Balance (The Divine, Book One) (9 page)

"Pathetic,"
I said, turning my back on him, pocketing the necklace, and walking over to
Josette. I didn't watch the demon finish his final death. I didn't need to.

Or
maybe I did. I wanted to check on Josette, to see if I could help her. After
all, despite her disdain for me, she had just helped me. Whether or not it was
to aid her as well, that didn't matter right now.

I had
almost reached her when I felt
a coldness
at my back.
Before I could turn around, a black cloud encircled me, whipping around like a
mini-tornado, spinning tightly in a maelstrom of energy. It smelled like
sulfur, and in it I felt power. It overwhelmed me, and I fell to my knees
unable to breathe. I opened my mouth to gulp in air and the black cloud forced
its way inside. I choked on it, my mouth filling with the acrid taste of the
stuff pouring into me. As it completed its forced entry, I leaned over and
vomited.

"Diuscrucis."
Josette stumbled over to stand next to me. Her clothing was hanging in shreds,
and her bloody face had a deep gash across the cheek.

"What
just happened?" I asked. My stomach told me it was getting ready for round
two. At the same time, I felt different in a way that permeated much more
deeply into my being.

"The
demon tried to take your soul," she said, her breathing labored. "He
didn’t know what you were, and has trapped himself. He can give you power, but
not without cost."

I
wanted to ask her what she meant, but her golden eyes dimmed and she fell back
to the ground. Not gone, but seriously injured. I couldn't leave her here. I
bent down and lifted her in my arms, surprised by how light she felt. I put her
over my shoulder, and then retrieved her sword and my iPad. After a small bout
of indecision, I grabbed one of the demon's daggers too. There was a part of me
that was sure I was making a mistake by taking Josette with me. I ignored it
and made my way out of the park, willing the world around me to see a man
carrying a baby on one shoulder, a folded up stroller over the other. It was a
little too domesticated for me, but it would have to do.

The
punk-slash-emo guy running the front desk at the Belmont Hotel didn't even give
me a second look when I lumbered in holding two large duffels. I was getting
more accomplished with altering my outward appearance, and had dressed down for
the occasion. My hair was long and greased, I had three days growth on my chin,
and my clothes were worn and dirty. On the walk over, I had also discovered how
to repair my inward appearance, fixing the rips and tears in my clothing so I
could see and sense myself with some semblance of physical dignity.

"How
much for your best room?" I asked, approaching the desk.

Punkmo
shrugged. "It's twenty-five per night, all the rooms are priced the
same." He reached under the desk and produced a padlock with a key.
"Just find an empty room and lock the inside. When you leave, lock the
outside."

The
modern world sure made being limited to cash a frustrating proposition,
especially when trying to find a place to hunker down for a while. Most upscale
hotels required holding a credit card on file, which meant bypassing anything a
person might want to spend any amount of time in, and instead making do with
something that someone could spend time in if they had to. I had to. I turned
my back on him so I could count through my stash without him being able to see
how much I was carrying. I handed him three hundreds.

"Good
for twelve days, right?" I asked.

He
furrowed his brow and looked at me. The math was a little too much for him.
"Sure man."

He
snatched the cash a little too eagerly and pushed the lock forward. I put down
the sword to pick up the lock and stuck it into my jacket pocket.

The
Belmont. The name made me laugh out loud. The place was about half of a step
above the condemned projects where I had watched Rebecca drain a good guy. I
was sure it had been a fine place a hundred years ago or so, but it seemed like
it hadn’t been renovated since, well, ever. The interior was old, drab, and
dirty, with peeling faded wallpaper and either missing or busted furniture. The
rooms weren't much better, decorated with ripped sofas, old mattresses stained
yellow from all kinds of bodily fluids, ancient fridges of which maybe fifty
percent were functional, and a varying but always present amount of mold. Every
room had roaches. Only two of the rooms I passed had people. The place was more
for quickies with hookers and drug exchanges than living in, but I didn’t have
too many housing options.

I
settled into 7G, a room on the top floor in the southeast corner. It gave me a
decent view of the streets below through small grimy windows that would hide my
own visage from anyone looking in, and a mattress that had a better than fifty
percent chance of not housing an STD.

I
gently slid Josette off of my shoulder, placing her on top of the bed. She was
still unconscious, but her breathing was steady. Her wounds continued to ooze
blood, refusing to close over, and the gash on her cheek had some nasty black
spider veins reaching out across her face. I had no way to judge the effect of
a demonic wound on an angel, but going by what had happened to the
Were
when I stabbed him, she was suffering from damage that
wouldn’t heal on its own. When I put my hand to her forehead, I could feel that
she was burning up, maybe literally.

"Josette,"
I whispered.

She
didn't respond. That raised the question - how do you heal an angel who was
wounded in a fight against a demon? Answer - holy water. Maybe it wouldn't
work, but it seemed like the best option and I didn't have much to lose. I
wasn't going to let her die, not like this. She had spared my life, and I was
going to return the favor. Maybe she’d even be grateful. If she wouldn't let me
out of our deal, the act of kindness might be enough to convince her to at
least offer some measure of help in completing the task without having my soul
destroyed. Not an alliance, but maybe information.

"I'll
be back," I said to her prone form as I ducked out of the room, put the
padlock on the door, and headed out to find a church.

The
sun had vanished behind dark, heavy clouds, and it started pouring while I
walked. I needed a vessel for the holy water, so I dropped in on a liquor store
and bought the cheapest bottle of wine they had, which I dumped on the pavement
outside. I got into a small argument with a passing vagrant about wasting heat,
and then resumed my hunt for a house of God. When I pushed through the twin
doors of Our Blessed Lady Mary RC Church I was soaked to the bone, the water
dripping off of me creating a slippery mess on the cold marble floors.

