XXVIII
ANATHEMA
Qaira Eltruan—;
THE SCENERY WAS GIVING ME NON-STOP DEJA-VU.
A thousand years ago I was here—in this same place—gripping the arms of a chair for dear life.
For a second the image returned, veiling reality. I looked behind me, at child-Yahweh as he watched the recording of the cavern on-screen. He noticed me staring and met my gaze.
Reality took hold again, and child-Yahweh melded into now-Yahweh: taller, broader, clad in black thermal armor and a patch across his blind eye. The youthful excitement was gone, replaced by an understanding of how the world worked and all the darkness within it. His stoic stare switched to confusion when I kept staring at him.
I looked away, programming my headset. I didn’t need any help this time around.
Seyestin drove the transporter, silent. He hadn’t said a thing since we’d left Grigori-Tal. His expression was strained with fierce concentration, eyes darting between the windshield and the radar as we descended into a recess of pitch black and violent wind. The craft shook. All of us looked on in caution.
“I can’t see anything,” said Belial, a slight tremor in his voice. “How the bloody hell can he?”
“I can’t either,” said Seyestin, over his shoulder. “I’m ninety-seven percent certain that we are all going to die.”
“Then move aside,” I snarled. “I’ll fly this fucking thing if you won’t.”
Seyestin barely missed a giant boulder whipping toward us. “That would only kill us faster.”
“So shut up and keep driving.”
Adrial and Oran were seated at the back of the cabin. Neither one spoke, content to watch nothing out the window.
“Pressure is dropping,” said Yahweh, monitoring the external sensors. “Everyone get their visors on.”
More deja-vu.
I slipped the gear over my head, as did everyone else. The craft shook again; this time something hit it. Alarms blared.
“Left tank is punctured,” breathed Yahweh. The craft tilted, and everyone hung on.
“I don’t know how much more of this I can navigate through!” cried Seyestin, pulling up on the steer as another boulder darted by us.
And then we all saw something.
A glowing, blue light that grew brighter as we approached.
I stood from my seat, grabbing the ceiling rail. “There.”
The wind began to die. The entire area was illuminated in blue phosphorescence, revealing the rocky, black ground and floating army of boulders, suspended at various heights throughout the expanse.
But we weren’t in the caverns. Why was that light here?
The glowing ball took form; a sphere. A dome, the size of a city.
Yahweh was grinning at my expression when I looked back at him. He found the disbelief I wore amusing. “Bioluminescence, Qaira.”
“So, it was as useful as you imagined.”
“Approaching Akkaroz,” announced Seyestin. “Everyone back to their seats and buckle in. This will be a rough landing.”
*
The transporter had crashed through the doors of the port, skidding into the dock in an eruption of sparks. We’d had to break through the biodome case; alarms at the hangar had issued a pressure-breach warning. No one had been around to answer the call.
The dome encased the smallest and most modern city of Hell: Akkaroz, Parliament of Obsidia.
Judicial high-rises and cobblestone walkways lined the heart of Akkaroz. Restaurants and shopping plazas surrounded the district, all closed for business. An evacuation warning looped silently across televised billboards.
The light from the biodome simulated a blue sky, albeit sunless. The climate was warm, almost as warm as Crylle. Everyone had removed their visors upon leaving the hangar terminal. Neither Belial nor Yahweh seemed marginally impressed, having been here numerous times before. The rest of us were in awe, gaping up at the sunless sky.
“Akkaroz is empty,” Seyestin said, surveying the scenery with confusion. “I was expecting an army.”
“Why would Lucifer come back here?” asked Belial, the question obviously rhetoric. “He’s a sitting duck.”
My gaze trailed from the sky, toward the spires of the court. “Maybe that was his plan all along.”
Yahweh looked to me in question, but said nothing.
Two blocks away from Obsidian Court headquarters, Oran collapsed on her hands and knees, retching blood. Seyestin recoiled, aghast.
