Archon (2 page)

One

That this Person will meet with these angels, there can be no doubt. But meetings take place both in the imagination and reality.

—
S
T.
I
MWALD,
L
ETTERS TO THE
H
OLY
F
ATHER

“T
hat’s an incredible painting. The lines, the textures, the brushstrokes. One would swear you’ve been doing this for fifty years. Can I ask how much you’re willing to sell it for? I could give you one thousand dollars—”

“It’s not for sale.” Angela stood from her bench, nodding politely at the group of appraisers to her right. One of them—a stout, middle-aged man wearing an expensive suit—had paused in front of her darker work: an abstract of acrylic on canvas, the figure portrayed in its center more a conglomeration of shadows and smoke than a person. A bone pale face had been sketched amid the gray, its crimson eyes intended to shock the viewer as much as they had shocked Angela. It had been easier than she’d thought to evoke sensations of sickliness and dread through art, coming down to little more than mixing the right colors and matching them to the images already in her head. Really, it was more practice than talent. She’d painted the darker angel so many times, most of the features outlined themselves by now. “In fact, none of them are for sale. I just couldn’t bring myself to choose, even if I had to part with a single work.”

“A true shame,” the stout man said, turning from her to another picture.

This time it was the more beautiful angel of the two. Not her best representation, but the watercolors had a strange way of conveying the soft loveliness in the angel’s wings, his eyes.

“And to think,” he was saying, “that such skills will be hidden away at this school. The Academy is a little too protective of you blood heads.” The man snorted, adjusting his tie. “Not all of us believe the Vatican prophecy, you know. The world is sorely lacking in common sense nowadays. Every time I step foot in this city, I feel like I’ve been thrown back to the Middle Ages.”

Angela pretended not to hear, greeting another visitor to her exhibit with an outstretched hand. Surprisingly enough, the young woman took it, giving her a firm shake.

“Well, I wish you luck,” the appraiser said, his shadow uncovering one of her brightest paintings as he and his group meandered off to the left.

The young woman looked like she was pushing sixteen, but her blouse matched Angela’s, its embroidered tree symbol circled by thirteen stars—the mark of a college freshman. She strolled over to the uncovered picture immediately, one hand settled on her hip as she bent down, inspecting, judging. The second her finger stretched toward a raised band of paint, Angela pushed her hand aside, shaking her head. “You really shouldn’t touch them. It can cause damage.”

“Sorry.” The young woman folded her arms and raised an eyebrow, looking more curious than mad. She was short, and her Academy skirt swung well below her knees, making her look too small for her clothing. Otherwise, she was plain and unremarkable. Brown hair yanked up into a messy bun, some of the tresses loose and frizzy. Bloodshot eyes that were a muddy hazel. Her boots looked like they had been through a few wars, most of their leather stitched with red thread. “You’re really more assertive than you look,” she said to Angela, examining the painting again. “Good for you, not selling your picture to those dolts. He wasn’t offering you enough anyway.”

“It had nothing to do with money,” Angela said, sitting back down. She pulled up her tights, her arm gloves, trying not to appear awkward and freakish.

It wouldn’t make any real difference. Blood heads got attention wherever they went. And if you were a blood head who never bared your arms and legs, even when you wore a short skirt and a ruffled blouse, that only made you ten times more interesting. The granite Exhibit Hall was so stuffed with students, teachers, Vatican novices, priests, appraisers, and proud parents, every other someone was noticing Angela at every other moment. She was probably just as fascinating, if not more so, than the paintings that had gotten her locked away for two years.

“Yeah, you’re right.” The woman waved her hand. “Only geniuses and richers come to this academy after all. Oh, and blood heads.”

“That had nothing to do with it either.”

“So it was a matter of talent, huh?” She stood back, still judging. “Yeah, well, you do have some. Although I can’t understand why you paint the pictures with the dark gray angel completely in the abstract. I feel kind of cheated.”

“It has to do with what I see.” Angela pointed at the architecture surrounding them; a vaulted cathedral ceiling of stone, its upper crevices riddled with peering statues and grimacing faces carved into the rock. A few of the walls were so tall, their highest corners faded into a vast network of shade and darkness. It was easy to imagine that real monsters might live up there, hiding, analyzing the thousands of people that milled across the tiles below, waiting for individuals to separate themselves from the main herd and get lost in the innumerable halls and corridors that made up the Academy’s largest student center. “Look at that.” Angela pointed at the statue of an angel with swanlike wings, his hand grasping a lantern meant to light part of the room below. Unfortunately, the candle inside was sputtering to nothing. “See how clear and defined his features are. You can see everything. The expression. The folds in his robe. The nails on his toes.”

Now she pointed at the window behind them, its lead panes streaked with heavy rain.

Barely discernible through the blur of water and wind, another angel statue leaned out from the gable, his palm lifted high, as if to catch the drops that had worn it down to a flattened disc. Thunder shivered the glass, and an intense flash of lightning highlighted the ghastly flaws in his features.

“But over here, it’s different. I know this is an angel, but everything about him is blurred, and dark, and changeable.” Angela indicated the pictures of the gray angel. “So the painting comes out like this.”

“You seem to like this one—with the bronze wings,” the young woman said. She was inspecting the nearest image of the beautiful angel, awed as Angela was always awed by his proud eyes and perfect pink lips. Often he appeared dressed in a red coat that dazzled her with its silver thread, or wearing jeweled barrettes in his hair, or carrying a lyre made of crystal. “But I don’t get the wings on the ears,” she continued. “Was that your idea?”

“Like I said”—Angela couldn’t stop her sigh—“I just paint what I see.”

But even more often, he would walk into her dreams and leave without saying a word.

