I wasn’t ready when two Enforcer demons charged in the front door of Baalphezar’s palace, but nothing ever happens when I’m ready.
I took every bit of power I could borrow from Denise and cast two really weak versions of my strength and ward spells, praying that the rules that let this faerie blade work would apply to magic, too.
My bare hands and feet would pass right through these things, but now my hands and feet were wrapped in magic, magic that turned them into blunt weapons, if I could get enough power to them.
I was ten, maybe twenty percent stronger than a normal person at this point, with wards that were about as much protection as fighting in a motorcycle jacket, a fraction of what I was used to.
I had spent a lot of time training with Minerva, but my fighting skills were laughable without my powers to back them up. Lido had been right. I had been leaning on my magic too much.
This fight was not pretty, folks. I look like a guy who’s had three karate lessons picking a fight with two drunk giants in a parking lot.
I’m watching this replay with my head in my hands, watching myself flail around while the Enforcers try to grab me, until one of them caught me with a claw and carved a big chunk of my metaphorical body, forcing me down to my metaphorical knees, until I had to wildly swing the faerie blade to force them back.
Denise had done her best, but the magic I got from her was already running out, after I had wasted it on two spells that needed way more juice than I had.
A world away, Denise felt my frustration and shouted, “It’s not enough! I can’t give him enough! I need more magic!”
Lydia gave her the side-eye and stuck out her hand.
“Oh goddammit,” Denise said, finally accepting what she had to do.
She grabbed Lydia’s hand, and something about the combination, their two cords twisted together behind my back, and suddenly I had a strong tether to Lydia, boosted by the range of the faerie tether I got from Denise.
My body lit up in gold and my spells surged with power, like I had just been plugged into a light socket. No sloppy emotions this time, no careless rage. I had a limited amount of power and two tough opponents in front of me, so I had to remember everything Sonny and Minerva taught me - measuring my strikes, ducking and dodging, knowing that every hit I had to absorb with my wards would take a little power, and make me a little weaker for the next one. For the rest of this fight, I was just a working hero, doing my job.
But that made it a long fight, because as much as Lydia and Denise were trying to help me, the stream of magic I was getting from them still only got my powers to about fifty percent, like any power from Earth was being taxed by Hell on the way in.
After months of fighting way too strong or way too weak opponents, I was finally in a fair fight. I was getting better at dodging, and I blocked a lot of very scary claw strikes, but I’m pretty sure if I had been in my physical body, I would have been dead.
A physical body would have been worn down, but as a disembodied soul wrapped in magic, I just kept snapping back from hits that should have taken my head off.
I can’t get any angels to confirm this, but other scholars in Taltorak say souls in Hell only hurt as much as they deserve to, and if you can honestly repent your sins and forgive yourself, the fire will hurt a little less each day.
They say if you can spend a thousand years in the fire and truly repent until your soul is clean - once you get to that point, you can just walk out, and the demons can’t hurt you at all.
Lydia and Denise were still holding hands in a dirty concrete room back on Earth. Denise looked at Lydia and said, “It’s disgusting how easily this power goes in when I’m using your tether. It’s like his whole soul was made for you.”
Felt like that fight went on for hours, but I stood my ground and tried to move the bad guys around me, as if I had an invisible super team backing me up.
I pummeled the first one with one of Sonny’s combinations until his skull cracked, then decided what the hell.
I got the other one off balance, grabbed a chunk of black marble off the floor, and crushed him with half of Baalphezar’s throne, turning his head into a golden puddle that spread blood all over the floor.
At least I didn’t have to go looking for my contacts this time.
* * *
And just as I was congratulating myself on my victory over two Enforcers, a pack of six Hunters came bounding through the door, spitting and snarling like rabid dogs - unusually smart rabid dogs.
Hunters were typically much easier than Enforcers, but this was a whole pack, and this pack really was used to working as a team. They dodged me and flanked me and spun me around as I tried to knock them away.
Their scratches and bites didn’t take as much power to absorb, but there were a lot more of them, and it wasn’t gonna take long for them to wear me down. Lydia and Denise were doing their best, but I could feel them weakening, and it was only a matter of time.
