Sanctuary

by Joshua Ingle

  Perhaps Thorn could leave one final mark on the world: a last message for Marcus. A gesture of defiance, but also a plea for Marcus to change, just as Thorn had. Something for Marcus to remember every time he thought of Thorn’s death.

  As the demons assaulted him, Thorn took hold of Virgil’s body, bent its uninjured arm, and jabbed its hand into Virgil’s leg wound. The hand emerged slick with dark blood. Thorn then dashed Virgil’s fingers across the dry tiled ground as fast as he could move them, painting desperately, purposefully. One of Virgil’s fingernails ripped off in the process, but Thorn kept his hands steady, dashing them to and fro in frantic strokes as he channeled all of his pain into his concluding manifesto, written in blood on the Sanctuary’s surface.

  The demons didn’t care about his message, or about anything he had to say. They knew the Rules, and they wanted their vengeance. But the Judge seemed to take interest. His eyes resolute, his posture a battle pose, he floated above the surface of the water, stealing through the demon army toward Thorn. He’s finally coming to my defense!

  Marcus must have seen the Judge coming too, because he swiftly flew over to Thorn and pushed aside the other demons. He clutched Thorn’s throat and head and lifted him out of Virgil’s body. Then he started to twist Thorn’s head in the classic gesture of demonic execution.

  From across the way, the Judge locked eyes with Thorn. He slowed, stopped, seemed to give up his advance entirely, and then cast his gaze away toward Brandon’s and Heather’s bodies, as if watching their reactions was less distressing than watching Thorn and Marcus. The Judge was Thorn’s last hope, but he just floated there as a flurry of demons whirled between them.

  Marcus twisted Thorn’s head around even further. The beating had left Thorn too weak to resist. Marcus adjusted his stance so that he could stare right into Thorn’s eyes, and his gaze gave away no emotion: no triumph, no contempt, no satisfaction. The pain grew unfathomable.

  I only wanted wings, Thorn dimly recalled. All I wanted was some angel’s wings.

  That regretful thought was Thorn’s last.

  •

  They sat next to each other in a booth near the back. Cole—the real Cole, his eyes blind—ran his fingers through Crystal’s hair. Lights pulsed around them, and vague forms were dancing on the floor, but the blaring music was muffled by the water. This was the club where they’d first met.

  “Cole,” Crystal said, and his dazed face turned to her. “Cole, I think something’s wrong.”

  “I know. I can’t breathe.”

  But they had no way out. Crystal could feel invisible claws tugging at her mind, was conscious of them, yet remained helpless against them. She couldn’t even see the pool anymore. She could barely even remember the pool. This moment, right here, in the club, seemed so immediate, so lifelike, so comforting.

  Cole affectionately massaged her hand. “I love you. You believe me when I say that, don’t you?”

  Crystal smiled sadly at him. “I know you love me.” But she also knew that they would leave the club, make love, and then everything would be the same as it had always been the next morning. She’d still be Cole’s employee first, his girlfriend second. He’d still be too timid to stand up to Brandon, too indecisive to treat Crystal with the same respect with which she treated him. She wanted so badly to ignore all of Cole’s problems, and all of her own problems—but after how indifferently Cole had been treating her lately, she knew what kind of future she really wanted.

  This choice had been a long time coming.

  “I love you too, Cole. And that’s why I’m leaving you.”

  Cole froze for a second, like he couldn’t quite believe it. “No. Hey, love. No, please. You’re not serious, are you?”

  “I’m sorry. I love you so, so much. But neither of us is healthy enough for this right now. For a relationship. If I’m being honest with you—and I really want to be honest—I think that maybe we’re just using each other. We’re just emotional bandages for each other, so that we don’t have to work on our real problems. Being together is just hurting us both.”

  Somehow, she could see Cole’s tears through the water between them. His cheeks were flushing red. Crystal hated that she had to do this to him. She wanted to hug him and kiss him and pretend she didn’t mean it… but no. This was her life, her future. She had to see this through.

  “No, no, no no no, please. I—I don’t know what I’d do without you. I don’t want to have to go out clubbing again. I don’t want to have to find another girlfriend.”

