Demons of Divinity

by Luke R. Mitchell

  “I’m going to stop them.” I glanced pointedly around at the Onyx Guard. “The only question is whether you’re going to have more of your people try to kill me while I’m at it.”

  He narrowed his eyes infinitesimally. Once again, he made no denial, but there was something else—some flicker of recognition, or something like it.

  “Why did you invite me here, your holiness?”

  He snapped his fingers. I tensed as the Onyx Guard in my left peripheral moved, but the Guard only moved to the door, gliding across the stone with eerily silent grace.

  “I invited you here to judge what manner of man you are when the air is not thick with slugs,” the High Cleric said. “And to discuss your position moving forward.”

  The door opened behind us. I turned as Glenbark and Johnny marched in, both tense, followed by a striking blonde girl who—

  I sucked in a breath.

  It was Siren.

  I’m not sure if I cursed or made a sudden movement or what. Something set the Onyx bastards off. My extended senses trilled, my reflexes kicked, and the next I knew, I’d made a flipping leap right over my chair and landed beside Johnny and Glenbark, six stunner bolts all crackling to a halt a hair’s breadth shy of my raised hands, every Onyx Guard in the room prowling my way with weapons raised.

  “Enough,” called the High Cleric.

  The Onyx Guard responded robotically, weapons lowering, still ready but not quite aimed at me. I let the caught stunner bolts fall, drawing my defenses tighter.

  “Someone’s jumpy,” Siren muttered, swinging the door shut behind her. “Can’t imagine w—”

  “Silence, Seeker,” the High Cleric said.

  Siren flinched as if he’d struck her, bowing her head and saying nothing, her fingers tracing the slender dark strip of the collar she wore at her throat.

  “What is the meaning of this, your holiness?” Glenbark asked, her tone stern but seeming to lack its usual authority in this place of Sanctum power. “I was given to understand we had an agreement.”

  An agreement? What agreement?

  I risked dropping my gaze from the Onyx Guard to take in Glenbark’s expression. She didn’t look happy. Neither did Johnny.

  “Careful, my child,” the High Cleric said. “These are dark forces you tamper with. I would merely see to it they are properly controlled.”

  Glenbark’s face was stony as she glanced at Siren, then back to the High Cleric. “Forgive me, holiness, if I’d rather not have assassins loitering on my base, babysitting my assets.”

  Understanding dawned like a den of wriggling ice worms in my stomach. I glanced at Siren, expecting to see glib victory in her eyes, but she kept her gaze fixed to the floor, real fear in her eyes.

  “—cept prudent cautions,” the High Cleric was saying, “then I’ll have to insist you leave your asset here to be properly handled.”

  My mind was whirling. This was unfolding too fast, Glenbark talking like she’d already made a deal for my spirit. I looked back to the High Cleric, fixing the positions of the six Onyx Guard in my mind. I didn’t know where this was going, but I was sure I didn’t like it. If I could move fast enough, I might be able to—

  “Don’t do it,” came a soft voice—Siren’s, I realized. The raw, vulnerable plea in her tone caught me off guard. I hesitated.

  Then something jabbed into the back of my neck, and before I could move, electric jolts arced through me, locking my limbs rigid until I toppled. I hit the ground, convulsing, uncomprehending. Something slipped around my neck. Johnny’s pendant, I realized. He was crouched over me, an odd look in his eye, and a stun rod in his hand.

  It didn’t make sense. He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. And yet here I was, twitching uncontrollably on the floor, liquid warmth crawling up my spine.

  “Johnny?” I tried to croak past a dry mouth and a sluggish tongue.

  He avoided my eyes, rolling me over. Restraints tightened around my wrists. The warmth was spreading, weighing my eyelids like softsteel anchors.

  I tried to look up. Saw only Johnny’s furrowed brow, and Glenbark hovering over his shoulder.

  “Don’t fight it, Raish,” she said. “Your fate’s already sealed.”

  26

  Heavy Lifting

  I blinked out of darkness on a rippling wave of disorientation and found myself staring at a set of green-blue eyes hovering startlingly close to mine.

