Entice: An Ignite Novella (5 page)

“And what is this curving symbol? Descent... Or, no, that’s not it. Stolen? Who is Lilith?”

“Shit,” Azael says, taking his foot off of Gus’s wrist. “You’re him.”

“Who?” I look up to Az, not yet moving my weight off of the stranger. I want to decode more of his text.

“Get up, Pen. He’s our handler. He delivers the assignments from Lucifer, monitors us, reports back.”

“I don’t want to be handled,” I begin, and Azael laughs.

“I’m not here to
handle
you—I, you see—” Gus sputters. “I’m an advisor, I predict outcomes, perceive chain reactions before they even begin—” He shakes his head. “I’m here to assist you!”

Still I don’t move. I flip to another page and vaguely recognize a symbol. “Garden.” I point to the tiny, jagged character with a finger. I think I’ve seen this before.

“Get off of him, Pen!” Az hauls me to my feet, takes the notebook, and tosses it down onto Gus’s chest.

“I was reading that,” I protest.

Gus takes the small book and tucks it into his pocket as he stands up. “What part of classified don’t you understand?”

“I don’t believe in censorship,” I smirk back at him. “It leads to arrogance, corruption, and secrets. Ask Heaven about it some time.”

When he stands up, I realize just how tall Gus is. He towers even over Azael and looks down at us both with disdain. Dusting off the back of his dark pants, he crosses in front of me and pulls up a chair from the corner of the room. He sits down, folding his lanky frame awkwardly on the tiny chair.

“Please sit,” he instructs us.

Azael sits down on the edge of his bed, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his knees, ready to listen. I pause for a minute before flopping down on my own bed to listen with Az. I try to remind myself I’m being watched. Every hesitation to fall into line is another strike against me.

“This is a most unorthodox introduction,” Gus begins, scratching his jaw. “But I should have expected it after reading your case reports.”

“Case reports?” I turn to Azael, waiting for an explanation, but he just stares straight ahead and smiles.

“What did it say?” he asks Gus.

“Most of it was...redacted. It did mention that you two were highly reactive and acted in extreme measures when working together.” He pulls out the notebook again and nods. “Used correctly, however, whatever connection you share could be very effective. With some focus, perhaps you both could become key players down here.”

“We’re already ranked L1,” Azael says to him, grinning proudly. “How much higher could we rise for angels so fallen?”

“Advisors to Lucifer,” Gus answers slowly. “Part of his inner circle, if you listen to me.”

“And what makes what you have to say worth listening to?” I interrupt. Az shoots me a look.

Gus reclines in the chair and stretches his long legs out in front of him, knocking over a stack of my books. It takes a lot of concentration for me to sit perfectly still and not rush forward to re-stack them. “Your name is Penemuel, is that correct?”

“Pen,” I correct him automatically.

“Of course it is.” He makes a note in his book and snaps it closed. “I’m a Diviner,” he tells me. “You were a scribe in Heaven, weren’t you? So you understand what I do. I’m the person who handed down the fates for you to document. I was the voice you heard in your head, the reason the ink covered your pages every day. And I saw you. Do you know what I saw?”

I cross my arms and shrug. “That I’m quick-witted? Astoundingly clever? Have excellent marksmanship
and
penmanship? That’s quite a rare trait. Lethal and legible.”

He ignores my comment. “I saw that you wanted to teach man how to write, how to read. Is that correct?”

I glance over at Azael and see he’s already staring at me. I had never told him that. I shrug again.

“And according to your file, you weren’t opposed to the humans if they were given the gift of words. I take it that opinion didn’t go over well.”

“What a great guess,” I say, kicking back the covers of my bed and shifting against the wall. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Heaven wanted to keep the power of words to themselves.” No language, no writing. They want to hoard the nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. Lock away every last preposition, conjunction, and—HELL!—even the interjections. “And what good would that have been—to create a species no more enlightened than the ones before? They’d be animals, grunting their way through existence. Who wants a bunch of thick-headed imbeciles populating Earth?”

