost overbalanced, but righted himself quickly. That didn’t stop Cain from taking advantage. One long arm shot out and tagged Boris on the nose, a tap, or so it seemed.
Blood gushed from the big man’s nostrils and he recoiled in surprise. Clearly getting tagged was a rare experience for him. He licked the blood from his lips and waded in, fists and feet flying.
Cain didn’t give him a chance to score. Moving like mercury across a plate, he rolled and slipped everywhere, always one step ahead of the increasingly furious Russian. Every now and then he’d throw a jab—nothing painful, but after a couple of minutes they began to tell. Boris started to slow, his own jabs becoming more and more wild and unfocused as rage and exhaustion began to take their toll.
“Stop moving!” he yelled, face red with fury, spit flying from his lips.
Cain did, his smile unwavering, and spread his arms wide. An invitation for Boris to do his worst.
The two stared at each other for a few tense moments; Boris, harried, wild, and Cain, calm, collected. “You fight good,” Boris panted, unfazed by the other man’s eyes.
“I’ve had time to practice,” replied Cain almost amicably, lowering his arms.
Boris nodded and casually placed his hands in his pockets. “Why should I fight, then?”
“Because if you don’t—”
Swift as a snake, one of Boris’ hands whipped out, holding a knife. Before Maggie and I could blink, the blade sprang free with a hiss, flying faster than thought toward Cain’s throat.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Morgan
“There are … crèches all over the world, places where the direct descendants of the Founder are raised,” Julian said behind the safety of his Sig. Annabeth leaned against the wall beside the doorway, a smirk on her lips and the glint of madness in her eyes. “You thought Henri, Julian II and Philip where your only brothers, but the truth is you have dozens. You have met several, including Fergus and Burke.”
“B-Burke?” I killed my brother? I committed fratricide? Nausea assaulted my belly.
“Quite. The truth of the matter is you have no cousins. Every one of those you’ve met are your siblings. Including Annabeth.”
I couldn’t help it … I puked all over my shoes while my sister stood there and laughed. The Voice joined her, sounding like sugarcoated shit.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Mike
In the milliseconds before Boris pushed the button on the ballistic knife, Cain said a Word.
The blade, that paper-thin projectile, bounced off of thin air ten inches in front of Cain’s unprotected throat and shattered with a faint tink. My mind boggled. What was I seeing? Beside me, Maggie breathed, “I gotta learn that one … smells like honeysuckle.”
Again and again Boris pushed the button on the ballistic knife, two more fine blades springing free to pierce the air toward Cain. Twice more the blades shattered musically in front of Cain.
Boris’ shoulders slumped and Cain’s smile, which had been plastered to his face the entire time of the fight, left his face. “You tortured a man of God. You work for the most evil people on the planet, people with demon’s résumés, and you have been content to do so. You, sir, offend me!” It was Cain’s turn for red-faced fury. He took a step forward, body trembling with the force of his anger.
“I have lived longer than a man should and I have done things of which I am certainly not proud of, but you … you …” Words seem to fail him, which I gathered was a rare event. “You really piss me off!” he screamed.
Chapter Forty
Morgan
It was the laughter that galvanized me, especially that of the Voice with its creepy humor and slime-covered hilarity. As I knelt there, wiping vomit from my lips and listening to them enjoy my humiliation, rage and frustration built up to a point where I just exploded.
Nothing wrong with Annabeth’s reflexes, I soon discovered. As I sprang toward her, she put two rounds into my midsection that ripped through both intestine and stomach. The acid pain of it nearly took my breath away.
As my knuckles connected to the point of her chin, another round ripped through my torso, shredding a lung. Feeling her sag, I screamed a Healing, and as I pulled her away from the wall, twisting my body behind hers, I screamed another. One of her 9s hit the floor with a thud, but I had the other in my grasp before it could slip through her limp fingers.
Julian’s Sig barked three times in rapid succession. All three found Annabeth’s torso without penetrating her Kevlar. Had she been conscious, the shots would have hurt like hell.
I returned fire. Like Julian, I squeezed the trigger three times. One round clipped his ear, coloring his graying hair red. The other two bullets missed. At least his ear now matched mine.
Eyes wild with fury, Julian fired again, this time hitting Annabeth between the
eyes, a shot that exited the back of her skull. The flattened and fragmented bullet scraped across my cheek and decorated my face with blood, bone and brain.
