"You don't want him like this? He's yours to take care of."
She stood then, her expression hard. He stood as well, and they faced each other as fireflies moved like tiny diamonds around them. "I want him whole. Having him like a doll isn't having him at all, Daniel."
He nodded. "I won't ever like him."
"And he'll probably never like you," she said, and she sounded very sad.
Nona...
NONA straightened the covers after turning him on his right side. An alarm by her bed woke her every three hours. Each time, she made her way to Dags' room, the same one he'd had before being in Rhonda's compound, and moved his legs, pumping them toward his chest and then away. She moved his arms. His wrists. She did everything she could to preserve his muscle tone, having been in a similar situation months earlier—her soul rudely sucked from her body and stored in a—
Ah—let's not think about that right now.
Returning to her own body had felt comfortable—if not a little lighter. Her muscles had atrophied some, and the nurses at Miller Oaks had done a pretty good job keeping her muscles in good shape. And they kept her clean. So she paid it forward.
Nona just wished it wasn't Darren on the bed in front of her. She wished, in some odd fashion, it 'd been her.
He's so young—and like Zoë—experienced so much already. This shouldn't be happening to him. I wanted them to be together. But not like this. Not separated by planes, locked out from each other. Yet—this was the only way to keep them both safe.
From them.
It was past midnight when she pushed the pillow against his back. She'd cut his hair again, trimming the back that morning. His eyes were closed now. He was asleep. Though most days they were open, and he blinked slowly, a little more present than she'd been in her own body. Every now and then, she heard him…would glance at Rhonda to see if she had…and would push his voice from her mind.
He was frightened. Nona stopped what she was doing and listened again. Maybe, in the quiet of the night she could hear him, and not be overheard herself. Maybe—
"Nona."
It was hard not to stiffen her back—her gut reaction when she heard her ex-husband's voice. Ex because she'd divorced him when she believed he'd abandoned her and their daughter. Divorced him because she thought he was a coward. She'd hated him for a long time.
But now that she knew what he was, and what he was capable of?
She feared him. As she'd feared nothing and no one else in her life. He was Ethereal. He was—
A Virture, an Ethereal being that inspired mortals to strive and succeed in what was right. What was righteous.
For a long time after Zoë's body changed and her powers grew, Nona suspected, had even convinced herself, that Adiran had become the Phantasm. And until Jason and his ilk revealed the truth months ago, she'd still carried that belief. That her daughter would have to battle her father. Wraith against Phantasm.
Imagine her surprise to find Adiran was something much worse.
She felt him in the room, a heat behind her. Why were the Ethereals always warm, and the Abysmals always cold? It seemed in direct opposition to present religious philosophies. But then, so did her opinions of the planes and their masters.
Nona reached out and brushed a stray hair from Dags' face, noting the long dark lashes against his cheek. She sat back, but didn't turn to look at him. It was too painful. Adiran was…and still is…beautiful. Her shining Antonio…Her Latin dream. "Adiran."
"How goes the search?" His voice grew around her, slightly vibrating the dust on the nightstand.
She looked at Dags. Had he and her daughter made love in this room? Would he remember it? Did he dream of Zoë?
Did she dream of him?
Sighing, she pulled down the shades in her mind—the ones her great-uncle had helped her build—and turned to look at him. He looked as he always had. Young. Beautiful. Dark curly hair that brushed his shoulders. A strong aquiline nose and dark, expressive eyes. "They're not even close yet."
He nodded. "I see." Adiran moved to her side and peered down at Dags. "The paths always choose beauty, don't they?"
She only nodded.
"Don't be angry with me, Nona."
"Then don't do this." She watched him. "Don't put your daughter and him through this."
"There cannot be a void, and you know this."
"I know that it doesn't have to be Zoë. It can be a First Born. Or some other strong Abysmal creature."
"We put the strongest choice into the position, Nona. You know this. I told you. The casting out of Fallen. The creation of the Irin. You're going to create that same condition again—and for what?
