She imagined Kim’s searing touch and the tickle of his lips on her neck.
And she hated herself for wanting it all without having to choose.
Israfel’s wings folded, disappearing with a flash of light. Slowly, he slipped out of his coat and tossed it at her, nodding tersely in a way that demanded she wear it. “Come,” he said, and while he left to glide for the altar, he looked over his shoulder to smile at her. “I want to show you something, Angela.”
The way he said her name—it was so unlike the way he’d said Kim’s.
As if she were the most interesting and precious person in the world.
She slid on the coat, her tall body still not tall enough to keep the cloth from dragging across the floor.
It was heavy, yet Israfel had worn it like he’d been carrying a thought.
She did her best to step around the puddles, feeling like a bride walking down a broken aisle. The windows on either side had no more color to give, all but one smashed and cracked. The pews stank, and the air was heavy with mist. Ahead of it all, though, like a beacon on the stormy wreck that was her life, Israfel waited, his hand gracefully extended. She marched slowly up the steps and took it, surprised by the strength in his fingers.
“What now?” she said, demanding like he had demanded.
He answered with another smile.
She tried to move to the side, but he stopped her, clamping his fingers on her wrist.
“Match my steps,” he said, the whisper a soft command.
They began slowly: Israfel swept to the right, and she followed. To the left, and Angela copied him. Then they moved faster, turning in circles, lifting their hands so that their fingertips met high in the air, brushing in close and backpedaling once more to a flirtatious distance.
With a rush of excitement, it hit her.
They were dancing, and Israfel continued to ignore her clumsy attempts, making up for them with his own grace, keeping them in perfect balance and rhythm with his talent alone. Every move he made—was utterly fascinating. Every curve of his figure—was flawless. Soon, all that existed was his voice, singing in words that dropped like diamonds from his lips. The language was unknown to her, but just as in Tileaf’s grotto, she knew this song was for her and her alone.
He’d seemed to reach the end, and a flash of familiar light whitened the church.
His wings had reappeared.
Angela gasped at a sharp sensation of weightlessness.
They were aloft, and though he wasn’t flapping, they rose higher anyway, lifted by a mysterious force. In moments the dilapidated floor was far below them, and they were at the ceiling, and Angela wanted to scream from sheer exhilaration, from the breeze, and the craziness, and the glory of it all.
Israfel never gave her a chance.
In a final breathtaking move, his two largest wings arched around her and snapped back just as quickly, causing some feathers to blow loose from the force. As if to match a series of lilting notes, the fallen feathers disintegrated into dust.
It fell like a shower of crystals, all around them.
For a second they seemed to condense, taking the shape of a set of glassy stairs. For a brief second, she saw the angel from her dreams who’d spoken to her and told her to live for something . . . or for someone. For a second, Angela wondered if that someone could be Israfel—or Kim. Then she stared back at her angel through the unearthly rain, at the eyes that had defined every choice in her life.
With a shudder, she finally realized why and how her brother had fallen.
Thirty
And he said to them, “I will be alone this long night. Is there no one who will watch with me?”
—THE SUPERNAL ISRAFEL, A Collection of Angelic Lore
Israfel worked a needle into his arm, blocking out the world with his two largest wings.
The room of the abandoned rectory was dark, and he could barely see the dime-sized scars covering his right arm up to the elbow. His own fault, in the end. Israfel had waited too long between one dose and the next, losing the time that could have opened an old scar rather than make a new one.
He forced a whimper into his mouth, biting back more pain.
A sharp sting—and the needle slipped beneath skin.
Then the comforting fire began to flow through his body, one inch after the next. He gave the needle’s plunger a few light taps, intending to lengthen the process. Drop by drop had become his rule when working with a limited supply.
There was a gentle sigh, and the rustle of cloth.
Angela Mathers, Brendan’s sister, slept in a drunk and uncomfortable position at Israfel’s right, her blouse half open and an arm covering her eyes. A crystal glass rested exactly where she’d dropped it, near to her hips. Now as the soft candlelight wavered and Israfel’s body numbed over, he joined her again, staring down at her face, finding himself unable to look away.
