Entice: An Ignite Novella (13 page)

I wonder what he believes from what he’s read. Who does he think scrawled the stories throughout Eden? How much of it does he believe is true?

“I, a woman, arrive and tell him I’m his wife. He simply believes. Why question what his own eyes display as fact?”

“And the apple...”

“If I show him a bitten apple, he will believe I have tasted it. When he sees I am not met with any retribution, he will believe it. He will eat from the tree of his own volition.”

Azael sits up straighter, no longer able to casually wait for our plan to unfold. Naamah and Botis’s new tactic of manipulation is dangerous. It’s likely to work—and I know that from only the short time I’ve seen Adam.

He has a sliver of curiosity in him, a thin vein that runs through his human body that only needs to be tapped. If pushed far enough, if presented with such a simple opportunity to learn, taste, or experience something new, he will. Adam’s inquisitive but not original. What was it Gus said about Azael? That he follows orders and direction well enough but has no potential of his own. He needs someone to show him what to try, which limits to push.

Man is too reliant on the angels to risk exile for a single apple. But if he’s convinced it was just an idle threat...

He cannot be that unsuspecting.

Azael shakes his head, jaw slack.
He might be.

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T
HE MOON IS A COWARD
, hiding itself behind a thick shroud of clouds while the garden it watches over falls to ruin, the man it protects soon to follow. Only the stars stand sentry, silent and stationary. There is no help for Adam now.

Fury drives Azael to his feet and he tears through the branches we lurk behind. Subtlety is no longer an issue now that Naamah and Botis have a legitimate plan in action. I follow on his heels, daggers in hand. I’m slightly unsettled that it feels natural to hold them, like an extension of my own arm.

His voice slices through the night like a cold knife. “Do you really believe Lucifer will look at your actions with any semblance of respect?” Naamah and Botis turn to us languidly as if they’ve been expecting us, smirks smacked across their insolent faces. It incenses Azael further. “This is a cheap trick!”

Man rolls over but doesn’t wake.

I speak softer, hoping Azael will lower his voice to match mine. “It is not admirable. Does honor mean nothing?”

Botis swings his flat head to us. “Since when do we care about what is admirable, children?” The words slide from his tongue and tangle around my legs. “We are no longer angels in Heaven, shackled by the constraints of morals.”

“We are Hell’s dark servants,” Naamah continues. She blends into the darkness of the evening; only the glow of her violet eyes is visible in the shadow of the great tree. “You should start acting as such. Take what you want by any means necessary.”

“We will stop you—” Azael pulls out his scythe from his belt, spinning it around and holding it up, poised and ready to strike them across their necks. “This will not be your victory. It is rightfully
ours.”

“Rightfully?” A bemused smile slowly creeps across Naamah’s face. Everything about the way she speaks to us is steeped in condescension—from the lift of her chin that forces her to look down at us, and us up at her, to her patronizing tone. In her eyes, we will always be ignorant, nonthreatening subordinates. “What right have you to this claim?”

“We’ve done the work! You cannot just...swoop in last minute.” I wave my hand around the garden, gesturing to the crippled trees and plants, the death that hangs off of everything around us like a shroud. Eden no longer smells like Heaven, sweet and syrupy. Decomposition hangs on the air like heavy smoke, choking away what little life is left. “How much longer do you believe he would last? Hours, maybe? Man grows hungry. Our plan will work—he will give in to temptation.”

“Not fast enough,” Naamah says simply.

Azael lunges forward, slashing out with his crescent blade. Naamah tries to jump out of the way but my brother is faster. He catches the smooth curve of Naamah’s waist and dark, black blood runs down her bare leg. It falls from her hip like a macabre version of the tight, leather sheath dress she first wore.

In a breath of a moment, she has her whip uncoiled from her arm and strikes back at Azael. The gold rope wraps around his neck and brings him to his knees. Even in the inky darkness, I can see a great red welt spreading out from the whip. Azael remains silent, stoic. The scene is all too familiar to me.

