Spires of Infinity (23 page)

She could not remain on this world, but she would not abandon such a potentially useful tool when there was still a chance he might be converted. Having never lost a fight before, the Apostle also could not allow herself to be beaten, especially not by an inferior male! Her pride would not allow her back down or run away.

Breaking completely from its hinges, the door burst open and two more Subjects rushed in. The first through was the two-tailed fox, bearing a great deal of resemblance to Jonathan in her face. Her straw colored hair was tangled and matted with sweat. The tips of her ears and the tips of her twin tails beneath the hem of her skirt were white, just as in her beast form. Behind her, stood an exact copy of Jonathan.

“He really does have the same face.”

Staring in wonder, the Apostle had never encountered the like in her travels. It was strange enough that the girl bore such a strong resemblance to Jonathan, but to have someone who was completely identical to him staring back at her made the Apostle’s skin crawl. What sort of power could make two completely identical Subjects?

*****

Kicking the door down, Kari stepped through. Inside, the Apostle pointed a

sword at Jonathan, holding a hand to his armored side with blood oozing slowly between his gloved fingers. Breathing hard, Jonathan leaned against his broadsword. His clothes were slashed in several places and soaked through with blood, but the wounds appeared to have healed already.

Drawing her bow, Kari took aim at the Apostle’s mask, which she noticed for the first time had no eyeholes. It didn’t matter. She’d put an arrow through his eye anyway.

“What the hell, guys,” Jonathan cried, turning to them. “Took you long enough!

What? Did you say to yourselves, hey, our beloved older brother has been captured, but rescuing him seems a little too much trouble right now, let’s take a nap instead?”

“That’s just like you,” Michael sounded deeply offended, his tone somewhat

ruined by his wide grin. “Completely ungrateful.”

“So Apostle,” Kari said. “We meet face to face.”

“More like face to mask,” Michael pointed out.

“Put down your weapon and surrender and you won’t be harmed,” Kari ordered.

“If I have to beat you into submission I can’t make the same guarantee.”

Looking at her silently, the Apostle did not lower his sword.

“She’s a girl, by the way,” Jonathan nodded to the Apostle. “Only the most

beautiful goddess ever to be born, to be exact.”

“Lucky,” Michael drew the word out, sharing a sleazy grin with his twin.

With a growl, Kari could not
believe
that Jonathan had actually been
hitting
on the Apostle of Cain!

“Uh, you’re pretty too, sis,” Michael said, completely mistaking her growl.

“But you’re sorta related to us,” Jonathan nodded.

“Not to mention the fact that we bathed you and changed your diapers as a child.”

“Yeah, therefore you’re pretty well disqualified from the whole most beautiful goddess ever to be born thing.”

“Nothing personal.”

“Indeed.”

“Would you two shut up,” Kari snapped. She was surprised to hear the Apostle

shout the exact same thing at the exact same time. At least he—
she,
rather
—
knew stupidity when she saw it.

“As much as I would like to stay and chat,” the Apostle reached for something

around her neck, “I’m afraid that three on one is two too many with this wound. I’ll have to be going now.”

“Wait,” Jonathan growled. “
Stop
!”

Hefting his broadsword, he dove for the Apostle. Purple light enveloped her and she began to fade away at the exact moment Jonathan tackled her. Both of them vanished in a blinding flash.

Staring at where they’d been, Kari was so startled that her hand slipped and her bowstring twanged, sending an arrow streaking across the room to pierce the metal wall opposite her.

“Well damn,” Michael scratched behind one of his wolflike ears. “How are we

gonna find them now? They could be
anywhere
.”

“Shut up and let me think,” Kari snapped.

Wracking her brain for any sort of solution, Kari
knew
there had to be some way to trace where they’d gone. Her eyes fell on the blood that had pooled at the Apostle’s feet.

“
That’s it
,” she cried, tossing her bow aside. “She’s a Heretic! I can use her blood to trace where she’s gone and guide our next jump to the same place.”

