“Look on the bright side,” Melody said. “You get to spend more time with me.”

  “I don’t think we’ll have much time to ourselves while we’re playing hide and seek with Miss Inquisition,” he replied. He was upset, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  “If the seraph shows up here, I’ll be defrocked for sure,” Father Tom said. “Harboring three diuscrucis, and a demon of all things. The sooner you all get out of my church, the better I’ll feel.”

  “Obi?” I knew he would acquiesce. He always did, but it made him feel better to complain first.

  “Yeah, okay, man,” he said, after a silent pause. “So Kassie is going to be following Melody, right? Because she thinks she’s with you, or will lead her to you.” He looked at the angel. “But are you with us?”

  Melody’s face contracted, and she looked torn. “I’m with you, Landon, as long as what you’re doing is in line with the Lord’s plan. The Lord trapped the Beast once, I don’t think He intended for it to be free. I can’t help that my brothers and sisters refuse to see the truth. It’s easy to deny what we don’t want to see.”

  It wasn’t a full pledge of support, but I hadn’t expected one. We’d still come a long way since our first meeting. “Thanks, Melody,” I said.

  “What are we waiting for?” Sarah asked. She was looking much better, having found a shower and a change of clothes in the short time since I had woken. She had lost the ringlets in her hair, choosing to contain the natural curl by pulling it back into a tight ponytail. The makeshift dress had been traded for a pair of jeans and a simple black pullover hoodie she’d found in a box awaiting pickup by Goodwill.

  “Nothing,” I replied. I swiveled my gaze around to Obi, to Melody, to Thomas, and to Father Tom. “Good luck, all of you. Stay safe.”

  Obi reached out, taking my hand in his and clasping it tight. “You too,” he said, leaning in and clapping me on the back. “We’ll keep you clear to do what you need to do.”

  “I know,” I said. With that, I made for the door, Charis and Sarah following behind.

  We headed down the hallway and back into the basement, where Izak was putting the finishing touches on a rebuilt transport rift. I felt kind of stupid for asking him to get rid of it, and then remake it, but I hadn’t been thinking very clearly at the time. I could sense his anger when I had made the new request, but it had subsided when he had noticed the change in my eyes.

  “How’s it coming Izak?” I asked as we entered. He was crouched in front of the rift, his hands clasped together. The runes flared to life. “I never doubted.”

  “Father Tom is going to crap the rosary when he finds this thing,” Sarah said.

  I knew it, but there was nobody on this side who could take it apart. Besides that, I wasn’t sure we wouldn’t need it again. The best I could hope for was that he wouldn’t turn us in to the Inquisitors as soon as he saw what we had done.

  “Sounds painful,” I said. I didn’t even slow on the approach, hitting the edge of the circle, and stepping through.

  I was surprised by my location when I came out the other side. I had just assumed that Gervais’ personal rift would have been destroyed when the Beast had sent his servants after Lylyx and Izak, but on emerging I found myself walking down a gilded stone platform in an overdone neoclassical hodgepodge of artwork and furniture. My eyes immediately went to the four posted bed that served as the centerpiece of the room, and my breath caught on the memory that hung there in the stale air. It was a memory I had relived a hundred times or more.

  Sarah came through next. It was her birth I was seeing, but not from my own eyes. Gervais had taken her from Josette, and thrown his sister out the window.

  “Landon.” Josette’s voice was a tonic to my whirring thoughts. “Let the past stay there.“

  That was the trick, of course. I looked away, to the door at the far end of the room. It was hanging open. I focused my Sight. It told me the home was deserted, but in the back of my mind I half-expected Gervais, or maybe even Rebecca to come charging through.

  “There’s no way the Beast wouldn’t expect us to come here,” I said. I felt the energy of the rift subside as Izak came through and shut it down.

  “Another trap?” Charis asked.

  “Whatever it is, I guarantee it won’t be as easy as going in, and getting out.” Unless he wanted us to just come in, and get out. I didn’t know which scenario worried me more. “Izak, lead the way.”

