The Belial Origins (The Belial Series Book 6)

by R. D. Brady

  But one thought didn’t. “I’ve lived a few lives too, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do I have the same deal as you, except without the memories?”

  “Oh, no, sweetheart, no. It’s true that you have lived many lives. But you are not reborn every lifetime like me. You are born only when you are needed.”

  “And when I’m not needed?”

  “You are at peace.”

  Laney felt relief, but also a little guilt. Victoria lived life after life with no reprieve in sight. She made all these decisions and faced all these challenges, not for her own good, but for everyone else’s. “I’m sorry.”

  Surprise flashed across Victoria’s face. “For what?”

  “I’ve been so mad at you. I couldn’t understand why you gave me up. Why you turned your back on me but kept Henry.”

  “Oh, I never turned my back on you, Laney. And giving you up was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Kind of like you letting Kati and Max go.”

  “I get that now. You needed to give me a chance to be safe. Just like I need to give them a chance to be safe.” Laney looked over at her. “Thank you.”

  Victoria’s breath hitched. She reached up and cupped Laney’s cheek. “You are so important to me. I would do anything to keep you safe.”

  “I love you, Mom.” The words came quietly from Laney’s lips, and she was surprised to hear herself say them. But she also knew how right they felt. And if there was anything she had learned from all of this, it was that life is short, and you need to make sure the important people in your life know how much you care about them before it’s too late.

  “I love you too, daughter.”

  They sat together in silence. Laney felt a true connection to her mother for the first time. But soon, the thoughts of what they were up against intruded. Images from the ancient stories of Lilith ran through Laney’s mind. Every so often, she would glance over at Victoria. She sat there with her eyes closed, looking at peace. How did she do it?

  “What is it, Laney?” Victoria asked, her eyes still closed.

  Laney cringed—apparently she hadn’t been as stealthy in her observation as she had thought. “Um, just thinking.”

  Victoria opened an eye. “About me?”

  Laney nodded.

  With a sigh, Victoria pushed her seat back up. “Fire away.”

  All the questions she had flew through her mind, but the one she was most curious about brought a blush to her cheeks. She swallowed her discomfort and asked it anyway. “According to the legend, Lilith ran away from Adam because she wouldn’t have sex with him.”

  Victoria laughed out loud. “Oh, please. The men who wrote those tales never thought of women as anything but sexual objects. So of course in their minds, if I refused Adam, it could only have been because of sex.”

  “So why was it really?”

  Victoria smiled. “Adam and I had been together for thousands of years. Most marriages these days make it a few years and people call it a success. I’d say we surpassed those by quite a margin. Even so, we had reached a point where we wanted different things.”

  “What did he want?”

  Victoria sighed. “He had begun to be intrigued by the Fallen, by the power they wielded. By the wealth they had acquired. I was not so enamored.”

  Laney frowned. “But in the story, you refused to lie with him. And fled. The angels found you, and that’s when you made the deal.”

  Victoria stayed silent.

  Laney’s mind churned. “But that doesn’t make any sense, because when you made the deal, Cain was already grown; he killed Abel the very next day. So Adam was already with Eve by then—and had been for a while.”

  “That’s right. Adam and I were no longer together. He was with Eve at that point.”

  “So what was the fight between you and Adam about?”

  “The fight was about equality, but not only between men and women. It was about the weak versus the strong, the rich versus the poor. Society had reached a point where those who were strongest, those who had the most, were controlling those without. And it was not between me and Adam. As I was the first woman, the Fallen wanted me to stand with them and agree that’s the way it should be—that the strong should have power over the weak. I refused.”

  “What happened?”

  “I escaped. It wasn’t easy. But there were people who believed the same way I did.”

  “The Children of the Law of One.”

  “Yes. And I had to make a choice—either allow humanity to continue on its destructive path, or give us all a chance at redemption. I chose the latter.”

