Extinction (The Divine Book 7) (8 page)

A trap? I almost said it out loud.
 

"Why me?" I asked. "I'm nobody. Nothing. I don't even have an aura."

"That is how I know you're special," she replied. "Did you know that Jesus Christ had no aura?"

"Almost every image I've ever seen shows him practically glowing."

"His spirit. It was powerful, but it wasn't the same thing. There will never be another like him. You are not like him, but you are different." She had no idea how true both of those statements were. "Please, stay after the Mass, and I will bring you to the meeting."

"Okay," I said. I had come here for information. If I was being invited to the V.I.P. lounge and a chance to rub elbows with the Archangel who was leading the revolution, I wasn't going to say no.

She smiled, bowed her head to me, and then vanished into the throng. I put my eyes back on Raguel. He was reading from the Bible.
 

I looked around a little more, at the faces of the assembled. Most of them were Touched, pledged to God and the war against the demons. They followed the Mass with wide eyes and open mouths, in awe of the Archangel. I wasn't in awe of him. Justice and vengeance? I didn't trust him at all.

He finished the readings and moved into the Liturgy of the Eucharist, his servants, including Blue-eyes, helping him prepare the altar. He was leaning over it, preparing to speak when I noticed that there was a candle in the corner that was higher than the others.
 

At first, I thought maybe it was an accident. That one of the Touched was yawning or stretching. I squinted my eyes to dim the candlelight around me and see across the basilica.
 

It was Alfred who was holding his candle up. His sword appeared in his other hand as I watched.
 

I scanned the room, searching for the threat.
 

Raguel stopped speaking.
 

The entire atmosphere of the gathering shifted. Devotion followed by fear.

Alfred pointed his sword away from the masses, toward the side of the basilica.
 

Raguel disappeared in a burst of light.
 

Something hit the side of the building, sending a shockwave rippling along the floor, the sound of the cracking stone nearly deafening.
 

The door next to me pushed open. A Touched man stumbled in, his robes covered in blood.

"We're under attack," he managed to say, just before he fell to the ground.

I moved to him, kneeling at his side and looking back out the door.

A horde of demons was waiting there. An entire army of every kind of hellspawn I had ever encountered. They hissed and growled, unable to enter the church, but ready for a fight.
 

Something hit the building again. A fire demon, maybe, trying to collapse it from the outside. The demons didn't need to go in if they forced everybody out.
 

I looked back that the gathered army of Touched. They were shedding their robes, and revealing themselves to be armed with blessed knives and swords. No matter what happened next, it was going to be bloody.
 

How had the forces of evil known about this meeting? Had the demons deciphered the coded message on SamChan? I doubted it. There was only one way I could think of.

The building cracked again, and a huge chunk of stone came loose, dropping from the ceiling. I heard screams as the first of the Touched were crushed beneath it, causing a sudden wave of panic to replace the calm defensiveness. They began pushing toward the exit, toward the gathered army that would cut them down easily in their desperation.

I pushed myself past it, moving out into the night at the head of the line. The demons were a thousand strong at least, and as I stood in the center between good and evil, I noticed the solitary figure hanging in the back on a pair of razor sharp wings.

Sarah.

My heart fell, my sense of reason replaced by pure anger. Whether or not she had arranged this, she was participating in it. She was probably here because Adam knew I was here. Because Blue-eyes had told him. He was using her to mock me, the same way Gervais was using the Fist.

And then there was no more time for emotions. The fleeing Touched raced towards the demons, and the demons charged back. I was stuck in the middle of it, which meant I couldn't just stand there and do nothing.

So I didn't.

I gathered my power, holding it close as both sides approached, squeezing it within me like a mystical singularity. I could feel the onrush of heat and cool as the demons and the Touched drew ever closer to me. I kept my eyes on Sarah, watching her and trying to meet her gaze. She hovered behind the action, not returning my attention, but not intentionally avoiding it either.

It was as if she just didn't care.

She could have killed Obi, and she hadn't. I knew that had to count for something. At the same time, if Adam knew I was here and summoned an army to challenge me, and sent her to watch, that counted for something, too.

She was somewhere between good and evil right now. What I needed was clarity on that.

The two sides were almost on me. I could almost taste the demons, sulfurous and decayed. I could smell the Touched, their freshly washed hair and their neat, clean clothes. They were both only a few feet away from me.

I released my power, in a sharp line that stretched out from me, reaching across the plaza turned battlefield. It snapped out like a rubber band, and when the armies ran into it, it pulled tighter, slowing the entire approach, forcing the entire charge to fall apart. I wrenched it back toward me, and opponents from both sides were thrown to the ground, knocked over, or pushed back. I couldn't stop a fight like this completely, and there was no point to try. Angels and demons had been battling for centuries; it wasn't my job to make them friends.

I wanted to get to Sarah. I needed to know where her head was at. I started moving forward, certain that Obi could take care of himself, and that Alfred would come to his aid if he couldn't. The first rows of demons were off-balance from my initial outburst, and I moved past them without intercession.
 

