Betrayal (The Divine, Book Two)

by Forbes, M. R.

  “The archfiend is back in Paris,” a smooth voice said from behind us. I turned to see Mr. Ross standing there, still wearing the same pinstripe suit and sunglasses that he had been sporting when we first met. “The kid is right to be concerned.”

  “What do you know?” I asked. I hated how he refused to use my name. I was always ‘son’, ‘kid’, or ‘boy’. Dante pulled himself away from the water and stood next to me.

  Mr. Ross reached into his pocket, pulling out a fine gold antique pocket watch and flipping it open. “There isn’t much time,” he said, reaching up to lower his sunglasses and look at me with his rich blue eyes. “Something big is going down, and you’re at the center of it, son.”

  “Me?” No, this was about Sarah. Not me. Unless...

  “A trap?” Dante asked.

  Mr. Ross pushed his sunglasses back up his nose. His response was smug. “An archfiend picks a fight with you and takes off halfway around the world, hoping you’ll give chase... yeah, I’d say it’s a trap.”

  Five years, and I felt like I hadn’t learned anything. It would be so easy to draw me in by taking Sarah. If Gervais knew where she was, he was sure to know about our connection, if only through observation.

  “Do you know anything about demons being invisible to Divine Sight?” I asked.

  Mr. Ross shrugged. “I know you can do it. Maybe you aren’t the only one?” He turned his attention to Dante. “Should I look into it?”

  Dante nodded. “Yes, thank you, Signore Ross.”

  He disappeared before Dante had finished speaking. I stood and stared at the spot where he had been, annoyed that he had left without telling me anything concrete about the demons’ plans. The fact that I knew I was walking into a trap would have to be enough.

  “Well, signore,” Dante said, “I guess it is Gervais after all.”

  “It seems that way,” I said. “See if you can find out anything more about what I may be getting myself into. I know Mr. Ross was thorough, but I want to be sure we cover all of our bases.”

  Dante smirked at my sarcasm. “Without Mr. Ross, you would know nothing. At least you can prepare.”

  “Spare me the platitudes and just do it,” I replied, and then I did my own disappearing act, riding the river of power back from Purgatory to my body in meatspace.

  CHAPTER SIX

  We boarded the plane without incident, making our way to our seats near the front of first class. I took both Izak and Melody’s ‘guitars’ and stowed them up in the overheads, forcing the other passengers to figure out how to get their own overabundant carry-ons squeezed into the limited space. Our stewardess, Farrah, stopped by to introduce herself, and to take our drink order so she could serve us as soon as possible after takeoff. I was going to politely send her away, but Izak grabbed my arm and pulled on my coat sleeve.

  “You want a drink?” I asked him. The demon nodded. I didn’t see the point - I had already tried to decompress with hard liquor. It was a fruitless endeavor. “My associate would like a..whiskey, neat,” I said to Farrah. Izak grinned, approving of my choice.

  Farrah smiled at him, successful in her effort to hide the oddness of the encounter. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I’ll be able to serve as soon as we’ve completed our take-off procedures.” She moved on to the next passenger.

  “Have you ever been in an airplane before?” I asked.

  Izak shook his head. He waved his arm at the interior of the plane, then swept his hand back and forth in front of his chest. No such thing as airplanes, at least in the days before he was able to travel through rifts. Based on his scars, he knew how to use transport rifts. Why hadn’t he suggested one for us?

  “You know how to use rifts?”

  His face grew more grim, but he nodded.

  “Then why are we flying?” I asked.

  He grinned again, then took his hands and clamped them together. Trap.

  “Good call,” I said. “How old are you anyway?”

  He didn’t respond, but a flash of flame cascaded through his opaque eyes. It caused me to question whether trapping myself in a metal tube six miles above the ground with him was a good idea. Could I be sure he wasn’t still working for Gervais? I’d seen what he’d done to the wraith. We would never be friends, but for the moment I could trust him.