She looked so much like Raziel, with the same shade of red to her hair, the same roundness of the eyes, the same ivory skin.
But then—she also looked like Him—
A powerful cramp hit Israfel, like a hundred knives slicing at his insides.
“By the Fath—”
Israfel gasped, overcome by a second of intense pain. His fingers contracted, spasming, the needle he’d brought for her contentment wobbling between them. Then the plunger slipped from his hand, and the needle dropped to the floor, its glass vial shattering into hundreds of fragments. Precious blue liquid seeped deeply into a patch of carpeting, wetting the curve of Israfel’s knees.
The peace and pleasure of the drug soon softened any disappointment.
“Israfel,” Angela said. She sat up groggily, her shirt sliding down to expose her shoulder while he rested beside her, pressing her back down. “What are you doing?”
“So sorry,” he said, whispering in her ear, “but I dropped my little gift for you.”
He brushed the glass shards aside. Waves of relaxation were already rocking Israfel’s mind into a gentle kind of acceptance. It was a pity, but this bare shell of a room had become a sty, and he’d completely given up on trying to keep it clean. A temporary nest like this one wasn’t worth the time or energy when he had more important things to do, and tasting this fascinating soul currently topped that list. Israfel slumped deeper against the floor, laughing inside at the rainbow dots floating through his vision, the heightened sensations racing into his wing bones. The drug’s fire throbbed with his heartbeat, rushing up the curve of his spine into each nerve of his pinions.
This was the only delight he could find in being sick, forced to medicate himself like an animal.
“It’s so strange . . .” Still intoxicated from the nectar, Angela sat up and embraced his slim body, keeping her hands where he demanded, always on his chest, his neck, his face, never lower. She could marvel at his shape, but it was best she not think about it too much. “It doesn’t seem real. How I’ve wanted you,” she murmured, almost crying.
“Wanted me?”
She was like an echo of her brother, but so much less ingratiating and arrogant.
His lower wings brushed her thighs, and she collapsed against his chest, sighing.
“You’re as beautiful,” Angela whispered, “as a woman. The most beautiful woman. The most beautiful man. You’re everything. Everything . . .”
He forced her down again and beat his wings gently, fanning the curtain of hair from her face with a cooling breeze, ever eager to examine her more. Too careless to hide herself once the nectar took effect, Angela had accidentally revealed portions of a body covered head to toe in scars, some of the most hideous gathered around her legs and arms. But Israfel had seen much different and much worse many times before. What troubled him most was how different she was on the inside. That obnoxious half-breed priest had become obsessed with her, spilling out all his innermost desires like she would actually take the time to listen. If this lovely one was the Archon, Israfel would see to it that she joined him where they
belonged, far from Hell, which by then would be little more than a memory anyway.
Why sit on an old throne when you could start over completely?
Oh, he should have killed the priest when he had the chance. The cut on his neck ached, and his beautiful clothes had been permanently stained.
“You’re a child, Israfel,” Sophia said softly.
The candle flickered, revealing the silvery shine of her slippers. She’d entered shortly after the girl had fallen asleep and had decided to stay ever since, probably satisfied knowing Angela and Israfel wouldn’t share too many kisses with another person in the room. But she knew, of course, that they’d share enough before that, and he couldn’t help enjoying how much pain it caused her, partly because of all the pain Sophia had caused him. The demon would be searching for her soon, but by then he’d planned on opening her and being done with it already.
The Book’s time was short indeed.
“And why am I a child?” He relaxed Angela back into sleep and struggled up from the floor, spreading his wings for balance while carefully straddling the broken syringe. “Because I hurt you by unveiling your true identity?” His speech began to slur, stretching his consonants. “Remember this night for the lesson that it is. Consider what could happen next . . . every time you defy me.”
He tried using the wall as a crutch.
No success. A wave of dizziness flung him back to his knees.
That was just fine. He didn’t really need to stand anyway.