  “And you shouldn’t. You should be single for a while. We both should. It’ll help us grow. We need to find something to live for besides each other.”

  Cole’s voice grew shaky. “Look, I know sometimes our relationship can be difficult. But you said—by the piano, you said that sometimes, difficult things are worth it. We can just—”

  “And breaking up is gonna be difficult. But it’ll be worth it in the end. I want to grow up, Cole. I don’t want to be a scared little girl dreaming of Prince Charming anymore.”

  “Are you saying I’m not worth it?”

  “No! Oh, no, Cole.” She rested a sympathetic hand on his face. “You’re worth so much to me. I want you to get over your depression. I want you to be emotionally stable. I want you to have goals and to love your life. And you won’t be able to learn how to do any of those things while you’re in a relationship as needy as ours is.”

  “I’m sorry I ever listened to Brandon. I’m so sorry for asking you to get rid of your baby. I didn’t mean it. I was just—” He shook his head, grimacing, and then his words came pouring out desperately. “I want you. The real you. Not the one I met here in the club or the one I heard in Brandon’s videos. I want you, with all your problems. The thought of you and a life with you was what saved me from drowning earlier, Crystal. You could save me from so much more.”

  Crystal took his hand again and squeezed it firmly. “You need to save yourself.”

  Cole pulled his hand back and scooted away from her in the booth. He looked out at the fading club and the dimming lights and seemed to mull over all that had just been said. “I don’t want to go back to living with Brandon. I can’t go back to that life.”

  “You don’t have to,” Crystal said. “You can choose to live any life you want. But for now, I think we should break up. Can you accept that?”

  Cole’s face contorted into a horrible frown. His sobs were huge and heaving.

  The club faded to near black, and finally Cole said, softly, “Yes. I can accept that. You’re right.” He abruptly moved toward Crystal and wrapped his arms around her, burying his head in her hair, weeping. “You’re right.”

  Crystal embraced him back, crying a little herself. Her own courage surprised her: she’d never broken up with someone before. But now that it was done, she felt more optimistic for both Cole’s future and her own.

  She felt free.

  And just as she was about to inhale lungfuls of water, it all fell away.

  The nightclub. The pool. The condo.

  The Sanctuary.

  •

  Crystal and Cole disappeared before Marcus’s eyes. One moment they’d been drowning, their consciousnesses fading beneath the surface, and the next, the pool was just demons and empty water.

  Marcus was astonished. What had gone wrong? The Africans may not have been as skilled as Marcus, but their illusions had seemed to convince the young couple. Such lowly humans should have been easy prey. Had the Enemy intervened? Had they somehow made their choices beneath the water?

  No matter. I have the prize I came here for. Thorn’s dead body hung in the air above Virgil’s equally lifeless corpse. The mighty Balthior had been slain at last—and by Marcus’s own hand. Thorn would elude Marcus no longer. The full weight and glory of Marcus’s victory over his rival would take some time to fully register, but for now, he simply took pride in a job well done.

  But something odd lay underneath Thorn’s remains. Marcus pee
red closer at Virgil’s extended arm, which pointed toward several large smears of blood. The blood seemed to form words—a message left by Thorn before he died? Marcus drifted closer to examine the letters, written in all caps:

  NOT EVERYTHING

  Marcus frowned. What a gloating ass Thorn had been. Even in death, he’d found a way to brag that he’d stolen Crystal and Cole out from underneath Marcus’s nose. No, Thorn. I am the victor here. Not you.

  The sunlight of dawn was growing brighter, much more rapidly than it did on Earth. Marcus found himself pondering the myth that if humans in a Sanctuary escaped, any demons in that Sanctuary would perish upon the Sanctuary’s end. Surely this was just a myth. Surely.

  The African demons grew more frenzied than Marcus had ever seen them. They celebrated with each other in their own vile ways. Many congregated around Shazakahn, congratulating him for his role in the night’s events. Marcus ignored the revelry and instead looked out to sea, to the rising sun beyond.

