Entice: An Ignite Novella (2 page)

Michael stumbles back a little, righting himself just before he reaches the edge of the mountain. He runs his fingers over the gash and brings his hand away covered in red, red blood.

Azael takes the hit as a cue to make his move. He rushes forward, positioning himself in the space between Michael and Lucifer.

What is he doing?

Rage and fear churns in my stomach, threatening to make me sick. Az holds out his scythe, pathetically nonthreatening matched against either of the archangels’ swords. Michael can kill him as easily as he breathes. His death wouldn’t be significant to neither Michael nor Lucifer, but Azael is brazen enough to believe he is invincible. Azael isn’t dead now, but he will be if he doesn’t move.

“NO!” I scream as loud as I can, elbowing my way toward the mountain. I don’t get far, the battle too dense with bodies, both fallen and still fighting. The raging wall of war holds me back. “AZAEL, MOVE!”

He doesn’t hear me. No one hears me except those fighting around me, but they don’t care.

Michael takes a step forward, and I see his lips shape words I don’t catch. What’s he saying? Azael’s chin juts out defiantly, and I see him throw words back at Michael, probably hateful and sarcastic.

Those
, I think
, were his last words. And I’ll never hear them.

He needs to move! I grab my dagger from my belt and swing out with the sharp blade at anyone who gets in my way.

“AZ!” All of the fear, anger, and pain shreds my scream to pieces, but finally, my voice breaks the surface of noise.

The fighting slows. Then it stops. People drop their weapons and turn to stare at me with cavernous mouths and puzzled, angry glares. They follow my gaze and join me in watching the spectacle at the top of the mountain. I ignore the murmuring voices around me, all of my attention trained on Azael and Michael and Lucifer. They’re in a tense balance, sharp blades poised on one another. A slight tip of the scale—

I see Michael shake his head and raise his sword, poised to strike Azael through the chest.

The world around me disappears.

Michael hesitates, his head snapping toward me. I’m not aware I’m screaming until I run out of a voice.

My feet have turned to lead, and before I can muster up the strength to move or scream again, I see the glint of a sword disappear into Michael’s chest. His eyes grow wide, like he’s surprised he could be hurt. He turns away from me and faces his brother.

Fingers—his fingers, black and red with blood—wrap around the blade, but he doesn’t try to pull it out of his heart. It’s too late. What’s worse is that I can see in his eyes, which are the eeriest shade of blue, that he
knows
it’s too late.

Lucifer bends over him, their faces inches apart. He smiles down at Michael and pushes him off of his sword. The great archangel, with the golden hair and stormy, ice blue eyes, slumps to the ground, dead.

Azael smiles triumphantly, and the world descends into absolute blackness in a clap of thunder.

––––––––

W
HEN THE DARKNESS LIFTS
,
THE
angels vanish. Suddenly, the ruddy Earth is only inhabited by demons and the dead. Dark feathers shift on the wind in the silence, and all eyes are trained up at the top of the mountain.

I break the silence, punch it right in the face so it shatters apart. “AZAEL!”

He looks up at me and smiles a sharp, toothy grin. He’s pleased with himself, and my anger grows.

What an idiot.

“Awake,” Lucifer’s voice echoes across the crowd, “my warriors. Look upon the face of Heaven and see the mask they wear, the lies they have told you, and the discrimination they have handed down. Arise and be strong. See what your collective power can achieve? Do you understand what potential they have been hiding from you? Follow me, fight back, or be forever fallen.”

Cheers rip apart the world as Lucifer turns his back to the crowd again, returning to Michael.

The crowd around me parts slowly as I run forward, jumping into the sky to let my now black and heavy wings carry me to my brother. When I reach him, he opens his arms as if to embrace me, but I shove the gesture away.

I grab his wrists in my hands and spin him around, checking for the fatal wound I was sure Michael was about to deliver. But he’s not hurt. Not really. I spin him around and around, checking for blood, not believing he could walk away from sure death uninjured.

“Relax, Pen,” he chastises, but I spin him around harder, turning his voice, his stupid, arrogant face away from me.

He has a collection of small scratches and half-healed scars across his arms, the back of his neck, and along his jaw. His bottom lip is split and he has a bruise over his eye so dark it looks black. But he’s not badly hurt, not broken anywhere—in fact, I’m more damaged than he is.