"That
rain's right devilish."

I had
been hoping to avoid running into a priest, but he was already mopping the
floor when I walked in. He was an older man with short reddish-white hair, a
fair complexion, and a kind smile. He wore the wisdom of age on his face and
the creases around his eyes. Irish, if his accent was any indication.

"It
sure is Father," I said, not making eye contact. "I'm sorry for the
mess."

There
was an expanding pool of rainwater gathering at my feet. He looked down at it
and chuckled.

"Don't
ye worry yerself child,” he said. “Ye look like ye could stand bein' outta the
rain."

I had
disguised the empty wine bottle as an umbrella. He looked at it, then looked at
me, then looked back at the umbrella.

"Might've
helped ye a wee bit if ye had used that thing,” he said, a strange look on his
face. “Then again, an empty wine bottle ain't much help in a rainstorm, is
it?"

He
could see right through my glamour. Were all priests Touched? There was no
point being ambiguous.

"I
need your help," I told him. "Holy water."

"What
does someone the likes of you need with holy water?" he asked. "More
like to poison you than heal you crossbreed."

I had
to know. "How did you know? Are you Touched?"

He
laughed then, an old, wise, hardened laugh. "I didn't just come out of the
potato field laddie," he said. "And I don't need the blessin’ of a
pure angel to make my eyes work proper. Ye may fool some of ‘em, but I'm a
humble servant of the Lord, and I know me own. Besides laddie, what darn fool
carries an umbrella, but isn’t using it to keep himself dry?"

Dante
was proving to be a little unreliable when it came to who could and couldn't
sense my true nature. Here was a self-proclaimed plain ordinary mortal, and he
saw right through the glamour, past the blood and lineage, straight through to
the truth.

"It's
not for me Father," I said. "I have a friend who was injured by a
demon, a Great Were." I didn't know how much he knew, but I figured if he
were familiar with angels and crossbreeds, he would know demons too.

The
priest rubbed his hand along his chin. "A Great
Were
eh? That's a nasty beastie to get into a scuffle with. How many seraph were
involved?"

"Just
one," I told him. "You know about weres?"

"Aye,
of course I do laddie,” he said. “Always a treat to watch a werewolf movie, and
laugh at how weak they portray those foul creatures ta
be
.
A Great Were, now that's a hundred times nastier than your nastiest werewolf.
Mean and smart, they are. Did you say one?"

I
shrugged. "Well, one and a half I guess."

"Aye,
a half," he said, his tone harsh. "The seraph was injured, and ye’re
here for holy water to heal it?"

"Is
it so hard to believe father, that I would try to heal an injured angel?"

My
voice was rising, and he put his finger to his lips to shush me, motioning with
his eyes to the few scattered people kneeling behind the church pews.

"Actually
boy-o, it is," he said.

He
grabbed my arm and pulled me off to the left, through a door and into his
private office. He closed the door behind us, then let go of my arm and
reinstated his direct glare. "Look here laddie, it takes at least three
seraph to take down a Great Were on a good day. Ye're saying ye helped one
seraph do it, and not only did ye win, but the angel survived?”

I
hadn’t known what we were fighting, and now I realized that was probably a good
thing. If I had thought about how powerful it really was I probably would never
have made my kamikaze move against it.

“That’s
right,” I said. “Although, I can’t be too sure about the part where she
survives unless you decide to help me. I would think you would be eager to see
one of yours back to good health.”

“It’s
not a matter of what I want boy-o, it’s a matter of trust. Do ye even
understand what ye are? Ye don't have a side but fer
yerself
.
Ye can cross back and forth on a whim. Ye can employ all manner of trickery and
deceit to meet yer aims, and only the most astute of the Divine will even have
an idea they’re bein’ double-crossed. Ye can cause all sorts of mayhem,
discord, destruction for no other reason than because it suits ye, all while
smellin’ like roses and gettin’ all the blessins’ of Heaven."

His
face was turning beet red, and his anger was growing beyond reason. Without
thinking, my hand shot forward and wrapped around his neck. His eyes widened in
surprise, and he stopped talking.

"Listen
to me Father," I said then, my own anger stewing. "My aim is only to
heal the angel. She saved my life, and I intend to return the favor. Don't make
it at the expense of your own."

I let
go of him then, drawing back in a shock of my own at the violent outburst. I
had never been like this before. A wave of guilt washed over me.

"I'm
sorry Father," I said, lowering my head. "I'm pretty new at this gig,
but the one thing I know is that I'm not your enemy." I turned to leave.

"Wait,"
he said, rubbing his neck with his hand. I looked back at him, feeling doubly
foolish for almost choking him to death. "Why do ye think the seraph
survived?"

I
hadn't expected the question, especially after what I had just done.
"Excuse me, father?"

"A
Great Were can kill an angel with one blow,” he said. “Why didn't he?"

I
didn't know enough about weres of any kind to know the injury was uncommon. I
told him about the fight. I gave him all the details. When I was done, he took
the wine bottle and left the room. When he returned, he blessed it himself. He
didn't speak again until he handed it back.

"He
was gloatin’," he told me then. "He let the angel run him through so
he could do it, and made straight sure not to
kill  her
with his first cut. He didn't know what ye were. He didn't expect ye to
recover. Ye got lucky killin’ him." He walked over and held out the
bottle. "I don't like ye laddie, and I don't like yer kind or whom ya be
workin’ fer, but if helping ye helps a seraph, I'll do it this once. Darker
days are comin’ when a demon lets
himself
be stabbed,
and Lord knows we need all the help we can get. Now go, and don't ever show yer
face in my church again."