Balance (The Divine, Book One) (21 page)

“I
don’t see how this is going to help,” Rebecca said in response to my activity.

The
blood was spinning around us, maintaining the form. I had turned water vapor
into water. Now I took liquid blood and dried it into a solid.

“This
is just part one,” I said. Part two was going to be the hard part, and I didn’t
know if I would be able to pull it off. “Keep them off me if they get through.”

I
closed my eyes, picturing the twenty-foot walls of glass that occupied the
outer corners of the penthouse. I focused my will on them, demanding that they
lose their cohesion, that the crystalline structure of the glass break down at
a vastly accelerated pace. I could hear the claws scraping against the wall of
blood. I could hear Merov shouting from outside, cursing Rebecca for her
betrayal. I didn’t dare open my eyes for fear of losing my focus. I pushed
again, as hard as I ever had before.

There
was no build up,
no
warning. I could hear the
groaning, cracking, and then the shattering as the glass succumbed to my will.
One moment the windows were whole and perfect, the next they were imploding in
a million fragments. The cries of pain from outside the blood sarcophagus were
deafening. Nothing inside the apartment was able to avoid being pelted with
shards of glass. Nothing except for Rebecca and
I,
encased in a protective shell. It wouldn’t be enough to kill any of the
vampires, but with any luck it would slow them down long enough for us to
escape.

“Part
three,” I cried, opening my eyes and turning the blood barrier back to liquid.

It
splashed onto the floor, and the true chaos of what I had created was revealed.
All around us the gathered vampires writhed in pain on the floor, each having
suffered at least a hundred cuts and piercings. They were healing already, but
the pure volume of the damage was keeping their attention off of us. I took a
quick look back towards Reyzl. As one of the few bodies on the upper floor he
had been pin cushioned by the incoming glass. He was healing faster than the
others, and I could tell by the position of his head that he was watching me
when I took Rebecca by the hand and started to run towards the now open
windows.

“Are
you out of your mind,” Rebecca shouted at me as we approached the exposed
Manhattan skyline, a good fifty stories up. I just might be.

I
pulled her in close to me and pushed off with my legs as hard as I could,
putting us airborne even before we had reached the edge. I didn’t know if I
would be able to go through with it once I could see the drop, so I didn’t give
myself the chance. The floor of the penthouse disappeared, and then we were
flying high over the quiet city street below. I took a deep breath and held it
as my stomach lurched. Our flight was over, and now we were falling.

Rebecca’s
grip was painful as we plummeted towards the concrete under us. I had about
seven seconds to slow us down enough to both survive the impact and heal before
any of the demons above regrouped and came down in the elevator. I could only
hope Reyzl wouldn’t follow us in the express.

I
forced my will on the air around us, demanding it to be denser, thicker,
heavier, and to provide a greater level of friction and resistance in order to
slow our fall. I could feel it responding around us, feel the pressure building
and thickening. Not enough. The ground was still approaching at a breakneck
pace.

I
demanded it to compress even more, the pressure threatening to pop us from the
inside. Rebecca’s eyelids were raised in fear, though her black eyes told me
nothing. I was going to say something comforting, but there was no time. I
rolled myself so I was positioned under her just before we hit the ground.

The
second we made contact with the earth I let go of our airbag, the release of
the compressed air causing a small explosion that shattered the windows of the
buildings around us and flipped over a couple of parked cars. We hit hard, but
not too hard, and I knew when I felt my back shatter that the damage wouldn’t
be bad enough to prevent us from moving soon.

I
still held Rebecca on top of me, clutching her body against mine. I had broken
her fall, but she hadn’t escaped unscathed. Her legs had been askew from my
own, and her kneecaps had taken the same force as my back. She was alive and
alert though, her eyes open and back to their perfect pale blue. Her face was
twisted in pain.

“Are
you okay?” I asked her.

“Nothing
that won’t heal,” she said through her grimace, “But I can’t do it as quickly
as you.”

I
could feel my body was already mending. I maintained my grip on her as I pushed
myself to my feet, lifting her up and over my shoulder. “Then allow me, Miss
Solen,” I said. Direction didn’t matter, as long as it was away.

We
had gone up about two blocks when we heard the roar of the first demons out
onto the street.

“Put
me down, Landon,” Rebecca said.

I
lowered her to the ground, being careful not to put too much stress on her
knees. She pointed to a manhole cover near the end of the street. The sewer?
Maybe I could turn off my sense of smell.

“We
won’t be able to lose them down there,” she said, “but it will give us a better
defensive position.” She didn’t wait for me to argue. She kicked off her heels
and ran down the street. I followed behind her. She pulled the manhole cover
off and began descending into the darkness.

It
was pitch black underground, but I knew by now that it didn’t have to be. I
adjusted my eyes to be able to pierce the darkness, being met with
stone walls
and a six inch deep stream of who-knows-what.
The smell was horrible, but not unbearable. I moved to put the cover back over
the manhole, but Rebecca pulled me away.

“No
time,” she said, pulling me behind her.

We
heard the splash when the weres hit the sewer. There wasn’t enough room for
them to maintain their demonic forms down here, something I hadn’t considered
but Rebecca must have. We could hear their footfalls as they chased behind us,
moving just as fast as we were.

“We
need to take them out, or they’ll just catch us when we try to climb up,”
Rebecca said, coming to a stop and turning around. She reached over her
shoulder and pulled another dagger from
a sheathe
hidden on her back.

“You
can’t kill them with that,” I pointed out. The dagger was cursed.

“No,”
she agreed. “I’ll slow them down, you stop them.”

I
didn’t have a blessed weapon either. “How?” I asked. “I’m unarmed.”

