by eden Hudson
Which, Ryder had pointed out when we came up with this plan, was basically just me and Sissy saying, “Let’s hope Kathan wants favor in the eyes of the human public.”
That logic hadn’t deterred Sissy or me. This had to be done. Dad should’ve thought of it during the war, but he’d been in too much pain to think straight. He had a daughter who could banish demons from the face of the earth and he didn’t even consider using it on Kathan?
That wasn’t right. We should’ve known Dad wouldn’t have made a tactical error like that. Even out of his mind with grief and guilt, Dad never would’ve been that stupid.
This was a memory. I recognized it by the constant stream of thoughts. While I’d actually been running for the ice house’s mostly torn-out staircase the only things on my mind had been not tripping and carrying out the plan. It was later that I’d been unable to keep myself from replaying everything leading up to Sissy’s death, going over and over the things I should’ve done differently, hating myself for not having the brains to see that Dad would have tried banishing Kathan first thing if it were possible to banish him.
The security detail leader smashed into me from behind, knocking me into a wall of decomposing newspapers and books. I hit my head on something, but managed to come up slashing with the knife from my belt. Just a little game knife we’d found in the cabin, but the hooked back snagged the foot soldier’s cheek muscle and tore it away from his jaw, leaving a ragged hole where his bloody teeth and gums glared through.
My first hand-to-hand with Rian. I didn’t know his name yet or that he was Kathan’s third in command, just that I wanted to hack him to pieces and buy Tough, Ryder, and Sissy as much time as possible.
The security detail leader—Rian—growled and snatched the knife away. He planted it in the meat just above my knee, less than an inch from the bullet hole scar. I yelled. My leg jerked involuntarily, shredding even more muscle around the blade and hook. For a second I thought I was going to black out.
The rest of the foot soldiers crowded around us, covering me with their rifles while Rian ratcheted hot metal handcuffs shut around my wrists.
Then I heard the boom of the beanbag gun. That meant that in the confusion, Ryder had surprised Mikal from behind with his barbed-wire garrote and Tough had made it close enough to Kathan to fire off that homemade round of lye into the fucker’s face, hopefully blinding him.
Another boom. I hoped Ryder had thought fast enough to duck down behind Mikal’s wings—Tough’s second round of lye was supposed to be for her.
“I’ve got him!” Rian snapped at the other foot soldiers. “Get out there!”
Combat boots shook the rotten floor beneath me as the soldiers sprinted to the windows. I prayed to God that Sissy would be fast enough.
Rian hauled me to my feet and shoved his sidearm into my ribs, but I wasn’t resisting anymore. All my focus was on trying to hear what was happening out on the street. I’d heard Sissy banish demons before and it damn sure hadn’t been this quiet. Even half-deaf I would be able to hear Hell opening up and dragging Kathan kicking and screaming into eternity.
But Hell never came for Kathan.
There was a screech shot through with unnatural bass notes. Then Ryder’s Saiga opened up, fully automatic. Then a whoomp like a brush pile soaked with diesel catching fire. Sissy screamed. Tough yelled something I couldn’t make out.
Back when I was alive, there was a jump in this memory. During my nightmares and sometimes when I couldn’t block it out, I would experience the jump as Rian hauling me across piles of moldy books and papers and rat shit, feeling the tearing pain in my leg, a million times worse every time I took a step…then sitting on a bench in Halo’s old jail house’s only cell between Ryder and Tough, staring at the cracked concrete floor, feeling nothing. Even with all the tearing around Mikal did in my head, she had never been able to find those missing hours. Cutting them out of my memory like they’d never happened was probably the one good thing my brain had ever done for me.
Now that I was dead, though, I remembered all of it. Every second of being perp-walked down the rickety stairs. Feeling the pain, smelling the smoke and burning meat, listening to Ryder empty his drum magazine.
