The Devil's Backbone (A Niki Slobodian Novel: Book Five) (17 page)

“Pineme?” I muttered.
 

“It’s what they were made for, you know. The Watchers.”

I turned to find Aki standing beside me, watching the fight with his hands in his pockets. There was black smoke coming in a slow, drifting stream out of his arm, which was at an odd angle. He had an angry, puffy black bruise that covered nearly half of his face.
 

“What happened to you?” I said.

He turned and looked at me. His pale eyes were tired and one had a burst blood vessel that was bleeding black into it.
 

“I tried to stop them,” he said, and there was defeat in his voice. “I tried so hard. But they’re not monsters, Niki. They won’t die, even if they listened to me.” He leaned in until he was an inch away from me. “You can’t kill them.”

“Because they’re gods?” I said, looking past him to the streaking movements of the creature in front of us.

“Yes,” said Aki. “We put them away before. It’s why the shinigami were made. It’s why the Watchers exist. The Creator was no match for them. His gift was to create. So He created us. He created the Watchers. To put the gods aside until humanity had run its course.”

“I thought you said the Creator didn’t have anything to do with you,” I said, looking back at him.

“I lied,” he said. “The Creator took over everything. And then we put them away. The gods, the monsters, anything that hated them. Humanity was so new and fresh and innocent. Weak.”

 
“It was all for the humans.”

Aki gave a bitter laugh. “They were His pets. His creation. Nothing else mattered to Him. And then He started leaving Heaven to be with them. To
become
them.”

“He’s gone,” I said. “He left and stuck me with his power. I think it’s killing me.”

Aki laughed, but stopped when I looked at him. “You really don’t know, do you?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Know what?”

“It’s not killing you, Lady Death. It’s keeping you alive. You’re using a power that doesn’t belong to you.”

“What do you mean?” I said. “Because it belongs to God?”

“No,” said Aki. “Because it belongs to your child.”

“I don’t have a…”

Aki smiled. “And there it is. The light bulb.”

“No,” I said. “That can’t be right. How would you even know?”

“I saw it,” he said. “When you were killing me. I could see it glowing inside of you. Fingers like fire and a heart to match. A tiny ball of power so strong that it had to hold you together. But, it was glad to do so, I got that feeling too. I guess that's what love feels like. I've never felt such a thing. It made me feel...small.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t breathe. The fire felt like it was consuming me. It was coming from deep in my belly. Right where…

“A baby?” I said, barely able to say the words. “I can’t have a baby.”

“You’re not going to have a baby,” said Aki. “You’re going to have a god.”

* * *
 

I saw a flurry of movement from the corner of my eye and a building exploded. The creature was rising from the rubble with a scream that I could feel in my bones. It was the furthest thing from human. A blur and then Pineme was there, standing in front of me, glowing gold with power and magic.
 

“Niki, it’s not safe here,” he said, shouting to be heard. “Go back to Erebos.”

“There are people here,” I said. I looked around. Humans standing in a line, their faces blank. The line went for blocks until I couldn’t make them out any longer.
 

“You can’t save them,” said Pineme. “You can’t save anyone but yourself.”

And whatever it was growing inside me,
I thought.

“I came for Aki,” I said, nodding to the shinigami.

Pineme glanced behind him at the giant kicking through the destroyed building. He had almost freed himself.

“I have to save them,” I said, surprised that I was crying. “It’s what I do. I have to save them.”

“No!” Pineme said, suddenly angry. “This is what I do. It’s what I was made for. To save the humans, the Creator’s favorite creation. It is what I was made for, and even I cannot stop this. I’m going to die here, Niki. I can’t beat them without the others. Your mother died because of me. You will not. You will live. You must. Or what was it all for?”

“I can’t leave you here,” I said. “Please don’t ask me to. I don’t even know you yet.”

Pineme smiled. “But I know you. Let it go, Niki. Please. Take your friend. NOW!” He was a blur again, dodging the god that he fought and suddenly I was surrounded in golden light.
 

