The Devil's Secret (15 page)

The resulting Unification War between the three factions became the costliest internecine conflict in demon history. Hundreds of millions died in the battles. Ultimately, the legalists prevailed. The Judges promised a world close to anarchy—close to the status quo, which most demons still desired—and as a result, the numbers flocked to the Judges’ side, bringing an end to the conflict.

Throughout the war, Balthior had been on the upswing in the cycle of power that seemed to affect all demons who lived long enough to experience it. He’d been a rising star, and a minor player in many of the war’s major battles. He’d raged with fury when the Judges won, and grew even more irate when their only act upon victory was to decree only one measly Rule to govern demonkind.

Of course, Balthior came to see the wisdom of the First Rule over time. After the War in Heaven, no new angel had ever joined the demonic rebellion—no matter how much angels like Karthis might have wanted to. That meant the total number of demons remained finite, so demonkind needed to conserve its numbers, rather than slaughtering each other for petty power grabs. In modern times, isolated pockets of demons had begun protesting the First Rule again, but so far, the Judges had maintained their authority on the matter.

And until now, Thorn didn’t know that any adherents to the ancient factions still walked the earth.

“You sound like you’re still mad at me for not siding with the structuralists,” Thorn said to Paxis.

She huffed. “I’ll never admit my sentiments publicly, but we’d still be better off today if we could get rid of the Judges. Those parasites trying to control us all with their Rules… It’s really a lack of rules in disguise, I say. They force anarchy on us when better options exist? You may call it freedom, but I call it just a lazier form of paternalism, more cleverly camouflaged.”

“And you’d have us overthrow them?”

“Yes! Our focus should be on destroying the Enemy, not on rivaling each other. An ordered society, free of lawlessness, would let us mobilize effectively against Him. We should stop quarantining angels and start analyzing their ways, learning how we can invade Heaven. Knowledge is power, and thinking is a virtue. How can we hope to defeat our Enemy if we forbid ourselves from studying Him?”

Oh, Paxis. Had I encountered you a few months sooner, this would have been the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

She let her gaze drift around the church, toward a stained glass window depicting the resurrection. “The structuralist movement would have seen our victory long ago,” she continued. “I just—I detest that so many chest-beating fools sided with the Judges merely because ‘their team was better.’ So few of us actually questioned what was true, what was prudent. Hell, we all succumb to in-group morality from time to time, but at least you and I are aware of it. At least we’re willing to question our foundational beliefs, to change them based on the answers we find. Bah. It’s all a mess.”

Thorn couldn’t tell if Paxis’s conversation was honest, or if she was trying to bait him—to soften him up so he’d let her loose.

“You were naïve, Thorn. Wanting a completely free world. It was a pipe dream.”

She wouldn’t criticize me if she were trying to placate me. Perhaps she speaks genuinely.
“A few months ago,” he said, “I might have claimed that the society we demons live in is already free.”

“Free to compete, to destroy, to suffer at the whims of leaders we don’t choose? To let greed be the backbone of every decision we make? That, my friend, is not freedom.”

“I agree. But you think that what you’re fighting for now
is
freedom? You think that whoever’s giving Marcus orders will upset the status quo?”

“Oh, yes. He will crush the Enemy once and for all. I know what I’m fighting for. Do you?”

“I’m fighting for—” Thorn’s thoughts caught in his throat before he could speak them. He couldn’t finish his sentence.
What
am
I fighting for?
There was that pesky question again: if he survived this Sanctuary and somehow found serenity on Earth, what would he live for?

For Amy
, he might have answered a day ago.

When Thorn had first become “good,” he’d often wondered about purpose. Was his purpose to help or hinder the Enemy? But now he knew that he’d have to find a purpose apart from God. This frightened him, but he hoped it would ultimately be freeing.
I should stop blaming God for never aiding me. I should continue taking action myself. Excepting my resurrection, my own initiative is what’s gotten me this far, so perhaps it will carry me the rest of the way, too.
But even as he thought it, Thorn knew that he’d need help. Initiative would only take him so far before he needed the support of these humans, of the Judge, of anyone who would hear his plea.
If only God would hear that plea. If only God weren’t as stubborn as Marcus.

