45
I flung up my hands before anyone did anything stupid. “Everyone calm down and fill me in,” I growled. “What is that?” I asked, pointing at the paper.
Wrath took a calming breath and turned to give me a thoughtful look. “I told you about her Daemons.”
I nodded warily. “She told me earlier,” I said, choosing my words very carefully. Because under no circumstances could I let him know that I knew exactly what the four Divines were capable of. It would risk my entire plan. “She said they were dead.”
Wrath scoffed. “Dead. Well, it’s not that simple, is it, Lilith?”
I discreetly shot her a wink while Wrath wasn’t looking. Luckily, she noticed it. “What is he talking about, Lilith?” I demanded in a stern tone, knowing that we were on thin ice. I couldn’t dismiss the conversation without looking suspicious to Wrath, but I couldn’t look like I was favoring Lilith for deceiving me, either. Especially about a topic I wasn’t supposed to fully understand.
She folded her arms. “Let him tell you the truth,” she said, emphasizing the last word. I hoped she wasn’t about to say too much and ruin everything. Samael shot me a nervous glance and I mirrored it right back.
Wrath took a drink of his wine, staring at Lilith warily. “I commanded her to kill them. Rather than obeying me, she sent them to the one place even I cannot endure for any measurable length of time. I sold her to Dracula as punishment,” he said with a casual shrug. “That is my copy of the contract,” he said with a cruel grin. “Rather than granting them a swift death, she committed them to eternal misery. Even I have to admire the cruelty in that, so I gave her a reduced sentence. What’s one hundred years of imprisonment to an immortal?”
I stared at him, grimacing disgustedly. “Why Dracula?”
“Seemed like a good idea since the Harkers had found out that Lilith’s Daemons hadn’t been killed like I led everyone to believe. And they were rather desperate, at the time, hiding a secret of their own. I agreed to keep their secret about Mina being the real pants of the Dracula operation, and they agreed to keep my secret that the other two Divines were vacationing in Purgatory. I gave them Lilith as collateral that I would keep my word—”
“But that’s not the entire truth, is it?” she snarled venomously, leaning forward to stare directly into Wrath’s eyes. “You and I know exactly why I doomed my Daemons to Purgatory.”
Wrath narrowed his eyes in a warning glare. “Okay, Lilith. You’re upset with me, and want to take out some aggression. It’s in the past, so why not air it out?” he said, sounding entirely too calm. “I told Lilith to give me her Daemons for safekeeping. I wanted to be like Samael,” he said with a humorless grin. “I was jealous of his pet turtle and dragon. When she refused, I ordered her to kill them instead. If I couldn’t have them, she wasn’t allowed to have them either.”
Lilith leaned back in her chair, nodding one time.
And it suddenly made sense to me—why Lilith had sent the White Tiger and Vermillion Bird to the Neverwas. Because it was the only way—other than killing them—to keep them safe from Wrath. He had wanted them for himself, and he would have likely set his next sights on Samael’s daemons so that he could control all four and guarantee his own safety, forever and ever, amen.
In a way, Lilith’s sacrifice had also saved Samael and his Daemons. I wondered if the White Tiger and Vermillion Bird had known their eternal punishment was actually saving their brothers’ lives. Because without them on the board, Wrath had no need to go after Xuanwu and Qinglong.
But I wasn’t supposed to know about any of that. I could not afford for Wrath to think I had any interest in the Divines subject, or else my entire plan might go up in smoke. Although Lilith had given me an answer I needed in order to fully trust her again, she’d chosen the absolute worst time to do it.
She’d seen my wink for crying out loud!
So, I cleared my throat. “Not to be a coldhearted bitch or anything, but is there a reason it even matters right now? I understand that they were your friends, Lilith, and that you are upset by what Wrath did, but…they are dead all the same, right?” I asked her, gently. “Why dig skeletons out of the closet? Let’s just move on,” I said, firmly.
She nodded stiffly, wiping at her nose. “It needed to be addressed just the same as this,” she said, pointing at the rolled parchment. “I paid one hundred years of my life for my choice, and he couldn’t even be honest with the world that it was out of shame for me outmaneuvering him.”
