A God to Fear (Thorn Saga Book 5) Page 19

  “No farther!” an angel called to the approaching demons. The demons in front of the horde meandered to a halt. Several of the angels had drawn swords. Thorn took cover behind a pillar in case a skirmish broke out.

  God calmly paced toward the wall on the opposite side of the room. Once He stood in view of the demons, every single one of them turned their gaze to Him.

  In the front of the crowd, one demon Thorn had never seen stepped forward three feet in front of his peers. His posture was lax, his gait unhurried. For all the heartache in his eyes, he may as well have held a white flag.

  “We heard,” he said.

  •

  Marcus zigzagged through rain and lightning in the sky above Atlanta. He, along with Gorhrum and some of Wanderer’s other close followers, was swerving around the outskirts of the disbanding demon army. “Attack, you fools! Attack!”

  The battle’s outlook had been, if not good, at least adequate. Marcus had killed Thorn and his pet humans, and then Wanderer’s tens of thousands of reserve soldiers had risen from the ground, causing the angels to fall back. Massive and at least somewhat orderly, the demon army rising to meet the Enemy’s thralls had been a triumphant sight indeed. Marcus nearly felt vindicated for all the millennia he’d spent under Wanderer’s command.

  But then that booming voice from nowhere. The Enemy’s voice, speaking of false religions, of Sanctuary tests, of reconciliation. The Enemy’s voice, claiming that everything Thorn had said was true!

  “Don’t believe the conspiracy!” Marcus shouted. “All you heard was a blatant lie! The Enemy is deceiving us again! That’s what He does! He is evil! Pure, black, wretched evil, and we must destroy Him!”

  But the demon forces dissolved even further. Some demons fled into the storm, while others just sped around in panicked patterns, dark chaotic bottle rockets flying every which way. Many swooped down toward the megachurch, from where—apparently—the voice of God had originated.

  “Brothers, come back! Do not believe His lies! Believe what we have always believed! Believe in the destruction of all who oppose us! Believe in greatness!”

  But Marcus’s rallying cry held no traction. His army deserted him, along with his dreams of conquest. He was left alone in the wind and the clouds, the last member of the army, standing against an ocean of angels.

  •

  Thilial covered her ears as a piercing roar rang through God’s House. The sunlight and the torches on the walls plunged to a deep crimson as the number of demons flooding the gardens outside the throne room gate grew ever greater. At least five thousand cluttered the area now, yet they didn’t jeer as they usually did. They just stood there, unnaturally calm before a wall made of hundreds of angels. On the golden floor beyond the wall, God peeked around the far edge of His angelic force. Thilial stood behind the formation’s opposite side, close to Thorn.

  A few angels lowered their weapons. Gleannor, near the bottom of the formation of angels, did not. At least she was part of the formation. Had she not been, she might have flitted over to God’s ear to whisper more words of warmongering to Him.

  Thilial glanced at Thorn. The renegade demon was still among the living, or at least the not-yet-permanently-dead. His speech to God had moved Thilial, but she wasn’t convinced that it had moved God. This stalemate had lasted for minutes already, and He had yet to say a thing.

  The poor guy, hunched in the shadows with the weight of eons on His shoulders. Those shoulders needed an embrace, and those ears a kind word to let Him know that for all Thorn’s vileness, Thorn was right. But no, if Thilial joined Thorn now, his message would be diluted before God, who looked down on her for all her indiscretions these last few days. When this is all over, I’ll make amends with Him. I’ll stay by His side for—

  “You fools,” said God, scattering Thilial’s thoughts. Still hiding behind a corner of His army, He addressed the demons beyond. “You floundering, oblivious fools. You’ve ruined it all! You’ve all ruined it ALL!”

  God collapsed onto His knees. His electric hair sizzled as He ran a hand through it. “My plans. All My plans are in ruins now.”

  Thilial stepped toward Him, but the wound on her back protested, reminding her that if she wanted peace, she needed to keep quiet.

  “I should—I should kill you all.” God stumbled back to His feet and moved out of the cover of His army, toward the demons. “I love you. I want to forgive you. But I can’t! You can never be made perfect now. You have to die. You all have to die!”

