“So there is no book?” I said.
“I don’t know. Being Kristof…” He shrugged. “I suspect there is a prize at the end. He wouldn’t get your hopes up like that. It might be a spell or a magical whatnot. I’m just trying to figure out how he got the oni involved.”
“He helped some of them out of a bad contract last year. They owe him.” I got to my feet. “So, presuming the oni really do have a prize for me, let’s go get it.”
“Me? No, I’m supposed to be doing research-”
“Which you hate almost as much as I do. You just don’t complain. But I’ve gotten myself into a potentially dangerous situation, trying to rescue potentially sacred texts from oni. You’re honor bound to help me. So come on.”
Before we left, Trsiel had to go put away his books. God forbid he should leave a mess. Then I took him back to the museum. It wasn’t hard for him to mingle among mortal shades. He just needs to employ a bit of voice modulation, so he only sounds like a guy who should be doing radio. As for the faint glow, ghosts don’t notice that. Even in the supernatural realms, angels are such mysterious entities that most people expect them to come with halos and harps.
I took Trsiel through the first two dimensional pockets, then I went ahead through the smaller ones. This time, I avoided the fall into the final room, dropping instead. When I hit the ground, I conjured my sword as the oni skittered and whispered all around me.
“I’ve come for the book,” I said.
“No, no. You are not Balaam,” one said.
“Balaam would not come,” another replied. “He is a lord. He would send an underling.”
“Yes, she comes in Balaam’s stead. She bears his words. She-”
“Enough,” I said. “The gig is up, guys, but it’s not your fault. I’ll tell Kristof you did great. Slate wiped clean. Now hand over-”
One of the oni screamed. Another joined in and they began scrabbling about like kernels in a defective hot-air popper.
“Umm, sorry I’m late,” Trsiel said behind me.
I turned. “You really know how to make an entrance, don’t you?”
I whistled, trying to be heard over the shrieking. Forget the popcorn analogy. It was more like a tenth-grade booze-fest when the cops show up.
I whistled again. “Hey! Knock it off! He’s with me!”
“You have tricked us,” one oni hissed as the noise level dropped.
“Yes, tricked us. You brought an angel. A true angel.”
“Yeah, yeah. Did I mention the game’s over? I caught on. Now just give me-”
“We give you nothing.”
“Fine,” I said. “How did Kristof want this to play out? Was I supposed to sneak back here? Trick you? Fight you?”
“We do not know this Kristof.” An oni walked out. He was taller than his brethren, with wild orange hair. “You will leave now, witch. Take your angel and leave. Out of respect for your sire, we will permit that-”
“Permit?” I waved my sword. “I’ll leave when I want to. And I’m not leaving without the damned-”
Trsiel nudged me to silence and stepped forward, his own sword conjured but lowered. Respectful. When he spoke, it was with the full-on vocal treatment. “You say you do not know Kristof Nast?”
“Nast?” The oni’s ugly face crinkled. “I know that name. It is a Cabal. But this Kristof…?”
“He is hers.” Another oni pointed a bony finger at me. “I have heard of him. He helped oni.”
“But the oni he helped weren’t you,” Trsiel said. “He didn’t ask you to play a game with Eve, did he?”
More face-scrunching from the leader. “Game? The oni do not play games.”
“Sure, they do,” I said. “Hide-and-seek. And now you’re hiding-”
Another wave from Trsiel. He continued questioning them, and it didn’t take long to realize that they weren’t just trying to prolong the game. A full-blood angel’s voice truly is compelling-it makes you want to listen and to obey. For demons, it’s like a truth serum. These oni weren’t part of Kristof’s scheme. Stranz really had just stumbled into the dimensional pocket by accident, probably as he’d been heading for that “Private” door, adding a little spice to the chase.
But if Kristof didn’t set this up, then the oni really were guarding the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses.
“Fine,” I said when Trsiel stopped. “It’s a misunderstanding. But we are going to need that book. So just hand it over and we’ll go. We won’t tell anyone you took it.”
The oni laughed now, cackling and yipping.
“We took nothing,” the leader said. “We found it.” He pulled himself up tall. “And so we keep it.”
“I’m afraid not,” Trsiel said. “The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses are believed to be lost scriptures. As such, they would belong to the Almighty. As an agent of the Almighty, I need to ask you to relinquish them.”
Trsiel had said he didn’t believe they were real sacred texts, so he worded it carefully, to avoid lying. The oni didn’t care. They began gnashing their teeth and moving closer, clawed hands raised, fangs bared. Trsiel subtly motioned behind them-into the dark recesses of whatever dimensional pocket we were in. Presumably the book lay on the other side, as they guarded the door.
I nodded. We could hack our way through the oni, but that wasn’t fair. They had every right to guard what they’d found, and wholesale slaughter would land us in deep shit with the Fates. Contrary to popular belief, the war between the celestial and the demonic isn’t an endless bloody battle. It’s more like a cold war. Has been for eons. An uneasy stalemate, reinforced by endless treaties, including the kind that say two angels can’t massacre oni to get a book, even a sacred one.
We waited there, swords drawn, until they charged. Then we sliced through the first couple-self-defense-and barreled into the darkness. Realizing our goal, the oni leaped in from all sides. I swung behind Trsiel, covering his back as he pushed through the seething mass of imps. Tiny teeth dug into my arms and legs, and hands pummeled me. I shoved them off when I could and cut a swath with the glowing blue blade when I had to. The blade worked better. They saw it and dove out of the way.
We kept going, the blackness so complete now that our swords didn’t do more than illuminate their own metal, blue lightsabers cutting through blackness. Then…
“Shit!” Trsiel said. “Watch…!”
His voice trailed off. Falling. I hit the edge of the floor and teetered for a second. Then two oni jumped me and over I went.
It wasn’t a long drop. It helped that I landed on Trsiel. Above we could hear the oni chittering and giggling.
“Trapped!” one chortled. “Yes, the angels are trapped.”
“Oni didn’t do it,” another said. “They trapped themselves.”
“Yes, trapped themselves.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, pushing off Trsiel.
I lit a light ball and waved it around.
“Huh, not much of a trap,” I said.
We were at one end of a tunnel that, like the room above, stretched into darkness. A long, black tunnel, presumably with the book at the end.
“Find the book and teleport out,” I murmured. I turned to Trsiel. “It’s not an empty dimension, is it?”
We can’t teleport out of empty dimensions. They’re off the grid. I had to ask the question again, though. He was looking around, hand tight on his sword.
“No,” he said finally. “It’s not empty.”
I didn’t like his tone. “Is something here?”
“I’m… not sure. I think so.”