Heretics were the offspring of humans and the extra-dimensional beings known as Demons. Demons existed as pure energy, and every single one of them had a distinct flavor. It was the same with Heretics. Demon energies infused their blood and could be called forth by drawing symbols with it. The Demon energies in the Apostle’s blood could be found only in the Apostle, so she could use the energy in the blood to find the energy in the Apostle and hopefully make a connection between the two that their shards of the Gate could follow.

“Have I told you lately that you’re a genius,” Michael asked.

“Yes,” Kari replied as she began drawing complex symbols on the floor in the

Apostle’s blood, “but I never get tired of hearing it. Don’t worry, we’ll have your partner in crime back before you can work up the motivation to do something productive.”

“We’re never gonna get him back! When have you ever known me to show

anything resembling motivation or productivity?”

Gasping for breath, Keir appeared at the door. Leaning on the doorframe, he gave a start when he saw Kari drawing on the floor in blood.

“What are you doing,” he gasped, his voice hoarse and choked from the run up all of those stairs.

“I’m afraid we were too late,” Kari said. “The Apostle fled to another world, and she took our brother with her.”

Keir slumped. “I’m sorry. Is there any way for you to follow?”

Kari nodded. “I can use her blood to guide us to her.”

“Her,” Keir asked.

“Apparently, the Apostle’s a girl,” Michael said. “It makes sense. Only a woman could be that evil.”

“Keir, could you be a dear and get my bow for me,” Kari asked with a much too

sweet smile. “I think I’m going to club my brother to death with it.”

“See what I mean,” Michael gestured to Kari.

“There,” Kari said as she finished. A red glow spread around the completed

symbol drawn on the floor in the Apostle’s blood, then faded. “That should do it. We both need to stand on the symbol and concentrate as hard as we can on the Apostle when we jump to the next world. That should get us to her and Jonathan.”

“I guess this is goodbye then,” Keir said sadly, handing Kari’s bow to her. “I had hoped that you would be able to stay a little longer. Will you ever return so I can thank you properly for everything that you’ve done for me?”

“I’m afraid that once we leave this world we can never return to it,” Kari

explained. “But on the bright side, I don’t think the Apostle can either.”

“I see,” Keir sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that. Well, in that case, thank you both, for everything. I would be dead long ago without you. I’m sorry I couldn’t show much more hospitality in return for all you’ve done for me. Good luck for the rest of your days, and I hope you find your brother.”

Kari smiled warmly, pulling Keir into a friendly hug. Michael offered his hand for a shake instead.

“Take care,” he said, joining Kari on the bloody symbol. “Good luck rebuilding.”

“Goodbye Keir,” Kari said. “Who knows. We may meet again someday.

Anything is possible. Oh, and be careful with this blood. The blood of a Heretic is extremely deadly to humans.”

Pulling her crystal out from where it hung between her breasts, Kari clasped it in her hand. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the Apostle. She felt the symbol take hold and resonate with the power within the crystal. A bright flash of light pierced through her eyelids and suddenly her hair was being whipped by a fierce, foul smelling wind. The ring of blades against each other carried down from above.

Chapter 20: A Lawyer and a Talking Cat Walk into a Bar

Like many other well off and self-important men, Gabriel did a lot of jogging in the mornings just to be seen jogging. In high school, he’d taken state in cross-country running three years in a row, and continued on throughout college. He ran a mile or three every morning to start the day off. Before his untimely demise, he’d thought himself just about ready to try his hand in the next Chicago Marathon.

That meant the mere eight miles it was to the small town built in a minor

depression, while difficult, hadn't taken very long, nor had it worn him down too badly.

He could have made it in less than three hours, but Gabriel had staggered running and walking to conserve strength, expecting a far greater distance.

Though three hours was not exactly a huge amount of time, it was far more than enough for Devileye to have made it home, settled himself, and gotten around to his nefarious deeds with Sam. He’d probably made it back in less than an hour, leaving two hours to do god knows what to her. Gabriel could only pray that something had distracted the man.

