“So the ball? The trial? You couldn’t interfere?”
Luca sighs.
“The ball was affirmation of the blond woman’s ties to Ziz. Barrett travelled to Earth, must have made some sort of deal with those raiders.”
“How did they get in?” I have wondered about a doorway between Earth and Atlas since Linus and his friends made their appearance.
“My fault,” Avalon says. “The Maester told us they were marked for added security — he met them, said they were headed for orientation with the Avatar. I had no reason to doubt him. Forgive me.”
I shake my head. The Magi climb to their feet, the seven of us all that stands against overwhelming darkness.
“Mourning the past won’t save Atlas. Beating ourselves up will not bring the Council back. If what you say is true, Maester — that I have some influence over Creation — then my first order is to make Luca a Nephalim. Screw Tomas. Fuck Gabriel. To hell with the old way. We do this my way now.”
“Ramona,” Quorroc says. “Luca cannot be a Nephalim. With the Council gone, we lack the power to allow him to take the Oath.”
“It’s true,” Luca offers. “There is no point trying to rectify past mistakes. The chance is gone —”
“Give me your sword,” I reply.
“What?”
“Give me your damn sword.”
He does, and I tell him to kneel before me. I lift the massive sword and rest it on his shoulder with some struggle.
“Luca, son of Tomas — your past does not define you. It might have once, like mine did for me. But you are more of a Nephalim than any of the ones I met.”
Quorroc purses his lips, wondering what good this will do. Let him wonder — this is a fight to the death, and alliances are everything. Avalon and Elion stand at ease opposite the Maester, and the room is eerily silent.
Luca is stunned at the gesture, but I continue.
“When Barrett told me you were dead — that you had gone onto the White Light — I thought Atlas had lost a hero. Today, I’m glad it’s gained one.
“I don’t have weird lights, or some fancy Oath for you to take. What I ask is simple — stand by my side, help me win back Atlas. And in exchange, one day this may all be yours. Light knows, I don’t want it. All I ask is that you help me end this threat, and put that bitch in her place.”
Effortlessly holding up the heavy blade with his shoulder, he is two-thirds of my height on his bent knee.
“I swear it.”
“Do not betray me. I’ve dealt with enough turncoats.”
Luca bows his head.
“To the day we fall in battle, sister — I am at your side. Until we win, or Light fails completely, my life for you.”
I remove the sword from his shoulder, wincing at its weight as gravity pulls its tip to the Obelisk’s floor. Luca returns to both feet, securing the weapon from me.
The situation is no less bleak, but this — the beginnings of a resistance to Ziz’s unchecked power, as well as my angel companion’s return — gives us a small fighting chance of saving Atlas.
The faint screams of dragons penetrating the chamber’s walls, shaking the floors with their sonic bellowing above — reminds us it may be futile yet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The ruined Cathedral district is largely untouched from the night of its collapse. So much has happened in a short time, organizing its clean-up seems like a trivial matter in comparison.
It will never be rebuilt now. The rest of Atlas crumbles under the Behemoths’ brute force. The populace is zombified, color drained from their faces. I am the highest-ranking remainder of the old order, and my failure to protect the Council may pale in comparison to what comes next in Hannah’s game.
The conflicting slabs of broken brick where Maesters once lived is a stain on its perfected landscaping. The gardens still thrive in arrangements of red and pink and yellow, the grass a perfectly-trimmed density approaching the debris. Glass is scattered around buckled stone. A grayed claw poking out from its rubble grave shows no sign of decomposition, and I wonder if its reincarnation is possible, adding to the current set of dragons circling above me.
They are everywhere I go.
All that exists is a stubborn mosaic of chaos, and the victims trapped within. I don’t know if Siskett’s body was removed, fed to the White Light. He could still be under there.
Maybe the locket was trying to warn of an attack. Maybe there’s still some hidden weapon under here.
Perhaps, it means nothing at all.
One of the first decisions I made after making Luca a Nephalim was to leave him in hiding. Barrett has every reason to think the angel is dead, and I want his reemergence to come at the greatest crux of drama, and let Luca take the old man out.
“Such a tragedy,” says a voice from my six. So fixated on the destruction, I didn’t notice anyone join me. Tim’s wife drifts up the pathway from the God’s Road; her monsters circle above, but she is otherwise alone. “Albeit a necessary one.”
She is dressed differently — closer to my first conversation with her, before I knew her name — and gone is the wicked gown.
“Sorry,” I reply. “I don’t qualify tragedy by its political merits. I believe that’s called terrorism. No offense, but it’s something I got into the business of stopping.”
Hannah smirks.
“I can see why Tim took an interest in you. He was always attracted to the intelligent ones.” Her eyes travel from the top of my head to my feet, dressing me down before drifting back up. “Certainly pretty, too.”
“Is that what all this is about? Kind of been wondering, is all.”
“Wondering what, exactly?”
She chose to confront me alone, where nobody could lend back-up or save me, should she use her living weapons to cook me out of existence. The two in the sky are smaller than the one from the Arena, but will obey Hannah’s every word.
“Just how big that jealous streak of yours is.”
Hannah snorts.
