A God to Fear (Thorn Saga Book 5) Read online

  Anaak remained still for a few moments, his gaze passing between Thorn and the Judge at least five times. What is he so afraid of? There are two of us and thousands of them. They could kill us in a heartbeat.

  Slowly, Anaak nodded. “I apologize, Thorn. We receive very little news of the outside world. But if it is true that demonkind has cast you aside, you are indeed welcome here, to the nest of Chattahoochee Forest.”

  Nest? Thorn hadn’t heard that term in ages. As humanity had migrated into cities, so had demons, and thus the need for demon nests had declined. Over hundreds of years, the term had fallen into disuse.

  Anaak led Thorn and the Judge through the wilderness. The cloud of demons around them thinned. Many returned to their own business, but several dozen still fluttered nearby, following along with the visitors—perhaps out of wariness, perhaps out of curiosity.

  “What is this place?” Thorn asked.

  “A haven for freethinking demons,” Anaak said. “Some of us were beggars on the bottom rung of demon society, and a few were powerful leaders who’d fallen, like you. But most of us were just ordinary demons who grew disillusioned with our culture’s hypocrisy—and with its tyranny over our thoughts. We reject tradition and authority as sources of truth. We like to think for ourselves.”

  “And you knew of this?” Thorn asked the Judge. “You allowed this?”

  “Eh, ‘endure’ is a better word for it than ‘allow,’” said the Judge. “For a long time I’d just sentence anyone who thought differently to death. But there were so many of ’em, man. I never agreed with them—not until now, and even now not entirely. But what’s a leader to do? Keep killing my own peeps because they don’t want to conform? I’m not that much of a dick, Thorn.”

  “Ha. Angel of Manatees indeed.”

  “Shut up about that.”

  Had Thorn known about this before his own change of heart, he’d have mounted a campaign against the Judge, usurped his power, replaced him with a weaker Judge, and had his old friend executed after a show trial, even though he’d technically violated none of the Rules. Now, though, Thorn reveled in the knowledge that a place such as this existed. And if this place existed, how many other small, unknown havens for freethinking demons must dot the United States, and the world? I thought myself alone this whole time, yet here is a whole world where I belong.

  “I must ask,” said Anaak. “You weren’t deposed because of us, were you, Judge?”

  “No, no, broski. You’re solid.” Thorn’s attention wandered to a cluster of demons up in the trees. He was practically beneath them by the time he noticed them; due to their dark clothes, they were nearly indistinguishable from the knotted branches. There were nine of them, drifting in midair, lined up one next to the other, their limbs outstretched. A few of them glowered, but most just looked tired. Catatonic, even. Their suits appeared old, faded, and tight. Each of their limbs was held firm by a guard demon, in a manner similar to that which Thorn’s captors had used to restrain him in the courthouse. Even as Thorn watched the hovering group, two of the guards rotated out with replacements. Each settled in on its designated limb.

  “You have prisoners,” Thorn observed.

  “I thought there were only eight,” the Judge said bleakly before Anaak could reply.

  Anaak glanced upward at the immobilized captives, who likewise glared down at him. One of them widened his eyes and stiffened, likely recognizing Thorn. “Yes, well,” Anaak said, “another wandered in two weeks ago.”

  “You imprison any rival demon who wanders into your territory?” Thorn asked.

  “What choice do we have?”

  Thorn drifted upward toward the prisoners but kept his distance. How horrible a fate would this be? To be confined by enemies for years and years, never moving, never sleeping? If I myself had stumbled upon this patch of land during my more devilish days, I would be stretched out now along with these others. Prisoner number ten.

  One demon in particular drew Thorn’s attention. He appeared frail and ancient, spotted skin drooping from bones devoid of muscle and fat. A ragged white beard puffed around his face. Although no gravity affected him, his head lolled to the side. His eyes seemed empty, distant, completely unaware of Thorn’s presence.

  “How long has this one been here?” Thorn asked.

  “Icanthel? He’s a holdover from our previous nest,” Anaak said. “He’s been our prisoner since 1958.”

