Silence in the Flames (The Traitor's Shadow Book 1)

by Ryan Talbot

  “Well, that saves you the fucking effort, doesn't it?” I stepped back.

  “After everything,” she shook her head slowly. “You still don't see... You still don't understand?”

  “Rachel,” I snapped. “I work for the Devil. I do it willingly. I hate your god, and I hate everything about you. In what world did you think that would change?”

  “You have no idea what you do,” she said quietly. “You have no idea what you've done.”

  “I don't care,” I snapped. “He's getting away.”

  “Let him go,” she said softly. “What does it matter now?”

  “It matters...” I ran a hand over my face to try to calm myself, to quell the unreasonable rage that burned within me. “Because I was ordered to end him by two different fucking gods. Because he made me do things that I can never forgive myself for. Because he did things to you that can never be healed. It matters, because he needs to fucking die.”

  “I am healed,” she said. “And the Lord is with me. There is no further need for violence.”

  “Really?” I turned back to face her. “You'd let him go? He murdered how many hundreds of people?” I stepped closer to her. “How fucking many? He tortured them for weeks, and butchered them like animals, and you're okay with that?”

  “No!” She snapped, her eyes lighting with fury. “Of course I'm not! But what good does more killing do?”

  “Vengeance!” I yelled. “Blood for fucking blood!”

  “Vengeance isn't mine,” she took a deep breath. “I am not the Judge.”

  “You mean to tell me...” I stopped and stepped away from her. “You can't seriously mean to say that you've forgiven?” I spat the word out. “After all he's done, you can't pretend that you want to just let him go!”

  “His fate is in the Lord's hands,” her eyes shone with her anger. “Not mine.”

  “You're out of your fucking mind,” I snapped. “Your god let this happen to you!”

  “And yours caused it all,” she snarled.

  “Be that as it may,” I shook my finger in her face. “At least he gives me the right to make Thorne fucking pay!”

  “You would burn for that right?” She asked softly.

  “If that's what it took,” my anger boiling over. “Yes!”

  “Then go,” she waved her hand dismissively. “See what vengeance brings. Go from the fire that could have redeemed you, to the one that tortures you forever!”

  I turned my back on her and shouted a Word of force as I jumped toward Thorne's ledge.

  51

  My feet hit the narrow ledge hard. I stumbled forward cognizant of the danger that awaited me. Scanning for hidden tripwires, or pressure plates, or electronic eyes, I slipped down the dirt tunnel after Thorne. The aether whipped around me, disturbed by his passing.

  That made me pause. Either he was hemorrhaging magic or something was protecting him in the worst way. Nothing disturbs the aether like ill intent, and this was a shitstorm of a level I'd never seen. As I reached the end of the tunnel, I snatched at the small of my back, my fingers searching for the comforting touch of my Beretta. Swearing under my breath as I realized I was both metaphorically, and literally, naked, my fingers traced a pattern of shielding as I whispered a ward. The tunnel emptied into a massive cave structure. How had he hidden all of this?

  “There is no sense lurking in the shadows,” Thorne's voice echoed across the cavern bouncing from the massive stalactites that hung from the ceiling. “Come into the light.”

  I stepped through the narrow opening into the huge cave beyond. Thorne stood next to a small granite table with two chairs tucked neatly beneath it. A crystal decanter rested on the surface with two crystal glasses. He shrugged out of his suit jacket, folded it neatly and rested it over the back of one of the chairs.

  I nodded at the decanter. “A last drink before you die?”

  “It was to have been a celebration,” he said so quietly, I had to strain to make out his words.

  “A celebration?”

  “The Great Reconciliation,” he lifted the decanter high, and flashed a huge smile. His freakish, scarred face crumbled, and he ran a hand over his hideous features. His shoulders shook beneath the designer silk shirt.

  “You thought I'd go along with your twisted fucking plan?” I stared at him blankly for a second, stunned by his insanity.

  “I thought humans capable of higher order thinking,” he snapped, slamming his fist onto the table. “I thought you capable of learning!” His eyes flared into literal fire, his irises melting away.