“Please. I am beyond petty exchanges over my husband’s infatuation with you. Keep him — I am sure he will just upgrade once you’re out of the picture.”
She can lie all she wants. This is, at its heart, about my relationship with Death. If it weren’t, Hannah would have never used that creepy conjuration of Maya’s apartment to make her introduction into my life; she wouldn’t be talking to me now, or trying to guilt me over and over that Tim took interest in me.
“You were gone,” I tell her — knowing beneath the facade, this woman does care. “What should he have done? Pretended you were coming back?”
“Spoken like a true mistress.”
I shrug.
“Bit far for an affair, really— if it was an affair, and not some cosmic clusterfuck I lucked into. So tell me why you came here, or leave me the fuck alone.”
For all my baiting and teasing, Hannah’s composure never breaks. Pacing away from me, I am only privy to the back of her head as a visual.
“The Phoenix is refusing to take part in the event. She has already injured several of my followers. Normally, I would shrug it off, send the girl to her senseless death. But the Dark Lord has told me that is unacceptable.”
“Ziz thinks it’s unacceptable?”
“Yes,” Hannah says, turning to face me. “The Dark Lord thrives on spectacle. He insists the girl be trained, and will hold off on the event until she is broken of this resolve.”
“And you couldn’t just pick someone else?”
Hannah snickers.
“And overrule my husband’s wishes to have this woman represent him? I’ll tell you what— if he was a true man, he would have chosen himself; not thrown another into the line of fire. He is a coward. Always has been.
“So,” she says, “I am going to make him watch me break his friend’s spirit. And if that does not suffice, I will move onto you.”
I have never felt more desire to murder someone in cold blood. But I have no guarante
e she can actually be killed — achieving death in trying would not save Atlas.
“And what makes you think she will cooperate with me?”
Hannah shrugs.
“Nothing. But if she kills you, it will be one less of mine who died trying. This is not a request, Miss Knox.”
“Sorry. I don’t take orders from you.” Before her brow can furrow, and she can signal her reptilian friends to crush me, I continue. “That said, I will talk to her.”
The momentary frustration disappears from her face — that of a child not getting what she wants — and is replaced with her lunatic, bright-eyed grin.
“Thank you,” she says, but I’m not done.
“Keep one thing in mind, lady.”
“What’s that?” she asks.
Closing the renewed distance between us, I pause, our faces almost touching. Her blushing composure is maddening, her proximity poisonous. But my bloodlust is stronger than it has ever been.
“We’ll play your little game. But when you inevitably lose, you’re going to wish your demonic-worshipping ass had stayed in the shadows where it belongs. You and your boy Ziz are going on a one-way ticket to Hell, bitch.”
Hannah’s smile falls from the highest corners of her mouth. I don’t feel as assured as the words sound, pushing them out with all the confidence I have left.
“I imagine that is a comforting dream to have. Speak with the woman, Miss Knox. Your future may depend on it.”
With that, she turns, retreating the way she came. Looking back to the Cathedral’s wreckage, only her fading footsteps are allowed to bless my conscious thoughts with her departure. I can’t muster the strength to talk to her much longer.
***
This thing has so many moving parts, and I am not privy to the full picture yet. I have bits and pieces, scraps of solace and threads of disappointment. Between the Phoenix trying to kill Tim, dragons in the sky, extramarital vengeance and freak warriors of the Light, there is no way to imagine a tidy ending.
Returning to the Obelisk, I find Avalon meditating; the other Magi are gone, as is his insect friend. Quorroc is absent. Luca sits in a corner, sword over his legs, head bowed with both eyes closed. He is not sleeping, because nobody here sleeps.
“Hey.”
Luca looks up as I join him.
“Ramona — how did it go at the Cathedral?”
I slide down the wall next to the steady sword across his lap, the hands holding it less certain.
“The woman confronted me. Wants me to compel her prisoner to fight. But I don’t think Harper will do it.”
“This is the one Death has chosen as a champion?”
I nod.
“There’s some kind of unspoken resentment between them. To be honest, I don’t really understand why he picked her.”
“What about the map? The one you said contained some sort of astral projection?”
“If there’s anything there, it’s under the Cathedral— which is a hulking piece of wreckage. We don’t have the manpower on our side to get to it.”
“We may be able to change that,” the angel says. “It comes with some risk, but will expand our numbers against Ziz.”
“What’s that?”
Luca grimaces.
“The Crimson League.”
“Demetrius?”
“Yes. The Whisperers and Crimson League preached unfairness in regards to the Council’s treatment — my treatment — of them. The League has never helped its reputation much, but they only followed Ziz out of inadequacy—”
“Not genuinely, like the Brotherhood does.”
“Exactly,” the angel replies. “They were never good enough to serve the Dark Lord, anyway. He prefers his servants capable, rather than the riffraff in Devil’s Corner.”
I chuckle, and Luca asks what’s funny.
“When we first dealt with the Crimson League, you seemed so sure. That they were involved, I mean.”
He nods.
“A terrible mistake that I will forever have to live with. I knew from my years in the Brotherhood they were fanatics. They really seemed to adopt legitimacy for a time. Took on security contracts, offered their services throughout Atlas. Compared to the chaotic League, who openly flaunt dark magic and make reckless statements, the Brotherhood was making gains in decency.”
