Archon

by Benulis, Sabrina

  “His name is Kim, and he’s off-limits. Don’t get involved.”

  “You know, he was the one who forgot about the whole vow of celibacy thing—”

  “He’s involved with Stephanie,” Nina hissed.

  Angela hoisted her own bag onto a shoulder, careful not to snag her arm gloves. “What? You said that Brendan is Stephanie’s boyfriend!”

  Something she still found hard to believe.

  “Yeah. The official one. The show-off boyfriend.” Nina pointed down the hallway, at wherever Kim had disappeared to. “He’s the real thing. And if you like guys and you go to the Academy, it’s the one reason you might wish you were in her shoes for a change. So listen to me this time and stay away from him.”

  “And if he approaches me instead?”

  Nina rolled her eyes and grabbed Angela’s smallest portfolio. “I can only warn you once.” She took a deep breath. “Now tell me where you live and I’ll help you cart your stuff. At least I won’t be flirting with you along the way.”

  “On the east side of campus. Near the ocean.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  Angela picked up the rest of her belongings, dragging her largest painting in a portfolio on wheels, sidestepping the dwindling crowd. The second she looked up again, there was Lyrica, standing a few feet away, a curious expression on her face. She must have lingered behind Stephanie, maybe to spy on Angela, maybe to get a moment to herself. But it was obvious she’d also seen everything that had taken place with Kim. Lyrica lifted her eyebrows, amused. Then she sauntered away to the exit.

  Already, I’m under some kind of microscope.

  Already, Angela was wishing the fire had worked.

  The next storm swept in off the coast after dinner hours.

  Luz vanished behind a screen of silver, raindrops battering mercilessly against old stone edifices, spouting in vast sluices from gutters that hung hundreds of feet above Angela’s dormitory. She’d been situated on the upper floor of an old mansion, half of its foundation angling perilously over the sea, the other half facing toward the center of the Academy where she could revel in the view of a hundred or more towers, most of them connected to one another by vast bridges of stone, or at the very peak, thick tunnels of carefully sealed glass. Candles flickered through countless windows, yellow eyes that glared out toward the sea.

  The surf was breaking hundreds of feet below her building, and still it sounded almost as loud as the thunder. Angela must have fallen asleep without realizing it, because when a particularly loud boom shivered through the walls, she jolted in her seat, shocked to find the book she’d been reading was now lying on the floor.

  She picked it up and set it back on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. The flames had muffled to a mass of burning cinders.

  Angela stared at them, bitter inside.

  Fire wasn’t enough. Or bullets. Or knives.

  She rolled down one of her arm gloves, examining the grotesque patches of skin, most of them slightly raised and dark with scar tissue. Her legs had fared better, but not by much. When Angela set the blaze months ago, her arms had, of course, been nearest to the fire, but after passing out, she’d survived to find horrendous burns striping her legs to midthigh. The disappointment of seeing those wounds almost equaled her disappointment at being alive. She’d planned on waking up wrapped in the wings of her angel, not trapped for weeks in an infirmary.

  Now you’re here in Luz, wasting your time so you can apologize to a brother who probably wishes you’d succeeded too.

  It was hard to kill yourself when someone or something you couldn’t see was protecting you. At least, Angela had come to the conclusion that the supernatural was looking out for her after she tried stabbing herself, and the knife blade snapped when it met her skin.

  Ten separate times.

  Then there were the guns. All in perfect working order. All either misfiring or refusing to fire when the moment arrived. Nooses held tight until she slipped them around her neck. Then they unraveled and dropped to the floor. If Angela tried to suffocate, she’d simply black out and wake up to find herself breathing again. If she tried drowning, the effect was usually the same. Fire had been one of her last resorts, and that had ended the most disastrously of all, killing her family instead. That left two options: jumping off a building, or getting someone else to kill her. The latter choice usually either wouldn’t be fair or wouldn’t be right. Encouraging serial killers wasn’t the morally sound way to rid the planet of your existence. And most people didn’t want to be a murderer, even an accidental one.

