by Cate Corvin
“Give me a feather,” Azazel snapped, and Michael and I both automatically tugged a long pinion from our wings. I ignored the sharp holt of pain that the ebonite frame transmitted through my nerve endings and handed it over.
He hovered over the buried form and carefully brushed the ash away with the feathers, revealing the gleaming golden points of the Spear of Light. Darker stains covered the ground beneath it.
“Blood.” Belial took a deep breath and knelt beside him. “At least a few days old, maybe a week.”
A week?
Melisande had come out of the Between nearly a week before us?
“Taking this path was a mistake,” Haru said, almost inaudibly, and I nodded in silent agreement.
Belial got to his feet, still breathing deeply. He put a healthy distance between himself and the fallen Spear before shifting back into his leonine form, padding to the edge of the drop-off.
I glanced at Azazel as he followed his nose, turning left and clambering over the boulders with fluid grace. “Her blood?”
Faint lines that hadn’t been in his ageless face before had creased at the corners of his eyes. “Likely. Who can say what happened here? But our mate bond isn’t dead. Don’t give up hope yet.”
I exhaled, pushing aside the sick feeling in my stomach. She was out there. If she’d died, we would’ve felt it in the mate bond.
Michael had taken off after Belial, along with Haru. I stared after them, a thousand images of Melisande being tortured playing in my head.
I started after them and paused when something caught my eye. Another corpse, a body that had been split apart much like the Dragon’s decomposing carcass below.
It looked like it had crawled over the rocks before expiring, and the layer of ash building atop it was thinner than the dense drifts on the ledge. The rocks here were stained as well, but with a substance darker than blood.
The Watcher spared it a glance. “The body Satan took. He must have a new one.” His face hardened. “I only hope he didn’t take Lucifer.”
“Melisande would’ve followed him to the edge of the world.” My voice sounded hollow and empty in the still air. “She wouldn’t have given up until one or both of them were dead.”
Azazel tilted his head after the receding forms of our fellow warriors. “There’s no reason to believe she’s dead yet. We follow the trail, Tascius. Only forward.”
3
Melisande
I gripped the bars of my cage and pressed my forehead against them, trying in vain to see as much as possible.
By all rights, I had the best seat in the house to the debacle below. The birdcage swayed gently above Ereshkigal’s head and gave me a front-row view to the sight of Lucifer’s chest being slashed open by a six-armed Gallu demon.
I gritted my teeth, resisting the urge to cheer for him. Ereshkigal hadn’t yet asked for music, and I had zero desire to give her a reason to want to hear any.
Lucifer lunged in with one of his two swords, taking one of the Gallu demon’s arms off at the shoulder. The offending limb flopped to the arena floor, the fingers still twitching spastically.
He could handle a Gallu himself with no problem. Hell, he could handle fifty without breaking a sweat.
But there were twenty cages suspended above the river of souls, with iron gangways leading to the arena floor, and each cage was packed with demons waiting their turn for bloodshed.
It was going to be a swarm, and Lucifer was deliberately kept weak. Thick bands of ebonite encircled his ankles, each cuff forged with the intention of dampening his natural power.
As of now, he had none of the power of an archangel. He might as well have been a freshly born demon for all the strength she left him.
Below me, Ereshkigal reached out and ran her long nails over Satan’s forearm. “You have an eye for the best,” she said admiringly. “He was quite the catch, wasn’t he? To think he fell right into your hands.”
My hands tightened around the cage’s bars, making my knuckles stand out white and stark. Ereshkigal’s admiration of Lucifer was starting to take on more than a sinister bent; she seemed to genuinely like what she saw when she looked at him.
If she laid one hand on him, I wasn’t sure what I’d do. Killing her was the most obvious and satisfactory choice.
And completely impossible without the Spear. It would take a Heavenly weapon to annihilate a Prime power, otherwise she’d just heal and come back stronger and angrier than ever.
Ereshkigal being kind was bad enough. I didn’t want to see her rage.