  “1958?” Thorn said, not bothering to hide his disgust from Anaak. “Don’t you give them an opportunity to change?”

  Anaak hesitated, seemed to grow introspective. He looked downward at the forest floor twenty feet below. “It took me fourteen years,” he said. Then he chuckled. “I suppose that’s pennies in the life of a demon, but not when they hold you like that. It took me fourteen years, but they released me five years ago.”

  “You were once one of the prisoners?”

  Anaak smiled cordially. “As you yourself must know, anyone can change.”

  •

  Thorn and the Judge convened with a few of the nest’s other leaders, who—once they learned that they had nothing to fear from their guests—merrily regaled them with the nest’s history and traded scalding barbs about demonic culture. Thorn heard more than a few tall tales about himself that the rumor mill had spun in his absence: that he’d died in the Sanctuary, that he’d come back mad and been put to death, that he and Marcus had joined forces against the Judge. Thorn dispelled each of these bits of gossip with a laugh and a smile.

  He was also glad to learn that the nest stood against God as much as it did demon society. When he told them about his meeting with the Almighty, they took the story with a grain of salt, but they didn’t reject it on principle, as other demons had. Like Thorn, these demons simply wanted to be free. Free to think, and to do no evil.

  Here were demons he’d just met minutes before, and they were already bonding as if they were old friends. Thorn had actual old friends in the demon world with whom he’d share nothing more than a civil nod. He felt he could one day be at home here, in the darkness under these trees. He considered staying… But how long until I crave the light again? He might be able to hide in the nest for years, concealed from demonkind and from God above. But they’d find him eventually. For all Thorn knew, God was already aware of this place, and His angels would stop here during their search for him. And Marcus had already carried his grudge for seventeen centuries, so he was unlikely to abandon it soon. If this demon nest were found by the demon mainstream, would these freethinking spirits, many though they were, be able to defeat the larger demon world in open battle?

  Thorn knew that they would not.

  Ultimately, Thorn decided that he had to finish this now. He had to find a way to reveal the truth about God’s false seclusion and the devil’s false dogmas now, while his foes were still scrambling to catch up with him.

  “Join me,” Thorn said to the nest’s leaders. He was fighting only for his own freedom, but he knew that these demons wanted an open, empathetic demon society. If Thorn could convince even a handful of them to become freedom fighters, his own chances of survival would broaden greatly.

  But the leaders declined to help. Thorn couldn’t blame them. For one thing, they had no way of knowing whether Thorn and the Judge were being truthful; but their caution went far deeper than that. As the Judge explained after the leaders had left them: “These guys are gatherers, not hunters. They keep their ears to the ground for any demon who might want to join them, then slowly, cautiously approach him over the course of years. It’s all very organized. It has to be that way, or the whole operation would go kablooey. And if they hopped on whatever bandwagon happened to pass by, hooting at them to join some fight, then, well, there’d be none of them left to sustain this place.”

  This nest existed, and that was something, but its isolationism troubled Thorn. “If you knew they wouldn’t help me, then why did you bring me here?” he asked.

  The Judge started
forward through the trees again: an implicit invitation for Thorn to follow. “I just wanted you to know that there’s a place full of demons like you,” he said. “I would suggest to you that we hide here and live out our days, but I know you better than that.”

  Thorn followed the Judge a short way until the trees grew thin and they came to a lake about the length of Downtown Atlanta. Its calm waters mirrored the sky’s darkening blue. Countless fireflies danced above their own reflections, first glowing, then dim, then glowing, then dim, as if flickering in and out of life and death. With none of the humans’ artificial lights, these last moments of twilight out here in the gloomy wilderness might have frightened Amy, Brandon, Heather, or any other human, but Thorn found the place peaceful. Here he was, safe, surrounded by demons who could become close friends, and with a sky above him brimming with stars more numerous and radiant than the fireflies.

  And somewhere up there, somewhere closer than all that vastness, lies Heaven, and the Enemy, and Thilial.

