Paths Not Taken (31 page)

I was still me, but I was more than me. I laughed aloud, and so did Suzie. We looked at each other. We shone so very brightly, our flesh burning with an intense light, and massive wings spread out behind our backs. Our eyes were full of glory, and halos of fizzing static sparked above our heads. The world was ours, to do with as we wished.

Slowly, we remembered why we had done this thing and what we had to do. The slow, steady purpose of the angels beat within us, stronger than instinct, more certain than decision. Suzie and I turned as one and walked into the city Lilith had made. Once I was moving, I felt more like myself again. Action helped to focus me. Both Suzie and I blazed with a light that was brighter and more genuine than anything the city could produce, and the ground cracked and broke apart under the spiritual weight we carried. The tall towers and mighty buildings seemed somehow shabby under our light.

It didn't take long for our presence to be noticed. We were uninvited guests, the first the city had ever known. One by one Lilith's offspring came leaping and slithering and striding through the streets to face us. Some watched from alleyways, some flew overhead, calling out warnings, but eventually a crowd of them blocked our way, and we came to a halt. The monstrous creatures cried out in shock and anger, seeing the angels we carried within us. Their voices were harsh and brutal, when they could be understood at all, and they threatened us, laughed at us, demanded we surrender or leave. Like the baying of beasts in a new kind of jungle.

"Stand aside,"-1 said, and my voice crashed in the air like thunder, like lightning.

"Stand aside," said Suzie, and the buildings shook and trembled all around us.

The creatures rushed us, attacking from every side with tooth and claw and barbed, ripping tentacle. They hated us, just for what we were. For our having dared to enter the place that Lilith had assured them was safe from outside interference. Huge and monstrous, fast and strong, they came at us, death and destruction made flesh, hate and spite and bitter evil given shape and form. They never stood a chance.

Suzie and I looked at them with the power of angels in our eyes, and some of the creatures melted away under the pressure of that gaze, not strong or certain enough to withstand our augmented will. The flesh slipped from their bones like mud and splashed on the ground. Others simply disappeared, banished from the material world by our overwhelming determination. But most stood their ground and fought. They cut at us with claws and barbs, and mouths snapped all around us, while spiked tentacles sought to enwrap or tear us apart. We took no hurt. We were above that. We grabbed them with our strong hands and tore them limb from limb. Our fists punched through the hardest flesh and shattered the thickest carapaces. We crushed skulls and punched in chests and ripped off arms and legs and tentacles. More creatures came running, from every direction at once, spilling and bursting out of every adjoining street and alley. They outnumbered us a hundred to one, a thousand to one, living nightmares and killing machines of unnatural flesh and blood, every shape and form that darkness could conceive.

But Suzie and I had angels within us, and we were strong, so strong.

The street beneath our feet broke apart as awful things burst up out of the earth beneath the city. They wrapped around our legs and tried to drag us down. Bat-winged things slammed down out of the night sky, to tear and rend or snatch us up and carry us away. Suzie and I fought them all, our fingers sinking deep into yielding flesh. We picked creatures up and threw them away, and they crashed into elegant walls and brought down tall buildings. We walked steadily forward, and nothing could stand against us. The dead piled up everywhere, and the wounded crawled away, cursing and weeping and calling out for their mother. Wherever we turned our gaze or our hands, monstrous forms broke or faded away, and some splashed like bloody mud in the streets. Finally, the survivors turned and ran, disappearing back into the centre of the city, back to the dark heart of the Nightside, where Lilith waited for us to come to her. Suzie and I walked through the dead and the dying, the dismembered creatures and the splintered carapaces, ignoring the wounded and the weeping. They were not why we were there.

But still we smiled upon our work, and knew it to be just and good. I like to think this was the angel's thoughts, my angel's satisfaction, but I'm still not sure. I wanted to kill these awful things, these monsters who shared the same mother as 1.1 didn't want to think I had anything in common with them, but I did, I did. Angel or no, I was as much a monster in what I did then.

