by Joy Nash
Her vision blurred. Tears? Damn. She never cried. “Please. Just find him. Bring him back to me. Alive or dead.”
Michael touched her cheek. When he drew his hand back, she saw his fingertip was wet. He stared at the drop of moisture—her tears—for what seemed like a very long time. Finally, his hand formed a fist. He lifted his head.
“All right. I’ll look for him. Wait here.”
His lofty wings, velvet bronze, unfurled. His dark gaze touched on her. He’s so beautiful, she thought dazedly.
Too beautiful. She looked away.
When she looked back, he was gone.
TWENTY
The wait was interminable. Cybele paced in the rut between the ruined barn and a muddy field where some wheat-looking kind of plant was just beginning to sprout. Every couple of passes, she paused to stare across the valley toward Merlin’s Hill. The hellfiend invasion showed no signs of letting up. A seemingly endless horde poured into the sky, spreading out in every direction. The air was thick with ash and sulfur. A deep breath burned. It looked like night for all that she’d caught a brief glimmer of dawn before the unholy murk took over completely. She felt sick, ready to throw up. Would the sun ever shine again?
A popping sound had her head turning sharply. The little cherub—Fortunato?—had emerged from the quicksilver. He looked to the left and right and then, fearfully, at Cybele. “Where is he? Where did he go?”
“Michael?” Cybele felt odd, saying the archangel’s name out loud.
“Yes. Michael.” The cherub backed slowly away, as if Cybele were a rabid dog or something. His bare foot slipped on a puddle. He fell on his baby bottom, splattering mud all over his swaddling clothes. “Where did Michael go?”
“Back to the cave. What’s left of it. To look for...” Her throat closed. She had to believe Michael would succeed. She had to. “For Arthur,” she finished.
The cherub’s brilliant eyes widened. “And he left me here with you?” His voice rose in a screech. “Help! Help!” His gossamer wings whirred, but he couldn’t quite lift himself out of the mud. “Save me!”
“Oh, for the love of—”
Fortunato flung his arms up over his head. “Mercy! Mercy!” His little body trembled.
His terror was real, but Cybele couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh.
Fortunato’s whimpers stopped. One eye peeped from beneath his chubby arm. “Um...what’s so funny?”
“You are,” Cybele said. “Geez. Get a hold of yourself. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You’re not?”
She sighed. “No.”
The cherub lowered his arms. “You could be lying,” he said doubtfully. “You’re a Nephil. I’ve recently discovered that Nephilim lie. A lot. And they’re not very nice.”
“If I’m so horrible, then why are you still here? It looks like your wings still work.” She made a shooing motion with her fingers. “Go. Fly away.”
“Into that?” Fortunato exclaimed, pointing skyward. “Are you crazy?”
Cybele rubbed her forehead. “I must be,” she said. “I’m standing in a field, in the dark, talking to a mud-covered cherub. Insanity is the only explanation.”
“And anyway,” Fortunato continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “I can’t leave. I need Michael.” He pointed to the mirror. “My friend is hurt.”
“Your friend? Who’s that?”
“Maweth. He’s in the mirror, and he’s hurt.”
“Is Maweth another angel?”
Fortunato shouted with laughter. “Maweth? An angel?” He flopped onto his back in the mud, chortling. “That’s a good one. Maweth. An angel.” He dissolved in a fit of giggles.
Cybele wondered if all cherubs were as annoying as this one. It hardly seemed possible. Heaven was supposed to be a pleasant place.
Fortunato sat up, suddenly sober again. “I can’t get Maweth out of the quicksilver. The Alchemist trapped him in there.”
“How did you get out?” Cybele asked.
“Oh, I was never really trapped,” the cherub said. “I just didn’t feel right leaving my friend.”
“That’s very loyal of you.”
“You think so? I don’t know, I—hey, look!” Fortunato leaped up and jabbed a pudgy finger at the sky. “There he is. Michael. He’s coming back!”
Cybele’s stomach dropped to the ground. She couldn’t bring herself to look. “Does...does he have Arthur?”
The angel squinted. “Uh...maybe? He’s carrying somebody, anyway.”
