The Devil's Backbone (A Niki Slobodian Novel: Book Five) (21 page)

Lucifer looked at me and his resolve seemed to harden. He inhaled and exhaled slowly.

Typhon was trying to shake off the souls. He was kicking his legs. He fell on the Backbone and screamed as the stone swords jutting into the sky pierced his arms and back.

“I damn these spirits to the holy Pits,” said Lucifer quietly, his voice barely shaking. “For eternity.”
 

A flash lit up the sky and it seemed as though even Typhon’s fire that still raged in the sky quailed. A great bolt of lightning shot down and struck the ground in front of us. It tore a hole in the ground and then dissipated. A slow rumbling began. Then a crack. The ground ripped open and I could see flames racing up towards the surface. The flames made a hissing noise as they touched Typhon’s cloven hoof and he pulled back, howling. The spirits held onto him somehow, in spite of his clawing and screaming and thrusting. He turned then and looked right at me. With a speed he had not yet shown, he ran toward me, holding a great hand out as if to grab me.

Lucifer stepped in front of me and held out a hand that crackled with power.

“Be gone,” he said meeting Cassandra’s eyes. Light shot from his hands and eyes and chest and the spirits became engulfed in it. The fire reached up and wrapped around them, pulling them down and Typhon with them. He clawed desperately at the ground as he went, the spirits holding fast as they were pulled into the Pit.
 

“I’m sorry,” Lucifer said as we watched them go. Sasha raised a hand in farewell to me as he went, and I saw my mother close her eyes as the flames engulfed her. A tear shone down Sofi's cheek as she smiled the same way she had smiled at me in life. Cassandra simply watched us, her eyes eerily still as the fire pulled her into an eternity of nothingness. The Scourges followed them in and, as their tails disappeared into the fire, the ground closed around them, healing like a wound, pushing Typhon down until even his mighty horns were deep under the earth.

And then there was silence. As though nothing had happened here. My eyes landed on Bobby’s body. Ash and Aki. I closed my eyes and sank to my knees.

This time I let Lucifer see me cry. Great wrenching sobs that seemed to rip through me, tearing everything inside of me as they went. And he wrapped his arms around me and cried alongside me. We huddled there until neither of us had the energy to move. We forced ourselves up, holding each other, unable to stand without the other’s touch.

“How do you unmake a world?” he said.

“Just like unraveling a sweater,” I said. “Just find the thread.” I nodded to the bodies. “Can you help me bring Bobby to the World?” It hurt to look at him. Hurt to think about him. But I couldn’t leave him here. He would rot in the Unsung. Or be consumed. I shuddered.

“There’s no one left,” said Lucifer. “What will you do with him?”

“Bury him,” I said. “Right next to his wife.”

“You know that doesn’t make a difference. There’s no one left to know.”

“I’ll know,” I said. “He deserves whatever I can give him.”

Lucifer nodded. “We’ll get him there. What then?”

I rested my head on Lucifer’s shoulder. It felt better just to have him near. The fire in my belly was subdued for once and I put my hand over the small bump that was growing there. I looked up at him. He didn’t even flinch when I said the word, though it felt strange to say.

“Rapture.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

We buried Bobby Gage in a shallow grave right next to his wife. We planned on digging deeper, but after going down three feet, neither Lucifer nor I could lift our arms. We wrapped him in cloth and placed him gently in the grave. Lucifer wearily pushed the dirt back on top of him.

“Are you going to say some words?” he said.

I stared at the mound of earth where Gage lay. I looked at Lucifer.

“I’m going to do better,” I said. “I’m going to make it right.”

“With Rapture?”

“Yes,” I said. I watched as another building fell in the distance. The gods were slowly demolishing the cities. In a few years or decades it would be as if humans had never existed here. Sheol itself was in the Unsung, in a partitioned part where the souls would be safe. But I knew what to do. I knew more than I had any right to.
 

“We have to go to Briah,” I said. “Are you ready to go home?”

“Briah was never home,” he said. “Not really.”

“Where then?” I said. “Where will our home be?”

“Away,” he said.

“Away from what?”

“Everything.”

As I was about to take us away, a figure caught my eye. A heap of long dark hair and denim. I walked toward it. It was a girl. I turned her over gently and unseeing eyes looked up at the sky, ringed in eyeliner that ran down her face. Her lipstick was smeared across one cheek.

