by S. M. Reine
Elise folded her arms. “Weaker, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Then you still owe us thanks. I need you to be strong if we’re going to kill Yatai together.”
“She is the same as I am—eternal. She cannot be killed.” Yatam inclined his head. “And she is insane.”
“Great,” Elise muttered. She glanced around the throne room again. It was as tangible as it had been when she first arrived.
But there was one other thing she hadn’t noticed: the statue of a woman whose body was a serpent’s, with her long tail curled under her and a benevolent smile as she extended her hands over a basin of clay. She was veiled behind filmy white curtains. It was the same statue Yatam kept in his condo.
“Who is she?” Elise asked, brushing aside a curtain.
“Her name is Nügua.” Yatam almost sounded wistful. “Her hands sculpted the clay that became my form. She is my mother, and as such, is the grandmother of all demons.”
She traced her eyes over the serpent’s body. “The mother of both you and Yatai? You’re siblings, aren’t you?”
“Indeed.”
“Your sister is still out there.” Elise let the curtain fall. “She’s going to try again, and we have to stop her. If you really are the most powerful demon—”
“Second most powerful,” he corrected. “My sister is stronger.”
She rolled her eyes. “If that’s true, then why pretend to be a human witch? Why save me from the ethereal city and fight Yatai?”
“You want to know?” He gave a small smile. “Very well. Watch.”
The sun sank lower to the horizon, and for an instant, the wind blew hotter. When it faded, a new man strolled into the throne room.
His confidence was that of a king, but his clothing was nothing more than plain white linen. He had a long beard, brown curls, and a hooked nose, but his lips were as full as a woman’s, and his eyes were a paler shade of blue than the sky itself.
The newcomer surveyed the throne room with obvious disdain. He didn’t look at Elise even once, but he did look at Yatam, and it wasn’t with a friendly expression.
“Do you like my humble home?” Yatam asked, addressing the man directly.
“No,” he responded. “It sickens me to think of you so deeply enmeshed in the affairs of mortals.” The motions of his mouth didn’t match the sounds Elise heard. It was like watching an interview on the news that had been dubbed over.
Yatam studied the wand in his hand. “I am wounded by failing to meet your approval. Truly.”
Elise stepped forward. “What’s going on?”
Neither of the men acknowledged her.
“What brings you here, my friend?” Yatam asked.
“An utter lack of remaining alternatives, believe me. We’re lost as to what comes next.”
“And so you desire my counsel? The angels attempting to appeal to the better nature of a demon. I am charmed.”
An angel? Elise tried to see the man with fresh eyes, but he didn’t make her palms itch, and she couldn’t sense him at all the way she could Yatam. He wasn’t there—not really. A memory. “I don’t need your counsel. I need a favor,” said the angel.
“Oh?”
He paced, linens fluttering around his ankles. “You must know by now that He’s gone mad. The things He’s done—it’s sheer insanity. He has no regard for the lives of the humans descended from Him. He has no regard for the Treaty. His interference worsens by the day.”
Yatam twirled the wand over his fingers, apparently unconcerned by this pronouncement. But his voice was hard. “I would take care speaking of your Heavenly Father in such a fashion.”
“He is no Father of mine,” the man snapped. “It doesn’t matter. He’s not even listening. That’s part of the problem!”
“Then perhaps you should pray,” Yatam said.
He scoffed. “We need to kill Him.” Elise felt a dull jolt of shock, which was echoed in the way that Yatam arched an elegant eyebrow. “My brothers and I are helpless against him, but we can’t allow His behavior to continue unchecked. You are the most powerful that Hell has to offer now. Rally your children. March upon the garden and take what remains of His sanity and life!”
“You want me to commit an act of deicide,” Yatam said.
“Essentially, yes.” He spread his hands wide in a helpless gesture. “What else are we to do? No angel or mortal can harm Him.”
Yatam pushed off of the throne, strolling across the floor with his wand tucked under one arm. “I find it fascinating that the first solution that comes to your mind is one involving bloodshed, Metaraon.”
Elise recognized that name. He was the highest of angels—the voice of God on Earth. Immensely powerful, absolutely terrifying, and talking about killing his master.
Metaraon followed Yatam as he walked to the window. “It’s not our first solution. It’s far from our first. But it’s our best.”
“Pathetic,” Yatam said, and he winked at Elise.
Metaraon’s fists clenched. “And you have a better suggestion?”
“Indeed I do. The solution is simple: You must fascinate Him. Give Him reason to live, and live well.” Yatam snapped his fingers. The doors beyond his throne opened. A bald man shuffled in, eyes on his feet. “Bring the women.”
The slave left.
“What in the world could fascinate someone as mad as He has become?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Yatam slunk toward the angel with a seductive slant to his shoulders, and Metaraon stepped back, lip curled. “Give Him a wife.”
Elise tensed.
Metaraon frowned, oblivious to her anger. “A wife?”
“Indeed. How long has it been since Eve died?”
“Thousands of years. Millions. Damnation if anyone knows—I can never be certain of how time flows on the planes of Earth.”