Michael touched down. He was indeed carrying Arthur, who lay limp in his arms. Cybele rushed at him as he landed, her heart lurching. “Is he—?”
“No.” The archangel lowered Arthur to the ground. “Not yet, anyway.”
Cybele dropped to her knees. When she’d last seen Arthur, he’d been in demon form, blazing with power. Now his wings were gone, his body reverted to its human state. He was bruised and battered almost beyond recognition. If not for his mother’s touchstone, in its apple wood setting, hanging limply on its chain around his neck, she might not have even recognized him.
“Arthur...” She touched his forehead, her hand trembling. There was a nasty gash on the side of his head, and more cuts on his face. His shoulder bent at a strange angle—his collarbone had to be broken. A motley mosaic of red, purple, and black decorated his torso and arms. His jeans were covered in soot. A dark crimson trickle seeped from a cut on his left thigh, visible through a tear in the denim.
He lay as still as death. His skin was cold, his complexion gray under the bruises and dirt. Was he even breathing? Yes. His chest rose and fell, barely. Cybele pressed two fingers to his neck. His pulse was thready, but it was there.
He was alive. For how long, though? A furious rage blossomed in Cybele’s chest. “Raphael did this.”
Michael didn’t deny it.
“You goddamned angels.” She wanted, so badly, to look away, to forget she’d ever seen Arthur like this. Somehow, she couldn’t. Her eyes and her brain continued to scan his body, cataloguing every wound. Her fingers flexed and unflexed. She wanted to hit something. Or someone.
“What fucking self-righteous hypocrites you are,” she said.
“I’m not my brother,” Michael said quietly.
She glared up at him. “You might as well be. You’re all the same.”
“We’re guardians of humanity,” Michael replied. “What did you expect? That Arthur could pull Merlin’s staff from the stone and flood the world with hellfiends, and there would be no consequences?”
“He didn’t know it would happen.”
“He didn’t need to know,” Michael said. “He only needed to obey Raphael’s orders.”
“What?” Cybele’s vision went red. At that moment, she wasn’t sure which was greater, her grief or her rage. Every breath she took stabbed like a knife.
She jumped to her feet, hands fisted at her sides. “All he had to do was obey? Are you serious? Raphael tried to wipe out our entire race. Fuck obedience! Fuck you and your fucking celestial privilege! You righteous prick. Everything on Earth and Heaven—every damn thing—is rigged for your benefit. You have no idea—” Her voice broke. “No idea—” She drew a shuddering breath. “No idea what it’s like to be a Nephil. To be cursed before you’re even born.”
She dropped back to her knees, laid her cheek on Arthur’s chest, and sobbed. So much for never crying. If Arthur died, she wasn’t sure she’d ever stop.
After a long moment, she felt Michael crouch down beside her. He laid a tentative hand on her head. “Does he really mean that much to you?”
She lifted her head. “He means everything,” she said dully.
“Cybele,” Michael said. “Look at me.”
Reluctantly, she turned her head and looked into the angel’s eyes. Her first thought was...how could anyone’s eyes look so soft? And so forbidding at the same time? It didn’t make sense.
He held her gaze for a long moment, until she had the impression t
hat he was no longer looking at her, but gazing inward.
“All right,” he said at last.
“All right, what?”
“Just remember, I’m doing this for you. Not him. For you.”
Her heart pounded. “Doing what?”
In lieu of an answer, he laid his right hand on Arthur’s head. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply. On the exhale, he breathed a word she’d never before heard. The sound of it burned her ears.
She sucked air into her lungs and held it there. She was afraid to move, afraid to speak, afraid to so much as breathe. Her eyes were riveted on Michael’s hand, on the glow seeping from his fingers.
The light whispered over Arthur’s body. His skin lost its grayness. His collarbone shifted under his skin, resuming its normal line. His bleeding stopped. His wounds closed. The bruising faded. Even the blood on his jeans disappeared. Arthur drew a single deep breath. His spine arched and his chest expanded. His body relaxed into a long, deflating exhale. With his next breath, his respiration resumed a normal rhythm.
