Angela let her eyes rest on as many individuals as she could, but the more she tried to think of something to say, the more her mouth went dry. This was the same place she had stood in Tileaf’s mind, only this was the real thing. Whether she was Raziel or someone else, she now stood in the portentous spot, with a sizable chunk of humanity waiting for her to say something. There were so many souls, they stretched to the very horizon.
She glanced back at the path Mikel had taken, and it remained black and inky—a valley of shadows that no light could pierce. Without asking, she sensed that only those who chose torment for their eternity remained in that oppressive pool of gloom. The things she had thought to be branches were more like congealed darkness, extensions forming a natural barrier between this part of the Netherworld and its other half, both vaster than the human mind could comprehend.
There was no sign of the hatch she’d dropped through.
“In the valley of shadows,” Mikel said, “are the souls who do not wish for release from their imprisonment. Unlike these, they will not find freedom in the Nexus, but will stay trapped in this dimension, most likely until it crumbles to nothingness.”
“The Nexus . . .” Angela repeated. “And that’s where all these other souls will go?”
“In time. Some will first choose to fight for the Archon in the eventual battle. But all will leave through Luz, walking up the Ladder to their new resting place, safe from Lucifel’s eternity of silence—unless she succeeds in destroying the Archon herself.” Mikel touched her on the shoulder, but pulled away quickly, her small hands strangely wounded by their contact. Maybe she was responding to the change in Angela’s body. Her heart raced, and the Eye throbbed inside of her palm, begging to stare out at the dead and the blue sun. “Now, it’s time to tell them that you’ve come. To free them and to lead them where even the Supernals could not. Raziel—my father,” Mikel’s face saddened, “would have been happy to see this day.”
“He is,” Angela said, certain.
He has to be.
She looked out at the souls gathered across the expanse of the plain, her stance hardening. This place and these doomed souls were now hers, practically cradled in the cup of her hand.
“I’ve arrived,” she shouted at the top of her lungs, “to free you. It’s time for you to leave this place and go somewhere else. Those who choose to stay . . . have decided their fate.” On impulse, she lifted her hand, displaying the Grail for their satisfaction. Some souls sighed, others shrieked in fear, running in the opposite direction. They somehow recognized Lucifel’s former treasure. “This is your choice. Either join me, recognize me, or stay in the darkness for all eternity.”
They were the same words she’d used for her parents.
And they had nearly the same effect.
The sky overhead mirrored the sky over Luz, bubbling and crackling with distant lightning, just like in Tileaf’s mind when Lucifel had turned every soul to ash. Summoned somehow by Angela’s words or feelings, the storm rumbled in on them with horrific speed, its clouds more like living things than air and vapor.
Mikel grabbed Angela’s hand, hissing back pain as she closed it into a fist. “He’s here,” she said, her feathers fluttering in the growing wind. “He’s been waiting.”
The earth below split and heaved.
Souls ran to the right and left, some of them tumbling into deep, seemingly endless chasms, screaming as fleshy roots burst upward from the dry rock.
An octopus with skin the color of human flesh could have been crawling out of the ground, but this octopus had a great mass of branches instead of a bulbous head, and upon those branches, a nearly uncountable number of eyes glistening and gazing out over the plain, like leaves in shades of deep green and muddy violet.
The strange tree was growing at tremendous speed, as if Angela’s words had germinated some seed planted long ago beneath the rock. She’d never seen anything so terrible, so alien and wrong, and could barely look away from its trunk of throbbing flesh and its hundreds of branchlike arms.
Then the branches grew more, twisting toward her.
Before Angela could blink again, she stared back into at least fifty different eyes, all of them coiled in front of her face. She bit her tongue, desperate not to scream.
The eyes faded, replaced by the image of an angel with ebony hair, the strands draping over half of his face. Like the tree, his wings were covered with eyes, irises of green and violet gleaming against their black feathers like living jewels. He was much more strongly built than Israfel, with a sharp and severe face.
And you would dare—his voice pounded through her like a drum—to take what belongs to me. These souls are in my domain.
Angela glanced around wildly.
