Archon (32 page)

The walls shuddered. His door slammed open, wooden splinters spraying onto the carpeting. The human lock had snapped from his guardians’ brute strength, and now the twins entered with matching strides, Rakir reaching Israfel first, Nunkir creeping behind with a forlorn expression. The more injured of the two, her newfound hatred of humanity had devolved into an even more pathetic need for affection.

Poor little bird. She’d never handled her emotions well.

She caressed Israfel’s stomach, and then touched her brother’s hands, their singular voice echoing inside the room. “
Prince Israfel, forgive us, but we are concerned for you
.”

They examined Angela and Sophia, dangerous envy boiling behind their green eyes. Nunkir’s bandages swung from her wing, tickling the floor. Israfel gestured for her to lie next to him, and she collapsed, moaning into his lap. He stroked her fine, silver braids, unable to keep from comforting her. Nunkir and her brother probably deserved better than the existence they’d known, their lives before Israfel’s presence more suffering than anything else. Brendan, one of the few creatures to acknowledge the treasures that they were, had made the mistake of going too far, allowing that suffering all over again.

But at least his pain had made up for the insult. Rakir, especially, needed that release.

His sister tilted her head, her green eyes locked shyly on Israfel’s.

Also recognizing his chance, Rakir wrapped his strong arms around Israfel’s chest, and their wings rubbed together, tenderly. His fingers brushed Nunkir’s, eliciting their common voice. “
Why do you waste yourself on these creatures? Let us love you. We will always please you more than them. Always
.”

Nunkir brushed her lips over the stripes on Israfel’s hands. Then, finding little resistance, the angel pinned him deep within the cushion of Rakir’s arms, her wings flapping with a barely disguised urgency. She brushed the hairs from Israfel’s neck, biting the skin beneath. These were harsh kisses, raw with eons of frustration; poisoned by a deep, envious pain. But that was all right, because sometimes it felt so good to be helpless and broken in another’s embrace. Israfel goaded her on with the teasing touches she hated, a few well-timed sighs. She didn’t have the experience of her brother.

“At least let me clean her up,” Sophia was saying brokenly. “She’ll be confused when she awakens.”

She meant Angela.

Israfel said nothing, allowing his eyes to state his pleasure.

Slowly, as if she were afraid of alerting the guard, Sophia gathered Angela’s gloves and boots from their spot near the wall, carefully grasping a crudely hewn chain between the spaces of her fingers. In a strange gesture of modesty, Sophia then turned her so that they faced the window and dressed her in her gloves and shoes like a doll, swiftly passing the chain around Angela’s neck when she’d finished and rebuttoning what was left of her blouse.

“It seems I’ll have to tolerate you,” Sophia said to him, “for now. But I would have you remember one thing, Israfel. I alone know the true definition of a prison and pain. Never again try to beat me at a game of words.”

He turned to her. The Book appeared to be growing taller, her eyes vacant and fathomless, patterns of indescribable intricacy flowing across her skin.

“And why is that?” he said, laughing at the unexpected vision.

“
Because I contain them all
.”

Thirty-one

In Her heart, Darkness lies. In Her soul, the dormant Flies.

—
C
ARDINAL
D
EMIAN
Y
ATES,
Translations of the Prophecy

A
ngela awakened alone.

She was lying in a sitting room, its space dotted with velvet upholstered couches and all sorts of clutter, everything from musical instruments to fancy end tables covered in strange bottles and hair clips. The candle near the window had melted down to a sorry stump, its wax dribbled and malformed. But no matter what light there might be, it would have been impossible to put a dent in this kind of shadow. The sky outside was horrid, black and purple with clouds that resembled grotesque bubbles. Nearby, towers already dilapidated with age or neglect seemed surreal, vaporous in a greenish tinge hazing the atmosphere. The city looked sick to its stomach, sitting in a stillness that suggested death.

“God.” Angela clapped a hand across her forehead. She felt nauseated, still tasting the unearthly dryness of Israfel’s nectar.