  “We don’t need to be made perfect!” one of the demons called, prompting cheers from his peers. “Is it really so evil if we just try our best to be good?”

  That a demon other than Thorn had enough insight to ask such a question surprised Thilial. Might even more of them think this way? When Thilial thought reasonably about it, she had to admit that there must be at least some demons who did. Maybe many.

  “If You love us like You say You do,” another demon said, “will You let our comrades in Atlanta perish now at the hands of Your angels? Or will You save them? Will You call Your angels back and give us a choice in the future, or will You let us die?”

  Numerous other voices rose from the crowd, challenging the Almighty. He was breathing so quickly that Thilial feared He’d hyperventilate. His head swiveled from demon to demon as they questioned Him, but finally, He simply raised His hands to cover His ears.

  “Thilial!” God yelled.

  Thilial tensed, her wings rigid and her eyes fixed on God. Several of the other angels glanced around the room until they found her in their midst. She tried not to meet Gleannor’s gaze. Has God come unhinged? I am in no position of command. Another, more loyal angel should aid Him. Not me.

  “Yes, Lord?” she said.

  “Lead the army, and kill the rebels! Slaughter every last demon in Heaven, then eradicate them from the Earth!”

  The shrieking alarms stopped their racket moments before God finished speaking. The echo of His voice resounded markedly off the golden walls. “Earth, Earth, Earth,” echoed into distant rooms.

  Lord, I am Yours. Keep me safe and give me Your strength. Had God forgotten Thilial’s recent demotion? Did He not remember her pleas for peace?

  Thilial suppressed tears. God had sunk so far from the visionary He had once been. Part of her wanted to obey His violent order. Demons had been her bane from the very month of her birth. But if I follow through with this… if I obey… will I be giving God what He truly needs? Could disobedience actually be the option that God would respect me for in the long run?

  This was the God who had threatened to send Amy to Hell just to manipulate Thorn. This was the God who had shamed Thilial merely for desiring peace. This was the God who had quarantined His enemies on Earth and played chess with their lives, who’d demanded that the black pawns either defect or be knocked off the board by the white King.

  I am loyal, perhaps to a fault. But my loyalty is not blind. Lord, I am Yours.

  “No,” Thilial said to God.

  God spun to face her. Redness stained His cheeks. The tears upon them were well on their way to evaporating. “What?”

  “You have created something beautiful, Lord. You have created us. All of us. I will not damage Your creation. I would rather try to save it, just as You once wanted.”

  “They can’t be saved! Not anym—” Then He paused and chuckled spitefully. “You know what? I don’t know why I’m even arguing with you. Gleannor! Lead My armies and destroy demonkind.”

  Thilial held back tears of her own. She’d never seen God in such a rage that He could not be reasoned with. Can He not see that He’s going against everything He stands for, for no other reason than to preserve His own ego? Perhaps Thorn was partially right, though Thilial was loath to admit it: perhaps in some ways, God was just like Wanderer at heart.

  Her entreaty having failed, Thilial dithered, then backed behind a pillar near Thorn. She couldn’t bear to witness the coming bloodbath. But she stopped her r
etreat when a voice broke the silence that had blanketed the room.

  Gleannor’s voice.

  “No.”

  Thilial turned. Alone between two peaceful armies, the Alpha and Omega stood frozen. “What?” God said again.

  Gleannor broke from the main formation, her head bowed in supplication. “It’s one thing to crush our enemies from a distance. But look at them. They’re contrite. They’re—”

  “I OWN YOU! You do what I say, or I will count you among My enemies, and you will perish with them!”

  “I want us to win as much as You do, but can we please just talk about—”

  “Angels!” God called to the whole room, and maybe to the whole of Heaven. His voice grew so loud and threatening that Thilial considered retreating to the vacuum of space at the room’s rear. “Angels, who among you will lead this attack and purge the world of the unworthy? Will you obey Me and shine in My righteous glory?”

