by Jamie Wyman
Nate stared at Moloch for too many tense seconds.
With perverse reverence, Moloch placed the spear in Nate’s hand and walked away.
The angel pulled himself to his feet, dragged a hand through his blond curls then hung his head. He shuffled through the grime, eyes to the floor. When he reached me, he looked up with those lovely blue eyes. Even now, grief-stricken and clearly wounded, he radiated a perfect, golden beauty.
“Give me the veil, Cat,” he whispered.
I searched his face for any trace of deception. Was he trying to pull one over on Moloch? Was there a gambit he expected me to help with? No, trickery didn’t belong on an angel’s face.
“But…” my voice was little more than breath between us. “They’ll find Him.”
“Let them,” he snarled.
“Nate…”
He cut me off, anger edging his words. “I have to know.”
“What about faith? Remember what you told me?”
“Give it to me!” he bellowed. “I thought you of all people would understand, Cat. You and your insatiable need to know. Can’t you see that I need this? Can you wrap your head around that or are you too goddamn dense?”
The foundry shuddered with a thunderous blast, and I rocked back as if Nate had smacked me. I swallowed hard and chose my words. “Mind your curses, Nathaniel Harper.”
“Or what?” he yelled. “He’ll banish me? Again?” Eyes cold, face flushed with red rage, Nate raised his spear and broke it over his knee. He tossed the shards away. “Why should I defend those who would leave their children to despair? Forsake them? Just walk away? No! I will not. No more!”
“He may have had His reasons,” I offered, weakly coming to the aid of a god I wasn’t sure existed. “You don’t know…”
“But I can know! I won’t blindly believe anymore. Fuck faith,” he snarled. “Now is the time for me to know once and for all!”
Faster than light, his fists gripped my shoulders, pawing at the jacket and trying to get it off me. Flynn dove between us, power arcing as he lashed the angel. I fell back into Karma’s arms and could only watch in sickened sadness as Flynn squared off against Nate.
The angel, shorter and bulkier than my friend, threw a punch before diving to take Flynn around the middle. Rather than grapple, Flynn drew power into him and lashed out with a whip of orange light.
“No!” Karma called. She lurched forward, but I grabbed on to her arms.
“Leave it.”
Beyond them, Moloch sneered. He lifted a hand and before I could shout a warning, he hurled an acrid orb. Flynn dodged, his ethereal shield flaring brightly as the orb struck it. Acid, pea green and viscous, sizzled, oozed to the floor and began to eat away the concrete.
However, not all of the venom had gone wasted. Having been deflected by Flynn’s ethereal screen, a portion of Moloch’s volley splashed onto Nate’s face.
The angel screamed, the sound sharp and high like a hawk’s screech. His hands covered his face, but I saw steam curling through his fingers. Karma ran to help him, but he bucked his winged shoulders and tossed her aside.
Nate, howling as the acid ate his flesh, ran blindly. He took to the sky, hit a wall, and fell to the ground, unconscious. I glimpsed a mass like melted wax and blood as Karma rushed to his side, purple energy wreathing her hands. I turned away, I couldn’t look. I feared that no matter of magic would heal the ruin of his once-fine features. Too much damage had been done. Nate writhed beneath her touch, his movements punctuated by guttural mewling.
Near the furnace, Moloch laughed.
“Muriel asked you to kill her,” I said. “You agreed, but you didn’t do it. You had it all set up. A date, a time, a place to meet. But it didn’t happen. She had second thoughts, didn’t she?”
The demon spread his hands. “I cannot know the mind of another.”
“She skipped out on your appointment, though.”
“Yes,” he hissed.
“You tried to coerce her. Where did Grey come in?”
“Belial saw a means to an end, a way to execute two enemies with one swipe of the sword. He ordered me to aid the ferromage.”
