The Devil's Backbone (A Niki Slobodian Novel: Book Five) (12 page)

“What message?” I tasted blood inside my mouth where he was shoving my cheeks into my teeth.

“What does Death fear?” said Eli. “I think we found it. You really didn’t have much left, did you? Poor thing. Just a man with some talent at Casting, and an angel that used to rule Hell. When we drain all the power out of your friend here, then you’ll have nothing to fear. Except for us, of course.”

“Let Bobby go, Eli. I know you’re in there. Please let him go.”

“He’s too weak to talk to you,” said Eli. “Men are so easily manipulated, don’t you think? You should know. You had the devil himself wrapped around your finger. All tied up in knots when he realized who we were really after. He might even have cried. How touching.”

“Where is he?” I said, my voice no louder than a breath.

“I have no idea,” said Eli. “We let him go. Afterwards. If it was up to me he would have taken the form of an insect, but we all have our own forms. I am sure that some part of him remembers you. Now. Shall it be your eye, or your friend’s life? You decide.” He pressed the blade deeper into my skin and my vision went blurry on one side. The power in me was weak. Limp. It flared up slightly when I willed it to, but I had spent everything I had when I pulled the flame out of the flying beast. I was exhausted. I didn’t even have my gun.
 

I heard the growl again, but it could have just been a buzzing in my head.
 

“Don’t touch him,” I said.

“Your eye it is, then,” he said. “Do you think it will grow back eventually, or will you have a hideous hole where once you saw entire worlds?” He put pressure on the knife and I felt it pierce my skin, warm blood dripping down my face like tears.

The growl got louder and I realized it wasn’t in my head. There was a scuff of gravel and then Eli was screaming. I fell to the ground as the hand holding me was suddenly gone, and then the screaming suddenly stopped. I saw Eli on the ground, his eyes dead and unseeing, his throat ripped out, blood still spurting from his jugular.
 

I looked around, but didn’t see anything. Whatever had attacked him had disappeared just as suddenly. But then I heard the growl again. It didn’t come from behind me this time, and I saw the fear register on the two women who held Gage. They exchanged glances. There was a shriek as Dorana leaped up and tackled the woman holding Gage at knife-point, taking her to the ground and landing on top of her with a thud. Gage touched the spot the knife had nicked, looking at the blood as if it were the most interesting color in the world. The woman pinned under Dorana thrust upward with her knife, and Dorana grunted and fell still. The witch pushed the body so that it rolled away and brandished the knife as she got to her feet. Registering the carnage that used to be Eli, she slowly backed away, her companion following suit. Then there was a blur of black and she was on the ground, again, a great and dark and shaggy beast atop her unmoving body.
 

Her companion started to run. The beast stopped and turned to me, blood dripping from its snout, teeth bared, as if a scene from werewolf movie, only infinitely more frightening because it was goddamn real. I could smell it from where I stood, like a tiger at the zoo. It suddenly leaped after the women, but I didn’t turn to watch.

“Bobby, hold my hand,” I said. I wasn’t sure it would work. Nothing else seemed to be working right now. But I closed my eyes and concentrated on the first place that came to mind.
 

I could hear the whispers before opening my eyes. Gage was still holding tight to my hand and when I looked at him, his face was ghastly pale and his eyes were wide.

“Niki?” he whispered. “Where the hell are we?”

“Sheol,” I said. “The resting place of the dead.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Niki, I shouldn’t be here,” said Gage, uncharacteristically twitchy. “Everything that’s happening, all this crazy shit that’s gone down, I have this weird feeling like I’m not supposed to know any of it. Ever since you…you brought me back in my apartment.”

I nodded. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Maybe I don’t want to get used to it,” said Gage. He didn’t say it in anger, but with a plaintive note to his voice, as if he wanted me to make it all okay, to make it all less strange.

“You don’t have a choice, Bobby,” I said.

“You should have left me there, Nik,” he said, his eyes sad. He motioned to the slabs that lined Sheol. “I’m supposed to be on one of these, aren’t I?”

“Hard to say,” I said. “Maybe.”

“Is my wife here?”

“Yes. Can you hear them?”

He frowned. “No. I don’t think so. But I can see them.”