After I’m satisfied he’s not hiding a more serious injury, I drop his arms and step away.

“You are an imbecile,” I tell him.

“I’m a bloody hero, thank you very much.”

“You.” I step closer to him, pointing my finger in his face accusingly. His smile widens and I’m engulfed in rage—in an anger that expands with fear and the possibility of what could have happened. The
probability
of what
should have
happened...but didn’t. The almost is unbearable. I curl my finger into my fist and, before I can reel in my temper, throw the hardest punch I can muster. I hear the bones in his jaw break.

He doesn’t even blink. He just puts his hand, dark with dried blood—is it his?—to his jaw and laughs, short and irritated. “Not the typical way to reward a victor, but I appreciate the gusto.”

Hot tears burn the back of my eyes. “You could have
died
.” My voice comes out in a harsh whisper, and I’m suddenly very aware of all of the eyes trained on us. “What were you thinking? Were you even thinking?”

“I was thinking it was time to win this war,” he says with a grimace, removing his hand from his now broken jaw. He gestures behind him to Michael. “I was thinking that it was time for him to die, that I could help speed things along and assure us respectable positions in Hell. I was
thinking
my sister would be thrilled at an actual, noteworthy title.”

I look over his shoulder at the crumpled form of Michael. He’s bloody and broken, bruised and beaten. The light he once held is drained. He looks dull, more than dead—he’s gone. For some reason, I can’t force myself to consider this a win.

I left Heaven with Azael to fight for an admirable cause. We were promised eternal glory and a chance to fight in an army that valued each of its members. With Lucifer, we were to be remembered, not just another name and number in old books. But isn’t that all we are now?

Azael didn’t give us fame; he assured us infamy. We can never return to Heaven. Not now.

Lucifer walks up to us, gliding over the rocky clay like mist. “Siblings,” he notes, looking between us. “Oh no, much more—
twins
.” His cold eyes burn into me like frostbite, and suddenly, I feel overexposed. It’s like he can see to my core, identify my strengths and weaknesses in one breath, and decide whether he wants to exploit me or destroy me. He smiles and I feel like I’ve just told him all of my secrets, like my skin has been turned inside out and emptied. “Such power lies in the blood of twins. What are your names?”

I cross my arms, angry with Azael and the lies I believed from Hell. This war wasn’t an admirable cause. It was desperate, needless bloodshed in the name of ego. Powerful angels using their subordinates as soldiers, as pawns on their chess board.

The angels aren’t the only ones who wear masks; maybe Hell intends to do the same, to disguise its cruelty as justice. I owe nothing to Lucifer and am content with staying silent, but Azael answers for me.

“I am Azael.” He kneels at Lucifer’s feet and bows his head. “This is my sister, Penemuel.”

Lucifer looks from Az’s shoulders to me, as if he expects me to bow down to him too. I shift on my feet and look around at the fallen angels and demons at the base of the mountain, dead. No one makes any move to give them a decent burial, to respect their deaths. No one even tries to cover them up or to close the eyes of those who can no longer see.

This is not what I signed up for
.

If the dead deserve no respect, then neither do the people who ordered their execution. I straighten my stance and square my shoulders. I will not bow to him.

“You’ll have to excuse my sister,” Azael says, looking up at me. The muscles in his jaw tense, like he’s chewing on words he wants to hurl at me. He’d say something now, but he’s saving it for later. Wouldn’t want Lucifer to end up in the middle of our fight. “She’s ignorant of respectful conduct amongst...well, amongst anyone, really. She spends far too much time surrounded by books that she’s forgotten how to carry herself around the living.”

“I am not the ignorant one,” I spit back at him. “I’m fully aware of respectful conduct. But I only choose to practice such behavior around those I respect.”

Azael jumps to his feet with a string of curses directed at me and a warning to behave. Lucifer, though, doesn’t seem offended. In fact, he seems amused.

“Such courage,” he says in a voice that sounds like a prolonged sigh. “However misplaced it might be.”

“Call it what you will,” I say, refusing to break eye contact with him.

