Church of Sin (The Ether Book 1) (43 page)

Chap
ter 89

The stone floor of the Church was familiar: cold and damp. When Alix awoke, she was lying in front of the altar, curled up around the box Gabriel had given to her like a mother clutching a new born
child.

She sat up and ran
her fingers over her legs and arms, felt every curve and contour of her skin, every joint and every muscle. She was whole again. Aches and pains, but without the puncture wounds in her wrists and feet. Was it even real? At first she didn’t remember much. Just the feeling of illness and fear. But the memory soon returned like a bad dream lost at first but which seeps back into the memory slowly like gas escaping from a bottle.

In a small wooden box lay Ash’
s soul. And unfathomable evil.

I take it that’s not your packed lunch in there,
said a familiar voice in her head.

“
Azrael,” she murmured. “You’re back.”

Technically, I was never gone. You were
. So, the box?

There was something soothing about her voice that lifted her heart a
fraction. Was it the glimpse of Hope that Pandora had salvaged? It felt like meeting an old friend in a time of need. The feeling of reprieve where encumbrances are shared. It struck her that she may never feel alone again but she wasn’t sure how that made her feel.

She got to her feet. Ash’s body was gone, so was Baron
and the twins.  The air was stagnant; the church was tainted with something unpleasant. But she didn’t feel alone. Someone was watching her but she couldn’t pinpoint from where or whom. Outside, the old dead willow gently tapped at the windows. She had lost track of time but it was dark outside and the wind was getting up. After a short while, she started to hear the patter of rain on the aged glass.

“Well, well, doctor.” Baron’s voice resonated around the church
like a gunshot. “How did you find the Inter-World? Exactly how you’ve always dreamt?”

“Where are you?” she shouted back, turning her head frantically to look
for him but there was no hint of movement anywhere and the voice had no origin, like it was leaking from the stonework.

“I’m everywhere, doctor. Everywhere and nowhere at the same time. But the important question is: where are you?”

“You’re a dick.”

Baron laughed. “
I’m sorry for being corny, doctor. I couldn’t resist. But I see you have not returned empty handed.” Alix clutched the box that contained Ash’s soul protectively. “In truth, I don’t envy you, doctor. You have a terrible choice to make. How cruel of the Maker to have burdened you with such power and with such terrifying consequences. The life of your friend – and this World – held precariously in your hands.”

“A life
you
took,” she spat back. She began to pace the aisles looking for him, darting round pillars, expecting him to be lurking around every corner. If she found him, she’d tear the arrogant smile from his face.

“But all is well. You have Ash’s soul and with it I can revive him. You need only do as I say and we can bring him back together, doctor
. And then you can leave this place, unharmed, and that will be that.”

In the box is – Ash and the Hollow One? You cannot release Him, Alix. He will destroy everything!

“Azrael, you know better than that. The destruction of the Ether is not what Sin desires. It’s far more complicated than that. Remember Alix: I am no different to the Necromire in you. We are kin.”

“Fuck you, Baron!”

“Baron? No, no, doctor. I’m afraid John Baron died a long time ago. There is only Belial now.” There was something sad about the way he said it that for a moment almost had her convinced of his sincerity.

Don’t listen to him, Alix. Remember: the demon is a trickster. He wants you to open the box and release the Hollow One. That is all he wants.

Alix approached the altar and placed the box carefully on the top. It looked so ordinary set against the frayed white cloth.

“Where’s Ash?” she asked.

“Safe. Waiting for you to release him, as I know you will.”

“How do you know that?”

Baron laughed again. “Because your mind is already made up, doctor. Don’t take me for a fool.”

“You think I’d destroy the world for one man?”

“Destroy the world? Is that what you said? No, no, doctor, you will not have destroyed the Ether if you open that box. The only thing you will achieve is giving the life back that I so unfairly took from you. And I did take it from you, Alix, make no mistake. It wasn’t just a life I took was it? It was a part of
your
life.”

She clamped her mouth shut and b
it down hard. She could taste bile at the back of her throat; the sound of his voice was making her feel sick. And what of her predicament? How could she do anything but bring him back to her? But, if she did, how could she live with herself if the consequences meant unleashing untold evil into the world?

“You feel it, doctor, don’t you? The weight of the responsibility crushing down on you. The weight of the entire world on your shoulders. There, there. It’s perhaps not as significant as you may imagine.”

The tears rolled down Alix’s cheeks as she broke down at the altar. She found herself on her knees, clutching at the cloth and using it to soak up her misery, her hands white from gripping so hard. She didn’t wail or scream. She sobbed, gently and without anger or hatred: the tears of a scared girl who had just lost someone who she now realised was so dear to her that the very thought of breathing without him seemed so utterly pointless. It was the feeling of standing at the edge of a precipice and staring down into the abyss, waiting for the wind to push her over.

“But you have a choice, Alix.” Baron’s voice seemed clos
e to her but there was still no sign of him. He spoke quietly and she wanted to believe he meant what he said so much, more than she knew she should but what else was there left to believe in?

“
I know your pain, child. We are all shaped by those perplexingly inequitable things that happen to us in our pasts. They’re like tsunamis aren’t they? Tearing across oceans that, moments before, seemed so calm and unthreatening and with them they take everything that was recognisable as ours from us. They strip us bare and leave us with nothing but our skin. And then the waters retreat to reveal the devastation – the soaked wreckage underneath – and we are expected to just pick ourselves up and carry on, aren’t we? How extraordinarily unfair. And you, here you are again, standing at the top of the stairs looking down to the hallway and watching someone you care so much about being led away into the dark gulf outside. Except of course that this time you have a choice.  You don’t have to remain on the landing. You could choose to walk down the stairs and take Ash by the hand. You don’t have to be a martyr. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself for this World and if you choose life, if you choose your own self-preservation above that of others, no one will ever know and no one will ever judge you.”

