by M. R. Forbes
He pulled the girl in front of him, looking her over. Her eyes were red with tears, and the demon just stared at her. Another heartbeat, and then another. He growled under his breath, and then turned and ran out the door, shifting as he cleared the house.
"Landon, you son of a bitch," he said, his soul reaching for me. "What the hell did you do?"
I let myself respond to his call, climbing back up from the depths I had sunk to. "I didn't do anything," I said.
"Bull," he shouted. "You did something to me. Fruit ripe for plucking, and I couldn't do it."
We trampled through the fields, a full spring towards nothing in particular. We leaped over the wall and flew down the road, as though running faster would fix whatever Ulnyx thought was broken.
"Impotent?" I asked. Despite my predicament, I was finding enjoyment in his failure.
"No," he said. "I just couldn't do it. The crying, the pain, the fear. I used to relish in it. Looking at those pathetic mortals, all I felt was... was..."
"Pity?" I asked.
He growled. "Guilty," he said. "That I shouldn't take advantage of them because they're so weak. I almost... almost..."
"Cried?"
"Cared," he said. He leaped over another wall, landing next to a large oak tree. He shifted, and sat down against it. "You've made me weak."
"I disagree," I said. "It's easy to take advantage of the weak. It takes strength to walk away."
He was silent for a few minutes, in consideration of what I had said.
"I don't know what you did, but I hate it," he said at last.
I laughed. "I'm afraid there's no cure."
He was silent again. We turned and looked up at the sky, dotted with thousands of stars I could never have seen in Manhattan.
"Ulnyx," I said, after a few minutes had passed.
"What do you want, meat?" he replied.
"Give me back my body," I said. "Please."
He didn't say anything.
"You don't really want the world to burn," I said. "There's no place for you if it does, and like you said, there's no something more. Lylyx didn't sacrifice herself for that."
Silence.
"None of this would have happened if it weren't for the Beast," I continued. "I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for him. I'd probably still be guarding old stuff at the Museum of Natural History, and you'd be out killing and not feeling bad about it. If you want to get revenge on somebody, let's get revenge on him."
He didn't say anything, but I felt the shift in his power. It was subtle, but I focused and pushed forward, finding the resistance gone. My power sunk in and around his, re-establishing the connection. I turned my head, in control of it once more. Then I wiggled my fingers and toes. I could feel Ulnyx churning below me, and I reached out for his power, watching my hand elongate into the Were's massive claws. Next, I focused on the strands tying my soul to Josette's. They were still ragged, but I could see that they were healing. Being in the background must have sped the process.
"Thank you," I said to him.
"I didn't do it for you," he replied. "I did it because I can't do eve rything myself, as much as I wish I could. Don't think this makes us friends."
"I can't do everything myself either," I said.
He'd never admit it, but he'd just shown that despite himself, we were friends.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I was only sitting under the tree for an hour before Charis and Sarah pulled up in the rear of a taxi. I don't know if Sarah could track me while I was subverted by Ulnyx, but I had been sure she would find me once he had submitted. Even so, they approached slowly, Charis holding Callus' sword ready, and Sarah staying a few feet behind her.
"You won't need that," I said. "If you didn't already know, I'm back to my old self again."
Charis turned the blade face down and planted it in the dirt. "That's good to hear. How did you overcome him?"
I shook my head. "I didn't," I said. "We had a little talk, and he realized there was a bigger fish we could fry."
"So he doesn't want to kill me anymore?" she asked.
"I'm still thinking about it," Ulnyx said, his voice echoing across my mind.
"Not at the moment," I replied.
She walked over and dropped down on the ground next to me, sharing the tree. Sarah joined her on the other side. "I'm sorry, brother," she said. "He was too strong for me."
"I know you tried." I turned my head to look at Charis. "I take it the party fell apart once Myzl lost his head?"
She smiled. "There were a couple of stragglers who didn't get it, but we took care of them. I have even better news." She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, they were a soft red.