What had been a semi-conscious handful was now dead weight, and I had to snap off a Strength to hold her upright as my shield. The beginnings of Backlash tugged at my muscles, warring with the adrenaline coursing through my veins.
We both fired again simultaneously, his round catching me in the knee with sickening force and mine taking him in the groin, ruining his chances for future good times. As I folded, dropping Annabeth in a heap, I shouted another Healing. The cracking pain of my shattered kneecap had nearly made me lose consciousness.
From Julian all I could hear was a whistling whine, high pitched and agonized, while I watched the bullet pop out of my knee. The shards of the patella shifted and flowed together as it healed and I bit my lip at the itchy pain of it.
I rose jerkily to my feet and moved to where Julian writhed and bled, too agonized to mouth his own Healing. My vision went in and out, blurring as Backlash started to take hold, the pull of unconsciousness almost too strong to withstand.
“Stop right there, Olivier,” the Voice piped up with a screech of feedback. “We can arrange something equitable here. Don’t do anything stupid.”
I didn’t take my eyes off Julian. “I’m way past intelligent. Stupid is all I got left.” Backlash sweat coated my cheeks and forehead and I realized that I was a far cry from okay. It was absurdly easy to fall to my knees at Julian’s side and grab his lapels.
“Where is the Primal, you son of a bitch?” I snarled.
All he could do was gasp and cry.
“What do you care about a Primal, Olivier?” The Voice said casually, as if ordering breakfast.
“If I don’t get the Primal back, Earth will swallow New York whole to retrieve it.” Things went sideways for a moment as I almost succumbed to oblivion. Sheer force of will kept my eyes open.
“Between you and me, Olivier, we can take care of Earth. Just put an end to Julian and you can assume the mantle of the Patriarch.”
Just the thought of that made me want to puke up my shoes. Instead of answering, I mouthed a Vigor and the rush of magic stabilized the world around me. I knew I’d pay for that later.
Taking a deep breath, I directed Truth at Julian and inhaled garlic. “Where is Primal Water, Julian?”
I watched as his eyes went from a pain glaze to the glassy look of the half-asleep. “Jacket pocket,” he slurred.
Of course he would have it on him.
Chapter Forty-One
Mike
From Maggie’s reaction, I could tell she had never seen Cain angry. For my own part, I never wanted to see it again.
Cain and the Russian came together swift and hard. I fancied I could feel the thunder of their impact down to the roots of my teeth.
The two heaved, twisting their bodies to and fro for leverage, the muscles of their torsos and arms standing out like cables. Grunting and sweating, they remained fused together in combat, neither achieving the upper hand.
When the end came, it was as brutal as it was swift. One second the two combatants were locked together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, the next Boris was flying across the mat to slam headfirst into drywall, cracking the sheetrock and leaving a red smear. He fell to the floor in a stupor.
“You must realize, Boris,” panted Cain, slowly wobbling toward the fallen man. “While I am indeed a murderer, a man who despicably slew his own brother and who had the audacity to lie to God about it, I never in all my long history on this fertile earth have ever tortured another human being. I find the notion loathsome, repugnant.”
“Cain—” I began. A raised hand stilled my tongue.
“You see, Boris,” he continued as if I had never interrupted. “I regret what I have done, not because of the curse I find myself under, but because it was wrong, evil. I choose to shy away from evil, to set my feet upon the path that God has laid down for mankind. God may never forgive my worthless soul, as is his right, but that will never stop me from seeking forgiveness.
“You, however, have willingly chosen the road to darkness.” He loomed over the Russian, who lay moaning. “Evil is your choice.” He fastened his big hands onto Boris and heaved.
Maybe Cain used Strength, although I didn’t hear him actually say the Word. Whatever the means, the outcome was the same; he lifted Boris like a sack of wet cement over his head, swaying slightly with the strain.
“It is … a war … between good and … evil,” he gasped, turning slowly. “In …war there are … casualties.”
With that he threw Boris screaming through the shattered window.
Being a priest, I should have felt horrified by the act, but Cain was right about one thing: in the war between good and evil, there’s bound to be casualties.
Chapter Forty-Two
Morgan
Jacket pocket. Check. Something hard and cold met my fingers. A vial. A simple vial made of black plastic. So small. How could something so devastatingly powerful reside in such a small space?
