Non Serviam: Chapter 24

Chapter 24: The Book of Revelations

The world stood upon the edge of a blade.

A spear rested above my face, half covering my eyes and promising death the next time I tried to move. Beyond that, Asia bargained for my life with a smirking Diodora. The buildings reached up towards the sky, completing a frame of glass and steel, and the air tasted thick with iron.

I trembled, shards of metal in my gut digging into exposed flesh. I’d been greedy, trying to save my last bit of energy until I knew Diodora’s attack was one I couldn’t dodge. Then he’d ripped me open between beats of my heart. Now, Asia stood too close for me to take my last desperate gambit. If she just wasn’t in the way, maybe, maybe I could have traded my life for Diodora’s, but I didn’t get the chance.

I folded the remains of my demonic power deep within me all the same, and waited. It was hard; each breath pressed down on my chest, and each blink made the world grow farther and darker, but pain was an old friend of mine. I always knew it would be here with me, at the very end.

Asia wanted to heal me with her sacred gear, she wanted me alive. Even through dark and flickering vision, I could see Diodora Astorath’s smile. He knew, he could see, Asia’s desperation. He’d take everything from her to extend my life for a second, and then kill me the moment she was out of sight.

It burned. Worse than the shrapnel in my gut, worse than the weight of my own failure. It burned knowing that Asia would give away everything she was, and Diodora would take it. I couldn’t bear it, I couldn’t bear it, I couldn’t bear it.

[DESTINATION]

My vision went white with radio static, a ringing sounded in my ears, blotting out conscious thought. For a moment I thought I’d died.

Then I came back, gasping for air, barely able to see. Only the barest memory of the last second remained with me, like a scrap of recollection.

It came again, like a wave.

[DESTINATION]

This time, I sucked in a breath before I plunged back into the white-hot static. I held on with my fingernails. Passenger, was that…?

[DESTINATION]

The third time, I stayed above water. I felt it, I felt her reaching for me. Across time and space. She reached out and touched me, her attention so massive it almost drowned me. But this time I heard. This time I understood. This time I realized. In the tattered remains of my coat pocket, the Psalm of Beelzebub grew warm. It thrummed, thick with wicked glee.

Beyond the edge of the blade, Diodora smiled patronizingly down at Asia. “Best hurry, if you wish to save your friend.”

Asia’s eyes flickered to me, then to one of Diodora’s peerage. The knight whose leg I’d taken at the knee. Bleeding out still, just as I was, because devils were made of stronger stuff. Asia sank to the ground there, blood staining her pinafore, wicking up the black and white squares.

[DESTINATION]

I wet my lips.

“Agreement.”

The weight of my passenger’s attention ran through me like a live wire. I gasped.

[TRAJECTORY]

It was all noise in my ear, all static. Glimpses of higher dimensions that made my brain leak out of my ears. A path through a wall with no door. A path that led to me.

How could I do anything but trust it?

And so, I said, “Agreement.”

White and black washed the world away. This time, I remembered. A vision of Scion and Eden spiraling through the void, around each other in massive waves of light and sound, impulse and motion. A shard of scion’s flesh, the blood of the father, spiraled off into the void. It found a young girl, dying, slowly dying, and pierced into her side like a spear. Water and knowledge dripped forth. And together they slew a god.

How fitting, that she would find me here, dying, slowly dying. We were both of us diminished. Both of us mortally wounded. I could see that now. Maybe she was dying too. We’d spent so much of ourselves before. We had little left. We were so painfully small.

But Diodora was no god.

She reached out to me, a hand, a tendril, a flux of quantum entanglement. I reached back and—

I was standing in a crystal palace. The floors chimed with the music of the spheres, reflections of myself looking back from every angle, flies trapped in amber. I saw my masks: glasses, yellow lenses, blue lenses. I’d thought they were looking at me at first, but no, they looked beyond me.

I turned and saw her for the first time.

She was the crystal palace. All panes of glass, like circuit boards, flickering in order in synchronicity. She formed not like a picture, or an effigy, but through the refracted light of countless mirrors. All crystal and light warping around each other, bits of shadow and lines of light. A broken goddess with two holes in her head, haloed in golden stars.

“Hello.” I didn’t speak, but we both heard my voice clearly. “Passenger.” I stepped forward.

She didn’t move, masked face staring down at me. It wasn’t my mask. Even here, in this place, I didn’t have the words to describe it. The stars in her halo flickered, little hexagons twirling.

“I didn’t think you’d find me again.” I swallowed. “I died, after all.”

She raised her remaining arm towards me.

I laughed. “We never were much for words.” The Psalm didn’t come here, with me, but I felt that I could still feel its heat. “You…you were the original betrayer.” I stepped closer, close enough to touch. “You chose me, over Scion. Without you, none of this would be possible.”

“None of this,” her voice came in an echo of crashing of crystal. “Without you.”

I smiled. I could feel my cheeks trembling. “You’re hurt too, do you have enough for this?”

“Enough,” she said. “For this. Have you…too.”