Cybele felt as if she were in a dream. She opened her mouth. “I—”
“Um...Michael?” Fortunato popped up, out of nowhere, cutting her off. He buzzed over to Michael and tugged on his pant leg.
Cybele closed her mouth. She reached out and cupped Arthur’s cheek. It was warm. “Arthur?” she whispered. His chest expanded, and then fell with an audible sigh. Cybele willed his eyes to open. They didn’t.
“Michael?” Tug. “Michael!”
At some point—she wasn’t sure exactly when—Michael had removed his hand from Arthur’s head and stood. “Not now, Fortunato,” he said.
“But Miiiiichael—”
“I said, not now.”
Cybele tipped her head back and met his gaze. “Why...why isn’t he waking up?”
Michael closed his eyes and sighed. “Raphael’s Sword of Righteous Vengeance struck him on the head. It must have been only a glancing blow, else he wouldn’t have survived. But a wound like that isn’t easily healed.”
“But it will heal, right? He’ll wake up?”
“When he’s ready.”
Cybele looked back at Arthur. His bruises were gone and the color had returned to his face. By all appearances, he was sleeping peacefully. “When will that be?”
“Hard to say. Hours? Days? Maybe as much as a week.”
Fortunato popped up again. “Michael?”
Cybele rose slowly to her feet. “And when he does awaken? Will he be the same?”
Michael looked skyward. The stream of hellfiends spewing from Merlin’s Hill hadn’t abated. If anything, it’d grown thicker. A fine ash fell, drifting earthward like black snow.
“I imagine no one in the world is going to be the same after today,” he said.
“That’s not what I was asking.”
“I know.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “But it’s the only answer I’ve got. Here—” He took his hands out of his pockets. “Give him these when he wakes up.”
He held what looked like two gnarled sticks. The objects expanded rapidly in his hands.
Cybele’s jaw dropped. “Merlin’s staff?”
He shrugged. “Such as it is.”
She couldn’t believe it. “And you’re giving it to me? To Arthur?”
“It’s his, isn’t it?” he said irritably.
“Of course it is. But you— I mean, but Raphael— He nearly killed Arthur because of it.”
Michael’s jaw tensed. “I told you before. I am not my brother.”
She stared. “I think...I’m beginning to understand that.”
It was the only thing she was beginning to understand about him. The rest of it—his motives, his thoughts, his inconceivable actions—she was at a loss to explain.
“Why?” she asked. “Why did you do all this? Why did you save me? Save Arthur? Bring us the staff? We should be beneath your notice.”
“No. You’re not. From the first time I saw you, in that house by the moor—” His mouth closed abruptly.
“House by the moor?” She narrowed her eyes. “You were at Tŷ’r Cythraul?”
He avoided her gaze. “Briefly.”
“Briefly,” she repeated. “What the hell does that mean? Why were you there at all?”
“I was keeping an eye on him.” He jerked his chin at Arthur.
“But why?”
“Raphael thought it prudent.” He grimaced. “Turns out he was right. As my brother annoyingly tends to be.”
“Raphael sent you to spy on us?” Cybele’s mind raced. Her voice took on a dangerous tone. “Tell me. What, exactly, did you see?”
He blinked once. A flush appeared high on his cheeks. His lips pressed firmly together.
Cybele gasped as the truth hit her. “Holy shit! Those were your wings I saw through the window. You creeper! You watched Arthur and me doing it.”
He didn’t deny it. What’s more, the accuracy of her accusation was written all over his face. His cheeks went from pink to crimson, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
The image of what he must’ve seen through the window—she and Arthur, tangled together on the bed, fucking each other’s brains out—sprang into her mind. Her cheeks began to burn as hot as his.
She crossed her arms. “I have to say, that’s pretty low. Even for a human. For an angel—”
“I know,” he broke in. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re a miserable liar,” she said, eyeing him. “I don’t think you’re sorry at all.”
He brought his gaze to hers. “I am sorry—” He held up his hand when she opened her mouth to retort. “You’re right. I’m not sorry I watched. I’m sorry I’ve upset you.”
