“What about if you bring me there, we grab the Bible, and you bring me back?”

  He shook his head. “No. It cannot be moved out of the mortal realm. You can’t imagine how much time and effort it took for me to get it to its hiding place this way.”

  “Then I guess we’re back to plan A,” I said. “It will take more time, but hopefully we’ll be fast enough. I’ll be in touch.”

  Before I could leave, he reached out and put his arms around me, squeezing me in a fatherly embrace.

  “Good luck, signore,” he said.

  I didn’t hug him back. Instead, I let go of my hold on Purgatory, and allowed my soul to travel the path back to my physical form.

  Chapter 25

  “The Library of Congress?” Charis asked. “Are you serious?”

  “That’s what he said,” I replied. “We need to get to D.C, and we need to get there fast.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked. I started to reply, but I realized she wasn’t talking to me. “Then there is no other way? Okay.” She looked at me. “The closest rift is the one we came through earlier, but neither Vilya or I know of any near Washington. The best we can do is Virginia.”

  “That’s a little closer at least,” Obi said. “Only a couple of hours.”

  “Right now a couple of hours is a long time,” I said. “Dante offered to give me a lift, but the Bible is useless without the rest of the texts.”

  “So let him take me,” Thomas said. “I can match the strings.”

  “Can you decrypt them?” Obi asked. The angel shrugged.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “He can’t take angels. Come on, we need to get to the rift.”

  I made my way past the gang, headed for the stairs. I could hear the fire engines in the distance, finally reacting to the mess we had made. With so many Divine clustered so close, there hadn’t been any people up on the flight deck, so at least the damage had been limited to machinery. I’d kind of had my fill of causing innocent people to die.

  “Landon, wait.” Thomas rushed up to me and grabbed my arm. I turned around to face him. I knew what he wanted by his tentative but excited expression.

  “No, Thomas,” I said. “No way.”

  “Come on,” he said. “We both know I’m not very good as an angel. I’ve been pushing the boundaries since I met you, and this is my chance to really do something good, not just for the faithful, but for all of mankind. Heck, for all of us Divine too.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “Not because you feel pressured. You’ll regret it in the end.”

  “I’ve never regretted it,” Josette said, making herself known in my mind.

  “You didn’t have a choice,” I reminded her.

  “I won’t regret it,” Thomas said. “I’m not cut out for this. I thought I was, but I just can’t follow the rules the way they are, just so black and white, and I don’t have my brother around to keep me in line. I mean, I was supposed to be mentoring Melody. Instead I’ve dragged her into your world, and now she’s making eyes at Obi. You saw her at the airport. She was so enthusiastic about the rules that Mephi… Izak nearly fried her.”

  I looked past him to where Melody was standing. Obi had finished healing, so she was no longer supporting his weight. That didn’t keep her from staying right by his side, her arm around his waist.

  “If this is what the Lord wants for him, you cannot deny it,” Josette said. “I believe this is as it is supposed to be.”

  I took a deep breath. There wasn’t time to argue. “Fine,” I said. “If this is what you want?”

  He smiled. “It is.”

  “You know you won’t be able to fly anymore.”

  His shirt moved as he flexed his wings beneath it. “I’ve never really gotten used to these anyway,” he said.

  “Kneel down.”

  Thomas got on his knees, and I put my hand on his forehead. I’d never tried this on an angel before. Actually, I had only done this once before, to Obi. I let my power flow through my hand and into Thomas, focusing on infusing him with energy. Unlike with Obi, I could feel the power already in him. I concentrated on wrapping my own around it, trying to keep as much of it from leeching away as possible. His wings were folded tight on his back, but I could see the shirt loosening on him as they shrunk away to nothing. A moment later he began to moan, and I knew I had done enough.

  I took my hand away, and Thomas opened his eyes. He looked thoughtful, and then got to his feet. “I think it’s better this way,” he said, stretching his arms and back. “Although I will miss Heaven.”