We followed the retreating creatures, all the way into the heart of the Nightside, and there was Lilith, sitting on a pale Throne, waiting for us. Her surviving offspring crouched and huddled around the Throne, and at her pale feet. She didn't look at them. All the power of her dark gaze was fixed on Suzie, and on me. The buildings were very tall, impossibly heavy and impressive, and I couldn't tell of what substance they were made. They just were, drawn out of her mind and stamped onto reality by her will, in this place that was not a place, hidden within the real world like a parasite deep in a man's guts.

Lilith watched unwaveringly as Suzie and I stepped unhurriedly into the courtyard and approached her throne. A dozen kinds of blood and offal dripped from our hands. Lilith's gaze was steady, her dark mouth unmoved as her wounded offspring surged restlessly around her feet, crying put for vengeance. Suzie and I came to a halt a respectful distance before her, and Lilith gestured sharply with one long-fingered hand. The clamour about her fell silent. She gestured again, and the creatures slunk away, fading into the dark shadows of the surrounding streets and alleyways. Until there was only Lilith and Suzie, and me.

"I see angels in you," Lilith said calmly. Her words came clearly to me, perhaps because they were filtered through Baphomet. "You carry Heaven's and Hell's restraints within you. I should have known they'd find a way to sneak into my perfect paradise. All I wanted was a world to play in, one world for my very own. A fresh start, I thought, but no; we have to follow the old ways, even here. So, which of you is the snake and which the apple, I wonder? Though I've never seen that much difference, between Heaven and Hell. Both so certain, so limited, so ... unimaginative. Just bullies, determined to make everyone else play their depressing little game.

"Still, it doesn't matter. You've come too late. I have made a new realm, separate from both of yours, and what I have done here can never be undone, except by me. And you have no power to force me to do anything any more. The very nature of this city limits and diminishes you, while I... have designed this body to be very powerful indeed."

I could feel Baphomet boiling and churning within me, enraged by her words, desperate to unleash its power and follow its programming. But I was still in charge and pushed it back. There were things I needed to ask, needed to know.

"Why are Heaven and Hell so concerned about this place?" I said, and my voice sounded very normal to me. "Why do they see your little city as such a danger?"

Lilith raised a perfect dark eyebrow. "That isn't the angel talking. You're ... human, aren't you? I've seen your kind, in visions. What brings you here, so many years before your time?"

"Is it the concept of true free will they find so threatening?" I persisted. "Why are they so scared of a place where freedom is more than just a word?"

"Your thinking is very limited," said the angel Gabriel, through Suzie's lips. Her mouth, its voice. "We do not care about Lilith or her city. It is the creatures and powers this freedom from responsibility will someday produce that are our concern. They will be more terrible and more powerful than the rightful inhabitants of this world were ever meant to have to face. Humanity must be protected from such threats if it is to have its fair chance. Unlike Lilith, we take the long view. She has only ever cared about the here and now."

"Here and now is certain," Lilith said calmly. "Everything else is guesswork."

"She must be destroyed," Baphomet said suddenly, forcing the words through my lips.

"That is not what was agreed," said Gabriel, through Suzie.

"Lilith is here and at our mercy," said Baphomet. "And we may never have a better chance."

"Our orders... are more important than any local agreement," said Gabriel. "We must destroy the outcast while we have the opportunity."

And just like that, the two angels changed our deal. Using all their strength and will, they pushed Suzie and me aside, forcing us into the back of our heads so they could take control of our bodies and complete their mission. They were supposed to stop her, not destroy her; but their nature would not let them miss the chance of disposing of such a notorious enemy of Heaven and Hell. Lilith didn't move. I could sense the weakness in her, her strength drained by how much of herself she'd had to put into creating her Nightside. I could have sat back and let the angels kill her. I could have watched her die, knowing it would ensure the Nightside's safety in the future, even if it meant my own death, through not being born. I could have. But in the end, I had to do something. Not only for me, but for her. I couldn't let her die because of something she hadn't done yet and might never do. Humanity had to have its chance, but so did she. Making decisions like this is what Humanity is for.