The whole time, every single fucking step, Sissy’s screaming went on and on. It was like she didn’t need to breathe. The sound just kept going, drilling down into my brain, triggering some pool of animal rage and pain, until all I could think was, if it was so bad, why didn’t Ryder just shoot her and put her out of her misery?
I should’ve fought Rian—bad leg or not, I should’ve tried to fight him. But I couldn’t. Something inside me was already broken. The smell, the sound of Sissy screaming, and the complete lack of evidence that Kathan had begun his descent into Hell… This plan was supposed to have worked. God had practically written it on the cabin wall. But we had failed. Again. In that minute, I didn’t have any reserves left. All the fight in me was gone.
Down every single step, across thirty feet of rotten flooring littered with more brittle brown newspaper, out the busted door. Sissy’s screaming hit a higher pitch. I couldn’t believe anyone could make a noise like that. Throughout the entire war—four years of fighting—I’d never heard someone scream that way.
Rian dropped me in the street. The handle of the knife in my leg scraped against the blacktop. For a second, all I could see was red. Then the worn and duct-taped toes of Tough’s sneakers kicking at the asphalt next to a pair of shiny black combat boots faded into my field of vision.
I craned my neck as far as I could manage, trying to look up. A foot soldier was holding Tough’s scrawny arms up so that Tough’s feet barely touched the ground. Tears were streaming down my little brother’s face. Between bouts of incoherent sobbing, Tough screamed at the angel.
Ryder’s Saiga went quiet, and then he was cuffed and laying on the ground to my right. I tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look my way. I managed to roll onto my side, away from the pain shooting up my thigh, and sit up so I could see what Ryder and Tough were staring at.
Directly ahead of us, a foot soldier kneeled on Kathan’s back, trying to jerk Sissy’s gravity knife out from between the mayor’s cervical vertebrae. Kathan wasn’t moving. Severing his spine had paralyzed him just like Sissy and I had hoped it would.
Off to the side, Mikal stood holding a gas can. The flesh around her eyes had bubbled and burned away in places from the lye, but she was grinning. In front of her, chained to a telephone pole, was a body engulfed in flames. Somehow the body was still screaming.
Sissy. Sissy was still screaming. The sound had become hoarse and croaking, but she was still going. She was still alive.
Mikal turned to face us.
“You want to be martyrs?” she yelled. Her bubbling, melted grin widened until I could see every one of her perfect white teeth shining in the firelight. “Martyrs don’t die pretty, boys, and they don’t die fast. And when they ask for water—”
Mikal stepped closer to the body—to Sissy. She lifted the gas can to Sissy’s lips.
*****
I sucked in the scorching hot air of the Pit. White-hot claws ripped open my throat and tore into my lungs. I choked, then vomited blood. It burned my mouth like battery acid. My head ached like someone was hammering a hot gutter spike into my eyes and anchoring it in my skull.
I was laying facedown on the floor of the Pit. The rocky ground seared my skin. I could smell myself cooking, the same as I’d smelled Sissy.
Thinking that brought up another wave of acid-vomit that blistered and corroded every part of my throat, mouth, and lips.
I wanted to shut my eyes again. It hadn’t hurt while my eyes were shut. Not physically. But—
But closing your eyes was a trap. You went into your head, and what was waiting there was worse than torture. And when you decided to surface again, the agony in your soul hurt even worse. From here, going back into your worst memories or maybe your worst nightmares almost seemed like it would be
a relief.
I looked around at the humans and other creatures lying on the floors of their cells. That was why there were no locks or chains. No one left. Ever.
I took a step. Burning metal sliced into the ball of my foot and scooped the pad away from the bones. Trying to set my foot down carefully didn’t make any difference, but the instinct to walk softly was too strong to just barrel forward. The next step felt like the rusty edge of the can snagged on my heel bone and chipped part of it away.
Somewhere, Tiffani was laying on the floor of a cell, either lost in the Hell in her head or screaming in agony.
I made myself take another step.
