Beyond the Veil (18 page)

Twenty-Three

I’d taken Rala back to Vol and waited just
a few minutes to make sure he was capable of taking care of her. The wound
didn’t look fatal, but I wanted to be sure. She’d risked her ass to help me,
and I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her because of it. My conscience
had enough bad karma rusting it up, as it was.

I left Jesus there, as well, asking the old
seer to look after him, too, until I came back. He agreed with some reluctance and
a whole bunch of nonsensical commentary, and even then only after I promised
Rala would get the best possible healing in exchange for babysitting Christ for
a bit. Vol didn’t know Jesus was the real leader of the Eidolon, so I left that
bit out. I walked out while he was still talking about puzzles and circles and
some other random shit I let trickle in one ear and piss out the other.

Jesus and Rala safe and sound and out of the
way, I made my way through the streets of Desboren without bothering to hide.
None of the aliens I encountered got close enough for me to identify, let alone
worry about. While their innate magical ability seemed to be null, barring the apparently
rare exceptions like Rala and Vol, I had no doubt they could sense the power
that churned inside me. I made sure of it. And if that wasn’t it, I’m sure the grim
expression plastered on my face was enough of a deterrent to warn them off.
There were no questions about my mood, and I made it to my destination without
any delays.

I knocked gently on the door and waited. It
took a few moments before I heard a shuffling noise inside, and then the door
was pulled open a crack. Cyrill’s face peeked out from within. She stared at me
wide-eyed, without saying anything, not that I really wanted to talk to her,
anyway. I pushed the door open against her meek resistance and wrapped my hand
around her throat. She squawked as I stepped inside, dragging her along after
slamming the door shut.

“Frank! What are you doing?” Baalth asked
as he came out of the back room in rush, easing the door closed at his back.
His dark eyes were narrow in his skeletal face.

I shrugged and snapped Cyrill’s neck with a
flick of my wrist. The sound reverberated through the room. Her eyes rolled
back and I cast her body aside. Baalth stared for just an instant, muscles
coiled. He was getting ready to bolt.

“Don’t,” I told him.

His shoulders sagged, and he let out a tired
sigh, the tension whistling out of him. “You have to understand.”

“I do.” And I really did.

Baalth had come to God to be healed but the
Almighty had a different idea. Too much the rebel to control, a lifetime of
history as evidence, Baalth’s power was stolen rather than risk betrayal down
the road. Alone, desperate, and stranded on a strange world, which was slowly
being drained of its energy by Jesus’ Eidolon, Baalth had made the only choice
that made sense to him, the only choice possible to reclaim his place, his
power.

I felt like an idiot, but I wouldn’t show
him that. Rala had clued me in early, but I’d missed it. Over and over, she
used the term
alien
when speaking of
the mastermind of the plot to ruin Feluris. She’d also used that term to
describe me, but she hadn’t used it for Gorath. She’d called him an Aliterean.
That was the final piece of the puzzle I needed.

“Where is she?”

He motioned to the room at his back. “In
there, safe in a containment case.” Baalth drew a quiet breath and met my eyes.
“I would never have hurt her.”

“
Them
,”
I corrected.

Baalth’s eyes narrowed to slits, but he
caught on before his tongue could think to ask. He was always quick like that.
“I…I’m sorry, Frank. I didn’t know.”

Without his powers, I could believe that,
too. He couldn’t possibly have sensed the second life growing inside Karra, but
that didn’t make things any better. My heart thrummed at realizing how close I
was to Karra now, how close I’d been the last time I was there. It sickened me,
yet thrilled me all the same. She was alive…
they
were alive. I’d feared she was with Gorath, and who knew what that freak would
do with her, but Baalth was a different creature all together.

I pulled the dagger out of my waistband and
held it up for Baalth to see. “How’d you convince Gorath to go along?”

His eyes followed the blade, and I knew
what he was thinking, but he said nothing about it, choosing instead to answer
my question. “It was simple.” A hint of the old Baalth shone through as he
spoke. “I knew you would win out against Gorath’s pet and that the master would
run once he found himself unable to recover his energies before he was
confronted. There was only one place he could go.” He waved a hand toward the
sky to imply God’s staging plane. “I had simply meant to kill him when he
arrived, but when he appeared with Karra—”

“The temptation was just too much,” I
finished.