  And jumping off a building?

  It never hurt to try. She’d just never been keen on surviving as a lump of shattered bones.

  Angela turned from the grate, strolling over to the enormous bay window overlooking the highest street. Two of the windows had upper panes made of stained glass, their intricate designs adding a splash of brightness in the otherwise drab den. But they were also made solid from top to bottom, lacking a latch. Only the middle window was completely clear and tall as the ceiling, its lower half already cocked open half an inch.

  She climbed over a large couch, its upholstery a disgusting mélange of flowers and crushed red velvet. The bay seat was behind it, but most of the wood had blackened from the moisture. Below, though, the porch roof stretched out into the night, slippery with rain and old shingles.

  It must have been a fifty-foot drop to the cobblestones beneath. Maybe more.

  Angela leaned on the opened pane, forcing the space to widen with her elbows.

  The rain was dying off into a drizzle, but the farther parts of Luz remained wrapped beneath a thick blanket of fog and low clouds. Brief flickers of lightning crossed the sky like a strobe light. Angela reached out to test the roofing, finding it even more slippery than it looked. She took a second to kick off her boots before climbing out of the window and onto the shingles. A sharp breeze whipped some of her hair into her mouth, and then plastered it, wet and slick, to the side of her neck. Water soaked into her socks.

  The sound of voices filtered up from the street. Angela rose to her feet, steadying herself with one hand on the window frame, half blind until she caught her hair with the other.

  Two women stood in front of the dormitory, talking in voices too low to hear their conversation, but animatedly enough that it would be hard not to take any interest. One of the women was definitely a student, though her skirt and blouse lacked the Tree symbol. She was tall, with an elegant way of clasping her hands, her hair a flowing mass of chestnut that had frizzed to a mat in the rain. Her skin had the creamy look of porcelain, and instead of boots she wore pretty slippers that were an expensive-looking silver.

  But the other woman, though she had a perfect face and a figure to envy, had an unnerving hardness in her eyes—very large, very dark eyes, now that Angela looked closer—and a nasty twist to her mouth when she talked. She’d protected herself from the rain in a lengthy hooded cloak, but the hood was down right now, exposing her hair.

  Long, thin, blond braids, maybe hundreds of them, had been gathered up into a ponytail that must have been heavier than coiled rope. Their color was a surprising contrast against the woman’s copper skin. Maybe she was from overseas somewhere. That would probably explain the strange tattoo curling upward along her neck.

  She spat more words at the polite young woman and vanished into the rain.

  Angela waited for the other woman to leave before sliding down the roof any farther.

  Then she was at the edge, peering down into the street and a great puddle of water. The cobblestones shone back at her beneath the light of a hanging streetlamp—its sconce surprisingly fitted with a bulb instead of a candle. And the stones continued to shine tantalizingly back at her, smooth and beckoning. Offering death, possible oblivion, or most disappointingly, broken bones.

  This really would be the last time. If she failed, then it was either murder, or the real reason she’d come to the Academy in the first place—
fulfillment.

  Angela tensed the muscles in her legs, preparing to jump.

  What if you just survive in a bunch of little pieces? You didn’t think about that.

  “Are you looking for something?”

  The voice of the student with the silver slippers. Apparently, she hadn’t left. Instead she was suddenly standing in the middle of the street, a little to the left, gazing up at the porch roof and Angela, who teetered on its edge.

  “You’re not going to jump?” the young woman said, her voice soft, but also carrying itself across the gap between them. “Are you?”

  Damn it. Now what do I do?

  Yes, Angela could still jump, but it wouldn’t be very nice to splatter herself all over the student’s shoes. Or for her to see it happen. So she backed away, edging for the window again, trying not to twist her ankle or slide off the roof and bang into the gutter. “I—um—I was leaning out the window and I dropped a ring. I think it fell into the gutter.”