Was she upset? Suddenly she wasn’t sure. It was all too absurd. Who ever heard of an angel Peeping Tom? She swallowed a bubble of laughter. “So tell me, what did you like best? Was it when I went d—”
“By all that’s holy!” His entire face flushed so hotly, she thought it might combust. “What I saw or didn’t see is irrelevant.”
“Like hell it is. Holy crap! Don’t angels understand the concept of privacy?” She huffed out a breath. “Oh, why am I even asking? Of course they don’t. Heaven’s always watching.”
“And you’re lucky I was watching. Otherwise, you and this half-insane, over-powered idiot—” He waved the top half of Merlin’s staff at Arthur. “—would be dead right now.”
“Oh, sure. Take all the credit. Seems to me you could’ve saved us all some trouble and stopped us from coming to Merlin’s Hill in the first place.”
“I had nothing to do with that. I wasn’t even there when you left. Gabriel was supposed to be watching Arthur. Raphael sent me to look for Fortunato.”
At the sound of his name, Fortunato looked up.
“Crap job Gabriel did, then,” Cybele muttered.
“We’re in complete agreement there,” Michael replied.
The cherub buzzed into the air. “Now can you listen to me, Michael? Please? Please?”
“In a minute, Fortunato.” Michael held out the two pieces of Merlin’s staff to Cybele. “Here. Take these.”
She did. The wood was cold. Lifeless. “Thank you,” she said. “Though...I’m not sure it matters. I’m not an adept, of course, but to me, this feels...dead.”
“Maybe Arthur can make it whole again.”
Cybele’s brows rose. “What would Raphael say about that?”
Michael grimaced. “I don’t want to know. Which is why I’m not going to tell him.”
“Then...why give Merlin’s staff to me at all?”
“Because,” he said seriously, “it occurs to me that if Merlin was once able to hold back a demon horde with this staff, his heir may be able to use it to banish the current invasion.”
“That’s a pretty big stretch, if you ask me.” She tipped back her head and looked at the black sky. “How many of those things do you think there are?”
“Hundreds of thousands? Millions? Who kn
ows?”
Her fingers tightened on the twisted wood. “When Arthur wakes up—” She had to believe that would happen. “I’ll give him the staff and tell him what you’ve said. And what you’ve done. He’ll be grateful.”
Michael snorted. “You think? I guarantee you, he won’t be.”
“Why not?”
“If you have to ask,” he said, “it’s not worth me trying to explain it.”
“That,” Cybele replied, “makes absolutely no sense.”
An explosion rocked the ground. Cybele pitched forward, clutching the pieces of the staff against her chest. Michael’s arms came around her, steadying her and holding her close for the briefest of moments.
It was a very odd feeling, being in the arms of an angel.
He released her and stepped away. Cybele felt his gaze on her, but she didn’t—couldn’t—return it. She looked toward Merlin’s Hill instead. Staccato bursts of hellfire arced between billowing clouds of ash.
Fortunato sprang up between them, wings beating furiously. He held out the mirror to Michael. “Now can you do it, Michael? Please?”
Michael’s gaze shifted from Cybele to the cherub. “Do what?”
“Get my friend out of here.”
“Your friend?”
“Yes. My friend. That nasty Alchemist trapped him in here. Now he’s hurt and I can’t get him out. Pleeeeease?”
Michael took the mirror. He turned it over in his hands, frowning. “This is very odd.”
“I’ll say.” Cybele ducked around the cherub to get a closer look. “I’ve never seen a mirror like that. What’s it made of?”
“Quicksilver.” He frowned. “Salt...fire...and blood. Fused with Alchemical magic. It’s solid and liquid at the same time. It’s not possible. Or at least, it shouldn’t be possible.” His gaze found Fortunato. “You say your friend is trapped in here?”
“Yes. That nasty Nephil trapped him. Can you get him out?”
“Let’s see,” Michael said. He laid the mirror in his left palm and passed his right hand over it.
A wispy creature tumbled out, quickly expanding until it matched the cherub in size. Its body and its wings were dark and insubstantial, a mere shadow. Its pale, skull-like face sent a chill down Cybele’s spine. Fortunato caught the odd being in his chubby arms and eased it to the ground.