Mistress by Magick

by Laura Navarre

  “I’ve been thinking about you and Heaven, Lucifer. You recall the night I was exiled, the night they banished me to a mortal body to repent my wicked ways, and sent you to pronounce my sentence? You called yourself a convenient demon, available as scapegoat or dark messenger as the situation required.”

  The old serpent was uncharacteristically quiet. Beneath hooded lids, a flash of crimson gleamed. In Zamiel’s throat, the stench of scorched wood tasted dark and bitter as iron. He filled his lungs with air and took the plunge.

  “When you parted ways with Jehovah, I think the two of you reached an accommodation—a quiet understanding of some kind. Call it convenience. Call it mutual obligation. Call it love, maybe. His great heart is vast enough to sustain love for all creatures, even you.”

  Zamiel struggled through his tangled thoughts. “He’s given all of us free will. His way has always been to sit back and let us do as we would. But, betimes, a more proactive approach is needed. That’s what He relies upon you for, isn’t it—you, the convenient demon? While Jehovah is passive, you’re the opposite. He uses you somehow, doesn’t He? And you let Him do it.”

  The Prince of Devils coiled gracefully upright. Balanced on the narrow balustrade, he crawled toward Zamiel. His father—his twin but for the suffering that marred his perfect beauty without dimming his dark light—had never appeared more serene.

  That was how Zamiel knew he was in danger. His mortal pulse kicked up until he tingled. But he knew better than to show it.

  Inches away, Lucifer crouched. His ebony mane poured around his face. When he lifted his head, his eyes glowed crimson.

  “Jehovah uses Me, and I allow Him?” His slitted pupils narrowed. “Why under Heaven would I tolerate that?”

  Gooseflesh rose along Zamiel’s naked torso. He wished he’d donned more than a pair of trunk hose before he wandered into his father’s clutches. Not that a sword or an arquebus would do any good against the Prince of Devils.

  Nothing for it but to speak frankly as he always did. They’d never pulled any punches, Lucifer and he.

  “When you rebelled,” he said softly, “and took a third of the heavenly host with you, He could have destroyed you, Father. But He didn’t. Once, you were His closest companion. Despite your war against Heaven and your diabolical acts here on earth, He still loves you.”

  His father’s harsh breathing scraped against the deathly calm. For a heartbeat, his forked tongue flickered into view, tasting the air.

  “Who can say what He feels on His distant throne?” Lucifer whispered. “For My part, I am the opposite of love.”

  “No, Father.” Moving carefully, his heart in his throat, he released his death grip on the parapet and lifted his hand. Lucifer’s slitted pupils dilated.

  Gently, so gently, as if the fallen angel were one of his own precious children, Zamiel touched his father’s face.

  Of all creatures living, a former Angel of Death understood the power of touch. For millennia, Zamiel’s touch had been anathema to all living things. He could kill with a kiss. The endless, aching isolation of his solitary existence had nearly crushed him.

  How much worse if he were Lucifer?

  Beneath his careful fingers, the fallen angel’s skin was satin-smooth, stretched over the exquisite lines of cheek and jaw. Behind that perfect shell raged the heat of Hell’s own furnace. Against that infernal fire, Zamiel’s skin began to blister.

  “Lucifer,” he whispered. “Your soul is not utterly wrung dry. You are still the Son of the Morning. An ember of that boundless love still burns in your breast. I know it.”

  His fingers were throbbing, skin searing, as though he’d plunged his naked hand into a vat of boiling oil. The agony brought tears to his eyes.

  When he could no longer bear it, he snatched back his burned hand and cradled his scorched palm.

  Inches away, Lucifer watched him, still as a crouching cat. His red eyes glowed like banked coals.

  “Dost think that I still love Him?” the fallen angel breathed. “Thou art wrong, Zamiel. Whatever trouble is brewing in Heaven, I will do naught to prevent it.”

  His heart plunged to his feet. He’d taken a risk and failed. Now Lucifer would offer some infernal bargain for his soul and do all the things the old serpent did so splendidly well—

  Swift as lightning, Lucifer fired into motion. The fallen angel closed his hands, gently and unavoidably, around Zamiel’s head.

