Conspiracy of Angels

by Michelle Belanger

  A memory far older—so old my brain spasmed around the truth of it. A wind-swept mountain. A great stone table, the tribes gathered round. Faces of the other primae. The reverberant sound of the oath. Each setting his icon upon the table as he swore to bury the power. Anak pulling a smooth, carved stylus from his robe, reluctant to part with it. Feeling how it was perfectly weighted to his hand.

  He laid it beside the Eye.

  The 1800s again. Imprisoned. Delirious. Pain and thirst and fever. Dorimiel’s face twisted with fury.

  Where did you bury it? Tell me and I’ll let you die.

  A clay jar, freshly fired. Dorimiel presenting it with a look of triumph. In his hand, a stylus—the Stylus.

  I doubt you even know what this is anymore, but I promise to keep it safe for you, Anarch. You and all your tribe.

  I blinked, and the labyrinth scattered. I grappled with the ugly pulsing thing that was the decimus on this side of reality. The rubine glow of the Eye lit him from within.

  “I already know about the icon,” I shouted. “Give me the words that open the seals, dammit!”

  Dorimiel shuddered in my grasp. Half the green eyes dotting his form rolled up to show the whites. Shadows spilled across the sclera. The veins of black rippled through him, spreading little tendrils. Maybe using the Eye on him had hastened the decay—or maybe the Eye had been the only thing keeping him together. Either way, he was losing the battle with the taint of the cacodaimon.

  I dove back into the collapsing architecture of his mind. The walls around me buckled, the black taint like hungry vines pulling ruins back into the jungle. More twists and turns as I frantically searched.

  Arriving at a crossroads, I felt the foundations of his mind deteriorating. Black rot twisted and the nearest wall nearly tumbled down on me. Desperate, gibbering, the decimus threw galvanizing images to throw me off the chase—the pillaged temple, scattered bodies. My face from his perspective, features twisted with hate.

  We killed everyone.

  We made him watch.

  He and I had dropped perilously close to the face of the waters. He was trying to distract me so he could drag me down with him. I pounded furiously with my wings, trying to pull us free from the sucking current. Muscles across my back—ones I didn’t even know I possessed—burned with the effort.

  Dorimiel screamed with fear and rage. I felt more than heard his voice. One last chance. With the Eye glowing fiercely in time to my thudding pulse, I launched my mind at his. I saw a corridor that was all tumblers and gears. Light spilled through keyholes, shimmering with sigils. I heard Names, phrases. Lailah. Haniel. Countless others. They rang like music, chiming on the wind. I almost had them—then Dorimiel shoved a final image at me.

  The portal bearing my face.

  All my memories were locked in that vault. I could take the phrases, or reclaim what he’d stolen from me.

  Choose, Anakim. Loyalty or self-preservation. Prove you are no different from me.

  A tremor shook the labyrinth of his mind. More crumbling destruction. The last shreds of reason unraveled. There was no more time.

  I made my choice.

  With the final scintillating shard of knowledge, I fled the maze before it collapsed.

  Dorimiel was screaming. Black veins consumed his form, whipping out from a central lesion boiling with rot. His cries grew shriller and shriller until anything like a human voice was lost in a harsh cicada buzz. Revolted, I flung him away from me.

  An answering cry echoed from below. Then another, and another.

  A crashing wave of darkness leapt up from the water, comprised entirely of living, shrieking shadows. They moved in a swarm like a colony of hellish insects, their red eyes gleaming with ferocious intent. Dorimiel’s tainted blood-soul pushed and pulled against itself, the last few tendrils of crimson seeking to crawl away on the air to escape the swarm—but his black veins reached like countless hands, greeting his new brethren.

  I strained furiously with my wings, pushing away even as the cacodaimons swarmed the Nephilim like an army of hungry ants. Tendrils of bright red and pale emerald eyes peeked out from the writhing mass of chitinous black, struggling with a bitter desperation. His cries of agony echoed across the bleak landscape of the Shadowside.

