Bound (The Divine, Book Four) (14 page)

"Bigger on the inside," I said.
 

Charis' eyes told me she had caught the reference.

"Shouldn't we stand closer to the door?" I asked Clara. She had moved us away from it when we arrived.

"The door doesn't mean anything, dad," she said.

"What do you mean?"

She rolled her eyes. Again. "When we run, we don't need to go through a door. Anything will do."

I pointed to the other side of the gym. "Like a basketball hoop?"

"If you want to think of it that way."

I didn't think I would fit through the hoop. "So we just stand here and wait?"

"I wouldn't recommend it."

I had been expecting Clara's voice. The speaker wasn't her. I looked past her to where one of the kids was standing. Tim. I had known him from the computer class we had been in together. He was tall, thin, brown hair and blue eyes, and smart, very smart. His idols were Aristotle, Copernicus, Tesla, and da Vinci. He had taught me everything I knew about hacking, and I guess in a way was indirectly responsible for me being here. Which is why it also made some kind of twisted sense that he was talking to me, as if he knew what he was talking about.

"What do you mean?"

He looked at Clara, and then Charis before putting his eyes back on me. "It's all about positioning," he said. "Think of it like the sun. All the planets revolve around the sun, and they have orbits that bring them in alignment once in a while, in a period of time that can be calculated based on velocity, gravitational forces, et. cetera. You're like Earth, and he's like Jupiter. If you never move, he'll know exactly when you'll be aligned, and you won't have time to get out of the way."

"Clara?" Charis asked, looking for confirmation.

"You're cute," she said. "It isn't that simple."

Tim looked offended. "Why not?"

"You haven't accounted for interference. Variable gravitational force."

"It's minimal. You're over-emphasizing the effect."

"I am not."

Tim smiled. "You are."

"I am not."

"Yes, you are. Don't believe me? Just keep standing there. He already knows exactly where you are, he's just waiting for the right moment."

I had no idea what they were arguing about, but those were all the words I needed to hear. "There's no harm in moving," I said, reaching out and taking Clara by the hand. For a minute, I thought she would resist, but she followed along, with Charis bringing up the rear.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Does it matter?" I replied, pulling them towards the doors on the opposite side of the gym. We'd have to cut through the middle of the dance floor, and maybe I'd even have to come face to face with myself, but it was better than the thousand ton anvil that was Ross falling on our heads.
 

"See, I was right," Tim said, watching us run. "You gained a few seconds."

I still had no idea how he knew what was going on, but I would work that one out later. We reached the crowd of teenagers at the center of the room, and I very unceremoniously shoved geek-me aside. "Excuse me."

The activity drew the attention of the real chaperones, who starting shouting to one another. A moment later the music vanished, and a couple of unarmed security guards moved into our path. I didn't remember any guards at my prom.

"Not that way," Clara said when she saw them. Both guards began to grow, gaining height, fur, and claws, until a pair of Great Weres were blocking the doors instead.

"Where then?" I turned around, searching for another way out. The kids were all backing away, leaving us standing alone in the middle of the room. I heard a scream, and one of the teachers arced up over the kids, coming to land in front of us, her head nearly severed from her neck.
 

"You remember Mrs. Trainor, don't you?" Ross asked. I couldn't see him yet, but the sight sent the others into a scattered panic. They rushed in every direction, trying to escape him, or the Weres, or both.

I looked down at the body of my science teacher. She had always been one of my favorites. "Clara?" We needed a way out. Any way out.
 

"Climb," she said.
 

"Climb wh-" A rope was hanging from the rafters. A rope that hadn't been there a second ago. "Charis, take Clara. I'll slow him down."

"How are you going to do that?" she asked.

"Just climb."

She didn't question, because she knew it would only be a waste of time. She picked Clara up and positioned her to cling from her back. Then she started to climb.

I heard snarls and I turned to face the Weres. They were both coming at me, their huge forms covering the distance in a half-dozen strides. I realized as I watched them gather that I wasn't the target at all.