  “Buddy, you’re gonna need to take a deep breath and—”

  I lashed out before I could fully recall why. Those green-blue eyes widened as they flew away and thunked into a wall—no, a bulkhead—just as my brain caught up.

  Johnny.

  I rolled off the bench and stumbled to my feet.

  Johnny had taken me down with a stun rod. Why? And why—

  A pair of preposterously large arms closed around me from behind.

  “Easy, kid,” someone said. “No one’s gonna hurt y—agh!”

  I lashed out again, and something heavy hit the bulkhead behind me. Adrenaline screamed through my veins, telling me to fight, to run. To not trust a single one of these bastards. But why?

  “Listen to me, Raish,” a voice called, hard and resolute. Glenbark.

  Because Freya Glenbark had betrayed me. That was why.

  “We need to talk abou—”

  I whirled, casting my will out, and yanked her a foot off the deck, tightening my telekinetic grip hard enough that she’d have no illusions about what was happening. It was only then that I really registered we were back on the Legion transport.

  And that all of First Squad was aiming weapons at me.

  “Lower your weapons,” Glenbark snapped. “Everyone. Now.”

  First Squad complied with unerring discipline, though the wary stares remained.

  Behind me, someone was laughing softly. I glanced back and saw Siren sitting in the last seat, one leg crossed, elbow propped to the knee, resting her chin on the palm of her hand and looking generally amused. She smiled at me. “This is so much more exciting than Sanctum life.”

  “Mara,” Glenbark said, surprisingly calm and poised for someone floating in a tight telekinetic cage, “if she talks again on this flight, hurt her.”

  “I don’t think the High Cleric would appreciate that very much,” Siren said.

  “You’re here as his eyes,” Glenbark said, “not his mouth.” She looked back to Mara. “Not another word from her.”

  “Your will, my hands, sir,” Mara said, cracking her knuckles and starting toward Siren, careful to give me a wide berth.

  “Citizen Raish,” Glenbark said.

  I was too distracted watching Johnny pull himself back to his feet, rubbing his head. On the opposite side of the cabin, Edwards was doing much the same.

  “Scud, broto,” Johnny groaned, “I know that was rough back there, but—” He touched the back of his head and winced. “Ouchie!”

  Glenbark’s voice cut through my swell of guilt. “Haldin.”

  I turned to meet her eyes and was almost surprised to find I still had her suspended over the deck.

  “If you would kindly put me down, I’ll explain what’s happening.”

  I did, the beginnings of embarrassment burning at my cheeks as I looked around at the twenty-some legionnaires all watching me, waiting to see if I’d explode or not. But why should I be embarrassed? Wasn’t I the one who’d been back-stabbed back there?

  Glenbark found her feet, gathered herself with grace, and tilted her head toward the transport’s front cabin. “In private.”

  I looked around, mumbled a few apologies to Edwards, Johnny, and the squad at large, and followed her up the steps.

  Siren’s sultry voice called after us. “Don’t go sharing all your secrets without m—”

  There was a sharp smacking sound, followed by Siren’s, “Oww! Bitch!”

  Another smack followed. Then silence.

  That, at least, gave me a tiny bit of feral satisfaction. I’m sure Mara enjoyed it more than
I did.

  Up by the pilot’s nook, out of sight of the main cabin, Glenbark pointedly gestured to the back of the transport then to her own ear, one eyebrow arched in question. I adjusted my cloaking pendant until it was just the two of us inside, and spoke quietly. “If you’re asking if she can hear us, I highly doubt it. If you’re asking if I’d like to know what the scud is going on, then—”

  “It had to look convincing, Haldin,” she said quietly.

  “Convincing as my best friend stabbing me in the back?” I hissed.

  “I did what I thought was necessary,” she fired back. A hint of hesitation touched her brow. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry. I didn’t enjoy keeping you in the dark. But we won’t win this war without Sanctum support, and that meant proving I have you contained. It had to look genuine. I’m doing my best to keep both our heads off the chopping block, here.”

