Fate on Fire Book Two

Chapter 1

Rita White

Every lesson I’d ever had as an exorcist told me to reach around, grab my gun, and shoot Liam through the chest. But none of those lessons could possibly overcome the other urge. The growing urge. The one, even if I pushed against it, that just pushed back. The urge – I swear it was the urge’s fault – that made me stare into his eyes far too long, even as the last of the magic disappeared from the transport circle.

Then we were left there, in the crackling room, staring at each other.

Before I could take too much time to stare into his unique gaze, however, there was an unsteady rumble from underneath his feet. It didn’t suggest that the zombie had turned right around and come back with bigger friends. Nope. That would be the club starting to destroy itself because Liam had taken too much from it.

Crap, he spat.

Put me down now, monster. I added the monster bit as an afterthought. It sprang off my tongue as if it had always been carved to say it. And Hell, maybe it had. Maybe, somewhere back in my past, beyond five years ago, I really had been born to destroy Liam. I certainly had not been born to help him, regardless of what he thought.

And regardless of what anyone thought right now, thinking was the last thing we had time to do. The ceiling loosened. It sailed toward us. Liam had no chance but to use his wings. Demons could move through matter, but they could also take people with them, somewhat like Vivian could do with me when I was on the back of the bike.

It was… let’s just say it was different with Liam. It was more like a visceral punch. It was like I could actually move through matter myself. It was cursory when it happened with Vivian. With Liam, I think I’d remember every single detail. And the one that would really stand out was the way his arms wrapped harder around mine as he pulled me up through the crumbling ceiling and onto the equally bedraggled ground floor of his establishment.

Once upon a time, the dance floor had been recognizable, as had the three large bars. Now the bars had caught fire, and the floor had crumbled in as if somebody had placed it on one of the most unstable tectonic plates on Earth.

Instability. Good word, that. You see, the club wasn’t done yet. I watched the wall, only several meters away, completely buckle in. It looked as if it was a simple card and someone had tried to park a car on top of it.

There was a grunt from further away, and I quickly recognized the sound of the voice that gave it.

Bernie, Liam hissed, help everyone get out. But there’s got to be a way to save the club—

We don’t have the power. Only one room can be saved. It has to be your office. The files are still in there, Bernie added.

I was still in Liam’s arms. Look, I was still in his arms, and for a few moments, I didn’t care. The word files grabbed hold of my head and sank its claws in, or at least wrapped its strong arms around my middle.

If I could get to those files, if I could find out exactly where Liam had re-housed all of those souls, I could give the information to the Church, and we could finally shut him down. Who cared if the zombie hadn’t been his? Who cared if I’d lost my chance to dispatch Liam? Hell, who cared if Liam had gone on to cast some kind of spell on me that I could not remove? If I passed the correct information on to the Church, they could attack him en masse, and that smug smile would be wiped off Liam’s lips forever.

I could think all of this, planning it on fast forward, in fact, but I certainly couldn’t do it. Something was really wrong with this establishment. Something gnarly and spatial.

Cracks began to pick up underneath us, but they weren’t ordinary. And they didn’t offer glimpses of the equally destroyed basement beneath. Instead, they appeared to offer glimpses through to some crackling middle land, kind of like Purgatory, but not for half-broken souls – Purgatory for time and space, instead. There were strange crackles interspersed with equally strange echoing bangs, and anything that dropped down the holes, rather than disappear, simply stretched instead.

Move fast, Liam roared at his remaining employees, the stress in his voice evident. He really didn’t want to lose all of those files, then? He would know precisely what would happen if the Church were ever to get its hands on them—

Despite the fact Liam was clearly busy, his head snapped down toward me, and I could see the quality of his stare. He seemed to know what I was thinking. Good. Why hide it? We might’ve momentarily worked together – because this spell wouldn’t let me do anything else – but dammit, one day I would come good on my promise and exorcise him.

You can think whatever you want about me, Ms. White, he trilled in an irritated tone. But one of these days you’re gonna recognize everything you’ve been doing is a crime. You’re the sinner, not me. And not them. Damned souls don’t have any choice in the matter anymore. Circumstances trap them—

People who choose to murder, over and over again, do not require sympathy. They require punishment. To think anything else is to side with the perpetrator not the victim. You do not understand how this universe works, I began grandly.

But rather than respond with an equally grand statement, he just looked at me. His look was 50 percent irritated to 50 percent… I wanted to say lost.

I wanted to say that the grand Fourth Son of Satan had no idea what he was thinking, let alone how he should respond to my statement. But that would be an assumption. That would be a knee-jerk reaction. All I had to do was stare at his face just that little bit longer, and I soon realized that wasn’t the stare he was looking at me with. His gaze was of someone who knew all too well how this universe worked. They understood the exact brutal equation, in fact, and all they’d ever been trying to do was change it.

But to think like that, I’d have to first agree with his premise. Which I never would. I went to open my mouth to say that damned souls were the worst and they needed to be controlled, but then the floor simply gave way. Not a problem. All of Liam’s staff came straight from Hell, and they had the accouterments to match. Liam’s wings were of course by far the most impressive. They spread out like sails on a schooner. As they pushed out wide, chunks of the ceiling fell about them. A few dashed into the glossy black feathers of his wings, and momentarily, the feathers disappeared. Either he could heal them on fast forward, or they weren’t really damaged – just made momentarily insubstantial.

Not good, he hissed. Matter is becoming unreliable. Bernie, he roared.