"We've gone over this," he said as he knelt down beside her. He tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away. He sighed. "The barriers between the planes must be closed. The Abysmals must not be allowed to roam any longer. We were close in destroying the Revenants—" his eyebrows knitted for a second before smoothing. "Before my daughter interfered."
"Destroying the Revenants by using the old book wasn't the answer, Adiran. The Revenants are what's left of that golden age. We can't just—"
"YES WE CAN!"
His voice thundered over the compound, and she heard the glass on the nightstand rattle. Dags shifted in his sleep, and his brows knitted together, the first voluntary movement she'd seen since Rhonda took him in. She winced as her own ears rang and reached out to comfort Dags, making "Shhh…" noises at him. "It's okay, Darren...." Nona glared at Adiran. "Please leave."
She thought for a minute he was going to raise his voice again. Instead, he seemed to deflate as he stood, and hung his head. "I'm sorry…I sometimes forget what the Physical Plane was like. How fragile everything is."
But Nona ignored him, her hands on Dags, one of them smoothing his hair back from his face over his ear. He quieted and went still again. But he'd moved.
He'd moved!
"Everything Abysmal in the inner planes must be removed. Sent back. And with Zoë as the seat, I know she'll listen to us and keep them where they belong."
Right. She kept her gaze on Dags, not trusting herself to look at her ex-husband. And Dags? He'll remain as the leverage you'll use once she regains herself. That's what worried Nona. There was always an adjustment period when a new Phantasm was placed. Sometimes it took only the equivalent of a day. Sometimes weeks. Sometimes a century before they resonated.
Zoë had been locked inside the Seat now for several months with no movement, no sign of conscious thought. Or so Adiran had told her. Nona didn't know where she was. She knew Azrael did. But the First Born was getting weaker by the day. She knew this. Without Zoë here, his hold on his ability to manifest in the Physical Plane would cause him to lose himself into the Abysmal.
It was his tenuous hold to Zoë that made him powerful.
His only hope of staying here would be to become a Revenant. But that would diminish him. And they were going to need him strong.
"Please Nona. I need your help. We need the book whole. Once he's whole—we can take the book and join his physical body with hers. That should make her happy. Then we can clear the planes and finally make a better world with their union."
"Adiran," she looked at him, careful to keep the blinds down. "Don't make a move—"
But he shook his head as he took a step back. "You can't say no to me, Nona. If you do…I will destroy Zoë."
Alice...
ALICE listened to them as Darren's body rested. To the Witch and the Angel.
She could hear and see through him, as she'd done since becoming his Familiar. He simply didn't have control of his body anymore. But he could think. And he could hear her. All three of them could.
Even Maureen.
Alice realized immediately what had happened after Maureen removed the book.
Maureen. So much had happened to her since becoming a Familiar. Used by Rodriguez. Used by Bonville. Alice felt her in the distance, weeping, unwilling to come to her and Darren
as they sat on rocks beside the dark ocean shore in his mind. It was a place Alice had made for him when she realized they were trapped.
At first, it'd been difficult to rouse the representation of Darren internally. She'd found him, unconscious on the shore. So Alice had created light—and a place to sit. A place to coax him back to her. But that was as far as her power could go.
A fire flickered in front of them, warming their feet. The cracking and popping wood was a comfort, as the waking world's events played out like a projection screen over the forever-setting sun. This was their prison.
This was hell.
"What did he mean?" Darren turned and asked Alice. She sat on the stone beside him, a figure in white sweats, T-shirt and shawl. "Would he really destroy his daughter?"
"The fight to retake control consumes him," she said, her eyes fastened on the fire. Darren's eyes were closed in the waking world, so the horizon was setting inside of this reality. Tomorrow, when he opened his eyes again, and Nona continued to take care of him, they'd get another boring view of his lap, or of the television. She and Darren just wished Nona would put it on something besides Turner Classic Movies. There was only so much Wuthering Heights a Guardian and his Familiar could take.
"Control of the Abysmal?"