  I clenched my fists, wanting to be angry but only finding that she was making too much sense. It was no secret General Auckus and his supporters were in arms over Glenbark involving me with the Legion at all. Keeping Glenbark from having to spit in the Sanctum’s face by denying the High Cleric’s invitation was exactly why I’d agreed to play along in the first place.

  Not that I’d had much of a choice.

  It had either been that or escaping Haven by force and going back on the run for real. Still, deterring civil war within the Legion had seemed a worthy enough reason to play along. But she was right—none of the Legion politicking would even matter unless the High Cleric believed that Glenbark had me under control—that I was nothing more than a tool in her fingers. And that was exactly what she’d just shown him.

  Plus, on top of all that, I was pretty sure she actually meant it when she said she was sorry, and I doubted those were words he said often.

  “Fine,” I finally forced myself to say. “Fine, I understand. But I’m not working with that woman watching over me.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but I pressed ahead, refusing to budge on this.

  “No. I don’t care what the deal is, sir. He tried to have me killed, and now his assassin is sitting on our transport. I don’t want her anywhere near me or my people. Get rid of her, or I’m gone.”

  “You can’t leave, Haldin.”

  I clenched my jaw. “You think you can stop me?”

  She didn’t bristle at my challenge—just shook her head, barely even seeming to hear it. “There’s more I need to tell you. The High Cleric made it clear his agent’s presence was an unnegotiable condition of my taking you back into Legion custody, but—”

  “Unnegotiable? You really don’t think having her try to kill me under your nose sort of breaches any agreement you two could ever make?”

  “He’s the High Cleric of the Sanctum, Haldin. I can’t ignore his demands any more than I can afford to fight two wars at once.” Her face darkened. “But there’s more you need to know. He also made it clear that your life will only be withheld from the Sanctum’s kill list as long as you remain in my custody. And he’s officially re-declaring you an enemy of Enochia.”

  My fists clenched, the news burning through me like a wave of pure rage. That was why she was so sorry. Not for lying to me. She was sorry because I’d listened to her—tried to help her, for the love of Alpha—and now I was headed right back where I’d been before the White Tower. Hunted. Hated.

  An enemy of Enochia.

  “Officially, you are to be my prisoner,” she said quietly. “As long as you remain within Haven, you—”

  “I what?” I snarled. “I won’t be killed on gropping sight?”

  She grabbed me by the shoulders, then, her grip like adamantus, and the conviction in her eyes so intense I nearly forgot I was angry for a moment. “I won’t let it come to that, Haldin,” she hissed. “You need to trust me on this.”

  Trust her? Trust the woman who’d just led me into a trap—just had me stripped of what little freedom I’d had?

  For a moment, something inside me screamed for me to lash out—to smash her into the bulkhead. Reach out and blow the transport engines. They wanted a demon? I could show them one.

  I could take this entire damned escort down, starting with her.

  I looked into her eyes, trembling, her adamantus grip unwavering on my shoulders, and all I could see was her own righteous outrage, burning right against mine. I couldn’t take it. Any of it.

  “Why can’t you gropping people just leave me alone?” I growled, jerking her hands from my shoulders with a sharp twist. I dropped to the nearest seat, burying my face in my tense hands until the emotion surged forth again. Before I knew it, I was spinning around, facing down into the rear cabin, and shouting at the top of my lungs. “What the scud is wrong with you people?”

  No one answered. The few pairs of eyes I could see down there flicked away, pretending they hadn’t been staring. Only Johnny’s eyes stayed on me—apprehensive and guilty—but as unwavering as Glenbark’s grip. He held my gaze until I turned back around to find Glenbark watching me with pity in her eyes.

  “What gives you the right?” I asked quietly. “Any one of them could’ve been born like me. Why should any of you get to have your gropping hooks in my life? You might as well execute me for the color of my eyes.”

  Her face was tight, her eyes angry. But not at me, I thought—and not even at herself—but at the injustice of it all. The injustice she’d led me to. I couldn’t not see it in her eyes.

  Freya Glenbark might not be my friend. I wasn’t even sure she particularly cared about me on a personal level. But she wasn’t the villain here, either. She was pissed. About all of this.