  Laney was silent for a moment. What an incredible woman. Victoria had not just stood up to the Fallen, but really to all of humanity. And she was still fighting the same fight.

  And now there was a threat that might reverse all that Victoria had done, all she had sacrificed.

  “Is this the first time someone has made a play for the tree?”

  “No. There have been other attempts.”

  Laney thought of the tales of different emperors and kings who throughout time had tried and failed to find the secret to eternal life. The most famous person attached to a search for the Fountain of Youth was probably Ponce de Leon. But Laney recalled a Smithsonian article that suggested he never had in fact been searching for immortality, and that he wasn’t even associated with a quest for eternal youth until fourteen years after his death.

  Chinese emperors, however, were a different story. China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, became obsessed with obtaining immortality. And the Chinese emperors following Qin Shi Huang were similarly driven to find the cure for mortality. They encouraged monks to explore chemical combinations that could stave off death. Ironically, it was through those experiments that they actually ended up creating gunpowder.

  “Has anyone ever gotten close?” Laney asked.

  Victoria nodded. “One searcher actually succeeded.”

  “Who?”

  “Gilgamesh.”

  Laney sat back in surprise. She thought of the tale of Gilgamesh, looking at it with fresh eyes in light of what she now knew. Gilgamesh was most famous for the tale of the flood. But there was another aspect of his story that had drawn many researchers to it: Gilgamesh’s quest for immortality.

  Gilgamesh was born into royalty, and due to his innate abilities and his privileged birth, he was given everything he wanted. Which made him spoiled and obnoxious, but also very lonely. As a result, the gods created a friend for Gilgamesh, his other half: Enkidu.

  Enkidu was reported to have been as powerfully built as Gilgamesh, but he was described as a wild man. Together the two wreaked quite a bit of havoc, and eventually, their exploits caught up with them. Enkidu was punished for their transgression. The punishment was death.

  Enkidu’s death was Gilgamesh’s first exposure to loss. He was beside himself with grief. So he searched out an immortal human named Utnapishtim. Utnapishtim told Gilgamesh that there was a plant at the bottom of the sea that would make him immortal. Gilgamesh managed to get the plant—but then when he was drunk, a snake stole the plant and carried it away.

  Laney looked back out the window. The bottom of the sea. The place where some scholars place the original Garden of Eden. She wondered for a moment about the snake and how it was alleged to have gotten the plant back from Gilgamesh. Snakes seemed to dominate the stories she’d been hearing lately: the snake in the Garden, the snakes on the door of the vault in the temple, the snake stealing the plant from Gilgamesh.

  “That was the first Garden of Eden,” Laney said.

  Victoria nodded. “And the first time it was moved.”

  Laney’s eyes went wide when the second realization hit her. She turned back to Victoria. “You were the snake. You got the plant back from Gilgamesh.”

  Victoria winced. “It’s one of my least favorite descriptions of myself, but one which, sadly, has stuck. But yes, Gilgamesh wasn’t a dangerous man, but he was a man
caught in the throes of guilt. He was not ready for immortality, and neither was the world. So yes, I retrieved the fruit of the tree from him, with a little more difficulty than the poem suggests, but also without bloodshed.”

  Laney looked at Victoria in amazement. She had done so much, and no one even knew who she was. In fact, she was demonized by society. It was so unfair. “Do you think we’ll be able to achieve this retrieval without blood shed this time?”

  Victoria paused for a moment. “I sincerely doubt it.”

  CHAPTER 95

  Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

  Matt Clark stared out the window of the helicopter at the river below. The current was powerful, devastating, and it had been hours since Jorgen had gone in. It would be a huge stroke of luck if they found any evidence of him.

  “Sir, we haven’t found anything three miles out. Do you want us to keep looking?”

  Ever since they’d gotten everyone safely in the air, he’d had two choppers, as well as agents on foot, looking for a sign of Jorgen. But what little hope he’d had at the beginning of this search was dwindling into nothingness as the hours dragged on.