Mikel was gone. Vanished.
What happened? Why isn’t she here anymore?
The Archon. Azrael smiled arrogantly. Or at least you look like Her. But my loyalty to Raziel ended long ago.
Angela regarded him with an angry face. “And he died,” she said, hardly knowing why she said it or how she knew it, “when you could have helped him. Selfish hedonist. You came here out of greed, to glut yourself.”
Help? Azrael swept his hair aside, revealing the other half of his face. His eyes were as mismatched as those on his wings, his tree. If it were not for me, this remnant of Eden would no longer exist. If it weren’t for my so-called selfish hedonism, these souls would have nowhere to rest, however tormented.
“Either way, they’re no longer yours.”
Eden. This used to be the Garden of Eden. Paradise. The birthplace of humanity.
Now it was simply a pit for the dead.
Azrael’s branches grew more, their fleshy joints bending to snare and choke her. Angela turned and ran back toward the darkness, searching. But Mikel had either abandoned her, or something was happening in Memorial Park. Nina could have been hurt or killed, their connection severed. Now she was alone, and Azrael was gaining on her nightmarishly fast. In seconds the inky black swallowed them, and she was forced to stop, knocked over by a wall of flesh covered in eyes and the shock of him standing in front of her again. The tree must have been his real body, this angelic form a perfect deception.
Now he was going to suffocate her.
Fleshy branches wrapped around her ankles, her legs.
Azrael’s voice seemed to resound throughout the entire Netherworld. To think that Raziel would punish his Throne, ruin my happiness. How I regret the days when I served him, while he served only himself—
He was almost at her waist and began to squeeze. Angela screamed, her bones close to breaking, her hands pushing at his countless arms while they moved higher.
—as hypocritical and insensitive as the rest of Heaven—
Briefly, his image contorted into Israfel’s, bronze winged but horrendously sneering and warped. Was this how he saw his former Archangel?
—unwilling to recognize me for the power, or the person, that I was.
“And out of all the souls you tasted and imprisoned,” Angela gasped through her pain, “how many could stifle your appetite for any of it? You’re completely deluded,” she said, horrendously angry inside, somehow offended by what felt like blasphemy. “And this Realm doesn’t belong to you. And—I NO LONGER SEE A NEED FOR YOU IN IT.”
Azrael recoiled sharply at her words, like she’d injured him with her voice alone. His perfect face hovered above her, wide-eyed and strangely fearful.
Angela showed him the Grail.
The Eye seemed to scorch through him, judgmental and terrible.
He moaned in agony, his branches collapsing, going instantly limp and slithering away from her back to the chasm they’d erupted from. Angela fell to her knees, resting her head on the cushion of her arms, searching for air and the end of the pain. It came after a short time with her muscles still aching terribly, but not enough to keep her from rocking on her heels and rubbing her legs, groaning softly at their soreness.
The new light b
roke more slowly than the rays over the distant hills.
Clouds whirled overhead in a giant cauldron of vapor.
Gradually, with a majestic slowness, the light at their center began to mysteriously solidify and descend in a helix, one amazing, crystalline step at a time.
Angela had witnessed rainbows forming in the sky, but this was different. Infinitely more beautiful, dazzling, breathtaking. The brightness was so strong, it forced the shadows in the valley to recede, and Angela’s clothes seemed lined with silver, like a cloud in front of the sun. And as the great Stairs continued to descend, each level grew larger and more magnificent than the last, platforms of light that were larger than any building. Below, Azrael’s tree appeared small and insignificant, while souls left his nearly comatose grasp one by one, beginning the steady ascension up to the surface of Luz. Millions rose to freedom, not a few gazing back at Angela in happy confusion, their bodies like a line of gray twining with the helix of the stairs.
The way out of the Netherworld was obviously vastly different from the way in.
It was beautiful. Maybe, besides Israfel, the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
But I have seen it before.
Her dream of Sophia. Hadn’t she been standing in front of a stairway of light?
And it looked exactly like this one.
“Go up,” Angela whispered, suddenly overcome by a sense of urgency. The souls seemed to obey instinctively, but not quickly enough. “Higher. Faster.”