I pushed by him, helping her stand. She was lithe, dizzy, and leaned into me once I got her back on two feet. Adrial watched us from the front of the group. We caught eyes, and he stared at me with cool indifference.
“I-Is she okay?” Belial inquired, watching as her blood began to sizzle into a pile of black sand.
“No,” I said, nodding for them to press forward. “We need to keep moving.”
Oran only laughed quietly, clutching my jacket with a tiny fist. The other wiped blood trickling from her nose.
The Parliament building was vacant, like the rest of the city. Belial guided us through the domicile thirteen floors up, to where Commander Raith’s office lay. It, too, was dark and empty.
Yahweh was the first inside the room, trailing his fingers across Raith’s desk. A digitized frame sat next to the panel. He picked it up, and I watched his expression soften. A second later he placed it back on the desk, face-down. “I think we’ve been duped.”
I was inclined to agree, but my gut wouldn’t relent. After everything that had happened, it’d be a mistake to ignore it. “Where else might he be?”
“The only place he’d be other than his office is his estate,” murmured Yahweh.
Adrial lifted a brow. “Sipping a cup of tea, waiting for us to waltz in and take his head?”
“Seems unlikely,” said Belial. “He’s probably halfway to Heaven with another army.”
“We should go,” advised Seyestin, obviously on the same fence as Vakkar.
“No,” I said. Everyone looked at me. “He’s here. I can feel it.”
“You can feel that he’s here?” repeated Seyestin, incredulous.
I couldn’t explain it, so I didn’t. “Yahweh, take us to his house. If he isn’t there, we’ll reactivate the cephalon and head back to Crylle.”
He nodded, slipping out of the room. “Follow me.”
The others exited after him.
I hung back, glancing at the frame on Lucifer’s desk. Then, I picked it up.
It was a picture of Lucifer and Yahweh, pre-Fall. They stood in a garden, smiling for the camera, clad in Archaean uniforms. The image of angel-Raith reopened a few scars, the pain akin to fresh wounds. I returned the picture face-down on the desk.
On my way out, I saw Tae in the reflection of the window.
*
Lucifer’s estate was surprisingly modest, nestled between two larger homes, enclosed in a black iron fence. Cylindrical in shape, smooth metallic in form; a circular craftway led us up to the front door.
Without a doubt there were cameras somewhere on his property, although the only one I was able to spot was above the door. I glanced uneasily toward it.
By now it was clear that there wasn’t an ambush lying in wait. Half of our group was so convinced Raith wasn’t here that they waited for us on the craftway. Only Yahweh and I had pressed on.
“Should we… knock on the door?” whispered Yahweh.
Instead of answering his question, I kicked the door in. It fell inside the foyer, skidding off into the shadows. Before Yahweh could react, I slipped inside the house, releasing a scythe for good measure.
My eyes scanned the cool darkness, darting between each corner and doorway, scythe at the ready. At the edge of the foyer I slowed, then stopped; waiting, listening.
Tick, tick, tick—
My head turned toward the sound. Left door, last in the row.
Tick, tick, tick—
Yahweh came behind me, and I held out my h
and, signaling for him to wait. He did, and I moved toward the door.
It was left slightly ajar, light casting an orange glow around the frame. I pushed it the rest of the way open, greeted by a ticking tower clock and the faint sound of recorded strings music. It was a study, the walls lined with books all the way to the ceiling. Then my eyes wandered to the center of the room, settling on a couch and table.
They widened.
“What is it?” Yahweh said, crossing the threshold, noticing the deviation in my expression.
I tried to stop him, blocking the way. “No, don’t.”
He shoved by me, seeing it for himself. Frozen several feet away from the scene, his expression twisted in confusion, then realization—;
Then, sadness.
Lucifer Raith was slumped on the sofa. His crystal blue eyes were clouded over, staring into an abyss. A syringe was on the floor next to the sofa, while two vials and a second syringe were scattered across the table.
Yahweh turned, crimson tears brimming his eyes. He fought to remain stoic. “We have our answer. Let’s tell the others and get out of here.”