Baalth gave a shallow nod and went on. “Too
weak from the journey to resist, he had a choice: die or do as I asked. The
offer of power was too much to ignore, and he couldn’t extract it from blade
without my help.” He shrugged. “I knew it would only be a matter of time before
Longinus showed up to collect his daughter and
opportunities
would open up.”

I wanted to be mad, to be disgusted by
Baalth’s manipulations and efforts to reclaim the power he’d lost, but I
couldn’t find it in me to be surprised. His nature was exactly why God had
taken his power rather than ask for his help. He’d always been that way. Baalth
was the epitome of a demon lieutenant, the perfect complement to my father’s
rule in Hell. He was exactly what he was, and it was what he would always be.

Without saying a word, I took a step
forward and held the dagger out to him, pommel first. That caught him off
guard. He stared at it, and then at me, his sunken eyes shifting back and forth
between the two as I pushed it further in his direction.

“It’s yours,” I said. “You earned it.” He
didn’t move, so I wiggled the blade again. “On the planet for a week, your
power gone, you still managed to blackmail an ancient alien into following your
lead, mobilize an army, and trick both Longinus and Christ into the crosshairs
of your scheme, all without anyone realizing it until it was too late.” I held
the blade out still. “This is your Oscar.”

Baalth held his ground, searching my eyes.
He wouldn’t find anything there but cold emptiness. After a long moment of
silence, he finally took a hesitant step forward and reached the dagger. I spun
the weapon around as he came close, cinching a hand on the back of Baalth’s
neck and driving the blade into his chest. He grunted, eyes dimming, and went
silent.

“
No
one
fucks with my family.”

With so little of his essence remaining to
him, the dagger killed him instantly, so I let his withered carcass drop to the
floor. While I could forgive just about anything else Baalth might have
done—the list of his affronts damn near endless—there was no way I could allow
him to put Karra and our child at risk. I slipped the weapon back into my belt
and went to the door he’d come out of. My hand shook as I pulled it open.

There, in what was little more than a broom
closet, was Karra. She stood inside a containment case, her hazel eyes peering
at me through the litter of wards that empowered the glass prison. I swallowed
against the sudden realization that she was awake inside the thing. Pinned in
tight, unable to do anything but stand in place, she’d been there for over a
week. That was more than I could bear.

I rushed over and punched my fingers
through the facing at the bottom, ripping it away to keep the shards from
striking her. There was a flutter of energy as the case resisted, but it wasn’t
meant to keep people out, only in. Karra sagged as the dampening magic died,
the stasis releasing her from its pressure. She stumbled from the case and into
my arms.

“I’m so sorry,” I told her, the words
muffled as I buried my face in her shoulder, her arms squeezing me with all her
might.

Her skin felt cold, and she trembled in my
embrace. I held her as tight as I dared, reveling in the closeness of her, in
the joy of finding her alive. The tiny thump of my child’s heartbeat danced
against my senses, and I clasped them even tighter, reveling in the sound. I
needed this, needed them in my arms.

Despite it all, a looming bleakness gnawed
at me. Guilt whispered its sublime misery into my ears. This moment was
fleeting, and far sooner than I could wish, it would end. The tears that fell
from my eyes would not be the only ones I shed today, nor would they be the
last that slipped free.

Karra stiffened after a moment, and I felt
the inevitable wave of dread approach. She pulled away slowly, peeling her body
from mine. Silver marred her beautiful cheeks, and I wondered if I’d ever see
her face without the pain I saw reflected on it then.

“Frank?” For a long, drawn out moment, that
was all she said as her senses rippled across my skin.

My arms slumped to my sides as soon as we
were apart. It was hard to catch my breath, my chest constricted. There was no
hiding what I’d done. “I’m sorry,” I told her again, knowing the words could
never repair the piece of her heart I’d ripped from her life. She’d gone
through hell, suffered and risked everything to bring Longinus back to life,
and I’d taken him away from her.

“My father?” She stared at me, her face
fluctuating between hatred and sorrow, disgust and pity. It settled somewhere
in between, and I felt the sudden gush of warmth streaming down my cheeks at
seeing it.