Screeches of despair rang out from the valley behind her. Faintly, so very faintly, she could hear someone calling her name as if to curse her. Despite the unspeakable beauty of this Ladder, and how swiftly she’d wrenched it from Azrael’s grasp, her confidence was wavering. She was alone, and behind her were countless enemies. Now the darkness they’d chosen their entire lives was ready to swallow them in nothingness. They had chosen Lucifel. They had chosen a void. And they hated Angela for having to make that choice.
She would have to confront them. It was now both her duty—and her right.
Angela stood up, turning to command them into silence.
Stephanie was there to greet her, her expression shockingly cold. She looked to the Ladder, her face bathed in its light, but only to bring out ghastly shadows across her face. “This must be a miracle, but I’m still not sure I believe in it . . .”
Thick surprise choked off Angela’s voice.
She’s here by herself. But how? Did Naamah help her again?
However Stephanie had managed to enter the Netherworld, or whenever she’d chosen to do it, she must have been hiding all along, waiting for Angela to put Azrael in his place. But what a difference a day could make. She’d dressed herself in a long black coat identical to Kim’s, but with the upper buttons open to reveal her blouse, and the lower opened to give her legs room to move freely. If it was possible, her skin and hair and makeup were even more perfect than before. Only her eyes had changed.
Their irises were blood red. Lucifel’s shade.
Stephanie spotted the Grail and gestured for it, curling a finger. “By the way, I think it’s finally time to share your toys.”
Thirty-eight
For these Jinn, loyalty rises above all else, and betrayal is punished by the cruelest of deaths. Yes, I’m afraid the consequences of your unfaithfulness will be dire.
—REVEREND MATTHIAS GREENE, Letters of Spiritual Direction
Master, the half-breed, he’s—
Fury’s voice cut off sharply, timed to a flicker of crimson light beyond the trees.
Troy skidded to a stop in the leaf litter, her nails ripping through the soil. She’d heard the thunderous beat of Naamah’s wings, yet still hadn’t been quick enough. This was her punishment for leaving Sariel behind, no matter how briefly. Now the demon was going to finish a mission Troy had started centuries ago, leaving her with nothing but a bone or two to placate the Jinn Queen. Her sister wouldn’t humor any kind of excuse. Troy would be the laughingstock of all High Assassins, abysmally stupid for allowing a demon to snatch her prey away.
What a difference minutes could make.
She’d been searching through the shrubs and undergrowth for any sign of Israfel, catching brief traces of him, but losing most of those beneath another overpowering stench. An herb seemed to be growing everywhere, its straight, limp leaves splayed across the ground and giving off a tremendously offensive smell. Troy had torn one of the plants—a heart-shaped white thing no bigger than her eyes—out of the earth, nearly spitting in revulsion from the thick, peppery odor clinging to its bulb. Then she’d scampered back toward Tileaf’s tree, deftly dodging fallen trunks and thick branches.
Fury.
No answer.
Troy paced at the grotto’s threshold, smelling fresh blood.
So much of it ringed her mouth and crusted beneath her fingernails, the old scents nearly blocked out the new. But she could pick two individuals out of the musk: one had been dead for a few hours, faintly stinking of rotting vegetable matter and moss; the other was in the process of dying. A female human, vaguely familiar. Troy crept softly through the leaves and latched onto the tree trunks again, flicking her ears to catch any sound besides her own feet and palms thudding against the bark. She emerged into the grotto as a body crumpled to the mulch.
Thump.
Sariel turned to regard her, his face paler than she’d ever seen it.
He stood over Nina’s limp body, side by side with the demon beneath a leafless canopy. Tileaf was dead, her white corpse propped elegantly against the oak’s roots, a perplexing mixture of crimson and blue blood staining her limbs and her clothing. Next to a gaping hollow at the left of the trunk, Fury’s wings twitched like a fly’s swatted down in midair. The spirit inside of her had been ejected by Naamah’s attack, and she shivered in the mud, human eyes glazed over by shock.
She always looked much better as a carrion-eating bird than a blond child.
