Bound

Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

Landon



We started walking, through the old subway tunnel and down the loop. We could have had Avriel air lift us back to the surface, but it just seemed safer in the enclosed space. I had no doubts that Ross would think of more monsters to conjure up and send after us. According to Clara, he was regaining his power, and biding his time.

She had also said that his death had allowed him to become stronger, like changing the locks on a door, or upgrading a computer. It was the balance, I knew. We were getting stronger, too.

I stayed next to Charis, while Clara and Avriel took point a few yards away. It was nice to have a little more time with her, even if was to walk in the dim light of the subway tunnel without saying much at all.

"It's great to have some calm time to walk with you, but I'd feel better if we had a plan," she said, echoing my own thoughts and breaking the silence.

We were walking a fairly long, straight stretch of track, headed uptown. Not because we had a destination in mind, but because that's where the path had led us. We were wandering right now, twisting in the wind, waiting.

I hated it as much as she did.

"You're right." I reached back and put my hand on the pistol, feeling the splintered wood of the grip. "We need to figure out how to use this thing, and then come up with a way to turn the tables on Ross. A trap of some kind."

"He has a knack for slipping traps."

"Maybe, but we can't play defense forever. Besides, I don't think we need to hold him, we just need to lead him to a predetermined point. An ambush."

"That's easy to say. I don't think it will be so easy to do."

"I don't know. He seems pretty intense when he gets close enough. If he thinks he has a clear shot at us, or Clara, he might get a little reckless to take it. I mean, that's how we dropped him in the first place."

"You want to put Clara out on the end of the stick?"

The repulsion in her voice surprised me. "Charis... she's not... real."

"She's as real as we are, in this place," she replied. "And she's ours. Yours and mine. As long as we're trapped here, this is as close to a family as we're ever going to have."

"With one major difference. If she dies, she'll come back again. Just like we do."

She stopped walking and put her arm out to stop me, letting Avriel and Clara get further ahead. "She still feels it, Landon. Just like we do. It still hurts." Her whispers were fierce and intense.

I put my hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "She doesn't remember it, though. She isn't like us. She doesn't have a soul."

She swatted my hand away. "You don't get it, do you? She has a soul. Our soul. Yours and mine. A piece of each. She isn't a carrot, she's our child."

She started moving again, leaving me standing there, watching her back. I didn't hurry to catch up. A few minutes of breathing room might help her cool her head, and I needed time to come to terms with our difference in opinion.

I was still in the rear when Avriel dropped back next to me. His weathered face looked a little younger, and he seemed renewed for having a purpose.

"You look troubled."

Said the angel who I had betrayed, and then failed. His suffering was still on my hands, and I felt the guilt of it burning through my soul. "Avriel. I know this won't make any sense to you, but I'm sorry."

He gazed at me and nodded. "Penitence is the path to God's grace. I believe you."

They weren't comforting words, but they still found a place in me to warm. "To be honest, I'm worried about Charis." I watched her up in front with Clara. They were talking and smiling. Was she wrong? Or was I?

"You've made a lot of difficult choices. I can see that on your face and in your eyes. I'm afraid that won't end just yet."

"What do you mean by that? Is there something you aren't telling me?" The fact that he was even here was proof enough there was more going on than any of us had been let in on.

"I..." He paused. It was an uncomfortable pause, as if he was trying to decide what to say.

I reached forward and grabbed him by the neck, focusing my power to give me the strength to lift him off the ground.

"I'm sick of games," I shouted.


Avriel was calm, even as Charis and Clara noticed what was happening. They both started walking towards us. Clara froze.

"Mom!"

The tunnel changed around us, shaking and twisting, bricks and mortar and dust churning up into the air. By the time I let go of Avriel, Charis and Clara were gone, a wall of stone dividing us.

"What the hell?" I ripped at the stone with my power, Ross' power, desperate to get to the other side. "You're supposed to protect us."

"Landon!"

I heard Charis' voice. I doubled my efforts.

"Clara.... Abaddon... Save her."

I didn't want to save her. She would come back, she always did. What was Charis thinking? I threw my body into the stone, hearing it crack beneath my shoulder. I rammed it again, and again. On the fourth try, I fell through.

Two tunnels. In one direction was Ross, holding Charis with her arms locked behind her, dragging her away. I could feel their power reverberating against one another, like the static charge of a lightning storm. She was fighting, but we could only stop him together.

In the other direction, the dark mass of the demon that I knew too well. I couldn't see Clara through his veil of nothing, but I knew she had to be there. How had they taken us by surprise? Why hadn't Avriel warned me? How had Clara missed it?

