Rage keeping me up, I shoved harder on the daggers, twisting as I felt the metal press through tough layers of muscle to grind on bone. Zuriel bellowed, his voice cracking between registers. The two lower notes that betrayed his inhuman nature echoed dully across the bleak landscape. The lioness twitched an ear, yawning cavernously and hoisting herself to her feet.
She didn’t leave the porch, though, positioning her long, tawny body in front of the door. Zuriel tried shifting under me, straining toward the house, but the daggers pinned him in place. This was the end of the line—probably for us both.
Lurching unsteadily, I brought a knee to his kidney, then kicked at the backs of his legs, dragging my weight against his shoulders. Slowly, he sank to the ground, fumbling for where he’d stashed the stolen firearm inside the twin of my jacket. But with my blades sunk through muscle and tendon and nerve, even the unbroken arm wasn’t working very well.
He coughed and spat blood—and then he was laughing. Wings sagged, his energy sputtered, blood streamed from the wounds in his back, and he knelt there, laughing.
“What the fuck is so funny?” I yelled, kneeing his kidneys again. My own twinged in sympathy and the world swung.
“I’m just coming back, bro,” he said. Blood poured around my daggers. He stopped trying to get the gun and just let his hand drop nervelessly into his lap. He coughed, spat blood, then chuckled, wincing as it shook his pierced shoulders. “You think you’re winning or something, but I’ll come back.” His voice grew weaker with each statement, breath a wheezy rattle. With the angle of my weapons, I’d almost certainly pierced a lung, possibly both of them.
“And I’ll find you,” he said. “And I’ll find her. I know what she is now. Took some thinking, but I’m not dumb.” He spat again, more froth and blood. I didn’t need to press down to keep him on his knees anymore. His strength was flagging—but not his spite. “Anyone you give a rank shit about, I will hunt and cut and kill, over and over again,” he swore. I felt its power, as deep as an oath. “Don’t you think that’s funny? Cause I think it’s fucking hilarious.”
Disgusted, I yanked both daggers from his flesh. The curved tip of the one on the left snagged a bone, and the splintering grind it made on its way out tore a scream from his throat.
He will not stop, this one.
“Nobody asked you!” I roared. On his knees, Zuriel cackled through phlegmy bubbles streaked with crimson.
“You’re not just mad, bro,” he muttered. “You’re crazy as tits.”
But Neferkariel was right. Death would not be the end, not for Zuriel, not for his kind of hatred. I’d known that throughout the entire pursuit. It was why I had chased him, even knowing I probably wasn’t making it out myself.
I thought of the handcuffs, still resting in my pocket. The Thorns of Lugallu—they would have interrupted Remy’s reclaiming, delaying it for centuries if he’d died wearing them. Was it the same for one of my tribe? And what would I do once those centuries had passed? Would I even remember in time to save another set of friends and family from Zuriel’s blind and fixated wrath?
The kid would just keep coming in one form or another, and Tashiel—wherever he was—would probably join in the fun. So would the rest of my brethren if Zuriel—living or dead—breathed a single word about Halley.
The thought made my marrow run cold. Maybe the Stylus—
With the mental equivalent of clearing his throat, Neferkariel interrupted the thought. As always, his voice was soft and soothing and infinitely reasonable—all the more reason to be suspicious.
Might I point out a more convenient solution?
At my feet, Zuriel was dying in earnest, each breath a sucking labor through the fluids pooling in his lungs. Yet I didn’t even need to hear the offer.
“No,” I answered flatly.
Would you dismiss an option so swiftly? he persisted. It does not have to be a bludgeoning weapon. With my help, you can wield it with the finesse of a scalpel.
The scar on my palm ached down to the tendons, sending little worms of hurt up and down that arm. I dug my nails fiercely into the twitching skin, fervently wishing I had never set eyes on the fucking Icon.
“I’m not Dorimiel,” I said. “I would never stoop to that.”
Laughter, more sad than bitter, rang within my skull.
