Angelus

by Sabrina Benulis

  He was halfway there already. He might make it.

  Glass smashed above him. It flew past him in chunks to the snow. One piece caught his cheek, slicing into it like solid fire.

  He looked above him. Mikel—or more accurately, the novice she was possessing—had flown through the window and snagged the platform where he’d been standing. The novice’s face and hands bled with cuts from the glass. Then she half flipped over the side of the platform, racing down the ladder toward Father Schrader. Perhaps she’d rethought pushing the novice’s body with another flight. It wasn’t necessary anyway. She was preternaturally fast.

  She was gaining on him too quickly. He had no choice but to jump now.

  He let go of the last ladder, plummeting ungracefully into the snow below. Father Schrader sank, crying out as his body hit the frozen ground beneath. An immense pain overtook him, threatening to shut down his heart and brain. He struggled for breath, fighting off the urge to sink into unconsciousness. His legs screamed out they were broken, and they refused to move as a strange warmth crept through him.

  “Exorcizo te,” he shouted, waiting to feel Mikel’s hands wrap around his neck any second. I exorcize you . . .

  His voice died away. Nothing happened. He opened his eyes, startled to find the novice Mikel had possessed lying in the snow a few feet away. The young man’s ankle looked broken. Many of the cuts bled profusely.

  Father Schrader fought with his fear, but then he speedily reached over and felt for a pulse.

  The novice was alive.

  And—Father Schrader looked down at his own body in surprise—he must not have injured his legs badly, after all.

  Voices sounded from outside near the front of the church. Those inside were probably exiting to find him and Mikel. He stole one last glance at the novice crumpled on the ground, muttered a prayer of healing, and then shot away toward a narrow alley at the church’s rear. Though Nina had said no more crows lived near the church, he burst through a few of them strutting around a storm grate in the alley. They launched away from him, screeching madly, and wild with fear, he continued to run and didn’t stop until he found shelter inside an abandoned fortune-telling shop.

  Gasping for breath, he slid to the ground.

  Time passed. He hadn’t been followed, but Father Schrader still felt it wise to lie low for a bit longer. Absently, he fingered a few of the discarded items strewn across the floor. One of them was a gilded hand mirror. He picked it up, studying the ornate carvings on its back. Heavens, his head ached. He was lucky to be alive after a shock like that.

  He flipped the mirror over. Father Schrader’s face betrayed his years, and his white hair had matted with melted snow.

  He focused on his weary features. The headache was already consuming him. Had he suffered a concussion of some kind from his fall? Slowly, his vision wavered. He couldn’t be that tired, surely. A new fear overtook him, and the worst possible scenario erupted into his mind.

  He thought frantically of Nina Willis and the others while the world disappeared. The mirror clattered from his hands, but not before he’d already seen it.

  There—in his irises—a flash of red.

  PART ONE

  Reawakening

  Thirty-Five Days until the Great Silence

  Because all memories are but grains of sand, fallen through the hourglass of dreams.

  One

  LUZ MEMORIAL CEMETERY

  The sky had cleared in Luz.

  The endless snowfall of months past had ceased, and now most of the city lay frozen in layers of whiteness.

  Wind no longer blew. As ever, the sun refused to show itself, but now the clouds and moon had also vanished. Only millions of stars shone overhead, somehow much too bright and far too close. In the glassy ocean surrounding the isolated city, dead fish floated to the surface day after day, and a strange gleam on the horizon birthed constant rumors of the sea icing over. No wonder there were no more waves. Soon, everyone knew, that ice would finally reach Luz and freeze it solid.

  Did the world outside know or care? Did it suffer in the same way? Nobody really knew.

  For months on end, Luz had been cut off from mainland America. It was a tiny island city owned by the Vatican, governing itself, steeped in its unique miasma of gothic decadence. Luz answered to no one and opened its doors to few. Most of those few made up the population of the Vatican’s Westwood Academy, and even more of those students were “blood heads”—the feared embodiment of a prophecy of Ruin. That Ruin was an occult woman called the Archon—someone whom many priests and theologians considered to be the reincarnation of the dead angel Raziel. Her defining feature was thought to be Her blood-red hair, a trait shared with the angel. The Archon would soon make a choice: either to save the universe or ultimately take the route of the Devil and let it fall to pieces.