I reached out my hand, letting my palm linger just above hers. “You’ll always have me.” The air crackled with radio static. “To the hilt of the blade and beyond.”

We clasped hands one more time, and white washed the world away.

Less than a second had passed. Asia still knelt, the blood had still just begun its wick up the fabric of her dress. Diodora looked away, smiling at his prize.

And I had my passenger, in the back of my head like she’d never left.

We couldn’t take control of our enemies. The rules of this world were different. My Passenger was too damaged and depleted. What little of her that remained after Golden Morning had burned as fuel to see her here, through the wall with no door. In fact, between the two of us I was the one with energy to spare, but precious little of it.

It would be enough. I had her, too.

After all, my passenger knew the rules. I was just a hack, cribbing off other people’s notes. Every single spell of mine, wasteful and inefficient, could be so much better. My fingers curled around the burning hilt of my saber. The nun saw it at once. She didn’t wait; she didn’t gasp in surprise. Instead, the halberd speared down in a flash of silver.

The point stopped where it met my neck.

I twisted space and swung my sword. The blade snaked through bends in the weave and found her throat, but my weapon did not stop. It hissed actinic white as it parted flesh. Her body fell, stringless and streaming wasted energy into the air. My other hand reached, not instinct but my passenger reaching through me.

We caught her last breath and drank deeply. It was a drop, barely even, but it was enough for me to drag my body sideways, and back to its feet. My muscles screamed, but I didn’t need their consent.

The spear I kicked into my hand. It flashed silver against the world, and with a wordless scream, I lunged.

Diodora batted my first strike away with a crash of thunder. He flew backwards, beyond my reach, and swept Asia off the ground.

“No!” Flipped the spear again, arm pulled back. But then the rest of his peerage turned on me. I threw my borrowed weapon towards another nun, the weakest. It cut the air between us in half and punched through her sternum before she could so much as blink.

I stepped forward, between whirling blades and writhing tongues of flame. The body fell into my arms, and from her I scavenged just a little more magic. Enough for one step more. Enough for one blow more. Too much of the mana I couldn’t grasp, even with my Passenger’s help. It was bound by the rules of this world, and I could only twist the margins.

It is enough.

I rolled to the side. An axe split the pavement. Stone filled the air. Even with my stolen mana and my passenger’s help, a mere second of Alexandria’s invulnerability cost more than I could spare. I came to my feet just in time for one of the bishops to throw another spell at me.

I didn’t dodge. Instead, I punched the fiery sphere, and with my Passenger, wove the mana into a spell of my own. It exploded, but not in fire. Darkness filled the battlefield, harsh and ashen. It was only a step or two removed from the intent of the original spell. Enough for me to manipulate.

Diodora ripped the mist away, and I gasped as the winds ripped at my open wounds. Passenger spurred me onward. The rook came at me again with her axe. Tight blows filled the air between us, buying time for the rest of Diodora’s peerage to move.

I stepped forward and caught the axe on my blade of light.

“Graaaaa!” The nun roared, pouring intuitive magic into her body, strengthening the blow. I allowed my sword to take the blow and held it fast in the air.

The hilt cracked, and the light blade grew unstable. I spun and stabbed it into her shoulder before kicking the woman away. A second and a twist of space later, and it exploded. Her scream cut through the air. I sucked in a rasping breath.

“The Lord is my shepherd!” I screamed back. It bought me a moment, a stumble. I closed distance with the nun. “There is nothing I shall want!”

I spat blood out of my mouth as I wrenched the axe from trembling fingers. I slammed the edge artlessly into her stomach and leapt away. The axe exploded too. In the corner of my eye, I saw Diodora’s face twist into a frown for the first time. His hand twisted to form another spell. I raised mine in turn.

He went with the flood, wide enough that I couldn’t dodge. I hated smart opponents.

I took in as much mana from the dying rook as I could, and let the waters crash into me. For a beat, I was inviolate, and with my other hand, I twisted space around me. If I couldn’t dodge, then neither could the rest of Diodora’s peerage. The waves cleansweapt the street, leaving only silence and soaked bodies. Only one still managed to breathe, Diodora’s queen. She trembled on her hands and knees.

With one step, I was behind her. Diodora didn’t care. He unleased a barrage of fire and ice down upon me. I raised his queen’s body in front of storm, and then she died.

The burnt and frozen corpse fell from my fingers, last breath of her power slipping into me. For the first time, I managed to draw myself up to full height and breathe deeply despite the gaping hole in my stomach. Without help, I’d die, devil biology or not, but for now, Passenger held me together with our pilfered power.

“You’re…out of bodies to throw at me, Diodora.” My wings unfurled from my back.

Diodora spat. From beneath his furred cloak, he pulled a black-bladed sword and pressed the edge against Asia’s neck. “Perhaps I simply should have done this from the start.”

I bent my legs. “If you harm her, I’ll make you suffer.”

“If you move,” he replied. “I shall slaughter her.”

“There’s nothing that will stop me from finding you!” My words tasted like copper. “House Gremory will hunt you to the ends of the earth for this.”