  “You feel okay?” I asked.

  “Yes. No regrets,” he said.

  “You are quite skilled at bringing people to your cause,” Dante said from over the back of my shoulder, surprising me. I hated when he did that.

  “Dante,” I said. “Meet Thomas.”

  Thomas held out his hand. Dante took it and shook vigorously. “It is my pleasure, signore. Now, I will take you…” He stopped speaking, and his eyes jumped. I was spinning around enough to get dizzy, and now I saw that Charis was headed towards us.

  “Ms. Stone,” Dante said, circling around us to greet her. “It has been a long time.”

  “Dante,” she said, her voice as hard as her name. “Not long enough. All this time, you knew about the Beast, and you said nothing. Do you know what I went through, that you might have been able to prevent?”

  I stepped between them. “Charis, I know how you’re feeling, but we need to do this later, okay? Please.”

  Her eyes spat venom, but she nodded. “You’re right. He’s not worth it anyway.”

  Dante’s face was pale, and he looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but standing there with us. “Are we going then?” he asked, his voice weak.

  “Obi,” I called. “Come on.”

  He came over with Melody and Izak. Dante bowed slightly when the demon reached us.

  “It has been a while, has it not?” he said. Izak nodded. “It is good to see you are free from that one.” Izak nodded again, and smiled. It left me wondering what their history was, that they were so cordial with one another.

  “This is Melody,” Thomas said, motioning to the angel. “Melody, this is Dante.”

  “I know who Dante is,” she said, her voice cool.

  “Ah, still rooting for Heaven?” he asked. She turned red. “No matter. I cannot take you with us, unless you’d like to follow in your mentor’s footsteps.”

  Melody shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “Of course,” Dante said.

  “Melody,” Thomas said. “Please promise me you won’t tell the others about this. Remember what I told you, we don’t know who we can trust.”

  “I know,” she replied. “I promise on His name that I will not reveal anything to them about the Beast, until you tell me I can.”

  Thomas walked over to her, gave her a hug, and kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Izak,” I said, facing the demon. “Thank you for everything. Especially for saving my ass, and Obi’s ass. We’ll meet again, and when we do, I’ll have Sarah with me.”

  He didn’t look too sure of that, but he nodded again.

  “Tell him I love him, and that he is a true spirit of goodness in my eyes,” Josette said. I relayed the message, and a tear rolled down the fiend’s cheek. He grabbed my arm, and looked deeply into my soul. I could feel his power reverberate through me as he expressed himself to her without a word.

  “Let’s go,” Charis said.

  “So, do we have to hold hands and sing cumbaya or something?” Obi asked. “I’ll see you around Melody.” He winked at her, and she blushed.

  “We do have to be touching,” Dante said. I put my hand on one of his shoulders, Charis the other. We all joined from there. Dante closed his eyes and muttered something. I felt a cool breeze, and when I opened my eyes we were standing on the steps of the Library of Congress. That was such an awesome trick.

  “Tax laws, right?” I asked Dante. I felt him wavering under my shoulder, so I shifted my grip to hold him up. His eyes looked a little glassy, and his skin was nearly translucent. “Are you okay?”

  He put his bony hand on mine and patted it. “I’ll be fine, signore,” he said. “I’ve never done so many at such a distance before. Follow me.”

  I had never been to the Library of Congress before. I had seen some pictures of the inside - the huge round reading room with the desks arranged in concentric circles around the center, the grand exterior with the columns and steps. That wasn’t where we were. This building was more flat, edged, and modern. It looked more like a military bunker than a library, at least to me.

  “I thought you said Library of Congress?” I asked.

  “This is the Law Library,” Charis replied. “All of the law books are here.”

  “Over two million,” Dante said. “Come.”

  Dante pulled us through the building at a furious pace, dashing through hallways and corridors too quickly for me to get my bearings. The next thing I knew, we were stopped in front of a huge shelf of books that all looked nearly identical, save for the volume numbers printed on the spine.