I heard shouting, growling, screaming, yelping. I heard Touched die. I heard demons die. I waded into the thick, the horde a blur of misshapen faces, claws, and leathery skin. Of course, they tried to attack me. I looked like any of the other mortals. I greeted them with hard punches. I pushed them back with my power, I wrapped myself in it and absorbed their strikes. These demons weren't powerful enough to hurt me. I cut through them as a dervish of energy, batting them aside like matchsticks and making a path through the center, my eyes always on Sarah, growing closer to her with each heartbeat.

I was halfway there when she finally noticed me, her eyes landing on mine for the briefest of instants. I thought I saw her brow furrow slightly when they did; her face flashed a look of absolute sadness and guilt. Then she looked away, over me toward the rear. Then she started moving, to my left where a line of Touched were breaking through and flanking the demons.

She drove in at them, grabbing one by the neck, her wings sweeping around and cutting him in half. She dropped from the sky, landing, ducking, spinning and slashing, cutting two more down with those infernal appendages. An angel joined the fray, sword bright with angelic scripture. Her wings wrapped around in front of her as the sword came down, striking against them and skipping harmlessly away. She threw them out, catching him full in the chest and throwing him backward. He caught himself and charged again.

She let him come. A dagger appeared in his hand, slashing toward her as he rushed in. She dropped low again, putting her wings out to the side and throwing herself forward, past the angel. Her wings decapitated him, and he vanished amidst the crowd.

I had never seen her fight like this. I had never seen her act like this. A look had appeared in her eyes, a bloodlust that chilled me to the bone. Whatever had been there a moment ago vanished in the midst of the destruction.
 

I knew I had to stop it.
 

I knew I was the only one who could.

I slapped my power out, knocking aside a devil who was getting too close, trying to run me through with his sword. Then I threw the power out behind me, using it to propel me forward, over the crowd and into the sky toward Sarah.
 

I risked a glance back as I did, finding Obi in the thick with Alfred at his side. The angel was a consummate fighter, a true warrior. Every motion was measured and perfect, every strike, every parry. Obi, on the other hand, was all brute force and emotion, punching a demon in the face and then jabbing a blessed knife into its heart.
 

I came down a few feet away from her, throwing my power out as I landed to clear the area. Demons and Touched both fell back at the sudden shockwave, before resetting their sights on one another.
 

"Sarah," I said calmly.
 

She was twenty feet away, standing on the ground. I recognized the Beatles t-shirt she was wearing. I had given it to her for her birthday a couple of years earlier.

She looked over at me but didn't speak. The fire was still in her eyes. The wanton chaos. It wasn't a good sign.

"Sarah, it's me. It's Landon."

Nothing. No response. No recognition. What the hell had happened to her?

She began walking toward me. No fear, either. No hesitation.
 

"Sarah, stop," I said. "I don't want to hurt you."

She didn't stop. She didn't slow. Her wings folded in, fluttering ahead of her, each scaled tip like a separate knife, already coated in a layer of blood.

"Damn it, Sarah," I said. "This isn't you. Whatever is happening, I can help."

She kept coming until she was too close. I threw my power out at her. Her wings folded in, blocking her face, and the power washed over them, turned harmlessly aside.

She took three quick steps toward me, her face appearing behind the wings.

"No, brother, you can't," she said, one of them spreading and stabbing toward me.

I had to roll away to get clear of it, and I felt the breeze as it slammed into the ground beside me. I made it back to my feet, then backpedaled just in time to avoid the other wing.
 

"Yes, I can. You don't have to do this. There's no such thing as destiny."

"I've seen it," she said, coming at me again. "I've seen it all. How it ends. How it must be."

"We can change it. You thought the Beast was going to destroy the world, and we stopped it. We beat him."

"I was wrong. It wasn't the Beast I saw tearing this world apart."

Her wings came at me in a flurry of blows that I could barely see, and barely keep up with. One sliced my shoulder, the other caught my wrist. I pushed myself back, getting a little more distance between us.
 

"The Divine will destroy it, brother," Sarah said, following me. "Their war will continue until all of it is gone. Until everything is dust. The balance will turn further and faster, beyond anyone's ability to control."

"We won't let it," I said.

"You can't stop it," she replied, a single tear running down her cheek. "You're causing it."

Time stopped.

Her words hung in the air between us, a bullet unlike any other, filtering in so slowly and so impressively that it sucked the universe away from me in an instant.

Causing it?

A ton of bricks would have hurt less.
 

I had given all of myself, all of everything I cared about and loved, to do the job that I was asked to do. To be at the center of the war between good and evil, to fight the good fight, to make sure that humankind was free to decide their own future. I had made more sacrifices than anyone should have to make. I had fallen and gotten back up, drowned and resurfaced, burned and was reborn.

Causing it?

I was doing what I was supposed to do. I had no secret agenda. No ulterior motive. In that sense, I was as good as I could be and proud of that fact. I knew the balance was becoming more difficult to maintain. I knew that the war had been escalating since the Beast had been destroyed.