  The jet taxied out to the runway and launched skyward without incident. I put my head back against the soft, supple leather of the first-class seat and shut my eyes. There was no sleep there, little relaxation, and no escape from the guilt that was hounding me. Whether or not this whole thing was a plot to lure me in, Sarah being taken was my fault. Maybe if I had met her for training on time, this whole thing could have been avoided.

  My eyes were still closed when Farrah returned with Izak’s drink. I didn’t open them to watch the exchange, but something the demon had done caused the attendant to giggle like a schoolgirl. She returned a few minutes later, and I could hear her handing him another. Maybe I was the only Divine who wasn’t affected by liquor.

  I opened my eyes when the ‘fasten seatbelt’ light dinged off. I looked over to Izak, then jerked my head back. He was staring right at me, booze on his breath and his eyes glowing like smoldering embers. Before I could focus, his right arm lashed out and his hand wrapped around the back of my head. He held me steady, forcing my eyes to lock onto his. I found my focus, felt the pull of my power, but held up in taking action. I felt something else, a warmth that calmed me in an instant. My vision began to fade, the interior of the airliner vanishing into the black void, my self being pulled into Izak’s dark soul.

  The scene that greeted me when my vision returned was unexpected. A table with a white tablecloth, two candles, two plates, two glasses. Behind it, a fireplace with a small flame flickering inside, its light dancing across the stone and wood walls surrounding the room. It reminded me of a ski lodge, only there were no windows, and no doors. I felt a momentary panic when I realized my perspective was off, and then when I discovered that while I was witness to the show, I wasn’t driving.

  “It worked.” The excited voice was deep and a little bit rough, and it echoed around the room.

  My vision shifted, turning to face the new presence in the room. I knew it was Izak before I saw him. He was different here, his face and body the same, but with a confidence and handsomeness that was hiding outside of his Source. He was wearing a sharp, solid black suit with a purple shirt and a black tie. His hair was cut short, and a thin beard traced his angled face.

  “Izak,” Josette said. I could feel her happiness wash through me as her face split into a smile. If my body were my own, I might have cried from the joy of hearing her voice again. The demon took care of that for me.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said, stepping forward and wrapping us up in a gentle hug, the tears running off his face and onto our shoulder.

  “Come now Izak. Demons don’t cry,” she joked.

  “Only for you,” he replied. “I never thought I would see you again. Gervais told me you were dead, and then I found your soul mixed with the diuscrucis. I wasn’t sure you would hear me calling you.” He began to grow angry when he mentioned me.

  Josette put her hand to Izak’s chest. “I heard you, and I am here. “she said. “Be at peace. I gave my soul to Landon of my own free will. Some things transcend loyalty to our Lords.”

  Izak took a deep breath. I could see the affection in his gaze. “They do,” he agreed. He reached up and put his hand over hers. “I’m sure you know. Gervais found Sarah. He tricked the dius... Landon, distracted us so he could take her.”

  “I’m so sorry, Josette,” I said in our mind. If she could hear me, there was no indication.

  “We’re on a plane to Paris right now,” Izak said. “I would have taken Landon through the Empire Gate, but I thought it was too risky.”

  “You did well,” she said. “Bring him through the sewers. Gervais will have his toys waiting there too, but he won’t be expecting both of you.”

&
nbsp; Izak smiled, debonair and mysterious. I could picture him using that face on the stewardess, making her giggle. The smile faded.

  “I hope he can handle Gervais on his own,” he said.

  He took his hand away from hers, reached up and unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt to reveal a deep scar; the archfiend’s name in demonic runes.

  “He branded you?” Josette asked in shock.

  “I’m surprised you never guessed,” Izak said. “Without the brand, I would have killed him many years ago. To think that upstart got the better of me...” His gaze was distant, and the fireplace flared in response to his angry memory. “It hasn’t been for nothing. I didn’t believe in redemption before I met you.”

  “And I believed I would die of despair before I met you,” Josette said. She moved her hand up to the demon’s face, pulling it down so she could kiss him on the cheek. “Please Izak, help Landon. He has a hard road ahead of him, and while his soul is strong he cannot survive alone. If he is lost, Sarah will follow.”