“You’re finally back,” Sariel said to Troy, his voice soft as a breath. His Jinn half enjoyed the smell of blood, but his humanity fought the smile, distinctly unhappy that Troy had arrived. He stared back at her with those dull gold eyes, suddenly so wide, either because of what he’d done, what he was about to do, or what Troy would certainly do to him.
Had he killed Nina?
Most likely it had been the demon. But there was blood on the knife in his hand, and he stood beside Naamah as an obvious ally.
It was easy to see why. Sariel would do anything to stay alive.
No wonder Naamah hadn’t murdered him earlier. They were working toward a common goal after all.
“What a traitor you are,” Troy hissed.
Naamah laughed, folding her wings tightly against her back. Metal creaked, and their bare patches dripped oily fluid onto the dirt. “Now, priest,” she whispered, “let’s do this. Before I forget my kindness.”
The storm overhead thundered, ugly and insistent. Its clouds were the same poisonous hue Troy recognized from her own home, their wisps a sickly green shading away into pitch-black. Then the wind picked up. A whirling vortex began to form. Smoky clouds whipped around an eye of pure night, one without stars or light of any kind. A void was forming above Luz, and around it lightning streaked from heaven to earth in crooked spears. One of them struck Memorial Park, and Troy ducked, screeching beneath the light’s brilliance. Thunder cracked powerfully, shivering the ground.
When Troy’s vision cleared, Naamah was closing in on her.
She backed against the trees, snarling. “You would join with the demons, Sariel? Even when your execution will already be so painful? What will Angela think, now that her friend is dead?”
Nina’s body lay sprawled in the dirt, the soil around her turning to mud as blood gushed from her throat. She was finally lifeless, her eyes wide open and unseeing.
There was no sign of the angel.
With her host deceased, Mikel had been forced to return to wherever she’d been imprisoned
.
“She’ll cry, and be sad, and then get over it.” Sariel’s voice had that steady crispness to it she despised so much. He straightened the closer Naamah approached, his fingers clenching around his knife as he found his confidence again. “But once I tell her who’s responsible, she’ll also become angry. Troy, we both know that if I told Angela you killed the girl, she’d believe me. Who wouldn’t believe me?” He smiled, obviously enjoying the moment. “You are a devil after all.”
Naamah flexed the blades in her fingers, her eyes dark with revenge.
She couldn’t use any kind of ether or energy on Troy, but all she had to do was slice off her head. The demon wouldn’t take any more chances on poison if she wanted fast results.
“You need the Archon on the Throne of your Prince,” Troy hissed back at Naamah, “but you forget how easy it will be for your Prince to stop you.”
“Words of praise from a Jinn,” Naamah muttered. “But Lucifel won’t fall for flattery.”
“You’re a coward, Sariel,” Troy said, spitting at her cousin. “A spineless shadow who seeks sympathy and pleasure, all so you can drown away your sins. And then you ally yourself with these rotting crows, beg them to do your evil work.”
His golden eyes narrowed spitefully. “Contra nequitiam—”
Troy’s breath caught painfully in her throat. Her lungs felt like they were being crushed, and she crouched closer to the ground, the mustiness of the leaves rising to her nose. He was using the same exorcism that had punished Israfel’s Thrones. The very words she’d warned him never to use on her.
“—et insidias diaboli . . .”
His words trailed off as Naamah gestured for silence, passing a fingerblade near her throat. Even she wasn’t immune to the Tongue’s crushing effects. Her wings drooped and she panted loudly over the thunder, stalking slowly toward Troy.
More lightning streaked to the earth.
There was an earsplitting crack. Tileaf’s tree exploded.
Troy shrieked and shut her eyes against the blinding whiteness, still seeing half the trunk split to the base, listening to it rock backward and crash into more trees, knocking them to the earth. Heat, which was undoubtedly fire, jumped from its crown to the foliage, burning through the drier wood with incredible speed, racing through the park in a ring of flames. Almost instantly, the wind picked up, fanning it farther. Cinders and ash flaked down from the sky, their pieces blown about by the fire and the storm, stinging Troy’s nose and layering her skin.
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