Angelus

by Sabrina Benulis

  A great weariness overtook Kim. He barely protested as Python stroked Angela’s cheek and she sighed, her face relaxed, her suffering starting to diminish.

  But although the demon’s words were reassuring, his smile was not.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Python said, staring down at Angela. “I doubt she’ll ever find out.”

  Seven

  Angela Mathers opened her eyes to pitch blackness, and a sweet warmth embracing her. She was floating, and a gentle pulse thrummed rhythmically through her entire body. A beautiful song she already knew but couldn’t quite remember soothed her like a lullaby. That was when Angela knew the nightmare had returned.

  Her heart hammered with anticipation. Fear and fire crept through her.

  But she was locked in the vision and could do nothing to stop it. Angela had little choice but to lie in the warm, still darkness, vaguely aware of someone else resting beside her. Their presence was far from reassuring. Dread twisted at her insides. A stifling sense of being watched and despised plucked at her nerves.

  Her left eye burned painfully.

  Then, the terror began.

  A muffled sound broke the silence around her. The warmth dissipated, and she emerged from a jagged hole into a bleak, shockingly cold darkness. Clusters of light dotted the icy void. They were innumerable stars sprinkled throughout space like jewels on velvet. They shivered with the silent screams of Angela’s dying mother.

  She never had a chance to cry out herself.

  In an instant it was upon her. It was neither male nor female, but something that combined all the features of both into a perfect and terrible beauty. She had a brief glimpse of long dark hair, dozens of wings, a marble face striped with bluish veins like a tiger’s, and green eyes that burned into her soul. It was the being that called itself the Father, the very creature she had watched murder the angel Raziel in the shared memories of his past. Now, it was murdering her.

  Where was Angela’s mother? Was she already dead? Why couldn’t she stop this from happening?

  The sudden pain drowned out every other thought and question. Her opponent’s onslaught was furious and merciless. Angela’s flesh sliced to ribbons. Her wings broke like glass. The stars disappeared, replaced by the Father’s face as he tore her apart and flung piece after piece to the Abyss. Her left eye, though, continued to stare at him.

  He’d kept that much of her, anyway, clutching it like a treasured gem.

  And that Eye continued to watch him, even as Angela’s consciousness vanished, and she began an eternity hidden in the void of the Abyss. When awareness briefly returned, she stared back into a different face. This one was much like the Father’s, but distinctly female. It was an angel with ashen hair and wings. She wore a black crown and her crimson eyes glittered like garnets. She looked into Angela’s Eye and smiled.

  It was the Devil—Lucifel.

  The Grail, the Eye of God, was now hers.

  A long and terrible scream forced Angela to awaken.

  She jerked upright in her chair, flinching as it skidded backward across the floor. But this wasn’t the stone floor of Hell. Westwood Academy’s Latin classroom with its brick walls and broken tiles instantly came into focus. The city of Luz gleamed through the windows next to Angela’s student seat, and beyond them the clear star-filled sky beckoned, and the ocean lay unruffled as a plate of glass. She stared outside, still seeing Lucifel’s eyes in the reddish flickering lights that dotted the island city. A familiar angel statue with long hair and high arching wings perched on a balustrade nearby. Then Angela noticed the immense reflection in the glass of something behind her.

  It was the faces of her fellow students in the room—every single one of them either concerned or irritated. They’d all turned toward Angela.

  Angela spun around, breathing hard.

  What in the world is going on? Am I really back in Luz?

  She glanced around the room, a strange panic overwhelming her moment by moment.

  Where’s Sophia?

  “Are you quite done, Miss Mathers?” a voice said from the head of the classroom.

  It was a Vatican novice with glasses and foppish hair. He lowered the glasses and peered at her intently.

  “I—” Angela started to say.

  She grabbed her throat. It actually felt raw inside. That must have been her screaming. “I—I . . . yes. I’m sorry.” Angela grabbed her chair and sat down again.