  The student stared back at her. Her expression was at once sympathetic and too smart for the lie. But she smiled, her tone still gentle. “I’m sorry about that. Perhaps you’ll come across it again. Are you the new student in this dormitory?”

  “This dormitory?” Angela pointed back at the building.

  The student nodded.

  “I thought I was the only student in this dormitory.”

  The young woman shook her head. “I live in the private apartment below the library. But perhaps I’ll move up a floor or two and give you some company. Would you mind?”

  Angela had inspected that apartment when she’d arrived, and it was so bare and drafty, she hadn’t considered anyone might be staying in it. A few blankets and pieces of junk scattered here and there weren’t enough to convince her. It was hard to believe someone would actually even choose it unless they were punishing themselves. “Oh—no. That’s fine.”

  “All right then. I’ll start moving my things upstairs tomorrow evening. What’s your name?”

  “Angela.”

  “Angela,” the student repeated. She was gazing upward with the same delicate face, but her eyes widened a little, and her smile appeared more genuine the second time around. “Well, good night, Angela. And if you were in fact planning to jump, I hope you’ll rethink things and stay alive for a while yet. Death, and the mess it makes, tends to inconvenience people.”

  She left, her footsteps tapping lightly across the sagging porch. Then the door creaked open, shutting closed again with a click.

  I don’t know how she did it, but I actually feel stupid.

  Angela knelt on the shingles, her knees scraping across tar. Carefully, she stood up again and peered into Luz, picking out a bridge here or a tower there, half wishing that she could just spy an angel soaring through the fog, his great wings whipping away clouds or rolling the air beneath them like the thunder of the sea. The rain was picking up again, slanting sideways so that it needled into her eyes. Angela pulled herself up near the window frame and lifted a foot to slip back inside the den.

  Something peppered the porch roof. She spun around, startled.

  A few shingles had been scraped off the upper gables, and now they sat in a sad pile, their edges curled with water. Was someone standing on the roof above, looking down at her, like she had been looking down at the street?

  She tried to focus on one of the turrets, but the rain made it difficult to see. There was a statue near the highest apartment window, perched mysteriously on the very edge of its lower eaves, right above the dropped shingles. It resembled a gargoyle, or some other kind of stylized devil, its face both pretty and terrible, peering back at her, its wings sickle shaped and arched tightly against a thin back.

  The eyes seemed to reflect the poor light of the alley below.

  Or maybe they were glowing—a hypnotic phosphorescent yellow.

  Angela stared back into them a moment longer than was probably necessary, but finally crawled back inside the den, slammed the window shut, and locked the latch in place. Her hair was dripping onto the musty hardwood floor, and her socks felt like wet rags weighing down her feet. Ironically thirsty, she padded down the rickety stairs into the parlor and swung around a devotional statue, entering the kitchen. The light was still on from when she’d had a snack—

  There’s something new you can try. Starving yourself.

  No. That was too prolonged. Quick and relatively painless would be much nicer.

  Angela got a glass, filling it with water from the sink. Then she pulled out one of the chairs and picked up an Academy newspaper lying on the table. Drops from her hair plopped onto the front page, smearing some of the ink. The paper was from a week ago, its headline printed in a large, attention-grabbing font. There was a picture of a dead body, half covered by a blood-soaked sheet.

  MURDERS CONTINUE: VATICAN DENIES OCCULT CONNECTIONS

  Eastern District, Luz—After a week of relative silence citywide, the murders continue in Luz, their seemingly occult connections vehemently denied by Vatican officials at the Academy and abroad. Theories abound on both sides, officials suggesting that a human serial killer might be loose in the city, but with a small percentage of others pointing to the animalistic savagery and brazen continuance of the murders as proof of a possible zoological, or even supernatural, origin. Vatican authorities residing in Westwood Academy have another, even more controversial theory, some blaming the high population of blood head students at the school, and their sometimes strictly censured dabbling in the arcane arts . . .