She’d never had anything like it before. In comparison, wine and beer were too sweet, and fruit juice was too bitter, like those contradictions had been distilled into a liquid and tinted with a gold that reminded her of Kim’s eyes. Even when her mind numbed and her heart raced with the terrible pleasure, it had been hard not to picture him there, staring at her like she was a whore or a sinner, judging her to Hell while she kissed Israfel’s soft mouth and touched him in all the places she’d dreamed. It turned her stomach even worse than the hangover—the idea of more guilt, that she’d betrayed him—especially after he’d confused her so badly.

He wanted her on the Throne of Hell? What kind of solution was that?

I’m far from perfect, but I’m not the Devil.

She sat up and the Grail kissed her skin, its surface unusually warm. Angela unbuttoned her blouse and looked down at the Eye, touching the emerald iris and deep, dark pupil. Sophia had known that she’d taken it from Troy. Yet Sophia had known because she wasn’t just a Revenant—and Angela doubted how true that really was anymore—but because she was the Book. A thing or a monster in the shape of a person, who was also enough of a mystery that those who tried opening her risked going insane.

It was all coming back to her, harsh and clear.

Angela had used that as her justification for drinking herself stupid.

Now that the facts presented themselves again, it simply hurt.

Where is she?

Where were
they
? Israfel’s room was empty except for piles of garbage and treasure. Feathers rested in mounds of white near the walls, and the room smelled of sweetness, stickiness, and that unusual perfume of his: flowers and salt. Jewels and barrettes had been carelessly tossed onto tables or fallen to the floor.

Angela rocked onto her knees, steadying herself, and grabbed a silver hair clip resting near her toes. The gems set inside the metal were strange, hollow and red, but with a sheen of blue and black to their facets. She must have been holding some kind of crystal from somewhere up in Heaven, growing in a place that could blow away the imaginations of every priest in Luz.

It was official now. Heaven was a real, material place.

That meant Hell was too, and just like them, Israfel was less a ghost or a spirit than a solid, fleshy, beautiful creature. Her lifetime’s dream had finally touched, kissed, and danced with her. He bled like she bled, and he spoke like she spoke. From the very start, she’d never thought about how Troy and Israfel knew her language, simply preferring not to care, but she was certain their superiority over humanity had a lot to do with it. Remembering the way Israfel’s lips curled around words, it didn’t seem far-fetched to assume he was speaking his own language, and Angela was always hearing hers. In a sense, every syllable was its own song.

Yes, Israfel and Troy and even Tileaf were flesh and blood, but they could manipulate your soul as easily as blowing on smoke.

Angela put a hand over her chest, shuddering a little.

The Eye had gone from warm to unusually hot. In seconds it was almost scalding her.

“What the hell—” She quickly swung the chain over her neck, keeping the stone far away from her skin. Its surface glistened and she held it aloft, peering carefully at its shininess. There seemed to be something moving across the pupil.

An ant, maybe? Or a spider?

No. It was an image.

Instantly, her ears buzzed, her insides swam, and she was sucked inside the Grail itself. Angela was too surprised to scream or even to be frightened. Then the rectory vanished in the blink of an eye, and she stood in what must have been the darkness at the stone’s middle, watching Nina walk by her in a dank, cobblestoned alleyway. The buildings on either side were dilapidated—probably close to where she was now—and ahead a tunnel passed beneath a stone bridge.

Just as quickly, the visions vanished, and Angela was back in the rectory with the Eye still swinging in front of her.

She tapped the pupil carefully.

It had gone cold, and its onyx surface was hard as a rock.

There was no doubt, though, that she had seen what the Eye had seen, or perhaps what it merely wanted to show her. Maybe it sensed the terrible predicament she currently faced and had attempted to help in some frightening way of its own.

She was honestly in trouble, and more than ever before. Despite whatever feelings Angela had for him, Kim was a wild card now—impossible to trust one hundred percent after his strange attempt at compromise. Troy was still Bound to her, but by force rather than by choice. Sophia and Israfel had left her for God only knew where—they could return in an hour or a century. And Stephanie and Naamah would be looking for her, either to kill her and be done with it—Stephanie’s preferred course of action—or to declare her the Archon, and—

What
would
Naamah do if Angela was the Archon?

Probably force her to open the Book, then either kill her in Lucifel’s name or tackle Kim’s proposal head-on and put her on the Throne of Hell.

That left Angela with one person she could count on absolutely.