“It’s like you know them personally.” The girl sat down next to Angela on the bench, crossing her legs and rifling through her bag. Her hand reemerged with a sack of cheddar chips, and she offered some crumbs, generous. “You actually look an awful lot like them. You’ve got big eyes, has anyone told you that before?”

“They certainly have,” Angela said, taking a handful of food. “Thanks. I’m Angela Mathers, by the way.”

“Nina Willis.” Nina drew in her legs, finally realizing she was going to trip someone. “I hope you don’t mind if I sit here for a minute. I’ve been looking for a bench for about an hour. So are you in the university classes?”

“You could say that. I just arrived in Luz three days ago, actually. I haven’t even had a chance to open a book yet.” Angela stood up, bowing to a passing group of Vatican novices, a few of them eyeballing her longer than she felt comfortable with.

There was a tall one at the end of their gang, so strikingly pale that his skin resembled paper, his eyes a vivid and penetrating amber color. Like the others he wore the long dark coat of a novice, but his hair was as striking as his face, the strands pitch-black except for a chunk dyed fire engine red.

When he left with the others, Angela felt it wouldn’t be for long. “Despite what you said about me being a blood head, I actually got into the Academy because of my art. And because my parents are dead. They never let me get out much.” She continued to stare after the novice with the black hair. “Though I didn’t always disagree with that. Sometimes I feel like I’m really the one on display, not the pictures.”

Nina shrugged off the comment, shifting aside to let a couple examine Angela’s best self-portrait. The painting wasn’t perfect, but it captured her large blue eyes and angular face rather well. She was reclining on her parents’ old parlor room sofa, her fine blood-red hair covering half her body like a poker-straight curtain. That was before the burns, the scars, and the need to cover herself almost head to toe in fabric.

The couple made sure to remark on that before turning to the neighboring booth.

“Are you talking about the novices?” Nina said. “Don’t pay any attention to them. They’re just all tightwads about blood heads lately because of the murders near the Academy. They think the sororities and fraternities are getting out of hand again, dabbling in all kinds of occult stuff. I think they’re giving Stephanie and her lackeys too much credit.”

“Stephanie?”

“Stephanie Walsh.” Nina stared down at her shoes, a chip half raised to her lips. Her voice hushed drastically. “I’m actually surprised you haven’t met her yet. She has a habit of meeting new blood heads, absorbing them into her sorority, then controlling their lives for three more years after that. I guess you could say she’s the queen bee here at Westwood, keeping tabs on everyone who’s anyone—and even people like me, who aren’t. You’re pretty popular already, so I’m sure she’s going to make it a point to meet you. Just so you know.”

Popular? The only place Angela had ever been popular was in the psych ward at the institution. There, her long hair and scars had made her more intriguing than a supermodel. But anywhere else, she was a freak, a monster, a danger, the possible fulfillment of a prophecy that meant death and destruction on a staggering scale.

A century had passed on Earth since the Vatican chose to reveal its ominous conclusion: The dark messiah it had long feared—the silencer of all people, things, and hopes—would be a human with red hair. The One, who would forevermore be known as “the Ruin,” had been prophesied as having blood on his head and blood on his hands. From that day onward, children born with red hair were detested, shunned, or, in the saddest cases like Angela’s, abused. It wasn’t until the Vatican established its island city off the coast of the American continent that those now termed “blood heads,” especially blood heads with supernatural prowess, seemed to find their place.

Only in Luz were blood heads accepted and encouraged to discover what kind of powers or special abilities they might possess, even though sometimes it was hard to figure out whether the Vatican officials feared or admired that unique fourth of their student body. Were they protecting people like Angela? Or were they merely gathering them together like rats into a trap, ready to poison them once they’d found the Ruin they were looking for? This place was full of contradictions like that. From the first day Angela entered Luz, she’d been overwhelmed by its sense of backward elegance and almost topsy-turvy culture. While the supernatural was welcomed—though always under strict control—technology couldn’t survive. Electricity gave way to candlelight, modern building materials to stone, wood, and elaborate tile-work, most of it decaying beneath acid rain and neglect. From the coast where her parents’ house had burned to the ground, Angela would stare out at the ocean, gazing at the city that sat like a lonely lump of crags, turrets, and oddly twisted spires, its iron support beams lashed by waves taller than trees. Luz was a city on stilts, its grandest buildings built on top of others, all of it looking ready to crash into the sea at any time.

Luz, the city of lights. The Vatican’s wonder of the world that was now a world of its own. So many candles burned here that the Academy twinkled at night, covered in a million artificial stars.

“Believe me,” Nina said, wagging a finger at her, “when you’re pretty, and different, and you’re the talk of the school, Stephanie takes notice.”

“Why are we assuming that people think this about me?” Angela said, a crisper clip edging into her voice.

“Is your brother really Brendan Mathers?”

Angela slumped, her tone cooling to a hiss. “What does he have to do with it?”

“So it is true.” Nina smirked. “Sorry, but I had to check you out. He and Stephanie are an item, you know. That alone makes you ripe for gossip.”

“That’s impossible. He took vows.”

Nina was laughing now. “Yeah. He did, didn’t he? But would that stop you if some red-headed succubus was throwing herself on your lap? He’s still human, after all.” She crumpled her chip bag and stood, wiping her hands on her skirt. “But prophecy or not, Stephanie’s a blood head with some real power. A witch. You’d be smart to stay on her good side. Hell, even the Academy faculty stay on her good side.”

“Well, thanks for the warning, but I doubt she’s going to take any notice of me like you said. I’m not the only blood head entering the university this semester. Besides, Brendan probably wouldn’t have talked about me much. I’m more of an embarrassment than a real conversation point.”

“That’s fine.” Nina stooped down to snatch up her bag. “Just don’t be too surprised when it happens.”