Harsh Gods

by Michelle Belanger

  I stared at the rows and rows of channeled symbols. The repeating three leapt out at me, and suddenly they seemed familiar in a way they hadn’t before. A name whispered at the edges of memory.

  Terhuziel.

  I hadn’t known that name before.

  I dropped to my bed with a muttered curse. Whisper Man had been riding shotgun in Fish-Knife Lady’s head, and I’d plucked out his name when I’d taken everything else from her. Life, knowledge, memories, all swallowed with just a touch. That wasn’t something I should be able to do—not as one of the Anakim. Those were Nephilim powers. Abilities I’d briefly borrowed that bleak night last November, courtesy of the Eye of Nefer-Ka.

  The Eye was the icon of the Nephilim primus, a dauntingly old artifact created to share his skills with those chosen as heralds. All the tribal heads had an icon, and the items had caused such chaos among my extended family, the primae had sworn never to use them after the Blood Wars. As part of a grand pact, every icon had been hidden away—buried and lost to the passage of time. That was until Dorimiel, the asshole who’d swallowed my memories, had turned up the Eye while he was banging around Egypt with Napoleon.

  “Zack?” Lil called. “Everything OK in there?”

  I didn’t answer. In point of fact, I couldn’t answer. Saliriel had oathed me, preventing me from speaking about the Eye of Nefer-Ka. Sal had played me in a bid to get the icon for herself. What she didn’t know was that Dorimiel had acquired not one, but two of the ancient objects—the Nephilim Eye and the Anakim Stylus, belonging to my tribe. I’d managed to divest Dorimiel of both.

  I’d tapped into the Eye’s powers to use them on him. It was the only way to free Lil’s sister, or any of the others he’d bound away in demon jars. In order to use it, however, there had to be blood. The scar on my palm was a reminder that I’d willingly paid the price.

  Then the Eye had gone to the bottom of Lake Erie. I’d hoped like hell that losing the icon would sever the tie.

  No such luck.

  “Zack…”

  Flexing the fingers of my left hand, I tilted my palm to the bedroom light. The pale scar tracing across the middle of my palm didn’t look any different. It was just a scar, healed to a thin, textured line.

  No pretending now. The bond was still there. I wondered what else that might mean for me.

  Lil rapped her knuckles and called through the door.

  “You don’t give me an answer this instant, I’m going to come in and drag one out of you.”

  “Hold on.” Moping on my bed, naked from the waist down, wasn’t how I wanted Lil to walk in on me. I scrambled for something to replace my jeans. Almost all my clothes were in the dirty pile heaped up on the chair in the living room. My Millennium Falcon pajama pants were near at hand, though, so I grabbed those. I went to slip into them—only to discover I still had my boxer-briefs tangled around my feet.

  Impatiently, I kicked out of the underwear, then slid the pajamas up to my waist.

  “I’m not dead,” I called irritably.

  “Prove it,” Lil said, throwing wide the door.

  If I had greeted her by smacking her between the eyes with a rubber mallet, she couldn’t have looked more stunned. She blinked rapidly for several seconds, her brain clearly stripping gears.

  “What the hell are you wearing?” she choked.

  “T-shirt,” I replied. “Pajama pants.”

  “There is a raccoon on your T-shirt. Riding a tree.”

  “You don’t watch movies much, do you?” I asked.

  “None of the movies I watch involve raccoons in jumpsuits riding trees,” she snorted. “You look like an idiot.”

  “Laugh it up,” I said sourly. Then I caught a familiar and fortifying scent wafting from the kitchen. “You made coffee?”

  “Considering you were too dazed to even figure out how the filters worked, it seemed like the safest choice for us both,” she answered.

  I pushed past her, bee-lining for the kitchen. Coffee sounded like the best thing on the planet in that moment.

  12

  “You have your damned coffee now,” Lil said, leaning on the counter across from me. “So tell me what the hell happened outside of Lake View that ended with you covered in that much blood.”

  She tilted her cleavage in a maneuver I knew was calculated. Her V-neck plunged so deep I could see the edges of something black and lacy. A tantalizing scent of spice and vanilla began overpowering the coffee. I stalwartly directed my attention elsewhere.

