Bound

Chapter EIGHTEEN

Rebecca



I felt the heat of it wash against me, and then I was in the air, surrounded by metal. The ground moved perpendicular to me, changing from gravel to grass. I curled up, hoping to minimize the number of bones that would break on impact.

Elyse was stronger than she looked, or at least the runes on her body held true. I hit the ground and half-rolled, half-slid along it, feeling the force of the impact, but not shattering beneath it. Finally, I came to a stop.

I looked up at the road. The car was gone, reduced to nothing but fragments. I had been lucky none of them had hit me. The witch was gone, dead for sure. The Damned? She'd had it stashed somewhere, and now we'd have to find it the old-fashioned way.

What about the djinn? Had he died in the explosion, or whisked himself away? I didn't know enough about their power to know if that was even possible.

I turned back the way we had come. We had joined a road headed up into the mountains, and behind me was a bit of pavement and a turn. There was no sign or sound of the demon Templar despite the fact that killing the witch would have destroyed the golem. Where had he gone off to? I stared at the turn for a few minutes, watching for his appearance. When he didn't show, I took a seat in the road and waited.

An hour passed before they came around the corner, riding an old rusted motorcycle with an equally dilapidated sidecar attached. Max was driving, his form returned to its more normal visage and his head bedecked in a pith helmet and thick riding goggles. Obi rested in the car, his hand balanced across the front of it, Desert Eagle aimed forward.

"What took you so long?" I asked as the bike stopped alongside me.

"My apologies, pumpkin pie. After you killed the witch, I returned to Cusco to pick up our feisty friend here. It took me a bit of time to find transportation that wouldn't clue them in to our arrival from a mile away." He patted the worn seat behind him. "Shall we get going?"

"The djinn who was driving the car got away. I have a feeling subtlety is off the table. Anyway, I'm not going anywhere with you. First, give me back the stone." I held out my hand.

"A pity, that. I was hoping for a frictionless encounter." Max's face split in half from the length of his grin. He reached under the helmet and let the stone roll into his hand, then tossed it to me. "I was just borrowing it."

"How did you even know I had it?"

The question just made him laugh harder.

He patted the seat again. "We need to get moving, dearie."

I didn't expect Obi to pipe up for me, but he did. "Wait a second, man. Enough of this crap. First, what the hell are you? Second, what the hell are we doing here? You said you would explain when you had time. Ding, dong, the witch is dead. You have time." He jumped out of the sidecar for emphasis, coming to stand next to me with his arms crossed.

Max sighed, took off the helmet and goggles, and dismounted the bike. His normally mirthful appearance turned sullen. "You're right of course, General. I should explain myself to you. First, I'm sure Rebecca can tell you what I am."

I nodded. "In part, I can." I looked at Obi. "Max is a Templar, a Divine sworn to fight the Beast. He's also a demon, which I think makes him unique among all of the Templars. It also turns out, he's more powerful than he's let on, and not at all what he's sold himself as." I turned my gaze to Max, angry curiosity gathering. "How a reaper has managed to survive outside of the depths of the pit for this long? I can't answer that."

"A reaper?" Obi asked. "As in Blue Oyster Cult?"

"Not quite," Max said. "That would be my boss. Or at least, the boss of all of the other reapers. As I said, sugar plum, it involves quite a bit of deceit and trickery, which happen to be my forte. Suffice it to say, Death is not very pleased with me right now."

Obi put up his hands. "Back the bus up, man. First, Death is a real... umm... I don't know... thing? Second, how are we supposed to believe anything you say, when you just said you're the God of Lies."

Max sighed again. "Obi, Obi, Obi... Death is not death. That is a process that is typically rather natural in mortals, and while there is a chaotic logic to it, it's self-managed. My Death is the Lord of Death, a demon whose main purpose it to torture murderers. People who have caused the death of others. The reapers are his helpers, and because they're assigned to deal with the souls of the violent, they're gifted more of Satan's power, via Death, than is typical. I'm not a god. Not even close. But I am a liar, a cheat, a thief, and an accomplished actor. You'll believe me, because you have no choice. You'll also believe me because above all things I'm a Templar, and my number one purpose is to rid this universe of the Beast."

I looked from the demon to Obi and back. I hadn't seen the former marine look happy yet, and he looked even less happy now. His shoulders slumped, and he stayed silent.

"What are we doing here, Max?" I asked.

"The Box," he said, "is a prison. A prison has a door. A door has a key. Or in this case, six keys. Three went to the demons, three to the angels."

I unslung the pack from my back and held it up in front of us. "This isn't a prison. I can let everything out any time I want to."

Max shrugged. "That is one way of looking at it, I suppose."