  By the look of things, Nina Willis understood most people assumed the latter had already happened. They believed that no matter what the Vatican had done to sniff out and erase the Archon’s existence, She’d entered the Academy, survived its intrigues, and gone on to choose destruction for the humanity that had made Her life so wretched.

  Then again, most people didn’t know Angela Mathers like Nina did. Because without any doubt whatsoever, Nina knew that they were wrong.

  She sighed and stared out at the angelic city of Malakhim revolving against the western horizon, infinitely high above the broken human city of Luz.

  Malakhim had appeared a few weeks ago, like a galaxy set where the sun should have been. Gradually, each day it seemed a little larger and brighter. Occasionally, an angel would be spotted here or there in the star-speckled sky, soaring from its glory. Yet no matter what the priests said, they could no longer console people into being optimistic. Most citizens of Luz hid in their homes, holed up in icy terror. A desperate few had taken rowboats to sea. Better to take their chances there, they’d hoped.

  The Realms were threatening to merge.

  Dimensions would collide before crumbling forever. And then . . .

  The sound of wingbeats met Nina’s ears. She turned, startled for only a second.

  The tree branch beside her creaked and snapped beneath a heavy weight. The woods surrounding them lay blanketed in ice and snow, and anything that broke the peace sounded alarmingly loud. The naked branches glistened like diamonds in the glow of gas lamps sprinkled throughout Memorial Cemetery. More ice crackled as the visitor shifted weight.

  Have you found what you were looking for? A girlish voice echoed in Nina’s head.

  I think so, Nina responded. But I still can’t believe it . . .

  She knelt down beside a tiny sapling growing in the half-frozen soil. Its crown had actually punched through a layer of ice. Mysteriously, its branches were in bud.

  Very close by, a large hole with half-frozen clods of dirt tossed out of it gaped next to a great tree trunk. They were the last remnants of an ancient oak, split and burned by lightning.

  The branches above Nina creaked and groaned with the weight resting on them again. A crow’s guttural croak shivered through the air, announcing the enormous bird that flew out of the shadows and landed on another branch to Nina’s right. A different pair of owlish yellow eyes gleamed back at Nina from the darkness of the canopy where the bird had escaped and the ice crackled.

  Their owner stared at the little sapling with burning interest, and then chose to speak out loud. “That’s a baby tree? How can they start so small?”

  Nina laughed. “Just like you did. Everyone starts small, and then grows. That’s just the way of things.”

  “Yes,” the voice said sadly. “Just like how everyone dies?” A soft hiss of regret ended the sentence.

  “Well, that is true,” Nina agreed. “But sometimes,” she whispered, “there are exceptions.”

  She was one of them.

  Nina had been a normal human girl once, and a very ordinary one except for a crucial detail: she’d been able to speak to the souls of the
dead. That talent had earned her a place at Westwood Academy, but it hadn’t earned her any real friends. Until Angela Mathers came along. Then the wheels of Nina’s fate had been set in motion. She often wondered if there was anyone who had died as many times as she herself had. First, she’d died because of a demon. Then, she’d died trying to save the Jinn Troy and her niece Juno from another demon. Juno had explained it was that act of sacrifice that had allowed Nina to resurrect. Nina’s soul had then been placed in the body of a crow—just like Fury’s.

  Nina glanced up again at the large black bird watching her from the treetops. Fury clacked her beak and preened nervously at a few feathers.

  Yet a crucial difference already lay between them. Nina could change her shape. She only had to be a crow when she found it useful.

  It was unprecedented. No Jinn familiar had that kind of talent.

  If you’re satisfied, Fury’s sweet girlish voice interrupted Nina’s thoughts again, we should leave. We don’t have much time to infiltrate the Tower. I didn’t risk my life finding that mirror for nothing.

  The large crow flapped its wings in emphasis.