  “Learning?” I yelled back. “You tried to fucking enslave me!”

  “I tried,” he spat. “To give you the vision of the Almighty Himself!”

  “To make me betray my vows, to turn my back on my life, my love, my self!”

  “To make you see that you were...” he ran his hand over his eyes, then held it over his mouth. The flames receded back into his body and his eyes healed, the surface smoothing at the touch of his magic. He stared at me a second, then finished quietly. “Better than flesh.”

  “That's all fucking fine and noble,” I stabbed a finger at him. “Except you fucking tortured, maimed, and murdered how many? How fucking many people?”

  “None of them mattered,” he pulled the delicate stopper out of the decanter. He held it beneath his nose, and took a deep breath. “None save you.”

  “You'd burn the world to forgive yourself.”

  “And you'd burn it simply to watch it burn.” He poured a glass of the amber liquid. “I am no monster, Jason Beckett.”

  “You're the fucking Harbinger of Days,” I accused. “You tried to end the goddamned world.”

  “I have every faith that you will succeed where I failed.” He lifted his glass in silent salute.

  “I'm here to kill you,” I said. “And you're not walking away this time.”

  “I'm standing right here,” he replied. “Come then, and kill me.”

  “Just that simple?”

  “You seem to think it so,” a grin split his face, and my spirit receded deep into the farthest reaches of my heart. The shadows rushed in around us and the aether became frigid and...hollow.

  “That's the shit you fuckers always pull,” my mouth ran of its own accord. “You play the goddamned noble card until something pulls back the curtain, and there you sit, cock in hand, beating off while you rip the souls from dead babies.”

  “Is that so,” his eyes flared again. “What is my name, Jason Beckett?”

  “Iblis,” I said. “The Whisperer in the Dark.”

  “At least one of us is called by his proper name,” he laughed.

  “What's that supposed to mean?” I snapped. “Should I call you the Harbinger instead?”

  “It matters not,” the darkness closed around him, leaving only his burning ember eyes visible. “For what are names, but the lies by which we call ourselves.”

  I dropped to my knees and shouted a Word of abjuration the moment his eyes winked out. For a second, I thought a train had hit me. The world became noise and fire. From all around me voices cried out in agony. Mothers screamed as their children were torn from them. Fathers cried out as their daughters were raped and burned as they watched helplessly. Children wailed as blade, boot, and bullet massacred their innocent flesh. The dome of sorcery that surrounded me pulsed, throbbed like a heart near bursting. Flames, blacker than the deepest shadow roared over the surface of my magic seeking the tiniest imperfection in my will, my resolve.

  “You cannot deny me,” Thorne's, Iblis's, voice echoed through the entirety of my being. “Above all creatures, I know you. I know your kind.”

  “Is...” I grunted with the force of holding him back. “This your...teaching?”

  There was a sound, like a storm receding, and instantly, the pressure was gone. Light flooded my sight, dim as it was, it made my eyes ache. Thorne again stood at the table, two fingers massaging the space between his eyes, as if he were tucking the sha
dow back into his scars.

  “What the fuck,” I said, under my breath.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “Mastering myself has become more challenging of late.”

  “Why bother?” I asked him, as I stood. “You said it's over.”

  He laughed softly as he stared at the ceiling, choking it off into a sob.

  “Tell me I'm wrong,” I growled, walking toward him.

  “No,” he said.

  “Then why bother?”

  “Must you always be correct?” He lifted the glass shakily, spilling a little on his lips. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Can you never see that the world is not always so black and white.”

  “It's simple,” I said. “You failed.”

  “Failure implies an imperfect hypothesis,” he said.

  “And,” I asked.

  “You were the hypothesis,” he waved his empty hand at me. “You and all your kind.”

  “What?” I flinched slightly.

  “You, creatures of earth and sky,” he raised the glass in a mockery of a toast, then brought it to his lips and drained it.

  “Earth and sky?”