Satan gave her a sidelong look under his eyelashes. I wondered if she knew he didn’t give the slightest damn about her, and just didn’t care. “You’re missing the real show. Lucifer can handle himself. It’s no contest.”
She sat up a little straighter as Lucifer drove his sword through the Gallu’s chest and kicked him right off the platform. The cage doors slid open, admitting five more onto the arena floor.
The new contenders raised their arms to the crowds of Kur, soaking up the cheers as they converged on my mate.
I saw the shine of sweat on Lucifer’s shoulders and back, gleaming as he took a deep breath, exhaled, and settled into a fighting stance.
“He’s enough show on his own,” Ereshkigal murmured. She clapped her hands together in delight when Lucifer decapitated one of the demons on his first swing. The clapping became muted as her hands shrank into a crone’s, her skin becoming soft as an overripe peach and wrinkling grotesquely.
While she was distracted, Satan twisted his head and looked up at me with a smirk.
“What do you want?” I whispered furiously, almost silently, ripping my eyes away and gazing steadfastly out at Lucifer.
His smirk widened, and he turned back to his traitorous lover. “Put your little bird in the arena if you want a real treat.”
That got her attention. Ereshkigal became a maiden again, her dark eyes narrowing as she looked over at him. “Oh, no,” she said, amused. “I couldn’t bear to live without my little songbird. Her music brightens my day.”
She raised a hand and darkness spiraled from the center of her pale palm, forming a rope of shadows.
With a sharp crack, she sent the rope snapping towards me.
It struck through the bars of my cage, whipping across my face with the sound of splitting flesh.
Blood spilled down my cheek in a hot flood, and the whip twisted, shifting into a new shape. Spines like thorns grew outwards from its length, and the entire thing slithered downwards and coiled around my leg, digging in deep.
I gritted my teeth, but it was impossible to hold back the animalistic cry that tore out of me.
In the thick of a fight, it was easy to ignore pain. The adrenaline coursing through my veins dampened everything until the end.
In a cage, defenseless, and terrified that every moment would be my last, the pain seemed so much more real and intense. The thorns felt like they were chewing through me, trying to eat me alive. Gnawing down to the bone.
I clapped a hand over my mouth, but the only relief was to shriek, and the more I screamed, the sooner she’d tire of me.
“Lovely.” Ereshkigal sounded satisfied.
After what felt like years, the thorns pulled themselves out of my skin and muscle, leaving dripping red wounds behind.
I swallowed my next scream so it became a groan, panting for breath. My blood dripped sluggishly onto the thrones below, painting streaks of crimson over Satan’s bare chest.
But for once, he wasn’t looking at me, delighting in my pain.
His gaze was focused out on the arena floor, where Lucifer had slaughtered the Gallu demons. His quicksilver eyes were on me, his anxiety loud and clear.
I shook my head. I was bloody but alive, and Lucifer wouldn’t be able to say the same if he didn’t keep his mind clear.
“He must love you so much.” Ereshkigal’s pretty mouth twisted. “To hear you scream and yet keep fighting to return to you. I almost envy y
ou, little bird.”
She snapped her fingers. My birdcage lurched, then rocketed towards the floor, drawing up short only inches away from hitting the ebonite at full speed.
One of the Irkallan guards unlocked the door and held it open, his face impassive despite the blood smeared on the bars and floor.
“Fetch,” Ereshkigal said casually, her eyes still on Lucifer. “My throat is dry. Something… red.”
I swallowed the rest of my pain and tucked it in the deepest corner of my mind. Her thorns had pierced me to the bone, and the deep ache was starting to grow almost fiercer than the sharp, surface-level sting of the open wounds.
I gripped the bars and hauled myself upright. My silk shift clung to my leg from thigh to ankle, soaked through with blood. The guard moved back a step as I stepped out of the cage on wobbly legs, trying to avoid getting any of my blood on his armor.
