Black Dog (29 page)

I snarled as the inmates holding me laid me down on the table, a dozen hands holding me in place. Overhead, hooks dripped slow, coagulated blood onto the cement floor. I caught sight of an oil drum out of the corner of my eye overflowing with a rotting sludge of skin and fat that made my eyes water. The whole shed was rampant with flies and the smell of rotting meat.

“Mr. Fix-­it will make you right as rain, girlie,” the damned who'd spotted me said, then smiled. I decided right then that I did not want to meet Mr. Fix-­it, and I'd risk exposing myself rather than take my chances with this mob.

I wasn't even sure I
could
shift in Tartarus, but when I shut my eyes I felt the familiar exchange between the hound and me, and when I opened them the damned were in a frothing panic. I leaped off the table, hitting the dirt and running for my life. There was a lot of yelling behind me, and the sight of a hellhound agitated all the damned in my path. They converged on me, and soon I realized that I was hemmed in, even my smaller size and a mouth full of wounding teeth not doing a whole fuck-­ton of good against hundreds of damned souls looking to take their fate out of my hide.

Hands started to grab at me, and I snapped down on a few fingers and palms. The circle was narrowing, though, and it was getting harder and harder to dodge the grasping hands of the damned.

A rock bounced off my back, then another. Just as I realized I was going to go down under a hail of stones and broken bricks, a blinding blue light washed over the open yard.

The damned fell back, and I was temporarily blinded by the spot. When the sparklers cleared from my vision, I saw two figures approaching. They were taller than the damned, somehow more solid, and the damned fell back and knotted up far out of range of them.

I also backed up as they came toward me with no sign of slowing, but one grabbed me by the skin between my shoulder blades and the other thrust a black cotton bag over my head. I was lifted, struggling, and then something struck the back of my skull, turning everything soft and cottony and blank.

 

CHAPTER
27

A
va,” a voice said, soft and firm. A hand touched my shoulder. “Ava, come back to us.”

I jolted up, and my head let me know how pissed off it was by sending a wave of nausea through me.

I was on two legs again, lying on a white leather sofa inside an office done in muted tones of white and gray. The only color in the room came from the tie of the man sitting across from me, behind a white desk carved from a single block of marble.

“You're all right,” he said, standing and coming over to me. He wore a black suit and a white shirt that started my head throbbing even harder than it already was, it was so bright.

I sat up, my boots leaving streaks on the white leather. Inexplicably, I felt terrible about that and tried to wipe them away with my sooty sleeve, which only made things worse.

“Don't worry about it,” the man said. “Happens all the time.”

He was beautiful up close. It was an odd way to think of a man, but I didn't have a better word for it. His skin was that same golden tan as Clint's and Annabelle's, and his hair was lighter, soft brown streaked with a few sun-­kissed strands here and there. His eyes were a bright gemstone green that dazzled in the soft light, and I got a close-­up look as he leaned in and examined my pupils. “You're fine,” he pronounced. “You feel all right?”

I touched my side, but beyond the blood crusted on my T-­shirt, my side had already started to knit back together. The incision was red and sore, and if my arm was anything to go on, would be for weeks, but I didn't even feel all that queasy from the knock on the head. “I think so,” I said, baffled. “Where am I?”

“Tartarus,” the man said. He went to a window of long white panels and flipped a switch. They rolled back to show a view of the prison, from high up near one of the crematory chimneys. My heart sank.

“Not to make a bad joke,” I said, “but what fresh Hell am I in now?” The office was basically bare except for the cube-­y white furniture, nothing on the desk or the walls I could use to fight with. Even the floor was polished white cement, a high sheen that the cynical part of my mind figured would be easy to hose off when blood got spilled.

This guy definitely had the upper hand, so I stayed where I was, trying to stop the waves of dizziness so I could run if I had to.

“You're in the administrative building,” the guy said. “Rest assured, none of the damned are allowed here. No Hellspawn at all. You can't even turn into a hound within these four walls. I have barriers that prevent anything of that nature all around my office.” He turned and gave me a chagrined smile. “When you're the warden you don't take a lot of positive meetings.”

I felt my breath catch. According to Lilith, Tartarus didn't have a warden. It was just a dumping ground for the damned, the kind of wasteland where things like laws and decency came to die, caught under the wheels of basic survival.

Then again, what did Lilith know?

The guy came around the desk and stuck out his hand. “Sorry, I'm being rude. I'm Uriel. It's good to finally meet you in person.”

I didn't take his hand, instead staring up at his square-­jawed, perfectly tanned face. “I thought the only Fallen in here was Lucifer.”