“Do you want to see her?” I said.
 

“I…I don’t know.”

“You can. It’s up to you. It won’t make it better. Go find her if you want to, though. I’ll come for you when it’s time to leave.”

“What are you going to do?” he said. “Why did you bring us here?”

“I’m not really sure,” I said. I met his eyes. “I had a dream about this place. But it’s foggy. I think I need to find my mother.” The whispers were growing louder, more intense. I staggered a little, and Gage caught my arm.

“You gonna be okay?” he said.

“I’m fine,” I said, trying for a smile. “It’s different for us here.”

“Us? You mean you and Lucifer?” I nodded. “This is where you found him, isn’t it? When you came here with Sam.”

“Yes,” I said. “He was here for a very long time.”

“Like, weeks?” he said.

“More like centuries,” I said.

“I’ll never get used to that,” said Gage. He looked around.

“Go find her, Bobby,” I said, nudging him. “I’ll be fine. Go see your wife.”

Gage nodded and started up the center aisle, looking left and right, searching for a familiar face. I closed my eyes when he was out of sight and held onto a nearby slab for support. The nausea was back, hitting me in waves. My vision went a little cloudy at the top of each wave, but I fought it down. I took a breath and headed into Sheol, the glow of the souls leading me through, the whispers rising as I passed each sleeping, translucent body.
 

I thought about the first time I’d seen Lucifer here, the souls sitting up and becoming blazingly bright as he passed, sparks filling the air as he approached. There had been such power about him. I’d known instantly who he was, and Samael, the angel of death who had brought me here, had seemed pale and weak in comparison.

I paused and closed my eyes again, trying to put away the memory. It hurt too much to think about Lucifer. I felt an empty hollow in the center of my chest that ached and throbbed with all the nothingness that it contained. I wanted him here more than I had ever wanted anything in my life. I wanted him to take my face in his hands as he had done on our last night together. He had looked into my eyes and said, “Nothing matters but this, Niki. Nothing.”
 

Exhaustion was overwhelming me. I sank to my knees on the ground. I only needed to rest for a moment. Just a little while until I stopped feeling so sick. I lowered my face to the cool stone floor. I felt myself drift off even as I choked on a sob.

I looked up and knew it was another dream. A woman, ethereal and translucent and beautiful was standing over me. Wavy red hair fell down to her waist and I knew who she was without even asking.

“Cassandra,” I said.

“You know me,” she said. She watched me stagger to my feet. “I know of you, as well.”

Cassandra was the human who, centuries ago, Lucifer had tried to save. He had loved her and she had been murdered out of spite by the lords of Hell. Lucifer brought her back only to have her die again, and he had been powerless to save her. Out of madness and despair, he asked a necromancer to bring her back. She had lived, but had lost her soul in the process. She was like a wild animal and, after she had killed someone, Lucifer had to kill her himself. Afterward he had spent several hundred years in Sheol, to atone. He claimed that living in Sheol had driven him sane, and given him the time he needed to recover from his own hubris and the grief he felt at losing Cassandra.

“You must feel quite conflicted at the sight of me,” said Cassandra. “Rest easy, I’ve not come for him. It’s you who needs me.”

“Me?” I said.
 

“It was never me, you know,” she said. “I was delicate back then. Someone he could save to make himself feel like he hadn’t lost himself in this place. I’m not sure he ever really loved me. Not the way he loves you, Niki Slobodian.”

“How do you know any of this?” I said. I was afraid to touch her. I thought she would swirl away from me just like every other soul I touched. Even in a dream.
 

She was studying me, as if I were an enigma she wanted to solve. “We see more than you think we do.”

“The dead?” I said.

“Yes. Our minds are free to wander. He’ll die for you, you know.”

“What? No, I don’t want that.”

“He would not die for me, but for you…I don’t think there’s anything Lucifer won’t endure. But you mustn’t let him.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He’s come to you, yes? Perhaps just like I’m coming to you. What did he say?”

I hesitated. It was ridiculous, but I felt like speaking of the time I’d spent with Lucifer in my dream was like sharing something intimate, something private. I shook my head of the thought.

“He said I couldn’t save him,” I said. “He said I had to let him save me, but I couldn’t do anything to help him.” I looked away from her. “He said I had to leave him behind.”