“No!” I said, trying to run forward, but the light held me. I looked at Aki, who shook his head sadly. There was a tear and I felt myself being driven back, into the Unsung. In that moment, my mind seemed to flatten out, to spread long and wide until it was the whole world I saw in my head. Giants walking through cities, people screaming, being ripped apart, eaten, flung aside broken and battered. Entire cities collapsing in a single footstep. Pain, agony, fear and, worst of all, hopelessness. A world returning to its state of balance. I could see that in a matter of years, forests would begin to grow and would soon heal the scarred earth where cities and roads had once been. The gods would once more be at peace. They had waited centuries to come home. It was their world again.
 

But for now the screams. The screams filled my head, shook my bones. And I realized that I was screaming too. Screaming for them, for myself, for everything that I'd had in this world. All the pain and joy I'd felt here. And the screams, the screams, the screams...

I was still gasping for breath when we landed on Lucifer’s tower and the golden light melted away and disappeared. I felt the tears coming, the cries being ripped out of me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. And the fire, the white fire, burned like magma inside my belly.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I didn’t remember passing out, but when I awoke I was in bed and the room was dark. The screams were still in my head. They would not stop and I couldn't save them. I felt the presence of someone else in the room.

“Who’s there?” I said. “I can hear your heart beating.”

“Niki,” said Lucifer. I heard the creak of a chair and then one of the sconces on the wall burst with light. He looked disheveled, almost gaunt. I wondered if he’d looked like that since the swamp god had transformed him. I hadn’t noticed. I’d been too overcome with relief to notice how he’d looked. Also, he’d been naked, so it was a little hard to focus.

He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped as if in prayer. I sat up.

“We have to go. We have to get to the Backbone.”

“I know. It’s only been about an hour.” He smiled sadly at me. “He told me. Your friend.”

“Aki isn’t my friend,” I said.

“Whatever he is,” said Lucifer. “Is it true? Are you with child?”

I frowned. “I don’t know. He claims I am.”

“The shinigama can sometimes see things that we cannot,” said Lucifer quietly. “This power in you, he says it’s the child’s.”

“That’s what he says.”

He was silent for a moment, his dark eyes glittering in the warm light. “Is it mine?” he said finally, his voice strange.

“I don’t even know if I’m pregnant,” I said. “But if I am, how could it be anyone’s but yours? How could you even think that?”

“Niki,” he said, his voice thick. “Think.”

I remembered the Creator as a teenage girl. A gift. His gift.

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Exactly,” said Lucifer.
 

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter either way,” I said. “I can’t have a baby.”

Lucifer opened his mouth but no words came out. He drew in a shaky breath. “Not even if it was mine?”

“You didn’t see it,” I said, my voice a low monotone. “The World. It wasn’t monsters that Matthew let out.”

“It was gods,” he said. “Aki told me that too.”

“But did he tell you that they’re everywhere?” I said. “Did he tell you that they’re the size of buildings across the whole world? That they are, right now, tearing humanity apart? Did he tell you how the entire human race was shrieking in pain? And…their souls…”

“What about their souls?” said Lucifer.

“I couldn’t feel them,” I said.
 

“That makes sense,” he said. “Every god takes their own souls. It is the difference between gods and monsters. The souls give the gods power. Sheol was for the Creator. There are other places, hidden places, all over the worlds where other gods have sent their brethren.”

“So, they just get to keep them?” I said. “What will happen to them?”

“Whatever the gods want to do with them.”

“And if the gods hate them?” I said. “If they consider them abominations?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe nothing. Maybe just sleep. Forever. Maybe…something else.”

“Eternal damnation.”

“We have that too,” he said. “It’s not new.”

“They’re all going to die,” I said. “All of them. Every human in the World. They’re dying horribly and painfully and there’s a coldness to the world. There’s no hope. I don’t even have hope for them. They don’t get a chance, Lucifer. After they die. There’s always been a chance that they will come back. That Judgment Day is real. That Heaven is real. They don’t know that God’s abandoned us all.”

Lucifer stared at me. “It’s you.”

“What’s me?”

“You’re their chance,” he said. “The baby is their chance. You’re not just carrying a baby with the Creator’s power. You're carrying a Creator. The new Creator.”