“It’s not enough!” Denise shouted. “Everybody link up!”
Simon grabbed Denise’s left hand and started pouring his own power in.
My power level jumped as the other students joined the chain, but it was incredibly weird, suddenly feeling all these different personalities and flavors of magic surging into me all at once, like I was trying to chew five different kinds of gum while licking a variety of inanimate objects.
I can’t describe what a hospital tastes like, but that’s what my mouth filled up with as soon as I started drawing power from Simon. It was kind of cool when my aura turned teal to match his, although I didn’t have time to appreciate that when it happened.
Then I felt power surging in from Evelyn, that familiar taste of wine on my lips, like the first time she touched me in Evan’s chair. Then I stumbled and was somewhere else for a second, as I got a weird vision from her.
It was obviously me, standing on clumps of sand, dressed in a crazy mishmash of military uniforms - my bare chest under a brown coat that looked like something a general would wear in World War II, a baggy pair of olive-green pants that seemed to have old blood on them, a weathered pair of oversized combat boots, and a weird helmet that looked like it came off a helicopter pilot. And was that an overturned hovertank?
I was holding some kind of detonator with a big red button on it, and I looked terrible. Thin and gaunt, but strangely muscular, in a way I had never been in real life. I saw myself hit the button, and my whole world erupted in fire.
Then the vision winked out, and I was on my knees back in Baalphezar’s throne room, swinging blindly at the three remaining Hunters. No idea how long I was out, but I did not remember falling, and the Hunters had shifted position on me like they were in a laggy video stream, suddenly catching up to real time.
That vision from Evelyn ended up saving my life later, so she still gets a thank you for that.
I felt a trickle of emotion from her as I cycled through her power. She didn’t seem to hate me anymore, and in this moment, she seemed more scared for me than scared of me, which seemed to be an improvement.
I used power from a dozen different students to win that fight, and I’m embarrassed to say, most of them, I never learned their names.
It was incredibly sweet to feel honest concern and admiration from all these people I didn’t even know, and to feel emotions from some of them that were totally none of my business.
Somehow, I knew the guy with the blue aura was in love with the girl he was holding hands with, and that love made the magic stronger somehow, before it got to me. I never found out who that guy was, but whoever you are, buddy, I hope you did something about it.
* * *
“The two Enforcers we sent just came back without their bodies,” Titus said. “I’m recalling the troops.”
“He killed two Enforcers with a knife?”
“No,” Titus said. “He beat them to death, which means his soul can cast spells down here, and he’s found some kind of power source.”
“He’s drawing power from Hell?” Aleister screeched. “That means someone has betrayed us!”
“You better hope he’s drawing power from Hell,” Titus said. “Betrayal I can deal with, but if he’s found a way to break the rules down here, that means the rest of his family can, too.”
Titus looked over at his yellow-faced friend. “Aleister, as you were leaving Baalphezar’s palace, did you remember to smash the mirrors?”
Aleister’s face fell, obviously enough to answer the question.
“Goddammit, Aleister. You’re supposed to be the smart one.”
* * *
Titus summoned Mammon’s general and said, “Recall our demons from Earth.”
“You sure, sir? If Gabriel was going to intervene, he would have done it already,” the old demon said.
“These portals cost a fortune and the whole point was to get Kovak. We’ve killed a couple thousand, enough that I’ve got an insane billionaire screaming at our HDI liaison right now, threatening to charge the gates of Hell with an army of robot dogs. I think Boston got the message. Shut it down.”
“Recall the Hunters and send everything you have to Baalphezar’s palace!” Aleister shouted, as if he was somehow allowed to give orders.
Titus nodded his agreement, and in a few moments, the demons invading Boston broke off and started to head home.
* * *
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Harrison Moore was at a command console under the old federal building when he got word that the demons were retreating.
“Retreating?” he said to no one in particular. “Why are they going back when they’re winning?”
