Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT
Landon
"What do you mean, like me?" I asked.
"It is the reason you can absorb his power. You and mother both. The universe demands balance, it depends on it, as you know. The Beast was tasked with keeping that balance."
"For the entire universe?" I was shocked. I had barely managed to keep the balance on earth in check.
"Not this universe, but yes. It's hard to picture, but it was so."
"What happened?"
"He failed."
I laughed. "You mean he decided to side with chaos."
"No. I mean, he failed. He tried to stop it and couldn't. Everything he knew burned. I can feel the flames in his energy, the death of an untold number of planets and peoples in its ripples."
I had no idea. I don't know if anyone did. "Malize told me he came to this universe to hide. That he asked God for safe haven."
"He came in goodwill. The torment of his guilt drove him mad. Now it's all he is."
Could I expect the same to happen to me if I failed? I'd underestimated the costs when I'd agreed to come back from Purgatory and be a champion for mankind and the balance. Had I trapped myself in the one true hell? I took a deep breath and blew it out.
"No matter where he came from, he's a problem now," I said. "We need a plan to get Charis back."
"You can't," Clara said. "He'll know you're coming."
"So what? So he kills me again? So he kills Charis? At least we'll be back together. I'm getting her back." There was no point to any of this if it meant leaving her with Ross, to be tortured for all of eternity.
"Dad-"
"No. I don't want to hear it." I drew the revolver and held it up in front of me. "You talk about balance... what the hell am I supposed to do with this? If I understand what you're saying, it takes all three of us to capture half of his power, right? And now we have enough of it that he wants the part that you have, and he knows how to get it. What is he going to do with it, Clara? Break the balance? Then what?"
She didn't show any emotion. She just stood and looked at me, which only made me more upset.
"I see three possibilities. One, we keep the balance. Two, he breaks it. Three, we break it. What's the difference between two and three? How would us defying the universal law lead to any better outcome than him? He has Charis, and none of this makes any damn sense."
"Whoever breaks the balance has control," she said, in a tone barely above a whisper, like it was a secret she didn't want me to hear.
"Control of what?"
"Everything."
"In here? That doesn't amount to much."
"The Box is locked. Whoever has control can unlock it."
"So Ross can get out?"
"Yes."
"Or we can get out."
"Yes, except..." Her voice trailed off.
"Except what?"
She looked at the ground. "You can't break the balance before we've reached parity with him. It's impossible."
I felt like I was standing naked in the arctic. Every part of me shivered. "So, you want to stall until our power is totally equal, even if that means leaving your mother there to suffer?" I caught myself after I said it. Her mother? She wasn't real.
"I don't want to. We have to. It's the only way."
"To win? I don't accept that. We're going to get her." I looked at her, feeling the chill of the coldness that washed through me. "If he's going to capture you, I'll kill you myself."
She didn't flinch. She just nodded.
"Charis is part of you," I said. "Unless she's with Abaddon, you can sense her. Where is she?"
"Dad, I-"
I knelt down and grabbed her shoulders. "Where is she, Clara?"
"I'll take you," she said. "But you're going to die, and we'll never get another chance at this."
"He doesn't have to die," Avriel said, stepping up to us. "There may be another way."
We both looked at him.
"Abaddon," he said. "Convince the demon to help you. He can cloak you in his power and allow you to attack the Beast before he knows you're there. It may be enough to save Charis, and get you the time you need to overcome him once and for all."
"Abaddon?" I laughed weakly. "No offense, but you do know Abaddon hates me."
"No. Abaddon hates me. That doesn't mean you can't bargain with him."
"I think he's already struck a deal with Ross."
"He's a demon. Make him a better one."
"Even if he wants me to hand you over?"
"If that is what it takes, then so be it."
I stared at him while I thought. The last thing I wanted to do was hand Avriel over to Abaddon again. I had enough guilt on my conscience from the first time I'd done it. "I can't. We'll find another way."
"Landon," Avriel said. "I am here for a reason. Abaddon is here for a reason. Can you be sure of what that reason is?"
I couldn't be sure of anything.