He seemed close to her, perhaps even standing directly behind her, but she was unconcerned. Her only thought was for the impossibility of the choice she had to make.

“What do I do?” she asked Azrael but the voice in her head did not respond immediately this time.

Gabriel
gave the choice to you Alix because the Maker deemed that that was the right thing to do. But Sin’s time in exile is up. Maybe his coming
is
inevitable.

“What, so if I don’t open the box he’ll just find some other way to enter the Ether?
But I shouldn’t be the one to make that choice. Why is this happening?” She lashed out, knocking a candelabra to the floor. “Why me? I didn’t ask for any of this!”

“But nonetheless
here you are.” This time it was not Baron who spoke but a far gruffer voice. Harker was standing at the other end of the church, near the entrance, her black coat flailing a little in the breeze from the open door.

“Oh, how tiresome of you to bother us, Lilith,” said Baron and with that Harker span around, a blur of movement and energy which crashed into one of the pillars supporting the old structure sending stone and debris scattering across the floor as the pillar was dislodged from its hold
ings. But no sooner had the column had been crushed in two its form changed in the blink of an eye and John Baron was sent sprawling down the northern aisle. Alix hadn’t even noticed that there was one pillar more on one side of the church.

Baron picked himself
up and brushed himself down.

“Well, Lilith, perhaps you and I can spend the rest of time locked here in this church endlessly fighting each other until one of
us drops or gives up and goes home.”

“Frankly, Belial, I would not pass up the opportunity.”

Alix leapt out of the way as Harker sent Baron across the room again to crash into the altar. The old table shook violently but somehow remained intact but the noise of the impact was preceded by Baron’s booming laugh.

“You can destroy me, Lilith, but that doesn’t help the doctor make her decision now, does it?”

Harker had readied herself for another strike. It seemed that she had complete control of the air around her, like she was a part of it. Huffing loudly, she turned away from Baron and looked at Alix.

“Give me the box, child,” she said. Alix pulled Ash’s soul tighter to her stomach but said nothing. Harker took a dangerous step forward. “Give me the box, child. I won’t ask twice.”

There was a moment where no one did anything. Alix backed away up against the wall, her eyes scanning the distance behind Harker to the front and possibly only entrance to the church. It was too great to make in one dash. She was trapped here, for now. Harker’s face was resolute; her eyes were unfaltering circles of red fire blazing in a dark, endless chasm and for a moment Alix was lost in them. Whether she was friend or foe was something she still wasn’t certain about. After a while, she spoke, low and rusty, like the distant sound of a dentist’s drill.

“I was fortunate to have heard the demon’s lies, child. Believe this: if you open that box and if you unleash the evil within it you will release untold misery and suffering on this World the likes of which has never been known. Sin will devour the pathetic lives that dwell here indiscriminately. He cares nothing for wealth or power, innocence or purity. He desires only to deconstruct the fabric of our society. He will do so slowly and methodically, gently unravelling us until the final moment when he
catapults us back into a second Dark Ages. Do you understand, child? This is far greater than you could possibly imagine.”

“Don’t listen to her, Alix,” said Baron stepping forward now
. “Sin doesn’t want to destroy everything. He doesn’t get off on seeing people suffer. Don’t misunderstand what’s happening here. This World is dying anyway, Alix. The Maker has abandoned it. The humans have ravished it, stripped it of resources and wealth and soon there will be nothing left.  It won’t be too long before the tension snaps and the Ether will descend into another Dark Ages anyway where the greedy and corrupt will rule over the ignorant masses. People will die needlessly and unfairly whether or not you open that box. The Ether is already full of pain and suffering and injustice. You know that. You’ve already seen it. What happened to Zara, Alix? What happened to her? You have no idea. She was taken from you so cruelly and even your own father turned his back on you because of it. How inexplicably unfair is that? And do you think things like that are somehow going to stop happening just because you choose to ruin yourself? Of course not. What we have in this bitter cold and cruel World, the things that keep us going, the things that make the bad things stop and the World seem just that little bit less inhospitable, is each other. And you would turn that away just because you fear what others have told you? A day or so ago you had never even heard of the Necromire, or Sin or me or Lilith. And now you’re going to choose eternal loneliness and you’re going to condemn Ash’s soul to purgatory just because of a story a voice in your head told you? You’re better than that, aren’t you? Sin will not destroy the Ether, Alix. He will bring about change but he will stop wars, remove tyrants, install justice and fairness and equality and all of those things you say you’re fighting for. The canvas will be wiped clean and the picture re-drawn but with the brightest and purest colours imaginable. That is what the Change is. That is our vision, our version of paradise.”

“Don’t be so pathetically naive!” said Harker
furiously. “For thousands of years we have hidden the secret of bilateral travel from the Witch Hunters. So hidden was it that even I did not know the secret until recently. People have died protecting it; they have died, doctor Franchot, alone and without mercy and you would defile their memories by undoing thousands of years of relentless work just to save one man. It defies logic and you know it. If you choose to save Ash what are you expecting? To walk off into the sunset together and live happily ever after? I may not have thought particularly highly of you, doctor, but do me the favour of not having to believe I misjudged you completely and that you are in fact not so stupid to realise that whilst you might get your sunset, you will not get a sunrise. There will be nothing left, doctor. Nothing but torn skin and broken bone. You think it was unfair of the Maker to give you the choice? In truth, you have no choice. Now give me the box.”