I guess size doesn’t matter after all.
A wave of dizziness swept over me as the Vigor started to fade around the edges.
“Put that back, Olivier,” the Voice said equably. “Don’t make me stop you.”
I stood, running the cold bottle over my steaming forehead, the sensation almost as pleasurable as an orgasm. “Oh, why don’t you shut up?”
“Olivier!”
“Go pound sand.”
A hand like granite with joints clamped around my ankle, squeezing, and the world went white as bones shattered like glass.
A voice like crushed gravel rattling in a tin box came from Julian. “You should have listened, little meat puppet.” Eyes black as sin stared out from a familiar yet distorted face. The face of a demon pressing through Julian’s flesh.
Oh shit …
The Julian demon smiled with a thousand needle teeth, a grisly grin of hate and dark joy that I could feel even through the world of agony in my ankle.
I raised the 9 and pulled the trigger. One black eye exploded in a shower of dark fluid that spattered the carpeting, hissing and sizzling. The hard hand let go of my leg and I scrambled away, a Healing bursting from between my teeth.
Tearing pain like the mother of all ulcers speared my gut as Backlash took me, but my ankle writhed and set itself so I was able to stumble to my feet. The open doorway beckoned.
Before I staggered out of the suite, I stole a look behind me. Big mistake. The thing that had been Julian was on its hands and knees, ready to rise, its eye already whole. It gave me a look as it slowly gathered itself and I could feel its power, the unimaginable evil and spite. This was no mere demon, not just a cancer on the world. What shone through the thin tissue of what used to be Julian’s flesh was the essence of one of the original fallen angels who had followed Lucifer to the Abyss. A Duke of Hell, the Devil’s right hand.
The cold of the vial was matched by the ice that ran through my bowels and down to the soles of my feet. With horror at my back and fear fueling my feet, I attempted a run down the hallway toward my companions, toward some semblance of safety. Water needed to be freed and if I could throw the vial out the window, it would shatter on the concrete below and the Primal would be released to run into the storm drains and eventually out to sea.
Good plan; too bad I felt too much like a pile of refried crap to outrun the awful thing that pursued me. I could feel its attention on me, its repulsive regard. My shoulder hit the wall as I stumbled and my vision clouded as more of the Vigor receded, leaving me weaker, more prone to the ravages of Backlash.
I made it to the elevators before my Strength gave out and fatigue attacked, forcing me to my knees.
“OLIVIER!” The shout shook the hallway and I felt impossibly heavy footsteps draw close. It came to me then that I should’ve found a sink in the suite and poured the Primal out, but I hadn’t been thinking that far ahead.<
br />
Nothing to do but go for it; I used Strength then vomited blood onto the elevator doors as nails raked my stomach. Getting to my feet was a no go, so I stuck my fingers into the crack of the elevator doors and pulled. I guess I used too much force because the doors slammed open, revealing the darkness of the shaft before me.
“Morgan!” cried Mike from the end of the hall. Good … alive and away from Boris. That made me happy, but I was too tired to appreciate it much. He seemed alarmed for some reason. A hard footstep from behind told me why. My chickens had come home and roosting wasn’t on their psychopathic minds.
Who wants to live forever anyway? I bet Cain would say it ain’t so hot.
I pitched forward into the darkness.
Chapter Forty-Three
Morgan
A girl I dated once told me that slow motion was a favorite technique of filmmakers during the ’60s and ’70s, that if you choose a dozen films at random from that period, more than half would contain a slo-mo sequence.
That’s what it felt like, falling down the elevator shaft, the rectangle of light from the doorway above growing steadily smaller. Strangely, I felt okay about the whole affair; my body was giving out anyway, ravaged by Backlash.
I thought I heard my name echoing down the shaft, but I had my mind on other things, like the vial. Before I fell, I had started to remove the lid, by the time I’d fallen twenty feet, it was to my lips and I was drinking.
Another twenty feet and absolute zero shot down my throat into my gut, freezing it solid. Wow … you’d think that would hurt, but all I felt was a numbing slosh in my stomach, followed by lassitude.
Two more floors. Long shaft, the cables blurred past my shoulder. At least the end would be quick. From far away came a roaring like the end of the world. It came to me that I felt pretty good; the Backlash was easier on me than I expected.
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