I focused and pushed, sending a shockwave through the ground and shattering the wood floor with the force of my launch. I got there before they could lift off, using my momentum to grab the arm of one and swing him into the other, and letting it pull us all back to the end of the room. I felt my heart catch in fear as the wall of the gym came rocketing towards us. There was no healing here, and I was about to splatter myself.

Only, I didn't. Somehow, I found enough of something to get myself turned so that one of the Weres was between the wall and me. He hit it first, with enough force to break every bone in his body, and to smash through the cinderblocks to expose the outside. I felt my body compress against his, his ribs breaking, and my own stretching to their limit. Then I tumbled to the floor, the wind knocked out of me.

"Your artistry was decent, but your technical was crap, kid," Ross said.

I was on my hands and knees, trying to regain myself. He was standing a few feet away, and I could see Clara and Charis dangling from the top of the rope behind him. He noticed me looking back, so he turned too.

"Don't worry about them. They can't go anywhere without you, and you can't go anywhere without going through me. Which, I don't think I need to tell you, doesn't look promising."

I shoved myself to my feet, prepared to take my chances.

"You had me there for a minute, kid. It's a weird feeling, not being able to find someone in a finite space. Then, I remembered something."

"What's that?" I shouldn't have given him the satisfaction, but I needed every second I could get to regain my strength.

He smiled.
 

"I'm the god here."

He turned and waved his hand. The rope snapped, sending Charis and Clara into a hundred foot free-fall. In the same motion, he turned back to me and I felt my breath get choked off.

It's a strange thing, when you think you have a chance, and then discover that you don't. Thousands of thoughts race through your head at once, but in front of them all is the pain of failure, and the terror of knowing the consequences. We had been on the run for an hour out of an eternity. It might as well have been a millisecond for all the good we had done. Clara was going to die and this time she wouldn't be back. Ross would cage us, and keep us, to flog and flay until the end of time, or until he sprung himself from the Box, and our torture continued back in the 'real'. I would have hung my head had there been time. I would have at least felt that first drop of remorse.

It was all interrupted by the twist, the change in expectations that brought everything full-circle. My eyes were blurring, my throat was on fire, and Ross was standing over me, the satisfied, arrogant grin painted across his face. I could see myself in the reflection of his shades, on my knees, my face white. I could feel the life draining from me, the death that when added to Charis' would reset this squared universe back into his design.
 

Then his face changed. The grin morphed into a scream, and a burst of light exploded from the corner of his neck, growing in intensity as the line moved from right to left until it severed his head from his body.
 

I had seen them fall, but I hadn't seen Charis catch them. I hadn't seen her use her own control of Ross' power to rip a claw from the other Great Were's hand, or come up behind him to use the improvised weapon.
 

"Some god," she said, while the corpse tumbled to the floor. My ability to breathe returned, and everything around us began to crumble.

"Take my hand," Clara said, holding it out to me.
 

I fell forward in order to latch on, and the world around us reorganized.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Rebecca

We were supposed to have a police escort to Dulles, the arrangement that Obi had told me about. It didn't work out that way, due to the war zone the Nicht Creidim had created around the train station. Instead, we had been forced to steal another car and hope that in the aftermath it wouldn't be noticed until we were well away.
 

The ride was tense, and Obi refused to speak to me. I tried to explain to him about the sword, about His redemption, and about my desire to save Landon. He told me to shut up because I was making his head hurt more than it already did. He didn't want to know about redemption or the notion that I had been saved by God.
 

"If God saved you," he said, " it was an accident."

The words hurt, but I understood. Dealing with the Divine took a toll on everyone, and mortals most of all. It was more than the things he had lost himself. It was also the things he had to see and endure. The hundreds of dead they had left in their wake, innocent mortals caught up as pawns in the Beast's game, the violence and chaos of an undying war. He had a right to be angry, and in my soul I forgave him for it.