My fear began to burn, to simmer into hot anger. “You and Grey hoped she could call her father for you, but she couldn’t. And that is when you killed her.” Fists balled up at my sides, brand burning with hot wrath, I spit the words out through clenched teeth. “You both killed Muriel. Murdered her. And left her crucified.”
Moloch tilted his head. “Do you have a quarrel with me, little mage?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I’m not the only one.”
With the sound of a glacier splitting, the air cracked. A cold gale flooded the foundry, and Moloch fell to the ground beneath my master. Though he’d left the uniform of Asgard behind, Loki wore the mantle of a true deity, one who has watched eons pass in a blink.
Loki’s booted foot smashed the demon’s face into the floor. Scales crunched, bones snapped, and Moloch’s already ruined voice came out in a gurgle. “Aesir,” he said.
“Not today,” Loki hissed. “Today I am a father’s justice.”
A shaft of blue light coalesced in his hand to form a slim, curved sword. His jaw was set with stone-cold fury as he slashed the demon’s head from its shoulders in one, clean swipe. In a slick motion, Loki leaped off Moloch and drove the blade into the creature’s heart. Twisted. As he wrenched the blade, skin and scale squelched against steel.
With little ceremony, Moloch died. Splinters of frost spun crystalline webs out of his wounds, covering his body within seconds. Loki barked a word in his language, and the frost collapsed. All that remained of Moloch’s corpse was a pile of snow.
Loki flicked a lock of strawberry-blond hair out of his eyes, icy anger landing on me.
“Miss Sharp, exactly what part of ‘do not engage’ is so difficult for you to comprehend?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“I Belong to You”
Loki tossed Moloch’s head into the fire of the furnace, a trail of bloody black ichor now painting the floor. I wrinkled my nose. When he’d finished with the grisly disposal, my master regarded me with disgust.
“Impossible mortal.”
“I’m impossible?” I protested. “You failed to mention that angels and demons were involved in this shit.”
“I told you what you needed to know and nothing more.”
“You knew the whole time!” I shouted. I got right up in his smug, stupid, immortal face and yelled at him, spittle flying from my mouth. “You knew who killed Muriel from the minute you found her. Didn’t you?”
“Of course I knew! I couldn’t do a damn thing about it, though.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Well, Cat, on any other day I wouldn’t mind getting Asgard involved in a war with another pantheon or two, but this one is sticky. There is nothing here to enjoy, no prize or fun or hidden joke. There is only pain and death.”
I shook my head. I didn’t understand, but would I ever? “So you tossed me in as what? Bait?”
“If I just outright attacked those holding Moloch’s leash, I would be on the hook for that. If he comes after an agent of mine, however…”
“It’s retaliation.” I sighed and stalked off, turning circles and pulling at my hair in frustration. I stopped next to Flynn and drew myself up to my full height. Though it might not be all that impressive, I felt bolstered by Flynn’s presence.
“As it is, I will have much to answer for,” Loki added. “Assuming he doesn’t already know, Belial will soon be aware of Moloch’s demise, and I will have made of him an enemy.”
Wrapping my head around divine politics turned my brain into a pretzel. “The games of the gods exhaust me. That goes double when I’m a pawn in those games.”
“You are safe and sound,” he countered. “Your lessons have been learned. What harm has there truly been?”
I glowered at him. “What harm? That must be Trickster humor.”
“A
re you not still alive and wiser, more secure in your talents?”
“People have died!” I roared. “And Nate! He’s…” My voice trailed as I looked to the pile of feathers quivering beneath Karma’s deft hands. I shook my head. “No one has come out of this unscathed, Loki.”
“Welcome to life, Cat.”
I took in the bodies on the floor, the cultists who’d thrown in their lot with Hell for a slice of inhuman power. I thought of Father Calvert. Marius. How much of this could’ve been avoided if Loki had played straight with me from the beginning.
“You sure as shit waited long enough to show up,” I tossed at him.
“Well, if you’d waited as I commanded you wouldn’t have been in any danger at all. As it was, I had a meeting with Muriel and Nathaniel’s father.”