But God
was
stubborn, and since He refused to give Thorn a choice—other than the one between obedience and damnation—Thorn would have to force God to give him that choice. And as a side effect, give all demons choices.
If I can just get Brandon and Heather to the Judge.

Thorn asserted to himself, though, that he was no freedom fighter. All he wanted was a peaceful life, without demons, without God.
But am I truly just fighting to save my own hide? Just like I’ve always done? Have I not grown more than that?

“I’m fighting the Enemy in my own way,” he told Paxis. “But apparently I’ve stepped on someone else’s toes in the process, and now he’s sent you and the others to kill me. Tell me, Paxis, if I relay my story to you—everything I’ve seen and heard that’s led me to my current course of action—will you listen to me? Will you question your foundational beliefs, as you say you’re willing to do?”

“Ha. Thorn, sometimes we do have to fight for the winning team. And tonight, you’re not it.”

“I know my goals are a long shot, but if you’d be willing to help me, the odds of success would be much better.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s an angel with a sword standing behind you.”

Thorn leaped aside as Thilial’s sword sliced downward, cleaving straight through the pew with a mighty crack. The humans jumped up at the sudden destruction, then backed toward the cross at the front of the room.

Thorn, too, retreated behind the pulpit to face his attacker. Fury filled her eyes as her wings beat down, lofting her upward and extinguishing the humans’ candle. “I should have known you’d hide in this heathen place,” she said with a murderous edge to her voice. “Don’t be afraid. Your end will be swift and painless.”

Thorn was faintly aware of Paxis arcing around the side of the chapel, then out into the hallway, toward freedom. Thorn searched for any nearby escape, but found only closed doors and inimical walls. “Thilial! Mercy!”

“Only the Lord can grant mercy, and He has called for your death.” Her wings thrashed. She plunged down toward the pulpit, swinging her sword ferociously and reducing the podium to splinters. Thorn vaulted back toward the choir chairs just in time.

Yet Thilial didn’t even allow him time to think. She charged again, flailing her sword about, sending chairs careening left then right, and slicing the arch off of the floral pergola. Thorn backed into Brandon, who stood next to the empty baptismal pool beneath the cross, boosting Heather over the edge of the pool.

Wind buffeted the humans as Thilial’s wings slowed her to a halt above Thorn. She raised her sword for the kill.

No!
If she swung at him here, she’d kill Brandon too. Thorn acted on instinct, and threw himself directly in front of Brandon, hoping his own spiritual body would absorb most of the blow. He raised his hands in a futile gesture to ward off the sword’s impact.

Seconds passed. Thorn looked up.

Thilial floated stalwart, her gaze as hard as ever, her ancient sword poised to strike. But she did not strike. Her attention seemed focused on Brandon, who was now helping Karen over the edge of the pool. “You would sacrifice your life for this human?” Thilial asked.

“I would,” Thorn said. “My life, and more. But not just for Brandon. For truth.”

Thilial huffed. “Truth. You know nothing of truth. You’re a demon.”

“I know that God’s authoritarian rule has enslaved angels long enough. I know that demonkind’s ruinous dogma has enslaved us devils long enough. I know of God’s plan to lure us back. If I can convince other demons of it, I can end my own enslavement and finally be free.” At least, Thorn hoped his knowledge would have such a revelatory effect on the spirit world. He knew his peers would heed a Judge’s opinion, so he guessed that it would. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Thilial? Freedom? In actuality, not just in name only?”

“I am free to serve my God. You are free to die.” She lifted her sword, readying it to swing.

“Wait!” Thorn cried. Every persuasive tactic he knew raced through his mind and he tried to choose from among them.
How can I sway someone who thinks that “free only to serve” equates to true freedom?

Thilial had not yet swung her weapon, so Thorn decided on one last plea. Terrified for his life, he stammered at first. “In Heaven… Thilial, in Heaven, you said that you cared about Amy. But it’s not just Amy, is it? You care about all humans. Including these three.” Thilial showed no signs of setting down her sword… but she hadn’t killed him yet, so he must have been getting somewhere. “Please. Let me help these humans. Without me to protect them, Marcus and his cronies will surely slaughter them, or worse. By killing me, you’d be letting Marcus—and whoever’s giving him orders—win. True, the humans will live on in other Sanctuaries, but you must see that the Sanctuary system is brutal and unfair. This truth is plain as day.