 
We made it to the airport, found a flight to Peru, and were thirty thousand feet up only four hours after arriving in D.C. I felt relieved to be skyward, though there was a part of me that feared we had been spotted. It would be trivial for a fire demon to rip the plane right out of the air, and we couldn't count on the seraphim to protect us.

Maybe we hadn't been spotted, or maybe they had chosen to let us alone. In either case, the plane landed in Cusco with no interruptions. I spent the entire flight sleeping, waking to find my head on an also-sleeping Obi-wan's shoulder. I picked it up and shifted in the seat, and then shoved his arm to wake him. His eyes shot open and he reached for his gun, which had been glamoured as a laptop and put into my pack with everything else.

"We're here," I told him, pointing out the window at the cement and grass rolling by. "Did he say where to meet him?"

"No." He brought his hand up and wiped away a bit of drool from his lip. "Did you manage to make it through the flight without killing anybody?"

I glared at him for a second, and then looked away. Maybe I was being heavy-handed with my approach, but what choice did I have? It was the way I knew how to fight, and how to survive.
 

We were off the plane and walking through the terminal when Obi's phone began to ring. He pulled it from the pocket of his jeans and stared at it for a second before answering.

"We're here," he said. There was a pause while the caller spoke. "Crap. Okay. Be there in five." He hung up.

"Well?"

"Max has a lead on our first target, but he said they're getting antsy. We need to rendezvous with him at the terminal entrance. He's got a car." He started walking faster, his size forcing me to jog to keep up with him.

"Target? Obi, I don't know what the hell we're supposed to be doing here."

He shrugged. "Neither do I, but I've run out of things to trust, so I'm just going with my gut. If we've got a target, I'm going to hit it."

His fast walk turned into a run, and I sped up to keep pace behind him. We dashed through the airport, winding our way around the other patrons, who turned and watched us like we were crazy. We reached a set of stairs and Obi jumped, falling from the first platform to the second fifteen feet below, and landing like it was no trouble at all. I couldn't duplicate the move, but my smaller feet took the steps faster, and I hit the ground floor only a dozen feet behind him. I could see the exit up ahead, a wall of glass and sliding doors with cars parked out behind it.
 

Obi barely slowed when he reached it, almost crashing through the glass instead of waiting for the doors to slide open. He shoved himself through the crack and then stopped, his head flailing in each direction. He saw something, and started towards it at a run.

I followed behind, trying to see past his body to whatever had clued him in. A limo driver in a black suit and cap, holding up a placard that said 'Solen'.

"A pleasure," Max said when we reached him. He threw open the door to a dusty stretch and helped shove us into the back. Then he ran around to the driver's side and got behind the wheel. He tore away from the gate, the momentum throwing me into Obi's lap.

"Get off me," Obi said, his hands finding all the wrong spots as he tried to shove me away.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "Your paws seem to have a different idea."

He scowled while I pushed myself to the bench seat immediately behind Max. "Max, are you sure we need her?"

His laughter was musical. "I'm afraid so, old chap. Afraid so. Hold on."

The wheels screamed and the car shifted. I braced myself against the roof to keep from being thrown around again.

"Would you mind telling us what the hell we're doing?" I spun around and watched the forward view. Max was careening around the rest of the traffic, driving the long limo like it was a Lotus.

He turned his head to look at me. "Of course, of course. I've got a line on the djinn who has the Damned."

"The damned what?"

He laughed and turned the wheel, sending us around a guy on a scooter. He wasn't even looking at the road.
 

"No, no. Just the Damned. It's one of the Swords of Gehenna, the counterpart to the Redeemer, actually. We need to retrieve it."

Obi threw himself to the space next to me. "What do we need it for?"

"I told you already, lug nut. I want to get Landon out of the Box." He finally put his eyes back on the road, slowing behind an old van before accelerating around it. "That's not accurate. I want to help Landon get himself out of the Box. I think he can do it, but he'll need a little outside intervention."