"I'm not making any promises," I said. "If we can't sense him, how do we find him?"
"I have an idea where he may be. The place is always the same, but the landscape has been remade since you arrived. Before, I called it the Grave. I could always find the demon there, kneeling before a headstone. We would talk then, before we would fight. He would tell me of his lost love."
He smirked at my surprise.
"Abaddon was a human before Lucifer changed him. I didn't know that either until we were trapped together. He killed his wife, and in time came to regret the decision."
"But he still delighted in torturing you." My mind flashed back to the image of him up on the cross, and the screams of agony that followed my betrayal. Next, I thought of Charis. I was kidding myself to think that I wouldn't hand him over without hesitation if it was the only way to get her back.
"He was always a killer, and I'm not his wife."
"Right. So, where was the Grave?"
"It was on an island. I would fly across, and he would be there."
"That isn't very helpful," I said. "We're on an island right now."
Avriel shrugged. "I'm sorry, but that was how I knew it. It wasn't a large island, and it was home to only the single headstone. It rested right in the center, a block of white marble carved in the visage of a weeping angel."
A statue of a woman alone in the center of an island? "You're telling me he's waiting at the Statue of Liberty?"
Avriel shrugged again. "I don't know that place."
I did, too well. It was where I had learned the truth about what I had agreed to do. Everything was coming full circle, and I didn't like it.
"Okay. We need to get to Liberty Island. Where are we right now?"
The shifting walls had gotten me turned around. I had a sense of where we were in space, but not geography. As much as this place looked and felt like Manhattan, there was no way to be sure that it would stay that way.
"The Chambers Street station should be right up ahead," Clara said.
"Perfect."
I started running. Clara and Avriel had no trouble keeping pace, and we covered the distance in no time. We reached Chambers Street within a few minutes. The station was deserted, the same as the rest of the city.
"Which way to Charis?" I asked.
Clara pointed north. "That way."
The Statue was south. I hated to move further from Charis, but there was no choice. "Okay, let's go."
If I remembered right, it was about a mile from the World Trade complex to the Battery Park ferry, and the Chambers Street subway had only dropped us off a couple of blocks from where the Freedom Tower was rising into a sky painted with purple and black clouds, crackling with blue energy.
"Ross isn't going to like us not moving towards him," I said as we started running down Church Street.
"No, he isn't," Avriel said, pointing towards the sky. A single figure, slender and pale floated in contrast against the clouds.
"An angel?" I asked. I knew it couldn't be so.
The figure swooped down, landing on the roof of the building ahead. Trinity Church.
My eyes followed, and when they reached ground level I drew back. The once empty city had found its populace. People, cars, dogs, and even pigeons now moved through the streets in a smooth flow, headed from one place to another. There were horns honking, voices on cell phones, laughter and shouting. I tried to find the angel again in the sudden rush.
She was gone.
"What's happening?" I asked.
"Just as gathering his power makes us stronger, it also binds us closer together. As we know him better, he knows us better. He's using your memories," Clara said. "Or mother's."
I saw it now. Standing in front of a small storefront was a large man in a white apron, a smile on his face as he waited for patrons to enter his butcher shop. I'd seen that man plenty of times before, walking from the apartment in Harlem to the park where I would play. He was out of place here.
"Stay alert, Landon," Avriel said. "He's doing this to distract you."
I knew it, but still found it distracting. I blinked a couple of times and starting moving again. The traffic didn't break around us like it did in the real world. It made travel slow.
She was waiting for us outside of the church. Now that she was close, I could see what Ross had done.
"Landon." Josette opened her arms wide to me, her round face filled with a cheshire grin.
She was everything that was good in the world, my symbol of the best of both human and Divine. He was using her likeness to get to me, and he was succeeding.
"Not her," I said, feeling my fury building. "Anyone else, but not her."
The attack came from behind us, a flash of cloth and a glint of iron. She was the bait, not the ambush. I was barely able to turn and get my arm up in time, and I cried out in pain as the sword dug down to the bone.