A wry smile flitted across my lips. He was as disgusted by me as I was by him.
The servant’s station was down the hall, hidden in an alcove. Every step I took left a wet trail on the floor behind me, but two white-robed handmaidens had appeared behind me with a bucket and sponge, scrubbing mechanically at the floor.
I paused halfway down the hall, pressing one hand against the wall and leaning on it heavily.
My leg was trembling so badly I thought it might give out. The ache was no longer ignorable; it felt like something was worming its way into my bones, eating away inside me.
The handmaidens scrubbed the floor until they were at my heels, and then sat back quietly, waiting for me to move again.
On a whim, I waved behind me, fluttering my hand right in front of the face of a girl with blue lips and a tight braid of dark hair.
She didn’t so much as blink.
I wanted to hate them for belonging to Ereshkigal, but I couldn’t summon the emotion. Instead of hate, all I found was a tired sort of pity.
Maybe one day I would be just like them.
I forced myself to keep limping along until I reached the room stocked with cups, trays, and bottles of wine, but paused when it was time to make a selection.
If only I had poison. It wouldn’t kill her outright, but it might incapacitate her long enough to find a way out.
As if on cue, the skin beneath my collar began to itch and burn. I slid a finger under the warm band of golden ebonite and scratched at it, but stopped myself before I really began digging at my skin.
I’d had enough pain for today, and as long as this collar was on, it wouldn’t matter if Ereshkigal was out stone-cold in a thousand-year sleep. I wouldn’t be able to step foot outside Kur as long as I wore it.
I picked a bottle at random, braced myself against the table to pop the cork out, and nearly dropped it.
Satan was standing right behind me, so close we were almost touching.
I fumbled the wine bottle in my shock, and he reached out and caught it easily, sliding it back into my hands.
“How long do you think she would make you sing for breaking one of her precious bottles?” he asked, the corner of his mouth turned up in a half-smile.
The sliver of blue in his left eye had grown wider, brilliant against the ebony of the rest of the iris.
My throat seemed to be glued shut, words impossible. I automatically backed away and bumped into the serving table. The glasses clattered alarmingly and went still.
Satan raised a dark, arched eyebrow. “Careful, now.”
I dragged a painful breath into tight lungs. Just that simple movement of getting away from him had set off waves of fresh pain in my leg. “What. Do. You. Want?” I hissed, clutching the wine bottle against my chest.
He opened his mouth, and stopped. A strange mix of emotions crossed his face: fury, sadness, frustration. He almost looked contorted.
His features finally smoothed out into the usual smug look I saw on him these days. Satan reached out and wrapped a lock of violet hair around his finger, twining it in loops. “I want you,” he said, his voice dropping.
If it’d been hard to breathe a moment ago, it was even harder now. I gripped the wine bottle so tightly I was half-afraid I’d shatter it by sheer force. “Too bad for you, fucker. I’d rather let the Queen tear me apart.”
“How did you become this way?” he asked, as though he hadn’t heard me. “Nothing breaks you. Nothing stops you.” Satan tugged the hair he’d wound around his finger gently, his brows creasing in a frown. “I took your best friend. I took your lover. And you still didn’t stop, even though there was no hope for you.”
I gazed up at him stormily. The blue splotch in his eye was growing wider, eating up the darkness.
“That’s what people do when they love each other,” I said abruptly. “Not that you would know anything about that.”
He just looked into my eyes. Looked right through me.
A cold shiver went down my spine.
“I think I could understand,” he finally said. He pulled his hand away, watching my hair unspool from his finger like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.
I couldn’t breathe. If I moved so much as a single muscle, I’d touch him. The warmth of his skin was tangible through the thin shift I wore.
He might be beautiful now, but I remembered all too clearly the tar-like creature that lived inside this body. The scarecrow with red lips and beetles pouring from his mouth.
“No,” I said, my voice quiet. I didn’t want to take a deeper breath while he was standing right in front of me, smelling not like decay, but like a man. He smelled good, which galled me more than I cared to admit. “I don’t think you ever could. All you do is feed on pain, just like her.”