  Matt spoke into the microphone attached to his headset. “Yes. Let me know if you find anything.”

  “Orders?” the pilot asked.

  “Make another sweep. Farther downriver this time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The chopper headed north. Matt stared out the window. Come on, where are you? He had wanted to start the search earlier, but the priority had been getting Henry and Jake safely out of the country. He owed Laney that much. But that time may have cost them their chance at finding Cain.

  Mustafa spoke from the back of the chopper. “We’ll need to refuel soon.”

  Matt nodded but stayed silent. Even if Cain were dead, Matt knew there was a good chance the body would never be recovered. But it was also possible that Cain had simply washed up on shore, healed, and walked away.

  Damn it. Matt curled his fists. They needed to know, one way or the other.

  They rode in silence. The pilot hugged the riverbank as much as he could. Fifteen minutes later, Matt was acknowledging the futility of this search. The river would only give up its prize when—and if—it wanted to.

  Then Matt saw something black standing out against the brown bank below. He squinted. What is that?

  He looked back at Mustafa and pointed. “Do you see that?”

  “Yeah. We should check it out,” Mustafa said.

  Matt smiled, his hopes rising. Maybe this hadn’t been so futile after all.

  CHAPTER 96

  Hunan Province, China

  Laney sat in the back of the car as Ralph expertly handled the windy road leading along the edge of cliffs up to Heaven’s Gate. They had arrived in Zhangjiajie Hehua Airport a few hours ago and then driven to Tianmen Mountain.

  Now they were on the final leg of their journey. And she’d had no sense of the Fallen.

  Laney stared out the window. Heaven’s Gate. She’d never been there, but it had been on her bucket list. The official name of the location was “the Heaven’s Gate Mountain,” but when people used the term “Heaven’s Gate” they were usually referring to a particular aspect of the mountain: the giant hole that punched completely through it.

  It was a natural phenomenon, and incredible—or at least Laney had always thought so from the pictures she’d seen. It had originally been a cave, but the back end of the cave had collapsed in 263 C.E., leaving only the entrance still intact. The name was then switched from Songliang Mountain to Tianmen—the “sky-hole mountain.” Millions of visitors came to this part of China to experience the natural wonder every year.

  Ralph took another turn, and Laney swallowed nervously as she looked out at the cliff’s edge—way too close to the car door for comfort. The road was almost seven miles of hairpin turns—ninety-nine of them to be precise. Called Tongtian Avenue, it symbolized the nine heavens.

  Laney imagined that the ride was frightening enough during the day. Right now it was pitch black out, and it was mind-numbingly terrifying.

  Laney clutched the side of the car as she felt one of the wheels come off the road. Apparently I was worrying about the wrong thing. I’m going to die in car crash instead of in a showdown with the Fallen.

  Twenty tense minutes later, they were still only halfway down the road. Ralph turned a corner and Laney was pretty sure another one of the wheels went airborne. She sucked in a breath.

  Victoria glanced back at Laney from the front seat. “Okay?”

  “Oh, sure. Just a leisurely drive.”

  Victoria gave a small laugh.

  Laney smiled at her. “See? And you were worried we never got to do any mother-daughter activities. Here we are taking in the tourist traps.”

  Victoria smiled. “Well, let’s enjoy it then.”

  As they headed up the mountain, the sides of road grew higher, making it more difficult to see over the side—which was fine with Laney, because the view was a little too heart-attack-inducing for her taste.

  The wind picked up, and the car was pushed a little across the road.

  Laney focused on taking calming breaths, but her pounding heart made it clear that meditation was not her thing. Instead, she managed to keep replaying a vision of the brakes giving out and them careening off the side of the road and plummeting to their deaths.

  Finally, Ralph made it around the last turn and pulled into an empty parking lot.

  Laney let out a breath and took a moment to steady her breathing. She grabbed her backpack and opened the door. Ralph was already helping Victoria out. Laney stood and stretched. Her legs felt like jelly.