Images of the war come slamming back into my consciousness, searing my eyes closed. Angels and demons fallen, driven to the ground by pain. Knotted by ropes and whips, skewered by blades and spears. The angel I halved with his own weapon... The only difference now is the silence. There’s no screaming, no clashing of metal on metal or loudly beating wings. But I hear them all in my mind.

It’s like I’m back to the last day of the war. When I almost died. When Azael was almost killed, but by some twist of fate, Michael was struck down instead. The day Azael and I both survived but somehow still managed to lose everything.

When I open my eyes again, I’m back in the garden. Azael is slumped onto the ground, unconscious and paralyzed. He lies next to man, and for some reason, it infuriates me. Before I realize it, I’ve released the two blades I hold, snapping my wrist and sending them flying toward Naamah. One catches her hand, which she holds high, clutching the handle of the whip coiled around Azael. The blade buries itself in her palm, nailing her hand to the tree. A perfect hit.

The other I aim lower. It hits its mark, stabbing between the bones of her foot, immobilizing her. Careful not to wake Adam, the only sound of pain she allows is a vicious hiss. Even Botis barely reacts; his forked tongue only continues to peek in and out of his mouth, indifferent.

Two more blades are in my hand before anyone changes their mind and decides to react. I’m backing up, holding my weapons out in warning.

“Let him go.” My voice shakes.

Naamah laughs and my eyes go to her immediately. She doesn’t look scared or in any terrible amount of pain. Though why would she? I’m sure she’s been much more seriously injured. I’ve heard whispers of her savagery in the war; it’s no stretch of the imagination to believe she’s probably used to more extreme torture than I could ever imagine. Azael, though, would have no problem dreaming up ways to wring some form of agony out of her. But he’s unconscious, leaving me alone with the burden of retribution.

“Silly girl.” Her voice is like silk and I want to shred it apart with my daggers. She frees her hand from the tree then bends down to pull the blade from her foot. “You were never going to win this fight. It was always ours.”

I pull out another blade from my belt to hold with the one already in my left hand. In a pinch, I can throw two at once. I haven’t practiced it much, but I know I can at least come close to my target. If she takes one step toward me, I’ll pin her down again.

“What fight?” I ask.

“Eden.” The word is a flower on her tongue that blooms black. There’s a sickly sweet excitement she has, a strange look in her eyes that makes me wary. She’s enjoying herself. “Do not tell me you truly expected to destroy man? You two are but mere children in the grand scheme of things. Young souls with no experience, no focus.”

I try not to let her words distract me, refusing to take my eyes off of her. This is some trick, some ploy to get me to drop my guard. But when I search her face, I don’t see the quirk of satisfaction of passing off a lie as truth; I find only delight at my reaction. My grip tightens on my daggers.

“Failure,” she continues, a laugh in her voice, “was the fate you two were meant to meet here. It’s a lesson.”

“We were given as much of a chance as you and Botis.” I jerk my chin to where Botis waits, spiraled by Naamah’s feet. But when I glance down, he’s gone.
Dammit
. She’s only a distraction, her taunts meant to pull my attention from the targets in front of me. I back up farther until my spine hits the trunk of a tree.

“No.” She shakes her head, mock sympathy pulling her features south. “From the beginning, Eden was destined for us, not you and your imbecile of a brother.”

“Then why—”

“To break you, of course.” She takes a step forward and I let the single dagger in my right hand fly. It sticks in her side and she removes it, barely flinching. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d stop throwing those.”

“Then stay where you are.” I look around for Botis but can’t find his fat, red body. There’s no telltale crunch of leaves to give me any signs as to where he went. Which means he could be anywhere.

“Very well.”

I pat my belt, feeling for another dagger, but come up empty. Only two blades left. I’ll have to make them count. “Why,” I continue, trying to keep my voice even, “would we be sent on a task we would unquestionably fail at? What would be the point?”

It makes no sense to set up two capable soldiers for failure. Even though I can’t place a lie on Naamah’s lips, she has to be manipulating me. Gus wouldn’t have risked his reputation by sending us on a mission we would be sure to fail. Our skills could be used somewhere else—somewhere we could actually make a difference. Why even risk our exposure to man, to the angels, if we would be rendered useless anyway?