  Izak softened under her caress, returning her chaste kiss with puppy dog eyes. “You know I’ll give my life to protect Sarah. I will do what I can, but he has to deal with Gervais on his own.”

  “Thank you,” Josette said.

  “Of course. Will you stay a while?” Izak’s face lit up in hope.

  “I cannot,” Josette said. “It isn’t fair to Landon to usurp his consciousness like this without his consent.”

  Izak looked crushed, but he acquiesced. “Know that I love you, Josette,” he said. “You have brought me back from the depths of Hell, and for that I am eternally grateful.”

  Josette’s emotions were a mixture of joy and sadness. They washed through me in a flood. “Know that I love you as well, and that I am with you, even if only in spirit.”

  Izak kissed Josette on the cheek, and the room began to darken. I could feel myself being pulled away, taken from the demon’s Source and returned to my seat on the plane.

  “Know that I love you too, Landon,” Josette said, her voice a powerful song in my soul. “You have honored my request to the best of your ability, and her abduction wasn’t your fault. We will get her back.”

  “We?” I asked. She knew I was there with her. My heart thudded with excitement.

  “I am with you, fellow,” she said. “I will always be with you.”

  When my vision returned, it was clouded over by the tears that had streamed from my eyes. Izak was still staring at me, his black orbs also moist with emotion.

  “Another drink, Mr. Smith?” Farrah asked. She was leaning into our aisle a little bit, observing our moment with absolute professionalism.

  Izak removed his hand from my head, flashed her that debonair grin, and nodded his head. I watched her walk away out of the corner of my eye. She looked back four times.

  “How did you do that?” I asked in a hoarse whisper. Josette’s soul, her power was part of me, and yet her voice had been more accessible to the demon. I was comforted by her parting words, otherwise I would have been in despair at the outcome.

  Izak sat up straight in his seat, still looking at me. He cocked his head, confused. He hadn’t expected me to come along for the ride. He reached down and picked up a crumpled napkin that was laying on the seat next to me, unfolding it to show me the precise runes burned into the center. I looked down and saw that he had positioned the drink napkins all around me.

  He pointed at me, and then swept his hand horizontally and shook his head, looked only at my golden angel eye and smiled. It wasn’t the same cocky smile, but a softer, gentler grin. He reached out and touched the side of my face, caressing it. I had been there, I had heard his promise. Maybe we would be friends after all.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Izak spent the remainder of the flight tossing back the booze, but as I had expected the stuff did nothing for his physical state. It had been an awkward and overly complicated conversation of words on one side and hand gestures on the other, but in the end I had come away with the understanding that the fiend had initially used the drinking as a ruse to create some kind of summoning ritual with the napkins, and afterwards had continued drinking because he found it pleasurable. At least it had provided a diversion from the macabre thoughts that would cross my mind whenever I tried to work out what Gervais intended to do with his daughter.

  Even so, the time I didn’t spend conversing with Izak was filled with an anxiety and dread that had nearly consumed me by the time the plane touched down at Paris Orly Airport. It had been so long since I had felt anything at all, and now every emotion was a knife in my soul, a reminder of why I had worked so hard to suppress my mortal shortcomings in the first place. I fought to keep my mind focused on the feeling of immersive warmth that Josette had brought to me. She was sure we would get to Sarah, and I held onto that hope because my own was floundering.

  It was a little after two on a windy, cold, rain-soaked morning when the plane began its final approach into Orly. Izak and I had agreed that stepping foot in the airport proper would be a bad idea, and so we unbuckled our belts, grabbed our carry-on, and started heading for the rear of the plane the moment the wheels touched the ground. We had made it back to coach, all eyes on the two morons who couldn’t follow instructions, when Farrah rushed through the first-class curtain waving her arms.

  “I’m sorry, sirs,” she said, ”but I’ll need you to return to your seats until the plane has reached the terminal, and the fasten seatbelt light is turned off.”