  The scent of burning hair rose acrid in his lungs. Thanks to the profligate mane streaming around his shoulders, shielding his tender scalp, he could tolerate the heat for a few precious heartbeats.

  “Jehovah made His bed when he expelled Me from Paradise. Now He must lie in it,” Lucifer hissed. “For Him, I will do nothing. But for thee, and Mine own ends, I shall grant thee a boon, though it is not the one thou seek.”

  His father leaned toward him. Waves of heat shimmered in the air between them. Zamiel battled the elemental urge to thrust away.

  For better or worse, Lucifer was his father. He loved the old serpent. But he’d never, ever make the mistake of trusting him.

  Squeezing his eyes closed, Zamiel consigned his soul to God.

  The heat of his father’s breath scorched his face. A kiss, like a burning brand, seared his brow. Zamiel gasped with the pain.

  Quick as a prayer, Lucifer released him. Zamiel knew the burning skin between his brows glowed with the bronze imprint of his father’s kiss. Slowly the searing agony faded to a tolerable throbbing, the sensitivity of new-formed skin stretched over a healing wound.

  Swimming in confusion, he opened his eyes.

  Calmly Lucifer dropped to the flagstones and stretched his supple frame.

  “For better or worse, My son, thou hast the Prince of Devils for a father. The number of My infernal gifts is legion, including many I rarely use. I have given thee one—and only one—of a fallen angel’s attributes.”

  Foreboding stirred within him, along with something else—a vast and sleeping presence, like a leviathan, a new power that slumbered in his soul.

  “Father,” he whispered. “What have you done?”

  “Thou art bent upon thwarting this Armada?” With agility no mortal could match, Lucifer leaped atop the parapet and looked down on the sleeping city. “This force sails upon the sea. I have given thee the power to impede it.”

  “A fallen angel’s power? No, Father, no! That’s not what I wanted—”

  Over one shoulder, Lucifer turned to eye him. For a breath, he was alight with pure mischief.

  “I could not restore thee, My son, to Angel of Death. For that gift is Jehovah’s to give. But I have done thee My best. How does Angel of Hurricanes strike thee?”

  “Hurricanes?” Zamiel was appalled. “Joshua’s Trumpet, I’m mortal! I want a mortal life—”

  The Prince of Devils threw back his head and laughed. He was still laughing when the balcony door flew open. Beltran burst into view with Linnet at his heels, cloak clutched about her as a torrent of sleepy questions tumbled from her lips.

  Still laughing, Lucifer stepped from the balustrade and plummeted from view, black cape streaming like ebony wings in his wake.

  Zamiel clutched his head and cursed him in old Sumerian, fluently and at length. Over the din that filled his head, he was vaguely aware of his wife, firing a volley of indignant questions at Beltran, castigating him for bursting in and startling her from a sound sleep.

  For a mercy, neither of them had seen his father.

  Beltran was striding about vigorously, saying something about a battle in the Channel, the English seadogs engaging the foe, some new inspiration that had come to him while he sniffed around after the news.

  Zamiel subsided to the flagstones, knees drawn to his chin, back propped against the wall. As Linnet hurried to fetch him a doublet against the night chill, the Queen’s Enforcer loomed impatiently over him.

  “Hurricanes,” Zamiel said numbly, struggling into the garment at his wife’s insistence
. “And battle is joined, I take it? Foul weather—if it’s possible—would ruin both of them now. Father, as usual, you’ve had the last laugh.”

  “For pity’s sake, love, what ails ye?” Surveying him worriedly, Linnet laid a concerned hand on his knee.

  He looked at her helplessly. “I don’t suppose I have a burning brand on my brow?”

  “Nay.” She tilted her head and studied him, her topaz eyes narrowed. “Do ye want to tell me why ye would?”

  “Hurricanes.” For the moment, he couldn’t bring himself to explain. “Perhaps I dreamed it.”

  “Christ’s Blood! Do neither of you hear a word I’m saying?” For once, the imperturbable Beltran sounded utterly exasperated. “I’ve been talking to the old salts in the dockside taverns all night. It turns out this Armada can be beaten. During the siege of Antwerp, some years past, the Spanish fleet suffered a crushing blow.”