He knelt down in the road, taking a narrow dagger from somewhere on his person and scratching a square with a straight line through it. He drew two 'D's on one side, and a 'B' on the other. "This is the inside of the Box." He waved his hand, and the letters all moved onto the line. "This is what is happening now." The letters started moving across one another, but always stayed on the line. "Landon and Charis fight the Beast, but the Box is a universe of its own, and as a result it maintains its balance. The Beast will win some, the disucrucises will win some, but neither will gain a strong upper hand."

He smiled again. "As you know, the balance can shift and teeter before it topples. Like this universe, it can be toppled, but it won't be easy." He reached out and took my pack, unzipping it and removing the Box. "When the flow of energy changes color, that means the balance is shifting one way or another. Which way? I don't know."

The flow was steady right now, an even, pulsing blue. He put it back in the pack and handed the whole thing back to me.

"It's no accident that Landon and Charis are in the Box with the Beast. It had to be so to contain him. Of course, I couldn't tell him that ahead of time, because he might have altered his plans in an effort to find a more final solution, a solution that doesn't exist. This is no trivial situation. It took Malize a millennia of meditation and thought, and two millennia of preparation to build the tree whose branches we now flutter upon like sick sparrows. Even so, our success is anything but assured. There are still so many factors and so many things that can go wrong - the future isn't pre-ordained after all. Malize tried to guide the pieces into the right spot, but the game still has to be played to its final move."

It was a lot to take in. A lot to consider. "My redemption?" I asked.

"Why do you think Malize gave Landon the sword? It wasn't to stab you with it, per se, but it was one of the futures he predicted and arranged for out of many possible futures. It just happened to be the one that came to pass."

"You're saying we have no control?" Obi asked. "That our fate is some logic tree?"

The Templar shook his head. "Quite the opposite. Malize postulated what could happen. He didn't see into some kind of threads of potential of what would happen. It's an algorithm of possibilities."

"Fine. Where do the swords fit in? You said that they're keys?"

"Exactly. Keys to a prison. The power of the swords will hold the Beast inside, and give Landon and Charis the opportunity to get out."

"And then what?"

Max looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"The Beast's power can't be contained in the Box on its own. That's the whole reason they had to go inside in the first place. If you let them out, then what?"

Max raised his finger. "Ah... the confusion. No, my candy corn, Landon and Charis will come out, but the power that binds them to one another, and together to the Beast, will be left inside. He'll still be trapped as he always was, like a fly to a glue trap."

I felt my breath hang. "But, Landon and Charis... You mean they'll be..."

"Mortal?" he replied. "Maybe, but I don't think so. To be honest, I'm not sure what they'll be, other than out of the Box and back in this universe. Will they move on to Purgatory? It's possible. I don't know."

It wasn't a comforting thought. Landon would be free, but as what? A mortal? A spirit like me? Neither were fates I would wish on him or his loved one.

"I know you thought this would be easy... but there are some... complications." Max chuckled at his sarcasm. "First, we can only open the door inside the Beast's original prison. It will allow us to capture his remaining power and get it all in one place. More importantly, the creature Gervais also has set his sights on the power of the Box, and since he has possession of the Redeemer and the only path back to said prison, we'll have no choice but to bring everything he needs right to him. Third, we'll need to keep an eye out for Baal's daughter, Vilya."

"What about her?" Obi asked, finally speaking up again. "She's on our side."

Max's face darkened.

"She's not on our side?"

"No."

"But... she saved Charis from Hell," Obi said. "She said she... crap."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Consider it for yourself. She rescues a Templar from Hell by allowing her soul to be absorbed, thereby insuring that she will have a direct line to the Beast when it all comes down. Not only that, she knows that she'll have to be released from captivity in order for the diuscrusises to put the Beast in the Box."

I did consider it for myself. "It sounds a little too convenient," I said. "How could the Beast have known what it would take for them to trap him?"

"His true age is almost beyond measure. You don't believe he understands the rules of higher existence? In any case, I was masquerading as one of his servants while I was in Hell myself. Believe me, she's a servant of the Beast. Sarah was smart not to trust her and tell her where she was hiding, but she doesn't need to find Sarah. Gervais has the best chance of getting the Box back, and so she's waiting for him to retrieve it. That's when she'll make her move."

Obi shook his head. "If she's a servant, why didn't she try to help the Beast before he went into the Box?"

"Contingencies, my good man. Malize isn't the only one who has them."

"That's great. Just great. So... Vilya and Izak have a death match. Who wins?"

"Do you want the bad news now, or later?"

Now it was the former marine's turn to laugh. "Oh, now you're going to tell us the bad news?"

"When the two most powerful demons in the world have a death match, what kind of collateral damage do you think that will create? The whole thing is a super typhoon that we're not only going to have to walk right into the middle of, but we're going to be forced to create in order to succeed."

I shivered with a sudden chill that went right through Elyse's body and into my soul. "Is there any good news?"

His eyes brightened, and he smiled. "Yes, my cookie. You can't be killed. Plus, we'll have the swords. It should balance things out a bit."

I was really starting to hate that word.