Beyond the Veil Read Free Page B

been
complicit in her capture. My hand fell away from my pistol.
    “You did this to yourself,” I told him, my
condemnation his epitaph, the last words he would ever hear.
    I turned and left the room, closing the
door behind me, the rancid stench of the alien’s failing life fading away. I
swallowed hard against the bile that stung my throat and looked to Longinus. It
was done. All that mattered now was finding Karra.
    “You know where she is?”
    “I have the coordinates, but there is more
we need before we can begin our journey.”
    “Such as?”
    “Blood.”
    My eyes involuntarily surveyed the copious
amounts of exactly that still rolling off his face and chest before returning
to meet his eyes.
    Longinus grinned. “This is nothing compared
to what we need.” A faint shadow crossed over his features, and he leaned in a
little closer. “Do you have access to your uncle’s dread fiends?”
    Right then I realized Longinus had no idea I
was Lucifer’s son…and neither did Karra. Shit. He hadn’t asked how I’d locked
down Hell, probably assuming I’d been given the keys as a going away present by
Lucifer. As the wayward custodian everyone believed me to be, it made sense for
me to have them. I nodded energetically to cover the sigh that threatened to
slip loose, the truth chasing its tail like a lost puppy. There was absolutely
no way I could tell Longinus who I really was, especially not right then.
    Hey,
by the way, those dread fiends you want me to gather up—you know, the exact
same ones that ripped you to shreds and left you on physical vacation for the
last four hundred years—well, they were passed down the line from Lucifer to
his newly revealed son…uh, which just happens to be me, the demon giving it to
your beloved daughter in the poop chute. So, you’re asking the kid of the guy
who killed you with dread fiends to go and bring back a bunch of dread fiends.
Kind of ironic, huh?
    Yeah, I couldn’t see that going over well.
At least, if I’d inherited nothing else from my father, I was a good bullshitter . “Yeah, I know where they’re at. How many will
you need?”
    “A thousand, at least. More if you have them.”
He set a big hand on my shoulder and nearly made me tinkle. “This Gorath apparently used the same portal Baalth
was using to shuttle power to God and your uncle.”
    “But how? It was destroyed?”
    Longinus shook his head. “Only the earthly
gateway on this end was damaged. The alien tapped into it the core of it and
shunted him and Karra through to the other side, piggybacking on the foundation
Baalth had already set in place.”
    I did the mental math a moment—two plus two
equals nine—and realized something I was pretty sure I wanted to be wrong
about. “So, if he used the same portal Baalth had been using, then Gorath took
Karra to the same dimension as God?” And Lucifer…my estranged father…a person I
damn well did not want to see right
at this moment.
    “Yes.”
    The answer was a punch to the gut. Not only
would Longinus learn who I really was, he’d know I purposely avoided telling
him when there was more than ample opportunity to do so. He’d either think I
was a coward or exactly the same as Lucifer, neither winning attributes for someone
who wanted to continue sexing up his daughter.
    I sighed as another thought stabbed my
skull. “Could he have made it all the way there…you know, with Karra?”
    “He could, but it would have drained his
remaining energies to do so.”
    Which was yet one more ironic twist to the
story line. “That means he popped into the same realm his greatest enemy
resides, in a condition that makes him completely vulnerable. Yet conversely,
that exact same weakness is exactly what allows him to do so without being detected.”
It was so stupid it was brilliant. “Drained of energy on arrival, no one would even
notice he was there.”
    “Exactly, but that leaves him desperate on
the other side and in need of power.”
    It sounded