  “She’s right,” the other voice in the trees added. “I’m sure the longer we wait here, the sooner an angel might spot us.”

  Nina peeked worriedly at the starry sky. That was true. But—and she looked back down at the baby oak tree—she was glad she’d risked coming back so soon. Seeing the sapling confirmed everything for her. Even though the world was literally falling apart, there was also another change slowly but surely taking place and fighting the destruction. At last, a Revolution had begun. Was Angela responsible?

  If only Nina could ask the souls buried around them.

  But they were gone. They’d already been harvested by the angels who’d stealthily infiltrated Luz. The last souls on Earth who could help the Archon were locked away somewhere, silenced. Tonight, if she could, Nina would find out exactly where, and soon she would free them. No matter what it took. That’s what she was here for, after all. She sighed with relief remembering how Father Schrader had offered to help her and Juno. Hopefully, he was all right scouting at St. Matthias Church alone. Nina had a feeling about tonight, and when she had a feeling, nothing good usually happened. But they couldn’t just sit back and do nothing, either.

  “If only Auntie could help us,” the voice in the trees said, sighing with regret. “She would know what to do next.”

  “I know,” Nina said, sighing with her. “But the only thing we can do now is to think like Troy would think. Father Schrader said we have to get the mirror, and that it might be in the Tower. Fury confirmed it’s there. We’ll have to worry about where all those souls might be and how to free them later. This might be our only chance to get that mirror back.”

  A great whoosh of air erupted high above them.

  Nina threw herself against a tree trunk, breathing hard.

  Fury and the little Jinn high up in the trees stiffened like statues.

  Slowly, like a dream, an angel winged his way through the everlasting night. He flew so gracefully, the spectacle threatened to still Nina’s heart for good again. She recognized in his slender hands the arrows that terrified Fury so much. They gleamed faintly with energy. Fury had almost been shot down by one a few days ago, shortly after they’d all entered the cemetery through the Netherworld Gate again.

  The cemetery had once been inundated with crows. Now, most had at last left Luz to its fate.

  In seconds, the angel was gone. “That was close,” Nina whispered.

  You’re ready, then? Fury glided down from the canopy and croaked impatiently. Follow me—I found a safer route toward that part of the city last night. We shouldn’t be seen.

  “What about her?” Nina said, pointing up at the little Jinn still hiding in the trees.

  Before Fury could answer, the Jinn’s tone changed to one of deadly purpose. Her small but lethally sharp nails split the wood beneath them, and the cracking sound echoed. “I’ll manage,” she hissed.

  Nina closed her eyes and concentrated. Instantly, it began. She sensed herself molding and shaping into a lighter body. Exhilarated, she flapped her bird wings the moment they formed and soared after Fury into the clear sky toward the Academy. The still air broke icily against her feathered body.

  She stole one last glance at the sapling before the cemetery tightened to a circle of naked trees beneath them.

  Nina was the first to land at the Bell Tower.

  Her crow’s feet scraped one of many windowsills, scrabbling for purchase on slick ice. Fury landed beside her, much more gracefully. She cocked her head at Nina in amusement before soaring up one more level onto a large veranda.

  Nina followed and landed beside her, stifling the urge to knock Fury with her beak.

  Instead, she hopped toward the glass pane of a great set of gabled windows and peered inside. Rags fluttered beneath a mysterious breeze. The Tower had so many fissures and cracks, they might have to war with the rats that had set up residence. Nina tapped on the glass with her beak, and she was certain she saw a huge rat scuttle away under a pile of boxes.

  Where was the mirror? Where was it?

  Nina remembered the mirror from Mother Cassel’s fortune shop. It didn’t look like much—just a brassy antique that desperately needed repairs. Even so, Gloriana Cassel had warned her to never gaze too long at it.

  Father Schrader had said that was because the mirror functioned like a miniature portal to the other Realms. A rarity, such artifacts were usually hunted down by the Vatican and destroyed. Somehow, this one had survived.

  With it, there was a chance, however slim, that they could contact Angela. Or maybe even bring her and Sophia back to Luz.