  More of them were already speeding after me. Trembling with effort and weary to the bone, I flew as fast and as far as my wings could carry me. My strength was quickly waning, and in fact, I was amazed it had taken me this far. In a few moments, I wouldn’t need a swarm of cacodaimons to drag me into the abyss. I was going to drop like a stone.

  Then they were on me, more of them than I could count, their taloned appendages frigid and grasping. Stinging points of cold erupted all over my legs, arms, and wings. Wordless panic filled my mind as I started falling.

  At the last possible instant, I remembered Lil’s little charm. With the nerveless fingers of my free hand, I dug it out of my pocket, turning it to face the swarm of cacodaimons. I snapped it with a cry, and a burst of light like the stored brilliance of half a dozen sunsets flooded forth. It was warm and pure and golden and wholly alien to this portion of the Shadowside. The cacodaimons shrieked in agony, many of them just disintegrating in the wash of light.

  She must have known.

  I felt myself slipping from their grasp, and then I was tumbling away. In the midst of a terribly swift descent, I made a last-ditch effort to thrust myself back to the skinside. If I crashed into the lake on the flesh-and-blood side, at least it would just be water and not a direct pipeline to the abyss.

  I felt the familiar tearing sensation, and I could see the sickly red light of a fire in the distance. The Scylla was still burning. I tumbled end over end for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, I plunged with bone-jarring force into the icy water.

  Bulleting below the surface, I kicked and clawed at the choking waves. Everything was black, and I couldn’t tell which direction was up. My lungs burned and I fought to blink the darkness from my eyes. Every direction I turned there was water. Water and no air.

  I stopped fighting, and the numbing cold swallowed me whole. With my last shred of awareness, I felt the bloody Eye slip from my grasp.

  50

  Someone shone a light into my eyes. With a groan, I batted them away.

  “Welcome back,” a cheery voice said. Blearily, I tried to focus on the owner. She had a pleasant face with warm, coffee-colored skin. Her thick braids of dark hair were pulled together in a kind of ponytail with a ruffled blue band that matched her scrubs.

  Great. A hospital.

  “What day is it?” I croaked. Anything else I might have asked was lost to a coughing fit. My throat and lungs felt raw. My voice sounded worse. She held a glass of water with a straw out to me, and I drank. That helped.

  “It’s Tuesday morning, Sunshine,” she replied, setting the water aside. “Now lay back, I need to check a few things out.”

  “Tuesday?” I murmured. I couldn’t recall what day it was supposed to be, but that didn’t sound right. I went to rub my face, only to realize that my hand was bandaged up, and there was an IV taped to the back of it. I scowled, picking at the medical tape until she nudged my fingers away.

  “None of that,” she scolded lightly.

  The doctor or nurse—I really couldn’t tell which from her outfit—bustled around, poking at monitors and clipping some weird little doohickey to my middle finger.

  “What’s that do?” I asked, then the hacking started again.

  “It tells me how much oxygen you’re getting,” she replied. “Oxygen’s important for brain function.”

  Something in the way she said it niggled at me.

  “Is there something wrong with my brain function?” I asked. All my words came out thickly, like my tongue was carved from wood. I ran it across the back of my teeth. They felt disgusting.

  The woman met my eyes and I spied the evasion immediately. Trying to sound casual, she responded.

  “Why don’t you
tell me your name, sir?”

  I started to say Zaquiel, but stopped myself.

  Everything crashed back in a violent rush. I struggled not to react to the memories of breathless panic—Dorimiel, cacodaimons, and plummeting through the darkness into choking, frigid waters. My pupils must have dilated or something, because her penciled brows furrowed as she studied me.

  “Your name?” she prompted.

  “Zachary Westland,” I replied, trying to seem calm and rational and probably sounding nothing at all like either of those things. I gripped the rail of the hospital bed so fiercely I snapped something off of her little oxygen-reader thingy. I winced as it emitted a series of angry beeps, then held it up to her, muttering, “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine, Mr. Westland,” she said gently. “You’ve been through a lot over the past week. Do you know where you are at the moment?”