  “Adam,” Thorne scowled as if in pain. “The clay man.”

  “And the Almighty is the sky?”

  “Made in the image of the Divine,” he nodded. “And you are, none of you, perfect.”

  “All of this,” I gestured to the cavern, and by extension, his entire complex. “Just to tell me I need some work?”

  “Think of it as an exercise in logic,” he said, shoving the empty glass toward me.

  “Logic,” I said. “Okay.”

  “When a perfect being creates an imperfect image of himself, and expects that image to be perfect, what does that imply?” He poured a generous amount of the sweet, smoky smelling liquid into my glass.

  “That he's foolish,” I growled. “And imperfect.”

  “Look at me, Jason Beckett,” Iblis said. “What do you see?”

  “A monster stitched into a human suit,” I stared into his eyes. “A homicidal freak with the heart of a cold, evil killer.”

  “Do you know what I see when I look at you?” He set his glass down softly on the table.

  “What?”

  “I see the little boy who once tried to nurse an injured rabbit back to health and wept for days when it died. I see the young man who, tortured by unrequited love, wrote poetry glorifying the sunset over distant mountains. I see the man who found purpose in giving his life to others.” A tear rolled down his scarred cheek. “I see the spark of the divine in you, Jason Beckett.”

  “What's your point?” I snapped, harsher than I intended. His tears were more horrifying than his cruelty.

  “You are the flawed hypothesis,” he set his glass on the table. “And you are the reason I was cast out of Heaven. You are the reason I am forever denied the Grace of the Almighty.”

  “So you got thrown out because I'm an asshole?” I shook my head in disgust. “Come off of it, you're just pissed you're second place.”

  “I do not deny that,” he scowled. “It chafes to be set aside in favor of you.” He cleared his throat and loosened his tie and smiled. His skin took on a darker hue, as if flushed. “But you're losing sight of the lesson, and our time is limited.”

  “Because I'm going to fucking kill you?”

  “Let's finish our drinks first,” he said dryly. “But, yes.”

  “YHWH creates man,” I said, lifting my glass. “And man is flawed.”

  “Correct,” he nodded.

  “And you refused to bow because you were better than Adam.”

  “Is that so?”

  “You said he was imperfect.”

  “So I did,” he coughed behind his free hand, covering a smile.

  “But that's not why you were thrown out?” As soon as my lips touched the rim of my glass, it hit me. “Wait,” I slammed my glass on the table, splashing my drink on my hand.

  “Yes?”

  “It wasn't Adam,” I said.

  Iblis's smile widened. “Go on.” He wiped sweat from his brow and rested the cool glass on his head as he motioned for me to continue.

  “You said we were the flawed hypothesis,” I thought aloud. “You weren't refusing to bow because you were better than man.” I looked him in the eye. “You refused to legitimize YHWH's imperfect conception of himself.”

  “And thusly was I denied the solace of Light,” Iblis clapped slowly. “For denying the hollow sham that was my Lord's misconception of his own glory.”

  “What's the point of all of this? Other than you're batshit crazy, I mean.” I licked the amber liquid from my hand.

  “You denied salvation,” Iblis said.

  My mouth burned and my throat began to close. My hands clawed at my neck as the horrific pain ripped me apart from the inside out.

  “And I returned to Earth,” he knelt next to me as I stumbled. “And set in motion the rites to give you the chance to recant, to undo what Satan had begun.”

  My vision blurred as my mind caught fire from the poison in the cup. I rolled onto my back, my feet scraping at the stone floor of the cave.

  “Father, take this cup from me!” Iblis lifted his crystal glass, his voice cracking with emotion. In a single quaff, he drained it dry.

  My back arched with spasm after spasm of agony. Iblis hurled his cup to the ground. Fragments tore furrows in the delicate skin of my face and neck. He dropped to his belly, his face within inches of mine. His wild, fiery eyes bored into me.

  “Can't you see me for what I am?” He shrieked in my face. “Can't you see me at all?”