* * *
I finished off the Hunters and saw that the Enforcers had left the front doors open as they stormed into Baalphezar’s throne room, giving me my first good look at the first layer of Hell.
Rough black rock as far as the eye could see, under a dull orange sky that must have been reflected light from the Lake.
There was a river of lava running from one side, and a river of water running from the other, creating a permanent cloud of steam somewhere under the palace.
That discovery surprised me, because Baalphezar had not seemed smart enough to come up with this kind of engineering project on his own.
But of course, this wasn’t just Baalphezar’s palace. Baalphezar had just been the caretaker, standing guard over the prison built around Taltorak, assigned to protect the book and manage my bloodline to the end of time.
I was staring out at that endless black field, trying to catch my metaphorical breath, when I saw a line of red lights popping up in the distance. In a moment, I realized the lights were portals, half a dozen portals, flickering as an army of demons charged back through from Earth.
I screamed Lydia’s name and yanked on her tether, hoping I had enough power left to let her see through my eyes.
Back at Berkeley Street, Lydia felt me and closed her eyes to concentrate. The other students had gone back to work, but she was still holding hands with Denise as she said, “It’s an army. He’s alone in that palace and they’re sending an army!”
“This whole room is out of magic, Lydia. We need another source!”
Denise was interrupted by the only person who had not joined the long line of people feeding me magic. Cecilia Hardy had broken off from helping patients and wandered over to see why her daughter was holding hands with a demon.
She heard Denise call for help and immediately said, “Demon! How did you talk to your Master? How did you get messages back?”
“We enchanted a mirror in Timothy’s bathroom, but we destroyed it, as soon as we got home!”
“Is there anything left of it?”
“Just a few shards.”
“Go get them!” Cecilia barked. “Get them all and bring them back, fast as you can!”
There was still a chance she could be spotted, but Lydia blinked into the gray and took off, quickly returning with a plastic container full of mirror shards, plucked out of the corkboard over my sink.
Lydia found Cecilia in the middle of the street, setting up an ancient free-standing mirror that looked like it had been rescued from an estate sale.
Cecilia snatched the container out of Lydia’s hand and the surface of the mirror flowed like liquid mercury as she slowly fed the shards in, merging the new mirror with the old.
* * *
At this point, I was flat on my back just inside the doors to Baalphezar’s throne room, with three Hunters scratching at my chest with golden claws.
I was still getting a trickle of magic from Lydia and Denise, still had enough of my wards going to keep these things from overwhelming me, but these were just the fastest runners in an army that was pouring through the portals outside. I couldn’t tell if they had a hundred behind them, or a thousand, but it was pretty clear however many they were sending, it was going to be more than enough.
I took one of the three out, but my strength was just about gone, and a dozen more had just burst in. In a few more seconds I would be defenseless, and one of these things would drag my soul back to Aleister like a dog fetching a stick.
I don’t remember how many Hunters I was buried under when I heard Lydia scream, “Mirror room!” inside my head; I just remember that the bodies of these demons seemed very heavy and my wards were feeling very weak, as I broke free and staggered across Baalphezar’s throne room, to the small adjacent room where he kept a collection of ancient mirrors, used for scrying and making portals to other planes.
I recognized the big mirror he had used to connect to my bathroom, and noticed while the others were dark, this one was starting to glow.
* * *
Cecilia and a small crowd of students watched as the now enchanted mirror swirled and cleared up, showing the view from inside Baalphezar’s mirror room.
Lydia shouted, “Stand back!” with her amplified demon voice. “If he connects with that mirror, you do not want to be standing in front of it!”
Cecilia and the students jumped back, just as I staggered through the blasted doors of the mirror room with two Hunters on my back. Everybody watched as those demons drove me to the ground, pinning me to the floor.
I pulled one last surge of magic through Lydia’s tether and made myself stronger, just strong enough to crawl to the mirror. And then, straining and twisting under a pile of demons, I reached out and put my hand on it.
* * *
And as much fun as this next moment was from my perspective, it looked even cooler on Earth.