“I know I am a demon, and I know I killed Ezandris, and I know I deserve a fate worse than death, but please, lead us to a transit door and let the humans escape to Earth. Afterward, I’ll submit myself to you. You can take me back to Heaven for judgment, or end my life then and there. So long as the humans are safe, I will not try to run.”
But I will tell Brandon and Heather how to contact the Judge, so that even in death, I can deliver a crippling blow to my enemies.

Thilial’s gaze flitted between Thorn and the humans. She gritted her teeth and inhaled sharply, as if arguing some resented polemic with herself. “I can see that these three have value, as all humans do. Especially this one.” Confusingly, Thilial nodded toward Heather, who was opening the door from the baptism room into the back hallway, Brandon right behind her. Karen was trying to convince them to go back for the ham radio, since the destruction had apparently stopped.

“I will take you at swordpoint,” Thilial said. “We will aid these humans together, and at the end of the journey, whether we meet success or failure, I will kill you. If I so much as sense that you are planning an escape, I will kill you. If you raise your voice against me, I will kill you. If Marcus’s group attacks us, I will kill you before I kill them. For your loyalty to these humans, I will grant you the small dignity of living to see them to safety. But that is the only mercy I will show you today. Do you accept these terms?”

“Yes,” Thorn said without hesitation.

“Good.” Thilial lowered her sword, but kept it poised to strike at Thorn at a moment’s notice.

“This is V-E-3-N-Q-R calling C-Q-D-X. Just heard some kind of S-O-S. Did anyone else get that? Over.”

The faint call from the amateur radio froze everyone in the room, humans and spirits alike. Then Karen scrambled back over the edge of the baptismal pool and ran toward the radio. Thorn eyed Thilial cautiously, asking nonverbal permission to join Karen by the radio. Thilial nodded.

Karen grabbed the microphone and hit the transmission button. “Hello? I heard you and I need your help. Hello?”

“Hello,” came the lightly accented voice from the other end: a male voice, warm and welcoming, but drowned by an occasional burst of static. “Sorry, I’ve got some Q-R-M or Q-R-N or something over here. You sound like you’re in trouble.”

“Yes!” Karen said, smiling at this glimmer of hope. Thorn grimaced, since her efforts would only draw more potential victims into the Sanctuary. “We need you to call the police for us,” Karen said. “Our phones are down, and there’s been an attack. A lot of people are dead.”

“You sound American. What’s your Q-T-H?”

“What?”

“What’s your location?”

“Bristol, Virginia.”

“Well, I’m in Canada. Can you call someone closer?”

“Uh… I don’t really know how to work this thing.”

As Karen continued talking with the man and the younger humans eyed the debris strewn across the chancel, Thorn turned to Thilial. “Quickly. Where is the transit door you entered from?”

“A few miles from here. I suggest you get her off that radio and onto the golf cart outside.”

“Are there any landmarks near the door? Any businesses?” Thorn would eagerly abandon his other, riskier escape plan in favor of a safe transit door.

Thilial shrugged. “A few shops, a clinic, a bar. Not much.”

“A clinic. I can use that.” Thorn backed away from Thilial slowly, so she could see that he wasn’t trying to run. “Follow me if you want,” he said.

She did follow him, her sword still in her hands, as he weaved through the church’s hallways, back down into the basement. His plan with the airplane had been a long shot, but direct access to another transit door could mean easy escape for the humans. “You have a key to the transit door, right?” Thorn asked.

“The door I used does not require a key,” Thilial said.

“And it won’t lead the humans right into an army of angels, will it?”

“Unlikely.”

Thorn grabbed hold of Virgil’s body, shook the rigor mortis out of it, and walked it up the stairs.

Thilial frowned in disgust. “What in God’s good graces are you doing?”

“Exactly what you suggested.”

Thorn tore a bit of flesh off of Virgil’s bullet wound, sending relatively fresh blood oozing down his stomach, then covered the wound with the man’s shirt and limped him through the entrance to the chapel’s sanctuary. When the humans saw him, he staggered, playing the part of the wounded comrade to the best of his ability.
Lying again
, he thought.
I suppose I’m still a demon after all.