"Good to see you again, metaphysically speaking." I said.
"She said she's glad to see you're still alive. She was worried about you."
"She was?"
It was faint, but a blush spread across her cheeks. "She knows you're important to me."
I felt my own face heating up. "Well, I guess we know what we have to do now."
"The taxi's waiting," Sarah said.
I leaned my head back against the tree, then reached out and out an arm around both of their shoulders, pulling them toward me. "Just give me a minute," I said, taking a deep breath. "I don't know if we'll have another chance to take a breather like this."
I closed my eyes, focusing on the weight of their heads pressed against me.
"Touching," Ulnyx said.
"Shut up," I replied. He responded with a laugh.
A few more minutes passed, and then I patted their arms. "Okay," I said. "It's time to go get the new cage."
We all got to our feet, and I followed Sarah through a gate not far from where Ulnyx had hopped the wall. The taxi was waiting outside, a green and black painted Volkswagen micro-van. It didn't have a driver.
"I persuaded him to give us the car," Sarah said.
"I can imagine," I replied. I went around to the passenger side, letting Charis take the wheel. Sarah climbed into the back.
"I hope it's not too late," Charis said. "We lost a lot of time chasing after you."
"I know," I said. "Ulnyx is a more willing participant in this fight now, so I think it will have been worth it."
"You're damn right," the Were growled.
Charis hit the gas, accelerating forward, and then doing a quick three pointer to get us headed back towards Florence. We zoomed along the narrow country roads with abandon, and I was shocked by how far the Were had run.
We had gone about twenty miles when the verdant farmland began to convert to the dense habitation of the city, and within another fifteen minutes we passed by the San Gallo.
"Where is the rift, anyway?" I asked.
"The Pitti Palace," Charis replied. "Just across the river."
"I'm not familiar with it," I said.
"It was built in the fourteen hundreds," she explained. "It's been under the control of a bunch of European dignitaries and aristocracy, but now it's a museum. There's a room there, a room nobody goes in. That's why."
"Am I off base to assume that the palace was owned by an archfiend at some point?"
She glanced over at me and nodded. "Close. It was owned by a Turned, but he was really just the deed holder. The archfiend ran the place, until Myzl deposed him. He preferred to stay closer to the action on the other side of the river, but he still used the rift when he needed to travel."
Except now Myzl was gone. It was good riddance, especially since he had been a servant. Would another rise quickly to take his place, or would the Beast make his move here, the same as he was in New York?
We crossed the river, and approached the Pitti Palace. The street fed right up to the back of the structure, a massive three story brick building with plenty of arched windows and a few large wooden doors at ground level. I didn't need my Sight to recognize the gargoyles perched on the roof of the third floor, though it did come in handy to spot the fiend hanging out on the inside. Were they wait
ing for us?
"What do you think?" I asked Charis, pointing up at the demons. She leaned forward over the wheel to get a better look. There were six of them, spread across the roof.
"We don't have time to be subtle," she said. "If they're going to alert someone, we can be long gone before they get here. If they're going to attack, you can go furry and knock them down."
Go furry... I liked that. "Sarah, are you okay back there?" I asked, turning and looking back at her. She had been quiet the entire drive, and even now she seemed a little distracted.
"Huh? Yes, I'm fine," she said.
Charis slowed the car to a stop right outside one of the pairs of massive wooden doors. I looked up. We were too close to the wall to see the gargoyles, and they weren't registering in my senses either. That was a good sign.
"I've got the door," Charis said. A moment later, it started rattling, shaking against whatever locking mechanism was on the other side. There was a soft pop, and then the doors swung open.
We went through them, under the colonnades and out into the main courtyard. There was a door on the right that led to an art museum. Charis unlocked it, and I shorted the alarm system. How did the demons usually come in?