  Where had Thilial disappeared to? Had she been discovered aiding Thorn’s escape? Would God sentence her to Heaven’s jails? Would He execute her outright? Or had she not shown her face again precisely to avoid such a fate? Thorn realized how thankful he was to both Thilial and the Judge—two considerably unlikely allies. If they can change their views, so can any angel or demon.

  “Why are you helping me?” Thorn decided to ask the Judge, who had drifted out over the shallows at the lake’s edge, hovering among reeds leaning in the wind.

  The Judge kept his face toward the lake, likely absorbing the drab beauty of the place along with Thorn. “Because, YOLO,” the Judge said.

  Thorn shook his head at the flippant response. “How do you know I’m not the one in the wrong? What made you change your mind?”

  The Judge drew back his hand, then swung it forward forcefully, flicking his wrist at the last moment. Had he carried a stone in his hand, it might have skipped over the smooth water. “How do any of us know what’s right or wrong?” he answered.

  It was a good question—one that Thorn had asked himself often in the last week. Trying to become good merely by doing the opposite of his habitual evil had only gotten Thorn so far, yet somehow he’d grown beyond that, and far faster than he’d ever thought possible. “You’ve been with the Judges for a long time, presiding over the rest of us, claiming to know what’s best. You’re more qualified to answer that question than I am.”

  “Ha.” The Judge rotated to face Thorn. “I was just going with the flow, man. I enforced the Rules, but I didn’t make the Rules. Anything that the Rules didn’t apply to, I just went with my gut. And my gut usually told me to kick babies and skin cats.”

  Thorn nodded. “I always went with my gut, too. I don’t think one’s gut is particularly trustworthy.”

  “Nah, I think it is, sometimes. It was your gut that started you in the right direction, wasn’t it?”

  “Still, I wish we had a better God. I wish I could look to Him as a source of all that’s right and good. Otherwise, what’s the difference between my old self and my new self?”

  The Judge shrugged. “Knowledge? Is knowledge the difference? Or at least part of the difference?”

  The response caught Thorn short. Knowledge. What a perceptive answer from such a scatterbrained demon. I never knew what lies God and Satan had wrought upon the world. I never knew that anyone actually questioned the social order. I never knew that I could be wrong about some things. Now I know all of this and more. Now I’m willing to change myself based on what I know.

  Yet I still have so much more to learn.

  “I don’t really know,” the Judge said in his nasal voice, apparently unaware of how deeply his answer had stirred Thorn. “Maybe the difference is the humans. Maybe we found our new morals by watching them too much. Whatever. All I know is, I’ve been fucked over by our peeps too many times. The human civilizations aren’t perfect, but most of them teach their members some basic morality, to minimize the fucking over, as it were. It’d be nice if demons could have that too, right?”

  “Right.” Thorn rose a few feet into the air to take in one last view of the lake and its woods, which were barely visible now, having crawled beneath the blanket of full night. If not for the swirling fireflies, the Judge’s face would also have been obscured in shadow.

  Thorn dreaded leaving this refuge so quickly after being introduced to it, but he needed to act now, before God and Wanderer realized there was one piece left on the chessboard that they’d both overlooked. “Will you help me again?” Thorn asked.

  The Judge rubbed his hands together in an odd display of anticipation, then smirked.

  “Let’s go,” Thorn said.

  “Let’s,” the Judge replied, his tone inappropriately chipper. “I loves me some Rule-breaking. It might help if you explain what your plan is, though.”

  Thorn turned away from him and began his rise away from the lake, up through the oak branches, back to Atlanta. “Not what,” he said. “Who.”

  9

  A lightning storm started up outside while Thorn waited. He’d left the Judge in a copse of trees four blocks away, with instructions to flee to the nest if Thorn didn’t return by morning. Then, under a stormy night sky, he’d slunk underground, beneath the feet of hundreds of demons, and stolen unnoticed into the familiar old warehouse complex to have a long overdue conversation.