  She settled stiffly in the seat beside me, not speaking for a while.

  “The Sanctum is ready to join the fight in earnest,” she said finally. “The High Cleric agreed to grant me secondary control over the assignment details of the Sanctum Guard across Enochia. They’ll retain ultimate control, of course, but this will considerably free our resources to go hunting for Parker’s hybrid facilities.”

  I looked at her. “Are you saying my freedom really made that much of a difference?”

  She shook her head. “I’d like to think the two are as unrelated as they should be, but I can’t claim to know the workings of the High Cleric’s mind.”

  “Don’t you mean Alpha’s will?”

  She studied me with those piercing blue eyes, her expression unreadable. “We’re all bound by something, Haldin,” she finally said, “be it honor and duty, service to Alpha, love and friendship…”

  “Or a holy decree that you’re a monstrous threat to humanity?”

  “Your shackles are unique in shape and size,” she admitted, “as are your abilities to affect change in this world. But you’d do well to remember that, fair or not, just or not, we all have our shackles to bear.”

  I studied her tired face, wanting to call bullscud and to tell her that was easy for someone in power to say, but the weight of her words settled over me, giving me pause. She touched my forearm—lightly, this time—and rose to leave me to my thoughts.

  Demon’s depths, maybe she did care after all.

  I was even starting to flirt with the idea that maybe this development with the Sanctum had been inevitable anyway when the sounds of a scuffle in the main cabin caught my attention.

  “—et me go, you crazy—Raish! We’ve got a problem!”

  Siren’s voice.

  I frowned, leaning over to check it out. She couldn’t possibly think I’d be on her side just mere days after she’d tried to kill me, could she?

  “Sir?” one of the pilots called.

  On the stairs, Glenbark caught my eye for a split second before we both turned to the pilot’s nook.

  “Sir, I’m picking something up down in that—”

  That canyon, I assumed he meant to say, eyeing the rocky canyon a little ways ahead.

  Instead, his face went slack without warning.

  Vigilant one second, then just bl
ank the next.

  “Pilot?” Glenbark called. “Pilot, sitrep.”

  Commotion from the main cabin below.

  “Hal?” Johnny called. “Siren’s not looking so hot back here.”

  My insides went cold as the pieces all fell into place. I reached desperately for my cloaking pendant—just as the pilot turned his blank face back to the controls and jammed down on the stick.

  The transport plummeted for the dusty grasslands that led up to the canyon below, dropping sharply enough that I left my seat and hit the ceiling. A thud and a sharp curse to my right told me Glenbark had done the same. I was too busy fumbling with my pendant, dialing out the cloak so that—

  Ahead, both pilots came back to their senses with surprised yelps. One of them recovered and yanked back on the stick.

  I reached out to help Glenbark back to the deck as the transport leveled out, but she landed fine on her own and whirled to the main cabin. “Lock it down, Hound Company!”

  Affirmative cries from behind.

  The pilots scrambling to regain control ahead.

  Glenbark threw herself into the chair beside me, working the restraints. My fingers lingered on the pendant, my mind whirling with possibilities and half-formed plans. I didn’t know what to do, which way to move. Then the transport engines gave a series of sharp cracking pops, and the decision was made for me.

  Down.

  Straight down. Like a powerless lightsteel death trap.

  Screams and curses from the cabin. The acrid stench of fried electronics. The pilots trading their own curses, slapping at the controls.

  I started to reach out reflexively. Realized there wasn’t a chance in demons’ depths I could catch a falling transport full of geared soldiers.

  The backup engines sputtered to life.

  Too late. Not enough.

  I threw my power into slowing what I could anyway, tugging my own seat restraints across my chest with shaking hands.

  We hit.

  It was like Alpha himself had dropped an ocean on me. The impact was ferocious, smashing and jerking and crushing me in so many directions at once that I simply collapsed into myself, barely clinging to consciousness. Then it receded. The world expanded into five senses once more, and we were sliding—the entire transport cruising on with too much forward velocity, sliding across dirt and stone with a horrible wrenching screech.