  The novice turned back to his book. The other students murmured, but all of them eventually returned to the work on their desks. Angela looked down at the large book sitting open on her desk. She couldn’t remember its title, but there was something strangely impressive about it. Was it the bright red color of the leather binding? Or perhaps the gold leaf in the pages? Slowly, she began to turn them.

  So many words. And pictures. These were familiar scenes of people and things. Angela instantly recognized Sophia with her doll-like beauty and thick curling hair. Kim appeared next, with his penetrating gaze. Then there was an angel—and she couldn’t quite remember his name—but he was beautiful beyond anything she’d seen, a picture of silvery glory. On the other page was a strange female devil with sickle-shaped wings and pointed ears, and though her image sent a shudder up Angela’s spine, she too was fascinating to look at.

  Angela stopped at the picture of a tall angel dressed in a clingy black bodysuit. It was hard to tell if the angel was male or female. He or she had ashen gray hair and crimson eyes and six intimidating gray wings. A pendant with a great emerald green eye hung around the angel’s neck.

  Angela paused. Lucifel . . .

  She stared at the Eye that was the pendant and her own left eye began to burn.

  Her vision swam and blurred over. Her heartbeat thrummed in her chest. The world started to spin, and she heard music and words. Pain streaked through her left eye, deep into her head, radiating like fire throughout her entire body.

  But before she could scream again, it was all over. Angela’s sight returned to normal. Her hearing no longer buzzed. Her body lost its unnatural warmth. She continued to sit at her desk, flipping through pages of the book, wondering at the characters and story inside. They were all so beautiful, and terrible, and completely beyond her. The novice signaled the class’s end, and Angela reluctantly slapped the book shut. Like all the other students, she stood from her seat and filed out of the classroom.

  Her feet carried her mindlessly down the building’s dark hallway among a throng of students of all ages.

  Maybe it’s all been a dream. All of it. Sophia . . . Kim . . . even Lucifel. They’re nothing more than characters in a long, strange story. How could I have fallen asleep in class like that?

  The sun shone brightly outside. Angela paused and lifted a hand to block the light from her eyes. Her long hair blew in the warm ocean breeze.

  The sun?

  A nagging sense of unease tugged at her. She stood like that a moment longer, allowing the wind to tease more of her brown hair.

  That’s right. It was a dull mousy color. Angela flipped the strands from her mouth and eyes. She stood gazing at the thick white clouds scudding across the sky, and then she walked down a long cobbled street, headed for her dormitory. A friend joined her shortly afterward, and they walked together. The girl looked nothing like Sophia, but she was pleasant enough. She was normal. Angela didn’t feel a need to protect her, or any unearthly sense of magic strolling by her side, yet in its own way that was somehow refreshing.

  Yes, a soft voice said in her head. This is what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?

  Angela continued walking. She smiled at her friend’s joke. Her mind wandered, lingering on tomorrow’s test and the upcoming Spring Festival.

  This is what it is to be normal. Here, you don’t have a dark past. Here, you’re free to blend in with the crowd.

  Whose voice was this? It was so familiar . . .

  Everything else was only a long dream. This is reality. And you’re happy to be i
n it.

  Angela parted with her friend at the door to her dormitory. Silently, she strolled up the stone staircase, unlocked the heavy wooden doors, and slipped inside. A group of cheerful faces met her, smiling and saying hello. Angela smiled back, ready to join her friends. They gathered in the dining room, sat down for dinner together, and started to chat loudly amid a table loaded down with food, drinks, and festive spring decorations. The heady scent of lilies wafted throughout the dining room. Gilded eggs adorned the table. Angela sat back, done with conversation for a while, but still laughing at a joke she’d just heard.

  That was when she saw it. An hourglass.

  It sat at the middle of the table, strangely unnoticed. It glittered amid the candlelight, and the sand inside had been dyed blood red. Black embellished metal cradled its glass form. Angela stared at it entranced. How had no one else seen it yet?

  Angela reached out to grab it.