She
smiled. “Landon, you’re a diuscrucis. You’re always armed. Be creative.”

Her
eyes turned black again as she morphed into killer-vampiress mode and dashed
forward towards the oncoming weres. I could see that she intended to hit them
when they turned the corner. Be creative, right. I heard a grunt of pain as the
battle was joined, Rebecca’s element of surprise giving her a clear advantage.
Be creative. I looked down at the sewage running past my legs. It was my turn
to smile.

When
I reached the corner where Rebecca had vanished, she was having her way with
the weres, her dagger lashing out like an angry viper to add to an ever growing
number of cuts while they struggled to make contact with their own weapons. I
recognized them as the two that had been guarding the elevator when Reyzl had
made his entrance. It made sense that they would be the first ones down.

“Whenever
you’re ready,” Rebecca said, ducking under a strike and stabbing one of the
weres in the chest.

I
focused my will on the sewage at my feet, finding a pair of splintered boards
and pulling them out of the flotsam. I held them aloft, moving them back behind
my head and down the tunnel as far as I could. I didn’t want to take any
chances that I wouldn’t get enough momentum.

“Down,”
I yelled, pushing the huge splinters forward with all of the force I could
manage. I could feel I was reaching the limits of my strength, and my head was
enveloped in pain as I sent the missiles hurtling towards the fray.

Rebecca
danced out of the path of the makeshift spears just in time. The weres weren’t
so lucky. They had just enough time to identify the threat before they were
skewered, the twin wooden stakes piercing all the way through their chests,
hearts, and backs. They both emitted an ear-splitting howl and toppled forward
into the muck. I leaned up against the side of the sewer. My head was on fire,
and I was having trouble seeing straight.

Rebecca
pounced on the prone weres and used the cursed dagger to remove their heads,
then hurried over to where I was leaning.

“Too
much,” I told her. “I need to rest.”

“Don’t
get too embarrassed,” she said.

Before
I could ask her what she meant, she had me over her shoulder, carrying me
through the sewer like a child. I wanted to protest, but I was just too weak. I
let her be my legs without complaint.

She
put me down once we had neared the end of the sewer tunnel, which opened up
into a larger area where multiple flows met and continued on in a single
stream. We could hear voices through the large tunnel up ahead, a cacophony of
sound that suggested more than just a wayward vagrant.

“Thanks
for the ride,” I said, the ground still a little shaky under me.

“You’re
welcome,” she replied. “Can you walk?”

My
head was still throbbing, but I could hold myself up. “Yeah, but I really need
to rest for a while. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“The
glass was impressive, but lets try not to have to jump like that again,” she
said. “There are humans up ahead, a squatter settlement I believe. We can rest
there.”

“What
about Reyzl?”

“He
won’t give chase, and Merov’s people will turn back once they see the headless
henchmen. We’ve won for tonight. Reyzl is nothing if not patient.”

“So
he knows he can take me out pretty much any time, and isn’t concerned?”

She
giggled. “Something
like
that.”

“I
don’t know why you decided to help me, but I’m glad you did,” I told her,
looking into her eyes. She dug her fangs into her bottom lip and gave me a
sheepish smile.

“Just
something about you I guess,” she replied. “Come on.”

We
didn’t have to walk too far down the larger adjoining sewer tunnel before it
opened up into a much larger room. My guess was that it had been a pumping
station
many, many years ago.

There
was a massive hunk of machinery resting just off to the side of the river of
sewage, with old brass pipes jutting out and down into the muck. A shantytown
had sprung up around it, home to at least three hundred people and complete
with electricity and lighting provided by a hack on the pump’s former
connection to the grid. They even had clean water that they were leeching from
a pipe that must have once been used to cool the giant beast.

The
town itself was a loose grid of tents, tarps, and cardboard boxes molded
together into workable living spaces for the homeless who resided here. They
were going about their lives oblivious to the strangers in their midst,
collecting water from the open pipe to cook their food on propane heaters, or
to clean their clothes in makeshift washtubs. What did they have to fear, since
they had nothing to lose?

I
leaned on Rebecca while we walked, thankful to have her shoulder to keep me
from falling over. I could only imagine being one of the vagrants seeing us go
by, me in my torn up tuxedo that I was too weak to fix, Rebecca in her ragged
black dress. We must have looked as if we had just stepped out of an explosion,
fitting because we sort of had.

We
split the center of the encampment, looking for a place to sit and rest for a
while. The people around us did their best to pretend we didn’t exist, even
going so far as to turn away when we approached. It was ironic to me that the
homeless were shunning us. Were they doing it to show us how others made them
feel? I looked at Rebecca, who seemed unfazed by the community’s reaction. Was
she used to it, or did she just not care?

“I
see you demon. I welcome you.” The voice came from behind.

Rebecca
and I turned as one to see who had called her out. A girl. A small girl, no
more than ten years old, with a thin, frail frame, and shoulder length reddish
blonde hair. She was wearing sneakers with a simple flowered dress; both
surprisingly clean considering the amount of grime that covered everything else
down here. That wasn’t the most amazing thing about her though. Her eye sockets
were barren, the skin sinking into them. She was blind. Blind, and Divine. I
don’t know why neither of us had known she was near. The feeling I got from her
was different, unique. She was not a demon, or an angel.

“Do
you address me child?” Rebecca asked. If she was surprised that a blind girl
could see her, she didn’t show it.

The
girl stepped forward, stopping a few feet away. She definitely knew right where
we were standing.

“I
address both of you,” she replied. She turned her head towards me. “Welcome,
brother. My name is Sarah. Come sit with me. I can see that you are tired.”