I can’t say much in this department. Stephen Hardwick fooled me twice, and I will forever feel responsible for allowing him to funnel me into the blond woman’s sights. To sit here and denigrate Luca for his own blind spots would be the ultimate hypocrisy.
Instead, I choose to confide in him.
“I’ve never been in love,” I say, unsure why these words need to be said at all. “At least, don’t think I have. Maybe I am now, and that’s what terrifies me. Everything going to shit around us only took that inkling of what I knew and reinforced it — that I feel something for Tim, and I know he feels the same for me.”
Luca smiles, as if this twist in the conversation soothes him.
“We have a saying in Atlas. ‘But has there ever been something so great as love, and yet so comfortable with sin?’ My father used to quote it when I was young to justify some of the atrocities committed in the Council’s name. I have not heard it uttered in many years.”
“Kind of true, if you think about it.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, I helped end the world with a man most people would have felt terrified of. But he has never threatened me. He’s always been there, for better or worse. And now, this whole thing with his freak bitch of a wife is awakening something in me. And I have never felt so scared of anything, Luca.”
A moment of silence passes before the angel speaks.
“Does he know how you feel?”
I shake my head.
“Unless he can read my mind, I’ve never told him.” Recalling the conversation in the jail cell, I have spoken of it in front of him, though — I resolve to leave that last part out.
“Maybe you should,” he nods. “While you still can.”
***
I find Tim on the fifth floor of the Obelisk. While the administration building’s living quarters are more comfortable than a jail cell, I have little intention of spending much time here. There is work to be done if we are to bring the League to our side. It will have to be done quickly to bolster our numbers against Hannah’s forces. Quorroc and the Magi are one thing, but we need capable bodies to overcome the monstrosities she deploys.
Knocking at the room the Maester told me he had claimed, Tim opens the door to reveal a twin-sized bed and sparse furniture. His beard is no longer as finely trimmed as it was, and I wonder if stress has precluded his default state.
“Can I come in?”
Tim’s face is strained with the weight of recent events. He closes the door behind me, and it clicks with finality — we have no more desire to run from each other.
“What can I do for you, Ramona?”
I don’t have a clue where to begin — I have never been the warmest of people, and feel ridiculous even now.
“You look tired,” I say. “What’s going on?”
Whatever I thought would be said coming in here is absent from his face, like he just received the worst news in the world.
The man who calls himself Death grimaces.
“We need to talk,” he says.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
During the hunt for Emily Rickard, a man named the Spider called me in my office. At the time, I believed him to be Jordan West, the elusive mastermind behind a ring of child abductors.
One of the most perplexing parts of the West case was — prior to Stephen Hardwick revealing it had been him all along — their leader was never seen. He walked in the shadows while his group of grown altar boys stole children from public places and sold them. That West was actually dead never occurred to me until the revelation was flesh-and-blood.
During the ensuing events, in which I physically died in a fire and was resurre
cted by my guardian angel, his composure never broke. Even disobeying the acceptable rules of his position by bringing me back to life didn’t faze him.
But there is a side to Tim I have seen since coming to Atlas. This is his apex of fear and dread, as he takes my hands in his, and sits with me on the bed.
“What’s going on?” I repeat.
His cheeks are pale and his hair tousled — something I never thought was possible. The suit slouches on his shoulder, and there is only life in his twitching lower lip.
“Hannah demanded to speak with me — after we left the Seat.”
“She confronted me too,” I admit. “When I went to check out the Cathedral district.”
Tim frowns.
“She did?”
I nod.
“Tim, I think she wants me out of the picture. And that’s fine, if that’s what you want —”
He stops me.
“That is not what I want. However, you are right. Our relationship seems to form a great part of her motivation. I never expected to see her again — was I supposed to twiddle my thumbs until she magically reappeared?”
“You said she died in childbirth, right?”
He nods. “But then, about six months later, she started appearing. At first, I was sure she was a hallucination. She professed to be a symptom of my grief — but that was a lie. It turned out to be this Olivia woman, using Hannah’s essence to appear to me as my wife. That little revelation made me angry for a long time.”
“This is the woman you told me caused you to become Death?”
“No,” Tim says. “Olivia’s impersonation of Hannah led me into the Shroud. It’s how Harper and I met. We helped Olivia kill Hale, and I became Death. Voluntarily.”
I ponder this information for a second, unable to recall how much he has already told me.
“I need you to tell me exactly what happened with Hannah,” I say. “I may have a way to bring her down, but I can’t be in the dark on anything, Tim.”
Tim nods, and I ask him to tell me what happened again.
This time, he does.
***
Tim’s encounter with his wife was quite similar to mine. After leaving the Seat and parting ways with me as I went off to meet Quorroc, he gravitated to the Arena where all his personal failures had come to roost. Emptied of the spectacle that cost Harper’s girlfriend her life, the man who calls himself Death walked the graveyard of his worst impulses. He examined the blood spots Em was cut in half by a reptile’s giant jaws; and stared at the spot Harper fell to the ground in haunting sobs.
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