“That's creepy.”

“You’re the way He’s coming back.”

“No,” I said. “He left us. He’s not coming back. He made that clear.”

“Niki,” said Lucifer. “If it's the Creator, if it's not our child but His...”

“So you'll just stop caring for me if it's His baby?” I said. “Just like that? I didn't ask Him to put His weird hands on me, Lucifer.”

“Calm down,” he said wearily. “It's not that.”

“What then?”

He looked at me with circles like bruises under his eyes. “Do you remember what happened to His vessel? Back when you and Sam had to find Him during Michael's war?”

I swallowed. “He didn't make it. He was...”

“Incinerated?”

I nodded. “He had children. A family. A good man. I searched for them to tell them what happened, but they were all killed that day.”

“Do you think,” Lucifer said slowly, “that carrying the Creator would be something you would survive?”

“I don't know,” I said. “If it's not Him, though, what will happen? Aki said he could see it. It's holding me together.”

“A child feels love,” said Lucifer. “A god does not.”

“The Creator loved humans.”

“Pride is not love,” said Lucifer. “Nor is envy.”

“So which is it?” I said. “Death or life?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” said Lucifer. He stood and loomed over me. “Lie down.”

“What? No. What are you doing?”

He sat next to me and I saw the emotion on his face. “Let me feel,” he said. “Please. I won’t hurt you. I could never hurt you.”

I took his large hand in mine. I looked into his eyes and put his hand under my shirt. His skin was warm and I felt his fingers spread out over my belly. He closed his eyes. I felt the fire rise up, but only gently. Lucifer gave a little gasp and his eyes shot open. He stared at me, shock in his eyes. I raised my shirt and looked down. Tiny white flames were flickering out of my skin, licking his hand.
 

“Does it hurt?” I said.

For a moment he couldn’t talk. He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t hurt.” He smiled, a sudden and unexpected thing. He was laughing but his eyes filled with tears. “It doesn’t hurt,” he said thickly.
 

“What is it?” I said.

“It’s a baby,” he said. “It’s our baby. Infused with the power of the Creator.”

“How do you know?” I said.

“Because she told me,” he said. “Can’t you hear her?”

“Her?”

“Our daughter, Niki.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Even if I am pregnant, it can’t be more than a month. A baby wouldn’t even have a developed brain yet.”

“Does everything have to have a reason with you?” he said.
 

“If this is true,” I said, “if it’s really yours, then that means the Creator did the same thing that my father did to me. He stuck a power in her that didn’t belong. He ruined her.”

“Is that how you see yourself?” he said. “Ruined?”

“It’s not how I see myself,” I said. “It’s what I am.”

“You’re an idiot,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes at him and pushed his hand away. He flexed his fingers like he could still feel the fire on his skin.
 

“Would you maybe like to reconsider what you just said?” I said, gnashing my teeth.

“You are an idiot, Niki, if you think you’re anything less than incredible. Anything less than the most perfect being I have ever met in thousands of years of existence. We made a child together. We were made for this, Niki. And if you can’t see that, you are indeed an idiot.”

My anger dissipated and I was suddenly filled with a numb chill. I shook my head. “I can’t. Everyone is going to die. I can’t stop it.”

“Not everyone,” said Lucifer. “Not you. Not me. Not our child.”

“Is that enough?” I said.

“For now,” he said.
 

“Can you hear them?” I said. “I can’t hear myself think over the screams.”

“Then ease their pain,” said Lucifer.

“How?” I said.

“Release the Scourges.”

I felt my jaw drop. I stared at him, but his face didn’t change.

“No,” I said.

“Even if it will end their pain?” said Lucifer.

“They’re people, Lucifer. How could you even think that?”

“The Grace are people, too. They would perish along with everyone else. And their summoning of Typhon would come to an end.”

“There’s another way,” I said, aware of how naive I sounded.
 

“Maybe there’s not,” said Lucifer. “They are releasing Typhon, Niki. Do you know what that means? It means nothing is safe. Not you, not the other gods, not the world. He will fill every world with monsters. He will consume the gods. He won’t kill the humans, though.”