We skipped the art, and made our way through another locked door and up the large stairway to the second floor. I could still See the fiend, their signature motionless, sitting on a direct intercept course. We walked along the marble floors, our shoes clattering against the stone, our approach anything but silent. Every ten feet or so we passed by a large arched window, and I could look out and down onto the roadway where we had left the taxi. I checked on the fiend again. They had to be waiting for us.
"Who is it?" I asked Charis.
"The fiend? I don't know," she replied. "He isn't very powerful, whoever he is."
"I guess we'll find out soon enough."
We reached a very ordinary door. At least, it appeared ordinary, but I could make the sweeping curves of the demonic runes looping back from under the frame. The door was protected somehow. I focused, and tried to shove it open. It didn't budge.
"It's not the kind of lock you're used to," Charis said. Her eyes flared red, the frame of the door glowed for a second, and it swung open.
The room was lit by a single sconce of hellfire, flickering against the back wall. In the center was the rift, the circle of runes scratched right into the marble floor, giving off their own eerie glow. To the right of the rift was the fiend, a younger man in a denim jacket and blue jeans, thick wavy hair that fell to his shoulders, and a grin that was way too friendly. At least it wasn't the Beast.
"Diuscrucis," he said. "Hmm.. What is the plural of diuscrucis anyway? Diuscrucises? Diuscrucii? A bit of a quandry, that." His voice was odd, childlike yet deep, with a strange reverberation that made it feel like it was echoing. I couldn't help but smile.
"And you are?" I asked.
"You can call me Max," he said. "It's not my given name, but it's good enough. A name is a label that speaks no words. Some say names have power, I say the ones who say that are stupid. No matter, that. I've been waiting for you."
"If names have no power, why not use your real one?" Sarah asked.
He chuckled. "Ahh, excellent question, young one. The answer is because these fat mounds of muscle we wag too easily cannot form the rich, elegant, beautiful enunciation of my true name."
"You're a fiend," she replied. "A human. Your name is human."
"Bah," he spat. "The name I was given on my mortal birth was merely a placeholder. No matter, that. I have been waiting for you."
"Clearly," Charis said. "How did you know we would be here?"
"The Beast told me," he said.
Charis drew her sword. Sarah backed up a step to give her space. I stayed completely still. "The Beast told you?" I asked. "So you're a servant?"
"Yes," he replied. "And, no. It's complicated."
"We're kind of in a hurry," I replied. "Either attack us, laugh at us, join us, or get out of the way."
"Ah-ha!" he shouted. "I should do all of the above, but probably not in that order. I have one purpose here, and one only. The Beast believes I am his servant, but I am not. I'm a spy."
"A spy for who?" I asked.
His teeth beamed in the light of the hellfire. "You'd never believe." He stepped forward, and Charis lifted her sword. "Hold, my dear. Hold your fury." He turned his hand over and slid back the sleeve of his jacket, showing his bare wrist. "There."
Charis and I looked down at it. "There's nothing there," she said.
He laughed, and then held up a finger. It grew into a sharp claw, which he used to slice the base of his arm. I had seen a lot, but I still felt a little queasy as he grabbed the open wound and ripped it upward. Instead of blood, muscle, and bone, there was a second layer of skin beneath. Scarred into his wrist was the mark of the Templars.
"You?" Charis asked, her eyes wide.
"Indeed," he replied. "For many, many years. You might have thought there were no demon Templars, but you thought wrong. I was secretly a Templar before I died, but it had always been intended that I would become a spy. I refused a drink from the Grail, and even refused the brand. I did some nasty deeds that I'm only slightly proud of and was sent to the Pit. A few hundred years passed, and I earned my way back. Yada, yada, yada, demon plus servant plus Templar equals spy. Of course, I can't just leave my brand hanging out where the others can see, now can I?"
"Your purpose?" I asked. The story was cool, but not very helpful.