  The brilliant view was spoiled by the Atlanta Judge, still floating above the pool water, directing a bitter gaze toward Marcus. Fool. It had to be done. Even if I’d held no grudge against Thorn, it had to be done. Thorn had broken all of the Rules. This Judge was truly a dimwit.

  The sunlight became blinding, overwhelming. It shone through the windows of the buildings out on Miami Beach, then through the walls of those buildings, its luminance engulfing all corners of the dying Sanctuary. Marcus paid no mind to the Judge, nor to the other demons. He faced forward, and met the white dawn head-on.

  16

  Snow was falling over Atlanta again.

  When he’d first arrived in the United States, Marcus had found the country much like he’d imagined it to be based on the news reports and movies he’d seen. But he still hadn’t expected snow this far south. This marked the fifth time since he’d been here.

  He was used to the jungles of Central Africa, and before them the fertile lands of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, but he found that he preferred this colder, deader world, even though he knew that spring was close at hand. Marcus thought of leaving Atlanta for New York City, that great beacon of Western civilization, which he could safely visit for the first time now that Xeres and Thorn were both dead. He would love to peruse the north during the summer months, find a new city there to claim as his own: Toronto or Montreal, or maybe New York City itself, if he could gain enough support to overthrow its current leader. But no, not yet. For now, he was obligated to stay here in Atlanta and fight through the power vacuum left by Thorn until the city was his. The great Marcus, reduced to filching crumbs from a Rat. But this is all a means to an end.

  Marcus drifted over the numerous police vehicles at Piedmont Park, where just last night a young girl had turned on her would-be killer and slaughtered him. And where Thorn had murdered Shenzuul while dozens of demons had watched. After hearing the news, the city’s demons had descended on the park en masse to see if it was true. Thousands of them still saturated the crime scene. Marcus had a mind to join them and gloat… but he had other business just now.

  He passed through Midtown, over the freeway, and into Downtown, looking down on Atlanta’s inhabitants bundled against the chill, vaguely wondering if he might one day come across the two humans who’d survived the Sanctuary. Crystal and Cole would be born sometime soon, somewhere in the world. Would they ever meet each other in this life? And under what circumstances? Marcus could feel Thorn lording these two humans over him from beyond the grave. If Marcus ever encountered Crystal or Cole in this world, he’d be sure to torment them to their deaths.

  Many of the African demons had appeared as relieved as Marcus to have survived a Sanctuary in which some humans had escaped; as the sun had risen on the Sanctuary, it had given way to a transit door through which he and the others had exited into the Corridors, and from there back to Earth. As far as Marcus knew, Shazakahn and his followers were still in town, causing mayhem and planting seeds for future American enterprises before their long journey back across the ocean. “We have united with you to kill this Thorn, but if we hear of you in Central Africa ever again, you will be sorry,” Shazakahn had said to him just a few hours ago. And now I am stuck in the West, exiled from the East. A curious outcome, but a desirable one. Here in the West, Marcus could become the world’s greatest demon and eventually bring destruction to the Enemy.

  But first, a small matter of business…

  Marcus drifted through some windows near the top of Peachtree Tower, through some executive offices, toward the usual meeting spot: a dank service hallway near the elevator shaft, not unlike those in Cole’s condo. But this one was uncarpeted—just wet concrete all the way from the entrance to the dirty mop and bucket at the far end. A dim fluorescent light lit the small space, which was perfect for furtive meetings. Few humans or demons ever came here.

  Today, though, Marcus was met by a great winged creature, stewing near the mop bucket. As soon as Wanderer noticed Marcus, his wings unfurled, and he charged. Marcus moved to defend himself from the sudden assault, but Wanderer was too fast: he clutched Marcus’s throat, greeting him with a shriek and a fearsome scowl.

  “You impotent fool!” Wanderer yelled. Marcus tried to shove him away. “I explicitly instructed you to make sure Thorn was dead the moment you entered the Sanctuary. Immediately!”

  “Thorn was a resourceful foe. You know this.”

  “He had an army after him! How hard could it have been?”

  “You are ungrateful,” Marcus spat. “I have been your loyal follower and accomplished your goals. Thorn is dead.”