  The demon gave me the thumbs up and took the front of the line, taking us away from the open door, towards the corner of the bedroom. There was a marble statue of the archfiend there, his face a diabolical grimace, his hands up over his head in victory. Izak waved a stiff arm, and the statue flew away, smashing against the right-hand wall.

  Satisfied, he reached for the wall, his hand sinking through a glamour that I couldn’t see beyond. He manipulated something, and then beckoned for us to wait. A few seconds later, he waved for us to follow, and he walked through the glamour.

  We were in an elevator, with rich wood walls and plenty of gold inlays. Izak didn’t press any of the buttons on the inside, but I could feel him reaching out with his power. The elevator began to sink.

  “Is this an express?” I asked. He glanced over at me, but didn’t respond.

  “Why do you think the Beast wouldn’t have set his goons here to wait for us? Gervais especially?”

  I was surprised that Sarah was the one asking about her father, and so nonchalantly. “We know he had his heart set on convincing Abaddon to join him. If he has Abaddon, he can do whatever he wants with Avriel.”

  “Kill him?”

  Or use him to bait another trap.

  The elevator slowed to a stop, and the doors opened. Another glamour. We stepped through it, and I found myself in familiar surroundings.

  Before, the machinery and computers had been whole. Before, there had been a gurney with a corpse on it. Before, Gervais had been hanging from a chain, left as a gift from Rebecca as incentive for me to join her cause; the Beast’s cause. Now, the chain hung alone, and the rest of the lab had been torn apart, mangled, and burned. Whatever Gervais had been researching, it was all gone.

  “What was he researching?” Sarah asked. Izak stopped walking and turned to her. He frowned and shook his head.

  “Okay,” she said, dropping the subject.

  I knew the way from here, so I took the lead. Out of the laboratory, past the torture room, to the cells where Josette lived during her pregnancy. It was here that Sarah stopped again, putting her face to the bars and looking in on the room. She didn’t say anything. Her expression didn’t even change. She just stared in until Izak took her arm and gently pulled her away.

  Out of the prison and up the steps, down a hallway of rooms stocked with supplies, and into the small room where the rift between the Paris sewers and the Chateau sat. Still, there was no sign of any Divine, no suggestion of anyone mortal, immortal, or in-between. With each step I began to get more nervous, more concerned that we were being careless, reckless, thoughtless, and foolish. The doubt began to gnaw at me, picking its way into me and planting thorny seeds.

  “This is a mistake,” I said. Izak was bent over the rift, about to bring it to life. “It’s too easy.”

  “What choice do we have?” Charis asked. “We need Avriel to help us with the box.”

  “Do we?” I was having second thoughts. “We’re just assuming since he made the thing, he can work some kind of magic that will ensure it can contain the Beast. Maybe it already can? Or maybe, it never can?”

  “Which is why we need to ask him,” Charis said. “It’s better to find out from a reliable source than to risk everything. Even if it feels like we’re walking right into a trap. Again.”

  “It worked out okay last time,” Sarah piped in. “The Beast thinks he’s smarter than we are. He’s arrogant. We can use that to our advantage.”

  I looked at her like she had two heads. This wasn’t the Sarah that Gervais had turned into a whimpering mound of hurt. “It looks like I’m outvoted.”

  Izak had paused his work while we argued. Seeing it settled, he went back to the runes. Within moments, they flared up.

  What happened then was nine seconds of pure chaos, so quick and so dirty that there was no time to even try to decipher it. The very moment the runes came to life, the room grew cold, so cold, and a shadow of a form appeared in the rift.

  One second: Abaddon had come into the small room, so close to me that I could almost see the demon behind the shadows, a sharp, dark-fleshed, humanoid face with rich blood eyes obscured by the swirling darkness of his power.

  Two seconds: Sarah started to scream, the words deep in pitch and tone at the slow-motion speed in which I remembered them. It wasn’t a scream of fear, even though that was the effect of the vaporous tentacles that flowed out across the space. It was a scream of Command.

  Three seconds: Izak dove towards Sarah, his hand getting a firm grip on her wrist, his body shifting and pivoting. Her words launched forward at the demon, and I felt her power as a wave of pressure on my soul.

