“Okay, but why?”

  “You’ll see. Also, tell Izak to get back over here.”

  She nodded, and I could feel her power reaching out to the demon.

  “Getting defensive?” the Beast asked. He was moving his pawns in closer. Ten more doors opened, and ten more drivers got out. “I can do this all day,” all twelve of him said.

  The buzzing was getting louder. We just needed to hold them off for another minute. “Charis, the glass.”

  She looked at me, and then focused. There was shattered glass from the crashed cars all over the road. She brought it to us, and started spinning it around.

  “That isn’t going to work,” the Beast said. A dozen voices laughed in unison. He sent them forward, into the maelstrom. Some of the bodies were torn up, but one would block the onslaught from another, and half of them made it through. The buzzing was much louder now.

  Izak turned on those that had gotten through the barrier, burning them with hellfire and putting his palm to their heads. They didn’t last long, but already a dozen more people were headed towards us.

  “Landon?” Charis asked.

  I turned my head and looked up.

  “Charis, grab Izak,” I shouted. “Sarah, hang on.”

  Charis reached out and took the demon by the arm. Sarah jumped on my back and wrapped her arms around my neck. The buzzing was clear now, easy to identify as an airplane propeller. I watched the plane swooping in, coming down towards us, ready to snatch us up like one of Tolkien’s giant eagles.

  The only difference was, we’d have to grab on ourselves.

  I focused, flexing my legs and preparing to jump, hoping both Charis and I would get the timing right. I could see Adam now, inside the cockpit, his brow arched in concentration. Who knew an angel could fly a plane?

  “Hey Ross,” I said looking at the incoming puppets. Their eyes fixed on me, and I gave them the finger. Then I jumped.

  “Hah. Now this is what I call awesome,” Ulnyx cried, his excitement rattling my soul.

  Sarah screamed, and her arms gripped tighter around my neck, threatening to choke me. The plane rocked from side to side as I wrapped my arms around the left landing gear, swinging wildly back and forth while my body absorbed the shock, praying Sarah would hold on. I looked over and saw that Charis had made it, having wrapped one arm around the right gear, and helping Izak find purchase with the other. Satisfied, and greatly impressed with Adam, I peered back towards the roadway. At least one hundred pairs of possessed eyes followed the plane as it zipped away.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  We hung there, the four of us, from the landing gear of the small airplane that Adam had commandeered from I don’t know where. It was less than ten miles to the Pyramids from the air, and the distance fell away fast. We had climbed up over the wheels by the time Adam circled the plane and brought it down in the sand next to the Great Pyramid.

  There was no time to waste though. No time to congratulate the angel on his daring rescue, or even to just be thankful we had made it.

  The Beast was here too.

  Even worse, the Pyramids were patrolled by armed guards.

  They started firing on the plane the moment it stopped moving, the bullets pinging off the aluminum, peppering it with holes. The only one they could kill with the rounds was Sarah, but they could still be effective at inflicting pain and slowing us down. I was surprised he was taking the risk of hitting her, but he seemed to be a pretty good shot.

  I took two bullets in the arm and another in the leg, wincing each time I felt the stinging pain blossom through my body. I knew by the grunt and groans and curses that the others were hit too. We made a run for the Pyramid, trying to keep the plane between the bullets and us, and casting aside any of the possessed tourists that tried to block our path.

  “This look familiar, kid?” one of them asked, flipping me the bird right before I tossed him to the ground. Maybe I shouldn’t have saluted him like that.

  “Do you have any idea where we’re going?” Adam asked. His arm was bleeding from a bullet wound.

  “I don’t even know if this is the right pyramid.” I really, really, hoped Obi had been right about the whole secret room thing. It sounded like something that could have been left by Malize.

  “How do we find out?” His hand shot out and blocked a punch from an old woman in a purple skirt. He grabbed her and pushed her to the ground, as soft as he dared. She fell to the ground laughing.