Leaning over with his hands on his knees, Gabriel rested for a second to catch his breath. His throat was raw, and what saliva he could work into his mouth was thick and sticky. For the first time since setting foot on Ethos, he couldn’t feel the bone deep cold that was slowly, but surely killing the world. His clothes were soaked through with sweat, and he could smell his own body odor. He certainly wasn’t going to be winning any beauty contests, and if Sam were expecting a knight in shining armor, she’d have to settle for a lawyer in a sweaty cowboy outfit.

His father’s voice ranted about how jogging was a pussy’s sport, and how he

didn’t have the balls to rescue Sam, but he pushed it away with a growl.

The strange sensation of cat paws on his shoulders made him straighten abruptly.

Yowling in surprise at the sudden movement, Mister Mittens almost toppled from his perch. Gabriel didn’t know how Sam could stand the cat draping himself over her all the time. Any movement from the animal made the hair along his spine stand on end, like the spider sense he’d developed in high school to warn him of incoming spitballs and dangerous bullies in close proximity.

“I don’t think I have ever seen a human run so fast for so long,” Mister Mittens said, righting himself.

“I’m too vain to let myself get fat,” Gabriel replied. “How’s your leg?”

“I’ll live. I just hope you were fast enough.”

Looking up at the dark nighttime sky, Gabriel saw alien constellations, and felt a flash of homesickness that he quickly pushed down. Though it would be half day in an hour, for the moment it was dark as any night he had ever seen.

Scattered electric lights lit the town below, with the wavering light of fire from torches mixed in.

“A day’s walk,” Gabriel barked a laugh as he started toward the town. “Not with how long the days on this world are.”

“Are you still going on about that drivel,” Mister Mittens complained.

“Are you still a talking cat,” Gabriel asked. He was too tired to come up with a better comeback.

“What’s the plan, Gabriel?”

“Walk in and ask for Sam back.”

“Oh yes,” the cat said sarcastically, “great plan, that. And when it inevitably fails?”

“I can be
very
persuasive. Or I may just start shooting people until someone tells me where she is.”

“Are all humans complete morons?”

Glancing at the gemstone imbedded in his right hand, Gabriel wondered if it

needed to recharge or something before being used again. It had only been a few hours since its last use, and he’d never tested how long it was until he could use it again.

“Shut up, cat! Don’t you want her back? I don’t see any other way to do this. I’ll give them the chance to hand her over, but if they don’t . . .”

Ignoring the rest of the cat’s taunts, Gabriel strode onto the central street.

Flashbacks from the westerns his father had constantly watched when he was a kid came to him. He felt like Gary Cooper about to face the outlaw come back for revenge with his posse alone. Like every other town he’d seen in his time on Ethos, this one could have been the set of any number of old westerns. Though he could feel eyes on him, there was not a soul in sight.

Raucous laughter accompanied by horrible music played on a badly tuned piano

drifted from somewhere up ahead. Following the music, Gabriel found himself standing before what looked like an old west saloon. It even had the bat wing swinging doors.

The sign proclaimed the saloon to be “The Haven.”

Steeling himself, Gabriel took a deep breath and stepped through, pushing the

doors aside as he strode into the saloon. The music abruptly stopped and dead silence fell over everything as a room full of armed brutes stared at him.

Ignoring the stares, Gabriel walked across the wood floor, dodging piles of

sawdust that smelled like vomit. His boots made hollow thumps against the wood, and his spurs clicked and rang in the silence.

Approaching the bar, he leaned against it and eyed the enormously fat bartender, who was bald as an egg. His oily scalp shone in the light from a hundred or more candles arranged around the room in ornate candelabras and chandeliers that were really too expensive in appearance to have belonged in such a rundown place. Spitting a stream of tobacco juice onto the floor, the man examined Gabriel with hard, dark eyes. He had no outward mutations, unlike most of his patrons, but his bulk alone would keep him from fitting in anywhere that normal, respectable people gathered.

Gabriel looked at the bartender and the bartender looked at him. Breaking eye contact, Gabriel counted heads. Including the barkeep, there were seventeen. Despite the notable lack of firearms amongst the various weapons the patrons wore, the saloon was no stranger to them, as evidenced by the bullet holes peppering the walls.

Turning back to the bar, Gabriel scanned the bottles arranged neatly on shelves.