  “Hospital,” I quipped. If I was being a smart ass, that meant I was OK, right?

  The nurse didn’t seem to share my belief in the restorative powers of humor. She pressed her full lips together disapprovingly.

  “Aside from the hospital.”

  “Cleveland,” I replied. “At least, that’s where I should be. I’m still in Cleveland, right?”

  “How much do you remember about what happened to you?” she pursued, working hard to keep her tone neutral. I noticed she wasn’t exactly answering me.

  “Not a whole lot,” I told her. It was mostly the truth.

  She frowned. “I’m going to check some of your charts again. Are you feeling up for a visitor?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  The nurse—at least I was pretty sure she was a nurse—grabbed a clipboard and headed out of the room. I heard her speaking in hushed tones with someone out in the hall. A moment later, the door creaked a little as whoever it was entered. I looked up, expecting to see Lil or maybe Remy. Instead I was greeted by a uniformed police officer.

  I almost bolted, though I hardly knew where I thought I would go in a damned hospital room.

  “Hey, Zack,” he said soothingly. “It’s me, Bobby. Good to see you awake finally. You had us pretty worried.”

  I recognized the name from my answering machine. His badge expanded that name to Officer Bobby Park, with the Cleveland PD.

  “Bobby,” I echoed. Nevertheless, it stirred no memories.

  He nodded—two rapid dips of his chin. They made the gelled spikes of his black hair quiver. He pulled one of the chairs closer to my hospital bed and, moving a brightly colored fedora to the side, perched on the edge of it. I knew who the hat belonged to, and I wasn’t exactly happy to see it there. The trim little officer misinterpreted my expression.

  “You don’t remember me?” he asked.

  A note in his voice made me study him more carefully. He was a young man, Asian descent, probably not more than mid-twenties. Deep lines of worry scored his round features. He dug restless fingers into the knees of his uniform. Tendons ridged the backs of his hands from gripping the fabric so tightly. I searched his face again, hoping for some flash of recognition.

  Nothing.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Something like pain touched his features. How well did I know this guy?

  “They said that might happen—the doctors,” he amended. “Not your fault.” Then he mustered a smile of sorts. “Can I get you anything? How you feeling?”

  “Like I got run over by something with its own ZIP code,” I responded.

  His smile widened at this, the edges of his eyes crinkling. The laugh-lines vanished in the next instant, eaten up by his worry.

  “Still got your sense of humor.” He pulled out a digital recorder, holding it up significantly. “You up for some questions? I mean, if you remember anything. We need to piece together events from last week.”

  I sat up straighter in the hospital bed. Tape around my mid-section let me know my ribs had recently taken a beating. I took a shallow breath. It ended in a fit of coughing. Bobby set the recorder aside and held out the cup of water.

  “We can do it another time,” he offered.

  I took a drink through the straw and cleared my throat. Sometime between the Scylla and now, I’d been gargling razors.

  “Do I have a choice in the matter?”

  Bobby’s brows shot up. “No! Geez, Zack. Nothing like that. You’re not a suspect or anything. I got that covered. Maybe you don’t remember, but you can trust me.”

  I started to ask what he meant by that, though thanks to the answering message, I had some ideas. Before I could speak, however, Remy’s clipped and accented voice interrupted us.

  “Excuse me, but what are you doing badgering my brother,” the Nephilim said, “when he has only just regained consciousness?”

  He stood in the doorway, dressed in a spectacular suit of vivid goldenrod wool that only he could pull off and look dapper, rather than ridiculous. He drew himself up to his full six foot four, glowering at the police officer with an imperious expression that he’d undoubtedly learned from Sal.

  “Um,” Bobby offered, squirming beneath Remy’s unearthly blue gaze. He recovered quickly enough, jumping to his feet and extending a hand politely. It was a sight, because Bobby came up approximately to Remy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even know Zack had a brother. He never said anything. I thought all his family lived in Kenosha.”

  “Half brother,” I said quickly.

  “Blood’s still blood,” Remiel said with a knowing expression.

