Balance (The Divine, Book One) Read Online Free Page A

balance. That deviousness had led me to hacking, to stealing,
and ultimately to my arrest. The thought bothered me.
    "Wait
a second,” I said. “You speak of balance, good, and evil as if we have no
choice in the matter. Are you saying that every decision I make is
predetermined in order to keep me right in the center?"
    When
I asked the question, Dante flinched as though he had been struck. His wide
eyes narrowed and dimmed, and he took on a look of sadness. "Everyone has
the freedom to choose their own path. Charis did."
    "Charis?"
She was the other one like me. I knew it by his reaction. "What happened
to her?"
    He
paused before he answered. "She made a choice. She isn't with us
anymore."
    I
could tell by the way he said it that it was all he wanted to say. There was no
reason to push him. I had gotten what I wanted.
    "Then
I guess the burning question is, what exactly am I doing here?" I asked.
    Dante's
demeanor changed again, turning him back into the energetic and lighthearted
man that had greeted me.
    "You
are in a unique position, but as I have said it is your choice. The battle
between good and evil rages on; the angels want the perfection that God had
envisioned, and the demons aim to mangle the world to satiate their desire for
chaos and destruction. Mankind has been caught in the middle, and they have no
one to fight on their side. No one to assure that the balance is maintained so
that they may continue to have control of their own future."
    "So
you think that I can help humanity deal with this somehow?" I was doubtful.
Maybe I could spot a lie and dress myself in cool clothes, but I had a feeling
that wouldn't help much against Satan or Saint Michael.
    "I
know you can, Signore," he said. "You are stronger than you know.
Shedding your mortal skin has opened your being up to all of the power that it
is due a diuscrucis." He leaned up over the desk and looked me right in
the eyes, a look that delved deep into me. "ALL of the power." He
seemed very satisfied.
    I
would do this. I had to do this. The need was an unbreakable iron grip on my
soul. It was what I had been born to do, had died to do. It was frightening,
exciting, and impossible to resist. It wasn’t about the power that Dante
believed I had. It was about nature. My nature. How many people ever get to
find out where they stand, and connect with it so completely? According to
Dante even God Himself was being driven by His basest nature. I had asked about
choice, discovered I had none, and realized that it was okay, because I didn’t
care.
    "So
what happens next?" I asked.
    Dante
smiled. "When someone who leans to good leaves Purgatory, they go to
Heaven. Someone leaning evil goes to Hell. Someone who doesn't lean at all,
they go…"
    He
didn't finish. He didn't have a chance to. The solid glass window I had been
enjoying looking out of earlier exploded inward, showering us both in glass. I
backed away and raised my arms to cover my head. Dante didn't move at all, he
just turned his head to watch the interlopers make their entrance. The glass
seemed to bounce off of him. It took me a moment to realize it hadn't hurt me
either.
    The
interlopers looked like angels, but I knew on my new instinct that they
weren’t. Maybe once upon a time before the greedy promises and lies had changed
their hearts, but not now. They may have been brothers, both with long silver
and white hair, ebony skin and sharp red eyes. They were wearing matching
leather dusters with black leather vests over purple shirts and dark wash
jeans. Each was holding what looked to me like a samurai sword. They glared at
Dante with disgust, and looked at me as if I were nothing more than an ant to
be stepped on.
    "You
have no rights here," Dante said to them. He shifted over to put himself
between them and me. "If any harm comes to me you will be in breach of the
Treaty."
    The
two dark angels stepped forward as one. "We have no intention of harming
you Alighieri," the one on the left said. "We