Darksoul (38 page)

He waited.

“The Queen said—” I looked away, throat tightening. Allie and the Nephilim were grouped together, checking their inhuman guns’ magazines and talking to each other in heated voices. Their faces were grim. None of them paid attention to us. “Is it true that you use people’s—that
zokyies
are made of people’s ashes?”

His
voice was steady. “Yes.”

I willed myself to stay in control.
To breathe in and out. “How?”

“It’s just healing. In a more extreme form.”

I waited for him to explain. Ash leaned against the table, looking morbidly interested.

“The ashes,” Hunter said. “I…”

A frown. “Bring them back to life?”

“They’re already alive. I’m simply restoring
them, giving them breath and form. They come from a living being. So I just…” He made a vague gesture with his hands. Ash looked fascinated. I pressed my lips together. “I give it a loose shape, because obviously, a clump of ash—it has no shape. And then I heal it. It loses its former coloring. And the life it used to have comes back to it. It’s quite a simple procedure, really.”

I stared at him for a long moment. So did Ash.

“You know what you are?” I said at last.

Hunter waited.

“A Russian nesting doll,” I said. “A Russian nesting doll of fuckery. Layers and layers. Of fuckery. That’s you, Hunter Slade. One big blonde clusterfuck of fuckery.”

Before he could respond, we heard, “Hazel?”

Hunter, Ash, and I turned. Allie stood there, red curls falling in a disarray around her, gaze fixed on them. “I’d like to speak to her,” she said, and her face cooled a little. “Alone.”

They stoically stared down at her, and then
turned and walked away.

“Yes?
” I said, reaching back to grab my mom’s limp fingers.

She saw that
, and her features softened. “Well, let’s try this again,” she said, stretching out a hand toward me. “My name is Allie Denoir. I’m a member of the group of Nephilim who work under the name ‘Amelia.’”

We shook.
“Did you know all this time? That I was…?”

She gave a quiet laugh. “Of course I did. But I also knew you were
close to them”—she nodded her head toward Hunter and Ash, who’d leaned against the side of the gazebo to smoke cigarettes—“and the last thing we want is to get them involved in our business. I’m sure you understand.”

After a hesitant pause, I nodded.

“The banished Prince of Sielae,” she murmured, looking in their direction. “And the one nobody likes to talk about. You have interesting company, that’s for sure.”

I stepped aside so she could see my mom’s
lifeless form on the table. “Is there any way you could—” My voice broke. “Help her?”

“Yes, sweetheart. Of course.” She gestured
at the band of Nephilim, and two men broke away and jogged toward us. “They’re my only family,” she said when I gave her a questioning look. “My friends from Amelia—they’re the only thing I have. I’m sorry if they seemed unapproachable at first, but I promise you. They’re a fine group of people.”

“They’re very nice,” I murmured, just as the two men came near.

“Joshua, Robert,” she said, nodding at them. “If you could please take Sophia to the Commander. Tell him to prepare a memory specialist.”

“A memory—” I
blinked. “What?”

“Angels aren’t the only ones who c
an mess with someone’s memory.” She pulled out two chairs from under the table and sat down. “It’s a skill that can be learned, and with the inhuman technology we’ve developed, it has become increasingly easier.”

“But why would you—” I shook my head to clear it. The men were a
lready carting her away. “Why—”

She gestured at the other chair. “Sit down, honey.”

Breathing harshly, I did.

“
As you know, I’ve been with Sophia for three years,” she started quietly. “It’s been lovely. I’ve never loved a human so much in my entire life, and for a second, I just thought—” She broke off, her voice thick. “I thought that I could be with her and battle demons at the same time. But this”—she nodded at the mess around us—“this isn’t the life I would want for her. And neither, I think, would you.”

“You’re right. But—”

“I’m ordering for her memory of me to be erased. If you’d let me,” she said, her eyes steady, “I’d like her memory of you to be erased as well.”

“What?” I said, and then my mind caught up with her words. “No! Please—”

“Hazel,” she said gently. “I know you’ve realized you’re not her daughter.”

I felt myself deflate. “Yes.”

Allie’s expression softened. After a moment, she tilted her head at me and said, “You know, there’s very bad blood between angels and Nephilim.”

I said nothing. I had no idea where this topic
came from.

“Do you know why angels don’t try to use our blood?” asked
Allie. “Why they leave us here on Earth to fend for ourselves?”

I
remained silent.

“Because when angels realized the power we had,
” she said, “they tried to use us. To turn us into their soldiers, to make us into weapons of mass destruction that could be unleashed on Haelvia. This was thousands of years ago, before diplomacy existed between Sielae and the demon world. But angels didn’t want to work together with us in a sensible way. They wanted to bend us to their whim. And what did we do?”