“A mortal mind in an immortal body is unprepared to accept the rigors of eternity. A man needs love to survive.” Yatam’s lips curled, catlike and smug. “Angels are born immortal—cold and without mercy—so you will have to take my word on that.”
The slave returned with a line of five women. Three of them wore beaded dresses made of fishnet with their lips painted red and tattoos on their breasts; the other two were utterly naked aside from their golden sweat. All of them stared at the floor.
Metaraon lifted his chin to survey them with cold disdain, but Yatam trailed his wand over their backs as he circled the room.
“Take one of mine. They are all beautiful and worthy of being adored. Put her in the garden and see how quickly your problems subside.”
“A human woman? She wouldn’t last long. Even drinking the waters of Mnemosyne—even with the strange way that time flows—she will eventually die. And then we will have a God who grieves for His wife, as well as a mad one.”
“Then when she dies, replace her. There is no shortage of them. Humans love to breed.”
Metaraon considered the suggestion. “It would save us a lot of trouble,” he said after a long moment. “And it would be much easier than killing Him.”
“Take one. Take them all.”
Still, the women did not react. They remained frozen until Metaraon strode up to the one in the center. He rested his hand on her bare shoulder.
Her eyes lifted to his.
“What do you think, human?” Metaraon asked, but her lips remained sealed.
“They are dumb, of course,” Yatam said.
“As are all mortals,” the angel sighed. “Very well. We shall try it your way. But if it fails, and more plagues strike this earth, the blood of His victims will be on your hands.”
“And such a woe that would be to me.”
Metaraon took the arm of the slave and unfurled his wings. They appeared behind him with a shimmer of light, and he swept them wide, sending golden feathers showering over the dusty floor. Elise stepped back reflexively.
He vanished, taking the concubine with him. The room grew dark.
&nb
sp; When Elise could see again, the women were all gone, and she was alone with Yatam.
She felt numb and empty. It took a long time for anger to come creeping to the surface, but when it did, it struck her like a burning fist. “So it’s your fault. You’re the reason I was sent to the garden. You goddamn bastard .”
Elise reached back for her swords, but she wasn’t wearing the sheath. She settled for clenching her fists.
“I never chose another wife,” Yatam said, unbothered by her glare as she stalked toward him. “The selection of a sacrifice was deferred to humans, whom you have to thank for your particular situation.”
Elise swung. Yatam disappeared before her fist could hit, and he reappeared by the throne.
With a roar, she dived for him and swung again.
He was too fast. Yatam flashed behind her, trapping her arms at her side and burying his face in her neck. She shouted, but his grip was iron. She couldn’t escape.
The skin of his cheek was warm and smooth on her neck. “You forget that I read your body as easily as a poem,” he murmured. “Your biochemical reactions are of fear, not anger. But you need not fear me. I have no interest in sending you back to His loving embrace—not yet.”
She drove her elbow into his gut. It was like striking a brick wall. He didn’t let go.
“That is not the last time I spoke to Metaraon,” Yatam went on. “Indeed, my plan was successful. Giving Him wives certainly created the desired fascination, and it allowed mortals two thousand years of respite. But it did nothing to His sanity.” He inclined his head. “As you know.”
“I barely remember it,” she said, her voice hoarse.
“How fortunate for you. To be able to forget your life must be… pleasant.” He sighed, breath hot on her skin. “Eventually, I became bored of playing with humans. As my sister lived on and her madness grew, I slept—and some centuries elapsed.”
Yatam waved a hand. The throne room dissolved around them, replaced by a narrow room built of gray stone. It was almost pitch black inside, aside from a single sliver of moonlight that fell through a narrow window set high in the wall.
A plain stone sarcophagus stood in the center of the room. Yatam released her and perched himself on it.
“Even in sleep, rumors drifted to me, carried in the minds and hearts of my children. I heard suggestions that they were going to attempt to kill Him after all. It didn’t take long for Metaraon to come again, after that.”
The door groaned open.
Metaraon’s face hadn’t changed over the long years; his nose was still hooked, his eyes still cold. But his hair was short, and he had no beard. He wore a plain t-shirt and jeans that fit him as though tailored. He was so…ordinary. “The conversation was long and boring, I’m afraid,” Yatam told her, ignoring the angel. “We’ll skip to the interesting part.” He addressed Metaraon. “Aren’t you happy? The wives have occupied His time. His influence on Earth wanes.”
Elise felt the strange disconcertion of stepping into a conversation halfway through. But the angel didn’t mind. He wasn’t aware that anything had been skipped at all.
Metaraon paced the room, obviously frustrated. “Yes. It’s worked fine. But the last child… well, she escaped. He’s unwedded.”
Yatam smiled at Elise, whose stomach churned.
“Is that so?”
“Try not to sound so satisfied. This is catastrophic! Our binding on the garden frays, the quarantine won’t last much longer, and He fights to free Himself. I don’t need to remind you of the unholy terrors He wreaked upon us all last time, and He is madder by a thousand-fold now.” Metaraon stopped pacing and faced Yatam. “And angry .”
“Then find the child and take her back.”
“That’s not the point.” Working up the ability to elaborate seemed to cause Metaraon physical pain. “She was meant to be an assassin.”