  Four seconds: I was close to it. I found my focus and fought back against the fear, pulling energy into me, cocking my fist back. The demon stood in its spot in front of the rift.

  Five seconds: I heard the snikt of Charis’ sword coming free of its scabbard on her back, as she prepared to face the demon. Maybe the fear subsided due to Sarah’s command, or maybe I had just overcome it for just a moment, but it was enough for me to let the fist fly, shifting my weight and angle to I could pummel it from the side.

  Six seconds: The blow struck Abaddon hard, making pure, solid contact with an actual creature of flesh and blood, and sending him toppling away from the rift.

  Seven seconds: Izak had seen the attack, and he pulled Sarah, yanking her through the rift with him.

  Eight seconds: I felt the breath fall out of me as Charis rushed me from behind, crashing into me and throwing us both through the circle.

  Nine seconds: In the sewers of Paris, the fiend Izak, the demon once known as Mephistopheles, had already put his hand into the runes to shut the rift down. Hellfire crawled along him, and the smell of his burning flesh was overpowering. His face bore no sign of pain, though it must have been excruciating. Instead, he was deliberate and steady in his concentration, working to manually scratch away part of the still-burning circle to disable it.

  Once it was done, he fell onto his back, clutching his forearm with his other hand. Smoke rose from the wound, and I could see that below where he held there was nothing but charred and useless flesh.

  “Oh, no,” Sarah said. “Izak.” She bent over him, trying to offer comfort. He held out his good hand and pushed himself away.

  “Izak,” I said. I kept looking at the no longer identifiable mass of skin and bone at the end of his arm. I couldn’t heal that.

  He held his good hand out to me as well, and shook his head. His eyes squinted in pain, and he took a few deep breaths. Then he got to his feet, and motioned in the direction of the bone room.

  “You are a serious badass,” I said. He glanced over at me, and shrugged.

  “There is no way to heal that. Not ever,” Josette said. “That wound will fester and bring him pain for the rest of his eternity.”

  “He’s played with hellfire before,” I replied.

  “He’s never touched it. The fire he wields sits above the skin, too close to see, but it never touches.”

  I stared at the demon’s back as he started walking down the corridor. Badass indeed.

  We hurried to catch up to him, my mind trying to sort out what had just happened, and what it meant. Abaddon had obviously been lying in wait for the rift to become active, which meant that either the Beast had been successful in his recruiting efforts, or the demon had just decided he’d had enough and wanted to catch the next, closest train out. The former seemed a lot more plausible.

  It didn’t take much of a stretch to assume that Ross had believed Abaddon would overwhelm us, especially in ambush, and get a hold on Sarah. As before, he had underestimated our own resilience. Or maybe just the square footage of the room Gervais kept his rift in. I doubt that he had considered Sarah’s ability to at least confuse the demon with her Command, or the power of my right hook. I certainly hadn’t.

  There was one thing about it that was bothering me above everything else, and as we turned the corner and spilled out into the bone room, my fear was confirmed. The huge wooden crucifix was still foisted in the center of the room, but Avriel was gone.

  “This can’t be good,” Sarah said, breaking a silence that stretched out too long.

  I approached the cross, scanning the ground around it for any sign of dust that might be the remains of the seraph. The area around the structure was clean. He might have still been alive. He might have been in the hands of the Beast, being tortured anew by something worse than the worst demon around. I felt the guilt welling up again, and I had to close my eyes to force it back down. This is what we had come for? This is what Izak had given up his hand and would live in eternal pain for? I had felt this was a mistake, and I hated being proven right.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Is he dead?” I asked. I wasn’t asking anyone in particular, and I didn’t expect a reply.

  “Does it matter?” Charis kicked at the ground in front of the cross. “We’re not going to get what we wanted this time.”

  “What if he tells the Beast how to disable the Box?” Sarah asked.

  “There’s nothing we can do about it, but I have a feeling it will take quite a bit to break him, after what he’s been through with Abaddon.” The guilt again.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the folded up piece of papyrus. I held it up to the others. “This is all we’ve got now,” I said. “This, and no nearby rift.”