Nina. She was possessed, and yet she was all that Angela had.

I have to find her
.

Angela yanked on her arm gloves and tights, but quickly rethought things and discarded them before tightening the laces on her boots. The air was too humid, she was uncomfortably warm, and while the scars made her a freak, they didn’t make her a witch like Stephanie and her alabaster legs.

Her hangover was dying off, replaced by a growing anger.

In her shock and grief, Angela had dared to blame Israfel, but Stephanie more than anyone else had killed her brother. Sure, she hadn’t cut his throat herself, but she’d asked Naamah to do it for her. But the most horrible detail of all was also the most haunting. Brendan had been out of his mind, and whether he deserved it or not, murdering him so violently had been no more valiant than putting a rabid dog to sleep. Israfel wasn’t human, and he saw the world through those superior angelic eyes. But Stephanie at least used to have a human heart, and she should have known better.

Angela cinched her laces, her fingers shaking.

Outside, the storm rolled into Luz silently.

Too silently. Like it mirrored the dreadful pissed-off state of her mind.

Stephanie expects me to run and hide. She expects me to stay out of her games and let her get away with all this bullshit.

The Grail swung beneath her ruined blouse, suddenly heavy and radiating a new heat that felt oddly comforting the more she got used to it. Not that she could hide it properly anymore. Angela’s clothes were so torn and tattered, she must have looked like a zombie. Her skirt had at least two holes in it half the size of her hands, and her blouse was smeared with dirt and blood and was ripped halfway across the chest.

I don’t care if I’m the Archon or not. I don’t have to open that damned Book to put Stephanie where she belongs.

In Hell.

She left the room, clattering down the steep staircase and along a hallway that emptied into the broken church. Angela splashed through the puddles, hardly even giving a damn about her surroundings. Her brain burned like the stone around her neck, and it seemed to her that through that Eye, she could see the whole universe and everything in it, and how much it deserved to be in her hands rather than in those of a greedy, ignorant person like Stephanie.

This is my world.

Where was that thought coming from? It was the voice that had reminded her how to subdue Troy, and its pitch and tone was still like her own, but much more forceful. Briefly, Angela flashed back to that long-ago dream, when she’d stood before the angel who’d spoken to her so mysteriously.

Now she remembered at least a fraction of what he’d said, though she wasn’t sure how much sense it made.

For now, though, it seemed right to agree.

This is my world. Time to enforce the rules.

Thirty-two

She is my Prince, but only because I choose it to be so. And I dare say there will come a time to change my mind.

—
T
HE
D
EMON
P
YTHON, TRANSCRIBED FROM
The Lies of Babylon

P
ain returned to Stephanie along with her consciousness. Overwhelming, shattering pain. She merely brushed the skin near her left elbow and it screamed back at her, all the agony erupting through her own mouth.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

She was in pain and darkness, but it didn’t take much longer to remember she was also in Hell. Her vision began to return, though blurry, and around her the pentagrams reappeared pulsing and red. She lay in some strange tunnel, its floor smooth stone, its upper ceiling carved with a demonic script that pulsed along with the pentagrams. Theban writing, the same harsh symbols as the tattoo that had matched her mother’s.

Barely illuminated by the light, eyes and arms, bodies and legs, jutted outward from the rock, their owners melded seamlessly into the walls. They could have been statues, but Stephanie sensed otherwise, and she shut her eyes instinctively when she imagined hundreds more staring back into hers.

“Stephanie. It’s me.”

She moaned, her eyelids fluttering back open.

Naamah’s copper face hovered over her, the demon’s mouth set in a tight line. For a second she stood, half disappearing in the darkness, and then she lifted Stephanie into her arms. Together, they moved farther through the tunnel, Stephanie’s legs dangling, her head pressed against a wound that had been stitched near Naamah’s neck. Israfel must have injured her, though not enough to kill. If it weren’t for Stephanie’s quick thinking . . .

That was the most unfortunate thing of all.

She couldn’t even remember what she’d thought at the time or why.

“Mother . . .” Stephanie tried to lift herself against Naamah’s chest.

Her efforts were rewarded by her body sliding lower, terrifyingly weak.

“Stop trying to move,” Naamah said. Her voice sounded as fuzzy as the world appeared, though characteristically emotionless. If Stephanie’s condition bothered her, she wasn’t showing it very well.