  But first, the mirror needed to be stolen back from the authorities who’d confiscated it and locked it away in the Academy’s infamous Bell Tower. Nina should have caught on to that sooner. The structure was too high and too guarded for any human to infiltrate.

  Nina smiled inwardly. She wasn’t just any old human anymore.

  Over there, Fury said sharply. Look at the right corner of the room. There it is.

  Nina focused and, yes, she could see it. The mirror’s reflective glass briefly caught the lights of the city, and then a fluttering rag smothered it again. All right, she said to Fury. Time to go in. Do you see a broken window anywhere?

  A loud crash and the sound of glass smashing answered her question.

  Nina winced. Cursing inwardly, she broke away from the veranda and followed Fury to a smaller window with a giant hole now punched through the glass. More pieces of glass dangled from the break before dropping to the ground. The wind whipped and gusted into the musty room. Juno, Troy’s niece, sat in a pile of broken glass looking completely bewildered. She blinked and hissed at the pain of the shards cutting into her feet.

  Nina touched down beside her and shifted to her human form again. She knelt near the young Jinn and tried not to shout. They’d be lucky if no one heard that. But Nina wasn’t really in a position to yell at her Jinn master, and she bit her lip hard.

  She shook her head and quickly plucked some glass from the sole of Juno’s foot. Juno held back the pain admirably.

  Like her aunt, the new Jinn Queen was a lethal but lovely vision of chalk-white skin, sickle-shaped black wings, and flexing pointed ears. Her large yellow eyes sometimes glowed with a phosphorescent sheen. Unlike her aunt, Juno typically lacked any kind of gracefulness and finesse. Rarely did she look the part of the perfect hunter. Her chain earring—usually adorned with a metal crow’s foot like her aunt’s—had now broken, adding to her disheveled look. The iron pendant was missing, perhaps lost somewhere in the gutters of Luz.

  Juno sat on her haunches and licked away the rest of the blood.

  She breathed hard, staring at the window like it had betrayed her. Also unlike Troy, she had little experience with glass—something Luz had in abundance.

  Fury touched down near them and shook her crow’s head in
irritation. The little one is becoming a liability, she croaked.

  Nina shot her a nasty look. Watch what you say. You know how Troy would respond if she were here.

  The Vapor ignored Nina, flapped her black wings, and glided over to the mirror. She landed on top of its gilded frame and tugged at the rag, dropping it to the floor. The mirror’s reflective surface gleamed and glistened.

  Juno gazed at it pensively. Nina watched as she approached the mirror and stared at her reflection. A network of fine blue veins laced beneath Juno’s ghostly white skin, and her eyes threw back all the light of the room like a cat’s. Her azure-tinted lips parted in wonder as she touched the glass. Juno drew back her hand at the noise of her black nails scraping its surface. Her ears flicked thoughtfully.

  “Will you be able to carry that heavy thing such a distance?” Nina whispered to her.

  Juno adopted a superior attitude. She stood, stretching her wings. Her ears pressed against her skull in annoyance. “Are you kidding? I could carry this in my sleep.”

  Nina chose not to press the issue any further. They didn’t have many options. “All right,” she continued. “But make sure you stick to the darkest paths possible. We can’t have anyone seeing—”

  There was the muffled sound of wingbeats and feet touching the floor of the veranda.

  She paused. Fury stiffened. Juno hunkered close to the ground and seemed to regress into the shadows. Soon, she’d melted into them so skillfully her presence could have been a dream. Her eyes narrowed to glowing slits and then blinked out.

  Swiftly, Nina shifted back to her crow shape and crouched beside Fury.

  Together, they watched a tall, angelic silhouette pace the veranda. At last, the angel paused and fiddled with the great set of windows. They swung open noiselessly. He strode into the room, letting in a gust of icy air, his great wings arched impressively above his back. He was dressed like a soldier of some kind, with glittering cuffs along the bones of his pinions. The bow and arrow at his side glittered with the lights of Luz. Slowly, his large blue eyes scanned the darkness. He was perfect, as all angels were, and in the most unnerving way. Nina would guess his senses were almost as keen as Juno’s or Troy’s.