I let out a weak laugh. “I didn’t realize you were on speaking terms with the Almighty.”
Loki snorted. “Why do you say that?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Muriel and Nate’s father. You said you were friends. That whole, ‘He asked me to do this as a favor’ thing.”
“Yes. And how does that have anything to do with…?”
“They’re angels,” I interrupted. “So their dad…you know.”
He stared at me, deciphering my meaning, then he bobbed his chin as something clicked. “Ah, I see the confusion. No, He’s not their father. But you’re on the right track. Think a little lower.”
“Um…an archangel?” I asked, truly confused.
He shook his head. “I’m not talking about hierarchy. Geographically, I mean. Think…lower.”
Loki’s eyes twinkled with mischief as I pulled the pieces together. I blinked, eyebrows raising. I pointed to the floor. “Lower?”
“You know, Cat, before he became the Lord of Hell, Lucifer was a beloved angel. Brother to the Almighty Himself.”
Lucifer.
The Devil.
A deity in his own right, Lucifer the Morning Star fit every description Nate and Loki had given me about the twins’ father. Murderous. Glutted with enemies and followers. And he’d requested me for the job?
“Oh… Oh Jesus,” I stammered.
“He has nothing to do with this.” Loki waved off my comment. “Other than that unfortunate bit at the end, Cat, I’d say you did rather well. You’ve learned many lessons, and you’ve not disappointed me. Let’s make that a trend. I expect you to grow from this.”
He breezed away, examining the runes on the floor of the foundry, leaving me to do nothing but stare, dumbfounded. I would never understand Loki’s mysterious ways. I wanted to rage at him, to curse his name and rip my soul back from him by any means necessary. I wanted to be rid of gods and their machinations.
As he strode casually into the shadows of the foundry, Loki called back to me. “Come by the office tomorrow. We’ll talk.”
Beside me, Flynn stiffened. “How long were you here?”
Loki stopped and turned on his heel. He leisurely approached my friend and placed a hand on his shoulder. Of a height, they shared the same ageless quality and mercurial eyes.
My boss smiled wolfishly. “Long enough, as-kunnigr.” With no more than a chuckle, he left.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Flynn sighed. “It means ‘god’s kin.’”
…
I waited a week before I went to the duplex. I told myself it was out of respect for Nate’s privacy, to give him time to heal, but really I was just chickenshit, afraid of what I might see when I got there and how he might respond to me.
My hand shook as I knocked on the security mesh. Long minutes stretched without an answer. Knowing Nate would’ve disapproved, I willed the locks opened and quietly moved into the house. The smell hit me in the face and stung in my throat. Something like vinegar or ammonia blended with the pungent stink of open sores. My eyes watered, and I covered my nose and mouth as I made my way into the living room.
It was empty.
The love seat Flynn had shared with Karma just days ago, the armchair, the paintings on the walls… Everything was gone.
My heart fluttered in my chest, terrified of what I might find in those back rooms, but I had to look.
I had to know.
Muriel’s art studio was in ruins. Canvases hung in stiff tatters, paintings ripped to ribbons. Both easels and several pieces of art formed a charred mass of ash on the floor. Only one remained untouched: the last image she’d painted, the one of the demonic figure. Had she been painting Moloch? Was it a warning, or had the suicidal angel drawn her salvation? Nate had told me that his sister felt at home when she had a brush in her hand. Looking at the remnants of her art, I could almost put together a mosaic of Heaven from the shards. She couldn’t go home, but in painting, Muriel tried to surround herself with memories of her birthplace.
“I hope you made it back,” I said to no one.
I left the room and crossed the hall. The door to Nate’s room was shut. I reached for the knob then hesitated. The stomach-churning smells of sickness and decay wafted up from under the door, strong and threatening.
“Nate?” I said weakly. “It’s Cat.”