  God’s thunderous voice gave way to silence. The demons did not murmur a peep. Most of the torches had been extinguished due to the angels’ wingbeats, which now stilled and stopped as the angels descended to the golden floor—one by one at first, and then all together. The wall of cherubim collapsed. Defiant, hundreds of them stood between God and His throne. Their mouths were shut, but the word “No” was written in all of their eyes.

  And then all grew utterly still. Thilial dared to smile a little at Thorn. Thorn shrugged and smiled back.

  “You all think I’m so high and mighty, don’t you?” said God. “‘No, don’t listen to God, because He’s an elitist. He thinks He knows better than everyone.’ Well, I do, okay? I do know better than everyone!”

  God lashed out with His arm, sending a bolt of energy ripping through the air. It struck two angels. Their smoking, blackened bodies crumpled to the golden ground. Panicked chatter rose throughout the angelic crowd. Gleannor and some others formed a defensive barrier around their peers. A few angels fled into space.

  For their part, several demons rushed to defend the angels. They charged at God, but He shot another blast of energy at them. It hit them, and they leaped back, but none seemed to be injured.

  God swiped His arm yet again, but this time nothing happened. What a relief that He’d used too much of His power sending the humans away.

  Thilial readied herself to fight if God’s life grew endangered. Alienating these two great forces of spirits was unwise of Him, but she would die before she let them kill this God to whom she owed everything.

  He paced between the armies, ranting to them both. “What, you think you don’t need a God anymore? I don’t want you to need Me, but you do, okay? You’re not mature enough to live without My control yet!” He swiped His arm ferociously at the angels, several times in a row. With no energy emanating from His hand, though, the gestures looked absurd, even comical. “It’s a lot of responsibility being God. You think any of you could do better? You think you can deal with the evil and the selfishness of things that were created to be good?”

  He stopped in the center of the room and roared to them all, “ALL I WANTED WAS SOME FRIENDS! Some nice, thoughtful friends! All I wanted was… Ha!” He smiled a maniac’s grin, toothy, His lips stretching halfway from ear to ear. “I don’t know what I want anymore! I don’t know if I want to just shut up and leave you all, or if I should try killing Myself again, or—”

  Some terrible new idea thrust sudden fury into God’s eyes and sucked His grin down into darkness. He held up a finger as He thought. The motion reminded Thilial of days long gone, when God had played the mastermind, the benevolent Genius running the show. All benevolence was gone from His face now, though. As angels and demons closed in around Him, Thilial was hesitant to approach. God looked hateful, evil. He looked like a demon. And Thilial knew from His face that He still had one play left to make.

  “Let’s run one last test,” God said in a suddenly calm voice, raspy and eerie after all His yelling. His breathing was jagged. The vines encircling His white suit were turning brown, their leaves withering. “Would you all like to see what the world would be like without My wisdom? Would you all like to see what happens to a world with someone else in charge? I know what happens, but now it’s your turn! Ha ha!” God smacked His hands together, then danced a strange little jig as He ripped the vines off of His suit.

  “I give up!” He said joyously. “But I bet you’ll miss Me when I’m gone. Now you’ll realize what a good God I’ve been. Now you’ll thank Me for all My testing and refining and controlling. You think My ages of rule were bad? Let’s let someone else decide whether to kill you all or let you live, and how to run or ruin your lives. Someone you all seem to like. Let’s join together to watch ecosystems decay, millions die, all of creation go up in flames within mere minutes. The world is ending today, and I feel fine!”

  God struck a graceful pose, His hand outstretched above Him. It burst into an unearthly glow, bright white and impossible to look at. A sharp crack, like that of a firework going off too close, assaulted Thilial’s ears, followed by a shockwave that expanded across the throne room.

  The angels and demons fell back from the rushing air. But the light in God’s hand soon began to fade. It waned to a glow no brighter than a flashlight bulb, and seconds later, a candle flame.

  God cackled madly. “Righteous angels, wicked demons, here are all My powers. Bye-bye. Too-da-loo! Worship your new God now, everyone! Worship the almighty, all-powerful… THORN!”