  Angela sipped the remaining water in her glass, engrossed and instantly sick. Could Vatican authorities actually be right? Would Stephanie and her friends actually harvest body parts for their midnight rituals?

  Nina did call her a witch. But that girl’s definitely got a screw loose herself.

  . . . yet the signs of teeth marks, missing organs, and the predatory efficiency of the woman’s torn throat cannot be denied. Residents in the Academy’s Eastern District on the east sea cliff of Luz are being strictly warned to stay indoors in the late hours of the night and during hours of heavy rain and black cloud cover, as these conditions seem most suited to the killer’s habits . . .

  Well, that absolutely didn’t sound right. She couldn’t imagine Stephanie deliberately getting her hair wet, even if it was to glean ingredients for a potion that could dry, curl, and shine it in a minute flat. Angela pushed the paper back into the center of the table, her thoughts wandering back to the creepy devil perched on the top of the dormitory.

  Maybe if it had been real, she wouldn’t have had to worry about who might kill her or why. She would be the only student in school wandering out in the rain and early hours of the morning, hoping that something sinister would swoop down and cut off her head.

  Instead she’d have to work to find her angel. Wherever he was.

  She glanced out the kitchen window, gazing across an expanse of slate roof tile. Amazingly enough, the same creepy devil statue had been set on the far side, near to the chimney with the kink in its middle. She didn’t remember seeing it there before, but then again, didn’t remember trying to notice either. It had the same, intense expression on its face, all hunger and watchful evil, staring back at her. The ears were long and pointed, pressed back against a head that had been painted with black hair. The skin must have been carved from marble.

  But it didn’t move or climb closer to eat her alive. Just like every other statue in Luz.

  “You’re pretty disappointing,” Angela said out loud.

  She shut the blinds with a snap.

  Two

  What is the essence of life?

  Without which substance do we meet death?

  For despite the dark future the Ruin brings,

  Her crown is made of that precious crimson.

  —CARDINAL DEMIAN YATES, Translations of the Prophecy

  The cigarette flared in the darkness of Angela’s room, but quickly dulled down to a delicate spot of orange, its tip f
loating around in the shade as Nina moved from the corner of her bed to the dressers and back again. She seemed fascinated by Angela’s doll collection, which wasn’t the most expensive or even the largest that could be found in the city, but certainly the most diverse. Angela had never quite understood her own obsession with dolls. It was kind of like her obsession with the angels, except instead of being fueled by dreams, it festered in that part of her preferring ceramic people to real ones. Artificial humans could be life-sized or small enough to fit in your pocket. You could dress them in the latest fashions, or force them to wear costumes that would make a showgirl jealous. But best of all, they were friends that would never judge you for things like blood-red hair and the scars on your legs. They didn’t care. They didn’t have hearts.

  They sat in their orderly rows, deaf, blind, and beautiful. Forever.

  “You have no idea how much this freaked me out when you opened the door.” Nina picked up the doll of a pretty woman jester, her curled hair gathered beneath the traditional three-pronged hat. She examined its feet, the jingling bells, and then set it back next to a shepherdess that was at least fifty years old; a hand-me-down given to Angela by her cousin. “And if you’re smart, you’ll never let anyone else see this fright fest. God, Angie, it’s messed up.”

  But she was grinning.

  “You should make one of Stephanie and stick pins in its knuckles.”

  “Not really my style,” Angela said. “It’d be better to draw her in a gray purgatory somewhere. I don’t think I dislike her enough yet to choose some circle of hell.”

  “I could ask if they have room for her there,” Nina said, her eyes sparkling.

  Angela sighed. Stephanie had hinted that Nina was ultimately more interested in communicating with spirits than with other human beings.

  But she wasn’t a blood head. The odds of her being able to do it at all were slim to none. Wishful thinking, probably.