“Hey,” I said, taking a step toward him. “Listen, this—”
“I’m fine, Qaira,” he sighed, moving toward the door. “It’s easier this way.”
And then he was gone.
I winced, able to feel Yahweh’s pain as he’d passed me. Instead of following I moved to the table, looking over Raith’s corpse, burning the image into my mind. I leaned down, lips inches from his ear.
“You don’t deserve his tears,” I said, near-whisper. “You hear me, you miserable fuck?”
He only sat, gazing past me.
I followed his eyes, looking over my shoulder.
There was an erratically-written message on the wall, next to the tower clock.
IT ALL ENDS HERE
I’d been Lucifer’s business partner long enough to recognize that it wasn’t in his hand.
Dong, dong, dong—
The clock struck the hour, making me jump. Something moved in my peripherals and my attention shot toward the table. A thin, near-translucent thread of smoke was coming from a mashed cigarette in a tray.
I checked in all of Lucifer’s pockets; not a package on him.
*
Seyestin had taken over the duty of being Oran’s crutch. When I got outside, he was trying to pick her up off the ground. She kept shrugging him away, laughing hysterically. Blood oozed from her eyes and nose. Yahweh was the only one not watching the spectacle, instead staring out at the spires of Akkaroz Parliament with his back turned to the commotion.
I walked into the situation and yanked Oraniquitis up, jerking her forward. “Come on, we need to go.”
The urgency in my voice snapped her back to reality. She came quietly, smiling like she’d just taken an entire bottle of muscle relaxants. Meanwhile I could feel Adrial’s eyes burning a hole through me.
“What is it?” Seyestin called ahead as I rushed them along the street.
“They’re here,” I said.
“Who’s here?”
Yahweh had stopped up ahead, frozen in place. As I approached, I saw what he was staring at.
At the fork in the road, Calenus, Zira and Jii stood along the sidewalk, looking very much like they were expecting us.
Everyone else caught up and they froze, too. After a moment, Adrial and I moved to stand on either side of Yahweh, displaying a protective formation around the lessers and Oran.
“Take her and get out of here, as soon as this begins,” I ordered Seyestin and Belial. “Get to the cephalon. Find a way to reactivate it.”
I wanted Yahweh to get out of here as well, but we needed him. Any and all Violets were necessary, crucial.
“No, you will not,” ordered Adrial. “Everyone except myself and Oraniquitis will leave to the cephalon.”
I looked at Adrial, the heat of betrayal rising in my chest. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“They’re not interested in you,” he said, lowly. “They’re interested in her, and for a good reason. She is about to expire and it’s time, Qaira.”
“No.”
“This isn’t up for debate,” said Adrial, his eyes growing colder by the second. “I don’t know why you can’t see that she’s too far gone and I’m sure this must be horrible for you, but I made a promise to her; a promise she asked while still sound. Leid knew you could never do it, so she ordered me.”
“I’m not leaving, and you’re not giving them to her.”
“You won’t win.”
“I think I could hold my own.”
Yahweh watched us, a mixture of fright and concern etched across his face. Our opponents let us keep going. Calenus was trying to determine who he wouldn’t have to kill.
Oraniquitis just laughed and laughed behind us.
“Qaira,” Adrial snarled, “you’re going to get everyone murdered. For what?”
“You need to trust me.”
Adrial was taken back by that. He hesitated with a response, searching my face.
“You need to trust me, please,” I repeated.
More silence. No one moved.
“What are we doing?” urged Seyestin, still trying to keep Oran from crumpling to the ground.
Adrial tilted his head toward me, eyes drifting back to Calenus and his team. “Get out of here, all of you. Take the Scarlet Queen.”
I was relieved, but insulted. “Forget it. I’m not leaving you here, either.”
He shoved me back hard enough for me to stumble. “Go! Now!”
Before I could protest, Belial snapped his fingers and the entire street erupted into flames. The fire made a wall, blocking the Court of Enigmus’s path.