He wrenched it out and stepped back, leaving us standing face to face. I knew the attacker. Charis' lover, Joseph. He drew back the blade and readied himself while blood ran down my arm and dripped on the pavement.
"A poor excuse for a replacement in her bed," he said, spitting at my feet. "You don't deserve her."
Behind me, I heard the sound of steel against steel.
"Avriel the Just," Josette said, laughing. "Just what?"
Even if I could have looked, I didn't want to. Josette deserved to be remembered in the way she lived and died; with dignity and grace.
"I don't have time for this," I said. I could feel the blood pumping through me, my anger at full-tilt. The crowd was a distraction. Josette was a distraction. Joseph was a distraction.
I was angry, but not stupid.
I pulled the gun from my waist. I didn't shoot it. I didn't need to. I threw myself towards Joseph, holding the pistol against my palm to use it as a shield. He smiled and quick stepped towards me, bringing his body perpendicular and his blade through with an amazing grace.
Ross was using Charis' memories, but I had them, too. I knew the move was coming and I ducked under it with only centimeters to spare. In one smooth motion I turned and tossed the revolver into the air, and then launched it forward. Not at Joseph, at Clara.
Until the last moment it looked like it would hit her, but I wasn't aiming for her. When that last moment came, a streak of mottled brown fur wrapped Clara up in a pair of massive paws, and bent its legs to spring away. One moment wasn't enough time, and the iron smashed into its head at mach four, the force of the crack echoing like a massive thunderclap, and the head snapping with such force that the neck was severed from the spine. The fake Ulnyx dropped Clara while I focused, pulling the gun back to me, using it like Mjolnir and flinging it towards Joseph. He tried to sneak in on me again, but he couldn't. I knew everything he would do because Charis had spent hours training with him. The gun broke his sword hand to pieces.
I could still hear Avriel squaring off against Josette, their blades skittering and cracking against one another. I still didn't want to look, and I knew she was the one false face that I couldn't bring myself to harm. "Avriel, end it," I said. I used my power to break her blade apart. I felt sick when I heard his weapon sink into her.
"Are you okay?" I asked Clara. She was looking down on the Great Were. It was clear she had aged again, her baby fat receded and her dangerously delicate beauty rising to the surface. I could see parts of me in her eyes and face, but her appearance was more Charis.
"We need to move faster," she said.
We couldn't move faster through these crowds. Wasn't that the point? I returned the gun to my pants and wrapped my good arm around Clara's waist. I had been able to use Ross' power to fly in Purgatory. What was keeping me from doing the same here?
"Dad, don't. You're going to weaken yourself."
"I have to." I pulled in the power, focusing on bending this universe to my will. Ripples of energy cracked the world around me, and I launched into the air.
Lady Liberty was easy to spot from altitude, and I only wasted a single heartbeat to ensure the archangel had followed my lead. I took a deep breath to steel myself against the demon's innate power, and then spun in the sky and rocketed towards the Statue.
I could see him before I landed, the dark tendrils of his power trailing out around him like the train of a massive cloak. He was there as Avriel had said, on his knees at the base of the pedestal. I came to ground a thousand feet back, out of the reach of his dark essence. Avriel landed next to me.
"You two wait here," I said. I turned to Avriel. "Do your job, and protect her."
I started walking towards the demon, trying to ignore the pain in my arm and the sudden feeling of exhaustion that was pulling on me. Convincing Abaddon to help me was the only option, because there was no way he wouldn't destroy me in my current state.
"Abaddon." I got as close to him as I could before the reach of his energy threatened to cause me to collapse.
The demon didn't move.
"Abaddon."
He bent down in prostration, and then rose to his feet. The swirling despair that surrounded him was sucked in as he turned, until he stood before me as only a man. His hair was short and white, his skin dark and aged. He wore a heavy wool trench coat above a black tuxedo, leaving him dark and foreboding even without the essence swirling around him. Ruby red eyes pierced the darkness and dove deep into me. When he smiled, his fanged teeth were pleasant instead of predatory.
"Diuscrucis. Have you considered what we discussed, the last time we spoke?"