I remember an argument I had with a group of angels that forbade me from sharing written language when man was made. I was a scribe who wanted to overstep my bounds, to watch humans and teach them how to write, how to tell stories. They had to know that words could become beautiful art when tied together the right way. They didn’t listen to me.

“Who wants
man
populating Earth?” Az adds.

“So, given the chance, you would teach man to write and read?” His question is directed only at me.

“Heaven can’t stop me anymore.”

“Putting Pen to parchment,” Gus says, a small smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “I’m here to give you that chance.”

Azael leans forward, and I can feel his excitement in the room. It’s hot and electric, like lightning contained in glass, ready to explode.
Our assignment
, I hear his voice in my head.

“Am I correct in believing that you two were informed that you are being tasked with a top priority assignment?” Gus looks between the two of us. Azael nods enthusiastically but I just stare back. “It involves Eden.”

“Eden?” I taste the name on my lips, remembering the way Azael said it earlier with such eagerness. Both times I’ve heard it, something in my chest stirred. The name sounds familiar, but I can’t place it in a helpful context.
Eden
. I flip through the stories in my head in search of the word but come up empty.

“As in ‘the garden of,’” he explains, expecting me to understand him. “Heaven’s paradise for man on Earth.”

“Not for long.” Az’s voice is a dark whisper.

“If all goes as planned, no. Not for long. As one of the two teams—”

“
Two
teams?” Az cuts him off, irritated.

After throwing him a look of annoyance, Gus continues. “Yes, one of two teams tasked with corrupting man. You will be expected to collaborate with the other team assigned to this task. It is of upmost importance.”

“And how do we do that exactly?” I ask, standing up from the bed, wound too tightly to remain still. I pick up a couple of my books and begin sorting them into piles to keep my hands busy.

“And who is assigned to the other team?”

“Naamah and Botis,” Gus answers.

“The siren and the snake?!” Now Azael stands up. He kicks out at my books, and I push him away from me, hitting him hard in the shins.

“Two teams have been deemed necessary,” he continues. “The first interference mission Lucifer completed on his own. He met man—Adam—and his wife, Lilith.”

“I’ve heard this story,
Gus
.” Azael says his name slowly, letting the condescension flood the three small letters.

“I haven’t.” I look over my shoulder.

Gus slides his eyes over both of us, narrowing them to slits when he meets Azael’s contemptuous glare. He clears his throat to continue. “Lilith was easy to corrupt. Very flawed and easily manipulated. Lucifer believes it’s because she already had a crack of rebellion in her.”

“Or maybe Adam wasn’t a good lay,” Az chimes in pleasantly, causing Gus to sputter. “Not enough time to hone his skill.”

I slam a thick book down on the floor with a crack, drawing Gus’s attention back to me. “But Adam?”

“But Adam...has not given in to temptation yet. He’s complicated, stronger than her in conviction. Unlike Lilith, he’s perfectly content to do as he’s told. Or maybe he just doesn’t have the courage to try otherwise. Either way, the more hands we have working on this mission, the higher probability of success.”

I stack my books in a couple twisting towers and slide them to sit up against the side of my bed. “You still haven’t explained how
we
are supposed to do anything about this.”

Gus stands up and holds his notebook out in front of him, gesturing to me. “You do what you do best. Get creative and share your disgrace with man. You wanted to give him words, so give him words.”

I look up at him.
Words
. Strings of stories, of poems and songs and histories I want to share, spin through my mind. I’m bursting at the seam with sentences and letters and symbols, and I need to give them to someone, to unburden myself from the weight of some of these words. I taught Azael how to write, how to read... How different could man be? Surely a simple human would be easier to teach than Azael. Probably less hostile, too. A new soul like Adam—

Gus smiles, as if he can see the eagerness painted in my eyes and stained across my face. He pivots on his heel and marches toward the door, looking back at me and Azael once before leaving. “You have until tomorrow to come up with a plan. I’ll speak with you about it then and divine the outcome.”

He shuts the door behind him, and it latches into place with a loud click that reverberates off the icy walls of our dormitory.

“I think he likes me,” Az says sarcastically. “I bet we’ll become the best of friends.”