  “A couple of Whisper Man’s lackeys jumped me,” I answered.

  She shifted, and the view grew even more distracting. I angled away from her on the stool, riveting my eyes on my calendar. David Tennant’s Doctor peered back at me, wielding his trusty sonic screwdriver. The month was still set to February—and we were halfway through March already. Maybe Lil had a point about the depression.

  “Someone new is trying to kill you?” she inquired archly. “You have such a talent for making friends.” She tired of the game of taunting me with her cleavage. Rolling her shoulders a little, she began to pace while cradling her own mug.

  “I’m not sure he’s a someone so much as a something,” I replied.

  “Do tell,” she encouraged.

  Warmth prickled my hands where they gripped the mug of coffee, reminding me how cold I felt all over—not a familiar sensation for me. Plunking my elbows onto the counter, I pressed the mug against my forehead, willing the heat to chase the spins away. My eyes fluttered shut for just a moment.

  “Some time this year, Anakim,” Lil prodded.

  With effort, I focused again on the woman standing on the other side of the counter. My lids felt gritty.

  “There’s this girl named after a comet,” I explained, “and she’s writing all this weird crap in a language I can’t read. Kind of looks like Hittite, but not quite.”

  “You can’t read it?” Her tone was incredulous.

  “I said that already,” I snapped. I almost lost my train of thought, but it came back to me with effort. “Her mom thought her dead grandfather was talking in her head, but it’s definitely not her grandfather.

  “Why do you want to know this stuff anyway?” I asked.

  “I don’t need a reason,” she replied. “Just keep talking.”

  So I recounted the highlights concerning Whisper Man, Halley, and the crazed hobo army. It took me a while—my thoughts felt sluggish even with the jolt of caffeine. Lil paced and interjected periodically, steering me toward clarity. She poured herself a refill, then paused to lean against my fridge.

  “A possession,” she mused. “So that’s what dragged you outside after nearly a month.”

  “I knew it!” I cried. “You’ve been watching me.”

  She took a careful sip, expression inscrutable through the steam.

  “It hasn’t been a whole month, has it?” I objected.

  “Not that you would know from your calendar,” she responded dryly.

  I resisted the urge to get up and change it just to shut her up. I think she noticed, because she smirked. With me, Lil delighted in every awkward moment she could inspire. The fact that I couldn’t remember why she teased me seemed to amuse her even more.

  “You’ve told me all about the fight at the house, and the strange things this mortal girl can do, but you keep dancing around one troublesome hole.” She fixed me with her hurricane gaze, and I was struck for a moment how much her face was shaped like Lailah’s. “There was a lot of blood out there, Zaquiel. I didn’t see any open wounds on the dead woman. So if all that blood was yours, how are you still walking around? You’re immortal, not indestructible.”

  I opened my mouth—and ran headlong into my oath. The answer involved the Eye, so I couldn’t say shit about it. I made a frustrated noise and glared at the dregs in my cup.

  My sluggish thoughts stumbled around the barrier with little success. Fortunately, Lil knew about both the Eye and the binding, so it took her only a few moments to
figure out what was halting me.

  She wasn’t happy about it.

  “The Eye again?” she demanded. “I told you not to use it, Zaquiel. Those icons were buried for a reason.”

  I shrugged, unable to answer. “Plus side, still breathing,” I muttered. I could manage that much at least.

  The only living person with whom I could discuss it was Saliriel, and I’d crawl over a mile of rusty, tetanus-laced cheese graters before I approached her to talk about what had happened on that sidewalk outside of Lake View.

  “That’s what you meant when you said you ate her,” Lil hissed. “Mother’s Tears, Zack. You have no idea what that thing is doing to you.”

  I rolled a shoulder as dismissively as possible, but I’d been thinking much the same thing. The prospect was terrifying. I tolerated Remy, but I wanted nothing to do with the Nephilim. The way they were tied to their blood unnerved me on a profoundly visceral level. As one of the Anakim, I was technically vampiric—all the scintillating power I could throw around was fueled by people—but I took what I needed in little sips and dregs out of the air. It was all ethereal, tied to emotion. It was nothing like Remy’s tribe.