“Is that what you’re going to do?” she said, raising a perfect auburn eyebrow. “Are you planning on leaving him behind?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “I’d rather die,” I said, the intensity of my voice startling even to me.

Cassandra smiled coolly. “Good,” she said.

There was a shudder in reality and suddenly Cassandra was gone, replaced by empty space. Another shudder and the space filled with figures. I backed away, shaking my head.
 

“Please don’t,” I said. “I can’t do this now.”

The figure at the front stepped forward.

“It must be now, Nikita,” said Sasha, whole again and looking at me with sadness in his eyes.

My mother stood beside him. She was crying silvery tears. She tried to smile at me.

“It’s not your time,” she said, her voice heavily accented. “It cannot be. You must call your father.”

“I tried,” I said. “He didn’t come.”

“He will,” she said. I looked at Sasha, but there was no hurt in his eyes at the mention of Pineme. He only looked at me like I was the saddest thing he’d ever seen.

I looked beyond my parents to see Sofi, young again. Naz stood next to her, the hole in his chest closed up, his eyes crinkling at the sight of me. The figures were multiplying rapidly, all the faces familiar. The people I had known, some of whom had died for me, all stared at me like I was some sort of marvel. A figure moved through the throng to the front, emerging between Sasha and my mother.

“Eli,” I said. He was human again, before the demon side of his heritage had emerged. It was the Eli that I had cared about, the gentle man who had tried to keep me so close even when I did my best to run from him. He smiled, and it was like going back in time. Before his father had come into the picture, before Lucifer, before Sam. When it was just me and him and an apartment with nothing but ramen noodles in the cupboards.

“I’m sorry,” he said.
 

I shook my head. “It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault.”
 

“No,” he said. “I’m sorry for what’s happened to you. I didn’t make it easier. I was cruel to you, blinded by ambition and bitterness.”

“I hurt you,” I said.

“You have friends, Niki,” he said. “When it’s time to call us, we will come. You have to stop.”

“Stop what?” I said.

“This thing you do to yourself,” said Sasha. “You live for everyone else. Is not good.”

“If you want this world, if you want anything to exist,” said Sofi, almost unrecognizable with soft brown hair and red lips, “then you must stop thinking, Niki. Let us help you.”

“Let us,” said all the voices in unison.

“I don’t know what this means,” I said. “What are you saying?”

“You have to survive,” said Eli. “I see that now. The future lies with you. The future of every world. You hold it inside of you.”

“What?” I said, trying to understand.

“It is not just you, Nikita,” said Sasha. “Not anymore.”

“Lucifer?” I said.

“He is very much a part of you now,” said my mother. “Don’t let him slip away. You’ll need him.”

“Call us,” said Eli. “You’ll know how when the time is right. You’ll know how to hurt in just the right way.”

“Hurt?” I said. “Why will it hurt?”

“Because sometimes,” said Sofi, “to love is to sacrifice. But you must sacrifice. You must leave us behind if there will be any future. You must, Niki. I have seen it.”

“Why?” I said. “What is all this?”

“He’ll die for you if he has to,” said Cassandra, suddenly standing beside me. “You are everything to him. Don’t squander him as I did. I was only a path for him to get to you. He didn’t know it, but it’s always been you, Niki. And you hold the proof.”

“The proof of what?” I said.

“You will know,” she said. “In the end.”

“Sacrifice,” said my mother.

“Sacrifice,” said Sasha.

“Sacrifice what?” I said. I felt tears on my face, but I hadn’t realized I was crying.

Every voice rose to speak as one. “EVERYTHING,” they said. And in an instant a picture flashed in my mind: A backbone, a circle of gold, and I knew I could find it. The Devil's Backbone.

I jolted awake, and scrambled to my side to retch. My stomach clenched, grinding into itself when there was nothing left to vomit. I was sweating, but I shivered. I sat on my heels when I’d finished and wiped my mouth. A final shiver coursed through my body, but as it passed I found that I felt better. A heat filled me, slowly crawling out through my arms and legs and fingers and toes. I felt alive. Something moved inside me and I felt strength within me. I breathed out and I was like new again.