Wrath snarled. “You impudent little—”
In a superman tackle of irony, Samael saved the day by choosing that moment to defend the honor of the most independent woman in history—his fiancée, Lilith—the bane of overcompensating Adam’s existence.
He leapt over the table and tackled his bigger, stronger brother with a meaty thud, sending Wrath’s chair and wine glass flipping through the air. Samael got in one good punch before Wrath hurled him across the room where he destroyed a glass cabinet of priceless china. Before I even had time to jump up from my seat, Wrath was already straddling him, screaming as he punched his brother in the face again and again and again.
I flung magic at Wrath in an attempt to knock him aside, but it only served to make his shirt flutter. I cursed, grabbed an empty bottle of wine from the center of the table, and then sprinted towards the two brothers. Lilith was pleading on her knees, begging Wrath to stop, but he couldn’t hear her over his own incoherent yelling.
So, I smashed the bottle of wine over the back of Wrath’s head as hard as I could. It shattered and Lilith gasped in horror. Wrath ceased shouting and punching the moment I hit him. Then he just sat there, eerily still astride Samael. I could see blood spatter on the floor near my godfather’s head, but I couldn’t move to get a closer look until I knew how Wrath was going to react. As the seconds ticked by, I began to wonder if I had actually managed to knock Wrath out.
Then he slowly turned to look at me, his face utterly calm. His hair was a mess and his face was splattered with blood. He had a deep gash on his lip and blood was dripping from his chin. He stared from my face to the broken bottle neck in my hands, and then back to my face. He blinked, looking momentarily confused. And then he calmly stood up. He turned to face me and I tried not to stare at the bloody spatter staining his shiny white shirt. He walked past me without a word and grabbed a fresh wine glass from the cabinet. He held it up, inspecting it to verify that it was clean, and then he walked back to the table, righted his chair, and sat down. Then he crossed his legs and poured himself a glass of wine from a new bottle at the center of the table.
And he took a sip. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, wondering what kind of psychopath we were dealing with here. Hit him in the head and he turns into the calmest son of a bitch in the world?
I risked a glance at Samael and cringed. His face was a bloody mess, but it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. His nose was broken, his lip was torn and swollen, and one of his eyes was purple and bloody. He was breathing, and that was all I really cared about. His demon power would heal him just fine. “Get him to his feet,” I told Lily. “We’re not finished with our drinks yet,” I growled.
He groaned, trying to do it himself, but my tiny, curvy godmother pulled him to his feet with one hand before draping his arm over her shoulder. “I should take him back to his rooms,” she said, not bothering to hide her tears. Tears of relief that he was alive and guilt for what she had wrought. She wanted to get Samael as far away from Wrath as possible.
“You’re both going to sit your Greater Demon asses at that table and you’re going to keep your wits about you like you were supposed to be doing this whole time,” I growled.
Samael nodded firmly, but Lilith gave me a startled, almost indignant look. “But—”
“It was not a question,” I growled in a warning tone, poking a finger into Lilith’s chest hard enough to shift her posture. “You put us in this mess.” I turned and jabbed Samael’s chest wit
h the same finger. “You let your emotions take over. Wrath did what Wrath does. You poked the wolf and it bit back. That’s on both of you.”
Samael nodded stoically. “She’s right,” he rasped. “I’m sorry, Callie—”
I got right up in their faces, snarling even though it was no louder than my breath—like hearing a dagger drawn from a sheath when you were alone in a dark, empty, silent house. “You could have killed your Daemons with that little stunt.” Then I stepped back, nodding at the pale, chagrined looks on their faces. “Go sit down. And shut your mouths. Now,” I commanded at a normal volume.
And then I stormed back to the table, still clutching the broken tip of the bottle in my trembling fist. I sat down and topped off my glass of wine—which amazingly hadn’t been knocked over in the mayhem. I focused on my pulse, willing it to slow, as Samael and Lilith joined us back at the table. Wrath stared into his glass with a distant look on his face.