“This is all a test.” Her words sink slowly in my stomach like a stone. “Lucifer wanted to measure your dear brother’s endurance and innovation. He follows orders well enough—stubborn to no end—but he has a mind the size of a walnut.”

“He doesn’t.”

“He
does
. No originality. I’m surprised he came up with a plan at all—or was that you?”

I don’t move to answer her question.

“Speaking of... You are of particular interest in this experiment of his. We’ve all seen of your insubordination. Your actions on the mountain were quite a display of insolence. Why follow him at all if you do not respect him?”

“There was a time I did.” I grind the words out from between my teeth.

“But no longer?” She cocks an eyebrow, and I realize my mistake. One slip-up could destroy everything. “Lucifer doesn’t take well to personal slights. He has a tolerance, but it’s not very high. Failure will put you in your place, remind you of your rank. If I were him, I would have simply killed you and used your insolence as an example. You should be thanking him for his leniency and mercy.”

“This is not mercy.”

She grins. “Of course it is. A test is more favorable than death, is it not?”

I shake my head. He’s taking everything away from Azael, and by association, from me. Death would have been easier. But a test like this... How long will we be trying to prove ourselves to him? No, that’s not right. He already trusts Azael. The true question is: how long until he believes he’s won over my allegiance?

Tests. This will be what the remainder of my life will be comprised of. Small trials to try my loyalty, my willingness to obey commands. I think back to what little Gus said about this mission. Did he tell us it was a test? I remember learning our time in Eden would be monitored... Didn’t he tell me this? It had to have been. It was the day after my heart—

No.
My blood runs cold.
It was Lucifer
. Gus knew our success would be impossible but said nothing. He only promised that if we completed our task—if we were the ones responsible for tarnishing man in sin—it would mean a seat on Lucifer’s counsel. Two seats Azael and I were never intended to fill.

He knew Naamah and Botis wouldn’t work with us; it was hopeless. And without them, whatever plan we conjured would always fall just short of success. His notebook... The symbol of defeat wasn’t referring to man. It was our future, our collapse he predicted. We were destined to fail.

“Interesting,” Naamah purs.

Suddenly, something crashes down and squeezes me around my center, tying me to the tree. My arms are pinned by my side, the weapons clutched in my hands, useless. I thrash out with my legs, trying to free myself. It takes me a minute to realize it’s Botis’s thick, muscled body trapping me.

He squeezes tighter, crushing my ribs until they bend so far that they break, cracking loud enough to stir man again. I gasp—my lungs, still not used to being rendered useless, sure they’ll need air after a puncture so deep. The night grows darker as I join Azael in unconsciousness.

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W
HITE PRICKS OF LIGHT FILL
my vision. I try to blink them away, but when they remain, I realize it’s not my eyes fighting away the pull of dizziness. It’s the universe staring down at me. Stars dust the darkness with a dazzling luster so beautiful it stings my eyes to tears. I want to try and count the millions of constellations—ignore everything else but the celestial celebration of night—but being conscious again reminds me of my surroundings.

I’m still in Eden. The garden stretches up to Heaven, a darker shadow against the sky. The ground is hard and unforgiving under my back, and I realize I’m lying down. I try to move but find that my hands and feet are bound and my mouth is stuffed with some kind of gauzy fabric. With great effort, I raise my head, chin to chest, to look at my feet. Sure enough, the hem of my dress is ripped to pieces. I’m chewing on my own uniform. Fantastic.

My head cracks on the ground when I lower it again, adding more imagined stars into the midnight sky that is just beginning to lighten to pink at the edges. I close my eyes again.

Sonova—

Azael?
I twist to my side and notice Azael is next to me, also immobilized by ropes and whips, mouth stuffed silent with molding fruit. I lucked out with the fabric.
What happened?

What do you think? Botis and Naamah happened.

I try to take inventory of my injuries, my memories. My ribs are broken, but I can already feel the bones fusing themselves back together. Everything else seems relatively free of pain, except for my head. But that’s a self-inflicted injury. The last thing I remember is the look in Naamah’s eyes after she told me everything was a test. That we were meant to fail. Then—blackness.