“Lucifer is the only Fallen,” Uriel said, withdrawing his hand. He went to a small indent in the wall and revealed a bar behind a sliding panel. He poured me a glass of water out of a decanter shaped like a teardrop and brought it back. “Here. I know how parched you get down in the yards.”

I took the glass cautiously. My throat was dry and felt like I'd chewed on sand, and I figured he wouldn't try to poison me, since he could have killed me when I was passed out.

“I'm an angel,” Uriel said. “Not a Fallen. I came from the Kingdom to administer things here, but I am not like those animals you met. Especially not Lucifer.”

I choked on my water, sending a flood down the front of my shirt. Uriel got a bar towel and handed it to me, frowning as I dabbed at my filthy shirt. “Sorry to be so blunt, but we need to talk honestly, and I don't have a lot of time.”

“Angels only live in the Kingdom,” I said dumbly, like I was five years old and telling somebody what sound the cow made.

“Some do,” Uriel said. “Some live on Earth. We just know how to actually live, not run around fucking everything up and making a spectacle of ourselves like the Fallen and the Hellspawn.” He accepted the towel back and put it down a laundry chute behind another soundless wall panel.

“Clint said . . .” I started, then stopped. Uriel cocked his head. He was tall, probably at least six and a half feet, but he carried himself well, his tailored suit fitting his lanky limbs like a carapace.

“Clint? Oh, right. That's what Azrael is calling himself these days.” He tapped a drawer in his desk. “I've got a file on all of them. All of the Fallen who survived the exodus to Earth. All of the demons out there in Hell too.”

“I'm really confused,” I blurted, and Uriel laughed. When he laughed his entire face lit up, and if I'd met him anywhere else—­if I was anyone else—­I'd have a hard time speaking and not just staring.

“You're unique, Ava. I assume Azrael told you something to wet your whistle—­mind if I ask how much?”

I nodded, seizing on the fact that he seemed pleasant and reasonable on the surface. I was pretty sure it was an act, but maybe I could get something. “If I can ask you something too.”

“Anything.” Uriel spread his hands. “Shoot.”

“How are you here?” I said. “I mean, I don't know much, but I understand how the crossroads work.”

“The Kingdom commands a lot of power, more than anything Hell has to offer,” Uriel said. “When the Fallen built this place it didn't go unnoticed. We reacted late, but we did what we could.” He sat down in his desk chair, leaning back and crossing one shiny black shoe across the knee of his suit. “Azrael tell you the demons sealed him out of Tartarus?”

I nodded. Uriel grinned wider. “They had a little help. All we could do was close it up and make sure only the damned and the condemned came in and nothing ever, ever came out. The demons use the damned, and as long as they have souls on tap they don't ask many questions.”

“Until Lilith,” I said. Uriel sighed.

“That nutcase has caused me more problems than any other Hellspawn combined. Her and Lucifer's little homicidal love story is a pain right in my ass.”

“He's dead,” I said quietly. “Leo killed him.”

Uriel didn't ask how or who Leo was, so I figured he must be poking around inside my skull like Lilith had. “Ava,” he said aloud. “What did Azrael say?”

I knew what he was asking about, so I took a deep breath and let it out. “He said I'm not human, that I have the soul of a hound only. That he and the other Fallen created four couriers to travel the crossroads and that one of them started bringing lost souls to Hell. Me and Leo are those souls, dying over and over because there's no Fallen in Hell anymore to use us.”

“Use is an accurate description,” Uriel said. “Ava, you were human once. Azrael stole two human souls himself and twisted them, destroyed them to create the reapers and the hellhounds. He's a bastard of the highest order and always was.”

I didn't mean to, but I teared up and a long gasp came out of my throat without my bidding. Uriel gave me a sad smile, then handed me a pristine white box of tissues from his desk drawer. “The Fallen lied to you, Ava. They have as much of a stake in opening Tartarus as Lilith did. Actually, they're worse, because she did it for Lucifer and the Fallen are just waiting to pounce on the damned and use them for their own ends. With that many souls at their disposal they could reenter Hell, and then we're all bent over a table being fucked.”

I sniffed. “Are angels supposed to cuss?”

Uriel chuckled. “I do. But I'm not very polite by angelic standards, or any others.” He leaned across his desk, and I braced myself for what was coming.

“We knew Lilith was up to something, but she's slippery, so when Leonid Karpov came to our attention, we . . . arranged protection for the two of you.”

I pulled in on myself. “What?”

“Think of what's happened since you two met,” Uriel said. “Your souls are drawn together, true, but did you ever think it was odd how Lilith could never quite lay hands on you? How Raphael helped you, even though she hates Hellspawn
and
Fallen and probably adorable fluffy puppies too?”