  Izak turned to face her, and by her reaction I knew this time his smile was no smile at all. Her eyes grew wide in shock, and she fell backwards in fear, tripping over an outstretched foot and tumbling to the ground.

  “Seriously?” I asked the fiend. The rest of the passengers began to erupt in a silent panic, suddenly fearful of who or what was walking down the aisle of the plane. I knew that feeling, because I had experienced it once myself.

  We picked up the pace, and when we reached the rear exit I focused on the locking mechanisms, spinning it open untouched and flinging it out into the onrushing air. The passengers started screaming, and I turned at the sound of someone approaching. A well-muscled guy in a suit was coming for us, a stun gun held out ahead of him. It figured we were on a marshaled flight.

  I grabbed Izak and threw him from the plane, deked to the right to throw the marshal off-balance, and gave him a soft shove back into the plane before he could fall out. I winked at him, and then tossed myself backwards, hanging in the air and slamming the door shut as the tail of the craft passed overhead, then slowing my momentum and putting myself down onto the tarmac. Izak was already back on his feet and headed towards me, his body regenerating from the major road rash I had given him. When he reached me, he punched me in the shoulder.

  “Serves you right,” I said. “We could have been a little bit more inconspicuous.”

  The demon shrugged.

  I turned to scan the runway, looking for the nearest perimeter fence. I had only made it a quarter of the way around when my Sight exploded in heat, and a moment later the airplane we had just been riding in began screeching and whining, and then burst into flames. I spun around to catch the tail-end of the action, a tremendous hand reaching down and crushing the fuselage right before the rest of the plane vanished beneath the ignition of the remaining fuel and the explosion of the engines.

  When Mr. Ross had said something big, I hadn’t imagined he was being literal. The demon that had just obliterated Air France 7760 was massive in scale. Easily thirty feet tall, it looked as though it had been born of the earth itself, its face unsculpted but for a pair of beady red eyes, its body an amalgam of stone and mud, with oversized arms and hands.

  It looked up from the explosion, quickly finding me standing out in the open, its reaction confirming that it was there to crush me in those massive hands. I held up the blessed sword and dropped into a fighting stance, only to be forced to leap backwards as a second giant fist pounded the earth where I had bee
n standing.

  The size of the first demon and the heat of the explosion had been effective at disrupting my senses, and I scrambled to stay ahead of the second monster’s attacks even while the first headed my way. I caught a glimpse of Izak out of the corner of my eye, again crouched in concentration, pulling the hellfire through its conduit and launching it at the creature. The flames licked at the demon’s skin, but it was unaffected, its hide too thick for it to be fazed.

  Izak leaped out of the way of a tremendous earthen leg, and then rushed forward, stabbing his blade deep into the creature’s calf. It didn’t even notice, keeping its attention on me.

  I heard the sirens of the incoming emergency response team as I focused, enhancing my strength and speed and using the power to keep away from the two demons while they mangled the earth and blacktop around me, trying to land the strike that would crush me into a pulp that I couldn’t regenerate from. I tried a few quick stabs and cuts with my own blade, but it skipped off the hard carapace in a shower of sparks. Useless.

  I focused and threw myself backwards, putting a few seconds of distance between the monsters and me. Immediately they began to lumber towards me, lined up side by side, their footfalls shaking the ground at my feet. I could see the firetrucks and ambulances behind them, the mortals scrambling to find survivors in the wreckage that I had indirectly caused. I shut down the feeling of guilt before I could fully recognize it, opting instead to reach for some of the twisted metal that had been tossed out onto the field. I yanked it towards me as hard as I could, bringing it high up and around the rear of the demons. They were almost on me now, and while I could evade them all night, I couldn’t play this game forever.

  I closed my eyes, the absence of the scene helping me to focus with greater precision and clarity. I could still See the demons with my senses, and I used my Sight to direct the sharp aluminum and steel, bringing it down from the heavens to pierce the creatures’ small red eyes. The beasts didn’t waver, their huge arms rising up to make the killing blow. That was when I vanished.