“We…” The word was hoarse. I cleared my throat. “We fought back?”

“Yes,” she said. “And when we did, when we told them that we’d rather stay here on Earth and fight on our own, they separated themselves from us. Left us here without protection and decided we were an abomination that needed to be hidden from the human race.”

“
Hidden? But we look…” My brow creased. “We look human.”

“That may be true, but
our aging process is vastly different. I stopped aging when I was thirty-six.” She paused. “That was twenty years ago.”

I couldn’t move.

“There are variations, of course, and different Nephilim stop at different ages. This is…where the hard part comes in.” She hesitated. “You already stopped aging, Hazel. A while ago. I can tell just by looking at you.”

No. “I’m seventeen,” I whispered.

“That’s what they want you to think. There are Nephilim in the world who don’t know what they are, and who don’t know they’ve stopped aging—because angels repeatedly perform a process called
azhen
on them. They move the Nephilim around. Give them memories of a life they never had. Just a flick of their finger and the Nephilim is at a new place, with a new name and a new family.” She leaned forward. “This is their way of fighting back. This is their way of saying,
We will only hide you from human knowledge, but we will never help you or protect you from wayward demons
. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Hazel?”

I closed my eyes. “
Azhen
?”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

A long moment passed. The night buzzed around us, hazy and tranquil despite what had happened less than half an hour ago. The Amelian Nephilim were speaking in hushed voices now, trying to plan what was next. I thought I heard Ash and Hunter exhale smoke.

“If they hate us so much, then why do
they…” Wetness streaked down my cheek. “Why do they keep coming, a-and falling in…”

“Because nothing could ever be compared to human affection,” Allie said softly. “They may not be fond of the product. Meaning us. But to get a taste,
to be with a human. Just once. They would break rules for it.”

I hated how romantic she
made it sound. I said nothing.

“Amelia,” she
said, seeming to sense that I didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken, “has a team dedicated to searching out the
azhen’ed
Nephilim and telling them who they are. Once they become involved with us, the angels leave them alone. They’ve lost. Those Nephilim are ours now.”

I pressed my lips together. Hard. “What about me?”

“
Azhen’ed
,” she said quietly. “An angel gave you fake memories of the life you thought you had with Sophia and gave her recollections of you as well.” Her gaze was warm and apologetic, as if she thought it was her fault. “I’m sorry. But your life up to this point has been false, Hazel.”

I
didn’t even try to speak.

“You had other identities before this one, I’m sure. You probably had another identity two years ago.
Humans notice if someone isn’t aging, so
azhen
has to be performed every two, three years.”

“So when did
I…” My voice was numb. “When did they put me…”

The night suddenly seemed very still around us.
“About a year ago. Although everyone who came in contact with Sophia immediately believed you were her daughter, I didn’t. I knew what had happened. Normal humans, though…their memories shifted to accommodate Sophia’s new daughter.” She looked sad. “It may sound intricate but angels are powerful. And the human mind is exceptionally bendable.”

Allie’s face was blurry.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said, closing her eyes. “I didn’t see you during the first two years that I was in a relationship with her. She never mentioned a daughter, or…”

“I gathered that,” I manage
d. “When was the first time she…talked about me?”

Softly, Allie
said, “Last summer.”

The hieroglyphs on the
barrel of the gun glimmered like quartz in the humid September evening. I turned it over and over in my hands and briefly considered throwing it to the ground. I was standing on top of a building in town, and from this height, some damage would definitely be done. Sighing, I tucked it into the waistband of my jeans. Then I stared out at the horizon. The sky was melting into shades of plum.

Last summer. Everything had
begun last summer.

And I’d asked him. In fact, right after the words came out of Allie’s mouth, I’d gotten up so fast that the chair fell over and
stormed to the gazebo, where he’d still been smoking a cigarette. And the first thing I did was backhand him across the face. Because, somehow, I knew that the high and almighty Prince had had to do with it. He’d shown up last summer. And last summer my new life began.

I’d grabbed him by his vest and brought him to my level and demanded and
shouted at him and then Hunter gently pulled me back, but I still kicked and yelled and Ash was blinking. He acted as if he were confused; he didn’t know what I was talking about; he said that I’d already been there when he showed up last summer, that he didn’t know who’d performed
azhen
on me; he apologized; he wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong.

He’d done everything wrong. He’d kissed me. He’d given me fake memories of himself. He’d ripped my heart
out and shredded it to pieces and made caramel flan with it. Still, I calmed down. But there was something in his gaze, I thought. A flicker, gone before I could catch it. He brought the cigarette to his lips, his hair falling across his eyes, and I couldn’t read him anymore.