Bernie had to be the name of his secretary. He fluttered in close, and though he had some very impressive wings, they couldn’t match Liam’s.

Look, I didn’t like demon wings. Nobody did, but I had to appreciate the evolutionary beauty of them. They were extremely complicated affairs. Thin, sometimes gossamer-like as if they belonged to moths, not soldiers of Hell, what they lacked in obvious strength, they always made up for in their ability to burn. And Liam’s burnt now. As he ignited power within him, it raced up the feathers, rushed across them, gathered in the tips of his wings, and set the air alight for a good 10-meter radius around him. It did something to the dwindling stability in this room, pushing the chaos back for a few moments. It enabled his staff to press close, which they did, hunkering around his shoulders like the demon equivalent of a cloak.

Stay close.

How about you put me down instead? I growled, realizing I’d spent entirely too much time in the Fourth Son of Satan’s arms. There was… look, I’d never spent any time in any demon’s arms prior to this, but for some strange reason, this almost felt normal, as if I’d been here before, and if I hadn’t been here before, it was like my body had been waiting—

No. Screw that thought. That thought was exactly what Liam would want me to think. No, it came from the spell, right? The same spell connecting me to him.

I knew my thoughts were choppy, knew I wasn’t being my usual logical self. But you try being analytical and consistent while you’re in the arms of a blazing demon. Because it wasn’t just his wings that were set alight. A moment later, his irises joined them. So much illumination raced around them, dancing up high, and looking like a volcanic explosion, that I was certain you’d be able to see it from Saturn.

It wasn’t just for show. It gave his justice flames more power, and as I’d previously said, they’d held back the chaos. For now. But Liam had fed on his club, using its stability to attack the two zombies. Chaos would win eventually. And soon enough the Fire Club would be nothing more than a steaming pile of ash at the bottom of the subway.

I smiled. I even laughed. And all the while Liam ignored me. He flew up the stairs. He kicked a door open. It led to the maze. Sorry, what had once been the maze. Now it was this tortured, twisted tunnel of death. I didn’t mean that dead folk were lining the walls or anything. But even as an exorcist, I could smell when space had become so dangerous that should anyone and anything touch it, death would wait for all.

Liam paused. Then he floated forward.

I reached up, grabbed hold of his lapel, and held it tightly. Are you out of your mind? That’s a trap. Go into that space, and you will be squeezed until you pop like a grape.

No. I’m entirely too full of flames to pop like a grape. I’ll fry instead, he said – oh, sorry, he spat. He didn’t say anything to me. Every word was full of derision and anger.

But I could tell right now it wasn’t as full as it ought to be. He wasn’t paying enough attention to me. His roving gaze darted over that tunnel of death. Then he flew forward again, regardless of how hard I grabbed his lapel.

You’re gonna get us killed, I said, voice arcing up into a scream at the end. He pushed beyond the threshold of the tunnel of death. Immediately my wards kicked into gear. They shone so brightly, it would’ve looked as if someone had carved my bones from uranium.

The wards could hold back a lot. They couldn’t hold back what was happening to this space. And before I could be killed by the same thing, my mind started to question exactly what could do this as quickly as it had done it. Yeah, something had attacked the club. Yes, it was clearly the zombie, but it had to be more. Something with an extreme grip on spatial power had twisted this maze.

I instantly went through the few powerful creatures that could do it. Especially the few that were in the city or frequently visited it. Nothing came up. Except one possibility. One I kicked to the curb immediately as it tried to ride through the streets of my mind.

Impossible.

Few things are really impossible. Some things, however, are so impossible that the very definition of it is built on them. And the impossibility I was about to tell you of was one of those aforementioned things.

There were rules in this universe that could not be broken. And the rules that were the hardest of all were around death and the afterlife.

I did not agree with Hell’s stupid line that they were there to recycle everything, but life did cycle. It wasn’t recycled – but death did lead to life. It didn’t always have to happen. There wasn’t an afterlife waiting for everyone. But for most of us, we were reborn to do things, die, and be reborn anew with new wisdom and lessons to learn.

The things that helped us transition, that took us from this life and into another, were called the Grim Reapers. They were there to ensure the orderly transition of souls. Yeah, they weren’t always perfect. They sometimes couldn’t move ghosts on. If someone had a significant enough grudge, they would become wedded to this earthly plane until the grudge’s energy could be cleared. But for everyone else, Grim Reapers were there to ensure the logical continuation of the cycle of life.

The rules around what they could and couldn’t do were some of the most concrete in existence. It was like the rules of time, or at least the rules that dictated the arrow of time. It went in one direction. You had to have an incredible amount of power and chutzpah to try to turn it in the opposite direction.

As for Grim Reapers, they did what they were told. They couldn’t break the cycle of life and death, and they couldn’t use their extreme skills to do what happened to the corridor in front of me now.

Liam didn’t even bother to look down at me as I screamed again and waited to die. I might’ve just met you, Rita, but I know what you’re thinking. It’s like I can see the contents of your mind.

If you could see the contents of my mind, you would turn around right now. This is chaos space. It’s going to digest us, spit us out, laugh at our graves, then move on.

You have a colorful turn of phrase for an exorcist.

I opened my mouth to snap at him until I realized an ordinary exorcist wouldn’t have painted such a specific picture. Not liking the fact he’d pulled me up on that, I simply sneered at him. Then, logically, I waited for it all to end. Except it didn’t end. With his bevy of barmen and his secretary close, their wings almost interlocking, they continued