  They had fangs for fuck’s sake.

  “You have to sever your tie with the thing,” Lil said. She started pacing again. The heels of her expensive leather boots clicked with metronomic precision.

  “Wish I’d thought of that,” I managed curtly. It was a struggle even to get that much out.

  If I really wanted to be rid of my ties to the thing, I’d have to find someone else I trusted to pay the price. No candidates sprang to mind. It was moot, anyhow, since the damned Eye was at the bottom of Lake Erie.

  “You have a real talent for fucking yourself over,” Lil said, and she hissed a string of colorful expletives in a long-dead tongue.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” I plunked my empty coffee mug down much harder than intended and pushed away from the counter. The stool nearly toppled when the back legs connected with the little hump separating the tile from the carpet. Snarling my own string of curses, I kicked the stool the rest of the way over, then stomped over to the sofa. I flopped down across the cushions as muscles in my shoulders, neck, and back complained about what a rotten day they’d had.

  “Temper, temper,” Lil chided.

  “Giving me shit about it isn’t going to change anything,” I replied. “Maybe you could try being helpful for once?”

  “I’m very helpful.” Lil settled into the easy chair across from me, tucking her legs under herself as she sat. “I picked you up before the cops could find your sorry ass, didn’t I? Even made you coffee,” she pointed out. “You think I make everyone coffee?”

  I grunted my response. The couch was distractingly comfortable. I heard her blow across her mug, then take a careful sip. It took me too long to work out that I had closed my eyes. Fluttering them open, I squinted blearily.

  “When’s the last time you slept, Zaquiel?” she inquired.

  She sounded suddenly closer, as if she had teleported out of the chair. I looked up to see her standing over me. My brain told me that was a bad thing, but my body made it clear it was too tired to give a shit. The body won the vote. I rolled over and answered with my face buried in the upholstery. Even I wasn’t certain what I said.

  “You’re so lucky I actually like you,” she whispered.

  The implicit threat of mischief chased me down into my dreams.

  13

  Lailah waited for me. She was dark and beautiful and entirely solid. In every dream prior to this, she had been nothing more substantial than a shade. Black hair swirled in the sighing gusts of wind, spreading across her shoulders like a cloak of ebon silk. She wore a simple shift dyed a Tyrian hue. It clung to every curve, leaving arms and shoulders bare. Her warm skin glowed with a vibrancy that almost made me forget that she was dead.

  Almost.

  No feathers this time, but the owl was present in the shape of her eyes—huge and black and inscrutable.

  “Are you really here?” I wondered.

  She reached out to touch me and I backed away, afraid that contact might shiver her presence in the dream. The ground slid treacherously beneath my foot. I whirled only to find that I was backed against a precipice. Waters boiled at the bottom, black as tar. With sick fascination, I stared into their churning depths. Scarlet eyes and razor-blade teeth glinted in the dark. Cacodaimons. They weren’t in the water. They were the water, writhing like a sea of slick, black flesh.

  “Just a nightmare, then,” I whispered mournfully.

  The Eye of Nefer-Ka—set in a huge, gold amulet styled as an Eye of Horus—weighed heavily against my hand. I could feel the bite of the artifact where the ancient stone drew blood from the gash on my palm. The wound throbbed in time to my heart, and an answering glow of ugly crimson pulsed deep within the gem. A rush of whispers surged within my mind—nothing English, but I comprehended well enough. Promises of knowledge, memory, power. And all I had to do was feed the icon.

  “Don’t look down there.” Lailah reached up to turn my face away. Words floated on her breath like distant music. “Not yet. Be here with me.”

  I could feel the influence of the Eye twining through my veins. It burned like the venom of a particularly vile snake. I thought of the woman—driven by Whisper Man—whose life I’d stolen to cheat death, and felt the hunger to kill again. With an inarticulate shout, I hurled the icon from my hand and pitched it into the abyss. The antique gold with its inlays of lapis and jet turned end over end before finally sinking into the living mass of cacodaimons that writhed at the bottom. The sanguine light pulsing from the Eye winked out in the darkness.