  “I didn’t know. There’s nothing in the records,” Bobby persisted, but it was less a challenge than it was an apology. Still holding his hand out to Remy, he said, “I’m Officer Bobby Park.”

  “Remy Broussard,” Remiel said with a polite nod of his head. He delicately clasped the officer’s hand in his own.

  “Well, Mr. Broussard,” Bobby responded quickly, “I’m working Zack’s case, along with several other very capable officers. He’s in good hands. I promise you, we will find the people who did this.”

  “I’m sure you will make your very best effort,” Remy replied evenly. He held the young officer’s gaze, also maintaining a grip on the young man’s hand. For a moment, Bobby seemed strangely captivated. Pointedly, Remy said, “I think you’ve forgotten something.”

  “Oh, sure,” Bobby said, blinking. He looked a little dazed. A moment later, he announced, “I forgot something. I’ll have to come back later.” The little guy vacated the room in such a rush that he ran off without collecting his digital recorder. I reached over and made certain it was turned off.

  “Pretty sure what you just did there was illegal,” I said, eyeing the Nephilim. I didn’t know he could whammy people like that.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Remy responded.

  “Suuure,” I said, drawing it out.

  He looked as if he expected something more from me. I didn’t give it to him. Once the silence between us had drawn out to something surpassing awkward, Remy swept toward the chair and recovered his hat. He didn’t sit, but instead stood, picking imagined lint from the cloth.

  I stared at the ceiling tiles.

  “Are you well?” he ventured.

  “I feel like hammered horseshit. No thanks to you.”

  “Still upset about that.” It wasn’t a question.

  “You think? You knocked my ass out and tied me to a chair.”

  Another spate of dry coughing stole some of my vehemence. Remy spied the cup of water and held it out to me. I glared at the proffered drink. I wasn’t about to let him feed it to me. I tore it from his hand, sending the straw spinning. Remy’s expression went opaque, and he settled into the chair. He watched me for a long while, neither of us saying anything.

  “She told me I would have to do it,” he said at length.

  “And you obeyed her blindly.” I slammed the cup onto the nightstand. Water splashed in the process.

  Remy’s fingers crimped the brim of his fedora. He caught himself befo
re crushing it entirely. Pale lips tugging in a frown, he set the hat aside.

  “Never blindly,” he objected.

  I scoffed. My thoughts leapt guiltily to my back-room deal with his decimus. There were things she kept from him—and things she’d maneuvered me into keeping from him. Secrets within secrets. It couldn’t have been the first time.

  “Then you don’t know Sal.”

  “I know her quite well,” he replied. “Better, perhaps, than anyone.” His voice was remote, and his eyes held an echo of that distance. I wondered how many years unspooled in his internal vision. It didn’t soften me to him.

  “I thought you took some kind of oath to look out for me.” Even to my ears, it sounded petulant.

  “My actions on the Daisy Fay served that oath,” he answered. “They got you on board the Scylla without an immediate altercation. I didn’t agree with Sal when she first proposed that course, but once Jubiel started talking, I recognized her wisdom. At the time, it was the safest way.”

  “So you hit me on the head for my own good. That’s convenient.”

  He flinched as if I’d thrown acid. Lacing his fingers tightly in the absence of the fedora, he said, “I suppose I should be grateful you recall enough to be this angry.”

  “Sure, change the subject.” I shifted among the pillows, angling my back to him. My left hand got tangled in the IV. The cut beneath the bandages throbbed dully, a grim memento of what I’d fed the Eye.

  Which reminded me thunderously about the Stylus. My pulse and blood pressure spiked so swiftly, a couple of the monitors I was hooked up to vented irritable beeps. I bolted upright. Remy’s unearthly blue eyes flicked from the monitors to me, filled with unvoiced questions.

  “Where’s my leather jacket?” I asked.

  Remy’s brows went up slightly.

  “With everything you’ve been through you’re worried about that old thing?” he responded.

  “Where is it?” I insisted.

  “Lil took it when she dragged you from the water. She has a tracking spell on you—did you know that?”