I surged forward in my head, taking Baphomet by surprise. I forced my hand out towards Suzie, and her hand came jerkily forward to grab mine. And together, inch by inch, we took back control of our bodies. The angels raged every step of the way, but there was nothing they could do. I smiled at Lilith, and spoke with my own voice again.

"I have to believe in hope," I said to her. "For you, and for me."

You cannot defy our authority, said a small voice in the back of my head. You have no power without us.

"I'm just exercising the free will I was given," I said. "And you two are more trouble than you're worth."

Defy us, and Heaven and Hell will be at your back and at your throat for the rest of your life.

"Get in the queue," I said. "You only possess us by our will, and by our consent. You broke the agreement. And this is the Nightside, where you have no authority at all. So, get out."

And like that, Suzie and I thrust Gabriel and Baphomet out of us. They shot up into the night sky, great wings flapping frantically, then they shot up like living fireworks, fleeing the city before it destroyed them. They couldn't risk being destroyed before they could report what had happened there, in that spiritual blind spot.

Losing the angel's power was like having the heart ripped out of me. It felt such a small thing, to be merely human again.

Suzie quietly let go of my hand. I nodded, understanding. And then we both looked at Lilith, still sitting in state on her pale Throne. She considered us, thoughtfully.

"So," she said finally. "Alone at last. I thought they'd never go. You are humans. Not quite what I was expecting."

"We're what humans will be," I said. "We're from the future."

"I thought you must be," said Lilith. "Without the angelic presence to mask it, you're dripping with Time. Thousands of years of it, I'd say. Why have you come such a long way to be here, speaking a language you shouldn't be able to understand, knowing things you shouldn't know?"

Suzie and I looked at each other, wondering how best to put this. There really wasn't any diplomatic way ...

"I envy you your travel through Time," said Lilith. "That's one of the few things I can never enjoy. I had to imprint myself so very firmly on your reality, in order to exist here ... and even I dare not risk undoing that. Tell me- what dread purpose brings you here, from so many years ahead, to murder my children and destroy my pretty city?"

"We came here to stop you from destroying the Night-side, in the far future," I said.

"The Nightside?" Lilith cocked her head on one side, like a bird, then smiled. "A suitable name. But why should I wish to destroy my realm after I've put so much of myself into its creation?"

"No-one seems too sure," I said. "Apparently it's tied in with me. I am, or will be, your son."

Lilith looked at me for a long moment, her face unreadable. "My son," she said finally. "Flesh of my flesh, born of my body? By a human father? Intriguing... You know, you really should have let those angels destroy me."

"What?" I said.

"I have put too much of myself into this place to be stopped or side-tracked now. By emissaries of the great tyrants of Heaven or Hell, or by some unexpected descendant from a future that may never happen. The Nightside will be what I intend it to be, here, and in all the futures that may be. I will do what I will do, and I will not accept any authority or restriction over me. That is why I was made to leave Eden, after all. You may be my son, but really all you are is an unexpected and unwelcome complication."

"You have to listen to me!" I said, stepping forward.

"No, I don't," said Lilith.

She rose suddenly out of her Throne and surged forward inhumanly quickly to grab my face in both her hands. I cried out, in shock and pain and horror. Her touch was cold as knives, cold as death, and the endless cold within her sucked the living energy right out of me. I grabbed her wrists with both my hands, but my human strength was nothing next to hers. She smiled as she drained the life out of me, and into her. Smiled with those dark lips and those dark, dark eyes.

"I gave you life, and now I take it back," she said. "You will make me strong again, my son."

I could no longer feel anything but the cold, and the light was already fading out of my eyes, when Suzie Shooter was suddenly there. She stuck her shotgun right into Lilith's face and let her have both barrels. The shock of the blessed and cursed ammunition at such point-blank range drove Lilith backwards, jerking her hands off my face. I fell to my knees, and didn't even feel it as they slammed against the ground. Lilith cried out angrily, her face undamaged but blazing with rage. Suzie knelt beside me, her arm around my shoulders to stop me falling any further. She was saying something, but I couldn't hear her. Couldn't hear anything. I felt cold, distant, as though inch by inch I was slipping away from life. And all I could think was, I'm sorry, Suzie... to have to do this to you again.