  •

  The world dilated before Thorn. The golden throne room billowed into a rich mosaic. Every color shattered into a thousand more, and every millimeter of space became a mile in His eyes. The small corner where He stood transformed into a vast world He could have spent a lifetime exploring. He never knew there was so much to see!

  And with the seeing came knowledge. Glorious, extensive, universe-spanning knowledge! He could feel information deluging His brain, and its capacity increased a million-fold. Immediately, He knew the answers to intricate, multilayered questions He’d never even thought to ask. After one second, His brain had unified General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory, then reconciled them with the existence of dark matter and dark energy, which turned out to be quite simple things, in the end. He’d learned the spins and masses of every subatomic particle, every sub-sub-atomic particle, and every particle all the way down to the Planck length. After two seconds, He’d solved the Münchhausen trilemma, the Hodge conjecture, and the hard problem of consciousness. After three seconds, words had never been invented to describe the knowledge that Thorn was grasping—and mastering.

  Sixty seconds passed before He remembered that He was still in god’s throne room. Angels watched Him, some with horror, some with awe, most with a healthy mix of the two. Thilial had fallen, and was crab-walking across the floor toward god, her eyes locked on Thorn. God himself took a seat on a bench next to the far wall. His arms were folded, his eyes eager, as if he expected some great and terrible entertainment.

  Thorn felt everything. He felt the vibrations coursing through the air from the three lynxes playing five rooms away. If He focused, He could feel the organelles inside any cell inside any living being on Earth. His mind happened upon a cactus outside of Holbrook, Arizona, and He tried to knock it over. He couldn’t quite manage that, so He tried to tap the shoulder of a woman named Erdenechimeg who was entering a bookstore in Ulan Bator. He couldn’t quite reach her either.

  “Amy.” He said it directly to her, lying next to Shelley in the hospital. And Amy did look up!

  “Thorn?” she asked.

  He healed Amy’s knife wounds instantly, and Shelley’s crowbar wound for good measure.

  His mind was too giddy to stick around, though. It roamed the planet, tripping fleeing burglars in Marseille, stopping bullets in Gaza, saving a mountain climber from a nasty fall on Annapurna… but more often failing to do such things. My power is limited. I can do so much, but I can’t do everything. Still, Thorn had never felt such contr
ol over His own life, much less the lives of others.

  Why had god done this? Thorn brought His colossal mental faculties to bear on this simple question, but could not reach an answer. What had god said, just before Thorn had been struck with this unthinkable power? Something about the end of the world?

  He gazed into the eyes of every spirit in the room—it took Him four eighty-fifths of a second to do so—and most were clearly afraid of Him. The few who weren’t were fools, for who wouldn’t cower at the sight of the fearsome Thorn, of Balthior the Great? He had only to wait for His energy to regenerate, and He could crush this room into a space the size of the head of a pin, from the ornate gate to the sumptuous throne.

  Thorn looked at the throne now.

  That throne was His.

  Thorn could control morality, dictate right and wrong for all humans, all angels, all demons. No longer would god or Wanderer stand in His way. Against all likelihood, Thorn had won! He’d won it all. One minute He’d been weak, trembling before god, before that little man in the white suit sitting on a golden bench. One minute Thorn had been a Rat, and the next He’d achieved everything He’d strived for across billions of miserable, backbreaking years.

  Thorn had become the greatest demon of all time.

  Kill them all, Thorn said to Himself. Wipe out the angels, and You wipe out tyranny. Slaughter demonkind, and You slaughter evil itself.

  “No,” Thorn argued back inaudibly. “The demons are My brothers. They were betrayed by god and cast down from Heaven with Me. We made war against the enemy together. For millennia upon millennia, they were My company, joking, scheming. I learned from them and taught them. I followed them, and was followed by them.”

  But think of their faces. Marcus, who has relentlessly sought Your death based on an age-old grudge. Wanderer, who divided angels and humans into factions, and even betrayed his own faction. The Judge, who washed his hands of Your fate and sent You off to die. Shenzuul, a brute, who tried to end Amy’s life, whose followers hounded You in the Miami Sanctuary.