  “You're a....hnnn..freak!” I screamed as darkness closed in on me. “You're a twisted fucking murderer!”

  He grabbed my face, his ragged nails biting deep into my cheekbones. He screamed wordlessly as he slammed my head against the stone over and over. The darkness rushed in and took away all thought.

  52

  My eyes cracked open slowly, the dim light of the cavern felt like acid on my brain. I sat up slowly, my entire body ached. The light, smoky burn of the poison remained on my tongue.

  “I warned you, Liar,” her words preceded the clack of her chitinous legs on the stone. “It would not be pleasant.”

  “Thorne,” I rasped out. “Where?”

  “Just there,” she pointed with one of her delicate claws.

  Thorne lay crumpled beside the table, his limbs contorted into unnatural angles by the poison.

  “Why the fuck,” I rolled to my knees and stood unsteadily. “Would he do that?”

  “Desperation leads to unexpected ends, Liar.”

  “He could have killed me,” I snorted. “He should have.”

  “But he didn't,” she said, coming up beside me. Her arachnid form sent horrible shadows all over the cavern.

  “That doesn't make sense,” I said. “He was insane.”

  “Perhaps,” she agreed.

  I walked, or maybe wobbled, over to the table. “This was your venom.” I picked up the decanter.

  “Yes.”

  “You said you had a plan to get out,” I recalled.

  “I did.”

  “You gave him a bunch of your venom,” a chill worked its way down my spine.

  “I did,” her smile echoed through her words.

  “You knew he was going to die already,” I said.

  “I did,” she chuckled.

  “What did he give you in return?” I already knew the answer.

  “You.”

  I tried not to flinch. “Why?”

  “You were entertaining,” she chuckled softly, sensually.

  “You could've killed me the moment we met,” I said. “Why not then?”

  “Thorne still needed you for the Great Work,” she said.

  “You say that like you were one of them,” I spat the words out.

  “Oh, but I was,” she shimmered, taking her humanoid form.

  I pointed to the mark on her stomach. “Wh
at the fuck is that, then?”

  “A reminder,” she said caustically. “To pick the winning side.”

  “Looks like you didn't take your own advice,” I spat on Thorne's corpse.

  The hit came out of nowhere. It's funny how our minds fix on to our initial perception of a person. She'd told me a second before that she was one of Thorne's, but in my head, she was still his enemy. Her fist caught me under the jaw and tossed me over the table. My hand clamped over the mouth of the decanter, and I tucked it into my gut as I rolled back to my feet.

  “What the fuck, Lady?” Rage burned in my chest. This had been a very bad day.

  “Even now, in the presence of his sacrifice, you defile him!” Her eyes shot through with darkness, the tendrils of shadow that filled them, devouring the natural amber hue, replacing their warm glow with a terrifying cold.

  “You stupid bitch,” I screamed. “He tried to fucking kill me!”

  “He tried to unmake the End of All!” Her spider form tore free of her flesh in a shower of blood and gore. “He sought to right the greatest wrong! You could have been the savior of mankind!”

  “Newsflash, asshole,” I growled. “I don't like the one they've got now. Why would I join his fucking club?”

  She flickered, like film coming off the reel. Reality shuddered around her and the shadows began to move, to take on substance. I swallowed hard. Half a dozen massive shadow spiders weaved a slow circle around me.

  “So,” I cleared my throat. “There's no way we're gonna just shake hands and walk away, huh?”

  “I warned you once before, Liar,” she laughed again. “I will end you utterly.”

  “Abbadonna,” I whispered. “A little help?” I felt her fire ignite in my mind and my muscles tensed all at once as she crossed the Veil into my mind.

  “Liar,” the Widow growled. “Your Angelic infection is unbecoming.”

  “Just evening the odds,” I said. “You've got your friends, I've got mine.”

  The Widow hissed. “Do not think to deny me my prize, Liar.”

  The spiders inched closer. I ran my fingers through the blood on my face and sketched a sigil on the side of the decanter. The venom inside boiled as my sorcery took hold.