  Marcus had expected Wanderer to rejoice at the news, but instead the great demon’s wrinkled hands clasped Marcus’s throat even tighter. He acted as if Marcus had announced his alliance with Thorn rather than Thorn’s death. “You’ve accomplished my goals? Have you, Marcus? Because as I recall, it’s you who’s been recklessly obsessed with Thorn all this time. You, not I, were consumed with mindless curiosity when you saw Thorn enter physical space. You, not I, spent three fruitless months trying to discover this secret, delaying our plans so long that I had to come here and supervise in person. From the beginning, it was you, not I, who wanted Thorn dead. ‘We should merely depose him,’ I said, but no, you had to have your vengeance.”

  “He was asking too many questions!”

  “Oh, you were out for his blood long before he started asking questions.”

  “Irrelevant. He was still asking the wrong questions.”

  “That he was. He blurted out half of them to me when I interviewed him in the coffee shop. I played my part. I sent him your way. And you promised his death would be swift.”

  “Enough of this! What have I done to anger you?”

  Wanderer flung Marcus downward with such force that he’d dropped three floors before he reoriented himself. The offices in which he found himself were almost empty of humans this late in the afternoon, but he quickly surveyed them to confirm that no demons had seen him here before floating back up to Wanderer’s hallway.

  “You forget your place!” Wanderer said when Marcus returned. He drifted back and forth at the hallway’s far end, rage boiling off of him. “Your place is beneath me!”

  “I am one of the world’s greatest demons, Wanderer. I am beneath you as a scorpion waits beneath a wolf while it sleeps.”

  Wanderer drew out his wings to their full expanse, and the tips jutted through the walls. He rose toward and above Marcus. “I hold all of the strings that connect the demon world. It was my army you used to conquer Shenzuul’s territory. It was my network that spread your spurious reputation as a war hero. Has your counterfeit glory gone to your head? You’ve always been one of my most loyal, one of my favorites. But a wolf is much bigger than a scorpion, and a bite kills just as well as a sting. Admit you are nothing next to me.”

  Wanderer could grow pompous like this sometimes, though Marcus had never seen him quite so irate. Marcus preferred subservience in his own followers, but he�
�d learned long ago that Wanderer lost respect for anyone who appeared weak, even his own disciples. So Marcus met his demand with something he knew Wanderer admired: intelligence. Also: flattery. “When you told me you were placing your followers in positions of power around the globe, I requested placement in Atlanta so that I could obtain vengeance on Thorn. I’ll admit that much. But my power and glory will shine here in this city, more radiant than yours ever has, so that when the day comes when you crush the Enemy, your own glory will reflect off of mine all the brighter.”

  Wanderer grew still at that. He examined Marcus intently, the edge of his mouth twitching like it always did. He’d buy it, of course. For all Wanderer’s brains, his pride was his weakness. Marcus just hoped the Enemy wouldn’t be able to exploit that pride to His advantage.

  Marcus had staked much on Wanderer, on his promises and his future conquests. For thousands of years, Marcus had sacrificed his own reputation for Lucifer’s, and he’d gladly make such a sacrifice again, for Lucifer had won them both great glory in the initial rebellion, and would do so again in the near future. But their long-term affiliation was ultimately a marriage of convenience. Each had something the other wanted: Wanderer had supreme intelligence and a cunning plan that Marcus could never hope to fully comprehend, and Marcus was loyal and skilled at commanding others. Unfortunately, Marcus recognized this basic foundation of their relationship, and Wanderer didn’t, so he treated Marcus like scum, like a lowlife demon off the streets.

  Marcus could take the abuse though, since it was just words, and since, unlike other great demons over the eons, Wanderer realized that the true fight was not with each other, but with the Enemy. Joining with Wanderer and his immense intellect would lead all demons to victory, and then to real, lasting power on Earth for Wanderer and for all of his followers. And eventually, far in the future, maybe Marcus would take on Wanderer himself and usurp his authority—though Marcus hadn’t thought much about a time so far away. Best to wait until Wanderer reached the height of his power, and only then sting the wolf in the gut.