"Not just the Abysmal—but all the planes." She sighed and pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders. "The Seraphim truly believes that if the boundaries are put into place once again—with no crossings and no bleeding over—then the world will right itself. The truth is," she looked at him, "the world isn't in black and white, Darren. You know this yourself. Your very nature tips the scale to either plane with a thought. You. Zoë. Me and Maureen. We frighten the Seraphim. Because we cannot be controlled. Because we feed the imaginations and wills of the Physical Plane."
Darren looked as if he didn't understand. And perhaps he couldn't. His very being had been disassembled and replaced in the worst haphazard way possible. With things as they were—the Grimoire sitting open nearby, its pages half-fastened or missing—his connection to his physical self was lost. "So—the Seraphim put Zoë into the egg because they believed they could control her. That she wasn't powerful enough to think for herself."
"Adiran believed he could control her." She held up a finger and watched the light of the fire illuminate his beautiful face. "And so far, he's been able to keep her quiet and docile. But you see…the Abysmal Plane is a thing of chaos, Darren. It doesn't want there to be order governed by only one side. There has to be a balance. So—Zoë's been stirring."
He smiled at that. "I hear her sometimes, Alice. But it's like a dream. I can see her, and I reach out to her, but I can't…touch her."
"I suspect, Darren, that you are the key they need to lock those boundaries, but you are essential to the Phantasm to keep them open. They want the Grimoire put back together—but they want to control it. So to control you, they have control of Zoë and vice versa. The way I see it—the wild cards are the soldiers in the dark. The Revenants."
"I sort of suspected they would play a pretty large part in this," he rubbed at his face. "But how do they plan on taking control?"
"This is why the Seraphim sent its minions—like the Virtues, Dominions, and Powers. It plans on using subterfuge."
As a living woman in a position of power, Alice Bonville always had understood that word, and what it meant. The deceit and trickery used within her own family—particularly by her husband—had taught her that lesson in her life. If a person saw a man bending over a small child, it was wise not to always assume the man is beating or injuring that child until you can see the whole picture.
"Black doesn't necessarily mean bad."
"Yes. Take Maureen for instance. She did things to hurt you. Did she do them because she's evil? No. Misguided and discontented to say the least. But she's not, at her roots, evil. It's all in the mind's eye," she picked up a long stick and stirred the burning logs. "It's also public opinion as well. If, say, the people of the Physical Plane saw Zoë in her true form—as you've seen her—would they stop to think of her as good?"
He shook his head. Alice recalled Zoë's Abysmal appearance. The dark ashen skin, black features and eyes, the leathery wings, and the hair that moved out from her as if it had a mind of its own. No. That image had always been painted through history as something evil. Devilish.
"But," she held up the stick, the end of which was burning. "If they saw Adiran in all his Ethereal glory?"
"I get it." Darren lowered his shoulders. "The Seraphim have already started a campaign of deceit against the Revenants."
"Yes. Daemons, Symbionts, Fetches, Spectres, Boggarts," she looked at him past the burning stick. "They are all in danger—but not like the Revenants. The Seraphim is calling for an all-out extinction of them. They tried before to destroy them by using their sister as the Phantasm. Now, it's just a matter of getting the job done."
"Then Daniel's in trouble…"
"They all are. And anyone out there possessing a Symbiont for any reason. There aren't just First Borns, Darren. There are other entities that possess the human body, to feed on the spirit, that offer longer life. Those who keep disease at bay. There are Ghosts and Shades that stay with their families to help guide and influence. The Seraphim sees this as something unholy. Unclean. It'll send out its own assassins. But that's not quite what they're starting with. It's twofold."
"Twofold?"
"The Virtues will go after the Societies that know about them. First rule of combat is the moral law."
Darren's eyes widened. "Sun Tzu."
"It states that the people be in complete agreement with their leader. Which means that public opinion must be swayed, and all of those voices in opposition must be destroyed. The Society of Ishmael is one of those groups. It's not just Daniel who's in trouble—Rhonda is going to have a difficult time."