Once long ago, holding that Icon was the highest honor bestowed upon any member of my tribe, Neferkariel said. To use it is not to stoop. Zuriel’s head nodded against his chest and his body sagged forward. His wings drooped like ragged curtains around us, trembling beneath their own weight. Soft, almost wistful, the Nephilim continued. But I will not ask you to trust me, as that would only guarantee the opposite response. You are Anarch, to your very core. You must decide for yourself.
“Are you finished?”
He elected not to respond. Doggedly, I wiped the mess off my daggers and tucked them both into their sheathes. It took more effort than it should have. My hands were shaking. From Halley’s front porch, the lioness peered quizzically, every line of her great, muscled body shimmering with power. Along with Father Frank and me, she and Lil were the only ones standing between Halley and the rest of my bloodthirsty family. The Anakim had hunted children exactly like Halley throughout the Blood Wars.
I hadn’t even trusted Remy with knowledge of the girl’s existence, and yet here was Zuriel, swearing an oath to make her suffer.
Can you risk that he will deliver? Neferkariel prodded.
“Shut up.”
Something went out of me and I dropped to my knees—all the damage, finally catching up as the adrenaline fled. On the side where he’d planted the dagger, the leg of my jeans was soaked to the ankle. I knew what that meant.
A single thread. That is all you must pluck. His knowledge of her existence. I can help you make it disappear.
“No,” I croaked. I couldn’t catch my breath. “Memory’s a web. I know that better than anyone.”
“Dafuck you talkin’ to, bro?” Zuriel mumbled. Even on his knees, he wavered drunkenly. His skin was the color of ash.
Patient as a predator, Neferkariel circled my failing thoughts.
If you take even that tiny morsel, you will live.
“I don’t care about that!” I hissed. It was a lie and he knew it. I was fucking terrified. Not of ending, but of leaving—and failing my friends.
I locked eyes with the lioness and she sneezed philosophically, although whether in commentary on my struggle or the sad state of the two dying men at her feet, I couldn’t guess. A spasm wrenched all feeling from my legs, and I clung unsteadily to Zuriel, too stubborn to just curl up and die. What use was immortality if it took me out of the world for decades at a time? If I came back at all, Father Frank would be gone. Halley would be alone. Bobby, Remy, Lailah, Lil—everything I knew, everything I’d worked for would be lost.
“He’s a screwed-up, angry kid,” I said, bitterly aware that I was rationalizing for my own ears. “Maybe next time, we’ll be different.”
Zuriel groaned and slumped forward. He tried to laugh again, but instead sprayed blood messily onto the pavement. The red lingered for only a moment as the bricks flickered to stone to dirt to asphalt and back to bricks again. Then the gray drank it up.
You do not believe that.
“No,” I sighed. Another spasm wracked me, strangely weaker than the last. “I don’t.”
Be swift in your decision, Anakim. There is no more time.
My head buzzed with the surging rhythm of my pulse. The thunder of it felt like it should shake the very pillars of the world. With a detached sort of panic, I realized I could no longer see.
“You win,” I said. My voice shook.
55
With trembling fingers, I groped for Zuriel’s throat. His mind was unwilling—he struggled to the last. He died as Neferkariel helped me pluck the glimmering thread that comprised his knowledge of Halley. As promised, it was targeted and swift.
Power swept through m
e as my brother expired, the last dregs of his life bolstering my own. My wounds knit so swiftly, the meat and muscle twitched deep beneath my skin. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, but it was nothing compared to the hollow knock of my heart as I drank it down.
Some lines should never be crossed. Still, I crossed them. Immortality wasn’t worth a tinker’s damn if I couldn’t be around to protect my friends.
“Sure. Keep telling yourself that,” I muttered and spat copper to the stones. All it took was a touch for me to drain his life. The Eye made feeding too easy. Maybe if I had to close my mouth around his throat, bite through sinew and skin, I’d find it harder to resist.