  Thorn was unsure he’d even find his quarry here. And even if he did, he expected his waiting game to occupy at least half the night—and even more time than that once he saw the oddly excited nature of the quarantine zone. Many more angels than usual roamed these halls tonight, and there were perhaps even more up in the angelic realm. Thorn glimpsed swords and heard worry of war, which he took as an ill sign. Why on Heaven or Earth would the angels make war again, when God desires peace? Surely it can’t be just because of me and the knowledge I’ve been trying to spread. Can it? He hoped the angels would notice Heather and Brandon sleeping in the car outside. The distraction would lower the cherubim’s chances of finding him here.

  Thorn’s low spirits were saved from further depression when he spotted Xeres running papers between offices like the world’s most absurdly brawny intern. He towered above the other angels—his bosses, it would seem—so he was easy to track from Thorn’s cover inside the walls and the ground.

  Thorn followed him to an isolated section of the complex where pipes dripped brown water into syrupy puddles on the warehouse floor. Parchment littered the place, covering nearly the entire ground, clumped into small masses of rot beneath leaking pipes and water trickling in through the dilapidated roof.

  It seemed as good a place as any.

  “I used to want wings, like you have,” Thorn said, floating forward out of the wall and revealing himself.

  Xeres spun and dropped his papers, which, despite their full size, were still smaller than the hand that had carried them.

  “But I’m not so hot on wings anymore.”

  Xeres stared, frozen. Lightning flashed outside, illuminating graffiti on the walls and rodents in filthy corners. Thunder followed shortly. The orchestra of dripping water intensified.

  Xeres unfolded his wings slightly—a gesture of intimidation. “I do not know you, demon,” he said in his bottomless voice. “You dare to intrude again on this holy quarantine zone? I command you to leave at once, or I shall—”

  “Xeres,” Thorn interrupted calmly. “Enough.”

  Thorn’s old mentor glared at him from across the warehouse. Thorn drew nearer, drifting through water droplets that fell through his spiritual body.

  “You’ve come close enough,” Xeres said, though his tone lacked conviction. His wings sank behind his back as his eyes morphed from angry to fearful. His powerful voice shook with nerves. “If another angel catches us, I will feign ignorance, and I will fight you.”

  “Fair enough.” Thorn continued his guarded approach. Seeing this legendary demon warrior as a thrall o
f the angels again disturbed Thorn, who hadn’t even fully recovered from learning that Xeres was still alive. The wings did suit him, though. Even as a demon, he’d been tall, regal, majestic to behold.

  “I need your help, Xeres. I’ve been branded a renegade and a lunatic, so demonkind won’t listen to me. But they will listen to you.”

  Lightning struck again, flashing white light through the windows. Xeres, hovering beside a pillar, was momentarily cast into shadow. “They will not listen to a defector.”

  “They will listen to you. If they merely see you alive, you’ll have exposed the truth that they even can defect. Please. I have a friend waiting nearby. We can smuggle you out of this prison and come up with a plan to spread our knowledge.”

  Xeres frowned and turned away, so Thorn tried a new tactic. “Do you realize what I’ve been through?” he said. “Two Sanctuaries. I risked my life to save two humans I could use as proof of God’s deception. But Wanderer outsmarted me with deception of his own. Now no one will listen to me. No one wants to see the truth. You know what that’s like, don’t you? You’ve been where I’ve been, in a way.” But you took the coward’s way out. “I’ve risked my life again by coming here tonight. Over the course of my journey, I’ve come to believe that we all create our own purposes. We evaluate which purpose will be the best for everyone, and if we’re good, that’s the purpose that we’ll choose. Your purpose, Xeres, can be this. To tell the demons the truth.”

  Xeres dithered, then sidled to the outer wall, keeping his head down. He stopped by some exposed drywall and sat on the parchment-encrusted floor, taking care to stay away from the windows—and out of view of the demons perched on rooftops across the street. Even obscured by the rain, Thorn could see their vague forms scampering about.

  “That Wanderer is a cunning one,” Xeres said dolefully. “I played right into his hands for so long, with my single-minded hatred for Christianity. I thought my victories were my own, over Cruor, over Kivthes—but Wanderer killed them all. He was grooming me, you see, to lead demonkind on a wild goose chase.”