He didn’t reply. Instead, a red circle spiraled out from his feet. It tasted of far away places.

“Goodbye, little pawn.”

There was no time for thought.

I bent the space between us and leapt. All of my remaining mana I poured into disrupting his spell. The circle wobbled beneath his feet, the distance between us disappeared. Asia’s eyes locked on me, shining and full of hope. I reached out to touch her.

Then a blood-red spear erupted from her throat and through my chest.

I screamed.

My arms wrapped around Asia. The spear pinned her against my body. Diodora shoved us a step away. “I was right,” he mused, face flat. “You really were more trouble than you were worth.” With a kick, he sent me crashing to the ground.

“Asia—!” I pressed my hands against the wound, trying to keep the blood in. Trying to keep her alive, but I was spent. Twice he’d baited me, and twice he’d ruined me.

I was forced to watch Asia try desperately to smile as the light faded from her eyes.

I wept.

“A rogue devil,” came Diodora’s voice. I didn’t care. “Recruited others of her kind and attempted to kidnap the human she was obsessed with. My peerage valiantly intervened, only to fight to the last to stop the maddened stray.”

He came to a stop a step away and raised his sword. “In her insanity, Gremory’s stray devil chose to kill her prey rather than retreat. I gave them both…mercy.”

I glared at him.

The sword came down.

Steel chimed against steel as Leticia’s halberd blocked the blade. “Young devils…speak too often.”

Diodora raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I’m surprised you survived, albeit barely.”

Letticia pulled herself upright, but Diodora wasn’t wrong. Her uniform was torn and tattered; she was wounded almost as badly as I, and even now he had her weapon pinned beneath his own.

“I suppose its unsurprising,” Diodora continued. “That a stray devil would turn upon a family retainer first. Such a shame I wasn’t in time to save you.”

“You utter fool.” Letticia said. “Did you really think I came alone?”

For the first time, I saw Diodora’s eyes widen in shock. His pupils were narrow pinpricks turned towards the sky. Lighting raced down towards him, so bright it outshone the sun, but the darkness took him first. A wave of black, all consuming, washed through the place he stood. It gave no light, no sound. Where the lightning touched it, it too was broken apart.

When the howling void abated, nothing remained save the bottom of Diodora’s left leg, the one half-shielded by Letticia.

“Taylor!” Rias dropped out of the sky. “Asia!” Akeno followed, and for once I couldn’t read the expression on her face.

“Too…” I coughed. My throat was bloodied and raw from prayer. “Too late. She’s…”

“No!” Rias shook her head, she knelt next to me, placing her hands upon my wounds. I felt her mana pour into me, unstructured but nurturing all the same. “It’s not too late! I won’t let it be!”

Passenger drank deeply from Rias’s energy and used it to put my body back in some semblance of order. Slowly, with much help from Letticia and a kit of magical first aid supplies, they stabilized my condition, they even pulled out the spear.

But no amount of raw mana would bring someone back from the dead.

Mittelt’s body had been washed away by Diodora’s flood. Akeno found her, smashed through the front of a building. Asia never left my arms. She was already cold, and pale, so much lost blood. I placed her gently next to Mittelt, sightless eyes of green and blue looking up at the sky.

“Taylor,” Rias said. “It’s not too late. My…my evil pieces can still bring them back.”

I nodded.

“I know you don’t like it, but…”

“No, it’s…” I shook my head. “You’d do that for me still, after all of this?”

“Of course I would!” Rias pulled me into a hug. “Piece or not, Asia and Mittelt were a part of my family! And you defended them, you defeated an entire peerage for them! And—” Rias shook her head. “How could I leave them here, like this? It…it wouldn’t be fair!”

“Mittelt,” I said. “She fought too. She didn’t betray you. I don’t know where fallen angels go, but I’m sure she’d rather be here.” Here was where she kept all of her stuff. All of her pretty clothes and piles of money. Just like Rias, I couldn’t repay her sacrifice by letting her die. I promised I’d set her free, and I would, even if I had to shatter the evil piece system entirely. But…

“Asia?” Rias asked.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Heaven is real, isn’t it?” I asked.

“…It is.”

“Then she’s there, isn’t she?” I pressed my palms against my face. “If anyone is in heaven, it’s her. She believed, she was faithful. What right…what right do I have to drag her back here. Even if…even if…”

“Even if what?” Rias asked.

“The last thing she said to me,” I replied. “Was that she wished…she’d been able to spend more time with me.” The words tore loose with them a wracking sob. “She wanted to stay…!”

Why did I always lose the people I tried to protect?

“Then, if that’s what she wanted…” Rias held out two evil pieces. “I won’t make this choice for you, but…”

I looked at the glimmering red glass, and at the bodies beyond them. Above, the skyscrapers reached up towards heaven, but I was stuck down here, in this prison of steel and glass. After fighting for so long to be free, could I drag Asia back to this place, just because I couldn’t let go?

Just because I couldn’t say goodbye?

I let out a shuddering breath. Then, I reached out my hands and made my choice.