“I know about the gods in the Abyss,” I said. “I met one.”
Johannes smiled.
“It was losing,” I said. “Slowly, but surely.”
The smile faltered.
“Gods range in power,” he said. Picking up right where he’d left off.
“I can’t say for sure,” I said, “But the one I saw was maybe the same size as the moon. Or his head was. I don’t think you can pull that off, resting in the Abyss, unless you have plenty of power.”
I closed my eyes.
This was the pivotal moment. The argument. I needed to figure it out, challenge the idea. Break it down.
The idea from earlier had sat with me. A niggling suspicion, an ugly idea.
How many times had I seen enemies turn into fast friends or allies?
Expectations were the enemy. My instincts were the problem. Assumptions and simple labels were ruinous here.
I spoke the words, knowing that being wrong could ruin me, at this most critical point in time, but I had to show confidence and state it clearly, or it just wouldn’t do.
“Faysal the angel and the Barber aren’t adversaries in this,” I said. “We’re playing right into Faysal’s hands. He’s the threat.”
14.10
I met everyone’s eyes in turn. Rose, the High Priest, Alister, my friends.
Then Johannes’.
I wasn’t getting resounding support. No voices echoing my suspicions.
“Proof?” Johannes asked.
I only shook my head.
“What I can’t decide,” Johannes finally said, “Is if you think you’re right, or if you’re just stirring up trouble, by your nature.”
“I’ve been through the metaphorical grinder since this all began,” I said, my voice low. “Virtually everyone here has been my enemy at one time or another. I’ve seen alliances form and be broken, marriages and families shattered and united. It keeps hitting the same notes. The line between enemy and ally is never as clearly defined as we think it is. I’m a pretty good example of how labels don’t always apply in nice, clean-cut ways. I can’t believe that, given all the time they’ve been around, that angels and demons haven’t found a way to cross wires or cross paths at some points.”
“You really believe what you’re saying,” Johannes said. “You think my familiar is allied with demons?”
“I’m saying that he’s probably working with demons or a demon. Different interests, but right now, right here, with so much at stake on a greater scale, I don’t think you can have entities like that in close proximity without having things get sucked into their orbit. There’s just no way to deal with powers that vast in a safe manner.”
Johannes put two fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Are you really going to dismantle what we’re trying to build here, out of sheer paranoia?”
“I might try,” I said. “Is it paranoia if it’s justified? I’ve faced down demons. I’ve seen a demon working its way into the Abyss. I’ve seen a man destroyed, the hierarchy of beasts and man overturned. I’ve had my life taken from me by the fallout of two different demons doing their work. Angels are apparently, according to an angel, only a step down from that. I don’t know how much involvement your pet had in your decision to do this, but I do know that, according to the book that serves as Familiars 101, powerful familiars can eclipse the practitioner.”
“You may be underestimating how strong I am,” Johannes said.
“You don’t even factor in, Johannes,” I said, my voice hard. “They operate beyond the bounds we do. They destroy, and they create. Those of us here, the humans, the faerie, the goblins, and whatever else, we’re only changing what they’ve left us to work with. There’s very little we can do to even compete on their level. A major, if forgotten god was only just keeping an even ground with what I was told was a moderate demon. You want to tamper with the Barber, and you think anything is going to stop it?”
“Grandmother said that binding Barbatorem was one of her greatest accomplishments,” Rose said. “Seeing other demons in action, if only briefly, just being around the Barber, I think I understand why.”
“I was hoping that you would get the Thorburn monster on a metaphorical leash, rather than agree with him,” Johannes said.
“I don’t,” Rose said. “I’m not about to bind him in any manner, but I’m not going to agree with him automatically, either. The deal sounds good. There’s a lot more that’s at play, and, honestly, the deal fits in well with that stuff.”
“Too well?” I asked.
I saw Rose’s expression change for just a moment.
“I don’t know,” she said, a little less confidently.