I imagined all sorts of things: bedsprings creaking as he bounced to the door, a gurgling death rattle, the hiss of disdain as he told me to leave. I strained my ears, listening for something real, but no sounds came. Just the scent of Hell’s own sickbed.
I turned the knob.
I scanned the room from the doorway. Dark voids in the dust that showed where his furniture had been. Bare walls. I gasped as my eyes fell on one corner where feathers were piled high like autumn leaves. Had Moloch’s poison made him so ill? Sick enough to lose his feathers? A lump formed in my throat that had nothing to do with the stench as I thought of those perfect, snow-white wings shedding their quills. Some of the stacked feathers were still pristine; however, most of them had turned the color of ash. A few were sticky with congealed blood.
He’s gone, I told myself. He’s moved on. So should you.
I sighed, reluctant to give up on him. But if Nate Harper didn’t want to be found, I wouldn’t force him. My steps whispered on the hardwood as I made my way back to the front door.
Sitting on the barren floorboards in the foyer, the music box blocked my path.
I whipped around, looking for Nate. He had to be here! I’d even called his name. He’d come out of hiding to leave this in my way but then slipped back into hiding?
I squatted down to examine the music box. Beneath the antique was a small slip of paper with four words scribbled on it:
You can’t fix everything.
Hanging my head, I toyed with the idea of fighting him on this one. Instead, I curled my arm around the music box, slipped the note into my pocket, and left the duplex. I drove away, the melancholy tune of “Moonlight Sonata” tinkled in the seat next to me.
…
When I pulled up in front of YmFy, the weak sunlight grew dim. Soon, other cars would join mine in the lot and the nightly worship of technology would begin. Clutching a bundle to my chest, I entered the closest thing I had to a church.
“Hey,” Flynn said from behind the bar.
Gelled hair. Metal-band T-shirt. Bondage pants. Same as always. He held a clipboard and ticked off inventory. “How’s it going?” he asked cheerfully.
I slid onto the stool nearest him and practically melted against the acrylic bar. “Caffeine. As much as you’ve got.”
Flynn snickered. “I’ll start the IV drip.”
I pushed myself upright and held my chin in one hand. “How are you?”
“I’ve been better,” he said, pouring me a Pepsi. He stirred in some grenadine and topped it with four cherries. Same as always. I smiled to myself, relief easing some of the tension in my shoulders.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Karma broke up with me.”
“Oh shit. I’m sorry.”
And I meant it. A week ago I might have felt relieved. My jealousy would’ve take
n sick glee at the news that Flynn was back to being mine, mine, mine, all mine! I might have even done something catastrophically stupid like trying to scoop him up on the rebound. I’d learned a lot since last week, though. What was it Nate had said? About being selfish with our gods?
I’d had some time to mull it over, and the angel had been too right about many things. I literally smacked myself in the forehead when I realized that my faith had been with Flynn for…well, damn near forever. Even before I’d ever met Flynn, slinging drinks at some underground club in Vegas, I’d believed in technology and trusted in the immutability in things that work. In my ability to think through things, change and fix them. I realized that’s what Flynn was: a god of thought, technology, and motion.
I’d believed in him all along, and though I didn’t want him romantically or sexually, I wanted to keep him all to myself.
The person before me now, though, was a friend, not a cosmic being. And he’d just been dumped.
“Shit happens,” he said sagely.
“Did she say why?”
He spocked an eyebrow and looked at me askance. “Gee, why do you think? Would you be able to date a…” His voice trailed off.
“Just say it,” I prodded.
“Deity?”
There it was. Out in the open for all to know.
And it didn’t change a damn thing.
“I can see where that might take its toll on a relationship,” I said.
“She didn’t take the news well. Said that with not knowing Polly was a Muse, finding out about me…well, just kinda broke the camel’s back. I don’t blame her, really.” He shrugged. “She’ll still be around, though. Just not with me.” He dug into his pockets and tossed me a purple Post-it. “She asked me to give you this, by the way.”