"He's been broadcasting to his servants since you let him out. They know about the Box, and he's already sent one of his most powerful minions to retrieve it. If you were planning to walk through that rift intending to stop him, you may want to reconsider."
It was bad news, but I wasn't surprised. We knew he would be after the Box, and we had been way too slow getting to the rift. Still, the Box was guarded by the Templars. Would it be that easy for the servants to overcome them?
"What would you suggest?" Charis asked.
"The Beast has sent a contingent of his servants to Paris, France. He's spoken of enlisting the demon, Abaddon to his cause. It's rather humorous, because none of his get wants to go near that one. Someone will though, soon enough, even if the Beast has to possess him to do it."
"Damn it," I cursed. "Tell us something we don't know." We were losing, badly.
He snapped his fingers and spun around, a weird combination of Kid Rock and Michael Jackson. "Did you know the Beast is convinced that you have the power to catch him in the Box, and hold him for all of eternity? He's afraid of you."
"The Beast is afraid of me?" I asked. It was a tough story to buy into. "He didn't seem too worried about us the last time I saw him." The grin crept back into my thoughts, chilling me. Still, he must have believed we could catch him, or he wouldn't be trying to get the Box in the first place.
"No," he said. "He's not afraid of you." He pointed at Charis. "He's not afraid of you." He shifted his finger to Sarah. "He's not afraid of you. Well, he's more afraid of you, but I don't know why, because you're just a little emo girl with bad genetics." He waved his hand around us. "He's afraid of all of you, together. The Three Musketeers."
Or the three diuscrucis. I looked back at Sarah. Always three.
"Why?" I asked. "How do we catch him, and keep him?"
Max shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "He hasn't said."
"How do you know he's afraid?" Sarah asked.
"Because he's desperate to catch you, and kill you. Because he's desperate to get the Box. The Beast's full power is a challenge to God. You should be nothing more than ants to be stepped on to him, yet he is putting most of his energy into trapping you. Yes, be careful diuscrusises. He is working to trap you."
I looked at Charis. "What do you want to do?" I asked.
"Thailand," she said. "The Templars can hold out for a long time against any demon who isn't Abaddon. We have plenty of safeguards in place."
"I was hoping you would say that," I replied. "Can you light us up?"
Charis' eyes flared, and she nodded, going over to the rift and kneeling in front of it.
"Are you coming?" I asked Max.
He shook his head. "You aren't listening. He seeks to trap you." He motioned to the rift. "This is just one of his designs."
I grabbed his wrist and looked at the Templar brand. "I've learned not to trust anyone who hasn't earned it," I said. "If you're right, then you'll have proven yourself, but until then, I can't risk believing you."
He laughed and clapped me on the back with his free hand. "Not as dumb as you look? Very well, old chap. I'll see you on the other side." He pulled his hand away and started for the door, bowing to Sarah on the way by.
"And I thought things couldn't get any weirder," she said, watching him go.
CHAPTER NINE
The runes around the rift began to flame, and Charis rose from her crouch. "I wasn't sure it would still be connected," she said.
"There's no reason for it not to be, if it's a trap," I replied. "Even if it isn't, the demons need a way back out too."
Charis nodded. We had two blessed swords, and she gave one to Sarah. "There may be too many for you to Command," she said, "and we might be too busy to protect you."
"At least we know they won't kill me," she said.
"Don't be too confident," I said. "Cho wasn't supposed to kill me either, and he nearly did."
"Sorry, Landon," Charis said, turning to me. "I don't have a sword for you."
I smiled and raised my hand, pulling in Ulnyx's eagerly given power. The hand grew and elongated into a nasty set of claws. "I don't need one."
"So that's it then," Charis said. "Landon, if this goes bad..." She trailed off, her eyes downcast.
"It won't," I said.
"If it does." She burst forward and put her lips to mine; a quick, desperate meeting of flesh that melted right through that mental barrier of attraction that I was trying to keep between us. If passion could be shared in a split-second, she had somehow managed it.