  “See, signore. The Bible is still here,” he said. “If Rebecca had found it, I doubt she would have left it for us.” He reached in and pulled a book from the shelf. It was identical to those around it.

  “Heh, I guess nobody ever actually bothers to read the tax laws,” Obi said. “Best hiding place, ever.”

  “The Sleeping don’t even see this book,” Dante replied. He held it in his palm, cover up, and placed his other hand over it.

  “I thought it was a scroll?” I said.

  “This book was made by the first angel, Lucifer himself. It is not bound to any single form.” He closed his eyes and whispered foreign words. The Bible caught fire in his hand, though the flames did him no harm. The original binding burned away, revealing a simple black lacquered wood cover beneath. It bore no writing, no markings or indication of what it was, but now that the glamour had been removed I could feel the energy leeching off of it.

  Dante opened the book, and then set it in front of him, hanging stationary in the air before us. “Here it is,” he said, pointing at the mark, set in gold on the page. “This is the Book of the Beast.” He began thumbing through the pages. “It is a history of the war.”

  We all looked on in amazement. Despite all that I had seen and done as a Divine, the fact that we were looking at text penned by Lucifer himself, before he was cast down to Hell was mind blowing.

  He came to the final page, and rested his finger next to the final passage. “Here is the final passage. The servants used these words to encrypt their code.”

  Thomas approached, getting close to it and looking down. “I need a piece of paper, and a pen,” he said. “I’ll write a few of the strings, and hopefully you can help me decrypt them.”

  “I’ll get it,” Obi said, racing out of the room.

  “What does the final paragraph say?” I asked.

  Dante cleared his throat. “For in those final days it came to pass that the Beast was thus defied, the might of his essence imprisoned for all time by the will of God and the sanctity of His creation. We hail the honor and glory of our Lord, and we mark this day as a day of Blessing. Let all of Heaven remember. Let all of Heaven remain. Thanks be to God.”

  He glanced up, the power of the words etched across his face. My limbs tingled in response, and I could tell by Thomas’ and Charis’ expressions that they were sharing the experience.

  Obi came back in with a sheet of copier paper and a pen. He handed it to Thomas. “Amen,” he said. “Now let’s find this thing so we can shut him up once and for all.”

  Thomas took the paper and pen, and wrote out three strings. One was in angelic scripture, two were demonic.

  “How are we supposed to decrypt something that’s written in different languages?” I asked.

  Obi was staring at them intently, his eyes flicking from the Bible to the paper. “Shh,” he said. “Thomas, write out a few more. Make sure you go in order.”

  The former angel complied, writing out a dozen more strings.

  “They alternate,” Obi said. “One demonic, one angelic. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”

  We scanned the strings, we looked at the passage, we scanned the strings again. Thirty minutes passed. An hour.

  “This is going to take forever,” I said. “I don’t think the idea was to create a code that could be cracked in minutes, and every minute we spend could be the last minute we have without the Beast in this world.”

  “Obi,” Thomas said. “Can you get me more paper? Grab as much as you can find.”

  “Sure, man,” Obi replied, heading out again.

  “Thomas, what is it?” I asked.

  “A passing thought. There is a room in the Lord’s palace in Heaven. It is a map of the universe, the breadth of His domain. It is a sight to behold, both in its size and scope.”

  “I have seen it,” Dante said. He looked at the passages. “Could it be?”

  Thomas shrugged. “The map is not a series of dots for planets and stars and the like. With something so large, it would quickly become unreadable. The points would be so close together as to create nothing but a screen of white.” Thomas turned the paper over and wrote the first letter from the Bible in the center. He then carefully etched the first and last word of the first two strings over it, being sure to connect the lines with great care. The result was just a small piece, but it did have a familiarity to it.

  Obi came back in, dropping a ream of copier paper on the floor. “Is this enough?” he asked.