  “Unless hurting them will make you fall, you don’t need to be gentle,” I said. “They die when he lets them go.”

  Adam’s angry look reflected what I was feeling.

  “There has to be an entrance somewhere. A glamoured wall, or maybe a hieroglyphic that looks like Malize’s signature. It could be anywhere, or nowhere.”

  We kept running, from one side of the Pyramid around to another. At least the corners gave us respite from the gunfire. It didn’t stop the puppets though, and I could swear they were multiplying.

  “We should have come in the middle of the night,” Charis shouted.

  “Just look for the symbol.”

  We were around to the south side, opposite where we had landed, when we found it. I had focused to enhance my eyesight and see the lines in the stone more clearly, and even then I attributed at least half the discovery to luck. Someone had defaced the Pyramid more recently by scratching their initials into the rock. The change in texture had drawn a closer inspection, and I had found Malize’s sigil behind it.

  “Izak, Adam, you’re on defense. We need some time.”

  “How do we open it?” Sarah asked.

  I put my hand to the symbol, feeling around it. The stone was solid. I focused, reaching past it, trying to feel the density of the structure beyond. It was solid too.

  “I wish I knew.”

  “The Great Pyramid?” The Beast asked, from the voice of a small girl. “Interesting.”

  I ignored him, and kept searching. Charis knelt down next to me, wiping away the sand under the symbol, to see if there was another clue that had been buried by time.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re going to find in there,” he said. Both Izak and Adam were occupied with the larger puppets, so they allowed him to walk right up to us and lean over our shoulder. “Maybe you need to piss on it?”

  “Sod off,” Charis said, without looking at him.

  The Beast laughed, a child’s chipmunk laugh. “Am I bother-” He stopped mid-sentence, shoving me to the side so he could look at the pyramid wall. His head snapped towards me, long hair whipping around behind it.

  Every voice joined in chorus at the same time. “Malize?”

  So, he remembered the name. “You know him?”

  He didn’t get to answer. Sarah reached down and grabbed the girl by the shoulders. “Go to sleep, child,” she said in a gentle voice. “It’s a nightmare, that’s all. Just a nightmare.”

  “Your nightmare,” the Beast said, his fear and surprise masked by the normal smugness. “It’s just start-“

  The child’s eyes fluttered back, and she fell to the sand.

  “She’s alive,” Sarah said.

  The realization face-palmed me. “He’s spread too thin to resist your power.” It wouldn’t stop the assault against us, but it would certainly limit it. “How many can you Calm?”

  Sarah turned to where Izak and Adam were doing their best to knock the Beast’s prisoners back. I could feel her power building. “Rest, all of you,” she said. It was a Calm Command, an ability unique to her. “You’re all having a bad dream, and you must rest.”

  The power spread out from her, a charge in the air that I could feel throughout my soul. The Beast began to growl in frustration, but he wasn’t strong enough to hold on. The mass of people rolled their eyes, and fell.

  “Landon, look,” Charis said.

  I turned back towards the pyramid, and saw that Malize’s symbol was glowing.

  “What do you think it-“

  The pyramid was gone. The sand was gone. The collapsed mortals were gone. Adam and Izak were both gone. Charis, Sarah, and I were standing in the middle of a large limestone room, filled with dry air and lit by the sigils etched into the walls. Templar script, tightly drawn. It began to glow brighter.

  “This is unbelievable,” Sarah said, turning around to look at the glowing writing.

  “Look.” I pointed at the wall, where a small door was pressed into the stone, so well measured that there was no seam. I only knew it was there because of a small gold handle. “I guess Obi was right.”

  The symbols grew brighter, and brighter still, until the entire room was bathed in white light. It reflected off the polished sandstone, and off the gold handle. It reflected until there was nothing but light, in a whiteness that reminded me of the wall between what Ross had once told be was the ‘staging area’ and Purgatory.

