"Yeah," my double said. "Like the people who are going to get killed when you die and don't stop Kemmler's disciples."
I froze at the edge of the darkness.
"Take the high road if you want to," my double said. "Choose to walk away from this strength in the name of principle. But after your noble death, everyone you no longer protect, everyone who might one day have come to you for help, everyone who is killed in the aftermath of the Darkhallow-every life you might have protected in the future will be on your head."
I stared at the darkness and then closed my eyes.
"Regardless of where it came from, Lasciel offers you the power of knowledge. If you turn aside from that power-power only you can take up-then you abandon your commitment to protect and defend those who are not strong enough to do it themselves."
"No," I said. "That isn't... that isn't my responsibility."
"Of course it is," my subconscious said, voice clear and sharp. "You coward."
I stopped and turned, staring at him.
"If you go to your death rather than do everything you might to prevent what is happening, you are merely committing suicide and trying to make yourself feel better about it. That is the act of a coward. It is beneath contempt."
I went through the logic of his argument and didn't make any headway against it-of course. While my double might look like another person, he wasn't. He was me.
"If I open this door now," I said slowly. "I might not be able to close it again."
"Or you might," my double said. "I have no intention of allowing her any control. So you will be the one who determines it."
"What if I can't contain her again once she is freed?"
"Why shouldn't you be able to? It's your mind. Your will. Your choice. You still believe in free will, do you not?"
"It's dangerous," I said.
"Of course it is. And now you must choose. Will you face that danger? Or will you run from it, and so condemn those who need your strength to their deaths?"
I stared at him for a minute. Then I looked at Lasciel. She waited, her eyes steady, her expression calm.
"Can you do it?" I asked her bluntly. "Can you show me what was on those pages?"
"Of course," she answered, her manner one of subservience without a trace of resentment. "I would be pleased to offer you whatever assistance you permit."
She looked humble. She looked cooperative. But I knew better. The mere shadow of the fallen angel Lasciel was a vital and powerful force. She might look humble and cooperative, but if that was her true nature she wouldn't have fallen to begin with. I didn't think she was harboring murderous impulses or anything-my instincts told me that she was genuinely pleased to help me.
After all, that was the first step. And she had patience. She could afford to wait.
Dangerous indeed. Lasciel represented nothing less than the intrinsic allure of power itself. I had never sought to become a wizard. Hell, a lot of the time I thought about how nice things might be if I hadn't been one. The power had been a birthright, and if it had grown since then, it had done so by the necessity of survival. But I'd tasted a darker side to the possession of power-the searing satisfaction of seeing an enemy fall to my strength. The lust to test myself against another, to challenge them and see who was the strongest. The mindless hunger for more that, if once indulged, might never be slaked.
One of the coldest, most evil souls I have ever encountered once told me that the reason I fought so hard to do what seemed right was that I was terrified to look within me and see the desire to cease the fight and do as I would, free of conscience or remorse.
And now I could see that he had been right.
I looked at the fallen angel, patiently waiting, and was terrified.
But there were innocent lives at stake: men and women and children who needed protection.
If I didn't give it to them, who would?
I took a deep breath, reached into my pocket, and found a silver key there. I threw it to my double.
He caught it and rose. Then he unlocked Lasciel's shackles.
Lasciel inclined her head to him respectfully. Then she walked over to me, gorgeous and warm in the harsh light, her eyes lowered. Without a trace of self-consciousness, she sank down to her knees, bowed her head, and said, "How may I serve you, my host?"
I opened my eyes and found myself on my back. There was a candle burning nearby. Mouse had curled himself protectively around my head, and his tongue was nicking over my face, rough and wet and warm.
I hurt absolutely everywhere. I'd learned to block out pain under the harsh lessons of Justin DuMorne, but it went only so far.
Lasciel had shown me a different technique.
I couldn't have explained to anyone what I did. I wasn't sure that I understood it myself, at least on a conscious level. I simply knew. I gathered the pain together and fed it into a burning fire of determination in my thoughts, and it began to steadily recede.
I exhaled slowly and began to sit up. My brain registered the screaming torture of the muscles in my stomach-it just wasn't horribly important, and took up little of my attention.
"My God, Harry," Butters said. His voice was thick and slurred, as if he were holding his nose. His hand pushed on my shoulder. "Don't sit up."
I let him push me back down. I needed a couple of minutes to let the pain continue to fade. "How bad is it?"
He exhaled. "It's pretty hideous, but I don't think he actually perforated the abdominal wall. Skin and tissue damage, but you did some bleeding." He swallowed and looked a little green around the gills. "That's my best guess, anyway."
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, fine. It's just... I work with corpses because I just couldn't handle... you know... actual living people."
"Heh. You can eat lunch while looking at a three-month-old corpse, but first aid on my stomach is too much to handle?"
"Yeah. I mean, you're still alive. That's just weird."
I shook my head. "How long was I out?" I was surprised at how calm and steady my voice sounded.
"It's been about fifteen minutes," Butters said. "I found some bandages and alcohol in the old man's duffel bag. I've got your belly cleaned and covered, but I don't have much of an idea of how much trouble you're in. You need a hospital."
"Maybe later," I said. I lay on my back, poring over what Lasciel had given me about the writings in the book. Hell, the thing had been written in German. I didn't know German, but Lasciel had translated the text about the Darkhallow. It felt like we had talked about it for an hour or more, but dream time and real time aren't always lockstepped.