  “Zaquiel, please,” Lailah pleaded. “I know you’re afraid, but don’t waste this.”

  The answering pulse still throbbed through the wound in my palm. I shook my hand, scattering fat drops of crimson in a gleaming arc. The thrumming weight of connection clung to my fingers, my wrist, gnawing the bones of my arm. Desperately, I squeezed the edges of the cut, trying to force the poison back out. More blood welled up, and I saw images in its depths—an endless march of screaming faces. I blinked away the swirling phantasmagoria, stumbling nearer to the edge of the cliff.

  Lailah reached out, and started shaking me.

  The lip of stone crumbled. I nearly lost my footing, pebbles raining on the beasts below. I spread my wings to catch myself. She dragged me from the edge.

  “Don’t go after it yet,” she said, gently leading me away from the vicious drop. Her voice was velvet strung upon the air.

  “I wasn’t going to keep it,” I choked, not sure if I was trying to convince her or myself. The rapid rhythm of my heart lent a tremor to my voice. I swallowed hard against it. As she watched me, I swore I could see whole galaxies swirling in the depths of her black eyes.

  Softly, she murmured, “You may not have a choice.”

  A steely rush of rebellion routed my fear. “I always have a choice,” I snapped, more heated than I’d intended. The sadness in her features deepened, slim black brows drawing together.

  “Do you?” she asked.

  The anger boiled over, dozens of retorts bursting from my throat. I was better than that. I wasn’t a monster. I didn’t need that kind of bargain—excuse after excuse. The words shook the air with power, stirring her hair, though she did not flinch. She listened while I ranted, then finally, moving with a languid grace as if she were underwater, she laid a finger against my lips.

  “Sssh, Zaquiel.”

  I wanted to believe in the soothing, sensual presence behind that touch. Wanted so badly to reconnect.

  “I barely remember you,” I murmured against her flesh. It was both apology and excuse.

  “I remember you,” she affirmed.

  My mind still struggled with her presence in this space. The cacodaimons, the windswept plain—all of it was a dream, and the woman standing before me could be nothing more than a bitter tease conjured by my tortured
subconscious.

  “You can’t be here. You can’t be real,” I insisted, seeking ways to poke holes in what I was seeing. “The Eye. Sal’s oathed me—I can speak to no one. Yet here I am, speaking with you.”

  “You cannot speak with any living being,” she reminded me. “Every oath has a loophole. You can speak about it with me.”

  “Loopholes,” I scoffed bitterly. “That’s something Sal would say.”

  Her voice caressed like silk as she whispered to me. “This is really me. I’m here with you in this moment, Zaquiel. I am the Lady of Shades. Do you think death can stop me?” She reached up and trailed cool fingers along my cheek. I seized her hand, brushing it lightly with my lips. She tasted of spice and sweetness.

  “This is just a nightmare,” I protested. “I’ll wake to find you gone.”

  “So don’t wake up yet, majnun,” she encouraged.

  She closed the distance between us. In the feel of her body pressed against mine, all doubts melted. My awareness narrowed to the heat of her flesh. I took her face in my hands and kissed her. Entire worlds were born and blinked from existence in the mystery of that embrace. Wrapping my wings around us, I held her close. I lifted her. She locked her thighs around my waist, and we danced, closer.

  Precious, stolen moments in the space between dreaming and death.

  14

  Waking, I found my neck angled painfully against the arm of the couch. My thoughts staggered, sleep-thick, through the vestiges of dream. I stretched my legs—only to have the movement arrested by the arm at the other end. I wasn’t exactly sized to fit the thing.

  “I thought you’d never wake up.”

  I jerked toward the voice in the kitchen, choking. “Lailah?”

  Lil scoffed. “Just for that, no coffee for you.”

  I dropped back against the cushions with a groan. Sexing up my dead girlfriend in dreams? I’d definitely spent too much time alone.

  “With the noise you were making, I thought you were having a nightmare,” Lil observed. I could hear the clink of a spoon rhythmically swirling against ceramic. Had she done my dishes? We’d used up the last of the clean mugs the night before. I peeled back an eyelid to see.