chapter 10
In the dream, I was back at the Statue of Liberty, standing on the small walkway that encircled the torch. I wasn’t alone. His long black hair was tied back in a ponytail, his eyes covered by a pair of aviator shades. His expression was smug.
“Where were you two minutes ago?” I asked him. “I could have used you.”
“You mean I could have used you,” he replied. He smiled, revealing a mouth full of razor pointed teeth. “Sorry man, but I won’t kill my own kind.”
The whole thing was weird. I knew I was dreaming, or hallucinating, or something. It felt real enough. The air was cold and crisp, the wind whistling through the metal structure of the Statue. I could even hear tourists clanging up and down the steps nearby. At the same time, there was this otherness to it. Something was just off. I couldn’t place it, but I could feel it. That, and the fact that the Great Were I had killed was here, laughing at me.
“I don’t suppose you know what this is?” I asked him.
He seemed pretty comfortable with the situation. I felt surprisingly comfortable with him. I knew he couldn’t harm me here.
“I can’t believe you killed me and captured my soul,” he said with a sigh. “This is you. Your subconscious, your REM state, whatever the hell you want to call it. Divine spend hundreds of years trying to get to this place. You don’t even know what it is.”
He started laughing again, louder and stronger.
“Why?” I asked.
He stopped laughing and looked at me. “What do you mean why?”
“Why do Divine spend years trying to get into their subconscious?” I repeated. It doesn’t seem that great in here, present company included.”
“Man, you don’t know anything. This is the source of all of your power.” He waved his hand around at the world. “You trapped me here with it, even though you had no idea what you were doing. I was trying to take your body for my own. You fought like crap, got me because I was too busy ogling that little white honey. I thought it would be easy. Let me just say, you’re a blast to hang out with though. Those two girls were smokin’. And that angel... A little young for me, and her face is nothing to write home about, but damn she knew what to do with that sword of hers.”
He was baiting me, and I knew it. With a thought, I pushed him back against the railing, shoving him back until he was teetering over it.
“I know what you’re doing,” I said.
He laughed again. “Do you? Look around, Landon. Look at the scope of your power. You have the whole world at your disposal. I’m trying to help you realize your true potential. We could have Reyzl licking your feet within an hour.”
I hesitated. Just long enough for him to catch my weakness and seize on it.
“How many times have you been beaten up already?” he asked. “Aren’t you getting sick of it? You have the power, and I know how to use it. We can co-exist, and you can have anything you desire.” His face turned to a perverted sneer. “Like that angel of yours. Sexy little thing like that, I bet she knows quite a few tricks after seven hundred years.”
I’d had enough. My moment of weakness was replaced with pure anger. I gave the equivalent of a flick with my mind, and the Great Were went flying off the torch. I watched him fall, getting no satisfaction when his body slammed into the ground below and dissolved.
His words reverberated through me. The whole world at my disposal. There was a seductiveness to the thought. Wasn’t that the idea? If the demon couldn’t overpower me physically, he was going to try to do it mentally. The fact that I was affected by his words at all was proof that no matter the scope of my power, I was only as strong as my will. I remembered Dante’s last words to me. ‘Survive and fight’. It was simple, straightforward, and easy to remember. Somehow I had been surviving. It was time to start fighting. I turned towards the torch, where the Great Were was perched once more.
“Ulnyx,” I called. He raised his eyebrows in surprise at hearing his name. “I’ll see you around.”
I flipped him the bird, and woke myself up.