“I…I had no choice.” It sounded so
pathetic.

Her hands went to her stomach, fingers
unconsciously massaging her belly through her shirt. I longed to do the same. She
swallowed and drew a stuttered breath. “I…I—”

“I know,” I told her, barely able to speak
myself.

I understood, from the instant I’d decided
to kill Longinus, what that choice would mean for her…for us, but there’d been
no way around it. Longinus was willing to die to rescue her, was happy to do so
if it meant Karra lived on. He’d done just that, but for her, it was the end of
everything she’d worked so hard to accomplish. His essence now a part of mine,
there would be no chance of resurrection, no return to life even with her
necromantic skills.

Worse still, there was no way for her to
heal from what I’d done. I would forever be salt in the wound of her loss, a
constant reminder that I’d killed the man she’d loved most in the world. I, her
lover, the father of her child, had killed her dad. There was no escaping that
sad and brutal truth.

“I know,” I repeated at a loss for words,
slipping Longinus’ sword belt loose and handing it over to her. She took it instinctively,
without even looking, her knuckles white about the sheath. “Just let me get you
both home, and then you can do what you must.”

Karra sobbed and gave the shallowest of
nods, and I turned away, unable to watch the grief that flooded her features.
I’d come all this way to save her…to save them…and I’d accomplished that. If
there was nothing else for me in the ashes of my deeds, that would have to be
enough.

Twenty-Four

With Karra stumbling along behind me, I
returned to Rala’s to collect her and Jesus. Vol was even more reluctant to let
her go than he had been to watch over Jesus, but I finally convinced him by
bringing him along and offering him a deal of his own. Our little ragtag group
of walking and emotionally wounded gathered together, I led them to Ulverton
Square.

Calar appeared a moment after we’d arrived.
He reached out for the son, and I smacked his hands away.

“I’ll carry him…until I’ve seen God.” I let
a waft of my power loose, aiming it his direction so it didn’t ping Karra.

The angel snarled at me, but he took the
warning seriously. We were through the portal and into the hall of the Almighty
after just a few short minutes. God was there waiting. Once more he’d taken on
the form of the old, wise man.

“Bring my Son here,” He said the instant we
stepped through the cloud wall.

I shook my head. “I’ll have your word
first.” It was a dangerous game I was playing, but I’d had it on good authority
there was room to maneuver. If nothing else,
Daddy
taught me that.

The Almighty stared a moment, no expression
on His face, relenting a few moments later. “Tell me your terms.”

My breath eased through my lips in a
relieved sigh. I’d expected more resistance. Perhaps he knew what I wanted
already and decided it was a fair trade. “I ask only that you heal this child,”
I motioned to Rala, “and send all of us, Rala, Vol, Karra and the child she
carries, and me back to Earth, unharmed and whole, without delay or
equivocation.”

“What of the deal that was made for my
assistance in finding young Karra?” A flicker of a smile graced his lips.

“That deal wasn’t made with me, and you
won’t leash me to it.” I wanted to feel confident, wanted to feel as though the
defiance I was showing meant something, but I knew better. We weren’t really
bargaining…I was asking permission, and there was no mistaking it for anything
but what it was. “However, I’ve ended the rebellion that soiled your son’s
Eidolon efforts, so perhaps that might buy us some leeway.”

Without waiting, I walked over and lay
Jesus on the table before God. It was time to earn some good will if there was
any to be had. He glanced down at His son, but His expression was unreadable. I
laid the golden dagger on Christ’s chest a few seconds after, the combined
energies of Jesus, Longinus, and Baalth burning inside. God looked up at me.

“So, do we have a deal?” I knew I was
pushing it by being so blunt, but it wasn’t like I had anything to lose.

God grinned, and then nodded. “So be it,
Frank, but know this: There will come a time when this war finds its way to
Earth, and I expect your
cooperation
when
that time comes.”

Again, I wasn’t being offered a choice. He
was issuing a declaration of intent. I simply nodded, grateful for what I’d
been given. I could expect nothing more.

“Farewell, Frank,” were the last words He
spoke.

We were gone without so much as a wave.