"Go and get her," I yelled at him. "I'll go for Charis."

The angel didn't move. "I can't."

"What do you mean you can't?"

He looked like he wanted to die. "I'm not strong enough. I can't win."

Damn it. "You knew this was going to happen? The hard choice? It isn't hard." I turned to run after Ross. It would be better if we died together, than for me to lose her.

He took hold of my shoulder, his fingers digging in hard enough to draw blood. "No. I said that because of who you are. What you are. There are no easy choices for any who must walk the line between good and evil. It's a pattern that will repeat, again and again for all of your existence. The sooner you are able to come to terms with this truth, the more powerful you will become."

I looked from him, to Ross, to Abaddon. I could just make out Charis' face in the spectral light of old bulbs. She was resolute. She was willing to die so that Clara could live. No, so that we could both live. Ross needed both of us to restart the game. Charis was the carrot.

Avriel was right, this time at least. He wouldn't kill Charis because that would take away my incentive to follow. I threw the seraph's hand off me and chased down the demon.

Power fed strength into my legs, and I raced towards Abaddon with abandon, ready to tear him apart. I felt it when his cloak of despair folded around me. I felt my body weaken and my resolve begin to crack. It wasn't enough. Not now.

Then Clara was there, held tight in his arms. I grabbed on and twisted, hearing him scream as black blood ran from the broken limb and Clara fell free. She rolled on the ground, where Avriel scooped her up.

"That hurt," the demon said in his echoing voice. "You're stronger than the seraph."

I pulled more power into me, focusing on rejecting the pestilence and plague of his energy. I was reckless with anger and hatred, my fists pummeling into anything that looked like flesh.

Abaddon laughed. He let me hit him a few times, and then a black hand took hold of my wrist and threw me backwards. "Not yet, child," he said. His entire entity began to soak into a crack in the tunnel wall. By the time I got back to my feet, he was gone.

"Damn it!" I shouted, as loud as I could. The rage poured out of me, so hard that a burst of power exploded away, sending a shiver through the entire world.

"Dad?"

I looked at Clara. Her face was bruised, her clothes scraped and torn. So many emotions churned inside of me, but the maelstrom died at the sight of her. I fell to my knees, overtaken by an instant exhaustion.

She put her arms around me, enveloping me in the warmth of her shared spirit. "We'll get her back. She's part of me, too."

"I don't understand," I said. "How could he do this? Why didn't you see him coming?"

Clara's eyes dimmed. "Abaddon. He hid him somehow. I thought he was further away."

"He can't be the real Abaddon. He's a shade, like Avriel. How can he be so strong?"

"Avriel destroyed the monsters," she replied. "Both shades are strong."

"I've been here for longer than I know," Avriel said. "Most of the power in this place is his and yours, but I know how to use what I have better than any of you." He pointed at the wall. "Except for him."

I fought against the feelings of despair that threatened to conquer me. I had lost Charis, and Abaddon had escaped. "What are we going to do?" I looked at Clara. "As long as you're here it means Charis is alive, doesn't it?"

She shook her head in the wrong direction. "No. You both need to die for him to change everything again. The good news is that for as much as killing her would weaken you, it would also weaken me. Ross doesn't want that to happen now."

I didn't understand. "Why not?"

"The balance. As much as he hates it, he can't break it without me. Not anymore."

"If he wanted to kill you-"

"He can't just kill me. As long as you and mother are alive, I'll only return. The two of you are like turbines. I'm a battery. He needs you both alive, but he also needs time to discharge the power you've collected. If he just kills me outright it will go back out into wild until I return. He can't simply claim it, because it's been tainted with the power of your connection."

I looked into her eyes, sparkling like gems despite the dim lighting. "He wanted me to chase him so that Abaddon could escape with you. He would have hid you from me, the same as he hid Ross."

She smiled. "Yes. If you had gone after him, he would have let her go and made his escape."

"Not if I had caught up."

"He would have let you kill him again. When he came back, he would know where Abaddon was hiding me and you wouldn't."

It made sense. It almost made too much sense. "How do you know all of this?" I asked.

"I don't. You do, when you take away all of the anger, and the guilt, and the joy. When you dive below the pain and look past the hope. Where your power, his power, is pure. That's where you can feel him, and begin to understand him. The Beast is a powerful entity, but he isn't without sentience or consciousness. He wasn't always the Beast. He wasn't always a harbinger of destruction."

She held out her hand and helped me to my feet.

"Once, many years ago, he was much like you."