  “I’m going to say I dreamed it,” Zamiel decided, uncurling to his feet. Gently he drew Linnet up beside him. “I’ll tell you all about it later, love, I promise—though I daresay you won’t like to hear it. Beltran, man, what are you doing in our bedchamber? My wife is hardly in any state to entertain callers at this hour.”

  Beltran shot her an apologetic glance. “I beg your pardon, Linnet.”

  “Never mind that, aye?” She colored beautifully and hugged the cloak closer. “I assume there’s a reason ye couldn’t wait for morning.”

  “Indeed.” The older man scrubbed a hand over his jaw, glittering with a day’s growth of tawny stubble. “During the siege of Antwerp, years past, the Dutch rose up against the occupying Spaniards. To subdue them, the Spanish navy blockaded the harbor. But the rebels hired a pyrotechnic engineer to design a floating weapon—a flotilla of old ships packed to the gills with gunpowder. The rebels floated them toward the blockade on an ebb tide and lit them off.”

  “Fireships,” Linnet breathed, crossing herself.

  “Devil ships, more like,” Beltran said grimly. “These hell-burners sent the Spanish fleet into complete panic. When those floating nightmares exploded, hundreds were killed, and many more injured. This Armada is not unstoppable.”

  Though Beltran Nemesto wore a mortal form these days, the cold light of battle that glowed in his cobalt eyes recalled the Angel of Vengeance of yore.

  “Hear anything in the taverns, Beltran, about this second army?” Zamiel asked.

  “Aye.” He frowned. “They’re massed in the Spanish Netherlands, thousands of them, no more than fifty miles from here—under the command of Alexander Farnese, the Duke of Parma. They say the Armada comes first to their port at Dunkirk, to ferry these men across the Channel.”

  “Sweet mercy,” Linnet breathed. “What if that’s where Mordred plans to bring the Hagas through the Veil? He can’t do it in England, aye? Not with Morrigan warding her borders against him. But he can do it in Dunkirk—glamour them so they look like mortals, and load them onto Spanish ships for the crossing.”

  Gently Zamiel slid an arm around his wife’s slim waist and drew her close, pressing a kiss against her tumbled hair. The sweet fragrance of lilacs filled his senses.

  “Get dressed, love,” he murmured. “Beltran is right. This can’t wait for dawn. We need to reach the English fleet.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Calyx had been rowing for a lifetime. His world had been broader once, he vaguely recalled, a place of color and sound and dazzling movement. But those distant memories dissolved beneath the rhythmic pull and sweep, pull and sweep of his oars as he propelled his narrow coracle through the shimmering silver sea.

  From time to time, he scanned the horizon. A luminous mist, oyster gray and glowing like mother-of-pearl, swirled over the flat expanse. Neither sun nor moon pierced this swirling curtain. The only small sounds that broke the stillness were the whisper of water against his hull and the rhythmic plash of oars.

  Pull and sweep. Pull and sweep.

  The movement lulled him into a dreamlike state. The utter absence of any driving purpose, any danger or need, seemed a respite from whatever had come before.

  The faded ghost of a memory floated before him. A sable-haired beauty with turquoise eyes mysterious and changeable as the sea, an impudent nose, a determined little chin. A laugh whose husky chime heated his blood. Her name danced around him, just out of reach.

  But he let her float away. The elusive memory dissolved like vapor.

  Pull and sweep. Pull and sweep.

  After a timeless interval, the mist thinned. The curtain parted.

  A world of color and light and sound exploded into being. Before him rose a lush green island, thickly forested, bright-colored birds scolding and fluttering from tree to tree. A narrow band of powder-white beach fringed brilliant waters of jade and ultramarine, foaming gently against the sands. A tropical sun blazed. Its welcome heat encased his chilled skin and transformed the sea to a carpet of sparkling facets.

  Calyx knew this place. The moist heat beating down on him, the caw of warblers and parakeets flashing among the fronds, the clusters of coconuts clinging to tall slender trunks. Somehow he’d returned to the Spanish Main, the New World isles of Hispaniola south of the Floridas where the sailor in him had been happiest.

  He ought never to have left these warm turquoise seas for Philip of Spain’s fanatical crusade to sweep the English Queen from her throne.

  Around him settled the familiar weight of memory. All of it came rushing back: the Armada, the Arcángel, the bastard whose cowardly blow sent him toppling into the sea.