“Look at you,” Sophia said, sounding like a mother scolding an infant, “debauched to the point where you no longer even see your dissipation. For all your hatred of Lucifel, you don’t act any nobler. My warning in that cathedral was not said as a joke.” She shifted in her seat, her soft curls catching the light. “Perhaps you’re not aware that Mikel escaped your prison.”
Israfel half walked, half dragged himself to the velvet loveseat and reclined across from her, his hair spilling against his shoulders. The chick inside him kicked, and his nausea surged up and down, a tide barely mitigated by the Father’s blood.
He gazed at her, smiling. “Oh? And how did she accomplish that?”
Sophia turned away, her hands folding tightly against her lap. The arm he’d mutilated so brutally was almost pristine again. “You treated that half-breed priest like he was dirt. But you are no different than the Jinn that fathered him.”
He touched the fragile wing connected to his ear, still waiting for a real answer. “You know nothing about prisons,” he finally whispered.
Sophia laughed, her eyes cold in the shadows. “What an ignorant thing to say.”
“Did you ever consider,” he continued, “that perhaps I was in a prison? The accepted history is that I entered Ialdaboth . . . of my own free will—and I did.”
He glanced at Angela and held his breath, envisioning a different face, a different person. Certainly half the thrill of controlling her rested in his newfound sense of power.
She looked like Raziel, but she also resembled much more.
“But getting out of there was a . . . different matter.”
“Murder is wrong, Israfel,” she said, still not looking at him. “You can justify it all you want. You can tell yourself that there was a reason. But it won’t change how your actions have put everyone in mortal peril. Humans, angels, demons, Jinn. Everything. Anything.” Her voice took on that whispery gentleness he’d become accustomed to eons ago. “And now the universe will suffer for your lovesickness.”
She never turned until his shadow cast her into blackness. Then she glared up at him, the whites of her eyes somehow blinding.
Israfel slapped her across the mouth, half wishing to tear it off.
What kind of a Book needed to talk, after all?
He breathed hard, the blood rushing to his face, flaring the crimson stripes below his eyes. “Don’t speak about what you don’t know.”
Tears trickled down her cheeks. Like a human, she’d been blessed with the ability to cry, and in the golden half-light, her cheek already swelled, marked with a red welt in the shape of his fingers. She must have been weeping because of the pain. Sophia looked at Angela, hid her face behind her hands, and began to sob. Maybe she did know how despairing he felt inside, because suddenly there wasn’t a more hopeless cry in all of the dimensions.
“And what do you know?” Israfel said, instantly feeling wretched and filthy. “Do you think it was my fault—to fall in love with my own brother? What could you possibly know about pain? You don’t even understand what it is to die.”
She glared at him again, fierce with unspoken denial.
But they both knew the truth, and how much it had to hurt.
“Tell me,” he calmed himself, settling back onto the floor, “who was that other red-haired woman? The one that tasted like—”
He couldn’t say the name. Not now, when he already felt so sick. Israfel put a hand on his stomach and took a deep breath, willing his grace and strength to return.
“—like her.”
“Like who?” Sophia said, her sobs dying to teary whispers.
“Your previous master,” he said, his lips curling distastefully.
Sophia gazed at Angela, either like she was thinking, or yet again, hadn’t quite heard what he’d asked. “I—are you talking about Stephanie?”
“Stephanie . . .”
“Stephanie Walsh.” Sophia’s pretty features creased and her voice lost its sweetness. “She’s a witch.”
“A witch?” The term was reappearing often now.
Sophia sighed. “A female human who summons and makes a contract with a demon, hoping to bring them under her control. The Vatican, the governing body in Luz, believed that she might have been the Archon, and they protected her, allowing her power to grow without realizing the danger, perhaps even benefiting from it. More than anything, she wants to be on the throne of your sister. Though she has more to lose than most.” Sophia shook her head, her curls rustling. “The demon is like an adoptive mother to her. Stephanie knows no other life apart from Naamah, and it makes her dangerous—and unpredictable.”