  He appeared as though stepping through the light, or maybe stepping out of it. Malize. The archangel looked different from when we had seen him only two days ago, older and more wise. His hair was streaked with white, and he was a wearing a white cloak that flowed to his feet and covered most of his form.

  “Diuscrucis,” he said, bowing to all of us. “I’m glad that you made it.”

  “Malize,” Charis said, returning his bow. “What’s going on?”

  “You were too late to prevent the Beast from being freed,” he said, looking directly at Sarah. Her face turned red and she looked down. “Do not be ashamed, child. I had feared that such a thing would come to pass. So many thin threads, so many lost hopes. I knew one day the Pure One would come, and the Beast’s prison may be shattered. You should be proud for escaping his grasp.”

  She looked up at him and smiled. “You’re beautiful,” she said. “So many colors.”

  He held up his hand, and as before we were transported back in time. To the building of the Great Pyramid. While thousands of workers lifted stone around him, Malize stood at the limestone panels that would line this room and carved his symbols. “From the first moments after Lucifer and I had imprisoned it, I surmised that the balance would require a way for it to escape, and that the likelihood that it would succeed was not minimal. To that end, I began to prepare. This room is one such preparation, a means by which I could intercede if needed, and offer guidance based on the experience and wisdom I have gained. More millennia than you can count have passed in the Cave of Christ since I first begged of my Lord Jesus to assist me in removing myself from your universe. I have spent much of that time in meditation and contemplation, waiting for this day that I prayed would come.”

  Of course. The Beast hadn’t known Malize was still around, because he had never heard a peep from anyone about it. That was because nobody could remember who or what he was.

  “And the clue to get us here?” I asked. ‘That was another of your preparations?”

  He smiled. “Yes. That was another. It was much harder to execute, as it required finding the right soul. One who would spend time in Purgatory, who could leave the clue. That; however, is in the past. What is more important is what I can tell you today. You have Avriel’s Box?”

  Charis reached into her pocket and removed it, holding it in her palm. “How did you know about it?”

  “I would not be very prepared, if I had no way to observe,” he replied. “I have seen your efforts. You’ve done well, although losing the Redeemer may be a challenging misstep.”

  “The Redeemer?” I asked.

  He nodded. “The Canaan Blade. I had hoped it would provide useful to you. It was difficult to obtain.”

  “I saved Landon with it,” Charis said. “So it did come in handy, even if we lost it.”

  “It only works on demons anyway,” I said.

  He smiled. “That is not the whole truth of it, but it is enough.”

  “What else does it do?”

  “It is of no importance, now. It may be that losing it will cost us. It may be that it won’t. I have made arrangements to help us adjust for its dispossession.”

  The location around us faded and changed. Now we were inside the Beast’s prison. “This is the prison, the day it was completed,” Malize said. It didn’t look much different than I remembered it. “Hold up the Box, and compare.”

  Charis held it up, and we each looked at it, and then back at the prison. Both had sigils etched everywhere, though the Box’s were in seraph runes, not Templar script. Other than that, I didn’t see any similarities. I wasn’t looking close enough.

  “The symbols,” Sarah said. “There.” She pointed at the prison. “There.” She pointed at the Box. “They are almost the same. Those also.” She pointed at another section. “And those.”

  Malize nodded. “Yes. Almost the same. So many of the symbols are similar, yet different. Avriel’s design is a wonder, a work of art. He had no knowledge of what we had done to capture the Beast, and yet he was so close to creating the perfect prison.”

  “Perfect? He ended up trapped in it himself.”

  “Not because the design is flawed,” Malize said. “It was his understanding of the power needed to keep a creature like Abaddon contained that failed him. That is why I am glad you came, and why I am especially glad you have the Box.”

  “So, we can trap the Beast in it?” I asked.

  He nodded again. “In time, yes.”

  Huh? “What do you mean in time? He’s getting stronger, not weaker.”

  “Yes, I know. The trouble is that while the design of the Box is incredible, these symbols were made to catch a demon. You need to catch something else entirely.”

