by Meg Collett
“See?” Clark looked back at Maya, whose shoulders slumped, her eyes brimming with tears. “But we will talk soon. I promise,” he lied. If he had any say in the matter, he would never talk to this creature again.
He couldn’t bear it, couldn’t handle the pain of seeing all he’d lost staring back at him.
“But I really need—”
“Zarachiel, will you escort Maya to the Nephilim wing? I believe you will find an available apartment over there.”
Clark swiveled around in his chair, taking the bottle of whiskey with him. He heard Zarachiel murmuring to the girl, who seemed reluctant to go. But when the door clicked shut, Clark doubled over, clenching his stomach. His breaths were ragged and gasping as the panic attack had its way with him.
His vision grayed at the edges and floor tilted up ever so kindly to meet his face as he tumbled out of the chair.
Chapter Two
Clark came to in his apartment, lying in his bed, with a jolt. This time he knew he was in a new nightmare because he’d seen Sophia’s ghost. Or he’d thought he had. Groaning, he sat up, his mind banging at the confines of his skull. “What the hell?” he muttered.
“You fainted.”
Clark glanced toward the voice. Zarachiel sat in a chair beside the bed with his elbows on his knees, leaning forward as he watched Clark. The line of his back was jagged and hunching where his wings had been hacked out. Like Michaela, Zarachiel had also been an Archangel, accused of betraying Heaven and tortured. When the radical holy angels had taken his wings, they hadn’t been kind; they’d cut them out, ruining the bone and fine lines of the once-beautiful Archangel. Clark thought he could repair Zarachiel’s mangled bones in his back with the magic contained on his arms from the Watchers’ secrets, but the angel wouldn’t let him. Instead, he’d chosen to remain on Earth with Clark, wingless and in a constant haze of pain. Zarachiel’s decision had cost him Uriel, his Archangel mate, the one he was created to be with. They were supposed to be together forever; instead, Zarachiel was at Clark’s side, looking worried for him.
Clark wanted to say something snarky about fainting, but he didn’t have the heart.
“Do you remember why?” Zarachiel offered quietly, his voice soft and easy.
“Yeah,” Clark said just as quietly. He put his head in his hands, feeling a horrible wrenching in his heart, like he was losing Sophia all over again. “I remember.”
“I didn’t know she was here until it was too late. If so, I would’ve given you more warning.”
“Why is she here? Why now?” Clark’s voice broke, and it would’ve embarrassed him if he was in the company of anyone but Zarachiel. But the angel had already seen this broken part of Clark. “Why, Z?”
Zarachiel had a way of quiet examination, like he was picking a person apart, finding the flaws, putting them aside, and patching the person back together again. The searching had been unnerving at first, but now Clark just waited, staring back at his friend, looking past the broken angel to see the man inside.
“I don’t know why she came, but I’m very sorry.”
Clark blinked and looked away. There were never any solid, comforting answers in this world. He’d learned that long ago with Michaela. Thinking of her, thinking of their friendship, made him miss her all over again. He loved Zarachiel like a brother, but he wished Michaela were here right now. Almost more than he wished Sophia was here.
Once upon a time before the war, Michaela had been the General of Heaven, the most powerful and glorious Archangel, the first angel created. But when Clark had met her, she’d been nothing but a broken, wingless angel framed as a traitor to Heaven and Earth and hunted like a fugitive. Together, they’d taken on the war as best friends and allies. Clark had thought they would patch the world back together when everything was over, but that was just a fantasy. Michaela had a new role as the Angel of Death, and her duties took her far away from friendship’s needing reach. Clark understood, but missing her compounded onto the load he bore today and crumbled him.
“What are you going to do?” Zarachiel asked as Clark surged up from the bed and walked into dining room.
“Get shitfaced.”
From the bar, which used to be a china buffet, Clark drank straight from a bottle of whiskey. Zarachiel followed him into the room and sat down at the table, looking over all their work from the last six months. Agriculture books littered the table, along with coffee-stained papers. A large map showing the entire surrounding town and compound spread across the middle of the table. Its curling corners were held down by half-full tumblers of whiskey.