The old-fashioned standing mirror set up outside Berkeley Street flashed pure white, as a massive, jagged wave of magic erupted from the ground in front of it, melting a perfect straight line down the street as it rushed to me.
The students heard a giant woosh as the air pressure explosively equalized somewhere between Earth and Hell.
I was still on the ground with a pack of demons on my back, about to be tackled by more, when I suddenly felt all my stuff ramp up to full strength. My aura lit up the mirror room like a stadium light as I threw the first demons off and fired Anson’s artillery spell at point blank range.
The spell went Whump! and blew a dozen Hunters back into the throne room, destroying half of them outright with the sheer force of the blast.
I didn’t know how long this surge was going to last. All I knew was I had a lot of anger to work out, and a whole room full of Hunters to take it out on.
I charged the first pack in front of the mirror room and started grabbing them by their necks, whipping them back and forth, smashing them against the floor if they didn’t die right away.
I finished those off and ran around the corner into the open floor of Baalphezar’s throne room, as somewhere between twenty and fifty more came pouring in. You’ll forgive me if I did not have time to count.
I just kept swinging, blasting my artillery spell left and right as fast as I could, wondering why it wasn’t making me tired.
I fired it six times in a row, a little stronger each time, creating huge shockwaves in the palace, shaking torches off the walls, cracking the purple-veined marble under my feet. More magic than I had ever used before, and I still felt great.
Cecilia and the students were standing to either side of that plume of white fire as it lit up the ground in a straight line, exactly as tall and wide as the mirror, melting tar all the way down the empty street.
The atmosphere around Berkeley Street was starting to feel like the eye of a hurricane, as that torrent of power sucked all the magic from the area like water rushing down a drain.
Back in the throne room, I didn’t understand what was happening, and I didn’t care. I just kept blasting and swinging and kicking, blasting what felt like infinite waves of demons as they came through the door, punting any who got close.
On Earth, a wizard’s body will absorb a finite amount of magic and start surging, until their aura spills over and starts pouring magic into the ground, but I didn’t have a physical body, and whatever power limit my soul might have had, I had apparently not reached it yet.
My blasts and punches just kept getting stronger, until they threatened to bring the whole palace down on my head. My wards could probably take it, but that collapsing ceiling would smash the mirror and cut off my connection to Earth.
I carved a path through the throne room and ran out the doors, moving the fight to the vast expanse of black rock outside.
Is it bad to admit how much fun this was? I had been literally tortured. Beaten, humiliated, taunted, and lectured by two of the biggest assholes in Hell. They even made me sit and listen to bullshit from my father, bringing back a flood of memories I hadn’t thought about since I left home.
So, when I felt the tide turning, I went a little nuts, blasting and screaming and kicking and punching until I realized the flood of demons had not slowed down, and the magical wind at my back was starting to weaken, as I sucked all the ambient magic from five city blocks, and briefly turned the whole area into a dead zone.
Lydia felt what was happening and frantically reached for Denise’s hand, begging for her help, making sure she had enough power to keep her form intact.
Lydia was still not her favorite person, but Denise realized they were in this together now, at least until they could get me back.
I had cleared out a nice open space ahead of me, slowing the advance of Mammon’s army as the Hunters had to scramble over the bodies of their friends, but I could feel myself weakening, and there were still new demons coming through those portals, quickly replacing everything I killed.
Imagine going through all of this, only to be overwhelmed and dragged back. My soul cried out for magic, and something that was really not supposed to happen happened explosively back on Earth.
The plume of white fire in front of the mirror had been gradually dimming during the fight, as Denise, Lydia, Cecilia, and the dazzled students looked on.
And just when that plume was about to die, Lydia felt one last desperate scream from me, and the line of white fire suddenly shot up instead of out. A brilliant column of light splashed against the sky like it had hit an invisible pane of glass, spreading fire in all directions, lighting up the city for blocks as it replaced the sun.
It was amazing to watch the replay, sitting in front of Azael’s mirror, seeing the physical manifestation of the power surge I felt that day down in Hell. I felt like a guy who had been taking sips of water for months, suddenly drinking from a fire hose.