“Do you know her?” said Lucifer.
 

“You know her too,” I said. “This is the Creator. Or it was.”

“He became fully human,” Lucifer said. “Do you think it was worth it?”

“We’ll never know,” I said.
 

“Should we bury Him, too?”

“No,” I said. “I think we’ve done quite enough for the Creator.”

“We wouldn’t be the only ones left if not for Him.”

“None of this would have happened if not for Him,” I said.
 

* * *
 

All it took was a thought for me to Travel now. Not only through the Unsung, but through everything.
 

I looked up and laid my eyes on Briah for the first time. Great mountains rose in the distance, green and soft and luscious. Trees lined the cobblestone street, raining pink petals on us as the balmy breeze ruffled our hair. Once-white buildings were now shaded brown and gray. Silver towers had tarnished and corroded, giving them a green crust all the way to their spires. Deserted houses were covered in dirt. Weeds grew between the cobbles.
 

“This is the city that God forgot,” I said.
 

“It is,” said Lucifer.

I could see a dirty castle in the distance. I concentrated and the castle fell, swallowed by the earth.
 

“Why did you do that?” Lucifer said.

“Because no one will ever rule here,” I said. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, the city gleamed. The silver shone. The houses were clean and the weeds were gone.

“The rest is up to them,” I said.
 

“How do you bring them here?”

“No more than a thought,” I said. “And they wake up. Like waking from a dream.” Even as I said the words, forms appeared in front of me. One by one, the dead woke up alive. Slowly at first, and then in droves. Until the city was full to capacity. Until people filled the streets and the houses and spread out into the country.
 

“You don’t have to stay here,” I called, my voice somehow booming across the sky for all to hear. “You’re free to make your own cities, your own farms, your own homes. This is what you make of it. You will hunt your own meat, you will farm your own food. You will live without death.”

“Who are you?” a woman said. She had a puzzled look on her face, as many did.

“I’m nobody,” I said.
 

“How did we get here?” said a man in clothes that belonged in a museum.

“You died,” I said. “And the world ended while you slept.”

“How will we survive?” said a younger-looking man. “There are no stores or restaurants.”

“You’ll survive,” I said. “This is your eternity.”

I took Lucifer’s hand and the crowd parted to let us through. I saw a face that made me catch my breath. Gage was suddenly standing in front of me. He wasn’t alone. He was wrapping his big arms around a woman with dark hair. She was crying and so was he. He had his eyes closed and he didn’t see me as I walked past.
 

“You didn’t say goodbye,” said Lucifer. “He won’t know that you did this for him.”

“He knows,” I said. “I don’t have to tell him.”

“He might want to thank you.”

“He already has.”

We walked for a long time, stopping to rest when we couldn’t walk any longer. We napped under a big tree, fat bumblebees buzzing lazily and the smell of sweet fruit all around us. It took us all day to walk through the throngs of people. The newly-living. When we finally found ourselves alone, I stopped and smiled.

“Why here?” said Lucifer.

“I didn’t want anyone to see.”

“See what?”

“I’m going to make us a world. Somewhere that no one can touch us.”

“She’ll be safe?” he said.

“All of us,” I said.
 

I closed my eyes and thought of a world. As it took shape in my mind, a hole opened in front of us and I could see the landscape forming inside. A bright blue sky shone on snow-capped mountains, bright green grass and trees whose branches groaned with fat fruits.
 

“This is the way it ends,” I said, taking Lucifer’s hand.

“No,” he said, pulling me close. “This is the way it begins.”

We stepped through and I felt the sun on my face. I smelled earth and flowers and fruit trees. We turned and watched the hole close, cutting us off from Briah, from the World, from everyone and everything we knew. I looked out over this new world and smiled.

“We’ll call her Sofi,” I said.

“Does it still hurt?” said Lucifer. “The fire?”

“No,” I said. I met his eyes. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”

THE END

OTHER BOOKS BY J.L. MURRAY

THE NIKI SLOBODIAN SERIES:

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

The Devil Is a Gentleman

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

The Devil Was an Angel

The Devil’s Backbone

THE THIRTEEN SERIES:

Jenny Undead

Jenny Alive (available 2015)

AFTER THE FIRE SERIES:

After the Fire: Book the First

J.L. Murray books can be found at
Amazon.com
. Visit her website to find out about exciting new releases and for special excerpts. You can find her at
www.jlmurraywrites.com
.