“I… I know,” she croaked softly. “I know what I must do.”
41
Jordan reseated the emerald stone in its proper place. As the gem touched the granite chalice, the column of fire on this side of the pyramid flared brighter. The ice reformed over the lake, sealing the portal between worlds. Several creatures were caught halfway between this plane and the other, their bodies frozen and contorted in the ice.
But his efforts did nothing for the hundreds that had already escaped.
Christian and Sophia were still under siege by a mass of them, unable to make headway across the lake to reach Lucifer. Elizabeth held her position by the blue stone, bloodied but still defending her post. Across the lake, Rhun knelt beside Erin, who still lived, although the lake of red blood that surrounded her told him that she did not have much longer. Jordan ached to rush to her side, to take her in his arms one last time.
But even if he could have broken free of his emerald prison, another adversary seemed determined to stop him.
As Jordan turned his back to the granite pillar, Legion stalked down from the cliffs toward him. He was surrounded by a shadow of abominations, a cloak of living flesh. Jordan used his last rounds to fire at the demon, but each time he shot, one of those shadows leaped up and threw itself in the way, blocking his slug with its twisted body.
Out of ammunition, Jordan held his KA-BAR dagger in one hand. He dropped his pistol and bent down to collect the monk’s abandoned sword, glad it had fallen inside the green sphere of light.
“Come on!” Jordan shouted over the tide of the demon’s screaming beasts. “Come and get me.”
Black eyes locked on to Jordan’s. “Do not be in such a hurry to die, Warrior of Man, I will be there soon enough.”
Good… I’m ready for you this time.
Jordan burned with a golden rage, one ignited by both his angelic blood and his lust for revenge. As Legion approached, Jordan lifted the stolen sword — a long curved blade with a green piece of jade set in its pommel. Jordan set his legs in a wide stance and prepared to meet the demon.
Legion also carried a sword, something with a poisonous-looking black blade, shining like a long sliver of obsidian. It was not of this world, probably carried here and gifted to the demon by one of his horde.
Jordan motioned with the tip of his own weapon. “Just the two of us,” he urged. “Unless you fear one man?”
“While you are more than a mere mortal,” Legion answered, “I will not be caught off guard again. So yes, let us end this.”
Sword held high, Legion shed his monsters and entered the emerald sphere. Without preamble, Legion thrust his sword at Jordan, forcing a quick parry that numbed Jordan to the elbow. Legion struck again and again, slowly forcing Jordan toward the edge of the sphere.
If that blade doesn’t kill me, the green fire will.
A quick flurry of blows followed. Steel rang against black crystal. Legion darted back and forth through the barrier, using the fiery veil as his own personal shield, knowing Jordan could not follow.
A quick thrust finally penetrated Jordan’s guard and sliced across his side. Hot red blood drenched his shirt. Another series of attacks ended with Legion’s blade cutting deep into his upper arm. Legion retreated through the barrier, smiling back at him.
Jordan realized a hard truth.
Legion is toying with me.
Jordan lurched away, dropping his dagger and hugging an arm around his wounded side, while still keeping his sword up.
Legion stalked forward, clearly ready to finish him.
As soon as the demon pierced the barrier’s edge, Jordan lunged forward, hoping that the flames of the veil might have blinded the demon for a fraction of a second. As Legion’s leg stepped through, Jordan kicked out and smashed his steel crampons into the demon’s knee. The limb gave way with a crack. As Legion pitched to the side, Jordan grabbed the demon’s sword arm, rolled Legion under him, and rode the black body to the ground.Once they struck, Jordan used the momentum to jam his sword into the soft belly, thrusting up toward that quiet heart. Legion screamed and threw him off with the force of a bull’s kick. Jordan went flying, rolling across the snow. All that saved him from striking the fiery barrier was the granite pillar. He hit it broadside, hard enough to break ribs.
Legion was already on his feet. The demon dropped his own sword into the snow and unsheathed the monk’s blade from his black belly and came at Jordan, the weapon raised high. Jordan lunged away, going for the dagger he had abandoned. Only too late did he realize his mistake.
Legion stepped past him and brought the sword down, slamming the jade-encrusted pommel onto the green diamond. The gem shattered beneath it, as did the granite chalice underneath. The column of green fire extinguished, blown out like a snuffed candle.
Again the lake exploded along this bank. The entire surface buckled upward as if punched from below. Larger beasts rose to the surface, things still barely seen: the roll of an immense black eye, a flurry of black tentacles. Jordan sensed these creatures were older and darker than the minor demons loosed so far.
Beyond that monstrous upwelling, Lucifer looked down from his throne, his face unreadable. The cone of white light still held the dark angel trapped, but for how long? That purity of whiteness now ran with streaks of shadows, reflecting the damage done to his prison.
As if knowing this, Lucifer shifted higher in his throne, breaking more links in the chains that bound him.
The ground quaked and trembled with his efforts.
Legion faced Jordan, the demon’s smile triumphant. “The time of man is finally at an end.”
Erin huddled under Rhun as the quakes subsided. She had watched the emerald column go dark, saw the ice on the far side shatter open exposing a roil of monstrous beasts. New cracks skittered across the lake.
Christian and Sophia dragged the chest to a patch of solid ice, hounded by more creatures, the beasts plainly growing bolder at the change of circumstance.
Erin searched for Jordan, but a heavy black steam rose from the lake by that shore, obscuring her view.
Rhun still clutched her throat with his one hand as he leaned back. “Erin, what do you mean you know what to do?” he asked.
She understood the subtext to his question: What do you believe you can do this close to death?
She answered him silently, What I can.
She clutched the Blood Gospel to her chest with one arm, picturing the lines of Enochian script filling its pages. She knew the truth with absolute certainty, but still the words refused to come out. She was too stunned at what she had come to understand: the true purpose behind this lost Gospel of Christ.
The book was not written to help humans unleash their divinity. It had been written for a single being, one angel, to redeem himself: Lucifer. She remembered the tablet Lazarus had revealed to her in the Sanguinist library, telling an alternate version of the story of the Garden of Eden, how Eve had promised to share the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge with the serpent, but in the end, she had broken that promise.
Lazarus’s words returned to her now, as the world grew darker around her.
When Lucifer stands before you, your heart will guide you on your path. You must fulfill the covenant.
She hadn’t understood those words back then, but she did now.
The serpent — Lucifer — had been denied secret knowledge, knowledge that might have led the dark angel to make different choices: the knowledge of good and evil. He had asked for that understanding, been promised it by Eve herself, but she had not given it to him, and so he had never learned it.