He looked back at the fire and shivered. "I have to get out of here, Alice. I can't stand it. I've been sitting here all these months," and he looked over to their right where the shadow of Grimoire sat. "And that damned book is useless. All those spells, yet nothing works. Does Rhonda have all the pages?"
"No."
He looked at her sharply. "And you know how many are left to find?"
"There are three. But one of them," she pushed the stick back into the fire. "That one will be the hardest to get to. And it's the key to freeing Zoë."
"What about me? Will I be able to live again with that page? Do I have to wait for it?"
"Once the other two are returned, and Rhonda shuffles the pages, you will join them."
"And then what?" he stood, abruptly dressed in a black hoodie and jeans. It seemed appropriate, and Alice was proud of him, at what he'd been able to accomplish here in this plane of existence. The Mental Plane. "What do I do then?" He moved past the fire and began to pace on the opposite side. "You're talking about fighting an army, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"What do we fight them with?"
"An equal army."
He stopped and dropped his jaw. "An army of what?"
"Abysmal creatures. Look, Darren, I've tried to tell you—you have to get to Zoë. Sophia figured out how to project out of that egg when she took her father's place. She had the power to actually be the Phantasm—not a puppet."
He ran a hand through his hair. "Let me get this situation straight—" he put his hands on his hips. "The first Phantasm wasn't locked in a prison—he was free to roam. Same as the Seraphim. But the Seraphim wanted to control all the planes, so it convinced Sophia to destroy her father and hunt her siblings down—only when she took over, she was placed inside this Abysmic Throne so that the Seraphim could control her."
Alice nodded. "But she was able to find a tiny hole. She loved the idea of revenge and killing, of taking power. But not for them. For herself. They created a monster and needed a way to destroy it," she sneered. "Without getting their own hands dirty, that is."
"That's where they manipulate
d Zoë's birth, you mean. They wanted to create a Wraith."
"Not a Wraith, but an Irin." She reached out to him. He moved around the fire and put his right hand in her right hand. His skin was warm. "Don't dislike Adiran. He is what he is, and that can't be changed. He only wants what's best for the Ethereal Realm."
"But he was human once."
"Once," she nodded and pulled him down. He sat on the rock beside her. "He was commanded by the Seraphim to beget a child. To do so meant an Irin, or Nephilim by Ethereal decree. But it didn't go quite the way they planned it. Azrael interfered by accident. Things change. We change. Look at you," and she reached up to ruffle his hair. "You're what they'd wanted to create—and not born from a mortal and an Ethereal. A being capable of wielding both powers—Abysmal and Ethereal. But then Rhonda changed you and placed the Grimoire within your soul. Again—things change. You have a larger role to play in this. As do Joe, Azrael, and Daniel."
"I don't know how," he pulled back from her as the wind moved his hair. "Or what I'm supposed to do."
"You will when the time comes. The actual act is easy," she rested her elbows on her thighs as she leaned into the fire. "The journey is what's hard."
He was quiet as the last of the sun's rays vanished behind the ocean. "Will we survive?"
"In some form, we have to."
She felt him shiver against her.
Joe...
JOE set out the milk after he finished with the snacks. If there was one thing he'd noticed about Azrael…the First Born loved to eat. Milk and grapes being the food of choice. It was nearing one in the morning, and Azreal had already gone through two bags of grapes and nearly a gallon of milk.
Who knew First Borns with no host could eat so much? And where was he putting it?
After wiping his hands, Joe moved to the sofa closest to the closed fireplace.
Azrael sat staring at the television through his shades, the sound muted. On his right, sat the half empty bowl of grapes.
"What?" Azrael said as he looked at Joe. The First Born removed his shades. His milky-white eyes bore down on Joe. "I can't watch a little TV? Oh, Danny Boy and Sis are here."
Tales Of The Abysmal Plane (Zoë Martinique Short Stories) (The Zoë Martinique Investigation Series) Page 18