After a few moments of silence, I slid the broken tube of glass over to Wrath. “You’re not a very good listener, so I had to raise my voice. Potential husbands should be seen, not heard.” I glanced over at Samael. “That applies to both of you. Morons.”
Samuel chuckled, nodding. He spit a gobbet of blood into his broken glass and it made a clinking sound, letting everyone know he’d lost a tooth. Hopefully, Hell’s immortality package had a good dental plan.
Wrath slowly lifted his head to stare at me, blinking a few times. “Potential husband…” he mused. “So, is that a yes?” he asked, his bloody lip stretching into a faint smile.
I scoffed. “An old track coach of mine once told me that saying you have potential is a nicer way of saying you haven’t done shit yet.”
Wrath’s lip curled up ever so slightly at one corner. “I like that.” He bobbed his head up and down, not breaking eye contact. “My apologies. I got a little carried away. Forgive me?”
“I’ll consider it,” I said, slowly, “if you two apologize to each other and hug it out.”
Lilith’s eyes bulged and Samael grew still. Wrath grinned, shaking his head wondrously. “You never cease to surprise me, White Rose—”
Samael cleared his throat, cutting off the archdemon. “I swung first. I am sorry for punching you in the mouth, and making you bleed,” he said with a cold, bloody smile. “But I won’t deny that it felt great.”
Wrath chuckled softly, and then he promptly burst out laughing, pounding his fist into the table. He wiped at his eyes when his laughter finally died down. “I knew I liked you for a reason, Samael. I must admit, it’s been eons since anyone made me bleed. It felt…good,” he said fervently. Samael smiled, nodding his agreement. “I apologize for making your face look better than it did ten minutes ago.” Samael rolled his eyes and spit some more blood into his glass. “You’re welcome for the upgrade, Lilith,” he said, turning his smile on her.
She smiled icily, having regained her fire despite my threat. But Samael’s tactic had worked better than anything. Maybe calm and apologetic was not the right tactic, after all. “The Divines asked me to send them to Purgatory. An eternity of torture was preferable to one minute of your company. I can appreciate the sentiment.” And then she lifted her glass of wine to Wrath in mock cheers.
Wrath grinned back at her, nodding. “Fair is fair.”
I clapped my hands. “Great. Now that we’ve all had our fun, it’s time for you to hug it out so I can go to bed. I’ll need my sleep if I’m going to meet more of your brothers tomorrow.”
Wrath turned to look at me. “Of course. I expect your future visits to be made privately. Not with Samael at your hip—or anyone else for that matter. It would be quite dangerous for them, I assure you. We do not want a repeat of this afternoon.”
I stared him in the eyes and gave a brief nod. He hadn’t mentioned Claire, specifically, so I couldn’t ascertain whether he was referring to the rumor I’d started. “Agreed. And you won’t interfere. At all. Because we don’t want a repeat of this afternoon.”
He brushed his hands together as if the matter were settled. “We have a deal.” He nodded stiffly and then rose to his feet. He scooped up the broken neck of the wine bottle with a smug grin. Then he slipped it into his pocket. “Souvenir of our first date.” I managed not to vomit. He turned to Samael. “Let’s get this over with, you big brute.”
Samael climbed to his feet with a grunt and the two exchanged the most awkward, overly macho hug I’d ever seen. Then Wrath turned to me and repeated his formal bow from earlier. “By your leave, Master Dracula,” he said, smirking.
I dipped my chin. “Thank God,” I said, dryly.
He chuckled, shaking his head. And then he was walking away.
I waited until he was almost at the door. “You never said where the next Sin is.”
He halted, and then glanced over his shoulder with a knowing look. “I think we both know where he is. How else did I know to find you here, White Rose? Envy always loved the finer things in life. He will reach out to you tomorrow to arrange a meeting.”
I narrowed my eyes, as if upset that he’d caught me. “Afternoon at the earliest. I’m sleeping in.”