  Thomas nodded. “I’m sorry to say, this will take some time. Dante, can you put the book on the floor. I’m not comfortable touching it.”

  “Of course, signore,” Dante said. The Bible slowly lowered itself to the ground.

  “Each letter in Lucifer’s Bible is the center form of a larger shape,” Thomas explained. “The larger shapes together will form an even bigger shape. My feeling is that what we will have is a map.”

  “With a big red ‘X’?” Obi asked.

  Thomas smiled. “Almost.”

  He set himself to the work, starting with the first letter and the first few passages. Obi leaned over his shoulder, observing. When he reached the tenth letter, Obi stopped him.

  “That’s not right, man,” he said. “The shapes are too out of whack to fit together.”

  “Are you sure?” Thomas asked. He examined the papers, then pushed them aside. “I’ll start again.” And he did.

  Another hour passed. Charis and I sat against the wall in silence, though at some point she had leaned in and put her head on my shoulder. Dante had hovered over Thomas for a while, but now he came over to us.

  “My friends,” he said. Charis lifted her head and gave him another icy welcome, which the poet ignored. “I’m afraid I must return to Purgatory now, or I will lose the way back. My thoughts and prayers go with you, as well as any offer of apology you may choose to accept. I know I have caused much harm with my decisions, and some have been made out of no more than anger, jealousy, and fear, and for that I am eternally sorry. Please, know that I am proud of you, and honored to have met both of you. I believe we will meet again, and I will anxiously await that moment.”

  He held out his hand. I looked at Charis. Her expression had softened only slightly. Just because I knew her history, that didn’t make it mine. I took Dante’s offer of peace. “I’ll see you soon,” I said.

  Charis got to her feet. She stared into Dante’s eyes, her own flaring red and then fading to a warm brown. It was the first time I had seen their original color. How did she do that?

  “I can spend eternity hating you for your mistakes, or I can praise you for your sacrifices. Today, I’ll simply accept that you are as a flawed as the rest of us, and call it even.”

  She took his hand, and pulled him to her, wrapping her arms around him. Dante looked bewildered beneath the embrace. “I too will see you soon,” she said.

  Dante reached up and wiped away a tear as he smiled, looking every bit the part of a doting old grandfather. A moment later, he vanished.

  “I think we’ve figured it out,” Thomas shouted.

  Charis and I went over and leaned in, looking at the scattered mess of shapes written across over a hundred pages.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “We just have to arrange them,” Thomas said. He picked up the stack, and began laying them out on the floor. “I’ll need one of you to hold some of these in place.” He placed a sheet at hip level, where it would need to levitate to remain in position.

  “I’ve got it,” Charis said. Thomas let go, and the paper didn’t move.

  The former angel continued to move around the room, sometimes swapping sheets out, sometimes shifting their positions slightly. How he knew where to put them, I couldn’t guess, but he worked with such purpose he had to be onto something.

  “Wait,” Charis said suddenly. The hanging pages shivered at her voice. “Landon, doesn’t this look familiar to you at all?”

  I looked around at the symbols. “No,” I said. I examined them more closely, my mind picking me up where my eyes were failing. “Oh, crap.”

  Charis reached her hand out towards Thomas. “Give me the pages. I know where they go.”

  She took the remaining stack, and threw them up into the air. They danced around one another, swirling in an invisible wind until they were floating around us.

  “It isn’t enough to just put them out,” she said. “They need to be tighter. Obi, Thomas, wait over there.”

  The two of them backed up reluctantly, leaving her and I standing alone in the center of the papers. I could feel her power as she focused, and the ink lifted itself from the pulp, remaining neatly scrawled but floating in midair. She pulled them in, contracting them until they began to overlap. Moving them closer and closer to the two of us.

  “Landon,” she said. “I need your help. We have to move them faster.”

  “You know what this is going to do?” I said to her, tapping into my power and focusing on adding velocity to the whirlwind.