Ah, he saw it. The fear behind the Book’s eyes.
Both of them, though, had reason for concern. The taste of that girl—it was as if Lucifel had entered her body and festered inside her heart. The shield she’d thrown up merely roused his suspicions more. In a disturbing reversal, Stephanie had abducted the demon back to Hell, not the other way around. “Was she the one who summoned Mikel?”
“No. That was Angela.”
Israfel gripped the cushions on the couch, dizzy again. That couldn’t be . . .
“You’re saying that she,” he waved at Angela’s sleeping form, “broke my power.”
Now that irritating Kim and his irritating words made much more sense. He’d mentioned that Raziel’s soul could have been protecting the Archon, possessing her rather than actually being her. Israfel had never considered it before, but there was no reason why that couldn’t be so. The Mirror Pools had merely showed him a figure and form, not the soul inside.
He glanced at her with a strange fear of his own.
“Who is she?”
Silence on Sophia’s part.
Israfel rubbed his head, feeling the hint of a headache upon him. “How I hate your damnable riddles.”
Sophia’s pretty lips threatened to purse together. “Do you remember the Grail, Israfel?”
What? Did he remember? How could he forget? Israfel had never realized how far Raziel’s affections had been swaying back then—until he started to wear Lucifel’s treasure around his neck. That horrid Eye had been so like the Father’s in its poisonous, all-seeing omniscience. How much Israfel had ached to wear that jewel. To conjure the Glaive himself and cut the throat of the sister whom even death couldn’t kill.
“Why,” he said, his voice trembling, “would you mention that cursed thing?”
“Forget about it,” Sophia said, her smile faint but visible. “I
was just making sure.”
Angela shifted gently in her sleep.
Sophia’s hand balled into a fist on top of her knee. Her expression appeared conflicted, like she sensed an approaching menace, but didn’t have the means to run away.
Then the footsteps echoed, marching down the outside hallway.
Two jealous lovers had burned their store of patience, tired of waiting for Israfel’s beck and call.
The walls shuddered. His door slammed open, wooden splinters spraying onto the carpeting. The human lock had snapped from his guardians’ brute strength, and now the twins entered with matching strides, Rakir reaching Israfel first, Nunkir creeping behind with a forlorn expression. The more injured of the two, her newfound hatred of humanity had devolved into an even more pathetic need for affection.
Poor little bird. She’d never handled her emotions well.
She caressed Israfel’s stomach, and then touched her brother’s hands, their singular voice echoing inside the room. “Prince Israfel, forgive us, but we are concerned for you.”
They examined Angela and Sophia, dangerous envy boiling behind their green eyes. Nunkir’s bandages swung from her wing, tickling the floor. Israfel gestured for her to lie next to him, and she collapsed, moaning into his lap. He stroked her fine, silver braids, unable to keep from comforting her. Nunkir and her brother probably deserved better than the existence they’d known, their lives before Israfel’s presence more suffering than anything else. Brendan, one of the few creatures to acknowledge the treasures that they were, had made the mistake of going too far, allowing that suffering all over again.
But at least his pain had made up for the insult. Rakir, especially, needed that release.
His sister tilted her head, her green eyes locked shyly on Israfel’s.
Also recognizing his chance, Rakir wrapped his strong arms around Israfel’s chest, and their wings rubbed together, tenderly. His fingers brushed Nunkir’s, eliciting their common voice. “Why do you waste yourself on these creatures? Let us love you. We will always please you more than them. Always.”
Nunkir brushed her lips over the stripes on Israfel’s hands. Then, finding little resistance, the angel pinned him deep within the cushion of Rakir’s arms, her wings flapping with a barely disguised urgency. She brushed the hairs from Israfel’s neck, biting the skin beneath. These were harsh kisses, raw with eons of frustration; poisoned by a deep, envious pain. But that was all right, because sometimes it felt so good to be helpless and broken in another’s embrace. Israfel goaded her on with the teasing touches she hated, a few well-timed sighs. She didn’t have the experience of her brother.
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