I wanted to duck around him, but he had me boxed neatly into the servant’s room. King Nergal had been a power much like the Princes and archangels; he was broad and dense with muscle, impossible to escape. Especially while my leg was still weeping blood and trembling under me, now with fear as well as pain.
“Things change.” Satan braced his hands on the table, one on either side of me. I had to lean backwards to avoid coming into contact with him, but even so, his short dark beard brushed the top of my face. “Eons pass. I would bear Ereshkigal’s wrath for you— isn’t that what you would call love? I would let her whip me bloody to own you again.”
My stomach churned sickeningly. I turned my face away, focusing on the wall beyond him, my back muscles screaming from holding myself away from his body.
“Don’t tell me you could understand.” To my surprise, I let out a breathless laugh. It would be easier to believe I was dead and living a Hellish nightmare than actually here in Kur, with Satan telling me he could love. “You just proved you can’t. Loving someone and owning someone are two very different things. I came here for Lucifer because I love him, not because I own him. I would’ve traded my freedom for his in a heartbeat, even if it meant I would never see him again.”
Satan was still for a long moment, and then he stood up straight, taking a step back. I took a deep breath, grateful for the sudden space between us.
“Then I will show you.”
He lunged in so suddenly I jumped, raising an arm to defend myself, but he didn’t hit me. He just knelt down, almost like he was bowing before me.
Satan’s fingertips dragged over my bare leg from thigh to ankle, a slow, sensuous, and entirely sickening movement.
But as he moved his hand, darkness welled up in the holes the thorns had left behind. I gripped the table with my free hand, trying not to feel ill at the sight of the dark beads welling out of my leg. It was like being infected with a parasite and powerless to stop it.
Satan twitched his fingers, and the beads slid into his hand like leeches. He made a fist, and when he opened it, they were gone entirely. “There. I took the infestation she planted in you. They will heal more quickly now, and you won’t have her worms chewing on your bones, causing you more pain.”
An infestation? I wanted to throw up, but my stomach was empty.
“I expect nothing in return. As proof that I can learn,” he added darkly, and then he turned and strode out.
The room suddenly felt a thousand times larger without his presence in it. I carefully put the wine bottle on the table, heaving a huge sigh of relief and testing my weight on my leg.
The bone-deep ache was fading rapidly. The open wounds still stung, but my leg was no longer shaking uncontrollably.
He’d actually done something kind for me, but I wouldn’t let myself be fooled for a moment. Everything he did was for his own purposes.
Proof, my ass.
I swiftly uncorked the wine and found a clean glass, and hurried back to the throne room with Lucifer on my mind.
When Ereshkigal came into view, I slowed my steps, trying not to look like I might’ve had her darkness leeches removed from my body by her own lover, but she wasn’t paying attention to me at all as I poured for her.
Her eyes were fixed on Lucifer and the mountain of bodies he’d made. Blood painted him from head to toe, wiped in thick streaks across his broad chest.
I served the Queen silently, watching the arena from the corner of my eye. With a final savage swing, Lucifer beheaded the last Gallu demon standing. The body fell to the floor, and he planted his sword in its back.
Kur was rapturous, screaming their praises. A group of demon women with the lower bodies of pythons, scales shining slick and green, hung over a balcony near ours, throwing black-petaled flowers down to him.
“Bring him here,” Ereshkigal commanded her guards. She sipped her wine, staining her lips an even deeper purple that offset her pallor, and smiled at the bloodied archdemon below.
I obediently knelt beside her throne as the Irkallan guards lowered a gangway and descended into the arena, carelessly kicking bodies off the side of the pillar and surrounding Lucifer.
They shoved the Gallu demons over like so much trash. Lucifer’s muscles were still bunched and coiled, but he lowered his arms and let his ruined sword fall to the floor in a puddle of blood and black flowers.