Three Trials (The Dark Side Book 2)(33)

“But only when I was close enough to touch,” I decide to point out.

He purses his lips.

More silence and impatient waiting follows that comment.

We watch Friends like we’re not both waiting to be dropped into hell by an escort he knows but won’t really give me many details about, because he’s apparently more loyal to her than to me.

Then again, at least I know she exists. She doesn’t have a clue about me. Even Jude has become protective of that secret. So that means I’m winning. You know, if I was in a contest with her or whatever.

My mind reverts back to the theories I’ve been working on silently in my head for the past several hours when we both grew tired of veiled insults.

“I think Kai is Conquest/Pestilence. The thing he did to those two guards seemed like he was infecting them with poison. But it could be disease,” I state randomly, causing him to groan again.

“For the last time, the Four Horsemen were killed centuries ago during a collision of the two kingdoms.”

“Who told you that?”

He gives me a dry look. “Plenty of people, including Lake. Like I said, it was the first obvious answer.”

“I don’t trust Lake.”

“You don’t know her. Anyway, it hurt the balance significantly, though the details are murky as to why they were killed. But if by some chance all of that was inaccurate, and by some narrow miracle we were the special quad who were that powerful, we’d be accepted into hell. In fact, they’d even drag us there if they suspected it, because our presence topside this long would shatter the balance. In fact, we would have already shattered it by now if we were them.”

“Balance, balance, balance,” I say on a frustrated breath. “I’m starting to hate that word.”

“Get used to it. That’s all we’re constantly trying to do: Keep the balance. Both sides, no matter how differently opinionated they are, agree on one thing, and that is the importance of balance. Good must level out with evil, or the world becomes too corrupt too quickly, and hell spills over.”

“Wouldn’t the Devil want that?” I point out.

“Fuck no.” He looks at me like I’m a total moron. “It would be the end of hell if the world had no good left in it.”

“Why?” I ask, moving closer like I’m desperate to know.

“Because without balance, there is no such thing as good or bad. Free will becomes null and void, and so do both kingdoms.”

“That makes no sense,” I grumble.

He stands quickly and goes to grab an old-timey scale with two small plates on either end.

He puts it down on the table in the center of the room, and I move to the end of the bed, no longer giving the TV my attention as he places a few lead balls on each of the pans on the scale.

“There is a perfect balance to everyone who can be topside. You have an exact amount of purities and impurities,” he says, putting a lead ball on each plate.

The scale stays perfectly balanced as he moves his hand back.

“Like you told Lucifer you guys were,” I say, frowning. “He seemed surprised by that.”

“Because he senses our impure imbalance, yet we have our souls intact and it defies the laws of balance,” he tells me, though it doesn’t make a lick of sense. “Plenty of our kind is balanced, otherwise, we couldn’t be topside. The most powerful of the balanced ones usually become royal escorts.”

He puts an extra ball on one side, tipping the scale.

“And the ones with an imbalance of impurities or purities go up or down to maintain surface balance,” he goes on.

“Define purities and impurities,” I tell him.

“Impure thoughts, emotions, urges…those are impurities. Compassion, loyalty…things like that are purities,” he says absently before continuing. “Humans have some far more pure than others, and far more impure than others. It’s their actions and reactions that define the topside balance, but an impure balance of one of our kind topside would have too much dark influence, inadvertently affecting free will.”

“Would the same be true if a good angel were walking topside?” I muse.

“They follow the rules better than our kind do, so I don’t know,” he answers.

I snort, and his lips twitch. It’s sort of nice how he’s just talking and explaining things without looking at me like I’m searching for a way to use it against him.

“People like Lake have that pure-to-impure balance and can be topside. Many do. But we’re an enigma,” he continues.

“Because you’re the Four Horsemen, but you have souls to keep you from being imbalanced. I thought all the creatures had souls.”

He blows out a frustrated breath. “The souls choose a new form. We’re in our original. Our soul is still mortal with immortal properties and shrouded by an unnatural immortal body. It balances itself against our impurities.” He quickly adds, “But we’re not the fucking Four Horsemen.”

“Famine is Gage. I saw what he did that beetle. It was like he drained it until it was shriveling from starvation,” I go on, undeterred.

He looks up from the scale, his brow furrowed.

“Why would you say that exactly?” he asks, clearly intrigued.

“When something starves, it starts eating itself from the inside. The beetle was clearly doing that, hence the shriveling. I would think that was obvious.”