Tough
I don’t remember the trip back up into the attic, but I remember once I got there deciding that I was going to stand by the broken window because the sun had changed angles and I wouldn’t catch on fire. Through the glassless window, I could feel the summer heat rolling in. Harper would’ve lost her shit over the broken window. She would’ve said we were running up the utility bill, air-conditioning the whole damn town. Apparently Lonely was rich enough that he didn’t give a fuck how much money he was wasting.
It was crazy bright out, brighter than I could remember ever seeing it. Looking, I could imagine the world exploding into fire and ash and taking me with it. I wished it would. Then I wouldn’t have to be responsible for what was coming next. I wouldn’t have to be the one who killed Will and Dodge and all those high school kids from Scout’s class and even those jock assholes Drake and Jim.
Scout must’ve been right about the crow magic working better naked because I wasn’t flying as high as I’d been after the first magic blood-sucking, but I could feel the blood like a fuzz all around the inside of my head. Somewhere at the edge of the fuzz, I could feel the disgust and self-loathing crouched and waiting to spring, but it couldn’t get through yet.
I ground my teeth, hoping I’d get that sensation of biting down on something chewy and indestructible, but all I got back was scraping.
Dodge was right. I didn’t ask for this. This was Scout’s army and Colt’s job and Dad’s war. Even right after Mikal killed Mom, when Sissy and Ryder and Colt were all gung-ho to become Soldiers of Heaven, I didn’t want to fight. I just wanted it to be over so I could go home, play my guitar, and have everybody and everything leave me alone.
Standing there, looking out the window, one of Dad’s old sermons came back to me.
You know that saying about God never giving us more than we can handle? It’s a lie. He gives us more than we can handle all the time. He does it to remind us that we can’t do this alone. Then when we cry out to Him, He handles it, just like He promised he would in Philippians 4:13—“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That old saying should go “God never gives us more than we can handle with His help.”
I twisted a leftover shard of broken glass out of the window pane and tossed it at the street.
Maybe that promise was conditional. Fuckups need not apply.
There was a commotion on the stairs, then that crow-girl Talitha came up, dragging Bailey—one of Jax’s protectors from the Witches’ Council—by the arm.
“Have a seat,” Lonely said, bowing and sweeping one fat arm at a crate marked M32 MGL.
Bailey crossed her arms and shot him a look over her glasses. “I’ll stand.”
“We need some information,” Clarion said. “You might be here a while enlightening us.”
“I’m sure I’ll survive,” she said.
Just ask her about the sword, I told Lonely. I’d heard Bailey argue with Kathan when he was in Big, Bad Mayor mode. She wasn’t going to be intimidated by a fat crow and a one-eyed coyote.
Scout must’ve heard me because she said, “Tell us everything you know about Mikal’s sword. We want to know where it came from, what it does, how, why, when, where, fill-in-the-blank.”
Bailey lifted an eyebrow at Scout, which was a lot more subtle than what I would’ve done if I’d still had my voice. It sounded like Scout had picked that line up from some crime show. Probably the same place she got all her Halo: Maximum Security references.
“Start talking,” Scout said.
Bailey glared at me. “With him just sitting there? After what he did?”
If Jax was alive, he probably would’ve said something smooth like, “Aw, Bailey, I didn’t know you cared!” He had always known what to say to get people to like him and to do what he was asking.
Well, almost always. That last time was kind of the big one considering it got his neck snapped.
“Jax screwed up,” Scout told Bailey. “You know that as well as I do. He could’ve taken the time to learn craft from you guys, become an apprentice, and in ten or fifteen years he could’ve been a witch, but he didn’t. He took the shortcut and traded Jason Gudehaus for his magic.”
“Familiar sounding story,” Bailey said, looking Scout up and down like she was sizing up Scout’s crow magic.
Scout stood up straighter. “I made my decision. So did Jax. We’re the ones who’ll have to deal with the consequences. You get to make a decision now, too. Tell us everything you know about the sword or Tough and I will dig it out of you. Between his mesmerization—” She reached down and pulled an old style KA-BAR out of a crate. “—and this, I’m pretty sure we can find out everything we need to know.”