“Do you miss it?” Clark asked, staring into the bottle, swishing the amber liquid around.
“Heaven?” Z asked.
“And the other angels.”
“Sometimes,” Zarachiel said with a loaded sigh. “But I like this work. It makes me happy, and that was something I thought I’d lost when they took my wings. I find a sense of peace out in the greenhouses with my hands in the dirt.”
“Is that why you stay? For peace?” Clark had never understood that. Why stay on Earth, a ruined and ragged place, when you could return to Heaven?
“For Heaven to be so perfect, there was never much peace to be had.”
Clark didn’t really know what to say about that, and the silence stretched out for too long. “I want the Nephil questioned before I talk to her again,” he said.
“I can do that.”
Clark drank some more, and Zarachiel sat in his chair some more. They pretended to discuss the coming spring crops, but they both knew it was just a ruse so that Zarachiel could watch over him. Once a third of the handle was gone, Clark stood, scraping his chair back. The unfairness of the situation overwhelmed him, angered him, until he could contain it no longer.
“Why is she here?” he hissed, smelling the whiskey on his breath even as he took another heady gulp.
Zarachiel watched him closely, his face void of all expression. He didn’t respond.
“It’s not fair!” Clark paced along the bank of windows, staring down at the greenhouses and beyond, to the fields where refugees had set up tents. The compound was full with Descendants and Nephilim; the town was full of more refugees, who’d arrived early enough to claim an actual room with four walls. Everyone else slept under the stars within the walls of compound. Technically, the war was over, but Clark had never felt so unsafe.
He whirled around, eyes locking on Zarachiel, drink sloshing. “She should’ve died instead of Sophia.”
Clark knew it was a bad thing to say even as he said it. When the plague that killed all the first-born children in every family was sent to Earth, it hadn’t cared who loved who. Along with millions and millions of other people—including almost half the Descendant’s population—Sophia, the first-born in her family, had died in her sleep, in her bed, deep underground in the Nephilim stronghold. Clark should’ve died too. He was the first and only son of Iris and Isaac St. James.
Except he’d been in Hell. Literally.
He’d gone to learn about the magic contained within the marks on his arms. Lucifer had been trying for centuries to decipher the ancient language of the Watchers that the Apocrypha—an ancient book full of the most dangerous angel secrets—was written in. When the words had transcribed themselves onto Clark’s arms when he’d unknowingly picked up the book, he’d gone to Hell to learn how to use the magic before he hurt someone. Technically, he’d been a hostage, but he’d gone willingly enough.
“You’ve lost a lot,” Zarachiel said.
“Everyone has. That’s war, right?” His words were slurred as he looked at the floor, watching the wood’s grainy pattern swirl and spin. “So you’ll talk to her?”
“Yes.”
Clark nodded and took another drink. Suddenly, he had to look anywhere but Zarachiel. The angel was becoming an ethereal haze as Clark drank more. He sometimes forgot Zarachiel was an Archangel. It was easy to; he didn’t put on much of a show. Actually, he was pretty invis
ible most of the time, working away in the greenhouses. But Z was an unavoidable right then. If he squinted, Clark imagined he could see the glint of wings fracturing the sunlight behind Zarachiel’s back.
But that was crazy.
“Thanks, Z,” Clark said, swaying slightly.
Zarachiel rose. “You’ll be okay.”
Clark couldn’t look at him. So he nodded, his eyes falling to the worn grain of the floor. “I’m always okay. I’m Clark St. James. What else would I be but okay?”
Zarachiel didn’t leave right away. He stood at the edge of Clark’s vision, like he was waiting to find something in his careful examination. Clark felt himself picked apart, put back together. He knew what Zarachiel was examining: the balance between angel and human inside Clark. Something was off. Maybe it was the Apocrypha on his arms or the Nephil blood he’d inherited from his mother. But something wasn’t quite right, didn’t quite line up. Maybe Zarachiel saw wings when he looked at Clark’s back. The thought was so funny that Clark snorted with laughter into his bottle as he took another drink. He looked back at the Archangel to share his joke, but Zarachiel was gone.