But, oh God, the pain. “What happened? Mother . . .”

She gasped, almost seeing stars, screaming until Naamah clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Be quiet,” she hissed in Stephanie’s ear. “For the Prince’s sake, or we’ll both be done for.”

Stephanie let the tears roll down her face, trying to focus on her breathing. Anything to keep her sanity. Night in this place felt like an eternal night, and for her, it might continue on and on in the long sleep called death.

Naamah’s words came gentler now, her voice soft as her footsteps. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, but I’m going to make sure you’re all right.”

“How?”

“Just keep silent.”

Stephanie obeyed, hiccupping in her agony.

“Just keep silent,” Naamah whispered, “and everything will be fine.”

If only she’d sounded more certain. Naamah usually held her worries inside, rarely revealing her true feelings unless they’d finally overwhelmed her. Perhaps this would be one of those times. Her frame shivered, and she paused before what resembled a great gate set in the rock. Stephanie held her own breath, aware that they stood on the threshold of a momentous and alien place.

Soft scrabbling erupted from the tunnel ceiling. A few pebbles clattered to the ground.

Stephanie gazed ahead, terrified by what flickered at the corners of her vision.

Two of the bodies set in the walls were moving.

Naamah tightened her grip, a silent warning.

Stephanie shut her eyes for the second time, allowing ice-cold fingers to poke at her body, two invisible faces to sniff at her hair and her injured arm, and hungry breaths to blow on her neck. The inspection felt like it would last forever, but finally, whatever these guardians had observed must have satisfied them. Silent as before, they settled back into their flanking positions at the gate, two slim bodies slipping back into grooves carved in the stone. They were angels of some kind, their hair tangled and their wings little more than bone and skin.

It was growing more and more difficult to see.

Stephanie’s vision was worse than before, and a fine mist fogged the air, smelling faintly of vinegar.

This was the smell she often associated with Naamah. Acidic.

Clank.

A noise of metal on metal rang down the tunnel. The gate was opening, and Naamah stepped through it swiftly, barely reacting as the iron bars slammed shut behind them and they reached a point of no return. Inside, the pentagrams repeated themselves in circular patterns, illuminating the shape of a rounded cave set in the rock. Farther in, an enormous pentagram appeared in the room’s center floor, revolving beneath the tall and slender body suspended above it. A figure hung manacled amid a spiderweb of chains, the incredibly shiny metal extending from arms, legs, and neck. Dank odors also emerged through the mist, smelling of sickliness and musk.

Naamah squeezed Stephanie’s shoulder again—another warning.

Trembling, she set her down on the floor below the manacled figure, eventually settling nearby on her knees, her wings flat and arched forward in submission.

Stephanie gasped again, unable to stop.

“Naamah.”

The new voice was soft, almost a hiss at the edge of her imagination.

It took a moment for Stephanie to notice the shadow coiling in and out of the mist clinging to the floor, and yet the closer it came, the more it lost its strange snakelike shape and the glitter of its scales, its body disappearing again as the darkness seemed to pull in on itself, molding its inky vapors into the figure of a person. Now he stood to their right, half disguised by the gloom, and Stephanie wondered if she was hallucinating.

He seemed to be a tall young man, with a mop of sable hair that might have been streaked through with violet. A shock of purple paint glowed over his eyelids.

His eyes, though, remained hazy.

Maybe that was for the best, because there was something about them that seemed off to her. Unnatural. Maybe even reptilian. They examined her coldly, briefly reflecting the light with a terrible shade of orange.

Stephanie was actually thankful when Naamah spoke again. It gave her something else to concentrate on.

“Python.” Naamah greeted him with a marked coldness. “What are you doing here?”

“Touchy as ever.” His lips spread into an expressive smile. “I came to pray, of course.” He sauntered closer, eyebrows lifted in curiosity. “At least I was before you barged through the Gate. Now what is this little annoyance you brought? A human?” The demon was encroaching on Stephanie, almost close enough for her to make out the delicate scales hidden below his eyepaint. “I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if I took a closer look—”

Naamah shot onto her feet, her fingerblades to his throat.

Python lost his smile.