Maybe.
Once it was over, I gathered Zuriel into my arms and launched myself into the sky. The boy was an awkward weight, all long, dangling limbs, and I strained to remain airborne. Gritting against the effort, I soared to the cemetery, skimming the memory of trees from a countryside long forgotten. Even with the life I’d stolen, the Shadowside gnawed at me, but I refused to leave his miserable corpse anywhere near the Davis house. I wouldn’t risk him near Halley, even in spirit.
Deep into the vast acreage of Lake View, I flew with my burden as far as I could safely travel. I alighted in front of the Haserot family memorial. A great bronze angel watched over their graves, so infused with symbolic weight that it broodingly straddled both sides of reality. I dumped Zuriel at the statue’s feet, not bothering to be gentle about it. Frisking his corpse, I took back my stolen SIG. I left the hideous relic of his father’s fingerbone—couldn’t even bear to touch it—and then I gathered his wrists together and bound them with the Thorns of Lugallu.
Maybe it was too late, but maybe it would forestall having to deal with his blind, unreasoning hatred any time soon.
When I stepped back to the skinside, I half-expected the pallid corpse to follow me or, perhaps, fade by stages back into reality like some deceased monster in a horror film. But Zuriel, however monstrous, remained in the Shadowside, stretched before the Haserot angel that wept tears of acid rain.
That wasn’t poetry. Weathering had oxidized the bronze of the life-sized statue to a patina of rich green with accents of purest black. The most remarkable of these markings were tear-like streaks that formed down both cheeks, dripping from the lower lids to the proud line of the statue’s jaw. Both the melancholy and the vigilance of the graven figure suited it for watching over this short incarnation of my wayward brother’s life.
I thought about saying a prayer, then cackled bitterly at the irony. If I hadn’t been damned before, this blatant act of fratricide had surely sealed the deal. Instead, I sought for my phone. Predictably, it was dead, the wards on the case blackened and fried. Not surprising. I’d designed the magical barriers to cushion the technology against a jaunt or two through the Shadowside, not shield it from a descent through the fucking abyss. But I still needed some way to make contact. I had to hear that Remy still lived.
My car was in the lot at Club Heaven—miles away. I didn’t have the patience to wait on public transit. Caught in those awkward hours between late night and early morning, few buses would be running, and probably none where I wanted to go. That left one option.
With the copper-salt taste of Zuriel’s blood on my tongue, I walked the lonely half-mile to the Davis home on East 124th. I took it slow. Not because I hurt any more. That was the core of my reluctance.
I desperately didn’t want Halley to see me after what I had done—especially not if there was any chance she might guess that I’d done it for her.
As I walked, a faint light flirted with the clouds beyond the eastern hill of the cemetery. I put my back to the dawn and followed Lake View’s winding paths down to Little Italy. Skirting a pond thick with duckweed, I headed for the blind end of the street next to Halley’s. Here and only here, the massive wall that circumscribed the boneyard dwindled to nothing more than a pitted concrete barrier topped with chain link. The whole thing rose no higher than my midsection, and was easily scaled. On the pavement beyond, a profusion of condom wrappers, empty beer bottles, and cigarette butts—mostly the black filters of cloves—bespoke of youthful nights and regular pilgrimages to kiss and revel among the stones.
Once on Halley’s street, I couldn’t bring myself to approach the house. A light was on in her downstairs bedroom, faint behind thick curtains, and I knew in my gut that the girl was awake and questing for my presence. She had no reason to expect me, but with Halley that didn’t matter. Her abilities were unpredictable. Something had given me away.
If the girl was awake, I couldn’t go in. The idea of Halley seeing me with blood on my lips was paralyzing. And she would know. In her strange and prescient, impossible way, she would know.
Later. I would have to face that conversation later. I didn’t have it in me now. Maybe that was some kind of moral failure, and if so, I didn’t know how to fix it. All night, I’d been failing so hard. A part of me was human, crushingly so. There were times when I thought that was the best part of my being—the part that treasured mortal things for their brevity and loved them for their flaws. But my all-too human flaws, right then, felt unlovely—and unlovable.