After that, the weeks blurred together
. Time passed and a day didn’t go by when I didn’t wonder what other identities I’d had. Who I’d been. If my memories had been fake until a year ago, and Ash had also added our friendship to the pile of shit that was my nonexistent life, then…

I didn’t know who the hell I was. What I was.

Nikolas didn’t reappear. Neither did the Queen of Haelvia. Sumi and the rest of the human guests that had been at that wedding…their memories of that day were gone. Amelia dealt with them and made sure all demon-angel-Nephilim influences were gone from their minds. Meaning that Sumi’s recollections of me, Hunter, and Ash was—
They were
gone. And it more than hurt. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Allie contacted me before they took away my
mo—Sophia’s memory of me. They’d cleared out my room in that house—I knew because they gave me a box filled with my old things—and all was set for her to return to her former life. I’d been led blindfolded into an underground facility. Apparently my involvement with Ash and Hunter made me hazardous; they didn’t want the
Prince of Sielae
and the
Queen of Haelvia’s soul-thief
to know the physical whereabouts of Amelia. I didn’t care. When they locked me in a room and loosened my blindfold, the only thing I saw was her.

She was lying on a bed, unharmed. Her hair was loose around her—she would’ve hated that. There were no machines, and the room was
clean and bare. If there was really any technology that would be getting this done, I didn’t see any of it.

I edged closer
. My eyes were dry. We were alone, and I settled in next to her, curling up against her side. I placed her limp arm around my shoulders and buried my face into her thin hospital gown.

And I stayed like that. With her. No one came to disrupt us. To tear me away.

“We were going to Hawaii,” I whispered at last, the only words I’d spoken in hours. My chin quivered, and tears seeped into her collarbone. “Remember?”

The room was white and silent around us.

Things had been bitter. I’d been lost. I didn’t know what time it was or where I was supposed to be. I didn’t stay at Hunter’s; I didn’t stay at Ash’s. I slept on rooftops and stared up at the stars. Amelia hadn’t offered to take me in—they’d made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with Mr. Prince and Mr. Thief, and surprisingly, it’d been fine with me. I’d wanted nothing to do with that world. I’d wanted nothing to do with this one, either.

I ate but didn’t taste. I didn’t speak. I never met Ash’s eyes. I went to Aiere and hid in the trees, curling up with H
unter’s animals. Hunter, who’d seemed so unpleasant so many months ago. Who’d been an asshole and who, quite frankly, still was. But who hadn’t lied to me about our friendship. Who hadn’t put false memories of himself inside my mind.

But one night
in the middle of July, Ash caught me. I’d been standing on a rooftop, just like I was tonight, staring out at nothing. I hadn’t eaten in days. Weeks? Or maybe I’d eaten hours before. My sense of time was stilted. The only thing I was aware of was the sweat lining the back of my neck. The heat pressing against my shoulders.

And the faint, unmistakable scent of cigarette smoke.

I didn’t turn around. “How long have you been standing there?”

Ash’s response was slow to come. When it did, it was quiet and steady. “A while.”

Silence. Somewhere far off, a train was passing through. Its honk was both jarring and impossibly distant, like the ghost of a sound.

“Which one of us is going to leave?” I said. “Because one rooftop isn’t enough space for both of us.”

“Of course it is.”

Sighing,
I turned around to face him. His wings drooped against his back, their spiky tips flicking restlessly across the ground. Grayish clumps fell off the cigarette between his lips. His gaze was lowered. Panther slithered around his torso, slid across the nape of his neck, curled herself down his arm. Her midnight scales looked stark against his skin.

“You know, I keep wondering,” I said.

He waited.

Unexpected tears welled in my eyes, turning the world into an indiscernible blur. “
Was any of it real?”

A warm wind blew through and stirred the tips of his hair. His gaze remained on the ground. A tear spilled and streaked down to my chin. I didn’t reach up to wipe it away.

“Depends on your definition of real,” he said quietly.

“How many definitions can there be? It either was or it wasn’t.”

“It was to me, Hazel.”

A short, surprised laugh burst out of me. “Real? To you? That’s rich, Lucien. That’s just fucking rich.”

Nothing. Then, softly: “Call me Ash.”

“Asher Evans is dead to me.”

He didn’t lift his eyes. His wings drooped farther down, going unnaturally still. So still that they looked lifeless.

“The boy that became friends with me during sixth grade is dead,” I said
, wiping at my cheeks. “The one who went to ninth-grade homecoming with me and Sumi? Dead. And the past year? It may have happened, it may have been quote-unquote real, but—”

“It was the best year of my life.”