  I glanced over to Charis when I saw her smile. She must have been thinking the same thing I was thinking. We’re gonna need a bigger boat. “So we need to make some modifications?”

  “Not you,” he said. “Avriel. He’s the only one who can work out the calculations. He needs to convert these seraphim runes to Templar script.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “Malize, I hate to sound ungrateful,” I said. “But first, the Beast has Avriel. Second, I don’t think he knows Templar script.”

  The room changed around us again. We were on a mountaintop, at what looked like an old monastery. I could swear I had seen the place before in a kung-fu movie.

  “Avriel is here. Mortals call it Mt. Popa, in Burma.”

  “And…” I said, knowing it couldn’t be that simple.

  “The Beast convinced Abaddon to join him. This was how. He promised him that he would place Avriel somewhere that the demon could always return to torture him, even after the destruction of the rest of the world. After you slipped past him, the Beast had him return to wait for you. He knows the Box can hold him, but he also knows the Box can hold anything, if enough power is fed into it. He needs Avriel for his endgame.”

  It was the way he said it that made my spine tingle. “You mean he hopes to trap God?” That was a tough idea to wrap my head around.

  “Yes. If the calculations are correct, with the full power of the Beast… I believe it can be done. You need to rescue the archangel from Abaddon.”

  I felt an uncomfortable rocking in the pit of my stomach. “How are we supposed to do that? Even Izak is afraid of him, and I got lucky with the sucker punch.”

  Malize smiled. “The Redeemer would have suited you well for this purpose, but as I’ve said, I’ve made preparations. It may indeed work out for the best, for the Deliverer is a much more potent weapon against a creature like Abaddon.”

  “The Deliverer?”

  “Another of the Canaan Blades,” he replied. “There is a Templar waiting for you in Kyoto, at The Golden Pavilion. He will assist you in acquiring it.”

  “You mean you don’t already have it?” I asked. I didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Unfortunately, we do not. The Canaan Blades were stolen almost one thousand years ago. It took extraordinary effort and the deaths of many Templars to even recover the one.”

  “Wait,” Charis said. “Malize, why was I never told about this?” She sounded upset.

  “I’m truly sorry,” he said. “The less you knew about the Blades, the better. We could not afford for you to attract the attention of the Inquisitors.”

  She still didn’t look happy. It seemed like the perfect time to interject. “Okay, so I go to Japan and acquire the Deliverer. We use it against Abaddon. We rescue Avriel. Great. He still doesn’t know Templar script.”

  “No, but Charis does. She can guide his hand. Based on the advanced nature of his original design, I have no doubt he’ll master the language in no time.”

  I laughed. “Which is about how much we have.”

  “Do not fear,” Malize said. “Remember, as long as the Pure One lives, the Beast cannot claim his full strength. As long as you live, you have the ability to stop it.” He reached under his cloak, and pulled out a pair of silver bracelets. They were covered in Templar scripture, and the white light refracted strangely off the etched surface. He tossed one to me, and one to Charis.

  “I don’t know how, but the Beast is using the power of your Source, of Purgatory, to track your movements. These bracelets will subdue that power, and prevent it from being visible to him. Be cautious, as this also means you will not be able to affect change to anything outside of yourselves for as long as you are wearing them.”

  I knew how. The power in Purgatory was the Beast’s power. It made sense that he could track us with it. I put the bracelet over over my wrist and squeezed it closed. “Thank you.”

  “Yes, thank you, Malize,” Charis said. “For everything.”

  “I have done what I can. If you need to speak to me again, the Templar can help you find the other portal I’ve left in the mortal realm.” He walked over to Sarah, and knelt down in front of her, putting himself below her. He took her hands in his and looked up at her face. “I know of the war that rages in you, child. Do not be afraid to open your heart, for it is that common thread that binds all of His children that will lead you to your destiny.”

  Sarah didn’t respond. She just kept her head down at him. Were there words being exchanged in the silence? I’d never know.