  Victoria looked over at her. “Are you ready?”

  Laney gave a laugh, feeling her nerves stretch her smile tight. “Honestly? Probably not.”

  Victoria kissed her cheek. “You’re ready. Trust me.”

  Laney looked at Victoria and realized that she did trust her. She trusted her implicitly. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  They stepped onto the path together; Ralph followed behind. The moon shone brightly through the center of the arch. It truly did look supernatural—like a gateway to some incredible place. It looked impossible.

  But then Laney’s gaze fell on the stairs leading up to it, and she sighed. And that’s not the only thing that looks impossible.

  She was about to say something to Victoria, but then she felt a tug from somewhere up ahead, up the stairs. What was that?

  “We’ll have to take the stairs,” Ralph said. “The chair will put us in the wrong spot.”

  Laney knew there was a chair that took tourists up to the summit, if they couldn’t handle the steps.

  She struggled to keep in the groan. “All nine hundred ninety-nine steps?”

  “We won’t be going all the way to the top.” Ralph offered Victoria his arm. “Victoria?”

  Victoria wrapped her arm around his. “Let’s go.”

  Ralph gestured for Laney to take the lead. She did, and with each step the pull got stronger.

  They walked in silence with only the crickets to keep them company. A chill fell over Laney, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t from the evening air. They were heading for the Garden of Eden and the tree of life. How was that possible? The enormity of this undertaking wasn’t lost on her.

  Laney forced herself to take note of her surroundings. Every year millions of tourists visited this mountain, but she knew not many got to see it like this. She could see why it had been named Heaven’s Gate.

  She glanced up at the huge hole. Tonight, it should probably be called Hell’s Gate. If the Fallen reached the tree before them, the impact on the world would be devastating. But so far, there was no sign of the Fallen. There was no sign of anyone. Maybe we will do this without a fight. Wow—that would be a nice change of pace.

  About two thirds of the way up the stairs, Laney felt a tug from her left. She stopped. “It’s this way.”

  She led them off the stair
s and into the woods that bordered the sides. Trees and shadow kept her from being able to see much, but it didn’t take long for them to reach the mountain face. Laney still felt the pull urging her forward, but there was nowhere to go.

  She looked around. “Um, are we climbing?”

  Ralph released Victoria and stepped toward the rock. “Nope. We’ll use the door.”

  Even with the shadows, it was obvious there was no door. There wasn’t even a cave.

  But Ralph placed his hands against the rock face and smiled. “It’s here.” He nodded to Laney. “Go ahead. Like this.”

  “Um, okay.” Laney placed her hands on the rock face as well. Immediately she felt a heat rise through her and into the rock. The rock seemed to shimmer for a moment, and then it disappeared, leaving a roughly doorway-sized hole.

  Laney’s jaw dropped. “Wow.”

  “Nice job,” Victoria said.

  Laney peered inside. It was pitch black. She slung off her pack and knelt down to unzip it. Pulling out three flashlights, she handed one each to Ralph and Victoria.

  Ralph stepped through the doorway, turning on his flashlight as he did so. Victoria followed him. Laney took a deep breath and stepped forward last. She slammed into an invisible wall.

  She stepped back, rubbing her nose. “Ouch.”

  Ralph turned back, an eyebrow raised. “Are you carrying weapons?”

  Feeling sheepish, Laney pulled her knife and sheath from her belt.

  Ralph shook his head. “Didn’t I say no weapons?”

  “Yes. But I tend not to like going against Fallen without a little something.”

  “You’ll have to leave it out there. You won’t be allowed in with it.”

  Laney held out the hand with the ring of Solomon on it. “What about this?”

  “That’s allowed,” Ralph said.

  Swallowing a curse, Laney dropped her knife beside of the opening. She hated the idea of walking into this unarmed. But apparently, she had no choice: no one would be able to get inside with weapons—even the Fallen. That last thought didn’t bring her much comfort though—she knew what the Fallen could do even without weapons.