I laugh and dive back into my books, plucking out which words I want to share with man first. Maybe I’ll start with insubordination.

––––––––

“W
HAT IF WE BURN THE
place to the ground?” Azael suggests.

He’s lying upside down, hanging off of the edge of his bed with his feet propped up on the wall as I throw daggers at the door. I toss the dagger in the air and catch the tip of the blade between my fingers. I grip the blade and raise my arm, bringing my hand behind my ear, and snap forward, my arm cutting straight in front of me. I let go of the blade and watch it spin around before it sticks into the wood of the door with a solid thunk.

“You’ve got to stop thinking
flames
, Az,” I tell him, releasing another blade that buries itself in the door next to the first one. “Look around you.”

He makes a show of scanning our room. “We could destroy all of the garden with your books,” he suggests, rolling backward off of his bed. He goes to my side of the room and reaches between stacks of papers and notebooks. “I bet some of these thick ones under your bed could crush Adam himself if we dropped it from high enough!”

I shake my head at him as I let another blade slice through the air. “Ice, you moron.
Heaven
is all about fire, not Hell.”

“Heat rises, I get it.” He waves his hand dismissively as he pulls out the largest volume of notes I have, opening it in front of him and breaking its spine.

I pivot toward him and throw my last dagger. It catches the sleeve of his shirt, tacking him to my mattress. I walk over to him and take away the book.

“Don’t destroy my books.”

“Don’t stab me with your little throwing knives,” he says back, pulling the dagger out of the mattress and sliding it across the ground.

“I didn’t stab you.” I place the book on my pillow before turning back to the door and removing the stuck daggers.

“You could have.”

“But I didn’t.” I turn to him and smile. “I never miss my target.”

With a dramatic eye roll, he stands up and takes away my knives, locking them away in my nightstand. “Enough with the daggers. We have to come up with a plan.”

I pout but don’t protest. “Fine. But how are we supposed to plan anything when we don’t even know what Naamah and Botis are doing?”

Azael narrows his eyes at me and nods. “Touché.” Grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair Gus was sitting in, he heads to the door. “Let’s go.”

“Where exactly?” I ask to his back as he disappears down the dark hallway.

His voice wafts back to me in answer. “To meet with the B Team.”

––––––––

T
HERE ARE OVER A DOZEN
gathering halls in Hell. They are located at random intervals along the spiraling corridors. The centermost hall, which is also at one of the lowest parts of Hell, is designated for dining purposes. A large fissure of blood runs from one side of the hall to the other. When I walk over it, I always feel as though the ice cracks, making me believe—for one spine tingling second—I’m about to fall through.

Spiraling out from the dining hall is the hall where the Greater Demons congregate, with their hulking frames and strange leathery skin in putrid shades of gray, green, and burgundy. The next hall is overrun by power demons—mostly fallen angels and shapeshifters. The hall nearest the gates of Hell is for the watchers, diviners, and wraiths. And of course, within every faction in Hell, there are cliques. The Greater Demons divide themselves into brains and brawn—guards, warriors, and intellects filling in the handful of common halls that dot the path to the powers.

Sometimes I think that power demons are the vainest of all. Fallen angels hold themselves in higher regard than possession demons and shapeshifters. After all, we’ve been to Heaven—we’ve seen who and what we’re fighting against. When Az and I shove our way into the crowded power hall, clusters of demons stop what they’re doing to watch us. Tables hush as they track Azael’s and my progress. Whispers bloom behind us and I catch several clipped words.

Lucifer. Michael. Twins. Trusted, dangerous,
and a sneer of derision from one of the male sirens.

I turn my head toward his voice and glower at him, immediately shutting him up.

This is just the beginning, Pen
, Azael says to me.
If they think we’re famous now, wait until we get back from Eden. We’ll go down in history as the siblings who sullied Heaven’s precious man.

The sinning, sullying siblings. Tarnishing twins. Axing Az and poisoning Pen.

Enough with the alliteration
, he laughs.
Though, I’m liking the idea of poison. Hold on to that.