I hunched in the shadows of dark houses, my fists curled in my pockets because I didn’t fully trust the power in my hands. The wind that caught wet tracks upon my cheeks was only half as bitter as the chill that welled within my heart.
“Hey,” Lil said, so softly I assumed she was just one more voice clamoring inside my skull. But then she scraped her boot on an uneven bit of sidewalk and I dropped immediately to a fighting stance. I whirled in her direction, hands on the hilts of my daggers, ready to draw.
“Relax,” she soothed. Metal glinted in her hand as she tucked a weapon primly in her blazer. It disappeared like a magic trick. Stiletto, by its slender lines. “Lulu said she saw you out here. Thought I’d check.”
“Yeah,” I responded. Shoving my hands back in my pockets, I angled away from her. She only stepped closer.
“Yeah?” she echoed, rising on her toes. “Is that all I get? You know you owe me big time for this favor. I can’t even stand that kid.”
“He’s dead,” I murmured. Wearily, I put my back to her, leaning a leg against a tired fence that protected a king-sized bed worth of yard. “It’s over. Halley’s safe for the moment. You can leave any time you want.”
Lil huffed her annoyance and yanked on my elbow to turn me around. She stopped only when she caught sight of my face. For an instant, she seemed confused, tipping her head up and almost reaching for the moisture on my cheek. Then she stopped herself.
“Zack, are you—?”
She didn’t say the word, which was a kindness. Awkwardly, I scrubbed the back of a hand across my eyes. The world smeared. She waited with the same patient intensity of her lioness, full lips pursed around her concern. We stood there, neither quite looking at the other, as the houses woke up around us and the sounds of traffic drifted from the main artery of Mayfield. I didn’t talk. She didn’t make me. Behind us, over the great hill of the cemetery, the night bled slowly to dawn.
“I need a ride,” I said finally. I swallowed the thick taste of salt clutching at my throat. “I have to see Remy. I need to know something good came from this night.”
Without so much as a question, Lil led me to her car.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are always too many people to thank when it comes time to write the acknowledgments. There are all the wonderful and supportive people at the Knight Agency—first and foremost, my tireless book advocate, Lucienne Diver. There’s a whole crew at Titan—Miranda Jewess, Becky Peacock, Joanna Harwood, Vivian Cheung, Nick Landau, Laura Price, Paul Gill, Lydia Gittins, Katharine Carroll—with a special shout-out to Julia Lloyd for consistently amazing covers. Steve Saffel, my Dark Editorial Overlord, has helped shape and refine the Shadowside series from the very start—you can blame him for the Icons and all the trouble they’ve caused poor Zack.
On a more personal no
te, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention all the special people in my life who help keep me sane in between deadlines and book-related stress. From my devoted wife Elyria to the wickedly twisted people in the Shadow Syndicate, my fellow Kheprians, and all my many fans-turned-friends—your humor, timely words of encouragement, and read-aloud sessions help more than you can possibly know. Thank you.
About the Author
Michelle Belanger is most widely recognized for her work on television’s Paranormal State, where she explored abandoned prisons and haunted houses while blindfolded and in high heels. A leading authority on psychic and supernatural topics, her non-fiction research in books like The Dictionary of Demons and The Psychic Vampire Codex has been sourced in television shows, university courses, and numerous publications around the world. She has worked as a media liaison for fringe communities, performed with gothic and metal bands, lectured on vampires at colleges across North America, and designed immersive live action RPGs for companies such as Wizards of the Coast. Her research on the Watcher Angels has led to both a Tarot Deck as well as the album, “Blood of Angels.” Michelle resides near Cleveland, Ohio in a house with three cats, a few friendly spirits, and a library of over four thousand books. More information can be found at
www.michellebelanger.com
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The Resurrection Game Page 31