And Clark was alone.
* * *
Clark stood in a massive underground cavern with kerosene lanterns casting horrible, twisted shadows along the hulking walls. A stream trickled from somewhere nearby, making the air damp and sticky. But it was a familiar cave. A very, very hauntingly familiar cave.
He’d been here before. Here, everything had changed when he’d found Michaela, broken and half-dead in the underground stream. Here, the Watchers had wasted away their eternities, chained beneath a river far below Clark’s feet. It was a desolate punishment for a crime of betrayal when they’d come to Earth and lain with the human women. Standing there now with the strongest sense of déjà vu, Clark realized that everything ultimately came back around.
Especially when he saw who was in the cave with him.
“I’ve done some repairs, as you can tell,” Lucifer said. “When the Watchers were released, they left the place in quite a state.”
“They were in a hurry,” Clark said, biting off the words. He had no love lost for the Watchers; besides dealing with their infernal words on his arms that he didn’t understand how to read or use, the Watchers had tried very hard to kill him. A few times.
“Obviously.” Lucifer shifted slightly, and Clark saw two massive shadows at his back. But they weren’t just tricks of the light; they were wings, glimmering black that fractured the darkness around them.
There were two absolute facts in Clark’s life: Lucifer didn’t have wings, and Lucifer was dead. Clark should know because he’d killed Lucifer. On accident, of course.
Lucifer noticed his attention and grinned. “I’ve made a few improvements too since you saw me last.”
Clark stepped away from the rocks, putting them between himself and Lucifer. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
A smile like leprosy spread across Lucifer’s shadowed face. His hawkish nose and pointed chin seemed elongated in the flickering lanterns’ light. Even from across the cavern, Clark recognized that something was very, very wrong with Lucifer. His black eyes had gone soulless, his smile completely devoid of emotion. It was an unfeeling twist of the lips, like his face was being manipulated, like a marionette on a string.
“I think I was,” he whispered, giving Clark chills. A scuffling came from some dark corner of the cave, distracting Clark. He glanced over his shoulder, but saw only twitching shadows. When he looked back at Lucifer, the fallen angel was a few steps closer to Clark. “When you created that insanely large mass of holy fire in Hell, I knew you couldn’t control it. You didn’t understand your power. Neither did I, apparently. When the fire took me, I felt it destroy me. I sensed my death. But that couldn’t be right,” Lucifer said, shaking his head as if he was reliving the experience. His eyes flashed back to Clark, bright with excitement. “Because if I was dead, how could I think I was dead?”
“Clearly, I should’ve made the fire hotter.”
“Somewhere,” Lucifer said, ignoring Clark, “I was put back together again, like Humpty Dumpty after his perilous fall. But how does that rhyme go?”
“They couldn’t put him back together again,” Clark supplied, taking a step back as Lucifer took another closer. It felt like choreography, like Lucifer was steering him around the cavern.
“That’s it!” Lucifer shouted, startling Clark. “That’s it. They couldn’t put me back together again. I think…” Lucifer bowed his head, looking up from beneath his arching brows. His shoulders rocked with laughter, and a snort escaped his refined nose. “I think that they missed some pieces. I don’t feel…quite whole, anymore.”
“You do look pretty cracked.”
“You think I’ve gone crazy?”
“I wouldn’t call this sane.”
“Interesting. I think I agree.”
Lucifer took another step, causing Clark to back against the rock wall. He couldn’t escape now. Lucifer laughed, snorting again. He picked up a lantern at his feet and lifted it. Clark heard that odd scuffling again, felt tiny rocks tumbling down onto his shoulders. The flickering light gave him the most tilting sense of vertigo he’d ever experienced; he didn’t know which way was up or down.
Lucifer’s lantern illuminated a spot on the wall high above Clark, his eyes dancing with unrestrained excitement. He lifted his chin to indicate that Clark should look behind him. Following Lucifer’s feverish gaze above his shoulder, Clark twisted around, one eye on Lucifer, as he looked up.