Azael got strangely emotional at this point, as he watched that column of magic punch a hole in the sky. Instead of congratulating me, he lowered his head and closed his eyes like he was very sad.
Other angels in Purgatory stopped what they were doing and started to gather around him, watching the replay in his mirror like they were witnessing some kind of disaster on the news.
My image in the mirror was blasting ten, twenty Hunters at a time, blasting them over and over with an artillery spell that seemed to be plugged into an endless stream of power, but I could only fire in straight lines, and I still had to wait way too long between blasts.
I had been scared to use Blitzkrieg that first time back on Earth, afraid of hurting innocent people like my grandfather did, but technically, everything down here was already dead.
I cast the eight symbols from memory and gave it everything I had - not an accidental overdose like my grandfather used, but a deliberate one, spreading my power as far and wide as I could, ready to wipe this whole layer clean, if that’s what it took to stop these things.
I didn’t understand this at the time, but I wasn’t pulling magic from the Earth anymore. That column of power from the mirror wasn’t even drawing magic from my home universe anymore. My desperate call for magic, untethered from a physical body, had punched a hole through the dimensional membrane around the Earth.
Raw, unfiltered magic was coming straight from the center of the multiverse, straight through that mirror, straight into me.
I didn’t kill the whole army, but I took a nice big chunk out of the middle, and forced the rest of it to turn around, until the line of red portals in the distance started to wink out.
A swirling black and gold portal sprang up behind me and Titus walked out, trying to figure out why his troops were retreating, when they still had me outnumbered a thousand to one.
I didn’t even look like a person at this point; my soul looked like a featureless human shape bathed in white, glowing so brightly I was just a man-shaped silhouette cut into the sky of Hell.
Titus took one look at me, glowing bright enough to burn his eyes, and ran for his worthless life.
I had a brief fantasy of chasing him, stalking through Hell like the living Avatar of Magic, steamrolling everything until I worked my way down to Mammon himself. But while I felt invulnerable and drunk on power, my connection back to Earth was tenuous, and both mirrors were starting to melt.
I waited a moment to make sure I really had won, then my soul walked back to the mirror room, and took a shortcut back to Earth.
I honestly thought I had dreamed this next part. It happened so fast, and I only saw it from the corner of my eye, but the instant my soul passed through to Earth, the brilliant glowing outline of a tiny, winged figure appeared on my shoulder, blew me a kiss, and vanished, shooting off like she was propelled by a jet engine, flying up and away to god knows where. I didn’t mention it at the time because I thought I might be hallucinating again.
Sitting in Purgatory, reliving this fight, I looked back over my shoulder at Azael, expecting to be praised for my awesome battle and my miraculous escape, only to see him sitting on his bench with his hands steepled in front of his face. If I didn’t know better, I would have said the Angel of Magic was about to cry.
A dozen other angels had gathered around him, and the two nearest ones had put their hands on his shoulders like they were trying to comfort him.
The images in the mirror stopped for a moment, as Azael waved the other angels away. He sat in silence with his head down for so long, I was tempted to comfort him myself, until he finally stood up and spoke.
“I knew this was coming, but I was hoping I was wrong. Until just this moment, I was hoping I was wrong, but now I know what you’ve shown me is real, and now I must confess something to you.
“I wasn’t just given dominion over your soul because of your connection to the First Book. Angels abandoned the Earth many years before your birth, and I am… I am not the type to rebel.
“Michael had ordered us all back to Heaven, so I was not present at your birth. I was not there to do my job, and that means I bear some responsibility for what happened to you, and for everything that happened after.
“If I had been there to do my duty, you would be an ordinary man living an ordinary life right now, never touched by magic or demons, free to live your full four score and ten, and you would not have even known my name, until I was there to greet you in Heaven.
“But you were touched by magic, and you were bound to demons, and now I have to unravel this knot I have made of your life, and pass judgment on someone who should have been a good man.
“I am not responsible for the sins you committed on Earth, but I failed to protect you as a child, and for that, I am truly sorry.”