He studied me with a knowing grin that cried bullshit, and then gave the barest of nods. He hadn’t mentioned anything about my trip with Claire, so there was every chance that Envy had thrown up the Wrath Symbol in the sky the moment I’d returned, before he’d even had time to hear the gossip I’d started. I still had no clue which—if any—of my servants were spies. Perhaps even Envy himself, although that seemed unlikely for an archdemon to pretend to be a servant.
But that was the fun of the game. The not knowing. Like his prophecy, which he had not mentioned in front of my godparents, even after I’d tried goading him with it. Why? Pride hadn’t seemed like it was any big secret. More like water-cooler talk among demons.
Wrath left the Feast Hall, and we let out a collective sigh of relief after the door clicked closed.
46
I turned to Lilith. “What the hell?” I demanded. “Did you not see my wink?”
She straightened her spine defensively. “I saw your wink, but he lied and then tried to rub my face in it.” She stared me in the eyes. “And now, all he will be thinking about after tonight is how he got bullied around by two women. He will be too angry to entertain any conspiracy theories about the Divines, which buys you time. If I had sat there and taken his shit, he would have felt victorious and might have even decided to come calling on you for another surprise visit. Now, he has suffered a minor humiliation and will not return until he has something to brag about.”
I blinked. “You’re telling me that it wasn’t an overreaction on your part, and that it was purposeful?”
She hesitated, and I saw her shoulders droop in slow motion. “No. I am…justifying my overreaction,” she admitted sheepishly. “But I’m not wrong about the accidental benefits.” She stared down at the paper, blinking slowly. “I’m sorry, Callie. I lost my cool when I read the paper, seeing confirmation of what I had suspected for so long.” She glanced over at Samael, and her shame slowly stretched into quite the opposite as a growing, entirely inappropriate, smile split her cheeks. “But my Samael…just punched Wrath in the mouth, and he lived to tell the tale.”
Samael puffed out his chest, looking ridiculous as he tried to act macho while focusing his single functioning eye on his fiancée. “I did get in a good swing, didn’t I?” he asked, boyishly.
I sighed, unclenching my fingers and biting back a smile. “You’re both crazy,” I said, shaking my head.
When I’d sent Samael to fetch Lilith earlier, the plan had been for him to ask her about the figurines in the privacy of their rooms where no one could eavesdrop. And if she did still have them, I’d told Samael keep them safe and not hand them over to me until I expressly asked about them. Because I’d wanted to see what my gossip with Claire rustled up before risking bringing them out in the open.
So, when I’d first arrived in the Feast Hal
l, Samael and Lilith had both been antsy, expecting me to ask for the figurines, but I’d steered the conversation to their wedding instead. And that’s when Wrath had arrived.
But now that my enemies had played their hand…
I turned to Lily, snapping my fingers to distract her from eating Samael with her eyes. “Do you have the figurines?” I asked anxiously.
Lilith nodded, and then walked over to an armoire in the corner of the room. She opened it to reveal stacks of folded linens. “I put them in here just before you arrived,” she explained, lifting a pile to remove two small figurines. She scooped them up, straightened the linens, and then closed the door of the armoire before bringing them over. I accepted them with a sigh of relief, inspecting them in a cursory fashion before slipping them into my pocket. A servant could walk in at any time and see them in my hands. And if that servant happened to be Envy or one of his moles…the gig would be up.
I noticed that neither of them looked particularly victorious or uplifted. “What’s wrong?” I asked, warily.
“I don’t think they work anymore,” she whispered. “I tried using them when I went looking this morning,” she said morosely. “I can’t feel them inside anymore. It’s been like that ever since they left. I kept them as mementos, more than anything else. Pretty paperweights,” she sobbed. “That’s why I didn’t give them to you earlier. I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
I sighed, hoping she wasn’t right. “Then why try summoning them?”
She shrugged. “Hope,” she admitted sadly. “Guilt. I don’t know. When I saw Xuanwu’s flower this morning, I thought that maybe they were reaching out to me after all this time. But I still felt nothing when I tried. I used to dream about what would happen if I happened to enter in the exact right spot where they resided. I tortured myself with that dream for one hundred years. Now that I am free, it eats at me during the day, too.”
Anghellic: Feathers and Fire Book 8 Page 27