  And Jayne. Jayne. Jayne.

  The woman he’d foolishly let slip through his fingers.

  He remembered her best of all.

  Before him, a crude fishing dock jutted into the gentle surf. On the beach stood a thatch-roofed hut, door propped open with a pink-and-golden conch. As he pulled for the dock, a slim pale figure appeared on the threshold.

  For a time, the solitary figure observed his approach—then shifted into motion and strode toward him.

  The dazzling play of light on water seemed to be playing tricks with Calyx’s eyes. One moment the swiftly advancing form was a fair-haired youth on the cusp of manhood, lean frame clad in a billowing shirt and trousers of creamy silk, bare feet scrambling gracefully through the white sand.

  When the light flashed, spots danced before his eyes. For a heartbeat, he beheld a colossal Figure armored in blinding silver, a sword of fire jutting over one shoulder, silver mane streaming in the celestial wind. Pewter eyes burned like stars in his stern, cold features.

  Calyx squinted against the painful light. Massive wings swept in the giant’s wake, glowing silver and pearl and palest blue. Beneath each mighty stride, the earth trembled.

  The coracle bumped against the dock. Moving mechanically with the force of habit, Calyx gripped a piling to moor.

  The Figure towered over him—a youth once more, pale brows drawn together, eyes gray as storm clouds scowling down on him. The painful light streamed through his smooth features, and it was still playing tricks with him. The square jaw and wide mouth and proud cheekbones were his own—the same face he saw in the mirror on the rare occasions he cared to look.

  Rubbing his eyes, Calyx wondered if he were dreaming.

  “You are not dreaming,” the other said abruptly. Under the clear tones of a boy’s unbroken voice, a note like a silver trumpet hung shimmering in the balmy air. “Carlos Alejandro Angelo de Zamorra, by the Seventh Angel! What in the holy Name are you doing here?”

  “I seem to have rowed here,” Calyx murmured, bemused. He couldn’t quite bring himself to ask where here was.

  “Don’t ask me, muchacho!” the boy snorted, nostrils flaring, as though he’d spoken aloud. “This is your construct—your version of Paradise. But you are not to arrive here for decades.”

  The youth braced one slim bare foot against a piling and glared down on him. As a sea breeze rustled through the fronds, the white silk shirt billowed gently around hi
m. For a heartbeat, Calyx glimpsed iridescent wings.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” he muttered, feeling dizzy. “If I am where I think I am.”

  Whatever he’d imagined he would find in the hereafter, he’d never thought Paradise would involve a tropical island and an angry young angel who wore his face. When he squinted into the dazzling light, those eyes glowed like molten lead, so bright he had to avert his gaze. Spots danced before his dazzled vision.

  From nowhere, the phrase floated into his mind.

  Angel fire.

  Again the youth snorted, his wide mouth curling down. “You ought to know, since you possess your share of it. I suppose none of your unfortunate foes survive long enough to tell you. Mijo, I’m sending you back.”

  He bent to grip the coracle, as though he meant to push Calyx bodily away. Dreading that white oblivion, Calyx clamped a hand around his wrist.

  The youth’s head snapped up. Those incandescent eyes burned into him. A banner of flaxen hair billowed around features so cold they could have been chiseled from ice. A single pure note, like a trumpet’s clarion call, shivered in the air. An aroma of incredible sweetness flooded his senses.

  “Madre de Dios,” Calyx breathed. “What are you?”

  “I am the Strength of God, the Angel of War, Archangel of the Presence, Guardian of the Gate of Heaven.” The Voice echoed through his bones. “I am Michael.”

  In his shock, Calyx released him. The brilliant light faded. When his vision cleared, the colossal figure had vanished. The fair-haired boy hunkered before him, his mouth acquiring a rueful tilt. For the first time, those storm-gray eyes were smiling.

  “Si, Carlos,” the Archangel murmured. “Unlikely though it must seem, I am your father.”

  The world tilted around him. Abruptly the myriad oddities and mysteries of his life snapped into focus. His uncommon size, his skill with a blade, his peculiar appearance and interests, his sense of otherness. His father’s antagonism and his mother’s wild tales of the angel who’d consoled her.

  That strange verse from Genesis surfaced in his mind.