“Sir, again, I must apologize—”

Lucifer raises a hand to silence him. “That’s enough. I admire audacity. I can even tolerate it”—he pauses and cuts a warning glance at me—“to an extent.”

“Yes, sir,” Azael nods.

I say nothing out loud. Instead, I chose to yell at Azael in my mind.
Don’t call him sir
.

I
will
call him sir, and I swear, if you don’t start showing some respect, I’ll string you up myself. He might tolerate your contempt, but I won’t.

“How admirable...Azael, is it?” Lucifer cuts in.

“Yes, sir.”

He nods. “Your loyalty to me, even in its infancy, is strong. You stand up for me to your sister, even in private. A rare quality.”

Private?
I ask Az.

Our thoughts—

“Yes,”—Lucifer waves away our invisible conversation—“I can hear your silent exchanges. You might want to keep that in mind in the future.”

He watches me carefully, but I steel myself against him. He doesn’t scare me; he’s just another angel who thinks he could rule the world. The only difference is that he’s tried to do something about it—acted upon his arrogance.

I’m still not calling you sir
, I think. Azael’s face grows dark next to me, but again, Lucifer is unruffled.

“As is your prerogative, Penemuel.” My name in his voice sends a sharp shiver up my spine, and I never want to hear him speak it again.

His calm nettles me, and I find myself wanting to see how far I can push him, how much it takes for his smooth surface to crack. But Azael, his posture rigid and formal next to me, stops me short. I bite my tongue, knowing that if I continue to be insubordinate, I won’t be the only one to pay. Azael will lose his hopes of a promotion, of a place at Lucifer’s side. As much as it makes me sick to do it, I swallow my contempt and mirror Lucifer’s calm.

I build a wall of indifference, stone by stone, and paint it over with a thick coat of civility. I even force the shape of a smile across my face. Azael lets out the breath he was holding and his shoulders slump, relieved to have me behaving as he sees fit. Lucifer’s eyes spark, and I realize he sees through my pretense entirely. I’m not surprised.

He extends a hand to Azael, purposefully ignoring me. “Azael,” he says, gesturing for him to follow, “I recognize a talent within you. You have certain...attributes that will make you powerful in Hell. Today is only the first step. Tell me about your trade in Heaven. What is it that you did?”

Together, they walk away toward Michael, and even though he’s only a few feet in front of me, I feel that I’ve lost Azael. He’s turned his back to me, and it takes everything in me to not reach out and drag him away from Lucifer. I stuff my hands into my pockets and keep them there like stones.

“I worked with souls, sir. With new angels and with the prototypes of human souls. I was in training as a reaper when the war broke out.”

“Souls,” Lucifer repeats, spiraling his tongue around the word. “So you understand the process of detachment.”

Azael nods.

“Of splicing the soul from the vessel?” Lucifer clarifies.

Again, Azael nods. “Yes, sir.”

They stop above Michael’s body. “Show me,” Lucifer orders. “With him.” With one sharp hand, he gestures to his fallen brother, as if he was nothing more than a stranger. “I desire to bring his soul back to Hell, to imprison him in the very place he was determined to banish me.”

From his pocket, he extracts a tall silver vial that looks burnt black. A string of symbols is carved into the metal—spells to bind the soul and suppress its power. They curl around the cylindrical container like roots twisting into soil, permanent and strong. I recognize the words; they’re ones I’ve written myself. It’s a prison.

That’s when I realize he’s not planning to destroy the soul, to kill Michael and end whatever torment comes after a death like his. His punishment is much worse: eternity as a soul without a body—torture.

Bile rises in the back of my throat, but I swallow it down along with all of my protests. Who am I to decide how he deserves to be treated, even after death? I abandoned his cause, fought against his army. I owe him nothing. But I can’t help but wonder... Who is
Lucifer
to hand down this fate? Wasn’t death enough?

I must have made a noise because Lucifer turns his head ever so slightly in my direction.

“Do you have something to say, Penemuel?”

Pen
, I itch to correct him but decide better. “No.”

He grins and holds out the vial for Azael, who grabs it with one hand as he pulls out his scythe with the other and bends down over the lifeless archangel. I look away as he cuts into his chest. The click of the blade on the stone draws my attention again, and I watch as he reaches his hands down between Michael’s ribs.