“Not another step,” Naamah said, hissing herself between her teeth.

There was a pause, heavy and oppressive.

“Oh,” Python whispered, “but I think you might want to play a little more nicely today. We wouldn’t want to wake
her
.”

He inclined his head at the figure hanging in her web of chains, her silhouette sharp against a background of crimson.

Stephanie’s eyes began to water.

“After all,” he continued, just as softly, “you haven’t exactly been the most well-behaved chick in the nest as of late. Maybe while we’re here, we should tell the Prince about your recent string of failures.” Python pushed the blades away from his neck. “Or you could simply let me take a look at your little pet. That is, unless you do want help from
her
instead.”

Naamah’s braids shone with the eerie light, resembling gold dipped in blood.

“She’s dying,” she said at last, her voice trembling. “From blood loss.”

Python stepped to Stephanie’s side, glowering down at her. “I don’t see why that matters. Humans breed like common rats and die just as easily. I’m sure you’ll find a replacement soon. Unless you think she is the Archon, perhaps?”

Naamah was silent for a while, and that was answer enough. Stephanie couldn’t control herself. She sobbed, violated by the idea that Naamah never really believed in her.
Never
. Naamah had mentioned replacements when talking about her dead brother, and now it was Stephanie’s turn, just as she’d warned.

“She’s a human I—adopted.”

Python waited, wordless.

“Her mother sold her soul, in exchange for typical human amusements. This one was only a chick, and with her red hair—”

“Then that means,” he said coolly, “that you’re still looking.” The demon’s tone hardened, subtly but in a distinct and terrible way. “It’s not a good position to be in, Countess. Some would be led to think you’re not enthusiastic about our god’s cause. Holding back like that. What a shameful thing to do when so many lives are at stake.”

But both of them heard the careless laughter in his voice.

“So how shall you keep her alive? With”—and the laughter was real this time—“the power of prayer?”

Naamah’s fingers twitched dangerously, but she calmed down again, glancing at him sideways. “Why are you interested? Do you want to help me? Or are you really just that much of a snake?”

Python breathed heavily.

Naamah turned from him, but he grabbed her suddenly, pulling her in as if for an embrace. Her fingerblades reappeared at the same instant the manacled figure sighed in her sleep.

Naamah froze with her hand extended, petrified.

Python whispered into her ear, and Stephanie thought she saw a forked tongue lick at her mother’s skin. “We’re not that ignorant, Countess. Or, perhaps I should say, I’m not that ignorant.” His fingers pinched her arms cruelly, and his other hand clamped against the wound near her collarbone. “Let’s be frank with each other. You made a mistake the moment you sidestepped me for this mission. I mean, what did you think? That I wouldn’t catch on to where your true allegiance lies?” He whispered even lower now, voice husky. “It’s one thing to secretly plan for our Prince’s deposition. It’s another to let everyone else figure it out. If I were you, it might be time to make your nest elsewhere. In fact, I’d say you showed your idiocy the moment you stepped into this Altar.”

Now it was Stephanie’s turn to laugh. She couldn’t even say what had amused her so much.

Naamah and another demon were at each other’s throats. She was dying.

Yet the laughter left her anyway, cold and mirthless.

Python gazed at her once more, and then his eyes burned with fear.

He licked his lips, unclasping Naamah with a shiver to his arms.

Naamah cursed at him in that harsh language of hers and pushed him aside, lifting Stephanie back into her arms and taking her nearer to the chained figure above them. Stephanie stopped laughing, understanding deep down inside that there was nothing to enjoy. Nothing to hope for anymore. Like Naamah’s brother, she was now a sacrifice to the one person Kim warned would find and punish her for the murderous promises she’d so hastily made. Over and over in her mind, she saw the blood and the unhappiness, some of it her own, some inflicted on others through her actions. Then she raised her head, steeling herself to gaze back into the face of Ruin, determined to overcome it somehow.

Stephanie saw only herself, hanging there. Until the eyes opened, red as the blood dripping from her arm.

“Now.” Stephanie stopped Naamah, digging her nails into the demon’s skin.

Her vision swirled with black, the buzzing in her ears like a mass of flies.

But there was no denying this sense of utter satisfaction anymore.

“Go ahead and pray.”