  A warm hand wrapped around her wrist, jerking it away. She found herself looking at a dark but dazzlingly beautiful woman with preternatural orange eyes. The woman smiled at Angela, and when she spoke, her voice was the same as the one in Angela’s mind—smooth as honey and heavy as gold.

  “You don’t have to do that, dear. That’s what I’m here for. Trust me, you don’t want to awaken from this dream.”

  A spider scuttled from the woman’s wrist to Angela’s.

  In a brilliant flash, the room changed. Instead of a warm dining hall filled with friends and candlelight, Angela sat on a hard chair, at a dark table, surrounded by people just as beautiful and terrible as the woman gripping her wrist. Angela wore a long black dress, and her head pounded again with the weight of the crown set upon it. Mocking and superior faces regarded her coldly. Before her sat a heavy goblet filled with red liquid. Her reflection shimmered back at her, her left eye burning a brilliant green.

  With another flash the dark scene disappeared. Angela was once again in the cheerful dining hall. The dark woman next to her smiled. “This is a far better world to live in,” she said in her satiny voice. “And you can stay in it forever. I’ll take care of everything else. The crown is far too heavy for you to wear alone.”

  Everything the woman said sounded so reasonable. The spider crawling back to her wrist shone in the light like a living piece of onyx.

  But Angela couldn’t stop staring at the hourglass. She couldn’t help wondering what would happen if she disobeyed.

  Her mind raced. There’s something not quite right about all this. There’s something very important that I’m forgetting.

  Another flash overtook her.

  Angela suddenly stood on a balcony jutting out into the cold fog over an immense, dark city. Pyramids and sprawling mansions littered the ground in every direction, for as far as she could see. Glowing orange globes shone through the thick clouds like faraway suns. Below her, between a file of onyx obelisks, an innumerable throng of winged beings stood waiting for her orders. Great horselike beasts with flanks shimmering in phosphorescent blue held black-clad riders with menacing tridents. Pennants fluttered in a dull breeze. Angela’s blood-red hair whipped against her face. The crown resting atop her head felt heavy as iron this time.

  In seconds, the vision panned away, returning to being a mysterious reflection in the hourglass.

  “You don’t want to touch it,” the female voice said to her anxiously. “Think of all the peace you would give up. You don’t need memories. The past should stay locked away. That’s what you’ve always tried to accomplish.”

  Angela agreed, yet a different part of her couldn’t help stretching out her hand again.

  “You’ll regret it. You’re better off staying here . . . forgetting everything,” the woman said, and her tone became sinister. “It’s not too late to stop yourself . . .”

  The woman’s dark-skinned hand grasped Angela’s again, but Angela struggled and the fingers locked around her wrist spasmed before crumbling to ash. The woman shouted in frustration, her voice chilling and cruel.

  Angela’s heart pounded. Her head ached again. Warmth filled her body, and a soft buzzing noise erupted in her ears. Slowly she grasped the hourglass and flipped it upside down.

  Crimson grains started sprinkling through its narrow neck to the bottom.

  Angela watched them, transfixed. The more she focused, the more every grain became a moment in her life. First came her bleak childhood—the horrific period in her life when she received so many scars inside and outside from a human family intent on hating her. Next her first days in Luz arrived, and her first meeting with Sophia as Angela stood on the dormitory rooftop. There was Westwood Academy’s fearsome witch, Stephanie Walsh, and the oak Fae named Tileaf, and the first time Kim had ever touched her and sent a tingle of excitement through her skin. Then, Lucifel’s crimson eyes were burning into Angela’s brain. A door with a snake-shaped knob appeared next, and Angela once again descended a shadowed stairway, searching for Sophia, the Book of Raziel. Angela encountered Hell. She nearly perished in it in her madness to rescue her friend. She’d been forced to drink angel blood to see the Supernal Raziel’s past, and her memories had vanished little by little. That explained her vision of sitting with a cup of red liquid before her. Every day since then she’d been manipulated into drinking more.

  Now she remembered everything.

  It had all come back to her. Every last second of joy and pain. Every face. Every terror.

