“But I think you also know the importance of this. Especially now that Belial and the others have the sacred incantation.”
“You know about that?”
Michael nodded. “Grant told me. But I expected it. I knew she had a hold on you. And the father said this wouldn’t be easy.”
“Tell me I’m misinterpreting that drawing. The man with the sword isn’t me.”
“I wish I could, Sebastian, but if we could simply snap our fingers and release the sacred traveler without any effort, what would be the point? This is about choices. And the intent
“You sound like a fucking serial killer.”
“Don’t cheapen this. You know what this means.
Batty thought about her shimmering image.
The warmth of her embrace.
“The choice is yours, Sebastian, but we still have time. You don’t have to make a decision right now.”
“But isn’t this all academic anyway? They already have the traveler and the incantation. How can we stop them?”
“I’m afraid I’ve never been known to give in too easily.”
Michael brought out his knife and sliced it through the air as if he were slicing through a thin membrane. A hole in the atmosphere opened up and beyond it was a darkness that Batty recognized.
The otherworld.
A place he barely remembered yet hoped he’d never have to see again.
Then Michael took him by the wrist, turned his palm upward, and placed the Saint Christopher medal there. “You and your friend have come this far. What do you say we finish the journey together?”
Batty looked down at the medallion. “What do you have in mind?”
“We go after her,” Michael said.
BOOK XI
Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity.
47
They traveled by foot down a long, winding trail through the Forest of Never-the angel, the scholar and the spy.
They were, from all appearances, a ragtag crew, the angel brandishing a gun and knife, the spy carrying a shotgun she’d borrowed in the overworld. The scholar had nothing but his fists to rely on, and his wits, but the angel vowed to protect him should anything go wrong.
And many things could go wrong here.
The otherworld was a vast and frightening place, and no one who had visited could claim to know it all. Even the angel himself-who had a home here-had only seen a part of it.
They traveled in silence, each harboring their own thoughts, their own fears. The forest around them was quiet. Too quiet. And the angel knew that its inhabitants were well aware that their home had been invaded by strangers. They would wait and watch, and evaluate … and should they feel threatened, they would not hesitate to defend.
The trail seemed to wind on endlessly, and had the scholar not been lost in thought, weighing the decision that lay before him, he might not have been able to continue. Though his memories of the place were vague, the forest stirred up intense feelings of dread and heartbreak, blunted only by his determination to see this thing through and make the right choice.
As they moved through the trees, a mist began to descend, and the spy thought that it might be a living entity, with thoughts and feelings of its own. It clung to them as they walked, seeping into their skin and clothes, seeming to speak to them in low, ominous whispers, and the spy remembered what the scholar had told her about bringing a piece of this world back with him.
It was a thought that did not comfort her.
After traveling through the mist for several hours, they found themselves at the edge of the forest overlooking a yawning canyon, its jagged hills blackened by fire. They stood in a row, looking down at the deep crevices in the canyon floor, waiting for the angel to speak.
After a moment, he pointed toward the largest and deepest crevice of them all.
“There,” he said. “The path to Pandemonium.”
The spy looked doubtful. “All I see is a giant hole.”
“It’s the only way in.”
“How do we get down there?” the scholar asked.
The angel turned. “What I’m about to ask you to do will go against your better nature. You’ll have to shed your earthly prejudices and follow my lead.”
“I think I shed my earthly prejudices when the mist started talking to me back there,” the spy said, “so what do you have in mind?”
The angel tucked his weapons in his waistband, then moved to the very edge of the cliff and turned his back to the canyon.
“You must let yourself go,” he said. Then he did, allowing his weight to carry him backwards over the edge of the mountain, his jacket billowing as he fell. The other two watched in disbelief as he plummeted toward the canyon floor-
– then the mist billowed out from his clothes and his skin, slowing his descent until he was merely floating.
A moment later he touched the ground unharmed.
He signaled for the others to follow, but they both hesitated, unable to grasp what they had just seen.
Then the spy shook her head, said, “Ahh, hell …” and moved quickly to the edge before she could change her mind, clutching the shotgun to her chest as she spun around and let herself go.
The scholar watched for a moment, then moved to the edge and followed her down.
They landed without incident, the last of the mist rising from their skin, whispering softly as it evaporated. They were surrounded now by jagged mountains and razor-sharp rocks. A misstep, a fall, and a piece of the earth here would slice through your flesh and bone as if it were nothing more than soft butter.
The large chasm was still a mile away, and they traveled a well-worn path toward it, stepping carefully around the rocks, ever mindful of the unseen creatures who watched them from the shadows.
The spy heard a low growl and turned her attention to her right, where a pair of green luminescent eyes carefully followed her.