Bailey rolled her eyes, but she didn’t call Scout’s bluff.
Clarion waved a hand at Scout like he was telling Bailey to ignore her. “If your specialty really is information and prophecy, then you already know what’s at stake here. Do you think I want to be working with crows? That they want to be working with me? There aren’t a lot of sides to choose from this time. You’re either with us or you’re with them.”
Bailey shot me one last look, then took a deep breath and blew a puff up at the stray hairs hanging over her glasses. “The Sword of Judgment, if I’m remembering the translations correctly, was posted at the entrance to the Garden of Eden, going to and fro day and night to keep anyone from entering after Adam and Eve were cast out. If our timelines are correct, this was long after Kathan led the rebellion in Heaven which caused a third of the angels to fall.”
She paused to lift up her glasses and rub her eyes. “There was a time when the fallen angels weren’t organized. They roamed the Earth, demanding to be worshiped as gods, pitting tribes against one another, mating with humans and animals—which is where we get the origin of beings like the Nephilim, chimera, Naga, sirens, lizard people, et cetera—and generally causing chaos wherever they pleased. According to most accounts, that all changed when Mikal stole the Sword of Judgment from the entrance of the Garden. This gave Kathan the power to send any of his fellow fallen angels to Hell, which as one might imagine, was equivalent to being given the divine right to rule. Thus the fallen angels organized with Kathan as their leader. And as you’ve no doubt seen in the triptych in the Dark Mansion’s front hall, they’ve spent the remaining time gathering their armies for the last battle. Most non-people communities are indebted to the fallen angels for setting up refuges and twisting the folklore about them in such a way as to make them desirable to humankind, so one can assume they would stand with the fallen angels in the last battle.”
“Mikal had the sword,” Clarion said. “Why didn’t she just become the leader herself?”
Bailey paused, then shrugged. “Most APIM and sup-psych studies conclude that fallen angels are—or project the semblance of being—similar to humans in their desires. Some crave power, others to be the object of lust, and still others crave bloodshed and war. They theorize that alphas like Kathan chase power and obeisance, whereas most enforcers enjoy causing suffering. Mikal knew uniting the angels under Kathan would give her everything she was looking for, without putting her at the forefront where she would eventually have to deal with the trivialities that come from being at the head of any movement—public relations, for example.” Bailey’s eyebrows came together in a frown. “Although
the working theory at the Council is somewhat different.”
Then she waited.
I would’ve just stared at her like she was stupid until she quit with the teacher act, but Scout took the bait.
“What’s that?”
“Raelynn, Brant, and I have talked about it extensively,” Bailey said, “And we think Kathan can’t wield the Sword of Judgment.”
Bailey’s blue-gray eyes met mine, and for a second it felt like all the buzz from Scout’s blood was gone. The look made it pretty obvious that she would rather scrape me off her shoe than track me around the house, but behind that there was something else. She looked like she wanted to be mad at me, but she was too tired to pull it off.
Scout broke our stare-down. “Why wouldn’t he be able to use the sword?”
“That is the question,” Bailey said. “But consider that Kathan had supreme power in his hand and chose not to wield it. Rather, he chose to let someone else hold a piece of the power that held his kingdom together, to depend on someone other than himself. In popular religious theory, what was the sin that got Lucifer cast out?”
“Pride,” Clarion said. “Thinking he was good enough to rule in God’s place.”
Bailey nodded. “Exactly. Angels may have similar psychologies to humans, but they’re different in one fundamental way—they’re changeless. Fifty thousand years ago, Kathan thought he was worthy of the throne and everything that comes with it. Fifty thousand years from now, Kathan will still believe he’s worthy of the throne and everything that comes with it. There’s no reason Kathan would leave such an important piece of the puzzle in someone else’s hands unless he didn’t have a choice.”