I stopped. At last, he let out a stream of smoke and stepped forward, closing the distance between us. I was standing on the edge and couldn’t take a step back. Still, I kept my gaze steady on his. He stared down at me, lashes half-lowered.

“Let me explain to you,” he said in a quiet voice, “what was going through my mind last summer.”

I remained silent.

“The day of the wedding, when I walked in with Hunter, and the Amelian Nephilim turned toward us. Remember the look on their faces?”

“What does this have to do with—”

“Disgust, surprise, wariness. Hatred, even. Remember that?”

I frowned. “I do, but—”

He reached up and brushed his thumb over my bottom lip, a gentle little thing. I froze.
“I have never,” he said softly, “been looked at any other way. The Queen of Sielae, the one who calls herself my mother. She despises me. My
zohv,
Lucienne? She rejoiced when I was banished. The palace staff whispered behind my back and shied away from me whenever I passed. And the general populace of Sielae? They hated a prince they’ve never met. They’d heard of his wings. These wings that are a curse. But do you know what I wanted?”

I stayed statue still.

“I wanted someone to be happy to see me,” he whispered, his thumb trailing down to my jawline. “For once in my life, I wanted someone to smile, really smile, when they saw my face. So when I was banished, I created a false reality for myself. With two girls and a school and a fake house and a car. And it was so…” His gaze was warm and molten. “It was great. To step into a new life. To have a cute Japanese girl call my name and run across a courtyard to jump into my arms. You have no idea how good it felt, Hazel. How much I appreciated those moments.”

“But it’s not—” My throat closed around the words. It wasn’t fair, was what I wanted to say. Just because you wanted something didn’t mean—messing with people’s
minds wasn’t—
“It’d been supposed to be for a short time.” His voice went quieter, thumb settling on the
hollow of my throat, drawing slow, soothing circles. “A couple of weeks at most. I just wanted to see what it was like. And then, about two months after it started, my heart kind of—fucked up.”

I wanted to bat his touch away, but couldn’t bring myself to. “Your heart?”

It was as if I hadn’t spoken. “All of a sudden, it felt real,” he said softly. “I knew that it wasn’t, that one day I’d have to leave and wipe your memory of me, but I’d gotten attached, and that’s when I knew I’d fucked up. And then I realized I’d gotten more than attached. To you. And then I realized I’d more than fucked up.”

He could say all the pretty things he wanted, but it didn’t change one fact. “Ash, those fake memories—”

“I know.” He dropped his hand, lashes falling. “The whole thing—it was selfish. It wasn’t right.” His cigarette was half-gone, and he stared down at the line of ash hanging from its tip. Quietly, he said, “But you should know by now that I have the uncanny ability to do everything wrong.”

Swallowing,
I looked away. I wanted to believe. To forgive. But there was something…something that wasn’t quite right. Maybe it was because I was starting to doubt everything. Or maybe it was because of something else entirely. I’d been mad at him for inserting himself in my memories, true, but those memories hadn’t been real in the first place. Sixth grade had never happened. Neither had the homecoming dance. My friendship with Sumi, I now realized, had been forged by the
azhen
. So had the mother-daughter relationship between Sophia and me.

Everything had been a lie
. I was lashing out at him because, somehow, his false friendship made it all the worse. But I didn’t want to think about it. Faux memories on top of faux memories—it all gave me a headache, and the only thing I wanted to do was lie down and not feel.

“
I don’t know…” Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I met his gaze. “I really don’t know if I should continue with this.”

“With what?”

I didn’t say the words. But he could read them on my face.

“I’ve tried, you know.” The tears again. Damn
it. “I’ve tried. With you.”

His
eyes softened. “I’m aware of that.”

“
But first, I don’t know what the fuck is going on with my feelings anymore. I liked you. Shit. I probably still like you. But I’m not blind, Ash. You’ve been cruel and I hung around. You flaunted twenty girls in front of me and I hung around. You pushed me toward your blonde twin, told me to date him, fuck him, kiss him—even pretended to be him for weeks, just for the sake of sleuthing—and I gave you a hard time for five minutes before running right back to you. And all for what?”

He didn’t shy away when I took a step forward, closing the distance between us. I clenched my teeth just as the
tears began to fall. “All for me to find out that our friendship hadn’t been real. You could apologize all you want, kneel, kiss my feet and declare your undying
luuurve
to me—and it still wouldn’t make up for the fact that you ripped my heart out, broke it in half, hung it around your neck and gave a piece to Hunter, too, because you can’t bear the thought of having something without sharing it with him first.”