Camille hung, naked and barely conscious, above his head. Her hands were pinned high above her head, a single dagger borne through both palms. Her wings were stretched out to full-length, her powerless body hanging between them. Two huge swords—the metal laced with the dull ivory of bone—pierced each wing, anchoring her completely against the rock. Gold blood dripped down her wings and spilled onto the floor to create shimmering pools on either side of Clark. Above his head, her feet raked against the wall, weak and futile, causing the scuffling sounds he’d heard. Her once-bright eyes fluttered, her eyelashes dark against her pale skin. Blood oozed from a deep gash along the side of her face. Her torso was lined with a multitude of cuts until her body looked like one giant, open wound. Mostly unconscious, she still managed to form words, repeating one over and over again: his name.
He had the horrible understanding that she was dying.
“I know what you’re thinking, you know.”
Clark spun back around, stepping in front of Camille to shield her even though she was ten feet above his head. Clark didn’t respond, didn’t trust himself not to reveal the terror he felt. He was going to lose her. Lose Camille like he’d lost Sophia. Like Michaela. Like everyone who had ever mattered to him.
“You’re thinking you can save her somehow by using the Watchers’ magic on your arms. Am I right?”
Clark stayed silent, trying to think of a way to get Camille down and away from Lucifer.
“But you can’t save her, you know,” Lucifer went on.
“Why not?” Clark snarled.
“Because that power,” Lucifer whispered, pointing to Clark’s arms. The ink there seemed to itch away from Lucifer’s gaze, leaving Clark with the maddening urge to hide his arms behind his back. “That power will be mine. I don’t care if I have to rip your arms from your body. It wouldn’t be the first time I tore someone apart in this cave.”
Chapter Three
Enraged, Clark lunged at Lucifer. He’d gone too far this time, and Clark would kill him. Again.
But instead of his hands closing around Lucifer’s neck, Clark catapulted out of bed. Landing in a heap of limbs and sheets, he growled against the floor, fighting—or flailing. He blinked into the darkness of the room, searched the corners for glinting black eyes or that terrifying smile. He had never been afraid of Lucifer before, but now he trembled, bile rising up his throat.
He turned his head and puked.
> When he was finished, he wiped his mouth. Trying to calm down, he told himself it was just a dream, a nightmare. But his dreams had a horrible tendency to come true. Iris St. James, his mother, had been full Nephil, and she had a powerful ability to see the future. Her power was one of the strongest in a generation of Nephilim, who were slowly—through centuries of careful marriage arrangements that sometimes bordered on inbreeding—losing their magic that had been passed down from their fathers, the Watchers. Though Clark had only a portion of Nephil blood in him, it was strong blood. And coupled with the magic on his arms, he could’ve been the most powerful being in the world. Maybe even more powerful than the angels.
If only he knew how to read the Watchers’ old language. The magic on his arms seemed to work when it wanted to, leaving Clark with no control over the power he yielded.
A flurry of cursing drew his attention. He glanced up, trying not to move his pounding head too much. His stomach twisted again at the sight of Camille crouching beside him, whole and undamaged, the sun setting in an orange and red halo through the window behind her. He’d been dreaming almost the entire day.
“What the hell is wrong with you, huh?” She grabbed his arm and wrenched him to his feet, dragging him to the bathroom.
“Bad dream,” Clark muttered, trying to swallow the vomit he felt coming up again.
Camille snorted, and Clark shivered as he remembered Lucifer’s laughter. She opened the door and turned on the lights, blinding Clark and sending daggers lancing through his brain. “More like a bottle of whiskey. How you can drink so much of that shit and not kill yourself is beyond me.”
She deposited him into the shower. He didn’t protest as she stripped him bare, tossing his clothes over her shoulder. Even the fluorescent lighting couldn’t quell her cruel form of beauty. Her green eyes were narrowed and focused, her mouth set in a thin, grim slash. Her platinum blond hair was twisted up high into a tight ponytail. Dark kohl lined her eyes in the fashion of her Throne choir. It was her battle-face, she’d told him once; the kohl had kept the sun out of her eyes when she was fighting high in the sky. But she always wore it. Even to bed. Even as they had sex.