Yatam laughed. “An assassin! A human girl against a god? The idiots.” He winked at Elise again. “Angels have dominion over the mind. One would think that they would have the brains to match it.”
The angel went on without reacting to the mockery. “We couldn’t trust Him anymore. He’s unstable. So we forged a weapon and put her in the position to be taken as the next sacrifice. Everything seemed to go as planned, until her escape.”
“You want me to go find her for you.”
“Yes.”
“No,” Yatam said.
Metaraon flung his hands into the air. “If I can’t appeal to your absent good nature, then allow me to address your selfishness. We call her the Godslayer. She can kill anything—including you.”
The angel froze where he stood, like a movie put on pause.
“‘She can kill anything,’” Yatam mused, drawing a leg to his chest and resting his chin on his knee. “You were the first to escape, and you did it as a child, before becoming wedded and embedded in the fabric of the garden. When they planned for you, they did not anticipate that a weapon powerful enough to slay a god would likewise be powerful enough to elude him.”
“And you’ve only helped me because I can kill you?” Elise asked. It was absurd. Ridiculous. And yet…
Metaraon sprung to life once more and spoke. “But she’s not ready. As with all weapons, a blade must be honed. She can’t kill a god—not yet. If you find her, if you complete her, she will surely kill you.”
Yatam snapped. The angel vanished.
He hopped off of the sarcophagus and faced Elise, now utterly expressionless, but expectant.
“Complete me?” Elise asked.
“You are my death,” Yatam said, his voice heated, “if only I can discover how to hone and wield you, sword-woman. So tell me—how do you kill a god?”
“It’s not possible. They’re eternal.”
The mausoleum disappeared, leaving Elise surrounded by all-consuming darkness.
Yatam’s body was gone, too, but she could still feel him there. Waiting.
His voice echoed from the shadows. If you want to prevent Yatai from killing all that you know and love, that is a question you will need to answer. We are eternal, but we can be slain, if only you discover how.
“If you’re so bent on death, why not let Yatai succeed? It would kill you as surely as everyone else.”
A chuckle rose out of the darkness.
Fascination. I am fascinated with humanity, and the thousands of children I have spawned. I want them to live on. His breath sighed around her. I suppose even I am not willing to lose that vestige of immortality…
Elise woke up.
She lifted her head. She was kneeling beside the couch with her arms folded and her head resting on them—she could tell by the trail of drool connecting her lips to the back of her wrist. Her mouth felt sticky, and her eyelids were hard to open.
Yatam wasn’t on the couch anymore. It was empty.
She got to her feet, muscles stiff and sore. The clock said that no more than ten minutes had passed since she finished smoking outside, but it felt as though she had been on the floor for hours.
With a wince, she stretched and popped her back. The candle on the coffee table sputtered as the wick entered the puddle of wax, and went out.
Shadows fell. A breeze wafted through the room.
Sword-woman…
Elise shivered.
“How do you kill a god?” she asked the empty room. There was no reply.
12
Elise and James departed with a quarter tank of gas, which would be more than enough to take them into town and back—but not enough to escape.
He plugged his cell phone into the cigarette lighter to charge it before setting out on empty streets. “Our priority should be evacuation,” James said, heading for Vista Boulevard. The headlights cut two bright circles into the night. “We should get our friends to safety and regroup. Considering what has appeared over downtown, I’m expecting hysteria. Even if Yatai hasn’t attacked again, it will be dangerous.”
“I need to get to Craven’s,” Eli
se said. “I have people there. They can help me control the panic.”
“People? You mean demons.”
She glared at him. “Loyal demons.”
His phone chimed.
James’s heart jumped. Before he could reach for it, Elise turned on the screen. “We’ve got a signal. Just barely.” She dialed a number and lifted the phone to her ear, but after a moment, she shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter if nobody in the city has a signal.”
“Too bad,” he said faintly. He had brought Hannah’s phone number with him.
They blew around a bend going seventy miles an hour. His headlights reflected on the back end of a stopped car, and James slammed on the brakes.
He squealed to a stop inches from the bumper.
Elise flung open her door and stepped out. “What the hell…?”
Cars had been stopped heading into town. Their windshields glimmered in the night for miles down the road. It looked like the worst traffic jams in Los Angeles, but the cars were empty. Nothing moved.
James stepped onto the street, leaving the engine running. There was an accident on the shoulder of the road, and vehicles were piled up all the way to the fences at the bottom of the hill. There was no way around.
Elise climbed onto the car in front of them for a better view. “I don’t see an end,” she said. “And they’re all turned off. I don’t see drivers or passengers. Whatever happened, it must have been hours ago.”
“Where could everybody have gone?”
“Home?” she guessed, hopping down. “It’s hard to tell with no power or lights. Guess we’re walking.”
She grabbed her jacket out of the front seat and pulled it over her spine scabbard.
They weaved in and out of the cars. James and Elise weren’t the only ones on the road—they glimpsed a woman trying the doors of several cars, and a young couple retrieving their belongings from the bed of a pickup.
“Excuse me,” James called, jogging toward the couple. They turned wide eyes on him, dropped a box on the bed of the truck, and fled into the night. “Damn. They’re scared.”