  Slowly, Angela dug her fingers into the tablecloth in front of her. The dinner party felt so real, yet it was all just an illusion. The real world was the bleakness of Hell, and the crown she now wore as its ruler. The reality before her was that Lucifel was now in Heaven, and the Book of Raziel remained unopened, because worst of all, Angela remembered that for the Book to be opened, Sophia had to die by Angela’s own hand.

  The demon by Angela’s side—Lilith—gasped. “So that’s the answer,” she said softly.

  She turned and regarded Angela. A dangerous smile spread across her face.

  Lilith must have also seen all Angela’s past and memories. She now knew how to open Sophia.

  Before Angela could even think of what to do next, the illusion finally ended, thrusting the world back into darkness.

  Eight

  Were you there in the Garden of Shadows . . .

  Angela awoke to those words, sung as if by a mirage in an unearthly, feminine voice.

  Her eyes opened blearily and she took in the world around her. For a while, she lay where she was, too fearful to move. Perhaps this was just another illusion. Her bed was long and hard, and above her a great chandelier flickered in a pool of darkness. Beyond its light she could make out mosaics. One of them displayed the image of a feathered serpent twined around a tree laden heavily with red fruit. Another showed a dark gray angel she knew to be Lucifel. The Grail—the emerald Eye—seemed to glitter where it hung against Lucifel’s chest.

  Where am I? This isn’t my own room.

  Her chest tightened with fear. Suddenly, Angela realized sweat beaded her forehead and cheeks. She listened intently to the familiar song as it continued.

  Were you near when the Father took wing?

  Did you sigh when the starlight outpoured us?

  When the silver bright water could sing . . .

  Have you drunk from a river of amber?

  Or eaten the nectar of dreams?

  Where thoughts linger determining eons,

  And time stretches apart at the seams . . .

  The terrible vision she’d lived through yet again flickered and finally died away. Her head throbbed and her temples ached. It felt like someone had pulled out her brain and stuffed it back into her skull. Even the familiar song echoing throughout the chamber made it hurt. Angela breathed softly, still too cautious to get up. The song stopped. Footsteps clattered to her side.

  Quickly, Angela swung her legs over the side of the table she lay upon and grabbed her attacker, pinning the person’s arms behind her back at the sa
me second her own feet hit the ground.

  “Angela!” a soft voice said. Curls smelling of incense fluffed against Angela’s chin. More of the cloying scent wafted through the room.

  “Sophia?” Angela whispered.

  She let go, allowing Sophia to stumble and regain her balance.

  For a second, they stared deep into each other’s eyes. Sophia’s normally placid face was drawn with anxiety. Fear tugged at all her delicate features. With a wild cry of happiness, Angela reached forward and clasped her tightly, unable to believe that they were looking at each other again just as meaningfully as in the past. Sophia held Angela against her chest, stroking her hair. “You’re all right,” Sophia said, letting out a long and shaky sigh. “So it worked, then.”

  “What worked?” Angela said, still in pain, but barely feeling it anymore.

  Sophia shook her head. “Nothing. Never mind . . .” A haunted look flickered across her face. “All that matters is your memories should have returned completely. Kim and I suspected you were being secretly fed angel blood over time. Eventually, we knew for certain. But you’re all right now.”

  Yes. I’m all right now. But—

  “Where is Kim? Where are we?” Angela said.

  “Promise me you won’t go crazy, Angela.”

  Angela felt her entire body tighten. Sophia’s new tone was alarming. “What? Why?”

  “Just promise me. You have to.”

  “Fine, I promise.”

  “Like you mean it.”

  Angela took a deep breath. She spoke slowly. “I promise I won’t do or say anything stupid.”

  Sophia squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again, and, seeming to find the courage to speak again, began to explain. “We’re in Python’s mansion. Kim has—well, I don’t know where he is anymore—” She must have seen how shocked and upset Angela looked, because here Sophia paused and grasped Angela by the wrists. “Angela, calm down. It will be all right.”

  This time, Angela knew she stared at her like they’d never seen each other before.