  I didn’t even ask Izak if he could make us a new one. The script that formed the rift circles was more intricate than I could even describe, which is why so few demons could create their own. Izak had reached in to save us without thinking, doing so with his dominant hand. His writing hand.

  “Don’t forget that Abaddon is topside,” Charis said. “Not that I’m trying to make things worse, but we know he’s in play for the Beast.”

  “Closest rift?” It was the only thing that mattered right now, unless we wanted to drive back to Gervais’ chateau to challenge Abaddon. After barely getting away from him, I wasn’t enamored with the idea.

  “We can take the train from Paris to London,” Charis suggested. “It isn’t the closest by miles, but it’s probably the fastest to get to. Izak, what do you think?”

  The fiend hadn’t moved since we came into the room. He just stood with a stoic expression, holding his mutilated hand across his chest. When Charis asked his opinion, he nodded once.

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s our move. Let’s go.”

  We traveled back through the sewers, along the path I had last seen at a full run while trying to escape Abaddon. The sewers were a cold, dark, empty place, more so now because the demon’s dark existence had destroyed every manner of life it had encountered. Even the rats hadn’t been safe from him, and a sewer without rats was an especially creepy thing.

  I noted the dashes of Gervais’ age-old blood when we passed them, Izak guiding us back in the reverse of the trail I had followed only a few days earlier. It would have suited me much better if we could still draw blood from the archfiend. It reminded me of a line I had heard in a movie once. “If it bleeds, we can kill it,” they had said. What if it didn’t bleed?

  We didn’t take the same route all the way back. We were eighty percent of the way there when Izak pulled us to the right, along a much smaller and more damp corridor with an odor that could have dropped a skunk. A few minutes later, we were slashing through ankle-deep muck, the source of which I was afraid to ask.

  “This is the way out?” I asked the demon. He didn’t turn around, or make any other motion. Just a simple nod. “This is how Gervais used to go out?” Another nod.

  “He hasn’t used these tunnels in years,” Josette said. “Why would he wander through filth now that he is Lord of the City?” Her tone was sarcastic and mocking.

  The stench-ridden passage finally ended at a ladder up to a covered exit. I took the lead, climbing the rungs and focusing to push the steel lid aside. I climbed out into a small alley, down which I could see the hum of Parisian urban life moving along at its normal flow. I bent down and held out my arm, taking Sarah’s hand as she reached the summit, and doing the same for Charis. I held out my hand for Izak too, but the demon ignored it, emerging from the sewer on his own.

  “I won’t miss that,” Sarah said. Neither would I. With a thought, I willed the fetid air away and hit us with a clean, fresh blast.

  “Which way from here?”

  I pulled out my cell, ready to hit it up for directions. I didn’t need to. Izak glamoured himself, morphing into a tourist-type in a polo shirt, khaki shorts, knee high socks and sneakers, and walked out onto the street. We hurried to keep up, matching his ridiculous garb.

  I’d thought he knew where we were going, and would lead us to the train station. Instead, he reached the street and raised his good hand to his mouth, spreading his lips and blowing in a sharp whistle. We caught up just as the cab pulled up along the curb.

  “Where to?” the driver asked. He was mortal. Harmless.

  “We need to catch the train from Paris to London,” I said. I started digging into my pants pockets, searching for funds or something I could pass as funds. Charis tapped me on the shoulder, holding up her own credit card.

  “You want Eurostar?” the driver leaned over and pushed the passenger side door open.

  “Yes.” I didn’t know if that’s what it was called, but I assumed he did. I opened the door for Charis and Sarah, giving Izak shotgun. The driver eased out onto the street.

  I kept my Sight focused as we drove, a radar in search of any Divine that might even consider trying to get in the way. When I didn’t sense anything, I pushed the focus, extending my reach out at least a mile or two from our position. At first, I considered that we were just in a slow spot, but we were in one of the oldest cities around, a place where even the architecture oozed Divine essence. Still, the further we traveled from the sewer, north through the city, the more uncomfortable I began to feel. There was nothing. At all. It was as if every Divine living or stationed in Paris had vanished. Or fled. Or died? Maybe they had learned what was lurking in the sewers below their feet?