Seyestin threw Oraniquitis over his shoulder, releasing his wings. Belial followed suit, priming his rifle. Both of them shot into the sky like bullets.
If one of Calenus’s lackeys were to chase them, it’d be over. Oraniquitis was too far gone to help them, and I couldn’t place Yahweh to defend the group alone; not against seasoned Vel’Haru.
I grabbed Yahweh’s arm, yanking him away. “Let’s go!”
Reluctantly, he followed.
I looked back at Adrial, and he at me. His expression read goodbye.
Then he disappeared into the pillars of smoke.
I forced my attention away as I felt the magnetic shift take place; pulsing groans rippled the street, knocking over street lamps and fracturing smaller buildings. I didn’t know how long Adrial could hold them off—I had to assume five minutes, at most.
I soared by Seyestin, ordering him to throw Oraniquitis.
He did, and I caught her. I moved ahead of them. Yahweh kept my stride, and I was surprised at how fast he flew.
We braced ourselves, crashing through the glass mezzanine of Obsidian Parliament, rolling along the bridge.
“The cephalon!” I cried, scrambling to my feet. “Which way?”
Yahweh pointed to the north side of the mezzanine.
Seyestin and Belial joined us then. We took off on foot toward the northern spire. I couldn’t hear anything from the residential block anymore, which was a bad sign.
Halfway through the mezzanine, something rammed into me with the force of a two-ton craft. I was sent over the other side in an explosion of glass. I heard Yahweh scream my name.
Then I was airborne.
Disoriented, Oran slipped from my arms and fell from the sky. I dove to catch her but a torrent of animated glass shards swarmed me like a cloud of insects.
Larger shards went through me, spearing me into the outer wall of a tower across the bridge. Each time I freed myself, more crucified me. I unleashed my scythes, snarling against the sting of a million glass incisions, tasting coppery blood as it invaded my mouth.
Jii stood on the tower above, manipulating the glass cloud. I’d hoped to never see her fight. If she was here, then Zira and Calenus were soon to follow.
Yahweh had swooped down and caught Oraniquitis. Sh
e was unconscious now; her head lolled back against his arms as he returned her to the mezzanine. The group made a break for it, allowing me to place my full attention on the orange bitch above. I swung both scythes, shattering all the glass into sparkly dust.
My wings clapped and I flung myself to the top spire, ramming Jii with my body. She stumbled but recovered quickly enough to deflect my scythe with her own. She moved like wind, like Zhevraine, but her blows weren’t nearly as strong.
Still, stronger than mine.
***
Belial Vakkar—;
I knelt below the cephalon’s window ledge, rifle at the ready. A pathetic attempt at defense, but the only defense I really had against godkillers was my impeccable aim. Fire worked too, but I didn’t want to roast my company.
“Can you guys kindly hurry up?” I called. The Young Commander and his general were frantically trying to reactivate the telepad on the cephalon from the power panel across the room. From the sound of their conversation, it wasn’t going well.
I watched Qaira dance with a golden-skinned godkiller on the adjacent roof. While I could barely follow their movements, it was clear our boy wasn’t winning the fight.
I kept an eye shut, the other attempting to get a more precise reading on the scope. If they’d only stay put for a second, I might be able to even the odds.
When the golden godkiller staggered from an evasion of Qaira’s scythes, I pulled the trigger.
Boom.
Headshot.
At the sound of my gun firing and the single ‘Ha!’ that followed, Seyestin and Yahweh looked at me.
“What are you doing?” demanded Seyestin.
The woman godkiller fell off the tower, blood sprinkling from her head like a garden hose. Qaira dove after her. “Biding us more time. Why aren’t the pillars activated yet?”
“They should be,” said Yahweh, hand on his head. “We’ve done everything right. They won’t turn on.”
Another building toppled in the distance. I watched the area surrounding it ripple with magenta sparks. “Well could you please find a fucking solution?”
The Antithesis- The Complete Pentalogy Page 104