Something he'd said clicked together in my exhausted, battered brain and I snapped my gaze up. “You said you'd never met me
in person.
”

Uriel grinned. “I prefer talking to you like this, rather than digging around for a trusted memory and showing up in your head as your grandmother.”

“Oh, fuck . . .” I moaned, burying my head in my hands. Uriel leaned against his desk.

“Others were skeptical about letting this play out the way it did, but I knew you'd figure out what Lilith was doing and I knew you'd stop her. Now Lucifer is gone, Lilith is outed, and no one in Hell is any wiser that the Kingdom has a presence here.”

“I could have died,” I snarled at him. “A
bunch
of times. You should have told me what was happening, that you were . . . I don't know . . . riding shotgun in my mind this whole time?”

“Just visiting occasionally,” Uriel said. “Lilith and her reapers have done a good job of killing off either the reaper or their hound before they could find each other. This was the first time in a very long time both of you were born and survived long enough to meet.”

I shivered uncontrollably, Uriel's words worse than any truth bomb Lilith could dump on me. He leaned forward and I braced myself for the other shoe to drop and explode my world even more. “I'm going to give you a choice, Ava, because I'm not just in it for myself. There's no upside to me letting you and Leonid continue to exist. I can blink your souls out of existence and that'll be that. The thousand-­year cycle will be over. But . . .” He held up a finger. “Hell's been languishing for a long time without a leader. It's weak. And the Kingdom doesn't like weakness. The realms coexist, and if one of them collapses, it'll be like beads falling off a broken necklace.”

He stood up again and gestured to me to do the same. I had to crane my neck to meet his eyes.

“That's the physics,” Uriel said. “The practical side is that you're a lot better at killing Fallen and Hellspawn that most of us in the Kingdom. Real-­world experience and all that.” He opened the drawer he'd pointed to and handed me a black accordion folder. “That's every Fallen that survived the exodus. Leo takes up the mantle of Grim Reaper, you become his hound as you were meant to. The pair of you hunt down and destroy every last one of said Fallen, and you and Leo can go about your business of reaping souls until the heat death of the universe for all I care. You'll be together, and more important, you'll have our gratitude.”

I swallowed. It was going to be harder to keep my cool than it had ever been when my life was actively in danger. Uriel was still smiling, but it wasn't reaching his eyes anymore. He was waiting for me to say no, and I had no doubt if I did it'd be my blood getting hosed off the floor.

“Clint—­Azrael—­doesn't remember anything about his time in Hell,” I said. “I think as far as he's concerned what he told me was the truth.”

“I really don't care about Azrael's feelings,” Uriel said. “He did terrible things, Ava. He manipulated you and he enabled Lilith to set herself up as the queen bee in Hell, and by extension, he's responsible for you being a hound this time around. It was her reaper, right?”

I looked at my feet and nodded. “I'm just not sure how I feel about genocide.”

“Genocide?” Uriel raised an eyebrow. “Ava, you're not wiping out something as precious and worthwhile as life. Think of it as correcting nature's mistake. Angels stay in the Kingdom, the Hellspawn in Hell, humans and the things born from them on Earth. There's no place in that picture for the Fallen.”

I met his eyes again. “What happens if I say no?”

Uriel's face hardened. “I'm cleaning up Lucifer's and Azrael's mistakes one way or the other. Technically, you're one of them. I'm being generous here, Ava. I suggest you pull your head out of your ass and work for me. You keep breathing, the Fallen are gone, and your buddy Leonid even gets to live on as the head of the reapers.” He gestured at the window. “He's going to be plenty busy rounding up all the escapees from Tartarus, so it's probably best to just keep this little side job on the Fallen between us.”

I folded my arms. “You're pretty confident I'm going to say yes.”

Uriel reached out and patted me on the shoulder. “You stick with me, Ava, and you'll find out I always get what I want.” He went to his office and opened the door. “One way or another.”

I hurried to the threshold, looking out into nothing but blank white hall. “I haven't said yes.”

Uriel pointed to the pair of doors at the end of the hall. “You don't have to say it. Just don't try and cross me.”

I thought about it. Not for very long. It wasn't a hard choice, even if it was a shitty one. I wasn't going to toe up against an angel for some principled stand. “How do I get out of this place?” I demanded. “I can't use the crossroads.”

“You can,” Uriel said. “You don't give yourself enough credit, Ava. You're capable of things you can't even imagine yet.” He smiled and patted me on my sore arm. The ache and the throbbing in my shoulder vanished, and I felt warm and relaxed, as if I'd just spent an hour in the sun. Fucking angels. Always with the Dr. Feelgood routine.

“Take the elevator all the way to the top,” Uriel said. “It will deposit you where you're supposed to go.”